Yesterday I pondered a little about Mahavira’s childhood. As I said, one who carries the consciousness of a Tirthankara has touched perfection and returned. This means that for Mahavira, in this life nothing remained to do; only to give. Nothing remained to attain; only to share. If this is understood, it has very deep implications. The first implication is that the ordinary notion about Mahavira—that he performed renunciation—collapses as meaningless.
It is essential to understand clearly today that Mahavira never, even by mistake, did any renunciation. Renunciation was merely what appeared from the outside; Mahavira never did it. And what appears is not the truth, because what appears depends more on the onlookers than on what was actually seen.
To minds stuffed with indulgence, any dropping of anything looks like renunciation. Hence those who wrote about Mahavira’s life kept an account down to the last grain of what he left—what palaces, how vast a kingdom, how many elephants and horses, how many gems and jewels—everything itemized. Those who keep such ledgers reveal themselves as minds of indulgence, because they consider diamonds, jewels, horses, elephants, palaces supremely valuable. For them, Mahavira leaving these must have seemed miraculous. A mind of indulgence cannot let go; it only knows how to grab. Yes, you can pry things loose from it, but it cannot let go by itself. And when such a mind sees someone slipping away so effortlessly, it cannot imagine a more startling miracle.
But a consciousness like Mahavira’s does not renounce anything, because on that plane the very urge to hold has disappeared. Those who grip can also release. Those who do not grip, who have no clinging at all—where is the question of their letting go?
Mahavira did not renounce anything. He simply moved on from the futile. Yet we will see it as gigantic renunciation. And in seeing it so, all that is proved is that we ourselves are minds of possession, minds of grasping—nothing more. Mahavira was not a renunciate; it is certain only that the people who saw him were indulgers. In the mind of an indulger renunciation has great value. Values are always the reverse. To the sick, health is precious; the healthy hardly notice. To the dull, intelligence is priceless; the intelligent scarcely know of it. We become aware only of what we lack. And if we are trying to clutch something, and someone else drops it, we stare in astonished wonder.
Here, I want to speak from within Mahavira. Mahavira is not dropping anything. And whoever drops something—after dropping, a grip remains upon the dropping. A man may leave a hundred thousand rupees; he will indeed leave the money, but the grip remains—'I left a hundred thousand.' The indulging mind turns even renunciation into a tool of indulgence. It grips not only wealth; it will grip its renunciation too. The real issue is the clinging mind. If it renounces everything, it will keep the ledger in the head—what I left, how much I left. Such renunciation has no value. It is simply indulgence in another form, parigraha in another guise.
There is another kind of renunciation: things fall away on their own—because gripping them neither yields inner fulfillment nor allows inner growth to unfold; it blocks it.
Why do we grip things at all? Because without them we feel insecure, unsafe. If I own no house, I am unsafe—I might end up on the street someday, perhaps dying with no shelter. So out of insecurity I cling to a house. I clutch money because who knows about tomorrow? One needs provisions for the future.
The more insecurity within, the more fiercely one clings to things. But a consciousness that has seen that on the plane of consciousness there is no insecurity at all—no fear, no pain, no sorrow, no death—one who knows this cannot clutch anything. He used to clutch out of insecurity; when insecurity dissolves, clutching dissolves. And one who has entered within is so brimming with joy each moment that the question, What will tomorrow be?, simply does not arise. Today is enough.
Jesus was passing by a garden where flowers had bloomed. He said to his disciples: Look at these flowers! Even Solomon, in all his glory, was not so splendid.
Solomon, a great emperor who gathered the wealth of the whole earth—he, in all his dominion and magnificence, was not equal to these simple lilies. See their dazzling sheen, their smile, their dance—mere poor lilies! A disciple asked, What is the reason? What is the secret that Solomon was not more splendid than lilies?
Jesus said, The flowers live now; Solomon lived for tomorrow. The flowers are just here; they have no worry about tomorrow. Today is enough. Be like the flowers—let today be enough.
For one to whom the present moment suffices, filled with bliss—he does not worry about the next moment. Therefore the madness of hoarding for the next moment is not in him. He lives. Such a person does not grip; where then is the question of dropping? Dropping only comes later. Renunciation only happens later. First comes the grip; then arises the injunction, Drop. Such a person does not grip at all.
And remember: one who has learned to grip—even if he drops, the grip remains; he will grip the dropping. The habit of gripping has seeped into his very marrow. He gripped money; now he will grip renunciation. He gripped friends; now he will grip Paramatma. He gripped husband or wife; now he will grip merit and sin and dharma. Yesterday he gripped ledgers; now he will grip the shastras—the scriptures are ledgers too. And 'religion' becomes a coin that circulates elsewhere; 'merit' becomes counters to be cashed somewhere else. He will grip them now.
Hence, note this: a person stuffed with the urge to grip—even if he 'renounces', there will still be no renunciation. The question is not of renouncing but of understanding the fact of the clinging mind. If it becomes clear to us that the mind is a grasper, and that grasping has become futile, then the grip will evaporate—not renunciation—the grip will dissolve, and things will recede as if they had never been near.
Which house belongs to whom? The first madness is to believe, This house is mine. The second madness is to say, Now I renounce this house.
But remember, if this house is not mine, who is the one renouncing? Even in renunciation, my proprietorship remains. I say, I renounce this house. I am the renouncer, am I not? And how can I renounce what is not mine? The renouncer proceeds on the assumption that this house is mine.
In truth, when authentic renunciation happens, it happens out of the realization that this house is not mine at all—so where is the renunciation? The seeing, It is not mine, is enough; there is nothing to drop. What is not mine drops by itself. Things do not bind us; between things and us, the sense of 'mine-ness' binds.
A house is on fire. The owner is weeping, shouting. Someone in the crowd says, Why are you so upset? Don’t you know? Your son has sold the house and taken the money. Did he not inform you? The man immediately begins to laugh. He says, Is that so?
The same house is burning, the same man, the same crowd—but now it is no longer his house. It has been sold; it is no longer mine. He laughs and makes light remarks like the rest: How unfortunate that the house burned.
Just then his son comes running and says, The buyer changed his mind. The money had not yet been paid—only a promise. And the man starts screaming again, I am ruined! I am lost! What will happen now! In a single instant, the 'mine' has reattached—the house is mine, and it is burning!
Is the pain due to the house burning, or to the burning of 'mine-ness'? If it is 'mine-ness' that burns, then the man who says, This is my house, is gripped; and the man who says, It is my house and I renounce it, is also gripped. But the one who says, Which house is mine? I cannot find any house that is mine—such a one is free. Agrihi means just this. Agrihi does not mean one who has left his home; it means one who has seen that there is no home at all. Understand this well.
We call the sannyasin agrihi, not a householder. But who is an agrihi? The one who has left home? His home remains. Whether he goes to the mountains or to the Himalayas—his home remains. The home he has left is still his home. Agrihi means one who has seen that 'home' is nowhere. Homeless—there is no house at all. There is no home here anywhere. No house is mine.
Sannyasin does not mean one who has renounced his wife. It means one who has seen—where is 'wife'? Sannyasin does not mean one who has abandoned companions. It means one who has discovered—where is a companion? He searched and found: nowhere. There is no companion anywhere. I am utterly alone.
There is a fundamental difference between the two views. In the first we attempt to grip and then try to drop; in the second we find that there is nothing to grip—what to hold? where to hold?
So Mahavira is not renouncing anything. What is not his has become obvious. Therefore there is no clinging. To say he left everything behind is meaningless. He went knowingly—knowing that nothing was his. If we understand this, our whole perspective about Mahavira, and about renunciation itself, will change. We will not tell people, You must leave, you must renounce. We will say, Look and see—what is truly yours? Is anything yours?
There was an emperor—Ibrahim. At his gate, a sannyasin had been making a ruckus since morning, saying to the guard, Let me in; I want to stay in this inn. The guard said, Are you crazy? Sannyasin or madman? This is not an inn; this is the emperor’s palace, his residence. The sannyasin said, Then let me speak to the emperor himself, because I have come supposing it is an inn and wish to stay here.
He pushed his way in. The emperor had heard the noise and said to him, What sort of man are you! This is my private palace, my residence; it is not an inn. The inn is elsewhere.
The sannyasin said, I thought only the guard was ignorant. But you too? The guard was forgivable—after all he is but a guard. But you too think this is your residence, your house?
The emperor said, Think? It is mine. Not a thought—fact.
The sannyasin said, I am in a fix. Some years ago I came, and the same nuisance arose. I wanted to stay in this inn; at that time another man sat on your seat and insisted that this palace was his, this house was his!
Ibrahim said, He was my father. He has passed away.
The fakir said, I had come even before that and found yet another old man here. He too was obstinate that it was his! When the 'owner' keeps changing, when the residents keep changing, should this be called a residence or an inn? Tell me, if I return later, are you certain we will meet? Do you promise? If I don’t find you, the difficulty will arise again—someone else will say it is his. Allow me to stay; this is an inn, it belongs to no one. As you have lodged here, I too can lodge.
Ibrahim rose from the throne, touched the fakir’s feet, and said, You stay; now I will go. Where are you going? asked the fakir. He said, I was staying here under the delusion that this is my house. If it is an inn, the matter is finished. I was not attached to these walls; I was attached to the idea that it is mine. If it is an inn—then please, you stay; I am leaving.
The emperor left. Did this emperor 'renounce'? No. He saw there was no house—only an inn. The matter ended. Who renounces an inn? In an inn you lodge—and depart.
Mahavira was born carrying such a seeing. And such seeing can be attained even in this very life. For such seeing, what is needed is not the renunciation of wealth, but the realization of wealth’s truth. Renouncing wealth may be just as ignorant as accumulating it. The question is not hoarding or renouncing; the question is the experience of truth. What is property? Is anything mine?
This realization becomes renunciation—but such renunciation is not 'done.' Therefore, behind such renunciation the sense of doership does not accumulate. And wherever doership does not gather, no bondage arises from the act. Conversely, wherever doership arises, that very act becomes a cause of bondage. Acts do not bind; acts suffused with the sense of the doer bind. The doer-sense is our prison—ahankar, the ego.
If someone were to say to Mahavira, You have renounced—he would laugh: Renounced what? I have seen that what was 'mine' was never mine. How can I renounce? Renunciation is a double error—the double error of indulgence. Indulgence has not yet been dropped.
So let us first understand: never fall into the mistake of calling a person like Mahavira a renunciate. Only the ignorant can be renunciates; the wise never are. The wise are not renunciates because wisdom itself is renunciation—there is no need to become a renunciate. No effort, no exertion is required. The ignorant must renounce; they must strive, make resolves, undertake practices. For the ignorant, renunciation is a deed. And so when the ignorant renounce, they manufacture a doer—'I renounced.' That doer dogs their steps. That very doer is our deeper possession. Property is not our real possession; the doer—the one who says, I did—is our...
Have you ever noticed? At night you dream, and in sleep you kill a man. In the morning you wake and remember you murdered someone in the dream. Do you say, I killed? Since you do not, no remorse clings. You are light and carefree, though you killed a man at night—because in the dream you were a drashta, a witness, not a karta, a doer. In the morning you know: It was a dream. So though you committed murder in the dream, you do not wash your hands, you don’t repent, you are not afraid that a sin occurred. You know—it was seen in a dream. Or perhaps in the dream you became a sannyasin and renounced everything; in the morning you laugh, because again you are a drashta. You have become a witness again.
Understand well: whatever we become the witness of turns into a dream; whatever we become the doer of becomes real. Even if it is only a dream, in the dream when you become the doer, it becomes real. And even if it is life’s solid fact, when you become a drashta, it becomes dreamlike.
If you wish to make a dream real, the alchemy is this: do not remain a witness there—become the doer, and the dream will become absolutely real. And the reverse alchemy is this: of whatever you call real, become the drashta, not the doer; and all 'reality' will become a dream.
So Mahavira is not leaving because something was his and he must drop it. No—the dream has broken; he has become the witness and has stepped out. If someone were to say to him, How much wealth did you leave?, he would reply, Is there any wealth in a dream? Is there renunciation in a dream?
Indulgence is a dream; renunciation is a dream—because in both, the doer is present. Therefore the wise are neither renouncers nor indulgent; they remain only as drashta. And when one becomes the witness, both indulgence and renunciation leave together. Not that renunciation remains and indulgence departs; both were two faces of the same coin—that coin is thrown away. Seen from another angle, this is veetaraga—beyond attachment and aversion.
If I am not the doer, veetaragata blossoms. If I am the doer, then either raga or viraga will arise; either indulgence or renunciation; either sorrow or joy. In duality, everything happens; nonddual, nothing of that kind can happen.
Followers think Mahavira renounced; they call him a great renunciate. But in this, they only reveal the tendency of their own indulgent minds; they know nothing of Mahavira. And this is not only about Mahavira. Whenever renunciation has happened in this world, it has happened in this way.
I have heard: A fakir saw a dream at night. In the morning he said to a disciple passing by, Listen, I saw a dream. Will you interpret it? The disciple said, Wait a moment. He brought a pot full of water: Please wash your face. The master laughed. Another disciple came by; the fakir said, I saw a marvelous dream. I asked this simpleton to interpret, and he brought a pot of water saying, Wash your face! Will you interpret? That disciple said, Wait a moment. He returned with a cup of tea: If you have washed, please have some tea. The master laughed heartily: Had this one not brought the water, I would have thrown him out by his ears; and if you had not brought the tea, I would have found no reason to keep you. Is a dream ever to be interpreted? A dream seen is finished. Washing the face is enough—what further matter remains? There is no need for any commentary.
Dreams are not to be interpreted; truth is to be interpreted—not dreams. What commentary for a dream? The very awareness that it was a dream is renunciation. Awareness that life is dreamlike—and what would one then clutch?
I have heard: An emperor’s son was dying. The emperor sat by his bed. Four days, five, ten days passed; the boy declined day by day. It was his only son; there was no hope. The physicians said he would not survive the night. The emperor, sleepless for many days, nods off around two in the night and dreams: he has twelve sons—so beautiful, so healthy as none ever were; he is an emperor of emperors, ruler of the world; crystal palaces, golden roads, beautiful women, countless delights—nothing lacking.
Meanwhile the boy outside dies. The queen cries out; the dream breaks. The emperor sits silently—then laughs, then weeps, then laughs again. The queen says, What has happened to you? Have you gone mad?
Mad? he says. I cannot say whether I was mad before or am mad now. I am in a great dilemma. The queen says, What dilemma? The boy has died—that is the trouble.
He says, That question is no more. The difficulty now is: should I weep for those twelve sons who are no more, or for this one? Or for all thirteen together? But weeping for thirteen is hard—because there are not thirteen. Those twelve belonged to a dream; while I was in that dream, this boy did not exist—where he went I do not know. Now I am awake and only this one remains; those twelve have vanished. Just as with those twelve, this one was utterly forgotten, now with this one those twelve are utterly forgotten. What is true, what is false? For whom shall I weep? For those twelve, or for this one, or for thirteen? Thirteen cannot be added up. Or shall I weep for none? One dream forms, another shatters; then another forms, and yet another. For whom shall I weep? I was mad. Now I am not mad.
We will not say this emperor renounced his attachment to his son. That would be a futile statement. We will say only this: the son ceased to be true. For attachment to exist, the son must be true; for detachment to exist, the son must still be true. We will say only this: the son became a dream; the matter ended. The emperor did not 'drop attachment to the son'; the son himself ceased to be true.
And if the son ceases to be true, will the father remain true? Go a little deeper and you will see: when the son becomes unreal, what truth remains to the father? Along with those twelve sons, that father too died—the one in the dream. Where is he now? Along with this one son, this father too is gone—where is he now?
If even one corner of life is seen as dreamlike—take this to heart—then you cannot save the rest from becoming dreamlike, because everything is interlinked. If the son is unreal, the father is unreal. What will remain as truth? All relationships become unreal. If even one corner is glimpsed as dream, the dream spreads over the whole of life; and if one corner is seen as truth, that truth spreads over the entire dream.
Life’s experiences are total, not fragmented. No one can truly say, Only one thing is a dream for me; the rest is real. If someone says so, he is mistaken; the dream has not touched him at all. If the dream happens, it happens totally; if truth happens, it remains total. Between dream and truth there can be no compromise—twelve sons and one son cannot be added to make thirteen.
This kind of seeing in Mahavira becomes his 'renunciation'. It appears as renunciation to us—because we are indulgent and know only the language of renunciation. Hence the strange fact that around one as unattached and agrihi as Mahavira, those who gathered were supremely indulgent and acquisitive. Look at the tradition that has grown around Mahavira: among Jains there are hardly any in this land more wealthy, more given to accumulation.
This is worth pondering. The language of renunciation fascinates the indulger; he gathers around it. A reverse net forms. It has always been so. Around Jesus—who said, If someone slaps your left cheek, offer the right; if someone snatches your coat, give your shirt too—around such a man gathered those who shed so much blood with the sword that it is hard to reckon.
In truth, those filled with hatred are seized by the language of love; they yearn to complete themselves. The indulger wants to complete himself through renunciation; unable to renounce himself, he clings to a renunciate. Those lacking in love cling to a messenger of love. It has always been so. Disciples are often the reverse of the master, because the reverse attracts. And whatever record these reverses establish is utterly misleading—it indicates only themselves.
To understand this play of the mind’s duality and inversion, a couple of points must be seen. Our mind is split in two—conscious and unconscious. There is a mind we know, and a mind we ourselves do not know. The greatest secret of mind is this: whatever is in the conscious, the exact opposite lies in the unconscious.
If someone is very humble in the conscious mind, in the unconscious he will be very egoistic. The unconscious is the mirror-reverse. We have no idea that a large portion of our own mind hides behind us in reversal. It becomes unconscious because we keep suppressing the reverse side into the dark. What pleases us we keep in the conscious; what is unpleasant we push back. That back portion is the reverse of how we appear on the surface.
So the one who loudly praises renunciation harbors in his unconscious the craving for indulgence. And if someone knowingly, with effort, 'renounces', then the very act of renouncing will drown his mind in the longing to indulge—because the suppressed part will begin to demand. Therefore, try anything and you will see: the mind will always suggest the opposite.
If someone abuses you and you quarrel, at home you will regret: I should not have done that. But do not think that doing the opposite would make it right. If someone abuses you and you keep silent, returning home your mind will say: Very bad—why did you endure injustice? Whatever decision you take, the opposite decision will arise within you.
Gurdjieff used to feed and ply newcomers with so much wine for eight or ten days that his reputation suffered; people avoided him—'He will make you drink first!' That was his rule: whoever refused to drink was not allowed to enter. For days, until late at night, he would pour wine with his own hands. When the man became repeatedly drunk and unconscious, Gurdjieff studied him—what the man really is. He said, I will not work with your false face. I must know what is inside you.
The man who uttered many noble words, after wine starts spewing abuse—the abuser is the one within. Have you ever thought: can wine manufacture abuses? Wine has no power to create anything. The abuses were suppressed; good words were collected on the surface. When the conscious is drugged, the inner begins to come out.
It is astonishing: give wine to saints, and murderers and debauchees will surface from within; give wine to debauchees, and glimpses of saintliness may appear—because the opposite is inside. The sinner, while sinning, continually longs: When will I be free of this? How to get out of it?
If we remember that we collect our reverse within, we will not call Mahavira a renunciate by mistake. A Mahavira-like being is integrated; there are not two compartments within—only one. If he indulges, it is total; if he renounces, it is total. Whatever he does, he is whole in it. As the sea tastes salty from any side, so a Mahavira is the same from any angle.
We are not like that. Catch us from different corners and different persons appear: in the temple, one; in the tavern, another; with a friend, a third; with an enemy, a fourth; in the shop, a fifth; while gambling, a sixth. There is no count to our faces.
True renunciation can flower only in one whose personality has become whole. In such a one, even indulgence is renunciation, because there are no two halves. There is no reverse within him. No second persona can arise.
But we think only in the language of duality. We cannot think without splitting in two. So we say: Mahavira is a renunciate, not an indulger; he is forgiving, not angry; nonviolent, not violent; compassionate, not cruel. We keep dividing—and in this way we can never understand a person like Mahavira.
In the integrated one, duality melts. There is neither renunciation nor indulgence. A new happening has occurred for which words are hard to find. We can either call it renunciation-full indulgence or indulgence-full renunciation. A happening that cannot be captured by a single word. Or call it anger-full forgiveness or forgiveness-full anger. Separate labels will not do.
What does 'anger-full forgiveness' mean? Or 'forgiveness-full anger'? They have no meaning. 'Friendly enemy' or 'enemy-like friend'—what meaning will that carry? Either enemy or friend. Mixing them renders both meaningless.
The right way is to negate both—neither is there renunciation nor indulgence. But our mind demands: Then what is there? Something must be there! There is neither hate nor love; neither violence nor nonviolence. Then what remains?
Because we are baffled at such a point, we choose to deny the 'bad' and establish the 'good'—to keep duality alive. We say: Mahavira is not indulgent, he is a renunciate; not violent, but nonviolent; not angry, but forgiving. But we never ask: if one has no anger, how will he forgive? If anger never arises, whom will he forgive and how? Forgiveness presupposes anger. And if one is not an indulger, what sense does 'renunciate' hold? Only an indulger can be a renunciate; they are linked. This does not enter our conception, so we remove one half and keep the other. It reveals our desires, not Mahavira’s truth. We want in ourselves: no anger, only forgiveness; no violence, only nonviolence; no clinging, only non-possessiveness; no bondage, only moksha. Our wanting reveals what is—hatred is there; we desire love. Violence is there; we desire nonviolence. Bondage is there; we desire freedom. We then project our desires onto our ideals, and the person remains misunderstood.
Is it not possible that in one person neither exists? Where is the difficulty? Why must one of the two be present? Neither indulgence nor renunciation—why must either be? Such a man will be hard for our conception to grasp. But only one in whom both are absent can be whole; otherwise he is in fragments. Only such can be free, because in duality freedom is impossible. Thus Mahavira-like beings become weightless—beyond our grasp.
In China there are ten paintings made by an extraordinary artist. In the first, a man rides his horse toward a forest; something in it shows the man wishes to go one way, the horse another—great tension. How can the horse wish what the man wishes? The horse is a horse; the man is a man. How shall the horse understand the man, or the man the horse? In the second painting the horse has thrown the man and fled. In truth, if you try to mount forcibly, the horse will throw you. In the third, the man searches the forest for the horse. In the fourth, only the horse’s tail is seen near a tree. In the fifth, the whole horse appears. In the sixth, the man has caught its tail. In the seventh, he is riding again. In the eighth, he rides back toward home. In the ninth, the horse is tied; both sit silently, at peace. In the tenth, both have disappeared—only the forest remains. No horse, no rider—an empty picture.
These ten depict the entire path of sadhana. But the last picture—both vanish, the struggle itself has disappeared; duality is lost. In the first nine, the fight continues in many ways. As long as both are there, there is some turmoil. In the last, both have vanished; only an empty canvas remains.
Life is a struggle with duality. We fight anger, hate, violence, indulgence. In fighting, we are trying to ride. And what we try to ride throws us down again and again. The indulger tries to be a renunciate; he is thrown down daily.
I was a guest in a home in Calcutta. The old man of the house said to me, I have taken a vow of brahmacharya three times in life. Very ironic—if brahmacharya needs to be vowed three times, what kind of brahmacharya is that? It should be taken once. I laughed; another man sitting by did not understand—he said, You have done great sadhana! The old man also laughed. The other asked, Only three times? Not a fourth? The old man replied, Do not think I succeeded the third time. I failed thrice and then lost courage.
The old man told me, The day I dropped the very idea of fighting—after three defeats, enough is enough—I was amazed: lust never had so little grip on me. The day I decided not to fight anymore—whatever is, is—my grip loosened. It had been tight because I was so resolute, so vowed.
In truth, vows, restraint, renunciation—whom are we fighting? The moment we fight something, we accept it as equal reality. And if we do, even if we mount it at some odd moment, how long can we sit? Even if you sit on an enemy’s chest, can you sit there for life? And this enemy is not someone else—it is your own part. The day you get up, it returns to stand over you.
There is a curious fact: when you suppress, one of your parts—the suppressed—rests; the suppressor gets tired. Soon the reverse begins. Whatever you press down, soon you will find you are under its weight. The suppressed has rested; the suppressor has labored. The laborer tires; the one at rest gains strength. Hence the daily reversal.
Fight—and you will lose. Suppress—and you will fall. Seeking is a different matter.
In the earlier pictures the man tries to mount by force; in the later pictures he searches. Search is not a fight. One man fights anger; another searches, What is anger? This is entirely different. In search, soon the tail appears; come closer—the whole horse is seen. Then you catch it easily—what you understand, you need not fight; it is your own limb. Why fight your own hand? If you make the left fight the right, what is gained? He brings the horse home; ties it at its place; sits quietly nearby. He is not fighting, nor riding. No struggle. Anger sits in its place; the man sits in his. In the tenth painting both dissolve; anger dissolves, and the fighter of anger dissolves. What remains? An empty canvas. The tenth is wondrous—a bare canvas, nothing on it.
Hence, when these ten were gifted, some said, Nine are fine, but why the tenth? It is blank. They were told, The tenth is the essence; the nine are only preparation. People object: But there is nothing there! Precisely—no duality—emptiness, open sky, shunya remains.
Only such an integrated one can give. A fragmented one cannot give. Thus only such an integrated being can be in the state of a Tirthankara. I say: Mahavira is born carrying this. What we see is our story of delusion.
We never look very close; we always gaze from afar. To look close, one must pass through. Before that we cannot see. How can we see how Mahavira left home, since we have never left ours in that way? There is a distance. When someone passes, we see—and we err. From outside we see only the external arrangement; the inner experience is not visible. All the stories and writings are photographs taken from the outside.
From the outside we see: He had a palace; he left it. He had wealth; he left it. He had a wife; he left her. He left loved ones, relatives, friends. This is what appears, and can only appear. Then we construct a system of renunciation, and people try to leave and perish in trouble. Many will try to leave their houses—and the house will pursue them.
There was a Jain muni. He had left his wife twenty years earlier. Someone wrote his life story and brought it to me. Leafing through, I read a sentence: After twenty years, the wife died; a telegram came. He read it and said, Well, the nuisance is over. The biographer wrote: What a supreme renunciate—his only words on her death were, The nuisance is over. I said to the author, Close this book; do not show it to anyone. He asked, Why? I said, You do not know what you have written. If this is so, then the nuisance of the wife remained even after twenty years of leaving her. Her death ended the nuisance—so it was still alive. This is not a reaction to her death; it is a reaction to the ongoing inner nuisance. The label 'wife' did not vanish; 'I left her' did not vanish; 'What must have happened to her' did not vanish. None of it vanished. So when she died, the nuisance ended.
It may even be that this muni often wished she would die; the words suggest the inner desire. Perhaps before leaving he wished for it; when it did not happen, he kept wishing after. Such a word reveals the whole unconscious.
Another incident: A fakir died. His disciple had great fame—more than the master; people said he had attained the ultimate. Crowds gathered. The disciple sat at the temple gate beating his chest, weeping. People were shocked—How can a knower weep? A few close ones said, What are you doing? Your lifelong reputation will be ruined. A knower—and weeping!
He raised his eyes and said, Spare me the kind of 'knowing' that does not allow me to weep. Namaskar! If even this freedom is not allowed, I do not want such knowledge. I sought knowledge for freedom. If knowledge becomes a new bondage and I must calculate what I may or may not do—forgive me. Who told you I am a knower?
Still they said, But you used to teach that the Atman is immortal, deathless. What are you weeping for? He said, For the Atman? Fool—who weeps for the Atman? The body was also very dear—and such a body will not appear again. It was unique. Who weeps for the Atman? Was the body any less beloved?
He said further, Do not worry about me; I have stopped worrying about myself. Now what happens, happens. When laughter comes, I laugh; when tears come, I weep. I do not stop anything—who is there to stop whom? What is bad, what is good? What to grip, what to drop? All has gone. It happens as the wind moves trees, as clouds come with rain, as the sun rises and flowers bloom. Why ask me why I am weeping? Am I weeping? Weeping is happening. I am not a weeper.
They were in a fix. Someone said, But you used to say, All is maya, all dream. He replied, When did I say it is not so now? If even that solid body did not prove true—became a dream—how true can my liquid tears be? If a solid body is unreal, how real are these flowing tears?
It is hard for us to understand this. That muni who said, The nuisance is over—we can understand him, because our mind too lives in duality. To be so nonddual is difficult—where even weeping is no longer a 'doing', where even there one is a drashta, where we do not stop it, do not interfere, impose no order—let it be. As leaves sprout on trees, as stars appear in the sky—so it happens. Only an integrated person attains truth, and only through such a one can truth be expressed.
Yet even being integrated is not enough for the expression of truth. One may be integrated and die without expressing. Many integrated ones end without expression. Knowing beauty is one thing; creating beauty is another.
A man may watch the morning sun and be overwhelmed by beauty—but that does not mean he can paint it. You sit under a tree at dawn; a bird sings; you are bathed in music—yet it is another thing to give it rebirth through a veena.
The realization of truth is one thing; its expression is another. Many who are rich with realization pass away without expressing it. How many experience beauty—yet how few can paint it. How many are moved by music—yet how few can create it. How many have loved—yet writing even a few authentic lines of love is another matter.
So let me say a few things to keep the thread for what follows: Realization, even in the integrated one, is not enough for expression. Something more is needed for expression—besides realization. Without that 'more', realization may be there and the person may be lost. A Tirthankara is one who, having realized, does that 'something more'—for expression.
Therefore, those twelve years of Mahavira’s tapascharya are not, in my eyes, for attaining truth. Truth is attained. Those twelve years searched for ways and instruments of expression. And remember, knowing truth is difficult, but expressing it is more difficult. To realize truth is hard; to communicate it is harder. You may ask: If Mahavira had attained everything, what were those austerities—fasts, disciplines, the long twelve years? If I say he returned already fulfilled, then what was he doing?
The deeper I have looked, the clearer this has become: he was seeking all the instruments of expression. Mahavira attempted expression on many planes—few teachers have cared for this. Not to speak only to man—man is but a small episode in life’s journey. Not to deliver truth to one rung alone; to reach the rungs behind man, the rungs different from man. From stone to deva—so that all forms may hear. Twelve years were spent arranging communication with all forms of life. The effort was that there be communion and dialogue on every level, expression on every form. Those austerities were not for realization, but to discover expression.
You will be amazed: to perceive the beauty of sunrise is easy; to paint the rising sun may take a lifetime. Vincent van Gogh—one of the few great painters among modern men—his last painting was of a sunset. He completed it and took his own life. He wrote: What I tried all my life to paint is done. The sunset is painted. Now what meaning is there in staying? No better, more joyous moment to die will come. And he died.
To paint that picture, what hardships he endured! He saw the sun in countless moods. Hungry, he lay in fields, forests, on hills. He followed the sun’s whole journey—ever-changing faces, conditions, colors—from rising to setting. In Arles, where the sun scorches more than anywhere in Europe, for a year he watched sunrise and sunset. He went mad; the heat was unbearable; a year with eyes fixed on the sun, his eyes failed; his head reeled. A year in an asylum. When he returned, he said, Now I can paint—because before, I had not lived it, had not really seen, had not been with it—how could I paint?
If painting one sunset demands a year of the sun and madness, then imagine truth—which has no visible form—being realized and then conveyed through words and other means. For that, a long sadhana is needed.
Mahavira’s sadhana is the search for instruments of expression—hard, very hard. We shall try to understand how, through that sadhana, he discovered, step by step, the ladders of expression, the ways of connecting with different states and yoni—the modes of communion he established.
If this enters our vision, our whole perspective will be different; our way of thinking will be transformed.
Osho's Commentary
It is essential to understand clearly today that Mahavira never, even by mistake, did any renunciation. Renunciation was merely what appeared from the outside; Mahavira never did it. And what appears is not the truth, because what appears depends more on the onlookers than on what was actually seen.
To minds stuffed with indulgence, any dropping of anything looks like renunciation. Hence those who wrote about Mahavira’s life kept an account down to the last grain of what he left—what palaces, how vast a kingdom, how many elephants and horses, how many gems and jewels—everything itemized. Those who keep such ledgers reveal themselves as minds of indulgence, because they consider diamonds, jewels, horses, elephants, palaces supremely valuable. For them, Mahavira leaving these must have seemed miraculous. A mind of indulgence cannot let go; it only knows how to grab. Yes, you can pry things loose from it, but it cannot let go by itself. And when such a mind sees someone slipping away so effortlessly, it cannot imagine a more startling miracle.
But a consciousness like Mahavira’s does not renounce anything, because on that plane the very urge to hold has disappeared. Those who grip can also release. Those who do not grip, who have no clinging at all—where is the question of their letting go?
Mahavira did not renounce anything. He simply moved on from the futile. Yet we will see it as gigantic renunciation. And in seeing it so, all that is proved is that we ourselves are minds of possession, minds of grasping—nothing more. Mahavira was not a renunciate; it is certain only that the people who saw him were indulgers. In the mind of an indulger renunciation has great value. Values are always the reverse. To the sick, health is precious; the healthy hardly notice. To the dull, intelligence is priceless; the intelligent scarcely know of it. We become aware only of what we lack. And if we are trying to clutch something, and someone else drops it, we stare in astonished wonder.
Here, I want to speak from within Mahavira. Mahavira is not dropping anything. And whoever drops something—after dropping, a grip remains upon the dropping. A man may leave a hundred thousand rupees; he will indeed leave the money, but the grip remains—'I left a hundred thousand.' The indulging mind turns even renunciation into a tool of indulgence. It grips not only wealth; it will grip its renunciation too. The real issue is the clinging mind. If it renounces everything, it will keep the ledger in the head—what I left, how much I left. Such renunciation has no value. It is simply indulgence in another form, parigraha in another guise.
There is another kind of renunciation: things fall away on their own—because gripping them neither yields inner fulfillment nor allows inner growth to unfold; it blocks it.
Why do we grip things at all? Because without them we feel insecure, unsafe. If I own no house, I am unsafe—I might end up on the street someday, perhaps dying with no shelter. So out of insecurity I cling to a house. I clutch money because who knows about tomorrow? One needs provisions for the future.
The more insecurity within, the more fiercely one clings to things. But a consciousness that has seen that on the plane of consciousness there is no insecurity at all—no fear, no pain, no sorrow, no death—one who knows this cannot clutch anything. He used to clutch out of insecurity; when insecurity dissolves, clutching dissolves. And one who has entered within is so brimming with joy each moment that the question, What will tomorrow be?, simply does not arise. Today is enough.
Jesus was passing by a garden where flowers had bloomed. He said to his disciples: Look at these flowers! Even Solomon, in all his glory, was not so splendid.
Solomon, a great emperor who gathered the wealth of the whole earth—he, in all his dominion and magnificence, was not equal to these simple lilies. See their dazzling sheen, their smile, their dance—mere poor lilies! A disciple asked, What is the reason? What is the secret that Solomon was not more splendid than lilies?
Jesus said, The flowers live now; Solomon lived for tomorrow. The flowers are just here; they have no worry about tomorrow. Today is enough. Be like the flowers—let today be enough.
For one to whom the present moment suffices, filled with bliss—he does not worry about the next moment. Therefore the madness of hoarding for the next moment is not in him. He lives. Such a person does not grip; where then is the question of dropping? Dropping only comes later. Renunciation only happens later. First comes the grip; then arises the injunction, Drop. Such a person does not grip at all.
And remember: one who has learned to grip—even if he drops, the grip remains; he will grip the dropping. The habit of gripping has seeped into his very marrow. He gripped money; now he will grip renunciation. He gripped friends; now he will grip Paramatma. He gripped husband or wife; now he will grip merit and sin and dharma. Yesterday he gripped ledgers; now he will grip the shastras—the scriptures are ledgers too. And 'religion' becomes a coin that circulates elsewhere; 'merit' becomes counters to be cashed somewhere else. He will grip them now.
Hence, note this: a person stuffed with the urge to grip—even if he 'renounces', there will still be no renunciation. The question is not of renouncing but of understanding the fact of the clinging mind. If it becomes clear to us that the mind is a grasper, and that grasping has become futile, then the grip will evaporate—not renunciation—the grip will dissolve, and things will recede as if they had never been near.
Which house belongs to whom? The first madness is to believe, This house is mine. The second madness is to say, Now I renounce this house.
But remember, if this house is not mine, who is the one renouncing? Even in renunciation, my proprietorship remains. I say, I renounce this house. I am the renouncer, am I not? And how can I renounce what is not mine? The renouncer proceeds on the assumption that this house is mine.
In truth, when authentic renunciation happens, it happens out of the realization that this house is not mine at all—so where is the renunciation? The seeing, It is not mine, is enough; there is nothing to drop. What is not mine drops by itself. Things do not bind us; between things and us, the sense of 'mine-ness' binds.
A house is on fire. The owner is weeping, shouting. Someone in the crowd says, Why are you so upset? Don’t you know? Your son has sold the house and taken the money. Did he not inform you? The man immediately begins to laugh. He says, Is that so?
The same house is burning, the same man, the same crowd—but now it is no longer his house. It has been sold; it is no longer mine. He laughs and makes light remarks like the rest: How unfortunate that the house burned.
Just then his son comes running and says, The buyer changed his mind. The money had not yet been paid—only a promise. And the man starts screaming again, I am ruined! I am lost! What will happen now! In a single instant, the 'mine' has reattached—the house is mine, and it is burning!
Is the pain due to the house burning, or to the burning of 'mine-ness'? If it is 'mine-ness' that burns, then the man who says, This is my house, is gripped; and the man who says, It is my house and I renounce it, is also gripped. But the one who says, Which house is mine? I cannot find any house that is mine—such a one is free. Agrihi means just this. Agrihi does not mean one who has left his home; it means one who has seen that there is no home at all. Understand this well.
We call the sannyasin agrihi, not a householder. But who is an agrihi? The one who has left home? His home remains. Whether he goes to the mountains or to the Himalayas—his home remains. The home he has left is still his home. Agrihi means one who has seen that 'home' is nowhere. Homeless—there is no house at all. There is no home here anywhere. No house is mine.
Sannyasin does not mean one who has renounced his wife. It means one who has seen—where is 'wife'? Sannyasin does not mean one who has abandoned companions. It means one who has discovered—where is a companion? He searched and found: nowhere. There is no companion anywhere. I am utterly alone.
There is a fundamental difference between the two views. In the first we attempt to grip and then try to drop; in the second we find that there is nothing to grip—what to hold? where to hold?
So Mahavira is not renouncing anything. What is not his has become obvious. Therefore there is no clinging. To say he left everything behind is meaningless. He went knowingly—knowing that nothing was his. If we understand this, our whole perspective about Mahavira, and about renunciation itself, will change. We will not tell people, You must leave, you must renounce. We will say, Look and see—what is truly yours? Is anything yours?
There was an emperor—Ibrahim. At his gate, a sannyasin had been making a ruckus since morning, saying to the guard, Let me in; I want to stay in this inn. The guard said, Are you crazy? Sannyasin or madman? This is not an inn; this is the emperor’s palace, his residence. The sannyasin said, Then let me speak to the emperor himself, because I have come supposing it is an inn and wish to stay here.
He pushed his way in. The emperor had heard the noise and said to him, What sort of man are you! This is my private palace, my residence; it is not an inn. The inn is elsewhere.
The sannyasin said, I thought only the guard was ignorant. But you too? The guard was forgivable—after all he is but a guard. But you too think this is your residence, your house?
The emperor said, Think? It is mine. Not a thought—fact.
The sannyasin said, I am in a fix. Some years ago I came, and the same nuisance arose. I wanted to stay in this inn; at that time another man sat on your seat and insisted that this palace was his, this house was his!
Ibrahim said, He was my father. He has passed away.
The fakir said, I had come even before that and found yet another old man here. He too was obstinate that it was his! When the 'owner' keeps changing, when the residents keep changing, should this be called a residence or an inn? Tell me, if I return later, are you certain we will meet? Do you promise? If I don’t find you, the difficulty will arise again—someone else will say it is his. Allow me to stay; this is an inn, it belongs to no one. As you have lodged here, I too can lodge.
Ibrahim rose from the throne, touched the fakir’s feet, and said, You stay; now I will go. Where are you going? asked the fakir. He said, I was staying here under the delusion that this is my house. If it is an inn, the matter is finished. I was not attached to these walls; I was attached to the idea that it is mine. If it is an inn—then please, you stay; I am leaving.
The emperor left. Did this emperor 'renounce'? No. He saw there was no house—only an inn. The matter ended. Who renounces an inn? In an inn you lodge—and depart.
Mahavira was born carrying such a seeing. And such seeing can be attained even in this very life. For such seeing, what is needed is not the renunciation of wealth, but the realization of wealth’s truth. Renouncing wealth may be just as ignorant as accumulating it. The question is not hoarding or renouncing; the question is the experience of truth. What is property? Is anything mine?
This realization becomes renunciation—but such renunciation is not 'done.' Therefore, behind such renunciation the sense of doership does not accumulate. And wherever doership does not gather, no bondage arises from the act. Conversely, wherever doership arises, that very act becomes a cause of bondage. Acts do not bind; acts suffused with the sense of the doer bind. The doer-sense is our prison—ahankar, the ego.
If someone were to say to Mahavira, You have renounced—he would laugh: Renounced what? I have seen that what was 'mine' was never mine. How can I renounce? Renunciation is a double error—the double error of indulgence. Indulgence has not yet been dropped.
So let us first understand: never fall into the mistake of calling a person like Mahavira a renunciate. Only the ignorant can be renunciates; the wise never are. The wise are not renunciates because wisdom itself is renunciation—there is no need to become a renunciate. No effort, no exertion is required. The ignorant must renounce; they must strive, make resolves, undertake practices. For the ignorant, renunciation is a deed. And so when the ignorant renounce, they manufacture a doer—'I renounced.' That doer dogs their steps. That very doer is our deeper possession. Property is not our real possession; the doer—the one who says, I did—is our...
Have you ever noticed? At night you dream, and in sleep you kill a man. In the morning you wake and remember you murdered someone in the dream. Do you say, I killed? Since you do not, no remorse clings. You are light and carefree, though you killed a man at night—because in the dream you were a drashta, a witness, not a karta, a doer. In the morning you know: It was a dream. So though you committed murder in the dream, you do not wash your hands, you don’t repent, you are not afraid that a sin occurred. You know—it was seen in a dream. Or perhaps in the dream you became a sannyasin and renounced everything; in the morning you laugh, because again you are a drashta. You have become a witness again.
Understand well: whatever we become the witness of turns into a dream; whatever we become the doer of becomes real. Even if it is only a dream, in the dream when you become the doer, it becomes real. And even if it is life’s solid fact, when you become a drashta, it becomes dreamlike.
If you wish to make a dream real, the alchemy is this: do not remain a witness there—become the doer, and the dream will become absolutely real. And the reverse alchemy is this: of whatever you call real, become the drashta, not the doer; and all 'reality' will become a dream.
So Mahavira is not leaving because something was his and he must drop it. No—the dream has broken; he has become the witness and has stepped out. If someone were to say to him, How much wealth did you leave?, he would reply, Is there any wealth in a dream? Is there renunciation in a dream?
Indulgence is a dream; renunciation is a dream—because in both, the doer is present. Therefore the wise are neither renouncers nor indulgent; they remain only as drashta. And when one becomes the witness, both indulgence and renunciation leave together. Not that renunciation remains and indulgence departs; both were two faces of the same coin—that coin is thrown away. Seen from another angle, this is veetaraga—beyond attachment and aversion.
If I am not the doer, veetaragata blossoms. If I am the doer, then either raga or viraga will arise; either indulgence or renunciation; either sorrow or joy. In duality, everything happens; nonddual, nothing of that kind can happen.
Followers think Mahavira renounced; they call him a great renunciate. But in this, they only reveal the tendency of their own indulgent minds; they know nothing of Mahavira. And this is not only about Mahavira. Whenever renunciation has happened in this world, it has happened in this way.
I have heard: A fakir saw a dream at night. In the morning he said to a disciple passing by, Listen, I saw a dream. Will you interpret it? The disciple said, Wait a moment. He brought a pot full of water: Please wash your face. The master laughed. Another disciple came by; the fakir said, I saw a marvelous dream. I asked this simpleton to interpret, and he brought a pot of water saying, Wash your face! Will you interpret? That disciple said, Wait a moment. He returned with a cup of tea: If you have washed, please have some tea. The master laughed heartily: Had this one not brought the water, I would have thrown him out by his ears; and if you had not brought the tea, I would have found no reason to keep you. Is a dream ever to be interpreted? A dream seen is finished. Washing the face is enough—what further matter remains? There is no need for any commentary.
Dreams are not to be interpreted; truth is to be interpreted—not dreams. What commentary for a dream? The very awareness that it was a dream is renunciation. Awareness that life is dreamlike—and what would one then clutch?
I have heard: An emperor’s son was dying. The emperor sat by his bed. Four days, five, ten days passed; the boy declined day by day. It was his only son; there was no hope. The physicians said he would not survive the night. The emperor, sleepless for many days, nods off around two in the night and dreams: he has twelve sons—so beautiful, so healthy as none ever were; he is an emperor of emperors, ruler of the world; crystal palaces, golden roads, beautiful women, countless delights—nothing lacking.
Meanwhile the boy outside dies. The queen cries out; the dream breaks. The emperor sits silently—then laughs, then weeps, then laughs again. The queen says, What has happened to you? Have you gone mad?
Mad? he says. I cannot say whether I was mad before or am mad now. I am in a great dilemma. The queen says, What dilemma? The boy has died—that is the trouble.
He says, That question is no more. The difficulty now is: should I weep for those twelve sons who are no more, or for this one? Or for all thirteen together? But weeping for thirteen is hard—because there are not thirteen. Those twelve belonged to a dream; while I was in that dream, this boy did not exist—where he went I do not know. Now I am awake and only this one remains; those twelve have vanished. Just as with those twelve, this one was utterly forgotten, now with this one those twelve are utterly forgotten. What is true, what is false? For whom shall I weep? For those twelve, or for this one, or for thirteen? Thirteen cannot be added up. Or shall I weep for none? One dream forms, another shatters; then another forms, and yet another. For whom shall I weep? I was mad. Now I am not mad.
We will not say this emperor renounced his attachment to his son. That would be a futile statement. We will say only this: the son ceased to be true. For attachment to exist, the son must be true; for detachment to exist, the son must still be true. We will say only this: the son became a dream; the matter ended. The emperor did not 'drop attachment to the son'; the son himself ceased to be true.
And if the son ceases to be true, will the father remain true? Go a little deeper and you will see: when the son becomes unreal, what truth remains to the father? Along with those twelve sons, that father too died—the one in the dream. Where is he now? Along with this one son, this father too is gone—where is he now?
If even one corner of life is seen as dreamlike—take this to heart—then you cannot save the rest from becoming dreamlike, because everything is interlinked. If the son is unreal, the father is unreal. What will remain as truth? All relationships become unreal. If even one corner is glimpsed as dream, the dream spreads over the whole of life; and if one corner is seen as truth, that truth spreads over the entire dream.
Life’s experiences are total, not fragmented. No one can truly say, Only one thing is a dream for me; the rest is real. If someone says so, he is mistaken; the dream has not touched him at all. If the dream happens, it happens totally; if truth happens, it remains total. Between dream and truth there can be no compromise—twelve sons and one son cannot be added to make thirteen.
This kind of seeing in Mahavira becomes his 'renunciation'. It appears as renunciation to us—because we are indulgent and know only the language of renunciation. Hence the strange fact that around one as unattached and agrihi as Mahavira, those who gathered were supremely indulgent and acquisitive. Look at the tradition that has grown around Mahavira: among Jains there are hardly any in this land more wealthy, more given to accumulation.
This is worth pondering. The language of renunciation fascinates the indulger; he gathers around it. A reverse net forms. It has always been so. Around Jesus—who said, If someone slaps your left cheek, offer the right; if someone snatches your coat, give your shirt too—around such a man gathered those who shed so much blood with the sword that it is hard to reckon.
In truth, those filled with hatred are seized by the language of love; they yearn to complete themselves. The indulger wants to complete himself through renunciation; unable to renounce himself, he clings to a renunciate. Those lacking in love cling to a messenger of love. It has always been so. Disciples are often the reverse of the master, because the reverse attracts. And whatever record these reverses establish is utterly misleading—it indicates only themselves.
To understand this play of the mind’s duality and inversion, a couple of points must be seen. Our mind is split in two—conscious and unconscious. There is a mind we know, and a mind we ourselves do not know. The greatest secret of mind is this: whatever is in the conscious, the exact opposite lies in the unconscious.
If someone is very humble in the conscious mind, in the unconscious he will be very egoistic. The unconscious is the mirror-reverse. We have no idea that a large portion of our own mind hides behind us in reversal. It becomes unconscious because we keep suppressing the reverse side into the dark. What pleases us we keep in the conscious; what is unpleasant we push back. That back portion is the reverse of how we appear on the surface.
So the one who loudly praises renunciation harbors in his unconscious the craving for indulgence. And if someone knowingly, with effort, 'renounces', then the very act of renouncing will drown his mind in the longing to indulge—because the suppressed part will begin to demand. Therefore, try anything and you will see: the mind will always suggest the opposite.
If someone abuses you and you quarrel, at home you will regret: I should not have done that. But do not think that doing the opposite would make it right. If someone abuses you and you keep silent, returning home your mind will say: Very bad—why did you endure injustice? Whatever decision you take, the opposite decision will arise within you.
Gurdjieff used to feed and ply newcomers with so much wine for eight or ten days that his reputation suffered; people avoided him—'He will make you drink first!' That was his rule: whoever refused to drink was not allowed to enter. For days, until late at night, he would pour wine with his own hands. When the man became repeatedly drunk and unconscious, Gurdjieff studied him—what the man really is. He said, I will not work with your false face. I must know what is inside you.
The man who uttered many noble words, after wine starts spewing abuse—the abuser is the one within. Have you ever thought: can wine manufacture abuses? Wine has no power to create anything. The abuses were suppressed; good words were collected on the surface. When the conscious is drugged, the inner begins to come out.
It is astonishing: give wine to saints, and murderers and debauchees will surface from within; give wine to debauchees, and glimpses of saintliness may appear—because the opposite is inside. The sinner, while sinning, continually longs: When will I be free of this? How to get out of it?
If we remember that we collect our reverse within, we will not call Mahavira a renunciate by mistake. A Mahavira-like being is integrated; there are not two compartments within—only one. If he indulges, it is total; if he renounces, it is total. Whatever he does, he is whole in it. As the sea tastes salty from any side, so a Mahavira is the same from any angle.
We are not like that. Catch us from different corners and different persons appear: in the temple, one; in the tavern, another; with a friend, a third; with an enemy, a fourth; in the shop, a fifth; while gambling, a sixth. There is no count to our faces.
True renunciation can flower only in one whose personality has become whole. In such a one, even indulgence is renunciation, because there are no two halves. There is no reverse within him. No second persona can arise.
But we think only in the language of duality. We cannot think without splitting in two. So we say: Mahavira is a renunciate, not an indulger; he is forgiving, not angry; nonviolent, not violent; compassionate, not cruel. We keep dividing—and in this way we can never understand a person like Mahavira.
In the integrated one, duality melts. There is neither renunciation nor indulgence. A new happening has occurred for which words are hard to find. We can either call it renunciation-full indulgence or indulgence-full renunciation. A happening that cannot be captured by a single word. Or call it anger-full forgiveness or forgiveness-full anger. Separate labels will not do.
What does 'anger-full forgiveness' mean? Or 'forgiveness-full anger'? They have no meaning. 'Friendly enemy' or 'enemy-like friend'—what meaning will that carry? Either enemy or friend. Mixing them renders both meaningless.
The right way is to negate both—neither is there renunciation nor indulgence. But our mind demands: Then what is there? Something must be there! There is neither hate nor love; neither violence nor nonviolence. Then what remains?
Because we are baffled at such a point, we choose to deny the 'bad' and establish the 'good'—to keep duality alive. We say: Mahavira is not indulgent, he is a renunciate; not violent, but nonviolent; not angry, but forgiving. But we never ask: if one has no anger, how will he forgive? If anger never arises, whom will he forgive and how? Forgiveness presupposes anger. And if one is not an indulger, what sense does 'renunciate' hold? Only an indulger can be a renunciate; they are linked. This does not enter our conception, so we remove one half and keep the other. It reveals our desires, not Mahavira’s truth. We want in ourselves: no anger, only forgiveness; no violence, only nonviolence; no clinging, only non-possessiveness; no bondage, only moksha. Our wanting reveals what is—hatred is there; we desire love. Violence is there; we desire nonviolence. Bondage is there; we desire freedom. We then project our desires onto our ideals, and the person remains misunderstood.
Is it not possible that in one person neither exists? Where is the difficulty? Why must one of the two be present? Neither indulgence nor renunciation—why must either be? Such a man will be hard for our conception to grasp. But only one in whom both are absent can be whole; otherwise he is in fragments. Only such can be free, because in duality freedom is impossible. Thus Mahavira-like beings become weightless—beyond our grasp.
In China there are ten paintings made by an extraordinary artist. In the first, a man rides his horse toward a forest; something in it shows the man wishes to go one way, the horse another—great tension. How can the horse wish what the man wishes? The horse is a horse; the man is a man. How shall the horse understand the man, or the man the horse? In the second painting the horse has thrown the man and fled. In truth, if you try to mount forcibly, the horse will throw you. In the third, the man searches the forest for the horse. In the fourth, only the horse’s tail is seen near a tree. In the fifth, the whole horse appears. In the sixth, the man has caught its tail. In the seventh, he is riding again. In the eighth, he rides back toward home. In the ninth, the horse is tied; both sit silently, at peace. In the tenth, both have disappeared—only the forest remains. No horse, no rider—an empty picture.
These ten depict the entire path of sadhana. But the last picture—both vanish, the struggle itself has disappeared; duality is lost. In the first nine, the fight continues in many ways. As long as both are there, there is some turmoil. In the last, both have vanished; only an empty canvas remains.
Life is a struggle with duality. We fight anger, hate, violence, indulgence. In fighting, we are trying to ride. And what we try to ride throws us down again and again. The indulger tries to be a renunciate; he is thrown down daily.
I was a guest in a home in Calcutta. The old man of the house said to me, I have taken a vow of brahmacharya three times in life. Very ironic—if brahmacharya needs to be vowed three times, what kind of brahmacharya is that? It should be taken once. I laughed; another man sitting by did not understand—he said, You have done great sadhana! The old man also laughed. The other asked, Only three times? Not a fourth? The old man replied, Do not think I succeeded the third time. I failed thrice and then lost courage.
The old man told me, The day I dropped the very idea of fighting—after three defeats, enough is enough—I was amazed: lust never had so little grip on me. The day I decided not to fight anymore—whatever is, is—my grip loosened. It had been tight because I was so resolute, so vowed.
In truth, vows, restraint, renunciation—whom are we fighting? The moment we fight something, we accept it as equal reality. And if we do, even if we mount it at some odd moment, how long can we sit? Even if you sit on an enemy’s chest, can you sit there for life? And this enemy is not someone else—it is your own part. The day you get up, it returns to stand over you.
There is a curious fact: when you suppress, one of your parts—the suppressed—rests; the suppressor gets tired. Soon the reverse begins. Whatever you press down, soon you will find you are under its weight. The suppressed has rested; the suppressor has labored. The laborer tires; the one at rest gains strength. Hence the daily reversal.
Fight—and you will lose. Suppress—and you will fall. Seeking is a different matter.
In the earlier pictures the man tries to mount by force; in the later pictures he searches. Search is not a fight. One man fights anger; another searches, What is anger? This is entirely different. In search, soon the tail appears; come closer—the whole horse is seen. Then you catch it easily—what you understand, you need not fight; it is your own limb. Why fight your own hand? If you make the left fight the right, what is gained? He brings the horse home; ties it at its place; sits quietly nearby. He is not fighting, nor riding. No struggle. Anger sits in its place; the man sits in his. In the tenth painting both dissolve; anger dissolves, and the fighter of anger dissolves. What remains? An empty canvas. The tenth is wondrous—a bare canvas, nothing on it.
Hence, when these ten were gifted, some said, Nine are fine, but why the tenth? It is blank. They were told, The tenth is the essence; the nine are only preparation. People object: But there is nothing there! Precisely—no duality—emptiness, open sky, shunya remains.
Only such an integrated one can give. A fragmented one cannot give. Thus only such an integrated being can be in the state of a Tirthankara. I say: Mahavira is born carrying this. What we see is our story of delusion.
We never look very close; we always gaze from afar. To look close, one must pass through. Before that we cannot see. How can we see how Mahavira left home, since we have never left ours in that way? There is a distance. When someone passes, we see—and we err. From outside we see only the external arrangement; the inner experience is not visible. All the stories and writings are photographs taken from the outside.
From the outside we see: He had a palace; he left it. He had wealth; he left it. He had a wife; he left her. He left loved ones, relatives, friends. This is what appears, and can only appear. Then we construct a system of renunciation, and people try to leave and perish in trouble. Many will try to leave their houses—and the house will pursue them.
There was a Jain muni. He had left his wife twenty years earlier. Someone wrote his life story and brought it to me. Leafing through, I read a sentence: After twenty years, the wife died; a telegram came. He read it and said, Well, the nuisance is over. The biographer wrote: What a supreme renunciate—his only words on her death were, The nuisance is over. I said to the author, Close this book; do not show it to anyone. He asked, Why? I said, You do not know what you have written. If this is so, then the nuisance of the wife remained even after twenty years of leaving her. Her death ended the nuisance—so it was still alive. This is not a reaction to her death; it is a reaction to the ongoing inner nuisance. The label 'wife' did not vanish; 'I left her' did not vanish; 'What must have happened to her' did not vanish. None of it vanished. So when she died, the nuisance ended.
It may even be that this muni often wished she would die; the words suggest the inner desire. Perhaps before leaving he wished for it; when it did not happen, he kept wishing after. Such a word reveals the whole unconscious.
Another incident: A fakir died. His disciple had great fame—more than the master; people said he had attained the ultimate. Crowds gathered. The disciple sat at the temple gate beating his chest, weeping. People were shocked—How can a knower weep? A few close ones said, What are you doing? Your lifelong reputation will be ruined. A knower—and weeping!
He raised his eyes and said, Spare me the kind of 'knowing' that does not allow me to weep. Namaskar! If even this freedom is not allowed, I do not want such knowledge. I sought knowledge for freedom. If knowledge becomes a new bondage and I must calculate what I may or may not do—forgive me. Who told you I am a knower?
Still they said, But you used to teach that the Atman is immortal, deathless. What are you weeping for? He said, For the Atman? Fool—who weeps for the Atman? The body was also very dear—and such a body will not appear again. It was unique. Who weeps for the Atman? Was the body any less beloved?
He said further, Do not worry about me; I have stopped worrying about myself. Now what happens, happens. When laughter comes, I laugh; when tears come, I weep. I do not stop anything—who is there to stop whom? What is bad, what is good? What to grip, what to drop? All has gone. It happens as the wind moves trees, as clouds come with rain, as the sun rises and flowers bloom. Why ask me why I am weeping? Am I weeping? Weeping is happening. I am not a weeper.
They were in a fix. Someone said, But you used to say, All is maya, all dream. He replied, When did I say it is not so now? If even that solid body did not prove true—became a dream—how true can my liquid tears be? If a solid body is unreal, how real are these flowing tears?
It is hard for us to understand this. That muni who said, The nuisance is over—we can understand him, because our mind too lives in duality. To be so nonddual is difficult—where even weeping is no longer a 'doing', where even there one is a drashta, where we do not stop it, do not interfere, impose no order—let it be. As leaves sprout on trees, as stars appear in the sky—so it happens. Only an integrated person attains truth, and only through such a one can truth be expressed.
Yet even being integrated is not enough for the expression of truth. One may be integrated and die without expressing. Many integrated ones end without expression. Knowing beauty is one thing; creating beauty is another.
A man may watch the morning sun and be overwhelmed by beauty—but that does not mean he can paint it. You sit under a tree at dawn; a bird sings; you are bathed in music—yet it is another thing to give it rebirth through a veena.
The realization of truth is one thing; its expression is another. Many who are rich with realization pass away without expressing it. How many experience beauty—yet how few can paint it. How many are moved by music—yet how few can create it. How many have loved—yet writing even a few authentic lines of love is another matter.
So let me say a few things to keep the thread for what follows: Realization, even in the integrated one, is not enough for expression. Something more is needed for expression—besides realization. Without that 'more', realization may be there and the person may be lost. A Tirthankara is one who, having realized, does that 'something more'—for expression.
Therefore, those twelve years of Mahavira’s tapascharya are not, in my eyes, for attaining truth. Truth is attained. Those twelve years searched for ways and instruments of expression. And remember, knowing truth is difficult, but expressing it is more difficult. To realize truth is hard; to communicate it is harder. You may ask: If Mahavira had attained everything, what were those austerities—fasts, disciplines, the long twelve years? If I say he returned already fulfilled, then what was he doing?
The deeper I have looked, the clearer this has become: he was seeking all the instruments of expression. Mahavira attempted expression on many planes—few teachers have cared for this. Not to speak only to man—man is but a small episode in life’s journey. Not to deliver truth to one rung alone; to reach the rungs behind man, the rungs different from man. From stone to deva—so that all forms may hear. Twelve years were spent arranging communication with all forms of life. The effort was that there be communion and dialogue on every level, expression on every form. Those austerities were not for realization, but to discover expression.
You will be amazed: to perceive the beauty of sunrise is easy; to paint the rising sun may take a lifetime. Vincent van Gogh—one of the few great painters among modern men—his last painting was of a sunset. He completed it and took his own life. He wrote: What I tried all my life to paint is done. The sunset is painted. Now what meaning is there in staying? No better, more joyous moment to die will come. And he died.
To paint that picture, what hardships he endured! He saw the sun in countless moods. Hungry, he lay in fields, forests, on hills. He followed the sun’s whole journey—ever-changing faces, conditions, colors—from rising to setting. In Arles, where the sun scorches more than anywhere in Europe, for a year he watched sunrise and sunset. He went mad; the heat was unbearable; a year with eyes fixed on the sun, his eyes failed; his head reeled. A year in an asylum. When he returned, he said, Now I can paint—because before, I had not lived it, had not really seen, had not been with it—how could I paint?
If painting one sunset demands a year of the sun and madness, then imagine truth—which has no visible form—being realized and then conveyed through words and other means. For that, a long sadhana is needed.
Mahavira’s sadhana is the search for instruments of expression—hard, very hard. We shall try to understand how, through that sadhana, he discovered, step by step, the ladders of expression, the ways of connecting with different states and yoni—the modes of communion he established.
If this enters our vision, our whole perspective will be different; our way of thinking will be transformed.