Mahamudra

What is this MAHAMUDRA again and again? What happens?

IN MAHAMUDRA ALL ONE’S SINS ARE BURNED.
THEY ARE NOT TO BE BALANCED BY GOOD ACTS.
IN MAHAMUDRA ALL ONE’S SINS ARE BURNED.

What is this Mahamudra again and again? What happens? Mahamudra is a state of your being when you are not separate from the total. Mahamudra is like a deep sexual orgasm with the whole.

When two lovers are in deep sexual orgasm, they melt into each other; then the woman is no more the woman, the man is no more the man. They become just like the circle of yin and yang, reach ing into each other, meeting into each other, melting, their own identities forgotten. That’s why love is so beautiful. This state is called mudra, this state of deep orgasmic intercourse is called mudra. And the final state of orgasm with the whole is called Mahamudra, the great orgasm.

What happens in orgasm, in sexual orgasm? You have to understand it because only that will give you the key for the final orgasm. What happens? When two lovers are there... and always remember: two lovers, not wife and husband, because with a wife and husband it almost never happens because wives and husbands become more and more fixed roles, they are not melting and flowing. ”Husband” has become a role, ”wife” has become a role. They act. The wife has to act as a wife whether she likes it or not; the husband has to act as a husband. It has become a legal thing.

Once I asked Mulla Nasruddin, ”How many years have you been married, Nasruddin?”

He said, ”Twenty odd years.”

So I asked, ”Why do you call them ’odd’?”

He said, ”When you will see my wife you will understand.”

Wives and husbands are social phenomena... an institution, it is not a relationship. It is an institution; it is a forced phenomenon – not for love, but other reasons: economic security, safety, children, society, culture, religion, everything else except love.

Orgasm almost never happens between a wife and a husband – unless they are lovers also. That is possible: you can be a wife or a husband and a lover; you can love your wife. Then it is totally different, but then it is not a marriage at all, it is no more an institution.

In the East, because marriage has existed for thousands of years, people have completely forgotten what orgasm is. I have not come across a single Indian woman who knows what orgasm is. Some Western women, just within a few years, twenty-five years, have become aware that orgasm is something worth achieving; otherwise, women have completely forgotten that they have any possibility of orgasm within their bodies.

This is one of the most unfortunate things that could have happened to humanity. And when the woman cannot have an orgasm, the man cannot have it really, because an orgasm is a meeting of the two. Only two, when they melt into each other, can have it. It is not that one can have and another may not have – it is not possible. Release is possible, ejaculation is possible; relief is possible, but not orgasm. What is an orgasm?

Orgasm is a state where your body no more is felt as matter; it vibrates like energy, electricity. It vibrates so deeply, from the very foundation, that you completely forget that it is a material thing. It becomes an electric phenomenon – and it is an electric phenomenon.

Now physicists say that there is no matter, that all matter is only appearance; deep down, that which exists is electricity, not matter. In orgasm, you come to this deepest layer of your body where matter no more exists, just energy waves; you become a dancing energy, vibrating. No more any boundaries to you – pulsating, but no more substantial. And your beloved also pulsates.

And by and by, if they love each other and they surrender to each other, they surrender to this moment of pulsation, of vibration, of being energy, and they are not scared.... Because it is deathlike when the body loses boundaries, when the body becomes like a vaporous thing, when the body evaporates substantially and only energy is left, a very subtle rhythm, but you find yourself as if you are not. Only in deep love can one move into it. Love is like death: you die as far as your material image is concerned, you die as far as you think you are a body; you die as a body and you evolve as energy, vital energy.

And when the wife and the husband, or the lovers, or the partners, start vibrating in a rhythm, their beats of their heart and body become together, it becomes a harmony – then orgasm happens, then they are no more two. That is the symbol of yin and yang: yin moving into yang, yang moving into yin; man moving into the woman, the woman moving into the man. Now they are a circle and they vibrate together, they pulsate together. Their hearts are no more separate, their beats are no more separate; they have become a melody, a harmony. It is the greatest music possible; all other musics are just faint things compared to it, shadow things compared to it.

This vibration of two as one is orgasm. When the same thing happens, not with another person, but with the whole existence, then it is Mahamudra, then it is the great orgasm. It happens. I would like to tell you how you can try it, so that the Mahamudra becomes possible, the great orgasm.

In Indonesia, there is a very rare man, Bapak Subuh. He has come unknowingly to a method known as latihan. He stumbled upon it, but latihan is one of the oldest tantra methods. It is not a new phenomenon; latihan is the first step towards Mahamudra. It is allowing the body to vibrate, allowing the body to become energy, nonsubstantial, nonmaterial; allowing the body to melt and dissolve the boundaries.

Bapak Subuh is a Mohammedan but his movement is known as ”Subud.” That word is Buddhist. ”Subud” comes from three words: ”su,” ”bu,” ”dha” – ”su” means sushila, ”bu” means Buddha, ”dha” means dharma; Subud means sushila-Buddha-dharma. The meaning is: the law of great virtue derived from Buddha, Buddha’s law of great virtue. This is what Tilopa calls the great teaching.

Latihan is simple. It is the first step. One has to stand relaxed, loose and natural. It is good if you stand alone and nobody is there to disturb you. Close your room, stand alone. If you can find someone who has already stepped into latihan, his presence can be helpful, his very presence works like a catalytic agent, he becomes the opener. So somebody who is advanced a little already can open you very easily; otherwise, you can open yourself also. A little more time will be needed, that’s all. Otherwise an opener is good.

If an opener is standing just by your side, he starts his latihan: you simply stand and his energy starts pulsating with you, his energy starts moving around you, like a fragrance he surrounds you – suddenly you feel the music. Just as when there is a good singer, or somebody is playing on an instrument, you start beating your feet, or you start tapping the chair, or you start pulsating with it – just like that, a deep energy inside him moves and the whole room and the quality of the room is changed immediately.

You are not to do anything; you are simply to be there, loose and natural, just waiting for something to happen. And if your body starts moving, you have to allow it, you have just to cooperate and allow. The cooperation should not become too direct, it should not become a pushing; it should remain just an allowing. Your body starts moving suddenly, as if you are possessed, as if a great energy from the above has descended on you, as if a cloud has come and has surrounded you – and now you are possessed by that cloud, and the cloud is penetrating within your body, and your body starts taking movements. Your hands are raised, you make subtle movements, you start a small dance, soft gestures; your body is taken up.

If you know anything about automatic writing it will be easy to follow what happens in latihan. In automatic writing you take a pencil in your hand, you close your eyes, you wait. Suddenly you feel a jerk in the hand: your hand is possessed, as if something has entered. You are not to do anything, because if you do then it will not be from the beyond; it will be your doing. You have simply to allow. Loose and natural – Tilopa’s words are wonderful; they cannot be improved upon. Loose and natural, you wait with the pencil, with closed eyes; when the jerk comes and the hand starts moving, you have to allow it, that’s all. You have not to resist it; because you can resist. The energy is very subtle, and, in the beginning, not very powerful. If you just stop it, it can be stopped. And the energy is not aggressive; if you don’t allow, it will not come. If you doubt, it will not happen, because with doubt, your hand will be resisting. With doubt, you will not allow, you will fight. So that’s why trust is so meaningful, shraddha. You simply trust and leave your hand; by and by the hand starts moving, now the hand starts making wriggles on the paper – allow it. Then somebody simply asks a question, or you yourself ask a question; let the question be there, loose in the mind, not very persistent, not forcing; just raise the question and wait. And suddenly the answer is written.

If ten persons try, at least three persons will be absolutely capable of automatic writing. Thirty percent of people are not aware that they can become so receptive. And this can become a great force in your life. Explanations differ... what happens – that is not important. The deepest explanation that I find true is, your own highest center possesses your lowest center; your own highest peak of consciousness catches hold of your lowest unconscious mind. You ask and your own inner being answers. Nobody else is there, but your inner being, which you don’t know, is very superior to you.

Your own innermost being is the possibility of your ultimate flowering. It is as if the flower takes possession of the seed and answers. The seed doesn’t know, but the flower... as if your possibility takes possession of your actuality and answers; as if your ultimate potentiality takes possession of whatsoever you are, and answers. Or the future takes possession of the past, the unknown takes possession of the known, the formless takes possession of the form – all metaphors, but I feel you will understand the significance – as if your old age takes possession of your childhood, and answers.

The same happens in latihan with the whole body. In automatic writing you only leave your hand loose and natural. In latihan you leave your whole body loose and you wait, and you cooperate, and suddenly you feel an urge. The hand is raising by itself, as if somebody is pulling it by some invisible strings – allow it. And the leg goes moving; you take a turn, you start a small dance; very chaotic, with no rhythm, with no manipulation, but by and by, as you get deeper, it takes its own rhythm. Then it is no longer chaotic, it takes its own order, it becomes a discipline, but not forced by you. This is your highest possibility taking possession of your lowest body and moving it.

Latihan is the first step. And, by and by, you will feel so beautiful doing it that you will feel a meeting is happening between you and the cosmos. But this is only the first step. That’s why in Subud something is missing. The first step in itself is very beautiful, but it is not the last step. I would like you to complete it. For thirty minutes at least – sixty will be wonderful; by and by from thirty you reach to sixty minutes of latihan dancing.

In sixty minutes your body, from pore to pore, from cell to cell, is cleansed; it is a catharsis, you are completely renewed, all the dirt is burned. That’s what Tilopa says: In Mahamudra all one’s sins are burned. The past is thrown into fire. It is a new birth, a rebirth. And you feel energy showering all over you, in and out. And the dance is not only outside. Soon, when you get attuned in it, you will feel an inner dance also. Not only that your body is dancing, inside the energy is dancing; and they both cooperate with each other. And then a pulsation happens, and you feel you are pulsating with the universe – you have found the universal rhythm.

Thirty to sixty minutes is the time: start with thirty, end with sixty. Somewhere in between you will have the right time. And you will come to know: if you feel attuned nearabout forty minutes, then that is your right time; if you feel attuned at twenty minutes, then that is your right time. Then your meditation must go beyond that: if you feel tuned at ten minutes, twenty minutes will do; if you feel tuned at fifteen minutes, thirty minutes will do. Do it double, don’t take any chances, so really you are completely cleaned. And end it with a prayer.

When you are completely cleaned and feeling that your body is refreshed – you have been under a shower of energy, and your whole body is feeling one, undivided; and the substantialness of body is lost, you feel it more like an energy, a movement, a process, not material – now you are ready. Then kneel down on the earth.

Kneeling down is beautiful; just like Sufis kneel down, or Mohammedans do their prayer in the mosque, kneel down like them because that is the best posture for latihan. Then raise both your hands towards the sky with closed eyes, and feel yourself to be like a hollow vessel, hollow bamboo; inside, hollow, just like an earthen pot. Your head is the mouth of the pot, and the energy is falling tremendously on your head as if you are standing under a waterfall. And you will be actually standing – after the latihan you will feel it; it is like a waterfall, not like a shower. When you are ready it falls in greater strength, strong, and your body will start trembling, shaking, like a leaf in a strong wind; or, if you have stood under a waterfall sometime, then you will know. If you have never stood under one, go to a waterfall and stand under it and feel how it feels. That same feeling will come to you after latihan. Feel yourself hollow inside, nothing inside, just emptiness – and the energy is filling you, filling you completely.

Allow it to fall into you as deeply as possible, so it can reach to your farthest corner of your body and mind and soul. And when you feel it – you are so much filled, and the whole body is shaking – kneel down, put your head down on the earth, and pour the energy into the earth. When you feel the energy is overflowing, pour down into the earth. Take from the sky, give it back to the earth, and you be just a hollow bamboo in between.

This has to be done seven times. Take from the sky and pour down into the earth and kiss the earth, and pour down – be empty completely. Pour down as completely as you did for filling, be completely empty. Then raise your hands again, fill again, pour down again. Seven times it has to be done, because each time it penetrates one chakra of the body, one center of the body; each time it goes deeper in you. And if you do less than seven times, then you will feel restless after it because the energy will be hanging somewhere in between.

No, it has to penetrate all the seven chakras of your body so that you become completely hollow, a passage. The energy falls from the sky and goes into the earth, you are earthed; you simply pass the energy to the earth, just like electricity. For electricity we have to put an earth wire. The energy comes from the sky and goes into the earth, you become earthed – just a vessel, a hollow bamboo passing the energy. Seven times – more you can do, but not less. And this will be a complete Mahamudra.

If you do it every day, soon, within three months somewhere, one day you will feel you are not there. Just the energy is pulsating with the universe – nobody is there, the ego is completely lost, the doer is not. The universe is there, and you are there, the wave pulsating with the ocean – that is Mahamudra. That is the final orgasm, the most blissful state of consciousness that is possible.

This is just like two lovers making love, but millionfold, and the same phenomenon multiplied by millions – because now you are making love with the whole universe. That’s why tantra is known as the yoga of sex; tantra is known as the path of love.

In Mahamudra all one’s sins are burned: in Mahamudra one is released from the prison of this world. This is the dharma’s supreme torch. Those who disbelieve it are fools, who ever wallow in misery and sorrow.

And Tilopa is perfectly clear. He is absolutely frank. He says, ”Those who disbelieve it are fools.”

Why call them fools? He does not call them sinners, he does not call them irreligious, he simply calls them fools – because not believing it they are missing the greatest bliss that life can give them. They are simply fools! And it cannot happen unless you trust. Unless you trust so much that you can surrender completely, it cannot happen. All bliss, all moments of bliss, happen only when you surrender. Even death becomes beautiful if you can surrender to it, then what to say about life? If you surrender, of course, life is the greatest blessing, it is a benediction. You are missing the ultimate gift because you cannot trust.

If you want to learn anything, learn trust – nothing else is needed. If you are miserable, nothing else will help – learn trust. If you don’t feel any meaning in life and you feel meaninglessness, nothing will help – learn trust. Trust gives meaning because trust makes you capable of allowing the whole to descend upon you.