I was a guest in a family. At the very gate of that house a bird—a very beautiful bird—was kept shut in a cage. The cage had glass walls. Perhaps the bird did not even know that there was a wall between itself and the world. The glass wall was transparent. One could see beyond it. And thus the bird might not even have realized that there was some barrier standing between it and the sky.
Perhaps many times it had pecked at that glass with its beak, fluttered its wings; then, slowly, finding no way, it must have given up even that. And after years of being confined, perhaps now it no longer knows what the use of its wings is. A bird that has not flown for years—how could it remember that its wings are for flight? That bird must be taking its wings as a burden—futile—without purpose, without use; wings that sometimes even become an obstruction for moving about inside the cage.
To that bird its wings must seem a load—the very wings that could have lifted it into the sky! But the bird had never risen into the sky. That there is a sky to fly in, an open, free sky; that there is the capacity to rise beyond the clouds; that there is the freedom to dance in the light of the sun, to break all boundaries and fly—such thoughts must have stopped visiting that bird.
Seeing that bird I began to think, and then it occurred to me that man too is closed in such transparent walls. If the walls were of stone, a man could try to break them—because it becomes difficult to see beyond a wall of stone. But if the walls are of glass, one does not even come to know that there are walls; it begins to seem—this alone is existence.
Man too is living shut within glass walls—encapsulated; as if enclosed inside a glass capsule. This glass wall is made of thoughts. Thoughts are very transparent. One can see through them, as one sees through glass. But just as glass prevents flight, thought too prevents flight.
To understand man the first fact to be understood is that those things which are helpful in a human life, at a certain boundary, become hindrances. Even if one thinks, reflects, one does not readily see this crucial truth. Because we think that what is helpful can never become an obstacle. But every helpful thing, at a boundary, turns into a hindrance.
If a man is climbing a house by its stairs, without climbing the stairs he cannot reach the top. But if he stops on the stairs, he still does not reach the top. Stairs help you climb, and can also keep you from arriving.
A man crosses a river by boat. If he does not board the boat, he cannot cross; but if he remains seated in the boat, he also cannot cross the river. At one bank you must take hold of the boat; at the other bank you must let it go. Only when the capacity to both hold and to release exists does a man cross the river.
All instruments of life must be held at one boundary and released at another. Thought has given much to man—science; literature; poetry. Thought has given much, but at a certain point even thought becomes a capsule and shackles a man. And one who remains enclosed in thoughts is deprived of the Supreme Truth, that ultimate truth, that climax of life and bliss.
To take hold of thought is necessary—and to let it go is also necessary.
I have heard: two monks were traveling near a river. That evening they were engaged in a dispute. One monk held that money should not be kept; money is useless. The other monk believed one should certainly keep money, but one should not cling to it; to cling is futile.
Quarreling, when the sun had set, they reached a river they had to cross. The monk who said keeping money is useless had no money to get into the little ferry and go across. His friend said, Now what will happen, how will you cross, since keeping money is useless? But I have money, and it is proven that money is necessary. That second friend paid; they both crossed the river. As soon as they reached the other side, the one who had paid said: See, because we had money, we crossed! But his friend began to laugh and said: You say we crossed because you had money. I say, we crossed because you could let the money go. If you had not let it go, crossing would have been difficult. Having money did not do the work, said his friend; letting it go did the work.
But money must be there in order to be let go.
Now, it is most amusing that the use of money is that it can be left. But people cling to money, and then the use of money becomes futile. The use of thought is also that it can be left; but people clutch at thought, and then thought becomes a wall and stops man.
Let it be remembered: life is vast; thought is very small. Life is immense; thought is petty. It is we who think. Our limit is also the limit of thought. We are not infinite; the universe is infinite. That which is, is endless. It has neither beginning nor end. We will be born and we will die. One moment is our birth and one moment our end. In this little circle is our understanding. If we take this small understanding as truth, we have caged the bird of our soul—within such walls that, gradually, it will even forget what it is to fly.
Only those can fly in the inner space, the inner sky, who have the capacity to drop thought. But only he can drop who possesses thought.
I have heard: at a station there was much disputation. Some friends had gathered to travel to Haridwar, and one friend was saying that he would not board the train, for he wished to go to Haridwar. They said: If you wish to go to Haridwar, you will have to get into the train. If you do not get in, you will not reach Haridwar. The friend said, Then will I not have to get down from the train? They said: You will have to get down as well. The friend said, Why board that from which one must get down? If one must get down, climbing aboard is futile.
His logic, his argument, was indeed neat: why take the trouble to climb onto that from which one must in any case alight!
But the friends said the train was about to depart; all the passengers had sat down and everyone was shouting, Hurry up, get in. The train is about to leave. Put the luggage inside. The friends dragged him in by force, for they had to go and there was no time to argue.
Those who have to get somewhere have no time to argue. Those who need go nowhere can argue at leisure. Dragged inside, he kept crying, Look, if you have taken me in, I will not get down. For once I climb onto something, I see no need to get down; otherwise, I wouldn’t have climbed at all.
Then, at Haridwar the uproar began. The friends urged, Get down. Now the man said, I climbed, why should I get down? The man appears to be speaking rightly. Where one has to get down, why climb? And once one has climbed, what is the point of getting down?
But the man is giving a mad argument. Life is very wondrous. Here one has to climb and one has to get down—only then does one arrive anywhere.
Some people think that if thought is to be dropped, then why think at all? Do not think at all. Then man remains stupid. Then he remains inert. Those who do not think remain inert; no growth happens to them; they do not set foot on the stair. But they will cite references from scriptures: Look, the scriptures say: drop thought, drop logic. That which is written to be dropped—we do not do at all. We neither reason nor think. We simply believe, because in believing there is no need to think, no need to argue.
Millions die shackled in belief; but a few show courage to think. They say, We will think, because how can we accept what does not appear right to us. We will reason; we will develop intelligence. Such people think a great deal, and then gradually they become possessed by thought and end within thought itself.
The believer is finished, for he does not climb the stair. And the one who only thinks is finished, for he remains standing on the stair.
The countries of the East destroyed themselves by doing the first—by believing. Hence science did not take birth in the East. The absence of science was the murder of the East. No science could develop, for how will science be born without thought? When we do not think, how will the facts of life be uncovered? The East said that man gets imprisoned in thought, therefore we should not think. And because of not thinking, the East became imprisoned—in belief, in blind faith, in superstition. Whoever is born in the East, however much he begins to think on the surface, within him blind belief remains.
I was a guest at a doctor’s home in Calcutta. In the evening we were leaving for a meeting; his daughter sneezed. And that doctor said to me, Please wait two minutes, wait a moment.
I said to him: What connection can there be between your daughter sneezing and my waiting? There is no connection in any of the three times. And if I must wait because your daughter sneezed, then all must wait, for sneezing is happening all over the earth, across the whole space. All moon and stars should come to a halt because some doctor’s daughter has sneezed. Nothing will stop. And then you know very well—you are a doctor—why a sneeze comes!
He said: That I know, but what harm is there in waiting two moments?
It was the Eastern man speaking from within—the believer. He had returned with a Western education. He lived seven years in Europe. But all that education remained on the surface. The Eastern man inside who says, One should not think, is present. He does not stop following. He remains.
Our best thinker is also not a thinker. Go a little deeper and you will find blind faith begins. For a little while his hands will flail, then finally he will say that belief is right, what is the benefit of thinking? Such statements appeal to us greatly.
Gandhi-ji was among us. He would always say that my inner voice says this is the truth. Now this is a device to avoid thinking. Your inner voice says it is true, and another’s inner voice says it is not. Then how will it be decided? There are forty crores of people in India. Each one’s inner voice can say that truth is something else. Jinnah’s inner voice says something different, and Jinnah too believes that God himself is speaking within me. And Gandhi’s inner voice says another thing; and Godse’s inner voice says a third thing. Which inner voice is true?
Without thought it cannot be decided. But those who clutch blind faith inside will say, No, there is no need to think in this; this is the voice of God. What we feel is absolutely right. The believer is not prepared to think; he only declares that this alone is right.
I have heard that in Baghdad once a man came and declared, I am a prophet. The caliph of Baghdad seized him and said that this man is mad, because Muhammad is the final prophet; after him there will be no prophet. There is no need. When Muhammad has revealed all of God’s messages, what need is there for any other man to be a prophet?
The man was caught and put in prison. He was whipped; chains were put on his hands. Fifteen days later the caliph came to meet him and said, If your mind has become sound, then say I am an ordinary man; otherwise after fifteen days death awaits you.
That man said: Mind! The conviction has grown stronger that I am a prophet; because when I started from God’s court, He said, Mind it, friend, great troubles descend upon prophets. From your persecutions it is proved I am a prophet. This has always happened: whenever God’s messengers come to the earth, handcuffs are put on them, they are whipped. And if you hang me, that will make it absolutely certain; it will prove I am a prophet!
The caliph was very astonished. He started listening with a jolt. Just then, from behind the bars, another man cried out, This man is speaking falsely, O caliph! He too was imprisoned. His hands were in chains. He had been caught six months earlier. That man cried, The one who calls himself a prophet is utterly lying, because after Muhammad I have appointed no one as a prophet.
He had been caught six months before. He fancied himself to be God! He himself was God!... This man speaks falsely. I have not made anyone a prophet after Muhammad.
Now who will decide about these inner voices—whether these men are mad!
Life runs on thought. Thought is the touchstone. Therefore the people of the West abandoned belief, for it had no meaning. It shackles. Think. Through thought science was born. Through thought reasoning was born. Through thought all blind beliefs of the West were broken. But a strange event occurred: as much as man had been bound by belief, by thought he became bound just as much. The chains changed. The bondage did not end. The links changed. In place of the chains of blind belief came the chains of thought.
The West left belief, so science was born. The Eastern countries died because they could not create science; and the Western countries are nearing death because too much science has been created. The West will die of the excess of science; the East died of the absence of science. The East died of belief; the West will die of thought.
Is there no third way?
The future of man is on the third way. The East has failed, the West too. Belief has failed, thought too. Religion has failed, science too. Is there a third path?
Two world wars have announced that science has failed badly. It has left us at a place where man sees no solution but death. Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought the news that science has failed. Science alone is not enough. And peoples like India, enslaved and poor, brought the news long ago that religion alone is not enough. Religion has failed.
But can it not be that at one boundary there is thought, and at another boundary thought is left? It can be. This which I call the third alternative does not choose between belief and thought. It says: thought is a ladder and thoughtlessness is also a ladder. One has to climb by thought and, arriving at a point, drop thought. One who does not learn this art knows nothing of life’s depths and heights.
If you go near a rose and you do not think at all, you will not come to know the rose. You will pass by as if there were no flower. Because man comes to know only that of which he thinks. The very being of the flower will not be known. We come to know only what becomes thought inside us. It becomes thought; therefore it comes to our knowing. If the flower does not form as a thought in our mind, we will not come to know the flower.
Many people pass by a flower just like that; they do not come to know the flower. The thought of the flower does not arise within them. As if there were no flower, they pass by. Thousands—among us too thousands—by night whether there are moon and stars in the sky or not, there is no knowing. They pass by like that. But some people do come to know. Some are seized by the flower—seized at their very life-breath. They pause for a moment. The thought of the flower spreads over their very life.
And the thought that spreads over the life-breath—life tastes the joy of that very thought. If the thought of the flower seizes someone’s life-breath, whatever juice is in the flower, whatever fragrance, whatever beauty, becomes a part of our soul. Because through thought we are connected; communication begins.
But those who stop at merely thinking about the flower do not know the whole life of the flower either. For what will thought do regarding the flower? What has been read earlier, heard earlier—heard in poems, in songs—what others have said, what has come from one’s own past experience—all of that is thought. Instantly a man says: It is a rose, very beautiful. All this is hackneyed. Rose has been said many times; very beautiful has been said many times. Because of these words, the earlier roses came in between. The notion of beauty came in between. And the flower that was there remained on that side; a transparent wall arose in between—a wall of thought.
As soon as the man said, Very beautiful—how will he say very beautiful—old experiences began to function. He had known flowers before, had found them beautiful. He has heard, read in books; he began to say it. Thought came in between. And when thought comes in between, experience comes in between. And beyond that which has come in between is the flower—as it is. This flower he has never seen before; this flower is absolutely new. He has no experience of this flower. This flower is utterly unique. No two flowers are the same. The flowers he had seen were other flowers. And if memory, their memory, comes in between…
And perhaps you do not know—memory intrudes with great intensity. It stands in between with tremendous speed.
A man met you yesterday… It may be a little hard to understand in relation to the flower… A man met you yesterday and hurled abuse. Today that man has come to ask pardon. But seeing him standing at the door, in your eyes will arise the man of yesterday who abused. An image will stand between—an image of the one who abused. Through that image you will see this man. The one who has come to seek forgiveness—he is an entirely different man. For the one who abused and the one who seeks pardon cannot be the same man. He has become altogether other. He has wept through the night, shed tears. But seeing his swollen eyes you will think perhaps he is filled with anger, ready with curses. What was seen yesterday stands in between. And then you will perhaps be deprived of seeing him. Then communion will not be possible. A wall has arisen in between.
Without thought, the flower cannot be seen. And if thought gets stuck, the flower still cannot be seen. Thought should be there—and it should fall away. When thought, too, falls away, only the flower remains and you remain—nothing remains in between—then there is a meeting of the soul of the flower and your soul. Very few come to know that. Those who know are amazed at how much was hidden in the flower, of which no inkling had ever come. That will not be known otherwise. In life too, so much is hidden; in each person, in each eye, so much is hidden. But either we do not think at all, or we go on thinking only—and we miss.
In the future, whatever the direction of education may be—whether one studies in a medical college, in an engineering college, in an arts college, whatever one studies—two things should be taught: to think, and to become thoughtless. If only thinking is taught, man will become harried, restless, anxious, full of anxiety—as is happening more and more.
Bertrand Russell went and lived for some days in a tribal village. At the age of ninety the old man said that I missed life. Living among the tribals I came to know that I wasted my life in thinking. I neither danced as they dance, nor loved as they love, nor rejoiced as they rejoice. I did nothing at all. I only thought, sat in libraries reading books and thinking—and life passed me by.
Life is known by living—where will it be known by thinking? The one who is shut in the capsule of thought—life will pass by on one side; he will remain seated in his thought.
Look at those who think; around them is a wall that is not visible to us. Life keeps passing along the edge; they sit enclosed in their thought. You too may be passing on the road; an inner thought is going on within—then the road does not appear. Thought seizes within; all doors have closed.
A youth playing on the field: he gets hurt on the leg. Blood is flowing. But until he is playing, it does not come to his knowing. Because until then the thought of play has seized the mind so powerfully that even the awareness of blood flowing from the leg cannot arise—a wall is standing. From one’s own leg blood is flowing; even that is not known. The play ends, and instantly the wall breaks—and he comes to know that blood is flowing from the leg. Who knows since when it has been flowing! But why did the pain not get known for so long? It would have, had the shell of thought not been in between. He was encapsulated; the mind was closed—clutched—in a run of thought. Therefore what was happening outside was not known.
And we are enclosed in thought twenty-four hours; hence we know nothing of the secrets of life, its mystery. We live our whole lives within our thought.
As I said of that bird, it is shut in its walls and lives. It does not even know that there is a sky.
Outside thought there is also a sky—and a very vast sky. If this can come into your awareness, and education can be such that we teach both to think and to become thoughtless… If a man, in twenty-four hours, sleeps eight hours, thinks and works eight hours—then for eight hours he should become thoughtless as well. For eight hours, leave thinking altogether. We will say these are two contrary things! This is not right. If we think, we will only think; if we drop thought, we will drop it totally. As India’s sadhus and sannyasins drop everything and run away. They say we have dropped all. That is a mistake. Western people say we will only think; we won’t even sleep at night. They cannot sleep; without medicine they cannot sleep. In New York thirty percent of people sleep by taking medicines. Thirty percent is a large number. But psychologists there say that within a hundred years not a single person in New York will be able to sleep without tranquilizers. Medicines will have to be taken.
And as for the impact of people like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the West—its relation is not with religion at all. Its total relation is only this much: for those who cannot sleep, by any trick let sleep come, the work is done. Let sleep come. Therefore what do Westerners call Maharishi’s so-called Transcendental Meditation? They call it a non-medicinal tranquilizer—the medicine for sleep without medicine. Let sleep come—enough.
The West is troubled; sleep is lost. Because if one has thought with great intensity for sixteen hours, the brain’s nerves, the whole system is stretched. Now at night it does not relax at once; the system remains taut. It remains taut at night. You try to sleep, but the brain is working hard. It is working so hard that sleep becomes impossible. And the more you wrestle with sleep through the night, the more impossible it becomes. For fighting and sleep are opposite. If you want to sleep, never try to sleep; if you try, you will never sleep. For trying—effort—is tension. And sleep is a state of no-tension—tensionless.
So the more a man tries—chants Ram-Ram, turns the rosary, gets up to stroll, washes hands and feet, pours water on the head, takes a warm bath—the more difficult sleep becomes. Because the more he does all this, the more the brain works; the more the brain works, the more sleep becomes impossible.
The people of the West have brought thought to such a state that the West stands on the edge of madness. And rightly understood, in big cities like New York, about eighty percent of people cannot be called mentally healthy. Therefore now, those among you who are trying to become doctors, do not worry too much about becoming doctors of the body. The coming world is going to be a world of the mad. In it, those who are doctors of the mind—their profession will run. For the body there is not much hope ahead.
Today in the West, especially in America, where thought has become most intense, the best profession is that of the psychiatrist, the mental physician. After every ten or five houses you will find a board saying a psychotherapist lives here. And psychotherapy is very expensive. It takes three years per person—not to become cured, but to change doctors. No one ever quite gets cured!
This extreme, intense state of tension of thought is driving the whole civilization of the West mad. Those who know say: the West has become a madhouse. No one there seems in his senses; all appear in a mad condition. Everyone is running, rushing. Running so fast that he cannot sit even for a moment. Our condition is becoming the same. See a man sitting on a chair—shaking his legs while sitting. This is he telling you tricks to run even while sitting. Now that you have sat, then simply sit! But where is the leisure to sit! Inside the mind is running, the legs are moving in its rhythm.
Watch a man passing on the road—watch closely. Though where is the leisure! Each man is entangled in himself—how will he watch another! I say to you, a husband can live with his wife for twenty years and not look closely at who this woman is. He will live with her twenty years, sleep with her, have children, and never has he looked closely at who this woman is. Yes, he saw her the first time, first sight! That is finished. After that no one looks. Once seen, the matter is ended.
Who has the leisure to look at anyone! But if you stand by the roadside and watch ten or twenty-five passersby, you will see that they are not seeing the road. Someone is moving his lips, talking while he walks; someone is making gestures with his hands. For whom is he signaling! There is no one there; he is walking alone. But someone is in his mind, to whom he gestures and speaks.
This man is walking closed within himself. He has no idea what is happening in the outer world. The rising number of road accidents are not due to the speed of cars. Their cause is people locked in their own capsules, to whom the road appears to be seen and yet is not seen. They are rushing! Inside them a speed is going on; they are entangled in it. Their hands are on the steering, but their mind is not on the steering; it is elsewhere. It is somewhere else engaged. The car is running by God’s grace. Where it will collide—because on the other side too people locked within themselves are rushing—there is no telling where it will crash.
Accidents keep increasing, and the basic cause of accidents is psychological. There is no other cause. But this total commotion which the West has raised… They have now gathered such dangerous weapons that if a politician does not sleep one night and presses a button, the whole world can be finished. And politicians are half-mad anyway; there is no telling about them. Any time they can press a button.
You should know that in Russia and America where they have arrangements for the use of super-bombs, for each bomb, each missile, they are arranging three keys—that until three men put in their keys—because there is no telling which man might become angry and turn his key. He may quarrel with his wife and think, Finish this world. Though it is not very difficult that three men together may come quarreling with their wives—that is not difficult; for with wives, besides quarreling, there is hardly any other business.
This mind which stands at such a place, which has arranged so many means that the whole world, at this very moment, could be set on fire and destroyed, is in the hands of a man who is absolutely nervous, to whom it is not clear what he is doing and what he is not.
The West has taken thought as the ultimate and has created dangers; man has gone mad. The East did not think, therefore man has not become truly man. He remained prior to man. Our state is primitive. We could not develop. And now, when so much tension appears in the West, our sadhus and sannyasins explain to people: look, having left religion, see how much difficulty they are in. You are very comfortable. If there were priests among dogs and cats, they would explain to the dogs and cats: look, man is in such trouble; you are perfectly fine. No heart disease, no cancer—nothing—you are fine! See how troubled man is.
It is true that the West is in trouble, but the West has gone ahead of us. It has put the foot on the stair—though it is not ready to get off the stair. That is its difficulty.
We stand at the bottom of the stairs. Any day the West will step down from the stair at the top, and there humanity will enter a new age. And we are standing below the stairs. From there, there is no way to go anywhere. First the stairs must be climbed, and then they must be left. Seeing them troubled we say, What need have we to climb? When they themselves, having reached the stair, are not in happiness, then we are fine below. What is the use of developing technology, of developing thought? Those who are developing—look at their condition. We are fine below.
But this is wrong. For they are in pain at some point of tension because they are not letting go. They are not in pain because of climbing. They are in pain because they cannot leave. Any day they can leave. And hence it appears to me that the coming phase of the human race will be placed in the West, not in the East. It is a sad thing. The future of humanity has gone into the hands of the West, not into ours. We have fallen out of the race. And we are rejoicing; and our dull-witted sadhus and sannyasins are explaining to people: what a great thing it is—see how happy we are; we sleep every night; we do not need medicine.
This is true. No animal needs medicine to sleep. But this is no glory. They have stood at a higher stage than us. They have stood at that stair from which, the day they take the next step, a wholly new race will be born—
and we will be completely left behind.
Perhaps you all have some idea that our solar family—of moon and stars, of the sun—has existed some seven or eight billion years. The sun about five billion years, approximately. For this kind of world only estimates can work; nothing can be certain. The earth about four billion years. Man about a million years. And human civilization about ten thousand years. A million years ago man must have been moving on all fours. And even today if a child is not taught, he may not begin to walk by himself on two legs; he will continue on all fours. Even today if a child is not taught, he will grow up walking on all fours. He cannot even come to know that one can walk on two legs.
And it has happened. In Bengal some years ago two little girls were caught who had been raised by wolves. Eight or ten years old, they were snatched from the wolves. It was difficult to stand them upright. They walked on all fours. In Uttar Pradesh two years ago a boy of fourteen was caught—Ram. He could not stand. His spine had become rigid. He walked on all fours. And he ran so swiftly that no man could run to match him. It took six months to teach him. With much massage of the spine, somehow… Even then, when by effort he would stand for a little while, he could; but as soon as he forgot, he would begin to walk on all fours again.
A million years ago some primitive men—who must have been moving on trees on all fours—some inventive mind, some one discoverer, would have come down and stood on two legs. Surely the one who stood on two legs would have had tensions in his life compared to those who moved on fours. For he had broken the old habit—of the whole body, the whole mind. The monkeys leaping on trees would have said, Look at this madman, getting into trouble with his own hands! Ever heard of anyone walking on two legs! Has it been written anywhere in any purana! Ever heard from forefathers that anyone walks on two! Always all have walked on all fours. His mind has gone bad.
It is possible the other monkeys together strangled him, as we strangle the necks of Jesus and others and kill them.
But the one who had stood on two legs would have suffered greatly. For to stand on two was so unprecedented; his brain must have been greatly strained; much restlessness would have happened. But that first monkey who stood on two legs gave birth to a new race of the whole of humanity. For hundreds of years those who walked on two would have been in trouble compared to those who walked on four, for the four were moving naturally. But today between us and monkeys there is such a distance that no one is ready to accept—even if Darwin says it—that these are our ancestors, our fathers. So great a gap has come.
Today the West is again in trouble. And this trouble is not physical—the monkeys’ trouble would have been physical—this trouble is mental. The mind has reached a place—a transparent wall—where it is trying by heavy blows to break the wall. In trying to break, its head is colliding, blood is flowing, sleep is destroyed, pain is happening. But the wall is becoming visible to it. We, with our eyes closed, chant Ram-Ram. We say, Why are you worrying? Why are you getting so troubled? We are perfectly fine, look at us. We are doing nothing. Why are you troubling yourselves? Come back!
If the West returns back, a rare opportunity of the human race will be lost. Therefore my understanding is that the people of the East, sadhus and sannyasins, should be strictly forbidden to enter the West—they will harm the people there. The condition that has arisen there is very wondrous. They stand at that place from where a new form of man can arise. If they go on dashing their heads, many will go mad, many will degenerate… The beatniks, hippies and Beatles—these are those who have refused to dash their heads. Who say we will not dash. We abandon this concern itself.
Millions of children in Europe are saying, We will not study. What is the use of studies? Those who have studied—what have they gained? Little children are asking their fathers, What did you gain from study? We do not want to study. Little ones at high school stage are saying, We will marry, because who knows, tomorrow war may break out and everything be finished. We must marry now. Little children are telling the government, Give us marriage allowance, because right now we cannot earn. When we earn, we will return it; but marriage we must do now. We want to live—we do not want to study, we do not want to write!
People are running away from where the head is colliding with the wall, but some courageous ones keep their head at it. Those courageous ones even go mad. Nietzsche went mad; but Nietzsche thought at the borderland of the world’s, the human race’s history—where man had never gone. He tried to go there and pushed to break the wall. The wall is very strong—made of millions of years. His head broke; he went mad.
It may be that in the West, over a hundred or two hundred years, many go mad; but if even one man breaks that wall and gets out, then just as one monkey stood on two legs, in the same way a new humanity—a superman—will be born. An overman will be born. We will sit like spectators and watch, sitting here. And we will go on chanting Ram-Ram, turning the rosary.
These stupidities have gone on too long. By them man does not develop. We will have to think here. Though seeing their pain we may feel that we are better. We have no worry, no anxiety. And teachers are arising in India who are saying, Let us go back. They say, What is the use of big cities; small villages should be there, for there is more peace in small villages.
They speak absolutely true. The more you go backward, the more peace there is; because the more you go backward, the more the intense longing for development keeps thinning out. Travel by airplane—there will be more unrest; travel by bullock cart—there will be more peace. Go back—as far as you can—abandon all technology; go back utterly; break all the houses; become primitive men—there will be more peace. Not because peace has been found—but because you ran away, abandoning the paths of unrest through which peace could have been found. This is escapism. Gandhi-ji explains this; Vinoba also explains this: let us go back.
At this time the human race is colliding at a place from where a new man will be born. The majority of teachers are speaking of going back, because they do not even know what is to happen ahead, what can happen. We stand at a barrier. After a million years a chance has come—a new barrier has come that must be crossed. My view is that India should dare for thought with full courage. Keeping in mind one thing—that the process of becoming thoughtless also remains in our attention and continues—then we will not fall into the West’s trouble into which they have fallen.
It may be that if all the educators and all thinking people of India together decide that we will also give birth to thought, and along with university education we will also give the education of thoughtlessness, of Dhyana, then there is much possibility that the trouble that is occurring in the West will not befall us. And there is also the possibility that the destiny which is to be determined as to which race will give birth to the new man—that good fortune may also be ours. But that fortune will come through the initiation into thought and the practice of no-thought.
Our condition is strange—we are not willing to think, so where does the question of thoughtlessness arise! And our arguments are these: since ultimately we have to be thoughtless, then fine—we become thoughtless right now. Why speak of later? If one has to get off the train, why board it? If one must leave the stair, why climb it?
India has lagged because of these wrong arguments. India can prove fortunate in the coming future if attention is kept on these two points. These two are entirely opposing; because the process of thought is one thing and the process of thoughtlessness is diametrically opposite. Both are completely contrary—and therefore highly meaningful. Because the man who thinks intensely eight to ten hours—if he becomes thoughtless even for an hour—then all the energy lost in thought becomes available again. As you labor all day awake, and at night you sleep. That night’s sleep is the exact opposite of waking. The waking state and the sleeping state are absolutely contrary. But you remain awake all day; at night you go into the opposite state, and the day’s fatigue of wakefulness dissolves. In the morning you return fresh.
At the level of the body whatever meaning there is in waking and sleeping, at the level of mind there is the same meaning in thinking and not thinking. If we keep a man awake and do not let him sleep, what will be the condition? Or if we do not let a man wake and keep him only asleep, what will be the condition? The man of the East we have kept asleep. We feed him twenty-five varieties of opium that he may sleep—do not wake—for those who wake get into trouble. Naturally, the one who wakes will get into a little trouble. The sleeping man has no trouble, because he does not come to know what is happening. However great the trouble. Even if the house catches fire, he does not know.
The Eastern man is a sleeping man; he does not know anything. A famine is approaching—he does not know. He will go on producing children! A sleeping man—what does he know that famine is coming, do not bear children. He will produce children here and go on playing the band as well. He does not know that you are playing the band to welcome death. Each child is bringing the news of death for the whole nation. You are playing the band! You do not know what is happening, what will happen ahead! The country grows poorer. No one knows, no one thinks.
Sleeping people—they will go on walking.
The sleeping man is not in pain—this is true. The man who wakes suffers. But note this: the more a man wakes, the more he attains the joy of sleep as well. The one who sleeps all day—his joy of sleeping also goes, the depth also goes. If you lie in bed all day, then at night the depth of sleep will be gone. The depth of sleep is as much as the depth of waking. The proportion remains equal. The more intensely one wakes, the more deeply he will sleep. The more deeply he sleeps, the more he will be able to wake. Then the more he can wake, the more deeply he can sleep. The mind revolves exactly between these opposite poles.
The more sharply one thinks, the more deeply can he become thoughtless. And the more thoughtless he becomes, goes beyond thought, the more deeply and clearly he can think. There is no longer a choice between thought and thoughtlessness. The roads of choosing are finished. Now between thought and no-thought there is a need of balance, of dialogue.
If India accomplishes this before the West, a very wondrous event will happen. But it does not seem India will be able to; because India does not think, does not reflect. It is a gathering of corpses, dead fossils. They died long ago. It is a posthumous existence—fit for postmortem, and fit for nothing else. Sitting like the dead, like Ganeshes made of dung. There is nothing to do, nothing to think. Just watching for the moment when God sends the ticket saying, Come back! Where is the exit—that is all we seek. Where is the door from which we can slip out, get rid of the cycle of birth and death!
Is this all there is to do in life? Life belongs to those who struggle. Life belongs to those who try to conquer it. But life does not belong only to those who only try to conquer. Life belongs to those who strive to win—and at a certain boundary, give up even the effort to win. But these are contrary things. And these contrary things I have tried to explain a little. If between these two opposites, these paradoxes, a balance can arise, a new man can be born.
The effort has been going on for a million years. And remember—you are students of medicine, so you know that in a million years physiologically there has been no change in man’s brain. The skulls of men two hundred thousand years ago that have been found—between their skulls and ours there is no fundamental difference. There has been no development on that plane. On that plane there has been no development. Whatever development has happened is on the plane of thought. Development has happened on the plane of consciousness. No development has taken place on the plane of the body. Ahead now—and that development has stopped. On the plane of the body no development is occurring. Repeatedly, there is a repetition of the same kind of body—no development is happening in it.
It seems now that in another plane, in another dimension, development will occur. And that development is of consciousness. Consciousness is colliding there; a glass wall is standing there. How to drop thought—that is not occurring to the mind.
For today I have said only this much: there is a third alternative. When I come again, I will speak on how you can fulfill that third alternative.
You have listened to my words with such silence and love—for that I am very obliged. And in the end I bow to the Paramatman seated within all. Please accept my pranam.
Osho's Commentary
I was a guest in a family. At the very gate of that house a bird—a very beautiful bird—was kept shut in a cage. The cage had glass walls. Perhaps the bird did not even know that there was a wall between itself and the world. The glass wall was transparent. One could see beyond it. And thus the bird might not even have realized that there was some barrier standing between it and the sky.
Perhaps many times it had pecked at that glass with its beak, fluttered its wings; then, slowly, finding no way, it must have given up even that. And after years of being confined, perhaps now it no longer knows what the use of its wings is. A bird that has not flown for years—how could it remember that its wings are for flight? That bird must be taking its wings as a burden—futile—without purpose, without use; wings that sometimes even become an obstruction for moving about inside the cage.
To that bird its wings must seem a load—the very wings that could have lifted it into the sky! But the bird had never risen into the sky. That there is a sky to fly in, an open, free sky; that there is the capacity to rise beyond the clouds; that there is the freedom to dance in the light of the sun, to break all boundaries and fly—such thoughts must have stopped visiting that bird.
Seeing that bird I began to think, and then it occurred to me that man too is closed in such transparent walls. If the walls were of stone, a man could try to break them—because it becomes difficult to see beyond a wall of stone. But if the walls are of glass, one does not even come to know that there are walls; it begins to seem—this alone is existence.
Man too is living shut within glass walls—encapsulated; as if enclosed inside a glass capsule. This glass wall is made of thoughts. Thoughts are very transparent. One can see through them, as one sees through glass. But just as glass prevents flight, thought too prevents flight.
To understand man the first fact to be understood is that those things which are helpful in a human life, at a certain boundary, become hindrances. Even if one thinks, reflects, one does not readily see this crucial truth. Because we think that what is helpful can never become an obstacle. But every helpful thing, at a boundary, turns into a hindrance.
If a man is climbing a house by its stairs, without climbing the stairs he cannot reach the top. But if he stops on the stairs, he still does not reach the top. Stairs help you climb, and can also keep you from arriving.
A man crosses a river by boat. If he does not board the boat, he cannot cross; but if he remains seated in the boat, he also cannot cross the river. At one bank you must take hold of the boat; at the other bank you must let it go. Only when the capacity to both hold and to release exists does a man cross the river.
All instruments of life must be held at one boundary and released at another. Thought has given much to man—science; literature; poetry. Thought has given much, but at a certain point even thought becomes a capsule and shackles a man. And one who remains enclosed in thoughts is deprived of the Supreme Truth, that ultimate truth, that climax of life and bliss.
To take hold of thought is necessary—and to let it go is also necessary.
I have heard: two monks were traveling near a river. That evening they were engaged in a dispute. One monk held that money should not be kept; money is useless. The other monk believed one should certainly keep money, but one should not cling to it; to cling is futile.
Quarreling, when the sun had set, they reached a river they had to cross. The monk who said keeping money is useless had no money to get into the little ferry and go across. His friend said, Now what will happen, how will you cross, since keeping money is useless? But I have money, and it is proven that money is necessary. That second friend paid; they both crossed the river. As soon as they reached the other side, the one who had paid said: See, because we had money, we crossed! But his friend began to laugh and said: You say we crossed because you had money. I say, we crossed because you could let the money go. If you had not let it go, crossing would have been difficult. Having money did not do the work, said his friend; letting it go did the work.
But money must be there in order to be let go.
Now, it is most amusing that the use of money is that it can be left. But people cling to money, and then the use of money becomes futile. The use of thought is also that it can be left; but people clutch at thought, and then thought becomes a wall and stops man.
Let it be remembered: life is vast; thought is very small. Life is immense; thought is petty. It is we who think. Our limit is also the limit of thought. We are not infinite; the universe is infinite. That which is, is endless. It has neither beginning nor end. We will be born and we will die. One moment is our birth and one moment our end. In this little circle is our understanding. If we take this small understanding as truth, we have caged the bird of our soul—within such walls that, gradually, it will even forget what it is to fly.
Only those can fly in the inner space, the inner sky, who have the capacity to drop thought. But only he can drop who possesses thought.
I have heard: at a station there was much disputation. Some friends had gathered to travel to Haridwar, and one friend was saying that he would not board the train, for he wished to go to Haridwar. They said: If you wish to go to Haridwar, you will have to get into the train. If you do not get in, you will not reach Haridwar. The friend said, Then will I not have to get down from the train? They said: You will have to get down as well. The friend said, Why board that from which one must get down? If one must get down, climbing aboard is futile.
His logic, his argument, was indeed neat: why take the trouble to climb onto that from which one must in any case alight!
But the friends said the train was about to depart; all the passengers had sat down and everyone was shouting, Hurry up, get in. The train is about to leave. Put the luggage inside. The friends dragged him in by force, for they had to go and there was no time to argue.
Those who have to get somewhere have no time to argue. Those who need go nowhere can argue at leisure. Dragged inside, he kept crying, Look, if you have taken me in, I will not get down. For once I climb onto something, I see no need to get down; otherwise, I wouldn’t have climbed at all.
Then, at Haridwar the uproar began. The friends urged, Get down. Now the man said, I climbed, why should I get down? The man appears to be speaking rightly. Where one has to get down, why climb? And once one has climbed, what is the point of getting down?
But the man is giving a mad argument. Life is very wondrous. Here one has to climb and one has to get down—only then does one arrive anywhere.
Some people think that if thought is to be dropped, then why think at all? Do not think at all. Then man remains stupid. Then he remains inert. Those who do not think remain inert; no growth happens to them; they do not set foot on the stair. But they will cite references from scriptures: Look, the scriptures say: drop thought, drop logic. That which is written to be dropped—we do not do at all. We neither reason nor think. We simply believe, because in believing there is no need to think, no need to argue.
Millions die shackled in belief; but a few show courage to think. They say, We will think, because how can we accept what does not appear right to us. We will reason; we will develop intelligence. Such people think a great deal, and then gradually they become possessed by thought and end within thought itself.
The believer is finished, for he does not climb the stair. And the one who only thinks is finished, for he remains standing on the stair.
The countries of the East destroyed themselves by doing the first—by believing. Hence science did not take birth in the East. The absence of science was the murder of the East. No science could develop, for how will science be born without thought? When we do not think, how will the facts of life be uncovered? The East said that man gets imprisoned in thought, therefore we should not think. And because of not thinking, the East became imprisoned—in belief, in blind faith, in superstition. Whoever is born in the East, however much he begins to think on the surface, within him blind belief remains.
I was a guest at a doctor’s home in Calcutta. In the evening we were leaving for a meeting; his daughter sneezed. And that doctor said to me, Please wait two minutes, wait a moment.
I said to him: What connection can there be between your daughter sneezing and my waiting? There is no connection in any of the three times. And if I must wait because your daughter sneezed, then all must wait, for sneezing is happening all over the earth, across the whole space. All moon and stars should come to a halt because some doctor’s daughter has sneezed. Nothing will stop. And then you know very well—you are a doctor—why a sneeze comes!
He said: That I know, but what harm is there in waiting two moments?
It was the Eastern man speaking from within—the believer. He had returned with a Western education. He lived seven years in Europe. But all that education remained on the surface. The Eastern man inside who says, One should not think, is present. He does not stop following. He remains.
Our best thinker is also not a thinker. Go a little deeper and you will find blind faith begins. For a little while his hands will flail, then finally he will say that belief is right, what is the benefit of thinking? Such statements appeal to us greatly.
Gandhi-ji was among us. He would always say that my inner voice says this is the truth. Now this is a device to avoid thinking. Your inner voice says it is true, and another’s inner voice says it is not. Then how will it be decided? There are forty crores of people in India. Each one’s inner voice can say that truth is something else. Jinnah’s inner voice says something different, and Jinnah too believes that God himself is speaking within me. And Gandhi’s inner voice says another thing; and Godse’s inner voice says a third thing. Which inner voice is true?
Without thought it cannot be decided. But those who clutch blind faith inside will say, No, there is no need to think in this; this is the voice of God. What we feel is absolutely right. The believer is not prepared to think; he only declares that this alone is right.
I have heard that in Baghdad once a man came and declared, I am a prophet. The caliph of Baghdad seized him and said that this man is mad, because Muhammad is the final prophet; after him there will be no prophet. There is no need. When Muhammad has revealed all of God’s messages, what need is there for any other man to be a prophet?
The man was caught and put in prison. He was whipped; chains were put on his hands. Fifteen days later the caliph came to meet him and said, If your mind has become sound, then say I am an ordinary man; otherwise after fifteen days death awaits you.
That man said: Mind! The conviction has grown stronger that I am a prophet; because when I started from God’s court, He said, Mind it, friend, great troubles descend upon prophets. From your persecutions it is proved I am a prophet. This has always happened: whenever God’s messengers come to the earth, handcuffs are put on them, they are whipped. And if you hang me, that will make it absolutely certain; it will prove I am a prophet!
The caliph was very astonished. He started listening with a jolt. Just then, from behind the bars, another man cried out, This man is speaking falsely, O caliph! He too was imprisoned. His hands were in chains. He had been caught six months earlier. That man cried, The one who calls himself a prophet is utterly lying, because after Muhammad I have appointed no one as a prophet.
He had been caught six months before. He fancied himself to be God! He himself was God!... This man speaks falsely. I have not made anyone a prophet after Muhammad.
Now who will decide about these inner voices—whether these men are mad!
Life runs on thought. Thought is the touchstone. Therefore the people of the West abandoned belief, for it had no meaning. It shackles. Think. Through thought science was born. Through thought reasoning was born. Through thought all blind beliefs of the West were broken. But a strange event occurred: as much as man had been bound by belief, by thought he became bound just as much. The chains changed. The bondage did not end. The links changed. In place of the chains of blind belief came the chains of thought.
The West left belief, so science was born. The Eastern countries died because they could not create science; and the Western countries are nearing death because too much science has been created. The West will die of the excess of science; the East died of the absence of science. The East died of belief; the West will die of thought.
Is there no third way?
The future of man is on the third way. The East has failed, the West too. Belief has failed, thought too. Religion has failed, science too. Is there a third path?
Two world wars have announced that science has failed badly. It has left us at a place where man sees no solution but death. Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought the news that science has failed. Science alone is not enough. And peoples like India, enslaved and poor, brought the news long ago that religion alone is not enough. Religion has failed.
But can it not be that at one boundary there is thought, and at another boundary thought is left? It can be. This which I call the third alternative does not choose between belief and thought. It says: thought is a ladder and thoughtlessness is also a ladder. One has to climb by thought and, arriving at a point, drop thought. One who does not learn this art knows nothing of life’s depths and heights.
If you go near a rose and you do not think at all, you will not come to know the rose. You will pass by as if there were no flower. Because man comes to know only that of which he thinks. The very being of the flower will not be known. We come to know only what becomes thought inside us. It becomes thought; therefore it comes to our knowing. If the flower does not form as a thought in our mind, we will not come to know the flower.
Many people pass by a flower just like that; they do not come to know the flower. The thought of the flower does not arise within them. As if there were no flower, they pass by. Thousands—among us too thousands—by night whether there are moon and stars in the sky or not, there is no knowing. They pass by like that. But some people do come to know. Some are seized by the flower—seized at their very life-breath. They pause for a moment. The thought of the flower spreads over their very life.
And the thought that spreads over the life-breath—life tastes the joy of that very thought. If the thought of the flower seizes someone’s life-breath, whatever juice is in the flower, whatever fragrance, whatever beauty, becomes a part of our soul. Because through thought we are connected; communication begins.
But those who stop at merely thinking about the flower do not know the whole life of the flower either. For what will thought do regarding the flower? What has been read earlier, heard earlier—heard in poems, in songs—what others have said, what has come from one’s own past experience—all of that is thought. Instantly a man says: It is a rose, very beautiful. All this is hackneyed. Rose has been said many times; very beautiful has been said many times. Because of these words, the earlier roses came in between. The notion of beauty came in between. And the flower that was there remained on that side; a transparent wall arose in between—a wall of thought.
As soon as the man said, Very beautiful—how will he say very beautiful—old experiences began to function. He had known flowers before, had found them beautiful. He has heard, read in books; he began to say it. Thought came in between. And when thought comes in between, experience comes in between. And beyond that which has come in between is the flower—as it is. This flower he has never seen before; this flower is absolutely new. He has no experience of this flower. This flower is utterly unique. No two flowers are the same. The flowers he had seen were other flowers. And if memory, their memory, comes in between…
And perhaps you do not know—memory intrudes with great intensity. It stands in between with tremendous speed.
A man met you yesterday… It may be a little hard to understand in relation to the flower… A man met you yesterday and hurled abuse. Today that man has come to ask pardon. But seeing him standing at the door, in your eyes will arise the man of yesterday who abused. An image will stand between—an image of the one who abused. Through that image you will see this man. The one who has come to seek forgiveness—he is an entirely different man. For the one who abused and the one who seeks pardon cannot be the same man. He has become altogether other. He has wept through the night, shed tears. But seeing his swollen eyes you will think perhaps he is filled with anger, ready with curses. What was seen yesterday stands in between. And then you will perhaps be deprived of seeing him. Then communion will not be possible. A wall has arisen in between.
Without thought, the flower cannot be seen. And if thought gets stuck, the flower still cannot be seen. Thought should be there—and it should fall away. When thought, too, falls away, only the flower remains and you remain—nothing remains in between—then there is a meeting of the soul of the flower and your soul. Very few come to know that. Those who know are amazed at how much was hidden in the flower, of which no inkling had ever come. That will not be known otherwise. In life too, so much is hidden; in each person, in each eye, so much is hidden. But either we do not think at all, or we go on thinking only—and we miss.
In the future, whatever the direction of education may be—whether one studies in a medical college, in an engineering college, in an arts college, whatever one studies—two things should be taught: to think, and to become thoughtless. If only thinking is taught, man will become harried, restless, anxious, full of anxiety—as is happening more and more.
Bertrand Russell went and lived for some days in a tribal village. At the age of ninety the old man said that I missed life. Living among the tribals I came to know that I wasted my life in thinking. I neither danced as they dance, nor loved as they love, nor rejoiced as they rejoice. I did nothing at all. I only thought, sat in libraries reading books and thinking—and life passed me by.
Life is known by living—where will it be known by thinking? The one who is shut in the capsule of thought—life will pass by on one side; he will remain seated in his thought.
Look at those who think; around them is a wall that is not visible to us. Life keeps passing along the edge; they sit enclosed in their thought. You too may be passing on the road; an inner thought is going on within—then the road does not appear. Thought seizes within; all doors have closed.
A youth playing on the field: he gets hurt on the leg. Blood is flowing. But until he is playing, it does not come to his knowing. Because until then the thought of play has seized the mind so powerfully that even the awareness of blood flowing from the leg cannot arise—a wall is standing. From one’s own leg blood is flowing; even that is not known. The play ends, and instantly the wall breaks—and he comes to know that blood is flowing from the leg. Who knows since when it has been flowing! But why did the pain not get known for so long? It would have, had the shell of thought not been in between. He was encapsulated; the mind was closed—clutched—in a run of thought. Therefore what was happening outside was not known.
And we are enclosed in thought twenty-four hours; hence we know nothing of the secrets of life, its mystery. We live our whole lives within our thought.
As I said of that bird, it is shut in its walls and lives. It does not even know that there is a sky.
Outside thought there is also a sky—and a very vast sky. If this can come into your awareness, and education can be such that we teach both to think and to become thoughtless… If a man, in twenty-four hours, sleeps eight hours, thinks and works eight hours—then for eight hours he should become thoughtless as well. For eight hours, leave thinking altogether. We will say these are two contrary things! This is not right. If we think, we will only think; if we drop thought, we will drop it totally. As India’s sadhus and sannyasins drop everything and run away. They say we have dropped all. That is a mistake. Western people say we will only think; we won’t even sleep at night. They cannot sleep; without medicine they cannot sleep. In New York thirty percent of people sleep by taking medicines. Thirty percent is a large number. But psychologists there say that within a hundred years not a single person in New York will be able to sleep without tranquilizers. Medicines will have to be taken.
And as for the impact of people like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the West—its relation is not with religion at all. Its total relation is only this much: for those who cannot sleep, by any trick let sleep come, the work is done. Let sleep come. Therefore what do Westerners call Maharishi’s so-called Transcendental Meditation? They call it a non-medicinal tranquilizer—the medicine for sleep without medicine. Let sleep come—enough.
The West is troubled; sleep is lost. Because if one has thought with great intensity for sixteen hours, the brain’s nerves, the whole system is stretched. Now at night it does not relax at once; the system remains taut. It remains taut at night. You try to sleep, but the brain is working hard. It is working so hard that sleep becomes impossible. And the more you wrestle with sleep through the night, the more impossible it becomes. For fighting and sleep are opposite. If you want to sleep, never try to sleep; if you try, you will never sleep. For trying—effort—is tension. And sleep is a state of no-tension—tensionless.
So the more a man tries—chants Ram-Ram, turns the rosary, gets up to stroll, washes hands and feet, pours water on the head, takes a warm bath—the more difficult sleep becomes. Because the more he does all this, the more the brain works; the more the brain works, the more sleep becomes impossible.
The people of the West have brought thought to such a state that the West stands on the edge of madness. And rightly understood, in big cities like New York, about eighty percent of people cannot be called mentally healthy. Therefore now, those among you who are trying to become doctors, do not worry too much about becoming doctors of the body. The coming world is going to be a world of the mad. In it, those who are doctors of the mind—their profession will run. For the body there is not much hope ahead.
Today in the West, especially in America, where thought has become most intense, the best profession is that of the psychiatrist, the mental physician. After every ten or five houses you will find a board saying a psychotherapist lives here. And psychotherapy is very expensive. It takes three years per person—not to become cured, but to change doctors. No one ever quite gets cured!
This extreme, intense state of tension of thought is driving the whole civilization of the West mad. Those who know say: the West has become a madhouse. No one there seems in his senses; all appear in a mad condition. Everyone is running, rushing. Running so fast that he cannot sit even for a moment. Our condition is becoming the same. See a man sitting on a chair—shaking his legs while sitting. This is he telling you tricks to run even while sitting. Now that you have sat, then simply sit! But where is the leisure to sit! Inside the mind is running, the legs are moving in its rhythm.
Watch a man passing on the road—watch closely. Though where is the leisure! Each man is entangled in himself—how will he watch another! I say to you, a husband can live with his wife for twenty years and not look closely at who this woman is. He will live with her twenty years, sleep with her, have children, and never has he looked closely at who this woman is. Yes, he saw her the first time, first sight! That is finished. After that no one looks. Once seen, the matter is ended.
Who has the leisure to look at anyone! But if you stand by the roadside and watch ten or twenty-five passersby, you will see that they are not seeing the road. Someone is moving his lips, talking while he walks; someone is making gestures with his hands. For whom is he signaling! There is no one there; he is walking alone. But someone is in his mind, to whom he gestures and speaks.
This man is walking closed within himself. He has no idea what is happening in the outer world. The rising number of road accidents are not due to the speed of cars. Their cause is people locked in their own capsules, to whom the road appears to be seen and yet is not seen. They are rushing! Inside them a speed is going on; they are entangled in it. Their hands are on the steering, but their mind is not on the steering; it is elsewhere. It is somewhere else engaged. The car is running by God’s grace. Where it will collide—because on the other side too people locked within themselves are rushing—there is no telling where it will crash.
Accidents keep increasing, and the basic cause of accidents is psychological. There is no other cause. But this total commotion which the West has raised… They have now gathered such dangerous weapons that if a politician does not sleep one night and presses a button, the whole world can be finished. And politicians are half-mad anyway; there is no telling about them. Any time they can press a button.
You should know that in Russia and America where they have arrangements for the use of super-bombs, for each bomb, each missile, they are arranging three keys—that until three men put in their keys—because there is no telling which man might become angry and turn his key. He may quarrel with his wife and think, Finish this world. Though it is not very difficult that three men together may come quarreling with their wives—that is not difficult; for with wives, besides quarreling, there is hardly any other business.
This mind which stands at such a place, which has arranged so many means that the whole world, at this very moment, could be set on fire and destroyed, is in the hands of a man who is absolutely nervous, to whom it is not clear what he is doing and what he is not.
The West has taken thought as the ultimate and has created dangers; man has gone mad. The East did not think, therefore man has not become truly man. He remained prior to man. Our state is primitive. We could not develop. And now, when so much tension appears in the West, our sadhus and sannyasins explain to people: look, having left religion, see how much difficulty they are in. You are very comfortable. If there were priests among dogs and cats, they would explain to the dogs and cats: look, man is in such trouble; you are perfectly fine. No heart disease, no cancer—nothing—you are fine! See how troubled man is.
It is true that the West is in trouble, but the West has gone ahead of us. It has put the foot on the stair—though it is not ready to get off the stair. That is its difficulty.
We stand at the bottom of the stairs. Any day the West will step down from the stair at the top, and there humanity will enter a new age. And we are standing below the stairs. From there, there is no way to go anywhere. First the stairs must be climbed, and then they must be left. Seeing them troubled we say, What need have we to climb? When they themselves, having reached the stair, are not in happiness, then we are fine below. What is the use of developing technology, of developing thought? Those who are developing—look at their condition. We are fine below.
But this is wrong. For they are in pain at some point of tension because they are not letting go. They are not in pain because of climbing. They are in pain because they cannot leave. Any day they can leave. And hence it appears to me that the coming phase of the human race will be placed in the West, not in the East. It is a sad thing. The future of humanity has gone into the hands of the West, not into ours. We have fallen out of the race. And we are rejoicing; and our dull-witted sadhus and sannyasins are explaining to people: what a great thing it is—see how happy we are; we sleep every night; we do not need medicine.
This is true. No animal needs medicine to sleep. But this is no glory. They have stood at a higher stage than us. They have stood at that stair from which, the day they take the next step, a wholly new race will be born—
and we will be completely left behind.
Perhaps you all have some idea that our solar family—of moon and stars, of the sun—has existed some seven or eight billion years. The sun about five billion years, approximately. For this kind of world only estimates can work; nothing can be certain. The earth about four billion years. Man about a million years. And human civilization about ten thousand years. A million years ago man must have been moving on all fours. And even today if a child is not taught, he may not begin to walk by himself on two legs; he will continue on all fours. Even today if a child is not taught, he will grow up walking on all fours. He cannot even come to know that one can walk on two legs.
And it has happened. In Bengal some years ago two little girls were caught who had been raised by wolves. Eight or ten years old, they were snatched from the wolves. It was difficult to stand them upright. They walked on all fours. In Uttar Pradesh two years ago a boy of fourteen was caught—Ram. He could not stand. His spine had become rigid. He walked on all fours. And he ran so swiftly that no man could run to match him. It took six months to teach him. With much massage of the spine, somehow… Even then, when by effort he would stand for a little while, he could; but as soon as he forgot, he would begin to walk on all fours again.
A million years ago some primitive men—who must have been moving on trees on all fours—some inventive mind, some one discoverer, would have come down and stood on two legs. Surely the one who stood on two legs would have had tensions in his life compared to those who moved on fours. For he had broken the old habit—of the whole body, the whole mind. The monkeys leaping on trees would have said, Look at this madman, getting into trouble with his own hands! Ever heard of anyone walking on two legs! Has it been written anywhere in any purana! Ever heard from forefathers that anyone walks on two! Always all have walked on all fours. His mind has gone bad.
It is possible the other monkeys together strangled him, as we strangle the necks of Jesus and others and kill them.
But the one who had stood on two legs would have suffered greatly. For to stand on two was so unprecedented; his brain must have been greatly strained; much restlessness would have happened. But that first monkey who stood on two legs gave birth to a new race of the whole of humanity. For hundreds of years those who walked on two would have been in trouble compared to those who walked on four, for the four were moving naturally. But today between us and monkeys there is such a distance that no one is ready to accept—even if Darwin says it—that these are our ancestors, our fathers. So great a gap has come.
Today the West is again in trouble. And this trouble is not physical—the monkeys’ trouble would have been physical—this trouble is mental. The mind has reached a place—a transparent wall—where it is trying by heavy blows to break the wall. In trying to break, its head is colliding, blood is flowing, sleep is destroyed, pain is happening. But the wall is becoming visible to it. We, with our eyes closed, chant Ram-Ram. We say, Why are you worrying? Why are you getting so troubled? We are perfectly fine, look at us. We are doing nothing. Why are you troubling yourselves? Come back!
If the West returns back, a rare opportunity of the human race will be lost. Therefore my understanding is that the people of the East, sadhus and sannyasins, should be strictly forbidden to enter the West—they will harm the people there. The condition that has arisen there is very wondrous. They stand at that place from where a new form of man can arise. If they go on dashing their heads, many will go mad, many will degenerate… The beatniks, hippies and Beatles—these are those who have refused to dash their heads. Who say we will not dash. We abandon this concern itself.
Millions of children in Europe are saying, We will not study. What is the use of studies? Those who have studied—what have they gained? Little children are asking their fathers, What did you gain from study? We do not want to study. Little ones at high school stage are saying, We will marry, because who knows, tomorrow war may break out and everything be finished. We must marry now. Little children are telling the government, Give us marriage allowance, because right now we cannot earn. When we earn, we will return it; but marriage we must do now. We want to live—we do not want to study, we do not want to write!
People are running away from where the head is colliding with the wall, but some courageous ones keep their head at it. Those courageous ones even go mad. Nietzsche went mad; but Nietzsche thought at the borderland of the world’s, the human race’s history—where man had never gone. He tried to go there and pushed to break the wall. The wall is very strong—made of millions of years. His head broke; he went mad.
It may be that in the West, over a hundred or two hundred years, many go mad; but if even one man breaks that wall and gets out, then just as one monkey stood on two legs, in the same way a new humanity—a superman—will be born. An overman will be born. We will sit like spectators and watch, sitting here. And we will go on chanting Ram-Ram, turning the rosary.
These stupidities have gone on too long. By them man does not develop. We will have to think here. Though seeing their pain we may feel that we are better. We have no worry, no anxiety. And teachers are arising in India who are saying, Let us go back. They say, What is the use of big cities; small villages should be there, for there is more peace in small villages.
They speak absolutely true. The more you go backward, the more peace there is; because the more you go backward, the more the intense longing for development keeps thinning out. Travel by airplane—there will be more unrest; travel by bullock cart—there will be more peace. Go back—as far as you can—abandon all technology; go back utterly; break all the houses; become primitive men—there will be more peace. Not because peace has been found—but because you ran away, abandoning the paths of unrest through which peace could have been found. This is escapism. Gandhi-ji explains this; Vinoba also explains this: let us go back.
At this time the human race is colliding at a place from where a new man will be born. The majority of teachers are speaking of going back, because they do not even know what is to happen ahead, what can happen. We stand at a barrier. After a million years a chance has come—a new barrier has come that must be crossed. My view is that India should dare for thought with full courage. Keeping in mind one thing—that the process of becoming thoughtless also remains in our attention and continues—then we will not fall into the West’s trouble into which they have fallen.
It may be that if all the educators and all thinking people of India together decide that we will also give birth to thought, and along with university education we will also give the education of thoughtlessness, of Dhyana, then there is much possibility that the trouble that is occurring in the West will not befall us. And there is also the possibility that the destiny which is to be determined as to which race will give birth to the new man—that good fortune may also be ours. But that fortune will come through the initiation into thought and the practice of no-thought.
Our condition is strange—we are not willing to think, so where does the question of thoughtlessness arise! And our arguments are these: since ultimately we have to be thoughtless, then fine—we become thoughtless right now. Why speak of later? If one has to get off the train, why board it? If one must leave the stair, why climb it?
India has lagged because of these wrong arguments. India can prove fortunate in the coming future if attention is kept on these two points. These two are entirely opposing; because the process of thought is one thing and the process of thoughtlessness is diametrically opposite. Both are completely contrary—and therefore highly meaningful. Because the man who thinks intensely eight to ten hours—if he becomes thoughtless even for an hour—then all the energy lost in thought becomes available again. As you labor all day awake, and at night you sleep. That night’s sleep is the exact opposite of waking. The waking state and the sleeping state are absolutely contrary. But you remain awake all day; at night you go into the opposite state, and the day’s fatigue of wakefulness dissolves. In the morning you return fresh.
At the level of the body whatever meaning there is in waking and sleeping, at the level of mind there is the same meaning in thinking and not thinking. If we keep a man awake and do not let him sleep, what will be the condition? Or if we do not let a man wake and keep him only asleep, what will be the condition? The man of the East we have kept asleep. We feed him twenty-five varieties of opium that he may sleep—do not wake—for those who wake get into trouble. Naturally, the one who wakes will get into a little trouble. The sleeping man has no trouble, because he does not come to know what is happening. However great the trouble. Even if the house catches fire, he does not know.
The Eastern man is a sleeping man; he does not know anything. A famine is approaching—he does not know. He will go on producing children! A sleeping man—what does he know that famine is coming, do not bear children. He will produce children here and go on playing the band as well. He does not know that you are playing the band to welcome death. Each child is bringing the news of death for the whole nation. You are playing the band! You do not know what is happening, what will happen ahead! The country grows poorer. No one knows, no one thinks.
Sleeping people—they will go on walking.
The sleeping man is not in pain—this is true. The man who wakes suffers. But note this: the more a man wakes, the more he attains the joy of sleep as well. The one who sleeps all day—his joy of sleeping also goes, the depth also goes. If you lie in bed all day, then at night the depth of sleep will be gone. The depth of sleep is as much as the depth of waking. The proportion remains equal. The more intensely one wakes, the more deeply he will sleep. The more deeply he sleeps, the more he will be able to wake. Then the more he can wake, the more deeply he can sleep. The mind revolves exactly between these opposite poles.
The more sharply one thinks, the more deeply can he become thoughtless. And the more thoughtless he becomes, goes beyond thought, the more deeply and clearly he can think. There is no longer a choice between thought and thoughtlessness. The roads of choosing are finished. Now between thought and no-thought there is a need of balance, of dialogue.
If India accomplishes this before the West, a very wondrous event will happen. But it does not seem India will be able to; because India does not think, does not reflect. It is a gathering of corpses, dead fossils. They died long ago. It is a posthumous existence—fit for postmortem, and fit for nothing else. Sitting like the dead, like Ganeshes made of dung. There is nothing to do, nothing to think. Just watching for the moment when God sends the ticket saying, Come back! Where is the exit—that is all we seek. Where is the door from which we can slip out, get rid of the cycle of birth and death!
Is this all there is to do in life? Life belongs to those who struggle. Life belongs to those who try to conquer it. But life does not belong only to those who only try to conquer. Life belongs to those who strive to win—and at a certain boundary, give up even the effort to win. But these are contrary things. And these contrary things I have tried to explain a little. If between these two opposites, these paradoxes, a balance can arise, a new man can be born.
The effort has been going on for a million years. And remember—you are students of medicine, so you know that in a million years physiologically there has been no change in man’s brain. The skulls of men two hundred thousand years ago that have been found—between their skulls and ours there is no fundamental difference. There has been no development on that plane. On that plane there has been no development. Whatever development has happened is on the plane of thought. Development has happened on the plane of consciousness. No development has taken place on the plane of the body. Ahead now—and that development has stopped. On the plane of the body no development is occurring. Repeatedly, there is a repetition of the same kind of body—no development is happening in it.
It seems now that in another plane, in another dimension, development will occur. And that development is of consciousness. Consciousness is colliding there; a glass wall is standing there. How to drop thought—that is not occurring to the mind.
For today I have said only this much: there is a third alternative. When I come again, I will speak on how you can fulfill that third alternative.
You have listened to my words with such silence and love—for that I am very obliged. And in the end I bow to the Paramatman seated within all. Please accept my pranam.