Jyon Ki Tyon #7

Suppose it is a dark new-moon night and someone is sitting in his cave, immersed in darkness. Whether he keeps his eyes closed or open makes no difference. With eyes closed there is darkness; with eyes open there is darkness. But when morning comes, the sun rises, its web of rays spreads across the mouth of the cave, the birds begin to sing—and even then he keeps his eyes shut—now it makes a difference.

In the night’s darkness it made no difference whether the eyes were open or closed. Nor was the darkness of the night the responsibility of the man sitting in the cave. Darkness was simply the situation. But when the sun has risen and still he sits with closed eyes, then the darkness he sees is his own responsibility. If he wishes, he can open his eyes and be free of darkness.

The life of the animal is like the dark night of the new moon. There, self-knowledge is not possible. The animal has no awareness of its own being, no option, no freedom by which it might know itself. That possibility simply does not exist. Therefore an animal cannot be called responsible for self-ignorance. It is in darkness, and it is not responsible for the darkness.

So if an animal does not seek self-knowledge, it cannot be blamed. But man has moved, from the journey of the animal, into that realm of consciousness where the sun’s light is. And if even now a person is in darkness, his responsibility can be on no one but himself.

If we are self-ignorant, it is because we keep our eyes closed; it is not merely our condition, it is our choice. Light is present all around. In the course of evolution man has reached the point from where he can know himself. If he does not, then who other than himself will be responsible?

This does not mean I am saying man creates self-ignorance. No—self-ignorance is there; but even if he is not destroying it, the responsibility is his. He is not the creator of self-ignorance, but he can become its destroyer—and he is not becoming it. Therefore the responsibility is man’s.

If a man is self-ignorant, it is his own decision. He is the one keeping his eyes shut. There is no lack of light now.

A very famous and unique saying of Sartre comes to mind: “Man is condemned to be free.” There is only one freedom man does not have; all the others he does have. He is compelled to choose. There is only one choice he cannot make: he cannot choose not to choose. He cannot choose not to choose, because that too would be a choice.

Man must choose at every moment; man is a pilgrimage of choice. The animal is not a pilgrimage of choice. The animal simply is what it is. And if the animal is as it is, the responsibility for that would lie with God. Man stands outside God’s responsibility. The animal’s being is God’s responsibility. Trees are as they are, animals are as they are. We cannot blame them, nor can we make them worthy of praise. Man has stepped outside that circle; from here he is free to choose.

Now, if I am self-ignorant, it is my choice; and if I am self-knowing, it is my choice. If I am miserable, it is my choice; if I am blissful, it is my choice. Whether I keep my eyes open or closed is my choice. Light is present all around. To remain in darkness is in my hands, and to remain in light is also in my hands.

Therefore I have said that for self-ignorance too, man is responsible. Now man cannot escape his responsibility. From moment to moment he becomes more and more responsible. This responsibility is his dignity and his glory; this is his very humanity. Here he steps out of animality.

So I would add: in those matters where we drift without choosing, we are on a par with animals.

It is very interesting that we generally do not choose violence; we keep doing it out of the habits of the past. Nonviolence has to be chosen. Therefore nonviolence is a responsibility, and violence is animality. Nonviolence is a milestone on the journey of being human; violence is only the imprint of an old habit.

I have certainly said that violence is born of self-ignorance. And there is no contradiction between these two statements. Self-ignorance is our choice, and violence is our choice. If we wish to be nonviolent, now no one can stop us. Man can be whatever he wishes to be. Man’s thought is his personality; his decision is his destiny; his longing, his aspiration, is his self-creation.

Therefore let no person, even by mistake, think within, “Given what I am, what can I do? If there is anger, what can I do? If there is violence, what can I do? If there is ignorance, what can I do?” A man has no right to say this. The moment a man says, “What can I do?” he is announcing that he can do—and trying to persuade himself that he cannot! No animal says, “What can I do?” The question does not arise.

The day a person says, “It is a compulsion; what can I do? I have to be violent,” that day he is saying, “I am choosing, and yet I am abandoning responsibility for my choice. I am becoming violent and placing the blame for my violence on someone else’s shoulders—on nature’s, on God’s.”

The person who lays the burden of his humanity on someone else slips back into the world of animality. In truth he is denying being human. He who refuses to choose is refusing to be a man. He is saying, “No, animals are better—where there is neither choice nor responsibility, neither decision nor difficulty. What is, is. We are going back.”

By drinking, a man returns to the animal. By committing violence, a man returns to the animal. By anger, a man returns to the animal.

Therefore, if you look at a person filled with anger, you see only the outline of humanity in him; the soul is not visible. Look into eyes full of violence, and you will not see human eyes; an instantaneous metamorphosis takes place. The eyes change. From within, a hidden animal immediately appears. Therefore in anger and in violence a man behaves like an animal: he bites, he shrieks, he claws.

Man’s nails have become short because they are no longer much needed. A wild animal has claws that can rip the flesh from your very bones. For hundreds of thousands of years man has had no need to tear flesh from someone’s bones, so his nails have become small. So man had to make knives, spears, lances. They are substitutes to do the animal’s work, because his nails have grown short. His teeth are no longer such that he can tear out another’s flesh, so he made weapons and tools; he made bullets that can pierce a man’s chest.

All the arms and weapons man has invented have been invented to substitute for, to compensate for, his lost animality. What animals have, we do not; so we had to manufacture it.

And of course, having manufactured them, we made them better than the animals’. Which animal has the atom bomb? Which animal has means to drop bombs hundreds of miles away? No—animals have the great instruments provided by nature. And man has used all his intelligence so that what millions of animals gathered together could not do, a single man can do. This is man’s own choice.

The day it becomes clear as day to someone that whatever I am, its responsibility is mine—on that very day transformation begins. In the life of a person who still holds the notion “I am what I am; I have no say in it,” the door of the temple of religion can never open.

Responsibility—the awareness that I am the decider of my destiny—this realization transforms a person’s life.

Therefore I have said that man himself is responsible for self-ignorance. Responsible in this sense: he can break it, and is not breaking it; he can erase it, and is not erasing it; he can be free, and is not becoming free.

The impulse toward violence is not a solitary impulse. Coupled with it is the suppression of many violent surges—the suppression is joined to it. The tendency is there, and so is the urge to be violent. But a thousand times there is no way to act it out. One wants to be violent and yet cannot. There is culture, civilization, the order of life, circumstances, obstacles. It is hard to find a person who has never, at some moment, thought of killing someone else! It is also hard to find a person who has never, at some moment, thought of killing himself! If not by day, then he has done it at night in a dream. Yet not everyone goes and kills others, and not everyone commits suicide. They think of it and then see the obstacles—it does not become possible.

And once the feeling of violence arises and cannot be expressed, the tendency remains, and the surge of feeling is also suppressed. That, too, starts accumulating. The tendency to violence persists within, and the unacted violences—the violent emotions that arose—also keep getting stored. Not of one life only, but of many lives they collect. We carry that hoard along. The tendency is there, and the suppressed surges are there. The tendency creates fresh surges every day, and the pile of old surges keeps growing. And an explosion can happen at any moment.

Therefore, for freedom from the tendency to violence, two things must be understood: the tendency itself must be dissolved, and the suppressed, repressed surges of violence must also be dissolved. If the violent tendency is erased, I will no longer generate violent surges in the future—but the surges I have suppressed in the past also need dissolution, purgation, catharsis.

Mahavira used a very beautiful word for catharsis. What Western psychologists call catharsis or purgation, Mahavira called nirjara. It is a most wondrous word. Nirjara means withering away. Nirjara means the shedding off of something. Something that has gathered falls apart. Nirjara means: if dust has settled on the surface, the particles of dust are shaken off and thrown away.

Many surges are amassed within us. In meditation their nirjara, their catharsis, can happen—and only in meditation can it happen. There is no other way to bring about nirjara of human beings’ suppressed surges.

How can it happen in meditation? When the wish arises in your mind to punch someone, then try a small experiment—you will be very surprised. And I am not saying this as a joke. A large scientific laboratory in America is doing this very experiment today.

In California there is an institution, the Esalen Institute. Perhaps there is one very precious rishi in America today. His name is Perls. With those whose minds are full of violence, he has their eyes blindfolded, puts pillows in front of them, and says, “Punch—and understand that the enemy is in front of you. Hit the very person you want to hit!”

At first a person laughs: how to punch a pillow! But for the hand there is no difference between punching a person and punching a pillow. And whether you hit a person or a pillow, there is no difference in the release of the poison that has built up in the blood. After all, what more is the other person than a pillow?

So Perls will tell his violent patient, “Hit the pillow!” At first he will laugh, but Perls will say, “Don’t laugh—hit!” He will say, “Are you joking?” Perls will say, “Let it be a joke then, but hit!” He will start punching the pillow, and in a short time those standing around will be astonished to see that not only has a rhythm come into his hitting, not only is he grappling with the pillow, venting his enmity on it, he will slash the pillow, tear it, bite it with his teeth, rip it to pieces! And those who have gone through such experiments say afterward, “The mind feels very light—never so light.”

What is Perls saying? He is saying: Until now you have released violence with a cause—upon someone. Now release it into the air—on no one; because whenever it is released upon someone, there will be reactions.

If I punch someone, the punch will not vanish into the sky, the ether will not absorb it. The one I punch will answer it—today, tomorrow, or the day after; he may wait, but he will answer. And if I punch someone and he happens to be like Buddha or Mahavira and gives no answer, even then, the moment I punch someone, there will be reaction and remorse in my own mind.

Anger alone is not bad; repentance is just as bad. Repentance is anger turned upside down—anger doing a headstand. Repentance is just as bad. In fact, by repenting a man does nothing but prepare to be angry again. When a man repents and says, “It was very bad that I got angry,” he is persuading his mind: “I am not such a bad person; a bad act happened, that’s all.” By repenting he is re-establishing his goodness in his own eyes. And as soon as it is re-established, he is ready to punch again tomorrow. The day after, again repentance; again a punch. The vicious circle of anger and repentance will keep turning.

And when we punch someone, not only does repentance happen, but the other begins to prepare his answer. Thus violence becomes a vicious circle from which it is hard to escape.

But if a man is punching a pillow, nothing of this sort happens. Punching the pillow brings nirjara. Perls prescribes punching pillows because the world we live in has become very objective. Mahavira lived twenty-five centuries ago. He would have said, “Punch into the air—what need of a pillow?” But we would say, “Punch the air?” A pillow still feels like you’re really hitting. It feels like a man’s back, like a belly! When the fist touches a pillow, it feels as if it has touched someone; the pillow even gives a bit of response.

In the twenty-five centuries since Mahavira the world has become object-centered. In the meditation Mahavira speaks of there is no need even of a pillow. In the meditation I speak of, there is no need of a pillow either. But perhaps in America, punching without a pillow will be even more difficult. Something objective must be there. If not a man, then a pillow.

Mahavira would forbid even punching a pillow. If he were to speak to Perls, he would say: “Even here a little violence is happening. This man is projecting his enemy onto the pillow. There is no enemy being hurt, but this man is getting the taste and pleasure of hitting someone. Even this taste will keep the current of violence flowing, a little if not much. This will not bring complete nirjara of violence.”

Therefore those who come out of Perls’ laboratory will return after two, four, six months and say, “Violence has gathered in the mind again.” Now they need a pillow again, and again they will have to hit.

The process of meditation says: forget about the object—allow subjective violence. Subjective violence does not mean doing violence to yourself. Subjective violence means: simply let the violence happen—without any object, without any target, without any thing.

If a person in meditation screams, shouts, strikes with his fists, dances, jumps—then the suppressed surges of violence within undergo nirjara. They fall away. After an hour’s experiment on any given day you can experience that the suppressed surges within you have flown off—you come out of the room lighter. That day you will not be able to get angry as easily as you did yesterday. You will not clench your fist at someone as easily as you always did. The very causes that yesterday filled your eyes with red blood will today leave your eyes blue—like a lake. And a smile will begin to arise at yourself: that what could have been shed so simply, I needlessly inflicted pain on others and created vicious circles.

Mahavira was standing near a village and some people came and beat him severely. Someone drove iron pegs into his ears. He stood watching. Later someone asked him, “You said nothing at all? You could at least have said, ‘Why are you beating me without cause?’” Mahavira said: “They were not beating me without cause. There must surely have been some cause in their minds to beat. Perhaps the cause was not related to me, but there was a cause within them. And I thought it would be better if they beat me; if they beat someone else, they would not return without receiving a return blow. Let their violence undergo nirjara. Better than me they would find it hard to find anyone.” Mahavira behaved like a pillow with those people.

In meditation the nirjara of all suppressed surges takes place—whether of violence, of anger, of sex, or of greed—meditation brings nirjara of all suppressed surges. And when the surges are shed, it becomes very easy to be free of the tendency itself. When the entire money in a household safe is thrown out, it does not take long to discard the safe. One preserves the safe only because of the wealth gathered inside. If all the wealth in the safe has been distributed, it is not difficult to donate the safe itself.

Freedom from the tendency to violence will not be so difficult. It is the violent surges that have made the tendency into a safe; to be free of those surges is the first question. And the day all the surges are freed, that day violence appears in its nakedness—in its total nakedness. And when a person becomes capable of seeing violence in its complete nakedness, he cannot remain violent even for a single moment. Because to see violence in its complete nakedness is to be free of it. It is so much pain, so much ugliness, so much filth that no one would agree to remain in it even for a moment. Seeing violence in its full nakedness is like this: a house catches fire, flames engulf it, and once a man sees the flames it is impossible to stay in the house for even a moment—he leaps out. Exactly so, a man surrounded by the flames of violence jumps out.

But the flames of violence are not visible, because between the violent tendency and oneself there are countless layers of suppressed surges. Because of those surges the vision of the tendency does not happen. Because of them naked violence is not seen. Because of them we always see violence as our friend—because we must use it. Tomorrow there may be an enemy, tomorrow someone may attack; how will we answer? Because of the thick layer of smoke formed by the suppressed surges, the nakedness of violence is not seen.

Meditation, by freeing us from surges, brings us face to face with violence—an encounter. And whoever has seen violence becomes nonviolent. Whoever has recognized violence has no way left to be violent. No one knowingly consents to descend into hell. And if ever someone descends into hell, he does so only by mistaking hell for heaven. No one ever steps into flames knowingly—and if he does, it is only by taking the flames to be the gate of heaven.

Meditation is dissolution, nirjara, catharsis. Meditation means: whatever is happening within you, allow it to be expressed without cause—not upon anyone, into the void. Surrender it to emptiness.

Now, when anger comes, try a small experiment. When anger arises, close the door and in an empty room become angry. Do the whole anger in the empty room. You will feel great laughter, because it will seem very strange, absurd. You have always done anger on someone else. But try it once alone; then doing it on another will become difficult. The first time, alone, you will laugh; from the second time onward, when you try to do it on another, laughter will arise. Because the madness you cannot do even in private—how can you do that madness in front of everyone? And the madness that brings laughter even when done alone—imagine what picture of you it must create in people’s minds when you do it before four onlookers! Keep a mirror in the room and, opening your heart wide, get angry and see. If you must break something, break the mirror. If you must smash, smash the mirror. And in the midst of all that destruction, stand and watch what kind of poisons are within you! Their nirjara will happen. Their catharsis will happen. They will fall away. And after they fall, you can become capable of seeing your violence.

For freedom from violence, the direct seeing of violence is indispensable.

So, between sympathy and empathy, in reference to the tendency toward violence, please explain their subtle difference. And please also tell us whether what you called empathy is a mental event or something of the spiritual plane.

Sympathy is commonly thought to be something very valuable and precious—but it isn’t. Sympathy means: someone is unhappy and you express sorrow with him; you become sorrowful. Sympathy means co-experiencing—experiencing alongside another. But the person who experiences sorrow in another’s sorrow never experiences joy in another’s joy. If someone’s big house goes up in flames, you express sorrow; but if someone builds a big house, you do not express joy.

This needs to be understood. What does it mean? It means sympathy is a deception. Sympathy could only be true if you felt sorrow in another’s sorrow and joy in another’s joy.

But while we can manage, or at least display, sorrow in another’s sorrow, we do not manage to feel joy in another’s joy. So it is more accurate to say we can display sorrow, not that we truly feel it. When the other suffers, we can show sorrow. If we could also be happy in another’s happiness, then our sorrow would be real. Otherwise, even in the other’s sorrow there is a subtle relish for us; there is a little enjoyment; we become secretly intoxicated by it.

So whenever you go to express sorrow for someone else’s suffering, probe within: aren’t you getting some pleasure out of it? One pleasure is that you are the one dispensing sympathy and the other has fallen into the position of receiving it. When someone is in the position of receiving sympathy, he becomes a supplicant, and you become a giver for free. He becomes humble, you become special. Search within and you will find that even in expressing sorrow there is a taste, a sweetness. It has to be there—because if it were not, then you would also be able to be fully happy in someone else’s happiness.

But in another’s happiness, jealousy and envy arise!

This second fact shows that we are not truly sorrowful in another’s sorrow; yet this is what we have been calling sympathy. That is why I chose another word—samānubhūti: empathy.

Sympathy is, first of all, false; a cheat. And even if we grant that someone’s sympathy is absolutely genuine—that he feels sorrow in another’s sorrow and joy in another’s joy—even then it remains violence; it does not become nonviolence. If it is false, it is certainly violence; even if it is true, still it is violence, not nonviolence. Because as long as the “other” exists, ahimsa cannot flower. Ahimsa is the experience of nonduality. It is the realization that there is no “other”—only I am.

If when another is sorrowful, you feel, “The other is unhappy and I, too, am feeling sorrow”—if this is false, it is violence; if it is true, still “I am I” and “the other is the other.” The bridge between two has not collapsed. As long as the other is “other,” nonviolence is not possible. To know the other as other is itself violence. Why? Because as long as I take the other as other, I am living in ignorance. In truth, the other is not other.

Empathy means: it is not that the other is suffering and I am feeling sad—rather, I myself have become the suffering. It is not that the other is happy—I myself have become the happiness. It is not that the moon is shining in the sky—it is that I myself am illumined. Not that the sun has risen—but that I myself have arisen. Not that flowers have bloomed—but that I myself have blossomed.

Empathy means nonduality. Empathy means oneness. Ahimsa is oneness.

So now there are three states: - False sympathy: it is violence. - True sympathy: it is the subtlest form of violence. - Empathy: it is nonviolence.

Whether crude violence or its subtler form—whether sympathy is false or true—these are all events of the mental plane. Empathy is a spiritual event.

On the level of mind we can never become one. My mind is separate, your mind is separate. My body is separate, your body is separate. On the planes of body and mind, unity is impossible. Only on the plane of the self is unity possible—because there we are already one.

Take a pot and immerse it in a flowing river. Water fills the pot. The water inside and the water outside are one and the same. Only a thin baked wall of clay separates them; if it breaks, the waters are one.

Body and mind are such walls, preventing us from meeting the other, from becoming one with the other. We are all clay pots in the vast ocean of consciousness. The pots are different, but what is within the pots is not different. One who realizes ahimsa, who realizes the self, comes to know that though the pots are many, the indweller is one.

The experience of this One is ahimsa. In that there can be no sympathy—because sympathy requires an other. There can be empathy—because there the other is no more.

Empathy is beyond mind. It is not inside or below the mind—it is above the mind, beyond the mind.

This event that happens beyond mind is what we call spirituality. Only a spiritual one can say, “What you are, I am.” Only the spiritual can say, “The flame that burns in the sun burns in this little earthen lamp as well.” Only the spiritual can say, “What is in the atom is also in the vast.” Only the spiritual can say, “The drop and the ocean are two names for one reality.”

Empathy means: the drop and the ocean are one. And one who has known even a single drop completely has nothing left to know in the ocean. Know the drop and you have known the ocean. One who has known the drop within has known the ocean within all. Then he does not die. How could he die—he is no longer there. The ego, the “I,” departs—because nowhere is any “you” to be found. As long as “you” exists, “I” can exist. When “you” is not, “I” cannot be. The pair of “I and you” stand or fall together.

Martin Buber wrote a valuable book, I and Thou. In Buber’s view, the relationships of life are all “I–Thou.” But there is another realm as well, which is beyond I and Thou. The real life—the life of pure energy, of the divine—is where neither I nor Thou exists.

There is a small Bengali play. The story: A pilgrim goes to Vrindavan. On the way thieves steal all he had. He thinks, “Good! Let me go empty-handed to Krishna. That is fitting. If I want to be filled by Krishna, how can he fill hands already full? Perhaps Krishna himself sent the thieves!” He gives thanks and proceeds.

He reaches the temple gate, but the gatekeeper stops him. “You cannot enter. First leave your belongings outside.”

“But nothing is left,” he says. “Krishna’s thieves already took it.”

“No,” the gatekeeper says. “Leave your belongings outside, then you may enter. Only the empty-handed can enter here.”

The man looks at his hands—empty. He shows them to the gatekeeper.

“Not with hands still full,” says the gatekeeper.

“But I’m completely empty-handed now!”

“When you are,” the gatekeeper replies, “how can you be empty-handed? As long as you say, ‘I am completely empty-handed,’ how can you be empty? At least the ‘I’ is filling your hands. Leave this ‘I’ outside.”

Without leaving the “I,” no one can enter the temple of the Divine. One who lives without the “I” attains empathy. For one whose “I” has died, whatever happens to the other is happening to him—indeed, the “him” also is not there; it is simply happening. Wherever a thorn pricks, that pain reaches him. Wherever a flute of joy plays, its notes become his own. Now nothing is alien, nothing is strange, nothing is other.

Empathy is the highest peak of spirituality. Sympathy is the practicality of our makeshift world. Ninety-nine percent of sympathy there is false—we deceive not only the other but ourselves. If ever, one percent, it is true, still the “I and Thou” survive, the pots remain. Perhaps one pot peeks into another, but the flow of the one reality through both is not recognized.

By empathy I mean that realm where only the One remains, where the other is not. Call it nonduality, call it Brahman, call it God—call it Existence by any name—where the One alone remains, there life attains its supreme height, its peak experience. There the “you” and the “I” are to be dropped.

I said the other day as well: the relationship of “I and Thou” is itself violence. This will be a bit difficult, because we know no moment outside “I and Thou.” But with a little experimentation, perhaps glimpses will come.

Sometimes sit on the riverbank upon the sand. Lie down, arms and legs outstretched. Fill your chest with the cool sand. Close your eyes. Bury your face in the sand. Forget that you are here and the sand is there. Break the gap, the distance that separates you from the sand. Let the coolness of the sand enter you. Let your warmth enter the sand. Experience spreading out and becoming one with the sand.

Sometimes, under the open sky, stand with arms wide. Embrace the open sky, the void. Be silent for a while with the open sky. Drop the idea that you end at the boundary of your body. Extend your boundary. Let it become as vast as the sky.

Sometimes, with the night stars, lie on the earth. Let the stars come to you; let yourself go to the stars. Forget that the stars are there and you are here. Let only the exchange between you and the stars remain. Let the communion remain.

Then, soon—very soon, slowly slowly—suddenly, explosions begin to happen in life. A sense arises that neither on that side is there a “you,” nor on this side an “I.” Perhaps it is one and the same on both sides—one being whose left and right hands appear at two ends. One and the same wave of wind that came here has gone there.

The breath you inhale comes to me and becomes mine; before I can even keep it, it goes out and becomes yours. Just now the tree was taking it in, just now the earth, just now you, just now I!

Life is a continuous flow—an unbroken stream. Life is one. But we cannot experience that one because we have built ramparts all around; we have raised walls everywhere; we have blocked ourselves on all sides and drawn boundaries. These boundaries are imagined; they are not anywhere. We have made them; they are makeshift; they have no real existence.

Ask a scientist—he too will say they are not. Ask a spiritual one—he too will say they are not. The spiritual says so because he has seen the expansion of the self. The scientist says so because he has searched all boundaries and found none.

Ask a scientist: Where does your body end? He will say, hard to tell. Does it end at the bones? No—upon the bones is flesh. At the flesh? No—upon the flesh is skin. At the skin? No—outside the skin an indispensable layer of air is necessary. Without it there would be no bone, no flesh. Does it end at the layer of air? No—that layer ends two hundred miles up, where the atmosphere thins out. But if the sun’s rays did not continuously energize that air, even it would not remain. The sun is a hundred million miles away. Does my body end there, a hundred million miles away? But the sun itself would go cold if it were not continuously fed by the light of great suns beyond. So where does my body end?

The scientist says: I searched for boundaries and did not find them. The spiritual says: I looked within and found the boundless. The scientist speaks the language of negation: “There is no boundary.” The spiritual speaks the language of affirmation: “It is infinite.” Both point to the same. Today, science and religion stand very close; their proclamations have drawn near. Today no scientist can say where your body ends. It ends where the universe ends—nowhere before.

I call this experience empathy—when the stars are no longer far, but begin to revolve within me; when I no longer remain far from the stars, but start dancing upon their rays; when ocean waves are no longer distant, but become my waves; when I am no longer separate, but become foam upon the ocean’s waves; when the flowers on the trees are my flowers, and the dry leaves that fall are my dry leaves. Then I am no longer separate.

We are not separate. There is no illusion greater than separateness. But we live by nursing this illusion because it is useful. Your wealth is yours; I cannot call it mine. Your clothes are yours; I cannot take them off you and make them mine. In the transactions of life, your shop is not mine; your house is not mine. Though when I am a guest in your home you say, “Everything here is yours!”—there is no need to take that seriously.

In the practical affairs of life, boundaries seem to work; but life is not only affairs. Life is not only shops, houses, clothes. Life is a great matter. Life is not mere utility. Life is bliss too. Life is leela—divine play. Life is an unfathomable mystery. One who takes utility to be all will fall into difficulty. In utility, we use many false expressions and it works, because utility runs on assumed truths.

I stay at someone’s house and say, “Bring a glass of water.” He brings “a glass of water.” In truth, no one has ever brought “a glass of water.” It is a false phrase, but it works. How would he bring a glass of water? He brings a glass made of glass, or copper, or brass—and in it, water. I do not quarrel that he did not obey my words, and he does not quarrel that I am speaking over-spiritual language. It works.

But life is not makeshift; it is beyond makeshiftness. Our whole language is makeshift; it only points—gestures—enough that work gets done. But one who takes makeshiftness and transaction to be life itself remains deprived of life’s great mysteries. For him the doors to the supreme mystery do not open. The veena of life never plays for him. The Divine keeps calling, but he does not hear.

Do not lose this nonduality, this infinite, in the name of utility. Keep seeking it outside of use, beyond mine-and-thine. Seek it until it is found. I have called its attainment empathy. That is ahimsa, that is love, that is nonduality, that is liberation.

One last question—let us take that too.

Nonviolence is not a social policy or rule. And if nonviolence is made into a social policy and rule, then there can never be freedom from violence. Nonviolence is a spiritual law, not a social one; not social, spiritual.

If we turn nonviolence into a social rule, then violence will at times appear necessary. Such is the disturbance that at some point violence will even seem necessary to protect nonviolence. If a man commits violence against someone, the court will commit violence upon that man—because he committed violence. If one nation is violent toward another, the other will answer with violence—because to answer violence is deemed just; to suffer violence is injustice, and to suffer injustice is not right.

The principle of nonviolence I am speaking of is a spiritual law. And if we speak of social nonviolence, it will always be a relative rule. There will be room for both violence and nonviolence. Both will function; they will be mixed. It will be a mixed economy. Violence and nonviolence will stand side by side, and the emphasis will keep shifting.

At the level of society, perfect nonviolence cannot be attained yet; only at the level of the individual can perfect nonviolence be found. It may not even be appropriate to hope that we will ever achieve it socially. It is as unreasonable as hoping that one day society as a whole will attain self-knowledge.

It is not reasonable to expect that someday all human beings will become enlightened. Because there is choice: if someone wishes to remain unenlightened, he cannot be forced into self-knowledge. Self-knowledge will always be a matter of freedom, of choice, of someone wanting to be... We can only hope that, gradually, more and more people will attain it.

But there is another danger, let me tell you that too. Whoever attains self-knowledge stops returning to our society. He does not come back. New births become impossible for him, because for a new birth desire, thirst, craving are necessary. Only he returns who has some desire left to fulfill. If even Mahavira and Buddha return for a birth or two, they return only because at least one desire remains: to share with others what they have known. That too is a considerable desire—that too is desire! If I have something and I want to tell others, I too will return. But that too is desire—the last desire. When even that dissolves, how will there be any return?

Those who attain self-knowledge disappear into the vastness. They become one with some immense cosmos, with an immense consciousness. Those who do not attain it keep returning.

Thus society, once in a while, brings forth the flower of self-knowledge. But the flower blooms, withers, its fragrance dissolves into the sky—and society goes on.

Society will not become enlightened; society will remain unenlightened. Yet within this unenlightened society, the flower of the enlightened individual will go on blooming—it can, and it should.

At the level of society, nonviolence can never be an absolute truth. Hence those who have spoken of nonviolence on the social plane also end up accepting violence—and they will have to. Violence will continue. Then violence and nonviolence become two aspects of society, to be used according to necessity: when nonviolence works, nonviolence; and when violence works, violence—whatever gets the job done.

In India, during the freedom struggle, the freedom fighter was nonviolent. Then the same person came to power and became violent. The freedom struggle could be waged through nonviolence because no workable way of violence appeared available; so they ran the struggle through nonviolence. But after coming to power they did not think to govern through nonviolence. Now power runs through violence. The British never fired as many bullets in this country as those who had been nonviolent did after taking power!

So one who takes nonviolence as a policy, as a social convenience, will become violent whenever needed. For him, being violent or nonviolent will be a matter of convenience. But Mahavira cannot be made violent in any way. For him, nonviolence is not a social policy or rule; it is a spiritual truth. It is not convenience. It is not a matter of utility—come what may. It is his ultimate destiny.

For nonviolence, everything can be sacrificed—even oneself. Nonviolence cannot be sacrificed for anything. But such nonviolence is possible only for the individual. And if ever a society makes the mistake of trying to be nonviolent in that sense, it will become merely cowardly, not truly nonviolent. This has happened.

Society thought it could adopt Mahavira’s nonviolence and become nonviolent—so “nonviolent societies” were proclaimed! But a nonviolent society is not possible. Mahavira’s nonviolence cannot belong to society; it can belong only to individuals. Hence any society that tries to become nonviolent by adopting Mahavira’s nonviolence will become nothing but cowardly. It will label its cowardice as nonviolence, calling its lack of courage to be violent “nonviolence.” But scratch its skin a little and you will find fountains of violence within. A coward too is very violent, but only inwardly. Society cannot be nonviolent now—and I do not even say it ever can. It is very difficult; in fact, impossible. Only the individual can be nonviolent.

The nonviolence I speak of is not a social truth but an individual attainment.

And the second point you ask: “Are Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, or Mao social inevitabilities?”

If they are social inevitabilities, then they are not individuals. An individual is precisely one who rises above social inevitability, above social compulsion—who is free, who chooses, who decides. But if they are social inevitabilities, compulsions of society, then they are not individuals. And they will be violent in the very way society is violent. And if they are not individuals, they are not on the human plane—they have fallen back to the animal plane.

To be on the human plane, one must rise above social inevitability. Only he is human who has individuality—who can say, “Whatever I am is my decision, not society’s shove. Whatever I am doing, I am doing; society is not making me do it.”

But communism holds that there are no individuals, only society. Communism holds that individuals do not create history; history creates individuals. Communism holds that it is not the consciousness which determines social conditions, but on the contrary, social conditions are the base which determines consciousness. That the conditions of society determine consciousness, not the other way around.

So according to communism there are no individuals—no Mao, no Hitler, no Mussolini, no Mahavira, no Buddha. I do not know how communism keeps saying such unscientific things in the name of science! No social situation can produce a Mahavira. And if a social situation produces Mahavira, was that situation meant only for him alone? There were hundreds of thousands of people in Bihar. If the social situation produced Mahavira, why didn’t it produce dozens more? If Russia’s situation produced Lenin, how many Lenins did it produce?

No, social conditions do not produce individuals. And if they do, then those are not individuals, only social phenomena. And social phenomena cannot be nonviolent; they will be violent—because that is a return to the animal plane.

An individual is choice. I will be content to say even this much: Mao or Stalin did not rise very high on the human plane; they sank very low to the animal plane. But you will say, “They are using violence for the welfare of man!”

Violence, whenever it has been committed, has always been for “welfare.” In the Middle Ages Christian priests burned hundreds of thousands—for the welfare of man! A Muslim kills a Hindu—for the welfare of man! The Hindu is not killed because of some personal enmity, but because he is a kafir, astray, to be brought to the path—and if he won’t come to the path, then at least kill him so that his soul may get onto the path in the next birth! Nor does a Hindu kill a Muslim out of ill will; he kills him because he is astray and must be brought to the path. Just as cows and other animals, horses, were offered in yajnas so that they would go to heaven—so too, on the sacrificial altars of religions, people keep offering those of other faiths—for their welfare! Communism cuts down hundreds of thousands—for their welfare! Fascism cuts down hundreds of thousands—for their welfare!

When violence wants to spread with full force, it comes wearing the mask of your welfare. It is cunning, not simple; crafty. Crude violence says, “I want to kill you for my own benefit”; clever violence says, “I want to kill you for your own benefit.”

Each time, man changes the pretext. Islam and Hinduism and Catholic and Protestant have become old pretexts; now communism and socialism are the new ones. In a while they too will be old, and man will find newer pretexts. Man wants to commit violence and therefore seeks pretexts. It is not that he commits violence because there are pretexts; he finds pretexts because he wants to be violent!

If we analyze the mind of a Mao or a Stalin, we will find a deranged man within. But that deranged man is very clever; he rationalizes. Revolution, social revolution, utopia, the golden future—these are invoked to cut down hundreds of thousands.

But that golden age never arrives, and man keeps being slaughtered. It has come neither in Russia nor in China, neither in Germany nor in Italy. Across the world, how many revolutions and how much blood—and the golden age still does not come! Old revolutions end, new ones begin to shed blood again—the golden age never comes. The experience of thousands of years says that man wants to be violent, and therefore he invents philosophies for violence, doctrines for violence. These are not the inevitabilities of history; they are the inevitabilities of violence within individuals, for which they twist history and even use it as a foundation for their violence.

For me, to accept inevitability is to lose the dignity of man. Whoever says there is some inevitability that I must live under is a slave; he has lost his soul. The one who says there is no inevitability that compels me—whatever I do will be my choice—such a person comes to his soul. Decision is the very birth of resolve and of soul within man.

More tomorrow.