Question 1

STILLNESS has many dimensions.

One is silence: it is the polar opposite of sound; it is soundlessness. The second dimension is no-movement: it is the polar opposite of movement. Mind is movement just as mind is sound. Sound travels and mind also. Mind is on a constant move, never standing still. You cannot conceive of a still mind. There exists no such thing, because when stillness is, mind is no more; when mind is, there is movement. So what is the movement of mind? Through it we can conceive of the second dimension of stillness – no-movement.

Outwardly we know what movement means – moving from one spot to another, from one place to another, from A to B. If you are at A and you then move to B, movement has taken place. So outside of the mind, movement means changing places in space. If there is no space, you cannot move. You need space to move in the outer world.

Inward movement is not in space but in time. If there is no time, you cannot move inside. Time is inner space: from one second you move to another second, from this day to another day, from here to somewhere else, from now to then, in time. Time is inner space. Analyze your mind and you will see that you are always moving from past to future or from future to past. Either you are moving in past memories or you are moving in desires for the future.

When you move from the past to the future or from the future to the past, only then do you use the present moment – but just as a passage. The present is nothing but the dividing line between past and future for the mind. For the mind, the present is not really existential. It is just a dividing line from where you can move to the past or to the future. Mind is never in the present because you are unable to move in the present. Understand this: you are unable to move in the present. In the present there is no time. The present is always a single moment. You are never in two moments together; only the moment is given to you. You cannot move from A to B because only A exists; there is no B.

Understand this quality of time in the present: you are always given only a single moment. Whether you are a beggar on the street or an emperor, it makes no difference. Your time wealth is the same – only one moment at a time – and you cannot move in it. There is no place to move to, and mind exists only in movement. So mind never uses the present; it cannot use it. It goes back to the past. There it has many points to move to. There is a long memory: your whole past is there.

Or else it goes to the future. Again you can imagine because future also is basically only the past projected. You have lived, you have experienced many things. You desire them again, or you desire to avoid them: that is your future. You loved someone; it was beautiful, blissful. Then you desire it again, so you project into the future your wish to repeat it. You were ill, you suffered, and you want to avoid it in the future. so you project not to be ill again. So your future is just a projected past, and you can move in the future.

But the mind is not satisfied with the future that belongs to this life. It projects heaven, it projects future lives. It is not satisfied with a small future, so beyond death also mind creates time. The past and future are vast territories; you can move easily in them. With the present you cannot move. No-movement means to be in the present. That is the second dimension of stillness. If you can be in the moment, just here and now, you will be still. You cannot be anything else. Then no other possibility exists but to be still.

Live in the now, and movement will stop because the mind will stop. Do not think of the past and do not project into the future. That which is given to you is all and all. Stick to it, remain in it, be content with it. This very moment is the only real existential time; there is nowhere else. The past is just a memory. It is just in your mind, just accumulated dust, accumulated experience. There is no past in the Existence, there is no future in the Existence. Existence is the present.

If man were not on this earth, there would be no past and no future. Flowers would flower, of course, but in the present. The sun would rise, but in the present. The earth would not know anything of the past, would not dream anything of the future. There would be no past, no future. The past is in the mind, in the memory, and because of that memory it is projected into the future. So ordinarily we divide time into three parts – past, present and future. But, really, the past and future are not a part of time at all. They are parts of the mind, not parts of time. Time has only one division, if you can call it a division: that is the present.

Time is always the present. These three divisions are not divisions of time. Past and future belong to the mind, not to time at all. To time, only the present belongs. But then it is difficult to call it the 'present' because to us, linguistically, 'present' means something between the past and the future. It refers to the past, it refers to the future. If there were no past and no future, then the word ”present” would lose all meaning.

Eckhart is reported to have said that there is no time – only the eternal now. There is an eternal now and an infinite here. When we say ”there”, it is only in reference to where we are; otherwise there is only here. If I am not here, then what point will be here and what point will be there? In reference to myself, I call the nearer place here, and that which is not near I call there. Where does the here end and where does the there begin? We cannot demarcate the line. Really, it is all one ”hereness” – an infinite here.

Because of the mind, we divide time. Then that which we have experienced becomes the past, that which we expect to experience becomes the future, and that which we are passing through becomes the present. But if there is no mind, then it is again an infinite now, an eternal now. Here, just now, is the reality. There and then are parts of mind, not parts of reality.

To conceive of stillness from the second dimension means making an effort to live moment to moment. Then you will be still; you will be silent. Then there will be no trembling inside, no wavering inside, no movement. Everything will have become a pool of deep silence.

Why does this mind move into the past and the future? Buddha has given the name tanha to trishna – desire. Buddha says that because you have experienced something, you desire it again. Because you desire, you move into the future. Do not desire, and there is no future. It is difficult because when mind experiences pleasure it wants to repeat it, and when mind feels displeasure it doesn’t want to repeat it: it wants to avoid it. Because of this it is a very natural thing that the future is created, and because of this future we go on missing the present.

You are listening to me: you can just listen; then you will not have any mind at all. It will be a mindless listening. But if you are listening and trying to understand also, then you have moved into the future. If you are thinking of what is being said to you, you have missed what is being said to you: you have moved to the future. And the present is such a subtle and delicate thing and such a minute, atomic thing that you can miss it in a single moment of the mind. Just a jerk, and you have missed it.

If you are listening, then just listen. Do not think about what is being said, do not try to find out the meaning – because you cannot do two things in the present: listening is enough. And if you are simply listening, then you are in the present, and even listening becomes a meditation.

A Listening Meditation - Alan WattsVIDEO

Mahavir has said that if you can just listen rightly you need not practise anything else. Just by being a shravak, a right listener, you will achieve everything that can be achieved – just by being a shravak, a right listener – because just listening is not just listening: it is a great phenomenon. And once you know the secret, you can apply it anywhere. Then just eating will be meditation, just walking will be meditation, just sleeping will be meditation. Then anything with which you are in the moment, without any movement into the future, will be meditation.

But we do not know any activity in which we are in the present. Either we begin to think of the past or of the future. The present is continuously missed. That means the Existence is continuously missed. And then it becomes a chain process; then it becomes a habit.

Stillness

Question 1 (continued):

One evening Mulla Nasrudin was walking down a street. The street was lonely and suddenly he became aware of some horsemen, some troops coming toward him. His mind began to work. He thought that they may be robbers, that they may kill him. Or, they may be soldiers of the King and he may be pressed into military service or something. He made himself frightened. And when the horses and their sounds came nearer, he bolted, ran away and jumped into a cemetery, and just to hide from them he lay down in an open grave.

Seeing this man suddenly moving away, the horsemen, who were just innocent travellers, became aware of what had happened. They ran after Mulla Nasrudin and came near his grave. He was lying there with closed eyes as if dead. ”What has happened?” they asked. ”Why have you suddenly become so frightened? What is the matter?”

Then Mulla Nasrudin realized that he had unnecessarily frightened himself. He opened his eyes and said, ”It is a very complicated thing, very complex. If you insist on asking why I am here, I will tell you. I am here because of you, and you are here because of me.”

This is a vicious circle. If you desire, then you have moved into the future, and this will create the vicious circle. When that future becomes the present, you will again move into the future. Today I will think of tomorrow: this will become a habit. And tomorrow never comes. It cannot come; that is impossible. When it comes it is again today, and I have created a habit of always moving from today to tomorrow. So when tomorrow comes it comes as today, then I again move toward tomorrow.

This is a chain! And the more you do it, the more you become efficient in doing it. And the tomorrow never comes. Always that which comes is today, and with today you have no relationship. You have a mechanism: because it is today, you move. This is a very great habit – not only of this life, but of lives together. One has to break it, one has to come out of it. Whatsoever you are doing, remember only one thing: remain in the present while you are doing it. It is difficult, arduous, and you cannot succeed immediately. A long habit has to be broken. It is going to be a tough struggle, but try. The very effort will create a gap, and the very effort will sometimes give you some moments of the present. And once you know the taste, you are on the path.

But you do not even know the taste of the present. You have never tasted it, you have never lived in it – never, I say. And it is always here. It is the very life; it is all that is in life.

Jesus says that we are just dead – not alive!

One day, he was passing by a fisherman just as the morning sun was going to rise. The fisherman had thrown his net into the lake, and Jesus put his hand on the fisherman’s shoulder and said, ”Are you going to destroy your whole life just catching fish? I can show you something better to catch. I can make you a fisherman of life.” The fisherman looked at Jesus as if some magnet was working on him. Then he threw away his net and followed Jesus.

When they were just going out of the village, someone came running and told the fisherman, ”Your father is dead. He has just died, so come home. Where are you going?”

The fisherman asked permission. He said to Jesus, ”Allow me to go home. Soon I will come back. I have to bury my dead father.”

Jesus said, ”Let the dead bury the dead. You need not go; you follow me. There are many dead men in the village. They will bury the dead.”

For Jesus, we are dead men because we have never tasted life. never tasted the present, the existential. We live in the dead past, and we go on projecting the dead past into the future. This is what Shankara says is MAYA – illusion. Shankara has been very much misunderstood. When Shankara says that the whole world is an illusion, he means man’s world is an illusion, not the world.

We do not know anything about the world. We have created our own mental world. Everyone has his own world – this world of past and future, this world of memories and desires. This world is false, illusory. So when Shankara says that this world is false, it means your world, not the world. And when your world is no more, you will come to know the real world. And Shankara says that that is the Brahman, that is the Truth – the absolute Truth.

It is as if we are living in a dreamworld, everyone surrounded by his own dreams, the cloudy mist of dreams. Everyone is moving surrounded by his own dreams. And because of these dreams we cannot see what is true, what is real. The real is hidden behind our dreams. This dreaming mind is the unstill mind; the nondreaming mind is the still mind. But desires create dreams. You dream in the night because you desire in the day. If you do not desire in the day you cannot dream in the night.

A Buddha cannot dream, because dreams are desires and desires are dreams. When they are in the day you call them desires; when they are in the night you call them dreams: But every desire is a dream. Why? Because every desire is in the future which is not: every desire is a future desire which is not. The future is not!

We go on dreaming. This dreaming must be broken. This dreaming is a movement, a continuous movement. You are filled with dreams – dreams that are broken, burned, newly created. Every day we have to throw out old ones and create new ones.

Any moment, in any activity, try to be here and now. Even the effort is a barrier, but one has to begin. At the beginning you will have to make an effort. Even the effort is a barrier because effort again moves you into the future. But in the beginning one has to make an effort; then in the second stage one has to make an effortless effort; and then in the third stage effort disappears and you are in the present.

You are walking on a street: try just to walk; do not do anything else. It looks simple: it is not! It looks as if we are all doing it; it is not so! When you are walking, your mind is doing a thousand other things. Move with every step. Just walk. Put the mind aside, make it a meditation.

Buddha has said, ”When you are walking, just walk; when you are eating, just eat; when you are listening, just listen.” Be in the act totally; do not allow your mind to move somewhere else. And this is a wonderful experience because suddenly the present will break in. Into your world of dreams, the world of reality will penetrate. And if you have this glimpse, even for a single moment, you will be a different person. Then you will know something which is just here and now, around you, and you are missing it. You are missing it only because of a mechanical habit, and one cannot do anything other than to try to be non-mechanical.

Sometimes, with awareness, miracles happen. I was reading that in Russia, in the old days before the revolution, in a small provincial town, a drama was enacted. Suddenly the manager became aware that one person was missing who was essential in the last act. One man was needed in a particular role in which he had to stutter. The man was missing, so they tried to find someone to replace him. Then someone suggested that it would be difficult to catch him just at that time; but in that village there was one boy who was just perfect. He did not need to undergo any training because he stuttered naturally. So the boy was brought. Many doctors had tried to cure him, many medicines were tried, but the stuttering had continued.

So the boy was called and given the role. There was no need for him to practise. Just when the boy entered on the stage, he tried to stutter and he could not. He began to speak as faultlessly as anyone. The more he tried, the more impossible it was. What had happened? For the first time the mechanical habit of stuttering was broken by awareness. Now he was doing it with full alertness. He was trying to do it. He was conscious, and the disease disappeared. It had been a mechanical habit, but the very effort to do it consciously made it impossible.

I was in a town. A professor was brought to me. He was a professor in a college – a very learned, sensible, rational man. But he was suffering – suffering much because he had imbibed the habit of walking like a woman. And that was a problem for him, particularly in a college. Everyone would laugh. He was psychoanalyzed, treated, hospitalized, but nothing would result from any effort. And the more he tried, the more he willed not to do it, then the more the thing would happen, so he became confused.

He was brought to me. I told him, ”Do not fight with the habit. Rather, do it consciously. When you walk on the street, walk like a woman. Try to walk like a woman.”

He said, ”What are you telling me? I am already in so much trouble. And if I myself try to walk that way, then it will be even worse.”

So I told him, ”You have tried continuously for twenty years not to walk like a woman. Now try the contrary. You stand here. Just walk in this room before me.”

He was very shy about it. Still, he tried, but he couldn’t walk. He said, ”What has happened? What are you doing? Have you done something? It is a miracle! I am trying, and I cannot walk like a woman.”

I told him, ”Go, and continue doing it. Go to your college. Try in every way to walk like a woman.”

In the evening he came. He was just ecstatic. He said, ”How can I thank you? It seems impossible, but it is miraculous. The trick has worked. I cannot walk. If I try to walk, I cannot. What has happened!”

The moment you bring your alertness to any mechanical habit, it stops, because a mechanical habit feeds on your unconsciousness. So willpower won’t do. Awareness will do! And remember the difference: in willpower you begin to fight with the habit, and if you try to fight with the habit, you have accepted it. When I say to do it consciously, I mean not to fight with it. Give it your full support; do not be ”anti” to it.

You are walking on the street: give your full support to your walking. Be one with it; be aware of what is going on. Now the left leg, now the right, is moving. Feel every moment consciously. Remain with the moment; do not allow your mind to move anywhere else. If the mind moves because of old habits, bring it back again. Do not become frustrated. If the mind moves, then do not say, ”It is impossible. I cannot do it” – no! Bring your mind back again. Try again, and sooner or later you will begin to feel some moments, howsoever rare they are, when you will taste the feeling of the present. What it is to feel the present! And once you feel the present, you are just near the door of Existence. You can enter it.

Stillness in this dimension means no movement of the mind in the past or the future. No movement! Just remain in the present. You can understand it intellectually; you may even feel that it is okay. But intellectual understanding will not help. Rather, it may be a deception; it may prove a deception. You will have to DO IT! Thinking is of no help.

You are lying on your bed; you are just going to sleep: feel this state of lying on the bed. Feel the touch of the bed, the touch of the bedsheets and the sounds all around, the traffic sounds or whatsoever is going on there. Feel it! Be there; do not think, just feel. Be in the present. And in that feeling state, fall into sleep. You will have less dreams that night; you will have a deeper sleep. In the morning, you will have a fresher awakening.

When in the morning you feel for the first time that sleep has broken, do not just jump out of the bed. Remain there for five minutes. Feel again the sheets, the warmth, the coldness, or the rain falling on the roof, or the traffic that has begun again, or the world that is awakening, the noise, the birds singing – feel them for five minutes. Do not rush into the day just now. Be with the morning. Otherwise your sleep will be broken, and you will have rushed and moved into the future.

You have gone to the market or to your office, but you have rushed, you have moved. For five minutes just be there. Do not move so fast: there is no hurry. These five minutes will become meditative. These moments in the morning and in the night are the best moments. At that time it is very easy to get the feeling of the present.

The moment of just falling into sleep is a very vulnerable moment. Be sensitive to everything around. Do not think. Feel! Feeling is always in the present and thinking is never in the present. So in the morning, when the mind is fresh after a night’s sleep and the body is relaxed and you have no energy to work with, feel for five minutes and then come out of your bed. But be alert that you are coming out of the bed. Take every step with full awareness. And in the morning it is very easy. In the afternoon it will not be so easy; in the evening it will become more difficult.

Go to your bath and take a shower: FEEL! Feel the water of the shower falling on you, feel every drop falling on you. Forget everything else. Just remain under this shower and feel the present.

Even the morning bath can become a deep meditation. When the water is falling on you, you can have a deep communion with nature. Remain there for a few minutes, and then try to continue this feeling. You are taking your breakfast or you are eating your food: try to continue it. It will be more and more difficult, but go on trying. A time soon will come when you can move throughout the day in the present, when you can remain in the present. And once this happens, you will know what stillness is.

This is the second dimension. There is a third dimension also, and it will be good to know about it. One is silence as against sound. That is one dimension: soundlessness. The second is stillness as against movement; that is non-movement, no-movement. And the third is non-being as against ego – egolessness. The third is the deepest.

Buddha has said, ”Unless you cease to be, you cannot be still." You are the problem, you are the noise, you are the movement. So unless you cease completely you cannot attain perfect stillness. Because of this, Buddha is known as anatmawadi – one who believes in no-self.

We go on thinking that we are, that ”I am”. This ”I” is a very false thing. And because of this I, many diseases are created; because of this I, you go on accumulating the past; because of this I, you go on thinking about repeating past pleasures. Everything else hangs on this I – the past, the future, the desires.

Buddha came to know through deep meditation that we can leave the desires of the world, but if the 'I' remains then it begins to desire MOKSHA – Ultimate Liberation, freedom to be one with God, to be one with the Brahman. If this 'I' remains, desires will be there, whatsoever their direction and whatsoever their object.

Buddha says, ”Drop this 'I'-centered existence.” But how to drop it? Who will drop it? If there is no I, who will drop it? Who will think to drop it? By ”dropping” is meant to go inside and find it, to search for it, to see where it is, whether it is or not – because those who have gone in and those who have searched for it have never found it. It is only those who have never gone in, never searched for it, who believe in it, that it is there. No one has ever found that anything like ”I” exists.

When I say ”I am”, the ”am” is the reality, not the ”I”. When you go in you feel a certain ”am-ness”, a certain existential feeling is there. You know something is there, but it is not you. There is no feeling of 'I'. Only a diffused am-ness is felt, the Existence is felt with no 'I'.

So another thing for entering into the third dimension: whenever you have time, whenever, try to find out where this 'I' is. You need not go to a temple. If you go, it is good, but you need not. You are just travelling in the train: close your eyes; try to find out where this 'I' is. In the body In the mind? Where is it? Go with an open mind. Just find out where it is. Just sitting in your car or just lying in your bed, whenever you have a few moments to close your eyes, then close them – and with just one question: ”Where does this 'I' exist? Where is it? Where is 'I'?”

Raman Maharshi has given a meditation. He calls it the ”Who am I?” meditation. Buddha would say that this will not do, because when you ask ”Who am I?” you have already supposed that you are. Then that is not questioned. If the only question is ”Who am I?” then ”I am” is settled already. You have presupposed it. Now you are just asking, ”Who am I?” The 'I' is not really questioned. Buddhist meditation says ask, ”Where am I?” not ”Who?”

Go to every nook and corner inside, search with an open mind, and you will not find yourself anywhere. You will find a silent Existence. but with no I. And do not think that this is very difficult. This is not! Even if you just close your eyes here and try to find out ”Where am I?” you will not find out. You will find many other things. Your heart will be beating, your breathing will be there, you will find many thoughts floating in the mind. You may find many things. but you will not find any I, any ego there.

Buddha says ego is just a collective notion – just like ”society”, just like ”nation”, just like ”humanity”. You cannot find them anywhere. We are sitting here. We can call this a ”class”, but we cannot find it. If we go to search for it, we will find individuals, not any class. No group will be found – only individuals. ”Group” is just a name for a collectivity. We call many trees a forest. There exists no forest – only trees and trees and trees. If you go in, then you will find trees, and the forest will disappear. This I is just a collective name. You are a group. The Buddhist word is sangha – just a compound, a collective thing. You are many things, but not I. Go in and find out. Buddha says, ”Do not believe me. Go in and find out; peep in and find out.” Then it is never found.

So in this third dimension there is non-beingness or egolessness. When one finds that one is not, one is still: stillness has happened. You cannot be tense, you cannot be non-still, you cannot be in a deep inner noise if there is no ego. The whole show is withdrawn.

But what are we doing? Every moment we are doing things to feed this I – to give it more strength, to give it more energy, to give it more fuel. We are every moment trying to sustain it. It is a false notion, but it can be sustained and maintained. You can go on believing in it and creating situations in which it becomes easier and easier to believe in it. I is a belief. It is not a fact.

Everyone is a believer in the ego. People will ask, ”Where is God? Unless we find Him we cannot believe in Him.” Even those persons will go on believing in their egos without trying to find out whether any such thing exists. This is a miracle. We can doubt God, but we cannot doubt ourselves. And unless we doubt ourselves, we cannot move into stillness. With that doubt everything is shattered. A religious man is born by doubting his ego and doubting himself.

We have taken 'I' for granted. We never ask about it, whether it is there or not. And if someone makes us aware that it is not there, he is an enemy. Friends are those who help us to be stronger egos. Our family, our society, our nation, they all help us to be centered in our egos. Religion dethrones you. You are put down from your pedestal: you are not. And if you are not, you will be in a deep abyss of stillness – bottomless, infinite – because this I is the disturber, this I is the disease, this 'I' is the nuisance. That is the problem.

Tanka was staying in a village. Someone comes and asks, ”Help me! Teach me! Initiate me! I want to be free! I want to attain moksha!”

Tanka says to him, ”I cannot make you free. I can dissolve your ’you’ but I cannot make you free.”

There is no freedom for the 'I'. There is only one freedom and that is freedom from the 'I'. There is no moksha for the 'I', no Liberation for 'I'. There is only one Liberation and that is from the 'I', not for the 'I'.

So what can you do? You can ponder over it without any preconceptions. Whenever you have time, just close your eyes, go in, and find out where you are. And soon you will stumble upon the fact that you exist as part of the infinite Existence, not as a separate island. No man is an island. We are parts of an infinite continent. The 'I' gives you the false notion of being an island, and then every trouble is created. 'I' is the troublemaker. Every violence, war, crime, every madness, is created by this 'I'. We go on clinging to it and clinging to it. This clinging must be stopped.

You must be uprooted from your own 'I'. No one else can do this and no yoga practice will help, because if you go on practising without searching for this 'I', then whatsoever the practice, the 'I' will be strengthened by it. If you meditate, this 'I' will say, ”I am meditating.” If you renounce the world, this 'I' will say, ”I have renounced this world.” If you become a sannyasin this I will say, ”I have become a sannyasin, I have attained this, I have attained that.” In this world or in that world this 'I' will go on becoming strengthened by your efforts.

So it happens that a person who has practised much austerity becomes an egoist in a more subtle way. He becomes more of an I rather than becoming part of the great mainland, the great continent. He becomes a peak of ego. This is possible for everyone. So it is not only wealth or prestige or worldly things and possessions that will become food for the I. I can convert everything into its food.

So before entering on the spiritual path, Buddha’s advice has to be always remembered. He has said, ”Before you enter any path, first find out whether this 'I' exists or not. Only then will your path be spiritual. Otherwise, whatsoever the path may be, it will ultimately prove worldly, because this 'I' will exploit it.”

Once Mulla Nasrudin came back from the capital to his village. The whole village gathered around him to ask the news about the capital, about what was happening there. And in those days of no newspapers, it was a big event for the village: A man has been to the capital and has come back!

And no ordinary man at that, but Mulla Nasrudin himself, the only literate man in the town! When everyone was gathered, Mulla was just silent, very serious. He had just come back from the capital. The whole village was just mad, crazy to know what had happened. Then Mulla said, ”At this time I will not tell you much, only one thing – I met the Emperor. And not only that: he has spoken to me. But I will give you the details later on.”

The village dispersed. The whole village became enthusiastic over only one thing: Mulla Nasrudin has met the Emperor. And not only that: the Emperor has spoken to him! But one man still remained there, and he persisted to ask, ”What has he spoken? Tell me Mulla. Otherwise I am not going to leave. I cannot sleep now because I am so excited. What has he spoken? Just tell a little. Do not go into details, but just tell the essence.”

So Mulla said, ”There are not many details. When he saw me standing, he shouted,’Get out of my way!’ This was the only thing he spoke to me.”

But the villager was satisfied because these were no ordinary words. They were spoken by the Emperor! The very same words spoken by the Emperor he has heard! The man who asked was satisfied, and he said, ”It is so fortunate to be born in your village, Mulla. Imagine! I have heard the very same words that were spoken by the Emperor! He himself said to you,’Get out of my way!’ ”

Nasrudin said, ”He himself! He came near me and spoke not in a whisper, but in such a loud voice that everyone heard: ’Get out of my way.’ He cried it, really. He screamed.”

Mind is such, the ego is such, that it tries to fulfill itself in each and every way. Subtle are its ways, even foolish, but subtle. If you try to do something toward spirituality, the ego may poison it. Before going into that dimension, remember that you are not an ego. If you find out for once that this ego is not there, then everything becomes spiritual and every path becomes a spiritual path. Then wherever you go, you will go to the Divine. Then every path leads to the Divine. With the ego, no path leads to the Divine. With the ego, even if you go to Mecca or to Jerusalem or to Kashi, you will reach hell.

You cannot go anywhere because the ego is the hell. Without the ego, go anywhere, even to hell, and you will find heaven there – because without the ego, anywhere is heaven. The ego is the root cause of all misery.

These are the three dimensions of stillness – silence as soundlessness, silence as a no-movement of the mind, silence as egolessness. Start with any one, and the other two will follow by and by. Or, you can start working on all the three. Then the whole work will be speedy. But do not go on thinking, because thinking is a movement, thinking is a noise, and thinking is a process of the ego.

Stop thinking and start doing. Only doing helps, only doing can make you existential. Only through doing is there the jump and the explosion.

Question 2

The situation appears so. It is not. Rather, the situation is quite the vice versa. You are not exhausted because of this industrialized age and the work and the tensions. You are exhausted because you have lost contact with your inner stillness. The work is not the problem: you are the problem. Neither is the age the problem. You are the problem.

Do not go on thinking that modern man is more burdened with work. He is less burdened. A primitive man is more burdened. Mechanization, industrialization, they all help to save time. They are for saving time and they have saved much.

But because you now have time and no stillness, because you now have time and no use for it, it creates problems. A primitive man has less problems, not because he is silent and still, but because he has no time, no time, to create troubles for himself. You have more time and you do not know what to do.

This time can be used for an inner journey. And if man cannot use it for that inwardness, he is done for. Then there is no hope because now more and more time will be saved. Soon the whole world will be under automatic mechanization. You will have time and you won’t know what to do, and for the first time in history man will have achieved the utopia he has always longed for, desired. Then he will be at a loss as to what to do with it.

You have more time than any age, and you are not exhausted because of the work. You are exhausted because you have lost the inner contact – because you do not know how to go deep in yourself and be revitalized. You have even lost the ability to sleep. That used to be the natural method to go in. Then one would be fresh in the morning, recharged, revitalized. But now we have lost the ability to sleep, and we have lost it because of the mechanical revolution, because now your bodies are not forced to work. Because of less work you are less exhausted, and because of less exertion you cannot sleep.

A villager still sleeps deeply; because his body is so exhausted, he falls deep into sleep. Your body is not exhausted; that is why you go on turning in your bed. Machines have replaced labour and you are less exhausted – remember this. And then you cannot sleep, and even the natural source of inner revitalization is lost. In the morning you are more exhausted than in the evening, and then the whole day begins again and you feel again exhausted.

You are living an exhausted life. It is not only that you are exhausted in the evening: in the morning you are also exhausted. What has happened? Man needs continuous contact with the inner source. So do not ask me how an exhausted man can meditate. It is like asking me how a diseased man, an ill man, can take medicine. He needs it, and only he needs it.

You are exhausted, so meditation will be a medicine to you. And do not say that you have no time. You have much time, much that you can use. Everyone is wasting time in so many ways. People are playing cards. If you ask them they will say, ”We are killing time.” The cinema houses are packed. What are people doing there? Killing time! They go to hotels, clubs. What are they doing there? Killing time!

But you cannot kill time. Time only can kill you. So no one is now without time. And do not think that time is a limited quantity. Do not think that every day consists of twenty-four hours – no! It is up to you. It depends on you how many hours you put into it. It depends on that.

Someone asked Emerson, ”What is your age?” He said, ”Three hundred and sixty years.”

It was unbelievable, so that man said, ”Pardon me! It seems I have not heard you rightly. Tell it again. How many years are you saying?”

Emerson repeated loudly, ”Three hundred and sixty years!”

But the man said. ”I cannot believe it. This is impossible. You are not more than sixty.”

Emerson said, ”That is right, you are right. My actual age is sixty, but I have lived six times more than you. I have used my sixty years in such a way that they have proved to be three hundred and sixty years.”

This man was about fifty and Emerson said, ”If you say you are fifty, the same will be the problem for me. I cannot believe it because you look to me not more than thirty. You have simply wasted life. You have not lived.”

The wasting of time is one thing, living is another. So every day is not a fixed thing. A Buddha can use it in such a way that it becomes a life. It is not ”how much” – it ultimately depends on how much you put into it.

You are a creator. We create our time, we create our space, we create our milieu, through living. So whatsoever your position in life and whatsoever your work and whatsoever your outward situation, do not make it an excuse. You can meditate all the same, and meditation doesn’t need time. It needs a deep understanding, not time.

And it is not in conflict with other things. For example, if you are eating, eat with awareness. No extra time is needed. Rather, on the contrary, you will save time because you will eat less. With awareness you will eat less; with awareness you will become more efficient. You will save time. With awareness you will lose less energy, you will dissipate less energy. And even after a whole day’s work, you will be as fresh as in the morning – because it is not work that exhausts you: it is the attitude.

You walk to your office on a two-mile walk. You go to your office, and that exhausts you. But if it is Sunday and you are just walking for pleasure, and you walk to your office and come back, then it is just a play and it is not going to exhaust you. Rather, it will refresh you. If you are doing a certain thing as work, it will exhaust you. If you are doing the same thing as play, it will refresh you. It is not the work: it is the attitude. The mind which lives in meditation transforms all work into a play, and the mind which is not meditative will transform even a play into a work.

Look at people who are playing cards. They are tense. They are not ”playing” cards – it has become a work. Now there is a problem of life and death. It is not a play. If they are defeated they won’t be able to sleep in the night, and even if they win they will not be able to sleep in the night. Either way they are going to be exhausted. It is not a play; it will not refresh them. It will only exhaust them.

Look at children. They are doing more work than you, but they are never exhausted. They are always bubbling with energy. Why? Because everything is a play. And because of industrialization, and sooner or later because of total automatic processes coming in, man will have only one dimension – that is the dimension of play. Work will be useless then, and all the old teachings that ”work is Divine” – that ”work is duty and work is Divine and one must do work” – they all will become nonsense.

Leisure, pleasure, fun, festivity, play, will be the key terms for the future. Seriousness will be taken as a disease; playfulness will become the symbol of sanity. Time will be saved more and more, and even old men will have to be like children playing. Only then will they be able to exist; otherwise they will commit suicide.

The whole human history up until now has been work-oriented. From now on it will be play-oriented. And meditation gives you a new childhood, a new innocence, a new festivity. Then the whole life becomes a ceremony. It is not work.

So do not make excuses. They may look valid, but they are dangerous. And meditation is not in conflict with anything. If you are going to your office, go meditatively. If you are doing work in your office, do it meditatively, do it relaxedly. Then you will not be exhausted. Take everything as a play, and you will not be exhausted. Rather, the work will become a pleasure.

Meditation gives you a new quality of mind, so it is not a question whether you have time or not. I am not saying that you have to meditate for three hours daily, that you should take three hours out of your life, out of your work-life – no! If you can take it, it is good. If you cannot take it, do not make an excuse. Then try to turn and change and transform your work into a meditative act.

You are writing something: write with full awareness. You are digging a hole in the earth: dig it with full awareness. Whether you are working in the street or in the office or in the market, do it with full awareness.

Remain in the present and then see: you will not be exhausted. You will have more time, more energy, less dissipation, and ultimately your life will become just a play.

Question 1 [09 July, 1972 in pm]

IGNORANCE is blissful because in it one is not aware of any problem. But one is not aware of the blissfulness either. It is a bliss such as when you are in a deep sleep. No suffering is there, no anxiety is there, because no problems are possible when you are asleep. With knowledge one begins to be aware of many problems, and much suffering happens. This suffering will remain unless one transcends knowledge also.

So these are three states of the human mind: the first is ignorance, in which you are blissful but not aware; the second is knowledge, in which you are aware but not blissful; and the third is Enlightenment, in which you are awake and blissful. In one sense Enlightenment is just like ignorance and in another sense just like knowledge. In one sense, it is like ignorance because it is blissful, and unlike knowledge because there is no suffering. In another sense it is like knowledge because there is awareness, and unlike ignorance because ignorance is an absolute absence of awareness.

Enlightenment is blissfulness with awareness. Knowledge is a passage; it is a journey. You have left ignorance, but you have not achieved Enlightenment. You are in between. That is why knowledge is a tension. Either you fall back from knowledge or you go beyond. And falling back is not possible. You have to struggle to go beyond.

It is asked whether knowledge also gives richness, growth and depth to man’s life. Of course, it gives! It gives a richness because the moment you become aware, with the expanding awareness you are expanded, with widening awareness you go on becoming greater and greater, because you are your awareness. When ignorant, you are as if you are not: you do not know that you are. Existence is, but without any depth, without any height. With knowledge you begin to feel your multi-dimensional being, and richness is given by suffering.

Suffering is not something contrary to richness: suffering makes you rich. Suffering is painful, but suffering gives you depth. Someone who has not suffered at all will be just superficial. The more you suffer, the more you have touched deeper realms. That is why a more sensitive man suffers more and a less sensitive man suffers less. A shallow mind will not suffer at all. The deeper the mind, the deeper becomes your suffering.

So suffering is also richness. Animals cannot suffer. Only man suffers. Animals can be in pain, but pain is not suffering. When the mind begins to feel the pain and to think about it, to think about the meaning of it and the possibility to go beyond it, then it becomes a suffering. If you simply feel pain, it is a very shallow thing.

It has been observed that rats have a four-minute range of thinking. They can think four minutes into the future and they can think four minutes back into the past. Beyond four minutes there is nothing for them. Their range of thinking is that much. There are other mammals whose range is twelve hours. Monkeys have a range of twenty-four hours. So the world that was twenty-four hours before, drops from their consciousness, and the world that may be twenty-four hours ahead is not. Their minds have a twenty-four-hour limit, so they cannot go deep.

Man has a very wide range. From childhood to death the whole life is his range, and for those who are more sensitive, for them, the range is still greater. They can remember their past lives and they can predict events beyond this life in the future. With this range depth is gained, but also suffering.

If a rat cannot go beyond four minutes, to suffer for the future is impossible, to suffer for the past is impossible. Within three or four minutes the whole world exists, so if there was pain four minutes before, it disappears after four minutes; no memory can be maintained. If there is fear four minutes ahead, it cannot be thought about, cannot be contemplated, cannot be perceived. It is not.

With man, suffering deepens because mind can move to the past and conceive of the future. Not only that: the mind can feel someone else suffering also. Animals cannot feel this. Higher animals have certain glimpses which lower animals cannot feel. In lower animals, if some member of the group dies they just forget about it. They will move on. Death is not a problem. Neither can they conceive of their own death, nor can they conceive that something has happened to some member of their group. It is impossible. It is as if it is not. But man conceives, feels, contemplates his own suffering and also others’ sufferings. With a more sensitive mind, the sympathy can even become empathy. You are in deep pain: I feel that you are in pain; I understand; I am sympathetic. But if my mind is even more keen, more sensitive, I may begin to feel the same pain. Then it is empathy.

Ramakrishna was crossing the Ganges one day in a boat and suddenly he began to scream and cry, ”Do not beat me!”

No one was beating him. All those who were present with him were his disciples, devoted disciples. They said, ”What are you saying? Who is beating you? Who can beat you?”

Tears were rolling down his eyes and he was crying, ”Do not beat me!” They were all puzzled, and then Ramakrishna showed them that just on the other bank one man was being beaten by a crowd. Then he showed his back: his back had the marks of having been beaten. They reached to the other shore and they went to the man who was beaten there. They saw his back also. They were just wonderstruck. It was a miracle. The same marks were on his back as on Ramakrishna’s back.

This is empathy. Ramakrishna suffers more than you because now it is not only his suffering. In a very subtle way the whole world’s suffering has become his own. Wherever suffering is, Ramakrishna will suffer it. But this will give depth to Ramakrishna. Suffering itself is depth. So knowledge gives suffering and knowledge gives depth. It gives richness to life.

Socrates is reported to have said, ”Even if a pig is absolutely happy, I would still prefer to be a Socrates and unhappy than to be a pig and happy.” Why? If a pig is happy then be a pig. Why be a Socrates and unhappy? The reason is depth. A pig is just without any depth. Socrates has suffering – more than anyone else – but still he chooses to be a Socrates with his suffering.

This suffering, too, has a richness. A pig is just poor. It is like this: someone is in a coma, unconscious; he has no suffering. Would you like to be unconscious in a coma? Then you will be without suffering. If that is the choice, then you will choose to be yourself, whatsoever the suffering may be. Then you win say, ”I will remain conscious and suffering rather than be in a coma and not suffer, because that ’not suffering’ is just like death.” Suffering is there, but still a richness – the richness of feeling, the richness of mind, the richness of living.

Steinbeck has written somewhere in his diary, ”It is better to have lived and loved than not to have loved at all.” Tennyson also has said, ”Tis better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all.” Love has its own suffering. Really, a life without love has less suffering, so if you can avoid love, you can avoid much suffering. If you are vulnerable to love, you will suffer more. But love gives depth, richness, so if you have not suffered love you have not really lived. Love is a deeper knowledge.

The knowledge which we call knowledge is just acquaintance – knowing someone, something, from the outside. When you love someone, you will know him from the inside. Now it is not acquaintance. Now you have gone deeper into someone and now you will suffer more, but love will give you a new dimension of life. So a person who has not loved has not really lived on the human plane, and because love brings so much suffering we avoid it. Everyone is avoiding love. We have invented many tricks to avoid love because love brings suffering. But then if you are successful in avoiding love, you have succeeded in avoiding a certain depth that only love can bring to your life. Grow in knowledge and you will grow in suffering; grow in love and you will grow more in suffering – because love is a deeper knowledge.

Richness will be there, but this is the paradox – and it is to be understood deeply: whenever you become more rich, you become aware of more poverty. Whenever you feel richness, you will also feel yourself more poor. Really, a poor man – a really poor man – never feels himself to be poor. Only a rich man begins to feel a deeper poverty. If you look at a beggar, he is happy with his small coins, very happy. You cannot even conceive of how he is happy. He gathers only a few coins in the whole day, but he is so happy.

Look at a rich man! He has gathered so much that he cannot use it even, but he is not happy. What has happened? The greater your riches, the more you begin to feel yourself poor. And this happens in every direction. When you know more, you feel more that you are ignorant. A person who doesn’t know anything never feels that he is ignorant. He never feels it! It is impossible because that feeling is part of knowing. The more you know, the more you become aware that much is to be known. The more you know, the more you feel that whatsoever you have known is nothing.

Newton is reported to have said: ”I have been just standing on the seashore, and whatsoever I have gathered is sand in my fist – nothing more. This is a great infinite expanse. Whatsoever I have known is just a few particles of sand in my hand, and what I do not know is this infinite expanse of the ocean!”

So Newton feels more ignorant than you can feel, because that feeling is part of knowledge.

If you can love, then you can feel the impossibility of love. Then you can feel that it is virtually impossible to love someone. But if you do not love anyone, you will never become aware that love is a very arduous journey – because when you go into something, only then do you become aware of your finite capacity and the infinite encounter. When I move out of my house, then I encounter the sky. If I go on remaining in my house there is no encounter, and I may finally come to believe that this is the whole universe.

The less you know, the more confident you are. The more you know, the less is your confidence. The greater the knowledge, the more will be the hesitance of the mind even to assert, even to say, what is right or what is wrong. The less the knowledge, the more you are totally certain.

Just 100 years before, science was totally certain, absolutely certain. Everything was clear and categorized. And then came Einstein who was perhaps the first scientific mind to encounter the full expanse of the world, of the universe. Then everything became uncertain. Einstein said, ”To be certain about anything shows that you are ignorant. If you know, you can at the most be relatively certain.”  ”Relatively certain” is just another name for uncertainty. ”When everything is relative,” Einstein says, ”then science can never again be absolute.” And now we have come to know so much knowledge that everything is disturbed and shattered. All certainties have gone.

Mahavir, one of the most penetrating minds in the whole history of man, will not assert any statement without using ”perhaps” in the beginning. If you ask him, ”Is there a God?” he will say, ”Perhaps God is and perhaps He is not.” Even if you ask him, ”Are you real?” he will say, ”Perhaps I am real and perhaps I am not real, because in a certain sense I am real and in a certain sense I am not real. When I am going to die, how can I say that I am real? One day I will just evaporate, and you will not even be able to find out where I have disappeared. How can I say that I am real? I will disappear just as a dream disappears in the morning. But even then, I cannot say that certainly I am unreal – because even to assert that I am unreal, a reality is needed. Even to dream, someone is needed to dream who is real.” So he will say, ”Perhaps I am real and perhaps I am not real.”

Because of this, Mahavir could not gather many followers. How can you gather followers if you yourself are so uncertain? Followers need certainty, absolute dogmatism. Say: ”This is right and that is wrong.” Whether ”that” is right is another thing – but be confident, and then you create confidence in your followers: because they have come to know, not to inquire. They have come to feel certainties. They have come for dogmas, not for real inquiry. So a lesser mind than Mahavir will gather more followers. Really, the lesser the mind, the easier it is to become a leader, because everyone is in need of certainty; then they can feel secure.

With Mahavir everything will look uncertain. And he was so emphatic that if you asked him one question he would give seven answers. He would give you seven answers, each answer contradicting the previous one. Then the whole thing would become so complex that you would return more ignorant than you had come.

With Einstein, for the first time the genius of Mahavir has been introduced in science. Relativity is Mahavir’s concept. He says that everything is related, nothing is absolute; and that even the diametrically opposite is also true in a certain sense. But then his statements become so qualified, so bracketed, that you cannot feel certainty with them.

That is why in India only 2,500,000 Jains exist. If Mahavir had converted only twenty-five families, by now they would have become 2,500,000 just by reproduction! Only 2,500,000 after twenty-five centuries? What happened? Mahavir could not convert really. Such a keen mind cannot convert. It needs a lesser mind to create followers. The more stupid the leader, the better – because he can say 'yes' or he can say 'no' with much confidence and without knowing anything.

What really happens when you gain knowledge? You become aware of ignorance. And, really, richness means: with polarities. You cannot be rich if you know only one part. When you know both the polar opposites, when you move in both the extremes, then you become rich.

For example, if you know only beauty and you are not aware of ugliness, your sense of beauty cannot be very deep. How can it be? It is always proportionate. The more you begin to feel beauty, the more you will begin to feel ugliness. They are not two things, but a movement of one sense in two directions. But the sense is one. You cannot say that ”I am aware only of beauty”. How can you be? With this sense, with the aesthetic sense of the feeling of beauty, the feeling of ugliness will come in. The world will become more beautiful, but at the same time more ugly; that is the paradox.

You begin to feel the beauty of the sunset, but then you also begin to feel the ugliness of the poverty all around. If a person says, ”I feel the beauty of the sunset and I do not feel the ugliness of poverty and the slums,” he is just deceiving either himself or others. It is impossible! When a sunset becomes beautiful, slums become ugly. And against a sunset, when you look at the slums you will be in heaven and hell simultaneously. Everything is this way and everything is bound to be this way. One thing will create its opposite.

So if you are not aware of beauty, you will not be aware of ugliness. If you are aware of beauty, you have become aware of ugliness also. You will enjoy, you will feel the bliss of beauty, and then you will suffer. This is part of growth. Growth always means the knowledge of the extremes which constitute life. So when man becomes aware, he also becomes aware that he is not aware of many things and that because of that he suffers.

Many times I have seen, observed, persons coming to me for meditation. They say, ”I am very much disturbed, with pains inside, sufferings. Somehow, help me to still my mind.” I suggest to them something to do, then in a week they come back and say, ”What have you done? I have become more disturbed!” Why did it happen? Because when they begin to meditate, when they begin to feel a certain silence, they begin to feel the disturbance more. Against that silence, the disturbance is felt more keenly. Before they were simply disturbed, without any silence inside. Now they have something to judge against, to compare against. Now they say, ”I am going mad.”

So whenever someone begins meditation, he will become aware of many things of which he was not previously aware, and because of that awareness he will suffer. This is how things are, and one has to pass through them.

So if you start meditation and you do not suffer, it means it is not meditation, but just a hypnosis. That means you are just drugging yourself. You are becoming more unconscious. With a real, authentic meditation you will suffer more, because you will become more aware. You will see the ugliness of your anger, you will feel the cruelty of your jealousy, you will now know the evidence of your behaviour. Now, in every gesture, you will begin to feel where a hidden animal in you, and you will suffer. But this is how one grows. Growth is a painful birth. The child suffers when it comes out of the womb, but that is part and parcel of growth. So it is right that awareness and knowledge bring more richness and growth and depth in man’s life – not because man doesn’t suffer, but because man suffers.

If someone has led just a snug existence – as it happens in rich families – you will feel, you will observe, that if a person is born rich, if he has lived without knowing suffering, without knowing the pain of living, without knowing anything, then whenever there is a demand, even before the demand the supply is there. He has not suffered hunger, he has not suffered love, he has not suffered anything. Whatsoever is demanded is supplied – rather. it is supplied even before the demand is there. But then look in the eyes of that man: you will not find any depth. It is as if he has not lived. He has not struggled; he does not know what life is.

That is why it is always very difficult to find any depth in such men. They are superficial. If they laugh, their laughter is superficial. It just comes from the lips, never from the heart. If they weep, that weeping is superficial. It is not from the depths of the being: it is just a formal thing. The more the struggle, the more the depth. This depth, this richness, this knowledge, will create such a complexity that you would like to escape from it. When you suffer, you want to escape from it. If you are looking to escape from suffering, then alcohol can become appealing or LSD or marijuana or something else.

Religion means not escaping from suffering but living with it: living with it, not escaping! And if you live with it, you will become more and more aware. If you want to escape, then you will have to leave \awareness. Then, somehow, you will have to become unconscious.

There are many methods. Alcohol is the easiest, but not the only method and not even the worst. You can go and listen to music and become absorbed in it; then you are using music as alcohol. Then for the time being, your mind is diverted toward music and you have forgotten everything else. Music is working as alcohol for everything else. Or, you can go to a temple or you can do japa. You can use these things as alcohol, as an intoxicant.

Anything which makes you less aware of your suffering is antireligious. Anything that makes you more aware of your suffering, and which helps you encounter it without escaping, is religious. That is what tapas – austerity – means. Tapas means this: not escaping from any suffering, but remaining there and living with it with full awareness. If you do not escape, if you remain there with your suffering, one day suffering will disappear and you will have grown into more awareness.

Suffering disappears in two ways. You become unconscious; then suffering disappears for you. But, really, suffering remains there. It cannot disappear. It remains there! Really, your consciousness has disappeared, so you cannot feel it, you cannot be aware of it. If you become more conscious, in the meantime you will have to suffer more. But accept suffering as a part of growth, as a part of training, as just a discipline, and then one day, when your consciousness has gone beyond your suffering, suffering will disappear not just for you – it will disappear objectively. Use suffering as a stepping-stone; do not escape from it. If you escape from it, you are escaping from your destiny, from the possibility of going beyond knowledge by using suffering as a device.

Mahavir has said, ”Sometimes it happens that there is no suffering. Then create suffering, but do not lose any moment to create more awareness.” Mahavir would go on long fasts in order to create suffering, to encounter it, because through encounter awareness grows. He would live naked. It may have been summer, it may have been winter, it may have been the rainy season, but he would live naked, he would move naked. In every village, when he would move naked, everyone would become his enemy. They would create many sufferings for him, but he would not speak. For twelve years he was totally silent. If someone beat him, he would not speak. One could do whatsoever one liked, but he would not react. These were consciously created sufferings.

Buddha was not in agreement with Mahavira’s ideology, but even then Buddha has called him MAHATAPASWI – the great ascetic. Really, no one is comparable to Mahavir in creating conscious suffering for himself. Why? When you can live with suffering consciously, you grow, you transcend it. Really, whenever you are in suffering you have an opportunity, so use it. Whenever you are not in suffering, this time will ultimately prove to be just a wastage. Only the moments when you are in suffering can be used. But, unfortunately. we try to escape suffering. We have been doing that for lives and lives.

Make an experiment, any experiment, and see what happens. The night is cold and you are on the terrace standing naked: feel the coldness; do not escape from it. Let it be there, and you remain there. Feel it, move with it, live with it, and see what happens: Beyond a certain point coldness will be there, you will be there, but there will be a gap between you and the coldness. Now the coldness cannot penetrate to you. You have transcended.

You are hungry: remain in it, and beyond a point you will know that you are not hungry. Hunger is somewhere else, and there is a gap between you and the hunger. When you begin to feel the gap, you will transcend it.

But there is no need to create suffering because suffering is already so much there. There is no need! Every day there is suffering. Suffer it consciously; do not try to escape. Then you have a key, a secret key to transform your suffering into a blessing.

This is what tapas means. It is an alchemical process. Then you transform the lower into the higher, the base metal into gold. But the baser metal has to pass through fire and the false must burn. Only then can the authentic emerge out of it. So knowledge is a fire. The ignorant soul must pass through this fire, and only then will the pure gold come out of it.

That pure gold is Enlightenment. When you have faced every suffering with consciousness, suffering will dissolve, disappear, because the very reason for it will have disappeared. You will go on and on, and suffering will be left behind and you will become a peak. This peak will have gone beyond it. This is Enlightenment.

There are three states: ignorance, knowledge, Enlightenment. Go beyond ignorance, but do not forget that knowledge is not the end. That is only the means. You have to go beyond it also. And when someone goes beyond knowledge, he becomes a Buddha. Then he is wise, not learned; wise, not more informed. It is not that he is more knowledgeable: he is simply wise, simply more aware. So knowledge is good because it brings you out of ignorance, and knowledge is bad if you begin to cling to it. If it becomes a clinging, it is bad. Use knowledge to go beyond ignorance, and then through knowledge go beyond it.

Buddha tells a story which he liked very much. He reported this story thousands and thousands of times. He says knowledge is like a raft. You cross a river on a raft, and then you leave the raft and the river, and you move on. Buddha says:

There were five very learned men. They crossed the stream on a raft, and then they thought and pondered: ”Because this raft has helped us to cross this stream, we must carry this raft on our heads. Now how can we be ungrateful? This is simply gratitude.”

So those five learned men carried that raft on their heads into the market. Then the whole village gathered and asked, ”What are you doing? This is something new.”

They said, ”Now we cannot leave this raft. This raft has helped us to cross the stream, and these are the days of rains and the river is flooded. It was impossible without this raft. This raft is a friend, and we are just being grateful.”

The whole village laughed. They said. ”Yes, this raft was a friend, but now this raft is an enemy. Now you will suffer because of this raft, now it will be a bondage. Now you cannot move anywhere, now you cannot do anything else.”

Knowledge is a raft to go beyond ignorance, but then you must not begin to carry it on your head as these learned persons carried it. Really, it is not right to say ”carry it”, because the burden becomes so much that you cannot even move. Throw this raft! It is difficult to throw because it has saved you. You have come across a stream and your logic may run in this way; ”If we throw this raft, then we will be again in the same situation in which we were before, before the raft was used.” This looks logical, but it is not – because when there was no raft you were on one bank of the stream; when you have used the raft you have come to another bank of the stream, and if you throw it you will not be in the same situation again.

Man is afraid of throwing knowledge because he fears that he will again become ignorant. You cannot become ignorant again. A person who has known cannot fall back into ignorance. But if he now clings to this knowledge, he cannot go beyond either. Throw it! You are not going to fall back into ignorance. You will rise into Enlightenment.

One rises into knowledge by throwing ignorance, and then one rises into Enlightenment by throwing knowledge. So it is good to teach knowledge to the ignorant, and it is good to teach again a different kind of ignorance to the knowledgeable ones. One has to become ignorant in a different dimension, with a different quality, just by throwing knowledge.

So it is inevitable that one must come to knowledge, but then it is not inevitable that one must remain there. You must pass through it. That is a must, it cannot be avoided; but you must not remain there. You must move – move from knowledge: this is what is meant. How to move from this knowledge? As I said, if you become aware of suffering, you transcend it. If you become aware of your knowledge, you transcend knowledge. Awareness is the only technique of transcendence, whatsoever may be the problem. Awareness is the only technique of transcendence!

You know many things; then you become identified with your knowledge. Then if someone denies your knowledge or contradicts it, you feel hurt, as if he has denied you or as if he has contradicted you. Your knowledge is something different from you. Feel the gap. You are not your knowledge. The moment you can feel this, that ”I am not my knowledge,” then try to be aware of it. Be aware that ”This I know, this I do not know, and that which I know may be right or may not be right.” Do not become mad with it, do not become involved.

Socrates used to say, he would say always, ”As far as my knowledge goes this seems to be true – only seems to be true. And that is only as far as my knowledge goes. It may not be true because knowledge can go further; it may not be true because it only appears to be true to me.” Then if  someone contradicts him, he cannot feel hurt. Rather, that person is helping him. Why should he feel hurt?

If someone says, ”You are wrong,” he is giving you more knowledge – something more, something different., If you are not identified, you will feel grateful; if you are identified, you will feel hurt. Then it is not a question of knowledge: it is a question of an egoist cycle. Then it is not that he has said, ”Whatsoever you say is wrong.” Really, he has said, ”you are wrong.” You feel it that way. If you feel it that way, then you can never be aware of your knowledge. Be aware! It is an accumulation, but it bas helped. It has utility.

The Buddhist, the Zen Buddhist word for knowledge is upaya. They call it ”just an instrument”. Use it, but do not be mad, do not become obsessed with it, do not be identified with it. Remain aloof, remain detached. This aloofness, this remaining detached, is the first necessity. And then be aware. Whenever you are saying something, say it with a clear awareness that it is not you, but only your knowledge. This awareness will lead you beyond it.

So whatsoever may be the problem, being identified with it will create unconsciousness, and you will fall back. Being aware of it will create consciousness, and you will go beyond.

Question 2 [09 July, 1972 in pm]

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Many things may have to be considered: one, Jesus died for Christianity at the age of thirty-three. Remember this >>> for Christianity. Because, actually he did not die – he lived to be one hundred and twelve. But that is another story, not related with Christianity at all. and he died a fully Enlightened One like Buddha, Mahavir and Krishna. So this is the first thing to be understood.

Christianity has only this much to say, that he was seen resurrected after his crucifixion. For three days he was seen somewhere by some disciples and somewhere else by some other disciples, and then he disappeared. So one thing is certain: even Christianity thinks that whether he died or not on the cross, he was seen after the crucifixion for three days.

They think that he died on the cross and then was resurrected, but then they do not have anything to tell about what happened to this resurrected Jesus. The Bible is silent. What happened to this man who was seen? When did he die again? He must have died again because on the cross he did not die. So what happened to this man Jesus? The Bible is incomplete because Jesus disappeared from Israel.

In Kashmir, there is a shrine which is believed to be that of Jesus Christ – his tomb. He lived in Kashmir, in India, then he died when he was one hundred and twelve. At the time of the crucifixion he was just entering the moon center. On that very day he entered – on the very day of the crucifixion. So that is the next thing to understand.

Jesus in the Bible is not like Buddha, Mahavir or Lao Tzu. He is not! You cannot conceive of Buddha going into the temple and beating the money-lenders – you cannot conceive of it! But Jesus did it. He went into the temple; the annual festival was on. Many things were connected with this great temple of Jerusalem. There was a great money-lending business associated with it. Those moneylenders of this temple exploited the whole country. People would come for the annual gathering and other gatherings during the year, and they would obtain money at a high interest, but it was impossible to repay it. They would lose everything, and this temple was going on becoming richer and richer. It was a religious imperialism. The whole country was poor and suffering, but the money would come automatically to this temple.

Jesus entered one day with a whip in his hand. He overturned the money-lenders’ boards, then began to beat them. He created a chaos in the temple. You cannot conceive of Buddha doing this. Impossible!

Jesus was the first communist, and, really that is why Christianity could give birth to communism. Hinduism could not give birth to it, no other religion could give birth to it – impossible! Only Christianity! With Jesus it has a relevance. He was the first communist, and he was fiery and rebellious.

The very language he uses is totally different. He gets angry with such things that we cannot even believe it – such as a fig tree: he destroyed it because he and his disciples were hungry and the tree would not yield any fruit. He destroyed it! He has threatened in such language that Buddha could not utter. Those who are not going to believe in him and his Kingdom of God will be ”thrown into the fires of Hell” – the eternal fires of Hell – and they cannot come back.

Only the Christian Hell is eternal. Every other hell is just a temporary punishment. You go there, you suffer and you come back. But Jesus’ hell is eternal. This looks unjust, absolutely unjust. Whatsoever may be the sin, eternal punishment cannot be justified; it cannot be! And what are the sins? Bertrand Russell has written a book, ”Why I am Not a Christian,” and in that book one of the reasons he has told is this, that ”Jesus looks absurd”. Bertrand Russell says, ”If I confess all the sins that I have committed and all those sins which I have thought about but never committed, then too you cannot give me more than five years imprisonment.” Eternal punishment? Non-ending punishment? Jesus speaks the language of a revolutionary!

Revolutionaries always look to the other end – to the extreme. He says to a rich man – and you cannot conceive of a Buddha or a Mahavir saying it – that ”A camel can pass through a needle’s eye, but a rich man cannot pass through the gates of my Father to the Kingdom of God.” He cannot pass! This is the seed of communism, the basic seed. Jesus was a revolutionary. He was concerned not only with spirituality, but with economics, with politics and everything. Really, had he been only a spiritual man he would not have been crucified. He was crucified because he became a danger to everything – to the whole social structure, to the status quo.

But he was not a revolutionary like Lenin or Mao. Of course, Marx and Mao are inconceivable without there having been a Jesus in history. They belong to this same Jesus, the early Jesus, the Jesus who was crucified. He was a fiery man, rebellious, ready to destroy everything, but he was not simply a revolutionary. He was also a spiritual man. He was somehow a mixture of Mahavir and Mao. But the Mao was crucified and the Mahavir remained in the end.

The day Jesus was crucified was not only the day of crucifixion. It was a day of deep inner transformation also. The day he was crucified, Pilate, the Roman Governor, asked him, ”What is Truth?” Jesus remained silent. This was not like Jesus at all. It was more like a Zen Master. If you see the entire previous life of Jesus, this remaining silent when someone has asked, ”What is Truth?” was not Jesus-like at all. He was not that type of Master who would remain silent.

Why did he remain silent? What had happened? Why was he not speaking? Why was he at a loss? Why was he incapable of speaking? He was one of the greatest orators the world has ever produced – or we may say, even without hesitation, the greatest: his words are so penetrating. He was a man of words, not a man of silence. Why did he remain silent suddenly? He was just stepping, going to the cross. But Pilate asked him, ”What is Truth?” For his whole life he was defining only that; for his whole life he was talking only about Truth: that is why Pilate asked him. But he remained silent.

What had happened to the inner world of Jesus? It has never been rported because it is difficult to report what had happeend. And Christian theology has remained shallow, because the inner world of Jesus can only be interpreted in India and never anywhere else. Only India knows the inner changes, the inner tranformation of what happened.

What has happened suddenly? Jesus is on the verge of death. He is to be crucified. Now the whole revolution is meaningless. Whatsoever he has been saying is futile; whatsoever he has been living for is just coming to an end. Everything is finished, and because death is so near he must now move inwards. Time cannot be lost now! Not a single moment can be lost now! He must move in before he is crucified; he must complete the inner journey.

He has been on the inner journey, but he was also entangled with outer problems. And because of these outer problems, he could not move to that cool point which this Upanishad calls ”the moon point”. He has remained fiery, hot. In a way, he might have done it consciously.

There is a story:

Vivekananda achieved his first satori, his first glimpse of samadhi, and Ramakrishna said, ”Now I will keep this key with me; I am not going to give it to you. It will be given to you only three days before your death. Before you die, only three days before, this key will
be given back to you. Now no more glimpses of Samadhi.”

Vivekananda began to weep and he said, ”Why? I do not want anything. I do not want the whole kingdom of the world. Give me only my Samadhi. The one glimpse was so beautiful. I do not want anything more.”

Ramakrishna said, ”The world needs you and something has to be done. And if you move into Samadhi, then you will not be able to do anything. So do not be in a hurry. Samadhi will wait for you. Move into the world; give my message. And when the message is delivered, the key will be given back to you.”

Ramakrishna died, but these are not visible keys. And only three days before his death, was Vivekananda able to achieve Samadhi – only three days before! So it may have been a very conscious thing when Jesus did not move to the moon center right away, because once you move you become absolutely inactive.

One story more:

Jesus was initiated by John the Baptist. He was the disciple of John the Baptist who himself was a great revolutionary and a great spiritualist. He waited for Jesus for years together. On the day he initiated Jesus in the river Jordan, he said to Jesus, ”Now take over my work and I will disappear. It is enough.”

And from that day he was hardly ever seen again. He disappeared in the forest. In the inner language, he disappeared from the sun point to the moon point. He became silent. He had done the work and he had given the work to someone who would complete it.

Just on the day of crucifixion Jesus must have become aware that now the work he was doing was finished. He must have thought, ”There is no more possibility for it. I cannot do anything more now; I must move in. This opportunity must not be lost.” That is why, when Pilate asked him, ”What is Truth?” he remained silent. This is not Jesus-like. This is more like a Zen Master; this is more like Buddha. And because of this, the miracle happened which has remained an enigma for Christianity. Because of this, the miracle happened.

When he was moving to his cooler, coldest point, the moon point, he was crucified. And when for the first time someone comes to the moon center, his breathing stops, because that breathing too is an activity of the sun point. Everything becomes silent; everything is as if dead.

He moved inward to the moon point when he was crucified, and they thought he was dead when he was not. This was a mis-conception, a misunderstanding. Those who were crucifying him thought he was dead, but he was simply at the moon point where breathing stops. Then there is no outgoing, no ingoing breath. He was in the gap between breaths.

When one remains in the gap, it is such a deep balance that it is virtually death. But it was not death. So they, the crucifiers, the murderers of Jesus, they thought he was dead, so they allowed the disciples to bring the body down. As was the custom in the Jewish land, his body was to be preserved just in a nearby cave for three days and then delivered to the family. It is reported – and, again Christianity has only fragments – that when his body was being carried to the cave, his body was dashed against some stone and there was blood. If he had really been dead, blood would have been impossible. 

He was not dead. And when after three days the cave was opened, he was not there. The dead body had disappeared, and in these three days he was seen. Four or five people had seen him, but no one would believe them. They went to the village and said that he was resurrected, but no one would believe it.

So he escaped from Jerusalem. He came to Kashmir and remained there. But then this life was not the life of Jesus, but the life of Christ. Jesus was the sun point and Christ the moon point. And he remained totally silent: that is why there is no record. He would not talk, he would not give any message, he would not preach. Then he remained totally silent. Then he was not a revolutionary: he was just a Master living in his own silence, so then very few people would travel to him.

Those who became aware without any outer information about him, they would travel to him. And they were not few but many – few only in comparison to the world, but many in a way. And a whole village came to be established around him. The village is still called Bethlehem. In Kashmir, the village is still called Bethlehem after the birthplace of Jesus, and the tomb is preserved which is Jesus’ tomb.

I have said that Christianity is incomplete because it knows only the early Jesus and that, because of that, Christianity could give birth to communism. But Jesus himself died a fully Enlightened man – a full moon.

Question 1:

MANY THINGS will have to be understood.

One: Lao Tzu, Krishna, Buddha, Mahavir, they are not the total East. They were Teaching acceptance, but no one in the East has followed it. And those who followed, they evolved: Lao Tzu evolved into a perfect human possibility – to the maximum possibility which a human being can reach; Buddha evolved to be a Divine person through acceptance and contentment. But the East has not followed them. Just because they were born in the East doesn’t mean that the East has followed them. So that is one thing.

The second thing: the West has evolved, but evolved to such a crisis, into such a diseased state of mind, that now the West is looking toward the East. The West has followed the principle of discontent, so in a way the West has been more honest than the East. The East has been dishonest.

We go on worshipping Krishna, Buddha and Mahavir, and we think that we are following them. We have not followed them! Only lip service has been paid them. But the West has really followed the principle of discontentment and materialism. The West has followed it, and now it has come to the c1imax. Those in the West who have achieved a c1imax with whatsoever they have done, now they feel that the whole life has become meaningless – because whatsoever they have achieved now proves to be meaningless. There has been an evolution of things, but not of consciousness. They have accumulated much, but man has become more and more empty.

And now, when everything is achieved – now, when the West has succeeded in its ambition – the disparity becomes more clear-cut. Man has remained empty, unevolved. That is why now Western thinkers, the Western avant-garde, are thinking in terms of Lao Tzu, Buddha and Mahavir. Now they have known the futility of discontentment. It leads you to more discontentment, and contentment becomes impossible. From one discontentment you go to another, and from another to another, and contentment is never reached.

This is what the Upanishads have been telling. They say that if you start with contentment then only can you reach contentment, because the beginning is the end, the seed is really the tree. So if it is not in the seed, it is not going to be in the tree. If contentment is your beginning, the base, the ground of your mind, the very roots, only then can you flower into contentment. Those flowers are not coming from nowhere. They will grow from you; they will be your growth. So if you have contentment in the beginning, you will find it in the end.

If you start with discontent, discontent will grow, and it can never transform itself into contentment. The more you follow it, the more it will be there. And if discontentment grows, then ultimately madness results. A madman means a totally discontented man with no hope, with absolute frustration.

Now the West has come to a fulfillment – a fulfillment of its ambition. The West has been authentically honest. It has followed a particular path, and when you follow only then can you know whether it leads to any goal or not.

The East has remained confused. Its leaders have been talking of contentment and the masses have been deceiving themselves. They go on talking about contentment and they continue being discontent. The East is ostensibly with Buddha – only ostensibly! Basically, it is not with Buddha. When I say ”East”, I mean the Eastern masses. They are just as materialistic as Western masses – but with a false face, with a mask.

The East is as irreligious as the West, but dishonestly. We go on thinking that we are religious, and we are not. So we have been in a ditch, in a deep confusion. We have not moved anywhere, not because of the Upanishads – we have never followed them!we have not moved because we have been on two boats. We have been travelling in two diametrically opposite directions. Our minds go on talking of spirituality and our hearts go on following materialism.

This is the reason why the East has remained multi-dimensionally poor – not only physically, economically, but spiritually also, because for any spiritual growth honesty is foundational. It is better to be irreligious than to be falsely religious, because from an honest irreligiousness religion can grow. But with a dishonest religious man there is no possibility of any growth.

So remember this, that the East is not really the East. There have been only a few persons who we can say are Eastern. So, really, East and West are not geographical. The division is more subtle. There have been persons in the West who belong to the East. Jesus belongs to the East, Eckhart belongs to the East, Francis belongs to the East, Boehme belongs to the East: they are NOT Western. And you all belong to the West: you are not Eastern. So East and West are not geographical. ”East” means a certain approach toward life, and ”West” also means a certain approach.

You are materialists unconsciously, so you cannot grow in materialism because growth needs a conscious effort. You cannot grow in materialism because you are not consciously materialistic, and you cannot grow toward higher states of consciousness because you are false, pseudo. So the first thing is that this is the confusion.

The second thing: when we say ”acceptance”, what do we mean? When the Upanishads say acceptance is happiness, Nirvana, what do they mean? Does it mean a death, a stagnation? No! It means only that whatsoever happens, whatsoever is and whatsoever is going to be, we are not against it, we will not fight it – we will flow with it.

For example, a seed is there: the seed accepts itself. That doesn’t mean that now the seed cannot grow. A seed only means a potentiality for growth – nothing else. To be a seed means to be a potentiality for growth. A seed accepts itself: it means the growth is accepted; it is a natural thing. The seed is not going to make any effort to be a tree, because effort is needed only when you are going to become something which you are not. Remember this: effort is needed only when you are going to be something which you are not. But that which you are not you cannot be, no matter how much effort there is.

We grow only to be ourselves, so effort in its deeper sense is useless; you are wasting energy. Struggle is useless; you are wasting energy. Acceptance doesn’t mean no growth. It means a natural flow of growth with no struggle toward it. Struggle creates a feverish mind. And why struggle? Against whom are you struggling? That which is possible for you, you can simply grow into. Accept yourself totally and then flow with the Existence. There will be growth, but this growth will be natural, spontaneous. It will not be a strained thing. A Buddha grows to be a Buddha. Really, there is no effort – it is a flow.

If you want to be a Buddha, then there will be a struggle. So many have tried, thousands have tried, to be a Buddha. Then it is a struggle, because that Buddhahood is not in their seed. They can be something else, their destiny is different, but they are trying to imitate someone.

So, thousands have followed Buddha, but they have not created a single Buddha. They have created imitation Buddhas. They have created copies – carbon copies false, dead, with no life in them. Whenever you follow someone else, you will have to struggle. Whenever you are ready to accept your own destiny, there is no need of any struggle: you will grow into it. And every individual is unique, and every individual has his own destiny.

Acceptance means be whatsoever the Whole wills to be through you. Do not fight. If you are a rose-flower, then be a rose-flower. Do not try to be a lotus. There is no struggle. A rosebud becomes a rose-flower. But teach it, give it ideals, and a rosebud can begin to imagine and think itself to be something else. Then there will be struggle, strain, worry. And not only is the whole effort going to be wasted, not only is there not going to be any positive result – but there will be negative consequences also. If a rose-flower tries to be a lotus, that is impossible. So the possibility is cancelled – but in the effort, in the struggle to be a lotus, it is possible that now this flower may not even be a rose-flower because the energy is dissipated.

The principle of total acceptance is simply this: accept yourself and flow with nature wheresoever it leads you. That is your destiny. Do not come in between; do not try to pull yourself to be something else. That is struggle.

This is what is meant by Tao, this is what is meant by dharma, this is what is meant by the inner swabhava – the inner nature. Follow it! And when I say follow it, I do not mean make some effort. Really, I mean allow it to be: allow your destiny to be. Do not come in between: allow your destiny to grow. Then a different evolution takes place – an evolution of consciousness, not of things. So you may not gain a bigger house through acceptance, but you will gain a greater soul. You may not become richer economically, but you will certainly become richer spiritually.

Jesus says that even if you gain the whole world and lose yourself, what is the meaning of it? You are a beggar: you remain a beggar. And if you gain yourself and lose the whole world, you have lost nothing. This is the basic Eastern approach toward life – because the East says happiness exists not in things but in your consciousness. It is not related with things. It is related with you: you have to grow!

Things can grow; things can become more and more; you can have more and more things – but having is not being. You can have the whole world without any soul within, and you can be just a beggar on the street with the being of a sovereign. That growth of being is the end. And when acceptance is taught, it is taught for the growth of being. Those who have followed this teaching, they have grown, and they are incomparable.

Thousands, millions, have followed discontent; the whole world, the whole of humanity, follows it – but the followers of discontent have not produced a single Buddha, a single Jesus, a single Lao Tzu. Really, outward growth depends on discontent, inward growth depends on contentment. Now it is your choice! If you want to pile up things more and more, you can go on, but then you are simply a servant who is just piling up things. Then death comes and everything is finished, and whatsoever you have gained, death nullifies it.

There is a different growth, an inner growth, which even death cannot nullify. Buddha says that unless you have achieved something which death cannot destroy, you have not achieved anything. Achieve something which transcends death: only then are you growing. Otherwise, every life is destroyed by death, and you are again a beggar and again you have to start from ABC

Growth means a continuity, a life process, but things cannot go with you. Whatsoever you have is not yours. It belongs to death, it belongs to the world: it doesn’t belong to you. You are simply deceiving yourself. In the meanwhile you can deceive! So your growth comes through contentment, and when I say ”contentment” I do not mean defeatism – remember this.

So this is the third point: a person can be content just to console himself. You are poor: you do not want to be poor; still, you are poor and nothing can be done, so you impose a false contentment. You say, ”It is okay. This is my destiny; I accept it.” But deep down this is not acceptance. This is just consoling yourself. If some opportunity comes and you can become rich, you are not going to lose it. And if someone says, ”Take this money in exchange for your contentment,” you will throw this contentment and you will take the money.

So defeated consolation is not contentment. It is just trying to save your face. You do not want to feel defeated, so you put on a show of contentment. Many follow such contentment, but this is not the teaching of the Upanishads. Contentment for the Upanishads is not a defeated attitude. Really, it is a deep understanding.

Life is such that you are just a part in it, a very minute part. And the Whole is a very big thing – the organic Whole. It is just like my fingers are part of my organic body: they cannot do anything against my body; they cannot hope for anything against my body. They are not anything except my body – just parts. So if my body is healthy, they will be healthy; if my body is ill, they will be ill; if my body is dead, they will be dead. This understanding – that ”I am just a part of this great Whole, I will flow with the Whole, I will not fight it” – is contentment.

This is a deep understanding. Remember, this contentment is so different from whatsoever is understood by the world that it is even difficult to conceive of it. This type of man will be contented when he is poor and he will be contented when he is rich. Remember the second part also. He will not try to be a poor man because, again, that is effort. He will not try to be a poor man because, again, that is an ambition. Again he will be fighting against the Whole; again he will be rejecting something, not accepting.

If it is the will of the Whole that he should be rich, he will be rich. If it is the will of the Whole that he should be poor, he will be poor. He can move from richness to poverty easily; he can move from poverty to richness just as easily. Really, he is just a dead leaf in the wind. Wherever the wind moves, he moves. There is no will, there is no ego, there is no individual ambition. The Whole’s ambition is his ambition. This is acceptance, and when a man lives in such acceptance he reaches the highest peak possible of inner growth.

This has been the innermost core of Eastern religion, but the East has not followed it. Those who have followed, they have grown to the ultimate peak possible. Those who have not followed and who have pretended that they are following are bound to be in an inner contradiction.

Masses in the East are in this inner contradiction: they think they are religious and they are not; they think they are spiritual and they are not. And this thinking that they are spiritual becomes a hindrance – because if someone is ill and he thinks that he is healthy, then no treatment is possible. An ill person must realize that he is ill; this is the first step toward any health or any possibility of health.

This is the most fatal disease – to think oneself healthy when one is not – because then everything is closed. But this happens, and man can deceive himself very easily. So it is possible that the West will become more and more Eastern, and the East will become more and more Western. This is happening already.

The day is not far off when ”the sun will rise in the West”. because the highest consciousness in the West, the highest conscious peaks in the West, the individuals who can look ahead, are turning Eastern. And in the East, quite the contrary: the so-called intellectuals, the intelligentsia, are turning communist. If you are not a communist in the East, no one can think you are an intelligent man. ”Is it possible that you can be intellectual and Still not a communist?” Even those who are not communists cannot dare to say they are not communists. Those who are not communists will at least say that they are socialists: that is their facade. Those who are absolutely anti-communist, they will also talk in terms of communism, socialism, equality.

In the East now, it is rare to find an Eastern mind – very rare. In the West, communism is out of date. Even in Soviet Russia communism is going out of date. Even the Soviet intelligentsia, the Soviet intellectuals, are probing into the inner world. Now Soviet Russia is the only country in the world today which is spending so much money on psychic research that even America is behind. In many Russian universities, psychic research has become an integral part of all research programmes.

Man is not simply matter: man is mind also. And unless we know something about mind, nothing seems possible. Man cannot be changed; no revolution is possible. But in the East, the so-called East, the geographical East, to talk about spirituality, religion, is superstitious. If someone is talking about religion in the East, so-called intellectuals think that he is a reactionary.

Why is this happening? The West has followed materialism, but very honestly, very sincerely. And sincerity pays always, honesty pays always. Now they can feel that whatsoever they have been doing is wrong, has been somewhere basically wrong. And they are honest, so they can confess it. We are dishonest, we cannot confess anything. We go on changing, but on the surface we go on maintaining the old face. We cannot confess that we have been wrong. It is a very healthy sign to confess that one has been wrong because it shows that now that which has been done can be undone. Now you can change your path, you can move in another direction.

The East has lived a double-bind life, always looking at heaven and always living just on the earth. That creates trouble because you cannot look at the earth, and as you live on the earth you go astray. You go on looking at heaven and there is no way to walk there. So our minds are divided, split, schizophrenic. Two lives are being lived continuously. Whatsoever you say, you know it is not right, it cannot be done, but still you go on saying it.

One old man was here. He has been a great professor – one of the foremost educationalists in India – and he suffers very much because of the conditions in the universities. He was telling me that the future of his children is just dark, and he was telling me, ”Even my own children are not ready to listen to me. No morality, no religion, no honesty! What is happening?”

So I asked him, ”Whatsoever you are teaching to your children, have you yourself followed it? Because you have been a very successful man in life – very successful. You have reached to the very top.” He has been a Vice Chancellor and on many posts. I said, ”So, really tell me honestly, have you followed whatsoever you are teaching to your children?”

He became uneasy, but he is honest, so he said, ”It is very difficult to be honest and to be successful.”

So I asked him whether he would like his children to be successful or honest. I told him, ”Really, your children are more honest than you because they see the hypocrisy. They say, ’Since we are going to be successful, why talk about honesty? Then talk about dishonesty and being successful. And if we are going to be honest, then we should leave all ambitions for success; then be unsuccessful and be honest.’ Why confuse these students?”

But he thinks that he is a moral man and his children are immoral. The children are simply saying that your whole way of thinking and living is hypocritical. If honesty is the thing to be followed, then do not expect success. If it happens, then it is a miracle; if otherwise, then there is no need to hope. Then there is no frustration because you have chosen to be honest, then you have chosen to be unsuccessful. But the father’s mind, every fathers mind, would like you to be honest and successful. Then a double mind is created. So talk about honesty and be dishonest! Succeed and then teach your children to be honest and successful! Continue the whole race – the rat race!

If you want inner growth, then acceptance is the law. I am not saying that inner growth will be followed up by outer evolution also. There is no intrinsic necessity. It may happen, it may not happen. You may remain poor, but with inner richness outer poverty is not a suffering. It is a suffering only when you are inwardly poor and outwardly also. With outer richness and inner poverty, it is a great suffering. And it happens rarely that you are both outwardly rich and inwardly rich also.

So the choice is between these two. What is your emphasis? If you are for inner growth and inner richness, then follow it. Then acceptance is the law. But if you are not for it, then be discontent. Then do not accept anything. Then go on fighting. You may grow rich outwardly, but ultimately you will come to know you have wasted your whole life.

Question 2:

IT APPEARS to be paradoxical. One day I say that everything is related, interdependent, organic, and then I say you are responsible. These statements appear paradoxical, but they are not – because when I say you are responsible, I mean YOU are the WHOLE.

One has to start from somewhere and you cannot start from anyone else. Really, you are the nearest point from where the Whole can be reached. You are a part of the Whole, and everything is interdependent, but the other interdependent parts are very far from you. You cannot start your journey from them: you have to start from yourself. So when I say that everything is interdependent, it is a philosophical statement, a truth – a truth of one who has reached. When I say you are responsible, it is also a truth, but the truth of the seeker, not of the siddha – not of one who has reached.

But for one who has to travel, from where can you start your journey toward the Whole? You cannot start from my place; you cannot start from anyone else’s place. You will have to start from where you are. And if you feel that you are not responsible, you will drop and stagnate then and there. Then you have taken the whole thing in a very wrong light. Then this interdependence of the Whole is not a help, but a hindrance.

And this is possible: we can change even elixir into poison and we can use poison as elixir. It depends on us. So I will take a few examples: for example, Buddha says that whatsoever is to be attained is already in you. This statement can lead to two interpretations. One, that now there is no need to move anywhere because whatsoever is to be attained is already there. So, ”No need to do anything; I am okay as I am!” Now you have made a very valuable truth poisonous.

It can be interpreted in another way also, totally different. When Buddha says you are that which you can become. it gives a hope. Now it doesn’t seem impossible. You have the seed. The seed can grow to be a tree; you can move from the seed toward the tree. ”Now the tree is not impossible: it is hidden in me. So I can move confidently; I can move with hope; I can move into the unknown without any fear.” Then it can become a help.

When I say that the whole world is a cosmos, interdependent, it means that we are not islands, but we are a big infinite continent. We are related. No one is small. Everyone is really the Whole.

Ramteerth has said: ”You may believe or you may not believe, but I created the world. You may believe, you may not believe, but these stars are run by me.” He is mad. If you look only at the apparent meaning of his statement, he is mad. But if the Whole is interdependent, then he is not mad at all. Then whosoever may have created the world, I must have been a part of Him. It is impossible to have created the world without me. He is saying, ”I am a part, and whosoever is moving the stars, I am a part of Him. Without me they cannot move.”

When I say that everything is interdependent, I mean you are the Whole. You are not just a part, you are not isolated, you are not alone. The Whole is with you, within you. This is the ultimate realization, but for you this is simply a theoretical statement. This may be a realization for Buddha, but for you it is simply a theoretical statement. It is not your realization.

How to make this your realization? From where to begin? If you say, ”I am just a part, so what can I do? I am no one,” then no movement will be possible. You will drop dead then and there. Then this great truth becomes fatal to you. If you are to move and realize this truth, you have to be responsible – responsible for whatsoever you are. Then you can change it, and you can change it because you are not only you: the Whole is behind you. The moment you say, ”I am responsible,” the Whole has asserted itself through you. The moment you say, ”I will move,” the Whole will move within you.

I will take another example: Hindus have believed continuously, for millennia, that everyone is a soul and that the soul is immortal, the soul is pure, the soul is Divine. Gurdjieff, in this century, said, ”Do not deceive yourself. It is very difficult to gain a soul. Not everyone has a soul. It is very rare. Sometimes one attains a soul; otherwise you will be without a soul.”

It seems absolutely contradictory. He says that only a few rare individuals attain to a soul. He says that soul is an achievement. It is not given to you at your birth; it is not in you right now. It is possible only if you make some effort. Then you may create a soul. Gurdjieff says that not everyone is immortal. Those who attain souls, they become immortal. Otherwise you are just a wastage. Nature creates you with a possibility of being a soul, and then, with no effort, you drop dead. Then nature has failed within you. You will not survive; not everyone is going to survive.

It seems absolutely contradictory to Hindu, Jain and Buddhist teachings. Christians, Mohammedans – really, all religions – teach that you have a soul, and Gurdjieff says ”No!” And, really, he was one of the knowers of this age. But why this emphasis? He says that because of this teaching, that everyone has a soul. no one makes any effort. Everyone believes, ”It is okay. The soul is eternally pure.” Read the Gita: Krishna says that whatsoever you do, your soul remains untouched; it is pure.

This can become a very dangerous thing. Gurdjieff says that because of these teachings humanity has become irreligious. He says, ”Now no more of this nonsense! Unless you attain, you have no soul.” Gurdjieff creates a deep shock. He says, ”What do you have so that the universe will need you forever? What do you have? Nothing! Just all your stupidities.”

To think, to conceive, that all your stupidities are going to be eternal is a very dark prospect. You think all foolishnesses are going to be eternal because everyone is eternal, but Gurdjieff says, ”No, the universe cannot tolerate you for so long unless you become something meaningful to the universe. Unless you become a part of the destiny of the cosmos, you are not needed. Why should you be eternal and why should you demand? Just to continue repeating this nonsense?” Gurdjieff says, ”Attain first; be a soul. You can be, but it is a crystallization. You have all the elements. Combine them, pass through an inner alchemy, and then a new thing will be born within you which will be a soul.”

So he says, ”Buddha has a soul, Jesus has a soul, and because they have souls they go on talking as if everyone has a soul. No! Do not be befooled by them!” Gurdjieff says, ”Do not be befooled by them! They have a soul and they know that they are immortal, but you are not, so do not be deceived by them.” And really, his teaching can be helpful, but we can turn anything into a harmful thing – even Gurdjieff’s teachings. Then we can say, ”If it is so rare, then it is not for us. It is beyond us.”

Nothing can be said to man which cannot be misused. The same mind will give new interpretations. So when I said that the world is a cosmic organic unity, that everything is interdependent, I meant by this that you are part of a great Whole and that great Whole is part of you: you are not alone. Through you the cosmos is progressing, evolving. You have a very deep mission, a great destiny. To realize this you will have to transform your total outlook, and that transformation starts only when you begin to feel responsible. If you feel that you are responsible, you can change. So make this principle of interdependence a help, a step toward self-transformation. Do not make it a hindrance.

And it is right that man is approximately already made in his childhood. There are many things implied.

One psychologist says that you are born as a tabula rasa – as a blank paper. Your first five or seven years write down everything upon that paper and that patterns your life: you go on repeat ing it.

In the first place, no one is born as a tabula rasa because this childhood is not the beginning, this life is not the beginning. So every child is not just a child, but many old men are within him – many lives. He has reached old age many times, and that memory is always preserved. The mind continues with it – so it is very complicated.

Psychologists will say that your parents, your education, your heredity, they determine everything. But the East knows something more. Eastern psychology knows something more because Eastern psychology says that this life is just one link in a great chain. And now, those in the West who have really gone deep into the human mind – for example, C. G. Jung – are also feeling that this life is not the beginning. No child is born as a child; he has many, many memories within him.

Eastern psychology says that it is not the parents who decide your life. Really, you have chosen them. You have chosen particular parents; you are responsible. If I am born to a particular mother and to a particular father, this is my choice. They will determine me because I have allowed them to determine me. I have chosen them because of so many actions in my past life. It is a chain.

So ultimately, I remain responsible. If I choose a very violent father or if I choose a very wise man, whatsoever my choice is it is my choice. Then they determine me, but this determination by parents, education, etc., is not ultimate. Ultimately, you remain the master; you can throw it at any moment. It is difficult, but it is not impossible.

It is very difficult because it is not just like throwing your clothes. It is like changing your skin. It is so deep-rooted in you, everything that has happened has gone so deep, that it has become your blood and bones: you are made of it. Now you cannot conceive of yourself apart from it. Your identity has become mixed with it. But, still, to throw it is not impossible. You can jump out of it!

Really, all yoga is concerned only with this: how you can get out of all the influences that have made you whatsoever you are; how to jump out of them, how to go beyond; how to go beyond your parents, how to go beyond your education, how to go beyond your heredity, how to go beyond your past lives. The whole science of yoga consists only of this: to help you go beyond. So we will take a few things concerning how this becomes possible.

Education, upbringing, gives you a particular identity, a particular image. You begin to feel, ”I am this.” Everyone has an image of himself: ”I am this.” A good man, a bad man, a religious man, an intelligent man or a stupid one, everyone has an image of himself which has been given by the society, by the parents, by education. How to throw this? Sannyas was a method to throw this.

So, you may not have observed the fact but Hindu society is divided into four classes – Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Sudra – but a sannyasin doesn’t belong to any caste, any class. If a Brahmin becomes a sannyasin, he is simply a sannyasin. If a Kshatriya becomes a sannyasin, he is simply a sannyasin. A sannyasin is beyond caste and class. When you were not a sannyasin but a householder, you were a Brahmin or something else. When you take a jump into sannyas you are no more a Brahmin, and the whole thing that was associated with being a Brahmin is thrown away.

When you become a sannyasin, you pass through a death ritual. Originally, sannyas meant death, so initiation was given at shmashans – cemeteries, burning places. A whole process was followed. Your head was shaved just like we shave the head of a dead man. You are dying to the society, to whatsoever you have belonged to. Then your name was changed because the name was part of your identity. And now your teacher will be your father, not your father; now you do not have any father or mother. Now you have a new start. You will have no home, you will have no caste, you will have no mother, no father, no wife, no husband, no relationship in the world. With a new name, there is a break, a gap. The past has dropped. Now you start from ABC. There were enemies, but now you cannot behave with them as you behaved before – that man has died. There were friends, but you cannot behave with them in the old way – that man has died.

There is a story.

A Buddhist monk was passing through a village. He belonged to that village before he took sannyas, and a beautiful girl loved him. She recognized the face. Of course, it had changed totally. It was difficult to recognize, and he was moving with so many bhikkhus - so many Buddhist monks. And they were all alike – the same clothes, shaven heads with no identities. But she recognized him, so she followed.

And then she said to the bhikkhu, ”You cannot deceive me. I recognize you; you are the same man.”

The monk said, ”Only the face is the same. The same man is no more: he has died.”

The girl said, ”But you loved me.”

The monk replied, ”I again say to you: that man is dead. If ever I meet him, I will relate your story. I will tell him that this girl still loves you. But I do not think that that meeting is possible again.”

This breaking away and the living of a new identity is what is basically meant by renunciation.

Buddha comes back to his home. Buddha’s father is angry, but Buddha says, ”Please, listen to me. I am not the same Siddharth who left the house.”

Of course, the father becomes more angry. He says, ”You are teaching me? I am your father. I have given you birth. I know you very well!”

Buddha again says, ”You do not even know yourself. How can you know me?”

This works as a fuel, and the father becomes even more angry. He begins to scream, ”What are you? How are you behaving with me? My own son, my own blood and bones! What are you saying to me?”

And Gautam Buddha says, ”Calm down, please, because that man who left your home, who lived with you, is already dead.”

This method of sannyas was used as a jump from the ”skin” which society had imposed on you. Then there were many methods to unlearn. I have been saying again and again that meditation is a deep unlearning. So whatsoever you have learned, unlearn it, throw it out! Be a clean sheet again! Whatsoever society has written, wash it out. It can be done. Meditation is the method – you can unlearn.

Education is the method to learn something; meditation is the method to unlearn. When you have unlearned your personality, when you have renounced the old identity, then only is something new possible. Otherwise you will move in a circle, and the circle is very strong. It is difficult to take the jump, but it is not impossible. And it is difficult only because you have not decided. If you have decided, then nothing is impossible. With the very decision, change starts.

It is related of Mahavir that he decided to leave his home. But his mother was alive, so she said, ”Do not go, do not renounce, unless I die. Do not ask again about renouncing the world. You talk of love and you talk of non-violence, but if you renounce the world it will be killing me, murdering me. So do not talk about it!” But even the mother was surprised, because then Mahavir never talked about it. The whole family was surprised. What type of renunciation, what type of sannyas, was this? Only once Mahavir talked of it; then the mother became angry, and he stopped.

For two years he would not talk about it. Then his mother died. He was returning home one day, so he asked his older brother, ”Now my mother is dead, so allow me to renounce the world.”

The brother became angry. He said, ”What nonsense are you talking? We are suffering a great loss. Mother has died and you are talking about renouncing now? Do not talk about it at all!” So Mahavir remained silent again for two years.

The whole family was again shocked. What type of renunciation was this? But then they began to feel that he was in the house, but he was not. He was absolutely absent. No one felt him as being present. He became just a shadow. Months would pass, and then suddenly someone would say, ”Where is Mahavir?” He was in the house. He became so absent that the whole family gathered one day and they said, ”If you are doing this, then it now becomes our duty to allow you to renounce. You can go, because, really, you have already gone.”

Mahavir left the house that very day. Someone asked him, ”Why didn’t you escape? Why didn’t you run away?”

He said, ”There was no need. I took the inner jump. The day I decided, I became a sannyasin. Only my shadow was there because my mother would have become disturbed. There was no need to leave. The shadow was there; the ’I’ was not there. The very day I decided, the thing had happened. These four years were just nothing for me. I was a shadow. I could have remained in that house forever.”

The day that one really decides to take the jump, the jump has already taken place, because the decision is the jump. Even to become aware that ”I am in a deep imprisonment”, to be aware of this, is to have moved out of it. Now, sooner or later, this imprisonment cannot be a prison for you.

But Western psychology is creating a very harmful attitude. They say that you are already complete, that when you are seven your destiny is fixed and now nothing can be done. If this becomes your thought, then nothing can be done – not because you are already complete, but because of this idea. If you say, ”Nothing can be done because now I am already complete. Everything has been put in my mind, so what can I do? Now I have to be in this imprisonment. This is my life”; if one thinks in this way, this very thinking will become the barrier. Otherwise there is no barrier.

So Western psychology has held the Western mind to be very irresponsible. The Western revolts of the youth and other rebellions, other destructive movements, they are really created by the Western psychology of the last fifty years. Freud is more responsible for this than Marx because he has said, ”You are already complete by seven years of age. Your parents are responsible: you are not responsible. So whatsoever you are doing – if you are a criminal, if you are a murderer – you cannot do anything; you have to be this way. Now your dead parents cannot be changed, and those dead parents are also not responsible: it is all because of their parents.”

So ultimately, Freud comes to the same conclusion as Christianity reached before – that Adam committed the sin and we are not responsible. He is responsible – Adam, the first father. Because of him everything is decided. Now we are born in sin and we will have to die in sin. If you move with Freud you will reach to the same conclusion. If parents are responsible, then ultimately Adam and Eve are responsible.

But how to change Adam and Eve now? This is impossible. So whatsoever is, IS – continues. This is not acceptance: this is defeatism. And human dignity is lost! If you cannot do anything, if you cannot transform yourself, you lose all human dignity. You have become just an automaton, a mechanical thing; you will run the course. Because your parents have given you a winding, you will run the course and then you will die. And in the meantime, if you have the opportunity you will give a winding to other fellows, and then you will continue.

This is most degrading. Man can change himself. That possibility is always with you. And this concept, this very concept that ”I can change myself”, starts the change. The revolution has begun.

And, lastly, it has been asked, ”Is it not necessary that the religious man should seek to bring about a radical change in the very pattern of society?”

The religious man is himself the radical change in the pattern of society – the religious man! He will not try to bring about any radical change in the society – he is the radical change!

    6 August 1972 in the p.m.

Question #1

LIFE is a learning and an unlearning also. One has to learn many things, and then one has to unlearn them – and both are necessary. If you do not learn, you remain ignorant. If you learn and cling to it, you become knowledgeable but you remain unwise. If you can also unlearn that which you have learned, then you become wise.

Wisdom has a childlike quality, but it is just ”childlike” – not exactly the same. The child is ignorant and the sage is wise. The child has yet to know and the sage has gone beyond. The child has no knowledge, the sage also has no knowledge. But in a child it is negative, in a sage that ”no knowledge” has become positive. He has crossed beyond, he has transcended. So this is one of the basic principles of spiritual explosion: to unlearn, to go on unlearning, that which one has learned, and it is related to all planes of spiritual growth.

We discussed last night a very strange Hindu ritual. Hindus create images of gods, mud images,  just for a particular ritual – for a particular worship on particular days. Then they worship the mud image as Divine, and when the time is over, when the ritual is finished, they disperse it into the sea or into the river. The same image which was created is dispersed.

I told you that stone images came with Jainism and Buddhism. Hindus never believed in stone images because stone can give a false appearance of permanence while the whole life is impermanent. So man-created gods cannot be permanent either. Whatsoever man can create will remain impermanent; it is bound to be man-like. But we can create certain things which can give a false permanence, which can appear falsely permanent. A pseudo-permanence is possible. With metal images. with stone images, with cement or concrete images, a false permanence is created.

Hindus have always believed in mud images. They create them and then they uncreate them, knowing that they were meant for a particular purpose, as a device. When the purpose is over, they dissolve them. Why? Because if you do not dissolve them, a deep clinging is possible, and that clinging will become a barrier. Ultimately, man has to reach to a point of absolute ”unclinging”; only then is one free. That is what is meant by MOKSHA – freedom – no clinging, not even to gods.

So, ultimately, not only are images to be thrown, but gods also. Everything objective is to be thrown so that ultimately only the subjectivity remains, only consciousness remains, without any object of consciousness. This is the inward meaning of 'dispersion'.

Look at it in this way: whenever we are aware of anything, we divide Existence into two – the object and the subject. If I see you, I have already divided the Existence into two – the seer and the seen. If I love you, I have divided the Existence into two – the lover and the beloved. Any act of consciousness is a division: it creates a duality. Again, when you are unconscious there is no duality.

If you are deeply asleep, Existence is one: there is no duality. But then you are not aware of it. When you are unconscious Existence is one, but you are not aware of it. When you are aware, you have divided by the very act of awareness and now you do not know Existence. You know something which has been created by your awareness. When you reach a third point, when you are aware and not conscious of duality, fully conscious without any object, then you have reached the world of the Ultimate.

A man asleep is just like a sage; a sage is just like a man asleep – with only one difference: the man who is asleep is not aware of where he is, of what he is, and the sage is aware. But he is just like the man who is asleep because there is no division. He knows, yet without dividing Existence. One has to pass from unconscious to conscious, and then to superconscious. This is what is meant by ignorance, learning and unlearning.

We can divide it in many ways: first there is the nastik, or atheist. He says there is no God: everyone is. This is the first stage. The second is that of the astik, or theist, who says that there is a God. And in the third stage, again there is no God. The third is the ultimate aim, when the astik again becomes a nastik.

When he was saying that there is a God he was saying that there is no God – because even to say that there is God is to create a duality. Who is the sayer? Who is to declare whom? Buddha is such a nastik. He says there is no God. This is the ultimate goal. He is just like an astik, not really a nastik. He is the most supreme theist possible. But then duality cannot be, so he cannot say that there is God. Who can say that there is God? Now only One remains, so any assertion will be a violence against the One. So Buddha remains silent, and if you insist he says there is no God.

He is simply saying this: ”Now I am alone. There is no one except me. Now my existence is the only Existence; the whole Existence is now my existence.” Any assertion will create a duality.

So a nastik, an atheist, has to learn to be a theist and then unlearn again. If you go on clinging to your theism, you have not reached the goal. You are just on the bridge and you are falsely believing the bridge to be the goal. So, inwardly, not only are images to be thrown – ultimately, that one of whom those images were carved is also to be thrown. First disperse God’s mud images and then, ultimately, disperse God also. Only then do you become God yourself.

Then the worshipper himself becomes the worshipped. Then the lover himself becomes the beloved. Then the seeker himself becomes the sought. Only then have you reached because now there is no further search, no further inquiry. So inwardly we will have to create many images, thought images, and then go on dispersing them.

I am reminded of Rinzai, a Zen monk.

Someone was learning with him, meditating with him – a disciple. Rinzai said, ”Unless you are absolutely void, nothing is attained.” The disciple was a lover of Buddha, a follower of Buddha, so he was ready to throw everything from his mind, but not Buddha. He said to Rinzai, ”I can throw everything, the whole world, even myself, but how can I throw Buddha? That is impossible!”

Rinzai is reported to have said that Buddha could become a Buddha because he had no Buddha inside – because there was no clinging to anything like a Buddha. That is why Gautam Siddharth could become a Buddha. ”You will never be able to become that. Throw your Buddha!” Rinzai told him.

The disciple entered inward. It was very arduous, very difficult, very painful. Ultimately he succeeded, and one day he came running. He was happy, very happy, filled with joy at his own attainment. He said, ”Now I have attained the void.”

Hearing this, Rinzai became sad and he said, ”Now throw this void! Do not come here with this void within you, because even void Can be an image.”

It is! When you can use a word, it becomes an image. Even when I say ”void”, a certain image is created in your minds. I say ”emptiness”, and a certain thought is created in your minds. So the word ”emptiness” cannot create emptiness. The word ”emptiness” creates a certain parallel image of emptiness in your minds.

So Rinzai said, ”Now go and throw this void. Do not come near me with this nonsense of ’void’ within you.”

The disciple just couldn’t understand. He said, ”You yourself have been teaching me that one should attain void, and now that I have attained it you do not seem at all pleased.”

Rinzai said, ”You have not understood me at all, because when one attains the void he cannot say,’This is my attainment.’ He cannot say,’Now I have attained the void.’ He becomes the void.”

Others will know about it, but he cannot say it. Others will feel it, but he cannot assert it – because the moment you assert, it becomes a concept, a word, an image.

Inwardly also, every image has to be discarded. But how can you discard if you have not created? How can you throw something which you do not have? So remember this also because these are the two fallacies; on the path of the seeker, these are the two barriers: one, you do not have anything so you think, ”Now I have discarded.” But you cannot discard something which you do not have.

For example, you can say, ”I have discarded Buddha” – but you never had him in the first place, so how can you discard? You can say, ”I have discarded the void” – but how can you discard unless you have achieved it? If, without ever having had images, you think that because you do not have any images now you have become one with the Ultimate, you are in the first state of ignorance. You are a child, not childlike. You are ignorant, you are not a sage.

Create, then you can renounce. But one will ask, ”Why create? When something is to be renounced, why create it at all?” The very effort to create enriches you. And then the second act of throwing it enriches you more.

Look at it in this way: Buddha became a beggar, so any beggar on the street can think that ”I am also like Buddha because he was a beggar.” And he was! And if Buddha is begging before your house and some other beggar is there, what is the difference? Both are beggars. But the difference is there in a very subtle way. Buddha is a beggar by his own effort. It is the highest thing possible when someone becomes, by his own effort, a beggar.

The other is also a beggar, but not by his own effort. He is a beggar in spite of all his efforts. When you are a beggar by your own efforts, you have become an emperor. And if you are an emperor not by your own efforts, you are a beggar. Buddha is a beggar knowing the futility of riches; the other one is a beggar not knowing the futility of riches. So the other can feel that he is a beggar, and Buddha can never feel that he is a beggar. The other will hide the fact that he is a beggar and Buddha will declare that ”I am just a beggar.”

These are the paradoxes of life. The real beggar will always hide the fact that he is a beggar. He will try to create a facade that he is not a beggar – that even if he is begging he is not a beggar, that circumstances are such or that a particular circumstance has created this phenomenon, but he is not a beggar. Beggars are beggars in spite of themselves and their efforts. That is why they are unhappy. Even if one is an emperor in spite of himself and his efforts, he is going to be unhappy and discontented.

Buddha calls himself a bhikkhu– a beggar. There is no hiding of the fact: he declares it. Why? Because he is not afraid of being a beggar. Only an emperor can declare that he is a beggar. A beggar can never declare it. Buddha with his begging bowl is a sovereign; he is a king. Even kings are just beggars before him. He had something and he has discarded it. Unless you have, you cannot discard. So remember this: do not go on discarding things which you do not have.

Many of us go on thinking that we have renounced many things. Then you deceive yourself, and this deception is very costly in the inward journey. For example, Krishnamurti goes on talking about discarding images, thoughts, beliefs. Then many people listening to him will think, ”This is okay. We do not have any beliefs, so we are already in that state of mind that Krishnamurti is talking about.” They are not! They are deceiving themselves.

First you must have beliefs, only then can you discard. If you do not have any beliefs, you cannot discard. If a child listens to me and I say to him that sages are childlike, that they unlearn, the child can then say, ”Okay, I am already a sage. I am not going to learn. When one is going to unlearn, why this long suffering of learning? I am already a sage.”

Jesus has said, ”You will enter my Kingdom of God only when you are childlike.” But remember the word ”childlike”. He never says ”children” because many children die and they are not going to enter the Kingdom of God. ”Childlike” – that means a second childhood, not the first childhood: a second childhood after learning, after knowing, after experiencing, after attaining and then discarding.

You cannot know the flavour of this second childhood. It is absolutely different from the first childhood. To have something and then to discard it is a new experience. So I always say that a poor man is not really poor because he does not have riches. He is poor because he cannot discard anything. That is the real poverty. He cannot throw anything, he cannot say no to anything. That is the real poverty. When you can say 'no', you gain a strength.

But a poor man cannot say 'no'. How can he say 'no'? His whole being is saying, ”Yes! Give to me.” His whole being is just a hunger. He is a starved soul. He cannot discard, he cannot throw anything, he cannot renounce. That is real poverty. Inwardly, spiritually, that is the disease.

That is why in a poor country religion cannot flower; it is impossible. A poor country can only go on deceiving itself that it is religious. In a poor country, religion is impossible. I do not say that no poor individual can be religious – individually, that is possible – but as a society, no poor society can be religious, because the poor society cannot conceive of discarding and renouncing. Only when a society is rich does renunciation become meaningful. So renunciation is the last luxury possible – the ultimate luxury. When you can renounce, that is the highest peak of luxury.

A Buddha can renounce: he is a prince; a Mahavir can renounce: he is a prince. The twenty-four teerthankers of the Jains are princes: they can renounce. Krishna and Ram can think in terms of renunciation: they are kings. But when a poor man begins to think that ”If Buddha has come to the streets to beg, then I am already a Buddha because I am already begging,” he is misunderstanding the whole phenomenon.

And the same applies to learning: you can renounce learning, but first learn. Many times I am talking about the stupidity of knowledge. Then those who do not know, they think, ”Okay! How good it is that we do not know!” When I talk about the stupidity of knowledge, I do not mean ignorance; I mean transcendence. Knowledge becomes stupid when you have it. When you do not have it, you are not higher than knowledge. You are lower than knowledge. So when I say knowledge is stupidity, I am comparing with wisdom, not with ignorance. Otherwise you may take it to mean that your ignorance is bliss.

Before renouncing anything, be sure that you have it – only then can you renounce it. And when you can renounce something, anything, only then do you gain something through renunciation, and that which is gained is higher than that which is renounced. It is higher! That is WHY the lower can be renounced; otherwise it will be impossible to renounce. You can renounce knowledge because now you feel that wisdom is higher – not only higher, but now you also feel that knowledge is a barrier to the higher. You renounce ignorance because knowledge is higher than ignorance. If you renounce knowledge FOR ignorance, then you have misunderstood the whole point, you have missed the point.

This sutra says to disperse – but first create. First create a god, first create a god’s image. What is meant by creating a god’s image, or by creating a god? It is a very meaningful effort, and it changes you, it transforms you. It is not so easy as you think. When you make a mud image of Ganesh, for example, you know this is simply mud. You have given it a form; that is all. Then you worship it – a mud image created by you yourself. Then to surrender yourself to it, then to touch the feet of the god you have created, is a transformation.

It is one of the most arduous things. It is not easy, because when YOU have created it how can you worship it? When you know this is mud and nothing else, how can you worship it? This very process of worshipping will change you. And if you can worship something which you have created, only then will you come to know the worship of that which has created you.

It is difficult, it is very arduous, but it begins from there. You become humble before your own image, your own self-made image, a home-made god, and you surrender. This gives you a deep humbleness, a deep humility. And then the image is not just an image – it is transformed. You put your whole heart into it.

Really, look at the revolution that happens. You are the creator of the image, and then you worship the image as your creator. The whole thing has moved. You have become the created and the created image has become the creator. This is a total transformation of consciousness, so it is a metamorphosis. If it happens, then discard it. Then only can you know what dispersion is. If it happens, only then is there dispersion. Otherwise it was just a mud image; you worshipped it without any transformation, without any alchemical change. It was a mud image; you were just acting the worship. You knew already that this was just a formal act.

Vivekananda was speaking in an American city. He talked about a Bible principle and he quoted Jesus as saying that faith can move mountains. An old woman just sitting in the first row was overjoyed because she was always troubled by a small hillock just by the side of her house. So she thought, ”If faith can move mountains, then why not that small hillock?”

So she ran home. She looked through the window at the hillock for the last time, because now the hillock was going to disappear. Then she closed the window, and thrice she said, ”God, I believe in you. Remove this hillock from here.” And after three times she opened the window to see that the hillock was still there. So she said, ”I already knew. Nothing was going to be moved. I already knew that this was nonsense.”

If you already know this is nonsense, then faith cannot move anything. Then anything is a mountain because faith means that you know that the mountain is going to move. So, really, faith can move mountains if first it moves your heart – otherwise it is impossible. You are worshipping a mud image, and you already know that this is a mud image which you have brought from the market. So it is a formality: one has to do it. And then you go and disperse it.

No! When really the mud image has become Divine, then your whole mind would like to cling to it. Then you can renounce the whole world, but you cannot renounce this image. Then suicide is easier than dispersion of this image. Then it is your heart, it is your being. Only then does the Hindu ritual say to go and disperse it.

When the real worship has happened, when the image has become Divine, then to disperse it is the greatest spiritual act, because then you are breaking your clinging to the last barrier. And when one can break this clinging to the Divine, nothing will create any attachment for him – nothing!

But this is difficult. Dispersion is easy because the whole thing was just a formality. Ask Ramakrishna to disperse his image of Kali. For him the transformation has taken place.

When Ramakrishna was made the priest of Dakshineshwar, he was given only sixteen rupees per month. So he was a poor priest, the poorest, really, because the Dakshineshwar temple was made by a Sudra Rani – a Sudra queen. No high-caste Brahmin was ready to become a priest there. No Brahmin was ready to become a priest in a temple made by a Sudra.

Ramakrishna accepted the position. Many asked him why. He was a high-caste Brahmin. Even his own family was against it. But Ramakrishna said, ”I have fallen in love with the image, so it is not a question of service. Service is just an excuse so that I can enter daily. I have fallen in love.”

But when a priest falls in love with the image, it creates problems. A priest should remain formal. He is not meant for real worship. He is meant for a formal show. Whenever you are in love with something, then difficulties are bound to arise. Love is such a disturber!

Within seven days he was called by the committee – the management committee of the temple – and they said, ”We are going to fire you. What are you doing? It has been repeatedly reported to us, time and time again reported to us, that you are doing many wrong things in the temple. It has been reported that before you put flowers at the feet of Kali, you smell them – before! Before putting them at the feet, you smell them! And food, the worship food: before it goes to the temple, it has been reported that you eat it – before worship! That is not possible for a religious man. What are you doing? Are you mad? The food can be taken only afterwards. If you smell the flower, it has become impure.”

So Ramakrishna said, ”I resign then, because it is impossible for me not to smell the flower first. It is impossible!”

”Why it is impossible?” the committee asked.

Ramakrishna said, ”I know that when my mother makes something, cooks something, she first tastes it and then she gives it to me. So I cannot give any food to Mother, to Kali, without first knowing whether this is worth giving or not. And if love makes things impure, then I leave.”

This man Ramakrishna will have very great difficulty in dispersion. If this Kali image is to be dispersed, it may even prove suicidal. He may die by the very shock. So remember this: this dispersion is meaningful only when you have really worshipped. And to disperse the god then is the ultimate jump. Then you are thrown from the world of forms into the world of the Formless, because an image is a form – beautiful, holy, but still a form. Unless you go beyond form and explode into the Formless, the journey is not finished. So, inwardly, that is what is meant by dispersion.