Questions & Answers

    6 August 1972 in the p.m.

Question #1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am reminded of Rinzai, a Zen monk.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

”Why it is impossible?” the committee asked.

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

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