Adhyatam Upanishad #14

There are some subtle pointers about the nature of consciousness. Only a jivanmukta passes through these experiences. Only the living-liberated can know these sutras from within. For we have no direct experience of consciousness. Whatever we “know” about consciousness are merely reflections imprinted in the mind.

Understand this first, and then we will enter the sutras.

The mind is a remarkable instrument. And now even science affirms that the mind is no more than a mechanism. Today a computer can perform tasks more skillfully than the mind. There is no need to send a man to the moon; a machine can be sent. Russia has sent machines—computers. They collect data about the moon and transmit it back to Russia. A mere device, yet as subtle as mind, gathering whatever happens in its vicinity.

I told you earlier: when a jivanmukta returns from samadhi, a friend once asked, “When consciousness goes into samadhi, the mind is left behind—and it is the mind that retains memory. So the experiences that happen to consciousness—when consciousness returns to the mind, who remembers them? Consciousness went into the experience; consciousness itself retains no memory, no trace remains upon it. And the mind did not go into the experience; it stayed behind. So who remembers? Who looks back afterward?”

The mind did not go into the experience, but it remained at the very door of the experience. And from that threshold it captures whatever is taking place. Mind is a device, working both ways: it catches what is happening in the outer world, and it catches what is happening in the inner world. Whatever occurs within the compass of its range, inside or out, the mind records it. The mind itself need not go. If a camera is set up at a distance, it still captures what is happening here. If a tape recorder is placed far away and a microphone brought near, whatever I speak here, the birds’ songs, the wind passing through the trees, leaves falling—all will be caught by the tape recorder.

Understand the mind rightly: the mind is only a device. There is no consciousness in the mind, no soul in the mind. The mind is a life-machine evolved by nature—a biological machine. The mind stands between our soul and the world. This device is hidden in the body, poised between world and Self. It also catches whatever happens in the world. To do this it has opened five sense-doors.

Your senses are the doors of the mind. As with a tape recorder whose microphone is placed near me: the recorder could be thousands of miles away; the microphone will still pick up, and the signal will reach the recorder.

Your senses are like microphones for the mind. The five senses are the mind’s five doors. In the realm of color, light, and form, whatever happens, the mind has extended the eye to the body and the eye keeps catching it. The camera of the eye keeps turning, keeps capturing. In the realm of sound—music, words, even silence—the ear keeps catching. And moment by moment, whatever is caught is transmitted to the mind. The mind keeps storing it. The hand touches, the tongue tastes, the nose smells—all of it reaches the mind.

All your senses are the mind’s doors. These five are its outer doors. There is one more sense you may have heard of, though perhaps you’ve never thought of it this way: the antahkarana, the “inner organ.” It is a sense that catches whatever happens within. When a person dives into samadhi, the inner organ keeps catching—what is happening! Peace, silence, bliss, the presence of the divine—what is unfolding!

The antahkarana is a microphone open inward. It is receptivity turned within. And there only one sense is needed, not five. Outside there are five great elements, and each requires a different sense to register it. Inside there is only the One—Brahman—so five senses are unnecessary; the single inner organ catches the inner experience.

So a human being has six senses: five outward-turning, one inward-turning. And the mind is the instrument standing between; one branch extends inward and keeps receiving. Whatever occurs within is inscribed upon the mind. The mind itself need not go there. And that is why, when the seeker returns from samadhi to the mind, the mind hands him its recordings: “This and this happened within. While you were ‘not here,’ this is what unfolded inside.”

You could leave a tape recorder here and go away; when you return an hour later, it will tell you what was spoken here, what sounds occurred. The recorder doesn’t need to be alive. The mind is not alive either; the mind is matter, a subtle machine. This material device gathers from both directions. Therefore the seeker returning from samadhi infers through the mind; he knows only through the mind.

The more precise the mind, the truer its report; the more impure the mind, the more erroneous. If your tape recorder is faulty, it will record what is said but the playback will be unintelligible. The form may distort, the shape distort, the sound distort—some will be comprehensible, some not.

Hence, before shravana (hearing), manana (reflection), and nididhyasana (deep contemplation), the mind is purified fully. The mind becomes a clean receiver; whatever occurs, it gives a faithful copy. Then entry into samadhi happens.

So the inner organ catches all. Even so, out of honesty the sages have said that what it gives is still inference, because the mind itself never went inside; whatever it reports is mechanical information. Errors are possible. Keep one more thing in mind: if a Hindu goes into samadhi, or a Muslim, a Christian, a Jain—their minds will give slightly different reports. The experience of samadhi is one, but their minds differ in construction.

Someone born in a Jain household has had a Jain mind shaped; “Jain-ness” has entered his instrument. From childhood he has heard there is no God; this becomes a built-in process of his mind: there is no God. The ultimate experience is of the soul, not of God—this is what his mind has stored. The mind is prepared, conditioned.

Then when samadhi happens, it is this mind that records. The samadhi is one and the same for all, but the minds differ. This mind has learned that there is no God. The ultimate experience is of the soul; there is nothing beyond that; or that this very experience is of the divine Self, but there is no God beyond it. So when the event of samadhi occurs, the mind immediately records: “This is the supreme experience of the soul.”

A Hindu, who has heard about the experience of God, who “knows” that when the soul dissolves within, the vision is of the Divine—his mind will record: “This is the vision of God.” The same event is occurring, but it is recorded as “God-experience.”

A Buddhist, who accepts neither soul nor God, will not record either. His mind will say: “Nirvana has happened—you have dissolved, become emptiness.”

That is why scriptures differ, because scriptures are records of minds, not of the experience itself. Hindu, Jain, Buddhist scriptures will diverge. Sometimes the divergence looks extreme, because the mind only has words—words it has learned. The mind is learned, constructed.

Set religion aside for a moment: suppose you learned Sanskrit, or Greek, or Arabic. Then the mind has a language. When the experience of samadhi happens, the experience itself has nothing to do with language; but the mind will record it in its own language. A mind that knows Arabic cannot say “samadhi has happened”; it has no word “samadhi.” So a Sufi will say fana—annihilation, you are gone. The meaning is the same.

You see, we call a sannyasin’s tomb a samadhi for this reason; not every tomb is called a samadhi. Only the one who, while living, had already “died” to himself—so that when death comes there remains nothing to be destroyed—is accorded a samadhi.

So the Sufi says fana, the Hindu says samadhi, the Buddhist says nirvana. These are the mind’s words. The mind instantly translates whatever happens within into its own vocabulary. You wonder how a device can “translate”?

That is because you do not know much about devices. The latest research on machines is astonishing. Whatever the mind can do, machines can do. There is no mental function that a device cannot perform. This leads to a dangerous conclusion: if machines can do everything the mind does, then the mind is mechanical. Those who deny a soul beyond the mind must hold that man is a machine—and not even an extraordinarily skillful one, since more skillful machines are possible.

At the U.N., devices translate into five languages. I may speak here in Hindi, and arrangements exist for instant translation into the five major languages. No human translators—machines do it. I say “prem,” and the device translating into English instantly outputs “love.” The vibration of “prem” strikes the apparatus; electrically it is transformed into another pattern that voices “love.”

Machines translate; machines calculate; machines store memory; machines are doing all the tasks the human mind does. So when the yogis, the Upanishads, the tantrics first declared that the mind is a device, the world could not understand. But now science has built devices; there is no obstacle to grasping it.

This mind gathers in two directions—samadhi and samsara. News of the world comes through the mind, and news of the Absolute also comes through the mind.

Now let us enter the sutra. When it becomes clear that all reflections are formed on the mind, and that the deeper I go toward the center, no imprint is formed upon me—imprints are formed only on the mind, not upon myself—then this sutra becomes intelligible.

“Knowing oneself to be unattached and indifferent like the sky, the yogi does not become entangled in future karma even in the slightest.”

There is much here to understand.

“Knowing oneself to be unattached and indifferent like the sky...”

We see the sky daily. A bird flies across it but leaves no footprints. On the earth, footprints remain. If the ground is wet, they are deeper; on stone, they are faint—but with effort, even stone can be etched. But when a bird flies through the sky, no footprints remain. The bird is gone, and the sky is just as it was before. There is no way to discover where a bird once flew. Clouds gather, come and go, yet the sky remains as it is.

There is no way to pollute the sky, to imprint it, to condition it. We draw lines in water; they form and instantly vanish. We carve on stone; it forms and takes thousands of years to fade. In the sky no line can be drawn. None is formed; question of erasing does not arise.

Understand the difference: in the sky, no line is formed at all. I trace my finger through the air; the finger moves, but no line appears—hence there is nothing to erase.

The day someone rises beyond the mind, the day consciousness slips behind the mind, he experiences that upon this soul, like the sky, no mark—none whatsoever—has ever been formed. It has always been pure, always knowing; no distortion has ever occurred in it.

“Like the sky, know yourself as unattached...”

Asanga—“unattached”—is a precious word. It means: with all, and yet with none. The sky is everywhere. It surrounds the tree, it surrounds you; it surrounds the saint and the sinner. Whether good deeds are done or bad deeds, whether you sin or earn merit, whether you live or die—the sky is present, yet unattached. It is with you, but not your companion. It forms no relationship with you. It is present, but its presence is aloof. Always present, and yet no friendship develops, no bond is made. Asanga means unrelated. It is, but there is no relation. You may depart, and the sky will not even “know” that you ever were.

How many earths are formed and lost! How many people are born and die! How many palaces rise and crumble into dust! So much has happened, yet the sky keeps no account. Ask the sky for history—there is none; it is all empty, as if nothing had ever occurred. Look back across billions of years—some say this small earth alone is four billion years old—and in that span how much has transpired: wars and love, friendships and enmities, victories and defeats, countless people. Yet the sky holds no ledger. As if nothing ever happened, no trace remains.

Indians did not write history. Westerners are puzzled: why this lack of historical sense? We do not know for sure when Rama lived, nor do we have exact dates for Krishna’s birth. We have stories, but no historical proofs.

The credit for introducing history into the human world goes to Christianity. In the sense Jesus is historical, Buddha, Krishna, Parashurama are not. With Jesus, the world divides into two halves. The earlier world becomes pre-historical; after Jesus, historical. So it is fitting we count years from Jesus; B.C. and A.D.—a line is drawn.

India never kept history, and there is a reason. The foundational reason is this: we realized that the very sky within which everything happens keeps no accounts; why should we keep them? If that in which all things occur retains no record, why should we fuss and keep ledgers about who was born when, who died when?

So we did not keep history; we created Purana. Purana is an Indian phenomenon, not history. Purana means something else. The Purana does not bother about dates—birthdays, death days. We did not worry about when Rama was born, what year, when he went to study, when he married—such details seemed purposeless. But the essential inner event—that a man became Rama, that a lamp was lit and shone—we remembered that. We kept no account of the shell, the body. We remembered that an extinguished lamp can be lit, can radiate; that human life is not only stench, there has been fragrance. This much we remembered; the rest we left aside.

Thus we do not insist that Rama must have been; that is not necessary. Rama can be—that is enough. The event of Rama can happen; we have kept this remembrance. It suffices. Krishna can be; whether he was or wasn’t is secondary. Even when we keep alive the thought that he was, it is only to remind ourselves that he can be—that this flower can blossom in us too, this cascade of joy can happen in us. Therefore Purana—meaning, only the essence.

By entering consciousness it is discovered that no line is left in the sky, yet your essence-fragrance is left. Understand this a little: no marks are made in the sky, but your essential perfume remains. It remains because it is not alien to the sky; it is itself the sky within you. When you die, only the sky within you merges with the sky; everything else is lost. That inner sky we call the soul.

There is an expanse without, and there is an expanse within. In the outer sky clouds gather and seem to cover it. In the rainy season’s dusky evenings everything is veiled, and one could hardly imagine that blue sky ever was or could be again. When dark clouds encircle the sky, the sky is not seen, only the clouds.

The inner sky too is covered by clouds. The inner clouds are thoughts, choices, impurities—call them what you will. When the clouds gather upon the inner sky, it feels as if there is no clear sky behind. To remove these clouds is sadhana. To clear them away and peep into the blue, unattached sky—that is attainment, siddhahood.

The sutra says: “Know yourself to be unattached and indifferent like the sky...”

The sky neither laughs with you nor weeps with you. If you die, no tear falls from the sky; if you thrive and rejoice, the sky does not dance with anklets to share your joy. The sky is utterly indifferent. Whatever is happening, the sky issues no statement. A corpse is being taken to the cremation ground; a newborn is welcomed with bands and music; a house is adorned with flowers for a wedding; a beloved is lost and life feels futile—the sky remains indifferent. Whatever happens, it has no concern.

As soon as someone enters the inner sky, he too becomes indifferent in this way. Whatever happens loses its hold on him. He looks upon the world as the sky does.

When the sky-like mood arises within, know that jivanmukti has happened. Let nothing draw a line inside like the sky; whatever goes on outside becomes a play on the circumference, nothing touches the center. Move behind the mind and it is so.

“Knowing oneself as unattached and indifferent like the sky, the yogi is not entangled in future karma even in the least.”

This is the second part of the sutra. When one knows that none of the past actions ever touched him—if I was defeated, my soul was not defeated; if I triumphed, my soul did not triumph; if I was honored, nothing was added to my soul; if I was insulted, nothing was diminished—once this is realized, naturally, future actions become pointless. If no past act could touch me, no future act will touch me. Future planning ceases. He will no longer think, “I must succeed.” He will no longer fear, “What if I fail?” He will no longer think, “May my prestige remain,” nor fear disgrace. Having seen himself, the entire past becomes unrelated; in the same instant, the entire future becomes unrelated.

The future is just the extension of the past. Whatever we found in the past—pleasant or painful—we plan to repeat or avoid in the future. Our future is the reflection of the past, a slightly improved version. If something done yesterday yielded pain, we don’t want to do it tomorrow. If something done yesterday brought joy, we want more of it tomorrow.

But if the whole past appears such that neither pleasure nor pain, auspicious nor inauspicious, could touch me—that I am sky-like, empty as empty, void as void; no line has been drawn upon me; unconditioned, I remain; after so long a journey I am untouched within, virginal—then the future is rendered futile.

Remember, a jivanmukta has no future. And if you still have even a little future left, understand that the inner sky has not been experienced. If a yogi still keeps thinking, “How will I attain liberation?” or “How will I behold God?”—then know that the inner sky has not been realized. All that is planning—the planning of the future. So long as there is any future, even an inch of it, it is enough to show that one has not yet experienced that no karma touches the soul. Not even liberation will touch it; not even God will touch it. This everlasting untouchability is liberation. To remain forever untouched—this is godliness; this is what it is to be God; it means nothing else.

If we call Krishna “Bhagwan” (God), or Mahavira God, or Buddha God—what do we mean? Did Buddha create the world, and that is why he is God? What does “God” mean? Buddha falls ill, Buddha ages, Buddha dies—the body disintegrates. How is he God? Suffering comes, sickness comes, old age and death. God should not die, should not grow old, should not fall ill. Buddha feels hunger and thirst; if you cut his hand, blood flows. How is he God? What does “God” mean?

It means only this: all this happens, and the one hidden within knows that nothing touches him. Everything happens. Cut the hand—blood flows; hunger, thirst, old age, death—all come. Yet the inner sky of the Buddha knows that nothing touches it. Life passes, death passes; youth and old age pass; within, that virginity remains untouched. There is no rupture in it; no news reaches there about what happened outside. The name of this experience is divinity.

So if someone is seeking a vision of God, he still has a future. One who has a future will never meet God. “Future” means the truth of the past has not yet been seen; it has not yet been experienced that I am sky-like.

Therefore this sutra says: for the yogi, there remains not a trace of taste for future karma. Tomorrow does not exist for him; only today. Even today is too big a word—better to say, this very moment. Here and now is his being. He has no rush toward what lies ahead.

“Just as the space kept in jars of wine is not infused with the smell of wine, so the Self, even when associated with adjuncts, is not imbued with their properties.”

There is a jar, filled with liquor. The jar is affected by the liquor. The clay drinks it in. The pores of the clay become saturated. If the jar is old and has held wine a long time, you could even eat a piece of its clay and get intoxicated. The jar becomes drunk, because clay is porous—there are tiny holes into which the wine seeps and hides. The jar drinks and becomes tipsy. But there is another element inside the jar—space, the jar’s emptiness...

Here is the curious thing: the wine is not poured into the clay; it is poured into the emptiness within. The wine fills—not the clay—but the space in the jar. When we pour wine, what do we fill, the clay? No; the clay is only a device to bound a little portion of space. Space is vast, and the wine is little; you cannot fill the whole sky, so you choose a small sky, wall it with clay, and pour the wine into that.

Wine is poured into space, not into clay. But the clay becomes delirious and mad, while that into which it is poured—space—remains untouched. If you remove the wine, the empty space inside retains not even the slightest odor. The clay does. The clay becomes intoxicated merely by proximity; mere association has its effect. Everything is held in space—and space remains untouched.

So whatever you have done has touched only your body—your “clay.” It has entered your clay. Whatever you have done has not touched the inner sky, your Self. Sins done or merits earned, good deeds or bad—whatever you have done has entered your clay, your jar. The mind is also clay, and so is the body. The emptiness, the void between them, is your soul. Nothing has ever reached there. Never.

To know this, to experience this, is to be free of upadhi—adjuncts. The adjuncts were never yours; they belong to body and mind.

But what the body has drunk, the body will bear. Even the body of a knower will bear what it has absorbed—good or bad, pleasure or pain. The past is soaked into every pore. So even on the day of perfect knowing, when one awakens and becomes sky-like, the processes already in the body will complete their journey.

It is much like this: you are riding a bicycle and you stop pedaling because you realize the journey is pointless—there is nowhere to go. But the bicycle has momentum. You’ve been pedaling for miles upon miles; the bicycle has acquired speed. If you stop pedaling, it will not stop at once. It will roll for a while without your pedaling. You may not be driving it, but it will move until the stored momentum is spent. Then it will fall. If you keep adding momentum, it will never fall; if you stop, it will still take time.

For lifetimes we have ridden the body and journeyed with the mind. Even if today we awaken and step aside, the mind and body will not collapse immediately. They will carry out the momentum they have accumulated.

“Just as an arrow, once released at a marked target, cannot fail to pierce it, so the karma performed before the rise of knowledge does not fail to bear fruit even after knowledge arises.”

So whether it is Buddha or Krishna or anyone else, what has been done will bear its fruit; its resolution will come, its culmination.

“That is, even after knowledge is born, the fruits of actions already done must be experienced. Knowledge does not destroy karma.”

Through knowledge one experiences “I am not the doer,” but knowledge does not erase the already-launched karma. The deeds done will complete themselves. The example given: you have shot an arrow at a target, then, as soon as you release it, awareness dawns—“I am committing violence; I should not.” Still, nothing can be done now; the arrow will finish its journey.

I speak a word, and at once I sense I should not have spoken, but the word will travel its course. Having received momentum the moment it was uttered, it goes on until that momentum is exhausted.

You throw a stone. In throwing it, you impart your force to it. Carried by that force, it travels as far as the energy lasts, then drops. Even if midway you regret throwing it, there is no way to recall it.

Karmas are arrows already loosed. Remembering midway will not stop them; they will fall only after completing their arc. And until the journeys of all karmas are completed, there will be jivanmukti but not moksha. Understand this. One remains free in spirit, but around him the web of bodily and mental karma continues. No new nourishment is added, but the old store will run its course until it is spent.

Consider this: if you decide to leave life by fasting, you won’t die the day you begin your fast. It will take three months, at least; perhaps longer—but three months in any case. Only after ninety days of fasting will death come.

Why? You began fasting today—shouldn’t you die today? But your body has stored flesh, reserves accumulated earlier. It will take three months to consume these reserves. In those three months you will become skin and bone. Your stored food is digested away. Hence, a day of fasting reduces your weight by a pound. The fatter the person, the longer he lasts—he has more in reserve. He will digest a pound a day. Until the store is consumed, the body will not break. It takes three months.

Just so, when consciousness becomes fully awake, moksha should occur that very moment—but it doesn’t. Sometimes it has. Such instances are extremely rare—almost none—that knowledge and moksha coincide. That would be like a person already down to skin and bone; he fasts one day and breath ends. It would mean there was nothing left inside; he was ready to die. But such a person is hard to find. Even the poorest beggar has a little wealth; even the hungriest keeps a small reserve for emergencies.

By chance it can happen that someone’s karmas end in the very moment of awakening. But that is very difficult; it has happened only rarely. Ordinarily—Buddha, Mahavira, anyone—they have remained, lived for years after enlightenment. Why? Liberation has happened, but the burden and momentum of past actions keep pushing the body along. When that force is spent, jivanmukti becomes moksha.

And it is necessary, useful too; for if the jivanmukta attained moksha that very instant, he would not be able to tell us what he has known. He can tell us only because there is an interval between his liberation and his final release. Buddha lived forty years; Mahavira lived forty years. Those years served us. In those years their minds could communicate to us what they had known.

“An arrow released at what was thought to be a tiger cannot, after its release, stop even if you realize it is a cow; it will, with full speed, pierce the target completely. In the same way, karma already done gives its fruit even after knowledge dawns.”

Therefore, if you ever see a sage passing through suffering, do not think, “So wise, so pure, why is God tormenting him?” No one is tormenting anyone. However great a knower he may be, there is a long journey of ignorance behind him. That long journey has gathered dust; it must be lived out. But the knower endures it with the sky-mood. Those around him, however, cannot endure it with that mood.

When Ramakrishna developed cancer, Vivekananda wept; he did not yet have the sky-mood. When cancer came to Ramana, the entire ashram was distressed—those gathered around had no sky-mood.

As Ramana was dying, as his breath was leaving, someone asked, “What will become of us now?” Ramana said, “What will happen? I will be here—I will be here.”

They were consoled; their tears stopped because they took it as assurance that he would not die. And he died! They misunderstood. When he said, “I will be here,” he was speaking of the sky which, even when the jar breaks, does not go anywhere. Only the jar breaks.

Ramana says, “I will be here. Why do you weep!”

But this is the sky’s statement: “I will be here.” It is not the jar’s statement. Those around took it to be the jar’s; they thought the jar would remain. Then the jar broke. They wondered, “Did Ramana deceive us? Did he just try to console us?”

It was not consolation—it was truth. But you cannot experience this sky-like Ramana until you experience your own sky. So long as you take yourself to be the jar, Ramana is gone.

When Ramakrishna was dying, his wife Sarada began to weep and beat her chest. Ramakrishna said, “Why do you cry? You will remain a suhagin”—a married woman whose husband lives—“you will not be widowed.”

Sarada must have felt relief. And Ramakrishna died. Yet he had said, “You will remain a suhagin; I am not going to die!” But Sarada was an extraordinary woman. Ramakrishna died, he was cremated, and yet not a tear fell from Sarada’s eye. According to Bengal’s custom people came to break her bangles. Sarada said, “Leave them; for I am a suhagin.” They said, “Wear white now.” She said, “Don’t even speak of it. I trust the words of the one who spoke. He did not say it to console me.”

A sweet tale unfolded. For years Sarada lived after Ramakrishna’s death. She never accepted, not even in a dream, that Ramakrishna had died. People wondered if she had gone mad. But she wasn’t mad; no other symptom of madness appeared. In fact, from the day Ramakrishna died—and from the day Sarada refused to accept his death—she herself became deathless. From that day she became sky-like. The “death of Ramakrishna” was, for her, only the vanishing of a jar. And there was no transaction of jars between them at all. Ramakrishna and Sarada’s marriage was extraordinary; the jars never touched. Ramakrishna related to Sarada as to a mother. There was no bodily give-and-take. It was a meeting of two skies.

It is a sweet, wondrous story. For years after Ramakrishna’s death, Sarada lived. Every day she cooked as always and went to the side of Ramakrishna’s cot and said, “Paramahamsadeva, the meal is ready.” All continued as before; the cooking continued. Sarada went daily to the cot. No one else—no one could see Ramakrishna... People wept on hearing Sarada say, “Paramahamsadeva, the meal is ready.” Then she would wait, just as she always had. He would rise; she stood there until he did. Then Ramakrishna walked ahead and she followed. Only she could see it, no one else. She set the plate before him, fanned him, put him to bed each night, woke him each morning. The whole routine continued just the same.