Mahaveer Meri Drishti Mein #8

There are two or three things to understand here.

First, only with Mahavira did a stream of thought become a sect. Before Mahavira there was indeed a current of thought, but it had no separate existence from the Aryan tradition. It was a current that arose within the Aryan tradition. Its name was Shramana. It was not called “Jain” yet. And there was a reason for calling it “Shramana,” as I have said earlier.

I have told you that the Brahmin current does not put faith in attaining the ultimate through effort, through sadhana, through tapas. The ultimate is to be attained in an attitude of extreme humility, in prayer, in utter meekness—where we are completely helpless, where we can do nothing; the doer is That alone. In this perfect poverty—what Jesus called “poverty of the spirit”—one who is so humble and indigent in spirit that he says, “What can I do? I can only ask; I can only fold my hands and surrender.”

There was such a current that sought the ultimate, or truth, by asking in utmost humility. Opposed to it, another current began to flow whose basis was effort (shram), not prayer; not “we will pray, we will worship, and we will attain,” but “we will exert, we will resolve, we will practice.” Through effort and resolve, it will be won.

The Aryan outlook on life is vast. Within it are included both the Shramana and the Brahmin streams. These are the two currents of the Aryan worldview. It is only with Mahavira that the Shramana stream declared a separate identity. Before Mahavira, it was not separate.

That is why the name of Adinath will be found in the Vedas, but after that you will not find Mahavira’s name in any Hindu scripture. The name of the first Tirthankara is available in the Vedas with full respect, but Mahavira’s name is not. With Mahavira, the stream of thought became a sect and cut a separate trail from the Aryan life-path. Until then it was on the same road—flowing separately, yes, as a distinct current of reflection, but still on the same road. No line of division had yet been drawn.

And such a division never happens all at once; it takes time. When Jesus was born, the Christian stream did not separate in his lifetime. For two or three hundred years after his death, the thinkers inspired by Jesus continued within the Jewish fold. As the differences became clearer and the perspectives more opposed, only three, four, five hundred years later could a distinct Christian stream stand apart. Jesus was born a Jew and died a Jew. Jesus was never a Christian.

The first twenty-three Tirthankaras were Aryan—born Aryan and died Aryan. They were not Jain. But with Mahavira the stream became wholly separate, gained strength, and attained a well-formulated vision of its own. Therefore it ceased to be called Shramana and came to be called Jain.

There was another reason too for the name. The Shramana stream itself was large. Not all Shramanas became Jains. Among those who placed their faith in effort and resolve were the Ajivikas, there is the Buddha, and other thinkers as well. When Mahavira gave a complete vision, a complete philosophy, it remained as one stream within the broader Shramana current. The Buddha’s stream is also Shramana, yet it stood apart. So it became necessary to give this stream a new name, and it became associated with Mahavira. Just as we say of the Buddha, “Buddha the Enlightened, Gautama Buddha, the awakened one,” so Mahavira is Jina—“the Conqueror.” Conqueror! Mahavira, the victor who conquered and realized.

With Mahavira for the first time… “Jina” is a very ancient word; it has even been used for the Buddha. “Jina” simply means “the one who has conquered.” But to draw a clear demarcation it became necessary that, when Gautama’s followers came to be called Buddhists, Mahavira’s followers, because of Jina, came to be called Jains. The words “Jina” and “Jain” manifest with Mahavira. And two things happened: first, the Shramana current split off from the original Aryan stream; second, within the Shramana current several paths arose, of which Jainism became one.

Therefore, the Tirthankaras before Mahavira belong within the Hindu fold; they are not outside it. Mahavira is the first Tirthankara who stands outside the Hindu fold. It takes time for a thought to attain complete independence; that time was needed.

Second, Mahavira certainly is not anyone’s follower, nor did he have a guru. But what he said, what manifested through him, what he communicated, happened to coincide very closely with the inheritance of the followers of the twenty-three Tirthankaras before him. Mahavira had no anxiety that it should coincide; that it did is a matter of happenstance. Had it not, there would have been nothing to worry about. It did, and those followers gradually came to Mahavira—like Acharya Keshin and others who were living in Parshva’s tradition; they came close to Mahavira. This happens often.

It is not that Mahavira simply repeated everything the previous twenty-three Tirthankaras had said. He said much that was new. For example, none of the earlier Tirthankaras had spoken of brahmacharya. Parshvanath’s teaching is chaturyama—fourfold restraint; within it there is no mention of brahmacharya. Mahavira, for the first time, speaks of brahmacharya. And there are many other points he articulates for the first time. But these are not in opposition to the earlier twenty-three. They may carry them forward, add something, but they are not in opposition. They may differ, they may go beyond, but they are not opposed. So naturally those connected with that stream gathered around Mahavira. And when a powerful person like Mahavira comes to a stream, that stream is blessed.

And the truth is, the twenty-three Tirthankaras before Mahavira were great practitioners, siddhas, but none was what we would call a system-maker—one who fashions a coherent philosophy. That person was Mahavira. Therefore, though he is the twenty-fourth, he became almost the first; being the last, his position became the first. If today any living part of that current remains, all the credit goes to Mahavira.

A system-maker is something entirely different—the creator of a structure and a philosophy. There are many kinds of thinkers. Some are always fragmentary; they think in pieces, one fragment at a time, and never succeed in joining all the pieces into an integral vision. Mahavira took all the fragments that had accumulated through the millennia-long journey of those twenty-three Tirthankaras, gave them a coherent form, and shaped them into a philosophy—thus Jain philosophy could come into being.

Certainly, as you ask, Mahavira’s family would have adhered to some path, some view. But whatever the path or view, they were all parts of the Aryan life-path; there was no fundamental division. Hence it could happen that a cousin of Krishna could be a Tirthankara, and Krishna could be the supreme avatar of the Hindus—there was no obstacle. These were thought-systems; they were not yet sects.

Consider today: someone may be a communist, another a socialist, another a fascist—these are systems of thought. In the same household, one person can be a communist, one a socialist, one a fascist. But it can happen that when these harden into sects, the communist’s son is a communist and the socialist’s son a socialist. Then they are no longer thought-systems; they have become sects bound by birth.

Before Mahavira, India had thought-systems, and the Aryan vision encompassed them all. Within it were the ritualists of the Veda, and directly opposed to them, the thinkers of the Upanishads; yet that did not make them something separate. Interestingly, the very word Vedanta means those who hold that where the Veda ends, there truth begins—meaning, up to the Vedas there is no truth; where the Veda ends, truth starts. Even those with a Vedantic outlook were part of the Aryan vision. There was no quarrel in that.

The Upanishads are as opposed to the Veda as the Buddhist or Jain thinkers—Mahavira or Buddha. The rishis of the Upanishads are equally against the Vedic ritualism. They have said such sharp things that one is astonished—so sharp that even the Upanishads speak in startling terms against the ritualistic Brahmins of the Veda. But as yet there were no sects. All were thinkers of various hues within one family—branches of one family—who might fight, quarrel, oppose one another, yet no division by birth had arisen by which a person belonged to a sect from birth.

With Mahavira, for the first time, a separate road broke away from the Aryan life-way. Then within the Shramana life-way, with Buddha, another separate road broke away. It is like a tree. Below there is the trunk—one and the same. Then at some point the trunk splits into two branches. Then each branch splits into many more. Now, we who sit on the branches may ask, “Where was our branch when there was only the trunk?” It was there, of course, but it was gathered within the one trunk.

So in India too the development of thought has been like a tree. Its trunk is the Aryan life-way. From it broke two branches—Hindu and Shramana. From the Shramana branch broke two more—Buddhist and Jain. And within the Hindus, many philosophical branches broke off: Sankhya, Vaisheshika, Yoga, Mimamsa, Vedanta—all these branched out.

Yes, yes—that’s exactly what I’m saying, isn’t it!

And in Mahavira’s time there was a heated controversy as to who the twenty-fourth tirthankara was. Gosala, too, was a claimant. He claimed, “I am the twenty-fourth.” Twenty-three tirthankaras had already been, and there was a search for the twenty-fourth: who would it be? And whoever could be established as the twenty-fourth would become decisive, because he would be the last—first. Second, his words would become authoritative forever, since there was to be no twenty-fifth tirthankara. So there was great contention in Mahavira’s time. Among the claimants were Ajit Keshkambal, Sanjaya, and Makkhali Gosala—each claiming to be the twenty-fourth tirthankara. The tradition was seeking its final figure, someone who could give it ultimate coherence.

In the time of Buddha and Mahavira there were some eight contenders for tirthankarahood. Of these eight, Mahavira emerged the victor. The tradition found in him all that it felt it needed, and he became its seal and stamp.

A sampradaya, however, forms gradually. In Mahavira’s own mind there is not even the question of a sect—there is no notion that he is founding one. No; yet the founder is Mahavira himself. Whether it was in his mind or not is not the point. The moment he gave a coherent framework to the shramana vision of life, the stream took its channel.

Later, others would come to proclaim separation. Mahavira himself never proclaimed a separation. But the issue is not whether there was a proclamation or not; the point is that the very coherence he gave turned it into a sampradaya.

The word sampradaya was maligned much later. The word itself is beautiful—far more beautiful than the English “sect.” It became sullied only afterward; originally there was nothing dirty about it. Sampradaya simply meant: from where I receive a vision of life, from where I receive a path, from where I receive light—there I have the right to flow and walk in that current of light. What appears to me as truth, I have the right to follow.

And Mahavira is something utterly wondrous. It is hard to find a mind more non-sectarian than his, yet he is the very progenitor of a sampradaya. A non-sectarian mind is a different matter altogether. Mahavira’s mind is not sectarian—perhaps there has not been another person on earth with so non-sectarian a mind. One who thinks in relative terms about anything cannot harbor sectarianism. Much later Einstein spoke of relativity in science; in the realm of religion Mahavira had said it twenty-five centuries earlier. It was very difficult to say it then, because the Aryan stream had broken into many fragments, and each fragment was claiming the whole truth.

In truth, a sectarian mind is one that says, “Truth is only here, nowhere else.” It is the mind that claims a monopoly on truth: “Only I am true; all else is false.” Wherever there is such insistence, there is sectarianism. But where there is the humble submission, “What I am saying may also be true; through it one may also reach truth,” there a sampradaya may form, but a sectarian mind will not be there. A sampradaya will form in the sense that some people will move in that direction, will seek, will find, will walk, will be graced toward that path, that vision.

Mahavira is utterly non-sectarian. His vision is truly marvelous. Even where nothing at all seems visible, he will say, “Something or other will be there.” Even if it is not apparent, still some truth will be. For he says there is neither absolute truth nor absolute untruth. In untruth, too, there is a fraction of truth; in truth, too, there is a fraction of untruth. On this earth, in this world, there is nothing like the absolute; everything here is partial.

So if someone were to ask him, “Is it so?” he would say, “Yes, it is,” and at the same time, “It may also not be!” He would also say, “It may be, and it may not be.”

And this also became a reason—the relativity of Mahavira—that the number of his followers and lovers could not grow much. Fanaticism is an essential ingredient in building numbers. Numbers swell when there is a firm, strong claim: “What we say alone is right, and what others say is all wrong.” Then the crazed gather, for they find a taste in such claims. But if a man says, “This is right, that is also right; what you say is fine, what we say is also fine; what a third says, too, is fine,” then the mad cannot gather around such a person. They will say, “What is the point of this man’s talk? He approves everyone. He says the atheist is right, the theist is right—because in both there is some fraction that is right.” Such a man cannot attract a rabble of fanatics.

If you want to collect fanatics, the claim must be solid and strong—so strong that not the least line of doubt appears in it. In Mahavira’s statements a line of doubt seems to appear; it is not doubt, it is probability—not doubt, but possibility. Yet for the common man it is hard to see the difference between possibility and doubt.

If someone were to ask Mahavira, “Is there God?” he would say, “It may be so, and it may not be so. In one sense, it may be; in another sense, it may not be.”

Mahavira is only speaking of the possibilities of truths. He is not saying, “I doubt whether God exists.” He is not saying, “I doubt.” He is saying there is probability—there is the possibility both of God’s being and of God’s not being. There are reasons for possibility, and there are reasons against it. If someone holds that the soul, utterly purified, becomes the Supreme Self, he is right—so it is. But if someone holds that a God sits far away pulling our strings like toys, that is not so. When he says “God is” and “God is not”—both at once—he is distinguishing between meanings of “God.”

But such a subtle vision as Mahavira’s cannot be made fanatic, because the other cannot be dismissed as wholly wrong. And where the other cannot be declared absolutely wrong, gathering followers is very difficult, almost impossible. A follower wants to come with certainty. He wants full security. He feels: “This man himself seems dubious. He says one thing at one time, another at another; does he himself know for sure yet? Is he even fit to be a master? What trust is there in his word? In the morning he says something, at noon something else, by evening something else! If he himself has no fixed ground, how shall we go after him?”

When a man bangs his fist on the table and declares, “What I say is the absolute truth, and everything else is false,” all the weak-minded within us are immediately impressed.

The weak mind demands a claim, a strong certainty. A very intelligent person is startled by certainty. If someone asserts, “This alone is right,” a truly intelligent person will be a bit alarmed: “Something must be wrong with this man, for the truly intelligent do not make such claims.” The intelligent hesitate, they bring a certain reserve, because life is very complex. It is not so simple that we can say, “That’s just how it is.” Life is so complex that there is always the possibility that the opponent, too, has a truth.

Therefore, the more intelligent a person becomes, the more his statements become syat—“in some respect.” He says, “Syat, it may be so.” He no longer declares, “It simply is.” But to understand this mark of intelligence requires intelligence. The unintelligent will not like it.

Thus, in this world the more unintelligent the claims people made, the larger their numbers became. The common man wants an unintelligent claim, a downright fanatical assertion: “There is only one Allah, and apart from him there is no other Allah.” Then he feels, “Ah, this man knows for certain; he makes a clear claim—and he has a sword in his hand as well: if you say otherwise, he will prove you wrong by the sword.” For the weak-minded, the sword itself “proves.” A truly intelligent person, seeing a sword in someone’s hand, will at once take him to be wrong—since when are truth and falsehood proven by the sword?

So the more claimants there have been in the world, the more numbers they have gathered. Mahavira could not gather numbers. To amass numbers was very difficult—almost impossible. For whom could Mahavira impress?

One comes to a master for a firm assurance. The master who says, “I’ll give you a written letter that your place in heaven is guaranteed”—that master makes sense to him. The master who says, “Be assured: I will save you; when all are going to hell, whoever believes in me will be saved”—then he thinks, “This man is right; it is meaningful to go with him.”

Mahavira has no such claim. There has not been such a non-claimant. No claim at all—whatever you may say. And he has seen truth from more angles than anyone ever has.

The threefold predication existed in the world before Mahavira. The acceptance of three possibilities was there earlier. For example, if someone says, “This is a pot,” the threefold means: the pot is; the pot is not—for it is only clay, where is the pot? It both is and is not: as “pot,” it is; as “clay,” it is not. In the sense of clay, it is only clay, not pot. So what meaning do we take? One person can say, “It is clay—where is the pot?” How will you call him wrong? It is clay indeed. Another can say, “No, it is not clay; it is a pot—clay lies there outside; there is a distinction here.” Him, too, you must accept as right. So truth can have three angles: it is; it is not; it both is and is not. This existed before Mahavira.

Mahavira turned the threefold into a sevenfold. He said three will not suffice; truth is yet more complex. Four more syats must be added. It became an extraordinary formulation, but it also became more difficult, more tangled, and went beyond the common man’s grasp. Even the three are beyond most people—yet they can still be somewhat understood.

The pot is placed before you. Someone says, “It is a pot.” We say, “Yes, it is a pot.” But we do not say it flatly. We say, “Syat—perhaps, in some respect—it is a pot,” because the other possibility remains that someone may say, “It is only clay—where is the pot?” and we would not be able to prove where the “pot” is. So we say, “Syat it is a pot. Syat it is not a pot. Syat it both is and is not.”

Mahavira added a fourth predication and said, “Syat it is inexpressible.” Syat there is something that cannot be said. That is, even clay and pot do not exhaust it; there is something that cannot be stated at all, that is hard to say—because the pot is atoms and molecules, electrons and protons, electricity—everything. And to say all this together is difficult. Even so small a thing as a pot is so much that it must be called inexpressible.

And one thing is certain: the “is-ness” of the pot, its existence, its being—that is inexpressible. For what is the definition of “is”? What is the meaning of existence? The pot, too, has existence—and existence is inexpressible. Existence is Brahman.

So Mahavira added the fourth: “Syat the pot is inexpressible.” The fifth: “Syat it is, and it is inexpressible.” The sixth: “Syat it is not, and it is inexpressible.” And the seventh: “Syat it is, and it is not, and it is inexpressible.” Now the matter grew so complex that finding followers became difficult.

But the vision of three was very ancient. It was clear that one could think in three ways: it is; it is not; it both is and is not. Mahavira added four more standpoints to these. The fourth standpoint is the precious one; the rest are transformations of it—the standpoint of the inexpressible. That there is something which cannot be said. There is something which cannot be explained. There is something that is indefinable, inarticulable. There is something for which no definition is possible. That something is in even the smallest pot—the something called existence. That existence is entirely beyond definition. How are we to define it?

Now this is very interesting. The Upanishads say Brahman cannot be defined. The Bible says, how can God be defined! But Mahavira says: God and Brahman are big words; even a pot cannot be defined. That is, leave aside God and Brahman, because in a pot too there is an element—existence—which is just as inexpressible as Brahman. In the tiniest thing, that which is inexpressible is present. Therefore he adds the fourth bhang: syat, it is inexpressible. But even there he adds syat. The beauty of Mahavira is amazing: he does not even say flatly, “It is inexpressible,” because he says even that would be too big a claim. So say it this way: maybe—syat.

Mahavira never utters any statement without syat; whatever he says, he first prefixes syat. But syat does not mean “perhaps.” Syat does not mean “perhaps”—in “perhaps” there is doubt. No, when Mahavira says syat, it means: it may be thus, and it may also be otherwise. Two meanings are joined in the word syat: it is thus; it is otherwise as well. Therefore there is no dogmatic claim. Therefore there is no dogmatic claim.

And then he repeats three modes once again with respect to the inexpressible. He says: it is, and it is inexpressible. Something is, and it is inexpressible. But it may also be that something is not, and it is inexpressible—like the void. The void is not. The very meaning of “void” is that which is not. But the void is inexpressible. Do not assume that just because it is not, it can be defined. Even in its not-being it remains indefinable. And the seventh he adds: it is, it is not, and it is inexpressible.

So when truth is seen from these seven angles, the person who can see from all seven without being bound to any single standpoint will be able to know the whole truth. But he will not be able to speak it. Whenever the whole truth is spoken, it will have to be spoken in these very modes.

Therefore, if you go to ask Mahavira, “Does God exist?” he gives seven answers! Then you quietly go back home, wondering what to do with such a man. We want a clear answer. We have gone to ask, “Does God exist?” We want someone to say yes, or someone to say no—and be done with it.

You go to Mahavira and he says: syat, he is; syat, he is not; syat, he both is and is not; syat, he is inexpressible; syat, he is and he is inexpressible; syat, he is not and he is inexpressible; syat, he is, he is not, and he is inexpressible.

You return home thinking you want nothing to do with such a man. Because from such a man you come back just as entangled as you went. You went to get an answer; he has given an answer, but he has tried to give so complete an answer that a mediocre mind cannot grasp it.

That is why Mahavira did not gather a big following. Followers of Mahavira did not really increase. In Mahavira’s own lifetime those who were touched by him did, and then only their progeny kept standing behind them, blindly. New people could not come in, because that tradition could not again produce a person like Mahavira. For that, a very extraordinary person is needed—one who can attract people from so many differing angles. It is very easy to attract with straightforward talk. To attract through something so complex is very difficult.

So those who had come into direct contact with Mahavira—after them only their children went on standing behind. And birth has no relationship with religion. Therefore there is nothing like “Jainism” in the world. It ended with Mahavira himself. Birth has no relation with it. Therefore at this time on the earth there is no such community as “the Jains.” These are all people who are Jains by birth. They know nothing of it.

And the really amusing thing is that these who are Jains by birth make such claims that, were Mahavira to hear them, he would laugh a lot. All their claims are the very opposite of Mahavira. For they will say that Mahavira is a Tirthankara. Mahavira himself would say: syat, it may be so; syat, it may not be so.

To be a Jain by birth is extremely difficult—indeed, impossible. The reason is, it is like the Sufis: it is available only through sadhana. Only when you become a Jina—one who has conquered—can you become a Jain. Until you win that inner victory, there is no way to become one. And the vision is so complex—so utterly complex—because life itself is complex. Mahavira says: life is so complex that if we simplify it, it turns into a lie.

Consider Aristotle’s logic. In the world there are two kinds of logic: one is Aristotle’s, the other is Mahavira’s. There is no third. The whole world accepts Aristotle’s logic; hardly anyone accepts Mahavira’s—because Aristotle’s logic is straightforward, although it is untrue.

Aristotle’s logic says: A is A, and A can never be B. B is B, and B can never be A. The whole world lives by Aristotle’s logic. It asserts: man is man, woman is woman; a man cannot be a woman, a woman cannot be a man. Black is black, white is white; white is not black, black is not white. Darkness is darkness, light is light—such neat distinctions. It breaks things apart and separates them. It says the very meaning of logic is to create clarity.

Mahavira says: A can be A, and A can also be B. A can also be neither A nor B, and A is inexpressible. This is exactly what Mahavira says. There are only these two logics in the world. Mahavira says: woman is woman—and also man. Man is man—and also woman. A man can become a woman; a woman can become a man. And there is the inexpressible: they may be so, they may not be so. This logic is very hard to understand. But the truth is with Mahavira.

Life is not so simple as Aristotle thinks. In life nothing is purely black or purely white; everything is shades of gray. The division between black and white is imaginary. There is no place that is absolutely dark, and none absolutely illuminated. In the deepest light, darkness is present; in the deepest darkness, light is present. It cannot be precisely weighed. Life is thoroughly intermingled. What is there that is purely cold and not hot at all? What is purely hot with no coolness at all? Everything is relative; nothing is cleanly cut.

Therefore Mahavira says: life is utterly interconnected, completely joined. One leg is life, the other leg is death, and both legs walk together. It is not that one person is alive and another is dead; dying and living move together. Darkness and light are parts of one and the same thing.

From Aristotle’s logic comes mathematics, because mathematics demands neatness: two and two must make four. From Mahavira’s “mathematics,” two and two do not always make four; sometimes they may make five, sometimes three. It is not fixed that two and two will always be four. Life is so fluid—not so solid, not so dead—that there two and two may sometimes become five, and sometimes remain three.

Hence from Mahavira’s logic arises mysticism, and from Aristotle’s arises mathematics. Aristotle’s logic yields math; Mahavira’s yields mystery—because mystery begins where we can no longer divide things cleanly and assert, “It is so.”

To enter such a profound vision of Mahavira’s, being born into someone’s household is utterly useless. It has no connection. For such depth, one must descend into that depth; only then can it come into your awareness.

Those who stood around Mahavira, who were in his immediate, direct contact, were impacted by him. But their children and their children’s children have no connection with it—none at all. Hence they even forget what they are saying. If a Jain monk declares, “Jain philosophy alone is the truth,” he is forgetting; he doesn’t know that Mahavira could never say such a thing. If a Jain follower says, “Whatever Mahavira says is right,” he does not know that Mahavira himself would deny it. Mahavira himself would deny it!

So astonishing is this matter that if someone were to ask Mahavira, “This syat—this theory of relativity you speak of—is that an absolute truth?” he would say, “Syat.” Even here he would use syat. He would not say, “The syadvada I have given, this theory of probability—that everything has seven angles and can be seen in seven ways—is the ultimate truth.” If asked that, Mahavira would say, “Syat. It may be so, it may not be so; it is inexpressible.” He would say the same even about that.

Because of such complexity, becoming a follower becomes very difficult—extremely difficult.

Further, there are other things in Mahavira that are absolute obstacles to “followers.” Mahavira does not say, “I can deliver your welfare.” He says, “You do it yourself—that is enough. How can I do it? No one can do it for anyone else. Each must do it for himself.” A follower comes precisely in the hope that someone will do it for him. When someone says, “Come into my refuge; I will take you to liberation,” followers come. But this man says, “By taking refuge in me you will not reach liberation. No one has ever reached liberation through someone else’s refuge.” Then who will come to him? What is the use? What is the profit? We ask, “What is the benefit? What is the purpose? How will my interest be served?” He says, “Apart from oneself, no one can serve anyone’s interest.”

Mahavira did not make himself a guru—this is of great value. The truth is, Mahavira himself does not want to be anyone’s guru. There is no purpose in the guru. None. At most, Mahavira’s vision is to be a kalyan-mitra—a friend in your well-being. “I can be your friend in welfare; nothing more.” No one can be anyone’s guru. For a guru walks ahead, the disciple follows behind; a friend walks by your side. At most you can walk with me. I cannot walk ahead of you; you cannot walk behind me. And how can one insult another by making him walk behind!

There is a very marvelous story in Mulla Nasruddin’s life. Some boys from his village, students from the madrasa, came and said, “We want you to give a talk at our school. Will you come?” Mulla said, “I’m perfectly ready.”

Mulla set off, mounted on his donkey. The boys were amazed: he sat on the donkey facing backwards—its head one way, Mulla’s face the other—and he had the boys follow behind. Shopkeepers along the way leaned out to look: “Has Mulla lost his mind? He’s sitting backward on the donkey!” The boys too became very embarrassed, for along with him they were made to look like fools.

One boy said, “Mulla, if you sit facing forward it would be good. The market up ahead is crowded. Everyone will see us, and we are getting into trouble along with you.” Mulla replied, “You don’t understand—there is a reason. If I sit with my back to you, it would be an insult to you. And if you walk ahead of me, you will feel awkward: how can one walk ahead of an elder? So I thought this device is proper: I sit facing you on the donkey; face-to-face is best. No one insults anyone.”

This Mulla is an extraordinary man. In his smallest jokes are the deepest truths. He is joking simply, yet he is saying: the one who walks ahead of you insults you, and if you walk ahead of him, you insult him.

Mahavira does not like any of this at all. He does not like to place anyone ahead of himself; therefore he made no guru. Nor does he like anyone behind him; therefore he made no followers. He says: no one can do anyone’s welfare; no one can take anyone to heaven; no one is anyone’s savior. Each one will have to be himself. Hence he breaks all the pathways of becoming a follower. You can be together. Not anugaman (following behind), but sahagaman (walking together).

Therefore the one who is a “follower” of Mahavira will not be able to understand him—because by becoming a follower he has already gone wrong. To be with Mahavira requires great courage. To be behind is easy; to be alongside demands courage—because to be alongside means you must pass through what Mahavira passes through. So we prefer to be behind. There nothing is demanded of us: Mahavira has to walk; we trail after. And by being behind, no blame ever sticks to us: “We are only followers.”

That is why large numbers could not gather around Mahavira. A small number gathered—very small—and it kept getting smaller. Now the branch is almost dried out. No life remains in it. It is merely like a withered branch still attached to the tree. Long after the leaves fall and the branch dries, the trunk may still be standing—so it has become.

This can be changed, if Mahavira is rightly understood—then it can be changed again. Fresh sprouts can come. And I feel fresh sprouts should come, because Mahavira… I am no one’s follower, yet I would like new shoots to appear on this branch—just as I would like new shoots on Lao Tzu’s and on Jesus’ branches. These trees were extraordinary, and beneath them countless people could find shade. When they dry up, that shade is no longer available.

The irony is that those who have taken shelter under these trees are the very ones who have dried them out. They do not water the tree; they worship it. Do trees grow by worship? Trees dry out from worship. Trees grow by receiving water. They offer no water—only worship.

So the trees have dried. Since we are speaking of Mahavira here, I say: there is no Jain—there is only a dried-up tree, a memory; beneath it people stand and worship.

And whatever they are doing has no harmony with Mahavira, because to harmonize with a person as astonishing as Mahavira is very difficult. If we can understand the perspective of syat that I have explained—and if we can articulate it rightly—then in the future many people can find shade under Mahavira’s tree. Because the language of syat is becoming more important by the day. Science has actually accepted it outright.

Einstein’s acceptance is remarkable—and in such astonishing matters that it is beyond our imagination. Until recently it was thought that the ultimate unit, the atom, is a point without length and breadth. But experiments showed that sometimes it behaves like a point—a particle—and sometimes like a wave. Then there was great difficulty: what shall we call it? Syat it is a particle; syat it is a wave. A new word had to be coined: quantum—meaning that which is both, both particle and wave.

“This cannot be,” says Euclid: if we say something is both a point and a line, Euclid’s very soul would protest. A point is a point, a line is a line; how can a point be a line, how can a line be a point? Yet “quantum” means the ultimate unit is both point and line, both particle and wave. How can both be true? How can a particle be a wave? And a wave cannot be a particle!

But Einstein said: both possibilities coexist—hence relativity. Do not say, “It is only a particle.” Say, “Syat it is a particle, syat it is a wave.” Einstein demonstrated relativity so forcefully that all things were shaken. What stood until yesterday with the confidence of absolutes, claiming ultimate truth, is all trembling. Science now stands upon the edifice of the relative.

That is why I say: if Mahavira’s language of syat can be brought to light, then in the coming future what he said will gain supreme significance—more than it ever had. In the next five hundred or thousand years, Mahavira’s way of seeing can be very influential. But syat must be articulated—the element of probability must be expressed.

This will frighten the Jain himself, because a follower is always afraid of syat—it makes everything wobble. If someone asks, “Is the tavern bad?” one would have to say, “Syat it is bad, syat it is good; it depends on the one who goes there and what he does.” If someone asks, “Is the temple good?” you must say, “Syat it is good, syat it is bad; it depends on the one who goes there and what he does.”

Mahavira will speak like this, but how can a follower speak so? Then, he feels, it would become difficult to distinguish between tavern and temple. So he will have to speak definitively: “The tavern is bad; the temple is good.” In doing so he has freed himself from syat and settled into certainty—and the matter is finished. To walk with Mahavira is difficult—utterly difficult. Hence followers arise; and followers are never of any real value.

Here too, two or three things need to be understood. First: no one ever goes from anuvrata to mahavrata; rather, from the attainment of the mahavrata, many anuvratas are born.

Ordinarily it is believed that one travels from anuvrata to mahavrata—first keep five rupees, then four, then three, then two, then one, and finally keep nothing. It is commonly thought that by practicing the small, we will move toward the great.

That very idea is wrong. A person may manage, by practice, to keep five instead of ten rupees; but that is only practice—the unconsciousness does not break. If the unconsciousness had broken, the mahavrata would have been available. The moment unconsciousness breaks, the mahavrata is available.

In life and conduct, a mahavrata may look like an anuvrata. But when unconsciousness breaks, the “anu” does not arrive, the “maha” arrives. And even if someone had ten rupees and, by practice, brought it down to five, then four, then three, then two, then one, and in the end practiced non-possession too—the unconsciousness still has not broken. Because we have to practice only that which our unconsciousness has not yet dropped. When unconsciousness breaks, we do not have to practice; it comes of itself.

There is only one proof of whether the unconsciousness has broken or not: Is what is happening something you have to practice, or has it come on its own? If it has come, the unconsciousness has broken. If you have to practice it, the unconsciousness has not broken. Whom do we have to practice against? Against our own unconsciousness. My mind says, “Keep ten rupees,” and my vow says, “Keep five.” Whom am I fighting? I am fighting my own mind, which says, “Keep ten.” The mind is for ten, the vow is for five—so I am fighting myself.

If unconsciousness breaks, the mind itself breaks. Not ten, not five, not two, not one—the very mind of possessiveness breaks. Even in that state a person may keep five rupees, but then it will be only a matter of need, not unconsciousness. In that state one may still sleep in a house, but the house is not his possession.

Breaking of unconsciousness does not mean things will drop away; it means that our attachment to things will drop. A man is sleeping in a house. “This house is mine”—the unconsciousness lies in that “mine,” not in sleeping in a house. You have five rupees in your pocket—there is no unconsciousness in that.

I have heard of two fakirs on a riverbank arguing. One says, “It is not right to keep anything at all.” He does not keep even a penny. The other says, “One must keep something; otherwise great difficulty arises.” Evening falls. The boatman says, “If you give me one rupee, I will ferry you across; otherwise I’m not going. My village is on this side. I will tie up the boat and go home. It’s night now. I’m tired after a day’s work.”

They must reach the other side; people are waiting for them there. This bank is dense jungle—where will they stay? The fakir who believed in keeping something takes out a rupee. They both cross. He says, “See, I told you—one must keep something; otherwise we would have remained on this shore.” The other fakir says, “We did not reach the other shore because you had a rupee; we reached because you could let a rupee go. One reaches the other shore not by keeping, but by letting go.”

The dispute begins again. The one who paid had thought he had won. Now, on the far bank, the argument resumes—and there can be no end to it. Because the second fakir says, “We came across only because you could leave a rupee.” And the first says, “We would not have come at all if we had not had a rupee.”

My sense is: a third fakir is needed there to say, “For there to be letting go, first there must be something to let go of. If there is nothing, you cannot even renounce.” That is why I say: let things be, and let there be in you a continuous capacity to let go—this alone matters. Whether things are there or not is not the question; the question is whether there is in you the continuous capacity to leave.

Another story may help. An emperor was deeply impressed by a renunciate who lay naked under a neem tree. The emperor’s reverence grew and one day he said, “Not here—come to my palace; why lie here below? Come to the palace.” He had thought the renunciate would refuse: “I cannot go to a palace; I am non-possessive.” The renunciate said, “As you wish.” He stood up, staff in hand. The emperor felt uneasy. He had expected a refusal. “As you wish—let’s go to the palace!” A doubt arose in the emperor’s mind: “I have made a mistake. The man looks like he was waiting for the palace; perhaps he was under the neem only in the hope someone would take him to a palace. He did not refuse even once! What kind of non-possessive man is this? A non-possessive one should have said, ‘Never—I cannot enter a palace. A palace is sin. How can I go there?’”

He came to the palace. Still the emperor thought, “Let’s test, let’s examine.” He took him to his own chamber, filled with the costliest things: the finest cushions and velvet, priceless carpets. “You can stay here…will you be comfortable?” “Perfectly,” said the renunciate, and lay down on the velvet as he had slept beneath the neem. The emperor struck his own head. “We have made a complete mistake. We brought the wrong man.” For the possessive, a non-possessive person appears non-possessive only if he is hostile to possessions. One who is attached to things can only understand the one who, out of fear of things, throws up his hands: “No, I cannot touch—these are sinful.” The possessive can understand only the one who does the opposite of him.

The emperor was in a fix. Six months passed. The fakir lived as the emperor lived. One morning they were walking in the garden. The emperor said, “Now I see no difference between us—perhaps you are more emperor than I. I must worry, plan, arrange; you are utterly at ease. Earlier there was a difference: you were a renunciate under the neem; I was emperor. Now there seems no difference—rather, you are more emperor. May I ask: does any difference remain?”

The renunciate said, “You ask about difference? Come, let’s walk a bit further; I will tell you in a while.” They passed the garden, left the town. “Tell me now,” said the emperor. “A little further,” said the fakir. They reached the river and crossed it. “When will you tell me? The sun is rising!” “Keep walking,” he said. “In a moment it will be clear.” “What do you mean?” asked the emperor. The fakir said, “Now I will not return. I will not return. You may go back if you wish—but we are going on. If the difference becomes visible, let it be seen.”

“Do not think we are afraid of your palace,” he said. “If you say, ‘Let us return,’ we can return—but then your doubt will arise again. So now we go. You look after your palace. Do you see the difference? We can leave at any moment.”

Aparigraha does not mean that things should not be there. To insist that things must not be there is only the mirror-image of the insistence that things must be there. Whether things are or are not is not the question of non-possessiveness. The question is: the person remains always outside things—no thing is inside him.

The fakir said, “We were in your palace, but your palace is not in us. That is the only difference. You are less in the palace; the palace is more in you. Therefore we can leave anytime. The matter is not inside us. We were inside it—and we can step out. Can any palace hold us? As we slept under the neem, so we slept in your palace—the same man, sleeping in the same way.”

Thus, from the mahavrata many anuvratas may manifest in conduct—but from the sum of anuvratas a mahavrata will never arise. The very effort of anuvrata is the effort of a mind in unconsciousness. You cannot “try” for a mahavrata. Bring non-unconsciousness, and the mahavrata happens. Understand me well: the mahavrata cannot come by effort; when your unconsciousness breaks, the mahavrata flowers—your consciousness becomes mahavrati. In life, it will express itself in thousands of “atoms,” in countless anuvratas.

But the typical seeker starts with anuvratas, hoping to arrive at the mahavrata. He never arrives. He will arrive at a heap of atoms, not at the great.

The mahavrata is not the sum of atoms; it is an explosion. When consciousness explodes wholly, it becomes available.

Mahavira is a mahavrati. His day-to-day life will be in anuvratas: he will beg somewhere, eat two chapatis; he will rest under some shade, walk, wander, speak. In all this there will be atoms. But within, where the explosion has happened—there, it is “maha.”

Now, your second question is also related to this.

Mahavira speaks of three: samyak darshan (right vision), samyak jnana (right knowledge), samyak charitra (right conduct). But the followers have reversed it completely. They say: samyak charitra, samyak jnana, samyak darshan—first perfect conduct, then knowledge will become steady; when knowledge is steady, vision will dawn. First build character; when character is pure, the mind will be steady; then knowledge will arise; by knowing, vision will be attained; then you will be liberated.

The situation is exactly the opposite. Samyak darshan comes first—vision must come first. Of that which we have vision, we then have knowledge. Darshan is pure seeing. You pass by a flower, you stop, and you have a vision of the flower. Knowledge has not happened yet. When you try to understand what you have seen, you say, “It is a rose, it is very beautiful”—that is knowledge. When you bind the vision, it becomes knowledge. Then you pluck the flower and take in its fragrance—this is conduct. When knowledge expresses itself, it becomes conduct. Conduct is last, not first. Vision is first.

So first, a vision of the truth of life is needed. That will come through meditation, through samadhi. Therefore the sadhana is of meditation and samadhi. Darshan is its fruit. When vision happens and you remain aware in it, knowledge crystallizes. And when knowledge crystallizes, you cannot act otherwise—your conduct becomes right of its own accord.

It can take many forms. Because conduct depends on many things; it does not depend only on you. That conduct can take many forms. With Jesus it will be one way, with Krishna another, with Mahavira yet another. The vision will be exactly one; knowledge will at once differ. Because the one who turns that vision into knowledge is each time a different person. Knowledge will differ; the vision will be one. All those in the world who are experientially realized share one vision, but each one’s knowledge will be different. By “knowledge” being different I mean this: their language, their way of thinking, their vocabulary—this is what becomes knowledge. Then knowledge becomes conduct, and conduct too will be different.

For example, suppose that today Mahavira were born in New York: he would not stand naked. Because in New York there would be only one outcome—that he would be locked up in an asylum for treatment. In New York he would not stand naked, because New York’s circumstances regard nakedness as synonymous with madness. In such circumstances Mahavira’s conduct would not, could not, be nudity. In the circumstances in which he was in India, nudity was not synonymous with madness; it was synonymous with supreme renunciation.

It is possible. Please understand what I am saying. It is possible, but if you heard what I said last night, then even at the North Pole they would not eat meat. If they wish to establish communion with the world of the voiceless, they cannot eat meat; and if they do not wish to establish such a communion, then they can eat meat.

Therefore, if Mahavira were born at the North Pole, and if he had to establish relationship with the lower, mute animal world and the world of matter, then even there he would not be able to eat meat. He could not. He could not. But if he did not have to, then he could do so here as well; after all, in this country too he could—there would be no difficulty if those relationships...

Therefore, my perspective on nonviolence is of a different order. That is, I am not considering nonviolence an indispensable element for attaining liberation; I am considering nonviolence indispensable for establishing relationship with the subhuman realms.

So there will be differences. There will be differences; the vision will be one, the knowledge will differ. And character will differ even more. Why? Because vision is a pure state. There, neither I am nor anyone else—there is only vision, only seeing; there is no distortion there. Then, in knowledge, language enters, words come in. So the language I know is what will appear; the language you know is what will appear.

Now, Jesus cannot have Pali-Prakrit. When knowledge takes shape for Jesus, it cannot take shape in Pali-Prakrit or Sanskrit; it will take shape in Aramaic. When Confucius has the vision, the vision is beyond language, so it will be the same as for Buddha or Mahavira; but when knowledge takes shape, it will take shape in Chinese. At that very level, the language will be the vocabulary in which one has lived and grown.

For example, when Mahavira experiences liberation, he will call it moksha; he cannot call it nirvana. He has not been brought up in the word “nirvana.” He has not been brought up in that word; it is not his word. When Shankara has the same realization of liberation, he will call it Brahman-realization. “Brahman-realization” is only a word; the matter is the same as what happens to Mahavira in moksha, to Buddha in nirvana, to Shankara in Brahman-realization. But the words are different; this is terminology. Knowledge will not be without terminology. So, in knowledge, words will enter. Then the purity is gone; impurity begins to come in. The ultimate experience that was—now it begins to branch out.

Even so, knowledge is impure only because of words. Character descends even further. Character will depend on society, social conduct, circumstances, the age, ethics, system, the state—all of this. Because when I am in pure vision, then neither I am nor anyone else—there is only vision. When I come into knowledge, the vision and I too return. And when I come into character, society also enters. Character is an interrelationship with society. If society has a certain ethic, then it will begin to be expressed in character. If it has a different ethic, then it will begin to be expressed in a different way.

Therefore character is not primary; it is the last echo of vision. But yes, certain things will be revealed in character. Whatever the vision is, some of it will show. We can take those few things into our consideration. But don’t bind them too tightly; otherwise it becomes difficult. Binding them creates difficulty, because they will manifest only in some form within a particular situation.

For example, suppose the sun’s rays are coming in, and this window has blue glass and that window has yellow glass. The rays that the yellow glass sends inside will appear yellow; the rays through the blue glass will appear blue. If you assume that whenever the sun rises it is blue, you will be mistaken; or if you assume it is yellow, you will be mistaken. Accept only this much, which is more essential: when the sun rises it appears in many colors, but it is light. Then you will be able to harmonize the yellow and the blue as well.

In Mahavira it comes forth in one way, because Mahavira’s personality is of one kind; in Buddha, in another way; in Christ, in a third; in Krishna, in a fourth. It comes in a thousand ways. These personalities are panes of glass; the light is one. It then passes through them. And then among the onlookers—the society in which that man is living—the onlookers too become related. And the relationship has to be made with you.

In every age morality changes, the order changes, the state changes.

Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

No, no, no! Truth is not a part of morality at all. Truth belongs to realization, to vision, not to character.

So if Mahavira too had been there in Muhammad’s place, I believe he would have married nine times. Because in that situation, there could be no moral principle other than this. So Muhammad says that four marriages are a duty, a moral law, for everyone. Each should indeed marry four, so that no woman remains without a husband. And so that no woman has to bear the pain of being without a husband. And so that a husbandless woman is not compelled into adultery and does not envelop the whole society in despicable and perverse diseases.
So Muhammad becomes an example for this; he himself marries nine times. Do you understand what I mean? That is to say, in my view the event that is Muhammad...

Character arises from right vision, but it will manifest in society. There are these two aspects in it, aren’t there?

One who has attained samyak darshan has received a vision—of karuna, compassion, love, mercy. That vision has been received. Now, what is society like? For that vision to manifest, he will look for the instruments through which it can express itself—for example, for Muhammad, compassion meant making provision for four marriages. And the one who makes provision for four marriages—if he cannot himself demonstrate it by taking nine wives, then how will he make provision for four? You understand what I mean, don’t you? For Muhammad, this is what is compassionate.
For Mahavira, this is not a matter of compassion. For Mahavira, this is not the question at all. In the era and milieu where he is, that situation does not exist; it has no relevance. For Mahavira it is difficult even to imagine such a thing. For Muhammad, celibacy is very difficult even to imagine—and utterly meaningless. Because if Muhammad were to preach celibacy, understand that the Arab lands would be ruined forever, ruined badly.
So what I am saying is this...

In Gandhi-ji’s ashram a calf was ill—writhing, in great distress. The doctors said it would not survive, it would die in two or three days; it had cancer. So Gandhi-ji said, “Give it a lethal injection.” When the injection was given, everyone in the ashram became suspicious and upset. They said, “What are you doing?” Great pundits gathered around Gandhi-ji. They said, “This is the limit. Cow-killing has taken place.” Gandhi-ji said, “I will bear the sin of cow-killing, but I cannot watch such suffering. I cannot endure this suffering.”

Now, the person with a rigid, wooden mind who says cow-killing must never happen can never tolerate this—because he has no vision of his own, no insight of his own, only a fixed rulebook. But one who has his own vision, his own insight, will use that insight even if it goes against the rules; that is no issue. Yet everything will depend on the particular situation. Gandhi-ji could not feed poison to a healthy calf.

So my point is: the vision will be yours, but the situation will be outside. The calf is lying sick with cancer, so you have to give the poison. Compassion is arising from you. What form compassion will take is hard to say. Sometimes compassion can take up the sword, and sometimes compassion can forbid the sword.

On Muhammad’s sword it is written: “I am fighting for peace.” Islam means peace; the word itself means peace. But in Muhammad’s circumstances, and with the people who surrounded him, they understood no language other than the sword—any other language was simply meaningless.

It is indeed compassion. That too is possible. When Christ first went to the great annual Jewish festival—the big festival of the year—at the great temple where the whole nation gathered, he found all the big usurers assembled there. Every year the pilgrims who came were given money on interest and made to repay with interest. It was an expensive festival; people spent thousands of rupees—even the poor would borrow to spend—and then could not repay those interests for lifetimes. So in front of the temple there were thousands of stalls of moneylenders. On their tables they sat, lending to the pilgrims. And the loans given in front of the temple were not ordinary loans: you had to repay them—otherwise, you were told, you would go to hell.

When Jesus went there and saw that the exploitation of millions was going on, and that the priests of the temple themselves were the agents sitting at those tables, lending money at interest, with the offerings to the temple being turned around and lent out again—when he saw this whole racket, he picked up a whip, overturned the tables, and lashed the people. And he said, “Get out—empty this temple!”

Now you may feel: what kind of man is this? The one who says, “If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other”—can he pick up a whip? He can. And precisely this man has the right to pick it up—because he has no trace of personal anger. Mahavira simply never had such an occasion; therefore he does not raise a whip—that is a different matter.

That is what I am saying: the vision is one, the seeing is one. The formulations of knowledge will differ because words come in; and conduct will differ because society and circumstances come in. Its expression keeps changing—utterly changing.

Precisely the same will do the work. It is vision that does the work. In truth, those who lack vision have a character that is utterly rigid—rule-bound. Even when circumstances change, they keep following the rule! Because they are not really concerned; they have no vision of their own. For them the rule is fixed, so they go on taking the rule as their own. Character, however, belongs to the third circle. That is why I do not consider character the center; I take it to be the periphery. Vision I consider to be the center.

Yes, yes. But it has been turned into exactly this: character first. What is your monk doing? He is neither in vision nor in knowledge; he is cultivating character. And he thinks that when character is complete, then knowledge will happen. When knowledge is complete, then vision will be. He has begun to move in reverse. From that, it will never happen—nothing will happen. He only...

In fact, the first thing is that one should not even think, “If Mahavira were here today, what would his conduct be?” You shouldn’t think this because no one is bound to Mahavira in such a way that our conduct must be like his. The way Mahavira’s conduct would be—ours cannot be like that. And the way ours can be, even if Mahavira tried a thousand ways, his could not be like that.

There are many reasons. Every person is unique. That is precisely the meaning of each person being a self. To be self-possessed means that each person is unique. So don’t keep accounts of anyone’s conduct. That very outlook is wrong. Conduct has no real purpose.

Care about how vision is attained; conduct will follow. When you come here, you don’t worry whether a long or short shadow is trailing behind you—what it would be at noon, at dusk, at dawn. You simply come; the shadow comes after. At noon it would be short, in the morning or evening long—however it is, you don’t bother about it.

The real question is of deep vision; character is its shadow. As the sunlight is, so the shadow will be. It has no independent relevance, no purpose—meaning, it is not to be thought about. I am saying that character is utterly unconsiderable. We feel the need to think about it only because we have lost sight of vision; that is why we brood over it.

What is to be considered is vision. And vision is not bound by time or circumstance. Vision is timeless and spaceless. Whenever vision happens to you, it will be the same as what has happened to anyone—nothing specifically to do with Mahavira. To whomever it has happened, it is the same. Because vision happens only when neither you are nor anything else is—when all has dissolved—then it happens. And when that vision happens, it spontaneously transforms into knowing; knowing spontaneously transforms into character. So there is no need to worry about character—no need to think of it. Otherwise a second bondage begins. If I tell you, “Mahavira did this, and this, and this,” you may think, “So we should do the same.” No—you have no question of doing, because you do not have that vision. You do not have that vision. That is exactly what the poor Jain sadhus and monks are doing: they say, “He did this, so we will do the same.”

I went to a town, Beawar. The collector of Beawar came and said he wanted to talk in private. I agreed. He shut the door, bolted it. Sitting inside he said he had a few questions. First: “If I wrap a shawl the way you do, will I gain anything?”

The poor fellow is asking exactly right. We laugh at him—but what are all our monks doing? They pin down how Mahavira stood, how he sat, what kind of whisk he carried, what kind of water pot, whether he tied a mouth-cloth or not; they fix all that, then start imitating it! He has missed the fundamental point.

I told him, “What has a shawl or no shawl to do with anything! If the fancy takes me I may wear a coat and tie—what difficulty is there! I will remain myself. What difference will it make?” Yes, I said, “It might make a difference to you when you see me; you may think, ‘Ah, what must this man have—he’s wearing a coat and tie.’ That can happen. But what difference will it make to me? I will remain exactly as I am. And you will remain as you are—whether you wrap a shawl or go naked—nothing is going to change by that. You have to change.”

But this is the basic mistake: we think life moves from the outside to the inside. Life always comes from the inside to the outside. If someone tries to change the inside from the outside, the inside will remain the same, only the outside will change—and in that person an inner conflict will arise. He will become a double man, a hypocrite. The person who begins with conduct will become a hypocrite.

Yes, knowledge will be different; only realization will not be different. Only realization will not be different—because it is the purest.

Knowledge will differ, because today language has changed, ways of thinking have changed. And this is why recognition becomes difficult. The one who clings to the old finds it hard to recognize the new. Even if I have realization, my language will not be the same as Mahavira’s. So a follower of Mahavira will say, “We have no rapport with this man—who knows what he is saying? This is not what our Mahavira says.”

Mahavira could not say it, because twenty-five centuries have passed. In twenty-five hundred years everything has shifted; everything has reached somewhere else. The whole thing has changed—perspective has changed, ways of thinking have changed, language has changed, expression has changed; everything has changed. With all this changed, knowledge will be different. Realization alone is never different, because realization happens only when we drop all this and go within. We drop language, we drop society; we drop religion and scriptures; we drop words and thoughts. Where everything is left behind, realization happens. Therefore realization will always remain the same. Because whoever you are, whatever you have, you will have to drop it all. I will have to drop certain things; Mahavira will have to drop certain others.

Mahavira had not read Darwin, so he would not have had to drop Darwin. Mahavira would have dropped the Vedas, the Upanishads. I have read Darwin, so I will have to drop Darwin—and Marx too. This is the difference. But whatever I have, I must drop. By dropping, realization becomes available at any time; hence realization is the same in every age. Its emphasis is this: whatever you know, whatever you have learned, whatever you are holding—unlearn it all. But when realization happens and you then fashion knowledge out of it, all your learning returns.

Therefore, when Aurobindo speaks, Darwin is present in it. Aurobindo’s entire language becomes evolutionary, which Mahavira’s cannot be, because Mahavira knew nothing of Darwin. Darwin had not yet added his link to language. So Mahavira cannot speak in Darwin’s idiom. When Aurobindo speaks, he will speak Darwin’s language; he will bring in all the elements of evolution, entire and complete.

Just as Mahavira cannot speak in Marx’s language, but if I speak, Marx’s idiom will come in between. So I will say: exploitation is sin—Mahavira cannot say that. Because in Mahavira’s age the very notion that exploitation is a sin had not arisen from anywhere. In those days, the one who possessed wealth was virtuous. The idea that wealth is exploitation and theft has arisen in these last three hundred years. When this idea has become so clear, then today if someone says wealth is virtue, it has no meaning in this world—no meaning at all. That is, he will simply be proved ignorant; his “knowledge” will count for nothing.

And this is why difficulties often arise. We should neither think by looking backward, nor should we impose new vocabulary on the ancients. We cannot call Mahavira weak because he did not know the language of evolution. That language did not exist; it developed later.

And as newer things develop—after a thousand years, those who attain realization, the language they will speak we cannot even imagine, because in those thousand years everything will have changed. In that changed language, knowledge will again be grasped, knowledge will again be expressed. The mediums of expression will change.

For example, two, three, or five thousand years ago there was hardly language, hardly words; whatever was said had no way to be preserved except memory. So all knowledge was conserved in memory. Knowledge had to be told in such a way that it could be kept in memory. That is why the oldest scriptures are all poetic—because poetry can be remembered, whereas prose is hard to remember. A poem can be retained easily; prose cannot.

Therefore, when there was no instrument for preservation except memory, all knowledge had to be spoken in verse; speaking it in prose was useless, because in prose it would be very hard to remember. Speaking it in verse made it easy to retain. You can remember a poem more easily than an essay because it has rhyme. And that rhyme lets you sing it, hum it; it settles into memory quickly.

So the older a scripture is, the more surely it will be in verse. Prose is a very new discovery. Once writing began, verse was no longer needed; then it became pointless—adding rhyme for no reason, mixing in and trimming what did not need to be said; futile. One could write straight in prose; then new words arrived.

Hence the newer languages are not poetic; the older languages are poetic. Take Sanskrit: it is utterly poetic—speak ordinary prose and it sounds like poetry. The new languages are not poetic; they are scientific—so much so that even when you speak poetry it feels like a math problem. The differences keep multiplying, don’t they!

So knowledge will manifest through whatever instruments are available. Therefore, new poetry is practically prose; the new poetry is not metrical. It has no need to be in meter. The old prose is also verse; the new verse is also prose. And all this keeps changing day by day.

Thus the knowledge that is formed descends from realization and stands on the second step; it becomes a part of that era’s system of knowledge. Only then is it meaningful; otherwise it is not. Descending further, it becomes character. The interrelationships of our society will depend on that. It comes from realization and descends to character. Character is the most impure form, because everything else has entered into it. Knowledge is less impure. Realization is completely pure. And the paths to the attainment of realization are different; character is not the path to its attainment.

There are many facets. In fact—as I said last night—Mahavira had to do many things that don’t occur to us. If they did occur to us, we would immediately see what belongs to what. His nakedness is a part of Mahavira’s knowing—of his realization—not of his character.

It is a part of his knowing because, as I said, if one is to relate to this vast cosmos, this mute existence, then even clothing becomes an obstacle. Clothes are such a great hindrance we scarcely even suspect it. And the newer the fabrics, the greater the hindrance. The latest materials sever your body completely from the surrounding environment; very little comes in, very little goes out.

Different fabrics do different things. Cotton separates in one way, silk in another, wool in yet another. Newer fabrics—those with plastic or glass-like components—break the contact in still other ways.

So for one who wants to be utterly suffused with the surrounding cosmos, any kind of clothing becomes a barrier. Only in total nakedness can he become one. Mahavira’s nakedness, then, is part of his knowing, not of his character. It is clear to him that the “communication” he has to make with the universe can be done only by becoming one with it.

We now know how the smallest things make a difference. Take a radio: shut all doors and windows, no air moving, an air-conditioned room, and the radio struggles to catch the signal—the waves are obstructed. In an air-conditioned room it becomes difficult because the outside air is not coming in; everything is sealed. Its contact with the outer waves is broken. The more open the setting, the better the contact. Either keep it in the open or hang an aerial outside so it can catch the waves and carry the message inside.

Imagine we knew nothing of radio science—we’d ask, “What is this? Why keep the radio outside? Why hang an aerial outside? Keep it inside the house. Install the aerial inside. Shut all the doors.”

From the human body vibrations are going out every moment, and vibrations are coming in every moment. By being naked, Mahavira is cultivating a kind of attunement with the whole universe—where even cloth can be a hindrance. Cloth is a hindrance. And each cloth brings a different kind of hindrance and a different kind of convenience.

For example, silk. You’ll be surprised to know that silk transmits sexual impulses to the body faster than cotton does. A woman in silk is more sexually provoking than in cotton; put the same woman in khadi and she will be even less sexually provoking. Silk quickly catches the sexual waves moving to and from the body and in the field around it. Women understood long ago how useful silk is in this regard.

Wool is very remarkable. You see that Sufis—those fakirs—wear wool. “Suf” means wool; those who wear woolen garments are called Sufis. They wrap themselves in blankets; in heat they still wrap themselves, in cold they wrap themselves—always wrapped in wool.

Wool preserves all kinds of waves inside; that is why it helps in cold. Wool itself is not warm; it simply does not let your body’s heat escape. There is nothing inherently hot about wool; it just prevents the heat your body releases every moment from passing out, so the warmth remains within. That retained warmth makes wool feel hot.

For centuries Sufis have used wool. The experience is that, besides heat, wool also helps to hold in other kinds of subtle experiences. It keeps certain things within the body. So for those working with secrecy, with the esoteric, with hidden sciences, wool is useful: they can keep within what they do not wish to reveal.

Mahavira’s nakedness is very meaningful; it is part of his knowing, not of his character. Therefore, those who take it to be a matter of character and stand naked are simply insane; they have no idea that it has nothing to do with that. There are waves they want to transmit to the whole world; those can be sent only in a naked state. When those waves arise in the body, in nakedness the moving airs carry them fully on their journey. In clothing those waves remain inside; in wool they remain entirely inside. The Sufis act knowingly; Mahavira, too, stood naked knowingly.

But the moral order of that era allowed one to stand naked. Mahavira cannot stand naked in every age. If the very work for which he stands gets obstructed by nakedness, it becomes meaningless. If he were born in New York today, I say he could not stand naked.

Even in Bombay now it is difficult; there are obstacles. For a naked man to walk on the street requires the governor’s permission. Or his devotees would have to surround him, keeping him in the middle so that those who do not wish to see nakedness need not see it. In New York he would be caught at once; they would lock him up. Then the work becomes a different matter; it would be obstructed. Other ways would have to be found.

New circumstances require new paths; the old paths will not work. In those days it was simple. In India, nakedness was easy. The common man was half-naked anyway—wearing a loincloth. So in becoming naked one did not have to renounce as much as we imagine now. He was a prince, so he had clothes; but ordinary people scarcely had clothes—one loincloth was plenty. The common man removed his loincloth to bathe. Nakedness was simple, quite natural; there was nothing awkward or novel about it.

The circumstances provided the opportunity; the nakedness was part of knowing. The situation offered the chance. And a wise man is one who can make fullest use of the opportunity the situation provides; otherwise he is unwise. If he insists merely on being naked and thereby obstructs the whole work, it has no meaning. For the work, other ways will have to be found.

Yes, yes. When I said “in a previous birth,” it does not necessarily mean the immediately preceding birth.

And that will become possible when the human form becomes highly evolved—so evolved that liberation in the human form becomes absolutely simple. Then I say the present status of the human form will become the status of the lower forms. There it will still be almost impossible, but it will begin to happen occasionally. That is, what I mean is that right now even in the human form it stands near the impossible: once in tens of millions, hundreds of millions, a billion, two billion people, one person attains that state. A time may come—should come in the course of evolution—when in the human form this becomes very simple; then in the forms below as well, one or two events will begin to happen. Up to now they have not happened. Up to now, except for man, from any form...

So, because there is no body in the deva yoni, just as the animal yoni lacks awareness, the deva yoni lacks a body. And the body too is an indispensable link in sadhana; without it, practice is very difficult—virtually impossible. As in the animal the absence of intelligence makes it difficult, in the deva the absence of a body makes it difficult. But in the animal, intelligence can one day develop; in the deva, a body can never develop—it is a bodiless yoni. Therefore, for a deva, whenever liberation is to happen, he must first return to the human yoni.

That is, up to now the doorway to liberation has been no yoni other than the human. Animals have to come up to the human, and gods have to return again to the human. Hence I said last night that man stands at a crossroads. Just as I came to your house from the crossroads, and if I am to go in another direction I must come back to the crossroads.

The deva yoni is very pleasant; the animal yoni is very painful. Pleasant it surely is, but pleasure has its own kind of bondage; pain has its own kind. And one gets bored of happiness too, just as one gets bored of suffering. And it is quite a curious thing that if a person is in too much comfort, he begins to create misery with his own hands.

For example, from America came the Beatles, the hippies—these are all boys from affluent homes, extremely well-off homes. Now they have begun to create suffering for themselves, because comfort became boring. I met a hippie in Banaras; he was begging on the road. A millionaire’s son, asking for ten paise, and happy—very happy. He will sleep under a bush; after begging ten paise he will eat somewhere in a cheap hotel—he is happy. Why is he happy? That comfort had become boring. Where everything is assured—everything arrives on time in the morning, on time in the evening, you sleep—everything is assured; then a person has no opportunity left to experience life. So he will break it all and step out.

So the gods are in great happiness, but happiness is boring. And note this well: it is more boring than suffering.

So in the realm of the gods, boredom is the greatest affliction. In the human realm, anxiety—worry—is the greatest affliction; in the realm of the gods, it is ennui, boredom. And you will be surprised to know that no animal is ever bored. You cannot see an animal bored; you cannot say of a dog, “Look, the poor fellow is sitting there so bored”—never. No bird will ever appear bored to you.

In the realm of the gods, boredom is the biggest question and problem—boredom, sheer boredom. Everything is available, and since there is no body, whatever the mind desires is fulfilled at once. You can’t imagine it: if you were to wish something in your mind and it were fulfilled immediately, within two days you would be so bored it would be beyond measure. The woman you desire appears; the food you want appears; the house you want is built. You didn’t have to do anything—desire was enough. Just desire, and it is done.

After two days you would be so shaken you’d say, “Not so fast—this is all going to waste.” Because the savor of attaining is gone—gone. The flavor of acquiring, of conquering, of waiting—that is all gone. None of it exists there. There is no waiting, no labor toward attainment, no striving, nothing. You are sitting; you desire, and it happens.

The rich man gets bored for precisely this reason: he wants many things, and they come to him immediately. The poor man doesn’t get bored, because he desires now and those desires may be fulfilled fifty years later. So for fifty years he lives in the juice of it: “Now they will be fulfilled, now they will be fulfilled, now they will be fulfilled.”

The deva yoni is a yoni of boredom—of pleasure, yes, but of boredom—so from there one has to return to the human. Only the human is still at the crossroads—the place to which everyone must return.

Therefore I do not call the human a yoni; it is a crossroads. Animals come there, gods come there, all come there; plants come there, stones come there—everything comes there. It is the crossroads. Some people decide to stay right there, so they remain there. Some choose a path, and they choose it. They can go toward the gods, and they can go toward liberation.

We could even contrive a way—because a school is our artificial arrangement. But the arrangement of life—the arrangement of life—within that, this is impossible. Once we have gone beyond, have passed, there is no returning back.

Simply to scare you.

Absolutely right—what you say is right. When total oneness happens it is simultaneous, but that happens only in moksha. And what I said was that Mahavira is among those who returned before attaining complete liberation—there is oneness, but then Mahavira would disappear. In complete oneness, Mahavira is no more. Therefore there remains no way to send a message.

One who is liberated becomes a part of the divine. The divine does not send you messages. Its oneness is with you. To bring a message, Mahavira has returned—one step before. Knowledge is complete, but he has not yet dissolved into the ocean. Like a river that has reached the shore of the ocean and, just before it merges, turns back to call out once.

Gibran has used this symbol: “I am like that river which has come close to falling into the ocean, and before I fall, I remember all those who were left behind on the way—the paths, the mountains, the lakes, the banks. And will I not be allowed to look back once? That before I fall into the ocean, I look back—at all that with which I once was, and with which I will never be again.”

So Mahavira is at that moment where ahead lies the ocean, where complete oneness will happen. Complete oneness means where Mahavira will no longer be—like a drop losing itself in the ocean. If a message is to be delivered, it must be before that; afterward there is no way to deliver any message. To whom would it be given? Who would deliver it?

That is why I said: tirthankara means one who has returned once from the very door of liberation, for the sake of those who are left behind, to bring them the news. In that condition there will not be oneness with all. In that condition, oneness will be only with whom he intends and arranges to be in oneness—it will not be simultaneous. It will be in one specific direction at one time, in another direction at another time, and so on. In moksha it becomes simultaneous. Now, for Mahavira, it is simultaneous.

They have no separate entity left. The moment moksha happens, no personality remains for a person. But we still have a personality, because we are not liberated; therefore, through certain methods—if we make use of them—answers can become available to us almost as though from a person. They have no personality left.

Our real difficulty is that we know only one kind of personality—the personality of body and mind. Someone dissolves into the Infinite; he is present, present as the Infinite. You, however, are finite. Even if you go to the ocean and stand on its shore, you can scoop up only a palmful of water. What else can you do? The ocean may be infinite, but you can hold only a handful.

A river that has merged into the ocean—how will you trace where it went? The Ganges falls into the sea. Yet every particle of the Ganges is present throughout the ocean. It is lost in the ocean, but not annihilated. What was, still is. Only the limited has become the unlimited.

There is an arrangement, a certain method, that when you stand on the shore and call the Ganges—there is a method to it, which I will speak of—then, even from the shore, you need only a handful. You do not need the whole Ganges, nor the whole ocean. Those particles that have dissolved in the infinite ocean can, at your call on the shore, gather together for you. You can bring a palmful of the Ganges from the sea.

I am giving this as an example. Your call is to those particles—because they have not vanished; they are all present in the ocean. What difficulty is there that, upon a call, they should not come together, and you receive a handful of Ganges water from the ocean? There is no difficulty.

In the ocean of consciousness, one like Mahavira has dissolved; but before dissolving, every such one leaves behind certain code-words so that whenever someone, standing on the shore of the Infinite, invokes them, his particles become empowered to respond with an answer for you. There is a great joy in all this. There is a great joy in all this. There is a complete method to it, a whole technique, as to how it works.

How does that technique work? Consider this: perhaps you have seen a street conjurer. He places an amulet on a boy’s chest; as soon as he places it, the boy falls into a faint. Then the conjurer asks, “What time is it on this gentleman’s watch?” The boy tells him. “What is the number on the currency note in his pocket? What is his name? What is on his mind?” He tells all that. And then the conjurer starts selling amulets—“These amulets are for six annas each. You can see with your own eyes what power the amulet has.” You also feel the amulet has great power. You pay six annas and buy one. At home, do whatever you like—nothing happens with the amulet. Because the amulet had no power at all; the matter was entirely different.

The boy was put into a deep trance, and in that state he was given this instruction: “Whenever this amulet is placed on your chest, you will at once go into trance. Whenever this amulet is placed on your chest, you will faint.” This is called post-hypnotic suggestion. He is in trance; he is told, “Open your eyes and recognize this amulet well. This red amulet of such-and-such width—whenever we place it on your chest, you will immediately go into trance.” For months he is hypnotized and trained, and this suggestion is anchored in his mind through the amulet. Then whenever the amulet is placed on the child’s chest, he sees it and slips into trance. It has been coded. The amulet has become a code-language, a symbol: as soon as it touches the chest, he becomes unconscious. Now the conjurer need not hypnotize him in front of everyone—hypnosis takes time, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. The training has been given beforehand, and the association with the amulet has been fixed. Now, whenever the amulet is placed on his chest, he will go into trance.

And the moment he goes into trance, his consciousness spreads everywhere. He does not have to come over to you to read; from right there he can read the number of the note in your pocket. The deeper layers of consciousness are vast. Here, through this small face, only a little is visible; behind, it spreads far and wide. If the surface is put to sleep here, it connects there with the Whole.

Just as the amulet was linked with the trance as a code, in the same way each teacher who wishes to remain helpful even afterwards, and whose guidance you may seek after he is gone, leaves behind organized sutras—codes—by using which he will become present again.

There was a yogi in the South, a Brahmayogi, only some years ago. Paul Brunton first went to him. The yogi gave Brunton his photograph and said, “I will accept you as a disciple, but I shall go to London.” Brunton said, “What difference will that make?” The yogi replied, “London is not very far. Take this photo. Sit in this posture, place the photo in this way, and gaze at it with one-pointed attention for a minute or two. Then ask whatever you wish to ask—the answer will come to you.” Brunton was astonished. How could this be? But such arrangements can be made. And when Brunton reached London, the first thing he did was to place the photo before him, concentrate for two minutes, and ask a question. The answer came at once—in exactly the same voice, with the same vocabulary, as the Brahmayogi spoke! Brunton wrote everything down, each time he asked anything. Later, when he returned, he said to the Brahmayogi, “Once I asked this—what did you say?” And the yogi told him exactly what Brunton had written: “I said this.”

This is a device, a method, by which time and space are erased and a connection is made.

Those who have wholly dissolved into the Infinite also leave behind such devices and methods. Not all do; it depends on their own will whether they leave them or not. Some teachers leave nothing; some leave something. Mahavira certainly left them—most certainly—so that a connection could be established by this method. No personality of Mahavira is formed again, but answers come from that Infinity. There is no difficulty in it.

That is why I say that even now a relationship can be established with Mahavira—even now. With some teachers it will be absolutely impossible to establish any connection. For example, with Zarathustra there can be no connection, because he left no device. That was his own understanding. He said, “Why bother about an old teacher? New teachers will keep coming; make your connection with them. What have you to do with Zarathustra!” That is his understanding. Mahavira’s understanding is, “Why worry? I can still be of use; you can make use of me.” It is a matter of each one’s understanding. But connections can indeed be established—yet only with a teacher who has left a device.

The code words are known, but it is not known that they are code words. That is, it is known that these words are written, but what they are for and what the method of using them is—this is not known. As if I were to write one down for you and leave it with you...

Yes, for a few days it was known; for a few days it continued to be used. As long as it was being used, scriptures were not written. As long as it was being used there was no need for scripture, because there was direct contact. When that use dropped, or some people were lost who knew...

Quarrels are bound to lag behind, because then it becomes difficult to settle the matter; even to ask becomes difficult.

No, there is no one. But contact is still possible today. In his tradition there is no one. In his tradition, no one. In his tradition, no one—but others have established contact.

In the Jain tradition there is no one. Others have established contact. Some people are even working continuously. Blavatsky has tried to establish contact with almost all the teachers; among them Mahavira too is one of the teachers.

What actually happened is that all those who worked with Blavatsky...

She was a Russian woman, a theosophist, the founding mother of the Theosophical Society. Along with her was Olcott; he too established connections; Annie Besant...

They are all dead.

Even in Theosophy there is no one today; that source has dried up. In Theosophy, too, there is no one today, but the Theosophists, after thousands of years, worked very hard. And the greatest thing they did was to establish links with all the ancient teachers—even with those teachers whose books had not survived at all.

Yes; there are different methods for that, with each master.

Yes, certainly the practitioner will know. The methods are entirely different from one another. If a connection cannot be established with some method, then either the method is wrong, or the practitioner is not able to do it properly, or perhaps an appropriate method has not yet been tried. So here, what I would like is this: if a few people are interested, let them work steadily on this method; there is no difficulty in it.

Don't ask this. Please don't ask.

There are ways for this too. There are ways for this too. There are ways for everything.

It isn’t exactly an easy matter. If you are ready to make the effort, I am ready to tell you. Understand? It isn’t an easy matter.

Such is the nature of the matter; there is no way around it.
In fact, whoever wants to do it must show a readiness to be extraordinary. Truth is never ready to become ordinary; individuals must become extraordinary to bear it.
And if you make truth ordinary, it becomes worse than untruth. Truth will not descend and come to your doorstep; you will have to climb to the summit of truth. And if truth does come near your house, it will be a commodity for sale in the marketplace; it will have no value.
Now we will sit again tomorrow.