My beloved Atman! In the search for truth, or for the meaning of life, we reflected on the very first thing, the very first prerequisite. As it appears to me, I have said it to you: if there is no thirst, within us no beginning is ever made toward the attainment of life’s meaning. Thirst is the seed. And that seed of thirst, developing, sprouting, becomes sadhana in a human being’s life. How to give birth to thirst—that we considered a little. If we look at life and look at life’s truth, then that which we are taking to be satisfaction will begin to sprout as dissatisfaction. Those very things by which we feel content will make us discontent. That which seems to be light will begin to look like darkness. That which seems to be life will appear as if it were death. What we have supposed to be “everything” will appear to be nothing—and that we are lost in a great dream. If this insight does not dawn, if this experience does not befall, thirst does not arise. We considered that the sorrow of life and life’s dissolving into death become, within a human being, the search for Paramatma. And I also said to you: if the attention does not turn in this direction, if the current of attention does not flow toward the interior of man, we cannot even come to know who is within. We can only know that toward which the stream of our attention runs, toward which the current of our chitta runs. That toward which our inner gaze turns alone becomes real. That from which our inner gaze is absent loses its very reality. I will tell a small story, and then begin today’s talk. It is recorded in the life of a Muslim king. He went hunting in the forest. The sun set; evening descended. He could not return to the village. He lost his way. So he sat down upon a forest footpath and offered his evening prayer. He had just begun his prayer—had barely bowed his head in devotion to the Divine—when a young woman, running, gave him a jolt, almost treading over the hem of his prayer garment, and ran off into the jungle. He grew very angry. He thought, What kind of foolish, ill-mannered woman is this! Does she not even know someone is praying? And then too, does she not notice that the king of the land is praying—ought she not to avoid shoving him? When he finished the prayer, he found the woman returning. He stopped her and said, What kind of insolence is this, what kind of lack of culture—that while the king of the land is praying, you push him aside and go on! And even if it were not the king, if it were any other human being praying, you should at least pass by with modesty and not press your way through so rudely. The young woman said, Were you praying in the middle of the path? I knew nothing of it. I was on my way to meet my lover; I had no awareness of who was or was not on the way. I saw no one; I did not see you. But, she said, I am astonished—you were praying to the Lord, and yet you were aware I pushed you? If that was truly prayer, if your attention was toward the Lord, there ought not to have been any awareness of my shove. I was mad after my lover—so I remained unaware of you. Are you not at least that mad for Paramatma? My thirst was toward my lover, so I saw nothing at all. But was your thirst toward Paramatma not so deep that you would not even be aware of me, of my passing by? Surely, if awareness is centered on one side, the other side dissolves. And if, in prayer, something else is also being experienced, then know that the prayer is false. Wherever awareness goes, it alone reveals the reality present there. All the rest becomes void. Our awareness is not turned inward—therefore Atman appears to us to be nonexistent, and the world seems to be real. If awareness turns inward, another truth is known: the world is not, and the Atman is. And if awareness becomes linked both ways, we will know: the world too has a certain reality, and the Atman too has a certain reality. In life we only experience that into which our awareness has entered. We are reflecting on the development of that awareness. I said first: thirst is needed. I suppose you have understood this. But thirst alone is not enough. Because thirst can carry you onto wrong tracks as well. It is not necessary that thirst lead you toward the lake—it may carry you in the opposite direction. For thirst alone is not a guide. Many people do not even have thirst. And among those who do, many are carried onto wrong paths by their very thirst. Only when there is thirst and the right path is there any attainment in life. So, in the second step, I want to reflect on the path. Let there be thirst—but what is the path by which thirst can be quenched? Ordinarily, our thirst leads us astray. Across the whole world thirst has led people onto wrong roads. When a person becomes thirsty for Paramatma, we observe he begins to go to temples, or to mosques, or to churches. We see someone become eager for God, and he becomes eager for temples and mosques and churches. But human history tells us that those who went to temples, churches, mosques have hardly attained to Paramatma—yet they have surely been useful in fragmenting man, in harming man, in breaking humanity. If we look at human history we will find that in the name of these theists, of these religionists, there is such sin, such murder, such violence—beyond all reckoning. In the name of atheists there are not so many sins. Atheists have not done great evil in the world, have not brought great harm to humanity. But theists have. And their headquarters have been temples, mosques, churches. These headquarters have broken man. And that which breaks man from man—how will it unite man with Paramatma? That which separates me from my neighbor—how can it take me to God? Yet people with religious curiosity very soon convert their longing into curiosity for temples and mosques. Thirst has taken a wrong road. Remember, temples and mosques are also outside. As shops are outside, as houses are outside—so too are temples and mosques outside. And he who goes searching for Paramatma outwardly—his awareness will not turn within. Nanak was a guest at the Muslim pilgrimage of Mecca. At night, when he slept there, he stretched his feet toward the sacred stone of the Kaaba. The priest came and said, Your feet are toward the sacred stone, toward God—turn them some other way before you sleep. Nanak said, Then turn my feet in that direction where God is not. Nanak said a most wondrous thing: Turn my feet in the direction where God is not. He whose gaze is in the temple gets the notion that God is in the temple—then what is the rest of the world? He whose gaze is in the mosque thinks God is in the mosque—then what is the rest of existence? One who believes in temple or mosque does not attain God, but he does attain a highly one-sided notion of God, a highly fragmentary image of God—God confined, imprisoned. And then the result is that religion does not come into his life; sect does. No saintliness arises in his life; cruelty does. Not love, but hatred; not openness, but organization and aversion. The religions of the whole world are organized—for the sake of hatred. One against the other—temple against mosque, mosque against temple. And remember, whatever stands against anyone cannot be in favor of Paramatma—because Paramatma is the name of the Whole. If within that Whole there is opposition to any part, then finally it becomes opposition to Paramatma. Therefore, if one has gone to seek God, no temple and no mosque can give Him. One must enter into knowing the whole of life—and its door is within, not without. I have heard of a fakir. Until the age of seventy he went daily to the temple. He joined in the Lord’s prayer. He never missed a single day. For some forty-five years the villagers had seen him always going to the temple. Sick—yet he went. Unwell—yet he went. Old—yet he went. Not a day was missed. At seventy, one day they found he had not come to the temple. People were amazed. Unless he had died, no other reason seemed possible. They all went toward the sadhu’s hut. They saw him sitting under a tree with a small tambourine in his hand, beating time—singing. They were astonished. At this age has atheism occurred to you? Has the lifelong endeavor, the lifelong discipline of going to the temple come to an end? The old sadhu said, Until I knew not where God’s temple is, I kept going to your temple. Now I know where God’s temple is; now there is no need for me to go to any temple. They asked, What is God’s temple? The sadhu said, This whole nature, this entire creation—if there is any temple of God, this is it. Beyond this there can be no other temple. And if there is any door by which to enter God’s temple, it is within me. That door cannot be outside. To that universal Reality, the closest door is through our own within. If I am to be related to That, the door will be within. Therefore I said: even if thirst arises, it often goes wrong. And the result of misdirected thirst is that there are so many religions in the world. Otherwise, there should be only one dharma. How can there be so many religions? Truth can only be one—untruths can be many. These many religions indicate that dharma, in its fullness, in its perfect truth, is not being attained. It is not reaching its complete flowering. If people’s thirst did not go wrong, organizations would dissolve. Temples and mosques would vanish. Priests and pundits, the brokers who have made a business of exploiting man’s thirst, man’s inner longing—they would all disappear. For some five thousand years the exploitation of man’s inner aspiration has been going on. And in its name—who knows what all has been done! Now the time has come for this exploitation to end. But it will end only when our thirst takes the right direction. If our thirst goes astray, this will continue. At the root of all this exploitation—the road by which our thirst is led astray—is belief. We have been told to believe. For three or four thousand years it has been repeated that we should believe—believe in the Gita, the Quran, the Bible; believe in Mahavira, Buddha, Krishna, Christ. We are told there is no need for our own discernment. We should accept what others say. This is deeply self-destructive. And for one who would seek truth, the way cannot be the way of belief. The way of belief is the way of ignorance and darkness. Whoever believes cripples his own movement, cuts off his own feet with his own hands. Have you ever seen a believer attain to truth? It has not happened yet—and it cannot happen. Belief is no way at all. And belief has had disastrous consequences. The outcome of belief is that, without knowledge, we acquire the pretense and pride of being knowledgeable. Most of us accept Atman, accept God. If I ask you—does this acceptance stand upon your own knowing or upon your ignorance? Have you known—or merely accepted? Is it something others told you—or is it arrived at from within your own experience? If it is what others said—be they parents, elders, or great sages—then remember, you cannot see with another’s eyes, you cannot walk with another’s feet—then how can another’s knowledge become your knowledge? Another’s knowledge will give you the illusion of knowing—and you will remain standing in ignorance. Whoever believes, ends his life in ignorance. Belief—belief in another, faith in another—never takes anyone anywhere. And its lethal results are visible. In 1917 there was a revolution in Russia. Before the revolution the country was religious—like we are religious. There too were churches and temples and mosques. People worshiped there and prayed there. People read the Quran and the Bible there. After 1917, for twenty or twenty-five years the government propagated: there is no God, no Atman, no afterlife, no karma, no rebirth. In twenty years of propaganda, two hundred million people accepted that there is no God, no Atman, no Paramatma. You will say—what mad people! But I tell you—they were not mad. They had been trained in the habit of belief. For five thousand years they had been taught to believe. They had the habit of belief. A new propaganda was presented—they believed that too. If communism were to come to this land, these very temple-goers—these very ones—would stand against the temples. These very worshipers of idols would become idol-breakers. Because they have the habit of believing. Whatever is told to them, they will accept. Today they believe in God; tomorrow they will believe that there is no God. Their habit is belief. They can be made to believe anything. Any lie, however great—if incessantly propagated—they will believe. For you, God is truth. You are believing in a great lie. For you, it is a lie. For those who have known, it will be truth. But you merely believe that God is—and you have not the slightest clue. You believe there is Atman—and you have no glimpse of the Atman. You believe there is a next birth—and you have no inkling of it. You are credulous about the greatest of lies. And a mind that believes in lies—how will it find truth? If tomorrow you are told other lies—you will believe those too. In Germany, Hitler propagated many lies. He wrote in his autobiography that however great a lie may be, if it is repeated often enough, people accept it. And this is true. He convinced people that all of Germany’s downfall was due to the Jews. All sin rested upon the Jews’ heads. If Germany lost, it lost because of the Jews’ sin. Even his friends said, What madness is this! It is utterly false. There is no sense or coherence in it. But Hitler said, Don’t worry—propaganda turns falsehood into truth. He propagated for five or seven years, and the whole nation—an educated nation—agreed to believe that all sin lay with the Jews, and that by killing them the nation would advance. Such propaganda exists all over the world. The reason behind it is that belief has been implanted in us as a foundation—that we should accept. I want the link between dharma and belief to be broken. If your thirst is to take the right path, it will not be the path of belief, but of discernment—vivek. Why do we believe at all? Because inside we are indolent, slothful, lacking the labor of inquiry. We accept that whatever the other says must be right. The truth is: belief means only this—that there is no deep desire within us to know for ourselves. So we rest our hands upon another’s shoulder and agree, You show us the way. But is this ever possible? That by believing another our inner ignorance will be dissolved? However deeply we believe, however firmly—how will our ignorance vanish? Consider: you have no clue of God. You believe that God is—believe very deeply, with all your life—yet somewhere within you, at some inner point, you will still know: I have no knowledge of God. However much you believe, doubt will remain inside. It cannot be destroyed. Belief never destroys doubt. How could it? Belief has no real opposition to doubt. Belief is like this: a man falls ill and covers himself with clothes and thinks the illness is finished. Or someone has a deep abscess, cancer, a running sore—he covers it with beautiful flowers and imagines the illness has gone. Belief is a covering from above—but how will inner disease, inner ignorance be removed by it? Belief is like garments; it cannot transform your life-breath. Transformation of the life-breath comes through vivek—through one’s own inner discernment, through the awakening of one’s own prajna. Therefore belief is not the path. But we have been taught that belief is the path. We have been told the believers alone reach heaven—and nonbelievers have their place in hell. We have been told that if you do not believe you will be destroyed. These are lies. They have been repeated to propagate a certain thing. By belief no one ever reaches anywhere. Because belief is not the opposite of doubt. Belief does not end doubt. Yes—when doubt ends, one attains to truth. But doubt never ends through belief. Doubt ends through vivek. Understand this a little. Doubt arises within; beliefs come from without. That which arises within can be covered by anything that comes from without—but not removed. Doubt arises within; belief comes from outside. Vivek also arises within. Where the illness is, there alone can the remedy be. Beliefs are given by others; the doubt is yours. Vivek too is yours. Therefore vivek can destroy doubt—but belief cannot. And this is why there is so much belief in the world and yet—where is the religious man? So many believers—yet where is religiosity? Religiosity born of belief is utterly false. And not only false; it becomes the cause of leading man into deep hypocrisy. Whoever believes in another begins, because of belief, to impose a certain conduct upon himself. The conduct is imposed. Every person is split in two. One is his actuality; the other is the conduct forced upon him by belief. And a great conflict begins within. These two halves start fighting. Look within and you will see: your belief and your being fight continually. Your belief says ahimsa is truth; your being says violence is truth. Your belief says truthfulness is right; your being says falsehood is right. Your belief says brahmacharya is right; your being says sex is right. Within you there is ceaseless conflict. And a mind much in conflict becomes, little by little, dull. Its consciousness—its very power of awareness—diminishes. And with a diminished power of awareness—how will one know God, or truth? Beliefs throw you into conflict. And this is why, the more civilization advances, the more mental conflict grows. Because we now have powerful means to propagate beliefs. Beliefs can be widely spread—planted in people’s minds. Belief will reach there; their nature will remain as it was. The result is an inner turmoil, an inner conflict. They begin fighting within. One who fights within twenty-four hours a day will either become deranged—or become a hypocrite. Hypocrite means: he will say one thing and do another. If he is honest he will go mad—because no harmony can be achieved between the two. The tension grows intense—eventually it will break him. The more “civilized” man becomes, the deeper grows his inner tension. And what is its cause? The opposition between belief and being. Therefore, if in your country the number of deranged people keeps growing, if psychologically disordered people keep increasing—understand, you are becoming civilized. And the day your nation becomes entirely insane, when all minds are broken—understand, you have reached the perfection of civilization. Civilization completed. For this alone can be the result. And if not this, then you will all become hypocrites. You will say one thing, do another. You will desire one thing, preach another. Your preaching will be separate, your life separate. Your thoughts one way, your being another. It is like a man standing with a foot in two boats while they set off in different directions—his life is imperiled. So too, our lives are imperiled. Hence I say: belief is not the way. But does this mean I say disbelief is the way? Disbelief is not the way either. Because disbelief is merely a transformation of belief. One man says, I believe in God; another says, I disbelieve in God. But both proclamations are full of ignorance. The theist is wrong—and the atheist is wrong. In truth, the atheist is only the theist’s reaction. Belief and disbelief always stand upon the same ground. So when I say belief is wrong and not the real path of the search for truth, let no one imagine I am saying disbelief is right. Disbelief too is wrong. In my view, both theist and atheist are off the path of truth. Because both accept certain propositions without knowing. Both adopt assumptions without seeing. On the path of truth is the one who has neither belief nor disbelief—whose mind is open. Belief closes the mind. Disbelief closes the mind. The doors shut. The capacity to know withers. He gets encircled by his belief or disbelief. And both have consequences. The result of atheists is that people begin to assume there is no God, no Atman—so what is the point of seeking? A vast direction is closed by the atheist’s conviction. A great dimension through which life might have risen higher, tasted new experiences of beauty and bliss—that dimension the atheist’s conviction closes. Without knowing, without experimenting, without entering that realm, he asserts: there is nothing there. All over the world those influenced by atheists end their life upon the plane of the body. They who hold to atheism’s belief will end on the bodily level. For atheism denies any life beyond that, negates it. And if atheism is propagated, your minds will accept it. Today atheism is being propagated with intensity. Theists are frightened because their beliefs are being robbed. Atheism is in vigorous propaganda. Perhaps in a hundred or two hundred years a large portion of the world will be atheist. That will be dangerous—because the path of ascent in people’s lives will vanish. If the notion arises that there is no higher way, then the longing to rise dies of itself—and we begin to live on a lower plane. The danger of the atheist’s belief is that he closes the very doors that lead toward Paramatma. The danger of the theist’s belief is that under the name of God he sends out certain imaginations—and those who grow eager in them also remain deprived of Paramatma. Instead of Paramatma they begin dreaming of God: someone sees Rama, someone Krishna, someone Christ. None of this is an experience of Paramatma. These are our imaginations. If we intensify imagination, experiences can occur. Whosoever has seen Rama, Krishna, Christ, Buddha, Mahavira—know that he is experiencing his own imagination. The human mind has a great capacity to dream. A vast capacity for imagination. So far can it go that the other appears fully in the flesh. After all, what do the insane do? Exactly this. Their capacity for imagination becomes intense; their discernment goes to zero, imagination becomes powerful. They can see whomever they wish. What do the world’s great littérateurs, poets, painters do? Their imagination too becomes intense—they begin to experience people. I have heard of Tolstoy in Russia. He was writing a novel—Resurrection. There is a female character in it. One morning he went to a library to look up some books. As he climbed the stairs, the woman—the character from his novel—was also walking with him. No one else was there. In his imagination that woman walked with him. The way was narrow; the steps were small. A man was coming down from above. There was passage enough for two, not for three. Lest the woman be jostled, Tolstoy suddenly pulled aside, fell from the stairs, and broke his leg. People asked, Why did you dodge? There was room enough for two. He said, You could see two; with me there was a third. She—my character, my female character from the novel—she was with me. I was talking to her as I climbed. People said, He must be mad! Of Alexandre Dumas it is told that many times his neighbors surrounded his house—he would get into quarrels with his characters. The characters of the novel or play he was writing would become so vivid that he would begin arguing with them. He was alone in the room. The people of the quarter would gather, force the door, find him alone. Whom are you talking to? He would say—to the characters of my novel. All poets, all writers of the world, in their imagination make their characters flesh and blood. All the insane make their imaginations concrete. Not only outside—even inwardly your imagination can take form. In India’s jails, when Nehru was alive, some ten Nehrus were incarcerated. Some ten madmen across the country declared, We are Jawaharlal Nehru. When Churchill was in power, some fifteen men in Britain’s insane asylums said, We are Winston Churchill. They were not lying. They had believed it; they had imagined it thoroughly. I have heard, Nehru once went to see an asylum. That very day a madman was being discharged—he had been restored to health. The asylum officials said it would delight him if Nehru himself set him free. Nehru did. When they introduced him, the officials said, This is Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. The madman looked closely and said, Don’t worry—you too will be well in a year or two. At first I too had the same delusion that I am Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. If you stay here a year or two, you will be perfectly fine. Nehru must have been alarmed—What is he saying? But the man spoke the truth. He had come as Nehru; now cured, he was going back. What happens to the mad? And do you imagine that one who keeps repeating day and night, I am Brahman, I am Brahman—if he fasts and repeats, repeats—little by little he begins to have the delusion that he is Brahman. He begins to declare, I am Brahman, I am Paramatma. Even today there are some three hundred people in the world declaring, We are God—we are avatars of God. Something is a little off in their minds. Their minds have projected some belief deeply. They have sat down in belief over some idea. There was the caliph Umar. Muslims do not like that anyone should say, I am God. A man proclaimed, I am God’s messenger. He must have been mad. He proclaimed, I am a prophet of God. The Muslims said, The prophet was Muhammad—now there can be no prophet. He was seized and brought to Umar’s court. Umar said, Drop this madness. I have many such prophets imprisoned. But he said, Madness? I have been sent by God Himself—He told me to go and deliver my message to the world. He was locked up. Next day Umar went to see him in the asylum—perhaps he might agree to drop it and be released. When he arrived, there were two men sitting at the threshold of the cell. One sat facing the wall; the man who called himself prophet sat on the steps. Umar said, Look, bring your wits to order. Drop this madness and I can let you go—otherwise your life will be wasted in confinement. The man laughed, What foolish talk are you speaking? I have been sent by God Himself. I am His prophet. I have come with His message. Prophets have always suffered hardships. No sooner had he said this than the one sitting facing the wall turned and said to Umar, Umar—do not believe a word he says. I am God Himself—I have never sent him! After Muhammad I have sent no one. The second madman took himself to be God. The minds of the mad have the capacity to believe deeply in anything. In truth, belief is a form of madness—whether imposed upon oneself or upon another. Those who see Rama, Krishna, Christ—these are imaginative people. They are not experiencing any truth. They have entered deep imagination. And there are methods for entering imagination. If one fasts long, the capacity of intellect is weakened. Therefore all seekers who wish to experience by imagination make fasting mandatory. The deeper the fast, the less vivid the brightness of intellect—and the more the power of dream is released. The less nourishment the body receives, the less becomes the faculty of knowing, and the deeper the faculty of imagination. Therefore the world’s imaginative people stand in support of fasting. Long fasting enfeebles intelligence and intensifies imagination. As you may have experienced in a long illness—when little food is taken, when days are long in sickness—you are seized by many imaginations. Your bed begins to fly—you rise to the sky. Who knows what you have become—wings have sprouted and you are flying. And it all seems real. As the capacity of intellect wanes, imagination thickens. And if the same imagination is repeated often, hypnosis arises. If a man repeats from morning till evening—I am ill, I am very ill—after two or four days he will find himself deeply ill. If a sick man repeats—I will die, on such a day I will die, on that date and hour—I tell you, on that date and hour he will die. Whatever you repeat, your mind becomes ready to accept it. Repeat it much—and the mind consents. Those who worship Rama or Krishna or Mahavira or Buddha, repeating that they may have darshan, sitting before the image and holding the form in the mind—little by little imagination thickens and they may have experiences. Those experiences will be utterly untrue—creations of their own imagination. They are not experiences of truth or Paramatma—because Paramatma has no form, no image. In truth, Paramatma is not a person to be encountered. Paramatma is an experience like love—no one appears before you to be seen, but the very quality of your life changes. You become something different. We shall discuss what that experience of truth or Paramatma is. But I tell you: belief is not its path. Belief is only a transformation of imagination. Belief is a way to become deranged. And disbelief is not the way either—for disbelief shuts the doors altogether, while belief gives the wrong door. A field of chitta in which there is neither belief nor disbelief becomes capable of knowing truth. Such a chitta is religious—a chitta that is neither theist nor atheist. The atheist is not religious; the theist is not religious. The atheist is anti-religious; the theist runs behind a wrong religion. The chitta that is neither theist nor atheist—that alone is a religious chitta. Only such a mind can be called a religious mind—capable of knowing truth. Such a mind is innocent. It has no beliefs and no disbeliefs. It is unbound, open. It can know things as they are. The believer wants to impose his belief. The disbeliever wants to impose his disbelief. As the world is, as truth is—they are not willing to see. Only a mind beyond both becomes capable of seeing truth as it is. To see truth you should have no notions at all—not of being Hindu or Muslim, not Jain or Buddhist, not theist or atheist. Your chitta should be entirely free of beliefs, void of notions. You should have no belief, no shraddha. If the mind is thus free, you will be capable. The path will open. The path is: neither belief nor disbelief—but freedom of chitta. Freedom is the path. A bound chitta is a halted chitta. One who has bound his chitta anywhere—be it to Rama or to Krishna, to the Gita or the Quran—such a chitta is fettered. And a fettered chitta—what can it know? A halted chitta—where can it go? It is like a stagnant pool round which walls have been raised. That pool can never reach the ocean. Its only destiny is to bake, to rot, to evaporate—and to dry up. A mind bound by notions is like water trapped in small pits. A mind unbound by any notion is like a river running toward the sea. A river too has banks—but the river is not bound by its banks. One bank is belief; one bank is disbelief. Only he reaches the ocean whose chitta is not tied to either bank and passes through the middle. One bank is theist; one bank is atheist. Whoso moors his boat to these banks—stops right there. He who ties his boat to neither, and lets himself be carried by the current in the middle—the current of life, the current of consciousness, the current of knowing—without stopping anywhere—surely he will reach the ocean. As the Ganga issues from the Himalayas and races to the sea, so must the chitta break out of all confinements and move toward truth—only then shall we arrive. If we stop anywhere, we become stagnant pools. Most minds have become like stagnant pools—their waters putrid. Life’s heat evaporates them steadily—they are drying up. This drying up is becoming old; flowing is staying young. Only a youthful mind can know truth. A mind made old by walls cannot. In truth, for knowing truth, freedom is indispensable—freedom of every kind. And these freedoms are not simply those that keep you out of a physical jail or free of literal chains. A friend of mine, a sadhu who loved me, once told me a reminiscence. He was in jail—he was somewhat revolutionary, and in a movement was imprisoned. There also was a chamar prisoner—he was Muslim, a leather-worker. He was so strong, so powerful a wrestler, that he could break any chain with his hands. My friend was amazed. He said, I want to see with my own eyes. They called him. His name was Jumman. He asked, I have heard you can break any chain. The man said, I can break any chain, get out of any confinement. But if the government gives me assurance I won’t be arrested again, within two days I will get out by any means. My friend said, Can I see you break a chain? He broke a chain and showed it. He said, Chains are no trouble. When he broke it, he took Allah’s name. My friend said, Can you break a chain taking the name of Ram? The man trembled. The name of Ram! He could not even utter it. My friend told me: he was so strong he could shatter iron—but he could not break Allah’s chain! He trembled to utter Ram! He who could break iron feared to take the name of Ram—how could he take it? He who believes in Allah—how can he utter Ram? In China there was a fakir, Fahsan. His fame was that he feared nothing. If someone thrust a dagger into his chest, his eyelids would not flicker. If snakes coiled around him, he stroked them without a word. If a lion roared in the forest behind him, he would not even turn to look. A young monk went to meet him. He lived far in the mountain forest. Fahsan had grown old—his fame had spread through the land: fearlessness. The young monk went. As he sat beside him at dusk, a bear roared behind them and shook a bush. Fahsan sat as he was. The youth sprang up in alarm and cried, Life is in danger! The old man laughed. He said, You are afraid? One who is afraid can never find God. The fearful can go nowhere. The fearful are stuck everywhere. The youth said, I am very shaken. I am thirsty—bring me a little water. Fahsan went into the hut for water. As he returned with it, the youth had written on the rock where the old monk sat: Namo Buddhaya—homage to Buddha. The monk came, handed the water. As he placed his foot upon the rock to sit, he saw the sacred name inscribed below—his foot stopped. He shook. How can I place my foot upon the sacred name of the Lord! The young monk said, You too are afraid. And how will a fearful mind attain to Paramatma? Then my fear is natural; yours is unnatural—this is the holy name of the Lord—how can your foot be placed upon it! Subtle bonds grip the human mind—of beliefs, of pieties. You roam the world free—no prison, no chains in your hands. But look into your mind—it is bound by chains upon chains. Somewhere the Hindu’s chain, somewhere the Muslim’s, somewhere the Christian’s—your chitta is ringed by chains. A Jain monk was a guest with me the other day. Early in the morning he said, I wish to go to the temple. I asked, For what? He said, For a little prayer and meditation. I said, My house is more silent than any temple—do it here. He said, No—the temple is silent. I said, The Jain temple here is in the bazaar—very noisy. If you don’t agree, then there is a church next door—let us go there. It is utterly quiet. It is not even Sunday—no one will be there. I can take you. He said, A church! How can I go to a church? I said, Then how will this mind become quiet? How will it meditate? A mind whose bondage is so deep that it thinks it can only be silent in a Jain temple—how will such a chitta be silent? If solitude is needed—it is there in the church. What is the danger in a church? Only that a board is affixed saying “church”—and that is danger! This is proof of a dull, cramped mind—what else? Our minds are gripped within by very deep chains. And how can such a bound mind soar toward the sky? The flight toward Paramatma is a skyward flight. Wings must be spread—and chains must be broken. If the chains of chitta are not broken, no path will be right. A traveler bound in chains—wherever he reaches, it will still be a prison. He cannot reach beyond prison. So—breaking the chains of chitta is the path. Breaking all kinds of chains. I do not say—break one kind and take up another. The Hindu tells the Muslim, Break all your chains—but wants him to accept the Hindu’s chains. The Christian wants the Hindu to break all his chains, declare, What Ram and what Ramayana—nonsense—but he wants the Bible and Christ’s chains to bind him. All the religions of the world want to load their chains and free you from the others. This they call conversion. They say the man has changed. This is no conversion—it is only a change of slavery. The conversion I am speaking of is this: Drop all chains of every kind and accept no new chain—that is conversion. Then you have entered dharma. You are free. Become free of Hindu, Muslim, Christian—free of all. When there is no chain upon you, then you stand where the river toward truth begins to flow. A Hindu becoming a Muslim is no conversion. It is a change of bondage. Like men carrying a corpse upon a bier—when one shoulder tires, they shift it to another. A little relief comes. Then again it must be shifted. A Hindu becomes a Muslim—he feels a change has occurred. A Muslim becomes a Hindu—he feels a change. A Jain becomes a Buddhist—he feels a change. All futile. The change of slaveries is no change. New bondage feels pleasant for a while; then, grown old, it becomes as burdensome as the last. The conversion I speak for, the transformation I call for, is not going from one prison to another—but becoming free of all prisons. Do not bind your chitta anywhere if you would lead it to truth. Do not halt your intelligence anywhere if you would reach the ocean. Do not overlay your Atman with any imposition—of belief or disbelief, of doctrine or scripture—if you would give your Atman wings to fly into the sky of truth. That very Atman that is free to fly—becomes capable of reaching Paramatma. The path is: neither belief nor disbelief; neither theism nor atheism; neither Hindu nor Muslim; neither Jain nor Buddhist. The negation of all these, the renunciation of all bonds—and the liberation of chitta. Let chitta be free—freedom of chitta is the path to truth. These few things I have said as to the path of truth. Tomorrow morning we will discuss the Gate of truth. And the day after, we will discuss entering that Gate. In all these talks my hope is that you will not merely listen, but understand. Because listening is not enough. And if you truly understand, some things begin to clarify of themselves. And for right understanding it is necessary that at least for the time you listen, you set your bonds aside. Those bonds of yours, those chains of being Hindu or Muslim—if you listen through their veils, then listening will be difficult. My words will not reach you. I will go on speaking—my words will not reach you, because your walls will stand between. At least for the time you listen, set your chains aside. As when we enter a house, we leave our shoes outside—bring your shoes in if you like, there is no harm—but leave your chains at the door. Leave outside your being Hindu, Muslim, Jain—then listening to me will become possible. And in that quiet listening, perhaps as you listen, a transformation and revolution will begin within you. If a thing is truly heard, it begins instantly to make a difference within. And I hope that in four days you will listen. Perhaps some word will touch a string of your heart. Perhaps a longing for freedom will awaken, and you will be filled with the aspiration to be free. You have listened to my words with love—I am very grateful. And in the end, I bow to the Paramatma dwelling within all. Please accept my pranam.
Osho's Commentary
In the search for truth, or for the meaning of life, we reflected on the very first thing, the very first prerequisite. As it appears to me, I have said it to you: if there is no thirst, within us no beginning is ever made toward the attainment of life’s meaning. Thirst is the seed. And that seed of thirst, developing, sprouting, becomes sadhana in a human being’s life. How to give birth to thirst—that we considered a little.
If we look at life and look at life’s truth, then that which we are taking to be satisfaction will begin to sprout as dissatisfaction. Those very things by which we feel content will make us discontent. That which seems to be light will begin to look like darkness. That which seems to be life will appear as if it were death. What we have supposed to be “everything” will appear to be nothing—and that we are lost in a great dream. If this insight does not dawn, if this experience does not befall, thirst does not arise.
We considered that the sorrow of life and life’s dissolving into death become, within a human being, the search for Paramatma. And I also said to you: if the attention does not turn in this direction, if the current of attention does not flow toward the interior of man, we cannot even come to know who is within. We can only know that toward which the stream of our attention runs, toward which the current of our chitta runs. That toward which our inner gaze turns alone becomes real. That from which our inner gaze is absent loses its very reality.
I will tell a small story, and then begin today’s talk.
It is recorded in the life of a Muslim king. He went hunting in the forest. The sun set; evening descended. He could not return to the village. He lost his way. So he sat down upon a forest footpath and offered his evening prayer. He had just begun his prayer—had barely bowed his head in devotion to the Divine—when a young woman, running, gave him a jolt, almost treading over the hem of his prayer garment, and ran off into the jungle.
He grew very angry. He thought, What kind of foolish, ill-mannered woman is this! Does she not even know someone is praying? And then too, does she not notice that the king of the land is praying—ought she not to avoid shoving him?
When he finished the prayer, he found the woman returning. He stopped her and said, What kind of insolence is this, what kind of lack of culture—that while the king of the land is praying, you push him aside and go on! And even if it were not the king, if it were any other human being praying, you should at least pass by with modesty and not press your way through so rudely.
The young woman said, Were you praying in the middle of the path? I knew nothing of it. I was on my way to meet my lover; I had no awareness of who was or was not on the way. I saw no one; I did not see you. But, she said, I am astonished—you were praying to the Lord, and yet you were aware I pushed you? If that was truly prayer, if your attention was toward the Lord, there ought not to have been any awareness of my shove. I was mad after my lover—so I remained unaware of you. Are you not at least that mad for Paramatma? My thirst was toward my lover, so I saw nothing at all. But was your thirst toward Paramatma not so deep that you would not even be aware of me, of my passing by?
Surely, if awareness is centered on one side, the other side dissolves. And if, in prayer, something else is also being experienced, then know that the prayer is false. Wherever awareness goes, it alone reveals the reality present there. All the rest becomes void.
Our awareness is not turned inward—therefore Atman appears to us to be nonexistent, and the world seems to be real. If awareness turns inward, another truth is known: the world is not, and the Atman is. And if awareness becomes linked both ways, we will know: the world too has a certain reality, and the Atman too has a certain reality.
In life we only experience that into which our awareness has entered. We are reflecting on the development of that awareness.
I said first: thirst is needed. I suppose you have understood this.
But thirst alone is not enough. Because thirst can carry you onto wrong tracks as well. It is not necessary that thirst lead you toward the lake—it may carry you in the opposite direction. For thirst alone is not a guide. Many people do not even have thirst. And among those who do, many are carried onto wrong paths by their very thirst. Only when there is thirst and the right path is there any attainment in life.
So, in the second step, I want to reflect on the path.
Let there be thirst—but what is the path by which thirst can be quenched?
Ordinarily, our thirst leads us astray. Across the whole world thirst has led people onto wrong roads. When a person becomes thirsty for Paramatma, we observe he begins to go to temples, or to mosques, or to churches. We see someone become eager for God, and he becomes eager for temples and mosques and churches. But human history tells us that those who went to temples, churches, mosques have hardly attained to Paramatma—yet they have surely been useful in fragmenting man, in harming man, in breaking humanity.
If we look at human history we will find that in the name of these theists, of these religionists, there is such sin, such murder, such violence—beyond all reckoning. In the name of atheists there are not so many sins. Atheists have not done great evil in the world, have not brought great harm to humanity. But theists have. And their headquarters have been temples, mosques, churches. These headquarters have broken man. And that which breaks man from man—how will it unite man with Paramatma? That which separates me from my neighbor—how can it take me to God? Yet people with religious curiosity very soon convert their longing into curiosity for temples and mosques. Thirst has taken a wrong road.
Remember, temples and mosques are also outside. As shops are outside, as houses are outside—so too are temples and mosques outside. And he who goes searching for Paramatma outwardly—his awareness will not turn within.
Nanak was a guest at the Muslim pilgrimage of Mecca. At night, when he slept there, he stretched his feet toward the sacred stone of the Kaaba. The priest came and said, Your feet are toward the sacred stone, toward God—turn them some other way before you sleep.
Nanak said, Then turn my feet in that direction where God is not. Nanak said a most wondrous thing: Turn my feet in the direction where God is not.
He whose gaze is in the temple gets the notion that God is in the temple—then what is the rest of the world? He whose gaze is in the mosque thinks God is in the mosque—then what is the rest of existence?
One who believes in temple or mosque does not attain God, but he does attain a highly one-sided notion of God, a highly fragmentary image of God—God confined, imprisoned. And then the result is that religion does not come into his life; sect does. No saintliness arises in his life; cruelty does. Not love, but hatred; not openness, but organization and aversion.
The religions of the whole world are organized—for the sake of hatred. One against the other—temple against mosque, mosque against temple. And remember, whatever stands against anyone cannot be in favor of Paramatma—because Paramatma is the name of the Whole. If within that Whole there is opposition to any part, then finally it becomes opposition to Paramatma. Therefore, if one has gone to seek God, no temple and no mosque can give Him. One must enter into knowing the whole of life—and its door is within, not without.
I have heard of a fakir. Until the age of seventy he went daily to the temple. He joined in the Lord’s prayer. He never missed a single day. For some forty-five years the villagers had seen him always going to the temple. Sick—yet he went. Unwell—yet he went. Old—yet he went. Not a day was missed. At seventy, one day they found he had not come to the temple. People were amazed. Unless he had died, no other reason seemed possible.
They all went toward the sadhu’s hut. They saw him sitting under a tree with a small tambourine in his hand, beating time—singing. They were astonished. At this age has atheism occurred to you? Has the lifelong endeavor, the lifelong discipline of going to the temple come to an end?
The old sadhu said, Until I knew not where God’s temple is, I kept going to your temple. Now I know where God’s temple is; now there is no need for me to go to any temple.
They asked, What is God’s temple?
The sadhu said, This whole nature, this entire creation—if there is any temple of God, this is it. Beyond this there can be no other temple. And if there is any door by which to enter God’s temple, it is within me. That door cannot be outside. To that universal Reality, the closest door is through our own within. If I am to be related to That, the door will be within.
Therefore I said: even if thirst arises, it often goes wrong. And the result of misdirected thirst is that there are so many religions in the world. Otherwise, there should be only one dharma.
How can there be so many religions?
Truth can only be one—untruths can be many.
These many religions indicate that dharma, in its fullness, in its perfect truth, is not being attained. It is not reaching its complete flowering. If people’s thirst did not go wrong, organizations would dissolve. Temples and mosques would vanish. Priests and pundits, the brokers who have made a business of exploiting man’s thirst, man’s inner longing—they would all disappear. For some five thousand years the exploitation of man’s inner aspiration has been going on. And in its name—who knows what all has been done! Now the time has come for this exploitation to end. But it will end only when our thirst takes the right direction. If our thirst goes astray, this will continue.
At the root of all this exploitation—the road by which our thirst is led astray—is belief. We have been told to believe. For three or four thousand years it has been repeated that we should believe—believe in the Gita, the Quran, the Bible; believe in Mahavira, Buddha, Krishna, Christ. We are told there is no need for our own discernment. We should accept what others say. This is deeply self-destructive. And for one who would seek truth, the way cannot be the way of belief. The way of belief is the way of ignorance and darkness. Whoever believes cripples his own movement, cuts off his own feet with his own hands.
Have you ever seen a believer attain to truth? It has not happened yet—and it cannot happen. Belief is no way at all. And belief has had disastrous consequences. The outcome of belief is that, without knowledge, we acquire the pretense and pride of being knowledgeable.
Most of us accept Atman, accept God. If I ask you—does this acceptance stand upon your own knowing or upon your ignorance? Have you known—or merely accepted? Is it something others told you—or is it arrived at from within your own experience? If it is what others said—be they parents, elders, or great sages—then remember, you cannot see with another’s eyes, you cannot walk with another’s feet—then how can another’s knowledge become your knowledge? Another’s knowledge will give you the illusion of knowing—and you will remain standing in ignorance.
Whoever believes, ends his life in ignorance. Belief—belief in another, faith in another—never takes anyone anywhere. And its lethal results are visible.
In 1917 there was a revolution in Russia. Before the revolution the country was religious—like we are religious. There too were churches and temples and mosques. People worshiped there and prayed there. People read the Quran and the Bible there. After 1917, for twenty or twenty-five years the government propagated: there is no God, no Atman, no afterlife, no karma, no rebirth. In twenty years of propaganda, two hundred million people accepted that there is no God, no Atman, no Paramatma. You will say—what mad people!
But I tell you—they were not mad. They had been trained in the habit of belief. For five thousand years they had been taught to believe. They had the habit of belief. A new propaganda was presented—they believed that too.
If communism were to come to this land, these very temple-goers—these very ones—would stand against the temples. These very worshipers of idols would become idol-breakers. Because they have the habit of believing. Whatever is told to them, they will accept. Today they believe in God; tomorrow they will believe that there is no God. Their habit is belief. They can be made to believe anything. Any lie, however great—if incessantly propagated—they will believe.
For you, God is truth. You are believing in a great lie. For you, it is a lie. For those who have known, it will be truth. But you merely believe that God is—and you have not the slightest clue. You believe there is Atman—and you have no glimpse of the Atman. You believe there is a next birth—and you have no inkling of it. You are credulous about the greatest of lies. And a mind that believes in lies—how will it find truth? If tomorrow you are told other lies—you will believe those too.
In Germany, Hitler propagated many lies. He wrote in his autobiography that however great a lie may be, if it is repeated often enough, people accept it. And this is true. He convinced people that all of Germany’s downfall was due to the Jews. All sin rested upon the Jews’ heads. If Germany lost, it lost because of the Jews’ sin.
Even his friends said, What madness is this! It is utterly false. There is no sense or coherence in it.
But Hitler said, Don’t worry—propaganda turns falsehood into truth. He propagated for five or seven years, and the whole nation—an educated nation—agreed to believe that all sin lay with the Jews, and that by killing them the nation would advance.
Such propaganda exists all over the world. The reason behind it is that belief has been implanted in us as a foundation—that we should accept.
I want the link between dharma and belief to be broken. If your thirst is to take the right path, it will not be the path of belief, but of discernment—vivek. Why do we believe at all? Because inside we are indolent, slothful, lacking the labor of inquiry. We accept that whatever the other says must be right.
The truth is: belief means only this—that there is no deep desire within us to know for ourselves. So we rest our hands upon another’s shoulder and agree, You show us the way. But is this ever possible? That by believing another our inner ignorance will be dissolved? However deeply we believe, however firmly—how will our ignorance vanish?
Consider: you have no clue of God. You believe that God is—believe very deeply, with all your life—yet somewhere within you, at some inner point, you will still know: I have no knowledge of God. However much you believe, doubt will remain inside. It cannot be destroyed. Belief never destroys doubt. How could it? Belief has no real opposition to doubt. Belief is like this: a man falls ill and covers himself with clothes and thinks the illness is finished. Or someone has a deep abscess, cancer, a running sore—he covers it with beautiful flowers and imagines the illness has gone. Belief is a covering from above—but how will inner disease, inner ignorance be removed by it? Belief is like garments; it cannot transform your life-breath. Transformation of the life-breath comes through vivek—through one’s own inner discernment, through the awakening of one’s own prajna.
Therefore belief is not the path. But we have been taught that belief is the path. We have been told the believers alone reach heaven—and nonbelievers have their place in hell. We have been told that if you do not believe you will be destroyed.
These are lies. They have been repeated to propagate a certain thing. By belief no one ever reaches anywhere. Because belief is not the opposite of doubt. Belief does not end doubt. Yes—when doubt ends, one attains to truth. But doubt never ends through belief. Doubt ends through vivek.
Understand this a little.
Doubt arises within; beliefs come from without. That which arises within can be covered by anything that comes from without—but not removed. Doubt arises within; belief comes from outside. Vivek also arises within. Where the illness is, there alone can the remedy be. Beliefs are given by others; the doubt is yours. Vivek too is yours. Therefore vivek can destroy doubt—but belief cannot. And this is why there is so much belief in the world and yet—where is the religious man? So many believers—yet where is religiosity?
Religiosity born of belief is utterly false. And not only false; it becomes the cause of leading man into deep hypocrisy. Whoever believes in another begins, because of belief, to impose a certain conduct upon himself. The conduct is imposed. Every person is split in two. One is his actuality; the other is the conduct forced upon him by belief. And a great conflict begins within. These two halves start fighting.
Look within and you will see: your belief and your being fight continually. Your belief says ahimsa is truth; your being says violence is truth. Your belief says truthfulness is right; your being says falsehood is right. Your belief says brahmacharya is right; your being says sex is right. Within you there is ceaseless conflict. And a mind much in conflict becomes, little by little, dull. Its consciousness—its very power of awareness—diminishes. And with a diminished power of awareness—how will one know God, or truth?
Beliefs throw you into conflict. And this is why, the more civilization advances, the more mental conflict grows. Because we now have powerful means to propagate beliefs. Beliefs can be widely spread—planted in people’s minds. Belief will reach there; their nature will remain as it was. The result is an inner turmoil, an inner conflict. They begin fighting within. One who fights within twenty-four hours a day will either become deranged—or become a hypocrite. Hypocrite means: he will say one thing and do another. If he is honest he will go mad—because no harmony can be achieved between the two. The tension grows intense—eventually it will break him. The more “civilized” man becomes, the deeper grows his inner tension. And what is its cause? The opposition between belief and being.
Therefore, if in your country the number of deranged people keeps growing, if psychologically disordered people keep increasing—understand, you are becoming civilized. And the day your nation becomes entirely insane, when all minds are broken—understand, you have reached the perfection of civilization. Civilization completed. For this alone can be the result. And if not this, then you will all become hypocrites. You will say one thing, do another. You will desire one thing, preach another. Your preaching will be separate, your life separate. Your thoughts one way, your being another. It is like a man standing with a foot in two boats while they set off in different directions—his life is imperiled. So too, our lives are imperiled.
Hence I say: belief is not the way.
But does this mean I say disbelief is the way?
Disbelief is not the way either.
Because disbelief is merely a transformation of belief. One man says, I believe in God; another says, I disbelieve in God. But both proclamations are full of ignorance. The theist is wrong—and the atheist is wrong. In truth, the atheist is only the theist’s reaction. Belief and disbelief always stand upon the same ground.
So when I say belief is wrong and not the real path of the search for truth, let no one imagine I am saying disbelief is right. Disbelief too is wrong.
In my view, both theist and atheist are off the path of truth. Because both accept certain propositions without knowing. Both adopt assumptions without seeing. On the path of truth is the one who has neither belief nor disbelief—whose mind is open.
Belief closes the mind. Disbelief closes the mind. The doors shut. The capacity to know withers. He gets encircled by his belief or disbelief. And both have consequences. The result of atheists is that people begin to assume there is no God, no Atman—so what is the point of seeking? A vast direction is closed by the atheist’s conviction. A great dimension through which life might have risen higher, tasted new experiences of beauty and bliss—that dimension the atheist’s conviction closes. Without knowing, without experimenting, without entering that realm, he asserts: there is nothing there.
All over the world those influenced by atheists end their life upon the plane of the body. They who hold to atheism’s belief will end on the bodily level. For atheism denies any life beyond that, negates it. And if atheism is propagated, your minds will accept it.
Today atheism is being propagated with intensity. Theists are frightened because their beliefs are being robbed. Atheism is in vigorous propaganda. Perhaps in a hundred or two hundred years a large portion of the world will be atheist. That will be dangerous—because the path of ascent in people’s lives will vanish. If the notion arises that there is no higher way, then the longing to rise dies of itself—and we begin to live on a lower plane.
The danger of the atheist’s belief is that he closes the very doors that lead toward Paramatma.
The danger of the theist’s belief is that under the name of God he sends out certain imaginations—and those who grow eager in them also remain deprived of Paramatma. Instead of Paramatma they begin dreaming of God: someone sees Rama, someone Krishna, someone Christ. None of this is an experience of Paramatma. These are our imaginations. If we intensify imagination, experiences can occur. Whosoever has seen Rama, Krishna, Christ, Buddha, Mahavira—know that he is experiencing his own imagination.
The human mind has a great capacity to dream. A vast capacity for imagination. So far can it go that the other appears fully in the flesh. After all, what do the insane do? Exactly this. Their capacity for imagination becomes intense; their discernment goes to zero, imagination becomes powerful. They can see whomever they wish. What do the world’s great littérateurs, poets, painters do? Their imagination too becomes intense—they begin to experience people.
I have heard of Tolstoy in Russia. He was writing a novel—Resurrection. There is a female character in it. One morning he went to a library to look up some books. As he climbed the stairs, the woman—the character from his novel—was also walking with him. No one else was there. In his imagination that woman walked with him. The way was narrow; the steps were small. A man was coming down from above. There was passage enough for two, not for three. Lest the woman be jostled, Tolstoy suddenly pulled aside, fell from the stairs, and broke his leg.
People asked, Why did you dodge? There was room enough for two.
He said, You could see two; with me there was a third. She—my character, my female character from the novel—she was with me. I was talking to her as I climbed.
People said, He must be mad!
Of Alexandre Dumas it is told that many times his neighbors surrounded his house—he would get into quarrels with his characters. The characters of the novel or play he was writing would become so vivid that he would begin arguing with them. He was alone in the room. The people of the quarter would gather, force the door, find him alone. Whom are you talking to? He would say—to the characters of my novel.
All poets, all writers of the world, in their imagination make their characters flesh and blood. All the insane make their imaginations concrete. Not only outside—even inwardly your imagination can take form.
In India’s jails, when Nehru was alive, some ten Nehrus were incarcerated. Some ten madmen across the country declared, We are Jawaharlal Nehru. When Churchill was in power, some fifteen men in Britain’s insane asylums said, We are Winston Churchill. They were not lying. They had believed it; they had imagined it thoroughly.
I have heard, Nehru once went to see an asylum. That very day a madman was being discharged—he had been restored to health. The asylum officials said it would delight him if Nehru himself set him free. Nehru did. When they introduced him, the officials said, This is Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. The madman looked closely and said, Don’t worry—you too will be well in a year or two. At first I too had the same delusion that I am Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. If you stay here a year or two, you will be perfectly fine.
Nehru must have been alarmed—What is he saying? But the man spoke the truth. He had come as Nehru; now cured, he was going back.
What happens to the mad? And do you imagine that one who keeps repeating day and night, I am Brahman, I am Brahman—if he fasts and repeats, repeats—little by little he begins to have the delusion that he is Brahman. He begins to declare, I am Brahman, I am Paramatma.
Even today there are some three hundred people in the world declaring, We are God—we are avatars of God. Something is a little off in their minds. Their minds have projected some belief deeply. They have sat down in belief over some idea.
There was the caliph Umar. Muslims do not like that anyone should say, I am God. A man proclaimed, I am God’s messenger. He must have been mad. He proclaimed, I am a prophet of God. The Muslims said, The prophet was Muhammad—now there can be no prophet. He was seized and brought to Umar’s court.
Umar said, Drop this madness. I have many such prophets imprisoned.
But he said, Madness? I have been sent by God Himself—He told me to go and deliver my message to the world. He was locked up.
Next day Umar went to see him in the asylum—perhaps he might agree to drop it and be released. When he arrived, there were two men sitting at the threshold of the cell. One sat facing the wall; the man who called himself prophet sat on the steps. Umar said, Look, bring your wits to order. Drop this madness and I can let you go—otherwise your life will be wasted in confinement.
The man laughed, What foolish talk are you speaking? I have been sent by God Himself. I am His prophet. I have come with His message. Prophets have always suffered hardships. No sooner had he said this than the one sitting facing the wall turned and said to Umar, Umar—do not believe a word he says. I am God Himself—I have never sent him! After Muhammad I have sent no one. The second madman took himself to be God.
The minds of the mad have the capacity to believe deeply in anything. In truth, belief is a form of madness—whether imposed upon oneself or upon another. Those who see Rama, Krishna, Christ—these are imaginative people. They are not experiencing any truth. They have entered deep imagination. And there are methods for entering imagination. If one fasts long, the capacity of intellect is weakened. Therefore all seekers who wish to experience by imagination make fasting mandatory. The deeper the fast, the less vivid the brightness of intellect—and the more the power of dream is released. The less nourishment the body receives, the less becomes the faculty of knowing, and the deeper the faculty of imagination. Therefore the world’s imaginative people stand in support of fasting. Long fasting enfeebles intelligence and intensifies imagination.
As you may have experienced in a long illness—when little food is taken, when days are long in sickness—you are seized by many imaginations. Your bed begins to fly—you rise to the sky. Who knows what you have become—wings have sprouted and you are flying. And it all seems real. As the capacity of intellect wanes, imagination thickens. And if the same imagination is repeated often, hypnosis arises.
If a man repeats from morning till evening—I am ill, I am very ill—after two or four days he will find himself deeply ill. If a sick man repeats—I will die, on such a day I will die, on that date and hour—I tell you, on that date and hour he will die.
Whatever you repeat, your mind becomes ready to accept it. Repeat it much—and the mind consents.
Those who worship Rama or Krishna or Mahavira or Buddha, repeating that they may have darshan, sitting before the image and holding the form in the mind—little by little imagination thickens and they may have experiences. Those experiences will be utterly untrue—creations of their own imagination. They are not experiences of truth or Paramatma—because Paramatma has no form, no image.
In truth, Paramatma is not a person to be encountered. Paramatma is an experience like love—no one appears before you to be seen, but the very quality of your life changes. You become something different.
We shall discuss what that experience of truth or Paramatma is.
But I tell you: belief is not its path. Belief is only a transformation of imagination. Belief is a way to become deranged. And disbelief is not the way either—for disbelief shuts the doors altogether, while belief gives the wrong door.
A field of chitta in which there is neither belief nor disbelief becomes capable of knowing truth. Such a chitta is religious—a chitta that is neither theist nor atheist.
The atheist is not religious; the theist is not religious. The atheist is anti-religious; the theist runs behind a wrong religion. The chitta that is neither theist nor atheist—that alone is a religious chitta. Only such a mind can be called a religious mind—capable of knowing truth. Such a mind is innocent. It has no beliefs and no disbeliefs. It is unbound, open. It can know things as they are.
The believer wants to impose his belief. The disbeliever wants to impose his disbelief. As the world is, as truth is—they are not willing to see.
Only a mind beyond both becomes capable of seeing truth as it is. To see truth you should have no notions at all—not of being Hindu or Muslim, not Jain or Buddhist, not theist or atheist. Your chitta should be entirely free of beliefs, void of notions. You should have no belief, no shraddha. If the mind is thus free, you will be capable. The path will open.
The path is: neither belief nor disbelief—but freedom of chitta. Freedom is the path.
A bound chitta is a halted chitta. One who has bound his chitta anywhere—be it to Rama or to Krishna, to the Gita or the Quran—such a chitta is fettered. And a fettered chitta—what can it know? A halted chitta—where can it go? It is like a stagnant pool round which walls have been raised. That pool can never reach the ocean. Its only destiny is to bake, to rot, to evaporate—and to dry up.
A mind bound by notions is like water trapped in small pits. A mind unbound by any notion is like a river running toward the sea. A river too has banks—but the river is not bound by its banks.
One bank is belief; one bank is disbelief. Only he reaches the ocean whose chitta is not tied to either bank and passes through the middle. One bank is theist; one bank is atheist. Whoso moors his boat to these banks—stops right there. He who ties his boat to neither, and lets himself be carried by the current in the middle—the current of life, the current of consciousness, the current of knowing—without stopping anywhere—surely he will reach the ocean. As the Ganga issues from the Himalayas and races to the sea, so must the chitta break out of all confinements and move toward truth—only then shall we arrive. If we stop anywhere, we become stagnant pools.
Most minds have become like stagnant pools—their waters putrid. Life’s heat evaporates them steadily—they are drying up. This drying up is becoming old; flowing is staying young.
Only a youthful mind can know truth. A mind made old by walls cannot. In truth, for knowing truth, freedom is indispensable—freedom of every kind. And these freedoms are not simply those that keep you out of a physical jail or free of literal chains.
A friend of mine, a sadhu who loved me, once told me a reminiscence. He was in jail—he was somewhat revolutionary, and in a movement was imprisoned. There also was a chamar prisoner—he was Muslim, a leather-worker. He was so strong, so powerful a wrestler, that he could break any chain with his hands. My friend was amazed. He said, I want to see with my own eyes. They called him. His name was Jumman. He asked, I have heard you can break any chain.
The man said, I can break any chain, get out of any confinement. But if the government gives me assurance I won’t be arrested again, within two days I will get out by any means. My friend said, Can I see you break a chain?
He broke a chain and showed it. He said, Chains are no trouble.
When he broke it, he took Allah’s name. My friend said, Can you break a chain taking the name of Ram?
The man trembled. The name of Ram! He could not even utter it.
My friend told me: he was so strong he could shatter iron—but he could not break Allah’s chain! He trembled to utter Ram! He who could break iron feared to take the name of Ram—how could he take it? He who believes in Allah—how can he utter Ram?
In China there was a fakir, Fahsan. His fame was that he feared nothing. If someone thrust a dagger into his chest, his eyelids would not flicker. If snakes coiled around him, he stroked them without a word. If a lion roared in the forest behind him, he would not even turn to look.
A young monk went to meet him. He lived far in the mountain forest. Fahsan had grown old—his fame had spread through the land: fearlessness. The young monk went. As he sat beside him at dusk, a bear roared behind them and shook a bush. Fahsan sat as he was. The youth sprang up in alarm and cried, Life is in danger!
The old man laughed. He said, You are afraid? One who is afraid can never find God. The fearful can go nowhere. The fearful are stuck everywhere.
The youth said, I am very shaken. I am thirsty—bring me a little water.
Fahsan went into the hut for water. As he returned with it, the youth had written on the rock where the old monk sat: Namo Buddhaya—homage to Buddha. The monk came, handed the water. As he placed his foot upon the rock to sit, he saw the sacred name inscribed below—his foot stopped. He shook. How can I place my foot upon the sacred name of the Lord!
The young monk said, You too are afraid. And how will a fearful mind attain to Paramatma? Then my fear is natural; yours is unnatural—this is the holy name of the Lord—how can your foot be placed upon it!
Subtle bonds grip the human mind—of beliefs, of pieties.
You roam the world free—no prison, no chains in your hands. But look into your mind—it is bound by chains upon chains. Somewhere the Hindu’s chain, somewhere the Muslim’s, somewhere the Christian’s—your chitta is ringed by chains.
A Jain monk was a guest with me the other day. Early in the morning he said, I wish to go to the temple.
I asked, For what?
He said, For a little prayer and meditation.
I said, My house is more silent than any temple—do it here. He said, No—the temple is silent.
I said, The Jain temple here is in the bazaar—very noisy. If you don’t agree, then there is a church next door—let us go there. It is utterly quiet. It is not even Sunday—no one will be there. I can take you.
He said, A church! How can I go to a church?
I said, Then how will this mind become quiet? How will it meditate? A mind whose bondage is so deep that it thinks it can only be silent in a Jain temple—how will such a chitta be silent? If solitude is needed—it is there in the church. What is the danger in a church? Only that a board is affixed saying “church”—and that is danger! This is proof of a dull, cramped mind—what else?
Our minds are gripped within by very deep chains. And how can such a bound mind soar toward the sky? The flight toward Paramatma is a skyward flight. Wings must be spread—and chains must be broken. If the chains of chitta are not broken, no path will be right. A traveler bound in chains—wherever he reaches, it will still be a prison. He cannot reach beyond prison.
So—breaking the chains of chitta is the path. Breaking all kinds of chains. I do not say—break one kind and take up another. The Hindu tells the Muslim, Break all your chains—but wants him to accept the Hindu’s chains. The Christian wants the Hindu to break all his chains, declare, What Ram and what Ramayana—nonsense—but he wants the Bible and Christ’s chains to bind him.
All the religions of the world want to load their chains and free you from the others. This they call conversion. They say the man has changed.
This is no conversion—it is only a change of slavery. The conversion I am speaking of is this:
Drop all chains of every kind and accept no new chain—that is conversion. Then you have entered dharma. You are free. Become free of Hindu, Muslim, Christian—free of all. When there is no chain upon you, then you stand where the river toward truth begins to flow.
A Hindu becoming a Muslim is no conversion. It is a change of bondage. Like men carrying a corpse upon a bier—when one shoulder tires, they shift it to another. A little relief comes. Then again it must be shifted. A Hindu becomes a Muslim—he feels a change has occurred. A Muslim becomes a Hindu—he feels a change. A Jain becomes a Buddhist—he feels a change. All futile. The change of slaveries is no change. New bondage feels pleasant for a while; then, grown old, it becomes as burdensome as the last.
The conversion I speak for, the transformation I call for, is not going from one prison to another—but becoming free of all prisons.
Do not bind your chitta anywhere if you would lead it to truth. Do not halt your intelligence anywhere if you would reach the ocean. Do not overlay your Atman with any imposition—of belief or disbelief, of doctrine or scripture—if you would give your Atman wings to fly into the sky of truth. That very Atman that is free to fly—becomes capable of reaching Paramatma.
The path is: neither belief nor disbelief; neither theism nor atheism; neither Hindu nor Muslim; neither Jain nor Buddhist. The negation of all these, the renunciation of all bonds—and the liberation of chitta. Let chitta be free—freedom of chitta is the path to truth.
These few things I have said as to the path of truth.
Tomorrow morning we will discuss the Gate of truth. And the day after, we will discuss entering that Gate.
In all these talks my hope is that you will not merely listen, but understand. Because listening is not enough. And if you truly understand, some things begin to clarify of themselves. And for right understanding it is necessary that at least for the time you listen, you set your bonds aside.
Those bonds of yours, those chains of being Hindu or Muslim—if you listen through their veils, then listening will be difficult. My words will not reach you. I will go on speaking—my words will not reach you, because your walls will stand between. At least for the time you listen, set your chains aside. As when we enter a house, we leave our shoes outside—bring your shoes in if you like, there is no harm—but leave your chains at the door. Leave outside your being Hindu, Muslim, Jain—then listening to me will become possible. And in that quiet listening, perhaps as you listen, a transformation and revolution will begin within you. If a thing is truly heard, it begins instantly to make a difference within.
And I hope that in four days you will listen. Perhaps some word will touch a string of your heart. Perhaps a longing for freedom will awaken, and you will be filled with the aspiration to be free.
You have listened to my words with love—I am very grateful. And in the end, I bow to the Paramatma dwelling within all. Please accept my pranam.