Adhyatam Upanishad #5

Many precious things are said in this sutra. Not only precious, but original as well.

“He who is freed from clutching the ego alone attains the nature of the Self.”

There is a deep point here.

It is not that ego has caught hold of you—you are the one clinging to ego. The world has not trapped you—you are the one gripping the world. Sufferings have not shackled you—this is only the consequence of your own indulgence. Sufferings are not chasing you; they have not made a pact to torment you. They come only at your invitation.

Ordinarily we don’t think this way. Ordinarily we think: Why is there suffering? Why this world’s anguish? Why this coming and going? Why does ego harass me? How to be free of it? Our minds keep circling the question: How to be free? All of you must at some time have raised this question—otherwise coming here would have been impossible—how to be free of all this?

But this sutra may disappoint you. It says there is no question of “getting free.” Because it is not that ego has seized you; the world has not obstructed you; births have not summoned you; this is your own choice.

So the wrong question is “How to get free?” The right question is “By what means, by what trick, have I been holding on to all this suffering and turmoil?” Do not raise the question of freedom; raise the question: What is my inner arrangement, what is my way, by which I clutch suffering, by which I go on grabbing it, by which with my own hands I go on superimposing new worlds, new births, new lives? How do I keep creating newer and wider expansions of desire—new skies? This alone needs to be understood.

There are many implications. One meaning is: liberation is not some attainment to be acquired. The world indeed is to be dropped, but liberation is not to be gained. If you agree to let go of the world, liberation is already accomplished. It means you are intrinsically free—you have only fallen into bondage by a clever contrivance.

Have you ever seen how parrots are caught in the forests? A rope is tied. The parrot sits on it; by its own weight it flips upside down; the rope twists. Then the parrot believes it has been captured. Hanging upside down it concludes: I’m caught, trapped badly! My feet are stuck—now getting out is difficult.

But it is the parrot itself that is gripping the rope tightly; the rope is not gripping it at all. Still, the parrot’s belief seems reasonable: the rope flipped me, suspended me—surely I am caught! It keeps hanging. It tries every which way to sit upright and fly, but it cannot get upright. There is no way to sit straight on that rope—it is thin and the parrot heavy. However many tricks it uses, round and round it goes and ends up dangling. The more it tries, the stronger its conviction grows: getting free is impossible.

If it wished, it could let go and fly that very instant. But first it keeps trying to sit upright. If it were to let go while still upside down, it could fly immediately, for the rope has not caught it. But the parrot has never flown upside down; it has always sat upright before flying. It knows only one method: first sit firmly on both feet, then take off. It imagines there is an indispensable connection between flying and sitting upright on two feet.

How is an upside-down parrot to understand that I too can fly—right now, right here! That I am not caught anywhere at all? But because it is hanging upside down, another fear arises: if I let go, I’ll crash to the ground and break all my bones! So it clutches the rope even tighter. However long later the trapper comes, he will find it there, hanging in place.

This is almost the condition of human consciousness. No one has caught you. Who would get any delight out of catching you? And the world has no particular eagerness to keep you imprisoned. What would be its purpose? What does the world gain by keeping you bound?

No, no one is eager to hold you. You are caught by yourself. Some delusions give you the idea that you are trapped. The biggest delusion is that you consider yourself so important that the whole world is keen to grab you. It is also ego to think that all miseries are rushing toward you. So many miseries! They pay so much attention to you! All hells are constructed for your sake! For you! You imagine yourself sitting at the center—as if the entire arrangement of existence is running for you. And you are just a parrot dangling on a rope.

The reasons for this delusion are the same as those that befall the parrot.

The moment a human being is born, several “accidents” occur—inevitable ones. A human child is born utterly helpless—no animal’s young is born so helpless. Animals are born and at once begin to run. Animals’ and birds’ young are born and immediately set out to find their food. Your child will be born—it will take twenty‑five years before he can set out to earn his bread! Twenty‑five years!

The human child is the weakest. Biologists say some mistake has occurred. They say that to be fully formed, the human infant would need to remain in the womb for twenty‑one months. But the human female is too frail to carry a child that long. So, according to some biologists, the whole of humanity is, in a way, premature—no child is born complete; all are born unfinished. Animals are born complete. Yet this is both misfortune and blessing.

In this world nothing has only one aspect; everything has two sides. It is a misfortune that the human child is weak—and a blessing too, because precisely due to this weakness man has become superior to all animals. The reasons are deep. Because the human child is utterly helpless, he needs great support; otherwise he would not survive. To provide that support, the family was born; without it, there would be no need of family.

Animals have no family because they have no need for it. A human child would die without a family. Hence mother, father, family—the sacred institution of family. All of it arises from the child’s weakness. Not only the family—on the foundation of the family, society, nation, and the whole web of civilization were woven. And because the child is helpless, he lacks innate know‑how. Animals are born with the intelligence sufficient for life. The human child is born without any. He cannot even breathe unaided; left to himself, he would die. He must be educated. No animal’s young needs schooling. A human child must be taught. He brings almost nothing with him; everything must be taught. Hence school, college, university—institutions born from human weakness. We have to impart everything, teach each and every little thing. Even then there is no guarantee the child will learn! Great effort is required. All education and conditioning are organized out of human frailty. And this has something to do with the sutra.

Because the child is helpless, the parents must pay great attention to him. Because of that attention the child feels: I am the center of the world; the whole world revolves around me. He cries a little—mother rushes! He falls ill—father stands there with a doctor! The little one “knows” that everything runs on his signal. A small cry, a small sadness, and the whole household gathers around him. And to the child the house is the whole world—he knows nothing beyond it. So a natural illusion settles in him: I am the center of the world; everything is arranged for me; all eyes are on me. This delusion goes deep.

Then we spend our whole life moving as if we were the center. This brings great pain. Ego hurts because it is not true. You are not the center of the world. The world runs quite nicely without you. Your absence obstructs nothing. Yet somewhere within you feels: I am the center. And you go on seeking that the whole world should acknowledge it. This very pursuit is the quest of ego.

The sutra says: “He who is freed from clutching the ego—the childhood notion that has settled so deep—only he attains Self‑knowledge.”

This is inevitable. With a child’s birth, ego too is inevitably born. It is a necessary evil. But to get stuck there, to make it one’s abode—then a whole life is destroyed. Because then we remain deprived of knowing that essence which lies hidden within us. We can know it only when we let ego go. Why? Why is religion so insistent on dropping ego?

Because the one who imagines, “I am the center of the world,” is deprived of discovering his true inner center. He lives by a false center which is not a center. The one who thinks, “I am the focus of other people’s eyes,” never searches for his own center to see whether he actually has one. A pseudo‑center is built. This pseudo‑center depends on others, hence ego inevitably hurts.

If you call me a good man, you feed my ego. Tomorrow you say, “No, that was our mistake; you are not a good man”—you take back the very brick you gave for my ego’s house; my house totters.

Ego is constructed out of others’ eyes, others’ opinions. It depends on others. And remember: what depends on others can never be your center. That whose very being depends on others cannot be your center. So we worry endlessly about what others say about us—who calls us good, who calls us bad.

A friend once came to me. He said, “This is my trouble. People say petty things—of no value—but I get so hurt I can’t sleep all night! For example, I went to buy cloth. I didn’t like any. The shopkeeper said, ‘Go away—I knew by your face you weren’t going to buy anything anyway!’ I couldn’t sleep all night—why did he say that?”

Our ego depends on others’ words. People around us either supply or snatch our ego. Hence we keep track of who is saying what about us and what they think. That is our real capital! The collection of others’ opinions—this is our identity. And of course: what reliance can you place on others’ opinions? They are in others’ hands. Today they give; tomorrow they may not. Today they praise; tomorrow they condemn. And they have their own purposes.

That shopkeeper had his purpose. He jabbed the ego. Two things could have happened. The gentleman might have bought the cloth to save face. If he had bought it, perhaps better—it would have spared him a sleepless night!

But then another worry would have seized him: I bought cloth I didn’t want—why did I? And you are all sitting with much “cloth” you never wanted to buy. But somewhere the ego says, “Buy it!”

In the West, men have been removed from the counters; women sit in the stores now. Salesmen have disappeared—saleswomen! The advice came from the shrewd: when a man comes to buy shoes and a beautiful woman slips a shoe onto his foot, buckles it, then smiles and says, “Your foot looks so handsome!”—then, no matter how the shoe pinches inside, he is compelled to buy it. He must buy. It is no longer about the shoe; you are buying something else—the shoe is merely a pretext.

We’ve bought many such things. Our whole life is a similar bargain. Ego is the sum of such acquisitions—the glimmers we have stolen from others’ eyes and gathered into our little flickering lamp. But others always remain the owners. The day they wish, they can pull the plug. The greatest leader is never greater than his followers. He cannot be—his leadership lies in the followers’ hands. Today they grant it, tomorrow they take it back.

So however great a leader, he is also a follower of the followers; he must trail after them. He must watch which way they are going; he runs ahead of them. He must feel which way the wind is blowing. With that much skill he sprints to the front. And so he keeps changing his statements daily. He must. He must keep the followers in mind. His ego is borrowed from them. His office, his prestige—everything is loaned. And what is borrowed is not you. Before all that, you were. Death will snatch all that, and still you will be.

You have built a false center. If you take that to be yourself, why would you search for the real center? You proceed as if this were the real center. What is your picture of yourself? A portrait drawn by others. They have traced the lines on the canvas. One has filled in color, another made the eyes, another the feet—this is what you are. That picture is made of paper; one gust of rain dissolves its colors. Yet all this springs from the inevitabilities of life.

Psychologists say the child’s first awareness is of the other, not of himself. Naturally so. When he opens his eyes, he sees his mother—how can he see himself? The other appears—you appear. Gradually his recognition grows: father, siblings, family appear. Slowly he experiences “you,” the other. And only in contrast with this “you” does he begin to experience “I.”

It is a remarkable fact: experience of I is not first. I am born, but experience of me is not first; experience of others is first. Naturally, when experience of others comes first, the “I” I construct will be based on others’ opinions.

Hence psychologists say: if the son receives a mother’s love, a father’s love, respect in the home, the bearing of that boy is of a certain kind. If he does not receive the mother’s love, no respect at home, then a beggarliness develops in him. Because those from whom the first reflection of I came did not show joy or delight, that I remains forever poor and deprived—unfed.

Therefore a child raised without a mother carries a permanent lack that psychologists say can never be fully repaired. His first sense of I becomes crippled. The “you” from whom he was to receive the first gleam of “I”—that “you” gave no gleam, no dignity, no respect, no love—no grandeur.

If a mother did not dance with joy at the child’s birth, if she did not become exultant, if her every hair did not thrill with delight, then that child’s I will remain lame for life. He will suffer. He will need crutches. It will be hard.

Our first experience of I comes from others, and it keeps coming from others. Gradually we collect certificates, opinions, reputations, status—and we hang upon that center. Your true center lies hidden within.

“You” cannot be first—“I” is first, though we may come to know it later. The child is born with his I, with his soul. But that center remains hidden and a new center is constructed. Then we cling to that constructed center. We grip it because we know no other. If we let it go, we fear we will hang in mid‑air. If we don’t keep it in mind, things will scatter; chaos will come. So we clutch it tightly.

The parrot holds the rope tightly, fearing, “If I let go, I’ll fall and break my bones.” We also clutch this I because nothing else seems available to hold. We rely on it. We grip it lest it slip away. Then suffering arises—because it is not the real center. It is as if we are born with a treasure and mistake a false pit for it; we keep digging where there is no treasure, and never find wealth.

Our true center is imperial; our soul is bliss, a treasure. But this “I” is a borrowed pit. However much we dig there, no treasure will ever come. Digging there, we will never reach our nature.

Hence the sutra says: “Only the one freed from clutching the ego attains the Self.”

So what to do? What to do?

There was a remarkable fakir, Gurdjieff. His grandmother was on her deathbed. Gurdjieff asked her, “From the wisdom and conclusions of your life, if there is one thing worth giving me and I am worthy to receive, give it.”

His old grandmother gave a strange thing. She said, “If you can keep one rule all your life: whatever others do, don’t do it that way. Any work—never do it as others do. Always try to do it otherwise.”

Gurdjieff later built a whole philosophy on this—the Law of Otherwise: always do it in another way.

He tried it, and an unprecedented man was born. Because if you do as others do, only then does your ego get confirmation. No one will confirm your ego if you keep doing otherwise—people will laugh at you.

Gurdjieff said, “My grandmother told me, ‘I am near death; I won’t even know whether you obeyed me or not. Before I die, show me one example.’ There lay an apple nearby. She handed it to me and said, ‘Eat this—but remember, don’t do it as others do.’”

The boy must have been in a fix. What to do? But children are inventive. If their parents don’t kill that inventiveness, there would be many inventors in this world. But invention seems dangerous because the new brings disturbance.

Gurdjieff first put the apple to his ear and listened; brought it to his eye and looked; kissed it; touched it with his hand with eyes closed; danced with it, leapt, jumped, ran; then he ate it. His grandmother said, “Now I am assured.”

Gurdjieff said, “That became my life’s rule: whatever I do, I do not do it as others do—I do something of my own.” People laughed at him. “He’s mad! What sort of man is this? What is he doing—listening to an apple with his ear!”

Gurdjieff said, “I didn’t even know it then, but one consequence was that I stopped caring about others. What others say, what their view is, what image they hold of me—this dropped. I became utterly alone on this earth. Because of that, I never had to suffer the affliction everyone suffers: a false center never formed. I never had to struggle to erase ego—it never formed.”

What to do? Stop worrying about others. In the mornings I see you meditating. You do, but still keep an eye out: is anyone watching? What will people say?

A friend came today. He said, “Whatever you suggest, I’ll do in private—but in front of so many people?”

There will be no benefit in private. Because the benefits of meditation are many‑sided. The courage to be “foolish” in front of people shatters your ego. Your childlike behavior before so many hurls you from ego back to your center. Alone, this won’t happen. Alone, everyone hums in their bathroom! And in the mirror everyone makes faces—not only children, even the old! Mirrors don’t tell tales. But it yields nothing.

Let go of concern for others; drop the weight of others’ opinions; gradually weaken the hunger for others’ attention. That hunger is ego’s food: “Let others notice me.” Others’ attention nourishes it. The more people notice you, the more juice you feel—“I am something.” If no one notices you, if you are in a house and no one even looks at you…

Gurdjieff was experimenting with his disciples. He kept thirty disciples in a building and said, “Live here as if the other twenty‑nine do not exist. Don’t speak; make no gesture, no posture that could communicate. If you pass by someone, pass with the awareness that no one is here—I am alone. Deliberately or inadvertently, do nothing by which it could be known that another exists. If your foot steps on someone’s foot, don’t apologize—no one is there. If a burning coal slips from your hand onto someone, do not say, ‘I’m sorry.’ Don’t even signal with your eyes—no one is there.”

“For three months,” he said, “live like this.” Twenty‑seven ran away; three remained. Those three became different men.

What is the use of this?

Don’t be misled that it’s easy to stop saying “sorry” when you kick someone—we already prefer that! The point is deeper. Gurdjieff said: you must not give attention to anyone—and then understand: they too will not give you attention. That is the crux. You will not give attention to one, but the other twenty‑nine will not give you attention at all—for three months you will receive no attention whatsoever.

It is reciprocal. I give you attention, you give me attention. I fill your ego, you fill mine. But both ways the traffic will close.

Why did the twenty‑seven flee? Many said, “We began to feel suffocated—we would die; our throats were choking.”

Not their throats—their ego’s throat. They felt: for three months there will be no food for our ego; when we return, we’ll be empty. The three who stayed, with courage, came back different. What changed?

Ouspensky was one of those three. He later said, “Gurdjieff was amazing. For three months we had no idea this was a device to destroy our ego. We thought it was for peace and silence. We were not told, ‘Your ego will die.’ But after three months we became such that it was as if we were not—only being remained. No voice of ‘I’ rose anywhere.”

The day no inner voice of “I” rises, that day you stand on your real “I.” Its name is the soul. Then, naturally, the personality becomes clear as the moon—ever joyful and self‑luminous. There is light there already; there is joy there already. Just a small leap from “I” to the Self—and you are there. Purity is already there; that purity has never been broken.

Now another important sutra—strange and original. Words sometimes hide the meaning because they are familiar. You’ve heard all these words, none unfamiliar, but their combination here is unfamiliar.

“With the ending of action, worry ends; with the ending of worry, desire ends. The ending of desire is liberation, and this is living freedom.”

“With the ending of action, worry ends.”

We all want to destroy worry. Who doesn’t want to be free of anxiety? But we don’t want to be free of the doer. We want freedom from worry, not from the doer. And worry is the shadow of the doer. The one who thinks “I am doing” cannot escape worry. It will grow. The more one thinks “I am doing,” the thicker worry becomes.

The East found clever devices. One was: “I am not doing; God is doing.” It was a meditative arrangement: “Not a leaf moves without His will.” It isn’t literally so. If He had to issue a command for every leaf, He would have gone mad by now—telling each leaf: Move! Stop!

No, no God sits to move and stop each leaf. But that’s not the point. “Not a leaf moves without His will” was a device of meditation, a method. Whoever accepts this gradually drops the notion “I am the doer.” The doer is He; I am nothing—just an instrument. If He shakes, I shake; if He runs, I run; if He lifts, I lift.

When people lived with the feeling “Everything happens through Him; we are puppets,” a great occurrence happened in the world: Eastern lands became nearly anxiety‑free. The peace the East has known, no other place has known. And the anxiety the West now knows, no age has ever known. Why? Because in the West God became doubtful; the idea of fate became useless.

I am not saying belief in fate is true. But that arrangement worked: if fate does everything, then I am not the doer—anxiety drops. In the West no God remains, no fate, no destiny—the entire burden falls on man. “I am doing. Whatever is done, I am doing,” and nothing remains to offload it upon.

Whether God is or not makes no difference; if you can turn over your doership to God—even if He is not—results begin in you: you become unburdened.

In the West anxiety has thickened. American psychologists say three out of four people are mentally ill. Three in four! How long will the fourth stand among the three? The majority is tugging him under. What is the reason? The East never produced so many madmen; the West has.

Madness grows in the West, and gradually becomes accepted. Freud, after a lifetime of research, concluded that man cannot truly be cured; man will remain somewhat mad. He admitted helplessness. And if Freud concedes helplessness, it carries weight—he spent fifty years researching the human mind. He says there is no way to make man completely healthy.

But Freud did not know that truly healthy men have lived on earth—healthy societies have existed. Their premises were different. The deepest was: I am not the doer. They had a device for it: the doer is God, fate, law, destiny—someone else. I am merely an instrument, like a leaf. If He moves me, I move; if not, I don’t. If He makes me win, I win; if He makes me lose, I lose. None of it is mine.

Twofold results follow. First, if I am not the doer, worry has no ground to arise. Loss is accepted, gain is accepted. Then gain is not “mine,” so ego does not inflate; loss is not “mine,” so sleep is not disturbed, anxiety does not grip, anguish does not fill the mind. And more delightful still: when someone else wins, jealousy does not arise—because his victory is not his greatness; it is God’s will. Nor is our loss our smallness; it is God’s will.

A great inner calm can be born if the sense of doership drops. You need not believe in God to drop it. Buddha dropped it without God—harder, but possible. Mahavira, too.

If without God, then deepen the witness. Remain only the seer—whatever happens, be the one who sees. If there is loss, see: loss happened. If there is gain, see: gain happened. Neither do I lose nor do I win—I only witness. Morning comes—I see morning has come. Evening falls—I see evening has fallen. Darkness gathers—I acknowledge darkness. The sun rises—there is light—I know there is light. I remain in my place as the seeing one—whether night or day, pleasure or pain, loss or gain. If one settles into witnessing, the doer dissolves; action is no longer centered in you; you become the center of seeing, of awareness. Actions go on around you in nature.

Mahavira says: hunger arises in the belly—I watch. A thorn pricks the foot—pain arises in the foot—I watch. The body falls ill—I watch. Even at death Mahavira will keep watching: the body is dying. You will not be able to see the body die; you will feel “I am dying.” A lifetime’s habit! If you have done everything yourself, death too will have to be done by you. Whoever has dropped doing in life, drops death as well. The one who has watched life as a witness sees death as a witness too.

When action ceases—meaning, the doer is gone—worry ends.

Deeper still:

“And with the ending of worry, desire ends.”

This seems like a mistake. Scriptures constantly say: when desire ends, worry ends. And that is what you have heard: if there is no desire, there will be no worry. This sutra says the reverse: when worry ends, desire ends. When action ceases, worry ceases—and when worry ceases, desire ceases. Why?

Have you noticed: the more anxious you are, the more driven by desire you become? When the mind is more troubled, sexual craving grips more strongly—because the mind vents its disturbance through sex; it feels lighter. When the mind is inflamed with anger, lust also increases. When the heart is joyful and content, lust holds less. If the heart remains utterly blissful, lust does not grip at all.

There are reasons. Whenever any force in the mind crosses a certain threshold of tension, the sex‑center works like a safety valve. It is a built‑in safety valve. When worry becomes too much, when there is more energy than you can bear, the body discovers a way to throw it out.

The sex‑center is a safety valve. Wherever power is at work, safety valves must be installed. Nature has installed one too.

If you heat a stove and pump in too much air, there must be some safety valve to vent it. In your house, you install fuses for electricity. If you happen to grab a live wire, you’ll die; so the fuse won’t let excess current flow. The moment there is overdraw, the fuse blows and the power is cut—saving you.

The body also has a safety valve—biological. The sex‑center is a safety valve. When excessive energy accumulates, restlessness increases, worry grips you, inner turmoil rises, then there are only two options: either become a witness, and the whole disturbance subsides; or that energy is expelled through the sexual center. You become weaker and in that weakness the tumult calms—because turmoil requires energy.

Thus often the weak appear “good.” Not that they truly are; it simply means they lack the energy required to be “bad.” Have you noticed that fat people usually seem cheerful, sociable, not quarrelsome? Why?

Ask a physiologist. He’ll say a fat man can’t fight; if he fights, he’ll be beaten—so he becomes sociable! He wants to avoid that business. He can neither fight nor run. In a fight there are only two choices: fight or flee. He can do neither. So he stays agreeable. This does not mean conflict has ended; it only means he lacks the energy to engage.

So whenever you are filled with worry—with sorrow and pain—lust will arise in the mind. Either become a witness. If you do, the energy entangled in worry is released, and with that very energy you begin the upward journey. If you cannot be a witness, the energy that is churning you, that has raised storm and tempest, will be expelled through the sex‑center. You will grow weak and feel “relief,” relaxation.

Freud called sex a natural tranquilizer, a rest‑inducing drug. The man, harried by the day’s troubles and anxieties, returns home. If he gets an outlet through sex, he sleeps well.

For this very reason women often take little interest in sex: they very quickly sense that for men they are merely a safety valve. It becomes obvious that love isn’t really the issue here—it is instrumental. They understand that gradually they have become a device through which a man discards his pent‑up energy and goes to sleep.

Often the man, after intercourse, turns over and sleeps, and the woman weeps. Nothing insults a woman more deeply than being used like an object.

Countless women tell me they have no taste for sex. Not that they inherently lack it; only that men use them merely as objects—so the very flavor has gone flat. Otherwise it is not that there is no taste. The truth is the reverse: women have more sexual energy than men. But they appear uninterested, even insipid. They take it as, “All right—let it be done; it settles the matter.” The reason is not absence of desire, but that in sex they feel reduced to an object; their personhood is treated as a thing. That hurts.

Other consequences follow. The man vents his energy through sex—what should the woman do? So women become quarrelsome, disruptive, shrill—they find other channels to drain energy, because their safety valve is blocked by distaste. Sex becomes merely the man’s device. Then women turn sharp‑tongued.

It is ironic. Women should be more tender—but it doesn’t happen. They should be more gentle—but it doesn’t happen. They should be musical—but it doesn’t happen. Why? Something is going wrong in the natural arrangement. The outlet that could have been theirs is obstructed; they have renounced it out of hurt. And to become a witness is harder. So energies swirl and seek other exits. A dish slips from her hand. Sugar bowl—exactly then it falls and breaks! In breaking there is a release. You could chart on which days more crockery breaks at home! You will find unfailingly that when a woman’s energy cannot be released, things break. In a hundred little ways, through anger and tension, she will throw energy out.

When worry weighs heavy on the mind, the mind runs toward lust.

Hence this sutra says: “When worry ends, desire ends.”

It is a very unique insight; very ancient; and psychologists are only now discovering it. If you become free of anxiety, desire weakens. If you become utterly free of anxiety, the mind will not run toward lust. Lust is only a necessity when inner storms cross the limit and must be expelled. If that storm never rises so high, lust diminishes—not energy, but lust. Energy accumulates. And beyond a certain point, every energy transforms.

Heat water, and at one hundred degrees it becomes steam. When that degree accumulates, water becomes vapor. When your semen, your energy, your power gathers to a point within and no storms arise, and there is no need to throw it out, suddenly—there is a point—when energy reaches that, the very energy that once flowed downward begins to flow upward.

Notice: water flows downward; steam rises upward. At one hundred degrees, what naturally flowed down—water—becomes steam and ascends toward the sky.

The same happens within you: there is a point, an evaporating point. When energy gathers there, you find the very personality that ran downward now runs upward. What once rushed outward now turns inward. What was yesterday called sin becomes merit; what was thought to be a foe becomes the greatest friend—this is experienced.

“The ending of desire is liberation.”

When there is no desire, you are free. And freedom can be realized while alive—no need to die first. What does not happen in life—do not trust that it will happen in death. You die exactly as you lived. Death is only the final culmination of life. Living‑free! The one who realizes freedom in life, here and now—his death too becomes liberation.

“Seeing everywhere, on every side, everyone as one Brahman—through such goodwill desire is destroyed.”

“Never be negligent in abidance in Brahman, for that alone is death, say the Brahmavadins.”

“Just as scum, even if cleared a little from the water, will soon cover it again, so too, if an intelligent person turns even a little away from abidance in Brahman, maya covers him again.”

Therefore continuous awareness is needed. It will not do to lose awareness even for a moment. This vigilance is needed until every last weed, every last rootstock within is burnt to its seed‑form. When all such seeds are seared away, then there is no more need to “keep” awareness—awareness has become your nature.