Mahaveer Vani #28

Now let us take the sutras:

“A shuprajna pandit, even while living among worldly people sunk in moha-nidra, the sleep of delusion, must in every way remain alert and should trust no one.”

“Time is merciless, and the body is feeble. Knowing this, one should move about like the Bharanda bird, unremittingly vigilant.”

There are many things to be understood here.

Mahavira does not merely say pandit; he says ashu-prajna pandit. First, let us understand this.

Pandit means the one who knows—information-laden, the learned—who has an immense store of data, who knows the scriptures, who knows the doctrines, who has insight into beings, who is skilled in logic. Such a man is a pandit—the one with information. Ashu-prajna pandit means: not only information, but also the fire of knowing—prajna. The word ashu-prajna means: he can answer even that question for which no prior information resides in him.

Understand it a little.

We call that person an ashu-kavi, an extempore poet, who has not come with a prepared poem; whose poetry will arise in the instant. Who will not compose first and then sing; he will sing... and in the very singing the poem will be born. That one is called an ashu-kavi. His singing and his making happen together. He does not first make and then sing. He sings, and the poetry keeps flowing forth.

Ashu-kavi means: for him poetry is not a fabrication, but a nature. When he speaks, it is poetry. Poetry is in his very utterance. He does not have to fetch poetry from outside and impose it. It emerges from him as leaves sprout from a tree. As a spring flows, so his poetry flows—purposeless, uncontrived. No effort is needed for him. The smaller the poet, the more effort; the greater the poet, the less effort. If he is an ashu-kavi there is no effort at all—the poem flows. Then poetry is no construction, no scheme, no arrangement. Then it is like the movement of breath. Such a person we call an ashu-kavi. Ashu-prajna is the one whose knowing is not memory. You ask him...

When you ask someone something, two kinds of answers are possible. Ask me a question—two possibilities are there. One: you ask, and I immediately run into my storehouse of memory and fetch the answer. You ask me, and I at once search my past, my brain, my memory, my cache, my archive, and pull the answer out, and hand it to you. This is the answer of a pandit.

You ask me a question, and I go within—not into memory. You ask for an answer, and I place my consciousness before the question—not my memory. You ask, and I stand like a mirror before it, and this consciousness of mine resounds, gives a response to your question. Let the answer not come from memory, but from the awareness of this very moment—then it is ashu-prajna. Ashu-prajna means: the answer arrives now, from a fresh consciousness—just bathed, dew-fresh, not stale.

All our answers are stale. Whether you notice it or not, a stale answer consumes time. In ashu-prajna there is no time-lag.

Someone asks you a question; time intervenes. If he asks, “What is your name?” it seems no time is needed—you instantly say, “Ram.” Even here, though, time elapses. It’s only that habit is so ingrained that it feels instantaneous. But even here, time passes. If someone asks, “What is your neighbor’s name?”—you say, “It’s on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t recall.”

What does it mean? It means the memory holds it, but we cannot reach memory; some other things have come in the way, other memories obstruct; hence we cannot access it properly. We do know, but we cannot seize it in memory.

What you remember, you can answer at once. When time has passed and memory is dim, you cannot answer instantly; but if you are given a little time, a bit of ease, you can search and find the answer.

An answer from memory is of scholarship.

Someone asks you, “Is there God?”—whatever answer you give will be scholarly. But if someone asks Mahavira, his answer will not be of scholarship. It will spring from Mahavira’s knowing. It will not come from his information—it will come from his seeing. Not from memory, from consciousness, from chaitanya.

Mahavira keeps no ready-made answers that you can ask and he will deliver. He has nothing pre-fabricated. The pandit has everything ready-made. Ask him, and he will hand over the prepared answer. Hence a great difficulty arises: the answer Mahavira gives today may not be the one he gives tomorrow, or the day after. The pandit’s answer will be the same today, tomorrow, the day after. For the pandit, there is really no answer—only stored information. Mahavira’s answer can change daily, can change moment to moment—because it is not information.

Mahavira’s consciousness reverberates like a mirror, and the resonance will differ because the questioner keeps changing. The answer depends on the one who asks. Understand it like this: a photograph shows the same face today, tomorrow, the day after. It does not matter who looks at it. But a mirror? It never shows the same face. Whoever stands before it—that is the face it reveals. The face changes every day.

Scholarship is a photograph. Everything is fixed. We call him a great pandit whose photograph is absolutely sharp—each line distinct.

People like Mahavira and Buddha are like mirrors. Only your face appears. Therefore, when the questioner changes, the answer changes. The pandit’s answer never changes. Wake him from sleep, ask him anything—his answer will remain the same.

From this a difficulty has always arisen: in the words of Mahavira and Buddha you will find many seeming inconsistencies. Only a pandit can be strictly consistent. One who is ashu-prajna cannot be consistent—because each moment the situation changes, the questioner changes, the context shifts, the answer shifts, the mirror’s reflection shifts.

It will depend on you what Mahavira’s answer shall be. It will depend on the asker. Hence Mahavira says: ashu-prajna pandit—whose prajna, whose knowing, stands ready, moment to moment, to answer. Whose prajna—whose insight—is ever poised to respond.

“A shuprajna pandit, even while living among worldly people sunk in moha-nidra, the sleep of delusion, must in every way remain alert.”

Mahavira says: whoever wishes to abide in such prajna, to be rooted in such knowing—to keep moving in that dimension—must remain alert in every way, even while living among the sleeping worldly folk. You will have to live among the sleeping; for they are the ones who are—there are no others. There is no point in running away. Wherever you go you will remain among the sleeping. Understand this a little.

People often think: leave the city and go to the village. But villages too are filled with the sleeping. Someone thinks: leave the village and go to the forest. But it may not have occurred to you that the plants of the forest are more asleep than man—therefore they are plants. And the animals and birds are more asleep than man—therefore they are animals. These same humans were once plants, once animals. They have awakened a little and reached the human stage.

If a man leaves humans for the jungle, he goes among even more deeply asleep consciousnesses. There he may feel a certain peace, but only because he does not understand the language of those sleeping creatures.

The entire forest is asleep. These sleeping trees are nothing but sleeping humans, who will one day become human. And the awakened humans we see are just a little further along; they were once trees. When you go backward, because you don’t understand their language, you think: “The forest will be right for me. There will be no people, no disturbances.” The sole reason there is no disturbance is that human language wounds quickly; to avoid being hurt you need much more awareness. If a man abuses you, anger arises quickly. If a stone strikes your foot, anger does not arise as quickly because you think: “It’s just a stone.” Little children do get angry—because they have not yet learned to distinguish between stone and man. They will abuse the stone, even beat it with a stick. And sometimes you too become childish and do the same—when the pen won’t write, you curse it and bang it on the floor.

But wherever you go, Mahavira says, you will have to live in the world. And the meaning of samsara is: a crowd of sleeping consciousnesses. Change the crowd if you will—let it be of trees, of animals, or of humans—but the crowd is there. This is the condition; it cannot be avoided.

The world is unavoidable—until we are fully awake. So even the ashu-prajna pandit, who is continuously engaged in this endeavor to awaken, must live amid the sleeping—and thus he must remain alert, constantly.

Why?

Because sleep too is contagious, infectious. So many people are seated here; we all live contagiously. If one person coughs, soon ten or twenty will begin to cough. What happened? They were sitting silently—what has happened to their throats? One coughs, many begin to cough—contagion. We live by imitation. One man goes to urinate, several others suddenly feel like going. Contagion. We live by one another’s cues.

Hitler would seat ten or fifteen of his own men at different spots in his rallies. At the precise moment they would clap—and the whole hall would erupt in applause. He had understood that clapping is contagious. Ten men are ours: they clap, then the other ten thousand also clap. What happened to the ten thousand? What happened to their hands?

Our mind is immediately influenced by the surroundings. It is not only diseases like the flu we catch from each other—we catch anger, we catch delusion, we catch greed, we catch lust. Not only the body catches germs; the mind catches too.

Therefore Mahavira says: such a person must remain alert amidst sleepers, because all around they slumber in deep sleep. The waves of their sleep will touch you. From every side they will enter you. You alone are not responsible for your sleep; you are in an ocean of sleep, where, from all sides, slumber touches you. Unless you strive greatly, that sleep will seize you; it will drown you. No one intends to drown you—there is no conscious effort—it is simply the situation.

Have you noticed? If ten people sit together and one begins to yawn, soon others begin to yawn. One lies down to sleep, the rest feel drowsy.

Until we are fully awake, we are part of the group. Until a man is utterly awakened he is not yet a person—he is the crowd. However much he may think, “I am separate,” he is not separate.

Hence curious events occur. The greatest sins in the world are not committed by individuals—they are committed by crowds. Because in a crowd contamination happens. A thousand people are burning a temple or setting a mosque ablaze. Take them one by one and ask: “Do you wish to burn a mosque? Do you want to break a temple?” Each one, taken aside, will say, “No—what would that achieve? There is no sense in it.” Then what were you doing?

In the crowd, he was not himself—he was only a fragment of the crowd. Therefore great sins are committed by crowds; small sins by individuals. The bigger the sin, the bigger the crowd needed. In a crowd, personal responsibility gets lost. In a crowd, he is not in himself. He feels there is a vast ocean carrying him away. He does not feel, “I am doing it”; he feels, “The crowd is doing it; I am merely along.”

Have you noticed? If the crowd walks fast, your feet also hasten. Hitler ordered his soldiers: when you march, keep your bodies touching. When fifty men march, bodies touching, and their steps fall in one rhythm—you too will be caught in that rhythm. When their hands brush against you, their fervor will enter you; when the thud of their steps beats in your head, your step will fall in the same beat. In a crowd of fifty you are no longer alone; you become just a limb of a larger mind. And that mind then sweeps you along—like one swept in a flood when the river is in spate—so helpless does a man become in the crowd.

Therefore people live as crowds. Nations are the names of crowds. Religions are the names of crowds—crowds of Hindus, crowds of Muslims, crowds of Jains. Hindustan, Pakistan, China, Russia—these are names of crowds.

“Russia is in danger”—and the matter is settled. “India is in danger”—and you cease to be a person; you are only a portion of a large crowd. Then you are swept along.

Politics is the art of manipulating crowds. Wherever there is a crowd, there will be politics. Even if it is a religious crowd, politics will enter. That is why I tell you: religion pertains to the individual, politics to the crowd. Wherever religion attaches itself to a crowd, it becomes politics. Hence crowds of Hindus, of Muslims, of Christians—these are forms of politics; they have nothing to do with religion. Religion pertains to the individual. Religion’s whole endeavor is: how to free the individual from the crowd—how to bring him out of the crowd’s tumult, how to release him from crowd-influence. But religion too becomes a crowd—then difficulties arise. In war, soldiers are not the only ones fighting in crowds—people also pray in temples and mosques in crowds. You will be swept away. You will be swept even into sleep, Mahavira says.

Hence the awakened person must remain conscious all around, all the time. From every side sleep is approaching; from every side sleepers surround you. Anger will come, greed will come, delusion will come—flowing from every side—like a man seated amidst open sewers. He must remain very alert, otherwise those filthy drains will soil him too. Only his awareness can keep him pure. Therefore Mahavira says: one must remain alert, in every way. Therefore he speaks a most astonishing sentence:

“And trust no one.”

This does not mean Mahavira is teaching mistrust. He says: if you trust a sleeper, you will fall asleep yourself. If you trust a sleeping person, you will go to sleep—because trust means: now there is no need to be conscious.

Understand it a little.

Whom we trust, with them we need not remain alert. Let an unknown stranger spend the night in your room—you will not sleep well. Why? Because a stranger is in the room; who knows what he may do? Your sleep will be fitful; in the night you will open your eyes two or three times to see that he is not up to anything. Your wife sleeps in your room—you sleep as if selling horses, utterly at ease; because now there is no stranger here, and whatever she could do, she has already done! Everything is familiar. Whatever will happen, will happen—nothing new is going to happen. There is no fear. You can drop awareness. There is no need to remain alert.

That is why in a new house, a new room, sleep does not come. The situation is new; habit has not formed. On a new bed sleep does not come; among new people sleep does not come—because the situation is new and you must keep a little watchfulness. You cannot trust it entirely.

Mahavira says: live in the world as if among strangers—strangers...! This in fact is the truth. Husband and wife may live together twenty or forty years—they are strangers. There is never any true knowing. Strangers. We assume, because of years together, that we are now familiar. Familiar? Not in the least. No one becomes familiar; everyone remains an island—unto himself. Outer familiarity happens—name, address, whereabouts, the look of the face—but what possibilities are hidden within, there is no familiarity with that, no recognition.

Mahavira says: trust no one. What does it mean? It does not mean become mistrustful, untrusting. It does not mean think of every person as dishonest, consider everyone a thief. Some will be very happy to hear “Trust no one.” They will say: “We already do that—this is our very discipline! We trust no one; we don’t even trust ourselves, let alone others.”

No one trusts anyone—but this is not Mahavira’s meaning. Understand it rightly. Our mistrust is not what he intends. He says: trust no one for this reason—so that you do not fall asleep. Even with the nearest and dearest, do not trust so much that you feel there is no need to remain awake. You must stay aware; you must remain awake. For diseases come most easily from those closest to you. They are near; their sickness infects you quickly. Remain aware. If you sit beside your wife, or husband, or son, or mother, with your awareness gone—then their diseases are entering you. Keep your consciousness as a guard, so that no disease of the mind can enter you.

Buddha used to say: where a guard sits outside the house, thieves do not enter. Where a lamp is lit and its glow falls outside, thieves keep away from that house. Just so, where the lamp of awareness burns within, just so, where watchfulness is kept on guard—diseases of the mind do not enter there. They stay a little away.

We live in such a way that no guard sits at the gate, no house-lamp is lit—dense darkness everywhere, an invitation to thieves—and thieves surround us on all sides. We become a pit into which they flow.

Notice: a depressed man comes and sits in your house. Have you observed? Soon you too become depressed. A laughing, smiling person enters your home. Have you noticed? You begin to smile, you feel cheerful. Why do small children give you so much joy? It is not the children per se. The children are cheerful; their cheerfulness becomes contagious. They dance, they skip; they know nothing yet of the world, no sense yet of its troubles. They are like newly blossomed flowers—no storms seen, no gales, not yet the scorching fire of the sun; they know none of it yet.

Seeing them you become happy. If, even among small children, someone sits gloomy—know he is a sadhu of a sort, meaning: he must make a great effort to remain miserable there—he is pathological, sick. Among small children one is bound to feel joyful.

Nehru had a great fondness for small children. The reason was not the children; it was the sickness of politics. Going among children he could forget the rogues who surrounded him, the disturbance he lived in. Among children the mind would feel light—as if one has gone to the hills on a holiday. His being among children indicated that Nehru was not a politician by heart—therefore he sought children, to escape the men who crowded him.

Nehru was the least political of politicians; his destiny was not that. His destiny was to be a poet. India lost a great poet and found a weak politician. He could not be otherwise; there was no way. Thus he used to take refuge; with the children he blossomed and felt happy—there he felt intimacy, closeness.

Wherever you are, you are being affected. Whomever you live among, you start becoming like them.

Therefore Mahavira says: “Trust no one.” This means: if another laughs and you start laughing, know that your laughter is false. If another cries and you begin to weep, know that your tears are false. Neither that laughter is yours, nor those tears—everything is borrowed.

And we all live on borrowed capital—we live wholly in borrowing. In a film, you see a tragic scene and tears start flowing. They are borrowed. Nothing is happening there—only light and shadow play upon the screen—and you begin to cry. It shows how easily you are infected from the outside. In a little while you start laughing. Your laughter is pulled from outside, and your weeping too. Do you have any self at all? One whose everything is operated from outside—he has no Atman.

Mahavira says: “Remain aware. Trust no one.”

It means: do not accept anyone in such a way that you are given the luxury of being unalert. Consider that you are in a foreign land, among strangers—an outsider—where none is yours, where all are others. Each is his own; no one belongs to another.

But we all deceive. The wife says, “I am yours.” The husband says, “I am yours.” The father says to the son, “I am yours.” The son says to the mother, “I am yours.” Each is his own. No one here belongs to anyone. Every day we see this all around, and yet we keep telling each other, “I am yours; without you I cannot live.” And yet all do live without all. But this is the harsh truth.

Mahavira says: none is one’s own. It does not mean all are enemies. It only means: remain alert. As a man on the battlefield remains alert—he does not miss even a moment; he does not allow unconsciousness to enter; he keeps the sword ready, the edge keen, the eye sharp—on guard on all sides. Any moment, any second—a tiny lapse and danger arises. Live just so—as if every moment is Kurukshetra, a war—trust no one.

“Time is merciless, and the body is feeble.”

Keep these truths in remembrance: time is merciless. Time has not the slightest concern for you. Time takes no thought of you; it flows on. Time has no awareness that you are. Time does not forgive you. Time offers no convenience. Time never returns. Pray as much as you wish—no prayer is heard. There is no relationship between time and you. Death comes to the door and you say, “Wait an hour; my son’s wedding is yet to be done; some tasks are unfinished—the house is half built.”

A woman came two months ago who wished to take sannyas. Her longing was great. But her sons were against it: “We will not allow it.” I called one son and said, “All right—do not let her take sannyas, for she is an old woman, dependent on you, and she has not the courage. But if death comes tomorrow, what will you say to death—that you will not allow her to die?”

As anyone would, the son replied: “When death comes, we’ll see. But we won’t allow sannyas.” Not even two months passed—the woman died. On the day she died, a message came from her son: “Will you permit that we place a mala and ochre robes on her body and consign her to the pyre as a sannyasin?”

“Time is merciless.”

But now there is no meaning—because sannyas is not something to be put on from outside. It can be neither put on the living nor on the dead. Sannyas is taken, it cannot be given. It is intentional, from within—abhisandhi. That is what has value; the outward event has none. Within, someone wanted to take—as he was weary of the world, saw the futility of it, a longing arose to journey in another dimension—that was the matter. Now there is no meaning. But the sons console themselves thus. They could not persuade death; they persuade their own minds. Death they could not stop: “Wait; we shall not allow.” The mother they could stop. She too stopped because she had no clear sense of death. Otherwise, there was no reason to stop. She feared: “How will I live without my sons?” And now—now she must live without them. On this long path, the sons will not be met again; and if met, they will not recognize her.

“Time is merciless.”

It means: time does not care for you. So do not sit in the faith that today not—tomorrow; not tomorrow—the day after. Do not postpone, do not adjourn—because the very thing you are relying on has no mercy. That does not mean time is your enemy—only that it is indifferent; it has no relation with you.

Whether you are or are not—what difference does it make to the river’s flow? A straw floats upon the river—what concern has the river whether the straw will float or sink—or that the river is flowing by virtue of the straw? Though straws fancy thus: “If we are not, how will the river flow?”

An old woman’s rooster crowed in a village; she thought the sun rose because of it. If the rooster did not crow, the sun would not rise. This was perfectly logical—for the sun had never risen without the rooster’s crow. So the reasoning was pure.

One day the old woman got angry with the village. Some people had offended her. She said, “Wait—you will repent. I will go, taking my rooster, to another village. Then you will weep and beat your chests when the sun fails to rise.”

In anger she went off to another village with her rooster. There the rooster crowed, and the sun rose. The old woman said, “Now they must be weeping—the sun rises here where the rooster crows.”

The straw too thinks: “If I am not, how will the river flow?” You too think: “If I am not, what will become of the world?” Everyone thinks so. Go to the graveyards—you will find many such who thought, “Without us how will the world be?” And the world is doing very well; it has utterly forgotten them. The world has no idea.

On every death we say: “An irreparable loss—never to be filled.” And then we forget entirely; it is not remembered whose irreparable loss it was. It seems all has gone dark—and yet no darkness comes. Lamps continue to be lit; flowers continue to bloom.

The stream of time is indifferent. It has nothing to do with you. You can do something with time; you can make some use of it. The straw can use the river to reach the ocean—or get caught at the bank—or sink. But the river has no design.

Time’s stream flows on. You can make use of it. You make only one use: postponement. “We will do it tomorrow... the day after...” You keep deferring on the faith that “There will be a tomorrow!” But tomorrow never comes.

Tomorrow never comes. Whenever it comes into your hand, it comes as today—and that too you push to “tomorrow.” You do not live; you keep postponing life. “We will live tomorrow; we will live the day after.” Then one day death stands at the door—gives not even a moment’s chance—and then we regret. All that postponed life stands before our eyes: what we could have lived, what could have happened, how many buds could have opened in our being, what journeys could have been made—none of it happened.

Then, looking back, we find only the safes filled with money—filled at the price of life. Some grown-up sons and daughters—all raised at the price of life. They sit by the cot thinking who will get the keys. They weep, but their attention is on the keys. They were raised at the price of life. Accounts, ledgers, banks—everything will continue. You will be removed. Your account will be in someone else’s name. Your house will become someone else’s dwelling. Your desires will become ghosts and ride on others—and you will depart. And you postponed all that was precious in life.

We postpone dharma and live adharma. Anger we do now—meditation we say, “tomorrow.” Prayer—“tomorrow.” Dishonesty—we do now. We postpone religion, live irreligion now. Why? Because we too know: what is postponed will not happen. Therefore what we actually wish to do, we do today; what we do not wish to do—but pretend we wish—we leave for tomorrow. The arithmetic is clear. Not only Mahavira knows it—we know it too. We know: if you want to be angry, do it now. We never say, “I will be angry tomorrow.”

Gurdjieff’s father was dying. He said into his child’s ear: “Give me one promise. I have nothing else to give you. But what I found most valuable in life, I will tell you.” The boy was only nine—he could not understand what his father said. But the father said, “Remember this—you will understand someday: Whenever anger arises, do it twenty-four hours later. If someone abuses you—listen, understand what he says, see his meaning, observe the whole situation, so you can be properly angry. And tell him, ‘I will come back twenty-four hours later to answer you.’”

Later Gurdjieff would say: that one sentence changed my whole life—it made me religious. Because after twenty-four hours, anger could not be done. It can only be done in the moment. Whatever can be done, can be done then and there. And when anger could not be done, when evil could not be done—what to do with the energy saved?

So Gurdjieff meditated today and did anger tomorrow. We do anger today and meditate tomorrow. Energy is spent in anger; meditation never happens. Gurdjieff’s energy flowed into meditation; anger never happened.

What we truly want to do—we also know—do it today. Time is not to be trusted. Not only Mahavira knows this—we know it too. What we want to do, we do now. What we do not want to do—if we were honest we should say plainly, “We do not want to do it”—but we are clever; we deceive ourselves: “We do want to, but just now there is no time; we’ll do it tomorrow.”

Understand this well:

Whatever you are leaving for tomorrow—know it—you do not want to do it. It would be better—more honest—to say, “I do not want to do it.” Perhaps this will hurt you: “Do I not want to meditate? Do I not want to be silent? Do I not want to know myself? Do I not wish to enter the mystery of life?”

If you are honest it will sting you. Perhaps you will feel: “I am making a mistake. That which is worth doing—I am abandoning.” Our cleverness is to say, “But I do want to do it—who is forbidding? Only, not now. Tomorrow.” In this trick we fail to see that what we do not wish to do, we nourish the illusion that we do wish to do.

Mahavira says: “Time is merciless—and the body is feeble.”

Time cannot be trusted; we have no relation with it—and the body is feeble. We rely greatly on the body—astonishingly so.

What is the body’s capacity? What is its strength? Between 98 degrees of warmth and 110 degrees—twelve degrees is your capacity. Dip a little below—95—the verdict is sealed. Move a bit toward 110—the verdict is sealed. Twelve degrees is the body’s tolerance.

What is your lifespan? In this vast existence where there is no way to measure time—how long do you live? Seventy years, eighty. If someone lives a hundred—it seems a miracle. A hundred years seem much to us. What are a hundred years in the river of time? Nothing. Behind, an infinite stream without beginning; ahead, an infinite stream without end. In such infinity what is the meaning of a hundred years? And in that hundred, what will you do? Scientists calculate: man sleeps eight hours out of twenty-four. Four hours go in eating, drinking, bathing, changing clothes. Eight hours in earning bread, commuting to and from—twenty hours. The four that remain are spent listening to radio, watching films, reading newspapers, smoking cigarettes, shaving—thus the twenty-four are consumed. What remains in a hundred years with which you might know your Atman?

If we divide man’s story rightly it appears utterly futile—“a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” The clamor is great. Each child comes into the world making great noise—as if a storm has arrived—and within a few days he cools down, walks with a stick. That storm, that clamor—all is lost. Eyes grow dim, hands and feet weak. He is bed-ridden.

From cradle to grave—what is the story? What is the body’s strength? Very frail. Let a little bacterium enter—and you learn how much strength you have. Gama may wrestle with giants, but he cannot wrestle with consumption. Gama died of TB—those germs so tiny they are invisible. He defeated great wrestlers and lost to the smallest. How strong is the body? Forget great diseases—even the common cold is hard to fight. Let ordinary cold catch you—no remedy helps; all strength is shelved.

If we look within the body, what is its worth? Bone, flesh, marrow—what value? Scientists say: not more than a few rupees—due to inflation, not due to you. So much aluminum, so much iron, so much copper, and so on—extract it all and lay it out—five rupees’ worth. And we preen over this five-rupee stuff!

And this little chance of life has no real bodily capacity. The body is weak—utterly. If the sun grows cool, these three-and-a-half billion people will be cool in an instant. What capacity? Let the earth’s temperature shift a little—we are finished. If the ice of the poles melts, all will drown. Scientists say it will melt some day. If the polar ice melts, the ocean waters will rise a thousand feet. All land will sink. It will melt someday. And if not by itself, Russians or Americans will find a way to melt it. They seek it because, if there is to be strife, another should not get the chance to destroy the world—we should get it. Though we too will perish, the story will remain—though no one will remain to tell it.

They say Russian scientists have found methods so that if a third world war occurs, they will melt the polar ice—Siberia’s ice—within about seven seconds. With atomic explosions it will melt. The lands will be flooded instantly. A flood like that once came before—our ancient texts say so.

Christians say Noah saved some in his ark; all land was submerged. Those who work in the inward dimension say: a whole continent, Atlantis, sank—an entire continent at the pinnacle of civilization, as America today—sank. To this day it is not understood. In the myths of all religions is the tale of the Great Flood—in Indian, Egyptian, Greek—all over the world. Surely it occurred. Since scientists discovered that polar ice can be melted, there is a suspicion: that flood too was the outcome of some war. It did not occur by itself—some super-civilization, in some great war, melted the ice; all land drowned. It was the Mahapralaya. It can happen again tomorrow. How much is man’s control?

On Hiroshima, the bomb fell—whoever was wherever—turned to cinder in a second. A friend once sent me a photograph: a little girl climbing the stairs to do her homework at nine at night—she, with her books and bag, turned to ash and stuck to the wall. One hundred and twenty thousand people turned to ash in seconds. Their desires were just like yours; their plans were like yours. They too trusted time; they too thought the body strong. It does not wait even a second. Even now, as we sit here and speak—within a second, all can be stopped. There is no recourse for complaint.

Mahavira says: “The body is weak, time is merciless. Knowing this, one should move about like the Bharanda bird—unremittingly, without lapse—apramatta—alert.”

The Bharanda bird is a mythic, mythological bird—a poet’s imagination—that is so frightened of death, of time, of life’s transience, that it does not sleep at all. It keeps flying, awake—lest if it sleeps, death catches it; lest if it sleeps, life ends; lest if it sleeps, it does not rise again. A poetic bird.

Thus Mahavira says: like the Bharanda bird—knowing that time is merciless and the body weak—live without negligence, without unconsciousness—apramatta—live with awareness. This is the mark of the wise, of the prajnavan.

There is one single sutra—of Krishna, of Mahavira, of Buddha, of Christ: apramatta-bhava—awareness—wakefulness. We shall go further into it.

Enough for today.

Let us pause for five minutes, do kirtan, and then disperse...!