Maha Geeta #11

Janaka said: 'Knowledge, the known, and the knower—these three are not real. In that in which these three shimmer, I am that stainless one.'

Jñānaṃ jñeyaṃ tathā jñātā tritayaṃ nāsti vāstavam.

Whatever is being seen, the one to whom it is being seen, and the relation in between—the knowing, the seeing—Janaka says: today I awoke, and I saw, all this is a dream. The one who awakened and who saw these three dissolving like a dream, only that is the Truth.

So do not take the witness to be the seer. In the dictionary, the meaning of sākṣī is given as seer; but the witness is deeper than the seer. In the seer, the first glimpse of the witness appears. In the witness, the seer’s fragrance flowers in full. The seer is still divided. If there is a seer, there will be the seen. And if the seen and the seer are, then between the two there will be the relation called seeing, called knowledge. So as yet, there are fragments.

Wherever there are fragments, there is dream; because existence is indivisible. Wherever we divide, wherever we draw boundaries, all those boundaries are utilitarian, not ultimate.

To separate your house from your neighbor’s, you draw a line, you raise a wall, you put up a fence—but the earth is not divided. To separate India and Pakistan you draw a border on the map; but the border is on the map, the earth is undivided.

The sky over your courtyard and the sky over your neighbor’s courtyard are not two. The wall that divides your yard does not divide the sky. Wherever we have divided, it is out of need; there is a utility in dividing, there is no truth in dividing. Truth is undivided.

And the deepest division within us is that of the one who sees and that which is seen. The day this division too falls, the last politics falls, the last maps fall, the last borders fall. Then what remains, indivisible—what to call it? It can no longer be called the seer, because the seen has vanished. What kind of seer without the seen? And what is happening to this seer can no longer be called seeing, for seeing cannot be without the seen. Thus the seer, the seeing, and the seen are bound together; if they are, they are together, and if they go, they go together.

You have seen! Any dream that goes, goes whole; and if it comes, it comes whole. You cannot say, I will save a little fragment of the dream—or can you?

At night you dreamt that you became an emperor—there was a great throne, a palace, armies and regiments. On waking, can you save anything of the dream? You say, let all go, but let me keep the throne; let all go, at least let me keep the queen; let all go, at least let me keep the crown. No. Either the dream remains whole, or it vanishes whole. If you have awakened, it is not possible to save a fragment of the dream.

The seer, the seen, the seeing—three limbs of the same dream. When the entire dream falls and awakening happens, that which remains is what you never knew in the dream, it never entered into the dream; it was beyond the dream, always beyond. It is transcendental. It had already surpassed the dream. Whatever you knew within the dream will be lost—utterly and entirely lost!

Hence whatever concept of God you have made—when you experience God, you will be astonished: none of your notions will be of use; all your concepts will vanish. What you will come to know cannot be known while asleep within the dream—not even by forming a concept of it.

That is why it is said: the one who wishes to move toward the Divine must drop all concepts. He must throw all doctrines into the dustbin. He should bow to words—and bid them farewell: you have done good work in the world; you were useful, but you are not ultimate.

Understand this too, before entering the sutra.

The pragmatic truth is not the ultimate truth. Pragmatic truth has utility, not reality. Ultimate truth has no utility; it is only real.

If you ask, what is the use of God, there will be difficulty. What use can God have? What will you do with God? Neither will your belly be filled, nor your thirst quenched. What use will you make of God? Which greed will be satisfied? Which desire fulfilled? Which craving completed? There is no use of God. Because of God you will not become important. Because of God you will not become powerful. Because of God your prestige in the world will not increase. There is no use at all. That is why those who are crazy about use do not move toward God. In God there is bliss, there is no use whatsoever.

People come to me; they ask: If we meditate, what profit will there be? Profit! You are saying something absurd. Then you have not understood—that only the one meditates who has dropped profit and greed; for whom profit has become meaningless, who has gained many profits and found there is no profit in profit at all. Wealth is obtained, but poverty does not end. Position is obtained, but lowliness is not erased. Honor and hospitality are gained, but within all remains empty. Fame spreads across the world, but inside only stench arises, no fragrance; no flowers bloom. Inside, only thorns, pain and pricks, anguish and discontent, the thicket of worry thickens. Within, the pyre is being arranged; outside palaces rise. Outside the expansion of life grows; inside, death comes nearer each day.

The one who sees that there is no gain in gain—that one meditates. But some imagine perhaps there is profit in meditation too, so let us meditate. They ask: What is the profit in meditation? What will be the benefit? Will happiness and prosperity come? Will position and prestige be obtained? Wealth and splendor? Will defeat turn into victory? Will this melancholy of life, this sense of failure, this emptiness change? Will we become fulfilled?

They are asking the wrong question. Their world is not yet over. They have come a little too soon. The fruit is not ripe. The season has not arrived. Their time has not yet come.

Only the one meditates, only the one can move toward meditation, who has seen one thing: in this world much is obtained—and yet nothing is obtained. All is acquired, yet all remains empty. The one to whom this paradox is revealed will not ask: what profit is there in meditation? For profit belongs to the pragmatic. Meditation is ultimate.

There is bliss in meditation, there is no profit at all. You will not be able to keep meditation in your locker. You cannot build a bank-balance out of meditation. Meditation will not make security for you.

Meditation will cast you into the unknown. Meditation will take away even the security you had. Meditation will leave you in an unfamiliar realm; it will send you on a journey where you will slowly melt, dissolve, flow away. How can there be profit from meditation? From meditation there is loss—the loss is that you will not remain. Meditation is death. But only when you die—not just from the body, from the body you have died many times; no one dies from that dying—that dying is like changing clothes. Old garments are replaced by new, the old man returns as a child. No one has ever died by that dying. A few have died—the likes of Ashtavakra, Buddha, Mahavira—they died. Their death is complete; they do not return.

Meditation is death. In meditation, you will die, you will be erased, not even your shadow will remain. Even your shadow defiles. Not a particle of you will remain—if you do not remain, where is the question of your profit?

You yourself are a pragmatic truth. You are merely a belief; you are not. You are only a notion; you have no existence. This notion of you will scatter. All concepts will scatter when you scatter. For when the owner is gone, all the paraphernalia gathered will scatter. When there is no musician, what will the veena play? It is said: 'When there is no reed, the flute will not sound.' If you are gone, the reed is gone; there is no way for the flute to play. Then what remains is Samadhi—that is ultimate!

Ultimate means: that which is! Supremely blissful! Supremely luminous! Blessings will pour, the taste of nectar will be known; but profit—nothing at all. In pragmatic terms no profit. From it you will not be able to create any kind of property.

Only that person begins to move toward meditation for whom the world has become dreamlike; who no longer wants to save anything from this world; who says, this is one whole dream—let it go whole; now I want to know that which is not a dream.

These sutras are for that seeker.

Janaka said: 'Knowledge, the known and the knower—these three are not real. In that in which these three appear, I am that stainless one.'

Upon whom this dream of the world runs... At night you sleep, you see a dream. The dream is not true, but the one upon whom the waves of the dream are moving—that is certainly true. When the dream is lost, in the morning you remain. You say, I saw a dream last night; it was very false. One thing is certain: what was seen was false, but the one upon whom it flowed—you cannot call that false. If the one who saw was also false, then the dream could not come to be. For even to make a dream, at least one truth is needed—that truth is your being. And when in the morning you find the dream was false, consider: the one who saw the dream, who was deluded in the dream, who became the seer of the dream—that one too was false.

At night you dreamt that a snake, a great snake, was coming toward you, hissing. The one who saw it in the dream trembled, was terrified. He ran drenched in sweat, crossed mountains and hills, and the snake kept chasing. You ran and heard its hiss. When you awaken in the morning, the snake becomes false. And the one who saw the snake, who ran seeing it, who fell down exhausted—was he true? He too becomes false. The dream is false, and the dreamer too is false. Yet beyond both there is someone upon whom both occurred—otherwise who remembers in the morning? To whom does the memory come? Who says in the morning, the dream was false?

Remember, the seen was false indeed; and the one who was the seer in the dream was also false, because he was taken in by the false. The one who is affected by the false is also false. Has Truth ever been affected by the false? The one who is frightened by the unreal is also unreal. The one who accepts the false as true is also false. In accepting the false, we become false. Both go.

Just as one wakes in the morning, so one day the final awakening comes—of meditation, of Samadhi, of witnessing. That day you find: all was false. Then you do not say, only the wife was false or the husband was false. Then you do not say, wealth was false; the one who was gathering wealth was false too. Then you do not say only that the outside was false; you also know much within was false. And what now remains was neither outside you nor inside you; it was beyond both inside and outside.

Atman is not inside. Outside the body is visible; inside is the mind. Atman is neither outside nor inside. Atman is like the sky. All happens in it.

This sutra: 'In that in which these three appear, I am that stainless one.'

And Janaka says 'niranjana'—stainless. Niranjana means: immaculate, such innocence that no refutation is possible; a virginity that is never violated.

Niranjana means such purity for which there is no possibility of becoming impure, no way at all. That which can become impure is not niranjana. That which can be submerged in a dream and lost in it is not niranjana. That which can be shaken by the false is not niranjana. That which is so affected by the false that it starts running after it is not niranjana. Niranjana is forever pure, silent, immaculate like the sky!

Look at the sky: how many dust-storms rise, dark clouds gather; they come and go—the sky’s stainlessness remains. Neither the dust clouds can soil the sky, nor the dark clouds can pollute it. All happens, yet the innocence of the sky is eternal; no refutation touches it. Such a state is called niranjana.

Let me repeat: whatever you have known till now—none of it is true. Whatever you have believed till now—none of it is true. All of yours is untrue, because as yet you yourself are untrue. The untrue only meets the untrue. Truth does not meet the untrue. They cannot be mixed.

Whatever you have known so far is all untrue. You read the Vedas, the Koran, the Bible, the Gita—what you read was not what was written there. You read only what you could read in your state of ignorance. You performed many restraints, but your restraints only helped to train the false. Because you yourself are still false, how will you cultivate restraint? Even your restraint will be a dream. You did austerities, you gave charity, you did worship and prayer—but all was wasted, all flowed into the river. Because the fundamental thing, the basic thing, did not occur to you.

Yesterday I was reading a children’s rhyme:

From the riverside, sacks of chaff
Set out for town—five donkeys.
The first said, 'I am king!'
The second said, 'Shut up!'
The third said, 'Stop the quarrel!'
Because the third was brawny.
The fourth proposed,
'Let’s act with cunning:
Before fighting, hear me—
Appoint me arbiter.'
The fifth got heated,
'Hee-haw! Hee-haw!'
Kicks flew all around,
Leaves crushed into leaves.
Just then the owner came—tamed they stood,
But the donkeys changed not at all.

They tamed themselves on seeing the owner, stood silent; but changed not at all—donkeys remained donkeys! There are some donkeys you will find in the marketplace, and some you will find in ashrams—tamed donkeys; but changed not at all. One is mad after wealth, another is mad after renouncing wealth; but wealth affects both. Freedom from wealth is not visible. Even if wealth is dropped, freedom from wealth does not appear. One is crazy for women, another runs frightened from women. Where is the difference? The direction changed, the stupidity did not.

Changed not at all—the donkeys!

There is such a panic: may a woman not touch, may a woman not be seen! What kind of panic is this? If it has become clear that all is a dream, then what panic? In the morning a man says, at night I saw—it was all dream—in this room there were snakes, lions roared. But if in the morning we say, come into the room, and he says, I will not go; it was all a dream—but I will not go; why go? If you have seen clearly that it was a dream, what panic now? Come into the room now. No, he says, it was all a dream, I have understood, but I will not go into the room; I have renounced the room.

A knower like Janaka will be found with difficulty. Because Janaka realized knowledge and did not leave the palace. This is the state of the supreme knower. For when it is known, there is nothing left to leave. Janaka attained knowledge and did not change a hair. Because where to change? The dream has gone. Now, what is, is.

If after knowledge the urge for renunciation arises, know that knowledge has not yet happened. Only the foolish ever renounce. Why would a knower renounce? For the knower, awareness alone is enough. He sees that all this is maya’s net—finished! He is not shaken by it, neither in favor nor against. Its shadow does not fall upon him—neither attraction nor repulsion.

One who has attained knowledge is neither attached nor dispassionate. One who has attained knowledge cannot be a sensualist, cannot be an ascetic. For to be a sensualist or a renunciate, the same dream is needed. The dream of both is the same; their belief is the same. One says, all is in wealth; another says, wealth is dust.

I have heard an ancient tale from Maharashtra: Ranka and Banka were husband and wife. Ranka was the husband, Banka the wife; and she was truly beauteous. Ranka was a great renunciate. He had left everything. He would not even beg. Every day he went to the forest, chopped wood, sold it, ate from what was left. If anything remained in the evening, he would give it away. He would sleep like a beggar, and in the morning go again to cut wood.

One day he fell ill and for three days could not go. The hearth remained cold. On the fourth day, weak as he was, he had to go. The wife went along to support him. They cut wood. Ranka placed the bundle upon his head. Behind him the wife walked. By the roadside, just then a horseman had passed—hoofmarks were fresh, dust still rising. And they saw a purse full of gold coins lying there—perhaps the horseman had dropped it. Ranka was ahead. A thought rose in him: I am a renunciate; I have conquered; for me gold is dust. But a wife is a wife—her heart may be tempted, she might think, let us keep it; in times of distress it will help. We have gone hungry three days; not a penny we had. Thinking thus, quickly he slid the purse into a pit and covered it with earth. Just as he finished, his wife arrived and asked, What are you doing?

Ranka had taken a vow never to lie; he was in trouble. If he tells, he feared his wife might create a fuss—might say, keep it; what harm, fate has given it, God has given it. Woman—who can trust a woman! Monks have always been afraid of women. But he could not lie, for he had taken a vow. So he said helplessly, forgive me, do not start anything; I will tell the truth. A purse lay here; thinking your greed might be aroused—I have renounced greed, but who knows about you! Woman is woman. How can a woman be liberated! Until she becomes a man, scriptures say, there is no liberation—scriptures all written by men; there too politics is deep—so remembering you, I covered these coins with earth and am putting soil over them.

Hearing Ranka, Banka laughed. Her name was Banka for this very reason. She said, Wonderful! You are putting earth over earth—and you feel no shame? Surely greed still lingers in you. That which you attribute to me must be hiding in you. Do you still see gold as gold? Do you still know a difference between gold and earth?

She began to weep, and said, I thought you had become a renunciate! What is this? The deception continues! You are placing soil upon soil!

Banka understands Janaka’s sutra. Janaka attained supreme knowledge and left nothing at all.

Both indulgence and renunciation belong to the ignorant. They are two faces of the same coin.

A sannyasi came once to see me. The one who brought him said, This yogi is a great saint, highly evolved! He never even touches money! If anyone offers money, he turns his face away. So I travel with him, because someone must keep the money—buy tickets, pay taxi fare—I keep the money.

I asked, What is your name?

He said, 'Bhogilal-bhai.'

A perfect pairing of yogi and bhogi! I asked, Whose money is it really?

Bhogilal-bhai said, Not mine; who would give to me! People give to Swamiji; I keep it. It is his, if truth be told; who am I, what is my status! They offer to him; I manage it. He does not touch it. He is a standing yogi.

The yogi and the enjoyer are two sides of the same coin. Where you find Yogi-lal, you will find Bhogi-lal too. They cannot do without each other. Impossible—has a coin ever had only one face? Both are needed.

The truly dispassionate is the one whose grip is neither on indulgence nor on renunciation. Who has known all is a dream—now where to run? Neither to indulge nor to escape. Now just to see what is—now to live in the witness. If it is so, good; otherwise, good. Palace, fine; hut, fine. If something is, fine; if nothing is, fine.

The state of dispassion is beyond both indulgence and renunciation. For indulgence is a dream and renunciation is a dream. The one who awakens from both is the witness.

But we have our ways of thinking, our fixed arrangements of thought. We gave value to wealth all our life; then one day we see wealth is futile—still, the lifelong structure does not change so quickly. Then we begin to value wealth in the opposite way—we say, wealth is useless; we will not even look at it. The old habit continues.

I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin once became an atheist! And Muslims generally do not become atheists; such courage they rarely muster. He did become an atheist, but the old habit did not leave. He came to see me. I asked, Mulla, I hear you have become an atheist! Good, at least you became something. What is your doctrine now?

He said, My doctrine is crystal clear. I have hung it on my wall: 'There is no God, and Mohammed is His prophet.'

There is no God—and Mohammed is His prophet! The old habit—that there is only one Allah and only one Prophet Mohammed! Half was changed: no God; but the old habit—if there is no God, Mohammed is still the prophet.

Our habits run like this—very subtle.

A friend met Mulla in a hotel. He said, Friend, how about a peg? Mulla said, No, brother, thank you, many thanks! No—because, first, in my religion, drinking is forbidden. Second, when my wife was dying, I swore before her that I would never drink. And third, I have just now come from home after a drink.

Without seeing, without becoming a seer, man makes vows, takes fasts, renounces, makes resolutions—what will come of it? His patterns of thought do not change. The fundamental process of thinking does not change. He begins casting new coins in the old mold; but the seal on the new coins is old, the signature is old.

If you engage in such superficial change, you will never change; you are only deceiving yourself with a change. Real change is radical, from the roots. Change is a storm, a revolution, that uproots all of you; in which your processes of seeing, thinking, considering cease. The new is born. Your entire connection with the past is severed. You bring nothing from it—not even under any excuse.

You had a taste for wealth—you can become a renunciate; but your taste remains for wealth. It may happen that you start preaching to people: Beware of gold and women! There is great danger in gold and women! But you will keep talking of gold and women.

Sometimes, looking at the scriptures, it is bewildering. Rishis and munis constantly talk of gold and women—beware of gold and women! It seems they are still afraid, and perhaps under the pretense of explaining to others, they are persuading themselves. What kind of thing is this? Fine, say it once or twice, but this twenty-four-hour chant: beware of gold and women! It seems, in the unconscious, gold and women are still working. The fear is still there. It seems, if this is not repeated again and again, there is danger they will be caught in the same net. So they practice auto-hypnosis; they repeat and repeat.

In France there was a mesmerist, Emile Coué. He told his disciples to repeat morning and evening: 'Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better'—and you will. All these people seem to be Emile Coué’s followers. You keep repeating: gold and women are sin, gold and women are sin. But have you noticed? You call sinful that in which you have relish. The truth is, if things were not sins, their relish would be lost. The moment you make a thing a sin, it becomes interesting. Say it is sin, and attraction arises. Tell a small child: don’t go there—and the whole world becomes worthless; now only going there is delicious.

There is a Christian tale: when God created Adam and Eve, He said: eat all the fruits of this garden, only this tree in the middle—of knowledge—do not eat from it. Then trouble began. The trouble God himself created. The garden was so vast that, if Adam and Eve were left to themselves, perhaps even till now they would not have found that tree—endless! But that prohibition, and placing a sign—do not eat this fruit—that alone became the cause of the temptation. Then the rest of the garden became useless. Then even in dreams at night, Adam and Eve must have seen: when, how? Why did God forbid? There must be some secret. And only then could the serpent, the Satan, mislead them. He said, O fools! God Himself eats this fruit! If you eat, you will become like God. That is why He forbade—out of jealousy!

If God creates the world again, I would say to Him: this time say, do not eat the serpent, that’s all. Adam and Eve would have eaten the serpent if God had said, do not eat the serpent; eat everything else! They would have eaten Satan if the sign had been placed: leave the devil, eat everything else. But the sign was placed upon the tree of knowledge.

Prohibition turns into invitation. Prohibition becomes a great call. Say 'no', and something in the vital breath writhes: do it, see—it must be something! When saintly people constantly chant that wealth and sex are sin, then the listeners feel there must be some secret if great men discuss them so much!

In my view, if all condemnation of wealth and sex were to cease, their influence would drop to zero; they would have no value. They are utilities. There is no essence in collecting them, and none in renouncing them.

Think a little: if by collecting a thing nothing is gained, how will anything be gained by dropping it? The world is not attained by collecting wealth, and God will be attained by dropping it? Then the renunciate seems more deluded than the enjoyer. The enjoyer says only this: if we gather wealth, we will gain the world. The renunciate is in a bigger illusion—he says: if we drop wealth, we will gain God. But it seems as if everything is gained from wealth—either the world, or God!

Janaka dropped nothing, and he attained the supreme renunciation. Understand this revolution.

'Ah! The root of sorrow is duality; it has no remedy. All this seen is false; I am the one, nondual, pure essence of consciousness.'

This sutra is a great revolution.

'The root of sorrow is duality.'

To see things as fragmented is the root of sorrow. To believe I am separate from existence—this is the root. The moment you accept and know 'you are not separate', sorrow dissolves.

Ego is sorrow. Ego means: we are different, we are separate. I am alone, and I must fight the whole world. Victory will depend on me, the whole world is the enemy. This entire existence is against me, eager to annihilate me.

Then there is great competition, great struggle. Such a person will fall into sorrow day after day. Because that with which he fights is not other than us. It is as if a wave of the ocean begins to fight the ocean; it will suffer, it will go mad; soon you will find it lying on a psychoanalyst’s couch, in treatment. Soon you will find it imprisoned in a madhouse—if a wave begins to fight the ocean.

How can a wave fight the ocean? The wave is the ocean. The ocean itself is waving in the wave. We are the forms of the formless. We are the diverse shapes of the One. We are the very waves, the ripples, of the Infinite. It is He who is rippling within us. He is hearing through you; He is speaking through me. He sees through your eyes; He hears through your ears. He is sitting here. He is raining outside; He is green in the trees. Only One!

Janaka says, whoever accepts two, falls into delusion and sorrow. Because the moment two are accepted, violence begins, struggle begins, fight begins. Then where is rest!

Who has known the One—whom to fight? In your enemy too, He is. And when death comes to your door, in death too He will come; other than He there is no one. In your illness He is; in your health He is. In youth and in old age He is. In success and failure He is. In many forms He comes—only He comes; there is no other to come!

To whom this recognition becomes deep—where is sorrow then?

Dvaitamūlamaho duḥkhaṃ nānyattasyāsti bheṣajam.
Dṛśyametan mṛṣā sarvaṃ eko’haṃ cidrasaḥ amalaḥ.

'Ah! The root of sorrow is duality; it has no medicine.'

An American thinker, Franklin Jones, has written a book: No Remedy. No medicine! The whole book is an exposition of this sutra. Perhaps Franklin Jones never heard of this sutra. But that one small sutra is the whole commentary: there is no remedy—tasyāsti bheṣajam—none!

This will startle you, even frighten you. Because you are ill and you are searching for medicine. You are entangled and you want a way out. You are in trouble, you are seeking a solution. You have great problems, you are looking for answers. That is why you have come to me. And in this Gita of Ashtavakra, Janaka’s proclamation is—there is no remedy.

Understand it. It is very important—more important than anything else. If you understand it, the remedy is found. The moment 'there is no remedy' is understood, remedy is found.

Janaka is saying: the illness is false. And can a false illness have a cure? If you take medicines for a false illness, you will land in deeper trouble. For if you take medicines for a false illness, the illness was false; but the medicines will create new illnesses. So first decide clearly: is the illness true or false?

I have heard of a man who was very distressed. He developed a delusion that at night he had a dream—he sleeps with his mouth open, a bad habit since childhood—and in the dream he saw his mouth open and a snake entered. In panic he awoke; but upon waking the dream was so vivid that he kept seeing the tail slipping in, the final tip. He screamed too, but by then it had gone down his throat. Many treatments were tried: X-rays taken, medicines given. Doctors said: there is no snake, it does not show in X-ray. He said, Should I believe you or myself? It moves in my belly!

Think of that man; if you too sustained such a thought, it would begin to move. Thought has great power. Imagination has great power. His imagining became dense. He could not sit; his stomach hurt; here the snake slides, there it slides! His life filled with restlessness. He could not sleep. Work ceased. He went to physicians—if there is a snake, they said, we can treat; but there is nothing there.

By coincidence, he went to a hypnotist. The hypnotist said: there is a snake—who says there is not? Those who say so are wrong. The X-ray is wrong. But there is a snake.

Hearing this, the man was reassured; he said, Master found! I was searching for you. People would not believe; now I am dying...

And his misery was true, whether the snake was false or true. Understand this much: his misery was true, whether the snake was false or true. What difference does it make whether the snake is false or true? His misery was real. He had become thin, withered to bones. His single anxiety: how to be rid of this snake. His life became a mess.

But that hypnotist said, we will resolve it. He arranged it. He had a snake placed in the latrine. He told the household: when he goes in the morning to relieve himself, release the snake; I will handle the rest.

When he went, he saw the snake sliding. He looked down, ran out, delighted. He said, Bring your X-rays! He went to the doctors and said, See! There was a snake—it has come out!

From that very day, he was well.

'No remedy' means: the illness is false. In knowing the falsity of the false illness, lies freedom. Had the illness been true, there could be a cure. If you had gone far from God, there could be some arrangement for meeting. You did not go far; you think you went far. Had your link with your Atman been broken, some way could be found—a bridge could be built, science might discover how to reconnect. But you have never been separate from the Atman. You are connected. If a fish had gone out of the ocean, we could have thrown it back into the ocean. The fish is in the ocean and is screaming and writhing, saying: send me back to the ocean; I am burning upon this sand, my life is on fire.

What will you do? Only one way—awaken the fish: the ocean is all around you; you have never been outside it.

If this occurs to you, then all the ways to attain God are medicines for a false illness. That is why I say, this word is a great revolution. It says: you are God; you are not to become. You have no method to do to become God. All methods are useless. The more ways and rituals you follow, the more you wander.

Ritual is bondage. The precise meaning of this sutra is: do not wander in yoga; do not indulge in methods. Method will carry you far—because that which you seek has never been lost. It is present now. Present here. This very moment you are God. Unconditionally you are God! Being divine is your nature.

Vivekananda used to tell a story: A lioness was pregnant. She would leap over a mound; in the jolt of a leap, the cub slipped from the womb—the fetus was aborted. She leapt on, but below, a flock of sheep was passing; the cub fell among the sheep. The cub survived. It grew up among sheep. It bleated like sheep. It crept along among them, shuffled as they did. It learned the sheep-walk. There was no other way, because the child learns by imitation. Whomever it saw around, from them it gleaned the meaning of life: this is what I am. Strange to say, man does no better. It was a lion’s cub; what could it do? It knew itself to be a sheep. There was no way to look into itself directly; it looked at others, formed a self-belief—I am a sheep. It feared like the sheep. And the sheep were at ease with it; it had grown among them; they took no notice. They too took it to be a sheep.

Years passed. The lion grew big; it towered above the sheep. Its body magnificent, but still it walked with the flock. At the slightest alarm, the sheep would run—so would it. It never knew it was a lion. It was a lion, but it had forgotten. There was no way not to be a lion; but forgetfulness happened.

One day, an old lion attacked the flock. The old lion was shocked—he could not believe that a young, handsome, powerful lion was scurrying among sheep, and the sheep were not frightened of him. Seeing the old lion, all fled in panic, crying and bleating. The old lion was hungry, but hunger was forgotten. He could not understand the miracle. He had neither heard nor seen such a thing. What was this?

He pursued, not caring for the sheep; he chased the young lion. With difficulty he caught him—for the young one was also a lion; he ran with a lion’s speed, though he thought himself a sheep; and the old lion was old. With great effort he caught him. When caught, the young one bleated. The old lion said, Shut up! There is a limit to anything. What are you doing? Whom are you deceiving?

The young one tried to wriggle away; he said, Forgive me, sir, let me go! But the old lion would not relent. He dragged him to the riverbank. In the still waters he said, Look down. Both looked down. The young one saw: my face and this old lion’s face are exactly the same. In a single instant, revolution happened. 'No remedy!' A roar burst forth; the mountains trembled! No need to say anything. The old lion said nothing—he must have been a true Master! He only created a situation for seeing. As soon as the reflection appeared in the water—We are the same—the lifelong belief of sheep-hood broke in an instant. Proclamation was not needed; it happened. A roar emerged. Revolution happened.

Exactly this happened between Ashtavakra and Janaka. Ashtavakra—the old lion. Janaka—the young lion. He was caught! In the satsang of Ashtavakra, the glimpse appeared. In the declaration of Ashtavakra, Janaka recognized his nature.

Now you ask: if a lion has been lost among sheep, what is the medicine to make him a lion again? No medicine—no remedy! You may inject him, take him to a veterinary doctor, make him swallow medicines—nothing will help. Your medicines, your injections, your taking him to doctors will only weaken him. Your medicines will burden him with the deeper delusion: I am sheep indeed. See how many methods they employ to make me a lion, and still nothing happens. I cannot become a lion. And if I were a lion, why would they do methods? Surely I am sheep; they are trying to force me to be a lion.

Even if by persuasion you make him believe: sit every morning in meditation and repeat, 'I am a lion, I am a lion'—slowly it will happen; repeat 'Aham Brahmasmi'—I am Brahman; repeat: 'I am becoming a lion'—even if he does so for years and comes to believe it, will he become a lion? It will remain a belief, a thin layer of thought. The old lion did the right thing. He gave no mantra, no penance. He dragged him to a situation in which he could get a glimpse of his nature.

The whole meaning of a true Master’s company is this: he drags you where you can place his face and your face together; where you can match his innermost with your innermost. Then the roar happens; it happens in a single instant.

No medicine, no method, no technique.

Tasya bheṣajam anyat asti—none other is a remedy.

There is no medicine—because all that is seen is false. The sheepness of that lion was false. That entire scene was false. It was believed, hence it felt true. The instant it was known, it became false. It was dreamlike.

'I am the one, nondual, pure essence of consciousness.'

Listen to this word: 'I am the one, nondual, pure essence of consciousness.'

Aho dvaitamūlam yat duḥkham
—all sorrow arises out of duality.

Tasya bheṣajam anyat asti
—for this sorrow there is no remedy.

Satat sarvam dṛśyam mṛṣā
—for all this seen is false, dreamlike.

Ahaṃ ekaḥ amalaḥ cidrasaḥ
—I am the one, pure essence of consciousness.

This roar will rise within you. Do not repeat it parrot-like. Only understand. Only open your eyes and see; open your ears and hear.

In Ashtavakra’s Gita there is no method—this is its glory. It tells no technique of how to reach the Divine. It says only this: you have never lost the Divine. Just awaken! Open your eyes and recognize your nature!

'I am pure awareness. Out of ignorance, upādhis have been imagined upon me. Thus, abiding in this reflection day and night, I am established in the thought-free.'

The moment you begin to see how things are, you will not have to drop anything—nothing will remain to drop; the entire dream will vanish. You will be left filled with a simple 'aho!'—an awe. If, through logic and argument, through thinking, you persuade yourself: yes, all this is dream—nothing will happen of it. This should not be your intellectual opinion; it should be your existential experience.

I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin was asked by a neighbor woman, Five years ago my husband went to buy potatoes and has not returned till today—tell me, what should I do? Mulla pondered, beat his head, shut his eyes, meditated deeply—and then said: Listen to my advice, cook cauliflower. Five years have passed; the husband went for potatoes and did not return—let it go; cook cauliflower, or any other vegetable.

The woman is asking something; Mulla answers something else.

When you ask, I am unhappy, what should I do? Then, except Ashtavakra, all answers given are like: cook cauliflower. Some remedy is always prescribed—do this, and all will be well. Remedies do not cut delusion.

Try to understand. A man is violent. He hears: violence is bad, violence is sin. A longing arises in him to become nonviolent. For violence is not only sin, it gives pain to the violent one too. The one who wants to give pain to the other, gives it to himself first. The one who gives pain to another, suffers it afterward. It is impossible that we give pain to another and do not become pained. Whatever we give, we must cultivate in our heart. And what we have given, the shadow of remorse will keep cutting us.

So the violent man slowly realizes violence is bad; but what to do? How to become nonviolent? He asks: how to become nonviolent? Then there are those who will teach the method of nonviolence. The violent man begins following those methods; but by following methods, does his violence disappear? He becomes violent in following the methods. He stops violence toward others; he begins violence towards himself. How will the violent tendency go? Yesterday he was violent toward others, now toward himself.

I have heard: a man was very violent. He pushed his wife; she fell into a well and died. He was deeply grieved. Somehow he escaped the court; it could not be proved. But within, a great storm arose. He said, Enough! A Jain muni came to the village. He went to him and said, Master, free me. You are a Jain monk—your supreme dharma is nonviolence. I am violent. Free me somehow.

The muni said, Take initiation. He said, I am ready right now, this very moment!

A violent man! An angry man does anything quickly. The one who can kill someone impulsively can kill himself impulsively too—no hindrance.

The muni said, Many come, but one with resolve like you... That was not resolve; that was the violent man’s nature—he does anything in a flash. Later he may regret all his life, but his stupor is so deep that whatever he wants to do, he does in a moment. And a challenge was given. The muni said, Become a monk then. He said, I am ready now. While the muni was still thinking, he dropped his clothes and stood naked: Initiate me.

The muni said, I have seen many—but you are a great tapasvin! This is the fruit of great merit.

He became a monk! The muni gave him the name Shantinath. He was truly Ashantinath—but the muni, in hope, called him Shantinath. His fame spread, because he outdid all monks in competition. If someone fasted two days, he fasted four. If someone slept four hours, he slept two. If someone sat in the shade, he stood in the sun. The old violent man! All his violence turned upon himself—self-violence. He defeated everyone. Slowly he became very famous. He reached Delhi. People came from far to see him.

An old friend came to see him. He had heard: the old Ashantinath has become Shantinath. Let us go and see—what a revolution! Unlikely that peace has come into his life. He arrived there. Shantinath sat stiffly. Everything had gone, everything dropped—but the stiffness remained. And in the eyes, the same violence, the same anger, the same fire burned. The body had become weak, dried up—much austerity had been done—but the inner fire burned ever more pure. He saw the friend; he recognized him too—but now such a great tapasvin, how could he acknowledge an ordinary man! The friend too saw, recognized—that he recognized, but would not recognize. He looked here and there, not toward the friend.

Finally the friend asked, Master! I have come from far for your darshan—what is your name? He said, Shantinath! Don’t you read the papers? Don’t you listen to the radio? Don’t you watch television? The whole world knows. Where are you coming from?

He said, Master, I am a villager, a rustic; I do not know much, not educated.

After some small talk, the man asked again, Master, I forgot your name! The Master buzzed with anger: I told you once, Shantinath—didn’t you understand? Are you deaf?

The man said, No, Master, my wits are a little weak.

But Shantinath’s real form began to show. After a little while, the man asked again, Master, I forgot your name. The whisk the Jain monk kept—Shantinath flung it at his head: Told you a thousand times! You will not understand otherwise—Shantinath!

The man said, Master, I understood perfectly; I will never forget now. That is all I wanted to know—whether anything has changed or not. You are exactly the same.

Change is not so easy. If only methods and techniques are applied on the surface, change never happens—it only appears to.

Therefore I call this sutra a sutra of great revolution. Do not fall into medicines. Awaken! There is no need to make methods for awakening. To make methods for awakening is to search for tricks to sleep. If you are to awaken, it is now and here. Either now or never. Do not postpone to tomorrow. Method means: postpone; defer. Heard the truth—fine, now we will practice; births and births it takes, then one attains.

This is the trick.

Janaka’s word: Ah! The root of sorrow is duality! There is no remedy. Because fundamentally, you never became two; hence no remedy is needed. You never broke; hence no joining is required. You are joined. Just see, awaken, recognize. How can you be separate from life? How can you be other than existence? Breath upon breath is linked.

You never see how juicily life is joined. The rasa flows within all; it is transforming from one to another. The breath that is in me now, in a moment becomes yours; in a moment, it becomes another’s. Even so, you do not see. A moment ago I said, my breath; a moment later it is yours—then how far can you and I be separate? A moment ago your breath, now mine—how far can you and I be apart? This thread of breath binds us. If I say, I will live only on my own breath—I will not take such stale, borrowed breath of others—I will die. If I say, we do not wear others’ shoes, not others’ clothes—how can we take others’ breath?—then know, all this air is the breath of others. It is going in and out of thousands of nostrils. And remember, not only human beings—animals, birds, donkeys, horses; trees too inhale and exhale. We are all connected. See this ocean of life-breath—we are all joined in it.

Now a pear grows, or a mango, or an apple—it grows upon the tree. You eat it. The stream of rasa that was flowing in the pear becomes your blood within twenty-four hours, becomes your bone, becomes your marrow, becomes your brain. Then one day you die; you become compost; some tree will draw juice from you and fruit will arise again. When you pluck a pear from the tree, do not think it is only a pear—your forefathers may be in it. For all fall to the earth and mingle, all become compost, then fruit. Trees descend into human beings; human beings descend into trees. A circle. A circle is moving. What is in the moon and stars enters your body; what is in your body goes into the moon and stars.

We are all joined. We are not separate. We cannot be separate. We are all interdependent. Neither is anyone dependent, nor independent. The right name for our condition is: mutual-dependence—interdependence!

We are joined to one another—as waves are joined. Awaken to this joining!

'No remedy at all.'

And remedies bring great entanglement. Fed up with lust, you are given the remedy of celibacy. Then you impose celibacy by force. The forcibly imposed celibacy brings new troubles. Your mind becomes even more obsessed with sex. What you have blocked outside, begins to run inside; it becomes a wound. Beware of these wounds. In making and remaking such wounds, you have become sick.

Accept life naturally. As life is, do not try to be otherwise. As life is—that is how the Divine has wished. Dissolve your will into this will. Say: 'Thy will be done.' Do not bring your will in between. Say: What You show, I will see. As You lead, I will walk. Where You take me, I will reach. If You drown me in midstream, that is my shore! If You take me across, I reach; if not, I have reached all the same—for I leave it to You!

This state of surrender will make you weightless. Ashtavakra calls this: Rest in consciousness—the inward resting of the heart in consciousness. Then there is nowhere to go, nothing to become, nothing to achieve. All these are games of the ego. You say: I will become this! One wants to be Alexander, one wants to be Buddha, another Mahavira—but it is the madness of becoming! You already are; nothing can be better than this. The perfect dwells in you. Try as you will, you cannot fall below perfection, for perfection is your nature. However many sins you commit, it makes no difference; your perfection remains untainted. You are niranjana. There is no way to defile you. Surrendering to this truth, in a single moment the revolution happens.

'Ah! The root of sorrow is duality. It has no remedy. All this seen is false. I am the one, nondual, pure essence of consciousness.'

Recognize that rasa. That very rasa is flowing in all—green in the trees, humming in the birds! That rasa speaks through me, that rasa has come to listen in you. We are waves of that one great rasa. Where to go then? What to become? No future, no goal; no purpose remains in life. Life becomes a festival. This dance that is going on moment to moment—enter it. Do not quarrel with it. Do not raise tensions in it. Let go into this flow—this Ganga is moving toward the ocean!

I have heard: a great emperor was passing; he saw a beggar walking with a bundle on his head. Compassion arose. He said to the beggar, Come, sit in the chariot. Where do you have to go? We will drop you.

The beggar was shy; it was the emperor’s golden chariot! But refusal was difficult; one does not refuse an emperor’s word. He climbed in, sat shrunken; but the bundle remained upon his head. The emperor said, O fool! Now at least put the bundle down. He said, No, lord! To seat me—this is enough! How can I place the bundle’s weight also upon your chariot? No, no!

But if you have already climbed into the chariot, whether you hold the bundle on your head or place it down—what difference does it make? The weight is upon the chariot either way.

This vast chariot of the Infinite is rolling; you are pointlessly holding the bundle upon your head. You say, Lord, you have seated me—enough! How can I place my bundle upon you as well? But every moment you are in God only. All the burden is His. Meaninglessly you clutch this bundle. This bundle is the ego. This bundle is delusion. This bundle is duality—this bundle is conflict. Put it down. Surrender. And flow! Flowing is the dharma. Surrender is the revolution of dharma.

'I am pure awareness. Upon me, out of ignorance, upādhis have been imagined. Thus, reflecting in this way ceaselessly, I abide in the thought-free.'

The Sanskrit word 'vimarśa' is not exactly 'thought.'

Aham bodha-mātraḥ.

I am only awareness—pure wakefulness; wakefulness is my nature. All else is dreamlike.

Mayā ajñānāt upādhi kalpitaḥ.

And all the rest has arisen from imagination out of my ignorance.

Evam nityam vimarśyataḥ mama sthiti nirvikalpe.

And my 'vimarśa'...

The word 'vimarśa' needs to be understood. In English, the word 'reflection' is its precise meaning. Thought means: you do not know, and you speculate. You say: we are thinking. Vimarśa means: as a reflection appears in a mirror. Does the mirror think? When you stand before it, does it think: let me see, is it a man or woman? Beautiful or ugly? Then I shall show that face. No. The mirror simply reveals; your image forms. Reflection—vimarśa!

Janaka says: thus, by reflecting ceaselessly—moment to moment—upon this eternal oneness; by watching the image arising in the mirror of the heart, I abide in the thought-free state. I am pure awareness. Whatever has happened has happened through my imagination. All that has happened is the play of my imagination.

Imagination is the power of man. The scriptures of the East say: imagination is the power of the Divine. Another name for imagination is Māyā. Māyā means: God imagined. The result of God’s imagination is this vast cosmos. And what man imagines—the result is our small, little worlds. Each man lives in his own world—enclosed in his own world.

Do not think we all live in the same world. As many people as are here, so many worlds together. That is why when two people meet, there is collision. Two worlds collide. It becomes difficult. Alone everything goes fine; the moment another joins, there is a hitch. Because two worlds, two styles of thought, begin to struggle with each other. Our imagination becomes our world.

The power of imagination is great. Imagination means: what we think tends to become. What we think produces consequences; images begin to arise from it.

Imagination is exactly like the power of dreams. At night, nothing is there, not even a curtain. In the dream you are the actor, you are the director, you are the storyteller, you are the stage, you are the audience—you are everything. Still a whole play is created. Think a little!

I went to see a woman who has been unconscious for nine months, in a coma. Doctors say she may remain like this for three or four years. Her son was there. He asked me: I ask everyone this—no one answers—if my mother is seeing a dream, then for nine months she would not even know it is a dream. He asked something very deep. This woman, unconscious nine months—the son asks: if she is seeing a dream, we wake in the morning and come to know—oh, it was a dream. She does not wake. For nine months the dream must be going on; she must be seeing it, believing it true. In nine months, she would not have had a moment of awareness that it is a dream. He is right.

Truth is: even when we open our eyes, the dream does not stop; the dream continues within. That is why whenever you close your eyes and look within, you will find the dream is running. Daydream begins.

As in the day, when the sun rises, the stars disappear—do you think they go somewhere? Where would they go? They remain where they are. Only in daylight they are covered. When the sun departs, they appear again. The stars are there; only the light of the sun covers them; when the light is gone, they show. So too, your dream-stream is flowing. When you open your eyes, you get lost in worldly affairs; inside, the stream flows. Then shut your eyes—try some time; sit in a lounge chair, close your eyes—after a little while you will find: the dream is running. You are fighting an election, you have won; you have become the prime minister. Not only that—you have finished off those you wanted to, sent those you disliked to jail, made those you preferred into ministers. Then the wife arrives with tea—Wake up! You sit up, sip your tea. Then you realize where you had gone! Even while awake, the stream of dreams flows.

You must have read the stories of Sheikh Chilli. They are your stories. They are man’s stories. We are all Sheikh Chillies—so long as we are in imagination. Until imagination is totally exhausted, Sheikh Chilli-hood does not end.

It so happened that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru visited an asylum. He asked: do people ever become well? They said, today one man is being released—kept him back to be released by your hand. The man was brought. Nehru offered him flowers and said, Congratulations! You are well. The man looked at Nehru, asked, What is your name?

He said, My name is Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

The man said, Don’t worry—if you stay here three years, you too will be all right. I had the same illness. But by the grace of these doctors, I am cured.

That man thought he was Jawaharlal Nehru.

You laugh; but what you think you are is not much different. He had courage and thought himself Pandit Nehru. You are not so brave, or you do not say it; but inwardly you believe. Every person is believing himself to be something—nourishing his imagination. When this mesh of imagination falls, religion dawns.

'I have neither bondage nor liberation. Becoming without support, delusion has gone silent. Wonder! The world that seems to be in me is, in truth, not in me.'

Na me bandho’sti mokṣo vā, bhrāntiḥ śāntā nirāśrayā.
Aho mayi sthitaṃ viśvaṃ vastuto na mayi sthitam.

Me bandhaḥ vā mokṣaḥ na asti—there is neither bondage nor liberation for me.

Listen—what a wondrous thing Janaka says: I have neither bondage nor liberation.

You have heard: the world is bondage. Leave bondage—seek liberation from bondage. But have you heard what Janaka says? He says: I have neither bondage nor liberation.

The very state of consciousness in which you come to see: neither bondage nor liberation—that is liberation. If bondage is imagined, then liberation too is imagined.

There is a story in the life of Jesus. He came to a village. Under a tree he saw some people very sad, distressed, poor in spirit. He asked, What happened to you? What calamity has befallen you? They said, Calamity has come upon us. We are very frightened; we have committed many sins. We fear hell—we are trembling.

He moved on. Under another tree he saw other people sitting. They were full of hope; but in their hope there was fear. They had done great austerities, fasted, scorched the body in the sun—thin, bony. He asked, What is with you? What calamity has fallen? They said, We are preparing for heaven. Fear of hell is there, so we are preparing for heaven; we are earning merit. Yet fear persists—what if we fail? We have staked everything, our lives—we will reach heaven, paradise; but in that very worry we are tense.

Jesus went further. Under a third tree he saw some people sitting, utterly playful. Their condition was totally different. Neither like those frightened of hell; nor like those greedy for heaven. They were playful—humming a song, dancing, immersed in joy. He asked, What has happened to you? You look so happy; no calamity has come? They said, No—because we have known: there is no heaven and no hell. All is mind’s play.

Pleasure and pain are notions of the mind. The ultimate form of pain is hell; the ultimate of pleasure is heaven. Pleasure and pain are in the mind; so heaven and hell are in the mind. The one who knows all dualities are in the mind—that one is free.

Janaka makes the final declaration of this freedom: I have neither bondage nor liberation. If bondage is false, what liberation? If bondage is not, what liberation? Both are false.

'Becoming without support, delusion is silenced.'

Now there is no support for me. I no longer live on the props of hope. Without hope, there is no despair.

'Becoming without support, delusion is silenced. Wonder! The world that seems situated in me is in truth not in me.'

It is a marvel—that the whole world is, yet I am untainted, niranjana, beyond!

A Buddhist story: two monks were crossing a river. The older monk saw a young woman wanting to cross. He became anxious. The river is deep; the young woman might say, Give me your hand. She looks unfamiliar; she is beautiful! He slipped past. The young woman said, I must cross—will you support me? He said, Forgive me, I am a monk; I do not touch women! His limbs trembled; he ran to the far bank.

An old man, long-repressed desire began to hiss within—just the notion of touching a woman’s hand, and dreams began. He crossed in panic. Thank God, he thought, saved! A pitfall was avoided. Then he turned and was shocked. Shocked, and a little jealous, a little envious. The young monk behind was carrying the girl on his shoulders. Carrying her! Touch was forbidden; even touch is prohibited. And I am old—and this one is young, newly initiated! What a sin is being committed!

They walked two miles. The old monk did not speak. He was seething, blazing. In the anger was envy; in the anger was relish; in the anger was pride of being higher, holier; and contempt for the other as base and unholy. Everything was mixed. Climbing the steps at the ashram, the old monk could not bear it. He said, I must tell the Master—this is a violation of the rule. You, young as you are, carried a woman on your shoulders—and she was beautiful!

The young monk said, You speak wonder. I had set that woman down on the riverbank long ago—are you still carrying her on your shoulders? Still? You have not forgotten? A matter of two miles behind—you are still dragging her along!

Remember, this world is with you, within you; you are in it, it is in you; and yet there is a way of living in which neither do you touch the world nor does the world touch you. You pass through untouched, virgin. This grime cannot stain you. That way of passing is called witnessing.

'With the body, this world is nothing—neither sat nor asat; and the Self is pure consciousness alone. Knowing thus with certainty, upon what shall we stand our imagination now?'

Where now shall we plant imagination? All supports have fallen. There is no desire for pleasure, no fear of pain. Nothing to become, nothing to be saved. Nowhere to go, nothing to be. All props have fallen—where to place imagination now?

Some stand their imagination upon wealth—that is their support. They are always counting money. Even in sleep they count rupees. The clink of coins is their only music.

Some are crazy about position—they crave that their chair rise higher and higher. Sit on the biggest chair—even if it be the gallows—no harm; but the chair must be big. That is their support.

And some desire heaven—they will sit in heaven; what is here? The chairs here are given today, snatched away tomorrow—what essence is there? We will sit in heaven, under the wish-fulfilling tree, and enjoy without limit. There is no time-limit there, no boundary.

But all these are supports of the mind.

'Knowing thus with certainty, upon what shall we stand our imagination now?'

'Body, heaven and hell, bondage and liberation, and fear too are imagination only. What have I to do with them? I am pure awareness.'

Janaka’s awakening happened—utterly. In Ashtavakra’s presence, vimarśa arose. In Ashtavakra’s mirror, Janaka saw his face—self-remembrance happened. A unique event occurred.

Rarely does it happen that such a Master and such a disciple meet. Many disciples, many Masters; but only sometimes does it happen that a Master like Ashtavakra and a disciple like Janaka meet. When such a meeting happens, if there isn’t an explosion of truth—what else would happen! Before such a pure mirror, when such a simple heart stands, bowed in humility—darshan happens. The lion’s roar happened. He began to speak as he had never spoken. He began to speak as Ashtavakra spoke—as if he disappeared and Ashtavakra’s song played upon his flute; as if Ashtavakra himself began to speak through him.

If the disciple is ready to dissolve, the Master speaks from the innermost corner of his heart. If the disciple is ready to bow, the Master does not remain outside; the Master becomes established in his very core.

Thus it happened—such a significant event. Reflect upon it! Meditate upon it! Such an event can happen to you too—no reason why not, no deficiency—only your webs of imagination, your methods, your heaps of medicines prevent you from being well. You are well—reflect so. You are the Divine—reflect so. What was to be, already is. What was to be obtained, is obtained. You are seated in your home—only through imagination you have wandered far. In a single instant—less than an instant—you can return.

Mulla Nasruddin went to his doctor. Doctor, he said, if some day I come here and take out from my trouser pocket enough notes to pay all your back bills, what would you consider? What would you think?

The doctor said, I would think you are wearing someone else’s trousers.

You do not trust. I tell you—even then you hear and say: it may have happened to Janaka—but these trousers are not mine. You know if you put your hand into your own pocket, it is empty. But you have never put your hand. You trust emptiness without searching.

You always see that wherever there is joy, it is with someone else; never with you. The smiles are others’; the tears are only yours—such is your belief. Only your sorrows; all pleasures are others’. These songs happen to someone else; in your life only sorrow pours. This nectar may rain somewhere on the fortunate. You do not trust.

I say: these trousers are yours—put your hand in! You say, What use is putting it again and again? There is nothing there. You have never put your hand; and into the delusion that there is nothing, you have fallen. Just once, peer within!

A man had come to Mulla Nasruddin’s house. He asked Mulla, If some outsider comes and settles in such a way that he won’t leave, what do you do?

This man had been sitting very long—he asked such a question.

I can do nothing, said Mulla, but my wife is very clever. At such times she comes and, under some pretext, calls me inside.

The man was about to ask a second question when the curtain lifted and a woman entered and said, You are too much! We must be at Sharmaji’s at six, and you are gossiping here!

The Master’s entire work is just this: what you cannot do, he startles you into—he comes and says: We must be at Sharmaji’s at six, and you are gossiping here!

The Master takes you nowhere; he only awakens; only reminds: Leave this gossiping. Do not waste more time; you have already wasted much.

In Ashtavakra’s presence, memory returned to Janaka: it’s all gossip, all vain. These are all gossips—that one is an emperor, that one a beggar. These are gossips—that one is rich, one is poor. These are gossips—that one is successful, one is a failure. Just gossips. These are imaginations. We support one another, and we keep living in these imaginations. These are our staged plays, our games.

If someone is to succeed, someone must fail—for in the game, both are needed. If all want to succeed, the game stops. If all fail, the game stops. So we created a game—one fails, one succeeds; one is intelligent, one is a fool. We created a game—a mesh of imagination. We settled a township.

I want to say just this: enough time has passed—now rise! The mirror is before you; look a little at your own face! I have brought you to the riverbank; peer into it, and the lion’s roar can burst forth any moment!

Hari Om Tat Sat!