NISCHALATWAAM PRADAKSHINAM

Now psychologists say there are two types of madness: one, normal madness; and the other, abnormal madness. Normal madness means everyone is like that. Abnormal madness means you have gone a little further. There is no difference really of quality. It seems the difference is quantitative, only of degrees. And when you are angry, really, you are temporarily mad. You have gone from the average madness to the abnormal madness. When one is filled with passion, mad passion, he is not the average normal man. He is a different man altogether. And in a twenty-four-hour day, many times you touch the abnormal madness.

That is why when someone commits a murder we begin to think that man was not the type to do such a thing. We knew him, but we knew him only in his average madness Someone commits a crime, and we cannot believe it. We feel that that man was not such a man. But we only knew him in his average madness. The non-average, abnormal madness is always there. Any time the abnormal mad mind can get hold of you – any moment.

William James visited a madhouse, and for thirty-seven years afterwards he could not sleep well because in the madhouse, for the first time, he became aware that whatsoever has happened to others can happen to him at any moment. He saw a madman who was beating his own head, beating his head against a wall. He came back: he could not sleep that night. His wife was disturbed also.

He said, ”I am disturbed, very much disturbed. That which has happened to that man can happen to me also.”

His wife laughed and said, ”Why are you unnecessarily worrying! You are not going to be mad.”

William James said, ”Only a few days before, that man was also not mad and now he is mad. I am not mad, but tomorrow I can become mad. What is the guarantee?”

Of course, there is no guarantee because it is only a question of degrees. There is no guarantee! You may be just on the verge; then something happens and you are pushed beyond it. Your wife dies or your house is burned, and you are pushed a degree ahead.

This situation, this mad situation of humanity, is a by-product of constant struggle with one’s own mind. Sanity is always based on acceptance. This is the secret. If a madman can accept his madness totally, madness will disappear. With whatsoever you can accept totally, a new phenomenon happens inside. Through acceptance, conflict is dissolved, and the energy that was being dissipated in conflict is not dissipated now. You become stronger. With this strength and awareness, you go higher than your mind. So you should have acceptance of the mind and awareness of the mind – and a third thing: you should move in this world, live in this world, not from the periphery, but from the center.

Someone abuses you; he is speaking against your name. The man who lives from the periphery will think, "He is saying something against ME.” The man who lives from the center will think, "He is speaking against the name, and I am not the name. I was born without any name. The name is just a label on the periphery, so why become disturbed? He is saying something not against me, but against the name.” You are identified with the name, so you become disturbed. If you can feel the gap between the name and you, between the periphery and you, then the periphery is hurt, but the hurt never reaches to the center.

One Hindu sannyasin, Swami Ramteerth, was in America. Someone abused him, but he came laughing and told his disciples, ”Someone was abusing Ram very much. Ram was in great difficulty. He was being abused, and he was in great difficulty.”

So the disciples asked, ”About whom are you talking? Ram is your name.”

Ramteerth said, "It is, of course, my name – but not me. They do not know me at all. How can they
abuse me? They know only my name.”

Even if your action is abused, it is not you – only the action. If you can maintain a gap – and that is not difficult with awareness: it is the most easy thing – then the periphery is touched, but the center remains untouched. If the center remains untouched, sooner or later you are bound to discover the point of deep stillness which is not only your point, but the point, the central point, of the whole Existence.

I was reading a story just this morning. It is one of the most beautiful stories...

One young seeker, after a long and arduous journey, reached the hut of his Master, the Master of his choice. It was evening, and the Master was just sweeping fallen leaves. The seeker greeted the Master, but the Master remained silent. He asked many questions, but there were no replies. He tried in every way to get the attention of the Master, but the Master was there as if he were alone. He went on sweeping the fallen leaves.

Seeing no possibility of getting the attention of the Master, the disciple decided to make a hut in the same forest and to live there. He lived there for years. After a time, the past dropped, because in order for it to continue one has to go on creating it daily. You have to create your past again, and again, daily, in order to continue it. But in the forest everything was silent. No man was there; only the Master was there who was just like ”no-man”. There was no communication. He would not even reply to a greeting; he would not even look at the disciple. His eyes were just vacant, an emptiness.

So after a time, the past dissolved. The disciple continued to be there. Thoughts were there; then by and by they slowed down because you have to feed them daily for them to continue. If you do not feed them, they cannot continue forever. With nothing to do, he would relax, sit silently, sweep the fallen leaves. One day, after many years, he was sweeping the fallen leaves and he became Enlightened. He stopped everything, and he ran to the Master’s hut and went in. The Master was sweeping fallen leaves. The disciple said, ”Thank you, Sir!”

Of course, the Master never replied. But this ”thank you” is beautiful. He went to the Master and said, "Thank you, Sir.” Only because of this Master not replying to him – not giving any intellectual answers, not even looking at him, remaining so silent – only because of this did he learn something from the Master. He learned this silence; he learned this living in the center without being bothered by the periphery.

Someone is greedy: this is a peripheral matter; let him be greedy. Someone is asking something: this is a peripheral matter; let him ask. The Master remained undisturbed. He went on sweeping his dead leaves. He didn’t say anything, but he showed a way. He did not say anything, but he answered. HE WAS THE ANSWER! Such a silence the disciple had never before known! Such an absent presence he had never witnessed! It was as if the man was not there, as if the man was a nothingness, not a man; a nobodiness, not a man.

Without saying anything, the Master had said much. Rather, he showed much, and the disciple followed. It was only one lesson, but a very secret one: to remain in the center and not be bothered by the periphery. For years together, the disciple tried to remain in the center not being bothered by the periphery. One day, while sweeping the fallen dead leaves, he was Awakened. Years had passed, and now there was such gratefulness! He stopped everything, ran to the Master and said, "Thank you, Sir!” Just by following a hidden answer, it happened.

But it depends on you. Someone else in his place might have felt humiliated, insulted, might have felt that this man is mad, might have got angry. Then he would have missed a great opportunity. But he was not negative. He took it very positively. He felt the meaning of it, he tried to live it, and the thing happened. It was a consequence; it was not a result. He could have imitated, but this was not imitation. He never came again. He was in the same forest, but he never came again until the happening. He came only twice: first he came to greet the Master, and then he came to thank him.

What was he doing for all these years? It was a simple lesson. There was only one secret, but it was the most basic one. He tried not to be bothered by the periphery. He accepted himself. Not bothering with the periphery, not being bothered by the periphery, he remained aware. He was so aware, really, that it was as if these twenty years were not there. And when the thing happened, when the happening was there, he ran as if nothing had happened within these twenty years. Twenty years before, the Master had shown him a way, but it was as if these twenty years were not there. He reached the Master to thank him – as if he had shown him the way just a moment before.

If silence is there, time disappears. Time is a peripheral matter. If silence is there, you become grateful to everything – to the sky, to the earth, to the sun, to the moon, to everything. If silence is there, any moment the old world disappears, the old you is no more there. The old man is dead, and a new life, a new energy, is born.

This sutra says that this is pradakshina. If you can enter into the center of your Being, this is stillness – where there is no sound. Only then have you entered the temple, worshipped the deity, encircled, done the ritual. In a temple, we can go on continuously doing the ritual without ever being aware of what this ritual means. Every ritual is a secret key. The ritual in itself is childish. If you do not know that a key is a key, you can play with it. But then you might as well throw it, since in the end you will come to realize that this is meaningless – because you do not know the lock and you do not know the key or that something can be opened by it. These are secret languages.

Rituals are secret languages. Through them something has been communicated. Books can be destroyed because languages become dead; the meaning of words goes on changing. Because of this, whenever there has been an Enlightened One he has created certain rituals. They are more permanent languages. When the scriptures disappear, when religions become dead, when old languages cannot be understood or can be misinterpreted, the rituals continue.

Sometimes a whole religion disappears, but the rituals go on. They become transplanted into new religions. They enter new religions without anyone being aware of what is happening. Rituals are a permanent language, and whenever one goes deep in them the secrets are discovered. This Upanishad is basically concerned with the ritual of worship, and every act is meaningful.

In itself it looks childish. It is stupid to go into a temple and make rounds around the altar or around the image of the deity. It looks stupid! What are you doing? In itself it is stupid because we have forgotten that the key is a key. Its meaning is in knowing the lock; its meaning is in opening the lock. These seven rounds around the altar are concerned with the seven bodies, and the altar is concerned with the innermost center.

Move around your center, go on moving inwards, and a moment comes when every movement stops. Then there is no sound: you have entered silence. This silence is Divine, this silence is bliss, this silence is the aim of all religions, and this silence is the purpose of all life. And unless you attain this silence, whatsoever you may attain is useless, meaningless; even if you can attain the whole world, it is of no use.

But if you attain this inner silence, this center, and you lose the whole world, even then it is worth attaining. No bargain is bad – even if everything is staked, sacrificed. When you achieve the inner silence you know that whatsoever you have paid for it was nothing. What you receive is invaluable; what you have lost for it was just rubbish.

But the rubbish is wealth to us, the rubbish is very valuable to us. And I will repeat again: if you think that you can purchase with this rubbish, then you will never be able to get to the center. The center cannot be a result. If you throw this rubbish, you attain to it: that is a consequence.

”Stillness is pradakshina, the movement around That for worship”: around That - the inner center or the innermost center. "This" is the periphery, "That" is the center. So go on leaving ”this” and go on moving toward That. This is all that sadhana consists of; this is the path.