Cheti Sake To Cheti #4

Yes, yes—there will indeed be anger. Even a truly peaceful man has anger; he has his war, his struggle. But not for himself—that is the only difference. The disturbed person fights too, but he fights for himself. The peaceful person will fight for others; he too will be filled with anger, but there is no anger left in him for himself. His anger no longer has any inner, private cause.

So I say: the individual should be peaceful, and there should be a revolution in society. I hold that only a peaceful person can bring revolution, because how will a disturbed person bring it? What is most needed to bring revolution is a quiet, steady mind—and that he does not have.

But up to now it has happened that the peaceful person has not brought revolution. The reason was that his peace was dead; it was not alive. A man can become peaceful by becoming dead, inert; then too he looks peaceful. I do not want man to be inactive; I say peace should be active—otherwise peace is meaningless. Peace should be living. And the peaceful person will feel deep anguish for others. But that anguish is not his own; as far as he is concerned, the matter is finished. Now the pain is for the other, and he will strive to remove the other’s suffering.

It is true that individuals bring revolution. But the revolutions that disturbed people bring are born out of their restlessness, not out of their compassion. A revolution born of restlessness sets fires, burns, destroys—but it cannot build. Many revolutions have happened in the world. And, unfortunately, this is how it has been till now: the peaceful man does not make revolution, and the one who makes revolution is not peaceful. Hence there has been peace, and there have been revolutions; but revolution has not benefitted, and the peaceful man has shrunk into a corner of the life of society and the world and vanished. These two need to be joined.

I try to join all kinds of opposites. All opposites should be joined. Science and religion should be joined. Materialism and spirituality should be joined. Peace and revolution should be joined. Only then will we be able to build a good society; otherwise, we will not.

Gradually, as I can make my whole vision clear—my vision to transform the entire society—and as it becomes clear what I mean by the individual’s peace, it will not be difficult to see that these two are possibilities of one and the same person. It has not happened so far. Therefore the peaceful person becomes a kind of escapist, a runaway. And the revolutionary remains so enraged that, yes, there is a lot of anger in him—but can anything happen through anger alone? Anger alone cannot be creative.

I say the peaceful man will also have to become enraged. It looks upside down—that a peaceful man will be enraged! But unless the peaceful man becomes enraged, society will not change. Because all this that is going on—so much ugliness—keeps going on while the peaceful man sits and watches. He will have to be enraged.

My point is this: the more you repress, the cruder your vision becomes—first. Repression reduces the subtlety of perception. Second, your courage to go within declines. And courage to go within will grow only when you allow repression to loosen again. That, however, will be frightening, because if you have accumulated too much repression it will drive you toward madness.

These so‑called celibates, monks, and sannyasins—if, after ten or fifteen years of “practice,” you tell them, “Now let your mind be free,” they can do nothing but go mad—right now, on the spot. They have a great reservoir of boiling lava inside, somehow being held together. Such people can neither be subtle nor can their inner insight enter within, because where will they enter? How will they generate insight? To generate insight the first requirement is simplicity in life—no repression. And no inner fragmentation into parts—one fragment climbing on the chest of another. The part that is being crushed wants to throw off the part sitting atop it, while the one on top now has prestige invested in its position and cannot step down. If it steps down, it feels everything will be in chaos.

With so many fragments within the personality, if there is an inner conflict among them, you can neither become subtle nor enter within. The more you repress, the more you will live in fear forever. My point is: only one whose very approach to life is simple acceptance—life as it is, whatever is within, accepted with an unburdened heart—only such a one can see subtly. Eyes are ours, hands are ours; so, too, sex is ours, anger is ours. And we don’t know why these are there—so we don’t quarrel. We simply want to know what is. We do not assume that by knowing, sex will dissolve, because the desire for dissolution is itself a subtle form of repression. We don’t know whether it will dissolve or intensify. Nor do we have a side—let it dissolve, increase, decrease; we have no purpose there.

We want only this: that whatever is within becomes conscious and aware. If anger is within, let anger become conscious and aware. Let me become acquainted with its full power and significance, and know its inner workings. That is all we intend to know.

A person who approaches in such simplicity—this I call simplicity. The one who represses is never simple; he is the most complicated man. He may look simple—standing in a loincloth, bowing humbly—but he cannot be simple; complexity stands inside him. And the more complex the mind, the less the entry within.

What happens at the extreme? If someone goes on repressing and actually succeeds—which is very difficult—then a split personality will result. The personality will break into two parts, and the two will lose all contact with each other—if repression fully succeeds. Success is very difficult because your actions are utterly against nature: it’s like doing a headstand. You can stand on your head for five or ten minutes, but you cannot remain on your head for twenty‑four hours; you have to stand on your feet again.

But if someone were ready to stand on his head for twenty‑four hours—if repression achieved complete success—the personality would split in two, and the bridges connecting the two parts would break. The final outcome can be madness. The explosion will be so total that the whole being will blow apart and the person will go completely insane.

Repression breeds madness, and a repressive civilization creates madmen. In these five thousand years of so‑called civilization we have brought almost everyone to the brink of explosion. If it isn’t exploding, the reason is simply that repression has not fully succeeded—outlets are found. He imposes celibacy, but finds some non‑celibate path, so celibacy “continues.” It continues only because other outlets continue; otherwise it would collapse immediately. The end of complete repression can only be the explosion of the whole personality—madness, derangement; there is nowhere else to go.

I say: after such derangement, something can be done, because one returns to a state where things are simple again. But it is too much upheaval—pointless. In that upheaval the person may break down entirely—the personality may break, the body may break. At least this life will be spoiled.

In America they are doing a small experiment. Some psychologists today say that just as we once thought poverty was the individual’s responsibility, so too madness is not the individual’s responsibility; it is the pressure of all the interrelationships around him. Therefore treating the mad person alone is futile; it cannot work, because it is not just his problem. They propose an entire community for treatment—create a community that changes the person’s web of relationships.

For example, yesterday he saw a woman on the street and felt like hugging her. If he hugs her, he gets beaten and thrown in jail. If he doesn’t hug her, the urge keeps circling inside and drives him mad. So the idea is to form a community where ten or so women are told in advance: if someone hugs you, do not make a scene. Hug him back, greet him, and walk on. If the “mad hugger” hugs someone and no uproar happens anywhere—things pass like a gust of wind—his madness can dissolve. Otherwise it cannot.

The results have been good. People we used to call mad were not mad; the community’s pressures were such that they became suppressive, and through suppression they went mad. If such village‑communities succeed, sooner or later we will have to think on a larger scale—rather than creating separate communities, why not build a society that protects people from these foolishnesses? Our whole society teaches such foolishness; it does not save us from it.

(Recording of the question is not clear.)

If one observes “rationally,” stands outside oneself, separation begins, tension starts, and that too can drive one mad.

So I say: this seeing must not become an effort. There is no question of stepping outside yourself. It is effortless—just awareness of what is happening. It is not observation in the sense of “as I look at you, so I will look at myself.” That would create madness—certainly. Our monks and sannyasins who try such observation go mad, because they split themselves in two. It doesn’t matter for what reason you split—suppression or observation—you have created a gulf, and the consequences of a gulf will follow: it will tear you in two.

Therefore the self‑observation I speak of is not that you step outside and stand stiffly, trying to watch the tendencies of your own mind from a distance. There is no distance; you are the mind—you cannot stand outside it. To stand apart is unnatural, false, imaginary. This imaginary stepping outside happens only in fantasy; you haven’t gone anywhere.

This leads to moral hypocrisy.

It certainly does—and is doing so everywhere. It will create hypocrisy all around. Hypocrisy by itself may not be the main harm; it fragments you. Hypocrisy might even be a survival trick in a cunning, wrongheaded society—you either become a hypocrite or go mad; a prudent man will choose hypocrisy. But you will become fragmented. And fragmentation begins the moment you start “doing something” to yourself—observation or anything. You have accepted two parts: a doer and the one to be done to.

What I am saying is: you are one, together. When anger is there, you are anger—not that you stand outside anger and watch it. You are anger. The understanding of anger must happen from within anger itself. Do not fight it; do not create strain in the knowing. Just as I understand my hand, or if there is pain in my leg I understand my leg, or if I have a headache I understand my head—in the same way, whatever is within me, I try to understand. This trying does not split me in two. Nor do I have any ambition to change it, to make it something else. The only wish is: whatever I am—good or bad is irrelevant, those are others’ evaluations—let me know the fact of me and live it fully.

Out of this, something begins to happen—not towards a split, but towards integration. Gradually you move to a place where there is no inner opposition. Whatever you are, you are total—angry, loving, sexual, whatever; you are total. What remains gives you a sense of totality. I hold that even such a person’s sex is different; such a person’s anger has a different joy; everything in such a life becomes whole, gathered. Such a state can become a state of liberation. Those other states lead to derangement.

This natural, simple knowing, arising from acceptance of what we are, can give you the subtlest vision. By contrast, the unnatural, effortful, repressive, fragmenting approach cannot.

Hence the surprise: those whom you call “people of subtle vision” are often gross in vision; there is nothing subtle in them. Our great “mahatmas,” about whom we make such noise, are extremely crude in vision. Even their big talk is gross, lacking depth. Because they have avoided knowing. Knowing can happen only when there is no insistence. If I enter a room to know what is, I must be ready to see whatever is there—no insistence that this chair must be there and not here, or that the wall must be a different color. If I come with such demands, the conflict between me and the room will make my vision gross, not subtle.

And there are not two entities in you. This delusion, cultivated for millennia, that anger is separate, hatred separate, sex separate, and “I” separate, is dangerous. These nondualists, in fact, stand on duality: “You are not the body; you are separate from the body.” No—anger too is me. Whatever is, is me. With whom is there to fight? And who will fight? The only thing is that I do not fully know what I am; much lies in shadow, repressed. That too is me; I should know it. If I know, perhaps living becomes more beautiful, simple, spontaneous, joyful. Let me know fully. What dissolves in knowing is one thing; what remains becomes complete—that is another.

All past “sadhanas” in the world begin from duality; they assume struggle. Any practice that assumes struggle will lead to deeper struggle and nowhere else. No other thing has produced as much suffering, guilt, and self‑contempt in the world as this duality. It’s like making a dog obsessed with catching its own tail: “Until you catch your tail, your life is wasted.” He leaps, the tail moves away. Either he becomes a hypocrite—pretend he’s caught it—or he goes mad, and only then the obsession ends. Madness becomes nature’s last solution: when nothing else works, the mind says, “Make him mad so he can be free of this imposition.”

Madness, then, is a great kindness of nature—without it, who knows where we would end up.

(Recording of the question is not clear.)

If we make awakening an effort, it will get lost again and again. No effort can be continuous. Labor cannot be twenty‑four hours; it needs rest. If I dig earth for eight hours, I must sleep ten, then I can dig again. Likewise, those who make sainthood a labor will need holidays from it. Then we call it hypocrisy: he preached against smoking, and behind closed doors he smokes! He isn’t a hypocrite; he is just taking a holiday. Not smoking was labor; the labor slackens and demands rest.

But the effortless awakening I speak of—once it arrives, there is no question of its departure, because you did not bring it; it came. Gradually you and awakening are not two; you are the awakening. You did not make even anger “the other,” so how would awakening be “other”? It becomes you. There is no question of its return.

Whatever we have truly known cannot be unknown. You cannot undo knowing. Yes, what we have merely learned by rote can wobble. But what is known—like a child who comes to know love; once he knows, he cannot un‑know it. Knowing becomes part of you; it cannot fall away. Reading four books about love is different; that can be forgotten.

Through the experiment of awakening, whatever happens in us reveals itself gradually. Awakening is not something that comes from outside; it is your inner being uncovering itself. If it were an object placed in your pocket, it could be lost. This is you being rediscovered—unveiled. Now, there is no question.

“But if outer circumstances turn adverse, won’t reactions change?” Reactions will change if the awakening is something cultivated. Cultivation requires favorable conditions; unfavorable conditions will disturb it. Someone becomes silent sitting in a forest; he can remain silent there, but bring him to the marketplace and trouble begins—because that silence is conditioning, acquired in a particular setting. Another moves through forest and market, village and city, quarrels and conflicts—and becomes silent. He demanded no special condition. No special condition can then break his silence.

If you demanded favorable conditions, unfavorable ones will create trouble. That is why I say: don’t demand special conditions. Live in the conditions life brings, and keep knowing. Do not remove yourself from life; otherwise you will have to return, and then the trouble starts.

Saints fall because they were never saints. They created a special enclosure and somehow stood within it. The enclosure breaks and everything falls apart. That “saintliness” was just a drill—useful only during the drill.

“This integration—won’t it be only mental? What about the whole body?” Even our divisions—mental, physical, spiritual—are childish, makeshift. Such divisions do not truly exist.

“But suppose the mind becomes integrated—will the body then be free from disease?” Not necessarily. It will work to a large extent. If the mind is integrated, the bodily harms caused by mental disintegration won’t occur. But harms coming from other factors will.

Someone can shoot you; no matter how integrated your mind, the bullet will tear through. The body is in constant contact with the outer world. In fact, where do we end the body? To say the skin is the boundary of my body is naivety. The air all around is part of my body; remove it and I cannot live a second. That sun, a hundred million miles away, is part of my body; if it cools, I cool. What is my body? If I take “me” as the center, the entire universe is my body—where will I end it?

Interdependence.

Yes. This whole impact is not altered by your integration or disintegration. What changes is this: roughly half of illnesses arise from within; those will dissolve. The effect of mental conflict on the body will dissolve. But the effects of conflict with the outer world will remain. Therefore Mahavira will die, Buddha will die. And people like Aurobindo—when they talk of being physically immortal—it is madness; they still die. The “advantage” of such claims is that as long as they are alive, you cannot argue; they say, “I am physically immortal.” And when they die, there is no one to argue with.

If we look closely, two streams affect the body: one from within outward, the other from without inward. Don’t think some other entity sits inside; it is like breathing—the in‑breath and the out‑breath of one movement. The effects moving from within outward we may call “mental,” and those from without inward “physical.” Mental conflicts that damage the body will dissolve, so the body will not be mentally diseased. Effects coming from outside will continue; to avoid them, we must consult science—plan according to science.

A goal must indeed be kept in view.

Yes. Otherwise self‑violence results. Our monks and sannyasins commit more violence against the body than perhaps anyone—complete masochists. These are dangerous notions if taken into the head. The real point is: we have carved things into compartments that don’t exist. “Outer” and “inner” are makeshift distinctions—useful divisions. What is outer? What is inner? They are two movements of one thing. What appears inner to me is outer to you; what is inner to you is outer to me—purely relative. If this becomes clear, science and religion are not two. The flow that moves outward—knowing, understanding, exploring it—is religion; the flow that comes inward from outside—knowing and exploring it—is science. The day body and soul, matter and the divine, creator and creation, dualities dissolve—there will not be two things called religion and science—only one. Only then will we stand where things are clearly known.

Even after attaining religion, if one lacks scientific perspective, the bodily consequences that should follow will still follow.

Exactly. Hence awareness of that too is necessary. I say this particularly because I suffered by neglecting the body. In yoga and sadhana we must attend to the body.

Certainly—care for the body fully. Our language has become diseased by duality. Even I am forced to say, “Care for the body,” creating the illusion that you are someone else caring for some “other” called body.

(Recording of the question is not clear.)

That is exactly what I have been saying: if diabetes runs for three generations in my family, what does it matter to my mind? It concerns the body. The body has its own heredity and constitution. If everyone’s hair falls after twenty‑five in my family, then my hair will fall. Science is working on ensuring my children’s hair may not fall—that is another matter; science will do it. But it has nothing to do with my integrated mind. Science will do its part: no teeth falling, no hair falling, no aging—science can achieve such things. When science does it, it happens.

(Recording of the question is not clear.)

You ask: if the mind becomes calm and integrated, will the body become perfect? I say: no. To perfect the body, what science does will be effective. Otherwise, Mahavira would not die, Buddha would not die. Then we invent false stories. Mahavira had dysentery for six months before death—this created great difficulty for Jains: how can Mahavira have diarrhea! He died of it; so they invented tales of magic and so on. All nonsense. Why can’t Mahavira have dysentery? That is at another level; it has nothing to do with Mahavira’s being.

“When a person is integrated and whole, he should be perfect in all dimensions. That is our assumption.” That assumption is wrong. And our concept of perfection is a dead concept—not dynamic. The truth is: if one is born, one will die—and who says dying is imperfection? A tree sprouts leaves in spring—perfect; in autumn the leaves fall—is that imperfection? It is also perfection. The meaning of perfection is that as the tree once fully leafed, so too it fully sheds. Imperfect would be to shed unripe leaves.

But we have attachments. Suppose I fall ill and millions of germs hatch within me and thrive. For me it is illness; for the germs it is the advent of new life. Perhaps all of us on earth are such germs living off a larger body. What we call perfection is merely the perfection of our desires—we desire a body in which disease never comes—why? One that does not age—why? One that never dies—why? These are the projections of our fears and pains. The more integrated the mind, the more there is natural acceptance of the body as it is. Old age becomes acceptable. Death too is accepted. Such a person will die with as much joy as he lived. That is intelligible. But “he will not die”—that is sheer foolishness. He will die with the same joy as he lived.

Whatever happens to the body—if we wish to affect it—we must turn to science; religion has nothing to do with it. Yes, the illnesses that arise from the mind—and many do—will disappear. For example, a fearful man whose hands tremble—this won’t happen, because fear is gone.

In our country, wrong notions about yoga have grown.

“For bodily illness there is science—then what illness does religion treat? What is religion?” My view: the day the inner science becomes clear and exact, religions will bid farewell; they will be unnecessary. “Religion” is the name for the exploratory, non‑scientific probing done so far in that direction. Yesterday, what we now call science was once religion’s domain: when to expect rain, whether the earth moves.

“Even today the meaning of religion is not clear.” The meaning is one: the knowledge of the inner world—the methods to know it and to live it fully.

(Recording of the question is not clear.)

The more ignorance there is in the world, the larger the domain of religion, because then religion touches everything. As knowledge in any domain becomes assured, systematic, scientific, religion withdraws. From many domains it has already withdrawn; science stands there now. Sooner or later, as we explore inwardly and make the inner clear, religion will be unnecessary there too—or we might still call it religion; it doesn’t matter.

(Recording of the question is not clear.)

The difficulty with the Vedas is that they are vast. They include everything of that time: social codes, law, ethics. The Veda was the only book then; everything got assembled in it—folk songs, tales, history, mythology. Naturally so; it was a primary effort. Gradually specialization came—ethics, sociology, science, geography, astronomy separated. Religion too took its own path. Some Vedic utterances are religious—those that relate to the inner realm, to exploration there. The rest is not religion. The Indian Penal Code is not religion; it is social and political order. The Veda contains that too. It was taken as religion because ignorance made religion touch all fields then.

As with chemistry: once it covered everything; today organic and inorganic are separate, and these may split further. Even now you award a PhD—“Doctor of Philosophy”—to someone in chemistry, a relic from three hundred years ago when philosophy meant “all knowledge.”

(Recording of the question is not clear.)

So the Veda is a primary compendium—an encyclopedia of its time. To call all of it “religion” today is wrong; then it was fine. Now only a small part is religion; the rest has been claimed by other disciplines. By religion I mean the ongoing human endeavor to explore the inner. And the more scientific that exploration becomes, the less need there is to keep religion separate. A day may come when there are two kinds of science: one exploring the outer, one exploring the inner. Call them science or religion—it makes no difference.

(Recording of the question is not clear.)

Whether we call it religion or science is secondary. The split between the words is historical. Up to now their methodologies differed. As science advances, the field of religion shrinks—it should shrink, because religion had occupied what was not its own. But something remains that is its own—and it will never leave that. As science develops, it will also do much in that “something.” At that point—what I call meditation, samadhi—the experiments whose subject is subjectivity… Science’s experiments are for objectivity; objectivity is. Those religious who deny objectivity as maya are talking nonsense. Subjectivity also is; those scientists who deny it are also talking nonsense. To know the subject, the method cannot be the same as for objects. I can never be an object for myself; I can be an object for another. Psychology today treats human subjectivity with scientific methods—hence, from the outside. Behavior can be made into an object; the one whose behavior it is slips away.

To know that which keeps slipping, religion has found another way—meditation: let all objects dissolve from consciousness. When there is no object, only subjectivity remains. Attention, which was hooked on objects, finding none, returns to itself. That returning consciousness experiences itself—self‑sensing becomes possible. This is not necessarily anti‑scientific; it is non‑scientific. If science matures to recognize that, just as objective observation is the path to know objects, subjective introspection and meditation can be a path to know the subject, then what we called “religious experience” may be spoken of in scientific terms; or we may call religion a science—it doesn’t matter.

My view is that essentially there is one reality—there aren’t two like body and soul, matter and God, creator and creation. What name we give, from which side we begin, is a formal matter. If we begin from science’s side, we might call it inner science, supreme science, spirituality—it’s all secondary. What is not secondary is this: essentially there is something within us that does not submit to objectification and appears to transcend objects. If it were merely an object, religion would have no place; science would suffice. But if there is that which necessarily transcends the objective, religion remains. Names are secondary; I too would prefer one name—science—for economy of concepts. The word “religion” may disappear because it becomes unnecessary; but the essential contribution of religion will not be lost. In fact, when we can indicate that direction with scientific exactness, Buddha, Mahavira, Patanjali may become clear for the first time, because they spoke not in scientific terminology—none existed—but in metaphysical, metaphorical, poetic language. As science’s language develops—exact, mathematical—there is no need to express religion poetically. We will express it scientifically. Then what we called “religion” will bid farewell—as it should. But the religious experience as such will not vanish.

So whatever name we give—religion or science—it doesn’t matter. That experience maintains its own authenticity, distinct from objective experience. Therefore it will not disappear.

(Recording of the question is not clear.)

There is neither a need nor a possibility to “prove” it to each and everybody. Whoever wants proof must walk in that direction.

(Recording of the question is not clear.)

No, that’s not the issue. The distinction is this: scientists will, sooner or later, know what life is—but their methodology is objective. They will know life as it can be observed from outside, as another knows it. But how life feels to itself from within—what it is like to be alive—cannot be known from outside. That subjective feeling…

Take love. From outside we observe what lovers do—their behavior; what happens in the brain and the body; we draw conclusions. Those conclusions have meaning—they are objective. But what the lover subjectively experiences in loving is beyond objective observation. There is no objective route to it because every time we objectify, subjectivity slips away. Science will know what life is, how it is formed. But dead or alive, what it is like from within…

This pillow lies here; suppose it were dead, and it becomes living. What it experiences between deadness and livingness—its inner experience—cannot be observed from outside. Subjectivity cannot be known objectively—that’s a contradiction in terms. Therefore religion does not claim science will not know life; it will. But that knowing is not what religion calls self‑realization. They are different.

“But this subjectivity also can be observed!” You will study subjectivity objectively—that is what psychology is doing. It studies the subjective, objectively. But to understand subjectivity as subject remains beyond science.

(Recording of the question is not clear.)

My experiencing love is one thing; your collective study of my love is another. There are two ways to study love: objectively—what happens physiologically, mentally, chemically; and subjectively—what the feeling is like. The scientific study of love is not the end of love; something remains—the subjective feeling—which cannot be grasped. It can be known only meditatively.

I am saying: however much science progresses, something always remains beyond.

(Recording of the question is not clear.)

If your criterion is that only what yields results for others is worth doing, and what yields only for oneself is not—then the matter is different; then nothing is worth doing. If what yields for oneself is also worth doing…

(Recording of the question is not clear.)

Whenever we demand objective answers from a religious statement, we are mixing two languages whose mixing is fundamentally wrong—for now. Someone hears music and says, “I heard wondrous music.” You ask, “What was the fragrance of that music?” He will say, “What are you talking about?” You say, “Bring a little of that music so I can see it.” He will say, “Are you mad? How can I bring music?” Then you say, “If it has no fragrance, no taste, cannot be brought or shown—what does it mean that it exists?” You would not be entirely wrong—but your questions are irrelevant. Beyond all your demands, music can still be—and be meaningful.

“What did Mahavira get?” When we ask thus, we are asking in the terminology we know—like Einstein’s theory of relativity: what is it? There is a book. “What is kevala‑jnana?” Whatever is said about kevala‑jnana—a purely subjective realization—will be an objective expression.

I would say: it cannot be said. And yet saying “it cannot be said” is also to say something—and meaningful. Wittgenstein wrote in the Tractatus: “That which cannot be said must not be said.” But he does not say, “What cannot be said is not.” And he does not say that saying “it cannot be said” is not itself a saying. When we say of something that it cannot be said, we have said something about it—this is not trivial; it indicates, points.

It is a lovely irony: all scriptures are written about that of which they say nothing can be said. Lao Tzu begins the Tao Te Ching saying, “I will speak that which cannot be spoken. Therefore, in speaking, it will necessarily be wrong; forgive me.” He says it all—with an apology. That apology itself says something: the pain of wanting to say, and the awareness it cannot be said; the effort moving between the two—this too says something.

(Recording of the question is not clear.)

My point is: if you cannot go into meditation, don’t clutch at yes‑or‑no answers about it. Drop the talk; it is not your work. If I cannot go into music, I should stop babbling. If I cannot study chemistry or higher mathematics, at least I remain silent. Even this honesty is not observed about religion.

“But this is not an age for silence; we must either accept what we hear, or…” Who says so? I do not. I keep saying: if I am not going, I should remain silent.

“Today, I will learn only when I see everybody driving and it’s safe.” Then look at Buddha, Mahavira; find out whether it is safe. You ask me for one example of someone who received through meditation and testified that it is possible. Why worry? I am the example. Why should you be troubled? Where shall I bring another from—and what is the point of it?

(Recording of the question is not clear.)

In a situation where everything becomes meaningless, the mind wants to grasp something—go back, go forward, get out. Do not go. Sit firm on your doubt. Then a transcendence comes by itself; there is no question of bringing it.

(Recording of the question is not clear.)

Then there is something indubitable for you—and it will not let you transcend. In truth there is nothing that is not dubitable; no proposition beyond doubt; nothing self‑evident. The moment you accept anything, somewhere you are rooted in meaning; somewhere you are a believer. If even a little belief remains, you will never pass beyond doubt, because belief will never allow doubt to be total. A lack remains in your doubt—not a small lack. In a sense, you have not gone through the full agony of doubt; something is left where there is no doubt, where you stand secure. To pass wholly through doubt, let there be nothing that is beyond doubt—not even doubt itself.