Main Kahta Akhan Dekhi #1

First, when I say I am not influenced by Mahavira, Buddha, Christ or Jesus—what that means.

Religion has a peculiar quality: in one sense it is always old. In this sense—that the same realization has happened to innumerable people. No religious realization is such that someone could claim, “It is mine.” There are two reasons. First, the moment religious realization happens, the “mine” dissolves. So in this world one may claim “mine” about everything except religious realization. Only that realization falls outside the boundary of “mine,” because its indispensable condition is that the “mine” must disappear for it to happen at all. Therefore no person can call religious realization “mine.” Nor can anyone call a religious realization new, because truth is neither new nor old.

In this sense I take the names of Mahavira and Jesus, Krishna and Christ, and others too. They knew. But when I say I am not influenced by them, I mean that what I am saying I am not saying under their influence. I am saying it out of my own knowing. And if I also take their names, it is because what I know accords with what they knew; that is why I take them. For me the touchstone is my own experience. On that touchstone, I also find them true, so I take their names. They become witnesses. They are witnesses to my experience.

Yet, as I said, this realization cannot be called new—but in another sense it can be called absolutely new. This is the basic mystery and puzzle of religion. It is new because whenever it happens to anyone, for that person it is utterly new. It has never happened to him before. It may have happened to someone else—but what has that to do with him? For the one to whom it happens, it is new. So new that he cannot even compare it and say whether it ever happened before, or to anyone else. As far as his consciousness is concerned, this realization has happened for the very first time.

And the realization is so fresh and virgin that whenever it happens, it cannot even occur to one that it might be old. It is like a flower opening in the morning, dewdrops on its petals, just touched by the sun’s first ray—so fresh. One who sees such a flower for the first time cannot say it is old. Though every morning flowers have been budding and blooming, every morning sunshine and dew have encircled new blossoms, and every morning some eyes have seen them—still, for the one who sees this flower for the first time, it cannot seem old. It is so new that if he declares, “Truth is never old—ever fresh, utterly original,” he would not be wrong.

So we can call religion ancient, eternal, because truth is from the very beginning. And we can call it new, ever-new, because whenever truth is realized, to the one struck by it the taste is completely fresh and virgin. If anyone grasps only one of these two streams, he will never appear inconsistent. Say only that truth is eternal and never say that truth is new—you will find no difficulty or inconsistency. Or grasp only that truth is new and ever fresh...

Ask Gurdjieff and he will say: it is old, eternal. Ask Krishnamurti and he will say: it is new, absolutely new—nothing to do with the past; the old does not even exist. Both will sound perfectly consistent. The question you ask me could not be asked of Gurdjieff; neither could it be asked of Krishnamurti. But to me both are half-truths. A half-truth can always be consistent. The whole truth will always be inconsistent, because the whole has to include its opposite. In the partial we can leave the opposite out.

One man says, “Only light is truth,” and he makes darkness false. His denial does not eliminate darkness, but his statements become consistent—no puzzle remains. Another says, “Only darkness is; light is a deception.” He too has no difficulty.

The difficulty belongs to the one who says: both darkness and light are. And one who accepts both will also accept, at a deeper level, that both—darkness and light—are the two poles of one thing. Otherwise, how could darkness recede when light increases, if they were separate substances? How could darkness increase when light decreases, if both were different? But as you turn light up or down, darkness rises or falls. The meaning is clear: darkness is somehow a part of light, its other pole; touch one and the other is affected.

In trying to say the whole, I enter difficulties. So I say both at once: truth is eternal; to call it new is wrong. And yet I cannot stop there; I also want to say: truth is always new, calling it old is meaningless. Here I am trying to catch truth in its totality. And whenever truth is caught in its many-sidedness, opposing statements must be given together. Mahavira’s syadvada is exactly such a balance of contrary statements—simultaneously. What is said in the first proposition must be countered by its opposite in the second. Whatever remains un-included must also be encompassed. If it is left out, the truth will not be whole.

That is why truths that look very neat and tidy are incomplete. The complete truth has its compulsion—that is its beauty too, and its complexity. Its power is precisely that it can include its opposite. Untruth cannot include its opposite—this is delightful to see! Untruth can only live by standing against its opposite. Truth swallows even its contrary. In one sense, then, untruth is never very entangled; it is straight and clear. But truth will have tangles, because existence is tangled. Life as a whole is woven of opposites. Not a single thing in life is without its contrary. Our mind, our logic, however, is not woven of opposites. Logic is our effort to be consistent; existence is to be inconsistent. In existence, all inconsistencies stand together.

Birth is tied to death. In logic we cut out the opposite, therefore logic is neat. In logic we say: A is A; A is not B. We say: birth is birth, birth is not death. Death is death, death is not birth. We tidy it up, do the arithmetic—but we miss the secret of life.

Hence truth can never be caught by logic. Logic is the effort to be consistent; and truth is to be inconsistent. Without inconsistency there is no existence for truth. Whoever moves by logic reaches consistency, not truth. He will be unassailable—yet he will have missed what matters.

I am not logical, though I use logic constantly. I use it only to take you to a boundary and push you beyond it. If logic is not exhausted, how will you go past it? I climb by the ladder, but the point is to leave the ladder at a certain moment. I use logic so that the trans-logical may be glimpsed. I do not want to prove anything by logic; by logic I only want to disprove logic itself. Therefore my statements will be alogical, illogical. And I would say: wherever you find logic in my words, know that I am only using the method. Wherever logic appears, I am merely arranging the instruments, setting the stage. The music has not begun. Where the line of logic drops, my true song begins; there the instruments are tuned—and then the music starts.

But those who mistake the tuning for the music will be in trouble. They will say, “What is this? You were pounding the tabla with a hammer; why have you put the hammer down now?” The hammering was not tabla-playing. It was only to bring the tabla into a state where it could be played. Then the hammer is useless. Has any tabla ever been played with a hammer?

So for me logic is only preparation for the trans-logical. This creates another difficulty: the one who is persuaded by my logic will soon feel I am leading him into darkness. For as long as logic is visible, there is light, cleanliness; then he will feel I tempted him with light and now I am speaking of slipping into the dark. He will be annoyed: “Up to here it was fine; beyond this we cannot go. Now you speak of the illogical, and we had placed our trust in logic.” And the one who is enamored of the illogical will not walk with me either, because he will say, “You are talking logic—we will not go with you.” Both will be in difficulty: the logical will walk a little and then refuse; the illogical will not walk at all, not knowing that if he came a little way I would take him beyond logic.

But that is how life is. Logic can be a means, not the end. So, around my logical statements there will always be, somewhere, statements that are trans-logical. They will seem inconsistent—completely. But they are well considered; they are not without reason. They may be inconsistent, but they are not causeless; my reason is clear.

So, at one time I will say that I am not at all influenced by Mahavira, Buddha, Krishna or Christ. And I am not. Nothing I have said is said because of their influence. Whatever I have said is spoken from my own knowing. But when I have known, I have also seen that what they said is this. Therefore, when I begin to speak about their statements, or about them, I forget that I am speaking “about” them—I stand wholly myself. I myself stand within their statement. For I see no distance there. So whenever I go to speak of them, deep down I am speaking only of myself. Then I keep no conditions—I plunge in totally.

Thus, one who has heard that I am not influenced by them—and then sees me once, in deep feeling, speaking about them—his difficulty is natural. He will say, “If you are not influenced, why do you get so immersed while speaking of them? Even one who is influenced does not drown so much! The influenced still keeps a distance.”

To me, the influenced must keep a distance—because the influenced is ignorant. We are influenced only in ignorance; in knowing, influence has no meaning. In knowing we know. In knowing we are not influenced; we hear consonances, resonances. The song we are singing is heard from another too. And that song, and that singer, and all of it, become so one that even the duality of “being influenced” disappears. To be influenced there must be the other; to be a follower there must be the other. Even that much distance is not there.

So when I begin to interpret a statement of Mahavira or speak on Krishna’s Gita, I am almost interpreting my own statement. Krishna remains only a pretext. I very quickly forget. Where I began “on him” is over. I start from him; I end with myself. When he dropped away, I do not even know.

Now, it is very amusing that I have never read the Gita in full. Never. I have started it many times. After reading two, four, ten lines, I said: fine—and closed it. When I speak on the Gita, I am hearing it for the first time. So I have no way to “commentate” on the Gita in the scholarly sense. Commentary is for the one who has studied, reflected, thought about it.

It is quite amusing that I can read an ordinary book from beginning to end, because it is not my experience. A totally commonplace book I read fully—I cannot stop—because it is not my experience. But when I lift Krishna’s book, after a few lines I put it down: the point is clear. I do not feel that anything further will open for me there.

Give me a detective novel and I read it to the end, because there is always something ahead to open. But the Gita feels to me as if I myself had written it. So it is fine—whatever is written, I know. I know it without reading. So when I speak on the Gita, I am not speaking on the Gita; the Gita is only an excuse. I may begin with the Gita, but I speak only what I must speak, what I can speak. And if it seems to you that such deep exposition has happened, it is not because I am influenced by Krishna; it is because Krishna has said what I am saying. There is resonance. What I say is not the Gita’s interpretation. Tilak’s is an interpretation; Gandhi’s is an interpretation. They are influenced people.

What I say “from” the Gita is not said “from” the Gita. The note the Gita strikes also strikes a note within me. Then I take up my own note. I am interpreting myself; the Gita is the pretext. So while speaking on Krishna, the very moment you feel I am speaking most deeply “on Krishna,” I am speaking about myself.

It is the same with Mahavira, the same with Christ, the same with Buddha and Lao Tzu and Mohammed. To me these are differences of the clay lamp only; the flame that burns is one. Whether it burned in Mohammed’s lamp, in Mahavira’s, or in Buddha’s is not my concern.

Often I speak against Mohammed, Mahavira and Buddha too. Then it becomes more complex: I speak so deeply for them—and then I speak against them.

Whenever I speak against, it is for this reason: if anyone puts too much emphasis on the lamp, I speak against. When I speak in favor, my emphasis is on the flame; when I speak against, my emphasis is on the lamp. When I find someone enamored of the lamp, of the clay, I speak sharply. His difficulty is natural, because for him there is no difference between Mahavira’s clay lamp and Mahavira’s conscious flame—he takes them to be one and the same thing.

So whenever I see someone stressing the lamp, I speak strongly against. Whenever I see the talk has shifted to the flame, I become one with it and speak. And there is a distance here. Mahavira’s lamp and Mohammed’s lamp differ greatly. That difference is precisely what makes a Jain and a Muslim. The lamps are shaped very differently. Christ’s lamp and Buddha’s lamp differ greatly. Of course they do. But those differences are differences of body, of covering, of form. And those who are enamored of coverings and forms, to me, have not yet seen the flame. For once the flame is seen, the lamp is forgotten. To see the flame and still remember the lamp is impossible. The lamp remains only until the flame has not been seen. The followers’ condition is like standing under the lamp where there is shadow, and looking from there. From there the flame is not seen; only the base is seen. Each base is different. And under every base lies deep shadow. The follower stands right there, and disputes run on about the bases.

So whenever I see someone standing under the base, I speak sternly and in opposition. I say again and again: the follower never understands. To be a follower you have to stand in the shadow—you have to stand under the lamp. The greater the follower, the nearer the center he stands. Those on the periphery may understand a little of the other; but those standing right in the middle never understand.

If you want to see the lamp, you must come out beyond the periphery. Step outside the shadow. And once the flame is seen, what meaning remains in arguing about the differences of lamps? Hence for me there is no difference.

Whether I speak on Christ, or on Krishna, or on Mahavira, or on Buddha—it makes no difference to me. I am speaking of the one flame that has burned in many lamps. But I am not speaking under their influence. I speak what I know. Yet wherever I find resonance, that the same sound comes from the other side, I cannot deny it either. To deny it would be to turn my back on the flame. The follower makes one mistake—he stands under the base. Turning one’s back would be the other mistake. I take both as the same error.

Now, if you ask Krishnamurti, he will not accept even resonance. He will not accept that what is happening to him could have happened to Krishna. He will not accept even that it could have happened to anyone else. He will not bring this up at all. I take that as wrong too. Truth is so impersonal; and its dignity does not diminish because it has happened to another—its dignity increases, it does not decrease. Truth is not so weak that it becomes stale because it happened to someone else! The urge to deny this too is wrong.

So my situation is: wherever I see truth, I will acknowledge it. I am not influenced at all. And wherever I see people clinging to something else in the name of truth, I will deny and oppose. And whatever I do, I do with my whole heart—hence more difficulty. Whatever I do, I do wholly; compromise is not my way. And I hold that no one ever reaches truth through compromise.

So my way is this: whenever I say something, I say it with my whole being. If someone speaks of the flame, I will say: Mahavira is a Bhagwan, Krishna is an avatar, and Jesus is the son of God. And if someone speaks of the lamp, I will say: they are offenders, criminals. In both cases, whatever statement I am giving, I stand with it fully. And while giving one, I do not even remember the other. Because to me both are complete in themselves and do not cancel each other. If I say of your body that it is mortal, and of you that you are immortal, I do not take these as contradictory statements, nor do I think they need reconciliation. Your body will die—it is mortal. And if you think you are only the body, I will tell you: you will die. I will say it with full force, leaving not an iota of escape. But if the discussion is of your soul, I will say: you were never born—you are unborn; there is no question of dying—you are deathless, nectar. Both statements are complete in themselves. They do not cut across each other. Their dimensions are different.

So the difficulty keeps arising. And it becomes still more complex because none of my statements are written in advance; they are spoken. In writing there is a kind of impersonality. It is not said to someone; it is written. The reader is not present, so he cannot be included; he remains outside. But when something is spoken, the listener is included.

Whenever I speak, I am not solely responsible for that particular statement; the one to whom I am speaking is also responsible. This makes the complexity immense. Whenever I speak, the responsibility is double. I am responsible, of course, but the one to whom I speak is also responsible for shaping the statement as it is shaped. If he were not there, if someone else were there, the statement would differ. If a third were there, it would differ again. And if I had spoken into a vacuum, it would have been entirely different.

As all my statements are spoken, and I hold that spoken truths are the living truths, because life in a statement comes from both—the speaker and the listener—when a speaker speaks alone with no listener, he is building a bridge with no other bank. That bridge cannot be built; it stands on one shore—it will fall, it hangs in midair. Therefore the greatest truths of this world have been spoken, not written.

If I write at all, I write letters, because a letter is almost spoken. It has the other bank, the one to whom I am building the bridge. Besides letters, I have written nothing. Because letter-writing feels to me a way of speaking—the other is before me.

Therefore, when I speak to a thousand people, a thousand statements are born; each listener is included. Then the complexity grows vast.

But that is how it is, and I am not eager to reduce this complexity deliberately. My eagerness is that, even seeing this complexity, you may perceive the simplicity of the truth being revealed—then you grow. I am not eager to simplify it. It can be simplified—by cutting. But then many limbs will be severed; it will be dead. I am not the least eager to reduce its complexity. I am eager that you may discover simplicity within it; then you grow.

My difficulty would be reduced if I simplified, made the statements straight and mathematical. My difficulty would end. But I am not concerned about my difficulty; it is no difficulty. If you can see simplicity amid such complexity, the unopposed truth amid such opposition, one harmony in so many contrary statements, then you grow, your vision rises. You will see this simplicity only as you rise. Only then will the complexity appear simple to you.

The thousand mountain paths that cut across one another seem very complex while you climb, but from the summit they become utterly simple. When you see them all together, in one pattern, you know they are all running toward the peak. They neither cut one another nor oppose one another. But when a man climbs by his own path, all other paths appear wrong. And when someone on the summit says, “All are right,” or tells one person, “This is right and that is wrong,” and tells another, “Yours is right and the first is wrong,” complexity multiplies. But all my statements are addressed. Each of my statements carries an address. It is said to someone—in a particular situation.

If I see a man wavering on his path, I will say, “All others are wrong; only this is right.” But it should be understood that this statement is for his convenience. When he reaches the top, he will know, and he will laugh, that other paths also reach. But if, while he is midway, he thinks the path beside him also reaches and starts wavering and turning there, and then tomorrow sees a third and turns there, he will never reach the peak. To such a man I must say: “You are going exactly right; all else is wrong—come!” But his neighbor is on a different path, and when I speak to him, I face the same situation. And when both hear both statements, there is difficulty.

I will tell you: Mahavira and Buddha did not face this difficulty. Their statements were not written before them. Five hundred years later others had the trouble. The questions you ask me could not be asked of Buddha. Five hundred years later the trouble arose; sects were formed. Statements had been given, not written—so they could not be compared.

To you I said one thing; to someone else another; to a third, a third. You three never had the chance of the written statement to compare: to see what I told you, what I told him, what I told the other. These were private, and they sank within you. When they were written, the uproar began. Hence the old religions insisted for long that their scriptures not be written down. The moment they are written, the contradictions will be clear. As soon as it is written, you will see what the matter is! Until then it remains personal; once written, it is no longer personal.

So the difficulty before me was not before Buddha and Mahavira. But now there is no other way. Now whatever is said will be written. Spoken to a person, once written it becomes society’s property. Then everything will be gathered together, and in that gathering it will be hard to find the thread. But so it will be—there is no other way. And I think it is good. Had it been written before Buddha, he too could have answered. When it was written five hundred years later and questions were asked, there was no one left to answer.

Someone took one statement as right and made a sect. Someone else took the contrary as right and made another. Each formed a sect according to the statement he had. All sects were born this way. With me, sects will not be born—because my whole “entanglement” is straight and clear. Not that it will be clear tomorrow; it is clear today. And you can ask me directly.

Ordinarily, there is no way to speak except through words. One will have to speak with words. And yet it is true that what is to be said cannot be said by words. Both statements are true. That we must speak through words—that is our situation. In the situation man is in, there is no other means of communion than words. Unless we change man’s situation. Then, only with deep seekers, can one speak without words. But even before leading them into deep practice, words will have to be used. A moment may come, much later, when speaking without words becomes possible. But that moment is not here; it comes very late. Until it comes, one must speak through words. Even to lead into the wordless, one must speak with words. This is the situation. But the situation is dangerous.

We will have to speak with words, and we will have to speak knowing that if the words are grasped, then the very effort we were making becomes futile. We were trying to lead into the wordless, and we speak through words. This is a compulsion; there is no other way. If the words are caught and clung to, the purpose is lost—because the journey was toward the wordless. Therefore one must speak with words and continuously speak against words—and that too in words. There is no other way. One can become silent; there is no difficulty in that. There have been people who, faced with this situational difficulty, became silent. By their becoming silent they got out of the tangle, but what they had did not reach others.

I have no difficulty in becoming silent. I can become silent—and it would not be a surprise if someday I do. Because what I am doing is, so to say, an impossible effort: the attempt to make the impossible possible.

But my becoming silent does not solve anything. No communion reaches you. The same danger remains. Before, the words could be caught; the fear was that if the words were grasped, what I wanted to convey would not happen. Now only silence would remain—and the very possibility of conveying would be finished. But earlier there was at least a possibility that something would reach a few. If I speak to a hundred, one may be able not to cling to the words; ninety-nine efforts will go to waste, one will become meaningful. By remaining silent, even that one becomes impossible; there is no way left for it. Hence this seemingly futile effort has to be made.

And the amusing thing is that the one who believes it can be said through words will not speak much. He will say a little and be done. But the one who knows it cannot be said through words will speak a lot—because however much he speaks, he knows for certain it has not yet reached. He will speak again, and again, and again: say it in another way, find another approach, use different words. This forty years of Buddha’s continuous speaking—from morning till evening—was not because it can be said through words, therefore he spoke so much. It was because every time he spoke it was clear it had still not reached; so speak again, speak more artfully, from another direction, with other words.

Thus forty years passed in unbroken speaking. And then a fear arises: if I go on speaking for forty years, may it not happen that people clutch the words—because for forty years I have given them only words! Therefore, one must simultaneously keep shouting: don’t catch hold of the words. This is the situation, and there is no way out of it except this. To go beyond words, one must use words.

The situation is somewhat like this room. Even to go out of this room you will have to walk a few steps in this room—to go out. From where we are sitting, we must take ten steps to get outside. Someone may say, “If you walk inside the room, how will you reach outside?” It depends on the manner of walking inside the room.

One person can walk in circles inside the room. He may walk miles and never reach outside. Another can walk toward a doorway. Not circular—his movement will be linear, aligned to a line. If the line bends even slightly, he will end up circling inside the room. If the line remains absolutely straight, he can pass through the door. Both must still walk within the room. If I say to the one who has circled many times, “Take ten steps straight and you’ll be out,” he will say, “You’re mad! You talk of ten steps; I have walked miles and not gotten out.” He would not be wrong—he has been walking in circles.

And there is another amusing fact: in this world, unless great effort is made, everything moves in circles—everything! Motion is circular. All motions are circular. If you do not make the effort, all things will go round and round. To move straight requires great effort.

We too? Yes, everything in this world. Motion is circular—whether atoms move, or the moon and stars move, or a man’s life, or thoughts—whatever moves in this world moves in circles. Therefore the greatest spiritual practice is to move straight. But that is a very difficult affair. You do not even notice when you have begun to go in circles. Geometry will therefore say a straight line cannot be drawn. Every straight line is a segment of some great circle; it only deceives by appearing straight. There is no straight line in existence; a straight line cannot be drawn. A straight line exists only in definition.

Euclid says the straight line is only a definition, a conception; it cannot be drawn. However long a straight line we may draw, first of all we draw it on the earth—and since the earth is round, it will be round. In this room we can draw a straight line, but it is a tiny portion of the great circle of the earth.

There is a curve? Yes, there is a curve—but so small that it is not visible to us. Extend it far enough in both directions and you will see it circles the entire earth and becomes a round ring. In truth, drawing a straight line is almost impossible.

The greatest question in practice, in the innermost depth, is precisely this: thoughts also move in circles, consciousness revolves in circles. The arduousness, the austerity, lies in leaping out of this circle. But there is no other means: all words are circular. We seldom notice that words are circular. When you define one word, you use another word.

Pick up a dictionary: look up “human,” it says “man.” Look up “man,” it says “human.” This is sheer madness—it means you know neither! But it never occurs to the reader that the dictionary is entirely circular. The definition given in one place is repeated for the other word elsewhere. What is the outcome of that? What has been conveyed? Human is man and man is human—we stand where we were. Where, then, is the definition?

All definitions are circular; all theories are circular. To explain one theory you use another, and for the second you must again use the first. The whole consciousness is circular. That is why the old, in the last stage of life, become almost like children—the circle is complete.

However many words are spoken, they turn within the circle. The very structure of words is circular; they cannot move in a straight line. If you move in a straight line, you will reach beyond words. But we live in words; therefore even if I must speak against words, I have to do it in words. It is a great absurdity—but it is not my fault; such is the situation.

So I will go on speaking words; I will go on speaking against words. I will speak words in the hope that without words you cannot understand. I will speak against words in the hope that perhaps you will escape the grip of words. Only if both events happen can I convey to you what I want to say. If you only understand my words, you miss. If you do not understand the words at all, you also miss. You must understand my words—and along with the words, the indication toward the wordless.

Therefore I will go on speaking against scriptures, and sooner or later my words too will become scriptures. All scriptures have been made in this way. There is not a single precious scripture in which there is not a statement against words. Which means there is not a single scripture in which there is not a statement against scripture—whether the Upanishads, the Gita, the Koran, the Bible, Mahavira, or Buddha. So there is no reason to believe anything different will happen with me. The same impossible attempt is underway; it will continue. Speaking and speaking against words, I will have spoken many words; someone will catch hold of them and they will become scripture.

But one cannot stop speaking out of this fear. Because with a hundred, there is the possibility that one may get through. If one does not speak, even that one is lost. And there is no fear for another reason as well: someone will surely come who will speak against my words and against scriptures again—so there is no fear.

Now a further entanglement arises. In this world, the one who will truly serve my work will always be the person who speaks against me. The difficulty is such that today, if one has to work in favor of Buddha, one will have to speak against Buddha. Because for some people his words have become like stones, and those stones cannot be removed until Buddha is brought down—because with the prestige of Buddha, those stones lie pressed upon their chests. If the stones are to be removed, Buddha must be toppled—then those stones can be lifted. If you do not bring Buddha down, the stones will not be removed.

You can understand the compulsion of a man like me: I must speak against Buddha, knowing I am serving his work. But what is the way to shake those who have become attached to the name of Buddha and attached to words? Until Buddha is shaken, they cannot be shaken. So one has to create trouble with Buddha without cause—just to move this man. Until the Vedas are shaken, this man will not move; he is clutching the Vedas. Only when he becomes certain that the Vedas are useless will he let go. Once he is empty, he can move ahead. And then, after he is empty, I will say to him exactly what the Vedas say. Then the complexity deepens. Then, without cause, wrong friends and wrong enemies are created. Out of a hundred, ninety-nine chances are of getting the wrong friends and the wrong enemies.

Wrong friends are those who will clutch my words as scripture. Wrong enemies are those who will clutch my words as enemies of scripture and declare me an enemy of the scriptures. But it is so, and it will be so. There is no reason for restlessness about it—because the whole situation is like this.

I would not like to write. I would not like to write for many reasons. I would not like to write for many reasons. First, because writing, in my view, is absurd—utterly futile. Futile, because for whom? For me, writing is like having written a letter without knowing the address. After sealing it in an envelope, where am I to send it?
A statement is always addressed. Those who write are addressing the mass. They too are addressing an unknown crowd. But the more unknown the crowd, the more trivial the things that can be said; and the more a person is known, the deeper you can speak to them.

Deep truths can be spoken to individuals—to a person. To a crowd, you can only say makeshift, workaday things. Deep truths can never be told to a crowd. The larger the crowd, the less the understanding becomes; and if the crowd is entirely unknown, you have to proceed assuming understanding is zero. So the more “mass literature” there is, the more it will be dragged down to the ground; the skyward flight will be gone.

If Kalidasa’s poetry has a certain excellence and today’s poet lacks it, the reason does not lie in some essential difference between Kalidasa and the modern poet. Kalidasa’s utterance is addressed—spoken before an emperor, or among a handful of chosen listeners. Today’s poet prints his poem in a newspaper. Someone will read it at a tea stall, someone while munching peanuts, someone will glance at it while puffing a hookah—who, you don’t even know. So that unknown reader has to be taken as the ultimate reference. If one must write, one has to write with him in mind.

Now my difficulty is this: even with the very best among us, it is hard to speak the truth; with the worst among us, there is no way at all. Among the best—the chosen few—who can understand most deeply, if I speak to a hundred, one will understand, ninety-nine will miss. So there is no point in speaking to the crowd. And what is written can only be for the crowd; what is said can be to a person.

There are other reasons too. I hold that with every medium the content changes. With every medium, the subject matter shifts. As soon as you change the medium, the content is no longer the same; the medium itself exerts a pressure to change the content. This is not immediately visible, but it is so.

When I am speaking, the medium is different. It is alive: the listener is present, alive; I am present, alive. When I speak, he is not only hearing me, he is seeing me. The slightest change in my face, the faint ripple in my eyes, the raising or lowering of a finger—all this he can see. He is hearing and he is seeing. He is not only hearing my words, he is seeing my lips. It is not only words that speak; lips speak too. My eyes are also saying something. He is drinking all of this together—hearing and seeing; it all goes in together. That gives a different content.

When he is reading a book, in my place there are only black letters, black ink—nothing else. I and black ink are not equivalent. There is no exchange, no living connection between them. In black ink no feeling arises, no gesture, no life. It is a dead, stamped message. A very large portion is lost; what was alive with speech is lost. What remains in his hand is a dead statement.

It is a curious fact: to read a book you do not need to be as attentive. There is a difference in the listener as well. When listening and when reading, the basic quality of attention changes. While listening, you have to be utterly concentrated, because what is spoken will not be repeated. You cannot go back to it. It is gone. Each moment as I speak, what is spoken is falling into an infinite abyss. If you catch it, you catch it; otherwise it is gone. It will not return. While reading a book there is no such fear: you can go back and read the line ten times. Hence there is no demand for great attentiveness.

That is why, ever since the book arrived in the world, attention has declined. It had to— the content changed. With a book it is like this: you may read an entire page, and then realize, “Ah, nothing went in,” so you flip back and read again. But I cannot be flipped back. I am gone.

This awareness—that what is being heard will be lost, that if you miss it once you miss it forever and it will never be repeated—keeps your consciousness at a peak pitch, at the highest crest of attention. Whereas when you are sitting comfortably, reading, if something slips, no harm: you turn the page back and read again. Understanding diminishes with books; only reading increases. Understanding diminishes with diminished attention.

It is not without reason that Buddha or Mahavira or Jesus chose the medium of speaking. They could have written; but they chose to speak for two reasons. First, speaking is a greater medium. Many things accompany it which are lost in writing.

Notice: as soon as cinema arrived, the novel began to be lost. Because film reanimated the thing. Who will read the novel? It is dead—deathlike. The novel cannot live for very long; its life-force has gone. That genre will fade, because now we have a more living medium. McLuhan calls it a “hot medium.” Television and film are hot—there is blood in them, warmth. The book is a “cold medium.” It is stone-cold, dead. There is no life in it, no blood flows in it. Your telephone will disappear the day we add vision to it—just as radio disappeared before television. Radio became a cold medium; television a hot medium.

So, speaking, in my understanding, is a hot medium. There is blood in it, warmth in it.

And even now, language alone cannot carry everything. When I want to emphasize something, I speak a little more forcefully. The nuance of the utterance changes—the mode changes, the stress changes. But in the word itself there is no means for that. The word is dead. “Love”—whether written by one who loves or by one who does not, by one burning in love or one who knows nothing of it—“love” is just “love.” There is no nuance in it, no wave of sound. It is dead. So when Jesus says “prayer,” it does not mean what anyone writing the word “prayer” in a book means. Jesus’ whole life is prayer—head to toe, every pore prayer. When he says “Prayer!” it has a different significance altogether—one that cannot be contained in a dictionary.

Also, whenever one speaks to someone, a tuning is very quickly established. Very soon your heart and the listener’s heart draw near. Doors open. Your defenses fall. If you are listening attentively, your thinking stops. The more attentively you listen, the more thinking stops; the doors open. Receptivity is cleared, the capacity to receive increases, and things go straight in. We become acquainted with each other in a very deep sense, and an inner resonant link is forged. Speech moves on the surface; within, that resonance also begins its journey. While reading, no such resonance is formed—there is no one to resonate with. While reading, you do not understand; you have to make yourself understand. While listening, you understand; you do not have to make yourself understand.

Further: those who have heard me speak—if later they read me, and if what I said has been reported exactly as I said it—exactly, letter for letter—they forget they are reading. After a little while it seems to them they are listening. But if even a little here and there has been altered, the current breaks. For one who has heard me even once, reading what I have said will be less reading than listening—provided it is verbatim. There are more differences—many differences—between the mediums. And the content changes. The great difficulty is that what we set out to say changes with the medium through which we say it. If the same thing is to be said in poetry, poetry imposes its own order—shearing, breaking, trimming. If it is to be said in prose, it will be different—the content will change.

That is why, primarily, all the world’s scriptures were written in verse. The reason is that what was being said was so beyond logic that it was difficult to say it in prose. Prose is very logical; verse is very illogical. Illogic can be forgiven in poetry; in prose, it cannot. In a poem, if you drift a bit outside the bounds of reason, it can be excused; in prose, it cannot. If you write the Upanishads or the Gita in prose, you will find their life has gone. The medium has changed. The very thing that was charming in verse becomes jarring in prose, because it turns irrational. Prose is the order of logic; poetry, in its depths, is illogical.

The Upanishads are spoken in verse; the Gita is spoken in verse. But Buddha and Mahavira did not speak in verse; they spoke in prose. The reason: the age had completely changed. When the Upanishads and Vedas were created, in a sense the age itself was poetic. People were simple; they did not demand logic. If someone said to them, “God is,” they said, “He is.” They did not even come to ask what he is like.

Look at children and you will understand how people of that age must have been. A child may ask you a very difficult question, but he is satisfied with a very simple answer. He asks: “Where do babies come from?” You say, “The crow brings them.” He goes off to play. He asked a terribly difficult question—one that even the greatest intellects still cannot answer properly. It was an ultimate question: “Where do babies come from?” You said, “The crow brings them.” He went away. He is satisfied with a simple answer. Note: the more poetic the answer, the sooner the child is satisfied. If you say it in poetry—“The crow brought it”—he is satisfied even sooner. That is why we have to write children’s books in verse. Because verse has tune and rhythm; it enters the heart more quickly. The child still lives in the world of rhythm and melody.

Buddha and Mahavira had to use prose, because the age had become logical and people argued heavily. People would ask a small question, but were not satisfied even with the largest answer. The situation had reversed: they would ask a small question, and even the most extensive answer was not enough for them—they would ask twenty-five more questions. Therefore Buddha and Mahavira had to speak entirely in prose.

Now it is difficult to imagine that anyone will speak in verse again. Therefore poetry now is, at most, entertainment. No deep things are said in it anymore, even though all the primal truths of the world were once spoken in verse. Now poetry is only entertainment. Some people, who have leisure and want some amusement, engage with it. But whatever precious things there are will now be said in prose. Because man is no longer like a child; he is adult. He will argue about everything. Only prose will reach him.

Every medium changes the content. It increases or decreases the ease and possibility of conveying. And my own view is that as technology develops, the medium of speaking will return. It had been lost for a while—because the book had seized things. Technology is bringing us back. Television will come. Tomorrow there will be three-dimensional television. No one will agree to read a book. There will be no need to write books. I will be able to speak to the whole world at once—speak on television. They can listen to me directly. Very soon, there are serious threats to the book. The book’s future is not very bright. The book is in danger. Soon books will not even be read—they will be “seen,” in a sense. Books will quickly be transformed; they will have to be transformed into something to be seen. Even now there are microfilms on which you see the book on a screen. Very soon we will convert them into pictures. It will not take long.

My understanding is that the medium of writing was a compulsion—there was no other way, so people wrote. Even so, those who had something truly great to say continued to use the medium of speech.

So it never occurs to me to write anything.

First, I don’t even understand: for whom? Until there is a face before me, nothing arises within. Because I don’t have that relish of saying for its own sake. There is a certain relish in saying something. That is the difference between a litterateur and a rishi. The litterateur delights in saying; having said it, he feels happy. Expression is a great delight. Having said it, it is as if a burden has been lightened—something weighty has been released.

I have no burden on me. When I say something to you, I derive no joy simply from saying it; saying it does not lighten any load in me. My speaking, very deeply, is less expression and more response. It is not that I must say something to you; only if you want something to be said will something arise within me. It is almost as if the state of my mind is such that unless you lower a bucket, nothing can be drawn from my well. That is why, you will see, it is becoming difficult for me. Unless I am asked something, it is becoming difficult to speak. It will be very hard in the future for me to speak “straight.” That is becoming heavy for me. So I will have to look for pretexts.

If I am speaking on the Gita, there is a reason: I need a pretext. If you create a pretext, I will speak. If you do not create a pretext, it becomes difficult for me: there is no peg—so what to hang, and why to hang, I cannot grasp. I become completely empty. If you are not asking, I am empty. You step out of the room, and I am empty. The one who wants to express—when you step out—he is preparing, in his mind something is getting ready; when it becomes heavy, he will express it. I am utterly empty. If you call something forth, I will speak. If you raise a question, I will say something. So writing is difficult—because writing is easy for those who are “heavy,” full. They can draw it out; they can pour it out.

If you want to ask anything more in this connection, ask. We will take the other questions another day.

Yes, it’s a fair question: “Why don’t I write my autobiography?”
Now, it’s quite amusing. In truth, once the soul is known there is no autobiography. All so-called autobiographies are ego-stories. They are not soul-stories; they are ego-graphies. Do you see? First of all, what we call an “autobiography” is not an auto-bio of the soul. Until the soul is known, whatever we write is an ego-graphy, an ego-tale.

That’s why it’s so striking that Jesus didn’t write an autobiography, Krishna didn’t, Buddha didn’t, Mahavira didn’t. They neither wrote nor dictated one. No one who has known the soul has written an auto-narrative. Because after the soul is known one dissolves into the formless, and all the pegs we call “facts” are torn out and blown away. All those stakes—this birth happened, this happened, that happened—are uprooted. The advent of the soul is such a storm that afterwards, when one looks, one finds everything swept clean; nothing is left. It becomes a blank page. The relish of writing an autobiography exists only before the soul is known—of course! That’s why politicians write autobiographies. So do sadhus. Writers, poets, men of letters write autobiographies. Deep down these “autobiographies” are adornments of the I.

I understand what you mean too: that I should write about the experience that happened to me.

But the auto-narrative does not survive; it loses all value. After knowing the soul, an autobiography becomes almost like writing down dreams. Like keeping a record every morning: today I dreamed this, yesterday that, the day before something else. And if a man were to write the story of his dreams, whatever its worth, it would be worth no more than the record of what we call reality.

And can an awakened man write? It’s a difficult matter. It is precisely on waking that one sees: it was a dream—nothing remains worth writing. What remains is the matter of the experience, what has been known—but even that cannot be written. The moment you write it, it turns flat and meaningless. Only that is what I keep trying to say, again and again, by many paths, by many devices. All my life I will go on saying only what happened. There is nothing else left to say. But even that cannot be written. For the moment you write it, you see: this won’t do. What can you write? You could write, “There was an experience of the soul; great bliss arose; great peace descended.” It all feels meaningless—mere words.

Buddha, Mahavira, or Christ spent their entire lives saying, in many forms, only what they had realized. Yet they do not tire because each day it feels something is still left. So they say it in another way, and then another way. They are exhausted; it is not exhausted. That story always remains yet to be told.

So there is a double difficulty. What can be said turns dreamlike. What cannot be said feels as though it should be said. And that very…

And another thing is constantly in mind: there is no purpose in stating it straight. If I tell you, “This happened to me,” nothing is gained. The point is to take you along the path where it can happen to you; then perhaps one day you will understand what might have happened. Before that, you will not understand. A direct declaration—“this is what happened to me”—what meaning does it carry? I don’t even think you would believe it. You would not be able to believe it!

So what is the point of throwing you into disbelief? It will only harm. The right thing is to push you toward that shore where someday it happens to you. That day you will be able to trust. That day you will know that such a thing is. Otherwise, there is not even a way to trust.

At the time of Buddha’s death people asked, “When you die, where will you go?” Now what can Buddha say? He says, “I was never anywhere, so where will I go when I die? I have never gone anywhere; I have never been anywhere.” Yet the questioners persist: “Still, tell us something—where will you go?” He is stating the bare fact. Buddhahood means nowhereness. In that state there is no one anywhere, and no question of being or not being.

You too, if you become utterly still for a moment, what will remain except breathing? Only breath will remain—what else? Breath remains in a bubble; what else is there? We never consider this; it never occurs to us, because we are never even for those few moments. Sit silently even for two moments, and what will you find in you apart from breath? If there are no thoughts, what remains in you besides breathing? And this in-and-out of breath—how is it more than air moving in and out of a bubble, or a balloon?

So Buddha says, “I was a bubble—where was I?” Then what question of going anywhere? A bubble bursts; do we ask where it went? We don’t ask, because we already know the bubble was never really there. Therefore we don’t ask, “Where did it go?” It’s fine: it never was; what is there to say about its going?

A person like Buddha knows himself as a bubble—then will he write an autobiography? Will he recount his experiences? And whatever he says will be misunderstood.

In Japan there was a fakir, Lin-chi. One morning Lin-chi announced, “Remove these Buddha statues from here! This man never existed.” Just before, he had worshipped a Buddha statue; now he says, “Remove them! This man never existed; it’s a downright lie.” Someone stood up and said, “What are you saying! Are you in your right mind?” Lin-chi said, “As long as I thought I was, I could accept that Buddha is. But when I am not—when it’s only a bubble of air—then this man never existed.” By evening he was again worshipping Buddha. People asked, “What are you doing? In the afternoon you were saying he never was.” He said, “But his not-being helped me into my not-being; so I am offering thanks. But it is one bubble thanking another bubble—there is nothing more to it.”

But such statements cannot be understood. People thought the man had gone a bit mad—that he had turned against Buddha.

No auto-narrative remains. Understand very deeply: even the soul does not remain. Usually we can at least grasp that the ego does not remain—because for thousands of years we have been told so. For no other reason: we have heard it for ages, so verbally it makes sense to us that in the state of knowing the ego does not remain. But if you want to understand rightly, the soul too does not remain. And that is frightening.

That is why we could not understand Buddha. He said even the soul does not remain—there is anatma. This was very hard to digest. On this earth Buddha has been the most difficult to understand. Because Mahavira speaks only up to the ego—that the ego does not remain; up to there we can manage. It’s not that Mahavira doesn’t know that even the soul does not remain. But he keeps our understanding in view: “All right, drop the ego; then the soul will slough off by itself.” There is no obstacle in saying that. But Buddha, for the first time, made public what had long been secret, what had not been said.

The Upanishads know it, and Mahavira knows it—that the soul does not remain. Because the very idea of the soul is a subtle form of ego. But Buddha revealed a secret that had always been secret: he said, “The soul does not remain.” There was trouble. The very people who accepted that the ego does not remain stood up to fight: “What are you saying! If even the soul does not remain, everything is futile. If we ourselves do not remain, then why do anything?”

Buddha spoke rightly. Then what autobiography can there be? There can be none. Everything is like a dream—the dream seen by a bubble, the rainbow web of colors upon a bubble. With the bubble, all is lost. When this is seen, it becomes very difficult—very difficult. When this clarity is absolute, it becomes very hard indeed.

All right, if not an autobiography, a biography can be written.

A biography someone can write—yes, someone can write it. A thousand can be written; there is no difficulty in that. There can be a thousand ways of seeing; no difficulty in that. That can be done.

In fact, it could be of use to seekers—it could be of use. But for the siddha to write it is very difficult. It could help seekers, yes, but for the siddha to write it is very difficult. Because the siddha’s difficulty is one that the seeker does not have. His difficulty is this: in this room there is no ghost—none at all. For you there is. For you, in this room there is a ghost. For the one who knows, there is no ghost, although once he too had a ghost and he drove it away with a mantra. But now he knows that the ghost was false and the mantra was false. With what face can he now say, “I drove away the ghost with a mantra”?

Do you get my meaning? I am telling you his predicament for your sake. That is, now he knows the ghost was false—it never existed; the mantra only gave confidence in the dark: “All right, pull yourself together, it’s okay.” He now knows the ghost was false, and the mantra with which it was driven away was also false. How can he now tell you, “I banished the ghost with a mantra”? That whole episode has become meaningless. Although for you the ghost is real; and if he could say, “I drove it away with a mantra,” the mantra might be useful to you. You understand, no?

So he will not say, “I drove the ghost away with a mantra.” He will tell you, “Ghosts can be driven away by mantra.” He will say to you, “Ghosts can be driven away by mantra. Use the mantra and the ghost runs.” But he will not say, “I drove away the ghost with a mantra,” because that would be a false statement. He now knows the mantra was as false as the ghost.

Therefore the statements of such a person will be very little self-centered. He will hardly ever speak about himself. He will always speak for you, about you, about your situation. That is his difficulty. Otherwise he would have to make false statements.

Are all the processes of sadhana ghosts?
All ghosts! Because in the end what you will attain is what has always been yours. In the end what you will find is what was given to you forever. And that from which you will be freed—you were never actually bound by it. But this too is a difficulty, you see. This is what I mean by the siddha’s difficulties. If he tells you that all the methods of sadhana are false, he will put you in trouble. Because then, for you, the ghost will remain true and the methods of sadhana will become false. If the ghost becomes false, then saying the methods are false is meaningful. You follow my meaning, don’t you? But the ghost will not become false for you.

It is a very amusing thing that by calling the false “false,” it doesn’t become false. But if someone calls the true “false,” we instantly accept that it is false. Calling the false “false” does not make it false. However much someone says, “Anger is wrong,” anger doesn’t become wrong by that—it keeps happening. But if someone says, “Meditation is wrong,” we immediately accept it as wrong. It doesn’t take even a second.

If someone tells you, “So-and-so is a saint,” you don’t accept it. But if someone says, “So-and-so is a thief,” you accept it absolutely. If someone says, “He is a saint,” you try in fifty ways to find out whether he is or not, because his being a saint will make you uneasy; it will hurt your ego. You will contrive some way to be sure, “No, he isn’t; he’s no saint.” But if someone says, “So-and-so is a thief,” you don’t go to find out; you simply believe it: he is a thief! You never investigate whether the man is a thief, because it pleases you to believe that you are not the only thief—he too is a thief.

Slander is accepted so quickly; praise is hardly ever accepted. And even when you accept praise, under compulsion, seeing no way out, even then it is tentative. Even then it is only out of helplessness, with the resolve that if a chance comes, you will correct it. Slander becomes absolute; even if later you get a chance to correct it, you won’t.

Exactly so in life: if someone calls the wrong “wrong,” we listen; but that does not make it wrong. But if someone calls the right “wrong,” we accept it at once, because we are spared the trouble. Because with the right, something has to be done.

Anger happens by itself; meditation has to be done. Someone may say, “Anger is wrong”—it makes no difference; anger will continue. But meditation has to be done; if someone says, “It is wrong,” it gets dropped.

You said meditation is a state, not a technique?
That is the difficulty. This is exactly what I am saying: this is the siddha’s difficulty. If he tells you the whole thing exactly as it is for him, you will go astray forever. Because it is not your situation. When I say, “Meditation is a state,” it is absolutely true: meditation is a state. But for you it will be a practice; for you it cannot yet be a state. If meditation is a state, then what will you do now? Nothing remains to be done. The matter is finished. If it is a practice, you can do something; if it is a state, the matter is over—you relax: “Fine.”

But anger will continue. By accepting that “meditation is a state,” anger will not end. Lust will continue; greed will continue. This is the difficulty: if I speak looking at you, I have to tell some untruth. And if I speak looking at myself, then what I say is useless—not only useless, dangerous. Because you are the listener; deep down, something in you will be obstructed by it. Therefore, if I say exactly what I see, I cannot be of any benefit to you; I may harm you.

Like Krishnamurti—I believe people are harmed. And the more I observe, the more it seems to me that harm is done. Because he is saying exactly what is within. It has no reference to you.

Silence does have great power, but there has to be someone who can hear silence!
Why does the need to speak arise?
It arises because I see you heading toward a pit. I see that you will fall into it and break your arms and legs. I am standing here; I could say it to you from silence, but you don’t have ears to hear silence. So I shout, “You’ll fall into the pit!”

In that, is my power lost? Is there any harm in that?
No, no, no—nothing is lost. The one who has come to know power never loses anything. The one who has not known keeps losing everything. The one who has known never loses anything.
In whatever form, to speak of the wordless we use words...

That is exactly what I am saying: the difficulty is that if I write something like an autobiography, it will be either false or true—only two options. If it is true, it will harm you; if it is false, I would not want to make such a statement. You understand me, don’t you? On that plane you won’t be able to get a hold. If it is absolutely true, it will only harm you, because everything you are doing will then seem pointless. Everything will seem pointless. And you are very quick to agree to what is pointless.

A man came. He said, “Krishnamurti said meditation is useless, so I dropped it.” Very good—you dropped it! And what did you gain by dropping it? Nothing. Then why had you taken it up? You had taken it up so that anger would go, ignorance would go. By dropping it, did they go? They did not. Then how did you drop it? “Because Krishnamurti said so—meditation is useless. If it is useless, and such a wise man says so, why should we get into the hassle?”

This is the great difficulty—yes, a great difficulty. I too know it is useless. At some moment I also tell someone that it is useless—but only to one who has done much and can now understand uselessness, who has reached the place where even meditation should be let go. But to announce in the marketplace that meditation is useless is very dangerous. The uncomprehending, who have never meditated, are listening. You tell them it is useless—they will never do it. They feel great relief: without doing anything, everything is accomplished; the matter is finished.

So people have been listening to Krishnamurti for forty years and sit there like fools. Because he says, “It is useless.” If it is useless, and Krishnamurti says so, then all right—he cannot be wrong. All his life he has been saying the same thing. He is not wrong—not even a little. And yet he is wrong. Because there is no vision of you; he just keeps saying his own.

That is why I constantly try to save myself—not to say my own to you. Because if I say my own, and say it exactly as it is, it will be of no use to you. But then the trouble is that if I speak considering you, out of concern for you, you yourself come and tell me, “Arre, you said such a thing—there is a contradiction in it.” I can speak a totally non-contradictory truth, but then it will be of no use to you—except that you will remain where you are.

So this is the enlightened one’s difficulty: what he knows, he cannot say. And in that sense the old arrangement was right, profound. Things were said according to your state. Only up to where you were did we speak. Everything was tentative; nothing was ultimate. As you went on growing, we would keep shifting things. As much movement as there was in you, that much we would withdraw. We would say, “Now this has become useless—drop it.” The day you reach the state where we can say, “God is useless, the soul is useless, meditation is useless,” that day we will say it. But that can be said only when, by calling it useless, nothing at all is rendered useless. When nothing is rendered useless by calling it useless, then you laugh—and you laugh knowingly.

If I say, “Meditation is useless,” and you go on meditating, then I know you were a worthy vessel, and I said it rightly to you. If I say, “Sannyas is useless,” and you take sannyas, then I know you were a worthy one, and it was right to say it to you.

These—these are the difficulties. They will dawn on you little by little.