Knowing this, O Pandava, you will not again fall into such delusion.
By it you will behold all beings, without exception, in the Self, and also in Me.
Geeta Darshan #15
Available in:
Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Sutra (Original)
यज्ज्ञात्वा न पुनर्मोहमेवं यास्यसि पाण्डव।
येन भूतान्यशेषेण द्रक्ष्यस्यात्मन्यथो मयि।। 35।।
येन भूतान्यशेषेण द्रक्ष्यस्यात्मन्यथो मयि।। 35।।
Transliteration:
yajjñātvā na punarmohamevaṃ yāsyasi pāṇḍava|
yena bhūtānyaśeṣeṇa drakṣyasyātmanyatho mayi|| 35||
yajjñātvā na punarmohamevaṃ yāsyasi pāṇḍava|
yena bhūtānyaśeṣeṇa drakṣyasyātmanyatho mayi|| 35||
Translation (Meaning)
Questions in this Discourse
Osho, in the last part of the verse it is said that through this knowledge you will see all beings as the all-pervading, infinite form of consciousness; and, merged in me—that is, in the form of sat-chit-ananda—you will see everything as nothing but sat-chit-ananda. Kindly make this meaning clearer.
Immersed in this knowing, liberated in this knowing, you will see all beings as sat-chit-ananda.
All beings! Bhuta means that which exists—the existent—whatever is. Whatever is, whatever has being, in all of that you will see sat-chit-ananda. In the stone, in the earth, in the sky—everywhere, whatever you come to know, you will know as the form of sat-chit-ananda. Why? Why will it be so?
What do we know right now? What is our knowing at present? What is our immediate perception? Our present perception is that whatever is, is matter. Whatever is, is matter, not the divine. Matter is what appears. If ever we concede God, it is only a belief, not an experience. What is seen is matter.
They once brought a friend to me. He said, “I see God even in matter; I see God even in a stone.” He stayed with me a couple of days. While walking in the garden, I picked up a stone and struck his foot with it. He said, “Why did you hit me with a stone? It’s bleeding!” I said, “What you should have said is: Why did you hit me with God? You say, why did you hit me with a stone? If blood has come out, you should have said: God has come out. If a stone hits you, your face changes; if God hits you, it should be otherwise!” He said, “That doesn’t mean someone can throw stones at me! Then someone might as well kill me. Tomorrow you could slit my throat and say the knife is also God!”
It was only a mental belief. He believed that everything is divine, but he did not see it. Seeing is another matter. What appears to us is matter. To us, all beings are material.
What does “matter” mean? It means that which has form, not the formless. It means that which is a thing, not a self. It means that which has existence, not personhood. It is, it exists, but it has no life. Why does it appear so to us?
In truth, only what we are can appear to us. We do not even know within that there is a soul, a God. That too is merely our belief. We have heard, we have read. Someone says it, so we take it on. Deep down we know that we are the body. “I am the body”—this is what we know in our depths. We cannot know more of the other than what we know about ourselves. The measure of our world is the measure of our own experience. The ladder of self-experience is the very ladder of experience of the other.
If you understand rightly, the world is a mirror; in it we see only our own face. If in a stone you see only stone, understand that within yourself too there is no experience beyond the body.
And it is natural. How can we know outside what we do not know within? If a man has never had a headache, tell him, “My head hurts,” and he will stand bewildered. “What kind of pain? Does the head even ache? What is it like?” He cannot know. How could he! Only what has already been known to him can be understood. We understand through our own experience; there is no other way. We take ourselves to be the body—that is the outcome of attachment, of ignorance. We see the world as matter.
The day the happening of knowing occurs—when the darkness of attachment shatters, when the delusion of the body breaks; when there is the realization of one’s own consciousness—in that very moment the whole universe becomes conscious. In that very instant, simultaneously. Not even a second’s delay remains. The moment you go within and know, “I am consciousness,” you open your eyes and see that all is consciousness. Everything changes in a single instant—instantaneously!
Therefore Krishna says: When the current of knowledge flows within and the darkness of delusion breaks, Arjuna, sat-chit-ananda begins to be seen in all beings. In all beings, in all that exists—whatever is—then the Divine alone is seen.
When this occurs—when the Divine begins to be seen in everything—then, naturally, sorrow disappears from life, and enmity too. For to see God in the enemy, then to see the enemy in God becomes impossible. Death too disappears, because the death of the Divine is impossible. No deceiver remains, for the very idea that God deceives is impossible. Then all becomes delightful, all becomes suffused with love. Even enemies become friends. Even death becomes life.
This realization is available only when attachment breaks from within. Why? Because the hypnosis of attachment, its spell, has made us into the body. We are not the body. Nor is the body only body. But the spell holds us. Moha and sammoha are two names for the same thing. What in English is called hypnosis is what we call sammoha, what we call moha.
If you keep hypnosis in mind, and the process of hypnotic suggestion, you will understand how a notion arises of being what one is not.
If you have ever seen a skilled hypnotist at work, you must have been astonished. Hypnotize a man—meaning, render him unconscious. Suggest to him, “You are becoming unconscious.” If he cooperates, he will go under very quickly. When he is under, tell him, “You are not a man—you are a woman.” He will accept that he is a woman. Then say to him, “Get up and walk,” and he will walk with a woman’s gait, not a man’s. He will swing his hands as a woman does, not as a man. His manner becomes feminine. What has happened to him?
The mind has taken the idea, “I am a woman”—so he becomes a woman. Ask him questions, and he will answer in a feminine way. He will use the feminine gender; he will say, “I am going,” in the feminine; he will not say it in the masculine. What has happened? The notion has taken hold: “I am a woman.” The mind is unconscious; what is told to it in that state it accepts.
From the moment we are born, the whole arrangement around us hypnotizes us into “You are the body.” There is a net of the ignorant all around—mother, father, brothers, sisters, school, teachers—everywhere the net of the ignorant, and it induces the hypnosis: “You are the body.” All the pointers are toward the body.
Therefore, those toward whose bodies there are more pointers become more “body.” Women become more “body” than men, because there are more pointers toward their bodies. They become more aware, more conscious of the body. Then their lives get bound to the body; and to forget the body becomes difficult for them. A deep hypnosis settles in the mind: “I am the body.”
If this hypnosis does not break, the inner soul is not experienced. If it breaks, the inner soul is experienced.
When this spell breaks and it is known “I am the soul,” in that very instant it is known that all are souls. In truth, even to say “all are souls” is not quite right, because in that moment only one God remains—no second. Where there is form, there can be two; where there is the formless, there can only be one. The formless cannot be two. If there were two formless ones, boundaries would arise between them, and with boundary, form begins.
The formless is one. Bodies can be many; the soul can only be one. It has no form. Then, within and without, the vision of the one sat-chit-ananda Brahman begins.
Therefore Krishna says: Arjuna, when the night of delusion breaks and the dawn of knowledge arises, what in the dark were known as separate, in the light are seen as one. What in the dark were taken to be matter, in the light are recognized as the Divine.
All beings! Bhuta means that which exists—the existent—whatever is. Whatever is, whatever has being, in all of that you will see sat-chit-ananda. In the stone, in the earth, in the sky—everywhere, whatever you come to know, you will know as the form of sat-chit-ananda. Why? Why will it be so?
What do we know right now? What is our knowing at present? What is our immediate perception? Our present perception is that whatever is, is matter. Whatever is, is matter, not the divine. Matter is what appears. If ever we concede God, it is only a belief, not an experience. What is seen is matter.
They once brought a friend to me. He said, “I see God even in matter; I see God even in a stone.” He stayed with me a couple of days. While walking in the garden, I picked up a stone and struck his foot with it. He said, “Why did you hit me with a stone? It’s bleeding!” I said, “What you should have said is: Why did you hit me with God? You say, why did you hit me with a stone? If blood has come out, you should have said: God has come out. If a stone hits you, your face changes; if God hits you, it should be otherwise!” He said, “That doesn’t mean someone can throw stones at me! Then someone might as well kill me. Tomorrow you could slit my throat and say the knife is also God!”
It was only a mental belief. He believed that everything is divine, but he did not see it. Seeing is another matter. What appears to us is matter. To us, all beings are material.
What does “matter” mean? It means that which has form, not the formless. It means that which is a thing, not a self. It means that which has existence, not personhood. It is, it exists, but it has no life. Why does it appear so to us?
In truth, only what we are can appear to us. We do not even know within that there is a soul, a God. That too is merely our belief. We have heard, we have read. Someone says it, so we take it on. Deep down we know that we are the body. “I am the body”—this is what we know in our depths. We cannot know more of the other than what we know about ourselves. The measure of our world is the measure of our own experience. The ladder of self-experience is the very ladder of experience of the other.
If you understand rightly, the world is a mirror; in it we see only our own face. If in a stone you see only stone, understand that within yourself too there is no experience beyond the body.
And it is natural. How can we know outside what we do not know within? If a man has never had a headache, tell him, “My head hurts,” and he will stand bewildered. “What kind of pain? Does the head even ache? What is it like?” He cannot know. How could he! Only what has already been known to him can be understood. We understand through our own experience; there is no other way. We take ourselves to be the body—that is the outcome of attachment, of ignorance. We see the world as matter.
The day the happening of knowing occurs—when the darkness of attachment shatters, when the delusion of the body breaks; when there is the realization of one’s own consciousness—in that very moment the whole universe becomes conscious. In that very instant, simultaneously. Not even a second’s delay remains. The moment you go within and know, “I am consciousness,” you open your eyes and see that all is consciousness. Everything changes in a single instant—instantaneously!
Therefore Krishna says: When the current of knowledge flows within and the darkness of delusion breaks, Arjuna, sat-chit-ananda begins to be seen in all beings. In all beings, in all that exists—whatever is—then the Divine alone is seen.
When this occurs—when the Divine begins to be seen in everything—then, naturally, sorrow disappears from life, and enmity too. For to see God in the enemy, then to see the enemy in God becomes impossible. Death too disappears, because the death of the Divine is impossible. No deceiver remains, for the very idea that God deceives is impossible. Then all becomes delightful, all becomes suffused with love. Even enemies become friends. Even death becomes life.
This realization is available only when attachment breaks from within. Why? Because the hypnosis of attachment, its spell, has made us into the body. We are not the body. Nor is the body only body. But the spell holds us. Moha and sammoha are two names for the same thing. What in English is called hypnosis is what we call sammoha, what we call moha.
If you keep hypnosis in mind, and the process of hypnotic suggestion, you will understand how a notion arises of being what one is not.
If you have ever seen a skilled hypnotist at work, you must have been astonished. Hypnotize a man—meaning, render him unconscious. Suggest to him, “You are becoming unconscious.” If he cooperates, he will go under very quickly. When he is under, tell him, “You are not a man—you are a woman.” He will accept that he is a woman. Then say to him, “Get up and walk,” and he will walk with a woman’s gait, not a man’s. He will swing his hands as a woman does, not as a man. His manner becomes feminine. What has happened to him?
The mind has taken the idea, “I am a woman”—so he becomes a woman. Ask him questions, and he will answer in a feminine way. He will use the feminine gender; he will say, “I am going,” in the feminine; he will not say it in the masculine. What has happened? The notion has taken hold: “I am a woman.” The mind is unconscious; what is told to it in that state it accepts.
From the moment we are born, the whole arrangement around us hypnotizes us into “You are the body.” There is a net of the ignorant all around—mother, father, brothers, sisters, school, teachers—everywhere the net of the ignorant, and it induces the hypnosis: “You are the body.” All the pointers are toward the body.
Therefore, those toward whose bodies there are more pointers become more “body.” Women become more “body” than men, because there are more pointers toward their bodies. They become more aware, more conscious of the body. Then their lives get bound to the body; and to forget the body becomes difficult for them. A deep hypnosis settles in the mind: “I am the body.”
If this hypnosis does not break, the inner soul is not experienced. If it breaks, the inner soul is experienced.
When this spell breaks and it is known “I am the soul,” in that very instant it is known that all are souls. In truth, even to say “all are souls” is not quite right, because in that moment only one God remains—no second. Where there is form, there can be two; where there is the formless, there can only be one. The formless cannot be two. If there were two formless ones, boundaries would arise between them, and with boundary, form begins.
The formless is one. Bodies can be many; the soul can only be one. It has no form. Then, within and without, the vision of the one sat-chit-ananda Brahman begins.
Therefore Krishna says: Arjuna, when the night of delusion breaks and the dawn of knowledge arises, what in the dark were known as separate, in the light are seen as one. What in the dark were taken to be matter, in the light are recognized as the Divine.
Osho, why is the experience of knowing called sat, chit, ananda? Please explain briefly.
Why is the experience of knowing called the experience of sat-chit-ananda?
In the experience of knowing, three perceptions deepen and reveal themselves—of sat, of chit, and of ananda. Sat means: am; not “I,” only am. Our ordinary experience is “I am.” In the experience of knowing, the “I” drops; the “am” remains. In ignorance the “I” is dense and dominant, and the “am” trails behind like a tail. The “I” is like an elephant; the “am” is its tail. Even if there were no “am,” we would get by; an elephant can exist without a tail—often it does. The elephant of “I” appears to move without the tail of “am.” The “am” is used merely as a linguistic convenience.
On the day ignorance breaks, the “I” falls and the “am” remains. The “am” becomes the elephant—the tail too, the head too, everything. The experience of “am” is the experience of sat, the experience of the existential, of existence itself.
Keep in mind: when we say, “I am,” it seems the “I” and being are separate. When we say, “am,” it is felt that being and “I” are one and the same.
That is why the ignorant fear death. One who says “I am” is haunted by “I may not be.” If there is “am,” there may also be “am not.” Night is; it can become not. Day is; it can become not. But “is” never becomes “is not.” That to which we say “is” can turn into “is not.” Only one thing in the world is invariably “is”—is-ness, am-ness; it never becomes “is not.” “Am” means is-ness, am-ness; it never turns into its negation.
Sat means: existence is—that which never becomes “is not”: eternal, timeless, ever-present, beyond time. This is the first experience as soon as the explosion of knowing happens.
The second experience is that existence is not mere existence; it is conscious as well. Existence is not only existence; it is conscious existence—chit, consciousness. If existence were only existence, it would be matter. If existence is conscious, it becomes the Divine. We all have some inkling of existence; even those who know only “I am” know that existence is. But they do not come to know that existence is conscious. Those who come to know “not the I, only am; only being is,” immediately realize that existence is conscious.
Everything is conscious. There is nothing inanimate, insentient. Yes, there are thousands upon thousands of levels of consciousness we fail to recognize. We say, “A tree is conscious?” We cannot make sense of it, because we cannot talk with a tree, we cannot converse, cannot discuss—so how can we accept it as conscious? It seems unconscious. Yet the tree may have its own language. And if the tree has its own language, then man would appear unconscious to it, because our language would not be intelligible to the tree.
A stone—then a tree seems a little conscious by comparison: it grows and declines, it blossoms; break its branch and it withers. It can be caught a little in the language of man. A stone—smash it and it shows no sadness; break it and nothing seems to register. Perhaps its language is even more foreign, more alien. Those who know say: the stone speaks, the tree speaks; the tree sees, the stone sees. Their consciousness is of another dimension, another plane.
Think of it this way: a man is mute; he does not speak; yet we do not call him unconscious. He can convey something by gestures of the hand, and we recognize it—because the mute person’s hand is like ours, and the language of gesture is like ours, so we understand.
A man is deaf, stone-deaf; our lips merely seem to move to him. He cannot hear words. He will never know that sound exists, that people speak. For him, speaking means moving the lips. Hence the deaf learn to read lips; lip movement becomes language for them; the word issuing from the lips is not.
The world is thousandfold, infinite-dimensional. On infinite dimensions there is consciousness. The day a person knows the depth of his own consciousness, that same day he knows the consciousness of the entire cosmos. Hence the second experience is of chit, of consciousness: everything is consciousness.
The third experience is of ananda, bliss. This third is the inevitable outcome of the first two. One who has known that the “I” is not—his sorrow is gone, because all sorrow is tied to the “I.” Try to be unhappy without the “I,” and you will see—you cannot. It is impossible.
If you are unhappy, it cannot be without the “I.” If there is suffering, the “I” will be there somewhere within; it is the one that suffers. Wounding to the “I” is sorrow. A blow on the wound of the “I”—that is sorrow. And the “I” is a wound. It is not a thing; it is only a wound.
Notice: if there is a wound anywhere, say a little hurt in the foot, the whole day everything bangs into it! One wonders: what is going on? Has the whole world conspired against my foot? Yesterday I passed through the same door and the threshold did not hit my foot! I met the same man and he did not step on my toes! I went through the same crowd and no one noticed my foot! Today, wherever I go—my foot, and there is the wound.
No—the knocks were always there; they simply went unnoticed. Because of the wound, they register.
The “I” is a wound; because of it, pain is felt all the time. One whose “I” has disappeared does not register the blow. For him there is no pain, no sorrow, no hurt—wounded pride is great pain, and all pain is centered there. When the “I” falls, sorrow falls. The negative condition for bliss is fulfilled: sorrow is gone. The second condition is positive: if the whole existence is conscious, bliss happens—because bliss comes only when consciousness is in dialogue with consciousness, in communion.
Sit on the finest chair, in the finest house; if you are alone you will see that bliss is sharing, bliss is a participation. It becomes apparent only when it is shared; otherwise it does not appear. It is felt when it overflows; otherwise it is not.
That is why the bliss we feel sitting beside the beloved is not found even on a golden throne—because with a golden throne no dialogue is possible. And suppose you were allowed to sit on a golden throne, dine off golden plates, eat the rarest delicacies—but on the condition that you cannot speak to any human being—then a person would say, “I would rather live in a hut; I do not want the golden throne.” Why?
Because with a golden throne there can be no dialogue; there can be no meeting; no two hearts can commune, no heart-to-heart can happen; nothing can be shared. There can be no give-and-take. And life is always an exchange, like the breath that comes in and goes out—constantly, every moment.
When we find ourselves truly close to someone, and when we are so filled with love toward a person that we forget their body—and note this well: where the body is not forgotten, there is no love—if in the moment of love the body is still remembered, know that it is desire, sex, not love. If in the moment of love the other’s body is forgotten and the person appears as soul, know that this is love.
Hence love brings bliss. Because a person becomes conscious to us; he ceases to be an object and becomes a person. A soul is with us. Two souls, coming near, experience an extraordinary bliss. The very nearness of two souls is bliss.
But when the entire world becomes ensouled, then how can we measure bliss? Passing by a tree, there is dialogue. Standing by a tree, there is silent communion. Near a stone, there is that same touch of love. Looking at the sky, the vast expanse bends over us like a great soul and enfolds us from all sides. Standing at the ocean’s waves, the ocean’s soul too comes toward us through the waves, leaping and dancing. Looking at the stars, the light that comes carries messages; those rays become messengers.
When messages of life and soul begin to arrive from all sides, there is consciousness everywhere. When union begins to happen everywhere—because where body is out of the way, there is only union, a great union—then bliss ripens. Therefore the third is the outcome of the first two. To the one who attains the first two, the third blossoms at once like a flower—bliss.
We have no real taste of bliss. What we sometimes call bliss is not bliss, only a delusion. Bliss can happen only when both the “I” and matter are absent. Two things must vanish for bliss to occur: the ego must dissolve within, and matter must dissolve without; within, soul; without, soul; within, consciousness; without, consciousness—the wall between the two falls away, and the whole of existence begins to dance.
Bliss! Bliss is a very unique word, because it has no opposite. Pleasure has pain as opposite. Love has hate. Forgiveness has anger. Birth has death. Bliss is nondual; it has no opposite. There is no opposite state to bliss.
If pleasure comes, know that pain will follow, because the opposite is waiting. If pain comes, do not panic; know that pleasure will come, because the opposite is waiting. Morning comes—do not be afraid; evening will come. Evening comes—do not be afraid; morning will come. It is the circle of opposites, polarities; it keeps turning. It is like the hands of a clock: they meet at twelve for a second; they become one, nondual, for a second. Hardly has it happened when duality begins again.
Bliss is the end of duality; after it, duality never begins again. Bliss is not pleasure. No magnitude of pleasure is bliss. Bliss is not the very deep, dense form of pleasure. Bliss has no more relation to pleasure than it has to pain. Bliss is neither pain nor pleasure. Where both pain and pleasure are absent, what happens there is bliss.
The ego is required for pain and for pleasure; for bliss, no ego is needed. Matter is needed for pain and for pleasure; for bliss, no matter is needed.
Therefore Krishna says that the moment this happening of knowing occurs, the person is absorbed into the form of sat-chit-ananda—of sat, chit, and ananda.
Hence, for the Divine the nearest word available to man is sat-chit-ananda. Nearest, that is, the least wrong. It will still be wrong—less wrong at best. It will still be wrong because this term brings news of three, and there, there is one. It seems as if there are three; there is only one. The one—when we speak it—immediately becomes three. There, the experience of sat, the experience of chit, the experience of ananda, is one single experience. But when we speak, the prism of language instantly breaks it into three. Then, to explain, we must use a thousand words; explain those, and it becomes a hundred thousand. Everything spreads out.
There, there is profound oneness; here all becomes dispersion. The more we try to explain, the more words we must use. The minimum that human language can manage is three. Language cannot go behind three; it cannot reach the one. Language dies at three. Behind the three is the one. That one is. Therefore we made the image of the Trimurti—three faces on one being. Three faces, one image. Three visages, one life. One body, three faces. Seen from the outside: three faces. Stand within that image, become the image—and then it is one. For explanation: three. For knowing: one. For commentary: three. For experience: one.
Therefore Krishna said two things. He said, “Such a person attains me,” pointing toward the one. Then he said, “to the form of sat-chit-ananda,” pointing toward the three.
One last verse:
अपि चेदसि पापेभ्यः सर्वेभ्यः पापकृत्तमः।
सर्वं ज्ञानप्लवेनैव वृजिनं संतरिष्यसि।। 36।।
यथैधांसि समिद्धोऽग्निर्भस्मसात्कुरुतेऽर्जुन।
ज्ञानाग्निः सर्वकर्माणि भस्मसात्कुरुते तथा।। 37।।
“And even if you are the worst sinner among all sinners, by the boat of knowledge you will surely cross over all sin.
For, Arjuna, just as a blazing fire reduces firewood to ashes, so the fire of knowledge reduces all karma to ashes.”
This is a very wondrous sutra and very useful to you. This question is eternal; it is always asked.
There are many sins in man—countless, born of countless lives. The chain of sin is long and deep. Can a single experience of knowing break this long chain? Can a single ray of knowing destroy such a vast mass of sin?
Moralists—meaning those who know nothing of dharma, whose thinking has never risen above sin and virtue—will say: as much sin as you have done, that much virtue you must do. You must cancel each sin with a corresponding virtue; only then will the accounts balance—debit and credit equal—and one will be free.
Moralists—those who keep only the bookkeeping of deeds, who know nothing of being or soul or direct realization—will insist that for every sin there must be a virtue. If sins are infinite, then only infinite virtues will suffice.
But then liberation is impossible—for two reasons. First, because the chain of sin is endless, you would need an endless chain of virtues. Second, because to do virtue you have to commit sins.
A man builds a rest-house—first he must do black-marketing! Without black-marketing, the rest-house cannot be built. A man builds a temple—first he must cut people’s necks. Without cutting necks the foundation stone of a temple is not laid. To do virtue, at the very least you must live—and in living, thousands of sins occur. You walk; there is violence. You rise; there is violence. You sit; there is violence. You breathe!
Scientists say in a single breath a hundred thousand tiny organisms are destroyed. You speak! In one press and parting of the lips, about a hundred thousand micro-organisms are destroyed. You kiss someone; millions of organisms are exchanged. Many poor things die!
In living, sin will happen. To do virtue, sin will happen. At the very least, you will live in order to do virtue! Then it is an endless circle, a vicious cycle; you cannot get out of it. If you try to cut sin with virtue, in doing virtue further sin will occur. Then to cut that sin you try virtue again; in doing that virtue more sin will happen. Each time you will have to cut sin. Each time you use virtue, virtue generates new sin. This circle will never end. It is vicious.
Therefore the moral outlook can never bring liberation. It is trapped in the circle.
Krishna speaks from a very different vision—and whoever knows will speak thus. Krishna says: Arjuna, even if among all sinners you are the greatest—the greatest sinner in existence—even then a single happening of knowing will make all your sins wither away. What does this mean?
It means that sin has no density, no substance. Sin is like darkness. A house has been dark for a thousand years; doors closed, locks fastened. The darkness is a thousand years old. When you light a lamp, will darkness say, “This won’t do! You must keep the lamp burning for a thousand years before I can be dispelled”?
No. The moment you light the lamp, the thousand-year-old darkness is gone. It cannot say, “I am a thousand years old.” Nor can it say, “Over the centuries I have become condensed; such a small flame cannot dispel me.”
A thousand-year-old darkness and a one-night-old darkness have the same “density”—or rather, no density. Darkness has no layers; it has no existence of its own. Light the match today, and the darkness is gone—here and now.
But if someone tries to bundle up darkness and throw it out in baskets, he is doing the moralist’s work. He says, “Gather as much darkness as there is, pack it into a basket, and throw it outside.” You can shuttle baskets in and out; the darkness inside will remain unchanged. You will tire; darkness will not.
Sin cannot be cut by virtue—because virtue cannot be done without subtle sin. Sin can only be cut by knowing—because knowing can be without sin.
Mark this well: sin cannot be cut by virtue, because virtue cannot be without sin. Sin can only be cut by knowing, because knowing can be without sin. Knowing is not a doing that requires sin. Knowing is an experience. Karma is outer; knowing is inner. Knowing is like the lighting of a lamp. The moment it is lit, the darkness is gone.
Then you do not even find traces of having sinned. Because when the “I” itself is gone, the ledgers and accounts go with it. Then one is freed from the past the way one is freed from a dream on waking in the morning. Have you never wondered: we wake, having dreamed all night—someone just shakes us a little and we wake; can such a small shake end a whole night of dreaming?
Yes—someone shakes you; the eyelids open; the dream is gone. You do not say, “I must now experience that much reality to counterbalance the night of dream; only then will the dream end.” The dream simply breaks.
Sin is like a dream. The highest proclamation of knowing is: sin is dreamlike. Then virtue too is dreamlike. And dreams are not cut by dreams. If you try to cut dreams with dreams, dreaming will have to continue.
Dreams are not cut even by reality; because the false cannot be cut by the true. The false does not have enough being to be cut. It does not exist in the presence of truth; there is nothing to cut.
Hence Krishna says: however great a sinner you are—even the greatest—still, Arjuna, a single ray of knowing carries away all your sins like dreams. As one awakens in the morning—night ends, dreams end, all ends. For the awakened, dreams are of no concern.
When India’s scriptures were first translated in the West, they said, “These writings seem immoral.” Even Schopenhauer was disturbed. He was a profound thinker. He felt uneasy: “What kind of teaching is this! They say it can all be cut in a moment!”
Christianity never understood this. It could not. “In a moment?” Christianity gave sin enormous weight and took it with great seriousness—not as dream, but as reality. On Christianity, the burden of sin is heavy—original sin! Each person has his own sins; and the sin of the first man is on every person’s chest as well. It is very difficult to cancel.
Therefore Christianity became guilt-ridden; the sense of guilt grew heavy. And no release from sin is in sight—no amount of virtue can free one—so Christianity grew ill at the roots.
Jesus did not have such an idea. But Christianity did not understand Jesus—as happens always. Hindus did not understand Krishna. Jains did not understand Mahavira. Christianity did not understand Jesus.
When the uncomprehending claim to understand, trouble begins. Jesus said, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all else shall be added unto you.” Jesus said: just seek the kingdom of the Lord and everything else will be given. Exactly what Krishna says: just seek the ray of light, and all the rest—what you want to drop will drop, what you want to gain will be given.
Indian thought is not immoral; it is amoral—beyond morality; it goes beyond ethics, beyond virtue and sin. This statement is amoral, supramoral. It goes beyond right and wrong, beyond merit and demerit.
We will speak again at night.
Now, in kirtan, in the melody, the sannyasins will dissolve. Friends who wish to join, join in; otherwise sit where you are. At least keep time with your hands, hum along with the tune, sitting in your place. For ten minutes, forget the intellect, forget reflection, forget thought.
In the experience of knowing, three perceptions deepen and reveal themselves—of sat, of chit, and of ananda. Sat means: am; not “I,” only am. Our ordinary experience is “I am.” In the experience of knowing, the “I” drops; the “am” remains. In ignorance the “I” is dense and dominant, and the “am” trails behind like a tail. The “I” is like an elephant; the “am” is its tail. Even if there were no “am,” we would get by; an elephant can exist without a tail—often it does. The elephant of “I” appears to move without the tail of “am.” The “am” is used merely as a linguistic convenience.
On the day ignorance breaks, the “I” falls and the “am” remains. The “am” becomes the elephant—the tail too, the head too, everything. The experience of “am” is the experience of sat, the experience of the existential, of existence itself.
Keep in mind: when we say, “I am,” it seems the “I” and being are separate. When we say, “am,” it is felt that being and “I” are one and the same.
That is why the ignorant fear death. One who says “I am” is haunted by “I may not be.” If there is “am,” there may also be “am not.” Night is; it can become not. Day is; it can become not. But “is” never becomes “is not.” That to which we say “is” can turn into “is not.” Only one thing in the world is invariably “is”—is-ness, am-ness; it never becomes “is not.” “Am” means is-ness, am-ness; it never turns into its negation.
Sat means: existence is—that which never becomes “is not”: eternal, timeless, ever-present, beyond time. This is the first experience as soon as the explosion of knowing happens.
The second experience is that existence is not mere existence; it is conscious as well. Existence is not only existence; it is conscious existence—chit, consciousness. If existence were only existence, it would be matter. If existence is conscious, it becomes the Divine. We all have some inkling of existence; even those who know only “I am” know that existence is. But they do not come to know that existence is conscious. Those who come to know “not the I, only am; only being is,” immediately realize that existence is conscious.
Everything is conscious. There is nothing inanimate, insentient. Yes, there are thousands upon thousands of levels of consciousness we fail to recognize. We say, “A tree is conscious?” We cannot make sense of it, because we cannot talk with a tree, we cannot converse, cannot discuss—so how can we accept it as conscious? It seems unconscious. Yet the tree may have its own language. And if the tree has its own language, then man would appear unconscious to it, because our language would not be intelligible to the tree.
A stone—then a tree seems a little conscious by comparison: it grows and declines, it blossoms; break its branch and it withers. It can be caught a little in the language of man. A stone—smash it and it shows no sadness; break it and nothing seems to register. Perhaps its language is even more foreign, more alien. Those who know say: the stone speaks, the tree speaks; the tree sees, the stone sees. Their consciousness is of another dimension, another plane.
Think of it this way: a man is mute; he does not speak; yet we do not call him unconscious. He can convey something by gestures of the hand, and we recognize it—because the mute person’s hand is like ours, and the language of gesture is like ours, so we understand.
A man is deaf, stone-deaf; our lips merely seem to move to him. He cannot hear words. He will never know that sound exists, that people speak. For him, speaking means moving the lips. Hence the deaf learn to read lips; lip movement becomes language for them; the word issuing from the lips is not.
The world is thousandfold, infinite-dimensional. On infinite dimensions there is consciousness. The day a person knows the depth of his own consciousness, that same day he knows the consciousness of the entire cosmos. Hence the second experience is of chit, of consciousness: everything is consciousness.
The third experience is of ananda, bliss. This third is the inevitable outcome of the first two. One who has known that the “I” is not—his sorrow is gone, because all sorrow is tied to the “I.” Try to be unhappy without the “I,” and you will see—you cannot. It is impossible.
If you are unhappy, it cannot be without the “I.” If there is suffering, the “I” will be there somewhere within; it is the one that suffers. Wounding to the “I” is sorrow. A blow on the wound of the “I”—that is sorrow. And the “I” is a wound. It is not a thing; it is only a wound.
Notice: if there is a wound anywhere, say a little hurt in the foot, the whole day everything bangs into it! One wonders: what is going on? Has the whole world conspired against my foot? Yesterday I passed through the same door and the threshold did not hit my foot! I met the same man and he did not step on my toes! I went through the same crowd and no one noticed my foot! Today, wherever I go—my foot, and there is the wound.
No—the knocks were always there; they simply went unnoticed. Because of the wound, they register.
The “I” is a wound; because of it, pain is felt all the time. One whose “I” has disappeared does not register the blow. For him there is no pain, no sorrow, no hurt—wounded pride is great pain, and all pain is centered there. When the “I” falls, sorrow falls. The negative condition for bliss is fulfilled: sorrow is gone. The second condition is positive: if the whole existence is conscious, bliss happens—because bliss comes only when consciousness is in dialogue with consciousness, in communion.
Sit on the finest chair, in the finest house; if you are alone you will see that bliss is sharing, bliss is a participation. It becomes apparent only when it is shared; otherwise it does not appear. It is felt when it overflows; otherwise it is not.
That is why the bliss we feel sitting beside the beloved is not found even on a golden throne—because with a golden throne no dialogue is possible. And suppose you were allowed to sit on a golden throne, dine off golden plates, eat the rarest delicacies—but on the condition that you cannot speak to any human being—then a person would say, “I would rather live in a hut; I do not want the golden throne.” Why?
Because with a golden throne there can be no dialogue; there can be no meeting; no two hearts can commune, no heart-to-heart can happen; nothing can be shared. There can be no give-and-take. And life is always an exchange, like the breath that comes in and goes out—constantly, every moment.
When we find ourselves truly close to someone, and when we are so filled with love toward a person that we forget their body—and note this well: where the body is not forgotten, there is no love—if in the moment of love the body is still remembered, know that it is desire, sex, not love. If in the moment of love the other’s body is forgotten and the person appears as soul, know that this is love.
Hence love brings bliss. Because a person becomes conscious to us; he ceases to be an object and becomes a person. A soul is with us. Two souls, coming near, experience an extraordinary bliss. The very nearness of two souls is bliss.
But when the entire world becomes ensouled, then how can we measure bliss? Passing by a tree, there is dialogue. Standing by a tree, there is silent communion. Near a stone, there is that same touch of love. Looking at the sky, the vast expanse bends over us like a great soul and enfolds us from all sides. Standing at the ocean’s waves, the ocean’s soul too comes toward us through the waves, leaping and dancing. Looking at the stars, the light that comes carries messages; those rays become messengers.
When messages of life and soul begin to arrive from all sides, there is consciousness everywhere. When union begins to happen everywhere—because where body is out of the way, there is only union, a great union—then bliss ripens. Therefore the third is the outcome of the first two. To the one who attains the first two, the third blossoms at once like a flower—bliss.
We have no real taste of bliss. What we sometimes call bliss is not bliss, only a delusion. Bliss can happen only when both the “I” and matter are absent. Two things must vanish for bliss to occur: the ego must dissolve within, and matter must dissolve without; within, soul; without, soul; within, consciousness; without, consciousness—the wall between the two falls away, and the whole of existence begins to dance.
Bliss! Bliss is a very unique word, because it has no opposite. Pleasure has pain as opposite. Love has hate. Forgiveness has anger. Birth has death. Bliss is nondual; it has no opposite. There is no opposite state to bliss.
If pleasure comes, know that pain will follow, because the opposite is waiting. If pain comes, do not panic; know that pleasure will come, because the opposite is waiting. Morning comes—do not be afraid; evening will come. Evening comes—do not be afraid; morning will come. It is the circle of opposites, polarities; it keeps turning. It is like the hands of a clock: they meet at twelve for a second; they become one, nondual, for a second. Hardly has it happened when duality begins again.
Bliss is the end of duality; after it, duality never begins again. Bliss is not pleasure. No magnitude of pleasure is bliss. Bliss is not the very deep, dense form of pleasure. Bliss has no more relation to pleasure than it has to pain. Bliss is neither pain nor pleasure. Where both pain and pleasure are absent, what happens there is bliss.
The ego is required for pain and for pleasure; for bliss, no ego is needed. Matter is needed for pain and for pleasure; for bliss, no matter is needed.
Therefore Krishna says that the moment this happening of knowing occurs, the person is absorbed into the form of sat-chit-ananda—of sat, chit, and ananda.
Hence, for the Divine the nearest word available to man is sat-chit-ananda. Nearest, that is, the least wrong. It will still be wrong—less wrong at best. It will still be wrong because this term brings news of three, and there, there is one. It seems as if there are three; there is only one. The one—when we speak it—immediately becomes three. There, the experience of sat, the experience of chit, the experience of ananda, is one single experience. But when we speak, the prism of language instantly breaks it into three. Then, to explain, we must use a thousand words; explain those, and it becomes a hundred thousand. Everything spreads out.
There, there is profound oneness; here all becomes dispersion. The more we try to explain, the more words we must use. The minimum that human language can manage is three. Language cannot go behind three; it cannot reach the one. Language dies at three. Behind the three is the one. That one is. Therefore we made the image of the Trimurti—three faces on one being. Three faces, one image. Three visages, one life. One body, three faces. Seen from the outside: three faces. Stand within that image, become the image—and then it is one. For explanation: three. For knowing: one. For commentary: three. For experience: one.
Therefore Krishna said two things. He said, “Such a person attains me,” pointing toward the one. Then he said, “to the form of sat-chit-ananda,” pointing toward the three.
One last verse:
अपि चेदसि पापेभ्यः सर्वेभ्यः पापकृत्तमः।
सर्वं ज्ञानप्लवेनैव वृजिनं संतरिष्यसि।। 36।।
यथैधांसि समिद्धोऽग्निर्भस्मसात्कुरुतेऽर्जुन।
ज्ञानाग्निः सर्वकर्माणि भस्मसात्कुरुते तथा।। 37।।
“And even if you are the worst sinner among all sinners, by the boat of knowledge you will surely cross over all sin.
For, Arjuna, just as a blazing fire reduces firewood to ashes, so the fire of knowledge reduces all karma to ashes.”
This is a very wondrous sutra and very useful to you. This question is eternal; it is always asked.
There are many sins in man—countless, born of countless lives. The chain of sin is long and deep. Can a single experience of knowing break this long chain? Can a single ray of knowing destroy such a vast mass of sin?
Moralists—meaning those who know nothing of dharma, whose thinking has never risen above sin and virtue—will say: as much sin as you have done, that much virtue you must do. You must cancel each sin with a corresponding virtue; only then will the accounts balance—debit and credit equal—and one will be free.
Moralists—those who keep only the bookkeeping of deeds, who know nothing of being or soul or direct realization—will insist that for every sin there must be a virtue. If sins are infinite, then only infinite virtues will suffice.
But then liberation is impossible—for two reasons. First, because the chain of sin is endless, you would need an endless chain of virtues. Second, because to do virtue you have to commit sins.
A man builds a rest-house—first he must do black-marketing! Without black-marketing, the rest-house cannot be built. A man builds a temple—first he must cut people’s necks. Without cutting necks the foundation stone of a temple is not laid. To do virtue, at the very least you must live—and in living, thousands of sins occur. You walk; there is violence. You rise; there is violence. You sit; there is violence. You breathe!
Scientists say in a single breath a hundred thousand tiny organisms are destroyed. You speak! In one press and parting of the lips, about a hundred thousand micro-organisms are destroyed. You kiss someone; millions of organisms are exchanged. Many poor things die!
In living, sin will happen. To do virtue, sin will happen. At the very least, you will live in order to do virtue! Then it is an endless circle, a vicious cycle; you cannot get out of it. If you try to cut sin with virtue, in doing virtue further sin will occur. Then to cut that sin you try virtue again; in doing that virtue more sin will happen. Each time you will have to cut sin. Each time you use virtue, virtue generates new sin. This circle will never end. It is vicious.
Therefore the moral outlook can never bring liberation. It is trapped in the circle.
Krishna speaks from a very different vision—and whoever knows will speak thus. Krishna says: Arjuna, even if among all sinners you are the greatest—the greatest sinner in existence—even then a single happening of knowing will make all your sins wither away. What does this mean?
It means that sin has no density, no substance. Sin is like darkness. A house has been dark for a thousand years; doors closed, locks fastened. The darkness is a thousand years old. When you light a lamp, will darkness say, “This won’t do! You must keep the lamp burning for a thousand years before I can be dispelled”?
No. The moment you light the lamp, the thousand-year-old darkness is gone. It cannot say, “I am a thousand years old.” Nor can it say, “Over the centuries I have become condensed; such a small flame cannot dispel me.”
A thousand-year-old darkness and a one-night-old darkness have the same “density”—or rather, no density. Darkness has no layers; it has no existence of its own. Light the match today, and the darkness is gone—here and now.
But if someone tries to bundle up darkness and throw it out in baskets, he is doing the moralist’s work. He says, “Gather as much darkness as there is, pack it into a basket, and throw it outside.” You can shuttle baskets in and out; the darkness inside will remain unchanged. You will tire; darkness will not.
Sin cannot be cut by virtue—because virtue cannot be done without subtle sin. Sin can only be cut by knowing—because knowing can be without sin.
Mark this well: sin cannot be cut by virtue, because virtue cannot be without sin. Sin can only be cut by knowing, because knowing can be without sin. Knowing is not a doing that requires sin. Knowing is an experience. Karma is outer; knowing is inner. Knowing is like the lighting of a lamp. The moment it is lit, the darkness is gone.
Then you do not even find traces of having sinned. Because when the “I” itself is gone, the ledgers and accounts go with it. Then one is freed from the past the way one is freed from a dream on waking in the morning. Have you never wondered: we wake, having dreamed all night—someone just shakes us a little and we wake; can such a small shake end a whole night of dreaming?
Yes—someone shakes you; the eyelids open; the dream is gone. You do not say, “I must now experience that much reality to counterbalance the night of dream; only then will the dream end.” The dream simply breaks.
Sin is like a dream. The highest proclamation of knowing is: sin is dreamlike. Then virtue too is dreamlike. And dreams are not cut by dreams. If you try to cut dreams with dreams, dreaming will have to continue.
Dreams are not cut even by reality; because the false cannot be cut by the true. The false does not have enough being to be cut. It does not exist in the presence of truth; there is nothing to cut.
Hence Krishna says: however great a sinner you are—even the greatest—still, Arjuna, a single ray of knowing carries away all your sins like dreams. As one awakens in the morning—night ends, dreams end, all ends. For the awakened, dreams are of no concern.
When India’s scriptures were first translated in the West, they said, “These writings seem immoral.” Even Schopenhauer was disturbed. He was a profound thinker. He felt uneasy: “What kind of teaching is this! They say it can all be cut in a moment!”
Christianity never understood this. It could not. “In a moment?” Christianity gave sin enormous weight and took it with great seriousness—not as dream, but as reality. On Christianity, the burden of sin is heavy—original sin! Each person has his own sins; and the sin of the first man is on every person’s chest as well. It is very difficult to cancel.
Therefore Christianity became guilt-ridden; the sense of guilt grew heavy. And no release from sin is in sight—no amount of virtue can free one—so Christianity grew ill at the roots.
Jesus did not have such an idea. But Christianity did not understand Jesus—as happens always. Hindus did not understand Krishna. Jains did not understand Mahavira. Christianity did not understand Jesus.
When the uncomprehending claim to understand, trouble begins. Jesus said, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all else shall be added unto you.” Jesus said: just seek the kingdom of the Lord and everything else will be given. Exactly what Krishna says: just seek the ray of light, and all the rest—what you want to drop will drop, what you want to gain will be given.
Indian thought is not immoral; it is amoral—beyond morality; it goes beyond ethics, beyond virtue and sin. This statement is amoral, supramoral. It goes beyond right and wrong, beyond merit and demerit.
We will speak again at night.
Now, in kirtan, in the melody, the sannyasins will dissolve. Friends who wish to join, join in; otherwise sit where you are. At least keep time with your hands, hum along with the tune, sitting in your place. For ten minutes, forget the intellect, forget reflection, forget thought.
Osho's Commentary
Krishna says, Arjuna, what comes to one through the wise, when asked with right humility, destroys moh.
What does the destruction of moh mean? What is moh?
The first moh is simply this: that I should remain. The deep moh is this: that I should remain. The insistence for life; to go on living; somehow or other, but I must live, I must continue; I must not be annihilated—lust for life, jijiivisha.
The attachment to live is the first and deepest moh. All other mohs are built around it. If someone clings to a house, he does not really cling to the house. The house-moh is only the extension of the urge that I be able to live well, to be safe, to survive. Someone clings to wealth. The moh for wealth is meaningless in itself. It has no root of its own. Its roots lie in preserving this 'I'. Without wealth, how will I survive? With wealth, I can make attempts to survive.
To say it even more briefly: moh is the struggle against death. The husband clings to the wife; the wife clings to the husband; the father clings to the son, the son to the father. These are all security measures, survival measures, devices to be safe. Let me not be erased, let me be saved forever—such longing is the deep form of moh. And all other longings arise out of this single longing of moh.
Sometimes one feels puzzled. Seeing the blind, the lame, the maimed, the beggar by the roadside, the question must have arisen in the mind: why does he want to live? Every limb has decayed! Why does he want to live? The same reason we want to live. The limbs may rot, but the moh for life does not rot. Eyes may go, legs may break, the man may be decomposing—and still the moh to live does not melt.
Many times old people are heard saying: now let God take me away. Do not think that they are truly ready to go. If you all were to try together and say, all right then, let us have you taken up—then you would know that when they say, now let God take me, they are merely complaining that there is no joy in being kept alive in this manner; keep me alive in another way. Deep down there is no yearning for death even in them.
I have heard an incident; an Arabian tale. A woodcutter cuts wood daily. He sells it in the village. He has grown old. One day he is returning with a heavy load on his head. Noon is approaching. The old man is bathed in sweat; carrying the wood toward the village. His back is bending; the burden is unbearable. Suddenly, out of his heart: O God! Better than this, let me meet death now.
It does not happen as it happened in the story. Death happened to be passing nearby and heard it. Death thought, the poor fellow is truly in pain. Let me take him. Death came and stood before him. Said to the woodcutter, you called me; I have come. Speak, what shall I do?
The woodcutter said, no, nothing else—just take this load off my head. I did not call you for anything else; the burden is a bit too much today; there is no one on the road; please lower it down. He panicked at the sight of Death. When he had called, he had not thought.
Bear this in mind: if God were to grant all our prayers, we would stop praying forever. He does not, and so we go on praying. Perhaps he does not, because we keep praying against ourselves. For if he were to fulfill them, we would still complain: why did you fulfill it? That was not our meaning! When a man says, O Lord, now take me away, he does not mean, take me away. He means, do not keep me alive in this manner; keep me alive properly! He is speaking a symbolic language.
No one wants to die.
You will say, some people commit suicide. They decide upon it. But have you ever noticed who commits suicide? Precisely those whose moh for life is very intense, dense. This will seem very contrary.
A man loves a woman and she refuses; he commits suicide. In truth he is saying, I will live on this condition—that this woman be mine; this is the condition of my living. And if such a living is not available to me—his moh for life is so compact—that if such a life is denied, he dies. He is dying only because of the excess of moh for life. No one dies because he loves death.
Another man says, if the palace remains, wealth remains, prestige remains, I will live; otherwise I will die. By dying he is not saying that death is dear to him. He is saying that the life he had was distasteful to him. The life he wanted could not be attained as he desired. He accepts death as a deep complaint against God. He says, keep your life; I wanted an even more intense life, and that too, just as my longing was.
One person loves a woman; she dies. He marries another and continues living. His life has no such intense condition as that of the one who dies.
Those whose life has intense conditions are sometimes seen committing suicide. And often a man commits suicide also because perhaps after dying a better life may be obtained. That too is a longing for life. That too is a search for a better life. It is not a hankering for death. It is an act done in the hope that perhaps a better life will come. If a better life is obtained, man is ready even to die. There is no orientation toward death; there cannot be. There is moh for life.
From this moh for life spread countless branches. All those things that support living become important. Hence money is so important. People say there is nothing in money. They speak wrongly. The very soul of moh is there. The spirit of moh resides in money.
Why has money become so important? Are people mad? No; people are not mad. Without money, living is very difficult. As intense as the longing to live is, so intense becomes the grip on money. A tight hold on money only announces a tight hold on living.
If men like Mahavira or Buddha leave everything and go, they do not merely leave money. Seen deeper, because the insistence on living has fallen, money falls away. What will one do saving money? If life is there tomorrow, good; if not, good. If not, it is just as fine as if it were.
When Muhammad went to sleep at night, whatever was in the house by evening he would distribute. Not a single coin saved. He would say, if we live tomorrow morning, good; and if Paramatma wishes to keep me alive, he will make arrangements tomorrow as well. He made arrangements today, he made arrangements yesterday. The experience of a lifetime says that as long as it was ordained to be alive, he provided. Let us trust for tomorrow as well.
Muhammad would say that the man who guards a strongbox is a nastik—an unbeliever. And he is. You will say, what a strange definition of an unbeliever! We call him an unbeliever who does not accept God. Muhammad calls him an unbeliever who believes in money.
And remember, one who believes in money cannot believe in God. And one who believes in God, belief in money drops from him the way dry leaves fall from a tree. For one who believes in God drops the moh to live. The life of Paramatma becomes his own life now.
So Muhammad would distribute everything by evening. Very few have been so aparigrahi upon the earth. And this aparigraha is, in many ways, more difficult than the aparigraha of Mahavira and Buddha. Because Mahavira and Buddha renounced once for all. Having renounced, they remained outside. Their non-possession is a single event. They went out; the matter ended. Muhammad does not go out in that way. Every day from morning to evening parigraha accumulates; by evening he distributes everything. By night he is aparigrahi again. In the morning, if someone brings an offering, it comes again. By evening he distributes again.
A single leap from accumulated possession is always easier. Day after day after day—moment by moment to keep leaving is very difficult. But outwardly it may not be noticeable. That is why many will not even accept that Muhammad is aparigrahi. But I say his aparigraha is very deep.
On the day of his death, he was ill; the physicians told Muhammad’s wife that this night may hardly pass. So she kept aside five dinars. Medicine may be needed; she saved five coins. Who knows about the night! Medicines, doctors, some arrangement might be required.
At midnight Muhammad kept turning. He seemed very restless, very troubled. At last he opened his eyes and said to his wife, it seems to me that today I am not aparigrahi. Today there is some money in the house. Do not do this, for if Paramatma asks me, Muhammad, did you become an unbeliever at the moment of death? He who gave all his life, would he not give for one more night? Bring it out! The wife said, how did you know that I must have saved something? Muhammad said, the theft in your eyes tells it. Your fear tells it. Today you are not as fearless as you always were.
Only the aparigrahi can be fearless; the possessor is always afraid. That is why a guard stands before the possessor with a gun. He is the proof of his fear.
The possessor will be afraid. Where there is moh, there will be fear. Fear is born of moh. Fear is the flower of moh. It is thorn-like, yet it is the flower of moh. It blooms only in moh, it springs only from moh.
Remember, fear too is nothing but this: that one not be erased. Moh is to preserve oneself; fear is that one not be erased. Hence fear is the other side of the coin of moh. One who wants to be fearless cannot be so without being free of moh. Abhaya comes only with freedom from moh.
Muhammad said, your fear says that today your mind is filled with moh. Today you do not look into my eyes. You have hidden something. Bring it out and distribute it. Poor thing—she had hidden five coins beneath the bed—she brought them out. Muhammad said, go to the road and give them to someone. She said, who will be found on the road in the middle of the night! Muhammad said, the One who told me to distribute has also sent someone to receive. She went out and a beggar was standing there! She gave the coins and came back in. Trust deepened; trust grew. Muhammad said, the One who told me to distribute has also sent the one standing at the door.
She returned within. Muhammad closed his eyes. He smiled. He pulled the sheet over himself and the breath left. Those who know say, Muhammad waited only so long as it took to have the five coins given away. His agony was only this: when will he persuade his wife to let them go!
But why had the wife saved those five coins? The same moh for life. When we too save, it is the moh for life. All saving is in the moh for life. All fear is the dread that one may not be erased.
Krishna says, when the stream of knowledge flows, the very first thing it destroys is moh, Arjuna. It destroys moh because moh is ignorance.
If we understand ignorance, we will say: ignorance is unmanifest moh. And if we rightly understand moh, we will say: moh is manifest ignorance. When ignorance manifests, it spreads as moh—manifested ignorance. As long as ignorance remains hidden within, it is all right; when it bursts forth and spreads all around us, the circle of moh forms. Then my friends, the dear ones, husband, wife, father, son, house, wealth, possessions—it goes on spreading.
And there is no end to the spread of moh. Its expansion is infinite. Even if the moon and stars are obtained, it will not be satisfied. Beyond, there are still moons and stars; it will want to spread there too.
Why? Why does moh want to spread so infinitely? Because from wherever moh fails to spread, from just there arises the possibility of fear. What is not mine, that alone is feared. Hence one wants to make everything mine. The house that is not mine, from there lies danger. The land that is not mine, from there comes enmity. The moon or star that is not mine, from there death will arrive. So as far as the spread of my-ness reaches, to that extent I become an emperor; outside that I remain a beggar. Therefore man keeps spreading the 'mine'.
They say, when someone said to Alexander—an extraordinary man, like a Mahavira in Greece—Diogenes. Diogenes was standing naked. He said to Alexander, Alexander! Think at least once that if you were to conquer the whole world, then what would you do? For there is no second world! They say Alexander became sad. Diogenes began to laugh heartily. Alexander became even more sad. And Alexander said, do not laugh at my compulsion. It is true there is no second world. It never occurred to me that if I conquered the whole world, then what? And there is no second world.
The world is not yet conquered, and at the very thought of conquest sadness descended. Because then there would be no place left for moh to spread further. What will I do then! Alexander asked, but Diogenes, why do you laugh?
Diogenes said, I laugh because even if the whole world were given to you, sadness alone would fall into your hands. And we, who have nothing, go on searching for sadness and cannot find it anywhere. We have nothing, and we are in bliss. You have much, and even if you have everything, you will go into sorrow.
Moh takes one nowhere except into sorrow. Now understand it thus: ignorance is moh hidden. When ignorance is revealed it becomes moh. When moh succeeds, it becomes sorrow; when it fails, it becomes sorrow.
Therefore Krishna says, when the first stream of knowledge strikes, moh is the first to loosen, to break, to scatter. As when the sun’s rays come and ice begins to melt, so the stone of frozen ice that is placed upon the chest—the moh—begins to melt with the first stream of knowledge. And when moh melts, when moh is erased, then one knows that that which I was trying to save never was. I was engaged in saving what never existed; hence I was troubled.
One who is engaged in saving what is not, will of course be troubled. How can one save what is not? I am not at all separate and apart from the existence of this cosmos. It is that which I am trying to save. That alone is my pain.
Let a wave begin to save itself—then it will be in difficulty. For a wave is nothing separate from the ocean. It has arisen only because of the ocean; it is only because of the ocean; it will subside only because of the ocean. When it was not, it was in the ocean; when it is, it is in the ocean; when it will not be, it will still be in the ocean.
But if a wave begins to think, I am separate—then, the wave has become a man! Now the wave will do all that man does. Now, from every side, the wave will try to save itself. It will fear that it may be erased. In this fear, what can a wave do? If it freezes and becomes ice, then it can be saved. It will contract, it will die. Because a wave is alive only so long as it has not become ice. From all sides it will contract, harden.
Ego freezes. Ego shrinks and becomes a stone of ice. It is no longer water, no longer fluid, no longer liquid, no longer a flow.
There is absolutely no flow in ego. In love there is flow. Therefore as long as there is ego, love does not arise.
Also bear in mind, love and moh are very different things. Not just different—opposite. Where there is moh in life, love does not arise. And where there is love, it arises only when there is no moh. But we go on calling moh, love.
In fact we go on protecting moh by calling it love. In deceiving ourselves, no one can match us! We call moh love. A father says to the son, I love you. A wife says to the husband, I love you. It is moh.
Hence the Upanishads say: everyone loves only the self. That which gives support to the self in survival appears as if it is loved. It is only moh. Love can be only when the other also appears as oneself. Love can be only when the Divine is experienced; otherwise it cannot be. Only those who are no more can love. Very contrary words indeed.
Only those who have not remained can love. Those who remain, who are preserved, can only attach—moh. For to preserve oneself, the path is moh. Love is the path of dissolving. Love is melting. Therefore one who has to save himself cannot love.
So watch: the more a man is absorbed in trying to save life, the more love will become empty. The strongbox will get larger, love will grow vacant. The house will grow bigger, love will be finished.
Among the poor you may even glimpse love; among the affluent you will find no news of love. Why? What has happened? In truth, the intense striving to be affluent is also to save the 'I', to save moh. Where there is moh, love cannot arise.
Krishna says, when moh melts, Arjuna, a person becomes one with me; becomes one with Satchidananda. Then no separation remains. Separation itself is moh. Separation is the declaration, I am. Non-separation is the declaration, I am not, only Thou art.
But this declaration must rise from one’s very life-breath, not from the throat. The declaration, Thou alone art, must come from the life-breath, not from the throat. It must spring from the heart, not from the head. It must arise from every pore, not from a fragment of existence. In that instant, ekatma flowers, advaita flowers, the two falls away. It is the moment of supreme rapture—the ultimate ecstasy. Every pore begins to dance; every particle of breath begins to sing. But the song—unsung, untouched by the lips, unsoiled. The dance—unknown, unfamiliar; no beat or tune, no arrangement or orchestration.
A Baul fakir is passing through some village of Bengal. People gather. The Baul is dancing. He is plucking the tambura. His hands do not fall in order, there is no arrangement, no raga, no tala in the feet. Someone asks, since you do not know how to dance properly, why do you dance? The Baul fakir says, I do not dance; I am being danced. Who will keep account of beat and tune? The one who could arrange is no more. Now I am simply being carried away. People ask, these songs you sing—what is their meaning? The Baul says, I do not know. As long as I was, these songs were not. Now that these songs are, I am not. Who will tell the meaning? You will know the meaning the day these songs arise in you too and you can also dance. Experience itself is the meaning.
Krishna says, in the current of knowledge moh is shattered, and the person is immersed in the Supreme. That alone is the supreme intent of life, of being.
Moh is the mischief of our ego. Moh is building a fort around ourselves with our own hands. Closing ourselves off from the light of the sun. Cutting ourselves off from the existence of the world. Making ourselves blind to the grace of the Lord.
Therefore Krishna has said in the first aphorism: bowing down, with humility, having put oneself aside, when someone bends near a stream of knowledge and that stream begins to flow within him, then all moh departs from within, the darkness of moh is cut away. In that moment of light he knows himself as one with me, Arjuna.