Adhyatam Upanishad #9

God has been called by many names. Human beings have forged countless relationships with the Divine: somewhere God is father, somewhere mother, somewhere the lover, somewhere the beloved, somewhere friend—this way and that, we have tried to impose many human relations upon the Ultimate Truth. But the Upanishads stand alone on this whole earth: they call the Divine only “That”—tat. No relationship is established.

This must be understood a little. It is a profound insight. Out of love we may call the Divine Father or Mother, but in such calling there is less understanding and more unknowing. Any relationship we establish with the Divine is born of unawareness. Why? Because a relationship has a built-in requirement: there must be two. A relationship arises only between two. I am, and my father is—both must be. I am, or my mother is—two must be. With the Divine, no such relationship is true, no such relationship is even possible, in which we remain two and yet be related. With That, one can relate only by dissolving; not by remaining separate.

All relations in the world are relations of separateness. The relation with the Divine is forged by immersion, by losing oneself, by becoming one. This is the very paradox: relationship requires two. Therefore we can also say: no relationship with the Divine can ever be established. If two are necessary for relationship, then with the Divine no relationship can be. Because union with the Divine happens only when the two are erased and only One remains.

Kabir has said: I went out searching, searched and searched and did not find You. Searching and searching, I myself was lost—and then You were found. So long as the seeker who set out remained, no meeting with You happened. And when, through searching, You were not found but the seeker was lost—then the meeting happened.

This means that man never meets God as man. For as long as man remains, God is not. And when God is, man is not. The two never meet. Therefore, of all the relationships of this world, any that we try to apply to the Divine is a mistake. One can meet the father without dissolving; dissolution is not a condition. One can meet the mother without dissolving; no condition. But with the Divine, the fundamental condition is to vanish. Relationship is between two; with the Divine, it “happens” precisely when two are not. Hence the relation is entirely reversed.

The Upanishads did not say “God,” did not say “Father,” did not say “Mother.” They established no human relationship. To establish human relationships, say the sociologists, is anthropocentric—man-centered. Man keeps projecting himself onto everything.

This anthropocentric vision—man-centered—needs some understanding, because modern psychology and sociology value it greatly. Whatever man sees, he imposes man upon it. Clouds gather around the moon and we say, “The moon’s face is veiled.” There is neither face nor veil there. But man, by his very nature, projects his own experience—upon everything! A lunar eclipse occurs and we say Rahu–Ketu have devoured the moon; its enemies are after it.

Man can only think in man’s language. Hence, in whatever we see around us, we go on imposing ourselves. We call the earth “mother”—a projection. We call the sky “father”—a projection. Search further and you will find: in all the relations man has defined with the world, he has installed his own relationships.

Freud says the idea of God is really a substitute for the father, a compensatory figure. The child is born helpless, weak, insecure; the father becomes the protective hand, rears him, under whose shadow he grows. The child sees the father as supreme power; none greater. So children often quarrel about whose father is bigger. Every child claims: my father is the greatest. And to him it feels true: what greater power can there be than his father! The ultimate power rests in the father’s hands.

The child grows on the father’s support. Trust, faith, reverence—all flow toward the father. If the father takes the child’s hand and walks into fire, the child will giggle his way in, for where the father goes there can be no obstacle. No doubt has yet arisen; no disbelief has yet formed. The father is the very object of reverence.

But as the child grows, that reverence begins to crack; the father’s weaknesses become visible. The first weakness: as soon as the child is a little older and perceptive, he finds that in nine cases out of ten the mother is more powerful, the father weaker. In ninety-nine out of a hundred cases he sees the father’s swagger and pomp are for the outside; at home he comes in intimidated, subdued. The first obstruction to reverence has appeared. As awareness grows further, he sees that even his father has a boss before whom he trembles.

So the reverence cultivated in childhood for the father withdraws from the father and leaves a vacancy. Freud says: that vacant reverence is projected onto God, an imagined Father, so that the mind does not remain empty. Hence people call God the Father—All-Father, Omnipotent.

Notice: the qualities children attribute to their fathers are precisely the qualities religious people attribute to God. And just as children quarrel—“my father is bigger”—Hindus, Muslims, Christians quarrel over whose Father is greater. Whose God is greater? All childish talk. The very imposition of “father” upon God is childish; it arises from a child’s mind.

So Freud concludes: so long as children are reared under their fathers, freedom from God is difficult—God is only the father’s image.

There seems to be some truth here. In societies with matriarchal arrangements, where the mother is central and the father peripheral, no one calls God Father; there God is Mother. This shows a difference. The worshipers of Kali, for instance, see the Divine as Mother, not Father. They come from matriarchal societies. Even today such societies exist; in all of them God is mother, not father.

This lends Freud some support—that concepts are formed in childhood. Childhood is critical: whatever patterns of mind are cast then, whenever a gap appears in that pattern later, restlessness arises; one must fill it. We spend our lives trying to complete the forms built in childhood.

From this you should notice something else: in societies where the family has disintegrated—for example, in America today, where the family’s roots have broken; children don’t much care for father or mother, nor do parents much care for the children; the bond has slackened—the conception of God slackens too. Where the family totters, the Divine totters; atheism spreads. Where the father’s authority is dense, his command supreme, discipline ensured, atheism does not arise.

Freud’s conclusions here are remarkable, though half-truths. His truth is that seeing a father in God is man’s attempt to fill a psychological lack. But when he says “that is all God is,” there he errs.

For man may call the earth “Mother”—that is man’s doing—but calling the earth mother does not make the earth unreal. Man may call the Divine Father, or Mother, or anything he likes. This may be an extension of his family, his childhood, his psyche; but that upon which the extension is made—the Divine—does not become false. The name we give depends on us; its being does not depend on us.

Had Freud known the Upanishads, he would have been in difficulty. Because the Upanishads establish no relationship at all. Had he studied them, the story of modern psychology might have been different, for Freud was an honest man. And had he discovered there exists a tradition of thought, contemplation, experience that refuses to define any relation with God, that uses an impersonal address—tat. God as That. Nothing could be more impersonal, more non-relational. Then Freud would have had to ask: who are these people who call God “That”? “That” is no name—only a gesture, a pointing finger.

Surely, such a “That” cannot arise from any childhood deprivation. The idea of mother can arise; father can arise. But “That” has no relation to child psychology. In truth, it has no relation to man at all, nor to psychology. It relates to the experience of those who have gone beyond mind; beyond man.

We must understand “man” and “mind” too. In this land we called a human being “manushya”—one encircled by mind, living in mind, oriented by mind, deriving juice from mind. The English “man” is a transformation of “manas,” ultimately journeying from Sanskrit.

Mind is man. Where the mind is transcended, manhood too is transcended. Those who went beyond man, beyond mind, have pointed—That.

But there are many things to ponder here. You can worship a father; how will you worship a That! You can build a temple to the mother, or to the father—how will you build a temple to That? Can you? That! What image could be made? One can fashion images of man, woman, mother, father; what image could be made of That? There are no greater iconoclasts than the Upanishads, though they never uttered a single line: “Do not worship images.”

This too is worth understanding. Muslims set about breaking images because Muhammad said He has no image. Muhammad’s utterance is exactly in the spirit of the Upanishads: He has no image. But those who say “His image cannot be made” also believe images can be broken. If no image can be made, what is there to break? One kind of madman keeps making, another kind keeps breaking!

It is a curious thing: the iconoclast is also an idolater. The one who goes to smash the image still believes in it; at least he expends effort to destroy it. He too has that much faith. What is the difference? One goes to place flowers, another goes with a hammer. With chisels and hammers images are made, and with chisels and hammers they are destroyed. There is not much difference in their faith. Both believe the image has significance—the worshiper and the destroyer. Sometimes the destroyer believes more, for the worshiper will not risk his life for an image; the destroyer will. The Quran says He has no image—then whose image do you break?

The Upanishads are neither idolaters nor iconoclasts. Their vision has gone beyond form, shape, image. They say: That, tat, That. What image can be made of That? None. That is not a form. Does That have a shape? It is formless. Even the word “That” is formless. Even if one wants to shape it, it will not be formed. What is this That, tat? A pointing, as when someone lifts a finger and says: That.

Wittgenstein was an astonishing modern thinker. Among the greatest founders of logic in this century, he wrote in his precious book, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: there are things which cannot be said, but still they can be shown. About them nothing can be spoken—yet they can be indicated.

The Upanishads point toward the Divine; they do not say anything about it. Only a gesture: That. This gesture contains many meanings; let us take note.

First: no relationship can be joined to it. Hence the Upanishads do not say “Thou.” They do not say “You,” for with “you” the “I” is born. Where there is “you,” there will be “I.” A “you” cannot be without an “I.” Whenever I say to someone “you,” the “I” has arrived; I have made myself present. A “you” exists only in relation to an “I,” and an “I” in relation to a “you.” “I” and “you” are a pair; they arise together. “That” is alone. It does not require any other. “That” emits no echo that suggests another is present. When we say “you,” the addressed is pulled onto our plane; we stand together with it. When we say “That,” no connection is forged with our plane. Where is That? Below, above, beside? Nothing is known. The Upanishads, after deep reflection, called Brahman tat.

Let us understand the aphorism:

“That which, bearing the adjunct of maya, is the source of the world; endowed with omniscience and other attributes; mixed with transcendence; whose nature is truth and the like—that very Absolute is denoted by the word tat.”

“And that which appears as the support of ‘I’ in experience and word, but whose knowing is, to the inner sense, false—that (the jiva) is denoted by the word tvam.”

Tvam; tu; thou.

Whenever we say to someone “you,” tvam, thou—we have accepted limitation. The other appears to us whole and bounded—form, body. You cannot say “you” to a formless existence. Lift your eyes to the sky and try saying “you”—you will see how meaningless it feels. How will you say “you” to the sky? No relation connects; the expanse is too vast, no boundary appears; the “you” does not attach. “You” attaches where there is form. The Divine is vaster than the sky—the sky is merely a phenomenon within it. With That, tvam does not connect; “you” does not connect.

It does not connect for another reason: standing before the Divine, no memory remains that “I am.” Whoever still retains the notion “I am” will not be able to see the Divine. The “I” itself is the curtain; the obstacle. So long as the “I” is, I will see only “you” everywhere; I will relate only with form, not with the formless.

Let this be understood as a deep formula: as I am, where I am, so will the relations I can form be. If I take myself to be body, I can relate only with bodies. If I take myself to be mind, I will relate with those who take themselves to be mind. If I take myself to be consciousness, I will relate with those who are conscious. If I want to relate to the Divine, I must become like the Divine—void and formless—where not even an echo of “I” rises, for the “I” gives shape. Only when all within is empty will I be able to connect with the Empty. When I become formless within, only then can I connect with the formless without. To connect with something, one must become like it. To seek something, one must become that.

Two words: tat and tvam. We call the jiva tvam—the consciousness encircled in a body, bounded. And we call tat the consciousness stretched beyond all boundaries, the limitless. We call the drop tvam and the ocean tat. We call the atom tvam and the vastness tat. The small is tvam; the vast is tat.

Why such insistence on tat, on That, in the Upanishads? They expect nothing from you by way of worship or prayer. No—not devotion in that sense. Their expectation is that you become the Divine.

Understand the difference clearly.

The Upanishadic ambition is ultimate, the peak—no ambition greater has ever appeared on earth. You may worship, pray, be devout—they are not satisfied. They say: until you become God, the Ultimate Truth does not come to hand. Destiny is not fulfilled until you are That. “That” means we are not going to establish some relation of worship or devotion; with That, relation cannot be established. We are going to drop all relations. Finally we will drop even ourselves—so that neither the one who relates remains, nor relation be possible. And finally we become That which we have called That.

Therefore the matter grows difficult—because we ordinarily take religion to be devotion, worship, prayer, praise. The Upanishads do not. Their understanding of religion is to uncover, to unveil, the hidden That within each person.

The Upanishads are a science of religion. As science seeks the truths hidden within matter—as it breaks matter, splits the atom, discovers the energy hidden within, searches for law; by what law matter moves—so the Upanishads enter cell by cell into consciousness. They inquire: what is the law of consciousness? How does consciousness move in the world? How is it still? How is it hidden? How does it reveal?

The Upanishads speak the language of science. If a scientist discovers hydrogen, or atomic energy, he does not say, “Atomic energy is my mother or my father.” He forges no relationship. That!—a law he has discovered. No talk of building a relation. He does not weave a language of attachment. If science did, it would cease to be science; attachment and relation are unscientific—they distort truth. Therefore the scientist must stand apart, detached, relationless, to see the truth of science. He must not go near to build intimacy.

The Upanishads too speak science. They say: That. They forge no relation. They keep themselves aside, removed. When the Upanishad says “That,” we cannot even tell who is speaking. When someone says, “God is the Father,” we immediately know who is speaking: someone whose father-hunger was never fulfilled; someone whose sonhood remained incomplete; someone who did not receive parental love; or someone who received too much and suffers indigestion; at any rate someone whose relationship with father somewhere got obstructed. But when someone says “That,” there is no trace of the speaker—who is calling? No information comes about the caller. The pointing is profoundly impersonal—and therefore priceless.

And the moment we say “That,” the quarrel ends. Notice the wonder: if we call God tat, how will Hindu and Muslim fight? What difference could there be between the Christian’s That and the Hindu’s That? If the Christian says “That,” the Hindu says “That,” the Muslim says “That,” there can be no quarrel. Use any word for That—tat or That—no difference, no conflict.

But when Muslims call Him one thing, Hindus another, Christians yet another—when they say “Father,” then with “father” all their concepts diverge.

This needs deep reflection. Freud says: whenever someone calls God “Father,” let him look within; he will find in his conception of God the picture of his own father—he will. If you say “Mother,” your mother will present herself. What is your idea of mother? With a little polishing, refining, cleaning and painting, you will make your mother into God.

Diderot, the French thinker, made a profound jest: if horses were to fashion their God, His face would be that of a horse. No horse could fashion a God with a human face—this is certain. And we know it: when a Negro fashions God, His hair is curly; it must be. His lips are Negro lips. His face is black, Negro. When the Chinese fashion the face of God, the cheekbones protrude—because how could God not be Chinese!

We will project our own notion. Can the English imagine a black God? No chance. Look at the Hindu imagination of God—Krishna, Rama—dark-complexioned! The blue-black tone has been the Hindu symbol of beauty. Look at the features—a Hindu aesthetic runs through the faces of Rama and Krishna.

Have you noticed? In images of Rama, Krishna, Christ, Muhammad, the ears are not large; they are small. But in images of Buddha and Mahavira, the ears touch the shoulders—because the Jains and Buddhists hold that a tirthankara’s ears touch his shoulders. Probably their first tirthankara had long ears that touched his shoulders; the idea stuck. There is no reason to believe all twenty-four tirthankaras had ears touching their shoulders. But once an idea forms, images are made according to the idea, not according to persons.

Therefore, if you look at the twenty-four Jain images, you cannot tell who is Mahavira, who Parshva, who Nemi—unless you read the symbol below. The images are identical.

A notion is set, then we live by it. All our gods are constructed out of our notions. But That admits of no notion. The day a universal religion arises on earth, the Upanishads will be understood rightly for the first time. Then we will see that the Upanishads were the first to use the scientific tongue and to drop man’s anthropocentric web of language entirely.

“This Absolute bears the adjunct of maya; the jiva bears the adjunct of avidya. When these are relinquished, the indivisible sat–chit–ananda, the Supreme Brahman, is experienced.”

This is a difficult sutra. The Absolute bears the adjunct of maya; the jiva bears avidya. Adjunct—call it an affliction. Brahman bears the adjunct of maya…

We must enter this view; it is subtle and complex. Many confusions have stirred in the human mind. Understand the confusions first; then we can enter.

A perennial difficulty confronts the reflective mind: if we accept God, it becomes difficult to accept the world; if we accept God, it is hard to explain the world. If God made the world, then why so much disease, sorrow, pain, sin? If God made the world, why cast man into such ignorance? Responsibility would not lie with man but with God.

A Christian priest visited me recently. I asked him, “What work are you engaged in?” He said, “We are fighting sin.” I asked, “Sin—where did it come from?” He said, “Satan created it.”

Until then he was quite assured—people generally don’t probe these things because probing brings trouble.

I asked, “And who created Satan?”

He hesitated; now the difficulty had arrived. If he says “God,” the matter turns sour: God creates Satan, Satan creates sin—what is this jugglery! And God did not have the intelligence to refrain from creating Satan? If God himself blundered by creating Satan, then if you and I blunder by committing sin, what’s the obstacle? And if Satan creates sin, and God creates Satan, and we commit sin—who is responsible? We are mere victims! God creates us, God creates Satan, Satan creates sin, and we sin. Where in this whole circle is our responsibility? We create neither God, nor Satan, nor sin; we merely suffer their nuisance!

He became uneasy. Christianity has no answer; few do. It is a serious snag. Some, like the Parsis, hold with Zarathustra that there are two principles—God and Satan. Neither created the other; both are eternal. That brings greater peril: if both are eternal, neither can ever finally win, neither finally lose; they will war forever. Who are you then? A field upon which they fight—a Kurukshetra! And no one ever wins or loses—both are eternal.

There too is difficulty: if you say Satan is not eternal and will ultimately lose, the question arises—why not yet? So long has passed; he has not lost—what guarantee of the future? In fact, the opposite seems true: Satan seems to be winning daily! Losing is far away; victory seems his day after day.

You might be surprised: in 1970, a church was registered in California—the First Church of the Devil. They have followers, an arch-priest, a printed bible. They announced: sufficient time has passed to observe that God is losing and the Devil is winning.

They are not altogether wrong when you look at the world. The devil’s follower gets ahead; God’s follower is defeated. The devil’s disciples attain position; God’s disciples wander. Try and see.

So even God’s followers have learned the trick: take God’s name, get the work done by the devil! They have understood who wins in the end—the devil. But fear remains—what if by some mistake God should win? So they chant “Ram-Ram” as well! The clever ride two boats. When needed, they employ the devil; when not, in leisure, they turn the rosary! Thus a compromise, a balance. And who knows, in the end, who will win!

If the world gives any news, it is of the devil’s victory. God’s triumph is nowhere seen. The auspicious does not seem to expand; the inauspicious does not seem to shrink. Light does not seem to grow; darkness does not seem to diminish.

So to call both eternal is a snag. If we say Satan is not eternal and will in the end lose—even if he wins in between—what is the assurance? And why would one who always wins suddenly lose at the end? There is no logic there.

This question has burdened humankind. Different religions have attempted different solutions, but no solution satisfies. Among them, the Upanishadic view is at least the least wrong—not absolutely right, but, relatively, the soundest.

The Upanishads say: there is no opposition between the world and the Divine—there is no Satan, no power opposed to God. Then how is the world? They say: God is not creating an opponent and then creating the world; rather, in the very being of God, in the aura of God—what they call maya; in the shadow of God—what they call maya—there is the world. As a person stands and his shadow is cast. The shadow has no existence of its own—cut it with a sword, it won’t cut; burn it with fire, it won’t burn; drown it, it won’t drown—yet the shadow is. It accompanies you. Run, it runs; stop, it stops.

The Upanishads say: whenever anything exists, a shadow exists alongside—a shad­ow. Understand this. Modern science and psychology, at their freshest edge, support this truth. Nothing is without a shadow. If Brahman is, Its shadow will be. That shadow is called maya.

The world is Brahman’s shadow.

Jung, a great psychologist, explored this from another angle. He found that each person has a shadow existence—a “shadow personality.” You should understand this: you too have a shadow personality.

You are a good person, you don’t anger; you are calm, patient. Yet one day, over some small matter—not even big enough to merit anger—an anger boils up so fierce that even you cannot understand what is happening, who is doing it. Later people say, “It happened in spite of me.” You did not want to do it—yet it happened.

Why? How?

Many times you do not want to say something—and it slips out! You had resolved not to say it—yet it came!

Jung says: you have a shadow personality in which all that you deny in yourself accumulates. Sometimes, finding an opening, a weak moment, the shadow personality expresses itself.

A major illness studied in psychology springs from this: split personality—man breaks in two. Sometimes two personalities arise within one person. As if two live in one. He says something, does something else; no coordination. In the morning, one thing; in the evening, another. Even he fears what he is doing, what he is saying—no alignment; as if two people are within. Now calm, now turbulent; now silent, now voluble; divided in two.

Sometimes it goes so far that one personality is suddenly lost and the person becomes someone else. Until yesterday he was Ram; an accident happens, a head injury, and he becomes Rahim. He no longer remembers being Ram; he does not recognize his father, mother, wife; he now says he is Rahim. His whole account is different; no connection with that house at all—no recognition!

What happened? The chief personality was struck; the shadow became active. Hence the new name and everything changed.

The shadow personality can be treated—by therapy, by shock. Sometimes the person returns—he is again Ram; he is a different person; his behavior changes.

Everyone hides a shadow personality. In Upanishadic terms: with the person is bound avidya—his shadow personality; with Brahman is bound maya—Its shadow personality. Maya is not opposed to Brahman; it is Its shadow—an unavoidable accompaniment of Its being. This world is not Brahman’s enemy; it is the shadow aspect of Brahman’s being.

Let us understand it in the language of science; it may become easier.

In 1960 a man received the Nobel Prize—most unusual. He got it for the discovery of antimatter. Strange word—antimatter. His discovery: in the world there is matter, and opposite to matter there is antimatter.

Everything has its opposite. Nothing exists without its contrary. Light—darkness. Life—death. Heat—cold. Woman—man. The whole world lives by a dual order. Can you imagine a world with no men, only women? Impossible. Or only men, no women? Impossible. The balance is so deep that at birth about 115 boys are born for every 100 girls. By the age of fifteen, the extra fifteen boys have died and the ratio evens to 100:100. Biologists say: since boys are weaker than girls, nature must produce more men so that by marriageable age the numbers match.

You may be surprised: biologically the female is stronger, the male weaker. The male’s strength is muscular—he can lift a heavy stone, but cannot bear heavy pain. The female’s strength is endurance. Hence she bears great illness—and she must, because the greatest illness is childbirth. If men had to bear children—men would have committed mass suicide long ago! No male would be found on earth! To carry a child nine months—try nine days on your shoulder; nine hours; nine minutes! And then the pain of birth! Nature equips women to bear it. They are strong—in another dimension. They cannot fight or sprint like men; do not take this as weakness. Their strength is of another order—endurance.

So by fifteen the ratio balances. Across the world the proportion steadies.

You may be surprised: when war comes, more males are cut down—of course, men go to the battlefield. Women increase. After war, in the following years, the birth ratio tilts toward boys again; girls decrease.

Who arranges this? How?

After the first and second world wars, many men had died. In the two or three postwar years, more boys were born; fewer girls—until the ratio stabilized. Then reflection began. It seems nature balances opposites from within.

Do not think there will ever be only light, no darkness. Impossible. Darkness and light will balance.

The discovery of antimatter rests on this: the world is a balance of opposites. So if matter is, what is matter’s opposite? It is not visible. Physicists hold a complex view: say a stone lies on the table; you can see the stone. If we remove the stone, nothing is seen. Imagine a stone here and, beside it, a hollow—an exact stone-shaped empty. If we remove the stone, and if the exact empty-space of the stone could remain, placed beside it—that empty would be antimatter. No one has seen it yet. The Nobel was awarded because this hypothesis cannot be disproved: when the world is full of opposites, for matter to be, its opposite must be near it, hidden. Seen or unseen, theoretically it must be accepted.

Call maya the shadow of Brahman. Brahman cannot be without maya; maya cannot be without Brahman. On the vast scale, maya is the shadow of Brahman—call it “anti-Brahman,” if you like. On the human scale, avidya is the same: avidya is maya on the person’s plane. Avidya surrounds you. What can you do? Avidya is here! How to drop it? If this is the universal law that the opposite will be, and if even Brahman has not dropped maya, if the Supreme Existence is encircled by maya, how will we small ones drop avidya? Brahman has not dropped maya—how shall we drop avidya? And if we cannot, all religious effort is in vain.

No—it can be dropped. But understand the process. We can drop avidya only if we agree to dissolve. If we do not agree to dissolve, avidya will not dissolve; the duality will continue. Either both remain, or both go. If I say, “I want to remain and I want avidya to vanish,” then avidya will never vanish. It is your shadow. Think of it this way: “I want to remain and I want my shadow to vanish.” It never will. There is only one way: let me vanish—and my shadow vanishes.

Hence the insistence on dissolving the ego. If I disappear, my shadow disappears. And when I vanish, my shadow vanishes, I merge with Brahman. Not as an “I,” but as a zero I fall into Brahman. What happens to my avidya? When I vanish and merge with Brahman, my avidya merges with maya. I am lost in Brahman; avidya is lost in maya. Whenever I am created again, I emerge out of Brahman; avidya emerges out of maya. Avidya—each of us has received a small allotment of maya.

Maya gives sorrow; avidya gives pain—so we want release. Does maya not pain Brahman? Does Brahman not wish to be free? By Brahman I do not mean a person; I mean the vast Existence. Does It not feel pain? Would It not wish to be free? We feel pain, we want release—would Brahman not want release?

On the plane of Brahman there is total acceptance. There, the presence of maya is accepted. There is no denial—hence no pain. On our plane there is pain. If we too accept, there is no pain here either.

When my hand is hurt, the pain is not from the wound; it is from my thought that “this should not have happened.” If I accept that “it had to happen; it is as it should be; it is destiny,” then there is no pain. Pain lies in resistance; in refusal. We cannot accept, hence we suffer. If someone accepts—like Janaka, like Krishna—then, here and now, without doing anything, avidya becomes maya; Krishna becomes Brahman. Krishna accepts.

This is the difference between Krishna and Mahavira, Krishna and Buddha. Mahavira erases himself so avidya may be erased. Krishna erases neither himself nor avidya—he accepts. Mahavira dissolves himself and avidya dissolves; Krishna, by acceptance, becomes Brahman—instantly. Because where Brahman is not erasing maya but accepting it, Krishna also accepts.

Hence we have called Krishna a complete incarnation. There is no rejection there; therefore completeness. The slightest rejection brings incompleteness.

Therefore we have never called Rama a complete incarnation. We cannot; Rama’s mind holds many rejections—many proprieties, fixed boundaries. A washerman says, “There is doubt about Sita,” and Rama cannot bear it—not even one washerman! There is no shortage of fools in the world—anyone can say anything! Washermen in Rama’s day were no wiser. But one washerman says, “There is doubt about Sita,” and he says to his wife, “You stayed out one night; I won’t let you in. I am no Rama who brings a woman back after she stayed in Ravana’s house!”

“I am no Rama”—this stung; a thorn pierced Rama’s mind. There is not total acceptance there. He cannot live with blemish upon his moral code, his character. He can cast Sita away, but cannot accept the blemish. Therefore the Hindu mind never called Rama a complete avatar; it called him Maryada Purushottam—the pinnacle of human rectitude. But note—human. Maryada Purushottam—but with a limit. Pure indeed, but with such insistence on purity that there is fear of impurity.

Krishna is of another order; he has no fear of infamy—as if he invites it! As if he tries to become as infamous as possible! What is the matter?

No rejection. Whatever is, is right. Thus an astonishing event occurred in Krishna’s life: what happens between Brahman and maya on the vast plane, happened in miniature—Vastness descended into a small field, and around him the small play of maya unfolded. Complete acceptance.

Where avidya is accepted, there is no need to destroy it. Where it is not accepted, it must be destroyed. But there is only one way to destroy it: destroy yourself. Only then will it go.

Hence the path of Mahavira and Buddha is arduous, cutting, breaking the ego, dissolving it—root by root—until the shadow is gone; release happens. Krishna’s path is acceptance. Nothing to break anywhere. But that too is not easy. It looks easy; on deeper search it may prove even more difficult, because the mind is not ready to accept. The mind says: let this be, not that; this should happen, not that; it keeps dividing: what ought and ought not to be. The mind divides and divides.

So there are only two ways. One way: erase both. The other: be content with both. In either case, release happens.

“This Absolute bears the adjunct of maya; the jiva bears the adjunct of avidya. When these are relinquished, only the indivisible sat–chit–ananda, the Supreme Brahman, is evident.”

By relinquishment! I have described two ways of relinquishing. One: dissolve—and avidya dissolves. Two: consent—accept what is; give up the urge to go beyond what is; relinquish even the slightest idea of changing anything as it is. Then too, what remains is the sat–chit–ananda Brahman.