Life is a Mirror

 

All Relationships are Mirrors

Before entering this Yoga Sutra, let’s first understand what is 'Individual Responsibility'.

Once it happened, I was in the mountains with a few friends. We went to see a point known as The Echo Point; it was a beautiful spot, very silent, surrounded by hills. One of the friends started barking like a dog. All the hills echoed it -- the whole place appeared as if full of thousand s of dogs. Then, somebody else started chanting a Buddhist mantra: "Sabbe sanghar anichcha. Sabbe dhamma anatta. Gate, gate, para gate, para sangate. Bodhi swaha." The hills became Buddhist; they re-echoed it. The mantra means: "All is impermanent, nothing is permanent; all is flux, nothing is substantial. Everything is without a self. Gone, gone, finally gone, everything gone -- the word, the knowledge, the enlightenment too."

I told the friends who were with me that life is also like this echo point: you bark at it, it barks at you; you chant a beautiful mantra, life becomes a reflection of that beautiful chanting. A life is a mirror. Millions of mirrors around you -- every face is a mirror; every rock is a mirror; every cloud is a mirror. All relationships are mirrors. In whatsoever way you are related with life, it reflects you. Don't be angry at life if it starts barking at you. You must have started the chain. You must have done something in the beginning to cause it. Don't try to change life; just change yourself, and life changes.

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These are the two standpoints: one I call the communistic which says, "Change life, only then can you be happy"; the other I call religious which says, "Change yourself, and life suddenly becomes beautiful." There is no need to change the society, the world. If you move in that direction you are moving in a false direction which will not lead you anywhere. In the first place, you cannot change it -- it is so vast. It is simply impossible. It is so complex and you are here only for a while; and life is very ancient and life is going to be forever and ever. You are just a guest; an overnight stay and you are gone: gate, gate -- gone, gone forever.

How can you imagine to change it? Sheer stupidity, which says life can be changed, but there is much appeal in it. The communistic, marxist standpoint has a deep appeal in it. Not because it is true -- the appeal comes from some other source: because it does not make you responsible, that is the appeal. Everything else is responsible except you; you are a victim. "The whole of life is responsible. Change life" -- this is appealing for the ordinary mind because no mind wants to feel responsible.

Whenever you are in misery you like to throw the responsibility on somebody else.

Anybody will do, any excuse will do, but then you are unburdened. Now you know you are miserable because of this man or that woman, or this type of society, this government, this social structure, this economy – something – or, finally, God is responsible, or fate. These are all communistic standpoints. The moment you throw the responsibility on others, you have become a communist; you are no longer religious.

Even if you throw the responsibility on God, you have become a communist. Try to understand this, because communists don’t believe in God, but the whole standpoint of throwing responsibility on somebody else is communistic – then God has to be changed.

That’s what people go on doing in temples: they go and pray to change God.

Those people are all communists. They may be hiding in religious garbs; they are communist. What are you praying? You are saying to God, “Do this, don’t do that”; “My wife is ill, make her healthy.” You are telling the whole, “You are responsible.” You are complaining; deep down your prayer is a complaint. You may be talking very politely, but your politeness is false. You may even be buttering him up, but deep down you are saying, “You are responsible – do something!”

This attitude I call the communist attitude; by it I mean the attitude that, “I am not responsible; I am a victim. The whole of life is responsible.” The religious attitude says, “Life simply reflects.”

Life is not a doer; it is a mirror. It is not doing anything to you, because the same life behaves with Buddha in a different way. Life is the same; it behaves with you in a different way. The mirror is the same, but when you come before the mirror it reflects your face. And if your face is not that of a Buddha, what can the mirror do? When Buddha comes before the mirror, it reflects Buddhahood.

When I say this to you I say so because that's how I have experienced. Once your face changes, the mirror changes; because a mirror has no fixed standpoint. The mirror is just echoing, reflecting. It does not say anything. It simply shows -- it shows you. If life is miserable you must have started the chain. If everybody is against you, you must have started the chain. If everybody feels enmity, you must have started the chain.

Change the cause. And you are the cause. Religion makes you responsible -- and that's how religion makes you free because then it is your freedom to choose. To be miserable or to be happy -- it is up to you. Nobody else has anything to do with it. The world will remain the same; you can start dancing, and the whole world dances with you.

They say when you cry you cry alone, when you laugh the whole world laughs with you. No, that is also not true. When you cry the whole world reflects that; when you laugh then too the whole world reflects that. When you cry the whole world feels like crying. When you are sad, look at the moon -- the moon looks sad; look at the stars -- they look like very great pessimists; look at the river -- it doesn't seem to flow, gloomy, dark. When you are happy then look at the same moon -- it is smiling; and the same stars -- dancing; and the same river -- flowing with a song, all gloom has disappeared.

There are no hells and no heavens. When you have a heaven within you, this world.... And this is the only world there is! Remember, there is no other. When you are filled with heaven within, the world reflects it. When you are filled with hell, the world can't help, it reflects it.

If you feel responsible yourself, you have started moving in a religious direction.

Religion believes in individual revolution. There is no other -- all others are false, pseudo-revolutions. They look like they are changing; they change nothing. They create much fuss about changing -- nothing changes. It is not possible to change anything unless you have changed.

These are the sutras about this responsibility: individual responsibility. In the beginning you will feel a little burdened: that "I am responsible," and you cannot throw the burden on anybody else. But know well, if you are responsible, then there is hope; you can do something. If others are responsible then there is no hope, because what can you do? You may be meditating, but others are creating trouble; you will suffer. You may become a Buddha, but the whole world remains a hell. You will suffer. In the beginning every freedom is felt as a burden -- that's why people are afraid of freedom.

Erich Fromm has written a beautiful book, THE FEAR OF FREEDOM. I love the title. Why are people so much afraid of freedom? One should think otherwise; they should not be afraid of freedom. On the contrary, we think everybody wants freedom, but this is my observation also: deep down nobody wants freedom -- because freedom is a great responsibility. Then only you are responsible. Then you cannot throw responsibility on somebody else's shoulders.

Then you don't have any consolation -- if you suffer you suffer for your own causes, for your own self; you have caused it.

But through that burden opens a new door: you can throw it. If I have been causing my miseries I can drop causing them. I have been pedalling the cycle and I am feeling miserable on the cycle and I am tired, and I go on saying, "Stop it," and I go on pedalling.... It is for me to stop pedalling, and the cycle stops.

Nobody else is pedalling it.

This is the deepest meaning of the theory of karma: that you are responsible.

Once you understand it deeply, that "I am responsible," already half the work is done. In fact, the moment you realize, "I have been responsible for all that I have been suffering or enjoying," you have become free, free from the society, free from the world. Now you can choose your own world to live in. This is the only world! -- remember. But you can choose now. You can dance, and the whole dances with you.

These sutras of Patanjali are very significant.

Many things are implied. First, in India we have never used the word 'love'. We always use 'nonviolence' -- 'ahimsa', pratishthayam. Jesus uses "love"; Mahavir, Patanjali, Buddha, they never use "love" -- they use "nonviolence." Why? "Love" seems to be a better word, more positive, more poetic. "Nonviolence" looks like an ugly word, negative. But there is something to it. When you say "love," you have moved in a subtle aggression. When I say, "I love you," I have moved from my center towards you. The aggression is beautiful, but it is aggression. Patanjali says "nonviolence." It is a negative state, a passive state: I only say, "I won't hurt you," that's all.

Love says, "I will make you happy" -- which is impossible. Who can make anybody happy? Love promises. All promises are false. How can you make anybody happy? If everybody is responsible for his own self, how is it possible even to think that you can make somebody be happy? When I say, "I love you," I am creating so many promises, I am showing you so many beautiful gardens... I am calling you towards dreams. No, Patanjali will not use the word, because deep down I am saying, "I will make you happy. Come near me; come close to me. I am ready to make you happy" -- which is impossible. Nobody can make anybody happy. At the most I can say, "I will not hurt you." That is for me, not to hurt, but how can I say, "I will make you happy"?

That's why all love leads to frustration. Lovers promise each other -- knowingly, unknowingly -- beautiful roses, paradise; and each one thinking about the promise -- and then it is never fulfilled. Nobody can make you happy -- except yourself. If you fall in love: the man is thinking the woman is going to give him a beautiful life, an enchanted, a magical world; and the woman is also thinking that the man is going to lead her towards the last paradise. Nobody can lead anybody. That's why lovers feel frustrated: the promise was false. Not that they were deceiving each other, they were deceived themselves. Not that they were deliberately deceiving each other, they didn't know. They were not aware what they were saying.

Mahavir, Buddha, Patanjali, they use an ugly word: nonviolence, ahimsa. Does not look good, is simply negative -- it says "no violence," that's all. "I will not hurt you" -- that much can be fulfilled. Even then, there is no absolute guarantee that you will not feel hurt. "I will not hurt you," that's all; then too there is no absolute necessity that you will not feel hurt. Still you can feel hurt because you create your own wounds, you create your own misery. "I will not be a party to it," that's all Patanjali can say -- "I will not participate in it. I will not hurt you."

"When the yogi is firmly established..." in this attitude of nonviolence, that he will not hurt anybody, "... there is an abandonment of enmity by those who are in his presence." Such a man, who is not in any way thinking, dreaming consciously, unconsciously, has no desire to hurt anybody -- in his presence, abandonment of enmity happens. But before you conclude it, many more problems arise.

Jesus was crucified; enmity was not abandoned. That's why if you ask Jains they will not say that he was enlightened, because people could crucify him. But the same has happened to Mahavir. After his enlightenment he was stoned. To Buddha the same has happened -- not crucified, but stoned, insulted. People tried to kill him. Then how to understand it? Jains, Buddhists, they have explanations. If it is a question of Jesus, they will say he is not enlightened -- simple explanation, finished -- but if it is a question of Mahavir they say that he is closing his accounts of his past lives. Both are wrong. Both are wrong because when one becomes enlightened he has closed all accounts. He has finished all karmas; now nothing is there.

Still, there have been cases: Jesus has been crucified; Socrates poisoned; Al-hillaj Mansoor killed, murdered very brutally; Mahavir stoned many times, insulted, thrown out of villages; Buddha, many times murder was attempted. Then how to explain Patanjali's sutra? If the sutra is true then these things should not happen.

If these things happen then there are only two possibilities: either all these persons -- Al-hillaj Mansoor, Jesus, Mahavir, Buddha -- are not enlightened, are not really established in nonviolence, or there are some exceptions to the rule.

There are a few exceptions.

In fact whenever a man is established in nonviolence, life -- except for human beings -- becomes absolutely nonviolent towards him. Man is a perverted being. The mirror is not clear. Life... trees are nonviolent towards a Buddha, animals are nonviolent.

It happened that one of Buddha's cousin-brothers, who was in deep competition with him -- unnecessarily, because a Buddha is nobody's competitor -- was continuously thinking, "Buddha has become so great a man, and I am left behind. I am nobody." He tried in every way to gather disciples and declare himself, that he is a Buddha, but nobody would listen to him. Of course, a few fools gathered.

Then he became very antagonistic towards Buddha; he tried to kill him.

It is said Buddha was meditating under a tree near a hill, and Devadutta, Buddha's cousin-brother, rolled a big rock from the hill. There was every possibility that Buddha would have been crushed, but somehow the rock changed its path. Buddha remained untouched. Somebody asked, "What happened?" Buddha said, "A rock feels more than does Devadutta, my brother. She changed the route."

A mad elephant was released against Buddha by Devadutta. The elephant was mad; he rushed. Disciples escaped, they forgot completely, and Buddha remained silent sitting under the tree. The elephant came near... something happened -- he bowed down at Buddha's feet. People asked, "What happened?"

He said, "A mad elephant, also, is not so mad as Devadutta. Even this mad elephant has some sanity left in him."

One of the greatest psychologists working and doing deep research on the human brain is Delgado. He has tried an experiment with electrodes. Something like that must have happened when the elephant stopped and bowed down.

Delgado placed electrodes in the brain of a bull. Those electrodes could be manipulated from anywhere by radio, wireless. Then, he pushed the button; thousands of people had gathered to see. He pushed the button and pressed the center in the brain from where anger arises: the bull became angry and mad. He came in a rage; he rushed towards Delgado. People stopped breathing, because this was certain death. Just a foot away, Delgado pushed another button, and suddenly something happened inside and the bull stopped -- just a foot away, death just a foot away.

Delgado has done it with electric instruments, but the same is the possibility: Buddha has not done anything, but it happened -- a deep nonviolence, and something triggered in the brain of the elephant. He was no longer mad; he understood. He felt; he bowed down.

Humanity is no longer a right mirror. Humanity is not so pure as echoing hills. Humanity is perverted, so it is possible. I don't find any explanation in past lives. I don't find any explanation in denying that Jesus was an enlightened man, no.

Englightened Individual Generates a Blissful Field Felt by Others in Close Proximity

The explanation is this: that life can reflect only when life is alive. Man has become so dead. You don't feel. Even you, if you come to meet a Buddha -- you don't feel much. You say he is just a man as any other. Of course the bones are the same and the skin the same and the body the same -- the boundary is the same -- but who is in the boundary, that flame?

But you can feel it only if you have felt it already within yourself. Otherwise how can you feel it? You can recognize a Buddha only when you have recognized a certain quality of Buddhahood in you; from there is the bridge. If you have not realized any Buddhahood within you, any divineness in you, it is impossible for you to recognize a Buddha, to recognize his nonviolence, to recognize that he has transcended, he is no longer part of your madness.

That's why Mahavir was stoned: by humans who had gone completely perverted. A natural law didn't function with them; otherwise the law is absolutely perfect. If you are silent and you come near a Buddha, suddenly you will feel a great change happening within you. You cannot feel enmity.

That's why there is a fear of coming near a Buddha. You can feel enmity when you are far away from him. If you come face to face with him it becomes difficult, more and more difficult. If you are in his presence, even if you are mad, the possibility exists that his presence may work as a magnetic force; the possibility exists that even you in all your madness may be changed and transformed.

That's why people have always been avoiding Buddhas -- Mahavir, Patanjali, Jesus, Lao Tzu. They don't come near them. They gather things about them in the marketplace and they start believing in rumors, but they won't come near. They won't come to see what has happened.

And by the time they come they have gathered so much rubbish, so much rot around them, that they are already dead. They have so many fixed attitudes that their mirror functions no more. Their mirror is covered with dust. Of course a mirror mirrors, but if it is covered with dust then you can go on looking and your face will not be reflected.

Animals, trees, birds, even they have understood. It is said that when Buddha became enlightened flowers bloomed out of season. And it has not happened only with Buddha; it has happened many times. It is not a myth. The trees became so happy.... That's why Buddhists have been preserving the tree, the Bodhi Tree, under which Buddha became enlightened. It carries something -- it has witnessed one of the greatest happenings in the world. It is the only witness left. It carries the real history, what happened in that night when Buddha became enlightened.

Now scientists say that the bodhi tree is the most intelligent tree in the world. It has some chemicals which are absolutely necessary for intelligence, without which the mind cannot be intelligent. Other trees are there, but nothing like the bodhi tree, the bo tree. It has the greatest quantity of those chemicals which make the mind intelligent. Maybe it is the most intelligent tree in the world. It has witnessed Buddha flowering into a different dimension. It has known one of the greatest peak hours of the whole of existence.

But man's mirror is covered with dust -- dust of beliefs, ideologies.

Just two, three days before, a family took sannyas. The small boy of the family also took sannyas. I gave him one of the very beautiful names, Swami Krishna Bharti, but he said, "No. This name is girlish." Krishna: the family is Jain; they don't feel for Krishna. The name looks girlish. Krishna must look girlish to all the Jains -- the way of his clothing, dancing, the face, the long hair. It is good he was born in olden days. If he was born now any government would have cut his hair.

He would have looked like a hippy with long hair and with flute. The boy said, "The name is girlish. Give me something else, some other name."

If a Jain comes to meet Krishna, he won't realize. If a Hindu comes to see Mahavir, he won't recognize. Beliefs are dust gathered around -- you cannot see rightly; your vision is lost. If you are a Mohammedan you cannot read the Geeta.

If you are a Hindu you cannot read the Koran -- impossible -- because your Hinduism will always be coming in between. Even Gandhi who used to say that all religions are the same has chosen passages from the Koran which are absolute translations -- look like translations -- of the Geeta; other passages he has left. He has read the Geeta and the Koran and chosen those passages which can fit with his ideology, and then he says everything is okay. But real passages which go against the Geeta, that make the Koran a Koran -- those are left out.

Mind, with beliefs, ideas, concepts, systems, philosophies, is a paralyzed mind -- no longer free to move, too much fettered, too much in bondage, a slave. And to look at a Buddha you need freedom -- a mind moving absolutely in freedom, with no bondage, no prejudice, with no beliefs around it.

The sutra is perfect:

"When the yogi is firmly established in nonviolence, there is an abandonment of enmity by those who are in his presence."

Suddenly, a love arises... for no visible cause. Just his presence functions, just the way he is -- you move under his energy field, and you are no longer the same.

That's why before such people, the masses have always felt that they somehow hypnotize. Nobody is hypnotizing you, but hypnosis happens. Their very quality of being is soothing. Their very quality of being silences you; your inner talk stops in their presence. You don't feel yourself; you feel somehow changed.

When you go back home, again you are the same, the old one. Then you look back retrospectively and you feel you were hypnotized, or what? Nobody is hypnotizing, but this has always been -- that Buddha hypnotizes, that Jesus hypnotizes. Nobody is hypnotizing you, but their very being is so soothing that you feel sleepy. You have not slept well; their being relaxes you.

Under their energy field, something which has been hidden comes up and something which has been up goes down. You are no longer the same; your very structure changes. If you can understand the process then you can understand the word Hindus have been using; the word is satsang: just to be in the presence of the enlightened ones. Nothing else is needed. The West is almost incapable of understanding it, that just the presence is enough. Satsang means just to be in the presence of one who has attained to truth -- to be with him, to be in his energy field, to feed on his energy.

In the last night, when Jesus was departing from his friends, he broke bread and gave it to his disciples and said, "Eat it; this is me." It is possible. When a man like Jesus takes the bread in his hand, the bread is no longer the same; it has become sacred. And when Jesus says, "It is me," he means it literally. To be in the presence of a Master is to eat him, literally. To be with him is to be in him.

In fact, old Hindu scriptures say that to be with a Master is to be in his womb.

That energy field is his womb, and when you are in his womb you are being transmuted, transformed, transfigured; a new being is born. Through the Master, one attains to a new birth -- one becomes dwij, twice-born. One birth is attained through the father and the mother, the parents -- that is the birth of the body. Another birth is attained through the Master -- that is the birth of the spirit, the soul.

To be in the presence of a Buddha is to be on the way to becoming a Buddha.

Nothing else is needed. If you can imbibe the presence, if you can allow the presence to work, if you can remain passive in the presence, feeding on it, receptive, everything will happen.

Hindus have two words. One is satsang, which is impossible for the Westerners to understand because they say some teaching should be given. Hindus say presence is enough, no other teaching is needed. Another word is darshan. That too is difficult to understand: just to see a Master is enough; just to look into his eyes is enough; just to see is enough. Darshan means to see. Westerners come to me; they come for questions. When they remain here for a few more days then they understand; then they start feeling that questions are useless. Then they start coming and they say, "I have nothing to say... just to be here." It takes time for them to feel that just to be with me is enough.

To bring a question is to bring a barrier; to come with questions is to come with a barrier. Just to come with no questions -- nothing to ask, just to be -- is to come without barriers. Then energy floats, meets, merges -- you can become a part of my womb; I can float in you. But if you have a question then the mind is upper. When you don't have a question your being is there, open, vulnerable.

This is even more difficult. When the yogi is established in truth: satya pratishthayam. You have to be alert from the very beginning that when Eastern scriptures say "truth" they don't mean just speaking the true, no. "Established in truth" means to be authentic, to be oneself -- not a single iota of falseness inside.

Of course such a person speaks truth, but that is not the point. Such a person lives in truth -- that is the point. In the West truth means truthfulness, to speak the true, that's all. In the East it means to be the truth. Speaking will follow by itself, that is not the point at all -- it is a shadow -- but to be in the truth means to be absolutely oneself, with no mask, with no personality, just to be the essence.

The word "personality" is meaningful. It comes from a Greek root, persona: persona means mask. In Greek drama actors used masks; those were called personas. The real is hidden behind and persona is all that is known to the world -- the face.

Without any personality, just the essence.... Zen people say, "Find out your face -- the original face." That is all meditation is all about. They said to their disciples, "Move back, and find out the face that you had before you were born. That is truth." Before you were born: because the moment you are born, falsity starts.

The moment you become part of a family, you have become part of a lie. The moment you become part of a society, you have become a part of a greater lie.

All societies are lies -- beautifully decorated, but lies. You have to seek the face that you had before you entered into the world, the original virginity.

One has to move back and in. One has to come to feel the center, the essence of your being, beyond which there is no possibility to go. One has to go on eliminating: the body you are not, the body goes on changing; mind you are not, mind is always in a flux -- thoughts and thoughts and thoughts -- it is a process; emotions you are not, they come and go. You are that which remains and remains and remains. The body comes and goes, the mind comes and goes. That which remains always hidden behind, that is the truth. To be that is the meaning: satya pratishthayam, one who is established in truth.