Osho on Sacred Place of Pilgrimage

 

 

In the Pacific Ocean there is a small island, Easter Island, on which there are one thousand huge stone idols, all about seventy feet tall. The population of the island is just two hundred. It was found, when that island was first discovered, that it was so small, it couldn't produce food for more than two hundred people. When only two hundred people can live there, it was surprising to find such huge stone idols and as many as one thousand! Five idols for every person! Those people would not have been able to make such huge idols even if they wanted to, because their lives are spent in taking care of their day to day needs. What could be the purpose of those idols? Who would have made them and why? Many questions arose for historians.

 

In central Asia there is another place that is equally puzzling. It could have been meant to be used for an airport, but as long as airplanes were not made, that wasn't possible. The area seemed to be developed fifteen to twenty thousand years ago. Only after the airplane was invented could we understand its use, could we understand that that place in central Asia must once have served as an airport.

 

I am telling you these things to convey to you the idea that we will not be able to understand the significance of places of pilgrimage until we ourselves realize the need to have them.

 

When the idols of Easter Island were photographed from airplanes, it could be imagined that they were installed at certain geometrical points, in such a way that they could be seen from the moon on particular nights. Those who have studied this subject think that we, in this century, are not the first people to look for life on other planets. Many times before experiments and attempts have been made to find animals and other forms of life on other planets so that communication could be established with them. Not only that, but beings from other planets also seem to have made contact with our earth.

 

These twenty feet long idols are not meaningful in themselves, but when their whole pattern is observed from a plane there are indications of some signs and secret messages. Those signs could only be read from the moon. But as long as we had not seen the idols from a plane we could not imagine their possible use; they were still then just idols. In the same way there are many things on this earth about which we will know nothing until our civilization investigates and sets up a similar situation again.

 

Just three or four days ago, I was talking about a small iron box which was found in Tehran. It was kept in The British Museum for a long time, for many years it was just lying there. Now it has been found to be a type of battery which was used in Tehran about two thousand years ago. It was beyond the imagination that in Tehran, two thousand years ago, such a battery existed. But now it is an established fact that it is a battery. If we had not invented the storage battery we would never have been able to imagine that that such a box could be a battery.

 

A tirtha, a sacred place of pilgrimage, is a unique invention, very deep and symbolic, made by an ancient civilization. But our present civilization has lost all knowledge about the significance of such places. Today visiting a place of pilgrimage is just a dead ritual for us. We just tolerate them, without knowing why places of pilgrimage were established, what their use was and who made them.

 

Whatever can be seen from the surface is not everything. There are some hidden meanings which are not visible from the outside. We should understand first that our civilization has lost the purpose and meaning of the sacred place of pilgrimage and so today people who go on a pilgrimage waste their time. Those who oppose the idea are also wasting their time, however right they seem to be, because they know nothing about such places. Neither the people who visit the places of pilgrimage, nor those who oppose the idea know the purpose of them, so let us understand a few things about them....

 

There is a famous place of pilgrimage for Jainas known as Samved Shikhar. Twenty-two out of the twenty-four tirthankaras of the Jainas have died there, have left their bodies there. It all seems to have been pre-arranged; otherwise it is impossible that out of twenty-four, twenty-two should happen to die, with long periods of time between them, in the same place. If we believe the Jainas there is a gap of one hundred thousand years between the first and the twenty-fourth tirthankara. That twenty-two of them died in the same place is worth thinking about.

 

The place of pilgrimage for Moslems is the Kaaba. Until the time of Mohammed, there were three hundred and sixty-five idols in Kaaba - a different idol for each day of the year. All these idols were removed or destroyed, but the central stone which was the center of the temple was not removed.

 

The Kaaba is more ancient than the Muslims' religion. The history of Islam is only about fourteen hundred years old, but that black stone in the Kaaba is hundreds of thousands of years old.

 

Another interesting fact is that the stone does not seem to belong to our earth. How did it come to earth? The only hypothesis we have is that it is part of a meteor. Within twenty-four hours of the disintegration of a meteor, thousands of stone fragments fall to the earth. Many of these are burnt up before they reach the earth. At night when we see stars falling - these are not stars but meteors. Sometimes even huge stones manage to reach the earth; these stones are of a different composition. The stone at Kaaba is such a stone.

 

But some people who have gone deeper into this feel that such big stones could have been brought to earth and left here, just as our astronauts have left a few things from earth on the moon. Whatever the astronauts have left on the moon will remain there safely, even if there is a nuclear war and life on this earth is destroyed. If ever some civilization reaches the moon, they will be very surprised to see those things we have left there.

 

So the stone at Kaaba may not be part of a meteorite but may have been left by some inhabitants of another planet. Perhaps it was once possible to establish a connection with those inhabitants through the medium of that stone. But now, only the worship of it has remained. The science of how it might have been used as a means of communication is lost.

 

An unmanned Russian spaceship became lost because its radio contact with the earth broke, so it was not possible to trace it. Whether it was burnt up, destroyed, or is still somewhere in space is not known. But if it has landed on some planet, and if the inhabitants of that planet could repair the radio they could re-establish contact with the earth. Otherwise they might break it up, or store it in their museum. They may even be afraid of it, may wonder at it or they may even start to worship it. The Kaaba stone may be one such instrument sent out by spacemen from some other planet to establish contact with the earth.

 

I am telling you this only as an illustration to explain that a sacred place of pilgrimage was a means to establish contact, not with any living beings in space but with enlightened souls who once lived on this earth.

 

A very deep and intense experiment on Samved Shikhar was made by the twenty-two tirthankaras, just as they were leaving their bodies. On that mountain they tried to intensify and multiply the vibrations of their developed consciousness so that it would be easier for us to communicate with them. It was thought that if so many souls of such consciousness left their body from the same place, a path between that place and another plane could be laid. And such a path has existed.

 

The rainfall is not the same everywhere on earth: there are some areas of heavy rain, where it rains as much as five hundred inches, and desert areas where there is no rain or it is very scarce.

 

Similarly there are places which are very cold, where there is nothing but snow everywhere; and there are areas so hot that it is difficult to make ice. In the same way on the earth there are places with high density consciousness and low density consciousness. Conscious attempts have been made to create areas of high consciousness, fields charged with human consciousness. They do not happen automatically, but are a result of the consciousnesses of powerful individuals.

 

Twenty-two tirthankaras traveling to that one mountain, entering samadhi and leaving their bodies there, created a highly charged field of consciousness, in some special sense, at Samved Shikhar.

 

It was intended that if someone sits there, chanting the special mantras given by those twenty-two tirthankaras, his journey in out-of-the-body experiences will immediately begin. This is as scientific an experiment as any which takes place in a laboratory.

 

The only reason for creating the places for pilgrimage was to experiment with creating powerfully charged fields of conscious energies, so that anyone could easily begin his inner journey.

 

There are two methods of making a boat move. One method is to open the sails at the right time in the direction of the wind and not use the oars; the other method is not to open the sails, but to help the boat move with the use of the oars. The places of pilgrimage are places where a stream of consciousness is flowing automatically: you just have to stand in the middle of the stream where the sails of your consciousness open up and you begin your journey onwards. You will be able to travel far more easily and faster in such places than anywhere else, and alone. Elsewhere, you may unknowingly reach some negative place and open up your sails in the wrong direction: you may move further away from your destination and become lost.

 

For example, if you are sitting in meditation at a place which is full of negative emotions - where butchers are killing animals the whole day - there will be a great struggle and conflict in your mind.

 

In meditation you become very receptive, open and vulnerable, so whatever is happening around you at that time enters you. So when you meditate it is always necessary to choose a place which will not take you in a wrong direction. Whenever, during meditation, you have disturbing thoughts or find it difficult to be silent, move from such a place.

 

You can sit in meditation in a jail too, but that requires a very strong individuality. There are different methods to help you meditate in a jail: you create a line of demarcation over which negative forces cannot enter.

 

But in a tirtha, a holy pilgrimage place, such a line is not necessary. In such a place you drop all resistance and open all your doors and windows. There, positive energy is flowing in abundance.

 

Hundreds of people have traveled into the unknown from there and have created a path. It is as if they have made a path by cutting down trees and removing the bushes blocking the path, so that those walking behind them find it easier to travel. On the religious path, efforts are made by the higher, stronger consciousnesses to help weaker people, in every way. The place of pilgrimage was one such experiment.

 

A place of pilgrimage is where the currents are flowing from the body towards the soul, where the whole atmosphere is charged; from where people have achieved samadhi, from where people realized their enlightenment. Such places have become specially charged. In such a place, if you just open your sails, without doing nothing else, your journey will begin.

 

So all religions have established their places of pilgrimage. Even those religions which were against temples have done it. It is surprising that religions that were against idol worship and temples established places of pilgrimage. It was easy to remove idols, but places of pilgrimage could not be removed because such places have a value which no religions could oppose or deny.

 

Jainas are not basically idol worshipers, nor are Mohammedans nor Sikhs nor Buddhists; in the beginning Buddhists were not idol worshipers at all. But all of them have established their sacred places of pilgrimage. They had to. Without such places there is no meaning for a religion. If there were no such places, everything would have to be done by the individual, and in that case there would be no meaning or purpose in a religious commune.

 

The word tirtha means a sort of jumping board from where one can take a dive into the infinite ocean. The Jaina word tirthankara means a creator of a tirtha, of a place of pilgrimage. A person can only be called a tirthankara if he has charged an area into which ordinary people can enter, open themselves up and begin their inner search. Jainas call them not incarnations but tirthankaras. A tirthankara is a greater phenomenon than an incarnation, because if the divine enters a human form it is good, but if a man makes a place for others to enter the divine, it is a far higher event.

 

Jainism does not believe in a god, it believes in man's potential. That is why Jainas could benefit more deeply from the tirtha and the tirthankaras than followers of any other religion. In the Jaina religion there is no concept of "God's grace" or "God's compassion." Jainas do not think that God can give any help; the seeker is alone and has to travel by his own effort and energy.

 

But then there are two ways in which he can travel.On the first, every man has to travel in his own boat, with the strength of his own hands, using the oars. One out of many may succeed. But on the second path you can take the help of the winds and open up your sails so that you can travel faster and more easily.

 

But are such "spiritual winds" available? This is the whole purpose of the places of pilgrimage.

 

Is it possible that when a person like Mahavira is there, all around him, from some unknown direction, a flow of energy begins? Can he create an energy flow in a particular direction so that if anyone enters that current he will just be carried along by it and will reach his ultimate destiny?

 

In fact, this flowing in a spiritual direction is the holy pilgrimage.

 

There are physical indications of such places of pilgrimage, but as time passes, those signs may disappear. So they have to be protected by building temples or erecting huge idols so that the footprints of those great seers can be preserved. Great care has to be taken so that those places do not shift even by an inch from where the event had happened sometime in the past.

 

Great treasures have been hidden underground for which a search is going on even today. For example, the richest treasure on earth, for which a search is going on - that of the last czar of Russia - have been buried somewhere in America. It is certain that such a treasure was hidden there because the czar was only dethroned in 1917, not long ago. On a map, the exact location is available, but the description cannot be decoded. Similarly the hidden treasures of the Gwalior king's family is somewhere in Gwalior. There is a map, but the exact location cannot be decoded.

 

Such maps are made in a secret code, otherwise they might fall into the wrong hands.

 

Similarly the places of pilgrimage places are well indicated, but the exact place where the spiritual event took place may not be known. Such places are hidden from ordinary people. This is very confusing. You may go to some place where it is said Mahavira reached nirvana, but there is a great possibility that the exact spot is a little away from the place shown to everyone. The real location is shown only to those people who are authentic and deserving seekers. There, those people can bow down in respect and return home. The real location will be kept hidden for those who come there out of an authentic spiritual search and who need that help for the jump.

 

There are many such places.... In one Arab country there is a small village called Alkufa where no civilized man has been able to enter. We have gone to the moon, but no traveler has yet entered that small village. Up till now it has not been possible to locate this village. There is no doubt about its existence, because history mentions it and there are also maps available. The location is hidden for a special purpose. When some Sufi reaches a deep state of consciousness during meditation, he finds the key to the path; he is able to visualize the whole of Alkufa. Otherwise, whatever maps are available are false, to misguide people.

 

Many pilgrims from Europe have tried to reach Alkufa for the last three centuries. Many of them died before they could return. Those who did come back, didn't reach the village but had just been roaming around. One can reach only through a special meditation, during which Alkufa becomes manifest. Once he sees the place he caught a glimpse of in meditation the Sufi meditator walks to it. Alkufa is a secret holy place, more ancient than Islam. The places of pilgrimage which are well known and can be visited by any pilgrim are not the real ones; the real one is nearby, but hidden.

 

An interesting incident happened.... When Vinoba Bhave, Gandhi's chief disciple, went to the Vishwanath temple in Benares. with harijans - India's lowest caste - Karpatriji, an orthodox Brahmin scholar, said, "You may enter, but now we shall have to make another temple, because this one has been desecrated." He actually began constructing another, because to him the old temple had become useless. Superficially, Vinoba seems a more understanding person than Karpatri. Karpatri was very traditional and ignorant of the modern world's trends and knowledge. But regarding the deep secret that he was trying to support, he seems to be more knowledgeable.

 

The truth is that the Vishwanath temple is not the real one, and the one Karpatri wanted to have built instead of it, wouldn't be the real one either. The real temple is a third one, which has to be kept hidden, otherwise any socio-religious reformer would desecrate it. The Vishwanath temple which is now standing is already desecrated. There is no difficulty in desecrating a temple; you can if you want to. Any other temple being built there will also be false, but a false one will always have to be there so that the real one can remain hidden.

 

There are secret keys, mantras, through which to enter Vishwanath temple, just as there are for Alkufa. Occasionally, some fortunate seeker, who has the knowledge about the mantra, may be able to enter, but otherwise pilgrims go to the false temple, worship there and return to their home.

 

But this temple has developed a sort of sanctity over thousands of years, even though it is false, because for so long people have believed it to be the true one.

 

All religions have tried not to allow a person of another religion to enter their temples or places of pilgrimage. Why? Those who made those rules knew the dangers for such entrants. In a way, it is like a notice hanging on the entrance of an atomic energy laboratory, warning, "No entry except for atomic scientists." We agree that such restrictions are necessary - it is dangerous for non-scientists to enter - but when such restrictions are made in connection with a temple or place of pilgrimage, we don't agree. We do not know that they also have their own science. These temples and places of pilgrimage are meant for specialists.

 

It is like a conference of doctors standing around a patient discussing his disease. The patient listens to them but can't understand them because they are talking medical jargon, using Greek and Latin words. It is not in the interest of the patient to understand. Similarly, all religions have developed their own code languages. They have their secret holy places, their secret languages and secret scriptures. So what we understand to be places of pilgrimage are almost certainly not the right places. Such great traditions have to be preserved because if they fall into the wrong hands, they may be misused. Ordinary people will only get into difficulties and will not benefit from them.

 

It is said that if you are allowed to enter the Sufi village of Alkufa you will become mad. It is said that anyone entering accidentally will leave the village, mad, because Alkufa is full of vibrations which cannot be tolerated by the ordinary mind. So it is better not to enter the town without the necessary preparation and discipline.

 

It is said that it is not possible to sleep in Alkufa, so it is natural that those who haven't experimented deeply in staying awake will go mad. The greatest accomplishment among Sufis is the night vigil; they keep awake the whole night. If a person does not eat for ninety days he will become very weak, but he will not die or go mad. An ordinary healthy man can easily fast for ninety days, but he cannot remain without sleep for even twenty-one days. He can go without food for three months, but he cannot go without sleep for three weeks. Three weeks is a very long time - it is difficult to remain without sleep for even one week - but it is impossible to sleep at all in Alkufa.

 

A Buddhist bhikkhu was sent to me by someone from Sri Lanka. For three years this bhikkhu had not been able to sleep properly. The whole time his hands and feet were trembling, he was continuously perspiring and he was very disturbed. He was afraid to even take one step - he had lost all confidence in himself. He was almost deranged. Strong tranquillizers couldn't help him sleep, but only lie down, listless; inwardly he was still awake.

 

I asked him if he had ever practised Buddha's anapansati yoga, because for a Buddhist bhikkhu this practice is unavoidable. He said he was. So I told him that he should give up the idea of getting any sleep, because anapansati yoga is a practice which makes sleep impossible. But it is only the initial step in a practice; once it is impossible to sleep, there is another practice that must immediately be given. If you continue to do only the first part without this second step, you will become weak; you even may become mad and die.

 

Once sleep is destroyed from within, the quality of your consciousness changes so much that then further progress can be made. When I asked the bhikkhu if he knew the second phase of that practice he said no one had told him about it. The second part is not mentioned in any book, and writing about only the first part is dangerous because anyone who follows it will be unable to sleep.

 

This was the reason why things were kept hidden, so that they should not harm anyone. They were meant to guide those who need help in their spiritual search.

 

This is why places of pilgrimages are necessary, but the real ones are kept hidden. The false places are created to keep you off the track until such a time when you are ready for the real. No wrong person should reach the authentic place, but the right person will always find it.

 

Every place of pilgrimage has its own key. If you want to find the pilgrimage place of the Sufis, you won't be able to with the keys of the Jainas, and the Jaina places of pilgrimage can't be found with the use of Sufi keys. Every religion has its own keys. I do not want to name it, but I shall tell you about the key of one place of pilgrimage.

 

The Tibetans have special mystical diagrams or yantras. These are keys. Hindus also have such instruments, thousands of them. In their houses, they write words like "Labha-Shubha" - "Prosperity and Goodness" - and they write some numbers underneath, without knowing why they are doing it.

 

In their house there may be some such yantra, which can be the key to a place of pilgrimage. They have no idea what they have written, but they go on doing it only because their forefathers were doing it.

 

Every outwardly created figure creates a figure within your consciousness. For example, if you keep staring at your window for a few minutes and then close your eyes, you will see a negative impression of the window frame. Similarly, if you meditatively concentrate on some instrument, you will create within your mind a negative impression of its particular figure or its digits. These can be seen within after some special meditation practices. If you can invoke these images, then at such moments you can immediately begin your pilgrimage into the spiritual.

 

There is a story in the life of Mulla Nasruddin.... He lost his donkey - and that donkey was his only wealth. He searched for him through the whole village. All the villagers joined in the search, but without success. Then the people said that as it was a holy month, and many pilgrims were passing through the town, perhaps the donkey had followed them. Otherwise, they had all searched the town and hadn't been able to find him, so Nasruddin should accept that he was lost.

 

But Nasruddin said he would make one last attempt to find him. He immediately stood still and closed his eyes. Then he bent down and started walking on all fours. He walked around the house and then the garden, and finally he reached a large pit into which his donkey had fallen. His friends were surprised and asked him what his trick was.

 

Nasruddin said, "I thought that if a man cannot find a donkey, then the key to finding it is not with him; to find the donkey I have to become like a donkey. So when I began to feel like a donkey, I thought if I was a donkey looking for a donkey where would I look? As soon as I thought that way, I went down on my hands and knees and started walking like a donkey. I do not know how I found the place, but when I opened my eyes, I saw I had reached the pit, and there was my donkey!"

 

Nasruddin is a Sufi saint. Anyone can read this story and laugh it off as a joke, but there is a key in it. It is a key to searching, and in a spiritual sense, this is the only way to search. So every place of pilgrimage has keys and yantras. The main reason for the existence of such places is that they put you in the middle of a charged current, which you can flow with.

 

Another important fact is that in the life of man everything except his consciousness is made from matter. But we do not know what that inner consciousness is. We know only our body, and the body is related in every way with matter. So let us now look at another kind of alchemy so that you can understand the second meaning of a place of pilgrimage....

 

The alchemists' experiments are very deep. Alchemists say that if water is converted into steam, and then that steam back into water, and the water again into steam - if you do this again and again thousands of times - then that water acquires a special quality not found in ordinary water. Earlier, this assertion was taken to be a joke: How could the quality of the water change? If you repeatedly distill water what difference can it make? - the water will remain distilled. But now, science has also accepted the fact that the quality of such water does change, although just how it happens is not known. But there is no doubt that there is a qualitative change in the water, and repeating the experiment hundreds of thousands of times produces a still better quality of water.

 

You may be aware that seventy percent of our body is made up of water. The chemical composition is just like that of sea water. If you don't eat enough salt, the salt content within your body diminishes, becomes less than that of sea water. If the percentage of salt in your body is changed, there will be changes in your consciousness. If you drink water which has been distilled one hundred thousand times, it brings about changes in many of your desires and attitudes. The alchemists were making such experiments. Distilling water hundreds of thousands of times may take several years, but the alchemist does this.

 

It brings about two types of changes. The first will be in the alchemist's mind. Doing the same thing again and again can become boring after a few days. If out of boredom he stops the process, he will go back to his old state of mind; but that moment of boredom is the turning point. If he continues in spite of the boredom he will give birth to a new consciousness.

 

If you go to sleep at ten o'clock every night, then exactly at that time you will feel sleepy. But if you decide not to sleep and keep awake, after half an hour you should become more sleepy, but what actually happens is that you will find you feel more fresh than in the morning. There was a turning point at ten o'clock; it was your habit to sleep then, but if you ignore your habit, then you break the body's automatic arrangement, and when the body realizes that it will have to stay awake it releases fresh energy from a reservoir which it keeps for emergencies and you feel fresher than ever.

 

Now the person who has distilled water a thousand times becomes bored, but his master will tell him to continue - maybe it will be for ten or fifteen years. A point comes when he will feel that if he distills the water one more time he will not be able to bear it, he will drop down dead. But his master will insist he continue the process, whatever the consequences. So on one hand the quality of the water will change, and on the other, his consciousness will also slowly become transformed.

 

It is like the water of the River Ganges. Up to now scientists have not been able to understand why there are certain qualities in its waters which can't be found in the water of any other river of the world. Even the rivers that flow from the same mountain from which the Ganges flows, do not have the same qualities as the Ganges. The mountain is the same, the same clouds shower water over it, the ice of the same peak melts and flows into the waters of all the rivers, but the quality of their water differs. It is difficult to prove the difference, but the whole of the River Ganges is an experiment of alchemists.

 

It has been attempted to treat the whole river alchemically. That's why Hindus have so many of their holy places on the banks of the Ganges. This was a great experiment to give something special to the waters of the Ganges. Now chemists and scientists have also agreed that there is something special about its waters. If you save the water of any other river it will spoil and go bad, but the water of the Ganges doesn't, however long it is stored. You can keep that water for years without it changing, but if you keep some water of any other river you will find that it becomes foul within a few weeks. The water of the Ganges keeps its purity and remains unchanged for years. It is because of this that Hindus have established their tirthas along the banks of its river.

 

If you throw dead bodies into other rivers, they become dirty and will begin to smell badly, but the Ganges absorbs thousands of dead bodies without stinking. It is surprising that though bones do not normally dissolve in water, they do in the water of the Ganges - nothing remains. In the Ganges everything immediately disintegrates, returning to its original elements. Hence the insistence that dead bodies should be thrown into the Ganges, because in any other river they may take years to disintegrate, but the Ganges does the work quickly.

 

The Ganges does not flow like any ordinary river from a mountain, it has been made to flow. This phenomenon is not easy to grasp. The Gangotri, the so-called place from where the Ganges has its source, is not the real source of the Ganges. Pilgrims go to the Gangotri, make their salutations and then return home. But this is then the false Gangotri, the real has always been hidden and protected for thousands of years. It's not possible to reach there by ordinary means, but only by astral travel.

 

It is not possible to reach there with the physical body.

 

I told you earlier about Alkufa, the city of the Sufis. There you can reach physically, even unintentionally. If you go in search of it you can be misled by a wrong map, but if you have not set out to search for it, you can just reach there without meaning to, by mistake. So you can stumble across Alkufa - but the Gangotri cannot be reached with the physical body, only with the astral body.

 

The Gangotri cannot be seen with the physical eyes. In meditation the physical body has to be left behind and then the astral body can travel to the Gangotri; then and then only will one understand what the secret of the special qualities of the water of the Ganges is. At the source from where the Ganges flows its water have been treated alchemically. On both banks of the source of the river Hindus have made places of pilgrimage.

 

You may wonder why all the Hindus'places of pilgrimage are on the banks of rivers, while all the Jainas' are on mountain tops. Jainas make their places of pilgrimage only on mountains that are absolutely dry and without any greenery. Mountains with vegetation and trees will be rejected; even large mountains like the Himalayas have been ignored. If just any mountain would do there could be none better than those of the Himalayas. But the Jainas wanted a dry mountain, open to the scorching sun, with the least possible vegetation and with no water. The reason is that the alchemical changes which they are experimenting on are connected to the fire element of the body.

 

Hindu alchemy, on the other hand, is related to the water element.

 

Both have their separate keys. Hindus would never think of having a tirtha not within the vicinity of water, of a river flowing by, with the beauty of green vegetation. They experiment with the element of water, whereas Jainas are working on the fire element and so depend more on the generation of tap, heat, in the body.

 

Hindu scriptures and sannyasins emphasize the water element, so a Hindu sannyasin consumes sufficient milk, curd and ghee to maintain enough humidity or moisture within his body. Without sufficient moisture, the Hindu key will not function. The whole effort of the Jainas, on the other hand, is to produce a dryness within, so Jaina sadhus don't even take a bath, because they want to preserve a state of dryness. These Jaina sadhus become dirty and they stink! But they are not able to explain why they don't take baths. Why do they only very sparingly wash themselves?

 

Water is not their key, but fire, and the fire element in austerity and self-mortification. They want to arouse fire internally in every possible way. If they pour water on their bodies the fire within will be weakened. So you will find the Jaina sadhu on barren, dry mountains, without greenery and water, where everything is hot and he is surrounded only by stones.

 

All religions use fasting, but except for Jainism, no religion prohibits water during fasting. Jainas who are householders are advised that even if they can't do without water at other times, at least they should avoid drinking water at night. But they only understand by this that they shouldn't drink at night because they might unknowingly kill unseen germs and insects. In fact, all these rules are meant to intensify the fire element. Another interesting fact is that if a man drinks a minimum of water, as Mahavira used to, it helps to preserve a his celibacy, because the semen will begin to dry up. Even a little moisture can make the semen flow.

 

So all Jaina places of pilgrimage will be on mountains. The authentic Hindu tirtha will be on the banks of a river, in a beautiful, lush-green place - but the mountains chosen by Jainas are ugly, because the beauty of a mountain is lost when there is no greenery.

 

Jaina sadhus will not take a bath or clean their teeth: why use even the amount of water needed for brushing your teeth? The whole principle of dryness has to be understood properly to understand the Jaina scriptures. All of their austerities are to arouse the fire, and if the connection with water is completely broken this is a negative way to keep the fire burning.

 

Inside us there is a balance of all the elements: if you want to go on a spiritual journey through one of the elements, the balance will have to be broken by dropping the use of the opposite element that balances it. So if you concentrate on the fire element, water will become inimical to your work, because the less water in the body, the better the fire will burn within.

 

The Ganges is a deep chemical and alchemical experiment, and by taking a bath in the Ganges, an individual will enter the tirtha. As soon as he takes the a bath, the water element within his body is transformed. This transformation will only last a short time, but if the experiment is done properly, the spiritual journey begins. Remember that if someone who has begun living on the water of the Ganges takes any other water, it will not suit him and will create difficulties.

 

Attempts have been made to create the qualities of the Ganges in many other places, but they have failed because the real keys for doing so are lost. Bathing in the Ganges and then immediately going into a temple or to a holy place is only a way of using the outer for the inner spiritual journey.

 

The pyramids of Egypt are tirthas of some old, lost civilization. One interesting fact about the pyramids is that there is complete darkness inside. Scientists think that it is not likely that electricity existed when the pyramids were built - some were constructed ten thousand years ago and others twenty thousand years ago. It is possible that people entered them with the help of burning torches, but there are no signs of smoke anywhere on the walls or ceilings of the pyramids. The paths within the pyramids are very long, with many twists and turns, and along them it is very dark. There could not have been electricity because there are no signs of electric fittings or a source to supply power.

 

Torches burning oil or ghee would have left some signs of smoke. So a problem arises as to how people went inside. If no one went in, as some people suggest, why were so many paths made?

 

There are many paths, staircases, doors and internal windows and also places for people to sit or stand about. But what was all this for? This has remained an unsolved puzzle. Some people guess that the pyramids were a whim of some emperor or king.

 

The most plausible explanation is that they were tirthas. When someone experiments in the right way with the inner fire, his body emanates a light. Such people were qualified to enter the pyramids.

 

Neither electricity nor torches were ever needed, their body light was sufficient to move around inside the pyramid. But such body light is only produced through special meditative practices. So the producing of that body light was itself the test of certain people's right to enter.

 

In the early nineteen hundreds, when investigations were being done on the pyramids, one of the scientist's assistants became lost. With the help of search lights they looked for him everywhere - for twenty-four hours he could not be found. Then after twenty-four hours, some time around twoo'clock in the morning, he came running towards them, almost deranged.

 

He said, "I was feeling my way in the darkness and I suddenly became aware of an opening. I went through it, and as soon as I did the door shut behind me. When I looked back the door was already closed. Yet when I had first approached it, there was only an open passage, nothing there like a door. But as soon as I entered that part of the passage, a door closed behind me; a heavy rock slid down, sealing off the exit. Then I shouted, but there was no response. I had no choice but to keep walking, and the things I saw...! It's difficult to describe...."

 

It is true that he was lost for twenty-four hours and that when he was found he was half insane, but what he described as having seen was incredible. The whole search party tried to find the door, but couldn't - he could neither show where he had entered nor where he came out - so it was concluded that the man must have either fainted, or gone to sleep and dreamt. But anyway, whatever he related was made a note of.

 

Some time after, during further explorations, the group found a book which described similar things to what the man had related. So the mystery deepened. It was thought that these things were in some sealed off room which opened up only under the influence of someone who is in a certain psychic state. Perhaps it had been accidental, perhaps it was a coincidence: triggered by his mental state the man may have been unknowingly become attuned to the state in which the opening happened.

 

It had to be so, because although the man was not able to prove his experience, nevertheless the door did open.

 

So the secret places about which I am talking have their doors and there are methods through which one can enter them. There are arrangements and special inner spiritual conditions for reaching there. All the rooms and halls of the pyramids have been built in accordance with certain pre- determined measurements. You may have experienced sometimes that where a roof is set rather low, although it does not touch you, you feel that something within you is compressed, contracted.

 

Nothing actually compresses you, but within you something feels compressed. When you enter a place where the ceiling is very high, you have a feeling of something expanding within. The measurements of a room can be calculated in such a way that meditation becomes very easy for you.

 

The exact measurements for a room that makes meditation most easy were determined after experimentation. Certain measurements of A room can be used either to help you to expand or contract your consciousness. The color scheme outside and inside rooms, the fragrance in the room, and the acoustics also can be devised in such a way as to help meditation.

 

All tirthas have their own music. In fact all music was born in such places, and the music was originally created by seekers. Not only the art of music, but all dance originated in temples.

 

Fragrance was also first used in temples. When it became known that one could reach the divine with the help of music, it was also realized that through music one could also go astray. If a certain fragrance can help you go toward the divine, then with another fragrance one can also go towards sensuality. If in a certain kind of room one can go into meditation more quickly and easily, there are other kinds which can prevent meditation.

 

In China there are specially constructed rooms in which prisoners can be brainwashed; the dimensions are predetermined, and changes in the dimensions made brainwashing difficult. After many experiments the exact height, width and breadth of such rooms are determined, and no sooner is a prisoner brought into the room that his mind begins to become affected. The exact time it will take before his mind becomes deranged and begins to deteriorate was also determined. A certain sound was created to speed up the process of deterioration, and if a particular place on his head was hammered, the deterioration would be even faster.

 

A water pot is suspended above the prisoner's head, water slowly drips onto him in a particular rhythm. Drop by drop, the water falls on that place on his head for twenty-four hours. The prisoner is not allowed to move from that position; he cannot sit, he has to stand. Within half an hour he becomes so bored that the sound seems to become louder and louder, shattering, so much so he will feel as if a mountain is falling on top of him. That repetitive sound in the enclosure for twenty-four hours, in that particularly designed room, will shatter a person's mind; when he comes out he will not be the same person. In every way the technique will have broken him down.

 

All methods of helping a seeker were found in tirthas and temples. The bells hanging in the temple, the sounds that emanate, the incense, the flowers - their fragrance - were all prearranged. It was all designed to maintain a certain harmony whose continuity would not be broken.

 

If arati - a ritual with a lighted lamp - is to be done, it is always performed at fixed times, for a fixed length of time, in the morning, the afternoon and the evening, and always accompanied by the same mantra or incantation. The ritual goes on at regular intervals year after year for thousands of years.

 

Just as I told you earlier that when water is repeatedly distilled it changes its quality, if in a room a sound is created thousands of times, the vibrations of that room and the quality of that room changes. If a seeker is taken into that room his transformation will be helped. As our whole individuality is built from matter, whatever changes are brought about in matter will affect our individuality too. Man is such an extrovert that it is easier to change him from the outside, inner changes are difficult in the beginning; so a system was devised through which matter could be arranged to help one transform on a physical level.

 

There is one other thing to be understood. Ordinary we have the illusion that we are all separate individuals. This is a wrong belief. There are many of us sitting here, but if all of us sit silently separate individuals do not remain but only one individuality. One individuality of silence remains, and our consciousnesses begin to vibrate together and flow into each other.

 

The tirtha is a mass experiment.

 

On one special day in a year, hundreds of thousands of people gather at a tirtha - all with one desire, one expectation. People will come from hundreds of miles away to be together at a certain hour, under a certain star or constellation. With so many people and this one desire, this one expectation, one prayer and one aim, a bridge of consciousness is created. Then there are no longer many individuals.

 

If we look at the huge gatherings at the Kumbha-Mela festival we do not see one individual; you see just a crowd, without a face. In a crowd separate faces cannot be found - just a faceless crowd of thousands of people. Who is who? There is no meaning in trying to know. Who is poor and who is rich? Who is a king and who is a beggar? There is no meaning in trying to make a distinction.

 

The consciousnesses of everyone has begun to flow into each other. If a bridge can be made of the consciousnesses of these ten million people, if it can become one integrated consciousness, then it will be easier for the divine to enter than to enter so many individuals separately.

 

Nietzsche has written somewhere that he was walking in a garden when his foot fell upon one small insect, which immediately contracted and rolled over. Nietzsche was very puzzled as to why it behaved like this. He wrote that after thinking about it for some time, he realized that the insect was trying to decrease its field of contact, to prevent being hurt. With a larger insect there are more possibilities of being trodden on and killed because it takes up a bigger area. So this is the small insect's form of self-protection - reducing its field of contact.

 

So when human consciousness forms a bigger contact field, the possibility of the divine descending into it becomes greater. The descending of the divine is a great happening. The greater the happening, the greater a place we have to create for it.

 

So the original form of prayer was group oriented; individual prayer was born much later, when the individual became more egoistic and it was more difficult for him to melt with others. So from the time individual prayer was done in the world, the real benefits of prayer were lost. In fact, prayer cannot be individual. When we are invoking such a great force as the divine, the larger a contact field we provide, the easier it is for that force to descend.

 

In this sense, tirthas create large contact fields. Again, when such a field is created at a particular moment, on a particular day, under a certain constellation, and in a particular place, the chances are better.

 

It should also be understood that the life cycle is periodical. How is it? The monsoon begins at a particular time of the year. If it doesn't it is because of our interference; otherwise it is fairly fixed, even to the day and the hour. Summer and winter also arrive at particular times; and even our bodies work that way. Women's menstruation is regulated, and related in some way with the cycles of the moon. If the body is healthy and normal, after twenty-eight days menstruation occurs. If the cycle is broken, then somewhere within the body of that woman something has gone wrong.

 

All events repeat in a certain order. If the coming of the divine has happened at a particular moment, on a certain day in a certain month, next year at the same time you can expect it to happen again.

 

That moment has become powerful, and at that moment the divine energy can flow again. So year after year for hundreds of years, people have gathered together to wait at certain places. If this has happened many many times, then the repetition of that event at that moment becomes likely or even certain.

 

For example, at the time of the Kumbha-Mela festival there are many disputes and quarrels over who will take the first dip in the Ganges, because it is impossible for hundreds of thousands of people to simultaneously have a dip. The special moment is prearranged and of short duration. Who will take the first dip at the right moment? Those will whose traditions have worked for it and searched for the moment; they will be the first.

 

Sometimes the right moment is just missed. The moment of enlightenment is just like a flash of lightning. It just flashes and becomes lost. If at that moment you are completely open, egoless and totally aware, then there will be the experience of the happening. If at that moment your eyes become blinded or closed, if your awareness has faltered, then the event will be lost to you.

 

The third use of the tirtha was a mass experiment. The ultimate power could be drawn more easily when people were innocent and simple. So tirthas were more relevant in the distant past - no one returned empty-handed from them. But the pilgrim of today does return empty-handed, and so he must go again and again. The more innocent and simple a society, the less people were aware of their individual personalities, the more successful was this mass experiment.

 

Even today, there are primitive tribal communities in which the individual is unaware of his personality. There is less of an idea of "I"; more of "we' is there. There are a few tribal languages in which the word "I" does not exist. Tribals speak in the language of "we." It is not because of the language that there exists no concept of "I" because their life is so community-bound. That has produced some very surprising results.

 

On a small island near Singapore, at one time some Westerners led an invasion. The chief of the tribe came to the shore and told the invaders that his people were unarmed but were not going to be slaves. The Westerners insisted on enslaving them - the tribe refused to fight, but said they knew how to die. The Westerners couldn't believe this, they thought that no one would die just like that. They landed on the island, and five hundred tribesmen gathered together on the seashore.

 

The Westerners could not believe their eyes: First, the chief fell down and died. Then all the others began falling to the ground and dying - one after the other - without being hit by any weapon. At first the Westerners thought they were just falling down our of fear, but when they approached them they found that all the tribesmen had actually died.

 

If the consciousness of "we" is predominant, death can be contagious. If one dies, then death spreads. Some animals die like that. One sheep dies, then death spreads. Sheep do not have any awareness of "I," only of "we." If you see sheep walking, it is as if they are all joined together - only one life moving. If one sheep dies then the others feel like dying; the inner feeling to die begins to spread.

 

So when the society was more conscious of the feeling of "we" and there was not much awareness of "I," the tirtha was more relevant. The utility of such a place will be lost as the awareness of "I"

 

increases.

 

The final thing to be understood about the tirtha is the value pf symbolic acts. For example, someone comes to Jesus and confesses his sins. Jesus puts his hand on that person's head and says, "Go, all your sins are forgiven." Now how can Jesus, just by putting his hand on someone's head, forgive them? Who is Jesus to forgive anyone's sins? If a person has committed a murder, how can he be forgiven like this? In India it is said that no matter what sins may have been committed, if you take a bath in the Ganges you will be free from your sins. Someone who has committed theft, who has defrauded people, who has killed someone - how can he become freed of his sins by bathing in the Ganges?

 

Here two things need to be understood. The sin is not the real event but the memory is real. It is not the sin, the act of sin, that clings to you, but just the memory of it. If you have killed someone, the memory of it will haunt you like a nightmare throughout your life. Those who know of inner things say that whether a murder is committed or not is just part of a drama and is not very important.

 

Neither anybody dies nor can anyone be killed. But the memory of the sin weighs heavily on your chest like a stone. An act is committed and becomes lost in the infinite - the act is being taken care of by the infinite. The reality is that all acts are done by the infinite; you are unnecessarily becoming disturbed. If you committed a theft it was done through you by the infinite. If you killed someone it was done by the infinite through you. You are unnecessarily standing in between with your memory of the act, and that memory is a burden on you.

 

Jesus says, "Repent, and I will take away your sins" - and someone who trusts in Jesus returns unburdened and purified. In reality, Jesus does not free you from your sins but from the memory of your sins. The memory is the real thing. Jesus only removes that. Similarly, the Ganges does not free you from your sins, but can free you from the memory of them. If someone really trusts the Ganges and believes that if he bathes in it he will be free of all sins - if his collective unconscious built up over thousands of years reinforces this, and if the society in which he is living also confirms his strong belief - then he will be. Bathing cannot make a person free from the sin as such, because the sin has already been committed - nothing can be done to the theft that has been committed or the murder that has been committed; nothing can be done about that - but when a person with such a belief emerges from the Ganges, his trust in its purity and power frees him from the feeling of guilt even though the bathing is only a symbolic act.

 

How long can Jesus live on earth? How many sinners can he meet? How many of them can repent? Time is very short, and what will happen when Jesus is not there? Hindus have found a more permanent arrangement, connecting confession with a river, not a person. The river goes on receiving confessions and forgiving people. The river is infinite, its flow is steady and permanent - how long can Jesus live? He was barely able to work for three years, from the age of thirty to thirty-three. Within the span of three years, how many sinners can confess? How many sinners can reach him? On how many can he put his hand? So Hindu seers entrust this phenomenon to a river, not to a person.

 

If someone goes to a tirtha he will return free and unburdened; he will be free of the memory of his sin. It is the memory that is binding him and has become a bond. The shadow of the sin that follows you is the culprit. It is possible to be free from it, but there is one condition. The most important condition is that you have total faith - faith in the idea that this has been happening for thousands of years.

 

There are a few tirthas that are eternal - Kashi is one such. There has never been a time on earth when Kashi - Varanasi - was not a tirtha. It is man's oldest place of pilgrimage, so it has a greater value. So many people have been liberated, experienced peace and sacredness there, the sins of so many have been washed away there - a long, long continuity, and so the suggestion that one can be freed of sin has gone deeper and deeper. That suggestion becomes faith to a simple mind, and if such trust is there, the holy place will become valuable; otherwise it is useless. Without your cooperation, a tirtha cannot help you. And you will be able to give your cooperation only if the holy place is very ancient and historical.

 

Hindus say that Kashi is not a part of this earth, but a place apart; the city of Shiva is separate and indestructible. Many towns will be built and will be destroyed, but Kashi will remain forever. Buddha went to Kashi, all the Jaina tirthankaras were born in Kashi, Shankaracharya also went to Kashi, Kabir went to Kashi: Kashi has seen tirthankaras, incarnations and saints, but all are no more. Not one of them remains, but Kashi does. The holiness of all these people, the benefit of their good work, all the achievements of their lives, their collective fragrance is absorbed by Kashi and it has acquired their life streams. This makes Kashi separate from the earth, at least metaphysically.

 

On this city's roads Buddha has walked, and in its lanes Kabir has given religious discourses. Now it has all become a story, a dream, but Kashi has assimilated everything within itself. If someone with absolute trust and faith enters this city, he can again see Buddha walking on its roads, he can see Tulsidas and Kabir.... If you approach Kashi like this then it is not just an ordinary city like Bombay or London, it will take on a unique spiritual form. Its consciousness is ancient and eternal. History may be lost, civilizations may be born and destroyed, may come and go, but Kashi keeps its inner life-flow continuous.

 

Walking on its roads, bathing near the banks of its river, the Ganges, and sitting in meditation in Kashi, you also become a part of its inner flow. To think that "I alone can do everything," is dangerous. The divine in many forms can help. In temples and holy places that help can be sought; their whole arrangement is to provide help.

 

I have told you some things to explain the tirtha to you - but that is not enough. There are many things connected with such places which can't be understood - but they do happen. Such things cannot be intellectually clarified or made into mathematical formulas, but they do happen.

 

I will tell you of two or three things that happen.... If you sit somewhere alone in meditation, you are unlikely to feel aware of the presence of the few souls who may be around you. But in a tirtha, such an experience can be very powerful. It may become so deep sometimes that you feel your own presence less than that of the others.

 

For example, Kailash has been a holy place for Hindus as well as for Tibetan Buddhists. But Kailash is absolutely desolate, it has no houses and no human population - no worshipers, no priests.... But whoever sits in meditation in Kailash will find it fully inhabited. From the moment you reach Kailash, if you are capable of going into meditation you will say that is inhabited by many souls, and wonderful ones too. But if you go there and cannot meditate, then Kailash is empty for you.

 

Researchers believe that there are no inhabitants on the moon. But those who have some experience of Kailash will not agree that that is true about the moon. The astronauts will not find any signs of habitation there, but it does not necessarily follow that there is no one there just because the astronauts don't find anyone.

 

In Jaina scriptures there are detailed descriptions of the gods residing on the moon; but since astronauts have reported that there is no life on the moon, the Jaina saints and sadhus are embarrassed. All they can say is that the astronauts have not reached the real moon; otherwise they will have to admit that their scriptures are wrong.

 

Recently, someone in Gujarat was telling me that a Jaina monk was collecting funds to prove that the astronauts have not reached the real moon. This can't be proven; astronauts have reached the real moon, but the difficulty is that Jaina scriptures say that certain gods live there - it is written in their books. They themselves don't know, so the ordinary intelligence of the Jaina sadhu will say that the astronauts have not reached the real moon because to him the scriptures cannot be wrong.

 

Some other Jaina saddhu claimed that the astronauts have actually arrived on some huge satellites which are situated near the moon, not the moon itself. All this is ridiculous, madness; but there are reasons behind this madness. There has been a Jaina belief, over twenty thousand years old, that there is life on the moon, but they don't know what kind of habitation. That life form is like that of Kailash or that of any other tirtha.

 

When you get down from a train at the Kashi station, you see the gross form of Kashi, made of mud and stone: any tourist can go there and return. But there is a spiritual form of Kashi which only those who are introspective will be able to reach - those who can go deep into meditation. For them Kashi will be different, very beautiful, beyond the imagination, whereas the earthly Kashi is dirtier and more foul-smelling than any other city. That is only the visible Kashi. Some would say that the other Kashi, the beautiful one, exists only in the imagination of the poet - but that Kashi is also there.

 

The real Kashi is a great contact field for meditators. One who reaches through meditation, reaches the spiritual Kashi: on its remote banks he might come across people he could never have imagined meeting.

 

Just now I said that on Kailash there is some form of unearthly habitation. It is more or less certain that about five hundred Buddhist siddhas regularly stay there; five hundred individuals who are enlightened buddhas will always remain on Kailash. If one of them wants to go on some other mission, he will not go until some other buddha arrives to take his place. But a minimum of five hundred enlightened buddhas must always stay there to make Kailash a tirtha. Only when one reaches such a tirtha does one meet disembodied souls, but it is not possible to meet them unless there is some fixed physical location; otherwise where would you meet disembodied souls, which cannot be seen? So Kashi is a place where you can sit in meditation and enter that inner world to establish communication with such souls. A tirtha cannot be understood intellectually, because it has nothing to do with the intellect. The real tirtha is hidden somewhere near the physical indication of it.

 

Another important thing is that when an enlightened person gives up the physical body, his compassion compels him leave some physical signs behind to help those who had walked with him, who had practiced austerities and made a lot of effort to become enlightened but had not succeeded. For those some guiding indications and symbols should be left so if they need they can establish a connection with him. In this world, although physical bodies are lost, no soul ever is, so some process has to be established to make contact with unembodied souls.

 

Tirthas do the same work as is done by radars today: radars reach where the eyes cannot. Stars which cannot be seen with the eyes can be detected by radar. Now through the tirtha communication can be established between those who have left us, and with those from whom we have become separated. Tirthas were established by those who left for those who are still on the path - for those who have not yet reached, for those who can still go astray. Those left behind may occasionally need to ask something, to know something, which may be absolutely necessary for further progress, and without which they may go astray. They don't know what their future is, they don't know the road ahead; so for needy seekers such as them special arrangements were created - such as tirthas, temples, mantras, idols, and so on. They are all rituals, but still they are definite processes to be gone through.

 

If some primitive is brought into your house at night, and you want light, you get up from where you are, walk a few feet to the nearest all, flip a switch and there is light. The primitive will not think that there is any connecting wire between the switch and the bulb; he might even think that there is some trick, and that your getting up and going to the wall to flick a switch is just a ritual. The switching of the first button turns on the light, the second turns on the fan and the third one a radio. If he does not know about electricity he will think that you are performing some trick near the wall, some ritual.

 

But suppose that one day when you are not home, the electricity goes off, and that primitive person goes to the wall and turns the switch.... When he finds that there is no light and that neither the fan nor radio come on, he will think that he has made a mistake in the ritual - that he did not take the right number of steps from the chair to the wall, or that he did not put the right foot down first, or that you were muttering some mantra while turning on the switch. He cannot understand or have any idea about what electricity is.

 

In relation to religion similar things happen. What we call religious rituals are outward, superficial actions observed by us. Those who know nothing of the inner arrangements also go through the same actions. Sometimes, when something happens, we feel perhaps the rituals are helpful; at other times when nothing happens we feel earlier successes must have been accidental, because if the ritual is right it should always produce a result. So whatever we do not understand appears to be like a ritual from the outside. This happens even with those who are highly intellectual people - because intellect is, in a way, childish, and an intellectual person is, in a sense, juvenile, because intellect cannot take you very deep.

 

Three hundred years ago when the gramophone was introduced into France, when a scientist announced he had invented the gramophone, the French academy of sciences convened to verify his claim. The scientist began the demonstration by putting on a record: the president of the Academy watched carefully for a while and then immediately got up and took hold of the inventor by the neck! He thought that the scientist was playing some trick with his throat; otherwise how could a voice come out from the machine? He pressed his neck even tighter, but the voice continued! The inventor never expected this from a scientist. He became frightened and asked the president what he was doing. The inventor said it was no trick, and asked the president to go out of the room with him; the voice of the gramophone could still be heard. All the other scientists present protested and said that there was some trick, that this was the work of the devil; otherwise how could a small disc start speaking? Today we can laugh at this because we know what a gramophone is; otherwise, we would have reacted in a similar way.

 

If one day an atom bomb explodes, destroying the whole of civilization except for a record-player which happens to be with an aboriginal tribesman.... If he puts on that record-player, any remaining population may kill him because he will not be able to explain how the record speaks. Even you may not be able to explain how a record "speaks."

 

It's interesting to note that all civilizations live through beliefs, faith. Only three or four people may know how the record-player works; the rest just have faith in its working. You switch on a button and there is light; you do it daily but can you explain how it happens? Only a few people know the secrets of its working; the remaining people only utilize the benefits of the discoveries. But when those secrets are lost, those who have just utilized their benefits will be at a loss; they will be afraid if one day the light bulb doesn't light up.

 

The tirtha and the temple have their own science, and that science has specific rules for the whole process. The second step follows the first, and the third follows the second; even if one step is missed, the result will not be the same.

 

It should also be understood that once a civilization is highly developed, when science is properly understood, the ritual and methodology becomes simplified, they don't remain complex. When technology isn't properly developed, the process remains very complicated. For example, what can be easier than flicking a switch to produce light? Would whoever invented electricity have lit his lamp so easily? What could be as easy and simple as my voice being recorded while I speak? We do not have to do much for it, but do you think that making the tape recorder was so easy? If someone asks me how speech is recorded on this tape machine, I will say that he has only to speak and his voice will be recorded. But it has taken a long time for the development of the tape recorder. Now the process is simplified, and because it is simplified the technology has reached the common man.

 

The common man has only the final results in his hands.

 

Religion too is like this. When Mahavira is working on some religious principles, he stakes his life for it. But you know the evolved process very easily. It becomes as easy for you as pressing a button.

 

But this is the real difficulty - the inventor gets lost and only the button remains in your hand and you may not be able to explain how to activate the process or how it will work.

 

At the moment, scientists in America and Russia are very keen to evolve telepathic methods to communicate with their astronauts in space. The spaceship "Luna" got lost in space because its radio stopped working, so they are alert to the danger of relying too much on a machine in space. If radio contact is lost, the astronauts will be lost forever; we will not be able to re-establish contact with them. While in space, they may want to report their findings, but they will not be able to convey them to us, so some alternative method is needed so that even if the machine does not work, thoughts can be transmitted. So American and Russian scientists are very keen on developing telepathy.

 

America appointed a commission to collect knowledge that exists anywhere in the world related to telepathy. After three or four years this commission reported that telepathic communication is possible but that those who are able to use it are not able to explain how they do.

 

In the report there is an account of a certain tribe in America: in every village of that tribe there is a special kind of small tree, and through the help of the tree the tribe communicates messages from one village to the other. For example, if a man had gone to the nearby village to get some household requirements, if his wife suddenly remembers that she has forgotten to ask him to bring a particular article, she tells the tree to convey the message to her husband. In the evening when the husband arrives home, he has brought the article. The members of the commission watched this happening, and they were very puzzled.

 

When we talk with someone on the telephone, the primitive person is bound to be puzzled. We aren't, because we know the system. And when we listen to the radio there is nothing alarming about it for us because we know what it is. But we are certainly surprised when we are told that some people transmit messages through a tree.

 

The members of the commission stayed with that tribe for three or four days and set up their own experiments. They talked to the people of the village; no one was able to explain how the transmission of messages happened, they only said that it had always happened. They take care that it does not die - a ritual is made of transplanting a branch of it. Their fathers and their forefathers have always used the tree to pass on messages but they did not know how it worked. The vital energy of the tree was being used for telepathy, but why that tree was used and how the telepathy works the tribal people do not know. The key is lost with the people who discovered it.

 

Buddhists do not allow the original bodhi tree - the one under which Buddha became enlightened - to die. Now you can understand why. When the original tree was withering, King Ashoka sent one of its branches to Sri Lanka. That branch became a tree and is still there. A branch of it was brought back to India and planted in Bodhgaya. The same tree has been kept in continuity. The Bodhgaya tirtha is valuable because of that tree.

 

When Buddha became enlightened the tree must have deeply absorbed something of Buddha's consciousness. It was an unprecedented and extraordinary event, the experience of enlightenment happening to Buddha. If lightning strikes a tree, the tree will be burned, so it is not difficult to imagine that when the lightning of consciousness struck of Buddha, the tree too became enlightened in some way.

 

Buddha must have given some secret instruction not to allow the tree to die. He said, "Don't worship me - it is enough to worship this tree." That is why for five hundred years after his enlightenment, idols of him were not made. The bodhi tree was the idol and it was worshiped. The pictures of Buddhist temples of those days is only of the Bodhi tree and the circular aura of Buddha in the middle, but no image of Buddha himself. That tree had its own experience of the event of enlightenment and became charged. Those who know use the tree to establish communication with Buddha.

 

So it is not the town of Bodhgaya, but the bodhi tree that is of value. Buddha had walked and lived under that tree for a long time before his enlightenment; his footprints have been preserved under it.

 

When Buddha became tired in meditation, he would walk by that tree for hours on end. Buddha did not live with anyone as much as he did with that tree. He could not have lived with any human being with as much ease and innocence as he did with that tree. He slept under it, sat under it and walked around it; he must have talked to it. The whole life energy of that tree was filled with, saturated with, and charged by Buddha.

 

When King Ashoka sent his son Mahendra to Sri Lanka, Mahendra asked, "What shall I take with me as a present?" Ashoka replied that they had only one present, and that there could be no better present in this world than that of the bodhi tree, and that he could take a branch of it as a present.

 

So that branch was taken to Sri Lanka. No other king in this world has ever given a branch of a tree as a present. Can such a thing be a present? But the whole of Sri Lanka was effected with the energy vibrating from the branch of that bodhi tree.

 

People said that Mahendra had made Sri Lanka Buddhist, but they were wrong. The conversion of Sri Lanka happened through the branch of the bodhi tree; that branch turned those people to Buddhism. Buddha had given a secret message that the branch should be sent to Sri Lanka, and that the right time and the right person to carry it should be waited for. When that right person arrived, the branch was sent.

 

Mahendra and Sanghamitra were Buddhist bhikkus and were living during buddha's time. The bodhi tree could not be sent to Sri Lanka through just anyone; only a person who had lived with Buddha, who had known Buddha, and who would not carry the branch simply as a branch of a tree but as a living buddha, could be entrusted with the job. One day, through some other person, it will have to be brought back to India.

 

The history behind this history is worth remembering. This is the secret history which travels behind the mundane history. The real history is that where the actual roots are; otherwise there is a network of events that happen on the surface. That is not the real history - which is printed in newspapers and books.

 

If we ever become capable of focusing our sight on the real history, we will be able to understand the secrets of all these things.

 

-Osho, "Hidden Mysteries, #2"