Questions & Answers_

6 August 1972 in the p.m.

      Question #2

Really, our minds move in circles – and the same thing comes up again and again in different forms, in different words, in different phrases, but the logic remains the same. For example, this second question.

There are three states of mind: one is without discontent. An animal exists without discontent; a child exists without discontent – but this is not contentment. It is only ”without discontent”; it is a negative state.

Socrates has said, ”Even if it is possible to be contented as a pig, I am not going to choose it. I would rather be a discontented Socrates than a contented pig.” Pigs are very contented. When you look at a person and feel that he is contented, it doesn’t mean that he is a sage. He may be just a pig. A life without discontent is not necessarily a spiritual life. It may be just that the man is foolish, because to feel discontent one needs intelligence.

Look at the eyes of the cows: no discontent, but no intelligence either. Look at the eyes of idiots: they are cow-like, no discontent! Why? Because discontent is part of intelligence. When you think, you are bound to worry. When you think, you are bound to think of the future. When you think, many alternatives become apparent. One has to choose, and with choice comes anxiety, with choice comes repentance, with choice comes trembling. The more intelligent you are, the more discontented you are.

But this sutra says, ”Total contentment”: that is the third state. The first is without discontent, the second is with discontent, the third is again without discontent – but the third means contentment. It is positive. If you are intelligent, you will be discontented. But if you are really totally intelligent, you will pass through it, you will go beyond it, because ultimately your intelligence will show you the path; it will bring you the fact. You will be brought by your intelligence to know this fact that discontent is futile, useless. It is not that you won’t be capable of discontent – you will be capable of it – but the very phenomenon of discontent becomes useless: it drops. So by ”total contentment”, this third state is meant.

Look at some examples:

Prince Siddharth [aka Buddha] was not a contented man. A contented man is not going to leave his palace, he is not going to leave his wife, he is not going to leave everything. Buddha left everything that he had – not only outward things, but inward things also. He went from one teacher to another for six years continuously. He would go to one teacher and then move again. With every teacher, whatsoever was to be learned, he would learn it, and then he would ask for more.

Then the teacher would say, ”Please, now forgive me. I cannot show you anything more. This is all I can show you and you have achieved it.”

But Buddha would say, ”I am not contented yet. My fire is burning, my uneasiness remains the same, my longing is as alive as ever. Whatsoever you have said, I have followed it completely, but nothing has happened. So tell me if something more is to be learned.”

Then the teacher would say, ”Now you move; go to someone else. And if you gain something more than this, please remember to tell me.”

So he moved continuously from one teacher to another for six years. He didn’t leave any stone unturned. He visited all the teachers, both known and unknown, and then he became ”teacherless”. It was a long learning with teachers, then he became teacherless. Then he said, ”Now I have come to a point where I have learned all that can be learned from others, and yet the discontent remains. So now I am going to be my own teacher, and there is no other way.”

You can become your own teacher only when you have met many, many teachers and followed them. Only meeting will not do. When you have followed them and still your discontent remains, only then. Otherwise, listening to Krishnamurti you feel, ”Okay! No teacher is needed. I am already a teacher.” You are deceiving. A moment comes when no teacher can help, but that moment comes only through a long line of teachers – and that, too, not just by meeting and listening to them, but by following them.

Then Buddha said, ”Now no one can help me. I am helpless, so I will try on my own.” And he tried, and that was a long effort. He did whatsoever came to his mind. It was an effort into the unknown, so everything was uncharted: no guide, no teacher. Whatsoever came into his mind he would try. He tried long fasts. He became just a bundle of bones. He was just on the verge of death when it occurred to him, ”I am simply killing myself. This is not going to help. I have been simply starving myself.”

After taking a bath in the Niranjana, he was trying to come to the shore, but he was so weak and the current was so strong that he was taken by the current. Flowing in that current, clinging to a root of a tree, he thought, ”I have become so helpless and weak through this starvation, and if I cannot pass over this small river, how am I going to pass over the infinite river of Existence?” One day he reached a point where no teacher could be of any help. Then another time he reached to a point where no effort could be helpful. He thought, ”I cannot do anything.”

That night he achieved Nirvana. In the evening he relaxed under a tree. There was nothing to do now – nothing to do! Others’ minds proved useless; his own mind also proved useless. Now what to do? Where to move? Every movement stopped. There was nothing to do any more, so he relaxed under the tree.

For the first time, after many, many years, he slept – because if there is any desire, sleep is not possible. You can dream, but you cannot sleep. So we are simply dreaming, not sleeping. Sleep is a very deep phenomenon. Either animals sleep or sages. For man, it is not meant to be. Man dreams.

Buddha slept for the first time, because there was nothing to do – no future, no desire. no goal, no possibility of anything. Everything dropped that evening. Only simple consciousness remained – the consciousness of a child who was not a child: ”childlike” consciousness, simple, but attained through long learning and effort.

He slept well. He is reported to have said that that night’s sleep was a miracle. He must have become one with the tree, with the river, with the night, because when there is no dream, there is no division. What is the division between you and this tree you are sleeping under if there is no dream? Then there is no periphery, no boundary. In the morning, at just five o’clock, the last star was setting. He opened his eyes. Those eyes must have been like a lotus.

When you open your eyes in the morning, they are burdened, heavily burdened by the night’s dreaming. They are tired. Do you know that eyes have to work in dreams much more than they work in the daytime? When you are seeing a film, your eyes go on moving continuously with the film. That is why, after three hours of seeing a film, your eyes are totally tired. You do not even blink; you forget to blink. You are so excited, and you have to move so fast. And if nothing is to be missed, you cannot blink. So in a film, you are not blinking. Your eyes are just following madly – running. The same happens in the night on a deeper level. The whole night you are dreaming. Your eyes are moving.

Now psychologists can decode your eye movements from without. They call it ”rapid eye movement (REM).” They can feel your eye movements and they can tell what type of dream you are dreaming. If it is a sexual dream, then the eyes move faster than in any other dream – the fastest. You are so excited, and your eyes can reveal it. So now even dreams are not a private thing. Your wife can just put her fingers on your eyes and feel what you are doing in your dream. Are you seeing some woman? Your eyes show fast, rapid movements.

Buddha slept, but we dream. In the morning our eyes are tired from a whole night’s work, so we have to open our eyes. That is why I say ”lotus-like”. A lotus never has to open itself: it just opens. The sun has risen and the lotus opens. That is why we call Buddha’s eyes ”lotus-like”. The eyes opened because the night was over, the sleep was over. He was emerging, revitalized from deep inner sources without dreams, for the first time.

If your sleep is without dreams, it becomes meditation. It is just like Samadhi. So he was coming out of a deep Samadhi, a deep inner ecstasy. He saw the last star setting. And with the disappearance of the last star, everything of this world disappeared. He became Enlightened. Then later on he was asked, ”By what effort did you attain?” He said, ”With no effort.” But then there is the possibility of misunderstanding. Of course, he is right that he attained with no effort. But how did he attain the ”no-effort”? With a long effort! That must not be forgotten.

He is reported to have said, ”I attained the Ultimate when there was no desire to attain it even.” But how did he attain this no-desire to attain the Ultimate? Through a long discontent – a discontent of lives together. Buddha said, ”I have struggled for many, many lives, but through that struggle nothing was attained.” But this is not a small thing. This feeling that ”through effort nothing is attained” is a great attainment, because now something becomes possible without effort. Now only does something become possible with contentment.

So the first state is without discontent; that is an animal state. In it one is unaware of the problems life creates, unaware of the problem that life is – blissfully unaware, but ignorant. It is a deep unconsciousness. Then the second state comes: discontent bursts forth. All that was blissful in unconsciousness disappears. Everything becomes a puzzle and a problem, and everything takes the shape of struggle, conflict, and everything has to be achieved through effort – long effort. And then, too, it is not certain that you will achieve it. Then a world of anxiety surrounds you. You live in anxiety; you become an anxiety.

Kierkegaard has said that man is anxiety. He is! An animal is not anxiety, but man is anxiety! A sage like Lao Tzu or Buddha is, again, no-anxiety. These two no-anxieties – animal-like and Buddha-like – are absolutely different, qualitatively different. One has to pass through anxiety to gain again a state of no-anxiety.

So discontent is not disallowed, discontent is not condemned. But discontent cannot be allowed to be the ultimate state. Discontent is not the goal! So this sutra means to go beyond discontent. Do not cling to it. It is a passage; one has to pass through it. But one should pass: one should not remain in it. Always remember this, because many questions will come up in your mind.

You think that these questions are different. Chuang Tzu has said somewhere that it is very difficult to ask different questions. We go on asking one and the same question, without feeling, without being aware, that the question is the same. Again and again it takes shape: only the shape is different, the words are different. But why does this happen? This happens because the question is not significant: the questioner is significant because the questioner remains the same. If you answer one question he will create another, but the question will be the same because the questioner remains the same. He will ask the same thing from a different angle. A slight change in the angle, and he will feel that now this is a new question. This is not a new question! Why does this happen? Because questions are not significant. The mind that asks is significant. Why does it ask?

I have heard about one man who married a girl of his choice. He was in love, and then within six months the love evaporated and life became a hell. So he thought, ”I have chosen the wrong woman.” Anyone will think that way; that is how the mind works. He did not think that ”I am a wrong chooser – I have chosen this woman, no one else.” It was not an arranged marriage. When marriages are arranged, you have a consolation that you were not the chooser. Your father made the mistake or your mother or someone else – some astrologer. But when you are the chooser, then the real difficulty comes.

America is facing the real difficulty. No one is at fault. you have chosen. Then the mind begins to play a trick. It says, ”The woman was wrong. She deceived. That was not her real face. Now the real face has come up.”

So this man divorced. He married again, and within three months the same thing began to happen again. The woman was different, but deeply she was the same because the chooser was the same. He married and divorced continuously eight times, and then it dawned upon him that every time the same woman turns up – the same woman! Why? The chooser is the same. How can you choose someone else? The choice is the same.

You fall again in the same trap – because if you like particular eyes you will choose again those particular eyes. And those particular eyes, like a particular gesture, belong to a particular type of person. That particular gesture belongs to a particular type of person – just like a particular laugh. That particular laugh cannot be laughed by anyone and everyone. That shape of lips, that gesture, those eyes, that laugh, they belong to a particular mind. You are again choosing the same person.

So you only go on changing names, and again and again the same person turns up because you remain the same. So unless you divorce yourself, no divorce is possible – and no one is ready to divorce himself. When one begins to think of divorcing oneself, spirituality begins. So the question is the same.

The three states of mind are to be remembered always, and the first and the last appear alike. If you are thinking in terms of the first and second, then the second is to be chosen. Then the second is worthwhile to be chosen. Then discard the first. Discard childhood, discard ignorance, discard that blissful unawareness of discontent. Choose discontent. Be adult. Choose struggle.

But when I say ”choose”, it is a relative statement against the first state. When I say ”discard the second”, it is for the third. So I will say use the staircase to come up, then leave the staircase. But our so-called logical minds will say, ”If one is going to leave the staircase, then why take the trouble? Do not go up; do not go upon it at all. Remain where you are. Why travel? Why go when one has to leave?” But if the same mind is pushed, forced, then he will go. Then I will tell him, ”Now leave the staircase,” but he will ask, ”Why? After so much effort, after so many difficulties, now I cannot leave this staircase!”

To reach a higher state, you have to go through passages and then leave them, to use staircases then leave them. And every step is a step only when you take it and leave it. If any step becomes a clinging, it is not a step: it has become a stone – a blocking stone. So it depends on you. You can change blocking stones into steps, and you can change your steps into blocking stones. It depends on how you behave.

Remember this: everything that is to be used will have to be dispersed; everything that is used as a device will have to be discarded. But in the very process of using, one becomes attached. It happens like this: you are ill and you take a certain medicine. The illness may disappear, but then the medicine will create a problem. Then it is difficult to leave the medicine. So medicine can prove a greater disease, a bigger disease, because one becomes accustomed. And then one begins to think, ”This medicine helped me to go beyond disease, so this is a friend. A friend in need is a friend indeed, so how to leave the friend?”

Now you are turning your friend into a foe. Now this medicine will become a disease. You will need another medicine – an antidote. But then it is a vicious circle. You go on being attached to other things. Mind works in circles and goes on and on in the same rut. Remember this: if a thorn is there in your foot it can be removed by another thorn, but the second thorn is not to be put in the wound again just because it is friendly and because it has helped you. But we go on doing this. We cling to the second thorn without knowing that the second thorn is as much a thorn as the first one. It may even be stronger – that is why it helped you pull out the first – so it may prove even more fatal. Do not substitute. When one thing is finished, let it be finished. Do not create a chain.

It is difficult, arduous, but not impossible. With awareness it becomes easy. And do not believe in the mind too much. But remember, first you have to be a mind. First create a mind, but do not believe in it too much. Be logical, but be open. Life needs logic, but life is not logic alone. It goes beyond.

Mulla Nasrudin was serving in a house, in a rich man’s house. But Nasrudin was a difficult man, very logical, and logical men are very difficult.

The master said one day, ”Nasrudin, it is too much! I do not think there is any necessity to go to the market three times for three eggs. You are too mathematical, too logical, and I do not think I can convince you. But there is no need to go to the market three times for three eggs! You can bring them all at once – one time is enough!” Nasrudin agreed to reform.

When the master fell ill, he said to Nasrudin, ”Go and bring a doctor.”

Nasrudin went, and he came back with a hoard, with many people, a crowd. The master asked, ”Where is the doctor?”

Nasrudin said, ”I have brought the doctor and all the others also.”

The master asked, ”Who are all these others?”

So he said, ”One is an allopath. If he fails, I have brought one ayurveda man. If he also fails, there is one homeopath. If he also fails, then there are many others. And if everything fails, then these four men are here with the last man: the undertaker – to carry you out of the house.” This mind is logical, legal, but also quite stupid.

Mulla Nasrudin was the only man in his village who could read and write. One day one yokel came and asked him to write a letter. So he wrote a letter, and when the letter was complete, the yokel asked, ”Now please read it, Mulla, so I can be sure that nothing is left out.”

It was very difficult, because even for Mulla Nasrudin to read his script by himself was a very difficult feat. So he said, ”Now you are creating problems.”

He tried; he looked at the scrawl. He could read only, ”My dear brother,” and then he said, ”Now everything becomes confused.”

So the man said, ”This is terrible, Nasrudin. If you cannot read it, then who will read it?”

Nasrudin said, ”That is not our business. Our business is to write. Now let them read. It is their business. Moreover, the letter is not addressed to me, so how can I read it? It is illegal.”

Logic, legality, they have their own stupidities. They are good compared to ignorance; they are stupid compared to higher things. Mulla Nasrudin’s stupidities are apparent, but they are all human stupidities. When stupidities are apparent, they are not dangerous. When they are not apparent, they are dangerous.

Remember this: mind cannot help you to go beyond itself. It can help you to go beyond ignorance. It cannot help you to go beyond itself. And unless you go beyond it, there is no wisdom.

 

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