Athato Bhakti Jigyasa #15

A glance back at the earlier sutras.

Shandilya said: Bhakti is the ultimate state. The ultimate state means godliness—where there is no distinction between devotee and God. As long as there is a distinction, there is ignorance. As long as there is distance, the thirst and the pain to meet will continue. Even an inch of distance, and suffering will remain. When all distance disappears—when the devotee is dissolved into God and God into the devotee—like a river falling into the ocean so that no gap remains, the river becoming the ocean and the ocean the river—that ultimate state is called godliness. Where there is neither devotee nor God. Where twoness ends, duality dissolves.

In such an ultimate state, by its very nature, there is no longer any need for shravana, manana, nididhyasa; no chanting, no austerity; no mantra, no tantra; no method, no ritual. Bhakti is the final attainment. Beyond it, there is nothing to gain. Therefore, the means to gain have no purpose. Shandilya calls the devotee a paramhansa. What had to be attained has been attained; there is nothing left to attain. The pilgrimage is over because the shrine has been reached.

After bhakti there is nothing left to do. The devotee simply lives in bliss-intoxication. Then his life is a celebration, not a sadhana.

Understand this well.

The life of bhakti is the life of celebration, not of practice. Not effort, but grace. Shandilya calls this attainment aiśvarya—majesty.

तामैश्वर्यपदां काश्यपः परत्वात्‌।

Kashyapa too calls it the station of Majesty. In that moment the majesty of the whole universe is yours—its entire dignity, glory, and splendor. The moon and stars are yours. The sun and earth are yours. Trees and animals and birds are yours. Because “you” are no longer there. As long as you were, there was obstruction. Now that there is no one left to possess, everything is yours.

Keep this in mind.

As long as you want to be the master, you will never be the master. Hidden within the very desire to be a master is the declaration that you are not a master. You want to be a master—that itself shows you are not one. In the very longing to be a master your poverty is concealed. Whoever runs after position harbors a knot of inferiority. Whoever runs after wealth is poor. Whoever longs to be beautiful is surely ugly. You want only what you do not have.

Swami Ram used to call himself an emperor. When he went to America someone asked, “You have nothing at all, and you say you are an emperor? You have two loincloths and a begging bowl—is this your empire?” Ram said, “These are precisely what slightly obstruct my empire. This is why my emperorship is not utterly complete. There is no other hindrance left—just these two loincloths and this bowl—so my being a sovereign is a little short. To the extent I still keep a claim, to that extent my poverty remains.”

That is why we have called Buddha and Mahavira emperors, who became beggars. And we have found no real difference between beggars and emperors. A beggar begs, and an emperor begs too. The beggar’s mentality persists even in the greatest emperor. The begging-mind means: the asking is still there; something still needs to be proved; some lack still aches and rankles.

The devotee’s state is one of supreme majesty—aiśvarya-pada. By dropping everything, everything is gained. By losing oneself, the divine is found. The very moment the drop disappears, it becomes one with all the oceans. The very moment the seed breaks, the tree happens. The very moment you die—are erased—you are one with the Eternal, and immortality is yours.

Kashyapa is right to say: “तामैश्वर्यपदां काश्यपः परत्वात्‌।”

And this attainment is not only a sovereignty of the vast outer—it is an attainment of the Self as well. This too must be understood. The day you lose yourself is the day you find yourself. Without losing, there is no finding. The more tightly you cling to yourself, the more you lose; the harder you clutch, the more you shrink. Be fearless—let go! Allow what is bound to go, to go! Whatever remains even when you let go—that is the Self; that which remains without your guarding it, which you cannot drop even if you try—that is the Self. What drops away when you drop it was a shadow, not the Self; maya, not the Self. This supreme majesty is not only outward, it is inward too. Inner and outer become one here.

आत्मैकपरां बादरायणः।

Therefore Badarayana says that the ultimate state is of the Self. It is the supreme experience of oneself, and of the All. Kashyapa emphasized the All; Badarayana emphasized the Self. These are two ways of pointing to the same truth. Kashyapa said: only God remains. Badarayana said: only the devotee remains. When the drop falls into the ocean, you can say the drop has become the ocean; you can also say the ocean has become the drop. Both statements are true. In reality that state is both, because there, both meet. Lines end; boundaries melt—for devotee and God are no longer two. If you keep the devotee in view, that state is self-supreme; if you keep God in view, that state is the station of Majesty.

That is why Shandilya concludes: “उभयपरां शांडिल्यः।”

It is both—ubhay-para. Two sides of the same coin—devotee and God are two faces of the same coin. Neither is there a God without the devotee, nor a devotee without God.

The Jewish mystic Baal Shem said in his prayers, “I need you—truly. But you need me too. Without you I cannot be, God—true. But without me, how will you be? What would God mean without the devotee? Without a disciple, what is a master? Without a master, what is a disciple? Meaning is ‘both.’ Together they give birth to meaning. Where both meet, meaning arises.”

उभयपरां शांडिल्यः शब्दोपपत्तिभ्याम्‌।

To call them two is not right; to speak from only one side is incomplete. Shandilya has achieved a great synthesis. In that synthesis he says—both are right; both are seers, Kashyapa and Badarayana, both are right; but even more right is this: let us not over-emphasize one. Every emphasis becomes one-sided. One-sided emphases turn untrue. Let us keep balance, keep harmony; let both pans of the scale be even. Where the scales are even, truth expresses itself in that balance. Hence Shandilya leaps beyond both Kashyapa and Badarayana—meaning: it is both, and not-two; both, and beyond both. It is that supreme majesty which is hard to say in words. Put it in words—and untruth creeps in. Put it in words—and you will have to choose one. Choose one—and you deny the other. It can only be said in silence. It can be read in intoxication and ecstasy. Read it when a devotee, lost in that supreme nectar, dances dissolved; hear it in the single-string drone when some mad lover plucks his ektara; read it in the devotee’s ecstasy when he loses himself, forfeits his senses, goes beside himself. When the devotee speaks—in the language of doctrine—some obstruction will arise. Because words have limits.

Keep this much in mind, and today’s sutras will be easier to understand.

The first sutra—

सर्व अनृते किम इति चेत न एवं बुद्ध्यानंत्यात्‌।

“If you ask, ‘Once all is abandoned, what need remains?’—The need remains, because intellects are manifold.”

Shandilya is answering likely doubts. He says: Someone may feel, “When everything is dropped and the Divine is found, why bring up majesty? Everything has been left—majesty too; all grasping dropped, all possessiveness dropped. If everything is dropped and union with the Divine has happened, why is Shandilya now speaking of aiśvarya?” The sutras are complete. Where the devotee has become God, the sutras should end. Such a doubt can arise. It is a valid and useful doubt. Shandilya anticipates it and answers:

He says, “The need remains—because intellects are of many kinds.”

These sutras are not being written for a single type of intelligence. They are written taking into account the whole range of human minds. For all, not for one class. One group will say: When the void has come, when truth has arrived, and when you say there is nowhere further to go—no tantra, mantra, yoga, japa, tapas, no hearing, reflecting, meditating—nothing remains, all means are over—then we should fall silent. Hence many saints knowingly remained silent. They did not speak again. Speaking would be inconsistent. But Shandilya does not remain silent. Having come to this state, he describes it—and also says that it cannot be described, that it is beyond description.

I told you yesterday—or the day before—Wittgenstein, the great Western thinker, said: “What cannot be said should not be said. Otherwise, error will result. Concerning that which cannot be spoken, one must remain silent.” That which cannot be said should not be said.

Lao Tzu remained silent all his life. He reached eighty without writing a single word. People would ask, and he would deflect; the more they asked, the more he deflected; the more he deflected, the more people concluded that he had found something and was now silently sitting. He must have been like Kabir, who said, “When I found the jewel, I knotted it tight”—wrapped it, guarded it within. Why keep opening the knot and showing it? Found is found.

At eighty, Lao Tzu left the country for the Himalayas. What place more fitting for final samadhi than the Himalayas! It is said that as he was leaving China, at the last border gate the guards stopped him: “We won’t let you go like this. Write down what you have known, then we’ll let you pass. Word has come from the emperor that Lao Tzu must not escape.” Out of necessity, sitting in the sentries’ tent, for three days Lao Tzu wrote a small book—Tao Te Ching. A small, astonishing book. The very first line: “That which can be spoken is not the true Tao.” Compelled to speak, but remember: what can be said is not truth. Truth forever remains unsaid.

Shandilya says: There have been such people who fell silent. They uttered nothing of that supreme majesty. Before that majesty they were dumbstruck. The heartbeat stopped, the breath paused. Speech was lost; they became mute. The truth became a sweet in a mute man’s mouth. Many such people fell silent. For them, that was natural.

But, Shandilya says, intellects are of many kinds.

One kind of intelligence falls silent. Knowing that liberation cannot be described, it does not raise the matter. But there is another intelligence which, precisely because it knows it cannot be described, accepts the challenge—and therefore begins to speak, to say the unsayable. What can be said—what is the point of saying it? It is what cannot be said that must be attempted. The challenge is there. Talent finds its chance there. What can be expressed—why spend words on that?

This is the difference between poet and rishi. The poet says what can be said, however difficult to say. The rishi speaks of that which cannot, in principle, be said at all—what stands beyond any relation to speech. The rishi attempts the impossible. That is his dignity. Good were those who remained silent. But had all the knowers remained silent, humanity would have suffered a great misfortune. You would not have Shandilya’s sutras, no Upanishads, no Quran, no Dhammapada. Nothing of significance would remain. And just think: if there were no Quran, no Bible, no Vedas, no Dhammapada, no Gita, no Upanishads; no temples of Khajuraho and Konark; no caves of Ajanta and Ellora—what would you be left with? No Beethoven’s music, no Michelangelo’s sculptures—what would remain? Remove a mere hundred names from human history, and the rest becomes worthless. These are the hundred who attempted to reveal the impossible—whether carved in stone, sounded in music, painted with brush, sung in song, or woven in words—the medium doesn’t matter.

What Buddha says in the Dhammapada someone else says in Ajanta–Ellora. What Vatsyayana says in the Kama Sutra someone else has said in the stones of Khajuraho. Some played it on the veena; others colored it on canvas. The tireless effort to say what cannot be said has continued. The inexpressible has posed a great challenge—and in answering it, human genius has flowered. Those who accepted the challenge were extraordinary, true sons of existence. Those who remained silent—no fault of theirs; minds are of many kinds.

Shandilya says: It is hard to speak of majesty, hard to pour God into words; and yet I will speak. I will not let the challenge pass. I will not waste the opportunity. I will speak—even if it is stammering; even if it is mere rhyming—so be it. Perhaps even those stammering words might fall into someone’s ears and dissolve a sweetness. Perhaps someone asleep might awaken. Perhaps some closed eyes might open and see. In the midst of the chase for worldly splendor, perhaps someone might hear of this splendor and wonder, “What I have been calling splendor is not splendor at all! What I have taken for majesty is not majesty; the real majesty lies elsewhere.” Only when the news reaches people do they set out. If someone says, “Go a little further—there’s a gold mine; a little further—there’s a diamond mine,” people begin to seek. Even if ninety-nine out of a hundred do not go, it doesn’t matter; if even one goes, it is enough. The chain continues. If among millions even one person keeps finding truth, the spring of truth keeps flowing—and water remains available for the thirsty.

Shandilya says: “Yes, it is necessary—because intellects are many.”

I have said it from one side; understand it from another, too. There are those who will understand through silence—but they are rare. Intellects are many. Some will understand only through silence; for them silence itself is the message. When Buddha simply sat in silence, some people could commune with him.

It happened once. A man came to Buddha at high noon and said, “I have some questions; I want to ask them. I cannot stay long—I’m in a hurry”—and everyone is in a hurry; time is slipping, there is no guarantee of tomorrow. “So please don’t put me off; I want an answer now. And let me also say—I don’t want answers in words; just give me the real thing, show me the real thing. Open a window—give me a glimpse; give me darshan, a direct seeing.” Tears rolled from his eyes.

Buddha closed his eyes. Ananda, sitting beside him, was startled. “How will this be resolved now? The man says, ‘Don’t speak—give me the direct seeing!’ We’ve been listening for years and haven’t had it—and he is in such a hurry!” Even impatience has its limits! Buddha remained silent for a few moments. Then he opened his eyes. The man bowed, touched Buddha’s feet and said, “Your great compassion! I am blessed! How to thank you? I will remember this moment—it will never be forgotten. It is the greatest treasure of my life. It will burn within me like a lamp. Even at the moment of death it will be with me. I am graced.” And the man kept bowing, and bowing, and bowing.

Ananda was even more astonished. When the man had left he asked, “What happened? I was sitting right here—no darshan happened to me. Nothing was seen. And you said nothing—you closed your eyes; the man sat and wept, and so quickly the transaction was done! Nothing passed from one hand to another. I was the only one here with my eyes open—yours were closed, his were half-closed.”

Buddha said, “Ananda, I remember it well... You loved horses as a boy; I’ll speak to you in that symbol. There are such horses that no matter how much you whip them, they won’t move.”

Ananda said, “That’s true—I know such horses.”

“And there are horses that move only if whipped; without the whip they won’t move. And there are horses for which you need not strike—just crack the whip in the air. And there are horses that don’t even need the crack—the mere presence of the whip is enough. And perhaps you’ve seen such noble horses for whom even the shadow of the whip is enough.”

Ananda said, “That I understand.” Forgetting the man entirely, talk of horses absorbed him.

Buddha said, “This was such a horse—its shadow is enough. I didn’t even need to crack the whip, or show it. The moment I closed my eyes, he opened his. The transaction happened in silence. The crossing was silent.”

So there are people who will understand in silence—but they are rare. And those who understand through silence do not need anyone to tell them. If that man had not come to Buddha, he would still have understood before he died. He could not die without understanding. He might have understood sitting under a tree—trees are silent too. Or in a mountain cave—mountains too are silent. Or seeing the moon—because the moon is silent. Sooner or later, he would have understood. Coming to Buddha only hastened the event. Such a man understands swiftly and intensely; a deep thirst was within him. He was water at ninety-nine degrees—one little nudge to a hundred, and he evaporated. If he hadn’t come to Buddha, perhaps it would have taken a few years—or a few lifetimes. But what are a few lifetimes in this vast expanse? No more than a couple of moments. Still, he would have arrived.

Shandilya says: “There are such people who will understand through silence.”

But they are rare. Horses that move at the shadow of the whip are few. Most need words. And even with words, they barely move. For them one must speak. And the majority, even when told in words, will not understand. If they cannot understand words, how will they understand silence? Hence minds are of different kinds.

Understand also that in this sutra many other points arise.

Some people are interested in God, not in majesty; others are interested in majesty, not in God. Those interested in God—if you do not speak of majesty, it will do. Majesty is God’s shadow; it will follow by itself.

Jesus’ famous saying is: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all else shall be added unto you.” First, seek the Lord or the Lord’s kingdom—then all other splendors and riches will follow on their own.

There are such people for whom talk of God is enough; talk of majesty is unnecessary. They will say, “Why waste time? The matter is complete.”

But there is another class—and it is larger—that is interested in God only because they are interested in lordship. Their interest in God is really an interest in sovereignty. Their interest must also be taken into account. And they are many. In the world a man seeks wealth—and fails to find it; then that very search for wealth becomes a search for meditation. He searched outside and failed; now he turns inward, thinking, “Let no realm be left out, no direction missed.” But the search is still for wealth. Having failed outside, he moves within—“Let’s see.”

Man seeks mastery outside, rank and position outside—then he fails. For who gets rank outside? And those who do—what do they get? Outer ranks are hollow. The show is great; within, nothing. Not even buttermilk remains. Much noise—no result. One day man understands: position is not found outside—and if found, it yields nothing. That day he turns to the supreme position. But what he seeks is the supreme majesty. For such a man, God is secondary, majesty primary. He sets out in search of majesty—and finds God as a shadow.

Therefore, Shandilya says, we must speak of majesty. It will be useful to more people. If someone asks, “After abandoning everything, what need is there to talk of majesty?” Shandilya says: there is a need—because intellects are many. And a true master is one who leaves sutras for every kind of mind.

What is the difference between a guru and a sadguru?

A guru is one who leaves sutras for one type of mind. He has a limit. He speaks a certain way; those who understand that much follow him. The sadguru appears only rarely—one who speaks for all of humanity; who leaves no one out; whose arms are so wide they embrace all—woman and man; the active and the inactive; the pragmatic and the contemplative; the logical and the loving—who excludes none.

Buddha spoke. For years he did not initiate women. He refused; his path was for men. There was no place for women in it. There was a faint fear of women too. And when at last, under great pressure, he did initiate women, he said, “My dhamma would have lasted five thousand years; now it will last only five hundred, because the presence of women will corrupt it.”

Buddha’s sutras work primarily for men, for there is no place for love there, no method for devotion. And a feminine mind cannot move toward the divine without love. The danger is real; Buddha was not wrong. His fear is clear: “I have allowed women in; my path is purely of meditation, not of love and prayer; women cannot remain without love. Sooner or later they will pour love into this path.” And so they did; they turned Buddha himself into their object of love; they began to worship Buddha. A woman cannot live without worship. For a man, worship is difficult; to bow is hard—his ego obstructs. Rare is the man who can bow.

If a man does surrender, he does it reluctantly. He thinks and thinks; to do or not to do. For a woman, surrender is easy; resolve is hard. The psychologies differ. Man’s psychology is of resolution—if there is a fight, a struggle, a battle to be joined, he is ready. That suits him. A woman, when asked to surrender, to bend, has suppleness. That is why we have called women vines, and men trees. A vine bends somewhere, takes support somewhere.

On Buddha’s path there was no concept of God, so there was no support in God; women then made Buddha himself into God. With the entry of women a new form of Buddhism arose—Mahayana—which would never have arisen otherwise. Hinayana is Buddha’s original form. Mahayana is the compassion of women! But with women coming in, the processes of meditation were shaken.

On Krishna’s path, there is no problem. The problem there is for men. A man goes with some hesitation and shyness. A woman dances along. You see, there are so many stories of Krishna’s rasa. Among his devotees were men too—gopals. But look at the rasa: only women are shown dancing. You scarcely see a bearded, mustached gopal there. All are women. Not that there weren’t gopals, but they are not depicted as bearded, for their hearts must have been as feminine as the women’s.

In West Bengal there is a small sect still alive—the Radha sect. There, even men consider themselves women, and when they worship Krishna they dress as women. At night, when they sleep, they hold Krishna’s image to their chest.

With Krishna, there is no way but to become a gopi. With Krishna, there is no way but to become feminine. The relationship there is of love and prayer. If a man goes on Krishna’s path, he will corrupt it—just as women corrupted Buddha’s path.

A guru is one who gives one definite direction. Those who can walk that way, walk; those who cannot, it is not for them; they must seek elsewhere. I call one a sadguru whose arms are so vast that whether woman or man, whether active or inactive, whether intellect-centered or heart-centered—whatever the styles and processes of life—there is a way for all, an acceptance of all. Gurus are many; sadgurus are rare. Shandilya is a sadguru. Hence he says: on my path of bhakti, if you practice yoga, we will make use of it—for purification of mind. If you practice knowledge, we will make use of it—to deepen your inquiry, sharpen your thirst, transform your curiosity into ardent longing. Come, all of you—there is no exclusion, no prohibition. Therefore he says: minds are many, and I speak for all.

प्रकृति अंतरालात्‌ इव कार्यं चित्त सत्त्वेन अनुवर्तमानत्वात्‌।

“Because mind can, as it were, stand apart from nature, the independent authority of consciousness is established.”

Shandilya has declared that devotee and God become one; samsara and nirvana become one; matter and consciousness, body and soul become one; dualities end. A doubt will arise: Is there or is there not an independent authority of consciousness apart from nature?

Understand the two words: prakriti and purusha. These are profound terms of Indian insight. Prakriti means the feminine principle in existence; purusha the masculine principle. The world is made of the meeting of resolve and surrender. In English the word for prakriti or matter is “matter”—from the Sanskrit root matr, mother; from it comes “mother,” and “matter.” Matter—feminine, the mother power—prakriti, the mother. Purusha—resolve, thought. Prakriti—love. Both are.

An ancient Assyrian text declares: God was alone and wanted to know himself. To know himself he divided himself into two—because for knowing, division is necessary. Whenever you want to know something, the knower must be separate from the known. Even to know your own face, you need a mirror. Your face is here—why not know it directly? But you need a mirror to see its reflection.

Prakriti is the mirror in which purusha sees himself. Without relation to the other, without some deep inner connection, you cannot know yourself.

That is why Krishnamurti is right to say: relationship is a mirror. Only in relatedness does awakening happen. One who runs off to the mountains is fleeing the mirror. How will he know his face on the mountain? He can sit with closed eyes—but he will not attain self-knowing.

Self-knowing is here, where people are—where a thousand walking mirrors surround you. Wherever you look, your face appears. In one mirror you appear angry—this too is your face. In another, joyous—this too is your face. These are all your faces—endless faces. To recognize them all is necessary. Recognize them, and you can recognize that within you which lies beyond all faces. If you flee to the forest—what will you know? Sit in a cave—what will you know? You have smashed the mirror. Society is a mirror.

The Assyrian tale is right: God was alone and wanted to know himself, so he split into two—into matter and consciousness. Consciousness—the seer; matter—that which is seen. Hence Hindu insight never separated woman and man; never. Buddhists and Jains are one-sided in this sense; there is an incompleteness in their perspective. Mahavira stands alone; but Ram stands with Sita. In fact, whenever a Hindu takes the names of Ram and Sita, Sita’s name comes first—Sita-Ram. Radha-Krishna. Shiva-Parvati together. Vishnu and Lakshmi together. Hindu insight has seen woman and man together; purusha and prakriti together. Both are conjoined. There is no need to separate them—though they can be.

Jains separate consciousness from nature; they say: liberation means freedom from prakriti. You remain pure consciousness with no relation to nature—then all bonds are over.

Hindu insight says: when what looks like bondage no longer appears as bondage, then there is liberation. When chains appear as ornaments, then there is liberation. When thorns become flowers, then there is liberation. When matter too is recognized as God, then there is liberation. But they can be distinguished. Hence understand this sutra of Shandilya:

“Prakriti can be set aside; the independent authority of consciousness can be established.”

If one wishes, one can dissociate from nature, abide in pure consciousness, and hold, “I am only awareness.” This possibility exists—that is why Jain and Buddhist perspectives could arise. You can leave the mirror and sit in a cave; it is possible. Shandilya acknowledges this possibility. But it is a possibility of negation—of no-saying. It is negative.

Hence Jain thought is negative. It has no affirmation. It contracts; it doesn’t expand. The Jain monk becomes sad, crippled—hands and feet cut off. He cannot dance, cannot sing with a veena; no ecstasy or intoxication is possible—such things are all denied; he must dry up. When not a single flower remains, not even a green leaf; when he is like a dry, rough tree standing in midsummer to which no greenness comes—then his followers say, “Now something has happened. This is renunciation.”

This dispassion is negative. It is self-destructive. Indeed, it brings peace—because one has withdrawn from causes of unrest. Worry falls away; a certain untroubledness comes—but joy does not. Remember the difference between peace and joy.

Peace is merely the absence of suffering. Joy is not merely the absence of suffering; it is also the advent of bliss. Buddha said: liberation is the cessation of dukkha. He did not speak of joy. Why? Because in the process of negation there is no room for joy. Negation can at most take you to peace and emptiness. Beyond that, there is no movement; beyond that, affirmation is needed. With no-saying you can go so far; further you need a yes. Yet, it is possible to become a witness, to stand apart, to relate only to pure awareness and break all relations with prakriti.

Because of fear of nature, man fears woman—for woman represents nature.

You will be surprised how many scriptures insult woman! And those doing so are precisely the ones from whom you wouldn’t expect it. “Woman is the gate to hell.” “Woman is sin.” Not a single woman has said such things about men. Love cannot speak so; love accepts. And yet, how much hell have women given men—and men even more to women—since the power has been in men’s hands. Still, no woman has said, “Man is the gate to hell.” Women have said, “The husband is God.” Meanwhile your so-called saints keep writing and repeating: “Woman is the gate to hell.”

Tulsidas groups women with animals, rustics, and shudras and says they are fit to be beaten. They should be chastised; to not do so is wrong. Harshness toward them is the right behavior.

Why such fear of woman?

Because you are running away through negation. And one who lives in negation lives in fear. Whatever you deny will follow you. Try it—deny something and that very thing will haunt you. Fast for a day; fasting is a denial of hunger and food. You will think of food all day. For twenty-four hours one thought will go on—food, food, food.

Whatever you deny returns to consciousness again and again. The more it comes, the more fear will arise—“Woman is the gate to hell.” Woman is not the gate to hell; your denial keeps bringing her to mind. Since women have not denied men, it never occurred to them that man is hell’s gate. If women begin to deny men, they’ll discover the same. But women have a nature of acceptance; they do not have a tendency to negate. A woman’s heart is larger than a man’s, more generous. Love is naturally more generous than logic; surrender more generous than resolve. But understand:

“Consciousness can establish its independence from nature.”

Hence, paths of negation arise.

“Such independence is like a man sitting on a stool in his house.”

तत्‌ प्रतिष्ठा गृहपीठवत्‌।

Those paths of negation say: We have nothing to do with prakriti. It is like a man sitting on a stool in his house. If he is seated, it does not mean he must sit there forever, or that he cannot leave the stool—or that the stool is attached to him and will follow wherever he goes. The moment he stands, the stool is left behind. It can be left. The relation of purusha and prakriti is such that purusha can, if he wishes, leave prakriti. Like boat and river—boat can be pulled from river; river can be left by boat.

So the paths of negation say the relation of purusha and prakriti is like that—tat-pratishtha griha-pithavat—like a man on a stool at home. So long as he sits, fine; when he chooses to leave, he leaves. The stool will not chase him.

If only it were so simple! If only the claim of the negationists were this easy! When you leave a woman and go to the forest, don’t be deluded into thinking you are leaving a stool; the stool is outside; the woman is inside you. Wherever you go, she will go. Prakriti is conjoined with purusha. Although purusha can create a certain feeling that he is separate. On the strength of those feelings, the negative paths were born.

Shandilya says: “मिथ उपेक्षणात्‌ उभयम्‌।”

“Both are causal; the world arises through both.”

The cause of the world is not only prakriti. It is both—prakriti and purusha. Therefore, by leaving one, it will not do. Only by going beyond both will it do.

Understand this. When you run to the forest leaving your wife, you are trying to be only a man—and remain only that. “Enough of this slavery to woman; no more dependence. Now I declare my manhood.” But as a man you will never be free of woman. Whether you stay near or far—so long as you are a man, you cannot be free of woman, for the very definition of man is made in contrast to woman. The definition of purusha is made in contrast to prakriti.

But there is a method—go beyond both. Shandilya’s sutra is wondrous. He says: there is a way—be neither woman nor man; neither purusha nor prakriti; neither consciousness nor matter. The way that goes beyond both is bhakti.

Jnana wants to drop one and hold the other—there is choice in jnana. Bhakti has no choice; it seeks freedom from both. It looks beyond both. Godliness means: where man has lost his manhood and woman her womanhood. Where both are no longer separate—Ardhanarishvara. Where woman and man are united.

That is why in certain moments of lovemaking you taste the divine. In such a union, neither remembers their gender; an oneness happens; a bridge appears; they are joined. For a moment the event occurs; lovers sometimes have that moment—duality disappears, twoness dissolves, the One surges for an instant—and then it is gone. Hence man’s great frenzy for sex—because that taste of One is so sweet. The rasa of sex is not truly sexual; it is the rasa of samadhi. Once you recognize this, you begin to go beyond sex—then you seek true samadhi, where purusha and prakriti are one forever.

“Both are causal.”

मिथ उपेक्षणात्‌ उभयम्‌।

Therefore, do not blame one. To hold one responsible is utter foolishness. For a man to say woman is the gate to hell is as foolish as for a woman to say man is the gate to hell. No one is the gate to hell. You have taken each other as separate—there lies the gate to hell. The day you recognize both as one, there lies the gate to heaven.

And it is not only about uniting woman and man; it is about uniting all the dualities of life. Negation and affirmation must become one; the visible and the invisible one; night and day one; life and death one; pleasure and pain one; heaven and hell one. Wherever there is duality, there should be a state beyond duality. When no duality remains, when the sovereignty of non-duality reigns—that is liberation, that is godliness.

चैत्याः अचितोः न त्रितीयम्‌।

“There is no third between consciousness and the non-conscious.”

Listen to this proclamation: “चैत्याः अचितोः न त्रितीयम्‌।”

There is no difference between prakriti and Brahman—they are one. You have imagined difference—that is the obstacle. Samsara and nirvana are one—as the Zen masters say. Zen said it later; Shandilya’s declaration is far older.

चैत्याः अचितोः न त्रितीयम्‌।

Between prakriti and Brahman there is not the slightest distinction; they are indistinguishable. The Creator and creation are not two. Creation is the dance of the Creator. Every facet of creation bears his stamp—his signature on every particle. All colors are his; the entire rainbow is his. From mud to lotus, all low and high are his—mud his, lotus his. Do not condemn the mud; do not praise the lotus. Only if you condemn the mud can you praise the lotus. If you praise the lotus, you must condemn the mud. All is his. What condemnation? What praise? The mud is his—and the lotus lies hidden in the mud! The lotus is his—and the lotus will fall again and become mud. One who sees the same in both mud and lotus has known—he is self-knowing and all-knowing. And surely, for such a person, all majesty—taṁ aiśvarya-padaṁ—all is his. From mud to lotus all is his; from the tiny to the vast all is his; from atom to the Absolute all is his. In this knowing, the explosion happens in which all your poverty and inferiority vanish—both are only beliefs. All fear ends.

If even your renunciate, your monk and ascetic, is fearful… The worldly being is fearful—that we understand. He fears his wealth being stolen, fears a loss in the market, fears theft, fears his wife might leave—thousands of fears. But have you seen how many fears your renunciate has? The so-called sadhus and monks—how many fears?

He is tormented that his merit may be lost, that some sin may occur; that his fast might break; that a vow he made might be violated; that though he fasted, thoughts of food assail him; that though he left woman, desire holds him. He is also haunted by all this. In truth, your monk is more afraid than you are—trembling day and night. He cannot live at ease by day or sleep at ease by night. At night he fears: a beautiful woman might appear in a dream; or craving for wealth; and what he has run from is all waiting for the moment of sleep: “Close your eyes a little, rest a bit—and we will enter.” All he has left is standing at the door. The slightest chance—and they are in.

What a strange thing—both the worldly and the renunciate are afraid! Then who can attain fearlessness?

Only one who has known that samsara and God are not two—then there is no fear. One who has known that life is his and death is his—then no fear. One who has known the unity of prakriti and purusha—then no fear.

चैत्याः अचितोः न त्रितीयम्‌।

Take this sutra of Shandilya as deep into your heart as you can—it will be useful. It is difficult to understand, because for centuries we have been taught the wrong things. For centuries poison has been poured into us—of condemnation. We are filled with poison. In our veins no blood flows now—only poison. Priests and pundits have filled us with so much poison that when truth steps in, our eyes blink. We hear, yet do not understand. We understand, yet cannot hold it. We hold it, yet cannot live it. And until truth descends into life, do not trust that you have understood. Intellectual understanding is not understanding.

When these truths become your living experience—when you experience what Shandilya experienced—when the proclamation arises within you: All is one! Matter and prakriti, God and purusha are only names; purusha is the inner name, prakriti the outer; purusha is the inner journey, prakriti the outer; purusha is witnessing, woman is wonder and absorption; purusha is meditation, woman is love—blessed is one whose meditation carries the fragrance of love and whose love carries the light of meditation. The day you can meditate in such a way that your meditation does not oppose love, and the day you can love so that your love does not contradict your meditation—that day you have come to the temple’s door; you have come to the right place; that day your shrine has been found, your tirthankara found.

This is what I am saying: let your love and your meditation be joined. When you meditate, let the raga and color of love be in it—let there be devotion’s warmth. Let meditation not be dry and arid. Let it not be a desert. Let flowers of love blossom in meditation; let streams of love flow; let meditation be filled with ecstasy; let it have its own wine-house, with dance and song. Let meditation not be anti-life, not a negation of life—let it be delight, joy. And if you love—if you enter bhakti—let your bhakti not be muddle-headed or blind belief—let a lamp of meditation burn in it, let its light be present, let witnessing remain.

This is the supreme synthesis. Beyond this there is no further synthesis; here prakriti and purusha meet; here meditation and love join. Where meditation and love meet, the visible and invisible become one; time and the timeless become one; the quarrel of wave and ocean ends. Then you know the wave is ocean and the ocean is wave. You no longer choose—you become choiceless. There is nothing to choose—no alternatives remain. Then nirvikalpa samadhi settles; all problems are resolved. Now if there is mud, you see the lotus; if there is lotus, you know the mud. Attachment no longer arises, nor aversion. In every circumstance you know what is—as it is, as it has been. You see everything. In that seeing, there is liberation. No bonds remain upon you.

चैत्याः अचितोः न त्रितीयम्‌।

There is no difference between nature and Brahman. No difference between woman and man. No difference between love and meditation.

Enough for today.