Mahaveer Meri Drishti Mein #13

Fifteen days later she said to me, “You’ve put me in a fix—because when I went looking, what ‘bliss’ it is!” So I couldn’t tell you to do it; anyway, it’s your choice.
I said, “Then when it’s my choice, I’ll tell you.” Which means the matter is postponed till then, isn’t it. When it’s my choice, I’ll tell you. And that choice never arose. Nor have I ever said “never”; even now I haven’t said it. Even now, if someone comes to persuade me, I could agree. What’s the difficulty in it! There’s nothing painful in it. There’s no obstacle either.
One of my father’s friends was a prominent lawyer, very logical. So my father asked him to come and explain things to me. He came. He lived in another village and stayed the night.
He was a very forceful man—an eminent lawyer, very logical, a big leader. As soon as he met me he said, “No matter how many days I have to stay here, I’m going to leave only after proving that marriage is very useful.”
I said, “There’s no need to delay. Today itself—why stay so many days? Convince me and I’ll agree right now. But mind you, it won’t be one-sided!”
He said, “What do you mean?”
I said, “If you are going to argue, will I also have the right to speak?”
“Of course you will.”
I said, “If you prove that getting married is blissful, then tomorrow morning I’ll say yes—let the marriage be arranged. And if it gets proved that it’s not blissful, then what’s your intention—are you ready to give up your marriage? Because it can’t be one-sided; that would be unjust. I’m to stake my life, and you fight without putting anything at stake—there’s no fun in that.”
He said, “Hold on, I’ll talk to you in the morning.” By the time I woke up in the morning, he had already left. He told my father, “I’m not getting into this mess. I have no need for this mess.”
It’s our own mind inside that is doubtful. Many years later when I met him, he said, “You put me in great anxiety; I couldn’t sleep all night. And then I thought it would be an injustice, because I myself live continually in a state of wanting to leave. It would be absolutely unfair. So I decided not to get into it—and I would have lost, because inwardly I was weak. That is, I myself am of the view that this was a great mistake, but now there is no way out.”
But I still haven’t refused. No one has come who could persuade me; what can one do—there’s no way. So one shouldn’t worry about it.

Evolution runs on two planes. Darwin’s discovery is very profound, but quite incomplete. Darwin formulated his entire theory around the evolution of bodies. In bodies there appears to be a sequence of development. It seems that at some point, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years ago, the human body evolved out of the body of the ape. The ape’s bodily organization—its brain, its bones, its muscles—suggests that the human body probably arose from it. And as we search further back, we can say that in some form life’s journey began with the fish; and the fish itself must have come in some manner from plants. There has been long scientific investigation into all this. It is established that there is a gradual evolution occurring in bodies.

But because science does not concern itself with soul, its account is incomplete. That bodies evolve is entirely true, but the truth is only half. And half-truths are more dangerous than falsehoods, because they create the illusion of being the whole truth.

That is only one half of evolution. For the other half, the inquiries of people like Mahavira are invaluable. They say consciousness is also evolving. If there were only body, then all evolution would be automatic. If there were only body, all development would just happen of its own accord, governed by circumstances and the laws of nature. For if there is only body, there can be no question of will. But if there is consciousness, then evolution cannot be automatic, because the very meaning of consciousness is that which is not automatic, in which there is freedom of choice.

A fan is running—its motion is purely automatic, mechanical. No will is involved. But if the fan had a soul, it could say, “It’s very cold today; I won’t run,” or, “I’m very tired; I don’t feel like running today.” It might spin faster if a lover came near; stop altogether if an enemy appeared. But a fan has no consciousness, so its movement is automatic.

That there is consciousness is itself proof that evolution cannot be automatic; consciousness will participate actively. And it does. The farther back we go, the greater the proportion of automatic development; the closer we come to the present, the greater the proportion of willed, conscious development.

Take the amoeba—the first, most rudimentary step life took. There we can say perhaps ninety-nine percent is automatic, with maybe one percent influenced by will. But as we come up the ladder—to the human being, for instance—if evolution is to happen, ninety-nine percent will depend on volition; otherwise it will not happen at all.

This is why humanity has been at a standstill for about fifty thousand years. No automatic evolution is observable in humans anymore. Even in skeletal remains a million years old there is no basic difference from our skeletons. No fundamental change in our brains either.

So it appears that in humans ninety-nine percent depends on free will. A Buddha, a Mahavira—these are evolutions of choice. If we wait for automatic evolution, only that one percent possibility remains—and it will crawl along very, very slowly.

The farther back we go, the less free will and the greater the mechanicalness; by the time we come to humans, free will is far greater and mechanicalness much less. Yet even in the lowest forms there is a trace of volition; that trace is what makes them even minimally conscious. Consciousness means we are partners in our evolution and responsible for our decline. It implies responsibility—for what is happening, for what we are, for what we can become. Ultimately we are responsible. Across all evolving life—animals, birds, fish, insects, plants—their intention, their will, is actively at work.

You will ask: How to recognize this? With animals and birds, how to know that through their own will they develop and enter higher wombs (yonis)?

There is one path—there may be others, but one simplest. If we can take the consciousnesses of people today back into their past lives, we will discover that they have passed through being animals and plants.

Mahavira conducted deep experiments in past-life remembrance (jati-smaran). Whoever came near him, he would guide into these experiments, so they could know the course of their previous journey—even to the point of seeing when they were an animal, what animal they were, and what they did as an animal that enabled them to become human. If one sees that as an animal one did something that led to becoming human, then one realizes that by doing something now as a human, one can go beyond. It was by doing that one arrived here.

Mahavira once addressed a man. Night had fallen; Mahavira’s community had halted at a large pilgrim rest house. Thousands of monks were staying. A young prince had just been initiated. The senior monks got the better places; the new prince had to sleep in the central passageway. All night he suffered—his pride hurt: a prince who had never even walked on the ground, now sleeping in a corridor. The elders got rooms; he lay in the hallway. Footsteps woke him again and again. He began to think, “Better I go back. What foolishness have I fallen into? I’ll die in these corridors. This life has become pointless. What a mistake!”

In the morning Mahavira called him: “Do you know who you were in your last birth?”

“I don’t know.”

Mahavira told him: “In your last birth you were an elephant. A forest fire broke out; all the creatures fled; you too. As you raised your foot, wondering which way to go, a small rabbit slipped under your lifted foot, thinking your foot’s shadow would protect him. You looked down, saw the rabbit, and did not put your foot down again. You kept it lifted. The fire came—you died—but to your dying breath you tried to save that rabbit. Because of that act you became a man; that deed gave you the right to be human. And today you are so weak that one night in a corridor and you want to run away!”

The memory of his past birth stirred; he recognized it. Then everything changed. The impulses to run, to escape, to be frightened by a little hardship—all vanished. He stood on a firmer resolve; a new ground opened in him. It became impossible even to think of fleeing.

So one path is to take people into the remembrance of previous births. From that it becomes clear through which wombs they evolved, and what pivotal event made them worthy to move into a higher life. That is the simplest path.

A second path is harder: live close to a handful of animals, establish an inner relationship, and you will see there are good and bad “persons” among them, noble and ignoble souls, virtuous and wicked beings. You will see that the ten dogs you observe are not all the same; each has its own personality.

At a station in Switzerland there is a memorial to a dog—the only dog memorial in the world. Around 1930 or 1932, a man had a dog who would walk him to the station every morning for the ten o’clock train and stand there, seeing him off. At five in the evening the dog would be at the station to meet him, without fail. This continued unfailingly. Then one day the man went and did not return: he had died in an accident in the city. The dog came at five—the train arrived, but the master did not get down. The dog peered into each carriage, called, searched. The station staff tried hard to drive him away, but he refused to leave. Every train that came, he searched for his master. For fifteen days he neither ate nor drank. He died standing at the very spot where his master would meet him. All attempts to feed or give him water failed. Newspapers across Switzerland carried the story; his photos were published. But the dog would not leave. If pushed away, within minutes he was back. Weak with hunger, he sat and wept as each train came and went, tears falling from his eyes, peering into every compartment. He died there, where he should have met his master.

Such a dog is no ordinary dog. In that personality there is something that is rare even among humans. He will move ahead; his ascent is assured. He has already taken a great step toward being human. His consciousness has lifted a foot that will carry him forward. A memorial was built for him—he was worthy. Many humans with memorials are not so worthy.

So the second path is to know animals closely. Experiments of this kind have been done. On their basis we can say that evolution is happening, and it is happening by choice. That is why not all beings evolve. Those who labor, even a little, in that direction rise; those who do not, repeat the same birth-form. Endless repetition is possible. But eventually even repetition becomes tiresome, and deep within arises a longing to move upward.

So evolution is something accomplished—consciousness is working at it. As consciousness develops, it also creates more evolved bodies. The bodily evolution is therefore not, as Darwin thought, purely automatic. As consciousness takes on intense development, the body must follow with development on its own plane. The body follows, it does not lead. A monkey’s body becomes a human body only when the soul within a monkey has already taken the step to a human soul. To meet the needs of that soul, the body develops behind it.

The soul’s evolution is primary; the body’s evolution is secondary. The body is merely an opportunity. As the soul evolves, a more evolved bodily opportunity must be formed. At any time, humans can go further still, and such consciousness can evolve as to give birth to bodies superior to the human. There is no difficulty in this.

But arriving at humanhood is no ordinary event. Because it feels given “for free,” we squander it as if it cost nothing. To become human is an extraordinary event—achieved through long processes, long efforts, long labor, a long journey of consciousness. But if we assume it came free—as the son of a rich father thinks the wealth is just there—we begin to dissipate it. One person earns; his son spends. The son received riches at birth; he thinks, “It’s just there.” He does not consider the labor that built that wealth.

Henry Ford once came to England. Getting off at the station, he went to the inquiry office and asked, “Which is the cheapest hotel in London?” The clerk recognized him: “You? Asking for the cheapest hotel? You are Henry Ford, aren’t you?” “Yes,” Ford said, “which is the cheapest?” The clerk marvelled, “Your son comes and asks, ‘Which is the most expensive hotel?’” Ford replied, “He is Henry Ford’s son; I am Henry Ford. I was poor and earned with difficulty. He was born rich; he will work to become poor. I know what it took to earn; he knows only to spend. People recognize me whatever coat I wear; it makes no difference. But my sons need fine coats so that people can recognize whose sons they are.”

What we earn in one life becomes our easy inheritance in the next. The fruit of the previous life comes to us in this life as our wealth. And the previous life is forgotten—just as a son forgets the father’s toil. So too we forget what we accumulated before—merit, knowledge, consciousness—and we fail to use the present opportunity to go further. We get stuck where we are. Hence many repeat the same birth-form again and again—hundreds of thousands of times. No one goes “down”—there is no going backward. One cannot return to a lower form. But one can either circle where one is or go onward.

Only two possibilities: go forward, or wander where you are. If you wander, evolution is blocked; if you move forward, evolution bears fruit.

Evolution depends on effort, on resolve, on sadhana. That is why, despite the vast world of living beings, the number of humans is very small, and even when it grows, it grows slowly. We think it is increasing fast only because we look at humans alone. If we consider all living beings, what is our number? There is no smaller “caste” in this world than humanity. In one house there can be as many mosquitoes as the entire human race. There are countless species, and in each, innumerable individuals.

We are like the tiny finial atop a vast temple spire built on a huge foundation—the building of life is enormous, and humanity is just a small crest at the top. Consider all living beings, and our number is negligible—no more than a drop in a great ocean. Among humans, three and a half billion (as he spoke) seems huge; we worry how to feed them, house them. But in the totality, this is not a large number.

Note also—my understanding is that when the need arises, new means evolve immediately. In the coming fifty years, humans will try to curb birth, but life will not be stopped. Effort may reduce the pace, but new forms of food will be developed: extracting nourishment from the sea, synthetic foods made in factories, drawing food directly from air or sunlight. In the coming fifty years, entirely new forms of food will appear on Earth.

A second important thing: the great effort to go to the moon—and now Mars—outwardly appears as a superpower race, but underneath there is an unconscious fear of human numbers exploding over the next century. A search has begun for new land to which we can send people. This has always happened. Once humans were nomads. When fruits in one place were done, they moved on. When fruits everywhere were being consumed, agriculture began. When agriculture was insufficient, industry arose. When that too proves insufficient, new arrangements will be needed.

Ultimately the Earth will become overburdened. As vast numbers of beings are liberated from lower wombs, we will have to seek another place. We may rationalize the search differently, because we are not fully aware of the inner dynamics. But the unconscious will nudge us to find habitation beyond Earth, because sooner or later it will be needed.

As I said: when a new consciousness develops, new bodies must be assumed. When a conscious society’s numbers increase, new planets and satellites must be colonized. Scientists cannot explain how life first appeared on Earth; they can describe evolution, but evolution presupposes something that evolves. Where did life come from? If the fish became human, where did the fish come from? If plant became fish, where did life enter the plant? Life must come from somewhere.

Similarly, when a mother becomes fit to conceive, a soul enters her. When a planet or satellite becomes fit for life, life migrates there from other planets. The first germs always transmigrate; there is no other way. From another planet—perhaps one where life is nearing its end—the seed comes.

You also asked whether the efforts of Buddhas and Mahaviras—or I, or anyone—ever actually help beings to evolve. It has happened many times. Our view is very limited; how much do we know? Human history is reliably recorded only after Jesus—about two thousand years. We say “after Christ” and “before Christ” because after that the chronology is orderly; before it, all is dim. Even stretching it, we have little grasp of anything beyond five thousand years.

Man has been on Earth for a million years. Earth has existed for two billion years (as he said). But Earth is a new birth; the sun predates it by many thousands of billions of years. Yet our sun is among the newest in the cosmos. The stars we see all around are great suns; ours is small among them. The sun is sixty thousand times larger than Earth, yet it is tiny compared to many stars. They look small only because the distances are immense.

Light from the sun takes ten minutes to reach us, traveling at 186,000 miles per second. From the nearest star beyond the sun, light takes four years to arrive—at the same speed. From the next star, seven years. There are stars whose light began two billion years ago—when Earth formed—and is only now arriving. And stars whose light began before Earth existed and is reaching us now. There are stars whose light has not yet arrived, and some whose light will never reach us. Perhaps Earth will be born and perish, and only then will their light arrive.

In this endless expanse there are countless Earths, with life on many of them. On some, life has reached its final state many times. Buddhas, Mahaviras, Christs do not only enter the human past; they explore all the possibilities of life across all realms. From there comes their assurance that perfection has occurred many times. Their assurance is not accidental; it is grounded in vision. But our perspective is tiny.

A certain insect is born with the rains and dies with the rains. Tell it, “The rains will return,” and it says, “Never heard of it; neither I nor my parents nor their scriptures say so. Rains come only once,” because no insect has seen two rainy seasons. Born in the rains, dead in the rains—no experience, no memory to record.

We live and die on this Earth and know so little that we do not see how, in this boundless universe, life exists in innumerable realms. Religious efforts to establish contact with other life are ancient; scientific efforts are recent. Connections have been made; great assurances have come from them: if somewhere life has developed deeper into bliss, if man has become divine somewhere, it can happen here too. There is no obstacle.

And a greater assurance: the one who makes such an effort becomes available himself. The day one knows it can happen, the possibility opens for all. If we do not become our own obstacle, it can happen here on Earth. It may take time—but in the vast flow of time, delay has no meaning. Our measuring rod is too short.

How long has it been since Buddha or Mahavira? Only twenty-five hundred years. For us, a long distance. But in the scale I speak of, what does twenty-five hundred years mean? Nothing. A tiny ant climbs a sleeping man and imagines it has scaled the Himalayas—by its measure, it has. Our measure is small: seventy to a hundred years of life; by that we measure.

Just as one can enter the past of individuals, some teachers have attempted to enter the past of life itself. That is a different journey with different methods. This Earthly life—where does it come from? From which realms? In the depths of this life, memories of those realms are also hidden; through those memories, entry is possible. Science may not reach them. We reached the moon—a great event. But to reach Mars takes a year there and a year back. Among the sun’s satellites, apart from Earth, there is no life. To reach a planet of another sun would take longer than a human lifetime. If two hundred years were needed, the father would go and the son return—no other way. Two hundred years is still small. From the nearest star, light itself takes four years. Even if we built a vehicle at light speed, a round trip would take eight years. But can we ever travel at light speed? The difficulty is that anything moving at that speed becomes light. Heat would make it radiance. The speed of light seems impossible to attain for a vehicle. Hence it is nearly impossible that science will establish contact with other life forms through travel. But after all these probes, we may realize that religion can establish that connection.

You may be surprised: as soon as space travel began, both Russia and America became intensely interested in yoga. America formed a commission of psychologists to circle the globe and investigate whether thought can be transmitted without a medium. They gathered evidence—because if a space traveler’s instruments fail, he could be lost in the infinite. A substitute is needed: if all devices fail, he can transmit by thought. Only by thought-transmission is there hope of connecting with other realms, because thought needs no time. It is the only journey in which no time elapses. If I transmit a thought and you receive it, not even a “moment”—a millionth of a moment—falls in between. Thought is trans-temporal. Someday, through thought-transmission, relations with other life will be possible.

Mahavira, Buddha, Jesus, Zarathustra—such beings have sought such life, striving to establish contact. Some things have been discovered: contact is possible and has happened. On that basis hopes arise: it can happen here on Earth too. There is no difficulty.

Lastly, as I said this morning, there is not just one birth; there is a long journey of births. Who we are today is not only of today; we were yesterday—and the day before. In one sense, we have always been—sometimes as animals, sometimes birds, sometimes stone, sometimes mineral; sometimes on this planet, sometimes on another. Our resonance in existence has always been. But it was deeply unconscious, and has been becoming less so, more awake.

We all speak of Mahavira, but all of us existed then too. Not necessarily near Mahavira, not necessarily in his land, but we existed somewhere. Some among us may even have been in the very village through which he passed—not that we met him, for even when a Mahavira visits a village, how many go to meet him? If ten or twenty do, it is enough.

We have always been and will always be. Yes—either unconscious or conscious. If unconscious, our being and not-being were the same. Only when we become conscious does our being have meaning. The more conscious we become, the deeper our being grows; existence becomes richer and more profound. Perhaps in that sense our being still “is not”—we merely “are.”

In this long journey of being, many times bodies must be changed. Body is transient, limited; it wears out. Anything made of matter cannot be eternal; whatever is made will unmake.

So the gross body is formed and falls, again and again. But the life behind does not form or fall; it takes up new formations. Those new forms are the collected essence of our conditioning, our samskaras—what we lived, suffered, did, and knew in the previous life.

To understand this, see that besides the visible body there is another body of the same shape permeating this one: the subtle body, the karmic body, the mind-body—call it what you will. It is composed of very subtle atoms. When the gross body falls, that body does not. It travels with the soul. Its peculiarity is that it assumes the form corresponding to the soul’s desire. First the subtle body takes on the shape; then the soul can enter that shape.

If a lion dies, the subtle body behind the gross form is leonine—but it is a mind-form. Mind-form means it is fluid, like water taking the shape of whatever vessel it fills. Our gross body is solid, like ice; our subtle is liquid. It can assume any shape at once.

So if a lion dies and that soul wishes to become human, before taking a human body the subtle body assumes the human form. That is its psychic template—beautiful, ugly, blind, lame, healthy, ill—this mind-form grips the new body. As soon as the subtle body has formed that template, it begins to seek a womb.

It is also necessary to understand that a man and a woman have many sexual unions in life, but not all become conception. And you may be amazed: in one ejaculation, enough sperm are released to father approximately ten million children. A man may have three to four thousand acts of intercourse in a lifetime; each time there are seeds for around ten million possibilities. If all were used, one man could father some four hundred million children—a whole nation—through his seed. A woman does not have that potential; she matures one ovum a month and can conceive one child in that period, and then not again for nine months.

Yet not every union results in conception. Science has not discovered why, and perhaps cannot. The ovum is present; millions of sperm launch their assault. Note: the qualities that later appear are hidden in the seed. The sperm are aggressive; the ovum is passive, waiting. A competition begins right there; whichever sperm gets ahead fuses with the ovum; the rest fall behind and perish.

But still, not every union conceives. The reason science cannot find is this: conception can occur only when a corresponding soul is eager to enter. We see only two cells joining. The fusion of male and female cells is merely an opportunity; it is not birth. It is only a window through which a soul can descend—merely an opportunity for a soul to enter.

This possibility has nothing to do with sexual intercourse. The connection is only the meeting of two cells. If that meeting happens through intercourse, that is nature’s arrangement; tomorrow it may happen through a syringe—then it will be science’s arrangement.

Yes, they can. And they will become usable only when so many souls are eager and impatient to take birth that the natural womb becomes redundant. That is why I say needs ripen in tune with time, though it does not occur to us. Until now there was no need to take the male and female germ cells into a laboratory to produce a child; but that need will arise—because the woman’s biological capacity is limited. She can give birth to one child in nine months. However many children a woman bears, she cannot go beyond twenty or twenty-five; the maximum known case is twenty-six. Her capacity does not exceed that.

But if there is a torrential arrival of human souls, we will have to devise immediate means. We do not really see why we are preparing such means—yet we prepare them only because it is becoming possible. And then even all four hundred million seed-cells of a single man could, in principle, be implanted. But that will happen only when souls are eager to come down, to descend.

It is my understanding that this potential—about ten million in a single act of intercourse, and some four hundred million in a single man—exists precisely because, if not today then tomorrow, a thousand years later or ten thousand years later, so many living souls will be liberated that all these units will be needed. Otherwise it would be meaningless; and nature does nothing meaningless. Whatever is present in the body has a deep significance—whether we know it or not. And if its significance is not evident today, it may be tomorrow.

The seed-cells formed out of the combined personalities of a mother and a father become the possibility of a person who is in tune with the potentials of both—they create the possibility of that birth. Therefore those who understand this science can also, at a deeper level, determine what kind of children are born to them—because their mental state, their feelings, the quality of their consciousness at the moment of intercourse will determine it.

So the many stories current about Mahavira and the rest have meaning in a certain sense: for instance, that such-and-such dreams appeared in relation to Mahavira, or that such-and-such dreams appeared in relation to Buddha. Whether such dreams occurred or not is not the important point. What matters is that dreams of that kind arise only in a mind with a specific state. Not everyone has every dream; dreams depend upon the state of consciousness.

A man who is angry dreams of situations filled with anger. A lustful man dreams of lust. A greedy man dreams of greed. Dreams are reflections of the states of one’s own mind.

Someone like Mahavira does not take birth out of an ordinary mental atmosphere. Within his parents, a specific state of mind and body is necessary; only then can a soul of that quality enter. And prior signs are necessary too; such signs will be there. They are symbols; they indicate the condition of the consciousness.

As Freud says—and what Freud has done is very valuable—if someone sees a fish in a dream, the fish is a symbol of sex. After studying thousands of dreams he concluded that seeing fish is, in some sense, related to sexuality: the fish symbolizes the genitals. His idea could be wrong, but in the thousands of dreams he studied, this seems plausible.

Up to now, there has been no psychological study of the dreams of Mahavira or Buddha—of their mothers’ dreams. It could be done; but there is a difficulty: such beings have appeared in very small numbers, so there are not enough cases for comparison. For example, if Mahavira’s mother sees a white elephant—ordinarily one does not see elephants in dreams at all. Among all of you sitting here, perhaps hardly anyone has ever seen an elephant in a dream; and even if an elephant appears, the likelihood of it being white is smaller still. So if Mahavira’s mother sees a white elephant, that is a lone exception. Unless a hundred or two hundred such dreams can be studied, it is difficult to decide what a white elephant symbolizes.

But Freud was not the first to attempt this. In the dreams seen by the mothers of the twenty-four Jaina Tirthankaras there is concordance, and care has always been taken to note which dreams precede the birth of a Tirthankara, what the mother’s mental state is—how serene or agitated, blissful or loving, hateful or angry, pure, divine, ordinary, petty. It is quite true that only in such a specific state of consciousness can such a soul descend.

Genghis Khan or Tamerlane also deserve study: what kinds of dreams did their mothers see? No such concern has been shown. If a Hitler is born, or a Stalin, one should ask what dreams their mothers dreamt. Then it might become clear that souls of a certain type enter only into a certain state of consciousness.

So much is certain: not every soul can enter under every condition. Mother and father are merely the occasion for the soul’s descent, its incarnation. A soul leaves a body and, as soon as death occurs, it becomes unconscious and remains so until birth. That is, during the nine months in the mother’s womb it ordinarily remains unconscious. But some souls die consciously; they can remain conscious in the womb as well. Whoever dies consciously will also be conscious in the mother’s womb.

That is why the stories are not at all far-fetched that one can learn even in the mother’s womb, hear what is happening outside, or grasp meanings from outside. It is not impossible. If a consciousness has died in full awareness—did not lose awareness at the time of death, left the body knowingly—that soul will also take up a new body knowingly, and will remain aware even in the mother’s womb.

Lao Tzu is said to have been born old because right from birth he displayed the signs that belong to a very aged sage; from early childhood such things were evident in him as ordinarily appear only after great experience. One who dies consciously can be born consciously.

So when it is said that Mahavira made a resolve in the mother’s womb—the resolve not to cause suffering to his parents, not to renounce while they were alive—it has meaning. Such a resolve made in the womb could be significant. But ordinarily we become unconscious at death, and that unconsciousness continues until birth.

Indeed, nature has arranged for this swoon. Just as we anesthetize a man before an operation so that, while unconscious, he does not know what is being done—because knowing it could be deeply disturbing—in the same way nature arranges for unconsciousness before death, and it remains until birth.

And whatever happens within that unconsciousness is automatic: as I said, the soul will gravitate toward whatever its tendencies are. “Automatic” means that, according to its unconscious inclinations, it will travel in that direction.

Very few take birth consciously—only those who, in a previous life, attained a very deep level of awareness can be born consciously. Such people know their past birth, their death, and what happened after death.

In Tibet there is a practice called Bardo. Of all the explorations in the world regarding death, the deepest were made in Tibet. Bardo is a remarkable experiment. When a man is dying, monks stand around him and perform the Bardo practice. While he is dying, they shout to him, “Stay aware, stay aware! Be steady! Don’t become unconscious, because a great opportunity has come which may not come again for a hundred years. If it does, it will be only after a long time.” They shake him, they wake him.

You will be surprised: a remarkable thinker named Ouspensky died while walking, not lying down—some ten or fifteen years ago. He gathered all his disciples before dying and kept walking, saying, “I will die in awareness. I don’t even want to lie down lest I doze.” He kept walking and kept saying, “Now this is happening; now this is happening. Now I am sinking here; now I am reaching this place. Now, in so many seconds, the breath will stop.” He measured each thing as he spoke it, and died fully conscious—he died standing.

In Bardo they keep shouting to the dying man to stay awake, not to fall asleep. They shake him, they do everything possible, telling him, “Now this will happen. Look carefully within. Now this will happen; now the body will drop in this way. The body has dropped. Don’t panic. You have not died. The body is gone, but look—you still have a form; look closely. Do not be afraid.” They guide him through the whole process at the time of death.

That process of dying is very precious. If someone can be kept conscious at that moment, a tremendous revolution takes place in his life. But only one who has been practicing awareness in life can be kept conscious; otherwise not.

The breath-awareness practice I keep suggesting—if you continue it, then at the time of death no property, no friend will be of use; only awareness of the breath will help. One who is aware of the breath continues to maintain awareness as the breath begins to ebb. With the sinking of the breath he sees death descending, breath departing, death arriving. And he has practiced being so aware of breath that even when breath ceases completely he remains awake.

That is the very point from which his new journey of awakening begins. Then his birth is a wholly conscious birth. And once someone dies consciously, the next life is entirely different—because nothing of the previous birth is forgotten. The gap of forgetfulness in between does not occur; the continuity remains.

Great efforts are made in Bardo. I so much wish that a situation like Bardo could be created in this land; it has never happened here. Here, around death, all kinds of foolish superstitions are current which have no relevance. No psychological process has been awakened by which we might become a support to the dying.

We can be supportive. And through that, when the person is born again, the journey prior to birth will remain before him always. That person becomes different. In his next birth, practice becomes a necessity; he will not be ready to squander another life.

On that subtle body of which I spoke, the fine lines are formed that I mentioned this morning. Where do those fine lines form? The actions we have done and the fruits we have experienced—everything we have lived—inscribe subtle lines on the subtle body. That subtle body—hence one of its names, the karmana body.

Mahavira’s view is very clear: whatever we have lived and experienced attaches specific types of particles to our subtle body. A man of anger, for example, adds a particular kind of particle to his subtle body.

Science now tells us many things. It says that when you are angry a specific kind of poison is released into your blood. When you are loving, a different kind of drug is released. When a man becomes madly in love with a woman, or a woman with a man, psychedelic drugs are released into the blood; because of them a kind of hypnosis arises, and the woman appears far more beautiful than she is.

If you are not in love with a certain woman, take an injection of LSD and look at any woman you’re not in love with—you will go madly in love at once. The LSD injection releases in your body the very drugs that are released naturally in a lover’s body. With those drugs released, any woman will appear extraordinarily beautiful; it isn’t about a particular woman. After taking LSD even an ordinary chair can look so unique that no woman has ever appeared so beautiful; a simple flower becomes so beautiful, so otherworldly.

With LSD coursing through the body, everything changes. When we are angry, a kind of poison; when we love, a kind of antidote; and so on—these juices are constantly being released in the body. That is happening on the physical plane. But it is also happening on the subtle plane: when you are angry, specific kinds of particles associate themselves with the subtle body; when you are loving, other kinds of particles associate with it.

After this gross body falls away, that very subtle body, carrying the fine impressions of the life you have lived, begins a new journey. And that subtle body takes on the new body. Therefore one can be born blind, one-eyed, lame; one can be intelligent or dull.

With each death, the gross body dies. Then there is the final death, the great death—what we call moksha—in which the subtle body also dies. The day the subtle body dies, that day liberation happens.

This body dies every time; the inner body does not die each time. It dies only when there is no longer any point in its remaining—when a person neither does nor enjoys, does not assume doership, does not take new karmas upon himself, does not react. When one remains only a witness, then the subtle body begins to melt, to disintegrate.

The process of witnessing melts the subtle body the way ice melts when the sun comes out. With the rise of witnessing, the particles of the subtle body begin to melt and flow away.

The day the subtle body is dissolved, the soul and the body appear completely separate. The subtle body is the join; it does not allow them to appear separate—it binds the two together. The day they are seen as separate, a person can say, “Now this is the last journey; after this, returning is difficult.”

Buddha, on the day of his enlightenment, said: “The house has fallen—the house that had not fallen for ages. The builder who forever built that house has departed. Now there is no hope of my return; where would I return? The house in which I kept returning is no more.” That “house” is the house of the subtle body. All our actions, their fruits, our enjoyments, our lived life—are inscribed upon that subtle body like lines upon a slate.

To dissolve that subtle body is precisely what sadhana is. If someone asks me the meaning of tapascharya, I will say: to melt the subtle body is tapascharya.

We use the word tapas because tapas means intense heat, like the heat of the sun. Such heat must be generated within through witnessing so that the subtle body melts and dissolves—that is tapas. Tapas does not mean standing in the sun; a man who torments the gross body by standing in the sun is deluded. There is another sun, another tapas to be kindled within, by which the subtle body melts and flows away.

When Mahavira is called a great tapasvin, it does not mean he stood in the sun to torment the body. And when it is said he destroys the body, it has nothing to do with this gross body; that “body” means the inner body—that is the real body. This gross body is obtained again and again.

You do not call this shirt your body because you change it daily; you call the physical body the body because you do not change it for a lifetime. Mahavira knows well that even this body has been changed many times. But there is another body that never changes—it ends only once; it does not change.

The labor devoted to melting that body is tapascharya. And the method for melting that body is precisely witnessing—samayik, or meditation. If it comes into our remembrance and we pass through its practice, then there is no rebirth.

Rebirth has always been and will be, if we do nothing. But it can be that there is no rebirth. Then we become one with the vast life. It is not that we are annihilated or cease to be; rather, it is like a drop becoming the ocean. It does not exactly perish, and yet it does: it vanishes as a drop and remains as the ocean.

That is why Mahavira says: the soul becomes the supreme soul. Those who came after him did not understand what this meant. Its meaning is that the drop of the soul is lost in that which is the supreme soul; it becomes one.

In that oneness, in that ultimate nonduality, there is supreme bliss, supreme peace, supreme beauty.