Bin Bati Bin Tel #15
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Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Questions in this Discourse
Osho, Lord Buddha did not flee from suffering—he fled from pleasure. He didn’t skip a meal; he left after his last meal. But why did it still take him years to discover meditation?
Buddha certainly fled from pleasure; that’s why the work was finished in years, not lifetimes. You think it took years? Does it feel like a very long time? Six years—what kind of time is that? Where you have had thousands of births, is six years any time at all? You feel, six years! Why do those six years seem so long?
A child goes to school—do you ever say, “So, in seven years he’ll only matriculate? And then six more years to get a degree—only a graduate? Then three, two more years for a doctorate!” Half a life is spent collecting certificates, yet no one says, “So much time?” But if Buddhahood is attained in six years, we still feel, it took too long!
Why? In truth, our ambition is tied to the university. From it we expect money, position, prestige. So however much time it takes, it feels little. And in Buddhahood we don’t see anything tangible: what did he get? If Buddha had stood in the queue of an employment office, the officer would have said, “Where is the certificate?” Does sitting under a bodhi tree get you a job? If Buddha tried to sell his Buddhahood, how much money could he get? What would he get? Who would buy it? Who is interested? People aren’t ready to take Buddhahood even for free.
If someone suddenly showed up at your house and said, “I’ll give you Buddhahood,” you’d say, “Wait, brother! Let me think. Let me talk to my wife. There are children too. Don’t rush me into this trouble. And what’s the substance of it anyway?”
We feel six years is quite long! Why does it seem long? Not because of the length of six years, but because, to us, what comes at the end appears to have no substance. Insipid Buddhahood—after wandering for six years! In six years a shop could be set up. In six years you could have made it to Delhi. In six years—what could not have been done! And all you got was Buddhahood!
So first understand: we measure time by ambition—by what fruit we think we’re getting. I tell you, even if Buddhahood came in sixty lifetimes, it would still have come quickly. Because what is attained is boundless. How can such a thing be counted by six years? It came swiftly. Six years—what time is that? It’s nothing at all. Six years pass in the blink of an eye.
And yet it is still worth asking: once Buddha awoke to the futility of pleasure and saw that life was hollow, then only the dishwashing remained; it should have happened quickly.
It did happen quickly. But in washing the dishes... think a little: the residues of meals from countless births are stuck to those utensils! The cleaning Buddha had to do was very old; it was the dust-caked personality. The mirror had become utterly grimy. The dust had lain so long it had turned to stone. There is the web of old habits. Even if you wake up, the habits pursue you. Even if you leave the world, it isn’t so easy, because the world was not only outside; it was inside too.
Then there was Buddha’s search for the person who could teach the art of arriving—the art of cleaning the pot. Because if you don’t know the art of cleaning, you might make it dirtier in the cleaning. It’s delicate! There is no utensil more delicate than the mind. When your watch goes wrong, you don’t sit down and open it up to fix it. Some fools do—and then it never works again. If a watch breaks, you go to someone who knows, because even a watch is a fine mechanism.
But what is the complexity of a watch compared to the mind? Nothing at all. If you understand the human mind, there is no more intricate instrument in the world. And it is unlikely we will ever make one more complex.
Inside this little skull, weighing barely a kilo and a half, there are some seventy million nerve fibers. And each fiber can store billions of bits of information. Scientists say that all the libraries on earth—one person could memorize them—paid in full! You may not do it; that’s another matter. But the capacity is there. The brain is exquisitely subtle and immensely complex. It can collect the knowledge of the whole world. And not only knowledge—the dust of the whole world can collect there too. What you call knowledge is often just dust.
Cleaning will take time. But six years is not a long time.
Buddha went to one door after another where he hoped to find someone who could do the cleaning. He acted wisely; he didn’t sit and open the watch himself. Otherwise, even six years would not have been enough. He sought a specialist, a guru who had already opened it, already known it—who could give the straight way. Because sometimes a tiny mistake in fixing, and you make it worse.
I’ve heard: In a huge factory a very costly computer was installed. Something went wrong. The whole factory shut down. Ten thousand people worked there, and in their place the single computer did all the work. The whole factory came to a standstill. A specialist was called. He tightened one little screw, and everything started working. The owner was pleased and asked his fee. He said, “Five thousand dollars.”
“Five thousand dollars?” It hadn’t even taken him a second to tighten the screw. The owner said, “That’s a bit much. Five thousand dollars for just tightening a little screw?”
He said, “No. One dollar for tightening the screw. But knowing how to tighten it—that’s four thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars. I only take a dollar to turn the screw. But how to turn it, where to turn it, which screw is loose—that’s what I spent my life learning; that’s what I’m charging for. And if you like, next time have someone else tighten it.”
So Buddha went in search of a specialist—a guru who had walked the path, reached the destination—so he could save himself from useless wandering on this road and that. Because it’s a great labyrinth. He went to many gurus. They were gurus and they knew quite far; but he did not find one who could grant Buddhahood, because the aspiration for Buddhahood was unique.
Understand the difference. Buddha had come out, bored of pleasure; the gurus he went to had come out, bored of suffering. Hence the trouble. They had meditated—but they had practiced concentration, which brings power. They practiced mantra and tantra, they practiced yoga. They became powerful: touch a sick person and he becomes well; touch a living person and he withers. They had force, power. But Buddha had not come to get diseases cured. His eyes were not blind that a touch could make them see. He wanted the inner eye.
He exhausted all the gurus. There is a sweet tale: in the end each guru said to him, “Now you go. What we knew we told you, but it doesn’t satisfy you.” Buddha would say, “I have come in search of peace, not power. I don’t want to cure disease, I don’t want to perform miracles, I don’t want to pull amulets out of my hands. I want to know that which is the ultimate truth—the absolute truth. Whether it is or not! I want the unveiling of my ultimate being. I don’t want to influence others. I grant that you make a sign with your eyes and a bird drops from the sky—as if struck by an arrow! Such is your concentration. Your aim never misses. But I have no bird to bring down. What will I do with that? Granted you can walk on water—but a boat does that job quite well. I’m not concerned with that.”
Buddha went to many gurus. All of them saw that his aspiration was something else, his search something else. He was not seeking power; he was seeking supreme peace. They said, “That we too don’t know. We know yoga, mantra, tantra. Learn whatever you like. But this nirvana, this moksha—we don’t know that either.”
For those six years, Buddha went on many paths, tried many methods, did many practices—and found all practices futile, all methods useless.
This must be understood: there can be no method to liberation. Because whatever is obtained by a method cannot be greater than the method. There can be no path to liberation, because whatever is reached by a path cannot be the final end; beyond it there could still be paths. There can be no trick to liberation, because whatever you get by a trick—what is its worth? It will be smaller than you; you got it by your cleverness.
Buddha was seeking that which is never found by seeking. It is found only when seeking disappears. The world became futile—half the search was over. But in Buddha’s mind a new search arose—the search for liberation. This too is a disturbance. That is why six years passed. Not to seek the world—clear. But then to seek moksha—the search continued. The one who was seeking the world before was now seeking moksha. But the seeker was alive. The runner within, the ambitious one—still there. Six years—and he was weary.
First, the search for the world ended; then the search for moksha ended too. The search itself ended.
On the evening Buddha experienced freedom, that day he was not seeking anything at all. That day, under the tree, he sat silently. As long as there is seeking, how will you be silent? For seeking creates restlessness: “I haven’t found it yet—when will I find it? Will I find it or not? What if I go astray?” Seeking generates thought, generates turbulence.
That day, for Buddha... just as six years earlier he had left the palace, that day he left the temple as well. The shop had dropped earlier; this temple was part of the same shop—it dropped too. One side had ended first; the second side ended as well. The whole coin fell from Buddha’s hand. That night he slept. There was no search, nowhere to go, nothing to attain. No moksha, no God, no peace, no bliss—nothing to attain. That’s all. Under that tree he simply was. That very day the happening happened.
The meal had been eaten; that night the dishes were washed.
The dishes are washed only on the day all your seeking is erased. The dishes are washed only on the day all your ambition falls.
And when I say all, I mean all!
If you are hankering even for meditation, the dishes will not be clean. Meditation too is food; it too will dirty the dish.
In the world there are two kinds of ambitious people: worldly and religious; both are ambitious. Both are craving position; both want to get something.
Once in a while a third kind of person happens—an extraordinary event—who wants nothing at all.
And when you want nothing, then you become everything. In that very instant the dishes are clean. Purity is attained. The lamp begins to burn that burns without wick and without oil.
Enough for today.
A child goes to school—do you ever say, “So, in seven years he’ll only matriculate? And then six more years to get a degree—only a graduate? Then three, two more years for a doctorate!” Half a life is spent collecting certificates, yet no one says, “So much time?” But if Buddhahood is attained in six years, we still feel, it took too long!
Why? In truth, our ambition is tied to the university. From it we expect money, position, prestige. So however much time it takes, it feels little. And in Buddhahood we don’t see anything tangible: what did he get? If Buddha had stood in the queue of an employment office, the officer would have said, “Where is the certificate?” Does sitting under a bodhi tree get you a job? If Buddha tried to sell his Buddhahood, how much money could he get? What would he get? Who would buy it? Who is interested? People aren’t ready to take Buddhahood even for free.
If someone suddenly showed up at your house and said, “I’ll give you Buddhahood,” you’d say, “Wait, brother! Let me think. Let me talk to my wife. There are children too. Don’t rush me into this trouble. And what’s the substance of it anyway?”
We feel six years is quite long! Why does it seem long? Not because of the length of six years, but because, to us, what comes at the end appears to have no substance. Insipid Buddhahood—after wandering for six years! In six years a shop could be set up. In six years you could have made it to Delhi. In six years—what could not have been done! And all you got was Buddhahood!
So first understand: we measure time by ambition—by what fruit we think we’re getting. I tell you, even if Buddhahood came in sixty lifetimes, it would still have come quickly. Because what is attained is boundless. How can such a thing be counted by six years? It came swiftly. Six years—what time is that? It’s nothing at all. Six years pass in the blink of an eye.
And yet it is still worth asking: once Buddha awoke to the futility of pleasure and saw that life was hollow, then only the dishwashing remained; it should have happened quickly.
It did happen quickly. But in washing the dishes... think a little: the residues of meals from countless births are stuck to those utensils! The cleaning Buddha had to do was very old; it was the dust-caked personality. The mirror had become utterly grimy. The dust had lain so long it had turned to stone. There is the web of old habits. Even if you wake up, the habits pursue you. Even if you leave the world, it isn’t so easy, because the world was not only outside; it was inside too.
Then there was Buddha’s search for the person who could teach the art of arriving—the art of cleaning the pot. Because if you don’t know the art of cleaning, you might make it dirtier in the cleaning. It’s delicate! There is no utensil more delicate than the mind. When your watch goes wrong, you don’t sit down and open it up to fix it. Some fools do—and then it never works again. If a watch breaks, you go to someone who knows, because even a watch is a fine mechanism.
But what is the complexity of a watch compared to the mind? Nothing at all. If you understand the human mind, there is no more intricate instrument in the world. And it is unlikely we will ever make one more complex.
Inside this little skull, weighing barely a kilo and a half, there are some seventy million nerve fibers. And each fiber can store billions of bits of information. Scientists say that all the libraries on earth—one person could memorize them—paid in full! You may not do it; that’s another matter. But the capacity is there. The brain is exquisitely subtle and immensely complex. It can collect the knowledge of the whole world. And not only knowledge—the dust of the whole world can collect there too. What you call knowledge is often just dust.
Cleaning will take time. But six years is not a long time.
Buddha went to one door after another where he hoped to find someone who could do the cleaning. He acted wisely; he didn’t sit and open the watch himself. Otherwise, even six years would not have been enough. He sought a specialist, a guru who had already opened it, already known it—who could give the straight way. Because sometimes a tiny mistake in fixing, and you make it worse.
I’ve heard: In a huge factory a very costly computer was installed. Something went wrong. The whole factory shut down. Ten thousand people worked there, and in their place the single computer did all the work. The whole factory came to a standstill. A specialist was called. He tightened one little screw, and everything started working. The owner was pleased and asked his fee. He said, “Five thousand dollars.”
“Five thousand dollars?” It hadn’t even taken him a second to tighten the screw. The owner said, “That’s a bit much. Five thousand dollars for just tightening a little screw?”
He said, “No. One dollar for tightening the screw. But knowing how to tighten it—that’s four thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars. I only take a dollar to turn the screw. But how to turn it, where to turn it, which screw is loose—that’s what I spent my life learning; that’s what I’m charging for. And if you like, next time have someone else tighten it.”
So Buddha went in search of a specialist—a guru who had walked the path, reached the destination—so he could save himself from useless wandering on this road and that. Because it’s a great labyrinth. He went to many gurus. They were gurus and they knew quite far; but he did not find one who could grant Buddhahood, because the aspiration for Buddhahood was unique.
Understand the difference. Buddha had come out, bored of pleasure; the gurus he went to had come out, bored of suffering. Hence the trouble. They had meditated—but they had practiced concentration, which brings power. They practiced mantra and tantra, they practiced yoga. They became powerful: touch a sick person and he becomes well; touch a living person and he withers. They had force, power. But Buddha had not come to get diseases cured. His eyes were not blind that a touch could make them see. He wanted the inner eye.
He exhausted all the gurus. There is a sweet tale: in the end each guru said to him, “Now you go. What we knew we told you, but it doesn’t satisfy you.” Buddha would say, “I have come in search of peace, not power. I don’t want to cure disease, I don’t want to perform miracles, I don’t want to pull amulets out of my hands. I want to know that which is the ultimate truth—the absolute truth. Whether it is or not! I want the unveiling of my ultimate being. I don’t want to influence others. I grant that you make a sign with your eyes and a bird drops from the sky—as if struck by an arrow! Such is your concentration. Your aim never misses. But I have no bird to bring down. What will I do with that? Granted you can walk on water—but a boat does that job quite well. I’m not concerned with that.”
Buddha went to many gurus. All of them saw that his aspiration was something else, his search something else. He was not seeking power; he was seeking supreme peace. They said, “That we too don’t know. We know yoga, mantra, tantra. Learn whatever you like. But this nirvana, this moksha—we don’t know that either.”
For those six years, Buddha went on many paths, tried many methods, did many practices—and found all practices futile, all methods useless.
This must be understood: there can be no method to liberation. Because whatever is obtained by a method cannot be greater than the method. There can be no path to liberation, because whatever is reached by a path cannot be the final end; beyond it there could still be paths. There can be no trick to liberation, because whatever you get by a trick—what is its worth? It will be smaller than you; you got it by your cleverness.
Buddha was seeking that which is never found by seeking. It is found only when seeking disappears. The world became futile—half the search was over. But in Buddha’s mind a new search arose—the search for liberation. This too is a disturbance. That is why six years passed. Not to seek the world—clear. But then to seek moksha—the search continued. The one who was seeking the world before was now seeking moksha. But the seeker was alive. The runner within, the ambitious one—still there. Six years—and he was weary.
First, the search for the world ended; then the search for moksha ended too. The search itself ended.
On the evening Buddha experienced freedom, that day he was not seeking anything at all. That day, under the tree, he sat silently. As long as there is seeking, how will you be silent? For seeking creates restlessness: “I haven’t found it yet—when will I find it? Will I find it or not? What if I go astray?” Seeking generates thought, generates turbulence.
That day, for Buddha... just as six years earlier he had left the palace, that day he left the temple as well. The shop had dropped earlier; this temple was part of the same shop—it dropped too. One side had ended first; the second side ended as well. The whole coin fell from Buddha’s hand. That night he slept. There was no search, nowhere to go, nothing to attain. No moksha, no God, no peace, no bliss—nothing to attain. That’s all. Under that tree he simply was. That very day the happening happened.
The meal had been eaten; that night the dishes were washed.
The dishes are washed only on the day all your seeking is erased. The dishes are washed only on the day all your ambition falls.
And when I say all, I mean all!
If you are hankering even for meditation, the dishes will not be clean. Meditation too is food; it too will dirty the dish.
In the world there are two kinds of ambitious people: worldly and religious; both are ambitious. Both are craving position; both want to get something.
Once in a while a third kind of person happens—an extraordinary event—who wants nothing at all.
And when you want nothing, then you become everything. In that very instant the dishes are clean. Purity is attained. The lamp begins to burn that burns without wick and without oil.
Enough for today.
Osho's Commentary
“I have just joined the sangha and want to learn the first principle of meditation.
Would you kindly teach me?”
Joshu asked, “Have you had your evening meal?”
“Yes,” the disciple replied.
“Then go and wash your bowl,” said the Master.
Please explain the meaning of this brief exchange.
A story that looks so small holds the whole distilled essence of life and practice. The essence is simply this: if the cravings have been exhausted, if the meal is finished, now wash the bowl. If the mind’s running has run its course, now wash the mind. If you are sated with roaming in the world, now wash the bowl. That is the essence of meditation.
First, understand what meditation means; then we’ll return to the story. The mind works round the clock, continuously—whether you are awake or asleep, standing or sitting, laboring or resting. The mind is ceaselessly at work. Its fatigue gathers like dust, and every activity of mind fills your consciousness with smoke—because even mental activity burns fuel.
A car passes down the road; you may not see the exhaust, but it is released into the air and pollutes it. A lamp burns and sends smoke into the air, polluting it.
The lamp of your mind is burning. It consumes fuel. The mind is not a lamp that burns without a wick and without oil. You eat food and drink water—out of all that, fuel is produced. Oil and wick are made. And from that oil and wick, the lamp of the mind burns. The more you keep it burning, the more smoke and dust gather within.
And mind is collecting memory at every instant. Whatever you do, you don’t just do it—you remember it. Even what you don’t do but merely see also becomes memory.
Scientists say that in one moment about ten million impressions are being inscribed upon your mind. You would be frightened: ten million in a single instant—how? You don’t even notice. Your conscious mind stores only a few things; the rest it stores unconsciously.
I am speaking, you are listening. Your conscious mind is focused on me. A bird sings on the tree, a car passes, a child cries next door, dogs bark—there is no attention there, and yet your mind is recording all that too. Ten million impressions per instant! How much dust will you gather in a lifetime?
That very dust is your illness. Sweeping it away, wiping it off—that is meditation.
Joshu spoke rightly. The new disciple had asked, “I have just joined the order, I am initiated, and I want to take the first step in meditation; what should I do? What is meditation? Tell this ignorant one.”
Joshu must have looked at him and asked, “Have you had your evening meal?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Then go and wash your bowl.”
On the surface, it seems absurd. The disciple asks about meditation; Joshu says, “Wash your bowl.”
There’s another story of a disciple of Joshu. He stayed with Joshu for many years but the secret of meditation eluded him. He sat in the company of the master, yet no satsang happened. No inner ray dawned, no lamp was lit within. No new fragrance appeared. He remained as he was. One day he asked, “So many years have passed and nothing has happened. What should I do now?”
Joshu said, “Do one thing. I know a true master who owns a certain roadside inn in a certain village. Go there now, and learn from him. Perhaps you can learn from him.”
The disciple, full of urgency and hope, hurried to the other village—only to be dismayed. The owner was no master at all, just a poor man running a cheap hostel by the road. There was no possibility of learning anything from him. Did Joshu joke? Or did he just want to be rid of me? It was already late; he had to stay the night anyway.
He told the innkeeper, “I’d like to stay the night. Joshu sent me, but he must have made a mistake. He said you were a master, and that I could learn from you what I couldn’t learn from him.”
The innkeeper said, “I don’t know anything about masters or disciples. I have nothing to teach. But now that you’ve come, rest for the night and leave in the morning.”
But Joshu had told him, “That master won’t speak much; watch his conduct. He speaks through his actions. Keep your eyes on him; catch his hints.” So the disciple thought, “Since I’m here, I’ll watch for a day.”
He watched. There was nothing to see, nothing to understand. Sometimes sweeping, cleaning rooms, sometimes washing clothes, sometimes scrubbing pots, sometimes serving guests—just such chores, with nothing to learn. Night came; the innkeeper went to sleep.
At dawn the disciple rose and said, “I’m going now. There’s nothing to learn here. One more question: I’ve seen all the rest, but after you went to sleep—what did you do? Perhaps Joshu will ask why I didn’t observe a full twenty-four hours.”
The innkeeper said, “After night fell, I washed all the bowls and put them away. Then I slept peacefully, because the bowls were clean. And in the morning, a little dust had settled—bowls gather dust just by sitting overnight, even if unused. Doing nothing, dust still collects. You don’t have to think; just sitting idle, dust collects. Time passes and dust settles—time itself is dust. So in the morning I washed them again. All is well.”
The disciple slapped his own forehead. “What fool have I been sent to! He’s merely an innkeeper, stacking, washing, cleaning bowls—that’s his entire understanding.” He went back.
He told Joshu. Joshu said, “You missed it. That is the secret.”
Dust gathers by day; and at night, in your dreams, more dust settles. Mind gets distorted there too, restless and anxious. In the morning, clean again. Keep washing the bowls as much as you can. But you can wash the bowls only if the evening meal is done.
After all, Joshu could have asked, “Have you had your morning meal?” But he asked about the evening meal. Evening meal means the last meal. Evening meal means, as the sun sets and everything declines. The evening meal means: have you tasted even the last desire, taken its final flavor? If yes, what are you waiting for? Wash the bowl. And if the last meal isn’t yet done, don’t ask about meditation.
Those whose desires are still unspent, who have not yet known the world, should not ask about meditation. No one has ever been freed from the world without knowing it, and no one ever will be. And those whose body’s race is still on, who are not yet weary and bored, who haven’t recognized the futility of the body’s chase—better they don’t inquire about meditation. No true master will answer them. They are like little children asking about sex—who will answer them? What meaning would any answer have?
Until the world turns meaningless for you, religion cannot become meaningful. And when the world becomes meaningless, it must be your own realization—not because I say so, not because Kabir or Buddha or Christ explain it. They shout, “The world is futile! Enough eating—stop; wash your bowl. Enough running—stop.” But you won’t stop because they say so. And even if you did, it would be a mistake. You might stop, but your mind won’t. You might turn away from the world on Buddha’s authority, but you’ll keep looking back.
So Joshu asked, “Is your evening meal complete? Is even the last desire satisfied—or not?”
Now here’s the irony: desire is never satisfied by satisfying it. Has anyone’s hunger ever ended by eating? Eating only begins a new hunger. Drinking water only begins a new thirst. For a little while you are deceived; it looks as if thirst has gone. If drinking could truly end thirst, you would never need to drink again. Water only suppresses and hides thirst. Food doesn’t kill hunger; it is forgotten for a little while. Sex doesn’t destroy lust; you are simply tired for a while, and then it awakens again.
That’s why after hunger, fasting suddenly seems meaningful. After sex, the futility of sex suddenly appears. But an hour or two, four hours—hunger returns. Twenty-four, forty-eight hours—desire returns. And when desire returns, all that seemed futile starts to look meaningful again.
Joshu is asking, “Have you had your last meal? If you have, then go and clean your bowl.”
It’s in the bowl of the mind that the banquet of desires has been going on—not for one day, but for lifetimes. The bowl is filthy. If the matter is complete, go and clean the mind’s bowl; that is meditation.
And the disciple surely understood; he did not ask again. The point must have flashed.
What is that point? If desire is seen as futile, where is the need to “do” meditation? If you see the futility of running, do you need to make an effort to stop? If you recognize you are clutching pebbles thinking they are diamonds, do you need some great resolve to drop them? Effort is needed only when pebbles still look like diamonds. When you see they are mud, your hand opens by itself. The very moment you drop, meditation flowers.
So what is meditation?
Meditation is the absence of desire.
Meditation is the absence of craving.
Meditation is freedom from the race.
Meditation means: now I want nothing. As I am, I am content. Whoever I am, I consent. Where I am, that is my destination. I have nowhere else to go.
The nature of desire is: wherever I am, I must go elsewhere. Wherever I am, I am discontent. Desire is insatiable. Even if you live in heaven, desire will ask, “What next? So what?” Even if you enter liberation, desire will bring you back to the world. Your desire is the world.
A famous tale: a Jewish fakir died—call him Balsen—and reached heaven. He saw ancient Jewish saints bent over their books studying the Talmud. He was puzzled: “In heaven—scripture study? If even here the reading goes on, where is the destination?”
The angel guiding him said, “Listen: saints are not in heaven; heaven is in saints. Heaven is not a place saints enter; heaven is a state that happens within.”
You are not going to enter heaven; heaven is going to enter you. Give it a door, and it can enter. But your door is barred by desires. So even if you get to heaven, nothing changes—you will still read the Talmud; you will still be on the ladder that leads further.
Even in heaven, above which there is nothing, you will carry your ladder and lean it somewhere to climb higher. You cannot be without a ladder. You will shoulder your boat even after reaching the shore, because for you there is never a final shore. Every shore is a place to depart from; the place to arrive is always somewhere else, reachable by boat.
Meditation means: you are on the shore beyond which there is no going. You are on the other shore. Wherever you are, being there is fulfillment. Wherever you arrive, your heaven arrives with you.
Joshu spoke truly: If your last meal is done, go wash your bowl.
I ask you the same: has your last meal happened? You have been eating for lifetimes; your hunger has not ended. A simple arithmetic you haven’t solved: hunger does not end by eating. If it could, it would have ended long ago. Forget past lives—even in this life you’ve eaten enough; hunger does not end. It seems food only feeds hunger. How much water have you drunk, how many lakes have you sought—thirst remains. Perhaps water only stirs a new craving. Water gives an appearance of satiety; it does not bring it.
How long will you keep this up? When will you see that hunger has nothing to do with food? Thirst has nothing to do with water? Thirst will not end with water.
The day you know that thirst doesn’t end with water, you will look for that which truly quenches. This is a little difficult because we think satisfaction comes from water. Those who know say: satisfaction ends thirst—and then water appears. Those who know say: satisfaction ends thirst, and water comes; the lake reveals itself. But it is satisfaction that ends thirst. Satisfaction ends hunger. Satisfaction ends lust. Wherever you are fulfilled, desire is pacified.
Have you had your last meal?
That is the question every new seeker must ask himself. And if the last meal has not happened yet, it is better not to go to saints. First, eat the last meal. Don’t waste your time and theirs. You will gain nothing there; you have arrived at the wrong place. It is not for you yet. You must walk a little more in the world, search a little more, wander a little more. You are not tired yet; your legs still have strength; you are eager to run. Run a bit more.
I say the same to you: have your fill of the world. Most of you have not truly lived it, and yet you have caught the desire for spirituality. Spirituality is not a desire. You are not full of the world, and yet you hunger for liberation. You are in a great split. You say one thing on the surface; within, something else runs. Outwardly you talk of liberation; inwardly the world goes on. You walk a double path.
I heard of an ordinary soldier who showed such valor and skill in war that he was promoted to colonel. One day he was walking with the Commander-in-Chief. Now that he was a colonel, every soldier who met them snapped to attention and saluted. The colonel also saluted back. But the commander was puzzled; he heard the new colonel muttering, “The same to you,” under his breath. After hearing it many times he asked, “What strange habit is this? When someone salutes, why do you whisper, ‘The same to you’?”
The colonel said, “I’ve been a soldier. I know from inside: these fellows are cursing inwardly. I used to do the same. The salute is only on the surface. I know well what they’re saying inside, so I say, ‘The same to you!’ Whatever they’re saying within—‘the same to you.’”
You bow in the temple outwardly—but inside? Outwardly you sit with saints—but inside? Outwardly you read sutras on celibacy—but inside? Outwardly you discuss renunciation, meditation, samadhi, Vipassana—but inside? Inside, the world goes on.
And what you are inside—that is your real journey. What you are on the surface is useless.
That’s why Joshu asks, “Have you had your last meal?” He is asking: has the inner commotion ended? Are you tired of it, or is the taste still alive? Is hunger leftover—or has it faded?
The young man said, “Yes. I’ve had my last meal. That’s why I’ve come to you; otherwise I wouldn’t have come. I ask about meditation only because the last meal is done. There’s nothing left to eat.” Joshu said, “Then the matter is simple.”
I say to you as well: it is just that simple. As Joshu said: “Go and wash your bowl.” Nothing else. Ninety-nine percent of meditation is already complete if the last meal is done. One percent remains. That one percent is to clean away the accumulated debris the mind has gathered over lifetimes—the age-old habit of feeding; the garbage on the mind. Wash it off.
Ninety-nine percent of meditation happens through the realization of desire’s futility: that hunger won’t end by eating, thirst won’t end by drinking, sex won’t end lust—it increases it. Pouring ghee on fire makes it flare. In such a realization, ninety-nine percent is complete. The remaining one percent is a very small task—like washing a bowl: wiping off the past’s residue in the mind; a simple bathing.
So meditation has two stages. First, that life as you live it is seen by you to be futile—by you. This must be your own recognition. On this I put tremendous emphasis. It must be your authentic experience. You cannot borrow it. Buddha’s testimony won’t do. Even if a thousand Buddhas stand and say, “Believe us,” it won’t work. The God within you must rise and speak.
Your mind is quick to agree because you are troubled; but you are not yet finished. You are lukewarm, not hot enough to turn into steam. So you feel there is suffering in the world, and it should be dropped.
Here lies the crux: you feel there is suffering, but you also feel there is pleasure. And Nietzsche has said—and it matches your experience. Now this is the knot: what Buddha says is not your experience, though you agree with him; what Nietzsche says is your experience, though you don’t want to agree.
Nietzsche says, “Granted, there is suffering, but in comparison to the joys it is nothing. Granted, there is much pain, but pleasure is deeper.” Nietzsche says, “I am not one of those fools who throw away the rose because of the thorns. We will avoid the thorns and enjoy the flower.” For Nietzsche, Buddha is a fool—and for you too. You just don’t dare say it; Nietzsche dares. He is not double; he speaks straight: the last meal hasn’t happened, and we will never have a last meal. Granted there is trouble in chewing, in digestion; granted the teeth ache—but there is taste, and the taste is worth the trouble.
A rich man was dying. He called his son and said, “From a lifetime’s experience I tell you: there is no joy in wealth. The poor are unhappy, and the rich are unhappy. Don’t repeat my mistake.” The son said, “I cannot judge your mistake or your experience. If you give me a choice, I would prefer the unhappiness of the rich to the unhappiness of the poor. Granted, both are unhappy—but I choose the rich man’s unhappiness.”
You know there is suffering in life. You also know desire leads to pain—but that knowing is only half. The other half in you says, there is pleasure too. Therefore your effort is not to be free of the world; your effort is to be free of the world’s pain while keeping its pleasure. That is why you invented heaven. Heaven is nowhere; it is your wish. And that is why you invented hell. Hell is nowhere; it is the place where you want to send others—your enemies. Heaven is where you want to go.
Heaven and hell are both here in the world, intertwined. You have separated them in your mind. You want heaven for yourself; you have plucked out the thorns from the rose and kept only the blossoms for you, and gathered all the thorns for those who oppose you. But remember: in life, flowers and thorns come together. You cannot separate them.
Therefore the wise do not speak of heaven and hell; the wise speak of the world and liberation. The ignorant speak of the world, heaven, and hell. The wise speak of the world and freedom from it. They say: the question is not heaven or hell; it is the world—or freedom from the world. And when you are free of the world, do not think that the world’s pains won’t be there and the world’s pleasures will remain. Neither pleasures nor pains will be there. Both disappear. Neither flowers nor thorns. Hence Buddha and Mahavira call the ultimate state peace, bliss—where both pleasure and pain are absent.
Has your banquet of suffering finished? Have you tasted suffering to the full? Are your lips bitter with life’s acridity? Has your heart been pierced enough by life’s thorns, its pain complete? Then go and wash your bowl. Little remains to be done.
Meditation is simple if the first work is done. Meditation is impossible if it isn’t. You fail in meditation because that ninety-nine percent is incomplete, and you start with the one percent. What should have been first you have postponed; what should have been last you have begun. You are busy washing the bowl, and you haven’t noticed that the last meal isn’t over. Even if you wash, what’s the point? You will eat again. People come to meditation so they can run the race of ambition more peacefully.
A friend of mine is in politics. He often comes and says, “If only I could get a little meditation, I’d crush my opponents. My mind is so disturbed I can neither sleep well nor keep healthy; so I can’t defeat them.” He asks me, “It’s strange—how do the opponents keep going? They have no headaches, no sleepless nights. Politics, as you know, is a 24-hour whirl, not a moment’s rest.” His trouble is: he can’t endure as much. He wants meditation so he can function better in the world—he wants to turn meditation into a boat for crossing the worldly river.
If so, a thief will also want meditation. If you can be meditative while stealing, the chances of being caught are less. If, while breaking in, you are so steady it feels like your own home, your hand won’t shake, the key will fit smoothly, the lock will open easily.
If a murderer can become meditative, he will kill with a skill you cannot match. Your hand will falter, fear will arise, the heart will pound, blood pressure will rise; you will be in trouble. The murderer too wants a trick to be calm. The thief wants it. The politician wants it. The wealthy want it: some way to be serene so they can triumph in the world.
Beware: meditation cannot become a boat for the world. You are talking madness. You want to ask Joshu to turn meditation into a bowl in which you can continue your feast of desires. You want to say, “All right, we will wash the bowl—so we can dine more elegantly.”
In America, where for the first time merchants created a culture—where power fell into the hands of traders—if you want to spread meditation, you have to sell it as efficiency. Meditation will increase your productivity. Doors to wealth will open. With meditation, success in ambition will come easily; in the world you will be victorious. Meditation will be your power.
It’s natural in a mercantile civilization. There, even meditation must be marketed on the promise of money. Only then will people agree to run. If you say, “This is a mine of the divine,” and next to it, “This is a gold mine,” no one will dig the divine. They will dig the gold first. They’ll say gold must be mined first; God can wait—what’s the hurry? If God and gold are placed side by side, you too will choose gold.
Ask your mind deeply: what would you choose? And if it is gold, your last meal hasn’t happened yet. How could you wash the bowl? Even if you do, new desires will soil it again.
You want to quiet the mind? How will an ambitious person quiet it? Every ambition dirties the mind. Whenever you fill yourself with wanting—to get something, to arrive somewhere, to become someone—you are soiled again. An ambitious mind cannot be quieted. Only a mind free of ambition can quiet the mind.
Joshu spoke truly. Ask yourself: has the last meal happened? Then why delay? Go, wash your bowl.
As soon as the bowl is clean, you are liberation itself. The purity that is your nature will be revealed. The lamp that burns without wick and oil, from which no smoke rises—smokeless—using no fuel, creating no residue, not polluting the inner sky—that lamp will be available to you. It is already burning; only your attention is elsewhere.
A runner’s attention is always somewhere else—everywhere but himself. He looks at everything; he does not look at himself. He has no time to look within. His eyes roam on all sides, except one: himself. Your eyes will turn inward only when there is nothing left to look for anywhere else—when you can say, “Enough. I have walked all these roads and reached nowhere. I have tasted all these flavors; they increase hunger, not diminish it. I have drunk all these waters; they inflame thirst, they do not extinguish it. I have fulfilled these desires; nothing is ever fulfilled—everything remains incomplete.”
The day this strikes you, the last meal is done.
After the last meal, meditation is an easy happening. Perhaps nothing needs to be done. The bowl is no longer being soiled. How difficult is it to clean an old bowl just once? No difficulty at all.
Think on Joshu’s story, and remember: you cannot fall from the tree until you are ripe. Don’t try to fall while unripe. The unripe who fall don’t arrive anywhere; they only rot. That’s why what I say may sound hard—for typically, if you go to someone else, he will say, “Blessed are you to leave the world and become eager for prayer and worship.”
I won’t say “blessed,” because I know this could be your misfortune: if your mind has not yet had its fill of the shop and you come to the temple, the temple will be false. The shop will keep pulling you back. In the temple you will pray, but your head will bow in the marketplace. Your hands will not reach the feet of God. All will be false. And does the false ever lead to heaven, to liberation, to bliss? With the false, you go nowhere.
Don’t be false; be authentic. I say, no worry—be authentic even at the shop. Say honestly, “What God? What liberation? I haven’t even known the world yet.” That would be your integrity. I call such a person religious—because at least he is true. And the one who is true cannot wander long. The one who is untrue is in trouble; he even deceives himself. He lies to himself. He tricks himself.
A policeman was passing a shop late at night and heard a great uproar inside—as if two people were in a fierce argument that might come to blows. He knocked. The shopkeeper opened. The cop looked in; there was no one else. He said, “I just heard two voices and a heated quarrel—looked dangerous. Where is the other man?” The shopkeeper laughed, “There’s no one else. I was talking to myself.” The cop said, “Impossible—the voices were distinct.” The man said, “That’s true. I have many voices inside.” The cop said, “But there was argument and refutation.” “That too is true,” said the man. “Whenever I talk to myself, a quarrel starts.” The cop said, “How do you quarrel with yourself?” He replied, “I can’t stand lies. And I am such a liar that even with myself I lie; then the quarrel begins. I get so angry I feel like strangling my own neck if I lie.”
If you catch yourself, you will see many times you are lying to yourself. Lying to another may be forgiven; where will you go if you lie to yourself? When you stand in the temple with folded hands, ask: are these hands truly joined—or am I lying to myself? Better to stay at the shop; finish that experience. The shop is so empty that how long can you really remain there? But if you keep going to the temple in between, there is danger—you will remain longer. Because visiting the temple renews the taste for the shop.
A man told his friend, “The last three months were sheer bliss. Your sister-in-law gave me such happiness it felt like our honeymoon returned.” The friend said, “After twenty years of marriage?” He said, “Yes—after twenty years, the wedding night returned. These three months were full of flavor.” The friend asked, “Then why do you look sad today?” He said, “Today my wife is returning from her mother’s home after three months.”
When the wife is away at her mother’s, all the taste returns. When you go to the temple, the shop is at its mother’s—the taste returns. When you pray, money is at its mother’s—the taste returns. When you meditate, you’ve sent the world to its mother’s—the wedding night returns.
Distance revives taste. Perhaps you are very clever: you go to the temple to keep the flavor of the shop from dying. Perhaps you are cunning: you read the Gita, the Quran, the Bible, sit with saints—so that the juice of worldly life remains. After hearing the saints, when you hear the clink of money again, the sweetness in its chime is renewed; your ears come alive again.
Have you ever eaten after a fast? Just that. Fasting brings the taste back to food. The palate is resensitized.
Your religion is your trick. Your satsang is your self-deception. How can you go to saints before the last meal? And the day the last meal happens, saints will begin to appear wherever you are. Someone will come and knock at your door.
That young man need not have gone to Joshu; Joshu would have come. Only the last meal!
Finish every desire quickly. Live with urgency, so the last meal comes soon. And don’t keep changing tastes in between. Don’t send the wife to her mother’s, or you’ll never be free; the taste will return again and again. Otherwise you will keep moving in a circle.
Taste the world. Do not be afraid. The world is so insubstantial that even by tasting it you won’t be lost. No one is lost by consuming it fully; only the half-consumer wanders. Taste the world. How long will you carry the weight of wealth? It will drop. Gold has no substance—but when you don’t have it, it seems substantial; only when you have it does it prove hollow. Get the world, as much as you can. Drink it to the brim. It is so futile that there is nothing to fear. When its futility reveals itself in its totality…!
Gurdjieff said: when I was a child in the Caucasus, I was obsessed with a certain wild fruit. I ate too much and would get stomach aches, fever. One day my grandfather brought a basket full and said, “Sit before me and eat.” I was delighted and began. But grandfather sat with a stick. When I tried to stop, he said, “Sit. Today you will finish the basket.” I cried, “Do you want to kill me? I can’t eat more. I’ve already eaten my fill.” He said, “No, you can eat more. Try.” I tried a little more. “Now I will vomit,” I said. Grandfather said, “Let it come—but now you cannot stop. This basket must be finished.”
Gurdjieff wrote: he kept me at it—stick in hand—until I began to have a hellish experience. I began to cry, scream, try to run, but he wouldn’t allow it. “More!” he said, until I vomited and fell unconscious. But that was the last day. Fifty years later, he wrote, I have never touched that fruit again. Even passing under that tree, seeing the fruit makes my hair stand on end.
This is what I say to you: set the world’s basket before you and eat. Have the last meal. Don’t stop short of vomiting. When the vomiting of desire happens, ninety-nine percent of meditation is done. What remains is small—just what a housewife does at dusk after the meal is finished: she washes the bowls and puts them away.
Anything more?