The Upanishads call the supreme principle self-born and self-luminous. You say that whatever has a cause is matter; and that which is causeless is the Divine. Poets among the saints say the same in their own way: “The lamp of the Ineffable burns without wick and without oil.” But we—far from knowing the causeless—do not even rightly understand this caused world. And the lamp we do keep, with wick and oil, only flickers. Please explain to us, tell us: is there truly a lamp that burns without wick and without oil? “The lamp of the Ineffable burns without wick and without oil.”
This formula looks simple, but it is exceedingly difficult. Everything we know—every lamp we are familiar with—burns on oil; it needs a wick. There is nothing causeless in our experience. If fire burns, fuel must be there. If a man walks, food is necessary. Food is fuel. All that we know, all our knowledge, is bound to cause.
So the saying looks simple—“that lamp of the Unreachably subtle, the light of the Divine, burns without oil, without wick”—but it is difficult because we have no acquaintance with any such source. Our knowledge comes from trees that grow from seeds. We have no familiarity with a seedless tree. That’s why it is hard; still, let us try to understand. A few approaches, from different angles, will help.
Mind can never grasp this, because mind understands the caused, not the causeless. But deeper than mind there is another faculty. The heart understands only the causeless, not the caused.
Those who said, “The lamp of the Ineffable burns without wick and without oil,” were not putting forth a doctrine. They were not offering a chain of ideas. They saw this. They came face to face with that lamp where there was neither wick nor oil. They experienced it; they knew it.
And if that lamp had been separate from the knower, there might have been room for error. Perhaps the oil was hidden, perhaps the wick woven in a way it could not be seen. But those who knew, knew that they themselves were that lamp; they saw that flame burning within themselves. There was no possibility of mistake. They found themselves to be causeless.
Life has neither origin nor end. No source to life, no finishing point. No beginning to life, no final offering. Life simply flows on and on.
Those who realized this gave this sutra. It is the essence of the Bible, the Koran, the Upanishads—of all—because all speak of the same lamp.
First: even in the world we know—the world of science and logic and reason—if you go a little deeper, you discover that there too the lamp burns without wick and without oil. Scientists say: how the world began—this cannot be said. And how it will end—this too is impossible even to think. For how can that which is, vanish? You cannot annihilate even a tiny grain of sand. You can pound it, you can burn it, but ash remains. Total annihilation is impossible. To make the smallest speck of sand enter into absolute nothingness is impossible—it will remain; its form will change, its mode will change; it will not be destroyed.
If a grain of sand does not perish, how will this vast cosmos dissolve into nothing? How can it end? Unthinkable! Its end cannot be conceived; nor can it be.
So science has accepted a principle: energy is indestructible. But this is what religion has always said: the Divine is indestructible. Only the names differ. Science says nature is indestructible. Matter cannot be annihilated. We can change forms, we can change shapes, but that which is formless hidden in form, the shapeless concealed in shape, the energy that is life—that remains.
And if there is no end, there can be no beginning. A stick cannot have one end only; if one end does not exist, neither can the other. If we cannot even think how the universe might end, how can we think how it began? If a grain of sand cannot go into nothingness, how could a grain of sand come out of nothingness?
Both statements are one and the same. If the universe were born from the void, it could vanish into the void. If it cannot vanish into the void, it was not born from the void. Which means the world has always been. Existence always was and always will be. It has no origin.
Energy that has no origin is causeless. Energy that has no end is causeless. Because wherever there is a cause, an end is possible. If you live because of food—stop the food and you die. If you live because of breath—break the breath and you are finished. If you live because of the sun’s light—if the sun goes out, you go out. Where there is a cause, the cause can be removed. Only that has no end which has no cause. Reason, thought, can at least understand this much: that the play of this life has no beginning.
But the intellect reels, because then new entanglements arise. If there is no beginning, no end, if this is an endless chain, then what is its purpose? What is its meaning? Then all becomes meaningless; there is no purpose left.
The intellect finds it hard to accept that something can be and have no purpose. Because intellect is utilitarian. If there is a purpose, the intellect expands. If there is something to gain, the intellect can do something. If there is nothing to gain, no end, and the chain is endless—whatever you do will make no difference. Your doing will bring no change. Your doing is like a dream.
The Sufi Junnaid has said: all the deeds of the intellect are like a mosquito trying to bite a steel elephant. A steel elephant! And the mosquito tries to drink its blood. All the devices of the intellect, its entire activity, are like that.
If the world is an endless chain, what will come of your doing? The intellect fears this because then the ego cannot be built. If nothing happens because of me; if it was before me and will be after me; even while I am, I am no more than a dream—reality remains as it is—then my being or not being makes no difference. The ego finds it hard to be constructed. And the whole game of intellect is to construct the ego—“I am.” But my being gains weight only when I can do something, when action is in my control. The more I can do, the weightier I become. If I can do nothing, I dissolve; I am lost.
If existence is purposeless, there is no place left for the ego to build itself. And if there is no beginning and no end, the intellect has nothing left to explore. The intellect’s curiosity asks: how did it begin? Who made it? Why was it made? When will it end? When will dissolution come? How will it end? Here the intellect finds room for inquiry. But in this purposeless, beginningless, endless expanse, neither intellect nor ego can stand anywhere; they are lost.
Therefore whoever stands having dropped ego and intellect will immediately see: “The lamp of the Ineffable burns without wick and without oil.”
And that lamp is not only burning outside; it is burning within as well. It is the same lamp everywhere, one light burning. We are all different flames of the same light. The flames will flare and fade; the source of fire is eternal.
I will vanish because I am only a form. You will vanish because you are only a shape. But that which has taken shape within you will not vanish when you vanish. The wave will disappear, because the wave was a form; but the ocean hidden within the wave will remain. You will perish, you will be lost because you are caused. You were born of mother and father. The form was born, not you; the body was made, not you. Whatever was made of mother and father, death will take.
You are being maintained by food. Physiologists say: stop food for three months and you will die. Three months—because the body holds reserves for about that long. You have stored flesh and fat; it will be used up in three months. When the oil is exhausted, the lamp goes out. If the breath is stopped now, you will die now. Immerse you in water and do not let you up, and in two moments death will happen. For the lamp you call yourself burns on oxygen taken from the air.
If one lamp is burning, a gust of wind may not extinguish it. Cover it with a vessel to protect it; it will burn a little while—and then go out. It will breathe as long as there is oxygen in the vessel; when the oxygen is finished, the lamp is gone. In the wind it might not go out because there was vital energy in the gusts too, but in a closed vessel it will perish.
You are breathing every moment; that breath keeps your inner lamp burning. This lamp does not burn without wick and oil; that is why there is so much fear of death. However much you deny, however much you persuade yourself, your mind cannot agree that you are immortal. You are not. The immortal is hidden within you, but you do not know it. Whatever you take yourself to be is caused. As long as oil is supplied, you keep burning. Withdraw the oil and you are gone.
Mahavira undertook very deep experiments in fasting. I will tell you the essence of those experiments—an essence the Jains have entirely forgotten. There are long accounts of Mahavira going without food for years. It is said that in twelve years Mahavira ate only during one year—and that too occasionally. Sometimes he fasted for three months, then ate one day; sometimes for two months, then ate one day—altogether, in twelve years, he ate three hundred sixty-five days. Which is to say, one day of food in twelve days, and about eleven days of fasting.
What was Mahavira doing? What was this experiment? Has anyone ever attained the spiritual by starving to death? If so, then famine would be a blessing; poverty a benediction. Then the hungry would find God. But the hungry lose even their bodies; how will they gain the soul?
What was Mahavira attempting? He was working precisely with this sutra. He was trying to know: what burns within me with fuel, and what within me burns without fuel? He was trying to make the distinction clear. When food is stopped, what within me begins to die? When food is withheld, which flame grows dim? Is that flame me? If that is me, all is futile. For today or tomorrow, the oil will be spent; the lamp will break. It is a clay lamp; today or tomorrow the wick will be no more. If that is me, all is in vain.
For twelve years, repeatedly removing the oil from the lamp and letting the wick dwindle, Mahavira strove to understand: is my being separate from this being? Am I only what appears in form, or is the formless also within me? Is that which burns in this mortal lamp my light? Or have I mistaken the body’s light for my own? Am I separate from the body or not?
With a full stomach it is hard to know this; with an empty stomach it is a little easier. With a full stomach it is difficult because the body’s flame burns so well that it is difficult to see where my flame is. When the body’s flame grows faint and your flame remains utterly unaffected—only then do you come to know!
If you are intelligent, even illness can become a path to the spirit. Hunger can become a search for the soul. Suffering can become the door to supreme bliss. Heaven can be found even through hell.
Austerity has only one purpose: to make the body’s lamp so dim that your flame has no connection with it at all. Let it flicker near extinction, yet within you you find that you are burning exactly as before. No difference occurs. The body grows frail; I do not grow frail. The body comes close to going out. The body can remain without food for three months.
So Mahavira undertook many three-month fasts. After three months he would eat. On the day he saw that the last drop was nearly gone, that now the body would simply fall, on that day he ate; on that day he poured a little oil in again—and then waited again for three months. Through this consistent analysis for twelve years Mahavira made it clear: I am separate and the body is separate. The distinction became evident.
Mahavira called the process of establishing this distinction the “science of discrimination”—bhed-vijnan. Fasting is one method of that science. How to know the separateness of form and the formless? Shape and the shapeless are so entwined. The wave is so joined with the ocean—how to tell? The ocean has entered so deeply into the wave—how to know the difference?
Even the ocean knows the difference only when it is still, when all waves have fallen asleep. When no gusts are blowing and there is no storm, then the ocean knows that what was leaping within me as waves was alien. The wave has vanished, but I am as I was when the wave was there. Therefore the wave was a chance occurrence, not my nature.
If your awareness burns fully even in fasting and not a hair’s breadth of difference occurs—and you will be surprised: awareness burns more sharply in fasting. With a full stomach a kind of stupor sets in. Food brings stupor; that is why after eating you feel like resting, like sleeping. With an empty stomach sleep does not come at night, because with an empty stomach wakefulness increases; awareness grows more intense.
Those who have experimented a little with fasting know this: for two, three, four days there is discomfort, because of habit—they body demands. But after the fifth or seventh day, the demand grows silent. The body understands that no food is forthcoming; it stops asking. After the seventh day, a great lightness begins in awareness. After the seventh day, the stupor diminishes. After the seventh day, sleep becomes very slight; almost nil. If you fast for three weeks, sleep disappears entirely.
And when sleep disappears entirely, you are conscious for twenty-four hours—and this consciousness feels light, as if wings have grown, as if there is no weight, as if the earth’s gravitation no longer binds you; you are weightless—as if now, if you wish, you could fly beyond the body. In such moments for the first time you know: the body’s lamp is one thing, my lamp another! I am not dependent on the body. Whether the body’s flame burns or goes out has no relation to my going out or burning. I burn apart from the body—and I will go on burning. Before the body was, I was. Therefore, if someone goes into a fast of six weeks, memories of past lives begin to arise.
It is no wonder that Mahavira explored the science of past-life memory most deeply. Because with long fasts you become so light! And your attraction to the body stops; it is almost broken. Just the slightest hint, a little jolt—and you can separate from the body. In that instant, memories of previous births begin coming—because when this body was not, you still were; and when this body will not be, you still will be. As soon as it becomes clear that my identity is not with the body, then the vision appears—“The lamp of the Ineffable burns without wick and without oil.”
And one who recognizes this lamp within will recognize that the little inner flame and the flame everywhere are one. The green fire you see in the trees—that too is the same flame. The red fire you see in the flowers—that too is the same flame. What flies in the birds is the same flame.
In the West there was a marvelous poet, Blake. One morning he was sitting, and a line of white cranes passed across the sky—white birds shooting like an arrow through the blue. That day Blake wrote a poem in which he said: if the eyes are pure, if the mirror of the mind is clean, if the capacity to see is awakened, you do not see birds, you see energy. You do not see the shape of a bird; you see the fire burning within—if the eye is clear.
When the eye is clouded, you see the formed. When the eye is clear, you see the formless. And the eye becomes clear when your stupor lessens. When sleep seizes you, you cannot see clearly.
Imagine you are seated and must stay awake, and sleep is coming. You try to open your eyes, but they do not want to open; an inner unconsciousness is spreading. How will your seeing be clear then? It can even happen that you close your eyes and dream that your eyes are open. Sleep plays such tricks.
The greatest number of road accidents happens between three and five in the morning. Because sleep deceives the driver. Between three and five is the time of deepest sleep. In the span of twenty-four hours, the body’s temperature dips for about two hours—roughly between three and five—by two degrees. That is the time of sleep. The body is filled with stupor. So much stupor that the driver thinks his eyes are open; it seems to him his eyes are open, while they have closed. Accidents happen then. Researchers in the science of sleep say: between three and five all traffic should be stopped—the world’s accidents would be reduced by half, fifty percent, because half of the trouble occurs between three and five.
When your eyes are filled with sleep, how will you see? That’s why what you see in the morning is different, and what you see at dusk is different. Evening appears sad to you; a kind of melancholy spreads all around. With sunset everything seems to slow and dim. It is not happening; it’s just that your eyes, tired from the day, are growing dull. A smoke has gathered upon your eyes.
Sunset is as beautiful as sunrise. Sunset is as fresh as sunrise. Evening is as pleasing, lovely, and wholesome as morning. No difference there. Your eyes are tired. And the fatigue of your eyes appears all around. Your eyes have grown dim; you cannot see rightly.
In fasting, when unconsciousness lessens and the body is not producing the chemicals that induce stupor—food gives not only life, it gives stupor too. Eat too much and it acts like alcohol. Many people use food exactly like liquor—they eat so much. And they ask why they eat so much. Overeating acts like wine; unconsciousness comes easily then.
Why does food bring sleep? Because as soon as food enters the belly, the energy that ordinarily functions in the brain is pulled down by the stomach. The stomach needs energy to digest, so it draws energy from the whole body; the fire must burn properly.
The brain runs on very subtle energy. Awareness is the subtlest energy. As soon as food goes to the belly, the brain’s energy flows towards the stomach. Then the head starts nodding, sleep comes. That sleep is proof that the energy the brain needs is not being supplied. And the belly is the body’s center. It can take from the brain. The belly gives energy to the brain only when it has a surplus. The brain is secondary for the belly. That’s why gluttons are never very keen of intellect. And a strange fact: gluttons are neither very sharp nor do they live long—they die early.
In the West there was a scientist, Skinner. He experimented with mice. Six mice were fed more than needed, so tasty they couldn’t resist. Another six got just enough for their bodies—measured calories, regulated food. The third group got half of what their bodies required—six mice on half-rations. Those given half-rations lived three times longer than the overfed. Their lifespan became triple; and twice as long as those given proper rations. Skinner concluded: fewer people die of hunger in the world than die of food. You cannot live without food—true—but if there is excess, the body starts producing toxic substances, bringing such stupor that the stupor itself is poisonous. You die early.
If Mahavira’s health was extraordinary, its cause lies somewhere in fasting. If sannyasins have tended to live longer, the reason is in their lessened food.
As food decreases, awareness increases. Mahavira was seeking precisely this: does my flame of awareness change in any way when I do not eat, when I am hungry? If it does not, then nothing will change in death either, because death can snatch only the body, not me.
The seeker’s life has but one aim: to discover that there are two within. That which is caused—this is the world. That which is causeless—that is the Divine. “Caused” means: remove the cause and it disappears. “Causeless” means: whatever happens, it remains unaffected.
The quarrel between atheist and theist is over this caused and causeless. The Charvakas and their heirs say: man too is a composite of materials. Separate the elements and the man will be gone—it is just a compound. Like when you chew betel, your mouth turns red. That redness comes from a mixture of three or four or five ingredients. Separate them one by one and the redness will be gone; it is not an independent thing. The Charvakas say that human consciousness is like that redness of betel. Separate the bodily elements and consciousness will vanish. Marx says the same: consciousness is a by-product; it is a secretion of matter. Separate the material from the body and no soul will be found.
By fasting, Mahavira tried while alive to separate all the elements from the body—remove all food and fuel—and then see whether I diminish at all. If even a hair’s breadth I do not diminish, and the body has been hungry for three months—its fuel almost exhausted—and the body’s lamp is burning so faintly that one puff of wind would put it out, while my awareness has not lessened but is burning deeper—then certainly this awareness is not produced by a bodily compound; it is causeless!
The experience of causeless awareness is the experience of the Divine.
If it is experienced within, it will be experienced without. Once a person attains this recognition, it begins to appear everywhere. Then “you” are no longer; what is hidden within you alone is seen. The gestalt of seeing changes.
I am looking at you; I can see you in two ways. One is your form—your face, nose, eyes, ears, body, weight, height, thinness or fatness. But form is your periphery. The periphery is not you. Form is your shell, your garment, your house; the house is not the owner. Your clothes are not you.
Seeing the form is our ordinary way of seeing. That will continue; because one who has not recognized the formless within cannot see the formless in another. My eyes will go only as deep into you as they have gone into me.
But if I have seen within me the flame that belongs to the Ineffable, the Invisible—then your form remains only a shell. Then you become transparent, and I see you directly. Form surrounds you, but it is not you. You wear the garment of the body, but that is not you. Then the light appears burning everywhere.
A young man went to Buddha and said, “I am terrified of death. I tremble; I cannot sleep. Who knows if I sleep at night whether I will wake in the morning. When someone dies, I cannot step out of the house for days. My hands and feet shake. If I fall ill, I feel death has come. Teach me some way.”
Buddha said, “Any way I show you would be wrong. To prescribe a way would be to accept that your perception is right. There is no ‘way’ for this. You will have to recognize yourself. There is no remedy for this fear. The fear is only a sign that you have not yet recognized yourself. The day you recognize yourself, fear will depart.”
There are only two kinds of teaching in the world. One leaves you as you are and arranges consolations for you.
A woman was walking along with a box on her shoulder, the lid perforated with holes. A passerby asked, “What is this? The box looks strange with holes on top.” The woman said, “There’s a cat inside. I have dreams at night—rats appear—and I am terrified of rats. My psychoanalyst advised me to keep a cat nearby; it will help reduce the fear.” The man was amazed. He said, “But the rats in your dreams are imaginary!” The woman leaned close and whispered in his ear, “So is the cat imaginary. The box is empty!”
To catch imaginary rats, a real cat is of no use. How can a real cat catch unreal rats? They do not belong together. For imaginary rats, an imaginary cat is required.
Your fear of death is false. And a guru who gives you a mantra, “Repeat this and your fear of death will diminish,” is even more false. He is an imaginary cat to catch imaginary rats.
If a guru gives you an amulet—“Tie this and your fear will lessen”—you were already haunted by one lie, and he handed you another. It may give temporary relief, but nothing fundamental changes. You remain the same. Earlier you were troubled by one falsehood, now by a second. Before, you feared death might come; now you fear the amulet may get dirty, may fall off, may be forgotten—for if the amulet goes, you are gone. One lie leads to another, then another…a chain of falsehoods arises.
One kind of teaching is not teaching at all; it consoles you. The other gives no consolation; it gives truth. But truth is arduous to attain. Its path is difficult. You will have to carve away a great deal within yourself; you will have to break much; you will have to take a chisel to your very being. For you have become so identified, through lifetimes of conditioning, with “I am the body,” that breaking it will hurt. You have become attached to the lamp, to the wick, to the oil. Your bond with this lamp is so deep that you do not even remember you could be separate from it.
Then all is only theory. You may grasp as many doctrines as you like, read scriptures—the sutra will remain locked; its latch will not open. Something has to be done. You need not go to the forest like Mahavira and fast for twelve years. There is no need to invite suffering; there is plenty already. Mahavira needed to; he was a prince and had known only pleasure. He had not known suffering; therefore he undertook austerity. You have hardly known pleasure; you are already in austerity—you just don’t know how to use it.
I have heard: a Christian priest was instructing new preachers on how to speak to people—how to deliver sermons, how to convey. He said, “Gestures are very useful. Whatever you say, your face, your hands, your poses, your whole body should express it. When you speak of heaven, your face should glow, your eyes shine, a current of joy should run through your body. Your height should seem to increase—like you are filled with ecstasy. When you speak of heaven, your voice should be vibrant, strong, powerful. When you speak of hell, your ordinary face will do. When you speak of hell, your ordinary face will do—no special effect needed. Your face is already infernal enough! No extra expression is required. As you are, you are sufficient.”
I say the same to you. Mahavira may have needed to go to the forest, to fast and embrace pain. As you are, you are in enough austerity. You already suffer a great deal. Use that suffering; make it a staircase. When you fall ill, do not attend mainly to the illness—attend to awareness.
If you lie on the bed with eyes closed, try to see: the body is ill. Does the illness touch you as well? Are you ill? A thorn has pierced the foot; the foot aches. Has the thorn pierced you too, or are you only witnessing? Are you the knower, or the experience itself? The leg is broken, the bone is fractured, bandages are wrapped—you lie suffering. Look at the suffering closely. Is the breaking of bone your breaking? Or are you still whole? The fracture is there; hands and feet are bound—are you bound, or are you still free?
Even amidst handcuffs consciousness is always free. Even in prison, consciousness is never imprisoned.
A Greek fakir, Diogenes, was once seized. Some rogues captured him to sell him as a slave. When they grabbed him, they were astonished—Diogenes was carefree, strong, powerful. They were afraid, because alone he could handle four of them. Nude, he wandered the forests. After much calculation—he could humiliate all four—they attacked with all their might. He stood perfectly still among them and surrendered himself. They were puzzled. If he had resisted, they wouldn’t have been as surprised. He didn’t resist at all. When they put on the handcuffs, he extended his hands. When they shackled his feet, he offered them. One asked, “You are strange. Is your mind sound? We are making you a slave.” Diogenes said, “If you could make me a slave, I would fight. You cannot make me a slave, because the soul cannot be enslaved under any condition. The hand you cuff is not me. That is why I could extend it; if it were me, I would snatch it away. And the body you have surrounded is not me; that is why I stood quietly—why create unnecessary fuss? You may be in delusion; I am not.”
They understood nothing, but he seemed a strange and mysterious man. When they started to move, he looked so majestic that the four were being dragged by him as if they were slaves and he the master. And when they reached the market where they would sell him, people asked, “What’s the matter? Are these slaves for sale?” At the auction block he said, “You come down. You are half-dead; who will hear your voice? I will call out.”
Diogenes climbed the block and said, “Is there any slave here? A master has come for sale. Anyone who wishes to buy a master—this master is on the block.” He looked the master. He was the master.
There is no way to enslave the soul. But you must recognize the soul.
When you fall ill, search for the one within you who is not ill. A mere glimpse of that one, and there will be no shore to your joy. When you are in pain, search for the one within you who remains untouched by pain. A mere taste of that recognition will fill you with the breezes of heaven. When you lie defeated and someone sits upon your chest, close your eyes and see—can there be any way someone can sit upon your chest? Is this chest your chest? Are you this? A deep laughter will surround you. Life will appear as a jest—because that which cannot be bound appears bound; that which has no path into suffering appears sunk in suffering; the emperor of emperors is begging in the street.
The day you find this untouched one in your pain, that day you will understand that there is a lamp that burns without wick and without oil. That lamp alone is worth finding; that light alone is worth attaining. Then you will see the same light everywhere. Then everywhere you look, a temple of that light appears. The whole existence becomes a vast energy—beginningless, endless! It has no purpose. It is not an enterprise.
That is why Hindus have said a very sweet thing: this is the supreme play, the joy of the Vast. The energy is so abundant that there is no boundary; therefore it flows—purposelessly.
Ask the river, “Why do you flow?” When the rains come and the river swells—so swells that it breaks all dams and overflows all banks—ask it why. When it bursts its banks there is no bound left.
Ask a child, “Why are you jumping, dancing?” Energy wants to be free. Ask the trees, “Why do you sprout? Why so green? What is this joy of flowers?”
There is no cause. The name of the causeless is play—lila.
This is not God’s job, as Christians, Jews, and Muslims think. If it were a job, by now God would be exhausted. One gets exhausted by work. If it were the job to create you, to kill you, to make you sick and healthy, to keep accounts of sins and merits, to manage everything—what an uproar! God would have gone mad if it were a job. Were it a job, by now he would have thought of closing shop. He would have taken sannyas, left the household.
You get eager to take sannyas, to abandon the household. A tiny home, a small business, a little shop makes you so restless you would rather die than continue. Think—if this vastness had to be run as work, God would long ago have gone renunciate. And if God becomes sad, what chance is there for your joy? If God takes sannyas, the world will disappear at once.
Your taking sannyas, your leaving the world, only impinges on your small house. If the supreme energy were to rest, grow tired, become depressed, then the world would vanish instantly. For only while energy flows in it do trees blossom, children dance, clouds move in the sky, rivers run, mountains rise. If this energy grows sad, folds in on itself, the expansion will be lost. All will contract and close.
The Hindu vision is unique; none like it in the world. Hindus say: this is play. It is a game. No one gets tired of play. Play means that there is no purpose; no question of reward. Play means the juice is here and now in the expression of energy itself; not in the result.
You are—this is God’s joy. How you are is not the question. If God were more pleased by a saint and less by a sinner, he would be running a shop. Then he would be like you: pleased with the son who brings earnings, displeased with the son who squanders. Then he would be a tradesman and his mind would compute.
No—the Divine is as delighted in the sinner as in the saint. Play is impartial. Play means that the one acting the part of Ravana is as pleasing to the Divine as the one acting Rama. And when the play ends, the difference between Rama and Ravana remains not.
This is hard to grasp, because our mind insists there should be distinction between saint and sinner, between good and bad. One is stealing, another is praying day and night—there should be a difference. The one who prays should get a reward; the thief should be punished. Because of this mind we have constructed heaven and hell. They are our projections. They are the extension of the shopkeeper’s mind. If there is God, there cannot be hell. If there is God, all is heaven. If there is God, all is play.
Krishna tries to explain this to Arjuna; Arjuna does not grasp it. He calculates. He says, “If I kill so many people, how much sin will I incur? If by killing so many I gain a kingdom, is it worth it?” Krishna says, “Do not calculate. Do not worry about the result. You are an instrument. There is a play—play it. And while playing, remember this much—that God is playing through you. You are no more than a flute. The song is his; the singer is he.”
The ego cannot accept being a hollow reed. It thinks the song is mine; these sweet notes are mine. As long as ego thinks thus, you can know only that which has a cause. Only the lamp that burns on oil will be visible to you.
The ego is a lamp that burns on oil; the soul burns without wick and oil.
But a revolution is needed in vision. Let existence cease to be work; let it be a celebration.
On Holi you throw water on each other, colors, gulal. If someone were to ask: what are you doing? What is the use of this? You will throw gulal and the poor man will spend an hour bathing to wash it off. Yet the one you color is thrilled, more delighted than ever. The act is utterly purposeless. If no one throws color on small children on Holi, they will wander lanes and throw it on themselves—because it hurts to imagine that no one thought them worthy of a little color.
What is Holi? A festival. Our other days are so full of sorrow that we had to invent Holi and Diwali. But for God, existence is always Holi and always Diwali. There, lamps are always burning that never go out. There, colors are always flying. Some call them flowers, some rainbows. There, colors are always flung; the source never runs dry.
If this vastness appears to you as play, you will not worry about its cause or when it began or when it will end. No—this celebration will continue. The participants will change, because they tire. They tire because they take it as work. Otherwise the dance goes on. Forms change; waves change. The ocean keeps up its thunder.
But first recognize it within; first make the distinction within—only then will you be able to perceive it without.
Here we must understand something that, at first glance, seems contradictory. Mahavira calls his entire contemplation the science of discrimination. Shankara and the Vedantins speak of non-difference, and Mahavira of difference. Mahavira says: clearly separate within you what is mortal and what is immortal; separate them so completely that not even a hair’s bridge remains between the two. The day this occurs, says Mahavira, you are free.
Mahavira’s entire emphasis is on difference; Shankara’s entire emphasis is on non-difference. Shankara says: as long as you keep discriminating—“You are separate and the world is separate; existence is separate and you are separate”—you will wander. The day you know “Tat tvam asi”—that you and that are one—that day you are free.
But I tell you: the two expressions appear different, the paths seem separate, yet they are one. And for the seeker, Mahavira’s road is easier than Shankara’s, because Mahavira begins at the beginning and Shankara begins at the end. Shankara starts the discussion where a man at the goal would speak. Mahavira begins where the man in the marketplace can understand. Mahavira speaks seeing the seeker; Shankara speaks seeing the realized. You are not realized. That is why Vedanta had a harmful effect on India. Many fools, not even seekers yet, began to speak like the realized.
Vivekananda wrote of a sannyasin in a village, named Bhole Baba. When plague struck, he would say, “Who dies? Who lives? The soul is immortal.” If in front of him someone beat a poor man, he would pass by, saying, “All is Brahman—he who beats and he who is beaten.” But if anyone refused him alms, he would curse, “You will rot—rot for many births!” Then his Brahma-knowledge vanished.
Vedanta has misled many because the language of the realized is dangerous. It is the ultimate expression of truth. You do not know even the first ray of truth. If that ultimate expression settles in your head and you repeat it, it is perilous. You will not walk; you will not journey; you never reached the goal; yet you will talk like the realized. Thus Shankara’s message resulted in harm rather than help. Thousands of sannyasins in India began to talk of Brahman without taking even the first step, without learning their ABC.
Vivekananda was very displeased—because due to this, India’s dignity was lost. Nothing is more damaging than fools parroting the wise. They remain fools. When plague strikes, they spout Brahman-knowledge. When someone else is beaten, they say, “He who beats is He, he who is beaten is He.” But touch them with a stick and their knowledge evaporates; they are ready to strike back. That is the touchstone. That is the test.
Mahavira speaks the seeker’s language. He says: first separate within you the mortal and the immortal. Separate them so completely that not a hair’s bridge remains. The day this happens, Mahavira says, you are free. That day you will also know that all is one. That which we called mortal is also a part of the immortal; it too does not perish. But you will know this only on the day you separate within.
Understand this a little more. Your soul will not perish; will your body perish? The body’s shape will perish. This particular body will not be, but it will remain—the five elements will remain. Water will fall back into water; space will dissolve into space; earth will merge with earth; fire with fire; air with air. What is destroyed? If your body is a sum of five, the sum will break; the five will remain. You will not perish; the body will not perish. Nothing perishes; only combinations break. Again and again combinations will form; again and again the body will rise and fall and vanish.
But Mahavira says: this will be understood the day you make the distinction within. The day you know the causeless lamp and the caused lamp, that very day the difference will also dissolve. That day you will know: you do not perish, consciousness does not perish, the body does not perish. Only the relation between consciousness and body perishes. Only relationship is perishable. Thus the name of sannyas is: going beyond relationship.
Only relationship is perishable. Neither your wife is the world, nor are you the world. You are related to the wife; that notion of relationship is the world. Neither money is the world nor you, but you clutch the safe. Between you and money, in that relationship, lies the world.
The name of relationship is samsara; nonattachment is sannyas.
This does not mean you run away leaving the wife. One with whom you have no relationship—why run away from her? If there is relationship, running away creates a new relationship. There is no question of renouncing wealth either, because what you have never enjoyed—how will you renounce it? What you were never attached to—how will you break from it? The question is not flight; the question is awakening, knowing. Let relationship drop. Let there remain no relationship—of any kind. Instantly you are free.
Mahavira calls this un-related state “keval”—the state of pure, alone consciousness where there is no relationship. Relationship is maya. Nonattachment is Brahman.
But one must walk step by step. There is no way to grasp the goal directly. Step by step means: begin within—not with doctrine, with experience. Separate body and self. Break the first relationship there. The other relationships stand upon that one. Remove the foundation stone and the whole house will fall.
The day you separate the relationship of self and body within, that day the palace of your world will be leveled.
If that foundation remains, wherever you go you will create new relationships. Because the seed is with you; new sprouts will come. You will go to an ashram and it will become yours. You will leave your children; you will gather disciples. They will become “yours.” If a son dies you felt a certain sorrow; if a disciple dies the same sorrow will arise. Not only in houses are there “mothers”; in ashrams too “mothers” appear. Wherever you go, if the seed of relationship is within, sprouts will arise.
Break the seed of relationship. Seek within the flame that burns without lamp and without wick. Catch a glimpse of it and slowly be absorbed in it.
There is no way to know God without knowing the soul.
There has never been, nor can there be, any recognition of Truth without recognizing oneself. And the one who attains that first recognition—the ultimate is not far. On this journey the first step becomes the last.
Krishnamurti has a book: The First and Last Freedom. Here the first becomes the last. But one who misses the first and memorizes the last goes astray.
Beware of knowledge. Ignorance is not so dangerous. It is innocent. When ignorance is gone, the knowledge that arises within you is yours. Only what is yours liberates. You can cover your ignorance with borrowed knowledge—with Vedanta, with the Vedas. Then your ignorance is secure, inside a fortress. Now to destroy it becomes very difficult; to attack it is hard. Remember your ignorance, and strive to break the inner relationship. As the relationships break, ignorance will drop. As the lamp of un-related consciousness becomes visible, knowledge will arise.
The day you recognize within you the flame that burns without lamp, without wick, without oil—that day is wisdom! That day you are the Veda. That day memorizing the Veda is useless.
A Christian youth went to a Zen master and said, “I have brought the Bible; my faith is in the Bible. Have you ever read it?” The master said, “No. I have had no leisure to read—reading myself absorbs all my energy. Still, since you have brought it, you may read some.” The youth had come to convert the Zen master; he was pleased. He read from the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the meek, for theirs is the kingdom of God.” “Blessed are the humble and the last, for in my kingdom they will be first; they will be supreme.”
The master said, “Stop. I do not know who spoke these words, but whoever spoke them had recognized the inner flame. Whoever spoke them was a Buddha.”
The youth said, “There is more.” The master said, “Enough! One sip of the ocean suffices to know its salt. Close the book. I have tasted one drop; I have tasted the whole ocean. Whoever spoke these words had attained Buddhahood. He had recognized within. And I tell you this not because the words are sweet, but because this is my recognition too; this is how I know.”
The Vedas are meaningless until you can testify. The Gita is trash until you can support it by your experience. With the support of your experience, the gold of the Gita will shine. You are the witness. The Veda, the Bible, the Koran—by themselves they mean nothing. You will pour meaning into them. But you can pour meaning only when your own realization, your own wisdom, your own flame burns—bright, intense, urgent.
And remember only one thing: find that flame which burns without fuel.
Osho's Commentary
You say that whatever has a cause is matter;
and that which is causeless is the Divine.
Poets among the saints say the same in their own way:
“The lamp of the Ineffable burns without wick and without oil.”
But we—far from knowing the causeless—do not even rightly understand this caused world.
And the lamp we do keep, with wick and oil, only flickers.
Please explain to us, tell us: is there truly
a lamp that burns without wick and without oil?
“The lamp of the Ineffable burns without wick and without oil.”
This formula looks simple, but it is exceedingly difficult.
Everything we know—every lamp we are familiar with—burns on oil; it needs a wick. There is nothing causeless in our experience. If fire burns, fuel must be there. If a man walks, food is necessary. Food is fuel.
All that we know, all our knowledge, is bound to cause.
So the saying looks simple—“that lamp of the Unreachably subtle, the light of the Divine, burns without oil, without wick”—but it is difficult because we have no acquaintance with any such source. Our knowledge comes from trees that grow from seeds. We have no familiarity with a seedless tree. That’s why it is hard; still, let us try to understand. A few approaches, from different angles, will help.
Mind can never grasp this, because mind understands the caused, not the causeless. But deeper than mind there is another faculty. The heart understands only the causeless, not the caused.
Those who said, “The lamp of the Ineffable burns without wick and without oil,” were not putting forth a doctrine. They were not offering a chain of ideas. They saw this. They came face to face with that lamp where there was neither wick nor oil. They experienced it; they knew it.
And if that lamp had been separate from the knower, there might have been room for error. Perhaps the oil was hidden, perhaps the wick woven in a way it could not be seen. But those who knew, knew that they themselves were that lamp; they saw that flame burning within themselves. There was no possibility of mistake. They found themselves to be causeless.
Life has neither origin nor end.
No source to life, no finishing point.
No beginning to life, no final offering.
Life simply flows on and on.
Those who realized this gave this sutra. It is the essence of the Bible, the Koran, the Upanishads—of all—because all speak of the same lamp.
First: even in the world we know—the world of science and logic and reason—if you go a little deeper, you discover that there too the lamp burns without wick and without oil.
Scientists say: how the world began—this cannot be said. And how it will end—this too is impossible even to think. For how can that which is, vanish? You cannot annihilate even a tiny grain of sand. You can pound it, you can burn it, but ash remains. Total annihilation is impossible. To make the smallest speck of sand enter into absolute nothingness is impossible—it will remain; its form will change, its mode will change; it will not be destroyed.
If a grain of sand does not perish, how will this vast cosmos dissolve into nothing? How can it end? Unthinkable! Its end cannot be conceived; nor can it be.
So science has accepted a principle: energy is indestructible. But this is what religion has always said: the Divine is indestructible. Only the names differ. Science says nature is indestructible. Matter cannot be annihilated. We can change forms, we can change shapes, but that which is formless hidden in form, the shapeless concealed in shape, the energy that is life—that remains.
And if there is no end, there can be no beginning. A stick cannot have one end only; if one end does not exist, neither can the other. If we cannot even think how the universe might end, how can we think how it began? If a grain of sand cannot go into nothingness, how could a grain of sand come out of nothingness?
Both statements are one and the same. If the universe were born from the void, it could vanish into the void. If it cannot vanish into the void, it was not born from the void. Which means the world has always been. Existence always was and always will be. It has no origin.
Energy that has no origin is causeless. Energy that has no end is causeless. Because wherever there is a cause, an end is possible. If you live because of food—stop the food and you die. If you live because of breath—break the breath and you are finished. If you live because of the sun’s light—if the sun goes out, you go out. Where there is a cause, the cause can be removed. Only that has no end which has no cause. Reason, thought, can at least understand this much: that the play of this life has no beginning.
But the intellect reels, because then new entanglements arise. If there is no beginning, no end, if this is an endless chain, then what is its purpose? What is its meaning? Then all becomes meaningless; there is no purpose left.
The intellect finds it hard to accept that something can be and have no purpose. Because intellect is utilitarian. If there is a purpose, the intellect expands. If there is something to gain, the intellect can do something. If there is nothing to gain, no end, and the chain is endless—whatever you do will make no difference. Your doing will bring no change. Your doing is like a dream.
The Sufi Junnaid has said: all the deeds of the intellect are like a mosquito trying to bite a steel elephant. A steel elephant! And the mosquito tries to drink its blood. All the devices of the intellect, its entire activity, are like that.
If the world is an endless chain, what will come of your doing? The intellect fears this because then the ego cannot be built. If nothing happens because of me; if it was before me and will be after me; even while I am, I am no more than a dream—reality remains as it is—then my being or not being makes no difference. The ego finds it hard to be constructed. And the whole game of intellect is to construct the ego—“I am.” But my being gains weight only when I can do something, when action is in my control. The more I can do, the weightier I become. If I can do nothing, I dissolve; I am lost.
If existence is purposeless, there is no place left for the ego to build itself. And if there is no beginning and no end, the intellect has nothing left to explore. The intellect’s curiosity asks: how did it begin? Who made it? Why was it made? When will it end? When will dissolution come? How will it end? Here the intellect finds room for inquiry. But in this purposeless, beginningless, endless expanse, neither intellect nor ego can stand anywhere; they are lost.
Therefore whoever stands having dropped ego and intellect will immediately see: “The lamp of the Ineffable burns without wick and without oil.”
And that lamp is not only burning outside; it is burning within as well. It is the same lamp everywhere, one light burning. We are all different flames of the same light. The flames will flare and fade; the source of fire is eternal.
I will vanish because I am only a form. You will vanish because you are only a shape. But that which has taken shape within you will not vanish when you vanish. The wave will disappear, because the wave was a form; but the ocean hidden within the wave will remain. You will perish, you will be lost because you are caused. You were born of mother and father. The form was born, not you; the body was made, not you. Whatever was made of mother and father, death will take.
You are being maintained by food. Physiologists say: stop food for three months and you will die. Three months—because the body holds reserves for about that long. You have stored flesh and fat; it will be used up in three months. When the oil is exhausted, the lamp goes out. If the breath is stopped now, you will die now. Immerse you in water and do not let you up, and in two moments death will happen. For the lamp you call yourself burns on oxygen taken from the air.
If one lamp is burning, a gust of wind may not extinguish it. Cover it with a vessel to protect it; it will burn a little while—and then go out. It will breathe as long as there is oxygen in the vessel; when the oxygen is finished, the lamp is gone. In the wind it might not go out because there was vital energy in the gusts too, but in a closed vessel it will perish.
You are breathing every moment; that breath keeps your inner lamp burning. This lamp does not burn without wick and oil; that is why there is so much fear of death. However much you deny, however much you persuade yourself, your mind cannot agree that you are immortal. You are not. The immortal is hidden within you, but you do not know it. Whatever you take yourself to be is caused. As long as oil is supplied, you keep burning. Withdraw the oil and you are gone.
Mahavira undertook very deep experiments in fasting. I will tell you the essence of those experiments—an essence the Jains have entirely forgotten. There are long accounts of Mahavira going without food for years. It is said that in twelve years Mahavira ate only during one year—and that too occasionally. Sometimes he fasted for three months, then ate one day; sometimes for two months, then ate one day—altogether, in twelve years, he ate three hundred sixty-five days. Which is to say, one day of food in twelve days, and about eleven days of fasting.
What was Mahavira doing? What was this experiment? Has anyone ever attained the spiritual by starving to death? If so, then famine would be a blessing; poverty a benediction. Then the hungry would find God. But the hungry lose even their bodies; how will they gain the soul?
What was Mahavira attempting? He was working precisely with this sutra. He was trying to know: what burns within me with fuel, and what within me burns without fuel? He was trying to make the distinction clear. When food is stopped, what within me begins to die? When food is withheld, which flame grows dim? Is that flame me? If that is me, all is futile. For today or tomorrow, the oil will be spent; the lamp will break. It is a clay lamp; today or tomorrow the wick will be no more. If that is me, all is in vain.
For twelve years, repeatedly removing the oil from the lamp and letting the wick dwindle, Mahavira strove to understand: is my being separate from this being? Am I only what appears in form, or is the formless also within me? Is that which burns in this mortal lamp my light? Or have I mistaken the body’s light for my own? Am I separate from the body or not?
With a full stomach it is hard to know this; with an empty stomach it is a little easier. With a full stomach it is difficult because the body’s flame burns so well that it is difficult to see where my flame is. When the body’s flame grows faint and your flame remains utterly unaffected—only then do you come to know!
If you are intelligent, even illness can become a path to the spirit. Hunger can become a search for the soul. Suffering can become the door to supreme bliss. Heaven can be found even through hell.
Austerity has only one purpose: to make the body’s lamp so dim that your flame has no connection with it at all. Let it flicker near extinction, yet within you you find that you are burning exactly as before. No difference occurs. The body grows frail; I do not grow frail. The body comes close to going out. The body can remain without food for three months.
So Mahavira undertook many three-month fasts. After three months he would eat. On the day he saw that the last drop was nearly gone, that now the body would simply fall, on that day he ate; on that day he poured a little oil in again—and then waited again for three months. Through this consistent analysis for twelve years Mahavira made it clear: I am separate and the body is separate. The distinction became evident.
Mahavira called the process of establishing this distinction the “science of discrimination”—bhed-vijnan. Fasting is one method of that science. How to know the separateness of form and the formless? Shape and the shapeless are so entwined. The wave is so joined with the ocean—how to tell? The ocean has entered so deeply into the wave—how to know the difference?
Even the ocean knows the difference only when it is still, when all waves have fallen asleep. When no gusts are blowing and there is no storm, then the ocean knows that what was leaping within me as waves was alien. The wave has vanished, but I am as I was when the wave was there. Therefore the wave was a chance occurrence, not my nature.
If your awareness burns fully even in fasting and not a hair’s breadth of difference occurs—and you will be surprised: awareness burns more sharply in fasting. With a full stomach a kind of stupor sets in. Food brings stupor; that is why after eating you feel like resting, like sleeping. With an empty stomach sleep does not come at night, because with an empty stomach wakefulness increases; awareness grows more intense.
Those who have experimented a little with fasting know this: for two, three, four days there is discomfort, because of habit—they body demands. But after the fifth or seventh day, the demand grows silent. The body understands that no food is forthcoming; it stops asking. After the seventh day, a great lightness begins in awareness. After the seventh day, the stupor diminishes. After the seventh day, sleep becomes very slight; almost nil. If you fast for three weeks, sleep disappears entirely.
And when sleep disappears entirely, you are conscious for twenty-four hours—and this consciousness feels light, as if wings have grown, as if there is no weight, as if the earth’s gravitation no longer binds you; you are weightless—as if now, if you wish, you could fly beyond the body. In such moments for the first time you know: the body’s lamp is one thing, my lamp another! I am not dependent on the body. Whether the body’s flame burns or goes out has no relation to my going out or burning. I burn apart from the body—and I will go on burning. Before the body was, I was. Therefore, if someone goes into a fast of six weeks, memories of past lives begin to arise.
It is no wonder that Mahavira explored the science of past-life memory most deeply. Because with long fasts you become so light! And your attraction to the body stops; it is almost broken. Just the slightest hint, a little jolt—and you can separate from the body. In that instant, memories of previous births begin coming—because when this body was not, you still were; and when this body will not be, you still will be. As soon as it becomes clear that my identity is not with the body, then the vision appears—“The lamp of the Ineffable burns without wick and without oil.”
And one who recognizes this lamp within will recognize that the little inner flame and the flame everywhere are one. The green fire you see in the trees—that too is the same flame. The red fire you see in the flowers—that too is the same flame. What flies in the birds is the same flame.
In the West there was a marvelous poet, Blake. One morning he was sitting, and a line of white cranes passed across the sky—white birds shooting like an arrow through the blue. That day Blake wrote a poem in which he said: if the eyes are pure, if the mirror of the mind is clean, if the capacity to see is awakened, you do not see birds, you see energy. You do not see the shape of a bird; you see the fire burning within—if the eye is clear.
When the eye is clouded, you see the formed. When the eye is clear, you see the formless. And the eye becomes clear when your stupor lessens. When sleep seizes you, you cannot see clearly.
Imagine you are seated and must stay awake, and sleep is coming. You try to open your eyes, but they do not want to open; an inner unconsciousness is spreading. How will your seeing be clear then? It can even happen that you close your eyes and dream that your eyes are open. Sleep plays such tricks.
The greatest number of road accidents happens between three and five in the morning. Because sleep deceives the driver. Between three and five is the time of deepest sleep. In the span of twenty-four hours, the body’s temperature dips for about two hours—roughly between three and five—by two degrees. That is the time of sleep. The body is filled with stupor. So much stupor that the driver thinks his eyes are open; it seems to him his eyes are open, while they have closed. Accidents happen then. Researchers in the science of sleep say: between three and five all traffic should be stopped—the world’s accidents would be reduced by half, fifty percent, because half of the trouble occurs between three and five.
When your eyes are filled with sleep, how will you see? That’s why what you see in the morning is different, and what you see at dusk is different. Evening appears sad to you; a kind of melancholy spreads all around. With sunset everything seems to slow and dim. It is not happening; it’s just that your eyes, tired from the day, are growing dull. A smoke has gathered upon your eyes.
Sunset is as beautiful as sunrise. Sunset is as fresh as sunrise. Evening is as pleasing, lovely, and wholesome as morning. No difference there. Your eyes are tired. And the fatigue of your eyes appears all around. Your eyes have grown dim; you cannot see rightly.
In fasting, when unconsciousness lessens and the body is not producing the chemicals that induce stupor—food gives not only life, it gives stupor too. Eat too much and it acts like alcohol. Many people use food exactly like liquor—they eat so much. And they ask why they eat so much. Overeating acts like wine; unconsciousness comes easily then.
Why does food bring sleep? Because as soon as food enters the belly, the energy that ordinarily functions in the brain is pulled down by the stomach. The stomach needs energy to digest, so it draws energy from the whole body; the fire must burn properly.
The brain runs on very subtle energy. Awareness is the subtlest energy. As soon as food goes to the belly, the brain’s energy flows towards the stomach. Then the head starts nodding, sleep comes. That sleep is proof that the energy the brain needs is not being supplied. And the belly is the body’s center. It can take from the brain. The belly gives energy to the brain only when it has a surplus. The brain is secondary for the belly. That’s why gluttons are never very keen of intellect. And a strange fact: gluttons are neither very sharp nor do they live long—they die early.
In the West there was a scientist, Skinner. He experimented with mice. Six mice were fed more than needed, so tasty they couldn’t resist. Another six got just enough for their bodies—measured calories, regulated food. The third group got half of what their bodies required—six mice on half-rations. Those given half-rations lived three times longer than the overfed. Their lifespan became triple; and twice as long as those given proper rations. Skinner concluded: fewer people die of hunger in the world than die of food. You cannot live without food—true—but if there is excess, the body starts producing toxic substances, bringing such stupor that the stupor itself is poisonous. You die early.
If Mahavira’s health was extraordinary, its cause lies somewhere in fasting. If sannyasins have tended to live longer, the reason is in their lessened food.
As food decreases, awareness increases. Mahavira was seeking precisely this: does my flame of awareness change in any way when I do not eat, when I am hungry? If it does not, then nothing will change in death either, because death can snatch only the body, not me.
The seeker’s life has but one aim: to discover that there are two within. That which is caused—this is the world. That which is causeless—that is the Divine. “Caused” means: remove the cause and it disappears. “Causeless” means: whatever happens, it remains unaffected.
The quarrel between atheist and theist is over this caused and causeless. The Charvakas and their heirs say: man too is a composite of materials. Separate the elements and the man will be gone—it is just a compound. Like when you chew betel, your mouth turns red. That redness comes from a mixture of three or four or five ingredients. Separate them one by one and the redness will be gone; it is not an independent thing. The Charvakas say that human consciousness is like that redness of betel. Separate the bodily elements and consciousness will vanish. Marx says the same: consciousness is a by-product; it is a secretion of matter. Separate the material from the body and no soul will be found.
By fasting, Mahavira tried while alive to separate all the elements from the body—remove all food and fuel—and then see whether I diminish at all. If even a hair’s breadth I do not diminish, and the body has been hungry for three months—its fuel almost exhausted—and the body’s lamp is burning so faintly that one puff of wind would put it out, while my awareness has not lessened but is burning deeper—then certainly this awareness is not produced by a bodily compound; it is causeless!
The experience of causeless awareness is the experience of the Divine.
If it is experienced within, it will be experienced without. Once a person attains this recognition, it begins to appear everywhere. Then “you” are no longer; what is hidden within you alone is seen. The gestalt of seeing changes.
I am looking at you; I can see you in two ways. One is your form—your face, nose, eyes, ears, body, weight, height, thinness or fatness. But form is your periphery. The periphery is not you. Form is your shell, your garment, your house; the house is not the owner. Your clothes are not you.
Seeing the form is our ordinary way of seeing. That will continue; because one who has not recognized the formless within cannot see the formless in another. My eyes will go only as deep into you as they have gone into me.
But if I have seen within me the flame that belongs to the Ineffable, the Invisible—then your form remains only a shell. Then you become transparent, and I see you directly. Form surrounds you, but it is not you. You wear the garment of the body, but that is not you. Then the light appears burning everywhere.
A young man went to Buddha and said, “I am terrified of death. I tremble; I cannot sleep. Who knows if I sleep at night whether I will wake in the morning. When someone dies, I cannot step out of the house for days. My hands and feet shake. If I fall ill, I feel death has come. Teach me some way.”
Buddha said, “Any way I show you would be wrong. To prescribe a way would be to accept that your perception is right. There is no ‘way’ for this. You will have to recognize yourself. There is no remedy for this fear. The fear is only a sign that you have not yet recognized yourself. The day you recognize yourself, fear will depart.”
There are only two kinds of teaching in the world. One leaves you as you are and arranges consolations for you.
A woman was walking along with a box on her shoulder, the lid perforated with holes. A passerby asked, “What is this? The box looks strange with holes on top.” The woman said, “There’s a cat inside. I have dreams at night—rats appear—and I am terrified of rats. My psychoanalyst advised me to keep a cat nearby; it will help reduce the fear.” The man was amazed. He said, “But the rats in your dreams are imaginary!”
The woman leaned close and whispered in his ear, “So is the cat imaginary. The box is empty!”
To catch imaginary rats, a real cat is of no use. How can a real cat catch unreal rats? They do not belong together. For imaginary rats, an imaginary cat is required.
Your fear of death is false. And a guru who gives you a mantra, “Repeat this and your fear of death will diminish,” is even more false. He is an imaginary cat to catch imaginary rats.
If a guru gives you an amulet—“Tie this and your fear will lessen”—you were already haunted by one lie, and he handed you another. It may give temporary relief, but nothing fundamental changes. You remain the same. Earlier you were troubled by one falsehood, now by a second. Before, you feared death might come; now you fear the amulet may get dirty, may fall off, may be forgotten—for if the amulet goes, you are gone. One lie leads to another, then another…a chain of falsehoods arises.
One kind of teaching is not teaching at all; it consoles you. The other gives no consolation; it gives truth. But truth is arduous to attain. Its path is difficult. You will have to carve away a great deal within yourself; you will have to break much; you will have to take a chisel to your very being. For you have become so identified, through lifetimes of conditioning, with “I am the body,” that breaking it will hurt. You have become attached to the lamp, to the wick, to the oil. Your bond with this lamp is so deep that you do not even remember you could be separate from it.
Then all is only theory. You may grasp as many doctrines as you like, read scriptures—the sutra will remain locked; its latch will not open. Something has to be done. You need not go to the forest like Mahavira and fast for twelve years. There is no need to invite suffering; there is plenty already. Mahavira needed to; he was a prince and had known only pleasure. He had not known suffering; therefore he undertook austerity. You have hardly known pleasure; you are already in austerity—you just don’t know how to use it.
I have heard: a Christian priest was instructing new preachers on how to speak to people—how to deliver sermons, how to convey. He said, “Gestures are very useful. Whatever you say, your face, your hands, your poses, your whole body should express it. When you speak of heaven, your face should glow, your eyes shine, a current of joy should run through your body. Your height should seem to increase—like you are filled with ecstasy. When you speak of heaven, your voice should be vibrant, strong, powerful. When you speak of hell, your ordinary face will do. When you speak of hell, your ordinary face will do—no special effect needed. Your face is already infernal enough! No extra expression is required. As you are, you are sufficient.”
I say the same to you. Mahavira may have needed to go to the forest, to fast and embrace pain. As you are, you are in enough austerity. You already suffer a great deal. Use that suffering; make it a staircase. When you fall ill, do not attend mainly to the illness—attend to awareness.
If you lie on the bed with eyes closed, try to see: the body is ill. Does the illness touch you as well? Are you ill? A thorn has pierced the foot; the foot aches. Has the thorn pierced you too, or are you only witnessing? Are you the knower, or the experience itself? The leg is broken, the bone is fractured, bandages are wrapped—you lie suffering. Look at the suffering closely. Is the breaking of bone your breaking? Or are you still whole? The fracture is there; hands and feet are bound—are you bound, or are you still free?
Even amidst handcuffs consciousness is always free. Even in prison, consciousness is never imprisoned.
A Greek fakir, Diogenes, was once seized. Some rogues captured him to sell him as a slave. When they grabbed him, they were astonished—Diogenes was carefree, strong, powerful. They were afraid, because alone he could handle four of them. Nude, he wandered the forests. After much calculation—he could humiliate all four—they attacked with all their might. He stood perfectly still among them and surrendered himself. They were puzzled. If he had resisted, they wouldn’t have been as surprised. He didn’t resist at all. When they put on the handcuffs, he extended his hands. When they shackled his feet, he offered them. One asked, “You are strange. Is your mind sound? We are making you a slave.” Diogenes said, “If you could make me a slave, I would fight. You cannot make me a slave, because the soul cannot be enslaved under any condition. The hand you cuff is not me. That is why I could extend it; if it were me, I would snatch it away. And the body you have surrounded is not me; that is why I stood quietly—why create unnecessary fuss? You may be in delusion; I am not.”
They understood nothing, but he seemed a strange and mysterious man. When they started to move, he looked so majestic that the four were being dragged by him as if they were slaves and he the master. And when they reached the market where they would sell him, people asked, “What’s the matter? Are these slaves for sale?” At the auction block he said, “You come down. You are half-dead; who will hear your voice? I will call out.”
Diogenes climbed the block and said, “Is there any slave here? A master has come for sale. Anyone who wishes to buy a master—this master is on the block.” He looked the master. He was the master.
There is no way to enslave the soul. But you must recognize the soul.
When you fall ill, search for the one within you who is not ill. A mere glimpse of that one, and there will be no shore to your joy. When you are in pain, search for the one within you who remains untouched by pain. A mere taste of that recognition will fill you with the breezes of heaven. When you lie defeated and someone sits upon your chest, close your eyes and see—can there be any way someone can sit upon your chest? Is this chest your chest? Are you this? A deep laughter will surround you. Life will appear as a jest—because that which cannot be bound appears bound; that which has no path into suffering appears sunk in suffering; the emperor of emperors is begging in the street.
The day you find this untouched one in your pain, that day you will understand that there is a lamp that burns without wick and without oil. That lamp alone is worth finding; that light alone is worth attaining. Then you will see the same light everywhere. Then everywhere you look, a temple of that light appears. The whole existence becomes a vast energy—beginningless, endless! It has no purpose. It is not an enterprise.
That is why Hindus have said a very sweet thing: this is the supreme play, the joy of the Vast. The energy is so abundant that there is no boundary; therefore it flows—purposelessly.
Ask the river, “Why do you flow?” When the rains come and the river swells—so swells that it breaks all dams and overflows all banks—ask it why. When it bursts its banks there is no bound left.
Ask a child, “Why are you jumping, dancing?” Energy wants to be free. Ask the trees, “Why do you sprout? Why so green? What is this joy of flowers?”
There is no cause. The name of the causeless is play—lila.
This is not God’s job, as Christians, Jews, and Muslims think. If it were a job, by now God would be exhausted. One gets exhausted by work. If it were the job to create you, to kill you, to make you sick and healthy, to keep accounts of sins and merits, to manage everything—what an uproar! God would have gone mad if it were a job. Were it a job, by now he would have thought of closing shop. He would have taken sannyas, left the household.
You get eager to take sannyas, to abandon the household. A tiny home, a small business, a little shop makes you so restless you would rather die than continue. Think—if this vastness had to be run as work, God would long ago have gone renunciate. And if God becomes sad, what chance is there for your joy? If God takes sannyas, the world will disappear at once.
Your taking sannyas, your leaving the world, only impinges on your small house. If the supreme energy were to rest, grow tired, become depressed, then the world would vanish instantly. For only while energy flows in it do trees blossom, children dance, clouds move in the sky, rivers run, mountains rise. If this energy grows sad, folds in on itself, the expansion will be lost. All will contract and close.
The Hindu vision is unique; none like it in the world. Hindus say: this is play. It is a game. No one gets tired of play. Play means that there is no purpose; no question of reward. Play means the juice is here and now in the expression of energy itself; not in the result.
You are—this is God’s joy. How you are is not the question. If God were more pleased by a saint and less by a sinner, he would be running a shop. Then he would be like you: pleased with the son who brings earnings, displeased with the son who squanders. Then he would be a tradesman and his mind would compute.
No—the Divine is as delighted in the sinner as in the saint. Play is impartial. Play means that the one acting the part of Ravana is as pleasing to the Divine as the one acting Rama. And when the play ends, the difference between Rama and Ravana remains not.
This is hard to grasp, because our mind insists there should be distinction between saint and sinner, between good and bad. One is stealing, another is praying day and night—there should be a difference. The one who prays should get a reward; the thief should be punished. Because of this mind we have constructed heaven and hell. They are our projections. They are the extension of the shopkeeper’s mind. If there is God, there cannot be hell. If there is God, all is heaven. If there is God, all is play.
Krishna tries to explain this to Arjuna; Arjuna does not grasp it. He calculates. He says, “If I kill so many people, how much sin will I incur? If by killing so many I gain a kingdom, is it worth it?” Krishna says, “Do not calculate. Do not worry about the result. You are an instrument. There is a play—play it. And while playing, remember this much—that God is playing through you. You are no more than a flute. The song is his; the singer is he.”
The ego cannot accept being a hollow reed. It thinks the song is mine; these sweet notes are mine. As long as ego thinks thus, you can know only that which has a cause. Only the lamp that burns on oil will be visible to you.
The ego is a lamp that burns on oil; the soul burns without wick and oil.
But a revolution is needed in vision. Let existence cease to be work; let it be a celebration.
On Holi you throw water on each other, colors, gulal. If someone were to ask: what are you doing? What is the use of this? You will throw gulal and the poor man will spend an hour bathing to wash it off. Yet the one you color is thrilled, more delighted than ever. The act is utterly purposeless. If no one throws color on small children on Holi, they will wander lanes and throw it on themselves—because it hurts to imagine that no one thought them worthy of a little color.
What is Holi? A festival. Our other days are so full of sorrow that we had to invent Holi and Diwali. But for God, existence is always Holi and always Diwali. There, lamps are always burning that never go out. There, colors are always flying. Some call them flowers, some rainbows. There, colors are always flung; the source never runs dry.
If this vastness appears to you as play, you will not worry about its cause or when it began or when it will end. No—this celebration will continue. The participants will change, because they tire. They tire because they take it as work. Otherwise the dance goes on. Forms change; waves change. The ocean keeps up its thunder.
But first recognize it within; first make the distinction within—only then will you be able to perceive it without.
Here we must understand something that, at first glance, seems contradictory. Mahavira calls his entire contemplation the science of discrimination. Shankara and the Vedantins speak of non-difference, and Mahavira of difference. Mahavira says: clearly separate within you what is mortal and what is immortal; separate them so completely that not even a hair’s bridge remains between the two. The day this occurs, says Mahavira, you are free.
Mahavira’s entire emphasis is on difference; Shankara’s entire emphasis is on non-difference. Shankara says: as long as you keep discriminating—“You are separate and the world is separate; existence is separate and you are separate”—you will wander. The day you know “Tat tvam asi”—that you and that are one—that day you are free.
But I tell you: the two expressions appear different, the paths seem separate, yet they are one. And for the seeker, Mahavira’s road is easier than Shankara’s, because Mahavira begins at the beginning and Shankara begins at the end. Shankara starts the discussion where a man at the goal would speak. Mahavira begins where the man in the marketplace can understand. Mahavira speaks seeing the seeker; Shankara speaks seeing the realized. You are not realized. That is why Vedanta had a harmful effect on India. Many fools, not even seekers yet, began to speak like the realized.
Vivekananda wrote of a sannyasin in a village, named Bhole Baba. When plague struck, he would say, “Who dies? Who lives? The soul is immortal.” If in front of him someone beat a poor man, he would pass by, saying, “All is Brahman—he who beats and he who is beaten.” But if anyone refused him alms, he would curse, “You will rot—rot for many births!” Then his Brahma-knowledge vanished.
Vedanta has misled many because the language of the realized is dangerous. It is the ultimate expression of truth. You do not know even the first ray of truth. If that ultimate expression settles in your head and you repeat it, it is perilous. You will not walk; you will not journey; you never reached the goal; yet you will talk like the realized. Thus Shankara’s message resulted in harm rather than help. Thousands of sannyasins in India began to talk of Brahman without taking even the first step, without learning their ABC.
Vivekananda was very displeased—because due to this, India’s dignity was lost. Nothing is more damaging than fools parroting the wise. They remain fools. When plague strikes, they spout Brahman-knowledge. When someone else is beaten, they say, “He who beats is He, he who is beaten is He.” But touch them with a stick and their knowledge evaporates; they are ready to strike back. That is the touchstone. That is the test.
Mahavira speaks the seeker’s language. He says: first separate within you the mortal and the immortal. Separate them so completely that not a hair’s bridge remains. The day this happens, Mahavira says, you are free. That day you will also know that all is one. That which we called mortal is also a part of the immortal; it too does not perish. But you will know this only on the day you separate within.
Understand this a little more. Your soul will not perish; will your body perish? The body’s shape will perish. This particular body will not be, but it will remain—the five elements will remain. Water will fall back into water; space will dissolve into space; earth will merge with earth; fire with fire; air with air. What is destroyed? If your body is a sum of five, the sum will break; the five will remain. You will not perish; the body will not perish. Nothing perishes; only combinations break. Again and again combinations will form; again and again the body will rise and fall and vanish.
But Mahavira says: this will be understood the day you make the distinction within. The day you know the causeless lamp and the caused lamp, that very day the difference will also dissolve. That day you will know: you do not perish, consciousness does not perish, the body does not perish. Only the relation between consciousness and body perishes. Only relationship is perishable. Thus the name of sannyas is: going beyond relationship.
Only relationship is perishable. Neither your wife is the world, nor are you the world. You are related to the wife; that notion of relationship is the world. Neither money is the world nor you, but you clutch the safe. Between you and money, in that relationship, lies the world.
The name of relationship is samsara; nonattachment is sannyas.
This does not mean you run away leaving the wife. One with whom you have no relationship—why run away from her? If there is relationship, running away creates a new relationship. There is no question of renouncing wealth either, because what you have never enjoyed—how will you renounce it? What you were never attached to—how will you break from it? The question is not flight; the question is awakening, knowing. Let relationship drop. Let there remain no relationship—of any kind. Instantly you are free.
Mahavira calls this un-related state “keval”—the state of pure, alone consciousness where there is no relationship.
Relationship is maya. Nonattachment is Brahman.
But one must walk step by step. There is no way to grasp the goal directly. Step by step means: begin within—not with doctrine, with experience. Separate body and self. Break the first relationship there. The other relationships stand upon that one. Remove the foundation stone and the whole house will fall.
The day you separate the relationship of self and body within, that day the palace of your world will be leveled.
If that foundation remains, wherever you go you will create new relationships. Because the seed is with you; new sprouts will come. You will go to an ashram and it will become yours. You will leave your children; you will gather disciples. They will become “yours.” If a son dies you felt a certain sorrow; if a disciple dies the same sorrow will arise. Not only in houses are there “mothers”; in ashrams too “mothers” appear. Wherever you go, if the seed of relationship is within, sprouts will arise.
Break the seed of relationship. Seek within the flame that burns without lamp and without wick. Catch a glimpse of it and slowly be absorbed in it.
There is no way to know God without knowing the soul.
There has never been, nor can there be, any recognition of Truth without recognizing oneself. And the one who attains that first recognition—the ultimate is not far. On this journey the first step becomes the last.
Krishnamurti has a book: The First and Last Freedom. Here the first becomes the last. But one who misses the first and memorizes the last goes astray.
Beware of knowledge. Ignorance is not so dangerous. It is innocent. When ignorance is gone, the knowledge that arises within you is yours. Only what is yours liberates. You can cover your ignorance with borrowed knowledge—with Vedanta, with the Vedas. Then your ignorance is secure, inside a fortress. Now to destroy it becomes very difficult; to attack it is hard. Remember your ignorance, and strive to break the inner relationship. As the relationships break, ignorance will drop. As the lamp of un-related consciousness becomes visible, knowledge will arise.
The day you recognize within you the flame that burns without lamp, without wick, without oil—that day is wisdom! That day you are the Veda. That day memorizing the Veda is useless.
A Christian youth went to a Zen master and said, “I have brought the Bible; my faith is in the Bible. Have you ever read it?” The master said, “No. I have had no leisure to read—reading myself absorbs all my energy. Still, since you have brought it, you may read some.” The youth had come to convert the Zen master; he was pleased. He read from the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the meek, for theirs is the kingdom of God.”
“Blessed are the humble and the last, for in my kingdom they will be first; they will be supreme.”
The master said, “Stop. I do not know who spoke these words, but whoever spoke them had recognized the inner flame. Whoever spoke them was a Buddha.”
The youth said, “There is more.”
The master said, “Enough! One sip of the ocean suffices to know its salt. Close the book. I have tasted one drop; I have tasted the whole ocean. Whoever spoke these words had attained Buddhahood. He had recognized within. And I tell you this not because the words are sweet, but because this is my recognition too; this is how I know.”
The Vedas are meaningless until you can testify. The Gita is trash until you can support it by your experience. With the support of your experience, the gold of the Gita will shine. You are the witness. The Veda, the Bible, the Koran—by themselves they mean nothing. You will pour meaning into them. But you can pour meaning only when your own realization, your own wisdom, your own flame burns—bright, intense, urgent.
And remember only one thing: find that flame which burns without fuel.
Enough for today.