PRISONER EXPRESS

There is a very old esoteric school about which you may not have heard of. This school was known as the school of Essenes. Now before I go any further I want to say something about darkness or the absence of light. When we were children we were told by friends and family about the boogie man and other evil things lurking in the dark to snatch us if we were not good. So we grew up passing the same lies onto our children. But the night is so beautiful and helpful. Because if you can learn to love to love darkness you will become unafraid of death. If you can enter into darkness--and you can enter only when there is no fear--you will achieve total relaxation. Man, through ignorance, heredity, and beliefs handed down through the ages, has completely closed himself off from the darkness. There were reasons, historical reasons because the night was very dangerous, and man was living in caves or in the jungle. In the day he was more secure: he could see all around, and no wild animals could attack him; or, he could make some arrangements, some defense--at least he could escape. But in the night everywhere was darkness and he was helpless, so he became afraid--and that fear had gone into the unconscious; still we are afraid.

We are not living in caves now and we are not at the mercy of wild animals, no one is going to attack us--but the fear is still there buried in our conscious and passed on through our heredity. Because if this fear man discovered fire and turned it into a god. Not because fire is a god, but because of fear of the darkness. In the night the fire became the friend, the protector, the divine security. That fear is still there. You may not be aware of it because no situations are there in which you can become aware of it, but one day put off the light in the middle of the night and sit--and the primitive fear will come to you. Some noise will come and you will become afraid of wild animals--some danger is around. That danger is not around; that is your unconscious.

All forms arise out of the darkness, and they fall back into darkness. Darkness is the womb, the cosmic womb. The undisturbed, the absolute stillness is there.

There are many madmen in our mad asylums who are suffering not from anything else but just from the primitive fears inside them which have erupted. The fears are there; the madmen are afraid scared every moment of their lives. And we don't yet know how to allow these primitive fears to evaporate. If madmen can be helped to mediate on darkness, madness will disappear. But only in Japan do they work towards this. If someone goes mad, psychotic or neurotic, the Japanese method is to allow him to live in isolation for three weeks or for six weeks, as the case may be. They just allow him to live in isolation. No doctor, no psychoanalyst goes to him. Food is supplied, these needs are taken care of, and he is left alone.

The Sufis have a method of dealing with darkness, a particular sect of Sufis, and those Sufis are known as drunken Sufis. They are drunk with the darkness. They make holes in the ground, and they lie down in the holes every night, and they meditating down in their holes, meditating on darkness, becoming one with it. They are known as drunken Sufis--and they are drunk with the darkness.

Our gods are created out of fear. We give them shape and form. That shape and form is given by us--it shows something about us, not about our gods. We are the ones that labeled God as Light. Why has God been symbolized everywhere as light? Not because God is light, but because man is afraid of darkness.

Now, let me go back to the start and the school of Essenes, the only group in the entire world who think of God as absolute darkness. The Koran says God is light; the Bible says God is light. The Essenes group, the one that taught Jesus, is the only tradition in the world which says God is absolute darkness, absolute blackness, just an infinite black night. Darkness is eternal, light comes and goes and darkness remains. In the morning the sun will rise and there will be light, in the evening the sun will set and there will be darkness. For darkness nothing will rise--it is always there--nothing will rise--it is always there--it never rises and never sets. Light comes and goes; darkness remains. Light always has some source, darkness is without source. That which has some source cannot be infinite; only that which is sourceless can be infinite and eternal. Light has a certain disturbance that's why you cannot sleep in light. It creates a tension. Darkness is relaxation total relaxation. So why are we afraid? Because light appears to us as life--it is; life comes through light, and when you die it appears you have fallen into eternal darkness. That's why we paint death as black, and black has become a color for morning. God is light, and death is black. That's the way we perceive it. But darkness is the womb out of which everything arises and into which everything falls. Essenes took this standpoint. It is very helpful also, because if you can love darkness you will become unafraid of death. Life will seem so much more fulfilling. If you can enter into darkness--and you can enter only when there is no fear--you will achieve total relaxation. It's working for me. That's why I take the time at might when it is dark whether it's the middle of the night or not to meditate on darkness.