8 August 1972 in the p.m.

Question 1:

HITHERTO, it was impossible to create a society which synthesizes both polarities of science and religion, of logic and poetry. It was impossible because this synthesis can become possible only when both the alternatives, taken alone, have proved to be total failures. Now, for the first time inthe history of human consciousness, we are at the stage where both the alternatives have proved failures. Chosen alone, taken alone, each has proved a failure. So this age is really of very deep significance because the human mind will transcend the old conflict and the old polarities now.

The East tried one alternative – choosing religion at the cost of science. The West tried the reverse – choosing science at the cost of religion. The East succeeded in attaining the inner center in a few individuals. The West succeeded in attaining a prosperous affluent society. The East failed economically, technologically; it remained poor. The West failed spiritually; it remained empty inwardly. Thus, a synthesis began to happen.

A few individuals in the East and in the West also were able to conceive of it. They could look into the future. They are known as prophets because of this – because they can know, because they can probe deep into the future. But prophets are never believed when they are alive because they go too far ahead. We cannot follow them and we cannot see how their innerness is working. So they are never believed, never followed. Only retrospectively do we feel that they were right.

Many times this synthesis was proposed. For example, Krishna proposed it. His was one of the most penetrating efforts of synthesis. The Gita has been read, worshipped, but no one listened to him. Really, prophets are always born before their time. So the people who can understand them are yet not, and the people who are cannot understand them. There is a gap.

In a few individual cases, the synthesis was attained. There have been a few individuals who were both – religious and scientific, logical and poetic. But that is a very subtle balance, and only a genius could attain it in the past. For example, a Michaelangelo or a Goethe or, even in our own times, Albert Einstein: they could attain a synthesis in their individuality. But then they became puzzles to us – because they moved between two polarities so easily that they appeared inconsistent.

Consistency can be had only if you belong to one extreme. If someone moves between two, if a scientist is also a poet, then he has two personalities: he moves between the two. When he goes to his laboratory, he forgets poetry completely. He changes his being from a poet’s being to a scientist’s being. He begins to think in totally different categories. When he moves out of his lab, he moves again into a different being. The second being is not mathematical, not experimental. It is more like a dream than like any scientific experiment.

This is very difficult, arduous, but sometimes this has been attained in a few individuals who could move. Michaelangelo was a mathematician and also a great artist. Goethe was a poet and also a very deep probing logical thinker. Einstein was essentially a mathematician, a physicist, and yet he was aware and in deep contact with that which was mysterious around him. But then this was possible for only a few individuals. This should be possible for a greater number. Now the time is ripe, and the moment will come when society need not think in terms of opposites. Rather, it must think in terms of complementaries.

Two opposites are not really two enemies. They support each other; neither can exist without the other. Deep down they are related. We can call them ”intimate enemies”. They depend on each other. Each cannot exist without the other, and yet they are opposite. This opposition gives a tension, a certain energy, which helps them to exist.

But this was not possible in the past. Many tried one alternative because to try one is easy. You can be religious easily, you can be scientific easily – but to be both is a very delicate balance, and then you need a very developed mind which can move from one group to another without any difficulty.

Look at our minds! When you move from your house to your office, your mind continues in the house. When you move from your office to your house, it is not that by leaving your office your mind leaves your office – it continues to be in your office. Physical movement is easy; mental movement is difficult. And between a house and an office there is no opposition.

When someone thinks mathematically, it is a totally different approach toward life; when one begins to think poetically, it is totally different. It is as if you have moved from one planet to another, and the other cannot be allowed any voice. So a very deep control and integration is needed; otherwise the mind continues in one pattern. It is easy to move in one pattern. That is why it is easy for societies to choose.

The East experimented with one choice and the West with another. Both have failed. The whole history of man is the history of two failures – Eastern and Western. Now both of these failures can be studied, and now we can become aware of the fallacies of history and the errors of the experienced standpoints. Now you can feel that a new world with a new attitude is possible – a synthetic attitude.

Obviously, that world cannot be Eastern and cannot be Western. So do not ask which land is more fertile, because then the whole world will become one world. Really, if you can still continue in terms of which land is more fertile, you again are trying to think in old categories. If East and West both have failed, then really this is the moment to drop the whole nonsense of being Eastern or of being Western. Now one humanity emerges. It is neither Eastern nor Western. It is human, and the whole planet earth becomes a small village.

A whole earth is possible, but the earth has not been whole. Now, for the first time, barriers are breaking. This breakdown of the old barriers will have to be consciously worked out. Unconsciously, it will take a longer time. Consciously, it can be done very easily and with less pain and less suffering. Now men should not belong to any land, to any culture, to any civilization, to any religion. Now, for the first time, men must belong to the whole earth.

The very base of thinking in terms of East and West, this and that, belongs to the past. For the future, it is not only foolish: it is deeply harmful. But how can this be made possible?

This can be made possible in three ways:

One: the mind must not be trained in any one attitude. The mind must be trained simultaneously in both the attitudes. A child MUST NOT be trained ONLY in logic, doubt and science. He must also be trained for trust, for meditation, for religious sensitivity, and both of these trainings must be given simultaneously.

For example, if one person marries someone who belongs to another group of languages, such as a German marrying an Indian, then the children will be bi-lingual from their very beginning. If you are born in one language group, you learn one language as your mother tongue. Then afterwards you can learn another language, but the second language will always be a second language. It will be imposed over and above the first, and the first will always colour it. Deep down in the unconscious the original language will exist, and the second language will only be in the conscious.

One of my friends was in Germany for twenty years. This was such a long time that he forgot his own mother tongue, Marathi. Then he fell ill and he was in a hospital. The doctors were in difficulty because whenever he was conscious he would use German, and whenever he became unconscious – the disease was such that periodically he would go unconscious – he would speak Marathi. Then he would not be able to understand German at all.

The deep unconscious knows the first language; the second is imposed. But for a bi-lingual child who is born between two languages, both are mother tongues. He will have no difficulty in moving from one to another. Really, he will never feel any difficulty in moving from one language to another.

Science is one language toward the reality and religion is another language toward the reality. Science is a detached language and religion is an intimate language. They both must be taught simultaneously, they both must become one. The child must never know that they are alternatives to choose between. A mind must be trained in doubt – doubt for science; and a mind must also be trained in trust – trust for life.

They are opposites to us because we were never trained that way: that is the only thing. To us faith and doubt are opposites. We say, ”I have faith, so how can I doubt?” Or, ”If I am a doubting man, if I can doubt, then how can I have faith?” Really, this division is stupid because their dimensions are different. Faith is for religion, faith is for deeper penetration into the reality, faith is for love, faith is for life. This is a different passage. Doubt is not needed. Doubt is for scientific research, for scientific approach, for facts, for dead facts, for observation.

For the outer world, doubt is a basic instrument; for the inner world, faith is the basic instrument – and these two need not be in conflict. They are in conflict because we are trained in one, and we cannot move from one to another. That difficulty in movement is only a difficulty of wrong training. Otherwise, when you are working a mathematical problem, use mathematics; but when you are looking at a flower, there is no need of your mathematics coming in between. Then be poetic. With a flower, mathematics is not needed. With a full-moon night, mathematics is not needed. Forget mathematics! Open another door of your being!

Jesus has said, ”My father’s house has many mansions,” - many dimensions. You are also not a one-door house; you need not be. If you are, it means that only one door has been opened or tried. There are other doors, and if they are opened you will be richer for that. If you can use other doors, then your personality will be less fixed, more river-like. Then you will be less dead and more alive.

Movement is life. And the more subtle the movement, the more abundant your life will be. So use doubt as an instrument, use faith as an instrument. How is it possible?

Secondly, it is possible only if you are not identified with either. If you become identified with doubt, then you cannot move. Then your mind is doubt, so how can you move to faith? If you are identified with faith, then you cannot move to doubt.

So do not be identified with doors. You are different; doors are different. When you and the doors are different, there is no difficulty. Then you can move. So do not think that doubt is your being or faith is your being. Faith is a door; doubt is a door. You can move from either – from one to another. If you are identified, then there is no choice.

But we are all identified. We go on saying, ”I cannot believe, I cannot have faith, because I am a sceptic.” Or someone says, ”I cannot doubt because I am a religious man.” This shows that your consciousness has become fixed, stone-like. It is not river-like, moving, flowing. Flow? Move! So the second point: the mind has to be trained not to be identified with instruments. Then you can use them. You can use a sword – but if you so are identified that your hand has become the sword, then how can you have a rose-flower in your hand? Then you will say, ”It is impossible! How can I have a rose-flower in my hand? My hand is a sword!”

And there is no relationship between a sword and a flower. You can take the sword, you can take a flower. If your hand is free from identification, only then does it become possible. So the second point is not to be identified! In the future, we have to create an educational system which teaches non-identification with instruments. Then it is very easy – very easy!

Thirdly, remember this: the world exists as polarities, so if you choose one your world will be poorer. If you say, ”I am going to be this and not that,” then you will belong only to half of the world; you will be half alive. Remember, the Existence is polarity – so if you want to be one with the total Existence, be able to move.

We think that someone is a very loving man, so we wonder, ”How can he hate?” Or someone is a very hateful man, so ”How can he love?” But if your love is such that you cannot hate, your love will be just nothing. It will have no life, no vigour. Your love will be impotent. If you cannot hate, then your love cannot be alive. And the same for the other extreme. If you can only hate and cannot love, your hate will be just a facade.

The opposite gives life. Your love will be richer if you can hate. There is no need to hate, but if you can hate? if that is your capacity, if you are capable of hate, your love will have a different quality, a deeper quality.

Everything that looks opposite to us is related, and the opposite gives strength. But we have been trained to be fixed beings. We have been trained not as processes, but as finished events, finished things. So we say that so-and-so is a man who is kind, and so-and-so is a man who belongs to another category – anger. But if a person who is kind is simply kind, if he cannot be angry, then his kindness will be shallow, his kindness will be just a clothing. If he can be angry also, then his kindness has a depth.

There is no need to be angry, there is no necessity – but the capacity must exist. This capacity to incorporate polar opposites needs a different training. A different mind has to be brought into the world.

Remember this: all the great sages who have brought non-violence were Kshatriyas they belonged to warrior races. Mahavir, Buddha, all the twenty-four Teerthankers of the Jains, they were Kshatriyas: they belonged to warrior races. This seems absurd. It would be better if Brahmins were teaching non-violence, but no Brahmin has preached it. No Brahmin has ever preached non-violence. Only Kshatriyas have preached it. Why? And why do Mahavir and Buddha have such a depth into non-violence? They were capable of deep violence. They could move. They really belonged to a violent tribe, a violent type of mind. They were born to it, and then they moved to the other pole. They had a depth.

This is strange: if you go and try to find the opposite pole to Mahavir and Buddha, you will find Parasuram – a Brahmin who killed millions of Kshatriyas. It is reported that many times he set about killing all the Kshatriyas in the world. This was a very violent mind, but he came from a non-violent caste. He was a Brahmin. Why? No Kshatriya can be compared to Parasuram in violence. He is unique. The world has not produced another like him again. Mahavir and Buddha, they are Kshatriyas. This is meaningful, significant. The capacity to be the other gives a certain strength.

Another example: you might have heard many anecdotes about great men, very wise men, sometimes acting very foolishly. No fool will act that way. We laugh; we say they are absent-minded.

It is reported of Immanuel Kant, after he came home one night from his regular walk with his umbrella, that he forgot which was which: he put the umbrella on the bed, covered it with a blanket, thinking it was himself, and then he stood in the corner of the room thinking he was his umbrella. And he could discover that something had gone wrong only in the morning when the servant knocked at the door. The whole night he was standing. He was sleeping: he was not standing. When the servant knocked at the door, Kant looked at the bed and then he began to think, ”Why am I not going to open the door?” Then suddenly he realized that there had been a mistake.

But we can laugh at Immanuel Kant. We know that such great men are sometimes very absent-minded. But why? You cannot commit such a foolish act because you cannot move to the other extreme. Only Immanuel Kant can commit such a foolish act. He touches one extreme of intelligence, then the other extreme becomes possible. So no foolish men are reported to have committed such foolish acts as so-called wise, intelligent men are reported to have committed.

Sometimes the opposite also happens. A very foolish man, an idiot, sometimes will give you such a deep advice as no wise man can give. And this has been known throughout history, so every great king would appoint a court idiot: a court idiot was to be appointed with every great king. Such a king would have a big court of many wise men, but one idiot was to be appointed in the court – the court fool.

And it has happened many times that when wise men were not able to suggest any advice, the court fool would suggest something. Why? Because many times wise men are so wise that they become impractical. Their very wiseness becomes a barrier. And a court fool is unafraid: he is unafraid of being a fool, so he can say anything. And sometimes, if you are unafraid, then only your advice can be of any worth. Why? When you are at one polarity, the other polarity becomes possible. We must teach the future mind both the polarities. And I mean it when I say it. We must not teach a person only to be wise: we must teach him to be foolish also.

Why? Because if you are not foolish enough, you cannot enjoy life. You will become a sad and serious dead thing. All that is beautiful in life can be enjoyed by those who are capable of playing at foolishness, of being a fool, otherwise it is impossible. So the more wise you are, the more foolish you will be as far as life is concerned. We can think of a synthesis between religion and science, but we cannot conceive of a synthesis between a wise man and a fool because now the problem goes even deeper.

And when we think about a synthesis between a scientific mind and a religious mind, it is not our problem. It is far away; it is not concerned with us. But when I say that a deep synthesis is needed between being wise and being foolish, then it is directly concerned with you. Then it is neither. Then you become uneasy. Then the mind will say, ”Choose wiseness; do not choose to be foolish.” But why is foolishness so much condemned? And children are so beautiful because they are foolish, and animals are so innocent because they are foolish. And look at the pundits: they are so wise, so serious, so sad, that really they are pathological, diseased.

This deep synthesis between all the opposites can become a training, and for the future mind this is going to be the training. If a religious man cannot laugh and cannot dance, he is not whole. And one who is not whole cannot be holy. Wholeness is holiness.

In this way Zen Buddhism has achieved a deep synthesis. Zen saints and sages can act like fools, and that shows their wisdom. If you cannot act like a fool sometimes, that shows you are afraid to be a fool. That fear shows you are not yet wise. A wise man can move. I talk so much about Mulla Nasrudin because he is both – a deep synthesis. He can act foolish, and it is rare to find such a wise man.

One day Nasrudin’s village invited him to give a talk to the town. Some festival was on, and they needed someone to give a religious talk. So Nasrudin said, ”Okay, I will come.” So they came to receive him. He came out of his house sitting on his donkey in reverse order. His face was toward the back of the donkey and his back toward the donkey’s face.

The whole group, those who had come to receive him, followed him, but they became uneasy because villagers began to stare. They thought, ”This Mulla is a fool, and those who are following him and who are going to listen to him are greater fools. Who has ever heard of any man sitting on a donkey this way?” But the followers resisted. They controlled themselves, but it was impossible. When they were just passing the market, it became impossible. Everyone was laughing, so they asked Mulla, ”Would it not be better if you changed your position?” The whole village was laughing.

Mulla Nasrudin said seriously, ”If you are going to listen to me, if you are going to understand me at all, remember the first principle: you are paying more attention to what others are saying and no attention to what we are doing. Pay more attention to what we are doing. Now I will explain to you.”

Mulla Nasrudin said, ”Now I will explain to you! If I sit in an ordinary way, then my back will be toward you, and that will be disrespectful. If I allow you to move before me, in front of me, that will be disrespectful toward me. So this is the only human way possible. This is the only way it can be done without showing disrespect to anyone.”

He looks foolish, but he is wise. But to find his wisdom will be difficult because it is shrouded with foolish acts. Only a wise man can penetrate into it. When you are paying some respect to someone, what are you doing? When you expect respect because of your age, what are you doing? When you are paying respect, you would not like to sit in such a way that your back is toward the person to whom you are paying respect, so why laugh at Mulla Nasrudin? He is just acting as the human mind acts. It is only that he goes to the very logical extreme and he says, ”This is the only possible way of doing it.”

Really, he is laughing at your so-called respect, honour, etc. If you can laugh at him, then laugh at the whole human stupidity. If you are sitting on a chair and your father comes into the room, what will he do? If you do not stand, he will feel that you have been disrespectful toward him. But what nonsense! Sitting or standing, how does it make any difference? So the real thing is not whether you are sitting or standing. The real thing is that everyone is an egoist and everyone is expecting some gesture so that his ego is fulfilled.

There was one great teacher, A. S. Neill. He was teaching one day in his classroom, and his students were sitting as they liked. One Indian teacher visited him that day and he was aghast. He couldn’t conceive what type of class this was. One student was smoking a cigarette, one was just lying on the floor with closed eyes, and the class was on and A. S. Neill was teaching. So the Indian teacher said, ”This is indiscipline. What are you doing? Stop and first let them sit in a right way with respect toward the teacher.”

Neill is reported to have said, ”You do not understand what is going on here. They love me so much that they can be at ease with me. And if respect goes against love, then love is to be chosen. What can be more respectful toward me than love? They are feeling that they are at home, and I am here to teach them – not to make them sit in a proper way. If one student feels that by lying down on the floor with closed eyes he can learn better, then okay. I am here to teach them certain things, so it is okay. If I make them sit forcibly, and if only because of that they cannot learn, then I am not doing the duty of a teacher.”

So Neill can understand the anecdote about Nasrudin. Life is a multiplicity, a very paradoxical phenomenon. You must be capable of moving to both the poles and yet remain beyond. And only if you are beyond both can you move.

It is reported of Gurdjieff, by many of his disciples, that suddenly, at any moment, he would act foolish. He would create such a situation that his disciples would become very uncomfortable. Why? He was one of the wisest men possible. Why? Because to go on insisting on being wise is part of the ego.

One day one press reporter came to take an interview with George Gurdjieff. He was sitting there. A few disciples were there and he was answering their questions. The reporter came. Of course, as he was a press reporter of a big daily newspaper he was full of ego. feeling very important. Gurdjieff told him to sit down by his side, and then suddenly he asked a lady who was on the other side, ”Which day is today?” The lady said, ”Today is Saturday.” Gurdjieff said, ”How is it possible? Just yesterday it was Friday. How is Saturday possible today? And yesterday you told me that it was Friday.”

The press reporter stood up and he said, ”Okay, I am going.”

When the reporter left, Gurdjieff laughed. But all the disciples felt very uncomfortable because they had arranged the interview, and now the reporter was going to report that they belong to a foolish teacher and they follow a foolish man.

But only a Gurdjieff can act this way. What did he do through this? He showed to his disciples that ”you are trying, through Gurdjieff, to strengthen your egos, although you may or may not be aware of it.” But the disciples insisted, ”He will think you are a fool!” So Gurdjieff said, ”Let him think. How does it matter? What others think is irrelevant.”

This is really a humble man, because if you go on considering what others think about it, you will go on using masks, false faces. You will try to appear beautiful, wise, because you are not concerned with what you are. You are more concerned what they think. and this is the foolishness of the ego.

So we must train a synthetic mind which is capable of turning beyond the duality and is capable of moving; a mind which can enjoy, be playful and be serious, and which can work. This liquidity is possible now. It was not possible before.

And because both alternatives have failed, a third possibility becomes open: meditation can help very much. Really, meditation is the only thing that can help. So if meditation makes you lopsided, it is not meditation.

If a meditation gives you a more balanced life, a more balanced consciousness, then only is it real. If meditation makes you withdraw from life, it is not meditation. If meditation helps you to be in the world without being in the world, if meditation helps you to be in the world but does not allow the world to be in you, then you have achieved a synthesis. Janak is a synthesis; Krishna is a synthesis. Life is not taken in opposites. One remains in both the polarities without being attached to any.

 

8 August 1972 in the p.m.

Question 2:

THERE ARE THREE STATES – ignorance, knowledge, and the transcendence of knowledge that is wisdom. These three states are basic to all dimensions, whether science or religion. A religious man is ignorant: he is in the first state. He doesn’t know anything higher than the body, higher than the world. He lives like a child.

Then the second state is of knowledge. He begins to think. He gathers knowledge, information; he becomes knowledgeable. But this knowledge is borrowed. It is not his own; he has not known it. Then he throws it. Everything that is borrowed is thrown. Now he jumps into himself, to the very source of his being. Then he becomes wise. He passes through ignorance, learning, unlearning, then he becomes wise.

The same happens with science also The first stage is ignorance; then one becomes a scientist. This is a knowing about the outer world. This knowing is also borrowed. This knowing is technological. If one clings to this knowing, then he remains in the second stage. But if he can throw this scientific knowledge also and can take a jump into the Existence, the unknown Existence, then he becomes wise. So whatsoever the dimension may be, these three states will be relevant.

Whatsoever you know through others – from others, from tradition, from scriptures, from someone else – whatsoever is not immediate, without any medium, whatsoever is not known directly by you, is knowledge. Whatsoever is known by you directly, immediately, is wisdom. So whether it is religion or science, it makes no difference. Learning must be unlearned; then there is the jump. And one can take the jump from any place, from wheresoever one is standing. Even if it is art, one must take the jump from the knowledge of art. Only then does wisdom flower. In Zen there has been training in meditation through many thing through painting, through archery, through flower arrangement. This remains a basic principle.

Bokuju was learning with his teacher. He became a great painter, the greatest ever known. And then, one day, his teacher said. ”Now stop painting.” When he was at the height, at the peak, the pinnacle, when his name was penetrating far and wide, when emperors had become interested in him, when everyone had started talking about his painting, his teacher said, ”Now you stop painting. For twelve years forget painting completely. Throw it!”

How difficult it was! He was just at the peak. Bokuju followed his teacher. He became just an ordinary gardener in his teacher’s garden. For twelve years there was no painting, no talk of painting, then one day, the teacher said, ”Now you can paint again.”

Bokuju said, ”Now I know. That time I simply trusted you. Now I know, because now whatsoever I paint will be mine.”

This was learning, then unlearning. He said, ”Now I can paint like a child without knowing anything of painting. I have forgotten everything; now I can paint like a child.” And then it is reported that Bokuju would paint like a child. Then his paintings became of another world – OF ANOTHER WORLD! They were not of this world. They were not even painted. He was just a child playing when he would paint.

Then his teacher said, ”Now you are wise. There is no effort now – no training, no art, no knowledge. You have become innocent. You cannot paint in the old way now.”

One has to learn first and then unlearn. When art is forgotten, only then is the artist born. If you know that you cannot be totally in it, your knowledge will be a disturbance.

I will relate to you another story.

In Thailand one temple was being built, and the greatest painter was called to plan for the great gate. The emperor said, ”This gate, this temple gate, must be something unique in the world. There must be no comparison, so work hard.”

This painter was a teacher, a monk. He tried hard. Whenever he would make something. it was his habit to ask his greatest disciple, who was just by his side, ”Do you say it is okay?”

If the disciple approved, only then would he go ahead; otherwise he would throw it. He painted a hundred paintings, then he would look at the disciple, and the disciple would nod and say, ”No!” Then he would throw it. Three months passed, and the emperor was asking again and again, ”When?” But the teacher said, ”I do not know. Not until my disciple says yes.”

One day when he was painting, the ink was finished. He was just in the middle, so he asked his disciple to prepare more ink. The disciple went out to prepare more ink. Then without ink, just with his pencil, he drew a sketch. When the disciple came, he said, ”What! You have done the thing! This is the thing! But how could you do it? You had endeavoured so much for three months.”

The teacher laughed and said, ”Because you were present, I was conscious of ’me’. That was the only error. When you were not here, I was also not here. I could forget myself. That is why this thing has come. I couldn’t forget myself when you were there. Then the judge was there, and I was every moment afraid whether you were going to say yes or no each time, and I was making every effort so that you could say yes. That effort was the barrier. You were not here, so I was at ease, relaxed, and the thing happened.”

The thing always happens when you are so relaxed that you are not. But a person of knowledge cannot be so relaxed. Knowledge is the burden, the tension. So whatsoever the dimension may be – art, religion, philosophy, whatsoever – these are the three stages: ignorance, learning and then unlearning. Then you become wise.

And, secondly, it is asked, ”Is it not true that it is the East which has given birth to the six great Indian philosophies? Then in what sense do you consider the East anti-philosophic?”

There are many reasons:

First: the Indian philosophical systems are not philosophical in the Western sense. The Western philosophies call them ”religious philosophies”. They call them religious philosophies! They are not philosophies like those of Aristotle, Plato, Kant or Hegel. They are not – because they state many truths, but their evidence is not logical. The ultimate verification is experience.

In the Western philosophies the ultimate verification is logical, not experiential. If I can prove a certain thing logically, it is okay. But the Indian mind is different. The Indian mind says even if you can prove a certain thing logically, it may not be true. And it may even be that I cannot prove a certain thing logically, but it is true.

For example, you say you are in love. Now prove how you are in love. What is the proof? How do you prove it? It cannot be proven. And if you try to prove it, it may happen that you yourself may become suspicious whether you are in love or not, because so many questions can be raised which cannot be argued. But still you know that you are in love.

There was a case in the court concerning Mulla Nasrudin. He was found with something which had been stolen from his neighbours’ house, so he was suspected. But his advocate argued the case. There was no evidence. He had not been seen going into the house; no one had seen him coming out of it. But the thing was with him: he was found with the thing. He argued the case so beautifully, so logically, that Nasrudin won.

When they were coming out of the court, the advocate asked Nasrudin, ”Now tell me, really – were you involved in it?”

Nasrudin is reported to have said, ”I thought before that I was involved, but you have argued the case so logically that now I am suspicious. You have convinced me also.”

For Indian philosophy, logical conviction is not a criterion, that is the difference. The ultimate verification is experience. Indian religious philosophies talk logically. Mahavir, Buddha, Kapil – they talk logically. Every Indian system talks logically, but they do not depend on logic. They say, ”Our expressions are logical so that you can understand them, but whatsoever we are proposing is not deduced from logic – it has come to us from experience.”

For example, I experience something. Then I relate it to you and you begin to argue about it, so I also argue about it. But the experience has not come through argument. Rather, the argument has come through the experience; that is the difference. In the West, they say that if the argument is correct and cannot be refuted, then the conclusion is true. In India, they say that whether it is refuted or not, if it has been experienced it is true. So the truth of it lies in experiencing, not in argumentation.

So I also do not like to call Hindu systems of experiencing ”philosophies”. They are not! And why do I call them anti-philosophic? Because they are against the philosophical attitude. They say that Truth cannot be found through logical analysis. They say Truth cannot be proven through argumentation. Argumentation, logic. everything, is just a method of expression, nothing else. Basically, Truth remains an experience. That is why they are anti-philosophic.

Ask Buddha something, and if he feels that you are asking for asking’s sake he is not going to reply. He will not reply! He will reply only if he feels that the inquirer is not just curious about it – if he is an authentic seeker. That means if he is ready to go to the experience. Otherwise Buddha is not interested.

Western philosophy – Greek philosophy in particular – says that philosophy starts with wonder. This has never been said in India. Hindu systems say that thinking starts in suffering, not in wonder. So note down this very deep foundational distinction.

The West says philosophy starts in curiosity. A child asks, ”From where has this whole world come?” A philosopher also asks this. If you ask Buddha, ”From where has this world come,” he will say, ”This is childish. How are you concerned? And whatsoever the cause may have been, it is irrelevant.” He says, ”If you are ill, then ask for the medicine.” Buddha says that we are suffering, that life is dukkha – suffering – so the question is how to go beyond it; that is the difference.

Inquiry about Truth is against error. Inquiry about Liberation is against suffering.

The Indian mind is more psychological, less philosophical – more concerned with actual human transformation, less concerned with idle curiosities And it is anti-philosophic. But we have created nine systems – six are Hindu, three non-Hindu. Those nine systems are not philosophical systems, but philosophical statements of inner experiences. They are called systems, but, really, ”system” is not the right word. In Sanskrit they are called sampradaya – schools, not systems. A school is a different thing and a system is a different thing. A system means it is philosophical; a school means that it is a training ground. A school means you are trained for a particular experience. All the nine are trainings – trainings towards only one Ultimate goal: LIBERATION. That is why I call them anti-philosophic.

And because we have begun to think of them as philosophies, we are missing much. This is just one of the imitations of the Western mind. The way they teach and learn philosophy in the West has not been the way in the East ever, but now it is because our universities are just imitations of the West.

Nalanda was a different thing, Takshashila was a different thing. They were Eastern universities – very different, basically different. In Nalanda only Buddhist philosophy was taught. And what was the training? The training was not simply verbal, not scriptural, not just knowing about what Buddhist philosophy is. The training was in Buddhist yoga. The student would follow verbal instruction, and then, simultaneously, he would go deeper and deeper and deeper into meditation. Unless meditation and verbal training grow simultaneously, the whole growth is futile.

A story is reported about when Huan Chuang came to Nalanda. He was entering the main gate. Nalanda was the biggest university in India; it had 10,000 students from all over the world. It is suspected that Jesus had been one of the students. When Huan Chuang came to the main door he met a bhikkhu – a sannyasin. He began to ask questions about the university: ”What is the training and what...?” The man began to answer. Huan Chuang was impressed by the man, and he was the greatest scholar in China in those days – the greatest! He was so impressed with the man, and the man was so learned that Huan Chuang thought by chance that he was the Vice Chancellor – but he was just a doorkeeper. He reports in his memoirs that he was just a doorkeeper, but he knew everything about philosophy.

So Huan Chuang remained for three years in that university. When going back, he again passed the door, and he asked the man, ”Why are you still a doorkeeper? You know so much.”

The man said, ”Because I only know. I have failed in experience. I only know, so I am a failure. I know as much as the Vice Chancellor; there is no difference as far as knowledge goes – but I am a failure because I couldn’t grow into experience. That is why I am just a doorkeeper.”

So learned men are just doorkeepers. The Indian attitude is for experience. Sometimes a Kabir can become the highest peak without any knowledge – without any so-called knowledge. Experience is the thing; that is why the East is anti-philosophical.

 

9 August 1972 in p.m.

Question 1:

PHILOSOPHY is a search for Truth, but religion is not. Religion is a search for freedom – Ultimate Freedom. What is the difference? When you are searching for Truth, the emphasis becomes more and more intellectual, mental. When you are searching for freedom, it is not simply a question of intellect, but of your total being.

The moment someone utters the word ”Truth”, your intellect is affected. Your emotions remain unaffected, your body untouched. It appears that Truth is for the head. How is Truth concerned with your toe? How is Truth concerned with bones and blood? But the moment you utter the word ”freedom”, it is concerned with your totality. You are involved in it – totally! This is the first difference. Religion is not an intellectual affair. Intellect is involved as a part, but your total being is required in it. Freedom is for the total being.

Secondly, whenever one is thinking about Truth, it appears that Truth is to be found somewhere else. You are only the seeker; Truth is somewhere else as an object to be found. But when you are seeking freedom, freedom is not something objective to be found somewhere else. You have to transform yourself in order to find it because freedom means to drop your slavery. Truth appears to be something static, just like anything. Freedom is a process – alive! That is why I say that religion is basically a search for freedom – for ultimate, total freedom!

It is true that I have told so many times that Truth liberates. There is no contradiction. The search of religion is for freedom; Truth is instrumental. If you attain Truth, it helps you to be free. Truth liberates, but liberation is the end.

Really, it will be better to define it differently. That which liberates is Truth, and unless it liberates you it is not Truth. But freedom is the end for religion. This emphasis is not just a small difference. It is a great difference – because whenever mind begins to seek, to search for Truth, the total approach changes. You begin to think about it, you begin to argue about it, you begin to intellectualize about it. It becomes a philosophical endeavour. When freedom is the aim, it becomes psychological.

Truth is meaningful, but only as an instrument toward freedom. So religion is not against the search for Truth: religion is for freedom. Truth helps it, but then Truth is secondary. It is not primary, it is not basic. It is a means; freedom is the end. That is why moksha is the ultimate aim of all Hindu thinking, of all Hindu seeking – moksha!

Truth helps to be free – so seek Truth. but only as a part of the greater search for freedom. Do not make Truth itself the end. If you make Truth itself the end, then your search is not religious: it becomes philosophical. That is the difference between the Greek mind and the Hindu mind.

For Aristotle or for Plato or even for Socrates Truth is the end – how to find it? Then logic becomes the means. Freedom is the end for the Hindu mind. How to find it? Yoga becomes the means.

If one is to be free, then one has to drop all his bondages. How to cut the chains? You need a science to cut those chains. That science is yoga. Then your search takes a totally different path. Why are you a slave? Why are you in bondage? How do you happen to be in bondage? Why are you suffering? Why? This ”why” will change the whole approach. The bondage has to be known, then broken. Then you will be free.

If Truth is the search, then why is man in error? Then the problem is how to avoid error: that becomes the basic thing. Logic will help to avoid error; then argumentation, philosophical contemplation, is the means. That is why the Greek mind could not conceive of anything like yoga. Yoga is basically Eastern. The Greek mind could develop logic; that is the Greek contribution to world thought. They developed it to such a c1imax that, really, for these 2,000 years nothing has been added to it. Logic came to a peak in Aristotle. It happens rarely that one man can develop a science to its completion. Aristotle did that, but no concept of yoga is there.

In India, yoga is foundational. We have developed logical systems, but just to help the expression of those truths, of those experiences, which are beyond language. So we have developed logic as an instrument to express something, not to reach something.

Greek logic means a process of reaching toward Truth; Hindu logic means Truth has been achieved, freedom has been achieved, through something else. Then, when you have achieved the experience, in order to express it logic will be needed. To make this distinction clear I said that the Hindu mind is religious, the Greek mind philosophic. The religious mind is more practical.

I will relate one story to you.

Buddha used to tell this story so many times: A man is dying. Buddha is passing through a forest and an arrow has penetrated into the man’s body – some hunter’s arrow. The man is dying, but the man is a philosopher. Buddha tells him, ”This arrow can be taken out of the body. Allow me to take it out.”

The man says, ”No, please first tell me who has been the cause? Who is my enemy? Why has this arrow penetrated into my body? Of what karmas is it a result? Tell me whether the arrow is poisoned or not.”

So Buddha says, ”These inquiries you can do later on – but first let me pull out the arrow, because you are just on the verge of death. If you think that these inquiries should be made first and then the arrow should be pulled out, you are not going to survive.”

This story he told many times. What does he mean by it? He means that we are all just on the verge of death – everyone. Death’s arrow has already penetrated you. You may know it, you may not know it: death’s arrow has already penetrated you; that is why you are suffering. The arrow may not be visible, but the suffering is there. Your suffering shows that death’s arrow has penetrated you. Do not go on asking: ”Who has created this world and why have I been created? Are there many lives or one? Am I going to survive after my death or not?”

Buddha says, ”Inquire afterwards. First let this arrow of suffering be pulled out.” Then Buddha laughs and says, ”And I have never seen anyone inquiring later on, so inquire when the arrow has been pulled out.”

This is yoga: it is more concerned with your state – your real state of suffering and how to go beyond it – more concerned with your bondage, with your imprisonment, and how to transcend it, how to be free. That is why moksha is the end – the ultimate end, the practical end. It is not theoretical.

We have propounded many theories, but they are only devices. We have propounded many theories! We have nine systems and a vast literature, one of the richest literatures. But theories are devices. When I say that theories are devices, I mean that they are only to help you pull out the arrow. Really, theories are not meaningful: we have created many strange theories. But Buddha, Mahavir, they say that if a theory helps you to go beyond your bondage, then it is okay.

Do not be bothered about the theory, about whether it is right or wrong; do not be bothered about its logical argument. Use it and go beyond. Why bother about a boat? If it can help you to cross the river, cross the river. Crossing is meaningful; the boat is meaningless. So any boat can help. Because of this, Hindus could develop the only tolerant mind in the world – the only tolerant mind! A Christian cannot be tolerant: intolerance is bound to be there. A Mohammedan cannot be tolerant: intolerance is bound to be there.

It is not his fault. It is because to him the boat is very important. He says, ”You can cross this river only in this boat. Other boats are not boats; they are not true. The other shore is not very important: this boat on this shore is very important. So if you choose some wrong boat, you will not be able to get to the other shore.” But the Hindu mind says that any boat will do; the boat is irrelevant.

Theories are boats. If you are aiming for the other shore rightly, if your eyes are fixed on the other shore, if your mind is meditative on the other shore, any boat will do. And if you do not have any boat, then swim!

Even one individual can cross; there is no need of an organized boat. Swim! And if you know the ways of the wind, then even swimming is not needed. Just float! If you know the ways of the wind, then just wait for the right wind. Then drop yourself and relax, and the wind will take you to the other shore.

No boat has any monopoly. Without boats also one can swim. And if one is wise, then swimming also is futile: that is the last thing which cannot be understood intellectually. Hindus say that if you relax totally, then this shore is the other shore. Then there is no going. If you are relaxed totally and surrendered totally, then this shore is the other shore!

For this Hindu mind, theories, philosophies, systems are just games, devices – helpful, but they can be harmful also if you become too much attached to them. If someone becomes attached to a particular boat, he is not going to cross the river in that boat – because ultimately that boat will become the barrier. Even if the boat leads to the other shore, he cannot go out of the boat. The clinging to the boat will be the barrier. This attitude about theories and systems as devices is nan-philosophical. Philosophy lives with theories; religion is more practical.

Mulla Nasrudin used to say that practical methods are only religious methods. One day he was working on his roof. Rains were to come and he was working on his roof. One fakir, one beggar from the street, called Mulla Nasrudin; he called him down. It was difficult, but yet Nasrudin came down and he asked, ”What is the matter? Why didn’t you tell me from here? I could have heard.”

The fakir said, ”I have come to beg something, some alms, and I was ashamed to call so loudly.”

Mulla said, ”Do not be in false pride. Now come up with me.” The fakir followed him.

The fakir was a fat man. It was difficult to reach the top of the house. When he reached there, Nasrudin started his work again. The fakir said. ”And what about me?”

Nasrudin said, ”I have nothing to give you; excuse me.”

The fakir said, ”What nonsense! Why didn’t you tell me this there on the street?”

Nasrudin said, ”Practical methods are more useful. Now you will know.”

Religion is practical, philosophy is non-practical. What do I mean? If you ask me, ”Is there God?” I can take your question in two ways – philosophical or religious. If you ask me, ”What is God?” or ”Is there a God?” and I take it philosophically, then we need not travel anywhere. You remain as you and you stay where you are. No need of any travel to any point. I will answer you here. I will say whatsoever is my belief. If you argue, I will argue and give you evidence and proofs, but this can be done here. No practical travelling is needed.

If you ask me the question as a religious question, then note the difference. If you say that this is a religious question, then I cannot give you any theory, then I will give you a method. Then I cannot say whether God exists or not; that is useless. Then I will give you a method, and I will tell you to practise this method and then you will know. Then you will have to travel long, and only when you have reached a particular state of consciousness will the answer come to you.

Philosophical inquiry needs no individual transformation. You ask me and I will answer you, here and now. Your change of mind is not needed. If you ask me a religious question, the question may be the same – but if you say it is religious, it means that now a certain change is needed.

A blind man comes and asks, ”What is light?” If he is asking a philosophical question, I will propound a theory. It is irrelevant whether he is a blind man or not. Theories can be understood by a blind man also, theories about light. He may not be capable of seeing light, but he can understand a theory about light, that is an intellectual affair. And, really, he may be more capable of understanding a theory than you because he is not bothered by the light at all.

If you talk about light with a man who can see, he has his own experience about light. Your theory may suit his experience or it may not suit it, but he will argue more. However, to a blind man any theory will do. The only criterion will be whether it can be proved logically. If you can prove it as a logical statement, the blind man will believe it. But if a blind man asks it religiously, then something has to be done for his eyesight to be reclaimed: theories won’t help. Some operation is needed, some surgery is needed, some method is needed, so that the blind man can see. And unless he sees, there is no light for him.

Now a very difficult thing is to be understood. Here is light, and you close your eyes. Do you think that there is still light when you have closed your eyes? Of course, logically, apparently, obviously, by closing the eyes light is not destroyed: light is there. When I open my eyes light is there; when I close my eyes light is there. With my closing of the eyes, light is not disturbed: this is common sense.

But physics says something else. It says that light is a phenomenon in which your eyes are contributing – that light cannot exist without your eyes. The source of light may exist, but light cannot exist. Light is your interpretation. Something, X-Y-Z, is there, which my eyes interpret as light. If my eyes are closed, there is no one to interpret – light has disappeared.

Take an easier example. We are sitting here. So many colours, so many clothes are here. But colour needs your eyes; otherwise it cannot exist. You see a rainbow in the sky. Close your eyes and the rainbow has disappeared – not simply for you, but it has actually disappeared because a rainbow needs three things in order to be there: drops of water suspended, then sunrays crossing, and then an eye looking at it. These three things are needed for a rainbow to exist. If one element is lacking, then the rainbow disappears.

If there were no men on the earth, there would be no rainbows. If there were no eye on the earth, there would be no colour. Why am I saying this? For a blind man, no light exists. For a spiritually blind man, there is no God. The source is there, but the source is not God. God is the interpretation when the source is experienced. The source is there; you are here, blind. Thus, there is no God. When the source and your eyes meet, the phenomenon is God, the meeting is God.

Religion is a practical science for how to open your eyes – or, for how to make your non-functioning eyes function; or how to make your eyes adjusted to the angle from where you can feel the Divine.  This is not theoretical, and freedom is the end because the bondage is suffering. If you penetrate your own mind, you can understand this. Who is interested in Truth? You are interested in your suffering. Who is interested in Truth? You are interested in your pains, in your suffering, in your bondage. So, naturally, you are ultimately interested in your own bliss, in your freedom, not in Truth.

Truth can become meaningful only if it is felt that without Truth you cannot be free. But then Truth has instrumental values as a means: this is the difference. And there is no contradiction. I say Truth liberates, but it is Truth because it liberates. Liberation should be the end; then you can use even Truth.

Truth should not be the end, otherwise you will be misguided. Then you will begin to approach the Existence through intellect. And each step leads into another and each step creates a chain. A slight difference in your question, a very slight change, and your whole path will be different. Very delicate is the path!

Someone comes to Buddha and says, ”Is there life beyond death?”

Buddha asks him, ”Are you really interested?”

The man says, ”Of course.” but he becomes uneasy. He was curious, not really interested. He wanted to know just as a curiosity whether life exists beyond death, whether life survives death.

Buddha asks him, ”Are you really interested?”

And his eyes must have penetrated the poor man, so the man became uneasy and said, ”Of course.”

Then Buddha said, ”You think twice. If you are really interested, then I can show you the way to die, and then note whether life survives or not. Who can die for you and who can know for you? You will have to pass through it. Even if I say that life survives, how are you going to believe it? Then someone else will say no, so how will you decide? But if it is just a curiosity, then go to some theoretician. Go to some philosopher. I am not a philosopher!”

Buddha used to say, ”I am a vaidya – a physician – so if you are really ill, come to me. I do not have theories, but I have the method to treat you. I am a physician.”

Religion is medicine; philosophy is theory.

 

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9 August 1972 in the p.m.

Question 2:

When meditating, working on yourself, if you wonder whether you are making any progress or not, know well that you are not making any progress – because when progress is made you know it. Why? It is just like when you are ill and you are taking medicine. Won’t you be able to feel whether you are getting healthy or not? If you do not feel it and the question arises whether you are getting well or not, know well that you are not getting well. Well-being is such a clear feeling that when you have it you know it.

But why does this question arise? This question arises for so many reasons. One, you are not really working. You are just deceiving yourself. You are playing tricks with yourself. Then you are less concerned with what you are doing and more concerned with what is happening. If you are really doing it, you can leave the result to the Divine. But our minds are such that we are less concerned with the cause and more concerned with the effect – because of greed.

Greed wants to have everything without doing anything. So the greedy mind goes on moving ahead. Then the greedy mind asks, ”What is happening? Is something happening or not?” Be really concerned with what you are doing, and when something happens you will know it. It is going to happen to YOU. You need not ask anyone.

Another reason for asking this question is that we think that there are going to be some signs, some symbols, some milestones we can reach that show: ”I have progressed so much,” that ”to this plane or to that plane I have reached so much.” We want to calculate before the ultimate goal is reached. We want to be confident that we are progressing.

But, really, there are no milestones – because there is no fixed road. And everyone is on a different road; we are not on one road. Even if you are following one technique of meditation, you are not on the same road; you cannot be. There is no public path. Every path is individual and personal. So no one’s experiences on the path will be helpful to you; rather, they may be damaging.

Someone may be seeing something on his path. If he says to you that this is the sign of progress, you may not meet the same sign on your path. The same trees may not be on your path; the same stones may not be on your path. So do not be a victim of all this nonsense. Only certain inner feelings are relevant. For example, if you are progressing, then certain things will begin to happen spontaneously. One, you will feel more and more contentment.

Really, when meditation is completely fulfilled, one becomes so contented that he forgets to meditate – because meditation is an effort, a discontent. If one day you forget to meditate and you do not feel any addiction, you do not feel any gap, you are as filled as ever, then know it is a good sign. There are many who will do meditation, and then if they are not doing it a strange phenomenon happens to them. If they do it, they do not feel anything. If they do not do it, then they feel the gap. If they do it, nothing happens to them. If they do not do it, then they feel that something is missing.

This is just a habit. Like smoking, like drinking, like anything, this is just a habit. Do not make meditation a habit. Let it be alive! Then discontent will disappear by and by; you will feel contentment. And not only while you are meditating. If something happens only while you are meditating, it is false! It is hypnotic! It does some good, but it is not going to be very deep. It is good only in comparison. If there is nothing happening, no meditation, no blissful moment, do not worry about it. If something is happening, do not cling to it. If meditation is going rightly, deep, you will feel transformed throughout the whole day. A subtle contentment will be present every moment. With whatsoever you are doing, you will feel a cool center inside – contentment.

Of course, there will be results. Anger wi!l be less and less possible. It will go on disappearing. Why? Because anger shows a non-meditative mind – a mind that is not at ease with itself. That is why you get angry with others., Basically, you are angry with yourself. Because you are angry with yourself, you go on getting angry with others.

Have you observed that you get angry only with those people who are very intimate with you? The more the intimacy, the more the anger. Why? The greater the gap between you and the person. the less the anger that will be there. You do not get angry with a stranger. You get angry with your wife, with your husband, with your son, with your daughter, with your mother. Why? Why do you get more angry with the persons who are more intimate with you?

The reason is this: you are angry with yourself. The more intimate a person is with you, the more he has become identified with you. You are angry with yourself, so whenever someone is near to you, you can throw your anger upon him. He has become part of you. With meditation you will be more and more happy with yourself – remember, with yourself.

It is a miracle when someone becomes happier with himself. For us, either we are happy with someone or angry with someone. When one becomes happier with oneself, this is really falling in love with oneself. And when you are in love with yourself, it is difficult to be angry. The whole thing becomes absurd. Less and less anger will be there, more and more love, and more compassion. These will be signs – the general signs.

So do not think you are achieving much if you are beginning to see light or if you go on seeing beautiful colours. They are good, but do not feel satisfied unless real psychological changes are there: less anger, more love; less cruelty, more compassion.

Unless this happens, your seeing lights and colours and hearing sounds are child’s play. They are beautiful, very beautiful; it is good to play with them – but that is not the aim of meditation. They happen on the road, they are just by-products, but do not be concerned.

Many people will come to me and they will say, ”Now I am seeing a blue light, so what does this sign mean? How much have I progressed?” A blue light will not do because your anger is giving a red light. Basic psychological changes are meaningful, so do not go for toys. These are toys, spiritual toys, but you can become a paramahans if you see a blue light!

These things are not the ends. In a relationship, observe what is happening. How are you behaving toward your wife now? Observe it. Is there any change? That change is meaningful. How are you behaving with your servant? Is there any change? That change is significant. And if there is no change, then throw your blue light. It is of no help. You are deceiving and you can go on deceiving. These are easily achieved tricks.

That is why a so-called religious man begins to feel himself religious: because now he is seeing this and that, but he remains the same. He even becomes worse! Your progress must be observed in your relationships. Relationship is the mirror: see your face there. Always remember that relationship is the mirror. If your meditation is going deep, your relationships will become different – totally different! Love will be the basic note of your relationships, not violence. As it is, violence is the basic note. Even if you look at someone, you look in a violent way. But you are accustomed to it.

Meditation for me is not a child’s play. It is a deep transformation. How to know this transformation? It is being reflected every moment in your relationships. Do you try to possess someone? Then you are violent. How can one possess anyone? Are you trying to dominate someone? Then you are violent. How can one dominate anyone? Love cannot dominate, love cannot possess.

So whatsoever you are doing, be aware, observe it, and then go on meditating. Soon you will begin to feel the change. Now there is no possessiveness in relationships. By and by, possessiveness disappears, and when possessiveness is not there relationship has a beauty of its own. When possessiveness is there, everything becomes dirty, ugly, inhuman. But we are such deceivers that we will not look at ourselves in relationships – because there the real face can be seen. So we close our eyes to our relationships and we go on thinking that something is going to be seen inside.

You cannot see anything inside. First you will feel your inner transformation in your outer relationships, and then you will go deep. Then only will you begin to feel something inner. But we have a settled attitude about ourselves. We do not want to look into our relationships at all because then the naked face comes up.

Mulla Nasrudin’s marriage was arranged by his father. It was an arranged marriage, so Mulla had not seen the face of his would-be wife. Then on the wedding day, when the ceremony was over, the wife unveiled her face. She was terribly ugly, and while Mulla was just stunned by the shock she asked, ”Now tell me, my love, your commands.” That is a Mohammedan system. The first thing the wife asks is, ”Tell me your commands, my love. To whom do I have to remain veiled? To whom am I allowed to show my face?”

Mulla Nasrudin said – rather, groaned – ”You can show your face to anyone you like, as long as you do not show it to me! This is a contract.”

We are also in a contract with ourselves. We go on showing our faces to everyone, but never to ourselves. That is a deep contract we have with ourselves – not to feel one’s face. And the way to remain veiled is not to look into your relationships, because relationship is the only mirror. So probe, penetrate into your relationships, and look there to see whether your meditation is progressing or not.

If you feel a growing love, unconditional love, if you feel a compassion without cause, if you feel a deep concern for everyone’s welfare, well-being, your meditation is growing. Then forget all other things. With this observation you will also observe many things in yourself. You will be more silent, less noise within. When there is need you will talk, when there is no need you will be silent. As the case is now, you cannot be silent within. You will feel more at ease, relaxed. Whatsoever you are doing, it will be a relaxed effort; there will be no strain. You will become less and less ambitious. Ultimately, there will be no ambition. Even the ambition to reach moksha will not be there. When you feel that even the desire to reach moksha has disappeared, you have reached moksha. Now you are free, because desire is the bondage. Even the desire for liberation is a bondage. Even the desire to be desireless is a bondage.

Whenever the desire for anything disappears, you move into the unknown. The meditation has reached to its end. Then sansar is moksha. Then this very world is liberation. Then this shore is the other shore. But do not go for childish signs. Do not go! They are easy to create. If you think, if you imagine, you can create them.

I do not mean that every feeling of those signs is imagination, but if you think in those terms you can imagine them. If you think that a blue light will happen at a particular stage, you can create it without reaching to that stage. This is very easy; to reach to that stage is very difficult. To create this blue light is very easy. Close your eyes, concentrate on it, and within a few days you will begin to feel it. Then your ego will be strengthened. Now you are ”on a spiritual path”. Think of kundalini, and you will begin to feel it in your spine. That is imagination. It is easy, not difficult. But then you are misleading yourself.

I do not say that every experience of that type is imagination, but if you are concerned, it is going to be imagination. Forget it completely. Be concerned with meditation, with your changing relationships, with your silence, with your contentment, with your love. Be concerned with these, and suddenly sometimes, there will be an upsurge of energy into your spine. But do not be concerned with it. Note it down and forget it. Suddenly, you will see a particular light: note it and forget. Suddenly a particular chakra will begin to revolve: note it and forget it. Do not be concerned with it. Your concern is harmful. Remain concerned with contentment, peace, silence, love, compassion, meditation.

These things will go on happening. Then they are real. When you are not concerned and they happen, then they are real. And they show many things, but you need not know what they show because when they happen you know what they are showing. Because the human mind is stupid, if I tell you what they show you will be less concerned with love, silence and compassion. These are very difficult things. It is easy to create a blue light and it is very easy to feel a snake rising in your spine. It is very easy; there is nothing difficult about it.

So, remember, there are two types of inner experience. One type is created by your imagination, another is of happenings. But for happenings, you are not needed; for imagination you are. Do not play with imagination. It is a dangerous game. One can imagine anything, you can imagine anything, but that is not going to help you in any way. And the mind is such that it always tries to find some false substitute, because false substitutes are cheap.

If you have to grow a real rose in your garden, it takes time. It demands patience, effort, and then too nothing is certain. The rose may come, it may not come. It is easy to buy a rose, but then it is not yours. rt looks just as if it has come up in your garden, but it has not come up. When you purchase a rose-flower, it has no roots in you: it is just in your hand. It has not been a part of your being. You have never waited for it; you were not patient for it. It is not a child – not your child. You have purchased it. It is there, but like a foreign element in you, not an inner growth.

But there are even more cunning people. They will not purchase a real flower. They will purchase a paper flower, a plastic flower, because it is more permanent. A real flower will fade away. By the evening it will be no more – ”So purchase a plastic flower! It is economical, less troublesome, permanent!” But then you are deceiving. Real growth needs time, patience, work. Imaginative growth is imitation. Remember this distinction always.

One thing more: whatsoever you are doing, do not think that results will be coming in the future. If you are doing something real, results are here and now. In inner work, if you have meditated today, results are not going to be tomorrow. If you have meditated today. the perfume of it, howsoever little, will be there. If you are sensitive you can feel it. Whenever something real is done, it affects you here and now.

So do not think that something will happen in the future. If whatsoever you are doing is not changing you now, it is not going to change you at all. Time will not help. Time alone will not help. Time will deepen it, but time alone will not help.

But you may not be sensitive. Whatsoever you are doing, you may not be sensitive. We have become insensitive because in insensitivity there is a certain security. If you do not feel much, you suffer less. The person who feels much suffers much. Because of this, we have tried to make ourselves insensitive. So when something happens so intensely that it is impossible to avoid it, then only do we become aware. Other vise we go dead, asleep. We move on. That insensitivity will create problems. Then when you meditate, you will not be sensitive to what is happening to you.

So be more sensitive. And you cannot be sensitive in one dimension. Either one is sensitive in all dimensions or one is not sensitive in any. Sensitivity belongs to your total being. So be more sensitive; then every day you will be able to feel what is happening.

For example, you are walking under the sun., Feel the rays on your face; be sensitive. A subtle touch is there. They are hitting you. If you can feel them, then you will also feel the inner light when it hits you; otherwise you will not be able to.

When you are lying in a park, feel the grass. Feel the greenness that surrounds you, feel the difference of moisture, feel the odour that comes from the earth. If you cannot feel it, you will not be able to feel when inner things begin to happen. Then you will go on asking whether you are progressing or not.

Start from the outer, because that is easier. And if you cannot Feel the outer, you cannot feel the inner. Be more poetic and less businesslike in life. And sometimes it costs nothing to be sensitive. You are taking your bath: have you felt the water? You simply take it as a business routine, and then you are out. Feel it for a few minutes. Just be under the shower and feel the water: feel it flowing on you. It can become a deep experience, because water is life. You are ninety percent water. And if you cannot feel water falling on you, you will not be able to feel the inner tides of your own water.

Life was born in the sea and you have some water within your body with a certain quantity of salt. Go on swimming in the sea and feel the water outside. Soon you will know that you are part of the sea and that the inner part belongs to the sea. Then you can feel that also. And when the moon is there and the ocean is waving in response to it, your body will also wave in response. It waves, but you cannot feel it. So if you cannot feel such gross things, it will be difficult for you to feel such subtle things as meditation.

How can you feel love? Everyone is suffering. I have seen thousands and thousands of people deeply in pain. The suffering is for love. They want to love and they want to be loved, but the problem is that if you ever love them they cannot feel it. They will go on asking, ”Do you love me?” So what to do? If you say yes, they won’t believe it because they cannot feel it. If you say no, they feel hurt.

If you cannot feel sunrays, if you cannot feel rains, if you cannot feel grass, if you cannot feel anything that surrounds you – the atmosphere, then you cannot feel deeper things such as love or compassion; it is very difficult. You can feel only anger, violence, sadness, because they are so crude. Subtle is the path that goes inward – and the more subtle your meditation goes, the more subtle will be the feelings. But then you have to be ready.

So meditation is not just a certain thing which you do for one hour and forget. Really, the whole life has to be meditative. Only then will you begin to feel things. And when I say that the whole life is to be meditative, I do not mean to go and close your eyes for twenty-four hours and sit and meditate – no! Wherever you are you can be sensitive and that sensitivity will pay. Then there will be no need to ask, ”Am I progressing or not?”

You are like a blind man. You cannot feel the path because you have never felt anything. And the way we are taught, educated, cultivated, is for insensitivity. A child is weeping; the whole house is against him: ”Do not weep! Guests are coming.” Guests are very important, and the child weeping is not at all important. Now you are crushing him for his whole life.

He will stop his weeping, but to-stop weeping is a serious affair. It will change the whole metabolism of his body. To stop weeping he will have to be tense; he cannot be relaxed. He has to push something under which is coming up. He will have to change his breathing. Really, he will stop his breathing – because if the breathing moves easily, weeping will move with it. He will pull in his stomach; everything will be disturbed in his body. Then he will not weep, but he cannot laugh either. Then you are crippling him for his whole life.

Everyone is crippled and paralyzed. We live in a paralyzed world. Now there will be continuous suppression. He cannot laugh, he cannot weep, he cannot dance, he cannot jump. Whatsoever his body feels to do, he cannot do. Whenever the body feels to have something, it cannot have it. And then, when you allow him to play, it is not spontaneous. Even his play becomes fake. You say, ”Now you can play.” He was not allowed to play when his whole being was ready to play, and now you tell him to play. But now he tries to play, and it is a work.

Ultimately we create a human being who is more or less an automaton. Can you weep? Can you laugh spontaneously? Can you dance spontaneously? Can you love spontaneously? If you cannot, how can you meditate? Can you play? It is difficult!

Everything has become difficult. Man has become insensitive. Bring your sensitivity back again. Reclaim it! Play a little! To be playful is to be religious. Laugh, weep, sing, do something spontaneously with your full heart. Relax your body, relax your breathing, and move as if you are a child again. Then when you meditate, you will not ask, ”What is happening to me? Am I progressing or not, or am I moving in a circle?” You will know.

I understand your difficulty. You cannot feel it now because you have lost feeling. Regain feeling – less thought, more feeling. Live more by heart, less by head. Sometimes, live totally in the body; forget about soul, Self, ATMAN. Live totally in the body – because if you cannot even feel your body, you are not going to feel your soul. Remember this. Come back into the body. We are really hanging around the body; we are not in the body. Everyone is afraid to be in the body. Society has created the fear; it is deep-rooted. Go back into your body; move again; be like an innocent animal.

Look at animals jumping, running. Sometimes run and jump like them, then you will come back to your body. Then you will be able to feel your body, the rays of the sun, the rains, and the wind blowing. Only with this capacity of being aware of all things happening around you will you develop the capacity to feel what is happening within..

 

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7 August 1972 in the p.m.    

Question #3

There exists no such entity as the common man. Everyone is uncommon. You may know it, you may not know it, but no one is common - that is One thing.

The Second thing: Meera, Narsi Mehta and Chaitanya have not attained their goal easily. That concept is absolutely false. Rather, on the contrary, Meera has travelled a more arduous path. That is why you can name thousands of yogis, but you cannot name thousands of Meeras. If you go on counting bhaktas of the calibre of Meera, the fingers of your two hands will be more than enough. Then count yogis: they are innumerable. Why? If the path of yoga is arduous and the path of bhakti – of love and devotion – is simple and easy, why this disparity? Because it is not easy. But do I mean that the path of bhakti is more arduous than yoga? No – it depends! It depends on you.

If your mind is of a certain type, then a particular path will be easy for you. If you are a devotional man or woman, then bhakti - surrender - will be easy for you and yoga difficult. But it depends on you. The paths are not to be compared. If I happen to be a non-devotional man, then yoga will be easy for me and bhakti arduous. So it depends on the seeker, not on the path. No path is easier, no path is harder.

But then why have there been more yogis and less bhaktas? There are many reasons. Firstly. this fallacious idea that the path of devotion is easy has created much trouble. So those who are not for the path of devotion go on it. But then they cannot become like Meera or Chaitanya; it is not for them. It is not for them! They have not chosen according to themselves. They have chosen according to the fallacious concept that is prevalent.

Really, those who choose the path of bhakti, they do not really choose it to travel it. They think that through it there is nothing to be done and you gain everything. The path of bhakti is believed to be such that you need not do anything and you attain everything – that just bhakti is enough. They say that not even bhakti, but just naarn smaran – remembering of the name – will do. And particularly for the Kaliyuga!

Really, those who do not want to do anything, they choose bhakti, and bhakti is not a promise that you will attain everything without doing anything. Bhakti demands your totality. It is not just naam smaran – you have to surrender yourself totally, but total surrender is arduous. This false belief has created so many so-called devotional people, but they are deceiving themselves.

Secondly, this concept that the path of yoga is arduous also creates problems, because those who are egoists are attracted to it. Ego needs something arduous to do. If something is simple, it is not appealing to the ego.

If there is an Everest, a Gourishankar, then it appeals to the ego. If I reach, then I can say, ”Only I have reached. It is so arduous! No one else has reached.” If it is just a small hill and any child can reach it, it is not appealing to the ego. So because of this concept that the path of yoga is durgam – very arduous, difficult, impossible – egoists are attracted toward it. And ego is a barrier!

Those who do not want to do anything, they are attracted to bhakti, and bhakti involves much doing: it is not non-doing. Those who are egoists become attracted to yoga, but they are attracted because of the ego. They become more and more egoistic. If you want to see a perfect egoist, then you do not have to go anywhere else. Go to the so-called yogi; then you will know a perfect egoist. He is doing ”the most arduous thing in the world”!

Both concepts are wrong. Choose according to you yourself; be aware of yourself first. Really, if you are aware of yourself you need not choose. You will begin to move on the path that is for you. Just be aware of yourself. Feel yourself more and more; meditate and feel yourself more and more. Then do not bother about any choice.

Meera has never chosen. It has happened! Nor has Mahavir chosen. It has happened! If you know yourself, if you feel yourself and you meditate, by and by, you will move in the direction which is for you. You will move toward your destiny. If you choose, you will disturb things – because your choice is, after all, your choice. How can you choose your destiny? You can only allow it to happen; you cannot choose it.

If you choose, then you fall into a deep fallacy. You are bound to choose wrongly. You are wrong, so you are bound to choose wrongly! Then much endeavour will be wasted, and you will go on rationalizing, ”Why am I doing so much, and such and such is not happening? If it is not happening, then there must be some reasons! My past karmas are creating a barrier. Or, I have to make a much greater effort. Or, I need much more time. Or, I started late, so in the next life I will start early.”

One anecdote about Mulla Nasrudin, and we will finish:

Mulla Nasrudin bought a donkey. The owner of the donkey told Nasrudin to give it a certain amount of food daily. Mulla thought that this was too much, so he said, ”Okay! By and by, I will reduce the food of the donkey and make him accustomed to a smaller ration.” So he reduced it.

By and by, daily, the food was reduced, the ration was reduced. Finally, the ration was almost nothing – ALMOST NOTHING! Then the donkey fell down and died. So Mulla said, ”It is a pity. If I had had a little time more, if this donkey had not died so easily, I would have made him accustomed to no diet at all. The experiment was just about to be completed, and it is a pity that the donkey has died.”

Man goes on rationalizing. Rationalizations will not help. Do not try to choose. Rather, allow! Feel your swabhav – your nature – your Tao; feel your intrinsic possibilities. Be sensitive, meditate, and do not try to choose. By and by, you will move in a particular direction. That movement will come to you; it will not be a chosen effort. It will happen to you, it will grow in you, and you will begin to move.