Es Dhammo Sanantano #47

First thing: there is no one who sends you. No one sends you—you go yourself.
Understand this very clearly, otherwise you will never catch hold of the Buddha’s vision. The most fundamental thing in the Buddha’s approach is this: religion devoid of God. If in any way you keep holding on to God, you will not be able to understand the Buddha’s dharma. Under the pretext of God you have handed responsibility over to another.

You say, “We have already suffered so much—may we not be sent to hell now,” as if there were someone to send you! Or, “We have prayed and worshipped so much—may we be sent to heaven,” as if someone were distributing prizes. There is no one there.

Buddha says: you are alone. And you have to accept this aloneness in its totality. Liberation comes only from a deep recognition of this aloneness. So long as the Other remains, and the convenience of shifting the burden onto the Other remains, you will stay bound. Sometimes the world will bind you; sometimes religion will. The key to bondage is that you keep passing responsibility to someone else. “God exists; he is making me do what I do. Wherever he sends me, there I will go. If he gives pleasure—pleasure; if he gives pain—pain.” You do not want to take responsibility for yourself. You are afraid of the responsibility that freedom brings.

Buddha holds the human being as the ultimate majesty—there is none above it. And human freedom is the very means of being divine.

Understand it like this—it may sound very paradoxical: Buddha is saying that if you believe in God you will never become divine. Your belief itself becomes the obstacle. Remove the Other. Consent to being alone. If there is suffering, know that you are the cause—no other. If you want joy, it will not come by prayer or worship; you will have to create it. If you want to reap a harvest, you must sow the seed. If you want sweet mangoes, you must plant mango seeds. If you go on sowing neem seeds yet hanker for mangoes—and keep God as your excuse in between—this will not do.

So first, understand: there is no one there to send you anywhere. Perhaps it is precisely because of this notion of “someone there” that you have never steadied yourself, never looked to your own feet, never inquired into your own direction, never awakened yourself. You have lived inattentive, in a stupor. You always thought, “Whatever is being done is being done by him.” And, “We will pray, we will placate, we will cry, we will persuade—God is compassionate.” But even this idea of compassion is your idea. “God the great redeemer”—that too is your notion. You commit sin and call him the purifier of the fallen—whom are you fooling? You weave webs of your own imagination, and then get entangled in them.

Buddha says: break the webs of imagination. You are alone. In your inner world, in your mental universe, there is none other than you. In the world you seek the Other; in religion too you seek the Other. In the world you seek a wife, a husband, a son, a brother, a sister—someone else. You are not prepared to be alone even there. Aloneness frightens you. Leave you alone in a house and fear grabs you, you begin to tremble. Someone is needed.

If you are left utterly alone and cannot find anyone, you start imagining. Sitting in solitude you dream only of the Other. Shut you in a cave and you will still people it with a crowd. You will talk to your wife, to your husband, to friends; you will quarrel. You cannot remain alone.

One day, somehow frightened by the world, you create another world—which you call religion. Then you go to the temple and talk to a stone idol. This is deception at its limit!

Earlier too you had chosen idols—but at least they were living. Even in the deception there was a little truth. Your wife, at least, was more alive than your God. Precisely because she was alive, difficulties arose: she did not do as you wished, did not turn out as you imagined. Her reality would not let your fantasy stand—it shattered it again and again.

Finally you panicked. You came to the temple and connected yourself to a stone image. This image will never break your fantasy. It is not there at all. You place a flute upon its lips—it will not take it down. Make it dance—it dances. Seat it—it sits. You make it Rama—it becomes Rama; you make it Krishna—it becomes Krishna. It is only your net. You have found an idol that is like a street-performer’s monkey—your own monkey. However you make it dance, it dances.

And the fun is that you will pray to this monkey and ask it to “make me dance rightly.” The monkey is yours, the fantasy is yours, the dream is yours—and you have organized a profound self-deception. You sin and say to it, “You are the purifier of sinners.” You commit crimes and say, “You are the great compassionate one.” You wander in darkness and say, “God is light.” What you are, you project the opposite onto God. This God is the extension, the projection of your imagination.

Buddha says: in the world you held on to the Other; now you have again grabbed the Other. When will you be yourself? When will you become your own? Appo deepo bhava—be a light unto yourself! When will you say, “There is no Other; only I am. And whatever is to be done must be done from this I—if hell is to be made, it will be made by the Self; if heaven is to be made, it will be made by the Self. If I am to taste sorrow, I must be the master of it; if I am to taste bliss, I must walk the path myself. There is none besides me.”

That is why the Buddha’s dharma could not last long in India. He insists so relentlessly on truth, and we, being so imaginative, are unwilling to accept such insistence on truth. Truth appears dangerous to us. We cannot live without dreams.

Sigmund Freud, at the end of his life, said: After analyzing the minds of thousands, I have come to one conclusion—man cannot live with truth. Falsehood is necessary; lies are necessary; deception is necessary.

This statement resonates deeply with another great German thinker, Nietzsche. He had said before Freud: People think truth and life are one—wrong! Truth is anti-life; illusion sustains life. People live by delusion; truth snatches away all props. Truth leaves you utterly naked, with nowhere to hide; it leaves you standing naked in the marketplace. You need excuses—and God is your greatest excuse.

Buddha is not saying there is no God—note this well. He is saying that whatever God you fabricate is not God. Whatever you can construct is not it. The God of your making is not God. Smash all your idols.

No greater iconoclast than Buddha has appeared. Muslims have broken many idols, yet even Mohammed is not such an iconoclast as Buddha—for they still accept God. “Don’t make images, don’t keep forms,” they say—but you will still fold your hands in some direction. Even for the formless you will make a direction; form will sneak in. “Don’t make pictures”—but what does that change? The picture will be made within. No one has been a greater breaker of idols than Buddha.

Let me remind you: Buddha is not anti-God; he is for the Divine, and precisely therefore he is against your conceptions. He wants all your imaginings to shatter. He wants you so utterly alone that there remains no way to escape, nowhere else to go—no path remains by which to go away from yourself. Then, in your own depth, in your own nature, you will find that which you now imagine and name “God.” God is not imagination; God is self-experience.

So first, don’t even ask, “Why should we be sent to hell?” If you want to go, you will go. If you do not want to go, no one can send you. Drop this business of accusing God.

And see the absurdity: if you will offer thanks, you will also offer blame. If you trust in prayer, you also harbor complaint. You will say, “O God, you are gracious and compassionate,” but from the corner of your eye you will keep watching, “Is the grace happening or not? Are we the only ones repeating words here—are you complying with us or not?” Complaint stands alongside gratitude. Where there is gratitude, there will be grievance. Grievance is gratitude standing on its head, and gratitude is grievance standing on its head—they are two names for one thing, two aspects.

Buddha says: neither complaint nor gratitude. There is no one there to thank, and no one there to complain to. Buddha throws you back upon yourself completely. He throws you back upon yourself so uncompromisingly that he will not give you a grain of support—not even extend a hand. He says: all hands are dangerous, all props are dangerous. By leaning on such supports you went astray. Do not ask for crutches. You are alone; your destiny is alone. Consent to this.

“The river has only its own surge to mind—
Whether someone’s boat crosses or remains midstream.”

The ocean delights in its own waves. Whether your boat sinks or survives is no concern of the ocean. It revels in its flood. Sink or swim—it is up to you.

Buddha makes you your own absolute master. Yes, this mastery is a costly bargain—it is arduous. You are left so alone that even excuse vanishes. You can no longer say, “If I am unhappy someone else is responsible.” You alone are responsible.

Understand this a little. The human mind always wants to shift responsibility onto someone else. This is the mind’s deepest trick. When you are unhappy you immediately begin to search: “Who is making me unhappy?” You never consider that unhappiness may be your own standpoint. Your wife said something, your husband spoke harshly, your son misbehaved, society didn’t support you, the state is your enemy, circumstances are adverse—you instantly look for an alibi. For you cannot accept that you are unhappy because of yourself.

“How can I accept that?” you say. “I never want to be unhappy. If I don’t want it, how could I be its cause?” Naturally your logic says, “Someone else is sowing thorns in my path. I only ask for flowers; I never desired anything but flowers—so if thorns have come, someone else is to blame.”

But who is so free as to sow thorns for you? Who has the time? Who values you so highly that they will come to scatter thorns in your way? Others are as busy trying to sow flowers in their own lives as you are. They too have no leisure—just as you don’t. Yet they suffer, and you suffer. It seems as if you go on sowing seeds blindfolded.

The experience of the Buddhas is: if there is suffering, you are the cause. There is no exception. You must have sown it. Perhaps you sowed the seeds long ago; the crop takes time to ripen; perhaps you even forgot when you sowed those bitter seeds. Perhaps, in your logic, no connection remains between seeds and fruits. But that makes no difference. Your suffering is the fruit of your own seeds.

You say, “But I don’t want to be unhappy.” That too is not true. I have known thousands, and I have yet to find the person who truly does not want to be unhappy. Everyone says they want happiness—people come wanting happiness. But when I look closely I see them clutching unhappiness so tightly that their claim to want happiness becomes unbelievable. And then I see this too: what they call “happiness” is itself only another name for misery. There is confusion in their understanding.

Consider: a man wants respect. He calls that happiness. But if he craves respect, what will he do with insult? In the very desire for honor, the sorrow of dishonor is born. The moment you ask for respect, the possibility of insult arises. The more you want to appear great, the more others will want to make you small—because if you are big, they are made small. They too want respect. Only if you are small can they be big. So the struggle begins: “I am big, you are small.” You are doing it; they are doing it. Both want honor, and both receive insult.

Think a little: there are four billion people on earth. Each individual is fighting against four billion others to prove, “I am the greatest,” and four billion are trying to prove, “We are the greatest.” How will you win? There is no possibility of victory; you will go mad.

You will suffer insult and say, “Others are hurting me—so-and-so insulted me.” Go deeper: if you had not asked for respect, could anyone insult you? Let them try; it would not even touch you.

Ramakrishna used to tell a story: A kite was flying with a dead mouse in its beak. Some twenty-five other kites were chasing it, swooping at it. The kite was harassed: “Why are they after me?” In the tussle the mouse fell from its beak. At that very moment all twenty-five left it and chased after the mouse. It sat on a tree and thought: “None of them were against me. I had grabbed the mouse, and they wanted the same mouse. Once it fell, the matter ended—no enemies remained.”

If everyone seems your enemy, you must have some mouse in your mouth. They want the same mouse. Don’t blame them. The mistake you are making, at least give them equal right to make that mistake too. Mice are few; kites are many. And mice must be few—otherwise they would lose all value.

If everyone could be honored—if all four billion received presidential awards, if everyone became a Bharat Ratna, if gallantry medals were distributed to all—what meaning would they have? The value of honor lies in its scarcity. Because it is rare it is prized. If, in a nation of four hundred million, only one person is honored, it has value; if it is handed out open-handedly to all, the value is gone. Then someone might even insist, “I don’t want the award—let me be the only one without it,” and that would become the new honor.

So the struggle of life is such that the rare is valuable. If Koh-i-noor diamonds were in everyone’s possession, they would have no value. A diamond and a lump of coal are chemically the same; coal, pressed for ages, becomes diamond—time is the difference. But who will worship coal? Coal is abundant. It must be rare to be honored. Honor means: something for which many are competing.

The other night a sannyasin told me—she’s a dear one—“A strange urge comes to me: I feel I am a queen and want to walk like a queen.” I said, “Walk as you like—there is no hindrance here. You can even make a crown of flowers—no problem. Only keep one thing in mind: others here too are kings and queens.” She said, “Then all the fun is spoiled; only if I alone am queen is there delight.” I said, “That is a bit difficult. The facility I give you, I give to all. If you treat others as kings and queens too, there is no obstacle—be a queen.” She understood. The pleasure of being big lies in making others small. The moment you demand honor, you begin the story of insult. Now there will be struggle. You will be hurt by insult—and you will think others are hurting you.

And the joke is, honor will not make you happy, while insult will make you miserable. Why? Because however much honor you receive, it never ends—there is always more beyond; contentment never comes. There cannot be a moment when you say, “Now this is the ultimate honor.” Something remains. Even Alexanders find something still remaining. Wherever you reach, there will be a further goal. Honor will not satisfy you, while the showers of insult coming from all sides because of your demand for honor will pierce you like sharp thorns. And you will say, “Others insult me.”

In your desire for honor you invited insult. You asked for success—you will taste failure. You wanted others to call you good—the mistake was made. You tried to adorn your ego—others will set out to strip it bare.

Lao Tzu says: If you would be safe from defeat, do not desire victory. If you would be safe from insult, do not ask for honor. He says, “No one can insult me—I never asked for honor. I sit where people leave their shoes; no one ever drives me away. I never tried to sit on the throne—so no one can topple me. How will you defeat me? I am already defeated—how will you defeat me? I have made no plan to win—how will you defeat me?”

Keep this in mind: no one gives you sorrow, no one can give it, no way exists. Yes, if you want to give sorrow to yourself—by all means, give it.

It is my experience that people cling to sorrow; they treat it as a possession. They don’t have the courage to drop it, because sorrow makes it feel as if there is at least something there.

“Shall I tell you my condition?
By God, I don’t even remember now.
Only this pain supports my life—
If the pain disappears, what then?”

People begin to live by their illnesses. They make wealth out of suffering. They keep their wounds locked in strongboxes, take them out again and again, gaze at them, expose them and stroke them, make them raw again. “There is something there; my hands are not empty; I am not void; I am not barren—there is some filling.”

Reflect a little: have you formed too intimate a relationship with your sorrows? Have you started savoring your sickness? If you look carefully, you will find you have even made your illness into a form of capital. Through illness you become significant.

I was teaching in a university. A lady taught with me. One day her husband phoned me: “I’ve heard my wife attends your talks. Please be aware: she exaggerates her illnesses. A small boil becomes cancer. Don’t trouble yourself unnecessarily. I speak from twenty years’ experience.”

I already had my suspicions from her talk. But she deceived not only others—she deceived herself too. She magnified small troubles. What was the cause? She had never known love; by inflating her suffering she managed to get a little sympathy, and nourished herself on that. First with her husband it was like this—magnify the pain. Then he understood—how long can this go on? The relationship went slack. Then she began to look elsewhere for “satsang”—anyone who would show sympathy, there she would pour out her woes.

Looked at closely, it became clear she guarded her sorrows carefully, and recited each one with relish—as if pain were a poem, as if suffering were a dance. If you didn’t listen intently to her woes, she got upset. If you didn’t show sympathy, she turned against you. If you showed sympathy—agreed that the pain was even worse than she said—she was ready to fall at your feet.

Search for this woman within yourself—she is there in everyone.

Do not relish sorrow—because if you take taste in it, who can prevent you from going toward it? Do not create noise about your sorrow; do not beat your chest in display; do not exhibit your pain.

Have you noticed? People talk about their sorrows, not their joys. Listen to people talk—stories of suffering. There is hardly any talk of happiness. Why? If you talk of happiness you will not get sympathy—you will invite jealousy. Say to someone, “I am very happy,” and he will be annoyed: “Oh, so you got happy while I’m around, did you?” You will see opposition in his eyes—you have made an enemy.

Say, “I am very miserable; my shoulders are sagging under a heavy load,” and he will stroke your head: “Quite right.” You have given him a chance to feel happier than you by comparison. “Quite right.”

I lived once in a house. The landlord’s wife would go whenever anyone died—near or far, relation or not, acquaintance or not—she would surely go. I asked, “I see you go with such cheer whenever someone dies—what’s the matter?” Her joy was obvious. Whenever she saw sorrow, she could not resist going there—because by comparison with their pain she felt a little happy: “Well, someone else’s husband died—mine did not. Someone else’s son died—mine did not.”

People take great pleasure in showing sympathy to others—it is free, costs nothing, and gives the pleasure of being benevolent.

Think: if someone in your house dies and people come—there is such an incident in Sharat Chandra’s famous novel Devdas. Devdas’s father has died; he sits at the door. People come and shower sympathy. He says, “Go inside and tell my elder brother; he will enjoy it a lot.” People are shocked—what kind of boy is this? He sends them on—he won’t let them perform their rehearsed lines. People prepare what they will say, how they will say it—rehearsed twenty-five times in the mind. He won’t listen. Someone starts to speak, he says, “Stop. Go inside—my elder brother is sitting there.” They get angry. If you want to give sympathy and someone won’t take it, you get very upset. People distribute sympathy with open hands, because these are the few moments they get to feel happy—seeing someone else’s sorrow.

Note: a religious person is not the one who is pained by another’s pain; a religious person is the one who rejoices in another’s joy.

And the one who rejoices in another’s joy—his sympathy is like a diamond. His compassion toward sorrow has meaning. The one who feels envy at another’s happiness—his sympathy is only surface balm; underneath, fire burns. Do not be deceived by such sympathy.

You have been told: “Grieve in another’s grief.” I tell you: “Rejoice in another’s joy.” Grieve in another’s grief? You are already sufficiently miserable—why be more miserable? Rejoice in another’s joy. Learn happiness. Be happy in your own joy, and be happy in another’s joy too. Cultivate the habit of happiness; the thicker the habit grows, the greater happiness will come.

Yesterday I read a story. A man went to his psychologist—agitated, restless, sweating. The psychologist asked, “What’s the matter? Why so nervous? Sit quietly and tell me.” He said, “A terrible thing happened. I was asleep last night—a mouse crossed over my stomach.” The psychologist said, “Good heavens! It was only a mouse, not an elephant!” He said, “I know that—but a mouse went across; a path has been made. Now someday an elephant will come along it. That is the real trouble.”

I liked the story. Don’t even let the mouse pass; if the path is made, how long will it take the elephant? Once it is known that “one can pass from here”… That man’s panic was right—true.

Make a path for happiness. If only like a mouse at first, then later like an elephant it will also come. Do not miss any opportunity for happiness. If you are attentive you will find not a single moment in which an opportunity for joy cannot be found. Even in the deepest sorrow there is some ray of joy. Even on the darkest night, dawn is not far; it is near. And even in the darkest night, stars shimmer across the sky. You need only eyes that search for joy.

Look for joy within yourself; look for joy in others—so that happiness becomes your habit, your natural disposition, so that your eye falls on happiness spontaneously.

Right now you have done the opposite—you have cultivated the habit of sorrow.

A psychologist did a small experiment. In his class he drew a tiny white dot on a large blackboard—so small it was hardly visible. Then he asked the students, “What do you see?” No one mentioned the big blackboard—everyone mentioned the tiny dot, which was barely visible. He said, “It is astonishing. No one says they see the big board; everyone says they see the tiny dot.”

What you want to see—though small—becomes visible. What you don’t want to see—though big—does not appear. Everything depends on your desire. Your choice is decisive.

So I say to you: you say you have suffered much in this life—“then don’t send us to hell in the next.” There is no one to send. But if, in this life, you have cultivated the habit of sorrow, you will go to hell.

You feel some great injustice is being done—“We suffered all our life and then will be sent to hell!” I say: having practiced sorrow all your life, where else will you go but hell? Your practice will take you there. You have made a path—now you will walk on it. Even if someone wants to send you to heaven, no way exists; you will find hell even in heaven.

Hell is your outlook; it is not a place somewhere. It is your way of seeing. Wherever you go you will find hell. Your hell travels with you. Your heaven too travels with you. Begin your practice here and now. Do not wait for tomorrow—to go to heaven after death. Most people make this mistake: “We will die—and then become heavenly!”

If, while living, you have lived in hell, you cannot suddenly arrive in heaven. It is not some sudden leap of declaration: “We have decided—now heaven.” A lifetime of practice becomes your direction.

This is the whole meaning of the law of karma. Buddha gave incomparable importance to karma—and removed God. He saw that the presence of God will keep the law of karma from being complete.

Understand it so: if a court could be arranged without a judge, and only law operate, the law would be more perfect. The judge’s presence muddles law, because the judge has his own viewpoints. He may pity one, be angry at another. If the judge is a Hindu he may pity a Hindu; if a Muslim—pity a Muslim. If the judge himself drinks, he may give lighter punishment to a drunkard; if he is against drink, he may give harsher punishment.

Someday, the judge’s place will be taken by a computer. It should be—because a computer will not be partial; it will simply compute justice. No human remains in between to tamper with justice.

Buddha and Mahavira removed God on a very scientific basis. The basis is: the presence of God will not allow you to be free, and it will not allow the law of karma to be complete.

Edmund Burke, a great European thinker, once went to church. After the sermon, in question time, he asked the priest: “You said that after death, those who were virtuous and had faith in God will go to heaven. I have two questions. Those who were virtuous but had no faith in God—where will they go? And those who were not virtuous but had faith—where will they go?”

The priest must have been an honest man—priests are not usually so. The trade itself leans to dishonesty. Perhaps Edmund Burke’s presence helped him be honest, for Burke himself was virtuous but had no faith in God. His question was real, not academic; he was asking about himself: “I have done nothing to deserve hell, but I do not believe in God. What will become of me?”

The priest asked for a week to think. He thought for seven days and found nothing, because the matter became tangled. If he said: “The virtuous will go to hell for lack of faith,” virtue loses all value. If he said: “The believer will go to heaven despite being unvirtuous,” then merely believing, flattering, praising is enough—what worth remains in virtue? And if he said: “The virtuous go to heaven whether they believe in God or not,” then arises the question: why believe at all? Virtue is decisive—why bring God in between?

Science holds a rule: the fewer principles you can manage with, the better; more principles create confusion. If by virtue one goes to heaven and by vice to hell, the matter is finished; why bring God in? If by believing in God one goes to heaven and by not believing to hell, then drop the talk of virtue altogether. Minimal principles—this is the scientific base.

On this basis Buddha and Mahavira denied God. They were deeply scientific thinkers. The law of karma is sufficient; bringing God in creates hindrance—two principles, division, difficulty of decision. Let one principle remain sovereign.

After seven days the priest came early to church, still without an answer. He climbed to the roof. After a sleepless night of thinking, he dozed and dreamt. The week-long quandary turned into a dream. He dreamt he was on a train going to heaven. “Good,” he thought, “let me see the matter for myself.”

He arrived and asked, “Is Socrates here?” Socrates did not believe in a personal God, but he was virtuous. “No,” they replied, “we have never heard of Socrates.” He was shocked. He searched and asked, “Is Gautam Buddha here? Mahavira?” No trace. He was also astonished that heaven seemed drab—dull, weary, even more tedious than the world. Flowers looked lifeless; everywhere melancholy. He thought, “Even heaven does not look like heaven. Socrates not here, Mahavira not here, Buddha not here—where did they go?” “Hell!” The very thought made him tremble.

He ran to the station. Another train was ready for hell. He boarded. On arrival he was amazed: there was more festivity—songs, music in the air, fresh flowers. “Perhaps the signboards are wrong,” he thought; “this looks like heaven.”

He went in and asked, “Socrates?” They replied, “Socrates is there in the field.” Socrates was plowing. He asked, “You—in hell? What are you doing here? Such a virtuous man, in hell?” Socrates said, “Who told you this is hell? Wherever the virtuous are, there is heaven. Since we came, we have been in heaven.” He inquired further. They told him, “It’s true—since these people arrived—Buddha, Mahavira, Socrates—the whole map of hell has changed. They have turned it into heaven.”

He awoke with a start, and in the morning sermon he gave his answer: “It is not that saints go to heaven; rather, wherever saints go, there is heaven. It is not that sinners go to hell; wherever sinners go, there is hell.”

You are decisive. Heaven and hell are the air around you, your atmosphere. Everyone carries his heaven and hell along with him.

Remember this, and you will understand Buddha rightly. Drop the habit of sorrow—otherwise it will carry you to hell. Heaven and hell are just ways of speaking. The habit of sorrow is hell.

“A whole life spent in love of idols, Momin—
How, at the final moment, will you become a Muslim?”

If all your life you worshipped idols, how will you suddenly be a Muslim at death? The idols you created will surround you even when you die. After death you will be given only what you have earned in life. Death gives you nothing new; it is the distillation of life.

Now let us come back to the question: “We have already passed, waking and sleeping, through endless hellish pain because of fear and guilt—is that not enough…?”

Whom are you asking whether it is enough? If it is enough—step out. If it is truly enough, why still stand inside?

No—it is not yet enough for you. In your experience it is not enough; your heart still says, “Let me bear a little more. Who knows—maybe some hidden joy lies in this sorrow!” The heart says, “It hasn’t happened till now—perhaps tomorrow!” Your mind is not yet sated with suffering. Otherwise, who is stopping you? No one has bolted the doors; they are open. You are lingering. It is not yet enough for you. And if you yourself do not know it is enough, how will existence know? Existence has made you the master—given you complete freedom. Until you free yourself from your hell, no one can free you.

Think: how difficult even it seems to be free of sorrow. And the Enlightened ones say one must be free even of happiness! You are not able to be free even of grief—because you imagine there is some happiness hidden in grief. The Enlightened ones say: be free even of happiness—because they saw that even in happiness, sorrow is hidden.

From different angles both perceptions are the same. You imagine there is happiness hidden in sorrow; the Buddhas found sorrow hidden in happiness. The difference is slight—and immense. If you believe happiness is hidden in sorrow, you will cling to sorrow. If you see that your so-called happiness is only sorrow wrapped in gold, you will be free of sorrow—and of happiness too. You will step outside both.

That hour is called the hour of stainless nirvana—when you leave behind both happiness and sorrow; when you drop all chains—golden and iron—and come out. And the only basis for coming out is the clear knowing: “Enough.”

I have heard: a man, ninety years old, filed for divorce. He was ninety; his wife about eighty-five. The magistrate was a little startled. “How long have you been married?” “Seventy years,” the old man said. The magistrate asked, “After seventy years, with death near at hand, now you want a divorce?” He said, “Enough is enough—from any point of view. Seventy years is plenty. Now I want release. And not much time remains—if not now, then when?”

I say to you: divorce your sorrow. Enough is enough.

First thing: while committing sin you did not worry about eternity—while committing, you did not worry about eternity—so why worry about it now, when it is time to reap? And if the “eternity” of doing has passed, then the “eternity” of reaping will pass too. Which means what you call eternity is not truly infinite. If you say you sinned for infinite time, then how can what has already gone by be infinite? It has a boundary. Now you have begun to wake up and, looking back, you see it has been a long time—say “a long time,” don’t say “infinite.”

You committed the sin—who will bear its fruit? You want some trick so that the sin is done, yet you escape its fruit—some mantra, some miracle, someone to set you free.

Here the words of the Buddha become very uncompromising: who will set you free? And it is not that awakened ones have not told you, thousands of times in between, “Stop, step out.” Nor is it that if I tell you today to step out, you will step out today. You will go on doing. In the next life you will stand before someone else and ask the same thing: “Having sinned for infinite births, must I now reap for infinite births?” You go on doing.

You desire the impossible: you want to do the sin, and not get the fruit. Then who will get it? You sow sorrow, and who should harvest? It would be unjust for someone else to reap. You will have to reap.

What I want to say to you is: stop fretting about how much time has gone by. Whenever you wake up, that is morning. And I am not saying that you must suffer for exactly as long as you have sown sorrow. But you must be willing to suffer. It may not be that you will have to suffer; but you must be willing to suffer. In that willingness itself lies release.

You should say: however long it takes, I am willing to bear what I have done—even if it takes eternity. You must show this preparedness from your side. That will be your goodwill, your sincerity, your honesty, your authenticity. Say: since I sowed the crop, I will reap it. And for as long as I sowed, for that long I will reap. I lay the responsibility on no one else; nor do I seek some subtle exit—by bribe, by flattery, by prayer. No—no escape. I must receive the fruit of what I have done.

Show your readiness. If your readiness is clear, then understand this: sorrow relates less to extension and more to depth. Sorrow has two dimensions: one is length, the other is depth. You have a bowlful of water. Pour it into a small vial and the depth increases. Spread it across the floor—the water is the same, but the depth disappears, it becomes shallow, a thin film over the surface.

You committed your sins over a great length of time. But if you are willing to endure, you can endure them in the depth of time. A headache of one year can be borne in a single moment—it is a question of depth. Pain can become so dense, so life-piercing, that it shoots through your entire being like an arrow.

Here I want to explain something often asked, but I never answered it for lack of the right occasion. Many have asked: Ramakrishna died of cancer, Ramana too died of cancer, Mahavira of a deep abdominal illness, the Buddha from toxemia of the body. Such great ones, those who attained perfect knowing, died of such fatal diseases! Cancer! It doesn’t seem fitting—Ramana and cancer! And here millions, great sinners, will die without cancer. What was written in Ramana’s destiny?

I want to tell you: it has often happened that when a person’s final moment arrives—when there will be no more births—his pain becomes dense. What you would suffer over years and births, he bears in a moment.

Cancer is a very dense pain. Ramakrishna would not even consent to treatment; he said, “If there is treatment, then who will bear the pain?” He had cancer of the throat—completely blocked. He could neither drink water nor take food. The body was drying up. The pain was terrible; he could neither sleep nor sit nor lie down—there was no ease in any posture.

Vivekananda said to Ramakrishna, “Paramahamsa-deva! We know that if you just say a word to the Mother, to Kali, this suffering will melt like a dream. How many days since you drank water! How many days since you ate! Please say it.”

Ramakrishna began to laugh: “Without my asking, last night I saw Kali, and she said, ‘Ramakrishna! Through this throat you have eaten enough; now eat through other throats.’ So I told her, ‘Now I will eat through all your throats. This throat is tired. Its time is over. Now it is the hour to go.’” He did not take treatment—because to endure the pain in its full velocity is to be free of it.

So the second thing I want to say is: it is not necessary that because you sinned for many, many births you must reap for just as many births. If your readiness is there, then in a single moment the sins of many births can condense. The pain will be very deep. And if you can watch with neutrality, the story of many births ends in a single moment. That is why awakened ones have often died of lethal diseases.

Jesus being hung on the cross—this is worth pondering. According to the law of karma, crucifixion would be the fruit of some great sin, of births upon births of sin. Very well—on the cross, in a single moment, Jesus bore the entire pain that we could not bear in many births.

We take it in small doses—like homeopathic pellets, two little sugar pills. But one can also take an allopathic dose. And the person who is willing—willing means, who says, “I earned this pain, I inflicted it; now I am wholly ready to bear it”—in that very instant a revolution happens. Time takes a new shape: length drops away, depth increases. In that acceptance, the arrow of suffering pierces to the very core. In a single moment there is freedom from the sins of many births.

But I tell you: do not hanker for this. Otherwise you go against justice, against the law.

The hardships of the road will grow even easier—let every leader of the caravan turn highwayman.

One who has truly understood that he has sown sorrow for births and births will say, “The more suffering comes to me, the better. If the caravan’s leader turns a bandit and robs me of everything—so much the better.”

The hardships of the road will grow even easier—let every leader of the caravan turn highwayman.

If the leader of the pilgrims becomes a robber, all the better. If this whole world robs you clean, all the better—you will become that much lighter.

This long season of existence will in any case pass away—why should I ask anyone to make my difficulty easy for just these two days?

Do not pray. Because in prayer you are making a dishonest demand. You are saying, “I created the sorrow; you forgive.” While doing, you did not call him; while reaping, you call out! Very well—these two days will pass too. As the other days passed, these will pass.

I sit on the road—think of me as a stone by your side; I will become a man after taking a few knocks.

I sit on the road—think of me as a stone by your side; I will become a man after taking a few knocks.

Kick me—do not worry. These very knocks will awaken me.

Suffering awakens. Suffering refines. Suffering makes you vivid. And if your suffering has not yet made you vivid, then you have not recognized suffering as suffering—you are taking it like opium; you are sleeping under it.

Your lovely desires were even greater than you; amidst hundreds of fairies’ clusters, I was your mad lover. Why did you take from me the treasures of patience and awareness? Along with the sentence of sorrow’s prison, was there also a fine?

Man thinks like this: that he has been thrown into the prison of the world, into suffering; and then patience and awareness too have been taken away—so is there a fine on top of the sentence?

But no one is throwing you into prison, no one is snatching your awareness. You are losing awareness yourself. Awareness has been given to you—with birth. You sell it and buy junk. You cut up your awareness to fill your vault. You cut up your awareness to hoard useless riches. Awareness is your nature. And the less awareness there is, the more you fall into prison. No one pushes you down. Unconsciousness is prison; awareness is liberation.

Someone asked the Buddha: what is your definition of liberation? He said: apramāda—no heedlessness, no unconsciousness. He did not point to some sky-far place; he pointed within you. No stupor, no swoon—wakefulness.

Listen again to the question: “Yesterday you said, endure the sins you have done with peace and neutrality.”

If you bear suffering with peace and neutrality, in that very peace and neutrality you go beyond suffering. If you look at suffering carefully and bear it, you become the witness, the seer. Suffering moves away—it becomes the seen; you become the seeing. Your identification with suffering snaps.

Try this as an experiment. Begin with ordinary pains. If there is a headache, close the doors, sit silently, and try to watch the headache. Usually we identify with pain: “I have pain—I am the pain.” We drown in it.

Step a little out of it. Lift yourself a little above the pain, look at it: here is the headache.

You will be able to see it, because the headache is an event, a sensation. You can stand behind and watch. And as you watch, you will be astonished: the more you observe, the more distance grows. As vision deepens here, the distance from pain grows there; the pain begins to move away. Not that it disappears—distance opens; the bridge breaks. There is pain there; here you are.

And then you will be even more astonished: as the pain goes distant, its spread begins to lessen—it contracts, occupies a smaller space, becomes more concentrated. A moment will come when it seems to be poised on the point of a needle—very intense, very sharp, but subtle, like a needle’s tip. Keep watching right there.

Then you will come to a new experience: sometimes, for a moment, the point will be seen; for a moment, it will vanish. For a moment you will find “there is pain,” and for a moment, “where did it go?” Such glimpses begin. And if you go on watching, you will find that as your seeing becomes clear, the pain becomes a void. The more the seer awakens, the more pain is annulled. When the seer awakens fully, pain is utterly null.

Those who know report the same: suffering exists only in unconsciousness; in awareness it disappears. Ask a physician, a surgeon—he has a related experience: when you are made unconscious, pain goes. That is why for an operation anesthesia is needed. What does unconsciousness mean? It simply means the link between your awareness and the pain is broken. Your awareness is set apart; your pain is set apart. The nerves that connect the two are numbed. Then the operation goes on—your belly is cut, your hand is cut—you do not even know it.

Exactly this happens in supreme awareness, in Buddhahood, from the other side. You become so full of awareness that, because of that fullness, the bridge breaks. Either break the bridge so awareness is lost; or bring total awareness, and the bridge breaks. What the surgeon does from one side, the seekers have done from the other.

Bear it with neutrality and peace—and you will be free.

The purpose of the fire of knowledge is precisely this: it makes you neutral, it makes you silent. The very meaning of the fire of knowledge is that it makes you a knower, a seer.

Anāshrava is a special term used by Jains and Buddhists—a very precious, technical word. It means a state of consciousness in which nothing from the outside enters within. Āshrava means “inflow, coming in.” Anāshrava means a state where nothing from outside comes inside. Like this: you open a door, dust rises and comes in—that is āshrava. You open a door and nothing comes in—no dust stirs, even the air doesn’t tremble—nothing enters within—that is anāshrava.

An ordinary person lives in āshrava. Whatever he does, things keep flowing in. You are walking on the road; a car passes. For a moment you see the car; it’s gone, yet āshrava has happened. A desire stirs inside: I should have such a car. The car is gone, but you have allowed the inflow; the dust has entered within. A beautiful woman passes; a faint dream rises: if only such a woman were my wife. You have allowed the inflow. In this way you go on collecting āshrava, this dust within—and that dust becomes your burden.

Anāshrava means nothing enters within. You look with naked, clean eyes. You see, but nothing enters inside. The car passes, the woman passes.

It happened like this: it was a full-moon night and Buddha was sitting in meditation in a forest. Some young men from a village had brought a prostitute into the forest—for revelry. They drank heavily, stripped the woman of her clothes; but they got so drunk that the woman saw her chance and ran away. Toward dawn, as a cool breeze began to blow, they sobered up a little and realized the woman had fled. They set out to look for her.

They found no one else, only Buddha sitting beneath a tree. They thought: this monk must have seen her—there is only this path; she would have had to pass here; there is no other way. They asked, Were you here all night? Buddha said, I was here all night. Did a woman pass this way? Buddha said, Someone passed. Was it a woman or a man? Hard to say. They asked, Were your eyes closed or open? Buddha said, My eyes were open. They said, Strange! Then how could you not know whether it was a woman or a man, whether naked or clothed? He said, That too is hard to say. Someone passed. But, Buddha added, you will not understand—you understand the language of āshrava, not of anāshrava. The eyes were seeing, but there was no curiosity in the seeing.

Have you ever looked with empty eyes? The eyes see, but there is no craving in the seeing. The eyes see because seeing is their nature, but behind the seeing there is no thought. So things pass by; nothing goes within. You remain like a mirror. An image forms, someone passes, the mirror was empty and becomes empty again. Then something else comes, an image forms, and is gone.

Anāshrava means: like a mirror. Āshrava means: like a photographic film. The camera shutter opens for a fraction of a fraction of a second—less than a moment—and āshrava happens; in that instant the film has caught the image. The mirror remains open—left open—centuries pass and it catches nothing. Such a mirror-like state of mind is called anāshrava.

As long as there is craving in your mind, you will keep on grasping. When you understand desire, see its futility, experience the suffering it brings, then whether the doors are open or closed, it makes no difference.

Yesterday I was reading a poem—
Again someone came, O wounded heart…
No, no one.
It must have been a passerby; he will go somewhere else.
The night has declined,
the dust of stars has begun to scatter,
in the halls the drowsy lamps have begun to totter,
those who kept watch on the road,
every wayfarer, has fallen asleep,
strange dust has blurred the footprints.
Snuff out the candles,
bring out more wine, the decanters and the goblets,
bolt your wakeful doors—
now no one will come here.

Ordinarily man is like this: sitting at the doorway, waiting—someone will come: some pleasure, some bliss, some taste, some experience, some wealth, some prosperity, some fame—someone will come. We sit with all doors open to all four directions, waiting: someone will come, someone will come. No one has ever come. No one is ever going to come. Our being itself is our only being. But we keep the lamp lit and keep watching the road. The worldly mind is a mind of waiting: something or other is bound to happen. As if our being were not enough—as if only when something else happens will we be happy.

But when all this waiting proves futile, when you see the futility of it, you will understand: no one ever comes and no one ever goes; you are alone; your being is ultimate, final; there is nowhere higher to go, no other possibility; there is nothing higher to attain, no need to attain, nothing worthy to be attained beyond this. Your being is the supreme bliss. In that state you will put out the lamp, latch the door, close your eyes. This is what we have called meditation.

Again someone came, O wounded heart…
No, no one.

For now it is such that we startle at the slightest sound. Even if a leaf rustles, we open our eyes: has someone come? Someone passes on the road, we hurry to the door: has someone come?

Have you ever observed the state of waiting? When you are waiting for someone, everything seems to announce his arrival. You are watching the road; a friend is due to come. The postman appears—you rush: perhaps he has come. A dog wanders onto the path, climbs the steps, there’s a sound—you rush: perhaps he has come. A gust of wind comes, blowing a few dry leaves—you run.

Again someone came, O wounded heart…
No, no one.
It must have been a passerby; he will go somewhere else—
it is the sound of the road.

The night has declined,
the dust of stars has begun to scatter,
in the halls the drowsy lamps have begun to totter,
those who kept watch on the road,
every wayfarer, has fallen asleep,
strange dust has blurred the footprints.
Snuff out the candles—
put out the lamps.

Snuff out the candles,
bring out more wine, the decanters and the goblets—
now put away these cups, this wine, this stupor!
Bolt your wakeful doors—
and now close these doors!
Now no one will come here.

It is not just that now no one will come here; in truth, no one ever came. The coming is your desire. “Someone should come”—that is your craving. In truth no one ever comes or goes. Truth is. God is. Truth is—there is no coming and going at all.

The state of anāshrava mind means: you too simply are. There is no waiting for anyone, no asking, no prayer—just being. In that state of being, nothing enters within and nothing goes without. Everything has come to rest. All movement is arrested. All vibration has departed. You are unmoving.

Anāshrava is a Buddhist and Jain term. Just as Krishna uses the word sthitaprajña. Anāshrava means what sthitaprajña means: wisdom stilled; nothing comes and goes; time becomes eternal; the tinkling of moments ceases; all notes vanish; the void is born.

Try this a little. Even for a single moment. If even for a moment you experience anāshrava, you will be filled with great bliss. What you are seeking is not far; it is within you. What you are asking for will not be had by asking—it is already given. Extinguish the lamps, close the doors. Dive into meditation. At first, for a moment, you will sometimes have a glimpse of anāshrava—everything stilled, no vibration. Then slowly the glimpse will deepen.

A momentary glimpse is called dhyana. And when the glimpse becomes deep, becomes steady, becomes your very nature, then it is called samadhi.

That is all for today.