Geeta Darshan #8

Life is one, existence is one, but the mind looks only by breaking everything apart. Until the mind has broken it, it cannot even see. In the very process of the mind’s seeing, life becomes fragmented.
Understand it like this: there is a single ray of light; pass it through a glass prism and it breaks into seven pieces, divided into seven colors. The ray of light is indivisible, whole in itself. Passing through the shard of the prism it breaks, it gets apportioned into parts.
Our mind breaks the ray of existence in just the same way. Wherever our mind looks, it never sees the whole. Leave aside great things, the mind is unable to see even a tiny thing in its entirety. If I place a small pebble in your hand, even then your eyes, your senses, your mind cannot see that piece in full; one side will remain hidden. And when you turn to see the other side, the first side will disappear. A mere pebble!
Leave even that. Place a speck of dust, a grain of sand on your palm. Even that your senses cannot see in full; they will only see it by breaking it. One side will be visible, one side will remain unseen. What is unseen you will only infer to be there; it will not be seen. And it can never happen that you see both sides at once. Even the two sides of a tiny grain of sand cannot be seen together. When you see one, the other slips out of sight. Then how much more difficult with the vast.
Our mind can see only the part. Understand this first point well. If this is grasped, many things can be understood. If this is not grasped, many aphorisms of religion remain without key. It is very fundamental.
The mind simply does not have the capacity to see anything in its completeness. It is not the nature of the mind to see anything in its wholeness. Just as, even if the eye wants to, it cannot hear sound; and even if the ear wants to, it cannot see form. It is not the nature of the ear, it is not the nature of the eye to hear sound. The eye can see, it cannot hear.
Then if someone tries to hear with the eye and nothing is heard and he concludes that there is no sound in the world—whose fault will it be? And if someone tries to see with the ear and nothing is seen and he says there is nothing in the world—whose fault will it be? It is not the ear’s fault, for the ear simply cannot see. It is not the eye’s fault, for the eye simply cannot hear. The fault lies with the person who does not understand the nature of eye and ear.
Concerning the nature of the mind, the first point is that the mind cannot see any object in its entirety, in its totality. Whenever it sees, it sees a part, not the whole—first point.
Up to this day, no one’s mind has ever seen the completeness of anything. Therefore wherever mind is, there the experience will be incomplete, the vision partial, the notion half-formed. Hence those who construct the whole out of the mind end up with a construction that is imaginary, inferred. What they cannot see, they complete by conjecture. To what is visible they add what they think must also be there. Therefore in the world formed by mind, all such shastras are futile, not leading toward the Whole.
And there are two kinds of shastras in the world. One, spoken by those who erased the mind and knew the Whole. And the other, spoken by those who arranged, educated, trained the mind through study, reflection, contemplation, logic, experience—who developed the mind and then recorded their outlook about the world. This is the difference between religion and philosophy.
Religion is the utterance of those who knew by effacing the mind, who shattered the prism of the mind and saw the ray of existence directly—indivisible, unpartitioned, whole. And philosophy is the utterance of those who refined, trained, instructed the mind and then constructed a view of the world.
Therefore all philosophies are incomplete; they must be. There is no other way. However great a thing Socrates may say, it is still of the mind. And however evolved the form of mind Socrates may possess, it is still mind. Even if Socrates says that these seven colors that have split from the ray can be put back together to make one ray—still that is the mind’s inference. However much Aristotle may say, Plato may say, Kant and Hegel may say—what they say is the conclusion of their thought, not of realization. What they say is a logical arrangement, not direct seeing. It is the vision of their mind, not their witness free of mind.
Philosophy is born from the mind. What is born when one rises beyond the mind—that alone is religion.
Whatever the mind says will be partial. Therefore what my mind says and what your mind says—there is no way for them to truly agree. The mind’s saying is almost like that old Panchatantra story we all know, where five blind men encounter an elephant. And whatever they say is all true. The one who touched the leg of the elephant said, “The elephant is like the sturdy pillars of a palace.” And the one who touched the ears said, “The elephant is like the winnowing basket with which women clean grain!”
Neither spoke falsely; none of the five spoke falsely—and even if five thousand blind men had gathered, not one would have spoken false. They all would speak rightly. Yet their rightness was partial. And the error was not in what they said; the error was in the extension they gave it. When a blind man said, “The elephant is like the pillars of a palace,” the mistake was not in what he knew. What he knew was the leg; what he spoke of was the elephant. What was known was a part; what he spoke about was the Whole. Whenever one speaks of the part in reference to the Whole, it becomes untrue.
Therefore, whatever the mind says about the Divine will be untrue.
Remember, those who say, “God is”—from the mind—are just as untrue as those who say, “There is no God”—from the mind. The mind knows only the part, and the mind has the urge to declare of the Whole, “This is it.”
If those five blind men had listened to one another and fallen silent—but no, it was not possible that they could have fallen silent! Because quarrel among the blind became inevitable. When one blind man said, “The elephant is like pillars,” and another said, “The elephant is like a winnowing basket,” and the third something else and the fourth yet something else—each said, “All these cannot be right. My experience is right, therefore the others must be wrong.”
Thus philosophies keep fighting; conflict continues. In five thousand years humanity has birthed many kinds of philosophies; they keep quarreling among themselves. They say, “You are wrong, we are right.” And when they say, “We are right,” there are reasons—they have their perception.
The man who says, “The elephant is like a pillar,” is not speaking falsely. And since to him the elephant appears pillar-like, how can he accept that the elephant is also like a winnowing basket? How can both be right at once?
But those who have eyes know that both are right at once. The elephant is a winnowing basket, and the elephant is a pillar; the elephant is much more besides. And as more blind men gather, the elephant will take on that many forms.
Whatever the mind sees is correct—but partial. Therefore never stretch the mind’s experience over the Whole, otherwise it becomes a noose. And never declare another wrong on the basis of your mind’s experience, for what another’s mind knows may also be right.
Among religions there is no dispute; there cannot be. All disputes belong to philosophies. And every religion is born among those who are not pundits, but it finally falls into the hands of those who are pundits. This is unfortunate, but it too seems to be the rule.
Whenever religion is born, it happens in a man whose mind is lost; then he knows the Whole. But when people understand him, they can only understand through the mind; there is no other way. If I say something to you that I have known beyond mind, when I speak and you listen, you will listen through the mind. And if through the mind you accept it or reject it—whatever conclusion you draw—that conclusion will be partial. And on that conclusion, tomorrow, based on my words, some construction can be made, some shastra can be compiled, some religion can be formed. That religion will be incomplete and will turn false.
When religions are born, they are whole—in Mahavira, in Krishna, or in Buddha, or in Mohammad. As they travel, they become incomplete. They travel sustained by mind; they become partial. And the moment they become partial, the struggle begins with other partial utterances. Mohammad and Mahavira have no quarrel. Buddha and Krishna have no quarrel. But the Hindu and the Muslim do; the Jain and the Buddhist do—and will.
Where the mind has dissolved, what is hidden within all utterances becomes visible. Where the mind is, one statement seems right and the rest wrong. This is the first hindrance of the mind—that it sees by dividing.
The second hindrance, which is even more difficult, is that the mind divides into opposites. Whenever the mind splits something into two, it sees opposition between the two. Take life. If life is viewed by the mind, two parts will appear: birth and death. How can the mind accept that birth and death are one? They are utterly opposite. How can they be one? How can birth and death be the same? If the mind divides life, two parts will appear—birth and death. And the two will seem opposite, contradictory, in mutual conflict. Whenever the mind divides, it divides into opposites; yet life is non-opposed, non-contradictory. There is no trouble in life at all. Birth and death are two names for the same reality, two extensions of one thing. What begins as birth completes itself as death. If birth is life’s beginning, death is its fulfillment.
Between birth and death there is no opposition—if we do not bring in the mind. But how not bring in the mind! We have no other instrument. The mind is our only tool for knowing. The moment we bring it in, it splits life into two: one part becomes birth, one part becomes death.
This mind splits things into two everywhere. It says, “This man is good, that man is bad.” The truth is just the reverse: good and evil are expansions of one and the same thing. When we say, “This man is good and that man is bad,” or “this thing is good and that thing is bad,” we have split.
It will be a great hindrance to accept that good and evil are an expansion of the same thing. It will be difficult to accept that the saint and the non-saint are two ends of the same continuum. It will be difficult to accept that Ram and Ravan are enemies only because of our mind; otherwise, in existence, they are two poles of a single play.
Understand it like this: Is the Ramayana possible without Ravan? If it is, then try to imagine it by bidding farewell to Ravan. Remove Ravan from the story of Ram. Then you will find that the very life-breath of Ram departs! Ram’s life-breath too is bound up with Ravan. If Ravan falls here, Ram will fall there. Ram cannot stand without Ravan.
And if the connection is so deep, then to call them opposites is foolishness. If the connection is so deep that Ram cannot exist without Ravan, nor Ravan without Ram, then to see them as enemies is our mind’s mistake. They are two halves of one play; both indispensable; neither can be left out.
But the mind will only see by breaking. How can the mind accept that Ram and Ravan are one! It can never accept. The mind will say, “What are you saying? Where Ram, where Ravan! They are opposites; that is why there is such conflict between them, why there is war.” Then look at it this way: remove one.
If Ravan is truly Ram’s enemy, then in Ravan’s absence Ram should blossom all the more. If Ravan is truly opposed to Ram, then the moment Ravan is removed, all the petals of Ram’s flower should open fully. For the opponent was hindering the flowering; the opponent was an obstacle; the obstacle gone, Ram should fully bloom.
But far from blooming—if Ravan is removed completely, you will not even be able to tell that Ram ever was! There will be no trace of him. And this applies the other way too: without Ram, Ravan has no way to be. If this is so, then somewhere our seeing is at fault. What we call enmity is our mistake. We should say: they are two ends of one and the same thing. And neither end can be without the other. Indispensable ends!
Therefore whenever there is Ram, there will be Ravan. And whenever there is Ravan, there will be Ram. This is not war; war only appears when seen through the prism of the mind. If someone puts the mind aside, it will be known: one energy, one power is at work on both sides. For the flow of that power, both are equally necessary.
Understand it like this: the Ganga flows between two banks. We may assume the two banks are separate. Remove one bank and then try to let the Ganga flow—you will know that the two banks were not separate at all. It may even seem that there is rivalry between the banks, competition, that one bank is confronting the other; it may even seem that one bank is trying to pull the Ganga to its side. But remember, the Ganga moves only between the two banks. The two banks are the two ends of the Ganga itself. Remove even one and the other will not remain!
This will be hard; it will tax our intellect, because we always find it easy to see by splitting. We make Ram good, we make Ravan bad; the arithmetic becomes neat. Ravan is to be discarded, Ram to be worshiped. Ravan is bad, Ram is good. The division is straight, the arithmetic clear.
Life does not accept our arithmetic. Life throws all our calculations into disarray. Ram knows this well. Ram knows it thoroughly. Therefore the conflict is deep, but there is no hatred anywhere. The war is intense, but it has no more significance than a game. Ram knows full well that the other pole is not separate. Hence he sends Lakshman to Ravan to learn wisdom.
Ram also knows that his own experience is of one pole; Ravan’s experience is of the other. And Lakshman’s knowledge will be complete only when he learns both poles together. He has known Ram; in the end Ram sends him to Ravan: “Go learn from him as well; he is a great scholar, a great knower. He too has his own experience; he has his own journey. He too has known something from the other bank that will be unique—and you will remain incomplete without it. Do not know only Ram; know Ravan too. Knowing both, you will be more whole; your experience will be richer, more dense.”
Where opposites meet, there experience becomes complete. But our mind? Our mind is such that we will worship Ram and set fire to Ravan. Such is our mind! Our mind is such that we revere one and denounce the other; we accept one as friend, the other as foe.
(Someone stood up midway and asked for a definition of the mind.)
A friend asks: what is the definition of the mind? So let us understand a little definition of the mind. Now look—what I was just saying, you ask, how is the mind to be defined?
But don’t look toward him! You are looking as if he has asked with great hostility; that is where the mistake happens. The voice is a bit loud, but it’s a friend’s voice—why be so bothered! Don’t look at him.
The definition of mind: mind means manan, vichar, chintan—reflection, thought, contemplation; to attach a stream of thinking to whatever appears. Understand: a flower appears to me. As long as there is only seeing, mind does not come in; but the moment I say, “Beautiful,” mind has arrived; the moment I say, “Not beautiful,” mind has arrived; the moment I say, “Very lovely,” mind has arrived; the moment I say, “Worthless,” mind has arrived. As long as there is pure perception, there is no mind. The instant words and thoughts get attached to perception, the movement of mind begins.

Mind means the mechanism that produces thought, that generates words. Mind is the source that gives birth to thinking. If I simply look at the flower and do not think, there will be a meeting between my soul and the flower. If I think, a chain of thoughts will arise between my soul and the flower—a web of words will stand between us. Then I will not be able to see the flower directly; I will see it through and across those words. Whatever judgment I then make about the flower will not really be about the flower; it will be about my mind. For if I was raised in a home where the rose was regarded as beautiful, if from childhood I was taught that the rose is beautiful, then in my mind there is already a chain of thoughts about the rose, about beauty. Now if I see a rose and the current of my mind rises and says, “The flower is beautiful,” this is not my direct realization; it is my mind’s statement. And the mind’s statement is a statement of words. When one becomes wordless, the mind disappears.

This means: the process of words within us—the very process of language—is mind. The process of our words, the storehouse of our words, the web of our words—that is our mind. Mind is the aggregate of all our words, our entire language, our whole capacity to think.

A person can be in a state of no-mind in two ways. If one is unconscious, one also enters a no-mind state; this is a state below mind. If one is in samadhi, one is beyond mind; this is a state above mind.

Hence the sages have said that in deep sleep a person reaches a state akin to samadhi. One common feature is the same: there is no mind. In deep sleep also the mind is not, because thought is lost. But when thought is lost there, awareness is lost too. In samadhi, the same event as deep sleep happens—the mind is lost—but awareness is total.

Mind is the instrument of our thinking. Therefore, the more we use this instrument of thought to look at the world, the more the world gets divided. There are many reasons for this fragmentation. Our language sees things by breaking them apart, because it is constructed by the mind. And the mind, too, sees by breaking things apart, because beyond language the mind has no existence.

This is what I was saying: wherever we see something, the opposite begins to be experienced immediately. If we see beauty, the sense of the ugly begins at once. Can you call something beautiful without, at the same time, calling something else ugly?
Mahakashyapa asked Buddha. One morning Mahakashyapa, a foremost disciple, came to Buddha. The sun was rising, birds were singing, and Mahakashyapa asked, “This that is spread all around— is it not beautiful?”
Buddha remained silent. He looked at Mahakashyapa, smiled, but did not speak. Mahakashyapa asked again, “Is there some inconsistency in my question? Why do you not answer?” Buddha again looked all around, then at Mahakashyapa, smiled, and kept silent. A third time Mahakashyapa said, “At least say this much—that you will not answer.” Buddha once more looked around—and kept silent. Then he said to Mahakashyapa, “What you are asking puts me in great difficulty. If I say ‘This is beautiful,’ whom shall I call ugly? For the moment you use the word beautiful, the notion of ugly is guaranteed.”

And Buddha said, “Now for me nothing remains ugly and nothing remains beautiful; things are just as they are. This is the world seen from outside the mind. A thorn is a thorn, a flower is a flower; a rose is a rose, a champa is a champa. Nothing is beautiful, nothing is ugly. Whatever is, is.”

Buddha said, “I see what is—as it is. How can I say this is beautiful or ugly? The mind with which I used to divide has disappeared. The mind I had, by which I used to weigh, is gone.”

Understand it this way: we have a scale; with it we can weigh what is heavy and what is light. The scale is lost. Then someone asks me, “Is this heavier or lighter?” I could place it on my palm and make a rough guess; I could use my hand as a scale. It won’t be exact—grain by grain I won’t be able to tell—but I could still say, “This is about a seer, that is three-quarters.” It will not be precise.

But suppose my hand too is broken; now I have no way left to measure. Then I’ll try to estimate with my eyes: “This looks a little more, that a little less.” The error will be greater.

And suppose my eyes too are gone. Then I have no way at all to say which is more and which is less. No hand, no scale, no eyes. I can only say, “This is this, and that is that.” I no longer have an instrument with which to weigh, to divide, to say what is more and what is less.

Buddha said, “What is, is. The sun is rising. Flowers are blossoming. Birds are singing. And I sit here listening. But that which could declare ‘beautiful’ and ‘ugly’ is not present. It is gone.”

Meditation means: the disappearance of mind. Meditation means: language, word, thought vanish from within.

This does not mean that one who enters meditation cannot speak. Nor does it mean he cannot use words. The truth is: only he can truly use them. But then the use is just use; he is the master. Buddha too is speaking; he says, “My mind is gone.” Words are being used, language is being used—but only as use. Just as a person, when he walks, uses his legs; when he sits, he stops using them.

But your mind is mad: even when you don’t want to use it, it keeps working. You say, “Be silent”—it does not fall silent. You say, “Stop, I want to sleep”—it won’t stop. You say, “Hold it, I don’t want to think about this”—it goes on thinking. And you are utterly helpless.

This helplessness, this restlessness, this compulsion—your soul’s sovereignty has been lost and the mind is your master. Let that lordship be undone, let the mind come down and you become the master—then you will begin to see the world in a different way.

Why have I said all this? I have said it because Krishna’s aphorism will be understood only when you become capable of understanding these two arrangements of seeing the world: with mind and without mind.

Krishna says, “I am the heat of the sun, and I draw the rains. I am the showerer; I am the rain.”

Understand it like this: we always see fire and water as opposites. If there is a fire, we extinguish it with water. And if we try to set water on fire, there is no way. Fire and water are opposites for us. What friendship can there be between fire and water? Water is an enemy.

But Krishna says, “I am fire and I am water; I am the one who blazes and I am the one who quenches; I am the sun that burns, and I am the rain that the sun draws up.”

If we drop the accounting of the mind and look a little at existence, we will see: it is the sun that draws water from the ocean, the sun that forms the clouds, the sun that pours the rain. So the enmity we see between fire and water must be somewhere due to our mind! That enmity is just like Rama and Ravana. Without the sun there could be no water; without water there could be no sun. Somewhere very deep they are united and together.

Announcing their union, Krishna says, “O Arjuna, I am immortality and I am death.”

Among all who have thought about God in the world, only the Hindu vision conjoins death with God; no one else does. All the philosophies on earth say God is life, but none dares to say God is death as well. The reason is our mind’s division: how can we say both? How? How can God be both?

But God is both, because life is both. If this does not fit our logic, we should drop logic and look. Life is not bound to run behind our logic. Ask anyone else and he will say, “God is life.” But to say “God is death” will make him nervous—because we think death is the opposite of life; life we take as good and death as bad.

Hence for a friend we pray for life, for an enemy we pray for death. We want the friend to live and the enemy to die. But we do not know: only one who lives can die. Nor do we know: whoever lives must die. So when we pray for someone’s death, we are also praying for his life; and when we offer good wishes for someone’s life, we are wishing for his death as well. Because life cannot be without death; they are two ends of the same thing.

Life and death are polar opposites. We have all felt so far that death terminates life. But that view is wrong. Death completes life. In death, life touches its peak.

Therefore India has not valued youth highly; it has valued old age. The West values youth; it gives no value to the old. To grow old is to be devalued. A man grows old in the West, and devaluation happens; whatever worth he had in the world is lost.

Why? If life and death are opposites, then youth alone touches life’s peak; the old man has started moving toward death.

Understand it this way: if death is bad, how can the old be good? Because the old means one who has started moving into death. He is a traveler toward death; death is approaching him. The old means in whom death has begun to reveal itself. Then youth is the summit of life. If death is the opposite of life, youth will be life. Then youth will be valued and the old devalued.

The West has taken death as the end of life; hence the old become disrespected. With that attitude there can be no reverence for the old. The East has seen death as the fulfillment of life; hence the old are revered. For he is the very summit of life; not the young—the elder is life’s peak. And the moment of death is a moment of depression only because of ignorance; if there is understanding, it can be a moment of celebration.

Chuang Tzu’s wife died. The emperor came to offer condolences, and found Chuang Tzu sitting under a tree singing and beating a little tambourine. The emperor felt uneasy. Chuang Tzu was a great sage; that is why the emperor himself had come, thinking that since his wife had died he should go and offer a few words of sympathy. But there was no room for sympathy here! The man was beating a tambourine and singing! Far from expressing condolences!

The emperor had prepared, as people do when someone dies, what to say, how to begin. It is a delicate matter. When someone has died, where do you start? What do you say? Language falters; courage fails.

He had prepared it all: I will say this, I will begin like this, somehow I will manage and take my leave. But the difficulty grew greater here, because Chuang Tzu was beating a tambourine. The emperor had come entirely in a mournful mood, suitably prepared.

Naturally, if another’s life does not gladden us, why should another’s death sadden us? And if another’s life can gladden us, we will know that state where even death does not sadden.

The emperor came in mourning attire. When he saw, he could not restrain himself. He said to Chuang Tzu, “Sir! It is enough if you do not grieve—but to beat a tambourine and sing, that is a bit too much! Not grieving is fine, acceptable. But this goes too far!”

Chuang Tzu said, “What are you saying! With the one with whom I knew life’s supreme bliss, with whom I completed the long journey of life—at the moment of her completion, can I not sing and bid her farewell?”

But this is another way of seeing. This is not a vision seen through mind. If it is seen through mind, then death is the cause of sorrow and birth the cause of joy. This is seen from somewhere beyond mind—where birth and death are no longer opposites, where both become parts of one current of life; and life becomes the stream between birth and death, both banks belonging to it.

So Chuang Tzu says, “If at the moment of her great completion I cannot sing and bid her farewell, who could be more ungrateful than I?”

The emperor may not have understood. It will be difficult for you too. But those in whom it dawns—only they become truly understanding.

The point is simply this: what we call opposites are not opposites. The opposition is our delusion. And wherever you see contradiction, if you search you will find beneath it a current of unity. There is a thorn and there is a rose. A flower has blossomed, a thorn has grown. You go to pluck the flower; the thorn pricks your hand; a stream of blood flows. Naturally you feel the flower and the thorn are enemies. What has a flower to do with a thorn! You went to pluck the flower, and the thorn struck!

If you went to present someone with a thorn, he would be startled: “Have you lost your mind? People present flowers!” Try it sometime—break off the rose’s thorns and go to present them to someone. You may never see that person again; he will begin to avoid you, will not pass along the road you walk.

But are the flower and the thorns enemies? Then descend a little into the branch of the rose. Ask the sap flowing in the branch: do the flower and the thorn come from different places?

It is the same sap that becomes a thorn, the same sap that becomes a flower. They appear to us as different; in themselves they are not different. And if you pluck off all the rose’s thorns, the flowers too will become sad—for you will have hurt the inner flow of sap. It is the same current. And when the flowers are plucked, the thorns feel pain as well. Because they are united; existence is together. Mind divides; then flowers become good and thorns bad. Then no one can present a thorn; only the flower must be offered. But existence goes on growing both thorn and flower together; existence goes on giving life to both at once.

Krishna says, “I am immortality; I am death.”

When the first glimpses of Indian thought began to spread outside India, the most natural astonishment was precisely this. The symbol of ours that most shocked the West is that of Mahadeva, Shiva. Perhaps you have never noticed—because we neither look, nor think, nor inquire!

By the roadside under a tree you have often seen a Shiva-linga. Have you ever noticed: Shiva is the god of death, dissolution is in his hands. Brahma creates, Vishnu sustains, Shankara dissolves. Shiva is the god of destruction. Yet the Shiva-linga placed there is a phallic symbol—the symbol of the generative organ—the emblem of creation. The linga is the symbol of birth and of life. And Shiva is the deity of dissolution; his charge is to erase.

What amazement! How mad these Hindus must be! When this symbol of Shiva first reached the West, they said, “What kind of people are these! The god of destruction—whose task is to annihilate the world—and this is a phallic symbol! The symbol of the generative organ, the emblem of life from which all living beings are born and evolve! What kind of symbol is this? This symbol ought not to be. It does not match Shiva.”

It does not—if we think mathematically. If he is the god of destruction, the symbol should be something of destruction. But this is life. They have chosen the symbol of life for the god of destruction. The same reason again:

Krishna says, “I am immortality and I am death.”

These appear to us as opposite symbols, but India has always tried to bring into awareness the single current within the opposites. Therefore, deliberately, with knowing, with much search, the emblem of creation was placed before the deity of dissolution. Only this could be his symbol. For one who is to touch the ultimate limit of destruction must be present at the very first moment of birth as well. He who is to be the road to death must be the gate to birth too. So the two opposites—death his function, birth his symbol. Even if it were only this much, it would be easier; but the aphorism is still more difficult.

Krishna says, “Likewise, I am Being and Non-being.”

Sat means that which is; asat means that which is not. “What is—that I am; and what is not—that too I am!” This is the ultimate contradiction. In logic, in thought, in the methods of reasoning, nothing is more opposed than what is and what is not. Being and non-being is the widest gulf of all. There can be no wider.

Someone might accept—if he stretches imagination a little—that birth and death are joined: agreed. Someone might also accept—mustering some courage, breaking some habits—that the story of Rama and Ravana too could not be told if one were missing; somehow both are connected: agreed. One might also accept that the flower and the thorn are joined. But this—absolutely not—that what is is connected with what is not! Because how can that which is not be joined? Joining implies two things, and then a link can be. With what is not, what link?

This is the ultimate gulf—between being and non-being. Our mind will utterly refuse that a link can be made between non-being and being. We may, with great stretching, make a bridge between Rama and Ravana; between enemy and friend; between birth and death; between beauty and ugliness; between light and darkness. But between that which is not and that which is—what link is there? And how can a link be made?

Between two banks a bridge can be built, because both banks exist. But if one bank is there and the other is not, how will a bridge be built?

This will seem the most difficult, and it is the greatest blow to the mind. But if we try to understand, it can be seen. Let us approach it in two or three ways. It is a little difficult, but not impossible that a glimmer arises in thought. And at most a glimmer can arise in thought; experience cannot arise in thought. If a glimmer arises, steps toward experience can be taken.

Let us make a little effort.

There is a tree: yesterday it was not, today it is, tomorrow it will not be. Then being and non-being must be linked somehow. What was not has become; what is will become not. You were not yesterday, today you are, tomorrow you will not be again. We come from the not and return to the not. That brief span of being is between two non-beings.

Now see it like this: the two banks are non-being, and the river in between is being. Two banks of non-being: yesterday I was not; tomorrow again I will not be; today I am. Today flows the Ganga of my being. I have two banks. Yesterday I was not; tomorrow again I will not be. These two nots are my two banks, and my being is the current between them. Without those two, I could not be. They surround me on both sides.

Morning was; evening came; night fell; morning will come again. Have you noticed? Every day is enclosed on both sides by two nights. Every night is enclosed on both sides by two days. The opposite bank is always there. Whatever is, is surrounded on both sides by what is not. And whatever is not is also surrounded on both sides by what is.

Being and non-being are not so opposed, for we see them turning into each other. One who was has now become not. Which means: what is enters what is not; it is liquid, it can flow; no hard partition is seen.

A man is young; then the same young man grows old. Can you tell exactly when he becomes old? On what date, at what time, does youth pass and old age arrive?

You will not be able to tell. What does that mean? It means youth and old age are not two things; they are fluid, liquid; they flow into each other. One cannot tell when the young man became old. One cannot tell how long the old man was still young. One cannot tell when the child becomes a youth.

So youth and old age appear opposite, but they flow into each other; they sway into each other. Being and non-being sway into each other the same way. Now it is a seed; it is not yet a tree. Suddenly tomorrow the seed will manifest as the tree. So being and non-being, existence and non-existence, sat and asat—these appear to us as opposites; they are not.

Let us look at it another way.

Whatever is has the possibility that it will not be. Do you know any thing that cannot not be? Whatever is can become not. That which is can be that which is not. Is can be is not.
(Someone stands up from the crowd and shouts something. Osho, laughing, explains to him and asks everyone to remain calm. Then he continues his talk.)
Let it be! Let’s begin our talk.

Between what is not and what is, there is no insurmountable gulf. They are two forms of the One. What is not can enter into what is; what is can enter into what is not. But we keep dividing, and that creates the difficulty.

You are sitting quietly; a friend became restless—he had been quiet all this while. Quietness turned into restlessness. Then he will be quiet again—how long can one remain restless? If quiet can become unrest, then unrest will become quiet again. You had been sitting in silence and then anger arose. Silence can become anger. How long will it last? If silence can become anger, then anger will become silence again. But we fail to see the unity within opposites; that causes the snag, that creates the difficulty. You too are sitting quietly; it may not even occur to you that you could become just as restless. You absolutely could. Because until now he too was sitting just like you.

We can swing to the opposite at any time, at any moment—at any moment. And the mind looks by dividing. His mind, divided, saw: this is Hindi, that is English; it should be Hindi, it should not be English! Wherever we look through division, the opposite starts appearing.

Now the wonder is: if we go a little inside languages, we find the same single tone resounding. If we go a little deeper into the languages of the world, it seems as if one single language is being spoken in many, many ways. And English and Hindi are, within, so deeply connected that we can hardly imagine it: they are sister languages. Both are born from Sanskrit—English as well as Hindi. And just as near to Sanskrit as Hindi is, so near is English too. If we enter a little into both, we will discover there is no opposition between them; a single current is flowing.

In Hindi you say maa; in Sanskrit, matr; in Latin and Greek it becomes mater; in English it becomes mother. That mother is a form of matr, just as maa and mata are forms of matr. In Sanskrit one says pitr, pitar; in Hindi, pita; in English it becomes father—Peter, pater, and then father.

But if someone says pita, we feel, our language is being spoken; and if someone says father, we feel, a foreign language has been spoken. It is unknowing. The word from which both pita and father are born is one. However wide the distances become, it makes no difference. The original forms in Sanskrit have spread into all the languages of the world.

Therefore Sanskrit is not anyone’s language; Sanskrit is the language of all languages. But the mind is quick to meddle and creates difficulties. The mind looks by dividing—and, divided, it falls into trouble.

Krishna says, I am sat and I am asat. What is, I am that; and what is not, I am that too. This is the most difficult category, the most difficult to grasp; because we cannot even think the “not.” Yet the happening goes on every moment. A star that was not yesterday is formed today, say the scientists; new stars are formed every day. And a star that was there yesterday is gone today.

When you look at the stars at night, don’t remain in the illusion that all the stars you see are actually there. It takes millions upon millions of years—billions—for starlight to arrive. It may well be that the star has long since ceased to be. But when it was, its light set out, and tonight you see that light. Perhaps that light left a hundred million years ago; the star has long since perished. Yet its light takes time to reach the earth—it could only arrive tonight. Tonight it is not. One thing is certain: it is not there where the light set out from. Where you see it, it is not. And it is also possible that it has vanished altogether and is nowhere now—yet it is still seen.

At every moment things are being made and unmade. Becoming and ceasing go on together. If we look more closely, becoming and ceasing do not occur at separate times; they occur at the same time. As I am becoming young, I am already becoming old. That is why one never knows on which day one became old. As I am living, I am already dying. That is why one never knows from where death arrived. Death comes from nowhere outside. As I am living, I am dying.

As you build a house, its falling has already begun. You don’t see it, because it will fall in a hundred years, a thousand years. The process of falling will complete in a thousand years, but it started this very moment. A child is born and dying begins. The process will complete in seventy years. Seventy years later it will be known—perhaps you yourself won’t even live that long. Others will know that the one who was born seventy years ago has died today. But on the very day of birth, death began, dying began.

We live every day and we die every day. Which means we are, every day, both happening and not happening; we are being made and being erased. This goes on together. These are our two legs, left and right. When the left moves, the right appears to stand; when the right lifts, the left appears to stand. But the left stands so the right may lift; the right stands so the left may lift. When you seem to be young, old age is raising its foot. When you seem to be living, death too is lifting its step. They move together. Being and non-being are parts of the same existence.

Krishna says: I am both.

However, those who perform desire-motivated actions as enjoined in the three Vedas, who drink soma, who, purified of sins, worship me through sacrifices seeking the attainment of heaven—such men, by the fruit of their merits, reach Indra’s realm and enjoy in heaven the divine pleasures of the gods.

Krishna says, but…

Pay attention to this “but”—however. What he said before is ultimate, the final. But people, by doing the actions, sacrifices, oblations, rituals prescribed in the Vedas—freeing themselves from sins—desire to go to heaven, to attain pleasure.

This “however” is very important. It means such people are still dividing heaven and hell. It means they still divide pleasure and pain. They still want pleasure and want to avoid pain. They are still living by the mind.

Sakama means living by desire—living from the mind; desire has not yet dissolved, it still remains. If they are weary of the desires of this world, then the desires of the other world begin. If they will not build a house here, they strive that some house be built in heaven. If they will not accumulate wealth here, they try to accumulate some treasure of merit. But their language has not changed; their way of thinking has not changed; their vision has not changed; their inner framework is the same.

Even so, such people do free themselves from sins; they do virtuous acts; they avoid the bad and do the good; they perform Vedic acts—worship, sacrifice, oblation. By the fruits of these merits they attain Indra’s realm and enjoy the divine pleasures of the gods in heaven—but they do not attain me.

I am attained only by the one for whom there is no distinction between heaven and hell; by the one for whom there is no distinction between merit and sin; by the one for whom life and death have become one. I am attained only by the one who makes no choice at all—who does not say, I will drop this and gain that; I do not want this, I want that. One who has become choiceless; in whose mind no alternative remains. Who says, Whatever is, I am content. If there is pain, I consent to pain; I do not want pleasure. If there is pleasure, I consent to pleasure; I do not even worry about renouncing pleasure. If there is life, thank you. If death comes, welcome. Throw me into hell and I will go on seeing only you; send me to heaven and you alone are my joy.

One who has become like this attains me. But before that, he says, there are those who perhaps cannot find so free of duality, so beyond all opposites, so nondual a vision; such people can at least attain Indra’s realm, can at least attain heaven.

Heaven means: one who does less harm, commits fewer sins, gives less pain to others—he can obtain more pleasure. Not bliss—mind this! It is necessary to understand the distinction clearly: not bliss, but pleasure.

Bliss is beyond both pleasure and pain. Bliss is attained by one whose very vision of pleasure and pain is gone. Bliss is a third thing. Bliss is not pleasure—as people commonly think, that bliss is the supreme degree of pleasure. Not at all. Bliss has as much to do with pleasure as it has to do with pain. Bliss is not pain, and bliss is not pleasure. Therefore pleasure is the opposite of pain, pain is the opposite of pleasure. One to whom opposites appear will revolve within pleasure and pain.

Krishna says in the next aphorism: even if this heaven is attained, one must return again—because one must then enter pain. The one who has gone into pleasure must enter pain. One who has divided into duality will go from one to the other. One who has clung to birth must die. One who has grasped pleasure, with that very grasping begins to go into pain.

Krishna says, he will have to return. He did good deeds, held good intentions, lived a religious life—he can reach heaven. He will touch the furthest shore of pleasure—but the moment he touches it, the return begins.

Just as a clock’s pendulum swings to the left and reaches the extreme point—at the very reaching, the return begins; it starts going right.

Exactly so, the last point of pleasure will come; then the return will begin. Because in duality there is no liberation. He will return. His stock of merit will be used up and he will stand again upon the earth. He will not attain me.

I am attained only by the one who, in sat and asat, in heaven and hell, in sin and merit—sees me alone in both, without any discrimination. Then there remains no device; then the pendulum breaks. Then he has no journey, no momentum.

Krishna’s entire message in this aphorism is: let duality not be seen. But as long as there is mind, duality will be seen. So the meaning is: let the mind be no more; let no-mind—aman—arise. Only then can we see the unity of life. Unity is liberation, and unity is bliss.

That’s all for today.
But wait for five minutes. Join the kirtan and then go. No one should get up in between.