Geeta Darshan #12

Certainly, the last longing at the moment of death becomes the first event of the next life. What is last in this life becomes first in the next.

Understand it like this. At night when you go to sleep, the last thought you fall asleep with becomes your first thought on waking in the morning. You can verify this experimentally. Note the last thought that is on your mind as sleep descends; in the morning, as soon as you realize you are awake, that same thought will be the first to arise.

Death is the great sleep, the big sleep. You do not wake up in the same body; you awaken in another body. And the final thought, the final craving of this life becomes the first thought and the first craving of the next. Therefore the Gita is right: the thought, the desire present at the last moment becomes the cause of the next life.

But if you have spent your whole life in sin, you cannot, at the last moment, think of becoming a Buddha. That is impossible. The final thought is the quintessence of your whole life. You do not have the convenience, in that last thought, to pick any idea you like. You cannot cheat at the moment of death—there is no time to cheat. In the dying moment your entire life is squeezed into a single urge. You cannot manufacture a desire at that time.

So the man who has sinned all his life can only crave, at death, to be a great sinner. It is not in your hands to simply think of becoming a Buddha while dying. The thought of becoming a Buddha can arise only if the effort to become a Buddha has been there throughout life. Because at the moment of death your whole life is squeezed into the last desire—that is the seed. From that very seed the new birth will begin.

Understand it this way. We sow a seed; it becomes a tree. Flowers blossom. In the flowers new seeds are formed. In those seeds the life of that very tree is again contained. That seed will become the birth of a new tree.

Thus whatever you have done, thought, the way you have lived—all of it is squeezed into the seed of your final desire. That is not in your hands then. The man who has worried about wealth all his life will worry about wealth at the time of death. Understand, the opposite is impossible. If the thought of money has dominated his mind, then at death the experiences, imaginations, plans, dreams of a whole life will push him to have a final thought about money. Therefore the one who clung to wealth will die clinging to wealth.

There are folk tales that if a miser dies, he becomes a snake and sits on his strongbox, on his hoard. Those stories are meaningful; they hint that in the last moment you will turn your whole life, squeezed to its essence, into a seed.

So the Gita is right: the thought at the last moment will be the beginning of your next birth. But do not imagine that at the last moment you can produce some thought that has no connection with your life. That is impossible—utterly impossible. The thought you will have at the last moment is the one that has overshadowed your entire life.

That is why great mischief happens. Reading such statements we feel solace and comfort. We think, what’s the harm? Keep sinning all life; at the moment of death we’ll think of becoming a Buddha and it will happen! If the Gita assures it, the thing will be done.

When you do not think of being a Buddha in life, how will you think of it in death? The truth is, in life you think what you actually want, because life is the opportunity. Death is no opportunity. What you leave for death are the things you do not truly want—you’ll do them when dying. What you really want, you do while living. That is why we keep postponing religion and go on doing irreligion.

No one really wants to do religion; therefore we postpone it. We say, we’ll do it in old age—what’s the hurry now? There is great hurry to sin! That must be done now, it can only be done in youth. We’ll do religion in old age. And if some young person becomes religious or eager, the so‑called wise advise him, “It is not your age yet. For now, do irreligion.” Their meaning is: now is the age for sin. As long as strength is there, sin away; when strength is gone, then do religion.

But is strength necessary for sin and not for religion? Is life necessary for sin, power necessary for sin—do you take religion to be some eunuch’s task that needs no strength! Remember, the very energy with which you sin becomes virtue. And when that energy is no longer in your hands, you can neither sin nor do virtue. The day you are incapable of sinning, that day the power to do virtue has also left you.

People go on postponing—to old age, to old age. But even in old age the mind is not sated. Then people say, at the dying moment, the last moment, we will take God’s name. Even that they cannot do themselves, because the last moment is not scheduled. The very next moment could be the last; we don’t know. Only when the last moment has come will you know—but by then you will have died.

So people have made arrangements: if we cannot take God’s name at the last moment, the priest, the pundit—someone else—will whisper God’s name in our ear. People are dying, lying unconscious, and someone is reciting God’s name into their ears. You committed the sins, and someone else takes God’s name! It would be better if you had handed your sins to someone else too—“Do them on my behalf.” But a man commits his sins himself. What we want to do, we do ourselves; what we don’t want to do, we pass off to servants.

At death someone else is uttering God’s name into your ear—and you are not even conscious. One who could not keep awareness in life, how will he keep it in death? Only the one who has held awareness, meditation, in life can be conscious in death. If you cannot maintain awareness while alive, how will you maintain it while dying?

Understand this. In the process of death, all the poisons within you will surround and cloud your consciousness. Death happens in swoon. Once in a hundred thousand, one may die consciously—once in a hundred thousand—and that is the one who has maintained meditation throughout life. He will die aware; the rest of you will die unconscious.

You have lived in unconsciousness; then death is a very great operation—the greatest operation. No physician, no surgeon performs so great an operation. When a surgeon must operate, he makes you unconscious, for the pain would be unbearable. If your hand is to be cut, first he anesthetizes you. If a bone is to be removed, first he puts you under; only when you are completely unconscious can he take the bone out.

Death is the greatest surgery, because your entire soul has to be separated from your whole body. Therefore death renders you unconscious; without anesthetizing you, you could not be killed—you would create great disturbance.

In the body there are glands that hold poisons. Ordinarily those glands also get used. When you are filled with anger, have you noticed? A man full of anger can pick up and throw someone stronger than himself. His glands release poisons that drive him mad. In anger you can move a huge rock that you could never have shifted if you were not angry. Your glands release toxins; under the intoxication of that poison you can do anything. In anger—now even scientists accept this—poison is released. Under its effect a person can even commit murder. There are glands within that stupefy you. When you are crazed with lust, those glands also secrete a toxic substance. You are not in awareness. For when awareness returns, you repent—deeply you repent that you made the same mistake again. And you did it yourself; you have repented many times before. How did it happen again? Surely you were not conscious. Whatever mistakes a man makes, he makes in unconsciousness.

At the moment of death, all the toxic glands of your body release their full poison. Your entire consciousness is filled with smoke; you have no awareness. When your body is separated from the soul, you are as unconscious as a patient under surgery—more so. Death has its own anesthesia. Therefore you cannot die consciously; you will die in unconsciousness. For this very reason you do not remember your past life in the next one: what happens in unconsciousness cannot be remembered.

We have died many times—thousands of times, millions of times—and we do not remember ever having died. There is no memory of previous deaths. Because death is not remembered, a gap, an interval appears; hence there is no memory of the previous birth. The one who dies consciously will remember the last life in the next. None of you remembers.

If you cannot even die consciously, what will you do, what will you think while dying? Death will occur in unconsciousness; before dying you will already have become unconscious. Therefore the last thought will be an unconscious one, not a conscious one. So the unconscious cravings you have nurtured in your subconscious all your life—those will become your seed. On the strength of those you will set out on your new journey. You remember neither death nor birth. Do you remember your birth? Nothing at all.

For nine months in the mother’s womb you were unconscious. That unconsciousness too is necessary; otherwise the child could hardly survive. The nine months would be a prison if there were awareness. If the child were aware, the suffering in the womb would be unbearable; hence, he is unconscious. Even after birth you know nothing of what happened. When you were coming out of the womb, do you know anything? If you try to look back, at most to the age of three, two; those with great recall cannot go back beyond two years. Up to two years you were not properly conscious.

Unconscious in dying, unconscious in the womb, unconscious at birth, unconscious even after birth; and what you call life is itself almost unconscious—there is little awareness in it. Only he can consciously determine his final desire at the moment of death who has practiced meditation throughout life.

See it this way: you do not have mastery even over small matters—what will you do about determining your birth? If I tell you, for twenty‑four hours, do not be disturbed—even over that you have no ownership. You will say, if restlessness comes, what can I do? If someone abuses me, what will I do? If you are told for twenty‑four hours not to be disturbed, even that is not in your domain. A petty thing, an extremely petty thing—yet you think you will mold an entire life, a new life, according to your wish!

You cannot manage even a small ripple of mind. If you are told that for twenty‑four hours a certain thought must not arise, you cannot prevent even that thought from coming. Such is your slavery! And you think that in the last moment you will display such mastery that the direction of a whole life will be in your hands! Hardly any decision comes to fruition by your own hand; even the smallest resolve is not fulfilled. We are defeated everywhere. Yet such ideas console us. So we think, keep on sinning; we will set it right at the last moment.

If you have the power to set it right, why not set it right now? If it is a matter of becoming like the Buddha, why postpone it to the next birth? What obstructs you from becoming it now? If becoming a Buddha is in your hands, become one now. But you know well it does not seem to be in your hands; hence you postpone. It gives a sense of relief: no worry—if not today, tomorrow; if not tomorrow, the day after. And we drift along in stupor.

There will be no awareness for you at the moment of death. One who wishes to have awareness while dying must use the moments of life for awareness. And before real death happens, you must learn, in meditation, the art of dying. Meditation is the art of death—the technique of dying in your own hands. When the body dies on its own, there may not be such convenience; the event will be so new you will be in difficulty, and to maintain awareness then will be extremely troublesome. In meditation you can die in advance—you can leave the body and be separate from it.

The one who begins to master death in meditation becomes well acquainted with death long before it comes. He has already died and seen. Now death has nothing new to offer. And one who has seen himself as separate from his body—death no longer finds it necessary to render him unconscious. There is no need then.

It so happened that in 1908 the king of Kashi underwent an abdominal operation. But he said he was not willing to take any anesthetic. It was an appendicitis operation. The doctors said it was difficult—they would have to anesthetize him, for the pain would be unbearable; if he moved, screamed, cried, tried to run, what could they do? Everything would be endangered—his life at risk. But the king said, do not worry at all. Just let me read my Gita. I will keep reciting my Gita; you go on with the operation.

There was no alternative. The king refused any anesthesia, and the operation was absolutely necessary; without it he would die anyway. So it seemed proper to take the risk: since without surgery death was certain, let us try; at worst he will die, which is certain, but there is a chance he may be saved. It was the first time in medical history that such a major operation was performed without any anesthetic. The king of Kashi kept reciting his Gita, and the operation was done.

The operation was completed without any hitch. The physicians were amazed. The English surgeon who performed it was astonished: “What did you do? The pain was so unbearable!” The king replied, “I kept meditating on Krishna’s words: that the soul is neither cut by being cut, nor pierced by being pierced, nor burned by fire. I remained immersed in a single feeling—that I am separate; I am not the doer, not the enjoyer; I am only the witness. No one can burn me, pierce me, or cut me. That feeling remained dense in me. I heard the clatter of your instruments, but as if everything were happening far away. There was pain, but distant—as if I were standing apart. I was watching, as if the pain were happening to someone else.”

Now this king can keep awareness even in death; in life he has deeply practiced awareness.

Do not trust in death; trust in life. And in life, cultivate whatever you wish to become. Do not postpone to death—that will prove deceptive. Use whatever moments are in your hands. And if you want to attain Buddhahood, then begin its work this very moment, because Buddhahood is not some childish matter that will happen just by thinking of it. Much labor will be needed, much practice. Only then will it become the seed at the last moment, and a new birth can sprout along the path of that seed.

What juice is there in life right now? Right now you are doers, contrary to the Gita—what juice is there in life? And if life is already juicy, then what need is there to read the Gita? What need to hear it? If life is already juicy, why even raise the question of religion? Why talk of God, liberation, meditation, samadhi?

If there is juice in life, the matter is finished. Juice itself is God. Then nothing remains to be done. Then become even more of a doer so that you get even more juice. Plunge deeper into the world so that you find deeper sources of juice.

And if, by being a doer, you are already getting juice, then offer the Gita and the rest into the fire. There is no need. And do not listen to Krishna and the others—otherwise they will destroy your juice. You are in great bliss—why listen to them at all!

But if you truly were in juice, that would be fine. You have no juice at all. You are in suffering, in deep suffering. Yes, you keep alive the hope of juice. Whenever you are, you are in suffering; and the juice is in the future.

There is not a trace of juice in the world; there is juice only in the hope of the future. Where you are, there you are unhappy. But you think, tomorrow a big house will be built and there will be joy there. With what you have, you are unhappy; but you think tomorrow there will be more and great juice will come. Tomorrow something will happen by which juice will occur.

On the hope of tomorrow we spend today’s misery. That tomorrow never comes. Tomorrow never is. Whatever there is, is today. The world is hope; the juice is in that hope. You must be afraid that if you become a witness, then the juice will be lost. Because the moment you become a witness, the future is lost; only the present remains. So the question is absolutely right.

There is no juice in the world that will be lost. If the world had juice, then there would be no need for religion at all. There is suffering in the world; therefore religion could come into being. There is illness in the world; therefore the medicine of religion could be sought. If the world were health, religion would be utterly purposeless.

Bertrand Russell has said it rightly. He has said religion will remain in the world as long as there is suffering. Therefore, if we want to abolish religion, we should abolish suffering.

He is right. But suffering cannot be abolished. Five thousand years of history are known to us. Man has been trying to eradicate suffering. And if he manages to remove one suffering, ten new sufferings are born. The old sufferings are erased and new ones arrive. But suffering does not disappear.

Certainly, a thousand years ago there were different sufferings; today there are different ones; tomorrow there will be others. In India there is one kind of suffering, in America another, in Russia a third. But suffering does not vanish.

No society on earth has ever been able to say, “Our suffering is gone; now we are in bliss.” A few individuals have indeed said, “Our suffering is gone and we are in bliss.” But those individuals are precisely the ones who have experimented with religion. Till today, a person devoid of religion has never been able to say, “I am in bliss.” He remains in suffering.

Russell is right: if you want to abolish religion, abolish suffering. I agree too—but only if suffering could be abolished.

There are two possibilities. One: if suffering disappears, religion disappears. Two: if religion arrives, suffering disappears. Russell agrees with the first; I agree with the second.

Suffering cannot be erased. But if religion arrives, suffering can be erased. Religion is a therapy; it aims to destroy the causes of suffering in life. The cause from which we manufacture suffering in life is to be broken. That cause is the feeling of doership. The belief “I am doing” is the root of suffering. The ego—“I am”—is the root of suffering. The moment that is broken, suffering dissolves and a rain of bliss begins.

These friends ask: what juice will remain in life?

First thing: there is no juice in life as it is. But the second point is worth considering: the juice that belongs to the future will certainly be lost. For the witness there is no future.

Understand this a little. We divide time into three: past, present, future. But these are not divisions of time. Time is always present. Time has only one tense: present. The past is only a memory of the mind; it exists nowhere. And the future is only an imagination of the mind; it, too, is nowhere. Whatever time is, is always present.

Have you ever met the past? Or met the future? Whenever meeting happens, it happens with the present. You are always here and now. Neither are you behind nor ahead. Yes, the thought of the past can be in you—that is the mind’s affair. And thoughts of the future can be there—that too is the mind’s affair.

Existence is present; mind is past and future. One more delightful point: existence is always present, and the mind is never present. The mind is never here and now. Think on this a little.

If you try to be completely here in this very moment—forget the whole past; what has happened is no more; forget the whole future; what has not happened is not yet—remain only here, in the present, then the mind will end. The mind needs either the past, to run backward into memory, or the future—space, room to spread. In the present there is no room. The moment of the present is so small that the mind has no space at all to expand.

What will it do? If you take away the past and take away the future, then in the present nothing remains for the mind to do. Therefore one of the deepest processes of meditation is to live in the present. Then meditation begins to bear fruit by itself, because the mind begins to end. The mind simply cannot survive.

Time is only the present. Mind is past and future. If you become a witness, you will come into the present. Both past and future will disappear. Because you can be a witness only of that which is. How will you witness the past, which is not? How will you witness the future, which is yet to be? Witnessing is possible only of that which is.

The moment witnessing happens, the mind ends. Therefore the juice of the future will certainly end. But you do not yet know that when the future’s juice ends, the bliss of the present will pour over you. And the future’s juice is only a false assurance; it never fulfills.

Think of it this way. If you are fifty years old, then that fifty years was the future ten years ago. And ten years ago you must have thought, “Who knows what joys are about to come!” Now you have seen it all. Yet joy has not arrived.

From childhood a person keeps thinking, “Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow!” And one day death arrives—and joy does not. Looking back, can you recall even a single moment which you could call bliss? A moment of which you could say, “Because of that, my life became meaningful,” for which you could say, “All life’s sufferings were worth bearing because even that one drop of bliss was found—then all suffering is repaid; no loss at all.” Is there even one such moment in your life for which you would be ready to live it all over again? “I am ready to endure all the hardships, because that moment was worth attaining.”

No such moment will come to mind. All stale, all ash, all tasteless. And yet hope still hangs in the future. It hangs till the last breath. In that hope the juice seems to be. That juice is a deception.

In witnessing, in the state of non-doership, the juice of deception is not available, but the shower of real juice begins.

Krishna’s dance, Buddha’s silence, Mahavira’s beauty are not born from the juice of the future. Over them, here-now, in the present, there is a torrential downpour.

Kabir says, “Nectar is raining and I am dancing.” That nectar is not about the future. It is raining now. It is raining here. Kabir says, “Look, my clothes are thoroughly drenched! I am standing in a shower of nectar. The clouds are thundering and nectar is pouring. Not that it will rain; it is raining! Look, my clothes are getting soaked!”

Religion is an event of the present; craving is a run into the future. If the future seems very juicy to you, do not try to become a non-doer—because the moment you become one, the future drops away. But if you have found nothing but suffering—every day the future becomes the present and brings suffering—then once, take courage and try to become a non-doer.

The moment you become a non-doer, the door of eternity opens. It opens only through the present. The present is the door of existence. If you agree to stop, here and now, even for a single moment, you can meet God.

But our mind is very clever. While I am speaking, the mind will say, “He is right. We will try this after we get home.” After you get home? The future! “Someday, when we have some free time, we will also try to become non-doers.” The future!

What can happen now, we postpone to tomorrow and are deprived. Only those have known juice who have entered the present. The rest have known nothing but suffering.

It is recorded in Buddha’s life. Buddha had all the pleasures you can seek. But in having all pleasures, a great danger appears: the hope of the future disappears.

There is one convenience in suffering: hope remains in the future. The car you want can be had tomorrow; not today, not now. You will work, collect money, steal, be dishonest, do something. Tomorrow. Time is needed. The house you want to build will take time.

But Buddha had a problem—an affliction that proved to be a boon. He had everything; therefore there was no device left for hope. Whatever could be, was. His palaces were the grandest. The most beautiful women were with him. He had as much wealth as could be had. Whatever in that age was best and most beautiful—he had it all.

Buddha got into trouble. Because everything was there, the future collapsed. And suffering became visible—everything is suffering. He ran away.

It is a great wonder: people have awakened out of pleasure and fled, and people in suffering keep trudging on! People flee in pleasure because they see that nothing more can happen. Whatever could happen has happened—and nothing happened. Inside there is only suffering. There is no future. Hope does not take hold. All the bridges of hope collapse. Buddha fled.

As Buddha is fleeing, his charioteer says to him, “What madness are you doing!” The charioteer is a poor man. He still has hopes. He can become the chief charioteer. He can become the emperor’s charioteer. Right now he is the prince’s charioteer. He says to Buddha, “I am an old man; let me advise you; you are making a mistake. You are being foolish. You are in the delusion of youth. Come back. Where will you find such beautiful palaces? Where will you find such beautiful wives? Where will you get such a beautiful son? You have everything—where are you running!”

That conversation between the charioteer and Buddha—well, the charioteer is not wrong. He speaks from his own reckoning. Ahead of him, the web of hopes still stands. Those palaces could also come to him in the future. Those beautiful women he too might obtain. The race is still on. To him, Buddha seems utterly foolish—like a child. Where the whole world is trying to reach, from there he is running away! Even at the last moment, he says, “Once more I tell you, turn back. Return to the palaces.”

Buddha says, “You see palaces because you are not in those palaces. I see only flames and suffering there, because I am coming from there. I have lived in them. You are outside. Therefore you know nothing. Do not try to advise me.”

Buddha leaves the palaces. And for six years he performs great austerities to attain God, truth, liberation. But in six years of severe austerity he attains neither liberation, nor God, nor the self.

Buddha’s story is unique. For six years he does whatever is prescribed. Whatever method is taught, he practices it. His masters begin to get frightened. Usually disciples are frightened of the master because they cannot do what he says. But with Buddha, the masters get frightened. They say to him, “Enough—whatever we could teach, we have taught; and you have done it all.” And Buddha says, “Tell me further, because nothing has happened yet.” Then they say, “Now you should go somewhere else.”

He goes to every available master and exhausts them all. After six years he sits, tired, under a tree on the bank of the Niranjana River. This weariness is very deep. One weariness was of the palaces: the palaces had become futile, because there was no future in the palaces.

Understand this; it is subtle. In the palaces there was no future. Everything was at hand; there was no hope ahead. When he left the palaces, hope arose again; the future opened. Now liberation, God, the self, peace, bliss—these became the goals of the future. He began to run again. Desire picked up speed again. He was practicing, but desire had arisen, because desire is awakened by the future. Desire is the link between me and the future. He began to race again.

Those six years—the years of austerity—were years of desire. Liberation had to be attained. It could not be had today; it was in the future. Therefore all harsh methods were tried, but liberation did not come. Because liberation comes only when all running stops. The inner void—or fullness—becomes available only when all desire falls.

This too was a desire: to attain God, to attain truth. Whatever demands the future is desire. Understand it thus: any thought that needs the future is desire.

That day Buddha was spent. The weariness was twofold. The palaces had become useless. Now the methods of practice had also become useless. He sat under the tree, exhausted. That night he felt: there is nothing left to do. I have known the palaces. I have known the methods of practice. There is nothing anywhere to attain. This weariness sank very deep: there is nothing anywhere to get. From this thought, naturally another thought was born: there is nothing to do.

Understand this a little. When there is nothing to get, what remains to do? As long as there is something to get, there is something to do. Buddha felt: now there is nothing to get, nothing to do. That night he sat empty under the tree. He did not know when sleep came.

At dawn, when the last star was going down, his eyes opened. Today there was nothing at all to do. No palaces, no world, no liberation, no self—nothing to do. His eyes opened. Inside there was no desire. Today even the thought was not there—where should I go after getting up? What should I do after getting up? What is the point of getting up? Nothing remained! He was; the last sinking star was there; the silence of morning; the bank of the Niranjana River. And enlightenment happened to Buddha.

What could not be obtained through practice, what was not got by running, was obtained that morning by stopping. He did nothing, and it happened! In that moment he was a witness. When there is no doer, witnessing happens. And as long as there is a doer, witnessing cannot be. In that moment he became capable of seeing. There was nothing to do, therefore there was no desire to do. No conflict, no tension, no ripple—nothing at all. The mind was absolutely empty, as if there were no wave in the river. In that waveless state, supreme bliss poured over him.

The moment you are still, bliss showers. The moment you are silent, bliss showers. The moment you stop, the goal comes near. When you run, the goal goes far. When you stop, the goal comes close.

It is not even right to say that when you stop, the goal comes close. The moment you stop, you find you yourself are the goal. There was nowhere to go. Because you were going, you were missing. Because you were seeking, you were losing. You stopped—and you found.

One last question.

It’s a difficult question, but if you connect it with what I was just saying, it will become easy.
Can there not be sudden self-realization?
First, whenever self-realization happens, it happens suddenly. Whenever the soul is experienced, it is always sudden. But don’t take this to mean that nothing needs to be done for it. It does not happen because of your doing, but your doing is necessary.

Understand it like this: you have forgotten a friend’s name. You try very hard to remember. The more you try, the less it comes. It even feels as if it’s right on the tip of your tongue. You say, “It’s on the tip of my tongue.” If it’s right there, why don’t you just say it? But it won’t come into your grasp. The more you try to catch it, the more it slips away. Somewhere inside there is a feeling that you know it. You feel, “Any moment it will come.” And yet it does not.

Then you get tired. You go to the garden and start digging a hole. Or you pick up a newspaper. Or you light a cigarette. Or you switch on the radio. Or you do anything at all. Or you lie down. And after a little while, suddenly, like a bubble rising up, that name pops up over you. And you say, “See, I told you—it was on the tip of my tongue. Now it’s here.”

Two things must be understood here. It did not come because you tried. But if you had not tried, it would not have come either. This is a bit tricky.

It did not come because of your effort, because effort creates tension. Tension narrows the mind; the doorway closes. You become so eager to force it that your very eagerness creates a disturbance. Inside, everything tightens. For the name to arise, you must become relaxed, so the bubble can float up to you.

But if you had not made any effort at all, there would have been no need for the bubble to arise either.

This means effort is necessary—and then dropping effort is also necessary. This is the most difficult point in spiritual practice. Here you will have to make an effort, and at a certain limit you will have to drop it. Effort is necessary—and letting go is also necessary.

Understand it like climbing a staircase. If someone asks me, “By climbing the stairs will I reach the terrace? Or can one reach the terrace without climbing the stairs?” I will face the same difficulty I face with your question.

I will say to you: climbing the stairs is necessary—and then leaving the stairs is also necessary. No one reaches the terrace without climbing the stairs. And if someone keeps climbing and never leaves the stairs, he will also never reach the terrace. You must climb; and then the moment comes when you must step off the stairs onto the terrace.

If you say, “We’ll just keep climbing the same stairs,” then you will never reach the terrace. Climb the stairs—and then leave them.

Spiritual practice is like a staircase. You must climb it—and you must also get off it.

For example, if you practice chanting—say, the name of Rama—remember: until the chanting of Rama drops, there cannot be a meeting with Rama. But only one who has chanted can drop it.

Some foolish people say, “Then it’s perfect—we are already in a good position! No need to drop anything since we never did it.” They are standing at the bottom of the stairs. The dropping happens from the top, not from the bottom. The ground beneath those two positions is different.

Buddha practiced austerities for six years. In Buddhist thought, the question has been raised again and again: Did truth come to Buddha because of his six years of austerity? One answer is: it did not. Nothing came out of those six years; what came, came when he dropped austerity. So one group says: since he did not attain through austerity, austerity is useless.

But the more intelligent view is: it did not come from austerity—and yet what came was based on austerity. Without austerity it would not have come.

Go sit by the Neranjana River. That bush is still there. Go sit under it at your ease. The morning star still sets. Set an alarm for the right time; your eyes will open at dawn. Watch the star and become a Buddha!

You will not become a Buddha. Those six years of running were necessary for that sitting. That man had run so much; that is why he could sit. You have not run at all—how will you sit?

Understand it like this: a person who works hard all day falls into deep sleep at night. Sleep is the other side. You say, “Why don’t I fall asleep?” You rest all day—and at night when sleep doesn’t come, you think, “I should be even sleepier; I practice sleeping all day! And that man has no time to practice sleep in the day, and yet he sleeps so well at night! I lie on the sofa with my eyes closed, turning from side to side, and sleep doesn’t come. What injustice is this?”

You don’t realize: only the one who has labored all day becomes entitled to rest. Rest is the fruit of effort. This does not mean you should labor at night as well. Rest is necessary—but it becomes available only when effort has preceded it.

The man who, like Buddha, runs hard in deep austerity for six years—if one day he collapses and sits—the quality of his sitting is different. He is not sitting as you sit. You are still running even while you sit. You may sit beneath the same Bodhi tree, but your mind will keep moving; it will go on planning. The morning star will be setting, and inside you a thousand things will be standing. There can be no silence there. As long as craving is there, there can be no silence.

It is true that truth did not come from Buddha’s running. It is equally true that it came because of his running. If you grasp this paradox rightly, you will understand the answer.

Self-realization always happens suddenly. It cannot be predicted—no prophecy can be made that “tomorrow at eleven in the morning you will be self-realized.”

Your death can be predicted. Your illness can be predicted. Your success or failure can be predicted. Self-realization cannot be predicted. It is such a unique event, so free of causality, that no mathematics can be set for it.

It will always be sudden—and sometimes in moments you could never imagine. But if you take this to mean that practice is unnecessary—that “when it has to happen, it will happen”—then it will never happen. Practice is necessary.

Practice is necessary to prepare you. Self-realization does not come from practice; practice makes you ready, deserving, a vessel; it opens you. When you are worthy and receptive, the event of self-realization happens.

Keep this distinction clearly in mind.

You cannot bring God through practice. He is already present. Practice only opens your eyes. Practice only prepares you. God is present; there is no question of “getting” him.

Understand it like this: you are sitting in your house. The sun has risen; it is morning. You sit inside with all the doors and windows shut. The sun will not break in. Its rays will wait at your door. If you try to go outside, bundle up the sunlight and carry it in, you won’t manage it. The bundle will come in; the light will remain outside. But you can do one thing: open the doors—and the sun will enter.

There is no way to force the sun in; nor does the sun force its way in. What can you do? A curious thing: you cannot drag the sun inside, but you can keep it out. Keep the door closed and it will not come in. Open it, and it will.

Exactly so, God is present. As long as you are shut in by your thoughts, encircled by your mind—like a corpse in a grave, surrounded by walls—a prison of desires, thoughts, memories; a prison of hopes and expectations—until then there can be no meeting with the divine. The moment this prison drops from you, as garments fall away and you stand naked—when the garments of thought and desire fall and you are naked in your purity—in that very moment the meeting happens.

Practice refines you; it does not “bring” God. But the day you are refined—and no one can say when that day comes, because it is such an unprecedented event there is no yardstick—there is no instrument to test it, no compass, no map. The journey is uncharted.

You have nothing by which to gauge where you have reached—whether you are at ninety-nine degrees, or ninety-nine and a half—when will it be a hundred, when will you turn to steam? Only when you become it do you know. The old person is gone; a new consciousness is born. Suddenly, an explosion occurs.

But before that sudden explosion, there is a long journey of practice. When water turns to steam, it happens suddenly at one hundred degrees. Do not imagine it will happen suddenly at ninety-eight or ninety-nine. Reach one hundred—and it happens in an instant. But the heat required to reach one hundred—that is gathered by practice.

That is why we have called practice tapas—heat. Tapas means to heat oneself, to bring oneself to a condition where meeting with the divine becomes possible.

That night, Buddha came to the point where one hundred degrees were complete. Then there was no need to add fire. He sat steady beneath the tree. He even let go of austerity. And in the morning, the event happened.

The supreme mysteries of life happen suddenly. But those sudden happenings have a great prelude.