Main Mrityu Sikhata Hun #12

To remain awake in death, the very first preparation is to learn to remain awake in pain. Ordinarily, one who becomes unconscious in pain has little possibility of staying awake in death. And we should understand what it means to become unconscious in pain; then the meaning of staying awake in pain will also be clear.

Whenever we are in pain, becoming unconscious means identifying with the pain, becoming one with it. When your head aches, it doesn’t feel as if the head is hurting somewhere and you know it. It feels, “I am hurting.” When you have fever and the body is burning, it doesn’t feel as though somewhere the body has become hot; it feels, “I am hot.” This is identification, this is fusion. When the foot is injured and a wound forms, it does not feel, “The foot is hurt and the foot is wounded,” it feels, “I am hurt and wounded.” In fact, we have no distance, no space from the body. We live as one with the body. When hunger arises, we do not say, “The body is hungry and I am aware of it,” we say, “I am hungry.”

But that is not the truth. The truth is: the body is hungry and I come to know it. I am a point of awareness. I am always knowing. If a thorn pricks the foot, I know it; if there is a headache, I know it; if there is hunger in the belly, I know it. I am consciousness to whom it is revealed. I am not the enjoyer, I am only the knower. That is the truth.

But our mental posture is not that of the knower; it is that of the enjoyer, the sufferer. When the knower becomes the enjoyer—when it does not simply know but becomes one with the act—when it does not remain a distant witness but becomes a participant—then identification happens. Then it becomes one. And this oneness does not allow awakening. For awakening, distance is needed—space is needed.

If I can see you, it is only because there is distance between us. If all distance between you and me were eliminated, I could not see you. I see you because there is space between us. If all the space in between were removed, I could not see you. That is why my eyes can see you, but they cannot see themselves. If I am to see myself, I need to become “the other” in a mirror; I must create distance from myself—then I can see. The mirror does nothing but place your image at a distance from you; because it is at a distance, there is space in between and you can see.

For seeing, distance is essential. And one who is living as one with the body—or who believes “I am the body”—no distance remains between him and the body.

There was a Muslim fakir, Farid. One morning a man came to him and asked exactly what you are asking me. The man said, “I have heard that when Jesus was crucified he did not cry, he did not scream, he was not distressed. And I have heard that when Mansoor’s hands and feet were cut off, he laughed. How is this possible? It is impossible!”

Farid said nothing; he kept smiling. He picked up a coconut lying nearby—offerings from devotees—and gave it to the man, saying, “Take this coconut away; it is green. Break the outer shell and bring it back. Just be careful: don’t break the kernel; bring the kernel out whole.”

The man said, “That can’t be done. It’s green; there is no space between the kernel and the shell. If I break the shell, the kernel will break.” Farid said, “Then leave that one. Here is another coconut—this one is dried. There is space between the kernel and the shell. Do you promise you can break the shell and keep the kernel intact?” The man said, “What’s so difficult in that? I’ll break the shell and the kernel will remain whole.” Farid asked, “But why will the kernel remain intact now?” He said, “Because it is a dry coconut. There is distance between the shell and the kernel.”

Farid said, “Now don’t bother to break it. Put it down. You have your answer, haven’t you?”

The man protested, “I asked something, and you entangled me in coconuts. I ask: when Jesus was crucified, why didn’t he cry? Why didn’t he weep? And when Mansoor’s hands and feet were cut off, why didn’t he writhe in agony? Why did he smile?”

Farid said, “They were dry coconuts; we are green coconuts—nothing more. When Jesus was crucified, it was not ‘Jesus’ who was being crucified. Jesus was seeing that the body was being crucified. And the seeing was at the same distance as that of the spectators standing outside Jesus. Just as those standing outside did not cry out, ‘Don’t kill me!’—why not? Because they were at a distance from Jesus’ body—so too the witnessing element within Jesus was at a distance from his body. Therefore he did not cry, ‘Don’t kill me!’”

Mansoor’s hands and feet were cut off and he kept laughing. When someone asked, “Why are you laughing? Your hands and feet are being severed!” Mansoor said, “If I were being cut, I would weep. But I am not being cut. And those you are cutting—fools—are not me. I laugh at you because you are cutting this body thinking it is Mansoor, and thus you are doomed to live in misery; you too will go on believing your body is you. What you are doing to me is only the echo of the mistake you are doing to yourselves. If you had known you are separate from the body, perhaps you would not try to cut my body—because you would know: I am something else; the body is something else; by cutting the body, you do not cut Mansoor.”

So the greatest preparation to enter death awake is to enter pain awake. Because death does not come again and again; it does not come daily. Death will come only once. If you are prepared, you are prepared; if not, then not. There can be no rehearsal for death, no prior staging. But pain comes daily; suffering comes daily. In suffering and pain we can prepare. And remember, if you are prepared in suffering and pain, that will serve you in death.

That is why the seeker has always welcomed suffering. Not because suffering is “auspicious,” but because it becomes an opportunity to train oneself. Therefore the seeker has even thanked the divine for suffering—because in those moments he finds a chance to move away from the body. And note: this discipline is difficult in pleasure but easier in pain. In pleasure, we don’t even want any distance from the body; the body feels so dear. In pleasure, we want not even an inch of separation; we cling very close to the body.

So if a pleasure-seeker becomes body-oriented, it is no surprise. If one constantly chasing pleasure comes to think he is the body, that too is no surprise—because in pleasure he becomes a green coconut; the distance decreases.

In pain, the mind tends to wish, “If only I were not a body!” When the head aches or the foot is injured, even one who ordinarily believes he is the body may think for a moment, “If only I were not a body!” The moment of pain can become a moment for practice.

But what do we do? Usually, when pain comes, we try to forget it. Someone in distress will drink alcohol. Another will go to a movie. Another will try to drown it in devotional singing. These are different tricks. One drinks—one trick. One watches movies—another trick. One listens to music—third trick. One beats cymbals and merges into bhajans—fourth trick. There can be a thousand tricks—religious or non-religious, secular or sacred. The basic thing is the same: man wants to forget his pain. He strives for forgetfulness. And one who forgets cannot be awake to what he is forgetting. You can be awake only toward that which you remember.

Therefore, remembrance of pain awakens you to it. When you are in pain, take it as an opportunity. Fill yourself with total remembrance toward your pain. Astonishing experiences will happen. When you fill yourself with total remembrance and look at the pain—without running away—say your foot hurts from a fall: close your eyes and search within for exactly where the pain is. Pinpoint it. You will be surprised to discover that you spread it over a much larger area than where it actually is. We exaggerate our pain. Pain is like a flame—but we experience it like light. The flame is small; its light spreads.

As you close your eyes and search within, remember: we have known our body only from the outside, never from within. Even our own body we know as others do. If I have seen this hand, I have seen it from the outside; there is also an inner side. Like seeing a house only from outside—its inner walls exist too. Pain occurs on the inner side; its point is within; its apparent spread is on the outer side. The flame of pain is inside; its light is outside.

Since we have only looked at the body from the outside, it feels spread out. To try to feel the body from within is a marvel. Close your eyes and sense the body from inside—its inner wall, inner sheath, inner edge. That inner edge can indeed be experienced with closed eyes. You have seen your hand rise; now with eyes closed, move it up from below and observe the inner movement. You have experienced hunger from outside; now close your eyes and experience it from within.

As soon as you catch the pain from within, two things happen. First, what seemed large becomes small—immediately it concentrates into a point. And the more intensely you focus on that point, the smaller it gets, smaller and smaller—until something astonishing happens: it begins to come and go, disappearing and reappearing. Gaps begin. When it disappears, you are startled—“Where is the pain?” It goes missing. In unconsciousness pain spreads; in consciousness pain contracts. You will realize: the pains we suffered were not so big; we lived them magnified. The same is true of pleasures.

If we live pleasure mindfully, it too becomes small. The greater the awareness, the smaller pleasure and pain become—so small that in a deep sense they become meaningless. Their meaning lies in their spread, in seeming to fill life; seen with awareness, they shrink until they have little to do with life at all.

Second, as you look closely at your pain, a distance arises between you and the pain. In fact, whenever we see anything, distance is created. Seeing is distance. If you look at your pain attentively, you will find: you are separate, the pain is separate—because only what is separate can be seen.

One who fills his pain with conscious remembrance experiences: the pain is somewhere else, I am somewhere else. And the day you know, “Pain is happening elsewhere and I am elsewhere; I am the knower, pain is occurring elsewhere,” the spell of pain breaks. When you see that the body’s pains happen elsewhere—and its pleasures too—while you are only the knower, your identity with the body breaks. You know: I am not the body.

This is the first preparation. If this is complete, entering death awake becomes easy—indeed, it will happen. Because you will not fear death. We don’t even know what death is—how can we fear it? What we fear is illness. Small ailments hurt so much—if the whole body suffers and breaks, how great will the suffering be! Our fear of death is an accumulation of all illnesses—whereas death is not an illness. It has nothing to do with illness.

It may be that illnesses precede it, but there is no cause-effect here. It may be that after an illness a man dies, but no one dies of illness. The truth may be the opposite: as one approaches death, one becomes susceptible to illness. No one dies because of illness; because one is going to die, one becomes receptive to illness—growing weak, open, a host. In a mood of despair one is more receptive; in hope, less so. Even medicine needs your inner assent.

Those with suicidal minds cannot be cured by drugs alone—their mind refuses the medicine and invites the malady. No, no one ever dies because of disease; because one is dying, one becomes receptive. Illness comes first, death follows—so we assume illness is the cause and death the effect. The real cause is death; illness is an effect.

Our fear of death is really fear of illness—plus fear of losing what we call life. You push me out of this house; I do not know whether there is a palace, a jungle, a wasteland outside. The unknown may not be painful—or it may; I don’t know. But leaving the known troubles me. Our fear is not of the unknown, but of leaving the familiar.

We are so tied to the familiar that we cling even to familiar illnesses. Doctors often do not “cure” as much as persuade us to drop our disease. Many medicines do nothing but give you the courage to let go. A scientist tried this: twenty patients with the same ailment—ten were given only water, ten were given medicine; seven in each group recovered. The point is not the water or the drug; the point is persuading the patient to drop the illness. If sugar pills persuade, they work; if an amulet persuades, it works; holy ash, “Ganga water”—everything can “work.”

Even Aristotle, supremely rational, suggested remedies that make us laugh—yet they must have “worked,” or he wouldn’t suggest them. He wrote that if a woman suffers labour pains, tie horse dung to her belly; the pain will cease. How could that work? Yet it did—because the pain is largely fear and resistance. The more fear, the more the woman contracts her mechanism while the child is trying to come out; conflict creates pain.

Most children are born at night—around seventy percent—because by day the mother holds herself in check; at night, in sleep, she cannot. A man named Lamaze taught women to cooperate with childbirth—to become allies with the process, to welcome it with the whole heart; then there is no pain. Among many tribal peoples women feel no pain; they work in the field, deliver the child, place it in a basket, and return to work.

We cling even to our chains. During the French Revolution, in a high-security prison, convicts had worn shackles for life—never removed until death. When the revolutionaries broke the prison and freed them, many refused. After twenty, thirty, fifty years, the chains had become part of their bodies. They polished them each morning. When the revolutionaries forced the chains off and pushed them out, by evening more than half returned, saying, “Outside we feel naked; without our chains we could not even nap.” The clink of the chain had become part of their inner rhythm.

So we are in the grip of what we have called “life.” Because of that grip we fear death—not death itself, of which we know nothing. And now the first sutra for awakening: awareness in pain, so that separation from the body is known—one. Second: the capacity to be a witness in life.

We have no idea that in the middle of a marketplace we could suddenly stop for two minutes and just look—do nothing, only witness. The moment you stand as a witness, you are out of that street-world. Whatever you witness, you transcend.

But even in a cinema hall, where it is easier because it is all shadows, we do not remain witnesses. If we inspected the handkerchiefs of those exiting, we would know how many cried. We all know nothing is on the screen—only light and shadow. Yet everything “happens” there, and we become participants. Do not be mistaken that while watching a film you are merely a viewer—you become a participant. Someone pleases you, someone repels you; you identify.

If we cannot be witnesses even to a film, how will we be witnesses in life? Life, too, is not much more than a film. At depth, like the play of rays on the screen, life is the play of electrical particles. If you reduce the body or a wall to its ultimate component, you find only electric particles. The difference between the screen and this is not great—two-dimensional there, three-dimensional here. In time, the technology will evolve so that an actor seems to step down from the screen and walk in the hall. But already the reverse happens: you psychologically go into the screen.

Even here—what happens when I take your hand? You call it love—or enmity; both press the hand. Essentially, electric particles pressing against electric fields. Your hand and mine never truly touch; a minuscule space remains, and it is the pressure of the space that is felt and interpreted as love or hate. These are interpretations. If you can view it as a witness, a transformation happens. When someone squeezes your hand, don’t rush to label it; simply witness the pressure. A strange experience will arise. If you can laugh at yourself, witnessing has begun. So long as you laugh at others, you are not a witness. The day you can laugh at yourself, you have started seeing.

Second, be a witness anywhere, at any moment. While eating, for one second be only a witness. Watch the hand lifting the food, the mouth chewing, the food going down. Stand apart and see. Suddenly taste changes; meaning changes. It is seen: you are not eating; eating is happening, and you are the witness.

There is a beautiful story. In Krishna’s village, during the rains the river was in flood. A monk was on the far bank; the village women wanted to take him food but no boat could cross. They asked Krishna, “How can we cross?” Krishna said, “Tell the river: if the monk has never eaten in his life, give us passage.” They said this, and the river opened a path. They fed the monk. He ate everything they brought. Now how to return? They were embarrassed; how to say again, “if the monk has never eaten”? The monk laughed, “Use the same key that opened the lock to close it. Say it again.” They protested, “But you just ate!” He laughed heartily and said, “Say it.” They said it—and the river opened again. They ran to Krishna: “The real miracle is the monk’s! We saw him eat! Yet the river gave way.” Krishna said, “It will, because a true monk does not eat.” They said, “But we saw him.” Krishna said, “Just as you saw him eating, he saw himself eating. Therefore he is not the doer.”

It’s a story—don’t try this with a river or you’ll get some monk in trouble. But the point is right: if in all actions you can see yourself not as the doer but as the seer, then death too is just an action—the last act. If in life’s actions you can keep yourself at a distance, then at death you can too. You will see: the same one who was eating yesterday is dying now; the same one who was buying and selling, walking the road, loving, fighting—now that too is an act, and you are the witness.

There was a Sufi fakir, Sarmad. As usual, the orthodox clergy brought a case against him; the saint is always opposed by the pundit. He was summoned to the emperor’s court. In Islam there is a creed: “There is no God but God, and Muhammad is His only prophet.” Sufis omit the second half, saying God has many messengers. Sarmad went further: he only said half of the first half—“There is no God.” He was brought to court. The emperor asked, “Do you say there is no God?” Sarmad said, “I do.” They said, “Are you an atheist?” He said, “No. But so far I have found no God; how can I say otherwise? I will not lie. When I know, I will say so.”

It became difficult; he was sentenced to death. In front of Delhi’s Jama Masjid his head was cut off. As the head rolled down the steps, from the severed head came the words: “There is no god but God.” Those who loved him cried, “Mad Sarmad! If only you had said this earlier!” Sarmad said, “How could I say it before the head was cut? Only now do I know.”

Some truths are known only by passing through them. The truth of death is known only by passing through death. But the preparation to be able to know it must be made in life. One who cannot prepare in life dies wrongly. And to live wrongly may be forgiven; to die wrongly cannot—because death is the ultimate summation. Life’s mistakes can be repented, corrected; after death there is no correction, no repentance. The final seal is set.

And remember, one who lives wrongly cannot die rightly. It is life that will reach that point of departure; who I have been all along will gather in that last moment. Life is a spread-out process; death is its condensation—atomic, all gathered into a point.

There is no event greater than death. Death happens only once in one life. If you live asleep, it happens in sleep, and you begin another life. But one who dies consciously is born consciously. Then life moves on another plane; for the first time one can grasp its depth and height, its meaning.

So I have said two things. For a conscious farewell at death:

- Be awake to pain; do not run from it—let it be an opportunity to know your separateness from the body.

- In the midst of daily activity, suddenly give yourself a jolt and be a witness for a moment. If in twenty-four hours you can be a witness for even two or four moments, you will suddenly see what a great madhouse life is—and the moment you witness, you are outside it.

When someone abuses you, you instantly become the sufferer; you do not even see what is happening. If you could, even once, stand as a witness while someone insults you—just look, don’t become the enjoyer or sufferer—the laughter that will arise about yourself will be liberating. You might even thank the abuser and go home, leaving him perplexed.

Whatever is happening in the twenty-four hours—in anger, hatred, love, friendship, enmity, work, rest—at least once, for just a second, give yourself a jolt, wake up and see what is happening. In that moment, don’t be the doer or the sufferer—only the seer. A great silence will descend, and you will know so much in that instant—because that instant is meditation. That moment of awakening is the moment of meditation.

In truth, only one who becomes a witness can practice brahmacharya; otherwise, it cannot be practiced. The enjoyer will remain lustful. The very meaning of “enjoyer” is one who wants to indulge. If one becomes a witness, then slowly work and sex bid farewell to his life. If someone can remain a witness at the very moment of intercourse, he may never go into intercourse again—because it all becomes so meaningless and futile. It looks so childish that one wonders: What is all this? What am I doing? What is this? How have I been doing this till now? How has all this been holding me?

But no—we fail to be witnesses, and so we repeat. In fact, if you want to keep repeating mistakes, never become a witness. Every mistake will keep recurring. Every mistake has its season; it returns on schedule. If you could keep a two-to-four-month record of everything, you would immediately discover that you are just like those who are periodically mad.

I have a friend. His letter arrived this afternoon. He is insane for six months and sane for six months. He always asks me, “Why does this happen to me?”

I said, “You only know because your periods are so clear and distinct. Other people’s periods are not so clearly divided. They go mad six times a day and regain normalcy six times a day. That’s why it doesn’t come into their grasp. You are solidly mad for six months and perfectly fine for six months, so your contrast is very clear. The ordinary man is mad ten times a day and sane ten times a day. He himself doesn’t know, nor do others, when he is mad and when he is all right.”

But if we could keep a complete record for two to four months, we would immediately catch in that account that everything repeats. The moment of anger returns almost at the same time. Just as hunger comes at a fixed time, anger too comes at a fixed time. Keep accounts and you will know. At exactly eleven, hunger comes—eleven strikes on the clock and hunger arises. Or twelve, or one—whenever you habitually eat. The body says, “I’m hungry.” In the same way anger strikes on time, desire strikes on time, even love strikes on time. These are hungers; all of them have their schedules.

And so the same mistake repeats because we have never tried to catch that there is a mechanical routine, that all this is happening like a machine. That is why it is sometimes difficult to notice. If you feel hungry and there is no food in the house, only then do you know you are hungry. If there is food, you don’t notice hunger—it is taken care of. In the same way, if anger arises and there is no one around, you might notice it. But there is always someone around. It may happen that hunger comes and food is not available; it is rare that anger comes and there is no one to be angry at. Man will even behave angrily toward so-called inanimate things if no one else is available—he will curse his fountain pen and fling it hard. If such a man were to become aware for a moment, what would he think of himself!

In America they have researched how much of automobile accidents is psychological. A large proportion is. In anger a man presses the accelerator hard; he doesn’t realize it. Perhaps in his imagination he is pressing his wife’s head or his son’s neck—but his foot is on the accelerator. The accelerator is acting as someone’s image. Now he keeps pressing. He has forgotten he is driving a car—he is driving anger. But who would know what he is doing? He is driving anger. Danger is imminent, because the car has nothing to do with anger; the car does not know anger. And we have not yet built into the car any device that refuses to run when the driver is angry. Press the accelerator and the car understands, “Go faster.” The car doesn’t know that now it should go slow, that the man is in a dangerous state and cannot see clearly.

Within twenty-four hours, our moments of anger return, our moments of lust return. We sway within a fixed mechanism, like a machine. When you awaken and look, you will see: Am I living, or am I merely circling like an ox around an oil press? Surely, living cannot be circling like an oil-press ox. Where is life in that? It is mere mechanicalness, a machine-like arrangement.

Have you ever thought? I was reading a book. A very unusual man did an unusual experiment. He tried to understand: on the road someone meets you and asks, “How are you?” You say, “Perfectly fine.” You may never have noticed that he doesn’t even hear your answer. He didn’t ask to hear your answer. He wanted to ask something else, but starting abruptly would seem odd, so he begins with, “How are you?” On the phone too he says, “How is your health?” He has nothing to do with your health—never had, never will. So whatever you answer, he won’t be listening; he will leap over it to the next topic.

So this man thought, let’s experiment. In the morning someone phoned and asked, “How are you?” He replied, “The cow is giving good milk.” “Very good, very good,” the caller said. “How is your wife?” Then he realized—no one listens. We are taking everything mechanically.

I was reading another man’s biography. He traveled all over the world. In every country you must fill twenty-five kinds of forms. He was fed up: Why do they have us fill these at all? He wrote nonsense in them—everywhere. He filled all the world’s forms with nonsense; no government stopped him. For age he wrote five thousand years—and no one stopped him. Who reads? Who cares? Who needs it?

No one cares. Life is moving in sleep, mechanically. All the answers are mechanical. Someone asks, “How are you?” You too say, “OK, fine.” Computers could do this. One computer asks, “How are you?” The other says, “OK.” That’s how it goes—no consciousness, no awareness, no wakefulness—nothing.

We need to wake up to this. We need witnessing toward this. Stop for a moment—any moment—and make it a moment of awakening. Startle yourself and look around at what is happening. Remain just a witness.

If these two preparations go on, you will find anger decreasing in your life—because witnessing consciousness cannot be angry. Anger needs identification, it needs stupefaction. Witnessing consciousness will come to brahmacharya, because witnessing cannot be possessed by lust. Witnessing cannot overeat either. Then no vows will be needed—no resolves like “I will now eat less.”

We do not know that when we overeat, the reason is deep—it is not about food. Consider this: a man overeats. He doesn’t know why. Have you noticed you eat more when you are angry? Ever kept a record? Have you noticed that when love is missing in your life, you eat more? Kept any record? Have you ever consciously noted that when life is brimming with love, one does not eat much? If one meets one’s beloved, even the appetite dies. In the moments of love, hunger dies. But when love is absent, a person starts eating heavily. Why? Behind this there is a mechanical arrangement—conditioning from far back in the mind.

From the mother the child receives both love and food. For the child the very first experience of love is the experience of food. If the mother does not feed him, he knows unlove; if she feeds him, he knows love. In the child’s first experience, food and love are not two things. The first experience is that food and love are one. If the mother loves the child much, he drinks less milk because he is always assured he can have it anytime. There is no fear of the future, so there is no need to stuff the belly.

So the mother who loves more—the child drinks less. The mother who does not love, who force-feeds somehow, who keeps trying to pull the child away—her child will drink more. Because there is no assurance. Perhaps after an hour the mother will not feed him. How long will he remain hungry—two hours, four hours? The lack of love tells him to take more food; the abundance of love tells him to take less. This becomes part of his conditioning. Whenever love flows in his life, he eats less; when love stops, he eats more. Though now there is no direct connection, the mechanical flow continues.

Therefore, people with little love in their lives will eat more. But if awareness arises about this, you will be amazed: when you are overeating, the question is not to vow to eat less; the question is that an event like love has not happened in your life. Then you can catch the root causes—where is the basic mistake? Where is the pain? What is the real issue?

Now, a man overeats. He goes to a temple and vows before some monk that he will eat only once a day. In that one time he starts eating two or three meals’ worth. He eats for three times in one sitting and starves the rest of the day. He thinks of food all day long. Then he becomes a maniac—not merely hungry, but deranged. A mania of hunger is created. He lives twenty-four hours in food. In our country there are thousands of sadhus and sannyasis who live in worry about food all day. They are maniacs, deranged. They don’t know what they have done—what madness they have embraced. Their whole time is spent thinking of food, as if food were the only subject worth pondering, as if the goal of life were to think about food from morning until evening. If they manage to arrange food exactly as they desire, they think all is solved.

Vivekananda said in America, “My country would not have been ruined, but our entire religion has become the religion of the kitchen, the religion of the cooking hearth; therefore my country has died.” When religion becomes a matter of the kitchen, what religion remains?

Behind this lies the fact that we do not wakefully observe our inner machinery to see when we do what. A man keeps drinking. We all fight him: “Quit drinking.” He too tries, “I will quit.” But he never inquires, “What is the matter? Why do I keep drinking? Why does the desire to be unconscious arise?” Surely there is something in his life he wants to forget; something he doesn’t want to remember; something he wants to cover with a curtain.

If he awakens to this, something can be resolved. Without awakening to it, he keeps throwing curtains—then he will want to throw a curtain upon this very curtain, because something is hidden behind it. Life becomes a race of curtain upon curtain, and everything becomes false. One day that same man will find it difficult to recall why he started forgetting in the first place. He himself will have forgotten. He won’t know when he started drinking and why.

A man keeps smoking cigarettes all day. One might ask: strange! He takes smoke in and blows it out—what could be the point? There must be a secret in this process of taking smoke in and out, because it cannot be that the whole world smokes uselessly. And if the smoker observes, he can discover when he smokes: whenever he feels lonely, whenever he feels alone, when there is no company—immediately he lights a cigarette.

He is using the cigarette as a companion. A cigarette is a cheap companion—no hassle: keep it in your pocket, take it where you like. Sit alone; start with it whenever you wish. It is an occupation—innocent occupation. You are harming no one; if you harm yourself a little, that’s all. You blow smoke out—doing nothing, just occupied.

I was on a train. My habit is to sleep quietly in trains as long as I can. A gentleman in my compartment was very restless. He tried to wake me several times. I got up after about six hours, washed, and was about to sleep again when he said, “Now what are you doing! I have read the same newspaper ten times. I open this window and close that one. And you sleep! I thought there would be some companionship—some talk, some chat. I’ve never smoked as much as I have today. Please wake up.”

He was right. A man is alone—even in a crowd. We see so much bustle—wife, sons, daughters, father, mother, home, family—such a throng! Yet man remains alone. We have not yet been able to dissolve man’s loneliness. And to get rid of it he does this and that—smokes, plays cards. Forget playing with another—he plays by himself. He lays out the game for both sides. That is the limit of madness: one man plays both sides! The wisest of men can be found doing this. Then how wise is our wise man?

One must awaken to this—be a witness to it. If this man who is playing cards on both sides were to become aware for a single moment and watch as a witness, just as you laughed at him, would he not laugh at himself? He will see: What is happening? What am I doing with life?

And if this is seen, no vows are needed, no resolves, no renunciations. Futile things drop by themselves. If we catch the root cause and become more and more aware of it, slowly it brings us to the place from where the roots can be pulled out without any pain. Remember: if you start cutting leaves, you will be in trouble. Cut one leaf and four appear—because the tree thinks you are pruning. It is not the tree’s fault. It thinks you need four leaves, so when you cut one, it produces four. You panic and cut four; sixteen appear.

No—things are uprooted from the roots, not trimmed from the leaves. We spend our whole life playing with leaves and have no idea of the roots. Someone says, “I have taken a vow of celibacy...”

In Calcutta I was a guest in a home. A friend was with me. The elderly host—among the most honest men—must have been seventy. He said to me, “Tell me what I should do now. I have taken the vow of celibacy three times in my life!” That he said this was one thing; more surprising was that my friend was impressed. He said, “Three times!” I said, “Understand what ‘three times’ means!” I asked the old man, “Why not a fourth time? Did the third succeed?” He said, “No—the third broke my courage. That’s why I didn’t take it again.”

He was an honest man. Anyone who takes a vow three times—each time it will break. And with each breaking, despair grows dense. With three breakings, the collapse of self-trust becomes deep. The fourth time there is no courage left. I said to him, “The monk who made you take that vow was your enemy. You thought he was a friend. He broke your courage. Now even at seventy you have no courage to take a vow. But why? Leaves! You cut one leaf; three sprouted.”

Are vows for brahmacharya? There are no vows for brahmacharya. There is only understanding of lust; awareness of sexual desire. Awareness of desire becomes the fruit called brahmacharya. When a person becomes aware of his sexual urge, understands it, inquires into it, lives with it, recognizes it, he suddenly sees what game he has been playing. This game is no more than that card game laid out on both sides. When this insight enters his being like an arrow, he suddenly finds brahmacharya has ripened. Brahmacharya is not a vow.

Remember, religion has nothing to do with vows. And the votary is never religious—cannot be. A religious person is one in whose life the fruits of vows appear as consequences, as results. The more he sees life, the more he finds certain things are changing on their own.

A man holds pebbles in his hand. We shout, “Drop them—they are pebbles.” But he sees colored gems; they shine. He thinks they are diamonds. How can he drop them? He says, “Those who dropped them—we consider them gods. But we are ordinary people; we cannot.”

But if this man reaches a diamond mine and real diamonds appear before him, will you have to explain to him to drop the pebbles? He won’t even know when the pebbles fell—he will have run and filled his hands with diamonds. If you later ask him, “What happened to those pebbles you used to carry?” he will say, “Good you reminded me. I had forgotten all about them. Where they went, I don’t know. When they fell, I don’t know.” Because when diamonds are seen, hands immediately empty themselves.

Life is an affirmative ascent, not a negative descent of denial. Life is a positive achievement, not a negative renunciation. Life is not a giving up; life is an attainment. And the deeper witnessing becomes, the more new levels of bliss open up; levels of suffering fall away; the rubbish gets thrown out; stones fall away—and diamonds come into the hands.

Let me explain further through a small incident that has always been dear to me.

Only recently, I think, the birth anniversary of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar passed. He had once gone to see a play. The play is on, and there is a villain—a man who is after tormenting a woman in every way. Now Vidyasagar was a great man, an intelligent man. He had been invited to watch from the very first seat, seat number one. He sat watching. A gentleman—but his restraint snapped. He became so possessed by anger that he forgot it was a play. He pulled off his shoe...

And it was the final moment, the climax of the play: in a dense forest on a dark night, the actor—the character—catches hold of the woman. Dark night, silence. No one around. The woman screams, but her cries echo only into the silence. Right then Vidyasagar pulled off his shoe, leapt onto the stage, and began to beat him—began to beat the actor.

The actor took his shoe in his hand and touched it to his head in respect. The actor showed more understanding than Vidyasagar could in that moment. He said to the audience, “I have never received such a great award in my life. If an intelligent man like Ishwar Chandra can take the play to be true, what else is it but the actor’s skill! I will keep this shoe carefully, Vidyasagar-ji; I will not return it. This is my greatest award.”

If a man like Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar can take a play to be true, then how will ordinary people like us recognize as a play that which we call “real”? But if we make a few experiments in being a witness, we will understand. It will begin to appear as a play. And if this happens, one can enter death awake.

We will talk again tomorrow!