Mahaveer Vani #24

Ras-parityaga does not mean blindness or deafness, though many have taken it that way. To separate attention from the senses is difficult; to destroy the senses is very easy. To drop the relish in what the eyes see is hard; to gouge out the eyes is not so hard. Some people have actually gouged out their eyes! Some have made their sight dim. But walking with closed eyes will accomplish nothing, because the very tendency to close the eyes is arising out of fear—and fear is not renunciation.

And the laws of the mind are very strange. Whatever we fear also influences us very deeply. If I shut my eyes on seeing beauty, that too is being influenced by beauty. It does not show that I have become free of the craving for beauty; it only shows that the craving is abundant and I am so frightened of my own craving that out of fear I have closed my eyes. But the fear through which you close the eyes will continue inside the eyes. It is not necessary that only when we look outward we see forms.

If ras—the relish, the craving—exists within, it will manufacture forms inside as well. Dreams get created; imagination gets created. And the outer world is never as beautiful as what we can fabricate within. The world of dreams is in our hands. If the ras is present and you put out your eyes, you will begin to dream—and dreams are more pleasing than the outer world. The outer world obstructs; dreams are our private play. We can make them as beautiful as we like, and keep them for as long as we like. And dream-images do not present any resistance.

Many people, frightened of the world, enter the world of dreams. Those who want to enter the world of dreams will find it a great help to close their eyes, because dreaming with eyes open is difficult. But this does not dissolve ras; on the contrary, it becomes denser.

Your days are not as full of relish as your nights. Your waking is not as saturated with ras as your dreams. In dreams the mind freely constructs its own world. In dreams we are all creators and we fashion a realm of imagination. The outer world, which perhaps presents some obstruction, too, gets cancelled in dreams.

Ras-parityaga does not mean destroying the senses. It means thinning the link, the flow, the swoon between the senses and consciousness.

The senses report. Their reports are useful. They bring news, sensations of the outer world; they are essential. The deep inner attachment of the mind to the information brought by the senses—the mind’s relish, its engrossment, its drowning in those reports—that is where the danger lies.

If the mind does not get lost, if consciousness does not get submerged in sensory data, if it remains the master, that is renunciation. Understand it so: when the senses are masters of consciousness and consciousness follows the senses, that is indulgence. When consciousness is the master of the senses and the senses follow consciousness, that is renunciation.

Let me remain the master; let not the senses become my masters. Let the senses not drag me wherever they want; let me be able to go where I choose. And on the path I choose, let the senses be my helpers. If the path needs seeing, let the eyes see; if a sound needs hearing, let the ears hear; whatever I need to do, let the senses become instrumental—that is their proper use.

Everything depends on whether our relation with the senses is that of master or slave. This hand—if it lifts only when I want it to—then I am a renouncer; but if the hand starts dictating to me that it must lift and I am compelled to lift it, I am an indulgent one. These eyes—if they see what I wish them to see—then I am a renouncer; but if the eyes suggest, “Look at this; you must look; you cannot pass without looking,” then I am an indulger. Indulgence or renunciation simply means: are the senses masters, or is consciousness the master? When consciousness is master, ras dissolves. This does not mean the senses dissolve; in fact, the opposite happens—the senses are purified. That is why the eyes of Mahavira see with a clarity your eyes cannot attain. We do not call Mahavira blind; we call him a seer.

The touch of Buddha’s hand reaches deeper than your hand can, because the inner master in you is unconscious. The servants have become masters. Your inner stupor does not allow sensation to become deep and pure. Buddha’s eyes are transparent; your eyes are smoky. That smoke is born of your slavery. Truly understood, we are blind despite having eyes, because the one within who could see through the eyes is stupefied, asleep. Buddha or Mahavira are awake, unstupefied. The eye, for them, only mediates; it does not wield lordship. The eye adds nothing of its own; it offers no interpretation. The one within sees. You stand at your window to look at the street; if the window starts contributing to the seeing, you will not be able to see what is—you will see what the window wants to show. But a window offers no obstruction; it is just the opening through which you peep out.

So for Buddha and Mahavira the eye is simply a passage through which they look out. The eye does not suggest what to look at, nor how to look, nor what not to look at. It is only a pure passage.

Therefore Mahavira sees with an innocence we cannot. If Mahavira takes your hand in his, he will touch you. When we take each other’s hands, we touch bone and flesh only. He will touch you because there is no surge of craving in between, no fever of desire. All is quiet. The hand does only the work of touching. This hand has no expectation of its own, no lust of its own; so through this hand Mahavira will touch the depths of your being.

The senses of Mahavira and Buddha have become utterly pure. They do only as much as is needed; they add nothing of their own.

Our senses are distracted—and they will be, because when the charioteer is asleep, the horses naturally run in any direction. Among those horses there will be no harmony.

There is no coordination among our senses; the senses of an indulger pull him in opposite directions. The eyes want to see one thing, the ears want to hear another, the hands want to touch something else. This inner opposition creates contradiction and great disharmony in life.

For example, you fall in love with a woman or a man. Did you ever notice why all loves lead to difficulties and end in sorrow? Because one feature pleased your eye—this is the eye’s relish. If the eye proves dominant, you will fall in love. But tomorrow the body’s odor is not agreeable to your nose—the nose will protest. You touch the person and the warmth or texture of the body does not feel right to your hands—the hands will object.

There is no coordination among your senses; hence love becomes discord. On the basis of one sense a person is chosen; slowly the other senses begin to voice their statements. Then, toward the same person, one sense feels good and another feels bad. A thousand contradictory thoughts arise about the same person.

Most of us follow the eye’s cue, because the eye has become very dominant. In our choices the eye works ninety percent. We obey the eye and ignore the other senses. Sooner or later trouble begins because the other senses start asserting themselves.

The ears are not ready to accept the eye’s slavery. The eye may insist the face is beautiful; it does not follow that speech heard by the ear will seem beautiful. The nose is not willing to bow to the eye’s lordship. The eye may say the body is handsome, but the nose may say the odor is unpleasant.

What happens then? The five senses deliver different statements about the same person, creating complexity. This complexity is absent only in the one whose inner master is awake.

Then there is also a center that harmonizes the five senses. In most of us no such center is operative. Each sense declares its own lordship; each delivers a final verdict that no other sense can cancel. We become a heap of inconsistencies gathered from all the senses.

Within us, toward the one we love, there is also hatred—because one sense loves, another hates. We never succeed in harmonizing this. At best, we give the senses their chance by rotation, like members of a rotary club: sometimes we give the eye its turn and it exercises lordship; sometimes the ear; but no coordination, no congruence, no music arises. Hence life becomes a sorrow.

When the inner master awakens, that is harmony, that is concord, that is music. The charioteer wakes, takes the reins; the horses move together; their pace gains a rhythm, a direction, a dimension.

An unconscious person is pulled in different directions by the senses—like one cart yoked to oxen pulling toward the four sides. There is no journey, only a wrenching drag; in the end all the joints are loosened. Nothing comes of it. Life ends without fruition, without conclusion.

Ras-parityaga means: renouncing the lordship of the senses, not renouncing the senses themselves. Do not gouge out the eyes or burst the eardrums. That is foolishness. Though it is easy. What is difficult about putting out an eye? You need a little stubbornness, some zeal, doggedness. Eyes can be put out. Thought is not required; the eye can be destroyed easily. But ras cannot be dropped so easily. Ras requires a long, subtle, delicate, continuous struggle. An eye can be put out in a moment—ras is relinquished slowly, over a lifetime. So renouncers chose the easier display: damaging the eye. The more daring do it at one stroke; the less daring do it slowly. The still less daring do not destroy the eyes, they merely keep them shut. But that is no solution. Nor does it mean you should keep your eyes open needlessly.

Many people live with eyes needlessly open. Walking down the road, even the posters on the walls must be read. That is living with eyes needlessly open. There is no purpose, no meaning—and the same poster you have read a thousand times because you passed that way a thousand times, you will read again today.

It seems we have no command over our eyes; so this happens. But reading that poster is not just reading; it is going inside and will influence your life. There is nothing you take in that does not affect you. Everything is food—if you read a poster, that too is food; it goes inside you.

Shankara called all this ahara—food. What you hear through the ears is the ear’s food. What you take through the mouth is the mouth’s food. What you see through the eyes is the eye’s food. This does not mean you keep your eyes open pointlessly, or sit in the bazaar with ears wide open. Awareness is necessary. Let only that enter within which is meaningful and useful. Do not let the meaningless, the harmful, enter.

Discrimination is necessary—and with discrimination, lordship is established. But who will discriminate? The eye has no capacity to choose; it can only see. The ear can only hear. Who will choose? You? But there is no trace of you. You are nowhere to be found. Therefore there is no discrimination in life.

You read anything, hear anything, see anything—everything enters you and turns you into a heap of trash. If the mind could be turned inside out, we would find a junkyard without any coherence. We collected anything and everything without thinking. For bringing a thing into your house you think a great deal—should I, should I not; is there space; where shall I keep it, what will I do with it?—but you think not even that much about what you bring into the mind. Is there space within? You never think. Is what you are taking in worthy of being taken? You never think. Anything goes.

Have you ever told someone, “Stop this talk now; do not dump it inside me”? Never. Anyone can put anything inside you. Are you a basket for refuse into which anyone may throw anything? If a neighbor throws garbage into your house, you will report to the police; but the neighbor throws garbage into your skull every day and you never report it. In fact, if one day he does not, you feel the day is empty. “Come, throw some.”

We have no awareness of what we let in. So the eye is neither to be gouged out nor to be kept more open than needed. Hence Mahavira says: a monk should see only as much as is necessary. Mahavira said: while walking, a monk’s eyes should see four feet ahead. If the eyes see four feet, the tip of the nose will remain in view, that’s all—the gaze is lowered. Mahavira said: for walking, seeing four feet ahead is enough. As you move forward, the next four feet appear—enough. There is no need to see distant skies for walking. See as much as is needed for the work at hand. Hear as much as is needed, speak as much as is needed—the results will follow.

Two results:
- Useless things will not accumulate within; what accumulates weakens your energy.
- Your energy will be saved; that very energy will become the path of your ascent. On the strength of that energy you will journey inward.

We are almost exhausted. By evening nothing remains; all is spent. We fall on the bed like an empty cartridge. But even at night we do not gather energy—we spend it. A curious thing happens: people go to bed tired and rise more tired. All night the dreams keep running and we keep tiring. Life becomes a long fatigue, not an accumulation of energy. And where there is no energy, nothing can be.

So two outcomes—first, the unnecessary will not accumulate; we need inner space. One whose within holds no sky cannot relate to the soul. Without inner space you cannot even invite the divine guest; if he arrives there is no place to lodge him.

Inner space is an essential quest of religion. The one we are calling, seeking—inside there must be room suitable for him. You are not empty; you are crammed. Even the Almighty—people say he is omnipotent—cannot enter you; there is no space. Perhaps that is why you cannot go within either—you keep circling outside. Space is needed. Have you ever looked at what you have stuffed inside?

Sit for ten minutes and write on a sheet what is moving in your mind; you will see what you have filled yourself with. A snippet from a film, the neighbor’s dog barking, a stray bit of gossip from the street—what not! All this junk is there, and energy is being spent on it. Whether you repeat a scene from a film or remember the Lord—uttering even a single word inside is a loss of energy. How you use it is up to you. If you go on dissipating it in vain and in the end find you only lost and gained nothing, do not be surprised.

Death often brings us to the point where there were opportunities and energy, but we went on throwing them away; nothing creative could happen. Death becomes the end of a long self-destruction, not a creative event.

Mahavira’s whole urgency is that a creation should happen within; that creation is the soul.

Let us understand this aphorism:
“The protector of all beings, Jnanaputra, has not called the keeping of a few gross objects like clothing parigraha (possessiveness).”

Mahavira does not say that having things makes you a possessor, nor that abandoning all things makes you non-possessive or a renouncer. Having objects does not make one a householder; having none does not make one a monk. Yet most “monks” keep doing only this—counting how few things they have and thinking sainthood has arrived. For Mahavira, monkhood or householder-hood are inner events. He asks: how much stupor, how much clinging is there toward objects? To hold attachment, fondness, stupefaction for things is parigraha.

Moorchha—stupefaction—is parigraha. What is stupefaction? What is awareness? When you begin to live for a thing, stupor starts. A man who lives for wealth is unconscious. He says: my life is for accumulating money. Money is not for me, nor for some purpose; I am for money. I am a machine, a factory to accumulate wealth.

When a man places objects above himself and says: I live for objects, objects are everything, the goal of my life—that is stupor. We all live like this. Let a small thing be lost and it feels as if the soul is lost. Notice? However trivial the thing, sleep is lost for nights; worry pursues for days.

We are like children. A doll breaks and the child weeps and beats his chest, finds it hard to accept that the doll is gone. Two, four, ten days the eyes fill with tears. If this were only with children it would be forgivable; but the old are the same—let a trifle be lost! And the strange thing is, while we had it we never derived any joy from it; yet when it is lost we feel sorrow. There is a gold bar in your locker; it gave you no joy—you never danced because of it. But if one day it gets stolen, you beat your chest. If it only sat in the locker, why does it matter whether it was gold or stone? If you must keep a weight on your chest, keep a stone instead of gold!

For Mahavira, stupor means treating things as more valuable than oneself.

Ruskin said: a man becomes rich when he is able to give. Otherwise he is poor. He means you are truly wealthy the day you can relinquish wealth. If you cannot, you remain poor. Clutching is the sign of poverty; releasing is the sign of lordship. If you can let a thing go, you are its master; if you can only clutch it, do not mistakenly think you are its owner. Curiously, this means the things you can give away are the ones you own; the things you hoard own you.

Charity is lordship—because the giver declares: the thing is below me, not above. I can give; giving is in my hands. And if one can feel joy in giving, his stupor is broken. One who rejoices only in receiving and is pained in giving is stupefied. That is the meaning of renunciation.

Renunciation means: infinite capacity to give. The more we can give, the more we become masters. Therefore Mahavira gave away everything—kept nothing. He walked away naked. In this total giving is only a proclamation of inner lordship. And he did not even keep a memory of having given. If you remember what you gave, your clutching continues. If someone says, “I have donated so much,” and repeats it...!

A friend came to me—he had even printed a pamphlet—that he had donated one lakh rupees. His wife told me he had given a lakh. He looked at her and said, “That pamphlet is old—now it is one lakh ten thousand.” Not a single penny could be donated by such a person. The one lakh ten thousand remains on his mental account as before—only now the count is larger. He says he has given, but giving has not happened—because the charity that is remembered is not charity.

I have heard: a guest visited Mulla Nasruddin. An old friend. Mulla kept serving him a delicious sweet. After repeated urgings the friend said, “Enough—three times I have already taken.” Mulla said, “Forget it—so what if you’ve taken six times, but who is counting? Don’t worry—six times, but who is counting!”

Such is the mind—counting while saying, “who is counting”! Often renunciation goes like this: one says, “I have let go,” and with the other hand clutches and keeps counting—yet thinks, who is counting? “Money is dust,” but “I donated one lakh ten thousand!” Who remembers donations of dust? We remember only golden charity. If it is really dust, why store it in memory?

Charity leaves no memory; only theft leaves a memory. Theft must be remembered. If charity too is remembered, it becomes akin to theft. The meaning is: we can be hypnotized by objects to such a degree that our soul flows into them.

A car whizzes by; along with the gust your soul flows after it. The image remains in the eye, enters dreams. The mind circles around that color, that model; you are caught. In scientific language this is hypnosis. You were hypnotized by the color, form, styling. An inner image formed; until it is obtained you will be unhappy.

We are hypnotized by things. Even if it were only by persons it would be understandable—we are hypnotized by objects. You see a man’s shirt—its color or cut catches you; your soul leaves you and attaches to the shirt. Flowing out and fastening onto something, and then feeling you cannot be happy without it—that is hypnosis. Wherever you feel “Without this there will be no happiness,” know you are hypnotized.

No one need stare into your eyes for an hour to hypnotize you. No Mexican hypnotist need put you to sleep. You are being hypnotized twenty-four hours a day. All around are devices designed to hypnotize you, because the entire business of life stands on hypnosis.

The whole art of advertising stands on hypnosis. The radio keeps telling you: this cigarette, this soap, this toothpaste is the best. Newspapers trumpet it in giant letters. On the road posters say the same. And to carry it deeper, they attach a beautiful actress. Alone the sentence “Binaca toothpaste is best” does not go very deep; but if beside it stands a beautiful actress, it goes deeper. Binaca rides on the actress into your unconscious. She smiles; her teeth—false perhaps but pearl-like—captivate the mind. Binaca becomes secondary, the actress primary. The hypnotic pull of sex is used. Today nothing sells without the support of a woman or a man.

To hypnotize, first arouse sexuality. If the actress is nude, science now says your pupils will immediately dilate—and you cannot help it; it is involuntary. However much restraint you try, you cannot prevent the pupils from dilating. Why? Because your inner craving wants to see fully; so the lens widens to let the whole image in.

What the hypnotist does by gazing into your eyes for five minutes, a nude image does without looking at you. The pupil dilates; the picture enters within like through a camera lens—and along with the woman, Binaca enters. Conditioning is created. If this repeats daily, whenever you think of a beautiful woman, Binaca will call from within; and one day in the shop you will ask for Binaca—not really the paste, but the memory of the woman unconsciously linked to it. This is hypnosis—operating in a thousand ways, all around. Before, advertisers did it unknowingly; now they do it knowingly. The rules of the mind’s capture have been mapped. But it makes no difference; even when the rules weren’t known, man was being hypnotized by objects. This hypnotic swoon is what Mahavira calls moorchha.

Moorchha means: some object grips you so that the feeling arises, “Without this there will be no happiness.” Mahavira says: such a person will suffer. Until the object is obtained, he will feel no happiness is possible; and when it is obtained—since it was never the object that contained happiness—the hypnosis collapses at once.

Understand it well. Hypnosis lasts only until the object is in your hand. You may think, “If only I had the Kohinoor diamond, I would be the happiest man in the world.” But hypnosis works only while you don’t have it. Once it is in your hand, hypnosis cannot survive—because you will find no trace of the promised joy; hypnosis collapses and sorrow begins. And the greater the expectation, the deeper the pit of sorrow. Sorrow is proportional to expectation. If you thought the Kohinoor would bring liberation, then the moment you get it you will be the most miserable man. That is why the rich are miserable. The poor are not so miserable. This may sound strange.

The poor suffer hardship (kasht), not deep sorrow (dukh). The rich have little hardship, but they have deep sorrow. Hardship is absence of things; sorrow is inner desolation. Hardship comes from what we lack and in which we still hope; hence the poor live in hope—today or tomorrow, if not this life then the next, happiness will come. Hope keeps a dance alive in them. However much hardship, they bear it supported by tomorrow. The hope of tomorrow pulls them along. Then one day the same man becomes rich.

Rich means the hopes he cherished come into his hands. There is no greater calamity than when hope comes into your hands. Then immediately all becomes frustration, melancholy. For the hopes were vast; the dreams long—and all melt away. The Kohinoor lies in your hand as merely a piece of stone. Hopes collapse. Now what? The rich man falls into the sorrow of “Now what?” No hope appears further.

Wealth casts one into grief, not hardship—because sorrow is inner despair, hardship is external lack while hope is alive.

You do not know: you seek a vision of God. If some day you get it, you will never know a greater sorrow—if you have staked all hopes on it. Imagine if God were to play a prank—which he does not—and, peacock feather and flute, stand before you. You will look awhile. Then? What will you do then? You will tell him, “Please disappear again so that I can search.”

Tagore wrote: I sought God for many lives. I caught glimpses at some far star, but by the time I trudged slowly there, he had moved on. I saw his shadow by some sun and pursued him for lives. The search was full of joy because he always seemed to be somewhere; there was distance—but a distance that could be covered. Then one day trouble. I reached a door where the plaque read, “God lives here.” My heart rejoiced. I leapt up the steps. Hand on the knocker, just as I was about to bang, a thought arose: if I knock and the door opens and God stands before me—then? Then everything ends. Then only death remains. No search—because no hope remains. No future—nothing left to gain. After God, what is there to gain? What will I do? My very being is made of tension, of hope, of future. Without them, how will I be? That would be a worse being. So I gently set down the knocker lest it make a sound, took off my shoes lest my footfalls be heard, and fled. I have not looked back. I still seek God—and I know where his house is. Only that spot I avoid; I search everywhere else.

Profoundly psychological and meaningful. Wherever you place your hypnosis—wherever you think happiness is hidden—there you will be unhappy on arrival. For it was your hope, not existence’s promise. It was your projection, your fantasy, which collapses on contact. Stay far—do not go near—else it will vanish. The closer you go, the more trouble. Happiness is like a rainbow: go near and it disappears; from afar it is very colorful.

Mahavira says: this stupor I call parigraha. The attempt to search for and store happiness in objects is moorchha. First we place our soul into objects, then go seeking it there. When the object is obtained, we do not find the soul—only the pot, the thing remains in hand. Then we beat our chest and weep for a while—and immediately place our soul in some other object. Objects never end; thus the journey of life never ends—today here, tomorrow there.

You have read in old stories that emperors would hide their souls in birds. Someone would place his soul in a parrot; until the parrot was killed, the emperor would not die. Whether any emperor did that or not, the story is symbolic. We all place our souls in things; as long as we have not gotten those things, life goes “nicely.” The day we get them, the soul slips out, disappears; life becomes difficult.

This trouble is the result of auto-hypnosis. Mahavira calls it moorchha. How to break it? How to be free of objects? This does not mean Mahavira will not drink water when thirsty; but he is not hypnotized by water. He does not think drinking will end thirst—for he knows thirst will arise again in a while. Water only postpones thirst. He does not think eating will “fill” him; it shifts emptiness for a while. He does not keep the belly empty, nor refuse water. He drinks when needed and feeds the body when needed—but without hypnosis. There is no stupor like “water is heaven.”

We are like a man in a desert, writhing of thirst, thinking, “If I get water, all is attained.” A friend, a minister, came to me and said, “If only I could sleep, I would have heaven. I need nothing else. I have not come to you for soul or God—only sleep. If I get sleep, I get everything.” I taught him some breathing meditations and said, “You will get this.” A month later he returned: “Sleep has begun to come—and nothing else has happened.” I had taped his first visit. I played it back: “If I get sleep, I need nothing else.” Now that he has it, he says, “I got sleep, and nothing else happened.” He did not even thank me; rather it felt as if I had committed a crime! He came with a grievance: “Sleep came, and nothing else!”

I asked, “What else do you want?” Whatever that “else” is—when it comes, you will say the same: “God came—and nothing else happened.” That “else” is only the receding horizon. Whatever is gained, it slips ahead. We live not in things, but in the hypnosis of the ‘else.’ “When that comes, all will come.” When it comes, our ‘else’ slides further ahead. The sky appears to touch the earth: the horizon. Eyes can deceive. People say, “We believe only the visible.” The horizon visibly touches the earth; go find it and it recedes. Circle the earth and you will not find where they meet. But wherever you stand, ahead the sky seems to be touching. That ‘else’ is the horizon. Nowhere does craving touch fulfillment. Craving moves forward; fulfillment moves away. That ‘else’ never arrives.

This moorchha Mahavira calls parigraha. Parigraha is not the mere presence of objects but seeing heaven in them. A house is not parigraha; seeing liberation in a house is parigraha. Wealth is not parigraha; seeing God in wealth is parigraha. Money is money. But we are amusing creatures—either we say money is God, or we say money is dirt. No one says: money is money.

Money is only money—neither dirt nor God. Either we put it on a pinnacle—that is false; or, fed up with that lie when no heaven is found, we create the opposite lie and say: money is mud, unworthy of having. Before, we said money is everything; now, to console ourselves, we say: money is filth. But money is not filth either. Money is just money. Things are just what they are; yet we attach heaven or hell. Why do we attach hell? Because after joining it with heaven and finding none, in anger we join it with hell to convince ourselves it is unworthy. Money is an instrument of exchange—not mud. With it things can be exchanged; with mud they cannot. It is a useful medium—enough said. To expect more is wrong. When those hopes fail, we swing to the opposite extreme. Moving from one extreme to the other is easy; resting in the truth of the thing is hard.

Mahavira lays supreme emphasis on right understanding. Know each thing as it is. Do not add an inch of your mind. Do not install your hopes. See what is as it is—do not project. But we cannot refrain. We call someone beautiful, someone ugly; someone a friend, someone an enemy. In uttering such statements we have begun to add our hopes. When you call someone friend, what do you mean? That certain expectations may be fulfilled—he will stand by you in trouble; you can hope he will act thus and thus. With an enemy too you have expectations—of obstruction; opposite hopes. You have added future.

When you simply call A ‘A’ and B ‘B’; when you do not label anyone friend or enemy; when you know what is without adding your future—you have stepped outside moorchha.

Three methods for stepping out of moorchha:
1) See things in their facticity, not through hopes.
2) Never take things as ends; see them as means.
3) Never let your own lordship get lost in the desert of objects; remain alert to that.

“Keeping attachment, fondness, stupefaction toward things—this is parigraha, the sages have said. Hoarding is an outer glimpse of the inner greed.”

Whatever we do outside is a spread of our inside. Every outer act reports the inner. Even a small gesture outside gives news of the inside. You sit here shaking your leg—that too reports your within. Legs do not shake by themselves; you shake them. You may not know; and the moment you notice, the leg stops. Now, no one’s leg is shaking. This means there is much happening inside you of which you are unaware, and it shows outside.

Hence a curious fact: others’ faults we see quickly; our own we hardly see—because our faults run unconsciously. Not that we deliberately refuse to see; but we have become so habituated to them that they are invisible. The other stands outside; we are pure observers of him, uninvested. Therefore, consider seriously what others say about you; do not reject it in haste. Often they will be right. And what you believe about yourself—do not accept it quickly; it is mostly habit. Test your beliefs harshly. What others say about you—ponder with humility, without haste. Often the others will be right; you will be wrong—because most of your being is unconscious to you.

In every moment our inner shows itself at the door. A man hoards—money, or stamps, or cigarette boxes. You may think it an innocent hobby. The question is not what you collect; the question is that you collect. Something inside feels empty; you keep filling. This does not mean do not collect anything at all; it only means do not collect out of greed.

There is a big difference between need and greed. Strangely, the greedy often fail to meet even their needs—because greed makes even necessary spending feel impossible. A wealthy man may refuse to treat his illness—because it costs. That is the limit. For need, money is useful; but for him there is something bigger: the inner hole—greed. Things must be piled there. If a little is taken from the pile, he feels empty. Emptiness makes him restless.

The rich often become miserly; the poor, not so. Not that if a poor man became rich he would not be miserly—he likely would. The poor are not misers simply because they are already empty; saving a little makes no difference. They will remain empty; so they spend easily. But the rich feel, “Everything is full; only one corner remains empty. If I fill this, I will be satisfied.” That corner never fills; it grows. We cannot fill our soul with things; we can only fake it. Objects do not go inside; they remain outside. The inner emptiness cannot be filled by them.

Mahavira says: the outer hoard is an indication of inner greed. Running off after abandoning the hoard will not end greed.

If your face looks ugly in a mirror and you break the mirror with a stick, the reflection vanishes—but not you, nor your ugliness. Only the reflection vanishes. Inside there is greed; I am hoarding money. Money is the mirror. If, understanding that hoarding is greed, I throw away money and run—then I have only broken the mirror. I remain the same; only the reflection is gone.

Mahavira says: hoarding is a glimpse. Breaking the glimpse does not break greed; only the glimpse stops appearing.

Now I have run to the forest, performing austerities, collecting renunciations. I am the same man. Whether I leave home or not, it changes nothing. If I do not fight lawsuits of the house, I will fight the ashram’s lawsuits—but go to court I will. “My house, my son, my wife, my husband”—if I drop these, I will say, “my religion, my scripture, my Veda, my Mahavira, my Buddha.” Then sticks will rise and skulls will be broken.

A friend came. His wife is “religious” in the customary sense. He asked me if there was a Jain temple nearby, because she does not eat without bowing. I said, “There are many. Go to any.” He went with a friend. The poor guide did not know that in Jain temples there are differences. They were Digambar; he took them to a Shvetambar temple. He said, “Here is the temple; go bow.” But the lady sat sadly on the steps: “This is not our temple. These are not our Mahavira. Take us to a Digambar temple.” The guide thought a Jain temple is a Jain temple—never imagining types of Mahavira! There are temples where until ten in the morning Mahavira is Shvetambar; after ten he becomes Digambar. So the Shvetambars bow till ten; after ten the Digambars bow. If by mistake Mahavira remains Shvetambar till 10:30, the other devotees are ready with sticks. In many Jain temples police locks have been put, because devotees cannot agree. Mahavira is locked up because devotees cannot decide how to divide: how to make halves! “My Mahavira, my Buddha, my Rama, my Krishna!”—that “my” stands, possessiveness stands, stupor stands. Breaking mirrors changes nothing until the inner is transformed.

Do not remove the mirrors; they are friends; they give you news. Keep the mirrors; remove the inner ugliness. The day there is no ugliness within, the mirror will tell you you are beautiful. “Now there is no greed inside.”

Dropping money does not solve the problem; dropping greed does. Greed is something else—an inner revolution. When does greed drop? Why is it there?

It is there because inside we are empty, meaningless, hollow. So we want to fill. There is no harm in filling—except that the things we use to fill cannot enter within. What can go within? That must be sought. Or perhaps we are not empty at all; perhaps it is our idea—because we never went in to check. Perhaps we have mistaken the meaning of emptiness: what emptiness means outside is not what it means inside.

A room is empty. Lao Tzu said: a room is empty—you say “empty.” But you can also say: the room is full of itself, not full of things. You can say: it is filled with emptiness. Emptiness too is a fullness. But those who consider furniture to be fullness will find the room empty. The cause of seeing emptiness is not that the room is empty, but your definition of fullness. We have taken things as fullness. The soul has no things. Therefore the soul looks empty. So we try to fill it with things. Greed’s madness begins—never fullness.

Mahavira says: one who goes within sees the soul is already full—full of itself, not of something else. The day you sense that fullness, greed disappears. With greed gone, the mad race to collect ends.

Those who keep the habit of hoarding—whatever the object—are householders, not monks. What you hoard is not the point; that you hoard is. If you do not hoard, you are a monk. Being a monk or a householder is not an outer affair but a profound inner revolution.

I have heard: among Eskimos there is a custom. A French traveler went to the polar lands without knowing their ways. Eskimos are very poor—poorest; yet perhaps you will not find people more prosperous. He wrote: I have not seen people more affluent. How did he know? In every house he stayed, out of habit he praised something: “Your shoes are beautiful.” At once the host gifted the shoes. He had no second pair. In that icy land, going barefoot is risky to life—but that was not the question. Soon he noticed that whenever he said, “This is good,” they gifted it. Then he learned Eskimos believe that if someone likes a thing, it has become his. He asked why. An elder said: two reasons—first, things belong to no one; things are just things. Second, for the one who has it, it is now superfluous; the one who does not have it is under hypnosis. If he is not given it, his hypnosis will lengthen; therefore it must be given immediately so that it breaks. And third, our ownership of a thing is proven only when we give it; otherwise we get no chance to be owners.

Having things does not make you a householder; clutching them does. Those Eskimos are sannyasins. Those we call sannyasins—if we peep within them, often hoarding remains; then they are householders. What you are outside is of little value; what you are inside is all. But who besides you can know what you are inside? Therefore always keep an observing eye within: what am I inside? Do I clutch? Do I deem things very valuable? Without them will I die? Am I only a sum of things? Then I am a householder. Running to the jungle will not help. One must break this inner arrangement of householder-hood.

Sannyas is an inner revolution. Once it happens within, whether things exist outside or not is secondary.

Mahavira calls moorchha (stupefaction) parigraha (possessiveness) and amoorchha (non-stupefaction) sannyas.