I would like to begin these three days of talks with a small story.
There was a man very forgetful—he would forget even the smallest things. His life was in great difficulty; to remember anything at all was hard for him. At night, even taking off his clothes to go to sleep was a problem—by morning he would have forgotten where he had kept his hat, where he had put his glasses, how exactly he had worn his coat. So he almost slept with his clothes on, so that in the morning he would not have to trouble his memory again.
Nearby there was a church. When the priest heard of his forgetfulness, he was amazed. One Sunday, when the man came to church, the priest said to him: ‘Write in a notebook where each piece of clothing is and how you have worn it, so that you can undress at night and in the morning dress again according to the book.’
That night the man took off his clothes and wrote down everything in a book. In the morning he got up—and all seemed fine. ‘The hat goes on the head’—that was written; ‘where the coat goes’—that too; ‘which sock on which foot’—that was written as well; ‘which shoe on which foot’—that also. But he had forgotten to write down where he himself was! Then he was in great trouble. Everything else was in order, and where each thing had to be worn he knew—but ‘Where am I?’—that, in the night, he had forgotten to write.
Before daybreak he reached the priest’s house—completely naked. The priest was startled on seeing him and could not recognize him.
All our recognition, in fact, is by clothes. If we were to see someone naked, we too might not recognize who he is.
The priest, astonished, asked: ‘Who are you, and how did you come?’
The man said: ‘That is exactly what I have come to ask you—who am I, and where am I? For all the other garments are fine, but last night I forgot to write about myself!’
Who knows what the priest told him. It does not concern us. I begin with this story because almost all of us are in precisely this condition. We know many things—almost everything about life—except for one fact: where we are and who we are. ‘Who am I?’—of this we have no remembrance at all.
With that man, the matter was still reasonable, for he forgot everything else too—so it seems natural that he forgot himself. But with us there is a great difficulty: we remember everything else—only this we do not remember, who we are and where we are.
So it is less proper to laugh at him than to laugh at oneself. Forgetfulness was his habit. Forgetfulness is not our habit. We remember everything—save one thing. Therefore we put on our clothes properly, our shoes as well, we set up our homes in order—but our life does not come right. Nor will it. That which is central in life—we have no memory of it.
And I said: when that naked man stood at the priest’s door, even the priest could not recognize who he was—because we all recognize each other by our clothes. So many of us are gathered here—if we all came naked, none could recognize who is who! It is still acceptable that we recognize others by their garments. The surprising thing is that we identify ourselves also by our garments. We have no remembrance of the soul, no awareness of our own nature; so we recognize ourselves by our clothes—and there are many kinds of clothes. The garments we wear—of wealth, of titles, of positions, of social prestige, of ego, of honorifics—these are all garments, and by them we identify even ourselves.
If one knows oneself through garments alone, is it any wonder if one’s life becomes dark—filled with sorrow, with anguish and poverty? For garments are not our life-breath; garments are not our Atman. Yet we know ourselves only through our garments; we have no deeper access within.
In these three days I shall speak of that which lies beyond these garments—our being—and I would remind you: whoever gets lost in garments is wasting his life. Whoever knows himself only through garments does not know himself—and will never find himself. And one who cannot find himself—whatever else he may gain—gains nothing of value. Even if, losing oneself, one could gain the whole world, it would be valueless.
Another small story comes to mind; let me tell it, and then I shall say what I wish to say today about this self-forgetfulness.
Three friends set out on a journey. The very first night they had to rest in a forest. It was dangerous—wild animals, fear of bandits and robbers, a dark night. They decided that one of them would keep watch while two slept. One was the village pandit, one a brave Kshatriya, and one the village barber.
By the throw of lots, it fell first to the barber to keep the first watch. Sleep came to him quickly—fatigue from the day. To keep himself awake, he began to shave the head of his sleeping Kshatriya friend beside him. To stay awake he shaved his friend’s hair completely off!
His watch over, the final turn—toward the last watch of night—was for the pandit. He had no hair; his head was already bald with age.
When the second friend’s turn came, the barber woke him: ‘Friend, wake up! Your time has come. Now I shall sleep.’
The Kshatriya felt his head—found no hair at all. He said, ‘It seems you have mistakenly woken the pandit in my place.’ He felt his head and said again, ‘It seems by mistake you have woken the pandit instead of me!’ And he went back to sleep.
We recognize ourselves just so. Our identity goes only as deep as our garments. If it goes a bit deeper, it goes to the body—and that too is not deeper than a garment. If it goes yet deeper, it goes to the mind—and the mind too is no deeper than garments. Beyond this our recognition does not go.
All the sorrow and darkness in life arises from this self-ignorance. At the center—at our own center—there is darkness, and we try to light lamps along the roads. Those lamps do not help. If there is darkness within me, wherever I go I carry darkness with me. Even on those roads where I light lamps of light, my arriving brings darkness—because I am the darkness. Until I know myself, I am darkness. I carry my darkness around in life. And all others carry their darknesses. Wherever we gather together, the darkness becomes very thick. Each one is in his own darkness, and where the whole of humanity gathers, the darkness grows dense.
The last three or four thousand years of human history are the history of this darkness. Out of this darkness comes conflict, war, violence. From this darkness arise jealousy, hatred, anger. From this darkness comes destruction. We suffer, and we make others suffer. This has gone on for three, four thousand years. And still we have not succeeded in creating a society whose life is illumined by light.
Do you know—within three thousand years there have been some fourteen thousand six hundred wars. In merely three thousand years—nearly fifteen thousand wars! Five wars per year! Perhaps we have done nothing but fight. And these are the big wars; the small skirmishes we fight daily are beyond counting—the petty violences we commit every day, there is no accounting for them. If in three thousand years we had to fight fifteen thousand wars, does it not show that the human mind is afflicted by a very deep disease? In these three thousand years there are scarcely a few years without war. And those years we cannot even call peace—for in those intervals we prepared for new wars. Either we have been fighting, or we have been preparing to fight. The whole of history can be divided into two chapters: war, and preparations for war. Peace we have not known.
Look also into personal life—you will find no sign of peace anywhere. No ray of joy. No music of love.
We are gathered here—who among us feels the music of love within? Who senses the fragrance of life? Who tastes life’s blessedness, its fulfillment? A meaninglessness has seized us. Yet somehow we go on living in the hope of tomorrow—that perhaps tomorrow everything will be all right.
But if today is wrong, how will tomorrow be right? For tomorrow is born out of today. If today is full of sorrow, remember—tomorrow cannot be full of joy, because tomorrow’s birth is from today. The life of tomorrow—you are creating it; you are creating it every moment. If you are unhappy today, know that you will be unhappy tomorrow too. In hope of tomorrow’s happiness, today’s sorrow can be endured; but tomorrow’s happiness cannot be created by that hope. In dreaming of tomorrow’s bliss, today’s pain can be borne; but tomorrow’s bliss cannot be born from it.
Thus joy remains only a hope, and life remains sorrow—this is everyone’s experience. This is not theory. Whoever opens his life a little will see it—plain facts.
The first fact about life is this: the way we are living it, no flower of joy blossoms in it—nor can it. Therefore, hoping for tomorrow—tomorrow, next year, in the next life, in the beyond—that all will be well, is only an extension of ‘tomorrow’. Whoever thinks that after this birth, in the next, all will be well, is in the same illusion as the one who thinks: today is sorrowful, tomorrow there will be peace. Whoever thinks in moksha everything will be fine, is in illusion—for tomorrow will be born of me. The coming birth too, moksha too, whatever is to be, will be born out of me. If my today is full of darkness, how can my tomorrow be illumined?
Should we then despair and abandon all hope for tomorrow?
I say to you: there is indeed no reason to hope about tomorrow. But neither is there cause for despair. Today can be filled with hope. Today can be transformed. In my very being—as I am now—a revolution can be brought—not by thinking what I will be tomorrow, but by knowing what I am now, by awakening to it, by becoming aware of it.
From self-remembering, revolution can arise.
If I can know myself, then that lamp will be available which will destroy the darkness of my life. Without knowing oneself, there is no lamp, no light, no hope.
First, we do not know ourselves. To know this is the first step toward knowing oneself.
If someone imagines he knows himself, the doors to self-knowledge close. Much religious teaching, culture, doctrines repeated over millennia, talk of Atman and Paramatman, have created in many of us the illusion that we know ourselves.
This illusion deepens our ignorance. The illusion of knowing oneself—on the basis of words and doctrines—is the greatest hindrance in self-knowledge. No other wall stands so tall.
Small children know to say ‘We are the Atman’, and the old keep repeating ‘We are the Atman’. These are words. If it becomes an experience of being, life becomes utterly different. These are doctrines. If it becomes one’s own realization and direct seeing, life becomes new, and joy overflows.
But we clutch these words as crutches. In ignorance, the false knowledge born of words we cling to with great intensity. Even letting go of it feels frightening. The nearer death comes, the more tightly one clutches these words. The Gita, the Koran, the Bible sit heavier and heavier on the mind. One starts knocking on temple doors and sitting in the company of sadhus—so that one can grip the words more tightly, so that against the approaching death some defense may be built. Those who are afraid of death become believers in the immortality of the soul. Their belief is not knowledge.
No belief is ever knowledge; all beliefs are forms of ignorance.
Whatever we have taken for granted about life is our ignorance. And because of this taking-for-granted, the door to knowledge is closed.
In the remembrance of the self, the prevailing theories about the self are the greatest obstacles. The theories as such are not the obstacle—our belief in them is. Our beliefs are the hindrance. The more a person becomes laden with beliefs, the less the possibility remains for the descent of vivek—discrimination, awakening—into his life. It becomes impossible to know oneself. Because doctrines about knowing the self create the illusion that one already knows. And these illusions exist on many levels.
A sannyasin was a guest in a king’s palace. Early in the morning the king came and asked him: ‘I hear you speak of the Divine; can you introduce me to God?’ He had asked many sannyasins the same question before. He expected, as usual, that this sannyasin would quote the Upanishads, the Vedas, the scriptures, say something from the Gita, share some knowledge. But what did this sannyasin ask? He said, ‘You wish to meet God—can you wait a little, or would you like to meet Him right now?’
The king was startled. Anyone would be. He had not imagined the question would be put this way. He said, ‘Perhaps you did not understand—I speak of meeting the God above.’
The sannyasin said, ‘There is no reason for misunderstanding. I speak of none other than that. Do you wish to meet Him now, or can you wait a little?’
The king said, ‘If you say so, I would like to meet Him right now.’
He was hardly prepared to meet God so soon. And who is ready at once? Ask the seekers of God, ‘Will you meet Him now?’—they will say, ‘Let me think a little, consult my friends; if the husband, let me ask my wife; if the wife, let me ask my husband; let me ask my people at home, then I will return.’ Who is ready at this very moment? The king too was not ready. But since the calamity had come upon him, he said, ‘All right—if you say so, I will meet Him now.’
The sannyasin said, ‘Before I introduce you to God, write your introduction on this small paper.’
The king wrote what he considered his identity—a great king of a great realm, the address of his palace, and so on.
The sannyasin asked, ‘Shall I take this as your true introduction? If tomorrow you were to become a beggar and lose your kingdom, would you be different?’
The king said, ‘No—if my kingdom is lost, I will still be myself.’
The sannyasin said, ‘Then being a king cannot be your identity—because even without the kingdom you remain you. Being a beggar, you will still be you. So being a king is not your introduction. And this name you have written—your parents could have given another name. You yourself could change it; you would not change by that.’
The king said, ‘What difference does a name make? I remain myself whatever the name.’
The sannyasin said, ‘That means you have no name—names are only for convenience. Any name will do. So name is not your identity either. Then shall I assume you do not know your introduction? For you have written only two things—your kinghood and your name.’
The king took back the paper and said, ‘Forgive me! If my name, my wealth, my position and prestige are not my identity—then I do not know who I am.’
The sannyasin said, ‘Then it is very difficult to introduce you to God—for whom shall I introduce? Whose message shall I send that he wishes to meet Him? Go, search who you are. The day you find that, you will not come to me to be introduced to God. For the day you find yourself, you will find That which is within everyone—because what is within me, within another, within all, is joined deeply, is one, is whole.’
But of this ‘I’ we have no clue. Either we take our name, our house, our family as our being. And if somehow we are freed even from this, and we see that name, house, lineage, nation, caste, religion are not our being—then like parrots we begin to repeat words written in scriptures: ‘I am Atman, I am Paramatman, aham brahmasmi’—and who knows what else we repeat.
Understand: the way your name was taught to you, in the same way these things were taught to you. There is no difference. As you were told ‘This is your name’ and you held on to it, so also you were told ‘Paramatman is within you’ and you held on to that. There is no difference between the two. So long as we clutch at words coming from outside, we will not become acquainted with ourselves. Whether the words came from father, from society, from rishis, sages, sadhus, saints—whoever they came from—so long as we grip an identity borrowed from outside, that identity which is truly ours cannot be born. We will not know it. There is no way to know it then.
So either we grasp the so-called worldly identity, or we grasp the so-called spiritual identity—but both are grasped. Both come from outside. That which comes from outside is not self-identity.
Therefore, as false as it is to say ‘My name is me’, just as false it is to learn from outside ‘I am the Atman, I am Paramatman, I am deathless, I am this, I am that.’ If these are learned from outside, they are equally false. The first falsity we understand easily, for it has been repeated for millennia. The second falsity is harder to recognize—because then we are left in an unshakable darkness and ignorance. If worldly identity is not mine, and so-called spiritual identity is not mine, then what is mine? We are left in ignorance and darkness—and ignorance appears frightening.
The mind is frightened by the realization ‘I do not know myself’, so we want to accept some identity or other. The householder has one identity; the sannyasin has another—both are false. We grab one of them to console ourselves. Thus someone leaves the householder’s identity and gets caught in sannyas. He leaves one kind of garments and accepts another. He leaves one name and takes another.
We change a sannyasin’s name, give him another; we change his clothes, give him new robes; we change his style, give him another way. But to stand in that empty space where we have no identity—neither worldly nor spiritual—no one is ready. Whoever is ready to stand in that emptiness, only he comes to know himself. Whoever leaves all identity and stands in non-identity—who drops all knowledge about himself and stands in ignorance—in that very ignorance, in that not-knowing, in that very state where nothing is known about oneself and whatever is known is dropped—in that very state, in that very revolutionary moment, the transformation happens where the awareness of the self is born. So long as I cling to any identity, the ground for that awareness cannot arise. So long as I hold any support, there is no cause for awakening That which sleeps within. When I drop all supports...
A small incident comes to mind—purely imaginary.
It is said that one day Krishna was having his meal. In the middle he suddenly rose and ran toward the door. The one serving him said, ‘What are you doing? Where are you running? Rising in the midst of your meal?’
Krishna said, ‘A devotee of mine is in great trouble. The wicked are tormenting him, pelting him with stones.’ Saying this he ran, even beyond the door—but then he returned, sat again to eat.
The one who had asked the first question asked again, ‘You came back midway?’
Krishna said, ‘The devotee himself has picked up stones in his hands—now there is no need for me to go. Just now they were stoning him; he was unarmed, helplessly enduring—my presence was needed. Now he has taken up stones himself. My presence is no longer needed.’
The story is imaginary. But that which sleeps in man—call it truth, Atman, Paramatman, call it anything, call it Krishna, call it Christ—whatever the name—until you become utterly without support, there is no reason for it to rise and awaken. As long as you hold on to something, it will sleep. When your hands hold nothing, when you stand unsupported, when there is no security left, no support, no identity, no knowledge—and you dare to stand in sheer ignorance and vulnerability—only then, only then does That which sleeps within awaken. Only then a spark happens, a seed breaks and sprouts, a darkness shatters and a light is kindled—never before. Before that, it is impossible, utterly impossible. For before that we always find a substitute, a surrogate. We pick up stones ourselves; then it becomes difficult. We grasp some identity, some garment, some form, some image, some name, some word, some doctrine—the ignorance gets covered, and there remains no reason for knowledge to be born.
The first door for the coming of knowledge is the acceptance, within oneself, of one’s total ignorance.
So this morning I would say to you: do not become ‘knowers’; know your ignorance. Becoming a ‘knower’ is very easy. To know and accept one’s ignorance is an act of great daring. For in becoming a ‘knower’ the ego is easily gratified; in accepting ignorance, the ego is shattered—there remains no place for it to stand.
The ‘knower’ finds immense nourishment for the ego. None are as egoistic as the pandit. Preachers become bloated with ego more than anyone else. Those who talk of knowledge become afflicted with ego as few others do. By gathering a few words, a few ideas, we imagine we have known; we have known nothing—but our ‘I’ certainly swells. And then, whatever fills the ego we begin to collect. Someone collects wealth—for hoarding wealth seems to fill the ego. Someone builds great palaces, erects Taj Mahals; someone does something else, because it fattens the ego. Someone takes to renunciation, because that too gratifies the ego.
Our ego is very subtle. It constantly seeks to feed itself. If renunciation is praised, honored, we can renounce, we can fast, we can stand in the sun, stand on our head, torture the body. If all around there is applause, we can even consent to die. Otherwise, would any martyr agree to die? But if the ego is gratified, we can smile even while hanging on the cross.
There was a fakir—Mulla Nasruddin. Before he became a fakir, he was a vizier at a king’s court. Once the king and Nasruddin went hunting. They lost their way in a forest and reached a small village in the early morning, searching for the road. Hungry, they came to a poor man’s house and asked for breakfast. The man had two or three eggs; he made something from them and offered it.
While leaving, the king asked, ‘How much?’ In that land’s currency, the poor man said, ‘Fifty rupees.’
The king was amazed. The price of a few eggs was hardly a few coins—fifty rupees! He asked the vizier, Nasruddin, ‘What is the matter? Are eggs so rare in this part of the country?’
Nasruddin replied, ‘Eggs are not rare, sir—but kings are!’
Eggs are plentiful; but in this area, kings are hard to come by!
The king had never imagined paying fifty rupees for eggs. But as soon as he heard ‘Kings are rare!’ he paid the fifty—and gave Nasruddin fifty more as a reward for such a marvelous remark. Fifty for the eggs, fifty as a gift. Why? Great satisfaction—‘Kings are rare!’
This sense of self—every day it seeks its gratification. Wherever you become ‘higher’, the same thing begins to feed the ego. In a town, a palace begins to rise. So long as it is equal to other houses there is no satisfaction. When it rises above others, satisfaction begins. The higher it goes—and the day it stands alone, the only high house in the village—on that day deep gratification arises. Inferiority—ego demands the inferiority of others. Someone renounces; someone hoards wealth; someone accumulates ideas, becomes a ‘knower’. And the day he feels he alone is the owner of that knowledge, the day he stands alone—then profound satisfaction arises.
But the more the ego is fortified, the more impossible it becomes to know oneself. The more dense the asmita—the ‘I’-sense—becomes, the harder it is to know that which I am in truth.
Why?
Because the asmita is a construction of mine—the ego is my manufacture.
And I? I am not my manufacture. My being, my Atman, my reality is not my making.
The ego is my creation.
One has constructed his ego by building great houses; another by gathering wealth; another by completing the journey to the presidency; another by accumulating knowledge. This is our construction. We have made it.
And I? I am not my construction. That within me which is unconstructed, unborn, which is before my knowing, before my doing, before even my birth—that, to know it, the ego I have constructed becomes the obstacle.
Therefore, neither the renunciate knows, nor the ‘knower’, nor the rich man, nor the power-hungry, nor the ambitious.
Who knows?
At the door of knowing, the first thing is this: only he knows who attains to the acceptance ‘I do not know’. In the very recognition ‘I do not know’, the urge to grasp fades; I stand empty-handed. Empty-handed, empty-minded.
If I ask you: ‘What is your name?’—you quickly answer, ‘My name is Ram, or Vishnu, or such-and-such.’ Why are you so certain that this is your name? Have you ever pondered what you are saying? The name rises swiftly, the answer is given, and the matter is over. If you pause a little and inquire, ‘Do I truly have a name?’—perhaps a silence will happen within, a stillness—a name will not be found, and a silence will be born.
When we ask someone a question, if he ‘knows’, he answers promptly. ‘Knowing’ means: if something exists in his memory, he replies. I ask: ‘What is two plus two?’—you say, ‘Four’, because memory has learned it. Ask, answer. If I ask, ‘Who is within?’ you say, ‘Atman.’ That too memory has learned. It is the two-and-two-make-four kind of answer. But memory is not knowledge.
Therefore, in the search for the self, do not expect an answer—because whatever comes will come from memory, and will be false, learned. All that is learned is false; it does not become knowing. Nothing learned becomes knowledge.
What is small in life can be learned—because it is outside.
What is vast cannot be learned—because it is within.
What is within cannot be learned from without; it can be known, uncovered, discovered, recognized—but not learned. It can be known, but not remembered.
So whenever you ask, ‘Who am I?’—please do not accept any answer, because whatever answer comes will be from memory, false, borrowed. If memory says ‘Vishnu’, let it pass—do not hold it. If memory says ‘Atman’, let it pass—do not grasp it. If memory says ‘Paramatman’—if memory says ‘There is nothing, only matter’—if you were raised in an atheistic home, memory will say ‘There is nothing but the body.’ If in a religious home, memory will say ‘You are the Atman, the deathless soul.’ Both are teachings. Drop them. Let atheist and theist pass. Let answers from scriptures pass. Then what will happen? When no answer arises, what will happen? When you grant no answer any acceptance, what will happen? A stillness will descend within, a silence will stand, a void will appear. From that very silence, from that very stillness, from that very emptiness, the taste of one’s being begins to come.
Ask: ‘Who am I?’—and please, do not grasp any answer. Ask: ‘Who am I?’—and allow only the question to remain, not the answer. Let the question echo, let it permeate your very life-breath, let it descend deep. Do not catch any answer—Hindu, Muslim, Jain—because all answers are learned. Let the question remain—‘Who am I?’—an arrow piercing the very core of your being. Let only the question remain, and no answer. You will be amazed: in that interval, in that empty space, in that silence, the first ray of self-knowing begins to descend—the first direct taste, the first light.
This morning I beseech you: ask yourself ‘Who am I?’ and accept no answer that comes from outside. Accept no answer—whether from some divine incarnation, or a Tirthankara, or a son of God, or a prophet, or an awakened one—whosoever. Do not accept it.
On the path of truth, whoever comes in between—bid him farewell. Tell him: step aside. I want to know—so there is no room for anyone’s answer. I want to see—so I cannot see with someone else’s borrowed eyes. My life wants to throb—only my heart’s beating will do, not another’s.
Thus this learned ‘knowledge’ becomes a barrier to the birth of true knowing. Not ignorance—but false, learned knowledge is the barrier. Ignorance is not the obstruction—knowledge, so-called knowledge, is the wall. Ignorance will place you in a most innocent state—simple, egoless. One thing more: whoever cannot fulfill this condition will not be able to proceed further in the search. Whoever cannot accept his ignorance will not be able to go on.
In Socrates’ time, there was a man possessed by a goddess. Someone asked him, while he was in trance, ‘Who is the greatest knower in Greece?’
He said, ‘Socrates.’
The man went to Socrates and said, ‘There has been a divine declaration—you are the greatest knower in Greece.’
Socrates said, ‘Go tell the goddess that there has been some mistake. The more I search, the more I find that none is more ignorant than I. Tell her there has been a mistake. The more I inquire, the more I see I know nothing. When I was a child, I thought I knew a little. When I became young, my knowledge diminished; I discovered that my childhood ‘knowing’ was not knowing. Now that I am old, I find that whatever I knew—I knew nothing. Now I am surrounded by ignorance—I feel I know nothing at all.’
The man returned and reported: ‘Socrates says he is supremely ignorant and knows nothing.’
The possessed one laughed and said, ‘Go tell him—precisely for this we called him the great knower! Because the groundwork for the descent of knowledge is to know, to accept, to recognize one’s ignorance completely.’
As soon as we accept ignorance, as soon as we know that we do not know, a change, a revolution happens. A curtain of ego and ‘knowing’ drops—and a silence, a peace descends.
For today, I raise only the question—let it resound within you: ‘Who am I?’ But if the question is mine, it is useless. When I say, ‘Do not accept anyone else’s answer,’ can I say, ‘Accept someone else’s question’? If the question is mine and you merely repeat it—‘Who am I?’—it will be false, impotent, without force. Only if it is your question can it stir your life-breath. Only if it is your question can it move your being. Only if it is your question can it reach, like an arrow, your innermost core.
Do you have the question?
Do you have your own question?
Does life not raise a question in you?
Does life not fill you with wonder?
Does life not place before you this inquiry: ‘Who am I? What is this?’
Are you utterly deaf and blind? Does no curiosity arise in your heart?
If there is any thirst, any question—any longing to know, to recognize, to attain life’s truth—gather it, allow it to become one question. Whoever goes around asking about everything else has gone astray; he has left the fundamental question. The fundamental question begins with oneself: Who am I?
If by fortune—good fortune—your question arises, and you can bid farewell to others’ answers, then there is no obstacle to knowing oneself. No barrier. No wall.
But in most minds the question is not there. Curiosity is not there.
Why?
It is impossible that the question is not somewhere within; yet curiosity does not blossom. What is the reason?
The reason is—lack of courage.
Why?
We ask only those questions whose answers we already know. We ask only those questions whose answers we already know! We ask the question, we answer it, and are satisfied. We never ask the questions whose answers we do not know—because asking them will expose our ignorance. So we fear, we are afraid. We avoid those questions which will reveal our ignorance.
Courage is needed to ask; one needs daring.
But we live upside-down. When we have the courage and daring, we say, ‘This is not the age for religion.’ When old age comes, death approaches—then we think the days of religion have arrived. The less courage remains, the less strength, the less the aspiration to explore—the more we think religion is now our concern. Temples and churches gather the old—the already dead or about to die. And slowly we have come to believe that religion is their domain.
I tell you: a senile mind can never know religious truth—not the old person, the old mind. What is needed is a youthful mind—a young mind—full of strength, full of courage to travel the unknown. Then the questions that arise are precisely the ones whose answers are not known. When such questions stand up in life, a new dawn begins, a new auspiciousness starts. Our eyes begin to lift toward That which is true, beautiful, auspicious—toward That which is Paramatman—toward That which is our real being. Knowing That, all sorrow dissolves—just as in a dark house, light a lamp and the darkness vanishes.
How this lamp can be lit—that I shall speak of in the coming talks. The questions that are yours—and there should be questions—I will answer in the evenings over the next two days. But come only when you feel clearly that a question of your own is arising within. Otherwise—there is no need to come. No reason.
If you feel the sense that ‘I do not know’, then come—then some search is possible, then together we can travel a little way, then I can speak from my heart to you—not so that you accept it, not so that you believe it, not so that you make it your creed—not so that my words become your knowledge. They cannot—and there is no need. But perhaps in our being together and inquiring, your curiosity may grow intense, your thirst become deep. Perhaps you may become aware of a thirst you never knew. Perhaps a search may begin—a seed may break within you and sprout. Perhaps a new life, a new movement, a new human being may take birth.
For three days I will say a few simple things.
For today I raise the question; carry it with you. Sleep with it tonight. Make a small experiment: whatever answer comes, set it aside. Whatever answer comes, refuse it—and let the question deepen. Wherever you catch an answer, the question dies. Where you grasp an answer, the question ends. If the question is to go deeper, do not seize any answer. When there is only the question and no answer in the mind—then something will begin to awaken; someone within will run to your aid; someone within will rise to help; someone who sleeps within will awaken. And that, that becomes self-identity—that becomes self-knowledge—‘Who am I?’
Schopenhauer once rose very early—around three in the morning—and went into a garden. It was dark. Schopenhauer was a thinker. Finding solitude, he began to speak loudly to himself. When there is someone, we speak to the other; when there is no one, we speak to ourselves. He too began to talk to himself.
The gardener awoke. ‘Who could have come at three in the night—and is walking about talking to himself? And alone!’ The gardener was afraid—‘Perhaps a madman.’ He took a lantern and his spear and, from a distance, shouted in fear: ‘Who are you?’
Schopenhauer began to laugh. His laughter frightened the gardener even more. ‘Certainly mad! At this hour, alone, talking to himself!’
‘Who are you?’ he cried. ‘Why do you not answer?’
Schopenhauer said, ‘My friend—if only I could answer! For the last thirty years I have been asking myself, “Who am I?”—and I cannot find out. What answer can I give you?’
But I tell you—Schopenhauer did not find out precisely because, though he asked ‘Who am I?’, he kept searching for answers—here in the Upanishads, there in Kant, in Hegel—who knows where. Thirty years were wasted. And I do not think he found out even at death—for he was still seeking answers. The question was within, but the answers were sought outside—they will not be found.
I say to you: the answer is hidden in the question itself. Do not search outside. Do not accept any answer from outside. Let the question come with full force—let it fill every pore, every breath, every heartbeat. Let only the question remain—and nothing else. Then there, right there—with the question—is the answer. It does not come from outside; it wells up from within. May Paramatman grant that the answer becomes available to you. But you will have to ask the question. My question will not do; nobody else’s will do.
So tomorrow—if you have a question of your own—come. This is not a lecture, not a sermon. There is no desire here to explain things to you. If the question rises, then something can happen—two hearts can meet on some plane, and something can be communicated.
You have listened to my words with such love—and to words that do not give you knowledge but plead for your ignorance. I am deeply grateful. May it be so that today’s ignorance becomes tomorrow’s knowledge, that today’s darkness becomes tomorrow’s light. With this prayer, I end for today. Let my pranam be accepted by the Paramatman seated within all.
Osho's Commentary
I would like to begin these three days of talks with a small story.
There was a man very forgetful—he would forget even the smallest things. His life was in great difficulty; to remember anything at all was hard for him. At night, even taking off his clothes to go to sleep was a problem—by morning he would have forgotten where he had kept his hat, where he had put his glasses, how exactly he had worn his coat. So he almost slept with his clothes on, so that in the morning he would not have to trouble his memory again.
Nearby there was a church. When the priest heard of his forgetfulness, he was amazed. One Sunday, when the man came to church, the priest said to him: ‘Write in a notebook where each piece of clothing is and how you have worn it, so that you can undress at night and in the morning dress again according to the book.’
That night the man took off his clothes and wrote down everything in a book. In the morning he got up—and all seemed fine. ‘The hat goes on the head’—that was written; ‘where the coat goes’—that too; ‘which sock on which foot’—that was written as well; ‘which shoe on which foot’—that also. But he had forgotten to write down where he himself was! Then he was in great trouble. Everything else was in order, and where each thing had to be worn he knew—but ‘Where am I?’—that, in the night, he had forgotten to write.
Before daybreak he reached the priest’s house—completely naked. The priest was startled on seeing him and could not recognize him.
All our recognition, in fact, is by clothes. If we were to see someone naked, we too might not recognize who he is.
The priest, astonished, asked: ‘Who are you, and how did you come?’
The man said: ‘That is exactly what I have come to ask you—who am I, and where am I? For all the other garments are fine, but last night I forgot to write about myself!’
Who knows what the priest told him. It does not concern us. I begin with this story because almost all of us are in precisely this condition. We know many things—almost everything about life—except for one fact: where we are and who we are. ‘Who am I?’—of this we have no remembrance at all.
With that man, the matter was still reasonable, for he forgot everything else too—so it seems natural that he forgot himself. But with us there is a great difficulty: we remember everything else—only this we do not remember, who we are and where we are.
So it is less proper to laugh at him than to laugh at oneself. Forgetfulness was his habit. Forgetfulness is not our habit. We remember everything—save one thing. Therefore we put on our clothes properly, our shoes as well, we set up our homes in order—but our life does not come right. Nor will it. That which is central in life—we have no memory of it.
And I said: when that naked man stood at the priest’s door, even the priest could not recognize who he was—because we all recognize each other by our clothes. So many of us are gathered here—if we all came naked, none could recognize who is who! It is still acceptable that we recognize others by their garments. The surprising thing is that we identify ourselves also by our garments. We have no remembrance of the soul, no awareness of our own nature; so we recognize ourselves by our clothes—and there are many kinds of clothes. The garments we wear—of wealth, of titles, of positions, of social prestige, of ego, of honorifics—these are all garments, and by them we identify even ourselves.
If one knows oneself through garments alone, is it any wonder if one’s life becomes dark—filled with sorrow, with anguish and poverty? For garments are not our life-breath; garments are not our Atman. Yet we know ourselves only through our garments; we have no deeper access within.
In these three days I shall speak of that which lies beyond these garments—our being—and I would remind you: whoever gets lost in garments is wasting his life. Whoever knows himself only through garments does not know himself—and will never find himself. And one who cannot find himself—whatever else he may gain—gains nothing of value. Even if, losing oneself, one could gain the whole world, it would be valueless.
Another small story comes to mind; let me tell it, and then I shall say what I wish to say today about this self-forgetfulness.
Three friends set out on a journey. The very first night they had to rest in a forest. It was dangerous—wild animals, fear of bandits and robbers, a dark night. They decided that one of them would keep watch while two slept. One was the village pandit, one a brave Kshatriya, and one the village barber.
By the throw of lots, it fell first to the barber to keep the first watch. Sleep came to him quickly—fatigue from the day. To keep himself awake, he began to shave the head of his sleeping Kshatriya friend beside him. To stay awake he shaved his friend’s hair completely off!
His watch over, the final turn—toward the last watch of night—was for the pandit. He had no hair; his head was already bald with age.
When the second friend’s turn came, the barber woke him: ‘Friend, wake up! Your time has come. Now I shall sleep.’
The Kshatriya felt his head—found no hair at all. He said, ‘It seems you have mistakenly woken the pandit in my place.’ He felt his head and said again, ‘It seems by mistake you have woken the pandit instead of me!’ And he went back to sleep.
We recognize ourselves just so. Our identity goes only as deep as our garments. If it goes a bit deeper, it goes to the body—and that too is not deeper than a garment. If it goes yet deeper, it goes to the mind—and the mind too is no deeper than garments. Beyond this our recognition does not go.
All the sorrow and darkness in life arises from this self-ignorance. At the center—at our own center—there is darkness, and we try to light lamps along the roads. Those lamps do not help. If there is darkness within me, wherever I go I carry darkness with me. Even on those roads where I light lamps of light, my arriving brings darkness—because I am the darkness. Until I know myself, I am darkness. I carry my darkness around in life. And all others carry their darknesses. Wherever we gather together, the darkness becomes very thick. Each one is in his own darkness, and where the whole of humanity gathers, the darkness grows dense.
The last three or four thousand years of human history are the history of this darkness. Out of this darkness comes conflict, war, violence. From this darkness arise jealousy, hatred, anger. From this darkness comes destruction. We suffer, and we make others suffer. This has gone on for three, four thousand years. And still we have not succeeded in creating a society whose life is illumined by light.
Do you know—within three thousand years there have been some fourteen thousand six hundred wars. In merely three thousand years—nearly fifteen thousand wars! Five wars per year! Perhaps we have done nothing but fight. And these are the big wars; the small skirmishes we fight daily are beyond counting—the petty violences we commit every day, there is no accounting for them. If in three thousand years we had to fight fifteen thousand wars, does it not show that the human mind is afflicted by a very deep disease? In these three thousand years there are scarcely a few years without war. And those years we cannot even call peace—for in those intervals we prepared for new wars. Either we have been fighting, or we have been preparing to fight. The whole of history can be divided into two chapters: war, and preparations for war. Peace we have not known.
Look also into personal life—you will find no sign of peace anywhere. No ray of joy. No music of love.
We are gathered here—who among us feels the music of love within? Who senses the fragrance of life? Who tastes life’s blessedness, its fulfillment? A meaninglessness has seized us. Yet somehow we go on living in the hope of tomorrow—that perhaps tomorrow everything will be all right.
But if today is wrong, how will tomorrow be right? For tomorrow is born out of today. If today is full of sorrow, remember—tomorrow cannot be full of joy, because tomorrow’s birth is from today. The life of tomorrow—you are creating it; you are creating it every moment. If you are unhappy today, know that you will be unhappy tomorrow too. In hope of tomorrow’s happiness, today’s sorrow can be endured; but tomorrow’s happiness cannot be created by that hope. In dreaming of tomorrow’s bliss, today’s pain can be borne; but tomorrow’s bliss cannot be born from it.
Thus joy remains only a hope, and life remains sorrow—this is everyone’s experience. This is not theory. Whoever opens his life a little will see it—plain facts.
The first fact about life is this: the way we are living it, no flower of joy blossoms in it—nor can it. Therefore, hoping for tomorrow—tomorrow, next year, in the next life, in the beyond—that all will be well, is only an extension of ‘tomorrow’. Whoever thinks that after this birth, in the next, all will be well, is in the same illusion as the one who thinks: today is sorrowful, tomorrow there will be peace. Whoever thinks in moksha everything will be fine, is in illusion—for tomorrow will be born of me. The coming birth too, moksha too, whatever is to be, will be born out of me. If my today is full of darkness, how can my tomorrow be illumined?
Should we then despair and abandon all hope for tomorrow?
I say to you: there is indeed no reason to hope about tomorrow. But neither is there cause for despair. Today can be filled with hope. Today can be transformed. In my very being—as I am now—a revolution can be brought—not by thinking what I will be tomorrow, but by knowing what I am now, by awakening to it, by becoming aware of it.
From self-remembering, revolution can arise.
If I can know myself, then that lamp will be available which will destroy the darkness of my life. Without knowing oneself, there is no lamp, no light, no hope.
First, we do not know ourselves. To know this is the first step toward knowing oneself.
If someone imagines he knows himself, the doors to self-knowledge close. Much religious teaching, culture, doctrines repeated over millennia, talk of Atman and Paramatman, have created in many of us the illusion that we know ourselves.
This illusion deepens our ignorance. The illusion of knowing oneself—on the basis of words and doctrines—is the greatest hindrance in self-knowledge. No other wall stands so tall.
Small children know to say ‘We are the Atman’, and the old keep repeating ‘We are the Atman’. These are words. If it becomes an experience of being, life becomes utterly different. These are doctrines. If it becomes one’s own realization and direct seeing, life becomes new, and joy overflows.
But we clutch these words as crutches. In ignorance, the false knowledge born of words we cling to with great intensity. Even letting go of it feels frightening. The nearer death comes, the more tightly one clutches these words. The Gita, the Koran, the Bible sit heavier and heavier on the mind. One starts knocking on temple doors and sitting in the company of sadhus—so that one can grip the words more tightly, so that against the approaching death some defense may be built. Those who are afraid of death become believers in the immortality of the soul. Their belief is not knowledge.
No belief is ever knowledge; all beliefs are forms of ignorance.
Whatever we have taken for granted about life is our ignorance. And because of this taking-for-granted, the door to knowledge is closed.
In the remembrance of the self, the prevailing theories about the self are the greatest obstacles. The theories as such are not the obstacle—our belief in them is. Our beliefs are the hindrance. The more a person becomes laden with beliefs, the less the possibility remains for the descent of vivek—discrimination, awakening—into his life. It becomes impossible to know oneself. Because doctrines about knowing the self create the illusion that one already knows. And these illusions exist on many levels.
A sannyasin was a guest in a king’s palace. Early in the morning the king came and asked him: ‘I hear you speak of the Divine; can you introduce me to God?’ He had asked many sannyasins the same question before. He expected, as usual, that this sannyasin would quote the Upanishads, the Vedas, the scriptures, say something from the Gita, share some knowledge. But what did this sannyasin ask? He said, ‘You wish to meet God—can you wait a little, or would you like to meet Him right now?’
The king was startled. Anyone would be. He had not imagined the question would be put this way. He said, ‘Perhaps you did not understand—I speak of meeting the God above.’
The sannyasin said, ‘There is no reason for misunderstanding. I speak of none other than that. Do you wish to meet Him now, or can you wait a little?’
The king said, ‘If you say so, I would like to meet Him right now.’
He was hardly prepared to meet God so soon. And who is ready at once? Ask the seekers of God, ‘Will you meet Him now?’—they will say, ‘Let me think a little, consult my friends; if the husband, let me ask my wife; if the wife, let me ask my husband; let me ask my people at home, then I will return.’ Who is ready at this very moment? The king too was not ready. But since the calamity had come upon him, he said, ‘All right—if you say so, I will meet Him now.’
The sannyasin said, ‘Before I introduce you to God, write your introduction on this small paper.’
The king wrote what he considered his identity—a great king of a great realm, the address of his palace, and so on.
The sannyasin asked, ‘Shall I take this as your true introduction? If tomorrow you were to become a beggar and lose your kingdom, would you be different?’
The king said, ‘No—if my kingdom is lost, I will still be myself.’
The sannyasin said, ‘Then being a king cannot be your identity—because even without the kingdom you remain you. Being a beggar, you will still be you. So being a king is not your introduction. And this name you have written—your parents could have given another name. You yourself could change it; you would not change by that.’
The king said, ‘What difference does a name make? I remain myself whatever the name.’
The sannyasin said, ‘That means you have no name—names are only for convenience. Any name will do. So name is not your identity either. Then shall I assume you do not know your introduction? For you have written only two things—your kinghood and your name.’
The king took back the paper and said, ‘Forgive me! If my name, my wealth, my position and prestige are not my identity—then I do not know who I am.’
The sannyasin said, ‘Then it is very difficult to introduce you to God—for whom shall I introduce? Whose message shall I send that he wishes to meet Him? Go, search who you are. The day you find that, you will not come to me to be introduced to God. For the day you find yourself, you will find That which is within everyone—because what is within me, within another, within all, is joined deeply, is one, is whole.’
But of this ‘I’ we have no clue. Either we take our name, our house, our family as our being. And if somehow we are freed even from this, and we see that name, house, lineage, nation, caste, religion are not our being—then like parrots we begin to repeat words written in scriptures: ‘I am Atman, I am Paramatman, aham brahmasmi’—and who knows what else we repeat.
Understand: the way your name was taught to you, in the same way these things were taught to you. There is no difference. As you were told ‘This is your name’ and you held on to it, so also you were told ‘Paramatman is within you’ and you held on to that. There is no difference between the two. So long as we clutch at words coming from outside, we will not become acquainted with ourselves. Whether the words came from father, from society, from rishis, sages, sadhus, saints—whoever they came from—so long as we grip an identity borrowed from outside, that identity which is truly ours cannot be born. We will not know it. There is no way to know it then.
So either we grasp the so-called worldly identity, or we grasp the so-called spiritual identity—but both are grasped. Both come from outside. That which comes from outside is not self-identity.
Therefore, as false as it is to say ‘My name is me’, just as false it is to learn from outside ‘I am the Atman, I am Paramatman, I am deathless, I am this, I am that.’ If these are learned from outside, they are equally false. The first falsity we understand easily, for it has been repeated for millennia. The second falsity is harder to recognize—because then we are left in an unshakable darkness and ignorance. If worldly identity is not mine, and so-called spiritual identity is not mine, then what is mine? We are left in ignorance and darkness—and ignorance appears frightening.
The mind is frightened by the realization ‘I do not know myself’, so we want to accept some identity or other. The householder has one identity; the sannyasin has another—both are false. We grab one of them to console ourselves. Thus someone leaves the householder’s identity and gets caught in sannyas. He leaves one kind of garments and accepts another. He leaves one name and takes another.
We change a sannyasin’s name, give him another; we change his clothes, give him new robes; we change his style, give him another way. But to stand in that empty space where we have no identity—neither worldly nor spiritual—no one is ready. Whoever is ready to stand in that emptiness, only he comes to know himself. Whoever leaves all identity and stands in non-identity—who drops all knowledge about himself and stands in ignorance—in that very ignorance, in that not-knowing, in that very state where nothing is known about oneself and whatever is known is dropped—in that very state, in that very revolutionary moment, the transformation happens where the awareness of the self is born. So long as I cling to any identity, the ground for that awareness cannot arise. So long as I hold any support, there is no cause for awakening That which sleeps within. When I drop all supports...
A small incident comes to mind—purely imaginary.
It is said that one day Krishna was having his meal. In the middle he suddenly rose and ran toward the door. The one serving him said, ‘What are you doing? Where are you running? Rising in the midst of your meal?’
Krishna said, ‘A devotee of mine is in great trouble. The wicked are tormenting him, pelting him with stones.’ Saying this he ran, even beyond the door—but then he returned, sat again to eat.
The one who had asked the first question asked again, ‘You came back midway?’
Krishna said, ‘The devotee himself has picked up stones in his hands—now there is no need for me to go. Just now they were stoning him; he was unarmed, helplessly enduring—my presence was needed. Now he has taken up stones himself. My presence is no longer needed.’
The story is imaginary. But that which sleeps in man—call it truth, Atman, Paramatman, call it anything, call it Krishna, call it Christ—whatever the name—until you become utterly without support, there is no reason for it to rise and awaken. As long as you hold on to something, it will sleep. When your hands hold nothing, when you stand unsupported, when there is no security left, no support, no identity, no knowledge—and you dare to stand in sheer ignorance and vulnerability—only then, only then does That which sleeps within awaken. Only then a spark happens, a seed breaks and sprouts, a darkness shatters and a light is kindled—never before. Before that, it is impossible, utterly impossible. For before that we always find a substitute, a surrogate. We pick up stones ourselves; then it becomes difficult. We grasp some identity, some garment, some form, some image, some name, some word, some doctrine—the ignorance gets covered, and there remains no reason for knowledge to be born.
The first door for the coming of knowledge is the acceptance, within oneself, of one’s total ignorance.
So this morning I would say to you: do not become ‘knowers’; know your ignorance. Becoming a ‘knower’ is very easy. To know and accept one’s ignorance is an act of great daring. For in becoming a ‘knower’ the ego is easily gratified; in accepting ignorance, the ego is shattered—there remains no place for it to stand.
The ‘knower’ finds immense nourishment for the ego. None are as egoistic as the pandit. Preachers become bloated with ego more than anyone else. Those who talk of knowledge become afflicted with ego as few others do. By gathering a few words, a few ideas, we imagine we have known; we have known nothing—but our ‘I’ certainly swells. And then, whatever fills the ego we begin to collect. Someone collects wealth—for hoarding wealth seems to fill the ego. Someone builds great palaces, erects Taj Mahals; someone does something else, because it fattens the ego. Someone takes to renunciation, because that too gratifies the ego.
Our ego is very subtle. It constantly seeks to feed itself. If renunciation is praised, honored, we can renounce, we can fast, we can stand in the sun, stand on our head, torture the body. If all around there is applause, we can even consent to die. Otherwise, would any martyr agree to die? But if the ego is gratified, we can smile even while hanging on the cross.
There was a fakir—Mulla Nasruddin. Before he became a fakir, he was a vizier at a king’s court. Once the king and Nasruddin went hunting. They lost their way in a forest and reached a small village in the early morning, searching for the road. Hungry, they came to a poor man’s house and asked for breakfast. The man had two or three eggs; he made something from them and offered it.
While leaving, the king asked, ‘How much?’ In that land’s currency, the poor man said, ‘Fifty rupees.’
The king was amazed. The price of a few eggs was hardly a few coins—fifty rupees! He asked the vizier, Nasruddin, ‘What is the matter? Are eggs so rare in this part of the country?’
Nasruddin replied, ‘Eggs are not rare, sir—but kings are!’
Eggs are plentiful; but in this area, kings are hard to come by!
The king had never imagined paying fifty rupees for eggs. But as soon as he heard ‘Kings are rare!’ he paid the fifty—and gave Nasruddin fifty more as a reward for such a marvelous remark. Fifty for the eggs, fifty as a gift. Why? Great satisfaction—‘Kings are rare!’
This sense of self—every day it seeks its gratification. Wherever you become ‘higher’, the same thing begins to feed the ego. In a town, a palace begins to rise. So long as it is equal to other houses there is no satisfaction. When it rises above others, satisfaction begins. The higher it goes—and the day it stands alone, the only high house in the village—on that day deep gratification arises. Inferiority—ego demands the inferiority of others. Someone renounces; someone hoards wealth; someone accumulates ideas, becomes a ‘knower’. And the day he feels he alone is the owner of that knowledge, the day he stands alone—then profound satisfaction arises.
But the more the ego is fortified, the more impossible it becomes to know oneself. The more dense the asmita—the ‘I’-sense—becomes, the harder it is to know that which I am in truth.
Why?
Because the asmita is a construction of mine—the ego is my manufacture.
And I? I am not my manufacture. My being, my Atman, my reality is not my making.
The ego is my creation.
One has constructed his ego by building great houses; another by gathering wealth; another by completing the journey to the presidency; another by accumulating knowledge. This is our construction. We have made it.
And I? I am not my construction. That within me which is unconstructed, unborn, which is before my knowing, before my doing, before even my birth—that, to know it, the ego I have constructed becomes the obstacle.
Therefore, neither the renunciate knows, nor the ‘knower’, nor the rich man, nor the power-hungry, nor the ambitious.
Who knows?
At the door of knowing, the first thing is this: only he knows who attains to the acceptance ‘I do not know’. In the very recognition ‘I do not know’, the urge to grasp fades; I stand empty-handed. Empty-handed, empty-minded.
If I ask you: ‘What is your name?’—you quickly answer, ‘My name is Ram, or Vishnu, or such-and-such.’ Why are you so certain that this is your name? Have you ever pondered what you are saying? The name rises swiftly, the answer is given, and the matter is over. If you pause a little and inquire, ‘Do I truly have a name?’—perhaps a silence will happen within, a stillness—a name will not be found, and a silence will be born.
When we ask someone a question, if he ‘knows’, he answers promptly. ‘Knowing’ means: if something exists in his memory, he replies. I ask: ‘What is two plus two?’—you say, ‘Four’, because memory has learned it. Ask, answer. If I ask, ‘Who is within?’ you say, ‘Atman.’ That too memory has learned. It is the two-and-two-make-four kind of answer. But memory is not knowledge.
Therefore, in the search for the self, do not expect an answer—because whatever comes will come from memory, and will be false, learned. All that is learned is false; it does not become knowing. Nothing learned becomes knowledge.
What is small in life can be learned—because it is outside.
What is vast cannot be learned—because it is within.
What is within cannot be learned from without; it can be known, uncovered, discovered, recognized—but not learned. It can be known, but not remembered.
So whenever you ask, ‘Who am I?’—please do not accept any answer, because whatever answer comes will be from memory, false, borrowed. If memory says ‘Vishnu’, let it pass—do not hold it. If memory says ‘Atman’, let it pass—do not grasp it. If memory says ‘Paramatman’—if memory says ‘There is nothing, only matter’—if you were raised in an atheistic home, memory will say ‘There is nothing but the body.’ If in a religious home, memory will say ‘You are the Atman, the deathless soul.’ Both are teachings. Drop them. Let atheist and theist pass. Let answers from scriptures pass. Then what will happen? When no answer arises, what will happen? When you grant no answer any acceptance, what will happen? A stillness will descend within, a silence will stand, a void will appear. From that very silence, from that very stillness, from that very emptiness, the taste of one’s being begins to come.
Ask: ‘Who am I?’—and please, do not grasp any answer. Ask: ‘Who am I?’—and allow only the question to remain, not the answer. Let the question echo, let it permeate your very life-breath, let it descend deep. Do not catch any answer—Hindu, Muslim, Jain—because all answers are learned. Let the question remain—‘Who am I?’—an arrow piercing the very core of your being. Let only the question remain, and no answer. You will be amazed: in that interval, in that empty space, in that silence, the first ray of self-knowing begins to descend—the first direct taste, the first light.
This morning I beseech you: ask yourself ‘Who am I?’ and accept no answer that comes from outside. Accept no answer—whether from some divine incarnation, or a Tirthankara, or a son of God, or a prophet, or an awakened one—whosoever. Do not accept it.
On the path of truth, whoever comes in between—bid him farewell. Tell him: step aside. I want to know—so there is no room for anyone’s answer. I want to see—so I cannot see with someone else’s borrowed eyes. My life wants to throb—only my heart’s beating will do, not another’s.
Thus this learned ‘knowledge’ becomes a barrier to the birth of true knowing. Not ignorance—but false, learned knowledge is the barrier. Ignorance is not the obstruction—knowledge, so-called knowledge, is the wall. Ignorance will place you in a most innocent state—simple, egoless. One thing more: whoever cannot fulfill this condition will not be able to proceed further in the search. Whoever cannot accept his ignorance will not be able to go on.
In Socrates’ time, there was a man possessed by a goddess. Someone asked him, while he was in trance, ‘Who is the greatest knower in Greece?’
He said, ‘Socrates.’
The man went to Socrates and said, ‘There has been a divine declaration—you are the greatest knower in Greece.’
Socrates said, ‘Go tell the goddess that there has been some mistake. The more I search, the more I find that none is more ignorant than I. Tell her there has been a mistake. The more I inquire, the more I see I know nothing. When I was a child, I thought I knew a little. When I became young, my knowledge diminished; I discovered that my childhood ‘knowing’ was not knowing. Now that I am old, I find that whatever I knew—I knew nothing. Now I am surrounded by ignorance—I feel I know nothing at all.’
The man returned and reported: ‘Socrates says he is supremely ignorant and knows nothing.’
The possessed one laughed and said, ‘Go tell him—precisely for this we called him the great knower! Because the groundwork for the descent of knowledge is to know, to accept, to recognize one’s ignorance completely.’
As soon as we accept ignorance, as soon as we know that we do not know, a change, a revolution happens. A curtain of ego and ‘knowing’ drops—and a silence, a peace descends.
For today, I raise only the question—let it resound within you: ‘Who am I?’ But if the question is mine, it is useless. When I say, ‘Do not accept anyone else’s answer,’ can I say, ‘Accept someone else’s question’? If the question is mine and you merely repeat it—‘Who am I?’—it will be false, impotent, without force. Only if it is your question can it stir your life-breath. Only if it is your question can it move your being. Only if it is your question can it reach, like an arrow, your innermost core.
Do you have the question?
Do you have your own question?
Does life not raise a question in you?
Does life not fill you with wonder?
Does life not place before you this inquiry: ‘Who am I? What is this?’
Are you utterly deaf and blind? Does no curiosity arise in your heart?
If there is any thirst, any question—any longing to know, to recognize, to attain life’s truth—gather it, allow it to become one question. Whoever goes around asking about everything else has gone astray; he has left the fundamental question. The fundamental question begins with oneself: Who am I?
If by fortune—good fortune—your question arises, and you can bid farewell to others’ answers, then there is no obstacle to knowing oneself. No barrier. No wall.
But in most minds the question is not there. Curiosity is not there.
Why?
It is impossible that the question is not somewhere within; yet curiosity does not blossom. What is the reason?
The reason is—lack of courage.
Why?
We ask only those questions whose answers we already know. We ask only those questions whose answers we already know! We ask the question, we answer it, and are satisfied. We never ask the questions whose answers we do not know—because asking them will expose our ignorance. So we fear, we are afraid. We avoid those questions which will reveal our ignorance.
Courage is needed to ask; one needs daring.
But we live upside-down. When we have the courage and daring, we say, ‘This is not the age for religion.’ When old age comes, death approaches—then we think the days of religion have arrived. The less courage remains, the less strength, the less the aspiration to explore—the more we think religion is now our concern. Temples and churches gather the old—the already dead or about to die. And slowly we have come to believe that religion is their domain.
I tell you: a senile mind can never know religious truth—not the old person, the old mind. What is needed is a youthful mind—a young mind—full of strength, full of courage to travel the unknown. Then the questions that arise are precisely the ones whose answers are not known. When such questions stand up in life, a new dawn begins, a new auspiciousness starts. Our eyes begin to lift toward That which is true, beautiful, auspicious—toward That which is Paramatman—toward That which is our real being. Knowing That, all sorrow dissolves—just as in a dark house, light a lamp and the darkness vanishes.
How this lamp can be lit—that I shall speak of in the coming talks. The questions that are yours—and there should be questions—I will answer in the evenings over the next two days. But come only when you feel clearly that a question of your own is arising within. Otherwise—there is no need to come. No reason.
If you feel the sense that ‘I do not know’, then come—then some search is possible, then together we can travel a little way, then I can speak from my heart to you—not so that you accept it, not so that you believe it, not so that you make it your creed—not so that my words become your knowledge. They cannot—and there is no need. But perhaps in our being together and inquiring, your curiosity may grow intense, your thirst become deep. Perhaps you may become aware of a thirst you never knew. Perhaps a search may begin—a seed may break within you and sprout. Perhaps a new life, a new movement, a new human being may take birth.
For three days I will say a few simple things.
For today I raise the question; carry it with you. Sleep with it tonight. Make a small experiment: whatever answer comes, set it aside. Whatever answer comes, refuse it—and let the question deepen. Wherever you catch an answer, the question dies. Where you grasp an answer, the question ends. If the question is to go deeper, do not seize any answer. When there is only the question and no answer in the mind—then something will begin to awaken; someone within will run to your aid; someone within will rise to help; someone who sleeps within will awaken. And that, that becomes self-identity—that becomes self-knowledge—‘Who am I?’
Schopenhauer once rose very early—around three in the morning—and went into a garden. It was dark. Schopenhauer was a thinker. Finding solitude, he began to speak loudly to himself. When there is someone, we speak to the other; when there is no one, we speak to ourselves. He too began to talk to himself.
The gardener awoke. ‘Who could have come at three in the night—and is walking about talking to himself? And alone!’ The gardener was afraid—‘Perhaps a madman.’ He took a lantern and his spear and, from a distance, shouted in fear: ‘Who are you?’
Schopenhauer began to laugh. His laughter frightened the gardener even more. ‘Certainly mad! At this hour, alone, talking to himself!’
‘Who are you?’ he cried. ‘Why do you not answer?’
Schopenhauer said, ‘My friend—if only I could answer! For the last thirty years I have been asking myself, “Who am I?”—and I cannot find out. What answer can I give you?’
But I tell you—Schopenhauer did not find out precisely because, though he asked ‘Who am I?’, he kept searching for answers—here in the Upanishads, there in Kant, in Hegel—who knows where. Thirty years were wasted. And I do not think he found out even at death—for he was still seeking answers. The question was within, but the answers were sought outside—they will not be found.
I say to you: the answer is hidden in the question itself. Do not search outside. Do not accept any answer from outside. Let the question come with full force—let it fill every pore, every breath, every heartbeat. Let only the question remain—and nothing else. Then there, right there—with the question—is the answer. It does not come from outside; it wells up from within. May Paramatman grant that the answer becomes available to you. But you will have to ask the question. My question will not do; nobody else’s will do.
So tomorrow—if you have a question of your own—come. This is not a lecture, not a sermon. There is no desire here to explain things to you. If the question rises, then something can happen—two hearts can meet on some plane, and something can be communicated.
You have listened to my words with such love—and to words that do not give you knowledge but plead for your ignorance. I am deeply grateful. May it be so that today’s ignorance becomes tomorrow’s knowledge, that today’s darkness becomes tomorrow’s light. With this prayer, I end for today. Let my pranam be accepted by the Paramatman seated within all.