Jyon Ki Tyon #13
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Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Sutra (Original)
ओशो, अचेतन, समष्टि अचेतन और ब्रह्म-अचेतन में जागने की साधना से गुजरते समय साधक को क्या-क्या बाधाएं आ सकती हैं तथा उनके निवारण के लिए साधक क्या-क्या सावधानियां रखें? कृपया इस पर प्रकाश डालें।
Transliteration:
ośo, acetana, samaṣṭi acetana aura brahma-acetana meṃ jāgane kī sādhanā se gujarate samaya sādhaka ko kyā-kyā bādhāeṃ ā sakatī haiṃ tathā unake nivāraṇa ke lie sādhaka kyā-kyā sāvadhāniyāṃ rakheṃ? kṛpayā isa para prakāśa ḍāleṃ|
ośo, acetana, samaṣṭi acetana aura brahma-acetana meṃ jāgane kī sādhanā se gujarate samaya sādhaka ko kyā-kyā bādhāeṃ ā sakatī haiṃ tathā unake nivāraṇa ke lie sādhaka kyā-kyā sāvadhāniyāṃ rakheṃ? kṛpayā isa para prakāśa ḍāleṃ|
Translation (Meaning)
Osho, as a seeker passes through the practice of awakening within the unconscious, the collective unconscious, and the Brahman-unconscious, what obstacles may arise, and what precautions should the seeker observe for their removal? Please shed light on this.
Questions in this Discourse
Osho, in the context of the practice of heedfulness (apramad), please explain the similarities and differences among the practices of witnessing, awareness, and tathata.
Witnessing, awareness, and tathata—these three words are worth understanding for the practice of heedfulness. Witnessing is the first step. It means to pass through life as a witness, to live like a watcher, a seer. If you insult me, I do not feel I have been insulted; rather, I know that you insulted this, and I came to know it. If you throw a stone, I do not feel “you hit me and I am hurt,” but “you threw it, this was struck, and I am aware of it.” I keep standing at the third corner of the triangle, not getting split between the two. I keep leaping to the third. If my house catches fire, I do not feel “my house is burning,” but “this house is burning and I am seeing it.”
To practice witnessing we divide life into three. Ordinarily we divide life into two—there is “I” and there is “you.” You are the abuser, I am the abused; just two, no third. In witnessing we add a third—under all circumstances—so that I do not become the second, I remain the third. As this third corner becomes clear, the other two begin to look laughable—the one who abused and the one who was abused.
Ram was in New York. Some people threw stones at him, some abused him. When he returned he told his friends, “Today Ram got into great trouble—people abused him a lot, some even threw stones. It was great fun!” His friends said, “What are you saying? They abused you, didn’t they?” Ram said, “How could they abuse me? I don’t even know my name—how could they know it? They were abusing ‘Ram.’” They said, “Aren’t you Ram?” Ram replied, “If I had been Ram I could not have enjoyed it; I would have come back full of suffering. I stood watching: some people were abusing and poor Ram was receiving the abuse. And I stood there, watching, saying to myself, ‘Ram is in quite a fix.’”
This third point can be uncovered. For the seeker the first step begins with witnessing. Among these three, witnessing is the easiest. Keep at it. While eating, notice that eating is happening. Until now you believed “I” am eating. Now, from just behind, at the table’s edge as it were, see that eating is going on—someone eats, and you are watching.
As this third point arises, suffering starts thinning out, because the witness cannot be given suffering. Only the doer can suffer. When you feel “I am eating,” you can be made to suffer; when you say “I am loving,” you can be made to suffer. But when you see “one is loving, another is receiving love, and I am the third who is seeing,” you cannot be made to suffer. You cannot be made anxious.
If in the day you remember witnessing five or ten times, your night dreams will fade. Dreams will reduce drastically, because dreams come to the one who has been a doer by day and remains a doer by night—how could the day’s habit of doing drop all at once by night? One who runs a shop by day, runs it by night; one who argues in court by day, stands in court by night; one who takes exams by day, takes them by night. The one who is a doer by day becomes a doer by night. The one who is a witness by day becomes a witness by night.
And here is the beauty: by day, if you become a witness, your shop will not close—the shop will go on outside, it will only stop running inside you. But if you become a witness in dreams at night, the dream itself will stop, because the shop of dreams is no shop at all—it is only fancy. If you witness, it vanishes. The outer shop continues; the dream-shop disappears. With witnessing, worry becomes impossible.
That is why in any country where the notion “I am doing” is strong, anxiety increases. Today America has the most anxiety, because there the strongest notion is “I will do, I am doing; whatever is, I stand behind it.” In the older world anxiety was far less—not because there were fewer things, not because people rode bullock carts and not airplanes—but for a totally different reason.
In the past, along with the doer there was a third angle—the witness—which we constantly tried to cultivate. And the day the witness developed even a little, one moved beyond worry. One saw that things are happening; I am not the doer. He would say it in many ways: sometimes, “God is doing”—a way of saying “I am not the doer.” Sometimes, “Fate is doing”—again, “I am not the doer.” Sometimes, “What is written is happening”—another way to say, “I am not doing.”
But we are foolish people. We clung to the forms of saying so hard that the meaning for which they were said was lost, and only the saying remained. Even now we say, “Whatever is in fate is happening,” but we run to the astrologer with our palm: “If there is some remedy—some ritual or fire-offering—so I can change my fate.” Even now we say, “Whatever God is doing is happening,” but it is only words; they have no place in our life-breath. The words remain in our hands, but what stood behind them—the third angle, the witness, separate from the doer—has been lost.
That is why Krishna can tell Arjuna, “Fight—why worry that you are fighting? The one who makes you fight is I.” He can say, “Kill—why worry that you are killing? Those whom you think you will kill are already slain.” Arjuna cannot understand because he thinks himself the doer: “How can I kill my loved ones? They are mine. How can I… No, no—how can I kill them?” His worry is the doer’s worry. If you want to grasp the secret of the Gita, it is in two words: Arjuna is deluded by the notion of doership, and Krishna is teaching him witnessing all along. Nothing more is in the Gita. Krishna says, “You are only the seer, not the doer. All this has already happened.” This is only a way of saying it; he is simply saying: drop this much—that you are the doer. That alone is enough to mislead you, to put you in delusion, in anxiety, in attachment.
Witnessing is the first step for the seeker—the simplest, relative to what follows. From the standpoint of our present habits, even that is difficult; but with a little experimenting it’s not. While swimming, watch that you are seeing swimming happen. While walking, watch that you are seeing walking happen.
It isn’t difficult. At times you will get a glimpse, and the moment this third angle glimmers you will find the whole world has changed. Everything has taken on new colors—because the world is our seeing; change the seeing and the world changes.
The second practice is awareness. It is a deeper step than witnessing.
In witnessing we proceed by acknowledging two—“you” and “I”—and, acknowledging both, we stand apart as the third. We split the world into three; we make a triangle; it is a triad. Witnessing is triadic.
In awareness we do not make a triad. We do not say “aware of what.” We say, we will simply live awake. We do not say, “I am seeing that I am walking.” We say, as we walk we will keep consciousness present—that this walking is happening, and I remain aware. It should not happen in unconsciousness. It should not be that I do not even know that I am walking.
This happens every day. You eat and don’t know you are eating. You turn your car toward home and don’t know you turned left; by mechanical habit the car turns and you reach. You pat your child’s head, “How are you, son?”—with no awareness of what you are doing. You said it yesterday and the day before; it’s a gramophone record. You smile at your wife—the smile is not yours, it is a record. It is a defense measure: who knows what she will do—better smile. And whatever she replies, she is not replying consciously either. These things have become pure habit. That is why we never really meet: only aware people can meet. Sleepwalkers only appear to meet. They keep saying the same old things…
I had a professor. Whenever I asked about a book—“Have you read it?”—he would say, “Yes, I’ve read it; a very good book.” Yet nothing in his conversation ever made me feel he had read much. One day I went to him with the name of a fake book—neither the author nor the book ever existed. I asked, “Have you read so-and-so’s book?” He said, “A very fine book—really very good.” The very thing he always said. I looked into his eyes and kept silent. He became a little uneasy: “What do you mean? Why are you silent? Did I say something wrong? Is the book not good? It may be—a matter of taste—perhaps you didn’t like it.” I stayed quiet, kept looking. His anxiety increased. “What do you mean? Only one of two things can be true! Perhaps you didn’t like it—but why are you silent?” I said, “I am silent so that perhaps you might remember.” He said, “What do you mean? No, I remember perfectly well.” But now it came back to him—his whole face changed. I still remained silent. He said, “Forgive me. I have a bad habit—I just say this. I have decided many times I should not, but before I know it, I’ve already said it. Some weakness—I can never say ‘I haven’t read that book.’ No, I haven’t read it. I may have seen it in the library,” he added, “perhaps while passing by.” I said, “You are backtracking, because this book does not exist; it cannot be seen in the library.”
Such is the benumbed mind—unaware of what it says, what it does, where it is going.
Awareness means: every act is done with wakefulness—knowing what I am doing. In witnessing we bring out the third point; one who has become a witness will find awareness easier—because even to be a witness one has to be aware. But awareness means: performing each act with awareness. Not seeing that “someone else is doing and I am separate.” No—there is no separateness. In the very midst of doing, a lamp of consciousness burns; it is not happening without awareness. Even lifting a foot—I lift it consciously. Even a word spoken—I speak it consciously. If I say yes, I mean yes, and I say it consciously. If I say no, I mean no, and I say it consciously.
When each act is suffused with awareness, the futile drops immediately—no one can do the futile consciously. The inauspicious starts to wane—no one can do the inauspicious consciously. The web we keep spinning like spiders, in which we ourselves get trapped and cannot get out, breaks at once.
We all keep spinning. You tell one lie; then all your life you keep telling lies to support that first lie. You no longer even remember when you told the first lie—it gets buried so far back you start taking it as truth. Because you have spoken it so many times and heard it so many times from your own mouth, even if others don’t believe you, you yourself do. Then a web spreads and we keep taking steps we never wished to take, walking paths we never wanted to go, forming relationships we never meant to form, doing deeds we never desired. Then the whole life becomes a derangement.
Awareness means: whatever I am doing, in the doing there is full wakefulness. Practice this a little and an incomparable peace begins to descend within.
The third—tathata—is harder still. Only one who has practiced awareness can practice tathata. Tathata means “suchness,” “things-as-they-are.” It means total acceptance—no complaint. It means: whatever is, is; and I consent. In witnessing we are the seer; whatever is happening may not necessarily please us. In awareness we are awake—what should not be will drop of itself, what should be will remain. In tathata whatever is, we are wholly at ease with it—sorrow, death, the meeting with the beloved, the separation—whatever is, we are totally consenting. Nowhere in the being is there complaint, refusal, a “no.”
Tathata is supreme theism. One who says “I believe in God” is not a theist; one who says “I have faith” is not a theist. A theist is one who does not complain—who says, “Whatever is, is right.” Nowhere in the depths is there any opposition; I consent. His every breath is a breath of consent; total acceptability is the beat of his heart. Whatever is—this world as it is…
Even “believers” cannot accept like this. Voltaire wrote somewhere: “O God, we might accept you, but we cannot accept your world.” Some accept the world but cannot accept God. Everyone accepts pleasure—who accepts pain! And pain remains until it is accepted. Perhaps this is the value of pain in spiritual growth: the day pain too is accepted, supreme bliss begins to shower. Anyone accepts flowers; the question is of accepting thorns. Anyone embraces life; the question is of embracing death.
Tathata means: the total—we do not want to remove even an inch—everything is accepted as a whole. Such acceptance is possible only in full awareness; only after witnessing. When such acceptance settles into someone’s being, an endless dance of bliss begins within. The flute begins to play in his life—the music of the void. A veena begins to sound—without strings. A dance arrives—without a beat. A fragrance begins to flow—with no flower behind it.
But tathata is very difficult—more arduous than anything. It means: whatever comes…
A monk was passing under a tree. A man, in a panic, swung a stick and struck him—then the stick slipped from his hand, and he ran away. The monk turned back, picked up the stick, and took it to a nearby shop: “Please keep this—perhaps the poor fellow will return looking for it.” The shopkeeper said, “What kind of man are you! He hit you with it.” The monk said, “Once I was passing under a tree and a branch fell on me. When I could accept the tree, surely this man is at least better than a tree.”
Consider this: you are rowing a boat on a river. An empty boat drifts from the other side and collides with yours—you say nothing; you accept it and move on. But if by mistake there is a man sitting in that boat, a quarrel begins. You can forgive a boat because you can do nothing but accept it—you have no way to reject it. But a man—you find it hard to accept.
Tathata means: whether an empty boat collides or a boat with a man in it collides, within you both events are the same. If even the slightest difference arises, tathata is missed. Someone throws a flower at you and someone else throws a stone—and both are accepted equally, without distinction—that is tathata. If even a small distinction remains, tathata is missed.
Tathata means: in this world, whatever is happening, I have no desire that it be otherwise. Waves are rising in the ocean; storms are blowing in the winds; flowers are blooming on trees; stars are moving in the sky; someone is hurling abuse; someone is singing a song. This vast, endless cosmos—just as it is—I consent. That is tathata. It is the seeker’s third step.
In the practice of heedfulness, begin with witnessing and complete in tathata. Begin by standing at the third angle; then awaken—become aware; and then arrive at acceptance. First, separate the seer from the doer. Then join your knowing to your doing. And then join your acceptance to the whole. In these three steps heedfulness deepens gradually. And when total heedfulness—fully awakened mind—happens, with what words can one say what happens that day!
One more thought on tathata. A Zen fakir wrote a small song: “The geese fly across the sky. They have no desire that their reflections be formed in the still lake below. Yet the reflections form. The blue lake has no desire to catch the reflections of the geese. Yet the reflections are caught. Then the geese fly on and the reflections also fly away. The geese do not know they were caught in the lake; the lake does not know that the reflections aroused any curiosity, any stir, any disturbance in its bosom.” Tathata means such a being. Things happen. He is ready for all—wants to do nothing and has no complaint.
That is why one of Buddha’s names is Tathagata. He loved that name. Even speaking of himself he would say, “The Tathagata passed through a certain village.” Tathagata means one who has attained tathata—thus come, thus gone. As the geese come over a lake and go, so one who came and went. No wish to do anything; no wish that what is should become otherwise. What happened, happened; what did not, did not. No accounts kept, no ledgers maintained. No hopes cherished, no despairs created. No success desired, no failure owned. One who came like a swan, and the images that formed upon the water dissolved.
In Japan the Zen fakirs say, as a deep jest that only deep fakirs can make: “Buddha never happened.” Rinzai used to say, “Buddha never was—what tales are you telling?” And every morning he would pray before Buddha’s statue, palms joined: “Buddham sharanam gacchami!” His disciples caught him: “You are deceiving us! You say Buddha never was, and you stand before the statue saying ‘Buddham sharanam gacchami’?” Rinzai said, “Precisely so. Had he been even a little, I would never talk of going to his feet. He never was, never existed. Like a line drawn on water—no, even that is too much; the swan-image metaphor is right—an image formed and disappeared. It is because he never was that I have made his statue and sit before it—in the hope that someday I too may reach the place where being and non-being are equal; where whether I am or am not is all the same; where life and death take the same meaning; where existence and non-existence become synonymous. That is why I say ‘Buddham sharanam gacchami.’ It only means: I too come to your feet—whose feet are not. I too take refuge in you—who are not. I too want to become like you—who never were. You are not.”
Tathata is a void—a zeroed-out personality: a living void embodied, you could say. A void around which flesh, bone, and marrow are arranged; within, all is emptiness. One who becomes like this attains what I pointed to earlier as the fourth state. Tathata is a leap from the cosmic unconscious—the Brahman-unconscious.
By witnessing we move from the outer world inward, entering the personal unconscious. By awareness we pass beyond the personal into the collective unconscious. In the collective unconscious one must begin the practice of tathata, and then one enters the Brahman-unconscious. After the Brahman-unconscious there remains no practice. Tathata is no longer a practice; it becomes one’s very nature. Then all is effortless—no arrows to shoot; they fly of themselves. Breath is not taken; it is taken. The heart does not have to be made to beat; it beats. So it is with life—everything moves, and there is no mover within. The “I” is lost; the person inside is gone.
Tathata is the supreme attainment—descending into life’s endless depth, the abyss. Religion is the door. Yoga is the method of climbing the steps to that door. Tathata is the deity enthroned in the temple.
One last question.
To practice witnessing we divide life into three. Ordinarily we divide life into two—there is “I” and there is “you.” You are the abuser, I am the abused; just two, no third. In witnessing we add a third—under all circumstances—so that I do not become the second, I remain the third. As this third corner becomes clear, the other two begin to look laughable—the one who abused and the one who was abused.
Ram was in New York. Some people threw stones at him, some abused him. When he returned he told his friends, “Today Ram got into great trouble—people abused him a lot, some even threw stones. It was great fun!” His friends said, “What are you saying? They abused you, didn’t they?” Ram said, “How could they abuse me? I don’t even know my name—how could they know it? They were abusing ‘Ram.’” They said, “Aren’t you Ram?” Ram replied, “If I had been Ram I could not have enjoyed it; I would have come back full of suffering. I stood watching: some people were abusing and poor Ram was receiving the abuse. And I stood there, watching, saying to myself, ‘Ram is in quite a fix.’”
This third point can be uncovered. For the seeker the first step begins with witnessing. Among these three, witnessing is the easiest. Keep at it. While eating, notice that eating is happening. Until now you believed “I” am eating. Now, from just behind, at the table’s edge as it were, see that eating is going on—someone eats, and you are watching.
As this third point arises, suffering starts thinning out, because the witness cannot be given suffering. Only the doer can suffer. When you feel “I am eating,” you can be made to suffer; when you say “I am loving,” you can be made to suffer. But when you see “one is loving, another is receiving love, and I am the third who is seeing,” you cannot be made to suffer. You cannot be made anxious.
If in the day you remember witnessing five or ten times, your night dreams will fade. Dreams will reduce drastically, because dreams come to the one who has been a doer by day and remains a doer by night—how could the day’s habit of doing drop all at once by night? One who runs a shop by day, runs it by night; one who argues in court by day, stands in court by night; one who takes exams by day, takes them by night. The one who is a doer by day becomes a doer by night. The one who is a witness by day becomes a witness by night.
And here is the beauty: by day, if you become a witness, your shop will not close—the shop will go on outside, it will only stop running inside you. But if you become a witness in dreams at night, the dream itself will stop, because the shop of dreams is no shop at all—it is only fancy. If you witness, it vanishes. The outer shop continues; the dream-shop disappears. With witnessing, worry becomes impossible.
That is why in any country where the notion “I am doing” is strong, anxiety increases. Today America has the most anxiety, because there the strongest notion is “I will do, I am doing; whatever is, I stand behind it.” In the older world anxiety was far less—not because there were fewer things, not because people rode bullock carts and not airplanes—but for a totally different reason.
In the past, along with the doer there was a third angle—the witness—which we constantly tried to cultivate. And the day the witness developed even a little, one moved beyond worry. One saw that things are happening; I am not the doer. He would say it in many ways: sometimes, “God is doing”—a way of saying “I am not the doer.” Sometimes, “Fate is doing”—again, “I am not the doer.” Sometimes, “What is written is happening”—another way to say, “I am not doing.”
But we are foolish people. We clung to the forms of saying so hard that the meaning for which they were said was lost, and only the saying remained. Even now we say, “Whatever is in fate is happening,” but we run to the astrologer with our palm: “If there is some remedy—some ritual or fire-offering—so I can change my fate.” Even now we say, “Whatever God is doing is happening,” but it is only words; they have no place in our life-breath. The words remain in our hands, but what stood behind them—the third angle, the witness, separate from the doer—has been lost.
That is why Krishna can tell Arjuna, “Fight—why worry that you are fighting? The one who makes you fight is I.” He can say, “Kill—why worry that you are killing? Those whom you think you will kill are already slain.” Arjuna cannot understand because he thinks himself the doer: “How can I kill my loved ones? They are mine. How can I… No, no—how can I kill them?” His worry is the doer’s worry. If you want to grasp the secret of the Gita, it is in two words: Arjuna is deluded by the notion of doership, and Krishna is teaching him witnessing all along. Nothing more is in the Gita. Krishna says, “You are only the seer, not the doer. All this has already happened.” This is only a way of saying it; he is simply saying: drop this much—that you are the doer. That alone is enough to mislead you, to put you in delusion, in anxiety, in attachment.
Witnessing is the first step for the seeker—the simplest, relative to what follows. From the standpoint of our present habits, even that is difficult; but with a little experimenting it’s not. While swimming, watch that you are seeing swimming happen. While walking, watch that you are seeing walking happen.
It isn’t difficult. At times you will get a glimpse, and the moment this third angle glimmers you will find the whole world has changed. Everything has taken on new colors—because the world is our seeing; change the seeing and the world changes.
The second practice is awareness. It is a deeper step than witnessing.
In witnessing we proceed by acknowledging two—“you” and “I”—and, acknowledging both, we stand apart as the third. We split the world into three; we make a triangle; it is a triad. Witnessing is triadic.
In awareness we do not make a triad. We do not say “aware of what.” We say, we will simply live awake. We do not say, “I am seeing that I am walking.” We say, as we walk we will keep consciousness present—that this walking is happening, and I remain aware. It should not happen in unconsciousness. It should not be that I do not even know that I am walking.
This happens every day. You eat and don’t know you are eating. You turn your car toward home and don’t know you turned left; by mechanical habit the car turns and you reach. You pat your child’s head, “How are you, son?”—with no awareness of what you are doing. You said it yesterday and the day before; it’s a gramophone record. You smile at your wife—the smile is not yours, it is a record. It is a defense measure: who knows what she will do—better smile. And whatever she replies, she is not replying consciously either. These things have become pure habit. That is why we never really meet: only aware people can meet. Sleepwalkers only appear to meet. They keep saying the same old things…
I had a professor. Whenever I asked about a book—“Have you read it?”—he would say, “Yes, I’ve read it; a very good book.” Yet nothing in his conversation ever made me feel he had read much. One day I went to him with the name of a fake book—neither the author nor the book ever existed. I asked, “Have you read so-and-so’s book?” He said, “A very fine book—really very good.” The very thing he always said. I looked into his eyes and kept silent. He became a little uneasy: “What do you mean? Why are you silent? Did I say something wrong? Is the book not good? It may be—a matter of taste—perhaps you didn’t like it.” I stayed quiet, kept looking. His anxiety increased. “What do you mean? Only one of two things can be true! Perhaps you didn’t like it—but why are you silent?” I said, “I am silent so that perhaps you might remember.” He said, “What do you mean? No, I remember perfectly well.” But now it came back to him—his whole face changed. I still remained silent. He said, “Forgive me. I have a bad habit—I just say this. I have decided many times I should not, but before I know it, I’ve already said it. Some weakness—I can never say ‘I haven’t read that book.’ No, I haven’t read it. I may have seen it in the library,” he added, “perhaps while passing by.” I said, “You are backtracking, because this book does not exist; it cannot be seen in the library.”
Such is the benumbed mind—unaware of what it says, what it does, where it is going.
Awareness means: every act is done with wakefulness—knowing what I am doing. In witnessing we bring out the third point; one who has become a witness will find awareness easier—because even to be a witness one has to be aware. But awareness means: performing each act with awareness. Not seeing that “someone else is doing and I am separate.” No—there is no separateness. In the very midst of doing, a lamp of consciousness burns; it is not happening without awareness. Even lifting a foot—I lift it consciously. Even a word spoken—I speak it consciously. If I say yes, I mean yes, and I say it consciously. If I say no, I mean no, and I say it consciously.
When each act is suffused with awareness, the futile drops immediately—no one can do the futile consciously. The inauspicious starts to wane—no one can do the inauspicious consciously. The web we keep spinning like spiders, in which we ourselves get trapped and cannot get out, breaks at once.
We all keep spinning. You tell one lie; then all your life you keep telling lies to support that first lie. You no longer even remember when you told the first lie—it gets buried so far back you start taking it as truth. Because you have spoken it so many times and heard it so many times from your own mouth, even if others don’t believe you, you yourself do. Then a web spreads and we keep taking steps we never wished to take, walking paths we never wanted to go, forming relationships we never meant to form, doing deeds we never desired. Then the whole life becomes a derangement.
Awareness means: whatever I am doing, in the doing there is full wakefulness. Practice this a little and an incomparable peace begins to descend within.
The third—tathata—is harder still. Only one who has practiced awareness can practice tathata. Tathata means “suchness,” “things-as-they-are.” It means total acceptance—no complaint. It means: whatever is, is; and I consent. In witnessing we are the seer; whatever is happening may not necessarily please us. In awareness we are awake—what should not be will drop of itself, what should be will remain. In tathata whatever is, we are wholly at ease with it—sorrow, death, the meeting with the beloved, the separation—whatever is, we are totally consenting. Nowhere in the being is there complaint, refusal, a “no.”
Tathata is supreme theism. One who says “I believe in God” is not a theist; one who says “I have faith” is not a theist. A theist is one who does not complain—who says, “Whatever is, is right.” Nowhere in the depths is there any opposition; I consent. His every breath is a breath of consent; total acceptability is the beat of his heart. Whatever is—this world as it is…
Even “believers” cannot accept like this. Voltaire wrote somewhere: “O God, we might accept you, but we cannot accept your world.” Some accept the world but cannot accept God. Everyone accepts pleasure—who accepts pain! And pain remains until it is accepted. Perhaps this is the value of pain in spiritual growth: the day pain too is accepted, supreme bliss begins to shower. Anyone accepts flowers; the question is of accepting thorns. Anyone embraces life; the question is of embracing death.
Tathata means: the total—we do not want to remove even an inch—everything is accepted as a whole. Such acceptance is possible only in full awareness; only after witnessing. When such acceptance settles into someone’s being, an endless dance of bliss begins within. The flute begins to play in his life—the music of the void. A veena begins to sound—without strings. A dance arrives—without a beat. A fragrance begins to flow—with no flower behind it.
But tathata is very difficult—more arduous than anything. It means: whatever comes…
A monk was passing under a tree. A man, in a panic, swung a stick and struck him—then the stick slipped from his hand, and he ran away. The monk turned back, picked up the stick, and took it to a nearby shop: “Please keep this—perhaps the poor fellow will return looking for it.” The shopkeeper said, “What kind of man are you! He hit you with it.” The monk said, “Once I was passing under a tree and a branch fell on me. When I could accept the tree, surely this man is at least better than a tree.”
Consider this: you are rowing a boat on a river. An empty boat drifts from the other side and collides with yours—you say nothing; you accept it and move on. But if by mistake there is a man sitting in that boat, a quarrel begins. You can forgive a boat because you can do nothing but accept it—you have no way to reject it. But a man—you find it hard to accept.
Tathata means: whether an empty boat collides or a boat with a man in it collides, within you both events are the same. If even the slightest difference arises, tathata is missed. Someone throws a flower at you and someone else throws a stone—and both are accepted equally, without distinction—that is tathata. If even a small distinction remains, tathata is missed.
Tathata means: in this world, whatever is happening, I have no desire that it be otherwise. Waves are rising in the ocean; storms are blowing in the winds; flowers are blooming on trees; stars are moving in the sky; someone is hurling abuse; someone is singing a song. This vast, endless cosmos—just as it is—I consent. That is tathata. It is the seeker’s third step.
In the practice of heedfulness, begin with witnessing and complete in tathata. Begin by standing at the third angle; then awaken—become aware; and then arrive at acceptance. First, separate the seer from the doer. Then join your knowing to your doing. And then join your acceptance to the whole. In these three steps heedfulness deepens gradually. And when total heedfulness—fully awakened mind—happens, with what words can one say what happens that day!
One more thought on tathata. A Zen fakir wrote a small song: “The geese fly across the sky. They have no desire that their reflections be formed in the still lake below. Yet the reflections form. The blue lake has no desire to catch the reflections of the geese. Yet the reflections are caught. Then the geese fly on and the reflections also fly away. The geese do not know they were caught in the lake; the lake does not know that the reflections aroused any curiosity, any stir, any disturbance in its bosom.” Tathata means such a being. Things happen. He is ready for all—wants to do nothing and has no complaint.
That is why one of Buddha’s names is Tathagata. He loved that name. Even speaking of himself he would say, “The Tathagata passed through a certain village.” Tathagata means one who has attained tathata—thus come, thus gone. As the geese come over a lake and go, so one who came and went. No wish to do anything; no wish that what is should become otherwise. What happened, happened; what did not, did not. No accounts kept, no ledgers maintained. No hopes cherished, no despairs created. No success desired, no failure owned. One who came like a swan, and the images that formed upon the water dissolved.
In Japan the Zen fakirs say, as a deep jest that only deep fakirs can make: “Buddha never happened.” Rinzai used to say, “Buddha never was—what tales are you telling?” And every morning he would pray before Buddha’s statue, palms joined: “Buddham sharanam gacchami!” His disciples caught him: “You are deceiving us! You say Buddha never was, and you stand before the statue saying ‘Buddham sharanam gacchami’?” Rinzai said, “Precisely so. Had he been even a little, I would never talk of going to his feet. He never was, never existed. Like a line drawn on water—no, even that is too much; the swan-image metaphor is right—an image formed and disappeared. It is because he never was that I have made his statue and sit before it—in the hope that someday I too may reach the place where being and non-being are equal; where whether I am or am not is all the same; where life and death take the same meaning; where existence and non-existence become synonymous. That is why I say ‘Buddham sharanam gacchami.’ It only means: I too come to your feet—whose feet are not. I too take refuge in you—who are not. I too want to become like you—who never were. You are not.”
Tathata is a void—a zeroed-out personality: a living void embodied, you could say. A void around which flesh, bone, and marrow are arranged; within, all is emptiness. One who becomes like this attains what I pointed to earlier as the fourth state. Tathata is a leap from the cosmic unconscious—the Brahman-unconscious.
By witnessing we move from the outer world inward, entering the personal unconscious. By awareness we pass beyond the personal into the collective unconscious. In the collective unconscious one must begin the practice of tathata, and then one enters the Brahman-unconscious. After the Brahman-unconscious there remains no practice. Tathata is no longer a practice; it becomes one’s very nature. Then all is effortless—no arrows to shoot; they fly of themselves. Breath is not taken; it is taken. The heart does not have to be made to beat; it beats. So it is with life—everything moves, and there is no mover within. The “I” is lost; the person inside is gone.
Tathata is the supreme attainment—descending into life’s endless depth, the abyss. Religion is the door. Yoga is the method of climbing the steps to that door. Tathata is the deity enthroned in the temple.
One last question.
Osho, a curiosity has arisen. You have said, in the context of apramad (alertness), that a pramadi (negligent) person does nothing; things happen without his will or choice. So please tell us: what is the difference between the “doer” in a sleeping state and the “doer” in an awakened state? Gurdjieff says that an awakened man becomes crystallized—what does that mean? And doesn’t the awakened man’s ego dissolve rather than crystallize?
The sleeping man is not a doer; things happen to him too. But the sleeping man thinks, “I am doing.” The sleeping man is not a doer, yet he believes he is. The awakened man also is not a doer, but he understands that he is not the doer.
That is the only difference. The sleeping man thinks, “I am the doer.” He does nothing; it happens. The awakened man also does nothing; everything happens—but the awakened man knows that everything happens, I am not the doer. Between the sleeping and the awakened there is no difference in doing; the difference is in knowing. Their actions do not differ; what differs is the sense of doership.
A Buddha walks, and a non-Buddha also walks. A man filled with awareness walks, and a man filled with unawareness also walks. The unawake walks from the center of “I”—“I am.” The awake walks from the center of emptiness—“I am not”; walking is what happens.
That is the only difference. The sleeping man thinks, “I am the doer.” He does nothing; it happens. The awakened man also does nothing; everything happens—but the awakened man knows that everything happens, I am not the doer. Between the sleeping and the awakened there is no difference in doing; the difference is in knowing. Their actions do not differ; what differs is the sense of doership.
A Buddha walks, and a non-Buddha also walks. A man filled with awareness walks, and a man filled with unawareness also walks. The unawake walks from the center of “I”—“I am.” The awake walks from the center of emptiness—“I am not”; walking is what happens.
You also asked that George Gurdjieff used to say the awakened man becomes crystallized. Individuation, the person, is born within him. Jung too speaks of individuation in the same way as Gurdjieff: the more a man awakens, the stronger his person becomes within. From this it is natural to ask: in the awakened one does the person become stronger, or does it end? Does the ego form, or is it dissolved?
These are differences of language—and in essence, no difference at all. What Gurdjieff calls crystallization, what he calls the birth of the person, I call the birth of emptiness. What Gurdjieff calls crystallization, I call becoming shunya—becoming a void. In truth, only by becoming zero does the person arise for the first time—because only by becoming zero does he receive, for the first time, the personality of the vast, the cosmic life. Only by becoming nothing, by effacing oneself, does the person, for the first time, become truly a person.
But this is difficult. It is one of those paradoxes, those contradictions, that religion speaks every day and we fail to understand. As when a drop falls into the ocean: one can say the drop is lost—where is it now? It is gone! And one can also say the drop has become the ocean—where was it until now? For the first time it is! Until now it was only a drop, hardly anything; now it is the ocean. Both statements can be made. One may say the drop is lost, no longer there, it has become zero. Another may say the drop has become the ocean; now it is—earlier it was nothing; now, for the first time, it is. These are differences of speaking in negative and positive modes.
Gurdjieff and Jung say individuation, crystallization: the person has happened for the first time. They say it in the very sense that the drop has become the ocean. Mahavira also speaks of the soul—this aligns with Gurdjieff’s language. Shankara speaks of Brahman—this too aligns with Gurdjieff’s language. All of them use positive, affirmative terms.
Only one man—Buddha—used a negating word. He said anatman: the soul did not come into being; it ended. Now there is no soul, no Brahman, none of that; only that remains which no word can name. He is saying: the drop is no longer—let’s drop the talk. If you say the drop has become the ocean, you are still making it a big drop; even the ocean is then just a large drop, and it would still have a boundary. However vast an ocean you imagine, it will still have a limit.
So Buddha says: whenever you use affirmative terms you create a boundary. Though the ordinary mind grasps affirmative language more readily. Tell someone, “Just dissolve—and don’t ask further,” and he will say, “Why dissolve? What will come of it?” Tell him, “You will become God,” then it makes sense. Tell him, “You will become Brahman,” then it clicks.
This is why Buddha’s feet could not find ground in this land. The reason was that we were habituated to affirmative language. For the first time in human history Buddha employed the negative language precisely. And the truth is: regarding the ultimate, only negative statements are possible, because every affirmative statement draws a boundary.
Hence the Upanishads say, neti neti—“not this, not that.” That is a negative statement. If you say, “Brahman is like this,” they say, “Not that either.” And if you say, “Brahman is like that,” they say, “Not that either.” And if you ask the rishi of the Upanishads, “Then what do you say?” he says, “Neti, neti. Not this, not that. Ask no further—what remains beyond is it.”
Buddha too uses the negative. He says: nothing, shunya. That is why the word he chose—nirvana—is so meaningful. Nirvana is the going out of a lamp. There is a lamp; you blow on it and it goes out. Now if we ask, “Where did the flame go?” we will say: it is gone. A drop may become the ocean, but what of the flame? We say: it is gone. Or, if one must speak, we may say: it has become everything, one with all—no boundary remains for it.
Therefore Buddha, and all who want to be exact, will speak in the negative. It is not that Mahavira does not know, nor that Shankara does not know. But people are eager: even if a drop agrees to be lost, it will agree under the lure of becoming the ocean. The drop will consent to be lost only if it sees there is no real loss: “Only the drop is lost; I become the ocean.” But Buddha says: if a drop falls into the ocean with the greed to become the ocean, it will not become the ocean—because that very greed will keep it a drop. That very craving, that very thirst, will bind its personality on all sides.
Therefore I have used the word shunya to mean that the Ultimate has no boundary. The person simply disappears. Gurdjieff says crystallization; I would say total decrystallization. I would say complete dissolution, complete surrender—nothing is left, not even a trace, not even a line. The swans have flown, and now even the reflection on the lake no longer forms. Not “the drop has become the ocean”; rather, the lamp’s flame has been extinguished—and now, even if you search the infinite, nowhere will you find its outline.
Yet still, it is a matter of your preference. If the mind fears the negative, use affirmative words. As courage grows, drop the affirmative language. And one day, muster the courage to leap into the No—because only the one who consents to be nothing attains the Whole. The one who agrees to be zero becomes the heir to the Complete.
You have listened to these things in these days with such love and peace; in the end I bow to the God seated within all. Please accept my pranam.
But this is difficult. It is one of those paradoxes, those contradictions, that religion speaks every day and we fail to understand. As when a drop falls into the ocean: one can say the drop is lost—where is it now? It is gone! And one can also say the drop has become the ocean—where was it until now? For the first time it is! Until now it was only a drop, hardly anything; now it is the ocean. Both statements can be made. One may say the drop is lost, no longer there, it has become zero. Another may say the drop has become the ocean; now it is—earlier it was nothing; now, for the first time, it is. These are differences of speaking in negative and positive modes.
Gurdjieff and Jung say individuation, crystallization: the person has happened for the first time. They say it in the very sense that the drop has become the ocean. Mahavira also speaks of the soul—this aligns with Gurdjieff’s language. Shankara speaks of Brahman—this too aligns with Gurdjieff’s language. All of them use positive, affirmative terms.
Only one man—Buddha—used a negating word. He said anatman: the soul did not come into being; it ended. Now there is no soul, no Brahman, none of that; only that remains which no word can name. He is saying: the drop is no longer—let’s drop the talk. If you say the drop has become the ocean, you are still making it a big drop; even the ocean is then just a large drop, and it would still have a boundary. However vast an ocean you imagine, it will still have a limit.
So Buddha says: whenever you use affirmative terms you create a boundary. Though the ordinary mind grasps affirmative language more readily. Tell someone, “Just dissolve—and don’t ask further,” and he will say, “Why dissolve? What will come of it?” Tell him, “You will become God,” then it makes sense. Tell him, “You will become Brahman,” then it clicks.
This is why Buddha’s feet could not find ground in this land. The reason was that we were habituated to affirmative language. For the first time in human history Buddha employed the negative language precisely. And the truth is: regarding the ultimate, only negative statements are possible, because every affirmative statement draws a boundary.
Hence the Upanishads say, neti neti—“not this, not that.” That is a negative statement. If you say, “Brahman is like this,” they say, “Not that either.” And if you say, “Brahman is like that,” they say, “Not that either.” And if you ask the rishi of the Upanishads, “Then what do you say?” he says, “Neti, neti. Not this, not that. Ask no further—what remains beyond is it.”
Buddha too uses the negative. He says: nothing, shunya. That is why the word he chose—nirvana—is so meaningful. Nirvana is the going out of a lamp. There is a lamp; you blow on it and it goes out. Now if we ask, “Where did the flame go?” we will say: it is gone. A drop may become the ocean, but what of the flame? We say: it is gone. Or, if one must speak, we may say: it has become everything, one with all—no boundary remains for it.
Therefore Buddha, and all who want to be exact, will speak in the negative. It is not that Mahavira does not know, nor that Shankara does not know. But people are eager: even if a drop agrees to be lost, it will agree under the lure of becoming the ocean. The drop will consent to be lost only if it sees there is no real loss: “Only the drop is lost; I become the ocean.” But Buddha says: if a drop falls into the ocean with the greed to become the ocean, it will not become the ocean—because that very greed will keep it a drop. That very craving, that very thirst, will bind its personality on all sides.
Therefore I have used the word shunya to mean that the Ultimate has no boundary. The person simply disappears. Gurdjieff says crystallization; I would say total decrystallization. I would say complete dissolution, complete surrender—nothing is left, not even a trace, not even a line. The swans have flown, and now even the reflection on the lake no longer forms. Not “the drop has become the ocean”; rather, the lamp’s flame has been extinguished—and now, even if you search the infinite, nowhere will you find its outline.
Yet still, it is a matter of your preference. If the mind fears the negative, use affirmative words. As courage grows, drop the affirmative language. And one day, muster the courage to leap into the No—because only the one who consents to be nothing attains the Whole. The one who agrees to be zero becomes the heir to the Complete.
You have listened to these things in these days with such love and peace; in the end I bow to the God seated within all. Please accept my pranam.
Osho's Commentary
Buddha used to say to his bhikkhus that life is a deception. And the one who understands this deception, his grip on life loosens.
Try to understand this first sutra: life is a deception. Here things are not as they appear. And the hopes that arise here never bear the fruit one imagines. What we presume while we move through life, in attainment we never find it so. We search for happiness, and we receive sorrow. We seek life, and death arrives. We chase fame, and in the end nothing remains in our hands except disgrace. We pursue wealth, and inner poverty goes on increasing. We long for success, and an unending tale of failure proves itself to be our whole life. We set out to win, and we return defeated. The seeker who wishes to go within must see this entire deception clearly. For if life is a deception, one’s grip upon it slips. The hand becomes free of the chain that binds it to the shore.
We know, and yet we do not see. Perhaps we do not want to see. Perhaps life is not the deceiver; we want to deceive ourselves. Life is only the occasion. The same life becomes a reason to awaken for one person, and a basis for sleep for another.
It is like this: walking on a path in the dark, a rope may appear as a snake. The rope has no desire to appear like a snake. The rope knows nothing. But to me the rope may appear snake-like. The rope becomes merely an occasion. I project the snake upon it. Then I run, panting, drenched in sweat, terrified. And there is no snake there. But for me, there is. It is not right to say the rope deceived me; it is right to say I was deceived by the rope. If I go near, look, and the rope is seen, fear will vanish at once. The beads of sweat will dry. The heartbeat will return to its rhythm. The blood will come back to its pressure. And I will laugh, and I will sit right by the same rope from which I had fled.
In life the reverse has occurred. We have not mistaken a rope for a snake; we have taken the snake to be a rope. Therefore, what we hold tightly—if tomorrow it is discovered to be a snake—there will be no delay, not even for a moment, in letting it go. Hence it is necessary to see life as it is, in its truth, in its facts.
When a child cries, when he is born, we beat drums and laugh and rejoice. They say there was only one mistake made in the world—only once did it happen that a child, Zarathustra, laughed while being born. Until now no child has laughed at birth. And since then thousands have asked why Zarathustra laughed while being born. Until now no answer has been given. But I feel Zarathustra must have laughed upon seeing those who were beating the drums and becoming happy. Because every birth is a message of death. Zarathustra must surely have laughed! He was laughing at those who were grasping the snake believing it to be a rope. He must have laughed at those who recognize life by its faces and not by its soul.
We too recognize life only by its faces. It is not that the soul of life does not reveal itself again and again. Against our very wishes, life many times gives us its darshan, but we close our eyes. Whenever life wishes to become manifest, just then we close our eyes.
An elderly friend of mine—his son died, and he beat his chest and wept. I went to his house. He kept saying, How did this happen—that my young boy died! I said to him, Do not ask that. Ask rather: How has it happened that you have become eighty years old and still have not died? The death of a young person is not astonishing here. Death ought never to be an astonishment. Because death alone is the certainty. Everything else may be astonishing; death alone is the single certainty, concerning which there is no need for wonder.
Yet death astonishes us the most. In this world all is uncertain; only death is certain. Everything has happened, everything may happen, everything changes—but that one death stands in the middle like the pole star. And yet we take it with great surprise. When we hear someone has died, it seems a great, astonishing event has occurred, something unthinkable has happened. People say death is an un-happening; it should not have been, and yet it is. The truth is: only death’s being is certain; everything else is un-happening. If the rest did not happen, we would have nowhere to ask why it did not. If death did not happen even once, the whole world would be filled with astonishment. But we have falsified the certain. In life we have falsified all the truths.
Life is uncertain. The entire arrangement of life is insecurity. And yet we live as if well-secured. We live as though everything is fine. But our everything-is-fine is like meeting someone in the morning who asks, How are you? and you say, Everything is fine. Everything is never fine. That anything at all is fine is itself doubtful. Everything is always un-fine.
But the human mind goes on deceiving itself—and goes on saying, Everything is fine. Where nothing is fine; where every day the ground keeps slipping from under the feet; where the sand of life in the hand keeps decreasing every day; where, except death, nothing seems to be approaching...
Buddha used to say to his bhikkhus, If you want to see life, go to the cremation ground. But even when we go there, we falsify time by discussing the death of the one who has died. We return from the discussion of his death saying some misfortune happened to that poor fellow, without caring that every news of death is news of our death. Every happening of death is a prior notice of our own death. Every death is my own death.
If we could see life in this actuality, our grip upon it would loosen. We have built the burning ghats outside the village, lest they appear before us. We are busy making cremation grounds beautiful, so that we may hide death among the flowers of the cremation ground. We have erected this whole edifice of life as a pretence, a deception.
For the one who has to go within, who has to descend into the unconscious, who has to touch the depths, the grip on the outside will have to be relaxed. That grip can relax only when we see what is.
So first: in this world what appears is not as it is. How many times have we wanted happiness, and how many times has happiness truly come? No—we never sit down to do the arithmetic. A man counts in the evening how much he earned and how much he lost in the day. But in life, how much we earn and how much we lose—we never do any accounting at day’s end. Before sleeping at night, it is necessary for five minutes to consider how much happiness was obtained today. And of the happiness we imagined yesterday would arrive today, how much actually arrived. And of the sorrows we had never thought would come, how many of them suddenly came home as guests today!
If only we would keep reflecting in the evening for a few days, it would become very difficult to weave hopes of tomorrow’s happiness. And for the person in whom the hope of happiness outside becomes impossible, the inner journey begins. The inner journey never begins for the one whose hope for happiness outside remains. If happiness is outside, a person can never descend into depth. If happiness is not outside, then there remains no other way except to go down into one’s inner depths.
Therefore the first thing: life—the life we see and know—is a deception. But the deception usually breaks only at the last moment of death, when nothing can be used or done. And even then it is difficult that it breaks. Often, in the last moments of death, we go on repeating the same desires within, we go on weaving the hopes of tomorrow within, we go on craving the pleasures of the future. And thus that death becomes a new birth. And the very wheel we have already completed begins again.
Mahavira and Buddha carried out an extraordinary, unique experiment. Whenever a seeker came, they would first say: descend into the memory of your previous births. Mahavira called that remembrance jati-smarana. They would bring him into meditation so he could first know his former lives. New seekers would come and say, We have no use for past lives; we wish to be peaceful, to know the soul, to attain Moksha. Mahavira would say, You will not be able to find that, nor know it. First see your past lives. They could not understand what would happen by seeing them. But Mahavira would insist: remember two or four previous births. And he would put them through the process.
A year, two years would pass, and the person would bring back memories of former lives. Then Mahavira would ask, Now what do you think? The man would say, I have obtained wealth many times and yet gained nothing. I have attained love many times and yet my hands remained empty. I reached the throne of fame in other births as well, and yet, beyond death, nothing was obtained. Mahavira would say, Now it is well. In this birth, then, there is no thought to achieve fame, is there?
We forget the previous birth. Thus what we did yesterday, we go on doing today. But it is not only that. Man is so astonishing, so absurd. It is not certain that even if the previous birth is remembered, we will change. You know very well you were angry yesterday; you remember it well. And what you gained—this too you remember. Today again you have been angry; tomorrow as well you are likely to be angry. Yesterday you sought happiness—what you obtained, you know well. But today you are seeking in the same way. Tomorrow you will seek in the same way. Every day you will seek happiness; every day sorrow will come. A human being’s capacity to deceive himself appears infinite. Every day thorns prick; flowers never come into the hand—and yet the search for flowers begins again, goes on again!
Looking at man, it seems man perhaps does not think at all. Perhaps he fears that if he thinks he might stop running after the butterflies of happiness like children. Perhaps he dreads that if he stops he might have to abandon the chase. Perhaps he is afraid that if he look at life, he may have to change.
But the one who is to enter the world of sadhana—of apramada, of awakening, of consciousness—must keep the first sutra in mindful remembrance for twenty-four hours. When you rise in the morning, remember mindfully: I rose yesterday, I rose the day before; for fifty years I have been rising. Will the same desires grasp me today that grasped me yesterday? Do nothing—only remember. Just remember. Only remember; do nothing else. Do not swear that today I will not do as I did yesterday. To swear means simply that no understanding came from yesterday, therefore an oath must be taken. Only remember yesterday. Do not say, Now I will not do this. Do not say, Now I will not be angry. Say only this much: Yesterday too I was angry—only remember that. The day before yesterday too I was angry. Yesterday I repented, the day before yesterday I repented. Make no decision about today. Let only the remembrance of yesterday follow you like a shadow.
Anger will become impossible. The race for happiness will reveal itself as madness. The hope that something can be obtained from the other will grow faint. And the grip upon life will begin to loosen day by day. The fist will begin to open. As the grip on life lessens, entry within begins.
Therefore the first sutra: remember, life is a deception. The second sutra: this body is mortal—remember this. This body is death itself. This body is the very form of death. This is death embodied.
Norman O. Brown wrote a book: 'Love’s Body.' I feel like someone should one day write a book: 'Death’s Body.' This body carries only death. This body is only a preparation for death. From this body, nothing other than death is to be obtained.
First, the world is a deception—thus the grip on the outside will loosen. Then our grip on the body is great—so great that the body seems to be our all. And the one to whom the body seems to be everything cannot go within. He has grasped tightly the peg at the edge of the shore. This must be released; the boat must be untied. To go within, the hand must loosen from this peg. Remember: this body is death.
Do not console yourself that this body will die but I am immortal. Do not console yourself so. You have no knowledge yet of who you are; therefore do not persuade yourself that this body will die but I am immortal. Do not plant the desire for immortality beside you. For now, know only this much: this body dies, and I have no knowledge of who I am. Because if you say, I am immortal; Atman is immortal; only the body will die—you will not go within. These words you have picked up from outside. You have heard them in the Upanishads and the Gita. These words are from the Quran and the Bible; they are not yours. Going within will not happen. These words will, at the most, get stuck in the intellect. That too is a peg; that too must be broken to go within. About that I will speak in the third sutra.
That the body is mortal—such remembrance is enough. Atman is immortal—please do not add this second part; you do not know it. One day it can be known. But the day it is known, there will be no need to repeat it. For now know only that the body is mortal. And there is no hindrance to knowing this. That Atman is immortal—doubts will arise. Whether Atman is immortal or not—the mind will raise questions. No one ever attains a doubtless state and a secure faith that the Atman is immortal without knowing. Until one knows, he keeps imposing from above that Atman is immortal; it makes no difference. Within he knows he will die.
That the body is mortal—this is certainly true. It is the experienced truth of all humanity, of all life. For it, there is no need to believe in anyone. This body is dying. It was a child, it became young, it is becoming old—it is dying. Every step it takes is a step toward death. After taking birth, it has no other work than to die. It goes on dying. What we call the life of the body is, little by little, a gradual dying—a gradual death-process. It is dying away.
People say wrongly that a man died at seventy. The act of dying is only completed at seventy. In that moment no one dies. One goes on dying; the work of dying continues—but we see only the last part. We say water becomes vapor at one hundred degrees. It becomes vapor at one hundred degrees, but at one degree, at two degrees, too, it is preparing to become vapor; it goes on warming; at ninety-nine degrees it is fully ready; at one hundred degrees it makes the leap. All life long we prepare to die. What we call life is only the prelude to dying. If this remembrance regarding the body grows deep, the grip on the body becomes easy to release.
Remember that what you believe to be 'I am'—when you stand before the mirror, see that death is standing there; you are not standing there. Only the face appears to be your own; the face of death is not seen. Yet in the very earth upon which you sit there is not a single particle of soil which has not at some time or other given someone the illusion of being his face. Upon the very spot where you sit at least ten people have been buried. There is not an inch of ground where the ashes of at least ten people have not been mingled. I am speaking of people; for animals and birds, it is difficult to calculate; for insects, hard to count; for plants, too. They also have lived. Precisely on the spot where you sit, who knows how many lived and deludedly believed, looking in the mirror, that what they saw was themselves—today they lie only as ash. Between your becoming ash and theirs there is only a time-gap, a little delay; you too stand in the same queue in which they stood before you. In a little while the queue will reach there. And the queue is always moving forward. When one person dies, a little space opens up in the queue ahead. But you move forward with great eagerness, thinking a space has opened, an opportunity to go ahead. No space has opened—only death has taken one more step toward you, or you have taken one more step toward death.
When you rise in the morning, look closely at your body and know that the body is death. When you lie down at night, look closely and know that the body is death. When you bathe, look closely and know that the body is death. When you eat, look closely and know that the body is death. If, ten or twenty times a day, the remembrance 'the body is death' enters within you like the beads of a mala, your peg in the body will break; it will not take very long. As soon as it is seen that the body is death, then the identity within, the tadanmaya, the sense 'this is me,' will shatter. It must be shattered; it must be erased. That identity, that tadanmaya, must break. That is the very peg binding you to the body.
And the third sutra: by what we call mind, intellect, thought—we shall never know Truth. Through it truth has never been known. Through it we only construct more appealing untruths. Man has erected thousand upon thousand philosophies, countless systems of thought. He has constructed innumerable doctrinal scriptures telling what is life, what is truth. Philosophy has been defeated; until now no answer has been found.
Bertrand Russell wrote in his autobiography: In childhood when I went to university to study philosophy, I thought at least the necessary questions of life would be answered. That is the very meaning of philosophy—that the questions life asks should have answers. Before dying, after ninety years of experience, he wrote: Now in my old age I can say that from philosophy I received newer and newer questions, but no answers. And every answer I, in my foolishness, took to be an answer, soon proved to be the father of new questions—and nothing else.
Every answer kept giving birth to new questions. By intellect philosophy has lost; therefore today no new book in philosophy is being written. Philosophers in the universities of the world are not constructing new theories; they are only proving that the old philosophies were wrong. A vacuum, a void, has arisen. Philosophy has no answer.
The scriptures of religion have given answers; people memorize them. The intellect tries to be satisfied by them—yet it is never satisfied. Because life will not be satisfied until it knows. Beliefs cannot satisfy. The intellect fills with beliefs—someone is a Christian, someone a Hindu, someone a Muslim, a Jain, a Buddhist. These are distances of belief, and these are the styles of those who live in the intellect.
Truth has not yet been obtained through intellect; nor will it be. For when there was no intellect, Truth was; and when there will be no intellect, Truth will be. And Truth is so vast and intellect so small. In this little skull of man there is a small computer. Better computers are being made now, but no computer can say, I will deliver Truth. A computer can say only: what you fed me—what information you pumped into me—I will regurgitate at the required time. The intellect is no more than a computer. It is a natural computer. What it has collected, it chews the cud and repeats.
When I ask you, Is there God?—the answer you give is not yours. It is only the answer given to your intellect. The intellect re-echoes it, reproduces it. If you were born in a Jain home, your intellect will say, What God? There is no God. Atman alone is all. If you were born in a Hindu home, you will say, Yes, God is. And if in a communist home, you will say, There is no God; all this is nonsense. But all these answers are computerized; the intellect has caught them and repeats them. The intellect only reproduces; it knows nothing. Till now intellect has not known anything—religion, philosophy, science.
In relation to science we think: science has known something. That too appears to be a great illusion. What Newton knew, Einstein renders false. What Einstein knew, the generation after him is rendering false.
And now no scientist in this world can die with the assurance that what he knows is Truth. He can only say: compared to the previous untruth, my untruth is, for now, more appealing, more attractive. Those to come will make it false; they will hand over another untruth. Or, in the scientist’s manner of speaking, he will say, approximate truth. He will say, it is almost true.
But where are truths 'almost'? Either it is true, or it is not. 'Almost' means precisely that it is not true.
If I say to you, I almost love you—what does it mean? It means nothing. Better than that would be to say, I hate you—for that would be true. 'Almost love' has no meaning. Either there is love or there is not. 'Almost' does not occur in life.
Science says, 'almost true'—but every truth wobbles daily. In a hundred years the truths of science have all tottered. A hundred years ago science was fully assured: there is matter. In a hundred years it was found there is no matter—anything else may be. Now they say there is no matter. A hundred years ago science said matter alone is true, God is not true. Today the scientist says: we do not know—God may be, for we have not yet been able to prove that he is not. But matter is proven not to be. Now they say there is energy—only energy. For how many days will they say it, it is difficult to say. It will not last very long, because nothing lasts long. Man’s doctrines fall short; Truth grows greater. Truth each day proves to be bigger.
Therefore the seeker must remember a third thing: do not take any truth of the mind to be truth. The mind has no truth; it has only notions of truth, theories about truth. It has words offered for truth. The mind has the 'word' God, but not God. The mind has a crowd of words. And the mind deceives man with words. This deception is the deepest of all. The outer deception breaks quickly; the world’s deception and even the body’s deception do not take very long to break. The mind’s deception takes the longest to break. Therefore the third thing the seeker must remember continually is: whatever the mind is saying is the mind’s imagination. It is the mind’s assumption—not Truth. The mind has no knowledge of Truth; it cannot have it.
If this third remembrance continues, by and by the mind empties of theories, is freed of scriptures; gradually it is freed of philosophy, religion, ideologies. And if these three events occur, the person instantly makes the leap into his unconscious. He descends within himself. The pegs have broken. As soon as one descends into the unconscious, revolution begins. As soon as one descends into the unconscious, for the first time we touch the deep floors of our life; we come into their touch. For the first time we experience life from within.
But the unconscious is only the first chamber. And in the unconscious also these three things must be remembered. The unconscious too has its own body. Its body is composed of the karmic atoms of past births—the body of the unconscious.
Today psychologists speak of the unconscious—the unconscious of Jung, of Freud, of Adler, and others. They all speak of the unconscious. But none of them has any news of the unconscious as a seeker. They have used the unconscious as a theory to explain the conscious. Those who have known the unconscious as seekers say: the unconscious has its own body—the body of karmas, the body of deeds done in numberless births; it has its own form.
Upon descending into the unconscious one must remember: this subtle body of karmas is not me either; it too is mortal. Our gross body, made of the material elements, dies in a single life. The body of karmas dies only once—at the moment of liberation—yet it too is mortal. For the unconscious body we must remember what we remembered concerning the outer body; and for the unconscious mind, concerning its thoughts, imaginations and desires, we must remember what we remembered regarding the outer mind and its thoughts. The unconscious body is constructed from past births; and the unconscious mind is the total of all past memories. Everything lies hidden there.
The mind has a wondrous law: it never forgets a thing it has ever remembered even once. You will say this does not seem so; we forget many things. That only appears to you. You cannot forget. It can be remembered again. It only becomes disordered.
Someone says, Your name is right on the tip of my tongue, but I cannot recall it. He says a very amusing thing. He says it is on the tip of the tongue, and I cannot remember! What do these two mean? They contradict. If it is on the tip of the tongue, please speak it. He says, It is on the tip of the tongue, but I cannot remember. In truth, two things are coming to his memory: that I did remember it—and that at the moment I do not.
He wanders into the garden, digs a pit, smokes a cigarette, engages in some other work—reads the newspaper, turns on the radio—and suddenly it bubbles up. What could not be recalled rises up from within at once. He says, Yes, I remember.
Exactly in this way, as soon as one descends into the unconscious, everything of past births begins to be remembered. But that too is mind. If regarding that mind also one keeps the remembrance that even by this mind the Truth cannot be known, then the second leap happens: into the collective unconscious.
The first leap was into one’s individual unconscious—I descended into my own unconscious. And the day the leap from one’s unconscious occurs, that day I descend into everyone’s unconscious. That day, when another man walks by, it is seen: this man is going to commit a murder. That day, before another even arrives, it is known what he has come to ask. Before he asks, it is known what he has come to ask. That day someone passes before one’s eyes, and it is known: his death has drawn near; he is close to dying. That day the person descends into the collective unconscious. In that depth we become connected to everyone—we become connected to the unconscious of all.
It is an immense experience, a very deep experience. Because this entire world begins to be felt from within as one—this living world begins to be one. All life begins to seem one’s own.
But even from here one must leap. This too is not the ultimate state. It too has its body. In it, the body of the karmas of all people becomes my body. In this state a person feels himself almost like God. Therefore many who declare 'I am God' do so for this reason—like Meher Baba’s declaration: 'I am God, I am the Avatar.'
The one who has descended into the collective unconscious is not deceiving you. He truly feels he is God—because everything of everyone’s consciousness begins to feel as his own. To us, someone calling himself God seems like madness. In depth it is a kind of madness. In truth, this too is not the final state. Everything of everyone’s consciousness begins to be felt as one’s own. Therefore Meher Baba can say—when Gandhi dies—'I have absorbed him into myself.' When Nehru dies, he can say, 'I have absorbed him into myself.'
Some will say this man appears cunning, deceptive. From where we live, it will seem like deception. The deception is Meher Baba’s; he is not deceiving you. It seems so. When the collective unconscious of all becomes known as my own, then whenever someone’s body falls away, it seems he has been absorbed into me. Everyone’s body, everyone’s karmic body, has become my body; and everyone’s thoughts have become my thoughts. But still, the 'I' remains. Therefore Meher Baba can say, I am the Avatar. And as long as the 'I' remains, the supreme Truth is not attained.
If even here we can remember that this divine body of mine is also only body, and this God-like mind of mine—this divine mind, this supramental—is also only mind, if even here we keep the remembrance of these sutras, then one more leap happens and the person descends into the cosmic unconscious—the Brahman-unconscious. In the Brahman-unconscious he can say: Aham Brahmasmi—I am Brahman. Then the moon and stars begin to revolve within his own body.
Swami Rama Tirtha used to say continually: The moon and stars revolve within me; the sun rises within me! If we say this to a psychologist, he will say this man is neurotic, psychotic; his brain has gone wrong. For the moon and stars are always outside; how can they be within?
There is truth in what the psychologist says—so far as his understanding goes, he is right. But he does not know the experience of a person like Rama Tirtha. The expansion of the person like Rama Tirtha has become the cosmic body. The infinite boundaries of this universe are now his boundaries. Therefore everything will appear to him as revolving within. The moon and stars will seem to him to revolve within. Such a person can say: I have seen the world being created and I have seen the world dissolving; I see moons and stars being born and moons and stars dying. The memories of such a person begin to come from the cosmic memory.
Of those who have spoken about the birth of creation in this world, most are those who have had the experience of the cosmic unconscious. Therefore they say such things as: when God created the world; when the earth was made; when the moon and stars came into being. Their dates may be mistaken, for in that state it is very difficult to keep account of dates. But the experiences of those persons are authentic—authentic, not ultimate.
Third: even in this cosmic unconscious, this Brahman-unconscious, if a person can remember the same sutras—the sutras remain the same—that this body too, though it be the vast body of Brahman, is still body; whether small, six feet long, or infinite upon infinite leagues wide, it makes no difference. Whether thoughts are mine or they are the thoughts of the Supreme Brahman—this too makes no difference. These are differences of quantity alone. If even here he keeps the remembrance, then the fourth leap occurs and the person enters Mahanirvana. Where the mind ends; where the 'I' ends. There he does not even say, I am Brahman. One like Buddha does not even say, I am Brahman. He does not say, I am God. He does not say, I am Atman either.
Therefore Buddha has been very difficult to understand. Because he says there is no Atman; he says there is no God; he says there is no Brahman. Then what remains is that which remains—that which remains. And what remains? Emptiness remains—shunya—without any boundary. Emptiness remains in which there is no wave of thought. Emptiness remains in which there is no center, no ego. Emptiness remains... one should say: nothing remains.
This very losing of everything is the finding of everything. This is the ultimate, the last. Beyond this? There is no way beyond—for now there is no one left who could go beyond. From the cosmic unconscious, from the Brahman-unconscious, the leap that happens is into the void, into the Supreme, into Truth, into Mahanirvana, into Moksha—whatever name we may give. In truth, all names are futile. All language is futile. The first obstacles are our own; therefore I have discussed them in detail.
Our obstacles are three: the hope of happiness in the outer world; the hope of immortality in the world of the body; the hope of truth in the world of the mind. Three obstacles. Then these three obstacles get repeated upon each plane. But you need not bother too much about that. Cross these three, and Existence will give you three new ones. Cross them, and on a deeper plane there will be new obstacles. The obstacles will be the same; only their forms and planes will change. And they will chase you to the end. And when no obstacle remains—when it seems nothing remains—then know that That has been known, for the knowing of which the rishis of the Upanishads are athirst; that which Krishna speaks of in the Gita; that for which Jesus goes upon the cross; that for which Buddha and Mahavira wander, knocking at door after door for forty years. It is known—but to know it, one must utterly dissolve oneself. As body, as soul, as God, as Brahman—one must dissolve oneself. I will complete with a saying of Jesus.
Jesus said: 'Blessed are those who are able to lose themselves, for only they will gain it who can lose themselves. And wretched are those who strive to save themselves, for whoever saves himself loses everything.'
These three sutras—begin from where you are, and the further journey will go on opening by itself. These three sutras will have to be applied continually until nothing at all remains. And when nothing remains, and you too do not remain, the sutras too fall away. No way remains to make any statement. No place remains to say, like Meher Baba, I am God. No place remains to say, like Rama, that the moon and stars revolve within me. No place remains even for the declaration 'Aham Brahmasmi'—for who will declare? Who will declare? When all words fall silent, all speech drops, all personality dissolves, that which remains is the Ultimate—that which all religions seek, the thirst of all lives, the longing of all souls. There is the nectar.
As long as there is form, there is death. Where there is the formless, there alone is the immortal; there alone is bliss. For as long as there is the other, there is sorrow. Where there is no other, there bliss is possible; there is peace. For as long as there is an 'I', there is restlessness; where even the 'I' is not, there is peace. Sat-Chit-Ananda is there. Not to be said— to be experienced. Not to be spoken— to be known. Not to be told— to be become. There it is not that Sat-Chit-Ananda is known; rather, there we have become Sat-Chit-Ananda.