Kathopanishad #13

Just as a tree stands on the bank of a lake and its reflection in the water appears inverted—on the shore its branches spread upward into the sky and its roots extend downward into the earth, but in the reflection the roots seem above and the branches below—so it is. All reflections are inverted; a reflection can never be upright. Keeping this scientific truth in mind, understanding this sutra becomes very easy.
Things appear exactly the opposite of what they are—because seeing itself is a kind of reflection. The eye is also a mirror; images form upon it; images invert. Therefore, the world as we are seeing it is precisely the reverse of the world as it is. The law of the real will be the reverse of the law we think we know.
On the basis of this fundamental insight—that appearances are contrary to truth—India’s seers have used a very ancient symbol. The symbol is this:
This manifest world is the eternal peepal tree whose roots are above and whose branches are below. Its fundamental principle is that very God. That is Brahman, and that alone is called the Immortal.
This manifest world is the eternal peepal tree with roots above and branches below.
What we see has roots below and branches above. But in this sutra given by Yama to Nachiketa, Yama says: the roots are above, the branches below. Whatever we think we know—life’s truth is precisely the reverse of it. Let us try to understand this through different facets of life.
We think death is the enemy of life—but the truth is utterly the opposite. Without death there can be no life at all. So death is not life’s enemy in the least—it is its friend. Life has no possibility of being without death. The day death disappears, life disappears with it. But in our seeing, everything turns upside down. We feel life and death are in opposition, whereas in fact death is the very foundation of life. Without death, life cannot be.
In experience it appears that love and hate are opposites—while in truth it is exactly the reverse. The psychologists say love and hate are two aspects of the same energy; they come together. Among the greatest discoveries of this century by Freud is also this: the person one loves, one also hates. If we think about it a little, the point becomes clear. You cannot make anyone your enemy straightaway. Before enmity, friendship is essential. Enmity cannot arise by itself; for enmity, friendship is needed first. So friendship is the first step—an inevitable step—towards enmity; only thereafter can enmity be.
Hence, enmity and friendship are not opposites; they are two faces of the same coin. Whomever we love, we also hate; whomever we hate, we also love. We are strongly attached to our enemies; we remember them. Without them we would become incomplete; something would be missing in our life without them—just as something is missing when a friend disappears. Friends fill us, enemies also fill us.
Buddha has said: I do not make any friend, because I do not want to make any enemy. But we think friend and enemy are opposites. Life is not like that. We think night and day are opposites, darkness and light are opposites. The truth is otherwise. Darkness is only a form of light; light is only a mode of darkness. They are different orders of the same energy.
If darkness were completely eliminated from the world, our ordinary mind would say there would be light everywhere. Science will not agree. Science says: if darkness disappears entirely, light will also disappear; if light disappears entirely, darkness will also disappear.
If hatred is to be completely removed from the world, love will have to be removed completely. As long as love is, hate will continue. As long as there are friends, enemies will keep arising. And if death is to be erased altogether, then birth must be erased altogether. As long as birth is, death will be.
If wars are to be removed from the world, we think that when wars end there will be supreme peace. But if war disappears entirely, peace too will disappear. This seems difficult to accept. This is exactly the contrariness of appearance and truth. Peace can remain in the world only so long as wars continue. Peace and war are two faces of the same coin. If one is lost, the other is lost too.
We think there is illness and health—opposites. And we strive for a time when no illness remains in human life. The day that happens, that very day no health will remain either.
It is possible scientists may gradually devise such an arrangement that illness disappears. That arrangement can be only this: slowly they will replace all human organs—put in plastic, stainless steel, artificial organs. Illness will vanish—but health will vanish too. The experience of wellbeing cannot be with organs of plastic and steel. Health is tied to disease. With disease removed, health is destroyed. Yet this is not how it appears to us. We feel: remove one, the other will remain. That is the contrariness of our appearance.
So wherever things appear a certain way to us, it is worth reversing them carefully—there is greater likelihood the reverse is true.
See it thus: wherever happiness appears, in the end suffering is found. But the mind says: where happiness appears, there must be happiness. On searching, suffering is found. And in life we have experimented countless times—wherever happiness seemed to be, we rushed there, and found sorrow in our hands.
The seers reversed the formula. They said: wherever suffering appears, try to enter there. When searching in happiness yields sorrow, then searching where sorrow appears will reveal happiness. The name of this scientific exploration is tapas. Tapas means: seeking happiness within suffering—because those who seek in happiness are finding only suffering. The formula was reversed. The journey that was leading into illusion, we changed direction.
We call him a bhogi, a sensualist, who believes happiness will be found by chasing its appearance. We call him a yogi whose delusion has broken, who has reversed the formula, and who now makes the effort to seek within suffering. And the one who seeks within suffering surely finds joy—because those who seek within joy have found nothing but sorrow.
Remember this: life’s truths appear inverted because our mind makes reflections of them; like a lake, the tree turns upside down. Therefore, before you craft a philosophy of life, choose a path, and choose a destination—remember this essential point.
Thus the seers said: the tree that appears to you with roots below and branches above—in reality, it will be the reverse. Life’s tree has its branches below, not above; its root is above, not below. The seers called this the eternal, everlasting peepal tree.
This is only a poetic symbol. Without applying this poetic symbol in life, without placing it at many points in life, its meaning does not become clear.
This manifest world, with roots above and branches below, is the eternal peepal tree. Its fundamental element is God alone.
But He does not appear. What appears to us is matter. What appears to us is matter, while in reality it is God.
God is invisible to us; matter is visible. When a person reverses this life-process, matter starts becoming invisible and Paramatma becomes visible. And the day matter disappears completely, and only Paramatma remains visible—know that that day the truth has been realized.
Therefore, in that supreme state the wise have called the world maya—not because it does not exist, but because it no longer appears; it is lost to sight. Just as the ignorant call God unreal. They must—what is not seen, is not. The ignorant say, “Where is God?” There is no way to show Him—for the question is not of God’s being, the question is of the ignorant person’s way of seeing. His seeing is such that matter comes into his grasp and God slips away.
The wise cannot grasp matter—matter slips; only God is grasped. Hence the ignorant say—“the world is true, Brahman is false.” The wise say—“Brahman is true, the world is false.” It turns upside down. If you keep this arithmetic in mind and begin to apply it a little in life, you will find—you are changing, you are becoming new.
How to apply it? I have given you metaphysical examples; it can be used in conduct. This sutra is very precious. When someone abuses you and anger arises—this is the natural, unawakened state. The wise say: when someone is angry, let forgiveness arise. Reverse it. When someone is angry, forgive—bring forth the feeling of forgiveness; your life will be new. If someone abuses you and you become angry, your life will remain as it was; no transformation is possible—because no foundation is being changed.
When someone honors you, we become elated, pleased. The wise have said: when someone honors you, become indifferent, grow a certain aloofness. Why are we pleased when someone respects us? Because the ego is gratified—and ego is disease. Your enemies cannot harm you as much as your flatterers—because they feed your ego.
Kabir has said: build a hut in your courtyard for those who slander you—house them close by. This is the reversal: those who abuse you, settle them next door so morning and evening they keep abusing you—for the one who abuses breaks your ego, and the one who praises inflates it. And ego is the great disease, the very base and source of suffering.
In conduct this sutra means: do not enact the reaction that seems natural and spontaneous; do its opposite. Your life will become religious.
Jesus was crucified, and at the final moment he was asked, “Have you anything to say?” Jesus raised his hands toward God and said, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
When someone is crucifying you, curses can flow from your mind—blessings cannot. Cursing is the natural process—it will arise even from animals, even from stones; one need not be human for that. It is the inert law of life—like water flowing downward and fire burning. Animality responds to anger with doubled anger—that is the simple rule. But animal means: that which is fixed, unmoving—bound, with no upward growth in life.
The Sanskrit word pashu is wondrous. Sanskrit’s words are wondrous. No language is as scientific in this sense as Sanskrit. Behind each word there is an entire metaphysics; words were not coined casually, they were refined by deep thought and contemplation.
Pashu comes from pash—bond, fetter. Pashu means: one who is bound—not “animal” as species, but one who is tied up, shackled, a slave to nature’s blind laws, unfree.
To rise above animality, let your practice be to do the opposite of what nature prompts you to do. When someone praises you, weep; when someone abuses you, laugh. If life begins to move by this simple sutra, moksha is not far. And you will not have to go seeking God—God will come seeking you. No need for your search then.
Once you change the ordinary process of life and reverse it, you enter the realm of truth; you step upon the path from which truth itself will draw you on.
Right now we are standing upside down. What we call standing upright is a headstand. Everything appears inverted to us. We will have to stand on our feet—become the reverse of what we are.
All the effort of the saints is only this: that your blind processes become conscious. Wherever you behave like an inert mechanism, become aware. And one becomes aware only when one transgresses nature. No awareness is needed to become angry when abused.
Anger is a stupor; it needs no awareness. But if, when abused, you are to forgive, you will have to be very alert; very aware; raise the mind to a great height; make the inner lamp blaze bright. And even then the old habit of anger may seize you and drag you down. Yet it is a delightful process. If a person begins to reverse life’s normal processes, great flavor becomes available; the whole of life becomes a laboratory.
Others will be amazed—people are amazed only when they see you are not blind; when you do not behave according to their easy expectations, they are puzzled and troubled.
Someone abuses Buddha—Buddha listens silently. Someone spits upon Buddha—Buddha quietly wipes it off with his shawl and says to the man, “Have you something more to say?” Ananda, his disciple, fills with anger: “What are you asking this man? He is mad! He spat on you! Give me permission and I will set him right.”
Buddha says, “I can forgive him, for he is ignorant—but you have been with me so long and are behaving utterly unconsciously! This man wants to say something he cannot put into words—so he expresses it by spitting.”
Spitting is a language. Often a feeling is so deep you cannot express it: you embrace someone—that is a language. Something so deep is in the heart that words cannot say it, so you press him to your chest.
Buddha says, “There is a very deep feeling in him he cannot express in words—so he has expressed it by spitting. He is filled with great rage, which words cannot exhaust. That is why I ask him: is there anything more to say? Is there any further commentary to add?”
The man became restless—because when you spit on someone you expect some uproar. But here a metaphysical discussion begins—that spitting too is a language, and that this man has said something! He felt guilty—“I have spat on the wrong man”—and went away.
The next morning he came, placed his head at Buddha’s feet, and began to weep. Tears flowed from his eyes. He said, “Forgive me. Yesterday I spat upon you; I did very wrong. I repented afterward. I could not sleep at night.” Buddha said, “You are utterly unknowing. How much time has passed since then! How much water has flowed in the Ganges since! Why are you carrying it now? And though you spat, I did not take it—so do not repent needlessly. You may have spat, but I was not hurt—so do not waste your remorse.”
Buddha then said to Ananda, “Look, this man wants to say something again. But the thing is so deep he cannot speak it—so his tears have washed my feet.”
As soon as a person begins to rise above the ordinary stream of life, a process full of great flavor begins. A very sweet and gentle journey begins—each day sweeter, each day more fragrant, and within, a nectar begins to flow. At the journey’s end is the showering of amrit.
But as we are—where we are—we are utterly inverted. We are doing what should not be done; living as we should not live. With our own hands we sow thorns, and place stones upon our own path, so the journey becomes impossible. We are our own enemies.
In both principle and conduct, if this sutra is remembered—that our intellect sees inversely—the key to life’s transformation comes into your hands.
Its fundamental element is that very God—He is Brahman and He is amrit. All worlds depend upon Him. No one can transcend Him. This is that Paramatma about whom you asked.
No one can transcend Him. There is no way beyond Him. Paramatma means exactly this: the end—the ultimate—the boundary beyond which nothing remains. If something remains beyond, it is not Paramatma.
Understand it this way: as long as there is any desire to get, you are not Paramatma. The day there remains in you no desire to get anything further, it means there is nowhere further to go; that day you have become Paramatma.
Therefore the wise have defined Paramatma as consciousness filled with nirvasana—desirelessness. For desire wants to overstep—further, yet further; it takes many forms and is never content. If you could be fulfilled in this very instant, as you are, and say: enough, nothing more—saying will not do; the feeling must pervade within—then in this very instant all darkness would fall away and you would be Paramatma.
Paramatma means: utter fulfillment in this moment—beyond which nothing remains.
But man is very troublesome. He drops one mischief only after preparing another.
A friend came to me—elderly, weeping, full of emotion: “My kundalini has still not awakened. For twenty years I have wandered; who knows how many ashrams, how many gurus, how many practices—but kundalini does not awaken.”
There is no lack of feeling in him, no lack of search, but his fundamental outlook is mistaken. He is seeking kundalini as one seeks wealth—and if it is not found, he weeps, grows anxious, tormented. Kundalini has become his greed.
Remember, this is the greatest difficulty of the inner journey: no entry is possible there through greed. Entry is through fulfillment.
Leave worry for what has not been attained; be grateful for what has, and the entry will deepen. But he is anxious. Kundalini will not awaken through anxiety; it has been held back by that very anxiety. Not that it has not come because he searched for twenty years, but because he searched for twenty years—it is delayed. That intense tension to get has shriveled everything within.
Wherever there is tension to get, there you are in the world. This race to get is the world. To be willing not to get is to begin to step out of the world.
One man runs after wealth, another after position, another after fame—and one after moksha. What is the difference? None. You cannot run after moksha. Moksha is for the one who stops.
You can run after wealth—for wealth does not come to the one who stands still; it often fails even the runner, so how would it come to the one who stands? Wealth, status, fame are all races. Moksha is not a race; moksha is halting, stopping.
A woman seeker told me today, “Still no experience is happening!” What is it to “experience”? If light appears within, will something happen? If colors begin to appear within, will something happen? If fragrance arises within, will something happen? If ash begins to fall from your hands, will something happen? If talismans manifest, will something happen? If you touch the sick and they are healed, will something happen? All that is the play of the world and of the mind.
The search for experience is greed. Let that search drop. Not experience is needed—but the experiencer. Recognition of the one to whom experience happens. Experiences are still objects—outer. Spirituality is not experience; spirituality is becoming one with the one to whom experiences occur. Before whom lights appear, in whose presence fragrances float, in whose vicinity rainbows spread, within whom music begins to play... Yet all these are still outside; even if these events occur with closed eyes, they are outside. The knower of them is further within. The knower is always—whenever he knows anything—more inward, behind, beyond. Until you rest in the knower, you will taste nothing of spirituality.
Some seek outer sensation—film, radio; some heroine has come, some dancer—let us see. Some seek inner sensations—let us awaken kundalini, let us see inner light, let us enjoy inner bliss. But the search is the same—some sensation, some excitation. Neither is spirituality.
Spirituality is the search for that consciousness, that witnessing, where all experiences end and only the experiencer remains; where all scenes are lost and only the Seer remains; where all knowables cease and only the Knower remains. The search for that keval-gyan, that Kaivalya—that is spirituality.
All worlds depend upon That; no one can overstep It. This is that Paramatma about whom you asked.
The day you reach that moment where nothing remains to overstep—know that home has been reached. Know that the temple sought has been found. This can happen in this very instant—for Paramatma has no relation to time: whether it takes a year, two years, two births, or fifty births, depends on you. It can take infinite births—or one moment is enough.
Let this understanding dawn clearly: there is nothing to overstep, nowhere to go, nothing to get. Let a conscious feeling of utter fulfillment arise with what I am—let the lamp of contentment be lit—and in this very instant you enter that which cannot be crossed. The one who strives to cross will keep wandering in the world.
We are all trying to cross—more! more! whatever it is—whether kundalini or wealth—more! more is needed! Whatever we get, the scramble for “more” never ends; the inner bustle goes on—more! more! This “more” is the world.
Being content with what is; acceptance of what is; tathata with what is—a supreme “ah, so!”—with no urge to overstep it.
The urge to overstep is ambition. If you have ten rupees, ambition says: how will it do without a hundred? If you have a hundred, ambition says: how without a thousand? And this urge never ends.
Andrew Carnegie died with a billion dollars; two days before dying he said, “I die unfulfilled—my intention was to gather ten billion.”
A mere one billion! As if a beggar says, “Only ten coins! Ten new coins!” One billion only! The plan was ten billion. Do not think ten billion would have made any difference. If one billion made no difference, what difference would ten make? By the time you reach ten, your ambition will have reached a hundred. It is always ahead of you. As your shadow follows you from behind, ambition runs ahead. Wherever you arrive, it is further ahead.
Bayazid, the Sufi fakir, has said: ambition is like the horizon of the sky—the distance between you and the horizon remains the same no matter how far you travel. Because the horizon is nowhere; it only appears. It seems that sky touches earth far away, but sky touches earth nowhere. You move and it seems you will soon arrive at the place where sky meets earth; the more you proceed, the more the horizon recedes. You can circle the entire earth and return to your spot—still it seems just as far. It never touches; it only seems to do so.
There is no way to reduce the distance between you and the horizon. You may think: perhaps walking will not do—maybe in a car, or flying—no, there is no way, because there is no actual line of horizon; otherwise there could be a way. There is only the appearance of a line; it only seems.
Ambition’s line is like the horizon. It seems that the line is at one billion; by the time you reach one billion the line has moved forward. This gives a deep economic insight too: between rich and poor, however great the difference in wealth, there is no difference in poverty.
One man has ten coins; he wants a hundred—he is short by ninety. One has ten rupees; wants a hundred—short by ninety rupees. The figure of ninety remains constant. Ten billion, and the wish is for a hundred—again the ninety remains. That is the distance between the horizon and man—ninety. What you have is irrelevant—but you will remain poor by the measure of ninety.
The beggar and the emperor are equally poor. Their ledger numbers differ, but their longing is human longing. No matter what one has, there is a fixed distance to desire. Do you think the horizon appears different to a beggar and to an emperor? The horizon is the same. Both may travel—an emperor with all his wealth and a poor man with all his poverty—the distance remains as it was. It never diminishes or increases.
There are two kinds of poor in the world: those who have wealth and those who do not. In poverty there is no other distinction.
Then who can be rich? He alone whose horizon lies not ahead but under his feet. That is the meaning of contentment—whose horizon is where his foot is; who sees the sky meet the earth wherever his foot falls, and nowhere else. The day such a feeling fills someone, that feeling is called sannyas, dispassion, contentment—whatever name you give. That person is freed from the race.
The one free of the race is free of the madness to overstep. The one free of that madness enters that Paramatma which cannot be overstepped by any means.
From Parabrahman, Parameshwar, this entire universe has emerged; it moves in that life-form God alone. Those who know that Almighty—fearsome like an upraised thunderbolt—become immortal, free of birth and death.
Here a very important word is used—worth pondering. There are two streams of seekers toward God in the world. One says God is of the nature of love; the other says God is of the nature of fear. They are quite opposite.
Tulsidas has said: without fear there is no love. If there is no fear of God, there will be no love. But the other stream—which believes God is love, as Jesus said “God is love”—will say: where fear is, love cannot be. One you fear—you can hate, but how love? Out of fear you may bow, but there will be no reverence. From fear you may place your head at the feet, but there can be no surrender. Where there is fear, love has no way.
Yet those who say that God is fear-form—that the moon and stars move by His fear, that nature holds to its track by His fear, that order exists by His fear, and if His fear breaks, the whole order breaks; that discipline comes by fear—their point too is worth understanding. Both streams are worth understanding—and both lead to Him.
That God is love—this is easy to understand. He must be—supreme love, the abode of love, and streams of love flowing toward us. This is not difficult, because our notion of God is the projection of our notion of father and mother. Hence we have not called God father or mother without reason—but with cause.
Psychologists like Freud say: the notion of God is an extension, a projection, of the notion of father. Children who grow near their father, who are filled with the father’s love and respect, will later become religious; those filled with disobedience, opposition, rebellion toward the father, will become atheists. The relationship between father and son will determine the relationship between the person and God. There is meaning in Freud’s point.
But even in the father there are two streams—he loves, and the child also fears him; along with love, fear. The great fear is this: that he can withhold his love if he so wishes.
What is the child’s greatest fear? If mother or father wishes, they can deprive him of love. That is fear. They can give love—and they can stop giving love. For the child there is no greater fear—for he is helpless; if the love of father and mother is not received, he is finished. Then death is felt. If the mother simply turns her face and says, “No, I have nothing to do with you,” the child’s agony is beyond our grasp.
With the one we love, there is always a shadow—fear: love can be destroyed, broken; love may not be given. Obstacles may arise between us and love.
Therefore the son does not only love the father—he also fears him. Both feelings persist together. The great art is for the father to establish a balance between these two. Otherwise he proves an unfit father. To be a fit father is very difficult. Bearing children is the easiest thing; what could be easier? But being a father is difficult; being a mother is difficult—giving birth is easy.
The difficulty is to balance fear and love. If the father frightens the son so much that faith in love itself fades, the son is ruined—for all his life he will not be able to love anyone.
A child who has not received love will live without love. He may talk incessantly of love, write poems, compose scriptures—but love will not be in his life. The first touch through which the seed of love sprouts—if that does not sprout through the parents, he will not be able to love anyone again. That enraged son will become a cause of destruction everywhere.
Today, schools and universities have become sources of turmoil worldwide—especially in the West where there is fierce fire; it is spreading east too, because our Eastern schools are not Eastern, they are imitations of the West. So diseases born there arrive here in two or three years. We are behind in everything—new medicine reaches our hospitals after years; diseases also take time to arrive. We lag in every way.
There is a great rebellion of youth there—against the old generation, education, culture, society. Psychologists now say the root cause is that these children did not receive love from their parents; this generation grew up without love. And love has diminished in the West—because before children grow up, divorces happen. Fifty out of a hundred marriages end in divorce—fifty families break apart. Fathers change, mothers change. One must grow up with a step-mother or a step-father. The stream of love in life is broken everywhere.
The children born in the last thirty years amid rising divorce did not receive love—they are taking revenge. They cannot love; they are filled with destruction. Love is creative; when love is absent, one starts breaking, destroying.
Those who have studied Hitler say he did not receive the love of his mother and father. That deprivation became the cause of such a terrible war—Hitler wanted to break, to destroy in every way. He had no taste for building—for without love, building has no taste.
The day love enters your life, creativity arrives with it. A young man falls in love with a young woman—immediately he begins to think of making a home; how to arrange the house, how to earn… a creative process begins. Where there is no love, the stream of destruction is chosen.
The rebellions of youth worldwide arise from lack of love. Youth everywhere is becoming atheistic—they will. For those who did not receive a father’s or mother’s love cannot even imagine that the world has a Father or a Mother; and if there is one, he deserves to be shot, not worshiped.
The art of being father or mother is this: where fear alone is… those fathers or mothers who impose discipline suppress all their love, fearing the child may be spoiled by love; they frighten him, attempt to reform him by the stick. That reform finally becomes a perversion.
But on the other side too there is a precipice: some parents, frightened by Western psychologists—“do not frighten the child even a little, do not scare, do not impose, do not load discipline, otherwise he will become rebellious”—have themselves become afraid; only love, only love… but love alone becomes poisonous. For love alone means licentiousness. Then the child feels that love is his right—you must give love; there is no question of earning love by doing something. No—he has a right, and no duty.
If parents give only love and no presence of fear, the child is spoiled. He will demand love from the whole world—but the world is not your parents; the world is not sitting to give you love. In the world there is struggle, competition, war. No one is waiting to pour love upon you.
And the child whose parents gave only love becomes soft—so soft he cannot stand in struggle; he breaks. He expects love from all. He stretches hands everywhere—“Love me.” He forgets that the world may give love—but you must earn it. You must do something in your life. You must deserve love—it is not free.
Parents’ love may be free—in the world, love will not be free. A wife’s love is not free either; it too must be earned. Then the child searches for parents—he may become theist and sit in the temple with folded hands, “O Father! O Supreme Father!”—but his life will be barren; the maturity and strength born of struggle will be absent.
Hence psychologists now say: the art of being parent is to maintain a balance between fear and love—enough fear that the child does not turn rebellious; enough love that he does not become habituated to free love. It is subtle—like a rope stretched between two peaks on which a performer walks, maintaining balance at every step. If he tilts a bit to the left, he leans to the right so as not to fall left; as soon as he leans right to the point of falling, he leans left again. When fear creates dread, bring in love; when love creates laxity, bring in fear. The one who holds himself like the tightrope walker between these two can be a skillful father, a skillful mother.
There are two views regarding God as well.
Christianity holds that God is love. The conflict between Jesus and Judaism was precisely this, for Judaism holds: God is fearsome. The Jewish scripture would agree with Yama’s statement that He is fear-form like a raised thunderbolt—always with a weapon in hand: a small thing, and He will destroy; a small displeasure, and He will rain fire; a small anger, and there will be deluge. Judaism is based on fear—God is terrible, an immense energy not necessarily filled with love.
Understand this: that immense energy is not loving—it is gracious only to those who move in accord with it; those who go against it, it crushes.
In poetry this may not sound pleasant, but science agrees: none of the world’s laws are loving. That does not mean they are your enemy.
The earth has gravitation. If you walk askew, you will fall; your bones will break. The earth’s pull will not forgive you because you used to say, “Mother Earth!” or bowed to her feet many times. If you walk crookedly, a bone will break; Mother Earth will show no pity. If you go against the law, you will suffer. But if you walk carefully, the earth is not at all eager to break your bones.
Science too says: the laws of the world are not loving. That does not mean they are your foes; it means they are neutral. If you move in accord with them, you attain joy; if against them, you attain sorrow.
In the language of old religions like Judaism that consider God fear-form, the meaning is the same: He is not your enemy, but He is the eternal law. If you move in accord with Him, you can reach supreme moksha; if you move against Him, you will fall into great hell.
Yama is describing His fear-form to Nachiketa—and rightly so, for Yama is himself the process of fear; Yama means god of death. How would the god of death speak of love? He will speak of fear.
And Yama’s statement is half-true: those who expect only love from God will be destroyed—because they will make no effort to transform themselves. Those who are also in awe of God, who understand: if I am out of tune, my praises will not avail—God cannot be swayed by flattery; only by my conduct… and even then I do not change God, I change myself—when my conduct is right, I flow in God’s current.
When one flows with the river, the river carries him to the ocean; fight against the river and it becomes fearsome. God is fearsome if we oppose Him; God is loving if we are in accord. If we float with the river’s current, God will carry us; then we need not even swim—no need to stir an arm; the river itself will carry us.
Ramakrishna used to say: just recognize the direction of His winds, then unfurl your sail. Then you will not need to row; His winds will carry your boat to the goal. But recognize the wind’s direction; if you go against it, you will have to labor hard—and even with labor you will not succeed; you will only break—because no one succeeds fighting the Vast.
Fearsome means only this: do not fight the Vast; surrender to it.
Those who know that Almighty—fearsome like a raised thunderbolt—become immortal, freed from birth and death.
For in truth, if we rightly understand, death itself is the outcome of our wrong movement. We bind ourselves to the body; thus death happens. If we do not bind to the body, death does not happen.
Only the body dies—we do not; but we tie ourselves to the body. It is as if one rides a paper boat—then the boat sinks; the fault is not in the boat or the ocean—you chose a paper boat; sinking was certain. That it went as far as it did was miracle enough.
He who binds himself to the body has prepared for dying—for the body is of death. Whoever moves with what is mortal moves against the Immortal; he will die again and again. Whoever moves in tune with the Immortal, does not bind to the mortal—says Yama—becomes free of all fear, free of death, released from birth and death.
Those become immortal who remember the fear-form of God and fill their lives with discipline in accord with Him.
It is from fear of Him that fire burns; from fear of Him that the sun blazes; from fear of Him that Indra, wind, and the fifth—Death—remain engaged in their works.
If before the body falls, in this human body the seeker can behold Paramatma directly—then good; otherwise he is compelled for countless aeons to assume bodies in many worlds and wombs.
In the human state, in the human womb, there is a special feature. Below man there are wombs—animals, birds, trees, the spread of matter. Above man there are wombs—devas, residents of heavens. Behind man and ahead of man, on both sides, there are wombs. Man is the middle womb. Being the middle there is a special feature—man is a crossroads. From here roads lead downward, and upward; and from here too a road leads to freedom from both above and below. Let us understand.
The lower wombs are drenched entirely in suffering—hell, in effect. There is only suffering; so much suffering that even the hope of freedom from it does not arise. Hope arises only when there is some trace of joy.
Psychologists who study revolutions say: revolution does not happen when suffering is greatest. This seems contrary. Students of politics think revolution arises when there is great suffering. This is wrong. When suffering is extreme, there is no revolution—people become habituated; without hope of joy, why revolt?
Political thinkers say the poor make revolution, which is false. The poor cannot. Revolutionaries are born in the middle class. Whether Lenin or Marx—all are born in middle-class families.
Neither in the wealthy nor in the very poor are revolutionaries born. The middle—the ones who know sorrow and yet hope for joy; who are neither in palaces nor huts but in between—if they try, they may reach the palace; if they do not, they may soon fall into a hut. Those stuck in between, with a sense of sorrow and a dream of happiness—these create revolution.
Behind man is the world of suffering; hence no animal seeks moksha—torpor and pain are so dense that even hope is absent; without hope, no effort is made.
In India, in five thousand years of history, the shudras never rebelled—there was no hope; no reason to rebel. The British gave hope. After their coming, hope began for the shudras: the state is not Hindu—they can rebel. Hope of education—under a Hindu system they could never be educated. Educated, they could find jobs. They began to become middle-class—the moment some shudras entered the middle class, revolution naturally arose in their minds.
You will be surprised: those who fought India’s freedom were all those who returned educated from the West—whether Gandhi, Nehru, or Aurobindo. The West gave slavery and also freedom. Why? Those who remained entirely in India had no hope.
Subhas has written in his memoirs: when I went to Europe for education, and I saw an Englishman polish my shoes, I realized slavery is not inevitable—an Englishman can polish shoes too; so their lordship is no inherent truth.
Those who studied abroad felt hope—and the result was India entered the freedom struggle. Those educated only in India could not develop that hope.
Beyond man are wombs of great joy—heavens. From joy, no one makes revolution—he who is content will not change; one who has something to lose fears change.
So to neutralize a revolutionary, give him something—offer a post. However communist he may be, give him a ministry, and revolution is over. A Fiat car can destroy revolution. Once he has something to lose, fear of change arises. The contented do not want transformation; joy always wants status quo.
Therefore, in heaven there is no revolution. No Buddha has arisen there, no Mahavira, no Krishna. Heaven has wanton gods—Indra, who has no value in the eyes of wisdom, whose business is to dance apsaras. They have no stories of their own austerity; rather, if someone else practices, they take delight in disturbing him. If some rishi is sitting under a tree, they enjoy sending Urvashi to distract him.
No one has ever been liberated from heaven; why would one wish freedom from joy? Therefore excess of joy is a curse—just as excess of suffering is a curse.
Man is the middle-class womb—neither in hell nor in heaven—like Trishanku, in between. A slight error and he falls to hell; a little awareness and he enters heaven. He is in the middle.
The human womb is the state of transformation—and if he understands rightly, he will desire neither hell nor heaven; because joy, enjoyed again and again, becomes stale, becomes suffering. If you go to heaven, you will find every god yawning—bored. Beautiful women present twenty-four hours a day—you will long to run away: “Let me be alone for a while.”
Beauty too becomes ugliness; sweets, eaten continuously, make the tongue crave the opposite; immersed in comfort, the mind longs for inconvenience. Those in heaven are terribly bored. Where there is boredom, entertainment must be arranged. Where entertainment multiplies, boredom increases. There are many stories: gods of heaven long to come to earth to love some maiden; Urvashi longs to love a Pururava of earth. Here there is some flavor, because life is not wholly pleasant—there is struggle, hardship, inconvenience.
He who understands that suffering is suffering, and joy too becomes suffering in the end; that one seeks freedom—not heaven, not hell. He wants to go beyond all desires.
From the human state three paths open—one of suffering, one of joy, and one of moksha, of liberation. Liberation is neither joy nor suffering—liberation is beyond both.
If, before the fall of the body, in this human body the seeker cannot behold Paramatma—if he can, well and good; if not—then for countless aeons he is compelled to assume bodies in many worlds and wombs.
After a very long journey, consciousness sometimes arrives at the human state—then the cycle of long journey begins again.
Those who, being human, are not filled with the thirst for moksha—their future is dark. It is impossible to say how long their journey will be; when they will again arrive at the crossroads—who knows? Missing the crossroads is easy; time is short. To find the crossroads again may be very difficult.
It is like this: a man is driving his car fast. He stops and asks a man resting under a tree, “How far is Delhi?” The man replies, “It depends. In the direction you are going, Delhi is very far—because it has been left behind. If you are willing to turn around, Delhi is very near—but you will have to change direction.”
Man is rushing toward death; the place of freedom lies behind, slipping away every moment. When you will again find this conjunction—who can say?
If you stop, become still—leave the worry of moving forward and begin to move within; change direction from outer to inner, from matter to Paramatma—the wandering through wombs ends. Man becomes a-yoni—free of womb. He is liberated—no more entry into any other body.
Yama said to Nachiketa: this is that Paramatma about whom you asked.
Now, prepare for meditation.