Mahaveer Meri Drishti Mein #21

In this connection two things must be understood—two words must be understood. One word is drishti, the other is darshan.

Drishti is always one-sided, always partial, fragmentary. Drishti means: I am standing at a particular spot, and from there things appear a certain way. What appears is important—but equally important is where I am standing. From where I stand, I will see as I see—that is drishti.

And in this context, the word darshan is most precious. Darshan means a state where all drishtis have disappeared, where there is no place left for me to stand—truly, where I myself am no more. Whatever is in that state is darshan. Darshan is always total; drishti is always a fragment.

So what we call self-realization or realization is that moment when all viewpoints dissolve. In truth, the seer dissolves; the place from which we were standing dissolves; even the one who could have stood there dissolves—everything on “my” side is gone. Then whatever reveals itself, whatever happens, happens as the whole. Thus the darshan of Mahavira—or of Buddha, Krishna, Christ, Mohammed—is always total. Darshan can never be incomplete, because everything that could make it incomplete has disappeared.

Understand it in another way. As long as there are thoughts in my mind, I will have drishti, not darshan—because I will look through the spectacles of thought. Whatever color my thought has will be cast upon what I see. Darshan happens only when I become thought-free. When there is no thought left at all—when there is just emptiness, no stance, no ideology, no scriptures, no doctrine; I am not Hindu, not Muslim, not Christian, not Jain—when I am nobody, only a purely empty mind remains. From there, whatever is seen is darshan.

Thought leads to drishti; no-thought leads to darshan.

One more thing is useful to understand. However total darshan is—and it is total—when one goes to express it, drishti begins again. To express darshan, one must employ thoughts. The moment thought is used, it cannot be total. By its very nature, thought is never total. Thought sees by breaking things apart, while in reality everything is interconnected.

If we look through thought, birth is separate, death is separate—and it is extremely difficult to reconcile them in thought, because they appear opposite. But in actuality, birth and death are two ends of one process. In life they are not separate. What begins at birth bids farewell at death. They are the first and last points of a single journey.

Seen as life, they are together; thought splits them apart. In thought, black and white are utterly separate, cold and hot are utterly separate; in experience, hot and cold are two forms of the same continuum, black and white two ends of the same spectrum. Yet whenever we set out to express, we must again use thought.

So what Mohammed, Mahavira, Buddha, Krishna, Christ realized is total; but when they express it, it no longer remains total—it becomes a drishti. Therefore, expressed viewpoints clash. In darshan there is no conflict; in expressed drishtis there is.

Suppose you and I visit Srinagar. Srinagar is one—both of us arrived in the same city. Later someone asks what we saw. What I say will differ from what you say. I may love the lake and speak of that; you may love the mountains and speak of those. I may prefer the day and speak of the sun; you may prefer the night and speak of the moon. Our accounts might sound as if we visited two different cities: one speaks of moon, the other of sun; one of darkness, the other of light; one of morning, the other of evening; one of mountains, the other of the lake. A listener may find it hard to believe that these opposites belong to a single city. They may seem so contradictory that reconciliation becomes difficult.

What news we bring back are drishtis, thoughts. What we actually knew and lived was darshan. In that darshan, Srinagar was one. There, night-day were joined, mountain-lake were joined, good-bad were joined—everything was together. But the moment we speak, we choose; we sift; we stand somewhere and select a viewpoint.

The moment anything is spoken, a drishti is formed. This has been the great danger: mistaking drishti for darshan. Hence, the Hindus have a drishti, not darshan; the Jains have a drishti, not darshan; the Muslims have a drishti, not darshan. If we speak of darshan, then Hindu, Muslim, Jain all disappear—only the One remains; there is no drishti, no ideology.

Mahavira’s experience is total; expression cannot be. Whenever we try to say it, we cannot say the total. The experience of the divine is a far greater matter—even a small, simple experience cannot be expressed in its wholeness.

You see a flower and feel it is very beautiful. Then you go to speak of it. Even as you speak, you sense something remains incomplete. Saying “very, very beautiful” still tells nothing of what the flower truly was. That living experience—your direct contact with the flower, the beauty that revealed itself, the fragrance, the dance of the flower in the breeze, the joy of the petals in the sun—no matter how often you say “very beautiful,” it feels incomplete, tasteless, without fragrance, dead. It gives no real sense of what you saw.

If we cannot fully convey an ordinary experience, then to speak of an extraordinary experience leaves a deficiency beyond measure. That is why religions in the world rest on what has been said, not on what has been known. If a religion could ever be built on what is known, it would be impossible—because what is known is not different for any knower.

Once it happened: Farid was traveling with a few friends. Kabir’s ashram lay ahead. Farid’s companions said, “How wonderful if we could stay with Kabir for two days! If the two of you speak, we will be blessed. Perhaps such an opportunity comes only once in lifetimes—to hear Kabir and Farid together.” Farid said, “Since you wish it, we will stay—but talk may not happen.” They asked, “Why would there be no talk?” He replied, “We’ll see when we arrive.”

Kabir’s disciples had also heard that Farid was passing by. They said, “Stop him, request him to stay two days at our ashram. If you both speak, what joy!” Kabir said, “Do stop him. There will be great joy—but talk may not happen.” They asked, “Why not?” Kabir said, “Let Farid come; then we will know.”

Farid was stopped; the two embraced, laughed, sat together. Two days passed—no talk. Listeners grew bored, anxious. Farewell came; Kabir walked Farid to the edge of the village. They embraced and wept—but still did not speak.

Kabir’s disciples asked as soon as he returned, “What madness is this? Two days and you did not speak?” Farid’s disciples asked, “What happened? We were so troubled—two days of such silence!” Kabir said, “What I know, Farid knows. Now how to speak? Two ignorants can talk, a knower and an ignorant can talk. How can two knowers talk? And if one spoke, he would needlessly make himself ignorant—because what he spoke would be so small before what the other has known. The other has it as knowing; to speak before knowing is very difficult, for one feels: his knowing is boundless, and what I say is so small.” The one who spoke would appear foolish.

They asked Farid. He said, “Speak—in front of Kabir? You would have made me a madman. By speaking I would be trapped. The moment one speaks, one is already wrong.”

Before what is known, all that is spoken is wrong—entirely. When there is no knowing, whatever is spoken seems true. But before one who knows, speech is so pale, so pale...

Suppose I have seen you closely, known you, recognized you—and someone tells me only your name, presenting the name as your introduction. What kind of introduction is a name to one who knows the person? For one who does not know, the name passes for an introduction; for one who knows, the name makes no difference. A name is no introduction.

Farid said, “It was necessary I remain silent, because whatever I would have said would be only the name. He has known—and to utter only the name before such knowing would be childish.”

Where there is knowing, there is no difference. Where there are words, non-difference is impossible. The moment words are used, differences begin. It is like a ray of the sun—there is no division in it; it is straight and clear. But place a prism before it and the ray is split into seven colors. On this side of the prism it is hard to see the sun’s single ray; on the other side you see it divided into seven. Words function like a prism. What is known lies beyond words; what is said lies on this side of words. On this side, everything breaks into fragments; beyond words, all is unbroken.

Therefore, what Mahavira knew is total. But whatever is said—even if Mahavira says it—cannot be total. It will be one-sided, a fragment. Hence the Jain will be fragmentary, one-sided. He will grasp what was said; he cannot grasp Mahavira’s totality. He will sit as a Jain. He will even turn anekant—the many-sidedness—into a doctrine, a “-ism.” He will convert Mahavira’s darshan into a drishti and cling to it.

Thus, all followers hold on to fragments of truth. And understand this too: whoever clings to a fragment, knowingly or unknowingly, becomes an enemy of the whole—because his insistence is that his fragment is the whole. Every fragment-claimer says, “My fragment is the total.” All fragments together could make up a whole, but each fragment’s claim to be the whole, met by another’s identical claim, prevents any wholeness.

These claims divide humanity into fragments. Humanity, which is one, has been broken into pieces, sects, and denominations.

If our emphasis is on drishti, there will be sects. If our emphasis is on darshan, there is no way for sects to arise.

My whole emphasis is on darshan—not on drishti. Mahavira’s emphasis is also on darshan. And it is a great paradox that the more we are freed from drishtis, the nearer we come to darshan. Commonly we are deceived by the words and think drishti will give us darshan; in truth, drishti is the greatest obstacle to darshan.

If I have any drishti at all, I can never know the whole. Only when I am free of all viewpoints—drishti-mukt, drishti-shunya—can I know the total. Then there is no obstruction for the Whole to reach me.

Yes, exactly the same thing.

This question arises for us and seems important because “home” and “outside” appear to us as two opposing things. It feels as if home is one world and outside is another. It never occurs to us that home and outside, outside and inside, are two halves of the same vastness.

A breath goes in and we call it inside; a moment later it is out and we call it outside. What was outside a moment ago becomes inside; what was inside becomes outside. So what is outside and what is inside? Which is the home and what is other than home?

Our vision is narrowly confined. By “home” we mean what is “mine,” and by “outside” we mean what is not mine. But could it be that for someone there is nothing that is not his own? And if, for someone, nothing remains that is “not mine,” then the question of inside and outside ends. Only home remains—no outside at all; or you could say the reverse: only the outside remains, no home. One thing is certain: for the one who begins to see, the line dividing inside and outside disappears. The same is outside; the same is inside.

These winds have filled the inside of our house and we say they are indoors, forgetting that every moment these winds are going out and the ones that were outside a moment ago are coming in. Are the winds inside the house any different from those outside? And the light that has entered the house—is it different from the light outside?

Yes, there is just this much difference: the walls have made it a little dim, have stolen its sharpness, have rendered it slightly dark; the walls have not let it remain as fresh and alive as it is outside. The winds too, once they enter the house, become a little stale. The walls—the boundaries—steal their purity and freshness.

And if someone, sitting inside the house, finds that everything has grown impure and steps outside to stand beneath the open sky, we should not say he has left home; we should say he has gone into a bigger home—where the air is cleaner, the sun is purer, and the world is clear and beautiful. It is our man-made walls—indeed, if we look closely, the walls of our attachment—that turn a space into “my house.”

I have heard: A house caught fire. Its owner was beating his chest and weeping. A crowd gathered. Someone came up and said, “You are crying for nothing. That house was sold; your son sold it, and he even received the money.” As soon as the man heard that the house had been sold and the money received, he began to laugh—his tears dried up! He was laughing, even though the house was still burning. But since it was no longer his, there was no worry! Same burning house, same man—but everything changed, because his tie of “mine” snapped.

Just then the son came running and said, “Who told you the money has been received? There was only a promise—the money hasn’t come.” The man collapsed again: “Who will pay for a house that’s burnt!” Tears returned; he began beating his chest: “We’re ruined!”

Still, the house goes on burning. What is happening in all this? The house doesn’t know that the man connected to it laughed for a while, cried for a while, then started crying again. The house only burns. But within the man, the relationship is shifting. When “mine” takes hold, suffering begins; when “mine” drops, he laughs.

So is it the house that binds us, or our sense of “mine”? Understand this clearly and you will see that the enclosure is our “mine.” Deep down, the feeling of “mine-ness”—mamatva—is our house. And remember: whoever says “mine” inevitably turns the rest into “yours.” Whoever says “mine” turns the rest into enemy. Whoever says “our own” turns others into “other.”

In Gandhi’s ashram a hymn was sung: “Call only that person a Vaishnava who knows the pain of the other.” Someone once recited it to me and I said it needs a slight correction. In truth, a Vaishnava is one who does not even know that anyone is “other.” Knowing the pain of the other is a second thing. To know the other’s pain, you must first accept that there is “other” and there is “mine.” A Vaishnava is one who does not know anyone as other—and only then can the pain of the other be felt as one’s own, because there is no “other” left.

We live within the circle of “I,” of “mine.” That is our home: my house, my wife, my father, my son, my friend—an entire world fabricated by “mine.” Around this “mine” we have raised many kinds of walls: of stone, of love, of hatred, of jealousy, of attachment—and made a home.

When someone asks, “Why did Mahavira leave home? Could it not have happened while living at home?” No—it could not. Home itself was the impossibility. Look closely: it was the very feeling of “mine” that made it impossible; that feeling alone prevented union with the whole. But if someone begins to see that everything is mine—or that there is nothing that is mine and yours—then what home remains as “mine,” and what remains as “not mine”?

We only see one side: “Why did Mahavira leave home?” Why does this loom so large? Because we are those who cling to home. For us the most important thing is: “Why did this man leave home?”—because we are clingers to home. Even the idea of leaving home is unbearable; the very imagination is unbearable. But we do not understand what the concept of home is!

Did Mahavira leave home—or did home dissolve? The moment understanding dawned, “mine” and “ours” vanished; all became all. If this is seen, a great difference appears.

We sit here while the sun is some hundred million miles away. If it were to go cold right now, we would not even know it has gone cold—because with it we too would go cold. That sun, a hundred million miles away, holds the pulse of our life; it is part of our home. Without it we could not be. It sustains our very being. But when have we ever counted the sun as a member of our household? When have we regarded it as a friend of the family?

Yet, without what we have never considered “family,” none of us would be. There would be no family and no us. That sun, sitting a hundred million miles away, is a part of our heart’s very beating. Is it inside the home or outside? If asked, what would be the answer? Is the sun inside the home or outside?

If we put the sun outside our home, we cannot live for even a moment. Only if the sun, too, is within our home can we live. And the air that girdles the whole earth—is it inside our home or outside? If that air ceased for a single moment, we too would cease in the same moment. Then what is our home? And the sun is actually near; there are distant moons and stars, planets and satellites, vast suns and great suns—they too, in their own ways, are part of our life.

Your wife cooks your meal and she is “within the home,” but a cow grazes grass and makes milk for you—she is not within your home? And you cannot eat grass and turn it into milk yourself; a cow is needed to transform grass into a form suitable for you. But the grass has also done something: it transformed earth and became grass. Is the grass inside your home or outside? Because if there were no grass, your being would not be possible. And if there were no grass, the cow could not make milk by eating soil. And grass is earth—but in a form from which the cow can make milk and milk can become your food. What is our home and what lies outside it?

If we open our eyes and truly see, we’ll find that all life is one family in which, if a single link is missing, nothing can be. Life is a single family in which even a small link—a stone lying in front of you—is, in some sense, part of our life; if even that were not, who knows what would become? Everything could change.

The one who perceives life’s vastness will say, “This is mine and that is mine?” No—he will say, “All are all; all are mine; all are one’s own”—or he may say, “None is mine at all.” He will have these two languages. If he speaks positively, creatively, he will say, “The whole is my family.” If he speaks in a negating way, he will say, “Even ‘I’ am not—what family?” Both statements mean the same thing.

So, to say Mahavira left something—home, family—is wrong. The vision of the greater family dawned, and the smaller family was lost. And when one finds the ocean, will he go on clutching a drop? How could he? A drop can be clutched only so long as the ocean has not been found. Once the ocean is found, will we say he “left the drop”? In truth, we do not see the ocean; we see only the drop. We see people clutching drops and people dropping drops. We do not see the ocean. But for one who has seen the ocean, how can he hold on to a drop? To cling to the drop then would be sheer ignorance.

Knowledge takes one into the vast; ignorance binds one to the small. Ignorance stops in the petty; knowledge goes on moving from vast to vaster.

Mahavira did not leave the home; holding on to the home became impossible. There is a difference. When we say, “He left home,” it sounds as if he had some enmity with home. When I say, “Holding the home became impossible,” it sounds as if a larger home was found, a more vast home. In that, the first home is not abandoned; it has simply become part of the greater home.

If this enters our understanding, the meaning of renunciation acquires a new color. Renunciation does not mean “to give up”; its deeper meaning is “to attain the vast.” But the word renunciation carries a danger: hidden in it is the sense of giving up; it seems as if something was dropped.

In my view it is fundamentally mistaken to call people like Mahavira, Buddha, or Krishna “renunciates.” It is impossible to find greater enjoyers than they—if we understand the meaning rightly. Renunciation means giving up; enjoyment means receiving, partaking. None can be a greater enjoyer than Mahavira, because whatever exists in the world has become his. His enjoyment has become infinite; his home infinite; his breath infinite; his life infinite.

A small mind cannot contain such vast enjoyment. The petty mind can enjoy only the petty—hence it clings to the petty. But when the doors to the vast begin to open…

Consider a river: it rises in the Himalayas and flows into the ocean. This can be seen in two ways. One may ask the river, “Why did you abandon your banks? Why did you renounce them?” One can question like this. The river could also say, “I did not leave the banks; the banks became infinite. They are still there, but now they have no limit—now they are boundless. Earlier there were tiny banks; a small stream flowed between them. And the river, by leaving small banks each day, kept growing larger.

“At Gangotri the Ganga had very small banks; near the ocean they became huge. Yet they were still banks. Then she surrendered herself to the ocean. The ocean’s banks are vast, but they are still banks. Tomorrow she will become vapor and fly into the sky—then those banks will be left too. No banks will remain.”

The quest of life is essentially the quest to leave shores—or to gain larger shores. But when someone has attained the boundless and infinite, and we go and ask, “Why did you leave the banks?”—what answer will he have? He will only laugh and say, “Come, you too—leave and see. What I have found is so much more—and within it, the old is still present which you say I left. It has not been left anywhere.”

Mahavira’s home has not been dropped; it has only become larger—so large that we cannot even see it, because we can only see small homes. If a home becomes too vast, we no longer see it.

Let talk of renunciation be set aside, and let more emphasis be placed on vast enjoyment. My own understanding is that because we bound these great ones in the idea of renunciation, we could not come close to them. Renunciation, at a deep level, cannot truly appeal to anyone: its language is negative—“Leave, leave, leave! Leave this, leave that!” The language of leaving is the language of dying. Leaving is suicidal.

If religion keeps insisting, “Leave, leave, leave,” only a very few people will be interested—and often the sickly will be interested, and the healthy will not. The healthy want to rejoice; the sick want to leave, because they cannot rejoice. The diseased, self-destructive minds will gather in the name of religion, and the healthy, vibrant, life-loving people will walk away, saying, “Religion is not for us.”

Thus people say, “What need is there for religion in youth? That’s for old age.” When things start dropping away on their own, then let them go. When things are slipping from your hands anyway, what difficulty is there? Let go! But while life is being enjoyed and attained, the language of leaving makes no sense.

That is why in temples, mosques, churches you see the old—not the young. The emphasis on leaving has created this problem.

I want to change that emphasis entirely. I say: enjoy! And enjoy bigger, and bigger still! Enjoy the divine. Its enjoyment is infinite. Do not stop at the small. Leave the petty only because you want to partake of the vast.

The more vast we become, the more existence seems to fade away. But in truth, to say that existence disappears is wrong. It is right only to say: my existence disappears. The ego goes; existence remains.

It will not be recognized—but it is; existence remains. Not a single particle that was in the river has been lost; everything is. Yes, not as a river—now as the ocean. And it can no longer be sought as a river. The river has died, but the river’s being—the existence—remains in its entirety. The river’s individuality has died.

Absolutely suicidal. The very language of “dropping” is suicidal. What I am speaking is the language of enjoyment.

Do not tell the river to stop being a river. Tell the river to learn to become the ocean. The distinction I am making is this: do not tell the river, “Drop it, drop it, drop it.” Tell the river, “Enjoy—an immense ocean is before you. Do not stop; run, take the plunge into the ocean. Enjoy! Enjoy the ocean.”

I feel we can give the world a more religious life. Because the ordinary mind we have—its natural bent is toward enjoyment, not renunciation. And if we are to raise the ordinary mind toward religion, we should make it an invitation to vast celebration.

Right now the opposite has happened. Even the small, everyday pleasures are turned into something to be denied: “Negate that too, refuse that too.” And I say that if we go to enjoy the Vast, the petty will be negated on its own; we will not have to do it. If the river is to become the ocean, it will not remain a river—this need not be said. For the river to become the ocean it will, of course, have to cease being a river, but do not put the emphasis there.

Two happenings are taking place. One: the river is disappearing. Two: the river is becoming the ocean. Where do you put the emphasis? If you emphasize becoming the ocean, I say you can attract many more rivers to become the ocean. But if you say, “No—river, disappear, and don’t talk about the ocean!” then perhaps you will persuade one or two sick rivers—those who have become frightened of being—to agree to vanish. The rest of the rivers will halt. They will say, “We are delighted; we do not want to disappear.” Yes, disappearing can be meaningful only when union with the Vast is meaningful—when it carries significance.

So my emphasis is this: do not make religion into renunciation; make it into an ever vaster celebration. Renunciation will come—it will be automatic, it will happen by itself. If you place your foot on the next step, the step behind will be left—but do not emphasize leaving the step behind; emphasize that the next step awaits.

It absolutely can. It absolutely can. All words can go wrong. Because words don’t make mistakes...

It doesn’t make any difference.

It doesn’t make any difference. Whatever word we choose, any word can go wrong. Because ultimately words don’t err; ultimately people err. But the word “renunciation” has become meaningless. It’s gone! And opposite to renunciation there is, at present, no other word except “enjoyment” that can carry the meaning. Yet what I am saying, if rightly understood, is that my enjoyment is not the opposite of renunciation; my enjoyment arises out of renunciation. Because I am saying that to place your foot on the second step, you will have to leave the first. But my emphasis is on placing the foot on the second step. My emphasis is...

Very few people can be persuaded to leave the previous step. “Should we abandon even the step we’re standing on?” Yes—those who are in extreme misery on that step might agree to leave it. They say, “Nothing could be worse than this. Let’s drop it—whatever happens, happens.” A sick mind understands the language of renunciation; a healthy mind cannot. An old mind understands the language of renunciation; a young mind cannot.

That is why I say that in the past five thousand years, whatever shape religion took ended up attracting the sick, the neurotic, the unbalanced, the old, the ill—people of that sort. This was the result of emphasizing the word “renunciation.” The healthy, the vibrant, the ones eager to live, did not go that way. They said, “When our thirst for life fades, we’ll see; right now we want to live.”

I am saying: attract this living current. And it will be attracted only when the vision of vast, total life stands before it. The point is not to leave, but to attain. And in that very process, leaving will happen—because without letting go, nothing can be attained. It is impossible to gain without relinquishing something. Whenever we set out to gain, something will have to be left. So the issue is not opposition to renunciation; the issue is emphasis—what we stress.

The word bhog has become laden with condemnation. The renouncers created that. Precisely for that reason I want to use the word bhog—knowingly. Because this condemnation of bhog was created by those very renouncers. They say, “Do not even speak of enjoyment, of rasa, of happiness, because one has to renounce.”

I am saying this whole language has gone wrong. It has attracted the wrong kind of people; it has not attracted the healthy.

Life is to be enjoyed in its depths. Life is to be lived in its ultimate fulfillments, in its full savor, in its complete beauty. God should be revealed in this sense: the more one goes into God, the more one goes into the depths of life.

Until now the renunciatory stance has been that one who moves toward God turns his back on life, running away from it. He does not go into the depths of life; he denies life. He says, “We do not want life—we want death.” Hence he talks of moksha: “We want such a death that life will never recur.”

About this entire emphasis I say: even if one takes God as life, all that the renouncer prescribes will drop anyway—it will not remain—but then the stress will not be on the dropping. My emphasis is this: if there are stones in your hands, I do not tell you to throw them away; I tell you that there are diamond mines right ahead. I don’t say, “Drop the stones”; I say, “Diamonds are worth attaining, and they are shining before you.” I know you will have to empty your hands—how else will you hold the diamonds? The stones will drop, but that dropping will be very natural. You may not even notice when the stones slipped from your hands and your palms filled with diamonds. It may not even occur to you that you “left” the stones, because one who has found diamonds cannot keep talking about having left stones.

But the old emphasis was: “Drop the stones.” Hence there are people who live their whole lives on the basis of having dropped stones: “We have renounced!” Whether they found anything or not—no one knows. Whether they found the next step—uncertain. As I say: it is possible to drop the stones and yet not find the diamonds; but it is never possible to find the diamonds and still not have dropped the stones. That is my distinction. Hands can remain empty.

The language of renunciation has left many people’s hands empty. And one whose hands are empty is filled with anger toward those whose hands are full. That is why our monks and sannyasins live in deep condemnation. They go on denouncing, twenty-four hours a day, those whose hands are full, who are enjoying, who are finding happiness in life—cursing them, arranging to consign them to hell: they will rot them, burn them in fire—they make all those arrangements!

These are his mental gratifications: the empty-handed man taking revenge on those whose hands are full and who refuse to be made empty. And those who gather around him also see his hands as empty; nothing filled is visible there. For I hold that if something fulfilled were visible, it would be natural for us to set out on that journey where a person becomes more fulfilled, more abundant.

You go to a sannyasin, an ascetic: you may praise his renunciation endlessly, call him courageous—he left this, he left that. But neither in his eyes, nor in his presence, nor in his life do you sense that fragrance which comes when something has arrived—when something has descended.

And I maintain that if something truly came into his life, he too would stop speaking of renunciation, because he would forget the stones he dropped. Now the talk would be of the diamonds he has found.

But one who continues to talk of renunciation, still talking about dropping stones—it is certain nothing else has entered his hands. The stones have gone, and the only relish left to him is: “I left so many stones; I left this and that.” And we around him also see nothing else in him—only the leaving. Leaving can never become an attraction for the mind. It is unnatural, not natural. Gaining is the mind’s natural attraction.

If this becomes clear, we will not speak in the language, “Mahavira left his home.” That Mahavira left his home is a fact: he did not remain in the house. But how we view it depends on us now; it no longer depends on Mahavira. In my view, the joy and gladness that radiate from him, the fragrance that wafts from his life, announce that he did not merely leave a house—he found a greater home. If the house had only been left and he were standing outside in the courtyard or on the road, this would not have been his state. A great home was found, a palace was found—the hut alone was left behind. Therefore what was left is not the point. What was found is what fills him with bliss from all sides.

But look at the monk who follows after Mahavira! He seems to have grasped nothing. It looks as if he is standing out on the road: what he had, he lost; and what was to be found has not been found. He is stuck in incompletion, living in pain, living in trouble. And we should reflect a little on this too: why do we give respect when we see someone living in hardship? In truth this is a very deep violence. When a person is in hardship we respect him; and if the hardship is voluntary, taken on by himself, we respect him even more. But why?

This respect of ours is itself sick. In truth, we all want to make others suffer—everyone. We are all sadists to some extent. Deep inside our minds runs the urge: whom can we make suffer, and how much? And when we find someone who takes suffering upon himself, we are filled with reverence: “This man is perfect.” It satisfies some very deep craving in us. Somewhere within it gratifies us: “Good!”

Observe: when someone becomes happy, you do not become happy. When someone moves more and more into joy, you begin to move into sorrow. Another’s going into happiness becomes your going into unhappiness. But another’s going into suffering does not become your going into suffering. Yes, perhaps when someone is in pain you display great sympathy; but if you look within a little, you will find there is a certain relish even in that sympathy. Someone becomes very happy, starts living in a big house—you may even praise him and say, “Very good, God’s great grace.” But even in that there will be envy; within, jealousy will be wounding the mind.

But when someone voluntarily goes into suffering, then we give him great respect, because he is doing exactly what we wanted him to do. That is why renouncers, ascetics, the so-called leavers, have been given so much honor. You can never truly honor a happy person. The unhappy—especially when the unhappiness is self-chosen—then we place our heads at his feet: “What a marvelous man!”

I also hold that because humanity is inwardly sick, renouncers have been honored. If humanity becomes healthy, the happy will be honored—the ones who, of their own accord, have become more and more joyous. And remember, whom we honor, slowly we become like them. If suffering is honored, we will keep becoming more and more miserable. If happiness is honored, we will step onto the journey toward joy. But until now, the happy person has not been honored. Until now only the suffering person has been honored. This is but a piece of humanity’s powerful urge to make the other suffer.

There will be—if a bigger renouncer turns up. That is, if someone who inflicts even more suffering on himself appears, then there will be respect. The same mechanism will be at work. The lesser renouncer will respect the greater renouncer. Because the lesser renouncer eats once a day, the greater renouncer does not even eat once! The lesser renouncer fasts for fifteen days, the greater renouncer sits hungry for a month! So the lesser will have to honor the greater—but it is the same story. The same story.

That respect arises in us when we see another in suffering is wrong in itself. To see someone in any kind of suffering, in pain...

If a man is lying on a bed of thorns, people will touch his feet. But to touch someone’s feet on seeing him lying on thorns is a very dangerous thing. Because it signals that whoever prepares to sleep on thorns, we are ready to honor him! It is as if we are saying: let people prepare to be miserable and we will honor them. Sleep on thorns and we will give you even more respect; drive iron nails into your body and we will give you still more.

In Europe there was a Christian sect that fixed iron nails inside their shoes—on the inside, against the feet. Their feet were full of sores. Among them, the gurus not only put nails in their shoes; they also tied a belt around their waist, studded with sharp spikes that pricked them all the time! Whether they stood, sat, moved, or turned, blood kept flowing, pus kept oozing. So the one from whom more pus flowed—he became the supreme guru! You had to keep a tally of how many wounds someone had. Do you have ten nails driven in, or fifteen? Then the one with ten would honor the one with fifteen.

There was another order, the order of self-flagellators: in the morning the monk would strip and whip himself—they were called flagellants. He would whip himself. The more lashes he gave himself, the more it was talked about in the village: so-and-so gives himself one hundred and one lashes every morning! It sounds strange to us. Another gives himself two hundred and one, flays the skin completely, is all bloodied—and he is honored that much more!

But we too say: such-and-such sadhu has fasted for fifteen days; such-and-such has fasted for twenty-one days; such-and-such person has been fasting for a month. We even publish his photo in the newspapers, take out processions: this man has fasted for two months! He is a remarkable man. He has starved for two months. This too is flagellantism. This too is whipping oneself; this too is hammering in nails.

But it doesn’t occur to us to ask: why has humankind, till today, given so much honor to those who inflict suffering—those who inflict suffering on themselves? Surely some morbid sentiment is at work! Somewhere, surely, there is in our minds that other people should be made to suffer...

Enjoyment is visible too. Enjoyment is visible too. Because we have reflected on renunciation, gradations appeared; if we reflect on enjoyment, gradations will appear as well. Enjoyment is visible too. It is visible who is how blissful, who is how serene, who draws how much delight from each thing.

Understand it this way: a man is standing by a flower, by a rosebush. The man who is pricking his hand on the thorn is visible to us; then will the man who is breathing the fragrance of the flower not be visible? He will be visible too. But we have not looked! We have behaved as if a man becomes visible only when he pierces his hand on the thorn. Breathing the fragrance of the flower does not make him visible! Yet up to now we have honored the man who has pressed the rose’s thorn into his hand and let the blood flow. We have said, “This man is extraordinary.” We have not honored the one who has taken in the flower’s fragrance. We said, “That is ordinary. Anyone can smell a flower; the real issue is to prick yourself with the thorn.”

Now, the real point is that the real issue is to breathe the fragrance of the flower, not to prick yourself with the thorn. The one pricking himself is also ill, pathological—a psychiatric case; his psychological condition is disturbed. And the one who honors the thorn-pricker is dangerous—he too is pathological. The one who smells the flower is healthy, and the one who honors the flower-smeller is also healthy.

We need a society where happiness is honored and suffering is disrespected. But the opposite has happened. This society has created such a religion that those who were the most blissful people in this world were placed in the category of the most miserable!

A person like Mahavira should be counted among the most blissful. It is hard to draw a boundary around his bliss. This man is in joy twenty-four hours a day. But our renunciation-tinted gaze has diminished all that bliss. In fact, we began to say: he is so blissful because he renounced so much; if you renounce that much, you too will be so blissful.

People are renouncing, yet they do not become that blissful. The truth is the reverse: he was so blissful that so much renunciation happened. Those renunciations were the outcome of being so full of joy. And if someone becomes that blissful, renunciations will happen through him.

But we caught it upside down. We said: renounce this much and see—Mahavira became so blissful! If you renounce as much, you too will be so blissful. The point went completely wrong. No one becomes blissful by renouncing. Dropping stones from your hand does not bring diamonds; but if diamonds arrive, the stones drop of their own accord. Renunciation is secondary, not primary. This is what I am saying.

And if we look at Mahavira in this language—and I feel this is the right language to look at him—our whole outlook on religion and life will be different. Mahavira did not leave the home; he found a bigger home—I am opposed to the very language of “leaving.” He found a bigger home. And when the bigger home was found, the small home dropped away. “Dropped away” does not mean he became its enemy. It means that living in the small home became impossible. When the bigger home is found, the small home becomes a part of it, nothing more.

That is exactly what Manik Babu says: anything can be misleading. That is not the question—anything can be. But if even here a choice has to be made, I say it is all right if indulgence misleads; I even recommend that. If the choice is between indulgence and renunciation—both capable of misleading—then I say let indulgence be the one to mislead. I say this because indulgence is a sign of life being healthy, simple, and spontaneous.

And here is the curious thing: the person who sets out to indulge will, little by little, find renunciations becoming inevitable—however misleading indulgence may be. As he descends into experience, the possibilities of larger enjoyments open up, and renunciations become unavoidable. But the one who sets out to renounce will lose the possibilities of the old enjoyments, and the new possibilities will not arise. He will go on drying up.

It is true: overeating is dangerous, and not eating is dangerous. Still, if one must choose between the two, I would say choose overeating. The one who does not eat will simply die; the one who overeats may fall ill. And sooner or later the overeater will discover that eating less is pleasant. But the one who does not eat will never reach that discovery, because he will be dead.

So, what I am saying is this: if even a mistake has to be chosen—mistakes are possible everywhere, because man is in ignorance and whatever he grasps can bring delusion—then choose the kind of delusion from which there is a way back. From not eating there is no way back. From overeating there is. Overeating will bring pain and compel a return. Not eating does not bring suffering; it simply ends you, wipes you out. From that, the possibility of return diminishes.

It is also true that all words can confuse us and lead us astray, because we try to extract from words only the meanings we want. We do not want to see what is actually being said. This will always be so. Therefore, whoever uses words must bring a very clear vision along with them.

So what I am saying is: indulgence ultimately becomes renunciation, but renunciation does not ultimately become indulgence. What I am saying is that indulgence ultimately turns into renunciation.

I mean this: even a prostitute can come to brahmacharya (celibacy), but one who has imposed celibacy upon herself to become a nun will find it very difficult to attain true brahmacharya. The prostitute’s experience continually moves her toward brahmacharya, whereas imposed celibacy continually moves one toward sex. It cannot take you anywhere; and if it does, it will incline the mind toward more and more lust. Therefore, let indulgence be in the natural ease of life, not in strain. That is good. That is why I say so.

That is absolutely right.

Sex is perversion!

I understand; what you say is quite right. The discovery of psychology over the last hundred years is that to cause suffering to others, or to cause suffering to oneself, or to honor the miserable, or to support the possibilities of suffering, is in one way or another a distorted form of the sex-energy—a sexual perversion. This is absolutely true.

In fact, it is necessary to understand this. In truth, kama or sex is the lowest possibility of bliss—of pleasure. One should understand that sex is a natural, spontaneous pleasure given by nature. If one rises above it and discovers greater joy, then the need for the pleasure of sex no longer remains. If one rises above it and finds greater joy, then the pleasure of sex is no longer needed. Gradually, kama is transformed—it transforms—and ultimately it can become brahmacharya (celibacy). But if one does not seek greater joys and also denies this pleasure, then the possibilities of suffering begin. Because below it lies the possibility of suffering. This is the boundary line. Below sex lie the possibilities of suffering; above sex lie the possibilities of bliss. If someone discovers higher bliss, he becomes free of sex. If someone does not seek higher bliss and denies sex, he descends into the lower sufferings.

It is the in-between line.

There is a reason for that. A poor man produces children right away. He has only one pleasure; all the rest is nothing but suffering. To escape this suffering he has just one chance: to go into sex. That is the only experience of pleasure available to him. That is all.

A rich man has many other pleasures. When pleasure is spread out, sex no longer remains intense. Its intensity, its sharpness, diminishes. Pleasure diffuses into other areas. He enjoys many kinds of delight—music, literature, dance, rest. His pleasure spreads to other planes. Because it spreads, the intensity of sex declines. The poor man has no other kinds of pleasures; only sex gives him joy. The rest of the day is all suffering—labor, hard work, breaking stones—just that.

Sex is a feeling of pleasure given by nature. If a person lives only in it, then ordinarily life will be suffering and sex will be pleasure. And one will bear all the suffering just for the pleasure of sex. But if one begins to rise above it—meaning, explores further—then the whole religious search is the search for pleasures above sex. As one begins to find joy higher than sex, the energy that used to manifest through sex to gain pleasure starts peeking through new doorways to taste joy there; gradually it takes leave of the door of sex and begins to rise.

Call it kundalini or give it any other name—it makes no difference. The whole matter is simply this: around the sex center the entire energy is gathered; it is a reservoir. If you can take the energy upward, that reservoir will stop throwing energy downward. If you cannot take it upward, the reservoir will release. And the interesting thing is that the ordinary pleasure of sex is merely the pleasure of release: so much energy accumulates that it becomes heavy, tense; you discharge it.

Now understand: if a person neither goes upward nor allows the sex reservoir to release, then his energies will begin to descend—below sex. And what will these energies do? Because sex is the boundary of pleasure; below it lie the territories of pain. What will these energies do then? They will become sadistic or masochistic. Either they will torment themselves or they will torment others.

And, interestingly, the enjoyment that arises is of the same flavor as the sexual. The man who is whipping himself will release as much energy by whipping as would have given him pleasure through sex. That energy, once discharged, leaves him tired and relaxed; he will feel great relief. It may appear to us that he has inflicted great pain on himself; for him it is a kind of ease, because the energy has been released.

And a person who begins to take pleasure in giving himself pain—and that is precisely what it is, taking pleasure in one’s own pain—will also begin to enjoy giving pain to others. He will torment others, harass others, and find many ways to trouble them.

Now, Tandon-ji asks: Is there any difference between religious perverts and ordinary perverts? There is a small difference. The ordinary perverted person is in a better condition than the religiously perverted person. In a better condition! Because he has a constant sense that some craziness is happening, some mistake, some lapse—I am somewhat ill.

The religious pervert does not even have that. He cannot be doing anything wrong—he is practicing austerity! He is doing the very same thing, but he has found grand justifications for it, respectable reasons. Therefore he will never consider himself mad, deranged, or diseased—first.

Secondly, the ordinary deranged person will hide his derangement; he will not reveal it. It may be that at night he presses his wife’s throat, pricks her with thorns...

You will be surprised to know, the word “sadism” comes from a man: de Sade, a very great writer. His way of making love was precisely this—from him the term “sadism,” “pain-ism,” arose—that whenever he loved a woman he kept with him a whip, a knife, thorns! He had a bag for this. When he loved, after closing the doors, the first thing was to whip her! He would strip her naked and begin to whip her! And she would run, scream, cry; the more she screamed and cried, the more bliss he felt! He would prick with thorns; he had made all kinds of instruments for just this—how to torment a woman!

Ordinarily it doesn’t occur to us. Ordinarily it doesn’t occur to us that if in love someone is pinching a woman, it is sadism in a small measure. It is a tiny act of torture. In love people will press their nails into each other, even scratch each other. In love it doesn’t occur to us that this pressing of nails, this scratching, this squeezing hard is a kind of sadism. It is sadism—very subtle. And because it is common, “normal” sadism for almost everyone, it doesn’t register. Now if a man goes a bit further—nails no longer suffice—he fashions thorns! He pricks with thorns; then we notice.

But the interesting thing is that hundreds of women had relationships with de Sade. He was an extraordinary man. Who knows how many women fell in love with him—he was that kind of man! And he was very gifted. The women who loved him also say that the joy that came with him never came with anyone else. It is very curious that even his whipping was liked by women! The reason is that by whipping he would create such an orgiastic charge—the woman running, he whipping, he pricking with thorns, pulling her hair, pressing with nails, biting—that he filled the woman’s whole body with such vibration that when he went into sex with her, she could reach what is called climax, which ordinarily women do not reach. In intercourse, ninety-eight out of a hundred women never reach climax, because their whole body simply does not awaken. So even after so much torment, women would like him, thinking: this man is astonishing. And he would say: unless I torment, no flavor comes to me, no joy comes to me.

Exactly like de Sade there was another man, Masoch, from whose name “masochism” comes. His work was the reverse. He would torment himself. De Sade would torment the other; he would torment himself. He would torment himself in all kinds of ways, and by tormenting himself he would become very happy.

In truth, the energy that remains with us can be set in motion either toward pleasure or toward pain—only two directions; there is no third. You cannot stand still in between. Either you move your energies toward joy, or else they will begin to move toward suffering.

Therefore it happens that a husband will sometimes torment his wife and sometimes love her; he will torment, then love; love, then torment. The wife too will torment: one day she will appear loving, the next day she will appear tormenting. In the morning she will create an uproar; in the evening she will be pressing his feet! It is hard to make sense of what is going on. Why do these two things run together?

And remember: the one whom we love for a little while, after a little while we will torment. Because that normality is over; now the other begins. Soon we will find a way to torment. Often it will happen that husband and wife fight, fight, fight—and then fall into great love; and as they come into love, love, love, they begin to fight again. In this way their circle keeps going. Whoever we torment, after a little while the tormenting feels complete; then we will love, then love, then torment again. That is all that “normal” means.

“Abnormal” means that either he goes entirely in the direction of pleasure—then too he is abnormal; or he goes in the direction of pain—then too he is abnormal. Such a person is extraordinary. Yet by going in the direction of bliss he may ultimately reach God, because God is supreme bliss. And by going in the direction of pain he may reach the devil, because to be a devil is the ultimate pain.

What I am saying—and the question that has been asked—is about the religious and the ordinary: the religious person will do these same things openly; the irreligious person will do them secretly. And because the religious person does them openly, he is more dangerous: by doing them openly he spreads them, he gives them extension. And the irony is that the religious man creates in people the feeling that what he is doing is not some derangement. These acts are of great austerity; he is doing something lofty. And if a madman gets the idea that he is doing something lofty, then the possibility of his madness being cured is finished.

In India the number of madmen is small; in Europe it is larger. But if you add the number of sannyasins, monks and tormentors in India to the number of madmen, the figures become equal. The basic reason is: here there is a diversion; there, there is not even that diversion. There, one who is mad is mad; one who is not mad is not mad. Here, between mad and non-mad there is a third path, that a man can in this way...

I know a man in Jabalpur who will clean a vessel one hundred and eight times before bringing water in it. If this man were in Europe, he would be called mad. If this man is in India, he becomes religious. People will say, “What a supremely religious man! What scrupulousness about purity!” He will scour the vessel a hundred and eight times! And even if a woman happens to pass by in between, the first series is finished; he will begin again from one!

Such a man, here, is religious. Many will touch his feet and say, “A supremely religious man!” Sometimes whole days will pass in just this—because he is washing at the tap, and again a woman passes; the first round is finished, the pot is impure again, now he is purifying it again. This man in Europe would be mad, immediately sent to a madhouse. Here this man will sit in a temple, become a priest, become a sadhu. He will begin to be honored.

Thus religious perversion is more dangerous—it is not visible to us.

Take, for instance, an incident in Mahavira’s life, to make it clear. Mahavira gave up all implements. He would keep no means with him, because he must have felt—and one does feel—that means too become a burden. And the person who has taken the whole of life as his own—well, all right: what will be, will be, tomorrow morning. So Mahavira kept nothing with him. Who would carry burdens around? When all are one’s own, the matter ends. Now God will take care. So he kept no implements. He did not even keep a razor to cut his hair. When the hair grew long, he would pluck them out. When the hair grew long, he would pull them out.

For Mahavira this plucking of hair was not even a trace of derangement; it was utterly natural. Keep nothing with you; the simplest is to pluck the hair once in a while. In a year or two they grow, pluck them again, and the journey goes on. Why bind oneself by keeping even this much possession with you? Why take a load? For the real burden is not the stuff itself; deep down, it is the wish for safety in holding on to things. So he lived utterly without safety—no sense of security, no urge to keep anything. Wherever something was received, that was enough.

So he would take food right into his hands. Why create the nuisance of a bowl? He would take food in the hands and eat with the hands.

But Mahavira’s hair-plucking must have seemed very appealing to some madmen. There is a class of madmen who pluck their hair, who enjoy plucking hair. That too is a kind of self-torment.

So it is not difficult that, seeing Mahavira pluck his hair, some madmen who relish hair-plucking became monks around him—for the very reason that now, by plucking their hair, no one could call them mad. Now they could pluck to their heart’s content.

Mahavira became naked. For if a person becomes so simple, so innocent, that he has no awareness even of nakedness...

And this is a very interesting point: we feel the awareness of our own nakedness only so long as we want to see someone else’s body naked. The two are interrelated. As long as we want to see another’s body naked, we are afraid that someone might see our body naked. These are two sides of the same coin. As long as we want to strip the clothes off another, so long we want to drape our own body. But the person in whom the urge to see another’s body naked has dissolved can stand naked. Mahavira stood naked.

But there are some people whom we call exhibitionists, who want to show themselves naked to others; this is a class of madmen. So if such exhibitionists came and became sannyasins around Mahavira, wanting that someone should see them naked—then trouble arises. Their desire is entirely different, but the event looks the same.

Even now in Europe and in several countries there are bans on exhibitionists. There are some people—there is a certain percentage—who will stand by the roadside, and if someone is passing alone, they will suddenly open their pants, become naked and, having shown themselves, run away. There is a ban on such people, because they are dangerous.

What is happening to them? What juice are they getting out of it? Their pleasure is that another should see them naked. And they are mad—plain mad. But in India they can be naked sadhus! And then we will not even notice their madness. They will become objects of worship.

The difficulty in understanding life is exactly this: both kinds of events can occur, hence the confusion. A man can be naked because no urge remains in him to hide, to cover, to look; he has become utterly simple, so like a child he can be naked. And a man can be naked like a madman, because he has a relish in being naked so that others see him naked. And both events can exist side by side. Therefore it is very difficult to understand life clearly.

But the difficulty can be recognized; rules can be made. The man who has become naked out of simplicity will be simple in other parts of life as well.

Yes, it was very much indulgence. For them it is indulgence—nothing but indulgence. And for them there is complete enjoyment in nakedness; for them it is entirely a part of their indulgence. It is not that they have left clothes; rather, nakedness has come. That is to say, the emphasis is not on having discarded clothes but on nakedness arising. A simplicity has come, and life has become so simple that, like the life of a child, of an animal or a bird—simple and innocent—they stand like that.

But such a person will be utterly simple in the other parts of life too—simple in every way, guileless, innocent. In the other areas of his life there will be no signs of madness. Whereas the person who is an exhibitionist, who is naked only so that others will see him naked—this is his illness. Such a person will not be simple in other areas; he will be complex. In other areas too his derangement will show, his madness will reveal itself.

And in this country it has now become necessary to take a decisive decision about this. For some five thousand years this mischief has been going on. In the midst of that commotion it has become difficult to decide who is authentic and who is merely fulfilling a leaning toward madness. Both possibilities exist. Therefore a very clear line has to be drawn. The person who insists on giving up clothes is an exhibitionist. And the person by whom clothes simply drop—that person is attaining a nakedness that is innocent.

Religious madness is more dangerous, because religion gets attached to it. We fail to see that plain madness, in a sense, is simple—because the madman becomes helpless. The religious madman is not helpless; he makes others helpless. He stands above them.

For example, a pope sentenced Joan of Arc to be burned alive. The woman was burned because she was speaking against religion. The pope has full satisfaction in this—that he is a religious man and is burning a woman because she is saying irreligious things. He is doing God’s work.

To burn a woman—and a simple woman like Joan—was utterly irreligious. Yet the pope is gratified! If some other man had done this, he would have been proved mad, a criminal. The pope was not a criminal; the pope was performing a religious act! He had a woman set alight, standing there before him!

Seven years later, when another pope came to power, he considered it and concluded, no, this was an excess. Joan was a very simple woman and should be given the status of saint. So she became Saint Joan. Seven years later another pope made her a saint! But the pope who had ordered the burning—he became a criminal. But he had died; what could be done now?

So this pope punished him by having his bones exhumed, beaten with shoes, and dragged through the streets! The grave of that dead pope was opened, his bones taken out, he was beaten with shoes, spat upon, and his bones were dragged along the road to humiliate him!

And this man is religious again! We ought to say such minds are mad—indeed, even more mad than the first pope; not less. But his madness will not be visible; his madness takes on a religious definition. This religious person will produce a garbage of words and it will all appear perfectly right, and what he is doing will seem proper. Religion is giving a justification to his derangement.

Religion has given justification to many kinds of derangements. This justification needs to be broken. And it will only be broken when we separate the cult of suffering from religion; otherwise it will not break. For it is within that ideology of suffering that the entire justification hides—giving pain to others, giving pain to oneself, everything hides in it.

In my vision, therefore, religion is the search for happiness—supreme happiness, which we can call bliss. And a religious person is one who constantly moves toward bliss himself and strives that bliss continuously grow all around. He neither torments himself nor harbors the desire to torment others; in his mind there is no reverence for suffering, no respect for it. If we call such a person religious, then the direction toward supreme bliss becomes religion. Otherwise, up to now, it has been a direction toward supreme suffering!

One more, the last.

This is a very important point—nasagra drishti. Nasagra drishti means: the eyes are half closed, half open. If you look at the tip of your nose, one half of the eyes naturally closes and the other remains open—neither fully shut, nor fully open.

Ordinarily we do only two things: the eyes are closed in sleep, or open in waking. Nasagra drishti simply does not occur in our usual life; there is no ordinary need for it. The eyes are either fully open or fully closed. Between the two there is a point where the eyes are half open, half closed.

If we stand with nasagra drishti, we can see the ground for about four feet ahead—no more. So ordinarily no one keeps a nasagra gaze.

Here a few points matter. First, fully closed eyes lead the ocular nerves inward into sleep. As soon as the eyes are fully shut, the brain’s nerves connected with the eyes relax at once, and sleep comes. Fully open eyes bring wakefulness.

Meditation is a state different from both; it is neither sleep nor waking. It is relaxed as in sleep and alert as in waking. Meditation is a third state. It is not sleep, and it is not waking; yet it partakes of both. The relaxation of sleep should be there in meditation, and the awareness of waking—alertness, consciousness—should also be there in meditation.

So meditation is the middle state. And nasagra drishti leaves the nerves behind the eyes in that middle state. It is a very scientific thing. In that condition the nerves are neither as taut as in waking, nor as loose as in sleep when they go off. They are in the middle—at a point of equilibrium.

Thus nasagra drishti has great yogic value, great physiological value, and it creates a precious support for meditation.

The second thing to understand is this: with eyes completely closed, a person becomes enclosed, shut off on all sides, cut off from the world. Fully closed eyes make a person an island; all connection with the world breaks—he is closed within himself. Fully open eyes join the person to the outer world, and he forgets himself; everything else remains, he alone is effaced. With closed eyes everything else is effaced and only he remains. With open eyes everything else is real and only he is effaced.

Half closed, half open eyes also mean: we are not cut off from all—there is connection with all; and it is not true either that only all else is true and we are false. We are, and all is, both.

Mahavira’s whole emphasis is continually on sam—equipoise. Samyak is the word he uses most. In everything, the mean; in every matter, the middle; to stand where extremes are not—non-excess. Even with the eyes his teaching is non-excess: neither fully open nor fully closed—half. The world, too, is true—but half: it is not as true as it appears to us. We, too, are true—but half: we are not as we seem with eyes closed.

Shankara says the whole world is unreal; there is no truth in the world. Close the eyes and the world at once becomes unreal. What remains true then?

So a person who tries to meditate with closed eyes will come close to some doctrine of maya, illusion. Because with closed eyes, when he comes to self-experience, the world will appear utterly unreal—almost as if it isn’t.

Those who have said the world is illusory—Shankara, Advaita—have a reason. It is the experience of closed eyes. If meditation is done with closed eyes, the world is bound to become illusory, because nothing remains there but oneself. With closed eyes there is no experience of the outer world; only the experience of oneself remains. It becomes so intense that anyone would declare that all that was outside was false; it was not the truth.

If someone lives with eyes completely open to the outer world, like Charvaka, he will say there is nothing within, soul and such are false notions: eat, drink, be merry. This is the experience of fully open eyes—that everything is outside: eat, drink, enjoy. There is nothing within; go within and you die—there is nothing there. There is nothing like a soul. If one lives by the experience of fully open eyes, only sensory pleasures remain; the soul dissolves. Then the world is true and the soul is false.

And Mahavira says: the world is true and the soul is true. The world is not false, nor is the soul false. Mahavira says these are two ways of seeing. If someone experiences with closed eyes, the self will seem true and the world false. Another view is: someone never sits in meditation with closed eyes and lives only in the outer world; he will say soul and such are false, only the world is true. These are two standpoints; they are not philosophy.

Mahavira says: the world is true, the self is true; matter is true, and the supreme self is true. Both are parts of a greater truth. Both are true.

And the symbol of that is nasagra drishti. That is, Mahavira would never meditate with eyes completely closed, nor with eyes completely open; the eyes half open, half closed. Let there be a link between the outer and the inner—awake, yet not only awake. Let there be a continuous flow of consciousness between outside and inside. In such a state, the one who attains meditation will not feel “only I am true,” nor will he feel “the outside is false,” or “only the outside is true.” He will feel that truth is in both, and that it connects both.

Those half-open eyes have symbolic meaning, and they are the best for meditation. Only, they are a little difficult. Because two experiences are very easy for us: open eyes and closed eyes. The half-open is a little difficult—but it is the best.

No; it is the diametrically opposite category.

No, no, the level is not the same either. The level is not the same. But both are speaking partial truths—in that respect alone they are one. The level is not the same either...

To him, the world is bound to appear unreal.

He didn’t meditate at all; he merely kept his eyes open. There is no way to meditate with open eyes. With open eyes, the outer world is everything. And he lived only in that: ate, drank, made merry; and never went within. Because to go within, one would have to close the eyes. He never went within.

There was Joad, a recent Western thinker. He has written that many times people told him, “Do meditate sometime.” He must have gone to meet Gurdjieff, and Gurdjieff said to him, “Sometimes, close your eyes too.”

So he said, “But where is the leisure? I get up in the morning and the running about begins. Until evening, when I sleep, I keep running. Where is the leisure? Where is a separate time for meditation? Either I am awake or I sleep. Where is there space for a third state? And where does a third state even happen? Either be awake or sleep. If you sleep, only you remain; if you are awake, everything else remains—you do not remain.”

What Joad said is right. If someone had said the same to Charvaka, he too would have said, “What meditation! We are awake; when we get tired, we sleep. When the fatigue is gone, we wake up again. We live in the senses; therefore, live as long as you can stay awake. Live as fully as you can while awake. Enjoy as much as you can. Taste the essence of everything. And what is this ‘within’? There is nothing within; within is a lie. For one who has never gone within, the within is bound to be false.” So Charvaka is living only on the outside! What is the outer is the truth for him.

People like Shankara live only within! So the inner alone is the truth; and the entire outer becomes false. In one sense these two are alike—in the sense that they are declaring a half-truth to be the whole truth; in that sense, they are the same. Even so, if one has to choose, Shankara is worth choosing; Charvaka is not. Because Charvaka is saying: only this much is life—eat and drink; only this much is life. And what Mahavira is saying is: both these statements are true.

Yes, yes, absolutely.

No, I am saying he went towards a much deeper indulgence. Because within there is more indulgence than there is without. No, I am not saying that. Such a mistake happens because of my continual talking. Shankar...

Charvaka is saying: even if you have to borrow to drink ghee, drink it. Don’t worry about debt; just make sure you get ghee. So he lives for ghee. But he is living very outwardly. His enjoyment extends only to eating and drinking. Yet there is an inner enjoyment too—towards that he has no gaze, no attention! It is Shankara who is truly a great hedonist, because Shankara goes into a much deeper enjoyment.

And Mahavira, since he keeps balance and equanimity in everything, says he will not call Charvaka wrong. If Charvaka were to come to him, he would say: you are absolutely right—there is truth outside. The only mistake is that you have not gone within; there too is truth. To Shankara he would say the same: you are absolutely right; it is perfectly true that truth is within. But the outside, to which you have closed your eyes, does not become untrue because you close your eyes; only your knowing of it stops. It remains outside.

And the whole of life is made up of the outer and the inner together. To break one in favor of the other is incompleteness, a one-sided vision. In this sense he is anekanti. On each aspect—seeing what the oppositions are in each—he wants to squeeze the truth out of both.