Koplen Phir Phoot Aayeen #4

Human beings have many names. In Arabic, Urdu, Persian, the word admi is taken as a synonym for man. It should not be. Because man—manushya—means one who engages in manan, contemplation. Admi means one made of earth. In English too the synonym is “human.” It should not be. It is a wrong translation. “Human” comes from “humus,” moist earth—because Islam and Christianity both consider man a figurine of clay into which God has breathed. Only in this land has man not been regarded as a clay puppet. Here the mark of being human is the capacity for manan; therefore we call him manushya.

There can be many directions for thought. A painter thinks, a sculptor thinks, a philosopher thinks, a religious teacher thinks, a scientist thinks. But all these processes of thinking go outward; they point to some subject other than oneself. The one we call a knower turns all the directions of thought inward. He thinks only about himself. For him there is nothing else in the world worth thinking about—nor can there be. For the one who does not even know himself, what can he know of anything else?

Albert Einstein was among the greatest thinkers of this century. But what he said when he was dying is the essence of the pain of his whole life. As he was breathing his last, someone asked: If the people of the East are right and there is rebirth, would you again like to be a scientist, or something else?

A human being’s last words are very significant—they are the distillation of a lifetime, because after that there is no possibility of revision. Einstein opened his eyes and said: Instead of being a physicist, I would prefer to be a plumber, so that I could give some time to thinking about myself as well. My whole time was lost thinking about the moon and the stars, and I die as ignorant as I was born—while the world calls me a knower. If there is another birth, I do not want to die in the same way I was born. I want to depart awake, having conquered and recognized myself. This life is gone—it has flowed away; no possibility remains in it.

For the contemplation I have asked of you, the first thing is to draw your thoughts back from everywhere and invite them only toward yourself. Then a magic occurs, which you cannot even imagine. You can think only about that of which you have read, heard, about which someone has said something. What will you think about yourself? The moment a person drops all outward thinking and his eyes fix only on his own form, thought stops. That is why I said a magic happens. You cannot think about yourself; there, thinking falls into emptiness. Only seeing remains.

Hence in this land we have called that moment the hour of darshan—of seeing—not of chintan, thinking. You see who you are, but nothing remains to be thought. Whatever you are is utterly open, naked. And this self-recognition introduces you to the essence of life, to that amrit, the deathless, which has no end. Bodies have come and gone. Bodies will come and go. Until you recognize yourself, in ever-new forms, in ever-new ways, you will keep wandering in this same world. And the one who has known himself has no need to return here. The world is as a school. As long as you fail, you have to return to school; when you succeed, you are released. The world is not bad; it is a place of learning. Do not despise it. It is a gift of existence, for in its very midst lies the possibility that one day, stumbling and rising, falling and steadying yourself, you will come to know yourself. And for the one who has known the self, nothing remains to be known.

We have called this supreme state of knowing samadhi. You know the word vyadhi—disease. Samadhi is the other word: to rise above maladies; for all afflictions to be brought to equanimity, to come to rest. In this country even our words have been coined with deep thought. They were not minted by blind, unaware, merely practical people; those with eyes have carved them. If we understand even the words rightly, the hints begin to appear.

Nowhere in the world is there a word like swasthya. Every language has some term translated as “health.” There is “health,” yes—but it means a wound has healed; that is a very small matter. Swasthya means to be established in oneself, to be settled in one’s own being. It has nothing to do with a wound closing. You exist, but you are running from yourself. You exist, but far from yourself. You exist, but you do not know where you are. The day you become swastha—still and steady in your own consciousness—like a lamp’s flame that stands unmoving, unshaken by any draft—when you thus come to rest within, the radiance that appears, the rays that are emitted, that is what I have called knowing oneself before you die. And I stress “before dying,” because if you could not know life while alive, how will you know it in death? Death is a dark cave. Yes, it is true that those who have known themselves in life have so much light in their eyes that even in the dark cave of death they do not lose themselves; even there they know themselves.

There is an incident from the last day of Buddha’s life. Morning had come, the birds had sung, flowers had bloomed. He gathered all his disciples and said: I bring you a pleasant news.

Meditate—he said—I bring you pleasant news. They all became very eager, for in forty years of teaching Buddha had never said, “I bring you pleasant news,” though every word of his was nothing but good news. What unique thing would happen today? What Kohinoor would sparkle in his words today? What sun would rise today? A hush fell.

Buddha said: Today I am leaving the body. I have seen life much; I have lived life much. Today I enter the darkness of death—but that darkness will be for others, not for me. I shall pass through that darkness just as radiant and full of light as I have passed through life. Therefore I said I bring you pleasant news—the news of death, and it is pleasant. If you have anything to ask, ask.

Among ten thousand monks, who had the courage, who the audacity, that the man who had explained everything for forty years should not be allowed to die in peace even at the final hour? There were tears in their eyes, but no question on their tongues. They said: We have nothing to ask. You have given us more than we ever imagined. You have placed in our hands even those answers for which we did not yet have the questions. What more can we ask?

Buddha said: May I take leave? And he closed his eyes. The event is very lovely. In the first stage he left the body. In the second stage he left the mind. In the third stage he left the heart.

Just then a man came running from the nearby village and cried, Wait! For forty years Buddha has been passing by my village, but I have been a blind man. I always thought, Next time I will go. What hurry is there? One time guests were at home, another time there was a rush at the shop, another time my wife was ill. If you go searching for excuses, there are endless excuses. Buddha kept coming and going. Only now I have heard that he is leaving life—and I have a question to ask.

Buddha’s chief disciple, Ananda, said: Now it is late, much too late. He has already gone.

But Buddha opened his eyes and said: Ananda, you will have me blamed! Future ages will say that I was alive, and a man went thirsty from my door. The body may be left, the mind may be left, the heart may be left—but I am! And I am never going to be left. Take this body, place it on the bier, and burn it. But if anyone asks from the fullness of the heart, he will receive the answer. For I am, and I shall remain. There is no way to burn me, no way to erase me. I am amrit—the deathless.

The prayer of this land is wondrous. There are many temples, many mosques, many churches in the world, but their prayers are childish. Only this land has prayed: Lead us from darkness to light. Lead us from death to the deathless. Lead us from the transient to the eternal. There is nothing petty in this. And this prayer is not addressed to some other—because no one else can take you there. Only you—and only you—can carry yourself from death to the deathless. Concentrate the whole of your capacity to know upon yourself. In other words, I call this dhyana, meditation. Knowledge belongs to others; meditation belongs to oneself. Knowledge is borrowed; meditation is one’s own. Turn your knowledge into meditation. Then, before your bier is lifted, you will know that which no bier has ever lifted, nor ever can.

Sannyas means: not compromising. And all forms of adjustment are compromises. Sannyas means: finding aloneness sufficient. If you feel you need the other, then whether you are in a commune or in the marketplace crowd, it makes no difference. When the need for the other disappears—when you are enough and whole in yourself—only then. This does not mean that you abandon others, nor does it mean you become opposed to others. It means that the person who no longer depends on others, in whose life the other is no longer a necessity, who is full in himself—only that person can give something to others. From a full vessel, nectar can overflow to others.

Your difficulty is that in the commune you were trying to adjust to the people of the commune. That was the mistake. You have to adjust to yourself. One mistake there, and now you will end up repeating the same mistake here. Because there you adjusted to the commune people—their lifestyle, their way of living, their manner, their getting up, sitting down, thinking—you imposed all that upon yourself. But none of it was your own. The commune has been left behind, the habits came along with you; and now, in this marketplace world, a different kind of habit runs. So there is a hitch again. Now you find yourself in difficulty with people. But the mistake is the same as you made in the commune—the same mistake now: that one must adjust to others. And every adjustment is slavery. Every adjustment is ignorance. And in every compromise you have to sell your soul. That is what compromise means: give a little, take a little. A sannyasin does not compromise. A sannyasin abides only in his own samadhi. And the power of his samadhi is such that whoever comes to him will not return empty-handed. Whoever comes will not go back thirsty.

So you have no need to adjust to anyone. You need only this one thing: become rooted in samadhi, so that others are filled with the fragrance of the flowers blossoming from your samadhi. Then a harmony will arise between you and others that is not of habits and not of the marketplace’s give-and-take. It is neither a bargain nor a business. For the meditative one has only given—taken nothing. The wonder is: the one who learns the art of giving, his inner wealth goes on increasing every day; his inner glory keeps shining more and more. Think of it like a well: every day you draw water from it, and new springs keep filling the well. Those springs are not visible to you. But the well is connected to the distant ocean; its reach goes far. If, out of fear that the well will be emptied, you stop drawing water and lock it up, then no new water will come. The springs will no longer bring fresh sources into the well, and the old water will rot and die day by day. Do not drink from such a well—its water will become poisonous. But we have all become such wells—we have locked our own chests, fearing that if love flows out, if compassion flows away, we will be left empty. You do not know that compassion and love, friendliness, simplicity, peace, and silence increase the more you give them. This is not ordinary economics. This is not your safe. Yes—money in a safe, if you give it, will get depleted.

I have heard of a man begging, in a very pitiable state. A car stopped near him and asked, “How many days since you last ate?”
The beggar said, “It’s been five days—no food, nothing to eat.”
The man took a five-rupee note from his pocket, gave it to him and said, “Go, eat well, rest.” As he was leaving, he asked the beggar, “But tell me something—your face does not look like a beggar’s. There are marks of dignity on your face. There is still a certain nobility about you. These are not a beggar’s eyes.”
The beggar laughed and said, “You are right. I too once had a car. But as you just gave me five rupees, I thought in my heart that the same misfortune will befall you as befell me. I too kept distributing like this. It all got finished. So be careful. If you start giving five-rupee notes to beggars like this, this car won’t last very long.”

Outer wealth gets exhausted by sharing; inner wealth increases by sharing.

So there is no need to adjust to anyone. You need only this: do not be stingy in giving love, and adjustment will happen by itself. There is no stronger thread than love. It is very delicate—delicate like flowers—but stronger than chains of iron. Share love! Share joy! And wherever you are, among whomever you are, you will become their pride. And for yourself, you will experience a rare peace—no hassle, no quarrel.

But you made a mistake even in the commune. You began to imitate others’ habits. You thought that only by being like them could you befriend them. Now the same mistake again—that to be with people you must become like them.

In this world, no person needs to be like any other person. One needs only to be oneself—joyful, delighted, blossoming—and the whole world is his. Then whether he is in a commune, or in the marketplace, or in a shop, or in a temple—it makes no difference. Wherever he is, there is the Kaaba. Wherever he is, there is Varanasi. Wherever he places his feet, there the Tirthankaras have placed their feet. Wherever he sits, there Buddha has sat.

Let all inner conflicts drop, and create within you such a unison—a music—that keeps playing on. That music has won over millions in this world. You have forgotten your own music. All the instruments are with you, but the art by which music arises from them—you have forgotten. That art I call religion. I do not call being a Hindu, or a Muslim, or a Jain “religion.” Create within you such a world of peace, of silence, of music, that none who comes to you can return without taking a dip in you—and once someone has taken a dip, he will come again and again.

There is a story: Buddha’s most important disciple, Sariputta, would sit far away from Buddha. By nature, people try to sit close, but Sariputta would sit hiding—behind a bush, behind the crowd somewhere. And with ten thousand disciples, it was easy to hide. One day Buddha finally caught him and said, “Sariputta, what are you doing?”
Sariputta said, “Let me be; let me stay hidden.”
Buddha said, “What is the matter?”
Sariputta said, “I do not want to attain Buddhahood.”
Buddha said, “Have you gone mad? You came to me to attain Buddhahood.”
He said, “I did—that was my mistake. I am not going. Because I see daily that whoever attains Buddhahood, you say to him, ‘Go, carry my message far and wide.’ But I want to take a dip every day. I can renounce Buddhahood, but I cannot renounce taking a dip in you. If you promise that even after I become a Buddha I will still have the right to sit at these feet, then I will stop hiding. Otherwise I will keep hiding; I will keep avoiding. Many times I have reached the very shore of Buddhahood—and I ran away so fast I did not look back. I know exactly where the temple is; I am carefully avoiding that very temple. Don’t harass me.”
When Buddha promised him, “Don’t worry. You are quite a fellow. Sit wherever you wish. Even after your Buddhahood you will go with me; I will keep you with me like my shadow,”
Sariputta said, “Assurance? No trickery?”
But even then he was not fully convinced. He began to sit near Buddha, and one day he did attain Buddhahood; yet he did not request Buddha to acknowledge it.
Buddha said, “Sariputta, at least say it.”
Sariputta said, “I will not say it with my own mouth. Let me remain ignorant.”
Buddha said, “But you are no longer ignorant; you have become a Buddha. And those promises I made were made to you in your ignorance.”
He said, “You see! I said before—no trickery will do. I may die, but I will not leave this place, these feet. This dip—without it even Buddhahood is not sweet.”

Let the music arise on your own veena. People will want to adjust to you. Why do you want to adjust to them? And by adjusting to them you will harm not only yourself, but them as well. Because I have seen—in the West I asked women, “Why are you smoking?” They said, “If you don’t smoke, you cannot sit among the intellectual class in the West.”

Here in the East, if a woman sits and smokes, it looks indecorous, uncultured. We cannot even imagine it. Even those who smoke cannot accept a woman smoking. We have given women so much honor. We will not let her fall so low.

But to sit with people you must smoke, you must drink, you must gamble. Adopt people’s habits as your own. If people have fallen into gutters, you too fall into gutters. And if people are rotting like worms in the drains, you too rot like worms in the drains. Then you can make friendship with them. But this friendship is very costly. Losing everything of life—what are you gaining?

No—never, even by mistake, adjust to someone else. If you must adjust, adjust to your own being—because there resides God. And one who becomes one with That has no need to become one with anyone else in this world. And one who is one with That will be honored everywhere.

I was imprisoned in America for the first time. On the third day I was taken from that jail to another. The jailer of that jail came alone to my cell on the third day. There were tears in his eyes. He said, “I must ask forgiveness for one thing.”
I said, “You have done no harm to me. You have arranged all conveniences for me. What do you need forgiveness for?”
He said, “Forgive me for this: on the first day you came to the jail, half an hour later a phone call came from Germany. The caller asked, ‘Bhagwan is in your jail—this is your good fortune. Perhaps in your entire life, past and future, such a person will never come to your jail again.’ I had no acquaintance with you,” the old jailer said, “and I had my pride. So I told the German caller, ‘No—many great people have already come to my jail. Even cabinet-level ministers have been imprisoned here. This is nothing unique.’”
I said, “There is no harm in that. Why ask forgiveness of me?”
He said, “The harm is that I have no idea who that caller was. You were new; I did not know you. Then thousands of phone calls began coming, telegrams, telexes—and thousands of baskets of flowers began to arrive. Such a thing had never happened in my jail. It was a big jail—six hundred prisoners—but so many flowers came that there was no place to keep them. He asked me, ‘What should I do with these flowers?’
I said, ‘All the jail departments—distribute among them.’
He said, ‘Distribute? Impossible. Those very departments are already filled with flowers.’
So I said, ‘Send flowers, in my name, to schools, colleges, universities, all institutions.’”

In the cell where they kept me… he would come to see me at least six times a day. The nurses were upset, the doctor was upset. They said, “This man used to come to this side once in a year or six months—and now he comes here six times a day!” He brought his wife and children to meet me and said, “I have only one wish—that we have a photograph taken with you, with your signature. In two months I will retire. This will be the greatest memory of my life. I never imagined that by your presence even this jail could become a temple.”

Because the prisoners had seen me constantly on television. Many had books. Some had experimented with meditation. They all prayed to the jailer, “It is our good fortune that he is in our jail for three days. Give us a chance to hear him. Give us a chance for him to lead us into meditation. Give us a chance…”
It was beyond the old man’s imagination that these dangerous prisoners wanted to meditate. And among those six hundred prisoners not one was against me. Perhaps there were a hundred and fifty staff in the jail—they too all joined in the meditation. And he took one last step—never taken before. He asked me, “Many television stations and radio stations are asking if they can come inside the jail to ask a few questions. There is no history of this—no one can enter a jail like that. But I have given them permission for tonight at seven. What can anyone do to me now? I have only two months’ job left. At most I will be retired two months early.” He convened a world press conference inside the jail. About a hundred journalists were gathered inside. And as I was going to speak to them he whispered in my ear, “Do not worry in the least that this is a jail and that you must say what pleases us. No—you must say only what is right, even if it is against us.”

And after three days, when they released me, there were tears in the doctor’s eyes, in the nurses’ eyes, in the jailer’s eyes. The doctor was a woman, and she said, “I do not want you ever to be released from this jail.”
I said, “Your wish is fine, but my sannyasins spread across the world are waiting for me to be released.”
She said, “That is why I only said this is the feeling of my heart—that you remain here always. I know thousands must be waiting for you. If in three days we have grown so close to you, we can feel the sorrow and anxiety of those who have been with you for years. But do not forget us.”

You have only to become one with yourself. You have only to raise within you the waves of bliss. Others will begin to become one with you. And this will be an upward journey. If you begin to become one with others, you will fall into pits—because all around there is a crowd of the blind and the ignorant, and becoming one with them means becoming like them. You made one mistake in the commune; at least do not make a second. And however much suffering the outer world may bring to a joyous person, it makes no difference. And to one whose inner music has awakened—no matter how much noise there is outside—he is absorbed in his own music; it makes no difference to him. Keep your gaze on yourself. You have looked at others enough—over many, many lifetimes. Now, in this life, in whatever few days remain before retirement, spend them in looking at yourself.

It is true; the conclusion of Tao is one hundred percent true. Precisely the person who attains spiritual realization cannot remain perfectly healthy physically. This does not mean that those who are ill have attained spirituality. But those who have attained supreme knowledge will find it difficult to be perfectly healthy physically—because of a particular law. As soon as a person knows himself, his connection with the body loosens. The bridge breaks. Until yesterday he took himself to be the body, so all his life energy, all his power, flowed into the body. Today, suddenly, he finds his body to be nothing more than a prison, so the energy ceases to flow toward the body.

Ramakrishna Paramhansa died of cancer. Ramana Maharshi died of cancer. Buddha died due to poisoned food. Mahavira died from stomach ailments. Krishnamurti suffered from terrible headaches for forty years—so severe he felt like banging his head against a wall. And this is not true only of one person; in one measure or another it is true of almost all those in human history who have reached the heights.

The reason is perfectly clear. You are attached to and close to the body; the self-knower becomes detached and separate from it. Understand it like this: a bullock cart moves because it is yoked to the oxen; the oxen walk, not the cart. If the oxen are unyoked or the yoke becomes loose, it becomes difficult for the cart to move; it gets stuck in potholes or slips off the road.

And it is natural also because this is the final body. The supremely knowing one will not take birth again. So whatever little connection with the body remains, this is the only time he has to complete it. Once that little time is over, the hour of his departure will arrive.

A person who has attained spiritual experience cannot be perfectly healthy. By health I mean physical health. His body becomes a shell. He is certainly within it, but the old attachments are gone, the old pulls are gone; the old ropes have snapped, the old bonds have all slackened.

There is an important incident in Ramakrishna’s life worth understanding. Ramakrishna used to give discourses—just as I am speaking to you this morning. Every morning his devotees would gather. But in between he would get up, go out for a short while, and then return. The disciples were quite puzzled. The close ones—Vivekananda and others—knew what the matter was. From time to time he would go peek into the kitchen and ask Sharada Mani, his wife, “What has been cooked today?” A discourse on Brahman is going on, but Sharada is making halva, and the fragrance of the halva is in the air; Ramakrishna would say, “Please wait a moment—I’ll be right back.”

Sharada would say, “Look, Paramhansa Dev, this is not seemly. What will people say? That the discussion of Brahman becomes small and the existence of halva becomes more important! And not just once—you get up two or three times. By now everyone knows where you go: to the kitchen.”

Ramakrishna would laugh and brush it aside. But one day Sharada insisted and said, “I cannot bear this disgrace. People say nothing to you—they don’t have the courage—but they nag me: at least you are his wife; you can make him understand that whatever is being prepared is being prepared for you. Have a little patience. You tell people so much to be patient, to be calm, not to be restless—and at the slightest fragrance of halva, you run!”

Ramakrishna said, “If you won’t agree, then let me tell you: the day I don’t come, that day you will regret it.”

And when Sharada brought his meal, he would behave like a child. He would quickly get up to look at the plate to see what had been prepared, and he would even taste what he liked. Sharada would say, “Have a little patience. At least let me set the plate down. I have laid a small seat for you—sit on it. You don’t need to stand. I am placing the plate myself; it won’t even take half a minute. And if someone sees this, what will they say?”

Ramakrishna said, “Sharada, you do not listen. The day you bring the plate and I turn over in bed to the other side and do not look at your plate, understand that only three days of my life remain.”

Sharada thought he was joking. But that is exactly what happened. One day Sharada entered his room with the food. Ramakrishna neither rose from the bed nor took any interest; instead, he turned his face toward the wall. The plate slipped from Sharada’s hand. She remembered what Ramakrishna had said years before.

Ramakrishna said, “Whether the plate falls or not, nothing will change now. I am here only three more days. And today I will tell you—because you used to ask again and again and I kept silent—today I tell you that all my bonds with the body have broken. Somehow I have been holding on to a tiny bond—the bond of taste, the bond of food—so that I might linger a little at this ghat, that a few of my disciples may awaken and I can depart without worry. My boat arrived long ago and is tied at the shore. The call has already come: leave this bank; your work is done. But I know my disciples are still children, unripe. Let at least one of them ripen.”

And exactly three days later Ramakrishna died.

When samadhi is attained in one’s life, all relationships thin out. And if, out of compassion, he somehow keeps those ties going by tugging at them, this stupid world is such that there is no end to it: his own disciples will object, “Stop this; it does not befit you.” And they do not know that this very thing is keeping the man alive, that he is breathing for them, out of compassion. His own work is over. When one’s own work is over, there is no need for the body. How then can the body remain healthy? The flow of energy into the body stops of its own accord. The body then begins to manifest illnesses here and there at its weak points.

Ramakrishna developed cancer of the throat. This is something worth pondering. No one thinks deeply about life’s inner matters. Because this man was holding himself back through food. The boat had come to take him across, and he had found a trick to hold himself back by means of food. Existence is very mysterious. Cancer struck his throat. He could not drink water; he could not eat. That was the device to break the last bond. Otherwise he would not have boarded the boat. Everyone prayed, “You are in such a state that if you say to Existence, ‘Remove this cancer,’ it will be removed. Why are you causing us suffering?” His devotees and lovers and disciples engaged day and night in bhajans and kirtans so that somehow Ramakrishna’s throat cancer would go away. At that time there was no treatment, no operation. Finally they said to Sharada, “You say it; he does not listen to us. We speak, he smiles.” Sharada said, “At least once, grant them this. They have obeyed you all their lives; at least once obey them. Say to Existence: remove this cancer. And I will not move from here; I am standing here. Close your eyes and say to Existence to remove it.”

Ramakrishna closed his eyes; after a little while he opened them, laughed, and said to Sharada, “Sharada, I have said it. I cannot refuse you. For to have a wife like Sharada is very rare. But the answer that came from Existence was: ‘How long will you depend on this very throat? This body has to be left—if not today, then tomorrow; if not tomorrow, then the day after. Now, those whom you love—eat through their throats, drink water through their throats. Drop the attachment to this throat. This mine-and-yours—drop this distinction.’ Now tell me,” he said to Sharada, “what should I say? Do not put me to further embarrassment.”

That very night he passed away. But he said this before leaving: “Remember, I will use your throats. After all, your throats are also my throat. After all, we are all connected. And I have held my boat back for too long. It was necessary that some device be found so I could no longer hold it. And Existence always finds inventions. How great is a man’s capacity? What strength does a man have before Existence?”

So now shall I go and find out what is being cooked?