The Seven Valleys: A Sufi Map
There was a great
Sufi Master - one of the greatest in all the ages -
Al-Ghazzali.
He says:
On the path of human growth from man to God - from man the
potential to man the actual, from possibility to reality - there are
seven valleys. These seven valleys are of immense importance. Try
to understand them because you will have to pass through those seven
valleys. Everybody has to pass through those seven valleys.
If you understand rightly what to do with a valley you will be able
to go beyond it, and you will attain to a peak - because each valley
is surrounded by mountains. If you can pass through the valley, if
you don′t get entangled in the valley, if you don′t get lost in the
valley, if you don′t become too attached to the valley, if you
remain aloof, detached, a witness, and if you keep on remembering
that this is not your home, that you are a stranger here, and you go
on remembering that the peak has to be reached, and you don′t forget
the peak - you will reach to the peak. With each valley crossed
there is great celebration.
But after each valley you have to enter another valley. This goes
on. There are seven valleys. Once you have reached the seventh then
there are no more. Then man has attained to his being, he is no
longer paradoxical. There is no tension, no anguish. This is what in
the past we have called Buddhahood. This is what Christians call the
state of being a Christ. This is what Jainas call Jinahood -
becoming victorious. There are many names, but the basic idea is
that unless man becomes God he remains in anxiety. And to become God
these seven valleys have to be crossed.
And each valley has its own allurements. It is very, very possible
that you may get attached to something and you will not be able to
leave the valley. You have to leave it if you want to enter the
second valley. And after each valley there is a peak, a great
mountain peak. After each valley there is jubilation and the
jubilation goes on becoming more and more intense. And then finally,
in the seventh valley, you attain to the cosmic orgasm - you
disperse. Then only God is.
Listen to these seven valleys and try to understand them. And don′t
think Al-Ghazzali is talking about something philosophical. Sufis
are not interested in philosophy at all. They are very practical
people. If they say something they mean it. If they say something,
it is said for the seeker. It is not said for the curious ones, not
for intellectuals, but for those who are on the path, those who are
really working hard to have a glimpse of the truth. It is for the
seekers.
The first valley is called the valley of knowledge
Naturally, knowledge has to be the first because man starts by
knowing. No other animal has knowledge; only man knows, only man
collects knowledge. Only man writes, reads, talks. Only man has
language, scriptures, theories. So knowledge has to be the first
valley.
The negative part of the valley is that you can become
knowledgeable, you can get hooked on knowledge. You can forget the
real purpose of knowing and you can become attached to knowledge
itself. Then you will be accumulating more and more knowledge and
you can go on for lives together accumulating knowledge. You will
become a great scholar, a pundit, but you will not become a knower.
The way of the knower is utterly different from the way of
knowledge.
There are two things when knowledge happens: the content of
knowledge - you know something - and the consciousness, the mirror,
you who knows. If you become too attached to the content of
knowledge rather than to the capacity of knowing, you will be lost
in the valley. That part which can make you entangled, hooked,
attached, I call negative.
If you become knowledgeable then you are lost; you cannot cross the
first valley. And the more knowledge you have, the more confused you
will become - because there is no way to decide what is true.
Everything that you hear, if rightly put before you, logically
placed before you, will look right. There is no other way for you to
decide; there is no criterion. That′s why it goes on happening. You
go to one Master and you hear him, and he looks right. Then you go
to another Master and you hear him, and he looks right. You read one
book and it looks right; you read another book - maybe just the
opposite - and that too has its logic, and it looks right. There is
no way to decide what is right. And if you go on accumulating you
will go on accumulating contradictions - opposite statements. And
there are millions of standpoints and sooner or later you will
become just a crowd of many philosophies and systems. That is not
going to help. That will become the greatest hindrance.
So the first thing is that in the valley of knowledge one has to
remain alert that one has to be emphatically concerned with the
capacity of knowing - not with the object, not with the content. One
should emphasise witnessing, one should become more and more alert
and aware, then one becomes a knower. Not by knowing many things but
just by becoming more aware, one becomes really a knower.
The path of knowledge has nothing to do with scriptures. opinions,
systems, beliefs. It has something to do with the capacity to know -
you can know. You have this immense energy of being conscious. So be
concerned with the container, the consciousness, and don′t be
concerned with the content.
Don′t be concerned with the known, be concerned with the knower.
Knowledge is a double-arrowed phenomenon. One arrow points to the
known, another arrow points to the knower. If you go on looking to
the known you will be lost in the valley. If you start looking to
the knower you cannot be lost, you will be able to transcend the
valley. And once you transcend the valley of knowledge there is
great, great joy - because you have understood something very
essential in you, something that is going to remain to the very end,
something that is very fundamental: the capacity to know, the
capacity to be conscious.
So if you look at the knower, if you become more alert about the
knower, you have used the positive.
The second valley is called the valley of repentance
When you start looking at who you are, naturally great repentance
arises. Because of all that you have done wrong, all that you have
done and should not have done. you start feeling repentance. So a
great peak comes with consciousness - but suddenly, with
consciousness, conscience arises. Remember, the conscience that you
have is not the true conscience. It is a pseudo-coin; it is given by
the society.
People have told you what is right and what is wrong; what is moral,
what is immoral. You don′t know exactly what is moral or what is
immoral. But after crossing the first valley you will be able to
know exactly what is right and what is wrong. And then suddenly you
will see what wrong you have done - how many people you have been
hurting, how sadistic you have been with others, how masochistic you
have been with yourself, how destructive, violent, aggressive,
angry, jealous, you have been up to now. All that will come to your
vision. That is a natural by-product of becoming conscious -
conscience arises.
This conscience has nothing to do with the ordinary conscience that
you have - that is borrowed. So you can have it and still it does
not hurt; it does not give pain so real that you can be transformed
through it. You only know so-so what is right, and you go on doing
the wrong, you go on doing whatsoever you want to do. Your knowledge
of the right does not create any difference in you. You know that
anger is bad but you remain angry. On the one hand you know that
anger is bad, on the other hand there is no problem, you continue to
be angry. On the one hand you know that possessiveness is not good,
and on the other hand you go on hoarding, you go on possessing - not
only things but you even start possessing persons. You possess your
wife, your husband, your children - as if they are things, as if
they can be possessed. You destroy through your possessiveness, and
you know it is wrong.
This borrowed conscience does not help, it simply burdens you. With
the first valley crossed, your own conscience arises. Now you know
exactly what is wrong and it becomes impossible to do otherwise.
This is the point where the Socratic dictum becomes meaningful -
that ′Knowledge is virtue′.
Now the negative part of the valley of repentance.... The negative
part is that you may become too worried about the guilt concerning
the past - that you have done this wrong and that wrong, and you
have been doing millions of wrongs. You have been unconscious here
for so long that if you start counting all of that, it will create a
kind of morbidness. You will become so guilty that, rather than
growing. you will fall into great darkness.
So if guilt arises and you become morbid and you become too troubled
by the past, you will remain in the second valley. You will not be
able to surpass it. If the past becomes too important, then
naturally you will be continuously crying and weeping and beating
your chest and saying, ′What wrong I have been doing!′
The positive part is that you should become concerned with the
future, not with the past. Yes, you have noted that you have been
wrong, but that was natural because you were unconscious. So there
is no need to feel guilty. How could one be right when one was
unconscious? You have taken note of it - that your whole past has
been wrong - but it does not create a burden on your chest. You take
note of it. That taking note helps you because you will not be able
to do it again - you are finished with it. You feel sad that you
have been hurting so many people in so many ways, but you feel
joyous also, simultaneously, because now it will not happen any
more. You are freed from past and guilt! You don′t become concerned
about it, you become concerned about the future, the new opening.
Now you have your own conscience; now the future is going to be
totally different, qualitatively different, radically different. You
will be thrilled with the adventure. Now you have your own
conscience, and your conscience will never allow you to do wrong
again. It is not that you will have to control - when the real
conscience has arisen there is no need to control, no need to
discipline. The right becomes the natural thing. Then the easy is
the right and the right is the easy.
In fact, once the conscience has arisen in you, if you want to do
wrong you will have to make great effort to do it. And even then
there is not much possibility of succeeding.
Without your own conscience you have to make much effort to be
right, and even then you don′t succeed. So one is thrilled. One
feels sad for the past but one is no longer burdened, because the
past is no more. That is the positive part - that one should feel
that the transformation has happened, that the blessing has arrived,
that God has given you the greatest gift of conscience. Now your
life will move in a totally new dimension, on a new track.
This is where real morality is born, virtue.
The third valley is called the valley of stumbling blocks
Once the conscience has arisen you will now be able to see how many
blocks exist. You have eyes to see how many hindrances there are.
There are walls upon walls. There are doors too but they are few and
far between. You will be able to see all the stumbling blocks.
Al-Ghazzali says there are four: one, the tempting world - the world
of things. They are very fascinating. Lust is created. Why have all
the world religions been saying that one has to go beyond the
temptation of the world? - because if you are tempted too much by
the world, and you hanker too much for the worldly things, you will
not have enough energy to desire God. Your desire will be wasted on
things.
A man who wants to have a big house, a big balance in the bank,
great power in the world, and prestige, puts all his desiring,
invests all his desiring in the world. Nothing is left to seek God.
Things are not bad in themselves. Sufis are not against things,
remember. Sufis say that things are good in themselves. but one who
has started seeking for God and the ultimate truth cannot afford
them. You have a certain quality and certain quantity of energy. The
whole energy has to be put into one desire. All the desires have to
become one desire, only then can God be attained, only then can you
surpass this third valley.
Ordinarily we have many desires. the religious person is one who has
only one desire, whose all other desires have fallen into one big
desire - just as small rivers, small streams, small tributaries fall
and become the big Ganges - like that. A religious person is one
whose all other desires have become one desire: he desires only God,
he desires only transcendence.
So the first is the tempting world; the second is people -
attachments to people.
Sufis are again, remember, not against people, but they say that one
should not become attached to people. Otherwise that very attachment
will become a hindrance, a stumbling block to God. Be with your
woman and be with your man, be with your children, be with your
friends, but remember that we are all strangers here and our
togetherness is just accidental. We are travellers, we have met on
the road. For a few days maybe we will be together - feel thankful
for that - but sooner or later, ways part. Your wife dies, she goes
on her own way, and you will never know where. Or, your wife falls
in love with somebody else, and your ways part. Or you fall in love
with somebody else. Or your son becomes grown-up and he takes his
life into his own hands and moves away from you - every son has to
move away from the parents.
We are together on this road for only a few days and our being
together is just accidental. It is not going to be forever. So be
with people, be lovingly with people, be compassionately with
people, but don′t become attached - otherwise your attachment will
not allow you freedom enough to go beyond.
So the second is people, attachments. The third Al-Ghazzali calls
Satan, and the fourth, the ego.
By Satan the mind is meant - the mind that you have accumulated in
the past. Although conscience has arisen, although you have become
more conscious than ever, the mechanism of the mind is still there
lurking by the side. It will lurk a little longer still. It has been
with you for so long that it cannot leave you suddenly. It takes
time. And it waits and watches - if some opportunity is there it
will immediately jump and take possession of you. It has been your
master, you have functioned as a slave. The mind cannot accept that
you have become a master so suddenly. It takes time.
The mind is a mechanism, it is always there. For the seeker, the
mind is the Devil. All the stories about the Devil are nothing but
about the mind. The Devil - or Satan, as Sufis call the Devil - is
just a mythological name for the mind.
When the Devil tempts Jesus, do you think some Devil is standing
there outside? Don′t be foolish! There is no Devil standing outside.
The temptation is coming from Jesus′ own mind. The mind says, ′Now
that you have become so miraculously powerful, why bother about
other things? Why not have the kingdom of the whole world? You can
have it! It is just within your reach. You can possess the whole
world, you have so much power. You are so spiritually high. Your
siddhis are released. You can have all the money and all the
prestige that you want. Why bother about God and religion? Use this
possibility!′ Mind is tempting.
And when Jesus says, ′Don′t come in my way. Go away!′ he is not
talking to some Devil outside. He is simply saying to the mind,
′Please don′t come in my way. I am no longer concerned with the
desires that you have, I am no longer concerned with the projects
that you have, I am on a totally different journey. You know nothing
about it, you keep quiet.′
And the fourth is ego - one of the greatest stumbling blocks on the
path of seeking. When you start becoming a little conscious, when
your conscience arises, and you start seeing the stumbling blocks, a
great ego - from nowhere - suddenly takes possession of you: ′I have
become a saint, a sage. I am no longer ordinary, I am
extraordinary!′ And the problem is that you ARE extraordinary! It is
true! So the ego can prove it. That is the greatest problem, because
the ego is not just talking nonsense. It is sensible. It is exactly
so!
Still one has to be alert that if you get entangled with the ego,
with the idea that ′I am extraordinary′ then you will always remain
in the third valley. You will never be able to reach the fourth, and
the fourth will bring more flowers and higher peaks and greater joys
- and you will miss.
This is the place where siddhis - spiritual powers - become the most
hindering thing.
The negative part is to start fighting with these stumbling blocks.
If you start fighting, you will be lost in the valley. There is no
need to fight. Don′t create enmity. Just understanding is enough.
Fighting means repression. You can repress the ego, you can repress
your attachment to people, you can repress your lust for things, and
you can repress your Satan, your mind, but the repressed will
remain, and you will not be able to enter into the fourth valley.
Only those who have no repressions enter the fourth valley. So don′t
start repressing.
The positive part is: take the challenge - that the ego is
challenging you. Don′t take it as an enmity, take it rather as a
challenge to go beyond. Don′t fight with it; understand it. Look
deep into it. Look into the mechanism of it: how it functions, how
this new ego is arising in you, how this mind goes on playing games
with you, how you become attached to people, how you become attached
to things. Look into the how of it with cool observation, with no
antagonism. If you become antagonistic in any way, then you are
caught. If you become indulgent, you are caught. If you become
antagonistic, you are caught. And these two are the easiest things.
People know only two things: either they know how to become friends
or they know how to become the enemy. That is the only ordinary
understanding possible.
The third thing will help. Be watchful, witnessing; neither inimical
nor friendly. Be indifferent. Just see that they are there, because
if you take any feeling attitude - for or against - the feelings
will become bondages. Feeling means that you become attached.
Remember, you are as attached to your enemies as you are attached to
your friends. If your enemy dies, you will miss him as much as you
will miss your friend - sometimes even more, because he was giving
some meaning to your life. Fighting with him, you were enjoying a
trip. Now he is no more. The ego that was being fulfilled by
fighting with him will never be fulfilled again. You will have to
find a new enemy.
So don′t make enemies and don′t make friends. Just see. Be very,
very scientifically observant. That is the positive thing to do.
Explore what ego is, and explore joyously. Explore what lust is, and
explore joyously.
Then comes the fourth valley: the valley of tribulations.
Entry into the unconscious happens in the fourth valley. Up to now
you were confined to the world of the conscious. Now, for the first
time, you will enter into the deeper realms of your being, the
unconscious, the darker part, the night part. Up to now you were in
the day part. It was easier. Now things will become more difficult.
The higher you go, the more you have to pay. With each higher step
the journey becomes more arduous and the fall becomes more
dangerous. And one has to be more alert. On each step more awareness
will be needed, because you will be moving on higher planes.
The valley of tribulations is the entry into the unconscious. It is
the entry into what Christian mystics have called ′the dark night of
the soul′. It is the entry into the mad world that you are hiding
behind yourself. It is very weird, it is very bizarre. Up to the
third a man can proceed without a Master, but not beyond the third.
Up to the third one can go on one′s own. With the fourth a Master is
a must.
And when I am saying that one can go up to the third on one′s own, I
don′t mean that one has to go and I don′t mean that everybody will
be able to go. I am simply talking of a theoretical possibility. Up
to the third it is theoretically possible that a man can go without
a Master. But with the fourth, the Master becomes an absolute
necessity - because now you will be sinking into darkness. You don′t
yet have any light of your own that you can use in that darkness.
Somebody else′s light will be needed - somebody who has gone into
that dark night and for whom it has become possible to see in that
darkness.
The negative part of the valley of tribulations is doubt - great
doubt will arise! You don′t know what doubt is you don′t know yet!
All that you think is doubt is nothing but scepticism, it is not
doubt. Doubt is an altogether different phenomenon.
Somebody says, ′God is′; you say, ′I doubt.′ You don′t doubt. How
can you doubt? You are only being sceptical. You are only saying, ′I
don′t know.′ Rather than saying ′I don′t know′ you are using a very
strong word ′doubt′. How can you doubt? Doubt is possible when you
are facing a reality.
For example, you have never seen a ghost. And you say, ′I doubt the
existence of ghosts.′ That is not doubt, that is just being
sceptical. You are simply saying, ′I have never come across one so
how can I believe. I doubt.′ That is not doubt. Doubt will be when
one day, passing through the cemetery, you suddenly come across a
ghost! Then your whole being will be shaken. Then you will be for
the first time in a state where doubt arises: whether that which you
are facing is true or an hallucination.
Doubt is very existential; scepticism is intellectual. Scepticism is
only in the mind; doubt enters into your very being, your whole
body-mind-soul. Your totality is shaken.
In this dark night of the soul, doubt arises. Doubt about God -
because you were seeking for more light and this is happening, just
the opposite. You were seeking for more bliss and you have fallen
into the dark night. A great doubt arises about whether you are
going right, about whether this seeking is worth it - because you
were seeking for gold, you were seeking for great light and great
enlightenment and nirvana and samadhi and satori, and instead of
satori and samadhi, this dark night has overwhelmed you. Even those
lights that used to be there are there no more. Even those
certainties that used to be there are there no more.
You used to know certain things; now you know nothing. You had some
security. Even that is gone. The very earth underneath your feet has
slipped away; you are drowning. Then doubt arises. Then you start
feeling that maybe this whole religious trip is nonsense, maybe
there is no God, maybe you were tooling yourself, maybe you have
chosen something absurd. It was better to live in the world, to be
of the world. It was better to have many more things: to enjoy
power, to enjoy sex, to enjoy money. What have I done? I have lost
all and this is the result!
To every seeker this moment comes. And if this doubt arises, then
naturally one starts defending oneself against the darkness. One
creates an armour around oneself against the darkness, the invading
darkness. One has to protect oneself. If you do that you will be
thrown back again to the conscious part of your mind. You will miss
the mystery of darkness. Light is beautiful, but nothing compared
with darkness. Darkness is more beautiful, more cooling, more deep.
Darkness has depth; light is shallow. And unless you are able to
welcome darkness you will not be able to welcome death.
So the first teaching is that you have to accept, welcome, relax.
This darkness is the first glimpse of God. It is dark, but later on
you will understand that it was not dark. It was really that for the
first time you had opened your eyes towards God and it was too
dazzling, that′s why it looked dark. It was not dark; darkness was
your interpretation.
Look at the sun for a few seconds and soon you will be surrounded by
darkness. It is too much; you cannot bear it. A man can go blind by
looking at the sun too long. Look at the sun for a few seconds and
then go into your house and you will find the whole house full of
darkness. Just a moment before you were there and you could see
everything. Now you cannot see anything; you will stumble over
things.
That it is dark is interpretation. But it is natural. Later on when
you have transcended the valley then you will be able to look back
and see the reality. Only a Master can hold your hand in this dark
night of the soul and make you confident, can say to you and
convince you - ′Don′t be worried. It only looks dark, it is not
dark. It is the first meeting with God. You are coming closer.′
There are three things to be understood: sleep, death and samadhi.
Sleep is like death. In the East we say it is the small death, the
tiny death. We die every night and disappear into the dark night.
Then comes death - a bigger death than sleep. The body disappears
but the mind remains and is born again. Then comes the ultimate
death - samadhi - where body disappears and mind disappears and only
the innermost core, consciousness, remains. That is the ultimate
death.
In the fourth valley you encounter the first glimpse of how the
ultimate death is going to happen to you. If you reject it, if you
defend yourself against it, if you create an armour, you will be
thrown back to the third valley, and you will miss. And once you
have missed the fourth you will always remain afraid to go again
into it.
My observation about people is that people who have entered into the
fourth valley some time in their past lives, and have become too
frightened and escaped from it, are the people who are always afraid
of anything deeper. Love - and they will be afraid. Orgasm - and
they will be afraid. Friendship - and only so far; beyond that they
will be afraid. Discipleship - and they will be afraid. Surrender -
and they will be afraid. Prayer - they will be afraid. They will be
afraid of all those things that can again bring them to that fourth
valley. They may not be consciously aware of why they are afraid.
The fourth valley is very important because it is just in the
middle. There are seven valleys, the fourth is just in the middle.
Three are on this side and three are on that side. The fourth is
immensely significant; it is the bridge. The Master is needed on
this bridge because you pass from the known to the unknown, from the
finite to the infinite, from the trivial to the profound.
The positive part is trust, surrender; the negative part is doubt,
defence. The Master starts teaching you about trust and surrender
from the very beginning so that by and by it becomes your climate -
because it will be needed when you enter into the fourth valley.
Sometimes people come to me and they say, ′Why can′t we be here
without surrendering? Why can′t we meditate and listen to you and be
benefitted as much as we want? What is the point of surrendering?′
They don′t understand. In the beginning it may not look very
relevant. Why? For what? You can listen to me without surrendering
and you can meditate here without surrendering. You can pass through
growth groups without surrendering. It seems perfectly okay.
Surrendering does not seem to be needed at all. But you don′t know
what is going to happen in the future. For that, preparation has to
be made right now. You cannot wait for that moment. If preparation
has not been made before, then you will miss. Then when the right
time comes, when your house is on fire and you have not dug the well
yet, and you start digging it, by the time it is ready, the house
will be gone.
One has to dig the well before the house catches fire! So right now
it may not seem relevant. I can understand. Logically it is not
relevant right now. Listening to me, what surrender is needed?
Meditating, what surrender is needed? But when you enter the fourth
valley, surrender will be needed. And you cannot suddenly learn the
ways of surrender. You have to go on learning them before the need
arises. Surrender has to become your climate.
The fifth valley: the thundering valley
In the fifth valley you enter death. In the fourth you entered
sleep, darkness; in the fifth you enter death. Or, if you like to
use modern terminology for it: in the fourth you enter the personal
unconscious; in the fifth you enter the collective unconscious.
Great fear arises because you are losing your individuality.
In the fourth you were losing light, day, but you were there. In the
fifth you are losing yourself - you don′t feel as if you are, you
are dispersing, you are melting. Your feeling that ′I am a centre′
starts becoming vague, cloudy.
With entry into death, entry into the collective unconscious, great
fear arises, great anguish is felt - the greatest anguish that you
will ever feel - because there comes the question: to be or not to
be? You are disappearing; your whole being will hanker to be. You
would like to go back to the fourth. It was dark, but at least it
was good - you were there. Now, the darkness has become more dense.
Not only that, you are disappearing into it. Soon not even a trace
will be left of you.
The negative part is clinging to the self. That′s why great teachers
- Buddha or Jalaludin Rumi - insist - ′Remember, no-self, anatta.′
Sufis call it fana - one disappears. And one should prepare for this
disappearance, one should be ready - not only ready but in a deep
welcome. It is going to bring great joy, because all your misery is
contained in your ego. The very idea that ′I am′ is your ignorance.
The very idea that ′I am′ creates all kinds of anxieties and
problems for you. The ego is the hell.
Jean-Paul Sartre has said: ′Hell is other people.′ That is not
right. The hell is YOU, the hell is the ego! If other people feel
like the hell, they feel like the hell also because of the ego -
because they hurt it continuously. They go on pushing your buttons.
Because you have this wound of the ego everybody seems to hurt you.
It is just your idea that ′I am special′ and when somebody does not
recognise it, it gives pain. When you don′t have any idea of being
special - what Zen people call ′to become ordinary′ - if you become
ordinary, then this valley can be crossed. If you become nobody,
then this valley can easily be crossed.
So the negative part is clinging to the self and the positive part
is relaxing into no-self, into nothingness - being ready to die,
willingly, joyously, voluntarily.
Then comes the sixth valley - the abysmal valley.
One disappears. In the fifth, one was disappearing; in the sixth,
one is no more. One is a memory of the past, one disappears. In the
fifth, one was entering into death; in the sixth, death has
happened, one has died, one is no more. That′s why it is called the
′abysmal valley′. It is the most painful, because it is the sixth -
the last but one. One passes into the greatest pain of not being, of
nothingness. One cannot believe it - because in a certain sense one
is, and in a certain sense one is no more. The paradox has come to
the ultimate peak. One is and one is not. One can see one′s own
corpse - one is dead - and still one knows that one is seeing, so
one must be in some way, in some sense. All the past ideas of the
self have become irrelevant. A new idea of self arises.
Death happens, one disappears. This is what Christians call
crucifixion. Nothingness has arrived; one is just an empty sky.
Hindus call it samadhi, Zen people call it satori.
And the negative part complains. It will be good to remind you. At
the crucifixion Jesus shows both attitudes. First he complains. He
looks at the sky and says, ′Why? Why have you forsaken me? Why have
you abandoned me?′ This is the negative part. He is complaining. He
is dying and no help is arriving. He is on the cross - and deep down
somewhere there must have been a lurking desire that God′s hand will
arrive and everything will be okay and the cross will become a crown
and he will descend with new glory. Somewhere there must have been a
lurking desire in the very unconscious core of his mind - he may not
have been aware of it. He had waited long enough, the last point had
come. He had carried his cross on the hill, he had suffered all
kinds of humiliation, but he had waited, patiently waited - waited
for this moment. Now his hands have been nailed. Now it is a
question of seconds and he will be gone. Now there is no time left
to wait any more and the help has not come and God is not visible.
Hence the cry, ′Why have you forsaken me? Why have you abandoned
me?′ This is the negative part, natural even to a man like Jesus.
If you think of your past and then complain - ′I have been doing all
that was asked of me to do, all that you have ordered me to do. I
have followed you blindly, and this is the result? This is the
fulfilment...?′
The positive part is deep gratitude. With the second, the positive
part, one forgets the past, one looks into the future and one
trusts. The last test has come, the ultimate test, and one feels
grateful that ′If this is your will, let it be done.′ That′s what
Jesus did. He showed both the attitudes. First he showed the
negative - which is very human. I love Jesus because he showed that.
He was very human. That′s why he used to say again and again, ′I am
the Son of Man.′ As many times as he says ′I am the Son of God′ he
says ′I am the Son of Man.′
He was eternity come into time; he was the beyond come into the
world. He belonged to both the world and the beyond. That′s how each
Master belongs - to both. One foot is in this world, the other foot
is in the other. And on the crucifixion day, in that moment when all
is disappearing, Jesus shows both attitudes. First, he shows the
attitude of being ′Son of Man′. He says, ′Why? Why have you
abandoned me? I have hoped, I have prayed, I have lived a life of
virtue - and this is the fulfilment? This is the reward?′
But then he immediately understands that he is missing the point. If
this is the will of God then this has to be so. He surrenders. The
positive is gratitude, surrender.
With ′Why have you abandoned me?′ he recognises his complaint, his
humanity. He must have laughed in that moment, he must have seen his
limitation as a human being, and he dropped it. Immediately he says,
his immediate statement is, ′Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.′
Gratitude has arisen, surrender is total. Now there is nothing more.
Jesus dies as Son of God. And the gap is very, very tiny. In just a
split second he changed from being man into God. The moment
complaint changes into trust, you change from human into God. He
becomes prayer. ′Thy will be done.′ Now he is no more. Now he has no
will of his own.
And then comes the seventh valley, which is the last, the ultimate - the valley of hymns, the valley of celebration.
Rebirth, resurrection, happens in the seventh valley. That is the
meaning of the Christian idea of resurrection - that Christ is
reborn, reborn in the body of glory, reborn in the body of light,
reborn in the body divine. Now there is no positive, no negative.
Now there is no duality. One is ONE. Unity has arisen - what Hindus
call ADWAITA. The dual has disappeared. One has come home.
The valley of the hymns.... Al-Ghazzali has given it a beautiful
name. Now there is nothing left - just a song, a song of
celebration, praise of God, utter joy. This is what I call the
ultimate orgasm.
If I were going to name this valley I would call it the valley of
total orgasm. Only celebration is left. One has flowered, bloomed.
The fragrance is released. Now there is nowhere to go. Man has
become that for which he was seeking, searching, struggling.
Man is a paradox. He is not what he is. He is that which he is not
yet. But the day you realise the ultimate, you will have a laugh
arising in your very heart, because then you will know that you were
always this. It was just unknown to you. The future was contained in
you, just hidden. You had to discover it. These seven valleys are
the valleys of discovery.
This is a beautiful map; this is the Sufi map.
Note:
- The division of man′s journey into seven valleys, as used by Al-Ghazzali and Osho, has been taken from a book by Idries Shah, titled The Elephant in the Dark: Christianity, Islam and the Sufis.