The greatest dancer of this age was Nijinsky....

Every great poet, painter, singer, dancer has been aware of the fact that he has been great only in the moments when he has not been. It is not a contradiction.

The greatest dancer of this age was Nijinsky. He went mad because he was born in the West; in the East, he would have become a Gautam Buddha. In the West there was no background to explain what was happening to him, and it was a weird experience - while dancing... once in a while when he would forget himself completely, would become so much absorbed in the dance that there was only the dance and no dancer - he would jump so high that it was against gravitation. No scientist had any explanation. Man cannot jump that high, it is simply not possible.
And that was not the whole story.
When he would come back down... anything when falling, the gravitation of the earth pulls it forcibly. But when Nijinsky would be coming back down, he would come so slowly... just like a dead leaf falling from the tree, moving slowly, or like a feather. That was even more difficult to explain.
And when people asked him, "What you do?" he said, "Whenever I try to do it, it never happens. Finally I give up, and then one day suddenly it happens - but it happens only when I am not, when I am not the doer. It is something of the beyond."
From: Beyond Enlightenment

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He was asked again and again, "What is the secret?" He said, "The secret I don't know. All that I know is, whenever I try to do it I never succeed. In my aloneness I try to do it - I never succeed. When I forget myself completely in the dance, when there is no Nijinsky, only the dance, suddenly it happens. It is a surprise to you, it is a surprise to me. It is not my doing."

Meditation is not your doing. You simply make the effort, but it is not your doing. Your effort is needed to prepare the ground. As the ground is ready, immediately you see you are no more; the whole cosmos is. You have entered a greater womb, an eternal womb of tremendous peace and ecstasy.
From Communism, Zen Fire, Zen Wind
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Nijinsky said, "If you want to know the truth, I have tried many times in my home to jump that high - I could not. I have tried to fall like a feather - I could not. I have tried to fall like a feather - I came down with a thump on the ground. I have bruised my body, broken one of my legs! Please don't ask that question.
"And it does not happen every day. It happens only when I forget myself completely. When the dancer disappears in the dance then I don't know what happens because I am not there. When the dancer is no longer there, then something miraculous happens. It is a mystery to me too. I cannot explain why and how - why I don't fall with speed, why I come slowly, leisurely, what happens to gravitation."
Perhaps a man without ego has a certain attunement with nature. Now he is not jumping, but the earth is helping him to jump. Now he is not falling, but the earth is taking care of him so that he does not fall fast and have a few fractures.
Nijinsky said, "It happens only when I am not. So please, don't ask me. Whenever I am, and trying to make an effort, it does not happen."
These are the people who should give you the secrets of religion.
From: From Death to Deathlessness

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The real artist certainly thinks of totality - how to be total? - but never thinks of perfection. And the beauty is: those who are total, they are perfect. And those who think of perfection are never perfect, never total. Rather, on the contrary: the more they think of perfection, the more neurotic they become. They have ideals. They are always comparing, and they are always falling short!

If you have an ideal that unless this ideal is fulfilled, you will not think yourself perfect, how can you be total in your act? If you think, for example, that you have to be a dancer like Nijinsky, then how can you be total in your dance? You are constantly looking, watching yourself, trying to improve, afraid to commit any fault... you are divided. A part of you is dancing, another part of you is there - judgmental, standing by the side condemning, criticizing. You are divided, you are split.

Nijinsky was perfect because he was total. It used to happen that when he danced and he would take leaps in his dance, people could not believe their eyes, even scientists could not believe their eyes. His leap was such that it was against the law of gravitation - it should not happen! And when he fell back, he would come so slowly, like a feather... that too is against the law of gravitation.

He was asked about it again and again. The more people asked, the more he became conscious of it, the more it started disappearing. A moment came in his life when it stopped completely, and the reason was that he became conscious of it - he lost his totality. Then he understood it, why it had disappeared. It used to happen, but it used to happen only when Nijinsky was completely lost into the dance. In that complete loosening, in that complete relaxation, one functions in a totally different world, according to different laws.
From: The Perfect Master, vol. 2
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One of the greatest dancers of this century was Nijinsky, and in the end he just went mad. He may have been the greatest dancer in all of history, but the movement became so much for him that the dancer was lost in it. In his last years he was unable to control it. He could begin dancing at any moment, anywhere, and when he was dancing, no one could say when it would end. It might even continue the whole night.
When friends asked him, "What has become of you? You begin, and then there is no end," Nijinsky said, "'I' am only in the beginning. Then something takes over and 'I' am no more - and who dances, I do not know."
He went mad. He was in a madhouse; he died in a madhouse.
Take any activity and go to the limit where there is either madness or meditation. Lukewarm search will not do.
From: Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy