Mahaveer Vani #48

Life is possible in two ways: one for the body, and one for the self. Those who live only for the body have no destiny other than death. Those who begin to live for the self attain to the immortal.

Man is a meeting of death and deathlessness. The body is mortal. What is hidden in the body is immortal. If the body becomes everything, the foundation of life itself, then we only die—we do not live. Until that which is hidden in the body—the invisible, consciousness, Atman, Paramatman, whatever name we give—until that becomes the foundation of our life, we remain deprived of knowing true life.

The life of the body is the life of the senses. It is not easy to see; even to remember it is difficult, because we are so drowned in it that we lack the distance required to see. Perspective is needed, space is needed—and we do not have it. Most people surrender their lives to the pleasures of the senses. At the altar of the senses their lives are destroyed.

I have heard: In ancient Greece, at dining tables, beside the plates, feathers of birds were also kept. If the food delighted you too much, you could pick up a feather, tickle the throat to vomit, and then start eating again.

About Emperor Nero it is said he ate at least twenty times a day. To eat twenty times, it is necessary to vomit after each meal so that the food does not enter the body and hunger remains. He kept two physicians always with him—for the sole purpose of inducing vomiting.

A life only for taste. And for that taste, even willing to suffer. Twenty times vomit, twenty times eat—as if the entire life has become one single occupation. As if man were only a machine into which food is to be fed. And as if all of man’s joy were reduced to taste.

Nero seems an exaggeration, but we are not very different. Perhaps we do not eat twenty times, but we desire twenty times. The desire that lives in us, Nero made it real—this is the only difference. Many people think of food all twenty-four hours. Thinking of food is also a kind of eating, because in thinking too your life, your energy, your vitality are being burned away.

Some live only for sex; as if life has but one goal—that somehow the body taste the pleasure of sex; to be drowned for a moment in a kind of stupor. Then their mind goes on brooding over it day and night. Then their poetry, their novels, their films, their music, their dance—everything becomes saturated with sex.

If we look rightly at modern life, and rightly analyze the modern mind, it seems man is on the earth only so that, somehow, in sexual excitement he may be consumed. And this madness goes so far that even those things which have no relation to sex we connect with sex.

Look at newspapers. Look at advertisements. To sell even things that have no connection to sex, they are tethered to sex-symbols. What relation does a car have with sex? But place a beautiful, naked woman beside it and the advertisement becomes more effective. People do not buy the car—as if they purchase that naked woman standing beside it.

You want to sell a cigarette—anything at all—the entire planning is based on one assumption: perhaps man’s mind is influenced only by sex, by nothing else. So whatever we link with sex will sell.

Almost ninety percent of people are ruined in the enjoyment of sex. And there are ten percent who are ruined in fighting sex. Their whole life becomes the opposite of the hedonist: they fight day and night so that sex does not seize the mind. But remember, both circle around sex and perish; both keep their eyes fixed on sex.

So it is with all our senses. Someone is devoted to the ear—listening to music he passes his life away. Someone is addicted to touch, another to smell—somewhere around some sense we take our stand. And whichever sense becomes predominant in our life, that becomes the cause of the soul’s murder.

What is hidden within the body has no senses. The senses belong to the body. And senses can be useful—but only for the wise. The senses can be servants, they must be servants; that is their purpose. Even this body can become a ladder to reach that which is bodiless. Until one makes the body a ladder, a means to go beyond, to rise above, one remains a fool, ignorant.

Man is in the body, but he is not the body; he resides in the body, yet he is different from it. Until the experience of that difference happens, there is no taste of bliss. Through the senses a small taste of pleasure is possible—but as much pleasure as you purchase, in the same measure you purchase pain. With every sense, pleasure and pain are joined in equal proportion. Pain is the price one pays for the pleasure of the senses. But we are ready to pay the pain, living in the hope that these bubbles of fleeting pleasure might someday stay. They are water-bubbles—before you can touch, they vanish. And our whole experience says no pleasure remains, yet we keep struggling for pleasures that do not remain. And in this very struggle, death catches us—we are finished.

Religion begins in the consciousness of the person who starts seeing that what he is chasing are water-bubbles; even if he attains them, nothing is gained; and the moment he attains, the bubble bursts and brings sorrow; and if he fails to attain, there is anguish.

When someone watches these bubbles from the shore—unconcerned—and lets them pass; neither trying to grasp them nor worrying when they burst; he distances himself from them—that person is the bhikshu. But till our dying breath, like children... small children run after butterflies. The old laugh at them, “What are you running after butterflies for!” But the old too run after butterflies—only the butterflies change. They have their own butterflies; children have theirs; the young have theirs. Everyone keeps chasing the colors that glitter in light—chasing rainbows. Even at the last moment the chase does not end.

I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin’s daughter had grown older—thirty—and no husband was to be found. They had searched and searched; the parents had become anxious; the years were slipping by; now there was doubt whether marriage would be possible at all.

In worry for her daughter, Nasruddin’s wife could not sleep. One day she thought to put a notice in the newspaper. She composed a very beautiful advertisement: “For a very beautiful young woman, who has ample dowry, a brave young man is needed. An extremely brave man, for the girl is fond of mountaineering. Only one courageous enough for such a beautiful and daring girl should apply.”

For three days mother and daughter waited for a letter. None came, so the mother grew anxious. On the third day one letter arrived. The mother came running out, but by then the girl had taken and hidden it. The mother said, “I must see it—whose letter is this?” The girl said, “Better you don’t.” The mother insisted, “The idea was mine—the advertisement—so I insist.” She stood her ground. The girl said, “If you won’t listen, then see it.”

The letter was from Nasruddin. Because the advertisement had no address—care of the newspaper—Nasruddin had applied himself.

An old man stands exactly where the young stand. No difference. Not a bit. The old mind carries the same desires, the same lusts, the same cravings.

Till the last, man goes on living only in the body; therefore death is so painful. There is nothing painful in death; there cannot be—for death is supreme rest. There is no possibility of pain in death. Yet pain is felt. Once in a million, someone enters death joyously. Almost all enter in suffering.

But the cause is not death. The cause is our union with the senses. The cause is our passions. As death approaches, we are torn from the senses. That consciousness—stuck, glued, bound—has to break. It is the breaking that feels painful. And now, there is no way to fulfill desires. The senses are slipping. The hands and feet grow limp. The body breaks.

The sorrow is that no desire was fulfilled and death arrived—the sorrow is not of death. Therefore those who go beyond desires, who break their ties with the senses before death breaks them—these are the bhikshus. And they die in bliss.

It is a strange thing: only one who can die blissfully can live blissfully. And one who dies in sorrow has lived in sorrow. For death is the ultimate flowering of life; the essence, the attar of your whole life. However many flowers have bloomed, all their fragrance gathers at the moment of death.

If death is great sorrow, then the whole life was a long journey of sorrow. To make death supreme bliss—that is the search of the religious man. And the paradox is this: the one whose death becomes supreme bliss, over his whole life spreads the shadow and music of bliss.

You fear death. The cause of fear is simply this: you have not known life yet. The day you know life, death is a friend.

Death does not destroy life; it only separates life from the body. In death there is no basis to destroy life. Death merely takes away from you what you had made the only life. As if someone were looking at the sky through a hole in the wall and knew not that outside he could see and live the whole sky. If we pull him from his hole, he cries, “Do not snatch my sky, I will die. This is my life, my liberation, my joy—the sun rises, the birds fly, the flowers bloom—and through this hole I see.” He will weep and shout. He does not know we are taking him beneath the whole sky, where like flowers he himself may bloom; where like birds he may take wing; where like the sun he too may glow. But he has taken the hole to be the sky. And one who sits forever by the hole—his illusion is natural.

Our senses are little apertures toward life. What is the eye? A small hole in the body for that which is hidden within, by which we can look out. What is the ear? A small hole by which outer sound can enter within. The senses are holes—and we have taken those holes to be life itself.

Death separates us from the holes. We become miserable because everything seems snatched away. Nothing is being snatched. If we recognize the indweller within, death is only separating us from littleness. Therefore one who begins to recognize the indweller—his death becomes liberation. As is our life, so is his death—a release.

I have heard: One day Nasruddin was telling his friends exaggerated tales of hunting. At one point he reached the final limit: “I had gone to Africa, only for hunting. It was a moonlit night. Without a gun I wandered outside the hut. Suddenly a ferocious lion came under a tree. He must have been ten feet away...”

His friends held their breath.

“No gun in my hand,” said Nasruddin, “and the lion, ten paces away, ready.”

A friend asked, “Then what happened?”

Nasruddin said, “To make the story short—the lion attacked, and finished me.” The friend said, “Nasruddin, do you mean the lion killed you? But you are alive, sitting just before me—and sound and well. What do you mean, the lion finished you?”

Nasruddin said, “Yes—do you call this being alive?”

What we call life—even we can hardly call it life. Whether a lion finished you or not, you have finished yourself. Your being is like ash, not like a live ember; you are quenched, somehow existing. If there were a minimal way of living—like the lamp when the oil is gone and the wick alone burns—such a pale, yellow light is our life.

There was a very revolutionary woman in Germany, Rosa Luxemburg. In her memoirs she writes: “I want to live the way one lights a torch at both ends—if only for a moment, I want to flare forth—maximum, the very peak, the intensity of life—so that I may have the vision of life. This minimum way of living gives only the taste of ash.”

Feel your tongue—life has become the taste of ash; nothing seems to happen; we drag ourselves along. Nasruddin is right to ask: “Do you call this life?”

But how did life become ash? Every child is born like a burning coal. Life gleams in him with depth and density. Every child is born with the full capacity to taste life to its very last, deepest depth. Where is all that lost—and why, at the last moment of death, do we die already extinguished? And we call this the progress of life!

This is decline, degeneration. Children are far more alive than the old. It should be otherwise—if a man has lived rightly, what Mahavira calls right life, then in old age life should be at its full bloom. So much experience, so much fire, so many paths trodden, so many experiments—life would be refined, purified like pure gold. The old man would be utterly pure. But the old man is already dead before dying.

We are all afraid of old age. Somewhere a fundamental mistake is being made. And it is this: where the source of life is, there we do not seek life; and where there are only apertures of experience, there we grope for life.

Not in the senses—but in that which is behind the senses—there life can be found. Yet two easy options seduce you: either go on indulging the senses, or, when tired and troubled, begin to fight the senses. In both cases you miss the goal. Neither the indulger attains it, nor the fighter. Only the one who awakens within attains. The indulger is entangled in the senses; the fighter is entangled in the senses.

Whether worldly or renunciate, householder or sadhu—you keep struggling with the senses in both cases. You think of taste all day long; and the sadhu spends the day trying that the thought of taste may not arise. But the great irony is: whatever you try to forget, you cannot forget. Forgetting is a subtle art of remembering. In truth, if you decide to remember someone you might forget, but if you decide to forget someone, you cannot forget.

Try it. Try to forget someone and you will find that every effort to forget becomes remembrance—because to forget you must remember.

So perhaps the householder does not think as much about food as the sadhu does. He is busy trying to forget. The hedonist may not think about man-woman as much as the sadhu does. He is busy trying to forget. Both suffer from the same disease—pierced by apertures. And the current of attention does not flow toward the owner within. The body is a mechanism—and a very precious mechanism. Till now, on this earth no more precious machine has been made. Someday it may be.

I have heard this: The nineteenth century ended; the twentieth ended; the twenty-first neared its close. In these three centuries, computers developed and developed. It is told that at the beginning of the twenty-first century such an immense computer was created that all the world’s scientists gathered for its inauguration, because it was the greatest achievement of human technology. This computer—there is no question it cannot answer. No problem it cannot solve in an instant—what the human mind might solve in thousands of years, it would solve in a moment.

Naturally, the scientists gathered. The inauguration was to be done by asking a question. Two thousand scientists pondered what to ask. Every question seemed petty, because it would answer in a flash. They wanted a question that could put the machine into worry, if only for a moment. But no question came, because the scientists knew there was no question the machine could not answer. Meanwhile the sweeper, tired of waiting, stepped up and asked, “Is there a God?”

The machine came alive—lights flashed, relays clicked, things shifted within—and then came the voice: “Now there is—because the machine now says: I am. Now there is!”

The scientists were troubled. “What do you mean—‘now there is’?” The machine replied, “Before me, there was no God.”

Man’s mechanism is still the supreme one. But even a machine, in the twenty-first century, could feel “I am God.” If intelligence evolves so much, then even in it life could be infused. And you have been living in such a mechanism for who knows how many births—where intelligence is already infused. Yet you have not realized that God is.

People keep asking, “Where is God?” And God is hidden within them. The one who asks is God—the very stream of consciousness. But our gaze is not turned that way. Our current flows outward, toward others, not toward ourselves. When the current turns toward itself, sannyas bears fruit.

Let us understand Mahavira’s sutra.

In this sutra many precious things are said with great simplicity.

“One who calmly endures abusive words that prick the ears like thorns, blows, and undeserved reproaches (contempt or insult); who remains fearless even in places of boisterous laughter and roaring tumult; who bears pleasure and pain with equal mind—that one is a bhikshu.”

All the words are straightforward, comprehensible. But much is hidden within them that does not arise at first glance.

Ordinarily it is thought that if someone we abuse can endure it calmly—he is a very peaceful man, a good man. It is not only this. Even a self-serving man can do that; even a crafty man; even a person with a little intelligence, who does not want unnecessary trouble in life, can do it.

Mahavira does not stop there. He says: even if words that burn like fire surround you; insults and contempt pierce the chest like flaming arrows—remain calm. But calmness here is not for the sake of calmness. The point is: do not give value to the other.

We give value to words in the same measure that we give value to the person. Understand this a little. If a friend abuses you it hurts more. If an enemy abuses you, not so much. The abuse is the same, but the one who hurls it matters—because from an enemy you expect it, from a friend you do not. It is the value of the giver that stings.

If a drunkard steps on your foot, it doesn’t hurt much—you understand he is unconscious. If a sober man steps on your foot, a quarrel begins.

If a child insults you, it hardly hurts; if an old man does, it hurts—because we can forgive the child, but it is difficult to forgive the elder.

What hurts us depends on the value we give to the one who insults. Everything depends on that value.

Because the other has value, insult hurts; because the other has value, respect feels good. When the other has no value at all, one becomes a sannyasin.

Then if the other respects—fine; if he insults—fine. That is his affair; I have nothing to do with it. I have withdrawn all valuation from the other. The other is other. If abuse pours out of him, it is an inner event of his. It concerns me not. If a thorn grows on a tree, that is the tree’s inner affair; I do not get angry. Shall I be angry that the acacia has thorns?

When you pass by the acacia you never think the thorns were grown for you. It is the acacia’s nature. And when a rose blossoms on a rosebush, there is no reason to think it blossoms for you. It is the rose’s nature.

Mahavira says: whatever the other does is the arrangement of his inner world. If abuse comes from his life, it is a thorn within him. If praise comes, it is his inner flower. Why are you disturbed? It is a coincidence you passed near the acacia’s thorns, a coincidence that you walked by as the rose was in bloom.

Understand this a little more, because those who abuse you—if you had not met them, the psychologists say—they would still have abused someone else. He could not have been spared from abusing. Abuse was gathering within. Insult was piling up within. You are not the cause—you are merely the occasion; any X, Y, Z could have been the peg.

Check your own experience and you will see. Sometimes you are sitting and anger is boiling. A small child is playing with his toy; you begin scolding him. The child is not the cause. He played yesterday too, the day before too—every day he plays the same. But the day before, anger was not boiling, so you smiled; his noise seemed delightful, his dance made you happy—the house felt alive. Today the same dancing and jumping inflames your anger. His play becomes the pretext. The child becomes the target of your anger.

And small children never understand why anger bursts upon them without cause. They are not yet so related to others; they still live in themselves. Hence they are bewildered: without cause, the parents erupt.

If the child is not found, you will fall upon your wife. If nobody is there, you may even fall upon inanimate things—you slam the newspaper down with an abuse; you yank the radio knob so hard it breaks.

On days when women are angry, more dishes break at home. It is economical: better a plate breaks than the husband’s head. The woman herself cannot believe she dropped it—she too thinks it slipped. But it never slipped before. If you keep a ledger of your anger and of the breaking of utensils, soon a pattern emerges: when anger is high, the hands wish to let go—unconsciously. No one is doing it deliberately; the loss is one’s own.

Psychologists say that about fifty percent of road accidents are caused not by cars but by anger. In anger one presses the accelerator; he enjoys pressing—pressing anything—the accelerator will do. An angry man drives fast. In anger he wants to rush anywhere—speed.

So of the accidents on the roads, fifty percent happen due to anger. And they are not few. In one year of the Second World War as many people died as in two years of car accidents—every year. Great wars no longer “count.” No matter how great a war, you cannot kill as many as people kill on the roads.

Who are these people? Notice: when you are angry you blow the horn harder; you press the accelerator; you race the car. The man ahead seems to crawl—let everyone get out of the way so you can go at full speed.

This anger has nothing to do with the accelerator. If the accelerator had consciousness like you, it would complain too: “Why are you troubling me?” It would be miserable.

Mahavira says: each person lives by his inner destiny. Whatever comes out of him comes from within him. It concerns him; it does not concern you.

You can remain calm. If this is understood, you will not need to try to be calm. If you try to be calm, that very effort is restlessness. Someone abuses you, you explain to yourself, you restrain yourself, you suppress yourself—you are already disturbed. Only, your disturbance will not spill upon the one who abused you; it will spill elsewhere. Until it spills, it will weigh upon you.

What is the pleasure of anger? What do you gain? Only this: the heaviness, the fever, the swell that anger brings—when it vents, it is relieved.

In Japan—and Japan is skillful in matters of the mind—after the last great war, in big factories they kept effigies of the manager and the owner. If any worker feels angry, he can go and beat them. There is a room in every big factory where effigies of the owner, the manager, the officers are kept. Anger comes—people go, take a stick, beat them, shower abuses—then come out light and smiling.

People burn effigies when they are angry. Sometimes for thousands of years—on Holi we still burn Holika. Ancient anger—thousands of years old—and still we feel relief. On Holi people feel lighter than on any other occasion. Holi is a day of relief—anger, abuse—whatever you want to let out, you let out. For one day everything is permitted. No morality, no religion. No Mahavira, no Buddha to interfere. For that day you are absolutely free. You can say and do what you had wanted to for years.

Very understanding people must have invented Holi—who know that man needs a drain to let out dirty water. Nowadays many “wise” people advise: this is wrong, on Holi behave nicely; don’t abuse; do bhajan-kirtan. They are foolish. They know nothing of man.

Holi makes man light. As long as man is as he is, Holi will be needed. The day man becomes like Buddha, like Mahavira, Holi will fall away. Before that, to discard Holi is dangerous. In fact, seeing man as he is, there should be a Holi every month. One day each month, every rule should be suspended so that whatever has accumulated, whatever pus has formed in the wounds, may be discharged.

A strange thing: on Holi, if someone abuses you, you know he is only venting himself. On a non-Holi day, if he abuses, you think he abuses you. Mahavira says: even that day he is venting his own abuse. Holi or non-Holi makes no difference.

Whatever we do comes from within us. The other is only a peg on which we hang it. If this is realized, a peace arises in life that is not born of effort; a peace that is not dead, not repression—but living.

Mulla Nasruddin was on trial for striking his wife on the head with an axe; the wife died. The magistrate asked, “Nasruddin, you keep saying you are a man of peace, a lover of peace.”

Nasruddin said, “Certainly I am a pacifist. And when the axe fell on my wife’s head, such peace descended on my house as I had never seen before. The peace of that moment—I had never seen.”

You can experience peace by killing everyone around you—that is what you do. You suppress the wife, the son; you abuse the servant; you break the vessels—what are you doing? You are bringing peace through the medium of death. That peace is hollow, dead. And it will not last long, because in that peace the seeds of turmoil are hidden; what you do to others they will do to you. It is only a postponement of conflict. Turmoil is germinating within that peace. There is another peace—not by bringing death around you but by awakening life within you. And when life awakens within, one sees that nobody has any business with me at all.

Remember, it is our ego too which makes us think everyone is tied to us—the one who abuses is abusing me; the one who praises is praising me. We all assume as if we are the center of the universe and everything revolves around us. If someone laughs on the road, we think he laughs at us. If someone whispers, surely they are talking about me—as if I alone exist and all others exist for me.

No one has any business with you. Even if people whisper, their reasons are their own. If someone laughs, his reasons are his own. Do not put yourself in the middle.

But you cannot resist. You thrust yourself into the center everywhere. Until you are in the middle, you cannot rest.

A guest came to Nasruddin’s house—a wealthy, cultured man. He knew that in Nasruddin’s village there was a custom that the head of the family sits at the head of the table. That custom is never broken.

He was cultured, but because the guest was rich and important, Nasruddin said, “Please sit here, at the head.” The guest said, “No, forgive me, Nasruddin, that cannot be. The village custom is proper: you are the head of the house; you sit there.”

He would not agree; Nasruddin grew angry: “What do you think? Wherever Nasruddin sits, that is the head of the table. You sit there, it makes no difference. Wherever I sit, the head sits.”

Once, in Nasruddin’s village, a debate was arranged. All the pundits and learned men gathered. They did not invite Nasruddin—lest he create some mischief. But he heard and came. The hall was full; the dais was full; leaders were seated; someone was already the chairman.

Nasruddin sat where the shoes were kept and began telling stories quietly. People became curious. They turned their backs to the dais and listened to him. Slowly half the hall turned toward him. Finally the chairman said, “Nasruddin, why are you creating disorder?”

Nasruddin said, “I am not. I am the president—I am always the president. Wherever I am, it makes no difference. You run your meeting; I am the chairman. I have no other place. Wherever I sit, it is the head.”

You too carry within the idea that the sun, moon and stars revolve around you. Hence when scientists first discovered that the earth is not the center of the universe, man’s ego was deeply wounded. Man insisted it could not be—sun, moon, stars must circle the earth. The earth is central to all.

But when it was proven that the earth is not central, that rather than the sun going around the earth, the earth goes around the sun—man’s ego suffered a blow; for upon this earth man lives, therefore all should circle him.

Bernard Shaw used to say: “The scientists must be mistaken. It cannot be that the earth circles the sun—the sun must circle the earth.” Once, while he was speaking, someone stood and said, “Bernard Shaw, you speak nonsense. It has been proven. Why say this? What proof do you have that the sun circles the earth?”

Shaw said, “What need of proof? The earth on which Bernard Shaw lives—the sun will circle it. It cannot be otherwise.” He was being satirical; he made deep jests.

Man always assumes himself to be the center.

The bhikshu is one who has dropped the idea of being the center. He has broken the notion that “I am the center of the world; the whole world is moving in my praise or anger or neglect or love or hate. The whole world looks at me; whatever is being done is done for me.” One who has dropped this can endure insult—and he will not have to endure. “Endure” is not the right word; insult will not touch him. He remains untouched. To endure means it touched and you steadied yourself. No, you will not even need to steady yourself—the insult will not reach you; it will fall far away. Insult reaches us only because we expected honor. No expectation of honor, no fear of insult; no longing for praise, no worry about blame. We do not attribute value to the other. Whatever the other does is his inner current and karma; and whatever I do is my inner current and my karma.

If this is grasped rightly, a further great result follows: when I am about to abuse, I will understand that I am wanting to abuse—no fault of the other. And when I am about to praise, I will understand that songs of praise are rising within me—the other is merely the occasion. Then blame and praise both will fall away. Then one comes into direct contact with the stream of one’s own life. Then one does not wander, entangled in others. Then whatever is to be done or not done—the final decider is I. That which brings me bliss increases on its own; that which brings me misery falls away—because apart from me there is no master. I am the only lord.

So when Mahavira says, “One who calmly endures abusive words that prick the ears like thorns, blows, and undeserved reproaches...”—

He adds a fine condition: “undeserved reproaches.” If someone abuses you unjustly, endure it calmly. But sometimes the abuse may be true. Someone calls you a thief—and you are a thief. Mahavira says: endure calmly the undeserved reproach; but when the reproach is deserved, do not merely endure—reflect. Another has given you an opportunity to examine your current. Someone calls you a thief.

We are in a strange state: if someone hurls abuses that do not apply to us, we may ignore them; but if someone tells the truth about us, it becomes very hard to ignore. Truth hurts more than untruth. So if someone says “thief” and you are deeply disturbed, your disturbance is giving news—you are a thief. If you were not, such disturbance could not arise; you might even laugh, “Some mistake has been made.” Only when the finger touches the wound do you become agitated. When it does not, you are not.

I have heard: Abraham Lincoln criticized an opposing leader—harshly. That leader wrote to Lincoln: “Stop speaking untruth about me—otherwise it will not be proper.” Lincoln replied, “Think again. If you want me to stop speaking untruth about you, I will have to start speaking truth about you. Choose between the two.” The man panicked; he sent back: “Keep speaking untruth. Truth is more dangerous.”

Bernard Shaw wrote in his memoirs: “Nothing hurts more than speaking exact truth about someone. Truth creates a wound which untruth never does. Untruth is sweet—a pleasing ointment. Truth hurts.”

So when you become excessively disturbed by insult, sit silently and consider: surely the truth has been touched. Even then, do not concern yourself with the other; examine your own within. And if there are such truths in you—like wounds that ache when touched—do not blame the other for touching. Heal your wounds, erase them, and arrive at that place where whatever anyone says cannot touch you.

Life is an inner creation—an inner creativity. But we miss the opportunity. If someone abuses us, our attention gets fixated on the abuser. We forget ourselves. We start to find fault in him. In the very moment of abuse, we should search within. If the abuse is untrue—there is no reason to be disturbed. If it is true—then turn to introspection, inner inquiry, inner churning: what should I do to change within? That should be our attention.

It is not necessary that if you change people will stop abusing. Not necessary that if your wounds are healed people will not insult you. The possibility is the opposite: the less you are affected, the more people will try to hurt you—because people enjoy affecting you. If someone abuses and you are unmoved, he will hurl a heavier abuse. You have frustrated him—if he cannot control you, you have grown strong; he has grown weak—he will seek heavier words.

When one truly becomes a sadhu, the whole society presses from all sides, trying to force him back: “Drop this saintliness—come stand where we stand.” Troubles increase. Mahavira has said: the trials of the sadhu deepen—because from whose control he slips, they redouble their efforts to control him.

Among the Jews there is an old saying: whenever a Tirthankara or prophet is born, people first abuse him and slander him. If he falls into slander—it is very difficult not to—then people forget him, because he has become like them. But if he goes beyond slander, they begin to ignore him.

Remember, neglect hurts more than abuse—you may not know this. Neglect—indifference—people behave as if he does not exist. They pass by him as if they did not see him.

Consider: if people neglect you, you will prefer that they abuse you—that is better; at least they pay attention. That is why people become eager to commit crime. Those who cannot become leaders become goons. There is not much difference between goons and leaders. No qualitative difference—only direction. If goons find the right chance, they become leaders; if leaders do not, they become goons.

Both are two sides of the same coin. The leader too is sick for attention—the more people look at him, the more his ego is gratified. The goon is sick with the same disease. But finding no way, if he does nothing, people neglect him. Then he begins to do evil. Evil must be noticed—neglect becomes impossible. The court, the police, the newspapers—all must attend to him. He feels gratified: “I am someone.” Criminals confess they are satisfied when their names appear in the papers, when people discuss them. Then they feel they exist.

Neglect is the hardest thing to bear.

The Jews say: first the prophet is slandered; when he passes beyond slander, people neglect him—“Nothing special, no need to bother.” When he passes beyond neglect—which is very hard—then people begin to revere him. Those whom they slandered and neglected for long—those alone they later worship.

Mahavira says: one who endures all such outer happenings as if they have no relation to him—calmly...

“Who remains fearless even in places of boisterous laughter and roaring tumult...”

Mahavira emphasizes abhay—fearlessness. He says: one who has not mastered fearlessness will remain afraid of death. All fear at its root is fear of death. Whatever seems to annihilate us frightens us; whatever seems to support us we cling to and insist on keeping.

Mahavira says: the birth of fearlessness is essential. Whatever the situation—storm or thunder, darkness or solitude—where death might occur at any moment—there too one who remains still, silent, unmoving, unshaken... Why?

Because if in such moments you remain unshaken, your connection with the senses breaks and the connection with the soul is joined. If you tremble, the connection with the soul breaks and the senses take over.

Understand this sutra well.

Unshakability is the nature of the soul. Therefore whenever you are unshaken, you are linked to the soul. Trembling is the nature of the senses. The more you tremble, the more you are tied to the senses. The more unshaken and fearless you become, the more you join to the soul.

Unshakability—Krishna has said—is like a lamp in a windless place—its flame does not flicker. So is the soul—unflickering.

Seek occasions where fear surrounds you and you remain inwardly silent and unshaken. It will be difficult. At first fear will make you tremble. But watch even that trembling.

You sit alone in the wilderness; a lion roars—the chest pounds; the blood races; the breath is arrested. Watch all this peacefully. Do not bother about the lion. Watch whatever happens around the flame of awareness. Keep only one remembrance: let the heart pound—let it; let the breath run fast—let it; let gooseflesh rise—let it; let sweat flow—let it; but within I will remain silent, still. Within, I will not move.

One who catches this unmoving within—slowly the current of consciousness turns away from the senses and enters the experience of the soul. Only when such moments arrive will you be able to remain unshaken in death—otherwise impossible.

I have heard: a Zen monk was near death. He told his disciples, “Listen, I am near death. By sunset I will leave the body. Give me your advice—some unique way, as none has ever died before. Since I must die, let me have a little fun in dying.”

The disciples began to beat their chests and weep. They thought the master had gone mad at the end. One said, “Stand up—no one is known to die standing.” He said, “No, my master told me once a fakir died standing—this will not do; it is already done.”

Someone in jest said, “Do a headstand.” Perhaps no one has ever died standing on his head.

The monk said, “This appeals.” He laughed and stood on his head. In the nearby monastery his elder sister was a nun. She heard that her brother was about to die and had stood on his head. She came, gave him a shove, “Stop this mischief—grown old and you still do not give up! Die straight, as one dies.”

The monk laughed and lay straight—and died, as if death were a play.

Those who can take death so lightly are those who have already mastered unshakability. Mahavira says: abhay—fearlessness.

“One who bears both pleasure and pain with equal mind—that one is a bhikshu.”

This needs to be understood. To bear pleasure and pain equally—as if pleasure too is a kind of pain, and pain is pain. If you have observed pleasure rightly, you will know it too is suffering.

Pleasure and pain are both excited states. In pleasure you are excited; sometimes people even die of pleasure. In pain you are excited. Both disturb the inner balance—the inner storm rises.

One storm you call good—because you take it to be pleasure. The other you call bad—because you take it to be pain. It is a matter of interpretation. Ask a scientist to examine the body in both states: he will say in both the body is disordered, aroused.

Sometimes pleasure can be so much that the heartbeat stops—you are finished. Pain we already know. But we have not examined pleasure: it too destroys health; peace is lost; balance is gone; the scales of consciousness tip. Mahavira says: bliss is the unexcited state of mind.

Pleasure is excitation; pain is excitation—and they are our interpretations. The same thing can be pain or pleasure—only a change of situation is needed.

I have heard: Nasruddin and his partner, Pandit Ramsharan Das, went into business. They bought many suits—very cheap. But they could not sell them; all the money got stuck. Worried and anxious, they wondered whether to give them away free—the storage rent was mounting. On a Monday evening, a buyer came. He became so excited seeing all the unsold suits that he said, “I’ll buy the lot, at whatever price you say! But one condition—wait three days. Today is Monday; Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday—till Thursday 5 p.m. I must ask my family—this is a partnership business. I will telegraph. If by five on Thursday an ‘I refuse’ telegram arrives, the deal is canceled; if no refusal comes, the deal is sealed. Keep the invoice ready; in two or four days I will take delivery.”

They were noosed. One day passed, then the next. Now Thursday approached. Four o’clock—still nothing. Breath was suspended: what if the telegram man knocks before five and says “Canceled.”

Half past four. A quarter to five—breathing became impossible. At exactly a quarter to five the telegram man knocked: “Telegram!”

Both stopped breathing. Somehow Nasruddin forced himself up—hands shaking, feet heavy, sweat pouring. The pandit sat with eyes closed, chanting Rama’s name.

Nasruddin opened the telegram with trembling hands, then shouted with joy, “Pandit Ramsharan Das! Your father has died—a good news!”

Even a father’s death can be “good news” in some moment—because the stock is sold!

What is pain, what is pleasure—depends on circumstance, interpretation. What is pleasure may appear pain; what is pain may appear pleasure. You embrace your beloved—how long will the happiness last? If the wife refuses to let go, after two, four, five minutes you will wriggle your neck to escape. If the hands become chains, what was soft as a flower becomes stone-like pain. This is what has happened in families—the embrace of a moment has become a chain. Now there is no way to be free.

Mahavira says: pleasure is a form of pain. It is a scientific insight. As we say heat and cold are not two different things—though they seem two to us. The scientist says: they are two degrees of the same temperature. Light and darkness are of a single continuum. The same thing appears as heat or cold depending on conditions. If you step out of an air-conditioned room, it feels hot; the one already outside is unaware of heat. If you enter from the sun into the cooled room, it feels so cool; the one sitting there does not notice. It is relative. Pleasure and pain are inner relative events.

Mahavira says: one who bears both with equanimity; who is not aroused by pain and not aroused by pleasure; who becomes the equal-minded witness of both—he is the bhikshu.

“One who truly restrains the hands, the feet, the speech and the senses; who remains ever absorbed in the spiritual; who settles himself well in Samadhi; who knows the essence of the sutra in full—only he is a bhikshu.”

A few points to note.

Certainly, as witnessing grows in life, restraint grows. Then the hand no longer moves without need; then the eyes no longer lift without need; life becomes judicious in every inch. You look only at what you intend to look at; you do only what you intend to do.

A man sat before Buddha, shaking the big toe of his foot. Buddha stopped speaking and said, “Friend, why does this toe shake?” The toe stopped at once. No effort to stop—awareness came. He himself became aware. He said, “Let it be—why pick on such trifles? It was shaking on its own; I had no idea.”

Buddha said, “Your toe—and you have no idea—and it goes on shaking? You are dangerous. Your hand might shake and you could cut someone’s head. Your toe—and you do not know—and it shakes—you are not the master. Gather awareness.”

Mahavira says: whose hands, feet, speech, senses have all become restrained; whose discrimination has handed over mastery of all things to the soul; now no sense can go its own way; not even a hair on your body can move without your consent...

Who is ever engaged in the spiritual; whose life, consciousness and energy ceaselessly seek only one thing: “Who am I?” Who, from every experience, strives to catch hold of the experiencer. Who, in every moment, turns from the outer to the inner. Who transforms every situation into an opportunity to remember himself. Who keeps coaxing the inner lamp that its flame not grow dim, and that however dark it may be outside, it not overshadow the inner light. Such a one Mahavira calls the bhikshu.

“One who settles himself in all ways in Samadhi; who knows the purport of the sutra—only he is a bhikshu.”

The word Samadhi is wondrous. We know the word samadhan—solution. Samadhi is the ultimate moment of samadhan. One who has found his solution in every way; in whose life there remains no problem, no question; who is in all ways established—samadhistha.

Consider this. We all go on asking. As much as we ask, so many answers we receive. But every answer produces new questions. For thousands of years man has been asking. No question has been finally answered. Every answer brings more questions; philosophy grows like a tree—question, answer, and from the answer a thousand questions.

Religion seeks Samadhi, not answers. The journey of religion is altogether different. Not to find answers to questions—but a state of consciousness in which questions drop. A question arises: who created the world? If you set out to find an answer, you can wander for lifetimes.

But the religious man—whom Mahavira calls the bhikshu—the sannyasin—does not ask, “Who created the world?” He says, “It is pointless. Whether someone created it or not—what is that to me? The real question is not who created the world. The real question is: how do I reach a state where no question arises; where my mind becomes waveless; where there is no problem.” This path is entirely different. If questions are to be dropped, meditation is needed. If answers are to be found, thinking is needed. By thinking, answers will come; from answers, new questions—and the net keeps spreading.

If questions are to be dropped, meditation is needed. A question arises—do not seek its answer; rather, stand in watchfulness before the question; remain inwardly present until the question dissolves, slips from the screen. Everything disappears—only keep the courage.

Think: you believe you know your father’s face. Until you look closely, you “know.” Close your eyes, a faint image will appear. Look intently—you will be in trouble: the face grows blurred. Your own father’s face—and it will not come into focus. Look more intently... the lines grow dim; the face begins to fade. Look yet more... keep looking... after a while the screen becomes empty—there is no father’s face.

If something is to be dissolved from the mind—attentive seeing is the art. To be attentive—utter attention on that one thing—and it will vanish.

Meditation is fire. It burns any thought. Try it and see. Take any thought—do not think about it; only look at it. Stand and watch, watch, watch. After a while, it will vanish—an empty space remains. That empty space is the solution. And when, by such art, moving on and on, one arrives at that space where questions no longer arise—only emptiness remains—one is established in Samadhi.

In that Samadhi the soul is known—because in that Samadhi the mind is no more. Mind is thought—when thought is gone; mind is question—when questions are gone; then there is no mind—aman, no-mind.

Kabir said: “The state of no-mind has arrived—now the nectar flows ceaselessly.” When the mind is no more, the state of aman arises. Mahavira calls this Samadhi.

To attain this Samadhi is the supreme aim of life. Only by attaining this does the flower of Paramatman bloom within you. Until that flower blossoms, there is no way for sorrow, excitation, restlessness, worry, anguish to disappear from life.

For that flower to bloom, this whole arrangement exists.

So Mahavira says: he alone is the bhikshu who is so calm that nothing outer relates to him; who is so fearless that nothing outer can shake him; and who is established in Samadhi—within whom even questions have ceased—that one is the bhikshu.

Pause for five minutes, sing the kirtan—and then go...!