Where the mind comes to rest, restrained by the practice of yoga.
Where, indeed, beholding the Self by the self, one delights in the Self. || 20 ||
Geeta Darshan #10
Available in:
Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Sutra (Original)
यत्रोपरमते चित्तं निरुद्धं योगसेवया।
यत्र चैवात्मनात्मानं पश्यन्नात्मनि तुष्यति।। 20।।
यत्र चैवात्मनात्मानं पश्यन्नात्मनि तुष्यति।। 20।।
Transliteration:
yatroparamate cittaṃ niruddhaṃ yogasevayā|
yatra caivātmanātmānaṃ paśyannātmani tuṣyati|| 20||
yatroparamate cittaṃ niruddhaṃ yogasevayā|
yatra caivātmanātmānaṃ paśyannātmani tuṣyati|| 20||
Translation (Meaning)
Questions in this Discourse
Osho, in this verse people have given many meanings to “chitta vritti nirodha.” What meaning do you give it? Please clarify this as well.
“Chitta vritti nirodha.” Ordinarily people have taken it to mean the suppression of the mind’s modifications. That is not its meaning. The word nirodha does not indicate repression. If repression were intended, it would say chitta vritti virodha—opposition to the vrittis. Nirodha is a very wondrous word. Chitta vritti nirodha means such a deep understanding of the mind that the vrittis come to rest in that very understanding. Repression is ignorance, and only the ignorant repress. Whoever represses his vrittis gets into trouble.
Suppress anger and it will only grow. Suppressing anger is like burying a seed in the soil; better it had remained on the surface. Once buried, it will sprout and become a tree; its roots will spread; it will touch the sky; it will produce millions of seeds. When you suppress anger, you have sown the seed of anger in the inner soil of consciousness, and it will grow even larger.
No, nirodha is not repression. The nirodha of a vritti is understanding the vritti. The moment a vritti is seen in full clarity it is restrained; understanding is nirodha.
If one really understands what anger is, what will one find except suffering and fire? If one sees anger completely, what will one discover but poison? And if it becomes clear that it is poison and fire that you are turning upon yourself with your own hands, you would have to look for a madman to find someone who could keep anger alive. The vritti is restrained. The moment poison is seen as poison, liberation from it begins.
But we all labor under the illusion that we already know anger is bad—then why don’t we get free of it? Everyone “knows” anger is bad. Can you even find someone who doesn’t “know” that anger is bad? Then what I am saying seems upside down: if everyone knows, why do so many spend all day living in anger?
No; I say to you, you do not know even a little that anger is bad. Deep down you feel anger is quite good. What you have “heard from above” is that anger is bad. It is not your experience, your recognition, your own realization that anger is bad.
Gurdjieff, a fakir in France—one of the few in this century with such deep understanding—if someone came to him saying, “I am very troubled by anger. It’s so bad and yet I can’t get rid of it,” Gurdjieff would say, “Stop. First drop this idea that anger is bad. Drop this first, because it will never let you understand. It creates a false sense of understanding that you already know. You don’t know at all that anger is bad! Drop that first. Anger won’t drop—let anger be. Please drop the notion that anger is bad.”
The man would protest, “Knowing it’s bad, I get so angry! If I drop that it’s bad, won’t things become worse?”
Gurdjieff would say, “Wait. We are ready to take that risk. Let trouble come.” He would then devise devices to ignite the man’s anger—create situations that would inflame him, insult him, abuse him, get someone to entangle him, touch his wounds so he would explode in a flash—and terribly. And Gurdjieff would go on stoking it, adding ghee to his anger: “Complete it. Don’t hold anything back. Boil over. Let every pore burn. Become fire. Do it totally.”
And when the man was blazing, Gurdjieff would shout, “Friend! Now look and see what anger is. This is the moment. See it now. Recognize it now. This is it. Close your eyes and meditate on it. Close your eyes and now be aware of this anger. Every hair is aflame. Every drop of blood is fire. The heart is bursting. The veins of the brain are flooded and crazed. Stop within. Now you can truly see—anger is totally present.” And it is astonishing: whoever Gurdjieff made see anger in this way found himself incapable of being angry again—incapable!
But our whole setup is reversed. We begin repression in small children: “Don’t be angry. Suppress anger; anger is very bad.” The child sees the father angry, the mother angry—everything going on as usual. The father lectures, “Don’t be angry; anger is bad.” If the child doesn’t obey, the father gets angry on the spot! The child sees, “What fun! What a game!”
Children are acute observers. Their capacity to observe is still pure. They see very clearly the sheer dishonesty. The father says, “Don’t be angry,” and if we get angry, he himself gets angry!
We enforce repression. The child never gets to know what anger is; he only gets to know “Anger is bad,” and he experiences only tepid, lukewarm spurts—bursts in between.
Recognition never happens with lukewarm anger. You will never understand from dipping your hand in tepid water that hot water burns; once you put your hand in boiling water, the hand will keep its distance forever. If someone later coaxes, “Come, it’s nectar boiling here. Dip your hand,” you’ll say, “No, my friend. I have experience.”
The purest witnessing of vrittis—of any vritti—becomes nirodha; the pure witnessing of any vritti. But human culture has woven so many nets that no one gets a pure, direct encounter with any vritti: not with sex, not with anger, not with greed, not with fear. Nothing is encountered purely; hence nothing is dropped; nothing comes to rest.
There is fear, yet no one witnesses fear purely. Every child is taught, “Be fearless, don’t be afraid.” You say “Don’t be afraid” to one who is already afraid; the complexity increases. Inside he trembles; on the surface he grows a shell: “I’m not afraid.” He walks through a dark lane whistling, thinking, “I’m not afraid.” He whistles only because he’s afraid—hearing his own whistle creates the illusion he is not alone. He will boast, “I whistle right through the dark.” But no one ever sees him whistle in daylight! He whistles in the dark to forget his fear.
We become double—double-bound. On top a taught, conditioned shell; beneath, the real man of vrittis. We keep pressing this inner man with the false one above. When there is no demand, he stays subdued; when a demand arises, he shoves the false one aside and comes out; when the demand passes, he recedes again.
Two men live within us. One functions in ordinary situations: you are walking down the road, appearing very good—this is one man. Someone shoves you; the outer man goes in and the inner man comes out—this second man is the real one. That smiling, respectable figure on the road is not the real man; he is useless, only a face, a mask we use. The real man sits within.
He comes out only when needed; otherwise he stays inside. When the need passes, he goes back in, and the false man takes the seat again. The real man erupts in anger; the false man apologizes. The real man gets angry; the false man swears, “I won’t be angry again.” The real man rages on; the false man reads the Gita, thinking how to restrain anger! The inner real man doesn’t read the Gita. The false man doesn’t get angry; the false man takes vows.
On such a double plane, like parallel tracks, these two never meet. They appear to meet somewhere ahead, but never do—parallel, running on. Life passes like this. When work demands, the real man comes out; when not, the false man sits in the drawing room.
This situation must be broken. There is only one way: pure witnessing of the vrittis. The great wonder is that the pure witnessing of any vritti takes you instantly into nirodha—because the pure vritti, seen in its essence, is hell. There is no choice; once it is known, you step out. If it is not known, you stay inside. Our whole arrangement is to not let it be known—to neglect it.
A mother and father know their son is of age; sexual desire is awakening in him. Yet they behave as if they know nothing. They think, “It may be happening to other people’s sons, but not to ours. Ours is wholly sattvic!”
A young man took sannyas and told me something amusing. He went home; his father said, “Sannyas is very good. But the real thing is brahmacharya. Practice celibacy.” The son told me, “I felt like saying, ‘Father, if you had practiced brahmacharya, I wouldn’t have been born—and I wouldn’t have had to take sannyas!’ But I didn’t dare. Inside, the mind said it.” That father speaks without understanding what sannyas is, what brahmacharya is, what sexual desire is—nothing understood; he has just caught hold of the word “brahmacharya.”
If a father were wise, he would say to his son, “Have such direct seeing of sex—such direct seeing—that you recognize it completely. The day you fully know it, there will be no need to speak of brahmacharya; it will happen.” But no father says this. He says, “Practice celibacy.” He has not practiced it, nor his father, nor his father’s father; for had it been practiced, the occasion to preach would not arise.
Sex, too, is not recognized; there is no direct seeing. That inner man climbs onto your chest and overpowers you. A moment later he goes back in. The surface man then repents: “Again the same mistake, the same folly! How foolish!”
Keep committing the folly; think about it all day; twenty-four hours later the inner man will again seize you by the neck. Understand: that inner man is the “I.” Do not mistake the flimsy face to be “I.” That one within is me. Understand him. Enter total, pure, direct seeing of each of his vrittis. And if even once a vritti is witnessed in its pure state, nirodha happens.
When Krishna says chitta vritti nirodha—or when Patanjali says chitta vritti nirodhah—Patanjali is no less understanding than Freud; he is far deeper. And when Krishna speaks of chitta vritti nirodha, he knows far beyond Freud.
Whoever interprets it as repression has not understood. It is such interpreters who have produced our society—utterly dishonest, hypocritical, phony, false. Everyone knows it is false, yet we live as if it were true. We relate only through faces, and beneath us runs another, real world like an undercurrent. If someone were to descend from the moon, from Mars, and see us, he would never guess that there is another true inner world—he would know only our faces.
Husband and wife walk on the road: they are in the world of faces. See them at home after they remove the masks and quarrel—you see another face. Having preened before the mirror and come out on the street, they make other couples envious: “This is marriage! What happiness!” Even those others are thinking the same, seeing their masks: “This is marriage! What happiness!”
We must recognize the real people sitting inside—full of violence, anger, lust, greed, cruelty. We must live them too. There is no direct way to escape the real man; only by living through him is there release. You must live it, experience its pain, pass through its total torment. Whoever is ready to pass through its full agony can step out in a moment.
Do not escape. Escape leads nowhere. You cannot run away from yourself. Whatever is within, live it fully. The seeker should break the mask, drop it. Say, “As I am—good or bad—so I am. If I am bad, I am bad. I will put no gilding over this badness, no balm. If I am bad, I am bad—what can be done? I will make it evident.”
One should tell his wife, “When I see a beautiful woman on the street, my mind wavers.” He should say it: “This happens.” And as he begins to break the mask, he should tell his wife—or his husband, or his son—“When you hurt my ego, I feel like wringing your neck. This happens. There is nothing to hide. This is what goes on inside.” It is to be expressed.
I call only those our friends before whom we have no masks. I call only that a family before whom we wear no masks. I call only that a society which grants us the freedom to remove our masks and be straightforward and true. That alone is culture, where we are free to be what we truly are within.
If this can happen—if you can do this—you will get a chance to live in your real inner form. Then you will find that real form is hell. That real form is suffering. That real form will reveal the Buddha’s first noble truth.
And when the first noble truth is revealed, the remedy is found immediately. When a house catches fire, one leaps out; in just such a way you will leap out of the net of your so-called vrittis. You will not wish to return. There is so much poison there! So much pain!
But we do not get the taste of it, because we believe that such things are not in us. “Sometimes anger happens; that’s different—circumstantial. But I have no anger.”
If there is none, it cannot arise. The situation is exactly the opposite: anger is running within you twenty-four hours a day, like electricity through a wire. When you touch it, you get a shock. That doesn’t mean the current starts only when touched; it runs all the time—touch and you know. Anger runs in you all the time; someone just touches you and the shock is released. The wire might think as you do: “No electricity runs in me; a shock happens only when someone touches.” The toucher does not create the shock. When someone abuses me, he does not create my anger; he merely touched it. The underground stream of anger flows within me. The abuse connected the contact and—shock! I become monstrous, insane. That madness is within us; that insanity is within us.
Vritti-nirodha means such deep understanding of a vritti that its very existence becomes impossible—so deep a knowing, so total an experience, such an intimate realization that the vritti cannot continue. There is no liberation other than knowing. There is no nirodha other than knowing.
Therefore Krishna says: uparam—when the chitta becomes quiet, when it attains chitta vritti nirodha, in that moment of cessation it knows the Lord.
“Sukham atyantikam yat tad buddhigrahyam atindriyam;
vetti yatra na chaivayam sthitas chalati tattvatah.” (6.21)
That infinite joy, graspable only by a purified, subtle intellect and beyond the senses—when he experiences that state, established there the yogi does not move from the very nature of God.
A deeper form of the same sutra: he is not moved from the God-nature. That chitta, that person, that yogi who knows, “I am beyond the senses,” does not get dislodged from the divine.
We get dislodged from the divine because we take ourselves to be the senses. “I am the senses”—the journey begins. We start moving away from ourselves. Then the senses carry us further, because each sense demands its object; it seeks its food. After each object there is the experience of non-satiation—“This did not satisfy; I need another”—and the search continues. Life becomes a journey.
There are two steps to this journey. First, one must identify: “I am the senses.” If you want to go into the world, you must believe, “I am the senses.” This identification happens because consciousness is so pure, so transparent, that whatever it approaches it reflects.
The old yoga texts give the example of a blue sapphire. If you put a pure blue gem into a bowl of pure water, the entire water looks blue; the gem’s aura pervades the water.
If the sapphire were to become self-aware, would it say, “I am the gem, separate from the water”? No, because the water too has become blue. How could the sapphire know where the gem ends and the water begins, when the water has also taken on blueness? If the sapphire became aware, it would take the water’s circumference as its own, because that is how far the blue extends.
Exactly so, the pure soul within—the consciousness—spreads its aura over the senses; it pervades every corner of the body. My soul has entered the tips of my fingers, the pores of my skin. My soul has enveloped my entire body and senses. The aura of consciousness contains everything. Because this aura is infinite, it encompasses the small body of an ant and the large body of an elephant alike. If I were to obtain a body as vast as the cosmos, still my aura would encompass it. The soul’s aura is infinite, and wherever it falls, whatever boundary it encircles, there it seems, “I have become one with this.”
Thus the first step arises: “I am the senses.” Then the second becomes inevitable: the senses say, “Seek my objects.” The sex-sense demands sexual objects; you go in search. Thus we go out from ourselves—moving, becoming restless. That which within is eternally unmoving falls into the illusion of movement. It goes seeking farther and farther. The more it seeks, the more it doesn’t find; not finding, it goes farther still. Thus unfolds the long journey of births.
Krishna says: one who knows “I am beyond and past the senses,” does not get dislodged from the God-nature. He becomes one with God; he becomes God. The sutra is this: know “I am beyond the senses, transcendent; I am not the senses.”
A strange incident comes to mind. There was a fakir, Linchi, in Japan—a very wise master. Linchi had the habit: whenever he explained something, he would raise one finger. Whenever he spoke, one finger would rise. He would indicate nonduality with that finger; what he could not say in words, he pointed to with the finger. As long as he spoke, that finger trembled, lifted.
Among the fakirs it was a joke. His disciples too sometimes mocked him; they would raise a finger while talking—behind his back, of course; in front of him they hadn’t the nerve.
One day a disciple was gossiping with a raised finger. Suddenly Linchi entered the temple. The disciple panicked and hid his finger. Linchi said, “No, keep it raised.” He took a knife from his sleeve, cut the finger off, and flung it away. The disciple writhed, his hand drenched in blood. Linchi said, “Be alert! Look—your finger is cut; you are not cut. Be aware. Don’t miss the moment. The finger is cut; you are not cut. Look carefully!”
He was jolted. At the shock of the finger’s severing, thoughts stopped. He hadn’t expected it; he’d never imagined that a compassionate man like Linchi, who wouldn’t pluck a leaf, would cut a finger. The shock, Linchi’s voice, Linchi’s form standing there, Linchi’s raised finger: “See—you are not cut; the finger is cut.” The man’s eyes closed; he looked within. He fell at Linchi’s feet and said, “Thank you! For the first time I know I am not the finger.”
In just this way one must awaken toward each sense: “This is not me, this is not me, this is not me.” It is not necessary to cut off the finger to awaken. Sit quietly and simply inquire, lifting a finger: “Is this finger me?” Keep it raised and look within, “Is this finger me?” It won’t take long; something will drop back inside; the finger will be one thing, you another.
Sometimes close your eyes and inquire, “Am I this body?” Be careful: ask the question, do not answer it! We are very clever at answering. We all “know” that “I am not the body”! Even before asking, the ready-made answer is there. “I am not the body.” The whole thing is wasted. No—only ask; let the answer come. Do not hurry to answer. Your answers are worth two pennies. If you truly knew the answer, what need to ask? You don’t know.
Scriptures have become enemies; we have read them. They say, “I am not the body.” Those who could have been friends we have turned into foes; we have memorized them: “I am not the body.” We sit to ask, “Am I the body?”—we can’t even ask; the answer is already known. “Why bother? I am not the body.” We get up unchanged—the same person as before.
No; ask, “Am I the body?” and fall silent. Let the question go deep. Do not answer from memory. Let the question sink. Experience: “Am I the body?”
Awaken toward the body; see the body from within: there is the body. As a man sits inside his house and sees the walls all around, in just that way sit inside the body and see: walls of flesh all around, hands, feet. “Here is the body. Am I the body?” Do not answer. Kindly refrain from answering. “Am I the body?”—and let the question sink like an arrow within.
Soon a curtain will drop inside, and suddenly it will be evident: “What! There is the body; I am separate.” But do not speak this answer; let it arise. When it arises, it will change your life. If you speak it, life will remain the same. This is the touchstone.
If after this answer life becomes different, know that the answer came. If life remains the same—that you get up after the inquiry, light a cigarette, blow smoke, everything unchanged, no transformation—know that the answer was not authentic; you supplied it.
The cunning of the mind is endless. It keeps answers ready so you need not go inside. “Where are you going?” says the mind. “I am the gatekeeper; I’ll tell you. Why meet the master? I’ll provide all answers; why trouble yourself?” It stands at the door like a guard: “I’ll tell you, sit here. I know all the answers; why go inside?”
Say to the mind, “Forgive me. Keep your answers to yourself. I don’t want them. Keep your scriptures and your theories. Please let me go inside. I wish to know for myself. I know nothing.”
Ask! Then a veil will fall inside—a thin veil of aura—and it will shrink. The body will be one thing; you, another.
And the moment this is experienced—that the body is separate and I am separate; the senses are separate and I am separate—then consciousness no longer moves. It relaxes into the Lord. It becomes one with the Lord. It never again leaves the Lord’s home. Wherever it goes, it goes while remaining at home in the Lord. Even if the body goes from the temple to the shop, the temple arrives at the shop. Walking on the road, the person knows, “I am settled in the Lord.” The body will walk; I am still. The body may be cut; I am uncut. The body may be pierced; I am unpierced. The body will die; I am deathless. He goes on knowing; he goes on knowing.
Such recognition settles in God. And in God there is abiding bliss.
Enough for today.
For five minutes the sannyasins will sing kirtan—receive their prasad before you go. They have nothing else to give you; if you get up and leave, they will feel you did not accept their prasad. Please remain. Join them, for only then is the prasad received; there is no other way.
Sing. Become one with their song. Clap. Sway. Rejoice. For five minutes forget all that is our habitual mind, and set out on the journey of a new mind.
Suppress anger and it will only grow. Suppressing anger is like burying a seed in the soil; better it had remained on the surface. Once buried, it will sprout and become a tree; its roots will spread; it will touch the sky; it will produce millions of seeds. When you suppress anger, you have sown the seed of anger in the inner soil of consciousness, and it will grow even larger.
No, nirodha is not repression. The nirodha of a vritti is understanding the vritti. The moment a vritti is seen in full clarity it is restrained; understanding is nirodha.
If one really understands what anger is, what will one find except suffering and fire? If one sees anger completely, what will one discover but poison? And if it becomes clear that it is poison and fire that you are turning upon yourself with your own hands, you would have to look for a madman to find someone who could keep anger alive. The vritti is restrained. The moment poison is seen as poison, liberation from it begins.
But we all labor under the illusion that we already know anger is bad—then why don’t we get free of it? Everyone “knows” anger is bad. Can you even find someone who doesn’t “know” that anger is bad? Then what I am saying seems upside down: if everyone knows, why do so many spend all day living in anger?
No; I say to you, you do not know even a little that anger is bad. Deep down you feel anger is quite good. What you have “heard from above” is that anger is bad. It is not your experience, your recognition, your own realization that anger is bad.
Gurdjieff, a fakir in France—one of the few in this century with such deep understanding—if someone came to him saying, “I am very troubled by anger. It’s so bad and yet I can’t get rid of it,” Gurdjieff would say, “Stop. First drop this idea that anger is bad. Drop this first, because it will never let you understand. It creates a false sense of understanding that you already know. You don’t know at all that anger is bad! Drop that first. Anger won’t drop—let anger be. Please drop the notion that anger is bad.”
The man would protest, “Knowing it’s bad, I get so angry! If I drop that it’s bad, won’t things become worse?”
Gurdjieff would say, “Wait. We are ready to take that risk. Let trouble come.” He would then devise devices to ignite the man’s anger—create situations that would inflame him, insult him, abuse him, get someone to entangle him, touch his wounds so he would explode in a flash—and terribly. And Gurdjieff would go on stoking it, adding ghee to his anger: “Complete it. Don’t hold anything back. Boil over. Let every pore burn. Become fire. Do it totally.”
And when the man was blazing, Gurdjieff would shout, “Friend! Now look and see what anger is. This is the moment. See it now. Recognize it now. This is it. Close your eyes and meditate on it. Close your eyes and now be aware of this anger. Every hair is aflame. Every drop of blood is fire. The heart is bursting. The veins of the brain are flooded and crazed. Stop within. Now you can truly see—anger is totally present.” And it is astonishing: whoever Gurdjieff made see anger in this way found himself incapable of being angry again—incapable!
But our whole setup is reversed. We begin repression in small children: “Don’t be angry. Suppress anger; anger is very bad.” The child sees the father angry, the mother angry—everything going on as usual. The father lectures, “Don’t be angry; anger is bad.” If the child doesn’t obey, the father gets angry on the spot! The child sees, “What fun! What a game!”
Children are acute observers. Their capacity to observe is still pure. They see very clearly the sheer dishonesty. The father says, “Don’t be angry,” and if we get angry, he himself gets angry!
We enforce repression. The child never gets to know what anger is; he only gets to know “Anger is bad,” and he experiences only tepid, lukewarm spurts—bursts in between.
Recognition never happens with lukewarm anger. You will never understand from dipping your hand in tepid water that hot water burns; once you put your hand in boiling water, the hand will keep its distance forever. If someone later coaxes, “Come, it’s nectar boiling here. Dip your hand,” you’ll say, “No, my friend. I have experience.”
The purest witnessing of vrittis—of any vritti—becomes nirodha; the pure witnessing of any vritti. But human culture has woven so many nets that no one gets a pure, direct encounter with any vritti: not with sex, not with anger, not with greed, not with fear. Nothing is encountered purely; hence nothing is dropped; nothing comes to rest.
There is fear, yet no one witnesses fear purely. Every child is taught, “Be fearless, don’t be afraid.” You say “Don’t be afraid” to one who is already afraid; the complexity increases. Inside he trembles; on the surface he grows a shell: “I’m not afraid.” He walks through a dark lane whistling, thinking, “I’m not afraid.” He whistles only because he’s afraid—hearing his own whistle creates the illusion he is not alone. He will boast, “I whistle right through the dark.” But no one ever sees him whistle in daylight! He whistles in the dark to forget his fear.
We become double—double-bound. On top a taught, conditioned shell; beneath, the real man of vrittis. We keep pressing this inner man with the false one above. When there is no demand, he stays subdued; when a demand arises, he shoves the false one aside and comes out; when the demand passes, he recedes again.
Two men live within us. One functions in ordinary situations: you are walking down the road, appearing very good—this is one man. Someone shoves you; the outer man goes in and the inner man comes out—this second man is the real one. That smiling, respectable figure on the road is not the real man; he is useless, only a face, a mask we use. The real man sits within.
He comes out only when needed; otherwise he stays inside. When the need passes, he goes back in, and the false man takes the seat again. The real man erupts in anger; the false man apologizes. The real man gets angry; the false man swears, “I won’t be angry again.” The real man rages on; the false man reads the Gita, thinking how to restrain anger! The inner real man doesn’t read the Gita. The false man doesn’t get angry; the false man takes vows.
On such a double plane, like parallel tracks, these two never meet. They appear to meet somewhere ahead, but never do—parallel, running on. Life passes like this. When work demands, the real man comes out; when not, the false man sits in the drawing room.
This situation must be broken. There is only one way: pure witnessing of the vrittis. The great wonder is that the pure witnessing of any vritti takes you instantly into nirodha—because the pure vritti, seen in its essence, is hell. There is no choice; once it is known, you step out. If it is not known, you stay inside. Our whole arrangement is to not let it be known—to neglect it.
A mother and father know their son is of age; sexual desire is awakening in him. Yet they behave as if they know nothing. They think, “It may be happening to other people’s sons, but not to ours. Ours is wholly sattvic!”
A young man took sannyas and told me something amusing. He went home; his father said, “Sannyas is very good. But the real thing is brahmacharya. Practice celibacy.” The son told me, “I felt like saying, ‘Father, if you had practiced brahmacharya, I wouldn’t have been born—and I wouldn’t have had to take sannyas!’ But I didn’t dare. Inside, the mind said it.” That father speaks without understanding what sannyas is, what brahmacharya is, what sexual desire is—nothing understood; he has just caught hold of the word “brahmacharya.”
If a father were wise, he would say to his son, “Have such direct seeing of sex—such direct seeing—that you recognize it completely. The day you fully know it, there will be no need to speak of brahmacharya; it will happen.” But no father says this. He says, “Practice celibacy.” He has not practiced it, nor his father, nor his father’s father; for had it been practiced, the occasion to preach would not arise.
Sex, too, is not recognized; there is no direct seeing. That inner man climbs onto your chest and overpowers you. A moment later he goes back in. The surface man then repents: “Again the same mistake, the same folly! How foolish!”
Keep committing the folly; think about it all day; twenty-four hours later the inner man will again seize you by the neck. Understand: that inner man is the “I.” Do not mistake the flimsy face to be “I.” That one within is me. Understand him. Enter total, pure, direct seeing of each of his vrittis. And if even once a vritti is witnessed in its pure state, nirodha happens.
When Krishna says chitta vritti nirodha—or when Patanjali says chitta vritti nirodhah—Patanjali is no less understanding than Freud; he is far deeper. And when Krishna speaks of chitta vritti nirodha, he knows far beyond Freud.
Whoever interprets it as repression has not understood. It is such interpreters who have produced our society—utterly dishonest, hypocritical, phony, false. Everyone knows it is false, yet we live as if it were true. We relate only through faces, and beneath us runs another, real world like an undercurrent. If someone were to descend from the moon, from Mars, and see us, he would never guess that there is another true inner world—he would know only our faces.
Husband and wife walk on the road: they are in the world of faces. See them at home after they remove the masks and quarrel—you see another face. Having preened before the mirror and come out on the street, they make other couples envious: “This is marriage! What happiness!” Even those others are thinking the same, seeing their masks: “This is marriage! What happiness!”
We must recognize the real people sitting inside—full of violence, anger, lust, greed, cruelty. We must live them too. There is no direct way to escape the real man; only by living through him is there release. You must live it, experience its pain, pass through its total torment. Whoever is ready to pass through its full agony can step out in a moment.
Do not escape. Escape leads nowhere. You cannot run away from yourself. Whatever is within, live it fully. The seeker should break the mask, drop it. Say, “As I am—good or bad—so I am. If I am bad, I am bad. I will put no gilding over this badness, no balm. If I am bad, I am bad—what can be done? I will make it evident.”
One should tell his wife, “When I see a beautiful woman on the street, my mind wavers.” He should say it: “This happens.” And as he begins to break the mask, he should tell his wife—or his husband, or his son—“When you hurt my ego, I feel like wringing your neck. This happens. There is nothing to hide. This is what goes on inside.” It is to be expressed.
I call only those our friends before whom we have no masks. I call only that a family before whom we wear no masks. I call only that a society which grants us the freedom to remove our masks and be straightforward and true. That alone is culture, where we are free to be what we truly are within.
If this can happen—if you can do this—you will get a chance to live in your real inner form. Then you will find that real form is hell. That real form is suffering. That real form will reveal the Buddha’s first noble truth.
And when the first noble truth is revealed, the remedy is found immediately. When a house catches fire, one leaps out; in just such a way you will leap out of the net of your so-called vrittis. You will not wish to return. There is so much poison there! So much pain!
But we do not get the taste of it, because we believe that such things are not in us. “Sometimes anger happens; that’s different—circumstantial. But I have no anger.”
If there is none, it cannot arise. The situation is exactly the opposite: anger is running within you twenty-four hours a day, like electricity through a wire. When you touch it, you get a shock. That doesn’t mean the current starts only when touched; it runs all the time—touch and you know. Anger runs in you all the time; someone just touches you and the shock is released. The wire might think as you do: “No electricity runs in me; a shock happens only when someone touches.” The toucher does not create the shock. When someone abuses me, he does not create my anger; he merely touched it. The underground stream of anger flows within me. The abuse connected the contact and—shock! I become monstrous, insane. That madness is within us; that insanity is within us.
Vritti-nirodha means such deep understanding of a vritti that its very existence becomes impossible—so deep a knowing, so total an experience, such an intimate realization that the vritti cannot continue. There is no liberation other than knowing. There is no nirodha other than knowing.
Therefore Krishna says: uparam—when the chitta becomes quiet, when it attains chitta vritti nirodha, in that moment of cessation it knows the Lord.
“Sukham atyantikam yat tad buddhigrahyam atindriyam;
vetti yatra na chaivayam sthitas chalati tattvatah.” (6.21)
That infinite joy, graspable only by a purified, subtle intellect and beyond the senses—when he experiences that state, established there the yogi does not move from the very nature of God.
A deeper form of the same sutra: he is not moved from the God-nature. That chitta, that person, that yogi who knows, “I am beyond the senses,” does not get dislodged from the divine.
We get dislodged from the divine because we take ourselves to be the senses. “I am the senses”—the journey begins. We start moving away from ourselves. Then the senses carry us further, because each sense demands its object; it seeks its food. After each object there is the experience of non-satiation—“This did not satisfy; I need another”—and the search continues. Life becomes a journey.
There are two steps to this journey. First, one must identify: “I am the senses.” If you want to go into the world, you must believe, “I am the senses.” This identification happens because consciousness is so pure, so transparent, that whatever it approaches it reflects.
The old yoga texts give the example of a blue sapphire. If you put a pure blue gem into a bowl of pure water, the entire water looks blue; the gem’s aura pervades the water.
If the sapphire were to become self-aware, would it say, “I am the gem, separate from the water”? No, because the water too has become blue. How could the sapphire know where the gem ends and the water begins, when the water has also taken on blueness? If the sapphire became aware, it would take the water’s circumference as its own, because that is how far the blue extends.
Exactly so, the pure soul within—the consciousness—spreads its aura over the senses; it pervades every corner of the body. My soul has entered the tips of my fingers, the pores of my skin. My soul has enveloped my entire body and senses. The aura of consciousness contains everything. Because this aura is infinite, it encompasses the small body of an ant and the large body of an elephant alike. If I were to obtain a body as vast as the cosmos, still my aura would encompass it. The soul’s aura is infinite, and wherever it falls, whatever boundary it encircles, there it seems, “I have become one with this.”
Thus the first step arises: “I am the senses.” Then the second becomes inevitable: the senses say, “Seek my objects.” The sex-sense demands sexual objects; you go in search. Thus we go out from ourselves—moving, becoming restless. That which within is eternally unmoving falls into the illusion of movement. It goes seeking farther and farther. The more it seeks, the more it doesn’t find; not finding, it goes farther still. Thus unfolds the long journey of births.
Krishna says: one who knows “I am beyond and past the senses,” does not get dislodged from the God-nature. He becomes one with God; he becomes God. The sutra is this: know “I am beyond the senses, transcendent; I am not the senses.”
A strange incident comes to mind. There was a fakir, Linchi, in Japan—a very wise master. Linchi had the habit: whenever he explained something, he would raise one finger. Whenever he spoke, one finger would rise. He would indicate nonduality with that finger; what he could not say in words, he pointed to with the finger. As long as he spoke, that finger trembled, lifted.
Among the fakirs it was a joke. His disciples too sometimes mocked him; they would raise a finger while talking—behind his back, of course; in front of him they hadn’t the nerve.
One day a disciple was gossiping with a raised finger. Suddenly Linchi entered the temple. The disciple panicked and hid his finger. Linchi said, “No, keep it raised.” He took a knife from his sleeve, cut the finger off, and flung it away. The disciple writhed, his hand drenched in blood. Linchi said, “Be alert! Look—your finger is cut; you are not cut. Be aware. Don’t miss the moment. The finger is cut; you are not cut. Look carefully!”
He was jolted. At the shock of the finger’s severing, thoughts stopped. He hadn’t expected it; he’d never imagined that a compassionate man like Linchi, who wouldn’t pluck a leaf, would cut a finger. The shock, Linchi’s voice, Linchi’s form standing there, Linchi’s raised finger: “See—you are not cut; the finger is cut.” The man’s eyes closed; he looked within. He fell at Linchi’s feet and said, “Thank you! For the first time I know I am not the finger.”
In just this way one must awaken toward each sense: “This is not me, this is not me, this is not me.” It is not necessary to cut off the finger to awaken. Sit quietly and simply inquire, lifting a finger: “Is this finger me?” Keep it raised and look within, “Is this finger me?” It won’t take long; something will drop back inside; the finger will be one thing, you another.
Sometimes close your eyes and inquire, “Am I this body?” Be careful: ask the question, do not answer it! We are very clever at answering. We all “know” that “I am not the body”! Even before asking, the ready-made answer is there. “I am not the body.” The whole thing is wasted. No—only ask; let the answer come. Do not hurry to answer. Your answers are worth two pennies. If you truly knew the answer, what need to ask? You don’t know.
Scriptures have become enemies; we have read them. They say, “I am not the body.” Those who could have been friends we have turned into foes; we have memorized them: “I am not the body.” We sit to ask, “Am I the body?”—we can’t even ask; the answer is already known. “Why bother? I am not the body.” We get up unchanged—the same person as before.
No; ask, “Am I the body?” and fall silent. Let the question go deep. Do not answer from memory. Let the question sink. Experience: “Am I the body?”
Awaken toward the body; see the body from within: there is the body. As a man sits inside his house and sees the walls all around, in just that way sit inside the body and see: walls of flesh all around, hands, feet. “Here is the body. Am I the body?” Do not answer. Kindly refrain from answering. “Am I the body?”—and let the question sink like an arrow within.
Soon a curtain will drop inside, and suddenly it will be evident: “What! There is the body; I am separate.” But do not speak this answer; let it arise. When it arises, it will change your life. If you speak it, life will remain the same. This is the touchstone.
If after this answer life becomes different, know that the answer came. If life remains the same—that you get up after the inquiry, light a cigarette, blow smoke, everything unchanged, no transformation—know that the answer was not authentic; you supplied it.
The cunning of the mind is endless. It keeps answers ready so you need not go inside. “Where are you going?” says the mind. “I am the gatekeeper; I’ll tell you. Why meet the master? I’ll provide all answers; why trouble yourself?” It stands at the door like a guard: “I’ll tell you, sit here. I know all the answers; why go inside?”
Say to the mind, “Forgive me. Keep your answers to yourself. I don’t want them. Keep your scriptures and your theories. Please let me go inside. I wish to know for myself. I know nothing.”
Ask! Then a veil will fall inside—a thin veil of aura—and it will shrink. The body will be one thing; you, another.
And the moment this is experienced—that the body is separate and I am separate; the senses are separate and I am separate—then consciousness no longer moves. It relaxes into the Lord. It becomes one with the Lord. It never again leaves the Lord’s home. Wherever it goes, it goes while remaining at home in the Lord. Even if the body goes from the temple to the shop, the temple arrives at the shop. Walking on the road, the person knows, “I am settled in the Lord.” The body will walk; I am still. The body may be cut; I am uncut. The body may be pierced; I am unpierced. The body will die; I am deathless. He goes on knowing; he goes on knowing.
Such recognition settles in God. And in God there is abiding bliss.
Enough for today.
For five minutes the sannyasins will sing kirtan—receive their prasad before you go. They have nothing else to give you; if you get up and leave, they will feel you did not accept their prasad. Please remain. Join them, for only then is the prasad received; there is no other way.
Sing. Become one with their song. Clap. Sway. Rejoice. For five minutes forget all that is our habitual mind, and set out on the journey of a new mind.
Osho's Commentary
In this sutra, how through Yoga chitta becomes uparama, and when chitta attains uparama, what kind of establishment in the Divine arises — that is said here.
A few things about chitta are worth remembering.
First: chitta does not become uparama so long as the delusion persists in us that its rush toward objects is pleasant. Until then, chitta cannot come to repose. As long as we keep the notion that chitta, running toward objects, will lead us into pleasing perceptions, naturally chitta will go on running.
The running of chitta has its law. Wherever pleasure seems to be, chitta runs there. Wherever pain seems to be, chitta does not run there. Wherever pleasure appears — even if it be a delusion — chitta runs there. As water runs toward hollows, so chitta runs toward pleasure. It does not climb the mountains of sorrow; it flees toward the lakes of joy. However many of those lakes turn out to be mirages; even if, on reaching, it is found there is nothing at all — no lake, no hollow, no water. Yet wherever chitta glimpses pleasure, chitta runs there. The run of chitta is pleasure-oriented.
And so long as the run continues, chitta does not attain rest; it remains engaged in toil. The moment it can free itself from one pleasure — free meaning? not that it has known a pleasure — the moment it discovers that this pleasure did not prove to be pleasure, the mind immediately begins to run toward other pleasures. The running continues. If the mind can live at all, it can live only by running. If one were to speak deeply, one could say: the very name of running is mind. The running state of consciousness is called mind, and the uparama state of consciousness is called Atman.
More or less, the state of chitta is like a bicycle you ride on the road. So long as you pedal, the bicycle moves; stop pedaling, and in a short while it comes to a halt. If you want the bicycle to keep moving, your legs must keep moving. If you want chitta to keep moving, the search for pleasures must keep moving. If even for a single moment it is felt that there is no pleasure anywhere, chitta begins to come into rest.
Therefore Buddha spoke of the Four Noble Truths for the rest of chitta and the state of its uparama. Let me tell them to you. They support the very foundational sadhana of Yoga.
Buddha has said: life is suffering — the realization of this is the first Noble Truth. Whatever we desire appears as pleasure; as soon as we come near, it proves to be suffering. Whatever we seek, from afar looks lovely, attractive; on coming near it turns ugly, unattractive.
Unless there is such a seeing that life is suffering, chitta cannot move into uparama. When such a seeing happens, the run of chitta falls away of itself. It stops receiving the pedals. Then your legs no longer give it momentum; they come to rest. And chitta cannot move without your cooperation. Without your cooperation chitta cannot run.
Therefore never say, What can I do! This chitta keeps wandering. Never say such a thing, even by mistake. For without your cooperation chitta cannot wander. Your cooperation is indispensable. The moment your cooperation breaks, the movement of chitta breaks.
Yes, for a little while momentum can continue. Even if you stop pedaling, the bicycle may roll on for ten or twenty yards. But the moment your feet stop, the bicycle’s very life begins to ebb. For ten or twenty steps it may go on with the old speed; but that going will only be the dying. The bicycle’s motion will go on dying away.
The realization that life is suffering. You will ask: how is this to be realized? You ask a very wrong question. The realization is happening every moment. But from that realization you never take any decision. There is no lack of realization. The whole of life is nothing but this experience — that life is suffering — yet you do not draw the conclusion. And the trick of not concluding is this: if one pleasure proves to be suffering, you never think that another pleasure too will prove to be suffering.
No. The infatuation for the next remains. When that too proves to be suffering, the mind slides over to a third; and fascination for the third remains. A thousand times the experience occurs, yet we fail to draw the conclusion that life is suffering. Yes, it seems that one pleasure proved to be suffering, but that all pleasures have proved to be suffering — such a conclusion we do not take.
When will you take this conclusion? In every birth the same experience happens. Even leaving aside past births, in a single lifetime it happens a hundred thousand times. It seems that man is not a creature who draws conclusions; he simply does not conclude! And he goes on committing the very same mistakes he made yesterday. In fact, because he made them yesterday, today he makes them even more easily. From a mistake he learns only one thing: the skill of committing the mistake! He draws no conclusion from the mistake; he only becomes more skillful in committing it.
Once you get angry — you suffer pain, you suffer sorrow, you create hell — yet from that you do not conclude that anger is suffering. No, only the habit becomes stronger. Tomorrow the skill of getting angry increases further. Tomorrow again, sorrow, pain. Then once again a result could be taken — that anger is suffering. He does not take it; rather, through getting angry again the blow of suffering is one for which the mind becomes prepared, and it seems less painful. The third time, still less; the fourth time, less again. Slowly, slowly one becomes habituated to suffering. And this habit can go so deep that the very perception of suffering grows dim; the sensitivity of the mind becomes blunted.
If you sit near a stench and keep sitting — once, twice, thrice — slowly, slowly the sensitivity of the nose will grow dull; it will stop reporting the stench. If you live amidst noise, at first the mind will report that there is a lot of noise, a lot of disturbance. Then slowly, slowly it will stop reporting; sensitivity will be numbed. It may even happen that then sitting without noise becomes difficult for you.
Those who travel day and night by train — when on a day of rest they stop at home — they do not sleep properly! They no longer have the habit of so much silence. They need that much noise. In its midst they feel at home; as if they are home!
From our mind we are able to produce only two states — the practice of the wrong, because we do the wrong; it becomes practiced. And second, skill — we become even more skillful in doing the same. But the conclusion that should be taken, we never take.
Buddha once saw a corpse. And Buddha asked, What has happened? His charioteer said, This man has died. Then Buddha immediately asked, Will I also die! If you had been in Buddha’s place, you would have said, Poor fellow! Very bad happened. What will become of his children? What will become of his wife? He was not even of the age to die. But one thing is certain: what Buddha asked, you would not ask.
Buddha neither said, Poor fellow; nor did he say, What will become of his wife; of his children; he was not of the age yet, it was not yet time to die. The direct second question Buddha asked was this: Will I also die?
Have you ever, when a funeral procession was passing on the road, asked, “Will I also die?” When you saw someone grow old, did you ask, “Will I too grow old?” When you saw someone being insulted, did you ask, “Will I too be insulted?” When a person stepped down from a golden throne and fell into dust, did you ever ask, “Will I too fall?”
If you have not asked, then the yoga that flowers into a Buddha will not be available to you. You have not asked the fundamental question from which the journey begins.
Buddha asked, “Will I also die?” The charioteer was frightened. How could he say it! But when he looked into Buddha’s eyes, he was even more afraid. A lie would not do. He said, “Forgive me. How can I say with my own mouth that you too will die! But there is no exception. Death will come.”
Buddha did not ask, “Is there a way for me to become an exception?” He did not ask, “If death is inevitable, should I quickly enjoy whatever can be enjoyed?” He did not say, “Then there is no time to lose; let me squeeze every drop of life.” Buddha said, “If there is no exception, turn the chariot back. I am already dead.” The charioteer said, “You are not dead yet; I didn’t say that.” Buddha replied, “What difference does it make if death is tomorrow or the day after? If death is certain, life is futile. Whatever time I have, I will put into the inquiry: What is death? Only what is certain deserves to be sought. Life has become uncertain because it will end. Death, you say, is without exception; it will be. The one evident fact is death. Let me inquire into what death is. There is meaning only in searching the certain; to search for what is uncertain and bound to be lost is futile.”
It will surprise us. We search for happiness; Buddha searches for suffering. We seek life; Buddha seeks death. By seeking death, Buddha attains the supreme life. We chase life and find nothing but death. Buddha seeks suffering and attains supreme bliss. We pursue pleasure and end up with nothing but heaps of trash in our hands and a useless weight on our chest.
It seems upside down, but this is the truth: whoever searches death finds the deathless; whoever, alert to suffering, investigates suffering, attains bliss.
Therefore, when Buddha gave his first teaching to his monks, he said, “I give you the first Noble Truth: life is suffering. Seek it out.”
The very foundation of yoga is this: life is suffering. Only then can the mind come to quietude. This first realization—that life is suffering—is the beginning.
Second, let me say this: the moment it becomes clear that life is suffering, you will engage in the effort to transcend life. No one can find rest in the midst of suffering. If it is seen that life as a whole is suffering, you will attempt to leap beyond it. It is impossible to stay with suffering.
With pleasure we can linger, even if it is only a face of pleasure with pain hidden within. We can lie with it for a night. But if, startled in the night, we see that it is suffering, we will jump out of bed in a single leap. It is impossible to live with suffering.
So the first Noble Truth, Buddha says, is: life is suffering. The second Noble Truth: there is a way out of suffering. As soon as the fact is seen, the search for the way begins.
Remember, we seek pleasure; Buddha seeks freedom from suffering. The two directions are completely different. The search for pleasure is the world; the search for freedom from suffering is yoga. The quest for pleasure seems “positive”; the quest of yoga is a deeply “negative” search. Yoga says: freedom from suffering can be found; and when suffering falls away, what remains is bliss—because that is your nature. Remove the unnecessary and your nature will reveal itself.
So Buddha says, “Monks, the second Noble Truth: there is a way to be free of suffering.” But the method will only make sense to you when suffering becomes your felt perception, your direct seeing.
In truth, the remedy flows from the perception itself. If your house is on fire, do you search for ways to get out? Do you read scriptures to find a manual on house fires? Do you run to a guru’s feet to ask how to escape? Do you kneel and pray, “O God, show the way; my house is burning!” If the house is burning—and you have perceived it—then the perception itself becomes the way. You will leap out. You may jump from a window, run through a door, or drop from the roof. The moment you perceive the fire, your whole awareness engages and finds the way.
If rightly understood, the realization that the house is burning becomes the doorway out. But we do not feel that the house is burning. Yes, some Buddha, some Krishna says it is. And we say, “Sir, you are right.” We don’t even have the courage to tell Buddha or Krishna they are wrong—somewhere deep we know they speak the truth. In life, nothing has come to our hands but pain, nothing but ashes; nothing but being singed in the flames.
So inwardly we know they are right. Thus we cannot say, “You are wrong.” But we still do not have the living perception that life is suffering. So we say, “You are right. At a suitable time I too will leave this house. Meanwhile, tell me how to live peacefully in this house! And also tell me the method to get out—because I may not meet you again; when the perception comes that the house is burning, I’ll need a method to exit!”
Buddha used to say: the one who asks for a method to get out while the house is on fire only reveals that he does not know the house is on fire. For the one whose house is truly burning does not ask for a method; he leaps out. The one who explains may be left behind; the one who perceives is already outside.
The second truth: there is a way. Yoga is the way.
Hence Krishna says: through yoga the mind comes to quietude. Yoga is the remedy, the method, the means. Yoga is the boat by which freedom from suffering is possible. It will not give you pleasure.
So those who come to yoga in search of pleasure have come to the wrong place. Yoga will not give pleasure. I say this so you do not come to yoga hunting happiness. Yoga gives freedom from suffering. If life has appeared to you as suffering, then yoga can be of use.
But most of us come to yoga seeking pleasure. We want to turn yoga into a tool for our worldly race. We want yoga to pedal the bicycle of the mind. Then we do something contradictory and self-defeating. We want yoga to bring money, and we find people who will promise, “Yes, it will.” We want peace through yoga so that with that peace we can pursue money, fame, and desires more efficiently. We want to turn yoga into another vehicle of the world. This will not do. Yoga’s second aphorism stands upon the first: the unavoidable recognition of suffering; only then does the recognition of the remedy arise.
Buddha also proclaims a third Noble Truth. He says: there is suffering; there is a way to freedom from suffering; there is a state after suffering ends.
Buddha speaks this from his own experience; those who have attained the end of suffering exist. Buddha himself is the proof. Someone may ask, “What is the proof?” Yoga cannot have external proof; its proof is inner witnessing. Buddha can say, “I am the proof.”
When someone asked Jesus, “What is the way?” he answered, “I am the way.” Look at me; enter through my eyes. When someone asked Buddha for proof, he said, “I am the proof. Look at me. A mind that has come to rest—that is what I am.”
This third truth can only be proclaimed by those who are themselves the evidence. The first two can be grasped by the intellect, but the third is not a matter of argument; it is a matter of living proof. Still, about the third truth we can understand this much: If a mind can be disturbed in this world, why is it impossible that it be quiet? If one can be ill, why can’t one be healthy? If one can be miserable, why can’t one go beyond misery?
Even by reason alone it becomes clear that the very awareness of suffering shows that we stand, in some sense, beyond it—otherwise who would know it? Knowing arises only in the presence of its opposite. If nothing like joy existed within you, you could never know suffering—who would know, and how?
One of our experiences is that life is filled with unrest. Our other experience is not yet ours: that life can be a fountain of peace; that every fiber of the body can hum with tranquility; that the breath can become a lake where not a single ripple of restlessness arises. Buddha says: that too is possible. The proof is me.
And Buddha says a fourth thing: it is not that this happened only to me—I am no exception. It can happen to all. In our depths we are the same; our differences and distances are superficial. But one must reach within; otherwise it is hard to know. Yoga is the path.
What is this yoga by which the mind comes to quietude? I will give you three points by which you can use the process and the mind can come to rest.
1) Whenever the mind says, “There is happiness in this,” ask the mind once more, “Really? Does past experience say so? Does anyone’s experience on this earth say so? What do countless people’s experiences say? What does your own life say? Having tasted it again and again, what is the conclusion?” Pause and ask. Do not hurry—for the mind will urge, “Don’t get into all that; the moment of joy will be missed, the opportunity lost!” Do not hurry. The mind hurries because if you pause, even for a moment of awareness, the pleasure will not appear; suffering will be seen. When your hand reaches for another hand that seems to promise happiness, stop for a moment: “I have held many hands—did I find joy?” When someone passing on the road appears beautiful, pause and ask your mind, “If beauty comes near, have I ever really found happiness?” When you feel like plucking a flower, ask, “I have plucked so many—what did I do with them? In a short while I crushed them and threw them on the path.” Whenever a fresh urge is born in the mind, pause for a moment. That moment of awareness, of witnessing, will deepen the realization that life is suffering. As this realization deepens, quietude begins to come.
2) Whenever suffering comes, look closely: when you first thought of this thing, was it suffering then? When you first desired it, was it suffering? No—then it looked like happiness. If it had looked like suffering, you would never have desired it. When you first opened your arms for the embrace, was it suffering? If it had been, you would have fled; you would not have stretched out your arms. Only after being bound in the embrace do you discover it is suffering. So whenever suffering arises, look back: when you desired it, was it suffering? Then you will see—in that very moment of awareness—that all sufferings come wrapped as pleasures, inviting you as joys, and later turn out to be pain. You will also see that every suffering comes invited; you yourself have called it. None comes uninvited. We invite it because we believed it to be happiness. Standing with suffering for even one aware moment, you will again see: life is suffering.
3) The third point: Having looked at pleasure and looked at pain—and finding it all to be suffering—whenever a deep moment comes in which it is clear that life is suffering and there is no happiness, then turn back and look: Who is this to whom it becomes clear that life is suffering, not happiness? Who is this? Who is it that wants pleasure and finds pain? Who is it that, peering into his sorrows, sees his own invitation in the name of happiness? Who is it that, when the desire for pleasure arises, asks, “Will happiness really come of this?” In any acute, intense moment when awareness knows that all is suffering, turn back and ask, “Who is it that knows this?” Then a new knowing will begin, a new experience, a new relationship—a new introduction to the one within who knows and stands behind everything. Once you are introduced to that, quietude happens instantly; the mind at once finds rest.
Therefore Krishna says: when the mind is quieted by yoga, it attains the Lord, the Supreme, the Ultimate Truth.
This is the inner method of yoga I have told you. It may seem difficult or somewhat complex—how will it happen? Life’s current is so busy; the twenty-four hours are so entangled—where will you stop and think? Where will you stand? Life keeps sweeping you along; the crowd keeps pushing; where is the moment to ask, “What is suffering? What is happiness? Who am I?” There is no leisure.
When it feels like this, then you must find leisure. If you cannot stand awake in the marketplace, then in a corner of your home take a little time apart. If you cannot be aware at the shop, then find a corner at home and set aside some minutes. Decide that in twenty-four hours you will give one hour to the quieting of the mind. For one hour do nothing else. Take these three reflections deep within: Life is suffering. All pleasures are invitations to suffering. And, who is it that knows this? One hour every day. At life’s end you will find that many other hours went to waste; this one hour did the work.
But people come and say, “There isn’t that much time.” And it is strange that those who say, “There isn’t time,” are the same people who are heard saying, “Time doesn’t pass!” The same people! Time doesn’t pass, so they must play cards, or lay out the chessboard. Time doesn’t pass, so they read the same newspaper for the seventh time. Time doesn’t pass, so they repeat the same conversations with the same people. Time doesn’t pass, so they visit the very person from whom they return saying, “He bores me to death”—and then they go again! They watch the same kind of films, do the same things, and say, “Time doesn’t pass.” But as soon as remembrance of the Divine is mentioned, instantly: “Where is the time!”
These two things go together—which shows the mind is deceiving. The mind is deceptive. No one else can make you see this; you must watch your own mind and how it tricks you. Is it really true that you have no time? There is no one so poor on this earth that he cannot spare one hour for the Divine. We give eight hours to sleep without difficulty. If a man lives sixty years, he sleeps twenty. Another twenty go in office and commute, shaving, bathing, eating. The remaining twenty he spends in killing time. Are you here to cut life down—struggling to “kill time”? Then finish it at once—jump off a cliff; time will end immediately. Is this gradual suicide—this daily cutting away—what you call life?
Killing time means you are cutting life, because time is life, and a moment once gone never returns. And you say, “We have to kill time.” We’ll kill it at the hotel; we’ll kill it gossiping with friends. A gone moment never returns; a cut moment is lost forever; one grain more of life’s sand has slipped away.
Man is amusing. On one side he says, “How can I live longer?”—and the whole West is busy finding ways to lengthen life. And when life is lengthened, he asks, “How shall I kill the time?” What are we doing? Doctors increase the span of life; man searches for entertainment to kill it.
In America there is great concern. On one side people demand shorter work hours. They have become shorter: twelve, eight, six, five hours. Perhaps, as all becomes automated, they will become shorter still; maybe half an hour or an hour of work will be enough. We have now reached the state humanity desired for thousands of years: freedom from work. Almost like the state of the gods—if gods live in heaven. And now all the thinkers are worried: how will time be killed? Work has been cut—now cut time! There is fear that more harm will come from free time than ever came from work. An idle person—what will he do? He creates mischief. Hence, the more affluent the society, the more the hooligan, the criminal, the thief, the corrupt—because what are they to do? Where shall they kill time? Sit idle?
Yet if you ask such people for one hour of remembrance of the Divine, they answer—without thinking—“Where is the time!”
No; the mind seems self-deceptive. This self-deception must be understood. And when the mind says, “There is no time,” then actually lay out your twenty-four hours and see: is there really no time? There is plenty of time.
And one more interesting thing about time: everyone has exactly the same amount—no rich and poor here. Though not all use it equally.
Someone asked Emerson, “How old are you?” Emerson said, “Three hundred and sixty years.” An honest man would not lie. The questioner thought he must have misheard. He asked again. Emerson repeated, “Three hundred and sixty years.” “You’re not joking?” “No.” “At most you look sixty.” Emerson said, “Ah, you measure by another scale. Mine is different. In sixty years the ordinary man lives so much; I have lived six times that. I have used each moment sixfold. By that measure I am three hundred and sixty. If you are sixty, then I am three hundred and sixty—because what have you done? Where have you lived?”
The man asked, “Suppose you have lived sixfold—what have you gained? And if we have lived one-sixth, what have we lost?” Emerson said, “Look into my eyes; stay with me two days.” The man stayed two days. Then he touched Emerson’s feet and apologized: “I made a mistake asking what you gained. For the first time I know that I have merely squandered sixty years; I have gained nothing.”
For two days he saw Emerson’s peace—saw that lake where not a single ripple rises; felt that cool radiation around him, so that just sitting near him was like a bath. He slept in Emerson’s room and found that even the quality of his dreams had changed. He walked with Emerson in the forest, and the forest did not seem the same: he had walked there before, but the trees were never so green, the flowers never so fresh, the blossoms never so open, the birds’ songs never sounded as they did beside Emerson.
A peaceful man nearby arranges peace for others as well. After two days, the man returned to beg forgiveness. “My sixty years went to waste. In the few days left, can I still gain something?” Emerson said, “Even if only six moments remain, if you are honest with yourself, you can gain as much as I did in three hundred and sixty years. But you must be honest with yourself.”
To be honest with others is not very difficult. That is why signs in shops read: “Honesty is the best policy.” Clever people are honest with others because that is the best policy. But to be honest with oneself is arduous; only a yogi manages it. I tell you, whoever can be honest with himself can attain the quietude of the mind.