Mahaveer Vani #53

Dispassion from sensual enjoyment is an absolutely indispensable step on Mahavira’s path of sadhana. Kama-vritti means: I am moving out of myself. Kama-vritti means: my happiness depends on someone else. Kama-vritti means: I am not sufficient unto myself; someone else is necessary to complete me.
Clearly, a person surrounded by kama-vritti can never be free. As long as the other is the cause of my happiness, the other will also be the cause of my misery. And as long as the other is the cause of my life, I am not free.
So long as we continue to depend on the other, there can be no touch of freedom. Therefore kama-vritti is the fundamental bondage. And the one who becomes disenchanted with kama-vritti inevitably begins to turn back toward himself. But why do people fail to become disenchanted with kama-vritti? A glimpse of happiness appears—happiness never arrives; suffering comes in plenty. And yet in the hope of happiness one goes on enduring.
This must be seen a little rightly, carefully—why do we endure so much pain in life? In hope: today happiness did not come, tomorrow it will; happiness did not come from this person, it will come from another; happiness did not come from this relationship, it will come from another. But that happiness could come from the other—this is our accepted notion. And this very notion is the most dangerous of all.
Happiness, if it could come, has never come to anyone from another. In history there has never been such an event—that someone became happy through another. Yes, the one who binds his hope to happiness-from-another certainly becomes very miserable. And yet the hope remains bound. We keep gazing, peering into the future.
Until this hope breaks through the experience of life, dispassion is not born. And when we hope to gain happiness from the other, then naturally whatever happens in our life we go on holding the other responsible for it. Thus no contact is established with the inner current of one’s own life. And only that contact can bring revolution.
Whether comfort or discomfort, joy or sorrow—we keep our eyes always on the other. These eyes fixed on the other are kama-vritti. If someone keeps his eyes fixed even on Paramatma in expectation that from Him happiness will come, bliss will come, Mahavira will say, that too is kama-vritti; that too is only a divine form of desire—but desire it is.
This ordinary bondage of the mind must be searched out within one’s own experience of life. Whenever anything happens, you immediately hold the other responsible.
I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin’s wife went to her lawyer. She said, now enough is enough; it is impossible to bear any further. Please arrange a divorce.
The lawyer asked, what has happened? She said, Mulla Nasruddin is unfaithful. He has deceived me. Surely he has relations with other women. I can no longer bear it.
The lawyer asked: any proof? Because proof will be needed. How did you come to know—some clear evidence, some witness?
His wife said: there is no need of any witness. I am pretty sure that he is not the father of my child.
But such is our mind—we always hold the other responsible. We make the other like a screen, and whatever is within us we project upon it, we go on throwing it upon the screen. Slowly, slowly the projector ceases to be seen…
When you sit in a cinema hall you never look back, where the real film is running; you go on looking at the screen where only the shadow falls. The projector is fixed behind your back—from where the film comes; from where the rays of light come; but the image appears on the screen. You go on looking there. The screen becomes everything—though it is not the source.
Every other person with whom we relate functions as a screen. The impulses arise from within and we cast them upon that person. Therefore those who are near to us become screens for us. And then we completely forget that something is happening within us which appears in them—appears in their eyes, in their faces, in their behavior.
This whole world is a screen and all relations are screens, and the projector is our own mind. And if upon this screen we try to make some change it is impossible. If any change is to be made, the projector behind must be changed—the very source.
The search for dharma begins only when I forget the screen and start looking at that from where the source of my life is; from where all impulses arise and flare. The moment it becomes visible to me that I alone am responsible; I alone am producing happiness and misery; my relationships too are arising from within me—the other is only an excuse—just so, one begins to rise above kama-vritti.
But there is a little difficulty in grasping the mathematics of life. You love a woman and receive misery; there is quarrel, conflict.
There is an old story in the Bible—there are two stories in the Bible—one you have heard, the other is not commonly circulated; it has been forgotten.
One story is that God created Adam, and along with Adam He created a woman named Lilith. He made both alike, equal. He had hardly finished when the quarrel started between them. The quarrel was: who will lie on top, who below. Lilith said: I am your equal. God created me also, and out of the same dust of the earth He created you. And He breathed breath into my life; and He breathed breath into yours; we both are the creation of One and are made of the same dust and the same life-breath. Therefore there is no above or below.
The quarrel increased so much that there remained no way to settle it. Then Lilith prayed to God: dissolve me into Yourself. Lilith dissolved. Then the second story: the man again became alone, and even in aloneness restlessness started arising in him.
Man’s great difficulty is: he cannot remain alone, and he cannot remain with someone either. Alone, it appears as if there is nothing in life; and with someone, life gets filled with quarrel.
Seeing him alone, sad, troubled, God again made a woman. But this time from one of his spare parts—from one of his own bones—He made the woman, Eve. This second woman God made number two, secondary, so that there would not be quarrel.
These two tales are very delightful. The first story has been forgotten; the second continues. God must have thought that now quarrel will not happen, because the woman is made from man’s own bone. But in quarrel this makes no difference.
In truth, whenever we depend on the other, quarrel has already begun; and the other has come to depend on us. And with the one upon whom we depend, there will be restlessness, pain—because our freedom is being lost; our soul is being lost.
All relationships mutilate the soul. As soon as we relate, our privacy, our very own being—to be myself—begins to be destroyed. The other enters. The other will also begin his work. He will want me to be such and such. And I too will want the other to be such and such. The quarrel has begun.
According to the biblical tale, for the last five thousand years in the relation between Adam and his woman Adam was the owner and woman the slave. That Adam-and-Eve story continued. But now, in the West, Eve has begun to become Lilith. Now she is asking for equal rights. The first story will become important in the coming century.
Women in the West are claiming even this much—which is very important, and right—claims of equality… But as soon as equality stands up, quarrel does not decrease; it increases. Women think that if equality happens, quarrel will lessen.
In truth, whenever two persons relate and depend upon each other, and each tries to change the other according to himself, there will be quarrel—because one person is entering the soul of the other and attempting to manufacture slavery.
In the West, a woman who was leading a group—police attacked that group, and a woman near her was injured and began to weep—so this leader said, Don’t be afraid, God is seeing everything. And she will do justice. God sees all—but “she” will do.
Women in the West have even stopped calling God “He,” because it indicates male. Paramatma too is feminine. And men have done injustice till now by calling Him male.
At the farthest limit in the West quarrel has come to stand, where the family is about to be completely broken. But even if the family is completely broken, quarrel does not end—quarrel only spreads; instead of with one woman, it begins to happen with many women.
Why is there quarrel within relationship? This needs a little understanding. And however we fashion relationship, quarrel will be. What is Mahavira’s formula for going beyond this quarrel?
Mahavira says: quarrel is not because of the other; quarrel is because of my own desire. If such a relationship could be, where both persons are not filled with kama-vritti, then quarrel will bid farewell. If even a little kama-vritti remains, quarrel will continue.
The man who is trying to get happiness or unhappiness from the other, the woman who is trying to get happiness or unhappiness from the other—they are descending into suffering, into pain, into hell. Because Mahavira says, and all the wise agree, that the source of bliss is within. To keep your eyes on the other is illusion; to spread the begging bowl there is futile; neither has anything ever been received from there, nor can it be.
We even experience this. But when we get suffering from one woman, from one man, we think: this woman is wrong, this man is wrong. So vast is the earth—surely there will be some right man, some right woman; if I relate with them, this pain will not be.
This is the whole mathematics of error. And however many women we go on changing, the earth is large; however many men we go on changing—the earth is large. Women will always remain over, men will always remain over; and the illusion will persist that perhaps there could have been some man, some woman, with whom my relationship would become heaven!
That has never happened. That will never happen. But there is a device for hope. And that hope goes on misleading. Until this hope breaks; until the experience of one woman becomes the experience of woman-ness itself; until the experience of one man becomes the experience of man-ness itself; until the futility of one relationship renders all relationships futile—till then no one rises above kama-vritti.
We never arrive at a complete experience. We cannot even make a complete experience. Even science—which tries to discover universal laws—cannot complete experience. And the doubts that people raise can be raised.
David Hume—there was a very precious thinker in England—he raised doubts about science. Hume says: Science says, heat water anywhere, at a hundred degrees water will turn to vapor. But Hume says: Have you vaporized all the water and seen? Have you vaporized all the water of the world? Then don’t be hasty! Somewhere such water might be found which does not vaporize at a hundred degrees. This is not a scientific declaration. The amount of water you have vaporized—about that water you may say it vaporizes at a hundred degrees; but the remaining water is vast. Any declaration of yours concerning that water is unscientific.
He speaks rightly. Even science has no capacity to first vaporize all the water. The experiment can be repeated ten or fifty thousand times, and then science assumes this is beyond doubt—since everywhere water will follow the same law. The nature of water is grasped through a hundred experiments. Now there is no need to vaporize all the water. But in logic Hume is right. Exactly the same problem is of the human mind.
The experience of one woman is the experience of the feminine principle. But we believe this is only the experience of one person—a particular woman. Wrong notion! Each individual woman is just such a symbol of the feminine as a drop of water is a symbol of all the water in existence; one man is a symbol of the masculine principle. The distances, the differences, are secondary; the fundamental is present in every man.
And as the nature of one man behaves, so do all men behave. The differences in them are in the details, in the extensions—some river’s water a little blue, some a bit muddy, some a little green, some a little clear—differences in the details. These make no difference to water boiling at a hundred degrees.
One woman’s nose is a little long, another’s a little short; one woman a little fair, another a little dark—it makes no difference. One woman is born in a Hindu home, another in a Muslim home—that too makes no difference. Her fundamental condition—womanliness—is just as it is for all the water of the world. One drop gives the news; but we, after lifetimes of many drops, still do not arrive at the conclusion—because all the world’s water keeps remaining.
Mahavira says: the person who takes one experience so deeply and makes it universal—spreads it over the whole of life—that one will become free of kama-vritti; otherwise, women will always remain, men will always remain, relationships will always remain; hope will continue.
As science, after a few experiences, determines a universal law, so too does dharma determine, after a few experiences, a universal law. I have closely studied I know not how many people. All differences are superficial; within, there is not the slightest difference. All differences are of garments, shall we say—of language, behavior, conduct—everything above. For each person is born in a different way, in a different arrangement—different rules, norms, society—all differences are on the surface. Just enter a little beneath the skin—there the same water is flowing.
If one experience is taken rightly, we can arrive at this understanding that there is no need to wander in many experiences. But even if one wishes to wander in many experiences, someday he will have to accept as a rule: enough experiences have been gathered, now I will draw a conclusion. The day one thinks: enough experiences—now I will draw some conclusion—that day revolution begins in life.
Mulla Nasruddin had grown quite old. He and his wife stood in court. The magistrate said: You’ve outdone yourself, Nasruddin! At this age you’ve decided to divorce?
Nasruddin said: What has age to do with it?
The magistrate asked: How old are you?
Nasruddin said: Ninety-four. And he asked the wife, who, shyly, said: Eighty-four.
The magistrate became a little uneasy. He asked Nasruddin: And how long have you been married?
Nasruddin said: Some sixty-seven years!
The magistrate was filled with disbelief. He said: Nearly seventy years married, and now you want to divorce? After living together seventy years!
Nasruddin said: Your Honor, whichever way you look, enough is enough. Now—enough is enough. And enough is enough!
In your life you go on repeating things almost in a refrain, and “enough is enough” never arrives. Such an experience never occurs—now it is enough. And for the person to whom such an experience occurs, the first ray of dispassion descends into life.
Mahavira says: “When the seeker becomes disenchanted with all the sensual enjoyments relating to gods and men, then he leaves all worldly relations, inner and outer.”
“He becomes disenchanted.” Dispassion cannot be a program. By effort you cannot become dispassionate. Only the maturity of experience can bring dispassion. You cannot be dispassionate in the raw. You cannot by fleeing life, by escape, become dispassionate. By thinking so, by reading Mahavira, by listening to the wise—you cannot become dispassionate. That is not enough. It must tally with your experience.
The wise have been saying—and they go on saying—but it makes no difference to you. Yes, some of you, ununderstanding, sometimes, without ripening, without drawing dispassion from the experience of life—affected by someone’s discourse, ideas, arguments—take sannyas. Their sannyas is raw. And their sannyas will never become liberation. The very foundation of their sannyas is wrong. They have not become sannyasin by being disenchanted with life; they have become sannyasin by becoming attached to the sadhu.
Understand this rightly.
A sadhu has great impact. Sainthood has its own magnetism. There is no greater magnet in the world. If Mahavira stands before you, you will become a sadhu.
But beware: Is this sainthood arising out of your own experience, or out of Mahavira’s attraction—his powerful attraction? If this sainthood is arising out of Mahavira’s powerful attraction, you will have to impose dispassion on yourself. What is natural for Mahavira will be effort for us.
The natural leads to moksha; effort leads nowhere. Effort leads only to the false. Whatever we have to impose again and again by effort becomes untrue. Our whole life has become false like this—by effort upon effort.
The mother says: I am your mother—love me. The son, by effort, loves. The father says: I am your father—love me. The son, by effort, loves. The day the flower of love blooms in his life, it will be spontaneous. For now, it is all effort. And the danger is that, through this effort, he will become so overlaid that the flower of spontaneous love may never bloom in his life.
In this world, out of thousands, only one person perhaps attains to love; nine hundred ninety-nine are lost. Their seeds never sprout—because before the seed could shoot, things were loaded upon it by force; and they began to strive for those. Then striving becomes so deep that spontaneity has no chance to be born.
There is an opposition between the spontaneous and striving. One dispassion is that which arises from your experience—from the profound experience of life’s suffering, from the deep experience of life’s pain, from the realization of life’s futility—clear within your own life and awareness. Mahavira’s words and Buddha’s words can work as witnesses, as confirmations to your experience—then it is fine; that what you have known in your life, their words make it clear: Life is futile.
This realization was yours first; Mahavira is only a witness—understand this difference rightly. He is simply a witness. His saying deepens only your own knowing. Then the dispassion that will bloom in you will be unforced, spontaneous. Its fragrance is different. But if Mahavira enchants you—his bliss, his peace, the way he rises and sits, his mesmerizing, magical presence enchants you—then in that attachment if you become disenchanted with the world, you will break off raw, and you will wander badly; because there is no ground beneath your feet. And this dispassion is false. In truth this is only a new kind of attachment: attachment to the guru, attachment to the knower—attachment to Tirthankara, Prophet, Avatar.
And remember, no woman can attract a man, no man can attract a woman, the way a Tirthankara attracts people. Not that he wants to—his very being, his presence, begins to pull you like a magnet.
The person who becomes religious influenced by someone loses the opportunity to become religious. Great awareness is needed. And when the chance to pass close to Tirthankaras and Prophets comes, then great awareness is needed; great caution is needed. Otherwise, out of the ditch and into the pit—no difference remains. Delusion catches hold in a new way; attachment takes hold in a new way.
If in your experience such a line has arisen that life is only suffering…
Many feel that life is suffering. But from their feeling dispassion does not arise. Why? You too often feel life is suffering—but it does not seem that suffering is the very nature of life. It seems to you: I have failed, that is why there is suffering; that the right family did not happen, the right place, the right time, the right support, companions, lovers—because I failed, therefore life is suffering.
It does not seem to you that life is suffering. Your own failure seems—because other people’s lives appear happy. It is very amusing that except oneself, everyone else’s life appears happy to people. And this is so for all. Except oneself, people seem happy—how they smile, sing on the roads, delighted! Only I am miserable. But this is the feeling of everyone.
There are many who consider you happy. Many are jealous of you. Jealousy would not arise if it were realized that all are miserable. Someone is miserable in poverty, someone in wealth. Someone is miserable in success, someone in failure—but there is no difference in misery; people are miserable.
Life is suffering—the person is not the question. If you feel, “I am miserable,” then you cannot be dispassionate—you will search for a new life. That is what we have been doing for lifetimes. You will search for such a life where success comes—wealth, prosperity, fame, position, prestige. This time I missed; no harm—next time I won’t.
Life is not futile, only one life is futile—but we set out in search of another life. The formula of rebirth is only this: our vasana does not leave life. When one life becomes futile it grasps another; when the second becomes futile it grasps a third. The chain is endless.
When Mahavira says life is futile—or Buddha says life is suffering—he does not mean your life is suffering. He is saying: the nature of life, the very mode of being of life, is pain. When this becomes clear, then the dispassion that arises breaks all worldly relations within and without.
Here, another delightful point must be understood. Mahavira does not say “leaves the relatives,” he says “leaves the relation.” This is subtle, delicate.
If I have a wife, then when dispassion arises in me I will leave the wife—this is very secondary, obvious, gross. But Mahavira does not say “leaves the relatives,” Mahavira says “leaves the relation.”
Relation is a very different matter. The wife may remain there, and I may go a thousand miles away—yet there is no meaning in saying the relation is broken. Relation is very elastic—infinitely elastic. If the wife is ten thousand miles away, then to ten thousand miles my relation will stretch. The thread will remain. To break that is difficult.
Send the wife to the moon—no difference; from here to the moon the thread of relation will stretch. It is not a physical phenomenon to be obstructed. It is a mental phenomenon. Perhaps, if the wife is far, the relation may become even more.
Often it happens thus. If you wish to fall in love with your wife again, it becomes necessary to send her to her mother’s home. A little distance—and the juice returns. A little distance—and longing arises. When a person is far, his faults stop appearing and his virtues come to mind. When the person is near, the faults appear and the virtues are forgotten.
A little distance is needed. Great distance sometimes becomes favorable. Mahavira says: not the relative, the relation drops. That thread of relation which was issuing from within me falls. The wife will be in her place; I will be in mine. No need to run away from home either; but from between us that madness of “husband and wife” will depart. That notion of possession will fall. That arrangement of exploiting the other will break. The feeling that happiness or misery is got from the other will drop. For the first time the wife will become a person—and I too, for the first time, will become a person—between whom there is open sky, no relation; between whom there are no chains of relationship; who are two private individuals, perfectly free.
When two persons become perfectly free, then the questions of leaving or holding do not remain at all. Then it is not necessary that I must stay with the wife, nor that I must leave her. Either event may happen. Janaka stays at home; Mahavira leaves home. This will depend on individuals. But it must be understood a little.
For the attached, this is very hard to understand. The attached can only do two things: either he stays near whom he is attached to, or if he becomes disenchanted, he goes far from that person.
That one to whom we are attached—we want to stay near him twenty-four hours, not leave him even for a moment. And often we ruin our love by this alone. Because if you stay twenty-four hours with someone, the joy of being with them is lost. And if you stay twenty-four hours with someone, nothing remains except quarrel and pain.
But attachment has a nature—that to whom we are attached, we want to stay near twenty-four hours, not a moment apart. And that which we call dispassion—if it becomes towards someone, meaning attachment turns upside down—then we do not want to be near even for a moment. We want to move away.
The dispassion that wants to move away is the reverse of attachment. It is not real dispassion. Because the same rule is working: near to what we want, away from what we don’t want. But desire and its reverse are no different.
Dispassion means: neither does being near make any difference now, nor does being far. If we are near—fine; if far—fine. When far, there is no longing; when near, no juice. Neither in distance is there any juice now, nor in nearness. Then you have gone beyond relation. If in being far there is still juice, attachment is present—only inverted.
So Buddha has said: To be near the beloved brings pleasure; to be far from the un-beloved also brings pleasure—but in both cases happiness comes from the other. If the beloved goes far, he gives sorrow; if the un-beloved comes near, he gives sorrow—but in both cases sorrow comes from the other.
“Beloved” is also a relation; “un-beloved” is also a relation. Dispassion does not mean the birth of the un-beloved; because the un-beloved too is a relation. Dispassion means: relation itself no longer remains; dependence no longer remains—whether near or far, it is the same. When near or not near, not the slightest difference remains—then one has gone beyond relation. Now the other is no longer of value. Now I am valuable for myself; the other is valuable for himself. The other’s soul is free, my soul is free. When such two freedoms are born, the slavery between them drops. Mahavira says: all worldly relations, inner and outer, are dropped.
Remember, you are not only bound to those with whom you are near—you are also bound to those with whom you are not near. That film actress whom you have seen on the screen, in picture—you are bound to her as well. No meeting, no acquaintance; never seen—only a picture—and you are bound to her too. You dream of her—you are bound there too.
So not only the outer relations are binding—those among whom you sit, the child who is yours, the wife who is yours, the husband who is yours, the father-mother—not only to them are you bound. Perhaps you do not even remember them.
It is difficult to find such a husband to whom the wife appears in a dream! If you find one, let me know. The wife hardly appears in a dream. The husband also does not appear. Dreams come of those whose vasana is unfulfilled. The meaning of dream is precisely an unfulfilled desire. The one whom we cannot attain, dreams of that arise. The one who has been attained—there is no question of dreaming. One whose stomach is full does not dream of food at night. A hungry man dreams of food. The lack, the absence, produces the dream.
So those who are near you grossly, with whom you are tied—perhaps there is not much tie with them. But with those to whom you are not tied, your dreams are tied—inner bondage.
One family appears around you outwardly, which exists in fact. And one family is of your mind, which you have created—what you wish would have been; what belongs to your desire; what will never be fulfilled—because once fulfilled, it will no longer be the family of your desire. Once fulfilled, you will begin to build another family around. So there is a net of outer relations, and there is a net of inner relations.
Byron was an English poet—many women were mad for him. When Byron was banished from England, many women committed suicide who had never even seen him—had seen his picture, or perhaps once from a distance in a poetry gathering from the crowd. For their nearest husbands they would not have committed suicide. But for this man there was no gross relation of any kind—yet there were nets of mind. Byron did not even know the address of those who killed themselves for him. Those who can give their very lives must have had very deep inner relations—their dreams would have been saturated with Byron.
There are outer relations; there are inner relations. You can run away from outer relations—very easy. Running away from home is not a great obstacle. But from inner relations—where will you run? Until dispassion arises, one cannot run away from inner relations. Therefore people become sadhus, sit in forests—but the household of the mind continues—and in truth, spreads; grows larger; becomes more juicy.
To the half-fled, incomplete sadhu, the world appears more juicy than to the householder ever. Try leaving for a few days—move away from the world for a few days—and you will find juice begins to appear in all things.
Mulla Nasruddin used to go to the mountains sometimes for solitude. At times he would tell his employer, I will return after fifteen days—and come back in five; and sometimes say, I will return in five—and return in fifteen. So his employer asked one day: What is the matter? You ask for fifteen days’ leave, then why return in five? Having set out for fifteen, what is your arithmetic?
Nasruddin said: That is a little inner mathematics—you may not understand. I have a small cottage on the mountain, and I have kept an old, ugly woman to care for it. And this is my mathematics: she is so ugly that one cannot feel like sitting near her—teeth poking out, a bag of bones, very old, ill-formed. This is my rule: when I go to the mountain—one day, two days, three, four, five—slowly, slowly even in that woman I begin to see beauty. The day that woman starts looking beautiful to me, I run away. I understand—solitude is over; now it is dangerous to remain here.
Sometimes that happens in fifteen days, sometimes in five. So that is my inner arithmetic. That woman is my thermometer. As soon as I begin to feel—even in this woman juice is arising for me—I flee. Because now it’s too much! Now staying is not free of danger. And now I am no longer desiring solitude. So I come back.
If you pay attention to your inner world, you will understand. In the outer crowd you remain forgetful of the inner world—but it is there. It keeps working within you. And the inner world does not take just a little time. If a man lives sixty years, he sleeps twenty; twenty years he is in dreams. Twenty years is not a little time. In truth, in the forty waking years, how many people can he relate with and how much? Most of the time goes in earning food, building house, arranging things, going to the office and back. If we reckon rightly, in forty years he might get four years, with which he immerses in gross relations; but he immerses twenty years in his subtle relations—the net of dreams. That has deeper grip upon him and more time and opportunity.
And even while you are immersed in your gross relations, within you your subtle relations continue. Psychologists know, on the basis of thousands of events, that while the husband is making love to the wife, he is imagining a film actress; while the wife is making love to the husband, she is making love in her mind to someone else. And until in her mind the image of her lover or beloved arises, there is no juicy relation between husband and wife. Psychologists say—it is a very strange event: the outer relation appears very secondary; the inner relation appears very deep.
Mahavira says: When someone becomes dispassionate, the entire net of worldly relations, outer and inner, drops. Suddenly, as if the net which held the fish had fallen away, the fish is out of the net.
But as of now, we are so surrounded by sexual craving, so immersed in kama-vritti, that we cannot even think what taste a dispassionate person might have. A dispassionate person, we think, will become tasteless—because we know only one taste. Our condition is like that of a gutter-worm; it has taste only in the gutter. It cannot even conceive why the birds flying in the sky are wasting their lives! All the taste is in the gutter!
Mulla Nasruddin once went to a lecture. A scientist was speaking, explaining something about fish. He said: the female fish lays eggs, and then the male fish passes over those eggs and gives them the sperm, and the egg becomes alive.
Nasruddin became very restless. When the lecture ended, he went to the scientist and asked: Do you mean fish do not have intercourse?
The scientist said: You have understood exactly. The female lays the eggs; the male comes and fertilizes them. There is no intercourse.
Nasruddin thought for a while—then his face brightened. He said: Now I understand why people call fishes “poor fish.” Now I understand!
The one sunk in sex thinks the whole of life is poor and mean if there is no sexual craving. Then no meaning appears in life. Because we are weighing all things from only one place.
So we cannot even imagine what Mahavira’s bliss might be. There is a bliss that depends on no one, is beholden to no one, asks of no one, and spreads no begging bowl before anyone.
There is also a joy of diving into oneself. Of that we have no news; nor can there be any news—until our attachment is purified into pure pain, and it becomes visible that whatever we are doing is all suffering. And this realization becomes so dense that the realization itself lifts us up.
And if for even a single moment we experience the purity of our own being—where no other was present, not even in imagination; we were alone—total loneliness; if for even one moment the inner aloneness is experienced, then you have known the open sky. Then you will not agree to return to the prison of sexual craving.
Mahavira says: “When the seeker becomes dispassionate, then he leaves all worldly relations within and without.”
“When all worldly relations, inner and outer, are left, then, initiated, one attains the complete anagara-vritti.”
And until there is dispassion, there is no way of diksha. Because diksha means: initiation into the Vast. As long as you are fettered by the world, there can be no relation with the guru; there is nothing to do with the guru; even if you go to the guru, you go for the sake of the world.
Therefore, the guru who appears to increase your world—who gives you assurance, gives you confidence—a great crowd gathers around him. If, around someone like Sathya Sai Baba, lakhs of people gather, the total reason is only this: from Sathya Sai Baba there is no hope of dispassion; there is a possibility of thickening the net of your attachments. One wants a son, another wants disease removed, another wants wealth, another a long life, another to win a lawsuit—all those people gather.
Wherever you see a very great crowd around a sadhu, understand that surely the event of the world is happening there. Otherwise, a sadhu cannot have a great crowd; it is difficult. In this vast world there are very few who are dispassionate. Only they can be near the sadhu—the chosen few. It is the matter of very selected people. Coming to the guru is the matter of very few—one in a million!
But to the guru around whom all but one of the million assemble—understand that there the guru is not valuable; the desires of that crowd are valuable. Such a large crowd is not dispassionate—else this world would be different. Such a large crowd is deeply attached—anyone who offers support to its attachment…
Friends come to me—good, well-wishing, loving—they say to me: how long will you go on speaking to a few? Why don’t you show some miracle so that millions come?
But the millions who come because of miracle—I can have no relation with them; I have nothing to do with them. They are not coming for me. They are coming afflicted by some other desire. Their initiation, their diksha, cannot happen. The crowd cannot be initiated. Only the very chosen—whose life’s experience has ripened, who have known through their experience that all we are doing is futile; who see that where we are, there is futility—only they strive to set out on that journey where the birth of the meaningful becomes possible.
Diksha means, initiation means: this world has become futile—into what dimension should our consciousness enter now? Such people search for the door. Only then can the guru show the door to such people.
You go to the temple, you go to the guru—and you go to ask for something—you do not go to become something. You want to win a lawsuit; you got TB, cancer—let it be removed. Some part of your worldly life appears incomplete—you want the guru to complete it. And the guru who completes your worldly part—or gives the deception of doing so—he is not your friend, he is your enemy! Because he is pushing you back into the same world. From which perhaps cancer could have made you bored—his miracle turns you back. Where perhaps TB could have told you the body is futile and rotten; it is proper to go beyond it—his miracle sends you back into the body.
Miracle-mongering gurus do not lead toward dharma—they are agents of the world. But there is a convenience: a mutual arrangement. Because the larger the crowd, the more the guru’s ego gets satisfied. He feels I am something. And to gather a crowd—only by miracles do crowds gather.
No one has use for knowledge; no one has relation with a mahatma—there is demand for a street-performer. And when, in the guise of a mahatma, a street-performer appears, your soul feels great gratification. Because hope arises that what we have not been able to do—perhaps by the grace of this man it will be done.
There is not a single politician in Delhi who does not go and sit at the feet of some mahatma. And those who have been defeated in politics—inevitably you will find them at the mahatma’s place. They are preparing for the next election—through the mahatma—hope! And the mahatma is saying, Don’t be afraid—everything will happen. It is not necessary that the mahatma do anything. When it is said “it will all happen”—say this to a hundred people—fifty will indeed have it happen. Even if you had not said so, it would have happened!
This business of the mahatma is like what they say in England: If you treat a cold, it gets well in seven days; and if you don’t treat it, it gets well in one week.
It gets well in a week anyhow. The question is not whether you treat or not. If a hundred sick come to me and I say: My blessings—go—you will be well—fifty will be. I have nothing to do with it. Even if they had gone nowhere, they would have been.
In life a man falls ill thousands of times before he dies. No one is seen dying in the first disease. On those thousands of illnesses from which you recover—mahatmas live.
When people fight in court, someone wins anyway. And often it happens that both parties reach the same mahatma. And he blesses both!
One of my friends is an astrologer. When Subba Rao stood for the presidency, my friend went to both Subba Rao and Zakir Hussain. And he told Zakir Hussain: Your victory is assured—this is clear in astrology. He told Subba Rao too: Your victory is assured—this is clear in astrology. And he got both of them to give it to him in writing that “I am making this prediction.”
Subba Rao lost—his writing was torn and thrown away. Then my friend went to Zakir Hussain and said, Look! And Zakir Hussain said: Your prediction has proved absolutely true—you are a great astrologer! He wrote a certificate, took a photograph with him. Now Subba Rao will not go around looking for him. The loser does not bother.
From that day he became a great astrologer. Ministers began to come to him. Because the man who can declare about the President—and he has a certificate, a photo—proof. But no one knows the inner secret that he went and declared to both.
But the man full of desire—he seeks desire through dharma too. Such a person cannot be initiated. So Mahavira says: When all worldly relations, inner and outer, drop—then one can be initiated. And having been initiated, one attains completely the anagara-vritti.
Anagara-vritti means: In this world I have no home—I am a non-householder. This world is not home—such a disposition—this world is not the home. This world that appears—this is not home. Here I am homeless. My home is elsewhere. In some realm of consciousness my home is. And as long as I am searching and building a home here, I am wasting time. Here I am a foreigner. Here I am a stranger, an outsider. This is a journey, not a destination.
Mahavira says: When someone, as a complete seeker, is initiated through a guru—he knocks at that door from where the real home will open… But he can knock at that door only when anagara-vritti arises—when the notion of finding home in this world is lost. Those who seek a home in this world go on seeking a new body. They will be born and die—again born, again die—and continue to search for home.
There are two kinds of people in this world—those who seek home here, and those who do not seek home here. The one who does not seek home here has become anagara. And becoming anagara, this eligibility arises—to seek the other, the real home. That is within; it is not outside. There is no need to build it—it already is. It is the original spring and source of my life. There is no question of going anywhere to obtain it. It is ever present—only I must turn within.
Diksha means: that person, that guru who turns you within.
“When, being initiated, one attains the anagara-vritti, then the seeker touches the supreme sanvara and the unsurpassable dharma.”
One is the dharma we hear from scriptures, from true gurus—what is prevalent. That is ordinary dharma. And when someone, being initiated, goes within, he touches the anuttara dharma. Then he gets the news of real dharma. Understand it thus: this ordinary dharma which we see outside—the church, the temple, the gurdwara, the mosque, the Quran, the Bible, the Gita, the words of Mahavira and Buddha—true gurus who are saying, speaking—however right, still they are not the original—they are a little away from the source, second-hand.
And whatever is second-hand—say what you will—cannot bring revolution into life. Do not try to persuade yourself with it. There are people who persuade themselves.
A friend came to me and said: I have purchased a brand new second-hand car.
Brand new second-hand car! How can a second-hand car be brand new!
But however much you understand Mahavira’s words, however much you drink Krishna—they are second-hand. They do not connect you with real dharma. You get news of real dharma—but the relation does not happen. From the side of real dharma a challenge, an invitation, is received—but the relation does not happen. The journey will have to be made.
So Mahavira says: When someone, initiated, enters within, then the anuttara dharma—pure, real, original, one’s own dharma—is experienced.
“When the seeker touches the supreme sanvara and the anuttara dharma, then from the inner self the karma-filth born of the blackness of ignorance falls away.”
“When from the inner self the karma-filth born of the blackness of ignorance falls away, then the all-pervading, kevalajnana and kevaladarsana are attained.”
Understand this a little.
This is the vision of Mahavira and of all the knowers—that your inner self is pure knowing—pure knowing. If you do not come to know of that pure knowing, the reason is that around you is a thick web of karmas. As a lamp is lit, and on the glass soot has gathered—the light does not come out; the room remains dark. The lamp is lit—and the room is dark. But the cause of darkness is not that there is no flame within. The total cause of darkness is merely this—that between the light and its emergence there are obstacles.
So dharma is only the name for removing obstacles. Within, the flame is lit; if only the obstacles fall away. That soot, that kohl which has gathered on the lantern’s glass—if it is wiped, the light will be revealed. Light is to be begged from no one—you are born with it; it is what you are. It is your nature.
Therefore Mahavira says: When someone is touched by the anuttara dharma, when the nature of inner privacy is understood, when the reality of the inner life is realized, when the inner touch and taste are found—then the blackness of karma all around falls away. It was there only because we had no taste of the inner—therefore the hankering for outer taste. For that we had manufactured the great web of karmas. It was there only because the inner bliss was unknown—therefore there was a race for outer happiness. In that race we erected great walls. For that race we gathered great materials and means. Those very means and materials surrounded us and we were shut within in darkness. No light was visible—though the light was ever within.
This inner light—Mahavira says—when the karma-filth has fallen, then the all-pervading kevalajnana and kevaladarsana are attained. Then the light that goes to all directions becomes available. Then no direction remains dark. Then no corner remains filled with ignorance. Then life is entirely luminous. Then the whole of life becomes a sun.
Mahavira is not saying this on the basis of some theory. Mahavira is not a philosopher. This is not his hypothesis, no conjecture. Mahavira says this from his own experience. He is a traveler who has gone by the same path by which you are going. But he is such a traveler who has reached the destination and who tells those behind him: On the journey upon which you have set out, do not keep going in circles—else you will never arrive; you will go on going. Catch the straight line. And he gives the formulae to catch the straight line. And the destination is not far.
If the circle of attachment breaks, the destination is very near. And if the circle of attachment does not break, then the destination—near though it is—becomes very far.
Understand it thus: In this room we draw a circular line and you go on walking within it—go on walking. You have to go out of the room, and you go on walking, go on walking—and someone tells you: However much you walk, this way you will never reach anywhere. But you say: By walking a man reaches. If I cannot reach, it means I am not walking properly. That man will tell you: Walk properly—even so, by the line you are walking, you will not reach. You will not understand. You will say: It may be that even by walking properly I do not reach, because the speed of my gait is slow. Then I should run. If I run I will surely reach—because whatever the destination, however far—by running it is obtained. The man will say: Even if you run, you will not reach; you will only fall exhausted. Because the circle in which you are walking does not go out. Leave this circle, look at the door—and attempt to go out through the door. Then you will not need to walk much—the door is very near.
Many times your circle goes near the door. Very near the door—but you turn within your circle. How many times your attachment does not bring you near dispassion; how many times your life does not bring you near suicide! How many times the world does not begin to seem futile—but even as it is about to become futile you turn back. And a new attachment and the circle is constructed again. The door comes near many times—but slips away.
This will go on happening. Therefore Mahavira calls only the dispassionate the one for whom the door can open. Attachment that has become futile through experience—that is dispassion. One who has become dispassionate will now seek a new door. In this world there is no home—that one becomes anagara, homeless. Now he will search for the real home. This search can become diksha.
Those who have found that home—who have entered it—now he will try to understand their voice, their hints.
And the person who is initiated begins to experience the anuttara dharma. Mahavira defines dharma as “svabhava”—nature. Just as—Mahavira says—the nature of fire is heat, and the nature of water is to flow downward, exactly so the nature of each Atman is—knowing, awareness, Buddhahood.
As soon as one turns within, the rays of this knowing surround him. And the experience of these rays—the anuttara dharma—is the never-before-known dharma. Others have known—it is new for you. It is an original event. And now it is no longer borrowed. Now you need not search in the Gita, Quran, Bible. Now you have found that which Jesus knew, which Krishna knew, which Mohammed knew. Now you stand where those who spoke stood—and by their speaking, secondary, second-value scriptures were created.
Mahavira says: Shastra is an echo, not the original. And when someone enters within, he enters the original. From this person echoes will arise—they will become scriptures. And those who take echoes to be everything—living by that alone—go astray.
The search for the original is essential. Reading the Gita, one should search where Krishna stood. Listening to Mahavira, there is no need to accept like a blind man. One must search where Mahavira was. Listening to Mohammed, nothing will happen by becoming Muslim—one must become Mohammed.
There are many Muslims in the world, many Jainas, many Hindus, many Christians—and nothing comes of it. Listening to Christ and becoming Christian is a deception; one must become Christ. Then anuttara dharma will be available. But no one wants to become Christ. Becoming Christian is convenient—because in becoming Christian, all responsibility is on Christ; we are only following. If we go astray, you are responsible.
And a Christian has great conveniences—nothing in life needs to be changed. A Christian does not even need to accept Christ. Where does a Jaina need to accept Mahavira! Only so much is needed—to say we accept. And nothing else is needed. Not a grain need be accepted.
Bertrand Russell has written: then Bevin was the Prime Minister of England. Bevin was a devout Christian. Russell wrote in jest: Bevin is a devout Christian—every Sunday he is present in church—even after becoming Prime Minister. Every day he reads the Bible and goes to sleep. But remember—don’t go and slap Bevin on the cheek. Though Jesus has said: If someone slaps you, turn the other cheek. Bevin will not do it—then you will be in confusion.
He is joking. He is saying: What will happen by going to church? What will happen by reading the Bible? If you slap Bevin, you will be in trouble. He will not give you the other cheek.
To be Christ is one thing, to be Christian is another. To be Christian is perhaps to deceive oneself, self-delusion. If there is indeed love for Mahavira, one should try to be a Jina, not a Jaina. If there is indeed love for Mahavira, one should strive to reach where Mahavira is.
Mahavira says: The one who touches the inner dharma—his karmic filth falls away. Nothing needs to be done. As if here a light is lit—the darkness will be gone. Likewise, as soon as the inner light is lit, the whole darkness of life falls away. The disturbances we had nurtured in darkness—those too fall away. The fears, the attachments, the delusions constructed because of darkness—by the falling of darkness, they vanish.
As if there is darkness in this room—and you fear that perhaps someone is hiding in the room—there is fear. Or you think: my beloved may be in this room—so in darkness you are searching, groping with great relish. Then the light is turned on—no one is there. Then fear is gone, love is gone, and darkness too is gone. Living in darkness, the worldly relations we have made are like this. The day the inner light happens—darkness goes; the net of relations and karma too falls away.
Mahavira says: That day the light which illuminates all directions is born. That is the state of the Siddha. Mahavira has called it kevalajnana. It is the experience of the ultimate nirvana, the supremely free consciousness—where only knowing remains. Where only light remains. Nothing remains even to be illuminated—only pure light remains. And to infinite dimensions the light spreads—for which no obstacle remains. An unobstructed ocean of light.
But the journey begins with dispassion and ends on the ocean of unobstructed light.
He who is raw in dispassion will never reach here. One whose first step has gone astray—he will not reach the destination. And the one who goes on carrying borrowed dharma will also never reach truth. Dharma is the echo of the knowers. But our condition is very strange.
I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin was sitting in the waiting room of a railway station. His friend Pandit Ram Sharan Das was sitting near him reading a newspaper. Nasruddin said: Panditji, don’t you have a paper?
Without lifting his eyes, he pulled out a paper from his pocket and gave it to Nasruddin.
After a while Nasruddin said: Panditji, don’t you have a pen?
He took out a pen from his pocket and gave it to him.
Nasruddin wrote something; then said: Envelope?
Pandit Ram Sharan Das, angry, opened his diary, took out an envelope and gave it. He put the letter in the envelope; then said: Stamp?
He, in anger, opened his diary and gave the stamp. He pasted the stamp. Then he said: Panditji, what is the address of your girlfriend?
He is writing a letter. The paper borrowed, the pen borrowed, the envelope borrowed, the stamp borrowed. Even up to here—it is still all right. But even the beloved is not his—to whom he is writing! She too is the pandit’s beloved! And he is asking the address of the pandit’s beloved.
Almost our entire life is such borrowedness.
Even when we write to God, that God is Shankara’s, Nagarjuna’s, Vasubandhu’s. When we try to write to moksha—that moksha is Mahavira’s, Buddha’s. When we seek some news of Brahman—that Brahman is Krishna’s!
Always someone else’s!
If even the beloved is not one’s own—the letter is futile. If Paramatma is not one’s own, all prayers are futile. The one who remembers this—today or tomorrow—escapes from borrowing, and begins to search for his own, personal Paramatma. And the day the search is one’s own, its joy is different. Because only then does the unveiling begin! The journey begins from darkness to light, from death to immortality.
Pause for five minutes—let us sing kirtan…!