Adhyatam Upanishad #16

‘Shruti does not speak of prarabdha karma to instruct the wise who take body etc. to be unreal. It speaks of prarabdha only to settle the doubts of the unknowing.’

What is said does not relate only to the one who says it; it also relates to the one to whom it is said. More important is the listener: what can reach his understanding? What will not fly over his head? What will not entangle him but untangle? What will become a path for him, not a tangle of conjectures? What will not remain a mere journey of thought but become a device to transform his life?

So this sutra says: Shruti speaks one language with the ignorant and another with the wise. In truth, the awakened ones speak a different language to each person. Hence the seeming inconsistencies in the scriptures: the utterances were given for different people.

Buddha says one thing today, another tomorrow, and yet another the day after. Then the mind is troubled: how could the same person have said all three, when they contradict each other? Devotees, unwilling to let Buddha appear inconsistent, strain to force a harmony. But the real fact is simple: the speaker is one in all three cases; the listeners in each case were different. And the words were crafted with those listeners in view…

The physician may be one, but if the patients differ, the medicines will differ. The words of the awakened are not “doctrines.” The words of the awakened are not theories—they are medicines, remedies. Therefore it is essential to know: to whom was it said?

Shruti says one thing to the ignorant and another to the wise. To the wise it says: the body does not exist. To the ignorant it says: the body is, but you are not the body. To the wise it says: the body is not—only you are. To the ignorant it says: the body is, but you are not the body.

These two statements are opposite. If the body is not, then it is not—whether said to a wise one or an ignorant one. And if the body is, it is—what difference would wise or ignorant make?

Let’s understand this with some subtlety.

There are truths that are facts—objective facts. It is morning. Whether one is wise or ignorant, what difference does it make? It is morning. When the sun has set, it is night—wise or ignorant, what difference does it make? The sun is down and night has come.

Science investigates facts; therefore science speaks a consistent language. Science deals with what is “out there.” Hence, in the language of science there is great consistency.

Religion speaks in a language suited to the one who looks within; it is subjective. The emphasis is less on the fact and more on the vision. So, depending on the seer, differences arise.

When the wise look, the body does not appear at all; when the ignorant look, there is no sign of the soul. The ignorant person’s way of seeing only grasps the body; the wise person’s way of seeing only grasps the soul. For the wise, to see the body is impossible; for the ignorant, to see the soul is impossible. That is why a seer like Shankara could say the world is illusory, it simply is not; and a materialist like Brihaspati (Charvaka) could say that soul and God are all untrue, only matter is. There is no real contradiction between them, because their viewpoints never meet. These are statements arising from different modes of seeing. The very arrangement of seeing is different. From where Shankara looks, the world is not seen; from where Charvaka looks, only the world is seen. It is a difference of vision. These utterances belong to people whose ways of seeing are altogether different.

Consider this: if fragrance were your only criterion, if you had only a nose and you identified everything by smell… Many creatures live by scent alone; scent is their eye; by scent they navigate. For such beings, music would be unknowable—because there is no way to test sound by smell. Music has no fragrance; good music is not fragrant; bad music does not stink; smell has nothing to do with sound.

So, if your instrument of testing is smell, you will remain unfamiliar with sound; for you there will be no sound. In this world, we only know that for which we have an instrument of knowing.

We have five senses; therefore we detect five “great elements.” If we had ten senses, we would detect ten elements. Creatures below humans have four, three, or two senses; their world is exactly as big as their senses. A creature with no ears but all else intact has no existence of sound in its world—not because sound doesn’t exist, but because without a way to catch it, for you it is as if it doesn’t exist. Without ears, the world is void of sound. Without eyes, there is no light in the world. What you seek through is exactly what you find. Your instrument is your world.

The ignorant search through the instrument of body; therefore the ignorant often ask, “Where is God? Show me!” He is saying: until my eyes testify, I will not believe. What is he really saying? When you say, “Until I have the vision of God, I cannot believe,” what are you saying? You are saying: until God becomes an object of my eyes, I have no way to accept.

But who told you God is an object of the eyes? If God is not an object of sight at all, then you will never meet Him, because the condition you insist on—sight—has no relation to Him. Form is the object of the eye, and all the wise say God is formless. And you say, “When I see with my eyes, then I will believe.” You have decided in advance not to believe. There is no possibility that you will ever see God with your eyes. How will you see the formless as form?

And mind this: if ever God did appear to you in form, you would instantly say, “This can’t be God, because the scriptures say He is formless.”

Marx once made a joke. He said, “I do not believe in God; I cannot believe—because I accept only what is scientifically verified. If I could test God in a laboratory, examine Him in a test tube, put Him on a lab table and dissect Him, probe Him through and through—only then could I believe. But,” he added jokingly, “if ever God were foolish enough to present Himself in a test tube or on a lab table to be examined, He would cease to be God.”

Indeed! Whatever you can cork up in a test tube and analyze, you become greater than it. Whatever you can cut and probe on a table becomes a thing—and is no longer God.

So our demand is such that if it is not met, we are frustrated; and if it is met, we are also frustrated. People say, “Unless we perceive God directly—before the eyes—we will not believe.” “Directly” means before the eyes. They have decided that only what stands before the eyes is their world. What is not before the eyes is not.

But existence is vast. Then what can the wise do? He who has seen That which cannot be seen by open eyes; who, closing his eyes, has seen what open eyes cannot; who, closing his ears, has heard what open ears never hear; who, without touching, has felt the innermost touch—what language shall he speak? If he is to be understood by the ignorant, he must speak differently. And if he were to speak to a wise one in the same way, the wise would laugh.

There was a meeting of the Muslim fakir Sheikh Farid and Kabir. They met, but no words were exchanged. They stayed together two days—laughed, embraced, sat close for hours—yet not a word! A great crowd gathered—Kabir’s disciples, Farid’s disciples, curious onlookers—hoping for priceless words to be shared.

Two days passed just so. Then the moment of parting came. The listeners were disappointed. In the presence of Kabir and Farid no one dared ask. When Farid finally set out, his disciples said, “What happened? Why didn’t you speak?” Farid replied, “If I had spoken, I would have proved myself ignorant. If I had spoken, I would have proved ignorant! And what would I have said? What I know, Kabir knows; from where he sees, I see.”

Kabir too was asked by his friends and ashram dwellers. Kabir said, “Are you mad? At most we could have laughed, that two are ‘meeting’ who are not two at all, who are already one. To whom was there to speak?”

Kabir said: When does speech occur? Two ignorant people talk endlessly with each other—though neither understands the other. Two ignorants argue fiercely; the result is nothing but dispute—no exchange, no conclusion. Their talk is words only; the words go nowhere. When two wise ones meet, words are impossible; their meeting is in silence. Their vision is one, their seeing one, their experience one—what is there to say?

When does speaking happen? Only when the wise meets the ignorant. When one knows and the other does not, speech has meaning. When both know, speech has no meaning. When neither knows, they cannot stop speaking; they talk a lot—without meaning. Those are the three possibilities.

So when the wise meets the ignorant, what should he say?

One way is to speak his experience as it is, without caring who is listening. Then his words will be like talking to walls; no one will hear, and if they do, they’ll misunderstand—take the opposite meaning. Misfortune, not meaning, will result. Better to be silent.

Or speak in such a way that the ignorant can understand. The ignorant will misunderstand anyway. So is there a way to phrase the “wrong” such that it turns the ignorant toward the right? That much is what needs attention.

The body is not—but for the ignorant, only the body is. So what is to be done? Find a middle device: tell the ignorant, “The body is, you are too—but you are not the body. Set out to discover this.”

If you tell the ignorant, “The body is not,” his search ends there. He will say, “Enough—let’s be quiet now. The body isn’t? And I experience nothing but body! Only the body is. Soul and such—there is nothing.” He is not wrong to say so; he speaks from his experience. The wise speaks from his experience; the ignorant from his.

Have you ever known yourself to be anything other than the body? Have you ever had even a glimpse that you are not the body? Do you have a solid trust that if your head were cut off, you would not be cut? Do you have even the faintest sense that when your corpse is burned on the pyre, you will not be burned?

Impossible! When a tiny thorn pricks the foot, it pierces you; when the hand is burned, you are burned. So when the whole body burns, how could you hope that you will not burn? A small injury, a small insult slips inside you; when death enters, will it not penetrate? Don’t assume otherwise. You have no experience of being anything beyond the body; your experience is only, “I am the body.” Yes, you may “believe” that you are the soul and will not die—but that is belief. And belief is treacherous. That belief too is a part of ignorance. Everyone wants to believe they won’t die. No one wants to die.

Notice this simple point. No one wants to die. And whoever does not want to die knows quite well that he will have to—hence the refusal. The wise wants to die; the ignorant does not. The wise longs to enter death because he knows that even when death happens, nothing dies. He desires to pass through death because he knows that entering death, the purest taste of immortality dawns. Where opposites stand, experience is easiest. Draw a white line on a black board: it shines out. When black clouds gather, lightning flashes starkly. Let lightning flash in the white clouds of day—it is not seen. The wise wants to enter death—eagerly, joyously, in wonder—so that when the dark clouds of death surround, the streak of nectar, the white line of the immortal may flash, and the seeing becomes crystal clear: death is forever happening around me, but never in me. The ignorant is afraid to enter death; he trembles, because he knows for sure that death means the end—nothing remains.

Here’s the irony: precisely because the ignorant does not want to die, he believes firmly that the soul is immortal. That belief arises not from knowledge, but from fear. That is why young people do not believe much in soul and such; as one grows old, belief increases. As death draws near, fear grows. The man on his deathbed usually becomes “religious.” The one who remains irreligious even on his cot—he has a bit of courage. Even a great atheist wavers while dying, and thinks, “Who knows…” Fear of that dark entrance makes him clutch at doctrines.

You too “believe” the soul is immortal, though you know you are nothing beyond the body. What soul are you speaking of that is immortal—of which you have no experience? Not even the slightest taste—and you say it is immortal! Your fear becomes your philosophy. The more fearful a person is, the sooner he becomes a soul-believer.

Hence in our country you see this: the whole land is “soul-believing,” yet people are afraid of the dark—and firm in their “faith” in the soul! Their life-breaths quake at death—and still they “believe” in the soul! A land of soul-believers was enslaved for a thousand years! Even small tribes prevailed over this “soul-believing” land! And they continued to believe the soul is immortal—but trembled to step onto the battlefield!

Fear is the basis of your philosophy—not experience, not knowledge. Otherwise no soul-believer could ever be made a slave. He would know no fear. Slavery arises from fear: “We will kill you if you don’t submit.” So a man, for the sake of living, chooses to live as a slave rather than die. He does not want to die.

If this land had truly been soul-believing, as people boast, it could never have been enslaved. The whole land would have been cut down and declared, “Weapons do not cleave us—nainam chindanti shastrani; nor can fire burn us.” So, burn and cut! To enslave such a people would have been impossible. But we were not soul-believing; we were thoroughly body-centered. Out of fear we “believed” in the soul.

Your felt reality is: “I am the body.” The wise one’s felt reality is: the body simply is not. Where can a meeting happen between such visions? How can you understand each other’s language? Therefore Shruti devised a method: it would not be appropriate to flatly deny the body to you. Such denial would slam your door shut; your understanding would be blocked. So for you it says: the body is. The ignorant is reassured: “We are not completely wrong; the body is. Our belief stands.” A yes-mood is born. A mood of “yes” arises.

The American thinker Dale Carnegie worked much on the yes-mood—the mood of “yes.” He had nothing to do with religion. He was the expert on how to sell things; the expert on how to “buy” friendship. His book How to Win Friends and Influence People is, after the Bible, the world’s best-selling book. How to win friends and influence people—the secret formula: how to create the yes-mood—how to create in the other person the feeling of “yes.” Once the yes-mood arises, it becomes difficult to say “no.”

Carnegie says: if you want to influence someone, to change someone, to transform someone’s view, don’t start with something he will say no to at the very first step. If he says no at the outset, his “no” becomes strong. Then even to the next point—which he might have said yes to if it had come first—he will say no. So begin with two or three such points to which he will say yes; then bring up the point he would ordinarily have refused. After four yeses, the tendency to say no weakens. And if we have drawn four yeses from someone, the habit arises to say yes the fifth time too. And if we’ve pushed him into four noes, the fifth no becomes more entrenched.

Carnegie recounts a memory: he went to a village. The friend at whose house he stayed was an insurance agent. The friend said, “You write big books on how to win friends and influence people. There’s an old lady in this village—if you can get her insured, I’ll believe you; otherwise it’s all talk.”

Carnegie found out about the old woman. It was tough—even to get into her office was hard. The moment they sensed an insurance agent, people were thrown out. She was an eighty-year-old widow, a millionaire, with plenty of assets—but fiercely against insurance. If getting in was tough, influencing her was another matter.

Carnegie writes: after gathering all the information, I began strolling outside her garden wall at five in the morning. The old lady rose at six. She came into her garden and saw me standing by the wall, looking at her flowers. “Are you a lover of flowers?” she asked. I said, “I’m not only a lover of flowers; I’m a connoisseur. I’ve seen many roses around the world, but the roses in your garden are peerless.” She said, “Come in through the gate.”

She took him into the garden, pointed out each bloom, showed the chickens, the pigeons, the animals she kept… And Carnegie had created the yes-mood.

This became the morning routine. She would be ready at the door to welcome him. The next day she served tea and breakfast. On the third day, strolling in the garden, she asked, “You seem intelligent and skilled and knowledgeable—what is your opinion about insurance? Insurance people keep pestering me. Is it worth doing or not?”

Then Carnegie began to speak about insurance. But still he did not say he was an insurance agent—because that might evoke a no. All her life she had refused insurance agents; the no-mood might arise. By the seventh day, Carnegie had her insured.

Once a yes-connection is made, trust begins. Where trust is, it becomes harder and harder to say no. Once you take someone’s finger, you can take the whole hand.

So Shruti speaks to the ignorant in such a language that a mood of yes is born. Only then can the journey proceed. If you say straightaway, “There is no world, no body, not even you,” the ignorant will say, “Enough—there’s nothing trustworthy here.”

Therefore Shruti says to the ignorant: body etc. are real; your world is entirely real. The ignorant sits up straight, reassured: “This man is not dangerous; we are not utterly wrong.” It is painful to anyone to be told they are completely wrong. “At least some of me is right!” On that little rightness the journey can proceed.

But in truth, you are completely wrong; the wise one’s experience is that you are wrong a hundred percent. Yet to say so would end all connection. So the wise says, “No, you are right quite a long way. The body is, the world is, everything is; your mistake is slight—only this: you have mistaken the body for the soul.”

A mood of yes arises in the ignorant. He says, “Then I too am right for the most part; the difference between me and the wise is only this little— I take the body as the soul.” And the ignorant too wants not to take the body as the soul, because the body gives nothing but suffering. The body also dies; death comes. So he wants to search for that which is not the body—so that he may also find the deathless. And when the wise says there is supreme bliss in knowing the soul which is not the body, the ignorant’s greed is stirred; he too becomes eager to know that supreme bliss. Then the journey begins.

But it is a journey such that, step by step, as the ignorant advances, he discovers that what the wise had earlier affirmed—“the body is”—is not; that the world he had affirmed is not. And as he goes deeper, the wise begins to add conditions: “If you are greedy for bliss, you will never know bliss”—though greed had set him on his way!

But those are later matters. Once on the road—after some distance—returning becomes difficult; for this path has no going back. What you have known cannot be made unknown. There is no return from knowledge. From where you have come, you can only go forward; you cannot go back.

And here is the strange thing: as the ignorant walks the path, he suffers more than he ever did before! Earlier, though false, everything was clear. As he moves on, the past becomes blurred and empty; he is suspended in the middle. He cannot return; there is no way but onward. Therefore he must fulfill whatever conditions the wise gives. The wise says, “Drop greed; then there will be bliss”—though at first he had aroused greed: “There is supreme bliss. Why wallow in hell, in sorrow? Nearby is the spring of nectar—come!”

So he goes forth hoping to leave sorrow and gain happiness—hearing “bliss,” he imagined great pleasure there. This is greed. But soon the wise says, “Drop greed entirely. Do not ask for bliss, or it will never be yours.” Now he is in trouble! He cannot go back. He feels, “That earlier happiness wasn’t so bad.” But now he cannot see happiness there; only sorrow is clear. What he had in hand slips away; what he hoped to gain does not appear. And now the wise says, “Drop even the hope of gaining.” He must drop it! He cannot go back.

Thus the wise breaks your false attachments inch by inch, and gently brings you to a place to which, had you been told at the outset you were being taken, you would never have agreed to go.

Buddha made this “mistake.” Few have spoken more directly than Buddha. That is why Buddhism could not take root in India. The reason is only this: with the ignorant, the skill that should be used, Buddha did not employ.

Buddha spoke his experience straight. Why? He was not born in a Brahmin home. The Brahmins are anciently cunning in this—this has long been their trade, the oldest: the commerce of knowledge. They are skilled; they know where to begin. Buddha was a Kshatriya’s son. His forefathers never practiced this trade; he had no such skill. New to the shop, he did not know what to say to win the customer. He blurted out the naked truth.

Do you know what Buddha said?

Someone would come and say, “I want to attain the soul.” Buddha would say, “There is no soul. What on earth will you attain?” The man would leave. “What is this? At least I could have understood if you said the body is not—you say even the soul is not!”

Someone asked, “In liberation there must be great bliss, no?” Buddha said, “What liberation? What bliss? Only emptiness remains—no joy, no liberation. As long as joy is known, sorrow remains—because we know by opposition.” So Buddha said, “There is no joy there.” The man who had arrived with a bit of greedy hope was shattered at the door and never went in. He said, “If even joy will not remain, then what’s wrong with these momentary pleasures?”

There is no eternal joy, but there is momentary joy. The wise had always taken away momentary joy with the temptation of the eternal. Buddha said, “There is no eternal joy. There is no joy at all—neither momentary nor eternal. You are deceived.” The man said, “Forgive me; I will hold on to what I have. Half a loaf in hand is better than a whole loaf in heaven. And you say there is no heaven, no whole loaf—why drop the half?”

People would ask Buddha, “Will we meet God?” Buddha said, “There is no God.”

When Sariputta first went to Buddha—he was a Brahmin’s son, learned and discerning—he said, “If nothing is, if all is void, then we should try to save the world at least—there’s something. What you’re doing is strange: you want to strip us of everything and promise nothing—who will come? If all say, ‘Leave, drop,’ and when we ask about gaining, you say, ‘There is nothing to gain’—why would anyone leave? People leave only in the hope of getting.”

Buddha said, “But one who leaves in the hope of getting—never really leaves.

“What is renunciation? If you renounce because you will get something, that is a bargain, not renunciation. A man leaves his palace thinking he will get mansions in heaven—this is business. A man does virtue for pleasure—business. A man serves, gives, practices religion in hope of reward in some world, some birth—business. Where is renunciation in that?”

Buddha said, “Renunciation is only when one lets go with no hope of gain.” Sariputta replied, “That may be the true renunciation—but then you will never find a renunciate. Where will you find such a one? We are all traders. Even our relationship with God is a business. The ignorant can do nothing else.”

So Buddhism did not take root in India. And if not here, where else? It took root elsewhere—when? When Buddha’s followers learned all the tricks, the whole sleight-of-hand the Brahmins had long known. Then it stuck.

You may be surprised: Buddha was a Kshatriya, but his great disciples were Brahmins; they made it stick. But in India the damage was already done by Buddha himself; disciples could not easily overlay his words. Hence it did not take root here; it did in Sri Lanka, Burma, Japan, China, Tibet, Siam, Korea—across Asia, but not in India. India had spoken face to face with Buddha, and Buddha had said, “There is nothing to gain.” Hence it was hard to arouse the greed to gain again in India; outside India, they aroused it. Outside India, Buddhism is a transformed Hinduism. It is not Buddha’s voice. It survived because it was not the real thing. The real did not survive.

Mahavira too was a Kshatriya, but his eleven ganadharas were all Brahmins; they made it stick. It was not Mahavira’s “status” that ensured survival. A Kshatriya doesn’t know this language of dealing with the ignorant. He knows how to wield a sword, not how to play with scripture and words. So the eleven great disciples of Mahavira made it stick.

Even so, it did not “stick” very widely. There are some two and a half million Jains in twenty-five hundred years. If twenty-five people had been influenced by Mahavira and had married, that many children would have been born in that time. It is no great number. Why? The same reason: a Kshatriya does not know the language one should use with the ignorant. That language ripens over centuries.

Thus Shruti says: ‘Shruti does not speak of prarabdha karma to instruct the wise for whom the reality of body etc. is not to be affirmed.

‘But to settle the doubts of the ignorant, Shruti does speak of prarabdha.’

‘In truth, the One Brahman alone is all—complete, without beginning or end, immeasurable, without modification, made of Being, of Consciousness, eternal, blissful, imperishable, pervading all, of one taste, perfect, infinite, facing every direction, impossible to renounce or to grasp, resting on no support, without any dependence, without qualities, without activity, subtle, without alternatives, self-evident, pure and aware, like none other, one and nondual. There is none else.’

Everything else is unreal, in truth. What appears real appears so because we lack the eye that can see the real. We have only the mind that generates the unreal. We have a mind that spins dreams, not the eye that sees truth. Hence the false appears to us; what is not, appears; and what is, we miss.

How to awaken that eye, that eye of knowledge? How to open the Shiva-eye—by which we may see what is true?

A small child lives in toys. Toys are real to him. If the leg of his doll breaks, he cries just as if someone’s real leg had broken. He cannot sleep at night without his doll or teddy; his restlessness is like yours when your beloved is absent. For the child, dolls are real. When he grows up, he will laugh at his earlier obsessions. He will forget the dolls; they will be tossed into the trash. He will not cry.

What happened? The dolls are the same—what changed?

His intelligence grew higher; he could see more. But that alone does not change much—dolls get replaced by other dolls, more alive ones. One day he slept with a doll against his chest; later he will sleep with a woman against his chest. The dolls change; the mind?

There is a way to rise beyond that mind as well—but very few rise. From childhood everyone grows into youth. Why? Because youth requires nothing from you; it is natural growth. If you had to work for youth, only two or three people would become young; the rest would remain children. You need do nothing—youth is compulsion; you keep growing. You cannot stop it. But spiritual awareness does not come like that; for that you must do something. If you do, then it comes. That growth depends on your decision. Nature does not impose it on you. It is left to your freedom.

Therefore only a few become Buddhas and Krishnas and Christs—because labor, discipline!

The day you awaken and see, the entire world will seem like children’s games. From that maturity, the things of before fall away as false.

This sutra says: in reality there is only the One Brahman. And it gives some very significant pointers about this one Brahman. Many are familiar; I will not dwell on them.

‘Complete, without beginning or end, immeasurable, without modification, made of Being, made of Consciousness, eternal, blissful, imperishable, all-pervading, of one taste, perfect, infinite, facing every direction’—these are familiar terms we have used for Brahman. But there are two or three marks here that are astonishing. ‘Impossible to renounce or to grasp’—this is of great importance. That which you can neither drop nor take up—what does that mean?

People come and say, “We want to search for God.” I ask, “When did you lose Him? Where?” For what is lost can be searched for. But what has never been lost—that is a tricky business! They say, “No, we don’t know when or where we lost Him.” Then I say, “First find out whether He has ever been lost. If indeed you have lost Him, come back sure, and I will give you the technique of search. If you haven’t lost what you seek, and I give you methods of searching, you’ll be in trouble—out looking for something that was never lost. How will you find it? Your search will mislead you.”

The Divine is our nature—how could we lose it? We can forget, we can fall into oblivion; but we cannot lose it. Understand this distinction. Forgetfulness can happen; you may not have paid attention for long, you may have forgotten who is hidden within. It is so close that you never needed to pay attention. Your eyes stayed fixed on distant things; the near was not remembered. That can be. But lost—never.

Hence the saints said: remembrance is enough; there is no need to search. Therefore Nanak, Kabir, Dadu, Raidas emphasized name-remembrance. The whole point of remembrance is this: don’t talk of “seeking” what has not been lost; only concern yourself with remembering—re-membering. Not even remembering—re-membering. It is always present.

This pointer is astonishing and revolutionary:

‘Impossible to renounce or to grasp.’

What we cannot lose is our very nature. If we can lose it, it is not nature. If fire could lose its fire-ness, that would not be its nature. If fire is cold, it is something else, not fire. The emptiness of space is its nature. “Nature” means that which cannot be separated from us under any condition. Whatever we can be separated from is not our nature.

Let this sink very deep: whatever we can be separated from is not our nature. Whatever we can be joined to is not our nature—because whatever we can join, we can separate from. That from which we can neither join nor separate—that is my being, our being. Brahman is our being. There is no way to run from it, no way to escape it, no way to drop it, no way to attain it.

But if you tell this to the ignorant, he will say, “Then fine. If I have not lost it, why seek? If it is always present, why attain? Then let me stay in my world. Why this madness?”

No—the ignorant cannot be told this. To the ignorant we will say: you have lost it; you have lost your true being—seek it. Until you find it, you will remain in sorrow. Seek it. Until you attain the Divine, your life will be melancholy, anxiety, and anguish.

The language of “seeking” the ignorant understands. He feels it fits. He seeks everything—wealth, position, fame. He says, “Fine. My seeking will continue—only, now I will not seek wealth; I will seek religion.” The ignorant understands the idiom of seeking. His whole life, life after life, he has done nothing but seek: today this, tomorrow that. He says, “Fine. I have sought wealth, fame, rank; you say there is no real joy in them—and I too have sensed as much. Now I will seek your God. Fine.”

As he sets out, later he will be told: God cannot be sought; until you drop seeking, you cannot find Him. Now he is in difficulty. He dropped the search for wealth, position, name—the outer ones became meaningless; he turned to a “meaningful” search. Now his master tells him, “Drop the search itself. Before, you dropped wealth, position, fame; you saved half the thing—seeking. Wealth was outside; seeking was within. Dropping the outer was easy. Now drop this seeking too! Because what you seek has never been lost.”

When one even drops seeking and simply stands, instantly he enters That in which we have always been. The Divine is our being. That is why this sutra is both revolutionary and precious:

‘Impossible to renounce or to grasp.’
When the Buddha attained enlightenment, someone asked him, “What did you gain?” The Buddha said, “Nothing at all was gained; only what already was came to be known. Nothing was gained!”

This is precisely Buddha’s mistake. If he tells you “nothing was gained,” you will say, “All right then—back to work! We wasted eight days on this fellow. He says that when enlightenment happened, nothing was gained! Then what are we laboring and striving for—wearing ourselves out with all this jumping about—if in the end nothing is gained?”

Buddha said, “Nothing at all was gained.”
The questioner asked, “Nothing was gained? Then what are you teaching us?”
Buddha said, “Exactly this: come into that state in which there is nothing to gain and nothing to lose, and you directly see that nothing can be gained and nothing can be lost.”
But this can be understood only by the wise.

“Not abiding on any base, supportless, attributeless, actionless, subtle, free of alternatives, self-established, pure-awake”—these are familiar words to us.
“Not like anything else.”
It cannot be compared to anything. It is unique, incomparable. You cannot say, “It is like this.” All comparisons we make are provisional.

We say, “Void like the sky.”
No—this too is not right; for the sky is contained in That. It is greater than space; it cannot be merely “like the sky.”
We say, “Radiant like the great sun.”
This too is a small thing to say; for before That, even great suns are but tiny flickering lamps. No comparison holds.
We say, “Blissful.”
Then somewhere in our mind we begin to compare it with pleasure; but it has nothing to do with pleasure.
We say, “Peaceful.”
Then in our mind arises peace as the opposite of unrest. It has never known unrest; so it cannot know our peace either.

None of our comparisons is of any use. For that experience, there is no way to indicate it by saying it is “like” something else. The saints have said: it is only like itself; like nothing else—only like itself. It is its own equal, itself alone. There is no way to speak of it by reference to another. And yet we speak—for the sake of the ignorant—saying, “It is like this, like this, like this.” In the end it is found to be like nothing at all.

“One nondual Brahman alone is everything, and there is no other.”
“Thus, by your own experience, know your own Self to be indivisible and be a siddha; and abide most joyfully in the Self whose nature is free of thought-construction.”
“Thus, by your own experience, know your own Self to be indivisible and be a siddha.”

Knowing it from scripture will not do. Whether the Vedas say so or the Smritis say so—it will not do. Hearing will not resolve it. Know it by your own experience; thus become a siddha.

Siddha means: one beyond whom there is no further journey or movement. Siddha means the final halt, the last destination, beyond which all roads end.
Asiddha means: as we are. Asiddha means: one whose work is still unfinished; something remains to be done; something will happen, and then there will be happiness. Asiddha means: something must occur, something must be accomplished, something must be obtained—and if that is obtained, there will be happiness. The asiddha’s happiness depends on something: a woman will be found, a man will be found, a house will be found, land will be found, a position will be found; I will become President, I will become Prime Minister, I will become this, I will become that—somewhere happiness is “out there,” and if it is attained, there will be happiness. It is conditional.

Siddha means: one whose happiness lies in his very being. Whether anything is gained or not is irrelevant. Whether something is taken away or comes—no matter. His happiness depends on nothing; it depends only on his own being. “I am”—that is enough. No other condition. Whose happiness is unconditional, that one is a siddha. His happiness is now and here.

Your happiness is always somewhere-else and some day—never now and here. Have you ever seen anyone who says, “I am happy now and here”? Now and here everyone is unhappy; happiness is always somewhere further on, somewhere ahead.

A friend of mine was a Deputy Minister in a certain state. He was very unhappy. I asked him what the matter was. He said, “Until I become a Minister, there is a great restlessness.”
Then he became a Minister. Later I met him. He was just as unhappy. I asked, “What now? You are a Minister—you should be accomplished by now.”
He said, “Accomplished? Until I become Chief Minister, nothing can happen! I am trying; someday I will be.”
This time he became Chief Minister too! I sent him a message: “Now surely the siddha-state has arrived?” He said, “Why are you after me? No siddha-state is anywhere to be seen. I became Chief Minister; nothing was resolved. And now even more points appear ahead—if they are fulfilled, then perhaps...”

Happiness keeps receding further ahead—that is the mark of the asiddha. Happiness is now and here—that is the mark of the siddha. Whatever the outer situation, not the slightest change occurs in the inner stream of joy. There is no condition that must be met.
Whoever has conditions will remain unhappy. No condition is ever finally fulfilled. And if a condition is fulfilled, the mind that made it immediately makes new conditions. As leaves sprout on a tree: it doesn’t matter if the old fall; new ones arise. In truth, it is because the new want to sprout that the old fall. The new press from within to come out; the old fall from without. An old leaf falls only when a new one within begins to push and sprout. Leaves sprout on the tree; conditions sprout in the human mind.

A conditional life yields sorrow. An unconditional life—now and here, happy without any reason, causelessly happy… Causelessly happy means: happiness does not come from outside; it flows from within. From within the stream of joy runs; the spring is one’s own, the source is one’s own. This is not a matter of borrowing from anyone. Even if this whole universe were to dissolve, if all these moon and stars were to fall, if all people were lost and gone, still there would be no change in the siddha’s happiness.

And for you? Even if the world were made exactly as you want it, there would be no change in your unhappiness—you might even become more unhappy. When your demands are fulfilled, you discover that after all that effort and toil, nothing was gained; you become even more miserable.

To become a siddha, the sutra says:
“By your own experience, know your own Self to be indivisible and be a siddha, and abide most joyfully in the non-conceptual Self.”
Remain in that. Stay there. Abide, be established there. Be absorbed in that. Do not go out from it.

Keep a little remembrance of this. Rising and sitting, seek unconditional happiness. Walking, sleeping, waking, eating, drinking—whatever the circumstance—seek unconditional happiness. Be happy.

It sounds strange when we tell someone, “Just be happy.” He will ask, “How can I be happy?” Because our notion is that happiness must come from outside. To be happy from within—this does not occur to us; we have never known inner happiness. Make a little search for it. Within, happiness is brimming. Take a little courage and go within. Tear the veil of conditions that hangs in between, and you will find yourself filled with joy—so filled that, if you wished, you could flood the whole world with your happiness; it would keep spreading.

We are all begging from others—and we are begging from those who have come to beg from us! It is a congregation of beggars, standing before each other with bowls extended, hoping to get something—while everyone is begging. Have you ever thought that this whole world is a band of beggars? I come to you asking for a little happiness; you come to me asking for a little happiness. I have never found happiness within, you have never found happiness within. Thus all our relationships bring sorrow; none brings joy. They cannot; how can one give what one does not have? Not having found it oneself, one sets out to give it to others!

A father giving happiness to his son! A wife giving happiness to her husband! A son giving happiness to his mother! Ask, and you will see: the giver thinks he is giving, and the receiver gets sorrow. The whole world is busy giving happiness to each other—and everyone is beating their chest, crying, “We are unhappy!” No one becomes happy. When you do not have it, how will you give it to another?

There is only one way to be happy in this world: do not go to ask from anyone. It is not there with the other; it is with you. Drop all asking and be still. Even if you are feeling sorrow, remain with it; wait; do not go begging. One day you will suddenly find that when the habit of asking falls, the stone within is removed, a spring bursts forth—suddenly every pore is filled with joy. This joy is causeless. Then no one can take it away. It comes from within you. And it may happen that in your presence others are stirred by the current of your joy.

Curiously, we ask for happiness and we want to give happiness! We cannot give it, and we cannot get it—it never arrives that way. But a person whose own spring has opened neither asks happiness from anyone nor sets out to give happiness to anyone; yet many receive happiness from such a one. He does not intend to give.
No Buddha goes to give happiness to anyone; it is simply their presence—the flowers blossomed within them, their fragrance, the spring that has burst forth within, its murmuring sound. Whoever is in their vicinity, whoever is open and not sitting with the doors of the heart shut, receives a resonance; the note touches him as well.

And one who sits before a Buddha with eyes open will also see that his happiness seems to come from nowhere, depends on nothing; it seems to spring from within. His rays are not borrowed; his light is his own. He is not like the moon that reflects the sun’s rays; he is like the sun, with light of his own—streaming directly, bursting forth directly.

This is what we have called satsang—being in the company of the true. Being near one like Buddha is called satsang. Perhaps we too may be shaken out of our stupidity; perhaps our stone, too, may begin to shift; perhaps seeing that someone can be happy in himself, our delusion may break—the delusion of asking for happiness from others, asking and asking, decorating the delusion with hopes that it will arrive—if not today then tomorrow, if not tomorrow then the day after—but it will come from another. Perhaps this delusion will shatter.

Make yourself unconditional; drop asking; break the hope that happiness will come from elsewhere—and one day happiness arrives. That state is the state of the siddha: when one’s own stream of happiness becomes available.