The Precept of Not Eating at Night
He begs within the eightfold rule, following the ancient ordinance.
He does not desire any prepared food, not even the cook’s.
Abstaining from killing beings, from falsehood, from the ungiven, from sex, from possession—
Abstaining from the night-meal, the soul becomes without influx.
Mahaveer Vani #25
Available in:
Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Sutra (Original)
अरात्रि-भोजन-सूत्र
अत्थंगयंमि आइज्चे, पुरत्था य अणुग्गए।
आहारमाइयं सव्वं, भणसा वि न पत्थए।।
पाणिवह-मुसावायाऽदत्त मेहुण-परिग्गहा विरओ।
राइभोयणविरओ, जीवो भवइ अणासवो।।
अत्थंगयंमि आइज्चे, पुरत्था य अणुग्गए।
आहारमाइयं सव्वं, भणसा वि न पत्थए।।
पाणिवह-मुसावायाऽदत्त मेहुण-परिग्गहा विरओ।
राइभोयणविरओ, जीवो भवइ अणासवो।।
Transliteration:
arātri-bhojana-sūtra
atthaṃgayaṃmi āijce, puratthā ya aṇuggae|
āhāramāiyaṃ savvaṃ, bhaṇasā vi na patthae||
pāṇivaha-musāvāyā'datta mehuṇa-pariggahā virao|
rāibhoyaṇavirao, jīvo bhavai aṇāsavo||
arātri-bhojana-sūtra
atthaṃgayaṃmi āijce, puratthā ya aṇuggae|
āhāramāiyaṃ savvaṃ, bhaṇasā vi na patthae||
pāṇivaha-musāvāyā'datta mehuṇa-pariggahā virao|
rāibhoyaṇavirao, jīvo bhavai aṇāsavo||
Translation (Meaning)
Questions in this Discourse
A friend has asked:
Osho, is striving to get more of what is worth having also greed? What would you say about acquiring more wealth in order to give more in charity?
Osho, is striving to get more of what is worth having also greed? What would you say about acquiring more wealth in order to give more in charity?
Among the enemies like lust and anger, we have, by and large, done a little injustice to greed. Greed is not, in the same way as anger and attachment, wholly harmful—or else I have completely misunderstood greed.
A few things about greed need to be kept in mind.
First, lust, anger, attachment—are nothing compared to greed. Greed is a very deep phenomenon. When a small child is born, there is no lust in him, but there is greed. Lust comes later; greed comes with birth.
Anger is contextual. It arises when circumstances are adverse. But circumstances feel adverse in the first place because greed is inside.
Anger is a by-product of greed. If there is no greed within, there will be no anger. When someone obstructs your greed, anger arises. When someone does not cooperate with your greed—becomes an opponent—anger arises.
Greed is at the root of anger. Look deeper, and you will see: the expansion of lust, of craving, is also the expansion of greed. Biologists say that death, for the individual, is certain—but the individual does not want to die. Immortality too is a greed: “Let me remain forever, let me never be erased.” But we see this body perish. There is, as yet, no way to save this body.
Biologists say that is why a human being clings to sex: even if I do not survive, no harm—let someone of mine survive. This body will be destroyed, but the life-seed of this body will live on in another.
The desire for a son is the desire for immortality: let some part of me go on living—this too is greed.
Lust is an extension of greed. Anger and attachment are the revulsions born of obstacles on the path of lust-greed. Attachment—wherever greed gets stuck, that is its name: whatever it gets stuck on.
Understand it this way: anger is obstruction, attachment is cooperation. The one who obstructs my greed—I grow angry at him. The one who cooperates with my greed—I become attached to him. He feels “mine”; fondness arises. Therefore anger, attachment, lust—at the very depth—are expansions of greed. When a person’s greed drops, these three, which we call enemies, drop as well.
Without greed, how will you be angry? Yes, it is possible that greed remains even without anger. It is impossible that lust remains without greed, but greed can remain without lust. How?
Even in celibacy there can be greed: “More and more a brahmachari, more and more...” That too can be a part of greed.
Greed can be for the soul, and for God as well. Often it happens that, for the sake of his greed, when the world begins to slip from his hands, the greedy man starts grasping at other greedy objects. The one who used to grasp wealth here begins to grasp religion there. But the grasping is the same. The feeling of greed is the same. “The world is lost—no matter; let heaven not be lost. I did not get fame and prestige here—no matter; in the other world may I not miss bliss. Let it not happen that this world is lost and the other too is lost”—greed clings to this.
Therefore psychologists say: many people become religious in old age—out of greed. For a young man, death is a little distant. There is not so much concern for the other world. There is hope: “We will attain here itself what is worth attaining; we will accumulate here.” But when death begins to come near, the limbs slacken, the grip on the world through the senses loosens, then inner greed says: “This world is gone anyway; now don’t miss the other. ‘Maya mili na Ram’—let it not be that both money and God are missed. So now hold on to Ram tightly.”
Therefore old people turn toward temples and mosques. Look at the pilgrims—old people go on pilgrimage. They are the very people who, in youth, travelled the opposite way.
Carl Gustav Jung, the great psychotherapist of this century, said: among the mentally ill I treated, most were above forty. And after continued treatment my conclusion is that the single cause of their illness is that, in the West, religion has been lost. After forty, a man needs religion just as a young man needs marriage. As a young man needs sexual desire, an old man needs religious desire. Jung said: the trouble of most of them was that they were not finding religion. Hence in the East fewer people go mad, and in the West more. In the East a young man may go mad, but an old man does not. In the West a young man does not go mad; the old man goes mad. As youth recedes, emptiness comes. The passion of youth is lost, and for the passion of old age there is no place. The mind becomes restless and tormented.
Our old man thinks the soul is immortal: he gets assurance. He thinks: “We are turning the rosary, taking the name of Ram—heaven is certain.” He is consoled. The Western old man has no consolation left. He is in great trouble, great pain. Beyond death he sees nothing across.
Beyond, greed has no chance. The objects of youth’s greed are lost, and for the greed of old age no object is found. There can be no greed for death; for immortality there can be. What greed will an old man have for the body! The body is slipping away. So if there is something beyond the body, he can be greedy for that.
Greed is amazing; it can change its objects. It is not necessary that greed be only for money. Greed can be for anything. If the lust for sex drops, greed can become the desire for liberation.
So let us understand the depth of greed. Why has there not been injustice to greed? Whoever has understood greed has found it to be at the root. Greed is the root. But the word “greed” no longer makes us understand, because hearing it again and again we have become deaf to it; the word doesn’t show us much anymore.
Greed means: inside I am empty, and I have to fill myself. And this emptiness is such that it cannot be filled. This emptiness is our very nature; to be empty is our nature. The urge to fill is greed; therefore greed will always fail. And however successful it may seem, it will still fail. We will not be able to fill ourselves. Whether with wealth, position, fame, knowledge, renunciation, vows, disciplines, practices—we may go on filling ourselves with all of these, yet we will not be able to fill ourselves. Within is an immense void.
The name of that vast void is the self. So until a person is willing to be empty—to be a void—there is no vision of that self. And greed does not let us be void; therefore so much value has been given to freedom from it, and so much talk of getting rid of it. Greed does not allow us to be empty. Greed keeps us wandering, running. And until we become empty within, there is no self-realization—because to be empty is to be oneself.
As long as I am filled, I am filled with something other than myself. Understand this well.
To be filled means to be filled with something else. We say, “The pot is full”—which means something else is in it. If the pot is itself, it will be empty; it cannot be full. We say, “The house is full”—meaning it is filled with something else. If the house is itself, it will be empty; it cannot be full. We say, “The sky is full of clouds.” That means the clouds are something other. When the clouds are not, then the sky will be itself.
Filling is always by the alien; the self has no filling. Whenever you are yourself, you will be empty; and whenever you are full, you will be full of something other. Whether that other is wealth, love, friend, enemy, world, liberation—it makes no difference. But the other—always the other—will be that with which you fill yourself.
Whoever wants to fill will fill with the other. And whoever wants to be empty, only he can be himself. Which means: greed is the aspiration to fill oneself; non-greed is the courage to live in one’s emptiness. Therefore greed is terrible. Greed is our world. As long as I think I will fill myself with something, as long as I feel that without being filled I cannot be at ease...
You are never at ease when alone. Everyone is searching for a companion, a friend, a club, an assembly, a society. Everyone is seeking the other. No one is ready to be alone. No one finds peace in his own company. And we are very amusing people: we ourselves do not find peace with ourselves, and we think others will find peace with us. We ourselves cannot tolerate ourselves alone, and we think that others will not only tolerate us but feel blessed. We ourselves are not ready to live with ourselves, yet we want others to feel that our company is heaven for them.
A lonely man runs quickly to meet someone.
Mark Twain once made a fine joke. He was ill. A friend asked, “Twain, would you like to go to heaven or to hell?” Mark Twain said, “I am in just that deliberation. But there is a great dilemma: for climate heaven is best, but for company hell.” If it were only a matter of improving health, one might choose heaven, but there you have to remain alone: the climate is very good, but there is absolutely no company.
Even if Mahavira is sitting next to you, there cannot be company. If you want company, then hell. There the people are lively and colorful; there is company, chatter, jokes, conversation.
He said it as a joke, but there is a little truth in it. Seen from another angle, the joke becomes serious. In truth, those who are in hell within are always searching for company. Those who are unhappy with themselves inside seek companions. The one who is blissful within is enough as his own companion; no other companionship is needed.
I have heard about Eckhart—a Christian fakir, and among the few precious men the West has given, equal in stature to Mahavira and Buddha. Eckhart was sitting alone. A friend was passing by. He thought, “Poor fellow, sitting alone—he must be bored.” He came and said, “You are sitting alone. I thought—I am going on an important errand—but let me give you a little company.”
Eckhart said, “O God! Until now I was with myself; by coming you have made me alone. I was up to now with me; you have made me alone. It will be a great kindness if you take your company somewhere else. Give your company to someone else. We are enough in our own company, sufficient.” The one who within thinks, “I am insufficient,” seeks company.
Greed is discontent with oneself. Greed means: I am not content with myself; to be content I need something else. And one who is not content with himself—no matter what he gets—can never be content. Because whatever he gets will remain apart from me; close to me am only I. However beautiful a wife I may find, a distance will remain. However fine a house I build, a distance will remain. However much a mountain of wealth may pile up, a distance will remain. No one other than me can come to me. I will be with myself—whether with wealth or poverty, with companionship or aloneness, I will be with myself. And if I am not content with myself, I can never be content in the world.
Greed means: not being content with oneself. The attempt to be content through something else is greed. When someone provides success in this attempt, it becomes attachment. Then we say, “I cannot live without this.” That is attachment. We say, “If this is removed, my life is worthless”—that is attachment. And when someone obstructs and becomes an obstacle in the search of my greed, anger arises: “I will destroy him.” Toward the one with whom attachment arises we say, “If he were erased I could not live.” And toward the one with whom anger arises we say, “As long as he is, I cannot live. I must wipe him out.”
Attachment and anger are opposite aspects of the same event. And this greed within us—the search for the other—when the harnessing of our energies is in that search, its name is lust, its name is sex.
The energy within us, the life-force—when this energy goes out in search of the other, it becomes lust. This is very amusing, and a little difficult to see. It doesn’t occur to us that when a man is mad for money, his madness for money is for him just the same as sexual passion—like someone mad for a woman. He looks at money in his hand the way one looks at a beautiful face. He opens his safe with the same love with which one seats his beloved. At night, in his dreams, the beloved does not come; the safe comes. Money is his sex-object. He is copulating with money. Therefore a man mad after money cannot love anyone. Money is sufficient. Therefore the money-mad man cannot love his wife, cannot love his children. All loves are very jealous. If love happens with money, then money will not allow love to happen with anyone else. Love is jealous. If money has grabbed you, it will not let any other love be.
Faraday, the scientist—someone asked him, “Why did you not marry?” He said, “The day I married science, I could not gather the courage to bring a step-wife into the house.”
Often, scientists, painters, poets, musicians, avoid wives. If they do not avoid, they repent. They will have to repent—because two wives!
Mulla Nasruddin’s son asked, “Father, why has the law prohibited two marriages?” Nasruddin said, “Those who cannot protect themselves have to be protected by the law. One wife is enough. But man is weak—he can gather two, four, ten. So the law has to protect him: don’t make such a mistake.”
Often, those who are to be absorbed in some search avoid marriage. For no other reason: because that very search is their sex-object. One who is mad about music—music is his beloved. One who is mad about poetry—poetry is his beloved. Now a second wife will create difficulty. And wives know this very well. Sometimes such a mistake happens that some poet gets married; then, beyond the wife’s tolerance, he sits writing poetry in front of her. If the wife is present and the husband sits to write poetry, she will snatch it and throw it away. Scientists’ instruments have been snatched from their hands. Philosophers’ scriptures have been snatched from their hands. We are surprised: what is happening to the wife after all! If Socrates is reading his book, why does Xanthippe not let him read?
We feel she is a crazy woman. She is not crazy. Consciously or unconsciously she has understood that the book is more important to Socrates than the wife. When the wife is present and the husband is reading the newspaper, it is clear who is important. So if the wife snatches the paper and tears it up and throws it away, the wife’s inner intuition is directing her exactly. She is understanding rightly.
The person who becomes absorbed in something—that becomes his sexual object. Absorption is the sign of a sex-object. It makes no difference whether your absorption is in man and woman. If your absorption happens toward anything, the relationship becomes that of sex. Greed sets out on the journey of sex. Then—whether money, fame, position, merit—it makes no difference.
A hallmark of greed is going outside oneself—seeking the other. Difficult to live without the other. The other is more important than the self. The glory of the other is greater; the glory of the self is secondary. And the one whose own glory is secondary—wherever he wanders—will remain a beggar. Therefore the greedy is always a beggar, even if he becomes an emperor. His begging bowl remains empty. And then from greed are born all the progeny—of anger, of attachment. Therefore greed has been called the root of sin.
A few things about greed need to be kept in mind.
First, lust, anger, attachment—are nothing compared to greed. Greed is a very deep phenomenon. When a small child is born, there is no lust in him, but there is greed. Lust comes later; greed comes with birth.
Anger is contextual. It arises when circumstances are adverse. But circumstances feel adverse in the first place because greed is inside.
Anger is a by-product of greed. If there is no greed within, there will be no anger. When someone obstructs your greed, anger arises. When someone does not cooperate with your greed—becomes an opponent—anger arises.
Greed is at the root of anger. Look deeper, and you will see: the expansion of lust, of craving, is also the expansion of greed. Biologists say that death, for the individual, is certain—but the individual does not want to die. Immortality too is a greed: “Let me remain forever, let me never be erased.” But we see this body perish. There is, as yet, no way to save this body.
Biologists say that is why a human being clings to sex: even if I do not survive, no harm—let someone of mine survive. This body will be destroyed, but the life-seed of this body will live on in another.
The desire for a son is the desire for immortality: let some part of me go on living—this too is greed.
Lust is an extension of greed. Anger and attachment are the revulsions born of obstacles on the path of lust-greed. Attachment—wherever greed gets stuck, that is its name: whatever it gets stuck on.
Understand it this way: anger is obstruction, attachment is cooperation. The one who obstructs my greed—I grow angry at him. The one who cooperates with my greed—I become attached to him. He feels “mine”; fondness arises. Therefore anger, attachment, lust—at the very depth—are expansions of greed. When a person’s greed drops, these three, which we call enemies, drop as well.
Without greed, how will you be angry? Yes, it is possible that greed remains even without anger. It is impossible that lust remains without greed, but greed can remain without lust. How?
Even in celibacy there can be greed: “More and more a brahmachari, more and more...” That too can be a part of greed.
Greed can be for the soul, and for God as well. Often it happens that, for the sake of his greed, when the world begins to slip from his hands, the greedy man starts grasping at other greedy objects. The one who used to grasp wealth here begins to grasp religion there. But the grasping is the same. The feeling of greed is the same. “The world is lost—no matter; let heaven not be lost. I did not get fame and prestige here—no matter; in the other world may I not miss bliss. Let it not happen that this world is lost and the other too is lost”—greed clings to this.
Therefore psychologists say: many people become religious in old age—out of greed. For a young man, death is a little distant. There is not so much concern for the other world. There is hope: “We will attain here itself what is worth attaining; we will accumulate here.” But when death begins to come near, the limbs slacken, the grip on the world through the senses loosens, then inner greed says: “This world is gone anyway; now don’t miss the other. ‘Maya mili na Ram’—let it not be that both money and God are missed. So now hold on to Ram tightly.”
Therefore old people turn toward temples and mosques. Look at the pilgrims—old people go on pilgrimage. They are the very people who, in youth, travelled the opposite way.
Carl Gustav Jung, the great psychotherapist of this century, said: among the mentally ill I treated, most were above forty. And after continued treatment my conclusion is that the single cause of their illness is that, in the West, religion has been lost. After forty, a man needs religion just as a young man needs marriage. As a young man needs sexual desire, an old man needs religious desire. Jung said: the trouble of most of them was that they were not finding religion. Hence in the East fewer people go mad, and in the West more. In the East a young man may go mad, but an old man does not. In the West a young man does not go mad; the old man goes mad. As youth recedes, emptiness comes. The passion of youth is lost, and for the passion of old age there is no place. The mind becomes restless and tormented.
Our old man thinks the soul is immortal: he gets assurance. He thinks: “We are turning the rosary, taking the name of Ram—heaven is certain.” He is consoled. The Western old man has no consolation left. He is in great trouble, great pain. Beyond death he sees nothing across.
Beyond, greed has no chance. The objects of youth’s greed are lost, and for the greed of old age no object is found. There can be no greed for death; for immortality there can be. What greed will an old man have for the body! The body is slipping away. So if there is something beyond the body, he can be greedy for that.
Greed is amazing; it can change its objects. It is not necessary that greed be only for money. Greed can be for anything. If the lust for sex drops, greed can become the desire for liberation.
So let us understand the depth of greed. Why has there not been injustice to greed? Whoever has understood greed has found it to be at the root. Greed is the root. But the word “greed” no longer makes us understand, because hearing it again and again we have become deaf to it; the word doesn’t show us much anymore.
Greed means: inside I am empty, and I have to fill myself. And this emptiness is such that it cannot be filled. This emptiness is our very nature; to be empty is our nature. The urge to fill is greed; therefore greed will always fail. And however successful it may seem, it will still fail. We will not be able to fill ourselves. Whether with wealth, position, fame, knowledge, renunciation, vows, disciplines, practices—we may go on filling ourselves with all of these, yet we will not be able to fill ourselves. Within is an immense void.
The name of that vast void is the self. So until a person is willing to be empty—to be a void—there is no vision of that self. And greed does not let us be void; therefore so much value has been given to freedom from it, and so much talk of getting rid of it. Greed does not allow us to be empty. Greed keeps us wandering, running. And until we become empty within, there is no self-realization—because to be empty is to be oneself.
As long as I am filled, I am filled with something other than myself. Understand this well.
To be filled means to be filled with something else. We say, “The pot is full”—which means something else is in it. If the pot is itself, it will be empty; it cannot be full. We say, “The house is full”—meaning it is filled with something else. If the house is itself, it will be empty; it cannot be full. We say, “The sky is full of clouds.” That means the clouds are something other. When the clouds are not, then the sky will be itself.
Filling is always by the alien; the self has no filling. Whenever you are yourself, you will be empty; and whenever you are full, you will be full of something other. Whether that other is wealth, love, friend, enemy, world, liberation—it makes no difference. But the other—always the other—will be that with which you fill yourself.
Whoever wants to fill will fill with the other. And whoever wants to be empty, only he can be himself. Which means: greed is the aspiration to fill oneself; non-greed is the courage to live in one’s emptiness. Therefore greed is terrible. Greed is our world. As long as I think I will fill myself with something, as long as I feel that without being filled I cannot be at ease...
You are never at ease when alone. Everyone is searching for a companion, a friend, a club, an assembly, a society. Everyone is seeking the other. No one is ready to be alone. No one finds peace in his own company. And we are very amusing people: we ourselves do not find peace with ourselves, and we think others will find peace with us. We ourselves cannot tolerate ourselves alone, and we think that others will not only tolerate us but feel blessed. We ourselves are not ready to live with ourselves, yet we want others to feel that our company is heaven for them.
A lonely man runs quickly to meet someone.
Mark Twain once made a fine joke. He was ill. A friend asked, “Twain, would you like to go to heaven or to hell?” Mark Twain said, “I am in just that deliberation. But there is a great dilemma: for climate heaven is best, but for company hell.” If it were only a matter of improving health, one might choose heaven, but there you have to remain alone: the climate is very good, but there is absolutely no company.
Even if Mahavira is sitting next to you, there cannot be company. If you want company, then hell. There the people are lively and colorful; there is company, chatter, jokes, conversation.
He said it as a joke, but there is a little truth in it. Seen from another angle, the joke becomes serious. In truth, those who are in hell within are always searching for company. Those who are unhappy with themselves inside seek companions. The one who is blissful within is enough as his own companion; no other companionship is needed.
I have heard about Eckhart—a Christian fakir, and among the few precious men the West has given, equal in stature to Mahavira and Buddha. Eckhart was sitting alone. A friend was passing by. He thought, “Poor fellow, sitting alone—he must be bored.” He came and said, “You are sitting alone. I thought—I am going on an important errand—but let me give you a little company.”
Eckhart said, “O God! Until now I was with myself; by coming you have made me alone. I was up to now with me; you have made me alone. It will be a great kindness if you take your company somewhere else. Give your company to someone else. We are enough in our own company, sufficient.” The one who within thinks, “I am insufficient,” seeks company.
Greed is discontent with oneself. Greed means: I am not content with myself; to be content I need something else. And one who is not content with himself—no matter what he gets—can never be content. Because whatever he gets will remain apart from me; close to me am only I. However beautiful a wife I may find, a distance will remain. However fine a house I build, a distance will remain. However much a mountain of wealth may pile up, a distance will remain. No one other than me can come to me. I will be with myself—whether with wealth or poverty, with companionship or aloneness, I will be with myself. And if I am not content with myself, I can never be content in the world.
Greed means: not being content with oneself. The attempt to be content through something else is greed. When someone provides success in this attempt, it becomes attachment. Then we say, “I cannot live without this.” That is attachment. We say, “If this is removed, my life is worthless”—that is attachment. And when someone obstructs and becomes an obstacle in the search of my greed, anger arises: “I will destroy him.” Toward the one with whom attachment arises we say, “If he were erased I could not live.” And toward the one with whom anger arises we say, “As long as he is, I cannot live. I must wipe him out.”
Attachment and anger are opposite aspects of the same event. And this greed within us—the search for the other—when the harnessing of our energies is in that search, its name is lust, its name is sex.
The energy within us, the life-force—when this energy goes out in search of the other, it becomes lust. This is very amusing, and a little difficult to see. It doesn’t occur to us that when a man is mad for money, his madness for money is for him just the same as sexual passion—like someone mad for a woman. He looks at money in his hand the way one looks at a beautiful face. He opens his safe with the same love with which one seats his beloved. At night, in his dreams, the beloved does not come; the safe comes. Money is his sex-object. He is copulating with money. Therefore a man mad after money cannot love anyone. Money is sufficient. Therefore the money-mad man cannot love his wife, cannot love his children. All loves are very jealous. If love happens with money, then money will not allow love to happen with anyone else. Love is jealous. If money has grabbed you, it will not let any other love be.
Faraday, the scientist—someone asked him, “Why did you not marry?” He said, “The day I married science, I could not gather the courage to bring a step-wife into the house.”
Often, scientists, painters, poets, musicians, avoid wives. If they do not avoid, they repent. They will have to repent—because two wives!
Mulla Nasruddin’s son asked, “Father, why has the law prohibited two marriages?” Nasruddin said, “Those who cannot protect themselves have to be protected by the law. One wife is enough. But man is weak—he can gather two, four, ten. So the law has to protect him: don’t make such a mistake.”
Often, those who are to be absorbed in some search avoid marriage. For no other reason: because that very search is their sex-object. One who is mad about music—music is his beloved. One who is mad about poetry—poetry is his beloved. Now a second wife will create difficulty. And wives know this very well. Sometimes such a mistake happens that some poet gets married; then, beyond the wife’s tolerance, he sits writing poetry in front of her. If the wife is present and the husband sits to write poetry, she will snatch it and throw it away. Scientists’ instruments have been snatched from their hands. Philosophers’ scriptures have been snatched from their hands. We are surprised: what is happening to the wife after all! If Socrates is reading his book, why does Xanthippe not let him read?
We feel she is a crazy woman. She is not crazy. Consciously or unconsciously she has understood that the book is more important to Socrates than the wife. When the wife is present and the husband is reading the newspaper, it is clear who is important. So if the wife snatches the paper and tears it up and throws it away, the wife’s inner intuition is directing her exactly. She is understanding rightly.
The person who becomes absorbed in something—that becomes his sexual object. Absorption is the sign of a sex-object. It makes no difference whether your absorption is in man and woman. If your absorption happens toward anything, the relationship becomes that of sex. Greed sets out on the journey of sex. Then—whether money, fame, position, merit—it makes no difference.
A hallmark of greed is going outside oneself—seeking the other. Difficult to live without the other. The other is more important than the self. The glory of the other is greater; the glory of the self is secondary. And the one whose own glory is secondary—wherever he wanders—will remain a beggar. Therefore the greedy is always a beggar, even if he becomes an emperor. His begging bowl remains empty. And then from greed are born all the progeny—of anger, of attachment. Therefore greed has been called the root of sin.
A friend has asked: earn more money in order to give more?
Greed is not related to money. Nor is it related to charity. It is related to the obsession with “more—more.” One who is busy earning more is stuck in “more.” Tomorrow he may give more too, and he will still be stuck in “more.”
Charity is good, but only as penitence. It has no creative, positive value. Just as asking forgiveness is good, but it does not mean you should first do something that makes you ask for forgiveness—first abuse someone, then apologize—because apologizing is so good. Apologizing is good as atonement; it is no virtue in itself. Charity is not a virtue; it is only atonement for the hoarded wealth. There is nothing creative in charity; it carries no positivity. So when people say, “Give generously,” if what they mean is “first pile up wealth, then donate it,” that is just a clever arithmetic: first commit plenty of sin, then pile up merit.
A priest was questioning the children in his school. He had explained to them what is necessary for salvation—for deliverance: prayer to Jesus, worship, remembrance of God—all that is needed by one who would be liberated. After explaining, he asked, “What is the most essential thing for salvation?” A small boy raised his hand. The priest was delighted. The boy stood up. “What is the most essential thing?” he asked. The boy replied, “Sin.”
For unless you sin, from what will you be saved? What meaning would deliverance have? For charity, first hoard wealth. But see the trap here. A person who is busy accumulating more and more—how will he be able to give? The stronger his grip on “more,” the harder it will be to let go, because he will have cultivated the habit of clutching at more. Yes, he can give—if the giving is an investment. If he becomes convinced that the more he gives, the more he will get back, then he can give. If he is sure that what he gives here will be credited to him in heaven.
These days people do not seem so eager to donate; the reason is that heaven has become doubtful. There is no other reason! The clear confidence that it exists is no longer there. If people in the past were generous, do not think they were less greedy than you. Heaven was certain then—beyond doubt. Give here, receive there. It was cash—no matter of credit involved. Now everything is confused. Here it feels like cash is leaving the hand; there, the cash of heaven is not visibly coming in.
Those in the past who gave did so because of greed, not against it. To give against greed is quite another matter. To give because of greed is one thing; to give in opposition to greed is another. What will be the difference? One difference: “more” will no longer be present in the giving. If the urge is “let me donate more,” why does it arise? So that I may get more! What is this race for more? Yesterday it was “let me accumulate more money,” today it is “let me donate more.” Why? Why can you not be without “more”? This fever of more is not necessary. When a person is free of “more,” he becomes quiet. Then greed falls silent.
So those who have truly given have not given in order to get something. Their giving is only penitence. What was needlessly accumulated has been returned. There is no further merit to be gained; it is only a settling of past accounts, nothing more.
Charity is good, but only as penitence. It has no creative, positive value. Just as asking forgiveness is good, but it does not mean you should first do something that makes you ask for forgiveness—first abuse someone, then apologize—because apologizing is so good. Apologizing is good as atonement; it is no virtue in itself. Charity is not a virtue; it is only atonement for the hoarded wealth. There is nothing creative in charity; it carries no positivity. So when people say, “Give generously,” if what they mean is “first pile up wealth, then donate it,” that is just a clever arithmetic: first commit plenty of sin, then pile up merit.
A priest was questioning the children in his school. He had explained to them what is necessary for salvation—for deliverance: prayer to Jesus, worship, remembrance of God—all that is needed by one who would be liberated. After explaining, he asked, “What is the most essential thing for salvation?” A small boy raised his hand. The priest was delighted. The boy stood up. “What is the most essential thing?” he asked. The boy replied, “Sin.”
For unless you sin, from what will you be saved? What meaning would deliverance have? For charity, first hoard wealth. But see the trap here. A person who is busy accumulating more and more—how will he be able to give? The stronger his grip on “more,” the harder it will be to let go, because he will have cultivated the habit of clutching at more. Yes, he can give—if the giving is an investment. If he becomes convinced that the more he gives, the more he will get back, then he can give. If he is sure that what he gives here will be credited to him in heaven.
These days people do not seem so eager to donate; the reason is that heaven has become doubtful. There is no other reason! The clear confidence that it exists is no longer there. If people in the past were generous, do not think they were less greedy than you. Heaven was certain then—beyond doubt. Give here, receive there. It was cash—no matter of credit involved. Now everything is confused. Here it feels like cash is leaving the hand; there, the cash of heaven is not visibly coming in.
Those in the past who gave did so because of greed, not against it. To give against greed is quite another matter. To give because of greed is one thing; to give in opposition to greed is another. What will be the difference? One difference: “more” will no longer be present in the giving. If the urge is “let me donate more,” why does it arise? So that I may get more! What is this race for more? Yesterday it was “let me accumulate more money,” today it is “let me donate more.” Why? Why can you not be without “more”? This fever of more is not necessary. When a person is free of “more,” he becomes quiet. Then greed falls silent.
So those who have truly given have not given in order to get something. Their giving is only penitence. What was needlessly accumulated has been returned. There is no further merit to be gained; it is only a settling of past accounts, nothing more.
A friend has asked: “Is there greed even in the attempt to obtain, in ever-greater measure, that which is worth attaining?”
What, in truth, is worth attaining? That which is truly worth attaining is already found within. You cannot be greedy for it. And whatever we take to be “worth attaining” is in fact not worth attaining. Greed arrives first; that is why something starts appearing desirable.
Understand this a little clearly.
We say: “If something is worth attaining, what’s wrong in desiring it?” But something appears “worth attaining” precisely because greed has seized it. Otherwise, it wouldn’t appear worth attaining. What you find desirable may not appear desirable to your neighbor. His greed is elsewhere; yours is elsewhere. That’s the only difference.
Nothing is desirable in and of itself. The moment your greed gets attached to something, it starts looking worth attaining. Before greed was attached, it wasn’t desirable. “Desirable” simply means greed has latched onto it. Then a vicious circle arises: greed gets there first, so the thing looks desirable; and then we say, “If it’s desirable, what’s wrong in desiring it!” This second greed deceives you—the first greed already arrived.
See it this way: we say, “That person looks beautiful, so they’re desirable.” But why do they look beautiful? When you say someone is beautiful, you think beauty is a quality that exists in them. Psychologists say the opposite: what you want to possess appears beautiful to you. That’s our lived experience. What looks beautiful to us today need not look beautiful tomorrow. What appears beautiful is a trick of our own mind. We say, “They’re beautiful, therefore we want them.” The reality is: “We want them, therefore they look beautiful.” Desire comes first. Wherever desire attaches, beauty begins to be perceived. Wherever greed attaches, a thing begins to look “worth attaining.”
So what is worth attaining? Only that which is already attained—what needs no acquiring. And whatever still needs to be acquired is not worth attaining. This may sound contradictory. What appears desirable is, in truth, not worth attaining—because it is alien to you. You would have to acquire it. And whatever you acquire, you will have to leave. That’s the very definition of the world: however much you gain, you will have to let it go. Only one thing cannot be snatched from me—my being. I never acquired it; it was already given. Whenever I have known, I have found it already here. I have never “gotten” it. Whatever else you have gotten will be taken away.
Whatever is gotten is taken—because it is not ours. That is why it had to be gotten in the first place. One day it is gone. What is not ours can never become ours. What is mine I never acquired—I am that.
Therefore, from the standpoint of religion only one thing is worth attaining: one’s own nature. Call it soul, call it God, call it liberation—these are differences of words. Nothing else is worth attaining.
Greed points: “This is worth attaining; that is worth attaining.” Greed points, lust runs. If it succeeds, it becomes attachment; if it fails, it becomes anger. Hence greed is the root of irreligion.
Understand this a little clearly.
We say: “If something is worth attaining, what’s wrong in desiring it?” But something appears “worth attaining” precisely because greed has seized it. Otherwise, it wouldn’t appear worth attaining. What you find desirable may not appear desirable to your neighbor. His greed is elsewhere; yours is elsewhere. That’s the only difference.
Nothing is desirable in and of itself. The moment your greed gets attached to something, it starts looking worth attaining. Before greed was attached, it wasn’t desirable. “Desirable” simply means greed has latched onto it. Then a vicious circle arises: greed gets there first, so the thing looks desirable; and then we say, “If it’s desirable, what’s wrong in desiring it!” This second greed deceives you—the first greed already arrived.
See it this way: we say, “That person looks beautiful, so they’re desirable.” But why do they look beautiful? When you say someone is beautiful, you think beauty is a quality that exists in them. Psychologists say the opposite: what you want to possess appears beautiful to you. That’s our lived experience. What looks beautiful to us today need not look beautiful tomorrow. What appears beautiful is a trick of our own mind. We say, “They’re beautiful, therefore we want them.” The reality is: “We want them, therefore they look beautiful.” Desire comes first. Wherever desire attaches, beauty begins to be perceived. Wherever greed attaches, a thing begins to look “worth attaining.”
So what is worth attaining? Only that which is already attained—what needs no acquiring. And whatever still needs to be acquired is not worth attaining. This may sound contradictory. What appears desirable is, in truth, not worth attaining—because it is alien to you. You would have to acquire it. And whatever you acquire, you will have to leave. That’s the very definition of the world: however much you gain, you will have to let it go. Only one thing cannot be snatched from me—my being. I never acquired it; it was already given. Whenever I have known, I have found it already here. I have never “gotten” it. Whatever else you have gotten will be taken away.
Whatever is gotten is taken—because it is not ours. That is why it had to be gotten in the first place. One day it is gone. What is not ours can never become ours. What is mine I never acquired—I am that.
Therefore, from the standpoint of religion only one thing is worth attaining: one’s own nature. Call it soul, call it God, call it liberation—these are differences of words. Nothing else is worth attaining.
Greed points: “This is worth attaining; that is worth attaining.” Greed points, lust runs. If it succeeds, it becomes attachment; if it fails, it becomes anger. Hence greed is the root of irreligion.
Osho's Commentary
“Before sunrise and after sunset, the seeker of the good (shreyārthī) should not even in the mind desire any kind of food or drink.”
This needs a little reflection. Followers of Mahavira have gravely distorted this sutra. The Jaina understanding has shrunk to: “Night eating causes violence; therefore don’t eat at night.” That is a minor, secondary point; not the essence. And if that alone were the reason, then today there should be no problem eating at night. In Mahavira’s time there was no electricity, no lighting. Even today in villages people dine in the dark. If Mahavira had said, “Don’t eat at night, because insects may fall into the food,” that might have been reasonable then. By day it happens; at night, far more easily. Eating in darkness or in dim lamplight—if that were Mahavira’s reason, as Jaina monks explain, then the sutra has no relevance now. With electric light, the illumination can be brighter than day; no such impediment remains. But that was not the reason. The sutra retains its significance.
Understand its value.
With sunrise, life expands. Morning comes; sleeping birds awaken, sleeping plants stir, flowers begin to open, birds start singing, flight fills the sky. All of life spreads outward. Sunrise means not merely the sun rising, but life awakening, life expanding. Sunset means life withdrawing, sinking into rest.
Day is waking; night is sleep. Day is expansion; night is rest. Day is labor; night is return from labor. Grasp the phenomenon of sunrise and you will see why Mahavira forbade the night meal: food fuels expansion. With sunrise, nourishment has meaning—strength is needed. But after sunset food is unnecessary. Night food obstructs the inward draw, the rest—because digestion is also a labor.
You think that once food passes the throat, the work is done. In truth, work begins below the throat. The body is drawn into labor. To feed the body is to push it into internal work; the whole organism must now attend to digestion.
If your sleep has grown poor—restless nights, full of dreams, tossing and turning—eighty percent of the cause is the work you assigned to the body at night. Eating sets the body to work. And when the sun rises, the oxygen—the prāṇa—in the air increases; prāṇa is needed for labor. When night comes and the sun sets, the average oxygen in the air drops; life no longer needs it. Carbon dioxide proportion rises—favorable for rest. Know this: oxygen is needed to digest food; with more carbon dioxide, digestion struggles.
Psychologists now say many of our distressing dreams arise from undigested food in the belly. Our disordered sleep owes much to the load in the stomach. Your dreams are largely born of your food. Your stomach is burdened, laboring—though your day is over, your belly still toils. And we—strange creatures! Our main meal is at night; the rest of the day we make do. The big meal—the dinner—we take at night. There is no greater unkindness to the body.
So if Mahavira called night-eating violence, I say: not because insects die, but because you do violence to yourself—self-violence. You mistreat your body. First, it is unscientific. Food is needed in the morning, with sunrise—life requires energy then. There will be work; strength is needed. At rest, strength is not needed. If by evening the stomach is freed of food, the night will be quiet, silent, deep. Sleep will be a pleasure; you will rise fresh. If the stomach must labor all night, you will get up tired.
There are deeper reasons. Notice: as soon as food enters the stomach, your brain dulls. Sleepiness follows; you feel like lying down—do nothing now—why? Because the body’s energy rushes to digest. The brain is far from the stomach; as food arrives, the energy allocated to the brain is requisitioned by the belly. This is a scientific fact. Hence the eyelids droop. And observe: one who fasts finds it hard to sleep at night; after a day of fasting, sleep is difficult, because energy keeps rising to the brain and sleep cannot descend. Thus, as you fill the stomach, sleep comes at once; the energy meant for the brain has been reclaimed by the stomach.
The stomach is inert, basic; the brain is a luxury. When the stomach has surplus energy, it grants some to the brain; otherwise it keeps it for itself.
Mahavira said: day for labor, night for rest. Meditation too is rest. The whole night can become meditation if you apply a little understanding to the body. If the stomach holds food at night, the night cannot become meditation; it remains merely sleep—shallow at that.
If a man lives sixty years, he sleeps twenty. Twenty years is a long time. And we all say, “When shall we meditate? There’s no time.” Mahavira says: these twenty years can be transformed into meditation. In this night’s sleep—when you cannot do anything else—meditation can happen.
Meditation is not labor; it is rest. Hence meditation has deep affinity with sleep. Sleep transforms into meditation—but only when the stomach is not demanding energy for digestion. When the belly is quiet, making no demands, energy abides in the brain; that energy can be converted into meditation. If it is not turned into meditation, it becomes sleep-disturbing energy—as often happens to those who fast without meditation. But if it is turned into meditation, the energy will not hinder sleep. Sleep will proceed at its own depth, and a new dimension of energy will begin—meditation.
Krishna has said: the yogi sleeps at night yet does not sleep. Mahavira too said: only the body sleeps; consciousness does not. This inner alchemy has three parts: if energy goes to the stomach, it doesn’t go to the brain—that’s first. If energy goes to the brain but is not turned into meditation, then sleep becomes difficult—that’s second. Therefore the third: energy should not go to the stomach; it should go to the brain; and in the brain it should set out on the journey of meditation. Then the brain can sleep and the energy becomes meditation. Thus the yogi, at night, does not sleep.
This does not mean the yogi’s body doesn’t sleep. It sleeps very well—better than yours. Perhaps only a yogi truly sleeps. And yet, he does not sleep: within, someone stays awake. The energy not used by the stomach, not used by the brain, drips drop by drop into meditation. An inner lamp of watchfulness is kindled. There is no opportunity more right for meditation than night. That is why Mahavira said: no night eating.
Hearing Jaina monks, the whole matter sounds childish. “No eating at night!” And this is made such a big deal—as if without it liberation were impossible. The whole affair starts to sound petty. Where is liberation, and where is night-eating? As if giving up dinner grants freedom—so cheap?
No—the intermediate steps have been lost, hence the confusion. The steps were these: night is the most right opportunity for meditation, for many reasons. First: with sunset the entire existence moves into rest. But we are inverted people; we have turned everything upside down. As the sun sets, existence rests; we too should enter rest. We should travel with the sun. The body should go to rest, the mind too. The rest of the mind is meditation; the rest of the body is sleep. If your mind doesn’t rest, you cannot meditate. But if even the body doesn’t rest, how will the mind?
Therefore Mahavira said: no night-eating. It is not about night; it is about you—and about meditation.
Now I see Jains: no night-eating—so they stuff themselves in the evening. Watching the sun—“has it set yet?”—and keep eating.
I stayed once in a home. The host sat to dine with me. Darkness began to gather in the room. He quickly picked up his plate and said, “I’ll eat outside.” I asked, “Why?” He said, “There’s still some light outside—daylight.” He rushed out and gulped down his meal.
What a joke—sometimes in following a sutra we kill the very spirit of it. One who has eaten in haste will spend a restless night. Haste means dumping food like trash into the belly, without chewing. The stomach will have more trouble digesting it. Better to have sat in the dark and chewed properly—because the stomach has no teeth. The work of teeth can only be done in the mouth; the stomach cannot do it. It will labor mightily to digest, and the night will be harder.
Without understanding, with only rules, we create blindness. “No night water,” so people guzzle water before sunset! The spirit is murdered. This happens because we think, “If night eating is dropped, all is achieved.” We have no understanding of the science behind it.
Whoever wishes to drop night-eating must change their whole lifestyle. It is not so easy to give up dinner. Anyone can skip a meal; but your entire daily regimen must shift.
Mahavira told the seeker to eat once a day. Digestion takes six to eight hours. If you eat around eleven in the morning, only then can you truly avoid night-eating; otherwise, you can’t. The meal taken at eleven will be digested by sunset; no digestive activity continues into night. Then the seeker can sleep without food in the belly. But if you hold only this rule, sleep will be difficult; and when sleep is difficult, food thoughts will arise. Fast for a day and you will think of food all night. If you want to relish food, fast first—then flavors appear you never knew; long-forgotten dishes resurface vividly. During these observances many people’s minds become freshly obsessed with food. After eight or ten days, when the vows end, they storm their kitchens like prisoners released from jail. Plans are already being drafted!
Mahavira wanted to free man from food. Among Jains I see more bondage to food than in anyone else—twenty-four hours a day, food! The sutra is murdered for lack of understanding.
Food is not the point; nor is night. The balance and transmutation of bodily energy—the alchemy—is the point. Mahavira went deep into the human body—few have gone so deep. He caught the root—where the roots begin. The body’s work begins with food, and the body wants you to stay near food, because its work is fulfilled by food; it needs nothing else. One who cannot rise above food cannot rise above the body. The body is food. What is your body? An accumulation of food—yours, your parents’, your grandparents’. You are the long essence of food collected. Hence the natural attraction to food: it is the foundation of the body. Now, if all we intend is to keep the body going—then keep eating and excreting; that’s all.
In ancient Greece, on dining tables, along with toothpicks people kept bird feathers. They ate, then tickled their throat with the feather to vomit—then ate again. If you didn’t make a guest vomit two or three times, you hadn’t welcomed him properly. Two attendants stood by; when the guest said, “Enough,” they’d bring a bowl, tickle his throat with the feather, he’d vomit—and eat anew. Emperor Nero had two doctors on staff to induce vomiting eight times a day—so he could eat more.
And what are you doing? You don’t tickle with feathers or hire doctors, but you are in error all the same: put in, push out; put in, push out. You are nothing but a machine into which food is put and from which it comes out. A cycle: when it’s out, put more in; when in, wait to excrete. Is this life? If none of this energy is freed and lifted upward, you will never experience anything beyond the body. Mahavira is not an enemy of food, as his monks have become. He is the opener of the beyond: food is not the whole of life; beyond food, life expands. “No night-eating” is his strong insistence. It signals that this is not about food; it is a matter of a deep inner revolution.
“Before sunrise and after sunset the seeker of the good should not even mentally desire food or drink.”
Note the addition: “not even mentally desire.” Whether you do or don’t is less important than that the mind not desire. I would say: if doing something dissolves the mind’s desire, do it. If not doing inflames desire, it is dangerous. If a morsel calms the mind’s craving through the night, that’s better than fasting while the mind revolves around food—that is more dangerous.
Mahavira says: don’t eat at night—and don’t even desire food in the mind. How will that happen? Not eating is not so difficult; anyone can do it. If you are obstinate, it’s even easier. That is why stubborn children will fast during festivals. Parents think their child is very religious. The real reason is that he’s obstinate and enjoys being difficult. The more people say, “Don’t do it, you’re too young,” the more his ego stiffens: “Oh, I’m little? I’ll show you!” He does it to prove.
Such a child, sooner or later, will be a troublemaker. And becoming a monk doesn’t exempt one from troublemaking; most troublemakers are very pious! Trouble means the ego has found a taste.
So yes—you can drop food, if you’re a bit egoic. But how will mental craving drop? How will you stop the mind from running to food at night? You cannot suppress it. Unless you channel the mind’s energy into a new direction, it will run along its old grooves. The belly will say, “I’m hungry,” and the mind will run to the belly. The throat will say, “I’m thirsty,” and the mind will run to the throat. The mind’s job is to keep you informed about what’s happening in the body.
There is only one condition: the mind must be engaged in something so vast that it no longer notices the belly’s hunger or the throat’s thirst. That is called meditation. Let it be absorbed in another dimension so deeply that the body is forgotten. When the body is forgotten, thirst and hunger don’t arise.
You’re hungry—and your house catches fire; hunger vanishes, you don’t notice it. A moment ago you were too sluggish to lift your feet; now you run as if you should have been in the Olympics—every ounce of strength ignited. Why? Attention has been reoriented—into one-pointedness. The mind has been drawn away from the body.
I’ve heard about Milkha Singh. One night, thieves entered his house. A world champion runner, he went after them, fired with zeal—ran and ran—reached the police station. “Where are the thieves?” he asked the inspector. “I was right behind them!”
There were no thieves there. “Which thieves?” asked the inspector. “You’ve arrived alone.”
Milkha said, “I must have overtaken them. On the way I forgot I was chasing thieves; I thought the race had started!”
Wherever the mind is absorbed, all else is forgotten. Memory needs contact with awareness. If your foot hurts, awareness must go to the foot; only then do you know. If the belly is hungry, awareness must go to the belly; only then do you know. The belly itself never “knows” hunger; awareness does—when it goes there. If awareness moves elsewhere, it cannot go to the belly. A house on fire draws awareness there; when it flows in one stream, the rest of the world becomes absent.
When the king of Kashi underwent abdominal surgery, he said, “I will not take any drugs.” He had never taken medicine in his life—he didn’t want foreign chemicals in his body. But how to perform surgery without anesthesia? He said, “No need—just let me read the Gita. I’ll read; you operate.”
Doctors were anxious—could he concentrate so deeply? But there was no choice. Without surgery he would die; with surgery, perhaps… They operated. The king read the Gita; they cut open his abdomen, stitched him up. It was the first major operation performed without anesthesia. The doctors were amazed: “A miracle!”
The king said, “No miracle. For pain to be known, I must go to the belly. But I am going toward the Gita. I cannot go there.”
Without the movement toward meditation, giving up night-eating has no meaning. Nor does fasting. Understand: “anashan” (hunger strike) is not “upavāsa.” Anashan means starving and thinking about food. Upavāsa means “to be near the self”—to dwell close to the soul. That is meditation.
One who cannot meditate cannot do upavāsa. So I do not say, “Worry about fasting.” First, learn meditation. For one who knows meditation, anashan becomes upavāsa. Without meditation, your fast is only a hunger strike—against yourself. No joy will arise from it. That is why Mahavira insisted so strongly.
What to do? How to make the mind meditation? Where to take it? We must train it, bit by bit, to be withdrawn. Practice withdrawing the mind from the body. Try a small experiment.
Stand, close your eyes. Take your mind into the left foot—down to the big toe. Forget the right foot. Let your whole awareness revolve in the left foot. This isn’t hard. Then withdraw it from the left foot, take it into the right foot; forget the left foot. Let awareness circulate in the right. Move it this way through every limb. You will discover immediately that awareness is a current within you; it can go where you intend; and it can be withdrawn from where you intend. You’ve never practiced this; that’s why it’s not obvious.
As it is, wherever the body wants, your awareness goes; where you want, it doesn’t—because you’ve never trained it. As soon as hunger arises, awareness rushes to the belly without asking your permission; you can do nothing. You’ve never realized that the flow of awareness depends on your intention. Practice a little.
At night in bed, take your awareness to the toes—only the toes. Forget everything else—go within… within… settle in the toes, as if your soul were resting there. You’ll benefit; sleep will come immediately—because the brain is far from the toes. When awareness reaches there, the brain empties; you fall into deep sleep.
Learn to withdraw awareness. Close your eyes; fix awareness on a single point. You’ll find: wherever you bring awareness, a subtle light appears. Close your eyes and intentionally bring all awareness to the heart; let the heartbeat be the center. Suddenly you’ll find a gentle light near the heart.
Keep practicing shifting awareness. You can do it anywhere—in a chair, on a train or bus or in a car. No special time is needed. Gradually you’ll gain mastery. It’s like learning to drive a car: you must learn to drive awareness.
Someone learns to ride a bicycle. You too can ride, but no one can adequately explain how. You can demonstrate, but the “secret” is subtle; it comes through practice, not description. Riding is a rare event, because gravity is trying to topple you all the time. On two thin wheels you remain upright by maintaining a moving balance between speed and gravity—tilting left, then right, with exquisite timing. Why can’t you ride the first time you’re pushed? Nothing more is needed than later—except fear. You fall. After a few tumbles, you learn.
Awareness is an inner control, a balance. Learn to move it through the body. Practice for three months and you will be able to take awareness wherever you wish. If your left hand aches, take awareness into the right; the pain will dissolve. If a thorn pricks your foot, withdraw awareness from the foot; absorb it within—the thorn’s sting will vanish. The day you understand this, your fasting can become upavāsa; before that, you are just starving. Nothing will come of it—except perhaps some thrill if a procession is taken out in your name. Fools gather for such things—these are mutual arrangements. Tomorrow they will do something foolish and expect you to march in their parade.
People join processions so that others will join theirs someday.
Mulla Nasruddin told his wife, “I’m not going today.” She asked, “What’s the matter?” A friend’s wife had died. Nasruddin said, “I’m not going.” She said, “Are you crazy? You must.”
Nasruddin said, “He’s given me three opportunities already—three wives gone. I haven’t given him even one. It feels humiliating to keep going without giving him a chance!”
It’s all mutual give-and-take. So if you enjoy that, fine—but your hunger strike will remain a hunger strike; it won’t become upavāsa. Upavāsa is an inner science. Its first sutra: consciously, voluntarily, be able to flow awareness into body parts. When that capacity stabilizes, the second process begins: taking awareness outside the body. Only when awareness can move outside does hunger, thirst, pain cease to matter.
Therefore Mahavira said: do not even desire.
“He who refrains from violence, untruth, stealing, sex, possession, and night eating becomes nirāshrava—without inflow—and innocent.”
“Nirāshrava” is Mahavira’s own precious term. “Āshrava” are the doors through which things flow in from outside. Nirāshrava: nothing comes in from outside anymore. One is self-fulfilled, complete within. No demand remains on the outside. Even if the whole world vanished this instant, it would be like a dream ending—no difference.
Nirāshrava means the incoming pathways have ended. No guest is invited in—neither wealth, nor love, nor hate, nor anger; neither friend nor foe. No one enters us. We are whole in ourselves. But we live in āshrava—ever seeking stimulation from the outside, as if our inner life depends on outer support.
Someone says to you, “You’re so beautiful,” and your heart blossoms—inner birds take flight. You were waiting for someone’s words. You keep searching others’ eyes to see if they call you beautiful. If no one notices you, the mind grows sad.
At a university, some girls came to complain: someone threw a pebble at them, someone jostled them. I said, “Let them! If no one jostles or throws a pebble, that too is trouble! The sadness of the girl no one notices is far greater.” In truth, the one who complains, “He threw a pebble, he pushed me—even the professor brushed past me”—half enjoys telling it, though she doesn’t know. There is a gleam in the eye when someone says, “The crowd pushed me.” If no one pushes, if no one even sees you were there, sadness grips the mind. We live by outer attention—that is āshrava. Our existence hangs on outside props. Pull them away and we collapse like a scarecrow. The materialist says there is nothing inside; you are only an assemblage of outside.
Charvaka said: you are only the outside. The blood in your veins came from outside; the cells, bones, flesh—all from outside. You are nothing inside—just a compound. Strip away the outer and nothing remains—like peeling an onion; in the end, there is no onion, only skins.
Mahavira is the opposite. He says: there is something within—an inner element. But how will you know it? Only by stopping all intake from outside. The body will continue to take from outside; Mahavira says the body has no “inner.” All of the body is outer. The mind too takes from outside—thoughts, anger, greed, delusion—all come by outer influence. Therefore the mind also has no “inner.”
Thus Mahavira says: rise above the body—withdraw awareness from it entirely. And with the mind, whatever is stirred by the outside—drop that too; withdraw awareness from it as well. Keep withdrawing from whatever appears alien, borrowed. Mahavira called this bhed-vigyān—the science of discrimination. Keep separating yourself from whatever is other. A day will come when nothing borrowed remains; you will be anāshrava. If something still remains—and you remain—then know soul is. If nothing remains, then there is no soul.
If there is a soul within, there is only one way to know it: renounce inwardly whatever has come from outside—withdraw awareness from it. The day I remain alone within and can say, “This is not from my mother or father, not from society, not from education—no one gave me this; this is my innerness”—that day I have known the soul.
Anāshrava is the path of shedding what’s borrowed. We are a compound of outside and inside. The materialist says we are only outside. Mahavira says we are both. The body is the collection of what came from outside; the soul is what did not. But the soul must be sought—because we live only outwardly. We have no clue. We say and hear and read “soul,” but the word evaporates like smoke. It has meaning only for one who has withdrawn awareness from all that is outside, and can stand at a point and say, “This is not from outside.”
When Buddha returned home after twelve years, his father said, “I can still forgive you. Come back.” Buddha said, “Look carefully—I am not the one who left. The one who left was only the body—the outside. I have returned knowing that which is inside. I am someone else now.” The father, as fathers often are, was angry. Fathers’ expectations rest upon sons—and in this world whose expectations are ever fulfilled? We can’t fulfill our own—how will we fulfill another’s! The father’s hopes rest on the son—none of them are fulfilled. Every father is angry; being a father means being angry.
And any son must be prepared to be called a bad son. Even a Buddha seems a bad son to his father. The father said, “In our house no one has ever wandered with a begging bowl. Drop this bowl. You are a prince—this kingdom is yours. Don’t ruin my lineage with this nonsense!” Buddha said, “You cannot recognize me. Clear the smoke of anger from your eyes and see who stands before you.” The father fumed, “I don’t recognize you? You are my bone and marrow! My blood flows in your veins!” Buddha said, “If I were only that, you would indeed recognize me. But I have known I am not that. I was born through you, but not from you. You were only a passage through which I passed. Whatever of me you can see is yours—but there is in me what you cannot see and I can. That is not yours.”
This point is the soul. Without anāshrava, there is no experience of it.
Therefore Mahavira says: one who becomes anāshrava becomes innocent. All defects come from outside. Innocence is an inner phenomenon. Mahavira often said: if you drop a sapphire into water, the whole water looks blue. It doesn’t become blue; it appears so. Remove the gem and the color disappears. Put it back, the water looks blue again. This is sang-dosh—stain by association. The soul is never truly defiled. Its being is innocence itself. But by association with the body, the body’s color seems to stain it. Because of the body, we feel limited; because of the body, “I am ill,” “I’m hungry,” “My head aches.” The body makes us grasp these notions. As the soul knows itself apart from the body, it experiences innocence. Neither the body is guilty nor the soul; in their togetherness, shadows fall and the appearance of guilt arises.
That’s all for today.
Let us pause five minutes and join in kirtan…!