Sleep, identification, duality
5. LACK OF AWARENESS IS TAKING THE TRANSIENT FOR THE ETERNAL, THE Impure FOR THE PURE, THE PAINFUL AS PLEASURABLE AND THE NON-SELF FOR THE SELF.
6. EGOISM IS THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE SEER WITH THE SEEN.
7. ATTRACTION, AND THROUGH IT, ATTACHMENT, IS TOWARDS ANYTHING THAT BRINGS PLEASURE.
8. REPULSION IS FROM ANYTHING THAT CAUSES PAIN.
WHAT IS AVIDYA? The word means ignorance, but avidya is not ordinary ignorance. It has to be understood deeply. Ignorance is lack of knowledge.
Avidya is not lack of knowledge but lack of awareness. Ignorance can be dissolved very easily; you can acquire know ledge. It is only a question of training the memory. Knowledge is mechanical; no awareness is needed. It is as mechanical as ordinary ignorance. Avidya is lack of awareness. One has to move towards more and more consciousness, not towards more and more knowledge.
Only then can avidya be dissolved.
Avidya is what Gurdjieff used to call 'the spiritual sleep'. Man moves, lives, dies, not knowing why he was alive, not knowing from where he was coming, not knowing where he was moving, for what. Gurdjieff calls it Sleep, Patanjali calls it avidya: they mean the same thing. You don't know why you are. You don't know the purpose of your being here in this world, in this body, in these experiences.
You do many things without knowing why you are doing them, without knowing that you are doing them, without knowing that you are the doer.
Everything moves as if in a deep sleep. Avidya, if I am to translate it for you, will mean 'hypnosis'.
Man lives in a deep hypnosis. I have been working on hypnosis, because that is the only way to bring man out of hypnosis, to understand it. All awakening is a sort of dehypnotization, so the process of hypnosis has to be understood very, very clearly. Only then can you move out of it. A disease has to be understood, diagnosed; only then can it be treated. Hypnosis is the disease of man, and de- hypnosis will be the way.
I worked once with a man, and he was a very, very good medium for hypnosis.
One third of the people in the world are good mediums, thirty-three percent, and those people are not unintelligent. Those people are very, very intelligent, imaginative, creative. From this thirty three percent come all the great scientists,
all the great artists, poets, painters, musicians. If a man can be hypnotized, that shows that he is very sensitive. Just the contrary is the rumor: people think that only a person who is a little stupid can be hypnotized. That is absolutely wrong.
It is almost impossible to hypnotize an idiot, because he won't listen, he won't understand, and he will not be able to imagine. A very strong power of imagination is needed. People think that only weak personalities can be hypnotized. Absolutely wrong -- only very strong persons can be hypnotized. A weak person is so loose that he has no integration in him, he has no center in him. And unless you have a center of some sort, hypnosis cannot work because from where will it work and spread through your being? And a weak person is so uncertain about everything, so unconfident about himself, that he cannot be hypnotized. Only people who have strong personalities can be hypnotized.
I worked on many people and this is my finding: that a person who can be hypnotized can be de-hypnotized, and a person who cannot be hypnotized finds it very difficult to move on the spiritual path, because the ladder goes both ways.
If you can be hypnotized easily, you can be de hypnotized easily. The ladder is the same. Whether you are hypnotized or de-hypnotized, you move on the same ladder; only the directions differ.
I was working on one young man for many years. One day I hypnotized him and gave him what hypnotists call a post hypnotic suggestion. I told him, 'Tomorrow, exactly at this hour -- it was nine o'clock in the morning -- you will come to see me. You will have to come to see me. There is no apparent reason for coming, but at exactly nine o'clock you will have to come.' He was unconscious and I told him, 'When you come tomorrow at nine o'clock, exactly at nine, you will jump on my bed and kiss the pillow, embrace the pillow as if the pillow is your beloved.'
Of course, the next day at a quarter to nine he arrived, but I was not sitting in my bedroom, I was sitting on the veranda waiting for him. He came. I asked, 'Why have you come?' He shrugged his shoulders. He said, 'Just by chance I was passing and a thought came: why not come to you?' He was not aware that a post hypnotic suggestion was working; he was finding a rationalization. He said, 'I was just passing through this road.' I asked him, 'Why were you passing through this road? You never pass, and this is out of your way. Unless you want to come to me, there is no point in going out of the town.' He said, 'Just for a morning walk' -- a rationalization. He could not think that he had come without any reason, otherwise it would be too much of a shattering experience to the ego.
'Are you mad?' he might think. But he was fidgety, uncomfortable. He was looking all around not knowing why. He was looking for the pillow and the bed, and the bed was not there. And knowingly, I was sitting outside. As minutes passed, he became more and more restless. I asked him, 'Why are you so restless?
You cannot even sit properly. Why do you change position?' He said, 'Last night I could not sleep well' -- a rationalization again. One has to somehow find reasons, otherwise one will look mad. Then at just five minutes before nine he said, 'It is too hot here.' It was not, because he had gone for a morning walk and
it was winter.'It is too hot here. Can't we go inside?' -- again a rationalization. I tried to avoid this and I said, 'It is not hot.'
Then suddenly he stood up. It was just two minutes before nine. He looked at his watch, stood up, and he said, 'I am feeling sick.' Before I could prevent him he rushed into the room. I followed him. He jumped on the bed, kissed the pillow, embraced the pillow, and I was standing there so he felt very embarrassed, puzzled. I asked, 'What are you doing?' He started crying. He said, 'I don't know, but this pillow has been continuously in my mind since I left you yesterday.' He did not know that in the hypnosis I had suggested it. And he said, 'In the night also, I dreamed of this pillow again and again, embracing, kissing, and it became an obsession. The whole night I could not sleep. Now I am relieved but I don't know why.'
Is your whole life not like this? You may not be kissing a pillow, you may be kissing a woman, but do you know the reason why? Suddenly a woman looks attractive to you, or a man, but do you know the reason why? It is something like hypnosis. Of course, it is natural; nobody has hypnotized you, nature has hypnotized you. This power of nature to hypnotize is what Hindus call maya, the power of illusion. You are under an illusion, in a deep hallucination. You live like a somnambulist; fast asleep you go on doing things, not knowing why. And whatsoever reasons you give are rationalizations, they are not true reasons.
You see a woman, you fall in love, and you say, 'I have fallen in love.' But can you give the reasons why? Why has it happened? You will find some reasons.
You will say, 'Her eyes are so beautiful, the nose so shapely, and the face like a marble statue.' You will find reasons but these are rationalizations. In fact, you don't know, and you are not courageous enough to say that you don't know. Be courageous! When you don't know, it is better to know that you don't know.
That will be a breaking point. You may come out of the whole hallucination that surrounds you. Patanjali calls it avidya. Avidya means lack of awareness. This is happening because of lack of awareness.
What happens in hypnosis? Have you ever watched a hypnotist, what he does?
First he says, 'Relax.' And he repeats it, he goes on saying, 'Relax, relax, relax....'
Even the continuous sound of 'relax' becomes a mantra, a T. M. That's what happens in T. M. You repeat a mantra continuously; it gives sleep. If you have a case of insomnia, then T. M. is the best thing to do. It gives you sleep, and that's why it has become so important in the United States. The United States is the only country which is suffering deeply from insomnia. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is not just an accident there, he is the need. When people suffer from insomnia, they cannot sleep, they need tranquilizers. And Transcendental Meditation is nothing but a tranquilizer -- it soothes you. You continuously repeat a certain word: Ram, Ram, Ram. Any word will do: Coca.Cola, Coca Cola -- that will do; it has nothing to do with Ram. Coca-Cola will be as perfect as Ram, or even more so, because it is more relevant. You repeat a certain word continuously; the
continuous repetition creates a boredom, and boredom is the base for all sleep.
When you feel bored you are ready to go into sleep.
A hypnotist goes on repeating, 'Relax, relax.' The very word penetrates into your body and being. He goes on repeating it and he tells you to cooperate, and you cooperate. By and by, you start feeling sleepy. Then he says, 'You are falling deeply asleep -- falling, falling, falling into the deep abyss of sleep' -- he goes on repeating. And just by repetition you fall asleep.
This is a different type of sleep. k is not ordinary sleep because it is induced; somebody has induced it in you. Because somebody has induced it, it has a different quality. The first difference, and very basic, is that you will be asleep for the whole world but not for the hypnotist. You will not listen to anything now, you will not be able to hear anything now. Even if a bomb explodes it will not disturb you. The trains will pass, the aeroplanes will fly, but nothing will disturb you. You will not be able to hear anything. You are closed to the whole world but open to the hypnotist. If he says something, you will immediately listen, you will listen only to him. There is only one opening left -- the hypnotist, and the whole world is closed. Whatsoever he says you will believe, because your reason has gone to sleep. Intelligence doesn't function. You have become like a small child who has trust, so whatsoever the hypnotist says, you have to believe. Your conscious mind is not functioning; your conscious mind has gone to sleep. Only the unconscious mind functions. Now even an absurd thing will be believed. If the hypnotist says that you have become a horse, you cannot say, 'No,' because who will say no? In deep sleep, trust is perfect; you will become a horse, you will feel like a horse. And if he says, 'Now you neigh like a horse,' you will neigh. If he says, 'Gallop, jump like a horse,' you will jump and gallop.
Hypnosis is not ordinary sleep. In ordinary sleep you cannot say to somebody that you have become a horse. In the first place, if he hears you he is not asleep.
In the second place, if he hears you and he is not asleep, he will not believe what you are saying. He will open his eyes and laugh and say, 'Have you gone mad?
What are you saying? Me, a horse?' Hypnosis is induced sleep. It is more like an intoxicant than like sleep. You are under the influence of a drug. The drug is not chemical ordinarily, but it is chemical deep down in the body. Just the repetition of a certain word changes the chemistry of the body. That is why mantras have been so influential all through the history of man. Continuously chanting a particular word changes the chemistry of the body because a word is not just a word; it has vibrations, it is an electric phenomenon. The word vibrating continuously: Ram, Ram, Ram -- Ram passes through the whole chemistry of the body. The very vibrations are soothing; they create a small humming inside you just as a mother will sing a lullaby when a child is not going to sleep. A lullaby is a very simple thing: one or two lines continuously repeated. And if the mother can take the child near her heart, then the effect will happen sooner because the heartbeat gives another rhythm. The heartbeat and a lullaby both together, and the child is fast asleep.
This is the whole trick of chanting and mantras: they give you a good induced sleep; you will feel fresh afterwards. But there is nothing spiritual in it. There is nothing spiritual because spirituality is concerned with being more aware, not less aware.
Watch a hypnotist. What is he doing? Nature has done the same to you. Nature is the greatest hypnotist; it has given you suggestions. Those suggestions are carried by the chromosomes, the cells of your body. Now scientists say that a single cell carries almost ten million messages for you. They are in built. When a child is conceived, two cells meet: one from the mother, and one from the father.
Two chromosomes meet; they bring millions of messages. They become the blueprint, and a child is born out of those basic blueprints. They go on multiplying; that's how the body increases.
Your whole body is made of small invisible cells, millions of them. And each cell carries messages, just like each seed carries the whole message for the whole tree: what type of leaves will come out of it, what type of flowers will come out of it, whether they will be red or blue or yellow. A small seed carries the whole blueprint for the whole life of the tree. The tree may live four thousand years. For four thousand years the small seed carries everything about it. The tree need not bother and worry; everything will be implemented. You also carry seeds: one seed from the father, one from the mother. And they come from millennia, because your father's seed was given to him from his father and mother. In this way, nature has entered you.
Your body comes from nature; you come from somewhere else. That somewhere else is God. You are a meeting point of consciousness and the unconsciousness of the body. But the body is very, very powerful, and unless you do something you will remain under its power, possessed. Yoga is the way to over come. Yoga is the way not to be possessed by the body and to become the master again.
Otherwise, you will remain a slave.
Avidya is slavery, the slavery of the hypnosis that nature has brought on you.
Yoga is transcending this slavery and becoming a master. Now, try to follow the sutras.
A sutra means a seed. It has to be worked from many, many dimensions, then it will become a tree of understanding in you. A sutra is a very condensed message. It had to be so in those days because when Patanjali created Yoga Sutras, there was no writing. They had to be memorized. In those days you could not write big books, just sutras. Sutra means an aphorism, just a seed-like thing which can be memorized easily. And for thousands of years the sutras were memorized by disciples, and then their disciples. Only after thousands of years were they written, when writing came into existence. A sutra has to be telegraphic; you cannot use many words, you have to use the minimum. So whenever you want to understand a sutra, you have to magnify it. You have to use a magnifying glass to move into the details of it.
LACK OF AWARENESS IS TAKING THE TRANSIENT FOR THE ETERNAL, THE IMPURE FOR THE PURE, THE PAINFUL AS PLEASURABLE AND THE NON-SELF FOR THE SELF.
Says Patanjali, 'What is avidya? -- lack of awareness. And what is lack of awareness? How do you know it? What are the symptoms? These are the symptoms: taking the transient for the eternal.'
Look around -- life is a flux, everything is moving. Everything is moving continuously, changing continuously. Revolution is the nature of things all around. Change seems to be the only permanent thing. Accept change and everything changes. It is just like the waves in an ocean: they are born, for a little while they exist, and then they dissolve and die. It is just like waves.
You go to the sea. What do you see? You see the waves, just the surface. And then you come back and you say that you have been to the sea and the sea was beautiful. Your report is absolutely wrong. You have not seen the sea at all; just the surface, the waving surface. You were just standing on the shore. You looked at the sea, but it was not really the sea. It was just the outermost layer, just the boundary where winds were meeting with the waves.
It is like when you come to see me, and you just see my clothes. Then you go back and you say that you have seen me. It is just like coming to see me, and just going around the house and looking at the outer walls, then going back and saying that you have seen me. Waves are in the sea, the sea is in the waves, but waves are not the sea. They are just the outermost, the most distant phenomenon from the center of the sea, from the depth.
Life is a flux; everything moving, changing into another. Patanjali says, 'To believe that this is life is lack of awareness.' You are very, very distant, away from life, from the center, the depth of it. On the surface there is change, on the periphery there is movement, but at the center nothing moves. There is no movement, no change.
It is just like the wheel of a cart. The wheel goes on moving and moving and moving, but at the center something remains unmoving. On that unmoving pole, the wheel moves. The wheel may go on moving on the whole earth, but it moved on something which was not moving. All movement depends on the eternal, the non-moving.
If you have seen only the movement of life, Patanjali says, 'This is lack of awareness, avidya.' Then you have not seen enough. If you think that somebody is a child, then he becomes a young man, then an old man, then he dies -- you have seen only the wheel. You have seen the movement: the child, the young man, the old man, the dead, the corpse. Have you seen that which was unmoving within all these movements? Have you seen that which was not a child, not a young man, and not an old man? Have you seen that on which all these stages depend? Have you seen that which holds all, and always remains the same, and the same, and the same, which is neither born nor dies? If you
have not seen that, if you have not felt that, Patanjali says, 'You are in avidya, lack of awareness.'
You are not alert enough because you cannot see enough. You don't have eyes enough because you cannot penetrate enough. Once you have eyes, the vision, the perception, the clarity, and the penetrating force of it, you will immediately see that change is there, but it is not all. In fact, it is just the periphery which changes, which moves. Deep down in the foundation is the eternal. Have you seen the eternal? If you have not seen, this is avidya; you are hypnotized by the periphery. The changing scenes have hypnotized you. You have become too involved in them. You need a little detachment, you need a little distance, you need a little more observation. Taking the transient for the eternal is avidya; taking the impure for the pure is avidya.
What is pure and what is impure? Patanjali has nothing to do with your ordinary morality. Ordinary morality differs. Some thing may be pure in India and impure in China. Something may be impure in India and pure in England. Or, even here, something may be pure to Hindus and impure to Jains. Morality differs. In fact, if you start penetrating the layers of morality, they differ with each individual. Patanjali is not talking about morality. Morality is just a convention; it has utility, but it has no truth in it. And when a man like Patanjali talks, he talks about eternal things, not local things. Thousands of moralities exist in the world, and they go on changing every day. Circumstances change, then the morality has to change. When Patanjali says 'pure' and 'impure', he means something absolutely different.
By 'purity' he means natural; by 'impurity' he means unnatural. And something may be natural to you or unnatural to you, so there cannot be any criterion. To take the impure for the pure means to take the unnatural for the natural. That's what you have done, what the whole of humanity has done. And that's why you have become more and more impure. Always remain true to nature. Just think of what is natural, find it. Because with the unnatural, you will always remain tense, uneasy, uncomfortable. Nobody can be comfortable in an unnatural situation, and you create unnatural things around you. Then they become a burden and they destroy you. When I say 'unnatural', I mean something foreign to your nature.
For example: a milkman comes, you take the milk and you say that it is impure.
Why do you say that it is impure? You say it is because he has poured water into it. But if the water were pure and milk were also pure, then two purities would make double purity. How can two purities meet and the thing become impure?
But they become impure. Pure water and pure milk meet, and both will become impure. Water will be impure, milk will also be impure, because something foreign, something from the outside has entered in.
When I was a student in university I had a milkman. He was very famous around the university hostels. People believed that he was a very saintly man and would never mix water into milk, which is the usual practice in India. It is
almost impossible to get pure milk, almost impossible. The man was really a very good man. He was an old man, an old villager; absolutely uneducated but very good hearted. Because of his saintly nature he was known around the university as Sant. One day I asked him, when we had become familiar with each other and a certain friendship had grown between us, 'Sant, is it really true that you never mix water and milk?' He said, 'Absolutely true!' But then I said, 'It is impossible.
Your prices are the same as other milkmen; you must be running the whole business at a loss.' He laughed. He said, 'You don't know. There is a trick in it.' I said, 'Tell me the trick, because I have heard that you even put your hand on Ramayana, the Hindu bible, saying that you never mix water into milk.' He said, 'Yes, that too I have done, because I always mix milk into water.'
Legally he is perfectly right. You can take an oath and you can swear; there will be no trouble about it. But whether you mix water into milk or you mix milk in water is the same, because mixing with something makes it impure.
When Patanjali says, 'Taking the impure for the pure is avidya,' he is saying, 'Taking the unnatural for the natural is avidya.' And you have taken many unnatural things to be natural. You may have completely forgotten what is natural. You will have to go deep within yourself to find the natural. The whole society makes you impure; it goes on forcing things on you which are not natural, k goes on conditioning you, it goes on giving you ideologies, prejudices, and all sorts of nonsense. You have to find what is natural to you on your own.
Just a few days ago a young man came to me. He asked, 'Is it good for me to get married? Because I have a spiritual inclination, I don't want to get married.' I asked him, 'Have you read Vivekananda?' He said, 'Yes, Vivekananda is my guru.' Then I asked him, 'What other books have you been reading?' He said, 'Sivananda, Vivekananda and other teachers.' I asked him, 'This idea of not getting married, is it coming from you or from Vivekananda and Sivananda and company? If it is coming from you, it is absolutely okay.' He said, 'No, because my mind goes on thinking about sex, but Vivekananda must be right that one has to fight with sex. Otherwise, how will one improve? One has to attain to spirituality.'
This is the trouble. Now this Vivekananda is water in the milk. It may have been right for Vivekananda to remain celibate; that is for him to decide. But if he was impressed by Buddha and Ramakrishna, then he is also impure.
One has to follow one's own being and nature, and one has to be very true and authentic, because the net is vast and the pit. falls are millions. The road forks on many, many dimensions and directions. You can be lost. Your mind thinks of sex; Vivekananda's teaching says, 'No!' Then you have to decide. You have to move according to your mind. I told the young man, 'It is better that you get married.' Then I told him an anecdote.
Socrates was one of the greatest suffering husbands ever born. His wife, Xanthippe, was one of the most dangerous of women. Women are dangerous, but she was the most dangerous woman. She would beat Socrates. Once she
poured the whole teapot on his head. Half his face remained burned for his whole life. To ask such a man what to do!... One young man asked, 'Should I get married or not?' Of course, he expected that Socrates would say, 'No' -- he had suffered so much for it. But he said, 'Yes, you should get married.' The young man said, 'But how can you say that? I have heard so many rumors about you and your wife.' He said, 'Yes, I say to you that you should get married. If you get a good wife you will be happy, and through happiness many things grow because happiness is natural. If you get a bad wife, then non attachment, renunciation will grow. You will become a great philosopher like me. In either case you will be profited. When you come to ask me whether to get married or not, the idea to marry is in you, otherwise why should you come to me?' I told this young man, 'You have come to ask me. That shows that Vivekananda has not been enough; still your nature persists. You should get married. Suffer it, enjoy it, the pain and the pleasure. Move through both and become mature through experience. Once you become mature, not because Vivekanand or anybody else says so, but because you have become mature and ripe, the foolishness of sexuality drops; it drops. Then brahmacharya arises; the real celibacy arises, the pure celibacy arises, but that is different.'
Always remember that you are you. You are neither Vivekananda nor Buddha nor me. Don't get too impressed; impression is an impurity. Don't get too influenced; influence is an impurity. Be alert, watch, observe, and unless something fits with your nature, never take it. It is not for you or you are not ready for it. Whatsoever the case, at this moment it is not for you. You have to move through your own experience. Suffering also is needed for you to come to a ripeness, a maturity. You cannot do anything in a hurry.
Life is eternal, there is no hurry in it. Time is not lacking. Life is absolutely patient; there is no impatience in it. You can move at your own pace. No need to take shortcuts; nobody has ever been successful through shortcuts. If you take the shortcut, who will give you the experience of the long, long journey? You will miss it. And there is every possibility that you will come back to it, and the whole thing will have been a wastage of time and energy. Shortcuts are always an illusion. Never choose the shortcut; always choose the natural. Maybe it will take a long time -- let it. That's how life grows; it cannot be forced.
When Patanjali says, 'Lack of awareness is taking the impure for the pure, ' purity means your 'naturality', as you are, uncontaminated by others. Don't make an ideal of anybody. Don't try to become like a Buddha; you can become only your self. Even if a Buddha tried to become like you, it would not be possible.
Nobody can become like anybody else. Everybody has his own unique way of being, and that is purity. To follow your own being, to be yourself, is purity. It is very difficult because you get impressed, because you get hypnotized. It is very difficult because there are logical people who convince you. It is very difficult.
They are beautiful people; their beauty impresses you. There are wonderful
people around; they are magnetic, they have a charisma. When you are around them you are simply pulled; they have a gravitation.
You have to be alert, more alert of great persons, more alert of those who have a magnetism, more alert of those who can impress, influence and transform you, because they can give you an impurity. Not that they want to give it to you; no Buddha has ever tried to make anybody like himself. Not that they want it, but your own foolish mind will try to imitate, make the ideal of somebody else and strive to become like that. That is the greatest impurity that can happen to a man.
Love Buddha, Jesus, Ramakrishna, be enriched by their experiences, but don't be impressed. It is very difficult because the difference is very subtle. Love, listen, imbibe, but don't imitate. Take whatsoever you can take but always take it according to your nature. If something fits your nature, take it -- but not because Buddha says to.
Buddha insists again and again to his disciples, 'Don't take anything because I say it. Take it only if you need it, if you have come to the point where it will be natural for you.' Buddha becomes a Buddha through millions of lives, millions of experiences of good and bad, sin and virtue, morality and immorality, pain and pleasure. Buddha himself has to pass through millions of lives and millions of experiences. And what do you want? Just listening to Buddha, being impressed by him, you immediately jump and start following him. That is not possible. You will have to go on your own way. Take whatsoever you can take but always move on your own way.
I always remember Friedrich Nietzsche's book THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.
When Zarathustra was talking leave of his disciples, the last thing that he said to them was very beautiful. It was the last message; he had said everything. He had given his whole heart to them and the last thing he said was, 'Now listen to me and listen as deeply as you have never listened. My last message is, "Beware of Zarathustra! Beware of me!"' This is the last message of all enlightened people, because they are so attractive; you can fall a victim. And once something outside of you enters your nature, you are on a wrong path.
Says Patanjali, 'Lack of awareness is taking the impure for the pure, the painful as pleasurable.'
You will say, 'Either of the things that Patanjali says may be true but we are not so foolish to take the painful as pleasurable.' You are. Everybody is -- unless one becomes perfectly aware. You have taken many things as pleasurable which are painful. You suffer the pain and you cry and weep, but still you don't understand that you have taken something which is basically painful and cannot be changed into a pleasure.
Every day people come to me about their sexual relationship saying that it is painful. I have not come across a single couple who has said to me that their sex life is as it should be -- perfect, beautiful. What is the matter? In the beginning they say that everything was beautiful. In the beginning it always is! With
everybody, the sex relationship is beautiful in the beginning, but why does it turn sour and bitter? Why after a little while, even before the honeymoon is over, does it start becoming sour and bitter?
Those who have words on human consciousness, deeply they say, 'The beginning, the beauty in the beginning is just a natural trick to befool you.' Once you are befooled, the reality comes up. It is just like when you go fishing and you use a little bait; in the beginning, when two persons meet, they think, 'Now this is going to be the greatest peak experience in the world.' They think, 'This woman is the most beautiful woman,' and the woman thinks, 'This man is the greatest man there has ever been.' They start in an illusion, they project. They try to see whatsoever they want to see. They don't see the real person. They don't see who is there, they just see their own dream projected; the other becomes just a screen and you project. Sooner or later the reality asserts. And when sex is fulfilled, when the basic hypnosis of nature i6 fulfilled, then everything turns sour.
Then you come to see the other as he is: very ordinary, nothing special. The body is no more a fragrance -- it perspires. The face is no more divine -- it has come nearer to an animal's. From the eyes, now God is no longer looking at you, but a ferocious animal, a sexual animal. The illusion is broken, the dream is shattered.
Now the misery starts.
And you had promised that you would love the woman forever; the woman had promised that even for future lives she would be your shadow. Now you are tricked by your own promises, trapped. Now how can you fall back? Now you have to carry it.
Hypocrisy enters, pretensions, anger. Because whenever you are pretending, sooner or later you will get angry; pretension is such a heavy weight. Now you take the hand of the woman and hold it, but it simply perspires and nothing happens; no poetry, only perspiration. You want to leave it but the woman will feel hurt. She also wants to leave it but she also thinks that you will feel hurt, and lovers have to hold hands. You kiss the woman but there is nothing but a bad mouth odor. Everything goes ugly, and then you react, then you take revenge, then you throw responsibility on the other, then you try to prove that the other is guilty. He or she has done something wrong, or she has deceived you; she pretended to be something which she was not. And then, the whole ugly affair of a marriage.
Remember, lack of awareness is taking the painful as pleasurable. If something is a pleasur
