SUFIES LIVE IN HELLUCINATION

This entry into oneself is the ultimate growth. You suddenly blossom. It is not a slow gradual growth, no. The word growth gives a wrong impression, as if slowly, slowly.... No, it is a sudden outburst. One moment you were nothing; another moment, a quantum leap – you are all, because you have tasted your being and that being is exactly the same as the universal being. But that is the only door available. There is no other door. No church can help you, no synagogue can help you, no temple can help you. There is only one door which can help you, and that is within you.

Taking a jump into yourself, you have plunged into existence. In that moment you feel a tremendous oneness with all. Then you are no longer lonely, no longer alone, because there is nobody who is other than you. There is only you expanded in all directions, in all possible manifestations. It is you flowering in the tree; it is you moving in a white cloud. It is you in the ocean, in the river. It is you in the animals, in the people. And it is not something that you have to project or think. That's what pseudo-religions have been doing. They tell you, "Think that you are one with all. Concentrate, discipline your mind to believe that you are one with all." Yes, if you try hard you may start believing it, that you are one with all, but that will be simply a belief.
One Sufi was brought to me; he had many followers. And many followers of his had come to me and told me, "When our master comes, we would like you to meet."

He used to come only once a year to that place, so I said, "Whenever he comes you bring him." They said, "He is a realized man. He sees God everywhere."

I said, "I will not comment on it till I see him." The day came, he arrived. I told his disciples, "You bring him directly to me. Let him be my guest." They brought him directly from the station, and he was in an ecstatic fever; that's what you can call it. His eyes... his body was all not in an ordinary state – vibrant. Anybody could see it. And he would hug the trees.... I had a beautiful garden. Only I used to call it a garden, everybody else used to call it a jungle. It was really a jungle, because I don't like English gardens – well cut, symmetrical. No, I want something like a jungle, natural, where no symmetry exists.

He came inside the gate, and just by the side of the gate there was a beautiful maulshree tree. He hugged it. It was in blossom, and it is one of the most beautiful perfumes. He started crying in joy. I had to take him away from the tree. I said, "The tree is not that strong yet. You may kill the tree. You please come in the house, and if you want to hug the trees, I have many big trees; you can do as much hugging and wrestling and gymnastics and whatsoever, as you want to do. But this tree, don't torture it!"

Suddenly anger: "What!" he said, "Are you saying I am torturing the tree? I was loving it." I said, "I know. Sometimes you can hug somebody lovingly. It used to happen to me when I was traveling in Punjab...."

Punjab must be the Oregon of India. Somehow all the idiots of the country have managed to live in Punjab. And it was so difficult for me to get from the railway platform to the car, because everybody was hugging, and out of love – and a Punjabi hug... you cannot imagine it: my whole body felt the ache, particularly my ribs. And I told my friends, "Please, these hugs – I am not ready to receive that much love. It is too much. You have to prevent it, otherwise I will stop coming to Punjab." These idiots don't know that "hug" does not mean that you crush the other person. And certainly they were doing it very lovingly, but you can kill very lovingly.

So I said to the Sufi, "Come into the house. Don't be angry. That tree is not strong enough, and that tree is very special; don't destroy it. I became enlightened under a maulshree tree, so my people have brought that tree from the original maulshree tree, as a seed. They have grown it, and it is still not strong enough for your hug. You come inside."

He came inside, and he started talking in the same way he must have been talking to his disciples: "I see God everywhere, only God and nothing else."

I said, "If you see only God and nothing else, then to whom are you talking? If there is only God and nothing else then to whom are you talking and for what purpose? God must know it. Keep silent!" When all his disciples had gone I told him, "I know what has happened to you. You have been hypnotizing yourself for thirty years to feel that God is everywhere, and now it has become a continuity of a certain posthypnotic suggestion that you are carrying. And you are continuing it because you know perfectly well that if you stop talking about it, it will disappear within hours."
He said, "No, it cannot disappear. I see God everywhere."

I said, "Then for three days stop talking about God, and stop practicing anything. That 'God is everywhere' – don't repeat it; for three days forget about it. For thirty years you have done your work, now for three days let me show you what you have gained in thirty years."

And it didn't... it was not necessary even to take three days. Just the next morning he said to me, "What I had gained in thirty years, you have destroyed in one day. You are against religion – you are an enemy of religion!"

I said, "Of course I am an enemy of religion – the kind of religion that you have believed in. And I am against all this nonsense, because what is the meaning of thirty years practicing if it can be lost in one day? Then practicing even for three hundred years, it can be lost in three days! Or for three lives in maybe three months – but it can be destroyed. It is not your experience; it is just an imposed idea."

So I don't say that you have to start thinking in terms of everything being divine and that all is God. That is rubbish. Never start from anything which is basically a belief. Just take a jump into yourself, and don't ask me what you will find there, because if I tell you what you will find there, you will immediately start hypnotizing yourself for it. Then you will find it, but it will not be the true thing. It will only be a hallucination.

Just take the jump within, and you will come to know. You will come to feel. You will come to experience. Religion is experiencing the truth.

(From Unconsciousness To Consciousness # 27)

Sufi music and dance:

Take an example in musical assemblies. We do not attend them nor do we employ music. This is because for our time and in our position there is more harm than good in it. Music, heard in right way, improve the approach to the Consciousness. But it will harm people who are not sufficiently prepared, or of the correct type, for hearing and playing it.

Those who do not know this have adopted music as something sacred in itself. The feelings which they experience while indulging in it they mistake for sublime ones. In fact they are using it for the lower purpose of arousing sentiment, emotion which is no basis for further progress.

(A Naqsband Sufi Master)