Main Mrityu Sikhata Hun #4

In truth, death and birth are not two events; they are two ends of the same event—like the two sides of a single coin. If one side is in your hand, the other is there automatically; it is not something you still have to grasp. If death becomes conscious, birth inevitably becomes conscious. If death is unconscious, birth is unconscious. If, in the moment of dying, someone is filled with awareness, then at the moment of new birth he is also filled with awareness; if he dies in unconsciousness, he is born in unconsciousness.

We all die unconsciously and are born unconsciously; hence we retain no remembrance of our past lives. Yet the complete memory of past lives remains present somewhere in the corners of the mind; if we wish, it can be awakened.

Second, nothing can be done directly about birth. Whatever can be done must be done in relation to death—because after dying nothing is possible. Everything must be done beforehand. If a person dies unconsciously, he cannot do anything between death and birth; he will remain unconscious. So if you die in unconsciousness, you will have to accept birth in unconsciousness. All that is possible must be done in relation to death, because before death we have an entire lifetime—ample opportunity to awaken.

Do not wait for death, thinking you will wake up in its very moment; that is a great mistake. You cannot wake up at the moment of dying. The discipline of awakening must begin long before death; you must prepare. Without preparation, unconsciousness will overtake you—and in such a case, unconsciousness is even helpful.

Around 1915 the Maharaja of Kashi underwent abdominal surgery—the first surgery on earth performed without anesthetic. Three English doctors first refused; they said it was impossible. How could a man endure a major operation, abdomen opened for an hour and a half or two, without anesthesia? The pain could be so intense he might scream, thrash, leap, collapse—anything could happen. They would not agree.

But the Maharaja insisted: “As long as I am in meditation there is no problem, and I can remain in meditation for an hour and a half, even two.” He refused anesthesia: “I want the operation done in full awareness.” The doctors refused, saying it could be dangerous to undergo such pain consciously. With no alternative, they first conducted a test: they asked him to enter meditation and made small cuts on his hand to see whether even a tremor would arise. Two hours passed; not a flicker. Only then did the Maharaja say, “Now I feel some pain in the hand.” After this, they operated.

It was the first abdominal surgery performed without anesthetic. The Maharaja remained fully conscious.

To be that conscious requires deep meditation—so deep that there is not a speck of doubt left that the body is one thing and I am another. If even a grain of doubt remains—if the notion lingers that “I am the body”—there is danger.

Death is a far greater operation than any surgeon has ever performed. In death the life-force is extracted wholly from one body and set to enter another. No surgery can equal that. We may cut an organ here or replace a part there; death transfers the total energy from one body to another.

Therefore nature has arranged beforehand that you become unconscious. It is helpful; perhaps the pain would be unbearable otherwise. It may even be that because the pain is unbearable, we become unconscious.

Yet while helpful, it is in a deeper sense harmful; we remember nothing of what has gone before, and in life after life we repeat the same foolishness. If we remembered what we did last time, perhaps we would not fall into the same pits. If we remembered what we have done in all our lives, we could not remain the same people we are. We have amassed wealth a thousand times, only to see death render it futile; perhaps today the mad race for wealth would lose its grip. We have loved a thousand times, and all of it went in vain; the mad race to love and be loved would fade. We have craved ambition, inflated the ego, gained fame and position—again and again—all to be reduced to dust. If this were remembered, our ambition would grow faint. But because we do not remember, we keep circling like an ox tied to a mill—walking the same round, driven by the same hopes, only to have death cancel them once more. This is the harm.

It can be avoided, but it requires sustained, alert experimentation. You cannot wait for death; you cannot awaken suddenly in the shock of that greatest operation. Begin gradually—experiment with small pains so you can remain awake in small pains. A headache comes, and awareness collapses; immediately it feels “I am in pain,” instead of “the head has pain.” Practice in a small headache: the head is hurting; I am knowing.

When Swami Ram went to America, people found it hard at first to understand him—even the President. Ram spoke in the third person. He would not say, “I am hungry,” but, “Ram is very hungry.” Not, “My head aches,” but, “Ram’s head aches.” People were puzzled: “About whom are you speaking?” He would say, “Ram.” “Which Ram?” “This Ram.” He would say, “At night Ram felt very cold,” and people would ask, “Whom do you mean?” “This Ram. We laughed, ‘See, Ram, what a chill you’re enduring!’ On the road Ram was walking; some people abused him. We laughed, ‘See, Ram, what insults you got! If you seek honor, you will find insult too.’” People kept asking, “But whom are you talking about? Who is Ram?” “This Ram.”

Begin with small experiments in life’s small sorrows—every day they arise. And not only sorrow; experiment with pleasure as well. It is not so difficult to be aware in pain; it is more difficult in pleasure. To experience that the head is separate and has pain is not so hard; to experience that the body is separate and the flow of well-being or delight is also separate—that, too, is not me—is harder. In pleasure we want to come closer and closer; in pain we want distance. Our wish is already aligned with distance in pain, so awareness helps release us. In pleasure we want to merge; therefore awareness in pleasure is more difficult.

So practice awareness in sorrow, in pleasure—and sometimes, for experiment, accept sorrow voluntarily. All ascetic disciplines have only this as their secret: voluntarily invoked suffering as an experiment.

For example, a person fasts, stands hungry—attempting to learn through the experiment of hunger. Usually those who fast have no idea what they are doing. They are simply hungry, waiting for tomorrow’s meal. But the essential experiment of fasting is to experience: there is hunger, and hunger is separate from me; I am not hungry. By deliberately creating hunger one endeavors to know, “Hunger is there; Ram is hungry. I am not hungry; I am knowing hunger.” One goes on knowing, knowing, knowing—until one reaches the moment when a gap appears between oneself and hunger; even in hunger, I am not hungry. The body is hungry and I know; I remain the knower. Then fasting acquires deep meaning; it is not merely going without food.

Most fasters spend twenty-four hours repeating, “I am hungry; I have not eaten,” with their minds absorbed in planning tomorrow’s menu. Then the fast is wasted; it is merely a hunger-strike. That is the difference: a hunger-strike means not eating; upavasa means “dwelling nearer and nearer.” Nearer to whom? To oneself. Away from the body, closer to the self. Even the word upavasa carries no implication of starving; it means nearer-dwelling. Thus one could be in upavasa even while eating—if one knows the eating is at a distance and “I am elsewhere.” And one could not be in upavasa even while not eating—if one keeps thinking, “I am hungry; I’m dying of hunger.” Upavasa is a psychological knowing of one’s separateness from hunger.

Other sufferings too can be invited voluntarily. A man can even lie on thorns, simply to see that the thorns do not pierce me; they pierce elsewhere, and I am elsewhere. Invited suffering is a profound experiment. But for now, the uninvited sufferings are enough; there is no need to invite more. Sufferings are already plentiful—begin with them. If, amid suffering, you can maintain the knowing “I am other, I am distant,” suffering becomes sadhana, a discipline.

Do the same with pleasure. In pain we can even deceive ourselves—because the mind wants to believe “I am not the pain.” But the mind longs to believe “I am the pleasure.” Hence practice is harder in pleasure. In fact, to experience oneself as distant from pleasure is the greatest pain—because there the mind wants to drown and forget separateness. Pleasure drowns; pain breaks and separates. In pain we accept distance reluctantly; in pleasure we want to embrace with all our being.

So awaken in the sufferings that come, awaken in the pleasures that come—and, at times, for experiment, awaken in a suffering you yourself invite. An invited suffering is slightly different: what we invite cannot take us over completely; the very knowing that “I invited this” creates distance. A guest cannot be us; he remains other. When we invite suffering as a guest, it remains other.

If a thorn pierces your foot by accident, it can drown you in pain. But if you bring a thorn and deliberately prick your foot while watching—“Where is the pain? What is happening?”—that is a different event. I don’t say go and invite suffering now; they are anyway many. Live through them and awaken within them; live through pleasures and awaken within them. Then one day you may feel like inviting a small suffering just to see how far you can stand apart.

Remember, the capacity to invite suffering is a very significant experiment. Everyone wants to invite pleasure; no one wants to invite pain. The irony is that the suffering we do not invite arrives; the suffering we invite often does not. And the pleasure we invite rarely comes; the pleasure we do not invite appears. When someone gains the capacity to invite suffering, it means he has become so blissful that he can afford to call suffering in; he is living in such joy that inviting pain is no difficulty. Then he can say to sorrows, “Come, and stay.”

But that is a deep experiment. Before that, awaken amid the sorrows that already come. If we awaken in suffering, the capacity will arise to remain awake even at death, and nature will grant permission to stay awake—because nature, too, will have “seen” that this person can remain aware in pain and therefore can remain aware in death. No one awakens in death accidentally.

Recently a man died—P. D. Ouspensky, a great Russian mathematician. In this century he did the most experiments concerning death. At the end, when he was gravely ill and doctors told him not to rise from bed, he labored for three months in ways unimaginable—staying awake nights, traveling, walking, running. The doctors were aghast: “He should rest completely.” He called his close friends, stopped all conversation, and applied himself to effort. Those who stayed with him in his final three months have written: “For the first time we saw a man die while remaining awake.” When they said, “Doctors say rest—why don’t you?” he replied, “I want to pass through all possible sufferings beforehand, lest the pain at the moment of death be so great that I lapse into unconsciousness. I want to face such pains now that they give me the stamina, the energy, to remain conscious at death.”

For three months he endured every kind of hardship he could. His friends wrote: “We were fully healthy yet we tired; we never saw him tire.” The doctors said, “If he does not rest, great harm will be done.” The night he died he walked the entire night. The doctor examined him and said, “You don’t have the strength to lift a foot.” Yet he walked all night. He said, “I want to die walking. If I sit I might become unconscious, if I lie down I might fall asleep.” While walking he told his friends, “A little longer—ten more steps. Everything is fading, but I will take the last step too; I want to be doing something till the very end so I remain fully awake. Otherwise, in repose, I might drift off.”

He died taking that last step. Few have died walking upon the earth. He collapsed only when death arrived. Just before the final step he said, “This is the last step; now I will fall. But I tell you, the body dropped long ago. Now you will see the body fall, but I have long been seeing that the body is gone and I remain. The ties have snapped and I am within. Now only the body will fall; there is no way for me to fall.” In the moment of dying, his friends felt a radiance in his eyes, a peace, a joy—the light of someone standing at the threshold of another world.

But preparation is necessary—constant preparation. If it is complete, death is a wondrous event; none more precious. What can be known in it can never be known otherwise. Then death appears as a friend. Only in the event of death can we experience, “I am life.” Before that, it cannot be known. The darker the night, the brighter the stars. The blacker the clouds, the more the lightning turns to silver. When death stands on all sides, the point of life we call the soul shines in its full brilliance—surrounded by darkness that serves only to make it gleam. But at that very moment we become unconscious. Death could have been the moment to know the soul; instead, we pass out.

Preparation is needed. Meditation is that preparation—a gradual, voluntary dying. It is the experiment of how to slip inward and let go of the body. If the discipline of meditation continues, then in the moment of death complete meditation becomes available. One who dies awake is then born awake. His first day after birth is not of ignorance but of knowing; even in the womb he is filled with awareness. One who has died awake has only one more birth; no further births are possible. For one who has known what death is, what birth is, and what life is, supreme liberation becomes available.

The one further birth of such a person is what we have called an avatar, a tirthankara, a Buddha, a Jesus, a Krishna. We have counted such ones apart from ordinary men for only one reason: they are different. The difference is that we are asleep; they are awake. This is their final journey on this earth. Therefore there is something in them that is not in us—and they labor tirelessly to share it with us. The difference is simply that their previous death and this birth were awakened; therefore this entire life is awakened.

In Tibet there is a small but precious meditative practice called Bardo. It is performed at the time of dying. When someone is dying, those who know gather and conduct the Bardo. But it can be done only for one who has meditated in life; without meditation it cannot be done. As soon as someone dies, in the Bardo practice he is given instructions from outside to remain fully awake, and is told what will happen and what he will see—because events occur that he cannot understand; totally new experiences cannot be immediately comprehended.

If someone remains conscious after dying, for a long time he may not realize that he is dead. He realizes it only when people lift his corpse, take it to the cremation ground, and set it alight. Within, nothing dies—only a distance appears. But he has never experienced such distance in life; the experience is so new that he has no prior definition for it. He feels only that things have separated. That “I have died” becomes clear when people begin wailing, fall upon the body, and carry it away. Hence the body is burned or buried quickly—so the soul may realize soon that the body is gone. But if a person is unconscious, even this is not known. Only if he is aware can he see his body burning.

Bardo instructions say: watch your body burn carefully; do not run away. Do not let others alone take you to the cremation ground; you also be present there. See your body burning thoroughly. Seeing it burn, attachment to it dissolves. Others will see it burn; the person himself usually cannot. In nine hundred ninety-nine cases out of a thousand he is unconscious and does not know. And on the rare occasion he is conscious, the sight of his burning body frightens him and he runs away; he does not go to the cremation ground. So in Bardo they say, “Do not miss this opportunity. Watch what you had thought to be ‘me’ being reduced to ash—so that in the next birth you may remember who you are.”

As soon as one dies, one enters a realm for which we have no experience. It can panic and terrify us. It is not aligned with any of our familiar perceptions. It is like stepping into a totally foreign land whose language and faces and ways are unknown—only far more unsettling. We have lived in the world of the body; when that drops, the bodiless realm begins—and we have no experience of bodiless existence. Entering that realm we can be so frightened that we lose all measure.

Usually we pass through it unconscious, so we do not know. One who goes through it consciously gets into great difficulty. In Bardo they try to explain what will happen, what kinds of beings will appear, what realm you have entered. But this can be done only for those who have gone deep in meditation; otherwise they will not be able to hear. In the dying moment, they may not even hear what is being said. To receive such guidance, the mind must be extremely still and empty. As consciousness sinks and the links to this world dissolve, only a very quiet mind can hear messages from this side; otherwise not.

Remember: we can do something with death; we can do nothing with birth. But what we do with death shapes our birth. As we die, so we are born. An awakened person even becomes free to choose his womb. He does not choose blindly; he is not compelled like one unconscious. He chooses his mother and father as a wealthy man chooses his house. A poor man cannot choose his dwelling; the house chooses him—the poor house chooses the poor man. The rich man decides: where he will live, what garden, where the doors and windows will be, which way the sun will enter, what breezes will come, how open it will be.

An awakened one chooses his womb. Mahavira or Buddha do not take birth just anywhere. They survey all possibilities and then enter: what body they will get, which parents, what strength, what capacities, what facilities. Their life from the first day is their chosen life. The joy of a chosen life is different—freedom begins there. A life that “happens to us” never has that joy; it is dependence—we are pushed and shoved, events simply occur without our say.

If awakening is attained, the choice can be made. If our very birth is our choice, the whole life becomes chosen; then we live as jivan-muktas—liberated while living. One whose death was awakened is born awakened, and then his life is free. We often hear the term jivan-mukta, but we may not grasp its meaning. It means one whose birth was awakened. Only such a one can be liberated in life. Otherwise, one can strive; perhaps the next life will be free, but not this one. For this life to be free, freedom must be chosen from the first day—and that we can do only if our previous death was awakened.

Now the question itself no longer remains. This life is in our hands. Death has not yet come; it will—it is the most certain of certainties. You can doubt everything else; no one doubts death. People doubt God, they doubt the soul—but have you heard of anyone who doubts death? It is indubitable. It is coming, drawing nearer each moment. The moments left between us and death can be used for awakening. Meditation is that very process. In these three days I will try to help you see that meditation is precisely this process.

Jati-smaran means the method of remembering previous births—the method of recalling what we have been before. It is a form of meditation, a specific experiment of meditation. Think of a river, and someone asks, “What is a canal?” We would say: a canal is a special, planned, controlled use of the river. It is still the river, but regulated and organized. A river is unregulated, uncontrolled. The river too will reach somewhere, but its destination is not certain. A canal, however, is sure of where it is carrying the water.

Meditation is the great river. It will reach the ocean; it will inevitably reach the divine. But meditation also has subsidiary applications. Its small branches can be organized and channeled like canals. Jati-smaran is one of them. The power of meditation can be made to flow toward our previous lives as well. Meditation simply means attention. On what to place attention—there can be many applications. One such application is the recollection of past lives: that the memory of my previous births lies somewhere within.

Remember, memories do not get erased. No memory is ever wiped out; it either remains suppressed or it surfaces. A suppressed memory looks as if it has been erased. If I ask you what you did on January 1, 1950, it’s not that you did nothing that day—yet you may not be able to say a thing about it. The day has become a blank. It could not have been blank when it was lived; it was full then. But today it has gone blank. Today’s day too will become like that tomorrow. Ten years from now, there will be no trace of this day either. But that doesn’t mean January 1, 1950, did not exist. Nor does it mean that you did not exist then. Nor, because you cannot remember it, can we deny that day. It was—and there is a way to know it. Attention can be taken there as well.

And as soon as the light of attention falls upon it, you will be astonished—it will appear as alive as it was then, perhaps even more vivid. As if someone comes into a dark room with a torch and sweeps it around. When he looks to the left, the right side goes dark, but the right side has not been destroyed. He turns the torch to the right, and the right side becomes alive again, while the left side hides.

Attention has a focus. If you want to direct it in a particular direction, you must use it like a torch. If you want to take it toward the divine, you must use it like a lamp. Understand this clearly. A lamp has no focus; it is unfocused—it simply burns. Its light spreads equally in all directions. The light does not flow in any single direction; it just flows everywhere alike. The lamp has no preference—here or there. Therefore, whatever is present is revealed in the lamp’s glow. But a torch is the focused use of the lamp’s light. We bind all the light and pour it in one direction. It may happen that in a room lit by a lamp things are visible, but not clearly. To see clearly, we bind the lamp’s light to one spot—it becomes a torch. Then one thing becomes perfectly clear, but everything else stops being seen. In truth, if you want to see one thing clearly, you must channel all your attention in one direction and darken everything else.

So one who wants to know life’s truth directly will develop attention like a lamp. He has no other purpose. In fact, the lamp’s only true purpose is that the lamp may see itself—if that much becomes illumined, it is enough. The matter is over. But if you want to do special experiments, like the recollection of past lives, then attention must be channeled in one direction. And to channel it that way, I will tell you two or three sutras. I will not give the full sutras, because perhaps hardly anyone will actually wish to carry it out—and those who do can meet me separately. Still, I’ll say two or three hints so that the point is understood. From that much you won’t be able to conduct the practice, but you will understand the idea. And it may not be appropriate for everyone to attempt it anyway; therefore I will not say the whole thing. Sometimes the experiment can put you in danger.

Let me tell you an incident to give you the feel of it. A lady professor was close to me for two or three years regarding meditation. She was very insistent that she wanted to do jati-smaran, to know her previous birth. I had her do some experiments for recollection. I also told her repeatedly: it would be better not to do this yet. When meditation is fully developed, then there is no danger in jati-smaran. But if it is not yet mature, there can be dangers. For even bearing the memories of one life is a heavy burden. If the memories of two or four lives suddenly break through and flood in, a person can even go mad. That is why nature has arranged that you keep forgetting. There is more arrangement for forgetting than for remembering. You are made to forget more than you remember, so that your mind is never overburdened. When the mind’s capacity grows, greater burdens can be borne. But if the capacity has not grown and the burden arrives, difficulties begin. Still, she was adamant; she did not listen and proceeded with the experiments.

The day the stream of past-life memory first broke through for her, around two in the morning she came running to me. She was in a very bad state—great difficulty and distress. She said, “Now somehow this must be stopped completely. I don’t want to look in that direction at all.”

But that is not so easy. To summon a canal and then suddenly shut it off is not easy. A door does not simply open; it breaks. Once it has broken open, closing it at once is very difficult. It took about fifteen days before that stream of memory could be closed. What had happened? That lady held the notion that she was extremely pure and of impeccable character. The memory arose that she had been a prostitute. And when the scenes of being a prostitute began to surface, her very life trembled. All the morality of this life wavered. And such a memory does not come as if it were about someone else—“some other woman was a prostitute.” No. It is this very person who is now virtuous. And often it happens that one who was a prostitute in the previous birth becomes very chaste in this one. That is the reaction to the previous birth—the painful memory of it—that turns her chaste.

Therefore it often happens that goons of the previous birth become saints in this life; and saints of this life become goons in the next. There is a deep relationship between saints and ruffians. This reaction occurs frequently. The reason is that what we learn, we become pained by, and we swing to its opposite. The pendulum of the mind swings absolutely to the other side. It touches the left and then begins to go right. It cannot even fully touch the right before it starts moving left again. When you see a clock’s pendulum going to the left, understand that it is preparing to go to the right. While it is going left, it is gathering the strength to go right. And the farther it goes to the left, the farther it will go to the right. That is why, in life, it often happens: the bad becomes good, the good becomes bad. This goes on continuously. In every life this wavering continues.

So generally do not assume that a man who has become a saint in this life must have been a saint in the last as well. It is not necessary. The opposite is far more likely. What he came to know in the previous birth—its pain has filled him.

I have heard that in one neighborhood there was a monk, and opposite him lived a prostitute. They both died on the same day. The prostitute was going toward heaven and the monk toward hell. Yama’s messengers, who had come to take them, were very surprised. They asked each other, “What kind of mix-up is this? Has there been some mistake? Why are we taking this monk to hell? He was a monk.”

Among them, the one who knew said, “He was a monk, yes—but he was filled, continually, with jealousy toward the prostitute. He constantly thought, ‘Who knows what pleasures are going on there! What delights are being had there!’ The veena’s notes floating from her house would shake his being more than they shook those sitting with the prostitute. The tinkle of anklets from the prostitute’s house agitated him more than the men sitting before her. Even when he worshipped God, his hands were in fact folded toward the prostitute. And the prostitute, continually, thought, ‘Who knows what inner bliss the monk is living in! How have I fallen into this abyss! What misery I am in!’ When she saw the monk carrying flowers for the morning worship, she would think, ‘When will it be possible that I too become worthy of taking flowers to the Lord’s temple? But I am so impure that I do not even dare enter the temple.’ And when the incense smoke rose, the lamps were lit, and the bells rang in the monk’s house, the prostitute would lose herself in a kind of meditation in which the monk himself could not lose himself. And so the opposite came to pass. The prostitute had been continually earning the being of a monk, and the monk had been earning the being of a prostitute. Their journeys, which seemed utterly opposite, completely reversed. What appeared to be the exact contrary utterly changed.”

This often happens. There are laws behind it.

So when remembrance arose for that lady, she suffered greatly. The pain was that her entire ego melted and broke. What she came to know proved shattering. Now she wanted to forget. I had told her: if you want to remember, you must be prepared to bear it. If you are not prepared, you should not try to remember.
So I will give you two or three pointers so that you can understand what you asked—the meaning of jati-smaran, the remembrance of past lives. But you will not be able to do the practice from this alone. Those who wish to actually undertake it will have to think about it separately. First: if one is to descend into jati-smaran, to know a past birth, the first requirement of the mind is to turn it away from the future.
Our mind is future-bound. Ordinarily our mind is future-centered, not past-bound. The mind generally moves toward the future. The stream of the mind is oriented toward what lies ahead. And for life’s ordinary purposes this is as it should be—let the mind face the future, not the past. What have we to do with the past now? It has gone. What is coming is what excites us. That is why we go to astrologers asking, “What will happen tomorrow? What will happen in the future?” We are curious about what is going to be.

Now, the person who wishes to remember the past must drop, utterly, the curiosity about the future. Because the focus of the mind—the beam of its torch—if it is flowing toward the future, it cannot flow toward the past.

So the first work is to break future-orientation completely. For a few months, for a fixed period—say six months—decide: “I will not think of the future. If thoughts of the future arise, I will bow to them and let them pass. If a mood about the future comes, I will not drift with it. For six months I will live as if the future does not exist. Only the past is, and I will flow backward.” That is the first point. And the moment the future breaks, the current of the mind begins to turn back.

Then, looking back, one must first return within this very life. You cannot jump straight into the previous birth. First you must retrace this birth. There are methods for how to go back within this life. For instance, I said: you do not know what you did on 1 January 1950. There is a way to know it. As I suggest for meditation: meditate, and after ten minutes, when the mind has settled, the body is relaxed, the breath is gentle, and thoughts are quiet, let only one question remain in consciousness: “What happened on 1 January 1950?” Let only this remain, circling in the mind—“What happened on 1 January 1950?” Let this single sound reverberate around the mind.

Within two or four days you will find that, suddenly, as if a curtain has lifted, 1 January is there, and from morning to evening everything replays, one thing after another. And you will see that day in a way you did not even see it when it actually happened, because you did not have so much awareness then. The day it passed, you were not so alert.

So first you must experiment by going backward within this life. Then, reaching back to the age of five is quite simple. It is not very difficult to return to five years of age. But beyond five a great obstacle appears. That is why ordinarily our memory does not reach earlier than around the fifth year. At the farthest, most people remember up to about five years old. Some may remember to three, but before three it becomes very difficult. There the doorway suddenly seems blocked.

But the one who becomes skilled in this—who can fully awaken any day’s memory up to the age of five—will find that the memories begin to awaken completely. And you should test it. As today passes, note down some events and lock them up. After two years, try to recall today. Most of it will have been forgotten. Then remember—and after remembering, break the lock and compare whether what you recalled matches what you had written. You will be amazed—astonished—that besides what you wrote, many more details have come back which you did not even note at the time. They will all be there in memory.

Buddha called this alaya-vijnana. There is a corner of the human mind he called the storehouse of consciousness. Like a junk room in the house where we keep all the odds and ends, there is a storehouse that collects memories—where everything from birth after birth is stored. Nothing is removed, because we may need it. Bodies change, but the storehouse travels with us. When it may be needed, one cannot say. Everything we have done, lived, suffered, known—everything is stored there.

So when someone begins to remember up to five years, he can then go behind five. It is not very difficult. The practice remains the same: to go back beyond five. Beyond that there is another gate that takes you to the point of birth, of arriving on Earth. Then there is another difficulty: the memories of the mother’s womb are also there; they do not get erased. One can enter there too, and then reach the moment of conception—when the cells of mother and father meet and the soul enters. Only after reaching that point can one slip into the previous birth; you cannot go there directly. One must travel this far backward, and then slide into the past life.

When one slides into the past life, the first memory to appear will be the last event. Remember: just as if you run a film backward, it won’t make sense at first; or if someone reads a novel from the end to the beginning, it will be utterly confusing. So the first time you return backward, nothing will make sense because the sequence is reversed. The order in which events happened is now inverted. As you move back, this birth’s birth will come first, and the previous life’s death will come later. Death appears first, then old age, then youth, then childhood, then birth. In reverse order it is very hard to recognize what is happening. The first time the memories arrive, great restlessness and discomfort are natural, because it is difficult to identify what is what—just as someone determined to read a novel backwards would struggle mightily. Only after seeing it ten or twenty-five times might he piece together how events unfolded.

Thus, the greatest labor in past-life memory is that you must view, in reverse, what actually happened in forward order. What is forward and what is backward depends on our coming and going. We sow a seed and, finally, the flower appears. Going back, the flower will come first, then the bud, then the plant, then the leaves, then it shrinks into a tiny sprout, and finally the seed. We have no familiarity with this reverse flow. So even when the past-life memory arises, it takes a long time to organize it clearly—to arrange exactly how events occurred and what their sequence was. It is odd: first death will come, then old age, then illness, then youth—events will unfold in reverse. If you married someone and later divorced, the divorce will appear first, then love, then the marriage. Understanding in this inverted order is extremely difficult. Our mind understands in one direction—it is one-dimensional. We have no experience of seeing in reverse; we have only lived forward. But if you persist, you can learn to understand even while seeing in reverse. It will be a very strange experience.

And if we can see in reverse, we will be astonished. If divorce happens first, then love, then marriage, we will see for the first time that divorce was inevitable. Given the kind of love that happened, divorce had to be the outcome. The kind of marriage it was, its fruition was divorce. But when we married, we never thought divorce could happen. Divorce was the flower of that very marriage. Seeing this fully, today love will be a very different matter, because within it the divorce will already be visible; before friendship, the arrival of enmity will be seen.

This is why I say: past-life memory will throw this life into disorder, because you will not be able to live in the same way as you did before. Then it seemed—and it still seems—that if we keep accumulating wealth, great success and joy will come. In reverse it will be seen: first comes sorrow, and then the accumulating of wealth appears. Sorrow will be seen first, and the wealth-gathering behind it. Then it will be clear that accumulating wealth was not a basis for joy; it led to sorrow. Making friends led to making enemies. What we called love led to hatred. What we called union led to separation. Then things reveal their full meaning, and that meaning completely changes the way we live. Completely—because then everything stands otherwise.

I have heard about a fakir. A man went to him and said, “Kindly accept me; I want to become your disciple.” The fakir said, “I no longer take disciples.” The man asked, “Why not?” He said, “In my previous birth I did, but those I made disciples later became enemies. Now I have seen the whole sequence and I know that to make a disciple is to make an enemy; to make a friend is to sow the seeds of enmity. I do not want to make enemies anymore; therefore, I will not make friends either. I have understood that being alone is enough. Bringing another close is the device by which he will go far away.”

Buddha has said: meeting with the beloved brings happiness; separation from the disliked brings happiness. Separation from the beloved brings sorrow; meeting the disliked brings sorrow. So it was seen, so it was understood. Later, much later, it became clear that what we call beloved becomes un-beloved; and what we call un-beloved can become beloved.

If past memories arise, these stances change greatly. This remembrance is possible, but not necessary. Possible, not compulsory. Sometimes, while meditating, it may break open suddenly, even without any specific technique. If it appears spontaneously while meditating, do not take too much relish in it; just see it and remain a witness. Ordinarily the mind does not have the strength to bear such an upheaval all at once. There is every possibility of becoming unbalanced under its weight.

A girl of about twelve was once brought to me. She had spontaneous memory of three lives, without any practice. Sometimes, due to certain reasons, nature makes such a slip. It is a mistake of nature, not a special grace. Just as if someone were to have three eyes or four hands—it is a mistake. Four hands are weaker than two; they cannot do as much work. Four hands burden the body rather than strengthen it. If eyes were to grow all around the skull, walking would become difficult, not easy—though it might seem a great blessing to have eyes at the back as well.

They brought the girl to me. She was about twelve. She remembered three births. There was much investigation. In her previous birth she had been in a house about eighty miles from where I live; she died at the age of forty. The people of that house now live in my town. She could recognize them all—her brother, her daughters, her daughters’ children, her sons-in-law. In a crowd of thousands she could identify them. She recognized even distant relatives and could tell them many things that they themselves had forgotten. Her elder brother is still alive, with a small scar on his head. I asked the girl if she knew anything about that scar. She laughed and said, “Even my brother may not know. Let him tell you when and how it happened.” He could not recall when it occurred. He said, “As far back as I remember, it has always been there.” The girl said, “When my brother was married and sat on the horse, he fell off. He was only ten then. He was injured during the wedding.” The village elders confirmed this: the boy had indeed fallen from the horse. He himself had forgotten. Later, she even indicated a buried treasure in that house which she herself had hidden. She led them to the exact spot.

Before that, she had been born in a village in Assam where she died at seven. She could not give the address or name of that village. But she could speak as much Assamese as a seven-year-old girl would, and dance and sing Assamese songs as a seven-year-old could. There too we investigated, but no trace of that family could be found.

She has forty-seven years of such experience behind her, plus her twelve years now. In her eyes you could catch the glimpse of a woman of sixty-five or seventy, yet she was only twelve. The expression on her face was that of an elderly woman. She could not play with other children—she was old. Her memory ran seventy years back; she felt seventy. Her body was twelve. She could not study at school because she might call her teacher “son.” Her memory spanned seventy years; her personality felt seventy; her body was twelve. She could not play, could not take interest in childish things. She found taste only in serious talk, like elderly women. There was such tension, such distress—her body was twelve, her memory seventy. There was no harmony. She was sad, pale, troubled.

I told her parents, “Bring her to me; I will make her forget.” Because the path by which we remember can be reversed to make us forget. We can erase those memories.

But they were enjoying the attention—crowds came, people worshiped the girl. They said, “Why make her forget?” I warned them, “She will go mad.” They did not listen. Today she is almost insane. She cannot bear so many memories. Another difficulty arose: how to get her married? Imagine a seventy-year-old woman thinking of marriage. Her body is young, her mind is old—life became very difficult for her.

All this can happen accidentally. You can also break into this stream by method. But it is not necessary to go in that direction. Those who feel a deep interest may experiment. But before such experiments, deep meditative practice is essential, so that the mind becomes quiet and strong enough to remain a witness to whatever breaks open. If someone becomes established in witnessing, then past lives appear no more significant than dreams. They bring no pain. They seem like dreams we once saw. Nothing more. And when two or four past lives are remembered and they feel like dreams, then this life too immediately begins to feel dreamlike.

Those who have called this world maya had no other fundamental reason; it is not some philosophical argument. The fundamental reason is jati-smaran. Whoever remembered back found the whole affair to be maya—an illusion, a dream. Where are the friends of the last birth? Where is that house? Where is that wife? Where are the sons? Where is that world that was once so real? Where has all that gone which we took as truth? Where are the worries that kept us awake all night? Where are the sorrows and pains we thought were mountains? Where are the joys we desired? Where is all that for which we were harried and tormented? If the previous birth returns to memory—and you had lived seventy years—does it feel like a truth or a dream? A dream that came and went. And then this life we are living now...

I have heard: an emperor sits by his only son, who is near death. Eight nights have passed. The boy cannot be saved, nor does death come—great misery. The emperor begins to feel that with so much suffering, it might be better if the boy died. He has not slept in eight nights.

Around four in the morning he dozes off and dreams. We often dream what is lacking in our lives. He had only one son, now dying. In his dream he has twelve sons, all beautiful, bodies like gold. There are great palaces, an enormous empire; he owns the whole earth and is blissful. He is dreaming this—and at that very moment the boy outside dies. His wife screams; the emperor wakes.

He is startled and silent. His wife sees him and thinks he must be shattered. She asks, “Are you so stunned that you can’t even weep? You say nothing.” She shakes him. He says, “No, I am not stunned for that reason. I am in great difficulty. I don’t know for whom to weep. Just now I had twelve sons—they are gone. Should I weep for them? Or should I weep for this one who has died here? I am perplexed: who has died? Just now I was among twelve boys; this boy, you, this palace—all were absent then. Now this palace is here, you are here, this boy was here; but those palaces, those sons are gone. Which was true? I am in a great dilemma.”

If remembrance of past births comes, you will be in just such a dilemma: is what I am seeing now true? Because you have seen such scenes many times, and all proved baseless. All vanished. Then the question will arise: what we are seeing now—how true can it be? It too will pass like a dream. As all dreams ended, so will this one.

We sit in a cinema and what we see seems real. When the screen goes blank, the hall lights up, and people leave, even then it takes a few moments to return. We squint our eyes as we step out of the theater; only then do we realize it was just a dream, a play we watched. Yet we laughed and wept, wiped tears. Those who cannot cry for twenty-four hours straight find their tears in the cinema; they go, see a film, and cry—and feel relieved. Otherwise they would have to find another excuse. The cinema is a cheap and easy excuse. They laugh there too, who neither laugh nor cry during the day.

But coming out, the first thought is: what a deception! Yet if one keeps watching film after film, the deception slowly becomes obvious. Only, if the memory of the last film fades, when you go again, it seems true once more.

If the memories of previous births arise, the present life becomes a dream. It is lost. How many times these winds have not blown! But where are those winds now? How many times clouds have gathered! Where are those clouds now? All that is gone; this will also go. It is already in the process of going.

If this is realized, you will experience maya—that events are very unreal. Along with it, another realization dawns: events are unreal, they come and go, but one thing does not go—I. I am not lost. One dream comes and goes; the next comes and goes; a third comes and goes. But I, the one to whom dreams come, remain. The traveler who walks out of one cinema into another—one film ends, the second ends, the third disappears, yet the traveler goes on.

So two experiences arise together: the world is maya and the seer is truth; the seen is false and the seer is true. The scenes change every time, but the seer—the one who sees—remains the same…remains the same. Note: as long as the scene seems true, attention does not go to the seer. When the scene becomes utterly false, attention turns to the seer.

Therefore I say, this is useful—but only for those who go deep into meditation. If you go deep, the capacity to see life as a dream arises. Then being a saint is as much a dream as being a thief. Dreams can be pleasant or unpleasant. The curious thing is that the dream of being a thief breaks quickly; the dream of being a saint lasts longer because it feels pleasant. Those who dream of sainthood are in more danger than those who dream of sin, because the pleasant dream wants to continue. There are sweet dreams and nightmares. The trouble with sweet dreams is that one wants to prolong them. In a nightmare—someone pressing on your chest, your breath trapped, you falling from a cliff—the mind wants to wake up; it breaks out in panic on its own.

That is why often sinners reach God and saints do not. The sinner’s dream is a nightmare; the saint’s dream is sweet. Draped in ochre robes, one wants to save those dreams; they seem so delightful.

This is a little about jati-smaran. Do not get entangled in trying the techniques. If someone feels that the mind has become quiet and wants to look back, it is possible to be guided back. But only if we can first descend within today. If one cannot go within, one cannot go behind. Imagine a big house with cellars below. A man stands outside and says, “I want to go to my basement rooms.” We would tell him, “First come inside your house. The entrance to the cellar is from within, not from outside.” If he insists on standing outside, he cannot reach the basement. You can go to the cellars—but first enter the house.

The life that has passed has become our cellar. Those segments in which we once lived have been left behind; we live in other rooms now. But we are not even living in the rooms; we stand outside our own house—outside ourselves. We cannot go back until we go within. The first condition for going backward is: go within. For the one who goes within, there is no difficulty, no danger, no disturbance in going back. He can go back.

Another friend has asked a question; let us take that up, and then we will sit for meditation.

There is no difficulty in this. A human being can once have been an animal, but he cannot become an animal again. There is no going back; going back is impossible. It can happen that one has come forward from earlier wombs, earlier forms of existence, but it cannot happen that from a later form one goes back to an earlier one. In this world there is simply no way to return backward. There are only two possibilities: either you move ahead, or you remain where you are. You cannot go back.

It is like a school. A child studies in the first grade. If he passes, he goes to the second grade; if he fails, he remains in the first. But there is no way to throw him out of the first grade once he is in; and if in the second grade he fails, there is no way to demote him back into the first. Wherever we are, we can either remain there for a long time, or we can go on ahead—but not return backward.

So there is no problem in someone’s having been in other, earlier forms. He has been. How many births back—that is another matter. If we descend into our previous births, we will remember those lives when we were birds, when we were animals, when we were insects, even when we were stones. And further and further down, there has been such density, such inertia, that it is hard to find even a thread of consciousness there.

Mountains, too, are life. Life is there as well, but consciousness is almost negligible—ninety-nine percent inertia, one percent consciousness. Then consciousness keeps increasing, and inertia keeps decreasing. The divine is one hundred percent consciousness. Between matter and the divine the difference is one of percentage. The difference is not of quality, but of quantity. Therefore matter can become divine, through continuous evolution… evolution… as inertia drops away.

So it is not a matter of wonder or difficulty that someone was an animal in a past life. The greater difficulty is that some people, while being human, are still animals. That is not surprising—we all at some time or another have been animals. But even while being human our consciousness can become so faint that only on the level of the body do we look human; inwardly we are animals. If we look into our tendencies, this is how it seems: that we have not remained animals, but we have not yet fully become human either. We are stuck somewhere in between. And that is why, whenever an opportunity comes, we do not take long to become animals again.

For example, someone comes and gives you a shove. You were walking along like a decent person. Someone punches you and hurls an abuse. Suddenly you find that the decent person in you has vanished in an instant, and you are standing where perhaps you stood in some previous birth—you have become an animal. Our humanness is very skin-deep. Scratch the skin a little and the animal comes out. And it comes out because we have been that. Our growth, our humanness, has come upon us from above, but within the animal is still present; that is why it does not take long to dig it out.

Tell a Hindu that Hinduism is in danger—he loses himself. Tell a Muslim that Islam is in danger—the man turns into an animal at once! Even a Gujarati who appears utterly decent, dressed in white, wearing khadi—he too can be so. All of it is skin-deep. Scratch just a little and the animal comes out. And when the animal comes out, it appears with such force, with such intensity, that one begins to doubt whether this person was ever human at all.

In our present condition, everything we have ever been is present within us. Yes, there are layers inside; if you dig a little, you can reach those inner layers. We can even reach the layer of stone—that, too, is one of our layers. In some very deep interior, we are still stone. And so, if we are scratched to that depth, we behave like stone—we can behave like animals, too. And what lies ahead are only our possibilities; they are not yet our layers. Therefore, sometimes we touch them in a leap, and then come back to the ground again. Those are our possibilities. We can become divine, we can even become gods—but we have not yet been that. What we have been is our present condition.

So there are two points. If we are dug into a little, our past conditions are found within us. And if we are drawn forward, we can taste our future conditions. But like someone who jumps from the ground and for a second is in the air, and then a moment later is again standing on the ground, so do we become human in leaps. Sometimes, for a moment, we are truly human. If we look carefully, in the span of twenty-four hours, only at a few moments are we exactly human. We all know this.

You must have seen beggars; they come to beg in the morning, not in the evening—because by evening the possibility of humanness has diminished. In the morning a fresh man wakes up, rested through the night—no quarrels, no fights, no abuses, no money, no disturbances, no politics, no Hindu, no Muslim. He gets up fresh. When a beggar comes before him then, there is hope that he will behave with a little humanness. But in the evening—no hope. So beggars do not come in the evening. They know that by evening the day’s scratchings will have awakened the inner layers—the office, the shop, the market, riots and disturbances, the newspapers, the leaders—all will have done their mischief. Those inner layers will have been aroused. By evening no beggar comes, because by evening a man is tired—he has become an animal.

That is why clubs that come alive at night display animality. There is no other reason. Nightclubs revolve around animal tendencies. The man tired of his humanness says: give me the animal—give me liquor, gambling, dance, nudity, noise and riot. So the clubs of the night are built around the animality of man. Therefore, if you want to pray, morning is best. By evening it is doubtful that prayer will be possible. That is why temples ring their bells in the morning. At night the doors of the clubs open, the gambling houses open, the bars open. A prostitute cannot extend her invitation in the early morning; she can only do so at night.

The man wearied by the day becomes an animal. Therefore there are different trades for the night, and a different world for the morning. The church is in the morning; the mosque gives the azaan in the morning; the temple rings its bells in the morning. There is a little hope that the man who wakes in the morning may lift his eyes a little towards the divine. By evening there is less hope from the tired man. And that is why there is more hope from children that they may incline toward God; less from the old—that is the evening of life. Life, all along, will have exposed and uprooted everything in them.

Therefore, as early as possible, as morning as possible, set out on the journey. Evening will arrive on its own. Before evening comes, if we have set out in the morning, it may also happen that evening will find us in the temple.

So that friend asks well. It is possible that someone was an animal, was a bird. What must be remembered is that he should not now be an animal or a bird. Keep that remembrance.

There are one or two more questions; we will take them tonight or tomorrow morning. Now let us sit for the morning meditation. Understand two or three things. First, let yourself go totally. If you hold yourself even a little, that very grip becomes the obstacle in meditation. Let go in such a way as if you are dying, as if you have died. Accept death—that it has come; everything has died, and we are sinking behind it. Now only that will remain which cannot die; all that can die we will drop.

That is why I said this is an experiment in dying. This experiment has three parts. First, relaxation of the body. Second, relaxation of the breath. And third, relaxation of thought. Let all three be dropped. Sit a little apart from each other. Someone may fall, so create a little space. Some move back a bit; some come a little forward.

Yes, keep a little distance. No one should be touching anyone; otherwise, all the while you will have to sit carefully, guarding against falling on someone—or if someone falls on you, it becomes trouble for him or for you. When the body loosens, there is no telling—it may fall forward, it may fall back. As long as you are holding it, there is some assurance. When you stop holding, the body will fall. When your inner grip releases, who will hold the body? It can only fall. And if you have to spend time and energy holding it up, you will get stuck right there—you will not be able to go inward. So when the body begins to fall, consider it a good fortune. Let it go completely; do not stop it. If you stop it, you will stop right there; and then you will not go within. And if someone falls on you, do not be disturbed. If his head rests in your lap for a while, it is nothing to worry about; let it remain there.

First, close your eyes… gently close your eyes. Do not speak to anyone. Close your eyes… let the body be loose… leave the body completely loose, as if there is no life in it at all. Draw all your energy inward… draw all your strength from the plane of the body back inside. The energy is going inward… the body will become relaxed.

Now I will give the suggestion. Feel: the body is becoming relaxed. And as you feel it, the body will relax… relax… relax… then it will lie like a corpse—stop, fall—whatever happens, let it happen. You let go.

The body is becoming relaxed… feel it… feel it: the body is becoming relaxed… the body is becoming relaxed… the body is becoming relaxed. Withdraw, withdraw completely within. As a person goes inside his house, go within yourself. Withdraw, slide inward. The body is becoming relaxed… the body is becoming relaxed… the body is becoming relaxed… the body is becoming relaxed… the body is becoming relaxed… let go completely, as if lifeless, as if no breath remains. The body has become relaxed… the body has become relaxed… the body has become relaxed… the body has become relaxed… the body has become relaxed… completely relaxed…

Now I will assume you have let go—that you have dropped every hold. If it falls, let it fall; if it bends forward, let it bend. Whatever is to happen, let it happen. Do not keep any hold anywhere. Look within and see that you have no grip on the body now—you are not holding it; you have let it go.

The body has become relaxed… the body has become relaxed. The breath is becoming quiet. Feel it: the breath is becoming quiet… the breath is becoming quiet… the breath is becoming quiet… the breath is becoming quiet. The breath is becoming quieter and quieter… the breath is becoming quiet. Let go completely. Let go of the breath as well. Drop your hold. The breath is becoming quiet… the breath is becoming quiet… the breath is becoming quiet… the breath has become quiet… the breath has become quiet…

Thoughts too are becoming quiet. Feel it: thoughts are becoming quiet… thoughts are becoming quiet… thoughts are becoming quiet… thoughts are becoming quiet… thoughts are becoming quiet… thoughts are growing quiet. Let go—body dropped, breath dropped, drop thoughts too. Withdraw; withdraw completely within; step back even from thought.

Everything has become quiet… everything has become quiet… as if you have died. Outside everything has died. Everything is finished… everything is finished. All is utterly quiet… within only consciousness remains… a single lamp of awareness burns on; everything else is gone. Let go, let go, let go completely—as if you are not. Let go utterly… as if the body has died… the body is not… the breath is gone… thoughts are gone… death has come. And withdraw, withdraw fully into the within. Let go. Drop everything. Keep no hold. As if you have died.

Feel it: everything has died… everything has died… only a single flame remains within—and all else has died… all has dissolved… all has dissolved. Now for ten minutes, lose yourself in the void. Remain the witness… watch this death. All around, everything has dissolved. The body, too, has been left far away… far away it remains… we have withdrawn. Now just watch; remain the seer. For ten minutes, only look within…

(Silence. The roar of the ocean, the calls of birds, the murmur of wind, the beat of the heart… All is silent, all has become still.)

Keep looking within... keep looking within... let everything outside become dead. Let it go... utterly dead... remain just watching... remain only the witness... drop everything... as if you have died... as if everything outside has died—the body too... thoughts too... only an inner flame remains, watching. Only the seer remains, only the witness remains. Let go... let go... let go completely...
(Silence… solitude… hush…)
Whatever happens, let it happen... let go completely... keep only looking within and let go completely... drop every grip...
(Silence… solitude… hush…)
The mind has become quiet and empty... the mind has become utterly empty... the mind has become quiet and empty... the mind has become utterly empty... the mind has become utterly empty... If there is even a slight holding, drop that too... let go completely... dissolve... as if you are not.
The mind has become empty... the mind quiet and empty... the mind has become utterly empty... Look within, look within with awareness—everything has become quiet... the body has remained far away... the mind has remained far away... only a single flame is still burning within. A lamp of consciousness remains, only light remains...
(Silence… solitude… hush…)
Now slowly take two or four deep breaths. Keep watching the breath. Slowly take two or four deep breaths. With each breath, the peace will deepen... Slowly take two or four deep breaths. And keep looking within; be the witness of the breath as well. The mind will grow even more quiet... take two or four deep breaths... then slowly open your eyes. If someone has fallen, first take a deep breath, then rise slowly; if you cannot get up, do not hurry. If anyone finds it difficult to open the eyes, do not hurry—first take a deep breath, then slowly open the eyes. Very gently; do nothing with a jerk—neither get up, nor open the eyes... slowly, slowly.
Our morning meditation session is concluded.