Geeta Darshan #10

Truth is very little, extremely small. It can fit into a single moment, even into a single word. But in that form you will not understand it. You cannot see that atom. It is so subtle that you will miss it. To show you that tiny truth, your intellect makes many demands.

The nets of doctrine are not erected to point to truth; they are erected to satisfy your intellect. And without that satisfaction, you cannot enter into the search.

All your questions are futile. What Arjuna asks of Krishna is futile. What Ananda asks of Buddha is futile. But he asks; and until answers are given, his journey will not begin.

Even if you are asking in vain, the true master still has to answer. Merely telling you that it is futile will not satisfy you. Merely saying it is irrelevant, that there is no point in asking, will not satisfy you.

To answer does not mean that what you are asking is meaningful. The only purpose of answering is that your curiosity may wear itself out and come to rest. That you may get tired of asking. The master will not tire; he will go on answering. He is tiring you out. A moment should come when you yourself begin to say, “Enough of asking; now something has to be done.” And when you say, “No more questions—now something has to be done,” then the matter is very simple.

Just as to explain something to small children you have to weave a web of stories, to explain something to clever children you have to weave a web of doctrines. The web of doctrines will have to be as vast as the questions your intelligence keeps raising.

There was a Zen master, Rinzai. An emperor came and asked, “Whatever is worth knowing, whatever is worth attaining—tell it to me in a single word.” Rinzai said, “I certainly will. But whatever is worth asking, you ask me in a single word. If you can ask it in one word, I will say it in one word. And if you are able to ask in silence, then there is no need even for one word: you ask in silence, and I will tell you in silence.”

How long you make your question will decide how long a net of words the master will weave. However small your question seems, it is very big. All its facets must be touched. If even one facet remains untouched within you, it will go on pricking you, troubling you. It has no intrinsic value. But to you it appears valuable.

Whatever Arjuna is asking has no value. Krishna could say straightaway that the question is futile: “Do not ask—do what I say.” But if Krishna says to Arjuna that what he is asking is futile and he should simply do what Krishna says, it will become difficult for Arjuna to act. For Arjuna would feel slighted. And an Arjuna who does not have even this much value in Krishna’s eyes—that Krishna should answer his questions—such an Arjuna will not be able to have trust in Krishna. He will not be able to follow him.

That itch of his intellect needs to be soothed a little. Though nothing will be solved by scratching that itch. Itching increases when you scratch it; not only increases, it can make you bleed; it can bring pain and suffering. But you have to go to that limit.

A master needs infinite patience. If the master is impatient, not a single step is possible with you. He must have at least as much patience as you have for asking—and a little more. Even when you have exhausted yourself asking, he is still ready to answer.

These answers are not given because your curiosities have value. They are given so that your curiosities may be exhausted and fall away. These answers are not answers to questions; they are a device to bring the questions down. The mind has a certain capacity; once that limit is crossed, the mind collapses. Then you yourself begin to say, “Now no more asking, now no more knowing; now something has to be done—now something has to be.” That is the moment sought.

And until you have asked enough, the master’s telling you to do something is useless—because you have to do it. Until that feeling awakens within you, it cannot be produced from the outside.

That is why Buddha speaks all his life; from morning until evening he keeps speaking. People keep asking the same questions again and again; Buddha keeps answering again and again—only with the patience that you will tire.

The one who asks is not infinite, and the one who answers is infinite. The disciple’s search has a limit. But the ocean in which he seeks—the Krishna or the Buddha—has no shore. He will wear you out.

There is no way to win against the master. You will have to lose—and that very defeat will be your victory. Because that day you will rise above words.

Understand it like this: if a thorn gets embedded, you must use another thorn to remove it. You may say, “I am already troubled by one thorn—why are you bringing me another? One thorn is piercing my foot and giving me pain, and you are pricking me with a second!” On the surface it looks like that. The second thorn must also prick, because only a thorn can remove a thorn. Both are thorns. Both sting. And when the first thorn has been removed by the second, both are thrown away.

You are pricked by the thorn of words. It will have to be taken out by the thorn of words. And when the sting of words is removed, when the questions fall out, both are thrown away.

When Arjuna comes to a state of right understanding, then what he had asked is, of course, futile—and what Krishna had said is just as futile. On that day he can set the Gita on fire. And until the disciple is capable of burning the Gita, know that the sting of knowing has not yet subsided. The first thorn is still embedded; with the second you are trying to pull it out. When both thorns are out, both are to be discarded.

Therefore all scriptures become useless. And a moment does come when you turn your back on scripture. Until that moment arrives, know that the real moment has not yet come. As long as scripture appears valuable to you, know that doubt remains. The day doubt disappears, scripture is of no use—because scripture is useful only to remove doubt. Like a sick man who carries a bottle of medicine: when he becomes healthy, not only the illness but the bottle too is left behind.

Scriptures are nothing more than medicine. They have no intrinsic value of their own. What value does a medicine have in itself? If you are not ill, none at all. If you are ill, it has great value. Scriptures have no value in themselves. For the sick mind, the medicine of scripture is meaningful. But to bring about that moment, the second thorn must be used.

So Krishna is not giving Arjuna any truth. Truth cannot be given. Untruth can be taken away; truth cannot be bestowed. Understand this well.

Health cannot be given; disease can be removed. Health is an inner state. That is why there is no medicine in the world that can give health. Medicine only cuts away the disease. The disease is cut, and health arises within you. Health does not enter within through medicine. Medicine cuts the disease. Disease is a kind of poison, and medicine too is a poison—and poison cuts poison. Your capacity to be healthy is hidden within you; when disease is removed, it begins to manifest.

Truth is hidden within you. No Krishna, no Buddha can give truth. No one has ever given truth to anyone. Only your untruth can be cut away.

These nets of doctrine are to cut away your untruth. And you have entrenched your untruth so firmly that only if someone cuts with equal force can it be cut.

Arjuna is standing with his feet firmly planted. He does not let go of his doubt. He does not put aside his suspicions. He keeps presenting his problem in new forms. As many new forms as he raises, Krishna will attack in just as many new forms. For this disease the right medicine must be found.

The moment Arjuna is free of doubt, in that very moment Krishna will fall silent. That very day scripture becomes useless. Then there is no need for scripture.

This whole web of doctrines exists because you have woven a web of doubts. It is only an antidote. Doctrine is the antidote to doubt.

The more skeptical people are, the more scriptures will be needed. When people are not skeptical at all, scriptures will disappear. In a village where no one is sick, the doctor slowly takes his leave; medicines vanish.

It is because of untruth that there are so many scriptures. It is for untruth that there are so many scriptures. It is because of doubt that there are so many doctrines. If you want fewer doctrines, it will not happen by reducing doctrines; reduce doubt, and doctrines will reduce. If you can stand without doubt, then for you not even a single doctrine is needed.

If Arjuna were to stand undoubting before Krishna, Krishna would not speak a single word. There would be no purpose in speaking. If there is no illness, medicine has no meaning.

That is the value. Only that much. No more. The entire value of all processes is simply this: that you come to know nothing will happen through doing. You do and do until you are tired out and arrive at the place where the urge to do no longer arises, where it is clear that by doing, nothing is going to happen. The very moment the urge to do does not arise, you are free of the doer; in that very moment the ego becomes empty.

Doing looks meaningful because the doer feels meaningful. What are you proving by all your doing? That “I am the doer.” You are proving your doer-ship. One person hoards wealth to prove he is a great doer. Someone amasses knowledge to prove he is a great doer. Someone practices renunciation to prove he is a great doer. The root is the same in all: “I am.” Each one is affirming the ego. And until the ego dissolves, there is no relationship with the Divine.

So there is only one device: that all your doing become futile, that you fail everywhere, that nowhere do you taste success. The day your failure is complete, the day not a trace of hope remains that you can succeed, that day your “I” will fall. And with the fall of the “I,” the supreme success will be attained. Because the fall of “I” means that there is nothing left to seek; the wall is down, the doors are open.

Mulla Nasruddin in his village also played the astrologer. He had opened his stall in the market when a local politician, who had just lost an election, came by. Nasruddin said, “Wait! Don’t you want to know your future?” The politician said, “Forget the future now; I have lost. There is no future for me. I’m going to commit suicide. Your astrology has no value for me.” Nasruddin said, “Stop. At least find out whether you will succeed in committing suicide or not!”

So long as you are going to do anything—even to commit suicide—the doer still stands behind. As long as you feel you can do something, your ego is awake.

A very great French thinker, Albert Camus, made a valuable statement: even if a man cannot do anything else, even if everywhere else he appears unsuccessful and powerless, suicide is one thing by which it is proved that “we, too, are.” Remember, those who commit suicide are often egotistical people: they could not succeed in life, but they cannot accept being nothing. By killing themselves they at least declare, “There is something I can do. I can at least end myself.”

Dostoevsky’s famous novel is The Brothers Karamazov. In it, one character lifts his hands toward the sky and says, “O God, if you are anywhere and you meet me, I want to do only one thing: I want to return the ticket you gave me for sending me into this world—and tell you this world is worthless.” The one who commits suicide is doing just this: saying to God, “Take care of your world yourself. This much, at least, I am free to do. And you will not be able to stop me.”

Therefore suicide is often the last culmination of the ego. A humble person can never commit suicide. An egoless one cannot even conceive of it—because to be egoless means nothing is in my hands; not even life is in my hands, not even death. I am but a limb in this vast play; that limb has no separate, isolated identity from the whole, no ego of its own. I am a part of the vastness, as a wave is part of the ocean. Wherever the ocean takes it, the wave will go. The wave cannot choose its path; it cannot say, “I must go east; let the whole ocean go west, but I shall go east!”

The egoistic person is bent on eliminating himself. And the greater the ego, the sooner he feels, “Let me finish with it,” because the greater the ego, the more failure life will bring. The ego will be broken at every turn.

A seeker simply means one who is now ready to break the ego. And the ego will break only when the sense of doer-ship disappears. The sense of doer-ship will vanish when all your actions fail, when all your methods, all your techniques, all your paths prove futile—when you reach a place where you can say, “Nothing happens by what I do; nothing will ever happen by what I do.”

This supreme failure—only in this supreme failure does a person realize, “I am helpless.” Only in this supreme failure does one know, “There is no center of ego within me; I am but a wave upon the ocean.” From one angle this is failure; from another, this is the very birth of religion, the greatest success. From the worldly side it is the greatest defeat; from God’s side it is the greatest victory. One who is not ready for this defeat will never attain victory in the realm of the Divine.

So the Master’s entire effort is this. You ask, “What should I do?” If the Master says, “Do nothing,” you will not be satisfied. You ask, “What should I do?” The Master gives you something to do. By making you do, he brings you to that point where you yourself will say, “Nothing happens through doing.” He is bringing you to the state of non-doing.

Though you will not arrive at non-doing by doing—you will find ways to avoid it. You will say, “I have begun to see light.” You will report to the Master, “I am seeing red and blue colors; I have begun to hear the sound of Om; my kundalini is awakening.” You will devise a thousand tricks to prove that what you are doing is not failing—it is succeeding. You will do everything to protect your ego. But if, by good fortune, you have found a true Master, he will not let a single device of yours work. He will say, “This kundalini—this is all nonsense. These are your delusions; you are dreaming. Stop this talk. These multicolored pictures you see are nothing more than dreams. The light you see is your imagination.”

A true Master will not let you settle. Bring him as many reports of success as you like; he will keep defeating you. And if you do not run away from him, he will certainly bring you—gradually, according to your capacity—to that place where you will say, “Nothing happens through doing.” And the day you understand this, doer-ship will dissolve. In the very moment of the dissolution of doer-ship, the entire ocean descends into your drop. In that very instant, everything happens. When you disappear, all happens. So long as you are, nothing happens.

Your whole effort is to remain. Therefore you keep discovering all kinds of futile claims and “attainments.” And because of this, you also find futile gurus. Among a hundred, perhaps one is a true Master. The ninety-nine gurus are of your own making. They exist to gratify you, to console you. You say, “The kundalini is rising,” and they say, “Completely! It is rising.” You say, “I see multicolored visions,” and they say, “These are not dreams; these are precious things. They have great value. You are ascending high; perfection is very near.”

Because of your stupidity and your ego, such a vast network of gurus thrives. But a true Master will never allow you to succeed. Keep this well in mind. He will not allow you to succeed. However many devices you try, he will find counter-devices; he will trip you up and pull you back down. He is bringing you to a place where it becomes utterly clear to you that nothing can happen through your doing.

Therefore the Master has great difficulty. You want that something should happen. To keep persuading you, he pats your head and says, “Yes, wait; tomorrow it will happen; the day after it will happen; be patient.” And whenever something “happens,” he tries to ensure you give it no value, and still he says, “Wait, tomorrow,” because it is necessary to keep you waiting; you might run away. He has to give you hope in the future. He has to erase your past, and he has to erase your future too. But this is possible only if you stay. So he gives you hope: “Stay.” One day—if you just remain there, and if you make courageous efforts and all your efforts fail—

When I say “all efforts,” understand me: all efforts. Nothing remains to be done. All hope has vanished; not a ray of hope remains. In that profound darkness the great sun is born. That day you will become empty. That day you will say, “Now there is nothing left to do; there is no path left to run my craving on; there is no future now; there is no way left to prop up the ego. All the crutches have fallen. Now I cannot escape.”

In that very hour the Master’s support is needed—because you may run away; and that was the moment when the treasure was near. Even then he will say to you, “Stay. Do nothing. Wait. All will happen.” His reassurance is to strengthen your patience. Everything will happen within you; no Master does anything. And the one who does—know that he is not a Master. Truth cannot be handed to you; it cannot be dragged into being. Only your futile running about has to be ended.

You are standing exactly where truth is. But you have no habit of standing still—you are running. Your running has to be stopped. Karma is your running. And you always find it easy: dropping one action, you pick up another; dropping one guru, you pick up another. Someone will “awaken your chakras,” someone will “support your kundalini,” someone will teach something else. You will keep changing gurus; you will keep changing methods—but you will hold fast to yourself. Under the shade of a true Master, you will have to dissolve. And only those who are ready to dissolve can realize truth.

So certainly, all methods have a single utility: to come to know the futility of doing. When the futility of doing is realized, the meaningfulness of being becomes clear. Being and doing are utterly opposite. Doing is outer; being is inner. When doing stops completely, the sun of being appears—the flower opens. By any means, you need freedom from effort.

But if you are told directly, “Drop all doing,” you won’t understand. You have to be prepared inch by inch; led along path after path. And each path must begin to prove futile; you must come to see that nothing is going to happen through doing—because that which is, is already present within me, unmade by me. If for even a moment I drop karma, if the restlessness of action falls away, in that unmoving state it reveals itself.

But we are skilled at deceiving ourselves. Man’s greatest skill is self-deception. And we deceive ourselves so cleverly that we do not even recognize we have deceived ourselves.

Mulla Nasruddin was passing through a market. A mango-seller’s cart stood there, and the seller was turned away, talking to someone. Nasruddin picked up a mango and slipped it into his bag. Then his conscience began to prick him: “Stealing is not right. I deceived the poor seller; it is not proper to cheat the poor. I have sinned.” He went back, took out the mango and said to the seller, “Please exchange this mango.” The seller assumed he had bought it, so he obligingly exchanged it. Then Nasruddin went home delighted. “The first one I stole; the second he himself gave me. Now there is no thorn pricking in my soul. Now I am going home perfectly content—because the second one he himself gave. Now there is no question at all.”

This is almost exactly what you are doing. With a little sleight of hand you think everything is solved. It won’t be solved like this. That trick won’t work. You must understand what the root problem is.

The root problem is simply this: that what has already been given to you, you are trying to attain. Like a fish in the ocean trying to find the ocean—what a difficulty! What can a Master do for such a fish? Only one device: somehow pull this fish out of the water so that it begins to flop and gasp; let it writhe on the sand for a couple of moments; then throw it back into the ocean—and instantly it will recognize, “I have always been in the ocean.” But until it was separated from the ocean, it did not even become aware.

You are in God as a fish is in the ocean. Just as a fish cannot be without the ocean, you cannot be without the Divine. He is the mode of your being, the very ground of your being.

So what should the Master do? You ask him, “What should I do to attain God?” And he is seeing the fish swimming in the water, asking, “What should I do to attain water?” So he gives you some methods. All those methods are such as to make you writhe—to fill you, for a moment, with the restlessness that separates you from the ocean even for a moment. And as soon as you realize the futility and pain of separation, you fall back into the ocean. That falling back into the ocean is the meeting with the Divine.

The whole dilemma, the problem, the tangle of the search is that we are seeking that which is already attained. And the Master has to show you what you are already seeing. What is to be done?

Let me tell a story I have often told. A man drank wine and, out of habit, returned home at night. To come home, no awareness is needed; one arrives like a machine. You too come home unconsciously—the bicycle’s handle turns, the car’s wheel turns, your feet turn—you reach home.

He was unconscious yet reached his house. But standing before the door it occurred to him: “Is this my house or not?” His eyes were misty; inside there was intoxication; nothing was clear; things seemed to be whirling. So he sat on his own steps and began to ask passersby, “Someone please tell me where my house is!”

Someone laughed. Someone said, “You fool, you are sitting at your own doorstep.” He said, “Do you take me for so simple-minded that I would sit on my own steps and ask you?” Whoever tried to tell him he was on his own steps, he thought they were trying to deceive him: “If I were sitting on my own steps, why would I ask?”

A crowd gathered. His old mother, hearing the commotion at midnight, came out. She saw her son crying and the crowd standing around, and heard him asking, “Where is my house?” She put her hand on his head and said, “Son, have you gone mad? This is your house.” He looked at her; he did not recognize her; he saw some woman standing there. He caught her feet and said, “Mother, be gracious and tell me the way to my home.”

Just then a neighbor, himself drunk, came along with his bullock cart. He said, “Sit! Since you won’t listen, I’ll take you.” The mother wept, “Don’t sit in his cart, or who knows where he will take you. You are already at home. If you go anywhere else, you will go far away.”

This is almost exactly our condition. If someone says to you that what you are seeking is within you, you say, “Am I so foolish that I don’t know?” So for you a bullock cart has to be harnessed; you have to be seated in it—“Come, be seated; we’ll deliver you to your home.”

In this, the Master tires himself, seating you again and again in the cart, taking you around and around, and bringing you back to the very place from which the journey began. But in between he gives you so many jolts in the cart that your awareness returns, your unconsciousness breaks, your sleep breaks.

Your destination is not far; your awareness is not steady. What is to be attained is here. But the one who is to attain is unconscious. And to tell him directly, “You are standing where it is to be attained”—he will not believe you. If it could be understood, he would not be asking you in the first place.

The disciple comes to the Master because he “knows” that where he is there is nothing, and where everything is, the goal is very far; the journey there is very difficult—he must ask someone; a guide is needed. That is why he has come to you. And if you tell him directly, “There is no question of going anywhere, because you are already there; you are living in the goal,” he will look for another guru who will take him somewhere. So the true Master has to plan in accord with your unknowing. He harnesses the bullock cart so you feel trust. He seats you, drives the cart, takes you around a good deal—and has to bring you back to the very place where you were, from where the journey was started.

All Masters have a single device: to bring you to an understanding of the futility of karma, the futility of method. Effort is futile; effortlessness is its attainment. But to come to this, a great deal of wandering is necessary. And to recognize your own home, who knows how many homes and how many doors you have to search. To arrive where you are, you almost have to circle the whole world.

Just this one mistake: you have turned witnessing into a doing. You think you are practicing witnessing. Witnessing appears to you as something to do. That is the mistake.

Witnessing is not an act; it is the awareness toward all acts. Therefore witnessing itself is not a doing. Nothing needs to be done for witnessing. Whatever you do, simply see it.

And if you make witnessing into a deed, then you will have to watch that too. Behind that you would again have to be a witness. The witness is final; there is no going behind it. So do not make witnessing a doing—let it be natural.

It is a little difficult, because we turn everything into doing. We try to “practice” witnessing as well.

It is like telling a man that nothing needs to be done to bring sleep. And he does not get sleep. He asks me, “That is exactly my problem—I cannot sleep. I ask what I should do so that sleep comes, and you say nothing needs to be done. Then it means I will never sleep. I just don’t get it.”

He wants a method. He says, “Give me something to do so that sleep comes.” So you can tell him: count from one to a hundred. Then from a hundred back—ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven—down to one. Then from one again.

But there are dangers. The danger is that as long as you keep counting, sleep cannot come. Any doing will obstruct sleep. Any doing will obstruct rest. Whatever you do, as long as you are doing, sleep will not come. Doing must stop; only then does sleep come.

Not sleeping simply means that the mind goes on doing. At most, counting from one to a hundred, back to one, then again to a hundred may bore you, tire you. And out of that tiredness you may forget to count. In that moment of forgetting, sleep may come. This can happen. But sleep comes only when doing drops. As long as doing continues, sleep will not come. Doing and sleep are opposites.

Exactly the same is the case with witnessing. Whatever you do, witnessing will not happen. Because in whatever you do, you become the doer. To be a witness means: I will not become the doer; I will only see. I will not allow any sense of doership to arise.

But when you say, “I will only watch,” you turn watching into an act. You stiffen and watch; that is doership, and witnessing is lost.

Witnessing is natural. It needs no stiffness. It requires no doing. There is no question of doing.

But what can you do! When witnessing is not at hand, you start doing. And as long as you keep doing, witnessing will not be established. That is why you say, “Perhaps I am practicing witnessing.” Otherwise the thought of “perhaps” would not arise. If witnessing is happening, it is happening—what is there to “perhaps”?

You never say, “Perhaps I am alive!” If you are alive, you know you are alive. If you die, the matter is finished; there is not even anyone left to say “perhaps.”

If witnessing is, it is. If it is not, it is not. The very “perhaps” means you have made witnessing into an activity. You are trying. And by trying, witnessing disappears.

Do not try. Whatever happens, watch it. If sometimes witnessing happens, fine; if it does not, fine. But do not try. Leave witnessing to itself. If it comes even for a single moment in twenty-four hours, that is enough. Just watch for that much time. When it does not come, do not worry. When witnessing comes, watch that. And when it does not come, watch its absence. When the seer settles, watch that. When the seer is lost, watch that too.
Gurdjieff is very precious in this regard. Ouspensky asked Gurdjieff: what should I do? For Gurdjieff’s practice was self-remembering—call it witnessing: maintaining the remembrance of oneself. Sometimes it will be forgotten; sometimes it will be lost.
So Ouspensky, his disciple, asks Gurdjieff: when it is lost, what should I do? Sometimes attention settles, and sometimes I become inattentive. Gurdjieff says: when attention is present, know that attention is present. And when you become inattentive, know that now there is inattention. But do not create any quarrel about it. Be attentive to your inattention. When inattention appears, attend to that too. When awareness is there, fine—be aware of awareness. And when unawareness comes, fine—be aware of unawareness.

It is a delightful secret, because when you keep awareness toward unawareness, unawareness cannot persist.

Keep an easy, natural awareness—getting up and sitting, walking and sleeping, whatever is happening. Sometimes a dream will seize the mind; let it. Sometimes you will forget; then forget. Do not make a problem out of it; do not create tension from it. Let the simple thread of witnessing be kindled.

Slowly, slowly, moment by moment, that spring will begin to flow. And if you remain natural, the spring will not stop; it will grow larger. But if you pounce and try to grab it, even the two drops that were coming will stop.

There are things that cannot be caught by a snatch; they die in that grasp. They are very tender—utterly delicate. You cannot take them in your hand like a stone.

But our habit is to take everything as if it were a stone. So when our hand reaches even for a flower, we hold it like a stone—and the flower dies right there.

And witnessing is the most delicate flower. Nothing in this world is more delicate. It is supremely delicate; nothing is finer than that. Therefore you cannot seize it by a grab. You have to let it come naturally. You will have to wait silently. And if it does not come—as has been asked, that it still seems to stand far away: “Please tell me what my mistake is”—let it stand far away, and keep watching. Do not worry about bringing it near. Care only to see that it is standing far away. Just keep seeing.

In trying to bring it closer, the sense of the doer arises, and witnessing is lost—because you have become interested in action again.

Even if for endless life it stands like the horizon and you do not get it, do not be in a hurry. And the day you stand in your place and it stands in its place, with no running about, suddenly you will find it standing within you; the distance has vanished. But the distance cannot be eliminated by effort; you cannot erase it by running—because running means the doer has come.

Understand well the gap between these two words: doer and witness. Whenever you set about doing, the doer has arrived. And when whatever is happening is simply seen, the witness remains.

Let whatever is happening, happen. Take it as if it is happening to someone else—as if you are watching a play, the story passing over someone else. Distance! Do not get so immersed in it. Do not make a craving out of it. Otherwise, we think just as other things should be obtained, witnessing too should be obtained. We make a craving for it. The stronger the craving, the greater the distance becomes.

Witnessing will not come by your bringing it; it will come by your disappearing. And the simplest art of disappearing is only this: do not link yourself with doing; link yourself only with seeing.

Therefore, in this land we have called the formula of the supreme practice darshan—seeing. Darshan means the art of just seeing. Do not do even a little.

First thing: a spontaneous wish to remain unmarried and desirelessness (akām) are not the same. If lust does not arise at all, then there is no question—this very question would not arise. If lust never arises within, where would this question come from?

The wish to remain unmarried and the absence of lust are different matters. Many people wish to remain unmarried. In fact, those who are brimming with lust often want to avoid marriage, because for a lustful person marriage is a nuisance. Marriage means one woman and one man bound to each other. Lust does not want to be bound; lust wants to remain unbridled.

So the wish not to marry is not necessarily a wish for brahmacharya (celibacy). Deep down, the wish not to marry can also be a wish for non-celibacy.

Then, behind the decision not to marry there can be a thousand reasons. Marriage is a responsibility, an accountability; not everyone wants to carry it. The clever ones won’t want to at all. Who wants to get into that hassle!

But the absence of lust is a different matter. Marriage has nothing to do with lust. A person without lust can marry for other reasons.

It’s more expensive to keep a maid than a wife, they say. There’s nothing cheaper than a wife as a household solution! A man without lust can marry. And a man full of lust can avoid marriage. So do not take marriage and lust as synonyms.

Everywhere you see the misery of marriage. Anyone with a bit of intelligence would want to avoid it.

Mulla Nasruddin’s wife asked him, “Nasruddin, do you ever feel it would have been better had you not married me? Or do you ever feel it would have been better if I had married someone else?”

Nasruddin said, “Why should I wish ill for someone else! One thought does arise though—that it would have been better if you had remained a virgin forever.”

So you look around and see the suffering spread through marriage. Every child sees it at home: the suffering of his parents; the suffering of elder brothers and their wives. Marriage is a hell spread all around. Our lust is deep, and that is why we still enter marriage. Otherwise it would be very difficult. We are utterly blind; perhaps that’s why. We do not live by understanding. Or each person harbors an inner notion, “I am the exception. That’s why all these people suffer; I won’t.”

There is a saying in Arabia: God creates every person and whispers in his ear, “I have made you the exception. There is no one like you. You are not the rule; you are the exception.” And everyone lives under this delusion.

You may watch fifty people like yourself perish in the same pit—and you will march on stiff-necked, “Not me! I am different.” Because of this fantasy of exception, you enter marriage. Otherwise, the phenomenon of marriage unfolding all around is eye-opening; there is nothing hidden about it.

So if there is even a little understanding, a natural desire to marry will not arise in you. But this does not mean a desire for brahmacharya is arising. Brahmacharya is quite another matter. Desirelessness is quite another matter.

If this desirelessness is spontaneous, the question doesn’t arise. Then there is nowhere to go and nothing to experience to be done. If the mind has no lust for a thing, what purpose is there in “experiencing” it? And why would the thought arise—should I enter the experience or not?

Clearly, lust exists within. The mind does not want the responsibility of marriage. The mind is clever and is speaking the language of smartness.

So I say: if lust exists in the mind, then entering into lust is appropriate. Entering does not mean you should lose the witness. Enter—and keep the witness intact. Only by entering is there a touchstone for your witnessing. If you do not enter, witnessing will be difficult to cultivate. And lust will become denser; it will circle in the mind and lead it into various perversions and distortions.

Those whom we call sadhus and saints generally land in the state of a perverted mind.

Mulla Nasruddin died. He had many disciples—finding disciples in this world is not difficult at all. Many people revered him. A few days later one of his disciples died too. Reaching heaven, he immediately began to look for his master. On inquiring, someone told him, “You’ll find Nasruddin on that white cloud over there.”

The disciple ran to his guru and was astonished to see old Nasruddin with a most beautiful woman seated in his lap. He thought, “My guru! And he always spoke against women and advocated celibacy so strongly. What is this!” Then a thought flashed from his unconscious: “No, no—this must be a reward from God, this woman. My guru practiced so much austerity, was so wise—surely he has received this most beautiful woman as a prize.”

He rushed up and said, “Blessed! God’s grace! What a prize you’ve received!” Nasruddin said, “Prize? She is not my prize; I am her punishment.”

But the fact that the disciple’s unconscious immediately took it to be a prize shows that lust is still alive and regards it as a reward.

So what rewards do even the rishis and sages expect in heaven? Apsaras, streams of wine, wish-fulfilling trees—under which rishis and sages recline and enjoy!

What you are “renouncing,” you are not really renouncing. There is a deep bargain there, and the hope of reward remains. This indicates perverted minds. These are not healthy minds.

Wherever heaven is arrayed with apsaras, there the so-called celibacy is perverted. And where streams of wine flow in heaven, their renunciation of wine on earth is dishonest and false. What they cannot have here, or what they preach to leave here, they arrange to obtain there. The mind’s arithmetic is clear.

So I say: rather than suppress and pervert lust, enter it with witnessing. The world is an opportunity. Whatever is here—if even a little taste for it exists in you—enter it; do not flee. Otherwise it will follow you to heaven. It will pursue you to the very last moment. Enter it. Experience it.

Experience is liberating—if awareness is maintained. If not, experience turns into repetition and drags you into new cycles.

So I am not saying you will be freed by mere experience. When experience and witnessing are conjoined, you will be freed. Experience alone will deepen your habit; you will keep running under its compulsion. And if there is only witnessing and a fear of entering experience, then that witnessing is weak and false. Witnessing has no fear—neither fear of doing something nor of not doing it.

For witnessing, action has no purpose. Whatever happens, it simply sees. So whether the witness is in a temple or in a brothel makes no difference—because the witness’s work is only to watch.

There is a story in Buddhist literature. Ananda—Buddha’s disciple—was passing through a village. A courtesan saw him. Ananda was handsome. Renunciants often become beautiful; a certain charm arises in them which householders lack; an aura appears.

The courtesan was smitten. The story says she cast some tantra-mantra on him. Buddha, seated far away under a tree in the forest, was watching. Ananda was far away; still, Buddha was seeing—Buddha can see. Sariputta, Buddha’s disciple, sat beside him and was also watching.

Sariputta said, “Please save Ananda. He might get into trouble. The woman is very beautiful, and she has cast a deep spell. Lest Ananda be beguiled.” But Buddha kept watching, silent.

Suddenly Buddha stood up and said to Sariputta, “Now something must be done.” Sariputta asked, “What has happened now that you say we must act? Until now I was urging you to do something; you sat silently. It is proper to stop a disease at its very beginning!”

Buddha said, “The disease had not begun until now; now it has begun. Ananda has become unconscious; he has lost the witness. Until now there was no danger—be it a courtesan, be she beautiful, whatever—no fear. Even if Ananda went into her house, stayed the night, there was no cause for fear. Now fear has arisen.”

Sariputta was puzzled, because Ananda was now running away; the courtesan was far behind. When Buddha said danger had arisen, Ananda had already run far, turned his back, not even looking back. But Buddha stood and said, “This is the moment Ananda needs help.”

Sariputta said, “You say strange things! When the courtesan stood before him and Ananda was looking at her—and there was a risk he might be lured—you were quiet. And now that Ananda is running away, the woman far behind, her spells left behind, he has crossed beyond her influence—now you stand up?”

Buddha said, “He is running precisely because he has lost witnessing. Now he has fallen into doer-ness; he is afraid as a doer. While the witness was present, he stood; there was no reason for fear. Now he needs help.”

There is only one thing worth doing: let witnessing remain alive within you. Then do whatever—marry or don’t—whatever you do, if witnessing is linked to your experiencing, today or tomorrow you will complete the steps to liberation.

But remember: interrupting incomplete, half-baked experiences has a poisonous result. Do not run; do not fear; hold only to the witness. My whole emphasis is that you awaken rather than escape. Where will you run to? You may avoid marriage—possible—but how many have reached anywhere by not marrying? The result of not marrying is often a greater web of desires in the mind.

If we were to examine a married and an unmarried person side by side, we would find more lust in the mind of the unmarried. Naturally so—like comparing a hungry man and a fed man: the hungry man will think more of food. When the stomach is full, why would thoughts of food arise?

So until the inner witness begins to awaken, it is not appropriate to flee any life-experience unnecessarily, in incompleteness, half-cooked. No one attains mastery from fear. Life is for experience. It is like sending a student to a university and he tries to avoid examinations! This world is an examination hall. Your consciousness is here so that by passing through experiences it may ripen.

So I say: live through all experiences—even the “bad.” If there is even a drop of relish for the bad, live that too. Just keep one thing in mind: while enjoying, let awareness remain—and you will be free. If you get scared and try to avoid responsibility, desires will become perverted and will keep circling in the mind.

The results of perverted desires are never liberating. One may be liberated through health, never through distortion.

So be natural, spontaneous. Whatever arises in the mind, let it arise; let it complete itself. Keep only one thing in view: that behind it a seer stands, watching. Let your whole life become a play you observe. This very seeing will transform your whole life. It is a revolutionary key—transforming life through pure seeing.

No one ever changes by running away. Running only reveals weakness. And the desires of one who runs chase him. Wherever he goes, they follow.