Take the relaxation route to the body, then turn to your
mind, then set out for the heart and lastly stop at your core
Total relaxation is the ultimate. That’s
the moment when one becomes a buddha. That is the moment of realisation,
enlightenment, christ-consciousness. You cannot be totally relaxed right now.
At the innermost core a tension will persist.
But start relaxing. Start from the
circumference – that’s where we are, and we can start only from where we are.
Relax the circumference of your being – relax your body, relax your behavior,
relax your acts. Walk in a relaxed way, eat in a relaxed way, talk, listen in a
relaxed way. Slow down every process. Don’t be in a hurry and don’t be in
haste.
Tension means hurry, fear, doubt. Tension
means a constant effort to protect, to be secure, to be safe. Tension means
preparing for the tomorrow now, or for the afterlife – afraid tomorrow you will
not be able to face the reality, so be prepared. Tension means the past that
you have not lived really but only somehow bypassed; it hangs, it is a
hangover, it surrounds you.
Remember one very fundamental thing about
life: any experience that has not been lived will hang around you, will
persist: “Finish me! Live me! Complete me!” There is an inttrinsic quality in
every experience that it tends and wants to be finished, completed. Once
completed, it evaporates; incomplete, it persists, it tortures you, it haunts
you, it attracts your attention. It says, “What are you going to do about me? I
am still incomplete…fulfill me!”
Your whole past hangs around you with
nothing completed because nothing has been lived really, everything somehow
bypassed, partially lived, only so-so, in a luke-warm way. There has been no
intensity, no passion. You have been moving like a somnambulist, a sleepwalker.
So that past hangs, and the future creates fear. And between the past and the
future is crushed your present, the only reality.
You will have to relax from the
circumference. The first step in relaxing is the body. Remember as many times
as possible to look in the body, whether you are carrying some tension is the
body somewhere…at the neck, in the head, in the legs. Relax it consciously.
Just go to that part of the body, and persuade that part, say to it lovingly
“Relax!”
And you will be surprised that if you
approach any part of your body, it listens, it follows you…it is your body!
With closed eyes, go inside the body from the toe to the head searching for any
place where there is a tension. And then talk to that part as you talk to a
friend; let there be a dialogue between you and your body. Tell it to relax,
and tell it, “There is nothing to fear. Don’t be afraid. I am here to take
care, you can relax.” Slowly, slowly, you will learn the knack of it. Then the body
becomes relaxed.
Then take another step, a little deeper;
tell the mind to relax. And if the body listens, mind also listens, but you
cannot start with the mind, you have to start from the beginning. You cannot
start from the middle. Many people start wih the mind and they fail; they fail
because they start from a wrong place. Everything should be done in the right
order. First the body has to become utterly relaxed, like a small child, then
only start with the mind.
If
the body listens, mind also listens
If you become capable of relaxing the body
voluntarily, then you will be able to help your mind relax voluntarily. When
the mind is relaxed, then start relaxing your heart, the world of your
feelings, emotions, which is even more complex, more subtle. But now you will
be moving with trust, with great trust in yourself. Now you will know it is
possible. If it is possible with the body and possible with the mind, it is
possible with the heart too. And then only, when you have gone through these
three steps, can you take the fourth. Now you can go to the innermost core of
your being, which is beyond body, mind, heart: the very centre of your
existence. And you will be able to relax it too.
The whole of existence is dancing, except
man. The whole of existence is in a relaxed movement; movement there is,
certainly, but it is utterly relaxed. Trees are growing and birds are chirping
and rivers are flowing, stars are moving: everything is going in a relaxed way.
No hurry, no haste, no worry, and no waste. Except man. Man has fallen a victim
of his mind. Man can rise above gods and fall below animals. Man has a great
spectrum. From the lowest to the highest, man is a ladder.
Start from the body, and then go, slowly,
slowly, deeper. And don’t start with anything else unless you have first solved
the primary. If your body is tense, don’t start with the mind. Wait. Work on
the body. And just small things are of immense help.
You walk at a certain pace; that has become
habitual, automatic. Now try to walk slowly. Buddha used to say to his
disciples, “Walk very slowly, and take each step very consciously.” If you take
each step very consciously, you are bound to walk slowly. If you are running,
hurrying, you will forget remember. Hence, Buddha walks very slowly.
Walk
very slowly, and take each step very consciously
Just try walking very slowly, and you will
be surprised… a new quality of awareness starts happening in the body. Eat
slowly, and you will be surprised… there is great relaxation. Do everything
slowly…just to change to old pattern, just to come out of old habits.
Move scientifically: first the simplest,
then the complex, then the more complex. And then only can you relax at the
ultimate core.
Relaxation is one of the most complex
phenomena – rich, multidimensional. All these things are part of it: let-go,
trust, surrender, love, acceptance, going with the flow, union with existence,
egolessness, ecstasy. All these start happening if you learn the ways of
relaxation.
Your so-called religions have made you tense,
because they have created guilt in you. My effort here is to help you get rid
of all guilt and a fear. I would like to tell you: there is no hell and no
heaven. So don’t be afraid of hell and don’t be greedy for heaven. All that
exists is this moment. You can make this moment a hell or a heaven – that
certainly is possible – but there is no heaven or hell somewhere else. Hell is
when you are all tense, and heaven is when you are all relaxed. Total
relaxation is paradise.
