Mahaveer Meri Drishti Mein #11

At the very center of Mahavira’s path of practice stands: Samayik. The word is born of samay—time—and to understand this word a little, beforehand, is immensely helpful.
Matter exists in three dimensions: length, breadth, height. Every object spreads in these three directions. If we were to measure the “material” in a human being, we would find length, breadth, height; and if we were to cut and probe in a laboratory, all that shows itself would happen within these three. But the man’s Atman would slip from our hands. The Atman does not fall within the grip of length, breadth, and height.
Matter has three dimensions; consciousness has a fourth—time. Length, breadth, height: in these three, all objects are included. But the Atman has one more direction, absent in things—consciousness’ own direction: time. Time is the fourth dimension of existence.
Objects can be in three dimensions, but consciousness never is; it abides in the fourth. If we were to extract consciousness out of the world, everything would remain—save time. Imagine: on this mountain there is no consciousness—rocks will be, the mountain will be, the moon will rise, the sun will rise and set—but there will be no such thing as time. For the sense of time is a part of consciousness. Without consciousness there is no thing like time. And without time, consciousness also cannot be. So, matter’s existence is in length, breadth, height; consciousness’ existence is in the stream of time.
Einstein then did something wondrous and gathered these four into one definition of existence. Space and time had always been understood as two—kāla and kṣetra, time and field. Einstein said they are not two; they are together, two aspects of one. He coined a new word: spacetime. Time and space welded into one. In any given existence, three aspects are visible to us so we can measure length, breadth, height; but without time, existence cannot be located at all. We can say where a thing is, in which place, but if we cannot say when it is, the thing eludes us. Einstein granted to time an inevitability for existence—it is indispensable.
The first living recognition of this came to Mahavira. He saw first that time is the direction of consciousness. Consciousness cannot even appear in experience without time. The very sense, the very feel of time is an essential limb of consciousness. Thus Mahavira even named the Atman “time.” And more is implied in this.
In this world, all things are changing. All is momentary—here today, gone tomorrow. Everything is born and dies within the river of time: made today, scattered tomorrow, vanished the day after. Only one thing in this long river does not change—time itself. Only time remains always; within it all change happens; without it, change cannot happen.
If there were no time, a child would remain a child, could never be young. A bud would remain a bud, could never become a flower. All possibility of change is in time.
So, all things are within time and mutable, but time alone is outside time, immutable. Time alone is the eternal element—was always and will always be. It cannot not-be; even for not-being, time is needed. For birth, time is needed; for death, time is needed. For making, time is needed; for unmaking, time is needed.
Understand it by this image. Here is a room: we can remove things from it, or fill it with many things, but the space within it cannot be removed. Whether the house remains or collapses, space remains. The house is built in space, dissolves in space; space abides. So too, in the current of time, all things are made and unmade, come and go, but time remains. Time is the one eternal element—eternal in the sense of was and always will be.
Mahavira wishes to call the Atman “time” for this reason also: that alone is the eternal, sanātana, beginningless, endless—the only one ever-abiding. All else comes and goes; that alone remains. And for another reason too he names the Atman “time”: generally, we divide time into three: past, present, future. But this division is wholly mistaken. The past exists only in memory, nowhere else. The future exists only in imagination, nowhere else. Only the present is. Hence the threefold division—past, future, present—is false. Time can have only one meaning: the present that is.
How much present do we have in our hands? If someone asks, how much?—not even a millionth of a moment. Mahavira calls that ultimate residue in our hand “time”—the final fraction.
As scientists split matter down to the ultimate atom, and split the atom into electrons—the last indivisible—so Mahavira, analyzing consciousness, sought its ultimate atom. The name of that last particle is time: the division of the present instant that is actually in our hand.
But it is so subtle that it does not appear to our perception—just as atom or electron is unseen. By the time it comes within our awareness, it has already gone. It is so minute that by the time we awaken to it, it has passed. Even to fill with awareness takes time—and time has moved on.
In this very instant what do we hold? The past is gone; the future has not yet come. Between the two, a tiny fragment—thinner than a thousandth of a hair—is in our hand. But it is so small that when we become aware—“this is the present”—by then it has gone, turned into past.
Mahavira calls the Atman “time” in this sense too: the day you become so silent that the present falls into your grasp, that day you enter Samayik. It means a mind so quiet, so transparent, that even that tiniest particle of the present glimmers. If it glimmers, know you have come upon Samayik—you have come to the experience of time. Time known, time seen, time tasted.
Till now you have not experienced time. You say, “I have a watch; I measure time; right now it is eight o’clock.” But by the time you say “it is eight,” it has been. The watch has moved. Whenever we say anything, we say the past. Whatever we can grasp, we grasp the past. The present slips from the hand. And the past is memory only; it is no more. What is, is the present. Existence is now. Yet we have no sense of this one now, for we are so busy, so entangled and restless, that no imprint of that tiny instant is made upon the mind—we miss it, again and again.
We go on missing time—hence we remain unacquainted with existence, for existence is of time. That alone is; all else has either been or not yet come. We must enter through what is. But we cannot become aware, cannot catch it.
Therefore Mahavira calls it Samayik and calls the Atman “time,” to say: you come to the Atman only when you have the vision of time; before that, you have not come. If you cannot experience existence at all, what meaning has your existence?
The Atman is in all as a possibility, not as a truth. Like the tree hidden in the seed: a possibility, not yet the fact. The seed can become a tree. We too can become Atman. When we say the Atman is in everyone, we mean only this: we also can be Atman, not that we already are. And the very instant existence stands face to face with us, that instant we become existent. Before that, we do not truly exist.
See it another way: past and future belong to mind; the present belongs to the Atman. The mind lives in past and future—either behind or ahead—never here-now. There is no “now” in the mind. It is a storehouse of memory and plans.
Between past and future runs an extremely delicate line—the present. To experience it, we need to be utterly still. The slightest ripple and we miss. A tiny tremor within and the line is gone; our vibration cannot catch it.
Hence, the day consciousness becomes unmoving—no ripple within—even the most minute quiver of the instant of time will be seen. That vision of time descends us into existence. The present moment is the doorway into existence—call it entry into Brahman, into truth, into moksha. Through the present alone we enter. And we miss it.
A story. A blind man wanders into a vast royal palace. Thousands of doors, but only one stands open. He feels door after door—miles around. He is near the open door when an itch comes on his forehead; he scratches—and misses the door! Again thousands of doors, again he feels and tires. He reaches the very door, but after so much wandering, he is weary; he stops feeling—“How long to keep searching? Is there even such a door?”—and in that very moment, the door passes. What can the blind man do! If he must get out, weary or not, he starts feeling again. Years pass; again and again he comes near the open door, and misses.
So it is for us—births and years, we keep feeling for the door of time. Where is the door to moksha, the door to life, the door to bliss? We grope either for closed doors of the past, which are shut, or for the future’s doors, which do not yet exist. One door—open—the present—we miss. At that moment we are occupied with something else: we scratch the forehead, or something. Meaning: whenever we come to the door, we are occupied.
In the present moment we are always occupied; therefore it is missed. Samayik means un-occupied. Not busy at all—doing nothing, thinking nothing—only then can we catch time. If we are doing, we will miss; it slips away as we do.
Mahavira chose this name with deep deliberation. He says: time itself is the Atman. Know time, stand in time, recognize it—and you will know yourself.
But to know time is very difficult—perhaps the most arduous is to stand in the present. Our whole habit is to be either behind or ahead. Our entire habit-formation is that.
Ask a person, “What are you doing?”—you will find him either in the past or in the future. Rarely will you find one who says, “I am doing nothing; I am just here.” If you meet such a one, know he was in Samayik—he was in meditation. In that moment he was occupied with nothing—he was.
Consider it: just being. Doing nothing—just being. No mantra, not even watching the breath—nothing.
When I tell you to watch the breath, that is not yet Samayik. I say it so your other useless occupations drop; at least one remains, not many. When one occupation remains, I say: now jump even from this. Having dropped the many, one occupation remains—watching the breath. This one earns no money, no profit; it is so useless that from it the jump is easy. If you have dropped all else, dropping this will not take long. The moment I say, “Leave it,” you are ready. From this jumping-board you can dive into the ocean.
But even this is occupation—not Samayik. It is the step before—the springboard. If you have reached here, a single leap can take you to the sea.
As long as we are doing anything, we will keep missing the present. When we are not doing anything at all—then we descend. It seems beyond our understanding that there could be a moment in which we do nothing, we only are.
Yet what is difficult in just being for a few moments? Lie in your room, lean in a corner—just be. Trees are, stones are, mountains are, the stars are—perhaps their beauty is because they are deeply immersed in time. Perhaps our ugliness, anxiety, sorrow, and bewilderment are because we are fleeing time, thrown outside it—cut from the roots of life’s source.
There are two kinds of actions. One: the body’s actions—these slacken in sleep, stop in unconsciousness. The body’s actions are not a deep hindrance. Deeper within are the mind’s processes—that is the real obstacle. They make us miss time. The body does not make us miss; the body abides ever in the present.
Note: seekers often make the body an enemy, but the poor body is no enemy. It is always in time. Not for a single instant does the body go into past or future. The body has never misled anyone; the mind misleads. The mind wanders to where it is not. At night you sleep; the body lies in Srinagar, the mind can be anywhere. By day you sit at Chashme Shahi; the body is there, the mind can be anywhere. The body is always where it is—otherwise it cannot be; it has no other way.
Yet seekers commonly wage enmity against the body, which has never harmed them. The experiment must be upon the mind; somehow we must reach the state of no-mind—Amani. Kabir said, Amani: the state where mind is not.
Now a strange thing: if mind is, there will be action; as long as any action continues, mind will remain. Hence the mind is willing for any action. Say, “Run a shop”—it agrees. Say, “Not a shop—worship”—it agrees. “Chant a mantra”—it agrees. “Do meditation”—it agrees. Only do something—because through doing, mind survives.
But if you say, “For a little while I do not want to do anything”—mind is not willing. It will try to make you do something—at least fight with the mind; push out thoughts; prevent thoughts from entering; do meditation—but do. “Without doing, how can it work?”
A Japanese emperor visited a Zen monastery. Vast grounds, halls, a great pagoda. At the gate, the old abbot meets him. “Show me everything you do here,” the emperor says. The old monk takes him where the monks bathe. “Here we bathe.” “Don’t show me such trivialities,” the emperor says. “Show me where you do the real thing.” He shows the latrines. “You waste my time.” “I am showing exactly what we do,” says the monk—“here the library, here we study; here we eat; here we exercise.” The emperor is annoyed: “In the big central hall—what do you do?” Whenever he asks about the big hall, the monk becomes as if deaf; he speaks of gardens, of evening walks. The emperor wearies, returns to the gate, mounts his horse: “Either I am mad or you are. The great hall is visible; is it or not? What do you do there—and why do you go deaf?”
The monk says, “You put me in a bind. That is the place where, when we have nothing to do, we go. You ask, ‘What do you do there?’ If I say we do something, it will be wrong. Or I must remain silent. Because you understand only the language of doing, I showed you baths, latrines, study rooms—places where we do. You ask, ‘What do you do there?’—I fall silent, for there we do nothing. Whoever wants to do anything is not allowed there. Doing has no place there. When someone has nothing to do, he quietly goes. That is our meditation hall.” The emperor says, “I understand—there you do meditation?” The monk replies, “Again the same mistake—meditation means: doing nothing.”
As long as we do, meditation cannot be. Even the word “meditation” carries a flavor of act. Samayik contains not even that. “Meditation” seems like doing; in Samayik there is nothing to do. Samayik means: being in oneself, being in time. Not doing, not becoming—being.
Have you seen an eagle gliding high? When she glides, she does not even move her wings. Nothing is done; the wings are stilled; she simply balances upon the wind.
Something like that within: when we simply balance—no flapping—nothing done inside; all becomes silent. Just being. Not a state of action, but a state of being—no process; we only are. That state is Samayik.
Hence, when someone asks, “How to do Samayik?”—no question could be more mistaken. Our language is built upon doing. But we will never know our nature through doing, for doing is always with the other. On the subtlest planes, whenever we do, it is always with something other. And whenever we become doers, we become something we are not—putting on a role.
One plays at being a shopkeeper—an act taken on. Is anyone a shopkeeper? No. Another plays servant, another minister, another teacher. These are roles people assume in this big drama. And in playing, they forget it is play, and identify—“this is me.” Then it becomes very hard for the shopkeeper to be not a shopkeeper—even for a moment.
I was a guest in Calcutta. The mistress of the house told me—her husband is chief justice of the High Court—“Please tell him—he listens to you—at least sometimes stop being Chief Justice. He is twenty-four hours Chief Justice—even in bed! The moment he enters, the house becomes a court. The children sit upright; everything becomes orderly. Chief Justice has arrived.” He forgot it is a role; he cannot relax.
We know well: the cloth merchant, at night, tears the bedsheet in his dream, cutting cloth for customers. Day and night he is cutting; even in dream he does the same. Our actions encircle our whole personality. There is never a time when we are totally relaxed; never just what we are—always taking on something. With any doing, some acting begins.
Remember: as long as we are acting, we cannot be in the Atman. If we would be in the Atman, we must step down from all stages, all roles. Changing roles is easy: a shopkeeper can become a sannyasin—then he opens a new shop, the acting of sannyasin. But to step out, for a while, from all acting—that, for a little while—not a shopkeeper, not a sannyasin, not a householder, not a father, not a mother, not a son, not a husband, not a wife—dropping all actions and roles and saying, “For this moment I will be what I was before birth, and what I shall be after death.”
Zen masters ask: “Close your eyes and search: what is your original face? Before you were born, what was your face?” The disciple tries, for we imagine we must keep a face. We do not realize all faces are borrowed. There is a facelessness within—no face at all.
He returns and says, “Perhaps like this?” The master says, “You are copying your current face. Where was that in your mother’s womb? And before the womb? Search deeper.” The search continues; one day a detonation—he sees: within, there is no face. All faces are masks, purchased from an outer market—not the gross bazaar, but subtler still—yet still from without. Within there is no name, no act, no role.
If we would know swabhava, our nature, we must stand outside all action, all faces, all roles—for a while. That stepping aside is Samayik. Once I recognize: I have no name, no face, no body, no karma, no role—only being is mine, existence my nature, knowing my essence—then a freedom, an explosion, places one instantly outside the whole circle of life. One sees: it was because of acting that there was a wheel, a game. In acting such forgetfulness happens.
We do not notice it, because acting begins with birth. Our civilization, culture, education all are designed to assign everyone the proper role. The whole arrangement is to give each person a face, a job, an act—so he is not without a face, and plays his part through life. Those without roles we call “lost.”
There was a painter, Gauguin. Up to forty he was a broker—successful, wealthy, with wife and children. One night he vanished. For two years no one knew. Then it was found he was in Paris learning to paint. His wife rushed: “What happened? Why didn’t you come?” He said, “A thought arose: will I go on acting as a broker all my life? Forty years gone. Is being a broker my essence?” She could not understand. He said, “This is not my face; it is adopted. Let me change it.” He arranged for the family, but said, “Now I am nobody’s husband or father. Shall I remain that all my life?” After years of labor he became among the finest painters; then, when his paintings began to sell for fortunes, he left again. “No role is my nature,” he said. “I am searching for my face. I do not want to cling to any mask.”
I am not telling you to run away from what you do. I am saying: do not fall into the illusion that the stiff face you hold is you. It is a manner of living, not your being. What you do is necessary—you will do—but you must also have a space of not-doing, where you do nothing; where relationships, actions, roles fade. You remain in your being.
When such a moment is found, the sense of time begins, and one becomes still in oneself. That taste, once met, is never lost. Then you may do much, yet beneath every doing you know the stream of non-doing is flowing. You may act, but you know it is acting; after a while you leave the stage and go home. This remembrance becomes so sharp that even in the deepest involvement the awareness remains—thus identification with the actor ceases. Acting becomes a part of life’s arrangement; outside acting the glimmer of your own being begins to appear.
Krishna’s conduct has been called Leela—play, drama—assumed, not literal. One who attains Samayik, his life becomes Leela. Not “character” but play. Hence for Rama we say “Ramcharit”—character—where policy, law, role are weighty. For Krishna we say “Leela”—fluid, no grip, all play; inside, one stands apart from the play.
Can you for a moment step out of the play? Take off the costumes worn on stage, remove the faces, wash off the make-up, and return home as you are. If you can, the first half is called pratikraman—returning. The second half: once you settle in yourself—like the cricket chirping, the leaves budding, moonlight falling—you do nothing. Whatever happens, happens. Breath goes on—you do not breathe it. The eyelids blink—you do not blink them. The leg, tired, moves—you did not move it. You become as if you are not. In that moment you will know who you are, what the Atman is, what existence is. Once known, life is never the same.
A fakir, Marpa, went to his master in Tibet. “What are you doing this moment?” he asked. The master said, “At no time have I done anything.” Marpa said, “You must be doing something. How can one be without doing?” The master replied, “Has there ever been a doer? One is only when nothing is done. When you do, you lose; when you do not, you find.” Marpa said, “I don’t understand.” The master said, “You try to understand, hence you cannot. Don’t try to understand—see, know, recognize.”
A German thinker, Herrigel, went to Japan. There they have devised many arts to lead one into Samayik, into meditation. Flower arrangement is one. When someone becomes adept and the master says, “Excellent arrangement,” he replies, “Please don’t say that; the flowers arranged themselves. I was only an instrument.” They also teach through swordsmanship, through archery.
Herrigel learned archery with a master. After three years his aim became infallible. Yet daily the master said, “No—not yet.” Herrigel was distraught: “My arrow never misses; still you say nothing has happened!” The master said, “We have nothing to do with the target. Your effort is still there. The arrow is still shot by you; it does not ‘go.’ Whether it hits is secondary. Of course it will hit. But you still shoot it.”
Herrigel, a Westerner, could not grasp it. “How will the arrow go if I don’t shoot?” he writes. “Absurd! He says, ‘Shoot as though you have not shot; be only the instrument.’” Tired, after three years he decided to leave. The master said, “As you wish—but I cannot certify you—only that you stayed three years and return unsuccessful.”
Herrigel’s plane was at dusk. In the morning he went to say farewell. The master was teaching others. Herrigel sat on a bench. The master lifted the bow—shot. Herrigel suddenly stood, took the bow, and shot. The master said, “Right—the arrow has gone.” Herrigel said, “Why not all these days?” The master said, “All these days you were trying. Today you were not trying; you came just to take leave.” Herrigel said, “Today for the first time I saw: the arrow goes and the man is absent. I cannot even say ‘I stood up’—standing happened; the bow was in my hand; the arrow went.” The master said, “Now I can write it for you. One day is enough—you have understood the difference.”
We are doers, never non-doers. For one instant, if we become non-doers—the work is done. That instant of non-doing is the moment of Samayik.
Another incident. In China there was a monk, Hui-Hai. He went to his master: “I wish to attain moksha, truth.” The master said, “As long as you wish to attain, go elsewhere; when there is no gaining to be done, come to me.” Hui-Hai asked, “If there is nothing to attain, why would I come?” The master said, “Don’t come. But as long as there is gaining, what have I to do with you? The language of attaining is the language of tension—attaining is in the future, you are here—your mind will stretch itself like a bridge and be in strain.”
“Do you do nothing to attain?” “No,” said the master. “While I did to attain, nothing was attained. The day I dropped attaining, all was attained. My master told me: ‘Seek—and you will lose; don’t seek—and you will find.’ I too thought it madness. But he said: ‘You lose because you seek what you already have. Stop the rush for a moment, so you can see what is given.’ So I say to you: as long as there is gaining, go elsewhere; when there is none, come.”
The youth wandered through many ashrams, exhausted. He returned, spent. The master asked, “Will you still seek?” “No,” he said, “I am tired. I have come to rest.” “Welcome!” said the master. “Sometimes what does not come by labor comes by rest. What labor brings is always the alien; what rest brings is what is one’s own.” Samayik is supreme rest—total relaxation. Neither past nor future; neither to gain nor to search; remaining exactly where one is—and the treasure opens.
On the day of his enlightenment, people asked Buddha, “What did you attain?” Buddha said, “Nothing—what was already given, that is what has appeared.” “How?” “Do not ask ‘how.’ As long as I thought in the language of how, I did not find—because I was seeking what was already the case. When I dropped seeking, I saw: it is.” Swabhava—one’s own nature—means: what is. Seeking concerns what is not.
Hence, when one starts “seeking the Atman,” it is an absurd effort. Who will seek the Atman, how? It is already and always with us—whether we seek or not. The difference is: in seeking we get entangled and miss. In not seeking, it shows by itself.
If it is clear that Samayik is unforced—no effort but effortlessness; not seeking but no-seeking; not a goal in the future, but here and now—then you will see: if you chase a goal, you will miss, for births upon births.
Can you, in this very instant, be without doing anything? Then you will find yourself where Mahavira stands forever. But the mind keeps asking: How? What to do? Where to go? Where to search?
Those who know will say: seek the one who seeks. Do not go anywhere else; descend where the question arises. Enter the very core that asks, “How to find the Atman? How to gain moksha?” Enter there—and moksha and Atman are found. That very core is Atman; that very stillness is moksha.
But something in the machinery of mind is basically off—we go on missing. A small, simple understanding does not occur: what I want to gain is, in some sense, already given.
If this becomes very clear, another becomes clear: this is not to be gained by labor but by rest. Then even the language of gaining is wrong. What is already ours needs no acquiring—only discovery. Hence there is no “self-attainment,” only self-discovery. Something was covered; uncover it. It is veiled by our habit of seeking, by our being elsewhere. If we are not elsewhere, it will unveil—now.
Samayik is neither an act nor a practice, neither effort nor sādhanā, neither means nor method.
A small incident. In Muchhala Mahavir our first camp happened. From Rajasthan came an old village woman, Bhuribai, with twenty-five devotees. Hundreds revere her; yet she is a simple country woman, says nothing. People sit with her; she loves them, feeds them, serves them. Many love her.
On the first morning I explained what meditation is, as now I have spoken of Samayik—that it is not doing, but sinking into non-doing. In the evening, when all came to meditate, a gentleman—once a High Court advocate, now serving Bhuribai for twenty-five years—told me, “Strange—Bhuribai laughs when I ask her to come for meditation. We insisted; she told us to go away. When I would not leave, she said, ‘Will you go or not? You go do meditation.’ As I stepped out, she shut the door.”
I said, “Ask her in the morning before me.” She came, held my feet, laughed: “Last night was a joy. In the morning you explained so well that meditation is not doing; and this advocate says, ‘Come do meditation.’ I told him, ‘Go quickly; as long as the doer lingers, he will do something and disturb others. You go—do meditation.’ As soon as he left, I shut the door and entered meditation. You said rightly: by doing, it never happened—years it did not; last night it happened, because I did nothing. I just lay as if dead—and it happened. He came here to ‘do’ meditation; I went there to be in meditation—he missed. Please explain to him to drop this talk of doing.”
We do not forget the language of doing; thus we miss hearing what I say. People have continually missed Mahavira, too.
One more incident, then we sit. Lao Tzu was passing through a forest with disciples. A king’s palace was being built; trees were being cut. One tree was huge—under it a thousand carts could rest—and no one cut a single branch. Lao Tzu said, “Go ask that tree its secret. When all are being cut, how has this one survived?” The disciples circled it and returned. “We looked—but what to ask a tree?” Lao Tzu said, “Then ask the woodcutters why they do not cut it.” They asked a carpenter, who said, “This tree is like Lao Tzu—useless. No branch is straight—no use. Its wood, when burned, smokes—no good even for fuel. Who would cut it? That is why it remains.” They returned. “The carpenter said, ‘It is like Lao Tzu.’” Lao Tzu said, “He spoke well. Be like this tree. Do nothing; do not try to become. See how those who tried to be straight are cut. Those who tried to be beautiful—see the saw. This one tried to become nothing at all. Whatever it became, it became—crooked or bent, smoking or not—and see how it has survived—like me.”
The disciples said, “We still do not understand.” Lao Tzu said, “No one could ever defeat me, for I was already defeated. No one could ever pull me down, for I always sat where no one comes to pull—beside the shoes. No one could ever insult me, for I never desired honor. I never wished to be anything—rich, famed, learned—therefore I became what I am. Had I wished to be something else, I would have missed.” This tree, said Lao Tzu, is just like that—since it desired to become nothing, it became what it was.
Supreme bliss is to become what we are. To dissolve into what we are is freedom. To be available to what we are is truth.
If you see Samayik this way, it becomes clear. If you go to the temples to see what they call Samayik, you will never understand. They are doers there too—mantras, chants, arrangements—doing. Every doing hides a greed—to obtain something: heaven, moksha, the soul. One who still has the desire to obtain may obtain all—but never himself. For oneself cannot be had by the desire to obtain. All desires to obtain throw you outside yourself. When there is no desire to obtain, one returns home—stays at home. That homecoming and abiding—this is Samayik.
Mahavira has devised a wondrous device to descend into non-action—to descend into pure being. One who understands—there is no question of doing anything; one who does not—let him do whatever he will; nothing will change.