Es Dhammo Sanantano #115

First scene: Bhagwan was moving about in Jetavana. At that time five hundred bhikkhus, having received Bhagwan’s blessing, resolved to descend into the depths of meditation. Their goal was nothing less than Samadhi. Just outside the Gandhakuti, with the morning sun rising, they sat to meditate. All around the Gandhakuti the juhī jasmine was in bloom.

The Shasta said to those bhikkhus: Bhikkhus! Do you see these blossoming jasmine flowers? They have opened with the morning and by evening they will wither; such is life—fleeting. Now it is, now it is not. Keep these flowers in your remembrance, bhikkhus! This remembrance itself is the boat that carries one beyond the transient.

The bhikkhus looked at the flowers and resolved: Before evening, before you droop and fall, we shall attain to meditation; we shall be free of raga and its kin. O flowers! You are our witnesses.

Bhagwan said, Sadhu! Sadhu! and showered his blessings.

And just then he spoke these gathas: Suññāgāraṁ pavitthassa santacittassa bhikkhuno. Amānusī rati hoti sammā-dhammaṁ vipassato..

“In the empty house, to the bhikkhu of peaceful mind, as he clearly sees the Dhamma with Vipassana, a delight beyond the human arises.”

Yato yato sammasati khandhānaṁ udayabbayaṁ. Labhati pīti-pāmojjaṁ amataṁ taṁ vijānataṁ..

“As, wherever he turns, he contemplates the arising and passing of the five skandhas—rupa, vedana, samjna, samskara and vijnana—so does he gain pīti and pāmojja, the nectar known to the wise.”

Paṭisanthāra-vuttassa ācāra-kusalo siyā. Tato pāmojja-bahulo dukkhass’antaṁ karissati..

“He who is by nature given to service and hospitality, and skilled in right conduct, becoming abundant in gladness will bring suffering to its end.”

Vassikā viya pupphāni maddavāni pamuñcati. Evaṁ rāgañca dosañca vippamuñcetha bhikkhave..

“As the jasmine sheds its withered blossoms, so, bhikkhus, do you abandon raga and dvesha.”

Before we do Vipassana on the sutras, before we meditate upon them, let this scene settle well in the mind.

Bhagwan was moving about in Jetavana.

When Jaina scriptures speak of Mahavira, they say: Bhagwan was virajate—he abides enthroned. When Buddhist scriptures speak of Buddha, they say: viharate—he moves about.

Between these two words there is a difference, a philosophical difference. Virajana symbolizes stillness; viharana, movement.

In the Jaina vision, truth is still; unmoving; forever of one taste. In Buddhist thought, everything is in motion, in flow; everything is being carried along. In Buddhist vision it is not even correct to say that a thing “is.” Everything is “happening.”

If we say: the tree is; in Buddhist thought even that is not quite right. Because even as we say, the tree “is,” the tree is changing, is happening. A withered leaf will have fallen at the very moment you said, “the tree is.” A bud will be opening, becoming a flower. A new sprout is appearing. A new root is emerging. The tree will have grown a little; will have aged a little.

In the time it took you to say, the tree is, the tree did not remain the same; it changed; it was transformed. You do not see the transformation because the transformation is happening very slowly, gently; little by little. But transformation is happening nonetheless.

Therefore Buddha would say: speak thus—“the tree is happening.” In the world there is no such thing as a fixed “is.” All things are “becoming.”

We even say of the river that the river is! Buddha says: do not even say of the mountains that the mountains are. For the mountains too are flowing. The river, of course, is flowing—we can see that the river flows; yet we say, the river is.

So Buddha gave language a new shape. It was natural. When a vision is born, everything becomes new along with it; because it casts its color upon everything.

In the language of Buddha, “is” has no value; “is happening” has value.

In Jaina language, “is” has value; for we are to seek precisely that which never changes. What changes is samsara.

So too in the Hindu vision: what changes is maya; and what never changes is Brahman. Therefore we cannot say of Brahman that it moves about; we must say, it abides—virajate.

All the stories of Buddha, all the sayings written about him, always begin: Bhagwan was moving about—viharate—in Jetavana, or in Shravasti, or elsewhere.

Buddha lays great emphasis on dynamism. All is of the nature of flow. And the day the flow stops, it is not that the complete and the eternal will fall into your hands. The day the flow stops, you will vanish.

In Mahavira’s moksha, the Atman remains and then abides forever. In Buddha’s nirvana, the self is extinguished like a lamp goes out. Hence the word nirvana—the blowing out of a lamp.

A lamp is lit; you blow upon it and the flame is gone. If someone asks you, where has the flame gone—what will you say! If someone asks you, where is the flame now—what will you say?

Just so, says Buddha, when the oil of vasana is exhausted and the flame of life is quenched, you become shunya. That shunya is called nirvana. It is not that some immovable entity falls into your hands. The one who would grasp is also lost. The fist itself is gone—what will you grasp?

The world is flow, and nirvana is the flow becoming shunya, release from flow. But keep one thing in mind—do not cherish the idea that upon being freed you will be saved. It is only in the flow that “you” are saved. As long as there is flow, there is “you.” The flow itself is you. The day the flow is gone, you too are gone.

You light a lamp at dusk, and in the morning, seeing it still alight, you think, the same flame is burning; you are mistaken. That flame has gone out a million times in the night. Every moment it is becoming smoke. Flame is continually becoming smoke. A new flame keeps being born; the old keeps receding. The one you lit at dusk, you cannot extinguish in the morning; it does not remain. The flame you put out in the morning is not the one you lit at dusk; it is altogether another flame. Though it belongs to the same stream; it is the progeny, the offspring; it is not the same. As if someone abused your father and you beat the son. It is like that.

The flame you lit at dusk went long ago. Now you extinguish its sons and daughters; you put out its lineage. Many generations have passed in the night, but if oil remains, the flame goes on burning. And it can even happen that it goes out in this lamp and leaps into another lamp where oil is filled, and burns there; the lineage flows on there.

Just so, a person leaps from one birth into another. When vasana is not exhausted, the flame finds new vasana, new oil; finds a new womb. But the day the oil of vasana is completely used up, the flame burns itself to ashes; there is nirvana; you are absorbed into the Great Shunya.

Flow is samsara; the shunya of flow is moksha.

Bhagwan was moving about in Jetavana. At that time five hundred bhikkhus, having received Bhagwan’s blessing, resolved to descend into the depths of meditation.

For meditation, resolve—sankalpa—is needed. Sankalpa means: to harness all energy at a single point. Sankalpa means: do not divide your energy. Only when energy is indivisible can one reach anywhere.

Like the rays of the sun—if you gather them, bring them to one point, fire is born. Left scattered, fire does not arise. So is human life-energy. If it falls upon one point, unbroken, a great power blazes forth. If it keeps flowing in twenty-five streams, it is slowly lost, like a river losing itself in the desert—reaching nowhere.

Understand: if the Ganga splits into many streams, it will no longer reach the ocean. The Ganga reaches the ocean because it remains one stream. And all streams that join along the way become one with the Ganga. A river comes—falls in. The Yamuna comes—falls in. Every river and rivulet that arrives, falls in. They all become one with the Ganga.

At Gangotri the Ganga is very small. As she descends from the mountains she grows larger. In the plains she becomes vast. By the time she reaches the sea, she becomes oceanic. The journey from Gangotri to Ganga Sagar is worth understanding, for it is the journey of human energy as well.

You can live in two ways: without resolve, or with resolve. To be without resolve means your life has twenty-five streams: let me earn wealth; let me gain position; let me build prestige. Let me be known as a sadhu; let me meditate too; let me visit the temple; let the shop keep running. Your life is divided into many streams. Hence nothing becomes complete. Neither the shop is complete, nor the temple. Neither wealth is gained, nor meditation.

Energy must be gathered; then sankalpa is born. If it falls in a single stream, unbroken, nothing is impossible. Things seem impossible in life because you are fragmented, in pieces. You are not one; therefore many things in life appear impossible. Become one, and nothing is impossible. This is the meaning of sankalpa.

Five hundred bhikkhus, having received Bhagwan’s blessing, resolved to descend into the depths of meditation.

Still, they made the resolve; they also came for Bhagwan’s blessing. Your resolve as such is enough, but ultimately it is yours alone. How much value can an ignorant man’s resolve have! You will bind yourself up, somehow strive to hold yourself together; yet the possibility of mistake is there. If the blessing of a knower is present, the chances are far greater that your resolve will remain intact, will endure, will come to fruition. Victory becomes assured.

The blessing of the wise will join your fragments like cement. The trust that someone stands behind me who knows—this too will carry you far. Like a small child has no fear if his mother is near—then you may take him even to hell; he has no worry. He will begin to play even in hell; his mother is near. And take him to heaven without his mother, and he will become impoverished and unhappy even in heaven. His mother is not near. He will begin to cry; he will scream and call out.

That presence of the mother—that is the presence of the Guru. If the Guru is present, the journey becomes very easy. But what does it mean for the Guru to be present? It means you have bowed your head at someone’s feet, and accepted someone as Guru.

Even if the Guru is present, but the bhava of the disciple is not present in you, it is of no meaning. Then the Guru is not a Guru. One becomes Guru through your disciple-bhava.

These five hundred bhikkhus must have come to Bhagwan’s feet and prayed that they wished to go into the depths of meditation. We have lived long in thought and gained nothing. We have thought much and received nothing. We have done everything; suffering remains, it does not end. Now we wish to stake everything. Now we do not wish to hold anything back. Give us your blessing that we may not go astray; that we may not turn back midway; that we may not waver; that we may not deviate from the path; that we may not be swept into some other direction. Bless us that you will stay with us. Bless us that your sheltering shade will be with us. Bless us that your gaze will follow us; that you will abide within us and keep seeing whether we are walking aright or not! Whether we are missing or not. Let the trust arise in us that you stand with us; that we are not alone; then we shall undertake a far journey.

The journey one must make oneself. It is trust that is lacking. The Guru is needed because of the lack of trust. The day your journey is complete, that day you will find: the Guru did nothing—and did very much.

He did nothing in this sense: the day you complete the journey you will find the Guru swam close by; he kept you in trust—that if I begin to drown, someone will save me. But you kept swimming. You reached by swimming yourself. Perhaps the Guru never even touched your hand; but he swam near.

So in one sense he did nothing; he did not even touch. There was no need to touch. You can reach—such strength has Existence given to each one that he can return to the Source. Such provisions have been placed within all that the journey can be completed and the food will not run out.

But in you there is a lack of trust—and that too is natural. On a path you have never walked, how can there be trust! There is a lack of shraddha. There is no self-trust. You fear that I will not be able to do it. And you have reasons for your fear, definite reasons. You have attempted small things and could not do them. You used to smoke and wanted to quit—it did not drop. You labored for years and it did not drop. How many times did you decide and it did not drop. And each time you decided you fell; and each time you decided you repented; and then you smoked again; again you forgot; again the offense happened. Slowly, slowly guilt increased; self-confidence was lost. One thing became clear—that by your doing nothing will happen. Such a trifling thing does not drop!

So for the person who could not give up smoking by his own resolve, how will he have trust to enter meditation?

The one who decided many times to rise at five in the morning in brahma muhurta, and could never get up. He even set the alarm. At five the alarm rang, he cursed and hurled the clock away. Turned on his side and slept again. In the morning he repented. Again he cried and shouted. Again he swore that tomorrow, whatever happens, I will rise. And again tomorrow the same. How many days will you go on like this? One day you will find: this is not going to happen. Leave it. You keep sleeping anyway; why take this bother too! Getting up is not happening; nor will it. You are defeated. Defeated, self-trust will vanish from within you.

Therefore I say to you: do not invest the effort of your life in trifles. For if you are defeated by trivia, obstacles will arise in moving toward the vast. Hence I do not say you should fight little things. Fighting little things brings only harm, no benefit at all.

I say to you: if you must fight, wrestle only with something great. Do not wrestle with the small. Even if you are defeated, at least it will remain clear in mind that the matter was so great—therefore I was defeated. If you fight with a trifling thing and are defeated, there will be great humiliation—that the matter was so small, and I could not win!

Acharya Tulsi explains anuvrat to people. I teach mahavrat. Anuvrat is dangerous. Do not take up small vows. If you win, there is no great gain.

Suppose you used to smoke and you win; you no longer smoke. What special gain is there? Nothing much. If you win there will be no great self-dignity born. If you tell someone, I have given up smoking, he will say: what is there in that! We never smoked in the first place. There is nothing special in this. You took smoke in; you sent smoke out! Now you do not take it in—what virtue or glory is there? What art have you mastered in this?

If you win, there is little benefit. And if you lose… And in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases there are chances of losing, not of winning. If you lose—and there are ninety-nine chances of it—then there is great harm.

I have heard—there is a story of Aesop: a donkey challenged a lion—come, let’s have a bout! Let it be settled today who is the king of this forest. The lion tucked his tail and ran away! A fox was watching; she was astonished. This lion has never been afraid of challenges even from elephants; and he tucked his tail and ran away from a donkey! What is the matter?

The fox followed him and asked: you are the king, the emperor, and from a donkey…!

He said: it is precisely because it is a donkey that I ran. If the donkey is defeated, there is no benefit in our victory. People will say, what did he win! He won against a donkey! And there will be infamy. And if the donkey, by some mistake—after all he is a donkey, who can trust him! he might kick or anything—if by chance he wins, then we are destroyed forever. Not only we, our lineage is destroyed. Then forever the heads of lions will hang low.

Do not fight with the small.