My beloved Atman! What is life? Man does not even know this. And if we cannot know life itself, then no possibility remains of knowing death. If life is unfamiliar and unknown, death cannot be familiar and known. The truth is: precisely because we do not know life, death appears to happen. For those who know life, “death” is an impossible word — it never happened, does not happen, cannot happen. There are a few words in the world that are utterly false; nothing of truth resides in them. Among such words, “death” is one — utterly untrue. No event like death ever takes place. Yet we see people dying every day; all around, death seems to be occurring. Cremation grounds exist in every village. And if we understand rightly, we will come to know that wherever we stand, untold funeral pyres have already burned there; the earth on which we reside has been a cremation ground at every spot. Millions upon millions have died, are dying every day — and if I say that there is no word as false as “death” in human language, you will be surprised. There was a fakir in Tibet, Marpa. Someone came to him and said he had come to ask about life and death. Marpa laughed a lot and said, “If you wish to ask about life, by all means ask, for I know life. As for death — to this day I have never met it, I have no acquaintance with it. If you want to inquire about death, ask those who are dead or have died. I am life; I can speak of life. I have no familiarity with death.” It is like that story you must have heard: once darkness went to God and prayed, “This sun of yours has been hounding me most cruelly. I am very tired. From morning on he chases me, and only with difficulty at dusk does he let me go. What is my fault? What is this enmity? Why does the sun pursue me day and night to torment me? And I hardly find rest at night from the day’s exhaustion, when again by morning the sun stands at my door. Then run again! Then hide again! This has gone on since eternity. My patience is exhausted — I pray, please explain to the sun.” They say God called the sun and asked, “Why are you after darkness? What harm has it done you? What is the hostility? What is the grievance?” The sun said, “Darkness? I have been circling the world since eternity, yet I have never once met darkness. I do not know darkness. Where is it? If you call it before me, I will even ask forgiveness and henceforth recognize it, so that no mistake occurs toward it.” Eternity has passed since that day. The file lies as it is in God’s office. He has not yet been able to summon darkness before the sun. He never will. This case is unresolvable. How can darkness be brought before the sun? Darkness has no being, no existence. It has no positive, no substantial status. Darkness is only the name of light’s absence, its non-presence, its absence. How could one call the absence of the sun into the presence of the sun? No — darkness cannot be brought before the sun. The sun is too great; even before a small lamp, darkness cannot be brought. Within the circle of a lamp’s light, darkness cannot enter; a face-to-face encounter is impossible. Where light is, how can darkness come? Where life is, how can death come? Either life is not — or death is not. Both facts cannot stand together. We are alive, but we do not know what life is. Because of this ignorance we think that death happens. Death is an ignorance. The ignorance of life becomes the event called death. If only we could become acquainted with the life that is within, even a single ray of that acquaintance shatters forever the ignorance that says, “I can die, or I have ever died, or I might someday die.” But we do not know the light that we are, and we are frightened of the darkness that we are not. We remain unfamiliar with the light that is our very breath, our life, our being — and we are afraid of the darkness that is not us. Man is not death; man is amrit, deathless nectar. All of life is amrit. But we do not even raise our eyes toward the amrit. We make no search in the direction of life, do not take a single step that way. We remain unfamiliar with life, and therefore we appear fearful of death. Hence the question is not of life and death — the question is only of life. I was asked to speak on the relation between life and death. This is impossible; the question is only of life — there is no such thing as death. When life is known, only life remains. When life is not known, only death remains. Life and death never stand together as a problem. Either we know we are life — then death is not. Or we do not know we are life — then there is only death, not life. These two do not coexist; they cannot. Yet all of us are afraid of death. The fear of death shows our unfamiliarity with life. The fear of death has only one meaning — non-acquaintance with life. And life is flowing within us moment to moment — with every breath, in every particle. Within and without, on all sides, there is life — and with that we are unfamiliar. This can have only one meaning: man is lost in some deep sleep. Only in sleep can it happen that we remain unfamiliar even with what we are. Or it means man is in some deep swoon. It means the entire energy of his being is not conscious — it is unconscious, in a hypnotic slumber. A man asleep knows nothing: who am I? what am I? whence have I come? In the darkness of sleep, everything sinks; he does not even know whether he is, or is not. Even about sleep he knows only when he wakes. Then he knows he had slept. In sleep, he does not know even that he is sleeping. Before sleep, he knows he is going to sleep. While awake, he knows he is awake and not asleep. But the moment he falls asleep, he does not even know that he has fallen asleep — because if he continues to know that he has fallen asleep, then it means he is awake, not asleep. When sleep departs, then he knows he had been asleep — but in sleep he does not know whether he is or is not. Surely, if a man does not know whether he is or is not, or what he is — it can only mean he is in some very deep spiritual sleep, a spiritual hypnotic sleep, a trance of spiritual fascination. That is why he does not know what life is. No, we will deny this. We will say, “What are you saying? We know very well what life is. We live, walk, stand, sit, sleep.” A drunkard also walks, stands, sits, sleeps, breathes, opens his eyes, speaks. A madman too stands, sits, sleeps, breathes, speaks, lives. But from this we cannot call the drunkard conscious, nor say the madman is aware. An emperor’s procession passed along a road. A man stood at a crossroad and began to throw stones, to hurl abuses and insults. It was a great royal pageantry. Soldiers immediately caught the man and cast him in prison. Yet when he was abusing and insulting, the emperor was laughing. His soldiers were amazed; his ministers asked, “Why do you laugh?” The emperor said, “As far as I understand, this man does not know what he is doing. I think he is drunk. Well, bring him before me in the morning.” In the morning they brought the man before him. The emperor asked, “Yesterday you hurled abuses at me; why?” The man said, “I? I hurled abuses? No, Your Majesty — it could not have been I, and that is why abuses were spoken. I was drunk, I was unconscious; I know nothing of what I said — I was not.” We too are not. In sleep we walk, speak, converse, love, hate, wage wars. If someone from a distant star saw humankind, he would think the whole human race behaves as one behaves in sleep, in unconsciousness. In three thousand years, mankind has fought fifteen thousand wars. This is not a sign of awakened man. The tale from birth to death is a tale of sorrow, anxiety, suffering. Not even a moment of bliss is attained; not a particle of joy is found. Life passes, and even a glimpse of bliss is not seen. This man cannot be called conscious. Sorrow, anxiety, suffering, sadness, madness — this is the story from birth to death. Perhaps we do not realize it, because around us are people asleep just like ourselves. And if, once in a while, an awakened man is born, we sleeping ones become so angry at him that we kill him quickly. We do not tolerate him for long. We crucify Jesus for this very reason: your crime is that you are awake. Seeing you, we sleepers feel humiliated. For us who sleep, you become a sign of shame — you proclaim that we are asleep. Your presence disturbs our slumber. We will kill you. We make Socrates drink hemlock; we cut Mansoor’s head. We treat the awakened as he would be treated in a madhouse by those who are mad — you cannot imagine. A friend of mine was insane. He was confined to an asylum. In his madness he drank a bucket of phenyl kept there. He vomited so much, such purging took place that in fifteen days his entire body was transformed; as if all the heat left his system — and he became well. But he had been sent to the asylum for six months. He recovered. He told me, “What torments I suffered when I was sane in that madness for three months — that is hard to measure. When I was mad, there was no difficulty, because everyone was like me. When I became sane, then I felt: where am I? I sleep, and two men sit on my chest. I walk, and someone shoves me. I had not noticed any of this, because I too was mad. I had not even known they were mad — until I was no longer mad. Once I was sane, I knew: they are all mad. And as soon as I was no longer mad, I became prey to all those madmen. My difficulty was that I understood everything: I am perfectly sane — now what will happen, how will I get out? And if I shouted, ‘I am not mad!’ — all madmen shout the same; no doctor was willing to believe.” Around us is a crowd of sleepers; hence we do not recognize that we are asleep. And an awakened person we hurry to kill, because he seems too painful to us, too disturbing, too obstructive. An English scholar, Kenneth Walker, wrote a book and dedicated it to a fakir, Gurdjieff. In the dedication he wrote words most wondrous: “To George Gurdjieff, the disturber of my sleep.” A few people have appeared on earth who try to break sleep. But if you try to break someone’s sleep, he will certainly take revenge. Try to wake a sleeping man and he will grab your throat. Those who have tried to awaken man from spiritual sleep — we have grabbed their throats as well. Among ourselves we do not know, precisely because we are all sleeping alike. There is a story about a village: one day a magician came and dropped a packet into the village well, saying, “Whoever drinks this water will go mad.” The village had only one well. Another well existed — but not for the village; it was in the king’s palace. By evening, every villager had to drink water. Even at the price of madness they had to drink, for there was no choice — thirst had to be quenched, even if one had to go mad. How long could they hold out? They drank. By evening, the whole village had gone mad. The emperor was very happy; his queens were delighted; in the palace, songs and music were arranged. His ministers rejoiced that they were saved. But by evening they realized their mistake. The entire palace was surrounded by the mad villagers. The whole village had gone mad; even the king’s guards and soldiers had gone mad. They surrounded the palace and shouted, “It seems the king has lost his mind. We cannot tolerate such a mad king on the throne.” From the terrace the king saw there was no way out. He asked his minister, “What now? We thought ourselves fortunate to have our own well. Today it has become costly.” For all kings, sooner or later, a separate well becomes costly. It is becoming costly throughout the world. Those who are still kings — tomorrow their separate well will also prove costly. A separate well is dangerous. But till then the thought had not occurred. The king asked the minister, “What now?” The minister said, “There is no more to ask. Run to the back gate, drink from that well, and return quickly. Otherwise the palace is in danger.” The king said, “That well’s water! Do you want to make me mad?” The minister said, “There is no way to be saved now without becoming mad.” The king ran, his queens ran. They drank from that well. That night a great celebration was held in the village. The whole village rejoiced, played music, sang songs, and thanked God that their king’s mind had become sound — because the king too was dancing with the crowd and hurling abuses. Now the king’s mind was fine. Because our sleep is public — universal — because we have slept since birth, we do not recognize. In this sleep, what can we understand of life? Only this much: that the body is life. We cannot enter within the body at all. This understanding is like a man who wanders outside the palace wall and thinks this is the palace; who leans on the wall outside and goes to sleep, thinking he rests in the palace. Those whose sense of life is only around the body are like the fool who stands outside the palace wall and believes himself a guest of the palace. We have no entry within the body; we live on the outside. Only the skin — the outer layer! We do not even know the inner lining of the body. The outer face of the wall! We do not know the inner side of the wall, much less the palace. We mistake the outer face of the wall for the palace, and do not even become acquainted with the inner side of the wall. We know our body from the outside; we have never stood within and seen the body — from within. As I sit inside this room, as you sit inside this room — we see the room from within. A man wanders outside — he sees the house from outside. Man is not able to see the house of his body from within; he knows it only from outside. Then death arises. Because what we know from outside is only a shell — an outer garment. It is merely the outer wall of a house — not the owner. The owner is within. We fail even to recognize the inner wall; how will we recognize the owner within? This outer experience of life — from without — becomes the experience of death. The day this experience slips from our hands, the day the inner life withdraws from the house and consciousness moves from the outer wall inward, on that day outsiders conclude: the man has died. And the man himself feels: I am dead, I am dead. Because from the plane he took to be life, consciousness begins to slip inward, preparing for a new journey. His life-energies cry out, “I am dead! It’s gone! Everything is sinking!” Because what he took to be life is sinking, is being left behind. Outsiders think he has died; and the man too, in that dying moment, in that moment of change, thinks, “I am dead, I am gone.” This body of ours is not our real being. It is not our authentic being. In depth, our reality is very different, utterly other. Our life is opposite, altogether the reverse of the body. Consider a seed. Around it is a very hard shell, to protect the tender, delicate sprout of life hidden within. The sprout is delicate, so a hard wall, a casing, a shell, surrounds the seed. That shell is not the seed. Whoever mistakes the shell for the seed will never become acquainted with the living sprout hidden within. He will keep the shell and the sprout will never be born. No — the shell is not the seed. In truth, when the seed is born, the shell must disappear, must crack, break, melt into the soil. When the shell dissolves, the seed manifests from within. This body is a seed. Within, there is a sprout of life, of consciousness, of soul. But we mistake the shell for the seed and are lost; the sprout cannot even be born. When the sprout bursts forth, life is experienced. When the sprout bursts forth, the seed-state of man ends and he becomes a tree. As long as man is seed, he is only potentiality — a possibility. When the tree of life arises within, he becomes real. Some call that reality Atman, some call that reality Paramatman. Man is the seed of the Divine — of Paramatman. Man is only a seed. The full experience of life belongs to the tree — what can the seed know? What can the seed know of the ecstasies of the tree? How can it know that green leaves will come, upon which sunbeams will dance? How can it know winds will pass through leaves and branches, and the breath will resound with music? How can it know flowers will bloom and outshine the stars? How can it know birds will sing and travelers will rest in the shade? The seed cannot know. Even dreaming it cannot — what shall be possible when the tree happens. It can be known only by becoming a tree. Man does not know life because he has taken the seed to be his perfection. He will know life only when the full tree of inner life manifests. But far from the tree, we do not even have a memory, a remembrance, that something exists within different from the body. Life’s problem is the problem of experiencing the within. The problem is of experiencing what is inside; we take life to be that outer expanse. I asked a tree, “Where is your life?” The tree said, “In those roots that are not seen.” Life is in the unseen roots; the visible tree draws its life from the invisible. Mao Tse-tung has written of an incident from his childhood. Near his mother’s hut was a garden. All her life she tended it. Its flowers were so large and lovely that people from distant villages came to see them; no one passed without pausing a moment before those flowers. She became old and fell ill. Mao was small, but he told his mother not to worry — there was no other elder at home — “Do not worry about the plants; I will care for them.” Fifteen days later the mother rose. Day and night Mao worked in the garden, from morning until midnight. The mother was at ease. But the day she came to the garden, she saw it had withered. The flowers were gone, the leaves had died, all the trees stood sad. Perhaps the old woman felt as anyone with eyes today would feel seeing humankind’s garden — all the flowers fallen, all the leaves withered, all the trees standing sad. She beat her chest and wept, “What have you done? What were you doing from morning to dusk?” Mao too began to weep. “I did all I could,” he said. “I wiped the dust from every flower, from every leaf. I kissed every bloom, sprinkled water on each flower. I do not know what happened! So much effort — and all the trees withered!” His mother began to smile even through her tears. “Fool! Perhaps you do not know that the life of trees is not in leaves and flowers. The life of trees is in roots — which are not seen. Watering, kissing, and loving flowers and leaves is useless. Do not worry about leaves and flowers. If the invisible roots grow strong, leaves and flowers come by themselves; no concern is needed for them.” But man has taken life to be the entire outer spread of leaves and flowers; the inner roots are utterly neglected. The roots within man lie completely ignored. No remembrance that I too am something within. And whatever is — is within. Truth is within, power is within, the entire capacity of life is within. From there it can manifest without. The manifestation is outside; being is inside. Being is within; becoming happens outside. The real is within; what spreads and expresses — the manifestation — is without. Those who take outer expression to be life live afflicted by the fear of death. They live as if already dead — and afraid that any moment they will die. These same people, afraid of dying, weep at another’s death. They are not weeping over the other’s death; every death brings them the news of their own. The death of those near and dear brings that news with force. Then the life-energy trembles; fear grips; trembling seizes. And in that trembling and fear man thinks fine thoughts: “The Atman is immortal, the Atman is immortal; we are parts of God, we are forms of Brahman.” All this is prattle — more than self-deception. It is self-deception. The man frightened of death repeats, “The Atman is immortal,” to fortify himself. He is saying, “No, no — I won’t have to die; the Atman is immortal.” But his life-energy is trembling, and he says, “The Atman is immortal.” One who knows the Atman is immortal has no need to repeat it even once. For he knows — the matter is finished. Yet people afraid of death fear death, do not know life, and in between create a new trick — a new delusion — that the Atman is immortal. That is why it is hard to find a people more fearful of death than those who profess the immortality of the Atman. In this country, on this earth, the most people who believe in the Atman’s immortality live — and in this country the largest number of cowardly, death-fearing people also live. How did these two come together? For one who knows the Atman is immortal, death is finished, fear dissolved; none can kill him now. None can kill him. And another thing: neither can he now live under the illusion that he can kill anyone — for the event of killing has ended. Understand this secret. Those who say “The Atman is immortal” are often the very ones afraid of death, repeating it again and again. And such death-fearing people speak much of ahimsa — not so that they may not kill another, but deep down so that no one be ready to kill them. “The world should be nonviolent!” Why? They will say: “Because killing anyone is bad.” But deep down they are saying: “So that no one should kill me.” If they had come to know there is no dying, then there would be no fear of dying, no fear of killing — and such talk would lose meaning. Krishna said to Arjuna: “Do not be afraid. Those you see standing before you have been many times before. You were, I was, we all were many times, and will be many times. Nothing is destroyed in the world. Therefore there is no fear of dying, no fear of killing. The question is to live life.” Those who fear both dying and killing become utterly impotent in the eyes of life. One who can neither die nor kill knows not that what is — cannot be killed, cannot die. What will that world be like, the day the whole earth knows from within that the Atman is immortal! That day all fear of death will dissolve; the threat of killing will vanish. Wars will dissolve that day — not before. As long as man feels he can be killed, that he can die, wars cannot disappear from the world. Whether Gandhi expounds ahimsa, or Buddha, or Mahavira — no matter how many lessons of nonviolence are taught — until man experiences from within that what is, is deathless, wars will not cease. Those whose hands hold swords — do not think they are brave. The sword is proof that the man is a coward within. At crossroads you raise statues with swords in hand — they are statues of cowards. In the hand of the brave there is no need of a sword, for he knows dying and killing are children’s games. But man creates a strange deceit. What he does not know, he tries to behave as if he knows. Out of fear! Within is fear — he knows he must die; people die daily. He sees the body growing weak, youth gone, old age coming. He sees the body going — and within he repeats, “The Atman is deathless.” He tries to gather faith and courage: “Do not fear, do not fear! Yes, death is there — but no, no — the rishis say the Atman is immortal.” Those afraid of death gather around such rishis, crowd around those who talk of the immortality of the soul. I am not saying the Atman is not immortal. I am saying: the doctrine of the soul’s immortality is the doctrine of the death-fearing. To know the Atman’s immortality is altogether another matter. And note well: only those can know the Atman’s immortality who experiment with dying while alive. There is no other way. Understand this a little. What happens in death? All the life-energy that is spread outward contracts and returns to its center. The energy that had extended to every corner of the body returns, becomes a seed again. The body — as when we dim a lamp and the spread of light contracts, darkness begins to gather; the light shrinks back to the lamp — and if we dim further, further, the light becomes latent in seed form, in a particle, and darkness surrounds. The life-energy that had spread contracts, returns to the center. For a new journey it becomes a seed again, an atom. This contraction, this drawing in — from this very contraction arises the feeling: “I have died!” Because what we had taken to be life is going away; everything is slipping. Hands and feet grow limp, breath is lost, eyes cease to see, ears cease to hear. All these senses, the entire body, were alive because they were joined to a certain energy. That energy begins to return. The body is a corpse — it remains a corpse. The house-owner prepares to depart; the house grows desolate. It seems: I have died. In this moment of death it seems: I am going, sinking, ending. And because of this panic that “I am dying,” this anxiety, this anguish, the mind becomes so agitated that it is deprived even of knowing the experience of death. To know, calmness is needed. One becomes so restless at that juncture that death cannot be known. We have died many, countless times — yet we have not known death. Every time the hour of dying has come, we have become so distraught, so restless, that in that restlessness what knowing can there be? Every time death has come and passed us by, and still we remain unacquainted with it. No, death cannot be known in the moment of dying. But a deliberate death can be arranged. That deliberate death is called meditation, Yoga, Samadhi. Samadhi means: what happens of itself in death, the sadhak does by effort — he draws his entire life-energy back within, consciously. Naturally, there is no reason to be disturbed, for he is practicing the movement inward, the contraction of consciousness. Peacefully he draws consciousness within. What death does, he does himself. And in that calm, he comes to know this truth: life-energy is one thing, the body another. The bulb, through which electricity manifests, is one thing — the electricity that appears through it is another. Electricity contracts; the bulb lies inert. The body is no more than a bulb. Life is that electricity, that energy, that prana which makes the body glow and warm and vibrant. In Samadhi the sadhak dies by his own hand — and because he enters death consciously, he knows the truth that “I am” is separate, the body is separate. Once this is known — death is finished. Once this is known — the experience of life begins. The ending of death and the beginning of life meet at a single boundary. To know life is the going of death; to know deathlessness is the arising of life. Properly understood, these are two ways of saying one thing; two fingers pointing in the same direction. Therefore I say, religion is the art of death — the art of dying. And yes, I also say many times, religion is the art of living. Certainly I say both, because only he who knows how to die, knows how to live. Religion is the art of life and death. If you want to know what life and death are, you must learn the art of withdrawing energy from the body by your own will. Only then can you know — otherwise not. And this energy can be withdrawn. It is not difficult. This energy spreads by will, and by will it returns. It is but an expansion of will-force. Make a resolve — intense, total — “I return within.” Even for half an hour, if one resolves, “I want to return within; I want to die; I want to drown within; I want to draw all my energy back,” then in a few days he will begin to approach the experience: the energy is contracting within. The body will fall away, lying without. With three months of deeper experiment, you will be able to see your body as separate. First it will be seen from within — “I stand within, a flame, a light — and the whole body is seen from inside like this building.” With a little more courage, that living light within can be brought out too — and you can see from outside that the body is lying there. A wondrous experience happened to me — let me tell it. I have never said it until now; it came to mind suddenly, so I say it. Some twelve or thirteen years ago, I used to meditate nights sitting atop a tree. Again and again I found that meditating on the ground, the body feels very powerful. The body is made of earth; sitting on earth strengthens the body-element. The talk of yogis going to high places, to the Himalayas, is not without reason — it is very scientific. The farther the body is from earth, the less the bodily influence within. So I sat up a tall tree and meditated every night. One day, lost in meditation — when and how, I do not know — the body fell from the tree — I do not know when. When the body hit the ground, I was startled to see what had happened. I was still on the tree — and the body had fallen! How to say what the experience was — difficult. I was sitting on the tree, the body had fallen below, and I was watching it lying there. Only a silver cord — a luminous thread — was joined from the navel to me. A brilliantly white line. Beyond understanding — what now? How would I return? How long that state lasted, I do not know. But an unparalleled experience it was — to see the body from outside for the first time. From that very day, the body ended. Death ended that day. Because another body was seen — different from the gross body — a subtle body was experienced. How long it lasted — difficult to say. Near dawn, two women passed carrying milk from some village; they saw the body lying there, came and sat near — “Someone has died!” They placed a hand on my head — and in a single instant, like a powerful pull, I returned into the body and opened my eyes. Then a second experience occurred: that woman can create an alchemy, a chemical change in a man’s body, and man can create a chemical change in a woman’s body. It occurred to me: her touch — and my return — how did it happen? Thereafter many experiences came, and I understood why, in India, tantrics who explored Samadhi and death bound women with them — because if the subtle body goes out in deep Samadhi, it cannot be brought back without the help of a woman; or if a woman’s subtle body goes out, it cannot return without the help of a man. When woman and man’s bodies meet, an electric circuit completes, and the consciousness that has gone out returns within swiftly. Then in six months this happened to me about six times; and I felt my age had decreased by at least ten years — meaning, if I were to live seventy years, now I would live only sixty. In six months strange experiences occurred — all the hair on my chest turned white within six months. Beyond my understanding — what is happening! Then it also came to mind: a disturbance has arisen between this body and that body; the alignment, the harmony between the two has broken. Then I understood why Shankaracharya died at thirty-three, why Vivekananda at thirty-six — there are other causes. If these two bodies’ bond breaks strongly, it is hard to live. And I realized too that Ramakrishna being plagued with illness, and Ramana dying of cancer — the cause is not physical; rather the breaking of the alignment between the two. People commonly say yogis are very healthy — but the truth is the opposite. The truth so far is that yogis have often been ailing and have died young. The total reason is only this: the adjustment, the alignment required between the two bodies suffers a disturbance. Once the subtle has gone out, it never fully re-enters in a complete state. But then it is not needed either; it has no use, no purpose, no meaning. By resolve the energy can be drawn within — just by resolve, by this conviction, by this feeling: “Let me return inside, return inside, return inside” — an intense call, an intense movement, so that all the life-energy is filled with “Let me return within — let me return to the center — let me return.” Such an intense call that it resounds through every particle of the body, grips every breath. And any day the event happens — with a jolt you are within, and for the first time you see the body from within. Those thousands of nadis of which Yoga speaks were not known by anatomy; they have no relation to physiology. They were known from within. Therefore when physiology looks for them, it finds nowhere: “Where are these nadis? These seven chakras — where?” They are nowhere in the gross body — because we examine the body from outside; they will not be found. There is another mode of inquiry: knowing the body from within — an inner physiology — very subtle. From that knowing, the nadis and the centers are altogether different. They will not be found by dissecting this body. They are contact fields between this body and the inner Atman — places where they meet. The greatest contact field, the deepest point of connection, is the navel. You will notice: driving a car, if an accident suddenly seems imminent, the navel is the first to be affected. It becomes disordered, because there is the deepest zone of contact between Atman and body. It will be the first to be disturbed on seeing death. As soon as death appears, the navel is thrown into disorder at the body’s center. The body has an inner arrangement established by the contact between the inner body and this body. The chakras are the contact points. Certainly, once the body is known from within, an altogether different world is known — of which we have no inkling; about which medical science knows not a word, and cannot, for now. Once the experience occurs that “I am separate and this body is separate,” death is finished. There is no death then. After that, one can even stand outside the body and look. So it is not a philosophical idea, not a metaphysical speculation, what death is or life is. Those who think about it will never derive even a penny’s worth of fruit. This is an existential approach, a living inquiry. One can know: I am life; one can know: death is not mine. It can be lived; one can enter into it. But those who only think, “We will reflect on what death is, what life is” — they may think for births upon births — nothing will be known. We can only think about what we already know. Thought is possible about the known. About the unknown, thought is not possible. You can think only what you know. Have you ever noticed? You cannot think that which you do not know. How will you conceive it? How will you imagine that which you do not know? We do not know life, we do not know death — what will we think? Therefore, what philosophers have said about life and death has no value. In philosophy’s books, what is written about life and death is worthless. For they are writing by thinking. There is no question of thinking here. Only what Yoga has said about life and death has meaning. For Yoga speaks from existential, living experience. “The Atman is immortal” is not a doctrine, not a theory, not an ideology. It is the experience of some. If you wish to go toward experience — only experience can solve the problem: what is life, what is death. And the moment this experience happens, it is known: life is; death is not. Only life is; death is not at all. You will ask, “But death does occur.” Its total meaning is only this: the house in which we resided — we leave that house and begin the journey toward another house. The house we were living in — from that house we travel toward another. A house has limits, a capacity — it is an instrument. Instruments tire, become worn out; we have to move beyond them. If science arranges it, the human body can be kept alive a hundred, two hundred, three hundred years. But that will not prove there is no soul. It will only prove that till now the Atman had to change houses because the old mechanism grew worn. If it can be replaced — the heart can be replaced, eyes can be replaced, limbs can be replaced — then the Atman need not change the body; the old house will do. Repairs will be made. That does not prove there is no Atman — not even remotely. It may also happen that tomorrow science produces life in a test tube; then perhaps scientists will fall into the illusion that they have created life. That too will be wrong. Let me say it: even that proves nothing. What do mother and father do in the mother’s womb? What does man and woman do in the woman’s belly? They do not give birth to the Atman. They just create a situation — an opportunity in which the Atman can enter. The cell of the man and the ovum of the woman create an opportunity, a situation into which the Atman may descend. Tomorrow we may create that situation in a test tube. That does not create an Atman. The mother’s womb too is a test tube — a mechanical arrangement, natural. Tomorrow science may chemically arrange, in a laboratory, the substances from which the male sperm and female ovum are constituted, through full knowledge of protoplasm. Then the Atmans that till now descended into the mother’s womb will descend into the test tube. But the Atman is not being produced — it is still arriving. Birth is a double event — the preparation of the body and the arrival, the descent, of the Atman. Regarding the Atman, the coming days will be dangerous and dark — because every declaration of science will convince man there is no soul. That will not disprove the soul; it will only weaken man’s resolve to go within. If man begins to think, “Fine — life-span has increased; children are born in test tubes — where is the soul?” — the soul will not be disproved; only the inner search will cease. This calamity is likely in the next fifty years; its groundwork is laid. On earth there have always been poor, the destitute, the suffering, the ill; their life-spans were short; they lacked food and clothing. But in the vision of the soul, never has the number of inwardly destitute been as great as today. The single cause is: “within there is nothing — so what is the point of going there?” Once humanity believes there is nothing within, the question of going there ends. The future can become very dark and dangerous. Therefore from every side there should be experiments — so that people can stand and declare, not with words and doctrines, not by repeating Gita, Koran, or Bible, but as living proclamations: “I know I am not the body.” And not only as words — their whole life should radiate it. Then perhaps we can save man. Otherwise all of science’s development will turn man into a machine. And the day humankind concludes there is nothing within, perhaps all the inner doors will be shut — and after that, what happens, is hard to say. Even till now, for most people, the inner doors have remained closed; but sometimes a courageous one breaks through the inner walls and enters — a Mahavira, a Buddha, a Christ, a Lao Tzu. That possibility is diminishing. Perhaps a hundred or two hundred years hence — as I say today, “Life is, death is not” — man will say, “Death is, life is not.” The preparation is complete; those who say so are already standing. What is Marx saying? He says matter is — mind is not. Matter is, God is not. What you call God is a by-product of matter — born of matter. Marx is saying life is not — death is. If there is no soul, only matter — then there is no life, only death. Marx’s influence has grown and grows. Perhaps you do not know: there have always been people who denied the soul — but never had a religion of the soul-deniers arisen. Marx, for the first time, created a religion of those who deny the soul. Until now atheists had no organization. There were Charvaka, Brihaspati, Epicurus — wondrous people — who said there is no soul; but they had no organized church. Marx is the first atheist with an organized church — half the world stands within it; in fifty years, the remaining half may stand there too. The soul is — yet all the doors to its knowing and recognition are closing. Life is — yet all possibilities of relating to it are waning. Before every door is shut, those with a little strength and courage should experiment upon themselves and attempt to go within, so that they can experience. If even a hundred or two hundred people in the world experience the inner light, there is no danger. The darkness of millions can be shattered by the life-light of a few. A small lamp breaks untold darkness. If in a village even a single person knows the soul is immortal, the entire atmosphere of that village, the very air, the whole life will be transformed. A small flower blooms — its fragrance spreads far along the roads. If one person knows that the Atman is deathless, the very presence of that one in a village can purify the village’s soul. But in our land, how many sadhus — how many shouting voices — proclaim “The Atman is immortal!” And yet with such long lines, such a crowd — and the nation’s moral character, this fall! This is proof that it is a deceitful trade. There is no one here who truly knows the soul. Such a vast crowd of so-called knower-saints — one with a bandage over his mouth, doing one circus; another with a staff, doing another; a third some other show — with such a multitude of soul-knowers, could the nation’s life sink so low? Impossible. And let me say: those who say the common man has ruined the character of the world — they are wrong. The common man has always been like this. When the world’s character was higher, it was because of the self-experience of a few. The common man has always been as he is. Among the ordinary there were a few living ones who always lifted consciousness upward. Their presence worked as a catalytic agent and drew life upward. If today the world’s character is so low, those responsible are the sadhus, the so-called saints — the false religion-mongers. The common man is not responsible. He never was — not before, not now. If the world is to change, abandon this nonsense of “improving one man at a time,” of teaching moral lessons to each. If you want to change the world, a few must pass through extremely intense inner experiments — those willing to go very deep within. Not many — if in one nation even a hundred reach the state of knowing the soul, the whole life of that nation will rise of itself. A hundred living lamps — and the whole nation can rise. I agreed to speak on this only in the hope that perhaps some courageous person may come. I would invite him: I am ready to take you within; if you are ready, come. There, it can be shown what life is and what death is. You have listened to my words with such love and peace — I am deeply obliged. In the end, I bow to the Paramatman seated within all. Please accept my pranam.
Osho's Commentary
What is life? Man does not even know this. And if we cannot know life itself, then no possibility remains of knowing death. If life is unfamiliar and unknown, death cannot be familiar and known. The truth is: precisely because we do not know life, death appears to happen. For those who know life, “death” is an impossible word — it never happened, does not happen, cannot happen.
There are a few words in the world that are utterly false; nothing of truth resides in them. Among such words, “death” is one — utterly untrue. No event like death ever takes place. Yet we see people dying every day; all around, death seems to be occurring. Cremation grounds exist in every village. And if we understand rightly, we will come to know that wherever we stand, untold funeral pyres have already burned there; the earth on which we reside has been a cremation ground at every spot. Millions upon millions have died, are dying every day — and if I say that there is no word as false as “death” in human language, you will be surprised.
There was a fakir in Tibet, Marpa. Someone came to him and said he had come to ask about life and death. Marpa laughed a lot and said, “If you wish to ask about life, by all means ask, for I know life. As for death — to this day I have never met it, I have no acquaintance with it. If you want to inquire about death, ask those who are dead or have died. I am life; I can speak of life. I have no familiarity with death.”
It is like that story you must have heard: once darkness went to God and prayed, “This sun of yours has been hounding me most cruelly. I am very tired. From morning on he chases me, and only with difficulty at dusk does he let me go. What is my fault? What is this enmity? Why does the sun pursue me day and night to torment me? And I hardly find rest at night from the day’s exhaustion, when again by morning the sun stands at my door. Then run again! Then hide again! This has gone on since eternity. My patience is exhausted — I pray, please explain to the sun.”
They say God called the sun and asked, “Why are you after darkness? What harm has it done you? What is the hostility? What is the grievance?”
The sun said, “Darkness? I have been circling the world since eternity, yet I have never once met darkness. I do not know darkness. Where is it? If you call it before me, I will even ask forgiveness and henceforth recognize it, so that no mistake occurs toward it.”
Eternity has passed since that day. The file lies as it is in God’s office. He has not yet been able to summon darkness before the sun. He never will. This case is unresolvable. How can darkness be brought before the sun? Darkness has no being, no existence. It has no positive, no substantial status. Darkness is only the name of light’s absence, its non-presence, its absence. How could one call the absence of the sun into the presence of the sun?
No — darkness cannot be brought before the sun. The sun is too great; even before a small lamp, darkness cannot be brought. Within the circle of a lamp’s light, darkness cannot enter; a face-to-face encounter is impossible.
Where light is, how can darkness come? Where life is, how can death come? Either life is not — or death is not. Both facts cannot stand together.
We are alive, but we do not know what life is. Because of this ignorance we think that death happens. Death is an ignorance. The ignorance of life becomes the event called death. If only we could become acquainted with the life that is within, even a single ray of that acquaintance shatters forever the ignorance that says, “I can die, or I have ever died, or I might someday die.” But we do not know the light that we are, and we are frightened of the darkness that we are not. We remain unfamiliar with the light that is our very breath, our life, our being — and we are afraid of the darkness that is not us.
Man is not death; man is amrit, deathless nectar. All of life is amrit. But we do not even raise our eyes toward the amrit. We make no search in the direction of life, do not take a single step that way. We remain unfamiliar with life, and therefore we appear fearful of death.
Hence the question is not of life and death — the question is only of life. I was asked to speak on the relation between life and death. This is impossible; the question is only of life — there is no such thing as death. When life is known, only life remains. When life is not known, only death remains. Life and death never stand together as a problem. Either we know we are life — then death is not. Or we do not know we are life — then there is only death, not life. These two do not coexist; they cannot.
Yet all of us are afraid of death. The fear of death shows our unfamiliarity with life. The fear of death has only one meaning — non-acquaintance with life. And life is flowing within us moment to moment — with every breath, in every particle. Within and without, on all sides, there is life — and with that we are unfamiliar. This can have only one meaning: man is lost in some deep sleep. Only in sleep can it happen that we remain unfamiliar even with what we are. Or it means man is in some deep swoon. It means the entire energy of his being is not conscious — it is unconscious, in a hypnotic slumber.
A man asleep knows nothing: who am I? what am I? whence have I come? In the darkness of sleep, everything sinks; he does not even know whether he is, or is not. Even about sleep he knows only when he wakes. Then he knows he had slept. In sleep, he does not know even that he is sleeping. Before sleep, he knows he is going to sleep. While awake, he knows he is awake and not asleep. But the moment he falls asleep, he does not even know that he has fallen asleep — because if he continues to know that he has fallen asleep, then it means he is awake, not asleep. When sleep departs, then he knows he had been asleep — but in sleep he does not know whether he is or is not.
Surely, if a man does not know whether he is or is not, or what he is — it can only mean he is in some very deep spiritual sleep, a spiritual hypnotic sleep, a trance of spiritual fascination. That is why he does not know what life is.
No, we will deny this. We will say, “What are you saying? We know very well what life is. We live, walk, stand, sit, sleep.”
A drunkard also walks, stands, sits, sleeps, breathes, opens his eyes, speaks. A madman too stands, sits, sleeps, breathes, speaks, lives. But from this we cannot call the drunkard conscious, nor say the madman is aware.
An emperor’s procession passed along a road. A man stood at a crossroad and began to throw stones, to hurl abuses and insults. It was a great royal pageantry. Soldiers immediately caught the man and cast him in prison.
Yet when he was abusing and insulting, the emperor was laughing. His soldiers were amazed; his ministers asked, “Why do you laugh?” The emperor said, “As far as I understand, this man does not know what he is doing. I think he is drunk. Well, bring him before me in the morning.”
In the morning they brought the man before him. The emperor asked, “Yesterday you hurled abuses at me; why?” The man said, “I? I hurled abuses? No, Your Majesty — it could not have been I, and that is why abuses were spoken. I was drunk, I was unconscious; I know nothing of what I said — I was not.”
We too are not. In sleep we walk, speak, converse, love, hate, wage wars. If someone from a distant star saw humankind, he would think the whole human race behaves as one behaves in sleep, in unconsciousness. In three thousand years, mankind has fought fifteen thousand wars. This is not a sign of awakened man. The tale from birth to death is a tale of sorrow, anxiety, suffering. Not even a moment of bliss is attained; not a particle of joy is found. Life passes, and even a glimpse of bliss is not seen. This man cannot be called conscious. Sorrow, anxiety, suffering, sadness, madness — this is the story from birth to death.
Perhaps we do not realize it, because around us are people asleep just like ourselves. And if, once in a while, an awakened man is born, we sleeping ones become so angry at him that we kill him quickly. We do not tolerate him for long.
We crucify Jesus for this very reason: your crime is that you are awake. Seeing you, we sleepers feel humiliated. For us who sleep, you become a sign of shame — you proclaim that we are asleep. Your presence disturbs our slumber. We will kill you. We make Socrates drink hemlock; we cut Mansoor’s head. We treat the awakened as he would be treated in a madhouse by those who are mad — you cannot imagine.
A friend of mine was insane. He was confined to an asylum. In his madness he drank a bucket of phenyl kept there. He vomited so much, such purging took place that in fifteen days his entire body was transformed; as if all the heat left his system — and he became well. But he had been sent to the asylum for six months. He recovered. He told me, “What torments I suffered when I was sane in that madness for three months — that is hard to measure. When I was mad, there was no difficulty, because everyone was like me. When I became sane, then I felt: where am I? I sleep, and two men sit on my chest. I walk, and someone shoves me. I had not noticed any of this, because I too was mad. I had not even known they were mad — until I was no longer mad. Once I was sane, I knew: they are all mad. And as soon as I was no longer mad, I became prey to all those madmen. My difficulty was that I understood everything: I am perfectly sane — now what will happen, how will I get out? And if I shouted, ‘I am not mad!’ — all madmen shout the same; no doctor was willing to believe.”
Around us is a crowd of sleepers; hence we do not recognize that we are asleep. And an awakened person we hurry to kill, because he seems too painful to us, too disturbing, too obstructive.
An English scholar, Kenneth Walker, wrote a book and dedicated it to a fakir, Gurdjieff. In the dedication he wrote words most wondrous: “To George Gurdjieff, the disturber of my sleep.”
A few people have appeared on earth who try to break sleep. But if you try to break someone’s sleep, he will certainly take revenge. Try to wake a sleeping man and he will grab your throat. Those who have tried to awaken man from spiritual sleep — we have grabbed their throats as well. Among ourselves we do not know, precisely because we are all sleeping alike.
There is a story about a village: one day a magician came and dropped a packet into the village well, saying, “Whoever drinks this water will go mad.” The village had only one well. Another well existed — but not for the village; it was in the king’s palace. By evening, every villager had to drink water. Even at the price of madness they had to drink, for there was no choice — thirst had to be quenched, even if one had to go mad. How long could they hold out? They drank. By evening, the whole village had gone mad.
The emperor was very happy; his queens were delighted; in the palace, songs and music were arranged. His ministers rejoiced that they were saved. But by evening they realized their mistake. The entire palace was surrounded by the mad villagers. The whole village had gone mad; even the king’s guards and soldiers had gone mad. They surrounded the palace and shouted, “It seems the king has lost his mind. We cannot tolerate such a mad king on the throne.” From the terrace the king saw there was no way out. He asked his minister, “What now? We thought ourselves fortunate to have our own well. Today it has become costly.”
For all kings, sooner or later, a separate well becomes costly. It is becoming costly throughout the world. Those who are still kings — tomorrow their separate well will also prove costly. A separate well is dangerous.
But till then the thought had not occurred. The king asked the minister, “What now?” The minister said, “There is no more to ask. Run to the back gate, drink from that well, and return quickly. Otherwise the palace is in danger.” The king said, “That well’s water! Do you want to make me mad?” The minister said, “There is no way to be saved now without becoming mad.”
The king ran, his queens ran. They drank from that well. That night a great celebration was held in the village. The whole village rejoiced, played music, sang songs, and thanked God that their king’s mind had become sound — because the king too was dancing with the crowd and hurling abuses. Now the king’s mind was fine.
Because our sleep is public — universal — because we have slept since birth, we do not recognize. In this sleep, what can we understand of life? Only this much: that the body is life. We cannot enter within the body at all. This understanding is like a man who wanders outside the palace wall and thinks this is the palace; who leans on the wall outside and goes to sleep, thinking he rests in the palace. Those whose sense of life is only around the body are like the fool who stands outside the palace wall and believes himself a guest of the palace.
We have no entry within the body; we live on the outside. Only the skin — the outer layer! We do not even know the inner lining of the body. The outer face of the wall! We do not know the inner side of the wall, much less the palace. We mistake the outer face of the wall for the palace, and do not even become acquainted with the inner side of the wall.
We know our body from the outside; we have never stood within and seen the body — from within. As I sit inside this room, as you sit inside this room — we see the room from within. A man wanders outside — he sees the house from outside. Man is not able to see the house of his body from within; he knows it only from outside. Then death arises. Because what we know from outside is only a shell — an outer garment. It is merely the outer wall of a house — not the owner. The owner is within. We fail even to recognize the inner wall; how will we recognize the owner within?
This outer experience of life — from without — becomes the experience of death. The day this experience slips from our hands, the day the inner life withdraws from the house and consciousness moves from the outer wall inward, on that day outsiders conclude: the man has died. And the man himself feels: I am dead, I am dead. Because from the plane he took to be life, consciousness begins to slip inward, preparing for a new journey. His life-energies cry out, “I am dead! It’s gone! Everything is sinking!” Because what he took to be life is sinking, is being left behind. Outsiders think he has died; and the man too, in that dying moment, in that moment of change, thinks, “I am dead, I am gone.”
This body of ours is not our real being. It is not our authentic being. In depth, our reality is very different, utterly other. Our life is opposite, altogether the reverse of the body.
Consider a seed. Around it is a very hard shell, to protect the tender, delicate sprout of life hidden within. The sprout is delicate, so a hard wall, a casing, a shell, surrounds the seed. That shell is not the seed. Whoever mistakes the shell for the seed will never become acquainted with the living sprout hidden within. He will keep the shell and the sprout will never be born.
No — the shell is not the seed. In truth, when the seed is born, the shell must disappear, must crack, break, melt into the soil. When the shell dissolves, the seed manifests from within.
This body is a seed. Within, there is a sprout of life, of consciousness, of soul. But we mistake the shell for the seed and are lost; the sprout cannot even be born. When the sprout bursts forth, life is experienced. When the sprout bursts forth, the seed-state of man ends and he becomes a tree. As long as man is seed, he is only potentiality — a possibility. When the tree of life arises within, he becomes real. Some call that reality Atman, some call that reality Paramatman.
Man is the seed of the Divine — of Paramatman. Man is only a seed. The full experience of life belongs to the tree — what can the seed know? What can the seed know of the ecstasies of the tree? How can it know that green leaves will come, upon which sunbeams will dance? How can it know winds will pass through leaves and branches, and the breath will resound with music? How can it know flowers will bloom and outshine the stars? How can it know birds will sing and travelers will rest in the shade? The seed cannot know. Even dreaming it cannot — what shall be possible when the tree happens. It can be known only by becoming a tree.
Man does not know life because he has taken the seed to be his perfection. He will know life only when the full tree of inner life manifests. But far from the tree, we do not even have a memory, a remembrance, that something exists within different from the body. Life’s problem is the problem of experiencing the within. The problem is of experiencing what is inside; we take life to be that outer expanse.
I asked a tree, “Where is your life?” The tree said, “In those roots that are not seen.” Life is in the unseen roots; the visible tree draws its life from the invisible.
Mao Tse-tung has written of an incident from his childhood. Near his mother’s hut was a garden. All her life she tended it. Its flowers were so large and lovely that people from distant villages came to see them; no one passed without pausing a moment before those flowers. She became old and fell ill. Mao was small, but he told his mother not to worry — there was no other elder at home — “Do not worry about the plants; I will care for them.”
Fifteen days later the mother rose. Day and night Mao worked in the garden, from morning until midnight. The mother was at ease. But the day she came to the garden, she saw it had withered. The flowers were gone, the leaves had died, all the trees stood sad. Perhaps the old woman felt as anyone with eyes today would feel seeing humankind’s garden — all the flowers fallen, all the leaves withered, all the trees standing sad. She beat her chest and wept, “What have you done? What were you doing from morning to dusk?”
Mao too began to weep. “I did all I could,” he said. “I wiped the dust from every flower, from every leaf. I kissed every bloom, sprinkled water on each flower. I do not know what happened! So much effort — and all the trees withered!”
His mother began to smile even through her tears. “Fool! Perhaps you do not know that the life of trees is not in leaves and flowers. The life of trees is in roots — which are not seen. Watering, kissing, and loving flowers and leaves is useless. Do not worry about leaves and flowers. If the invisible roots grow strong, leaves and flowers come by themselves; no concern is needed for them.”
But man has taken life to be the entire outer spread of leaves and flowers; the inner roots are utterly neglected. The roots within man lie completely ignored. No remembrance that I too am something within. And whatever is — is within. Truth is within, power is within, the entire capacity of life is within. From there it can manifest without. The manifestation is outside; being is inside. Being is within; becoming happens outside. The real is within; what spreads and expresses — the manifestation — is without. Those who take outer expression to be life live afflicted by the fear of death. They live as if already dead — and afraid that any moment they will die.
These same people, afraid of dying, weep at another’s death. They are not weeping over the other’s death; every death brings them the news of their own. The death of those near and dear brings that news with force. Then the life-energy trembles; fear grips; trembling seizes. And in that trembling and fear man thinks fine thoughts: “The Atman is immortal, the Atman is immortal; we are parts of God, we are forms of Brahman.”
All this is prattle — more than self-deception. It is self-deception. The man frightened of death repeats, “The Atman is immortal,” to fortify himself. He is saying, “No, no — I won’t have to die; the Atman is immortal.” But his life-energy is trembling, and he says, “The Atman is immortal.” One who knows the Atman is immortal has no need to repeat it even once. For he knows — the matter is finished.
Yet people afraid of death fear death, do not know life, and in between create a new trick — a new delusion — that the Atman is immortal.
That is why it is hard to find a people more fearful of death than those who profess the immortality of the Atman. In this country, on this earth, the most people who believe in the Atman’s immortality live — and in this country the largest number of cowardly, death-fearing people also live. How did these two come together? For one who knows the Atman is immortal, death is finished, fear dissolved; none can kill him now. None can kill him.
And another thing: neither can he now live under the illusion that he can kill anyone — for the event of killing has ended. Understand this secret. Those who say “The Atman is immortal” are often the very ones afraid of death, repeating it again and again. And such death-fearing people speak much of ahimsa — not so that they may not kill another, but deep down so that no one be ready to kill them. “The world should be nonviolent!” Why? They will say: “Because killing anyone is bad.” But deep down they are saying: “So that no one should kill me.” If they had come to know there is no dying, then there would be no fear of dying, no fear of killing — and such talk would lose meaning.
Krishna said to Arjuna: “Do not be afraid. Those you see standing before you have been many times before. You were, I was, we all were many times, and will be many times. Nothing is destroyed in the world. Therefore there is no fear of dying, no fear of killing. The question is to live life.” Those who fear both dying and killing become utterly impotent in the eyes of life. One who can neither die nor kill knows not that what is — cannot be killed, cannot die.
What will that world be like, the day the whole earth knows from within that the Atman is immortal! That day all fear of death will dissolve; the threat of killing will vanish. Wars will dissolve that day — not before.
As long as man feels he can be killed, that he can die, wars cannot disappear from the world. Whether Gandhi expounds ahimsa, or Buddha, or Mahavira — no matter how many lessons of nonviolence are taught — until man experiences from within that what is, is deathless, wars will not cease.
Those whose hands hold swords — do not think they are brave. The sword is proof that the man is a coward within. At crossroads you raise statues with swords in hand — they are statues of cowards. In the hand of the brave there is no need of a sword, for he knows dying and killing are children’s games.
But man creates a strange deceit. What he does not know, he tries to behave as if he knows. Out of fear! Within is fear — he knows he must die; people die daily. He sees the body growing weak, youth gone, old age coming. He sees the body going — and within he repeats, “The Atman is deathless.” He tries to gather faith and courage: “Do not fear, do not fear! Yes, death is there — but no, no — the rishis say the Atman is immortal.” Those afraid of death gather around such rishis, crowd around those who talk of the immortality of the soul.
I am not saying the Atman is not immortal. I am saying: the doctrine of the soul’s immortality is the doctrine of the death-fearing. To know the Atman’s immortality is altogether another matter. And note well: only those can know the Atman’s immortality who experiment with dying while alive. There is no other way. Understand this a little.
What happens in death? All the life-energy that is spread outward contracts and returns to its center. The energy that had extended to every corner of the body returns, becomes a seed again. The body — as when we dim a lamp and the spread of light contracts, darkness begins to gather; the light shrinks back to the lamp — and if we dim further, further, the light becomes latent in seed form, in a particle, and darkness surrounds.
The life-energy that had spread contracts, returns to the center. For a new journey it becomes a seed again, an atom. This contraction, this drawing in — from this very contraction arises the feeling: “I have died!” Because what we had taken to be life is going away; everything is slipping. Hands and feet grow limp, breath is lost, eyes cease to see, ears cease to hear. All these senses, the entire body, were alive because they were joined to a certain energy. That energy begins to return. The body is a corpse — it remains a corpse. The house-owner prepares to depart; the house grows desolate. It seems: I have died. In this moment of death it seems: I am going, sinking, ending.
And because of this panic that “I am dying,” this anxiety, this anguish, the mind becomes so agitated that it is deprived even of knowing the experience of death. To know, calmness is needed. One becomes so restless at that juncture that death cannot be known.
We have died many, countless times — yet we have not known death. Every time the hour of dying has come, we have become so distraught, so restless, that in that restlessness what knowing can there be? Every time death has come and passed us by, and still we remain unacquainted with it.
No, death cannot be known in the moment of dying. But a deliberate death can be arranged. That deliberate death is called meditation, Yoga, Samadhi. Samadhi means: what happens of itself in death, the sadhak does by effort — he draws his entire life-energy back within, consciously.
Naturally, there is no reason to be disturbed, for he is practicing the movement inward, the contraction of consciousness. Peacefully he draws consciousness within. What death does, he does himself. And in that calm, he comes to know this truth: life-energy is one thing, the body another. The bulb, through which electricity manifests, is one thing — the electricity that appears through it is another. Electricity contracts; the bulb lies inert.
The body is no more than a bulb. Life is that electricity, that energy, that prana which makes the body glow and warm and vibrant. In Samadhi the sadhak dies by his own hand — and because he enters death consciously, he knows the truth that “I am” is separate, the body is separate. Once this is known — death is finished. Once this is known — the experience of life begins. The ending of death and the beginning of life meet at a single boundary. To know life is the going of death; to know deathlessness is the arising of life. Properly understood, these are two ways of saying one thing; two fingers pointing in the same direction.
Therefore I say, religion is the art of death — the art of dying. And yes, I also say many times, religion is the art of living. Certainly I say both, because only he who knows how to die, knows how to live.
Religion is the art of life and death. If you want to know what life and death are, you must learn the art of withdrawing energy from the body by your own will. Only then can you know — otherwise not. And this energy can be withdrawn. It is not difficult. This energy spreads by will, and by will it returns. It is but an expansion of will-force.
Make a resolve — intense, total — “I return within.” Even for half an hour, if one resolves, “I want to return within; I want to die; I want to drown within; I want to draw all my energy back,” then in a few days he will begin to approach the experience: the energy is contracting within. The body will fall away, lying without. With three months of deeper experiment, you will be able to see your body as separate. First it will be seen from within — “I stand within, a flame, a light — and the whole body is seen from inside like this building.” With a little more courage, that living light within can be brought out too — and you can see from outside that the body is lying there.
A wondrous experience happened to me — let me tell it. I have never said it until now; it came to mind suddenly, so I say it. Some twelve or thirteen years ago, I used to meditate nights sitting atop a tree. Again and again I found that meditating on the ground, the body feels very powerful. The body is made of earth; sitting on earth strengthens the body-element. The talk of yogis going to high places, to the Himalayas, is not without reason — it is very scientific. The farther the body is from earth, the less the bodily influence within.
So I sat up a tall tree and meditated every night. One day, lost in meditation — when and how, I do not know — the body fell from the tree — I do not know when. When the body hit the ground, I was startled to see what had happened. I was still on the tree — and the body had fallen! How to say what the experience was — difficult. I was sitting on the tree, the body had fallen below, and I was watching it lying there. Only a silver cord — a luminous thread — was joined from the navel to me. A brilliantly white line. Beyond understanding — what now? How would I return?
How long that state lasted, I do not know. But an unparalleled experience it was — to see the body from outside for the first time. From that very day, the body ended. Death ended that day. Because another body was seen — different from the gross body — a subtle body was experienced. How long it lasted — difficult to say. Near dawn, two women passed carrying milk from some village; they saw the body lying there, came and sat near — “Someone has died!” They placed a hand on my head — and in a single instant, like a powerful pull, I returned into the body and opened my eyes.
Then a second experience occurred: that woman can create an alchemy, a chemical change in a man’s body, and man can create a chemical change in a woman’s body. It occurred to me: her touch — and my return — how did it happen? Thereafter many experiences came, and I understood why, in India, tantrics who explored Samadhi and death bound women with them — because if the subtle body goes out in deep Samadhi, it cannot be brought back without the help of a woman; or if a woman’s subtle body goes out, it cannot return without the help of a man. When woman and man’s bodies meet, an electric circuit completes, and the consciousness that has gone out returns within swiftly.
Then in six months this happened to me about six times; and I felt my age had decreased by at least ten years — meaning, if I were to live seventy years, now I would live only sixty. In six months strange experiences occurred — all the hair on my chest turned white within six months. Beyond my understanding — what is happening!
Then it also came to mind: a disturbance has arisen between this body and that body; the alignment, the harmony between the two has broken. Then I understood why Shankaracharya died at thirty-three, why Vivekananda at thirty-six — there are other causes. If these two bodies’ bond breaks strongly, it is hard to live. And I realized too that Ramakrishna being plagued with illness, and Ramana dying of cancer — the cause is not physical; rather the breaking of the alignment between the two.
People commonly say yogis are very healthy — but the truth is the opposite. The truth so far is that yogis have often been ailing and have died young. The total reason is only this: the adjustment, the alignment required between the two bodies suffers a disturbance. Once the subtle has gone out, it never fully re-enters in a complete state. But then it is not needed either; it has no use, no purpose, no meaning.
By resolve the energy can be drawn within — just by resolve, by this conviction, by this feeling: “Let me return inside, return inside, return inside” — an intense call, an intense movement, so that all the life-energy is filled with “Let me return within — let me return to the center — let me return.” Such an intense call that it resounds through every particle of the body, grips every breath. And any day the event happens — with a jolt you are within, and for the first time you see the body from within.
Those thousands of nadis of which Yoga speaks were not known by anatomy; they have no relation to physiology. They were known from within. Therefore when physiology looks for them, it finds nowhere: “Where are these nadis? These seven chakras — where?” They are nowhere in the gross body — because we examine the body from outside; they will not be found. There is another mode of inquiry: knowing the body from within — an inner physiology — very subtle. From that knowing, the nadis and the centers are altogether different. They will not be found by dissecting this body. They are contact fields between this body and the inner Atman — places where they meet.
The greatest contact field, the deepest point of connection, is the navel. You will notice: driving a car, if an accident suddenly seems imminent, the navel is the first to be affected. It becomes disordered, because there is the deepest zone of contact between Atman and body. It will be the first to be disturbed on seeing death. As soon as death appears, the navel is thrown into disorder at the body’s center. The body has an inner arrangement established by the contact between the inner body and this body. The chakras are the contact points. Certainly, once the body is known from within, an altogether different world is known — of which we have no inkling; about which medical science knows not a word, and cannot, for now.
Once the experience occurs that “I am separate and this body is separate,” death is finished. There is no death then. After that, one can even stand outside the body and look. So it is not a philosophical idea, not a metaphysical speculation, what death is or life is. Those who think about it will never derive even a penny’s worth of fruit. This is an existential approach, a living inquiry. One can know: I am life; one can know: death is not mine. It can be lived; one can enter into it.
But those who only think, “We will reflect on what death is, what life is” — they may think for births upon births — nothing will be known. We can only think about what we already know. Thought is possible about the known. About the unknown, thought is not possible. You can think only what you know.
Have you ever noticed? You cannot think that which you do not know. How will you conceive it? How will you imagine that which you do not know? We do not know life, we do not know death — what will we think? Therefore, what philosophers have said about life and death has no value. In philosophy’s books, what is written about life and death is worthless. For they are writing by thinking. There is no question of thinking here. Only what Yoga has said about life and death has meaning. For Yoga speaks from existential, living experience.
“The Atman is immortal” is not a doctrine, not a theory, not an ideology. It is the experience of some. If you wish to go toward experience — only experience can solve the problem: what is life, what is death. And the moment this experience happens, it is known: life is; death is not. Only life is; death is not at all.
You will ask, “But death does occur.” Its total meaning is only this: the house in which we resided — we leave that house and begin the journey toward another house. The house we were living in — from that house we travel toward another. A house has limits, a capacity — it is an instrument. Instruments tire, become worn out; we have to move beyond them.
If science arranges it, the human body can be kept alive a hundred, two hundred, three hundred years. But that will not prove there is no soul. It will only prove that till now the Atman had to change houses because the old mechanism grew worn. If it can be replaced — the heart can be replaced, eyes can be replaced, limbs can be replaced — then the Atman need not change the body; the old house will do. Repairs will be made. That does not prove there is no Atman — not even remotely.
It may also happen that tomorrow science produces life in a test tube; then perhaps scientists will fall into the illusion that they have created life. That too will be wrong. Let me say it: even that proves nothing.
What do mother and father do in the mother’s womb? What does man and woman do in the woman’s belly? They do not give birth to the Atman. They just create a situation — an opportunity in which the Atman can enter. The cell of the man and the ovum of the woman create an opportunity, a situation into which the Atman may descend.
Tomorrow we may create that situation in a test tube. That does not create an Atman. The mother’s womb too is a test tube — a mechanical arrangement, natural. Tomorrow science may chemically arrange, in a laboratory, the substances from which the male sperm and female ovum are constituted, through full knowledge of protoplasm. Then the Atmans that till now descended into the mother’s womb will descend into the test tube. But the Atman is not being produced — it is still arriving. Birth is a double event — the preparation of the body and the arrival, the descent, of the Atman.
Regarding the Atman, the coming days will be dangerous and dark — because every declaration of science will convince man there is no soul. That will not disprove the soul; it will only weaken man’s resolve to go within. If man begins to think, “Fine — life-span has increased; children are born in test tubes — where is the soul?” — the soul will not be disproved; only the inner search will cease. This calamity is likely in the next fifty years; its groundwork is laid.
On earth there have always been poor, the destitute, the suffering, the ill; their life-spans were short; they lacked food and clothing. But in the vision of the soul, never has the number of inwardly destitute been as great as today. The single cause is: “within there is nothing — so what is the point of going there?” Once humanity believes there is nothing within, the question of going there ends.
The future can become very dark and dangerous. Therefore from every side there should be experiments — so that people can stand and declare, not with words and doctrines, not by repeating Gita, Koran, or Bible, but as living proclamations: “I know I am not the body.” And not only as words — their whole life should radiate it. Then perhaps we can save man. Otherwise all of science’s development will turn man into a machine. And the day humankind concludes there is nothing within, perhaps all the inner doors will be shut — and after that, what happens, is hard to say.
Even till now, for most people, the inner doors have remained closed; but sometimes a courageous one breaks through the inner walls and enters — a Mahavira, a Buddha, a Christ, a Lao Tzu. That possibility is diminishing. Perhaps a hundred or two hundred years hence — as I say today, “Life is, death is not” — man will say, “Death is, life is not.” The preparation is complete; those who say so are already standing. What is Marx saying? He says matter is — mind is not. Matter is, God is not. What you call God is a by-product of matter — born of matter. Marx is saying life is not — death is. If there is no soul, only matter — then there is no life, only death.
Marx’s influence has grown and grows. Perhaps you do not know: there have always been people who denied the soul — but never had a religion of the soul-deniers arisen. Marx, for the first time, created a religion of those who deny the soul. Until now atheists had no organization. There were Charvaka, Brihaspati, Epicurus — wondrous people — who said there is no soul; but they had no organized church. Marx is the first atheist with an organized church — half the world stands within it; in fifty years, the remaining half may stand there too.
The soul is — yet all the doors to its knowing and recognition are closing. Life is — yet all possibilities of relating to it are waning. Before every door is shut, those with a little strength and courage should experiment upon themselves and attempt to go within, so that they can experience. If even a hundred or two hundred people in the world experience the inner light, there is no danger. The darkness of millions can be shattered by the life-light of a few. A small lamp breaks untold darkness.
If in a village even a single person knows the soul is immortal, the entire atmosphere of that village, the very air, the whole life will be transformed. A small flower blooms — its fragrance spreads far along the roads. If one person knows that the Atman is deathless, the very presence of that one in a village can purify the village’s soul.
But in our land, how many sadhus — how many shouting voices — proclaim “The Atman is immortal!” And yet with such long lines, such a crowd — and the nation’s moral character, this fall! This is proof that it is a deceitful trade. There is no one here who truly knows the soul. Such a vast crowd of so-called knower-saints — one with a bandage over his mouth, doing one circus; another with a staff, doing another; a third some other show — with such a multitude of soul-knowers, could the nation’s life sink so low? Impossible.
And let me say: those who say the common man has ruined the character of the world — they are wrong. The common man has always been like this. When the world’s character was higher, it was because of the self-experience of a few. The common man has always been as he is. Among the ordinary there were a few living ones who always lifted consciousness upward. Their presence worked as a catalytic agent and drew life upward. If today the world’s character is so low, those responsible are the sadhus, the so-called saints — the false religion-mongers. The common man is not responsible. He never was — not before, not now.
If the world is to change, abandon this nonsense of “improving one man at a time,” of teaching moral lessons to each. If you want to change the world, a few must pass through extremely intense inner experiments — those willing to go very deep within. Not many — if in one nation even a hundred reach the state of knowing the soul, the whole life of that nation will rise of itself. A hundred living lamps — and the whole nation can rise.
I agreed to speak on this only in the hope that perhaps some courageous person may come. I would invite him: I am ready to take you within; if you are ready, come. There, it can be shown what life is and what death is.
You have listened to my words with such love and peace — I am deeply obliged. In the end, I bow to the Paramatman seated within all. Please accept my pranam.