Main Mrityu Sikhata Hun #7

Both statements are true. When I said there is no truth greater than death, I was drawing attention to this life that we call life, to this personality that I call “I.” In this personality and in this life, the event of dying is a very great truth. This personality will die; this life, which we call life, will also die. Death will happen. You will die, I will die. And what I am calling life will be wiped out, destroyed, will fall to dust.

So when I say there is no truth greater than death, I want to remind you that I, you, all of us will die. And when I say death is absolutely unreal, I want to remind you that within the “I” there is someone else who will not die; within you there is someone else who will not die. And other than what you take to be life, there is another kind of life in which there is no death. Both statements are true, true at the same time. If you take only one as true, the full understanding of truth will not be possible.

Understand! If someone says a shadow is real, if someone says darkness is real, he is not lying. Darkness exists, shadow exists. And if someone says darkness does not exist at all, even then he is not wrong. He is saying that darkness has no positive existence, no substantive being. If I were to ask you to bring me two bags of darkness from outside, you would not be able to. And if I said a room is full of darkness, take it out and throw it outside, you wouldn’t be able to throw it out. And if I then asked you, if darkness exists, please carry it out! you would say darkness cannot be carried out. Why? Because darkness is not positive; it is negative. Darkness is only the name of the absence of light.

Darkness is—one can see it; and yet darkness is merely the absence of light. Therefore, if someone says darkness absolutely is not, he also speaks rightly. There is light and there is the non-being of light; there is no such thing as darkness in itself.

That is why we can do all kinds of things with light, but nothing directly with darkness. If you want to remove darkness, you have to light a lamp. And if you want to bring darkness, you have to extinguish the light. Nothing can be done with darkness directly.

You run along the road; a shadow forms behind you. The shadow is. Who will say it is not? It is visible; it is. It runs behind, it flees. And yet it can be said the shadow is not—because the shadow has no existence of its own. Shadow simply means that we block the light; to the extent we block light, there is an absence of light behind. Therefore, when the sun is directly overhead, a shadow ceases to form because the light is not being blocked. If we were to make a man of glass, he would cast no shadow, because the light would pass right through him. When light is obstructed, the shadow appears. The shadow is only the lack of light, its absence.

So if someone says the shadow is, he is not wrong. But this is only half the truth; along with it he should also say the shadow also is not—then the truth becomes complete. It means the shadow is such that it also is not. That is what it means. But the way we think, we split things into two absolute halves.

Once it happened that a case was being heard in a court. A man had murdered someone. Eyewitnesses testified. One witness said the murder took place under the open sky; and at the time of the murder there were stars in the sky. I saw the stars and I saw the murder happen. Immediately after, another eyewitness said the murder happened inside a house, near the door, by a wall. There are splashes of blood on the wall. And I was standing pressed against the wall; blood stains reached even onto me. This murder happened inside the house.

The judge said, this is very difficult—how can you both be telling the truth? One of you must certainly be lying. The murderer began to laugh. The judge asked, why are you laughing? He said, I tell you, both of them are right. The house was half-built; the roof had not yet been put on. The stars were visible above. The murder did happen under the open sky, and it happened near the wall—by the door. And there are blood stains on the wall. The walls had been raised; only the roof remained to be put on. Both are right.

Life is so complex that even those things which appear to us as opposites turn out to be right. Life is very complex. Life is not the way we think. Life contains many contradictions. Life is vast. So death, in one sense, is the greatest truth, because the way we are living will die; what we are will also die; the framework we have built will die; what we have taken to be everything—all that will die: the wife will die, the husband will die, the son will die, the father will die, the friend will die—everyone will die. And yet death is an untruth, because within the son there is someone who is not the son—he will not die; within the father there is someone who is not the father—he will not die. The father will die, and there is someone else inside, other than the father, different from the father, beyond relationship—he will not die. The body will die, and there is someone within the body who does not die. Both things are true at the same time. Therefore, in understanding death, it is right to keep both in remembrance.

Two things must be understood. First: if, without any inquiry or investigation, you label something “superstition,” that is a superstition greater than superstition. That is a very superstitious mind—accepting or rejecting without exploring.

A man says ghosts exist; we call him superstitious. We say they don’t—without inquiry—and we pose as wise. But what does “superstition” mean? If one believes in ghosts without finding out, that is superstition. If another denies ghosts without finding out, that too is superstition. Superstition means: accepting what we do not know. It does not mean “whoever differs from me is superstitious.”

A believer in God may be superstitious, and an atheist can be just as superstitious. Understand the definition: superstition is blind acceptance without knowing. The Russians are superstitious atheists; Indians are superstitious theists. Neither have the Russians discovered there is no God and then concluded it, nor have we discovered that there is and then concluded it. Don’t imagine superstition belongs only to the believer; atheists have their superstitions too. The great joke is: there is such a thing as scientific superstition as well—though it sounds upside down. But it exists.

If you have read a little Euclidean geometry—you learned it at school—Euclid says: “A line is that which has length but no breadth.” What could be more superstitious? No such line exists without breadth. Children read: “A point has neither length nor breadth.” Even the greatest scientist works with this definition. But can something with no length and no breadth be a “point”?

We all “know” counting uses nine digits, one to nine. Why nine? Ask any scientist why not seven? Why not three? There have been mathematicians—Leibniz worked with a different base—who said, “We manage with three: 1, 2, 3; then comes 10, 11, 12, 13; then 20, 21, 22, 23.” It works; what’s the obstacle? He would count all of you just fine. He would say, “Why insist on nine?” Einstein later said even three are superfluous; two suffice. With one alone it’s difficult; with two one can manage. That there must be nine digits—this is scientific superstition. Yet mathematicians clutch it. Tell them seven will do, and they get into difficulty. Much of it is convention, not necessity.

Thousands of things we hold “scientifically true” are really superstitions. In this age religious superstitions are thinning, scientific superstitions are strengthening. What’s the difference? Ask a religious person, “How do you know God?” He says, “It is written in the Gita.” Ask the educated man, “How do you know there are nine digits?” He says, “It is written in such-and-such mathematics book.” Where is the difference? One cites the Gita or Quran; the other cites a math text. What’s the difference?

So first understand what superstition means: accepting or rejecting without knowing. We accept many things; we reject many without knowing—and those rejections are superstitions too.

Suppose in a village someone is “possessed.” All the educated villagers will say, “Superstition!” The uneducated are a write-off—“of course they’re superstitious”—only because they cannot argue their case. But those educated folks don’t know that at Harvard University there has been a department that studies ghosts and spirits, and it has even published proposed spirit photographs. They don’t know that some of the world’s foremost scientists are deeply immersed in research on such phenomena and have reached results that, sooner or later, will show that the so-called educated were the superstitious ones. The “superstitious” villager did not know—and yet what he said may well be true.

Read J. B. Rhine or Oliver Lodge and you’ll be astonished. Oliver Lodge was a great scientist and spent his life researching spirits. On his deathbed he attested: the scientific truths I discovered are not as true as the truths about spirits.

But the educated superstition never bothers to ask what’s being discovered in the world.

If here someone says, “I read another person’s mind,” we say “superstition.” In Soviet Russia—who consider themselves hard scientists—there was a scientist, Fayadev. Sitting in Moscow, he transmitted thought to a man a thousand miles away in Tiflis. The experiment was tested and verified. From Moscow he sent thoughts directly into another’s mind in Tiflis—no medium, no instruments.

Why are they researching it? Because in space travel an emergency may arise: if instruments fail—as they inevitably can—the spacecraft may be lost forever. So they are urgently researching telepathy as a way to contact astronauts without instruments. The results are startling.

In one experiment Fayadev sat in Moscow. In Tiflis, his colleagues hid behind a bush in a public garden, with a wireless set giving a running commentary. They radioed to him: “A man has just sat on bench number ten. Please, within three minutes, send him the suggestion to sleep.” The man was humming, smoking—no sign of drowsiness.

Fayadev focused for three minutes, sending the suggestion—just as I tell you in relaxation, “loosen, loosen”—“Sleep, sleep,” directing his thought toward bench number ten. Exactly at the three-minute mark the man fell asleep; his cigarette dropped.

But it could be coincidence. So they said, “He did fall asleep, but who knows—maybe by chance. Wake him exactly at seven minutes.” Fayadev sent the suggestion. At precisely seven minutes the man opened his eyes and sat up, without any idea what had happened.

They surrounded him and asked, “Did you notice anything?” He said, “Yes. I was waiting for someone, and suddenly felt my whole body going to sleep, beyond my control. Then I seemed to hear a strong call—‘Wake up, wake up’—exactly at seven minutes. I’m puzzled.”

This man knew nothing. Thought-transmission, without any medium, has become a scientific fact. Our educated man still says, “What superstition are you talking!” If this is so, healing a sick man in another village from here is not far-fetched. A snakebite there could be countered from a thousand miles away. It isn’t impossible.

There are many kinds of superstition. And remember: educated superstition is more dangerous than uneducated, because the educated don’t consider their superstition a superstition. They call it “our considered view.”

Now friends say, “We want to break some chains.” First, ascertain they are chains! Otherwise you will break your own hands and feet. If it is a chain, it can be broken; if it isn’t? And be careful you are not smashing an ornament you will have to remake tomorrow, mistaking it for a chain. This needs great care.

I am totally against superstition—of every kind. But that doesn’t mean I am superstitiously for breaking: “Break anything and everything; don’t bother whether it’s right or wrong—just break.” That too becomes a superstition.

Every age has its own superstitions; superstition has fashion. Old ones fade and new ones are picked up. We rarely notice this.

Once it was thought a man with a tilak on his forehead was religious. What has a tilak to do with religion? He applied it and assumed he was holy; he judged those without it as irreligious. That old superstition has gone. New ones have arrived. If a man wears a tie, we take him as respectable; without it, unrespectable. It’s the same thing: the tilak has become a tie. Is a tie better than a tilak? It can be worse. A tilak might have had a meaning; a tie has none—certainly not in a hot country. In a cold land, a tie could have some meaning—binding the neck against cold. There, one who can’t tie it may be poor; one with means protects his throat. But in a hot country, a tie is dangerous—either affluent or mad! In fact “tie” is a noose; the word means a knot. In cold lands it may make sense; in hot lands it’s a hanging rope. Yet prestige-minded people wear their noose: magistrates, lawyers, leaders. Ask them and they’ll say, “Those tilak-wearers are superstitious.” Ask, “Why are you wearing a tie? Is that not a superstition? What scientific rationale is there?”

A tie is this age’s superstition; a tilak was the last age’s. As I said, a tie may have sense in cold countries. And for some, a tilak has a scientific basis. You likely never thought what a tilak means. Most apply it superstitiously. But the first who did had some science in it. Where the tilak is applied lies the ajna chakra. People who meditate there generate heat and stimulation; sandalwood paste cools it. Applying sandalwood there is very scientific for one working on the ajna chakra. If you insist on erasing all tilaks, you will remove both the meaningless and the meaningful.

So “superstition” is not a settled label you can slap on everything. The same act can be superstition in one context and scientific in another; scientific in one context and unscientific in another.

Take Tibet. There it is traditional to bathe once a year—scientific there. There is neither dust nor sweat; daily bathing only harms the body by losing heat—expensive to replace in that climate. In Tibet, to go bare-bodied costs about forty percent more food to maintain lost heat. In India, a hot country, going bare can be wise; in Tibet, it is foolish—fit for an asylum.

Tibetan lamas come to India and still don’t bathe. I stayed with some in Bodh Gaya—the stench was alarming. I asked, “What are you doing?” They said, “We have a rule: bathe once a year.” In Tibet that is science; here it is superstition. They don’t realize the different conditions.

We forget there are countries without dust. When Khrushchev first came to India and went to see the Taj, his car stopped as a huge cloud of dust rose. He got out, stood in it, and said, “Blessed are my fortunes—I never experienced this.” We wouldn’t call dust a blessing. But where he came from there is snow, no dust—so it was wondrous to him, as snow delights us on the Himalayas.

Era, environment, purpose—without inquiring into these, don’t rush to call something a chain and break it. I call that mind scientific which hesitates: which doesn’t quickly declare right or wrong; which says, “Perhaps; let me explore more.” Even at the last moment it avoids final pronouncements. Life is so mysterious that nothing definitive can be said. One can only say, “Given what we know so far, this seems wrong.” The scientific mind says, “As of now it doesn’t seem right—but with more knowledge it may prove right. What is right today may be wrong tomorrow.” The scientific mind stays inquisitive, humble, and in inquiry.

There is a pleasure in clutching superstition, and a pleasure in smashing it. Clutching saves us the labor of thinking; we go with the crowd. Smashing, too, is convenient—one looks “thoughtful” without actually thinking. Truly being thoughtful is arduous; it brings the pain of nuance: “In Tibet, yearly bathing is scientific; in India, not bathing is superstition.” Reformers don’t care for such language; they care for breaking.

So yes, break—many things must be broken. But first break unthinking. The tendency to act without inquiry is the first chain to break. Cultivate the urge to inquire, and break the urge to accept without thinking. That will have wide consequences: we will explore, look, consider.

Today in the West psychoanalysis is in vogue. It often does what the old village exorcist did. In France there is a school of autosuggestion (Coué) doing what amulet-tiers did—but clothed in scientific vocabulary. A village sadhu hands out sacred ash—“superstition,” we say—yet people are cured in roughly the same proportion as by allopathy. In a London hospital, an experiment on a hundred patients with the same illness: fifty got drug injections; fifty got pure water. The recovery rate was identical. The big question arose: what is happening? It turned out: the fact of “being given medicine” works more than the medicine. Even more: how expensive it looks, how famous the doctor is, his attire, his fee, his big car, the difficulty of getting an appointment—these impress you, and that impression heals more than the drug. To be a “good doctor,” medical knowledge is less crucial than good advertising.

France counted about eighty thousand doctors and roughly one hundred sixty thousand quacks. When patients tire of the medicine-givers, they get well with those who know nothing—but know the art of doctoring. Hence all systems “work”: naturopathy works—wrap a wet mud band, it works; give a water enema, it works. Exorcism, amulets, homeopathy’s sugar pills, allopathy—they all work. So how does the patient recover? The mind is involved.

So if a villager ties a pinch of dust in a pouch and gives it, whether to break that “superstition” needs thought. The man with the stethoscope and big car heals less by science and more by magic—the magic of appearances.

I know a “quack” with no degrees whose patients recover when others fail, because he is skilled at understanding people—that is true doctoring. In his clinic the diagnosis itself heals half the illness. He doesn’t listen with a stethoscope to the chest like everyone else. He has contrived a large, solemn room and a device with long glass tubes filled with colored water. When the heart beats, the water leaps in the tubes. The patient watches and feels, “What a great doctor!” It is still a stethoscope, just dramatized.

You know allopathic prescriptions are scrawled illegibly. There’s a reason: if you read it, you might see there’s “nothing much”—you could buy it for pennies. Drug names are in Latin and Greek so you won’t balk. If it were written plainly—“ajwain” (carom seed)—you would refuse a ten-rupee injection of it. These are magical devices—like the sadhu’s ash. If the sadhu is ordinary, it won’t work; if he wears saffron, is known as honest, and doesn’t touch money—it works more. The ash doesn’t work; the surrounding suggestions do. Remove those suggestions here, you will have to create them elsewhere; they don’t vanish.

We need to make people thoughtful so they do not fall ill through unthinking and do not invite false illnesses. As long as false illnesses come, false doctors will exist. Break the old and new will arise.

The deeper work is to dissolve the mind’s disease. People are eager to be deceived; hence someone must supply. It isn’t that a man becomes your leader; rather, you cannot live a moment without a leader, so someone has to become one. Remove one and you’ll make another. Politicians know to keep two parties ready: when you tire of one, you’ll choose the other; when you tire again, you’ll return to the first. It’s a game everywhere.

In Raipur an old friend of mine lost an election; a newcomer won. I asked the old MP, “How?” He said, “Simple. They’re familiar with me; not with him. When they become familiar with him, he will lose. We just have to wait until we become ‘new’ again.”

So the real issue isn’t “remove this leader, remove that superstition.” Change the basic man. The scientific mind won’t be preoccupied with superstitions as objects; they will continue as long as man chooses blindness. And who among us is ready to open our eyes? We don’t want to, because open eyes reveal truths we don’t want to see. So we shut our eyes and imagine what we prefer. A man thinks himself pure, saintly; if he looks closely, he will find the greatest sinner within. He doesn’t want to see that; otherwise his saintliness collapses. He surrounds himself with those who keep him blind—collects disciples who tell him, “You are a great saint.”

There are wonderful tricks for collecting people—even shouting, “Don’t come near me! I want no one!” That too attracts crowds: “See, an extraordinary saint—he beats people away!” In California, on a beach, there was a simple fellow who became a legend: if you offered him a ten-dollar bill and a ten-cent coin, he would quickly choose the shiny dime and leave the ten-dollar bill. People thronged to test him; for twenty years he “never learned.” One observer finally asked him in private, “Haven’t you recognized the ten-dollar bill?” He said, “I recognized it the first day. If I choose it once, the game ends. By not choosing it, I’ve collected thousands of ten-dollar bills in dimes. Choose it once, and that will be the only note I ever see.” If you want to collect notes, kick money in public and notes come in.

So who is at fault—the man or those “testers”? Because fools are eager to be fleeced, someone will fleece them. This will only stop when we break human stupidity.

That’s why all religions try to break chains and end up making new ones. What difference does it make? Reformers come to erase superstitions; nothing gets erased. A few who are bored of the old pick up the new—and feel happy they’ve “changed.”

The truly thoughtful person doesn’t clutch—neither superstition nor belief. The intelligent one lives intelligently; he doesn’t manufacture chains because he knows the joy of being free.

The task is to awaken enough consciousness in each person that the longing to be free, thoughtful, self-aware, conscious arises. Let the urge to be a follower, to trail behind, to believe blindly, diminish. Then superstitions will fall—not some kinds, but all at once. Otherwise they never leave.

For five thousand years our misfortune has been to try breaking a superstition without changing the person. We change only the object; the person manufactures a new superstition. If he clutches what we give, we feel pleased.

A district collector once asked me privately, “If I start wearing clothes like yours, will it benefit me?” What can clothes do? Wear whatever you enjoy. If someone enjoys ochre robes (sannyas), why stop him? If someone likes black, let him wear black. But let it be known: changing clothes is not changing life. Otherwise he will drop one costume and grab another.

Gandhiji once told a saffron-clad monk who wanted to serve, “First drop the ochre. People will make you serve them; they won’t let you serve in ochre.” The point seemed right—but then he put him into khadi. Now khadi-wearers have extracted more “service” than the ochre-clad ever did. What changed? One superstition was dropped; another, stronger, was adopted.

A young man used to visit me; he recited scriptures—Upanishads, Gita, Vedas—by heart. I said, “Stop this nonsense—nothing will come of it.” He was annoyed, yet kept coming—anger too is a relationship. Slowly he absorbed the point. One day he said, “I’ve tied up all my scriptures and thrown them into the well.” I asked, “When did I tell you to do that?” He said, “I had to empty the shelf to put your books. I agree with your books.” I said, “Now it’s worse. Throw mine into the same well.” He said, “Impossible.” So nothing changed—Gita became “my” book. What fault was Krishna’s? If you must clutch, his book was heavier, at least gave your chest some weight!

This is what keeps happening: the person remains the same; only the toys change. Teachers feel gratified when their “brand” of belief is adopted—ego is pleased—but humanity gains nothing. We must break the clinging itself, the blindness.

So I say to that friend: don’t go out to break superstitions; break the superstitious mind—the mind from which superstitions arise. Work at the root. If the mind remains the same, you can break chains all you like; it will make new ones. And note: new chains are more alluring than old, and stronger—because the technology of chain-making has advanced. Sometimes I feel professional chain-breakers only replace worn-out chains with fresh, stronger ones.

My emphasis, I hope, is clear: break the superstitious mind; I have nothing to do with particular superstitions. Cut the root. How? Superstition insists on blindness; that is its root. If you want to uproot it, insist on thoughtfulness. Think, inquire, be curious. Say only what stands in experience—and even then add: it need not be final. Tomorrow my experience may differ; even mine today may be delusion. Until many independent experiments corroborate it, refrain from final statements.

A scientist repeats experiments thousands of times, has thousands repeat them, then tentatively arrives at a conclusion—and never a final one. Whoever is in a hurry to reach final conclusions cannot think; that hurry fills him with superstition. And we are all in a hurry.

Before working on such phenomena, neither say “they are” nor “they aren’t.” Suspend judgment. Say, “I don’t know.” That is the mark of a scientific mind. If someone asks, “Do spirits exist?” you should be able to say, “I don’t know. I haven’t investigated it. I haven’t fully known myself—how will I research spirits?” Don’t answer yes or no in haste. A thoughtful person answers with difficulty.

Einstein was asked the difference between a scientist and a superstitious man. He said, “Ask a superstitious man a hundred questions—he’ll be ready with a hundred and one answers. Ask a scientist a hundred—he’ll say for ninety-eight, ‘I do not know,’ and for two he’ll say, ‘I know a little, but it isn’t ultimate—it may change tomorrow.’”

Remember: the scientific mind is the only truly simple mind; the superstitious mind only appears simple. In fact it is complex and sly. It slyly says “yes” about what it does not know. It cannot explain the stone at the door, yet it brandishes a knife over God—“ours is right, yours wrong.” Where there is quarrel, know there is superstition. Knowledge never quarrels; it cannot. The superstitious man tries to prove he is right by fighting, because he has no other means—no thought, no experiment, no evidence. Only the club: whose stick is stronger? Who can break whose skull?

This is happening everywhere—not only with religious leaders. Politicians too: whether Russia is right or America is right will be decided by hydrogen bombs! Can that decide what is right? Whether Marx is right—how will that be decided? By swords? By bombs? It should be decided by thought. But man is not free for thought; he is encircled by superstition.

So my emphasis is not on breaking the chains themselves, but on breaking the mind that forges them. If that mind remains, break chains as you wish—it will make new ones, stronger and prettier. Those who trade in breaking superstitions often only substitute robust new ones for worn old ones.

Cut the root. And the root is this: superstition thrives on blindness; let us cultivate thoughtfulness. Think, search, inquire. Say what fits experience—and still say it conditionally. Until many, many verifications affirm it, refrain from finality. Only then is there hope of freedom from chains. Otherwise, we will keep changing chains and remain bound.

He is in such a hurry that he wants to know all this at once—so much in a hurry! A man in such haste is bound to become superstitious. There is no patience! For the search, great patience is needed, immense forbearance, an extremely patient mind. No worry if a whole lifetime passes and we do not attain—no worry; still we will search.

For the thoughtful, attaining is not important; seeking is. For the credulous, attaining is important; seeking is not important at all. The superstitious man is eager to get it quickly. “Where is God?” He is not much concerned to inquire whether he is or not; he lacks the knack of searching. He says, “You search and tell me.” Hence his hunt for a guru.

Anyone who is looking for a guru will remain superstitious; he cannot stop. In fact, to look for a guru means: “You have already found—fine, then tell us. Since you have found, why should we search? We’ll hold your feet; please bestow it upon us.”

So people run for shaktipat—someone to place a hand on their skull and grant them knowledge of God. They go around taking mantras, getting their ears whispered into, paying fees, pressing the master’s feet, doing service—in the hope that what another has obtained will become theirs.

This can never happen. It is the grip of a superstitious mind. What someone else has found cannot become your own. He searched; you want to seize it for free. And remember, if he truly searched, then in searching he would also have discovered that it is found by seeking, not by begging. Therefore he will not make disciples either. Only those who have not found make disciples. They themselves clutch at some higher guru. There is a long chain of gurus, all hoping that the other will give, the other will give. Many gurus are dead, and people are still holding on to their legs, hoping they will give. There is a long chain of those dead gurus over thousands and hundreds of thousands of years, each holding the other’s feet, hoping someone will give. Such is the sign of a superstitious mind.

The mark of the seeker’s mind, the reflective mind, is: If it exists, I will search. If it is found, it will be found by my worthiness and right. If found, it will be by my offering of life. If found, it will be through my austerity, my meditation. If found, it will be the fruit of my labor.

And remember, even if the divine were available free, the thoughtful person would refuse. He would say, “What is not earned by my own effort is not worth taking. I will gain it through my own effort.” And remember, there are things that can only be obtained by one’s own labor. God is not among the things sold in the marketplace. Truth is not one of those items for which there is a shop where you can go and buy it.

But the shops are open. There are shops and bazaars where it is written: “Genuine Truth sold here.” As if truth, too, comes in genuine and fake! “The true Guru resides here; all others elsewhere are false.” “This shop is the real one—take it from here. Give us a chance to serve.” It is written on all the shops. And once you enter a shop, its owner will not let you get out easily.

This superstitious mind of ours is creating all the mischief.

So I want to tell you: depend on search, not on alms. It will not come by asking; it comes by knowing. And do not believe. Someone may have attained—fine. Do not disbelieve either, for that too is a kind of blind belief—another haste. Neither believe nor disbelieve. If someone says, “I have found God,” say, “Great grace has fallen upon you.” But please do not tell me—let me search too; otherwise I will remain crippled. If you are taken to a destination by another who has walked it, you will reach crippled, because legs are strengthened by walking. And arriving at the destination is not as important as the traveler becoming strong. To get something is not as important as the transformation of the one who gets.

God, liberation, knowledge—these are not ready-made garments, stitched and available. They are not things you can get off the shelf. They are the fruit of the offering of an entire life, of the labor and discipline of a whole lifetime. They are the ultimate flower that comes.

But if you go to the market for flowers, you get paper flowers—they last longer, too. Dust them daily and they keep up their appearance. And they deceive—but whom? Paper flowers can deceive the other. A passerby on the road may be fooled whether the flower in your window is paper or real. But you cannot be deceived, for you bought them yourself; you know well they are paper. For a real flower you must plant seeds, work, raise the plant; then the flowers come. You don’t have to bring them—they come of themselves.

The experience of the divine is like the flower; sadhana is like the plant. Care for the plant; the flower will come by itself. But we are in a hurry. We say, forget the plant—just give us the flower.

Little children go to school for an exam; they don’t work out the math. The answers are printed at the back of the book—they flip it and copy them. The answer is exactly right, and yet completely wrong. How can an answer be right if one has not gone through the method? He has written the right answer—five—and those who did the method also wrote five. But you see the difference: between the five that comes from method and the five stolen from the back of the book—whether stolen from the Gita or from the Koran, what difference does it make—the two answers, while identical, are not the same. There is a basic difference. The real question is not arriving at the answer “five”; the real question is that you learn how to add. And the one who copied “five” has not learned mathematics—he has only got the answer.

So if you have learned it from somewhere, got it from somewhere, heard and grabbed it from someone, then your God will be stolen from the back of a book—dead, lifeless, useless, not alive. Living religion comes from living it, not from answers printed at the back of some book.

But we are all thieves. We scold the child: don’t steal. The teacher instructs him: don’t look at the back of the book. “You haven’t brought answers written on slips, have you?” The boy takes them from his pocket and puts them on the table. But if the teacher asks himself whether his own answers are not stolen, he will find they are. Guru thieves, disciple thieves—everyone a thief. The answers to life are all stolen. And from stolen answers neither peace nor joy can come, because joy comes from passing through the process by which answers flower—they are not imported.

A few questions remain; we will talk about them tomorrow morning. Now we will sit for the night meditation.

Those friends who want to sit for meditation, please move apart and make some space. Those who do not wish to sit, please leave very quietly and without any conversation. And whoever remains here must not remain as a spectator but as an experimenter. Do not talk. Move silently to a little distance.

Yes, those who have to go should go quickly. Those who are seated, make space and sit. If anyone needs to lie down, lie down from the start. And later, if you feel as if you are going to fall, let go and fall. So make sure there is space behind you, so that if you fall you do not disturb anyone.

Sit quietly... close the eyes... gently close the eyes... close the eyes so that the connection with the outside is broken... close the eyes. Let the body go completely loose... relaxed... leave it relaxed. As if there is no strength in the body, no life-breath—let it be that loose. Then I suggest: experience with me.

Experience: the body is relaxing... the body is relaxing... the body is relaxing... Feel it—the body is becoming relaxed. The body obeys us and slowly relaxes. The body is relaxing... the body is relaxing... the body is relaxing... the body is relaxing... Feel this and let go. As if the body is no more—dead, gone. We have slipped back; awareness has slipped back; we have turned within; the body has become utterly relaxed. The body is relaxed... the body is relaxed... the body is completely relaxed. Let go—drop all hold on the body. The body is relaxed... the body is relaxing... relaxing... relaxing... the body is completely relaxed.

Feel that the breath is becoming quiet... the breath is becoming quiet... becoming quieter... quieter... the breath is becoming utterly still... the breath is becoming quiet... becoming quiet... becoming quiet. Let go of the body, of the breath—let go. Become completely quiet, relaxed. The breath has become quiet... the breath has become quiet... the breath is quiet.

Thoughts too are falling silent... becoming silent... becoming silent... becoming silent... Let go of thoughts as well; move back from them... thoughts are becoming silent... thoughts are becoming silent...

The body is relaxed, the breath is quiet, thoughts have fallen into silence. Now sink within, deeper within, and for the final ten minutes remain only a watcher, a witness. Simply knowing that you are. Knowing, being. And knowing... looking within... knowing... seeing... knowing.

Let there remain within, like a flame, only pure knowing. Remain only a seer. For ten minutes, remain a seer in silence.

The mind has become quiet, has become empty... and sink within; let go of the body completely, let go of everything. The body will begin to seem as if it is lying far away. It will appear to be lying far, very far away. Even the breath is heard from a distance. Remain a witness, keep watching. Stay awake like a flame.

(Silence, solitude, stillness...)

The mind has become completely quiet, has become empty... Keep watching within, awake; everything is erased... as if everything has died... everything has become emptiness... only that remains which always remains.

Look within... look within... keep watching within, awake. You will enter a new world.

Deeper, and deeper, let go of everything; let go of the body completely. Let go of the breath... let go of thought... just remain awake, watching.

(Silence, solitude, stillness...)

The mind has become utterly empty... the mind has become empty... the mind has become empty. You have descended into a deep peace. Only wakefulness remains. Awake within, you are watching. The body lies far away... the breath seems to come from afar... we have gone far away. Let go completely... let go of everything... just remain, watching.

(Silence, solitude, stillness...)

Now slowly take two, four, five deep breaths... slowly take deep breaths. Keep watching the breath as well... it will seem very far. Slowly take deep breaths... the mind will become even more silent... slowly take deep breaths. Now slowly open your eyes. Those who have lain down, slowly take deep breaths, open your eyes, and get up; rise very gently.
Our night sitting is complete.