Adhyatam Upanishad #7

A very important question is raised in this aphorism. Down the ages a single question has kept arising in the human mind—since time immemorial: How are we to be free from the world in which we are entangled, the world in which we are surrounded by sorrow, pain, and anguish? And what, in truth, is this world in which we are trapped? What is the nature of this darkness in which we have sunk and been lost? For without knowing its nature, there can be no way out. Whatever we seek to be free of, we must first know it rightly. Bondage is born of ignorance; if we are to untie the knots, only knowledge can loosen them.

One morning it happened that Buddha came among his monks carrying a silk handkerchief in his hand. The monks were surprised—he never brought anything with him when he spoke to them. He sat down facing them and tied a knot in the handkerchief, then a second, and then five knots in all. Then he asked, “This handkerchief I brought had no knots. Now it has five. Tell me—has the handkerchief changed, or is it the same?”

Surely they were in a quandary. To say it has changed is not quite right, because the handkerchief is exactly the same. The knots have not altered the nature of the cloth in the least. It is as it was. Yet to say it has not changed at all is also improper; before it was open, now it is tied up. There has been at least this much change.

One monk stood up and said, “You ask a very difficult question. The handkerchief is almost changed!”

Let’s understand this a little, because this word will soon appear in the aphorism, and then it will be essential to grasp it. Almost changed! It has and it hasn’t. It hasn’t changed if we consider its essence; it has changed if we look at its body. It has not changed in its soul; it has changed in its form. Inwardly it is the same, outwardly knots have appeared and the look has altered. Its shape is changed, its contours are changed. It hasn’t changed in its ultimate nature; yet it has changed in its utility. The open cloth could be used; tied into five knots, it cannot even be called a handkerchief—for “handkerchief” was a name for something of some use.

Remember, when we give a name to something, it is usually a name of function. Language is forced, so we continue to use the same word even when the utility is absent.

Take the fan. When you move air with it in the heat, you call it a fan. But when it is lying still, strictly speaking it shouldn’t be called a fan. “Fan” means that by which air is being moved, which is functioning as a fan. But when it is not moving air, it is not doing that job—so it shouldn’t be called a fan.

Legs are those by which you walk. When you are not walking, strictly speaking they shouldn’t be called legs. The names should be functional. But language would become impossibly difficult then—one name for walking legs, another for sitting legs. So we make do.

Thus “fan” carries two meanings: that by which air is being moved, or that by which air can be moved—we use both senses, the second one being potential.

A handkerchief has a use—you can wrap something in it. But a handkerchief tied into knots cannot wrap anything now.

Buddha then said, “One more question. I want to untie these knots—what should I do?”

Saying this, he took the two ends of the handkerchief and pulled hard. The knots became smaller, tighter, more compact.

One monk cried out, “Forgive me, Lord! What you are doing will only tighten the knots and make them harder to untie!”

Buddha said, “So one thing is clear: by merely doing something the knots won’t open. I am doing something, yet you say my doing only tightens them. Then by what doing will they open?”

Another monk said, “First we must know how the knot was tied. Unless we understand the nature of the knot, it cannot be undone. First we must see how it was made. The way of untying is the exact reverse of the way of tying. Until we know how it was tied, it is better to do nothing than to do something—for doing may tangle the mesh further; the knot may grow more difficult; the task of untying become harder.”

Knots too are upon our consciousness. And the situation is just this: we are utterly unchanged—and yet we are changed. Our nature is exactly that of the Supreme Brahman, but some knots have formed upon us. Until those knots open, we cannot experience that ultimate nature which is knotless.

For Mahavira the Jains have given a beautiful name: Nirgrantha—knotless. Whenever Buddha speaks of Mahavira he says, Niggantha Nātaputta—the son of the Nātha clan who became nirgrantha, the boy born in the Nātha family who became free of knots. The one whose knots were cut, whose knots were opened.

This word nirgrantha is precious. Brahman is nirgrantha—without knots. And we are sagrandha—with knots. That alone is the difference.

But how did the knot form? What is it? We must understand its nature. This aphorism speaks exactly of its nature; there are very valuable insights here.

“In one’s own Self the appearance of all objects is only an imputation; removing that, one becomes by oneself the complete nondual, actionless Supreme Brahman.”

When a knot appears on a handkerchief it does not come from outside. Have you ever seen a knot without a handkerchief? Have you ever seen a knot without a rope? Have you ever seen a pure knot? Whenever a knot is, it is on something; a knot cannot exist alone. This makes one thing obvious: a knot cannot come from outside. It cannot exist by itself—so how could it enter from outside!

Nor did the handkerchief have a knot within it when it was unbound. So where did the knot come from? Did it come from inside the cloth? A moment earlier there was no knot; how could it come from within? Not from outside, for a knot is never found out there by itself. Neither from without nor from within. The cloth has superimposed it upon itself; it has constructed it. Constructed means: it was not in the nature of the cloth, it has been acquired.

This world is our acquisition—our achievement. We have labored much to construct it. Knots do not exist anywhere by themselves; the cloth has exerted and imposed them on itself. Whatever appears in consciousness is an imputation. Whatever you experience within is an overlay.

As we were saying earlier, objects come before a mirror and appear in it. If the mirror were to make the mistake we have made, it too would fall into the same trouble in which we are trapped. But the mirror does not make that mistake—though there are mirror-like things that do. For example, the photographic plate or film.

The film hidden inside the camera differs from the mirror in just this: in both a reflection forms, but the mirror does not retain the reflection, whereas the film does. Hence whatever image forms on the film is caught and kept—and the very act of catching makes that frame unavailable for another. The space fills up.

A mirror never fills. However many reflections appear, it remains empty. Images come and go; the mirror goes on letting them go. Its renunciation is constant. It does not cling to enjoyment. Your face appears; the mirror lets it go. You move away, and it forgets—as if you had never stood before it.

Human consciousness is like the mirror; the human mind is like the film. The inner consciousness is mirror-like—nothing forms on it. But in addition you possess a device called “mind.” Mind is exactly like the photographic plate; whatever forms on it gets caught. In truth, if the mind did not retain, it would lose its utility. We say good memory is valuable. Education and society stand upon memory. Whose memory is this? The mind’s, which holds on.

Mind is purely a device, like the film. It keeps catching. Whatever comes before it, it catches. What is useless, it catches; what is worthless trash, it catches; what is not needed at all, it catches. Film cannot choose. When you expose it in the camera, it cannot decide what to take and what to leave. Whatever falls upon it, it records.

So your mind keeps catching. You have no idea how much web your mind gathers in a single day! And now psychologists say that the mind records not only what you know, it records even what you do not know you perceived.

Right now you sit here. I’m speaking; you are listening. You have no idea that a bird made a cry and flew off. You do not recall that a horn honked on the street. You do not remember—yet your mind records it all. If someone asked, “Did a bird fly while you were listening?” you would say, “I have no idea.” But if you were hypnotized and then asked, you would say, “Yes, I know—a bird flew, a horn honked.”

This is what psychologists call subliminal memory. Behind the conscious mind is a semi-conscious mind that is always recording—even what you don’t know you noticed. At night when you sleep, that semi-conscious mind keeps capturing what is happening outside.

You will be amazed to know that the latest scientific findings say that a child in the mother’s womb is already forming memories—recording what happens outside. Yoga has held for a very long time that the events happening around the mother are recorded by the child and shape him. Western science is now coming close to accepting this.

And as understanding grows, things become more troublesome. Psychology now says that by the age of four a child has already absorbed fifty percent of the knowledge he will have in a lifetime—fifty percent! When he dies at eighty, half of what he knew, he had taken in by the age of four. So in terms of knowledge, your life is half finished by four—half old already.

Yoga adds: the day we understand what the child records in the womb, things will look even more different—perhaps a large percentage is taken in even before birth. But the child retains no conscious memory of it—it is subliminal, lodged in his chitta. On this, several Western governments now face questions: this subliminal knowledge—these semi-conscious recordings—can be exploited, and dangerously so.

You watch a film. Right now, commercials have to be shown to you—“Smoke this cigarette; use that soap; do this, do that.” Because it is shown openly, a small resistance arises—you know it is advertising; you are less affected than you could be. A beautiful woman holds up a bar of soap and says her beauty is thanks to it—you know this is not to be taken too far. Still, by repetition it sinks in.

But now subliminal advertising has been devised. On the screen you will not even see “Use Lux Toilet Soap.” The film will go on, and between two frames, in a thousandth of a second, the Lux ad will flash. Your eyes cannot see it—it flickers too fast. But your mind will catch it.

This is dangerous. Many governments are considering banning it, because it is so perilous. You won’t know; you won’t even read it; you won’t understand anything happened between frames. One in a thousand might sense that “something odd occurred,” but won’t be sure; the rest will sit oblivious. The semi-conscious mind will catch it.

This is dangerous. It means a man can run for election and keep flashing, “Vote for me,” and you will go and vote for him—never knowing why! Any abuse of this is possible. Dictatorial governments can make great use of it. You will be perfect prey.

The mind is forever recording—everything. Millions of impressions are captured every moment; all pile up. The mind is like a photographic plate, or like a tape on a tape recorder; it keeps collecting everything.

And the human brain has roughly seven hundred million cells; each cell can store millions of impressions. If life were long enough, a single person could memorize all the libraries on earth. The limitation is life-span, not the mind. The film is long; life is short. If a man had a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand years, he could store the world’s libraries in this small skull.

So mind accumulates; it is the great hoarder. No treasury is as large; and all wealthy men are poor by comparison. The mind’s capacity to collect is unmatched. Behind the mind is consciousness—mirror-like pure. It does not retain anything. Whatever comes before it, it sees; when it goes, it is finished. The mirror remains pristine—whether the moon reflects there, or a thorn, a flower, a beautiful face, or an ugly event. Whatever comes is present only while present; once gone, it is gone.

Mind is a mechanism. You are not mind; you are consciousness. But all of us have taken ourselves to be the mind. We have no clue of that mirror which is always pure and stainless.

This aphorism says:

“In one’s own Self the appearance of all objects is only an imputation; removing that, one becomes by oneself the complete nondual and actionless Brahman.”

Nothing is to be done. Nothing is to be done; you are Brahman. This is Vedanta’s declaration. You are not to become Brahman—you already are. You need not go anywhere to attain truth; it has always been available to you. Then what has gone wrong? The consciousness within, and outside it the mind—whatever gathers in the mind keeps reflecting within the consciousness.

Understand it thus: the moon rises and shines upon the lake. Then the moon sets, and the reflection disappears from the lake as well. For it appears only while it is there. If we hang a false moon in the sky that never moves, its reflection in the lake will never vanish. So long as the moon does not leave above, the reflection will not leave below. This is subtle; to understand the inner mechanism of man, it is necessary.

If this goes on for endless time, the lake might even begin to suspect that the reflection is not of the moon but its own—because it never disappears. At dawn the sun rises, at night the moon; every day they vanish and the lake is empty between. The lake remembers: the sun came and went; the moon came and went; I am only a mirror.

Within you, consciousness; over it, mind; outside mind, the world. In the world, everything is changing moment to moment. In the mind, nothing changes—the mind is photographic, static. Whatever forms there sticks forever. That stuck image seems to stick also in the consciousness within, seems ever-present.

Hence the delusion that consciousness and mind are the same. They seem identified because no gap is visible. Whatever is seen in the mind seems seen in the consciousness. No boundary appears between the two. Therefore arises the illusion that the world seems to be superimposed upon the Self—that it has entered the Self.

Nothing enters the Self; everything enters the mind. Until we learn the art of putting the mind aside—so that the world and the Self stand face to face, with no broker in between, no middleman of mind, no spread of the mind—until then we will not know that all was imputed and that I was Brahman, not the world; that I was consciousness, not the body. It seemed that I was the body because an image in the mind said, “I am the body.” That very image reflected within the Self. There was no greed, no anger, no lust in the Self—but all were in the mind, and the mind’s images kept flickering within. And they flickered for so long, through such timeless time, that it was natural to mistake the reflection for my very nature.

Remember, the body is shed in every birth. But the mind? The mind does not die; it travels from one birth to another. When you die, the body is left, not the mind. The mind falls only when you are liberated. Even death lacks the power to end the mind. Death can only dissolve the body; it cannot dissolve the mind. The mind goes beyond death. Only liberation—only samadhi—has the power to dissolve even the mind. Hence those who know have called samadhi the great death. In ordinary death, only the body dies; in samadhi, both body and mind die—and what remains is only that which cannot die, the deathless, the immortal.

The mind keeps getting constructed, accumulated, growing through beginningless time. Each time, whether the body remains or is shed, the mind stays linked with the Self. Its shadow keeps falling upon the Self. Slowly the Self too begins to feel, “What is in the mind—that is me.” This is our world; this is our knot.

There is only one way to untie this knot: for a little while we must be without mind. Lay the mind aside, and look at the world once, directly. Take no broker in between; take no mediator. If we catch even one glimpse of the world without mind, it will become crystal clear that nothing has ever entered within. The inner mirror is always clear, pristine; no image is caught upon it. All images have come and gone; stories of birth upon birth have passed—but not a line, not even a scratch remains there.

That experience of pristine nature—that is the Supreme Brahman. Brahman bound to mind appears as the world. Brahman when broken free of mind is the Supreme. And when the soul is bound to mind, a body becomes inevitable—because the mind’s cravings cannot be gratified without a body. The mind raises desires; without the body, they cannot be satisfied.

That is why you have often heard—and now it is becoming a scientific truth—that “a spirit has entered someone’s body.” Some call it superstition, some call it illness; but you may never have asked: if spirits exist, why do they enter people’s bodies? You may suppose he was an enemy and came to harass; perhaps you think it is karmic payback.

No—none of that. We call “spirit” that consciousness whose body has fallen away but whose mind has not. The mind demands a body, for all its desires can be fulfilled only through bodily instruments. The mind wants to touch a beloved body; but the spirit cannot touch, lacking hands. The mind wants to taste something delicious; but though the spirit has a mind that desires taste, it has no tongue. That is the pain of the spirit: mind is present, but there are no instruments to seek its satisfactions. The urges are intact, the means are gone.

A “spirit” means simply one that has not yet found a new body. And there are two kinds of souls that have difficulty getting reborn. Ordinary people are reborn easily—die here, born there—sometimes with no more gap than a few minutes. But souls at the two extremes—the very wicked and the very virtuous—do not get suitable births easily, for they require fitting wombs. If Hitler dies, it will not be easy to find parents—parents wicked enough to give birth to such a one. He may have to wait years, even centuries. The same difficulty arises for very pure souls. The virtuous that wander bodiless we have called “gods”; the wicked that wander bodiless we have called “spirits.”

Whenever someone becomes so weak that his own soul shrinks within his body, a spirit may enter—not to torment him, not out of malice, but to gratify its desires through his body.

If you are weak, lacking will, a spirit can shove you aside and enter. It cannot find birth, and it is full of craving. It will touch a woman with your hand; it will taste food with your tongue; it will look at forms with your eyes; it will listen to music with your ears. For this a spirit enters—not to harass. If you are harassed, that is secondary, a by-product; torment is not its intention.

But certainly, when two souls crowd into one body, there will be pain and trouble. It is like a guest coming to stay and never leaving. The guest sprawls and the host shrinks into a corner—until it is not even clear who is host and who is guest. The guest grows arrogant because the host, thinking “the guest is god,” serves him. The guest begins to believe he is the owner—and one day says to the host, “Forgive me, now you may go. It’s been long enough!” Exactly such a painful situation arises.

The mind immediately demands a body—at the very moment of death. Hence the next birth happens.

The soul is tied to the mind; the mind is tied to the body.

There are two paths of practice. One is to separate body from mind—what is often called tapas, austerity. It is a long journey, very arduous, and its outcome uncertain. The other is to separate mind from consciousness—what we call Vedanta, knowledge. If we name them properly: separating body from mind—call it Yoga; separating mind from Self—call it Sankhya. These are the two basic orientations.

Sankhya means knowledge alone suffices; nothing is to be done. Yoga means much must be done before anything can happen.

This aphorism is of Sankhya. It is of knowledge. It says: In one’s own Self the appearance of all things is only imputation; knowing this, one becomes by oneself the complete nondual Supreme Brahman. Nothing else need be done.

“In the one Self-shaped reality, the appearance of this world as manifold (as difference) is almost false.”

That is why I said the monk told Buddha, “The handkerchief is almost changed.” This aphorism says that the whole world that appears as division is almost false.

“For how could differences arise in that which is changeless, formless, and without parts!”

Almost false—this is a precious philosophical insight. We must understand what “almost false” could mean. That something is false—we can understand. But “almost false”? That something is true—we can understand. But “almost true”? “Almost” muddles everything! If you tell someone, “I almost love you”—it spoils everything. Either say you love, or you don’t; what is “almost love”? Should we call it love or not? If we say, “That man is almost a saint”—what does it mean?

This word is precious, and in Indian thought it is of great value. India has created a new category of thinking. In the thinking of the rest of the world there are two categories: truth and falsehood. In Indian thought there are three: truth; falsehood; and the in-between—the third, the “almost.” We call this almost-true or almost-false “maya,” or “mithya.” We created three terms: satya, asatya, mithya.

What is mithya? People commonly take it to mean false. No—mithya does not mean false. It means “between true and false”—something that is unreal, yet appears as if real.

A rope lies there, and you see a snake. In the dark your wits desert you; you run, sweating, heart pounding. Someone says, “No need to panic—take this lantern and look: it’s only a rope.” In the light you see: rope. What will you call the snake you saw? It was not true. But you cannot call it simply false, for it functioned like the true: you ran as you would from a real snake; your sweat was real—caused by an unreal snake; your heartbeat surged; you feared a heart attack—you might even have had one and died. How can a non-existent snake cause a real attack? But it can.

Therefore Indian thought refuses to call that snake utterly false. It is not true, because inquiry shows a rope. It is not simply false either, because the consequences are real-like. India calls it almost false or almost true—mithya, maya. This is the third, middle category. In English it is hard to translate; other languages also lack a precise equivalent. Most translations end up meaning “false,” not “mithya.” Mithya is a purely Indian term.

Keep in mind: mithya means “that which is not, but appears as if it is.” There are such things. Therefore India says we must create a separate category for them.

This world that is mithya—you have often heard Vedanta say the world is mithya; the Upanishads say it; Shankara repeats it morning to night. We think they are saying the world is false. They are not. They are saying: as the snake is seen in a rope. What is appears not as it is, and what appears is not what is. It is an error of seeing, an optical delusion, a mistake of vision.

It is like pressing your eye and seeing two moons. Where is the second moon? But you are in difficulty. If, with the eye pressed, someone asks which of the two is true and which is false, you cannot tell. Both seem true, though both are not. Release the pressure and one remains, the other disappears. What was the second? It was seen! If someone’s eye were permanently pressed, he would always see two moons.

Our vision is pressed by the mind’s experiences, images, and accumulations. Whatever we see, the mind shows us.

Imagine you live in a land where there are no snakes, where you have never seen a snake, never seen a picture, don’t know the word. Could you see a snake in a rope?

Impossible. How? Without the imprint of “snake,” how could a rope ever look like a snake?

The snake appears because the mind has a samskara, an image. You saw a snake somewhere—on a poster, in a zoo, with a snake-charmer. That image is in the mind; it lurks behind your eyes. A rope lies before you; darkness generates many possibilities. Darkness creates fear—that’s one. Along with fear, the earlier fear of a snake’s bite joins in. The rope’s wavy look resembles the snake’s. Fear, the fear of snake, the rope’s resemblance—your inner mind’s snake gets projected onto the rope. You flee. The rope has no idea what happened—what did you see and why did you run!

Something like this happened to me years ago. I used to get up at three and walk along a path at night. It was lonely. The path ran under bamboo thickets; only a small stretch was open. I would run forward from one end and run backward returning; that hour served me as exercise.

One day there was great trouble. I was returning walking backward. While I was still under the thicket’s shade, some fellow—a milkman with empty cans on his way to get milk—was coming from the other side. As I stepped into the moonlight suddenly, he must have seen me all at once. A moment earlier I was invisible. And I was walking backward—ghosts walk backward! He threw his cans with a crash and bolted. Seeing him run, I wondered what had happened to him. I had no idea he was terrified of me. I ran after him. Then he nearly gave up the ghost! The faster I ran toward him saying, “Wait—what’s the matter?” the faster he ran. I have never seen such speed!

A hotel man nearby woke at the commotion and the clatter of cans. I told him I didn’t know what had happened. He said, “You ask what happened? I know—you walk backward here; even I get scared. Maybe that fellow was new.”

I said, “Keep his cans; perhaps he’ll return in the morning.”

He never came back. Whenever I’ve passed that hotel since, I’ve asked, “Did he come?” He never did. There is no way now to tell him what he saw was almost false. There was no ghost. He saw one—but for him it was absolutely real; otherwise he would not have run so far.

Our minds project inner imprints.

What we see is not what is; we see what our eyes—driven by mind—show us. Projection is happening every moment. Who knows how much we are seeing that is not there! This whole world is an expansion of our own eyes. We first project—and then we see. First we throw the snake upon the rope, then we see it, then we run. The whole world is like this. We project beauty onto someone, then we are enchanted, then we go mad.

The rishis of the Upanishads say: this world as seen by man is almost false. By saying “almost,” they speak very sweetly. They are not denying it altogether—otherwise how could so many be so troubled? There is some truth. The rope is there—that is true. The snake is not—that is false. The rope resembles the snake somewhat—that is true. But the rope remains a rope; it does not become a snake—that too is true. In between these truths and falsehoods, the world of fear appears—the snake seen in the rope. That is mithya, maya.

Until the mind is removed completely and we can see directly, we cannot see the truth of the world. Seeing the truth of the world, the world dissolves and only Brahman remains. For now, Brahman appears divided—here Brahman as stone, there Brahman as tree; here Brahman as man, there Brahman as woman. It appears divided.

If all projection from behind the eyes—the mechanism of imputation—falls away, this entire world becomes a single, changeless consciousness, a single ocean. Its differences fall.

“The conscious Self, free of seeing, the seer, and the seen, is stainless—full like the ocean at dissolution.”

That inward witness, freed of mind, empty of it—that conscious Self holds no division. The notions of seeing and seen vanish there. There is no seer and nothing seen. All duality is gone. There is only the expanse of consciousness. The comparison given is very sweet: full like the ocean at the time of dissolution.

Our oceans, however vast, are limited. However great their expanse, they have shores. And where there is shore, there is incompleteness, for there is a boundary. A small pond is bounded by a small shore, a great sea by a great shore—but what difference is there between small and large bondage? Bondage is bondage. Hence it is not said “like the sea,” but “like the sea of dissolution.”

Pralaya is a mythic vision: when creation subsides, all is submerged in water—everything. Not a speck remains unsubmerged. Then the sea has no shore, for shore means some land remains outside the sea. That land becomes the boundary.

So the witness-consciousness is like the sea at dissolution—shoreless, boundless, complete. But the differences must disappear; as long as they remain, there is boundary.

“And just as darkness is lost, dissolved in light...”

A most wondrous insight!

“...so in the one-without-a-second Supreme the cause of delusion is dissolved. It is without parts—how can there be difference in it?”

“Just as darkness merges into light.”

A unique seeing. Darkness fills your house; you light a lamp. Have you ever wondered where the darkness goes? Does it go outside? Then try this: first light a lamp outside and post guards. Then light a lamp in the inner room. If darkness goes out, those guards will see it going.

Darkness does not go anywhere. Where does it go? The Upanishad says something very sweet: darkness is dissolved in light. That is hard to grasp, because we take darkness and light to be enemies. How could they merge? We think there is struggle and conflict between them—and we want to abandon darkness and clutch the light.

So it is hard to accept that darkness merges into light. We fear that if it merges, the light will become dark—like black ink merging into white cloth. But try it: when black ink merges into white cloth, it is the white cloth that is lost; the ink is not.

“Darkness merges into light.”

Great implications flow from this. First, there is no enmity between light and darkness. Meaning? There is no enmity between world and liberation. The world merges into liberation. Meaning? There is no opposition between mithya and truth—mithya merges into truth.

Darkness merging into light means darkness has been waiting, prepared, for the light to appear so it can dissolve. Have you ever seen darkness hesitate—“Shall I merge or not? I’ll think about it, come back tomorrow; shall I take sannyas or not?” No—it does not think. It seems as if it was ready. Just waiting: “Let there be light, and I will merge.” Not even a moment’s delay. The arising of light and the dissolving of darkness are simultaneous.

What does this mean in spiritual terms?

That the moment the inner light is kindled, the mind, maya, with all its structure, dissolves at once in that light. It doesn’t remain; search as you may, it is nowhere to be found. You cannot even understand how it was there till yesterday.

When you see the rope as rope, you will be puzzled—where did the snake go? You will doubt yourself—perhaps I was imagining I saw it. For how could it be?

Those who awaken are puzzled to think that the world exists—or could exist.

Just this morning I was speaking with someone—a sannyasini—who said, “When will I be free of this—of sorrow? Of worry? Sometimes it feels like I am, then I’m back in the same misery!”

I told her I have a difficulty too: it is becoming harder and harder for me to understand how sorrow happens at all—how it gets constructed. Not that I was never miserable—I was. But now I have the same difficulty as someone remembering long ago seeing a snake in a rope and wondering, How did that happen?

And if someone still sees it now, there is a problem: what seems to you a great question seems no question at all to me. It even feels as if you are making much ado about nothing. Yet saying that seems unkind, because the man is suffering; he is running; he sees a snake. If you tell a panting man, “Why are you running? You are talking nonsense. It’s only a rope!”—he will be more upset.

Remember, Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, Christ—when they explain things to you, you cannot imagine their difficulty. For they prescribe a cure for a disease that does not exist. The disease is not, and yet the sick man trembles and says, “My life is going!”

In medical science there is the term “placebo.” A medicine that is almost a medicine is called a placebo. It works for diseases that are not really there—almost diseases, almost medicines. It works—a sugar pill.

Homeopathy is almost a placebo; there is hardly any medicine there. But since the disease is hardly there, it works. If the disease were real, a real medicine would be needed. Ninety out of a hundred illnesses are fake. Even common ones. To give a real drug for a fake illness is dangerous, for the drug will have side effects.

But the spiritual “illness”—this sorrow and anguish, this world—this is a hundred percent false. Yet to say “one hundred percent false” is not quite right. Buddha or Shankara, from their side, can say it. But out of compassion for the billions afflicted, one has to say—“almost.” You have to coax and woo them, little by little: take this medicine; chant this mantra; do this, do that. Perhaps in taking the medicine they will forget the illness. Or become so fed up with medicines that they throw away both medicine and disease. Or they may say, “Enough of lifetimes of remedies; now we accept the disease as it is.” In any case, you will discover the disease was not there. The enemy you fought was almost—only an appearance.

That is why all religions have devised false means. And it is hard to find greater “liars” than Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, Christ! Not because they were liars—none were ever truer—but because your illnesses are false. Those who must heal among such false patients know what to do.

The great philosophies fashioned by these knowers are all lies—meaning, almost lies. They are devices to cut your disease. You see the rope and run from the snake. I may keep saying, “It’s a rope,” but you ask, “Why should I trust you? Maybe you had an experience—or maybe not. And even if you did, maybe with some other rope, some other snake. How do I know it applies here?”

Instead of explaining, it is better I tie a talisman on your arm: “There is indeed a snake—but here is a charm that no snake in the world can withstand.” This will work better than saying, “It’s only a rope.” With the charm, I can take you into a dark room where a rope has been placed; from a distance you will see a snake, up close a rope. Case solved—the talisman works. Then you go into the world; such a thing might happen that even when you approach a real snake you will see a rope—such is the talisman.

Man’s mind creates appearances. Those appearances are imputed. All of them dissolve into that Supreme Truth. The moment the witness is experienced, the entire spread of the world contracts and merges into the witness—into the shoreless, bankless ocean.

“This Supreme is of a single nature; no division can be there. Deep sleep is of the nature of bliss alone; who has ever seen division there?”

One last point in this aphorism—deep sleep. Those who have explored the inner layers have recognized three states of human consciousness. One is waking—when you rise in the morning. One is dreaming—when, after falling asleep, a procession of images and reflections begins. And once in a while there comes a period in the night when there are no dreams and no waking—only deep sleep remains: sushupti. Sushupti means sleep so profound that even dreams are absent.

The Upanishads hold—indeed, they know—that in deep sleep no division remains. How could it? The mind that creates division is absent.

When you are awake, divisions remain. Your house is yours; your neighbor’s is not. You are poor; your neighbor is rich. You are dark; your neighbor is fair. A thousand distinctions. Because the mind constructs them. In dreams you will notice an odd thing: divisions remain, but the dividing line vanishes.

Understand this: in waking there are divisions and sharp boundaries. Friend is friend; enemy is enemy. A is A; B is B. In dreams divisions remain, but the line between them dissolves; they become fluid. You see a friend approaching—and suddenly he becomes an enemy. Yet you do not doubt; you never think, “How can this be?” You were talking to a man, and he becomes a horse—and still no doubt. In dreams there are categories—“man,” “horse”—but the dividing line is not firm; it is fluid. The mind is unsettled; things are jumbled.

In waking the mind is steady; things are distinct, logical. In dreams the mind is wavering, as if the reflection of the moon on water has been disturbed—silver remains, the moon does not; it shatters into pieces. The mind in dream is shaken; boundaries blur; things interpenetrate; nothing holds to rules. Dream does not obey logic.

The third state is deep sleep—where even dreaming ceases.

Remember, where dreams end, mind ends. Where thoughts cease, mind cannot remain.

In waking, mind is solid; in dream, liquid; in deep sleep, vaporized. Science accepts this threefold nature for all things—and India recognizes it for the mind as well. Science says matter has three states: solid, liquid, gaseous. Water becomes ice—solid; steam—vapor. Three states of the same thing. India says: mind too is a thing, a substance; it has three states. Waking is solid, dream liquid, deep sleep vapor. The mind has become vapor—mind is not there.

So in deep sleep no division remains—because the divider is gone. The world becomes one. In deep sleep you arrive where the knower arrives in samadhi. The only difference: the knower is full of awareness; you are unconscious. That is all. Deep sleep and samadhi are identical—save for a slight but crucial difference. The knower arrives awake; filled with awareness; deep sleep + awareness = samadhi.

You too arrive there every night. In the morning you say, “I slept so blissfully.” Do you know which part you call blissful? If dreams ran all night, you never say you slept well—you say, “I was restless; dreams after dreams; I couldn’t sleep.” Blissful sleep is only when dreams stop. But while it happens you do not know it is blissful—because you are unconscious. In the morning you only know it was blissful—a faint afterglow remains, an echo of joy.

It is striking that no one has ever woken and said, “I had a very sorrowful deep sleep.” Have you ever heard it? If dreams came, that was not deep sleep. In all of human history, no one has said, “My sleep was deep and I suffered greatly.” It never happens—how could it?

Deep sleep is of the nature of bliss. There is no sorrow there; therefore we do not even call it “pleasure” (sukha)—we call it ananda, bliss. Pleasure has sorrow as its opposite; bliss has no opposite. Sushupti is ananda. Only the flavor of bliss remains; no division.

As in deep sleep, so too in the experience of the witness: oneness. Only bliss remains. And like the ocean at dissolution—without shores, without banks, no edge anywhere—such joy, such bliss, and one alone. No division remains.