Geeta Darshan #10

Whoever, absorbed in the Lord’s sadhana, meets death on the way of Uttarayan, does not return. We spoke of this yesterday.
But even one living upon the path of Dakshinayan may be engaged in sadhana; he may even have certain experiences and depths. Yet his death takes him, at the most, to heaven, not to moksha. And when his karmic merits are exhausted in heaven, he returns again to the earth. To understand this, a few preliminary points must be grasped, then we shall look into the condition of Dakshinayan.
First, a person whose sex-energy is extrovert, flowing outward; and a person in whom lust flows downward—such a person, even while the lust continues to flow downward, may be engaged in many forms of sadhana; he may even become a yogi.
Most yogic processes that stand upon repression and suppression do not make the sex-energy ascend; they only block its downward course. Energy then piles up at the sex-center; its outer flow is stopped.
Understand this a little more clearly.
When energy accumulates at the sex-center, there are three possibilities. One: in a man, sex-energy may flow outward toward woman; in a woman, outward toward man. This is the outflow.
Then two other situations. Let the energy gather at the sex-center and move upward—become ascending—and reach the sahasrar. We spoke of this yesterday. A third possibility is that the energy neither ascends upward nor flows outward, but flows within one’s own body toward the lower centers. This inner downward flow from the sex-center toward the lower centers of one’s own body—that is Dakshinayan.
Such a man will certainly appear free of woman, apparently as free as one whose consciousness flows upward. But between the two there is a fundamental difference. Outward movement is closed in both, yet for the one who has repressed, energy flows downward; and for the one who has experimented upon the journey of ascent within, energy flows upward.
Below the sex-center there are also six centers, just as there are six above it. If energy flows into those six below, certain experiences too become possible. Many of Hatha Yoga’s practices stop the sex-energy from going outward, but are unable to make it ascend. An inner flow downward begins, toward the feet.
Such a seeker too may attain many things. Yet his attainments will be of the kind the West calls black magic, and the East calls ‘dirty’ or impure vidya. Still, one capacity is certain: he has blocked the outward movement of sex-energy. Thus he steps out of the biological chain of life’s flow. This stepping out is his merit. On the strength of this merit he can attain the deepest pleasures; not bliss.
The condition of attaining the deepest pleasures is called heaven. He will come upon such pleasures as those with outward-flowing energy have never known. But he will never come upon that bliss which becomes available on the path of upward-flowing energy. Still, compared to outward flow, he will come upon very deep pleasures.
Tantra too has made many experiments with this internal flow. And those who are pleasure-seeking, who have neither the remembrance nor even the notion of bliss; and who have no desire to be free—because the longing for freedom, the longing for ultimate freedom, is a very arduous thing—such people, even when they come into religion, do so in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases to escape suffering and to find pleasure.
Hence, people like Bertrand Russell say that the day science arranges for all pleasure upon the earth, religion will perish.
In ninety-nine out of a hundred cases his statement is true. If science were to give you all those pleasures and remove all those sufferings that afflict you, then out of a hundred who gather in temples, mosques and churches, ninety-nine would instantly take leave. For the pleasures for which they came to pray to God, science itself would then be able to provide.
Yet one person would still remain in temples, mosques and churches. Or perhaps that one would not preserve temples and churches, but wherever he would be, there would be a temple, a mosque. That one is not seeking pleasure, he is seeking bliss. Keep a slight distinction in mind and the further matter, and the symbols, will be understood.
Who seeks freedom from sorrow seeks pleasure. Who seeks freedom from both sorrow and pleasure seeks bliss. Bliss means: I want to be free of both pleasure and pain. Such a person is rare, who wants freedom from both. Yet whoever has truly tasted life knows that pleasure too is but a form of suffering; that pleasure, after a little while, becomes painful; that pleasure too carries a tension, a derangement, a stimulation—and tires one just as sorrow tires one.
Not only sorrow fatigues; pleasure has its own boredom, its own tedium. And if the same pleasure is given every day, we grow as weary of it as we do of pain. In fact the truth is that we never tire so quickly of suffering as we tire of pleasure. We do not tire of suffering so quickly because we remain engaged in the very effort to get rid of it. We tire of pleasure because we do not want to get rid of it, and daily repetition makes it tasteless, insipid.
Therefore, in human history, a strange phenomenon is seen: societies sunk in sorrow are not so bored, for they have a hope that, if not today, then tomorrow sorrow will cease and pleasure will be found. On the strength of that hope they live on. Sorrowful societies are not so panic-stricken. Poor, destitute, begging societies are not overly anxious. In sorrowful societies there are fewer suicides, fewer people go mad, mental illness is less. The reason is: a hope, a future stands ahead. Today there is sorrow; tomorrow there can be joy. But in pleasurable societies even that hope is destroyed.
Today America’s pain is just this: those pleasures that man has always desired, by misfortune, they have now succeeded in obtaining—and now no future is seen ahead. All pleasures have been attained—now? Now the future is utterly dark, the lamp of hope has gone out. And when the lamp of hope goes out, pleasure gives such pain as no sorrow can ever give.
Hence today the new generation in America—boys and girls—are roaming in search of suffering. Those who can sit in cars want to walk on foot. Those who can fly in planes wander, poor in dress and dirty, village to village, road to road, spreading into every corner of the world. To choose suffering has become like changing the palate. A change, a switch again appears pleasurable.
Pleasure too wearies.
Experience says: when the desire to be free of both pleasure and pain arises, man moves toward Uttarayan. To move toward Uttarayan means: man now wants freedom, not experience—for all experiences are bondage. All experiences are bondage, whether of pain or pleasure, of restlessness or peace; worldly or divine. All experiences are bondage, for out of every experience there finally arises a desire to be free of it.
Even if you meet God and are in His embrace, how long will it take before the mind begins to wonder: When will I be free now? How shall I leave?
Rabindranath wrote a small song. He writes: I have been searching for the Lord for births upon births. Sometimes a glimpse is seen; sometimes near some distant star His figure appears; sometimes a shadow of Him. But by the time I reach the place where the shadow was, He has gone still farther. By the time I reach the place of the glimpse, who knows where He has vanished. Thus wandering birth after birth—but one day my journey is complete, and I arrive at the door of the Lord’s abode.
I climbed His steps and took the chain of His door in my hand, and I was just about to knock when a question arose in my mind: If today I find the Lord, then what will be tomorrow? What shall I do then? Till now I spent these births searching for Him. I was busy. I was running. I was doing something and gaining something. There was a long journey of becoming, and I was relishing it. The goal was ahead; in attaining it, the ego was satisfied. But if today the Lord is found, then tomorrow—there will be no tomorrow! No future. No hope. No further goal.
So, Rabindranath writes, I slowly let the chain go, lest a sound arise and the door open. I lifted my shoes in my hand lest, descending the steps, the sound of feet arise and the door open. And I ran away from that house—and I never looked back.
Even now I seek God. Even now I seek God. Even now I ask the gurus: where is His path? And deep within I know well His path. Even now I ask: where is His house? And I well recognize His house. But now I search avoiding the very road to His house, lest He be found. Lest He be found!
When that which we want is actually attained, the pain that arises then is greater than any pain that was ever there in the moment of wanting. It is not the wanting that gives pain; attainment gives pain. Unlucky are we if we get what we desired. Fortunate are we if we are saved from getting it. For that which we do not obtain keeps the sap of longing flowing—through waiting, anticipation, dreaming, hope. The flowers do not wither, the plant does not dry; desire remains green. New leaves go on sprouting. But let what we wanted be attained, and suddenly everything collapses, all dreams shatter.
In America today, this disillusionment, the breaking of illusion, the shattering of dreams, is the outcome of attaining all those things that man had desired for thousands of years, and now they have been obtained. There is no future ahead. Pleasure brings one down into very deep sorrow.
On the day the realization dawns that pleasure is also sorrow, the inner sun of man begins to rise toward Uttarayan—the direction of freedom. Mind you, I am not speaking of desire for freedom. For as long as there is desire, there is hope; as long as there is hope, there is pleasure; as long as there is the future. Not the desire for freedom—the dimension of freedom itself. In the dimension of freedom, the inner sun begins to rise.
But the longing for freedom is rare indeed. None truly wants to be free. Even those who say, “We want to be free,” do not want freedom.
Hence, an amusing thing happens. When we are freed from those we wanted to be free from, we find that life becomes tasteless, bitter, utterly dry. We find we have arrived where there is nothing left to do again.
Voltaire’s enemy died, and Voltaire went and wept at his grave. Friends asked: The very enemy whose sight you did not tolerate, at the sight of whom you took another street lest his shadow touch you, whose name you never uttered—what is the point of going to his grave and weeping?
Voltaire said: Since the enemy died, much within me has died too, because I lived by fighting him. My strength has become poor and mean. For the first time, with his death, I came to know that without him I am not. While he was there, there was the fight, there was juice; I was. With his death, I have died. Much of me has crumbled.
We lose less by losing friends than by losing enemies. Friends are not such indispensable parts of our life. And friends can be replaced; it is not so difficult. Enemies are not so easily replaced. The enemy is a very permanent event. Man lives among enemies—and lives to be free of them, to annihilate them—and on annihilating them finds himself utterly impotent.
What we want to be free of—if we become free of it, we may again wish that the bondage return. Because the juice of being free from that person or situation is not different from that very thing we wished to be free of.
Therefore the desire to be free—freedom from someone, from something—“freedom from”—is not the longing for moksha. The longing to be free of the world is not the longing for moksha. The dimension of moksha is utterly desireless. There, one is not to be free of anyone; there is simply freedom. Just freedom—not from something.
Understand it from another side.
There are three kinds of freedoms. Freedom from; freedom for; and simply freedom. Freedom from means freedom from the past, from behind. Freedom for means desire for the future. In both, mind remains, and the whole journey of Uttarayan cannot happen.
But just freedom—not from, not for—just so. Neither the desire to be free from anyone, nor the desire to be free for anyone; only the dimension of being free, simple freedom.
Hence, when someone asked the Buddha, “Is there a God?” he remained silent. When someone asked, “Is there moksha?” he laughed, remained silent. Because the Buddha said: the moment you talk of moksha and of God, people become eager to attain them; desire is recreated.
We could not understand the Buddha. In our land, the Kohinoor among men was born, yet we removed him from the land with our own hands. We could not understand him, because we never conceived that “just freedom” could be anything at all.
We asked: For what is sadhana? The Buddha said: Just sadhana is enough. Do not ask “for what.” Because with “for what” desire arrives. We asked: What will happen in your nirvana? What shall we obtain? The Buddha said: As long as there is something to be obtained, it is the world. We asked: Will there be bliss there? The Buddha said: Do not bring up words. For if I say “bliss,” whatever you understand will not be more than pleasure. Your understanding is only of pleasure. You will not understand bliss. And if I say “there will be no suffering,” even then you will understand that the sufferings you have here will not be there—as if, here someone is unhappy for not getting a job, there he will get a job; here someone’s leg is broken, there his leg won’t break; here someone is sick, there he won’t be sick. So the Buddha said: Be silent. Do not ask in that connection. And do not force me to give wrong answers to wrong questions.
We could not understand; we exiled the Buddha. We said: This man seems a great atheist. He does not speak of God, he does not speak of moksha!
We were the atheists. We can only understand moksha in the language of the marketplace. If we are to meet God at all, we prepare to meet Him in the language of the shop. Our whole search is conditional: What will you give? What will you get? What will be obtained? That remains the center of our desire.
Uttarayan begins only when one drops both pleasure and pain. Drops means: the experience of both has revealed that both are vain, both are meaningless, insubstantial; now there is to be no choosing between them, both are to be dropped together.
And choosing is not even possible. It is like wanting to keep one side of a coin and to throw away the other. We will call such a person mad. For if one side of a coin is kept, the other necessarily remains. One side cannot remain alone; either both remain, or both have to be thrown away.
He who wishes to keep pleasure and to discard pain will keep pain as well. He who throws both away alone will be free of pain—the one who is ready to throw away pleasure too. The very moment pleasure and pain are thrown, the ascent begins.
But if you want to eliminate suffering and keep pleasure, that is the path of Dakshinayan, the journey downward. If you wish to save pleasure and remove pain, then cut off the going-out; pains will at least be reduced, because pain is always seen as coming because of someone, through someone.
That is why when man is very pained, he drinks and becomes unconscious. Alcohol does not give pleasure. It does one thing: it breaks one’s connections with the outside. Man becomes enclosed, shut within himself. When connections with the outside are severed, that wife because of whom pain arose, that husband who created anxiety, that son who caused hurt in the heart, that family which created derangement, that society that one wanted to destroy or the urge to die oneself—none of this arises.
Alcohol breaks the world of relationships. It makes you so unconscious that you do not remember the outside; you are shut inside. When you come to, you say: great pleasure was experienced. No pleasure was experienced; you merely drowned for a while in forgetfulness of the world of pain—in stupor, in sleep, in unconsciousness, in swoon. Whenever we say we gained pleasure, commonly it is that we were severed from those relations from which pain comes.
The path of Dakshinayan is the path of breaking all relations—without becoming unconscious. Without becoming unconscious. One is not to become unconscious. But to gather all desire at the sex-center, and then close the gate of the sex-center. The Brahmacharya of repression is precisely this: block the sex-center. Energy will accumulate; there is no direction to freedom, so energy will move.
The law of energy is: energy is dynamic. It is not static. Energy cannot remain still; it runs. If you close one gate of the river, it will begin to run from another. If you close the second, it will search out a third, and run along that channel.
There are three ways. One: the outflow of human energy—the natural way by which all animals, birds, plants live, and by which most men live. That is natural.
The second way is ascent—beyond nature, to the Divine.
There is a third way as well—descending downward. That too is beyond nature. But the upward path is beyond nature; the downward path is below nature. One is the extremity that goes above; the other, the extremity that goes below.
Of this downward extremity, the description Krishna gives is: the way where there is smoke…
In the first way there was fire; in this way there is smoke instead of fire.
The way in which there is smoke, night, the dark fortnight, and the six months of Dakshinayan—on that way, dying, the yogi, attaining the light of the moon, enjoys the fruit of his actions in heaven and then returns.
Understand these symbols.
On the way of Uttarayan, the first symbol was fire. When fire rises upward, it becomes light. Light rising further becomes day. Day rising further becomes the bright fortnight; and ends at the full moon. On the downward path—now fire is in the middle. If it rises upward, it becomes light; if it goes downward, it becomes smoke. For the more one descends into lust, the wetter the fuel that is available to the fire. Lust is wet fuel.
Faqir Hasan has said: ignite a dry log, and little or no smoke arises. Ignite a wet log, and smoke is much; the wetter, the more smoke. If very wet, there is no flame at all—only smoke.
What is the difference between wet and dry wood? Wet wood is still eager for life, filled with sap. The stream of life’s water still flows within it—life-energy still courses there. Dry wood is corpse-like; all the sap-streams of life are gone dry. No stream flows in it—hence it is dry.
The more desire-filled the mind, the wetter it is—the wood is still wet. Much sap still flows.
Thus, he who has stopped his lust from flowing outward—desire may stop, but sap does not stop. Energy will be stopped, but the savor, the juice of that tendency within does not stop. That savor keeps flowing within. That savor is the moistness.
Hence Krishna chose the symbol of smoke. The first event of the downward movement is the experience of dense smoke.
If ever you have forcibly curbed any desire, you may feel suffocation, a great inner blockage—as if everything within has become smoky. The brilliance, the obviousness of smokeless light—this is never experienced in repressed desires.
Therefore repressed people become very smoky. Within them everything becomes hazy. On all sides clarity is lost. Whoever has intensely repressed, the clarity that should be in his chitta is lost. As smoke settles on a mirror, so smoke settles upon his consciousness. Nothing reflects quite rightly. Nothing appears clearly. He begins to grope like a blind man in the dark.
All desires are blind, and all desires grope in darkness. If one stops energy, very dense smoke is born within. If that smoke grows downward, it soon becomes night. The deepening, thickening smoke becomes the darkness of night.
As light becomes day, so smoke becomes night. Fire stands in the middle: rise and it is light; fall and it is smoke. Rise and it is day; fall and it is night. Smoke means loss of the cleanliness of chitta.
Therefore you must have seen many Hatha Yogis—deeply engaged in practice—yet they do not seem intelligent; they seem idiotic.
Someone was introduced to me. He has been standing for ten years. He does not sit, does not sleep. If he sleeps, he sleeps standing, leaning on a support. He has not bent his legs for ten years. The legs have virtually frozen, thickened like the disease of elephantiasis. Perhaps now they can no longer bend. In ten years all must have jammed: muscles stiffened, blood pooled, bones hardened, joints stopped moving. Ten years!
Certainly a great will is required. A great will indeed! Even ten hours would be difficult. Will there is, no doubt. But if you look into his eyes, utter stupidity appears—idiotic, imbecile. No ray of intelligence appears. The will is great.
Had the same will been in ascent, perhaps he would have pierced the sahasrar. But this will is not becoming the ascent of energy; this will too is will for some pleasure. This will too is pleasure-inspired. So he has stopped himself in every way.
A man who has stood straight for ten years will find his lust become almost still—because all the muscles involved in sexuality will be immobilized, their flexibility lost. The entire mechanism of his generative organs will become distorted, blocked; energy will accumulate. But it will flow downward.
Now in this man’s legs there is more blood—and also more bio-energy. All lust, all desire has entered his legs. His whole life has gone into the legs. If rightly seen, his head is no longer in his skull; his head has moved into the soles of his feet. The brilliance will vanish from his eyes. The eyes will be hazy, with a visible mesh of smoke. No light appears within the eyes; nothing seems to be burning. No luminous chitta and consciousness appears within. A deep darkness has come. The eyes have become stony. On the face no glimmer of intelligence. The face is less human, more animal. It must be so. Because whatever he has done has not enabled him to touch human heights; rather it has arranged a fall below nature, below nature’s level.
But one thing is certain: such a man no longer suffers. He is not unhappy. Understand: he is not unhappy at all. And to the extent his sufferings have fallen away, to that extent we may call him ‘happy’. And the same sex-energy that used to go out and bring momentary pleasure, now by forming vortices in the lower part of the body gives him pleasure from within. It is a very inner pleasure.
Therefore such a man will never again bend his legs to sit. For now a very dark pleasure has begun to be available, a very tamasic pleasure—and it is difficult to leave it.
I saw another man who for years has lain on thorns. His eyes are the same—smoke-filled. He has made his body like a hard stone. But while making the body like stone, the mind also becomes like stone. In truth, the flexibility, the sensitivity of body and mind move together. The more flexible the body, the more flexible the mind.
One must be free of mind, surely; but whoever tries to be free by making the mind like a stone is not becoming free—he is becoming inert. To be free of mind does not mean to attain insensibility. Even if someone attains insensibility, in one sense he becomes free of mind—because the mind’s restlessness ceases.
In him there is no restlessness now. If you ask him: Do you dream? He will say: No dreams for years! He lies upon thorns—no dreams will come, for dreams require mental activity, which has been lost. Ask: Do thoughts run? He says: There are no thoughts. But he is not in the state of no-thought; he is in thoughtlessness.
This distinction must be understood.
In the state of no-thought, one can think if one wishes, yet does not think. In thoughtlessness, even if one wishes, one cannot think. The difference between impotence and Brahmacharya is the same as the difference between no-thought and thoughtlessness.
In one sense the impotent is also a celibate. But he is not a celibate because, even if he wished not to be, he is not free—there is no energy, no potency. Even if he wished he could not break Brahmacharya. And what value can there be in that Brahmacharya which cannot be broken! True Brahmacharya is living, potential, powerful—if you wish, you can break it; but you do not wish, you do not. Energy is within; the mastery of its flow is in our hands. But when there is no energy within—if wealth is not with you, and you do not spend it, in what sense are you wealthy!
I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin died and left a will. He wrote: Half of my estate should go to my wife; the remaining half to be divided among the sons and daughters. After writing all this, the lawyer asked: You are writing percentages—fifty percent to her, so much to this one—but how much is the estate? Mulla said: There is no estate at all. But a will should be written properly, so I am writing. And Mulla said: You interrupted me; I had more to write. The lawyer said: But you have already divided a hundred percent of what is not there! Mulla said: Write below: Whatever remains, let it be given to the mosque. What was not there has been divided one hundred percent; yet if anything remains, I donate it to the mosque!
Such mind-states also exist. What we cannot do, we think we have renounced. Seeing that ascetic lying on thorns, I asked: Do thoughts arise? He said: Thoughts? No.
But that is not the state of no-thought; for with no-thought, the eyes become as clear as no lake ever is. With no-thought, the eyes become so deep, bottomless, that you fall as into an abyss and find no floor.
But no, his eyes appear only like the upper surface, with nothing within. All sensitive fibers have shrunk and hardened. Yet even so, the man is full of will. Whoever can lie upon thorns for years will gather sex-energy.
In fact, any willful person—if he takes up any kind of vow—the first outcome is that sex-energy stops flowing outward. For one who can stand for years, lie on thorns for years, sit naked on ice for years—such a person will not be moved by lust. Lust will gather; it will not be destroyed, not dissolved. Gathered within, it will begin to flow downward.
On this inner flow, the first experience will be of smoke. Smoke means: the loss of an inner clarity. The second experience will be of darkness—the spread of a deep, dense night, where nothing is seen. A slight awareness of oneself remains.
As in deep darkness—nothing else is visible, yet at least this much is felt: I am. On the darkest night, on new moon night, at least this much is remembered: I am. All seeing stops—the house is not seen, friends and loved ones are not seen, objects are not seen—yet I am remains. The deeper the night, the more the awareness of the ‘other’ is lost.
Understand this parallel well: the higher you go upward, the less the sense of self remains. The lower you go downward, the less the sense of the other remains. The further you move upon the path of Uttarayan, the more the sense of ‘I’ dissolves.
As long as there is fire, there will be a dense sense of ‘I’, full of burning. The ego will be felt too much. But as soon as fire becomes light, ego thins. As light becomes day, ego becomes scattered. As day cools toward the bright fortnight, the moon begins to wax and the ego diminishes. On the full-moon night, the ego becomes zero.
But on the journey downward, on Dakshinayan’s path, ego does not appear important; rather the sense of the other goes on decreasing. As darkness grows and smoke comes in between, others begin to appear hazy. Wife becomes hazy, son becomes hazy, wealth becomes hazy—not dropped, but hazy. A layer of smoke comes in between. One begins to shrink within. As one shrinks within, ego becomes more hard, solid, crystallized.
When night deepens, darkness thickens, smoke becomes dense—others cease to be seen. There is only a bumping-into them; they are not seen. Sometimes there will be collision, and one will know: another is here. But the sense of the other goes on decreasing; inertia thickens. One becomes surrounded by a parapet of darkness. Yet still, the bumping-into-the-other remains.
Then comes the dark fortnight—the increasing sequence of dark nights, the journey toward new moon. Day by day the night becomes darker; the moon’s light, day by day, less; the moon, day by day, wanes. The dark night increases daily.
Just as there are fifteen steps of the bright fortnight, so there are fifteen of the dark fortnight; day by day darkness deepens. To the degree that darkness deepens, the world of the other is forgotten—not destroyed—forgotten. From this arises the delusion that what is now forgotten has perhaps been destroyed.
Hence, like the traveler of the bright fortnight, the traveler of the dark fortnight may think: I too am walking the same path. He may conclude: now the world does not appear to me, therefore I am free!
But until the ego remains within, no one is free of the world. However far he may withdraw, losing himself in his own dark cave, his relations with the world are not dissolved. He will return, inevitably. As long as the ego remains, the return remains. Man will come back.
Day by day, as the dark fortnight increases and the new moon approaches, the world goes on being lost. And on the night of new moon—as on the full-moon night the ego becomes zero and the Divine becomes full—so on new moon the ego becomes full and the ‘other’ becomes zero. With the ‘other,’ God too becomes zero—but the ego becomes full.
It is a strange matter—and words can deceive for this very reason: on the full-moon night the attained one may also say, Aham Brahmasmi—I am Brahman. But the meaning is: I am no more; only Brahman is. In the new-moon state, the attained one may also say, Aham Brahmasmi. He too says, I am Brahman. But his meaning is utterly different: now there is no other Brahman—I alone am Brahman!
On the full moon one says Aham Brahmasmi because all that is, is Brahman. I too am Brahman, because all is Brahman. In his “Aham Brahmasmi,” in his “I,” there is no ‘I’ at all—everything has been absorbed. His “I” is wholly I-less—an egoless ego. The word ‘I’ remains, but no ‘I-ness’ is in it. He experiences himself one with the whole Brahman.
As a drop falls into the ocean and says, I am the ocean. But on falling, the drop is lost. And “I am the ocean” means: now only the ocean is, I am not. One meaning only.
On the new moon, a man may also say the same, Aham Brahmasmi—as when a drop forgets the ocean entirely, has no inkling of it, and then, stiffening, says: I alone am the ocean, for who is greater than I! Then only ‘I’ remains, imposed upon all.
Aham Brahmasmi has a Dakshinayan experience, and an Uttarayan experience. Hence great mistakes arise—like when the Muslims crucified Mansoor. The reason was only this: Mansoor was saying, Ana’l-Haqq—Aham Brahmasmi, I am the Divine.
It is very hard to decide whether this fakir was speaking from the full moon of the bright fortnight, or from the new moon’s dark night. Who will decide? How will one decide? Those who love Mansoor say: this is a full-moon declaration. Those who opposed him said: it is a new-moon declaration. Taking it as new-moon, the Muslims killed Mansoor.
But it was not a new-moon declaration. Those who killed erred. For if it were new-moon, it would have shown at the moment of death—for in the final moment everything is revealed. In that last moment Mansoor made it evident that those who crucified him were in error.
When his hands were being cut, he was laughing. When his feet were being cut, he was still laughing. When his eyes were being gouged, he prayed to God for those who were killing him. When his hand was cut and the blood flowed, he took his own blood in his other hand and made the ablution of wudu, as Muslims do before namaz.
A man cried: Mansoor, what are you doing? Wudu is made with water!
Mansoor said: Is the wudu of water any wudu at all? Those who go to pray must purify themselves with their own blood. And you have given me the chance—I am grateful to you—that you have enabled me to make wudu with my own blood.
And at the moment of death, when all were shouting at him: Mansoor, you are not even angry, and your eyes are still filled with love, and love still showers from your lips! What is this?
Mansoor said: So that you may know that what you did was a mistake, and that the man you killed was not the man you took him to be.
The same mistake happened with Jesus. When Jesus said, “I am the son of God,” his opponents took it to be a statement of the new moon. And it is always difficult to decide. The declaration is the same. It depends on those around—what sort they are—how they interpret it.
Most people are moving toward the new moon. Most are moving into the dark side—falling downward, not rising. Therefore it is natural that their interpretation be a falling one. When they hear from the lips of Jesus or Mansoor, “I am Brahman,” they think: this man is egoistic. Being egoistic, what else can we understand! Being egoistic, we can only understand the language of ego.
Even if a man without ego speaks—and he must speak the language of ego, because there is no other—then too we think: it is the same thing. This man says, “I am Brahman”—speaking the language of ego; and ego is a great sin. The irony is that we are all egoists, and never do we think: perhaps we are mistaken; perhaps our ego is obstructing interpretation.
If Krishna comes and stands among us and says, “I am Brahman,” we will say: this man is egoistic. If Christ says, “I am the son of God,” we will say: he is egoistic. We have been the ones saying this in every age; we have given these people crosses and gallows.
We accept as a mahatma the one who places his head at our feet and says: I am nothing. Then our minds are delighted: this is a mahatma! But what is the reason for his being a mahatma? Only this: he placed his head on your feet and deeply flattered your ego.
A friend of mine told me he went to a very great saint. The disciples call him a great mahatma. He said: I shall test him. He went and asked the saint: Your disciples proclaim you a great mahatma; do you too consider yourself a great mahatma? The saint said: I am a petty man, the dust of your feet. My friend returned fully convinced: that man is a great mahatma!
I asked: How did you know? He said: When I went, he said: I am the dust of your feet. From this I knew! If you are so clever, that mahatma will be at least a little more clever than you. If he had said, Yes, I am a great mahatma—what notion would you have carried back? He said: I would have been firmly convinced that he is a fake.
So I said: If you know the trick, would he not know it? The trick is that if one must appear a mahatma in your eyes, one should say: I am the dust of your feet. And if one does not wish to appear a mahatma, one should declare: I am a mahatma. If such a simple thing you know, will he not know! Go again.
It is difficult. Because we understand only the language we understand. And what we call our understanding—how much understanding is it!
As consciousness moves downward into darkness, the awareness of the other is lost. A time comes when only my own awareness remains. A time comes when only I remain—this whole world shut, and I become my own inner world.
Leibniz spoke of the monad. He said each person is a monad—a house without windows and doors.
I do not know whether every person is a monad; but when one reaches the new moon, one becomes a monad—windowless, doorless. All doors and windows are shut; I am imprisoned within my cave. I am the world there; I am the Divine there. I alone am; nothing else is.
Yet even upon this journey, great sadhana of will is needed. Understand this well.
Those who go toward Uttarayan have a sadhana of surrender. Those who go toward Dakshinayan have a sadhana of will. And these sadhanas are opposites.
Will means: training the self, the ‘I’. Surrender means: dissolving the self, the ‘I’. They are entirely different sadhanas. Hatha Yoga is the sadhana of will; Raja Yoga is the sadhana of surrender.
In the world there are only two kinds of yoga, call them what you will. One is the yoga of will—strengthening one’s will so much that no force in the world can break it. Then one builds a fortress-wall and hides within; one is safe.
The other is the yoga of surrender—leaving all doors and windows open, so that the weakest breeze may enter, so that there be no hindrance to any force that comes to annihilate me. If a force comes to kill me, I should be there at the door to welcome it, not even inconveniencing it by making it open the door. Surrender means: to be vulnerable; to be open in every way; to be consenting to whatever happens.
These are the two sadhanas. One takes one to where there is no return. The other too takes one somewhere—but from there one returns.
Krishna says: even by the second path, dying, the yogi—he calls him ‘yogi’ too; he is also practicing the yoga of will—attains the light of the moon, enjoys in heaven the fruits of his actions, and returns. But he says one more thing, which will create some puzzle: smoke, night, dark fortnight, and the six months of Dakshinayan. On that way, dying, the yogi, attaining the light of the moon—attaining the light of the moon—enjoys the fruits in heaven and returns.
This “attaining the light of the moon”! This must be understood—for where is moonlight on the path of darkness? On the path of Dakshinayan there is new moon—where the moonlight? Where the moon? This must be understood. It is a little difficult, but if you understand, it will be clear.
As I said: when there is a moon in the sky, its reflection is formed in a lake. When a person becomes a lake of darkness—just darkness, a lake of deep darkness—then the darkness becomes so dense that it becomes a lake. Even then, a glimpse of the uppermost point of his own ascent begins to be seen in that deep darkness.
This must be grasped.
When the lower part of a person becomes filled with total darkness, then in the very depth and density of that darkness, the reflection of the upper summit of the person begins to be seen. This glimpse happens because darkness becomes extremely transparent—darkness too becomes transparent. When will allies with darkness and trains it, darkness too begins to give a reflection.
In truth, in darkness—in the background of darkness—in contrast, when one’s own summit is seen, a great illusion is born. Exactly as when, seeing the moon in the lake, someone thinks: here is the moon. And the deeper one goes, the clearer the reflection appears. Make a small experiment to see this.
At night, stars are in the sky—even now there are stars. In the morning the sun rises and the stars are lost. But have you ever wondered: where do the stars go? Do they suddenly hide somewhere? Where will the stars go when the sun rises? They remain where they are. Only due to the sunlight, our eyes are so dazzled that we cannot see them. They are on their own places. When evening comes you say: this star has risen, that star has risen.
You are speaking wrongly. Those stars were there all day. Only the sunlight has been removed from them, and your eyes began to see. On another star the sunlight is removed and your eyes begin to see. The sun sinks and the stars begin to appear again. They do not rise; they were present. Only because of the sun’s light—a long curtain of light before them—they were not visible.
Remember: there is not only a curtain of darkness; there is a curtain of light too. If light is very intense, many things cease to be seen. In the sun’s glare, the stars are not seen.
Do one thing: in the day, go down into a deep well. The well should be so deep that below it is dark. Stand in the well and look at the sky. You will be astonished: from the well the sky you see will have stars visible even at noon. Looking from the darkness of the well upward, the stars that were not visible in the light become visible from the darkness; darkness becomes the contrast.
Exactly the same thing happens within. When someone descends into his own gulf of darkness, into the well of darkness, and looks up, the moon that is always hidden at his own summit becomes visible with such clarity as was never seen while remaining outside this dark well—never came to notice. Against the background of the opposite, things are seen very clearly. From this darkness a glimpse is obtained.
Therefore Krishna says: attaining the light of the moon!
He attains a certain light of the moon; the moon is not attained. The moon is attained by the man of Uttarayan. This man sees the moonlight plainly, distinctly. He attains that. And, having enjoyed the fruits of his actions in heaven, he returns. About heaven, keep two or three things in mind.
One: heaven has a twofold meaning. One is the name of that state where we have negated suffering in every way and saved only a small corner of pleasure. All pains are shut out and only pleasure preserved. Behind them, pains will remain hidden; they cannot go, for they are part of pleasure. We have built a house in which we have fixed coins into the wall with their faces toward us and their backs behind. We stand hidden within that house and can say: all our coins have only one face. We see the face; the back is turned. But the back is present; very soon it will begin to be experienced. That is the return.
Heaven is an experience—the state of entirely hiding pain and preserving pleasure. It is a mental state, and also a physical state. There are places in this universe where the maximum possibility of such pleasure exists. There are places where, on the contrary, there is only suffering. But whoever attains such a state or such a place, with a stored capital, spends that capital and returns. From hell too man returns, spending all the capital of sin. From heaven too man returns, spending all the capital of merit.
Now mark this: whenever you sin, you do so due to a lack of will. You decided not to steal, but you found a diamond. Will says: do not; desire says: this is not a chance to miss. Take a vow again later; this diamond may never come again. A vow can be taken anytime. Even if broken, there is the arrangement of repentance. Do some charity. Do what you will, but do not leave this. Sin is always because of lack of will—remember—lack of will.
Mulla Nasruddin’s father was persuading him to take some medicine. He was still a boy. The father said: you will have to drink this. Note well: even if it is bitter, a man should be strong in will. When I was your age, no matter how bitter a medicine, once I decided to drink it, I drank it.
Nasruddin said: I too am not behind you in resolve. Once I decide not to drink, I simply do not drink!
Will means: what has been decided—has been done.
All sins—for even the most sinful never decide to commit sin, though they commit it. Keep this in mind: even the most sinful always decide to do good, yet do sin. All sin arises from lack of will. Lack of will is the door to hell.
All virtue arises from strength of will; hence will is the key to heaven.
But moksha is obtained by neither will nor lack of will. Lack of will is still a mode of will—weak, poor, thrashed, yet present. Moksha comes through the dissolution of will, the total surrender of will.
Three points. If will be complete, man grows on the path of Dakshinayan. If will be incomplete, man wanders on nature’s path. If will be very weak, he wanders and wanders, and makes a hell. If will be strong, he constructs heaven. But from heaven too there is return; from hell too there is return.
Hence Krishna says: by this second path too a person, having enjoyed the fruits of his actions, returns. For these two paths—the bright and the dark, Devayana and Pitriyana—are eternal. By the one, one attains that from which there is no return; by the other, one returns—into birth and death.
Briefly: one is the outcome of our actions, the fruits of what we have done. If bad, bad will be obtained; if good, good will be obtained—but it is the outcome of our karmas. Whatever we do through karmas is bound to be exhausted.
What we have done cannot be eternal. However great the wealth, it will be spent. However great the merits, they will be consumed, enjoyed. However great the pleasure, it will be emptied. The ocean too can become empty, drop by drop—for it is filled drop by drop. However vast the merit, however far-reaching across years and births, in the end it is used up. And we return empty, poor, to the very place where once we had stood and, with will, had earned. Karma does not give the eternal; karma does not give the everlasting. What karma gives is momentary, though the moment may be very long.
And there is a strange matter: however long heaven may be, it never seems more than a moment. This is a bit difficult. Again the mystery of time must be kept in mind. However long heaven may be, it appears no longer than a moment—because the greater the pleasure, the shorter time seems.
I said earlier: the greater the pleasure, the shorter time becomes. The greater the pain, the longer time becomes. Christians say hell is eternal, everlasting; no one can escape it.
Bertrand Russell said in a lecture: this Christian assertion seems to me very unjustified, unfair. However many sins I have committed—even if their number be great—it cannot be just to throw me into hell forever. I should be consigned to hell in proportion to the sins I have committed.
Russell said: counting the sins I have committed, and adding those I merely thought of committing but could not commit—if all were added, and brought to light—even the strictest legal system on earth could not give me more than four or five years of prison.
He was a good man—and he is right. Even four or five years is too much; even that punishment could not be given.
Russell is right: if I say that for all my sins together—even if the thought-sins be added—the strictest law could give me five years of hard punishment, then to throw me eternally into hell is unjust.
No Christian could answer him, for Russell was a very virtuous man; among the best of good men. To such a man Christianity could give no answer, for it has no clarification of the mystery of time.
When I read Russell’s statement—he was no longer alive—had he been, I would have told him: hell, even if met for a moment, appears eternal. Even if one goes to hell for a moment, it seems as if it will never end.
Hell is not eternal; but hell seems eternal to everyone. And heaven is not momentary; but heaven seems like a moment to everyone. For pleasure shortens time; pain lengthens time. And hell means ultimate pain—so time will be very long, without end in sight. And heaven means ultimate pleasure—time shrinks utterly, and heaven passes in a moment.
But whatever man attains through karma is exhausted. Is there something in human life which is not obtained through karma? Which is not what he has done? If there is, then man will never return from it.
Therefore the one who goes by the path of will returns—for will is man’s doing.
The one who goes by surrender never returns—for what happens upon the path of surrender is not the fruit of one’s doing, it is the fruit of one’s surrender. And surrender is not an action; it is the dissolution of all actions. In truth, what is obtained through surrender is the Lord’s prasad, grace, compassion. What comes through will is my own achievement. What comes through surrender—there I am effaced, and then it comes; it is not my attainment, it is the attainment of my disappearance.
Jesus has said: Whoever saves himself will lose; and whoever loses himself saves himself forever.
Enough for today.
But do not go yet. On this moonlit night we shall sing kirtan for five minutes. Then we shall go. Remain seated where you are. Do not try to get up and come forward. Now, in the moon, we can even see one another. A little Uttarayan has begun. Remain seated. Our sannyasins will stand; they will sing. You also join. And then we shall take leave.