Prarabdha comes to fruition only when one abides as the body-self।
The body-self notion is not to be desired; therefore, let prarabdha be renounced।। 56।।
Even the very notion of prarabdha for this body—this indeed is delusion।। 57।।
For the superimposed, whence reality? For the unreal, whence birth।
For the unborn, whence death? For the non-existent, whence prarabdha।। 58।।
If by knowledge the effect of ignorance, with its root, be dissolved,
how can this body persist?—thus doubt the dull।। 59।।
Adhyatam Upanishad #15
Available in:
Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Sutra (Original)
प्रारब्धं सिध्यति तदा यदा देहात्मना स्थिति।
देहात्मभावो नैवेष्टः प्रारब्धं त्यज्यतामतः।। 56।।
प्रारब्धकल्पनाऽप्यस्य देहस्य भ्रांति रेष हि।। 57।।
अध्यस्तस्य कुतस्य असत्यस्य कुतोजनिः।
अजातस्य कुतो नाशः प्रारब्धमसतः कुतः।। 58।।
ज्ञानेनाज्ञानकार्यस्य समूलस्य लयो यदि।
तिष्ठत्ययं कथं देह इति शङ्कावतो जडान्।। 59।।
देहात्मभावो नैवेष्टः प्रारब्धं त्यज्यतामतः।। 56।।
प्रारब्धकल्पनाऽप्यस्य देहस्य भ्रांति रेष हि।। 57।।
अध्यस्तस्य कुतस्य असत्यस्य कुतोजनिः।
अजातस्य कुतो नाशः प्रारब्धमसतः कुतः।। 58।।
ज्ञानेनाज्ञानकार्यस्य समूलस्य लयो यदि।
तिष्ठत्ययं कथं देह इति शङ्कावतो जडान्।। 59।।
Transliteration:
prārabdhaṃ sidhyati tadā yadā dehātmanā sthiti|
dehātmabhāvo naiveṣṭaḥ prārabdhaṃ tyajyatāmataḥ|| 56||
prārabdhakalpanā'pyasya dehasya bhrāṃti reṣa hi|| 57||
adhyastasya kutasya asatyasya kutojaniḥ|
ajātasya kuto nāśaḥ prārabdhamasataḥ kutaḥ|| 58||
jñānenājñānakāryasya samūlasya layo yadi|
tiṣṭhatyayaṃ kathaṃ deha iti śaṅkāvato jaḍān|| 59||
prārabdhaṃ sidhyati tadā yadā dehātmanā sthiti|
dehātmabhāvo naiveṣṭaḥ prārabdhaṃ tyajyatāmataḥ|| 56||
prārabdhakalpanā'pyasya dehasya bhrāṃti reṣa hi|| 57||
adhyastasya kutasya asatyasya kutojaniḥ|
ajātasya kuto nāśaḥ prārabdhamasataḥ kutaḥ|| 58||
jñānenājñānakāryasya samūlasya layo yadi|
tiṣṭhatyayaṃ kathaṃ deha iti śaṅkāvato jaḍān|| 59||
Translation (Meaning)
Questions in this Discourse
A friend has asked: what you are saying both makes sense and also doesn’t; what should we do?
His question is valuable. This is everyone’s experience. Because understanding has two planes. One: what I say reaches your intellectual understanding; your intellect finds it reasonable; it seems to your intellect that yes, this is how it must be.
That understanding is superficial. It does not descend into your prana, your life-energy. It is not an understanding of your whole being—it is not existential. So from above it feels as if you have understood. As long as you sit here and listen, it seems perfectly clear. Then you leave here and the understanding begins to fade. Because whatever has been understood cannot become part of your life-energy unless it is practiced. Until what has been understood is absorbed into your blood, flesh and marrow, it will peel off like paint applied on the surface.
Moreover, underneath the new understanding your old understandings lie piled up. As soon as you leave here, they begin to fight with the new. They will try to break it, to push it out. The old thoughts will obstruct the entry of the new; they will throw you into confusion; a thousand doubts and suspicions will be raised. And if you get lost in those doubts, that glimpse of understanding will be destroyed.
There is only one remedy: transform what has reached the intellect into the energy of your prana; create a harmony with it. Practice it; let it not remain a mere idea, let it become conduct deep within—not only conduct, let your inner being be shaped by it. Only then will what was on the surface start descending into depth, and a practiced truth can no longer be broken by your old ideas. They will not be able to remove it either. Rather, in the presence of the new, the old thoughts will slowly drop away and disappear.
So the question is right; it is fitting for a seeker. One understands, and yet we remain as we were. If we remain the same, what has been understood will not last long. Where will it lodge? In what space will it settle? If you stay old, the understanding will soon flake off, be forgotten, be lost.
This has happened to you many times; it is not the first time. Who knows how many times you have come close to truth and turned back. How many times it was only a matter of knocking at the door, and you stepped back—and a wall came into your hands. The mistake is right there: what we understand, we do not immediately transform into life.
In this connection, note this: if someone abuses you, you get angry at once; but if someone gives you an understanding, you do not meditate at once. To do something bad we act immediately; to do something good we start thinking it over. Both are deep tricks of the mind; because whatever is to be done, if it is done immediately, it happens. Whether it is anger or meditation makes no difference. We want to do the bad, therefore we do it instantly—we do not pause even for a moment; because if we paused, we might not be able to do it.
If someone insults you, tell him, ‘Come back in twenty-four hours and I will answer.’ Then no answer will be possible. Twenty-four hours is too long; even twenty-four moments spent silently in watchfulness, and perhaps the urge to be angry will be gone. Perhaps laughter will arise. Perhaps you will see the man’s foolishness—or perhaps you will see that he is right to abuse you. That is why the mind feels it must not lose time: as soon as the sting of the insult lands, you must boil over immediately; you can keep the regret for later.
Have you noticed that all angry people repent—after the anger? Had they paused a little, the remorse would have come before the anger, and then anger would not occur. One whose repentance comes after anger will never be free of anger; the one in whom it comes before can be free. For what has happened has happened; it cannot be undone.
But where is the space? The insult is hurled and here the anger flares—where is the gap in between to think a little, to reflect? To recall how many times you resolved not to be angry; to look back and see how many times you got angry and repented? There isn’t that much opportunity—no time, no space. There the abuse, and here the fire starts to blaze.
Create just a little space, and anger becomes difficult.
We do not create space in anger, but we do create space in meditation—that is why meditation also becomes difficult. When the blow of something auspicious, true and right falls upon us, we do not set about doing it that very moment; we wait. That interval in between creates the mess. You should strike while the iron is hot; instead you keep pondering, ‘Should I strike or not?’ By then the iron has cooled, and even if you strike, nothing happens.
A friend came today. He said, ‘I want to take sannyas. But I need a little more time; I must think.’ I asked him, ‘About how many other things in life have you really thought? Had you thought about other things, sannyas would already have happened—because the final result of genuine thinking is sannyas. Whoever truly thinks and inquires will find that the indulgences of this life become meaningless to him.’
So I asked him, ‘How much have you really pondered? What have you ever done after deep thought? Or will you think only about sannyas? How much time will you spend thinking? And you yourself will be the one thinking, won’t you? Do you imagine that by tomorrow you will be more intelligent? If you look back, your intelligence seems to have decreased rather than increased.’
Scientists say that for most people intelligence stops growing somewhere between fourteen and eighteen, and then it never increases. Even reaching eighteen is exceptional; generally it stops earlier.
During the last world war, when the U.S. tested recruits, the average mental age found was thirteen and a half. The figure established was that the average person’s intelligence stops at thirteen and a half; after that it neither grows nor develops.
You will say this doesn’t sound right, because you feel that you have become wiser with age. Even if you don’t truly feel it, you keep convincing your sons: ‘I am older, experienced, I have more wisdom.’
You do not have more intelligence; you may have more experience. Experience is a collection; intelligence is the use of that collection—that is different. A child has less collection, you have more. But how to use that collection—that is intelligence. Intelligence is not the collection itself.
So it is possible that a child has more intelligence than an old man; it is never possible that a child has more experience than the old. The child will certainly have less experience, but he may have more intelligence. The old have more experience, not necessarily more intelligence.
I said to that friend, ‘Whether you think tomorrow or the day after, will your intelligence increase? Right now, in the breeze of this idea, in the wave of meditation, in the joyous, liberating presence of so many sannyasins, a thought has arisen in you. As you descend from Mount Abu, as the bus goes down the mountain, you too will descend from this thought. It is hard for the idea to survive even till Mount Abu Road station. When you alight there, you will heave a long cool sigh: “Good, I am back as I was. Nothing lost, nothing risked, no trouble invited!” A month later you won’t even remember it.’
The atmosphere, the presence of many people, their collective effort lifts you to a height you are not used to. You are dancing in kirtan. Do you know if you could dance like this alone? You are not really dancing so much; so many are dancing that their dance becomes contagious, it touches you. Their waves begin to vibrate your heart. The movement of their feet gives your feet a chance to leap. And your habitual worry—‘What will people say?’—here, where everyone is dancing, one thing is certain: no one will say anything to the one who dances; they might say something to the one who stands still. So the movement comes; you feel free: good, here there is no obstacle, here one can dance.
But when you descend back into the marketplace crowd, that glimpse of height, that leap, those eyes turned toward the sky will lower to the ground again. So what hope is there that tomorrow or the day after you will decide? The decision is yours to make; it can be made today.
But the friend said, ‘It’s not that I haven’t tried to decide; ninety-nine percent of my mind is ready—only one percent remains.’
I asked him, ‘Have you ever done anything in life where ninety-nine percent of you was ready and one percent was not—and you stopped because of that? And do you realize what you are saying? If ninety-nine percent of your mind is ready for sannyas and one percent is not, you are deciding in favor of the one percent!’
Do not imagine that you can avoid deciding. There is no way to escape decision in this world. Even choosing not to choose is a decision. Deciding to postpone till tomorrow is also a decision. You have freedom to choose what decision to take; you have no freedom to not decide. There is no way out; a decision will have to be taken.
But there is a funny thing: we do not count the decision not to do as a decision. It is strange. He had not even noticed that ‘I will not take sannyas’ is also a decision. ‘I will take it’ is a decision too. And if both are decisions, what a peculiar mind it is that stands with the one percent and lacks the courage to go with the ninety-nine!
We are very skillful at deceiving ourselves. Intellectually sannyas is understood, and we get scared. We ask for a little time—not to think, but so that the impact will fade. The ninety-nine percent will shrink to one percent, and the one percent will become ninety-nine. And when it was ninety-nine and you did not decide for sannyas, will you do it when it becomes one?
So your understanding, since you do not transform it, do not turn it into a decision, can never go deep. Take this to heart. You will hear many times, understand many times, and remain the same. There is even a danger: hearing and understanding again and again and yet staying the same, you gradually become a smooth earthen pot; so many things slide off you that you become slippery. So many ideas fall on you, and you remain as you were; the ideas fall off and the pot stays put. The pot becomes slick. The more you hear and remain unchanged, the harder it becomes—because then nothing will sink in; it will just slide off. The pot has become perfectly smooth; channels for slipping have been formed.
Better then not to hear good things at all. If you do hear, have the courage to decide to change yourself. Then you will find that what you had understood is no longer superficial—it has become the tone of your life-energy. And unless understanding permeates your every breath, it has no value. Its only value then is that you have learned to talk nicely. We all know this, and our country is so skilled at speaking well! Spirituality sits on our tongues—only on the tongue, not within. Ask anyone—Brahma-knowledge, everyone knows it! Everyone knows! The whole mental makeup of our country has become that of a slick pot. For thousands of years we have used the tirthankaras, avatars, rishis for only one thing: by hearing and hearing we have become smooth pots.
Someone once said to me in a village, ‘India is a great land of merit; all the avatars were born here, all the tirthankaras, all the buddhas!’
I said, ‘Think again. Is it a land of merit—or are the sinners here so extraordinary that despite so many, they sit unchanged? All the avatars came and could not scratch a line on our smooth pots! All the tirthankaras came and we said, “Come and go! We are not the sort to be taken in by words!”’
What does it mean? If all the doctors of the village keep coming to one house, it means that house is the sickest. All the avatars had to be born here! And Krishna says in the Gita: when righteousness declines, when sin increases, when the wicked multiply, then I come. And all the avatars came here—so what does that mean? Is it a land of merit?
If Krishna’s statement is right, then the land where he did not need to go might be the meritorious one. But if everyone had to come here, it is obvious that the soul of this country has become completely slick.
We have heard so many good things, and by hearing and hearing we have become so entranced that we have never cared to do.
Your understanding will not become deep or complete until it enters your innermost being. And it enters only when you take a decision. Decision is the door. Even the smallest decisions are revolutionary. What the decision is about is not so important; that you decide is. In the very act of deciding your life-energy gathers, becomes one. The moment you decide, you become a different person—even if the decision is utterly small.
I tell you: do not cough for ten minutes. It sounds inhuman; you feel a cough coming and I won’t allow you to cough! It feels wicked. You are sitting in the assembly and I say to you, ‘Do not cough; keep the cough completely stopped.’
But you do not realize that even such a small decision becomes a birth of the soul within: ‘For ten minutes I will not cough.’ And if you succeed, a wave of joy spreads through every fibre; you come to know, ‘If I take a decision, I can fulfill it.’
Coughs and sneezes are tricky things. If you try to stop them they come more strongly. If you forbid them, all attention centers there. Even the cough rebels: ‘This has never happened! What new method are you learning? What is this? It was never our relationship that I would come and you would stop me! Even if I did not come, if someone else coughed you would cough! Even if you had none, you would catch another’s! What has happened?’
But if even for ten minutes you refrain from coughing, the relationship between you and the body begins to change through this tiny thing.
Or I say to you: stop. Gurdjieff used this extensively in meditation; he even named it Stop Meditation. If you agree, we will do this experiment in time. When I say ‘stop,’ even now I am not pressing you hard. Gurdjieff too would say ‘Stop!’ and stopping meant—as you are. One foot up and one down, you were dancing—freeze right there. If the neck is tilted, let it be tilted; if the body is bent, let it stay bent. Do not make the slightest adjustment; remain exactly as you are. Even if the body collapses with a thud, it is none of your concern; if it falls, let it fall. And however it falls, let it remain; you are not to arrange from within, ‘The foot is a bit crooked, let me straighten it and lie down’—no.
Gurdjieff called this Stop Meditation, and through it he led thousands to deep experiences. It is a precious experiment—stopping at once. And in this, there is no question of deceiving another; you can only deceive yourself. One foot slightly raised, if you slowly put it down—who is watching? Yet you have missed a moment. No one is watching and no one cares; it is your foot, put it anywhere. But you have lost an inner opportunity where the relation between soul and body could change—where the soul could win and declare, ‘I am the master.’ If you gently set the foot down and stand comfortably and say, ‘Now look, I am doing the stop experiment,’ you are not deceiving anyone else—your body has deceived you.
Small decisions, very small ones, have great consequences. It is not about the smallness, it is about decision—decisiveness, a decisive intelligence. Then your understanding will slowly go deep.
So do not merely listen to what I am saying; experiment with it a little. The Upanishads are highly practical lessons; they have nothing to do with abstract theory. They belong to the alchemy that changes and transforms you. They are direct sutras by which a new human being can be created.
But the difficulty is this: no one else can take up chisel and hammer to sculpt you. You are the sculptor, you are the stone, you are the chisel and the hammer—the three tasks are yours. Your own stone must be cut and shaped by the chisel-hammer of your own decisions, by the power of your own resolve. Your image must be created according to your own understanding. A postponement of even a moment becomes a postponement forever. The one who says ‘I will do it tomorrow’ never does. It would be better if he said ‘I will never do it’—that too would be a decision.
So when that friend came I told him, ‘At least decide this much: that you will never take sannyas—never; even that will help. But you say, “I will think about whether to take it or not”—this indecisiveness... If you fix it that you will not take it, at least some decision is made. If you fix it that you will, again a decision is made. “I will not take it”—this is an inner position, but you do not even allow that to be clear. You say, “No, I will take it, just give me a little time.” In this way you deceive yourself.’
Sannyas is a decision, a resolve. It is consequential. People ask me, ‘What will happen by wearing the ochre robes?’ I say, ‘Nothing at all! Then wear them for three months.’ They say, ‘People will laugh.’
Then at least that much will happen. And if you can calmly endure people’s laughter for three months, much will happen. To drop worrying about people’s laughter is the beginning of many things.
People say to me, ‘What will outer change do? Tell us about inner change.’
I tell them, ‘You do not even have the courage for an outward change, and you talk of inner change! If changing clothes makes your life-energy flee, what will happen if I start changing your skin? And you speak of the inner?’
But we are adept at deception—especially at deceiving ourselves. And one who is deceiving himself can never be religious. Remember, one who deceives others might still be religious; one who deceives himself cannot be—because then no path is left.
That understanding is superficial. It does not descend into your prana, your life-energy. It is not an understanding of your whole being—it is not existential. So from above it feels as if you have understood. As long as you sit here and listen, it seems perfectly clear. Then you leave here and the understanding begins to fade. Because whatever has been understood cannot become part of your life-energy unless it is practiced. Until what has been understood is absorbed into your blood, flesh and marrow, it will peel off like paint applied on the surface.
Moreover, underneath the new understanding your old understandings lie piled up. As soon as you leave here, they begin to fight with the new. They will try to break it, to push it out. The old thoughts will obstruct the entry of the new; they will throw you into confusion; a thousand doubts and suspicions will be raised. And if you get lost in those doubts, that glimpse of understanding will be destroyed.
There is only one remedy: transform what has reached the intellect into the energy of your prana; create a harmony with it. Practice it; let it not remain a mere idea, let it become conduct deep within—not only conduct, let your inner being be shaped by it. Only then will what was on the surface start descending into depth, and a practiced truth can no longer be broken by your old ideas. They will not be able to remove it either. Rather, in the presence of the new, the old thoughts will slowly drop away and disappear.
So the question is right; it is fitting for a seeker. One understands, and yet we remain as we were. If we remain the same, what has been understood will not last long. Where will it lodge? In what space will it settle? If you stay old, the understanding will soon flake off, be forgotten, be lost.
This has happened to you many times; it is not the first time. Who knows how many times you have come close to truth and turned back. How many times it was only a matter of knocking at the door, and you stepped back—and a wall came into your hands. The mistake is right there: what we understand, we do not immediately transform into life.
In this connection, note this: if someone abuses you, you get angry at once; but if someone gives you an understanding, you do not meditate at once. To do something bad we act immediately; to do something good we start thinking it over. Both are deep tricks of the mind; because whatever is to be done, if it is done immediately, it happens. Whether it is anger or meditation makes no difference. We want to do the bad, therefore we do it instantly—we do not pause even for a moment; because if we paused, we might not be able to do it.
If someone insults you, tell him, ‘Come back in twenty-four hours and I will answer.’ Then no answer will be possible. Twenty-four hours is too long; even twenty-four moments spent silently in watchfulness, and perhaps the urge to be angry will be gone. Perhaps laughter will arise. Perhaps you will see the man’s foolishness—or perhaps you will see that he is right to abuse you. That is why the mind feels it must not lose time: as soon as the sting of the insult lands, you must boil over immediately; you can keep the regret for later.
Have you noticed that all angry people repent—after the anger? Had they paused a little, the remorse would have come before the anger, and then anger would not occur. One whose repentance comes after anger will never be free of anger; the one in whom it comes before can be free. For what has happened has happened; it cannot be undone.
But where is the space? The insult is hurled and here the anger flares—where is the gap in between to think a little, to reflect? To recall how many times you resolved not to be angry; to look back and see how many times you got angry and repented? There isn’t that much opportunity—no time, no space. There the abuse, and here the fire starts to blaze.
Create just a little space, and anger becomes difficult.
We do not create space in anger, but we do create space in meditation—that is why meditation also becomes difficult. When the blow of something auspicious, true and right falls upon us, we do not set about doing it that very moment; we wait. That interval in between creates the mess. You should strike while the iron is hot; instead you keep pondering, ‘Should I strike or not?’ By then the iron has cooled, and even if you strike, nothing happens.
A friend came today. He said, ‘I want to take sannyas. But I need a little more time; I must think.’ I asked him, ‘About how many other things in life have you really thought? Had you thought about other things, sannyas would already have happened—because the final result of genuine thinking is sannyas. Whoever truly thinks and inquires will find that the indulgences of this life become meaningless to him.’
So I asked him, ‘How much have you really pondered? What have you ever done after deep thought? Or will you think only about sannyas? How much time will you spend thinking? And you yourself will be the one thinking, won’t you? Do you imagine that by tomorrow you will be more intelligent? If you look back, your intelligence seems to have decreased rather than increased.’
Scientists say that for most people intelligence stops growing somewhere between fourteen and eighteen, and then it never increases. Even reaching eighteen is exceptional; generally it stops earlier.
During the last world war, when the U.S. tested recruits, the average mental age found was thirteen and a half. The figure established was that the average person’s intelligence stops at thirteen and a half; after that it neither grows nor develops.
You will say this doesn’t sound right, because you feel that you have become wiser with age. Even if you don’t truly feel it, you keep convincing your sons: ‘I am older, experienced, I have more wisdom.’
You do not have more intelligence; you may have more experience. Experience is a collection; intelligence is the use of that collection—that is different. A child has less collection, you have more. But how to use that collection—that is intelligence. Intelligence is not the collection itself.
So it is possible that a child has more intelligence than an old man; it is never possible that a child has more experience than the old. The child will certainly have less experience, but he may have more intelligence. The old have more experience, not necessarily more intelligence.
I said to that friend, ‘Whether you think tomorrow or the day after, will your intelligence increase? Right now, in the breeze of this idea, in the wave of meditation, in the joyous, liberating presence of so many sannyasins, a thought has arisen in you. As you descend from Mount Abu, as the bus goes down the mountain, you too will descend from this thought. It is hard for the idea to survive even till Mount Abu Road station. When you alight there, you will heave a long cool sigh: “Good, I am back as I was. Nothing lost, nothing risked, no trouble invited!” A month later you won’t even remember it.’
The atmosphere, the presence of many people, their collective effort lifts you to a height you are not used to. You are dancing in kirtan. Do you know if you could dance like this alone? You are not really dancing so much; so many are dancing that their dance becomes contagious, it touches you. Their waves begin to vibrate your heart. The movement of their feet gives your feet a chance to leap. And your habitual worry—‘What will people say?’—here, where everyone is dancing, one thing is certain: no one will say anything to the one who dances; they might say something to the one who stands still. So the movement comes; you feel free: good, here there is no obstacle, here one can dance.
But when you descend back into the marketplace crowd, that glimpse of height, that leap, those eyes turned toward the sky will lower to the ground again. So what hope is there that tomorrow or the day after you will decide? The decision is yours to make; it can be made today.
But the friend said, ‘It’s not that I haven’t tried to decide; ninety-nine percent of my mind is ready—only one percent remains.’
I asked him, ‘Have you ever done anything in life where ninety-nine percent of you was ready and one percent was not—and you stopped because of that? And do you realize what you are saying? If ninety-nine percent of your mind is ready for sannyas and one percent is not, you are deciding in favor of the one percent!’
Do not imagine that you can avoid deciding. There is no way to escape decision in this world. Even choosing not to choose is a decision. Deciding to postpone till tomorrow is also a decision. You have freedom to choose what decision to take; you have no freedom to not decide. There is no way out; a decision will have to be taken.
But there is a funny thing: we do not count the decision not to do as a decision. It is strange. He had not even noticed that ‘I will not take sannyas’ is also a decision. ‘I will take it’ is a decision too. And if both are decisions, what a peculiar mind it is that stands with the one percent and lacks the courage to go with the ninety-nine!
We are very skillful at deceiving ourselves. Intellectually sannyas is understood, and we get scared. We ask for a little time—not to think, but so that the impact will fade. The ninety-nine percent will shrink to one percent, and the one percent will become ninety-nine. And when it was ninety-nine and you did not decide for sannyas, will you do it when it becomes one?
So your understanding, since you do not transform it, do not turn it into a decision, can never go deep. Take this to heart. You will hear many times, understand many times, and remain the same. There is even a danger: hearing and understanding again and again and yet staying the same, you gradually become a smooth earthen pot; so many things slide off you that you become slippery. So many ideas fall on you, and you remain as you were; the ideas fall off and the pot stays put. The pot becomes slick. The more you hear and remain unchanged, the harder it becomes—because then nothing will sink in; it will just slide off. The pot has become perfectly smooth; channels for slipping have been formed.
Better then not to hear good things at all. If you do hear, have the courage to decide to change yourself. Then you will find that what you had understood is no longer superficial—it has become the tone of your life-energy. And unless understanding permeates your every breath, it has no value. Its only value then is that you have learned to talk nicely. We all know this, and our country is so skilled at speaking well! Spirituality sits on our tongues—only on the tongue, not within. Ask anyone—Brahma-knowledge, everyone knows it! Everyone knows! The whole mental makeup of our country has become that of a slick pot. For thousands of years we have used the tirthankaras, avatars, rishis for only one thing: by hearing and hearing we have become smooth pots.
Someone once said to me in a village, ‘India is a great land of merit; all the avatars were born here, all the tirthankaras, all the buddhas!’
I said, ‘Think again. Is it a land of merit—or are the sinners here so extraordinary that despite so many, they sit unchanged? All the avatars came and could not scratch a line on our smooth pots! All the tirthankaras came and we said, “Come and go! We are not the sort to be taken in by words!”’
What does it mean? If all the doctors of the village keep coming to one house, it means that house is the sickest. All the avatars had to be born here! And Krishna says in the Gita: when righteousness declines, when sin increases, when the wicked multiply, then I come. And all the avatars came here—so what does that mean? Is it a land of merit?
If Krishna’s statement is right, then the land where he did not need to go might be the meritorious one. But if everyone had to come here, it is obvious that the soul of this country has become completely slick.
We have heard so many good things, and by hearing and hearing we have become so entranced that we have never cared to do.
Your understanding will not become deep or complete until it enters your innermost being. And it enters only when you take a decision. Decision is the door. Even the smallest decisions are revolutionary. What the decision is about is not so important; that you decide is. In the very act of deciding your life-energy gathers, becomes one. The moment you decide, you become a different person—even if the decision is utterly small.
I tell you: do not cough for ten minutes. It sounds inhuman; you feel a cough coming and I won’t allow you to cough! It feels wicked. You are sitting in the assembly and I say to you, ‘Do not cough; keep the cough completely stopped.’
But you do not realize that even such a small decision becomes a birth of the soul within: ‘For ten minutes I will not cough.’ And if you succeed, a wave of joy spreads through every fibre; you come to know, ‘If I take a decision, I can fulfill it.’
Coughs and sneezes are tricky things. If you try to stop them they come more strongly. If you forbid them, all attention centers there. Even the cough rebels: ‘This has never happened! What new method are you learning? What is this? It was never our relationship that I would come and you would stop me! Even if I did not come, if someone else coughed you would cough! Even if you had none, you would catch another’s! What has happened?’
But if even for ten minutes you refrain from coughing, the relationship between you and the body begins to change through this tiny thing.
Or I say to you: stop. Gurdjieff used this extensively in meditation; he even named it Stop Meditation. If you agree, we will do this experiment in time. When I say ‘stop,’ even now I am not pressing you hard. Gurdjieff too would say ‘Stop!’ and stopping meant—as you are. One foot up and one down, you were dancing—freeze right there. If the neck is tilted, let it be tilted; if the body is bent, let it stay bent. Do not make the slightest adjustment; remain exactly as you are. Even if the body collapses with a thud, it is none of your concern; if it falls, let it fall. And however it falls, let it remain; you are not to arrange from within, ‘The foot is a bit crooked, let me straighten it and lie down’—no.
Gurdjieff called this Stop Meditation, and through it he led thousands to deep experiences. It is a precious experiment—stopping at once. And in this, there is no question of deceiving another; you can only deceive yourself. One foot slightly raised, if you slowly put it down—who is watching? Yet you have missed a moment. No one is watching and no one cares; it is your foot, put it anywhere. But you have lost an inner opportunity where the relation between soul and body could change—where the soul could win and declare, ‘I am the master.’ If you gently set the foot down and stand comfortably and say, ‘Now look, I am doing the stop experiment,’ you are not deceiving anyone else—your body has deceived you.
Small decisions, very small ones, have great consequences. It is not about the smallness, it is about decision—decisiveness, a decisive intelligence. Then your understanding will slowly go deep.
So do not merely listen to what I am saying; experiment with it a little. The Upanishads are highly practical lessons; they have nothing to do with abstract theory. They belong to the alchemy that changes and transforms you. They are direct sutras by which a new human being can be created.
But the difficulty is this: no one else can take up chisel and hammer to sculpt you. You are the sculptor, you are the stone, you are the chisel and the hammer—the three tasks are yours. Your own stone must be cut and shaped by the chisel-hammer of your own decisions, by the power of your own resolve. Your image must be created according to your own understanding. A postponement of even a moment becomes a postponement forever. The one who says ‘I will do it tomorrow’ never does. It would be better if he said ‘I will never do it’—that too would be a decision.
So when that friend came I told him, ‘At least decide this much: that you will never take sannyas—never; even that will help. But you say, “I will think about whether to take it or not”—this indecisiveness... If you fix it that you will not take it, at least some decision is made. If you fix it that you will, again a decision is made. “I will not take it”—this is an inner position, but you do not even allow that to be clear. You say, “No, I will take it, just give me a little time.” In this way you deceive yourself.’
Sannyas is a decision, a resolve. It is consequential. People ask me, ‘What will happen by wearing the ochre robes?’ I say, ‘Nothing at all! Then wear them for three months.’ They say, ‘People will laugh.’
Then at least that much will happen. And if you can calmly endure people’s laughter for three months, much will happen. To drop worrying about people’s laughter is the beginning of many things.
People say to me, ‘What will outer change do? Tell us about inner change.’
I tell them, ‘You do not even have the courage for an outward change, and you talk of inner change! If changing clothes makes your life-energy flee, what will happen if I start changing your skin? And you speak of the inner?’
But we are adept at deception—especially at deceiving ourselves. And one who is deceiving himself can never be religious. Remember, one who deceives others might still be religious; one who deceives himself cannot be—because then no path is left.
Another friend has asked:
Osho, good actions do not erase bad actions; they only cover them. Therefore one must inevitably reap the fruits of all actions, good and bad. Do bad and good actions bear fruit in sequence or without any order? If bad actions cannot be exhausted by good ones, then there seems no justification for doing good. Is this principle useful for society?
Osho, good actions do not erase bad actions; they only cover them. Therefore one must inevitably reap the fruits of all actions, good and bad. Do bad and good actions bear fruit in sequence or without any order? If bad actions cannot be exhausted by good ones, then there seems no justification for doing good. Is this principle useful for society?
Just consider it a little. If bad actions cannot be exhausted by good ones, that friend must be worrying, “Then why would anyone do good at all? And then society will be in great danger!” The truth is exactly the opposite. If you know that bad can be cancelled by good, you will merrily do the bad, because you can always do some good later and wipe it out. If medicine is in your pocket, why fear disease? “I’ll bathe in the Ganges and all karma will be washed away! I’ll take a blessing from some sadhu-saint and all will be cleansed! If I steal, I’ll donate—out of the same money! Where else is the money anyway?” The bigger the thief, the bigger the donor: he’ll steal a hundred thousand and give away ten thousand! Then there is no fear in stealing, because charity will cancel the theft. Kill someone—then give birth to a child! One life taken, one life given!
The world is as bad as it is precisely because you are convinced that even the bad gets cancelled. When I tell you that there is no way to erase the bad—that even good actions will not cancel bad ones—you will have to think again before doing the bad: “What cannot be cancelled and must inevitably be suffered—there is no remedy; no good act will help, nor charity, nor the Ganges, nor pilgrimage, nor guru, nor God; no blessing will help. What I have done, I myself must undergo.”
So while doing it, think carefully; because this is final—there is no way out. It is not that you will weep before God, “We are fallen and you are the redeemer of the fallen, do something! Nothing will happen to us; only your reputation will suffer—that you are savior of the fallen. And we sinned precisely to keep your title alive! If we don’t sin, how will you remain the redeemer of sinners? Now show us your redeeming form!”
The day before yesterday, a woman somehow reached me through a crowd. She suddenly said, “Give me your blessing.” I said, “All right.” The next day she returned and asked, “Will the blessing bear fruit? Because the blessings of true saints do bear fruit! You had blessed me.” I said, “This looks tricky—you’ll haul me into court! At least let me know the case—what is it you want my blessing to produce?” She said, “But you should know that a true saint’s blessing always bears fruit.” I said, “There is one way out—at least I won’t have to go to court. If it doesn’t bear fruit, take it that I was neither true nor a saint—the matter ends there. You’ve made it convenient for me: if it fails—I needn’t even ask what you wanted—just assume I wasn’t good and I wasn’t a saint; finished.”
We call this a religious mind! That woman believes herself religious.
This universe has laws; there is an inner discipline. The Vedas called it rita; Lao Tzu called it tao. It admits no exceptions. The actions you do, you must experience—if this insight goes deep, you will have to change the current of your actions. And that is the truth. If this truth becomes clear, it will be useful for society.
You’ve been preaching to people for ages, yet society does not seem to change; on the contrary, sin increases. Because we carry a convenience in mind: that there is an exit somewhere. If I commit a sin, I think in that building there is not only an entrance but also an exit; I can get out. Then entering is not so frightening.
What I told you means: there is no exit; you must go through it. Only by living it can you come out. There is no way to cut it off; living it is the cutting. There is only one nirjara—shedding—by undergoing it; then it will be finished. There is no other nirjara.
And the second thing he asked: then what justification remains for doing good?
His question itself reveals that in his view the justification of good is only to cancel the bad. He asks, if you say so, then good has no justification left. Meaning: good had only one justification—to cancel bad. If bad cannot be cancelled, the justification is finished. His question itself makes clear what I’m saying: his mind also assumes that the sole justification of good—of charity—is to wipe out theft.
Then theft becomes primary and charity secondary. And if there were no theft in the world, charity would be impossible. That is why one so‑called “thoughtful” person, Karpatri, wrote in a book that if socialism comes, religion will decline greatly; because there will be no poor left—whom will we give charity to? Therefore the poor must remain so that we can donate. And without charity there is no liberation!
Do you see what that means? It means hell must remain; there must be hungry people on the street. If there is no hungry person, to whom will you offer bread? And if no one accepts your alms, you are stuck—how will you attain liberation?
So is your good deed’s justification dependent on bad deeds—on erasing them? Then it means the good man is exploiting the bad man; good actions are feeding on the chest—on the blood—of bad actions.
The justification of good is not to erase the bad. The justification of the bad lies in its own suffering; the justification of the good lies in its own happiness. Good brings happiness—that is its justification. Whoever wants happiness does good. And whoever thinks he will attain happiness by doing bad is being foolish. He goes against the law and will reap suffering.
The justification of good lies in its fruit; the justification—or dis‑justification—of bad lies in its fruit. How can the justification of good lie inside the bad? They have no relation. Good yields its fruit—happiness; bad yields its fruit—suffering. If we can explain this properly, if it sinks deep into the mind that whoever wants happiness should travel the path of good, society will benefit. Whoever wants suffering should travel the path of bad. And whoever travels the path of the bad will have to suffer its fruit. If later he says, “I’ll do a little good to whitewash the bad,” it won’t happen.
Understand it like this: I abused you; I hurt you, caused you pain. That pain has already happened. Then I apologized and gave you some joy. Do you think that by apologizing I erased the pain that had occurred? It had happened. The hurt had happened; the wound had been inflicted. Now the balm I applied afterward does not erase the pain; it only dresses the wound.
I abused you—I did a bad act—and by abusing I too suffered. I apologized—I did a good act—and by doing good I too felt joy. Bad leads to suffering; good leads to happiness. The more good, the more happiness; the more bad, the more suffering. Whoever wants to live in happiness should gradually stop doing the bad and go on doing the good.
But religion has nothing to do even with happiness. Because to avoid suffering is everyone’s natural desire; as long as you are filled with the desire to avoid suffering, you are ordinary, not religious. For now your desire is for happiness. This is the justification for good: to say to you, “Do good; if you want happiness, you’ll get it. If you don’t want suffering, don’t do bad; it will bring suffering.” If the inevitability of bad leading to suffering became as obvious as the fact that putting your hand into fire burns, people’s hands would stop going into fire. If the link between good and happiness became as clear as “a flower in the hand brings fragrance,” people would step into the good.
But religion has nothing to do with this. This is ethics; it is the level of social morality. Yet the one who experiences happiness gradually discovers something new: that suffering is futile—yes—but happiness too is futile. Suffering gives pain, of course; but when happiness comes fully, it also begins to give pain—not joy. It brings weariness, boredom. The sorrow inherent in pleasure is boredom.
Have you ever seen an animal bored? A donkey standing there looking bored? A buffalo standing there bored? No. Except man, no creature on earth gets bored; only man. Why? Because animals are continuously occupied in arranging their basic comforts; they never accumulate so much happiness that they get bored. Boredom comes only with much happiness.
Hence you don’t see the poor as bored; the rich look bored. Look at a rich man’s face—bored, as if nothing has any juice; he drags himself along without meaning. A poor man’s feet have movement—even if they have no strength. Blood may be low, strength little, but there is movement. There is a goal to reach, and hope. There is a glimmer of hope in his eyes: “Tomorrow we’ll have a house; the next day a shop will open; my son will be educated.” The future looks like heaven. Those whose sons have returned educated know what it means when the son actually returns—what sorrow he brings! Those whose mansions are complete now realize those mansions have become prisons. When happiness is attained fully, for the first time one sees: “Even this wearies me.” The mind gets bored even with happiness.
That is why Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, and Rama were born in royal homes. No tirthankara or avatar is born in a poor man’s home—because he cannot get bored with happiness. All 24 Jaina tirthankaras were sons of kings; Buddha, Rama, Krishna—all princes. There is a reason: only in a king’s house do you see that all things are empty. They must be in your hands; otherwise how will you know they are empty?
If Buddha discovered that in the body of a woman there is nothing of substance, it was because his father had gathered all the beautiful girls of the kingdom into Buddha’s harem. Then it became clear: nothing substantial. The insubstantial is known only when you possess the thing.
Today America is the most bored. Its youth is running all over the world to escape boredom somehow—anyhow: whether hashish, opium, marijuana—whatever. Some trick to wipe away this boredom.
When boredom arises out of happiness and your being is filled with the urge to go beyond happiness, then religion is born. So there are two justifications for good: first, for those who, without being religious, still desire happiness—as all do, whether atheists, irreligious, Hindu, Muslim, anyone—the justification is that good brings happiness; that is its result. Second: when happiness is attained, the futility of happiness becomes visible. And when happiness is seen as futile, man sets out on the journey of religion.
The journey of religion means: how to be free even from happiness? The worldly journey is: how to be free from suffering? And liberation is: how to be free from happiness too.
The world is as bad as it is precisely because you are convinced that even the bad gets cancelled. When I tell you that there is no way to erase the bad—that even good actions will not cancel bad ones—you will have to think again before doing the bad: “What cannot be cancelled and must inevitably be suffered—there is no remedy; no good act will help, nor charity, nor the Ganges, nor pilgrimage, nor guru, nor God; no blessing will help. What I have done, I myself must undergo.”
So while doing it, think carefully; because this is final—there is no way out. It is not that you will weep before God, “We are fallen and you are the redeemer of the fallen, do something! Nothing will happen to us; only your reputation will suffer—that you are savior of the fallen. And we sinned precisely to keep your title alive! If we don’t sin, how will you remain the redeemer of sinners? Now show us your redeeming form!”
The day before yesterday, a woman somehow reached me through a crowd. She suddenly said, “Give me your blessing.” I said, “All right.” The next day she returned and asked, “Will the blessing bear fruit? Because the blessings of true saints do bear fruit! You had blessed me.” I said, “This looks tricky—you’ll haul me into court! At least let me know the case—what is it you want my blessing to produce?” She said, “But you should know that a true saint’s blessing always bears fruit.” I said, “There is one way out—at least I won’t have to go to court. If it doesn’t bear fruit, take it that I was neither true nor a saint—the matter ends there. You’ve made it convenient for me: if it fails—I needn’t even ask what you wanted—just assume I wasn’t good and I wasn’t a saint; finished.”
We call this a religious mind! That woman believes herself religious.
This universe has laws; there is an inner discipline. The Vedas called it rita; Lao Tzu called it tao. It admits no exceptions. The actions you do, you must experience—if this insight goes deep, you will have to change the current of your actions. And that is the truth. If this truth becomes clear, it will be useful for society.
You’ve been preaching to people for ages, yet society does not seem to change; on the contrary, sin increases. Because we carry a convenience in mind: that there is an exit somewhere. If I commit a sin, I think in that building there is not only an entrance but also an exit; I can get out. Then entering is not so frightening.
What I told you means: there is no exit; you must go through it. Only by living it can you come out. There is no way to cut it off; living it is the cutting. There is only one nirjara—shedding—by undergoing it; then it will be finished. There is no other nirjara.
And the second thing he asked: then what justification remains for doing good?
His question itself reveals that in his view the justification of good is only to cancel the bad. He asks, if you say so, then good has no justification left. Meaning: good had only one justification—to cancel bad. If bad cannot be cancelled, the justification is finished. His question itself makes clear what I’m saying: his mind also assumes that the sole justification of good—of charity—is to wipe out theft.
Then theft becomes primary and charity secondary. And if there were no theft in the world, charity would be impossible. That is why one so‑called “thoughtful” person, Karpatri, wrote in a book that if socialism comes, religion will decline greatly; because there will be no poor left—whom will we give charity to? Therefore the poor must remain so that we can donate. And without charity there is no liberation!
Do you see what that means? It means hell must remain; there must be hungry people on the street. If there is no hungry person, to whom will you offer bread? And if no one accepts your alms, you are stuck—how will you attain liberation?
So is your good deed’s justification dependent on bad deeds—on erasing them? Then it means the good man is exploiting the bad man; good actions are feeding on the chest—on the blood—of bad actions.
The justification of good is not to erase the bad. The justification of the bad lies in its own suffering; the justification of the good lies in its own happiness. Good brings happiness—that is its justification. Whoever wants happiness does good. And whoever thinks he will attain happiness by doing bad is being foolish. He goes against the law and will reap suffering.
The justification of good lies in its fruit; the justification—or dis‑justification—of bad lies in its fruit. How can the justification of good lie inside the bad? They have no relation. Good yields its fruit—happiness; bad yields its fruit—suffering. If we can explain this properly, if it sinks deep into the mind that whoever wants happiness should travel the path of good, society will benefit. Whoever wants suffering should travel the path of bad. And whoever travels the path of the bad will have to suffer its fruit. If later he says, “I’ll do a little good to whitewash the bad,” it won’t happen.
Understand it like this: I abused you; I hurt you, caused you pain. That pain has already happened. Then I apologized and gave you some joy. Do you think that by apologizing I erased the pain that had occurred? It had happened. The hurt had happened; the wound had been inflicted. Now the balm I applied afterward does not erase the pain; it only dresses the wound.
I abused you—I did a bad act—and by abusing I too suffered. I apologized—I did a good act—and by doing good I too felt joy. Bad leads to suffering; good leads to happiness. The more good, the more happiness; the more bad, the more suffering. Whoever wants to live in happiness should gradually stop doing the bad and go on doing the good.
But religion has nothing to do even with happiness. Because to avoid suffering is everyone’s natural desire; as long as you are filled with the desire to avoid suffering, you are ordinary, not religious. For now your desire is for happiness. This is the justification for good: to say to you, “Do good; if you want happiness, you’ll get it. If you don’t want suffering, don’t do bad; it will bring suffering.” If the inevitability of bad leading to suffering became as obvious as the fact that putting your hand into fire burns, people’s hands would stop going into fire. If the link between good and happiness became as clear as “a flower in the hand brings fragrance,” people would step into the good.
But religion has nothing to do with this. This is ethics; it is the level of social morality. Yet the one who experiences happiness gradually discovers something new: that suffering is futile—yes—but happiness too is futile. Suffering gives pain, of course; but when happiness comes fully, it also begins to give pain—not joy. It brings weariness, boredom. The sorrow inherent in pleasure is boredom.
Have you ever seen an animal bored? A donkey standing there looking bored? A buffalo standing there bored? No. Except man, no creature on earth gets bored; only man. Why? Because animals are continuously occupied in arranging their basic comforts; they never accumulate so much happiness that they get bored. Boredom comes only with much happiness.
Hence you don’t see the poor as bored; the rich look bored. Look at a rich man’s face—bored, as if nothing has any juice; he drags himself along without meaning. A poor man’s feet have movement—even if they have no strength. Blood may be low, strength little, but there is movement. There is a goal to reach, and hope. There is a glimmer of hope in his eyes: “Tomorrow we’ll have a house; the next day a shop will open; my son will be educated.” The future looks like heaven. Those whose sons have returned educated know what it means when the son actually returns—what sorrow he brings! Those whose mansions are complete now realize those mansions have become prisons. When happiness is attained fully, for the first time one sees: “Even this wearies me.” The mind gets bored even with happiness.
That is why Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, and Rama were born in royal homes. No tirthankara or avatar is born in a poor man’s home—because he cannot get bored with happiness. All 24 Jaina tirthankaras were sons of kings; Buddha, Rama, Krishna—all princes. There is a reason: only in a king’s house do you see that all things are empty. They must be in your hands; otherwise how will you know they are empty?
If Buddha discovered that in the body of a woman there is nothing of substance, it was because his father had gathered all the beautiful girls of the kingdom into Buddha’s harem. Then it became clear: nothing substantial. The insubstantial is known only when you possess the thing.
Today America is the most bored. Its youth is running all over the world to escape boredom somehow—anyhow: whether hashish, opium, marijuana—whatever. Some trick to wipe away this boredom.
When boredom arises out of happiness and your being is filled with the urge to go beyond happiness, then religion is born. So there are two justifications for good: first, for those who, without being religious, still desire happiness—as all do, whether atheists, irreligious, Hindu, Muslim, anyone—the justification is that good brings happiness; that is its result. Second: when happiness is attained, the futility of happiness becomes visible. And when happiness is seen as futile, man sets out on the journey of religion.
The journey of religion means: how to be free even from happiness? The worldly journey is: how to be free from suffering? And liberation is: how to be free from happiness too.
Osho's Commentary
Karma catches us only when we believe this body is mine. This means karma catches the body—it never catches us. But when we grab the body, naturally we fall into the grip of karma. Karma catches the body from the outside; we clutch the body from within. Then, through the medium of the body, our connection with karma is forged.
Karma never seizes the soul; it always seizes the body. If one cuts anything with a knife, wherever there is substance, it can be cut. But if you try to cut the sky with a knife, it cannot be cut. The blade will whirl, and the sky will remain uncut.
The impact of karma, its blade, can cut matter. The body is matter; the mind is matter too. Matter collides with matter. But the consciousness within is like empty sky—no karma cuts it, touches it. One thing can happen: that inner consciousness may assume, “This body is mine.” Consciousness has the freedom to assume so. The moment it assumes, “The body is mine,” the pains that belong to the body begin to be felt within.
Understand it like this. I have heard: a house caught fire. The owner was beating his chest and wailing. Just then a neighbor came and said, “Why are you crying? You’re crying for nothing—the house is insured. Only yesterday your son was arranging it at the insurance office! Where is your boy?” The boy had gone out. The father said, “Really? It’s insured? Then no need to cry.” Tears vanished! The house is still burning, the same house—but now it’s insured. So the ‘mine’ shifted from the house to the money that will come from insurance. The attachment to the house dropped. Just then the son came running, “What are you doing—standing here laughing? I went, but it didn’t get done.” Tears flowed again; the man beat his chest: “We’re ruined!”
The house is the same. What happened in between? ‘Mine’ detached from the house; then ‘mine’ reattached to the house.
Our sense of “my body” is the cause of our joy and sorrow—of all our karma. If the ‘mine’ drops, then the processes occurring to the body have no relation to oneself.
The sutra says: to keep the sense “I am the body” is to aid and abet the entire process of karma—to cooperate with it. If the ‘mine’ drops, if it is known who I am—not the body—then, just as that man realized “that house is not mine; let it burn,” so Buddha and Mahavira saw that this house is not mine—let it burn. They stepped back. They discovered the one who lives in this house; who is in the house, yet is not the house. The falling away of identification with the body is the renunciation of all prarabdha karma. Then karma has no meaning; it is gone.
“The delusion of the body itself is the creature’s imagination of prarabdha. But what is superimposed or imagined—how can that be true?”
It is superimposed; imagined. It seems “mine.”
It is your son; you will give your life for him. You could sacrifice yourself. And then one day a letter turns up at home, pressed inside an old book—you discover your wife had loved someone else. A doubt arises: “Is this son even mine?” Everything is shaken.
The father always carries a residue of doubt; because the father’s role is very incidental—not so crucial—in the birth of a son. His worth is about the same as an injection—not more. The mother knows beyond doubt the child is hers. The father retains a bit of doubt. To remove this doubt we built such rigid marriage arrangements, so the father is not tormented by doubt; otherwise life would be difficult. The sons for whom he must labor—if doubt remains whether they are even his—life would become chaotic; hence strict marriage arrangements; restrictions on the woman’s movements so she doesn’t relate with other men. If no relation occurs, there is no fear. And so there is major anxiety that the girl be a virgin at marriage. Those who were even more obsessed arranged child marriages, so there would be no possibility of fear. Then it is certain the son is mine.
Where ‘mine’ is superimposed, it seems we are joined; “Now I can do anything for this.” And we will endure all sorrows. Where ‘mine’ drops, we feel broken off, separate.
It is all superimposed. The entire feeling of ‘mine’ is superimposed. Nothing in this world is mine. Even this body is not mine. It came from my parents. It isn’t theirs either; it came from theirs. Trace it back and you will find a journey of billions of years of small atoms from which this body is made. Neither bone is yours, nor flesh, nor marrow—nothing is yours; not even the mind. Only you are yours. But you have no knowledge of that you.
Who is that within, the only one I can truly call mine? The one I can call “I”?
Keep removing the ‘mine’; leave it—all of it. The Upanishads say: neti, neti—“not this, not this”—this too I am not, that too I am not. Keep removing; break all connections with ‘mine.’ Then suddenly, like a lamp lighting in the dark, you will experience what I am. When you are free of ‘mine,’ the ‘I’ is experienced. And as the spread of ‘mine’ increases, the experience of ‘I’ grows faint. The greater the expansion of ‘mine,’ the lesser the experience of ‘I.’
That’s why Buddha and Mahavira ran away from home. Not because the house pained them, but because the empire of ‘mine’ was so vast—so much was “mine”—that nowhere could they find “who am I?” They abandoned the entire empire of ‘mine.’
Mahavira tried to the utmost to escape; he even dropped clothes, became naked—so that nothing remained to say “mine”—not even “these clothes are mine.” Why? For one reason: because in the vastness of ‘mine,’ the experience of ‘I’ is not had; if everything is dropped and I remain utterly alone, perhaps “who I am” will be revealed.
By breaking from ‘mine,’ the ‘I’ is easier to know. By joining to ‘mine,’ the ‘I’ grows harder to know. The more possessions accumulate, the more the expansion, the more the center of ‘I’ gets hidden, suppressed.
The entire web of ‘mine’ is imagined. The truth is: I am. ‘Mine’ is untrue.
“What is not true—how can it be born? What has not been born—how can it perish? Thus that which is unreal has no objective existence; whence prarabdha karma?”
Profound words.
That which is unreal—‘mine’—how is it born? When? How will it end? It seems to us that since there is a ‘mine,’ it must be born somewhere; otherwise how could it be? And if ‘mine’ exists, it must die somewhere; otherwise how will there be freedom?
To understand this, recall what I said earlier about the category of the false. A rope lies on the ground, a snake appears. You go near and see, “No snake—this is a rope.” The question: since a snake appeared in the rope, the snake must have been born in the rope. It was seen. But where was it born? How can a lie be born? And when you brought a lantern and saw there is no snake, it also died. But where is its corpse?
What merely appeared but was not, is neither born nor does it die; it is only a delusion. But delusion occurs; it can occur. It is superimposed. No snake was ever born in the rope; your mind projected it and a snake seemed to appear on the rope.
You sit in a cinema; you never look back. What would you see—there is nothing to see! Everything happens on the screen: color, form, song, music flow across it. The interesting thing is that nothing happens on the screen; the screen is empty. Only a web of light and shade is thrown. The screen itself is empty; everything happens behind—where the projector is.
“Projector” is a good word. What we call “superimposed” or “imagined” is what English calls “projection.” The projector is behind; it throws images onto the screen. And on the screen—where nothing is—everything appears. Where it appears, it is not; and where it is, you sit with your back turned, not seeing.
A snake appears on the rope; the rope is only playing the role of the screen and my mind is projecting—throwing the shadow of a snake on the rope. My mind casts the shadow and the rope looks like a snake. Then I run.
When three-dimensional pictures first came, amazing things happened worldwide. In London, in the first 3D show, there was a horseman who throws a spear. The horseman comes galloping. In 3D it looks utterly real—the horse actually approaching; not a picture—real! The hooves grow louder, the horse comes closer; the rider hurls the spear. The whole hall ducks! A passage opens down the middle for the spear to pass. Screams—women faint.
What happened? There was no horse, no spear. But both looked absolutely real. And in 3D it felt as if it would pierce you. So in that instant you duck—you don’t stop to think, “Is it real or fake?” The mind, out of habit, ducks—“the spear might hit!” Later you yourself laugh at the craziness—but it happened.
When a Buddha awakens, he laughs at the craziness!
There is a story about Rinzai: when enlightenment happened to him, he started laughing and laughing. His disciples asked, “Why are you laughing? What happened?” Rinzai said, “I have attained supreme knowledge.” They said, “Supreme knowledge? We’ve never heard that one laughs like this afterward! Why are you laughing?” Rinzai rolled on the ground, his belly creasing, and said, “I am laughing because I made such a fool of myself—absolutely in vain! Nothing was there. What I was grasping was not, and what I was trying to renounce was not either. Only I was there—alone. I was holding my own hand.”
As sometimes happens at night—you press your own chest with your own hand, and inside a dream runs that someone is sitting on your chest. When you wake, you are trembling, sweating. It was your own hand lying on your chest. Because senses are hyperalert in sleep, a slight weight feels heavy—very heavy!
Try this: someone is asleep at home—rub a piece of ice gently on his foot. A dream will start within—a snowy mountain, snow everywhere, freezing to death—shouts will rise in the dream. Or bring a lamp near and warm his foot slightly; he will think he has reached hell—flames, cauldrons; thrown in and pulled out.
What’s happening? The mind is full of its own assumptions. A tiny cue—and the mind begins to unfurl its assumptions. Give it a screen and the projector starts.
While awake we are doing the same. When someone wakes in awareness—really awake; not our waking, but Buddha’s waking, the rishis’ waking—then he laughs: “What foolishness! What was not, I saw! What was not, I grasped! What was not, I tried to renounce! And the whole play was my own. It was my mind on every side.”
If you precisely analyze any event in life, you will see this truth. If you don’t analyze, the mind’s business continues behind your back and the world serves as a screen; the whole show runs on it.
No—this maya has neither birth nor death. The false is not born and does not die.
“This body is the product of ignorance; when, by knowledge, that ignorance is utterly destroyed, how does this body remain? To resolve the doubts of the ignorant, the Shruti has, from the external viewpoint, spoken of prarabdha. (In truth there is neither body nor prarabdha.)”
This is a difficult point. It is what I said a day or two ago, which may have sounded jarring: Buddha has to lie, Mahavira has to lie—because of you. You understand only the language of lies; no other language.
This sutra says: in truth there is neither body nor prarabdha. In reality, there is neither body nor prarabdha; no bad karma and no good karma; no happiness and no suffering. In reality, there is no world. That is the reality. But it cannot be told. The sutra says, it cannot be told to the ignorant. If you say to the ignorant, “There is no body,” they’ll say, “Get lost; get your head examined.” If you say, “This world is not,” they’ll send you to the asylum.
The knower among the ignorant is like a seeing man among the blind. He says, “There is great light,” and the blind laugh: “What are you talking about? Is your mind okay? What light?” He says, “I can see.” The blind laugh: “Seeing? Have you ever heard of such a thing? Our fathers and forefathers never had it. Surely your head is turned.”
Among the blind, what is the fate of one-eyed with sight? If he is wise, he will never speak of what they cannot perceive. If he wants to lead them to sight, he will have to use many devices. It will not do to say straight, “I have sight, you are all blind; I will cure your eyes; what you see is not, and what is is only seen when the eyes open; you are living in falsehood.” Instead of curing their eyes, they will cure his brain. Many times it has happened: we crucified Jesus, cut Mansoor, poisoned Socrates. For no other reason than that they spoke plainly of things beyond our grasp. If we accept their words, we cannot continue as we are. It is not entirely our fault.
But you will be surprised to know that in India we never hanged a Buddha, a Mahavira, a Ramakrishna. Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem; Mansoor was killed by Muslims; Socrates by the Greeks. In this land we never killed Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna. Why? An astonishing reason: Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira are more skillful than Jesus and Socrates in conversing with the blind. Only that. More skillful—because for thousands of years in this land the enlightened have talked with the blind, and they have invented devices.
Jesus got into trouble. He had studied in India; he didn’t realize. He learned everything here and went back to Jerusalem. When he began to speak there, that tradition had no place for such talk. Jesus looked completely alien, and his words sounded like madness. The old Bible said, “If someone puts out one of your eyes, put out both of his”—the language of the blind. Jesus suddenly spoke the language of the seeing—without any bridge: “If anyone smites you on the left cheek, turn to him the right also. If someone takes your coat, give him your shirt too. If one asks you to carry his burden for one mile, go with him two; perhaps he said one out of modesty.” This language of the seeing—where the rule was “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”—was beyond understanding. Jesus spoke the seeing man’s words straight to the blind.
Buddha and Mahavira are more skillful. And in inventing “almost truths” they have no equal. This is exactly what this Upanishadic sutra says: it says plainly, “In truth there is neither body nor prarabdha.” But to satisfy the doubt of the ignorant, from the external, surface view, the Shruti speaks of body, karma, prarabdha. In reality neither body nor prarabdha exists.
It is difficult. The fact is: ninety‑nine percent of the scriptures are lies. Lies because they are addressed to the blind, from the external viewpoint; otherwise nothing would be understood and they would become confused.
As we explain to children: “ga is for Ganesha.” Ganesha has no monopoly over ga; “ga” could be for gadha (donkey). And since India became secular, earlier schoolbooks—when I studied—taught “ga for Ganesha”; now I hear it is “ga for gadha (donkey).” Because the donkey is a more secular animal. Ganesha belongs to a Hindu sect; the donkey belongs to none. Donkeys are found in all sects! But we teach the child “ga for Ganesha” or “ga for gadha.” If the child clings to it and every time ga appears he must first say “ga for gadha,” it will be trouble. It was only a prop. The child could grasp a donkey, not ga, so we joined ga to a picture. Later the symbol is forgotten, the picture drops, and ga stands by itself.
With the ignorant, you must start where he is, in his language. You must say: “This is suffering, that is happiness. If you want happiness, do good. If you want suffering, only then do bad. Even if you don’t want suffering, do bad and you will suffer. Do good and you will be happy. If you transcend both, you will receive no fruit. And when there is no fruit, you are free.”
But all this proceeds on one assumption: that this world of reality exists. When someone awakens—becomes filled with awareness—breaks from the body and ignorance is destroyed, then he laughs greatly. What is left behind was not real—it was a big dream. And the methods we taught were dreams within the dream.
Understand it like this. Ramakrishna was a devotee of Kali, but very humble. If anyone suggested any other path, he was always ready to follow. A Vedanta teacher, Totapuri, arrived. Totapuri said to Ramakrishna, “What is all this? Kirtan, bhajan—what will come of it? Seek the One! These are two—devotee and God. There are not two—only Brahman.”
Ramakrishna—he was remarkable—put his head at Totapuri’s feet and said, “Right. Teach me.” Totapuri sat him in meditation. Ramakrishna closed his eyes and became full of bliss. Totapuri asked, “What is happening?” He said, “Mother appears.” Totapuri said, “All this is useless talk. If Mother appears, why are you rejoicing? It is imagination! This Mother, this Kali is your own projection.”
Ramakrishna said, “Perhaps—but it gives great joy.” Totapuri said, “If you remain in this joy, the supreme bliss will never happen.” Ramakrishna asked, “What shall I do?” Totapuri said, “Try this: when Kali appears within, raise a sword and cut her in two.”
Ramakrishna said, “Where will I get a sword there?” Naturally—where to get a sword inside? Even if a sword exists outside, how will you take it in? When Kali appears within, where is the sword?
Totapuri said, “With the same mind with which you have stood Kali within, stand a sword as well. If you could successfully bring Kali inside, won’t you manage a small sword? This is a method of a dream within a dream. Do you understand? Kali too is an inner fiction—pleasant, but fiction. Your own expansion, your own feeling become embodied within. That Kali standing within and Ramakrishna lying at her feet—most amusing—is that both are Ramakrishna’s own mind. So why fetch a sword from outside? As you made Kali inside, make a sword inside.”
Ramakrishna grew very sad: “How will it happen? I myself will cut Mother with a sword?” Totapuri said, “If the sword doesn’t cut, we’ll think again. You try. But you seem so filled with love that you won’t raise the sword. It will be harder than a mother cutting her child.” Ramakrishna wept like a child: “I cut her?” Totapuri said, “Then I won’t stay. You agreed to enter Vedanta; gather courage. Why weep like a child!”
Totapuri brought a shard of glass and said, “Sit—meditate. When I see that Kali has appeared, lest you forget—because you seem so enchanted—you will forget. Even if you remember Kali, you won’t have the courage to raise the sword. You are so full of love. So I will help you. When I see Kali has come, I will cut and scrape the spot of your third eye with this glass. When you feel the gash, the blood, the pain, gather courage and at that very moment strike with your imagined sword and split Kali in two.”
It is true: everything appears at the third eye. Whether Kali, Rama, or Krishna—anyone—their image forms at the third eye. If it is cut from outside and you find the courage to strike from within, with the experience of that cut the inner image breaks in two.
Ramakrishna dared; the image broke and fell. He turned outward and said, “The last barrier has fallen.”
But these are methods. I was explaining: Kali is an inner untruth, and the sword is also an inner untruth; but one untruth can cut another.
All these rishis of the Upanishads are prescribing ways to cut what does not exist. Because we have taken what is not to be as real, some devices are given to cut it. A false disease demands a false medicine. Our entire emotional world is false; that is why so many methods are needed. Therefore any method can work—any method—if it catches you.
A dream within a dream—cutting dream with dream. There is no other way. The true is not cut by the true; it cannot be. Nor is the false cut by the true; it cannot be—true and false never meet; how will cutting occur? Only false cuts false. One falsehood cuts another. And when both fall away, what remains…
As when a thorn gets lodged in the foot, you take another thorn and remove it. Thorn removes thorn; then you throw both away.
So this sutra says: in truth there is neither body, nor karma, nor prarabdha, nor world.
I am not telling you to now believe “there is no karma, no body, no world.” If I did, you would fall into trouble—right now.
No—right now, for you it all exists, because right now you do not exist. Therefore all lies are true—for now. The day you discover your truth, all lies will be seen as false.
The very moment you know yourself, the world becomes false.
By not knowing yourself, the false world appears true.