Questions & Answers

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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