~~ THE WORD AND LOGAS ~~9

LEAVING THEM ASIDE, BE FREE. But do not try directly with feelings, you will not succeed. Try first with words. But with words also you will not succeed if you do not leave philosophies, if you do not leave thoughts. Words are just units - and if you give significance to words you cannot leave them.

Know well that language is a human creation. It is utilitarian, necessary, and the meanings we have given to sounds are our own creation. If you can understand this well, then you can move easily. If someone is saying something against the Koran, or against the Vedas, how do you feel? Can you laugh about it or does something clench within you? Can you laugh about it? Someone is insulting the Gita or someone is saying some derogatory thing against Krishna or Ram or Christ - can you laugh? Can you see through the words, that these are mere words? No, you will be hurt. Then it is difficult to lose words.

See that words are just words - noises with agreed-upon meanings and nothing else. Be convinced of it. And it is so! First become detached from words. If there is detachment from words, then you can understand that these are just noises.

It is just like in the military where they use numbers. One soldier is number 101: he can become identified with '101'. And if someone says something derogatory against the number 101, he will feel insulted, he will start fighting. And '101' is just a number, but he has become identified with it.

Your name is just a number, just an index number. Things will be difficult otherwise, so we have labelled you. That is just a label; any other label can do the same work. But it is not just a label for you, it has gone deep; your name has become the center of your ego.

So they say, the so-called wise ones, they say, "Live for your name. See that your name remains pure. Respectability of your name must be there, and even if you die your name will live." It was never there, it is just a code number. You will die and the name will live... When you yourself cannot live, how is the label going to live?

Look at words - at their futility, their meaninglessness, and do not become attached to any word.

Only then can you do this technique.

The second technique:

BATHE IN THE CENTER OF SOUND, AS IN THE CONTINUOUS SOUND OF A WATERFALL, OR BY PUTTING THE FINGERS IN THE EARS, HEAR THE SOUND OF SOUNDS.

This technique can be done in many ways. One way is to begin by just sitting anywhere. Sounds are always present. It may be in a market or it may be at a Himalayan retreat: sounds are there. Sit silently, and with sound there is something very special. Whenever there are sounds, you are the center. All the sounds come to you from everywhere, from all directions.

With sight, with eyes, this is not so. Sight is linear. I see you - then there is a line toward you.

Sound is circular, it is not linear. So all sounds come in circles and you are the center. Wherever you are, you are always the center of sound. For sounds, you are always God, the center of the whole universe. Every sound is coming to you, moving toward you, in circles.

This technique says, BATHE IN THE CENTER OF SOUND. Wherever you are, if you are doing this technique, just close your eyes and feel the whole universe filled with sound. Feel as if every sound is moving toward you and you are the center. Even this feeling that you are the center will give you a very deep peace. The whole universe becomes the circumference and you are the center, and everything is moving toward you, falling toward you.