More untruth has been spoken and fabricated about Paramatman than about anything else. As much falsehood circulates about Paramatman, nothing else is so surrounded by it. As many untruths, as many lies, as many imaginations are in circulation about Paramatman, there is nothing comparable. And there is something in this: perhaps the truth about Paramatman cannot be said at all. Whatever is said becomes untrue by the very act of saying it. There is something that cannot be said. There is something that can be known, but cannot be spoken. And the wonder is that about that Paramatman, about whom nothing can be said, so many scriptures have been written that it is difficult even to count them! Words are impotent. Whatever we can say does not pass beyond the world. In words, in language, nothing that lies beyond the world can be said. Therefore, even about God, whatever we say—whether we call Him father, or friend, or beloved—none of it is true. For what we understand by a beloved, by a friend, by a father—Paramatman is very different, and far more. But we have no other words. We have only the makeshift words of daily life, and we press those into service for That as well. Hence whatever is thought about, said, written and read does not give us even the slightest glimpse of Him. I have heard, a fakir was passing along a road. It was a cold night and his hands and feet had gone numb. He had no clothes. He stopped under a tree. In the morning when he woke, even moving his hands and feet was difficult. He had read somewhere in a book that when the hands and feet turn cold, a man dies. People who walk by what they read in books fall into just such mistakes. He thought, perhaps I have died. He knew how dead people are supposed to be. So he lay with eyes closed. Some people passed along the road, took him to be dead, made a bier, and started for the cremation ground. They came to a crossroad where four paths branched out and fell into worry: which road goes to the cremation ground? They were strangers, unfamiliar with the village paths. The four of them began to think: if only we could find someone from the village to ask which road goes to the cremation ground. The fakir was alive. He thought, the poor fellows are in real trouble. Who knows whether someone from the village will come or not. So he spoke from the bier: When I used to be alive, people went to the cremation ground by the left road. Although I am dead now and unable to tell, at least this much I can say. All four got frightened and dropped the bier! The fakir fell to the ground! They said, How crazy are you? You speak? Do dead men speak anywhere? The fakir said, I have seen living men who do not speak, so the opposite is also possible—that there may be some dead who do speak. If a living man can choose not to speak, why can a dead man not choose to speak? What is so astonishing in it? said the fakir. When I heard this story, another thought arose in me: the reality is even more the other way round. It may happen that a dead man could be found speaking; what is truly difficult is that a living man should fall silent. That a living man not speak—this is the difficult thing. It seems easier that a dead man might speak. We are all alive, yet we have not known even a single moment in life when, in some form or other, we were not speaking—either outwardly, or inwardly. We have not known a single moment of not-speaking, of silence, of utter stillness. We may have seen many births, but all those births are births of words. And in this life too we have spent many days, but they have all been days of the journey of words. When we talk; if we do not talk, we think; if we do not think, we dream—yet words and speaking continue on some plane or other. And one whose words are still running will not be able to recognize Paramatman; for His recognition is possible only in the wordless, in silence. Therefore, everything said about Paramatman turns into falsehood. Because when He is known there are no words, no thoughts; there is no thought, no thinking—everything ceases, and then the experience happens. And when we go to say it, to tell it, we must return to words. That which is known in the wordless cannot be said in words. That which is known in silence—how will speech reveal it? And that which has been experienced in silence, in deep silence—how can it be told by speaking? Hence the atheist wins if he debates with the theist. The theist’s defeat is certain. The theist can never win against the atheist. There is a reason for not winning. The atheist denies—denial can be expressed in words. The theist affirms—affirmation is hard to convey in words. Therefore the theist has been in continual difficulty. But do not take yourselves to be theists, because a theist is hardly ever born on the earth. On the earth there are two kinds of atheists: those who know they are atheists, and those who do not know they are atheists and think themselves theists. The theist is born only with great difficulty. For a theist is born only when he has known Paramatman; before that, no one can be a theist. For how can faith arise in what we have not known? Faith can arise only in that which we have known. Yet all over the world very strange things are taught. Man knows nothing of Paramatman, and we teach him faith, teach him belief; we say to him—Believe! A child is born, and we tell him: believe that God is! Beware: whatever one believes, that one will never be able to know thereafter. To believe is very dangerous—belief is very dangerous. I went to a small orphanage. There were about a hundred children. The organizers told me, We also give our children religious education. I was a little astonished! I said, Religious education? Religious practice may be, not education. There can be no religious education, only practice. Education can be of those things which are outside us—another can tell us about them. But what is within us, none other than ourselves can tell. There can be no mere pointing; and whatever pointing there is will turn false. Still, I said, if you insist, I will come. I went. They said, You do not know—we truly give education. There were a hundred children. They were orphans. Now orphan children have to learn whatever they are taught. The organizers asked the children, Is there God? All the children raised their hands. As if it were a question of mathematics, or of geography or history. They raised their hands: Yes, there is God. All one hundred! I was very surprised. I said, A man cannot find out even by the time he dies whether God is; these children have already found out—this is sheer miracle. The organizers asked, Is there Atman? Again the children raised their hands. They asked, Where is the Atman? The children placed their hands upon their hearts: Here. I asked a small child, Will you tell me where the heart is? He said, We have not been taught that. We are telling you what we were taught. This is not written in our book. You ask, Where is the heart? It says, The Atman is here—we are telling you that. These children will grow up tomorrow, will become old. All children one day become old. Those who are now old were also once children. These children will grow up, will grow old, and will forget that the hand they raised for God was a taught hand. Taught hands are false hands. Even in old age, if someone asks them, Is there God? that learned response from childhood will immediately stand up. They will say, Yes, there is God. But that statement will be utterly false, because it was taught, not known. In Russia they teach children the opposite—that there is no God. The children learn that. If children are taught that there is no God, then a nation of two hundred million says there is no God. A friend of mine went to Russia. He visited a school. He asked the little children, Is there God? Then a small child said—and all the children began to laugh—What kind of question is that? Absurd! Nonsense! One small child said, God was—before nineteen seventeen; now where is He! When there was ignorance in the world, there was God; now where! In Russia now there is no God. We may laugh, but we are no different from those children. The only difference is this: they were taught that there is no God; we were taught that God is. But both are hollow, because both are taught. Neither do they know that there is no God, nor do we know that there is God. Our condition is exactly the same. People will call them atheists, and will call us theists. Then among the so-called theists too there are a thousand kinds of divisions. A Hindu learns something else, a Muslim something else, a Jain something else, a Buddhist something else. Whatever is fed to us, that we learn. So then—is there any other knowledge? Or is taught knowledge the only knowledge? If knowledge is taught, then it may happen one day that there will be no God in the world—because the whole world can be taught that there is no God. Taught knowledge is not knowledge. Taught knowledge is parrot-like rote. And when we mistake these parrot-chanters for theists, the greatest delusion happens. A theist is born only with difficulty. In truth the theist is born when we come to know what That is, what truth is, what that which is—That which is—what it is that is—when we know It. But remember, whoever believes beforehand will never be able to know. If without knowing you become an atheist, become a theist, become a Hindu, become a Muslim—you have gone astray; then you will never be able to know. Because you have already accepted as true that which you do not know. And if a person cannot gather even this much courage—that about what he does not know, he can say, I do not know—how can such a person seek truth? The first condition for the search for truth, for the search for Paramatman, is that we do not fall into beliefs, we do not accept any side. We set out to inquire. I have heard, in a village a fakir was a guest. The villagers came and said, Come to our mosque and explain to us about God. The fakir said, Forgive me! So many have explained, and no one understands. Do not trouble me now. But the more he refused—as is people’s habit—the more insistent they became. Whatever is forbidden, their minds clutch at all the more tightly: Let us go, see, inquire. If it is written on this door: Peeking here is forbidden—then perhaps there will be no one in this village who passes without peeking. For people, prohibition becomes an invitation. Say no, and it becomes a call for them. They kept after the fakir. He tried to put them off; they pursued him all the more. When they would not relent, the fakir said, All right, I will come. He went to the village mosque. All the villagers gathered. The fakir sat on the dais and said, Before I say anything, let me ask you one thing: Is there God—do you believe? Do you know there is God? All of them waved their hands. They said, Yes, there is God. There is no question of doubt, no room for skepticism. We all believe there is God. The fakir said, Then there is no need for me to speak. Because God is the ultimate knowing; one who has even known Him—now to speak with him is foolishness. I am going. He stepped down. He said, When you have reached the knowledge of God, then what more can I tell you? The matter is finished, the journey has ended; even the final experience has happened to you. If I now speak before you, I am the ignorant one. Forgive me! The people of the mosque fell into great difficulty, because no one actually knew that there is God. They had merely raised false hands. While raising them it had not even occurred to them that the hands they were raising were false. If for many days one keeps raising false hands, one forgets that these hands are false. And you—when you bow your head before a temple idol, have you ever noticed whether this head truly bows, or whether it is being made to bow falsely? Is it only habit, something taught? Or have you ever known that there is something in this idol? And the great wonder is: one who sees something in an idol—then he will not see anything anywhere else? Will he come seeking one temple to bow his head? Then wherever it appears—All is That—he will bow there. Except the irreligious, hardly anyone is ever seen going to temples. The religious has never been seen going. I am not saying that those who do not go are religious. Not going does not make one religious—but the religious is scarcely seen going to temples. The mosque people were troubled. But they thought it over: We certainly wanted to hear this fakir; we made a big mistake. Our answer was such that there was no need for him to speak further. Now we will give a different answer. Somehow bring the fakir again. On the next Friday they again entreated him. The fakir said, I came the previous time, but you already knew—what more is there to tell? One who knows—what remains for him to know? Since you know, what is there to talk about? But the people said, We are not those people, we are others. The fakir knew very well they were the same. He said, Fine—there is never any relying on a religious man; he changes in a moment. As for the so-called religious—the so-called religious—there is no relying on their change either. Just now reading the Koran, just now they plunge a dagger into your chest! Just now reading the Gita, just now they run away with someone’s wife! There is no difficulty in it. On this earth no one more unreliable than the religious man has been found thus far—because the one we call religious is in truth not religious at all. Hollow, pseudo-religious, false—only a believed-in religiosity. Religion has no connection with his life. If religion truly connects, then a man will be neither Hindu, nor Muslim, nor Christian. Can there be ten religions? A thousand? Can truth be of a thousand kinds? Mathematics is of one kind—whether in Tibet, or in China, or in India, or in Russia—everywhere mathematics is one. Chemistry too is one, and physics is one—science is one. But religions are a thousand! Only falsehood can be of a thousand kinds; truth cannot be of a thousand kinds. If someone begins to say that Hindus have one chemistry and Muslims another, then know that both must be admitted to a madhouse. There is no other way. How can chemistry be different? Whether a Hindu heats water, or a Muslim—at one hundred degrees it becomes steam. There is no way that a Koran-reader can make steam at a lower degree and a Gita-reader at a higher degree. Water becomes steam at one hundred degrees—this is truth. This truth is universal. A religious man is simply religious—just religious—not Hindu, not Muslim, not Christian. These are labels pasted on the heads of the irreligious. How can there be fifty kinds of religion? When the law of matter is one, how can the law of Paramatman be many? They again hounded the fakir. He said, All right, if you insist, we will go. He went. He stood on the dais. The villagers had decided with much forethought to give a different answer. The fakir asked, Let me ask the same thing: Is there God—do you believe? Do you know? Have you had His experience? All the people in the mosque shouted, What God? We know nothing. We neither believe nor know. Now you speak! The fakir said, About one whom you neither believe in nor know—what is the use of speaking? About whom are you asking? Of which God should I speak? Of whom shall I talk? I am going. The villagers said, This is a great difficulty. What kind of man is this! Then they said, What shall we do now? But we must hear him. From this man’s eyes it seems he knows something. From this man’s presence it seems he has some news. Perhaps we are not able to give the right answer—what shall we do now? They prepared a third answer. Again they coaxed and brought the fakir. He said, Why are you troubling yourselves? They said, Now we have another answer. The fakir said, Thought-out answers have no meaning, you fools! What is true is not decided by thinking; it is decided. And what we decide by thinking is never true. Only for untruth is thinking needed; for truth, thinking is not needed. And if truth too needs to be thought out, then it will be untruth. Truth has to be known, not thought. Untruth has to be thought. Hence the speaker of untruth falls into thought, worry, anxiety. The speaker of truth has no trouble, for there is no cause for concern. What is, is. What is not, is not. Still the villagers did not relent. They said, Come once more—great will be your kindness. He left. That fakir is back on the stage again. He has asked once more: Friends, may I ask the same thing again—God, do you believe? Do you know? Do you recognize? Do you have any news of Him? So the people of the mosque had decided. If we had been there, if we too had lived in that village—and perhaps some of us did—we would have decided the same. Half the people in the mosque said, Yes, we believe in God; the other half said, We do not believe. Now you speak! The fakir said, You are very foolish! Those who know should tell those who do not know. What need is there for me? Why are you after me? Why do you bother me? Now there is no need for me at all—I am completely useless here. Some know, some don’t; explain to one another among yourselves. I’m off. And as he left he said, If you have the courage, come a fourth time! The villagers were in great difficulty. They thought a lot, but a fourth answer did not come. What could they do? One answer was yes, the other no; then they combined both yes and no—what next? Only three options can be seen; there is no fourth alternative. They were very troubled. The fakir stayed several days and went around the village saying, So? You’re not coming now? But the villagers could not think what to do next. In the end the fakir had to leave the village. In another village someone asked him, We heard those villagers never came again. If they had come, would you then have explained God to them? He said, Then I would have had to explain. The man asked, Then why did you not explain in the first three times? He replied, I was waiting for the right answer. What could the right answer be? The fakir said, If those villagers had remained silent and given no answer, only then could I have spoken. Because then they would have been honest. For, in relation to God, we do not know that He is; we do not know that He is not. We are dishonest if we give any answer at all. But this dishonesty is of a religious kind. And when dishonesty is dressed in religious garb, it becomes very difficult to recognize. An irreligious dishonest person is easily caught. A religious yet dishonest person is very hard to catch, because his dishonesty is coated with a layer of religiosity. What is our answer? If we are truly honest, we will say, We have no answer at all; we know nothing. We cannot even say that He is; we also cannot say that He is not. And the person who stands on such truth—that I know nothing—his journey into true faith begins. Because if we truly experience, I know nothing, we will be in such pain, such suffering, such distress that this very pain, this ignorance, will push us to set out on a search, to go and find out. But we are a strange lot! We know nothing, yet we sit convinced that we know; therefore we never embark on the journey. If a sick person decides, I am healthy, why will he bother with treatment? Treatment begins with the recognition that I am ill—then one can move toward health. On earth, faith is false—and hence a religious life is not being born. The basis of false faith is belief. All over the world we are taught: Believe, have faith, bring trust; accept—do not ask, do not doubt, do not suspect, do not disbelieve. A very upside-down teaching! The person who lives by belief never arrives at experience. Only those reach experience who do not live in false beliefs, nor in false disbeliefs. Disbelief too is a kind of belief—an opposing belief, a negative belief. An honest person stands silent and says, I do not know. D. H. Lawrence was walking in a garden—an extraordinary man. A small child was with him. As children do, he asked a question which even the old cannot answer. But there are very few elders courageous enough to admit before a child that they don’t know. Such weak elders have thrown the world into confusion. The child asked a simple question. He saw the trees and, raising his hand, asked Lawrence, Why are the trees green? Lawrence said, The trees are green because they are green! The child said, Is that any answer? We ask, Why are trees green? You say, They are green because they are green. Is that an answer? Lawrence said, My answer only means that I do not know, and I cannot lie. Do you see the spirit of this man? He says, I do not know. This is the first trait of a religious person: clarity about what he knows and what he does not know. Are you clear? Have you ever taken stock of what you know and what you do not? You will be very surprised—perhaps not a single ultimate truth of life is truly known! Yet about the things we don’t know at all, we bang the table and declare, We know for sure. We not only bang the table, we even stab each other’s chests—insisting, What I know is right; what you know is wrong. Amazing! Regarding truths of which we have no awareness at all, we are so fanatic, so mad, so aggressive. It is beyond understanding. But this is our condition—and it must be broken. So I would like to request you: in moments of solitude, think on this—what do I actually know in the matter of religion? Surely the aphorisms of the Gita will come to mind, verses of the Koran may be remembered, sayings of the Bible may be memorized. But remember: that is not your knowledge. What is in the Gita was Krishna’s knowing; you cannot make it yours by reading. Borrowed knowledge is worse than ignorance. Because ignorance, at least, is one’s own. At least it is authentic—mine. Knowledge taken on loan is secondhand; ignorance is ours. Remember: with my ignorance, even if I gather all the world’s knowledge, my ignorance will not vanish. Because the ignorance is mine, and the knowledge is another’s. Another’s knowledge cannot erase my ignorance. How could it? They never even meet. They don’t touch each other. Another’s knowledge can be more dangerous than ignorance. I have heard: A blind man was a guest at a friend’s house. Many dishes were served that night—kheer, a sweet rice pudding. The blind man asked his friends, What is this kheer? What do you call kheer? What is it like? What is it made of? Explain to me; I really liked it. His friends must have been clever. It’s hard to find a fool in this world; everyone is clever. They said, Kheer is made of milk. The blind man asked, What is milk? What is it like? What is its color? What is its form? The clever ones said, Milk is perfectly white. The blind man said, You’re putting me in trouble. My first question still stands; your answers raise new questions. What is this whiteness? What is white? What is it like? What do you mean by pure white? They were no less clever. One stepped forward and said, Have you seen an egret by the riverbank? Or by a pond? A white egret? Milk is white like an egret’s feathers! The blind man said, You’re tangling me in riddles. What on earth is an egret? And my first question has been left far behind. Your answers have carried me much further, but everything remains stuck. What is an egret? What is it like? Explain in a way I can understand. A clever man extended his arm and said, Place your hand on my arm. The blind man felt it. That was something he could grasp—through touch. The man said, As you find my arm shapely, the egret’s neck is shapely like this. The blind man jumped up and danced. He said, I’ve understood—milk is like a shapely arm. I understand completely. All his friends said, Forgive us! Better you had not known at all. This knowing will only make things worse. No, milk is not like a shapely arm. The blind man said, Why do you put me in difficulty? You yourselves explained it to me! The real point is: nothing about white can be explained to a blind man—and whoever sets out to explain is a perfect fool. The blind man’s eye can be treated; whiteness cannot be explained. If the eye is cured, white can be seen. There is no other way. We are all blind so far as truth is concerned. We know nothing. And we have picked up a few notions from books—like that blind man’s notion of milk. We clutch them our whole lives and get nowhere. First, we must know we are blind. Second, we must see that nothing is visible to us regarding God, regarding truth. This is the first truth. Once we accept it, we can move forward. Then we can ask: How can this eye be healed so that we may know? But the one who has assumed, he doesn’t even ask how to know; he believes he already knows. He slowly turns belief into knowledge and doesn’t even notice the switch—what he read in the Gita becomes, I know. I see people sitting—religious people—eyes closed, thinking: Aham Brahmasmi! I am Brahman, I am Brahman. They read it in some book and now repeat it: I am Brahman. Repeat it all you like—but will repeating make it known that you are Brahman? How? The first time you repeated, you did not know; the second time, you still did not know; the third time, still not. And if by the fourth time you had known, why repeat a fourth time? So even the fourth time you did not know. Repeat a thousand times, a million times—how will knowledge arise? Does repetition become knowledge? Does repeating produce knowing? If so, it’s a cheap affair indeed! Then Hitler wrote rightly in his autobiography: There is no such thing as a little lie; a lie repeated often enough becomes truth. Then Hitler would be the supreme knower. And the amusing thing is, we would never call Hitler a knower, yet we do exactly this in the name of knowledge. Yes, one thing is true: if an untruth is repeated again and again, we gradually forget that it is untrue. Not others—we ourselves forget. If from childhood you keep repeating a lie, by old age it will be hard to remember it was a lie and that when you first repeated it you did not know. You will forget. Through continual repetition you can only forget; you cannot know. You can only forget that it was untrue. I have heard: a journalist died and immediately reached the gates of heaven—a newspaperman. Being a newspaperman, he said he should be given a place straight in heaven. And on earth, whenever he knocked on a door it opened, so he thought, Why not here? Even God must be afraid—who isn’t afraid of the press! He knocked straight on the door. The gatekeeper peeped out. The journalist said, Open the door! I’m a reporter from a big newspaper; I’ve died and I want to live in heaven. The gatekeeper said, Forgive me! First, no news ever happens in heaven. For news you need troublemakers—politicians, goons, criminals. None of those folks come here. Though on earth, everyone who dies is called a heavenly soul—“gone to heaven,” we say. In reality, hardly anyone gets here. The gatekeeper said, No events occur here. What newspaper will you run? We have a fixed quota—ten newspapermen—and even they are idle. There’s nothing to do. And even if you publish a paper, nobody agrees to read it. So the whole operation is shut. If you insist on going somewhere, go to hell; there the press thrives—big papers, huge circulation—because events happen constantly. It’s events, events everywhere. But he said, I want to live in heaven. You can do one thing: let me in for twenty-four hours. I’ll persuade one of the ten to go to hell. Then a spot opens for me, right? The gatekeeper said, Fine—come in, try for twenty-four hours. The newspaperman went in. To everyone he met he said, Heard the news? A brand-new newspaper is about to start in hell. They need a big editor-in-chief. There’ll be a car, a bungalow, everything—huge salary. He spread the word throughout heaven. In the evening he returned to the gatekeeper and asked, So—did anyone go? The gatekeeper held up both hands and said, Wait! All ten have gone, and now you cannot go—otherwise we’ll be in a fix here. The quota is ten. All ten ran away. They say, We’re going to hell. Off they went. But the newspaperman said, Move aside! I’m going too. The gatekeeper said, How crazy are you! He replied, Who knows, it might be true that a paper is starting there. Because everyone I heard today says the same thing—the whole of heaven is buzzing with it. Who knows! The gatekeeper said, Fool, you started this lie in the morning. He said, Morning was a long time ago—by now it might be true. In any case I won’t stay here. Even if it’s false, no harm. When ten people have accepted it, there must be something to it. We too forget the moment we ourselves accepted a lie. And if we keep saying it, in the end we won’t remember that it was a lie. No truth ever comes from repetition. We read books—on God, on Brahman, on the soul—learn the words, and then we repeat them. Repeating and repeating, we die, without knowing. What to do? Therefore I request you: first understand that we are ignorant—utterly ignorant, absolutely ignorant regarding truth. This will be the first truth, the first step toward the temple of the Divine. And when our ignorance is absolute, and another’s knowledge cannot become our knowing—memorize the Gita as much as you like, read as many Brahma-sutras as you wish—you cannot get knowledge from any book or any guru. It is not transferable. It is not a thing someone can cup in his palm and hand to you. If it were so, one guru would distribute knowledge to the whole world and be done with it. No one can give knowledge to anyone. If death is to be known, one must die oneself. And if knowledge is to be attained, one must pass through the path where knowledge happens. What is that path? To be free of all thought. To come to rest in total emptiness. Silence—complete silence—is the path. If even for a moment we can be in utter silence, we will know That-which-is. Why? How will silence help us to know? As long as the mind is filled with words, filled with thoughts, it is restless—like a lake with ripples. The moon is in the sky and the lake is full of waves; the moon’s reflection will not form in the water. But if the lake falls still—no ripples—if the lake becomes silent, not a single wave upon its breast, utterly quiet, then the lake becomes a mirror, and the moon is reflected, becomes visible within it. In the state of silence we become a mirror—still—and That-which-is reflects in it, becomes visible in it. Man must become a mirror—quiet, without even a ripple in the mind. In that very instant That-which-is—call it God, call it Truth, call it whatever you like; names do not matter, quarreling over names is children’s play—that Unknown, the Unknowable, is reflected in our mirror, and we come to know. Then there is theism, then there is religiosity, then is the birth of the religious man. The joy of it is wondrous. It has never been heard that anyone knew truth and became miserable. Nor has anyone ever been happy without knowing truth. There is no possibility of bliss without knowing truth. There is no exception of one who knew truth and was not in ecstasy. Truth is bliss; truth is nectar; truth is everything we yearn for—our thirst, our prayer. But we are not mirrors in which truth can be reflected. A young fakir had journeyed around the whole world and returned to his country. The emperor of that land had been his schoolmate in childhood. The fakir went to see him—half-naked, wearing rags. The emperor embraced him. As soon as they sat, the emperor asked, You’ve traveled the world; have you brought me something? Those who have everything still harbor the craving for more. An emperor began to ask a fakir, Have you brought me something? The fakir said, I was sure you would ask this as your first question. Those who have much always think of more first. So yes, I have brought you something. The emperor looked around. The fakir seemed to have nothing—empty hands, no bag. The emperor asked, What have you brought? The fakir said, I searched and searched in great bazaars, great capitals, but I wanted to bring something you did not already have. Wherever I went, I thought, You must have all this. You are no small emperor. And I see your palace has everything. I made a big mistake—I brought nothing of that kind. Then I found one thing—which I have brought. The emperor stood up. Something I don’t have? Show me, quickly! Don’t prolong my curiosity. The fakir slipped his hand into the torn pocket of his kurta and took out a small two-paisa mirror, and gave it to the emperor. The emperor said, Have you gone mad? I have great mirrors. You bring me a two-paisa mirror and say I do not have it? How mad! The fakir said, This mirror is not ordinary. If you look into it, you will see yourself. In your other mirrors, only the body appears; in this, you will be revealed. The mirror was wrapped in paper. The emperor asked, May I open it? The fakir said, Look at it alone—because it will show you exactly as you are, as is. Then the fakir left. When the emperor was alone, he tore off the paper. It was a simple mirror—so poor that calling it a mirror was hard. But on it a sentence was written: All other mirrors are useless; only one mirror is meaningful—and that mirror is what you can become. Fall silent; be still. Stop all the waves of the mind. Only in that mirror will you be able to see who you are. And one who has seen himself has seen all. Once a calm glimpse of life is had, all is gained. But we search in scriptures—there it will never be found. We seek at the feet of gurus—it will never be given. No one can give it to anyone. It is already with us, and we look elsewhere; thus we wander. I want to say only one thing to you: understand your ignorance and do not cover it with false knowledge; do not blot out your ignorance with borrowed knowing. Do not engage in the futile effort of turning secondhand knowledge into your own by repetition. It has never happened, and it cannot. There is only one way—the way by which it has happened to all, ever, and will happen forever—and that is: how to become a mirror—just to be a mirror. Do you know the special quality of the mirror? There is nothing in it; it is utterly empty. That is why whatever comes before it is seen. If there were something in the mirror, it would obstruct. Nothing sticks in a mirror; there is nothing there. A mirror means total emptiness: not a thing in it, not even the slightest barrier. If there is even the slightest hindrance, the other thing will not appear whole. The more precious the mirror, the emptier it is. The cheaper the mirror, the more it is filled with flaws. A perfect mirror means: there is nothing there—only the capacity to reflect. Nothing but the ability to mirror—whatever comes before it shows up. Can the human mind become such a mirror? It can. And the mind that becomes such a mirror is called meditation. That mind is meditation. Meditation does not mean repeating Ram-Ram, Ram-Ram. Meditation has nothing to do with that. Those are still waves—only with the name Ram upon them. What difference does that make? Or Om-Om, Om-Om—still waves, only labeled Om. Let no wave of word remain, no thought remain. Let nothing remain—only emptiness. In that emptiness we will know That which is present everywhere. To seek God you need not go to the Himalayas or Everest, nor to any moon or star. He is here, everywhere. Truly speaking, He alone is; there is nothing else. So one who asks, Where should I go to search? is mad. If someone asks, Show me a place where God is not—then one can understand that he is setting out to search. But if someone says, Tell me where God is, understand that he is mad. There is no such place where He is not. In fact, being itself is He. Whatever is, is He. There is nothing other than He. God means Existence—that which is. What is missing then? Why do we not find Him? Perhaps only this: we are not mirrors in which He could be glimpsed. We are full inside, and He cannot shine through; our insides are full of waves, and He does not appear. So don’t go searching anywhere—just sit quietly, silently, and little by little experiment in this one direction: how the thoughts of the mind can thin out, and thin out, until a day arrives when there is no thought in the mind. We are; He is; and between us, no thought. In that very instant, the meeting happens. And it is not very difficult. Difficult, but not very; not impossible. How will it be possible? A small key, and I will finish. Keep one small key in mind and it will become possible. Sit silently for half an hour every day. Do nothing—just watch the mind. Just observation. Simply watch: This is happening, that is happening. This thought came, that thought came—came and went, came and went. There is a crowd; the traffic moves on. Just quietly watch, watch, watch. Do nothing—do not finger a rosary, do not chant Ram-Ram, do not repeat a mantra. Do nothing—just watch this mind: thoughts are moving, moving, coming, going. Do not stop any thought, do not quarrel, do not suppress, do not try to throw any thought out. The moment you try to expel a thought, you will never succeed—it is impossible. Suppress a thought and you will never be rid of it; it will stand pressed upon your chest forever. Fight a thought and you will lose. Do not fight thought! Why will the one who fights thought lose? Not because thought is strong and we are weak—but because thought has no substance; it is a shadow. And one who fights a shadow never wins. You can defeat the mightiest demon, but fight a shadow and you will never win. Not because the shadow is powerful, but because it is not. Fight it and you make a fool of yourself—and you go under, defeated and exhausted. Do not fight, do not struggle, do not judge, do not stop. Sit quietly and watch the mind. And if you keep a little courage and do not become frightened, do not run away—and keep watching... Because fear will arise. When you sit to watch the mind, you will find yourself thinking, Am I insane? If for ten minutes you sit alone and honestly write down what runs through the mind, a husband will not be able to show it to his wife, a wife not to her husband—a friend not to a friend. And if he did, everyone at home would be shocked and say, Quick, take him to the hospital! These things are running in your head? Although the one who calls you crazy—if he too sits for ten minutes—he will find the same. And the doctor to whom they take you—if he too sits ten minutes—he will find the same. If you are not afraid, do not flee, do not tremble, and keep watching, the madness slowly thins out—just by watching, by doing nothing. Little by little a new consciousness arises within—the witness, the seer—and thoughts begin to fade. A day comes—surely comes—when thoughts gradually cease. Only we remain, with no thought. Only consciousness remains—like a flame, a steady lamp—without any flicker, any tremor. In that unwavering, unmoving awareness the mirror is formed in which the Divine is seen. May the Divine grant that this direction dawn in you. You have listened to my words with such love and peace; I am deeply obliged. And in the end I bow to the Divine seated within each of you—please accept my pranam.
Osho's Commentary
There is something that cannot be said. There is something that can be known, but cannot be spoken. And the wonder is that about that Paramatman, about whom nothing can be said, so many scriptures have been written that it is difficult even to count them!
Words are impotent. Whatever we can say does not pass beyond the world. In words, in language, nothing that lies beyond the world can be said. Therefore, even about God, whatever we say—whether we call Him father, or friend, or beloved—none of it is true. For what we understand by a beloved, by a friend, by a father—Paramatman is very different, and far more.
But we have no other words. We have only the makeshift words of daily life, and we press those into service for That as well. Hence whatever is thought about, said, written and read does not give us even the slightest glimpse of Him.
I have heard, a fakir was passing along a road. It was a cold night and his hands and feet had gone numb. He had no clothes. He stopped under a tree. In the morning when he woke, even moving his hands and feet was difficult. He had read somewhere in a book that when the hands and feet turn cold, a man dies. People who walk by what they read in books fall into just such mistakes. He thought, perhaps I have died. He knew how dead people are supposed to be. So he lay with eyes closed. Some people passed along the road, took him to be dead, made a bier, and started for the cremation ground. They came to a crossroad where four paths branched out and fell into worry: which road goes to the cremation ground? They were strangers, unfamiliar with the village paths. The four of them began to think: if only we could find someone from the village to ask which road goes to the cremation ground. The fakir was alive. He thought, the poor fellows are in real trouble. Who knows whether someone from the village will come or not. So he spoke from the bier: When I used to be alive, people went to the cremation ground by the left road. Although I am dead now and unable to tell, at least this much I can say.
All four got frightened and dropped the bier! The fakir fell to the ground! They said, How crazy are you? You speak? Do dead men speak anywhere?
The fakir said, I have seen living men who do not speak, so the opposite is also possible—that there may be some dead who do speak. If a living man can choose not to speak, why can a dead man not choose to speak? What is so astonishing in it? said the fakir.
When I heard this story, another thought arose in me: the reality is even more the other way round. It may happen that a dead man could be found speaking; what is truly difficult is that a living man should fall silent. That a living man not speak—this is the difficult thing. It seems easier that a dead man might speak.
We are all alive, yet we have not known even a single moment in life when, in some form or other, we were not speaking—either outwardly, or inwardly. We have not known a single moment of not-speaking, of silence, of utter stillness. We may have seen many births, but all those births are births of words. And in this life too we have spent many days, but they have all been days of the journey of words. When we talk; if we do not talk, we think; if we do not think, we dream—yet words and speaking continue on some plane or other. And one whose words are still running will not be able to recognize Paramatman; for His recognition is possible only in the wordless, in silence.
Therefore, everything said about Paramatman turns into falsehood. Because when He is known there are no words, no thoughts; there is no thought, no thinking—everything ceases, and then the experience happens. And when we go to say it, to tell it, we must return to words. That which is known in the wordless cannot be said in words. That which is known in silence—how will speech reveal it? And that which has been experienced in silence, in deep silence—how can it be told by speaking?
Hence the atheist wins if he debates with the theist. The theist’s defeat is certain. The theist can never win against the atheist. There is a reason for not winning. The atheist denies—denial can be expressed in words. The theist affirms—affirmation is hard to convey in words. Therefore the theist has been in continual difficulty.
But do not take yourselves to be theists, because a theist is hardly ever born on the earth. On the earth there are two kinds of atheists: those who know they are atheists, and those who do not know they are atheists and think themselves theists. The theist is born only with great difficulty. For a theist is born only when he has known Paramatman; before that, no one can be a theist. For how can faith arise in what we have not known? Faith can arise only in that which we have known.
Yet all over the world very strange things are taught. Man knows nothing of Paramatman, and we teach him faith, teach him belief; we say to him—Believe! A child is born, and we tell him: believe that God is!
Beware: whatever one believes, that one will never be able to know thereafter. To believe is very dangerous—belief is very dangerous.
I went to a small orphanage. There were about a hundred children. The organizers told me, We also give our children religious education.
I was a little astonished! I said, Religious education? Religious practice may be, not education. There can be no religious education, only practice. Education can be of those things which are outside us—another can tell us about them. But what is within us, none other than ourselves can tell. There can be no mere pointing; and whatever pointing there is will turn false. Still, I said, if you insist, I will come.
I went. They said, You do not know—we truly give education.
There were a hundred children. They were orphans. Now orphan children have to learn whatever they are taught. The organizers asked the children, Is there God?
All the children raised their hands. As if it were a question of mathematics, or of geography or history. They raised their hands: Yes, there is God. All one hundred!
I was very surprised. I said, A man cannot find out even by the time he dies whether God is; these children have already found out—this is sheer miracle.
The organizers asked, Is there Atman?
Again the children raised their hands.
They asked, Where is the Atman?
The children placed their hands upon their hearts: Here.
I asked a small child, Will you tell me where the heart is?
He said, We have not been taught that. We are telling you what we were taught. This is not written in our book. You ask, Where is the heart? It says, The Atman is here—we are telling you that.
These children will grow up tomorrow, will become old. All children one day become old. Those who are now old were also once children. These children will grow up, will grow old, and will forget that the hand they raised for God was a taught hand. Taught hands are false hands. Even in old age, if someone asks them, Is there God? that learned response from childhood will immediately stand up. They will say, Yes, there is God. But that statement will be utterly false, because it was taught, not known.
In Russia they teach children the opposite—that there is no God. The children learn that. If children are taught that there is no God, then a nation of two hundred million says there is no God.
A friend of mine went to Russia. He visited a school. He asked the little children, Is there God? Then a small child said—and all the children began to laugh—What kind of question is that? Absurd! Nonsense! One small child said, God was—before nineteen seventeen; now where is He! When there was ignorance in the world, there was God; now where! In Russia now there is no God.
We may laugh, but we are no different from those children. The only difference is this: they were taught that there is no God; we were taught that God is. But both are hollow, because both are taught. Neither do they know that there is no God, nor do we know that there is God. Our condition is exactly the same. People will call them atheists, and will call us theists.
Then among the so-called theists too there are a thousand kinds of divisions. A Hindu learns something else, a Muslim something else, a Jain something else, a Buddhist something else. Whatever is fed to us, that we learn.
So then—is there any other knowledge? Or is taught knowledge the only knowledge? If knowledge is taught, then it may happen one day that there will be no God in the world—because the whole world can be taught that there is no God. Taught knowledge is not knowledge. Taught knowledge is parrot-like rote. And when we mistake these parrot-chanters for theists, the greatest delusion happens. A theist is born only with difficulty. In truth the theist is born when we come to know what That is, what truth is, what that which is—That which is—what it is that is—when we know It.
But remember, whoever believes beforehand will never be able to know. If without knowing you become an atheist, become a theist, become a Hindu, become a Muslim—you have gone astray; then you will never be able to know. Because you have already accepted as true that which you do not know. And if a person cannot gather even this much courage—that about what he does not know, he can say, I do not know—how can such a person seek truth? The first condition for the search for truth, for the search for Paramatman, is that we do not fall into beliefs, we do not accept any side. We set out to inquire.
I have heard, in a village a fakir was a guest. The villagers came and said, Come to our mosque and explain to us about God.
The fakir said, Forgive me! So many have explained, and no one understands. Do not trouble me now.
But the more he refused—as is people’s habit—the more insistent they became. Whatever is forbidden, their minds clutch at all the more tightly: Let us go, see, inquire. If it is written on this door: Peeking here is forbidden—then perhaps there will be no one in this village who passes without peeking. For people, prohibition becomes an invitation. Say no, and it becomes a call for them.
They kept after the fakir. He tried to put them off; they pursued him all the more. When they would not relent, the fakir said, All right, I will come. He went to the village mosque. All the villagers gathered. The fakir sat on the dais and said, Before I say anything, let me ask you one thing: Is there God—do you believe? Do you know there is God?
All of them waved their hands. They said, Yes, there is God. There is no question of doubt, no room for skepticism. We all believe there is God.
The fakir said, Then there is no need for me to speak. Because God is the ultimate knowing; one who has even known Him—now to speak with him is foolishness. I am going. He stepped down. He said, When you have reached the knowledge of God, then what more can I tell you? The matter is finished, the journey has ended; even the final experience has happened to you. If I now speak before you, I am the ignorant one. Forgive me!
The people of the mosque fell into great difficulty, because no one actually knew that there is God. They had merely raised false hands. While raising them it had not even occurred to them that the hands they were raising were false.
If for many days one keeps raising false hands, one forgets that these hands are false. And you—when you bow your head before a temple idol, have you ever noticed whether this head truly bows, or whether it is being made to bow falsely? Is it only habit, something taught? Or have you ever known that there is something in this idol?
And the great wonder is: one who sees something in an idol—then he will not see anything anywhere else? Will he come seeking one temple to bow his head? Then wherever it appears—All is That—he will bow there. Except the irreligious, hardly anyone is ever seen going to temples. The religious has never been seen going. I am not saying that those who do not go are religious. Not going does not make one religious—but the religious is scarcely seen going to temples.
The mosque people were troubled. But they thought it over: We certainly wanted to hear this fakir; we made a big mistake. Our answer was such that there was no need for him to speak further. Now we will give a different answer. Somehow bring the fakir again.
On the next Friday they again entreated him. The fakir said, I came the previous time, but you already knew—what more is there to tell? One who knows—what remains for him to know? Since you know, what is there to talk about?
But the people said, We are not those people, we are others.
The fakir knew very well they were the same. He said, Fine—there is never any relying on a religious man; he changes in a moment.
As for the so-called religious—the so-called religious—there is no relying on their change either. Just now reading the Koran, just now they plunge a dagger into your chest! Just now reading the Gita, just now they run away with someone’s wife! There is no difficulty in it. On this earth no one more unreliable than the religious man has been found thus far—because the one we call religious is in truth not religious at all. Hollow, pseudo-religious, false—only a believed-in religiosity. Religion has no connection with his life. If religion truly connects, then a man will be neither Hindu, nor Muslim, nor Christian.
Can there be ten religions? A thousand? Can truth be of a thousand kinds?
Mathematics is of one kind—whether in Tibet, or in China, or in India, or in Russia—everywhere mathematics is one. Chemistry too is one, and physics is one—science is one. But religions are a thousand!
Only falsehood can be of a thousand kinds; truth cannot be of a thousand kinds. If someone begins to say that Hindus have one chemistry and Muslims another, then know that both must be admitted to a madhouse. There is no other way. How can chemistry be different? Whether a Hindu heats water, or a Muslim—at one hundred degrees it becomes steam. There is no way that a Koran-reader can make steam at a lower degree and a Gita-reader at a higher degree. Water becomes steam at one hundred degrees—this is truth. This truth is universal.
A religious man is simply religious—just religious—not Hindu, not Muslim, not Christian. These are labels pasted on the heads of the irreligious. How can there be fifty kinds of religion? When the law of matter is one, how can the law of Paramatman be many?
They again hounded the fakir. He said, All right, if you insist, we will go. He went. He stood on the dais. The villagers had decided with much forethought to give a different answer. The fakir asked, Let me ask the same thing: Is there God—do you believe? Do you know? Have you had His experience?
All the people in the mosque shouted, What God? We know nothing. We neither believe nor know. Now you speak!
The fakir said, About one whom you neither believe in nor know—what is the use of speaking? About whom are you asking? Of which God should I speak? Of whom shall I talk? I am going.
The villagers said, This is a great difficulty. What kind of man is this! Then they said, What shall we do now? But we must hear him. From this man’s eyes it seems he knows something. From this man’s presence it seems he has some news. Perhaps we are not able to give the right answer—what shall we do now? They prepared a third answer. Again they coaxed and brought the fakir.
He said, Why are you troubling yourselves?
They said, Now we have another answer.
The fakir said, Thought-out answers have no meaning, you fools! What is true is not decided by thinking; it is decided. And what we decide by thinking is never true. Only for untruth is thinking needed; for truth, thinking is not needed. And if truth too needs to be thought out, then it will be untruth. Truth has to be known, not thought. Untruth has to be thought. Hence the speaker of untruth falls into thought, worry, anxiety. The speaker of truth has no trouble, for there is no cause for concern. What is, is. What is not, is not.
Still the villagers did not relent. They said, Come once more—great will be your kindness.
He left. That fakir is back on the stage again. He has asked once more: Friends, may I ask the same thing again—God, do you believe? Do you know? Do you recognize? Do you have any news of Him?
So the people of the mosque had decided. If we had been there, if we too had lived in that village—and perhaps some of us did—we would have decided the same. Half the people in the mosque said, Yes, we believe in God; the other half said, We do not believe. Now you speak!
The fakir said, You are very foolish! Those who know should tell those who do not know. What need is there for me? Why are you after me? Why do you bother me? Now there is no need for me at all—I am completely useless here. Some know, some don’t; explain to one another among yourselves. I’m off. And as he left he said, If you have the courage, come a fourth time!
The villagers were in great difficulty. They thought a lot, but a fourth answer did not come. What could they do? One answer was yes, the other no; then they combined both yes and no—what next? Only three options can be seen; there is no fourth alternative. They were very troubled. The fakir stayed several days and went around the village saying, So? You’re not coming now? But the villagers could not think what to do next. In the end the fakir had to leave the village.
In another village someone asked him, We heard those villagers never came again. If they had come, would you then have explained God to them?
He said, Then I would have had to explain.
The man asked, Then why did you not explain in the first three times?
He replied, I was waiting for the right answer.
What could the right answer be?
The fakir said, If those villagers had remained silent and given no answer, only then could I have spoken. Because then they would have been honest. For, in relation to God, we do not know that He is; we do not know that He is not. We are dishonest if we give any answer at all.
But this dishonesty is of a religious kind. And when dishonesty is dressed in religious garb, it becomes very difficult to recognize. An irreligious dishonest person is easily caught. A religious yet dishonest person is very hard to catch, because his dishonesty is coated with a layer of religiosity.
What is our answer? If we are truly honest, we will say, We have no answer at all; we know nothing. We cannot even say that He is; we also cannot say that He is not. And the person who stands on such truth—that I know nothing—his journey into true faith begins. Because if we truly experience, I know nothing, we will be in such pain, such suffering, such distress that this very pain, this ignorance, will push us to set out on a search, to go and find out.
But we are a strange lot! We know nothing, yet we sit convinced that we know; therefore we never embark on the journey. If a sick person decides, I am healthy, why will he bother with treatment? Treatment begins with the recognition that I am ill—then one can move toward health.
On earth, faith is false—and hence a religious life is not being born. The basis of false faith is belief. All over the world we are taught: Believe, have faith, bring trust; accept—do not ask, do not doubt, do not suspect, do not disbelieve. A very upside-down teaching! The person who lives by belief never arrives at experience. Only those reach experience who do not live in false beliefs, nor in false disbeliefs. Disbelief too is a kind of belief—an opposing belief, a negative belief. An honest person stands silent and says, I do not know.
D. H. Lawrence was walking in a garden—an extraordinary man. A small child was with him. As children do, he asked a question which even the old cannot answer. But there are very few elders courageous enough to admit before a child that they don’t know. Such weak elders have thrown the world into confusion. The child asked a simple question. He saw the trees and, raising his hand, asked Lawrence, Why are the trees green?
Lawrence said, The trees are green because they are green!
The child said, Is that any answer? We ask, Why are trees green? You say, They are green because they are green. Is that an answer?
Lawrence said, My answer only means that I do not know, and I cannot lie.
Do you see the spirit of this man? He says, I do not know. This is the first trait of a religious person: clarity about what he knows and what he does not know.
Are you clear? Have you ever taken stock of what you know and what you do not? You will be very surprised—perhaps not a single ultimate truth of life is truly known! Yet about the things we don’t know at all, we bang the table and declare, We know for sure. We not only bang the table, we even stab each other’s chests—insisting, What I know is right; what you know is wrong.
Amazing! Regarding truths of which we have no awareness at all, we are so fanatic, so mad, so aggressive. It is beyond understanding. But this is our condition—and it must be broken.
So I would like to request you: in moments of solitude, think on this—what do I actually know in the matter of religion? Surely the aphorisms of the Gita will come to mind, verses of the Koran may be remembered, sayings of the Bible may be memorized. But remember: that is not your knowledge. What is in the Gita was Krishna’s knowing; you cannot make it yours by reading. Borrowed knowledge is worse than ignorance. Because ignorance, at least, is one’s own. At least it is authentic—mine. Knowledge taken on loan is secondhand; ignorance is ours.
Remember: with my ignorance, even if I gather all the world’s knowledge, my ignorance will not vanish. Because the ignorance is mine, and the knowledge is another’s. Another’s knowledge cannot erase my ignorance. How could it? They never even meet. They don’t touch each other. Another’s knowledge can be more dangerous than ignorance.
I have heard: A blind man was a guest at a friend’s house. Many dishes were served that night—kheer, a sweet rice pudding. The blind man asked his friends, What is this kheer? What do you call kheer? What is it like? What is it made of? Explain to me; I really liked it.
His friends must have been clever. It’s hard to find a fool in this world; everyone is clever. They said, Kheer is made of milk.
The blind man asked, What is milk? What is it like? What is its color? What is its form?
The clever ones said, Milk is perfectly white.
The blind man said, You’re putting me in trouble. My first question still stands; your answers raise new questions. What is this whiteness? What is white? What is it like? What do you mean by pure white?
They were no less clever. One stepped forward and said, Have you seen an egret by the riverbank? Or by a pond? A white egret? Milk is white like an egret’s feathers!
The blind man said, You’re tangling me in riddles. What on earth is an egret? And my first question has been left far behind. Your answers have carried me much further, but everything remains stuck. What is an egret? What is it like? Explain in a way I can understand.
A clever man extended his arm and said, Place your hand on my arm. The blind man felt it. That was something he could grasp—through touch. The man said, As you find my arm shapely, the egret’s neck is shapely like this.
The blind man jumped up and danced. He said, I’ve understood—milk is like a shapely arm. I understand completely.
All his friends said, Forgive us! Better you had not known at all. This knowing will only make things worse. No, milk is not like a shapely arm.
The blind man said, Why do you put me in difficulty? You yourselves explained it to me!
The real point is: nothing about white can be explained to a blind man—and whoever sets out to explain is a perfect fool. The blind man’s eye can be treated; whiteness cannot be explained. If the eye is cured, white can be seen. There is no other way.
We are all blind so far as truth is concerned. We know nothing. And we have picked up a few notions from books—like that blind man’s notion of milk. We clutch them our whole lives and get nowhere.
First, we must know we are blind. Second, we must see that nothing is visible to us regarding God, regarding truth. This is the first truth. Once we accept it, we can move forward. Then we can ask: How can this eye be healed so that we may know?
But the one who has assumed, he doesn’t even ask how to know; he believes he already knows. He slowly turns belief into knowledge and doesn’t even notice the switch—what he read in the Gita becomes, I know.
I see people sitting—religious people—eyes closed, thinking: Aham Brahmasmi! I am Brahman, I am Brahman. They read it in some book and now repeat it: I am Brahman.
Repeat it all you like—but will repeating make it known that you are Brahman? How? The first time you repeated, you did not know; the second time, you still did not know; the third time, still not. And if by the fourth time you had known, why repeat a fourth time? So even the fourth time you did not know. Repeat a thousand times, a million times—how will knowledge arise? Does repetition become knowledge? Does repeating produce knowing?
If so, it’s a cheap affair indeed! Then Hitler wrote rightly in his autobiography: There is no such thing as a little lie; a lie repeated often enough becomes truth. Then Hitler would be the supreme knower. And the amusing thing is, we would never call Hitler a knower, yet we do exactly this in the name of knowledge.
Yes, one thing is true: if an untruth is repeated again and again, we gradually forget that it is untrue. Not others—we ourselves forget. If from childhood you keep repeating a lie, by old age it will be hard to remember it was a lie and that when you first repeated it you did not know. You will forget. Through continual repetition you can only forget; you cannot know. You can only forget that it was untrue.
I have heard: a journalist died and immediately reached the gates of heaven—a newspaperman. Being a newspaperman, he said he should be given a place straight in heaven. And on earth, whenever he knocked on a door it opened, so he thought, Why not here? Even God must be afraid—who isn’t afraid of the press! He knocked straight on the door. The gatekeeper peeped out. The journalist said, Open the door! I’m a reporter from a big newspaper; I’ve died and I want to live in heaven.
The gatekeeper said, Forgive me! First, no news ever happens in heaven. For news you need troublemakers—politicians, goons, criminals. None of those folks come here. Though on earth, everyone who dies is called a heavenly soul—“gone to heaven,” we say. In reality, hardly anyone gets here. The gatekeeper said, No events occur here. What newspaper will you run? We have a fixed quota—ten newspapermen—and even they are idle. There’s nothing to do. And even if you publish a paper, nobody agrees to read it. So the whole operation is shut. If you insist on going somewhere, go to hell; there the press thrives—big papers, huge circulation—because events happen constantly. It’s events, events everywhere.
But he said, I want to live in heaven. You can do one thing: let me in for twenty-four hours. I’ll persuade one of the ten to go to hell. Then a spot opens for me, right?
The gatekeeper said, Fine—come in, try for twenty-four hours.
The newspaperman went in. To everyone he met he said, Heard the news? A brand-new newspaper is about to start in hell. They need a big editor-in-chief. There’ll be a car, a bungalow, everything—huge salary. He spread the word throughout heaven. In the evening he returned to the gatekeeper and asked, So—did anyone go?
The gatekeeper held up both hands and said, Wait! All ten have gone, and now you cannot go—otherwise we’ll be in a fix here. The quota is ten. All ten ran away. They say, We’re going to hell. Off they went.
But the newspaperman said, Move aside! I’m going too.
The gatekeeper said, How crazy are you!
He replied, Who knows, it might be true that a paper is starting there. Because everyone I heard today says the same thing—the whole of heaven is buzzing with it. Who knows!
The gatekeeper said, Fool, you started this lie in the morning.
He said, Morning was a long time ago—by now it might be true. In any case I won’t stay here. Even if it’s false, no harm. When ten people have accepted it, there must be something to it.
We too forget the moment we ourselves accepted a lie. And if we keep saying it, in the end we won’t remember that it was a lie.
No truth ever comes from repetition. We read books—on God, on Brahman, on the soul—learn the words, and then we repeat them. Repeating and repeating, we die, without knowing.
What to do?
Therefore I request you: first understand that we are ignorant—utterly ignorant, absolutely ignorant regarding truth. This will be the first truth, the first step toward the temple of the Divine. And when our ignorance is absolute, and another’s knowledge cannot become our knowing—memorize the Gita as much as you like, read as many Brahma-sutras as you wish—you cannot get knowledge from any book or any guru. It is not transferable. It is not a thing someone can cup in his palm and hand to you. If it were so, one guru would distribute knowledge to the whole world and be done with it. No one can give knowledge to anyone. If death is to be known, one must die oneself. And if knowledge is to be attained, one must pass through the path where knowledge happens.
What is that path?
To be free of all thought. To come to rest in total emptiness. Silence—complete silence—is the path. If even for a moment we can be in utter silence, we will know That-which-is.
Why? How will silence help us to know?
As long as the mind is filled with words, filled with thoughts, it is restless—like a lake with ripples. The moon is in the sky and the lake is full of waves; the moon’s reflection will not form in the water. But if the lake falls still—no ripples—if the lake becomes silent, not a single wave upon its breast, utterly quiet, then the lake becomes a mirror, and the moon is reflected, becomes visible within it.
In the state of silence we become a mirror—still—and That-which-is reflects in it, becomes visible in it.
Man must become a mirror—quiet, without even a ripple in the mind. In that very instant That-which-is—call it God, call it Truth, call it whatever you like; names do not matter, quarreling over names is children’s play—that Unknown, the Unknowable, is reflected in our mirror, and we come to know. Then there is theism, then there is religiosity, then is the birth of the religious man.
The joy of it is wondrous. It has never been heard that anyone knew truth and became miserable. Nor has anyone ever been happy without knowing truth. There is no possibility of bliss without knowing truth. There is no exception of one who knew truth and was not in ecstasy. Truth is bliss; truth is nectar; truth is everything we yearn for—our thirst, our prayer. But we are not mirrors in which truth can be reflected.
A young fakir had journeyed around the whole world and returned to his country. The emperor of that land had been his schoolmate in childhood. The fakir went to see him—half-naked, wearing rags. The emperor embraced him. As soon as they sat, the emperor asked, You’ve traveled the world; have you brought me something?
Those who have everything still harbor the craving for more. An emperor began to ask a fakir, Have you brought me something?
The fakir said, I was sure you would ask this as your first question. Those who have much always think of more first. So yes, I have brought you something.
The emperor looked around. The fakir seemed to have nothing—empty hands, no bag. The emperor asked, What have you brought?
The fakir said, I searched and searched in great bazaars, great capitals, but I wanted to bring something you did not already have. Wherever I went, I thought, You must have all this. You are no small emperor. And I see your palace has everything. I made a big mistake—I brought nothing of that kind. Then I found one thing—which I have brought.
The emperor stood up. Something I don’t have? Show me, quickly! Don’t prolong my curiosity.
The fakir slipped his hand into the torn pocket of his kurta and took out a small two-paisa mirror, and gave it to the emperor. The emperor said, Have you gone mad? I have great mirrors. You bring me a two-paisa mirror and say I do not have it? How mad!
The fakir said, This mirror is not ordinary. If you look into it, you will see yourself. In your other mirrors, only the body appears; in this, you will be revealed.
The mirror was wrapped in paper. The emperor asked, May I open it?
The fakir said, Look at it alone—because it will show you exactly as you are, as is.
Then the fakir left. When the emperor was alone, he tore off the paper. It was a simple mirror—so poor that calling it a mirror was hard. But on it a sentence was written: All other mirrors are useless; only one mirror is meaningful—and that mirror is what you can become. Fall silent; be still. Stop all the waves of the mind. Only in that mirror will you be able to see who you are. And one who has seen himself has seen all. Once a calm glimpse of life is had, all is gained.
But we search in scriptures—there it will never be found. We seek at the feet of gurus—it will never be given. No one can give it to anyone. It is already with us, and we look elsewhere; thus we wander.
I want to say only one thing to you: understand your ignorance and do not cover it with false knowledge; do not blot out your ignorance with borrowed knowing. Do not engage in the futile effort of turning secondhand knowledge into your own by repetition. It has never happened, and it cannot. There is only one way—the way by which it has happened to all, ever, and will happen forever—and that is: how to become a mirror—just to be a mirror.
Do you know the special quality of the mirror? There is nothing in it; it is utterly empty. That is why whatever comes before it is seen. If there were something in the mirror, it would obstruct. Nothing sticks in a mirror; there is nothing there. A mirror means total emptiness: not a thing in it, not even the slightest barrier. If there is even the slightest hindrance, the other thing will not appear whole. The more precious the mirror, the emptier it is. The cheaper the mirror, the more it is filled with flaws. A perfect mirror means: there is nothing there—only the capacity to reflect. Nothing but the ability to mirror—whatever comes before it shows up.
Can the human mind become such a mirror?
It can. And the mind that becomes such a mirror is called meditation. That mind is meditation.
Meditation does not mean repeating Ram-Ram, Ram-Ram. Meditation has nothing to do with that. Those are still waves—only with the name Ram upon them. What difference does that make? Or Om-Om, Om-Om—still waves, only labeled Om. Let no wave of word remain, no thought remain. Let nothing remain—only emptiness. In that emptiness we will know That which is present everywhere.
To seek God you need not go to the Himalayas or Everest, nor to any moon or star. He is here, everywhere. Truly speaking, He alone is; there is nothing else. So one who asks, Where should I go to search? is mad. If someone asks, Show me a place where God is not—then one can understand that he is setting out to search. But if someone says, Tell me where God is, understand that he is mad. There is no such place where He is not. In fact, being itself is He. Whatever is, is He. There is nothing other than He. God means Existence—that which is.
What is missing then? Why do we not find Him?
Perhaps only this: we are not mirrors in which He could be glimpsed. We are full inside, and He cannot shine through; our insides are full of waves, and He does not appear. So don’t go searching anywhere—just sit quietly, silently, and little by little experiment in this one direction: how the thoughts of the mind can thin out, and thin out, until a day arrives when there is no thought in the mind. We are; He is; and between us, no thought. In that very instant, the meeting happens. And it is not very difficult. Difficult, but not very; not impossible.
How will it be possible? A small key, and I will finish.
Keep one small key in mind and it will become possible. Sit silently for half an hour every day. Do nothing—just watch the mind. Just observation. Simply watch: This is happening, that is happening. This thought came, that thought came—came and went, came and went. There is a crowd; the traffic moves on. Just quietly watch, watch, watch. Do nothing—do not finger a rosary, do not chant Ram-Ram, do not repeat a mantra. Do nothing—just watch this mind: thoughts are moving, moving, coming, going. Do not stop any thought, do not quarrel, do not suppress, do not try to throw any thought out. The moment you try to expel a thought, you will never succeed—it is impossible. Suppress a thought and you will never be rid of it; it will stand pressed upon your chest forever. Fight a thought and you will lose. Do not fight thought! Why will the one who fights thought lose? Not because thought is strong and we are weak—but because thought has no substance; it is a shadow. And one who fights a shadow never wins. You can defeat the mightiest demon, but fight a shadow and you will never win. Not because the shadow is powerful, but because it is not. Fight it and you make a fool of yourself—and you go under, defeated and exhausted.
Do not fight, do not struggle, do not judge, do not stop. Sit quietly and watch the mind. And if you keep a little courage and do not become frightened, do not run away—and keep watching...
Because fear will arise. When you sit to watch the mind, you will find yourself thinking, Am I insane? If for ten minutes you sit alone and honestly write down what runs through the mind, a husband will not be able to show it to his wife, a wife not to her husband—a friend not to a friend. And if he did, everyone at home would be shocked and say, Quick, take him to the hospital! These things are running in your head? Although the one who calls you crazy—if he too sits for ten minutes—he will find the same. And the doctor to whom they take you—if he too sits ten minutes—he will find the same.
If you are not afraid, do not flee, do not tremble, and keep watching, the madness slowly thins out—just by watching, by doing nothing. Little by little a new consciousness arises within—the witness, the seer—and thoughts begin to fade. A day comes—surely comes—when thoughts gradually cease. Only we remain, with no thought. Only consciousness remains—like a flame, a steady lamp—without any flicker, any tremor. In that unwavering, unmoving awareness the mirror is formed in which the Divine is seen.
May the Divine grant that this direction dawn in you.
You have listened to my words with such love and peace; I am deeply obliged. And in the end I bow to the Divine seated within each of you—please accept my pranam.