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Book Name: Nirvana now or neverPrevious     Next
 

nobody remains to fall out.

Meditation means the disappearance of the mind and its centre, the ego; hence all other experiences, howsoever beautiful they may be, become repetitive. And anything that is repeated loses blissfulness, it loses newness, it loses youthfulness, aliveness -- slowly slowly it becomes flat. The peak that was once there in the beginning disappears. Then one can go on repeating it in the hope that the same thing will happen again, but it is not possible.

Repetition is mechanical, and our whole life is mechanical. Your love, your hobbies, your work, your relationships, your friendships -- yes, they give a certain pleasure, a certain happiness, but the honeymoon is soon over. And then a great frustration sets in, a tremendous hopelessness, because one cannot see why the joy disappeared: "I am doing the same thing, everything is the same, and yet nothing is the same."

In fact the moment you repeat something, even a second time, you are already losing ground because now you know what it is. When it happened for the first time you were in for a great surprise; that element of surprise was very essential in the joy. Now there is no surprise. It is like going to see the same movie again: now you know all the sequences -- from the very beginning, you know the end, you know what is going to happen next. There is no excitement, you cannot even pretend that you are excited.

It is like listening to the same joke: the first time it really triggers laughter. The reason is surprise. The whole art of a joke is that it takes a sudden turn, ;the punchline is a sudden turn. You were expecting a certain logical sequence and then it takes such an absurd turn that you could not have imagined it. That very shock releases your tension. You were becoming tense: "What is going to happen? What is going to happen?" You were coming to an inner climax and then, suddenly, what happens is so unexpected that you cannot do anything else but laugh -- laugh at the whole ridiculousness of logic -- because life always takes such turns. But listening to the same joke again cannot be the same. How can it be the same? -- you know the punchline already.

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