While one is asleep one cannot do anything that is good. Virtue is impossible in unconsciousness, only sin is possible. Unconsciousness is the source of sin.
I believe we are a species with amnesia, I think we have forgotten our roots and our origins. I think we are quite lost in many ways. And we live in a society that invests huge amounts of money and vast quantities of energy in ensuring that we all stay lost. A society that invests in creating unconsciousness, which invests in keeping people asleep so that we are just passive consumers or products and not really asking any of the questions.
There is no such thing as unconsciousness for it is not experienceable. We infer unconsciousness when there is a lapse in memory or communication.
To be a criminal needs great unconsciousness. Meditation destroys your unconsciousness, opens the doors of light and suddenly what you were doing in the darkness starts disappearing.
The English expression 'to fall asleep' is apt because the transition between waking and sleeping is a gradual drop from one state of being into another: a giving up of full self-consciousness for unconsciousness or for the altered consciousness of dreams.
If you consider risk versus benefit, I mean, what is the risk of meditating? You just spend twenty minutes meditating. It's one of the things you can say is pretty much zero risk and there is the potential for massive benefit. Even if it's just minimal benefit, who wouldn't want that?
For me, playing music is like meditating - I just play and don't really think about what I'm doing, I just let it happen.
When meditating, do not expect something to happen. Otherwise, you are meditating on your expectation, and you are not doing the Meditation itself.
Sleeping and being asleep is one of my favorite activities. Really, what I wanted to do is provide a landscape or a musical place where people could fall asleep.
While you are meditating revenge, the devil is meditating a recruit.
It's hard to keep the energy going sometimes, that's why I like to go with a group of people who are meditating. I love meditating in groups, it's fantastic.
You will have to go deep into man. From where comes this violence? From where comes this exploitation? From where come all these ego-trips? From where? They all come from unconsciousness. Man lives asleep, man lives mechanically. That mechanism has to be broken, man has to be re-done. That is the religious revolution that has not been tried.
When you are meditating, after you've meditated on the yantra or candle flame, simply try feeling gratitude. Sit and feel grateful to existence because you are meditating.
I cannot say to you what is right or wrong. I can say only one thing to you: be conscious - that is right. Don't be unconscious because that is wrong. And then whatsoever you do in consciousness is right. But people are living in unconsciousness. And let me tell you: in unconsciousness you may think you are doing something right, but it can't be right. Out of unconsciousness, virtue cannot flower; it may appear virtuous but it can't be. Deep down it will still be something wrong. If you are unconscious and you give money to a poor man, watch: your ego is strengthened. This is sin.
Was insanity really easier to accept than unconsciousness?
Before bed, I just brush my teeth and fall asleep. I don't usually wear makeup, but if I do, I'll wipe it off. Then it's pajamas and falling into bed, no other routine; I'm pretty good at just falling asleep right away.