Dhyan Sutra #6

By science I mean the method of knowing that discovers the inner power hidden in matter. By religion I mean the method of knowing that discovers the inner power hidden within consciousness. There is no opposition between religion and science; rather, they are complementary.

An age that is purely scientific will increase conveniences, but not happiness. An age that is purely religious will bring happiness to a few, but most people will be burdened by inconvenience.

Science gives convenience; religion gives peace. Without convenience, very few can attain peace. Without peace, many may attain convenience, but they will not be able to use it.

All the civilizations humanity has created so far have been incomplete and fragmented. The culture the East gave birth to stood purely on religion; its scientific side was extremely weak. As a result, the East was defeated, impoverished, subjugated. The culture the West created lies at the other extreme. Its foundations are on science, and it has no connection with religion. As a result, the West has won—amassing wealth, affluence, conveniences—but it has lost the human soul.

The culture that will be born in the future—if it is to be in the interests of humanity—will have a balance between religion and science. It will be a synthesis of religion and science. It will not be merely scientific or merely religious. It will be scientifically religious or religiously scientific.

Both experiments have failed. The Eastern experiment has failed. The Western experiment has failed too. Now there is an opportunity to attempt a global, universal experiment that is neither of the East nor of the West, in which religion and science are united.

So I say to you: there is no opposition between religion and science, just as there is no opposition between body and soul. A person who lives only on the basis of the body will lose the soul. And the one who tries to live only on the basis of the soul will not live rightly either, for he will lose the body.

Just as a human life is a balance and union between body and soul, so a complete culture will be a balance and union between science and religion. Science will be its body; religion will be its soul.

But let me also say this: if someone were to ask me to choose between religion and science, I would say we are ready to choose religion. If someone says we must choose one—science or religion, both cannot be—then I will say, we are ready to take religion. We would prefer to remain poor and live with inconvenience rather than lose the human inner being.

What is the value of those conveniences that steal our very self? And what is the value of that wealth which deprives us of our true nature? In truth, that is neither wealth nor convenience.

Let me tell you a little story I have loved very much. I have heard that once a Greek king fell ill. He fell so seriously ill that the doctors and physicians said he could not be saved—there was no hope. His ministers and those who loved him were deeply worried and distressed. At that time a fakir came to the town, and someone said, “If we bring that fakir, people say his blessings can even cure illnesses.”

They went to fetch the fakir. He came, and on arriving he said to the king, “Are you mad? Is this an illness? This is no illness at all. Its remedy is very simple.” The king, bedridden for months, sat up and said, “What remedy? We thought we were finished; we have no hope.” The fakir said, “A very simple remedy: bring the coat of a peaceful and prosperous man from your town and put it on him. He will be cured.”

The viziers ran out—there were many prosperous people in the town. They went to each one and said, “We need your coat—the coat of a peaceful and prosperous man.” Those wealthy people said, “We are unhappy. A coat? We can give our lives; the coat is nothing. If the king can be saved, we will give everything. But our coat will not work, because though we are prosperous, we are not peaceful.”

They went to every person in town. They searched all day and by evening they were disheartened. They realized the king’s survival was unlikely—the medicine was very costly. In the morning they had thought, “The remedy is easy.” By dusk they knew, “The remedy is very difficult; it may not be found.” Weary and dejected, they returned at sunset. Outside the town, by the river, on a rock’s edge, a man was playing a flute. It was so melodious, waves of such joy rising from it, that one of the viziers said, “Let us ask this man as a last resort; perhaps he is peaceful.”

They went to him and said, “In the sound of your flute, in your song, there is such joy and such peace—may we make a request? Our king is ill, and we need the coat of a man who is peaceful and prosperous.” The man said, “I would give my life. But look closely: I have no coat.” They looked carefully—it was dark—the man was naked, playing his flute.

The king could not be saved. For the one who was peaceful had no prosperity, and the one who was prosperous had no peace. And this world too will not be saved, because the nations that speak of peace have no prosperity, and the nations that have prosperity have no thought for peace. The king died; so will humanity.

The remedy is the same as the king’s remedy—that is also the cure for the whole culture of humankind. We need the coat—and we need peace. Until now our ideas have been incomplete. Until now we have thought of man in very incomplete ways, and our habit is to run to extremes. The greatest disease of the human mind is excess—extremism.

Confucius was once staying in a village. Someone there said to him, “In our village there is a very learned, very thoughtful man. Will you meet him?” Confucius said, “First tell me why you call him thoughtful; then I will certainly go to see him.” They said, “Because before doing anything, he thinks three times—three times!” Confucius said, “That man is not thoughtful. Three times—just a bit too much. Once would be a little too little; twice is enough.” Confucius said, “He is not thoughtful. Three times is a bit too much; once a bit too little. Twice is enough. The wise stop in the middle; the foolish go to extremes.”

One foolishness is that a person takes himself to be only the body. Another foolishness—equally great—is that a person takes himself to be only the soul. The human personality is a conjunction. Human culture will also be a conjunction.

We should learn. The poverty of our history, the defeat of our lands, the trampling of Eastern nations are not without cause; the cause is excess—excess of religion. And the inner impoverishment of Western nations is not without cause; the cause is excess of science. The future will be beautiful if science and religion are united.

One thing must be clear: in the union of science and religion, religion will be the center and science the periphery. In their harmony, religion will be the intelligence, and science its attendant. The body cannot be the master; science cannot be the master. Religion will be the master. Then we can build a better world.

Therefore, do not ask what use religion has in the scientific age. Precisely in the scientific age religion is useful, because science is an excess, and that excess is dangerous. Religion will give it balance and will save man from that excess and that danger.

Therefore, the hour of a revival of religion is very near throughout the world. This is natural, certain—an inevitability. Otherwise science will become the cause of death. So to ask, “What need is there of religion in a scientific age?” is pointless. It is in the scientific age that religion is most needed.

I understand; from what I have been saying, that too must have come to your mind. For whatever is of use to a single human being will necessarily be of use to the whole nation and the whole society. For what are nation and society? What are they other than aggregates of human beings? So let no one remain under the illusion that a nation can live in the absence of dharma.

This misfortune befell India. We misunderstood a few words. We started talking about a “secular” state. We should have said non-sectarian, but we began to say secular. To be non-sectarian is one thing; to be secular—dharma-neutral—is quite another. Any sensible person is non-sectarian; only the foolish can be without dharma.

To be non-sectarian means: we have no concern with whether one is Jain, Hindu, Buddhist, or Muslim. That is what non-sectarian means. But to be secular—dharma-neutral—means we have no concern with truth, with nonviolence, with love, with compassion. No nation can be dharma-neutral; and if it is, it is its misfortune. A nation must be animated by dharma, not neutral to it. Yes, it is essential to be non-sectarian.

It is not the atheists who have harmed dharma the most. Nor have materialist scientists harmed it the most. The greatest harm has been done by religious sectarians—those whose insistence is less on dharma and more on being Jain; less on dharma and more on being Hindu; less on dharma and more on Islam. They have deprived the world of dharma. Sects, which should have been the body of dharma, have proved to be its assassins.

Therefore, dharma has immense utility; sects have none. The more sects and sectarianism wane, the more meaningful and useful life will be.

And it is impossible that any community, any nation, any society could stand without the foundations of dharma. How could it be? Is it possible to stand without the foundations of love? Can a nation become a nation without love? And can a nation become a nation without truth? Or can any nation arise without the foundations of renunciation, non-possessiveness, nonviolence, fearlessness?

These are the very foundations of the soul. In their absence there is no nation, no society. And if such a society or nation exists, anyone with even a little discernment would call it a mechanical aggregation of human beings; he would not be able to call it a nation.

A nation is formed by inter-relationships. The relationship I have with you, the one you have with your neighbor—the sum total of those inter-relationships is what we call a nation. The more those relationships stand on truth, on love, on nonviolence, on the divine, the more fragrance there will be in the nation’s life; the more light there will be; the less darkness there will be.

So I say: the very life-breath of a nation and society can be established only upon dharma. We must be a little cautious with the word “secular.” The whole nation needs to be cautious. Under the cover of that word there is great danger: under its cover we may begin to think there is no need for dharma. Dharma is the one indispensable need in human life. Everything else is secondary and can be dropped. Dharma alone is that one thing which cannot be dropped.

This, I believe, will help resolve your question.

Generally, the ideas current about meditation make us think of it as “meditation on someone.” We will meditate on someone. Hence it is natural that the question arises: On whom to meditate? To whom to pray? Whom to worship? Whom to love?

I said something to you in the morning: there is one kind of love in which we ask, “Whom do I love?” And there is another kind of love in which we ask, “Is love present within me or not?”—the “whom” has no relevance.

So I said, love has two states. One, love as a relationship. And the other, love as a state of mind. In the first kind of love we ask, “With whom?” If I say to you, “I love,” you will ask, “Whom?” And if I say, “The question of whom does not arise—I simply love,” you will feel uneasy. Yet it is the second that needs to be understood.

The one who truly loves is the one who simply loves; there is no question of “whom.” Because the one who loves “someone”—what will he do with the rest? He will be filled with hate toward the rest. And the one who “meditates on someone”—what about the rest? He will be sunk in insensibility toward the rest. The meditation I am speaking of is not “on someone”; it is a state of meditation. By state I mean this: meditation does not mean bringing someone to mind. Meditation means letting fall everything that is in our memory, and bringing about a condition in which only consciousness remains—only consciousness, only awareness.

If we light a lamp here and remove everything from the room, the lamp will still shine. Likewise, if we remove all objects from the mind, remove all thoughts, remove all imaginings—what will happen? When all imaginings and thoughts are gone, what remains? Consciousness remains alone. That aloneness of consciousness is meditation.

Meditation is not to be done on anyone. Meditation is a state in which consciousness remains alone. When consciousness stands by itself and there is no object before it, that state is called meditation. I am using the word meditation in that sense.

What we are practicing is not, in the strict sense, meditation; it is dharana—concentration. Meditation will happen. What we are doing—understand: at night we work with the chakras, in the morning we work with the breath—this is all dharana; it is not meditation. Through this dharana a moment will come when even the breath dissolves. Through this dharana a moment will come when the body dissolves, thoughts dissolve. When everything dissolves, what remains? Whatever remains—its name is meditation. When all has dissolved, what remains—its name is meditation. Dharana is always of something; meditation is of no one. For now we are doing dharana—on the chakras, on the breath. You may ask, Would it not be better to do dharana on God? Would it not be better to concentrate on an image?

That is dangerous. It is dangerous because concentrating on an image will not bring about the state I am calling meditation. By concentrating on an image, only the image keeps appearing. And the denser the concentration on the image, the more the image will appear.

This is what happened to Ramakrishna. He would focus on Kali—he would do dharana. Gradually it began to happen that Kali appeared to him inwardly. Closing his eyes, the image became alive. He became deeply enchanted, lived in great bliss. Then a sannyasin came. He said, “What you are doing is only imagination; it is all imagination. It is not the direct vision of the divine.” Ramakrishna said, “Not the vision of the divine? I see Kali directly.” The sannyasin said, “The vision of Kali is not the vision of the divine.

“One person sees Kali, another sees Christ, another sees Krishna—these are all projections of the mind. There is no form to the direct realization of the divine. The divine has no face, no manner, no shape. The moment consciousness reaches the formless, it reaches the divine.

“There is no ‘vision’ of the divine; there is union with the divine. No one stands face-to-face—on this side you, on that side God! A moment comes when you are absorbed into the totality of existence, as a drop falls into the ocean. And whatever is experienced in that moment—that is the experience of the divine.

“There is no sighting or darshan of God. There is the feeling of union with God—if the drop could feel as it falls into the ocean, that is how it would be.”

So the sannyasin said, “This is a mistake; it is imagination.” And he said to Ramakrishna, “In the same way you have erected this image within, now cut it into two. Raise the sword of imagination and split the image into two.”

Ramakrishna said, “A sword! How will I raise a sword there?” The sannyasin said, “Just as the image was made, that too is a dharana. Make the dharana of a sword and break it. Let imagination shatter imagination. When the image falls and nothing remains—the world has already dissolved; now one image remains, break that too—when the empty space remains, there will be the direct knowing of the divine. What you have taken as God is not God. In attaining God, the last hindrance is this—drop it as well.”

It was very difficult for Ramakrishna. With so much love he had adorned that image, practiced for years, nursed it until it seemed alive—and now to break it! He would close his eyes again and again, then recoil: “I cannot commit such a sacrilege!” The sannyasin said, “If you cannot, there will be no communion with the divine. Your love for God is a little less. You are not willing to remove one image for the sake of God!” He said it twice: “Your love for God is a little less. You are not willing to remove one image for the sake of God!”

Our love for the divine is also very little. We too carry images, and sects, and scriptures in between—and no one is willing to drop them.

He said, “Sit in meditation, and I will cut your forehead with a shard of glass. When you feel inside that I am cutting your forehead, gather courage—and cut the image into two.” Ramakrishna gathered that courage. When his courage was complete, he split the image into two. When he returned, he said, “Today, for the first time, samadhi happened. Today, for the first time, I knew what truth is. Today, for the first time, I became free of imagination and entered into truth.”

Therefore I am not asking you to indulge in imagination—not in any imagination that becomes a barrier. The few things I have suggested—like the chakras, like the breath—these do not become barriers because they do not evoke love or attachment. They have no intrinsic meaning; they are only devices by which one can enter within. They cannot become obstacles.

So I am speaking only of those provisional devices that, ultimately, do not become an obstacle to entering meditation. That is why I have not told you to meditate on anyone; I have told you to go into meditation. Not to do meditation, but to go into meditation. Not to meditate on someone, but to arrive within, into meditation. If you keep this a little in mind, many things will become clear.

They never have. Till today spiritual interests have never been defeated by worldly interests. You will say I’m wrong, because you must be feeling a daily defeat within. But let me ask you: do you really have a spiritual interest? What gets defeated is not there at all—it is only a secondhand spiritual idea you have heard.

If someone were to say that even in the presence of diamonds, the diamonds get defeated before pebbles, what would we say? We would say there were no diamonds there. The diamonds were imaginary and the pebbles real. Then of course the diamonds will lose and the pebbles win. And if the diamonds are real, how can they lose to pebbles?

You may be thinking that in our lives worldly tendencies defeat all our spiritual tendencies. Where are your spiritual tendencies? The defeat that seems to happen is purely imaginary. The other side is simply not present.

You keep thinking that hatred wins and love loses. But where is love? You think the desire for wealth wins and the longing for God loses; but where is that longing? If it were there, no other desire could win before it. If it were there, no desire could even stand in its presence; the question of winning does not arise.

If someone says, “There is light, but darkness wins,” we will say you are mad. If there is light, darkness cannot even enter. There has never been a battle between light and darkness. None at all—because in the presence of light, darkness simply is not. It is never the other side in a fight, so what is there for it to win? It wins only when light is absent. Its victory is only in the non-presence of light. In the presence of light there is no question; darkness dissolves, it is not there.

Those you call worldly tendencies—if spiritual tendencies arise, they dissolve; they are nowhere to be found. Therefore my whole effort is not so much to make you dissolve worldly tendencies, as to insist that a spiritual tendency arise in you. Let it arise positively within you.

When a spiritual orientation arises constructively, worldly tendencies wither. When love arises in someone, hatred dissolves within him. Hatred and love have never clashed—till now, never. Where truth arises, untruth dissolves. Untruth and truth have never clashed. Where nonviolence arises, violence disappears. There has never been a clash between nonviolence and violence. The question of defeat does not arise; there is no contest. Violence is so weak that at the coming of nonviolence it withers. Irreligion is very weak; the world is very weak, exceedingly weak.

Hence our land has called the world maya. Maya means that which is so weak that the slightest touch and it vanishes. It is magical. As if someone has shown you a tree and said, “Here stands a mango tree,” but it is a magical tree. You go near and find—it is not there. Or in the night you see a rope hanging somewhere and you take it to be a snake; you go near and find it is not a snake. The snake you saw in the rope was maya. It was only appearing; it was not.

Therefore our land calls this world maya, because whoever goes near will find—on seeing the truth—that the world is not. What we call the world has never stood up against truth.

Therefore if it seems to you that your spiritual tendencies get defeated, remember one thing: those tendencies are imaginary—picked up from books. They are not within you.

There are many people. A man came to me and asked, “It used to happen that I began to experience God; now it doesn’t happen.” I told him, “It never happened. Has it ever happened that one begins to experience God and then it stops?” Many people come to me and say, “Earlier we could settle into meditation; now we can’t.” I say, “It never settled. It is impossible that it was there and then it was not.”

In life the higher rungs can be attained; they cannot be lost. Remember this. In life the higher steps can be gained; they cannot be lost. There is no way to lose them. Knowledge can be taken, can be attained, but it cannot be lost. It is impossible.

But what does happen is this: through education, through conditioning, certain religious notions arise within us. We take them to be religion. They are not religion; they are merely conditionings. There is a difference between conditioning and religion. From childhood you are taught that there is a soul. You too learn it; you memorize it. It becomes part of your memory. Later you also start saying, “There is a soul,” and you think you know there is a soul within.

You do not know at all. It is a heard idea, a falsehood that others have taught you. You have no direct knowing. Then if this “soul” gets defeated before your lust, you will say, “How weak is the soul—that it is defeated by lust!”

You don’t have that soul at all—only an idea is in you, and even that idea society has put there; it is not yours. When, through your own experience, the energy of the spiritual powers awakens, the powers of the world are dispelled. They do not seize you again.

Remember this. And so long as defeat is happening, understand that what you have taken as religion is a heard-about religion, not a known one. Someone has told you; you have not experienced it. You heard it from parents; traditions have told you; it has not happened within you. In other words, you think there is light, but there isn’t; therefore darkness wins. And when there is light, its very being is the defeat of darkness. Light does not fight darkness; its mere being, its mere existence, its mere presence is the defeat of darkness.

Remember this. And those hollow religious, spiritual tendencies that get defeated—recognize them as hollow and throw them out. They mean nothing. The understanding to create real tendencies will come only when you gain the understanding to discard the hollow ones.

Many of us keep carrying utterly imaginary things that we do not have. We are like beggars who go on imagining themselves to be emperors—though we are not. So when we put our hand in our pocket and find no money, we say, “What kind of emperorship is this!” That emperorship is not there at all. Beggars have a fancy for dreaming of being kings; all beggars go on dreaming of being kings on earth.

Thus, the more worldly we are, the more we also dream of being religious. There are many devices of dreaming. In the morning we pay a visit to the temple. Sometimes we give a little charity. Sometimes we keep a fast. Sometimes we read a little Gita, Koran, Bible. Then the illusion arises that we are religious. All these are ways of creating the illusion of being religious. And then when these “religious” tendencies lose before even a slight worldly impulse, there is great distress, great repentance. And we think, “How weak are religious tendencies, and how powerful are worldly ones!” You do not have religious tendencies at all. You are deceiving yourself that you are religious.

So any tendency that is defeated before lust—know it to be false. This is the touchstone. Any “spiritual” tendency that loses before a worldly tendency—take it as a touchstone that it is false, it is bogus. The day a tendency is born within you whose mere presence makes worldly tendencies dissolve—search as you may, they cannot be found—that day understand that something has happened; that some religion has descended.

If in the morning the sun has risen and the darkness remains as it was, we will understand we are seeing in a dream that the sun has risen. When the sun rises, darkness dissolves of its own accord. Till today the sun has never met darkness. To this moment the sun does not know that darkness even exists; it cannot know. Till today the soul does not know that lust even exists. The day the soul awakens, lust is not to be found. They have never yet met.

Remember this. Remember it as a touchstone. That touchstone will be useful.

What I am telling you—purification of body, purification of thought, purification of feeling; emptiness of body, emptiness of thought, emptiness of feeling—this is austerity.

What do people think austerity is? A man standing in the blazing sun—“he is doing austerity!” Someone lying on thorns—“he is doing austerity!” Someone sitting hungry—“he is doing austerity!” Our concept of austerity is extremely materialistic, very physical. For us, austerity means tormenting the body. If someone inflicts pain on the body, we say he is practicing austerity. But austerity has nothing to do with bodily torture. Austerity is something wondrous; it is something altogether different.

A man is fasting. We think he is practicing austerity. He is merely starving. And I would even say he is not fasting at all; he is simply without food. Being without food, not eating, is one thing; being in upavasa is quite another.

Upavasa means dwelling near the divine. Upavasa means being close to the soul, abiding in the proximity of the Self. And what does being without food mean? It means abiding in the proximity of the body. They are opposites.

A hungry man is near the body, not near the soul. In fact a man with a full stomach is less near the body than the hungry one, because the hungry person thinks all the time about hunger, the stomach, the body. The current of his thought is the body, his inner companionship is with the body and with bread.

If going hungry were a virtue, poverty would be a glory. If dying of hunger were spirituality, poor nations would be spiritual. But you know, no poor nation is ever spiritual; none has ever been. When a community becomes prosperous, only then can it become religious.

In those days you remember the East as religious—India as religious—those were days of great prosperity, of comfort and good fortune. Mahavira and Buddha were sons of kings; all twenty-four Jain Tirthankaras were princes—this is no accident. Why has no Tirthankara been born in a poor household yet?

There is a reason: in great prosperity, for the first time, austerity begins. The poor are near the body; the prosperous begin to be free of the body in the sense that bodily needs have been fulfilled, and for the first time the awareness of new needs—of the soul—arises.

Therefore I am not in favor of dying hungry, nor in favor of making anyone go hungry, nor do I call poverty spiritual. Those who say so are deluded and lead others into delusion. They only support poverty and invent false paths of “contentment.”

Going hungry has no value; upavasa has value. Yes, it can happen that in the state of upavasa there is no remembrance of food and thus there is an absence of eating. That is quite another matter.

When Mahavira practiced austerity, it was not “going hungry”; it was upavasa. Upavasa means a constant endeavor to come into the nearness of the soul. In moments when he arrived in that nearness, the awareness of the body was forgotten. Such spans can be long: a day, two days—even a month can pass.

It is said of Mahavira that in twelve years of austerity he ate on only three hundred and fifty days. Months, even two months, went by without food. Do you think that if he had merely been hungry he could have lasted two months? A hungry man would die. But Mahavira did not die because in those moments there was no awareness of the body. The proximity to the soul was so intense that even the presence of the body was unknown.

And this is a profound secret: if the sense of having a body disappears, the body begins to function according to another arrangement, and it does not require food in the same way. This is, in fact, a very scientific point: when the awareness of the body completely ceases, the body functions in a very different way and needs far less nourishment. And as one enters deeper into the spiritual, one becomes capable of generating extremely subtle energies from within—energies a common person cannot.

So when Mahavira remained without food, the sole reason was that he was so close to the soul he simply did not remember. Perhaps an incident will help.

A monk came to me. One day he said, “I have fasted today.” I said, “You have gone without food; you have not fasted.” He asked, “What is the difference between being without food and fasting?” I said, “In being without food, we drop eating and think about food. Fasting means we have nothing to do with food; we are absorbed in contemplation of the soul, and food is forgotten.”

Fasting is austerity; being without food is bodily torture, body-repression. The egoistic do the latter; the egoless do the former. Abstinence feeds vanity: “I stayed without food for so many days!” Praise comes from all sides. The news of being religious spreads. With a little bodily suffering, vanity is gratified. The very vain become willing to do so much.

Let me be clear: these are movements of ego, not of religion. The truly religious do fast; they do not merely refrain from eating. Fasting means a continuous engagement in coming close to the soul, and as that nearness happens, there are moments when food is forgotten.

Let me say this in every way—not only in this matter but in all matters. Yesterday I spoke to you of sex and love. The man engaged in repressing sex may appear an ascetic to us, but he is not. The ascetic is the one engaged in the growth of love, and through love’s growth, sex naturally dissolves. As the proximity of the divine increases, many transformations occur regarding the body. The way of seeing the body changes; the body-view is transformed.

I call austerity the science through which a person forgets “I am the body” and comes to know “I am the soul.” Austerity is a matter of technique. It is a technique, a bridge, a path through which one forgets I am the body and the awareness “I am the soul” is born.

But false austerities have prevailed the world over and have created great dangers. They gratify the vanity of a few, but they harm the masses, because people think that is austerity, that is sadhana, that is yoga. These are not sadhanas, not yogas.

And let me add, those who are zealous about bodily repression are somewhat neurotic, a little unhinged. Let me tell you also: those who enjoy inflicting pain on their own bodies are the very ones who once enjoyed inflicting pain on others. It is merely a switch: the pain they once enjoyed giving to others, they now give to themselves. They are violent people. It is self-violence—violence against oneself.

Remember, there are two kinds of instincts in a human being. One is the life-instinct: “I must live.” You may not know there is also a death-instinct: “I should die.” If there were no death-instinct, suicides could not occur in the world. A dormant death-instinct resides in everyone. These two sit side by side.

That death-instinct often incites a person toward self-destruction; it even begins to taste sweet. Some people commit suicide at once; others do it slowly. Those who do it slowly we take to be ascetics; those who do it at once we call suicides. Those who do it slowly we call ascetics.

Austerity is not suicide. Austerity is not related to death; it is related to eternal life. Austerity does not seek to die; it seeks to attain fullness of life.

So my understanding of austerity is through the six sutras I have mentioned—three now and three we will still discuss. Enter through those six, and see. Do you really think it is austerity for a man to run away from his wife? Shall we call him an ascetic? It may be he has run away and still keeps thinking of her. Austerity is that the wife sits nearby and she is forgotten. Austerity is that she may be present and one forgets; it is not that we flee far away while the mind continues to revolve around her.

Remember: those who run from things keep thinking about those very things. It is impossible that they should not, because if they were the kind of people for whom such thoughts would not arise, then even in the presence of those things the thoughts would not arise.

Let me tell you this as well: when things are present, thoughts do not revolve around them; when they are absent, thoughts do. Do you not know this from your own experience? We do not brood over what is present; we brood over what is not. Those you love—when they are near, you forget them; when they are far, you remember. The farther they are, the denser the memory becomes.

You do not know the sufferings of those we call sannyasins. If all the sannyasins of the world were honest, the illusion about sannyasa would shatter. If they were truthful about their inner anguish—the torments they suffer, the passions that possess them, the impulses that pain them, the “devils” that seem to harry them—if they opened all this, you would see that hell cannot exist anywhere else on earth. I say this with certainty: the life of the man who has not transformed his energies but has merely run away—that life is hell.

Austerity is not flight; it is transformation. Austerity is not renunciation; it is transformation. Austerity is not abandonment; it is samparivartan—transformation. Whatever happens through transformation is right; what happens through running away, through renunciation, is not right. If only we understood this, much good would be possible.

Millions of souls are suffering. Their only enjoyment is the gratification of vanity—and even that only for a few; the rest merely suffer. Yet they hope: perhaps heaven will be gained, perhaps hell avoided, perhaps liberation attained. The same greed that holds you holds them. Greed gives great capacity to endure suffering. Even an ordinary man, greedy for wealth, bears immense hardship to obtain it. Those greedy for heaven bear it, too.

As they were leading Christ to the cross for execution, one of his disciples asked, “Tell us this: we have left everything for you; how will we be treated in the kingdom of God? What place will we have there?” Christ must have looked upon him with great compassion, and out of compassion—or perhaps in jest, I do not know—he said, “You, too, will have a place near God.” The man was delighted. He said, “Then it is fine.”

Will you call this man a renunciate? It is hard to find greater greed on earth. He who asks, “We have left everything; what will we get there?”—the one who is bent on getting has not left anything at all. That is why all these teachings on austerity come packaged with inducements: “Do this austerity and you will get that.”

Any austerity that includes the thought of getting is false, because it is not austerity at all—it is a form of greed. That is why with every austerity you will find appended: “By doing this, you will obtain this; those in history who did it received such and such.” These are forms of greed.

The true ascetic follows only one austerity: to know oneself—not so that a place will be secured in heaven or paradise, not for some great reward, but because to not know oneself is to not know life. For anyone with a little awareness, it is impossible that the urge to know oneself does not arise. It must arise: to know, “Who am I?” to become acquainted with the life-force within.

Austerity is a means to know the truth of life. Austerity is not the suppression of the body. Yes, it may be that many things happen to the ascetic which make it appear to you that he is mortifying the body, when in fact he is not.

Have you seen the images of Mahavira? Do they give the impression that this man must have practiced body-mortification? Do those bodies look like that?

And then look at the monks who followed Mahavira! Merely to see them is to feel they have mortified the body. Their life-streams have dried up; their bodies are sad and slack—and so are their minds. They are pulled along solely by greed. Where is the bliss, where is the peace that is visible in Mahavira’s image?

Consider this a little. Whatever effects appeared on Mahavira’s body… Mahavira discarded clothing. We may think he gave up clothes because he thought one should renounce clothing. No—he came to know that there is a joy in nakedness. Let me say this very emphatically: Mahavira did not discard clothes because there is joy in giving them up; he discarded them because there is joy in being naked. Nakedness was so blissful that wearing clothes became a pain; so he threw them away.

The monk who follows Mahavira, when he discards clothing, finds no joy in the renouncing—he finds pain. And counting that pain as spiritual, he thinks, “I am doing austerity.” As he sheds clothes, he believes he is practicing austerity. For Mahavira it was not austerity; it was simply an act born of bliss. One who follows him without understanding his inner being will only give up clothing. For him, giving up clothes is painful—and so he calls it austerity.

Austerity is not pain. There is no joy greater than austerity. But those who grasp it from the outside will see pain in it, will perceive suffering. And in exchange for that suffering they will gratify their vanity here on earth and their greed for the hereafter. I do not call that austerity.

Austerity is a method of entering within, taking the cooperation of mind and body. It is arduous only in the sense that it requires strong resolve.

Think a little: if I were to stand outside through the whole monsoon, is there more austerity in that—or in this: that when someone abuses me, anger does not arise within? If I lie on thorns, is there more austerity in that—or in this: that when someone throws a stone at me, no urge arises in my heart to throw a stone back? Where is the austerity?

Lying on thorns can be done even in a circus. Standing in the sun is only a practice. After a few days of practice, it becomes nothing—it is easy, very easy. Being naked is a practice. After all, all the tribals on earth are naked, but we do not call that austerity, nor do we touch their feet saying, “You are naked; you are doing a great deed!” We know it is simply their habit; it is natural for them. There is no obstacle, no difficulty in it.

Austerity is not merely a matter of practicing some act. Yet of those we call ascetics, ninety-nine out of a hundred are in this condition. Rarely will you meet one whose austerity is the fruit of bliss. Only when austerity is the fruit of bliss is it true. When it is the worship of suffering, it is nothing but the death-instinct transformed—a suicidal tendency, not religion; it is neurosis—a derangement.

And if understanding grows in the world, such sannyasins will be sent to hospitals, not to temples. That time will soon come—this understanding will arise. We will have to treat the man who takes pleasure in giving himself pain.

If someone is taking pleasure in indulgence through the body, he is ill. If someone is taking pleasure in tormenting the body, he is ill at the opposite extreme. Taking pleasure in bodily indulgence is the hedonist’s disease; taking pleasure in bodily pain is the renunciate’s disease.

The one free of illness is he who uses the body—neither drawing pleasure from its indulgence nor from its denial. For him the body is only an instrument; neither suppression nor inflation of it is the basis of any happiness or sorrow. His bliss does not depend on the body; it depends on the soul. Such a person is moving toward sannyasa. And those whose joys depend on the body…

There are two kinds of people whose pleasures depend on the body: those who enjoy eating too much, and those who enjoy not eating. But both are enjoying the body; their taste is body-bound.

Therefore I call both the sensualist and this kind of sannyasi materialists—body-centered. Religion has suffered greatly from this bodily distortion. Religion needs to be restored to its spiritual form.

One final question in this connection.

If you understand what I have just said, then raga means attachment to something; viraga means opposition to that attachment. One person hoards wealth—this is raga. And another kicks wealth away and runs from it—this is viraga.

But the gaze of both is fixed on wealth. The one who gathers it broods over money; the one who leaves it also broods over money. One enjoys collecting and says, “I have so much”—his vanity is fulfilled by the “so much.” The other fulfills his vanity by saying, “I have given up so much.”

You will be surprised: those who have wealth keep accounts of how much they have; and those who have renounced keep accounts of how much they have renounced. Lists of monks and renunciates come out enumerating how many fasts they have done—how many kinds of fasts; they keep accounts of everything. Renunciation has its ledger, indulgence has its ledger. Raga keeps accounts, viraga keeps accounts—because both have the same gaze, the same focal point, the same grip.

Vitaraga does not mean viraga. Vitaraga means being free of both raga and viraga. It is that state of mind in which we are neither attached nor “detached.” We simply have no concern. A person may have money lying there—there is just no interest in it.

Kabir had a son, Kamal. Kabir had a strong habit of viraga. He did not like Kamal’s ways. If someone offered Kamal a gift, he would keep it. Kabir told him many times, “Do not accept anyone’s offerings. We have no need for money.” Kamal said, “If money is worthless, what is the need to even say no? If money is worthless, we didn’t go asking for it, because it is worthless. And if someone comes and throws it here, we don’t refuse it either—because it is worthless.”

Kabir did not like this. He said, “You live separately.” His viraga was disturbed by it. Kamal was separated; he began living in another hut.

The king of Kashi used to visit. He asked, “I don’t see Kamal around!” Kabir said, “I don’t like his ways—his conduct is lax. I have separated him; he lives apart.” “What is the reason?” “He has a greed for money: if someone gives something, he takes it.”

The king went to see him. He placed a very precious diamond at Kamal’s feet and bowed. Kamal said, “Even if you brought something, you brought just a stone!” Kamal said, “Even if you brought something, you brought just a stone!” The king thought, “Kabir said he is attached, yet he says, ‘You brought only a stone!’” He picked it up to take it back. Kamal said, “If it is a stone, don’t trouble yourself to carry it back.” Kamal said, “If it is a stone, don’t trouble yourself to carry it back—otherwise even now you are still taking it to be a diamond.” The king said, “That sounds like some clever talk.” Then he asked, “Where shall I keep it?” Kamal said, “If you are asking where to keep it, then you don’t take it to be a stone. If you are asking where to keep it, you don’t take it to be a stone. Just toss it—what is there to ‘keep’?” So the king pushed it into the thatch of the hut. He left, thinking, “This is deceitful—he will wait till I turn and then take it out.”

He returned six months later. He said, “Some time ago I left a gift here.” Kamal said, “Many people leave gifts. And if those gifts had any meaning for us, we would either keep them with eagerness or return them with eagerness.” He said, “If their gifts had any meaning, we would either keep them eagerly or return them eagerly. But gifts are meaningless—so who keeps accounts! You must have given something; since you say so, you must have.” The king said, “That gift was not so ordinary; it was very precious. Where is the stone I had left?” Kamal said, “Now that is difficult—where did you put it?”

He looked in the hut, and there, where he had wedged it in, the stone was still lying. He was astonished. His eyes were opened.

This man was extraordinary. For him it truly was just a stone. I would call this vitaragata. This is not viraga. This is not viraga; this is vitaragata.

Raga is the relish in holding on to something. Viraga is the relish in letting that very thing go. Vitaragata means it becomes meaningless, devoid of significance. Vitaragata is the goal. Vitaragata is the goal. Those who attain it attain supreme bliss, because all external bondages wither away for them.

There is another question in this connection, that…

No; even without them meditation is possible, but for very few. Even without them meditation is possible, but for very few. If one enters meditation with a perfect resolve, then without purifying any of these one can enter meditation; and the very moment one enters, all these will be purified. But if that is not possible—if mustering such resolve is not easy; it is very difficult to gather such resolve—then gradually these will have to be purified.

Their purification will not give you meditation; their purification will give intensity to your resolve. The energy that is wasted in their impurity will be saved, that energy will turn into resolve, and entry into meditation will happen. They are supportive, not indispensable.

So for those who do not find it possible to enter meditation directly, they are indispensable; otherwise their entry will not happen. But they are not indispensable in themselves, because if someone has very profound resolve, then even in a single moment, without doing anything, one can enter meditation. In a single moment! If someone summons and gathers his entire life-force in one call and leaps, there is no reason anything could stop him. Nothing can stop him; no impurity can stop him. But to invoke that much exertion is the good fortune of few. To muster that much courage is the good fortune of few. Only those can gather that much courage—let me tell a story.

There was a man who thought that the world must end somewhere. So he set out to find it. He went on and on, walking thousands of miles, asking people along the way, “I want to find the end of the world.”

At last he came to a temple, and there a sign was posted: “Here Ends the World.” A board was fixed there: “Here the world ends.” He was very frightened. The sign had appeared. A little way ahead the world ended. Beneath the sign it was written: “Do not go further.”

But he wanted to see the end of the world, so he went on. After a short distance the world indeed ended. There was an edge, and below it an infinite abyss. He peered over for a moment, and his very life trembled. He turned and ran back. He could not even look back as he retreated. There was an infinite chasm. Small chasms make one panic—what then of the infinite! It was the end of the world, the final abyss. And beneath that abyss there was nothing at all. He looked—and fled.

In his panic he went into the temple and said to the priest, “That end is terribly dangerous.” The priest said, “If you had jumped, right where the world ends, there you would have found God.” He said, “If only you had leapt into that abyss, right where the world ends, there God is found.”

But until one can gather the courage to leap into the infinite abyss, the preliminaries are necessary for meditation. And for the one who is ready to leap into the infinite abyss, there is no preliminary. Is there any preliminary for that? None. Therefore we call these preliminaries outer disciplines. They are outer aids; they will give a little assistance. The one who has courage should jump straight. If there is no courage, use the stairs. Keep this in mind.

These questions—only this much we can discuss today. Some will remain; we will consider them tomorrow.