Then Aśvalāyana, having approached the Blessed Supreme One, said:
Teach, O Lord, the highest Brahma-knowledge,
ever practiced by the noble, hidden,
by which, swiftly, having cast away all sin,
the wise attains the Supreme Person, beyond the beyond.
To him the Grandsire too spoke—Know it through faith, devotion, and the yoga of meditation. ||2||
Kaivalya Upanishad #2
Available in:
Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Sutra (Original)
अथ अश्र्वलायनो भगवन्तं परमेष्ठिनं उपसमेत्योवाचः
अधीहि भगवन् ब्रह्मविद्यां वरिष्ठां
सदा सद्भिः सेव्यमानां निगूढाम्
ययाऽचिरात सर्वपापं व्यपोह्य
परात्परं पुरुषमुपैति विद्वान।।।।
तस्मै सहोवाच पितामहश्र्च--श्रद्धाभक्तिध्यानयोगादवैहि।।2।।
अधीहि भगवन् ब्रह्मविद्यां वरिष्ठां
सदा सद्भिः सेव्यमानां निगूढाम्
ययाऽचिरात सर्वपापं व्यपोह्य
परात्परं पुरुषमुपैति विद्वान।।।।
तस्मै सहोवाच पितामहश्र्च--श्रद्धाभक्तिध्यानयोगादवैहि।।2।।
Transliteration:
atha aśrvalāyano bhagavantaṃ parameṣṭhinaṃ upasametyovācaḥ
adhīhi bhagavan brahmavidyāṃ variṣṭhāṃ
sadā sadbhiḥ sevyamānāṃ nigūḍhām
yayā'cirāta sarvapāpaṃ vyapohya
parātparaṃ puruṣamupaiti vidvāna||||
tasmai sahovāca pitāmahaśrca--śraddhābhaktidhyānayogādavaihi||2||
atha aśrvalāyano bhagavantaṃ parameṣṭhinaṃ upasametyovācaḥ
adhīhi bhagavan brahmavidyāṃ variṣṭhāṃ
sadā sadbhiḥ sevyamānāṃ nigūḍhām
yayā'cirāta sarvapāpaṃ vyapohya
parātparaṃ puruṣamupaiti vidvāna||||
tasmai sahovāca pitāmahaśrca--śraddhābhaktidhyānayogādavaihi||2||
Translation (Meaning)
Questions in this Discourse
Someone asked Sariputta, “How did you learn with the Buddha?” Sariputta said, “What the Buddha said—I heard it, but I did not learn from it. What the Buddha is—I did not hear it, but from that I learned.” What the Buddha says is one thing; what the Buddha is, is altogether another. So I heard all that the Buddha said, but what the Buddha is, that I drank in by being near him—lived it—I allowed his presence, his very being, to touch me, to enter me. The secret, the esoteric, is available through presence. But to be available to that presence—to drink it in—the doors of the heart must be open. Even if the Buddha is beside you, if the doors of your heart are closed, he is not near. And even if the Buddha is far—distant in space or time—if the doors of your heart are open, he is near.
When Hiuen Tsang came to India, he had already heard in China a legend about an Indian temple. He came for many reasons, and that temple was one of them. He had heard that in a hidden valley of Kashmir there was a temple of the Buddha where there was no statue of the Buddha, no relic of the Buddha, no scripture of the Buddha—no monk, no priest. The temple was nothing but a white wall hidden in a cave. But it was said that whoever sat before that wall with utmost humility and waited, the Buddha would appear upon that wall.
Hiuen Tsang came for many reasons, but the white wall was one of them—for much time had passed since the Buddha. Hiuen Tsang himself was a great sage. It is said that in China he was then the greatest scholar of the Buddhist scriptures. The emperor forbade him to leave, because he was such a precious scholar that if he went out of China and did not return, China would suffer a great loss. But Hiuen Tsang’s anguish was the same as Ashvalayana’s: he knew everything, and yet he knew nothing—because he had not come into any touch with Buddhahood. No glimpse of the divine had occurred. No ray had entered from anywhere. Except the movement of words in the intellect, nothing had happened. So Hiuen Tsang fled China in secret.
The emperor was opposed and angry; he sent soldiers so that Hiuen Tsang could not get out of China. Risking his life, with no one willing to accompany him, evading the guards of the imperial army, somehow—barely—he escaped. Twice, thrice he came near death; he was caught; then by someone’s compassion—and by the Buddha’s love for him, and his own prayer: “Let me, let me reach that land where the Buddha walked; perhaps on those very paths some echo of his presence remains. Where his feet fell, let me sit in that dust, roll in that dust—perhaps that dust still carries some news of him; for in the scriptures I did not find his news. Under the trees where he sat, let me sleep; perhaps the trees absorbed his presence. Let me go where the Buddha walked, rose, sat.” Seeing his feeling, even the soldiers took pity and let him go. Slipping from his enemies, he left China and entered a small kingdom called Turfan. The king was so moved by him that he fell at his feet, became his disciple, and said, “Now I will not let you go from here.”
So Hiuen Tsang prayed, “O God, somehow I escaped my enemies—now how will I escape a friend?” And the disciple said, “Whatever happens, I will not let you leave this palace. Without you I cannot live.” When Hiuen Tsang insisted, the king placed guards all around. He would sit at Hiuen Tsang’s feet; when Hiuen Tsang would ascend to the throne to speak, the king would lie down below, become the steps—Hiuen Tsang had to place his feet upon him to reach the seat—such was his humility; but such was his attachment that when at last Hiuen Tsang would not relent, he said, “Your humble disciple says: whatever happens, you do not have permission to leave.” For four days Hiuen Tsang sat hungry, without water, with eyes closed, praying to the Buddha: “Now it is beyond me; if you call me, only then is there a way.”
The king of Turfan melted. Hiuen Tsang came to India.
He reached that temple. Now it is lost, but Hiuen Tsang did reach it. The legend said that whoever went there did not return. Hence people did not go. In a far, hidden valley, that temple—what temple? only a wall. A white wall and nothing else. For years no one had gone there. Hiuen Tsang said, “If I dissolve before that wall, what greater attainment could there be?” He went; with great difficulty he found it, for there were no paths. Where no one has gone for years, the foot-trails vanish. But he arrived.
For a week he stayed there—beating his chest, weeping, rolling, crying out before that wall, “Appear!” Then his voice choked; then even his tears dried up; even his sobbing would not come. Then he simply sat and wept. The life-breath itself wept—without tears, without sound—only one hope remained: “Appear!” On the fourth day it seemed as if a small cloud-like shape passed across the wall. His hope leapt. Then he slept neither night nor day—for who knew when the form might appear? What if, while sleeping, he missed it?
On the seventh day the Buddha’s form appeared upon the wall. Hiuen Tsang was fulfilled—transformed, changed—he became another man. Thousands of years had passed since the Buddha; a single image of the Buddha appearing on a wall—and that image does not come from the Buddha; it arises from Hiuen Tsang’s own mind—but with such thirst, such surrender, the distance of time breaks, and Hiuen Tsang experiences that he is near the Buddha. Thousands of years fall away, thousands of miles dissolve—no distance remains. This felt nearness—“I am near the Buddha, near his form”—transforms him. What he could not know from scriptures, he knows from this nearness. And it was only a white wall!
I am saying: if you are with the Buddha and the door of your heart is not open, you are only near a white wall. And if the door of your heart is open, then even near a white wall you can be with the Buddha. The deepest knowing happens not through words, but through proximity.
“Ashvalayana said: Tell me that secret path which is forever hidden. Lead me upon that noble path on which the sages have always walked, by which the wise, having dissolved their past faults, have realized the Supreme Brahman.
“Brahma said: To realize that Supreme, one needs the support of shraddha (faith), bhakti (devotion), dhyana (meditation), and yoga.”
Let us understand these four words a little.
First, shraddha. We know the word, but its essence is unfamiliar. Shraddha is a very complex phenomenon—so complex that we have no inkling what it might mean. So let us look at it from two or three angles.
First, believing what we can believe is not shraddha. Accepting what our intellect can accept is not shraddha. Assenting to what our logic can support is not shraddha. Shraddha is consenting to that which our intellect refuses to accept, which our logic resists, which seems impossible even to regard as possible. Shraddha is the acceptance of the impossible. Therefore shraddha is the most arduous daring.
Someone asked Søren Kierkegaard, “What is your reason for faith in God?” Kierkegaard said, “If I knew the reason, what need would there be of faith? And God forbid I should come to know the reason, because the day I know the reason, that very day faith will fall. The reason I do not know, and no one knows. As long as a man lives within reason, he lives within the intellect. When he connects with the uncaused, faith begins.”
No reason is visible for believing in God. If it is reasons you are seeking, science gives the reasons for everything. If it is reasons you seek, there is no need of religion; philosophy is enough—it supplies reasons. But even if all reasons are known, the being of all those reasons itself appears utterly uncaused. That I am is utterly uncaused. Even if I come to know that I am because of past lives, there is no reason for the past life. However far back I go, making each past life the cause of the next, the whole chain of my births remains utterly uncaused.
Why is this tree? We find that a seed was sown—but the seed? We only push the cause back. Then the seed was in some tree, and the tree in some seed, and the chain is infinite. But why this chain? It is a curious thing: causes only take us into a chain. Just as I said, science pushes ignorance one step forward, similarly the search for causes pushes ignorance one step back. You find a cause one step back; then the same question stands there again. The whole chain of life is utterly uncaused—yet it is. The relationship of love with that which is uncaused is shraddha. Love for the uncaused is shraddha.
The first aphorism is shraddha. Without shraddha religion does not even begin; and wherever shraddha is not, everything else may be, but religion is not. Therefore religion is the most “unreasonable” event in this world. To be religious, in the world’s eyes, is to be mad. Hence, unless one is ready to be a little mad, no one becomes religious. Shraddha is sheer madness. It means we leap. Where logic is exhausted, we still leap. Where the path ends, we still leap.
Understand this a little.
Logic proceeds step by step; shraddha is a leap. Logic is linked to the preceding event; it is always connected to what lies behind. Logic asks why something is and finds a cause. Shraddha says: it is—and for the why there is no answer; it simply is. Therefore, if a person is very logical, he cannot even enter ordinary love—because no reason can be found for love. And the reasons that people seek for love are always sought afterwards. Love happens first; then a man looks back and finds reasons.
You saw someone, and a wave arose within—love happened. But the man is “intelligent,” he cannot love without his intellect; so he seeks reasons: in this person there is such and such a cause—the face is beautiful, the conduct is so... He seeks reasons. But the reasons are a formality—retrospective. Love happens first; reasons come later. Then we put the reasons first and place love behind them. But it is as if the cart arrives first and the oxen after; then we arrange things, put the oxen in front and the cart behind, and everything seems to go well.
But whatever is truly significant in this world happens without cause. Those to whom even ordinary love has never happened will find shraddha very difficult—because if even that ordinary event has not occurred, how can this extraordinary event occur? Love means the impossible happening between two persons—a leap of the impossible between two. Shraddha means the impossible happening between the individual and the whole. When love happens between me and the totality, its name is shraddha; when the same event happens between me and another, its name is love.
Therefore love has limits; shraddha has none. Love exhausts; shraddha does not. Love happens, blossoms, withers; shraddha does not wither. Love is momentary, however long its moments; shraddha is eternal. So whoever seeks the eternal in love is seeking in the wrong place; he should seek the eternal in shraddha.
Shraddha... The second aphorism is bhakti. Shraddha is the inner event; bhakti is its expression. Shraddha happens within—an inner experience. One in whom shraddha has arisen—in whom that feeling of love has awakened towards the Unseen, the Unknown, the Mysterious, who begins to glimpse the Supreme Friend in stone and plant and star—to such a one, bhakti is the outward flowering of that inner state.
Such a person—wherever he rises, sits, walks—whatever he does, his shraddha will show in it. In everything. That showing forth is bhakti. Even if he goes to a tree, he will bow and only then sit. Madness! The madness has already happened. If shraddha has happened, he will bow even to a tree. If the tree has given shade, he will rise with thanks.
Just now a very astonishing thing is happening in Western science. A Russian scientist and an American scientist, each by different routes, have discovered a startling principle. Let me tell you. They were each experimenting whether a man’s inner emotional states can be measured. Some experiments succeeded.
If a man is suddenly filled with fear, the heartbeat changes, the breathing changes, the pulse changes, the sweat glands function differently, the body’s secretions alter, biochemical processes begin. Scientists now know that the electricity flowing in the body, which we call prana, also changes its patterns immediately. All this can be measured; the instruments now exist.
Say nothing; you are sitting, and suddenly a pistol is placed against your chest. Wires connect your body to the instrument; it will show how fear floods you. And if the one holding the gun laughs and says, “I was joking,” the instrument will immediately show fear dissolving, relaxing; the electricity, the chemical processes returning to their old patterns. If your beloved enters the room, the changes within you are registered by the instrument.
These scientists thought: in man it’s fine—but can we measure animals too? Then we could enter the animal world; until now we cannot meet them; we do not know what happens within them. When man could be measured, animals were measured, and it was found they can be measured even more reliably, because their changes are clearer. Suddenly the thought arose: can plants be measured? Do plants undergo changes? They had little confidence—but they tried, just to know—and were amazed.
A rose plant was set there; its branches were wired to an instrument that would report what was happening within the plant. The scientist approached the plant with pruning shears—he only intended to cut—and his eye fell on the meter: the needle was swinging violently—toward fear. He was startled. He had thought that if he cut, something might happen in the plant. But he had merely approached with the intention to cut; he had not yet touched it. Could the plant register the intention? And astonishingly, the plant’s signals were clearer even than an animal’s. So he conducted hundreds of experiments—he could not trust his own eyes—could my intention, without any act, affect the plant and transform its life-processes?
Then he tried another unique experiment. This plant was wired, but he did not plan to cut it; he planned to cut another plant placed at a distance. Yet when he went to cut the other plant, the wired plant reported distress—fear, sorrow, pain—and within it biochemical changes occurred.
These things have been caught by the instruments of science. By the inner discipline of shraddha they have also been experienced. The devotee has felt the Supreme Life in each leaf, in each stone. Bhakti is that expression—a way of relating to existence as if the whole cosmos were your beloved; a sense of inner friendship with all that is. So a man stands before a plant with a plate of worship—it looks like madness. It will look so, because we know nothing of this inner technology. And perhaps he too knows nothing—only performing a tradition. Then it is sheer foolishness. A man folds his hands to a river—utter madness. If he does it merely traditionally, you are right; if he does it from the heart, you are entirely wrong. Such relationship can be with a river, a plant, a stone image—anywhere. Once shraddha is born, bhakti follows like an unavoidable shadow.
After bhakti the seer places dhyana. If bhakti is in the heart, bringing the mind into meditation becomes immeasurably easy. Where shraddha is within, bhakti comes as a shadow; where shraddha and its shadow bhakti are present, dhyana follows like a fragrance. We find meditation difficult because we have neither shraddha nor bhakti; we try to do meditation directly. It is hard that way; we have to use much force, and still the results are meager—because two fundamental foundations are missing.
One who is filled with love toward the whole existence—whose rising, sitting, the flutter of his eyelids, his very posture is suffused with devotion toward the world—such a one will not take even a moment to enter meditation. Let the thought arise—“Meditation”—and meditation happens. There is no struggle, no tension. Tension is where the world is an enemy, where existence is against me, where life is a battle. Without such tension, the devotee slips into meditation as naturally as breathing.
Therefore devotees have even said: what need of dhyana, what need of yoga? They are right—not because meditation has no meaning—but because for them meditation happens on its own. A Meera dances and falls into meditation; she never learned any technique. A Chaitanya is lost in kirtan and drops into meditation; he does not even know that it is meditation.
A delightful incident occurred with Chaitanya. He heard that a great yogi had camped near the village, and people were going to learn meditation from him. Chaitanya said, “I too will go and learn.” He went to the yogi—and was astonished: as soon as he arrived, the yogi lay down with his head at Chaitanya’s feet. Chaitanya said, “What are you doing? I have come to learn meditation. I heard many learn it here.” The yogi said, “If it was only meditation to be learned, you should have come before bhakti. You are already in meditation, though you do not know it. Bhakti often does not know it is in meditation—because meditation is its by-product, the natural fruit of shraddha and bhakti.”
Lastly comes yoga. When meditation is accomplished, yoga follows behind. We all go the other way. People begin with yoga, then attempt meditation, then somehow drag in devotion, and finally, perhaps, shraddha. When the mind enters meditation, the body follows into yoga. Yoga is of the body; meditation is of the mind.
Understand it thus:
Shraddha is cosmic—Brahman-consciousness. Bhakti is of the soul—personal. Dhyana is of the mind. Yoga is of the body. We begin with the body, then go to the mind, then to the soul, then to Brahman. The seer says: first shraddha toward Brahman, then bhakti in the soul, then dhyana in the mind, then yoga in the body. If one goes thus, each next step is natural. If one goes in reverse, each next step grows harder. He who starts with yoga finds meditation more difficult; therefore those who begin with yoga usually stop at yoga—asanas and the like—and do not reach meditation. He who starts with meditation finds bhakti difficult, and often stops at meditation, never reaching devotion. He who starts with bhakti often stops at bhakti and does not reach that ultimate shraddha. The right beginning is from the inner center—shraddha at the center; the next circumference is bhakti, then the third circumference is dhyana, then the fourth is yoga. When the mind has entered meditation, the body enters yoga on its own.
Many people come to me and say that when they meditate, all sorts of postures begin to happen by themselves. They will—when the inner state of meditation changes in the mind, the body must at once change its state to adjust to the mind.
These four aphorisms are precious. Their sequence is most precious. Begin with shraddha.
That is enough for the morning.
Now let us prepare for meditation.
Spread out—leave space around you. No one should run from place to place. Do not dash about and push others. Jump in your own place. Spread out. Friends who have come only to watch should sit on the rocks; do not remain in the middle. No onlookers in the center—only those who are doing. Friends who wish to sit quietly, move aside and sit—and do. The blindfolds have come; those who need them, take them. If anyone feels to remove some clothing, he may. All right—bind the blindfolds over the eyes.
Hiuen Tsang came for many reasons, but the white wall was one of them—for much time had passed since the Buddha. Hiuen Tsang himself was a great sage. It is said that in China he was then the greatest scholar of the Buddhist scriptures. The emperor forbade him to leave, because he was such a precious scholar that if he went out of China and did not return, China would suffer a great loss. But Hiuen Tsang’s anguish was the same as Ashvalayana’s: he knew everything, and yet he knew nothing—because he had not come into any touch with Buddhahood. No glimpse of the divine had occurred. No ray had entered from anywhere. Except the movement of words in the intellect, nothing had happened. So Hiuen Tsang fled China in secret.
The emperor was opposed and angry; he sent soldiers so that Hiuen Tsang could not get out of China. Risking his life, with no one willing to accompany him, evading the guards of the imperial army, somehow—barely—he escaped. Twice, thrice he came near death; he was caught; then by someone’s compassion—and by the Buddha’s love for him, and his own prayer: “Let me, let me reach that land where the Buddha walked; perhaps on those very paths some echo of his presence remains. Where his feet fell, let me sit in that dust, roll in that dust—perhaps that dust still carries some news of him; for in the scriptures I did not find his news. Under the trees where he sat, let me sleep; perhaps the trees absorbed his presence. Let me go where the Buddha walked, rose, sat.” Seeing his feeling, even the soldiers took pity and let him go. Slipping from his enemies, he left China and entered a small kingdom called Turfan. The king was so moved by him that he fell at his feet, became his disciple, and said, “Now I will not let you go from here.”
So Hiuen Tsang prayed, “O God, somehow I escaped my enemies—now how will I escape a friend?” And the disciple said, “Whatever happens, I will not let you leave this palace. Without you I cannot live.” When Hiuen Tsang insisted, the king placed guards all around. He would sit at Hiuen Tsang’s feet; when Hiuen Tsang would ascend to the throne to speak, the king would lie down below, become the steps—Hiuen Tsang had to place his feet upon him to reach the seat—such was his humility; but such was his attachment that when at last Hiuen Tsang would not relent, he said, “Your humble disciple says: whatever happens, you do not have permission to leave.” For four days Hiuen Tsang sat hungry, without water, with eyes closed, praying to the Buddha: “Now it is beyond me; if you call me, only then is there a way.”
The king of Turfan melted. Hiuen Tsang came to India.
He reached that temple. Now it is lost, but Hiuen Tsang did reach it. The legend said that whoever went there did not return. Hence people did not go. In a far, hidden valley, that temple—what temple? only a wall. A white wall and nothing else. For years no one had gone there. Hiuen Tsang said, “If I dissolve before that wall, what greater attainment could there be?” He went; with great difficulty he found it, for there were no paths. Where no one has gone for years, the foot-trails vanish. But he arrived.
For a week he stayed there—beating his chest, weeping, rolling, crying out before that wall, “Appear!” Then his voice choked; then even his tears dried up; even his sobbing would not come. Then he simply sat and wept. The life-breath itself wept—without tears, without sound—only one hope remained: “Appear!” On the fourth day it seemed as if a small cloud-like shape passed across the wall. His hope leapt. Then he slept neither night nor day—for who knew when the form might appear? What if, while sleeping, he missed it?
On the seventh day the Buddha’s form appeared upon the wall. Hiuen Tsang was fulfilled—transformed, changed—he became another man. Thousands of years had passed since the Buddha; a single image of the Buddha appearing on a wall—and that image does not come from the Buddha; it arises from Hiuen Tsang’s own mind—but with such thirst, such surrender, the distance of time breaks, and Hiuen Tsang experiences that he is near the Buddha. Thousands of years fall away, thousands of miles dissolve—no distance remains. This felt nearness—“I am near the Buddha, near his form”—transforms him. What he could not know from scriptures, he knows from this nearness. And it was only a white wall!
I am saying: if you are with the Buddha and the door of your heart is not open, you are only near a white wall. And if the door of your heart is open, then even near a white wall you can be with the Buddha. The deepest knowing happens not through words, but through proximity.
“Ashvalayana said: Tell me that secret path which is forever hidden. Lead me upon that noble path on which the sages have always walked, by which the wise, having dissolved their past faults, have realized the Supreme Brahman.
“Brahma said: To realize that Supreme, one needs the support of shraddha (faith), bhakti (devotion), dhyana (meditation), and yoga.”
Let us understand these four words a little.
First, shraddha. We know the word, but its essence is unfamiliar. Shraddha is a very complex phenomenon—so complex that we have no inkling what it might mean. So let us look at it from two or three angles.
First, believing what we can believe is not shraddha. Accepting what our intellect can accept is not shraddha. Assenting to what our logic can support is not shraddha. Shraddha is consenting to that which our intellect refuses to accept, which our logic resists, which seems impossible even to regard as possible. Shraddha is the acceptance of the impossible. Therefore shraddha is the most arduous daring.
Someone asked Søren Kierkegaard, “What is your reason for faith in God?” Kierkegaard said, “If I knew the reason, what need would there be of faith? And God forbid I should come to know the reason, because the day I know the reason, that very day faith will fall. The reason I do not know, and no one knows. As long as a man lives within reason, he lives within the intellect. When he connects with the uncaused, faith begins.”
No reason is visible for believing in God. If it is reasons you are seeking, science gives the reasons for everything. If it is reasons you seek, there is no need of religion; philosophy is enough—it supplies reasons. But even if all reasons are known, the being of all those reasons itself appears utterly uncaused. That I am is utterly uncaused. Even if I come to know that I am because of past lives, there is no reason for the past life. However far back I go, making each past life the cause of the next, the whole chain of my births remains utterly uncaused.
Why is this tree? We find that a seed was sown—but the seed? We only push the cause back. Then the seed was in some tree, and the tree in some seed, and the chain is infinite. But why this chain? It is a curious thing: causes only take us into a chain. Just as I said, science pushes ignorance one step forward, similarly the search for causes pushes ignorance one step back. You find a cause one step back; then the same question stands there again. The whole chain of life is utterly uncaused—yet it is. The relationship of love with that which is uncaused is shraddha. Love for the uncaused is shraddha.
The first aphorism is shraddha. Without shraddha religion does not even begin; and wherever shraddha is not, everything else may be, but religion is not. Therefore religion is the most “unreasonable” event in this world. To be religious, in the world’s eyes, is to be mad. Hence, unless one is ready to be a little mad, no one becomes religious. Shraddha is sheer madness. It means we leap. Where logic is exhausted, we still leap. Where the path ends, we still leap.
Understand this a little.
Logic proceeds step by step; shraddha is a leap. Logic is linked to the preceding event; it is always connected to what lies behind. Logic asks why something is and finds a cause. Shraddha says: it is—and for the why there is no answer; it simply is. Therefore, if a person is very logical, he cannot even enter ordinary love—because no reason can be found for love. And the reasons that people seek for love are always sought afterwards. Love happens first; then a man looks back and finds reasons.
You saw someone, and a wave arose within—love happened. But the man is “intelligent,” he cannot love without his intellect; so he seeks reasons: in this person there is such and such a cause—the face is beautiful, the conduct is so... He seeks reasons. But the reasons are a formality—retrospective. Love happens first; reasons come later. Then we put the reasons first and place love behind them. But it is as if the cart arrives first and the oxen after; then we arrange things, put the oxen in front and the cart behind, and everything seems to go well.
But whatever is truly significant in this world happens without cause. Those to whom even ordinary love has never happened will find shraddha very difficult—because if even that ordinary event has not occurred, how can this extraordinary event occur? Love means the impossible happening between two persons—a leap of the impossible between two. Shraddha means the impossible happening between the individual and the whole. When love happens between me and the totality, its name is shraddha; when the same event happens between me and another, its name is love.
Therefore love has limits; shraddha has none. Love exhausts; shraddha does not. Love happens, blossoms, withers; shraddha does not wither. Love is momentary, however long its moments; shraddha is eternal. So whoever seeks the eternal in love is seeking in the wrong place; he should seek the eternal in shraddha.
Shraddha... The second aphorism is bhakti. Shraddha is the inner event; bhakti is its expression. Shraddha happens within—an inner experience. One in whom shraddha has arisen—in whom that feeling of love has awakened towards the Unseen, the Unknown, the Mysterious, who begins to glimpse the Supreme Friend in stone and plant and star—to such a one, bhakti is the outward flowering of that inner state.
Such a person—wherever he rises, sits, walks—whatever he does, his shraddha will show in it. In everything. That showing forth is bhakti. Even if he goes to a tree, he will bow and only then sit. Madness! The madness has already happened. If shraddha has happened, he will bow even to a tree. If the tree has given shade, he will rise with thanks.
Just now a very astonishing thing is happening in Western science. A Russian scientist and an American scientist, each by different routes, have discovered a startling principle. Let me tell you. They were each experimenting whether a man’s inner emotional states can be measured. Some experiments succeeded.
If a man is suddenly filled with fear, the heartbeat changes, the breathing changes, the pulse changes, the sweat glands function differently, the body’s secretions alter, biochemical processes begin. Scientists now know that the electricity flowing in the body, which we call prana, also changes its patterns immediately. All this can be measured; the instruments now exist.
Say nothing; you are sitting, and suddenly a pistol is placed against your chest. Wires connect your body to the instrument; it will show how fear floods you. And if the one holding the gun laughs and says, “I was joking,” the instrument will immediately show fear dissolving, relaxing; the electricity, the chemical processes returning to their old patterns. If your beloved enters the room, the changes within you are registered by the instrument.
These scientists thought: in man it’s fine—but can we measure animals too? Then we could enter the animal world; until now we cannot meet them; we do not know what happens within them. When man could be measured, animals were measured, and it was found they can be measured even more reliably, because their changes are clearer. Suddenly the thought arose: can plants be measured? Do plants undergo changes? They had little confidence—but they tried, just to know—and were amazed.
A rose plant was set there; its branches were wired to an instrument that would report what was happening within the plant. The scientist approached the plant with pruning shears—he only intended to cut—and his eye fell on the meter: the needle was swinging violently—toward fear. He was startled. He had thought that if he cut, something might happen in the plant. But he had merely approached with the intention to cut; he had not yet touched it. Could the plant register the intention? And astonishingly, the plant’s signals were clearer even than an animal’s. So he conducted hundreds of experiments—he could not trust his own eyes—could my intention, without any act, affect the plant and transform its life-processes?
Then he tried another unique experiment. This plant was wired, but he did not plan to cut it; he planned to cut another plant placed at a distance. Yet when he went to cut the other plant, the wired plant reported distress—fear, sorrow, pain—and within it biochemical changes occurred.
These things have been caught by the instruments of science. By the inner discipline of shraddha they have also been experienced. The devotee has felt the Supreme Life in each leaf, in each stone. Bhakti is that expression—a way of relating to existence as if the whole cosmos were your beloved; a sense of inner friendship with all that is. So a man stands before a plant with a plate of worship—it looks like madness. It will look so, because we know nothing of this inner technology. And perhaps he too knows nothing—only performing a tradition. Then it is sheer foolishness. A man folds his hands to a river—utter madness. If he does it merely traditionally, you are right; if he does it from the heart, you are entirely wrong. Such relationship can be with a river, a plant, a stone image—anywhere. Once shraddha is born, bhakti follows like an unavoidable shadow.
After bhakti the seer places dhyana. If bhakti is in the heart, bringing the mind into meditation becomes immeasurably easy. Where shraddha is within, bhakti comes as a shadow; where shraddha and its shadow bhakti are present, dhyana follows like a fragrance. We find meditation difficult because we have neither shraddha nor bhakti; we try to do meditation directly. It is hard that way; we have to use much force, and still the results are meager—because two fundamental foundations are missing.
One who is filled with love toward the whole existence—whose rising, sitting, the flutter of his eyelids, his very posture is suffused with devotion toward the world—such a one will not take even a moment to enter meditation. Let the thought arise—“Meditation”—and meditation happens. There is no struggle, no tension. Tension is where the world is an enemy, where existence is against me, where life is a battle. Without such tension, the devotee slips into meditation as naturally as breathing.
Therefore devotees have even said: what need of dhyana, what need of yoga? They are right—not because meditation has no meaning—but because for them meditation happens on its own. A Meera dances and falls into meditation; she never learned any technique. A Chaitanya is lost in kirtan and drops into meditation; he does not even know that it is meditation.
A delightful incident occurred with Chaitanya. He heard that a great yogi had camped near the village, and people were going to learn meditation from him. Chaitanya said, “I too will go and learn.” He went to the yogi—and was astonished: as soon as he arrived, the yogi lay down with his head at Chaitanya’s feet. Chaitanya said, “What are you doing? I have come to learn meditation. I heard many learn it here.” The yogi said, “If it was only meditation to be learned, you should have come before bhakti. You are already in meditation, though you do not know it. Bhakti often does not know it is in meditation—because meditation is its by-product, the natural fruit of shraddha and bhakti.”
Lastly comes yoga. When meditation is accomplished, yoga follows behind. We all go the other way. People begin with yoga, then attempt meditation, then somehow drag in devotion, and finally, perhaps, shraddha. When the mind enters meditation, the body follows into yoga. Yoga is of the body; meditation is of the mind.
Understand it thus:
Shraddha is cosmic—Brahman-consciousness. Bhakti is of the soul—personal. Dhyana is of the mind. Yoga is of the body. We begin with the body, then go to the mind, then to the soul, then to Brahman. The seer says: first shraddha toward Brahman, then bhakti in the soul, then dhyana in the mind, then yoga in the body. If one goes thus, each next step is natural. If one goes in reverse, each next step grows harder. He who starts with yoga finds meditation more difficult; therefore those who begin with yoga usually stop at yoga—asanas and the like—and do not reach meditation. He who starts with meditation finds bhakti difficult, and often stops at meditation, never reaching devotion. He who starts with bhakti often stops at bhakti and does not reach that ultimate shraddha. The right beginning is from the inner center—shraddha at the center; the next circumference is bhakti, then the third circumference is dhyana, then the fourth is yoga. When the mind has entered meditation, the body enters yoga on its own.
Many people come to me and say that when they meditate, all sorts of postures begin to happen by themselves. They will—when the inner state of meditation changes in the mind, the body must at once change its state to adjust to the mind.
These four aphorisms are precious. Their sequence is most precious. Begin with shraddha.
That is enough for the morning.
Now let us prepare for meditation.
Spread out—leave space around you. No one should run from place to place. Do not dash about and push others. Jump in your own place. Spread out. Friends who have come only to watch should sit on the rocks; do not remain in the middle. No onlookers in the center—only those who are doing. Friends who wish to sit quietly, move aside and sit—and do. The blindfolds have come; those who need them, take them. If anyone feels to remove some clothing, he may. All right—bind the blindfolds over the eyes.
Osho's Commentary
Ignorance is limitation, and therefore ignorance is pain.
Knowledge is boundless, and therefore knowledge is liberation.
Within man there is a continuous effort to break these limits. But this effort can move in two directions. One direction is: whatever surrounds me in expanse, I should know it piece by piece. This effort to know particle by particle, fragment by fragment—this is science. Science means knowledge gained by analysis. One way to know things is: break them, and discover their fundamental components. If we wish to know water, then we break water and search for the basic instruments from which water is made. The day we discover the fundamental atom of water, that day—so we think—we have known water. The meaning of such knowing becomes: now, if we want, we can also produce water, and if we want, we can also destroy it.
Science will break water, it will search for the ultimate units of oxygen and hydrogen; but even if its knowledge of water becomes complete, then it becomes necessary to know hydrogen and oxygen. Ignorance has been pushed one step back; it has not been eliminated. We gave the darkness a shove, it retreated one step; yet still it stands there. The darkness is not annihilated; it has only receded by a step. So oxygen must be broken down. Science will break oxygen, it will break hydrogen. And it will search for the particles out of which hydrogen and oxygen atoms are made. It will discover electrons. Again ignorance has been pushed by a step. Now we can even manufacture hydrogen; but then the electron becomes our new boundary of ignorance.
In the last two thousand years science has gone on pushing ignorance away, ever farther, it has seemed. But ignorance does not end. At the next step it stands again. And now scientists have begun to accept that there will never come a day when we can end ignorance through science. For whatever we know by breaking, what remains after the break must again be known; and yet the unknown will always remain.
Science now recognizes that the unknown will always remain. However much we may know, the unknown will ever surround us. And the distance between us and our ignorance remains the same—no real difference occurs. Formerly I did not know water; I was surrounded by the ignorance of water. Then I come to know water; water is finished, but the ignorance of hydrogen and oxygen surrounds me. I know hydrogen and oxygen; then the ignorance of the electron surrounds me. Tomorrow, when the electron too is known, whatever remains will surround me—and this is endless.
Thus one effort at knowledge in the world is to know by breaking. But in breaking, something will always remain. Whenever we break anything, something remains. Another curious thing: we were ignorant of water; we broke it, and now we are ignorant of two things—hydrogen and oxygen. It seemed as if ignorance moved a step back, but in another sense it grew a step wider. Earlier we did not know one thing; now we do not know two.
So the process of breaking appears to diminish ignorance in one sense, and to increase it in another. It is a strange fact that as much as science has known, in that proportion our ignorance has also grown. Consider: the ancient scientists spoke of five elements—so there was ignorance of five. Science now speaks of one hundred and eight elements—so there is ignorance of one hundred and eight. We broke the five into one hundred and eight. Now we do not know these one hundred and eight. When we break the one hundred and eight, they will become a thousand.
Hence scientists also ask: are we reducing ignorance, or increasing it? Through the process of breaking, ignorance seems to recede—and yet it also seems to grow.
It is a curious thing: no age has known as much as modern man knows; and yet no man has ever experienced so much ignorance as modern man experiences. If we were to ask a scientist of a hundred years ago, he was very assured. He would say, “This I know,” and he was confident that within a hundred years the whole ignorance of the world would disappear. Ask a scientist today—he has no confidence at all that ignorance will ever end. He is no longer even sure that what he says he “knows,” he actually knows. For another thing has become clear: all certainties collapse in two or four years. Newton today stands as ignorant. Even the bricks of Einstein’s knowledge have begun to fall.
No one can write a great definitive book on science; for by the time such a book could be written, many of science’s foundational stones have already shifted. What appeared knowledge yesterday becomes ignorance today. And the branches of knowledge proliferate in such a way that once there was a single vaid in the village a thousand years ago—he understood all the ailments of the body. As our information increased, we discovered that the eye alone is so vast that one person could devote his whole life and still not know it fully. The ear is so vast that a whole lifetime is not enough even to read the literature about it. Then how can one person treat the whole body?
And so the eye had to have its own doctor. Bit by bit, doctors appeared for each part of the body. Now even within a single part, divisions are multiplying. Today no doctor is a doctor of the whole body—or if someone is, he has no prestige. People think he belongs to olden days; he has no standing. This is natural; it had to be so. When we divide knowledge into fragments, each fragment begins to expand in scope.
Finally... a great Western thinker, C. P. Snow, wrote a very revolutionary book some time ago, in which he said there are now two cultures. Those who know science have become a separate caste; those who do not are another caste. But it would be more accurate to say: within those who know science there are many castes. One caste cannot understand another at all. Today what the physicist says, the chemist does not understand at all. The chemist has his own language and his own world; the physicist has his own language and his own world. Where physics and chemistry meet, no one can quite make out. Oxford University gives training in three hundred and sixty sciences; and these three hundred and sixty branches are daily dividing into newer branches. Like a tree that grows every day and sprouts new branches, with one branch splitting into two—the person sitting on one branch of the great tree of science has no idea about the rest of the tree.
There is a fear that if another hundred years pass like this, scientists will be utterly unable to talk to each other. Everyone is developing his own private language. No two branches will be able to harmonize their thinkers. And there is no one today on earth who can say he knows the whole of science. No one who can say, “I understand physics, I also understand chemistry, and I also understand psychology.” Therefore it is not known what is happening. Knowledge increases—but where is it going? No one knows.
Modern man has come to stand in a deep ignorance. A person who knows everything about the eye knows nothing about other things. This means, in one direction he has knowledge; in all the rest, there is darkness. The greatest of scientists knows a great deal in his own direction, but in all the other directions there is night. He knows nothing else.
One direction of knowledge has failed.
There is another direction of knowledge—that which is called Brahmavidya. Brahmavidya works in the very opposite way. Science seeks to know by breaking things apart. Brahmavidya seeks to know things in their totality—in their togetherness. Brahman means the sum of all that is—the whole. To know that directly, without breaking it up. Not to divide it into separate fragments, but to know it in its wholeness, in its inner interrelatedness, in its oneness. May this existence as a whole be known directly. Let me not go to know the tree separately, nor to recognize animals separately, nor to search man separately, nor to divide stones and mountains and the moon and stars—let me not partition them. Let me attempt to know the total knot of existence as a whole. That attempt is called Brahmavidya.
Now, here is the curious thing: science pushes ignorance a little back—and also increases it. Brahmavidya does not push ignorance back—it dissolves it. Brahmavidya is not a struggle with ignorance; it is the awakening of knowing. Brahmavidya does not shove ignorance; it kindles knowledge.
Consider another point: when science breaks things, it also breaks the inner mind of man. Hence specialization is born. The person who inquires into matter develops only one part of his mind—the part engaged in that investigation. Scientists say different parts of the brain perform different functions. With one part you love; with that part you do not do mathematics. With the part with which you do mathematics, you do not farm. With the part with which you run a shop, you do not paint, you do not create poetry.
The human mind is made of some seventy million cells, and different regions perform different tasks. Therefore changing work brings relaxation. A man reads a book; he stops reading and turns on the radio. If the mind functioned as one lump, then the very mind that was reading would listen to the radio—the fatigue would increase, not decrease. But one corner of the mind reads the book; another corner listens to the radio. Therefore when you stop reading and turn on the radio, your mind rests. The part that was working on the book gets to relax. Changing work is a method of rest. When you go from one work to another, instantly the mind finds ease—the part that had to labor becomes quiet, another part takes up the task.
Generally this is why those who stop all work and simply sit—say, a person sits for meditation—fall into difficulty. He falls into difficulty because that fixed energy which operates every moment is accustomed to functioning in one corner; if it begins functioning in another corner, the first corner rests. But if he wishes to rest all the corners, then the energy that is accustomed to working begins to wander—and rest becomes difficult. Hence people find meditation hard.
They sit for meditation and say: “We do not know from where all these thoughts come; if we were digging a hole in the ground, so many thoughts would not come. If we were playing cards, they would not come. If we were smoking, they would not come. But when we sit for meditation, the mind fills with countless thoughts.” The reason is only this: you have never practiced giving your whole energy rest. You remove work from one corner and put it in another; but the energy remains at work—shifting from one corner to the next, and the mind has a thousand fragments.
When science divides the world outside, it also divides the mind within. So one part of the scientist’s mind becomes developed; the remaining parts remain undeveloped. In Brahmavidya there is again a difference. Brahmavidya does not divide existence; therefore it does not divide the mind. When the outer existence is approached as one, the knower within also becomes one. When we proceed by assuming the whole of existence to be one, then within us the mind too becomes one. And in this unity of the mind there is born that knowing by which ignorance does not merely retreat—it ends. Surely this knowing will be of another order.
If you go to Mahavira, or to Buddha, or to an Upanishadic rishi and ask, “I have a toothache—what medicine should I use?” Mahavira or Buddha or the rishi will not be able to answer you. For “toothache” means we have divided pain—there is tooth pain, there is head pain, there is foot pain; even pain we have parcelled out.
Yes, if you ask Mahavira, “I am in pain—weary of suffering—what should I do?” then Mahavira can answer. If you say, “I am in sorrow,” and ask, then Mahavira can answer. But if you say, “My stomach aches,” Mahavira cannot answer. Then you should go to the scientist—to the realm where everything proceeds by division.
With Mahavira or Buddha, everything is undivided, indivisible. Ask how suffering ends—do not ask of a particular suffering—and Mahavira will tell you how suffering ends. Ask how this particular illness ends—Mahavira will not be able to tell you. But ask how the disease of life itself can be dissolved—Mahavira can tell you.
Buddha called himself a physician. He said: I am a physician—not of diseases, but of Disease. If indeed this whole life is duhkha, then I am the physician. Buddha cannot go on cutting away the leaves of sickness one by one, but he is ready to cut the very root of Disease. His knowing is of the whole, collected. Whatever he has known about existence and the Self, he has not known by breaking; he has known it as one whole.
Thus it is a strange thing: a scientist can advise you how to remove your pain, yet he never crosses beyond pain himself. He helps you remove a thousand sufferings, and remains himself surrounded by a thousand kinds of suffering. Mahavira or Buddha cannot tell you a remedy for any particular pain, but they go beyond pain. They also show you the way to go beyond pain.
Brahmavidya means: the effort to know Brahman—the cosmos—existence—as a single unit. And when one approaches existence as a unit, within oneself a unity is created; the whole mind gathers together. And this gathering of the mind is peace. This gathering of the mind is silence. This gathering of the mind is the cessation, from within, of all ripples and waves.
“Impelled by the quest for Brahmavidya, Ashvalayana went to Brahma with samidha, humbly, in the attitude of a disciple.”
Two or three points should be noted here.
“Out of the longing for Brahmavidya, Maharshi Ashvalayana went to Brahma with samidha, humbly, in the disciple’s attitude.”
He is a maharshi—yet there is the longing for Brahmavidya. A great seer—and yet he longs for Brahmavidya! This means that by being a maharshi one does not automatically attain Brahma-knowledge. “Maharshi” then means: he knows everything—without truly knowing. Through words he knows everything; what the scriptures say, he is acquainted with; he is familiar with the doctrines—therefore he is a maharshi. Erudition he has; wisdom he has not.
To be a pundit is one thing. You may know everything—but it will be borrowed, not your own. You may be a maharshi and still remain ignorant so far as Brahma-knowledge is concerned. There may be scholarship, but no prajna—no awakened intelligence. What others have known may be intimately familiar to you, yet if there is no personal witnessing, no direct experience, then even a maharshi must approach in the attitude of a disciple.
What does the disciple’s attitude mean? It means: I do not know—let me be made to know. Hence the pundit faces a great difficulty. He can go anywhere in the attitude of a guru; to go in the attitude of a disciple is very hard. He already “knows”—so how can he go as a disciple?
And the day even a maharshi can go in the disciple’s attitude, that day one thing has become clear to him—that what he has known is conceptual, not existential. He recognizes for himself: I have not realized it on my own; I have only heard. It is memory. There has been acquaintance from the outside, but there has been no inward entry. Therefore for a pundit the way to wisdom is very difficult—difficult because the disciple’s attitude is difficult. The disciple’s attitude means: going with the awareness, “I do not know. I am ignorant.” Only then is there the disciple’s attitude.
Samidha was a symbol. To take samidha and go was to declare: I am ignorant, and I have come to know. It is a symbol. It says: I need not explain or persuade—you will understand. I have come to your feet like one who does not know.
But to come to the Master’s feet “like an ignorant one” is not merely a symbol; it is a deep inner state. It means: I will inquire only about that which I do not know. When you go somewhere as a knower, you inquire about that which you already know. People ask questions not because they do not know, but because they do. They are testing whether you also know. And what you know must tally with their knowledge; only then it can be “right.” If it does not tally, it is “wrong.” There is no disciple’s attitude there. Whenever someone goes to ask with the feeling, “I already know—let me see whether you know too,” there is no inquiry—only a preparation for argument. Then dialogue cannot happen.
When Mahakashyapa went to Buddha for the first time, he was a great pundit. He said to Buddha, “I have come with some questions.” Buddha asked, “Do your questions arise out of your knowledge or out of your ignorance? Do you ask because you know something, or do you ask because you do not know?” Mahakashyapa said, “What concern is that of yours?” Buddha said, “It concerns me, for the attitude with which you ask must be known to me—otherwise my answer will have no meaning. If you have come asking as one who knows, then do not waste your time and mine. You know already—the matter is finished. If you have come as one who does not know, then I will say something.”
Mahakashyapa said, “My situation is somewhat in between. I know a little; I also do not know a little.” Buddha said, “Then divide it. Let us speak only of that about which you know nothing at all. What you know—leave it aside.”
Mahakashyapa began to ask about what he did not know; and slowly, as he asked, he began to see that what he thought he knew, he did not know either. After a year of staying continuously with Buddha, asking many questions, all his questions became quiet. Then Buddha said to him, “Now I would like to hear about what you knew.” Mahakashyapa said, “I knew nothing at all. As I came to see, my ‘knowing’ kept dispersing. I knew nothing.”
When Ouspensky first went to Gurdjieff, Gurdjieff said to him, “Write down on a paper whatever you know, so I may keep it—and we shall never discuss that. For what you know, you know; the matter is finished.” Ouspensky was given a paper. He was a great scholar—just like Mahakashyapa—and before meeting Gurdjieff he had written a very valuable book, Tertium Organum, which is said—and I too feel—that it is one of the three most important books written in the history of the West. He had written it before meeting Gurdjieff. And Gurdjieff was known by no one—a nameless fakir.
Ouspensky went to Gurdjieff as a knower. He was world-famous; Gurdjieff unknown. A friend in a village had mentioned him; with some leisure, Ouspensky thought to go and meet him. When he arrived, Gurdjieff was sitting silently with about twenty friends. Ouspensky too sat a while, then grew uneasy. No one introduced him—no one asked who he was; Gurdjieff did not ask why he had come. The other twenty sat silent; so he too remained silent. After five or seven minutes his restlessness greatly increased. He could neither get up and go, nor could he speak.
At last, he gathered courage, endured some twenty minutes, and then said to Gurdjieff, “Forgive me—what is happening? You do not even ask who I am.” Gurdjieff lifted his eyes and looked at Ouspensky and said, “Have you ever asked yourself who you are? And when you yourself have not asked, why do you trouble me? Or if you do know who you are—say it.” Ouspensky felt the earth slip from under his feet. Until that moment he had thought he knew who he was. He searched in every direction—and could not find who he was.
Gurdjieff said, “Do not be troubled. If you know something else—speak of that.” Nothing came to mind. Then Gurdjieff handed him a sheet of paper and said, “Perhaps you feel shy—go into the next room and write down what you know. We shall never speak of that; and about what you do not know, we will speak.”
Ouspensky went into the room. He later wrote: it was a cold night, but sweat began to flow from my forehead. For the first time I was drenched in sweat. For the first time I discovered I knew nothing at all. Though I had written about God, about the soul, I neither knew the soul nor God. Those words began to swim before my eyes. My own books began to circle around me; my books began to make fun of me; my own words began to ask me, “Ouspensky, what do you know?”
Then he brought back that blank paper and placed it at Gurdjieff’s feet and said, “I am utterly blank. I know nothing. I have now come with a true inquiry.” That blank paper was Ouspensky’s samidha—placed back at the Master’s feet. Samidha is a symbol.
This land has seen thousands of Ouspenskys and thousands of Mahakashyapas. We made a symbol: whenever one goes to learn with utter humility—humility meaning the awareness of one’s ignorance—go with samidha. It is a symbol. Then there is no need for preliminary discussions. Those two hours that passed between Ouspensky and Gurdjieff would not be needed. One who comes carrying samidha is saying, “I am ignorant. I do not know. I will not ask from my knowledge; I will ask from my ignorance. I have come with the longing for an answer. I have come to learn as a disciple. I have no impulse to teach. There will be no cross-examination. I will not examine you. I do not know.”
“Humbly Ashvalayana said: O Bhagavan! Teach me the path of Brahmavidya, which is ever secret, and supremely excellent.”
I have said of Brahmavidya: it is the art of knowing existence in its totality. Yet Ashvalayana says: it is ever secret. This is very interesting. How can something be ever secret? Sometimes it must be told—otherwise how would we even know it is? And how would we know it is secret? That which we call “secret” must also be told—if I whisper something in someone’s ear, still I have told it. And if I say, “It is secret,” I only mean: do not tell it to another. But it has been told. That Brahmavidya has been told again and again; it is being told again and again. Yet Ashvalayana says: it is ever secret. Even when it is told, it remains secret.
This needs to be understood. Ashvalayana knows everything that has ever been said—he is a maharshi; he knows. And yet through all that knowing—it is not known. Everything is known, and yet ignorance remains. It must have become clear to him that even when it is said, that which is to be known is not known through the saying. All the scriptures speak of it; all the munis and rishis have spoken of it; all the knowers have spoken of it—yet it remains unsaid. That which one tries to say slips away behind; and what is said turns into something else. As when we put a stick in water—and instantly it appears bent. It is not bent, yet it appears bent. Just so, as soon as Truth is placed into words, it becomes crooked. In the medium of words it becomes askew. And apart from words there is no way to say anything.
So it is certainly spoken, and yet it slips. Something slips. And what slips—that remains ever secret. Here “secret” does not mean “to be kept hidden.” Here “secret” means “that which remains hidden.” Here “secret” does not mean “do not tell it”; here “secret” means “it cannot be told.” Tell as much as possible—but that which remains behind—that is Brahmavidya. That which slips away, that which cannot be expressed—then it is very difficult. For if it cannot be told, then even if Ashvalayana asks and Brahma answers, how will it be told?
Here a second point must be kept in mind.
What cannot be told by words can be indicated by other gestures, by other paths. Words are a very weak medium—very weak indeed.