Experiencing: The Essence of the Hindu Mind

7 August 1972 in the p.m.

     SARVA NIRAMAYA PARIPOORNOHAMASMITI MUMUKSHUNAM MOKSHAIK SIDDHIRBHAWATI

Religion is a love affair. One needs a deep melting into the Existence. Science is a cold thing. Logic is absolutely cold, dead; life is warm. The capacity to melt yourself is known in religious terms as ”surrender”; and the capacity to be frozen, cold, is known in religion as ”ego.” Ego makes you ice-cold, frozen. Then you are just stone, dead. We are afraid of losing ourselves; that is why we, are afraid of love. Everyone talks about love, everyone thinks about love – but no one loves, because love is dangerous. When you love someone, you are losing yourself: you will not be in control. You cannot know things directly; you cannot manipulate. You are melting. You are losing control.

That is why, when someone loves someone, we say he has ”fallen” in love. We use the word ”falling”: we say ”falling in love”. It is a falling, really, because it is a melting. Then you cannot stand aloof, cold, in yourself – you have fallen.

Look at a person who lives through mind: you can never feel any warmth in him. If you touch his hand, you cannot feel him there. If you kiss him, you cannot feel him there. He is like a dead wall. No response comes out of him.

A man who loves is in continuous response. Subtle responses are coming from him. If you touch his hand you have touched his soul. It is not only his hand: he has come to meet you there – totally! He has moved: his soul has come to his hand. Then there is warmth. And if your soul can also come to the hand to meet him, then there is a meeting – a communion.

This can happen with a tree. And if it happens at all with anyone, then it can happen with anything else – anything! It can happen with a stone, it can happen with the sand on the beach, it can happen with anything if at all it can happen – if you know how to melt, if you know how to dissolve yourself, if you know how to move in response and not in words.

Words are not responses. You come and touch me and I say, ”I love you.” Then my lips remain dead and my hands remain dead. Even if I embrace you, it is simply a dead gesture. I do not come there; I do not flow in my body. I remain aloof. I say, ”I love you”: these words can deceive me, they can deceive you – but they cannot deceive the Existence.

Religion is a love approach. It is a deep melting. And when you melt into the Existence, you become free. What is this freedom? When you are not, you are free. Let me say it this way: when you are not, you are free. Until you are not there, you cannot be free. You are your slavery, so you cannot become free: the ”I” cannot become free. When the ”I” dissolves, there is freedom. When you are not, there is freedom. So moksha, freedom, means a total dispersion of the ego. Learn or unlearn the coldness that everyone has created around himself. Unlearn the coldness and learn warmth.

I remember one man who came to Ramanuj – a great Enlightened bhakta and said, ”There is only one inquiry for me, there is only one goal for me. I want to reach the Divine.”

Ramanuj said, ”Right! Let me inquire some more about you, because unless I know you, the path cannot be shown. Please tell me, have you ever loved anyone at any time?”

The man was religious. He said, ”What are you asking me! I am a religious man. I am a celibate – a brahmachari. I have not loved anyone ever.”

Ramanuj again said to him, ”Think! Once more, think! You may have loved. Perhaps you have forgotten.”

The man said, ”Why are you insisting on this? There is only one goal for me and that is God. Love is not for me! This whole world is not for me!”

Ramanuj said, ”Then it is impossible, because you do not know how to melt. And it will be very difficult for you to reach the Divine. If you have known love, then you can understand the language of melting. If you have known love, no matter how little, you have broken the bar, broken the barrier. Then you have looked beyond. It may have just been a glimpse, but then something can be added to it and the glimpse can become a vision. But you say that you do not know love at all. You refuse it totally. Then I do not know how to help you toward the Divine, because it is a love affair.”

And, really, this happens: if you love a mere human being, in the moment of love the human being disappears and the Divine is there. It is impossible not to have known it: in my language, it is impossible not to have known the Divine if you have known love, because in the moment of love you are not a human being at all. You have melted, and in that melting the other has disappeared as a mere human being. He has become an extended hand of the Divine. But if you have not known love, then there is only a meeting of cold individuals; no melting, just a cold, dead meeting; cold reasoning rather than meetings; conflicts rather than meetings – encounters.

So learn the language of love and unlearn the language of reason. No one is going to teach you, because love cannot be taught. If you have become bored with your mind, if it is enough, throw it! Unburden yourself, and suddenly you begin to move into life. Mind has to be there, and then it has to be thrown. If you throw the mind, only then will you know that ”I am the absolute pure Brahman,” because only the mind is the barrier. Because of the mind you feel yourself finite, limited.

It is like this: you have coloured specs. The whole world looks blue. It is not blue; it is only your spectacles which are blue. Then I say, ”The world is not blue, so throw your specs and look again at the world.” But you do not know the distinction between your eyes and the specs. You were born with your spectacles, so you do not know the distinction between where specs finish and ’I’ begins. You have been thinking that your specs are your eyes: that is the only problem; that your thoughts are your life: that is the problem. The identity that your mind is your life: that is the problem. Mind is just like specs. That is why a Hindu looks at the world differently and a Mohammedan looks differently and a Christian differently: because specs differ. Throw your specs, and then, for the first time, you will reclaim your eyes. In India, we have called this approach DARSHAN. It is a reclaiming of the eyes.

We have eyes, but covered. We are moving in the Existence just like horses move when they are yoked in front of carts. Then their eyes have to be covered from both the sides. They must look straight ahead – because if a horse can look around everywhere, then it will be difficult for the driver. Then it will go running anywhere and everywhere, so a horse is allowed to see only straight ahead in order that his world becomes linear. Now his world is not three-dimensional: he cannot look everywhere. The whole Existence is lost except the street. It is a dead street, because streets cannot be alive. It is a dead street, a dead road.

The horse can only see the road, this is utilitarian. Man also cultivates himself in this way – in a utilitarian way. It is utilitarian to live with the mind and not to live with life – because life is multidimensional: no one knows where it will lead you. So make a paved road. Close your eyes, have fixed specs, and then move on the road. But where are you moving? This road leads always to death, and nowhere else. This is a death road! Every road, it used to be said, leads to Rome, but it can be true only if Rome means death; otherwise it cannot be true.

Every road leads to death. If you want life, then for life there is no fixed road. Life is here and now, multi-dimensional, spreading in every direction. If you want to move into life, throw your specs, throw your concepts, systems, thoughts, mind. Be born into life here and now, in this multi-dimensional life, spreading everywhere. Then you become the center and the whole life belongs to you, not only a particular road. Then the whole life belongs to you! Everything that is in it all belongs to you.

This is the realization: ”I am that absolutely pure Brahman.” You cannot reach to the Brahman by any road. The path is pathless. If you follow a path, you will reach something, but it is not going to be the All. How can a path lead you to the All? A path can lead you to something, but not the All. If you want the All, leave all the paths, open your eyes, look all around. The Whole is present here. Look and melt into it, because melting will give you the only knowledge possible. Melt into it!

Thus ends ”The Atma Pooja Upanishad”. This was the last sutra; the Upanishad ends. It was a very small Upanishad – the smallest possible. You can print it on a postcard, on one side. Only seventeen sutras, but the whole life is condensed into those seventeen sutras. Every sutra can become an explosion; every sutra can transform your life – but it needs your cooperation. The sutra itself cannot do it; the Upanishad itself cannot do it. you can do it!

Buddha is reported to have said: ”The teacher can only show you the path; you have to travel it.” And, really, the teacher can only show you the path if you are ready to see it. Finally, the teacher is a teacher only if you are a disciple. If you are ready to learn, only then can a teacher show you the path. But he cannot force you; he cannot push you ahead. That is impossible!

Rinzai was staying with his guru, with his teacher. It was impossible to leave the teacher, but the teacher said, ”Now you are ready to leave me. Now move! Go wandering. Teach people whatsoever I have taught you. Now be a teacher in your own right. Move!”

But Rinzai was feeling very sad. It was so difficult, so he lingered on. Then the evening fell and the teacher said, ”Go now! Because the night is just nearing and it is going to be a dark night.” But, still, Rinzai stayed. At midnight the teacher said, ”Now no more staying. You go!”

Just to have an excuse, Rinzai said, ”But the night is so dark. I will move in the morning.”

The teacher said, ”I will give you a lamp. You take this lamp and move away. My work is finished. Do not waste a single moment here. Go and teach the people. Whatsoever you have learned, tell them and show them the path.”

So he gives him a small lamp. Rinzai takes the lamp. In a very sad mood, he steps down from the hut. On the last step, the teacher laughs and blows the candle out. Suddenly, everything becomes dark.

Rinzai said, ”What have you done? You give me a candle, a lamp, and then you blow it out?”

The teacher said, ”How can my candle help you in the dark? How can my light help you in the dark? Your own light only can help. Now move into the dark with your own light only. My work is finished,” the teacher said. ”And it is not good to give you a light; it is not friendly. Now you move with your own light. You have enough.”

The Upanishad can give you a light, but then that light will not be of any help, really. Unless you can create your own light, unless you start on an inner work of transformation, Upanishads are useless. They may even be dangerous, harmful, because you can learn them. You can easily become a parrot, and parrots tend to be religious. You can know whatsoever has been said, you can repeat it – but that is not going to help. Forget it. Let me blow out the candle. Whatsoever we have been discussing and talking, forget it. Do not cling to it: start afresh. Then one day you will come to know whatsoever has been said.

Scriptures are only helpful when you reach realization. Only then do you know what has been said, what was meant, what the intention was. When you hear, when you understand intellectually, nothing is understood. So this can help only if it becomes a thirst, an intense inquiry, a seeking.

The Upanishad ends; now you go ahead and move on the journey. Suddenly, one day, you will know that which has been said and also that which has not been said. One day you will know that which has been expressed and, also, that which has not been expressed because it cannot be expressed.

One day Buddha was moving in a forest with his disciples. Ananda asked him, ”Bhagwan, have you said everything that you know:”

So Buddha takes some leaves from the ground into his handsome dead, fallen leaves – and he says, ”Whatsoever I have said is just like these few leaves in my hand, and whatsoever I have not said and have left unsaid is like the leaves in this Forest. But if you follow, then through these few leaves you will attain to this whole forest.”

The Upanishad ends, but now you start on a journey – deep, inward. It is a long and arduous effort. To transform oneself is the greatest effort – the most impossible, but the most paying. This Upanishad has been a deep intimate instruction. It is alchemical. It is for your inner transformation. Your baser metals can become gold. Through this process, your utmost possibility can become actual.

But no one can help you. The teacher only shows you the path – you have to travel. So do not go on thinking and brooding. Somewhere, start living. A very small lived effort is better than a great philosophical accumulation. Be religious – philosophies are worthless.

 

Tweet