Es Dhammo Sanantano #11

Life can be lived in two ways—like a master, or like a slave. And the life of a slave is life only in name. To call it life is a mistake. It only looks like life, gives the feeling of life—like a dream. The slave lives in hope. It will come—yet it never comes. It is arriving—yet it never arrives. The slave’s life only goes, it never comes.

It is essential to understand the scripture of the slave’s life. Whoever does not understand it will never be able to create the life of a master. The two have different scriptures, different arrangements. The scripture of the slave’s life is called the world. The life of mastery, of masterhood, is called dharma. Es dhammo sanantano—this is the formula of the eternal dharma.

Master means: to live as if life is here and now. Not postponed to tomorrow, not in hope, but in reality. The life of a master means: the mind is the slave, consciousness the master. Awareness the master; the tendencies not the masters. Use thoughts, but do not let thoughts use you. Put thoughts to work, but do not get put to work by thoughts. Keep the reins of life in your hands. Wherever you want to take life, let life go there—you are not to be dragged behind the mind.

The slave’s life is a life of unconsciousness. Like a charioteer drunk, the reins loose, the horses take the chariot wherever they wish—down rough tracks, into suffering, off the path—while the charioteer lies senseless.

In the Gita, Krishna is the charioteer. It means: when the charioteer becomes conscious, when the noblest within you holds the reins. To some it looks strange—Krishna as the charioteer. Arjuna, who as yet is a nobody, sits in the chariot; Krishna, who is everything, becomes the charioteer. But the symbol is exquisitely sweet. It says: let the nothing within you cease to be charioteer; let the all within you become the charioteer.

Your condition is inverted. Your Gita is upside down. Arjuna sits as charioteer; Krishna sits in the chariot. From the outside it even looks like masterhood, for Krishna sits in the chariot and Arjuna holds the reins. From the outside it seems you are the master. From the outside your Gita looks right. Think again: Vyasa’s Gita alone is right. Arjuna must be in the chariot, Krishna must be the charioteer. Seat the mind inside the chariot—no harm in that. But let attention be the charioteer—then mastery is born.

That is why, in this land, we have called the sannyasin a Swami. Swami means: one who has set his Gita right. Arjuna sits in the chariot, Krishna becomes the charioteer—that one is a sannyasin; that one is a Swami.

And to be a Swami is the only real life. Then you do not merely live—you become life. You become Great Life. Everything changes. Where yesterday were thorns, flowers begin to bloom. What misled you till yesterday, becomes your attendant. The same senses that led you only into suffering, begin to deliver you into supreme bliss. For the very senses by which you recognized the world, those very senses will begin to grant you the vision of the Paramatma. They too will receive the glimpse.

These very eyes—remember, I repeat again—these very eyes will begin to see That. And it was these very eyes that created the veil. Because of these eyes That could not be seen. Do not gouge out these eyes, as many unknowing ones have advised you. These eyes are meant for a great work; only the inner arrangement needs to be changed. The one who is the real master must be declared master—just that declaration is enough. And the one who is the slave must be declared slave.

Within you, the slave has sat as master, and the master has forgotten his masterhood. Hence through the eyes matter appears, not the Paramatma. Through the ears, only sound is heard, not the soundless. The hands touch only what has form and shape; the formless is not felt. I tell you, the moment the inner arrangement changes—master takes his place, slave takes his place, things are ordered; your scripture ceases to stand on its head, and becomes as it should be—instantly you will find these very eyes begin to glimpse the formless, and through matter the Paramatma peeps.

Matter is only a veil. The Beloved is hidden there. And through these very ears you will begin to hear the sound of shunya. These very ears can also receive the nada of Omkar. The ear is not at fault. The eye is not at fault. The senses have not led you astray—the charioteer is unconscious. Nor have the horses gone astray. How could the horses mislead? And do you feel no shame assigning responsibility to the horses?

Your sadhus and sannyasins keep telling you, the horses are at fault. What could horses do? And the one whom horses can throw off track—how will he ever arrive? The one who could not even hold his horses—what will he hold? He was not even worthy to arrive, if horses could mislead him.

No, you have strayed. Your reins are slack. Horses are just horses; they have no awareness. When you are unconscious, you expect awareness from the horses! When your consciousness is asleep, you ask consciousness from the senses! The senses become as you are. The senses are attendants. To change the arrangement of life—that is sadhana. And the foundation of this arrangement is simply this: let the mind cease to be master; let attention become master.

How long will you keep wandering with this vagabond pace?
Become the caravan’s lord—how long the caravan’s dust?

How long will you keep following the dust raised by the passing caravan, the dust flying behind the crowd? How long will you trail behind the mind, behind the body, behind the senses? How long will you follow the petty? Become the Amir-e-Karavan—now is the time to be the master, the guide of this caravan, the charioteer. Long enough have you remained Arjuna; the time has come to become Krishna.

Krishna and Arjuna are not two. They are two modes of the same person, two modes of the same consciousness. The chariot will remain the same—nothing changes. Seat Krishna within as charioteer, make Arjuna sit as passenger—everything steadies. Nothing added, nothing subtracted.

Buddha added nothing. He has just what you have—not a grain more. He dropped nothing—not a grain less. He neither discarded nor added—he changed the arrangement. The strings of the veena lay apart—he tightened them on the instrument. Or, the strings were loose—he tuned them. What needed to be where, he put it there. What did not belong, he shifted. Everything in Buddha is what is in you. What is the difference? The configuration. And when the configuration changes, everything changes—everything. You can scarcely believe that simply by reconfiguring, Buddhahood arises; that you yourself are Arjuna, you yourself are Krishna. For now, how can you believe?

First, wine was life—now life is wine.

That is all the difference. First, intoxication was life; now life itself is intoxication.

Someone is pouring; I keep drinking.

Just this much. Before, you were drinking—no one was pouring. Then wine seemed life, unconsciousness seemed life. Now life itself is wine. Life is celebration, is bliss; and now you are not drinking—

Someone is pouring; I keep drinking.

The arrangement changes and ego disappears. If Krishna sits in the chariot and Arjuna holds the reins, ego will be the outcome. If Arjuna sits and Krishna holds the reins, egolessness will be the outcome. The entire message of the Gita is only this much: Arjuna, drop yourself, become egoless. Do not drink with your own hand!

Someone is pouring; I keep drinking.

Let the Paramatma do whatever is done—be a nimitta, an instrument. Whoever becomes a nimitta becomes a master. For to be a nimitta is to become one with the Master.

Buddha’s aphorisms have been much misunderstood—let me say this first. For with a supreme aphorism, man is almost bound to understand it wrongly. When a ray enters man, it too becomes darkness. When fragrance enters man, it too becomes stench. When diamonds of understanding enter, in man’s grasp they are reduced to pebbles of misunderstanding. Buddha gave these aphorisms of immense value; those who followed him grasped them wrongly—just as followers of all have done. The matter is so subtle, so unlike man, that the moment it falls into his hands, it gets distorted.

“The mind is momentary, restless. To restrain it is difficult; to pacify it is difficult. Such a mind the intelligent one makes straight, simple, direct—like the fletcher straightens an arrow.”

From such sutras people concluded that the mind must be suppressed, erased, fought. Buddha is merely explaining the nature of mind. He is saying: the mind is momentary, restless. He is not asking you to fight; he is announcing a fact.

But the moment someone tells you: the mind is momentary, life is fleeting—you do not understand impermanence; you immediately start seeking the eternal. There the mistake happens. Whenever your so-called saints tell you life is fleeting, mind is momentary, you promptly begin to think: how to attain that which is non-momentary, the eternal, the sanatan? There the mistake occurs. The eternal is not to be sought; the momentary is to be understood.

In Japan there was a great Zen poet, Basho. A tiny haiku of his holds a wondrous meaning: Those who have known are precisely those who—on seeing a rainbow—did not instantly say, “Life is fleeting”; who—seeing a water-bubble burst—did not instantly say, “Life is fleeting”; who—seeing a dewdrop scatter or evaporate—did not instantly say, “We are sad; life is fleeting.” Those alone have known.

Strange—apparently against Buddha. Basho is a devotee of Buddha. Yet Basho understood.

The moment someone tells you life is fleeting and you become ready to renounce, you are not ready to renounce life—you are ready to renounce fleetingness. Your craving does not die; it grows. You start wanting the eternal. You held stones thinking them diamonds; when told, “these are stones,” you agreed to drop them—because now you want real diamonds. The attachment to diamonds has not gone. Earlier you clutched these thinking them diamonds; now you will clutch something else, thinking it the real diamond. But you remain the same.

When Buddha says, the mind is momentary, restless; life is fleeting—he is merely announcing a fact. He is saying: it is so. From this, do not derive craving, sadhana, ambition, hope, dreams of future. And the wonder is: the one who sees the fact becomes available to the eternal. As soon as you see that the mind is momentary, nothing needs to be done to attain the eternal. In the very understanding that mind is momentary, the mind falls silent.

Understand it carefully. In the very awareness that mind is momentary—like a water bubble: now it is, now it is not; like the morning star touching the horizon, sinking—what is there to do? In such seeing, you awaken; the gestalt changes. The entire arrangement of your seeing changes. The bridges of hope you had tied to the fleeting collapse.

Do not seek the eternal; awaken from the fleeting. The moment you awaken, what remains is the eternal. No one goes to attain the eternal—because eternal means that which was never lost. That which can be lost—what eternal is that? Yes, you are entangled in the fleeting; let the entanglement dissolve—the eternal is already attained.

But what do you do? You convert your entanglement with the fleeting into an entanglement with the eternal. You were running toward the world—someone warned you; you did not awaken—for he said, “Do not run”—you were running toward the world; Buddha met you on the path and said, “Where are you going? There is nothing there.” He meant only that you stop, do not run. You listened, but your craving altered his meaning. You said, “Fine—if there is nothing here, then I will run toward moksha.” But run I will.

Running is the world. If you had stopped, moksha would have been attained. You stopped running toward the world and began to run toward liberation. You stopped clutching the fleeting and began clutching the eternal. You stopped seeking wealth and began seeking religion. But the seeking continues. With the seeking, you continue—your ego continues; with the seeking, your stupor continues, your sleep continues. Directions changed; the madness did not. What difference if a madman runs east or west? North or south—what difference? Running is the madness.

These are facts. Therefore in Zen—the very core of Buddha-dharma—there are a thousand mentions that merely reading and listening to Buddha’s words, many attained Samadhi. People of other paths do not grasp this—how could it be? Merely by listening?

Buddha’s supreme scripture—the Sanskrit form was lost in India; its Chinese and Tibetan versions helped rediscover it—is the Diamond Sutra. In it, hundreds of times Buddha says: Whoever even understands four lines of this sutra is liberated. Hundreds of times—almost every page. Sometimes it is puzzling—why such emphasis? Many times he says to the monk before him: Listen—if the grains of sand on the banks of the Ganga, if each grain were itself a Ganga—how many grains of sand would lie on the banks of all those Gangas? The monk says, “Countless, beyond reckoning.” Buddha says, “If someone performed charity equal to that countlessness—how great would his merit be?” The monk says, “Infinite—beyond reckoning.” Buddha says, “Yet the merit of one who understands even four lines of this scripture is beyond compare.”

Whoever reads it is a little shocked—four lines? The whole sutra can be read in half an hour; it is not big. Four lines? What is Buddha saying? He offered a new vision—the vision of seeing the fact. He is saying: If even in four lines he sees the fact I am pointing to, nothing remains to be done—the matter is settled. Truth seen as truth, false seen as false—the matter is finished. If you still ask, “What should we do?” it means you have not understood. Once understood, nothing remains to be done—for doing is the very stupidity.

That same Arjuna keeps asking Krishna, “If I do this, what will happen? If I do that, what will happen?” And Krishna says, “Drop talking of doing. Leave the doing to That. Do not do—your doing will spoil everything. Let That do.”

First, wine was life—now life is wine.
Someone is pouring; I keep drinking.

Buddha says: Once known, once understood—it is done. The urge to do arises only out of unawareness. For you are bodha, chaitanya. ‘Mind is momentary, restless’—this is no theory, only a declaration of truth. Listen—nothing to do. Recognize—no discipline to perform.

“The mind is momentary, restless. To restrain it is difficult; to pacify it is difficult. Such a mind the intelligent man makes straight, simple, direct—just as the fletcher straightens an arrow.”

If an arrow is crooked, oblique, it does not reach the mark. It must be straight, direct, simple—then it reaches. Is your mind crooked or straight? Complex or simple? Your mind is your mind. You are the fletcher; your mind is the arrow in your hand. Have you noticed—you keep making it more complex, more entangled.

What does straight and simple mean? To see the mind as it is—just as it is. Instantly the mind becomes simple. This is the vision of mind—call it dhyana, call it apramad; give it any name. See the mind as it is and it becomes simple at once.

Suppose you are a thief, or a liar. A man who lies comes to me and says, “Teach me the art of truth.” He is already entangled in lies; now he wants to add a new entanglement of truth. How to teach truth-telling to a liar? Even learning that art he will lie.

A man of anger says, “Teach me non-anger.” How to teach non-anger to an angry man? If you tell him to sit quietly at home—how will he sit? Anger will boil. Often when such angry people begin prayer and worship, the whole household suffers. Better they had not. If a child makes a little noise their anger erupts—“You disturbed my meditation!” If a pot slips from the wife’s hand, their religion, meditation is “ruined.” How will their anger go? They will be angry on the basis of meditation itself.

Someone violent asks to become non-violent. How will a violent mind become non-violent? He was already complex—non-violence will create more trouble. He will find techniques to appear non-violent and remain violent. Earlier, at least his violence was visible; if it gets covered with non-violence, it will never be seen. A man full of lust says, “Brahmacharya is my practice.” Trying to move opposite to yourself—you become complex.

What does Buddha say? If angry, know the fact of anger; do not attempt to become non-angry. If angry, accept anger. Announce to the whole world: I am angry. Do not go about hiding it—for when has hiding ever healed a disease! Expose it—perhaps it will flow out. Not perhaps—flow out it does. If violent, accept: I am violent. Do not reject the humility of admitting your violence. Is it not that in your attempt to be non-violent you are trying to cover the fact of being violent—put a flower over the wound, spray perfume over filth? It is so.

Hence you will find lustful people becoming “brahmacharis”—and from their celibacy nothing rises but the stench of lust. Angry people begin to sit silently, but in their silence you will sense the volcano of anger. Worldly people become sannyasins—and their sannyas is nothing but worldliness. Yet you too are deceived, for outwardly they change their garb—turn the thing upside down. Greed inside; ostentation of charity outside.

Remember: when the greedy give, they give for greed. The greed will be for the next world—to cash it in heaven, a promissory note. He writes drafts—he will encash them in heaven. He is calculating what returns he will get there. And to incite such greed, pundits and priests are handy: “Give one here, get a million there.” Keep accounts—are you making a deal? It is a dishonest deal. Priests on the Ganga’s banks say, “Donate one coin here—receive a million-fold.” What deal is this? Worse than gambling. How will one coin become a million? They inflate the hope to wrest even the one coin from you. Your greed is being provoked. The greedy build temples, dharmashalas—but all this is only the spread of greed.

Dana is possible only when greed is gone. With greed, how is dana possible? Brahmacharya is possible only when lust falls away. With lust, how is brahmacharya possible? Dhyana is possible only when mind is gone. With mind, how is meditation possible? If you “meditate” while mind remains, you will meditate with mind. Meditation of mind—how can that be meditation? The absence of mind is meditation.

Therefore Buddha gifted the world with a new scripture—simply to wake up and see facts. He did not teach doing the opposite. He taught only: make what you are simple, straightforward. In that straightness lies the solution. If angry, know anger; do not hide it. Do not mask it, do not smile over it.

Do not hide life with lies—expose it. You will be amazed: if you accept your anger, your hate, jealousy, envy, they will begin to loosen. A certain saintliness will descend; ego will begin to fall on its own. Ego survives only so long as you deceive. Ego is the essence of deception—distilled deception. The more deception you have spread, the bigger the ego—because you have pulled off a big trick and fooled the world, so you are puffed up. Uncover everything.

What Jesus called confession—accept. And what he said: “He who has confessed is free”—that is exactly what Buddha said, though he could not use the word confession. For in Buddha’s vision there is no God-place—before whom to confess? Accept before yourself. In the acceptance of fact lies freedom from the fact. In the acceptance of the fact lies going beyond it.

Use this priceless formula a little in life—you will be astonished: an alchemy falls into your hands, a key. Accept what you are. If a thief, a thief. If a liar, a liar. If dishonest, dishonest. What will you do then? In that acceptance you will find that suddenly what you were begins to change. It did not change because you kept it hidden. Open the wound to light, let the sun touch it, fresh air caress it—the wound begins to heal. So too these inner wounds—open them before the world, and they begin to heal.

This is what Buddha calls: the intelligent man, the understanding one, the one with a little sense. Those who do the reverse—angry turning to non-anger, violent trying to be non-violent—these are the foolish. Not intelligent. They are wasting time. They will never become anything. They have missed the root. The mistake is at the first step.

“The intelligent one makes his mind straight, simple, direct—like the fletcher straightens an arrow.”

What you crave, you will be deprived of—Es dhammo sanantano. What you accept, you will be freed from. What you do not ask for begins to follow you; what you ask for withdraws. Your asking pushes it away.

The secret of attaining desire is to renounce desire.
When I dropped the world, the world fell into my hands.

This is the secret of success in life—of success in aspiration: drop aspiration.

The secret of attaining desire is to renounce desire.
When I dropped the world, the world fell into my hands.

If you drop the race to become non-angry and accept anger—what else will you do? Where will you hide it? From whom? Where will you carry it hidden? It will only sink deeper within, put down roots. If you are violent, accept violence—and suddenly you will be startled: violence is gone, and non-violence is available.

Whatever you run to attain, that very thing will not be attained. You want to be non-violent—you will not be. You want to be peaceful—you will not be. You want to be a sannyasin—you will not be. What is to be cannot happen through wanting. Wanting drives things away. Wanting is a barrier. Be at ease with what you are; do not budge a hair’s breadth from the fact; do not go into the future; accept the present—“When I dropped the world, the world fell into my hands.”

The world kept fleeing when we craved it;
When we grew averse, it became eager to come.

Whatever you chase—by your chasing you do not allow it to come behind you. Stop chasing—stand still. And what you had wanted, what you had asked for, will shower. But it showers only when the beggar’s bowl within has vanished—when the shape of the demander is no more. When you stand like an emperor. This I call being a master. Whatever you are, being that, you can be a master. If you want to be something else—how can you be a master? Then wanting remains; you remain a beggar.

Today, now, this very moment you can be a master. The moment wanting drops, man becomes a master. There is no other way to be a master. If you ask me, “How?”—you have missed again. For you have created another pathway for wanting. “You are right, I too want to be a master.”

I say, you can be one this instant. You are—just a matter of opening your eyes. You say, “I want to be.” You convert the fact into a want. By making it a want, you push the fact away. The farther the fact recedes, the more you desire it; the more you desire it, the farther it goes. How will wanting ever connect with fact? Fact is. Want says, “should be.” There is no meeting between these two.

Buddha’s scripture is: see the fact. And do not try to move even a fraction away from what is. This is the whole essence of Krishnamurti as well: do not move a hair’s breadth away from what you are. If you try to go otherwise—you stray. Try to go the opposite—and you make the goal infinitely distant. In acceptance, in tathata, lies the revolution.

“As a fish snatched from water and flung upon the ground flounders, so does the mind flounder to escape the snare of Mara.”

That was their language in those days. Let’s put it in today’s.

“As a fish taken from the reservoir and thrown onto land flounders…” The reservoir is the fact, what is—the very life of the fish—and from it, the fish is thrown onto the shore.

“And just as the fish flounders, so does this mind flounder to escape the snare of Mara.” What is Mara’s snare? Aspiration. Hope. The desire to become something and the race.

In the life of Jesus it is said: after forty days of meditation, as he drew near the supreme state, the devil appeared. That devil is none other than your mind. At the time of dying it flares up like the lamp’s last leap before going out. Mind means the same voice that kept saying to you all along: become something… become something…—that drove you. At the final moment of Jesus’ meditation, the mind appeared. In Jesus’ language, Satan; in Buddha’s, Mara. The mind said, “Whatever you want to become, I will make you. I will make you the ruler of the world—the three worlds. Speak—whatever you want to become, I will make you.” Jesus smiled and said, “Get behind me.” Satan, step back! What is Jesus saying? “Do not trick me anymore with becoming. Enough. What I am is sufficient. Stand aside. Give me the way.”

As Buddha neared the supreme hour, the same event. Mara appeared—mind—and said, “Do not drop hope so soon. At that dusk… Buddha had become free of the world six years earlier; for six years he sought moksha, and in six years he was exhausted—because by seeking, nothing is ever attained. It did not happen for Buddha—how will it for you? Seeking is a device for wandering, not arriving. That day he grew weary even of seeking; moksha too seemed futile. The world was futile; now moksha also became futile. At dusk, under the tree where a little later he would awaken to Buddhahood, he rested his head and said, ‘Now nothing is to be attained.’ Mara appeared: ‘Do not drop hope so quickly. Much can yet be done. Much means remain. I will tell you.’”

But Buddha did not listen. He remained lying, in repose. Mara could not drag him back into the race. Mara tried in every way: “This is a way to attain moksha; this is a way to attain truth.” Buddha watched with indifference.

Jesus at least said, “Get behind me”; Buddha did not even say that. For even in “get behind” Jesus loses a little. Buddha did not say even that. The Buddhist scriptures say: Buddha listened indifferently. He did not grant even the relish of refusal. Refusal too has its taste—acceptance has taste, refusal has taste. Buddha displayed even greater maturity than Jesus, an even greater proof of ripeness. Buddha kept listening. For a while Mara tried, then grew despondent: “This man says nothing. Not even, ‘Go away, do not try to drown me, do not mislead me anymore.’” Had Buddha said even that, Mara would have tried a little longer. But Buddha did not say even that.

It is said that Mara departed that night: “All ties with this man are cut.” That is the moment of Samadhi—when you are not even against mind; when you do not even say to mind, “Go!” When you do not even say, “Now stop; stop thinking; let me be quiet”—not even that; only then you become silent. For then mind has no hold over you—no strength to make you restless, no strength to disturb your meditation. You have gone beyond mind. That night, with the morning star, as the last star sank, Buddha attained supreme prajna.

Like the fish flung onto land, so are you floundering—mind is floundering—because you lie outside the reservoir of fact and truth, upon the shore of hope. The ghost rides you—“I must become something.” Other than what you are—how will you be? You can only be what you are. Beyond, outside—it is nothing. But mind is haunted: “I must become.” Poor—become rich. Sick—become healthy. Corporeal—become bodiless. On earth—become in heaven. In the world—become in moksha. Become something. Becoming—related not to ‘is’ but to ‘should be.’

Becoming is Mara. Becoming is Satan. And on the shore of becoming you flounder like a fish. But you do not leave the shore. The more you flounder, the more you think: “I am floundering because I have not yet become; when I become, the floundering will cease”—and you begin to run. Faulty logic slides you farther along the shore. While right beside you lies the ocean of fact—step into it and the fish is content, all its restlessness gone. As near as the fish floundering on the bank is to water—even nearer is your ocean.

“As a fish flung from water onto land flounders, so does this mind flounder to escape Mara’s noose.” Yet every floundering entangles it further, because even there it uses the language of Mara—of craving—not of understanding. Shopkeepers are miserable—their gain did not come. Worshippers are miserable—their gain did not come.

In Jesus’ life: he passed through a village and saw people beating their chests and weeping. “What happened? What calamity?” “No calamity—we quake in fear of hell.”

Where is hell? Mind has conjured fears of hell; they tremble before them.

A little further he saw others sitting despondent, as people sit in temples—very grave. “What happened? What misfortune? Why such long faces?” “Nothing—we are anxious about heaven—will we attain it?”

Further on, beneath a tree, he found some seated utterly serene, joyous, at ease. “What stream has flowed into your life? Why so calm, so delighted, so radiant?” “We have dropped the idea of heaven and hell.”

Heaven is the pleasure you want to attain; hell is the pain you want to avoid. Both are future, both are in craving, both are Mara’s nooses. When you drop both, here-now, what is called moksha, Nirvana, becomes available.

Nirvana is your nature. You will find it only in being what you are. In the race to become, you keep missing it.

To smolder and call it living—is that any living?
Set fire to your heart, madman—how long this smoke?

This urge to become does not kindle fire; it produces only smoke. Buddha says: a mind full of craving is like wet wood—put it to flame, and there is no blaze, only smoke. When wood is dry, the flame rises. As long as craving dampens your understanding and life, there will be no fire, no light—only smoke. Your own smoke is ruining your eyes. Your own smoke blinds you; your eyes fill with tears—life’s truth cannot be seen.

To smolder and call it living—is that any living?
Set fire to your heart, madman—how long this smoke?

And smoke will keep rising until all dampness of craving has dried within you. Wood does not give smoke—dampness does. The water hidden in the wood gives smoke. It is not you who give off smoke—it is the moistness of desire within you that smokes.

The renunciate, Buddha says, is like dry wood. He who has dropped all notions of craving.

“That which is hard to restrain, very fluid, light in its nature, darting wherever it pleases—such a mind, to subdue it is best. Subdued, it is blissful.”

Understand the word ‘subdue.’ In Buddha’s day it meant something else; after Freud, the word ‘repression’ has changed meanings. Language does not remain the same; it changes with use.

In Buddha’s and Patanjali’s time, ‘daman’—subduing—meant something else. It meant: in mind, in life, in your innermost core, whenever you are angry, or restless, or anxious, a definite quantum of energy is being wasted. Naturally, when you are angry you will be tired—energy is wasted; when lust-filled—energy is wasted; when sad—energy is wasted.

A strange thing: only in moments of peace is energy not wasted; in moments of joy, energy grows—far from being spent, it blossoms. Therefore Buddha says: in apramad be promudita—let joy arise in vigilance. In sorrow, energy declines; in peace, it steadies; in joy, it increases. And whenever you are entangled in negative states, energy is being squandered. Holes open in you—like holes in a pot into which you pour water and it runs out.

So when Buddha or Patanjali say ‘daman’—subduing the mind—they do not mean: suppress anger in the mind. They mean: seal the holes through which energy leaks; redirect the energy engaged in anger toward creative directions in life.

Observe it. Anger surges—a slight, an insult, something precious broken at home—and anger boils. Do one thing: go outside, take a spade in the garden, dig a pit two feet deep. You will be astonished—digging, the anger dissipates. What happened? The energy that had reached your hands ready to strike got used. Or run around the house three times—and you will find you return light; anger has vanished.

This is transformation of anger. This is what Buddha, Mahavira, and Patanjali call daman. Freud calls repression: anger arises—push it inside; do not express it. That is dangerous—very dangerous. Better to express than to repress. If anger remains inside, it festers; if you nurse a boil within day after day, tomorrow or the day after it becomes cancer.

The more ‘civilized’ humanity becomes, the more dangerous diseases spread. Cancer is a very new disease—befalls only the very civilized, not dwellers of the forest. Ayurveda called some ailments ‘royal diseases’—only kings suffered them. Tuberculosis was called a royal disease—not everyone got it. It required the levels of civilization where emotions cannot be expressed easily, where you must show false feelings—smile when you want to cry; offer thanks where you feel like breaking a neck. Then these suppressed emotions gradually turn into wounds.

Freud is right: repression is dangerous. But what Buddha, Mahavira, and Patanjali call daman is not dangerous—they mean something else: transmutation. To convert the negative into the positive—that is their daman. And such a mind becomes blissful.

“Subdued, the mind is blissful.” That is the sign. In Freud’s sense, repression makes the mind miserable.

So beware: avoid repression in Freud’s sense; practice daman in Buddha’s sense. When anger arises, energy has arisen—use it, else it will be harmful. If you throw it at another, you harm the other—and anger begets anger; enmity does not end enmity; it has no end, the chain is endless. If you press anger inside, you poison your own sources—anger is venom; your joy fades; you can no longer be cheerful. Your laughter becomes false—on the lips only, without a ripple in your being. Your eyes will speak one thing, your lips another. You will fall apart piece by piece.

So neither by hurling anger upon another will you be happy—no one ever became happy by making others unhappy—nor by suppressing it inside—then it gathers to erupt as madness any day. For a while you sit upon the volcano—an explosion is certain. Both paths are dangerous.

Transformation is needed. Employ the energy of anger positively. If nothing else, run. When anger surges—dance. When anger surges—sing a song. When anger surges—go for a walk. When anger surges—engage in some work; do not sit idle, for the energy must be used. You will soon find a key—the negative emotions can be used; stones on the path can become steps.

If earth and sky feel cramped, then drop them—
But first, give birth to new earths and skies.

Remember: before you drop the wrong, create the right. Otherwise, the energy released from dropping the wrong—where will it go?

You come to me to drop anger. But much energy is invested in anger—if anger stops at once, the energy freed—what will you do with it? It will weigh heavy on you, a stone on your chest.

If earth and sky feel cramped, then drop them—
But first, give birth to new earths and skies.

If this earth and sky are to be dropped, first create the other earth and sky within—then drop these. Creation comes first. More important than fighting the wrong is to kindle the right. Lift up the right so that the energy freed from the wrong flows into the channel of the right; otherwise its flood will drown you. Build the canals beforehand, to carry the waters to your fields, that buried seeds may sprout and you may harvest the crop of life.

“Far-roaming, solitary, bodiless, subtle, deep in hidden tendencies—this mind, those who balance it are the ones who are freed from Mara’s bonds.”

Do not strive so much to be free of bondage—strive for samyam. Understand samyam: it does not mean control; it means balance. The word has been distorted by wrong expositions. You call the one who controls ‘a man of samyam’; I call the one who balances ‘a man of samyam.’ The difference is great. The controller represses in Freud’s sense; the balancer transforms in Buddha’s sense. The balancer need not control—control is needed only when there is no balance. He who lives in fear—“If I do not control, things will go out of hand”—lives trembling. Your so-called ascetics live like this—afraid, shaky, anxious lest they commit a mistake. This is too much concern with mistake. This is a bigger fear than the mistake itself.

Life’s direction must be toward rightness, not away from error. He who only avoids error reaches nowhere—he is so afraid of error that he cannot walk; he remains in panic: “What if I err? In love, jealousy might arise”—so he does not love. “In relationship, enmity might arise”—so he forms none. Then he misses friendship. If you make neither enemies nor friends, your life is a desert. You avoid jealousy, but if you cannot love, your life is dry, juiceless—no oasis, no shade.

Avoid jealousy, not love. So put your attention on love—do not tremble before jealousy, do not tremble before error. There is only one error in the world: trembling before error. Such a man cannot move; he shrinks and sits. He may manage control, but not the truth of life—he becomes a corpse. He does not attain Great Life. You can flee the world; if that flight is control, you sink below even worldliness. Your peace will be that of the cremation ground, not of the shrine. Your emptiness will be a void of depletion, not the emptiness of meditation.

There is a vast difference between blankness and meditation; between absence of mind as dullness and the mind having become absent in awareness.

If you shrink back in fear, it may be your life shows no errors—but rightness also stops. A costly bargain—losing the right for fear of its debris. Like throwing away gold for fear of the speck of dirt. Throw away the dirt; refine the gold. But let not the fear of dirt take over.

Samyam means: life in balance. Balance means: life in awareness, in apramad. Take each step with awareness; do not fear falling. If you must fall—no need to panic. Cultivate the capacity to recover. If you fall, cultivate the capacity to rise. If you err, cultivate the understanding to correct. But do not be afraid to move. Do not sit down on the roadside because the path has thorns, mistakes, robbers—“we might be looted, we might stray; better not to walk at all.”

This is what happened in India. Many sat down by the roadside—India died. Not religious—only dead. The West is better—they made many mistakes; but what of it? They are alive, and the living can set things right. Becoming a corpse is not becoming religious. To be religious is to burn the trash off the gold—not to throw away the gold along with the trash.

So the West has a chance to become religious. The East is rigid. We were given truth many times—by many Buddhas—but we read those truths in ways that shrank us, drew boundaries around us—did not free us into the boundless. From the Upanishads to now we have talked of the infinite—but everything gave us limits.

Do not take samyam to mean control—take it to mean awareness.

“He whose mind is unsteady, who does not know saddrama, whose shraddha wavers—his prajna cannot become complete.”

Now, a marvel: Buddha says, “He who does not know the true dharma—his faith wavers.” All religions put faith first; Buddha puts knowing first. Know the true dharma, then faith steadies. Religions say: believe, then you will know. Buddha says: if you do not know, how will you believe? Know first—then you will believe.

Buddha’s word suits this century. This is a century full of doubt. To talk of faith is futile. Those who can have it—no need to say anything. Those who cannot—you can harp on faith—it is useless. They cannot. Even your talk of faith arouses suspicion. Suspicion has come—what to do? This is the century of doubt.

Therefore Buddha alone is close to this age. Jesus or Krishna feel too far—because they begin with faith. Faith does not take root, the first step fails. Buddha says, forget faith—know the saddrama, the fact; and the means of knowing is: become still. Buddha said: for meditation, faith is not necessary. Meditation is a scientific process. Whether you believe in God or not—it makes no difference. Buddha says: you can meditate.

Meditate—and you will begin to still within. For that stillness, no God in the sky is needed. Whether God made the world or not has nothing to do with the stilling of meditation. Meditation’s stillness is like this: mix oxygen and hydrogen and water forms—no scientist says, “First accept God, then water will form.” Meditation is a scientific experiment. Learn the art of inner stillness—knowing of saddrama will happen; from knowing, faith will arise.

Thus Buddha is the closest to this century of doubt. He did not insist on faith; he insisted on bodha.

“He who does not know saddrama, whose shraddha wavers—his prajna cannot become complete.” Buddha is not laying down conditions—he is stating facts. If there is awareness of saddrama, faith will arise; with faith, fullness will come—prajna will be complete. If not, prajna will not be complete. And until prajna is complete—until your knowing is complete—your life cannot be complete.

In knowing lie all sources, for essentially you are knowing—shakti of knowing. Essentially you are bodha. That is why we called him Buddha—because of bodha. His name was Gautam Siddhartha; when he attained supreme prajna and bodha, we called him Buddha. In you too bodha lies hidden as much as in him. If it awakens, Buddhahood will arise within you. Until this happens, do not rest. Until then, all rest is false. Do not console yourself—consolation is not contentment. You have stopped on the path, taken a wayside inn for the goal.

“He whose mind is unsteady, who does not know saddrama, whose shraddha wavers—his prajna cannot become complete.” And if prajna does not become complete, you remain incomplete. And if you remain incomplete, restlessness remains. And if restless, there are only two ways: either you go to search for peace—or you understand restlessness.

Understanding restlessness is Buddha’s way. He who understands restlessness becomes peaceful. He who sets out in search of peace takes on newer restlessnesses.

There are two ways to live life: the way of the master and the way of the slave. The slave’s way—what way is that! If you must live, live as a master. Otherwise better to die from this life—at least dying is true. This life is false—dreamlike. You have lived as a slave—you found nothing, though your only search was to find. Now live as a master. Only the scripture must change, the formula must change. That is all. Until now you lived for tomorrow—now live today. Until now you lived to become—now live as you are. Until now you lived in stupor—now live awake, with awareness.

And remember, each step in awareness brings Buddhahood nearer. Each step in awareness activates the springs of Buddhahood within you. The cloud can shower any moment. Change the configuration a little—and all is already with you; nothing to be added. Nor is there anything in you to be thrown away. The veena’s strings are loose or broken—fasten and tune them. The fingers are already there, the veena is already there—only the coordination of fingers on the strings is needed. Any moment the balance can set—and music can arise.

Enough for today.