Kaivalya Upanishad #5

There are some important instructions in this sutra regarding meditation. Let us first understand each instruction separately; then, when we read the whole sutra, it will become clear.
The first instruction is: a solitary place. It will seem we already know. But what we call a solitary place has nothing to do with meditation. By solitary we mean a place where no one else is present, deserted, we are alone. Someone goes to a mountain, sits in a cave in the Himalayas—so a solitary place is found. But this outer solitude has no deep relationship with meditation. Even sitting in that solitude, it is not necessary one will enter meditation. Even if others drop away on the outside, inside the others remain.
We may withdraw from the crowd, and yet the crowd hides within us. It can happen that while seated in a crowd we are in solitude; and it can happen that while in solitude we remain seated in the crowd. Even here, in this crowd, if someone sits quietly and remembers themselves, the others will be forgotten. Sitting in this very crowd if one becomes filled with self-remembrance, the remembrance of others is lost. Because the mind has an inescapable capacity: in any one moment only one can be present before it. If I saturate my mind with my own presence, the others become non-existent. Since I am not present in my own mind, the presence of others remains.
So the meaning we give to solitary place is very secondary. The meaning of solitude is: to sit in a space—this space is less outer and more inner—to sit in such a place—this place, this space is less outer and more inner—where no other is present. Someone might be sitting in the marketplace, and if in their mind the other is not present, they are in solitude. And remember well: if solitude cannot happen while sitting in the market, then even in solitude solitude will not happen. Because let me tell you another rule of the mind—
What is not present is remembered. Where we are not, the longing to be there arises. So it often happens that a man sitting in the marketplace thinks, “If only I were in solitude, how good it would be.” And a man sitting in solitude often becomes filled with the lust for the marketplace. The mind soon gets bored of where we are, and begins to savor where we are not.
Psychologists in the West advise that husband and wife should not remain too close, otherwise their love will end. Their advice is true in one sense. And in the East people practiced this advice for long without understanding the psychology behind it. In the East, the meeting of husband and wife was as difficult as even lovers do not find it now—during the day they could not meet; only in the darkness of night, secretly—so love lasted long. The reason for that long-lasting was that whatever is not available twenty-four hours, the mind’s relish for it remains. Whatever is available twenty-four hours, the relish fades. This is why as soon as we get a thing, it becomes useless.
We used to think for many days, “If only a big house were built.” It gets built. After two, four, eight days, we find it has become futile. It proves less meaningful than it was in dreams. The big house that gave so much juice in dreams cannot give it even after being built. After a month or two one even forgets that it exists—you live in it, you come and go in it; after two or four years others will still see it, for you it will stop being seen.
Whatever the mind gets its hands on becomes useless. Because all the mind’s relish is in the unavailable; in that which is not yet attained. The mind’s entire craving is for that which is not here, which is far. The mind tastes the distant. We say the distant drum sounds sweetest. It is not because of distance, it is because of the mind. The greater the distance, the more difficult a thing is to get, the more arduous, the more the mind’s relish increases.
Understand this rule of the mind rightly. Because in the marketplace you will desire solitude, and in solitude you will desire the marketplace. Sitting in a temple you will remember the brothel. And a man sitting in a brothel will also remember the temple. Life is not as straight as we think; it is very intricate. And if one does not rightly understand this intricacy, entering meditation becomes difficult.
The deeper meaning of a solitary place is—good if outside there is solitude, but that is not enough—that inside there be solitude. Inside us, a crowd is always present. It would be more accurate to say: we are less a person and more a crowd. The One within us is small; the crowd is great. Each person is a big crowd.
Therefore in the morning a man is something, at noon something else, by evening something else. One is restless with oneself: in the morning I was very happy, why am I sad by noon? Why am I filled with anger by evening? In the morning it seemed I could bless the whole world; by evening it seems I could kill the whole world. What is happening within me? This is our crowd. Many faces are inside us. One face in the morning, another at noon, a third by evening. Many people are within us. In the morning one man spoke, at noon another man spoke, at night a third is speaking. Hence the great difficulty. What we said in the morning when eager to bless the world, we will not be able to fulfill by evening. Because the one we are in the evening had not pledged in the morning; he was not present then.
Now psychologists say: we used to think there is one mind within man; that was wrong. There are many minds within man. Man is multi-psychic. Therefore in the evening one decides, “I will get up at five in the morning whatever happens; tomorrow I must get up,” and at five the same man says, “Let it be, what is there in such things; the night is very cold! What harm if for one day I do not get up?” He rolls over and sleeps. At eight in the morning the same man repents and says, “How did this happen? I had decided to get up.”
The difficulty becomes clear if we assume there is only one mind inside; then it is perplexing. But the psychologists say: the mind that decided was different. The mind that counseled in the morning “sleep on” was different. And the mind that repented in the morning was different. These are different segments of the mind. They may not even ever meet each other. They may not even know of each other.
Mahavira, two and a half thousand years ago, used a word—psychologists will be surprised—bahuchittavan. It means exactly what multi-psychic means. Mahavira said: man is bahuchittavan. There are many chit, many minds, within him—not one.
And among these many minds, solitude is impossible.
Therefore the profound meaning of solitude is: where multi-mindedness gives way to one-pointedness. Let there not remain many minds within me, let there be only one. This is one meaning of solitude.
There is another meaning to understand. The crowd that stands within me twenty-four hours is not only of my minds; the crowd of my acquaintances, my friends, my relatives, my enemies—all of them encircle me as well. Man lives very little in the outer world; he lives far more in the inner world.
Understand two worlds outside a man’s mind. One is the world of his mind in which he lives twenty-four hours. Outside that mind is a world in which he lives a little. But mostly he lives in his own inner world. The things you say to your friend you have said within your mind long before.
Someone asked Mark Twain—he was returning after a lecture. Mark Twain’s friend said, “Your talk today was very good.” Mark Twain asked, “Which talk?” “Which! The one you just gave.” Mark Twain said, “I have given at least three talks. One I gave within before speaking—what I would say. One I gave there. And one I am giving now—what I should have said. Which one are you talking about?”
You live in the outer world very little; you live thrice as much in the inner world. A word that comes out has already revolved within a thousand times, then it comes out. An act that happens outside has already been performed a thousand times inside.
If a man is going to murder someone—there has never been a murderer in the world who could say he had not already killed inwardly many times. Therefore if we keep account of inner murders, it would be hard to find a man who is not a murderer. For within we murder all the time. It is another matter that we do not reach the outer; someone else does.
Psychologists say—even murder aside—it is hard to find such a person who has not committed suicide within the mind. Many times, many times he has finished himself—“end it all.” It is another matter that it has not become an act, but it can any time. Because thought is the seed. If it grows strong, it can any time become deed.
Within the mind we have created a world—this is the crowd. Desires are first formed in the mind, they spread roots, sprout. Only much later do their leaves and branches reach the outer world. A thousand desires are formed within; maybe one reaches outside. How many plans are formed in the mind, of which perhaps not even one out of a hundred is completed.
If we rightly understand the accounting of living, if a man lives a hundred years, at least eighty he lives inside, twenty outside. This inward living process is our crowd. So wherever we go, at the very least we will be there. Leave everyone and go to the forest—where will I leave myself? I will reach there too. My reaching there is inevitable. I cannot leave myself behind. And when I arrive with myself, inevitably all my mind’s imaginations, all my desires, my plans, all my relations of the mind, all will gather around me. They are my crowd.
To dissolve this inner crowd is what is called solitude.
So a solitary place is there, yes, but the condition is greater. Good to sit in a solitary place, but do not think that solitude will happen just by this. Outer solitude can be useful, not sufficient. An inner solitude is also needed. And once this condition happens, then place has no use; a man can be in solitude anywhere. Anywhere! Once inwardly the minds have become one and the hold of this inner world loosens and we step outside its net, then the solitary place becomes available. The solitary condition too. Condition is an inner matter; place is outer. Place is secondary; condition is valuable.
Understand this first word rightly.
Then the second word used in the sutra: sukha-asan, Sukhasana. Let there be solitude of place, and sit in Sukhasana. This too has two parts.
We are familiar with Sukhasana. In yoga, Sukhasana is that posture in which the body is used the least. The least use of the body happens when you—like the statues of Buddha or Mahavira you have seen—sit cross-legged, spine absolutely straight, both hands resting on each other in the lap, unmoving, without any motion. In this state the body’s energy is used minimally.
The reason for minimal use is very scientific. If your spine is absolutely straight, gravity’s pull on you is minimal. If your spine is even slightly bent, more of the earth pulls your spine to itself. If the spine is perfectly upright, only the lowest point bears gravity. If your spine is slanted, bent forward or backward, then the whole spine bears the earth’s gravitational load. The more the earth pulls your spine, the more labor on your body. This is scientific. The strain can be measured.
The greatest pain your body suffers is from gravitation. So scientists say that if man began to live on the moon, his lifespan would be four times longer—because on the moon gravity is four times less. Then the same body will tire less.
And scientists also say—Einstein had a very astonishing idea, unbelievable it may sound; but if Einstein says it, it must be right. If we send a person into space in a craft that travels at the speed of light—one hundred eighty-six thousand miles per second—his age will not increase. However many years later he returns to earth, his age will be what it was when he left. Here his sons will have grown old, he will step down young.
When Einstein first said this, it was very surprising; but once the reasons are understood it is not. Because at such speed no gravitation anywhere will have effect, and he will travel in the vacuum of space. Your body does not age because of the body itself; it ages because of the relationship of pull between the body and the earth.
The earth is pulling the body downwards. That pull is your burden. What you call weight on the scale is not the weight of the object—it is the earth’s pull. The stronger the earth pulls—the bigger the object, the stronger the pull—the scale tilts. If we could cut off gravity, no matter how much weight you place on the scale, it would not tilt. It tilts because of gravity. The body’s greatest labor is happening even without you laboring. Therefore whatever you do, in seventy or eighty years the body will grow old. Whether you sit or lie still, the body will age. Because the earth is taking work from it all the time. When you sleep, the body still ages, because the earth is pulling. This can be; there are many reasons behind it.
Scientists have a notion: everything wants to return to its former state. In its former state is rest; in any new state there is strain. A wave rises from the ocean; very soon it will fall and return. Because to rise from the ocean for the wave is heavy labor, tension, trouble. To fall back is rest. Our body is made of dust, water—matter—it wants to return completely. The arrangement for this return is gravity. The earth calls its dust back. It pulls all the time.
Scientists have begun to think of this recently; yoga has known it long. Therefore if a yogi spends more time with his spine straight, his age will increase. That is the sukha posture—any posture where the spine is exactly upright—making a ninety-degree angle to the ground—is the least painful for the body. One point.
There is a second reason it is Sukhasana: now the physiologists accept that the power working within the body is also bio-electricity, a bodily electricity. The conduction and flow of electricity within the body goes on all the time.
Yoga has always held that electricity works within the body. Yoga called this electricity prana. It is a difference of name. This prana that works within the body moves by the laws of electricity. If electricity flows in a closed circuit, there is no loss. If the circuit breaks, there is loss. If electricity continues in its circuit, it augments itself.
Within the body too, in Sukhasana, the circuit of this electrical flow is formed. Both feet—soles—connect with the thighs. Both hands rest upon each other. The spine becomes straight. From the fingers and toes the body’s electricity tends to flow outward. If hands are clasped and the feet are tucked to the thighs, the electricity that would go out begins to circulate within in a circular circuit.
If the body’s electricity does not go out at all—and for this yogis used other methods: sitting on a wooden plank—a non-conductor; or on a lion skin, or deer skin—also non-conductors; or on a woolen blanket—non-conductor. All the materials yoga recommends to sit upon for meditation are non-conductors. Electricity does not leave through them. So the body’s electricity remains in the body. All outlets are closed. Inside a circuit is formed. In this circuit state the body suffers minimal, the least possible, loss.
The greatest loss of the body’s power happens in sexual intercourse. Because in sex the most important organ that throws out your electricity enters another’s body. And the other’s, especially in a woman’s organism, the capacity to draw electricity is such that electricity is drawn completely.
In Sukhasana the least electricity goes out; in sex the most.
The genital centers are great reservoirs of electricity—storage tanks—from where electricity is thrown most. Hence a lustful mind—even if it does not fall into action—keeps throwing its electricity outward twenty-four hours. Therefore the lustful person becomes inwardly debilitated, poor, burdened with guilt, and slowly he falls into an inner spiritual weakness.
This whole arrangement of Sukhasana is to turn the body’s electricity to circulate within. Another delightful fact: when the body’s electricity does not go out and circulates, it purifies the body. It cleans each nerve and nadi—we will speak of this later.
The first purpose of Sukhasana is that the spine be so upright that the body suffers the least strain.
The second purpose: the body’s electricity be circularized so that the body’s power does not leak outside at all. In this state the body experiences the utmost ease, the utmost sukha.
Beware: by this sukha you may not understand—this is a yogic word. What you call pleasure involves a certain stimulation and excitement. What we call pleasure—we say: a man won the lottery, he is very happy. That means he is so excited he cannot sleep at night. The heart rate has increased, the blood is racing, blood pressure is up—we say he is in great happiness—no sleep all night. Inside he is trembling the whole day. We call stimulation happiness, and stimulation we call sorrow too. We know only stimulation as pleasure, stimulation as pain.
Then what is the difference?
The stimulation we like we call pleasure. The stimulation we dislike we call pain. Therefore that which is pleasure today can become pain tomorrow. That which is pain today can become pleasure tomorrow. The stimulation remains the same; only like and dislike change.
It may not have occurred to you: the pleasures you call pleasures also tire you badly. Therefore no one can remain continuously happy. The reason is not that continuous happiness is impossible; it is that in continuous happiness you would break so badly. Gaps are necessary.
Jacob Boehme, a very wondrous mystic of the West, says: I found even love to be an illness. And I call it illness because I was not so broken in disease as I was in love; not so tired in illness as in love. And illness has a cure; love has none. And in illness if I could not sleep at night, people said, insomnia; and in love I also could not sleep at night but I thought I was happy. Now I know, that too was insomnia.
What we call happiness is, according to our valuation, pleasant stimulation. Yoga does not call that sukha. Understand this well. The word sukha has been used, so you may not be confused. For us sukha is a form of stimulation; yoga calls sukha that state where there is no stimulation in the body. The unexcited, un-agitated state of the body is sukha. Therefore what we call pain is pain for yoga; what we call pleasure is also pain for yoga. Sukha is that inner harmony where there is no stimulation, no tension, no ripple. The lake is utterly still. The body’s energy is quietly, silently circling within itself. There is no thought to go out. Content within itself, stilled and poised. Sukhasana is for this.
The third word: “Keeping head, throat, and body in one line…”
Head, throat, and spine in one alignment. If you are familiar with physiology, you will know physiologists say your brain is an evolved last portion of the spine. The glands and all spread of the brain are a part of the spine. We can say the brain is one end of the spine; or inversely that the spine is the extended root of the brain—say whichever you like. One thing is certain: spine and brain are deeply related. We also know it, though not consciously.
At night you sleep—if you sleep without a pillow, sleep does not come. You never thought what a pillow has to do with sleep? All animals sleep without pillows and they sleep well. Children sleep without pillows and they sleep well. But as age grows, it becomes difficult. And a curious fact: as civilization grows and education increases, more pillows are needed.
Why?
There is an inner bodily reason. The more active the brain becomes, the more sensitive it is. Therefore if one is to sleep at night, one must ensure as little blood as possible goes to the brain. A little blood going to the brain will activate it, and sleep will be hard. So you keep high pillows—the head goes higher, the spine goes lower—then the blood flows from the brain towards the spine. If the head is lower and the spine higher, or both are level, blood will keep flowing to the brain and sleep becomes impossible. Therefore in shirshasana sleep is impossible. And one who does shirshasana will need less sleep. He will be sufficient in five hours, four hours. No more needed.
But if shirshasana is done too much, it will harm intelligence. Hence those who do headstands a lot are not seen to be very intelligent. The intelligent may do a headstand sometimes, that is another matter. But the headstand-doers are not seen as intelligent. Because too much headstand means blood will gush to the brain with such force that the very subtle fibers will break. The more subtle fibers the brain has, the more developed is intelligence.
Scientists say: the one reason for the development of intelligence in man is that he stands on two legs. All animals stand on four. Because of four legs, too much blood flows to their brains, subtle fibers cannot develop. Man stood on two legs, blood going up to the brain was minimal—because it is hard to pump so high—so fewer amounts reach; thus man’s brain developed subtle fibers. Just as in a slow stream you can plant saplings; in a torrential current they will be uprooted. The brain’s fibers are very subtle. In our small brain are seven hundred million cells—a great city of living cells. A slight jerk breaks them. Man’s development happened because the spine stood upright.
Ask evolutionists and they will say: the greatest revolution in human life was made by that monkey who climbed down the tree and stood on two legs—two hands freed, spine straight, and less blood to the brain. To say “let head, neck, and spine be in one line” is a direction for another and greater revolution. If someone had told the animals: “If you stand on two legs your inner Buddhas, Einsteins, Socrates will be born,” they would have laughed—“What a joke! From standing on two legs, Buddha, Einstein, Socrates?” It does not please us either that by keeping head, neck, spine in one line meditation and Samadhi will happen.
This is a next step forward. If you sit with head, throat, and brain in perfect alignment, the electrical current that flows within meets no obstructions; because of the straightness it can flow straight. But you must be sitting. If you lie down, blood also goes upward. Sitting is needed, so that blood does not go up—only the body’s electricity goes up. If less blood and more electricity go up, centers of the brain that are dormant begin to awaken. Many centers are dormant. Psychologists say we have not used more than ten percent of our brain; ninety percent lies unused. What possibilities lie there, hard to say.
Yoga says: all siddhis spoken of in yoga are related to that ninety percent. If we can give prana to them, let prana-energy flow into them, those centers too can be activated. Now a group of scientists engaged in psychic research—deep exploration of the mind—are astonished to find: in people who have some siddhi—some unusual power, not ordinary, no miracle—some sleeping capacity not common—
For instance, in America there is a man, Ted Serios. Whatever he thinks, along with his thought the image of it appears in his eyes. And not only does the image appear in the eyes, a photograph of that image can be taken with a camera. Like Ted Serios, sitting in New York, thinks of the Taj Mahal—he thinks, eyes closed; then he says, “Get the camera ready; I open my eyes—the Taj is here.” He opens his eyes, the picture is taken, and the Taj appears in the eyes and in the photograph. And images of things also appear that he has never seen—which is more difficult.
If he had seen the Taj, one could imagine; yet imagination does not project into the eye, and photographs cannot be taken of imagination. But Ted Serios, about things he has not seen, when told, only thinks that the thing should appear in the eye—and it appears. And its photographs come.
Examination of Ted Serios’s brain shows: the areas that in a normal man are idle are not idle in him; electricity runs there.
Now we can test by attaching electrodes on the skull—where electricity is running and where it is not. Where it runs, the electrode’s bulb lights; where it does not, it remains dark. Just as an electrician tests whether current is flowing. Exactly so we can test whether this subtle electricity flows in our brain. In a normal condition, the electricity in one brain can light a five-candle bulb hung from the head, any time. Very subtle, but still it can be tested. In the areas where Ted Serios shows current, in a normal person it does not run.
Yoga says: when these three are kept straight, the energy rises and begins to run in other parts of the brain. As a result, the eight siddhis arise; many new events begin to happen in the brain. The reason for keeping the three in line is scientific—that the body’s energy, the body’s electricity, reach the farthest end of the brain.
Understand two more points.
I said: the brain is a part of the spine. And your genitals are the other end of the same spine. The instrument of generation is at one end; the instrument of contemplation is at the other. Between these two there is one and the same flow of energy. What we call sex-energy is the same energy.
If it enters the world through the lower end of the spine, we call it sex. If through the last end of the brain it enters, it becomes Kundalini. To take this sex-energy upward, these three must be in perfect alignment—a straight line: brain, throat, spine in one line.
The fourth word—
“A solitary place; Sukhasana; head, neck, and body in one line; having fully purified the body in every way.”
Body purification prompts the thought of bathing, etc. That is fine, but very little. Body purification is a big event. Bath removes dust particles collected outside. The pores are cleansed. The pores breathe; the breathing of the skin begins. Perhaps you do not know you do not breathe only through the nose—you breathe through the whole body. If your nose were allowed to breathe but your entire body were painted so that no hair could breathe, you could not live more than three hours. Keep breathing through nose and mouth, yet if the pores are sealed you cannot live more than three hours. Do not remain in the illusion that you breathe only through the nose. Each hair breathes; each pore breathes. Bathing cleans the pores. Then the whole body begins to take in prana, life-air. Freshness is felt. This purification is necessary, but not sufficient.
Body purification is a bigger word. There are two or three aspects we should understand. One you might never have considered.
Only recently a psychologist died in America—Wilhelm Reich. Among those who did very important work on man in this century, he was one. Whoever does important work gets into trouble. Reich died in prison. Because man is such that if anyone does important work for him, he will take his revenge.
There is reason for revenge. Because if true work is done upon man, many of his accepted beliefs are proven wrong. As soon as they are proven wrong, man is troubled. He is not ready to accept any of his beliefs are wrong. And the irony is: because of his own beliefs he suffers every kind of misery. He asks how his grief can end; but if told, “Your beliefs are the cause, you are the maker of your misery,” he is not ready to change his beliefs.
Man is such that he builds his own prison, locks it, throws away the key; and then cries, “I am very miserable, very bound; free me.” And if someone says, “This is the fruit of your own stupidity,” he becomes angry.
Wilhelm Reich said many valuable things about man. He said: in the body are stored all the suppressed passions—not in the mind, in the body. Suppressed passions are stored in the body and they make the body impure, diseased, distorted.
Yoga has known this long. My own experience is: if you suppress your anger, you will be surprised to find that your anger will collect in your teeth. There are reasons. When anger arises, one grinds teeth. In anger, fists clench. In anger, one can clench so hard the nails pierce one’s own flesh. If you suppress anger, it will be stored in your fingers and your teeth.
Reich reached the conclusion that in angry people teeth fall early. Through thousands of experiments. And he did a strange experiment: in thousands of the angry he would press their gums to arouse their anger. By pressing the gums from all sides a man would fall into such rage—though there was no cause—that often Reich had to call the police to save himself from his patients. Later he had to keep a bodyguard—touching the suppressed anger, provoking it, is dangerous.
The distance between animal and man—however big—is not great. Animals express anger by teeth. Or claws. Teeth and claws are the instruments of their violence. Man has developed many instruments. Researchers say: because man’s teeth and nails are weak compared to animals, he needed substitutes. Our daggers, swords, knives are extensions of our teeth, extensions of our nails. Other animals were stronger; we needed to create stronger teeth and nails to defeat them. Thus we survived.
But a curious event occurred: when you kill with a knife, the violence that arose in your nails does not leave through the knife. It remains in your nails. There is no passage for violence to go from nail to knife. If you abuse someone, mutter and grind your teeth but do not bite, the energy that gathered in the teeth does not leave. And the arrangement by which energy flows to the teeth is an inheritance of millions of years.
Thus violence accumulates in the teeth. A violent person will enjoy smoking—the teeth are used. He will enjoy talking a lot—the teeth are used. If nothing is available, he will chew mud, chew betel—these are signs of a violent person. The teeth must keep working. Then a little energy discharges; some relief, a lightness comes somehow. In one sense it is good that you do not bite others—at least you chew betel. A nonviolent outlet for violence.
But I said it as example. All the passions we suppress—and man suppresses harshly; he expresses nothing—our civilizations, cultures, so-called religions stand upon repression. Suppress everything. But what is suppressed fills within and the body becomes impure. For body purification, bathing is minor; more profound is to release what is suppressed in the body.
The meditation experiment we do is connected to this. Whatever is suppressed within—anger, violence, grief, joy, crying, laughing, madness—throw it out; release it. And remember: if you throw it upon someone, you will get into a circle without end. Throw it into the void. If a man can release his anger into the empty sky—on no one—because if you throw it on someone, then the chain of anger has no end. I abuse you, you abuse me, I abuse you again—no end. And each time, each practice will become a habit. Anger will be released, and a habit will form. Then one gets caught in a vicious circle.
If I keep expressing—abusing everyone, angry at everyone, laughing out of place, crying out of turn—then living becomes impossible. Where one lives with others, often many things must be held back. Therefore repression is inevitable in society. Perhaps we will never create a society free of all repression. A good society will repress less; a bad one more. But even in the best society repression is inevitable.
After a lifetime of studying repression, Freud wrote in despair: I see no future for man. However man may be, as long as he lives in society he will remain unhappy. And he cannot live without society. How will he live? Being a scientist he wrote what was straight. He wrote: I see no solution how man can be happy. If he lives in society, he will repress; repression will create inner miseries, diseases, distortions. If he does not repress, he cannot live in society. And beyond these two paths I see none.
Freud does not see; yoga has a way. Yoga says: there is no need to throw it on another—throw it into the void. Express anger into the empty sky. The chest of the sky is vast; it will not return your anger. If we express all our suppressed energies, then there is nirjara, catharsis. The body becomes pure.
And when the body is pure, wings grow in meditation. One begins to fly—no longer to walk, but to soar. The very energies suppressed within like stones had held us down—they pull us down. You have heard many times: some experience in meditation they rise above the ground. In ninety-nine out of a hundred cases they do not rise; but when suppressed inner energies dissolve, such lightness is felt that it seems the body has risen. They open eyes and find themselves on the ground; they close eyes and feel they are above. The feeling is so clear they cannot believe they have not risen. The experience is so vivid.
The only cause of this feeling is: if the body’s suppressed energies drop, the body becomes utterly pure, an immediate sense of rising occurs. And if purification is experimented more deeply, cutting gravity—one in a hundred can actually rise. Truly rise. But its experiments are different—not directly related to meditation. Yet in meditation this at least happens: one experiences, “I have risen, I have moved away; beyond the ground; my body floats in the air.” This feeling is very inward. It is the feeling of purification.
So I will give you the sign of purification: until you begin to feel in meditation that you have risen above the ground, understand that energies are still suppressed. You are not releasing fully. We are miserly even in releasing. If I say, “Cry your heart out,” you cannot cry your heart out. You cannot. It is suppressed. Yet it is filled. Often, if you cry, you feel light—not because of tears themselves, but because the energy suppressed within is released.
Have you noticed: when tears flow, a lightness remains inside? Tears have no inherent relation to sorrow. Tears come in joy too. Tears arise when joy overflows; tears arise when love is dense; tears arise when sorrow is dense. Tears are the eyes’ method to remove their repression. Whatever is suppressed within the eyes, tears throw it out.
Scientists say tears are the bath of the eye. Dust collected in the eye, tears clean it. But years may pass before tears come. If a man has not cried for a year, then for a year the eyes had no bath. No, when tears flow they do clean the dust; but that is secondary. They also purify the inner soul of the eye. They relax the inner parts. The tensions upon the eye—from joy or sorrow, heavy tensions; from anger, from love—are released. With tears their energy flows out. Body purification is to release all repressed energies. Bathing, yes—and a deeper bath too. And another point, deeper still for body purification, must be understood. Whenever we experience ourselves within the body, the manner in which we experience affects the body’s entire structure. One man thinks: I am the body. This man will have the most impure body. Another thinks: I am not the body; I am within the body. This person will have a purer body than the first. A third thinks: I am not the body, nor within it; I am beyond the body. This one will have the purest body.
It means: the more we identify with the body, the more the body becomes heavy. The more space there is between body and us, the lighter the body. The distance between our consciousness and body—within this distance the body becomes purified. The less the distance, the more impure. A space between body and consciousness is essential for purification.
But we all live as if we are the body. If my hand breaks, I do not feel my hand has broken; I feel I have broken. If my leg breaks, I do not feel my leg has broken; I feel I have become lame. If my body grows old, I do not feel the body has aged; I feel I have aged. This identification with the body makes it impure.
Why impure?
The more I connect myself to the body, the less rest the body gets. Only when the body is just my instrument—used and then left in peace—can it rest. At night you go to sleep; if the body is not your instrument but you are the body, you cannot sleep. The body cannot sleep. Your inner turmoil continues; it affects the body.
If at night you sit by a sleeping man and watch, you will be amazed. In America they made ten sleep laboratories to study sleep. Astonishing facts emerged. No one had ever thought man does this in sleep. Man seems to exercise all night—tossing, changing sides, flinging hands, grimacing, tightening forehead veins, sticking out the tongue, muttering, grinding teeth—so many things! When sleep labs were made, they discovered, “How strange!” Because no one had studied sleep; who would—everyone sleeps. What one does at night—night is no small affair. If a man lives sixty years, he sleeps twenty. Twenty years in this upheaval. And what he does at night is all the news of his day. He did the same by day, or wanted to and repressed it. At night it all breaks loose. This inner clinging—“I am the body”—is the result.
Ananda says of Buddha… When Ananda was initiated by Buddha—Ananda was Buddha’s cousin, elder. Before initiation he said: “I am elder; after initiation I become your disciple, so let me settle some matters now, while I am elder. Later I will have to obey. Now, little brother, grant me three boons. One: wherever you go, I will remain with you; you should not send me away on a journey. Two: wherever you sleep, no one may enter, but I will sleep in the same room; do not ask me to sleep outside. Three: even at midnight, if I wish to introduce someone, I will have the right to do so, setting aside all rules.” Buddha granted these three for life.
So Ananda slept near him. After twenty years he said one day: “I am amazed. The side you sleep on, where your hands and feet are placed, in the morning they are in the same place. Must there be so much restraint even at night? What do you do? The hands you set, the feet you lay—the same in the morning. I stayed awake many nights and watched—exactly so.”
Buddha said: “Once at night I turned; after that, never. But that turning was because some slight attachment to the body remained. Now the body stays as it is. If I have to turn, I turn within. Why keep moving the body?”
You will be amazed, but this is simple. It seems difficult because we have no separation from the body. It seems strange that we turn and the body remains still. But as awareness begins to feel separate, there is no hindrance. Awareness can change, step out of the body while the body lies there. It can travel; the body remains. Then why not turn? No hindrance.
The only hindrance is our entanglement with the body. We cannot even think of changing without the body. How will we turn? The body has no difficulty; we do. Until the body turns, how can we? We are like a shadow of the body—we do what the body does.
Remember this third point. “I am the body, I am in the body, I am beyond the body.” If you want complete purification, keep the remembrance continuously: I am beyond the body. Not even inside—beyond. Separate, distant. Then the body is purified inwardly.
“Collecting all the senses.”
We have senses. Each sense has its special function and dimension. Eyes see, ears hear. Ears cannot see, eyes cannot hear. Hand touches, nose smells. The nose cannot touch, the hand cannot smell. Every sense is specialized. One who wants to go deep in meditation must learn to concentrate all the senses.
What does concentration mean?
It means: if I am searching for the center of my heart within, I use all the senses together for it. With eyes closed I try to see that center; with the ears turned inward I try to hear it; with the nose turned inward I try to smell it. This will seem difficult, because man is eye-centered as he is now.
So if I say “the vision of Paramatma,” you will have no difficulty with the word, because vision is tied to the eyes. If I say “the fragrance of Paramatma,” you will feel a little stuck—because we never think of Paramatma from the side of smell. We think of Paramatma with the eyes. Hence in all languages the words we use for that experience are eye-made. In Hindi we say drashta—seer. When someone realizes, we say he had darshan—vision. In English, “seer,” “vision.” All are eye-bound words.
The whole of humanity is eye-oriented. But the eye is just one sense, like all others. Therefore a blind man may sometimes worry: how will I have darshan, for I have no eyes! There is no hindrance.
“Collecting all the senses.”
Do not try from one sense only. With one sense it may take long; and it may be that your particular sense is not that active—people’s eyes are not equally active.
When a painter looks, his eyes are very alive. We, near-blind, glance at what he sees as a man with eyes. We pass daily by a flower and see nothing; a painter may dance in ecstasy. The sun rises before us too…
Van Gogh, a Dutch painter, is watching a sunset with a friend. Van Gogh says: “Look, the sunset.” The friend says: “Yes, fine,” and resumes the talk. The friend shakes him: “You seem not to be listening to me.” Van Gogh says: “When the sun is setting, all my senses go toward it. I cannot even hear now; I am hearing the sunset. I cannot see anything else; I am seeing the sunset. Even if you spray perfume here, I will not smell it; I am smelling the sunset. All my prana, from every side, have gone to the sun.”
To collect all the senses means: do not try the inner experiment of meditation from one sense—try with all at once. Bend the inner part of all senses toward it.
Each sense has two parts. One outer; with one we see outside. Another inner; with it we can see within. One part of the ear hears outside; another hears within.
Yoga divides senses into two: outer-senses and inner-senses. As many outer, so many inner. To direct the inner part of all senses together toward one center is to collect the senses. When senses are collected, the results are wondrous.
Two effects arise. First: you do not even know which sense is your strongest. When you add them all, the strongest begins to give you immediate experience. It may be that one whose inner eye is weak sits to see inner light—it will not appear.
People come to me and say, “We do not see light; only darkness.” The reason is only that their inner eye is not working well. Leave seeing; start hearing.
Hence, for those whose inner ear is strong, mantra becomes a great aid. For those whose inner eye is strong, mantra is useless—because mantra does not engage the eye. But if the ear is strong, mantra immediately connects. Therefore those who attain through mantra report that their ears…
It can happen through fragrance too. Muhammad had a deep taste for fragrance. Therefore Muslims still imitate by using attar—perfume. Sprinkling perfume will do nothing! But Muhammad’s realization of Paramatma came by the path of scent. His ear must have been weak; hence music meant nothing to him. Even today music is not allowed before the mosque. It gave him no joy. No harm. But then danger begins when we make rules for all based on a person. For one it may be scent; for another music; for another sight; for another color. One cannot say! Every person is a unique world. Then bring all senses together.
Therefore yoga says: why emphasize one sense! Who knows which sense can become active for you. Who knows across births which sense you have used most! Who knows, for countless reasons, which inner part stands ready to leap. Do not worry, do not choose—gather all the senses.
“Collecting all the senses, with reverence and devotion saluting one’s Guru.”
I have spoken much on shraddha and bhakti; let us leave them now.
“Saluting one’s Guru.”
This must be understood. In the West it is difficult to understand Guru. There is no word like Guru in Western languages—because the very conception is absent. There is teacher, master; but they have nothing to do with Guru.
The exact meaning of Guru is: we may have no idea of Paramatma, but if through any direction, through any person, by any means we catch even a glimpse of Paramatma, that one becomes Guru. Guru means: the one through whom the first glimpse came. It has nothing to do with who he is. It may be he himself does not know. But whoever gave the first glimpse—Guru. Guru means only this: by whom it was pointed out; by whose mere being some fragrance came, some glimpse occurred, some touch happened—and the angle of our life changed.
Sariputra went to Buddha. He attained the ultimate. He was sent to spread the dhamma. Sariputra himself became a Buddha, yet he kept a diary: where Buddha would be that day; the direction. Morning and evening he would lie down facing that direction, placing his head at Buddha’s feet from hundreds of miles away. His disciples asked, “What are you doing? Whom do you bow to? We see no one.”
Sariputra said: “When I too could see nothing, it was in that man that I first saw. I bow to him. ‘But now you too have realized!’ The very state I have now, its first glimpse came to me in that man. And I know that had I not had that glimpse then, what I am today would not be. I was a seed and in Buddha I saw the tree. And then my being became filled, brimful, with the longing to be that tree.”
This sutra says: “Saluting one’s Guru.”
Whoever, in whatever person or power or place, gave you the first glimpse that Paramatma is, that he is meaningful, that the first gaze turned toward his existence—remembering that one. For the inner descent of the heart this remembrance is important. Important because the Guru is the announcement of your future. What you can become, he declares. He already is what you will be tomorrow. You do not even have a sketch of your future; the remembrance of the Guru gives direction to your future. It makes a path for your life-energy to flow. The very meaning of remembrance is: now let my life-energy flow in one direction.
If Sariputra remembered Buddha—this remembrance before meditation—because after one descends into meditation the awakened energy will follow the line of this remembrance. The seed that breaks and sprouts will grow with the image of this tree.
“Remembering the Guru, cleansing the heart-lotus of all taints, freed from grief and sorrow, contemplating that pure essence of Bhakti is meditation.”
“Cleansing the heart-lotus of all taints.”
We have removed the body’s taints; let us remove the heart’s taints too. The heart must be purified. What are the taints of the heart? Buddha spoke of four Brahma-viharas—methods to remove the heart’s taints. Different religions use different words, but the essentials are almost the same. What are the taints?
Buddha said: fill the heart with karuna—compassion; then violence, anger, the tendency to harm, jealousy—all are taints—they will drop. Buddha would tell his bhikkhus: before entering meditation, first assume an unconditional compassion for the whole world.
A delightful event occurred.
Buddha stayed in a village and gave initiation to a man, saying: begin with compassion—sit so that compassion for the entire existence fills the heart. He said: “All that is fine, only exclude my neighbor; difficult to have compassion for him. He is wicked. He has troubled me greatly. There is litigation, quarrels. He has gathered goons; I have had to gather mine. For the whole world I have no difficulty with compassion—just leave this neighbor out. Will that cause any problem in meditation? Only one neighbor!”
Buddha said: “Leave the whole world; compassion only for this one neighbor will be enough. Because the taint filled within you is for that neighbor, not for the whole world.” Compassion dissolves the taints gathered in our consciousness.
Second, Buddha said: maitri—friendliness toward all; not only humans, everything.
Third, Buddha said: mudita—cheerfulness, a sense of joy. Remember: when we are cheerful, no taint flows from us toward the world. When we are miserable, we begin to scheme to make the whole world miserable. A miserable man wants the whole world miserable. He derives his only pleasure there. Only when you are more miserable than he is, he is pleased.
When he sees suffering all around, he sits carefree. Buddha said the third: mudita—sit with cheerfulness; fill the heart with joy.
Fourth, Buddha said: upeksha—equanimity. Whatever happens—good or bad; whether fruit comes or not; whether meditation deepens or not; whether union with God happens or not; failure or success—remain equanimous. Make no choice between the two.
Almost all religions speak around these four. But Buddha gathered the essence in these four. They remove the taints of the heart. After this, meditation becomes simple, natural.
“Beyond grief and sorrow, contemplation of that pure Bhakti-tattva is meditation.”
I have spoken about Bhakti. When the body is pure, the posture is right, solitude is present, and the heart’s impurities have been removed—then the feeling of intimacy, unity, oneness with the whole existence is Bhakti. To contemplate this in the present moment—I am one with existence—is meditation.
Now I will read the entire sutra:
“Filled with the longing to know Brahman, established in the spirit of Sannyas, having purified the body by bath and the like, seated in Sukhasana, keeping head, neck, and body in one straight line, collecting all the senses, with reverence and devotion saluting one’s Guru, cleansing the heart-lotus of all taints, transcending grief and sorrow, contemplating that pure essence of Bhakti—that alone is dhyana.” To be absorbed in its contemplation is meditation.
That is all.
Now let us enter meditation. Two or three points. Those who wish to move fast, come closer around me on all three sides. Those who wish to go slowly, move a little back.