"Transcendence"

 

    Tantra says to remain with yourself. Whatsoever you are, accept it. Do not condemn yourself, do not condemn others. Condemnation is futile, energies are not changed by it.

    The first step is to accept. Remain with the fact – this is very scientific – remain with the fact of anger, greed and sex. And know the fact in its total facticity. Do not just touch it from above, from the surface. Know the fact in its totality, in its total facticity. Move into it to the roots. And remember, whenever you can move to the roots of anything you transcend it. If you can know your sex to the very roots, you become the master of it. If you can know your anger to the very roots, you become the master of it. Then anger becomes just instrumental – you can use it.

    Gurdjieff taught his disciples to be rightly angry. We have heard about Buddha’s words: right meditation, right thinking and right contemplation. We have heard about Mahavir’s teaching of right vision and right knowledge. Gurdjieff taught right anger and right greed, and the teaching was influenced by the old tantra tradition. Gurdjieff was condemned very much in the West, because in the West he was a living symbol of tantra.

    He would teach right anger; he would teach you how to be angry totally. If you were angry he would tell you, ”Go on. Do not suppress it, let it come out in its totality. Move into it. Become anger. Do not withhold, do not stand aside. Take a deep jump into it. Let your whole body become a flare, a fire.”

    You have never moved this deeply and you have never seen anyone do so, because everyone is more or less cultured. No one is original; everyone is more or less imitating. No one is original! If you can move into anger totally, you will become just a fire, a burning. The fire will be so deep, the flames will be so deep, that the past and future both will cease immediately. You will become just a present flame. And when your every cell is burning, when every part of the body has become fiery and you have become just anger – not angry – then Gurdjieff will say, ”Now be aware. Do not suppress. Now be aware. Now suddenly be aware of what you have become, of what anger is.”

    In this moment of total presentness one can become suddenly aware, and you can start laughing at the absurdity of the whole thing, at the foolishness, at the stupidity of the whole thing. But this is not suppression; this is laughter. You can laugh at yourself because you have transcended yourself. Never again will anger be capable of mastering you.

    You have known anger in its totality, and still you could laugh and still you could go beyond it. You could see from beyond your anger. Once you have seen its totality, you know what anger is. And now you also know that even if the whole energy transforms into anger, still you can be an observer, a witness. So there is no fear. Remember this: that which is not known always creates fear. That which is dark always creates fear. You are afraid of your own anger.

    So people go on saying that we suppress anger because it is not good to be angry, it may hurt others. But that is not the real cause. The real cause is that they are afraid of their anger. If they really get angry, they do not know what may happen. They are afraid of themselves. They have never known anger. It is a very fearful thing, hidden inside, so they are afraid of it. That is why they fall in line with the society, with the culture, with the education, and they say, ”We must not be angry. Anger is bad. It hurts others.”

    You are afraid of your anger, you are afraid of your sex. You have never been in sex totally. You have never been in sex so totally that you could have forgotten yourself. You were always there; your mind was always there. And if the mind is there in the sex act, then the act is just pseudo, bogus. The mind must dissolve; you must become just body. There must not be any thinking. If thinking is there, you are divided. Then the sex act is nothing but releasing overflowing energy. It is a release, nothing else. But you are afraid to be totally in sex. That is why you fall in line, why you toe the line with the society and say that sex is bad. You are afraid!

    Why are you afraid? Because if you move into sex totally, you do not know what you can do, you do not know what can happen, you do not know what animal force may come up, you do not know what your unconscious may throw you into. You do not know! Then you will not be the master; you will not be in control. Your self-image may be destroyed. Thus you control the sex act. And the way to control it is to remain in the mind. Let the sex act be there, but local.

    Try to understand this ‘local’ and ‘general’. Tantra says a sex act is local when only your sex center is involved. It is local; it is a local release. The sex center keeps on accumulating energy. When it is overflowing you have to release it; otherwise it will create tensions, it will create heaviness. You release it, but it is a local release. Your whole body, your whole self is not involved. Non-local, total involvement means that every fiber of the body, every cell of the body, whatsoever you are, is in it. Your whole being has become sexual. Not only your sex center, your whole being has become sexual.

    But then you are afraid because then anything is possible. And you do not know what can happen because you have never known the totality. You may do certain things of which you cannot conceive.

    Your unconscious will explode. You will become not one animal, but many animals, because you have passed through many lives, through many animal bodies. You may start howling, you may start screaming, you may start roaring like a lion. You do not know.

    Anything is possible – that creates fear. You need to be in control so that you never lose yourself in anything. That is why you never know anything. And unless you know, you cannot transcend.

    Accept, move deep, go to the very roots. This is tantra. Tantra stands for deep experiences. Anything    experienced can be transcended; anything suppressed can never be transcended.