You
can try this. You have been sleeping every day, but you have not
encountered sleep yet. You have not seen it - what it is, how it comes,
how you
drop into it. You have not known anything about it. You have been
dropping into it daily, coming out of it, but you have not felt the
moment when sleep comes on the mind - what happens.
So
try this, and with three months' effort, suddenly, one day, you will
enter sleep knowingly: drop on your bed, close your eyes, and then
remember, remember that sleep is coming and "I am to remain awake when
the sleep comes." It is very arduous, but it happens. One day it will
not happen, one week it will not happen. Persist every day, constantly
remembering that sleep is coming and, "I am
not to allow it without knowing. I must be aware when sleep enters. I
must go on feeling how sleep takes over, what it is."
And
one day, suddenly, sleep is there and you are still awake. That very
moment you become aware of your unconscious also. And once you become
aware
of your unconscious you will never be asleep again in the old way.
Sleep will be there, but you will be awake simultaneously. A center in
you will go on knowing. All around will be sleep, and a center will go
on knowing. When this center knows dreams become
impossible. And when dreams become impossible, daydreams also become
impossible. Then you are asleep in a different sense, and then you will
be awake in the morning in a different sense. That different quality
comes by the encounter.
But this may look difficult, so I suggest to you a more simple exercise to encounter the unconscious.
Close
the doors of your room and put a big mirror just in front of you. The
room must be dark. And then put a small flame by the side of
the mirror in such a way that it is not directly reflected in it. Just
your face is reflected in the mirror, not the flame. Then constantly
stare into your own eyes in the mirror. Do not blink. This is a
forty-minute experiment, and within two or three days
you will be able to keep your eyes unblinking.
Even
if tears come, let them come, but persist in not blinking and go on
staring constantly into your eyes. Do not change the stare. Go
on staring into the eyes, your own, and within two or three days you
will become aware of a very strange phenomenon. Your face will begin to
take new shapes. You may even be scared. The face in the mirror will
begin to change. Sometimes a very different face
will be there which you have never known as yours.
But, really, all these faces belong to you. Now the subconscious mind is beginning to explode.
These
faces, these masks, are yours. Sometimes even a face that belongs to a
past life may come in. After one week of constant staring for forty
minutes,
your face will become a flux, just a film-like flux. Many faces will be
coming and going constantly. After three weeks, you will not be able to
remember which is your face. You will not be able to remember your own
face, because you have seen so many faces
coming and going.
If
you continue, then any day, after three weeks, the most strange thing
happens: suddenly there is no face in the mirror. The mirror is vacant,
you
are staring into emptiness. There is no face at all.
This
is the moment: close your eyes, and encounter the unconscious. When
there is no face in the mirror, just close the eyes - this is the most
significant
moment - close the eyes, look inside, and you will face the
unconscious. You will be naked - completely naked, as you are. All
deceptions will fall.
This
is the reality, but the society has created many, many layers in order
that you will not be aware of it. Once you know yourself in your
nakedness,
your total nakedness, you begin to be a different person. Then you
cannot deceive yourself. Then you know what you are. And unless you know
what you are you can never become transformed, because any
transformation becomes possible only in this naked reality:
this naked reality is potential for any transformation. No deception
can be transformed. Your original face is now here and you can transform
it. And, really, just a will to transform it will effect the
transformation.
But
you cannot become transformed! You cannot transform your false faces.
You can change them, but you cannot transform them: by "change" I mean
you
can replace them with another false face.
Transformation
means becoming that which you really are. So the moment you face the
unconscious, encounter the unconscious, you are face to face with
your reality, with your authentic being.
Many, many methods have been invented. There are sudden methods, there are gradual methods.
I
have told you about a gradual method. There are sudden methods, but
with a sudden method it is always very difficult - because with a sudden
method
it can happen that you may simply die. With a sudden method it can
happen that you may suddenly go mad - because the phenomenon is so
sudden that you cannot conceive of it. You just drop, shattered.
This
happened in the Gita. Arjuna is forcing Krishna to reveal his cosmic
form. Krishna goes on talking about other things, but Arjuna is
persistent
and he says, "I must see. I cannot believe unless I see. If you are
really a god, then reveal to me your cosmic from!" Krishna reveals it,
but it is so sudden, and Arjuna is not prepared at all. He begins to cry
and says to Krishna, "Close it! Close it!
I
am scared to death!" So if you come to it through some sudden method,
it is dangerous. Sudden methods are there, but they can be practised
only in
a group - in a group where others can help you. Really, ashrams were
created for these sudden methods because they cannot be practised alone.
A group is needed, adepts are needed, and a constant vigilance is
needed, because sometimes you may drop unconscious
for months continuously. Then if there is no one who knows what to do,
you may be taken for dead. You may be buried or burnt. Many times
Ramakrishna happened to go into deep Samadhi. For six days or for two
weeks continuously he had to be forcefully spoon-fed
because he was just as if unconscious. A group is needed for sudden
methods, and a teacher becomes an absolute necessity.
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