Kaivalya Upanishad #13

There is a stone. It certainly is, but it has no experience of being. There is no lack in its being, yet it has no consciousness of being. There is an animal; it is, and it also knows that it is. It has existence, and it has the experience of existence. The stone has only existence, no experience of existence. The animal has existence and the experience of existence. In man a third dimension of consciousness begins. Man is — as the stone is; man has the experience of being — as any animal has; and man can also be a witness to both. Man can know: I am, I am experiencing being — and he can stand behind and witness both.
This experience of the third is the sakshi, the witness. The stone is unconscious, the animal is conscious, and man is conscious even of his consciousness — awake to his own awareness. But this is man’s possibility. Not all human beings are in this state. It can be, it is not yet. Ordinarily most humans remain on the level of the animal: they are, and they know they are, but they have no taste of the third element, the witness. And even this animal-state remains only in waking; in sleep the condition becomes the same as the stone’s — there is being, but there is no knowing of being.
When we are asleep, there is no difference between us and a stone. In deep sleep we are exactly like a stone. If you wish, you can invert it and say: the stone is just like us, lying in a deep slumber. And when there is no sense of the witness, when we are and we know we are, we are in the state of the animal. Invert it and you can say: the animal is in our state — its witness has not yet awakened. But the birth of real humanity within begins with witnessing, with the sakshi.
So let us understand precisely what sakshi means. Perhaps among all human words — especially those employed in spiritual search — it is the most important. We shall speak later of its method; first let us understand the word rightly.
My hand is hurt, there is pain. Ordinarily it appears: I am in pain. If it appears that I am in pain, the witness is absent. If it appears that my hand is in pain, that the hand is hurting and I am aware, then the witness has arrived. There is hunger in the belly; if it appears that I am hungry, the witness is lost — there is identification, tadatmya, with hunger. If it appears that I am aware that the belly is hungry, that hunger is in the stomach and I am the knower — if I remain only the knower and do not become included in any experience; if a distance remains between me and my experience, the greater the distance, the more the witness is born. The smaller the distance, the more the witness is lost. The word for the loss of witnessing is tadatmya — identification, becoming one with something.
Witnessing means: becoming separate from everything. If a person becomes separate from all his experiences — whether pain or pleasure, life or death, whatever happens — if in no event does my awareness enter into the event, if it remains outside, then the taste of witnessing begins. Someone insults you; instantly the insult hits within and the distance breaks. The arrow of abuse pierces inside and the distance breaks. Then it is no longer remembered that there is one who is abusing, one who is abused, and one who is seeing — both the abuser and the abused.
Practicing this experiment of witnessing, Swami Ramatirtha slowly changed even his language — perhaps practice changed his speech. In New York some people had insulted him. He came back laughing and said to his companions: Today there was great fun. Ram had gone to the market — Ramatirtha was his name — but he said: Ram had gone to the market, some people began to abuse Ram, and Ram got into trouble. His friends said: You speak as if someone else was abused and someone else got into trouble. Ram said: Exactly so. For I was seeing both — those who were abusing, and Ram, on whom the abuses were falling.
When abuse falls, making a distance is very difficult. In a single instant everything inside identifies; we endure the insult as ourselves.
Consciousness has the potential either to come close to a fact and become one with it, or to step back and stand at a distance. This is the entire possibility of religion. If this possibility did not exist, there would be no way for religion, and no path for the dissolution of life’s suffering, if witnessing were impossible.
Epictetus, a Greek thinker, was said to have attained witnessing. The emperor did not believe it. He said: How can one be a witness! Well then, we shall test him. Epictetus was summoned. The emperor called two wrestlers and ordered: Twist and break one of his legs right before him. Epictetus extended his leg. The emperor said: You will not make a fuss? Epictetus said: Fuss is utterly useless — the wrestlers are far stronger than I. Fuss is pointless. And by delaying it, Epictetus will suffer more; better to finish quickly.
Epictetus said: By delaying, Epictetus will suffer more. The emperor asked: What do you mean? Epictetus said: I mean, the one you have called — Epictetus, the name of this body — he will suffer a great deal. The emperor asked: And you? Epictetus said: We shall watch. We shall watch your stupidity, your wrestlers’ prowess, and Epictetus’ trouble — all we shall watch.
The emperor said: Talking will not do; the leg must be broken. The leg was broken. Epictetus kept watching. Then he said: If the task is complete, may I take Epictetus away?
The emperor began to weep. He had never imagined this could be. He fell at Epictetus’ feet and asked: What is the secret? Epictetus said: Even now, the one whose feet you hold is not me. I am watching that the emperor is weeping, Epictetus is once again in trouble — another trouble. His leg is being held. Before it was held to be broken; now it is held to be fallen upon. But I am watching.
Witnessing means: let no experience become identification. Let no experience be linked to me. Let me remain apart, beyond. Let my separateness not be annihilated anywhere.
You walk on the road. You can walk as ‘I am walking,’ and you can walk as ‘walking is happening, and I am watching.’ From every event, identification must be torn asunder. From every event, identification must be dissolved. You eat. You can eat as ‘I am eating,’ and you can eat as ‘eating is happening, and I am watching.’
If each moment is kept in such awareness, then — after continuous practice — witnessing begins to be born. Then within you arises that consciousness which only sees — is the drashta; which only knows — is the gyata; but is not the bhokta, the enjoyer.
Let us understand this sutra.
‘In waking (jagrat), dream (swapna) and deep sleep (sushupti), in all three states, that which appears as bhog (enjoying), bhogya (the enjoyed, the object), and bhokta (the enjoyer, the subject) — distinct from these is the ever-auspicious, chinmaya and wondrous witness — that I am.’
Whether waking, dreaming or deep sleep, our experience divides into three — bhog, bhogya and bhokta. Bhogya is that which is enjoyed — the object. You are eating a meal; the food is bhogya. You are eating — you are the bhokta. And the relation between bhokta and bhogya is bhog — the act of enjoying, the experiencing.
Or take it thus: the sun has risen; you are seeing it. The sun is the seen, the drishya; you are the seer, the drashta; the relation between the two is darshan — seeing. A thorn pierces your foot; there is pain. The pain is the known, the gyeya; you are the knower, the gyata; the relation between the two is jnana — knowing. Every experience breaks into three: the object outside, the subject inside — the ‘I’ to whom the experience occurs — and the relation between the two, which becomes the experience.
These three we understand. If there is within you something beyond these three — a fourth — its name is the sakshi. If beyond the three there is also a fourth that looks on from above — seeing that the food is being eaten, the enjoyment is occurring, the enjoyer is enjoying, the relation between bhokta and bhogya is established as bhog — and if within you someone can stand beyond these three and watch, then the name of that fourth possibility is the witness.
We experience the three; we do not experience the fourth. And in the three states we have discussed, in each we experience only these three. In waking, there is bhog, bhogya and bhokta; in dream, the same; in deep torpor and sleep, upon waking we say: there was great pleasure — again the pleasure divides into bhog, bhogya and bhokta. But of the fourth we have no inkling, no glimpse within all this experience.
To awaken that fourth, to raise it up, to give it ground, to enter it — the means is meditation. Whatever you are doing, keep in mind: the three are there — fine; but is the fourth also somewhere? The very remembrance will start awakening the fourth. It awakens by remembrance alone; there is no other way to awaken it.
Gurdjieff used the word ‘remembering’. He said: Remembering — self-remembering — is the way to rouse it. If an angry seeker came to him, he did not say: Drop anger. He said: Be angry — totally — but keep the witness awake that ‘I am angry,’ that ‘anger is happening,’ that ‘anger has come,’ that ‘anger has gripped me,’ that ‘anger is expressing.’ Not for a single moment forget; do not identify with anger. Keep a distance from anger.
Seekers fell into great difficulty. For the law of anger is: if remembrance remains, anger cannot be. And if anger is, remembrance is lost. These two do not coexist. So if any seeker came and said: Yes, today I was angry and remembrance remained — Gurdjieff would laugh. He knew — the seeker did not — that it is impossible. Even for a fragment of a moment, if anger seizes you, remembrance will be lost. It is a matter of the focusing of consciousness. Just as, when I look to the left, my eyes cannot see to the right; just as, when I close my eyes, the outer world does not appear. If someone says: I closed my eyes and still saw the world; I looked left and also saw right — even more difficult than that is to say: I remained awake and was angry; I remained the witness and was angry. It cannot be.
Gurdjieff tried many experiments, but the problem remained: if one stayed awake, anger did not happen; if anger happened, wakefulness did not. So he began a new experiment — the acting of anger. He said: In real anger, identification occurs; the man is joined to it. So only act anger. In every way try to appear angry — bring the gestures, contort the face, clench the fists, grind the teeth, tremble — enact the whole of anger as an actor does in a play.
And it is a delight that when he taught the acting of anger, both could happen together — they could enact anger and remain witnesses. And once the taste comes that in a single situation I can remain a witness, that whatever I am doing, I need not be the doer — if it remains acting, one does not become the doer. Ram acts in the Ram-lila. He weeps and wails, he sternly questions Sita; the curtain falls, and backstage he sits for tea. There was no real relation to that Sita — it was all acting. But sometimes, because our unawareness runs deep, even in acting identification happens; even within acting the doer appears.
I have heard it happened in a village Ram-lila. Hanuman was sent to fetch the Sanjivani herb. He returned carrying the mountain, but the rope on which he was sliding got stuck in the pulley. Great trouble! Ram stood below shouting: Quickly, bring the Sanjivani, Lakshman is dying! Hanuman tried hard to descend, but the pulley jammed. Someone hurried up and cut the rope; Hanuman crashed down. He forgot it was a play. Ram asked: Where is the Sanjivani? Hanuman shouted: To hell with the Sanjivani! Who cut the rope? First let me find that out! The play vanished for a moment; consciousness became the doer. In that instant Ram and Lakshman became meaningless; the Sanjivani was worthless. Hanuman forgot that many people were watching — what would they think?
There was no question of forgetting — the whole scene had disappeared; where acting had been going on, the doer instantly appeared. He could not separate himself from the event. If the doer enters even our acting, identification will happen; and conversely, if the sense of acting enters our actions, the witness will appear. This means: whenever we become the doer of an act, we become so at the cost of the witness. If we remain only the actor, the doer is lost, and at the cost of the doer, the witness is available. You can be only one of the two — either the doer, or the witness.
And we are all doers. Whatever we do, we immediately link it to our ego. We do not have to try to link — it links by itself; it is part of our habit. We become doers even of that in which there is no doing of ours at all. A man says: I am breathing. No one breathes — otherwise dying would be very difficult. Death stands there and you continue breathing, and Death says: Now stop, please — and you say: I will not — then what can Death do? You do not breathe; breathing happens. Yet we become the doers even of that. We say: I inhale, I exhale. Our language turns everything into a deed.
You do not know your blood is circulating — otherwise you would say: I am circulating my blood. Three hundred years ago no one knew the blood circulates. When the first man said it, he had to seek pardon in court — What nonsense! How can blood circulate? It is filled and still. We never feel it moving. Only three hundred years ago humanity learned that blood circulates. But it does, and you are not the one making it move; you do not even know. Likewise, breathing moves — you are not the mover. While it moves, it moves; when it does not, it does not. You cannot make even a single breath more or less.
Yet we become doers even of breathing and we say: I am breathing in, I am breathing out. I am doing something. If we enter deeply, the whole of life is moving like breath. You are not the doer. If in the most fundamental you are not the doer — breath, without which life cannot continue even for a moment — then what are you thinking about all the rest? Do you create hunger? It occurs. Do you fall in love? You find yourself fallen. Do you create hatred? It happens. Do you fabricate anger? It comes. If we enter rightly into the processes of life, we will discover: the doer is an illusion — perhaps the only illusion; all other illusions are its foliage. We call that doer the ego — ahankar. It is our illusion. And on that illusion, whatever palace we erect is false. But once the false foundation is accepted, there is no difficulty in constructing the false palace — of fame, of prestige, of success, of vanity.
If we know the processes of life rightly, we find: we are not the doer. Then what are we, if not the doer? If the sense of doership drops, then what are we? We discover: we are the witness.
I fall in love with someone. I am only the witness of this: something in me and something in that person — between these two an attraction has arisen. I am the witness of this. I must remember: this event is happening; it is as natural as iron being drawn to a magnet. The magnet does not ‘pull’, nor does the iron ‘go’. It is the meeting of their properties that creates the happening of attraction. Neither the magnet makes any effort to attract, nor the iron any effort to be attracted. Out of their natures the event happens. An event is simply an event — there is no doer in it.
If the magnet were human, it would say: I pulled. It would keep a diary of how many irons it pulled, how many times irons gathered around it. If the iron were human, it would also refuse to accept otherwise. It would say: To how many magnets I went; it too would keep a diary. But we know, no one is pulling and no one is being pulled. The magnet has its nature, its field — a magnetic field. The iron too has its field. The happening between these two fields is attraction. There is no doer in it. If a woman is drawn toward a man, it is a magnetic field; if a man is drawn toward a woman, it is the same. The happening is magnetic.
You will ask: Why is one iron drawn to one particular magnet? Why is a man drawn to a particular woman, a woman to a particular man? If we go deep, we shall find this too is by nature.
In the West, Jung worked much in this direction. He discovered that within every man there is, from birth, an image of woman — a hidden woman, the anima; and within every woman an image of man — a hidden man, the animus. When a man is drawn to a woman, the essential reason is that the outer woman’s form fits the inner image of woman in him. When a woman is drawn to a man, it means that the hidden masculine element within her finds some harmony with this man. That harmony attracts.
Do not say mistakenly: I loved. Love is not a deed. It is the magnet’s error to say: I pulled the iron; the iron’s error to say: I went. Yet we become doers even here. Love, hatred, anger — all move like breath.
If this life begins to appear to us as moving like breath, the one to whom it so appears is the witness. The whole spectacle happens around him, and he stands in between, knowing, seeing — and nowhere in this play does he attach the sense of ‘I’. Standing outside the ‘I’, he only knows — he is the knower, the sakshi. Then we have found within that point which is not a part of this world.
The doer is of the world. The witness stands outside the world.
‘Whether in dream, waking or deep sleep, in all three states, the one who is ever the witness — that chinmaya and wondrous witness — that I am.’
The quality of the witness is chinmayata — pure consciousness. Its very nature is awareness. Awareness means: its only quality is knowing. As the mirror’s quality is to reflect whatever comes before it, so the witness’s quality is to know whatever appears before it. Knowing is its only nature.
Think of a camera. Its plate also records an image as a mirror reflects. But there is a difference between a plate and a mirror. The plate not only forms the image — it grasps it, holds it. The mirror also forms the image, but does not cling. You move, the image goes — and the mirror is empty, void, still.
This also means: when the plate holds an image, it is not that the image forms and afterwards is held; the very forming is a seizing. The mirror is empty not only when you move away; even when you stand before it and the reflection appears, the mirror remains empty. Otherwise it would not be empty when you step away.
The sense of doership is like the plate. Whatever happens, it clutches, is caught. The witness is like the mirror. Everything appears upon it — there is reflection, there is knowing — yet it holds nothing. The accumulation of all the seized impressions on the plate is what we call ‘I’. The mirror cannot form an ‘I’, because there is no addition; one thing goes — the mirror is empty; another comes and goes — again empty. The mirror has no treasury from which to construct the feeling of ‘I’. In witnessing the ‘I’ cannot be manufactured; therefore the day the taste of witnessing begins, the taste of ‘I’ begins to end. Or understand it thus: if the experience of ‘I’ ends, the experience of witnessing begins. So long as the ‘I’ is being formed, know that the doer’s work is ongoing and there is still no relation with the witness.
One like Buddha walks the earth like a mirror — a walking mirror. Everything appears, everything happens, everything is reflected — but nothing is seized. From seizing, the entire heaviness of our mind is made.
See it a little more. You are walking on the road; a flower by the side — beautiful. You experience: beautiful; you smell the fragrance — you know. Then you go on. The flower is left behind — but in the mind an after-echo of the flower continues. This after-echo shows you are a plate, not a mirror. If you were a mirror, the flower passed, you moved — the matter ended. The mirror became empty. A beautiful woman appears — if you are a mirror, she will indeed appear, and her beauty will be seen. But you are a mirror; she passes, the mirror is empty. A beautiful building appears; beautiful — it is seen; it passes — finished. You are again pristine and empty. Moment to moment the witness remains pure; therefore the witness accumulates no karmic bondage — because it does not clutch. It does not get bound; it only passes. In life, the witness does not ‘enjoy’; it sees. It does not get entangled; it passes through.
Kabir has said: ‘I returned the robe just as it was given.’ He said this of the witness. The life given by the Divine he returned exactly as given — he did not allow stains to settle — the stains of the doer. In truth, the way we live as doers, the robe does not return — only stains return. Then it is hard to find where the robe is — only piles of stains remain. So much printing has come upon it — layer upon layer — the robe is lost; a collection of stains remains.
A man who passes in witnessing… Rinzai said to his disciples at the time of death: I leave you one sutra — pass through the water, but let not your feet get wet. You will say: passing through water, the feet must get wet. The witness’s feet do not — because the witness does not consider these feet to be his own. The witness also sees that water is being crossed; if it is Rinzai, he sees: Rinzai is passing through water; Rinzai’s feet are wet; but mine? My feet are not wet, for I am not passing through water at all. There is water, there are feet, there is the passer — and there is one who sees. That seer remains untouched, unsullied.
That unsulliedness — rightly understood — is life’s deepest, ultimate foundation. Such a one is ever virgin, ever untouched. Dust may settle on a flower’s petals; on him no dust settles — for the cause by which dust settles has been dissolved: identification; the sense of doership has been dissolved. On us, dust of every sort settles — not only that with cause, even causeless dust. Passing on the road, someone hums a film tune. That man goes, the tune goes — but you continue humming it. In this way dust settles. Now you keep humming it; try to stop and the mind refuses — it says: I will hum. The more you try to stop, the more it hums. Try to stop, and you discover you are defeated.
One more thing to note: those who live in doership — even if they become ‘religious’ — their doer does not go; they carry it there as well. They say: before, we built palaces; now we have renounced. Understand this rightly —
If doership continues, there is no entry into religion. But the so-called religious you know were doers in the world and remain doers in religion. They say: before, we enjoyed; now, we have renounced — but the doing continues. Before, they lived in palaces — they built them; now they live in ashrams — they build them. Before, they wore clothes; now they live naked — but the sense of doing continues. The religious, the sannyasin, is the one who does not live from doership — whether he lives in a palace or a hut, naked or clothed in silks. His only mark is this: he does not live from doership; he lives from witnessing.
I have heard of Diogenes. He lay outside the village in a tin tub, naked. He had no house, not even a hut. That tin tub lay discarded at the rubbish heap; he slept in it. Stray dogs also slept in it. Sometimes disciples came from afar to ask him things.
Often they said: Why don’t you drive away these dogs? Diogenes would say: Who would drive them away? Diogenes too is sleeping; they too are sleeping. As for me — there is no sleeping there; there, one is awake who is awake!
The one he speaks of is the witness. There is no sleep there; awake, awake — Diogenes sleeps, dogs sleep; as for me, I am awake. From Diogenes there is now as much distance as from the dogs.
Understand this well.
Until you have as much distance from yourself as from others, you cannot attain witnessing. If you have more distance from others and less from yourself, you will remain bound to doership. Exactly the same distance must arise from yourself as from others. In that very instant, Diogenes sleeps, dogs sleep — and that which is within remains awake and watches.
So Diogenes said: Who will drive them away? Whom to drive away, and why?
This neutrality — this distance even from oneself — this very distance is the witness.
Chinmaya is its nature — consciousness-only. Only one mark can be said — chinmaya: consciousness, awareness. But its meaning is deep — for if chinmaya is its nature, it means it can never be devoid of consciousness. It can never become unconscious. If fire is hot by nature, it cannot be cold; if it becomes cold and remains fire, then heat is not its nature. Nature means: that from which one cannot fall.
If the inner mystery has consciousness as its nature, how then do we fall asleep? Why are we unconscious? Why are we in unawareness?
This is the great question asked for centuries: if it is true that the inner Self is knowledge, that knowledge is its own nature, how then has ignorance happened? The question is apt. If my nature is eternity, how does death happen? If my nature is health, how does disease come? If within me dwells the pure, awakened Divine, how do I become evil?
Two possibilities. Either this is not my nature — only an accidental quality. Then it can be. But if it is not my nature, a danger arises: if consciousness is only accidental, why seek it? Even if attained, what is accidental can never become nature. In India a unique stream of thought arose — many profound thinkers declared: in the ultimate state, consciousness will not remain; in moksha, awareness will not remain — because, they said, both consciousness and unconsciousness are accidental qualities.
But this is strange. If in moksha consciousness does not remain, who is free? If awareness is gone, this unconsciousness is better — at least there is a little awareness here. If freedom is total and there is unawareness, it is meaningless. Those thinkers could not explain how, if consciousness is our nature, man is unaware. If wakefulness is his inner quality, where does sleep come from?
But because they could not explain, there is no need to accept the opposite. It can be understood — difficulty arises when one moves only by thought; when one moves by sadhana, by practice, difficulty does not arise, because things begin to be seen. Consciousness is ever conscious; the mirror is ever mirror. Yet something can be overlaid. And in being overlaid, the very mirror-nature of consciousness becomes the cause: anything can be reflected upon it. Consciousness is its nature, but whatever is reflected can, by error, be taken as oneself. This does not contradict consciousness.
The ancient example is the blue gem. Put a sapphire into water; the whole water seems blue. It is not blue, but the gem’s aura spreads through the water and the water appears blue. This ‘appearing blue’ is not ‘becoming blue’.
Thus the seeker made a new distinction: some things that appear need not be; some things that are need not appear. Many times things are and do not appear; many times things appear and are not.
So the stupefaction of consciousness is only an appearance of stupefaction; its sleep is only the appearance of sleep. Hence the mystics have said — Kabir, Farid, the Sufis: if a man is truly asleep, awakening him is easy; but if he is only pretending to sleep, then awakening is very difficult. One can pretend to sleep — and if pretending, it is hard to rouse him.
Perhaps the basic reason we cannot wake even after so much effort is that we are less asleep and more pretending to be asleep. That is why such effort goes on. How many Buddhas, Mahaviras, Jesuses, Zarathustras keep trying to awaken people — and man turns over, pulls the sheet up and sleeps again, now more neatly than before. The bed got disarranged; the sheet slipped; a foot came uncovered; the pillow moved — by the compassion of Mahavira or Buddha, only this happens: he turns over, adjusts the pillow and covers himself well — and sleeps.
This man is not asleep — he is ‘as if’ asleep. Out of his own choice… I was in a village. A friend came to meet me. We had barely begun when he abruptly stood up and said: Forgive me; I do not want to hear more. I asked: I never came to your house — you came here and you asked. He said: I did, and I am now telling you — please stop. I do not want to hear more; I have small children! I asked: What has that to do with my words? He said: My householder’s life is fragile. I will come one day — but not now. The time has not come. Let me go. His pain was real. I knew he was honest — one of those who, if awakened, could not turn over and go back to sleep. He refused beforehand: this talk must not happen. I will come one day; now is not the time. As I am, let me remain — let me remain asleep.
One thing became clear to him: his sleeping is his choice. Understand this rightly. If you have not chosen sleep, you cannot choose awakening. If sleep is your compulsion, awakening will not be in your hands; the one who put you to sleep would have to awaken you. Only if you slept by yourself can you awaken yourself. And since we know people do awaken, we can say: people have put themselves to sleep. By effort, one awakens — therefore by effort one slept.
What is our effort in going to sleep? What is the juice? Some juice there must be — otherwise why sleep? There is some taste. What is it?
Man is consciousness. Because of consciousness he has vision, light, knowing. As soon as this knowing is present, it falls upon things, upon people. We light a lamp — what will it do? Being light, instantly it illuminates. The room was dark, nothing could be seen. The lamp is lit — in a flash the room is filled with light. If the lamp had consciousness, its own flame would not be visible to it. If there were consciousness, it would see what is in the room — walls, sofas, chairs, pictures, a safe — everything but not the flame itself.
How would the lamp see its own flame? If the lamp became aware, what would happen? The room would be seen — whatever is illumined would be seen — and from that very seeing desire would be born. Ten pictures hang; if the lamp were aware, one picture would be dear; it would wish to have it — if not have, at least come closer, and closer. It sees safes all around; the lamp would begin to slide, to move closer. The lamp of human consciousness spreads its light over the entire cosmos. Innumerable desires arise — to attain, to reach, to become. And one thing is forgotten — naturally: the one who is seeing, knowing, illuminating — he is forgotten. This is sleep.
As consciousness runs outward and obtains objects and collects them, ego is born: I have attained this, accumulated that. The doer is formed. Knowing gives birth to desire; success in desire gives birth to the doer; sleep deepens, layer upon layer.
This is not because consciousness is not of the nature of knowing. Precisely because it is, all this happens. If consciousness were not light, nothing would happen. Do stones show desire? They lie where they are — in perfect siddha-state, no wave of desire arises. Hence we call them inert, jada. If we understand rightly the difference between jada and chetan: wherever desire arises, there is consciousness; wherever it does not, there is inertness. And see desire rightly: in animals it does not blaze as in humans — in man it flares. The more it flares, the more consciousness there is — that is why it flares.
As consciousness grows, desire flares more. Hence as man has developed in history, there is a greater blaze of desire. Do not be frightened by this; do not be disturbed. It only informs you that the light of awareness now falls on things it did not reach before. Now there is desire for the moon, for Mars. Wherever the light of human consciousness reaches, there the desire to be will arise.
Today we cannot even think that life is worthless if we do not go to the moon. In twenty-five years it will arise. Our children, having been to the moon, will feel fulfilled; those who cannot go will beat their heads: Life has no meaning — I have not even been to the moon!
The moon will become an object of desire. The blaze of consciousness increases. Wherever it sees, as far as it sees, it will want, demand, run, race — and it will forget itself in proportion. The farther it goes, the more it forgets itself.
Therefore I say: consciousness has indeed developed in human history, but desire too has developed. And a strange thing: the more distant the object of desire, the more I forget myself. Hence in the past it was easier to return to oneself than it is today.
The distances to our desired objects are vast. So much distance to go — returning becomes more difficult. Therefore, in the past religion was easier; today it is difficult.
Yet note another point: the man of the past easily became religious, but the explosion of his religiosity could not be as great as it can be today. The farther the wanderer has strayed, the greater the explosion when he returns home.
Everything has gain and loss. Consciousness flares — desire flares. Desire flares — the return to religion becomes difficult. But if the return happens, the depth is greater.
What to do? When objects are seen, desire arises, the doer is formed. How to return to oneself? To go toward objects, what do we do? Only one thing: objects must be seen. To come to oneself, only one thing: the light that looks at others must be turned back upon oneself, so that it can see itself as well. The turning back of this light upon itself is dhyana — meditation. The light that sees objects is jnana — knowledge. When this same light returns and illumines its source, when by this flame that illumines the world we ourselves are illumined, then the experience that comes is that of the witness. All other experiences are of the doer.
This witness is also called adbhut — wondrous — because it is such that what it is not can appear to be. This is its strangeness. The knower is not ignorant, yet appears so; it cannot truly sleep, yet can appear asleep; it can never fall from itself, yet can wander; it can never lose itself, yet can forget! Therefore: that chinmaya and wondrous witness — that I am.
‘I am that nondual Brahman. In me all arises; in me all abides; in me all dissolves.’
Finding the witness hidden within, I find that fundamental ground from which all is born, in which all is sustained, and into which all is lost. The taste of that fundamental existence comes through the door of witnessing.
The final word: through the door of the doer you enter the world; through the door of the witness you meet the Divine. And the doors of witness and doer are not two. It is one door with opposite signboards. Every door has them — outside it reads ‘In’, inside it reads ‘Out’. The door is the same. For the one going out from within, it is ‘Out’; for the one coming from outside, it is ‘In’.
When consciousness goes toward objects, it is the doer. When consciousness turns back from objects toward itself, it is the witness. Only the directions differ; the door is one. Toward objects there is the world — without end. Toward oneself there is the Divine — without end.
That is all.
Now let us prepare for the night’s experiment in meditation.