Main Kahta Akhan Dekhi #3

Traditional—a stream that has been flowing through tradition is of course traditional. Even Buddha’s path is no longer new. Those who kept moving with tradition—their way is now old; but those who broke tradition and created “new traditions”—their way too is no longer new. Many have walked like that as well. Buddha broke a method and began afresh; Mahavira, on the other hand, honored and moved within an old tradition. But even before Mahavira’s lineage, someone had once broken an earlier method. That path too was not always old; the first Tirthankara of Mahavira’s lineage did precisely what Buddha did later.

To walk by tradition is old; to break tradition and found new ones is also not a new event. Otherwise how would traditions be born at all? So today both stances are old. And this needs to be understood rightly. Because in today’s situation, what is needed is something different from both. As of now both kinds of figures are present. If you look at George Gurdjieff, he sets forth a thread of some old tradition; his work is like Mahavira’s. If you look at J. Krishnamurti, he inaugurates a new thread; his work resembles Buddha’s. But both are old.

Many traditions have been broken; many new traditions have been made. What is new today will be old tomorrow. What appears old today was new yesterday. Today’s situation is no longer quite such that Mahavira could prove meaningful; nor quite such that Buddha could be meaningful. People had grown thoroughly weary of the old; but another new thing has happened: people are growing thoroughly weary of the new as well. For it was always imagined that the new is the opposite of the old. Now humanity stands where it sees clearly that the new is only the beginning of the old. “New” means “that which will become old.” The very moment we call something new, the process of becoming old has begun. So even the charm of the new is gone. Earlier there was only aversion to the old.

There was a time when the old had great appeal—immense appeal. The older a thing, the more valuable it was: it was tested, known, familiar, proven, and seasoned by experience. There was no fear in it; it felt safe. One had no need for doubt while walking it. One could be devout, full of faith. So many had walked, so many footprints were there, so many had arrived that even a newcomer could walk with eyes closed. There was a path even for the blind. One did not need to doubt much, think much, search much, decide much. And in the unknown, how far can decision go anyway? However much one doubts, the final leap into the unknown is taken in trust. At most, doubt can lead you to some point of trust; the leap itself is always by trust.

But that earlier attraction of the old has also been lost. There were reasons. First, as long as a person knew only one tradition, there was no discomfort. But when many old traditions became familiar to a single person all at once, discomfort began. A man born in a Hindu home, raised in a Hindu atmosphere, growing up by a Hindu temple—the temple-bell’s sound mixing with his milk and blood—the temple’s deity as much a part of his bones, blood, and flesh as air, mountain, and water—and there was no competitor. There was no mosque, no church. No other voice from another tradition had ever penetrated his mind. The old was so real that it was beyond question. It preceded us; we grew and stood within it. To think otherwise was impossible.

Then a mosque arose by the temple; churches appeared; gurdwaras came. All traditions broke upon each person at once. As movement increased and distance shrank, all traditions converged together. Confusion was natural. Now nothing could be taken as indubitable, because standing alongside anything was another voice provoking doubt. If the temple rings its bell and calls, “Come, have faith!” the nearby mosque’s azan calls, “That is wrong; don’t go there!” Both ring together.

This great doubt that spread through the world did not arise because human intelligence grew exceptionally. Man is as intelligent as he ever was. Rather, many contradictory imprints came to bear on the mind at once—mutually opposing samskaras. And every path will call the other paths wrong. Not because the other is wrong in itself, but because calling the other wrong becomes necessary to assert oneself as right. Without condemning the other, one’s own claim to being right loses force and coherence. In truth, to declare oneself right, one must paint the other as wrong—that is the backdrop against which one can proclaim oneself right.

As long as each tradition had its own path and dissimilar paths did not meet—no crossroads where alien ways intersected—each stream flowed separately. Then the old held deep appeal. In such an age a Mahavira-like figure was greatly useful, a collaborator.

But as streams multiplied and competed, the old became suspect and the value of the new grew. The new too had competitors, of course, but faced with a confusing crowd of old streams that led nowhere definite, it became easier to choose the new than to select among the old.

There were reasons. First, the prophet of an old stream had lived thousands of years ago; his voice grows faint. The prophet of the new is present, in front of you; his voice is vivid. The old tradition still speaks an old language—the language of its time. The new Buddha, the new Tirthankara, speaks a fresh language, being born now. He removes words burdened by old doubts and brings virgin terms easier to trust.

So the charm of the new mounted as traditions converged and we came to live at crossroads where all roads meet, every home abutting every path. But even the charm of the new is gone now. Because we have learned that every “new” eventually becomes “old,” and whatever is “old” was once “new.” We see that the gap between new and old may be only verbal.

For about three hundred years, the “new” had the same prestige that the “old truth” once had. Formerly, being old was proof of being right; now being new became proof of being right. Saying “this is new” was enough for people to believe—just as earlier “this is old” had sufficed. Now to call something “old” is to malign it. So every stream tried to pose as new. Every stream produced new spokesmen who spoke of newness. The old did not end; old paths continued. New paths also began, with followers of the new. And when the intensity of the new took hold, a peculiar event occurred.

Earlier the old always asked, “How old?” So each religion tried to prove that none was older than itself. Ask the Jains and they’ll say their tradition is the most ancient—even older than the Vedas. Ask the Vedas and they’ll say they are ancient—primal, beyond older and newer. They tried to pull their origins back because age had prestige. Then as the new gained prestige, the question became, “How new?”

Fifty years ago in America—where the hold of the new was strongest, being the newest society—there were two generations: the old and the young. Not so today. Now the forty-year-olds are a generation, the thirty-year-olds another, the twenty-year-olds yet another, and fifteen-year-olds still another. The thirty-year-olds say, “Don’t trust anyone over thirty.” The twenty-five-year-olds look at the thirty-year-olds with equal suspicion: “They’re already old.” The twenty-year-olds say of them, “They’re gone.” High school children now consider the twenty-five-year-olds old, “out of date.” No one had imagined such layering. There used to be two: young and old. Now even the “young” have strata. When the grip of the new becomes so intense, the charm of the new also evaporates. Because before attraction can form, the new has already turned old. Even attraction needs time to ripen. And religion is not like the fashion of clothes to be changed every six months; nor like seasonal flowers you sow and discard within a few months. Religion is like a banyan tree that takes thousands of years to grow full. If we imagine changing every two, four, or ten years, banyans won’t be planted—only seasonal blossoms. So the charm of the new is fading.

I say all this so I can make clear that my inner stance is a third one altogether. I do not believe Mahavira’s language of tradition can work now; nor do I believe the insistence on the new can work either. Both are gone. I hold that only the insistence on the eternal has meaning—not the old, not the new, but that which is always.

“Always” means that which neither becomes old nor can be new. Old and new are temporal events. Religion has been harassed enough by both—bound to the old, and now bound to the new. Krishnamurti still insists on the new; that is because his grip was formed between 1915 and 1920, when the new held the ground. He still speaks in that accent. But now even proclaiming the new has little meaning.

On this earth only one possibility remains. All traditions have come so close that if any one tradition claims exclusively, “I am right,” it only provokes suspicion. Once that very claim inspired faith; now it breeds disbelief. To insist, “I am absolutely right,” will be proof of madness, of a lack of intelligence, of dogmatism.

Bertrand Russell wrote somewhere: I have never seen a truly intelligent man speak without hesitation. Intelligence carries hesitation within it; only fools are cocksure.

Russell is saying: only the ignorant can declare, “This alone is the complete truth.” As knowledge deepens, such absolute proclamations become impossible. In our age, anyone who insists that a single tradition is right will harm that very tradition. Conversely, someone saying, “What I am saying is absolutely new,” also speaks meaninglessly. So many proclamations of “newness” are made, and in the depths it turns out to be the same. Words can be dressed in many forms; remove the garments and you find the same. Thus proclaiming either “new” or “old” holds little meaning now.

In my view, the religion of the future, the force that will shape tomorrow, from which people will take their path, is the insistence on the eternal, the sanatan. What we are pointing to is neither new nor old. It will never become old, nor can anyone make it new. Yes, those who spoke of it as “old” used old words; those who spoke of it as “new” used new words. I drop the insistence on words.

Therefore I use the words of all traditions—whatever word can be understood. Sometimes I speak in old terms; perhaps someone understands better that way. Sometimes I use the new; perhaps another understands better. And I want to keep reminding you that neither the new nor the old is truth. Truth is eternal like the sky. In the sky trees arise, blossom, and fall. Trees grow old, die; trees are saplings and youth—the sky is not. We sow a seed and a sprout appears—utterly new. But the sky in which it appears? Then the tree grows big, ages, nears death—the tree is old; but the sky in which it has happened, has that sky aged? Countless trees have come and gone; the sky remains—untouched, unstained.

Truth is like the sky. Words are like trees: they are planted, sprout, leaf, bloom, wither, fall, and dissolve into the earth. The sky stands where it is! The emphasis of both the “old” and the “new” has been on words. I do not want to emphasize words at all. I want to emphasize the sky in which the flowers of words bloom, fade, and vanish—while the sky remains utterly untouched, leaving not even a trace.

So, in my vision: truth is eternal—beyond old and new, transcendental. Whatever we say or do, we do not make it new nor do we make it old. Whatever we utter, think, or construct as ideas will come and fall; truth will remain where it is.

Therefore, the one who says, “I have a very old truth,” is foolish—truths are not old; the sky is not old. Equally foolish is the one who says, “I have a new, original truth.” The sky is neither old nor original and new.

This declaration of a third principle I take to be the path for the future. Why? Because it can cut through the havoc created by the tangle of many traditions. Then we can say: those trees too bloomed in the sky, and these trees too; countless trees bloom in the sky, and the sky is unaffected. There is vast space in the sky. Our trees neither empty it nor fill it. Let us not be deluded that any of our trees will fill the whole sky.

So none of our words, notions, or doctrines can fill the sky of truth. There is always room. A thousand Mahaviras may arise—no difference is made. Ten million Buddhas may appear—no difference. However vast the banyans, the greatness of the sky is not measured by them. Naturally, to the blade of grass under a banyan, the banyan is the only immensity—beyond imagining that anything greater could exist.

In this difficult situation where all traditions stand together, attracting the mind from all directions—the old, the new, with new ideas being born daily—everything pulling at man, the result is that man stands bewildered. He cannot muster the courage to move. Wherever he steps, doubt arises. Faith comes nowhere.

All those who once fostered faith have collectively left man faithless. Because faith is still being manufactured in the old way: the Quran keeps declaring it is right; the Dhammapada declares it is right. Naturally, whoever says, “I am right,” must also say, “The other is wrong.” And the other must do the same. In such a situation, the man standing in the middle feels: all are wrong.

Why? Because the one who calls himself right is only one; those calling him wrong are fifty. Each claims rightness for himself alone, while fifty others declare him wrong. The impact of being called wrong by fifty will drown out the solitary voice crying, “I am right.” And this is true for each of the fifty as well. So a person hears fifty saying, “This is wrong,” and one saying, “This is right.” Naturally, he will not move. He will stand still. This standing-still is the state of modern man, created by everyone’s claims to rightness. Their old habit continues; they keep asserting.

This situation can be dissolved only in one way: there is a need for a movement in the world that does not insist, “This is right,” or “That is right,” but insists: standing still is wrong; moving is right. That does not insist on “this versus that,” but has such breadth that wherever a person wishes to go, it can show him how to go rightly there.

This is arduous. To be a Muslim is easy, a Christian easy, a Jain easy—ready-made grooves and traditions. To be familiar with one tradition is easy.

A young man came to me eight days ago. He is a Muslim and wants to take sannyas. I said, “Take sannyas.” He said, “They will press my neck—my people will kill me.” I said, “By all means take sannyas, but I am not saying become a non-Muslim. Become a sannyasin while remaining a Muslim.” He asked, “Then can I wear ochre robes and still go to the mosque to read namaz?” “You will have to,” I said. He replied, “After listening to you I have stopped going—I have been meditating for a year now and have found exquisite joy; I don’t want to go.” I said, “Until your meditation reaches the point where namaz and meditation are one and the same for you, know that your meditation is not yet complete.”

He must be sent back to pray in the mosque. To tear him away is dangerous. Torn from the mosque, he cannot be joined to any temple either—because the very method by which we tear him away distorts him such that he can connect no longer.

So we must neither set up competition between old temples nor erect a new one. Whoever wishes to go anywhere—let him not stand still; let him go. My perspective is this: whatever a person’s capacity, fitness, samskara, whatever flows in his blood—whatever is most natural for him—on that very basis I set him in motion.

So I have no religion of my own, no path of my own. Because any path-bound, sect-bound religion is not for the future. “Sect” means “path.” Any religion tied to one path is of no use for the future. We need a religion that does not insist on one path—that embraces the whole crossroads; that says, “All paths are ours. Only walk! Wherever you walk from, you will arrive there. All paths lead there.” The insistence is: walk—do not stand still.

So I have no enthusiasm to carve a new trail on a mountain. There are many trails! What is missing are the walkers. The problem is not a shortage of paths; there are too many paths and too few walkers. Paths lie deserted—no one has passed along some for hundreds, even thousands of years. The very possibility of climbing the mountain has been broken. At the foot of the mountain there is so much dispute and quarrel that the result is exhaustion, fear, and paralysis. In such confusion, who can walk?

Yet note this too: my outlook is not eclectic. Not like Gandhi’s, who would select a few verses from the Quran and a few from the Gita and then declare, “They say the same thing.”

They do not say the same thing. I say that walking by any path one reaches the same—that the destination is one—but I do not say the paths are the same. The paths are utterly different. And if you try to declare the Gita and the Quran one, it is a trick.

Gandhi would read the Gita, then the Quran, and choose from the Quran only what matched the Gita, discarding the rest. What of the parts that don’t match, that oppose it? He would leave them. He could never accept the whole Quran—never the whole. He accepted the whole Gita.

This is what I call eclecticism—selecting. It is not acceptance of the whole. The acceptance is really for one’s own scripture; where the other agrees with us, we grant it is right. Ultimately we alone are right; we show “tolerance” to the extent others agree. That is not great tolerance.

Nor is the issue one of tolerance. It is a matter of sky-like spaciousness, not tolerance. Not mere forbearance. Not that a Hindu “puts up with” a Muslim or a Christian “puts up with” a Jain. Forbearance already holds violence within it. I do not say the Quran and the Gita say the same thing. The Quran says something quite different; it has its own individual voice—that is its greatness. If it only repeated what the Gita says, it would be worth two pennies. The Bible says something else again, which neither the Gita nor the Quran says. Each has its own voice. Mahavira does not say what Buddha says; they say very different things.

And yet from these differing statements one ultimately arrives at the same place. My emphasis is on the oneness of the destination, not on the oneness of the paths. My emphasis is that in the end all these paths reach where there is no difference.

But the paths are very different. No one should make the mistake of trying to see two paths as one; otherwise one will manage to walk on none. Granted that all boats reach the far shore, but still no one should make the mistake of straddling two boats at once; otherwise the boats may reach, but he will drown. Granted they are all boats; even so, to travel you must step onto one. For that choice, I give complete sanction.

It is difficult because the proclamations are starkly opposite. On one side stands Mahavira who would not be willing to harm even an ant, who would blow the ground before placing his foot. On the other side stands Muhammad with a sword. Whoever says both say the same thing is wrong. They cannot. They say very different things. If you try to force sameness, you will do injustice to someone: either hide Muhammad’s sword or forget Mahavira blowing the ground clear of insects. If a follower of Muhammad selects, he will cut out of Mahavira whatever contradicts the sword. If a follower of Mahavira selects, he will separate the sword from Muhammad and pick only what fits nonviolence. That is injustice.

Therefore I am not a synthesizer like Gandhi. I am not proposing a synthesis or coordination among religions. I say: all religions, in their own private and personal character as they are, are acceptable to me. I make no selection among them. And I also say: even with them remaining as they are, there is a way to arrive.

So the differences in the diverse paths remain differences of the paths. On my path there may be trees; on yours only stones. You may climb from a rocky face; I may ascend a wooded slope. Someone climbs straight up—steep, drenched in sweat. Another takes a gentle, winding route—longer, but never tiring. Naturally they will speak differently of their paths. Their descriptions will be entirely different. The difficulties they encounter, and how they train to overcome them, will differ. If we consider only the paths, we will find little similarity.

The similarity appears not in the paths but in the utterances of those who have arrived. There, only the language differs—Arabic, Pali, Prakrit, Sanskrit—words used to announce the goal. Before the goal, the differences are very real. I do not say they should be ignored.

So I do not want to cut a new path. Nor do I want to declare any old path right against others. I want to say: all paths are right, while different. Our minds assume that “right” means “the same.” Not necessary. In fact, when two things are exactly the same, one is often a copy. Two entirely authentic realities will be distinct; their individuality must differ.

Thus I am not surprised that Muhammad’s and Mahavira’s ways differ. If they did not, that would be a miracle—and unnatural. Mahavira’s total circumstances differ; Muhammad’s differ. The people Muhammad had to work with were completely different from Mahavira’s. The stream of samskaras among Muhammad’s people was different from that among Mahavira’s. With such differences, their paths cannot be one. And even today everyone’s inner situations differ. We must take those differences into account.

So I am neither eager to cut a new path nor to declare any old path right against the rest. Two points: all are right—the broken paths of the past, those breaking today, those that will break tomorrow, and those yet unbroken. Let man not stand still—let him walk. The one who walks, even on the “wrong” path, will reach sooner or later; the one who stands still on the “rightest” path will never arrive. The real question is walking.

And when one walks, freedom from a wrong path is not an obstacle. But when one stands still, one never even learns whether where one stands is right or wrong. Walking itself reveals right and wrong. If you sit clinging to a doctrine, you will never know. Practice it and walk—you will immediately see whether it works or not. Any idea is tested only when it becomes action; otherwise there is no way to assay it.

So my eagerness is: walk. And I’m eager to support each person on his own way. Naturally, this was not easy for Mahavira. Today it is, and will become easier. Because today it’s hard to find someone who, in his last two, four, or six births, has not been born into two, four, or six different religions. Such a person is rare. Each individual has lived in several faiths. In the last five to seven hundred years, as external proximity has increased, the inner transmigration of souls has increased as well—naturally.

Two thousand years ago, if a Brahmin died, the chance of being born into a Shudra home was ninety-nine out of a hundred: impossible. He could not be born there. The soul’s migration was that difficult because it wasn’t happening. The mind carries samskaras. One whom you never touched, whose shadow you avoided, for whose shadow falling on you you would bathe—between whom and you lay an uncrossable gulf—after death the soul could not travel there, for the mind was utterly against it.

So until Mahavira’s time, it was rare that someone would be born into a different religion. The streams were so channelled that you circled within your own in this life—and the next.

Not so now. As things have become outwardly liberal, the inner has too. Today, a Brahmin eating with a Muslim is less troubled, and the trouble diminishes. One who is still troubled is not a man of today; his mind is five hundred years old. To a contemporary man it seems absurd even to think along those lines.

But this has opened the inner door of transmigration. In the last five hundred years, that door has opened day by day. Because of this, some things can be said today. If in my past lives I have walked several paths, it becomes easier to speak. If a Tibetan seeker asks me, I can tell him something—provided that in some journey I have lived in the Tibetan milieu; otherwise my words will be superficial. Without having passed through a place, one cannot say much of value.

If I have never read namaz, I cannot truly help someone with namaz—and if I do, it will be shallow. But if I have passed through namaz, I can help. And if I have passed even once, I know that namaz also leads where prayer leads. Then I am not eclectic, not saying “Hindu and Muslim must be one, therefore both are right.” My reason is other: I know their methods differ, but the inner realization is one. And the general situation is moving more and more toward what I am saying. In the coming hundred years, soul-migration will intensify, because the more outer bonds break, the more inner ones will too.

You may be surprised: those who strictly imposed outer bonds did so not for the outer’s sake, but to arrange the inner. Hence India’s varna system has never been grasped scientifically. We think, “How unjust they must have been! On one hand that same Brahmin writes the Upanishads, on the other he devises such mistreatment of Shudras.” These seem incompatible. Either the Upanishads are false, or our interpretation is wrong.

They arose from the same minds. Manu, on one hand, speaks heights beyond measure—Nietzsche said no greater intelligence ever lived than Manu. But if you look at Manu’s code, he created the deepest gulfs between castes. That one man fixed order in a way we cannot shake even today. For five thousand years his shadow lies over the stream. Even with all law, order, intelligence, and politics against him for the last one hundred and fifty years—from Raja Ram Mohan Roy to Gandhi—Manu stands unmoved. He was no small mind; these are children before him. Today the whole situation is opposite, yet he stands. Because the reason lies within.

The entire arrangement aimed so that a man who in one life had read namaz would in his next be born again into a home of namaz. Otherwise what might take three lives within one tradition would not be accomplished in thirty when the chain keeps breaking. Each time he changed paths he would have to begin from A-B-C. He studied six months in one school, then transferred to another and was again placed in first grade; again a third school, first grade again. When will he be educated?

Manu’s idea—very precious—was to send a person back into the same current of thought in which he had left off, so he need not start over; he could begin where he stopped. That required severe external structuring—no looseness. If he allowed even “a little” like intermarriage, then tomorrow what would prevent taking birth in the other caste? If you can give a Shudra girl your seed, why not take birth from her? No logical barrier would remain. If you want to prevent birth, you must prevent marriage. So he placed strict prohibition on marriage—no inch of give. If you give an inch, all behind collapses.

But it has collapsed. To restore it now is difficult—indeed, I think impossible. Now we will have to find subtler ways, subtler than Manu’s.

Manu was very intelligent, but the arrangement was gross, external. Gross outer restraints to manage the inner become unjust to man. The straightjacket becomes iron.

Today we need experiments on a subtler plane. That means we must make prayer and namaz so fluid that one who left namaz in a past life can begin with prayer now from where he left off; that one can begin namaz from prayer, and prayer from namaz. Ears accustomed to temple bells should not find the morning azan alien. Some inner attunement must be created between bells and azan. This is entirely possible. Hence, for the future, there is a need for a new kind of religiousness—not a new religion: a new religiousness.

Manu’s whole arrangement is broken. The traditions of Buddha and Mahavira are disarrayed. Anyone who tries to repeat them on the same bases will be forced to fail. Gurdjieff tried hard—it broke. Krishnamurti labors forty years—nothing much happens. The whole situation has become otherwise.

In this otherwise situation, an altogether new notion—new in the sense that we’ve never tried it—a fluid religion. A vision that all religions, as they are, are right. Fix the gaze on the goal, insist on movement. Walk anywhere. And build such nearness between every two paths that from any one, another can begin. Not such distances that one must return to the doorway; rather, wherever one leaves one path, there he can meet another.

Call them link-roads—chains of links connecting the paths. Roads to the goal have always been there; links connecting two roads have not. Reaching the goal is no difficulty; hold any one path and you will arrive. But now, few can walk a single path the whole way. Life will be disturbed daily—materially and inwardly. One is born in a Hindu home, grows up in a Hindu village, and may live in Europe. Another is born in America and lives in an Indian forest; raised in London, he lives in a Vietnamese village. This will happen more and more. Outer environments will change daily, inner environments just as much. With so much change we must build links between paths.

The Quran and the Gita are not the same—but a link can be built between them. I want to spread a living network of sannyasins who themselves become links: who can read namaz in a mosque, pray in a church, and sing in a temple; who can walk Mahavira’s way, enter Buddha’s meditation, experiment with the Sikh path—and create links. Let there be such a living web of persons who become bridges. And let there be a religious vision that all religions, while different, are one—not by becoming indistinguishable, but by remaining utterly distinct in their own privacy, yet one because they lead to the same place, one because they move toward the divine.

So my work is of a third kind. Such work has never been done fully. Some small experiments were made, very small, and failed. Ramakrishna labored a little—but those experiments are not old, only within the last two hundred years were preliminary steps taken. Ramakrishna labored, but it was lost; Vivekananda gave it back an entirely Hindu coloring and the thing was gone. Nanak tried five hundred years ago—somewhat earlier too—but that also was lost. Nanak compiled in the Guru Granth the utterances of Hindu and Muslim saints alike. When he sang, Mardana—a Muslim—played the tambura; he never let anyone else play it. He said: if a Hindu sings, a Muslim must at least play the tambura—let song and instrument become one somewhere. He journeyed to Mecca and Medina and offered namaz in mosques. But it was lost; immediately a new sect arose gathering it all back into itself.

Sufis worked a little; elsewhere too, some effort was made. But all remained preliminary; it never took shape. Two reasons: the age had not matured. Now it is maturing. We can work on a large scale.

So my direction is wholly third. Neither to repeat the old nor to tout the new. To insist on that which runs through both the old and the new. However you walk, the freedom is yours.

The Eternal has been realized by all. There is no obstacle in realization; the obstruction arises in expression. Mahavira has the realization of the Eternal, Buddha has it too. But Mahavira expresses that realization in the language of the old; Buddha expresses it in the language of the new. I want to express it in the very language of the Eternal.

And you ask, “Did it happen to me seven hundred years ago?”
Almost. The expression, though, I will give only today. Because even if something was known seven hundred years ago, when it is said today, the knowing does not change—but the saying changes greatly. Seven hundred years ago, this could not have been said; there was no reason to say it in this way. The situation is somewhat like a rainbow that appears during rain.

It is a very amusing phenomenon. From where you stand, the rainbow becomes visible. A rainbow depends on three things: there must be droplets, vapor in the air; the rays of the sun must fall upon that vapor at a particular angle; and you must be standing in a particular place. If you move from that place, the rainbow vanishes. Not only the sun’s rays and the water droplets make the rainbow; your standing at a precise spot also plays its part.

At a certain angle.
Yes. Not only sun and water create the rainbow; your eye, seeing from a particular position, contributes equally to its creation. In other words, you too are one of the constituent elements of the rainbow. If any one of the three is removed, the rainbow is lost.

So whenever truth is expressed, three things are present. There is the realization of truth—without that there can be no expression of truth. If the sun has not appeared, no rainbow can form, no matter where you stand or what the raindrops do. Like the sun, the realization of truth is indispensable. But even if realization is there and a listener is present, if the speaker is not at the right angle, it cannot be spoken.

As I consider Meher Baba: he was never able to stand at that exact angle from which a rainbow could form between his realization and the listener. He could not find that angle. Many fakirs remained silent. There is a reason for their silence: they could not stand at the precise angle from which expression becomes possible. That too is essential. Otherwise, the realization of truth remains on one side, the listener remains on the other, and the speaker is not in the right place.

And even if the speaker stands in the right place and is capable of speaking rightly, the listener—he too is a constituent!

Seven hundred years ago, whoever would have been listening to me would also have shared in my speaking. Therefore I could not have said to them what I am saying to you. And if you were not sitting here now, I could not say this either. Because you are as necessary a part of what I am saying as I am. Without you it cannot be spoken. When these three things come into a certain tuning, resonate at a certain wavelength, then expression becomes possible. A slightest slip, and all is lost. The rainbow instantly scatters. Then the sun can do nothing; let it be. The water droplets can do nothing. If even one element shifts slightly, the rainbow is immediately lost.

Therefore the expression of truth is a rainbow existence. It is exactly like a rainbow—ever ready to disappear at any moment. If the listener misses even a little, the rainbow is gone. If the speaker misses even a little, the speaking becomes futile.

So forget seven hundred years; even seven days ago I could not have said to you what I am saying now, and seven days later I will not be able to say it in the same way. Because everything will have changed. The sun will not change; it will go on shining. But apart from the sun—apart from the realization of truth—the other two indispensable elements, the listener and the speaker, will both change.

Therefore the realization is of seven hundred years ago, but the expression is of today—of this very moment. Not even “today”—this very now! Tomorrow it is not necessary that it will be the same. It is unlikely to be the same; change will inevitably keep happening.

First, regarding the moment—the interval—between leaving an old body and taking a new one, only if we understand two or three points will the question become clear.

One: whatever experiences occur in that interval are dreamlike. So, while they are occurring they are utterly real, but when you recall them they are like dreams. They are dreamlike because the senses are not in use. Your sense of reality, your recognition of what is real, comes through the senses, through the body.

If I see you and then try to touch you, and my hand passes right through, I say, “A phantom—no real person.” If I touch this table and my hand goes through it, I say, “False, some hallucination.” For you, the test of reality is the testimony of the senses. In the interval between one body and the next you have no senses, no body. So whatever you perceive there is entirely dreamlike—like dreaming.

When you dream, the dream feels absolutely real; in a dream doubt never arises. It’s a very curious fact: in waking reality, doubt does sometimes arise. In a dream it never does. Dreams are very faithful. In waking you may wonder, “Is this really so or not?” In dreams you never wonder, “Is what I’m seeing real or not?” Why? Because even a slight doubt would shatter the dream.

A dream is such a delicate happening that the faintest doubt is enough to kill it. The mere thought, “Could this be a dream?”—and it breaks; or, you can say, you awaken. For a dream to persist, it is essential that there be not even a particle of doubt. The tiniest doubt will tear apart even the deepest, most vivid dream.

So in a dream you never discover whether what is happening is happening; it simply is. This also means that when a dream is occurring, it feels more real than reality. Waking is never that real, because in waking there is the convenience—the possibility—of doubt. The dream is hyper-real. It is so hyper-real that even contradictions within the dream don’t appear as contradictions.

A man is walking toward you; suddenly he becomes a dog, and it doesn’t even occur to you, “How can this be? He was just a man, now he’s a dog!” No thought arises—“How can this happen?” It just does; and it can. There is no doubt anywhere. Upon waking you may think, “What a muddle!”—but never inside the dream. In the dream it’s entirely reasonable; there is no incongruity. A man who was your friend a moment ago is suddenly pointing a gun at you, and in the dream you don’t think, “How can a friend aim a gun?” There is no inconsistency there.

In dreams there is no inconsistency. Even the inconsistent is consistent—because a tiny suspicion would scatter the dream. But after waking—everything is lost. You may not have noticed that after waking you can remember a dream for at most an hour; generally it fades within five to seven minutes. At the most, very imaginative people can keep a dream’s memory for about an hour. Otherwise your head would be so crowded with dream-memory you couldn’t live. Within an hour of waking, dreams vanish; your mind becomes free of the smoke of dreaming.

Just so, in the interval between two bodies, while it is happening, whatever happens is utterly real—more real than what you have known through eyes and senses. So, the bliss of the gods has no end—because the apsarases are experienced as so real that no woman known through the senses can be that real. And the suffering of the pretas has no end—because the pains that befall them are of a reality you can never know here. Heaven and hell are very deep dream-states—very deep. The fire that burns in hell—such a fire you cannot kindle here; nothing so real can be made here. Although it is a very inconsistent fire.

If you look at descriptions of hell’s fire, you’ll find this: people are burned in the fire, yet they do not burn up. The inconsistency doesn’t occur to you at that time—that you are being burned, the fire is terrible, the heat unbearable, yet you are not actually burning! That inconsistency may occur later, not in the midst of it.

In the interval between two bodies there are two kinds of souls. First, those very bad souls for whom finding a womb will take time; I call them pretas. Second, the good souls for whom finding a suitable womb will also take time; they need a worthy womb—I call them devas. There is no fundamental difference in species—only differences of personality, character, quality of mind. Their experiences are different. The bad souls come back from this interval with such painful memories that the memory itself is the fruit called hell. Those who could bring that memory back have described the condition of hell clearly. Hell is purely a dreamland; it is nowhere. But the one who has come from there won’t accept your denial—because what you show him here is nothing compared to what he saw. He will say, “This fire is cool compared with what I saw. The hatred and violence here are nothing compared to what I experienced.” And heaven is the same in kind—pleasant dreams versus painful dreams. The whole interval is a dream period.

It is very subtle and philosophical to understand that it is utterly a dream. We can understand, because we dream every night. You dream only when your bodily senses have slackened—your connection with the body is loosened, and you slip into dreams. Every night you see the two kinds of dreams—heavenly and hellish; or they are mixed; some people see mostly hellish dreams, some mostly heavenly. Imagine you dream for eight hours; if that were stretched to eight years, you would never know—because there is no sense of time there. Hence that span has no clear sense of duration. It can be measured only by the changes between your previous body and this one—but that is inference. Within the interval itself there is no sense of time.

This is why Christianity says hell is eternal—based on the memory of those who dreamt a very long dream. So long that, upon returning, they could not recall any link between their previous body and this one. It seemed infinite; escape felt almost impossible.

Good souls experience pleasant dreams; bad souls, painful dreams. They are tormented and made happy by dreams. In Tibet, when a person is dying, the instructions given at the time of death are precisely to create a dream sequence. As a person is dying, they tell him, “Now begin to see this, and this.” They prepare the entire atmosphere.

It is curious, but scientific: dreams can be induced from the outside. At night you are asleep. If a wet cloth is moved around your feet, one kind of dream will arise; if a heater warms your feet, a different dream will arise. If your feet are cooled, you may dream of rain, or that you are walking on snow. If your feet are warmed, you may dream you are walking in a desert—hot sand, blazing sun, drenched in sweat. Dreams can be produced from outside. Many of your dreams are produced from outside. If your own hand rests heavily on your chest, you dream that someone is sitting on your chest—your own hand is there.

Exactly at the time of leaving one body, as that long dream-period approaches—during which the soul may or may not enter a new body—Tibet alone developed the practice of creating its sequence. They call it the Bardo. They make the full arrangement to induce that dream. They evoke all the auspicious tendencies that existed in the person’s life, and work throughout his life so that, at death, those can be brought forth.

As I said, after waking you can remember a dream for about an hour. Similarly, after a new birth, up to roughly six months, almost everything is remembered; then it gradually fades. The very imaginative or highly sensitive retain a little more. Those who have practiced some kind of awareness in a past life can retain it much longer.

Just as for an hour before sleep the shadow of dream begins to fall upon you, so too, for six months before death, the shadow of death begins to fall upon you. Therefore death within six months is predictable.

Even an accident?

Even an accident is not an accident. We can speak of this. No accident is merely an accident. It seems so because we don’t perceive what is happening in our inner arrangement. But no accident is just an accident; it too has causes.

Six months before death the shadow begins to fall; preparation begins. Just as an hour before sleep the preparation begins. Hence the hour before sleep is extremely suggestible; there is no more suggestible time. At that time you believe you are awake, yet the shadow of sleep has begun to fall. This is why religions all over the world set the hour before sleep and the hour after waking as times of prayer—the sandhya times.

Sandhya does not mean when the sun sets and rises. Sandhya means the interval—when you pass into sleep; and in the morning, when you pass out of sleep. That middle period is called sandhya. It has nothing to do with the sun. The association arose because once our sleep-time coincided with sunset and our waking with sunrise. So we assumed that sunset and sunrise are sandhya.

But now that notion should be dropped. No one sleeps with the setting sun or rises with the rising sun. The hour before you actually sleep is sandhya, and the hour after you actually wake is sandhya. Sandhya means the dim, transitional moment—between two states.

Kabir called his language sandhya-bhasha. Kabir says, “We are not speaking from sleep, nor from waking. We are in between. We speak neither from within your world nor from outside it—we are standing on the borderland. From there we see what cannot be seen with eyes, and also what can be seen with eyes. We stand on the threshold. So what we speak contains both what can be said and what cannot be said. Therefore our language is sandhya-bhasha. Be careful in drawing its meanings.”

This hour in the morning, and the hour before sleep in the evening, are very valuable. Likewise the six months after birth, and the six months before death. But those who do not know how to use the hour before sleep and the hour after waking will not know how to use the first six months nor the last six months. In cultures that were very wise in this matter, the first six months were of great importance. In the first six months you can give the child everything essential; later it becomes difficult, because during that time the child is in sandhya—highly suggestible. But we cannot explain by speaking, and we know no other way than speech; that is the obstacle.

Similarly, the six months before death are very precious. But the child’s six months we know; the old person’s six months we do not know when they begin—so both opportunities are missed. Yet one who rightly uses the evening hour before sleep and the morning hour after waking will know with certainty six months before his death that the time has come. Because one who spends that evening hour in prayer begins to have a clear sense of what the in-between state is: so subtle and distinct—neither waking nor sleep. Once that sense becomes clear, six months before death you will notice that the same sense remains throughout the day. The very feeling that comes for an hour before sleep becomes stabilized during the six months before death.

Therefore the last six months should be plunged wholly into practice. Those six months are used for the Bardo—for training the dream—so that you know what to do on the next journey. It cannot be given at the very last moment; preparation of six months is needed. And only one who has prepared in those six months can be trained during the first six months after the next birth; otherwise, he cannot be trained. For in those six months the sutras are taught on the basis of which the training in the next six months can be given.

All of this has its own scientificness, its own methods and secrets. Everything can be set out. One who has passed through the whole process can remember even after six months; but the memory remains dream-memory, not the memory of waking reality. Heaven and hell become memories of dreams. Descriptions can be given; upon such descriptions the world’s entire accounts of heavens and hells have been constructed. But the details differ, because everyone’s heaven and hell are different. They are not places; they are mental states. Therefore when Christians describe heaven it is of one kind—because it depends on those who describe. Indians describe differently; Jains differently; Buddhists differently. In truth, every person brings a different report.

It is almost like all of us sleeping in this room tonight and, in the morning, each recounting his dreams. We were all in the same place, yet our dreams are different—depending on us. Thus heaven and hell are entirely personal events. Rough accounts can be made—that heaven has joy, that hell has suffering; what the forms of suffering and joy are—these rough outlines can be given. All the details given so far are true as states of consciousness.

Here too, two or three things must be kept in mind. First, to be able to choose birth means: if one wishes, one can be born. That is the first freedom available to one who has attained knowing—if he wishes, he can take birth. But the moment we want anything, with wanting, dependencies begin to arrive.

I was standing outside a house. I had the freedom that, if I wished, I could go inside. I went inside. But the moment I entered, the limits of the house and the dependencies of the house began immediately. So the freedom to take birth is vast; the freedom to die is not that vast. Not that vast. It will remain—to a degree. An ordinary person has no freedom about death at all, because he never chose even his birth. Yet the freedom regarding birth is very great, total in one sense, for he can refuse—he can choose not to choose. But with choosing, many dependencies begin. For now he is choosing limits. He leaves the vastness and enters a narrow space. And a narrow space will have its own boundaries.

Now he chooses a womb. Ordinarily we do not choose a womb, so it is not an issue. But such a person chooses a womb. Before him are millions of wombs; from them he chooses one. With each choice of womb he is entering a world of dependency—because the womb has its own limits. He has chosen a mother, a father. Whatever span of life is possible in the seed of that mother and father—that he has chosen. This choice is made. Now he will have to use this body.

You go to the market to buy a machine, and you choose one with a ten-year guarantee. A limit has come in. But he chooses it knowingly; therefore the dependency will not feel like bondage to him. Dependency happens, but he is choosing it knowingly. You do not say, I bought this machine and it will run ten years, so I have become a slave. You yourself chose it, knowing it will run ten years—finished. There is no sting in it, no pain in it. Although he knows when this body will end; and therefore he has the awareness of the body’s ending. He knows when it will end. Hence in such a person there will be a certain urgency that is not in ordinary people.

If we read Jesus, it feels he is very urgent—something is about to happen, just about to happen. Those who are listening cannot understand his difficulty. They cannot, because for them death is no question at all, and for Jesus it stands right in front of him. Jesus knows it is about to happen. So if Jesus says to you, Do this now, you say, We’ll do it tomorrow. Now Jesus’ difficulty is that he knows he may not be there to say “tomorrow.”

Whether it is Mahavira, Buddha, or Jesus, their urgency is intense. They are running with great intensity. For they are among the dead as the ones who know. Everyone else is utterly carefree; there is no hurry. And no matter how long the lifespan, it makes no difference—there will be hurry for such a person. Whether he lives a hundred years or two hundred, all time is short. For us, time does not seem short because we do not know when it will end—we even keep forgetting that it will end.

So, the freedom regarding birth is very great. But birth is an entry into a prison, and a prison has its own dependencies; they must be accepted.

And such a person accepts them easily, because he is choosing. If he has come into the prison, he has not been brought—he has come. So he even extends his hands to have the chains put on. In these chains there is no sting, no pain. He lies down by the dark walls—no obstacle in it. Because no one told him to go inside; he could have remained under the open sky. He came of his own will—this is his choice.

When dependency too is chosen, it is freedom. And when freedom is thrust upon you without your choosing, it is bondage. Freedom and dependency are not divided so simply. If we ourselves have chosen dependency, it is freedom. And if freedom is forced upon us, it remains bondage; there is no freedom in it.

Even so, for such a person many things are clear; therefore he can decide things. For example, if he knows he will leave at seventy, he can set things in order. He does not entangle. He does only such work as will be settled within seventy years. That which can be finished tomorrow, he finishes. He does not spread so many nets that they extend beyond tomorrow. Therefore he is never anxious. As he lives, so he keeps preparing for death as well. Death too is a preparation.

In one sense he is in a great hurry—so far as others are concerned. So far as he himself is concerned, there is no hurry—because nothing remains for him to do. And still, he can choose how this death happens. He can arrange when it happens—within limits. If his body is to last seventy years, then within those limits he can give the exact moment of dying: when he will die, how he will die, under what arrangements and in what manner he will die.

There was a Zen nun. She announced her death some six months in advance. She had her funeral pyre prepared. Then she mounted the pyre, bowed to everyone, and her friends lit the fire. A monk who was watching stood up and, when the flames had begun to catch and she was close to burning, he shouted, Inside there must be a lot of heat, isn’t there? The nun laughed and said, Fools like you are still asking such questions? Meaning, you couldn’t think to ask anything worth asking? Fools like you are still asking such questions? What is visible to you already! And if I sit in fire, whether it will feel hot or not—I know that too.

But this is chosen. She burns laughing. She chooses the moment of her death. And for the thousands of disciples who had gathered, she wants to show that one can die laughing. For those for whom even living laughing is difficult, this message is immensely useful—that one can die laughing.

So death can be scheduled. It will depend on the person, what choice he makes. But everything will happen within limits. The matter is not boundless. Within limits he will decide. I may have to remain within this room, but which corner I sit in—I can decide. Whether I sleep on the left or the right—I can decide. These are the kinds of freedoms there will be.

And such people certainly make use of their death. Sometimes the use is visible, sometimes not. But such people use every single thing in their life; they use death as well. In truth, once they have come, they are here for utility now—for someone’s sake. They have no personal purpose left. Their coming is so that it may serve someone. So they make use of every detail of life.

But it is very difficult—very difficult—for us to understand their experiments. It is not necessary either! Often we do not understand. Because whatever they are doing, we know nothing of it; nor can it be done after informing us.

For example, a man like Buddha will not say, I am going to die tomorrow. Because to say today that he will die tomorrow would mean that the use that could have been made of the next twenty-four hours would become impossible. People would start crying, wailing, shouting. Even those twenty-four hours could not be used. So many times, quietly, such a person will do what is right; many times he will also make an announcement—as the immediate situation requires. But up to that limit, he does decide.

And a birth after enlightenment—the whole span from birth to death—is nothing but teaching, not for himself. A discipline, not for himself. And every time the strategy has to be changed. Because all strategies become old and blunt, and people find them hard to understand.

Take Gurdjieff. Mahavira would never touch money; but with Gurdjieff, if you asked a question he would say, Put down a hundred rupees first. Without the hundred rupees he would not even accept the question. He would have you put down a hundred, then give an answer. He might speak one sentence, he might speak two. Then if you wanted to ask something else—another hundred.

Many people said to him, What are you doing? And those who knew him were astonished, because whatever money came in was distributed right there. He was not going to keep it for even a moment; it would be given away here and there. Then why demand a hundred rupees?

Gurdjieff would sometimes say: For those whose minds value only money, to speak about the divine for free is utterly wrong—completely wrong. Because in their lives a free thing has no value. And Gurdjieff said, For everything you must pay something. One who is not prepared to pay—anything—has no right to receive.

But people thought Gurdjieff had a great hold on money. Those who looked from afar felt just that: he is money-minded—he won’t answer even a question without money.

Yet I say, in the place where he was—the West—where money had become the only value, a teacher of just that kind was needed: to charge for each word. Because he knew: the word for which you have paid a hundred rupees, the word for which you have shown your readiness to pay—you will carry that word with you; nothing else will you carry.

Gurdjieff would do many such things that seemed utterly difficult to digest. His disciples would be troubled and say, It would be better if you didn’t do this. And he would do it knowingly. He would be seated; you would come to meet him; he would make such a face that he looked exactly like a thug—a hoodlum. Not like a saint at all. Because of long practice with Sufi experiments, he could instantly change the angle of his eyes. And by changing the angle of the eyes, the whole face changes. Between a thug and a saint there is no difference except in the eyes; everything else is the same. Change the angle a little and a saint becomes a thug, a thug becomes a saint. His eyes were very loose; the pupils could take any angle. It took a second; nothing special needed to be done. The person beside him would not even notice that he had shown a thug’s face to someone else; the bystander would not know that he had frightened a man. And the man in front would be shaken: What kind of person is this? Where have I come?

When his friends gradually realized that he was thus troubling many people, they said, What are you doing? We don’t even know—someone poor fellow came, and you…

Gurdjieff said: That man—even if I had been a saint—would have found a thug in me. It would have taken him a little time. I did not waste his time. I said, Look and go. Because for two or four days he would have circled and found just that. I handed him over to himself. If after that he still stayed, then I would work with him.

Therefore it is a very difficult matter. One who took Gurdjieff for a thug and went away will never come back. But Gurdjieff’s knowing is deep. He is right. He says, This man would have found just this. He would have had to do this work himself—I did it for him. His four days were not wasted, nor were my four days. If he had truly come to seek, it would not have mattered; he would still have stayed. If he stays in spite of me, then he has stayed; if he stays because of me, I will not call that staying. If he has come to seek, let him stay, be patient, not be hasty. If he draws conclusions so quickly—my eye turns a little and he decides the man is wrong—if he draws conclusions so quickly, he will always find something in me to support his conclusion and go away.

This will be so with each teacher—what he does and how he does it. Many times, throughout life, one never comes to know the arrangement behind his actions. But he uses every moment of life—from birth to death. Not a single moment is wasted. There is a deep meaningfulness to it all; it is used for some great purpose and great destiny.