Adhyatam Upanishad #8

This sutra contains some very important points. First:

‘All distinctions and all alternatives have their root in chitta. If chitta is not, there is no distinction. Therefore, concentrate your chitta in the Supreme.’

Chitta and one-pointedness—these two need to be understood in depth. Chitta is an inevitability of life. Chitta means: the stream of thoughts. All the time chitta is flowing within you.

Chitta is not a thing; let this be the first point to note. Chitta is a flow, not an object. And the difference is precious. A stone lies there—an object; a spring flows—a stream. What lies there is still; what flows changes every moment. Chitta is not an object, it is a flow. Therefore it is changing moment to moment. Not even for a single instant is it what it was a moment ago—like a river forever changing.

Heraclitus has said: you cannot step twice into the same river. Because when you step in again, the water you stepped into the first time has gone—who knows where. Likewise, you cannot encounter the same chitta twice; what has flowed, has flowed away. And within, the current is flowing all the time.

We stand behind this flowing stream and look at the world. So the shadow of chitta falls on everything. And a changing chitta, shattered into thousands of fragments, breaks the whole world to pieces as well.

So the first thing: chitta is a flow, ever-changing. Therefore, the unchanging cannot be known through chitta. If that by which we know is itself changing, we cannot know that which never changes. Whatever we know through a changing medium will also appear to be changing.

As if you were wearing tinted glasses—and their color keeps changing: from red to green, green to yellow, yellow to clear. As the spectacles change, the world outside seems to change color with them; because the medium through which you see is imposing itself.

Your mind is changing every moment. That is why through mind we can know only what changes; we cannot know that which never changes. And the supreme secret of life is the unchanging, the eternal. Therefore chitta is not the way to know it.

Matter, the substance of the world, changes; it changes like the mind. So mind can know the world of matter, but not the God hidden within the world. Science uses mind, chitta, as its instrument for inquiry; through mind it explores the world. That is why science will never be able to say “God is.” Science will always say, “Matter is.” No realization of the divine will be available in science—not because the divine is not, but because the medium science uses can know only what changes; it cannot know the changeless.

Understand it this way: music is playing, and you try to hear it with your eyes—you will never hear it; there will be no sign of music at all. Eyes can see, so through the eyes form can be known. Eyes cannot hear, so sound cannot be known through them. Ears can hear, but cannot see. If someone tries to see with the ears, he will say, “There is no form in the world.” The ear can only grasp sound. A medium can only know what it is able to grasp.

Chitta is change. The nature of chitta is change, flow. Therefore chitta can attune with change, but it cannot know the changeless. So those who set out to seek the divine through mind will, today or tomorrow, become atheists. If they do not become atheists, it only means they are weak; they lack the courage to take the mind’s verdict to its conclusion. A person who follows mind cannot be truly theistic. His theism will be as false as a deaf man saying, “I have heard music with my eyes,” or a blind man saying, “I have seen form with my ears, I have experienced light.” The theism of the mind-driven person will be just as false.

That is why, though there are so many believers in the world, it is difficult to find a true believer. If you too bring faith, you bring it through mind—after thinking. No one ever becomes truly theistic through thinking; and if he does, it is a false theism.

If you remain honest, thinking will lead only to atheism. Understand this clearly. Because the medium cannot grasp the changeless; if you deceive yourself, that is another matter. Examine your faith! You “believe” in God, but it is a thought-out belief: logic, inference, ideas, scriptures, tradition, doctrines. That God is not real; he only exposes your dishonesty, because God cannot be born from the mind.

Ninety-nine percent of those called believers are hidden atheists. Their faith has no strength, no vitality; it is impotent. A slight blow and their belief shatters. It has no roots within. One becomes a true believer only when one looks at existence with mind put aside. Then the world does not appear, because once mind is absent, the changing can no longer be perceived. When mind is absent and consciousness looks, consciousness can relate only to that which does not change.

Consciousness is eternal, changeless. So the music of consciousness harmonizes only with the eternal. When mind is removed, what appears is the divine; when mind is brought in, what appears is the world. Define it this way: those who have known existence without mind have said, “There is only God, and nothing else”; those who have known existence through mind have said, “There is everything, but not only God.”

So through mind you will never know the truth. You will know the world—and that only through mind; but not the real. And whatever is known through mind will go on changing moment to moment. Therefore science cannot be static—and never will be. Science can never say, “This truth is eternal.” Science can only say, “Tentatively, temporarily, as far as we know at present, this appears to be true. What will be tomorrow, we cannot say.”

Thus science changes every day; what was true yesterday becomes false today. Today the difficulty is that what is taught in schools and colleges is taught only when it is almost obsolete. Because it takes twenty years: from discovery to adoption in textbooks takes at least that long; meanwhile it has already gone out of date. Today no one can write big books on science: if someone writes a thousand-page book, by the time he finishes, much of it will be wrong. So science is moving toward smaller books—and even those are yielding to short papers; they can be written instantly, without the fear that they will be outdated before publication.

Science must change, because nothing sought through mind can be eternal.

That is why thinkers in the West are puzzled: Mahavira said something two and a half thousand years ago; the seers of the Upanishads said something five thousand years ago—how can it still be true? Five thousand years! When what was said five years ago becomes dubious here, how can what was said five thousand years ago still stand?

Their point seems reasonable; if five-year-old statements become suspect, five-thousand-year-old statements will naturally seem even more suspect.

But no: what the Upanishads said is true even now, and will be just as true tomorrow. There are two possible meanings. One: India’s intelligence has become stunted—it does not evolve; it got stuck five thousand years ago. What was found then has been clutched ever since; no further movement—otherwise it would have been refuted long ago.

Today, even in India, those who think—and very few actually think, and those who do mostly borrow, largely shadows of the West—whether in the West or in India, people think in the scientific mode. From that angle it will seem that these Indian truths, being thousands of years old, must long ago have become false; but because India stopped thinking, it could not revise them, and remained stuck.

For one who thinks with the mind, this claim seems valid. But these truths were never discovered by mind—there lies the crux. Whether they were found five thousand years back or fifty thousand years back, or five thousand years hence—they were not found by mind. And what is not found by mind does not change; there is no way for it to change. Because when mind is dropped, we enter that world which is eternal, beginningless—where nothing ever changes; where all is immutable; where time has stopped; where there is no movement in time; where time is frozen. These truths will always remain true. If they have been discovered beyond mind, no change in the world can bring change into them. If they, too, were found within mind, then the world’s changes would keep changing them.

India’s original discovery is this: existence can be known without mind; existence can be known without mind. This is the difference between religion and science. Science says: whatever can be known, can be known through mind. Religion says: whatever is known through mind is provisional, approximately true. What is known beyond mind—that alone is true. And only beyond mind does real knowing become possible.

So how to dissolve this chitta? How to make it empty? Silent?

This sutra says: make it one-pointed and it will become empty, it will become quiet.

This is the second thing to understand. The very nature of chitta is not to be one-pointed; that is its nature. Try to make it one-pointed even for a moment—it will still find a way to flow. If I say to you, “Concentrate your chitta on Rama!” the moment you do, the entire Ramayana starts flooding in! Sita follows close behind, Hanuman peeks in; the whole pageant rises. Concentrate on Rama and King Dasharatha will appear, Ravana will appear—everyone will appear.

Try a little: sift out only Rama—no Dasharatha, no Ravana, no Sita, no Hanuman, no Lakshmana—cut out the entire Ramayana: only Rama. Then chitta gets into trouble. So a tactic: break Rama up into parts; start from the feet—look at his feet, then his body, then his face, then his eyes—chitta will feel relieved, because the flow has resumed. Choose only Rama’s eye. If there are two eyes, chitta will move from one to the other. Keep only one eye—choose a one-eyed Rama. Focus on the single eye, and thinking will start about the eye.

The nature of chitta is flow. Whatever you do, chitta will extract a stream out of it—immediately—and begin to think. This is the difference between meditation and thinking. Meditation means thinking has come to a standstill, the flow has stopped; one-pointedness means there is only one, and about it there is no thinking.

What will happen then? It is against the nature of mind; impossible for it. If you insist and strive for the impossible, there is only one outcome: first the mind will struggle; it will persuade you in every way and invent tactics for thinking. It will say, “No harm, think on Rama only—very good, very religious—think of Rama!” Or it will say, “If not thought, then chant: Rama-Rama, Rama-Rama.” Because Rama-Rama is a flow—one Rama, then a second Rama; the stream has begun, the mind has got movement, now it can run!

So mind will first try to create a flow, for that is its nature. If you don’t agree, and remain alert—if you say, “We will not let a flow arise, we will stand on a single point and not budge”—if you persist in this stubbornness, the second outcome: the mind will collapse; because mind cannot be one-pointed.

This may sound strange: the mind cannot be one-pointed. That is why it is said: if you become one-pointed, mind will end. It is impossible for mind to be one-pointed. When you are one-pointed, there is no mind; so long as there is mind, there is no one-pointedness. One-pointedness means coming to a standstill—no flow, no time, all movement lost: that is the meaning of one-pointedness.

If you keep attempting one-pointedness and refuse to listen to the mind, staying alert that the mind must not find a trick to create flow, then a day comes when—not that the mind becomes one-pointed—but through the effort toward one-pointedness the mind is destroyed; it becomes quiet; it dissolves. When you won’t comply and remain intent only on one-pointedness, mind sits down. The non-happening of mind is one-pointedness.

Thus whenever we say, “Concentrate the mind,” we are saying something quite wrong. That is why I say Buddha and Mahavira almost speak untruths—they have to. When we say, “Concentrate the mind,” we are saying something muddled, because mind cannot be concentrated; and if it is, the mind is no longer there.

One-pointedness and mind are opposite events. By striving for the opposite, the mind dies. But it is difficult—difficult because one must understand one-pointedness rightly, so that no flow arises. Thinking is flow; meditation is the stopping of flow. A river is flowing; it is frozen into ice—the entire flow has come to rest, no movement now. In the same way the mind comes to rest, the entire flow stops, freezes like ice—at that very moment, mind is not; mind is gone. What remains is consciousness; what remains is pure awareness.

This sutra says: ‘The root of alternatives, of divisions, is chitta, mind. If chitta is not, there is no division. Focus your chitta in the innermost divine.’

We do not have an exact knowledge of the divine. But we don’t need to. Whether God is or not is not the big question; the big question is to make chitta one-pointed. On anything. Even on something imagined it will do. So it is not a question that it must be on something real for it to work. Therefore the sutra does not say: “First find God, then focus your chitta.” It says: even if to you God seems imaginary, no problem. Even on an imaginary point, if chitta becomes one-pointed, the mind will be lost. And when the mind is lost, the vision of the real begins. So there is no harm in “supposing.”

God is a hypothesis of meditation. For a seeker, God is not a creed; God is an imagined point for focusing attention. When I say “imagined point,” do not take me to mean “God is not.” For you, right now, He is not. You focus your attention on a point of your imagining. It can be any point, any form—call it Rama, Krishna, Allah—anything will do. It makes no difference. What matters is not what you concentrate on; what matters is that you concentrate.

That is why all the religions of the world can be of use. Whatever differences there may be in their doctrines, it makes no difference for the seeker. Those differences exist for the pundits who must chatter; for a seeker they make no difference. Allah, Rama, Yahweh—any name.

The science of religion, the process of religion, does not derive its value from what you focus on; that is irrelevant. What matters is that you focus—A, B, C, D—whatever it is, you are focusing. In the very process of one-pointedness, the mind is destroyed. And what is known when the mind is gone has no name—not Allah, not Rama, not Krishna. It has no name. All names are imagined, useful—talismans that work. Once understood, they can be discarded; they are no longer needed.

This is a revolutionary point. The common religious mind cannot even comprehend that his Rama, his Krishna, his idols, his temples, are all imagined. Imagined does not mean false; imagined means hypothetical. They can be used; the journey can begin from there. At the journey’s end it becomes clear that it could have happened without them too. And at the end it also becomes clear that it could have happened under other names as well. But at the beginning this cannot be seen—and it need not be. Let the Hindu start as a Hindu; the Muslim as a Muslim; the Christian as a Christian. At the goal it is seen that Hindu, Muslim, Christian were all utilities. They had no direct relation with the ultimate truth.

Their relation was with our ignorance, not with knowledge. Their relation was to help us start from where we stood in the world—not with the destination we reached. Therefore at the end no one remains a Hindu, a Christian, a Muslim. At the end one is simply religious.

So remember: as long as you are a Christian, Hindu, Muslim, understand—you are not yet religious. You are on the journey toward religion.

Gurdjieff said something priceless. Whenever anyone asked him, “What is the path? What is the path to truth?” Gurdjieff would say, “Don’t talk big. I only tell you the path to the path—beyond that, you find out. For now, it is enough that you reach the path. Don’t ask what the path is; ask what footpath leads to the path! First reach the path—take care of that now!”

Remember, Hindu, Muslim, Christian—these are footpaths to the path. They are not the path; the path is religion. From any footpath reach the path of religion—then the footpath disappears.

One-pointedness is valuable because the attempt to be one-pointed goes against the mind’s nature. But take great care, because there are two difficulties. One: you will create thinking. If thinking arises, the whole thing is wasted. The second difficulty: if thinking does not arise, you will promptly fall asleep.

You may have noticed: on nights when many thoughts are running, sleep does not come. When worries, streams of thought keep flowing—sleep is hindered. On nights when the mind is empty, no thoughts—sleep comes deep, and quickly. A laborer, a farmer sleeps deeply because his work does not demand much thinking; digging a pit, tilling a field—these are fixed tasks; little thinking is needed, so the stream of thought is not strong. Evening comes; exhausted, he drops on the cot; thoughts do not happen; deep sleep. Those whose work is thinking suffer especially from insomnia. The mind keeps thinking through the night; sleep cannot come.

I say this so that the contrary may be understood. In experiments with mind, the second danger is this: first, mind will try to start thinking—that is its convenience, its nature. If that does not happen and you insist, then if thinking stops, instead of entering meditation you will fall into sleep. Because whenever thinking stops, habitually sleep overtakes you.

Hence many people, in the name of meditation, only doze; they keep napping. They sit in temples, nodding. It is not their fault. They don’t know what is happening. They are trying to be one-pointed. From the effort at one-pointedness, two accidents can happen: either thinking starts, or if it doesn’t, drowsiness comes.

So one must be free of thinking and free of drowsiness. These are two ditches; between them lies meditation. Zen masters keep a monk with a stick walking around during meditation. The moment he sees someone nodding, a whack lands on the head!

We, too, will soon arrange for that! And it is not without use—it is very useful. Drowsiness breaks instantly. Thinking was going on; then it stopped; drowsiness came. Escaped one ditch, fell into the other. Drowsiness comes only when the stream of thought breaks. Then the master comes and strikes. The stream of thought had stopped; drowsiness had set in; the strike breaks drowsiness for a moment. In that one moment there is a glimpse of meditation. And even a single glimpse gives support—then you know the way is not darkness; it is clear.

Sometimes there are many meditators, and the master cannot keep track of who is drowsing. So in Zen there is a practice: whenever a meditator feels drowsiness approaching, he brings both hands to his chest.

The master sees: “All right—he senses the coming of sleep.” It is an invitation: “Strike me with the stick.” Sleep is grabbing from within; a light wave has begun; the ripples are coming; there is fear I will be lost in sleep.

Let neither thinking arise nor drowsiness—then meditation happens. Meditation means: the absence of thinking and the absence of sleep. Whatever the point of focus, keep these two in view.

‘Knowing the Self as your own, of the nature of undivided bliss, savor the nectar of joy within and without in this very Self—always.’

The second point is also precious. We take taste. But never of ourselves—always of the other. This is a strange matter. We savor, we relish. Sometimes we even attain happiness. But always through the other. Have you ever tasted yourself? Never. We do not even pay attention to ourselves!

This sutra says the seeker should gradually stop taking taste from the other and start taking it from himself. Sit empty and alone—you are never delighted. You think: if friends come, a little fun; if companions gather, some joy. Alone, melancholy begins to grip. Alone, you don’t look happy. Alone, you get bored—bored with yourself. No one likes himself! Yet everyone wants others to like him! You don’t like yourself, and yet you want others to be delighted when they see you. How will this happen? It is impossible. You think you will give others great joy; you cannot give it to yourself—how will you give it to others? What you don’t have, how will you give?

The sutra says: taste your own nature—flavor, joy. Sitting alone, be delighted. The fakirs have called this state masti. Masti means: there is no visible cause, and yet you are intoxicated with joy; you are happy. As if a stream of nectar is flowing within; you are drinking from yourself; by yourself; no other medium involved.

There are particular methods for masti. The Sufis have used them much. The masts have their own path. Their basic formula is this: do not tie your happiness to another. Whoever ties his happiness to another ties his misery there too. Do not tie happiness to the other; tie it to yourself. Sit under a vacant tree, and be happy. It will seem difficult—how be happy when there is no cause? Because we are always happy with a cause: a friend is arriving; we see him after a long time—we are glad.

We are always happy due to a cause. Causeless happiness is called masti. No cause; no visible reason. You savor within. Sometimes it happens to madmen; that is why distinguishing a mast from a madperson can be difficult. Those we call masts—many like them lie in Western asylums, because they have no way to draw the distinction. Their definition of mental health is: if you are happy because of a cause, your brain is sound; if you are happy without a cause, your brain is defective—how can happiness be without cause?

But the mast tradition says: only causeless happiness is real; cause-based happiness never happens. This is difficult. The mast tradition says: from cause there has never been happiness—only the illusion of it. From cause there is always sorrow.

Understand this; there is a complete psychology to it.

When you seek happiness in causes—some other, some thing, some event, some person—the final outcome can only be sorrow; sorrow goes on increasing. A wife seeks happiness in her husband, a mother in her son, a father in his son or daughter; in relatives, wealth, position, prestige—somewhere else. Leaving ourselves, we search everywhere else. And the joke is: those in whom we seek happiness are themselves seeking it elsewhere! We are digging a mine we imagine is diamond-bearing, but the mine itself has gone off seeking diamonds! And where it is seeking—those have gone elsewhere!

We are like undeliverable letters with no address; searching! We don’t know where we are headed; and where we head, we have not even checked whether the person is at home or has gone out.

Everyone is elsewhere; thus no one meets anyone. Whose house you go to—he is not there. Whose hand you take—he is not there. Whom you clasp to your heart—he is not there; he has gone elsewhere. Everyone has gone elsewhere; therefore true meeting never happens—and will not. And one who seeks happiness in causes, today or tomorrow, will fall into deeper and deeper sorrow. Because each time hope arises—this cause will give happiness—and when attained, hope breaks.

The scripture of masti says: from the other comes sorrow; happiness never. Happiness comes always from oneself. And when it seems to come from the other, the tradition of masti says: the cause is not the other—you are!

Understand this too, a little.

It seems you are in love with someone. Their presence feels pleasant. Is it their presence that gives you happiness—or your own belief that you love them and that their presence brings you joy? Because if their presence itself gives happiness, it should give it to everyone. It does not. The same person’s presence causes someone else deep suffering.

If water quenches thirst, it should quench everyone’s. If you say, “This water quenches my thirst, but quench no one else’s,” then the issue lies with you, not the water. Learn to distinguish objective truths and subjective truths. If water is water, it will quench my thirst, your thirst—anyone’s; whoever is thirsty will be quenched.

Someone’s beauty gives me joy; it gives no one else joy. If there is beauty, then all those who are thirsty for beauty should feel joy. This does not happen. From the same beauty, someone feels pierced by thorns and wants to flee. The same beauty gives you joy—someone else, sorrow. Someone else doesn’t even notice beauty exists. Someone just laughs: “Your head is wrong—where do you see beauty? There is nothing there.”

What does this mean? It means: the beauty you see is yours; nothing is there—You are the cause. That is why it also happens that the same beauty gives joy in the morning and sorrow at noon; and joy again in the evening. Joy today, sorrow tomorrow.

A curious incident occurred. A film actress came to me. She said, “I am in great difficulty, so I have come for advice. The trouble is: I had a love marriage. Within a year or two it felt like a mistake—nothing but quarrels. Still I pulled it along for ten years; the hell only deepened. Then there was no point; no way to drag it further. Strangely, my husband had wooed me with such insistence, married with such longing. But his mind became bored. Ten years later we divorced. Ten years passed since. We had a daughter; she grew up and was recently married. At the wedding my ex-husband and I met again. And now my husband has fallen in love with me again! He says, ‘Let’s marry again.’ What should I do?”

The difficulty is clear. No one falls in love with anyone. Others are screens in which we see our own shadow and fall in love with that. When it seems you are getting happiness from the other—even then, it is your projection. The deeper you go, the more you will find: the whole affair of happiness is your own expansion. And because we believe happiness is in the other—and the other never gives it—we suffer.

One who discovers that the source of happiness is within never goes searching. He begins to experience himself as soaked in joy. He dances for no other reason than his own being; his being itself is enough to make him glad; his very being is enough bliss—no other cause is needed. Breath is moving—that is supreme joy. The heart is beating—that too is supreme joy.

Try this a little: Sit alone beneath a tree and, for the first time, fall in love with yourself; forget the world—fall in love with yourself.

The search for the inner is, in truth, the search to fall in love with oneself. The world is the journey of falling in love with the other; spirituality is falling in love with oneself. Spirituality is utterly “selfish”—the search for the self, the meaning of the self; to savor one’s own nectar, one’s own taste. And when this taste begins to arise within…

Wait a little, search a little; relish the joy of being—that I am—what a wondrous fact! If I were not, what would I do? If I were not, what complaint would there be? Of whom? I am, in this existence—this being, this awareness that “I am,” this possibility of the glimpse of bliss—taste this a little. Let the flavor spread through your every fiber. Flow in its thrill. If you feel like dancing, dance; if laughing, laugh; if singing, sing. But keep one thing in view: remain the center yourself. Let the source of joy flow from within, not from without. Slowly this descends into experience. Then the state that comes is the state of the mast—one intoxicated in himself.

This sutra is the root-sutra of masti.

‘Knowing the bliss-natured Self as your own, savor within and without the nectar of joy in this very Self—always.’

‘The fruit of dispassion is knowing.’

This aphorism is most precious.

‘The fruit of dispassion is knowing; the fruit of knowing is repose; and the peace born of the experience of self-bliss is the fruit of that repose.’

‘If in the succession stated above the later does not follow, know that the earlier is fruitless. Turning away from objects is the supreme satisfaction, and the joy of the Self is incomparable in itself.’

Understand each step. For the seeker, each is to be remembered—and constantly examined. This is the touchstone.

‘The fruit of dispassion is knowing.’

As I said: see the futility of the body. The body is futile; look with steady eyes and you will see. The world cannot give happiness—let this be a deep, clear perception. There is no obstacle; if you inquire, it will become clear—because it is so. Like telling a man with closed eyes, “Open your eyes and see—there is light!” It is like that. The world never gives happiness, the body never gives happiness, the other never gives peace—this is how it is; only open your eyes and look. Out of fear that the truth might be revealed, we have kept our eyes shut for lifetimes. Our eye-closing is deliberate. We are afraid.

A friend came to me; he wanted to marry—the love of someone. I asked, “Is it truly love? Think it over a little.” He said, “Think? It is love—what is there to think?”

Still I said, “What’s the harm? Better to think before than after. What’s the hurry? Wait fifteen days.”

He seemed somewhat anxious, flustered.

I said, “If it is love, it will last fifteen days. Why the panic?”

He waited fifteen days; I told him, “Return on the fifteenth day, and think in the meantime—Is it truly love?”

Fifteen days later he said, “You have confused me so much. My mind is in a blur. Fifteen days ago I was entirely certain. Everything was clear. What have you done? I came for your blessings, that my love-marriage be successful.”

I said, “It was exactly because you came for blessings that I told you to think first. One asks for blessings when one doesn’t trust oneself. If you hadn’t asked, I wouldn’t have said anything. You are not sure happiness will come, so you wanted to push the responsibility elsewhere—remove it from yourself. You were trapping me: you fall in love, and trap me with the responsibility. Now think some more. If you are in confusion, give it another fifteen days.”

He said, “I can’t wait now. If I wait fifteen days more, we’ll have a divorce before the wedding.”

We are afraid. We do not open our eyes to see what is what—because we fear that what we are seeing may not be there. We hide our wounds; if we expose and look, we will see the wounds. We hide the wound, and wear a golden bracelet on top. The bracelet shows; the wound is concealed. Seeing the bracelet, we think all is well. But does a bracelet heal a wound? The wound goes on festering within; it becomes a sore.

Our whole life is self-deception—where there is nothing at all. Even we feel there is nothing; yet we are afraid, “We are living by this—if we open our eyes and see there is nothing, how will we live?”

This trouble has arisen in the West. Understand it. In the last three hundred years the West has tried to see things as they are. Now the West is in a great difficulty. The difficulty is: the attempt has, in many ways, succeeded; and it is clear in many areas that there is nothing there. What now? There is only a sense of emptiness, meaninglessness—what to do?

In these three hundred years, deep thinking about life and its relations has made all relations suspect. Today no lover in the West can dare say to his beloved, “My love is eternal.” It has become impossible to say so. Because inquiry into love has revealed: nothing is more momentary than love. Those were the words of poets and blind men who used to say, “Love is eternal.”

You must keep your eyes closed to say that. It seems so; it is not so. When you are in love, it certainly seems it will last forever; no force in the world can break it. You are in a great delusion! No great force is needed—no force is needed at all—you will break it yourself; you are enough.

And love is very momentary. When a flower blossoms in the morning, who can believe that within an hour it will wither? Its blooming deceives; seems it will bloom forever. It never does. What blossoms, withers. When love blossoms, it is also a flower; it too will wither.

The West has understood this; now it is in difficulty. Love has become difficult—because for love, the illusion of eternity was necessary. Without that illusion, love cannot be. If that illusion breaks, love breaks.

So in the West sex remains; love has little possibility. Only lust remains. But on the basis of lust, it is difficult to give depth to life. On the basis of lust, it is difficult to build family. And if lust is the only truth, then why bear the burden and obligations of family for lust?

Thus husband and wife are disappearing in the West; boyfriends and girlfriends are increasing. Husband and wife are not so important; “boyfriend”—meaning: today this friendship runs; tomorrow it can change—no legal hassle.

But then the void is felt. Love uprooted—and if attention is not turned inward, trouble will grow. The energy is freed; there is no path for its journey.

Therefore we keep our eyes closed; wherever we are walking, we say it is heaven. Even in hell, we say heaven. If eyes remain closed, what difference does it make if it is hell! We maintain an inner heaven. Occasionally we stumble, hit a stone, get hurt; the eyes open—then we promptly close them, declaring, “Heaven!” Because when eyes open, hell is visible.

You too get daily chances to see hell; then you close your eyes deliberately. This is fear; therefore dispassion does not arise—otherwise life is such that it would give birth to dispassion in everyone.

Life is such that dispassion will be born of itself; you do not have to strive endlessly to produce it. You strive endlessly only to prevent it. Look back over your life; take a survey. All of life pushes toward dispassion. Life’s message is dispassion; its hint is dispassion. Life hurts you in every way, yet dispassion does not arise—this is the marvel! Otherwise the natural tune of life is dispassion.

Life is born from attachment; it culminates in dispassion. We are born out of passion. But if we die still in passion, it means we did not hear life’s message.

Dispassion is life’s tone. Search—if you do not deceive yourself, everything is supportive. Everything is supportive—friends and foes; one’s own and strangers—all supportive of leading you toward dispassion.

And the fruit of dispassion is knowing.

The day you stand in dispassion—no craving toward this world, nothing to demand of it, its futility clear before you—the fruit is knowing. Then you awaken. Then you are filled with prajna. For the first time, the dawn of wisdom. A lamp is lit within.

In the state of dispassion, the lamp of knowing is lit. If no lamp is lit, know the dispassion is false. This is the second part of the sutra: if the second does not happen, the first is false—failed.

In our land there is no dearth of renunciates, but it is difficult to find the wise. Renunciates sit in every monastery and temple. I have met many sadhus and sannyasins. For years they have run away. Yet they say, “Nothing has happened; there is no knowing!” Still they are not ready to accept their dispassion is bogus—that is why there is no knowing. They insist, “Our dispassion is complete; knowing has not happened.”

If knowing has not happened, the first step has been false; your dispassion is fake. Your dispassion is not ripened passion. It has not ripened out of seeing passion through and through; you fled unripe. You ran without opening your eyes. Note this.

A man walks in hell with eyes closed, weaving inner dreams of heaven. He does not open his eyes, fearing hell will appear. He hears the reports of rishis and sages that the world is hell; within, he, too, feels they may be right, because he fears to open his eyes. Sometimes in a sudden accident his eyes open; hell is seen; the sages seem right. But he does not keep them open.

Then panic grows; the voice of the sages is hidden under the noise within; another voice rises: all is fine. So he runs away. With eyes still closed, he takes dispassion. But he has not opened his eyes to passion. With eyes closed he was in passion; with eyes closed he goes into dispassion. Then the fruit of knowing will not come. Because there is no change in his state. The eyes are still closed. Yesterday he walked in passion like a blind man; today he walks in dispassion like a blind man.

Dispassion born from opening the eyes in passion is ripened dispassion—mature. Only in that maturity is the lamp of wisdom lit.

‘The fruit of knowing is uparati—repose.’

What is the fruit of the lamp of knowing? Repose, relaxation. Chitta, consciousness, body, existence—all come to rest. No effort remains anywhere. No tension remains anywhere. Not a single line of strain within. Repose happens. Rest happens.

If knowing does not bring rest, know that knowing is false. Step by step, something earlier will be false. If the “knower” still seems full of tension—if his being is not relaxed—if he still needs discipline to restrain himself—know that his knowing has come from scriptures, not from experience. Knowing has been heard, not known. Knowledge is on the head—a burden—not wings to fly into the sky.

The fruit of knowing is rest: that not even the least effort remains within. No striving of any kind remains—utter effortlessness. Whatever happens is okay—tathata. Uparati—repose. What is, is. No striving to gain anything. No fear of losing anything. No fear that something might go wrong. No anxiety about mistakes. No tension: “I might miss, I might fall, I might go astray.” This is uparati.

Uparati is very profound. Renunciates will be found by the millions—with no glimpse of knowing. “Knowers” will also be found by the thousands—but no glimpse of repose. Is there any shortage of pundits? Of the knowledgeable?

Curiously, the non-knower sometimes appears more relaxed than the knower. Examine a pundit’s brain and an ignorant man’s—the ignorant skull may be at rest, the pundit’s in great turmoil. It seems upside down; then even ignorance was better—at least it was one’s own. Borrowed knowledge is a load. What is one’s own makes one light; what is borrowed burdens. What is one’s own makes one blossom; what is alien crushes.

‘The fruit of uparati is peace.’

And one who attains repose, slowly, slowly, by sinking into rest, finds that center which is called peace.

One man is swimming; he will remain on the surface. Swimming is effort. Another lets go; no swimming, he lies back—wherever the river takes him. If it doesn’t, fine; if it does, fine. He has attained uparati. The one who lies back will slowly sink into the river. Down, and down. The last depth—when the bottom arrives—he will come to rest. That resting ground is called peace.

From dispassion, knowing. If dispassion is true, knowing will be. If knowing is true, repose will be. If repose is true, peace is inevitable. If your “rest” does not yield peace, know that the rest is imposed.

In the West many books are written with titles like: You Must Relax. The title itself is absurd. “Must”—the word carries tension already. “You must relax!”—the very “must” becomes the trouble; it will not let you relax. People read these books and lie on beds practicing corpse pose—“We must relax!” They “relax.”

They can even impose a kind of relaxation—stiff like a corpse. But inside, tension will continue, because even relaxation has to be managed. If you manufacture relaxation, there is effort in it. And remember: if you have to manage your relaxation, you will come back tired—because effort tires. Now you are managing not to make any effort! “Not a bit of effort!”—this too is effort. “Keep hold of relaxation; don’t let it slip”—this is labor.

Such relaxation will not bring peace. Relaxation is an existential event. It means your consciousness has nothing left worth gaining, no demand remains, no race to become anything. Not even a race to be calm. No insisting that relaxation come. If it comes—fine; if it doesn’t—equally fine.

You may have heard Sufi fakirs on the road saying: “Blessed be the giver; blessed be the non-giver.” Beggars repeat this, but the saying is of the Sufis. The beggar repeats falsely. When he says, “Blessed be the giver,” there is a shine in his eyes; when he says, “Blessed be the non-giver,” there is no shine. Give to him, or don’t; you will see the difference.

There was a Sufi, Bayazid. He altered the saying slightly: “Blessed be the giver; even more blessed be the non-giver.”

Someone asked him, “Bayazid, we have heard: blessed the giver, blessed the non-giver. What have you added—‘even more blessed’?”

Bayazid said, “When someone gives, there is happiness anyway. But when no one gives and there is still joy—then gratitude grows greatly. When someone gives—it’s fine; joy happens. But when no one gives and yet joy arises within, then one feels like touching his feet: had he given, we would have been deprived of this joy; by not giving, he gave the chance to know that even when nothing comes, the current of bliss does not falter. Therefore I say: even more blessed is the non-giver. Great is his grace too. He gave a chance to see that when no one gives, the stream of happiness remains unchanged.”

Relaxation is existential, not a matter of effort. So step by step! Everyone wants rest. But dispassion is the first step; the Upanishad puts a hard condition. Who does not want rest? Everyone is looking for it; everyone searches for peace. But you will have to complete the whole science. You want flowers, but sow no seeds! You sow the seeds, but do not water! You water, but put up no fence to keep animals from grazing the sapling! Step by step—every step must be taken.

Dispassion means: the mind is withdrawn from the race. The energy that was being wasted in running, when the race ends, is saved—and becomes light.

‘…Knowing; and the fruit of knowing is repose.’

One who sees has no cause left for tension. One who knows has no cause left for restlessness. In this world there is nothing for which to be restless.

‘The fruit of knowing is repose, and the fruit of repose is peace.’

‘If, in the succession stated above, the later does not follow, know the earlier is fruitless. Turning away from objects is the supreme satisfaction, and the joy of the Self is incomparable in itself.’