Main Mrityu Sikhata Hun #11

First, when I call something untrue or false, I do not mean that it does not exist. The false too exists. If it did not, even falsity could not be spoken of. A lie has its own kind of existence; a dream has its own kind of existence. When we say a dream is false, we do not mean it does not exist; we mean its existence is mental, not real—an undulation of mind, not a fact.

When we say the world is maya, we do not mean the world is not. If it were not, to whom are we saying this? Who is saying it? And for whom? When someone calls the world maya, he already grants that there is a speaker and a listener, someone to explain and someone to understand. That much is true. No—the meaning of calling the world maya is only this: it is not as it appears; it is appearance. As it truly is, it does not appear; and as it is not, that is what appears.

A man is walking along the road. Evening has fallen; it’s getting dark. He sees a rope lying there, and, mistaking it for a snake, he runs away in fear. Someone tells him, “The snake was untrue, false; you ran for nothing.” What does this mean?

To say the snake was false does not mean he did not see a snake. If he had not seen it, he would not have run. As far as the seeing goes, for him there was a snake. And had there not been a rope, he could not have seen it in empty space; the rope supported the illusion of the snake. Something inside saw one thing; outside there was something else. A rope lay there, but he felt it was a snake. The rope did not appear as a rope—which it was; it appeared as a snake—which it was not. What is did not appear; what is not appeared. Yet what was not was imposed upon what was.

So whenever words like untrue, false, delusion, maya, illusion, appearance are used, keep one thing in mind: they do not mean nonexistence.

Now imagine the man who ran at the sight of the snake. We tell him again and again, “There is no snake there,” but he says, “How can I believe you? I have seen the snake.” We say, “Go back and look.” He says, “Give me a stick and I’ll go.” Now, I know there is no snake; a stick is needless. But he knows a snake is there; for him, the stick makes sense. I hand him a stick. You may ask me, “If there is no snake, why give him a stick? Are you not also conceding there’s a snake?” Yet I continue to say there is no snake; it is false. But he has seen it, and he lacks the courage to go back. For him it is real. So I give him a stick: “Take this. If there’s a snake, strike it; if not, there’s no question.”

What appears to a person in life is not life’s truth. Only when one looks fully awakened does truth appear. To the degree we are benumbed, to that degree falsehood is mixed into truth. To the degree we sleep, to that degree what we see is distorted, perverted. It is not what it is—that’s the first point.

But the sleeper says, “How can everything be unreal? My boy is sick; how can I believe it’s maya? I am hungry; how can I believe that’s maya? I need a house; how can that be maya? There is a body; if I throw a stone at it, blood flows and it hurts.”

What then to do? We must find a device to awaken him. And the devices are like that stick. The day he goes and sees correctly that it was a rope, he will laugh and throw away the stick. He may even come back angry with me: “Why did you make me carry this stick so long? There was no snake.”

What I call meditation, or kundalini, or the process of practice is, in truth, the search for what is not. And the day you go and see clearly that it is not, that day every process will become useless, meaningless. That day you will say: even the illness was false, and the cure too was false.

In fact, a false illness cannot have a true cure—can it? If the illness is false, a real remedy is not possible. A false illness requires a false remedy. Yet a false illness can be cured by a false remedy. Two falsehoods can cancel each other.

So when I say all sadhana-processes are false, I mean false in this sense: we have never lost what we are seeking. The rope is rope the whole time; it never becomes a snake, not even for a moment. The rope we have “lost”—though it lies before us. It never becomes a snake, yet for us there is such a snake as never is, not even for a moment. A great quandary arises: the rope is, but what appears is a snake. The snake must be killed; the rope must be found. Without killing the snake, it is hard to find the rope; without finding the rope, it is hard to kill the snake.

Something must be done. And whatever we do, what will come of it? Only this: what is not will be seen as not; what is will be seen as what is. And the day we know, will we say we have attained something? Will we say we lost the snake and found the rope? The snake was never there to be lost; the rope was always there, there was no need to find it.

That is why, when Buddha was enlightened, people came the very next morning and asked, “What did you gain?” Buddha said, “Do not ask what I gained—I gained nothing.” They said, “Then all these years of austerities were wasted!” Buddha replied, “If you speak in the language of gain, yes—nothing was gained. And yet I tell you, walk the same path.” They said, “Are you mad? If it was all wasted, why should we?” Buddha said, “Nothing was gained, but something was certainly lost. That which never was, I lost. And that which was always already present—never to be gained—hidden behind the veils of falsehood which made it seem absent—that I ‘found.’”

What does this mean? “What was already attained, I attained again. What I never had, I lost.”

Therefore when I say the entire process of sadhana is false, I do not mean, “Do not practice.” I mean only this: you are so deeply entangled in falsehood that nothing but an opposite falsehood can cut it. You have gone so far into the lie that, to return, you must traverse the very distance you traveled in the lie.

Suppose I walked ten steps into this room. Now I want to go outside. I must at least walk ten steps back inside the room. Someone tells me, “You’ve gone in—now turn back and walk ten steps.” I protest, “But walking ten steps in the room is how I got inside! If I walk more here, I’ll be twenty steps in. Give me a trick to get out without walking in the room.” No—you must walk those ten steps. Yes, the orientation will be different, the direction reversed, the face turned around. Where once your face was, now your back will be; where your back was, now your face will be.

We live in falsehood. In sadhana, only the face changes. One still lives within the domain of falsity, but where the back was, the face comes; where the face was, the back turns. As far as we descended into falsehood, so far we must return. And the day we return, we will find a delightful thing has happened.

It is like when someone has been given the wrong medicine: he must be given an antidote. There was never any need for an antidote—had the wrong drug not been given. But the poison has entered the system; now an opposite poison must be introduced. Still remember: this too is poison. Only poison cuts poison. If that first was a toxin, this too is a toxin—only reversed in direction, but still poison. If a doctor said to you, “You have poison in your body; now we will give you more poison,” you would panic. He would add, “This is an antidote.” It is still poison—only the opposite kind.

So when I say the world is false, sadhana cannot be true. How will you cut a false world with a true practice? If you swing a real sword at a phantom, you will injure yourself. To drive off a false ghost, keep a false sword in hand. Naturally, if you go out with a real gun against a ghost, there will be trouble; the real gun can cause harm, for the ghost is not there. To chase off a ghost, tie an amulet. That is better. An amulet is neither gun nor sword; it is a false remedy—an antidote—an opposite falsehood, stoutly made to counter the first.

All sadhana aims to go beyond the world; and since I call the world an illusion—meaning, it is not as we take it to be—what should we do? Return as many steps as we went into delusion.

And why do I keep reminding you of this? Because a great danger always faces the seeker. We tie an amulet to be safe from ghosts; it saves us from ghosts, and then we start guarding the amulet. As much as we once feared the ghost, we now fear losing the amulet. Naturally—because the amulet saved us. So the ghost is gone, but we are caught by the amulet. Hence I must remind you: the ghost was false, and the amulet too is false. Now that the ghost is gone, please throw away the amulet.

I want the seeker to remember ceaselessly that his practice is an antidote for a deep falsehood. And the antidote to falsehood must itself be false. Otherwise the world may be left but sannyas will be clung to; the shop may be left but the temple will be clung to; money may be left but meditation will be clung to. Any clinging is dangerous—whether to money or to meditation. Know true sadhana on the day meditation is no longer needed, the day meditation becomes useless.

Naturally, once a man is on the roof, the ladder should be useless. If he still says, “The ladder is very useful to me,” know he has not reached the roof. He may even have climbed to the last rung; still, if he is holding the ladder, remember: he is as far from the roof as he was on the first rung. He is not on the roof. To be on the roof, two things are needed—climb the ladder and also leave it.

Therefore I say: meditation has its use; and I also say: meditation is no more than an antidote. Therefore I say: practice—and also, let go. The moment I say both, difficulties begin. You think naturally, “You speak so much for practice—do this, do that—and then you say, ‘All is false.’ Then why should we practice? If we must finally get off the ladder, why climb it at all?”

But note: if you do not climb, you will still be off the ladder; and the one who climbed and stepped onto the roof is also off the ladder. Only your planes will differ. He will be on the roof; you will be on the ground. Both are not on the ladder, but there is a fundamental difference: you are off it because you never climbed; he is off it because he climbed and got off.

Life is a great mystery. In it, some things must be climbed and then descended; some things must be grasped and then released. But our mind says: if you must hold, then hold absolutely; if you must let go, let go absolutely. That logic is dangerous; with it, no real movement in life is possible.

I see how this creates difficulty: some people have clung to wealth, some to religion; some have clung to the world, others to liberation. Yet clinging itself does not loosen. Only the unclinging man is free. Only the one with no clutching, no stoppage, no insistence will know the truth. Only the one without conditions will know the truth. If you have even this one condition—“I will stay only in the temple; I will never go to the shop”—you will not know truth; you will know only the truth that is born together with the temple’s lie. If you have even this condition—“I will live only as a renunciate”—you will not know truth. You have climbed the ladder, but on the last rung you have grabbed it tight.

Often the mind feels: “How can I suddenly drop the very ladder that brought me so far?” The hand wants to hold on. This happens everywhere.

A man begins to earn money—to live in comfort. Years pass in earning; to earn, he must sacrifice comfort. The goal was comfort, and without money he couldn’t have it, so he set out to earn. But when you are earning, you cannot rest; you must let go of rest to earn. For twenty or twenty-five years he drops all rest and piles up wealth. Now he has wealth—but he has lost the habit of rest. The habit of unrest has been acquired.

Now there is trouble. Twenty-five years of practice. Tell him, “Stay home,” and he says, “How can I? My peons arrive at nine; I’m there at eight. My clerks leave at five; I return at seven.” He has forgotten that the ladder he once grasped to climb was to be let go as soon as he reached the landing. There was a place to step off and rest. But now he keeps mounting the ladder. He never descends; the roof never comes; he keeps building more ladders. You say to him, “Enough ladders—come down.” He says, “How can that be? If I want to rest, I must build ladders!” And he goes on building.

If this happened only with money, it would be less serious; it happens the same with religion—because the mind is the same. A man enters the religious world and begins to renounce—only so that he may come to a place where nothing clings, for clinging is bondage. He says, “Drop everything to which I am bound.” He begins to drop: house, shop, family, wealth, clothes—he goes on dropping. In twenty or twenty-five years, the habit of renouncing becomes so strong that he cannot renounce renunciation. It turns into a stone on his chest. Now he keeps inventing more things to drop: “Shall I drop food? Water? Salt? Ghee? Sugar? Sleep? Bathing?” He keeps devising renunciations. In the end he arrives at dropping the body itself—suicide, fast-unto-death, santhara.

These two are of the same kind. One has grabbed the ladder of acquiring; the other has grabbed the ladder of renouncing. Neither agrees to get off the ladder. In my vision, truth is where ladders end and you step onto level ground—where there is neither climbing nor descending. Truth is where your grip loosens and your conditions fall away. Truth is where you see things not through a trained, practiced mind, but through a mind free of practice.

Perhaps this is what Jesus means. Someone asked him, “Who will receive the truth?” He said, “Those who are like children.” What can that mean—like a child? It means, one who has no conditions, who simply looks. Watch how children look—you will be amazed. Our seeing is always seeing-with-a-purpose. We are seeking something. The child is just seeing. He is not seeking anything. Whatever is, whatever comes before his eyes, he looks. He has no clutch that says, “This thing must be seen,” nor even a clutch that it must appear in a particular way. His seeing is purposeless—without a “purpose.” He is not seeing for any end.

That innocence in a child’s eyes gets lost in adults because purpose enters. He always looks with a purpose. If your pocket is full, he looks one way; if it is empty, another. If you are beautiful, one way; if not, another. If he has something to gain, one way; if not, either another—or he doesn’t look at all. Purpose has entered even seeing.

And when purpose enters seeing, the rope looks like a snake; the rope is not seen. Why does the one who sees a snake in a rope see it so? Projection. He is fearful; he sees through fear—looking for danger. The path is dark; he is searching for threat. Something long lies across the path; at once he concludes “snake,” because within he is searching for fear. There is a purpose in his unconscious: “Is there a snake in this dark?” So a rope appears as a snake.

A child cannot see a snake in a rope. Often the opposite can happen: if a snake lies still, the child might pick it up thinking it a rope!

If there is any purpose, any craving, any fear—in brief, if there is any mind at all in our seeing—we will distort. Can we see without the mind? Seeing without the mind is the ultimate state. The mind is what is accumulated—every purpose, every fear, every desire and passion gathered there.

There is a short story by Chekhov. Two policemen are walking down a road. There is a small hotel; a crowd has gathered. A man has grabbed a dog by its leg, saying, “I will kill it. It bit me; it has bitten others.” The crowd is enjoying the scene: “Kill it!” The policemen go and stand there too. Policemen are often harassed by dogs; dogs pay special attention to them. They also encourage, “You’re doing the right thing—kill this brute; it troubles us at night.”

Then one constable says to the other, “Careful—it looks to me like the superintendent’s dog.” The first, who just said, “Kill it,” instantly grabs the man by the neck: “Scoundrel! You’ve clogged the traffic and created a nuisance—come to the station!” The second quickly picks up the dog, hoists it on his shoulder, and starts fondling it.

As he coaxes the dog and the first man collars the dog-holder, the crowd is astonished: “What happened? Just a moment ago they were shouting, ‘Kill it!’” When the constable looks closer, the second says, “No, this doesn’t seem to be the sahib’s dog.” He promptly drops the dog and says to the man, “Take this beast—finish it. It’s dangerous.” But by the time the man grabs the dog again, the first constable says, “Well, one can’t be certain; it does look exactly like the sahib’s dog.”

The story goes on like that, their stance changing several times—because the purpose changes several times. The dog is the same, the man is the same, the policemen are the same; nothing changes. But the narrative turns this way and that, because each time the purpose shifts: sometimes it is the boss’s dog, sometimes it is not. When it is, behavior changes at once; when it is not, behavior changes again.

We all live like that. Where mind is, we will live like that.

So, what is sadhana? Sadhana is release from this mind. But once you are released, what will you do with sadhana? It must be buried along with the mind. You will have to say to the mind, “Take this practice with you—it was because of you that I had to hold it. Now that you are going, kindly take it along.”

And when one is free of both mind and sadhana—of illness and of medicine—note this well: if only the illness is gone while the medicine continues, do not call it freedom. Often the disease proves less dangerous than the clinging to the medicine. Disease is painful; it is easier to drop. The medicine is pleasant; one does not want to drop it. But what value has medicine? It is for the sick. For the healthy, medicine is meaningless. Because you insisted on remaining sick, you had to swallow the medicine. If you are not insisting on being ill, the medicine is futile.

Illness and medicine are on the same plane. There is really no difference—otherwise the medicine would not work. On the very plane where the disease lives, the remedy also lives. The germs of disease stand face-to-face with the “germs” of medicine—opposed, but on the same level. They stand back-to-back, so to speak, but share the same floor.

So I speak not only against illness; I speak against medicine too. My experience is that for thousands of years we have spoken much against the disease; then the disease was left—and the medicine was grasped. Those who cling to medicine prove more dangerous than the ill.

Therefore keep both points in mind. Drop the illness; drop the medicine. Drop the mind; drop meditation. Drop the world; drop religion. Come to a place where nothing remains to drop and nothing remains to hold. Then that alone remains which is. And thus all the processes I speak about—kundalini, chakras, the seven bodies—are all part of the dream. But you are in the dream; until you understand the dream rightly, you cannot come out of it.

To come out of the dream also requires understanding it rightly. The dream has its own existence—its own. Falsehood has its own existence; it is there in the world. There are means to be free of it. But both are ultimately to be abandoned; therefore I call both false. If I were to call either of them true, how would you ever drop it? Truth is never dropped; truth is always held. So that you grasp nothing, so that no clinging can happen, so that you fall into no knot or bondage, I say: neither the world is true, nor sadhana is true. Sadhana’s falsehood cuts the world’s falsehood. When two falsehoods are equal and cancel one another, what remains is truth. It is neither of the world nor of sadhana. It is beyond both, behind both, across both, transcending both—when both are gone.

Therefore I speak to you of a third kind of person—neither worldly nor a renunciate. When someone asks me, “Are you a sannyasin?” I get into difficulty. If I say “sannyasin,” I bind myself again in the polarity between the worldly and the renunciate. If someone asks me, “Are you worldly?” I am in trouble again, for if I say “worldly,” I stand in that same polarity.

I could say, “I am both,” which becomes meaningless; for if one is both worldly and renunciate, the very meaning is lost—the meaning lay in the opposition. Or I could say, “I am neither,” and that too creates difficulty, because outside of the two, we have no conception of a third. People insist: “Either say you are here or there. Either you are alive or you are dead—both-not cannot be.” This is how we live: cutting reality into duals. “Say darkness, or say light.” We have no place for the colors of dusk, which are neither. We have no place for grey: either black or white. In fact, reality is more grey. Grey condensed becomes black; grey thinned becomes white. But our language, our mode of thought, has no place for it. Either friend or foe—no third place. In truth, the real place is the third, but we lack a slot for it.

You ask me, “Are you my friend or my enemy?” If I say, “Both,” it confounds you: how can both be? If I say, “Neither,” it seems meaningless: then what remains? But the truth is, when a man is wholly healthy, he will either be both, or he will be neither—two ways to say the same thing. Then he is neither foe nor friend. Then he is, in the true sense, a human being. No enmity, no friendship. No sannyas, no world. It is this third man I seek. And all that I say is only to break the dream. If the dream has broken, nothing I say has any meaning.

Let me tell you a story. There was a Zen fakir. He got up one morning. He had great trust in the analysis of dreams. Dreams are useful; they bring news about man. Because man is false, true news comes through the false. The face a man wears at midday in the market is less true than what appears in his dream at night—the dream that is utterly false. If by day you see him bow to his wife and say, “No one is as beautiful as you,” check his dream; his wife may never appear there—other women surely will. The dream will tell more accurate news about him—though the dream is false.

Because man is false, you must learn from the false. If he were true, life in the open would be enough. No need to go into dreams; his face would tell. He would tell his wife, “You are not that beautiful—our neighbor’s wife seems more so.” But such men are rare. If a man could say so simply, his dreams would stop; there would be no need for the woman to appear in his dreams—he has finished the matter by day. Dreams linger only when a thing was not lived by day. What could not be said, what could not be lived, sits inside and tries to live at night. After a day of falsity, at night the false appears as truth in dreams.

Therefore modern psychology—whether Freud, Jung, Adler—rests on the analysis of dreams. It is astonishing: to know man we must analyze dreams! To know a man, the road is dream-analysis. Go to a psychotherapist, and he says, “Tell me your dreams,” not, “Tell me about your day,” because you are false; you cannot be asked about yourself. We must ask your dreams—there, in false dreams, you appear exactly; your reflection, your true picture forms there. We want to peer into your dreams. Psychology is built on dream-analysis.

That Zen fakir loved dreams. He used to ask his disciples for their dreams; he had them keep dream-diaries. Truly, if people wrote their autobiographies leaving out waking hours and wrote only the nights, the world would be better, and we would know more truthful things about people. The day is very false—the false man organizes it. In dreams there is still some truth because they are unorganized, unplanned; they happen on their own.

One morning the fakir sat up on his bed. A disciple was passing by; the fakir called out, “Stop! I saw a dream last night—interpret it. Will you?” The disciple said, “Just a moment, let me bring the interpretation.” Then he returned with a jug of water. “Please wash your hands and face. Now that it’s already broken, what interpretation? Wash, so the slight lingering tone of the dream may be cleared away.”

The fakir said, “Sit down—your interpretation pleases me.” Another disciple came by. The fakir called him: “Listen, I saw a dream last night. This one has given a little interpretation and set a jug of water here—will you interpret?” He said, “Just a moment.” He ran and brought a cup of tea. “Please have a cup of tea—and let the matter end. Your sleep has opened, you have washed—why entangle me now?”

The fakir said, “Sit—your answer pleases me too. But know this: had either of you interpreted today, I would have put you out of the ashram. When the dream has already broken, what interpretation?”

While the dream is on, we interpret. All my interpretations are interpretations of a dream. They cannot be true. Understand me rightly: how can a dream-interpretation be true when the dream itself is not? But it can help break the dream. And if it breaks, you will awaken. The day you awaken, you won’t say the dream was true, nor that the interpretation was true. You will say, “It was a play that has ended.” The play had two aspects: one of playing along with the dream, and one of breaking the dream. Playing along is called the world; the interpretations that break it are called sannyas—but both belong within the dream. Playing along is worldliness; the effort to break it is renunciation; yet both are of the dream. When the dream shatters, there is neither world nor renunciation. Then what remains is truth.

There are many strands here. First: the moment we separate man from existence and look at him as apart, these questions begin to arise. For example, heat water to one hundred degrees and, at that point, it “leaps” and becomes steam. Water becoming steam is a natural event. Its heating is also natural, not unnatural. Heating is natural; the leap into steam is natural. If nature did not contain the law that at one hundred degrees water can jump into steam, water would have no way to become steam. If nature did not contain the potential to heat to one hundred degrees, water would have no power to reach that heat. Even so, if water had consciousness, it could save itself from fire—or it could put itself on the fire. That too would be a natural happening: to save itself or to offer itself—both. My point is: in this universe nothing unnatural can occur. In fact, what cannot occur at all is what we call “unnatural.”

Whatever occurs, occurs naturally. There is no way for the unnatural to happen. If a human being is growing spiritually, that is a possibility of nature. If he is making a “leap,” that too is a possibility of nature. But choice itself is also a possibility given by nature—whether to move in the direction of the leap or not. Nature contains infinite possibilities, multi-potentialities. Our very use of the word “nature” often makes it feel like it means a single possibility—that is the mistake.

Nature is the confluence of infinite possibilities. That water heats at one hundred degrees is natural; that it becomes ice below zero is also natural. The event of ice below zero does not negate the event of steam at one hundred. It isn’t that one is natural and the other unnatural—both are natural. Darkness is natural, light is natural; descending is natural, ascending is natural. There are infinite possibilities. We always stand at a crossroads with infinite paths. And the fun is: whatever we choose, our capacity to choose is itself given by nature. But if we choose the wrong road, nature will carry us to the very perfection of that wrong road.

Nature is profoundly cooperative. If we choose the path to hell, she starts clearing that path—‘Come!’ She will not refuse. If you want to make water into ice, why should nature insist you make steam? She will make ice. If you want to go to hell, she will clear that road; if you want to go to heaven, she will clear that road. If you want to live, she will clear the way to live; if you want to die, she will clear the way to die. Living is natural, dying is natural, and your capacity to choose is natural. If you understand nature’s multi-dimensionality, the difficulty disappears.

Sorrow is natural; joy is natural. Living like the blind is natural; living with eyes open is natural. Awakening is natural; sleep is natural. Nature has infinite possibilities. And the fun is: we are not outside nature—we are part of it. Choice too is nature’s capacity. But the more conscious a person becomes, the deeper his power to choose; the more unconscious, the weaker his power to choose. If water is kept in the sun and “doesn’t want” to become steam, it has no way. It will be in difficulty. It cannot decide whether to become steam or not. If it’s in the sun it will become steam; if it’s in the cold it will become ice. It will have to undergo it—and it won’t even know it, because consciousness is faint or absent, asleep.

A tree—take an African tree—will soar hundreds of feet upward, seeking the sun. In Africa, trees grow tall. In India they won’t grow as tall, because the forests are not so dense. When the forest is dense, a tree must seek height, height, height to survive—so that it can reach sunlight beyond other trees. If it doesn’t seek height, it will die. It is a question of its life. So the tree is making a little choice. In a dense forest, trees widen less and grow taller, conical—because widening is dangerous; they will get entangled with neighboring branches and never reach the sun. If the sun must be reached, don’t spread branches; just lengthen a single trunk. This too is choice. If you bring the same tree to a land without dense forests, its height will diminish.

Some trees even shift slightly. They slide five or ten feet in a year, moving certain roots like feet. They strengthen roots in the direction they want to go and loosen the ones they want to leave—especially easy in marshy ground.

Some trees make other kinds of arrangements, luring birds—because some trees are carnivorous. They lure and trap birds; and when a bird arrives, the leaves close at once. They have devised elaborate enticements: platter-like leaves filled with fragrant nectar—by their very fragrance drawing birds from afar. As soon as a bird sits to sip, leaves close over the platter, pressing the bird. The tree drinks its blood. You cannot say it is not choosing. It is choosing, arranging, exploring in its own way. Animals choose still more—running and fleeing. But all such choices are very elementary compared to human choice. The human being faces greater choices because his consciousness is more developed. He does not choose only with the body; he also chooses with the mind. And now he chooses not only a horizontal journey on Earth; he can choose a vertical journey above Earth. That too is his choice. But the choice is always in our hands.

Research still remains here, but I feel that the day research is done, it will be found that some trees are suicidal—choosing not to live, and remaining small and dying even where forests are dense. This remains to be explored.

In man we see it clearly: some people are suicidal. They do not choose life; they keep choosing death. Wherever they see a thorn they rush to it like mad. A flower doesn’t appeal to them. Where they see a sure defeat, they drift as if hypnotized. Where they see victory, they devise twenty-five excuses. Where there is the possibility of growth, they collect a thousand arguments against it. Where they are certain of decline, they advance without hesitation. All this is choice. And the more a person becomes aware, the more these choices begin to move toward bliss; the more stupefied he is, the more they advance toward suffering.

So when I say you will have to choose: there are means to become steam, but you will have to reach the place of steam. There are means to become ice, but you will have to reach the place of ice. There are means to live, but you must seek the arrangements for life. There are means to die, but you must seek the arrangements for death. The choice is yours. And you and nature are not two. You are nature.

Now, nature’s multi-dimensionality is of two orders. Mahavira used a term worth understanding: anant anant—“infinite infinities.” We have the word “infinite,” which means unending in one direction. “Infinite infinities” means infinity in infinite directions—not merely two, but in every direction. Of all infinities, each is infinite. So this universe is not merely an infinite; it is “infinite infinities.”

I said there are infinite directions, and nature gives them all a chance. There are infinite choices—she gives them all a chance. And there are infinite individuals, who are nature’s own infinite parts—and each has his own independent chance to choose or not. None of this is being planned from above; it is being orchestrated from within. This infinity—better, this infinite infinity—is not like a bull being pulled by a rope or lashed from behind. It is like a spring bursting from its inner force, a waterfall flowing from its own energy. No one pulls it forward, no one whips it, no one calls it, no one tells it to go. There is energy, there is power—what should energy do but burst and flow? This is inner expansion.

So: infinite dimensions, infinite choices, infinite choosers—and above all of them there is no external plan, no controller God seated above, no engineer. There is only inner infinite energy as the sole basis on which everything spreads. Within this there are three planes. One plane, where there is stupor. Because of stupor, what happens, happens—choice is negligible. The second plane, where there is choice—the human plane, the plane of consciousness—where whatever happens, happens by our choosing. We cannot hold anyone else responsible. If I am a thief, it is my choice; if I am honest, it is my choice. Whatever I am is ultimately my choice. This is the human plane: there is choice—because there is half stupor and half awakening. Therefore sometimes we choose things we do not want to choose.

A paradox, but it happens every day. You do not want to be angry, yet you get angry. What does it mean? Anger is coming from your stuporous part; your thoughts about anger are coming from your awakened part. You are split in two. One half is linked to the lower world of stones and mountains—where all is stupor. One half has awakened, is filled with awareness, and is linked to the further world—the world of wholeness, the divine—where all is awake. Man is in between. Hence man is a tension; say rather, man is tension itself—a pull, half here and half there.

Therefore, precisely speaking, man is not a “complete creature,” but a half-creature. Or say, he has no fixed, unitary personality, because he has two personalities. At night he sleeps and becomes a part of nature; by day he awakens and begins the journey toward the divine. In anger he is blind; in mathematics he is acutely alert. In mathematics no one is heard saying, “I wanted to add two and two to make four, yet I added five.” That never happens. Why? Because mathematics seems to belong to that part where awakening is; anger belongs to the part where sleep is. Therefore a man is continuously in anxiety—an unease, a tension, an anguish—tormented all the time. He does what he does not want to do and cannot do what he wants to do. He is pulled, like a clock’s pendulum—now left, now right. You cannot rely on him: you saw him to the left; come an hour later and you may not find him there—he is swinging like a pendulum.

Beyond lies the world of full awakening—the third plane. There, too, there is no choice. But the no-choice there is different from the no-choice on the first plane. On the first plane there is stupor; the chooser is absent, so there is no question of choosing. A sleeping man—what will he choose? He will continue to sleep. Even if the house is on fire, he cannot choose to go out unless he wakes up. On the awakened plane, which I call the divine—the fully awakened form of nature—when a person enters there, again there is no choice. There is no choice because the person is totally awake; what is right is seen so clearly that the question of choosing does not arise. Choice occurs only when things are seen dimly—when it seems “this or that.” When I hesitate between this or that, it means I do not see clearly. Both seem doable and not-doable. Hence the need for choice.

If I see with complete clarity that this is to be done and this is not, where is the choice? Choice is finished. Then what is to be done is done; what is not to be done is not done. Therefore, on that plane, no one can say, “I did what I did not want to do.” That question does not arise. Nor can one say, “I repent what I did.” That too does not arise. Nor can one say, “I made a mistake; I shouldn’t have.” That too does not arise. A fully awakened man acts without choice. He simply does what is seen as right. There, there is no feeling of “should.” What is right, happens.

Thus there is no choice on the fully awakened plane, nor on the fully stuporous plane. Choice exists on the human plane, where there is half sleep and half awakening. Here it is in your hands—you can go either way. You stand on a bridge, in the middle—able to return or move forward. Returning always feels easier. Why? Because the ground to which we return is familiar. We came from there; there is less fear. We know what is there. Moving forward always feels dangerous because we don’t know where we are going. So a person drinks and returns. He takes intoxications and returns. In all such things he abandons being human. He is saying, in effect, “Let me drop this troublesome choice and go to where no choice is required.” He simply lies—whether in a gutter or on a sidewalk; he raves or stays silent—whatever happens, happens. There, he does not have to choose. Intoxicants pull a man back from the bridge—“Come back; you were fine there.”

If you want to go forward, you will have to increase awareness. Because the farther you go on the bridge, the more awake you must be. Going forward means: wake more, wake more, wake more. This too is a choice, and it is in your hands, in everyone’s hands—what do you choose? And you cannot hold anyone else responsible, because there is no one above whom you can say made you choose wrongly. There is no one there. The sky is empty. No goddess, no god sits there whom you can someday make stand in court—“We were on the right path, and you misled us”—or to whom you can say, “If only you had bestowed grace, all would have been well.” You will never find such a one.

Therefore there is no way out: the person is ultimately responsible. In the end, we are responsible—if evil comes, responsible; if good comes, responsible. There is no one to be held answerable—“You answer: why did this happen?” There is no such one. Those who have gone ahead do keep shouting, “Don’t turn back in fear, because there is great bliss. Don’t turn back, because there is great bliss. All anxieties cease; all restlessness ends; all sorrow disappears.” They keep shouting. But their voice sounds unfamiliar to us, because the place from which they speak is unfamiliar. We say, “How can there be bliss? Coming this far brought so much pain; if we go further, perhaps there will be more pain. Better to go back—there was no pain there.”

Everyone says, “In childhood there was no sorrow.” If a man could return, he would at once. He cannot, so he remains. He says, “In childhood there was no sorrow.” If he had the power, he would say, “In my mother’s womb there was absolutely no sorrow.” If he could return, he would—but he cannot. Therefore he goes on. But in life’s choices, we can return. We can return to stupor. We can devise ways to become stuporous.

And those voices that come from afar—their words do not make sense to us. Because we do not know what bliss is—what kind of bird called “bliss” it is! We know sorrow very well. And we also know that the more we tried to get pleasure, the more sorrow we got. So we fear that in trying to attain bliss we might get into bigger trouble—some great misery. So we listen; we fold our hands to those on the far shore—“You are divine, you are incarnations, Tirthankaras, wonderful”—we will worship you, but let us remain behind.

It is the fear of the unknown. The few pleasures we have hoarded—what if they are lost? Moving ahead, all seems to be left behind. Because we have built our house on the bridge, which was only meant for crossing—we have settled there. We have arranged everything there—our sitting room on the bridge itself. When someone says “Come ahead,” we fear, “What will happen to all this? We will have to leave it behind.” So we say, “Let the time come—let me grow old; let death draw near. When it all starts slipping anyway, then I will jump at once—because then there will be no fear.”

But the closer death comes, the tighter the grip becomes. Because the nearer death, the more the fear that it will slip away—so we clench the fist tighter. Therefore an old man becomes utterly miserly; a young man is not so miserly. His miserliness grows in every direction. He clutches hard: “Now the time to go has come; in case everything slips away, if I hold loosely, my hand may slip—so I must clutch tightly.” That tight clutch makes the old man ugly; otherwise there would be no comparison for the beauty of old age. We know beautiful children, less beautiful youth, and beautiful old people—very few, occasionally. Because as miserliness grows and clutching grows, everything becomes ugly. An open hand is beautiful; a clenched fist becomes ugly. Freedom is beauty; bondage is slavery. One thinks, “I’ll let go tomorrow—when the time to let go arrives I’ll let go.” But the person who waits for the moment when things will be snatched away never wants to let go. And when things are snatched, there is pain; when they are relinquished, there is none.

This moving ahead is our choice. And this choice can be given momentum. There are rules even for this. The bridge is ready. Going forward is natural; going backward is natural. Nature is ready to welcome you in every case. On all its doors is written “Welcome.” That is the danger too. On no door is it written “Do not come.” On the door of hell is written “Welcome,” and on the door of heaven too—“Welcome.” Ultimately the choice will be ours: which “Welcome” we choose. We cannot hold nature responsible—“Why did you write ‘Welcome’?” She wrote it everywhere. There was no question—no obstacle placed anywhere.

Freedom means precisely this “welcome.” Nature is supremely free from within. And we are her parts—we are supremely free. Whatever we want to do, we are doing. In all we do, her support is present. But the choice is ours. And when I say “ours,” do not fall into confusion—because we too are parts of nature. Put in ultimate words, it means: the infinite possibilities are nature’s; the infinite doors are nature’s; nature, at its infinite doors, through its infinite parts, seeks, chooses, wanders, arrives. But this becomes very roundabout—without corners.

And the difficulty is: all of nature’s paths are round, circular. None of her paths are square. Her stars, moons, planets, satellites are round. Their orbits are circular. Hence in many religious symbols the circle has been used. It is round. Start anywhere; you can reach anywhere. The choice is always yours.

If it becomes clear that choice is always mine, then the laws of nature can be used rightly. Just as when I walk, I use the law of gravitation. If the earth had no pull, no attraction, no gravitation, you could not walk on it. Because when you lift the other foot, if the first foot did not remain planted but lifted of its own accord, where would you stand? When you lift the left foot, the right is held by the ground—that is why you can lift the left. Your lifting the left foot is made possible by the ground’s grip on the right. If the right also lifted at the same time, down you go. The ground holds the right till you place the left. Gravitation is at work.

But if a man jumps off his roof, gravitation is still at work. The earth pulls him: “Come.” The same pull with which it held your feet, it pulls your whole body—bones shatter. We say, “What kind of nature is this—she broke my bones!” Nature is doing her work. She says, “Welcome—come, have your bones broken.” The law is at work. The same gravitation that let you walk will make you lame. Yet you still cannot hold it responsible—its work is perfect, without error. Whether you move your feet or break your neck, the law functions in its way. Seeing the law, you must choose: if you want to break your bones, jump from the roof; if you want to walk, lift your feet properly. Be careful not to place yourself against nature’s law.

In my view science means only this. It does not mean we have conquered nature—there is no way to conquer nature. Science means we have discovered ways to move in accord with nature. This nature was ready to run the fan long ago; we had not put our fan in the right place. Do you understand? The winds were always ready to blow, but we had built walls. We had made no window. When we make a window, do we say we have conquered the winds? We only opened a path for the winds. If we run a fan and light electric lamps, we have not conquered nature. We have merely found a way to be in accord. We place our bulb in such a way, our switch in such a way, our wires in such a way that electricity can flow through them. It was always ready to flow. We only open the window.

Science is the search for the rules of outer nature’s accord. Religion is the search for accord with nature’s inner laws. Just as the outer world has laws—and if we align with them nature becomes cooperative, and if we go against them she becomes “uncooperative”—so inwardly. Strictly speaking, it is inaccurate to say nature cooperates or not; it is more accurate to say: we either stand in such a way that nature can cooperate and we benefit, or we stand in such a way that she cannot, and we suffer.

If you walk with an umbrella and the wind is in your face, and you tilt the umbrella forward, that is fine; if you rest it over your shoulder, the wind will flip it. You cannot blame nature. You did not hold the umbrella in accord; that much responsibility is yours. Nature is doing the same thing in both cases. When you hold it forward, she presses it—toward you. When you hold it on your shoulder, she presses it—it flips. It is a matter of how you hold the umbrella.

So too with the inner laws of nature. One who lives in anger is holding his umbrella on his shoulder. He will get into trouble; his inner umbrellas will all break. One who spreads love holds the umbrella forward; he aligns with nature.

So the person who learns to love has in fact learned a law of inner science. He has learned that love brings inner life into accord, and that anger creates inner dissonance. It is a matter like gravitation: in anger the leg breaks; in love it mends. Nature is ready to work in both cases—depending on what you do. In anger, a man is jumping from the roof.

The final inner accord is meditation—the deepest possible accord. Meditation means that inwardly one now stands aligned with the supreme law of life. That is why Lao Tzu’s word Tao is apt; Tao means “the law.” Or the Vedic seers’ word rta—“the law.” Dharma also means the law—one’s intrinsic nature. Dharma means: act in such a way that you will come to happiness. Adharma means: act in such a way that, going against the law, you will come to suffering. This is the science of the inner. And meditation—ultimately and inwardly—is alignment, adaptation—wholly in accord. One who nowhere fights with life, who nowhere is divided from life, who has come into accord with all the laws of life—that one attains the supreme truth, the supreme life, the supreme bliss, the supreme freedom.

We too stand under the same law, but by fighting the law we come to supreme bondage. The matter is like this: some understand gold and forge ornaments; some do not and forge chains. The law of gold is one; the law of casting is one. Whether you forge ornaments or chains is entirely up to you.

One who fully aligns with nature’s inner law attains religion. One who fully aligns outwardly attains science. These words are worth understanding. What we gain from religion we call jnan—knowing. What we gain from science we call vijnan—special knowing. The words are meaningful. Jnan carries no adjective; vijnan means specialized knowledge. Because outwardly we must explore, field by field, how to adapt to this law, and that law, and that law—there are millions outside.

Naturally, the deeper we go within, the more a single law remains. The farther we go out, the more numerous the laws become. It is like drawing rays from a point outward: at the point they are one; as they move away, they become many and far apart. Like the sun’s rays: at the sun they are one; moving away, two, four, thousands, millions—they spread, the distances between them grow.

Science is specialized knowledge—knowing more and more about less and less. The farther you go, the finer the ray becomes; science becomes finer, narrower, more particular. Religion becomes vast, immense, formless. At the end, nonduality remains—no two. Hence I say: there can be many sciences; there cannot be many religions. Religion can only be one—because it is knowing, not specialized knowing.

If this is grasped, it means: the laws exist; we exist; and the capacity to choose how we relate to those laws exists. The capacity to experience the fruits of what we do also exists. This is the situation. In it, the wise steadily increase their movement toward bliss; those who choose un-wisdom steadily diminish it. There is no one above responsible; the entire responsibility is man’s.

Hence my emphasis on sadhana. I keep telling you: engage, leap—the laws are firm. You are standing on a diving board; below, the cool ocean is waving; the sun blazes; sweat is dripping. You can leap now. The board will help—the springs set in it will fling you up. But you are standing. So you sweat in the sun. The diving board weeps; its springs cry, “Jump quickly, and we will support you!” But you do not jump, so the board is silent. Below, the cool ocean watches your dripping sweat.

This is the situation. You must make a decisive choice. You must decide. And I accept that if you want to stand, then stand—no harm. But even stand by decision! Decide, “I will stand. I do not want coolness; I want heat and sweat. I will not jump; I will remain here.” Even then, I say your growth has happened—you have made a decision.

But our condition is odd. We say, “No, I do want to dive into the ocean; I do want coolness. But what to do—sweat is pouring in the sun; I cannot jump just now. I do want to jump—I will tomorrow, the day after.” Then you do not grow. Slowly you become inert in that very spot. You become accustomed to the sweat, to the sun, and to this babble—that of course you must jump, but tomorrow. Tomorrow you will say the same. You become habituated. Nature’s laws keep waiting. The sun keeps giving heat: “Welcome—enjoy.” We keep dripping sweat. The ocean keeps calling: “Your joy—come if you wish; coolness is ready.” The diving board keeps saying: “We are ready to spring—only choose and leap.” That is the situation.

I say the greater loss is not that you are suffering, but that you are not even suffering by decision. Suffer decisively—let it be your decision. If I must steal, then I will steal decisively. I will say, “I intend to be a thief. All you monks—stop your chatter. Your words are of no use to me. If you want to be monks, be monks. I have decided to be a thief.”

Remember this: compared with a monk who has become a monk without decision, the thief who is decisively a thief will attain a superior state—because decision increases consciousness; decision gives weight to the personality; decision increases responsibility. When he decides, responsibility is born. Being oneself the decider, being one’s own decision and choice, resolve is born. And when resolve is born, awareness awakens; it cannot remain asleep. When you take a decision, stupor breaks—because decision cannot connect with stupor. If you do not decide, you drift—buffeted by society’s pushes: father sends you to a school, so you study there; mother arranges a job, so you work there; wife tells you to do headstands, so you do them. Then the children surround you; you keep getting hemmed in by pushes on all sides. Indecisive—your life thickens with stupor.

Take decisions! Even for what is wrong—no harm. In my view there is only one mistake: not to decide. And only one auspicious thing: to be decisive. So decide. Even decide to be a thief—still no harm—but decide with your whole being. Then you will very soon cease to be a thief—because one who can decide with his whole being attains so much awareness that theft appears foolish to him.

But if we become monks, that too is often just a push. Someone’s wife dies; he becomes a monk. Someone’s husband dies; she becomes a nun. Someone goes bankrupt; he becomes a monk. Someone’s father becomes a monk, and, with no alternative left for the son, gives him initiation too.

There is no meaning in this—no purpose. There must be decision. And one who lives taking decisions moment to moment—his awareness will grow moment to moment. Learn to decide in small things—and to stand by your decision. In very small things.

One small thing, then the last. Gurdjieff had a small process. Very small. Yet it proved wondrous in increasing awareness. It was called the “Stop” exercise. As we are here, many people sitting, Gurdjieff would be speaking, and suddenly he would say, “Stop!”—which meant: stop exactly as you are. If your eyes are like this, keep them so. If your hand is like this, keep it so. If someone’s neck is like this, let it be so. Become statues. And he would watch. If anyone moved even a little, he would say, “Your resolve is very weak—you cannot even remain thus for this brief time.”

One day this happened in Tiflis. He was experimenting with some seekers. He was camped in a tent outside the town. A canal ran near the tent. The canal was then dry; water had not yet been released. Three seekers were crossing the canal. Suddenly he shouted from within the tent, “Stop!” The three stood still in the canal. Then someone opened the canal gate. Water came into the canal. Gurdjieff was in the tent; the seekers were in the canal. As long as the water rose to their waists, they held firm. When it rose above the waist, they thought, “This is death.” They could not speak—Stop requires silence. If they spoke, the Stop would break. Gurdjieff was in the tent; he knew nothing of the canal being opened, perhaps not even that anyone was in it. What to do! Still, they held to the throat. When it rose above the throat, one thought, “This is foolishness,” and leapt out. The second still held on. He thought, “Perhaps he will end the Stop—‘Finish!’” He waited till water reached mouth and nose, then thought, “Now it’s dangerous,” and leapt out. The third youth kept standing. Water flowed over his head.

Gurdjieff rushed out of the tent, jumped, pulled the man out, and asked, “What happened within you?” He said, “That which I was waiting for happened—but only when I stood firm in decision. When water flowed over my head, the consciousness I attained then—that is the ultimate. Now I have nothing more to learn.” Because the decision had become decisive; at the last moment—even against death—he maintained his resolve.

Gurdjieff said, “All this was arranged. I had the canal opened. I was watching to see whether you had learned Stop only in your limbs, or whether you could do something more.” He immediately dismissed the other two: “Run away. Do not look back. You have no work here.”

The deeper the stroke of resolve, the deeper the sense of decision, the more complete the awareness becomes. If you can take a total decision even for a single moment, in that very moment you will attain total awareness. All preparation is for that total awareness and for that total resolve.

Therefore I hold that it is good that there is choice. If God were making people dance like dolls—making one a sinner and another a saint—the whole affair would be senseless; and that God very unintelligent. If he alone is the decider and makes one good and another bad, one Rama and one Ravana—what meaning is there in that? Then all is nonsense; the whole thing becomes unintelligible.

No—the person is the decider. Nothing is being imposed from above. From within, moments of your own decision are awakening. Therefore, one who is a seeker will remain alert twenty-four hours a day to find opportunities to take even small decisions. Small ones are fine—no issue. From morning on, stay on the lookout: when can I take a decision? And whenever you get even a small chance—there are chances all day long, at every moment—if you keep using decision moment to moment, then in a few days you will find that within you an arrow-like awareness has begun to grow. It increases daily; it gains speed and momentum.

And it comes from very small things. Those words to which we have given labels like “renunciation,” and so on—those are mostly foolish words. If ever those practices had meaning, their meaning lay in resolve. A man decides, “Today I will not eat.” The value lies less in not eating than in the resolve. But if he eats even once in his mind, the matter is finished—everything becomes meaningless. “I will not eat” means I will not eat—“not even in my mind.” If a person remains, for twelve hours, mindfully without eating, he has crossed a great resolve. The fasting itself has little value; it is only the peg on which he has hung the resolve. But after twelve hours this man’s quality will change.

When I see a person fasting for years with no change in quality, I know he must have been eating in his mind. Otherwise, the quality should have changed. He has been fasting and worshipping, but his resolve is so weak. I have seen him many times: he locks his door, walks ten steps, returns, and shakes the lock. I asked, “What are you doing? You yourself locked it.” He said, “Sometimes I doubt—did I see correctly?—let me check. What harm in one look?” He said, “What harm in returning once?” I said, “And doesn’t it occur to you a second time—did I check or not?” He said, “How did you know? It does occur—to me a second time, even a third time. But I refrain out of embarrassment.” This is such a person. He fasts; he does rituals. But he doesn’t know what fasting meant. Its meaning was only this: that decisiveness should be born—a power to decide and not return. One who can take a decision that proves to be a point of no return—that from which there is no turning back—in that person’s life nothing remains asleep; he awakens.

More tomorrow!