The experience of the ultimate is not an experience at all because the experiencer is lost. And when there is no experiencer, what can be said about it? Who will say it? Who will relate the experience? When there is no subject, the object also disappears; the banks disappear, only the river of experience remains. Knowledge is there, but the knower is not.

That has been the problem for all the mystics. They reach the ultimate, but they cannot relate it to those who are following. They cannot relate it to others who would like to have an intellectual understanding. They have become one with it. Their whole being relates it, but no intellectual communication is possible. They can give it to you if you are ready to receive; they can allow it to happen in you if you also allow it, if you are receptive and open. But words won’t do, symbols won’t help; theories and doctrines are of no use at all.

The experience is such that it is more like an experiencing than like an experience. It is a process, and it begins, but it never ends. You enter it, but you never possess it. It is like a drop dropping into the ocean, or the ocean itself dropping into the drop. It is a deep merger, it is oneness: you simply melt away into it. Nothing is left behind, not even a trace, so who will communicate? Who will come back to the world of the valley? Who will come back to this dark night to tell you?

All the mystics all over the world have always felt impotent as far as communication is concerned. Communion is possible, but not communication. This has to be understood from the very beginning. Communion is a totally different dimension: two hearts meet; it is a love affair. Communication is from head to head; communion is from heart to heart, communion is a feeling. Communication is knowledge: only words are given, only words are said, and only words are taken and understood. And words are such… The very nature of words is so dead that nothing alive can be related through them. Even in ordinary life – leave aside the ultimate – even in ordinary experiencing when you have a peak moment, an ecstatic moment, when you really feel something and become something, it becomes impossible to relate it in words.

In my childhood I used to go to the river early in the morning. It is a small village. The river is very, very lazy, as if not flowing at all, and in the morning when the sun has not yet arisen, you cannot see whether it is flowing, it is so lazy and silent. In the morning when there is nobody – the bathers have not come yet – it is tremendously silent. Even the birds are not singing in the early morning, no sound, just a soundlessness pervades. And the smell of the mango trees hangs all over the river.

I used to go there, to the furthest corner of the river, just to sit, just to be there. There was no need to do anything, just being there was enough; it was such a beautiful experience to be there. I would take a bath, I would swim, and when the sun rose I would go to the other shore, to the vast expanse of sand, and dry myself there under the sun, and lie there and sometimes even go to sleep. When I came back, my mother used to ask, “What have you been doing the whole morning?” I would say, “Nothing,” because actually, I had not been doing anything. And she would say, “How is it possible? For hours you have not been here, how is it possible that you have not been doing anything? You must have been doing something.”

And she was right, but also I was not wrong. I was not doing anything at all. I was just there being with the river, not doing anything, allowing things to happen. If I felt like swimming – remember if I felt like swimming – I would swim, but it was not a doing on my part, I was not forcing anything. If I felt like going to sleep, I would go. Things were happening, but there was no doer. And my first experiences of satori started near that river; not doing anything, simply being there, millions of things happened.

But she would insist, “You must have been doing something.” So I would say, “Okay, I took a bath and I dried myself in the sun,” and then she was satisfied. But I was not, because what happened there in the river is not expressed by the words “I took a bath”; it looks so poor and pale. Playing with the river, floating in the river, swimming in the river, was such a deep experience. To simply say, “I took a bath,” makes no sense, or just to say, “I went there, had a walk on the bank, sat there,” conveys nothing.

Even in ordinary life you feel the futility of words. And if you don’t feel the futility of words, that shows that you have not been alive at all, that shows that you have lived very superficially. If whatsoever you have been living can be conveyed by words, it means you have not lived at all.

When for the first time something starts happening which is beyond words, life has happened to you, life has knocked at your door. And when the ultimate knocks at your door, you have simply gone beyond words: you become dumb, you cannot speak, not even a single word is formed inside. Whatsoever you say looks so pale, so dead, so meaningless, without any significance. It seems that you are doing injustice to the experience which has happened to you.

Remember this because Mahamudra is the last, the ultimate experience. Mahamudra means a total orgasm with the universe.

If you have loved somebody, and sometimes you have felt a melting and merging, the two are no longer two. The bodies remain separate, but something between the bodies makes a bridge, a golden bridge, and the twoness inside disappears; one life energy vibrates at both the poles. If it has happened to you, only then can you understand what Mahamudra is: millions and millions times deeper, millions and millions times higher is Mahamudra. It is a total orgasm with the whole, with the universe. It is melting into the source of being.

And this is The Song of Mahamudra. It is beautiful that Tilopa has called it a song. You can sing it, but you cannot say it; you can dance it, but you cannot say it. It is such a deep phenomenon that singing may convey a tiny, small part of it – not what you sing, but the way you sing it.

Many mystics have simply danced after their ultimate experience; they could not do anything else. They were saying something through their whole being and body all together: body, mind, soul, and everything involved in it. They were dancing; those dances were not ordinary dances. In fact, all dancing was born because of these mystics; it was a way to relate the ecstasy, the happiness, the bliss. Something of the unknown has penetrated into the known, something of the beyond has come to the earth – what else can you do? You can dance it; you can sing it.

This is a song of Mahamudra. Who will sing it? Tilopa is no more. The orgasmic feeling itself is singing. It is not a song of Tilopa; Tilopa is no more. The experience itself is vibrating and singing. Hence The Song of Mahamudra: the song of ecstasy, ecstasy itself singing it. Tilopa has nothing to do; Tilopa is not there at all, Tilopa has melted. When the seeker is lost, only then is the goal achieved. Only when the experiencer is no longer there, is the experience there.

Seek and you will miss it because through your seeking, the seeker will be strengthened. Don’t seek and you will find it. The very seeking, the very effort, becomes a barrier because the more you seek, the more the ego, the seeker, is strengthened. Do not seek!

This is the deepest message of this whole Song of Mahamudra: do not seek, just remain as you are, don’t go anywhere else. Nobody ever reaches God; nobody can because you don’t know the address. Where will you go? Where will you find the divine? There is no map, there is no way, and there is nobody to say where he is. No, nobody ever reaches God. It is always the reverse: God comes to you. Whenever you are ready, he knocks at your door; he seeks you whenever you are ready. And the readiness is nothing but receptivity. When you are completely receptive and there is no ego, you become a hollow temple with nobody in it.

Tilopa says in the song, become like a hollow bamboo: nothing inside. And suddenly, the moment you are a hollow bamboo, the divine lips are on you, the hollow bamboo becomes a flute and the song starts – this is The Song of Mahamudra. Tilopa has become a hollow bamboo, the divine has come and the song has started. It is not Tilopa’s song; it is the song of the ultimate experience itself.

Something about Tilopa before we enter this beautiful phenomenon. Nothing much is known about Tilopa because nothing in fact can be known about such persons. They don’t leave a trace. They don’t become a part of history. They exist by the side, they are not part of the main traffic where the whole of humanity is moving; they don’t move there. The whole of humanity moves through desiring, and people like Tilopa move into desirelessness. They simply move away from the main traffic of humanity where history exists.

The more they go away from the traffic, the more mythological they become. They exist like a myth. They are no longer events in time, and this is as it should be because they move beyond time, they live beyond time; they live in eternity. They simply disappear from this dimension of our common humanity; they evaporate. We remember only that moment when they are evaporating; for only that long are they a part of us. That’s why nothing much is known about Tilopa, about who he is.

Only this song exists. This is his gift, and the gift was given to his disciple, Naropa. These gifts cannot be given to anybody unless a deep love intimacy exists. One has to be capable to receive such gifts. This song has been given to Naropa, his disciple. Before this song was given to Naropa, Naropa was tested in millions of ways: his faith, his love, and trust. When it became known that nothing like doubt exists in him, not even a tiny part of doubt, when his heart was totally full with trust and love, then this song was given.

I am also here to sing a song, but it can be given to you only when you are ready. And your readiness means that doubt should simply disappear from the mind; it should not be suppressed, you should not try to defeat it because defeated it will remain in you, suppressed it will remain part of your unconscious and it will go on affecting you. Don’t fight your doubting mind; don’t suppress it. Rather, on the contrary, simply bring more and more energy into trust. Simply be indifferent to your doubting mind; nothing else can be done.

Indifference is the key: you are simply indifferent. It is there; accept it. Bring your energies more and more toward trust and love because it is all the same energy. The energy which becomes doubt is the same as that which becomes trust. Remain indifferent to doubt. The moment you are indifferent your cooperation is broken; you are not feeding it – because it is through attention that anything is fed. If you pay attention to your doubt, even if you are against it, paying attention to it is dangerous because the very attention is food; that is how you cooperate with it. One has to be just indifferent, neither for nor against: don’t be for doubt; don’t be against doubt.

So, now you will have to understand three words. One word is doubt, another word is belief, and the third word is trust or faith, known in the East as shraddha.

Doubt is a negative attitude toward anything. Whatsoever is said, first you look at it negatively. You are against it, and you will find reasons, rationalizations to support your negativity.

Then there is the mind of belief. It is just like the mind of doubt only standing upside down; there is not much difference. This mind looks at things positively and tries to find reasons, rationalizations to support it, to be for it. The mind that doubts suppresses belief; the mind that believes suppresses doubt. But they are both of the same stuff; the quality is not different.

Then there is a third mind, whose doubting has simply disappeared. And when doubt disappears, belief disappears. Faith is not belief; it is love. Faith is not belief because it is not halfhearted; it is total. Faith is not belief because there is no doubt in it, so how can you believe? Faith is not a rationalization at all: neither for nor against, neither this nor that. Faith is a trusting, a deep trusting: love. You don’t find any rationalizations for it; it simply is so.

So what to do? Don’t create belief against faith. Just be indifferent to both belief and doubt, and bring your energies toward more and more love. Love more, love unconditionally. Not only love me, because that is not possible; if you love, you simply love more. If you love, you simply exist in a more loving way – not only toward the master but toward everything that exists around you: toward the trees and the stones and the sky and the earth. You, your being, your very quality of being becomes a love phenomenon. Then trust arises and only in such a trust can a gift like The Song of Mahamudra be given. When Naropa was ready, Tilopa gave this gift.

So remember, with a master you are not on a head trip. Doubt and belief are all head trips. With a master you are on a “heart trip.” And the heart doesn’t know what doubt is, the heart doesn’t know what belief is; the heart simply knows trust. The heart is just like a small child. The small child clings to the father’s hand, and wherever the father is going the child goes, neither trusting nor doubting; the child is undivided. Doubt is half; belief is half. A child is still total, whole; he simply goes with his father wherever he is going. When a disciple becomes just like a child, only then can these gifts of the highest peak of consciousness be given.

When you become the deepest valley of receptivity, then the highest peaks of consciousness can be given to you. Only a valley can receive a peak. A disciple should be absolutely feminine, receptive, like a womb. Only then does such a phenomenon happen as is going to happen in this song.

Tilopa is the master, Naropa is the disciple, and Tilopa says:

[Mahamudra is beyond all words and symbols,
but for you, Naropa, earnest and loyal,
must this be said...]

It is beyond words and symbols, all words and all symbols. Then how can it be said? If it is really beyond all words and symbols, then how can it be said? Then is there any way? Yes, there is a way; if there is a Naropa, there is a way. If there is really a disciple, there is a way. It depends on the disciple whether the way will be found or not.

If the disciple is so receptive that he has no mind of his own, he does not judge whether it is right or wrong. He has no mind of his own, he has surrendered his mind to the master, he is simply receptivity, an emptiness ready to welcome whatsoever is given unconditionally; then words and symbols are not needed, then something can be given. You can listen to it between the words, you can read between the lines, then words are just an excuse. The real thing happens just by the side of the words.

A word is just a trick, a device. The real thing follows the words like a shadow. If you are too much of the mind, you will listen to the words, and then it cannot be communicated. But if you are not a mind at all, then the subtle shadows that follow the words – very subtle, only the heart can see them, invisible shadows, invisible ripples of consciousness, vibes, then communion is immediately possible.

Remember this.
Says Tilopa: […but for you, Naropa, earnest and loyal, must this be said.]

That which cannot be said, must be said for a disciple. That which cannot be said, which is absolutely invisible, must be made visible for the disciple. It depends not only on the master; it depends even more on the disciple. Tilopa was fortunate to find a Naropa. There have been a few unfortunate masters who never found a disciple like Naropa. So whatsoever they had gained disappeared with them because there was nobody to receive it.

Sometimes masters have traveled thousands of miles to find a disciple. Tilopa himself went from India to Tibet to find Naropa, to find a disciple. Tilopa wandered all over India and couldn’t find a man of that quality who would receive such a gift, who would appreciate such a gift, who would be able to absorb it, to be reborn through it. Once Naropa received the gift, he became totally transformed. Then Tilopa is reported to have said to him, “Now go and find your own Naropa.”

Naropa was also fortunate in that way, he found a disciple whose name was Marpa. Marpa was also very fortunate; he found a disciple whose name was Milarepa. But then the tradition disappeared, then there were no more disciples of that great caliber. Many times religion has come to the earth and disappeared; again many times will it come and disappear. A religion cannot become a church; a religion cannot become a sect. A religion depends on personal communication, on personal communion. The religion of Tilopa existed for only four generations: from Naropa to Milarepa, then it disappeared. Religion is just like an oasis: the desert is vast, and sometimes, in tiny parts of the desert, an oasis appears. While it lasts, seek it; and while it is there, drink of it – it is very, very rare.

Jesus says many times to his disciples, “I am here a little while longer and while I am here, eat me, drink me. Don’t miss this opportunity,” because then thousands of years…and a man like Jesus may not be there. The desert is vast. The oasis sometimes appears and disappears because the oasis comes from the unknown; it needs an anchor on this earth. If the anchor is not there, it cannot remain here. Naropa is an anchor.

I would like to say the same to you, “While I am here a little while longer, don’t miss the opportunity.” And you can miss it in trivial things. You can remain occupied with nonsense, with mental garbage. You can go on thinking for and against, and the oasis will soon disappear. You can think for and against later on. Right now drink of it because afterward there will be many lives during which to think for and against, then there will be no hurry for it. But while it lasts, drink of it.

Once you are drunk with a Jesus or a Naropa you are totally transformed. The transformation is very, very easy and simple; it is a natural process. All that is needed is to become the soil and receive the seed, to become a womb and receive the seed.

[Mahamudra is beyond all words and symbols,
but for you, Naropa, earnest and loyal,
must this be said...]

It cannot be uttered, it is unutterable, but it has to be said for a Naropa. Wherever a disciple is ready, the master appears, has to appear. Wherever there is a deep need, it has to be fulfilled. The whole existence responds to your deepest need, but the need must be there; otherwise you can pass a Tilopa, a Buddha, a Jesus and may not even be able to see that you passed them.

Tilopa lived in this country. Nobody listened to him – and he was ready to give the ultimate gift. What happened? And it has happened in this country many times – there must be something behind it. It has happened more in this country than anywhere else because more Tilopas have been born here. But why does it happen that a Tilopa has to go to Tibet? Why does it happen that a Bodhidharma has to go to China?

This country knows too much, this country has become too much in the head. That’s why it is difficult to find a heart: the country of brahmins and pundits, the country of great knowers, philosophers. They know all the Vedas, all the Upanishads; they can recite by memory all the scriptures – a country of heads. That’s why it has happened so many times.

Even I feel – so many times I feel it – that whenever a brahmin comes here, it is difficult to communicate. A man who knows too much, becomes almost impossible because he knows without knowing. He has gathered many concepts, theories, doctrines, scriptures. It is just a burden on his consciousness; it is not a flowering. It has not happened to him; it is all borrowed, and all that is borrowed is rubbish, rot. Throw it away as soon as you can.

Only that which happens to you is true. Only that which flowers in you is true. Only that which grows in you is true and alive. Remember it always: avoid borrowed knowledge. Borrowed knowledge becomes a trick of the mind; it hides ignorance, it never destroys it. The more you are surrounded by knowledge, deep inside at the center, at the very root of your being, is ignorance and darkness. And a man of knowledge, borrowed knowledge, is almost closed within his own knowledge; you cannot penetrate him. It is difficult to find his heart; he himself has lost all contact with his heart. So it is not incidental that a Tilopa has to go to Tibet, a Bodhidharma to China. A seed has to travel so far, not finding soil here.

Remember this, because it is easy to become too addicted to knowledge. It is an addiction; it is a drug. LSD and marijuana are not so dangerous. And in a way they are similar because marijuana gives you a glimpse of something which is not there; it gives you a dream of something, which is absolutely subjective, it gives you a hallucination. Knowledge is the same: it gives you a hallucination of knowing. You start feeling that you know because you can recite the Vedas, you know because you can argue, you know because you have a very, very logical and keen mind. Don’t be a fool. Logic has never led anybody to truth. A rational mind is just a game. All arguments are juvenile. Life exists without any argument, and truth needs no proofs; it needs only your heart, not arguments, but your love, your trust, your readiness to receive.

[Mahamudra is beyond all words and symbols,
but for you, Naropa, earnest and loyal,
must this be said:

The Void needs no reliance,
Mahamudra rests on naught.
Without making an effort,
but remaining loose and natural,
one can break the yoke --
thus gaining Liberation.]

You cannot find more significant words ever uttered. Try to understand every nuance of what Tilopa is trying to say.

[The Void needs no reliance...]

If there is something, it needs a support; it needs reliance. But if there is nothing, emptiness, there is no need for any support. And this is the deepest realization of all the knowers: that your being is a non-being. To say it is a being is wrong because it is not some thing, it is not like some thing. It is like nothing: a vast emptiness, with no boundaries to it. It is an anatma, a no-self; it is not a self inside you. All feelings of self are false. All identifications, “I am this and that,” are false.

When you come to the ultimate, when you come to your deepest core, you suddenly know that you are neither this nor that; you are no one. You are not an ego; you are just a vast emptiness. And sometimes if you sit, close your eyes and just feel who you are – where are you? Go deeper and you may become afraid because the deeper you go, the deeper you feel that you are nobody, a nothingness. That’s why people become so scared of meditation. It is a death. It is a death of the ego, and the ego is just a false concept.

Now physicists have come to the same truth through their scientific research deepening into the realm of matter. What Buddha, Tilopa and Bodhidharma reached through their insight, science has been discovering in the outside world also. Now they say there is no substance, substance is a parallel concept of self. A rock exists; you feel that it is very substantial. You can hit somebody’s head and blood will come out, the man may even die; it is very substantial. But ask the physicists; they say it is a “no-substance,” there is nothing in it. They say that it is just an energy phenomenon: many energy currents crisscrossing on this rock give it a feeling of substance. Just as you draw many lines crisscrossing on a piece of paper, where many lines cross a point, a point arises. The point was not there, two lines cross and a point arises, many lines cross and a big point arises. Is that point really there, or do lines crossing just give an illusion of a point being there?

Physicists say that energy currents crisscrossing create matter. If you ask what these energy currents are, they are not material; they have no weight; they are nonmaterial. Nonmaterial lines crisscrossing give an illusion of a material thing: very substantial like a rock.

Buddha achieved this illumination twenty-five centuries before Einstein: that inside there is nobody, only energy lines crisscrossing give you a feeling of the self. Buddha used to say that the self is just like an onion: you peel it; one layer comes off, another layer is there. You go on peeling, layer by layer, and what remains finally? The whole onion is peeled, and you find nothing inside.

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