Mahaveer Vani #17

The eleventh tapas, the fifth inner tapas, is: Dhyana.
Those who pass through the ten tapas do not find it difficult to understand Dhyana. But those who only grasp the ten tapas intellectually find Dhyana very hard to understand. Still, a few indications regarding Dhyana can be understood. Dhyana can only be understood by doing it; from the outside, only pointers can be given. Dhyana is like love — the one who loves knows; or like swimming — the one who swims knows.
Some things can be said about swimming, and many things can be said about love. Yet however much one may understand about love, love itself remains unknowable that way. Because love is a taste, an experience, an existential intuition. And swimming too is existential, an ontological intuition. Watching someone else swim, you still cannot know what he experiences. Watching someone else in the throes of love, you still cannot know to what journeys love takes him. Seeing Mahavira standing in Dhyana, you still cannot know what Dhyana is.
Even if Mahavira himself speaks about Dhyana, he cannot exactly make you understand what it is. The difficulty is even greater than with love — however little we may truly know of love, each of us has some taste of it. Even if mistaken, even if it is false love, still there is a taste. But we have no taste even of false Dhyana — how far then is the talk of right Dhyana! We have no taste even of wrong Dhyana on whose basis right Dhyana could be explained. Even in wrong Dhyana we hold ourselves back.
Mahavira has spoken of two kinds of wrong Dhyana as well. He has said that one who falls into intense anger enters a kind of wrong Dhyana. If you have ever been in intense anger, you have entered a type of wrong Dhyana. But we never even come to intense anger. We live lukewarm; we never come to a boiling point. If you fall into deep anger — so deep that only anger remains, anger alone is concentrated, the whole energy of life rushes to the point of anger; all the rays of power settle upon anger — then you will have the experience of wrong Dhyana.
Mahavira says that if someone does descend into wrong Dhyana, bringing him to right Dhyana is easier. Hence it has often happened that the supremely angry become, in a single moment, the very image of supreme forgiveness. But those who smolder slowly in anger have no clue even of wrong Dhyana. If passion is total, craving is total, if there is complete passion — as when a Majnun or a desperate lover goes mad in his passion — then he too enters a form of wrong Dhyana. Then nothing is visible to Majnun except Layla — even while people pass on the road he sees only her; in the standing trees he sees only her; in the moon and stars he sees only her. Therefore we call him mad.
And the Layla that appears to him does not appear to us, to anyone, in that way. People of his village kept explaining to him that she is a very ordinary woman. You have gone mad. The king of the village summoned Majnun and placed before him twelve girls — the most beautiful in the realm — his familiar friends' daughters. And the king said, Do not be mad; we feel pity for you. Seeing you standing on the streets crying, the whole village suffers. Choose any one among these twelve beautiful girls, and I shall have her married to you.
But Majnun said, No one is visible to me here except Layla.
The king said, Have you gone mad? Layla is a very ordinary girl.
Majnun replied, If you want to see Layla, you need the eyes of Majnun. Layla cannot be visible to you. And what you are seeing is not Layla. I am the one who sees her.
What Majnun is saying — that you need Majnun’s eyes — is a form of wrong Dhyana. He is so sex-obsessed, so filled with passion, that his consciousness has narrowed down, has shrunk and stood upon a single point. That point of consciousness has become Layla. Mahavira called these wrong Dhyanas.
It is most interesting that Mahavira is the only man on this earth who has discussed wrong Dhyana too. Many have spoken about right Dhyana. Mahavira’s statement is unique: This too is Dhyana — but inverted, doing a headstand. If as much Dhyana as Majnun has on Layla were to turn upon Majnun himself, it would be right Dhyana. Consciousness is doing a headstand — it is fixed on the 'other'. When consciousness contracts so much upon the other, Dhyana does arise, but it arises inverted, bearing fruit on its head. If the same consciousness turns upon oneself, then Dhyana stands on its feet. From a headstanding Dhyana no movement is possible.
Therefore all headstanding Dhyanas rot. Because they cannot be dynamic. How will you walk on your head? One can walk on one’s feet — journeys are possible on one’s feet. When consciousness stands on its feet, oriented toward itself, then it moves. And Dhyana is a dynamic force. To make it stand on its head is to murder it. Hence those who practice wrong Dhyana fall into self-destruction, they stop, they stagnate. Now Majnun is stuck upon Layla — so badly stuck that he has become like a stagnant pond. He is no longer a river that could reach the ocean. And Layla can never truly be attained.
This is a second difficulty of wrong Dhyana: that which you fix upon cannot be attained. For the other can never be possessed; it is impossible, there is no way to possess the other. In this existence there is only one thing that can be attained, and that is I — my own self — only that can I attain. Whatever else I try to possess, all such attempts will fail. For what is my swabhava — my own nature — only that can be mine; what is not my nature can never be mine. Illusions of possession may happen, but illusions break and bring pain and sorrow.
Hence wrong Dhyana leads to hell. Consciousness standing on its head erects its own hell with its own hands. And we are very amusing people. When we are in hell, we begin to think about Dhyana and such. When a man is in suffering he asks: How can peace be found? When he is in turmoil he asks: How can peace be found? People come to me and say, We have heard that through Dhyana great peace is found; please show us the way of Dhyana. And the fun is that they are not ready to drop anything of that which has created their turmoil. They have created the turmoil, they have worked hard for it, labored for it.
One night Mulla Nasruddin was knocking at the door of the village fakir at two in the morning. The fakir woke and said, So late at night! Looking down he saw Nasruddin standing. He said, Nasruddin, I have never seen you in the mosque, you never come to hear or understand me. Now, at two in the night! Still, the fakir came down — no harm, he has come at two. As he came nearer he saw Nasruddin swaying in wine, standing drunk. Nasruddin said, I have come to ask a little about God. The fakir said, Come in the morning. When you are sober, come then. Come when you are in your senses. Nasruddin said, But the difficulty is: when I am sober, I do not give a damn about your God. It is only because I am drunk that I have come. Is there God or not?
We all arrive in such a condition. When we are happy, not even a slight concern for Dhyana arises; when we are unhappy, concern for Dhyana arises. And the difficulty is that to take an unhappy mind into Dhyana is very hard, because an unhappy mind is engaged in wrong Dhyana. Unhappiness itself means wrong Dhyana. When you are standing on your feet, you have no desire to walk. When you are standing on your head, you come and ask me if there is a way to walk. And if I say to you that when you stand on your feet the way to walk can work, you say: When we stand on our feet, we have no desire to walk.
Therefore Mahavira first spoke of wrong Dhyana so that it may become clear whether you are not in wrong Dhyana. Because if someone is in wrong Dhyana, taking him into Dhyana becomes very difficult. Not difficult because it cannot be done, but because he continues his efforts toward wrong Dhyana. When you say, I want to be peaceful, you continue to exert in every way to be unpeaceful, and simultaneously want peace. And if you are told, Drop your efforts that create unrest, you say, We understand that, but still tell us some method to become peaceful.
And you do not know that to be peaceful nothing at all needs to be done. Simply one who drops the efforts to be unpeaceful becomes peaceful. Peace is not an attainment; unrest is the attainment. Peace is not to be gained; unrest has been gained. The absence of unrest becomes peace. And the absence of wrong Dhyana — the beginning of Dhyana begins there.
So wrong Dhyana means: to become concentrated upon anything outside oneself. The other-oriented consciousness — consciousness flowing toward the other — is wrong Dhyana. And therefore Mahavira gave no place to Paramatma. Because a consciousness flowing toward Paramatma, says Mahavira, is also wrong Dhyana. For you can only think of Paramatma as the other — and if you think as the self, it will need immense courage. If you think, I am Paramatma, great courage is required. You will not be able to think it, and people around you will not let you think it. And when someone thinks, I am Paramatma, then he will have to live like Paramatma. For mere thinking cannot stand unless you live it. The thought will not grow blood until you live it; it will not grow bone and marrow until you live it.
So if one lives like Paramatma, then Dhyana is not needed at all. Therefore Mahavira says: You will always imagine Paramatma as the other. And therefore in those religions which begin with God, Dhyana does not develop; prayer develops. And the ways of prayer and the ways of Dhyana are entirely different.
Prayer means: a petition addressed to the other; in Dhyana there is no petition. Prayer means: asking for help from the other; in Dhyana there is no asking for help. Because, says Mahavira: whatever comes from the other can never become mine — even if it comes. First of all, it will not come; I will merely assume that it has come. And what comes from the other, that assumed-to-have-come, today or tomorrow will be lost and will bring sorrow and pain.
Therefore Mahavira says: If you are to go absolutely beyond pain, you must drop the other altogether. Whatever relationships are with the other can be broken; even the relationship with Paramatma can break. Relationship itself means that it can be broken. Relationship means that which can be made and can be broken. Mahavira says: What can be made can be marred. Therefore do not attempt to make it at all. Know that which is unmade, uncreated. That which is within you has never been made, therefore there is no fear of its ceasing. Only that can be yours, that alone is the eternal treasure.
Therefore those around Mahavira, who could not understand him, said: This man is a nihilist. And they felt that he was even more profoundly atheistic than any atheist so far. Because atheists at least say: Provide proof of God and we shall accept. Mahavira says: Whether God is or is not has nothing to do with religion, for whenever I take the other into Dhyana it becomes wrong Dhyana. Therefore Mahavira does not even bother to gather proofs for whether God is or is not. Certainly to the theists Mahavira appeared a deep atheist — deeper than the atheists.
So the so-called believers condemned Mahavira even more than Charvaka. And there was a greater danger, because it was easy to condemn Charvaka — he said: Eat, drink, make merry. But Mahavira’s condemnation was more difficult. For those atheists indulged in eating, drinking, and making merry. This Mahavira was nothing like an atheist. He had not the slightest intoxication in pleasure. Hence he was even harder to condemn. He was so much the better man — perhaps far better than the greatest theist. Because even the greatest theist remains dependent on the other. The freedom that Mahavira has cannot be the theist’s — unless a day comes when either the devotee is utterly effaced and only God remains, or God is utterly effaced and only the devotee remains. When only one remains, then it happens.
Mahavira is not in favor of prayer. Mahavira is not in favor of meditating on the other. Then what does Mahavira mean by Dhyana? Let us understand that meaning, and how Mahavira can lead you to that Dhyana, let us understand that too.
By Dhyana Mahavira means: to abide in one’s own swabhava — to be in oneself. Dhyana means: swabhava. To rest where I am, as I am. To live in that, not to go out of it. The meaning of Dhyana is: abiding in swabhava. Therefore Mahavira used the word ‘Dhyana’ less, because the word ‘Dhyana’ — the very word — points to the other. Whenever we say to be attentive, it implies toward something else. Whenever we say Dhyana, the question arises — on what, upon whom? People come and ask, We want to do Dhyana; on what shall we do it? The word Dhyana conceals within it the idea of an object. Therefore Mahavira did not use the word Dhyana much. In place of Dhyana he used more the word ‘Samayik’. That is Mahavira’s own word — Samayik. Mahavira calls the soul ‘time’, and Samayik is when a person remains in his soul — then it is called Samayik.
A very wondrous work is underway among scientists these days. If that work comes to completion, perhaps Mahavira’s word Samayik will be revived. Einstein, Planck, and other scientists of the last fifty years have observed that the space in this universe is three-dimensional. The expanse, the void, the akasha is divided in three dimensions. We see anything in three dimensions — length, breadth, thickness — the three. Space is three-dimensional. And along with these three is time.
The great difficulty was how to join time with these three dimensions. Because some conjunction must be somewhere. Time and space must be joined, otherwise the existence of the world cannot be formed. Therefore Einstein ceased to speak of time and space separately and coined a word ‘spacetime’ — that time and space are one, kala and kshetra are one. And Einstein said that time is the fourth dimension of space — not something separate. After Einstein’s death further work was done and it was found that time too is a kind of energy — that fourth dimension is energy, shakti. And now scientists think that the human body is made of three dimensions and the human soul is made of the fourth dimension. If this proves correct, the name of the fourth dimension is time. And Mahavira, twenty-five centuries ago, called the soul time.
Many times science arrives much later at the realizations that the mystic, drowned in mystery, had seen thousands of years earlier. Ten to fifteen years more — the work is proceeding vigorously. Great work is being done by Russian scientists. And they are continually approaching the point that time itself is human consciousness. If you grasp it thus, it will be easier to enter Mahavira’s notion of Dhyana. Understand it thus: matter can be conceived even without time. But consciousness cannot even be conceived without time. Think that time does not exist in the world: matter could be — stone could be — but consciousness could not be.
Because the movement of consciousness is not in space, it is in time. The movement of consciousness is not in space — not in spacetime’s spatiality — it is in time. When you come here from your home, your body travels: that travel is in space. You left home, sat in a car, a bus, a train, you traveled; this travel is in space. If a stone were put in your place it too would arrive here in the car. But while you are in the car your mind makes another journey that has nothing to do with the car. That journey is in time. It may be that while you are still at home, before you sit in the car, you have already come here in time, in mind. But the car is still standing before the house. The truth is that you sit in the car because your mind has already moved toward this place before the car. Therefore you sit in the car; otherwise you would not. The stone will not sit in the car by itself; someone will have to put it in. Even after being put in, it remains as it was. You will be taken out here from the car, but inside that stone nothing will have happened. When you are seated in the car, two movements are occurring — your body is traveling in space, and your mind is traveling in time. The movement of consciousness is in time.
Mahavira called consciousness ‘time’, and called Dhyana ‘Samayik’. If the movement of consciousness is in time, then the cessation of consciousness’s movement is Samayik. When all bodily movement ceases, that is asana; and when all the mind’s movement ceases, that is Dhyana. If you come sitting in the car as a stone would come, you were in Dhyana. Within you there is no movement; only the body moves, and you come seated in the car as if a stone has come — then you were in Dhyana. Dhyana means: consciousness remains, but movement becomes zero. This is Mahavira’s meaning of Dhyana. Now, toward this Dhyana, what advice can Mahavira give? Let us try to understand that in two or three parts.
You may have seen, under a thatched roof, that a ray of light enters through some hole. A garland of light, a stream of light falls into the room. The whole room is dark. Through the thatch a stream of light descends. Then you will have seen another thing: within that stream of light thousands of particles of dust are seen swirling. In the darkness they are not seen; they are flying everywhere in the room. They are everywhere, but in the light they become visible. Because for seeing, light is necessary. Perhaps you think that those dust motes are flying only in that stream of light; then you are mistaken. They are flying throughout the room, but they are visible only in the stream of light.
Your consciousness is in a similar state. Wherever attention falls, there the motes of thought become visible. Elsewhere too thoughts are flying, but you do not see them.
Therefore the psychologist divides the mind into two parts — one he calls conscious, one unconscious. The portion upon which attention falls he calls conscious, and that portion upon which attention does not fall he calls unconscious. Conscious is that part where the ray of light falls and the dust motes are seen; unconscious is the rest of the room where there is darkness — where the light does not fall — dust motes fly there too but there is no way to notice them.
In your conscious mind you see the flight of thoughts — twenty-four hours thoughts go on. They slide past. But you have never noticed that when the ray of light descends in a dark room, the dust mote that comes flying into it comes from the surrounding darkness. Then it enters the shaft of light; and after a little while it goes again into the darkness. If you think that it exists only when it is in the light, you are mistaken. Before it comes it already is, after it goes it still is.
Have you ever studied your thoughts — from where they come and where they go? Perhaps you think they enter here and are destroyed. They are born and are destroyed. They are not born and destroyed. They come from your darkened mind, they appear in your illuminated mind, then they go into your dark mind again. If you try to watch from where your thoughts arise, slowly you will find they come from the darkness within you. And if you keep attention on their birth-source, slowly you will find you begin to see them even in the dark — and when they go, they do not annihilate in front of you, they just pass on. If you follow them, gradually you will see them going into the dark. You can follow them even in the dark.
Consciousness is filled with thought, as the sky is filled with air. When air presses against you, you notice air; when it does not, you do not. When some thought presses against you, you notice; otherwise you do not even notice. Thoughts keep flowing. Of your hundred thoughts you barely keep track of one; the remaining ninety-nine flow by unnoticed. More amusing still: when air presses you, you notice air; but you never notice the sky — it gives no push.
So of the thoughts swirling in your consciousness you become aware, but you never become aware of consciousness itself, for it gives no push. There are two ways: either if you wish to avoid these thoughts, you can close the hole in the thatch from which the ray comes — then you will not see thoughts. In sleep, this is what happens. The small stream of awareness that you could see in waking, you shut even that and go to sleep. Then you see nothing. Everything stops.
In deep unconsciousness the same happens. In hypnosis too. Therefore those who are pained by thoughts often begin to perform self-hypnotic practices and mistake self-hypnosis for Dhyana. It is not Dhyana. It is only extinguishing your awareness. It is a drowning in darkness. It too has a certain pleasure. The same pleasure is found in alcohol, in cannabis, in opium. The little stream of awareness that was flowing has also been closed; you are lost in pitch darkness. Great peace seems to be there. That unrest was felt because of the ray of light. Mahavira’s Dhyana is not one in which the ray of light is snuffed out. Mahavira’s Dhyana is one in which you remove all the tiles of the roof, leaving the whole roof open so that light fills the entire room.
It is also an interesting fact that when the whole room is filled with light, the dust motes also cease to be seen. When the whole room is filled with light, the dust motes are not seen; when the whole room is dark, they are not seen either. When the whole room is dark and there is a small area of light, then the dust motes are visible. In truth, to see dust motes, a shaft of light is needed and a background of darkness is also needed.
So there are two ways to forget these particles. One way is that the whole thing becomes dark — then they are not seen because there is no light. Or let there be complete light — then too they are not seen, because the light is so intense that such tiny motes cannot be seen; the light itself becomes visible. Without a background the dust motes are lost.
So let us first understand this difference: many techniques are called meditation which in fact are techniques of stupor, not of Dhyana. In them a person sinks his conscious into the unconscious. He goes into deep sleep. On rising he may feel peace, feel healthy, feel fresh. But those methods merely drown consciousness. No revolution happens through them.
Shri Mahesh Yogi who talks about meditation around the world is only teaching a technique of stupor. What he calls Transcendental Meditation — bhavatita Dhyana — is not even meditation, far less transcendental; neither transcendental nor meditation. Not meditation because it is merely a practice of lulling oneself to sleep with the repetition of a mantra. The repetition of any word brings drowsiness — any word. Repetition creates tandra, hypnosis. In fact, the repetition of any word creates boredom. Boredom invites sleep. So if you use any mantra in such a way that it leads you into boredom, tires you, robs the novelty, then the mind, bored and troubled by the old, slips into drowsiness and sleep. For those who suffer from insomnia this practice is useful — but it is neither meditation nor transcendental. Many suffer insomnia; for them it helps, but this help has nothing to do with Dhyana. It is the benefit of deep sleep.
Deep sleep is a good thing, not a bad thing. So I am not saying what Mahesh Yogi teaches is bad. It is a good thing — but its usefulness is the same as any tranquilizer. Even better than a tranquilizer, because you need not depend on a drug; it is an inner device, an inner trick. Consequently in the East Mahesh Yogi has had little impact; in the West a great impact — because the West is afflicted with insomnia, sleep has become very difficult. In the West, sleep has become a pleasure because attaining it has become difficult. In the East sleep is still no issue. As the East turns Western, the question of sleep will arise.
So those who came to Mahesh Yogi in the West were people troubled by insomnia, who could not sleep. They have forgotten the natural device — the natural process of sleep. They need an artificial technique by which they can sleep. But no one will remain with him for more than two or three months — they will run away. Because once sleep begins to come, the matter ends. Then they will say, Now we want meditation. Sleep has happened — good — but now, further? It becomes hard to pull them further, for that practice is merely of sleep.
Mahavira is an opponent of stupor, hence he never advised any method in which there is even the slightest possibility of the onset of stupor. This is the difference between Mahavira and the other methods of India. In India two methods have existed. One should say, in the whole world there are two basic methods of meditation. Essentially two: one we may call the Brahmin method and one the Shramana method. Mahavira’s method is the Shramana method. The other is the Brahmin method. The Brahmin method is a method of relaxation. It is the method we may call relaxation: rest yourself in Brahman, let go into the Divine, relax into Brahman.
Mahavira did not advise any Brahmin method. He said relaxation carries a great danger — in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases the danger is you will go into sleep. Because relaxation and sleep are deeply related, and from lives upon lives your only experience is that whenever you relaxed you fell asleep. Your mind has a conditioned mechanism that whenever you relax, sleep will arrive. Therefore doctors advise those who can’t sleep to practice relaxation, shithilikaran, shavasana: relax, become loose, and you will fall asleep. The converse is also true. If one goes into relaxation there is great danger of slipping into sleep. Therefore one who is to go into relaxation must take the support of many other processes that keep sleep from coming; otherwise relaxation becomes sleep.
Mahavira did not use those methods. The methods he used are the opposite of relaxation. Hence his method is called shram — effort, labor. He says: Enter Dhyana through effort, not through relaxation. And entering through effort is the exact opposite of entering through relaxation. If we tell someone to relax we say: Let your limbs become loose, be sluggish, become limp — be as if you are dead. The method of shram will say: Create as much tension as you possibly can. The more tension you can create, the better. Stretch yourself, stretch, stretch — as one keeps tightening the strings of a veena and then releases them upon the twang. Keep tightening, keep tightening. Stretch your tension to its most intense pitch. Surely a limit comes when if you keep tightening the sitar string, it will break. But consciousness has no way to break. It does not break.
Therefore keep tightening. Mahavira says: Keep tightening. A limit will come where the string would break — but consciousness will not break. Yet consciousness reaches its extremity, its climax, its peak. And when it reaches the peak, unknowingly, without your knowing, it attains relaxation. As if I keep closing this fist, closing it, with all my strength keep closing it — a moment will come when my strength reaches its peak. Suddenly I will find that the fist has begun to open, for I no longer have the strength to clench. There is a way to open the fist by fully closing it.
And remember, when the fist is opened after being completely closed, the relaxation that becomes available is very unique — it never leads to sleep. It leads straight into relaxation. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred there is entry into relaxation, not into sleep. Because a man has made so much effort, has tightened so much, to sustain this tension he had to go into such wakefulness that from that wakefulness he cannot drop straight into sleep — he will go into relaxation.
So Mahavira’s method is the method of shram — to take the mind to such a tension. Tension can be of two kinds. One tension can be for something other; Mahavira says that is wrong Dhyana. One tension can be toward oneself; Mahavira says that is right Dhyana. For this right Dhyana there are some preliminaries without which it cannot be entered. Without them, if you try to enter, you can become deranged. First, those ten sutras which I have spoken of till yesterday, are essential. Without them this experiment cannot be done. Because through those ten sutras your personality acquires that condition, that energy and strength by which you can carry yourself into utmost tension. Such power and capacity come that you cannot go mad. Otherwise if someone begins Mahavira’s Dhyana directly, he can go insane. Therefore never, by mistake, begin this experiment directly; those ten parts are indispensable. Now I will tell you the primary preparations for Dhyana.
In the West a very thoughtful scientist is working on meditation. His name is Ron Hubbard. He has given birth to a new ‘science’ — he calls it Scientology. The things he has discovered regarding meditation accord greatly with Mahavira. At this time, on earth, if anyone can understand Mahavira’s Dhyana closely it is Ron Hubbard. The Jains will perhaps not even know his name. Among the Jain monks I have traveled the whole country — there is not a single person who can understand Mahavira’s Dhyana, not to speak of doing it. They give discourses daily, but I was astonished that the chief of an order of five hundred, seven hundred monks — the acharya — even he asks me in private how to meditate. What then will he have his seven hundred monks do! Their guru asks: How to meditate? And certainly he asks in private. He does not even have the courage to ask before others.
Ron Hubbard has used three words for the primary entrance into meditation. All three words are Mahavira’s. Ron Hubbard does not know Mahavira’s words; he uses English. One word is: remembering; the second: returning; and the third: re-living. All three are Mahavira’s. You know returning well — pratikraman. Re-living you do not know as much — Mahavira’s word is jati-smarana, remembering past lives — re-living that which has already been lived. And remembering — Mahavira and Buddha both used ‘smriti’... the same word becomes ‘surati’ with Kabir and Nanak — the same: smriti.
We are all familiar with remembering. In the morning you ate — you remember. But remembering is always partial. When in the evening you remember that you ate in the morning, you cannot recall the whole event, because while eating much else was happening. In the kitchen there was the clatter of vessels; the aroma of food was there; your wife was moving about; her hostility was reflected around you. The children were creating a racket; their racket was apparent. Was it hot or cold — it touched you; gusts of wind were coming or not — that was the total situation. Within, how hungry you were, what thoughts were moving in your mind, where you were getting ready to run off while eating, where the mind had already gone — all this was the total situation.
When you remember in the evening, you only recall so much: at twelve I ate. This is partial. When you are eating there is fragrance and taste. You may not know that if your nose and eyes are completely closed, you will not be able to tell the difference in taste between an onion and an apple. If your eyes are blindfolded and the nose is plugged and closed and something is placed upon your lips and you are told: By tasting alone tell what it is — you will not be able to tell even between onion and apple. Because the real difference between onion and apple does not come to you through taste, but through smell and sight. Taste does not tell you.
So many events are in the situation of eating — you do not remember them. Partial memory: I ate at twelve. Returning — pratikraman — means: remembering the entire situation. But even in remembering the entire situation, you remain outside. Re-living means: to live the whole situation again.
If one is to enter Mahavira’s Dhyana, then at night before sleep there is one preliminary, essential experiment. While falling asleep something similar happens in a small way to what happens on a large scale at the time of death. You have heard that people who have nearly drowned sometimes re-live their entire life in a single instant. Sometimes a man who has drowned and has been saved says, While I was drowning, and death was certain, then in a single instant the whole film of my life passed before me — I saw the whole film in a single moment. And it was not as if I merely remembered — I re-lived it.
At the instant of death, in a sudden death where death appears immanent and inescapable, when there is no way to be saved and death is clear, then such an event occurs. If one is to descend into Mahavira’s Dhyana, such an event should happen each night before sleep. When you are going to sleep and sleep comes near, re-live. First you will have to begin with remembering. Remember from morning to night all that happened.
If a deep experiment of three months is done, you will find that remembering gradually becomes returning. Now the whole situation begins to be recalled. Do another three months — upon returning you will find it turns into re-living. You begin to re-live. In nine months you will find you can live again from morning till night — again. There will be no difference — you will live again. And the interesting thing is that this time it will be more living than what you lived in the day, for at that time there were twenty-five entanglements; now there are none. Hubbard says this is going back on the track and traveling again on the same track — as you listen to a tape for ten minutes, rewind, and then listen to the same ten minutes again. Or you see a film, then see it again; on the mind’s track nothing is lost — everything remains saved.
Before sleeping at night, if you are to enter Mahavira’s Dhyana, into Samayik, then a nine-month process — three months for each experiment — is necessary. First begin with remembering — completely remember from morning till night what happened. Then practice returning — try to remember the entire situation of each event. You will be very surprised — your sensitivity will increase greatly; you will become very sensitive. And the next day your relish for living will also increase greatly, because gradually you will become aware of many things of which you were never aware.
When you are eating, then outside too the rain is falling; the tapping of drops is being heard by your ears — but you are so insensitive that the sound of the drops does not connect with your eating. On the ground outside, the aroma from the fresh drops is entering — but you are so insensitive that that fragrance does not join into your eating. Flowers are blossoming on the window — but their beauty does not get conjoined with your eating.
You have become insensitive. If you undertake the full journey of returning, a new dimension of beauty and rasa and experience will begin to open in your life. The total event will be available for you to live. And whenever a total event is lived — whenever an event is total — the urge to re-live it, to repeat it, begins to die; craving diminishes.
If someone, even once, passes utterly through any event, then the desire to repeat it again does not remain. Thus there is freedom from the past and also from the future. Returning is the method for freedom from past and future. Deepen this returning so much that a moment comes when you no longer remember, you re-live — the event is lived again. And you will be amazed — it can be lived again.
And the day you become able to re-live the event, that day dreams will cease at night. For in dreams you are attempting to re-live those events — nothing else. If you have consciously re-lived the entire day before sleep, then you have brought it to a close. Now there is no need to remember, no need to re-live. Whatever was left incomplete, that too has been completed.
The day one can re-live, dreams bid farewell at night. And the deeper the sleep becomes, the more profound the morning awakening becomes. When dreams depart from sleep, thoughts become fewer in the day. These are all connected events. When the night becomes dreamless, thoughts begin to empty out in the day.
This does not mean that then you cannot think. It means that then you can think — but the obsession to think does not remain, the compulsion that you must think is gone. Now you are forced to think. Even if you wish not to think, you must. And the thought you most want not to think is the very thought you must think. Right now you are a slave. The mind does not obey you.
If we ask Mahavira, the sign of the deranged is this: his mind does not obey him. The sign of madness is the same. So among us are degrees of madness. In someone the mind obeys a little, in someone a little more, in someone still more. Some keep doing it all inside; some begin to do the same thing outside. Only so much difference — degrees of madness. Until Dhyana is attained, you will be deranged.
The absence of Dhyana is derangement.
In the one who attains Dhyana, dreams become zero. Such becomes his night as if, in the shaft of light, there remain no dust motes. When he rises in the morning, truly only that man rises who has not dreamt at night; otherwise only a thin layer of sleep breaks and the dreams continue within throughout the day. Therefore whenever you close the eyes — daydreams begin. The dream goes on within; only the top layer awakes. It is a makeshift layer. With it you can manage the road, with it you can reach your office; with it you can function — the habit, the robot within you does the work. Only so much awareness is there. Mahavira does not call this awareness.
When dreams wholly cease at night, you rise in the morning without any sense of rising — the difference is the same as between a lamp burning on kerosene — yellow, dim, smoke-laden — and the sun rising for the first time — the rising of the sun. Right now what you call waking is a feeble, yellow, dim flame. When dreams end at night, you rise in the morning as the sun rises — in that awakened consciousness thoughts become your slaves. They are not the masters. And Mahavira says: As long as thoughts are the master, how will Dhyana be? Mastery over thought must be yours; then Dhyana is possible. Then you can think when you wish, and not think when you wish.
So the second experiment — one with sleep at night — the second with the morning. As soon as you awaken, wait after getting up to see when the first thought comes. Catch the first thought: when does it come? Gradually you will be amazed — the more you try to catch the first thought, the later it arrives. Sometimes hours will pass and the first thought will not come. And this hour without thought will help to set your consciousness upright from its headstand. You will be able to stand on your feet. Because if — even an hour is far — if for even one minute no thought comes, you will begin to experience that thought is hell. And to be without thought is bliss, is heaven. Even for one minute if no thought comes, you will begin to have a glimpse of that within you which is other than thought. Then dust will not be seen; the stream of light will be seen. Your gestalt will change.
If you have ever seen any gestalt pictures, you will understand. In psychology books there are gestalt drawings. Many of you must have seen one — if not, you should see it. A picture of an old woman is drawn. Many gestalt pictures exist. The old woman is drawn — look at it carefully and you see an old woman. Keep looking, keep looking — suddenly you find the picture has changed and a young woman appears. She too is hidden in the same lines. She too is hidden in the same lines — but there will be a delightful thing: as long as you see the old woman, you cannot see the young. And when you see the young woman, the old one vanishes. You cannot see both together — this is the meaning of gestalt.
Gestalt means there are patterns of seeing, and opposite patterns cannot be seen simultaneously. When the young woman appears — the drawing is the same, the lines are the same, you are the same — nothing has changed. But your attention has changed. You were bored seeing the old woman. Attention took a turn; it began to see something new. Because attention always wants to see the new. The young woman, which until now you did not see, appears. The amusing thing is you cannot see both simultaneously. Even now, when you know — earlier you did not know that a young face is hidden in it — now you know that both faces are hidden and still you cannot see both. As long as you keep seeing the young face, you will not notice the old. When you begin to see the old again, the young disappears. This is gestalt.
Consciousness cannot see opposites simultaneously. As long as you see the dust motes, you cannot see the stream of light. And when you begin to see the stream of light, you cannot see the dust motes. As long as you see thoughts, you cannot see consciousness. When you do not see thoughts, then you see consciousness. And one who sees consciousness even once — the entire outline of his life changes. Right now our entire outline is determined by thought — by dust motes. Then our entire current flows from light. Yet you cannot see both together. When you see thoughts, then consciousness is forgotten. When you see consciousness, thoughts are forgotten. But you will still remember — whether the young face appears, you will remember that the old face is hidden within. When you are looking at the old, you will remember that somewhere the young is present, asleep, hidden, unmanifest.
The day a person becomes thoughtless, his attention goes to consciousness. Until then it does not go. And once attention goes to consciousness, then consciousness is never again forgotten. Whether you are engaged in thought, working at the shop, in the market, doing anything, inside remains the clear awareness: there is consciousness. Even if you become ill, impaired, sorrowful, even if your limbs are cut, still inside there is consciousness — a clear remembrance remains. And you can change the gestalt whenever you wish. An accident is happening and the body is torn and falls, legs are severed. It is not necessary that you look at the legs and be miserable. You can change the gestalt and look at consciousness — the body is gone. There will be no suffering of the body. You are no longer the body.
When nails are being hammered into Mahavira’s ears, do not think that Mahavira is a body like you. If he were a body like you, there would be pain. Mahavira’s gestalt has changed. Mahavira is no longer looking at the body; he is looking at consciousness. So when nails are hammered into the body they appear just as if nails are being hammered into someone else’s body — as if far away at a distance nails are being hammered. Mahavira has gone far away. When Mahavira dies he does not die as you do. The gestalt is different. Mahavira is seeing consciousness, which never dies.
When Jesus is being crucified, the gestalt is different. Jesus is not looking at the body that is being hung on the cross. When Mansoor is being cut to pieces, the gestalt is different. Mansoor is not looking at the body being cut — therefore he is laughing. Someone asks, Mansoor, you are being cut to pieces and you are laughing? Mansoor replies, I am laughing because the one you are cutting is not me. And what I am you cannot even touch — so it is very funny. Your swords pass by me, but cannot touch me. This is the transformation of gestalt, the shift of attention — the focus is seeing something else.
So at night, three processes for thought — in the morning the waiting for the first thought — and throughout the rest of the day, witnessing. Whatever is happening, I am the witness, not the doer. While eating, two things remain. They do not remain two — for the ordinary man only one thing remains: the food remains. If a man is a little intelligent, two things happen — there is the food and there is the eater.
By intelligent I mean one who lives with a little thought and understanding. One who lives completely without thought — to him only the food remains, therefore he overeats, because the eater is not present. Yesterday he resolved not to eat so much. He has resolved twenty-five times that he will not overeat. The illness catches him; this disease arrives. Afflicted by disease he says, I must not eat so much. He resolves. But when he sits to eat again he overeats and eats exactly those things he should not. Why? The eater is not present — only the food remains. The food had not resolved, therefore the food gets whatever done that it wants done.
A little intelligent person keeps awareness of both — of the food and the eater. But what Mahavira calls witnessing is a third awareness. It is the awareness that I am neither the food nor the eater. The food is food; the eater is the body; I am other than both. A triangle is formed — a triad. Upon the third point am I. Upon that third point, that third point of the triangle, to remain for twenty-four hours is witnessing. Whatever is happening, three parts are always present and I am the third — I am not the two. The one who overeats sees only a single angle. If he gains a little knowledge of natural health, he begins to see the second angle too: I, the doer, should not overdo. Before he used to be identified with the food; now he is identified with the body that eats. But he is not a witness. He is a witness when he goes beyond both and becomes the third. And when he sees: here is the food, here is the body, here am I — and I am always separate.
Therefore Mahavira has said: prithaktva — separateness. He did not use the word ‘witnessing’, he used ‘prithaktva’ — apartness. He called it ‘bhed-vijnana’ — the science of division. Mahavira’s own word — the science to divide. Things are to be divided into their parts. Food is there, the body is here, I am beyond both — when this division becomes clear, witnessing is born.
So remember three things: at night before sleep — remembering, returning, re-living. In the morning, waiting for the first thought so that the interval becomes apparent and in the interval the gestalt changes — the dust motes are not seen, the stream of light is remembered. And all the time, twenty-four hours, sitting, walking, lying down — attention upon the third point, standing on the third. If these three are fulfilled, then what Mahavira calls Samayik bears fruit. Then we become steady in the soul.
This self-settledness is not something inert, not stagnant. We lack words. We have two words — movement and standing still; motion and no-motion; dynamic and stagnant. We do not have a third word. But men like Mahavira always speak of the third. Our language knows only two categories; it knows no third. Therefore to express the experience of a man like Mahavira, there is no way other than to use both words together. It becomes paradoxical. If we could say, if it makes any clear sense — such no-motion which is perfect motion; such stillness where there is no stillness; movement without movement — perhaps we could give the news. Because we have two words and a Mahavira lives at the third point. And no language of the third point has yet been created. Perhaps it can never be.
It cannot be, because language requires duality. You never notice what a game language is. If you go to the dictionary: What is matter? That which is not mind. And what is mind? That which is not matter. What madness is this! Neither matter is known, nor mind — and yet the definition stands made, by denying the other! What kind of talk is this — who is man? Not woman. Who is woman? Not man! Is this a definition? Darkness is that which is not light, and light is that which is not darkness — it seems quite right, yet completely meaningless. It has no meaning. If I ask, What is right? You say: not left. If I ask, What is left? You define it by the same right by which you defined left! It is vicious, circular.
But it serves our purpose. The whole language is like this. There is nothing more futile on earth than a dictionary — very hard to find anything more futile. For what does the lexicographer do? On page five he says, See page ten. And on page ten he says, See page five. If I come to your village and ask, Where does Rehman live? You say, Next to Ram. And where does Ram live? Next to Rehman. What sense is there in this? We should define the unknown by that which is known. Then it would have some meaning. We define one unknown by another unknown — one unknown is defined by another unknown. We know nothing, and we make a definition of one unknown by another and thus create the illusion of the known.
The illusion we call knowledge has arisen in this way. It is makeshift knowledge — it makes our work possible — but it gives no experience of truth. The difficulty for a Mahavira is that he stands at the third point where things cannot be split in two. Where duality is not — where there are not two. Where the experience is one — and how can he define that, for all our language keeps saying ‘not this’? How can he define it? At most he can speak in negatives, but even that negative is not exact. He can say: there, there is no sorrow, no unrest. But when we understand its meaning, what is our meaning?
For us peace and unrest are duals; for Mahavira it is freedom from duality. For us peace means that where there is no unrest. For Mahavira peace means where there is neither peace nor unrest. Because as long as there is peace, some little unrest exists — otherwise how would peace be known? If you become perfectly healthy, you would not notice health. A little sickness is needed to notice health. If you become perfectly ill, you would not notice illness — because to notice illness, health is also required, else it will not be noticed.
So in a most ill man there is health, hence being ill is noticed. And in the most healthy man there is some illness, hence health is noticed. But we have no means — we keep seeking from the outside, and outside all is duality. We capture outer symptoms and inside no symptoms can be captured because there is no duality. So Mahavira has, about what will happen to the person who stands at the third point in Dhyana, tried to explain in the twelfth tapas. That attempt is entirely from the outside — it can only be from the outside. Yet it is a very inner event; therefore he has called it an inner tapas and placed it as the final tapas.
After Dhyana, Mahavira’s tapas is Kayotsarga. It means: where the body is let go, where the body is no more — the gestalt shifts completely. Kayotsarga does not mean torturing the body. It does not mean cutting and offering limbs. Kayotsarga means: when Dhyana reaches the perfect peak, the gestalt shifts. The body is let go. The body remains not — there is no trace of it anywhere. Nirvana or Moksha is the disappearance of the world — just disappearance. Self-realization is the disappearance of the body. You will say: But Mahavira lived forty more years — even after the experience of Dhyana the body was there. It appears to you. It appears to you — but to Mahavira the body is now not — the body is no more. Mahavira’s Kayotsarga has happened. But we still see it.
Therefore there is a wondrous event in Buddha’s life. When Buddha was about to die, his disciples were greatly saddened — all gathered weeping, in their pain. They said, What will happen to us now? Buddha said, Fools, I died forty years ago. They said, Granted this is the body, but we have grown fond of even this body. Buddha said, This body was immersed forty years ago.
In Japan there was a fakir, Lin-chi. One day in his discourse he said: No one more false than this Buddha has ever been on earth. Because as long as he was not a Buddha, he was; and the day he became Buddha, from that day he is not. So Lin-chi said: To say Buddha is, Buddha happened — these are all errors of language. Buddha never happened. People were disturbed, because this fakir belonged to Buddha. There was an image of Buddha behind him; just now he had offered a lamp to it. A man stood up and said, You speak such words? You say Buddha never happened — such irreligious talk! Lin-chi said: From the day the body disappeared within me, from that day I know. For you I still am; from the day I truly ceased to be, from that day I utterly am not.
This utter non-being is the final stage. It is the explosion. After that there is nothing more — or everything. Either shunya, or purna.
Tomorrow we shall speak of the last, the twelfth tapas.
Sit for five minutes...!