Tantra believes, not in gradual development of the soul, but in sudden enlightenment. Yoga believes in gradual development: inch by inch, step by step, you progress toward the final. Yoga is very arithmetical: for each sin that you have committed you have to balance it by a virtuous act; your account has to be closed completely. Without completing the account with this world, you cannot become enlightened.

It is a mathematical conception, scientific, and the mind will say, “Of course, it has to be so. You committed sins, who is going to suffer for them? You committed the sins; you have to suffer for them. And only through suffering can you become liberated. Your acts have been evil; you have to balance them, you have to pay for them, and you have to perform good acts. When the balance is complete, only then is liberation possible; otherwise you will have to be thrown again and again to the earth, to be reborn, to move, to grow.” That is the whole philosophy of transmigration, rebirth.

Tantra says just the opposite. Tantra is a very, very poetic approach, not arithmetical. And Tantra believes in love, not in mathematics; it believes in sudden enlightenment. And it says that small teachings teach you about action; great teachings don’t teach you about how to act, they teach you what to be, how to be.

Actions are millions, and if you have to pay for all the actions, it seems almost impossible that you are ever going to be liberated. You have lived millions of lives; in each life, you have committed millions of acts. If you are going to pay, suffer for all those acts, and you have to balance each bad act with a good one, it will again take you millions of lives. And meanwhile, in the complex relationship of life, you will be committing many more actions. So where will this chain end? It seems impossible. Liberation becomes almost impossible; it cannot happen. If this is the way, that inch by inch one has to grow, then growth seems an impossible dream.

If you understand the attitude of Yoga, you will feel very, very hopeless. Tantra is a great hope. Tantra is like an oasis in a world of deserts. Tantra says that this is not the point at all: acts are not the question. You committed them because you were ignorant; they came out of your ignorance. In fact, Tantra says you are not responsible for them. If somebody is responsible, then the whole – you may call it God – God may be responsible, but you cannot be responsible. Tantra says that even to take on this responsibility is very egoistic. To say, “I will have to balance that, I will have to do good acts, I will have to liberate myself inch by inch and step by step,” this too is a very egoistic, ego-centered attitude.

Why do you think you are responsible? Even if responsibility has to be somewhere, then it has to be with the divine itself, with the whole. You have not created yourself, you have not given birth to yourself. You have been given birth, you have been created; then the creator must be responsible, not you. And you committed all your actions in ignorance, you were not aware of what you were doing – you were completely drunk with ignorance. In darkness you were groping, in darkness you came in conflict with others, in darkness you stumbled upon things and something happened.

Tantra says the only thing that is needed is light, awareness. Millions of acts don’t have to be answered; only one thing has to be done and that is: don’t remain ignorant, become aware. Once you become aware, all that belongs to the world of darkness disappears. It will look like a dream, a nightmare. It will not look like reality. It has not been a reality because when you are unconscious deep down, only dreams can exist, not reality.

You have been dreaming that you loved. You cannot love. You are not there to love. You still don’t exist; you don’t have any center. How can you love? You only believe that you love, and then your love life and the acts concerned with it become a dream. When you awaken out of this dreaming, you will simply say, “How could I have loved? Impossible! I was not there in the first place. I was non-existential in fact.” Without awareness, what does it mean to say “I am”? It means nothing.

You are fast asleep, so deeply asleep, as if you are not there. A person fast asleep, in a coma in the house – is he really there? There is no distinction to be made. Whether he is there or not makes no difference; he is in a coma. If thieves come and rob the whole house, will you call that man responsible who is lying down in a coma unconscious? Will he be responsible? Will he be asked and judged: “Thieves came! What were you doing here?” How can you make a man responsible who is in a coma, unconscious?

Tantra says in all your lives you have remained in a coma – you are not responsible. This is the first liberation that Tantra gives you. And on the basis of it, many things immediately become possible. Then you need not wait for millions of lives – this very moment the door can open. It is not a gradual process, it is a sudden awakening – and it has to be so.

When you are fast asleep and somebody tries to wake you up, is it a gradual process or a sudden thing? Even in ordinary sleep, is it a gradual process? Is it like this: that first you become a little awake, then a little more, and then a little more; ten percent, twenty percent, thirty percent, fifty percent; does it happen that way? No. You are awake or you are asleep; there are no gradual steps in it. If you have heard the man who is calling your name, you are awake, not ten percent awake. The eyes may be closed, but if you have become aware that somebody is calling you, then you are already awake. It is not a gradual process; it is a sudden jump.

At one hundred degrees, the water jumps and becomes vapor. Is there any gradual transformation? Does the water first become ten percent, twenty percent, thirty percent? No, it is either water or it is vapor; there is no middle ground to be divided.

When a person dies, is he dead by and by, in a gradual process? Can you say that he is half alive and half dead? What will it mean? How can a person be half alive? Either he is dead or he is not dead. Half alive means he is not dead.

When you love a person, do you love ten percent, twenty percent, thirty percent? Either you love or you don’t love. Is there any possibility of dividing your love? There is no possibility. Love, life, death, they all happen suddenly.

When a child is born, he is either born or not born. And the same is true about enlightenment because that is the ultimate birth, ultimate death, ultimate life, ultimate love – everything comes to its ultimate peak in enlightenment. It is a sudden thing.

Tantra says: don’t focus your attention on the acts; focus your attention on the person who has done the acts. Yoga focuses on the acts. Tantra focuses on the person, on the consciousness, on you. If you are ignorant, Tantra says you are bound to commit sin. Even if you try to be virtuous, your virtue will be a sort of sin because how can an ignorant man, fast asleep, be virtuous? How can virtue arise out of ignorance, unconsciousness? Impossible! Your virtue must be just a mask; behind it will be the real face, the real face of sin.

You may talk about love, but you cannot love – you will hate. You can talk about compassion, but compassion must be just a covering of your anger, greed, jealousy. Your love is poisonous. Deep inside your love is the worm of hate, eating it continuously. Your love is like a wound; it hurts. It is not like a flower, it cannot be. And those who expect love from you are fools; they are asking the impossible. Those who ask morality of you are fools, they are asking the impossible. Your morality is bound to be a sort of immorality.

Look at your moral persons, your so-called saints. Watch and observe them and you will find their faces are just the faces of hypocrisy, deception. They say something; they do something else. They do something, and they not only hide it from you – they have become so clever in hiding, they hide it from themselves.

In ignorance, sin is natural. In enlightenment, virtue is natural. A buddha cannot sin; you cannot do otherwise – you can only sin. Sin and virtue are not your decisions, they are not your acts; they are shadows of your being. If you awaken, then the shadow falls and the shadow is full of light. And the shadow never harms anybody, it cannot harm; it has a flavor of the unknown, of the immortal. It can only shower on you like a blessing; otherwise is not possible.

Even if a buddha gets angry with you, it is compassion; it cannot be otherwise. Your compassion is not true; a buddha’s anger cannot be true. Your sin, your natural shadow, whatsoever you do – you can decorate it, you can make a temple on top of it, you can hide it, you can beautify it, but that won’t help. Deep inside you will find it there because it is not a question of what you do, it is a question of what you are.

Look at the emphasis. If you understand this change of emphasis, and this change of emphasis is a great point, only then you will be able to understand Tantra. Tantra is a great teaching. It doesn’t teach about acts, it teaches only about your being. Who you are, is the point: fast asleep, snoring, or awake? Who are you: alert, conscious, or moving in a hypnotic state? Are you a sleepwalker or are you awake, alert, whatsoever you do? Do you do it with self-remembrance? No, it happens. You don’t know why or from where it comes, from what part of the unconscious an urge comes which possesses you and you have to act.

Whatsoever the society says about this act – moral or immoral, sin or virtue – Tantra doesn’t bother about it. Tantra looks at you, at the very center of your being from where it comes. Out of the poison of your ignorance, life cannot come, only death. Out of your darkness, only darkness is born. And that seems to be absolutely natural.

So what to do? Should we try to change the acts? Should we try to become more moral, virtuous, respectable? Or should we try to change the being? The being can be changed. There is no need to wait for it for infinite lives. If you have the intensity of understanding, if you bring your total effort, energy, being, to understand it, in that very intensity, a light suddenly burns in you. A flame comes up from your being like lightning, and your whole past and your whole future is suddenly in your vision. You understand what has happened, you understand what is happening, you understand what is going to happen. Suddenly everything has become clear, as if it was dark and somebody brought a light, and suddenly everything is clear.

Tantra believes in burning your inner light. And Tantra says that with that light, the past simply becomes irrelevant. It never belonged to you. Of course, it happened, but happened as if in a dream and you were fast asleep. It happened, you did many things, good and bad, but they all happened in unconsciousness, you were not responsible. And suddenly everything of the past is burned down, a fresh and virgin being comes up – this is sudden enlightenment.

Yoga appeals to people because it looks very businesslike. You can understand Patanjali very easily because he fits with your own mind, the logical mind, the mathematical thinking. Tilopa is difficult to comprehend, but Tilopa is rare. Patanjali’s understanding is common – that’s why there has been so much influence by Patanjali all through history.

People like Tilopa have simply disappeared without leaving any trace on the human mind because they couldn’t find affinity with you. Patanjali may be very, very great, but still he belongs to the same dimension. You may be a very, very small thinker, and Patanjali may be a great, great thinker, but you belong to the same dimension. If you make a little effort you can understand Patanjali; if you make a little effort you can practice Patanjali. Only a little effort is needed, nothing more.

But to understand Tilopa you have to enter a completely unknown dimension. To understand Tilopa you have to move through chaos. He will destroy all your conceptions, all your mathematics, all your logic, all your philosophy. He will simply destroy you completely. He will not be satisfied unless you are completely destroyed and a new being arises.

With Patanjali you will be modified, you will become better and better and better; and the process is infinite, you can go on for many lives becoming better and better and better. With Tilopa, in a second, you can reach to the ultimate. “Better” is not the question because he doesn’t think in degrees.

It is just as if you are standing on top of a hill, you can take a path of steps and one by one you go downward to the valley, or from the valley you go up to the hill, but by steps. With Tilopa you simply jump into the abyss, no steps are there; or you simply spread your wings and you start flying.

With Patanjali you move in a bullock cart, very slowly, safe, secure, no fear of any accident, the bullock cart always in control. You can step down any moment, you can stop at any moment; nothing beyond you, you remain the master. And the dimension is horizontal: a bullock cart moves from A to B, from B to C, from C to D, but the dimension is the same, the same plane. With Tilopa, the dimension changes: it becomes vertical; it is not from A to B, from B to C; no, it is just like an aircraft, not like a bullock-cart, not moving forward but moving upward. With Tilopa you can transcend time.

With Patanjali you move in time. With Tilopa eternity is the dimension.

You may not be aware, but within these few ten, twelve years, a miracle has happened, and that is: new spaceships have destroyed the old time concept completely because a new spaceship can move around the earth, within seconds it can make one circle. You may not be aware of the theoretical problem. It means a spaceship takes off from Pune, it is Sunday; then it goes around the earth – somewhere it must be Monday, somewhere it may still be Saturday. So the spaceship moves from Sunday, goes back into Saturday, jumps forward into Monday, comes back to Pune on Sunday. The whole time concept is lost.

It looks absurd. You start on the sixteenth, you move into the seventeenth, and you come back on the same date, the sixteenth. And now this can be done many times in twenty-four hours. What does it mean? It means you can go backward in time, from Sunday to Saturday, from the sixteenth to the fifteenth. You can go forward into the seventeenth, into Monday, and you can come back on the same date.

With speed and a different dimension – vertical – time becomes irrelevant. Time is relevant with a bullock-cart; it is a bullock cart world. Tilopa is a vertical mind, a vertical consciousness. That is the difference between Tantra and Yoga: Yoga is horizontal and Tantra is vertical. Yoga takes millions of lives to reach; Tantra says within a second. Tantra says time is irrelevant; don’t bother about time. Tantra has a technique, a method – which Tantra says is a no-method, a no-technique – through which you can suddenly surrender everything and take a jump into the abyss.

Yoga is effort; Tantra is effortlessness. With effort, with your tiny energy, and your tiny ego, you fight with the whole. It will take millions of lives. Then too it doesn’t seem possible that you will ever become enlightened. Fighting with the whole is stupid; you are just a part. It is as if a wave is fighting with the ocean, a leaf is fighting with the tree, or your own hand fighting with your body. With whom are you fighting?

Yoga is effort, intense effort. And Yoga is a way to fight the current, to move against the current. So whatsoever is natural, Yoga has to drop; and whatsoever is unnatural, Yoga has to strive for. Yoga is the unnatural way: fight with the river and move against the current. Of course, there is challenge and the challenge may be enjoyed. But who enjoys the challenge? – your ego does.

It is very difficult to find a yogi who is not an egoist, very difficult, rare. If you can find a yogi who is not an egoist, it is a miracle. It is difficult because the whole effort creates the ego, the fight. You may find humble yogis, but if you watch a little deeper, in their humbleness you will find the most subtle ego hidden, the most subtle ego. They will say, “We are just dirt on the ground.” But look in their eyes – they are bragging about their humility. They are saying, “There is nobody more humble than us. We are the humblest people.” But this is what ego means.

If you move against nature you will be strengthened in your ego. That is the challenge, that’s why people like challenges. A life without challenges becomes dull because the ego feels hungry. Ego needs food, challenge gives food; so people seek challenges. If there are no challenges, they create them; they create hurdles so that they can fight with the hurdles.

Tantra is the natural way; the loose and the natural is the goal. You need not fight with the current; simply move with it, float with it. The river is going to the sea so why fight? Move with the river, become one with the river: surrender. Surrender is the keyword for Tantra; will is the keyword for Yoga. Yoga is the path of will; Tantra is the path of surrender. That’s why Tantra is the path of love – love is surrender.

This is the first thing to understand; then Tilopa’s words will become very, very crystal clear. The different dimension of Tantra has to be understood – the vertical dimension, the dimension of surrender, of not fighting, of being loose and natural, relaxed – what Chuang Tzu calls, “Easy is right.” With Yoga, difficult is right; with Tantra, easy is right.

Relax and be at ease, there is no hurry. The whole itself is taking you on its own accord. You need not make any individual striving, you are not asked to reach before your time, you will reach when the time is ripe – simply wait. The whole is moving; why are you in a hurry? Why do you want to reach before others?

There is a beautiful story about Buddha...

He reached the gate of heaven. Of course, the people there were waiting. They opened the door, they welcomed him, but he turned his back toward the door, looked at samsara, the world: millions of souls on the same path, struggling, in misery, in anguish, striving to reach this gate of heaven and bliss. The doorkeeper said, “Come in please! We have been waiting for you.”
And Buddha said, “How can I come when others have not reached? It doesn’t seem to be the right time. How can I enter when the whole has not entered? I will have to wait. It is just as if my hand has reached into the door, and my feet have not reached yet. I will have to wait. Just the hand cannot enter alone.”

This is one of the most profound insights of Tantra. Tantra says nobody can become enlightened, in fact, alone. We are parts of each other, we are members of each other; we are a whole. One person may become the peak, may become a very great wave, but it remains connected with the small waves all around. It is not alone; it remains one with the ocean and all the waves there. How can a wave become enlightened alone?

It is said in this beautiful story that Buddha is still waiting. He has to wait – nobody is an island, we make a continent, we are together. I may have stepped a little further than you, but I cannot be separate. And now I know it deeply, now it is not a story for me; I am waiting for you. Now it is not just a parable, now I know that there is no individual enlightenment. Individuals can step a little ahead, that’s all, but they remain joined together with the whole. And if an enlightened person is not aware that he is part of others, one with the others, then who will know this?

We move as one being, and Tantra says, “So don’t be in a hurry, and don’t try, and don’t push others, and don’t try to be first in the queue – be loose and natural. Everything is going toward enlightenment. It is going to happen; don’t create anguish about it.” If you can understand this, already you are near it; you relax.

Otherwise, religious people become very, very tense; even ordinary worldly people are not so tense as religious people. Ordinary worldly people are for worldly goals; of course, tense, but not so much as religious people who are tense for the other world, and their world is very far away, invisible. They are always in doubt whether it is there or not. And then a new misery arises: maybe they are losing this world and the other doesn’t exist. They are always in anguish, mentally very disturbed. Don’t become that type of religious man.

To me a religious man is loose and natural. He is not worried about this world or the other world. He is not worried about it at all; he simply lives and enjoys. This moment is the only moment for him; the next moment will take care of itself. When the next moment comes, he will receive it also enjoying, blissful. A religious man is not goal-oriented. To be goal-oriented is to be worldly. Your goal may be God – it makes no difference.

Tantra is really beautiful. Tantra is the highest understanding, and the greatest principle. If you cannot understand Tantra, then Yoga is for you. If you can understand Tantra, then don’t bother about small teachings. When the great vehicle is there, why bother about small boats?

In Buddhism, there are two sects. The names of the sects are very, very significant. One sect is known as Hinayana, the small vehicle; it is the path of Yoga, a small boat: you alone can sit in it. It is so small that you cannot have anybody else in it. The yogi moves alone. Hinayana means the very small boat. And then there is another sect of Buddhists that is called Mahayana, the great boat: the great vehicle. Millions can enter into it; the whole world can be absorbed into it. Mahayana is the path of Tantra and Hinayana is the path of Yoga.

Tilopa is a mahayanist, a man who believes in the great vehicle, the great principle. Small boats are for egoistic people who cannot tolerate anybody else in the boat, who can only be alone, who are great condemners, who look at the other always with condemnation. “You – and trying to reach there? You cannot reach, it is very difficult, only rare persons reach.” They will not allow you to enter the boat.

Mahayana has a deep love for all. Everybody can enter. In fact, no conditions exist. People come to me and they say, “You give sannyas to everybody and anybody?” Sannyas has not been given that way ever. It is for the first time in the whole history of the world that sannyas is given without any conditions. Sannyas has always been for very egoistic people: the otherworldly, the condemners, the poisoners, who say everything is wrong, everybody is wrong, this whole life is a sin; who have a look always in their eyes of holier-than-you, you are always condemned. Hell is for you. They are great sannyasins; they have renounced the world, the world of sin and dirt and poison, and you are still in it. The sannyasins have been the great egoists.

For the first time I have allowed everybody, I have opened the door. In fact I have thrown the door away completely. Now it cannot be closed, now anybody and everybody are welcome. Why? It is because my attitude is that of Tantra, it is not of Yoga. I talk on Patanjali also, for those who are not able to comprehend Tantra; otherwise, my attitude is that of Tantra: everybody is welcome. When God welcomes you, who am I…? When the whole world supports you and existence tolerates you, not only tolerates, gives you energy and life… Even if you are committing sin, existence never says, “No, no more energy for you. Now you cannot get any more gas. Stop! You are doing too much nonsense.” No. The energy goes on being given. There is never any gas crisis; the existence goes on supporting you.

It happened…

A Mohammedan mystic, Junnaid, once asked God about one of his neighbors, “This man is so evil and he is creating so much mischief for the whole village, and people come to me and they say, ‘Ask your God, pray to God, if he can get rid of this man.’”
And Junnaid heard in his prayer the voice: “When I am accepting him, who are you to reject him?”
Junnaid has written in his autobiography, “Never again did I ask him such a thing because it was really foolish of me. If he has given birth to this man, if he is still helping him to be alive, not only alive but flourishing, blooming, then who am I…?”

Existence gives you life unconditionally. I give you sannyas unconditionally. If existence hopes about you so infinitely that you cannot destroy its hope, who am I…? Tantra is for all. It is not for the chosen few. It became a path for the chosen few because not everybody can understand it, but it is not for the chosen few; it is for all, it is for everybody who is ready to take the jump.

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