Desirelessness: An Opening To The Unknown

Ritual

RELIGION is not ritual. Really, when a religion dies it becomes ritual: the dead body of a religion becomes the ritual. But everywhere ritual is to be found. If you go to find religion, you will find ritual. All these names - Hindu, Mohammedan, Christian - these are not the names of religions, they are names of particular rituals. By "ritual" I mean something done outwardly in order to create the inward revolution. This belief, that something done outwardly can create an inward revolution, creates rituals.

Why does this belief come into existence? It comes because of a very natural phenomenon.

Whenever there is inward revolution, whenever there is inner mutation, whenever there is some inner transformation, it is followed by many outward things and signs. It is bound to be, because the inward exists in relation to the outward. Nothing can happen inside which will not affect the outside also. It will have effects, consequences, shadows, on the outside behaviour also. If you feel anger inside, your body begins to take certain postures. If you begin to feel silence inside, your body will take certain other postures. When there is silence inside, the body will show it in many ways. The silence, the inner peace, the stillness, will be shown by the body in many ways. But this is always secondary. The inner is basic and the outer is secondary. It is a consequence, not a cause.

Whenever this happens, for example, if a Buddha happens to be here, we cannot see what is happening inside him. But we can see, we will see, what is happening outside. For Buddha himself, the inner is the cause and the outer the consequence. For us, the outer will be the first thing to be noticed and then the inner will be inferred. So for onlookers, the outer, the secondary, becomes the basic, the primary.

How can we know what has happened in Buddha's inner consciousness? But we can observe his body, his movements, his gestures. They are related to the inner; they show something - but they are related not as causes but as consequences. So you cannot go back. The vice versa will not be true. If the inner is there, the outer will follow. But the vice versa is not true: if the outer is there, there is no necessity that the inner should follow - there is no necessity.

For example, if I am angry, then my body will show anger, but I can show anger in my body without being angry at all. An actor is doing that. He is expressing anger through his eyes, through his hands; he is expressing love - without feeling anything inside. He is showing fear, his whole body is trembling and shaking, but there is no fear inside.

So the outer can be without the inner. We can impose it. There is no reason, there is no basis, no necessity, no inevitability, that the inner should follow the outer. The outer always follows the inner, but never the vice versa. Ritual is born because of this fallacy.

We see a Buddha sitting in a silent posture - in siddhasan, the most relaxed posture for the body. This posture is a consequence of an inner quietude. It is there because the consciousness has become so still that the body follows it, and the body spontaneously takes the most relaxed posture.

But for us the body is the first thing to be noticed. We see the body first so we say that Buddha achieved Liberation in this posture. Really, quite the reverse is the case: because Buddha achieved Liberation, this posture followed! This posture is not a cause. So you can practise the posture, you can become efficient in the posture - but don't wait for the Liberation to come. The posture will be there, but Liberation will not come.

Someone is praying. His hands are raised or his head is surrendered unto some unknown feet.

This is an outward posture. When surrendering really happens inside, this posture follows. When surrendering happens inside, when one begins to feel a nothingness, when one begins to feel just to dissolve into the Infinite, this posture follows. You can imitate the posture, but surrendering will not follow.

And when I say this posture follows, I don't mean that it is bound to follow for everyone. With every individual there will be differences. It will depend on the culture, on the upbringing, on the climate, on many things. There is no intrinsic necessity for the posture to follow. What will follow will depend on many, many things. For example, if Buddha is not born in India but in a culture, in a society where no one sits on the ground, do you think Enlightenment will not come to him? It will come on a chair! Of course, when he is sitting in a chair, he will sit in a different way. When Enlightenment comes to him, he will totally relax. But that relaxation will be different, outwardly, from a siddhasan.

Mahavira's Milkman Posture At Enlightenment

Mahavir achieved Liberation in a very strange posture! It is known as goduhasan, the posture of a cowherd milking a cow - the same posture as a cowherd milking a cow. In that posture Mahavir was Enlightened. Never before and never afterwards has anyone achieved Liberation in that posture.

He was not milking a cow! Why did this happen? It must have something to do with Mahavir's own bodily habits; it might be concerned with his past incarnations. Nothing is known about why this happened.

But the basic thing is that outward things follow some inward happenings. They, too, are not fixed laws. From individual to individual they differ. It depends; it depends on many things. But the society begins to feel a necessary connection, a cause-effect connection, between outward things and inward. Then the ritual is born. "Ritual" means that we will do something outward and the inner will follow. This is the most fallacious thing possible. This fallacy destroys every religion, and every religion ultimately becomes just ritualistic nonsense.

In this Upanishad, this ritualistic understanding is denied totally, but denied in a very positive way. So one thing must be understood very distinctly and clearly. The Upanishads were born in a very revolutionary period as far as the Indian mind is concerned. There was a great rebellion against the Vedas. And when I say against the Vedas, I mean the ritualistic structure that was built around the Vedas. It was a dead ritual; everything was a ritual. Religion was not something deep, not something concerned with consciousness and its transformation. Rather, it was just concerned with doing something: "If you do this, then you will get this; if you do that, then you will get that." And every ritual was fixed as if it was a science: "Do this prayer and there will be rain; do this prayer and the enemy will be killed; do this prayer and you will be victorious - do this and this will follow."

And this was proposed as if it was a science.

This ritualistic structure killed the very progressive spirit of the Indian mind. A revolution followed: it was bound to follow. It took two shapes. One was negative - Jain and Buddhist. These two thinking climes took a very negative turn. They said, "Rituals are meaningless, absurd, so all rituals should be abolished." This was an absolutely negative attitude. The Upanishads were also against rituals, but they took a very positive attitude. They said, "Ritual is not absurd, but one misunderstands the meaning of it." This sutra is concerned with a yagna ritual, AAWAHANAM - invocation. The word AAWAHANAM - invocation - means that before you begin any worship, any yagna, any prayer, first invoke the deities, first call them. AAWAHANAM means: invite them, invoke them. As far as it goes, it is good.

How can you pray unless you have invited? How can you surrender unless you have invoked?

So these are the ways. The negative way will be that it is useless because there are no deities - first. Second: they have no names even if there are. Third: even if they have names they will not respond, because whatsoever you are doing is just bribery, just flattery. Do you think that by your flattery, by your prayers, by your briberies, you will be able to invoke them? And if you think that you can invoke them and call them and invite them, then they are not even worth it - because if you can bribe them, then they are just like you. The language is the same and the level also, so they are not worth it.

Buddha has said: "There are no deities; and even if there are, they are not higher than human beings. They are not higher! You can persuade them, you can bribe them through your flattery - stuti. You can force them to do something or not to do something, so they are not higher than you. They can be just forgotten."

The Upanishads take a very different attitude. They say that deities are there and invocation is possible, but they give a much deeper meaning to invocation. They say: "CESSATION OF THE CAUSE OF ALL ACTIONS IS INVOCATION."

They don't deny anything. They give a new meaning, and the ritual becomes non-ritualistic. They say: "Of course, invocation is possible, but by invocation is meant CESSATION OF THE CAUSE OF ALL ACTIONS." They say the same thing that Buddha also says. Buddha denies. He says, "There is no invocation. The only path is to be desireless, so don't ask for any help from anyone. No one can help you. Just be desireless and you will attain the nirvana, the bliss, the peace, the Ultimate. So don't ask anyone's help; don't invoke anyone. Just be desireless." And this becomes even more pertinent because a person who is invoking a deity is invoking him because of some desire. He wants something - money, prestige, victory, anything. He is invoking the deity, praying, for something. So Buddha says, "You are just running from one desire to another, and this running after desires is the DUKKHA - is the misery. And no one can help you unless you become desireless."

What is the cause of action? Why are you involved in so much action? Why this constant running? What is the cause? -- Desire is the cause. So in a very poetic way the Upanishad denies the ritual and yet not the term; denies the ritual, yet not the spirit.

Buddha failed because a negative mind cannot really succeed for long. He can be very appealing because negativity strikes hard. He can be very logical because to say 'no' is the very spirit of logic - of being logical. Really, whenever you want to say 'no' you need logic. If you want to say 'yes', logic is not needed, reason is not needed. You can say 'yes' without any reasoning, but you cannot say 'no' without any reasoning. The moment you say 'no', logic will be required, so 'no' is always logical.

A modern logician, De Bono, says that the purpose of logic is really to say 'no' in a reasonable way, in a rational way. The very purpose of logic is to say 'no' and then to adduce reasons, proofs, for saying 'no'. Buddha said 'no'; it appealed. His approach was logical, rational, everything was perfect - but yet he couldn't get roots in the Indian soil. He was uprooted soon. And this is a very strange fact: that he could get a foothold, foundation, in China, in Japan, in Burma, in Ceylon, everywhere in Asia except India. But the secret is that the Buddhist monks learned their error when they left India. The 'no' was the error, so they never used negative attitudes anywhere else. They became positive. In China they began to say 'yes': in Ceylon they have said 'yes'. Then everywhere they succeeded because 'yes' has a very magical secret of success.

It may not appeal to reason: it appeals to the heart. And in the end heart wins - never reason!

Really, reason never wins in the end. You can silence someone with logical reasoning, but you can never convert him, you can never change him. Even if he cannot say anything against you, he will still be convinced of his own mind. Unless the 'yes' is evoked, he cannot be converted. So Buddha tried hard, but with a 'no' - everywhere 'no'. Whatsoever he was saying was the same as the Upanishad is saying. It was not a bit different. Only the methodology he chose was negative, and the reason might be that he was a Kshatriya - a warrior - and a warrior lives with a 'no'.

The Upanishads came through Brahmins. They were beggars, and a beggar lives with a 'yes'. Even if you deny him, a real beggar, an authentic beggar, will bless you. He lives with a total 'yes': that is his secret. He cannot use 'no'. And a warrior, a Kshatriya, can use 'yes' only when he is defeated, and then too from his heart he will never say 'yes'. He will continue to say 'no'. All the Jain teerthankers were Kshatriyas. Buddha was a Kshatriya. They both took negative attitudes.

The Upanishads are based on a positive 'yes'. They are yea-sayers. Even if they have to say 'no', they will say it in such a way that 'yes' is used. Really, this Upanishad is saying there is no AAWAHANAM, no invocation, but 'no' is not used at all. They turn it into a 'yes'. They say, "Cessation of the cause of all actions is the invocation." It is not related at all with the invocation of the Vedas, with the priests.

It is not related at all! It is related to the same rebellious teaching which says that being desireless is the ultimate state of purity. And unless you are pure, how can you invite the Divine?

Really, being pure is the invitation. No other invitation is needed. The moment you are pure, the moment the heart is pure, the Divine comes. Just being pure is the invitation; So don't call, don't cry for the Divine. Just be pure and He will come.

How can this purity be achieved and why are we impure? What is the reason? The Indian genius has always been thinking in terms of desire and desirelessness. Really, everything that we are can be reduced to desire; whatsoever we are is because of our desire. If we are miserable, if we are in bondage, if we are ignorant, if we are in darkness, if life is just a long death, it is because of desire.

Why is there misery? Because your desire is frustrated. Unless you have a desire, how can it be frustrated? So if you want to be frustrated, desire more; then you will be more frustrated. If you want to be in misery, then expect more, desire more, be ambitious for more, and you will get more misery.

If you don't want to be miserable, then don't desire.