Mahaveer Meri Drishti Mein #18

In Mahayana there is mention of a very sweet story. The Buddha attained nirvana; he reached the gate of liberation. The gatekeeper opened the gate and said, “Welcome, come in.” But the Buddha turned his back to the gate and said to the gatekeeper, “How can I enter while even a single person on earth is still unliberated? It would be unseemly, improper, unworthy of me. What will people say—that while many were still bound and in misery, the Buddha entered bliss? I will wait. I can only enter when I am the very last.”
This is a Mahayana story. A story, yes, but meaningful. Its meaning is that a person may be free, yet mere freedom is not the same as entering moksha. Understand this well.
Freedom is the threshold of moksha. Only one who is free can enter moksha; without freedom there is no entry. But freedom itself is not entry. One can even stand at the very gate and still turn back. And, as I said earlier, there is one way to return once. I have already explained why this is so.
If what has been realized has not been expressed; if what has been found has not been shared; if what has been received has not been given, then there is a possibility of one more life being available. It is like this: a man is pedaling a bicycle—he stops pedaling, yet the bicycle does not halt at that very instant. There is momentum, a flow of motion, so that even after the pedaling stops the cycle can roll a little further—though not endlessly, only a little.
That small stretch of time, after the pedaling has ceased and the bicycle still moves, is exactly how life continues a little even after desires are extinguished. It is the momentum of the infinite. Once pedaling has stopped one may remain on the saddle a little longer, or one may apply the brakes and dismount. There is no compulsion to keep riding. When pedaling has ended one can simply get off; yet if one prefers, one may ride on for a short while—not for long.
So, within the economy of life, even after all craving is exhausted, one more life can run. It is not necessary; if a person wishes, they can enter moksha straightaway. But a liberated person may, if they so choose, return for one life. Those who return in this way—I call them Tirthankaras, avatars, prophets, sons of God. Such a one is free himself and has come only to bring the news, to share what has borne fruit in him, to distribute it, to make it known. We come to consume; he comes to share—that is the difference. One who has not realized cannot share, cannot even point the way.
Thus a liberated being may pause for one life. It is not necessary that all who are free pause; but those who do, look to us exactly as if they were messengers sent by God. For they do not arise from among us; they return from that state from which ordinarily no one returns.
Hence different religions evolved different notions. Hindus call it the descent of the Divine—an avatar, God himself coming down. For such a person, the label “human” seems to lose its point: there is no desire in him, no craving, no race, no ambition. He doesn’t even seem to breathe for himself. Who else could he be but God!
A liberated person is near enough to God to be God. So Hindus call it avatara—descent, coming down from above. From where we want to go, someone has come down.
Naturally, those who coined the idea of avatara perhaps did not consider that this person too must have journeyed upward first; only then could he return. Their eyes missed that half of the arc, so they called it descent.
The Jains did not speak of descent. They denied avatara; they called such a one a Tirthankara—a ford-maker, a teacher, a guru. Tirthankara means: one whose path, if followed, lets one cross; whose pointing, if understood, lets one go beyond.
But only one who has reached the far shore can point it out. If I stood on this bank and could show you the other bank from here, then you too could see it and I need not point. The far bank is not visible; whenever someone can point and say “There it is,” it only means he has been there and returned—otherwise how could he point to it? If it were visible to the eye, we would already see it.
We do not see that far shore. We see his pointing; we see the peace in his eyes, the bliss showering around his life, his radiance. The shore itself we do not see. But his gesture is visible, and his very presence reassures us—his whole being assures us—that he is a stranger from another shore. He has touched another plane; he has seen something we cannot see. Yet how could he point to that shore if he had not been there? Impossible. Tirthankara means: one who has touched the far shore and returned to give the news.
And I hold it is fitting that life be so arranged that one who can reach the far shore returns at least once to announce it. If it were not so—if this were not part of life’s inner law—perhaps we would never hear the news, never come to know.
Today someone went to the moon and returned, and we learned so much about the moon. The moon could be seen from here, and still we had no news. But God cannot even be seen from here; there is no question of news from here. Only if someone touches and returns can he tell us.
So Tirthankara means: one who returned after touching that shore—perhaps only to give the news, to share what he received, to tell what he found.
The Jains did not speak of descent, for they did not accept the notion of a personal God. Thus, the only possibility is that one who went to the far shore has returned to give the news.
Therefore I say: Christians, for example, do not speak of Tirthankaras or avatars; they speak directly of the Son of God. One who brings news of God must be as close to God as a son to a father. “Son” means: one who shares the very life-blood—only such a one can bring the news.
In all such notions, one thing is certain: only the knower can make others know. One who has known, recognized, seen, lived—only his news has meaning.
A liberated one can return once. As for Mahavira, the question of returning no longer arises—Mahavira has already returned. But in the Buddha’s case, the question remains. There is talk of one future descent as Maitreya. For the Buddha’s realization happened in this life, not in a prior life. What he attained was attained here; one life’s window remains available—for a return. And for centuries, since he left, those who love him have waited for the moment when he might descend again. There is one hope of the Buddha’s return.
There is likewise one hope of Jesus’ return. Jesus, too, realized in that same life. One more birth can be taken—but only one. And one can wait for the right moment.
It then troubles us to think: if twenty-five centuries have passed since the Buddha, or two thousand years since Jesus, why has that birth not occurred again? This difficulty comes from our idea of time. Understand time a little.
You sleep at night, you dream, and in the dream centuries pass. Your eyes open and you find you had just nodded off; barely a minute has gone by—yet in the dream years passed. How could such a long dream be seen in a minute? Because the tempo of time differs in waking and in sleep.
For the liberated, time has no meaning; there is no flow of time. On our plane, time flows.
Imagine a circle. Mark three distant points on the circumference and draw lines from them toward the center. As the lines approach the center, the distances between them narrow; at the center they meet. On the circumference they were far apart; at the center they merge into one point. All radii meet at the center.
So the farther we are from the center of life, the greater the expanse of time; the nearer we come to the center, the smaller time becomes. Perhaps you have noticed: in sorrow, time is long; in happiness, very short. When a beloved arrives, the night passes quickly; at dawn, on parting, one says, “How quickly the night went!” The clock runs at its own pace; it cares nothing for lovers or their partings.
Sit by the bed of someone gravely ill. The physician says he will not survive; the night becomes interminable—seconds seem not to move. Sorrow lengthens time; pleasure shrinks it. Bliss erases time altogether; bliss is timeless. In ordinary happiness, time grows short; in ordinary sorrow, long.
Someone asked Einstein to explain the theory of relativity. He said, “Hard to explain; few have the feel for the relative.” The relative is that which can be shorter or longer, higher or lower—nothing fixed. Still he gave an example: “Sit beside your beloved: half an hour feels like a moment. Now sit on a hot stove for half an hour.” The man said, “Impossible—that would be endless!” Einstein said, “That is all I mean by relativity. The same clock, but its felt length depends on the state of your mind.”
In a dream, long journeys occur in very little external time. In waking, we are more on the circumference; in dreaming, we are more inward. In dream we are enclosed within; in waking we are more outward. When one reaches the very center, it is called samadhi. Then time is erased, dissolved. Everything stops: a timeless moment, a still instant.
To one resting in that timelessness, whether twenty-five hundred years pass or twenty-five thousand makes no difference. All differences belong to the circumference; at the center there is none. There all the radii meet.
Such a one can wait for the moment when his coming would be most useful. And it may be that some teachers, waiting and waiting, pass into moksha—that the right time never ripens for them on earth. Many times it has happened that a teacher waited and then departed because the required climate did not form. Often, therefore, efforts are made before a teacher’s birth to prepare others who will create the atmosphere—just as before Jesus.
Before Jesus there was John, Saint John. He sent word throughout Judea and Jerusalem: “Someone is coming—prepare.” He initiated thousands: “Someone is coming—get ready.” People asked, “Who is coming?” He said, “Wait; you will understand only when you see him. I cannot say more.” He prepared the way. He spent his life village to village creating the air for Jesus. When Jesus came, John blessed him and quietly retired; his trail disappears after that. Jesus used fully the climate John had created. Often, when a teacher returns, he sends preliminary teachers to prepare the air.
The Theosophists made such a great effort recently, though perhaps it failed. As I said, the Buddha has one birth available as Maitreya. Blavatsky, Annie Besant, and other Theosophists labored to bring Maitreya. There was intense practice. Some even risked their life-force to issue the invitation, and they prepared Krishnamurti so that Maitreya’s consciousness might descend into him. Twenty, twenty-five years went into Krishnamurti’s preparation—such preparation as perhaps no one else has ever undergone. He was put through extremely esoteric disciplines. At the appointed time all arrangements were complete; six thousand people gathered from around the world at the place where the descent was to occur. But perhaps something went amiss: the event did not happen.
Krishnamurti is an utterly honest man. Had a less honest man been in his place, he might have acted as though it had happened. Krishnamurti refused to be a guru. It was not even about him; it was about preparing a vehicle for another consciousness. It has been experienced that there is great difficulty in Maitreya’s descent—no body fit enough is found, no womb prepared. Perhaps we must wait another few centuries; perhaps the waiting will end because that consciousness departs. The hope, though small, is that the waiting continues.
The Krishnamurti experiment failed. No similar experiment is being undertaken now. Until now, teachers have mostly come by “accident,” though sometimes preparations have been made.
So, as I said, a liberated soul has one option to return—and it is his right. One who has found so much, if not given the right to share it, then life would be illogical. After attainment, expression is essential. Hence I say Mahavira attained in a prior life and in this life shared it. The question of his consciousness returning again does not arise.
Another question was asked: In nature we see cyclic motion—everything repeats. Might it be that souls go from nigod (the most rudimentary life-forms) to moksha and then fall back into nigod? Where all is cyclic, to deny cyclic motion only for the soul seems to break the rule.
Everything returns: seed becomes tree, from tree come seeds, seeds become trees, again seeds come. Everything revolves.
Someone asked a scientist: “Which came first, the hen or the egg?” He said, “Neither comes first, because hen and egg are not two things.” “If not two, what is a hen?” He replied beautifully: “A hen is the egg’s way to produce more eggs.” Or inversely, “An egg is the hen’s way to produce more hens.” Each is but a route for the other.
Everything is turning, like the hands of a clock—again at twelve, again at twelve. Then why not apply this to the soul? Rebirth itself accepts cyclicity: a man dies, becomes a child, grows, ages, dies—again a child. Why not apply the same cycle to the soul?
Ordinarily, yes. That is the rule—everything turns in cycles. A liberated soul, however, is an extraordinary event; the general rule no longer applies.
In truth, the one who leaps outside the wheel is what we call liberated.
To put him back into the cycle is to empty “liberation” of meaning. Moksha means precisely that one has stepped out of the revolving rules of the world.
Have you heard the word samsara? It means “the wheel”—that which revolves ceaselessly.
“Mukta” means the one who has leapt beyond this revolving.
So if we thrust the liberated back into cyclic motion, liberation becomes pointless. If, from moksha, one must again fall into nigod, then only madmen would strive for liberation! If, whatever you do—free or not free—the clock hand must return to twelve, what meaning has moksha?
Moksha means a leap out of the wheel in which we revolve endlessly. If we must keep revolving, then as we are we are fine—keep revolving. If we are to leap, we must awaken—to this wheel. That is all.
Yesterday you were angry, then you repented; today again angry, again repentant—anger, repentance, again anger: a wheel! After each anger comes repentance; after repentance, anger—around and around.
But one can leap out. To leap out means no anger and no repentance. The one who repents will be angry, and the one who is angry will repent—both belong to the same wheel.
To leap out means: a man neither gets angry nor forgives nor repents. Someone abuses him; he neither forgives nor gets angry nor repents—he simply does nothing; he steps out.
This stepping out cannot be counted within the cycle. If it can, then Mahavira is mistaken; the Buddha is mistaken; Christ is mistaken; all who spoke of moksha are mad. If everyone must circle back, all talk of liberation is meaningless.
If we understand the concept of moksha, its meaning is simply that one can leap out of the cycle. And whoever becomes conscious of the wheel cannot help but leap. The wheel is like the bullock at the oil-press. Who wants to remain yoked? Once it is known that one can step off the track, who would keep circling?
Life’s ordinary track is like a rail. If one jumps, that jump is called liberation. And there is no device to seat him back on the wheel—no way to make him revolve again.
Yes, as I said, once—and only by his own consent—he may return to the wheel for the sake of his beloveds, his friends, those he longs to bring joy to. He can come and sit on the wheel again for one more life.
But even seated on the wheel, he will not revolve—because revolving has no meaning for him now. Therefore we can recognize him as different. He has returned with another kind of experience. He will stand in our marketplace, but not be of the market. He will stand among us, and yet not exactly be one of us—somewhere set apart. Two things will be happening in him: he will be among us and simultaneously beyond us. Moment to moment we will sense it: somewhere we meet him, and somewhere we do not—he is a different kind of man.
The materialist says: everything returns to where it came from; otherwise there is no way to go anywhere. Ocean water returns to the ocean; the soil in leaves falls to soil again. The materialist says: dust unto dust; everything returns and ends—what’s the fuss! Everything goes back where it came from.
The spiritual seeker says: there is also a place we did not come from, yet we can go to it. And once we go there, there is no way to fall back into this cycle.
If this is not possible, then religion’s whole possibility ends; practice becomes meaningless. Then it is a dead wheel and we revolve forever. The longing to be free of birth and death arises in those who have seen the futility of ceaseless circling through infinite lives—and yet no thought of leaping arises.
A leap can be taken; it has been taken; anyone can take it. And it is a different event, to which ordinary rules no longer apply. Ten men stand on a roof; none falls—one law applies to all. One jumps off; he moves outside the rule that held on the roof. The roof protected him from gravity; by leaping he moved beyond that protection, and the earth will now pull him. Those still on the roof are not pulled; the rule does not apply to them there. He moved beyond that layer.
When we sent a man to the moon, the greatest difficulty was how to escape earth’s gravity. For about two hundred miles around the earth, gravity holds sway. How to cross beyond that field? Once outside, even by an inch, the earth’s pull ceases. That was the real problem; reaching the moon was secondary. The other worry was landing on the moon—when would lunar gravity start, how strong would it be?
Every force has a field. One can rise beyond it—one can create an exception to the field.
In the case of life’s great wheel, the center—like gravity—was discovered: it is vasana, desire. If one is to fly out of life’s wheel, one must, in some way, go beyond desire. The thirst the Buddha calls tanha, the craving within us that will not let us be still—the constant “get this, become that”—keeps us circling within the wheel. Wherever it points lies within the wheel: “Earn wealth, gain fame, get healthy, live longer.” All the directions it gives are aspects inside the cycle. Once we fix our aim on any such “ahead,” we begin to circle.
If, even for a moment, one steps outside desire, one travels in inner space—the inner sky within. He has leapt outside the life-wheel. He says, “I want no fame, no wealth, no task; I want nothing. I am as I am. I do not want to become anything.” He drops becoming and rests in being.
Vasana means: “Not as I am; not what I have; not what is available—something else.” The small clerk wants to be a big clerk, the small teacher a big teacher, the small minister a big minister… desire’s arrow bends them and drives them round the wheel.
All seekers have discovered this: stand outside desire, even for a moment, and you are beyond the loop that made you circle. In that moment you are astonished to see that what you have been longing for across endless births was always with you—available—needing only a turn within.
But an inner journey cannot happen—just as space travel cannot—until one slips beyond the pull of gravity; similarly, the inner journey cannot happen until one slips beyond the pull of desire. And desire’s pull is stronger than earth’s gravity, for gravity is inert, while desire is a conscious tug; and we are unaware of it because we are born inside it.
Do you ever feel the earth pulling you as you walk? You do not. We are born under it, grow in it, are conditioned in it. Only when one experiences weightlessness does one understand gravity. Astronauts learned: you cannot sit for even a second without strapping in—unbelt and you float to the ceiling. There is no “weight”; what we call weight is only the earth’s pull. On the moon, gravity is much less; anyone could leap over any house—locks would be useless to a thief! A man who can jump eight feet here would jump eight times as high there.
Likewise, we do not notice that desire pulls us twenty-four hours a day because we are born in it. The newborn arrives and the race of desire begins—“I want this, I want that, I must become this, become that”—and the wheel spins faster.
Whoever wants to step out must step out of desire. And it is the sense of witnessing that takes one beyond desire. The moment one becomes a witness, desire falls away.
Our difficulty is that witnessing is hard even in a play or a film! If you checked handkerchiefs after a tragic film, you would find hardly anyone who did not weep. In the dark it is convenient—no one sees you wipe your tears. On a screen where there is nothing—only patterns of light and shadow—we become happy, miserable, ecstatic.
When 3D films first appeared, people were shocked. A horseman gallops right at you; the whole hall ducks so the horse won’t burst into the theater. He throws a spear; everyone ducks to save their skulls. It feels real. Then it was seen how easily we forget it is a screen. We forget every day. We cannot remain witnesses even there; often we are more lost there than in life, because life is chaotic while a film is arranged precisely to drown you. The film is scientific in its design; life is not.
Tolstoy writes, “My mother went to the theater daily in the Russian winter. The coachman had to wait outside in the snow; often he died. His body would be pushed aside; another man put on the box and we drove home, while my mother wept—over the play.” The real death did not move her; the staged tragedy did.
We cannot remain witnessing even in a play. Yet to slip free of desire, the whole of life must be seen as a play. Look deeply and the difference is not so great. My body is as much a web of electrical particles as the body on the screen. The story of our life is no more meaningful than the story on the stage—only its duration differs. That is a three-hour performance; this is seventy or a hundred years. This drama is continuous: actors change, new ones enter, and it keeps going. Here, spectator and actor are not separate: the same person is both—and the play goes on. The stage is never empty. Because it is such a long performance, we fail to recognize it as play.
If it dawns on us that a long play is in progress, perhaps we can be witnesses. Then the urge “which role shall I be?” drops. We simply play our part and depart.
In such a state, where becoming drops, desire and craving fall away, where we step out of the race and the race remains only a play, one makes that leap where the gravitational force of desire breaks, and one stands outside bondage, outside the prison.
That peace, that bliss cannot be said; hints can be given, but no hard news. Those lost in the play, adrift in acting, cannot understand news of real life.
Reality is exactly like the green room behind the stage. There, the Ram and Ravana who were fighting onstage are sharing tea and gossiping. The day one sees life, one is amazed: behind the drama of the world too, Ram and Ravana drink tea together. There the quarrels end. But the green room is hidden deep and the curtain is long. We remain always before the curtain, so we never see the green room.
To realize we are part of a great play… Have you ever seen yourself as a character in a drama? Every morning a play begins; by night you are tired, you sleep—it ends; again it begins tomorrow. Do you notice how often you must be careful not to make a mistake in your role? Sometimes we forget.
A French painter, very absentminded, was leaving for America. His wife and maid came to see him off. In a rush he kissed the maid and said to the wife, “Take care of the children!” The wife protested. He said, “Then let me correct it,” kissed the wife and told the maid, “Take care of the children.” “Sometimes I slip,” he said. So do we all—we keep remembering: this is my father, my wife, my son. If we forget, others remind us: “I am your father.” We must remember our roles; the more dutifully one plays, the more “conscientious” he is.
I do not say, “Do not play.” Life is for playing—and it is delightful. Only do not forget one thing—even if you forget everything else—do not forget that it is a play, and that inwardly there is a point in you that forever stands outside.
Swami Ram went to America. He had a strange habit; people were puzzled—he always spoke in the third person. He would say, “Ram is very hungry.” People looked around: who is Ram? “I see that Ram is hungry,” he said. “How can I say ‘I’? I am seeing Ram; how can I be the same? Many times people abuse Ram a lot,” he would laugh, “and we enjoy watching—see how Ram gets into trouble!”
This sense that “somewhere I am separate, distant from the whole game” creates witnessing. Desire’s race breaks. The game continues—because you are not the only player; and why spoil the game? Elders play doll-games with children too.
A friend of mine was a guest in Japan. He saw an entire household excited from morning—there was a wedding that evening. He dressed carefully and went. To his surprise, it was the wedding of a doll and a toy groom! The whole town, elders and even the mayor, were present. He said to the old master of the house, “What madness is this?” The old man replied, “By this age you should know—all weddings are doll weddings. What difference is there? Children are playing; we join them with the same seriousness, so they understand that even a ‘real’ wedding is no more than a doll-game.”
That is wisdom. Where wisdom arises, the world does not “become” illusion—the distinction between world and play dissolves. There is no condemnation—everything becomes equal. Only one event happens: the witness stands apart.
The day the witness stands apart, the race ends.
Mahavira’s essential practice is witnessing. All true practices are, at root, practices of witnessing. How to become the seer, not the enjoyer or the doer—how to remain only a witness, with not even a trace of identification.
Epictetus was such a man. Whether sick, sorrowful, worried, or at ease, people found him the same. They said to him, “Now death is near; you are old.” He said, “Let it come—we shall see.” “You will see death?” “When one has learned to see, one sees everything. Those who cannot see life cannot see death. One who has seen life has seen death too. It will be fun—I haven’t seen death for a long time!” When he was dying, music was played in the house; he had told his disciples, “Do not weep for me. Weep for one who did not know. Laugh for me, for I know. I am not dying. I have learned to see; and the moment I see something, I am outside it. If I see sorrow, I am outside sorrow; if I see joy, outside joy; if I see life, outside life. My lifelong experience is: see—and be beyond.”
But we do not see.
That is why in this land we call philosophy darshan—seeing. Darshan does not mean love of thinking; it means the capacity to see. Western philosophy is better called analysis or speculation. What Mahavira, Buddha, Patanjali, Kapila, Kanada call darshan is the art of seeing.
See—and go beyond. Not thinking—seeing. Whatever you truly see, you go beyond. Sit in a crowd and look consciously—suddenly the crowd disappears; you are alone. Even amidst a million, look with awareness, and you are alone. That going beyond is transcendence.
Thus, if we become the seer, we immediately step out of the wheel.
When Vesuvius erupted and Pompeii burned, the town fled with whatever they could carry. A guard stood at the crossroads; his shift was to end at six in the morning. At two in the night the city caught fire; everyone ran; he stood at his post. People shouted, “Run!” He replied, “It is not yet six. I await my relief.” They said, “He will never come—he has already fled; who will strike the six o’clock bell?” He said, “If you learn to stand, there is no need to run.” Fire is outside; if I stand and keep seeing, the fire will always be outside. It may come near, it may burn the clothes, the body; but if I keep seeing, I will be outside. You are running in vain, for the place you run to may also catch fire—and even if not, one day fire will come. Learn to stand; but since you are running, you cannot stand.”
We all run, and because we run we cannot stand. The running is circular; it feels as if we are reaching somewhere, but we are not—because the track curves on and on. But some do step off the track and watch—and then one laughs to see people rushing madly. The place they leave in haste, in a while they will return to it, because the track is round. All are chasing each other.
One who stands outside is like a man watching a great play from the wings. The art of life is the art of standing. The science of religion is the science of becoming a witness.
The essence of all scriptures and of all awakened ones can be said in one line: stand still. Do not run—see. Do not drown—stand apart. See—without sinking.
If one stands undrowned even for a moment, then to your question, “Will there not be a return?”—no. Once one has stood, it is the point of no return. From there, returning does not arise.
But as long as we run, we will return; we have returned many times and will keep running. Often, when not arriving, we think we should run even faster.
One last little story. A man became afraid of his shadow. To escape it, he ran. The faster he ran, the faster the shadow ran. He thought, “I must run faster still.” He gave it his all; his fame spread from village to village. People showered flowers on him as he raced through—he never stopped to acknowledge them, because if he stopped, the shadow would catch him. He collapsed only in exhaustion at night; at dawn he saw the shadow and fled again. What could be the solution? He died. Even then his corpse cast a shadow. They buried him under great trees. On his tomb a fakir wrote: “What you could not attain while living, your grave has attained. Standing still in the shade, your shadow has gone.” Learn from your grave—otherwise many such graves will be made and you will never learn, and you will go on running.
Standing still is the sutra.
Stopping in the shade is the sutra.
We are all running in the glare of desire, of thirst. If so, you cannot step out of the wheel.