Mahaveer Meri Drishti Mein #16

This question is very significant in the context of Mahavira as well. It is significant because Mahavira is among those few thinkers who rejected the very notion of a beginning. Mahavira says that a beginning is simply not possible. Existence cannot have a beginning. Existence has always been, and it can never be that existence one day will not be—such a thing cannot be. He denies the very talk of beginning and end. And I agree with him.

The notion of a beginning arises out of our own ignorance. Because we have a beginning and an end, we feel that everything must have a beginning and an end. But if we go deep within ourselves, we will discover that we too have neither a beginning nor an end. When we see something come into being and pass away, we conclude that whatever is born must die. That is correct, but coming-into-being and passing-away are not the same as beginning and end. Whatever is formed existed before in some other form; and whatever dissolves continues to exist afterward in yet another form.

So Mahavira says: in life there is only transformation—there is neither a beginning nor an end.

A beginning is impossible, because if we suppose there was a beginning, we must also suppose that before it there was nothing. Then how could a beginning occur? If before it there was nothing, there was no means for beginning to happen. If we assume there was nothing, then there was no time; there was no space either. How could a beginning occur? For a beginning to take place, at the very least time must already be there to allow it. And if time is already there, and space is already there, then everything is already there—because fundamentally the two deep constituents of this universe are time and space.

Thus Mahavira says the talk of a beginning arises only from our incomprehension. Existence has never had a beginning. And for the very same reasons, what has never begun can never end. For an end would mean that one day nothing would remain, nothing at all. How could that be?

Therefore existence is beginningless and endless—neither has it ever started, nor will it ever end; it is forever, eternal.

But transformation is a daily fact. What was sand yesterday is a mountain today; what is a mountain today will be sand tomorrow. But being does not vanish. The same essence was in the sand and will be in the mountain. The child of today will be a youth tomorrow, old the day after, and later depart. Yet what was in the child will be in the youth, it will be in old age, and it is that which takes leave at the moment of death. That which is has continuity. Nonbeing of existence is impossible; nor does existence arise out of nonbeing.

Hence Mahavira denied the very notion of a creator. He said, when creation never begins—when there is never a first start—why bring in the needless notion of a beginner? If there is no beginning, there is no need for a creator.

This was a very courageous statement in those days. Mahavira said: there is creation, but no creator. For if there were a creator, one would have to concede a beginning. And Mahavira says, even if a creator were there, a beginning out of nothing would still be impossible.

And then an amusing point: if a creator existed, calling it “nothing” beforehand would be pointless. Then something already was, and from that being something will continue to be. The common theist—though in truth he is not really a theist—argues: if everything has a maker, then God must exist to make the world.

But the atheists asked a deeper question, and the theists could not answer it. They ask: if everything has a maker, then who made God? Then great difficulty arises. If we posit a maker for God as well, an infinite regress ensues. There will be endless argument, because then one needs a maker for that maker, and for that one, and so on. Where will it end? At every link the same question will arise: who made this?

So Mahavira says the theist is mistaken, and therefore cannot answer the atheist, because the theist is committing a fundamental error. Mahavira himself is supremely theistic, yet he says there is no need to bring in a maker; existence is sufficient. There is no maker, so the question of who made the maker does not arise.

Mahavira’s conception of the divine arises from the depths of existence; it does not come from outside existence, it is not superimposed. Existence is not one thing and God another, sitting apart like a potter shaping a pot. Within this very existence, that which is essential and, evolving and evolving, attains the ultimate flowering—that is God.

So in Mahavira’s understanding, the idea of God is one of evolution. That is, the divine is the essential core of existence that is in the process of evolving.

In the ordinary theist’s view—God sits apart and makes the world—there must be a beginning. The scientist, though he denies God, still carries the same naiveté: he keeps asking, “When did the beginning occur? When did it all start?”

Yes, it is possible to find out when this Earth began. One can also find out when this Earth will end. But the Earth is not life; it is a form of life. Just as one can determine when I was born and when I will die—but I am not life, only one of its forms. In the ocean you can note when a wave arose and when it fell, but a wave is only a form of the ocean. When did the ocean begin? When will the ocean end? And even if you could determine that, the ocean too is a wave—only of a vaster expanse.

Ultimately, that which is in the depths has always been; its surface waves have come and gone and changed; they will keep coming, going, changing; but what is in the depths, at the center, is eternal.

Once this enters our understanding, the question of a beginning ends, and so does the question of an end. The sun will cool because the sun became hot. Whatever is hot will cool—how long it takes is another matter. One day the sun was cool; one day it will be cool again. One day the Earth will be cold. These too have lives. We simply do not keep this in mind. The Earth too...

It will be useful to understand this a little. We say, “I am alive,” yet we rarely consider that billions of microbes in our body are also alive. Those microbes have their own life. And within the body composed of all those lives there is another life, which we call ours.

The Earth has its own life. That is why Mahavira says this Earth is the body of a living being; it has its own life. On this Earth, plants, birds, human beings—all have their own lives; but the Earth has its own life-stream as well. It was born; it will die. The sun has its own life, the moon has its own life; they too began, and they too will end. But life itself—existence—has no end. Understand it thus: existence is an ocean; waves rise upon it, come and go; but that the whole of existence ever began—this is not so. It cannot be so.

It should be understood this way: all our logic becomes futile at a certain point. We are sitting here on wooden planks. Someone may ask, “What supports you?” We will say, “The wooden planks.” Then someone may ask, “What supports the planks?” We will say, “The ground.” Someone may ask, “What supports the ground?” Perhaps we will say, “The gravitation of planets and satellites supports the ground.” Then, “What supports the planets and satellites?” We may keep inquiring further. But finally, if someone asks, “This totality, this whole—planets, satellites, stars, Earth, everything—what supports the whole of it?” we must say, “Now the question has gone too far.” To ask what supports the totality is an ill-formed question. Because we asked, “What supports everything?” If we place the supporter outside, then the “everything” is no longer total; and if we bring the supporter inside, then nothing remains outside to support it. Nothing supports the total; it is self-supported. One thing may be supported by another, but the total is supported by none—it is self-supported, self-born.

Hence Mahavira says: life is self-existent—no one made it, no one will unmake it; it is on its own. He says, what is the point of bringing in yet another entity in between, only for the same question to arise tomorrow: who made him? Then you bring in someone else, and the same question arises. Then, “When did God begin?” and then, “When will God die?” There is no meaning in entering into such questions. Therefore Mahavira flatly rejects that hypothesis, that conjecture.

And in my own understanding, whoever has gone into the depths of existence will deny the notion of a creator. Their vision of the divine will not be of a maker, but of the culminating peak of life’s evolution.

Ordinarily, what we call a theist has God first. In Mahavira’s theism, God is the summit of development. And thus this goes on every day. One wave will fall back into the ocean, but new waves will keep rising. Therefore there is never a final end. Waves will rise and fall; the ocean will always be.

Therefore the true theist is one who does not focus on the waves but on the ocean that is forever. The theist is one who does not attend to change but to that which never changes. For the one whose vision rests on the unchanging, all change becomes a dream. What does that mean? The “reality” of life dissolves, and in place of life’s so-called reality, the authority of the dream stands. What does that mean?

At the moment of dying, if we ask a man, “The woman you loved—did you truly love her, or was it only a dream?” it is very difficult for the dying man to decide whether the millions he earned in life were really earned, or merely dreamed.

Bertrand Russell once made a great jest. He said, “At the time of my death I will not be able to decide whether what happened really happened, or whether I merely dreamed it. And how will I decide? By what distinction will I say that it truly happened?”

Look back yourself: the childhood that has passed—was it a dream or was it real? Today you have nothing left except a memory. And the amusing thing is that the memory of what we call life is formed in just the same way as the memory of what we call a dream.

That is why small children cannot even decide. If at night a child dreams that someone broke his doll, he wakes up crying in the morning and says, “My doll has been broken.” It is not yet clear to him that there is a difference between the doll he saw in the dream and the doll he sees on waking. For him there is continuity. What he sees in the day is a dream; what he sees at night is a dream—or what he sees at night is true; what he sees in the morning is true. He does not yet perceive the gap, the difference. So he may be frightened in a dream and keep crying after waking. And it becomes difficult to explain, because we do not even know the cause of his fear—perhaps someone killed him in the dream, and he continues to weep after waking. For him there is, as yet, no separation. Those who go a little into the depth of life come to this point in the end: the separations are lost again.

Chuang Tzu, in China, was an extraordinary thinker. One night he had a dream; in the morning he woke up very troubled. His friends asked, “You so troubled? When we are troubled, we come to you for counsel. Today you are in distress—what has happened to you?” He said, “Today I am in great difficulty. In the night I dreamed that I had become a butterfly and was flitting from flower to flower.”

His friends said, “What is there to worry about? Everyone dreams.” He said, “No, that is not the trouble. The trouble is this: if last night a man named Chuang Tzu slept and, in a dream, became a butterfly, might it not be that now the dream-butterfly has gone to sleep and is dreaming that she has become Chuang Tzu? For if a man can be a butterfly in a dream, a butterfly can be a man in a dream. Now, am I really real, or is the butterfly dreaming me—how am I to decide? How to decide?” He turned it into a fine joke.

And all his life he went on asking people, “How am I to decide? How is this to be settled?”

As soon as one descends into the depths of life—the same source from which dreams arise, life also arises. All waves arise from there. Therefore the waves become, in a sense, equivalent. Then happiness and sorrow become meaningless; then beginning and end are meaningless; then being this way or that way is meaningless. Then there is a state in which one is at ease with all states.

But because we keep accounts of waves, we want to ask even about the ultimate truth: When did it begin? When will it end?

Suns are born and perish—they too are waves. They last a little while—one billion, two billion, ten billion years. The Earth too will be formed and will perish; it too is a wave. Thousands of Earths have formed and vanished. Thousands of suns have formed and vanished. And each day, somewhere, some sun is cooling, and in some corner another sun is being born. Even now, while we sit here, some suns are aging, somewhere a sun must be dying; somewhere a sun has just died, somewhere a new sun is being born; some suns are still infants, some are coming of age. Our own sun is approaching old age; it has not much time left. In four or five thousand years it will cool. Our Earth too will grow old; it is already growing old. There is nothing in the world...

But what happens is this: a little caterpillar, born, say, in the monsoon, climbs a tree. To her the tree appears absolutely eternal. Her father climbed this tree, his father climbed this tree, his father climbed this tree. The tree appears utterly eternal, absolutely everlasting; it never seems to perish. Thousands of generations of caterpillars pass by, and the tree just stands there.

So the caterpillars must think that trees are eternal—they never perish. Trees are never born and never die; caterpillars are born and die; trees always are. Because the tree’s lifespan is two hundred years, while a caterpillar lives and dies in a single season. Two hundred generations of caterpillars pass on one tree. Across two hundred generations the gap is so vast.

Do you know how long the span of our own two hundred generations would be? How far back is Mahavira from us? Merely twenty-five hundred years. Even if we take fifty years as one generation, how small the distance is! How few generations have passed—hardly many.

There is neither beginning nor end.

That which is—has neither beginning nor end.

And whatever has a beginning and an end is only a form, a shape. Shapes will be formed and deformed; forms will rise and fall; dreams will be born and be lost.

But that which is Truth is forever, and forever, and forever. We can never even say of it that it “was.” We cannot say of Truth that it was, nor that it will be; we can only say of Truth that it is, and is, and is. And when one goes very deep one finds even saying “Truth is” is wrong—because whatever is, is Truth.

So to add “is” to Truth is also meaningless; for “is” can be attached to that which also could be “is not.” We can say, “This house is,” because the house could also be “is not.” But to say “Truth is” is somewhat problematic—because Truth can never be “is not.”

Therefore “Truth” and “is” are synonyms; to use them together is redundancy. “Truth is” only means “that which is, is.” It carries no other meaning. “Is” means “is”—that is all. To say “Existence is” is incorrect; “is-ness is existence.” That being, that is-ness, that which is—that is Truth. Hence to say “Truth is” is also a tautology; two words have come together unnecessarily. “Is” has come separately; and “is” is employed for those things that can also become “is not.”

When a little glimpse of this vision dawns, everything changes—everything changes. Then worship and prayer do not arise; temples and mosques do not get built; yet everything changes. Man himself becomes the temple. His standing, walking, sitting—everything becomes worship and prayer. Because when such vastness is felt, one's smallness begins to mean utter disappearance; it has no meaning, no significance.

The statement “I am” has no meaning; “I was” has no meaning; “I shall be” has no meaning. But that within me which is eternal—that alone is meaningful. And that is within everyone, and it is one. Then the person dissolves, the ego dissolves. And that which is born then—we may call it a transformed mind, a transformed consciousness—whatever name we wish to give.

No, they are not entirely separate things. They look separate. They look separate. Matter, the insentient, means so little consciousness that we cannot yet call it conscious. Consciousness means so little insentience that we can no longer call it inert. They are two ends of the same thing.

Insentience is continuously becoming conscious—and it does so because somewhere within insentience consciousness is hidden. The difference is only between the manifest and the unmanifest. What we call matter is unmanifest consciousness; its consciousness has not yet appeared. What we call consciousness is matter come to manifestation, fully revealed.

A seed is kept aside and a tree stands tall—who would say the seed and the tree are the same? Where is a tree, and where is a seed! But the tree is only unmanifest in the seed; that is the only difference. Thus two appear, but they are not two. Wherever two appear, they are not two. There is only One—but our capacity to see is so limited that we can only see in twos. Because of that limited capacity, we do not see consciousness in matter, and how could we then call the conscious “inert”?

And that is why the age-old quarrel has been utterly meaningless. Those who have said “only matter is” are also right—right in the sense that they say: what is this consciousness anyway? It all comes out of matter. So one can say “only matter is,” where is the quarrel? And some say, “No, there is no matter at all—only consciousness is.” They too are right.

They are like two people in a room with a glass half filled with water. One comes out and says, “The glass is half empty.” Another comes out and says, “You are absolutely wrong; the glass is half full.” And the two argue. Two sects are formed. Such sects are formed by people who never go inside to look at how the glass really is! Those who decide from outside the house create sects. Two people bring the news: one says, “The glass inside is half empty”; another says, “Completely wrong; I have seen with my own eyes, it is half full.”

Both are right. And both are right at the same time; otherwise neither could be right. Only their emphasis differs. One emphasizes the empty, the other the full.

Those who emphasize matter are also right. There is no error in their emphasis. It can be said: all is matter. It can also be said: all is consciousness. For matter and consciousness are not two things; matter is the unmanifest state of consciousness, and consciousness is the manifest state of matter.

In my view, the day the world rises above sects and opinions and begins to see, there should remain no quarrel between materialists and spiritualists. That quarrel is the quarrel of a half-glass.

Yes, yet I would still prefer that the emphasis be placed on “all is consciousness.” Why would I prefer that, if the other is also right? Because when we emphasize “all is matter,” that very emphasis obstructs the manifestation of our consciousness. To say “all is matter” is not mistaken; it may be entirely correct. But the emphasis hinders the growth of consciousness, for we settle with “all is matter.” When we emphasize “all is consciousness,” energy gathers around consciousness, and the possibility of growth is evoked.

Therefore, there is no fundamental difference between spiritualism and materialism. The difference is only this: materialism can arrest a person’s growth—because if all is merely matter, the matter is closed. Spiritualism can make a person growth-oriented. And when one arrives at the truth of life, one finds both statements were right; there was no quarrel in the statements, yet the difference in emphasis remained—and that difference was useful, very useful.

There is a mention in the life of Bhoj: an astrologer came, looked at Bhoj’s hand, and said, “You are most unfortunate. You will carry even your wife to the cremation ground, your sons too. You will have to take each member of your household to the cremation ground; after all of them, you will die.” Bhoj was furious. He had the astrologer handcuffed and said, “Lock him up. What a man—speaking such ill-omened words!”

Kalidasa was sitting quietly, laughing. He said, “The astrologer speaks no ill omen; he simply lacks the art of saying it—his emphasis is wrong.”

When Kalidasa said this, Bhoj asked, “What do you mean?” Kalidasa said, “Let me see your hand.” After looking, he said, “You are greatly blessed! Your life span is very long. Blessed—in the sense that neither your wife nor your sons will ever be saddened by your death. No one will grieve because of your passing.” And Bhoj said, “Take whatever reward you please; one should speak in auspicious ways, not inauspicious.”

This is the difference of emphasis—but the effects on the mind are different. The first statement would have cast gloom; the second brings delight. Yet the content was exactly the same. The first man said nothing wrong; the second said nothing more right. Their manner of saying, their emphasis, had changed.

Materialism makes a person deeply despondent—the content is the same. Spiritualism gives a thrill, a momentum; it opens the doors of growth; it reveals the possibility of something more. Therefore I will still go on saying that spiritualism speaks rightly, even though materialism is not wrong.

No, that is not the question at all. It is not a matter of the limits of human knowledge; even if human knowledge were to become infinitely vast, the possibility of a beginning would still not arise.

No, that is not the question. The question is that the very concept—the hypothesis—of a beginning is impossible; it is not possible. It is impossible because even for a beginning, something must already be there eternally; otherwise, even a beginning cannot occur. That is, for a beginning to be possible, existence must precede it; otherwise the beginning itself is not possible. And once there is a prior existence, it is no longer a beginning. And then you can keep pulling this back.

Consider someone saying the world, existence, has a boundary. We might say: “We have no evidence of a boundary—of a point where the world ends, where existence comes to an end and beyond which there is nothing.” So we might say, “We don’t know. Perhaps one day man will reach that place where the world ends. Our knowledge is limited—we know very little. We have barely managed to reach the moon, and the cosmos, existence itself, is vast. Maybe one day we will reach it—who can say? So how can we make a definite statement about an end?”

No. I say the end cannot be. The end is impossible. Why? Because the end of anything is always the beginning of something else. Suppose someday we arrive at a place where there is a line and we say, “Here the world ends”—how will that line be formed? A line is formed by the existence of two—where one begins and the other ends. Where your house ends, the neighbor’s begins. That is precisely why it ends; otherwise it would not end. Wherever something ends, something begins. Every ending gives birth to a beginning, and every beginning gives birth to an ending.

In such a situation we can say without any difficulty that no matter how far man goes, it will never happen that he can declare, “We have reached the boundary of the universe; beyond this there is nothing.” For there will still be a “beyond.” The matter is closed right there. Even if he says, “Beyond this there is nothing,” there will still be a beyond—there will be space. And if there is a beyond, then the “beyond” still continues—where has it ended?

You cannot conceive of a point beyond which there is no beyond. How would such a place be? Therefore it is inconceivable; it is impossible. There can be neither a coherent concept of it nor a possibility of it.

Mahavira’s claim therefore stands. It can never be refuted. Even if one day we discover the date on which the earth began, we will find that there was something prior from which it began. Discover that prior, and you will find something earlier still, from which that arose. A beginning cannot be out of nothing; and if it could arise out of nothing, then calling it “nothing” would be wrong. It would mean that even in “nothing” something like a seed is hidden that can manifest—then it is no longer nothing. “Nothing” means that in which nothing at all is hidden, which is not.

So the reason is not that human knowledge is limited. The reason is that, however far knowledge may grow, the notion of a beginning is impossible; a beginning can never be. In the very notion of “beginning,” its contradiction is hidden. How will it happen? Wherever you place it, prior conditions will be required—and those prior conditions invalidate the beginning.

This is a very good question. Good because it can arise in all our minds: in varied favorable and unfavorable situations, what is the state of consciousness of a person like Mahavira? There is no mention of it. One might think the absence of mention is because Mahavira never spoke about it. That is not the reason. The omission has another, deeper, fundamental reason. In a person of awareness like Mahavira, circumstances make no difference. So to speak of “different circumstances” has no meaning. In all situations—favorable or unfavorable—the mind remains the same.

If someone abuses us, we get angry; if someone welcomes us, we feel delighted. In each situation our mind gets transformed. As the situation is, so our mind becomes. Mahavira calls this the state of bondage. If the mind has to become whatever the situation dictates, we are bound. If the situation is painful, we must be pained; if it is pleasant, we must be pleased. That means the mind has no state of its own. It merely becomes what the outer situation allows. Which means the true mind is not yet available, consciousness is not yet attained. We have not reached that point where crystallization happens—where we are something in ourselves and situations make no difference. In that one state of mind there is no such thing as favorable or unfavorable. Whatever happens, happens; and the mind remains as it is.

So what is happening in Mahavira’s inner mind? One day many disciples may have gathered—what was Mahavira’s mind like then? Another day, perhaps no one came in the village to listen—what was his mind like then? One day an emperor may have come to listen and laid hundreds of thousands of rupees at his feet, and another day not even a beggar came—what was his mind like then? In one village there were welcomes and garlands, and in another village stones were thrown, abuse hurled, he was chased out—what was Mahavira’s mind like then? The question asks: in such situations, what happens inside Mahavira?

In truth, to be Mahavira means that inside, nothing happens anymore. Whatever happens, happens only on the outside. Inside, nothing happens—this is what it means to be Mahavira. This is what it means to be a Christ, to be a Buddha, to be a Krishna: that now, inside, nothing happens. Whatever happens happens outside; inside remains utterly untouched.

Like a mirror: someone passes in front of it—a beautiful person—and a beautiful image appears. The person passes, the image vanishes, the mirror remains a mirror. Then an ugly person passes, an ugly image appears; the ugly person passes, and the mirror is again simply a mirror. The mirror grasps nothing. And the mirror reflects the beautiful exactly as it reflects the ugly; it makes no distinction. It does not reflect the beautiful with a little extra relish, and the ugly with a little less, nor does it say, “Out of the way!” Nothing of the sort. Beautiful or ugly—who passes is of no concern. The mirror’s work is to reflect. They pass, and the reflection is gone.

But a photographic plate also “mirrors”—once. Because whatever gets imprinted on it, it grabs and cannot release. Which means: with a mirror, events occur only outside; if anything happens inside, it is caught. In the photographic plate, the happening occurs inside; someone passes outside and is gone, but the plate is trapped—it has seized the imprint within. We are caught from within.

There are two kinds of minds in the world: those that function like photographic plates, and those that function like mirrors. Those functioning like photographic plates are what Mahavira calls minds afflicted by raga-dvesha—attachment and aversion. In fact, a photo-plate is full of attachment and aversion: it clutches quickly and will not let go. Attachment grasps, aversion grasps—one seizes like a friend, the other like an enemy; both capture, and the mind’s mirror-like purity is lost. We all function like photo-plates, hence we suffer. The mind keeps filling and filling, never emptying; every situation is grabbed; hardly anything passes by us untouched.

A person like Mahavira lives like a mirror. Truly, one established in samadhi becomes a mirror. If someone abuses him, he hears it; if someone honors him, he hears it. But just as honor departs the moment it is heard, so too abuse departs; nothing is retained within.

Therefore there are no distinct inner states of Mahavira to describe. That’s why they were not described. There is no “state” to report. Why keep describing the mirror again and again? It is enough to say: there is a mirror. Whatever comes is reflected; whatever goes, the reflection ceases. Why write this every day? Why keep saying it? There is no point. Of Mahavira, of Christ, of Buddha, of Krishna—no one’s inner condition is cataloged, because there is nothing worth mentioning. A sameness, an equanimity, has come to the mind; it remains as it is.

As I often say: some people threw stones at Mahavira, or hammered nails into his ears, or drove him out of a village—and Mahavira’s followers say he was very forgiving. He did not hurl abuse back; he forgave and moved on. But they forget that forgiveness is possible only if anger has arisen. Forgiveness, by itself, is meaningless; it has significance only alongside anger. How can we forgive if we were not angry? They say he did not abuse in return—he “gave” forgiveness and moved on. But one can “give” something back only if something has happened inside; otherwise, what is there to give?

So I tell you: Mahavira was not “forgiving,” because Mahavira was not angry. Nor did he “grant forgiveness.” Onlookers may have felt, “We abused him and he did not abuse back—how forgiving he is.” At most one should say: he did not abuse back. To call him forgiving is a mistake. He heard abuse the way a sound echoes in an empty building and then passes—whether abuse or a hymn. The sound resounds and passes; the building is empty again.

On this plane, those who live in such consciousness are like empty halls: whatever enters resounds; it surely resounds, more clearly than with us, because our sensitivity is not so intense—we have cluttered ourselves with so many things beforehand.

Think of an empty room: sounds echo in it; if it is crammed with furniture, they do not. We are people crammed with furniture; the photo-plate has collected a great deal. Sounds do not echo; often we do not even truly hear what was heard or see what was seen—nothing is clear. Our sensitivity is low.

But the sensitivity of a person like Mahavira is profound; everything resounds. Even the fall of a needle echoes. But it only echoes. For as long as it can, it resounds, and then it departs. Mahavira does not react to it—neither with forgiveness nor with anger. In fact, Mahavira’s entire yoga is the yoga of non-reaction. Do not react. See, know, hear—but do not react. See, know, hear—see thoroughly, know thoroughly, hear thoroughly—but do not react.

He doesn't react because he neither hears, nor knows, nor sees.

Yes, yes. He too does not react for the same reason: he cannot see, he cannot hear, he cannot understand. And therefore—this has been rightly asked—the idiot, the dull-witted, the mindless, the insensate—does not react. That is why, in the ultimate state, it often begins to appear like an inert state.

You don't need to know.

Insult Mahavira and it may be that he too will sit there just the same, listening. Not because he did not hear—he heard it fully, perhaps as no one has ever heard—but he made no reaction. For what is the point of reacting to an insult? What fruit does reaction bear? What is the gain? What is the purpose?

So it often happens that to us a person who has attained the supreme state begins to look exactly like something inert—because in our language we only recognize the inert. But the differences are many, and very deep. It takes time to recognize them. And perhaps we may never really recognize them—until differences begin to arise within us. Until then it is difficult to see what has happened to that person.

This is the strange thing: two opposing extremes sometimes look exactly alike. A child seems simple, innocent—but he is ignorant; there is no knowledge yet. A person who has attained supreme knowledge will also appear childlike—just as simple, just as innocent. He may even behave like a child. We may find it hard to decide: has this man lost his wits? Why is he behaving like a child? Has he become infantile?

The circle has come full round. But there are fundamental differences. The child appears innocent now, but tomorrow he will lose that innocence. He seems simple now, but tomorrow he will become complex. This man has already become complex, has already lost innocence; now it is a re-attainment—simplicity has returned, innocence has come back. Now there is no question of losing it. He has returned knowing, through living. He has passed through the experiences the child will still have to pass through.

A child’s simplicity is of ignorance; a saint’s simplicity is of knowledge. Yet the two simplicities will often look the same—exactly the same. A saint too can be just as simple, as childlike. And if a saint cannot be as simple as a child, then the circle is not yet complete; the matter has not yet returned home—some complexity remains, some difficulty remains. Somewhere a little cleverness, some cunning, some calculation is still there.

Between the inert and the supremely wise the same circle will be seen: he will look like the inert. And so, sometimes great mistakes are made. I often speak of Mulla Nasruddin. He was such a man—who, to the eye, seems utterly inert; whose behavior seems that of an absolute dullard; everything about him seems idiotic—and yet, for one who can see, supreme wisdom is also visible. Let me tell you a story or two.

Nasruddin was passing through a market. A man selling a parrot was loudly proclaiming, “A very valuable parrot! From the house of a great emperor! It knows these sayings, recognizes these languages, speaks these tongues!” Hundreds of people gathered.

Nasruddin stood in the crowd. The parrot was auctioned and sold for several hundred rupees. Nasruddin said, “People, wait! I’ll bring an even better parrot right now.” He ran home, brought his own parrot in its cage, set it in the market, and said, “What was that parrot! Now name your price for this one—and start from where the last bid ended.” People thought an even better parrot had arrived, so they began bidding. But slowly someone said, “But this parrot—does it speak?” The first parrot kept talking, answering, even raised its own bid a few times, spoke many languages. This one was absolutely silent; it said nothing at all.

After a while people asked, “Does this parrot speak or not?” Nasruddin said, “What value is there in talking parrots? This is a silent parrot—absolutely silent. It has attained the supreme state.” They said, “Get this out of here; no one would buy it for a penny.” He said, “You people are crazy!” Others said, “Oh, this Nasruddin is a fool. Why pay attention to him? He’s mad; he has no sense. Throw him out with his parrot.” They threw Nasruddin and the parrot out.

On the road people asked, “Well, Nasruddin, did the parrot sell?” He said, “How could it sell? Those buyers could only appreciate speech; no one could understand silence. So we were beaten and thrown out. I thought, if talk fetches such a price, imagine the price of silence!”

But of course—such a man will look like an idiot, won’t he? “What a madman! Who would buy a parrot that doesn’t talk?”

This man—Nasruddin—was always traveling on his donkey. One time the donkey was loaded with sugar. The river was deep; the donkey sat down midstream, and all the sugar dissolved. Nasruddin said to the donkey, “Trying to show you’re wiser than me, are you? Wait, my son! I’ll teach you yet. I’m no ordinary man; I know logic too.” He brought the donkey back, loaded it with cotton, and took it to the river. The donkey sat again; the cotton soaked up water, became heavy, and the donkey couldn’t get up. Nasruddin called the people around: “Look—Nasruddin has won, the donkey has lost!” They said, “You are utterly blockheaded. You’re arguing with a donkey?” Nasruddin said, “Who else is there to argue with? With whom does one have to quarrel but donkeys? All our bickering is with donkeys.” People said, “Leave his donkey and leave him; the two are the same. Nothing they say makes any sense.”

There are many such moments in this man’s life when it becomes hard to understand what madness he is up to! What is he doing? Yet behind it, somewhere, there is something.

He is passing by; a heavy rain is falling. He sits under the eaves of a house. The village mullah is also running from the rain. Sitting in the veranda, Nasruddin shouts, “Hey, mullah! Running away? I’ll tell the whole village!” The mullah says, “What crime have I committed?” For mullahs, pundits, sadhus are always afraid someone will tell the village. Nasruddin says, “You are committing sin. God is sending down water and you are running away—this is an insult to God.”

So the mullah goes slowly. But he catches a cold, gets fever. On the third day the mullah sits outside his house wrapped in blankets, shivering. It begins to rain, and Nasruddin runs. The mullah calls out, “Stop, Nasruddin! You told me to go slowly—why are you running?” Nasruddin says, “Lest my foot fall on God’s water.” And he runs off.

Understand? The next day when the mullah met him, he said, “You are very dishonest.” Nasruddin replied, “All clever men are found to be dishonest. If you are honest, you become naive; if you are clever, people call you dishonest. And then one must always interpret things to suit oneself.”

Nasruddin said, “And one must always interpret to one’s own advantage. What reliance can there be on scriptures? One has to rely on oneself. Interpretation must always be made to suit oneself. All the wise have always done this. Why be angry with me? They interpret for their own ends. When you were in the water, we made one interpretation; when I was in the water, we made another. All the clever have always done just that.”

This man appears plainly an idiot. Yet among those who attain supreme wisdom, he is one. But he is hard to grasp. Many times his sayings become very outrageous, completely beyond comprehension.

He is returning home. A friend has given him some meat as a gift, and along with it a book—a book containing recipes for cooking the meat. He tucks the book under his arm and, holding the meat in his hand, hurries home happily. A kite swoops down and snatches the meat. Nasruddin says, “You fool—go! The method of cooking is written in the book.” He reaches home and tells his wife, “Listen—today a kite turned out very stupid.” “What happened?” “I was bringing meat; it took the meat, but the recipe is written in the book.” His wife says, “You’re the bigger fool; the kite isn’t that stupid.” He says, “I have found all the clever to place their trust in books—so I too trust the book.”

This man will look absolutely like a madman, utterly blockheaded. But somewhere there is something; deep down he has his own understanding. And he delivers such deep satire, with such simplicity, so innocently, that if it strikes someone, it pierces right into one’s being. If it does not, he appears a fool. Many times it may happen that we cannot grasp what it is. And we will grasp it only when our understanding has reached that depth.

Let us take one more question.

First of all, there are certain things that never develop—indeed, they cannot develop. These are those realms where our thinking, our mind, our intellect fall utterly silent, and only then do they enter our experience. Suppose someone asks: “The meditation that became available to Buddha—twenty-five centuries have passed. Now, for those who attain meditation today, is it a more developed form? After all, twenty-five hundred years have gone by; people have advanced—so should not meditation have advanced too?”

No. Meditation is a descent into oneself. Whether someone descended within a hundred thousand years ago or descends today, the experience of entering oneself is one and the same. It makes no difference. There is no gradation in it.

What flowered as ahimsa in Mahavira is the outer expression of his own inner realization. Inwardly he knew the unity of life; outwardly, in his conduct, that unity of life reflected as ahimsa. Ahimsa means the principle of life’s oneness—the seeing that the life within me is the same life within you. How, then, could I injure myself? If the same life that is in me is in you, how could I possibly hurt myself? I am spread in you as well.

One to whom this is revealed—that “I am diffused in all,” or that all beings are joined in me, that life is one—in such a one’s conduct ahimsa blossoms. Whenever this realization happens, it has this flavor; it does not vary. Whether it happens to Christ or to anyone else, the experience of life’s oneness cannot be more or less. This needs to be understood.

We usually imagine everything comes in degrees. Consider a circle: you draw a circle. Have you ever thought there could be a “less” circle and a “more” circle? Could one you drew be somewhat less of a circle and another a bit more of a circle?

It cannot be. The very meaning of a circle is that either it is a circle or it is not; there is no more-or-less. What is “less of a circle” is not a circle at all. A circle simply is—or it isn’t.

Take love. If someone says, “I have a little less love,” or “a little more love,” perhaps that person has no clue what love is. Love either is or it is not. It has no fragments, no pieces. Nor does love “develop,” because development presupposes that it can exist in parts or increments. Love does not come in bits.

Often our liking develops; we mistake this for love developing. But liking and love are worlds apart.

Love either is or is not.

Liking can develop, by a lot or a little, it can increase or diminish. But love is neither less nor more; it either is or is not. So no one can say a time will come when people will love “more.” That is impossible. The profound experiences of life either are, or they are not.

The experience of life’s oneness that happened to Mahavira can happen to Jesus, to Buddha, to me, to you. But it cannot happen as “more” to one and “less” to another. If it happens, it happens; if not, it does not.

There are inner realities in this world that never develop. In truth, “development” has no meaning there, because when they are realized, they are available in their totality—or they are not available at all.

Take an example. Water is heating, turning to steam. At ninety-eight degrees, no steam; at ninety-nine degrees, still no steam; at one hundred degrees, suddenly steam! Temperature can vary—eighty, ninety, ninety-five, ninety-nine. Ten pots can stand on the stove at different temperatures and none may yet be steaming. Heat can be more or less. If it is less, there is no steam; when it is complete, steam appears. But the moment a single drop becomes steam, either it is steam or it is not. There are no degrees in becoming steam. Degrees exist only on the way to the threshold.

Ignorance has degrees; knowledge has none. Though we hand out “degrees in knowledge,” only ignorance admits of degrees. One person is less ignorant, another more ignorant—that is meaningful. But “less knowledgeable” and “more knowledgeable” is absurd. Knowledge does not come in quantities.

Yes, ignorance can be more or less—and all we really mean by that is: the one with more information appears “less ignorant,” and the one with less information “more ignorant.” For knowledge itself cannot be more or less. Even among the ignorant, the difference is of information, not of knowing.

One person returns from university with a heap of information; his brother, who remained in the village, did not gather such information. They meet: one seems knowing, the other ignorant. Both are ignorant. One carries a pile of facts; the other does not. At best we can say: this one is less ignorant, that one more. But this is not a measure of knowing. When knowing happens, it simply happens—like eyes opening and light being seen, like a lamp being lit and darkness vanishing.

Therefore the wise are never small or great. But since we are ignorant and live in the language of more and less, we start measuring sages too! We debate: Is Kabir greater or Nanak? Mahavira or Buddha? Rama or Krishna? Krishna or Mohammed? We keep counts by our own yardsticks. There, there is neither greater nor lesser.

Consider an illustration. Three or four hundred years ago it was widely believed that if you dropped a big stone and a small stone together from a roof, the big stone would hit the ground first. It seemed mathematically obvious—no one had actually tried it. The first man who climbed the tower of Pisa and dropped the stones had his own doubts; he told no one, went alone. To his astonishment, they fell together. He tried again and again, thinking he must be mistaken: how could a big and small stone fall together?

When he told the university professors, they said, “You’ve gone mad. Has such a thing ever happened?” Though none had checked, they were sure. They reluctantly went to see, stiff with disbelief. When the stones fell together, they said, “There must be some trick here—some mischief, or the devil’s hand. Don’t get entangled in this. The devil is meddling with God’s laws.”

In truth, big and small stones do not fall because they are big or small; they fall because of the earth’s pull, which is the same for both. Once they drop from the roof, the size of the stone is irrelevant; what matters is the attraction, and that is equal.

There is a boundary to man. Once he makes the leap beyond it, the divine pull draws him; then he has nothing to do. Beyond that boundary there is no small or great, no weak or strong—no difference at all. That boundary I call thought. The day one leaps from thought into no-thought, there is no “less,” no “more.” Once beyond thought, the supreme power of life, of existence, takes over—equally.

All our distinctions are on this side of the leap. As long as we have not leapt, the differences persist. The day we leap, differences vanish. The jump Mahavira made is the same as Krishna’s, the same as Christ’s. The experience of ahimsa is one and the same; there is no difference in it.

Therefore, there will never be “development” in ahimsa. Do not fall into the illusion that Mahavira “developed” ahimsa. Long before Mahavira, others leapt—and the experience was the same. Expressions of that experience differ, but neither Mahavira…

It is not that Mahavira first discovered ahimsa. Millions before have realized it; millions after will realize it. The experience is no one’s private property.

As when we open our eyes, we see light—this is no one’s monopoly. Before me, millions have opened their eyes and seen light; if I open mine, I will see light too. And I cannot claim that those who come after me will see less or more than I do. When eyes open, light is seen.

No “development” has occurred. None can occur. In some domains, there is development—everything in the changing world is either evolving or degenerating.

But in the eternal, the timeless, the realm of the inner self, there is no development. Whoever arrives there arrives at the ultimate. There is no “ahead” or “behind,” no progress there. Someone may ask, “How much has God developed?” What meaning could “development” have for the totality of existence?

Take another example. A bullock-cart is moving; the wheels are turning. The owner seated on the cart is moving, the bullocks are moving. The wheels whirl swiftly, the cart advances each moment—there is progress. The bullocks go forward, the owner goes forward.

But have you noticed? In the middle of those turning wheels is a peg—an axle-pin—that does not move. It stands where it is. The wheel turns around it; the cart certainly moves; the bullocks move; the owner moves; the destination draws nearer. But the peg? The peg is still. The wheel is in motion, the peg is at rest. If someone asks how far the wheel has traveled, that is meaningful. But if someone asks how far the peg has traveled—what will you say? In one sense, the peg does not travel at all. The wheel simply spins upon it; the peg is unmoving.

And the wonder is: the wheel’s very motion depends on that still peg. If the peg also starts moving, the wheel collapses. Only because the peg is still can the wheel turn. The life of the wheel’s movement is in the peg’s unmovingness. If the peg moves, the cart is finished—no more progress.

Whatever development is occurring, it happens around a center in which no development occurs. Around the Whole, the wheel of becoming turns; the Whole stands unmoved. Perhaps you never noticed the peg and only saw the spinning wheel. But once you see the peg, the wheel’s spinning becomes secondary.

Kabir has a line: Seeing the grinding mill turning, Kabir began to weep and told his friends, “I am greatly pained—between the two millstones, every grain was crushed.” Whatever falls between the two stones is ground to dust.

Kabir’s son, Kamal, was sitting there; he laughed and said, “Don’t say that. There is also a peg between the two stones. Whoever holds to that support is never crushed.” He said, “Don’t say that. Between the two stones there is a peg—the mill turns upon it. Whoever holds to the peg is never destroyed.”

In the midst of this whole wheel of existence and its becoming, there is such a peg. Call it God, call it dharma, call it the soul—it makes no difference. There is a peg. The nearer one comes to it, the more one stands outside the whirling wheels. At the base of that peg there is no movement. The peg is eternally, continuously still—though all motion revolves upon it.

Understand this much, and you will see: a being like Mahavira stands near the peg, where all is still, where no ripple arises. Whatever is realized there never “develops.” Whoever arrives there, at any time, knows the same. Whoever else arrives there knows the same.

There is one kind of experience of being near the peg, and another of being far from it. Far from it is the experience between the two stones—unceasing motion. Near it is the experience of being outside the stones—no motion at all.

Where there is no motion, what progress can there be? Where there is no movement, what development?

Therefore there will be no progress in Mahavira’s ahimsa, nor did Mahavira “progress” it. The experience of ahimsa is one. Whenever anyone descends into it, it is the same—exactly the same.