Jyon Ki Tyon #5

My beloved Atman!
Man is a seven-storey house, a seven-storey house — yet we live and die on only one floor. First let me name those seven floors for you. The floor on which we live is called the conscious. Just below it there is a second floor, in the cellar, underground — the unconscious. Below that, further down toward the nether regions, is the third floor, the collective unconscious. And beneath even that is the fourth, deeper still, the lowest — the cosmic unconscious. Above the floor where we dwell there is another: the superconscious. Above that, the collective conscious. And above even that, the cosmic conscious. Where we are, there are three floors below and three above. This is man’s seven-storey house. But most of us live and die on the conscious floor alone.
Self-knowing means becoming acquainted with this entire seven-storey structure — that nothing within it remains unfamiliar, nothing unknown. For if anything in it stays unknown, man can never be his own master, his own emperor. The unknown is precisely our slavery. That which is in darkness is our bondage. What has not been known has not been conquered. Ignorance is defeat; knowledge is the pilgrimage of victory.
In this seven-storey mansion we know only the floor where we find ourselves, where we are. To go on living only on this floor is what is called pramād. To remain confined to this one level is pramād. Pramād means swoon. Pramād means unconsciousness, sleep, stupor. Pramād means a hypnotic state. We have become hypnotized by this single floor so thoroughly that we do not even look around. We do not come to know that in our personality, in our life, in our very being, there is much wider expanse.
Sadhana means breaking this pramād, breaking this swoon. Why call it swoon by its very nature? Why call it pramād? If a man owns a seven-storey house and lives only on one floor, unaware of the others, what shall we say? Is such a man awake? If he were awake, it would not be possible for him to remain ignorant of the remaining floors. Yes, this can happen: a man may be acquainted with only one floor while six remain unknown — and this is possible only if he is asleep on that one floor; otherwise he would begin to discover. We are asleep; therefore we live where we are. Nothing else comes to our notice.
Western psychology, till recently, maintained that the conscious mind — the conscious — is the whole of man. But as thinking proceeded, a little probing began, and for the first time Freud sensed that there is something more below. The conscious is not the whole; beneath lies something else — and it appeared even more significant. Freud discovered the unconscious. He discovered the unconscious and Western psychology accepted two things: the conscious mind and the unconscious mind.
But Freud’s discovery is deduction, not direct experience. Experience is not possible without sadhana. Living on our own floor, sometimes we can suspect that something exists below — a noise arises from below, sometimes smoke, sometimes flames leap, and we think: surely something must be down there. But it is inference. We continue living on our floor; we have not gone down — it is not experience.
Freud’s unconscious is Freud’s inference, not his immediate experience. Hence Western psychology has not yet become Yoga. The day inference becomes experience, psychology will be Yoga. And the irony is that a researcher like Freud — who declares that there is something more below of which man is unaware — is himself affected by that under-mind just like those who do not know it at all.
Inference changes little. Anger grips Freud the same as those untouched by any notion of the unconscious. Worries catch Freud just as they catch those who have no idea of it. The workings of the unconscious continued upon Freud exactly as upon others who had never heard of it. It is inference — yet even inference is a big step. Then one of Freud’s associates went on working and inferred what lies beneath the unconscious as well. Gustav Jung inferred the collective unconscious — that even below the personal unconscious there seem to be layers; it does not end there. But this too is inference, not experience.
Yoga is the journey of experience. Yoga is not speculative, not mere thought — Yoga is realization.
These three floors spread below and three above will remain unknown to us so long as we are asleep on our floor. Therefore first understand the fact of your sleep clearly — then the journey of awakening can begin.
Have you ever considered that you are a sleeping man? Perhaps not. Because if a sleeping man comes to know that he is asleep, awakening has already started. In truth, even the knowing ‘I am asleep’ is news that belongs to awakening. In sleep you cannot know ‘I am asleep’; it can be known only upon awakening. The madman cannot know ‘I am mad’; only the non-mad can know it. You have never known in sleep that you are sleeping; waking up you realize — Ah, I was asleep! The experience of being asleep is itself an experience of waking, not of sleep.
Hence I do not expect that you have discovered you are asleep. But those who have awakened say that you are.
A few hints can be given that may stir the idea in you.
A man gets angry, hurls abuses. In the evening he comes to apologize: Forgive me! I said what I did not want to say — in spite of me! He says, despite me! I did not want to, and it happened — forgive me!
Can we ask him: If you did not want to, how did it happen? Were you awake or asleep?
Have you not, whenever you became angry, experienced that something you did not intend happened through you? If so, it means what was done was done in sleep; otherwise you could have known right then that you were doing what should not be done.
One night Swami Anand stayed with me. He told me a recollection from the earliest days of Gandhi in India. In a meeting Gandhi spoke harsh words for the British — abuses, bitter, poisonous. Swami Anand reported the speech to the papers but removed the abusive words Gandhi had used. Next day he brought the report to Gandhi and said he had cut those parts. Gandhi patted his back and said: You did very well to remove them, because what I should not have said, I said.
Swami Anand told me: Gandhi praised me as a good journalist. I told him: You satisfied Gandhi’s ego and he satisfied yours — both patting each other’s back. Did you ever try the reverse experiment? Suppose Gandhi had not abused and you added abuses in the report — if he then patted your back, we would know! Though, both acts are alike.
The reporting is false. If abuses were given, they should be reported. Gandhi said: Good you removed them, because I said what I should not have said. If he said what he should not have said, was Gandhi conscious at that time or unconscious?
We repent because we do things in unconsciousness, and when a small moment of awareness returns, we feel remorse. In the life of one who lives with awareness there is no remorse, no repentance — because he does all things knowing. There is no cause for repentance.
Are there not daily occasions in your life when you regret? If you regret, understand that you are asleep. What you do — is there full awareness of its cause? You fall in love. English has a fine phrase — ‘falling in love.’ We say fall; yet it should be rising in love. But people fall in love. There is a reason. The phrase is right, for we fall almost in a swoon. We are mesmerized.
Hence lovers often say: This love I did not do — it happened. What does ‘happened’ mean? In sleep. Things happen in sleep; in wakefulness they are done. Did you love — or did it happen? If it happened, you are an unconscious man, asleep. Your love is not yours; it has come by some unconscious route. When you are angry — do you do it, or does it happen? If you do it, then fine; but if it happens, you are not awake — you are asleep.
Whatever we are doing — are we the doers, or are things happening upon us? You press a fan’s switch and it whirs. If the fan told other fans, it could not say ‘I run’; it could only say ‘running happens to me.’ Are we machines or men? Are things happening to us, or do we do them consciously? No — we do not. This is our pramād.
Before his enlightenment, Buddha was passing a village. He was talking with a monk. A fly sat on his neck. He kept talking and drove it away — as we all would. He went on a few steps, then stopped, closed his eyes — the fly was gone; the monk was astonished — and Buddha took his hand to the very spot where the fly had sat — now empty — and again brushed it away. The same fly, which was no longer there!
The monk asked: What are you doing? The fly is gone.
Buddha said: Now I am driving it away as it should be done. I drove it away in unconsciousness. I kept talking to you and the hand, like a machine, brushed it away. I was not fully aware — I misbehaved with the fly! Only after I had brushed it away did I know I had brushed it away. When I was doing it, I didn’t know. So now I drive it away as it should be done — consciously.
We are all asleep; whatever we do, we do in sleep. Love, hate, friendship, enmity, anger, forgiveness, repentance — all in sleep. If we take full account of our lives, it will appear dreamlike, not like a lived life. Look back at your years — you will not feel you lived them; you will feel you were lived. Something passed over you, like a film running upon you. This state is called pramād — man asleep. I am not speaking of night-sleep; I speak of the day’s sleep — that while awake we are asleep. Twenty-four hours we sleep. Only in moments of danger does a flicker of wakefulness arise — otherwise not.
If I suddenly place a knife upon your chest, for a split second you will wake up. In that instant you will not be asleep. Because it is an emergency, the moment of peril — to remain asleep is dangerous. If a knife is suddenly at your chest, something within that was asleep will instantly awaken. Then neither you remain nor the one holding the knife — only awareness remains, knowing the knife at the chest. But it will not last long; very momentary. At once fear will take hold, you will begin to run, all will be lost — you will fall back asleep.
Now and then, in moments of danger, we wake for a moment. If one calculated the moments of wakefulness in an ordinary life, in eighty years it would be hard to find even eight instants when he was truly awake. Hence a subtle desire for danger arises in us. Even danger begins to taste sweet — because in danger we wake up. Danger has its own sensitivity.
A man stakes a lakh of rupees at gambling. For a moment he will awaken, until it is decided whether he has won or lost. Such crisis is there that his breath will halt, his awareness will stand still — he will wait to see what is happening. So intense a moment — he cannot sleep. Perhaps you do not know: the charm of gambling comes from the juice of awakening. The charm of danger comes from the juice of awakening. We choose a thousand kinds of hazards, a thousand types of gambles, in which for a split second we manage to wake. But it is so momentary that before we even know we have awakened, we fall asleep again. From such accidental means one can never awaken wholly. I say this only to help you see the sleep of pramād. If you can remember that you are asleep — doing what you do not wish to do; living as you do not wish to live; standing, sitting as you do not wish; becoming the kind of person you never wished to become — the remembrance may shake you.
Mark Twain wrote in a reminiscence: I was writing a story and had decided what each character would do. But when the story ended, I saw the characters had done no such thing — they had done something else. It seems the characters were born through me, but gradually they became independent and started doing things I did not want. The hero did not do what I wanted; he began doing something else. Now what can the hero do? Mark Twain could not understand. In truth, when Mark Twain wanted the character to do this or that, it was a sleeping Mark Twain. How then would the character obey? Another sleeping Mark Twain made something else happen; a third did something else...
Thus the story a writer starts with is never the story that ends. A poem never ends where the poet begins — it ends somewhere else. Because conscious art has not yet been born; objective art has not yet been born. Sleeping people write poems — they begin one thing, something else happens. Sleeping people paint pictures — they intend one thing, something else appears. Sleeping people run politics — they want one thing, something else happens.
A sleeping man cannot be trusted. But leave the story — in life, did you become what you wanted? Rarely does one meet a person who can say: I have become exactly what I wanted to become. Everyone wants to be something.
First of all, even what we want is not clear — how can it be clear in sleep? There is only a vague, drowsy hankering: I want to be this. It is never very clear what that is. Yet this much we sense — we are not becoming what we wanted. And when life ends, scarcely anyone can say: I am going as what I wished to be. No — everyone reaches somewhere else, where they never wished to be. They become something they never wished to become. Life becomes something else altogether. If you feel so, understand: you are asleep. If this dawns only at death, little can be done. If it dawns now, something can be done. At death, everyone feels life has been wasted. What I wished to be, I could not be. The dying man cannot even say clearly what he wished — but he feels something missed, something is missing. Something got lost.
You too must be feeling it. Whoever has a little intelligence feels something is missing, slipping away. Something is not happening. That very feeling is frustration, sorrow, pain, anxiety. Man’s dilemma is this: through love he wants to attain something and finds he does not attain it; in love he wants to do something and finds he could not do it. You decide going to a friend’s house you will speak of certain things. When you arrive, you find yourself speaking of something else. The husband returns home determined not to quarrel today. He has resolved how to behave, what to say, how to express love. The wife too has decided all day that last evening should not repeat. But as they face each other, yesterday’s evening returns. What was decided is lost; what was not decided happens again. Is this an awake man or asleep? It is our sleeping state.
Mahavira called it pramād — to live in sleep. If this remembrance arises — I am asleep — the search can begin.
Therefore the first sutra of apramād is the understanding that I am asleep — to be aware of one’s sleep. The first alertness about that sleep. And remember: the day you come to know you are asleep, morning is near — for such knowing is possible only when sleep begins to break.
The first key to breaking sleep is to recognize it exactly. This is the first sutra I give you: understand clearly that you are asleep. Whether you run a shop — you do it asleep; whether you go to the temple — you go asleep; whether you befriend — asleep; whether you enmity — asleep. Sleep is our twenty-four-hour condition.
Second, let the experience of this sleep happen, let it be known — and religion begins precisely at the experience ‘I am pramād.’ Yet many practice religion in sleep. They go on turning their beads and dozing. They sit in temples and doze. They keep fasts and sleep. As they do their shop, they do their vows. In sleep everything goes on. Even religion is done asleep.
Religion cannot be done asleep. Only irreligion can be done asleep. Therefore, in the name of religion, too, irreligion happens. A sleeping man, in the name of religion, does irreligion. He cannot do religion — it is impossible. Sleep has no relation to religion. Sleep leads only into irreligion.
If the remembrance arises ‘I am asleep,’ what is to be done?
First sutra: the remembrance of being asleep.
Second sutra: what shall be done to break this sleep? What is the method?
And note: the one who breaks the sleep of this floor arrives, spontaneously, at the stairs of the floor below. If one awakens in the conscious mind, one descends into the unconscious. The key to descend into the unconscious is to awaken in the conscious. Just as if, in sleep, you awaken — you enter waking; the state of mind changes at once. Shake a man in sleep — he wakes; sleep goes and waking begins, a different state. If we awaken in a dream, the dream breaks immediately and we are outside it. If, in the conscious, we awaken, we descend into the unconscious.
Before I explain how to awaken, understand this too: the deeper we go below, the higher we rise above. Such is life’s law — like the trees. Roots go down, the tree goes up. Sadhana sinks down, siddhi rises up. The deeper the roots go into the earth, the more the tree reaches for the sky. The blossoms in the sky are supported by roots that have gone down to the netherworld. If the tree is to rise high, it must also go down. It looks paradoxical — to rise you must descend. Sadhana always takes you into depth; siddhi is attained in height.
Sadhana is depth; siddhi is peak. He who goes down within, rises within. There is no direct way to go up; directly, one must go down — from the conscious to the unconscious, from the unconscious to the collective unconscious, from the collective unconscious to the cosmic unconscious. And each time you move from the conscious into the unconscious, you will suddenly find that a door above has opened — to the superconscious. When you reach the collective unconscious, you will find another door opens above — to the collective conscious. When you enter the cosmic unconscious — Brahman-unconscious — you will suddenly find that the door of Brahman-conscious, the cosmic conscious, has also opened. The deeper you descend, the higher you rise. Therefore drop concern for height; care for depth. How to awaken where we are.
If someone asks: How do we learn to swim? What will we say? We will say: begin to swim. He will say: I don’t yet know how — how can I begin? A great snag seems to arise.
If I take you to the river and say I will teach you swimming, you will say: I will not enter the water until I have learned. And your logic looks right. All reasonable logic does not necessarily lead near truth. You are right in thought: until I learn, how can I enter? Teach me first, then I will enter. Perfectly logical. But I will say: unless you enter the water, how will you learn? Only by entering the water can you learn. If you refuse to enter, you cannot be taught. My logic too is logic — fully right. Both statements are logical. But mine is close to existence; yours remains mere thought. You are right in the head — but you do not know that to learn you must first enter the water. And the first time anyone enters, he does so without having learned. In truth, entering without knowing is the beginning of learning. Yes, only this much: do not go into deep water — enter the shallow, enough not to drown and yet enough to swim. From there one must begin.
I do not ask you for a total awakening at once. Start with a little water. Begin to wake in those small acts where you are asleep. You can walk on the road awake, you can walk asleep. Most walk asleep. If you stand by the roadside and watch, many will appear to be talking to themselves. Someone is waving his hand, someone answering someone who is not there; someone’s lips tremble — he is conversing with the absent. This man is asleep. If you watch the road for an hour, you will be amazed — how are so many walking asleep? Walking is just habit — for walking, great awareness is not needed. Sometimes a horn blows and a man jumps aside — wakes a little — otherwise he continues asleep.
You do not reach home awake. Your legs turn homeward like a machine. You climb your steps, press the bell. No awareness is needed; all this happens in sleep — habitual. The cycle’s handle turns by itself at the right point. All is mechanical; inside you remain asleep. Hence we find it easy to repeat habits, because they do not require awareness. New habits are difficult — they demand a little wakefulness. Then once formed, you sleep again. Therefore we keep doing the old again and again — all runs in sleep.
A man puts a cigarette to his lips, strikes a match, lights it, smokes, flicks it away. No one would say he is asleep — we will say if he were asleep his hand would burn. No — still he is asleep. Just before the hand burns, he will wake a little and flick the butt away, and fall asleep again. Habit knows when the cigarette is near the fingers — the hand throws it. All this is in sleep.
One must begin to wake in these little acts. Start with innocent acts — with no great conflict. Walking the road, eating, bathing, putting on your clothes. Begin with small actions where involvement is not deep. Yes, to be aware in anger will be going deeper. This is shallow still. Put on your clothes awake — you will be astonished. Put on your shoes awake — you will be surprised. What a different feeling, an experience you never had though you have worn shoes every day.
Now you are listening to me — you can listen asleep or awake. When you listen, do not only listen to me — also know that you are listening. If you only listen and forget the one who is listening, you are asleep. The arrow of awareness must be double — two-pointed. One side toward me who is speaking, and one toward yourself who is listening. If at this very moment your awareness is on both sides — listening, and knowing that you are listening — you will instantly experience that the quality of hearing has changed. Right here you will see the very texture change. Then you cannot think; you can only listen — because if you think, the other arrow, the one toward yourself, will be lost. If you only listen or only see, a transformation begins — sleep starts breaking and a ray of awakening enters.
Begin to be aware in small actions. Then awaken in those actions for which you later repent — anger, hate, rudeness. If you experiment from morning till evening, in a few days you will be a very different man. Your pramād will begin to break in awareness. And what will be the proof that it has broken? The proof will be that in sleep too your awakening will begin. The day your sleep breaks in wakefulness, that day you will enter sleep consciously.
How strange — we sleep daily, thousands of times we have slept, yet we do not know what sleep is. When does it come? You sleep every night — but do you know when it arrives? How it comes? What it is? No — we only know until what time we remained awake — till twelve at night. When, in which moment, did sleep come? How did it cover you? How did you sink into it? Have you ever known? No idea at all. In a sixty-year life, a man sleeps twenty years. Such a great event — and we have no acquaintance with what sleep means! What is this sleeping? What happens within?
But he who is not awake while awake — how will he awaken in sleep?
First you must awaken in waking. And the day you do, you will be astonished. As I sit in this room and darkness gathers, I can see — darkness coming, deepening, complete. Then light returns — I can see it coming, strengthening, filling. But I know both. Yet you do not know when you fell asleep, how darkness descended upon you, how you drowned; nor do you know how sleep receded in the morning, how it ended, how it left. The day you awaken during waking hours and begin to do all acts with awareness — eat consciously, dress consciously, walk consciously...
Someone asked Mahavira: What should we do? Mahavira said: Do not worry so much what to do — whatever you do, do it consciously.
Try anger consciously — but it will be very difficult; it is a deeper thing. Then take a device — act anger some day, and you will find it easy to be aware. Go home today resolved to burst forth at someone — pure acting — without cause; then you will easily remain awake. Resolve it. There is no cause in the wife — in fact there is never a cause, it is only you are unconscious — decide there is no cause, yet you will erupt. And perform anger fully — then you will be able to watch it! On one side anger will flow; on the other, inside, you will watch: anger is moving. And if you can watch even acted anger, then next time real anger will also become acting. If once you can act anger, then anger will never be without acting; it will be acting only. Its inner connection with you will be broken.
For deeper things begin with acting, consciously — then you can be aware in them. And if awakening begins in waking, it will begin in sleep too. The day you awaken in sleep, you enter the unconscious. Krishna in the Gita speaks of this: the yogi is awake in the night when all others sleep. That is the second stage. If you can sleep while awake inside — which is a miracle — the day you can sleep and remain awake within, that morning you will rise so fresh as you have never known. That freshness has no relation to the body; it relates deeply to the soul.
The day you can sleep while awake, your dreams will begin to dissolve — because you will be aware of them. Not that afterwards you will know a dream came; while the dream is coming, you will know: a dream is coming.
As I said: awaken to the acts of the conscious mind, and you enter the unconscious; then awaken to the acts of the unconscious, and you enter the collective unconscious. The act of the unconscious is dream. When you awaken to dreams, suddenly you will find another door opens below — the collective unconscious. That is not my unconscious — it is our unconscious. The collective unconscious has its own activities to which religions have given great significance. There are profound experiences of that deep unconscious — what Jung called archetypes, religious symbols. In that deep, that collective unconscious, all the mythologies of the world were born — the birth of the cosmos, the possibility of dissolution, the forms, colors, sounds of the Divine — all were born there. They are its activities.
He who awakens in the dream will enter the collective unconscious, and it has its own activities. What people call religious experiences are not yet spiritual — they are still mental experiences of the collective unconscious: expanses of color, emergence of lights, unprecedented fragrances, unheard-of sounds — all arise there. Even the birth and death of worlds can be seen — the moment Earth came to be, the moment she will pass. From there all myths of creation arose.
Hence the wonder: all myths of creation in the world are alike. Whether Christian, Muslim, Hindu — little difference words make. In that state of consciousness certain things were known that are the same everywhere.
For example, all over the world there is the idea of a great deluge once upon a time. Christians think so; Hindus too; the stories of aboriginal peoples across the globe also speak of a deluge. And strange — there was no communication among them. Dialogue came only recently; their legends are thousands of years old, when they were utterly unrelated — yet their stories are one. What is happening? Only this: the collective unconscious is one — ours all. Therefore deep within, we are one. Hence in things related to the depths, differences vanish.
Dance arises from the collective unconscious — therefore to understand dance you need not know the other’s language. An Englishman dances — a Chinese can understand. You need not know English. A Hindu dances — a Muslim understands.
Painting too needs no common tongue. One who knows no French can understand Picasso. No need — because these things are born of our collective unconscious. We already know them. For them we need no knowledge of each other’s tongues, civilization, culture, doctrines.
Therefore the symbols of all religions are alike. So alike at times it is astounding. For example, the sound ‘OM’ arises from the collective unconscious. Therefore the sound of OM is present in all religions. A few permutations in grasping. Hindus have caught it as OM. That is our way of catching — for the catching is done by the conscious mind. Jews and Christians have caught it as ‘Amen’ — OM refined in their way. Even today after prayer they say: Amen. The words ‘omniscient,’ ‘omnipresent’ all arise from OM. They have come from very deep. They did not go from Sanskrit — as Sanskritists fancy that all languages came from Sanskrit. Not so. The similarity among languages is from the similarity of the collective unconscious; the world’s languages did not spring from one tongue.
There is a stratum of mind that is ours all — like waves on the ocean surface are separate, but below the ocean is one. So we are separate like waves; deeper and deeper, all is one. That togetherness has its own activities — which Kabir called the anāhat nāda. We know one kind of sound — produced by strike. If I clap, a sound arises because two palms strike. If I hit the drum, sound resonates because there is a blow. This is āhat nāda — struck sound. In the collective unconscious there are sounds without any blow — hence called anāhat — the unstruck sound, a clap with one hand.
A Zen master in Japan tells his disciple: Find out how a clap with one hand sounds. Difficult! Can a clap with one hand happen? He claps on the table, on the wall, returns to the master and says: I have made the one-hand clap, and demonstrates. The master says: The wall has become the other hand — it won’t do. Find how a single hand claps. It cannot be found until he descends into the anāhat nāda. To lead him there he says: Find how the one-hand clap sounds.
If we awaken to the activities of the collective unconscious, we descend into the cosmic unconscious. We enter Brahman-unconscious — in this land called prakriti. Understand the word ‘prakriti’: it means what was before all creation — pre-creation. That which is before kṛti, before creation. That which was even before the made — from which all came — what existed prior to becoming — that is prakriti. The cosmic unconscious is prakriti. From it all arises.
Now understand it thus.
The conscious mind is mine; the unconscious mind is also mine. But the collective unconscious is ‘ours’ — not ‘mine.’ Not yours, ours. The cosmic unconscious is not even ours — it belongs to all. The stones are included in it, birds, rivers, mountains — all. That is nature. The one who descends there has nowhere further to go. It is a bottomless abyss — beyond it there is no further descent, the void chasm.
This whole process of descent is apramād.
Begin to awaken exactly where you are. The day you awaken there, you will receive the key to the door below. Then awaken there — and another key appears. And a second process will run all along: as long as you remain in the conscious, you cannot reach the superconscious. Your roots must descend into the unconscious. The day your roots enter the unconscious, your branches will spread into the superconscious.
Freud and Jung do not reach the superconscious because they only infer. They speak of the unconscious and the collective unconscious below — of the above they have no imagination.
But existence is always balance. The possibility of descending is equal to the possibility of ascending. In truth, the below cannot exist without the above. If the left is not, the right cannot be. Can the below exist without the above? Then how will you call it below? The below has no existence without the above. Can sorrow exist without joy? Then how will you call it sorrow? Sorrow cannot exist without joy.
Life is always dual. As deep below — so high above. The very same that is below is above. The difference only this: below is underground, in darkness; above is in the open sky, in the sun. The deeper you descend, the denser the darkness; and the cosmic unconscious — prakriti — is total darkness, vast darkness, darkness upon darkness. The higher you rise, the greater the light; and the cosmic conscious — Brahman — is total light, light upon light. But the way up goes through the down — the peak is to be achieved via the abyss. This is the greatest difficulty of sadhana: to understand that to go up you must go down!
We think of going straight up. But we cannot. If we try to go straight up, speculation begins; we create philosophies of the above — superconscious, collective conscious, cosmic conscious. But they will be mere concepts. He who goes straight up falls into philosophy, not into religion. He who wants the experience of religion must first descend.
It is strange but true: one who is to be a saint must, in a very deep sense, dare to be a sinner. And one who has saved himself from deep sin can never be a great saint. It sounds odd, but it is fact. Often great sinners turn suddenly into great saints — while small sinners remain small sinners. Because all transformations come from depths. Descent is necessary for ascent.
Let me share a saying of Nietzsche: ‘That tree which is to touch the sky must send its roots down to hell.’ Frightening to descend — there is darkness. When you descend from the conscious to the unconscious you enter great darkness. But the courage to descend into darkness makes you worthy of light. Worthiness comes from descending into the dark. Courage comes there. Capacity comes there.
Therefore let go concern for above; care for the below — and break pramād step by step. Where will you begin? Always from where you are. You are on the conscious floor — begin to do the acts of the conscious without pramād.
Ananda lived with Buddha for years. One day he said: It seems a great mystery. Sometimes when I cannot sleep at night I watch you — you sleep on the same side all night, you do not move your hand, you do not change your leg. The posture in which you rest your head in the evening, the same all night. Astonishing. I have to toss and turn, move my hands and feet.
Buddha asked: Are you aware you move your hands and feet, you turn?
Ananda said: Not at all. In the morning I find I am not as I lay down; my head was somewhere, it is elsewhere. How can one know in sleep?
Buddha said: I sleep knowing. My hand remains where I place it — until I move it. If the hand moves by itself, my mastery is gone — I am no longer the master.
Ananda asked: Do you sleep awake even at night?
Buddha said: Certainly. Because I am awake while awake in the day, I have become capable of sleeping awake at night.
As long as you remain asleep while awake, there is no possibility of sleeping awake. If in waking you are asleep, in sleep you will be asleep.
Start awakening in waking; break pramād there. Mahavira constantly instructed his monks: With vivek rise, with vivek walk, with vivek sit. What did it mean? Many of his ascetics have understood ‘vivek’ as discrimination — they thought it meant: do not step on someone’s mat, do not walk on a spread carpet, walk on dry ground, not wet; eat this, do not eat that. This is not Mahavira’s meaning. His vivek means awareness — not discrimination. Where awareness is, discrimination comes of itself as shadow. Where there is discriminating mind without awareness, there is no need for awareness.
Mahavira says: Walk with vivek — meaning, walk knowingly, with awareness that you are walking. In this awareness, all else is included. What is wrong will not happen — for no one has ever done wrong consciously; it cannot be done. Whatever is done consciously is always right. Consciously only virtue can be done — sin cannot be done.
Thus when Mahavira says: Eat with awareness — he does not mean eat this and not that. He means: be aware while eating. In the act of eating, awareness. Then what to leave and what to take will come on its own; it will be dropped. There is no need for separate rules. And whoever makes separate rules proclaims his awareness has not yet awakened.
If I go to the temple and vow: I will exit only by the door, never through the wall — people will say: Are you blind? Only the blind need such vows. And note: however many vows a blind man takes, he will sooner or later bump into a wall. He cannot fulfill his vow. One with eyes never vows: I will go by the door, not the wall. He goes by the door — because to have eyes means you see the wall will break your head, the door is the passage.
He who lives with awareness does not do wrong — he never vows not to do wrong. Whoever vows not to do wrong — know that he has no idea of awareness yet; he is blind. Vows are only for the blind. Those with eyes do not take vows; the way they live is vow. Vow is not taken. But we all are taking vows in temples — we swear: for one year I will do this; I will not eat this, not drink that. Which means your mind desires to drink, desires to eat — and you are, against it, taking a contrary oath. In a temple, with a little fear of God; before people, so they can watch: you said you would not smoke, now you smoke. Before a monk, so fear remains you gave your word. But one thing is certain — the desire to smoke resides within. That man is not in awareness; therefore he swears.
Against whom do we swear? Against ourselves! And such vows are hard to keep. Even if kept, there is no benefit — only a deadening of sensitivity.
No, when Mahavira says: Walk with vivek — he means: let the act of walking be conscious, without pramād, not in stupor. When the foot lifts, know it lifts; when it falls, know it falls. When the head turns, know it turns. When you sit, know you are sitting. Let no act slip by in unconsciousness.
Thus when someone asked Mahavira: Whom do you call a monk? He did not say: he who ties a bandage across the mouth. If Mahavira had said that, he would be worth two pennies — the worth of the bandage. Nor did he say: the naked one is a monk. Had he said that, the wise would laugh forever. Mahavira gave a marvelous answer: He who is awake, I call a monk — asutta muni — he who is not asleep. An astounding definition: not asleep! He who is not asleep I call a monk. When asked: whom do you call unholy? Mahavira could have said: he who drinks wine. But it seems he had no connection with taverns. Those connected with taverns go on teaching: he who does not drink, who does not eat meat, is holy. Mahavira evidently had no ties to butcheries either. Those who have, go on saying: he who does not eat meat is holy; who does not smoke, is holy. Mahavira said: sutta amuni — he who lives asleep is unholy. Great courage, deep insight.
Everything rests upon one tiny sutra: Are you living awake, or asleep? If awake, holiness begins to descend into your life. If asleep, nothing but unholiness can happen. You can even become a monk in sleep — but that will be a made monk. And made monks fall into a worse state than sinners — because they fall into the illusion that they are holy. And when the unholy falls into the illusion of holiness, births upon births will be needed to break it.
Apramād is the sutra of sadhana. Apramād is sadhana.
Four days I have said this to you:
Ahimsa — that is the result; himsa is the state.
Aparigraha — that is the result; parigraha is the state.
Achaurya — that is the result; stealing is the state.
Akaam — that is the result; kāma, passion, craving is the state.
Between these states and their results the sutra is apramād — awareness, remembering, remembrance.
Let every act be done with remembrance, with awareness — and not a single act in unconsciousness. Then your religious journey begins. You will descend. And the same key remains. When you reach the next lower floor, then again apramād toward its activities. When you awaken to all of its activities, you reach further down — again apramād. And the further down you go, the higher you rise. The day one touches the last layer of his underworld, on the same day he attains the last nectar-layer of his soul.
Go into the underworld, so that you may arrive at Moksha! Descend deep, so that you may touch the heights! Touch hell, so that heaven becomes available! Go deeper and deeper into darkness, so that you become worthy of light. Through apramād — and through nothing else — is this possible. Wherever anything has been said — by Jesus, by Buddha, by Mahavira, by Krishna — all of it can be contained in this small word: apramād.
Krishna says: Be awake even in sleep. Jesus says: Keep watch — for you do not know when He will come. Do not be asleep when He, the Paramatma, arrives; lest He comes and finds you sleeping and goes away. Be aware and awaiting. The whole teaching of Jesus turns upon this sutra: be awake and awaiting. And Mahavira’s whole life repeats one truth — live with awareness, with vivek, without pramād — no swoon.
Two or three more sutras, and I will end.
First, understand clearly that you are asleep. Do not try to justify yourself that you are not. Do not rationalize: I am awake; others are asleep. I read the scriptures — how can a sleeping man read? I know of soul and God — how can a sleeping man know? No, I am not asleep; others are. The sleeping man always projects sleep onto others and assumes himself awake — it is sleep’s device to protect itself, a safety measure. Sleep has its strategies to save itself.
Remember, sleep wants to avoid being broken. It arranges so as not to be disturbed. If you have gone to sleep hungry, sleep will give you a feast in a dream to save itself — otherwise you would wake. Sleep supplies false things — it cannot give the real. You feel pressing of urine — sleep says: Go to the bathroom in the dream; no need to get up — getting up will break sleep. You have set the alarm for four — the bell rings; sleep tells you: It is the temple bell — sleep on!
Sleep has safety measures. It has arranged to not be broken. Even in your waking, sleep has a measure — it whispers: You are awake; others are asleep. Try to wake them — you are awake. If your mind assures you that you are awake, beware this protection of sleep. Do not fall into this deception.
First — the day the realization dawns ‘I am asleep,’ let it happen now, here. Then begin the method of awakening. Begin with small actions. And for deeper actions, use acting as a device.
If, with resolve, protecting yourself from sleep’s tricks, you strive to awaken, what became possible for Mahavira and for Buddha becomes possible for you as well. Potentially, in seed, you have the same possibility as anyone who ever was.
So make the effort to awaken — and when it goes deep, do not stop, or else sleep will catch you on the second floor. You will remain there. Then strive to awaken there. The journey is long — not impossible. Difficult — not impossible. Whoever undertakes it, attains. Descend lower and lower, let go of concern for the above — the fruits will come by themselves. As you go down, flowers will bloom above — their fragrance, their light, their joy will begin to shower. As you descend, you will ascend. And the day someone touches the ultimate depth, that very day he touches the ultimate height. And when both are touched, depth and height become one — they are no longer two. That day all becomes one.
This seven-storey house, the day it is known in its totality, becomes one. Then even seven floors do not remain; all the partitions fall away. The walls are removed — one dwelling remains. The experience of that One is the experience of Paramatma! The experience of that One is Moksha! The experience of that One is Advaita! The experience of that One is Samadhi!
In these five days I have said a few things to you — not because I enjoy speaking, not for your entertainment, but in the hope that perhaps somewhere a chord may be struck! Some string of the vina within you may vibrate! And a journey may begin.
In the end I pray to the Paramatma that you do not finish without knowing yourself. May your journey to know, to seek, to be fully acquainted with yourself begin. But prayer only to God has no meaning if you do not cooperate. So I also pray to you: give a little cooperation to the Paramatma so that your journey may be fulfilled.
You have listened to my words with such silence and love — for that I am deeply obliged. And finally I bow down to the Lord seated in each one of you. Please accept my pranam.