Jeevan Ki Khoj #4

My beloved Atman!
In these past two days we have spoken of two steps in the search for truth.
First: there must be thirst in life. Without it, nothing is possible. And very few lives know that thirst. Thirst for Paramatman, for truth, becomes possible only in those who have become capable of seeing this life as futile. As long as life appears meaningful, one cannot long for the life of the Divine. Hence I said: without knowing the reality of this life, no one will be filled with the longing for Paramatman. And whoever sees the reality of this life understands: this is not life at all, it is a long procession of death. We die every day. We do not live. This I have said.
On the second step we asked: if there is thirst, will thirst alone carry one to God?
It is certainly possible to have thirst and a wrong path. Then thirst will be there, but if the path is wrong your life will be filled with more dissatisfaction, more suffering, more pain. If a seeker walks in the wrong direction, he becomes more tormented than ordinary people. This we explored in relation to the ‘path’.
About the path I said: belief is not a path, for belief is blind. Disbelief is not a path either, for disbelief is also blind. Both the theist and the atheist are blind. And one who has eyes remains neither theist nor atheist. Only the person who becomes free of all preconceptions—of being a theist or an atheist; a Hindu or a Muslim; this or that—free of all “isms,” all doctrines and scriptures—only such a person, only such a mind, free, can move toward Paramatman. Whoever is bound to any idea, imprisoned in any framework of concepts, cannot reach Paramatman. Only those will become worthy to reach Paramatman who become as free and simple as the Divine. Only those whose minds have attained freedom can find truth. This we have considered.
And today, on the third step, we will contemplate the ‘door’.
What is the door to the life of Paramatman? Through which door does one enter?
Even if the path is right—if the door is closed, entry is impossible. You may have thirst, you may have the path, but if the door is closed, you still cannot enter. Therefore we will ponder the ‘door’.
What will that door be?
Surely the same door through which we went out from Paramatman is the door through which we will enter back into Paramatman. The door by which you came into this house is the door by which you will go out of this house. A door always serves both ways—outward and inward; only our direction changes, our orientation turns. Whether we go out or we come in, the door remains the same. Only the direction of our movement changes.
If we consider what took us outside of Paramatman, that very thing can also take us within Paramatman.
You must have heard the ancient story from the Bible. Adam and Eve were expelled from the kingdom of heaven—for a small offense. Yet that offense is most significant. They were expelled over the fruit of the tree of knowledge. In the garden of Eden there stood a tree called the Tree of Knowledge. God said, you may eat of the fruit of all the trees, but not of the fruit of this tree of knowledge. They ate of it—and were cast out of the kingdom of heaven.
The story is a story—mythical; but it carries a very deep meaning. Humanity’s exile from Paramatman happened because of the fruit of knowledge. And if man becomes capable of dropping his knowledge, he can enter Paramatman again.
What you call knowledge is taking you away from Paramatman. You will think, “But I thought knowledge takes us closer to God.” I tell you: the very knowledge you take to be knowledge is what takes you away from Paramatman. If you drop that knowledge, what remains—call it divine ignorance, or call that very state ‘knowledge’—that will connect you to Paramatman.
Our mind is taking us away from our being. The more we think, the farther we go from ourselves. And all of us are entangled in thinking. The more a person is caught in thought, the farther he goes from his original being.
At night you dream. You may be asleep in your hut, yet in the dream you can travel far—perhaps to the moon. On waking you find yourself lying in your hut, yet in the dream you had gone to the moon. The distance between your hut and the moon was created by your dream. It took you far. In the same way our thoughts carry us away from where we truly are. And the farther a person goes into thought, the greater the distance he places between himself and Paramatman. If all our thoughts were to vanish, if all thinking were to dissolve, we would be where Paramatman is. Therefore in prayer to Paramatman, in meditation on the Divine, there is nothing much to do. If a person becomes capable of dropping all thoughts, he enters the Lord. Through the door of thought we went out of Paramatman; through that same door, turning back, we can enter Paramatman.
I have heard a story. A man once decided, “I will go and find the end of the world.” He thought, surely somewhere the world must end. He set out. His friends and loved ones tried to stop him: “Do not go. Who knows whether the world ends anywhere at all?”
But the man insisted: “If the world is, it must begin somewhere, and end somewhere.” With this obstinacy, this logic, he went to find the world’s end. He journeyed for many years. He had set out young; he became old. His feet tired, his mind trembled—who knows, will the world end or will my life end first? At last, utterly exhausted after long wandering, he came to a place where a plank read: “Here ends the world.” It was written there: “The world ends here.”
There was no one around. Deep silence. Only a small temple, and that sign. He went beyond the sign and, a little farther, found that the world indeed ended. A boundary line—and beyond it only chaos. Formlessness, darkness, the void. He peered over—it shook him to the core. If you have ever looked down from a high cliff, you know how the life in you quivers. He looked from where the world ended: an infinite abyss, no bottom anywhere; above—endless; ahead—the void, no ground anywhere. He peered—his very life trembled. He ran back and collapsed at the temple door. The priest raised him up and asked, “What happened?”
He said, “I reached the end of the world. My whole being is shaking. I am terrified.”
The priest said, “Had you leapt into that place where everything ends, you would have found the place where everything begins. If you had jumped into that infinite abyss where the world ends, you would have met Paramatman.”
Where the world ends, there begins Paramatman. Where the world of our thoughts breaks and ends, there we enter into the life of the Divine.
The one who is in thought is in the world. And the one who is outside thought is outside the world. Do not think that by running away from home someone becomes a sannyasin. No one becomes a sannyasin by fleeing his house. But if someone can drop thought, he surely becomes a sannyasin.
Thought is what I call ‘home’. Thought is what I call ‘household’. Thought is what I call ‘the world’.
Whoever is free of thought enters sannyas. Whoever becomes capable of dropping thought—his house falls away. Then wherever he may be, he has no home. These walls of mud and stone that you see are not your house. What can these walls ever hold? Your house is—your thoughts and their walls. They are what hold you in.
Therefore I say to you in today’s talk: freedom from thought is the door.
And we have thoughts in plenty. Across births, across traditions, for centuries upon centuries, thinking has been nourished. We have learned thoughts. We have accumulated thoughts. Layer upon layer of thought has collected upon the mind. Much dust has gathered; many walls have been raised by it. If we go within, we find nothing but thought.
You have heard it said by the ancients, by the rishis of old: go within, and there you will have the vision of Atman.
Have you ever gone within?
If you go within, you will have the vision of thoughts. Not the vision of the soul. Whenever you go within, you will find thoughts. You cannot have any vision of Atman as long as you do not pass through and beyond these waves of thought. You will circle around a little and return. You will experience thoughts and come back. As if someone goes to the ocean when a great storm is raging, sees only the waves, and returns, mistaking the waves for the ocean—such is our mistake. The ocean is not in the waves, though the waves are in the ocean. The ocean can be without waves; waves cannot be without the ocean. Your soul can be without thoughts; your thoughts cannot be without the soul. But we turn back from the waves of thought.
There was David Hume, an English thinker. He wrote: I heard “know thyself.” I heard, go within. I have often gone within, but it is all nonsense—there is no soul found there. Only thoughts upon thoughts. Sometimes I collide with one thought, sometimes with another; with this memory, that imagination; this desire, that distortion. Bumping into these, I return. Within there is only this crowd; no soul at all.
He wrote truly. He wrote honestly. It is so. As far as you go within, you meet only this. Yet it is possible to go beyond this. Had Hume met me, I would have said to him: what you say is quite right—that you sometimes bump into a thought, a desire, an imagination. But who bumps? The one who bumps cannot be a thought. Who goes within? That awareness which goes in and sees, “these are thoughts”—what is that awareness? That awareness is not a thought. Hume is not the thought; Hume is the seer—the one who experiences that thoughts appeared; imaginations, memories appeared. In whose presence this film of thoughts is moving—who is that? Surely not a thought. The seer, the sakshi, the witness is different. To know that one is the very door to truth. Without dropping thought, it won’t happen.
Then remember: why do we accumulate thoughts? If we cannot understand this, we will not be able to drop them. If we grasp a few things about thought, it will become easier to leave it behind and rise above it.
Why do we hoard? Why do we pile up anything at all? Why do we accumulate wealth? Perhaps you have never asked why. There is a point at which needs are met, yet we keep accumulating.
I have heard: how far can need go? Andrew Carnegie died leaving behind some four hundred million. Yet he was still earning, still gathering. No one can have any need for four hundred million. Needs are over long before that—yet the madness to accumulate persists.
Your needs are met, yet you collect. Why? Because accumulation gives you a feeling of being. You feel, “I am something.” You gain confidence that you have a substance. You feel secure. The more you collect, the more you feel, “I am not a negation. I can stand against death. I cannot be erased; I have power.”
Accumulation gives the illusion of gathering power. Thus the powerless fall into some or other kind of collecting. The poorer one is within, the more one rushes to gather wealth—because there is no other way to cover poverty. Hoarding hides poverty, but never removes it. Wealth has never erased inner poverty, nor can it. However much money you gather—if you are poor within, you will remain poor; and even without a penny, if you are inwardly rich, you remain rich. Thus it has happened in this world that emperors have been seen as beggars, and beggars as emperors.
A fakir stood by a village road and said, “I have some coins, and I wish to give them to the poorest man in this town.” All the villagers gathered. The very poor came and said, “Give them to us.”
The fakir said, “I shall give these coins—indeed I must give them to the poorest—but only to the poorest of all. When the poorest arrives, I will give them.”
The most destitute came: a blind, lame, crippled beggar, naked, with nothing at all. He dragged himself and said, “Give them to me. Who could be poorer than I?”
The fakir said, “Wait! Let the poorest come, and I shall give.” There was none poorer in that village. Just then the king’s procession passed, and the fakir threw his coins onto the royal palanquin.
The king said, “What is this? Why throw money on me?”
The beggars cried, “You promised to give to the poorest—and you gave to the king!”
The fakir said, “There is none poorer in this town. Why? Because however much he gets, his poverty is not satisfied—he still wants more.”
The one who demands the most is the poorest within. The greater the inner hunger, the more intense the craving to accumulate, the greater the ambition.
Thus the very poor within strive to be very rich, so that by having wealth they can convince themselves, “I am not poor.” In the same way, the very ignorant start collecting thoughts, so that the hoard of thoughts may create the illusion of knowledge. With many thoughts, many scriptures memorized, many texts learned by heart, they can pretend: “I know.”
Ignorance stings; it bruises the ego. To know “I do not know” is very painful. So we stockpile thoughts, and the borrowed ideas of others—always they belong to others—we adopt as our own. We say, “These are my thoughts.”
Not a single thought is yours. Examine and you will see—not a single thought is your own. All is borrowed from somewhere. And claiming this property as ours, we enjoy the vanity of being knowledgeable. It gratifies the ego. All kinds of collections gratify the ego; the collection of thoughts, too.
This does not mean that those who renounce collection have transcended the ego. The routes of ego are very subtle. Hoarding gratifies the ego, and renouncing hoarding gratifies it too. One man has much, and thinks, “I am someone.” Another throws everything away, and then knows, “I too am someone—I have renounced all.”
The urge to renounce also feeds the ego; the urge to collect feeds it as well. One may hoard thoughts—and ego swells; or one may boast, “I know nothing, I am utterly simple”—and ego hides there too.
The question is always of claiming. Wherever there is claim, there is ego. All hoarding and the renouncing of hoarding balance on the same scale of ego—its pointer swings both ways.
I want to say: unless you see that you are gathering thoughts to hide your ignorance, you cannot become free of thoughts.
Look within a little: what do you actually know? Do you know anything of Atman? Of God? No. But you know the Gita, the Koran, the Bible; you know Mahavira, Kundakunda—and who knows whom. Because you know these, you fall into the illusion that you know. They may know—and you fall into thinking that you know. The echoes of knowledge resound for centuries. Mahavira spoke twenty-five centuries ago; Zarathustra spoke; Moses spoke—millennia ago—and their echoes still reverberate in our minds. We mistake echoes of knowledge for knowledge.
Once by a mountain I stood with a friend. There was an echo point. If you call out there, the mountain repeats your voice. My friends called; the mountain repeated. But we had called—the mountain made no voice of its own. It merely echoed.
Mahavira speaks, Buddha speaks—and we echo. We repeat. Then our children repeat. Then theirs. Not second-hand—thousandth-hand—the echo passes through countless hands, growing ever fainter. That is what we call thoughts. Thought is the echo of experience.
Those who experienced spoke first-hand. Our minds go on echoing them. Generation after generation, the echo continues. We cling to these echoes and sit content. They are mere echoes—thin, trivial—of no value. Value belongs to experiencing; thought has none.
Remember: as long as you cling to thoughts, you clutch at shadows—something hollow and dead. We all sit grasping thoughts.
To be free of the echo of thought is essential. As long as you go on echoing, remember: echo happens from the surface; experience arises from the center. When you shout by a mountain, your voice does not reach its heart; its outer layer simply throws your voice back. I am speaking now—my voice will not reach your life within; your periphery will merely return it as an echo. Your life within remains untouched. Life never touches thought, nor can thought touch life. Therefore through thought no attainment of truth ever happens. Thought can never be the means of attainment. Yes—if attainment happens, thought can serve to tell of it. Thought can be a medium of expression, but not the path of attainment. One may know truth and speak through thought; but no one can know truth through thought.
We forget this, and imagine we will reach truth by thinking. So those keen for truth begin to hoard ideas. The hoarding of thought is dangerous. Whoever falls into this delusion will sit clutching echoes, and life will pass by.
These echoes are not yours—know this. However great the ones echoed may be, echoes have no value. As long as you echo, you are a mechanism. You have no life of your own. How insulting it is—to be an echo! Others speak; you repeat. How humiliating. At least one direct experience should flower in you about which you can say, “This is mine. I am not repeating anyone. This is not someone else’s voice appearing in my mind; it is my voice. It arises from within me; this flower has blossomed from my life.” Paper flowers we paste from the outside. Real flowers come from within; they have roots.
Your thoughts are like paper flowers—pasted on. No fragrance, no life. If you mistake them for flowers, life is wasted. And the real flowers that could have blossomed from within—their seeds are in you, just as in Mahavira and Buddha; Krishna and Christ—the same life is seated in you. The same Paramatman dwells in your depths, capable of birthing the same flowers, the same notes, the same direct experiences. But if you settle for paper flowers, those seeds will remain seeds, never to bloom. Remove these paper flowers. Let the mind be free, open, so you can labor upon your own seeds.
Whoever believes others’ thoughts forgets to awaken his own experience.
Therefore I have said: thought is not the path.
Naturally the question arises: then is non-thought the path? Has the dull ignoramus, in whom no thought arises, attained truth? If someone lies in a stupor, under morphia, has he attained truth—because no thoughts arise? Everywhere I am asked: you say thought cannot give truth, then will non-thought give it? Has the dull-witted attained? Has the intoxicated, the unconscious man attained?
Certainly, when I say thought is not the path, I do not mean non-thought is the path. Non-thought is not the path either.
But because it is said so often that thought is not the path, people conclude: then let us cultivate non-thought, and truth will be ours.
Even by cultivating non-thought, truth is not found.
Endless methods of non-thought have spread across the world. All the varieties of concentration, all kinds of one-pointedness—these are paths of non-thought. If someone forcibly fixes his mind upon one object, after a while thoughts will disappear. But not only thoughts disappear—after a while his very consciousness sinks. He becomes unconscious. All kinds of concentration—gazing into the sun, unblinking; staring at a lamp’s flame without a blink for five minutes—you will fall asleep there. Repeating “Ram-Ram” for an hour, not allowing any other thought in—doing japa—within an hour you will be stupefied. Because when any one thing grips the mind, the mind grows bored; boredom arises. Anxiety, restlessness arise. In that distress, the only outlet is sleep.
How do you lull a child? You repeat the same line of a lullaby. Repeating it again and again—the child sleeps. You think your melody did it. No. The very repetition brings boredom; the mind tires and sleeps.
Be bored by anything and sleep comes. In public meetings, you will see many dozing. The speaker thinks the fault is with the listeners. Only, the speaker is speaking in such a way that people grow bored—and sleep. It is not the listeners’ fault. From boredom, sleep comes.
Bore the mind, and it wants to sleep. If you wish it to remain alert, you must avoid boredom. If you weary it, frighten it, distress it, it will sleep. Having found this trick, people devised countless japas, countless malas. Keep moving the same beads. If the mind sticks there, soon it sleeps. When the mind sleeps, thoughts surely stop—but awareness does not awaken.
It is not enough that thoughts stop; awareness must arise. It is not enough to remove paper flowers; a real bud must sprout. Otherwise, if paper flowers are removed and no real flower appears, nothing is gained. Then better to keep the paper flowers—at least there is some show. If the paper flowers go and the real do not come, trouble will follow.
Non-thought has been pursued by many means the world over. From the time of the Vedas, sadhus and sannyasins have used soma, then hashish—all to somehow stop thought.
Today in America there are newer somas—lysergic acid, mescaline—injections. Take mescaline and for six hours the mind falls utterly still. A perfect peace. Thoughts stop. After six hours you will rise and say, “It was bliss. No thought, no worry, no pain.” Across the world many sadhus have used opium and hashish for the same reason: they help to stop thought. And what opium and hashish do, concentration also does—the japa of a name, gazing at a lamp, fixing eyes on the sun, trataka, whatever—these are all ways of sending the mind to sleep, of stupefying it.
No one reaches truth through stupefaction.
Nor through non-thought.
Yes, in non-thought one thing can happen—you may see phantoms: visions of Ram, Krishna, Kali, Buddha, Mahavira. When the mind sinks into stupor, whatever image is deeply imprinted within begins to take shape and becomes a dream. But this is not the vision of truth.
For the vision of truth, thoughts must go—and awareness must awaken.
Therefore non-thought is not the path either. Mere non-thought is no path. You will become unconscious, insensible. From insensibility, nothing is attained. A dullness arises. Hence you may have noticed: those who use such japa or concentration—these tricks are for stupefying oneself, for forgetting the world. If we become unconscious, worldly troubles are forgotten. That is why people drink. And between drinking and going to the temple to pray, there is little difference. At the root both are intoxicants—for in both you forget yourself, forget the world. And thinking “what is not seen is not,” you feel all is well.
Like the ostrich in the desert: when a foe attacks, it buries its head in the sand. The enemy vanishes from sight—and the ostrich believes the enemy is gone. What is unseen is assumed to be finished.
If our sense of the world is erased, we think the world is gone. If we forget our worries, we think worries have been destroyed. But as soon as we come out of the intoxication—of prayer, of chanting. Today, all over the world, people beat cymbals and drums, dance and shout. By dancing and shouting, by clanging bells, by smoke—if in a closed room much incense is burned, the drums beaten, cymbals clashed, people jump and scream—soon they will become stupefied. In that stupor they will think some epiphany is happening, that truth is being met. These foolishnesses are popular, but truth never has been—and never can be—attained this way.
Therefore non-thought is not the path.
Neither thought nor non-thought is the door. Then, surely you will ask: what is the path?
Nirvichar—thoughtless awareness—is the path.
Nirvichar is a very different thing. Non-thought is a very different thing.
Thoughts belong to others; if you shut them off and fall asleep, that is non-thought. Thoughts belong to others; if they dissolve and your awareness remains perfectly alert, without stupor—that state is nirvichar. It is the state of thoughtless alertness. Thoughtless awareness. There is no thought, yet you are awake. No thought on the mind, yet you are in perfect consciousness, not unconscious. You are knowing.
There was a Muslim fakir and poet, Hafiz—you may know his name. Perhaps Persia has known no costlier poetry. Perhaps very few on earth have known such depth of experience. Hafiz was with his master, learning meditation. Many were there in the master’s ashram to learn. On a dark night of no moon the master said: “Tonight all my disciples gather and sit in meditation.” At midnight they began. After an hour or so the master—who had instructed: still the thoughts, but keep awareness alert; do not fall asleep, for sleep is not meditation—noticed snores rising from many mouths. He softly called, “Hafiz.”
Hafiz at once came. “What is it?”
“Nothing—go and sit again.” After a while he called another disciple—but Hafiz came. Then a third—again Hafiz came. Through the late hours he called ten or fifteen names—but each time, Hafiz arrived, for all others were asleep. The master said, “All have fallen asleep; you alone are awake.”
To be awake is to be in meditation. To fall asleep is not meditation.
But if you remain awake and keep thinking, you are not in meditation either. Awake—and not thinking. Full awareness, and no thought. As if the sky is there, but no birds fly in it; the sky is there, but not a single cloud. Such is awareness—present, but with no clouds of thought, no birds of thought flying through it. In that moment—when awareness is, and thought is not—a transformation begins in life. We awaken to that reality which is called Atman, or we come to know that reality called Paramatman. We become capable of entering our inner life. Thought keeps us at the surface. By dropping thought, depth opens. But if thoughts drop and awareness drops as well, depth may come, but we are unconscious—so the depth is not known.
In the deepest moments of sleep, you reach the very place a yogi reaches in Samadhi. There is no difference. In deep sleep you go where the yogi goes in Samadhi, where the meditator goes. But you will see a great difference between your sleep and Samadhi. In sleep you are unconscious; in Samadhi you are awake. The difference is like this: bring one man, under chloroform, into a beautiful garden and take him back; bring another, fully awake, into that garden and return. Both came to the garden, both passed near the flowers, both had the fragrance touch their noses, the cool breezes touch their skin—but there will be a vast difference. The one came and went in stupor—he knew nothing. The other came and went in awareness—he knew much. And knowledge transforms life.
In sleep everyone reaches where the yogi reaches in Samadhi. But we reach there unconscious, return, and never know where we went. In very deep sleep, when even dreams are not running, you reach your center. We get no inkling of it. We must reach the same place consciously—awake, alert, aware. That is possible. There is a way.
The door is nirvichar–sajagta. Thoughtless awareness is the door. Neither thought is the door nor non-thought; the door is thoughtless awareness—perfect wakefulness. Empty, utterly empty—and standing at the door.
An old story: Shvetaketu went to a master’s ashram seeking Brahman—this is from the time of the Upanishads. He came and said, “I have come to know Brahman.” The master said, “If truly you want to know Brahman, what need was there to come to a master’s ashram? Here we teach thoughts, we teach scriptures.”
“Then where should I go?” asked Shvetaketu.
The master said, “If you have courage, if you are willing to stake your life—take these four hundred cows of the ashram and go far into the forest. So far that there is no man, where no voice of man, no thought of man, reaches. Live there with the cows; do only one thing—serve the cows, remain alert, and do not think. When these four hundred become a thousand—when they bear calves and reach a thousand—then return.”
Shvetaketu said, “I will go.”
He took the cows into the wilderness. Who could know when they would become a thousand? How many would die, how many calves would live—who knows? How many years would it take to reach a thousand—he did not know. The youth went. In the beginning old thoughts must have come—of home, family; of what he had heard and learned. But if new food is not given to the mind, old thoughts quickly wear out and vanish. Like old coins, worn by use, become useless—new coins replace them and the currency continues—so in the mind, old thoughts are worn away, but new ones take their place.
Consider: ten years ago, the thoughts that moved in you no longer move now. What moved yesterday does not move today. Old ones go; new ones come.
The youth went there. He did not feed new thoughts. He was silent. His work did not require much thinking. He served the cows. He lay quietly. He watched the stars, the sun, the trees. Bathed in streams. Slept. Served the cows. Slept among them, resting his head upon them at night.
Months, years, days came and went. Slowly his thoughts fell silent. Gradually thoughts dropped away. Thoughts dissolved, but awareness remained whole. He worked, he was alert. Awake twenty-four hours, keeping watch within. Who knows how many years passed—when the cows became a thousand.
The story is sweet: he even forgot the count. If he had forgotten thought, how could he remember numbers? He had forgotten counting. He did not notice when the cows became a thousand. So the story says: the cows gathered and said, “Shvetaketu, now we have become a thousand—take us back. Return to the master’s ashram.” He returned. From far outside the village the thousand cows arrived, their wooden bells ringing, dust rising. News spread: Shvetaketu returns with a thousand cows. The ashram gathered.
The master said, “A thousand—no, one thousand and one cows are returning.” “A thousand?” his disciples asked. “No—one thousand and one are returning. The one among them, Shvetaketu, is no longer as a man; he has become as simple and quiet as the cows. Truly, a thousand and one cows are returning.” People saw: among them there returned one who was man no more—he returned as simple as the cows. They nudged him forward; he came among them, merged in that herd.
The master said to his disciples, “Do you see how a knower of Brahman is? He returns having known Brahman.”
The disciples asked, “But who taught him Brahman?”
The master said, “Is Brahman ever taught? Whatever can be taught cannot be Brahman. Whatever can be taught cannot be truth. He does not return having learned—he returns having known. Learning is from others; knowing is of oneself. He opened his own life and knew.”
The disciples asked, “Why does he return now?”
He said, “Perhaps only to thank me.”
He came, touched the master’s feet, and thanked him. The master said, “Why thank me? You have known by yourself.” Shvetaketu said, “I thank you for the grace of not telling me anything about Brahman. Had I come to know about Brahman, perhaps it would not have been possible to know Brahman. When all ‘knowing about’ dropped, what I knew—was Brahman.”
Whoever becomes free of all knowing—what he knows then is truth.
Shvetaketu knew truth by being awake and empty. Thus far, whoever has known, has known by being awake and empty. Within, the lamp of awareness burns—bright—and there is no smoke of thought. No smoke of thought, and the flame of awareness—whatever is known then is truth. It is neither through thought nor through non-thought.
Therefore neither collect thoughts like the pandit; nor stupefy thought as many so-called sadhus and sannyasins do. Let thought go—and let vivek arise. Vivek is our very nature. Thought is an invasion from outside. Thought is alien, foreign. Vivek is our own being. Let vivek awaken; let thoughts depart. You will reach the door.
How will vivek awaken? We will discuss that tomorrow—for that is the entry itself.
I have arranged this talk in four parts—longing, path, door, and entry.
The door is: thought becomes empty and awareness becomes full. When wakefulness is complete and thought has gone, you stand at the door.
How will entry happen? How will awareness become complete? We shall consider that tomorrow—how awareness can be fulfilled, and how entry can be.
Other than entry, there is never a complete reaching of God. In truth, entry is reaching. If people say, “We have attained God,” it will be a mistake; “attaining” implies that the Divine is some small bounded thing you could possess. Can one ever “get” the ocean? One only dives in—one only enters. The ocean cannot be possessed. Yes—if it were a potful of water, it could be possessed. Not the ocean. And even the ocean is small—it has shores. Paramatman can never be possessed. He can never be had.
Therefore in Paramatman there is only entry. Or understand: entry itself is attainment. There is never mastery over the Divine—if someone says, “I have attained God,” know that he has no relation to the Divine at all.
In Paramatman there is only entry. As a drop falls into the ocean, so does the individual consciousness fall into the consciousness of Paramatman. This is attainment. This is entry. Therefore in the final step I shall speak of ‘entry,’ not of ‘achievement.’ Achievement is a small word. Things may be achieved. In Paramatman there is only entry.
No one ever “gets” love. One enters love. And however far one enters, ever new, ever new dimensions open. However far one moves into Paramatman, one finds: what has been entered is small; what remains is vast. In this sense the Divine is infinite. Infinite means: there is entry and entry—no final achievement. Achievement is possible only where there is a limit, where something ends. Therefore Paramatman is never achieved; only entry happens. That entry we will discuss tomorrow.
Today I have said: nirvichar–sajagta—thoughtless awareness, or contentless consciousness. No content, no thought—only consciousness remains. This is the door. How that consciousness remains—we will consider tomorrow.
You listen to my words with love, you try to understand. I hope that if even one thing becomes part of your understanding, you may become a different person. Accept my gratitude. I bow to the Paramatman seated within all. Accept my pranam.