Mahaveer Vani #45

In the opening decades of this century, Sigmund Freud made a very significant discovery for the West and for modern man. The discovery is not new. The sages of the East have always known it. It is a rediscovery; yet for modern man it appears as if new.
Freud analyzed man and found that sex-lust is the deepest layer in his life-energies; as if man’s life revolves and wanders around sex. Naturally so. For man is born out of sex. Every particle of the body is a sex-particle. The primal cells, the first atoms from which man is formed, are themselves cells of sex-urge. Then those same cells expand and create the whole body. Hence sex is infused into every pore. Each cell of the body is filled with sex-lust. Naturally, then, sex wields a deep grip on man’s life. Whatever he does, in whatever manner he lives, whatever he thinks, whatever he dreams, somewhere within it sex will be present.
Freud’s discovery is precious. Precious in the sense that it is true; but also dangerous, because it is incomplete—and incomplete truths can become more dangerous than untruths.
Sex is man’s primary role, but it is not his end. It is the seed. It is not the flower. From here man begins, but he does not end here. And those who are destroyed upon this primary layer of life remain deprived of knowing life’s peak and life’s glory.
Christianity opposed Freud strongly. That opposition proved futile. For that opposition contained only fear, not truth. Christianity feared that if people come to understand that sex is the basic foundation, the origin, the source of life, then it will become difficult to lead them to God. But the East agrees that sex is the origin, the source, the Gangotri from where the stream flows; yet it is not the ultimate ocean where the Ganga falls. And we have never had any difficulty in accepting that the supreme can be born from the low, because in our vision there is no fundamental difference between the low and the high. We call that low where the high is hidden as seed; and that high where the low has been transformed, manifested, expressed, purified.
The low and the high are not opposites; they are two dimensions of one energy. As I said yesterday: mud and lotus. We take sex to be the mud. And if within this sex the flower of Samadhi blossoms, we call it the lotus. Between mud and lotus there is no enmity, there is a deep friendship. What is needed is the art of turning mud into lotus.
So the East evolved two kinds of arts to take man beyond sex. One is the art of Tantra and the other is the art of Yoga. Tantra says, poison can be used as nectar. Tantra says, even what is distorted, what is diseased, can be healed. Where life appears low, even that low step can be used to climb upward. Stones too—the very obstacles of the path—can be made into steps.
Thus Tantra does not prohibit sex. Tantra says, sex can be used in such a way that, through its very use, one goes beyond it. Yoga searches from exactly the opposite side. Yoga says, there is no need even to use sex. Without using sex one can cultivate witnessing toward sex. And to the extent that witnessing is established, to that extent the ties of Atman to sex begin to break.
These two traditions are utterly opposite—and yet they lead to the very same goal. And the one who cannot understand this, has understood nothing.
By opposite roads too one can reach the same destination. Between Tantra and Yoga there is no conflict of the ultimate; the conflict is only of means. Mahavira is a great yogi. Hence Mahavira supports no technique of Tantra. Mahavira says: as sex is, it is essential to drop it without using it. He says, the more you use it, the greater the danger that habit will deepen.
His fear is also right. For ninety-nine out of a hundred, it will seem right to stay away from danger; because danger too can become a habit. And even if we do not wish, we get caught in a mechanical net of habit. Many people enter sex because it has become a daily habit; they derive little juice, little joy. Perhaps passing through sex they attain only sorrow, melancholy, illness—feeling as if something has been lost. Yet habit is fixed, and man runs after it.
Mahavira says it is difficult for a man to use sex and cross beyond it right in the midst of sex; for sex is so deep, its claws so strong. So it is proper not to use it at all and to cultivate witnessing. But as there is a danger in Tantra—that it may become habit—so there is a danger in Yoga—that it may become repression.
Dangers exist on every path. For the one who walks, there is danger; for the one who does not, there is none. The one who walks can go astray—so do not be afraid of going astray. For the one who is very afraid of going astray never walks at all. Those who err will someday reach; but those who never move will never arrive. Hence never be frightened of mistakes. A mistake can be corrected. But if one becomes so frightened of making a mistake that one does nothing lest a mistake occur, then there is no possibility of correction at all.
In life there is only one failure: not to make any effort. Even a wrong effort someday succeeds. But if one makes no effort at all, there is no way to succeed.
Have the courage to err; be ready to wander courageously. For the one who can wander, can also arrive. Wandering too makes the legs move, it entails labor, it demands resolve. One thing is certain: if someone keeps moving, however long the wandering, he will cross. For the one prepared to walk will, sooner or later, begin to understand where he is going astray. Wherever he goes astray, the feet will turn back from there.
The danger of Tantra is that we may deceive ourselves—thinking we are using sex, and by using it we will slowly reach liberation—while sex becomes our habit. Far from getting out, we get enmeshed more deeply in its net. For the more practice deepens, the more the habits turn strong like chains.
Yoga too has its danger. In the name of witnessing we may begin to repress; we may press desires down; and repressed desires become poison; a repressed mind becomes badly obsessed with sex.
You will be surprised to know: the ordinary man is not as sex-obsessed as the repressed person becomes; to the repressed person sex appears everywhere. What you repress spreads a film over your eyes. It becomes your glasses. And the man who has repressed sex starts digging and seeing sex everywhere.
I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin’s wife reported to the police that some youths were bathing naked in the river near her house; they are visible from my kitchen window. This is intolerable, indecent, obscene. The police must do something at once.
The police came, explained to the boys. They were a little annoyed at first, then agreed, and went half a mile downstream. But within an hour Mrs. Nasruddin phoned again: please do something; those boys are still bathing naked in the river. The officer said: Madam, now they have gone half a mile away. There is no way to see them from your window. Mrs. Nasruddin said: There is a way! With my binoculars I can see them.
The trouble was not the naked boys; the trouble was in Mrs. Nasruddin’s mind. The repressed person gets filled with such trouble. He picks up binoculars, and everywhere seeks the same thing.
It will be so. For what has been repressed will take revenge. Life takes revenge. The desire you press hard is waiting to seize you, to grip you.
But we fail to see. We see little danger in Yoga, more in Tantra. Hence Tantra could not become universal and Yoga had great influence. Repression is subtler and can be done privately; nobody comes to know.
I meet monks. And whenever monks meet me in private, their trouble is sex. They ask me for a way. Years have passed—fasting, vows, scriptures, study, reflection, self-study—everything they do. They have restrained themselves in every way, but desire does not leave—in fact it increases.
If the dreams of monks are examined, they will always be sexual. What has been pressed down by day, seizes the consciousness at night. Therefore monks even begin to fear sleep.
Life is not so simple. Life is complex, and it needs a very artistic approach. Repression is not an art; it is rustic, uncultured, full of ignorance.
When you repress something, what do you do? You push it inward. The more inward it goes, the greater its power over you. Hence it often happens that those who live indulging in sex slowly get bored with it; their taste disappears. But those who keep fighting sex, their taste never goes—till the last breath. An ordinary householder, floating along the ordinary current of life, one day gets bored; but the monk cannot get bored—he never got the chance. His desire remains fresh and young. Till death desire haunts him. And the difficulty is: the more it haunts, the more he represses. The more he represses, the more desire takes new forms—and these new forms become increasingly perverted, neither healthy nor natural—unnatural and abnormal.
Mahavira, defining the brahmin, says:
“He who never indulges, by mind, speech or body, in any kind of intercourse with devas, humans or animals—we call him a brahmin.”
Hearing this, you may be surprised: Mahavira says, one who, by mind, word, and body, never indulges in intercourse with devas, humans, or animals—we call him a brahmin. So “brahmin” is an attainment; a state of consciousness where desire has utterly disappeared, where desire does not catch hold in any form.
If you distort your relations with human beings, your desire will begin to seek animals.
A great danger has arisen in the West. Associations are being formed here and there to protect animals from the sexual exploits of man. For man is not linking desire only with human beings; he is also linking it with animals. A whole pathology—of human sexual relations with animals—is developing.
Hearing Mahavira’s word, one feels he is seeing very deeply into man. If man is forcibly restrained, his desire can fall even lower. He may begin relations with animals. There is a convenience: when sexual relations are made with a human being, responsibility also arises. If you love a woman, you feel responsibility. If she becomes pregnant tomorrow, her life becomes valuable to you. That she not suffer pain—the whole responsibility is upon you. But with an animal, if you create a sexual relation, there is no responsibility. And the animal is innocent. The animal cannot forbid. The animal cannot fight.
In the West, sexual relations with dogs are growing beyond measure. Psychologists are very concerned: what is happening? How is man falling so low? The reason is: between man and woman such complexity has arisen; the relationship appears heavy, burdened with quarrel and disturbance. Hence man is withdrawing.
It does not stop with animals. Just now, in Denmark, there was a sex-fair where life-size male and female dolls were sold. These dolls are equipped for full sexual use, with electricity. A man can have intercourse with a female doll; when you touch the breasts the doll will close her eyes as a woman does. Her breasts will swell; and there is an electrical device in the genitals that will absorb your semen. Similarly, male dolls have been prepared.
Not only with animals—Mahavira could not even have imagined… He counted three, but did not say that man can create sex-relations with objects. Man’s sex is so intense that if you block it on one side, it starts appearing on another.
Man also lusts for devas. That may seem difficult to you. Animals you can understand, because they surround us. Objects too you can understand, because we can create them, create machines. But just as today animals and machines seem near to us, in Mahavira’s day the presence of devas too was that near. Even today it is as near; our sensitivity has become dull.
You will be surprised: around man there are disembodied beings. Evil ones we call ghosts; good ones we call devas. Disembodied beings surround us. And if one intensely desires intercourse, he can attract those disembodied beings and intercourse can happen. Many times when you have intercourse in a dream, it is not necessary that it is only a dream. It is very possible that some disembodied being is related. Much investigation is needed. Man’s desire becomes a point of attraction. Wherever there is desire, a pull begins.
One phenomenon has been studied for the last hundred years continuously by psychologists; let me mention it so the idea is clear. Very often it happens—perhaps you have experienced, heard, or seen in some house—that suddenly things start moving in the house without any apparent cause. You put a book on the table; it falls to the floor. You placed a utensil in the middle of the table; it slides to the edge. You hung a coat on one peg; it moves to another. People say: a ghost has come. Psychologists have been studying this for a hundred years: what is happening? And every time it has been found that whenever this occurs, there is in that house a young girl whose menses are about to begin or have just begun. Always! Whenever such an event happens, there is some girl who is maturing sexually—and her maturity is so powerful that because of that power disembodied beings are attracted. Science has now largely concluded this. If the girl is removed from the house, the disturbance stops. Wherever she goes, the disturbance begins there. It has also been found that in some houses suddenly clothes catch fire without any known cause. In all cases studied so far it has been found that there is a boy who is masturbating. If the masturbating boy is removed, the fires cease.
During masturbation, disembodied beings can become active. Whenever a person is overly filled with sex-urge, bodiless beings can get involved, become active; and their activity can cause many kinds of events. Ghosts also gain entry mostly into those who have repressed sex so much that they cannot form natural bodily relations; then their desire begins to establish relations with disembodied beings.
Freud studied hysteria for forty years and found that all hysteria—and before Freud, throughout the world, hysteria was considered possession by spirits. If a woman suddenly feels dizzy, faints, foam comes from the mouth, begins to shriek—hysteria occurs mostly in women, not men, because women repress sex more than men. Men, however much they talk of brahmacharya, manage to find ways to satisfy their sex. Women not only talk, they trust such talk with good heart and begin to practice restraint. There is no witnessing in that restraint, only repression. Therefore women were plagued by hysteria.
Freud was amazed when he began the study of hysteria. He denied that spirits had any hand in it. For all the women with hysteria had repressed their sex for some reason. The husband was impotent, or the woman was a widow, or the husband was dead, or ill—there was no possibility of intercourse, or from childhood such religious instruction had been given that entering sex became impossible. Especially Christian nuns were terribly afflicted by hysteria. In the Middle Ages, in all Europe, nuns being possessed by spirits was an everyday event.
Freud denied this. He said the phenomenon arises from repression of sex; there is no involvement of spirits. Freud’s statement is only half right. He is right that repression triggers the event; but repression only creates an opportunity. In that opportunity the mind becomes so saturated with desire, calls so loudly, and the whole body pulls so strongly that disembodied beings too can be drawn near by that intense storm—and possession can occur.
So Mahavira says: “He who never indulges, by mind, speech or body, in any kind of intercourse with devas, humans or animals—we call him a brahmin.”
Then it becomes very difficult to find a brahmin. And those whom we call brahmins—the term loses meaning. Man is so deeply immersed in sex that no way is seen how he can become a brahmin!
I have heard: England’s King George II was not very intelligent; the affairs of state were managed by his wife, Caroline. Yet he was intelligent enough to obey her. Caroline was beautiful, capable, talented; but she died prematurely of a fatal disease. On her deathbed she advised the king—she had to arrange for the future—that after my death you should soon remarry. One, you will not be able to live without marriage; two, you need a competent adviser; and three, such a marriage will be useful for international relations. She told him where to marry, which princesses were suitable, what alliances would be valuable.
But George II began to weep bitterly, saying: No, never! This was the first time in his life he said “no” to his wife. He said: No, never! After you, no wives! The queen was pleased. She opened her eyes. But her joy vanished in a moment, for George, hand on his chest, tears flowing, said: No more wives after you—only mistresses!
Desire is very deep; and without understanding its depth, whoever tries to do anything with it will be caught in trouble. All doctrines remain on the surface. Scriptures remain on the surface. Sex sits at the center—no scripture, no doctrine reaches there. Influenced from above, you can make decisions and resolutions. They remain pasted like labels on the surface—and you become a false man.
Mulla Nasruddin was riding his horse when he heard weeping from a house, midnight. Out of compassion he stopped and went inside. A naked woman was tied to the bed; someone had abused her badly—marks of injury on her body—and she was crying. Seeing Nasruddin she said: Great kindness that you have come. Free me. Thieves attacked, stunned my husband, raped me, and dragged my unconscious husband outside. There is no one around; the people have gone to a nearby fair; we are alone. Save me, great kindness you came.
Nasruddin’s eyes filled with tears. He felt deep pity. But instead of untying the woman, he began to undress. The woman said: What are you doing? Nasruddin said: Excuse me, lady! But this day is unlucky for you. I want to save you, but I cannot save you!
All compassion, all brahmacharya, all scriptures, all sermons remain on the surface. If the opportunity comes, you will put all aside and fulfill your desire. If the opportunity does not come, you will go on talking principles. Think—if a beautiful young woman lies naked, no one around, no danger, thieves have taken the husband away—it will be difficult!
Perhaps you have heard: when Egypt’s beautiful queen Cleopatra died, her corpse was stolen from the tomb and found three days later. Physicians said that many had had intercourse with the dead body.
With a dead body! And certainly these could not be ordinary people who stole Cleopatra’s body—because it was heavily guarded. Surely ministers, courtiers, friends of the king, people of the royal palace, commanders—such people. For even reaching Cleopatra’s body was not easy for ordinary folk. And physicians said: many had had intercourse. The body was returned after three days.
How far man’s desire can go—it is difficult to say. Extremely difficult. And Mahavira says: the brahmin is he who has risen above sex-lust; whom no desire catches in any form. Is this possible? It is. It appears impossible, but it is possible. It appears impossible because we have no taste of the joy of brahmacharya. We know only that momentary relief which comes from sex. Not even “joy” perhaps, but a momentary relief—as if the load slips from the body for a moment.
Biologists say that sexual orgasm is not more valuable than a sneeze. Just as a sneeze makes you restless, the nostrils itch—you want it to be released—then there is lightness. Exactly so, the ordinary sex orgasm gives no more relief than a sneeze. Biologists call it a sneeze of the genitals—energy accumulates from food and work; it needs release. There is no joy in it; only a burden is dropped. As if a load placed on the head is taken off—you feel good. How long? Only as long as you remember the burden. When the burden is forgotten, the goodness is forgotten.
This sex which we have used to unload—and we have known no other joy—then renunciation seems difficult. Because when the burden grows heavy, what will we do? And in this century it seems even more difficult, for the whole century’s scientists are explaining that there is neither a way to renounce sex nor any need to renounce it. Not only that; they explain that the one who renounces is foolish and will become ill; the one who does not renounce is healthy.
You may not be acquainted with modern literature, for India lives mentally two or three centuries behind. But in the last hundred years, the West has produced literature with scientific support which says that regular sexual indulgence is necessary for health. The man who does not go into regular sex will become unhealthy.
The scientists’ findings suggest that sex is man’s ultimate meaning; beyond it there is no meaning, no purpose, no joy. Religious talk is all rubbish. Man is an animal, and the wish to be more than animal is an illusion, a dream.
And very obscene experiments are going on in the name of science. In America, sex-labs have been created where sex is studied scientifically—so strange and inhuman that we cannot even think. In one laboratory, seven hundred men and women performed sexual intercourse before scientists, under cameras, under lights—films were taken, pictures recorded—thermometers measured what events were occurring in the male organ; records made of what occurred within the female vagina—scores of instruments attached, scores of observers standing.
Seven hundred people volunteered and showed intercourse so it could be studied. The study was done and valuable data obtained. But my understanding is: those two people who can have sex on a stage before fifty people, amidst that mechanical arrangement—their sex will be mechanical; the human has departed. It will be only two bodies copulating, and that too utterly mechanical. And those people must be such that their consciousness is almost dead. Otherwise, naturally, man in love seeks privacy; seeks aloneness; for love is so intimate, so private between two, that a third should not see. When man becomes pathological, he wants a third to see.
These seven hundred who volunteered to copulate in the lab must have been pathological. And not only they—the people standing with cameras, instruments—if their minds were examined, they too would be pathological; otherwise the desire to watch others in intercourse, to seek a pretext to watch—cannot be a sign of a healthy mind.
And the results obtained were naturally materialistic. As with a machine, they mapped what happens in the body. There is no relation to the soul. Sex has nothing to do with man, they say; it is an exchange of forces between two bodies—and that too for relief. And this relief, the scientists explain, is absolutely necessary. Whoever prevents himself from this relief will become sick.
There is some truth in what they say. If one only represses, he will become sick. There is untruth too. If one only indulges, he will be destroyed.
The vision of the East is: neither indulgence nor repression, but rising above both—so that consciousness has the body beneath it. The grip which the body has upon consciousness—on its very neck—should be released. Consciousness should become master, and the body its shadow.
Whenever you drown in sex, the body becomes the master and the soul its shadow, trailing behind. Many times you fall into sex even when you do not want to. Then your soul has no value. It is not heard. The body becomes so overwhelming it suppresses the soul, sits upon its chest.
Mahavira says: we call him a brahmin who has gone beyond all lust for intercourse. This can be done—not through repression. Yet even Mahavira’s monks are repressing. Because repression is easy; convenient. Witnessing is very difficult, very arduous.
When desire arises, stand apart and break identification. Let desire arise. Neither go to express it outwardly upon someone, nor push it inwardly. Stand as an impartial witness within; let whatever is happening, happen within; but develop the capacity to watch from a distance. The more the distance between you and the smoke of your desire, the more you become master. And as distance grows, you will be amazed—a new melody begins to play, one you have never known.
You can maintain this distance even in the very moment of intercourse.
People come to me. A woman said: I want to practice witnessing, but I have a husband. If I do not enter intercourse, he becomes unhappy and annoyed; quarrels, creates disturbance. So for me entering intercourse is a duty.
I said: Enter intercourse, but during the very act maintain distance—as if it is not happening to you, it is happening only to the body; you remain beyond, far away. The more silent you remain, the signs of silence will be clear: your breath will not change. The husband will go on with intercourse; his breath will change, become fast, go beyond limits; but your breath will remain calm.
Keep attention on the breath and remain apart—and see, as if the husband is making love to someone else.
Thus even in the moment of sex, witnessing can be practiced. And once the sense arises: I am far from the body; what is happening with the body is not happening to me; what is happening in the body is not happening in me—when this feeling thickens, a new melody begins. For the moment we move away from the body, we come closer to the Atman.
Anand—bliss—means: the fragrance that arises as you come near the Atman; that cool, light breeze; that unique scent never known before. Once its taste catches hold of you, you turn your back to the body and run toward it.
The great joy certainly liberates from the small joy. There is no other way. And until you know the great joy, you will toil in vain to be free of the petty. Nothing will happen. Allow the great joy to be born—the small begins to slip from the hand. You begin to move away.
This can happen while remaining a householder. It is not necessary to run to the forest. Running to the forest seems necessary only when you want to repress. If it is only a matter of awakening witnessing, it can happen while staying at home—between husband and wife—no obstacle. Once the art is learned. And the art comes by experimenting. If someone asks how to ride a bicycle, you will say: begin riding! You will fall two or four times.
There is no way to tell. Even one who knows cycling cannot say how. He cannot write the rules: do this and that and the cycle will run. He can only say: ride. The truth is: learning to cycle is not learning to cycle; it is learning balance—an inner happening. The cycle has nothing to do with it. The cycle is only an excuse; upon it you learn to balance. That inner balancing you will learn by trying, by falling. You will experience: if I lean too much left, I fall; if too much right, I fall. You will experience that if the pedaling is a little slow, the cycle falls; if too fast, there is fear of falling.
Slowly, in a few days, through experiment you will find the point where the cycle stays steady and does not fall. That is your inner experience; you cannot tell another. You cannot extract a formula and say: this is it; now you do the same.
Witnessing is an inner balance. Moving away from the body is an inner event. If you experiment, it comes. It is very much like swimming. Those who teach swimming know well: nothing need be done.
Mulla Nasruddin went to a swimming master, saying: I have to teach a young woman to swim. The master explained: how to hold her at the waist, how to lower her gently into water. Nasruddin said: Don’t go into such detail—she is my sister. The master said: Then there’s no need to hold at all; just throw her straight into the water! The real thing is to throw her into the water. She will flounder by herself. Life will try to save itself. That very floundering becomes swimming in two or three days. Only take care she doesn’t drown. No need to teach.
Life itself struggles to survive; the hands and feet begin to move. There is not much difference between the swimmer and the non-swimmer. Both move their hands and feet; one does it with order, the other without order. That’s all. One moves without fear; the other with fear. Trouble comes from fear. Hence a true swimmer can lie in the river without moving hands and feet—fearless. He knows: I can swim, no fear. Even without moving he floats.
You know: a living man drowns; a dead man never drowns. The living die by drowning; the dead rise and float. Does the corpse know some art the living do not? The secret is fearlessness. There is no cause for fear; what had to happen has happened. He floats. The swimmer is learning that same art which the dead learn on their own.
Witnessing is like swimming or cycling. Let the event happen and become the seer, not the doer. This is the basic sutra.
Do not remain the doer; become the witness. Use this a little. It is not necessary to begin with sex. Use it anywhere. While eating, do not be the doer—be the witness. While walking on the road, do not be the walker—the body walks, you watch. Spread it to all aspects of life, and slowly stabilize the witness. As the witness grows within, a new life dawns. Wings sprout on your body; you can soar in the sky. Now the Divine is not far. And as distance from the body increases, new springs of joy break open—what Buddha called the great bliss. As those inner springs begin to burst forth, the pleasures of the body lose meaning; they become stupidity.
Remember, as long as sex has meaning, you will not be free, the brahmin will not be born. The day sex loses meaning—when a spring of joy greater than sex bursts forth—and sex remains only stupidity, folly, just as if a diamond were in your hand and someone abuses you, you would not throw the diamond as a stone. You will say: Madness; the diamond is precious. If you do not know it is a diamond, you will throw it like a stone. If you know, you will not.
The power you are throwing out in sex—you do not know what it is. It is life’s stream; life’s most secret mystery. Once you know that this stream can flow inward and palaces of joy open, new doors keep opening, flowers keep blossoming, the music of the veena keeps rising.
But this should come by your own experience. Mahavira’s saying will not do. My saying will not do. No one’s saying can do. At most it can bring a remembrance that this too is possible—that is all. But when you experiment…
Many experiment, but not knowing the right process they get entangled in repression; they begin to fight the body. Do not fight the body; move away from it. For in fighting, too, you remain close. In indulgence you are close; in fighting you are close. In both cases you are tied to the body; and in both cases the body’s value remains greater than you. That value has to be reduced. Those who fight the body do not lower its value. Look at monks! The body’s value in their eyes increases—let no one touch; they should touch no one. Panic increases. Such panic means becoming more body-centered.
Some friends come to me and say: certain Jain monks wish to come hear you; separate seating is needed. Why separate? I said: they can sit on the platform. They said: many women sit there. But what have monks to do with women? When the women are not afraid of the monks, why are the monks afraid of women? These monks appear weaker and more effeminate than women. Such weakness means coming closer to the body—not going far. If you go far, the difference between male and female bodies should diminish, not increase. Then both are just bodies—what is the difference? Difference is created by desire.
In a zoo, one hippopotamus is swimming, another resting by the water. Nasruddin goes to see and asks the keeper: Which is the female and which the male? The keeper says: We never bothered to find out. That is for the hippopotamuses to figure. What do we have to do? You are the first man to be so concerned!
Of course—what meaning has it for a man which is male and which female? The curiosity about male and female arises from sex. Therefore you can look at all the females of the world among animals—no taste; but with the human female there is taste.
Do not think animals take interest in human females. They have no concern. An elephant passes; however beautiful a woman is—what meaning? Purpose comes from the desire within; the deeper the desire, the more valuable the opposite sex becomes. Those in whom desire is deep—if they are men, they have no God other than woman; if women, no God other than man.
Mulla Nasruddin sits with his friend, the pundit Ramcharandas, drinking. When the intoxication deepens, the pundit says: Nasruddin, if you were stranded for a month on a deserted island, what would you like to take with you? What do you consider the best? Nasruddin says: Clearly, I would take the whole tavern of the village!
And you, pundit ji—if you were trapped thus—what would you take? The pundit hesitates: He…ma…malini! He managed only that much when Nasruddin slammed the table, overturned it, and said: Wrong! Stick to the terms. You said the best—not the very best. Otherwise I would take Hema Malini myself!
When a man’s mind is filled with sex, woman is God, man is God. All religion ends there. If desire is deep, there is no religion other than desire. All other religion is a pretext, a pretension. Religion begins only when we start moving away from the desire for the opposite. And this moving away is brahminhood.
By witnessing—by increasing distance from the body—as much as you move away from your own body, to that extent you move away from the other’s body. This is mathematics. The more you find another’s body attractive, the more it means you are attached to your own body—for it is your body that finds the other’s body attractive, not the Atman. The Atman has nothing to do with body. As you recede from your own body, the bodies of others also begin to disappear. When the smoke of sex disappears, the light that is born beyond this darkness—the luminosity available when you move out of the body’s blindness—Mahavira says, that is brahminhood.
“Just as the lotus, born in water, is not smeared by water, so one who, living in the world, remains utterly unattached to sensual enjoyments—we call him a brahmin.”
There are many things here to understand.
“Just as the lotus, born in water, is not smeared by water…”
Man is born in desire. Sex is the source of life. There is no need to condemn it. Only those condemn it who are troubled by it. To fight it is madness—for how can you fight that from which you are born? What will you gain fighting the past? What is needed is concern for the future. What has passed—why fight it? What can become—prepare for that. Mahavira says: like the lotus that is born in water yet untouched by water, so consciousness is in the body, lives in the body, yet the body does not touch it.
Consciousness is born in desire. Around it is the water of desire. But like the lotus, consciousness becomes separate—such a one we call a brahmin. This separation like the lotus is to be thought of in many ways; for Mahavira says: one who, living in the world, remains wholly unattached to sex-enjoyment—we call him a brahmin. There is no counsel to run from the world; while living in the world… For to flee would mean that the lotus feared water, that it might be touched. Fear gives the news. But the lotus is fearless. It knows water cannot touch it. Whether it lives in water or outside, no difference.
Ninety-nine out of a hundred times, to flee the world means only this: we are so afraid that living in the world our lotus will touch water; we see no way to avoid entanglement; so let us remove the very opportunity, change the outer circumstances—go where there is no chance.
But remember: the chance does not arise from outside. Outside are only pegs. Desire is within. You will go to the forest—see two birds mating—the difficulty will begin. Where will you go? Will you go where there are no birds, trees, plants? For in all there is desire. Flowers blossom from sex; butterflies fly in sex; the fragrance in the breeze is the sex of flowers—seed-dust traveling in that fragrance. The whole world is sex. Where will you flee? Suppose you hide in a cave—but where will you flee from yourself? The desire within is with you. You will become auto-erotic; sexual arousal will begin with yourself.
Psychologists suspect that wherever men are separated from women, masturbation begins. This has happened often. The first time Christian missionaries reached an African tribe—and wherever missionaries have gone, disturbance has gone—for their notions are blunt and shallow. When they reached that tribe they immediately… There are people who keep busy reforming others without bothering whether the others are ready to be reformed, or whether we are ready to be reformed.
In that village boys and girls played together. It was a tribal village, and in many tribal villages there is a youth hall—where boys and girls, when grown, all sleep together. That tribe had no notion of masturbation—that anyone does such a thing. But the missionaries said: This is sin—boys and girls together! This must stop. They made separate hostels, separated boys and girls, built a wall between them. Psychologists say: the day the wall was built, masturbation entered that tribe.
Man becomes auto-erotic. Where will you flee? You will begin to fulfill desire with your own hands. And if you bind your hands too, it still makes no difference; in dreams your desire will seize you; nocturnal emission will occur. You cannot flee the world, because the world is within. If the world is dissolved within, then living in the world one becomes a renunciate.
Mahavira is not opposed to someone leaving the world. He says: leave it, but only when it has already left you within. Understand this: do not leave raw. The raw man will get into trouble. He will run away and create mischief. New diseases, new perversions will arise. Leave only when firm experience arises that the world has dropped within—now there is no need to remain; the examination is complete; the schooling finished.
So there are those who run from school to avoid the exam—ninety-nine percent; and there are those who pass all exams and the school says: Kindly go; there is no more need to be here.
Mahavira and Buddha leave after passing the school of the world. It becomes useless, therefore they leave. As a dry leaf falls from the tree; the raw leaf cannot fall with such grace. A raw leaf will hurt—both the leaf and the tree—and leave a wound. The dry leaf breaks; neither leaf nor tree knows when it fell; no wound.
Mahavira says: the brahmin is he who, living in the world, is as unattached to sex as the lotus leaf is to water. When such a man renounces, renunciation has dignity, glory, health. In such sannyas there is no antagonism to the world; there is transcendence. This man has not gone through fear; he has risen beyond. He is beyond. He is not frightened by the world. He left because remaining had no meaning.
If you see a renunciate frightened of the world, know he left in haste—raw leaf; he should have waited. Better he had lived more in the world. A sixty-year-old monk told me: when I was nine, my father initiated me. The father was also a monk. Often fathers wish their sons become what they are. But the father took sannyas at forty-five; the son was given sannyas at nine. The son is now sixty, but his intelligence has not grown beyond nine.
It cannot grow; he had no opportunity. A sixty-year-old old man, but his mind is stuck at nine. If he sees a kulfi-seller, he craves kulfi. Seeing a queue outside the cinema, he longs to see what is inside. Seeing a woman, he suffers deeply—what is hidden that attracts so much? He is unfamiliar. His whole sadhana is mere struggle; no transcendence happens. It cannot. Experience brings transcendence.
There is no cheap escape from life. Those who want it cheap will wander much. In life there are no short-cuts. There is no exception. Mahavira too takes sannyas after lives of experience; Buddha too after lives of experience. You remember nothing of past lives; no experience has been distilled. Had experience been distilled, memory would exist. If you had extracted some essence, it would be with you—lighting you like a lamp. It is not. You gathered nothing. You played with flowers, but extracted no perfume. Perfume travels with you; flowers cannot be carried. When a man dies, whatever essence he has extracted in that life travels with him. If you lived only with flowers, they remain behind; the faint scent on the body remains behind too. In a new birth you must gather again. In every birth we gather and lose—until maturity arises. Mahavira says: to live in detachment in the world is to be a brahmin until maturity comes.
Detachment is brahminhood.
“He who is non-greedy, who lives unattached, who is anagaar—without house and home; who is akinchana; who remains unentangled in relations with householders—we call him a brahmin.”
Understand each word, for with each there is danger of misunderstanding—and the possibility of misunderstanding is always greater than that of right understanding; for we are wrong. The wrong things appear natural to us.
Mahavira says: alolup—one whose greed has gone. What do we understand? That if we leave wealth, greed has gone! Greed does not go by leaving wealth. Wealth is held because of greed. Even before wealth, greed was present—otherwise who would hold wealth? So one thing is certain: before wealth, greed existed. What existed before cannot be eliminated by dropping what came after. That greed remains hidden behind. Wealth came later; drop wealth—no difference. Greed remains.
Mahavira says: alolup; we understand: who is poor. We think: if a monk leaves riches, he has become holy. If leaving wealth removed greed, it would be easy. That would mean: changing objects changes the soul. Then the soul is weak and objects strong.
No, by leaving objects nothing changes; rather, deception arises. If there is no wealth, it seems now I have no greed. And nobody else sees it either; for when there is no wealth how will anyone see? Wealth is visible; greed is not. Greed must be seen by oneself. What is visible to others is easy to drop. What is invisible—hidden within—is the real question.
So Mahavira does not say: the poor man is the brahmin. He says: alolup—the non-greedy. These are very different. Then it is possible that someone amidst riches is non-greedy; and that someone poor remains greedy. Greed is a tendency of mind—the urge to grasp. It is an inner wave. It has no essential relation to things. By means of things it extends outward, but it is hidden within. Remove things; it contracts within, but remains. It begins to cling to new things.
You will see: a loincloth monk with only a loincloth can be greedy for the loincloth too.
I have heard: a monk traveled widely from master to master but nowhere attained knowledge. His last master said: we cannot give you knowledge—better go to Janaka. The monk said: What will a king of pleasure give me? When great renouncers could not grant it, what will this enjoyer give! The master said: We have failed; he can conquer you. Go.
He went and was shocked: Janaka’s court was in full swing—drinking, dining, music, dance. The monk said: Where have I come! Among sinners and hedonists! In this hell why did my master send me? But now I have come, I’ll stay the night. He said to the emperor: May I stay the night? I came; it was a mistake; I won’t ask my question; in the morning I will leave. The emperor said: No harm—do not decide so fast.
In the morning the emperor took him to bathe in the river. While they were bathing, the palace caught fire—flames rose. The village raised an uproar. The monk said: Janaka, what are you watching? Your palace is on fire! And he ran. Janaka said: Where are you going? He said: I left my loincloth on the bank. If the fire spreads, the loincloth will be burnt.
Janaka said: My palace burns—I am not burning. Your loincloth has not yet burned—but you have begun to burn! The fire is far. Only after the whole village is crossed will it reach the river; but you are aflame already—for what? A loincloth on the bank!
Greed has no concern with what the object is; it can cling to anything. And often the wealthy person’s greed is spread over many things; the monk who leaves wealth—the whole greed becomes intense over a few things.
Thus the monk’s attachment does not end; it shrinks to a few objects. But it remains. Leaving wealth is not the condition; dropping the inner insistence to grasp is. When will this happen? How? Why do we want to hold wealth at all? Until the root is seen, it will not be cut.
We want to hold wealth because we are not assured of ourselves. We fear; there is no trust in tomorrow—there is illness and health and death; today there are friends, tomorrow not; today there is home, tomorrow not. To live, man trusts money. Money is security. And until you are ready to live insecurely, you cannot go beyond greed. The one who is ready to live in insecurity—who says: whatever happens tomorrow, I will see then; what is, is enough. This moment is sufficient. I will not worry for another moment. The one who lives in the moment, and if trouble comes tomorrow he will bear it—but he will bear it then; he will not prepare today—that person can be non-greedy and can be a renunciate.
“Who is alolup…”
Search your greed. It hides in fear. The irony is: however much wealth you gather, fear does not end—it increases. However much arrangement you make, death will come; illness will strike; friends will be lost; wife will die; husband depart; sorrow will come. No one has ever been secure on this earth. Security is not the law here, yet everyone assumes he is the exception—and then gets engaged in the same struggle as Alexander, Napoleon, Genghis—seeking to secure himself against all dangers.
We waste life in avoiding danger—and cannot drink its juice; nor can we use it. Therefore Mahavira makes non-greed the foundation of brahminhood—because only the non-greedy can make right use of life. The greedy, frightened, keeps arranging. And one so busy with arrangements—how will he relate to Brahman? He will be spent in triviality.
“Who is alolup, who is unattached in living.”
We too live; the brahmin lives. But Mahavira says: the brahmin lives unattached—not because life will build a big house tomorrow, or buy land, or plant a garden, or collect money; not because tomorrow something is to be done with life, some desire to be fulfilled. He lives because life is; as long as it is, he will live; the day the breath leaves, he will not even pray for one more breath. If death—then death accepted; if life—life accepted. Whatever happens is accepted; there is no rejection in him.
Unattached means: I do not impose my notion upon life. Wherever life leads, whatever it does, I accept it with ease. Our difficulty is we impose notions. We do not accept life; we want it aligned to our desires. Omar Khayyam said: If God gives me the chance, I will destroy the world and rebuild it. Only then perhaps I will be satisfied.
But even then perhaps not. For the mind’s law is: whatever you build, dissatisfaction slips ahead. You build a house—thinking you will be satisfied—no sooner is it built than it is finished; new dreams arise. As leaves sprout on trees, so desires sprout in the mind. The old cannot fall before the new arise. The mind keeps seeking new dissatisfaction.
The brahmin is one who lives unattached; who lives as if there is no tomorrow, as if the future will never be. But we misunderstand. Jesus said to his disciples: There is no tomorrow—only today. And live as if the world will end tomorrow. Live as if tomorrow is death, everything will end.
Strange! How the mind errs! The disciples thought some danger is coming—that the world will soon end—so instead of living peacefully today, they got busy with tomorrow’s worry: What to do when the end comes! They kept asking Jesus when it will be. He said: Very near, the last day is very close. Two thousand years have passed, and still in Christianity some sect arises now and then which says: 1975 is last; and preparation begins. Then 1975 passes and the last day does not come; another sect arises.
In these two thousand years, a thousand such dates have been fixed. How we misunderstand Jesus, Mahavira, Buddha! Jesus’ whole purpose is: understand as if all will be destroyed tomorrow—live today. But we cannot live today; we always live in tomorrow. And that tomorrow sucks our whole life—never coming.
Unattached living means: living in the present.
Remember, desires need future; life needs no future. For life this moment is enough. Right now I am fully alive. You are fully alive. For living, what need of tomorrow? But desires need tomorrow—they are big; how can they be fulfilled today? Desires create the future.
Desires are the very construction of time.
“Who lives unattached; who is anagaar—without house and home.”
Now this too became difficult. The straightforward meaning of anagaar was taken to be one who leaves house and home; who does not live in a house.
But interestingly, even a Jain monk, if he must stay, must stay in someone’s house! However much he arranges, he must fashion a shelter; whether he stays in a dharmashala or a sthaanak—he must stay somewhere—there will be a house.
One without house and home—anagaar—surely Mahavira is talking of a state of consciousness. He is saying: whose consciousness has no walls around it—no house, no prison—whose consciousness is open sky—he is anagaar. Such a person, even if he sleeps under a roof, that roof cannot shrink his inner sky. And you—whose soul is encased in walls—even if you sleep under open sky, it makes no difference. You are sleeping in your house.
What will the open sky do for one whose inner sky is closed? The open sky should be within; then outside everything is open. But words mislead. For we get the words; we do not receive the soul of the words.
Mark Twain, a deeply thoughtful American writer, a humorist—and sometimes humorists strike deep blows, utter profound truths. In fact, to tell truth it is best to do it with laughter—life is anyway too sad, there is no point loading sadness with more. Mark Twain had a terrible habit of swearing. At the slightest thing, he would begin cursing—not only people but also things. If the door did not open, he would swear at it. His wife was very troubled. He was internationally famous, and she would say: if someone hears what you utter, what will people think? But there was no way; the cursing was essential to him. One morning early, in the Brahma-muhurta, he was going somewhere; he put on his shirt, the button was broken—he began swearing. The wife, vexed, stood listening by the door, every single curse. He was cursing with such relish, as if enjoying music—very filthy words which women cannot use. The wife thought: let me try this too. As soon as he stopped, she repeated every one of his abuses, loudly. She thought he would be shocked, worry what the neighbors would say—Mark Twain’s wife using such vulgarities! He listened carefully and said: Right, you have caught the words—but you have missed the spirit. Words are nothing; the soul! The soul that I put into cursing—that is missing!
With all truths this is the trouble—the words are grasped, the soul is lost. Words create confusion. We then proceed according to words; and their meaning is in the dictionary, not in Mahavira. Anagaar means: one who has no house—the matter is finished. If you have a house you are not a brahmin; if you leave the house you are a brahmin. Easy, simple!
No one becomes a brahmin by leaving the house; no one becomes a non-brahmin by living in a house. Anagaar is a state of consciousness—a mood where I set no boundaries around myself; where I am not bound.
House means bondage. You are frightened of the world; you build a wall around. Inside you feel safe. Outside, under the open sky, insecurity begins. Mahavira says: one who lives insecurely; who builds no walls; who does not create distance by drawing boundaries that you are separate.
Understand—if you say: I am a Jain—you have built a house. Your house is separate from the Hindu’s—your courtyards apart. From the Muslim’s—apart; from the Christian’s—apart. Because these houses are separate, we had to build separate temples, mosques, churches. Not only our houses but even God’s houses we had to separate.
Mahavira says: you will be a brahmin on the day your consciousness has no house; and we have bound even Brahman in houses. We are very clever! Mahavira wants to free you so you become Brahman; we have bound Brahman and brought him down.
People have their own Brahmans. Before a church your heart does not bow; seeing Jesus on the cross, you feel no reverence. Seeing Mahavira on his siddhasana, your head bows. But to a follower of Jesus, nothing arises; he sees only a naked man. Seeing Jesus on the cross, you say: what is there? He is hanging—suffering the fruit of sin; he must have done some karma. Do tirthankaras ever hang on crosses? A tirthankara is not even pricked by a thorn—what to say of a cross! When a tirthankara walks, if a thorn lies straight, it quickly turns aside; for a tirthankara has done no sin that a thorn should pierce. So Jesus on the cross—surely the fruit of great sin.
The Jain will feel this on seeing Jesus; his hands will not fold. The follower of Jesus, seeing Mahavira, will think him utterly selfish. The world is in such suffering and you sit in siddhasana! The world is burning and you have closed your eyes! Our Jesus hung for all; and you—sitting for yourself! Jesus came for the salvation of the world; you remain confined to your own circle! His hands will not fold.
Jesus and Mahavira are far; even nearer—Mahavira and Rama are not far! Both are kshatriyas, of one stream. But a Jain’s hands cannot fold on seeing Rama. Sita standing by—this is a nuisance. God, and a wife! Impossible—even to conceive! And the bow and arrow—what for? To fight someone? A tirthankara and carrying weapons? Unthinkable! And a wife—everything spoiled. Still in sex!
But the devotee of Rama, seeing Mahavira, also feels nothing—Mahavira seems an escapist. Where life is a struggle, you abscond! Where you should have fought and changed the world, you sit in the forest with closed eyes. Look at Rama—bow in hand, standing in battle! And when God himself made man and woman—who are you to renounce? When God willed them to be together, one who goes against God’s will is an atheist.
We have built houses of our notions—call them temples. We have created gods of our notions; they are projections. Mahavira says: an anagaar consciousness is needed—one with no house, no temple, no sect, no religion, no boundary; who lives in pure “being.” Neither Christian nor Jain, neither Buddhist nor Hindu nor Muslim. One who does not say: I am Indian; or I am Chinese; who makes no circles; who says neither: I am rich, nor: I am poor; neither: I am shudra, nor: I am brahmin; neither: I am high, nor: I am low; neither: I am man, nor woman. Who says nothing; who attaches no adjective to himself.
The adjective-less person is anagaar. He has dropped all houses. He has come under the open sky. The sky itself is his home. This vastness, this immensity—this is now his house. Such a person Mahavira calls a brahmin—who is anagaar.
“Who is akinchana…”
“Akinchana” is a very precious word. It does not mean poor or destitute. It means: who does not hold the idea that “I am somebody.” A nobodyness—the feeling of being no one. But do not grab even this positively—that “I am nobody”—else that too becomes an arrogance. Simply, there is no sense of being anything.
Bokuju, a Zen monk, went to his master and said: You had said: Become a nobody. Now I have become a nobody. The master raised his staff and said: Wait outside, leave this “nobody” at the door. This “nobody” you are bringing inside—fool! This is the same “somebody.” There is no difference. Do not come again until you are not anything.
Then Bokuju did not dare return. Years passed. After three years the master went searching: where is Bokuju? Disciples said: He sits under that bush. The master went; Bokuju did not even stand—standing would be a formality—when nothing remains, who is disciple, who master? It is said the master bowed at his feet and said: You have become akinchana. Now no feeling remains of who you are. Now even the feeling of being nobody is not there.
Akinchana means: when there remains no feeling “what I am”—only pure being remains.
Mahavira says: to be akinchana is to be a brahmin. Such a majestic definition of brahmin none other than Mahavira has given.
Mahavira wished the whole earth to become brahmin. On the surface it seems he broke all social rules, the system of varna; but his vision was that the whole earth become brahmin. And until the whole earth becomes brahmin, there is no way to become religious. The earth can become brahmin—but not by everyone taking a tuft and sacred thread and tilak. Even if such brahminhood spreads, it is worth two pennies—no value.
Mahavira removes the qualities of the brahmin from the body and brings them to the soul. Our definition of brahmin before him was bodily: born in a brahmin family, raised in a brahmin home, follows brahmin rules—studies and teaches scripture—is a guru—he is brahmin. Mahavira removed the definition from the body.
“Who is akinchana…”
Remember, those whom we call brahmins are never akinchana—even if they have not a penny. Whenever you stand before them they say: Touch the feet! They are never akinchana. If you do not place your head at their feet, they are ready to curse. Never akinchana—afflicted with great ego.
On the face of the brahmin there is a stiffness—found in all who remain long in aristocracy; on the chest, above others. The Englishman in India when he ruled—you could see it in his gait, in his eyes.
For thousands of years brahmins have been on top, and their standing above is based solely on the body. Therefore brahmins did not like Mahavira’s statement that brahminhood is a quality of the soul. For they saw that their whole brahminhood, dependent upon the body, would collapse. Hence they opposed Mahavira deeply. They tried hard not to let his vision take root in the land; they propagated that Mahavira is an atheist, making people irreligious; that he is not enlightened.
It is surprising that a profoundly theistic person like Mahavira was declared atheist by caste-brahmins; they so loudly declared his atheism that in the traditional Indian texts, where philosophies are enumerated, Mahavira’s name is always counted among the nastika. Six darshanas are astika and three are nastika. Among the three are Charvaka, Mahavira’s Jainism, and Buddha’s Buddhism—three nastika; six astika.
It is a marvel that persons as supremely theistic as Mahavira and Buddha were taken as nastika—not because of what they said, but because of the damage they did to caste interests. Once you declare someone an atheist, people become blind; they stop listening. Say of anyone he is nastika and people become afraid.
As today, say of someone he is a communist—and people think there is no need to hear him. Even communists hesitate to declare themselves communists. Exactly two and a half thousand years ago “nastika” was an even more dangerous word. And to count Mahavira with Charvaka is absurd—where Charvaka teaches only eating, drinking, and making merry; denies God, Atman, any ultimate life—nothing but matter; to place Mahavira or Buddha with him is injustice.
But the brahmins committed this injustice—not because Mahavira was nastika, but because he made the definition of brahmin so great that it became clear to all brahmins that none of them is a brahmin. This definition must be dropped. He snatched away their brahminhood. He drew such a long line for the brahmin that beneath it the brahmin seemed petty—his word should not be heard.
There is mention in scriptures that if a brahmin is walking on the road and a mad elephant comes, and a Jain temple is nearby, it is better to die under the elephant’s feet than to take refuge in a Jain temple—for some nastika utterance may enter the ear.
But do not think only Hindus did this. Jains too later did exactly this. They too wrote in their scriptures that if a Jain, near a Hindu temple, faces a mad elephant, it is better to die under its feet than to take refuge in the Hindu temple; for there false gods are worshiped and false scriptures read.
It is amusing: Mahavira said no one is a brahmin by birth—but all Jains are Jains by birth! Mahavira never defined “Jain”—for there were none then. He defined brahmin. Now a tirthankara is needed to define “Jain.” Who is Jain? The word “Jain” is more precious than “brahmin,” not less.
Brahmin comes from “Brahman”—one becoming available to Brahman. Jain comes from “Jin”—one who becomes a conqueror of himself; who has totally conquered himself is Jina; the one walking on the path of conquering is Jain. But by being born in a Jain house does one walk on the path?
By birth nothing is attained—bone, flesh, marrow is attained; that has nothing to do with religion. Religion has to be attained—whether you become brahmin or Jain—by tireless effort, tireless sadhana, fruits of efforts over lives. Jinhood or brahminhood is an attainment; it does not come with birth; it is earned by oneself.
Let us pause five minutes, sing the kirtan, and then depart…!