Mahaveer Meri Drishti Mein #22

As the Mahabharata tells it, Drona asked all his disciples, “What do you see on the tree?” One said, “I can see the whole tree.” Another said, “The sun rising behind the tree is also visible.” Another said, “I can see the distant village too; the whole sky is visible; the clouds are visible—everything is visible.” Arjuna said, “I see nothing else—only the eye of the dummy bird that has been hung there.” Then Drona said, “You alone are truly one-pointed.” One-pointedness means that the point we are looking at absorbs all our attention; it contracts and gathers at one spot. Toward everything else we are closed; toward the rest we have fallen asleep.
Concentration is awakening toward a single point and sleeping toward all other points. Restlessness is also awakening toward a single point and sleeping toward the rest—but there is a slight difference between restlessness and concentration.
In concentration, the point does not change; in restlessness, the point goes on changing continuously. There is no real difference between the two: in concentration one point remains, everything else has fallen asleep. All around there is a swoon; only toward one point does alertness remain. In restlessness it is the same, except that the one point keeps changing rapidly—now this, now that, now something else. It remains one point—sometimes A, sometimes B, sometimes C—and towards the rest one remains asleep.

Meditation means there is no point at all toward which the mind is asleep. Simply, there is awakening. So meditation is not concentration. Meditation is not restlessness either. Meditation is just awakening.

And understand it more deeply: ordinarily we awaken toward something; we do not simply remain awake. If we awaken toward something, we cannot be awake to the whole. If you are listening to me, then all the other sounds happening around the world will not be heard by you. Your attention becomes concentrated on me. So if a bird calls outside, a dog barks, someone passes by—you will not notice. That is concentration.

Awareness would mean that, simultaneously, whatever is happening is all being known. We are not awake toward one thing; we are awake toward the totality of what is happening. My words are being heard, the crow caws and that is heard, a dog barks and that is heard too. And not in separate fragments, because in time these are occurring together—right now, as we sit here, a thousand events are taking place. To be awake to all of them at once.

Mahavira would call that amoorchha—non-stupefaction—pure awakening. And let such awakening become so vast that not only are the outer sounds heard, but the rhythm of your breath is also heard, the flutter of your eyelids is known, the thoughts moving within are known too. Whatever is happening—whatever, in this very moment, is being reflected in the mirror of my consciousness—that all is being known.

If the whole is being known—from within to without—then the focus breaks; only awakening remains. This is the attainment of your full, intrinsic nature.

This full nature has always been with us. But we use it in such a way that it never becomes whole; rather, we expend our total energy on partial points and limit it there. Awakening is with us, but we have never used awakening toward the totality. Because we have not used it, there is torpor toward the rest and awareness toward a few.

And then the question arises: where did torpor come from?
Torpor has not come from anywhere; it is created by us. And through continuous experience and understanding it becomes visible, and then torpor dissolves. Then we become transparent. Then there is only awakening, and it casts no shadow. Nowhere will any shadow be formed.

First, understand this: a tradition forms only when the living has been lost. A tradition is the dry trace that remains in the absence of the living. A tradition can continue for millions of years and yet have no life in it. In truth, whatever is alive does not become a tradition while it is alive. A tradition is formed only when the living is gone, and what remains in our hands is merely the dead burden of the past—that is what makes a tradition.

I have heard: In one household there was an old father and his small children. The father died, the mother died; the children were very young—born to him in his later years. When they grew up, they remembered that every day after eating their father would go to a wall niche and pick something up and put it back. After his death they thought, “This was a daily act; it cannot have been something ordinary—surely it was a ritual.” They looked in the niche and found a small stick their father had kept for cleaning his teeth. Every day after his meal he would go to the niche and clean his teeth.

Those children thought the stick must have some meaning. They did not know what; they did not know that their father was old and needed a stick to clean his teeth. But regularly they would go to the niche, lift the stick, look at it, and put it back—thus following their father’s rule every day.

Then they grew wealthy and built a new house. “Why keep such a little stick?” they thought. They no longer knew what it was for. So they hired a fine craftsman to make a large wooden staff, had it carved, and installed it in the niche! They built a grand niche. Now the question of lifting it no longer arose. Their own children were born, and those children too saw their father go to that niche with great reverence.

Then their father also passed away. The children would go there every day and bow, because their father had always gone to that niche after meals. It became a regular act. A tradition was formed. Now it was only a tradition; nothing meaningful remained. A dead rut takes hold, and it keeps running on.

In Mahavira’s time there was such a rut. The track of the previous Tirthankara’s vision had become merely a groove. There were acharyas, there were monks; but the stream was dead. A dead stream can continue for a long time—and it becomes obstinate. Mahavira gave birth to a new vision, a new way of seeing. A new wind blew, a new sun rose; but those walking the old track did not accept the new. Bound to their groove, they went on. So it happened that what Mahavira said also went on, and what belonged to the previous tradition too continued—like a dead current. Its outline lingered for a while.

This question seems meaningful, but it is not. A mere tradition does not make anything alive. In fact, the opposite is true: when something has become a tradition, it has already died—that is when a tradition is formed. And the presence of acharyas does not necessarily mean they are heirs to a living tradition.

The truth is that their very existence is the announcement that no living, experienced knower remains. What was once known gets carried by those who know about it—not the knower himself, but those who know what someone once knew—and such people begin to play the role of guru. There were monks, yes. But nothing happens through monks, teachers, or gurus unless there is someone carrying a living experience. And such persons had been lost; they were not there.

Therefore, in Mahavira’s guidance there is no impediment in the fact that followers of the previous Tirthankara still remained. Among them, those few who were intelligent, living seekers came to Mahavira. Those who were not—who were stubborn, blind, insistent—clung to their rut and went on!

Moreover, the birth of such individuals cannot be linked to those who came before; there is no need to connect them. Whenever there is need in the world—when our very life-breaths call out—some available consciousness, out of compassion, returns. It depends on need, on our call. In this age, for instance, the call has been gradually diminishing.

Someone once said: there was a time when people at least took the trouble to deny God; now most people do not even care to make that effort. There was zest even in denying; the one who denied relished it. Now more people will say, “Leave it. All right—if he is, he is; if he isn’t, he isn’t!” No one has the leisure even to deny God’s existence! The journey of acceptance is far off, the search for acceptance farther still—but people do not even have time to deny. They will just say, “All right.”

Nietzsche has said—about God—“Soon the time will come when no one will even deny you. Be ready for that day.” Not being worshiped is another matter; be prepared even for the time when you will not be denied!

He spoke rightly. He indicated the feeling-tone of an entire age—what the situation is. And whatever our deep life longs and thirsts for, that very longing and thirst becomes its birth.

There is a hollow. Rain falls on the mountain; it does not fill on the mountain—though it falls there—it gathers in the hollow. The hollow is prepared, waiting; the water rushes and fills it. Someone might say the water is very compassionate, that it filled the hollow. Someone else might say the hollow’s call was great—because it was empty, the water had to come. In the depths both are true at once. Whenever there is need—whenever the life-breath is thirsty—some available consciousness descends to fill this hollow.

There was need in Mahavira’s time. The old tradition was continuing, the old gurus were there, but they were dead; there was no life in them. Therefore, at his advent there is nothing inconsistent to be said.

Hmm! Truth is neither new nor old; truth simply is. And that which is eternal can never become old, nor can it ever be new. What is new today will be old tomorrow; what looks old today was new yesterday. But truth is not new, because it will never become old; nor is it old, because it was never new. In fact, the words new and old are meaningless in relation to truth. The new is that which is born; the old is that which ages. Truth is neither born, nor does it age, nor does it die.

A wave can be new or old, but the ocean is neither new nor old. Clouds can be new or old, but the sky is neither. In fact, the sky is that within which the new comes into being and the old grows old; the old disappears and the new arises—yet the sky itself is neither new nor old.

Truth too is neither new nor old. That is why whenever someone claims, “This truth is very ancient,” it is a foolish claim. And when someone says, “This truth is absolutely new,” that too is foolish. Claims of newness and antiquity are born of ignorance.

There have been two kinds of claimants in the world. One says, “This truth is ancient; it is written in our scripture, and our scripture is thousands of years old.” The other says, “This truth is brand-new, because it isn’t written in any book.” But no such claims can be made about truth. Then what can be said? Only this: although truth is continuous, our connection with it is not continuous; it comes and goes.

Truth is continuity, eternity. But even though the sky is continually above us, it doesn’t follow that we are seeing the sky. A person could spend his whole life looking at the ground.

Imagine a village where everyone has always looked only at the ground and no one even knows there is a sky. If someone were to lift his eyes and shout, “Do you see? There is a sky! Why are you dying with your eyes nailed to the earth?”—some might say, “He has revealed a brand-new truth!” Others might say, “What is new in this? Our forefathers wrote of the sky in the scriptures.” Both would be wrong. The question is not whether something has been said about the sky or not, nor whether what is said is new or old. The question is: do we have a living, continuous connection with it?

What Mahavira says, what Buddha, Jesus, Krishna say, is perhaps the very same that is ever-present. But our connection with it keeps breaking. They cry out, call again and again, trying to raise our eyes toward it. Our eyes barely begin to lift before they fall back down.

In this sense, whenever anyone realizes truth, it should be said: it is new that is realized. The person comes upon truth anew. Truth itself may not be new or old, but for the person who realizes it, it is an experience—new, for the first time—for him. And in this sense truth can also be called new, because another’s truth becomes stale for us and is never of any use. It becomes meaningful when it becomes new again through our own connection with it.

“What new did Mahavira give?”—that is not the question. Even if he gave something new, by now it would have become old. The question is not what new Mahavira gave, but whether he lived differently from the common run of people. That way of living was utterly new—not new in the sense that no one had ever lived so before; even if millions had, it would make no difference. When I love someone, that love is new. Millions before me have loved, yet no lover will agree that his love is stale or old. It is new—utterly new for him. And another’s love is of no use to someone else; only one’s own experience has value.

So Mahavira realized truth wholly in his own way. What became available to him has become available to many, and will continue to become available to many. But no one’s personal seal is stamped upon realization. If I get up tomorrow morning and see the sun, you cannot come and say to me, “You are looking at a stale sun, because I too have seen it.” Even if millions have seen it, the sun does not become stale because you have seen it. And when I see it, I see it anew—just as fresh as you ever saw it. No stamp of staleness forms upon the sun; nor upon truth.

Yes, many have spoken of love, and many will continue to do so; but whenever anyone realizes love, it is realized anew. When Mahavira realized love—which he calls ahimsa—he realized it anew.

With regard to truth itself there is no new or old; with regard to experience there is. And with regard to expression there is very much new and old. The expression Mahavira gave to ahimsa is utterly unique and new—perhaps no one had ever given it that way before. Expression can be new, and therefore it grows old. Even Mahavira’s expression has now grown old. If I say something today, tomorrow it will be old. Tomorrow is far off—no sooner have I said it than it has already become the past.

Expression can be new, and for that very reason it becomes old. Truth never becomes new, and therefore never becomes old.

Yet whenever it becomes available to someone, it is realized utterly new—fresh, young, untouched, virginal. That is why if the one to whom it has happened cries out, “A new truth has been found!” you need not be annoyed. That is exactly how it feels to him. For the first time, this sun has risen in his life. That it may have risen in someone else’s life is irrelevant; for him it has dawned anew. It has made everything fresh by its touch. So he may well cry out that it is absolutely new.

What happened to him can then be searched for in the scriptures; and the scholar will say, “What is new in it? It is written in our books.” It may be written in all the books, yet when a person comes upon truth, his taste of it is of freshness, of a new discovery. We could also say: truth is ever-living, therefore ever fresh and new. It depends on our way of speaking what we choose to call it.

My own understanding is that each person realizes truth only as new. Truth has always been, but when a person relates to it, for him it becomes new. And the expression each person gives to his experience is new as well—because no one else can give that expression. For there has never been, is not, and cannot be another exactly like that person.

In fact, in my being born—this event we take so casually!—how vast a universe is involved, we have no idea. For me to be born, everything that has been in the world up to this point is responsible. And if I were to be born again, only if the entire situation of the world were repeated in its entirety could I be born; otherwise I could not. I would need my father and my mother; they too would have to be born of the very fathers and mothers from whom they were born—and they too… And so, if we keep going back, we find that the whole state of the universe is implicated in the birth of a single small person. If even an inch goes this way or that, I will not be born; whoever appears will be someone else. And if you wanted to produce me again, only if the whole past of the world were repeated in full could I be born—which shows no sign of possibility. How could it be repeated?

So a person cannot be produced a second time. Therefore a person’s experience, and his expression of it, also cannot be reproduced. In this sense, since the experience of truth is personal, individual—though one and the same, it is different for each.

Rabindranath wrote of an old man, a friend of his father’s, who lived next door and often came to their house. He troubled Rabindranath a great deal. Whenever Rabindranath wrote poems about God, the soul, the Supreme, the old man would laugh, grab his hand and shake it, and ask, “Have you experienced it? Have you seen God?” He would laugh so heartily that Rabindranath says he began to fear him. If he saw him on the street he would slip away, because the man would catch him there and ask, “Have you experienced God? Have you seen God?” And he did not have the courage to say yes. Truly, what experience had he had? He was writing poems. The man pestered him so much.

But one day—it was the rainy season—he had gone out toward the sea. The sun had come out; it was morning. The sun’s reflection was on the sea, and in the puddles and muddy ditches along the roadside there were reflections as well. As he was returning, suddenly the question arose in him: Is there any difference between the reflection in the sea and the reflection in this dirty puddle? Has the reflection become dirty because it is in a dirty puddle? The puddle is dirty—but is the reflection, because it is formed in a dirty puddle, also made dirty? And will it be clean only in clean water?

Suddenly there was an explosion within. He felt: how can the puddle touch the reflection to make it dirty? How could a reflection be dirtied? Whether it appears in pure water or in filthy water, it is the same. And yet, the reflection in the sea appears one way, and in the dirty puddle another.

That day he returned so happy that whoever he met on the road he embraced in sheer joy. He lost his wits. He even met that man he used to avoid—and he too he embraced. The man said, “All right, all right—now I recognize that it has happened to you. I will not ask you anymore.” The man said, “Now I won’t ask! When I used to come to you and you avoided me, I would think, ‘How could he have experienced God? I too am God. If the experience has happened, from whom would he hide? From whom would he run?’ Now it has happened to you. It is fine. I can see it in your eyes.”

For three days this state continued. When people were exhausted, he hugged cows, buffaloes, horses—whoever came his way! When they too were exhausted, trees! For three days it went on. Rabindranath writes that what he came to know in those three days became his treasure for life. That one small incident—the realization that a reflection formed in a dirty puddle does not become dirty like the puddle—is the same reflection.

And yet, the sea’s reflection is the sea’s, the puddle’s is the puddle’s. So the reflection of truth that forms in Mahavira is the same that forms in me, in you, in anyone—but still, Mahavira’s is Mahavira’s, mine is mine, yours is yours. The moon is the same, the sun is the same, truth is the same; the reflection is the same—and yet the vessels in which it appears are different. And when they go to give expression to it, they diverge even more.

Before Mahavira there was talk of love, and after him there will be; but the reflection that formed in Mahavira was purely his own. Such a reflection never was, nor can it ever be.

I have not the slightest partiality toward creeds and sects. There are no Jains, no Buddhists, no Hindus, no Christians, no Muslims. In the world there are only two kinds of people: the religious and the irreligious. And one who is religious can be a Buddha, a Mahavira, a Krishna, a Christ; but he cannot be a Hindu, a Jain, a Muslim, a Christian. The religious person reaches the source; once one has reached the source, there remains no reason to be sectarian.

Two kinds of people, I said: religious and irreligious. The religious person becomes what Buddha or Mahavira became. The irreligious person cannot become a Buddha or a Mahavira, so he becomes a Jain or a Buddhist! Sects belong to irreligious people; the religious person has no sect.

You can even put it this way: religion has no sects; all sects belong to irreligion. The irreligious person cannot muster the courage to be a Mahavira; he cannot be Jesus, cannot be Buddha, cannot be Krishna. What is he to do? He too wants to enjoy the taste of being religious, but he cannot be religious—because being religious means passing through a great revolution—so he finds a cheaper route. He says, “We cannot be Mahavira, but we can be Jains. If we cannot be Mahavira, at least we can believe in him; believing is not difficult. We can be followers—so we are Jains.”

But he does not know: how can anyone be a Jain without being a Jina? If one has not conquered truth, how can he be a Jain? Mahavira is a Jina because he conquered truth. This one is a “Jain” only because he believes in Mahavira!

How can anyone be a Buddha or a Buddhist without being enlightened? Without waking up, how can one be a Buddhist? Buddha became Buddha by awakening. The word “Buddha” itself means “the awakened.” Gautama Buddha—Gautama is his name; “Buddha” means the one who has awakened. He had to awaken in order to be Buddha. But we do not gather courage to awaken; instead we believe in Buddha and become Buddhists!

Jesus had to hang on the cross to be the Christ. But hanging on a cross is very difficult, so we make a cross—of wood, of silver, of gold—hang it around our necks and become Christians! These are devices to escape being religious. Sects are devices to avoid being religious. Religion has no sect. A religious person has no doctrine, no party line. All quarrels belong to the irreligious.

I have no side, no doctrine. I love Mahavira, so I speak of Mahavira. I love Buddha, so I speak of Buddha. I love Krishna, so I speak of Krishna. I love Christ, so I speak of Christ. I am no one’s follower. Nor am I biased that someone’s “ism” should prevail.

I do insist on this: that all of them should be understood. Because in understanding them, in a very indirect way, we become increasingly capable of understanding ourselves. No one can reach anywhere by trailing behind them; but if one understands them totally, deep foundations become available for understanding oneself.

And you ask a second thing: should we not establish a single religion of humanity?

All that is foolishness. A single religion can never be established in the world. In fact, all religions have already tried this—and the attempt created such madness that it defies calculation. Islam wants that there be only one religion—Islam! Christians want the same! Buddhists want it too; Jains would also want that only one religion remain—the religion of humanity! But their “human religion” will be nothing but their own religion; they want to make their religion the religion of all mankind.

This attempt is bound to fail. Human beings are so different from one another that a single religion is impossible. Yes, religiousness is possible—not one religion. One must understand the difference between these two.

So I am not in favor of any “religion of humanity” either. If I were to engage in such an effort, it would only become the one-thousand-and-first among the thousand religions—nothing more. When religions came, they all came proclaiming the religion of humanity; they said a single religion of man must be established. They only added one more to the count, and nothing changed.

In my vision, the very idea that there should be one human religion is wrong. Let there be religiousness in life! Religiousness needs no organization that gathers all people together—under one mosque, one temple, one flag. These are all mad ideas; religion has nothing to do with them. Yes, the effort should be that the earth be religious, that man be religious. If you set out to manufacture one human religion, the same old madness will begin again. Yet another sect will stand up and create a new nuisance; nothing else can happen.

So I am not striving to establish a human religion. My effort is simply this: that it become clear what religiousness is—what it means to be religious—and that an aspiration to be religious arise in the world. And then, let each person be religious in his or her own way. Whether they wear this cap or that, keep a tuft or a beard, wear ochre or white, go to a temple or a mosque, fold hands to the East or to the West—let it be the freedom of each individual. No organization, no scripture, no tradition is required for this.

Therefore I am not engaged in establishing a human religion. I am engaged in seeing that, in the name of religion, sects bid farewell. Let them vacate the space; let there be no place left for them. Let there be human beings, not sects. And let the effort be to kindle in man the longing to be religious. Then each person can be religious in his own way, as it seems right to him. If only the meaning of being religious becomes clear—just that much—there will be religiousness in the world, not sects. There will not be a “human religion”; there will be religiousness. And each person will be religious in his own way. In the world there will remain two kinds of people: the religious and the irreligious. The irreligious are those who are not willing to be religious.

But my own view is that if sects disappear, very few irreligious people will remain. Many people are irreligious only because, seeing the stupidities of sectarians, no intelligent person is willing to stand with “religion.” No intelligent person can stand with them. They are such vast crowds of fools that it is difficult for the intelligent to stand among them. So he ends up appearing irreligious. And if you inquire, perhaps you will find that his longing to be religious was so intense that none of these could satisfy him; therefore he stood apart. If sects vanish, even the opposition to the religious person in the world will dissolve.

And religiousness is such a joy that it is impossible to find a person who does not want to be religious. But religiousness should become freedom. It should become spontaneity. It should become thoughtful, discerning intelligence. Religiousness should be neither hypocrisy nor repression nor compulsion, neither by birth, nor by ritual, nor by ceremony. Let religiousness be of the heart, of understanding. Then there will be dharma on earth—not a “human religion”; not religion, but religiousness. And that is my emphasis.

And I say: what a person calls himself—of what use is that? The question is what he is. How he prays is not the question. To whom he prays is not the question. Is he prayerful—that is the question. Which scripture he calls true, which tradition he declares true—this is pointless. What is meaningful is: is the person engaged in the inquiry into truth? What kind of love he trumpets—Christian love, Jain nonviolence, Buddhist compassion—whose slogan he raises—that is not the question. The question is: is the man loving? Is he nonviolent? Does he have compassion?

Can compassion have a label? Can love carry a stamp—what kind of love? There are books with titles like “Christian Love.” Now what on earth would “Christian love” be? What could “Christian love” mean? There can be love—just love.

If this much becomes clear, then I am not striving for any human religion. In the past two kinds of efforts were made, and both failed. One effort was that a single religion tried to become the religion of all; it did not succeed. It led to much bloodshed, great turmoil, much fanaticism. Defeated by that, a second effort was made: to extract, to squeeze out, the essence common to all religions and collect it—like Theosophy attempted: take whatever is important in all religions and gather it together.

No sect was shattered by that. The sects stood where they were, and Theosophy became a new sect! Nothing really changed. The Theosophists had their own lodge, their own temple, their own organization. The Theosophists had their own way of worship, their own setup! A new religion arose. It had its own pilgrimage places, its whole arrangement—everything was in place. But none of the old sects were hurt by it.

Two attempts were made: either one religion would become all-inclusive— that did not happen; and then an effort was made to gather the essence of all religions—that too failed.

Now I want to suggest a third direction: oppose sectarianism as such, dissolve sects as such, and strive to establish religiosity. Not religion, but religiosity.

If that becomes possible, then a “human religion” will not arise in the sense of one religion; there will be no single religion, no church, no pope, no flag. And yet, in a very deep sense, a human religion will be established. It is in that deeper sense that my vision lies.