Kaivalya Upanishad #12

Sadhana has two parts. All endeavor has two parts. One part in which the inessential has to be dropped, renounced, the identification with it broken. And the second part, in which one has to become one with the essential, join in identity with it. The first part is negation; the second part is the affirmative.
To know the false as false is necessary, only then will we know the true as true. Even to know light, first one must know darkness, only then can light be known. To recognize life, one must also recognize death, only then does life come into our understanding. For whatever enters our understanding requires that its opposite also be present within our vision. In a dark night the stars shine. In the light of day the stars are there as well, but they are not seen. Not only do they not shine for us, they are not even visible. The stars still spread over your head. They have gone nowhere. With morning they do not vanish into nowhere. But the layer of the sun’s light makes even a glimpse of them impossible. If one would know the stars, a dense night is needed. Then they are seen. And the more dense the night, the more they appear revealed, clear, distinct.
Only in the opposite is there knowing.
Keep one amusing thing in mind, and then we will enter the sutra. The things we call opposites do not remain opposites—they become allies. An inner friendship is forged within them. The night’s darkness is not the enemy of the stars, it is their friend. Without that darkness the stars would not appear at all.
Then even death is not the enemy of life. Then death too is the friend of life. For without death, life does not appear. If we see in this way, it becomes clear that what we call the enemy is a part of our unawareness. What we call bad is also a part of our unawareness.
In this world all opposites are inwardly cooperative. Without Ravana, Rama could not be; and without Rama, Ravana could not be. If we want to know Rama, we must begin by asking, what is Ravana? For whatever is Ravana, that is not Rama. Up to the previous sutra we had been speaking of the process of negation—what within man’s inner being, his inner reality, is not. Waking is not it. Dream is not it. Deep sleep is not it. This apparent show—this maya—is not it. Until now we have discussed what it is not. With this sutra the affirmative matter begins—what it is.
And remember, one must speak of negation first. Between the lines of negation the affirmative emerges. If you have seen a mountain peak, do not forget the ravines that encircle it. Because it is only between them that the peak rises. Erase the ravines, and the peak will be erased. Deepen the ravines, and the peak rises higher. The ravine is not the enemy of the peak, though it appears so. It is an ally. It draws his outlines from all sides. And the deeper it is, the higher the summit soars.
Negation is like a ravine. A hollow. First one must deny, one must say no to whatever I am not. Because until the distinction becomes clear—what-all I am not—it will be very difficult to grasp what I am. My being is encircled by my non-being. And the non-being will be found first. Then being will be found. If I set out toward myself, on my own pilgrimage, first I will encounter my ravines. And then I will find my peak.
Understand this in many dimensions.
If I go within, first I will meet my vices. And the one who is afraid of vice will never be able to go within. If I go within, first I will meet my vices. There will be much shame, much self-condemnation. It will feel as if none is more sinful than I. Do not think that what the saints have said about themselves is said out of humility. Often it is understood so. Kabir said: When I went searching, I found none worse than me. The old teach the young, teachers instruct students, that this is Kabir’s humility. It is not humility. It has nothing to do with humility. It is Kabir’s discovery.
Whenever anyone goes searching, the ravines of vice will be met first. And only when the ravines of vice are crossed will the peak of virtue come into sight. Therefore, the one who is sitting convinced that he is good will not be able to go within at all. His very conviction that he is good will create fear: if I go in, there I meet vice. The one who believes himself nonviolent—because he does not eat at night, because he filters water before drinking—who has surrounded himself with such cheap nonviolence, if he looks within even a little, he will find violence. He will be frightened of going in. He will remain outside.
We are all wandering outside because we do not muster the courage to cross the ravine of our vice. The one who courageously passes through his ravine of vice, he alone attains the peak of his virtue. Know it like this: the one who is to be a saint must first be a sinner. To be a sinner means he must pass through the ravines of his sin. And the greater the saint, the deeper the ravine of sin around him, because the summit of saintliness does not emerge without the ravine of sin. It is nowhere otherwise.
If one wants to avoid the ravine there are two ways. Either do not enter at all; remain outside the ravine and spend your life there—but then you will never reach the summit. Or reach the summit and then you will be free of the ravine. But to be free of the ravine, you must pass through it. Christian mystics have called it the Dark Night of the Soul—that whenever one goes toward that Supreme Light, first he must pass through the great night of darkness.
All peaks of merit are encircled by lines of sin. Do not be afraid of those lines. Know this, keep in mind this: the larger the ravine, the nearer the great summit. Therefore neither be filled with condemnation nor be afraid. Neither drown in self-reproach nor think, What will happen now! I am a sinner! If sin is, then somewhere the hidden merit is too—only a little more journey is needed.
And here, understand one thing more.
Descending into the ravine a man can do two things. Either he may fight the ravine, which is what the moral man does; or he may cross the ravine, which the religious man does. The moral man fights with the ravine and gets entangled there, and never reaches the peak. The religious man does not fight the ravine, he only passes through it. Naturally, if you fight the ravine you will have to stop in the ravine—how then will you go to the summit? The fighter must remain where his enemy remains. The enemy’s ground becomes our ground. That is why if an evil enemy befalls one in life, the man becomes evil. A bad friend cannot harm as much; an evil enemy harms far more.
So choose any friend and it may do, but choose an enemy very carefully. For you will have to fight him, and you will have to stand on his ground. Slowly, those who fight acquire the same quality. Slowly they transform each other into such a state that two friends are never so alike as two enemies become alike.
The moral person means: the moment he sees vice within, the first thing he does is begin to fight it. If you fight vice, you will be defeated. One rises above vice; one does not conquer vice. These are different things. Vice is never conquered; one rises above it. And the one who rises above, he also wins: for what falls below us becomes our subject. But the one who fights vice remains on the same plane. And the fighter never wins, because the fighter’s ground remains exactly what the vice’s ground is. A change of ground is revolution.
So violence is within me. If I fight it, what will I do? I can only repress it. I can only forget it. I can only superimpose some nonviolence upon it. Increase nonviolence and suppress violence. But suppressed violence does not disappear. Sometimes suppressed violence becomes even more intense, and begins to appear through new pathways.
The moral person’s method is repression. The religious person’s method is observation, not repression. The religious person simply observes: this is the ravine, this is vice. He remains a witness, and moves on. He keeps in mind that with any ravine, with anything whatsoever here, no conflict is to be taken up. Not to be taken up at all. Otherwise the conflict becomes a camp. Then you will have to pitch your tent there. And dwelling in the ravine, how will you conquer the ravine? Therefore the moral person finds it as difficult to become religious as the immoral person does.
There is one thing common to the immoral and the moral. The immoral accepts the ravine and stops there. The moral, by refusing to accept the ravine, stays to fight there. But there is no difference in ground. Both stop there. The immoral is stopped in violence, by accepting it. The so-called nonviolent is stopped in violence, by denying it. The religious person is one who chooses nothing between these two banks. He neither accepts violence nor rejects violence—he silently crosses the ravine and keeps his attention on the summit: I have to reach the summit. I must not create any taste for the ravine—of attachment or aversion, friend or enemy. I only have to pass through the ravine. If you keep this in mind, the summit is very near. And if there is the slightest mistake here, the summit becomes very far.
And thus sometimes a very unique happening occurs: the immoral person who accepts the ravine sometimes suddenly runs toward the summit. The reason for his rush is that by accepting vice he suffers so much, that at some moment that suffering becomes so dense and intense that because of that very suffering he leaves the ravine and starts running toward the summit. But the moral man, fighting vice, strengthens his ego so much—and the cause of that ego is precisely the vice with which he fights—that a strange relish is born in him for vice. The unique relish is that the very cause of his ego’s being is the existence of the vice he fights.
A man becomes nonviolent by fighting violence. Now it will be very hard for him to leave this ravine. Hard—because to leave the ravine means to leave this ego too. This inner ego, 'I am nonviolent,' remains only so long as the fight with violence continues. If he leaves the fight with violence and runs away, the ego created from that fight will have to be left in that ravine. It cannot go along. It is an inseparable part of it.
Therefore the moral man often finds it even more difficult than the immoral man to become religious. Because the immoral man’s vice does not create an ego in him—only wretchedness, pain, anguish is created. He gets nothing from vice except suffering. But the moral man gets pleasure instead of suffering from vice—the pleasure of 'I-ness,' of ego: I am nonviolent, I am renunciate. I am truthful, I am honest. This 'I' hidden behind all these is born of vice. It is born of vice and could not have arisen without it. Therefore this man is in a double entanglement. He lives by precisely that which he fights. He declares enmity, yet that very thing is the arrangement for creating his ego. For him it will be doubly difficult to leave the ravine. First, the ravine is clinging anyway. And now he has created within himself a further trouble suited to the ravine, which will bind him there—the vice has turned golden; his sin is flavored with the taste of virtue.
Thus, though it sounds strange, it is so: the bad man sometimes leaps out of the ravine, but the good man finds it very difficult to do so. Yet both will have to cross. Both must cross. And the fundamental foundation for crossing is this—neither relish its indulgence, nor relish its repression—do not relish it at all. Let your taste remain for the summit. Keep only this in mind: it is unavoidable to pass through the ravine, so we will pass through. We will not make a camp here. We will not create any relationship with the ravine. This ravine is an essential part of the summit—therefore it is to be passed through.
Whether it be a question of vice or virtue, of sin and merit, of knowledge and ignorance—the same, the same single difficulty must be passed through. The ravine of ignorance surrounds us—inevitable near the summit of knowledge. There too we can do two things. Cross it, and the summit is attained. Fight it, and punditry is attained. Fight ignorance and punditry comes—doctrines, scriptures are gained. Then one must camp there. And scriptures and doctrines are very weighty things. Bearing their load one cannot climb to the summit. Sometimes the ignorant reach there, but the so-called learned do not. Because the ignorant at least is unburdened. He has no baggage to carry toward the summit. He has only this ravine of ignorance—he can run out of it any time. But the pundit, the so-called knower, has the ravine and, in addition, a great load of scriptures, words, doctrines upon his head. The ravine does not hold him as much as this load does. Under this weight the chest is crushed. He cannot run leaving it behind, because this burden is his ego.
Remember, the ravine has never held anyone fast—but the ego has fixed people in the ravine with cruel stakes. Then it becomes very hard to move. One thing is certain: the one who, knowing himself a sinner in this ravine, keeps silently moving on—the one who, knowing himself ignorant in this ravine, keeps silently moving on—he quickly reaches the summit. But the meritorious feels great pain in accepting himself a sinner. And the pundit feels great pain in accepting himself ignorant. Then comes blockage. And only those who are unburdened reach that summit. Do not create burden in this ravine. And burden is created instantly if you fight.
Do not fight the ravine. Only pass through it. Only pass through it. Anger comes—pass through it, do not fight. Lust catches hold—pass through it, do not fight. To only pass means: be a witness; keep seeing—All right, it has come, this is a ravine, I have to pass through it, I will pass through; I will create no taste in it—neither this side nor that, neither this bank nor that. I will seize no shore. I will take it as inevitable. If I am going toward the sun, and a shadow falls on the way, I pass through it. What is there to fight or not to fight? What is to be done with the shadow? I know that just ahead of the shadow is the blazing sunlight. I will cross. One should not pitch tents on the path.
As with sin, as with ignorance, so most utterly with the matter of not-being—this is the deepest ravine. I must pass through what-all I am not. That is the deepest. Sin is not so deep. Ignorance is not so deep. But the ravine of what I am not encircles my being. Yoga’s profoundest processes, religion’s fundamental processes are related to that ravine—whatever I am not.
Therefore, what-all I am not—this rishi gives the rule: whatever is happening in waking, that I am not. The shop running, the office work, love happening, quarrels, enmity forming, friendships forming, pleasures coming, pains coming—by this small word 'waking' the rishi has said all—that whatever is happening in waking. He has seen no need to go into details. In one word all is said: whatever has happened in the waking, that I am not. But we have no other wealth of being except that. Whatever happened in waking is our wealth. A house has been built, a safe filled, a few friends found, a few enemies found, a position attained, in some newspaper our name printed, we seem to have arrived somewhere—this is all our waking business.
Have you ever noticed? Let alone far things—even in dream what you built in waking you no longer remain. Awake you were a beggar and in dream you become an emperor. And the thought does not even arise in the dream—Ah, I was a beggar! So what is the strength of waking? A dream wipes it out. Can we call that waking real which a dream erases? In waking you were an emperor, and in dream you are begging. And not even this much remembrance arises—Ah, I was an emperor for twelve hours in waking!
Now this is something to think about. The waking that a dream can wipe away—how real is what we know in waking? And another amusing point—you may never have noticed; that is why Indian insight places dream deeper than waking. Normally we would not consider dream deeper than waking, because a dream is a dream. We say, that was a dream; this is waking. But Indian insight places dream deeper than waking. It has its reasons.
First and fundamental: in waking, you can sometimes remember a little of the dream—but in dream you cannot remember waking at all. Then which is stronger? In the morning upon rising, something of the dream remains in memory. But has it ever happened, falling asleep at night, that waking remained remembered? Because of this fundamental difficulty Indian wisdom placed dream deeper. That whose memory enters waking is the deeper state. That whose memory cannot even abide into dream—how call that deep?
Whatever we have done in waking is our life. The rishi says: that you are not. But though what we have done in waking is our life, what we have done in dream is our image. That is our inner portrait. That is why no one is ever satisfied that people understand him rightly. No one is satisfied. For what one understands about himself is his dream-image; and what others know is his waking image.
Take this a little into account.
You consider yourself a very good person. But you will not find anyone willing to consider you that good. So you think—fools, they do not yet understand. Given time, they will understand. The time never comes, and they never understand. What is the matter? And the same is everyone’s trouble: none finds a person who understands him correctly. I have not yet met a man who says, 'People understand me exactly as I am.' Everyone says, 'All misunderstand me! Where I am an ocean full of love, people cannot even see a small pond in me. Rather, they think I am angry, full of hate, jealous—this and that—which I am not.'
The matter is this: your own image is made from your dreams; others know nothing of your dreams. They know your waking, your behavior. They construct your image from your behavior. And your waking image is not the image of your mind. So you know: sometimes I get angry—that is another matter—otherwise I am a calm person. This calm image is your dream-image. Another’s image of you is a sum of your occasional angers. Hence they do not match. And they will never match, for there is no fault in the other. What can he do?
He knows your behavior, not your dreams. He adds up your behavior and makes your portrait. He has no news of your dreams. You do not make your portrait from your behavior. You make it from your dreams. The worst of men, in his own eyes, is very good. And the best of men, in others’ eyes, is very bad. There is no real inconsistency here; the inconsistency is of two planes. You take yourself as you want to be. As your dream is, so you take yourself. If you want to be nonviolent—that is your dream—you take yourself to be nonviolent. None has news of your dream or of your assumption. The violence you do all around—whenever you act, you act violently—even when you practice nonviolence... the other instantly knows what violence is happening.
Birla built temples everywhere. Where he built his factories, his business, there he built temples thinking that among those who work under him a good image of Birla would arise. He built temples there. But in those very places people came and told me: 'Is this a temple? A Birla temple! A temple of Krishna, a temple of Rama—fine, but a Birla temple!' This is all ego. It could never have occurred to Birla that these temples would only become symbols of ego. He would have thought they stood for charity, merit, auspiciousness. He spent so much on them! But those among whom the temples rose know Birla from his behavior—that on one side runs the stream of exploitation: crores are sucked out; and from that a lakh-rupee temple is built.
To the onlooker this temple too is part of exploitation. This temple too is a device. A device to keep exploitation going. From his accounting this adds up: this is a temple of sin. It could never occur to Birla, 'I am building a temple of sin.' It is a temple of his dream. A temple of merit. The feeling of merit in his own mind. His own feeling—I have done so much good. Between these two portraits, there is never any match. Therefore every person lives dissatisfied.
Leave aside the distant; even our closest ones do not agree that the portrait we hold is ours. People say to each other: 'What do you take me for!' The clash is between portraits.
I had a principal who taught me. A devotee of Kali. In the entire university the rumor was that his mind was a little unhinged. He felt himself a supreme devotee; and everyone felt his mind was loose. The first time I went to his home he was worshiping. His wife opened the door and said to me, 'Sit quietly. If he sees someone has come, he will worship louder and longer.' This is his wife’s portrait! Sit still—if he knows someone has come, the worship will go on long.
I did not know him then. But from his wife I had already got his portrait. I thought, let’s experiment. He came out. I said to him: 'I have never seen a devotee like you.' He pressed me to his chest: 'On this whole earth you are the one man who has understood me. Alone—you alone. Till today no one has ever understood me.' It matched his dream-image.
His wife was watching, and when I was leaving after meeting him—he held me for an hour, an hour and a half; many times I said, 'Let me go,' but the man who is alone on earth cannot let you go quickly—he fed me, and for two years in the university he cared for me immeasurably. As I was leaving, his wife said, 'If people like you keep meeting him, he will have to go to the asylum. What have you told him? Should one say such a thing to him? Inside, while he does all this singing and worship every day, another portrait exists—for those who see his behavior, who relate only to his behavior—what else of his inner can anyone relate to?—they have another portrait. Between these two portraits there is constant quarrel.
It is necessary to know exactly what I am not. It is a very austere effort—like peeling off your own skin. Whatever I have taken myself to be, I will find I am not that.
This rishi says: whatever you have done in waking, whatever you think you are—you are not that. Then he says: even what you have done in dream, the dreams you have seen—you are not that either. When waking itself is not you, how will dreams be you? He goes deeper and says: even in deep sleep, the seed-forms—the vasanas—you have generated, whose spread is in dream and in waking—the roots in deep sleep, the tree in dream, flowers in waking—even those seeds, those roots, you are not. These three you are not.
If we cut all three, a void will be in our hands. If I cut away all my waking acts, break all portraits; if I cut all the dream-thoughts, break all dream-portraits; even in deep sleep, the seeds I do not even know—of which I have no idea where they are hidden—if even those I negate, then what remains in my hands? A void. Then what am I? I remain a void. Through this void one must pass; then the summit will appear which I am. Of that summit this passage speaks.
'That Parabrahman which is never destroyed; which is subtler than the subtlest; which is the ground of all the world’s actions and causes; which is the Atman of all beings—That thou art. Thou art That.'
This is the first affirmative declaration. What will be revealed in this void, what peak will rise in the bottomless ravine of void, what sun of light will rise beyond this dense darkness—that is Brahman. That is the original Existence which has always been and will always be. That is the primal ocean from which all waves have arisen and fallen. They came and went. There was good and there was bad. There was Rama and there was Ravana. There were saints and not-saints. There was happiness and there was misery. There were successes and failures, thrones and the beggar’s bowl on the street—those waves rose and subsided. But the ocean from which they arose—that you are. Experience that root, that Existence, that profundest, that fundamental.
It is not your experience—you are That.
Keep this precisely in mind. Everything else in the world is our experience. And as long as it is an experience, the one to whom it happens will not be known. Experience and experiencer are distinct. I knew pleasure. Pleasure I am not—because pleasure I knew. And the knower is other. I become the knower. Pleasure is somewhere outside me, something that I got. Someone placed wealth in my hand; that wealth I am not. I am the hand in which the wealth is. Yesterday someone gave a beggar’s bowl; that bowl I am not. I am the one whose hand holds the bowl. Sometimes pleasure is in my hand, sometimes pain. Sometimes success, sometimes failure. Sometimes waking is in my hand; sometimes deep sleep. Sometimes I am surrounded by dreams, and sometimes by the breaking of dreams. But none of these am I. I am not any experience. There will be some difficulty here. I am not any experience. Even if there is an experience of God—that God is standing apart and I am standing apart—even that is not me. For I remain beyond even then.
The rishi says: that which is the cause of all experiences; that which is the witness of all experiences; that which is the experiencer of all experiences—that Parabrahman thou art. Parabrahman means: that which is always beyond. Wherever you say 'here,' 'there'—from there it will be beyond. Wherever you place your hand and say 'this,' from there it will slip. It can never be grasped objectively, as a thing. You will never be able to put your hand on it and say, 'This.' Because it is always that which is placing the hand. It goes beyond—hence called Parabrahman.
So mark this: Indian insight uses words very precisely. Brahman it calls that which is your experience. Parabrahman it calls that which you are. So Brahman too is your experience. If someone is a Brahmavadi, a believer in Brahman, he is still a believer—he has not gone beyond thought. He has gone into very subtle thought, but not beyond; he has gone into very deep thought, but not into depth beyond thought. He has gone into the subtle, but not beyond even the subtle...
Therefore the sutra says: 'Which is subtler than the subtlest.'
Now in terms of language, this is wrong. Because when 'subtlest' has been said, what can be subtler than that? Otherwise 'subtlest' has no meaning. Subtlest means: subtler than this cannot be. But the rishi says, 'Subtler than the subtlest.' It means: where your experience of the subtle also ends. Where you come to the last frontier and say: now this can be called neither gross nor subtle. Where the matter goes so far beyond that you no longer remain apart from experience. Therefore it is called Parabrahman. That thou art.
But he repeats it, and with a great purpose.
Two phrases are used: 'That thou art; thou art That.' 'That thou art' means: the Parabrahman is you. 'Thou art That' means: you are the Parabrahman. There is a purpose in saying it twice. We can say to a wave: the ocean is you. The ocean is in the wave. That is one aspect. And to say to the wave: you are the ocean—that is a very different matter.
In one of Kabir’s songs this is clear. Kabir said: Searching, searching, I was lost. 'Herat herat he sakhi, rahya Kabir herai.' I went seeking and got lost. 'The drop merged into the ocean—how is it to be found again?' The drop fell into the ocean and was lost in it—how can it now be recovered! This is Kabir’s first insight. But in the next he reverses it. Immediately he writes another: 'Herat herat he sakhi, rahya Kabir herai. The ocean merged into the drop—how can that be sought?' And if the drop had fallen into the ocean, perhaps it could be sought someday. Now it is even more difficult—the ocean itself has fallen into the drop; now there is no way to seek at all.
If the drop falls into the ocean, it could perhaps be found. Very small—granted it will be difficult—yet searching and searching, someday the drop might be found: here it is. But if the ocean falls into the drop—no such event happens in the physical world—but in the spiritual world it happens. It is not that you go and meet God; rather God comes and meets you. The drop only prepares; until then it remains a drop. The day it is ready, the ocean falls into it. Then where will you search for the drop? If the ocean falls into the drop, where will you look? Hence the double sutra.
'That thou art; thou art That.'
This double sutra has further dimensions. When we say: God is you—it includes acceptance of God, not necessarily your acceptance of yourself. But when we say: you are God—then it is your total acceptance also. It is easy to say: God is in everyone. It is very difficult to say: everyone is God. The dimensions differ.
When we say: God is in everyone—no objection arises. Fine. But if we say: everyone is God—the mind raises a score of objections: Is even that man God who abused me yesterday? Who threw a stone at me day before yesterday? Even he is God? In all, God is hidden; in all, God is—this does not raise a hitch. Because we take God as one thing and the person as another. Then we put all the bad onto the person and all the good onto God. There is a way to divide.
We can say: in the worst of men God is, hidden—and no difficulty comes. No doubt catches the mind. Because the relation of God with the man’s evil does not get joined; God remains separate and the bad man remains as a layer. We know that when he cuts away his layers of evil, God will be revealed.
But when we say: you are God—we accept all. This is a revolutionary declaration. Because here we do not leave anything out, we do not split. We do not say: the bad man is God in some inner part. We say: whatsoever he is—God he is. Here we also assimilate evil. And we have never noticed that if God is within a man and still he is evil, then this proves the impotence of God. We have never considered this. We say: the man is bad; even so, within him God is—although he is bad. His evil is outside; inside God is hidden. But if God is within, in any case, then this evil seems more powerful than God. Better to say: the man is bad and there is no God within him. That is one way—which, in fact, is our situation.
This is merely our saying—that God is within. It is only words. We have no realization of it. When you go to kill your enemy, where will you stab—saving God? When you abuse a bad man, will you take such care in your abuse as to spare the God within? The abuse will go wholly in. It will in no way accept any inner God. The whole man is abused. The whole man is punished. The whole man. And the inner God remains a verbal formality.
Moralists keep saying such things. The moralist says: destroy evil, not the evil man. The man is good within; destroy the evil. Punish the evil, not the evil man. But the man is one, a whole. If punished, then wholly; if rewarded, then wholly; if he dies, then wholly; if he lives, then wholly. Where is the division?
One way is to accept: there is no God within—the man is only a house of evil. This we actually believe. 'God within' is only verbal—and false. It is not our realization. The day realization comes, another kind of realization will come—the day we say: the whole man is God, including his evils.
But remember, if I see a man as God with his evils included, then for me his evils dissolve. It does not remain possible otherwise. As soon as this realization happens—that the whole man is God—then his evil also takes the form of good. His evil too becomes illumined, haloed. Then I know: whatever he does will be right. Because right is within.
'That thou art; thou art That.'
The rishi repeats from both sides so nothing remains excluded. In every way, in all moods—you are God. If someone can see this in another, his whole outlook on life changes.
But remember, people like to see this in themselves, not in others. One will be ready to accept: I am God. He will not be ready to accept: the other is God. But mark this: the one who is not ready to accept the other cannot truly accept himself, however much he repeats it. By accepting the other, depth increases in the acceptance of oneself.
Try an experiment for a day. Take a vrata—a vow—for twenty-four hours. People take many kinds of vows. Twenty-four hours without food—and then they remain only hungry; nothing else happens. Or: twenty-four hours without ghee—what difference? Twenty-four hours without this or that. I suggest one vow. For twenty-four hours, whichever person you meet, take him totally as God. Whosoever is, see God wholly there. Do not subtract any part. Twenty-four hours. And your life will never again be the same. A vow is one after which life cannot return to what it was. Otherwise, what is the point of a vow?
You fast for a day. The next day you eat double. You remain the same. In fact, you may be worse. Worse because now you also feel: I have observed a vow. Now an additional nuisance clings to you. You starved the body; you fed the ego.
Take a vow for twenty-four hours—to refuse nothing, to call nothing bad. See only God. There will be great fear: I will be looted. Suppose someone comes and starts beating—what will I do then? And fear will arise—because you have put many in a condition to beat you. You have looted many. Thus you fear that such people will not miss this chance. If someone knows that for twenty-four hours you have taken such a vow—to see only God—it will be difficult.
Religion is a leap into fearlessness. And vows are experiments in fearlessness. There is no great fearlessness in starving. And those who have had plenty to eat—fasting benefits them; there is no loss. That is why it is amusing that only well-fed societies take fasting as a vow. Poor societies never take fasting as a vow. And if a poor society fasts, then that day it eats sweetmeats. Only rich societies fast by going without. For the poor, the religious day is a festival of eating. For the rich, the religious day is a festival of not eating. These are well-ordered facts—related to economics, not to religion. The rich are fed up from eating; fasting gives them relief. The poor are starved; daily they cannot eat well; on the religious festival, they eat well. This is economics, not religion.
Thus in India, among Jains—a prosperous community—fasting, austerities, etc., are religious acts. A poor community cannot take these as religious. For the poor, a religious day is a day of celebration—because everyday life is filled with non-celebration, with hunger. What use is it to fill the religious day with more hunger! And then, there would be no distinction. As it is, we are fasting. As it is, we eat once a day. What added meaning will one-meal bring? The opposite is needed. As a change of taste, the opposite is pleasant. But it has nothing to do with religion.
Take such a vow after which you cannot be the same man again. If for twenty-four hours you see God, then you will not again commit the mistake of seeing anything else. Because in those twenty-four hours such a rain of bliss will fall upon your life, it will draw you again and again. This is the meaning of the ocean falling into the drop. I am a drop; what surrounds me is the ocean. The day I see God there, the doors of my heart will open toward Him. That day the ocean can fall into the drop.
But the religious man often goes out like a drop seeking the ocean, while the ocean is present all around. He says, 'I am going to search for God.' And God is present here. Better not to go searching for God—open the doors of the heart so God can descend. But the heart’s doors are shut and the pilgrimage to the Himalayas is on; the travels to Mecca and Medina and Kashi are on. With the heart’s doors shut, go where you will—if the drop has closed itself on all sides, the ocean cannot fall into it. And even if the drop reaches the ocean, if it is closed from all sides, it cannot gather the courage to let Him fall.
Thus the rishi says both: 'That thou art; thou art That.'
'In waking, dream, and deep sleep, the illusory prapanch that appears is all illumined by Brahman.'
Even this maya-prapanch is illumined by Brahman. The man who goes to steal—he goes illumined by Brahman. The man who murders—he murders illumined by Brahman. Very difficult! The reason religion seems arduous is not religion itself; it is our moral notions. Because of them, religion becomes incomprehensible. How can this be—that a man goes to steal, and it is Brahman who illumines it! Brahman goes to steal!
We have moral judgments about stealing—they will be barriers. They will say: this cannot be. In a saint we will somehow see Brahman; in a thief, how will we see? In the honest, perhaps; in the dishonest, how? In a friend or a beloved, perhaps; in an enemy, how? But until He is seen in the enemy, seeing Him in the friend is merely formal. Until He is seen in the thief, seeing Him in the saint is false. What appears in the saint is false as long as light does not appear in darkness. When light begins to appear in darkness, then the light is within. It means the light is within me now. Now wherever I look, light will be seen.
The day Brahman abides within, is realized—wherever I cast my eyes there He will be seen. Because the light is within. If my light falls upon darkness, even there I will see light. So until Brahman begins to be seen in the bad, know that He has not yet been seen within. Seeing Him in the saint is easy; for there is no obstruction presented. Though you will try to find some obstruction, to discover something that allows you to hold that God is not in him. We keep trying so hard to know that the saint is not a saint.
Why?
For one reason: so that we may avoid the trouble of seeing God. That is why everyone is searching to find whether the saint is not hiding a few rupees in his clothes. He must be—so is our inner belief. Somewhere he has stashed it, somewhere deposited in a bank—how will a man live without money! He lives by what we live by; only we have not yet found the proof. Our mind holds that the difference between saint and non-saint is only this much: the non-saint has been exposed; the saint not yet. Until he is—compelled by circumstances—we accept that he is fine. But someday it will be revealed; we hope so. We will also work to make it happen.
A friend wrote to me from Rajasthan: for ten years I regarded a man as God. Then one day I saw him angry. All my faith was destroyed. Now my condition is such that I cannot see God in anyone—for I know that someday something will go wrong and the whole matter will be spoiled.
I sent him word: for ten years that man did not get angry; in ten years he became angry once. And those ten years of non-anger were wiped out by one moment of anger. You must have been searching for anger. Ten years of non-anger! A thousand inches of God—and one inch proved He is not God, so a thousand inches were wasted? You did not even think that when we see anger in another, it is not necessary that he is angry. Our seeing may be responsible. That did not occur to you. Nor did it occur that this is my notion—that God cannot be angry. This notion should have broken. But God broke; the notion did not. The notion was more precious. My notion! God was you; the notion was mine. You may break; I cannot.
I sent the message: think once more. Who told you God cannot be angry? Who decided for you that God cannot be angry? How did you know God cannot be angry? It is your notion. It is certain only that if you see God in someone, his anger will not appear as anger to you.
It is not certain whether Mahavira ever got angry or not. It is certain that those who knew Mahavira as God did not see his anger. Whether he did or did not—no certainty. For others see it. Goshalak saw Mahavira as angry. Mahavira’s devotees did not. Krishna’s devotees do not see Krishna as angry. But his opponents see that at the right time he took up the Sudarshan—then the reality was clear that he is angered. Finished! What kind of God! But even when Krishna takes up the discus, to the one who sees God in him, there is no anger. There is Lila, play. There is mystery.
In truth, if Krishna had not taken up the discus, those who loved him could not have called him a complete avatar. He could be called complete because he is so total that both things coexist. He is not partial, fragmentary. In him, the good is at its full summit; and in him, even what you call bad is at its deepest depth. Both are together. So balanced—therefore complete.
Thus the Hindu mind felt Krishna to be the Poorna Avatara. Rama is not as complete. He leans a little too much to goodness. The balance is not total. He is more good than balanced. Rama’s personality is restrained, not balanced. Balance is with the bad too. Krishna’s personality is perfectly balanced. The two pans of the scale align, and the needle tells: complete. The devotee sees this. The non-devotee sees that by taking up the discus he pressed one pan to the ground—everything is ruined.
It is hard to say whether God gets angry or not. It is certain that the one who can see God anywhere—anger does not appear as anger to him. And the real question is not whether Krishna was angry or not. The real question is whether someone could see God in Krishna. That is important. That event is revolutionary.
Whether Krishna is God or not—this is a petty matter. Fools sit calculating this account. But the one who could see—he is transformed. By that seeing he is transformed. Jesus’ being God or not is secondary. If someone can see God in a stone, transformation happens.
'All maya-prapanch, the entire illusion, is illumined by that Brahman—and that Brahman is I.'
This is very delightful. This whole maya-prapanch—the thief going to steal, the lust-blinded man running after desire, the greedy man coiled like a snake upon his heap of gold—this entire play is illumined by Brahman. More astonishing yet: 'And that Brahman am I.' It is I who go to steal in the thief; it is I who am the greed in the greedy; I who am the desire in the desirous. This is a wondrous sutra. Such realization is the religious realization. Such a man is religious.
But those we see as religious say: you are a thief; you will go to hell. It never occurs to them: in him I will go to hell. If it occurred, such condemnation could not be uttered, not with such relish.
Sadhus and sannyasins sit, telling people: you are sinners; you will fall into hell. It does not occur to them that within them I am the sinner; through them I will fall into hell. If that occurred, a religious personality would be born.
Whatever is happening in this world—I am a partner in it. Because I am a part of it. If Ravana has happened, I was within him. My being is indispensable in Ravana, for I am a partner, a shareholder in the world. If war happens in Vietnam, I am responsible. Nowhere do I see my responsibility. But in the world of which I am a part, if wars occur, I am responsible. If Hindu-Muslim riots happen here; if Hindus cut Muslims and Muslims cut Hindus, I am responsible. For within them I am being cut. And I am the one cutting.
It is easier to understand that Brahman goes to steal. Harder still to understand: I go to steal. Such realization will bring a marvelous revolution. Such a thought will make your life different. This vision—and you will be other. Then what is bad, and what is good? Whose condemnation, whose praise? Whom send to hell, whom to heaven? What arrangements shall we make? All arrangements fall. All orderings fall. And can such a person be restless? Can such a person be in tension? What anguish could remain? Such a person ceases to be. This is the most intense blow to the ego. Ordinarily I cannot accept even my own theft as mine; here another’s theft too is accepted as mine.
Ordinarily, even when I steal, I say—circumstances. I am no thief; the situation was such. My wife was ill, my child starving; had I not stolen, what would I do? If such circumstances came to you, you would also steal. Circumstances compelled me. I am no thief. We do not accept even our own theft. In this sutra, another’s theft is accepted—and even the theft of one with whom we have no connection appears. It could be that I do not even know him.
Yet the sutra says: 'Within all these, it is I. This entire maya-prapanch—whatever is happening—belongs to Brahman; and that Brahman is I.'
This is the sharpest blow upon the ego. If even after this blow the ego survives, then there is no way to destroy it. But it cannot survive. After such a blow there is no means of its survival. Have you noticed? When we call others thieves, our ego tastes great sweetness. When we call another a sinner, we become, knowingly or not, a righteous one. When we condemn another, indirectly we praise ourselves. Hence our relish in condemnation.
Poets have spoken of many rasas—flavors—but compared to the relish of condemnation, all other rasas are insipid. Thus however much poets write poetry, they take more relish in condemning another poet than in poetry. Condemnation seems the fundamental rasa, the basic taste. All poetry pales. All other rasas are ordinary.
Have you noticed? When someone begins to condemn another, lotuses bloom in your heart. And when someone begins to praise another, the lotuses shrink. When someone praises another, you instantly go on the defensive. Your defense takes the form: Who says that man is truthful? What proof that he is a saint? What evidence? You argue; you dispute.
Someone says: such-and-such is a thief. Your heart-lotuses bloom at once. The door of reception swings wide. The heart immediately accepts. You are filled with faith—Exactly right; I knew it already. You ask for no proof—who says he is a thief? How is it established? Could the one who said it be lying? Is there sure proof that the witness was himself honest? No, there is no need to ask. With condemnation, our faith becomes abundant.
Therefore I do not say modern man has no faith. I say only—his objects of faith have changed. There is no lack of faith. If someone says: so-and-so is a saint—doubt comes. If someone says: so-and-so is a sinner—faith comes at once. There is no lack of faith—faith is full.
Faith springs immediately at the wrong place. The reasons are clear: as soon as someone condemns another, he praises us indirectly. That is why the truly skillful flatterers find the best way to praise you: they come to you and condemn those whose egos have ever bruised your ego. This is the subtlest flattery. He does not directly say you are great. He says: all around you, all are mean—and suddenly you are great.
The man who comes and says directly, 'You are great,' does not know the secret of flattery. The one who is truly skillful will not call you great; he will make others small, and you great. He is more skillful, and if real mischief is to be done, he will do it.
There is so much relish in condemnation. In calling the other wrong, there is great relish. In proving the other in error, there is relish. All that relish will end. If this entire show, this whole spread of evil, this plague seen everywhere—this too is I; all this insanity, sickness, distortion—this too is I—then the ego cannot survive. Then there is no place left for the ego to stand. Where the ego is not, there Brahman abides. Where Brahman abides, there the ego is annihilated.
'Whatever maya-prapanch appears in waking, dream and deep sleep is illumined by Brahman. And that Brahman am I—one who knows this becomes free of all bondage.'