Adhyatam Upanishad #3

How does one enter truth? How does one know the supreme mystery—the one so near and yet unknown, forever at hand and yet somehow lost? How are we to reach it? How has anyone ever reached it? This sutra unfolds that science and the method of that path.

We touched briefly on superimposition. Superimposition means: to see what is not there as if it were there. And truth means: to see what is, as it is. Whatever we see is superimposed. We pour ourselves into our seeing; whatever we experience is not objective, it becomes subjective. What is out there, as it is, does not reach us; the mind distorts it. It decorates, adorns, trims and cuts; it makes things smaller, larger—transforms them in countless ways.

The greatest transformation, the deepest superimposition, is this: we link ourselves to each and every thing with which we are not actually connected. The moment we link ourselves, the factual status of the thing is lost and the dream-status begins to appear true.

For example, wherever we say “mine”… we say, “my house!” The house was there before we were; it will be there after we are gone. That which can be before us, and which remains after us, that which does not disappear with our disappearance—how can it be “mine”? If I die this very moment, the house does not die. My house will not even get the news that I am gone.

So what linkage is there between me and my house? What relationship? Tomorrow someone else will live in that house and call it “mine.” Yesterday someone else lived there and called it “mine.” Who knows how many people have pasted their “I” onto that house and departed! But the “I” does not stick; the house never becomes anyone’s. A house cannot be anyone’s. The house is its own.

Each thing in this world is itself. If we understand this rightly, it will be easy to break superimposition. There is a piece of land—you say, “my field, my orchard.” Today or tomorrow, there will be claims on the moon. America will say “mine,” or Russia will say “mine.” Until yesterday the moon belonged to no one—it simply was. It was the moon’s own. But now there will be claims. And soon enough there will be conflict. The sun, for the moment, belongs only to the sun; but tomorrow, claims may be filed there too.

Wherever man places his foot, he stamps it with his “I.” Nature does not acknowledge his stamp; but other men must, otherwise conflict arises. And others acknowledge it only because they too want to stamp their “I.” Thus a house becomes someone’s; land becomes someone’s.

Why are we so eager to stamp this “mine” somewhere? Because the more places we stamp with our signature, the more our territory of “mine” expands, the bigger our “I” feels within. The “I” will be as big as the number of things it has stamped. One man says, “I own one acre”—how will his “I” be so large? Another says, “I own a thousand acres.” With the expansion of “mine,” the “I” seems to grow. When “mine” contracts, the “I” seems small. Brick by brick, the “I” is built out of “mine.” The more things we can call “mine,” the larger the palace of “I” rises.

So our whole life runs in a single race: how many more things can we stamp and declare “mine”? In this stamping, the stamp does get set on things, and we, stamping and stamping, take our leave. And then someone else begins to stamp over what we had called “mine.”

Things are their own—they belong to no one. They may be used, but not owned. Ownership is a delusion. And when we use things, a feeling of gratitude should arise, because we are using what is not ours. But the moment we say “mine,” even gratitude disappears, and a whole world of “mine” is constructed—of wealth, position, prestige, education—everything included.

And not only these. Even things that have no relation to “I” are included. We say: my religion, my God, my deity, my temple—things with which “I” can have no relation. And if it could, then there would be no way out of this world, because if religion too becomes “mine” and “yours,” if God too becomes “mine” and “yours,” then it is a great difficulty: where will we find a way beyond this “mine”? If even God is dragged inside this, then no space remains outside to step into. Yet we stamp our “mine” on temples and mosques, we stamp it even on God. Wherever man goes, he arrives carrying his “mine.”

Understand its corollary: the “I” grows through “mine”; but as “mine” expands, so does suffering. If only the “I” grew, there would be no problem. But the increase of “I” is also the increase of pain, because the “I” is a wound. The bigger the “I,” the more open you are to hurt; the larger the area upon which blows can fall. If the wound is big, it gets hit all day; however you move, something strikes it. A big wound: there is much surface to be hurt; any small gesture becomes an injury. The larger the “I,” the larger the hurt, the greater the suffering.

The expansion of “mine” brings a certain juice, a pleasure; but suffering grows alongside. On one side, it seems happiness is increasing; on the other, pain grows in step. The more we increase pleasure, the more pain increases. Between the two, a superimposition, a confusion goes on. Where there is no warrant for saying “mine,” we keep saying it needlessly, falsely.

This hand you call “my hand,” this body you call “my body,” is not yours either. Before you were, the bone, the skin, the blood of this hand existed somewhere; and after you are gone, it will still be. The bones in your body have been bones in who knows how many bodies. The blood that is “yours” today was flowing in some animal yesterday, and the day before in some tree. Its journey is unimaginably long—billions upon billions of years. Even when you are no more, not a single particle of your body is destroyed; it all remains. It will flow in other bodies.

Understand it like this: the breath now within you was, a moment ago, within your neighbor. The breath he just exhaled has now become yours. A moment earlier he could say “my breath,” a moment later it is no longer his; it has become someone else’s. And the other too cannot say “my breath,” for in a moment it will be another’s.

Life does not accept anyone’s claim even for a moment; it just flows on. And we keep hammering claims. This delusion of claim is man’s deepest superimposition. Whenever anyone says “mine,” he falls into ignorance.

This sutra is for breaking that superimposition.

The land is not mine; the house is not mine; the wealth is not mine; even the body is not mine. Your body is made of the atoms of your mother and father. They were before you. And those atoms have been on a long journey; they belonged to your parents’ parents. Those atoms have traveled for thousands and thousands of years; from them your body is composed. The body is a field, a ground in which you are established—but you are not it. You are other than it.

This sutra says: a human being is not the body. Not only that; it goes deeper and says: man is not the mind either. Because the mind is also a collection.

Do you have even a single thought that is truly yours? One that you can say is “mine”?

No thought is yours. Some come from tradition, some from scriptures, some you heard from someone, some you read somewhere—every thought comes from somewhere. If you trace the genealogy of each of your thoughts, its entire journey, you will find not a single thought is original; all are borrowed. No thought is original; all are acquired. Yet we call even thought “mine”! There too we…!

Remember, you cannot even call your breath “mine”; thought is subtler still. And yet even that cannot be called “mine.” As one goes deeper in this analysis, where does one arrive? Where do the Upanishads arrive? Where do Buddha and Mahavira arrive?

In this process of negation—this too I am not, that too I am not—when at last there is nothing left to cut away; when there is nothing left about which one can even think “is it mine or not?”—that which still remains; when all is cut away and there is no more cutting to do; when all connections are broken and no link remains to break—that which still remains, the Upanishads call the Witness.

This vast world all around is not mine. Draw close: this body is not mine either. Go within: this mind is not mine. Then who is there whom I can call “I”? Or is there no one within whom I can call “I”? Do I exist or do I not? In breaking every “mine,” what remains inside in its purest purity? One thing remains that cannot be cut away, for which there is no method of cutting.

In the West there was a thinker: Descartes. A deep thinker. He resolved that he would not accept anything until he found an indubitable truth—something about which no doubt could be raised. He began his inquiry with great effort and found everything doubtful. Someone says God exists—one can doubt it. Heaven or liberation—one can doubt it. Descartes said: I will accept only that about which no doubt can be raised—not even that which can be argued or proved—no, that which cannot be doubted at all; only then will I accept.

After much search, he too stopped at one point. He threw out everything: God, heaven, hell—discarded. But he got stuck at one point: I. Am I, or am I not?

Descartes said, this cannot be doubted. Because if I say “I am not,” even to say that requires that I am. It is like someone inside a house saying to you, “I have gone out; I am not at home. Come a little later; I will have returned by then.” His very saying it proves he is there. So my being is indubitable. It is clear I am. But what I am is not so clear—am I body, am I mind? What am I is not clear.

The Upanishads proceed with precisely this search. They keep clarifying, separating one thing after another—like peeling an onion. As long as there are layers, you keep peeling. If you peel an onion all the way, in the end your hands will hold nothing. An onion is nothing but layers, wrappings; remove them and nothing remains inside. Like a doll made of clothes—undo one layer and there is another; undo that and a third appears. Keep undoing; if it is only cloth, in the end all cloth is removed and no doll remains. In the end, you hold emptiness.

The great human search is this: might a person also be only a heap of layers? If we keep peeling, would nothing remain inside? We say, “I am not the body, nor the mind; neither this nor that”—and perhaps we end up with the onion story: nothing remains to call “I.”

But the Upanishads say: even if that were so, still it must be known. Even if it is true that nothing is within, it must be known—because the consequences of knowing truth are significant. Yet with further search it is discovered: no, man is not merely a bundle of wrappings; within the layers there is something different from them. But it becomes apparent only when we peel all the layers and arrive inside.

The Upanishads call that essence the Witness. It is a precious word, of enormous value. The entire subtlety of the East—its thought, its genius—is contained in this one small word: witness. The East has given no more important word to the world.

What does witness mean? It means: the seer, the knower, the onlooker.

Who experiences “I am not the body”? Who experiences “I am not the mind”? Who is it that keeps denying: I am not this, I am not that?

Within us is an element of seeing, of vision, of the seer, of the observer. We are seeing; we are examining.

That which sees is the witness; that which is seen is the world. The one who sees—that am I; and what is seen—that is the world. Superimposition means: the seer mistakenly takes what is seen to be himself. That is superimposition.

A diamond lies in my palm; I am seeing it. If I say, “I am the diamond,” that would be superimposition. The diamond lies on my hand; it is visible; it is an object; and I am the one who sees—separate. The seer is always separate from the seen. The seer is never one with the object. I am seeing you because I am other than you; you are seeing me because you are other than me. Whatever is seen is other than you. To take it to be non-different from yourself is superimposition. To be so bewitched by what you see that it begins to seem “this is me”—that is the illusion. To break this illusion and ultimately find that pure element which is always the seer and never seen—that is the task.

This is a little difficult. That which is the seer can never be seen. For whom would it be seen? You can see everything in the world—except yourself. How will you see yourself? Seeing requires two: a seer and the seen. You can see everything—except your own self. How to see it? It is like trying to grasp the very tongs with those same tongs. With the tongs you can grasp everything—except the tongs themselves. And then you’ll be puzzled, “What a strange tongs—grabs everything but cannot grab itself!”

We see everything—but cannot see ourselves. And we will not be able to. And whatever you can see, know that it is not you. So anything you can manage to witness—let it be settled: this is not me. If someone “sees God,” one thing is certain—you are not God. If an inner light is seen, one thing is certain—you are not the light. If bliss is experienced within, know for certain—you are not the bliss. Whatever can be experienced is not you. You are that to which the experience occurs.

Whatever becomes an experience, you go beyond it. Therefore understand this difficult point: spirituality is not an experience. In the world, everything is an experience; spirituality is not. Spirituality is arriving at the one to whom all experience happens, who never becomes an experience himself—the experiencer, the witness, the seer.

I see you: over there is the seen; here is the seer. There are two. There is no way to split yourself into two so that one part sees and the other is seen. If such a split were possible, the part that sees would be you; the part that is seen would no longer be you. The matter would be finished—cut off and separate.

The method of the Upanishads is neti-neti—“not this, not this.” Whatever appears, say: this too is not it. Whatever comes into experience, say: not this either. Keep withdrawing, keep stepping back—until nothing remains to deny.

There comes a moment when all objects disappear. There comes a moment when all experiences drop—all. Remember: all. The experiences of lust drop—and so do those of meditation. Worldly experiences of attachment and aversion drop—and so do experiences of bliss and samadhi. What remains is the pure seer. Nothing is seen; all around is emptiness. Only the observer remains, standing in the middle of empty sky. He sees nothing, because he has denied all that could be seen. Now no experience remains; all experiences have been thrown away. What remains is the one to whom experience was happening.

When there is no experience, no vision, nothing seen, no object—when the witness remains alone—language fails to say what happens. We have no words except those of experience. So we say “Self-experience,” but “experience” is not right. We say “the experience of consciousness” or “Brahman-experience,” but no word is quite right; “experience” belongs to the dual world we have already transcended. There it has meaning; here it has none. Here only the experiencer remains—the witness.

The search for this witness is spirituality.

Mark it well: the search for God is not spirituality. The old Yoga Sutras did not even discuss God; there was no need. Later, even when they did, they called God a means, not the end—a support in practice, useful to accept because it helps in spiritual endeavor. God too is a device, a method—nothing more.

Hence Buddha denied God, Mahavira denied God. They found other methods. They said: if God is but a method, other methods will do.

But even Buddha and Mahavira cannot deny the witness; they can deny God. Everything can be denied, but the ultimate foundation of spirituality—the witness—cannot be denied. Therefore, whether Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, or Buddhism—seek this one thing: if a religion speaks of the witness, understand it is religion; if not, it has nothing to do with religion. All else is secondary, useful or useless; there may be disagreements about everything else, but about the witness there can be no disagreement.

If someday there arises a science of religion, it will not discuss God, soul, Brahman; these are local matters—one religion accepts, another denies. It will certainly discuss the witness, because the witness is not a local phenomenon. There cannot be religion without the witness. The witness alone is the scientific foundation of all religious experience and all religious search. All the Upanishads revolve around this witness. All doctrines and indications aim to point it out.

Let us try to understand a little, because the word “witness” is easy enough to grasp, but in practice it is very subtle.

Our mind is like an arrow with a single point. You have seen an arrow—can it fly in two directions at once? Impossible. When loosed, it goes only one way—toward its target.

When an arrow is fitted to the bowstring and released, notice two things. From the bowstring, where it rested, it departs, moving away; and toward the target, where it was not, it moves nearer. First it was on the string and had not yet pierced the bird on the branch; then released, it moved away from the string and toward the bird; finally it struck the bird’s breast—the string was empty, the arrow lodged in the bird.

All day long this is what we do with attention: whenever the arrow of our attention is released, it leaves the bowstring within and sticks in whatever it flies to.

A face appears beautiful; the arrow is loosed. Now the attention is no longer inside; it runs outward and fixes in that beautiful face. A diamond lies in the road; the arrow leaves the string. Attention is no longer within; it races outward and pierces the diamond’s breast. Your arrows of attention are stuck here, there, everywhere. Within, you have no attention left; it is always going out.

Arrows can only be one-pointed—but attention can be two-pointed. And when it becomes so, the witness is known. The arrow of attention can have two tips. If, when your attention goes toward something, you can do just this much, someday you will experience the witness.

A beautiful woman passes on the road, a handsome youth—your attention is snared; you forget yourself, there is no attention within. You are unconscious, your awareness has become the other’s shadow.

If you can manage that when attention goes outward, it also turns inward at the same time toward the place from which it springs—if both source and target are held together—you will, for the first time, taste what “witness” means. The source from which attention arises must be felt—where the attention is born!

The tree is visible—branches, flowers, leaves, fruit—all can be seen; the roots are hidden in darkness, yet they alone feed the tree.

Your attention spreads outward, and the great tree of the world is formed; but you have no awareness of the source from which attention flows, the ocean of consciousness from which it emerges. When those roots too begin to be sensed simultaneously—when both become visible at once…

Consider this: I am speaking; your attention is on my words. Make it a double-pointed arrow. It can become so right now. While I speak, do not only listen to what is said; also remember that you are listening. The speaker is there; the listener is here. If, even for a moment—now, here—you do both together: listen, and at the same time let there be clear, wordless awareness, “I am listening”—if both sides flash at once in your consciousness, you will immediately experience what the witness is.

The witness is the one who sees both.

Enter a little deeper. You are listening; I am speaking. The witness is the one who experiences both—that speaking is happening and that listening is happening. When your arrow of attention becomes two-pointed, at once you are established at a third point.

I speak: that is one point; ordinarily your attention stays there. You also feel that you are the listener: that is a second point—it is difficult to attain. But once that second point is gained, the third is easy. The third point is this: there is A, the speaker; there is B, the listener; then who are you inside who knows both—the speaker and the listener? You have become the third—the third point. That third point is the witness.

Beyond this third, there is no going. It is the last point. This is life’s triangle: two points—object and subject; and the third—their witness, the one who knows both, who sees both, who is the evidence of both.

Now, understand the sutra:

“Knowing oneself to be the witness of the intellect and its functions, by this very disposition—‘I alone am that’—one renounces self-identification superimposed upon all things.”

The seeker, the inquirer into truth, sensing that “I am always the witness—never the doer, never the enjoyer”—lets go of all craving, of ego-identity, of the sense of “mine” over everything. He withdraws within to that point beyond which no further withdrawal is possible.

“Having ceased to follow the world…”

Such a person then stops following the world.

The “world” means society, culture, civilization—the crowd around you. Until you have a taste of the witness, to drop following the world is dangerous, because with the world come ethics, norms, limits, order, discipline. One who is not yet his own master will, of necessity, be mastered by society. Someone must control him; otherwise there will be chaos. But one who knows his own being, who knows the witness—he is his own master here.

It is delightful: the one who drops all ownership becomes the owner of himself; the one who gathers all ownerships only proves he does not own himself.

It means this: one who strives, “Let the house be mine, the land mine, the kingdom mine, this mine, that mine,” gives a sure sign that he is not his own. Because one who has found the inner kingdom loses all taste for outer kingdoms. One who attains his own empire has no desire left for any other. Even if an outer empire falls into his lap, it is meaningless. If he thirsts for outer empire, it indicates only one thing: he knows nothing of the inner master. Lacking the inner, he builds ownerships of things to convince himself: “I am the master—see how much land is mine, how much wealth, how vast my spread!” He is reassuring himself against his own doubt.

This ownership is false, because in this world nothing is ever owned.

Bhartrihari renounced his kingdom. A sweet incident occurred. He had gone to the forest and was absorbed in meditation. One day he was sitting at his cave door when suddenly a horseman appeared on the path. Barely had he arrived when another horseman reached the same spot from another path. Their swords flashed out in an instant. Bhartrihari could not make out why—until he looked down and saw a great diamond lying near the cave entrance. The first said, “My eyes fell on it first, so it’s mine!” The second said, “Look at my sword, my arms! What have eyes-to-fall-first got to do with it? Whoever can be owner is the owner. I am the owner!”

Swords were drawn; necks were cut. Moments later both heads lay on the ground, bodies covered in blood; the diamond lay where it was.

Bhartrihari said, “Strange! For the sake of this diamond both claimed ownership and both perished; the diamond did not even notice what happened around it. Who knows how many such dramas have played out around this stone—and it still lies here. Many will go on being cut and beaten for it—and it will remain as it is.”

The urge to own objects signals that one does not own himself. When one begins to taste the witness, one becomes one’s own master; the craving to own drops. He wants to be no one’s owner, because he knows there is no way to be anyone else’s owner. Let me repeat: there is no way to be anyone else’s owner.

If a husband thinks he is the owner of his wife, he is deranged. If a wife thinks she owns her husband, her mind needs treatment. No one can be another’s master, because each is born his own master. Innately, everyone’s mastery is hidden within; it cannot be removed. Until it is removed, how can anyone else be master?

A comical thing happens: the husband thinks, “I am the master,” the wife laughs inwardly—and knows “I am.” Hence the endless quarrel. The quarrel is precisely to settle, moment to moment: who is master? Who has the authority? There is no surety. Nothing is reliable—not things, much less persons. If even a diamond cannot be owned, how could a living person be?

One who knows the witness drops all ownerships—because he becomes his own master. That ownership which can be, becomes his; that which cannot be, he does not pursue. In such a state he can leave the world’s opinion—he does leave it. No control is above him; he is his own governor. He can travel on his own feet, walk in his own light; he needs no borrowed light.

“Leaving the following of the world, he leaves the following of the body too.”

Having dropped others, as the sense of witnessing deepens, he also drops slavery to the body. Then the body does not command him; he does what he chooses, and the body follows like a shadow.

At present your body does not follow like a shadow; you follow the body like a shadow. The body says “Do this,” and you must; “Don’t do that,” and you must stop. The body is the master; its gestures move you. So it must be. One who is not his own master will be mastered by society—and by nature. Society is the human collective around us; the body ties us to the earth and nature. One who becomes his own master is freed from the collective’s order and from nature’s. The body no longer tells him what to do; he moves, and the body follows.

This event of the body’s following is priceless. It hardly occurs to us that the body could follow. We think, “Hunger comes to the body—Mahavira too must be hungry when the body is hungry. When the body says it is hungry, then Mahavira goes for alms. How can the body follow? Will Mahavira say, ‘Alright, now I feel hungry,’ and then the body becomes hungry? What does it mean for the body to follow?”

There is a deep alchemy. Certainly, unless Mahavira consents, the body will not feel hunger. Not feeling hungry means: the body will be able to report its sensations only when Mahavira is willing to listen.

If Mahavira decides, “I will fast for a month,” and you decide, “I will fast today,” you will eat inwardly for twenty-four hours. The body will say, “Who is master here? Without asking me—a fast? Fine then.” The body will send the message “Hungry, hungry, hungry” all day, and your awareness will be clouded by hunger. In such fasting, the body does not trouble much if you simply skip a meal; but declare in the morning, “Today I fast,” and the body starts its mischief from dawn. If you usually eat at one o’clock, you do not eat until then every day. But decide at six a.m. to fast and the body starts feeling hungry from six! The body reads the signal: you are trying to assert mastery; ownership resists easily. The body’s claim is ancient—of thousands of lives. No owner easily relinquishes ownership.

If Mahavira declares a month-long fast, the body falls silent for a month; it sends no report. “The body follows” means the body stays quiet. Only after a month will it report whether hunger is there or not; until then, it remains mute.

But does this come by practice? By daily exercise—fasting again and again until habit forms? Don’t fall into that error. This is not a matter of practice or habit; it is a matter of the experience of the witness.

If the witness awakens, then even if Mahavira says “for a year,” the body may wither, dry up, die—but it will neither dare nor need to send the report “I am hungry.” It is not the body’s job to send reports. The only issue is decided once: who is the master? As long as the body knows “I am,” it exercises mastery. When your witness comes into experience, the body’s mastery vanishes instantly. The inner law changes. The body begins to walk behind you. Then extraordinary things become possible.

Thousands have fasted after Mahavira, but Mahavira’s fasting is of a different order. Countless Jain monks fast today, yet look at their bodies and then at Mahavira’s image—you will see where the difference lies. Their bodies broadcast the news of hunger—not only to them, but to you as well. Mahavira’s body does not report—neither to him nor to you—that it is hungry.

A body as beautiful as Mahavira’s is rare. It proclaims that within, the master has awakened; the body no longer has the power to harass. The body cannot command, “Do this, don’t do that.” This is not the body’s affair; it is the affair of the inner knower. Whatever he decides—life or death—the body cannot interfere. It only follows like a shadow.

“Leaving the following of the world, he leaves the following of the body. Thereafter he gives up following the scriptures and drops even the superimposition upon the soul.”

Thus he lets go—of the world, the body, and then the scriptures. For one who knows the witness, scriptures become useless. This is subtle. We can also say: for one who knows the witness, scriptures become meaningful. Both mean the same. Until you have the taste of witnessing, no scripture is meaningful. You can memorize the whole Veda—still it is not meaningful, because meaning does not live in words but in realization. You have none. You can parrot “witness, witness, witness”—even while you chant, there is no witness within listening.

Scripture is useless until you have your own experience—yet only then does it seem meaningful. The very day you have your own experience, you yourself become a scripture. When you yourself are scripture, what use have you for scriptures?

So the day scripture becomes meaningful is the day it becomes useless. You have known what it sought to indicate—what more? When you arrive at the destination, the map you carried—what point in keeping it? Throw it away.

Buddha used to say: one crosses a river by boat. Once across, the boat is useless; you leave it and go your way. But once four simpletons did cross, and then they hoisted the boat on their heads. Villagers tried to explain: “We’ve seen others cross; they leave the boat. What are you doing?” They said, “How can we abandon what helped us so much? We are not so ungrateful!”

They got stuck. The boat carried them across; now who will carry the boat across? They went around with the boat on their heads. Even after those people died, their descendants kept carrying boats. “Our fathers carried this scripture; so shall we. Their fathers also did; what can we do—compulsion! This has always been on our heads; we too shall carry it. After all, this boat—the scripture—has ferried so many sages across!”

The day self-realization happens, nothing is left in scripture—true; on that very day scripture is fulfilled—also true. Because only then do you discover that what scripture said is right.

This may sound paradoxical: the day you see scripture as true, it is of no further use. The genuine traveler drops it.

And the Upanishads say something most astounding—only Buddha had the courage to say it outright: “I am not even the soul.” The Upanishad’s last sutra is marvelous; it contains the whole essence of Buddha.

“And in the end, having dropped even the scriptures, he lets go the superimposition upon the soul.”

He no longer says, “I am the soul.” We began with “I am not the house.” We went deeper: “I am not the body, I am not the mind.” The last leap is: “I am not even the soul.” What does it mean? It means: any boundary I draw around “I” is ignorance.

When we say “I am the soul,” your soul becomes separate from mine. Saying “I am the soul,” I remain a person and the totality stands apart from me. The last superimposition to fall is even this sense of separateness—that I am a person. Then all distances and boundaries between me and the whole dissolve. The drop becomes the ocean. How can the drop then say, “I am a drop”? The drop falls into the ocean—how can it say, “I am a drop”? When everything is let go, even “I am the soul” is let go.

Meaning what? Not that there is no soul, but that “I am the Supreme Soul.” Being merely a soul will not do.

This declaration is difficult, and whenever it is made, difficulties arise.

Al-Hallaj Mansur said to the Muslims, “I am the Supreme”—Ana’l-Haqq. They crucified him at once: “What blasphemy! You and God? However high you go, however perfected, no one can be God; God is the last word! Man is made of dust—such heights? Impossible.” They cut Mansur to pieces. While he was being cut, he laughed. Someone in the crowd asked, “Why are you laughing?” Mansur said, “I laugh because the one they are cutting—I had already said is not me. Whom are they cutting? I already told you, fools: this is not me. And by saying so, I came to know I am the Supreme. I am the Supreme.”

Till his last breath, his tongue echoed: Ana’l-Haqq—“I am the Truth, I am God.”

There was a fakir named Sarmad—the Sufis revere him, a rare man among the rarest. Aurangzeb received complaints: he was uttering strange things. The Muslim creed is: There is no God but God—La ilaha illa’Llah. But Sarmad would say only half: La ilaha—“There is no God.” This changes the meaning entirely! He would not complete “illa’Llah.” What is this? The whole thing is spoiled!

Aurangzeb summoned him: “This is outrageous! You call yourself a Sufi, a fakir, a lover of God—and you say, ‘There is no God’?”

Sarmad said, “I have reached only so far; further journey remains. You complete the formula—‘There is no God but God’—but I am not there yet. Let me proceed; perhaps I shall arrive. Until then, I will not lie. I know only this much: ‘There is no God.’ The rest—‘but God’—wait, let me try. If you know fully, then say it.”

Surely this was heresy; he is an atheist! And many were being ruined following him; he was greatly revered in Delhi—thousands touched his feet—the man who said “There is no God”! Such is the miracle: someone says “There is no God,” and thousands see God in him.

It has happened—with Buddha, with Mahavira, with Sarmad. Mahavira said, “There is no Supreme,” and hundreds of thousands called him “Bhagwan.” Buddha said there is neither God nor soul, and countless people laid their heads at his feet and asked the way to that place where there is neither soul nor God.

Aurangzeb said to Sarmad, “I give you three days—correct yourself, complete the sentence, or I will have your head cut off.”

Sarmad said, “Three days are uncertain; I may die and deprive you of cutting my head! And it is not certain I can reach the full formula in three days; until I reach, my tongue will not repeat it. If the experience comes, I will say it; otherwise, cut my head today.”

They say Sarmad added, “It may be that when the head is cut, the remaining journey will complete itself. Perhaps this very head stands as the obstacle.”

Aurangzeb likely did not understand—emperors and intelligence have little relation. He had Sarmad beheaded that very day on the steps of Delhi’s Jama Masjid. When the head rolled down the steps, thousands of witnesses heard it cry: “There is no God but God!”—the full creed. There are eye-witnesses. Many heard that voice.

Aurangzeb repented deeply, but it was too late. He asked Sarmad’s disciples; they laughed: “Sarmad used to say, ‘As long as even a little of me remains, how can the beyond be realized? God is on the day when I am not. This head is a bit of hindrance—let it be cut. Aurangzeb is kind to hasten it. Otherwise we too would cut it, but it would take time; he is doing it quickly.’”

When a man disappears completely, he does not even say “There is a soul.” The last superimposition falls. Until you discover you are the Supreme, know that superimposition remains, delusion remains. Until the experience “I am Brahman” is born, know that ignorance is still there—keep cutting. Be free of the world, free of the body, free of scripture—and then be free even of yourself.

“Established in oneself, by reasoning, hearing, and one’s own direct experience, knowing oneself as the Self of all, the yogi’s mind is annihilated.”

The mind can be suppressed—it is hard even to suppress; it can be hidden—hard to hide; but annihilation, manonasha, is the last thing.

Your mind may become quiet; tomorrow it is restless again. It returns, again and again; sprouts keep bursting forth—because the seed remains. However much meditation, prayer, remembrance, chanting—sometimes all seems right, and in a moment all seems ruined. It’s like children playing Snakes and Ladders: there are ladders and there are snakes. You climb by ladders, then fall into a snake’s mouth and are thrown back. So it goes—up and down.

Almost the same is true with the mind. Sometimes you feel, “I’ve arrived—everything is exactly as the saints said.” And the instant the saints’ names come to mind, you are in the snake’s mouth—down again. You find you are where you were. Perhaps the saints were telling lies; perhaps you were deluded; it was “just a feeling.”

Crowds come to me daily—people climbing ladders one day and chewed up by snakes the next. One day they announce, “Something amazing has happened—fantastic! Nothing more to do.” Next morning they come battered and bruised. At every ladder a snake waits.

Often the mind seems to go and then returns. Even a momentary departure gives a glimpse—when the mind steps aside even briefly, space opens up. Through that opening, the sky and its stars can be seen; a window opens. But it does not last long.

A yogi is perfected only when the mind is annihilated. That annihilation happens only when the experience arises “I am not even the soul.”

As long as I feel, “Not the body, not the mind, but the soul I am”—as long as my “I” has any prop, the mind remains as seed. If my “I” has any support—“soul”—the mind remains as seed. The first shower splits it, sprouts burst forth, the tree begins to grow. Only when I do not remain at all does the mind end. To leave wealth is easy; to drop status is easy; attachment to the body can be dropped; attachment to the mind can be dropped; but to break attachment to one’s own very being—to one’s own me—is supremely difficult. When that breaks, mind is annihilated.

Sariputta came to Buddha and asked, “How will my liberation happen?”

Buddha said, “Don’t come here—go elsewhere. I cannot get you ‘liberated’; I can get you free from you. Liberation does not happen for ‘me’; liberation happens from ‘me.’ If you want your liberation, go elsewhere. If you seek freedom from yourself, you have come to the right place. I will free you from yourself. So don’t ask how your liberation will be—where will you be in liberation? Ask how to be free of this ‘me’—how to be liberated from this ‘I.’”

That is why Buddha did not like the word moksha (liberation). He chose the word nirvana. Because moksha suggests “mine”—at least this much will remain: the soul remains, seated on the siddhashila, enjoying liberation. “We”—the same gentlemen who ran the shop here—will now sit on the terrace of liberation and enjoy. You will remain—this is the mind’s secret relish: that “I” remain.

Is there anything in you worth preserving? Have you ever reckoned what you have that merits eternal preservation? What fragrance do you possess that should always remain? What tone in you deserves immortality? What in your personality can you call worthy of being forever? Nothing at all seems so.

Buddha says: this too is lust—the lust for life. A blind craving: “I must remain”—without reason. No reason is apparent—why should you remain? What is in you that if it remains, the world is benefited? Nothing.

So Buddha says: not moksha; the word is not right. He chose nirvana.

This sutra is a sutra of nirvana. Nirvana means the blowing out of a lamp. When a lamp goes out, can you tell where the flame has gone?

It goes nowhere—it has simply been extinguished, dissolved, merged. You cannot find it again anywhere in the vastness. It is so merged that it cannot be recalled from the infinite. It has gone so deeply into the formless that no form can be made again. It is gone.

Buddha says: in the same way, you too will be gone—like a lamp going out. Therefore he chose the word nirvana: your nirvana will happen; not moksha—nirvana. The little flame flickering in you will go out.

This seems frightening. Then what is the essence? Should we keep pouring oil into our lamp, keeping the flame alive somehow? Is that the essence?

Buddha says: only when you are gone will you know what you are. Only when you are lost will you find you are not lost—you have gained all; you have become all.

Even the soul is dropped.

“Without giving sleep, people’s talk, the objects of sound, touch, form, taste, and smell, or the forgetfulness of the Self any foothold anywhere, contemplate the Self in the heart.”

Everything drops away. Sleep drops—the stupor drops. The Upanishads call this “sleep”: that we have forgotten ourselves; that we do not know who we are; that we do not know “I am the Supreme.” The day this sleep cannot seize you even for a moment—when there is no way for this haze to settle, when the cloud no longer gathers—the sky becomes open and clear; no clouds ever surround it again; darkness never descends. Then a continuous remembrance…

“Remembrance” is not quite the word. All words fail the Upanishads here. But there is no other way than words. “Remembrance” is not right, because remembrance implies that between two remembrances there is forgetfulness. Continuous remembrance means forgetfulness never occurs.

It happened once: in Tibet there was a fakir, Naropa. Many came to him and were amazed, because he was renowned for being absorbed in God; yet no one ever saw him remembering God—not once. His disciples asked, “People say you are immersed in the Divine, but you never remember Him!”

Naropa said, “How can I remember what I never forget? The day you hear me call, ‘God!’ know that Naropa has fallen. The day I remember will be the day I have forgotten; sleep will have come. Sleep does not come—how can I remember? There is no forgetfulness.”

In such a state one enters the supreme secret cave that is within all of us.