Water becomes clear and calm only when left alone.
 [Music]
 I was trying to explain this morning.
 That what's a wonderful better word we call meditation, or I sometimes prefer to say contemplation,
 is really supposed to be fun.
 And I have some difficulty in conveying this idea because everybody takes everything to do with religion seriously.
 And you must understand that I'm not a serious person. I may be sincere, but not serious.
 Because I don't think the universe is serious.
 And the trouble gets into the world very largely because the various beings take themselves seriously, instead of playfully.
 And after all, you must become serious if you think that something is desperately important.
 You will only think that something is desperately important if you're afraid of losing it.
 And if you're afraid of losing it, it isn't really worth having.
 People who drag on living because they're afraid to die, will teach their children to do the same.
 And they will teach their children to live that way. And so it goes on and on.
 If you were God, would you be serious?
 Would you want people to treat you as if you were serious?
 Would you want to be prayed to?
 Think of all the maudlin things that people say in their prayers. Would you want to listen to that all the time?
 Would you encourage it?
 I'm not a bureaucrat.
 So in the same way, meditation is different, you see, therefore,
 from the sort of things that people are supposed to take seriously.
 Because it doesn't have any purpose.
 When you talk about practicing meditation, it's not like practicing rifle shooting or playing the piano,
 which one does in order to attain a certain perfection.
 You practice in order to make perfect. You practice the piano to go on stage and perform.
 But you don't practice meditation that way. Because if you do, you're not meditating.
 The only way in which you can talk about the practice of meditation is to use the word "practice" in the same way
 as when somebody says that he practices medicine.
 It's his way of life. It's his vocation. He does it every day.
 Maybe he does it the same way every day. Maybe it's good, that's fine.
 Because in meditation, you see, there's no idea of time.
 In practicing learning things, time is of the essence.
 Let's do it as fast as possible. Let's find a faster way of learning how to do this.
 In meditation, a faster way of learning is of no importance whatsoever.
 Because its focus is always on the present.
 And there may occur growth in it.
 But it's the same way that a plant grows.
 Once upon a time in China, there was a family, a farming family,
 and they were having dinner. And the oldest son came in late.
 And they said, "Why are you late for dinner?" He said, "I've been helping the wheat to grow."
 "Oh." So they came out next morning and all the wheat was dead.
 Well, what happened was that he had gone and pulled each stalk up a little.
 Yeah, to help it grow.
 So growth always occurs in a being like a plant, which is perfect at every step.
 No progress is involved in the transformation of an acorn into an oak.
 Because the acorn is a perfect acorn.
 And the sapling is a perfect sapling.
 And the big oak tree is a perfect oak, which again produces acorns.
 Perfect acorns, you see.
 At every stage it's there.
 Just as in the unfoldment of the musical composition, it has arrived at every stage.
 And it cannot be otherwise.
 So the meditation work is the same.
 Exactly the same.
 So we should not talk about beginners as distinct from experts.
 We should develop, if we could, a new vocabulary.
 So it's very difficult in the context of our competitive world
 to speak about things like this.
 To bring about the idea of doing something which is not acquisitive.
 Which you're not going to get anything out of.
 Because there's no one to get anything.
 When you understand what I've been talking about, about there being no experience separate from experience,
 then there's no one to get anything out of life.
 Or to get anything from meditation.
 So we have here a sort of law of reverse effort.
 You must therefore understand that as a background to anything said about techniques.
 Because whenever we talk about techniques,
 we seem to be talking about the competitive thing.
 Mastery.
 The idea of mastery of technique.
 But on the other hand, if you play a musical instrument,
 technique is very important
 in the making of a satisfactory sound.
 But if you force the learning of technique, or force the performance of it,
 everyone will hear it.
 And you will hear the forcing of it yourself.
 And it will be unmusical.
 And so, you have to address yourself to the playing of an instrument without hurry.
 And never, never force anything.
 And you will find there is a point then where the instrument seems to play itself.
 And when you get that peculiar feeling of the sound that is coming out of a flute,
 or a violin string, or whatever,
 is as it were happening of itself,
 then you are playing the instrument properly.
 Same way when you sing.
 There comes a point when your voice takes over.
 This is the difference between spiration and inspiration.
 You may say, as Christians do,
 that the act of worship is inspired by the Holy Spirit.
 That when monks are chanting,
 they are told that the Holy Spirit is chanting through them.
 They are flutes for the Holy Spirit.
 And this has a very precise and technical meaning.
 But there is a way of producing the breath and of producing sound
 where it comes of itself and you don't do it.
 And we will call that way of producing sound Holy Spirit.
 But it's based on breath.
 I pointed out in the first session
 that breath is a curious operation
 because it can be experienced as both a voluntary doing
 and an involuntary happening.
 You can do a breathing exercise and feel that I am breathing
 in just the same way as you can feel I am walking.
 But on the other hand you breathe all the time.


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