Kaivalya Upanishad #17

For me, earth, water, fire, air, and sky are nothing. Only that man realizes my pure Paramatma-nature who knows me—the formless one, the witness of all, beyond sat and asat, beyond existence and non-existence—abiding in the cave of the heart. 23–24.
Thus the Kaivalya Upanishad comes to an end. Om shantih shantih shantih.
In this sutra the most crucial key is this: “me, the Paramatma abiding in the cave of the heart.” The one who becomes available is the one who becomes capable of knowing the formless, the witness of all, that which is beyond sat-asat, beyond existence and non-existence. Either one first becomes capable of knowing that supreme witness—and then one enters the cave of the heart; or one first enters the cave of the heart—and then one becomes capable of knowing that supreme witness. The one who knows that supreme presence gains entry into the heart’s cave; or the one who gains entry into the heart’s cave comes to know that supreme presence. Only these are the two ways.
Therefore, in human sadhana there are only two nishthas.
In this land we have recognized two nishthas for knowing the truth of life. One is called Sankhya. Sankhya means: the one who knows that supreme reality enters the cave of the heart. The other is called Yoga. Yoga means: the one who enters the cave of the heart comes to know that supreme reality.
Sankhya is pure knowing. Yoga is sadhana. Sankhya says: nothing is to be done—only to know. Yoga says: much is to be done, and only then does knowing bear fruit. Both are true. And both can also become untrue. It will depend on you. It will depend on the seeker. If some seeker can kindle the fire of knowing so intensely that in that fire the ego is burned away—only the fire of knowing remains; only knowing remains, no knower; within, no center of ego remains—only sheer knowing, bodha, awareness, consciousness remains—then there is no need to do anything at all. The very fire of knowing will do everything. To strive only for knowing is enough. To deepen only the state of knowing is enough. To move forward in knowing day by day is enough. If awareness increases, if wakefulness dawns, that is sufficient.
But this happens to one person among millions. And even for the one to whom it happens, who knows how many lifetimes of striving have ripened it. Yet whenever the happenstance of Sankhya flowers for someone, he feels that only knowing is enough; through knowing alone all is done. But behind that too are infinite lifetimes; in infinite lives the streams of doing have flowed.
Sankhya has always spoken against Yoga. It will keep doing so. For whomever the state of Sankhya arises, it will seem that nothing else is required; to be filled with awareness alone is enough. But for one who lies unconscious, to become filled with awareness is precisely the hardest thing. The one whose sleep has broken can say: I did not have to do anything; the sleep broke and I beheld the light. But to the one who is sleeping—and not only sleeping, but lying stupefied with wine, poisoned and senseless—no matter how much we shout, “Wake up; only waking is enough; no doing is needed and truth will be attained,” these words do not even reach him.
The one drunk with wine—first we must remove the wine from his system. The one unconscious—first we must break that unconsciousness, so that he can hear. Even the message to open the eyes must be able to reach him.
Therefore, though Sankhya’s position is utterly right, it usually does not work. Occasionally there is a solitary Sankhya-type individual who keeps speaking Sankhya. My own inner state for long was just that—Sankhya. For fifteen years I kept saying unceasingly that nothing need be done; to be filled with awareness is enough. After telling people this again and again, it dawned on me that they do not even hear it. They are not merely asleep; they are unconscious. And even when it seems they have understood, that understanding is only intellectual, superficial. They grasp the words, they grasp the doctrines. Then they begin to repeat the same words and doctrines. But in their life no transformation occurs.
Then I saw that Sankhya is the flower. And when a flower blooms, we do not even remember the roots. The roots remain hidden in the dark womb of earth. We do not think of them. But for years the roots are being formed, the plant is being formed, and then the flower blooms. The flower might well say, “To bloom is enough. Just bloom—what else is there!” And fragrance begins to wander in the winds. But the blooming of the flower is but one link in a long chain. When the flower blooms, the whole chain is forgotten. When the fruit arrives, beneath the cover of the fruit the long journey is erased from memory.
So it began to seem to me that if the flower has already bloomed, then it is all right to say that blooming is enough. But if the flower has not yet bloomed, then to keep telling someone that blooming is enough can even be dangerous. Because then he will not do what could have nourished the roots, what could have helped the plant to grow, what could have protected the sapling. He will only keep thinking, turning the idea around in his head, “Blooming is enough—we shall bloom.” And he will not bloom. Because blooming is a link in a long chain.
That long chain is Yoga.
This is the error that has kept running alongside Krishnamurti his whole life. He keeps telling people: nothing needs to be done. People even understand—an understanding through which unawareness does not dissolve, it only gets hidden. They understand that nothing is to be done. Then they drop whatever they were doing. And the very flower of which Krishnamurti speaks does not bloom. They are left in great confusion.
Countless people have come to me, who have been listening to him for thirty or forty years. They say, “We are in a great predicament. We have understood completely that there is nothing to do—so deeply has this gone in that now we cannot do anything; if we start to do something, instantly the thought arises: doing is futile—the flower blooms without doing, it blooms effortless, without any practice, it is effortless; no sadhana is needed—this has sunk very deep into us. Now we cannot do anything. Whatever we used to do has been dropped. And from not-doing, what Krishnamurti says will happen—there is not even a glimpse of it. We do not see any flower blooming. The predicament has thickened in our psyche.” Because they had not yet reached that point in the tree where the flower blooms by itself.
Perhaps they were still only roots, perhaps just sprouted; or only branches had come forth, leaves had begun to appear. Now they are not ready to do anything—not even to water the plant, not even to fence it for protection; now they do not even long to turn toward the sun and drink the sun; and the life within is restless—the flower does not bloom; the life longs to flower, there is the pain of the bud wanting to open—but nothing is to be done.
So on one side is the dilemma of Sankhya: Sankhya speaks of the flower, and difficulties arise. On the other side is Yoga. Yoga explores deeply the roots, the earth, the water, the sun. But then a danger appears there too—the danger that one becomes absorbed in the practices themselves. The very flower for which the practices were begun is forgotten; the practices so engage one that it seems as if doing the practices is life. The practices take possession.
Patanjali has spoken of Yoga’s eight limbs, among which the last three—dharana, dhyana, Samadhi—are the most important. The other five are the preliminary steps leading there. Samadhi is the flower; the remaining seven are its tree. But often yogis go on doing asana and pranayama their whole life. The flower of Samadhi is forgotten; the practices become important in themselves. The means becomes the end. The path itself appears to be the destination. Here stands Sankhya’s confusion: the destination becomes so important that the path seems unnecessary. And here stands Yoga’s confusion: the path becomes so important that even if the destination must be thrown away for the sake of the path, we will clutch the path and not the destination. If a man obsessed with practices were to meet even Paramatma face to face, he would say, “Wait a bit, let me finish my rituals first.”
This confusion of Yoga has misled thousands—practices and nothing but practices. Sankhya’s confusion arises only once in a while, because a Sankhya-type being is rare. So not many get caught in that net. Krishnamurti has been speaking all his life, but I do not think more than five thousand people in India truly listen to and understand him. And even these five thousand are mostly those who have been listening for thirty years. In their lives, no revolution seems to have happened. Yes, they collect words—revolutionary words—then keep repeating them, living by their echo. And each day they are pricked by the fact that nothing has happened within, the flower has not bloomed.
But Yoga’s confusion is more widespread. Because whenever most people become interested in religion, they become instantly interested in doing. Naturally so—because without doing one attains nothing else in life; so religion too, they think, will be attained by doing. As wealth is gained by effort, so too religion. If God is to be attained, it will be by doing something. This logic seems reasonable. But its danger is its other half, which is hidden: these practices grip the mind so strongly, and the mind takes such relish in them, that it becomes difficult to drop them. The destination is lost; the path is held.
What then is to be done for arriving in the cave of the heart?
I say to you: do not consider Sankhya and Yoga two nishthas—consider them two limbs of a single nishtha. Let Yoga be the primary, Sankhya the ultimate. Let Yoga be the tree, Sankhya the flower. Therefore I join them together for you—Sankhya–Yoga.
Something will have to be done. As we are, without doing it is not possible. But remember too: if doing remains only doing, the event will still not happen. Much will have to be done—and then a moment will come when all doing must be dropped. As one climbs a ladder—he climbs, and then he leaves it. As one takes medicine—when the illness is cured, he leaves the medicine. As one walks a path—when the destination arrives, he leaves the path. In fact, the very meaning of “path” is that which must be left at every step. To move toward the destination means to keep leaving the path. Each day, leaving the path so that the destination draws near. The destination draws near by walking the path—and that means: by leaving the path behind. I walk one step—I leave one step of the path; and the destination comes one step closer. We must walk the path, we must hold the path, and we must also leave the path—only then does the destination arrive.
But one of the two always seems easy to us. If in the end the path has to be left, why hold it at all? This becomes the mistake of Sankhya. Or we think: once we have held it, why leave it? Having grasped it, we shall hold to it with sincerity and never let go—this becomes the mistake of Yoga.
Let both nishthas remain alive in the seeker—Sankhya and Yoga—then the cave of the heart is found very swiftly.
In the meditations we are doing, both are joined. In the four stages of the morning meditation, three stages belong to Yoga, the fourth to Sankhya. And three stages are of Yoga and one of Sankhya because three-quarters of our being lies asleep, and scarcely one-quarter is a little conscious. So three-quarters must be labor, and one-quarter must be rest. Three-quarters for the path, one-quarter for the destination.
Note well: the first three stages are not truly meditation; they are only the preparation to break unconsciousness. If the stupefaction breaks, then the fourth stage can bear the fruit of meditation. And beware of this: you do the first three—and then you will not do the fourth. The fourth will happen. In the fourth you simply relax. The fourth means you are left open; if something happens, you will not keep the doors closed. If something descends, your begging bowl is ready to receive. If something comes, you will not obstruct. In the fourth we are receptive. Open on all sides. Whatever rains, from our side there will be no barrier. If his ray comes, it will not find our doors shut. We stand at the door with a sense of welcome—that is the meaning of the fourth. In the first three we did something; in the fourth we await that something may happen. In the three is effort; in the fourth is waiting. The fourth is Sankhya’s share.
The mistake that happens is that some make all four parts of Sankhya; some make all four of Yoga. Then the opening of the cave of the heart becomes very difficult.
In this sutra there are two statements: for the one to whom that knowing is available, the cave of the heart opens; and for the one whose cave of the heart opens, that knowing becomes available. So let us understand both.
How to become available to that knowing? How will that knowing happen? All through this Kaivalya Upanishad I have said again and again that there is only one way to increase knowing: let every act of yours be done with awareness, unclouded. There is no other way to increase knowing. Commonly we imagine that study—scriptures, doctrines, words—is the way to increase knowledge. That is not a way to increase knowing; it only increases memory. And memory and knowing are different.
Memory means: what someone else has known—borrowed. Knowing means: what I have known—my own. What we commonly call growth of knowledge—we say, “So-and-so has a lot of knowledge”—usually we mean he has a lot of information, a great memory. Scriptures are by heart; the Gita is at the lips, the Vedas at the tongue’s tip. This is not knowing. This is memory. And memory is not very precious. It is mechanical. Machines can retain memory. Soon machines will retain it better, and man will hand over the burden to them. Knowing is quite another event—my seeing, my recognition, my experience, my vision that I myself have lived and tasted—my own flavor. Not news given by another.
Knowing is self-gnosis—direct. No scripture in between, no doctrine. So study is not the path to increase knowing. Wakefulness is the path. The more I am awake in my activities, the more my knowing will grow, will awaken. To be awake means: whatever I do, it happens with such intensity and attentiveness that no haze of unconsciousness remains in it at all.
Try a small experiment and you will see how deep unconsciousness is. Look at your watch—the second hand. Decide that for one minute you will watch the second hand with full awareness. One minute—not much. The second hand will complete one circle. You will watch with awareness. Let me make the meaning of awareness clear, so the experiment is easy. The second hand is moving; for one minute you will not forget—remember: the second hand is going, going, going; it will complete sixty seconds. You will be astonished: in sixty seconds you will miss at least three times. You will forget what you were watching. Some other thought will slip in, some other matter intrudes. The mind will wander for a moment. At least three times. It is difficult to sustain a wakeful state even for twenty seconds. Then you will know what a stupor it is. I cannot even watch a second hand turning for sixty seconds and keep the remembrance alive that I am watching, the hand is turning. The hand keeps turning, you miss for a second; later you remember, “Ah—I forgot!” By then the hand is two or four seconds ahead. In those gaps you went somewhere else; awareness was not here.
Whatever you do, try to do it with awareness. There is no need to set special time aside. If you are eating, eat with awareness. If you are chewing, chew with awareness. No one will even notice you are in a sadhana. Sankhya’s sadhana leaves no outer mark. Yoga’s sadhana does, for in it we experiment with outer acts. Sankhya is an inner act. The breath is going on—keep your attention there; the Buddha insisted much on this.
Buddha emphasized that whether walking, sitting, standing, lying down—one thing goes on incessantly like the second hand: the breath. Watch it. The breath goes in—take it in consciously. The breath goes out—let it go consciously. Do not miss a chance. Let not a single breath pass unknowingly. In a few days you will find your knowing grows. As your attention to the breath becomes more alert, your inner knowing will grow. If you can create such a state for even an hour that, whenever you will, for an hour you can watch the breath coming and going without disturbance, then the door of Sankhya is very near—only a push and it will open.
Buddha planted his entire vision on breath—Anapanasati-yoga—the remembrance of the incoming and outgoing breath. He used to say: If the bhikshu can do only this, nothing else is needed. It may appear a very small thing. But when you try with the second hand and miss three times in sixty seconds, you will know how often you will miss in the process of breath. But if you begin, there is always an end. If you start, there is a reaching. This is an inner act. It is harder than chanting Ram-Ram. Because in chanting Ram-Ram awareness is not necessary. A man can go on chanting mechanically. Awareness is not needed. Then a condition sets in that he does his work and the chant goes on; he is not even aware that he is chanting—mechanical. Therefore, if Ram-Ram is to be chanted, then two things are necessary: you chant, and awareness of the chanting remains—only then is there value. Otherwise it is futile.
Many are chanting—and it is in vain. Their chanting has dulled their intelligence, not sharpened it. It has not increased knowing—it has decreased it. Thus you will often see that those who chant, wrapped in their prayer shawls, appear a bit less intelligent. Their knowing does not seem awake, it appears rusted. It will rust—because the very faculty of awareness grows only through wakefulness; any act done in stupor diminishes it. And we do all our acts in stupor; we add Ram-chanting in the same way—it too becomes a stuporous act.
Instead of adding a new act, it is better to bring wakefulness into the acts already going on. And if you must chant, then bring wakefulness into that too. Whatever you do, take one decision: that we shall sustain a continuous effort to do it wakefully. Today there will be failure; tomorrow there will be failure—no worry. But from every failure, success is born. If the remembrance continues and the striking goes on, then one day suddenly you will find you can perform any act in total consciousness. The day you succeed in this consciousness, that very day the gate of Sankhya opens. Nothing else is necessary. No outer act is needed. Entry into the inner cave is gained.
Then, then we know the witness within; because this method of wakefulness is the method of the witness. When I act with awareness, I become the sakshi, not the doer. Whenever I act in sleep, I am the doer and not the witness. Do anything with awareness—eat with awareness; then you will no longer be the eater; you will be the one who watches the act of eating. Walk on the road with awareness; then you will not be the walker—you will be the seer and witness of that which is walking.
As wakefulness grows, the witness will develop within you. The day the witness becomes completely free of the doer, the shell of the doer breaks altogether, and the sprout of witnessing comes fully out—on that day one part of this sutra will become clear to you:
“For me, earth, water, fire, air, and sky are nothing. Only that man realizes my pure Paramatma-nature who knows me—beyond the illusory play of maya, the witness of all, beyond sat-asat, formless—abiding in the cave of the heart.”
This is Sankhya’s path, the path of knowing, of mere dhyana. If the inner witness is realized, the supreme witness is realized immediately. Because the witness within us is the outstretched hand of the supreme witness. Like a small leaf on a tree—if it becomes filled with awareness of “Who am I?” do you think it will not know at once that the whole tree is the same? The leaf is only a small extension of the tree. If the leaf awakens and knows who it is, it will also know what the tree is. For then there is no distance between the leaf and the tree. What is unveiling within me is an extension of that Vast—the spread of that very hand. If I awaken to my inner witness, then at once the cosmic witness becomes part of my experience.
So one way to enter the cave of the heart is this: let knowing grow deeper, keener, more intense—and a moment comes when the fire of knowing is sheer wakefulness, and within this wakefulness there is no center of ego at all.
Take another point into account. The greater the stupor, the greater the ego. The greater the wakefulness, the greater the witness. And the witness and ego have no coexistence. Where the witness is, there ego is not. Where ego is, witness is not. They are never present together. Thus you will have a delightful experience: the moment you become witness to an act by being awake, you will find you are not—“I” is not. Ego cannot be experienced in that moment.
Therefore Buddha spoke with marvelous courage: there is no ego there and no Atman. Because when all sense of “I” is gone, whom shall we call Atman? Atman means the “I.” So Buddha said: when full awakening happens, there is no Atman either—only awakening remains, without anyone there who is awake. This is of tremendous value—because if someone is still there who is awake, then two things still remain. If some center is still present, then duality persists. Buddha said: there is no one awake—just awakening.
By this he means: when a person awakens, there is no Buddha there; there is Buddhahood—mere awakenedness.
In the state of witnessing, the cave of the heart opens. For the stone upon it is the stone of ego. The door that is shut is the door of ego. The denser my “I,” the more the heart contracts. You must have noticed—even in ordinary life—those whose “I” is dense, their heart is small; even in the ordinary. Leave aside the ultimate state, Buddha’s state, where the ego is not at all; perhaps that does not even make sense to us. But in day-to-day life we see: the bigger a man’s “I,” the smaller his heart. And the bigger the heart, the smaller the “I.”
Therefore the egoist has to cut off the heart. Ego cannot be satisfied through the heart. And one who wants the fulfillment of the heart must drop all ambition. All journeys of ego must cease. One walking the path of the heart cannot walk the path of ambition. Thus in this world a great tragedy happens: those in whose hands power would be a blessing do not walk the path of power; and those for whom power is dangerous are the ones who go for it. Wherever there is power, ego goes there. Wherever there is love, the heart goes there. Love and power have no kinship.
Ego shrinks the heart, shuts it from all sides. Why? What does ego fear in the heart?
Ego fears the heart because the heart is the door to the other; ego is the process of separation from the other. “I am separate, I am different”—this is the foundation of ego. The heart joins us to the “Thou,” to the other; and if we follow the heart, it joins us with the Whole. If we follow the ego, it severs us from the Whole, and in the end leaves us unable to connect with anyone. Man becomes utterly separate. Then there is terrible pain—because the more one is cut off from others, the more one is cut off from life. The more one is cut off from others, the more the roots are severed. Thus ego, in fulfilling itself, fills life with sorrow and hell.
The more the heart connects with others, the more it fills with bliss. For to connect with others is to connect with life, to find new roots. And the day the heart connects with Paramatma—that is, with All—that day it connects with the ultimate Life. The ultimate source of life becomes available. In that source there is no trace of sorrow, no trace of pain. To break oneself from existence is pain; to join oneself is bliss.
This layer, this stone, this wall of ego—go on becoming more and more wakeful—and it crumbles. This is one way—from Sankhya’s side. Hard it is. Easy to hear, easy to understand, difficult to descend into. Because stupor is our disease, and wakefulness is the remedy. And stupor is our habit. That is why it is difficult. Our very disease is stupor—and the method is wakefulness. We cannot be awake—this is our very trouble—and wakefulness is the remedy. Hence very difficult.
So let us understand from the other side too—what is the path from Yoga’s side?
Yoga does not ask you to be awake directly. Yoga asks you to do certain practices through which wakefulness will result. Yoga does not say to you, “Be awake.” It says: Do this, and this, and this. But those processes are such that by doing them, awakening arises. For example, Buddha says: keep attention on breath. This is the process of Sankhya. Yoga says: forget attention—first regulate the breath. That is pranayama. Do not worry about awareness; we do not hope that from you yet. But you can at least breathe intensely. So breathe intensely. A very curious fact: the slower the breath, the harder it is to remain attentive to it; the more intense the breath, the easier it is to keep attention. To break stupor, very intense shocks are needed—so intense that even if you want to sleep, you cannot. Such a deep blow should fall upon you.
So Yoga says: strike with the intense blow of breath. So intense that sleep becomes difficult, stupor becomes difficult. You will be surprised to know: in one who practices pranayama, even ordinary sleep lessens. The deep stupor will be struck; even ordinary sleep lessens. If pranayama is practiced continuously, sleep can disappear altogether.
A bhikshu was brought to me from Sri Lanka. Many treatments were tried, but there was no solution—his sleep had been lost for a year and a half. No tranquilizer, no sleeping drug could bring sleep; it only made him dull. Sleep did not come; only stupor came. So there was the trouble of no sleep, and the trouble of the drugs. In the morning he would rise limp, and sleep never came.
I asked him, “What sadhana are you doing?” He said, “Leave sadhana; tell me something for sleep.” I said, “I will say something for sleep only after I know what you practice.” He said, “I have been practicing Anapanasati-yoga for three years.” I said, “Then drop it for fifteen days.” He said, “How can I?” I told him: it is due to that that your sleep has vanished. He was practicing very forcefully, taking very rapid breaths—for with slow breath it is difficult—so he began to breathe fast. Rapid breath is easy to remember—it goes with a jolt, with speed, so remembrance is easier. He made the breath so rapid that his sleep was lost. If carbon dioxide is too little in the body, sleep will vanish; if oxygen is too much, sleep will vanish.
Yoga says: if ordinary sleep is struck, then the inner sleep also is struck. So it says: do not worry about attention yet—first purify the prana. Purify it so much that prana does not go on supporting stupor. Yoga says: we have little hope that you can be awake in facing your sexual energy; so we teach you asanas through which the downward flow of sexual energy is checked. If your sex-energy begins to flow upward, wakefulness becomes easy.
Have you noticed? Most men use sex as a sleeping pill; after intercourse, sleep comes instantly—because with sex the body’s energy is depleted. In that depletion, sleep catches quickly.
If someone does not waste sex-energy in intercourse, his sleep will lessen. If sleep lessens, the inner sleep will also be struck. Thus Yoga’s use of brahmacharya is not a condemnation of sexuality; it is simply an alternative utilization of sexual energy—a creative use. But if someone merely tries to be celibate without knowing how to transmute that energy, he will become perverse, deranged. This is what I meant when I said: some people get stuck in practices; for them brahmacharya becomes the end, the goal. By becoming celibate nothing happens. Brahmacharya is only an experiment to enter another experiment. If energy is abundant, awakening becomes easy. If energy is low, you will quickly sleep and be stupefied.
So Yoga says: we shall work directly upon energy; we shall not touch wakefulness directly. When energy increases, you will awaken. I asked you to watch the second hand for this very reason: the night you have had intercourse, try to watch the second hand—you will miss six times where earlier I said three. Then you will know that the amount of energy in the body relates to wakefulness. If for ten or fifteen days you have not dissipated sex-energy, then watch the hand; perhaps you will not miss even once. Your wakefulness depends on the quantity of energy within you.
So Yoga says: we shall not touch awareness; we will help you conserve energy—through asana, pranayama, pratyahara. Yoga says: energy is wasted every moment through the senses. You look twenty-four hours a day—even when there is nothing to look at. You do not think to close the eyes. You sit at the door and watch the road. People go by, you keep watching. You have read the newspaper twice, you read it again. The same things done a thousand times—you do them again. The same routine. You are losing your power.
So pratyahara: do not let your energy go outward; draw it in. There are two sides to this. One: do not waste energy unnecessarily. Open the eyes only when needed. Open the lips only when needed. Listen only when needed. Speak only when needed. Else, conserve. If you pay attention even for a day, you will be amazed: at least ninety out of a hundred acts were unnecessary—there was no need to do them. I say ninety; they will be even more. If you keep in mind for one day: “I will only say what is needed,” you will find that very little needs to be said. And you will discover a second interesting thing: all the useless talk you used to do was generating new troubles whose accounts were endless.
Ninety percent of man’s troubles arise from idle talk. You say something to someone; he says something back; the chain begins and does not end.
We listen to useless things. If someone comes and says, “So-and-so abused you,” immediately I listen with my whole being. What was the need? He only abused. I should say, “You did ill to listen; you should have closed your ears at once. Why bring the abuse to me? If someone threw garbage at you, why do you now throw it at me? You understand? It is finished.” Listening idly, we must then work within; to hear someone’s abuse does not finish it. Inside, the chain continues. Energy is spent. And all day we waste energy like this.
The first rule of pratyahara: do not waste energy. The second: wherever energy can be received, receive it. Up to now we lose it wherever it can be lost. Sit by a tree—if you focus your eyes on the tree and feel that energy is flowing from the tree into you, your eyes will return refreshed. They will bring back freshness, new life, new juice. Lie under the sky—if you hold the feeling that energy is flowing from the sky into you, energy will flow into you.
Now science too accepts that a life-energy like prana pervades everywhere—trees, plants, rocks, sky, stars—everywhere. If we can be receptive, prana can be drawn in from anywhere.
Yoga’s vision is: the whole world is an ocean of prana. And we should take as much prana as we can from it. Sometimes this process of receiving prana reaches such an extreme that nothing else is needed. Mahavira took food only three hundred sixty-five days in twelve years. Twelve years, only one year of eating. Sometimes he would not eat for fifteen days, then one day he would eat. Sometimes not eat for a month, then eat for one day.
But have you seen Mahavira’s image? It is unlike Jaina monks. Such a beautiful body is rare. Such health is rare. No one—neither Buddha, nor Krishna, nor Christ, nor Rama—has a body like that. The full beauty of the body is seen only when it stands naked without garments. Our body’s beauty is mostly the beauty of clothing. From a face we judge a man; it is only a guess. Why is Mahavira so healthy, so fresh, taking so little food? It is Yoga’s process. Mahavira’s whole sadhana is Yoga; Buddha’s whole sadhana is Sankhya. Therefore there is considerable dispute between Buddha and Mahavira—and between their followers. Mahavira is a great yogi. He began to assimilate prana directly.
Sometimes on this earth there are such people. In Bengal there was a woman, Pyari Bai. She died in 1930. For fifty years she neither ate food nor drank water. All the doctors studied her. Universities took interest; research was done. Her husband died fifty years earlier; from that day she took neither food nor water. It was sudden; yet she was perfectly healthy. Not only healthy, her weight never decreased. The weight she had the day she stopped eating remained always the same. The doctors said she lived fifty years only because of that; otherwise she would have died. She was never ill. What happened to her? Doctors were troubled: something is certainly happening—but what? From some unknown source life-energy was reaching her; otherwise there is no way to live. If we see a lamp with the wick burning and there is no oil, there remains only one meaning: fuel is coming from an unseen source unseen by us.
We too can see from where we get fuel for life. Sunlight falls on a plant. The plant, through photosynthesis, assimilates sunlight. Within the plant the sunlight becomes vitamins. We then take it from the fruit. We digest it. Scientists now say: if the plant can digest sunlight directly—then the plant is acting as a middle agent. Plants digest prana-energy and make it fit for our digestion; then we digest it. Therefore we rely on vegetable or animal food. Someone first digests and prepares it; only then can we digest. That is why in animal food we take two agents—first plant, then animal, then we digest the pre-digested.
Vegetarianism is more scientific—it says: when it can be taken directly from the plant, remove the animal. Yoga says: today or tomorrow, if we can learn to digest prana directly, remove even the plant—take the energy directly.
Thus, two rules of pratyahara: do not lose energy, and wherever energy can be had, take it. Then Yoga creates such a consolidation of energy within that nothing remains but awakening. Awakening happens. And that awakening takes one to where Sankhya takes one.
But I tell you: take Sankhya and Yoga as a combined arrangement. Keep both going. To open the cave of the heart, keep both going. Results will be deeper, quicker; less time, less expenditure of energy. On one side, keep watch that wakefulness increases; on the other, keep watch that energy is being collected.
Practice Yoga, and remember Sankhya—and one day the door called the cave of the heart will open.
“Thus the Kaivalya Upanishad ends.”
It is very easy for the Kaivalya Upanishad to end—but until the Upanishad of your own life ends, what will the ending of Kaivalya Upanishad do? Where the Kaivalya Upanishad ends, from there you should begin a journey of life.
We tried to understand—but if I explain to you, it will become only your memory. It cannot become your knowing. Therefore, whatever I have said here—do not take it as your knowing. Take it as heard, as memory, as borrowed—something someone has said. Here I have not spoken to increase your knowing—indeed, I cannot, and no one can. I have spoken to increase your thirst, not your knowledge.
If thirst increases, then the happening of knowing may one day occur. If knowledge increases, that happening will never occur.
So do not go away from here with increased knowledge. Do not think that you have understood the Kaivalya Upanishad. You have heard; memory may be formed; but carry a wound, a sorrow—that it is still not known. Carry a thirst: when will that moment come when what we have heard we will also know? And that moment will not come by itself. Something must be done for it.
Therefore here, while I explained the Kaivalya Upanishad on one side, on the other I kept telling you to do something. That doing is more important. If that doing grows, then one day the lamp of knowing may be lit. Yes—on the day the lamp of knowing is lit, the relevance of what I have said will be understood. For now, at most it is entertainment. Pleasant. But this is a momentary thing. You will descend from Mount Abu and it will be forgotten. Perhaps a slight echo will remain—“we heard something beautiful”—and that has no value. A burning thirst should arise.
It should feel that if the one who spoke the Kaivalya Upanishad knew; if the one who commented upon it knew; if this good news of supremely secret bliss has been given—then I too can know it. I too have the capacity to know it. I too am a human being. The same possibility that any human has is in me. And by not knowing it I suffer pain, sorrow, and uncountable hells—there can be freedom from all that. By not knowing, I am in bondage, in a prison; by knowing, I too can be free. I too can fly in the sky of freedom. By not knowing I have remained only crooked roots—no flower seems to bloom. No fragrance arises. Life is empty, drained. By knowing, that flower can bloom within me whose name is Paramatma; that fragrance can flow whose name is freedom.
This Kaivalya Upanishad is only the news of that freedom—a pointer, an indication. The pointer is finished; but what value has the pointer until someone moves on the path it indicates—until one sets out upon the journey!
Return from here with a thirst. But thirst alone is not enough. Some people remain thirsty and still keep sitting—waiting for someone to bring the water. Thirst alone can make you poor, and depressed—it would have been better never to be thirsty. Resolve is needed too. If thirst is awakened, then a resolve is needed to commit your energy to its search. A firm intent, a shraddha, a nishtha.
So return with a resolve. And know this: only when a resolve is fulfilled do you know how much strength you had within. Until you act, even your strength is unknown. Your strength too is known only when it is activated. We do not know what we can do until we do. By doing, we know how much we can do; and the more we do, the more we know we can do even more.
Each step taken gives strength for the next step. Step by step a man can traverse a thousand miles. Return with a resolve. And make it active—even if small. Many friends are returning with sannyas. Let this taking of sannyas become a resolve. Let it mean: this sannyas is remembered twenty-four hours a day. While rising, sitting, walking, speaking—remembered. This remembrance will bring an inner change.
If someone abuses you, first remember: I am a sannyasin—then respond. The response will be different. While standing at a cinema window in a queue—before putting your hand in your pocket, remember: I am a sannyasin—then buy the ticket. If a cigarette comes to hand and you feel like lighting it, first remember: I am a sannyasin—then smoke. I do not forbid you to smoke. I do not forbid cinema. I do not forbid alcohol. I do not forbid abusing or stealing or being dishonest. I say only one thing: whatever you do, first remember that you are a sannyasin, then do it. If you still cannot refrain, it is not my concern. I press you to change your color so that it reminds you. I change your name so that your link with the old chain is cut, and a new personality gathers around a new center.
So, return and do something. That doing will make you a yogi. You have learned meditation here... Many friends come, they meditate here; here the experience happens, it is delightful, one feels energy moving; then after the camp the sequence breaks. Then when they come again, they begin again from ABC. In this way you can come and go to the camps for lifetimes—there will be no results. Here we only learn. What is learned here must be done after returning. If you do, when you come to the next camp you will come as a different person—changed. Then seven days will take you into deeper layers. This depth is infinite. Do not be satisfied with small experiences.
If a little light is seen—it is pleasing—but do not be content. If bliss begins to be felt—pleasant, but do not be content. Even if the presence of Paramatma begins to be felt—precious—but do not be content. Not until there is not even a hair’s breadth of distance between oneself and Paramatma—until then, do not be content. Until the being of the self is the being of Paramatma, or the being of Paramatma is the being of the self—until the Paramatma hidden in the cave of the heart is unveiled—until then, do not be content. Until then keep digging yourself by dhyana; keep disciplining yourself by Yoga; keep polishing yourself by Sankhya—and one day the event surely happens. The event is utterly accessible—within hand’s reach. But the hand must be stretched. Jesus has said: Knock, and the doors shall be opened. But we are so unfortunate that for lifetimes we sit at the door and do not knock. Jesus said: Ask, and it shall be given. But we are so unfortunate that we stand right there and do not ask.
Return from here with a resolve to keep knocking at his door. Then this Kaivalya Upanishad which today has ended in words will some day end in your life too.
Now let us prepare for the night’s meditation.
If any friends have come only to watch, let them sit on the rocks. Do not come near here. Do not come near those who are going to meditate.