Maha Geeta #84

Self-analysis is a process of thinking, while witnessing is a state of no-thought. There is no road from thought to no-thought. No-thought descends when thought is dropped.
So self-analysis is not at all the right path if you want to become a witness.

Analysis means: thinking. Witnessing means: seeing without thinking—just awake, just seeing. A thought arises in the mind; analysis immediately starts judging—this thought is good, that thought is bad, this is worth doing, that is not worth doing. Shall I get into this thought or not? Should I remove it, or decorate it, pamper it, enthrone it? One thought arose—that alone was enough to lead you astray; now, on top of that, thoughts upon thoughts arise. You have spun a bigger net. You are more entangled. This is not a staircase leading to witnessing; it leads away from witnessing. You have taken the opposite direction. What will you do now? The thoughts that have arisen about the original thought—if you analyze those too, yet more thoughts will arise.

If analysis is pursued relentlessly, to its very end, you will go insane. Because there is no end to analysis. To analyze one thought you need other thoughts; to analyze those, you need further thoughts; thought after thought—soon you will have raised a whole jungle of thoughts. And where you will get lost in it, you won’t even know. A single thought is enough to drown you; a palmful of water is enough to drown; you have raised an ocean. You will wander and be lost.

Self-analysis is not the path to witnessing. That is why the West has not been able to discover or enter into the reality of witnessing. The West has done a great deal of self-analysis. Almost all its methods are of analysis. But there is a fundamental difference between analysis and witnessing. Witnessing means: now we will do nothing, only watch—merely watch. We will remain only as eyes. We will not allow even the slightest movement in the eye. We will not draw even so much as a line saying “this thought is bad, that is good.” We will not contemplate good and evil—analysis is much farther than that! When a thought arises, we will just keep watching; we will not decide anything. Whether it should be or not, whether it arises or not—we won’t even take sides like that. What partisanship can there be in witnessing! If a thought of stealing arises, in witnessing you watch it exactly as you would watch a thought of liberation arising—no difference. That is why Ashtavakra says again and again: beyond auspicious and inauspicious, beyond beautiful and ugly, beyond virtue and vice, beyond world and liberation, beyond indulgence and yoga.

In that state of consciousness which transcends, there is no analysis—because analysis is of the mind, it is the mind’s own process, the mind’s game. Through it you will only go deeper into the mind. That is missing the mark, not arriving.

This is a tavern—drink with understanding, O reveller;
if you fall, no one will catch your arm.
It is a tavern...

Thoughts are like intoxicants; they make you forget. The mind is an inn of drunkenness, of stupor.

This is a tavern—drink with understanding, O reveller.
When you go to drink thought, be very careful. The moment you touch it to your lips, danger begins—because behind one thought another is coming, a chain, such a chain that has no end.

This is a tavern—drink with understanding, O reveller;
if you fall, no one will catch your arm.

And if you fall into thoughts, then there is no one to catch you—because the very one who could catch you has also fallen. The one who could steady you has fallen.

Witnessing is the state of no-thought: no analysis, no synthesis, no reflection, no pondering—only awakening, pure awareness.

Sometimes experiment with this. Sometimes close your eyes and say to your mind: Do whatever you want. Whatever thoughts you wish to raise, raise them. Don’t hesitate; don’t worry about good or bad. Until now it’s been suppressed—“this should arise, that should not”—now let arise whatever you want. Let all the waves rise. We are sitting on the shore, we are detached, we are unmoved. We will sit and watch your play. You dance; we will watch. Tell the mind: Dance—and dance fully; dance however you wish—beautiful, unbeautiful; decent, indecent—whatever it is, we will watch. And you will be very surprised.

The moment you say this and sit to watch, you will find the mind neither moves nor slides. Not a single wave of thought rises. For a few moments the mind will be completely still. Try it exactly as I say. Try it today. For a few moments the mind will be utterly still. Because in that moment the witness will be very dense, fresh. Has the mind ever been able to stand in the presence of witnessing? The absence of the witness is the mind. When the witnessing deepens, the mind becomes void. When the witness sleeps, then the mind plays freely.

Don’t you see—when you wake in the morning, the dream stops instantly. It isn’t that when sleep breaks you have to catch hold of the dream to stop it—“Now that I’ve awakened I must tell the dream to stop.” The moment sleep breaks, the dream begins to dissolve, vanishing like a wisp of smoke. What happens? You awoke. What was there because of sleep disappears.

Exactly such a happening takes place in inner awakening. The moment you sit awake, saying, “I will sit and watch; I become a witness,” you will find the mind is gone. Mind is a stupor, a kind of dream. That is why Ashtavakra says the whole world is a dream. And the root of this world is in your mind. The foundation of the dream is in your mind. What you saw while asleep—that is the world. When you see while awake, there is nothing but the divine.

So sit for a moment, collect all your energy—gathered, integrated—and become a dense consciousness. You will be able to remain in that density only a little while—a moment, two moments—but even in those two moments the taste will come. You won’t be able to sustain that depth for long, because you have no practice of it; your practice is of sleeping. Two moments, three moments, and you will start to doze. As you doze, the mind rises and thoughts begin to flow. The moment thoughts begin, understand that you have dozed—the dream has returned, the witness is lost. Then give yourself a jolt again and say, “All right, I sit again. You, mind, do whatever you will.” Every time you sit alert you will find the mind stops. And every time you lose awareness, you will find the mind begins again.

What will you analyze? In the presence of the witness there is no mind—what will you analyze? The patient isn’t even on the table; he has vanished. The moment the witness is lost, the patient returns.

Understand it this way: when you are asleep, the name of that sleep is mind. When you are awake, the name of that awakeness is witnessing. Think of it like this: when you are awake, you are the surgeon; when you are asleep, you are the patient. As a patient you lie on the table awaiting surgery—but then the surgeon is not there. There aren’t two here. The patient sits, lies there watching the door, but the surgeon is missing. When thoughts are there, the seer is not; and when the surgeon is present—when the seer is present—then the patient is not, thoughts are not. What will you analyze? Analysis can happen only when both the seer and the thought are together. Whom will you operate on, and how? There aren’t two. Either there is mind, or there is witnessing.

The word analysis is very dangerous. It implies that you are there and the mind is there, both standing together. That has never happened. It is like this: the house is dark, very dark, and the master says to his servant, Mulla Nasruddin, “Go inside and see whether it’s dark or not.” He says, “Master, let me light the lantern.” The master says, “To see darkness what’s the need of a lantern? Miser that you are—you’ll waste oil. Just go look!” But Nasruddin says, “How can I see without a lantern? Let me light it.” He lights the lantern, goes to see—and if you go with a lantern, where will you find darkness! He comes back and says, “Master, there’s no darkness at all. I saw it completely, corner to corner. I lit the lantern and saw—no chance of a mistake.”

If you go to look with a lantern, you cannot find darkness. That is why the meditator never encounters thoughts when there is meditation. When meditation happens, the lamp is lit—no thoughts. Thoughts are like darkness. When there is no meditation, no lamp—then there is very thick darkness, thoughts upon thoughts.

So don’t imagine that analysis produces the witness. In analysis one thought only pulls down another. That other is also just a thought. What are you analyzing? A thought cutting a thought like a pair of scissors. You are not present. When you are present, there remains nothing to analyze.

This is the difference between East and West. In the West, what goes by the name “meditation” is contemplation—thinking, reflecting. People come from the West, and if you say, “Meditate,” they ask, “On what?” Naturally, for them meditation means “on what”—an object is needed. It is very difficult for them to understand that meditation means objectless. “On what” is itself the wrong question. As long as something is present, meditation is not. When nothing is present—void-like awareness—then meditation is.

So instead of getting entangled in thoughts, awaken. The mind is very cunning; it says, “Come, let’s analyze.” But what will you analyze?

Mulla Nasruddin said to his son, “Don’t go to the movies, a very dirty film is showing. If you go it won’t be right.” Now this is provocation. The boy didn’t even have the idea of going, but the father’s warning goaded him—so he went. And when he was coming out, guess whom he ran into? Nasruddin himself. The son said, “Father! You?” Nasruddin hesitated for a moment and then said, “I came to see if it’s fit for children. If it is, I’ll tell you to go see it.”

Even if you analyze, what will you do in the name of analysis? You will look at the same pictures you used to look at under some other name. Now, under this pretext, you’ll say, “I’m analyzing.” The same lust will be invoked. And entering the process of lust, what will you do? What will happen? The same anger will rise, the same greed will surge—only now under a new label: analysis. You’ll drown again in the same filth. Whom are you deceiving? Analyzing lust you will be filled with lust—because whatever you think about intensely enters you. Whatever you keep company with leaves its imprint; you will be colored by it. And the more you are colored, the more you will think, “Let me analyze more, let me analyze more.” This analysis is like scratching an itch. Scratching doesn’t cure the itch, it increases it; as it increases, you scratch more; the more you scratch, the more it increases. A vicious circle is created. It is like picking at a wound again and again to see if it has healed yet—if you pick at it, how will it heal!

Drop it—thought has no real value; it is worth two pennies. What is there to analyze? What is the point of analyzing garbage? This isn’t some precious jewel to sit and appraise, to tally and reckon. It is to be thrown out wholesale.

Meditation means: you have understood that nothing is gained from thought. Now there is no need to analyze further.

Who will do self-analysis? Where is the self yet? Right now one thought will only break another. You will set thought against thought. That will create a greater clamor. You will become even more restless.

No, don’t get into this tangle. Very often this so-called self-analysis can drive you mad.

The East discovered something else—awaken! You will be amazed: in Japan, for centuries Zen monasteries have used a certain approach to treat the insane. Now psychologists from the West also come to study it because they cannot believe how it works. In the West, even after years of psychoanalysis, little real benefit is seen—small changes, no fundamental transformation.

A man went through psychoanalysis for three years. After three years someone asked, “How much did it help?” He said, “Quite a bit.” The questioner asked, “Did that crazy habit of heavy drinking drop?” He said, “The habit hasn’t dropped, but the guilt I used to feel is gone. That guilt-feeling has disappeared. And another change: earlier I would even go to the bar when it was closed; now I go only when it’s open. Before, Sundays too, though the bar was shut, I’d land up. That madness is gone. Now I go only when it’s open.”

Are these changes worth much? Minor improvements, nothing of great value.

In Zen monasteries they do no analysis of the mad. They put the man in a small hut at the edge of the monastery. No one speaks to him. No special attention is paid to him. Zen sages say: Paying too much attention to a madman feeds his madness. He enjoys that so many are paying attention! He doesn’t need attention, because attention is a very subtle food. It may be he is displaying madness only to get attention—he has no other means. One man gets attention by becoming a politician, another by becoming mad—it’s all madness. One gathers wealth to get attention; another stands naked, becomes a fakir to get attention—but it is all the same madness.

As long as you are seeking attention from others, you are not in awareness. One who is aware does not seek attention from others; he awakens attention within.

Understand the difference. Ordinarily you long to attract others’ attention. That is why women stand in front of the mirror for hours.

One day Mulla Nasruddin was swatting flies. He suddenly shouted, “I’ve killed two females and two males!” His wife asked, “How did you know two flies were female and two male?” He said, “The males were sitting on the newspaper and the females on the mirror. It’s obvious. For an hour I’ve been watching—two flies only sit on the mirror. Must be female.”

Women dress and adorn themselves before the mirror—why? So that someone’s attention may be attracted. Now these are crooked ways. They get fully dressed and step out with the unconscious desire that someone notice. Then if someone jostles them, they get angry. It’s absurd. If no one looks at them, they are unhappy; if someone looks and even jostles, they are unhappy. Man is utterly unwise. People devise all kinds of strategies to attract attention.

Robert Ripley became a very famous man in America. He wanted fame, so he shaved half his head—one side. Within three days his name spread across America; all the newspapers carried his photo, reporters came asking, “Why did you do this? What’s the secret?” He bought an elephant from a circus, sat on it, and roamed New York—half head shaved, sitting on an elephant, with big letters on the elephant: Robert Ripley. Every child knew, people poured out of their homes to see what was going on. And when asked, he said, “Nothing. I wanted to be famous.” And he became famous. See—I too know his name; otherwise I’d have no reason to know Robert Ripley. He did nothing else besides such things.

Once he found a trick, he did many such stunts. He mounted a big mirror in front of himself and walked backward across America, watching the road behind in the mirror. He became very famous. When he was near death, he told his press agent—by then he was very well-known, with press staff and all, and his only work was to do something outlandish—he said, “Send out the news that Ripley has died.” The agent said, “But you are still alive.” Ripley said, “I want to read my own obituary. I will die anyway—doctors say I won’t last more than twenty-four hours. So my last act is this: I want to see what the papers write about me after I die. Will they praise me, criticize me? Will there be editorials? What will the politicians say? I want to see. And I also want to create one last news item in the world; I’ll tell you that after. You first send the notice.”

The newspapers carried the news, the photos—that Ripley had died. In the evening he read the papers, got photos taken of himself reading his own obituary—“Robert Ripley reading the news of his death.” Then he gave a second release: “Now release the news that Robert Ripley is the first man in human history to have read the news of his own death. How could anyone else read it?” Then he died—having had his last headline.

When Bernard Shaw received the Nobel Prize, he refused it. First the news came that he had received it—papers across the world carried it. Then he declined—the news spread; he was the first man to refuse the Nobel. Huge headlines: “This has never happened! Someone refusing the Nobel Prize!” And in his statement he said, “If I had received it when I was young, I might have felt some pleasure. Now give it to some children! I am beyond the stage where the Nobel has any meaning.” What swagger! This made news. It was an insult to the Swedish king, from whose hand the Nobel is given; no one had ever refused. The first uproar. Pressure came from all over the world; the King of England pressed, big politicians pressed: “Accept it—this is an insult. Accept it, and then you can donate the money.” Under tremendous pressure, with great reluctance, he accepted; now the papers reported he had agreed. As soon as he signed acceptance with one hand, with the other he donated the entire sum—about a million rupees. That made news: “What a great donor!” And the last news was: the institution to which he donated was none other than his own; he himself was a member. With one hand he gave, with the other he took. And when asked why he wove this web, he said, “If I had simply received the prize, it would have been one day’s story; I spun it into seven. For seven days I kept the eyes of the world fixed on me.”

People are eager for attention, ready to do madness for it.

So the Zen sages say: Don’t give attention to a madman. Put him in a hut far away. Send food, care for his needs, but speak not a word. Tell him, “For three weeks sit quietly and watch whatever happens inside you.” Often, by the time three weeks are up, the man comes back to his senses, returns to the path. Nothing is done to him—he is simply left to himself. No one pays attention, no one shows curiosity.

You will be amazed to know: often when we give attention to people, we strengthen their bad habits. A child falls ill; the father sits by him, the mother rubs his head. When the child is healthy, neither sits by him, neither cares. You are doing the wrong thing: you are associating the child’s taste for attention with illness. You are telling him, “Whenever you need attention, fall ill.” You have created a relish in sickness. Whenever the child feels no one is paying attention, he will become ill, morbid. Ninety percent of illnesses are created to get attention.

That is why you see: the wife is happily sitting, listening to the radio, knitting her sweater; the moment the horn honks downstairs—husband has arrived—she lies down: “I have a headache.” Don’t think she’s faking; it really happens. I’m not saying she is deceiving—this has become her habit. The husband’s horn is enough to trigger a headache. Association has formed. Don’t think I say she’s cheating. Perhaps in the beginning she faked it; now that is long past—now it’s a habit. As the husband comes, the headache rises—because only when she has a headache does the husband put his hand on her head. Otherwise, who puts his hand on his wife’s head! Someone might put a hand on another’s wife; who puts a hand on his own! Only when the wife is troubled does the husband show a little sympathy. Love is gone; now only sympathy keeps things moving. The wife too no longer gets love, but begs for sympathy: sometimes ill, sometimes a headache, sometimes a backache—this or that—she keeps something going.

Keep this in mind. I don’t say: when the child is ill, don’t pay attention. I say: pay attention in such a way that the child understands clearly that the honor is for health, not for illness. Nurse him, protect him, but do not allow the feeling to arise that you love sickness. Give love to the child when he laughs, smiles, is joyous—then embrace him. When he is sick, give medicine and food, but don’t take too much interest. In his life, encourage health, joy, festivity. You will find there are fewer illnesses, more well-being. Give your wife love when she is cheerful, laughing, joyous, dancing—then give love. When she is gloomy, give medicine—but don’t take too much interest. Do not relish illness—otherwise it grows. Break the taste for illness.

And for thousands of years Zen sages have found they can even help madmen heal simply by removing attention. Just leave the madman to his fate; after a while he himself understands: What’s the point of all this? Think a bit: if Robert Ripley had shaved his head and no one had paid attention, he would never have done it again. Those who paid attention ruined his life. Those who left their shops to come see “what’s the matter” ruined his life. Then all his life he kept doing such things. Is that any work? Riding an elephant through town—is that work? Crossing a whole country walking backward with a mirror—what creativity is there? Can such things bring benediction to life? No—man is led astray. Those who led him astray don’t even know it.

Whenever you start paying too much attention to your thoughts, you give them life, you empower them. The East says: Sit quiet and detached; don’t take any relish; be flavorless, dispassionate. Tell the mind, “Do whatever you want—spin your threads as you please.” Have you seen children sitting quietly doing their work, and guests are about to come; you tell the children, “Guests are coming, be quiet.” Then they don’t remain quiet. The moment guests enter the house, the children create an uproar—coming in between, making demands: “Mom, I’m hungry,” “This is happening,” “That’s happening,” “My head hurts.” And you wonder why children make so much noise when guests are here! The children are irked that the guests get more attention and they get none—so they come in again and again to demand attention: “Pay attention to us.”

Whatever you give attention to becomes powerful. Remove attention and it becomes weak, it breaks down.

So I do not advise you toward self-analysis; I advise self-awakening. Do not give your attention to thoughts. If you think too much about lust, you will find yourself more lustful. If you think too much about anger—how to get rid of it, how to be free, what means to use, let me analyze it, what is its root—you will gradually find you are entangled in it.

No—your attention is not to be invested in these petty matters. Let the petty be; withdraw your attention. Break the bridge of attention. Very soon you will find the mind, left to itself, fusses for a while and then sees no one pays attention—what’s the gain?

In the Sankhya Sutras there is a marvelous statement: this dancer—Nature—dances only as long as you pay attention. When there is no one to attend, no one to see, the dancer thinks, “What is the point now? The spectators have gone; what meaning remains?”

In one meeting a politician kept speaking for a long time. People gradually got up and left. In the end only one man—Mulla Nasruddin—remained seated. Still the politician would not stop; he kept saying what he had to say. At the end he said to Nasruddin, “Thank you, Nasruddin. I had never thought you had so much affection for me, that you would listen to me with so much love. I am grateful. I’ve lived in this village for years and never paid attention to you. You alone remained; all others left.” Nasruddin said, “Don’t talk nonsense. I am the next speaker—that’s why I’m sitting. Now you sit and listen to me. I am not here to listen either.”

If a dancer sees that all the spectators have gone, what meaning is there in dancing? She stops. This dance of the mind will continue only as long as you remain delighted by it, curious, analytical. Turn your face away; turn your back; become disinterested in the mind. One who turns from the mind stands face to face with the self. One who faces the mind turns his back to the self. Turn your back to the mind—tell it, “Do what you will. Whether you do or not, it makes no difference. Your doing or not doing is irrelevant. Do, and it is no concern of ours; don’t do, no concern. Your good and bad are all useless. Totally, you are futile. We turn our back.” In that very instant a revolution happens.

Death will not bother whether you are a Brahmin or a Shudra, a Hindu or a Muslim, poor or rich. Death does not care who you are. Before death all are equal. Keep death in mind, and you will forget that you are a Brahmin. Forget death, and these stiff postures remain. Remember death, and you will forget whether you are rich or poor. Yes, forget death and these rigidities persist.

“No one said, at the time of my burial:
‘Do not throw dust on him—he is freshly bathed.’”
Even on the freshly bathed, dust settles—indeed it does. The purest body, too, is pressed into the grave. This purity, this Brahminhood, superiority—this and that—all are arrangements of the ego. If you are deeply afflicted by them, you will not be able to become a sannyasin.

Have you noticed something unique in India? We placed the sannyasin outside the varna system. The very moment one takes sannyas, he is no longer Brahmin or Shudra, neither Kshatriya nor Vaishya. Sannyas is beyond varna. Whether a Brahmin takes sannyas or a Shudra does, upon becoming a sannyasin he is beyond caste—varnaateet.

Varna means “color.” Are you entangled in colors? In forms? In names? Then you will not be able to renounce. A “Brahmin” cannot renounce; renunciation happens by leaving the Brahmin identity behind.

And what has this stiffness given you, that you cling to it? What have you gained? What will come of being a Brahmin? In running after being a Brahmin you are missing the chance of being Brahman.

Uddalaka told his son Shvetaketu, “My son, do not remain a Brahmin merely by birth, for such a misfortune has never befallen our house. In our lineage, people have become Brahmins by knowing Brahman. Remember this tradition. Do not consider yourself a Brahmin simply because you were born in a Brahmin family. That is a cheap Brahminhood. What is in it? It is pure accident. Had you been born in a Brahmin’s house and immediately been placed in a Shudra’s, you would think yourself a Shudra. Or born in a Shudra’s home and brought up in a Brahmin’s, you would believe you are a Brahmin. It is accident, conditioning—what others taught you. Has anyone ever become a Brahmin by what others taught?”

There is an old, lovely tale.
Vishwamitra wished to declare himself a Brahma-rishi. He was a Kshatriya. And until Vashistha accepted him as a Brahma-rishi, no one was willing to accept him. Vashistha always called him a raja-rishi, never a Brahma-rishi.
Matters worsened. Then, as it happened—he was a Kshatriya after all, and that is precisely why Vashistha did not call him a Brahma-rishi—one full-moon night he came to Vashistha’s ashram with a sword, determined to settle it: “Either you address me as Brahma-rishi, or I will sever your head.” Kshatriya mind—sword-thinking. He arrived with his blade. Vashistha, surrounded by his disciples, was in a discussion of Brahman under the full moon.
Vishwamitra hid in a bush, waiting for the right moment to jump out and settle the matter. Someone asked Vashistha, “Vishwamitra is striving so hard. He is such a saintly man. Why don’t you call him Brahma-rishi? Why cause him such pain?” Vashistha replied, “Vishwamitra is extraordinary, unique, incomparable—and precisely for that reason I wait, because I hope he will indeed become a Brahma-rishi. Let him become, then I will say it; if I say it now, the journey will stop. A little Kshatriya pride remains. The sword has not yet slipped from his hand. When the sword drops, I will surely say it. He is worthy—and he will become so, that is certain. But I await the right moment. If I say it now, the matter will get stuck; then there will be no way for it ever to happen. I am not his enemy.”
Hearing this while hiding in the bushes, Vishwamitra could hardly believe that Vashistha spoke so lovingly of him. He flung the sword away, ran out, and fell at Vashistha’s feet. Vashistha lifted him up and said, “Rise, Brahma-rishi!” Tears flowed from Vishwamitra’s eyes. He said, “Now you call me Brahma-rishi? Why now? Don’t say it—I am not worthy. You don’t know what I came to do.” Vashistha said, “Forget what you came for. What you did—falling at the feet—this art of bowing is the very art of becoming a Brahmin. This is the difficult thing. That is why I had waited—for the moment you would bow, so that I might say it. Your stiffness is gone; you are no longer a Kshatriya. Now you are truly a Brahmin.”

But ordinarily, the situation is reversed. A Brahmin bows at no one’s feet; he makes everyone bow at his. He stands stiff. Have you seen the stiffness of the Brahmin? It’s hard to find anyone more arrogant. He believes himself the highest. Whoever believes himself superior has closed the doors to true superiority. The moment you decide you are superior, the journey is blocked.

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who stand last, for they shall be first in my Father’s kingdom. The last shall be first, and the first shall be last.”

You say, “I am a Brahmin.” If you are truly a Brahmin—not by birth or caste, but in essence—then there is no problem. Then bowing would be utterly simple, surrender your nature. There would be no stiffness in you. If there is stiffness, you are not a Brahmin—only a caste-Brahmin. And what value does caste-Brahminhood have? What is needed is Brahminhood in life itself—energy rising in your very breath.

Caste will be taken away. Death will snatch it. If you relinquish it with your own hands, it is a blessing; if not, death will take it. On the pyre or in the grave, the fire will make no distinction between Brahmin and Shudra. Death makes no distinctions. Death knows only one: if you truly become a Brahmin—if you know Brahman—then you never die. The body dies, the mind dies; you do not. You are steady within your own nectar.

This is the meaning of sannyas: do voluntarily what death will do anyway. What death will snatch, you drop. The sannyasin is intelligent; he sees that death will do this in any case, so what’s the point of clinging and snatching? Give it yourself. If it has to be given, why not enjoy giving it? What death cannot snatch—only that is worth preserving.

Take this as a sutra. Always use death as the touchstone. Test everything: Will death take this away? If yes, then you relinquish it. If death will not take it, then protect it—only that is worth preserving. Only that wealth which you can carry beyond death is worth keeping.

“Brahmin and Shudra, Hindu and Muslim, Jain and Christian”—none of these travel with you through death. They all burn to ash. These are afflictions of your skull—symptoms not of health but of disease.

The old scriptures say something wondrous: all are born Shudras—I understand this well—all are born Shudras; only rarely does someone become a Brahmin. Even those born to Brahmins are born Shudras. No one is Brahmin by birth; one becomes a Brahmin by life.

Sannyas is the opportunity to become a Brahmin, because it is the opportunity to know Brahman.

“My friends, let the slate of the tomb remain plain—
If we ourselves are gone, what value have these carvings and inlays?”
Now the grave is being dug and decorated, adorned with jewels—
“If we ourselves are gone, what value have these ornaments?
My friends, let the tombstone remain simple.”
If you yourself have dissolved into dust, what is the point even of a marble mausoleum? If you are not, what meaning can anything else have?

Let death be your touchstone. What death cannot take from you is worth preserving. What death will take is to be let go. Use death as the goldsmith uses his testing stone: he rubs gold upon it to see if it is real. Death is that stone. Rub everything against it. You will find that apart from sannyas, meditation, witnessing, nothing passes the test of death. Only these prove pure gold. Then death becomes a new experience—death turns into liberation.

“The thread of breath has snapped; where now the soul?
The chain fell open; the mad one is released.”
If you identify with body and mind, it will seem to you that you, too, have died. If you see that you are beyond body and mind, a witness, you will find: the chain of breath has broken, and the mad lover is free. What is within is not destroyed by death—it is liberated. Then death arrives as moksha.

But the alchemy for understanding death is sannyas. Sannyas means samyak nyas—right laying down, exact renunciation. What is the “right” renunciation? That which death will take anyway. What is the “right” enjoyment? That which death cannot take. Sannyas is exact renunciation and exact enjoyment—death as the criterion. And then—

“From the shoulders of friends, we descended into the grave;
How peacefully we slept—at last we had come home.”
Then death no longer appears as an enemy.
“How peacefully we slept—at last we had come home.”
Death becomes a homecoming, a state of ultimate rest. But before that, one must pass through the extraordinary event of sannyas.

Sannyas means a voluntarily embraced death. In old days, when sannyas was given, the head was shaved as a corpse’s head is shaved; after bathing, clothes were changed as a corpse’s are. The name was changed, for the old person had died. Symbolically he was laid on a pyre, the pyre was lit, and it was declared that the old had died—“Now arise anew.” And the man rose. He would no longer speak of his former days, nor use his old name, nor refer to his previous relations. The old was finished. The new had appeared. Sannyas means crucifixion and resurrection—erasing the old, birthing the new.

You say, “I am a Brahmin, and perhaps that very feeling is obstructing surrender.”
Not perhaps—certainly. For one, the Brahmin presumes “I know,” because he is a knower of scriptures.

A friend once wrote me—a Trivedi. I, by mistake—some lapse—addressed him as Dwivedi. He was very upset: “What have you done! I am Trivedi—a knower of three Vedas—and in a moment you have made me a knower of only two!” So I wrote back addressing him as Chaturvedi. What else to do? Then his letter came: “Why do you keep making mistakes?” I said, “Not a mistake—only paying the fine. I had taken one Veda away; I added one. Now we’re even.”

The Brahmin is convinced he knows. And there is no arrogance greater than that of knowledge. Because of the arrogance of knowing, a man remains ignorant. Information is not wisdom; true knowing happens by letting go of knowledge. When scriptures and words fall away and there remains only silence—no thought, no word—when the Vedas, Quran, Bible, Gita all bid farewell and you remain in your purest consciousness, your smokeless flame of awareness—that is knowledge. Where there is freedom from all information, there is knowing. But if you sit with the Vedas memorized, there will be hindrance. You will assume you already know—without knowing. Then there will be blockage.

Not “perhaps”—certainly this is why surrender is obstructed. Those who come to me with the conceit of being knowledgeable face the greatest difficulty.

In the West there was a great musician, Mozart. When someone came to learn music, he would first ask, “You don’t already know, do you? You haven’t learned before?” If the person said, “Yes, I have learned—quite a bit,” Mozart would say, “I’ll charge double.” If someone said, “I am completely new; I know nothing,” he would say, “I’ll take half.” People were surprised. The learner would protest, “I’ve studied for ten years—charge me less! Why more?” Mozart said, “You will take more labor. I must first erase what you already know. Your slate is covered; I’ll have to clean it—that is extra work, and for that I charge. The one who comes blank requires no such effort; I can write straightaway.”

My experience is the same: those who come blank progress swiftly in meditation; those who come full face great obstacles. Their doctrines, beliefs, scriptures stand in the way. They do not really hear me. I say one thing; they interpret another. Their translations are full of error.

Recently I was reading the memoirs of an old revolutionary, Raja Mahendra Pratap—ninety years old, a stubborn sort, but a fine man. Long reminiscences—ninety years, and he roamed outside India for some thirty years for India’s freedom, meeting everyone—Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, even Hitler.
One incident delighted me. He wrote: “When I reached Russia and met Lenin, I addressed a gathering. The man translating me into Russian was doing so masterfully, and I was astonished that whenever I said, ‘Without religion man cannot live; religion is essential for man,’ people applauded vigorously. I was perplexed, for I had heard that these communists, these Russians, were against religion—and yet they applauded at the very mention of it!”
He later asked the translator, “What was happening?” The translator replied, “Since you ask, I’ll tell you: we have instructions that whenever anyone says the word ‘religion,’ we translate it as ‘communism.’ So when you said, ‘Religion is essential for man,’ we said, ‘Communism is essential for man,’ and people applauded. In fact, this translation is correct, for our religion is communism. I made no other change; I kept your talk as it was. Only whenever you said ‘religion,’ I said ‘communism.’ Forgive me—this much is our compulsion.”
But then the whole thing is distorted. Your mind does the same: it translates. While listening to me, you translate the whole time. You are not listening directly; your mind sits in between, translating: “He said this—alright, is it written in the Vedas? If yes, good. If not, not good. Does it match the Quran? If it matches, fine; if not, wrong. The Quran cannot be wrong!” You don’t even know what the Quran is. The Quran as you imagine it—such a Quran cannot be wrong; you might be wrong!

The ego clings to “I am right.” If what I say agrees with you, you nod and say, “Exactly.” But you are not agreeing with me—you’re saying, “You must be right because you are saying what I say. It matches me.”

Understand the difference.

Ruskin said, there are two kinds of people in the world: those willing to stand with the truth, and those who always make truth stand with them. Only the first kind find truth; the second never do.

Do not make truth stand with you. If you already knew truth, there would be no need to seek. You do not know—that is why there is a search. So go where truth is.

If you wish to listen to me, you will have to set your mind aside. Naturally, the Brahmin has a very big mind. Bigger than a Shudra’s. The Shudra’s mind the Brahmin never allowed to form—he was not permitted to read the Vedas, the Ramayana, the Gita; he was kept deprived. So the Shudra’s mind remained undeveloped. The Brahmin has a big mind—no Brahman, but a big mind. And it is that big mind which obstructs.

Certainly, your being a Brahmin is becoming a barrier. But you need not make it so. What is a barrier can be made into a step. A big stone lies in your path—you can treat it as an obstacle and stop, “Now where can I go?” Or you can climb onto it; from there perhaps farther vistas will appear. It is up to you: stones can become steps; steps can become stones. Obstacles can become allies; allies can become obstacles.

I say to you: you were born in a Brahmin household—make even this obstacle into a step. Now you have a challenge: born in a Brahmin home, become in truth a Brahmin. What is now of caste and conditioning—why not turn it into living experience? It is your good fortune to be a Brahmin; why not transform that good fortune into the supreme good fortune? Why make it a barrier? Make it a staircase. Anything can be made into a step. Poison can become nectar—an intelligent hand is needed. Otherwise even nectar becomes poison. A physician makes medicine even out of poison.

So being a Brahmin is not something bad. It is good fortune—you were born in a house where there was talk of God; even if only in words, there was some hint of the divine, a far-off echo of God’s voice. There was the hum of the rishis, the Vedas and Upanishads. It has become very old, covered in dust, but behind it truth still lies. However deep the embers lie under ash, they are not extinguished. Even if only the ash is being worshiped, remove a little and you will find the coal aglow. Consider it a blessing.

When I say consider it a blessing, do not misunderstand me. Do not think I imply that one born in a Shudra’s house is not blessed. I say to him as well: you too are blessed—blessed that you escaped the pundits’ nuisance, escaped the nets of doctrines and scriptures; you are blank—what great fortune! Make use of it. When I say “blessed,” I am not speaking comparatively. I consider every person fortunate—wherever and however he is. If someone insults you, that too is fortune, for he gives you an opportunity: if you do not become angry, your life gains great dignity. If someone welcomes you, that too is fortune: if you do not become egoistic in welcome, a true glory is born in you.

In Tibet, the great master Atisha has a sutra: every poison can be turned into nectar; every thorn can become a flower. It depends on vision.

So being a Brahmin is not inherently bad. Do not create a tangle out of it. You write, “I am not habituated to bowing, and now I want to; how to get rid of the habit that obstructs? Shed some light.”

If you are not used to bowing, begin to bow, slowly. If you do not know how to swim, what do you do? You begin little by little. First in shallow water, then a bit deeper, then deeper still, then the depths—then no fear. If bowing is not your habit, practice slowly. Wherever possible, bow.

In this land we had such arrangements to keep the habit of bowing alive. We made some simple rules. Every son touches his father’s feet—that was to cultivate the habit of bowing. Not every father is worthy of having his feet touched; it was like practicing in the shallows. “If nothing else is possible, at least do this.” Every son touches his mother’s feet. Touch the guru’s feet—even the formal teachers: the one who taught mathematics or geography. It may seem meaningless, but it had meaning—to keep the practice alive, so that if someday you are blessed to come near feet truly worth bowing to, you do not remain stiff only because you lack the habit. So, bowing…

Bow. Wherever you can, however you can. If bowing before people is difficult, we arranged for that too: bow before the peepal tree—deity; bow before the Ganga; bow before a mountain. Bow anywhere—practice. Let your spine learn to bend a little.

And what is the result of practice? When you bow, someday you will find that what you received in bowing never came through stiffness. That taste will grow. Go someday and sit with your head bowed at the base of a tree—you will be astonished by a unique peace. The more rigid you are, the more the unrest—proportionate to your rigidity. The more you bow, the more peace you will taste. Have you ever placed your head at someone’s feet? Even if those feet are not “worthy,” don’t worry.

People ask me, “How can we know whose feet to touch? How to be sure—a true guru or a false one?” I say, “Drop that worry. What have you to do with it? Whoever it is, you take the joy of bowing. The essence is in the bowing; before whom you bow is not so important.” That is why we even placed stone idols in temples—bow before them. Muslims removed idols, but they did not remove bowing; in namaz they bow. Bowing cannot be removed; idols can be. The idol was secondary; bowing cannot be removed. Bow anywhere—even facing the Kaaba.

Keep my point in mind: the object of your bowing has no value; the value lies in your bowing. When you bow, someday you will find that a rain of peace descends. You bowed and something was washed away; a stream flowed; a lightness arose in the mind. Then you will bow more and more. Then even when standing, inwardly you will be bowed. Bowing will become your natural state.

But in my view the real issue is not surrender, sannyas, or bowing. Deeper still is this: perhaps you have not yet become weary of the world, not truly defeated by it. That is where the crux lies. People want to take sannyas, but their taste for the world remains. They want to meditate, but still feel thought has power, that much can be achieved through thinking. They want to awaken trust, but they hold on to logic in case it might be needed. Until there is complete distrust in mere logic, trust will not be trusted fully. Until it is seen clearly that the world is insubstantial, you will not move toward sannyas.

So you say perhaps the feeling of being a Brahmin is the obstacle. In my view, more important is that you are not yet finished with the world—the fruit is unripe.

“Something in us has altered so,
Now every season seems empty;
Whether color rains or storms descend,
Spring’s fever hums and burns,
Yet we shall not be charmed again—
Autumn’s dreams are kin no more.
Garlands of blossoms came to grief,
Beauty’s face has turned misshapen;
Such a shadowed haze has fallen,
The sun’s course seems blurred.
Something in us has altered so,
Now every season seems empty.

When the mind is weary and unstrung,
How can life be blessed?
The caravan of breaths is looted—
What meaning now in powders and gulal?
The tesu blooms are burning bright,
Palash dissolves into fire;
Eyes moisten in such a way,
Every gaze feels dew-damp.
Something in us has altered so,
Now every season seems empty.

What shall we do with spring’s rhythms?
What with resounding intoxications?
Strings are stretched with threads of tears—
What shall we do with endless tunes?
In every glide a sorrow throbs,
Only the descent remains.
Such are the ragas fallen still—
The melody fell silent before its time.
Something in us has altered so,
Now every season seems empty.”

The essential thing is that you see life’s seasons as meaningless, futile. Then sannyas happens of itself. No methods, no struggle. Surrender arrives unforced. Only the unforced is beautiful; what is dragged by effort lacks grace.

So I say to you: don’t hurry. Don’t force. Don’t be greedy. Perhaps a little taste for the world remains—taste it, see it through. Dive in for a few more days if you must. There is time. In this country we never believed time was short. In the West, time is short—one life, seventy years, finished. Do it now or never. Here we are not so stingy; we have allowed long time—birth after birth, endless. No hurry. That is why the East is not frantic, why there is so little insistence on the clock.

A clock could not have been invented in the East—it is a Western child. To invent the clock, you need a Christian; a Hindu cannot invent a clock. That is why you cannot rely on a Hindu’s timing. He’ll say, “I will come at five,” and who knows if he will come? Five or seven, today or tomorrow or the day after—nothing is fixed. And do not think he is deceiving you; he has no sense of time. His stream is not temporal. He says, “What difference does it make?”

I have a friend, a big politician. To catch a train he arrives an hour early. Once I was a guest at his house and we had to travel together. He dragged me along. I asked, “It’s two minutes to the station—what will we do there an hour early? And no train ever comes before time—late maybe!” He said, “No, this is my habit. It gives peace of mind.” The train at three—he sits me there at two. Sit! Now he is content.

Once, again as his guest, I had to catch a train at four in the morning. He told his driver to sleep at the house, the tonga-wallah too, and he summoned a rickshaw-wallah from the neighborhood to sleep there as well. He told one of his men, “If no one shows up, you carry the luggage to the station even on foot if you must, because it is essential he goes.” I asked, “One person going and four arrangements?” He said, “If even one of the four turns up at the time, that’s a lot! Nothing here is certain! That is why I arrive an hour early—nothing is certain. Nothing is reliable.”

And that is how it happened. Not one came. At four I woke him; he rushed about. The driver had drunk; he didn’t come. He himself took me to the station. “You see? Here nothing is dependable.” And that is why he arrives an hour early—to hedge against unreliability.

The reason is: no urgency about time. If it happens today, fine; tomorrow, fine; the day after, also fine; if it doesn’t, still no great loss.

Do not hurry. Wherever you are in life, understand it well and live it. Its taste is bitter; sooner or later you will see. The day your grip on life loosens, sannyas is born. And even then, I do not tell you to run away from life—not even after sannyas. The revolution is within. You will remain where you are—but you will live differently, with awareness, with understanding, awake. Do not hurry. If a little taste still entangles you somewhere, settle that account too. Let that, too, be completed.

You spoke truly, O puritan:
Wine is a killer poison.
I used to say the same—
Until the spring had not yet arrived.

From a distance, being an opponent is very easy. After a taste, being an opponent is very hard. That’s why opponents often don’t come near at all; they prefer to stay far away. From afar, opposition is simple. You don’t go, you don’t see—no friction. Whatever you heard, you believed; whatever you heard, you stretched or shrank to fit yourself, gave it your own color and form. From a distance, opposing is effortless.

Up close, opposition is difficult. For however unconscious you may be, you are not so unconscious that nothing reaches you. However asleep you may be, you are not so asleep that the call I am giving cannot be heard at all. A little of the sound will reach you.

You spoke truly, O puritan:
Wine is a killer poison.
I used to say the same—
Until the spring had not yet arrived.

Only after tasting should one say anything. A wise person will not issue a statement from afar, neither for nor against. A wise person won’t decide on hearsay. A wise person will see for himself. Not only see—experience for himself. Only after experience will he speak—whether in favor or against. Only then does any statement have value.

Ask the drinkers about the delight of wine;
What can the chaste know of this joy?
Those who drink the wine will know the ecstasy.
What can the pure know of this joy,
Those who have never drunk at all? If you want to know, ask those who have drunk. In truth, why even ask them—drink with them and see. As I keep saying, the whole effort here is to somehow drown you in the Divine. Drink the wine of the Divine. No doctrines are being explained here; here the wine of truth is being poured. Therefore the invitation is only for the courageous. The weak and the timid have no place here. If religion is a mere formality for you, there is no place here. If religion is a living invitation, a challenge—then yes, this is for you.

It is good that you have come. Good that you have fallen into this “trouble.” Good that this divine madness is mounting your head. Good that this heady afterglow is coming over you.

You were bound to be ruined by intoxication anyway—
Take pride that it was He who ruined you.
Man is going to be “ruined” anyway—whether by wealth or by status—ruined he will be. If it happens in the pursuit of the Divine, all the better.

Take pride that it was He who ruined you;
You were bound to be ruined by intoxication anyway.
Here, death is on its way; everything is already on its way out—nothing remains saved. If you lay everything at the feet of the Divine, if this intoxication of the Beloved takes hold, if the temple becomes your tavern, there is no greater good fortune. One day you will say—

It is not that I regret that I ruined my heart;
My sorrow is only that I ruined it so late.
One day you will surely say, Why did I delay so long? Why did I not come sooner? How did I tarry so much?

All forms of love are a kind of madness. And love for the Divine is the greatest madness. All others are small, petty madnesses. What is the standing of the madness for wealth? But the one mad for liberation—his madness is boundless; as boundless as liberation itself. The one chasing wealth may someday get it and be free of his mania; but the one set on attaining the Divine—he will attain and still find there is more to attain, again and again. This madness does not end. It is infinite.

Before us too, love met the same fate—
Qais was sorrowful, and Farhad unsuccessful.
Love has always been a tangle. Those you call sensible—the so‑called sensible—do not fall in love. Leave aside love for the Divine; they don’t even fall into worldly love. They do not love a woman, or a man, or even a friend. They know that love is trouble. They skirt it. In place of love, they settle for marriage. They do not love, because love cannot be controlled. And love of the Divine—far more dangerous. You hand yourself to the Infinite. You give over the reins; He becomes your charioteer.

So whatever I am saying to you here is very little. Only this: place your hands in the hands of the Divine. Leave the reins to Him; cease to be the doer.

Before us too, love met the same fate—
Qais was sorrowful, and Farhad unsuccessful.
Lovers have always been in upheaval, in obstacles, in complications. But only they have found something. Those who lost themselves are the ones who found. Those who drowned—only they were saved. Those who vanished midstream—only they reached the shore.

What was there in the last goblet, O cupbearer,
That whoever drank fell silent—and stayed silent?
Now that you have come, don’t panic. If this “madness” is descending on you, don’t fear it. Be brave. Let it descend. Don’t obstruct it. Many come near and then flee—out of fear. They feel they are being pulled in, that soon they will no longer be in their own control. Before they lose control, they run. And naturally, those who run from me must invent many arguments to justify their flight—reasons for why they left, why they ran. To fool themselves they must arrange a whole intellectual edifice to explain their escape.

But I know the greatest fear that will arise: “What if I get so entangled in this that I can never get out?”

What was there in the last goblet, O cupbearer—
Whoever drank became silent, and remained silent.
First, there will be madness—love will arise—and if you keep your courage and keep going deeper, then silence will arise. The madness will pass, all the storms will pass—and only the peace that comes after storms is real peace. First the storm comes, then the calm. If you panic in the storm and run away, you will be deprived of the peace. If you stand through the storm and let it pass, the dust will settle. The dust of centuries will fall away. Your mirror will shine again. That shining mirror is meditation. And the image of existence that appears in that polished mirror—that is God. And the way to that image is sannyas.

Have courage. You came close enough that your opposition dropped; now come closer still so that fear also drops. Fear does arise. The old scriptures say: the Master is death—acharyo mrityuh—because near the Master your death happens. As you were, you die. As you should be, you are born. Your freedom is proclaimed. For the first time, you become a soul unto yourself.

One birth your mother gave you—that is the birth of the body. Another birth the Master gives—that is the birth of the soul. At birth from the mother there is great pain, great travail. To be born from the Master—there is even greater pain, greater travail.

Remember, most babies are born head first. If there is no midwife to receive them, the child will fall headlong to the ground and may be damaged for life. Sometimes, very rarely, a child is born feet first. Likewise, once in a thousand there is one who is “born” without a Master—who needs no Master. But nine hundred and ninety‑nine out of a thousand come headfirst. The Master is the midwife. Socrates said, “I am a midwife.” When you are born, there must be someone to keep you from falling on your head; otherwise, there is danger.

Often people, to avoid a Master, read methods from books and start practicing on their own—and the result can be disastrous. If you “get born” by reading books, with only books by your side—books are not midwives. If a deep wound happens, a book can do nothing. Those who set out on this journey without a Master are truly in great danger. They can, in fact, go mad.

In this land you will meet many whom people call “mast,” blissful eccentrics. They are not “mast”—their condition is pitiable. Worse than the insane. The insane can sometimes be treated by a psychologist; these “masts” cannot. They are neither normal nor fully beyond. This world slipped from their hands, and the other world did not arrive. They are stuck in between—Trishankus. Better to remain asleep in the world than to end up stranded between sleep and awakening—your sleep broken but no dawn yet—then you will be in great turmoil.

So if you have come to me, do not remain at a distance now. Do not try to pick up techniques from here and there and apply them on your own. That risk you take upon yourself—your choice. If you truly want to do something, then have the courage to come all the way. Have the courage to place your hand in mine, so that when your birth happens you do not receive a crippling blow. So that you can be protected. Now that you have come, then come indeed. Drop this fear, as you dropped your opposition. The storm will come—and after it, peace.

We came from afar, O cupbearer, hearing of the tavern;
Alas, we only kept longing—for a goblet we kept sighing.
If you do not come near, this is what will happen.

We came from afar, O cupbearer, hearing of the tavern—
From far away we had heard news of the wine‑house and came.
But alas, we went on merely yearning—for a measure, we kept lamenting.
But none other than you will be responsible. You cannot lay the responsibility on me. I am pouring every day. I stand with the decanter in my hand. Who needs goblets—drink with your palms, drink to the brim! If you go away empty‑handed, no one but you is responsible.

And what is there in this life that you are so afraid of losing? What do you really have that you are so eager to protect?

Here the eyes search for material horizons—
A crown is worth no more than a grave.
We built palaces upon the solid ground of love,
Yet towers without foundations kept collapsing.
Life—no home of yours, no doorway anywhere;
Where shall we wait for you, life?
You dragged us by the hand right up to the threshold of death,
Yet never could we bring ourselves to trust you, life.
In this life, nothing happens except death—and yet you trust life! And where surrender brings the Great Life even through death—you fear, you hesitate, you shrink back!

Neither is life in our possession, nor death in our control—
Man is compelled, and how compelled.
Neither your birth is in your hands, nor your death. Only one thing is in your hands: surrender. Birth has happened; death will happen. Surrender—you may allow it or not. Only in one matter are you the master, and that is sannyas.

Neither is life in our possession, nor death in our control—
Man is compelled, and how compelled.
No—there is one freedom. One place where compulsion does not rule. That freedom is sannyas.

That is all for today.