My Beloved Ones,
In this first meeting of the
meditation camp, I would lik
to talk about the first step for a meditator,
a seeker.
What is the first step? A thinker
or a lover follow certain
paths but a seeker
has to travel on a
totally different journey.
For a seeker,
what is
the first step on the journey? The body
is the first step for a seeker -- but no attention or thought
has been given to it. Not only
at certain times, but for
thousands of years, the body
has been neglected. The neglect
is of two kinds. Firstly, there are
the indulgent people who
have neglected the body. They
have no experience of life
other than eating, drinking
and wearing clothes. They have
neglected the body, misused it,
foolishly wasted it --
they have ruined
their instrument, their veena.
If a musical instrument -- for example, a veena -- is ruined, music cannot
arise out of it. Music is
an altogether different
thing from the veena -- music is
one thing, the veena is another, but without the veena music cannot
arise. Those people who
have misused
the body through
indulgence are
one type and
the other type of
people are
those who have
neglected the body
through yoga and renunciation. They have
tortured the body,
they have
suppressed
it and they have been
hostile
towards
it. And neither
the people who
have indulged
the body nor
the ascetics who
have tortured the
body have understood
its importance. So there
have been two
kinds of neglect
and torture of
the veena of the body: one b
y the indulgers and another
by the ascetics. Both have
done harm to the body. In the West, the body
has been harmed in one way
and in the East, in another way, but
we all are equal
participants in harming it. The people
going to the whorehouses
or to the pubs
harm the body
in one way, and the people
standing naked in the sun or
rushing into the forests
harm the body in
another way. Only through
the veena of the body
can the music of life
arise. The music of life
is an altogether
different thing from the body -- it is totally different, something else -- but only through the veena
of the body is
there a possibility of
attaining it. No proper
attention has
yet been
given to this
fact. The first step
is the body and the proper attention
of the meditator towards
the body. In this first
meeting I want to
talk to you
about this point. A few things
need to be understood. The first thing: the soul
has a connection
with the body
at some centers -- our life
energy
comes from
these connections. The soul
is closely related to these centers;
from them our
life energy flows
into the body. The seeker
who is
not aware of
these centers will never
be able to
attain to the soul. If I ask you
which is the most important center, which
is the most important place in your body, you will probably point to your head. Man's・・・
