Kathopanishad #14

A few more words in connection with yesterday’s sutra.

A very great German thinker, Rudolf Otto, wrote an important book—The Idea of the Holy. In it he repeatedly uses a word—tremendum: the Divine as the “awful,” the overwhelming. Yama also gave Nachiketa a vision of the Divine as fearsome. This view needs to be understood more deeply, because there is a possibility of misunderstanding.

First, that the Divine is fearsome is not really the nature of the Divine; it is our fear. Rather than saying, “God is terrible,” it is more accurate to say, “We are afraid.” And we should understand the cause of our fear. A drop, before falling into the ocean, will tremble, for to fall into the ocean means to cease, to end. The drop’s fear is natural.

To merge with the ocean is to die. Death produces fear. But if the drop could know that there is another aspect to disappearing into the ocean—that as a drop it will vanish, but as the ocean it will be—what is small will be lost, what is vast will be attained—if only the drop could see that its death is also a meeting with the Vast, then its fear would dissolve. And if the drop could see that its death is the doorway to supreme life, then the drop could experience the Divine as love.

Whether the Divine appears fearsome or loving depends on our vision. When a person moves in search of the Supreme, the hour comes to disappear. The moment arrives when the self must be lost. And wherever the loss of the self is evoked, it is natural that the heart trembles with fear.

Why do we fear death? Because it will erase us. Yet even death does not erase in the way the Divine erases. After death we still remain; we take new bodies, journey into new wombs. In death only the body is dropped; our “being” is not dropped. But the Divine erases our very sense of being—our form dissolves in the formless, our shape in the shapeless; our ego too is snatched away. That is the greater death—the Great Death.

So if we fear ordinary death, it is natural that we fear the Divine. That fear is not the nature of God; it is the fear of our ego. But for one who is ready to disappear, the Divine is not fearsome; for one ready to disappear, the Divine is love.

Understand it this way too: it is because of fear that people are unable to love. For love also dissolves; it wipes out the lover. The ego’s very identity drowns. He who is not ready to lose himself in love never attains love.

Love means immersion, a preparedness to drown, a willingness to be effaced. Love, in a small way, is the destruction of the ego. The fearful person cannot love. But for one who is ready to lose himself, a great love arises in life, and a great rain of bliss begins. So fear and love depend upon whether we are ready to disappear or not.

Those who go deep in meditation come to me sooner or later and certainly say, “A moment came when we began to fear that we might cease to be; we were frightened and returned.” That was precisely the moment when the Divine was near. Many meditators turn back at the last moment—just before the leap, the drop is falling into the ocean and then pulls back—returns to the shore. It is natural that this happen to everyone.

Meditation too is death, for meditation is a leap into the Vast. When panic seizes you, know that the right moment has come; do not turn back then. Only one who can hold courage in that moment is a seeker. The one who is frightened and returns to the mind, re-establishing himself in his former stance, misses a great opportunity. Who knows when that moment will return! If you have missed such a moment, when it comes again, do not miss it. That is what we are seeking—this very disappearance is our search.

But the ego clutches till the end. Fear arises: “I may be erased, I may die.” Under that reverberation of fear we snap back into the body, we clutch the bank tightly lest the river carry us away.

The Divine appears fearsome because the Divine is the Great Death. But the greater the death, the greater the birth that comes from it. Small death, small life.

The death we know is a small death—only the body dies; mind remains, ego remains, everything remains. But with the great death, a greater life is born. The more the readiness to disappear, the more the measure of rebirth. One who is ready to be completely erased attains the perfect life.

Jesus said, “Unless you lose yourself, you cannot find Him. Whoever seeks to save himself will lose himself; whoever loses himself, only he is saved.” Again and again Jesus took the example of the seed: as the seed loses itself in the soil, it sprouts; likewise, the day you lose yourself in the Vast, the great life will be born within you.

That life then has no end. What could have ended you, you have already lost. What could have perished, you have willingly put aside. Only that remains which cannot be destroyed. Only that remains for which there is no way of losing it.

This is why the Divine appears fearsome. But that fear is our projection. And since these words are spoken by the god of death, they are inevitably partial. If there were a god of birth, he would say, “The Divine is love.”

Understand this too.

If there were a god of birth, he would say, “The Divine is love,” because the process of birth is through love; the sprouting of life is through love. Life’s first thrill, first pulsation is through love. If there were a god of love, he would know only half; he would declare, “The Divine is love.” Had Nachiketa asked not Yama but Brahma—the god of birth, of creation—then the statement “God is fearsome” would not have come; then God would be love. But that too would be half.

The god of death knows only death. He knows not the first dawn of life, only the last dimming flame. Whenever the god of death has seen someone go out, he has seen him trembling with fear—that is natural. Trillions have died, and the god of death is witness to all. Whoever he has seen disappearing, he has seen trembling. So the testimony of the god of death is meaningful—but incomplete.

And the god of death knows that the Divine is the Great Death. If in my mere presence people tremble and want not to die, trying every trick to stay—let everything go, somehow let me remain!—blind, lame, maimed, leprous, old, sick, lying in the street with nothing to eat—even so, no one wants to die. Let everything go—only let the breath go on. Even if there is great hell, suffering, pain—yet no one consents to die.

From such experience, it is natural for the god of death to conclude that the Divine must be even more fearsome—for there, everything is obliterated. Only emptiness remains where you were. It carries you away completely.

Words spoken by the god of death are therefore partial. Words spoken by the god of birth would also be partial. But those who have known both birth and death—the awakened ones—will say two things. Either they will say the Divine is both—both love and fear—or they will say the Divine is neither; it only appears as either, according to our state of mind.

The second is closer to the truth. The Divine is neutral. We see in it what our mind-state is. Our mind, our tendencies, our ideas, our understanding color it. The Divine is colorless, formless. It is neither fear nor love; it is neutral. If we are afraid of dissolving, it appears fearsome. If we are ready to dissolve, it appears loving.

To Jesus, the Divine appeared as love. He even defined God as “love,” because Jesus was ready to disappear. On the cross we saw that Jesus was not in the least afraid of dissolving. He embraced dissolution upon the cross so simply that the cross became his symbol. Such was his readiness for death that his symbol became the cross. Death was accepted, natural. Hence if to Jesus God seemed love, it is perfectly natural.

Your God will be a reflection of your mind. Your God is your own creation. You yourself make the conception, the notion.

As I see, the Divine is neither of the two. The Divine is a vast, formless, void-like existence. In it we see ourselves. Hence as a person evolves, his God evolves.

God does not evolve; God is as He is. But as man evolves, his notion of God evolves—his conception, his apprehension, develops.

Different peoples conceive God differently. Different ages conceive God differently. Different individuals shape different perceptions, different images of God.

God is one, but all will see Him differently. And as long as any “meaning” appears to you in God, know that He has not yet been seen; you are still peering at yourself reflected there.

The day no meaning appears in the Divine; the day no image forms, the mirror remains utterly blank—nothing appears there, only the supreme void—on that day know that what you have known is true. It is not a projection of the mind.

That is why Buddha calls the supreme truth shunya—emptiness. Until that supreme truth manifests as emptiness, we will go on projecting ourselves upon it; this is natural to man—and natural even to Yama.

The Divine is a neutral energy, leaning to no side. Its being involves no choice—choiceless. It has no party, no position. In that state there is no color, no form. Therefore whatever we see there, remember: the seeing depends on us.

The day nothing at all appears there, a vast blankness remains—no Krishna there, no Rama there, no image of Buddha, no Jesus; neither fear nor love; nothing at all appears—this will happen on the day your mind becomes so stainless that no stain reflects upon the Divine. The day you become inner emptiness, that day the Divine becomes emptiness.

I wish to tell you: as you are, so will be your God. This is Yama’s statement—it is partial. Brahma’s statement would also be partial. Each knows one end: one the end of birth, the other the end of death.

But you—who are both, who are born and will die, who touch both ends—if you become aware, you will find that the Divine is neutral. It is neither love nor fear.

Now let us enter the sutra.

As an object is seen in a clean mirror, so in a pure antahkaran the vision of Brahman occurs.

In a pure antahkaran the vision of Brahman occurs. The purer the inner organ, the purer the vision of Brahman. If the inner organ is perfectly pure, the vision is perfectly pure. If the mirror is distorted, the reflections are distorted; if the mirror is cracked, the reflections are shattered; if the mirror is tilted, the slant enters the image.

Hence the utter purity of the mirror—of the antahkaran—is essential for a pure vision of Brahman. Yet there can be many kinds of visions, because the mirror can be in many conditions. These are the conditions of the mirror:

As objects appear clear in a dream, so in Pitrlok the Lord appears.

These lokas symbolize different states. First: if the antahkaran is pure, then even here, on this very Earth-plane, the direct vision of the Divine is possible. If the inner organ is not so pure, then, upon the dropping of the body—Pitrlok, the realm where bodiless souls dwell—there too the Divine is seen. When the body is gone, the distortions the body brings to the mind are absent. There the vision of the Divine is as clear as a dream is clear.

As a flicker of a form appears in water, so in Gandharvalok there is but a glimpse of the Divine.

But in heaven, in the realm of the gandharvas, as in water where only a faint glimmer of a thing appears—so in heaven there is only a suggestion, an aura.

Swargaloka is filled with the excitement of pleasure. We know that sorrow is an excitation; what we do not know is that pleasure too is an excitation. In sorrow the mind trembles and quivers; in pleasure too the mind trembles and quivers. Therefore those who seek bliss seek freedom from excitation—whether of sorrow or of pleasure.

Have you noticed that pleasure also makes you shake? It is astonishing. Medical science says: heart attacks occur less in sorrow, more in joy. Heart-failure does not happen in grief but in moments of happiness. It should not be so; it is the reverse. One would think the sorrowful die of panic, but they do not. The happy die from the blow of happiness.

Thus the happier a country becomes, the more heart disease increases. In poor and unhappy lands heart disease is rare. Tribals have no notion of heart disease. There is much suffering, yet no heart disease. To get heart disease you need to be affluent, you need to be happy.

Medicine says it is a strange fact: in happiness the heart trembles so much that it breaks. In sorrow it does not tremble as much. Sorrow is easier to bear; happiness is difficult to bear. Many pass through sorrow; not many pass through happiness unshaken—great skill is needed, otherwise one breaks.

If some sudden good fortune happens, what a shock it gives! If someone arrives and says, “You’ve won five lakh in the lottery,” there is fear you may not live to collect it. You will tremble instantly—too much. But if five lakh are lost, you will tremble too, but not as much. Receiving five lakh hits the heart harder than losing five lakh.

Pleasure is a kind of intense excitation. Gandharvalok—where joy showers…these lokas are symbols. Many among us are in Gandharvalok here itself; many are in Pitrlok here; many in Narakalok; many in Brahmalok—here. These are psychological states more than geographical places.

Where there is much pleasure, at most a glimmer of the Divine is possible—because the mirror is always trembling, excited. Understand it also this way: this is why happy people forget God. In happiness, prayer, worship, temple—all are forgotten. In sorrow perhaps He is remembered; in happiness even the memory does not arise. From sorrow one wants release—hence the search for God. From happiness one does not want release—so why search for God?

A Sufi fakir, Junnaid, was always ill—this ailment, then another. His disciples said, “Junnaid, be well! You need only signal to God that you would not be ill, and the matter ends.” Junnaid replied, “I continually pray to Him to keep me in some small ailment or another.” The disciples said, “Have you gone mad? What kind of prayer is this?” Junnaid said, “When illness remains, I can remember Him. In the suffering I can pray. Once I remained healthy for many days, and I forgot Him. Since then my prayer is: keep me in a little pain.”

In sorrow, the memory of Him comes; in happiness it disappears. In happiness, at most, a faint glimmer may be had—like a reflection on water.

But if someone becomes videha—which Yama calls Pitrlok… Videha does not necessarily mean your body has dropped; it is enough that the memory of the body has dropped. Hence we called King Janaka videha while alive. No memory of body, no sense of body—whether the body is or is not makes no difference; the body is forgotten.

In such videha-hood the glimpse is as clear as things appear in a dream. But in dream the eyes are closed; there are visions, perceptions. The instant the eyes open, those perceptions vanish—like a dream.

And in Brahmalok, like shade and sunlight, the forms of the self and the Supreme Self appear distinct and clear.

So there is a videha state, where the perception is dream-clear—but dream-clear; it vanishes upon “opening the eyes,” fades as the world appears.

A second state: where the mind is full of the excitations of pleasure—there only a hint, a whiff, a distant sound of Him is heard. Or like a reflection in quivering water—the water quivers each moment; the reflection cannot be steady.

The third is the state of Brahmalok. That state is called Brahmalok when you are pure in every way—your antahkaran completely pure—almost Brahman-like. No distortion. There, things become as clear as two plus two—clear as in waking, not as in dream. This state—Brahmalok—is the ultimate height of inner purity.

What is this antahkaran? We must understand. What we commonly call “conscience” is not antahkaran. In English there is the word “conscience”; in Sanskrit, antahkaran. You go to steal; a voice within says, “Stealing is bad—don’t.” We call this antahkaran. It is not. It is pseudo-conscience—implanted by society; it is not yours. There are tribes which do not regard stealing as sin. In Rajasthan there are Jat clans which for centuries did not count theft as sin. In olden times a Jat youth could not be married unless he had pulled off some successful thefts; at marriage they would ask: how many thefts has he accomplished? It was proof of skill.

Theft demands skill—everyone cannot do it. Intelligence is needed—sharp intelligence. Courage too; the timid cannot. Even taking one’s own property with a steady hand is hard; to take another’s as one’s own demands a very hard heart. To walk in the dark of one’s own house is hard; to move in another’s in darkness requires eyes in your feet. And a heart that remains without a tremor. A kind of one-pointedness is required.

A thief is very concentrated; his mind rests on one point. If his mind wanders, he will land in trouble. One target, and all life-energy flows in that direction.

Thus theft was not bad in every society. In a society where theft is not bad, never will the thought arise “stop” while stealing; no “conscience” will say it.

A Hindu, if he marries a second wife while the first is alive, his inner conscience says, “Sin, wrong.” A Muslim may marry four—no problem; the Quran permits four. Muhammad himself married nine. Not a worry. Do not think Muhammad did badly.

Remember our Krishna: compared to him, Muhammad is nothing. Yet we never condemned Krishna; there is the story of sixteen thousand queens. You may call it a fable—sixteen thousand! One woman can stir so much trouble—Krishna must have been brave! But in that society there was no disapproval. Emperors routinely had hundreds of wives.

Even in the twentieth century the Nizam of Hyderabad had five hundred wives. If in the twentieth century a man could have five hundred, then sixteen thousand—only thirty-two times that—need not be exaggerated; no need to call it a story. It is possible. But no obstacle existed; the social view was that an emperor would have many wives. In fact, the measure of an emperor’s grandeur was how many wives; it was the arithmetic of his wealth. A poor man cannot maintain even one wife. Keeping a wife is expensive—not all can afford it. Thus, the greater the emperor, the more the wives—it was accepted.

Hence no obstacle stood in the way of an emperor marrying thousands. No feeling of guilt arose; no “conscience” said, “What are you doing?” It depends on what society teaches.

Gambling was accepted; Yudhishthira gambled. We never stripped him of the title “Dharmaraj.” Today even an irreligious man who gambles feels a pang in his conscience; Yudhishthira felt none. And the gambling was no small thing—he staked everything, even his wife. Try staking your wife today—your chest will not support you; “conscience” will refuse. But Yudhishthira felt nothing—and those who wrote after him raised no objection. No doubt arose about his being Dharmaraj.

Society accepted it; gambling was a game, and the greater the player, the greater the stakes. Yudhishthira was a great player; he had the courage to stake his wife. There was no moral prohibition, no difficulty.

Draupadi had five husbands. Yet we count her among the five great maidens. Those who counted thus had a different understanding. Today, where would we place a woman with five husbands? We would not count her among the five maidens to be remembered at dawn. But those who counted saw no obstacle—five husbands could be; as five wives could be, five husbands could be. Where polygyny and polyandry are accepted, “conscience” takes no wound.

This so-called conscience depends on society; it is not the true antahkaran. It is socially implanted, imposed from above. The purification of this “conscience” has nothing to do with the Divine. By antahkaran the Upanishad means something else.

Our senses are bahirkaran—outer instruments—through which we know the outside. Antahkaran is that by which we know within, by which consciousness becomes alert inwardly. This inward-knowing, which we call vivek, prajna—one of its names is antahkaran.

The polishing of this inner prajna is not attained by merely conforming to social conscience—nor by rebelling against it. I do not mean you should create needless disturbances by opposing society. That is not needed. It is a compromise, a way to live in society.

Where so many hold to one thing, quietly moving with them creates less trouble, and you can journey inward more easily; otherwise useless entanglements arise in small matters, and you get stuck outside.

If sages have accepted social norms, it is not because they are right but because peacefulness makes the inward journey easier. Understand this well. If sages have accepted the arrangements of society, it is not because they are perfect—no social arrangement is perfect, nor can it be. Until all individuals are whole, there is no way for their sum to be whole.

Society, inevitably, is flawed and will remain so; we can only hope it becomes less flawed. Only the individual can become wholly right; society is a crowd. As water finds its own level, so the crowd finds its level—always settling to the level of its lowest members.

Whether society’s beliefs are right or wrong is not crucial. The sage accepts them so that no outer disturbance arises and he may move inward smoothly.

But this antahkaran is not life’s ultimate. Antahkaran is the name of the inner conscious capacity by which we see within rather than without.

Close your eyes and within there is darkness; yet in that darkness there seems to be someone who knows. Close your ears and an inner silence-sound begins, and even in that you sense a listener.

This inner knower, inner seer-listener—this is your antahkaran. Deepen it. At first its glimpse will be very faint, because we are so habituated to looking outward that our eyes have been harnessed for the outside. Suddenly we close them and nothing is seen.

It is as when you step from sunlight into a dark room—at first you see nothing. Sit a while; the eyes change their focus, adjust to the room. The darkness seems less. Sit longer, become one with the room. Soon the room seems lit; even in the darkest room, if you consent to sit, after a while things begin to be seen. But we never sit in our inner dark room. We close our eyes for a moment perhaps…

People come to me and say, “You say look within, look within. We close our eyes and there is nothing to see.”

For lives upon lives you have looked without—since beginningless time. After so long, when you enter within, darkness will appear. It does not mean darkness is there; rather, the kind of light you are used to is not there. Another kind of light is there, and for that another kind of patience is needed.

If one would do just this: sit each day for one hour with eyes closed, looking within—whether anything appears or not—within three months he will find an inner luminosity. Only one hour—such a little waiting, doing nothing else.

But we have so little patience—no patience at all. A man sits for two minutes and says, “No use! Nothing appears. No soul, no vision of Brahman—forget it. In that time I could at least listen to the news or read the paper again!”

Patience is absent. Yet in the inner journey, patience is the very soul of all effort.

Do nothing else: sit every day for one hour with eyes closed; whether anything happens or not, keep trying to look within, to feel your way. In a few days you will find the darkness is not as dense as you thought. A little light appears; things begin to grow clearer. After three months of patient looking, for the first time you will understand what antahkaran is.

Antahkaran means the inner sense that can see within. Karana means instrument; antah means that which leads inward.

Our other senses are outer instruments. The inner sense we are not using. Note: whatever sense is not used loses its elasticity. Bind your legs for a year; afterward you will not be able to walk. They could once walk, but if they lie inert for a year, they will not. Whatever you do not use becomes inert.

Use is part of life; through it things remain alert. We have stopped using many capacities; they have withered. And we have not used the antahkaran for who knows how many lives—perhaps never used it.

Thus a little waiting, patience, is essential. Legs that have not walked need massage, a little practice; slowly life returns, blood runs, prana flows. So with antahkaran.

Yama says to Nachiketa—pure antahkaran. The day this inner sense becomes fully potent and capable of seeing, and its perception becomes pure—things begin to be clear—at the final purity is Brahmalok, where you become Brahman-like. There, not as in dream; not as reflection; but as direct seeing—sakshatkar—the truth is realized.

Knowing that the senses—sprung in various forms for various reasons—have separate powers and arise and subside, the steadfast one who sees the form of the Self as distinct from them does not grieve.

And as the antahkaran is purified, you will see that the energies of the other senses begin to subside into it. The leaking energies of the senses, the wasted outflow, become available to the antahkaran. A moment comes when all the outer senses pour their entire energy into the antahkaran and dissolve into it—ear, eye, tongue, nose, all sink into it.

To “sink” means: the capacity for fragrance that was in the nose becomes available to the antahkaran; the capacity for seeing that was in the eyes becomes available to the antahkaran. Even scientists, in their own way, now agree.

You know that a blind man hears better than you. Hence a blind man can be a superior musician. Why? Because the energy of the eyes becomes available to the ears—transfers. When the eyes do not function, the energy that was flowing through them—eighty percent of bodily energy flows out through the eyes—no other misuse tires you as much as that of the eyes.

New research in America suggests television is becoming a primary basis for cancer, because nothing exhausts the eyes like television. There is fear in America that the spread of television is sickening life itself. Television deranges even small children; whenever they get the chance they are stuck to the screen—no interest in play, or going out—everything is television.

Such expenditure of ocular energy can engender cancer. When the whole mechanism grows tired—death-wishing—it is not exactly a disease; hence we have not found a cure. It is a deep fatigue of the whole mechanism—as if every fiber wishes to die; then to reawaken it is very difficult, to return it to life is hard.

Nothing tires you as the eyes do. For the blind, the energy of the eyes does not flow; it turns toward the ears. Helen Keller was blind, deaf, and mute—so all energy flowed to her hands. Her hands were more sensitive than anyone’s, for she did everything with them. She read books with her hands; when meeting people she touched their faces with her hands—and once she had touched a face, it was imprinted in her tactile memory; ten years later she could recognize him by touching his face. All energy had gone to touch; touch became everything.

Scientists accept that energies can transfer—one sense can be used by another. Yoga has long held that there is an inner sixth sense into which the five can be absorbed. The day that sixth sense awakens, and the five are absorbed into it, inner experiences begin.

Within there is such fragrance as cannot be had outside; within there is such a sound that even the finest outer music is only a hint; within there is such light that Kabir said, “As though thousands upon thousands of suns rise at once.”

Aurobindo said, “Before I awakened, what I had taken as life now seems like death—because now, knowing the inner life, I can compare. What I took for happiness now appears as utmost misery—because with the arising of inner bliss I can compare what ‘happiness’ was.”

When all senses are absorbed into that primal sense, the antahkaran, inner experiences begin. The beauty within, the fragrance, the nectar—outside there is only a glimpse. What we call the world becomes insipid. Renouncers did not “leave” the world; they tasted the supreme enjoyment within, because of which the outer became futile.

Hence I repeat: only the ignorant renounce; the wise do not renounce. The wise attain the higher—and upon attaining it the outer drops by itself. You were playing with pebbles; someone places the Kohinoor in your hand—instantly the pebbles fall away. No one need tell you, “Drop the pebbles; renounce them.” There is no point.

Pebbles look like diamonds only until you know a diamond. Knowing the diamond, the pebbles become pebbles, for comparison has dawned.

The perceptions of the antahkaran make all worldly pleasures pale and stale.

There is sex outside—momentary pleasure. But when the antahkaran receives the full energy of the seed-force, the rasa of union arises within—the union of the inner male and the inner female. We have symbolized it by the image of Ardhanarishvara—Shiva as half man, half woman. Only India conceived such an image; nowhere else on earth. It inscribes an inner experience outwardly.

When the feminine and masculine energies within unite—because each person contains both—no man is purely male, no woman purely female. Each man is half male and half female; each woman half female and half male. In this century Carl Gustav Jung’s discoveries are significant. He proved that each person is half-and-half. It must be so—each is born of the union of man and woman; both have contributed. You cannot be wholly male or wholly female. The difference is of proportion: if the maternal contribution predominates, you become female; if the paternal predominates, you become male. Sixty percent male, forty percent female—you are male; sixty percent female, forty percent male—you are female.

Thus there are boundary cases—nearly fifty-fifty—the third sex appears.

Sometimes the ratio is fifty-one to forty-nine: a man is biologically male but his modes are feminine; a woman is female but her ways are masculine. Lakshmibai, Joan of Arc, Durgavati—though we lack physiological analysis, it is very possible the male element was strong. “She fought like a man”—not only the poet’s language; if researched, it could be the language of science.

But society is male-dominated; if a woman takes up the sword, we say “glorious—manly.” If a man grows his hair and dances tenderly, we say “effeminate.” In this male society, to be womanly is a sin; to be manly is a virtue. If a man grows his hair and lives in soft, feminine ways, we condemn him; a woman who enters the battlefield we praise. Strange indeed.

If a manly woman deserves praise, why not an “effeminate” man? Both have qualities. If one deserves condemnation, so does the other. But men praise men and condemn women. Men have made such a fuss that even women agree with male notions. They too say, “How great Lakshmibai—manly!” and, seeing a tender man, say “effeminate.” Yet both man and woman carry both.

Man is bisexual, dual-gendered. Hence strange events occur: through changes in hormones, illness, injury, accident—a man becomes woman, a woman becomes man. In England there were cases where a man married a woman but after a year or two the man became female, and the court had to grant divorce. Research grew; now scientists say it is in our hands to transform any woman into a man and any man into a woman—surgically it can be done.

Within you, both dwell. Your inner male is attracted to outer females; the day he unites with your inner female, the attraction to outer women is lost.

That supreme union—the great union—occurs within. Its symbol is Ardhanarishvara: half male, half female. When the two meet within, for the first time the individual is born in you; the split ends; opposites unite in a circle. The name of that inner union—Samadhi.

When the antahkaran receives all the powers of the senses, then the rain of bliss, of amrita, begins within. Kabir says: “Clouds of nectar are thundering, and Kabir is bathing!” Thousands upon thousands of suns rise—light so vast it has no boundary.

The saints have felt continually that what they know is hard to say, because whatever they say must be said in the language of the outside—and the outside has become so insipid that what is the use of that language? All feels stale outside, while within flows a stream so fresh, so youthful, so vibrant with life that to use outer words for it seems unjust.

Hence many saints kept silence—or, if they spoke, they coined symbols; or they invented a language of their own. Scholars call the language of Kabir, Nanak, Dadu—sadhukkadi—because they coined their own usage. They used words that were theirs alone.

Kabir wrote ulatbansis—“inverted sayings”—which have no obvious meaning. He wrote: “The fish climbed the tree! The river caught fire!” How can a fish climb a tree? How can a river catch fire?

But Kabir is compelled. If he uses your language straight, what he wants to say is so vast it will not fit. So he uses inverted speech to shock you—so that you become eager to understand, so that you ask, “What does it mean that the river caught fire? That a fish climbed a tree?” Perhaps, by this shock, your fixed notions break, your language is dislocated—then pointers can work.

And when all the senses dissolve into the antahkaran, the steadfast one who understands the Self’s distinctness does not grieve. There is no cause for sorrow. He becomes filled with bliss.

Beyond the senses is the mind; beyond the mind the intellect; beyond the intellect the jivatman, and beyond the jivatman the Unmanifest Power. But beyond even the Unmanifest is That—vast, all-pervading, utterly formless Supreme Person; knowing whom the jivatman is freed and attains the deathless, blissful Brahman.

Understand this a little.

From within to without there are stages. The same stages will be met when returning from without to within. As consciousness descends into matter, it passes stages—one step at a time. Returning, it climbs the same steps. Sankhya has clarified these stages: what comes first, how it divides into three, how it descends step by step. By the time it reaches the body, consciousness has transformed many times.

It is like heating ice: it melts into water; at a certain degree ice becomes water. Heat further: at a certain degree water boils; at a hundred degrees it becomes steam.

If we wish to make ice again, we must return—draw heat out; cool the steam; steam cools to water; water further cools to ice. But we must cross the same points, the same degrees, by which we went from ice to steam—on the return journey to ice, we pass the same degrees.

These degrees are: beyond the senses is mind—hence, when the inner journey begins, the senses merge into mind. Beyond mind is intellect—hence, mind merges into vivek when we move inward. Beyond intellect is the jivatman—hence, intellect dissolves into the jiva. Beyond the jiva is the Unmanifest Power.

We may call the Unmanifest “Ishvara”—in our common language, the Unmanifest Power is God—the working face of Brahman.

But beyond Ishvara—beyond the Unmanifest—is the vast, utterly formless Supreme Person; knowing whom the jivatman is freed, attaining the deathless bliss of Brahman.

From jiva to Ishvara; from Ishvara back to the utterly formless Brahman.

From that side we came thus far: Brahman melted, became Ishvara; Ishvara melted, became jiva; jiva melted, became intellect; intellect melted, became mind; mind melted, became senses. The senses are the last station. Just so we must return—dissolving each into the power hidden behind it.

The day nothing remains to dissolve—when even the last notion dissolves: the notion of Ishvara is the last notion; beyond it no notion remains—there is the nirbhava state, no-mind; on that day, the experience of the Supreme arises—the Upanishads call it Brahman; Buddha called it Nirvana; Mahavira called it Moksha.

We must slide from the senses back to Brahman.

It can be done—because as we have come as far as the senses, so we can return. The path by which you came to this Mount Abu camp is the path by which you will return home. The road is the same; you are the same. Once it brought you to Mount Abu; again it will take you away from it. The only difference is direction. Now your face was toward Mount Abu; when going, your back will be toward it—only this.

Everything else is the same: the home is the same, Mount Abu the same; you are the same; the road the same; the power to walk the same; all the same—only the direction. Now the face was turned this way; while going, the back will be this way.

Now our face is toward the senses. Turn your back to the senses—the journey home begins.

And until the lost home is found, no peace is possible in a man’s life.

Prepare for meditation.