Meditation: The Art of Celebration We train the child to focus the mind, to concentrate, because without concentration he will not be able to cope with life in the future.Life demands this, and the mind must be able to concentrate.But once the mind is able to concentrate, it becomes very little aware.Awareness means conscious but not focused mind, awareness is a consciousness of what is going on.Concentration is a choice, it rejects everything other than the object of concentration, it is narrowing.If you are walking on the street, you have to narrow your consciousness to be able to walk.You cannot be constantly aware of everything that is going on, because if you are aware of everything that is going on, then you become unfocused.So, focus is needed.Concentration of the mind is a need of life - survival and being.That's why every civilization, in its own way, has tried to narrow the minds of children.

Children are never concentrated, their consciousness is open in all directions, everything is constantly coming in, nothing is being withheld.The child is open to all senses, and each sense is brought into his consciousness.There is so much going in!That's why they are so wobbly, so unstable.The unconditioned mind of a child is a flow—a flow of sensation.But if the mind is in such a state, then he cannot survive.He must learn to narrow his mind, learn to concentrate. Once the mind is narrowed, you become especially aware of one thing, while at the same time you are unconscious of other things.The smaller the mind is narrowed, the more successful it will be, and you will become a special talent, a specialist.But the whole thing will be: the more you know, the less conscious you are.

Narrowing is a survival necessity for which no one is responsible.It is necessary as long as life exists, but it is not sufficient.It is practical, but survival is not enough, practicality is not enough.So when you narrow your consciousness by becoming a utilitarian, then you deny a lot of the capabilities your mind has.You are not using a whole mind, you are using a very small part of it and the rest becomes unconscious. Actually, there is no dividing line between conscious and unconscious, they are not two minds. "Conscious mind" refers to that part of the mind that is used in the narrowing process, and "unconscious mind" refers to that part of the mind that is ignored, ignored, turned off.This creates a division, a division.That big part of the mind becomes alienated from you, you become alienated from yourself, you become a stranger to your own totality.

That little part is identified as your ego, and the rest is lost.But this remaining part of the unconscious will always be there as an untapped potential, an untapped possibility, an unlived adventure.The unconscious mind, which is the unused mind as potential, will always be wrestling with the conscious mind, so there is always conflict within man.Because there is a split between the unconscious and the conscious, everyone is in conflict.You can experience the bliss of existence only when the potential, the unconscious, is allowed to open like a flower, otherwise it is not possible. If a major part of your potential is not realized, your whole life will be a frustration.That's why the more materialistic a man is, the less satisfied he is, the less joy he has.The more utilitarian a person's attitude towards life is, the more hectic his life is, the more narrow his life will be, and the less he will be able to obtain ecstasy.That part of the mind that is not useful in the utilitarian world has been discarded.

A utilitarian life is needed, but its cost is great: you lose the joy of life.If your full potential blossoms, then life becomes a joy, a celebration, then life is a celebration.So I've always said that religion is turning life into a celebration.The level of religion is the level of joy, not the level of utility. The utilitarian mind must never be taken as the whole mind, and the remaining larger mind should not be sacrificed for its sake.The utilitarian mind can never be an end, it has to be there, but as a means.The remaining part, the larger, potential part, must become the purpose.That is what I call a religious attitude.With a non-religious attitude, then the commercial mind, the utilitarian mind becomes the purpose.When it becomes the purpose, it is impossible for the unconscious to realize the potential, the unconscious will be rejected.If the utilitarian mind becomes the end, it is tantamount to the servant playing the role of master.

Intelligence, the narrowing of the mind, is a means of survival, but not a means of life.Survival is not equal to living.Survival is a necessity, a necessity of being in the physical world, but its purpose is always to achieve a flowering of potentiality, of all that is meaningful to you.If you are fully realized, if nothing in you stays in a seed state, if everything becomes a reality, if you become a flower in full bloom, then, and only then, will you feel bliss, feel to the ecstasy of life. Only by adding a new dimension to your life - the level of joy, the level of play, can the rejected part of you, the unconscious part become active and creative.So meditation is not work but play.Prayer is not a transaction but a game.Meditation is not something done for an end -- something done for peace, bliss, meditation is an enjoyment that takes itself as an end.

The celebratory dimension is the most important thing to understand, but we have completely lost it.By celebration, I mean the ability to enjoy everything that comes your way, moment after moment. We have become so conditioned, our habits have become so mechanical, that even when we have nothing to do, our minds are still busy.You narrow when you don't need to narrow.Even if you're making a game, you're not making a game, and you're not enjoying a game.Even if you are playing poker, you are not enjoying it, you are playing to win.In this way, the game becomes work, and in this way, what is going on is not important, only the result is important.

At the level of business, results are important; at the level of celebration, activity is important.If you can make any one activity meaningful in itself, then you will be joyous, you will be able to celebrate it.Whenever you are celebrating it, then boundaries, narrowing boundaries are broken, they are no longer needed, they are thrown away.You are free from the constraints, from the narrowing shackles of concentration.Now, you don't make a choice, you allow everything that comes your way.Once you allow the whole existence to come into you, you become one with it.Then there will be a communion.

This sharing, this celebration, this choiceless awareness, this non-transactional attitude, I call meditation.Joy is in the moment, in the activity, not in worrying about the result.There is nothing to achieve, so all you can enjoy is the here and now. You can explain it this way: I'm talking to you, and if I'm concerned with the outcome, then the conversation becomes a business, a job.But if I talk to you without any expectations, without any demands on results, then this talk becomes a game.This activity is an end in itself.Then the narrowing is not needed.I can play with words, I can play with thoughts, I can play with your questions, I can play with my answers, then it's not serious, it's lighthearted.

If you are listening to me and you don't want to take anything out of it, then you can relax, you can let me share with you, and your consciousness will not be narrowed.That way, it's open.game!enjoy! Any moment can be a transactional moment, any moment can also be a meditation moment, the difference is only the attitude.If it is choiceless, if you are playing a game with it, then it is a moment of meditation. Among the needs to be satisfied, there are social needs and existential needs.I would not say, "Don't condition the children." If you leave them completely unconditioned, then they will become brutish, they will not survive.Survival requires conditioning, but survival is not the end.So you have to be able to put on and take off the conditioning, just like clothes, you can put it on to go to work, and then take it off when you go home, so that you "exist".

If you don't identify with your clothes, your conditioning; if you don't say "I am my mind," which is not difficult, then you can change more easily.But if you identify with your conditioning, you say, "My conditioning is me." And everything that is not your conditioning is denied.You think: "All that is unconditioned is not me, the unconscious is not me. I am the conscious, focused mind." This identification is dangerous, it should not be.A proper education is unlimited.It is subject to only one condition: the condition is a practical necessity, that you must be able to put it on and take it off.Put it on when you need it and take it off when you don't.Until it is possible to educate man not to identify with his conditioning, man is not really human, but only a conditioned and narrowed robot. To know this is to be aware of the greater part of the mind that has been deprived of light.To be aware of the greater part of the mind is to be aware that you are not just the conscious mind.The conscious mind is only a part, the "I" is both, and the greater part is unconditioned, but it is always there, waiting. My definition of meditation is: Meditation is just an effort to jump into the unconscious.You cannot jump in by calculating, because all calculations belong to the conscious, and the conscious mind does not allow it, it warns you, "Don't do it, you will go crazy." The conscious mind is always afraid of the unconscious, because when the unconscious comes up, everything that is calm and clear will be swept away from consciousness, and then everything will be dark, like in a forest. It's like: you build a garden and grow around it.You level a small field, you plant some flowers, and everything is fine, orderly, clean.It's just that the forest is always there, uncontrollable and uncontrollable.The garden has been troubled.At any moment the forest may come in and the garden disappears. In the same way, you cultivate a part of the mind that makes everything clear, but the unconscious is always next to it, the conscious mind is always in fear.The conscious mind says, "Don't go into the unconscious, don't look at it, don't think about it." The path of the unconscious is dark and unknown.To reason it seems irrational; to logic it seems illogical.So, if you try to enter into meditation with thinking, then you will never be able to enter, because the thinking mind will not allow you to enter. This becomes a paradox.Without thinking you cannot do anything; with thinking you cannot go into meditation.what to do?Even if you think like this: "I don't want to think", you are thinking.This is the thinking part of the mind saying, "I am not allowed to think." Meditation cannot be achieved by thinking. This is a dilemma, the biggest dilemma.Every seeker encounters this dilemma, somewhere, sometime.People who know will say: "Jump, don't think about it!" But you can't do a thing without thinking, that's why some unnecessary methods were created.I say it is an unnecessary method, because as long as you can jump without thinking, there is no need for any method.But you don't jump without thinking, so methods are still needed. You can think about the method, which will relax your thinking mind, but don't think about meditation, which will be a leap into the unknown.You can use a method, and it will automatically push you into the unknown.This method is needed only because of the training of the mind, otherwise it is not needed. Once you jump, you say: "This method is unnecessary, not at all." But this is your realization in retrospect, and you know in hindsight that the method was not needed.That is what Krishnamurti said: "No design, no method." Zen masters also said: "No effort, that is effortless." However, for those who have not passed this level Speaking of which, this is ridiculous.Because people speak mainly to those who have not passed the barrier. ① Krishnamurti (Krishnamurti, 1895~1986): Hindu enlightened master.Partnered with Anne Besant, head of the Theosophical School, to create the World Star Society. Hosted the Krishnamurti Foundation in Ojai, California, USA since 1969. —— Annotation So I say, the method is man-made.It is just a means for you to relax your rational mind so that you may be pushed into the unknown. That's why I take an intense approach.The more intense the method, the less need is there for your calculating mind.The more intense the method, the more complete it becomes, because the life force is not only of the mind, it is of the body, of the emotions, it is of your whole being. Sufi ascetics once used dance as a technique and a means.If you are involved in dancing, it is impossible to be rational, because dancing is a very difficult thing, it requires your whole being.A moment must come, a moment of dancing without the mind.The more dynamic, the more intense the method, the more you can enter, the less reason will not be there.So, dancing is used as a technique to push you.At a certain point, instead of you dancing, the dance will take over, it will take over you, and you will be drawn into that unknown source. Zen masters have adopted the method of koan ①.Koans are puzzles of an absurd nature that cannot be solved rationally, you cannot think about them.On the surface, it seems to be able to think of something.The wonderful thing is here.Those koans seem to allow people to think about something, so you start to think about it, and your rational mind is comfortable, because something has been given to it and it needs to be solved.But that thing is unsolvable, its very nature is unsolvable, because its very nature is absurd. ① Koan: Chinese and Japanese Zen Buddhism, especially Linji Sect, is used to train Zen practitioners to sit in meditation, seemingly contradictory short sentences or questions. —— Annotation There are hundreds of koans in existence.A Zen master would say, "Think of a voice without a voice." It sounds as if you can think about it: if you think hard, somewhere, in a certain way, you will always find a voice without a voice , it seems to be possible.Then, at a certain point -- and this point is unpredictable and individual -- the mind doesn't work, it's gone.You are there, but the mind is gone with all its conditioning, you are like a child, the conditioning is gone, you are just conscious, the narrowed concentration is gone.Now, you know the method is unnecessary, but that's an afterthought, and it can't be said in advance. No method is causal, no method is the cause of meditation.That's why there are so many ways possible.Each method is just a design, but each religion calls its own method as the right way, and other methods are useless, and they all think in terms of causality. When water is heated, it turns into steam. The heat is the reason. Without heat, the water will not evaporate.This is cause and effect.Heat is a prerequisite for evaporation.But meditation is not causal, so any method can be used.Every method is just a means, it just creates a situation for something to happen, it doesn't cause it. For example, beyond the walls of this room is an endless expanse of open sky that you have never seen before.I can talk to you about the sky, about the clean air, about the sea, about everything outside the house, but you haven't seen it, you don't know anything about it.You're just laughing, you think I'm making it up.You say, "It's all wonderful. You're a dreamer." I can't convince you to go outside because everything I'm saying doesn't make sense to you. Then I said, "The house is on fire!" It meant so much to you, it was something you could understand. Now, I don't have to explain anything to you, I just need to run, and you will follow.The house isn't on fire, but once you're outside, you won't ask me why I lied just now.The meaning is there, the sky is there.Then you will thank me.You can tell a lie.Lying is just a design, a design that brings you outside, it is not the cause of what is outside. Every religion is based on the design of a lie.All methods are lies, they only create a situation, they are not the cause.New designs can be created, new religions can be created.The old designs don't work, the old lies don't work, so new ones are needed.It is useless to say that a house that has not caught fire is caught on fire, and someone needs to create a new design at this time. So long as one thing is the cause of another, it is never useless.But old designs will always be useless and new ones will be needed.That's why every new prophet has to fight the old prophet.He does exactly what the old prophets did, but he will have to go against their teachings because he has to negate the old designs that have become meaningless and don't work. All the great prophets -- Buddha, Christ, Mahavira -- have created great lies out of compassion, and that is to push you out of the house.If there is a means by which you can be pushed out of your mind, that is all that needs to be done.Your mind is a cage, your mind will kill you, it is a slavery. ① Mahavira (Mahavira), that is, raft Mana, the founder of Jainism. —— Annotation As I have already said, this antinomy is bound to happen, it is the nature of life.You have to learn to narrow your mind, it helps when you go out, but inside it kills.With people it will be practical; but with yourself it will be self-destructive. You have to live with others, with yourself.Any one-sided life is incomplete.To live with others you must have a conditioned mind: to live with yourself you must have a totally unconditioned consciousness.Society creates narrowness, but consciousness itself means expansion, which is infinite.Both are needed, and both should be met. A person who can meet these two needs, I say, is a smart person, and it is unwise to deviate from either extreme, and any extreme is harmful.So live with the world with your mind and culture, but with yourself alone, not with your mind, not with your culture.Use your mind as a means, not an end, and get out of it every chance you get.Whenever you are alone, you have to come out of it, out of your mind.Then, celebrate the moment, celebrate existence itself, celebrate life itself. Just being alive is something to be greatly celebrated if you know how to get out of conditioning.You can learn this "freedom" through Dynamic Meditation, it's not caused, it just happens to you for no reason.Meditation creates a situation that takes you into the unknown, and gradually you are pushed out of your inherent, mechanical, robotic personality.Be brave!Practice Dynamic Meditation well and everything else will fall into place.This is not something you make, it will be a happening. You cannot bring the divine, but you can prevent it from coming.You cannot bring sunlight into the house, but you can shut it out.On the negative side, the mind can do a lot; on the positive side, it can do nothing.Every positive thing is a gift, a blessing, that comes down to you.And every negative thing is your own creation. Meditation and all the methods of meditation can do one thing: push you away from negative resistance, it can take you out of the prison of the mind.When you come out, you will laugh out loud.So easy to get out, it's there, just one step away!But we have been walking in circles, never taking this step, the step that can take you to the center. You keep going around in circles, repeating the same thing.But at some point the continuity has to be interrupted, and that is what any method of meditation does.If the continuity is interrupted, if you become discontinuous with the past, then that moment is a blast!In this very moment you are back to the center, you are back to the center of your being.Then you will know all that has been yours, you will know all that has been waiting for you.