Spiritual Zoology

Veeresh About Fly Mentality, Lion's Appetite
and Other Realities

If you raise flies in a jar, and at some point you take the cover away, they won't leave. They believe the jar is their world. Only a couple of pioneers decide, 'Why should I be here? This is an opening; this is an opportunity. Let me see if I can go beyond the fact that I think it's closed.' They make it out. The rest of them stay in the jar forever. Isn't that amazing! This is fly mentality. Fly vision. Fly brains.

Imagine a bowl with goldfish. When you put a glass down the center, half of the goldfish are here, and half of the goldfish are there. After a while, when you take the glass away, they won't move over to the other side anymore. Their minds are fixed. They are in prison, just like the flies.

If you look at a lion in the jungle, you see beautiful trees and beautiful animals around the lion. You see the sun. You see Africa. You know what the lion sees? A meat market! It doesn't care about the sun. It doesn't care about the wind, or the trees or the green grass. Its mind is set on food.

You would like to think that you are intelligent. You think you determine reality. You use what you see, you use what you hear, what you smell, what you feel. Then you say, 'This is reality.' The fact is, you don't see reality AT ALL. You merely have a concept. You see about one billionth of what is possible. You have a mind like a fly.

You have already interpreted reality in your brains. You have already set it up. You don't SEE reality anymore. When you look at reality, it is not what you think it is. You would like to think that you are unique and that you can interpret every situation as something new. It's not true. It's OLD. It's an old program.

A vulture is only looking for cemeteries and dying animals. Bees don't look at the beauty of flowers; all they see is honey. Animals have fixed realities. It doesn't matter what's happening outside. Their minds are fixed. They are limited; they're in prison. We are just like that. We're fixed.

The way to train a baby elephant is to tie him to a huge tree with a big chain. He runs around the tree, he rolls on his back, he tries everything to get rid of the chain, but he can't. After a while, he realizes he can't get away from the chain. As he grows older, the chain and the tree get smaller. When he's big, they have him on a string tied to a twig, and that's it. He doesn't move anymore.

That's who you are. You have imprisoned yourself, whether it is with dope, whether it is with sex, whether it is with work, whatever your trip is. One little piece of string tied to a little piece of twig, and the elephant won't move. That's what we're up against with you.

You come here for an education. The reality is, we are amazing teachers. But will you take advantage of this reality? Will you run up to us and say, 'You know what it is that really scares me? I don't want to tell anybody in the world, but this is it. Help me do something about it.' NO, no, no, no. You won't do that. You won't take advantage of that.

As teachers we create STRESS. We say the group room is equal to the world. We want you to see that what you do is equal to a goldfish, that your mind is like an elephant, that you are like a fly, you're like a vulture, you are like a lion. You are limited. We create stress, and you know what: your reaction, your behavior is like a finger print. You think you have choices. Under stress you always behave the same way. You either collapse, or you fight authority and get freaked out, or you try to get through the door and run away. You have a favorite way of reacting under stress, not only in this room, but also outside in the world.

You don't always have to do the same thing. You have a choice. Under stress you don't always have to say NO. You can also say MAYBE. Now, that's called a choice: 'maybe'. Who knows, if you go into the center of the room, maybe something new will happen. You can always run back into the corner, because that's your favorite game. You've been doing that all your life. Maybe you can go into the center. Not only that. Maybe you can even discover all the other different spaces in the room.

Look at your sexuality. Look at how you avoid it. It is supposed to be pleasure. You can get really high on it. You get enlightened when you are really happy down here. When somebody says, 'Let's have a date', you freak out, you faint, you get sick, you find work to do, you go to the toilet, you get drunk, you go to sleep, or you find some other excuse to avoid pleasure, to avoid coming close together.

To tell you the truth, I don't think you can change very much. You are pretty fixed. What you can change, though, is your awareness. You can say, 'I don't always have to faint when somebody asks me for a date. I could open one eye at least and try to talk through the side of my mouth,' or something. You don't have to do the same thing over and over. That's what we're trying to teach you.

Under stress you have a favorite piece of behavior. In a marathon situation it comes up. You freak out, or it's too much, or you want to go to sleep, or you get tired. It really shows your position. That's why I enjoy doing marathons, because I know that people have to see themselves over and over. In a marathon you can't avoid yourself. When you say YES, sleep doesn't matter. When you say NO inside, every little movement you make is a DRAG. Getting up and walking across the room is a drag. When you say YES, the energy is there, and you forget all about time.

I would like to find out from you, what difficulties you're having here in your growth, in your pursuit of enlightenment, in ecstasy, in joy, in pleasure. Would you like to look like an elephant, or a fly, or a goldfish, or a bee? What is it with you? What is stopping you from being happy? I would like to know, so that we can do something about it, so that you can change your behavior.

Behavior is the only thing that we can see. You can TALK a lot, but when you DO something different, then we can say, 'Oh great! There's a change happening.' When you are afraid to hug, but you get up, and walk across the room and hug somebody, that's a change. When you are afraid of making dates, but you make dates anyway, you can learn what that's about. If you are isolated, and you get up and you meet a lot of people, you change.

We want you to change so much that when you go home, you can deal with all the stress that you imagine you have. I want to know what your number one problem is, so that we can do something about it. OK?