Mahaveer Meri Drishti Mein #7
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Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Questions in this Discourse
There is such a woman near Jodhpur.
Yes, it is possible. It is possible; there is no difficulty in it. Only the secret is not within our understanding. In some way or other, the world of atoms, the subtle world, must be supplying direct nourishment; beyond this there is nothing more to it. How it gives, in what manner it gives—that is another matter. But nourishment may come directly from the subtle world, without having to create any intermediary in between.
Mahavira received such nourishment. And therefore those who are starving to death behind him are utterly crazy. They are merely wasting the body and acting foolishly. That is why I call Mahavira’s fasting a real fast, and the hunger-strikes that others undertake behind him nothing but meat-eating—they digest their own flesh. In one day of fasting, a pound of flesh gets digested.
Whether we eat someone else’s flesh or our own, it makes no difference. It is meat-eating all the same. Because the body needs that much. It needs that many calories, that much heat, that much energy—the body will take it. If you don’t give it from outside, it will digest what is within the body. That much fat will be digested. And you will think that digesting is fasting. That is not fasting.
If there is no change in the body, if the body remains as it was, then you should understand that the subtle channels of nourishment have become available. It is not merely that gross food has been stopped; the ultra-subtle pathways of nourishment have opened.
And when Mahavira would take food for a day after three or four months, it was not because eating for one day would make any difference. For if a man can live four months without food, why not eight? That eating was only to conceal what had happened, so that he would not have to speak of it. It is sheer deception—sheer deception. It is only to hide this secret, for if a man were to remain without food for a year or two, people would ask, “How has this happened!”
And telling this to everyone could also be dangerous. Not every truth is for everyone to be told. Not every truth is to be told to everyone—this must be kept in mind. Therefore, in the things I am saying, I am leaving a few aphorisms incomplete. Hence they can never be put to use. You cannot use them.
It is only so that people may have the consolation, “All right, he does take food,” and the matter ends when he eats one day in two or four months.
Mahavira did not defecate, did not urinate. It has been a matter of much puzzlement: how can this be possible? Mahavira did not sweat. How can this be?
If you take gross food, all this will happen, because these things are linked with food. If you put something in, it has to come out. But if nourishment begins to come in subtle form, then this has no meaning at all. There is nothing to be expelled. The food is so subtle that nothing remains to be thrown out. It is directly absorbed.
So it is necessary to try to understand Mahavira’s nonviolence from this angle too; we shall also try to understand it from other angles. His long fasts must be understood in the sense that the process of receiving subtle nourishment had become available to him.
In Kashi there was a sannyasin, Vishuddhanand. He revived an extremely ancient science that had been completely lost—the science of sun-rays. That man made such lenses that if you took a dead bird and placed it there, he would catch the sun’s rays through that lens and focus them on the bird; he would sit doing something for a little while, and before your eyes the bird would flutter and come back to life!
And these experiments were done in the presence of Western doctors as well, and countless people coming from Europe saw them with their own eyes. Seat a living bird there, he would again place the lens, then cast the rays in another manner, do something, and the bird would die!
He said that from the sun’s rays, life and death can come directly—there is no need to take anything in between. Direct life can come, direct death can come.
And there are deep truths in this. All the life that we see on earth is bound to the sun’s rays. If the sun were to set, all life would set at once. There would be no plants, no flowers, no birds, no humans—no one at all. There may be beings even if there is no sun, but there will be no body. The connection between body and vital force is linked to the sun’s rays. There could be disembodied beings, bodiless beings, but there would be no body.
And recently, on returning from the moon, an incident occurred which is worth considering—very much worth considering. They came back from the moon and no one was found on the moon; there is no one to be found there in that sense. But on their return, the transmitters and radio stations below them, where their signals were being received, heard such piercing screams, such clamor, such weeping, such laughter, as if millions upon millions of ghosts were suddenly shrieking! Even if those three men tried to shout and weep, in no way could they create the illusion of the voices of millions upon millions of spirits. And when they were asked upon return, they said, “We don’t know anything at all! We were just resting on the way back!”
This is a deep indication and a report that there are no embodied beings on the moon—because the condition has not yet arisen there for bodies to manifest—but there is a full presence of disembodied souls on the moon.
The sun’s rays have been a great means of joining body and life-force here. So from the sun’s rays, something direct can indeed happen. Through the eyes, too, the rays of the sun can be imbibed and can be life-giving. Many experiments of trataka are experiments in drawing life directly from the sun; they are not merely experiments in concentration. They are experiments in drawing life directly from the sun. And once that understanding descends, life can be drawn from the sun from anywhere.
In Tibet there is a special kind of yoga called surya-yoga. In Tibet there is terrible cold. Sometimes the sun appears, sometimes it does not. There is nothing but ice. Even a naked fakir will sit on that ice, and you will find sweat dripping from his body! Naked, sitting there, sweat is pouring from all over! Sitting naked on the ice—at night, with no sign of the sun—and sweat is dripping! Its process is that wherever the sun may be, one can relate to it; the moment one relates to it, warmth begins to pervade the whole body. Even the ice can do nothing.
What I am saying, I am saying with this in mind: that it may enter your understanding that when Mahavira established relationships with the lower worlds, the lower worlds also responded. The lower worlds also gave answers to Mahavira. Then we have strung these things into stories, which become poetry. The story, the poem says that when Mahavira walks, if a thorn is lying upright, on seeing him it immediately turns upside down.
These are our stories. And one very deep point is being attempted in them: that even nature does not try to be unfriendly to Mahavira; it tries to be friendly. For how can nature try to go against one who has given it so much love, so much identification?
About Mohammed it is said that when he walks, a little cloud moves like a shade above him. That such a cloud might move is not necessary; it could also happen. But what is essential to say is this: wherever people form a relationship, from there something can indeed happen. Answers will certainly come. Even a stone lying at the roadside gives an answer to your love. Answers come from all sides.
And remember, the answers are the very things we throw out—they echo, resound, and return. So if Mahavira’s nonviolence returns from all sides as nonviolence, it is not a matter for amazement.
So the first point is that Mahavira established relationships with the lower plane—the mute world. Below is the mute world. Then in the middle is the world of human beings, the world of words. And above man is the world of the gods, the world of silence. These are the three worlds. Mute means: where speech has not yet appeared. The world of words: where speech has appeared. The world of silence: where speech has disappeared again. The gods have no speech.
Mahavira received such nourishment. And therefore those who are starving to death behind him are utterly crazy. They are merely wasting the body and acting foolishly. That is why I call Mahavira’s fasting a real fast, and the hunger-strikes that others undertake behind him nothing but meat-eating—they digest their own flesh. In one day of fasting, a pound of flesh gets digested.
Whether we eat someone else’s flesh or our own, it makes no difference. It is meat-eating all the same. Because the body needs that much. It needs that many calories, that much heat, that much energy—the body will take it. If you don’t give it from outside, it will digest what is within the body. That much fat will be digested. And you will think that digesting is fasting. That is not fasting.
If there is no change in the body, if the body remains as it was, then you should understand that the subtle channels of nourishment have become available. It is not merely that gross food has been stopped; the ultra-subtle pathways of nourishment have opened.
And when Mahavira would take food for a day after three or four months, it was not because eating for one day would make any difference. For if a man can live four months without food, why not eight? That eating was only to conceal what had happened, so that he would not have to speak of it. It is sheer deception—sheer deception. It is only to hide this secret, for if a man were to remain without food for a year or two, people would ask, “How has this happened!”
And telling this to everyone could also be dangerous. Not every truth is for everyone to be told. Not every truth is to be told to everyone—this must be kept in mind. Therefore, in the things I am saying, I am leaving a few aphorisms incomplete. Hence they can never be put to use. You cannot use them.
It is only so that people may have the consolation, “All right, he does take food,” and the matter ends when he eats one day in two or four months.
Mahavira did not defecate, did not urinate. It has been a matter of much puzzlement: how can this be possible? Mahavira did not sweat. How can this be?
If you take gross food, all this will happen, because these things are linked with food. If you put something in, it has to come out. But if nourishment begins to come in subtle form, then this has no meaning at all. There is nothing to be expelled. The food is so subtle that nothing remains to be thrown out. It is directly absorbed.
So it is necessary to try to understand Mahavira’s nonviolence from this angle too; we shall also try to understand it from other angles. His long fasts must be understood in the sense that the process of receiving subtle nourishment had become available to him.
In Kashi there was a sannyasin, Vishuddhanand. He revived an extremely ancient science that had been completely lost—the science of sun-rays. That man made such lenses that if you took a dead bird and placed it there, he would catch the sun’s rays through that lens and focus them on the bird; he would sit doing something for a little while, and before your eyes the bird would flutter and come back to life!
And these experiments were done in the presence of Western doctors as well, and countless people coming from Europe saw them with their own eyes. Seat a living bird there, he would again place the lens, then cast the rays in another manner, do something, and the bird would die!
He said that from the sun’s rays, life and death can come directly—there is no need to take anything in between. Direct life can come, direct death can come.
And there are deep truths in this. All the life that we see on earth is bound to the sun’s rays. If the sun were to set, all life would set at once. There would be no plants, no flowers, no birds, no humans—no one at all. There may be beings even if there is no sun, but there will be no body. The connection between body and vital force is linked to the sun’s rays. There could be disembodied beings, bodiless beings, but there would be no body.
And recently, on returning from the moon, an incident occurred which is worth considering—very much worth considering. They came back from the moon and no one was found on the moon; there is no one to be found there in that sense. But on their return, the transmitters and radio stations below them, where their signals were being received, heard such piercing screams, such clamor, such weeping, such laughter, as if millions upon millions of ghosts were suddenly shrieking! Even if those three men tried to shout and weep, in no way could they create the illusion of the voices of millions upon millions of spirits. And when they were asked upon return, they said, “We don’t know anything at all! We were just resting on the way back!”
This is a deep indication and a report that there are no embodied beings on the moon—because the condition has not yet arisen there for bodies to manifest—but there is a full presence of disembodied souls on the moon.
The sun’s rays have been a great means of joining body and life-force here. So from the sun’s rays, something direct can indeed happen. Through the eyes, too, the rays of the sun can be imbibed and can be life-giving. Many experiments of trataka are experiments in drawing life directly from the sun; they are not merely experiments in concentration. They are experiments in drawing life directly from the sun. And once that understanding descends, life can be drawn from the sun from anywhere.
In Tibet there is a special kind of yoga called surya-yoga. In Tibet there is terrible cold. Sometimes the sun appears, sometimes it does not. There is nothing but ice. Even a naked fakir will sit on that ice, and you will find sweat dripping from his body! Naked, sitting there, sweat is pouring from all over! Sitting naked on the ice—at night, with no sign of the sun—and sweat is dripping! Its process is that wherever the sun may be, one can relate to it; the moment one relates to it, warmth begins to pervade the whole body. Even the ice can do nothing.
What I am saying, I am saying with this in mind: that it may enter your understanding that when Mahavira established relationships with the lower worlds, the lower worlds also responded. The lower worlds also gave answers to Mahavira. Then we have strung these things into stories, which become poetry. The story, the poem says that when Mahavira walks, if a thorn is lying upright, on seeing him it immediately turns upside down.
These are our stories. And one very deep point is being attempted in them: that even nature does not try to be unfriendly to Mahavira; it tries to be friendly. For how can nature try to go against one who has given it so much love, so much identification?
About Mohammed it is said that when he walks, a little cloud moves like a shade above him. That such a cloud might move is not necessary; it could also happen. But what is essential to say is this: wherever people form a relationship, from there something can indeed happen. Answers will certainly come. Even a stone lying at the roadside gives an answer to your love. Answers come from all sides.
And remember, the answers are the very things we throw out—they echo, resound, and return. So if Mahavira’s nonviolence returns from all sides as nonviolence, it is not a matter for amazement.
So the first point is that Mahavira established relationships with the lower plane—the mute world. Below is the mute world. Then in the middle is the world of human beings, the world of words. And above man is the world of the gods, the world of silence. These are the three worlds. Mute means: where speech has not yet appeared. The world of words: where speech has appeared. The world of silence: where speech has disappeared again. The gods have no speech.
Is there no body either?
There is no body either. Animals, too, have no speech. But they do have a body. Speech has not yet manifested. The apparatus is there in animals; speech can manifest.
Do animals have a language of their own?
Only in a manner of speaking. It is not a language, just signals. The signals are makeshift and very limited. For example, bees have about four signals. So they can give those four signals.
But there are even treatises on birds’ calls!
Yes, yes, one can converse with birds, but birds do not have a speech of their own. You can establish a connection. Birds have no language of their own. A bird cannot tell you anything in words. But a bird can feel, can experience. And if you connect with it on the plane of experience, you can know what it is experiencing. It does not say anything to you; you only come to know its experience, what is going on within it.
For example, a dog is crying. By crying the dog is not telling you anything. Something is happening inside the dog because of which it cries. But if you could connect within, you might find that someone in the neighborhood is about to die, and that is why it is crying. Yet the dog itself does not know that someone next door is about to die and that this is why it cries. The very event of its crying is because certain waves are striking its consciousness from nearby—somewhere death, somewhere death. And this is a completely mute experience. In this mute experience it cries and howls. It cannot say anything to you; it has no means of saying. And from its howling you cannot make anything out either.
So when we say that great experiments have been conducted to learn the language of animals and birds—yes, they have been undertaken, and they have succeeded to a considerable extent—but in them no “speech” of theirs is found. They have no speech made of words, letters, characters. There are planes of feeling; there are waves of experience. If you can catch those, you can decode them—you can open what they might be sensing.
So I divide life into three planes. First, the mute: where speech could manifest but has not yet, where there is only experience, feeling, no words. Second, the human realm: where words have appeared, where we have begun to function through words—speaking, thinking, communicating, dialoguing. Third, the realm above man, the realm of the gods: where speech has been lost, has become useless; there is no longer any need for it, and conversation can happen without words—silence itself can become dialogue.
These are the three worlds. Among them, the realm of animals, plants, birds, stones seems the most difficult—but it is not the most difficult. The gods’ realm may also seem difficult, because where there are no words, how does expression happen? Through silence. But that too is not so difficult. The most difficult realm of conversation is the human one: we invented words for dialogue—and we have invented them in such a way that, almost because of the words themselves, dialogue has become difficult. The simplest is the gods’ realm, where silent thought is possible.
Therefore, when it is said that in Mahavira’s samosaran the first to be present are the gods, its meaning is only this: the simplest communication is possible with them. Words are not a hindrance in between; words are not even the medium. Whatever feeling arises here is directly transmitted. No one needs to travel in between.
As we see, there is the telephone, where a wire connects to the other phone. Then there is wireless, where there is no wire in between—direct contact. There is no need to bring a wire in between; transmission happens directly. In the same way, one kind of conversation is through words, where words connect you and me. And there is another kind of conversation where even words are not in between—only silence—and what is experienced in silence gets communicated.
So with the gods the dialogue of truth is the simplest. Therefore, if their presence has been the first, it is no surprise. It is natural.
For example, a dog is crying. By crying the dog is not telling you anything. Something is happening inside the dog because of which it cries. But if you could connect within, you might find that someone in the neighborhood is about to die, and that is why it is crying. Yet the dog itself does not know that someone next door is about to die and that this is why it cries. The very event of its crying is because certain waves are striking its consciousness from nearby—somewhere death, somewhere death. And this is a completely mute experience. In this mute experience it cries and howls. It cannot say anything to you; it has no means of saying. And from its howling you cannot make anything out either.
So when we say that great experiments have been conducted to learn the language of animals and birds—yes, they have been undertaken, and they have succeeded to a considerable extent—but in them no “speech” of theirs is found. They have no speech made of words, letters, characters. There are planes of feeling; there are waves of experience. If you can catch those, you can decode them—you can open what they might be sensing.
So I divide life into three planes. First, the mute: where speech could manifest but has not yet, where there is only experience, feeling, no words. Second, the human realm: where words have appeared, where we have begun to function through words—speaking, thinking, communicating, dialoguing. Third, the realm above man, the realm of the gods: where speech has been lost, has become useless; there is no longer any need for it, and conversation can happen without words—silence itself can become dialogue.
These are the three worlds. Among them, the realm of animals, plants, birds, stones seems the most difficult—but it is not the most difficult. The gods’ realm may also seem difficult, because where there are no words, how does expression happen? Through silence. But that too is not so difficult. The most difficult realm of conversation is the human one: we invented words for dialogue—and we have invented them in such a way that, almost because of the words themselves, dialogue has become difficult. The simplest is the gods’ realm, where silent thought is possible.
Therefore, when it is said that in Mahavira’s samosaran the first to be present are the gods, its meaning is only this: the simplest communication is possible with them. Words are not a hindrance in between; words are not even the medium. Whatever feeling arises here is directly transmitted. No one needs to travel in between.
As we see, there is the telephone, where a wire connects to the other phone. Then there is wireless, where there is no wire in between—direct contact. There is no need to bring a wire in between; transmission happens directly. In the same way, one kind of conversation is through words, where words connect you and me. And there is another kind of conversation where even words are not in between—only silence—and what is experienced in silence gets communicated.
So with the gods the dialogue of truth is the simplest. Therefore, if their presence has been the first, it is no surprise. It is natural.
Have all these gods and goddesses existed?
They are. Not “have been,” they are. We can speak about this gradually; perhaps it would be appropriate to know a little in that regard too. Animals and birds are also present in Mahavira’s samosharan. They are present to listen. It seems astonishing that animals and birds would be present to listen. Human beings are present as well.
They are. Not “have been,” they are. We can speak about this gradually; perhaps it would be appropriate to know a little in that regard too. Animals and birds are also present in Mahavira’s samosharan. They are present to listen. It seems astonishing that animals and birds would be present to listen. Human beings are present as well.
What was said to the animals and birds—perhaps they heard it; what was said to the gods—they too heard it; what was said to human beings—perhaps they did not hear it. Because humans have words, and the notion that they are intelligent, which is very dangerous. A human being has the idea, “I understand everything.” This is a great obstacle.
He hears the word, and he has invented a device to catch and store the word—language. He stores it all. He says, “This is exactly what was said, it’s all written here.” He catches the words, then he interprets them—and goes astray.
Hence the great difficulty with man. Man is an animal, but he is no longer an animal. Man can become a god, but he has not yet become one. He is the link in between. If we understand rightly, man in the true sense is not a being but a bridge—he has come ahead from the animal, but the animal in him has not vanished entirely.
Therefore, in what is essential he still acts without language. If anger arises, he slaps. If love arises, he embraces. In what is essential he still does not use language; he sets language aside at once. His animal shows itself immediately. The animal has no language—so when there is love, it embraces; when there is anger, it slaps. He descends; he drops language. He knows language is not adequate. So for the most essential things he functions in non-language. And for what is even more essential—where language is utterly useless—he must work through silence.
Man is no longer an animal, and he is not yet a god. He stands in between—a kind of crossroads that lies at the center of all directions. And wherever one has to go, one cannot go without passing through man. To make this human being understand is the most difficult endeavor. Gods understand exactly what is said, because no words intervene; there is no question of interpretation. Animals understand because nothing is said to them; there is no question of interpretation—only waves are transmitted, and those waves are received.
As this tape recorder is listening to me now. It too is listening; you are listening. A deity could also be present in this room. This tape recorder does no interpretation; it only receives, it only catches the waves. So when it is played tomorrow, it will repeat whatever it has caught.
On the plane of matter and on the plane of the animal, receptivity is direct like this—the waves are simply transmitted. On the plane of the gods, meaning reveals itself directly. On the human plane, the waves arrive, and meaning he seeks for himself. Then the trouble begins. His interpretations arise—interpretations upon interpretations.
As I said, Mahavira is perhaps the only person who has invited—who knows how many animals, how many birds, how many plants—toward the human side. Another point is also necessary to understand: he is perhaps the only one—and others have tried; many have succeeded—who has also attracted the gods toward the human side. We will speak on this later. How he communicated with human beings we will talk about tomorrow; and how communication with the gods is possible, that too we will discuss. His entire twelve years of austerity were the sadhana of expression and communication—how to convey what must be conveyed. And the moment that sadhana was complete, he dropped it and devoted himself to the work of conveying.
Two small maxims to keep in mind at the end:
- If one has to communicate with an animal, one must become mute. Mute means that speech must be lost; it will not remain inside; the person will appear almost unconscious and inert. But only the body will be inert, the mind inert; within, consciousness will be fully awake, fully alert.
- If one has to connect with human beings, there are two ways. With those who have passed through sadhana, a connection can be made without words—because through sadhana they can be brought to that state where the gods are; then they can understand in silence. As I said yesterday, the Buddha told Mahakashyapa, “I have given it to you, that which I could not give to others through words.” Or else, there is straightforward speech—say it directly to them, they will hear it, understand it. But they do not understand.
Therefore the account of Mahavira is this: Mahavira speaks, the ganadharas listen, and the ganadharas explain to the people. This is very dangerous. Mahavira says something to someone, he hears it, then he explains it to people as he understands it. A middleman comes to stand in between. And a direct connection with Mahavira does not get established, because we can understand words, not experiences. Or else we should enter into experience—go into meditation, descend into samadhi, and stand at that place where waves can be caught without words. That is one way. Otherwise, there will be intermediaries, there will be interpretations, there will be words—everything will go astray, everything will be lost.
Whatever scriptures have been constructed have been constructed through words spoken to men. Those words are not even directly Mahavira’s. Those words too belong to the commentators in between. And then we have compiled them according to our own understanding and intellect; we have made our interpretations. Hence all the quarrels, all the turmoil.
What Mahavira said in silence must be caught. Or what he said to meditators, or to the gods—those to whom it could be spoken in silence—must be caught. Or what he said to those with whom words were impossible—birds, plants, stones—this too must be grasped. And, as I said on the first day, all of that is preserved in the deepest depths of existence. It can all be recaptured. We only have to descend into those states of mind, and we can catch it again.
He hears the word, and he has invented a device to catch and store the word—language. He stores it all. He says, “This is exactly what was said, it’s all written here.” He catches the words, then he interprets them—and goes astray.
Hence the great difficulty with man. Man is an animal, but he is no longer an animal. Man can become a god, but he has not yet become one. He is the link in between. If we understand rightly, man in the true sense is not a being but a bridge—he has come ahead from the animal, but the animal in him has not vanished entirely.
Therefore, in what is essential he still acts without language. If anger arises, he slaps. If love arises, he embraces. In what is essential he still does not use language; he sets language aside at once. His animal shows itself immediately. The animal has no language—so when there is love, it embraces; when there is anger, it slaps. He descends; he drops language. He knows language is not adequate. So for the most essential things he functions in non-language. And for what is even more essential—where language is utterly useless—he must work through silence.
Man is no longer an animal, and he is not yet a god. He stands in between—a kind of crossroads that lies at the center of all directions. And wherever one has to go, one cannot go without passing through man. To make this human being understand is the most difficult endeavor. Gods understand exactly what is said, because no words intervene; there is no question of interpretation. Animals understand because nothing is said to them; there is no question of interpretation—only waves are transmitted, and those waves are received.
As this tape recorder is listening to me now. It too is listening; you are listening. A deity could also be present in this room. This tape recorder does no interpretation; it only receives, it only catches the waves. So when it is played tomorrow, it will repeat whatever it has caught.
On the plane of matter and on the plane of the animal, receptivity is direct like this—the waves are simply transmitted. On the plane of the gods, meaning reveals itself directly. On the human plane, the waves arrive, and meaning he seeks for himself. Then the trouble begins. His interpretations arise—interpretations upon interpretations.
As I said, Mahavira is perhaps the only person who has invited—who knows how many animals, how many birds, how many plants—toward the human side. Another point is also necessary to understand: he is perhaps the only one—and others have tried; many have succeeded—who has also attracted the gods toward the human side. We will speak on this later. How he communicated with human beings we will talk about tomorrow; and how communication with the gods is possible, that too we will discuss. His entire twelve years of austerity were the sadhana of expression and communication—how to convey what must be conveyed. And the moment that sadhana was complete, he dropped it and devoted himself to the work of conveying.
Two small maxims to keep in mind at the end:
- If one has to communicate with an animal, one must become mute. Mute means that speech must be lost; it will not remain inside; the person will appear almost unconscious and inert. But only the body will be inert, the mind inert; within, consciousness will be fully awake, fully alert.
- If one has to connect with human beings, there are two ways. With those who have passed through sadhana, a connection can be made without words—because through sadhana they can be brought to that state where the gods are; then they can understand in silence. As I said yesterday, the Buddha told Mahakashyapa, “I have given it to you, that which I could not give to others through words.” Or else, there is straightforward speech—say it directly to them, they will hear it, understand it. But they do not understand.
Therefore the account of Mahavira is this: Mahavira speaks, the ganadharas listen, and the ganadharas explain to the people. This is very dangerous. Mahavira says something to someone, he hears it, then he explains it to people as he understands it. A middleman comes to stand in between. And a direct connection with Mahavira does not get established, because we can understand words, not experiences. Or else we should enter into experience—go into meditation, descend into samadhi, and stand at that place where waves can be caught without words. That is one way. Otherwise, there will be intermediaries, there will be interpretations, there will be words—everything will go astray, everything will be lost.
Whatever scriptures have been constructed have been constructed through words spoken to men. Those words are not even directly Mahavira’s. Those words too belong to the commentators in between. And then we have compiled them according to our own understanding and intellect; we have made our interpretations. Hence all the quarrels, all the turmoil.
What Mahavira said in silence must be caught. Or what he said to meditators, or to the gods—those to whom it could be spoken in silence—must be caught. Or what he said to those with whom words were impossible—birds, plants, stones—this too must be grasped. And, as I said on the first day, all of that is preserved in the deepest depths of existence. It can all be recaptured. We only have to descend into those states of mind, and we can catch it again.
Osho's Commentary
To say something to human beings is difficult — but not impossibly difficult. Mahavira attempted something rare and new: that plants, animals and birds, deities — all planes of life, as many levels as there are — should receive the news of what had come to him. After Mahavira no one tried in quite the same way. Saint Francis of Assisi in Europe made a small effort to reach birds and animals. And recently Sri Aurobindo made a great effort to carry pulsations of consciousness even into matter. But no attempt like Mahavira’s happened before him, nor after.
Those twelve years that are ordinarily taken to be years of sadhana for the realization of truth were, in fact, the years for finding means to express what was realized. Hence, exactly after twelve years Mahavira abandoned all sadhana. Otherwise, the sadhana that leads to truth can never be abandoned. The sadhana for the realization of truth is not such that, once truth is attained, it becomes useless. As I said in the morning: the path to truth is unmuddied consciousness, apramad, discernment, awakening, awareness. It is not that one who has attained truth will drop awareness, awakening, vigilance. This is impossible, because in the attainment of truth awakening is intrinsic. That truth, too, is but a form of awakened consciousness. So awakening cannot be left.
Only that sadhana can be dropped which does not belong to the very texture of the ultimate, but was used merely as a means. As when you come here by bullock-cart: on arriving, you step down and leave the cart, because the cart was only a means to reach; then it is superfluous.
Means that become superfluous upon arrival are not parts of the goal; hence they are dropped. But those inner means that necessarily bloom as the goal never become superfluous. Discernment never becomes useless. Upon the full attainment of truth it does not become useless — it becomes complete.
Yet after twelve years of sadhana Mahavira leaves everything. Those who followed him have never quite pondered how this could be. They could not answer, because they failed to understand that these twelve years were arrangements for discovering instruments of expression — an organization, a preparation. Once the medium was found, the organization became unnecessary. It was temporal, a need of the time, not eternal.
What did he do to create an echo, a ripple of his realization across all planes of life?
Three things must be understood. One: existence has a mute segment — stone, plant, bird, animal. There are differences — vast differences between stone and animal — yet it is one division, mute. If one is to relate to this mute segment and carry one’s experience to it, one must descend into the state of utmost inertness, utmost muteness. Only then can there be accord with this realm.
For example, if someone sits near a tree and becomes perfectly mute — as if inert, as if the body is no longer a living entity — and consciousness grows utterly silent, reaching the point where not a single word remains, then in that perfect muteness a dialogue with the tree becomes possible.
Ramakrishna again and again descended into such a state, which I call his jada Samadhi. Days would pass and he would lie as if unconscious. In that unconscious-like state he would become related to the unconscious part of the surrounding existence.
One day a most astonishing thing happened. He was in a boat, eyes closed. At some unknown moment he slipped away. Suddenly he cried, Do not beat me! Why are you beating me? What have I done? Why do you beat me? His friends and devotees in the boat were bewildered — who was beating him? There was no one to beat him; and no reason. They shook him, What happened? He said, Someone is whipping me. They uncovered his back; there were marks of the lash. Wonder increased. They said, But we all are here — no one has beaten you. Ramakrishna raised his hand and pointed to the far bank: Do you not see, they are all beating me there. When the boat landed, they discovered a man being whipped; where the lash marks showed on that man’s back, exactly there they showed on Ramakrishna’s.
How was this possible? In what state can it happen? It is unprecedented, not so ancient, and many witnessed it. It happened in a state of mind where, in muteness, there is a oneness with the surrounding world.
One may ask: why oneness with the one who was beaten and not with those who were beating? What of the trees, the plants, the passers-by, the other boats? Consider a small thing. If a thorn pierces your foot, your consciousness identifies with the point of the thorn. It forgets the whole body and stands exactly at the point of pain. If the thorn has not pricked you, you are not even aware you have a foot. But when the thorn pricks, the rest of the body disappears; only that point remains. So, even when vast identification happens, the focus becomes most clear and intense where there is pain, where there is wounding, where suffering is.
Mahavira made the deepest experiments in this direction in human history. And you will be surprised to know: his teaching of ahimsa did not arise from metaphysical speculation, nor from the thought that the ahimsak will reach moksha. It arose from his tadanatmya — identification — with the lower, mute world. The suffering he experienced there made ahimsa the supreme principle of his life.
Two points must be understood. Ordinarily it is thought that the man of nonviolence is practicing for liberation, that by living nonviolently he will reach moksha. But there are those who have reached who did not live by ahimsa: neither Christ, nor Ramakrishna, nor Muhammad can be called strictly ahimsak. Those who think one reaches moksha by ahimsa have not understood Mahavira. The matter is entirely different. Through his identification with the mute world below man, the suffering Mahavira experienced became so condensed that the very notion of causing suffering became impossible. Even the slightest hurt was impossible for him — more impossible than for anyone else ever. This arose from the experiment of expanding within his own life-breath what he had experienced of that world.
Two things happened through which ahimsa crystallized. First, the suffering he encountered in the lower world was so immense that any increase in it — for any reason — was intolerable. Second, he saw that unless one becomes utterly nonviolent, identification with the lower world is almost impossible. We can identify only with that toward which all our aggression and violence has dissolved and love has arisen. Identification is possible only there. So if one is to establish identification with the mute world, ahimsa is the very condition; otherwise, that identification cannot be.
I mentioned Saint Francis. He did unparalleled work in establishing relation with animals. Eyewitnesses say that if Francis stood on a riverbank, fish would gather by the shore — the river would empty toward him. Not only would they gather, they would leap to see him. If he sat beneath a tree, the birds of the whole forest would come to that tree; not only to the tree — they would descend into his lap, sit upon his head, crowd his shoulders. Whenever asked how this was possible, Francis said, There is no other reason; they know very well that through me no harm can ever come to them.
Birds have an intuitive force — an inner knowing — which we lost long ago. You will be amazed: in Japan there is a common village bird that disappears from the village exactly twenty-four hours before an earthquake. All our instruments cannot reliably warn more than two or three hours beforehand, yet that bird leaves a day early. Its absence is a sure sign an earthquake will come within a day. How does the bird know? It has no devices, no science, no method.
In the far north there are hundreds of species that, every year, before the snows, fly to the coasts of Europe. If they began after the snows, the journey would be perilous; so they take flight a month before the snow falls — and astonishingly, snow begins exactly a month after the day they leave. They traverse thousands of miles and never go astray, and a month before the snow ceases, they begin the return, reaching precisely the same nesting places.
Those who have entered the worlds of birds and animals are amazed. They have an intuition that, without mind, makes things clear. So they are safe near the friend and wary near the foe — there is no need to tell them. The pulsations of our heart — of love or hatred — are enough; they touch them and the animals become alert to us.
There is no other reason for Mahavira’s tremendous emphasis on ahimsa. One: without a perfectly nonviolent disposition, it is impossible to relate to the mute world. Two: when that relationship arises, one becomes aware of such endless suffering there that the natural feeling is at least not to add to the burden — and, if possible, to lighten it.
Even Buddha did not understand this. The experiment of communicating truth that Gautam Buddha made did not go deeper than the human plane. Neither Jesus, nor Buddha, nor Zarathustra, nor Muhammad penetrated below man — to that vast mute expanse from which we have come, where we once were, which we have crossed...
Mahavira’s vision is that toward the world where we once were — the world we have crossed — we have an inevitable responsibility: to show the way across, to send the news of how crossing happens.
In my understanding, Mahavira developed more souls of animals and plants than anyone ever has. Many who are human today are so because, in their animal or plant or even stone states, someone like Mahavira sent messages and a call. One could even inquire how many received such inspiration and moved ahead.
So astounding is this work that, for this alone, Mahavira becomes the greatest knower of the psyche of life and of the human mind. Even had he done only this one thing, his remembrance among the liberators of humanity — indeed, of the life-force — would remain imperishable.
This work is very difficult. Establishing identification downward is extremely arduous for two reasons. It is always easier to identify upward, with what is above us. First, because it gratifies the ego. It is easy to say I am the Divine; it is very hard to say I am an animal. Downward identification hurts the ego; upward identification feeds it. Moreover, we all wish to go up; a deep urge opens us in that direction. A river runs toward the sea; it is easy to flow downhill; the slope helps. But if the Ganges were to turn back toward Gangotri, it would face great hardship — there is an ascent, and there is no ocean there.
Mahavira’s attempt to turn back toward the worlds behind man and to send waves of what was known there is immensely difficult. What lies behind never occurs to us. We always think of what lies ahead. What we have been we forget; no connection remains.
There is a reason for forgetting: what is humiliating we do not wish to remember. The deepest reason we forget past lives is this — we do not want to remember them, for we have come from below and we want to forget that.
A poor man becomes rich. The first thing he wants is to erase every mark that might reveal he was once poor. He even avoids the friends of his poverty, for they betray the fact. He makes new connections, new friendships. He forgets the below. If a rich man can leave even poor friends, no wonder that one wishes to forget the animal, bird, plant, and stone yonis one has passed through. Who will care to establish identification with them?
Mahavira tried for the first time. The method must be understood. If one wishes to identify with undeveloped states behind, one must bring one’s consciousness and persona down to those very planes on which those consciousnesses are living.
You may be surprised: Mahavira’s emblem is the lion. The reason likely never occurred to you, and could not have. The sole reason is that, in establishing identification with earlier consciousness, Mahavira found the greatest ease with the lion. He had been a lion in past lives; hence it was simple to return and identify. In truth, when his tadanatmya with the lion happened, he would have known completely: I am a lion. This became his symbol. And his personality bears leonine features: he does not move in herds; he stands utterly alone. The lion’s spirit of conquest, the indomitable will to victory — that is in Mahavira. The lion’s fearlessness is the first sutra of his sadhana. This symbol is not accidental.
No symbol is accidental. Behind a symbol is deep psychic content. Jung worked much in this area and uncovered archetypes. Each mind carries certain symbols that belong to that psyche; if we understand them, we can open the personality. The lion beneath Mahavira is a key to his being.
To descend and establish identification is to relax and relax the consciousness, again and again, until there is no movement left in it; for the body to become utterly inert; for consciousness to become slack and void. When the body is inert and consciousness slack and empty — then identity can be established with any tree, animal, plant.
A curious fact: to identify with trees, one need not identify with a particular tree. One can identify with an entire species at once, for individuality has not yet arisen there; they still live as species. To identify with a rose plant is to identify with all roses, because the plant has not yet a sense of personhood, of I-ness.
But with human beings identification is very difficult. Yes, with tribal peoples one can still identify collectively, for they live as clans, not as individuals. The more civilized a society, the more cultured, the harder it becomes. To identify with Bertrand Russell is to identify with a person; you may identify with the English, but Russell will be left out — he has a distinct individuality. The lower we go, the less individuality there is; therefore identification happens with a whole species. And in such identity, whatever sankalpa — feeling-will — is created resounds and spreads through all of them. If identity is established with the species of rose, then the feeling-wave born in that moment will spread to all roses.
Mahavira spent much time in such states. To attain them he had to do many things that later commentators found difficult to explain. For example, Mahavira would be standing and someone would hammer iron pegs into his ears — and Mahavira would not notice. Why? If you hammer a peg into a stone, does the stone know? Consciousness at that time is stationed where such things are not registered; almost everything is unconscious. If someone were to cut off his hand, he would not know — just as if one cuts a branch from a tree. It depends on where his identity is.
We all know people can walk on fire. Everything depends on identity. If a man has identified with a deity and dances in that god’s ecstasy, he can walk upon embers and not burn — the deity cannot burn. The man himself would burn at once, but if he has become one with a god, even a heap of coals will not raise a blister, for the consciousness behaves according to its identity.
Our behavior depends upon our identity. Our being human, too, is a deep identity. Therefore we behave as humans ought to behave, because the mind-field holds the conviction I am human. Many incidents come to mind. In Mahavira’s life there are many places where understanding falters. Not understanding, we say he is forgiving, without anger — and that is fine. But to have iron pegs driven into the ear and not know of it — that cannot be explained by non-anger or forgiveness. However non-angry one may be, this is something else. It is possible only when, in that state, Mahavira is as a rock.
Socrates once went missing for a night. His household was distressed. In the morning friends went searching and found him beneath a tree in snow, everything covered white — he was sunk to his knees in snow, leaning against the tree, eyes closed, utterly cold, with only a faint breath. They rubbed him warm, clothed him. When he came back to himself they asked, What were you doing? He said, I got into great difficulty. I stood at night looking at some stars; I do not know when my identity with them happened; when I knew I was a star, I cannot say. And stars are cold, so I kept growing cold. Since I knew myself as a star, the thought of returning home never arose. Only when you shook me did I return as if from another world.
We become that with which we identify. The art of identification is a wondrous thing — and if there is the slightest slip, all goes awry.
The first means Mahavira sought for expression was to carry waves into the mute, inert world. These waves can now be known even scientifically. The day tirthas and temples were first raised, there was a very wondrous reason: if one like Mahavira lives in this room for some days, his identity with the room grows; his waves become imprinted upon every vein and particle of the room. Then sitting in this room can be meaningful, cooperative, for another.
If someone has committed murder here, or suicide, then at the moment of suicide a vast explosion of intense waves occurs — for a man is breaking — and those intense waves remain imprinted upon the walls for hundreds of years. You might sleep here one night and dream of suicide; it is not your dream, it is the effect of the room’s resonances upon your mind. It may even happen that living here, someday you commit suicide. This is not difficult.
The reverse is also possible. If someone like Mahavira or Meera has lived here in waves of love and awakening, the room will be filled with those waves. For what looks like the particle of clay there and what is the particle here within us are not fundamentally different: all are electrical particles; all can receive and transmit waves. The weak receive waves from matter; the strong must give waves to matter.
I spoke the other day of the Bodhi tree. There is no other reason to revere a tree. Yet it is meaningful. Under that tree the event of nirvana happened; in that moment, waves spread like an explosion around Buddha; the tree is the closest witness. In its every particle their imprint remains. Even today one who knows the secret science can sit beneath that tree and call those waves back into himself.
It was not accidental that monks traveled a thousand, two thousand, three thousand miles to lie for a few moments at the foot of that tree. There is a science behind it. Whether Sammed Shikhar or Girnar or Kaaba or Kashi or Jerusalem — each bears certain signs, inscriptions in deep scripts within their waves. Slowly, they have been destroyed. By now almost no living tirtha remains on earth — living tirtha. The waves have been erased, or so battered by the tread of multitudes that they are nearly cut off and finished. Yet there was, and is, meaning in all this: even the most inert matter can be revolutionized by waves.
A latest experiment has brought great bewilderment. As we broke atoms and went down into the world of electrons, a new, disturbing discovery overturned much of science. If electrons are closely observed through microscopes, their behavior changes from what it is when unobserved. When no one looks, they move a certain way; under observation they wobble and change their motion. That even the final particle of matter is affected by human seeing is astonishing. As when you walk alone on a road and someone glances from a window — you change; your gait changes; the humming stops. In a bath, singing, dancing, making faces before the mirror — suddenly you sense an eye at a hole in the wall, and you become another person.
That observation affects a person is understandable; that it affects atoms is startling. It tells us we are in error in our assumptions. There, too, is life, there too is Atman — something that becomes afraid when seen, becomes alert when seen, changes when seen. Even to such particles Mahavira tried to send the news.
For this he was often found in states where one could not say whether he was alive or dead. To bring such states he made other experiments. Mahavira would remain without food for four or five months — extraordinary. He ate nothing; yet the body did not grow weak, did not suffer, remained as it was. You may never have thought — and among the Jain monks who keep speaking of fasting for twenty-five centuries — not one can explain what would happen to you if you fasted four or five months. Why did none of this happen to Mahavira? In twelve years he ate, with great gaps, perhaps a year in total — every twelfth day for sure, sometimes after two days, sometimes after two months; so it went. Yet his body did not become emaciated. It remained perfectly healthy, exceptionally healthy, exceptionally beautiful. Why?
My own vision is this: one who is giving such great gifts to the atoms of matter, to the atoms of plants, to the atoms of birds — if those atoms respond to him, it is no surprise. It is a response, a reciprocation from the world of atoms. One who is finding ways to awaken the soul even of a nearby stone, who is sending vibrations to awaken the consciousness of the tree by his side — if such a person receives many powers in return from the world of matter, it is not astonishing. And he was receiving them.
After all, we take food from trees. We cut, crush, cook on fire; then leaf or fruit becomes fit for us, and we digest and it turns into our blood and bone. What is fruit but sun and earth and water distilled. Someday science will discover this: the fruit that drinks the sun and collects vitamin D — why this long journey of eating the fruit and then receiving the vitamin? Why not receive it straight from the sun? Or compress the sunlight into a small capsule and give it to a person, so that what one would gather by eating fifty fruits, one capsule may deliver. Someday science will move that way. But science moves by grabbing; it snatches. Mahavira too moves, but differently. One day that movement will be understood. Is it not possible that, in deep reciprocity, one who is unifying himself with all these — water, air, sun — should receive from them what never comes to us, or comes only with great toil?
Two such incidents have occurred. In Europe there is a woman alive who has taken no food for thirty years — yet she is perfectly healthy, and, strikingly, as beautiful and healthy as Mahavira must have been. All her X-rays and examinations show an empty stomach, always empty. Yet her weight does not fall even an ounce. There is another astonishing phenomenon with her: among Christian mystics there is an experiment in identification called stigmata. When Jesus was crucified on a Friday, nails were driven through his hands. Christian ascetics who identify with Jesus sit with arms outstretched on Fridays, and, before thousands of eyes, holes appear in their hands and blood flows — through identification. In that moment they are not themselves; they are Jesus. This woman — for thirty years she has eaten nothing, and for thirty years, every Friday, her hands bleed by the seer-fulls. By the next day the hands are healed and the wounds disappear, and her weight does not decline. Much scientific thought has gone into it in the West, but they have not yet grasped what may be happening.
In Bengal there was a woman who died not long ago. For forty or forty-five years she took no food. She was not exceptionally healthy, but ordinarily so. When her husband died, she refused to eat. The family persuaded her after a day or two, but she said, Since all my days are now after his death, what difference does it make whether it is one day, two days, three? When you accepted it that day, accept it now: how can I eat after his death? She lived forty-five years and took no food. Scientists pondered her too, and could not make it clear. My own understanding is this — and it comes to me, I think, from Mahavira...