Question 1:

In many ways, man lives essentially through the mind. Even when we perceive something as a physical occurrence, deep down it turns out to be a psychological phenomenon. All bodily manifestations have their roots in the mind. Let me explain a few things in this regard, then it will be easy to follow the question.

Until fifty years ago, all human illnesses were treated as illnesses of the body. In the last fifty years, the more we have learned about illnesses, the more the proportion of physical illnesses has decreased while that of the psychological illnesses has increased. Even the greatest of physiologists is ready to admit today that more than fifty percent of all human ailments are psychological. Sicknesses which are otherwise considered as physical, more than half of them are caused by the mind. Mind is the very substratum of man's being, his existence. It is the source of our life, it is the source of our illness, and it is the very source of our death. That's why so much importance is given to the will.

If you have ever witnessed an experiment in hypnosis, there are a few things about it worth keeping in mind. A hypnotized person is simply one whose conscious mind is asleep and whose unconscious mind is awake. When the conscious mind goes to sleep, the person stops doubting, because all doubts and misgivings are limited to the conscious mind.

If we divide the human mind into ten parts, it will appear that one part of it is conscious while the remaining nine are unconscious. Nine parts are in the dark unconscious; only a small portion - one tenth of the mind - is awake. It is this conscious mind that doubts, thinks, ponders. If this conscious mind were to sleep, then the remaining nine parts below would stay totally receptive. There, no questions are asked, no doubts are raised.

In the state of hypnosis, the doubting mind is put to sleep and the undoubting, receptive mind comes into effect. In that state, if you were to place a small piece of rock on the hand of the hypnotized person and tell him it is a hot coal, he will cry out in pain as if his hand had been burned. He will at once throw the rock away - just as he would if a real hot coal had been placed on his hand.

Up to this point one may assume that just an idea in his mind must have caused this to happen. But the astonishing thing is that blisters appear on his hand - the same as it would have if a hot coal had been placed there. So apparently, although you had placed an ordinary piece of rock, the person's mind totally accepted your word that it was a hot coal. And the body has no means of denying the mind, so it acts accordingly. Remember well, if the mind accepts totally, the body will have to follow it.

There is a reverse of this experiment too, which is even more astonishing. You can place an ember in the hypnotized person's hand and tell him it is just a cold pebble. The man will keep on holding the ember and yet no blisters will appear on his hand. Without the mind's permission, the body is helpless to do anything.

That is why fakirs [religious ascetics] are able to dance barefoot on fire - there is no miracle in it. It's just a little experiment in the science of mind. There are ten fakirs dancing on the fire, they openly invite anyone to join them, so there is no question of any fraud. You are welcome to dance with them. But that will be possible only when watching those ten people you become fully convinced the fire is not affecting them. Once you are convinced - that if they are not having burns, you won't either - you reach the same state a hypnotized person does. In that state, the one part of your mind is not doubting, and the nine parts are believing - now you can jump into the fire, your feet won't burn.

One who has any doubts will not jump, but the one who has none will jump in. What this means is that even fire cannot burn you if the mind is not open to it, and even coldness can cause burns if the mind is ready for it.

Experiments in hypnosis reveal very profound truths about the mind. For example, I was once conducting experiments in hypnosis on a girl. I was a guest in her house. We were sitting in a room. Altogether we were ten people: the girl, myself, and eight other people including her mother, who was seated right across from her.

When I placed the girl under hypnosis, I told her that her mother had left the room. Then I asked her to open her eyes and count the number of people present in the room. She counted nine because for her, the mother who was sitting across on the sofa did not exist. I asked her several times who was sitting on the sofa and her answer was, "The sofa is empty." Her mother called out to her. She looked all around the room - except at the sofa where her mother was sitting - to see where her voice came from. As far as she was concerned, the mother was not seated on the sofa.

Once again I asked her to close her eyes and told her that her father, who was not in the room, had come and was sitting across from her on the sofa. Then I asked her to open her eyes and count the number of people in the room. She counted ten. I asked, "You had said earlier the sofa across from you was empty; why are you counting it now?" She said, "The sofa is not empty, father is sitting on it." Her mother, who was actually sitting on the sofa, did not exist for her. But her father who was not even in the room - she counted him. Her mind had totally accepted my word.

A resolute mind holds wonderful possibilities. For those who face many defeats in their lives, the readiness of their mind to accept defeat is far more responsible than the circumstances. The world as such has very little to do with the failures met by people - ninety percent of the responsibility lies with the people themselves. When one is ninety percent ready to encounter failure, it would be a little too much if the world didn't cooperate even ten percent with it - the world makes a ten percent contribution.

The same principle applies to those who go on attaining success as it does to those who meet with failures. Those who are healthy and those who remain mostly sick, those who are peaceful and those who are continuously restless - all are subject to the same principle. Deep down, whatsoever you want to be that's what you become. Thoughts become objects, thoughts become happenings, thoughts create your personality. Essentially, we alone are responsible for the way we live, and the level at which we live. We alone lay the foundation of the life we live. Once this truth is understood, what I am explaining to you will become clear.

I have already mentioned to you that as long as one has not entered death voluntarily, he cannot be free from the fear of death. Someday death will come, of course, but then you won't be entering into it voluntarily - you will be compelled to face it. It wouldn't be surprising if you closed your eyes and became unconscious when forced to go somewhere. You can't be forced into something if you are fully conscious. But there is no need for one to be under such compulsion. Dying voluntarily, one can see death even while being alive. Watching such a death is a fascinating experience - far more fascinating than the experience of ordinary death, because this death is seen of your own free will.

You may ask, however, "How can one die voluntarily and see death?"

This also needs to be understood. Two kinds of mechanisms are working in your life, in your body - one is voluntary, the other is involuntary. There are some parts in your body which move only with your willingness. For example, my hand moves only when I want it to; it won't move if I don't want it to move. But the blood inside this hand does not flow according to my desire; it won't stop flowing if I don't want it to. So the working of the blood is involuntary. The same is the case with the throbbing of my heart, the beating of my pulse, the food digesting in my stomach - none of these functions follow my command, they are involuntary.

So our biological organism consists of two parts: one that works according to our desire, and the other which works independent of our desire. However, if one were to increase his willpower, what is outside the realm of desire now would become part of it. Similarly, if one's willpower were to decrease, what is now within the reach of his desire would be no longer. The paralytic condition is a case in point.

More than seventy percent of all cases of paralysis are psychological in nature. Actually it is not that a man is struck with paralysis; only his legs, for instance, go beyond the control of his willpower. Even this is not right to say. How can legs manage to get out of one's control? Truly speaking, the range, or the scope of his willpower becomes narrow. What it means is the will of such a person has shrunk. It is as though as one's feet are sticking out from underneath a shrunken blanket. The feet remain beyond the reach of the blanket. Similarly, the willpower of a paralytic person shrinks, and loses its control over the limbs.

It has occurred many times; for example, once a house caught fire at night and the people inside came running out. But they suddenly remembered that the old man who had been paralyzed and sick for years had been left behind. Before they could figure out how to rescue the man, they saw him come running out of the house. They were shocked and frightened. They forgot all about the fire and asked him, "How did you come out? How did you manage to walk?" The moment they asked how he managed to walk, the man said, "Are you joking? How can I walk?" And he fell down.

In the stress and fear caused by the fire, the circumference of the man's willpower grew larger - the feet came within reach of the blanket - and the man walked out. Having come out, he suddenly realized: how could he really have walked out? And the scope of his willpower once again became narrow, the feet once again were out from under the blanket!

The pulse rate can be brought under voluntary control. This is not a feat that only yogis can perform - you can too. It's a very small experiment. Check your pulse rate for a minute. Then close your eyes and simply feel that your pulse is beating faster. Open your eyes after ten minutes and check. You'll rarely come across a man whose pulse rate will not increase if he does this experiment. That's why when the doctor checks your pulse, it is never the same. The moment he touches you, you become a bit anxious, and that causes the pulse rate to increase. This is even more true if you are being checked by a lady doctor!

The heartbeat can be controlled too - almost to the point of stopping it. Scientific experiments have been carried out to this effect and the fact has been accepted. About forty years ago, a man by the name of Brahmayogi astounded doctors at the Bombay Medical College by stopping his heartbeat completely. He repeated the same act at Oxford, and later at Calcutta University.

This man could do three things. Firstly, he could stop the blood circulation completely - not only could he stop it, but he could control its flow as well. He could let it run or withhold its movement at will. When he would stop the circulation, not a drop of blood would come out even when the vein was cut. The third thing he could do was to take in any kind of poison and retain it in his stomach for half an hour, after which he would throw it out of his system. However, this experiment finally caused his death later on.

Many X-rays were taken while the poison was still inside his stomach. No gastric juices, no blood released and mixed with the poison. They remained separate until he allowed them to mix. The man died in Rangoon. After having performed the act of taking poison at the Rangoon University, he was driven home in a car. The car got into an accident, and by the time he reached home forty-five minutes had passed since he took the poison. He could withhold the mixing of the poison for not more than thirty minutes. So he reached home unconscious. He could just manage to keep the poison out during the thirty-minute range of his willpower - his practice was limited to thirty minutes only. He crossed that limit. For the next fifteen minutes the poison was able to penetrate the limits of his will and mix into his internal system.

There is no part in our body which cannot be brought within the power of our will, and there is no part which cannot go outside this power either. Both things can happen. Entering death voluntarily is a deeper experiment. It's an experiment where one contracts his life energy at will. What needs to be kept in mind is: if the will is applied totally, the energy is bound to shrink within. It can't be otherwise.

Actually, the way our life energy has spread out is a result of our will too. For example, we think we are able to see because we have eyes. According to the scientists, the reverse is the case: because we want to see through this part of our body, the eyes have appeared there. Otherwise, there is basically no difference between the skin of our eyes and that of our hands. The eye is formed of skin as well, except that it has become transparent. The same skin is in the nose, only it has become specialized in picking up smells. The same principle that made the skin of the eyes transparent made the skin of the nose sensitive to smell. Similar is the case with regard to our ears, except they have become capable of picking up sound.

All this has happened as an effect of our will - the collective will asserted over millions upon millions of years. It has not come about as a consequence of an individual's will; the same will was exercised generation after generation, and it showed the result.

There is a woman in Russia who can read with her fingers - not Braille, the language for the blind - she reads any ordinary book, with closed eyes, just by placing her fingers on the printed letters. As a result of the lifelong practice, her fingers have become so sensitive that they can detect the infinitesimal difference between the print and the blank paper. Our fingers won't be able to do this to such an extent.

When we look at a tree, we only see the color green, while a painter's eyes see a thousand kinds of green trees having shades of green blended in a thousand ways. So whereas green is just one color for an ordinary person, in the eyes of a painter the color green is not one but many colors of the same kind. To him, the difference between one green and another is as obvious as it is between green and yellow, or between green and red. However, one needs a certain kind of sensitivity in order to see such fine shades. Obviously, people ordinarily don't possess such sensitivity.

A musician is able to catch subtle nuances in music which we cannot. Not only is he able to catch the nuances, he even begins to experience the gap, the emptiness between the two notes. The real music is not born of sound, rather it springs from the moments of silence existing between the sounds. The notes on either side merely do the job of projecting that silence, that's all. But people have no idea of this silence; for them music is no more than noise.

For a master musician, the words, or the notes have no direct bearing upon the music. To him the musical notes merely serve the purpose of emphasizing the state of no-sound that exists in between. So whatever we practice continuously, whatever we resolve persistently, begins to manifest, show results.

The way human beings, birds, animals, plants live, is determined by their will. Whatever we resolve deeply is what we become. There is a significant account in the life of Ramakrishna. In his life Ramakrishna had practiced six or seven spiritual disciplines of different religions. He felt that if all religions lead to the same place, why not follow their methods and verify this truth? So he underwent the disciplines of the Christians, the Sufis, the Vaishnavas, the Shaivites, the Tantrikas, and so on. Whatever method he could lay his hands on, he tried.

However, no one knew what he was doing, because these disciplines were practiced on the inner plane. Outwardly, no one could know what was going on with Ramakrishna. For instance, how could one figure out from the outside what was happening inside him when he followed the discipline of the Sufis? And he himself never mentioned a word about what he was involved in. Nevertheless, in the course of these practices he went through a certain discipline which produced such incredible results that even people from outside could not miss what was happening to him.

There is a sect in Bengal called the sakhi-sampradaya. In this sect, the seeker looks upon himself as Krishna's beloved or wife. He begins to live like Krishna's girlfriend. Whether the seeker is a male or a female doesn't matter. To the followers of this sect, Krishna is the only man; the seeker becomes his beloved, his Radha, his girlfriend.

For six months Ramakrishna practiced the discipline of this sect, and strangely enough, the tone of his voice became feminine. No one could distinguish his voice from a distance. His gait became feminine. Actually, men and women cannot walk alike; their biological structure is basically different.

Since the woman carries a child, she has a special place in her abdomen for that purpose - which is not the case with men. Hence both walk differently. No matter how carefully a woman may take her steps, she can never walk like a man. She can never run like a man does - there is no way; their physical make-up is different.

But Ramakrishna began running like a woman, he began walking like a woman; his gestures, his voice, took on a feminine quality. One could explain away all these changes by assuming that any man with some effort can walk or talk like a woman. The astonishing thing, however, was that his breasts developed and became womanlike. Even this too, one can rationalize by pointing out that many men grow breasts in their old age. But the most incredible thing was that Ramakrishna began to have a regular menstrual period in much the same way as a woman does. For medical science, this phenomenon caused great interest and concern.

After having practiced the discipline for six months, it took a year and a half for Ramakrishna to recover from its impact and come back to his normal state. Just by exercising his will power Ramakrishna assumed he was the girlfriend of Krishna, and his personality changed accordingly.

In Europe, stigmata appear on the hands of many Christian monks. Stigmata are.... When Jesus was crucified, nails were driven into his palms and the blood came out. So there are many Christian monks who, following the morning of Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified, identify themselves with Jesus. They become one with Jesus. As the hour of crucifixion approaches, thousands of people gather to watch them. The monks stand with their arms outspread as if they are tied to the cross. And, as if nails have been driven into their hands, holes appear in their palms and blood begins to flow. With such resolve do they become identified with Jesus that, as it were, they go through an actual crucifixion. Without any means being used, a hole being made, a nail being driven, the blood begins to flow from their hands.

We are not aware of the immense possibilities in which willpower can be effective. Entering death voluntarily is the most profound of all experiments in exercising one's will. Ordinarily it is not difficult to make a resolve in favor of life - we indeed want to live. But it is very difficult to make use of will for the sake of experiencing death.

Those who really want to know the full meaning of life should have an experience of death at least once. Without having seen what death is like, they can never really know what life is worth. That's the only way to realize that they have something of immense value - the elixir of life - which they can know only by passing through the experience of death. One who cannot go through this experience remains sadly deprived, because if he could see once on his own what death is like, the fear of death would no longer exist for him; then there is no death at all.

Simply using your total willpower you can draw your consciousness inside from all parts of your body. You close your eyes and feel that the consciousness is shrinking inward. You feel the energy moving away from your hands and feet towards the inside. You see the energy moving down from your head. The energy begins to converge upon the center from where it originated - the rays begin to withdraw from all points.

If this experiment is carried on with an intense feeling, in an instant the whole body becomes dead; only one point remains inside, alive. The entire body becomes lifeless, while the inner core remains alive like a flame. This living center can now be experienced very well as something separate from the body. It is as though rays of light were spread out in pitch darkness and it was impossible to differentiate between the light and the darkness, and then all the rays were to withdraw and come back in at one point - the contrast between the darkness and light would become clearly apparent.

So when the vital energy inside us withdraws and becomes condensed at a certain point, one begins to feel the entire body separate from that point. Now all you need is a little willpower and it will be out of the body. Then just think of going out of the body, and you will be out of your body. Now you can see the body from outside, lying like a corpse. A thin silver cord will still keep you connected with the navel of your body, however. This is the very passage for going in and out of the body.

You will be amazed to see that as soon as this substance, this condensed energy comes out of the body, it assumes a new form of its own - that it enlarges and becomes a new body. This is the subtle body. It is an exact duplicate of the physical body, except that it's like a fuzzy film, transparent. If anyone were to touch this body, his hand would pass through without affecting it.

So the first principle in the discipline of operating the will is to pull all the life energy inward at one point. The moment this energy becomes condensed at the inner core, it jumps out of the body.

Just a desire to come out of the body, and the phenomenon occurs. And again, just a desire to get back into the body, and it is back in. This does not involve any doing on your part. The only thing that requires any action is that of simply drawing all the energy inside at a certain point. Once that happens, your subtle body can easily get out of the physical body and get back in.

If the seeker goes through this experience once, his entire life is transformed instantly. Then what he had known as life until that moment, he will no longer be able to call it the same. Similarly, he will not look upon death the way he did until then. He will find it a little difficult to run after the things he chased in the past. It will be hard for him to fight for things as he used to. He will no longer be able to ignore things he ignored previously.

Life is bound to change, because it is the kind of experience which can never leave the life just the way it was. Therefore, every seeker of meditation must at some time or other go through the out- of-the-body experience. It's an essential step, which once having been taken brings about incredible consequences for his future.

It's not difficult, only a firm resolve is required. Making a firm resolve is hard, not the technique itself. Hence it's a little difficult to jump directly into this experiment. One needs first to begin experimenting with smaller resolutions. As one succeeds in these, his willpower goes on increasing.

Actually, the various religious practices in the world are not religious practices really. They are, in fact, preparatory to building one's resolve. For example, a man fasts for three days - this is simply a discipline for strengthening one's willpower. Fasting in itself is of little advantage; the real gain lies in the fact that he completed his vow, that he maintained his resolve. Another man declares solemnly that he would stand in one place for twelve hours. Now his standing for twelve hours is of no use; the actual benefit comes from his making that resolve and the completion of it.

By and by, people forgot the basic idea that these techniques were meant for strengthening one's determination. The man thinks standing in itself is enough, so he continues to stand. He loses sight of the fact that simply standing there is purposeless. The basic idea is to exercise the inner firmness which decides to stand, and then sticking to that decision.

Any means can be used in order to fulfill one's determination. Even small resolves can do - no need to make big resolutions. For example, a man may stand in this balcony and resolve not to look below for six hours; even this much will do. The question is not that the man will gain something by not looking downward. The question is that he determined something and went on to fulfill it.

When one determines to do something and does it, his energy within becomes stronger; he becomes more and more centered. He no longer feels like a leaf drifting in the air. A sort of crystallization begins to take place within him. For the first time, some foundations are laid in his life.

So one should begin experimenting with smaller resolves, and this way collect the energy within. We come across lots of opportunities to do so. For example, while driving along the road simply make a resolve that you will not read the billboards. Your doing so is obviously not going to harm anyone, but it's an opportunity to exercise your will. And no one needs to know about it - it's your own inner process.

You will find that with this resolve, sitting in the car even for half an hour did not prove to be worthless. You will come out with the feeling that you have gained something, that you are richer than you were a half hour ago. So the question is not where you experiment, or what means are used for that purpose. I just gave you an example. The point is, you may follow any experiment that will help you strengthen your will-power. It would be good if you carried on with the small ones.

If a man is asked to go in meditation for forty minutes by simply closing his eyes, he can't do it; he opens his eyes frequently and looks around. Now this man is without a will, he is not centered. There are great advantages in closing the eyes, it causes no harm. But this man can't even hold to his resolve by keeping his eyes closed for forty minutes; not much else can be expected of him.

When the same man is asked to breathe deeply and vigorously for ten minutes, within two minutes he slows down his breathing. When you remind him to take deep breaths, he makes one or two feeble attempts and again goes back to slow breathing. This man is not centered at all. Breathing ten minutes deeply is not a very difficult thing to do. And actually the question is not what will be gained or lost by breathing deeply for ten minutes. What is certain, however, is that by resolving to breathe deeply for ten minutes, this man will become centered. Something inside him will become crystallized. He will overcome something, he will succeed in breaking some kind of resistance working inside him. And his vagrant mind will be weakened, because it will come to realize there is no way to push the man around: the only way to get along with him is to obey.

You drive by every day. Maybe you don't read the billboards along the road. But the day you will decide not to read them, your mind will do its utmost to force you to read the advertisements. The power of mind lies in your being irresolute. As your determination grows, the mind goes dead. The stronger the will, the more dead is the mind. The stronger the mind, the weaker becomes the will.

The mind did not press you to look at the billboards in the past because you had not challenged it. Today you posed the challenge. The mind will find a thousand and one excuses for you to look outside. It will contrive a thousand ways to force you to break your resolve and read the signs. It will use all its cunning. This is how things are.

We only live by the mind. A seeker begins to live by his will. One who lives by the mind is not a seeker at all. Only one who lives by his resolve is a true seeker indeed. A seeker means one whose mind is being transformed into will.

So pick very small situations - you can choose for yourself - and then experiment a few times during the day. No one needs to know about it, but there is no need to go into isolation either. Just do the experiment quietly and move along. For example, make a small resolve that "When someone becomes angry at me, I will laugh it off." When carried out a number of times, each experiment will yield such rich dividends that you will thank the person who became angry at you.

So make this tiny resolve: "Whenever anyone gets angry at me, I'll simply laugh, no matter what." Within fifteen days you'll find you have become a different person. The whole quality of your being has changed - you are no longer the same man who lived fifteen days ago. Make very small decisions and try to live up to them. In the process of living the decisions, when you become confident of making bigger decisions, then go ahead and make a little higher resolutions.

The final resolution a seeker should find worth making is that of meeting death voluntarily. The day you feel you can, go ahead and do it. Having determined, the day you see your body lying like a corpse, you will know all that there is to know. Then no scripture in the world, no guru will have anything new to add to it.