Nahin Ram Bin Thaon #4

Enlightenment has no connection with any external object. It cannot. Enlightenment is an inner event. It happens within you and only because of you. If it is obstructed, you are the obstruction. If it has not happened till now, you are the only reason. No one other than you is responsible for ignorance. Therefore, for enlightenment too, nothing and no one other than you can be the cause.

Remember this: the same place where an event is blocked is also where assistance can come. No tree is the cause of your ignorance. The Bodhi tree was not a hindrance to Buddha’s enlightenment, so it cannot be its helper either. The tree bears no responsibility. What relationship could there be between Buddha and the tree? If Buddhahood did not happen, Buddha himself was the cause; if it did happen, he himself was the cause.

First understand this as a fundamental principle. Because the ordinary tendency of our mind is to shift responsibility onto something else. When something bad happens, we think: someone else—perhaps the stars, the planets, circumstances, people. And when something good happens we again think its source lies somewhere outside us.

There is a reason for this habit of the mind: it relieves the mind of responsibility. One’s own accountability becomes zero. So one person invokes fate, another God. Someone says, “When it is written in my destiny, then it will happen.” Then there is no question of doing anything, of journeying in any direction, of making any effort. “When it is God’s will, it will be.”

Other than your will, there is no will—neither as friend nor as foe. Apart from your own will, there is no destiny.

And yet, Buddha was under a tree when enlightenment happened; Socrates too was leaning on a tree; Mahavira also was near a tree. What could be the reason? All these events cannot be purely accidental.

The reason is simply this, as I was telling you yesterday: the first layer upon a person is that of culture, society, conditioning; the second layer is nature. And the third, the foundational essence, is the divine.

So understand it like this: culture is the outer layer; nature is the deeper layer beneath it; and swabhava, your intrinsic nature—your very being—is the core. Or say: your true form is the center; nature is the circumference around that center; and over nature there is the web of conditioning.

The tree is only a symbol of nature. All these people left culture and society and went into the forest—understand this symbolically. They dropped conditioning and moved into nature. The event happened in nature, not in culture. It happened where nothing man-made was present—no human sign, no signature; where there were no human rules or man-created artificial nets. There the event occurred. But the tree is not the cause of the event. These people stepped away from culture and moved into nature.

And then, in nature, they practiced stepping away even from nature and dropped nature too. You can leave culture and go into the forest; but once in the forest, where will you go next? Both culture and nature are outside. You can move from culture into nature, and from nature back into culture. But if you are to leave both, where will you go?

Then no outer movement remains. Only the inward journey remains. Leave society and go to the Himalayas; leave the Himalayas and return to the city—both are outside. The one who, leaving conditioning, has reached the world of nature—where to next? Now he will leave nature too, close his eyes, and go within.

So the first journey is from culture to nature; the second is from the outer to the inner. These events occurred in nature because there the second journey begins.

Nature is a midway resting place between conditioning and essence; a brief rest there is necessary. This story of sages resting under trees is the story of people who, having left conditioning and society, rested under the shade of nature. From there, the onward journey begins—towards the within.

Buddhahood does not happen under a tree; it happens within oneself. The tree is only a wayside inn.

If this is understood, your path of practice too will become simple. First cleanse culture—wipe off whatever man has scribbled upon you. The moment it is wiped off, you will find yourself under the tree, in nature. Coming into nature means becoming like a pure child—innocent, guileless; all that arithmetic, cleverness, cunning that society gave you has dropped; innocence and a certain purity have dawned. Now you are neither good nor bad.

No tree is good or bad. You cannot divide trees into saintly and non-saintly. If you are sitting under a tree and it drops a fruit on your head and hurts you, you still cannot call it wicked. Even if the tree were to fall on you and you died, no one would call it a murderer. Because a tree’s consciousness is not yet divided into good and bad. If you die under a tree, it is a coincidence; the tree is not responsible—it had no intention to kill you.

Coming into nature means stepping back from notions of good and bad—arriving where pure, untainted nature is; where there is no duality, no choosing, no personal agenda; where whatever happens is accepted; where we do not control—we simply flow.

This is the tree under whose shade Buddhahood has seemed to happen. And whenever you step away from “man,” you become light. Perhaps you haven’t noticed: the peace you feel on a mountain does not come from the mountain itself, but from being away from people.

You are walking alone on a path; no one else is there. Suddenly a person appears on the road—you change at once. Your gait changes, your eyes change, a new burden settles on your mind. Society has entered. A moment ago you were alone: trees, birds, sky, stars—yet you were alone. There was no one there to judge whether you were right or wrong, whether your walk was proper or improper. You were walking in your own delight, humming a tune, laughing—alone. In that aloneness you became like a small child—perhaps talking to yourself, making faces, dancing. But the moment someone appears on the path, everything changes; childhood is lost; you return to your calculations. “What will this person think?” Society is present. Now you will behave as society wants, otherwise you will seem deranged. Now you will be careful. Etiquette and civility have returned.

The pleasure that comes in solitude is freedom from society—because society is a perpetual prison spread on all sides.

People come to me and say: “Meditation is delightful, bliss arises—but because someone is watching, we can’t let go completely. What will people say if they see us? That becomes an obstacle.”

The other’s eyes are decisive—because he will not only see; he will judge whether you are right or wrong. He will form opinions about you. If he had some estimation of you, it will change. Until now he thought you were a good, cultured, civilized person; and if he sees you crying, screaming and shouting in meditation, his view will change.

And we live by people’s opinions; their opinion is very valuable—because we have to live among them. Tomorrow you may need something from this man; he won’t even let you into his office. If you greet him, he’ll dodge you—lest anyone see that he knows this “crazy” person. He’ll think, “Surely there’s some craziness in him too.”

Opinion frightens us, and society is a web of opinion all around us. A lady told me, “I go to see the meditations but I can’t do them there, because a hundred, two hundred people gather to watch; many of them know me.” Western seekers can meditate here more easily than you can. The reason is that no one here knows them; they don’t value your opinion, and they have nothing to do with you.

If you go to England or America, you will meditate with the same ease—because what’s the point? That society isn’t yours. Those people are as good as non-existent. Whatever their eyes judge, what harm can it do you? But the eyes that know you, with whom you have dealings, business—those you fear. Your self-interest might suffer by offending them.

And the image you have in their eyes—if that changes, you become restless. Because you have no understanding of yourself; what others think you are, that is what you think you are. If others say you are beautiful, you believe you are beautiful. If others say you are good and decent, you believe you are good and decent. And if others begin to think you are mad, it won’t be long before you start doubting yourself—and soon you will accept that you are mad.

Psychologists say we stunt the intelligence of many children because from the beginning we look at them as if they are dull. If you keep telling a child, “You are stupid; you have no brains; when will you ever become intelligent?”—it will never happen. And remember, the sin is yours, that intelligence did not flower—because the child too will settle into the belief: “If Father says it, he must be right; if Mother says it, she must be right; the schoolteacher also says it, he must be right. If everyone believes I am dull, then I must prove them right—breaking everyone’s belief is not nice.” Whenever he proves himself dull he’ll say, “Of course this was bound to happen; I am dull; everyone says so.”

Psychologists say that any belief repeated often enough settles into the unconscious and becomes effective.

So you have fashioned your self-image from what society says about you. For that image you depend on the eyes of others—it is a borrowed image. Only those can be free of the borrowed image who have discovered their real face—who have known truly, “Who am I?” Only the self-knower can be free of the borrowed image; and until you break that borrowed image, you cannot become a self-knower.

That is why Mahavira and Buddha head for the forest. The forest does not attract you; you are repelled by society. The mountains are not calling—you are turning away. Mountains are lovable because they do not judge. If you dance there in abandon, no mountain will say you are mad.

Trees are like saints. They form no opinions about you and express no judgments. Whether you sit or stand, weep or laugh—everything is fine. The tree accepts you as you are; it will not hinder your being in any way.

But man is strange: he does not accept that you have any freedom to be—that you have the right to be yourself. He says, “I will interfere. I will shape you.” Everyone is busy shaping everyone else. The wife is managing the husband; the husband is managing the wife; the father is managing the son; the sons are managing the father. Our eyes stand guard like soldiers—these are not eyes, they are bayonets. Through them we announce our judgments—right or wrong. Praise and blame rain on all sides.

To find oneself amidst this web is very difficult. That is why people withdrew to the forest. That is why Buddha had to leave the palace.

Remember, my emphasis is not on leaving the palace as such. The forest is not calling; rather, this inner web of conditioning is so entangled with the palace that without leaving the palace it will not break. If it breaks even after leaving the palace, that is enough. The fear is it may keep haunting even without the palace.

Buddha left his palace, and wherever he entered, the local king would come and plead, “What are you doing? If you can’t get along with your father—no problem, I am his friend—then accept my palace, my young daughter; marry her, rule half my kingdom. It does not befit a prince to roam like a beggar. If you cannot reconcile with your father, never mind, we are here—his friends, like your father.”

Buddha would laugh, “This is not about getting along or not getting along with my father. It is not about leaving this palace or that palace. It is about changing myself. When I couldn’t change myself in my father’s palace, it will be even more difficult in yours. If it is so hard among my own people, it will be harder among strangers. One’s own may forgive a little; strangers do not forgive at all. The gaze of strangers is harsh, their judgment hard. One’s own has some mercy; even if you err, he doesn’t condemn—he turns his eyes away. But a stranger—why should he turn his eyes away?”

For six years Buddha kept receiving invitations. And when news reached his father that Buddha begged on the streets, he said, “What madness! We have everything; in our line no one has ever begged—we have always been emperors. What kind of madness has seized him?”

Surely the father must have felt Buddha was mad. To escape such eyes he had to go to the forest. If only the father had accepted that this is Buddha’s way of being—and that this too is worthy!

There are infinite ways of being in this world; every soul has the right to become what it can become—to fulfill its inner potential, its destiny.

And love means precisely this: to let the other become what he can become. Let the seed reach its flowering; do not obstruct it. Do not tell the rose to become jasmine; do not advise the jasmine to become a lotus. Let the jasmine be jasmine. Water it, care for it—but do not obstruct its becoming. That is the meaning of love. Therefore love hardly exists in the world.

If only there had been love in the palace, Buddha would not have had to leave. For love accepts you as you are; love does not try to change you. The urge to change is part of violence and hatred. The attempt to change is a subtle kind of surgery: we will cut and polish you; we will use you like a stone and carve our image into you—chisel in one hand, hammer in the other. Until you become what we want, we will hold you wrong.

Everyone is polishing everyone else—and in this polishing no one is polished, only deformed. Because each person can only become what he has the capacity to become. There is no way to make him otherwise. Whenever we try, the result is that what he could have been, he never becomes; and what he cannot become, how will he become that? He will be crippled—hung suspended like Trishanku. His path, his destiny is derailed, and what he cannot be, he will never be.

Therefore we all live half-made and ugly, and die half-made and ugly. Our seeds rarely reach their proper flowering. That is why there are so few Buddhas, so few Mahaviras.

Every person is born with the capacity for Buddhahood. But so many people are busy making him into this and that. It is said: if there are too many cooks, the broth is spoiled. Here, around each person there are so many “artists,” so many sculptors, that there is no possibility for this statue ever to be completed—it cannot be made. The mother is making something of the son, the father something else, the grandfather something else, the uncle something else, the brother has another plan, the teacher another method, the politician another aspiration. All are making him. These are his destroyers. The attempt to make the other is destruction.

We can support, we can give a hand; but the other should become what his inner destiny dictates. But that is difficult—why should we support? Our support becomes exploitation. We give support only as a bargain: if you agree to obey us. Even a father says to the son, “If you won’t listen to me, these doors are closed to you.”

Those doors are not open out of love; the father’s violence is a deal: “Become what I want, what my ego decides, and then your food, livelihood, this house are yours. If not, what relation do I have with you? If you wish to be your own man, stand on your own feet.”

The constant quarrel between husband and wife across the whole earth does not arise from husband and wife themselves; its cause is this tendency. The wife cannot accept that the husband is free; she wants to control his every fiber.

I have heard: A schoolteacher sent a note to the mother of a boy in her class: “I am exhausted trying to manage your son, but can’t figure it out; he chases all the girls in school and teases them.” The mother wrote back: “If you discover a method, please tell me, because I am caught in the same problem with his father. If you succeed in finding a way to stop my son from chasing girls, tell me—I will use the same method on his father. For twelve years I’ve tried and failed.”

Every wife tries her whole life—and fails. Not because men are bad, but because no one has ever succeeded in making another person. The husband too keeps watchful eyes. Those eyes cannot be of love, because love accepts and trusts. Trust is the mark of love. He sits in the office worried that his wife may be laughing and talking with someone—because he cannot tolerate the thought that she could laugh without him; without him she should sit and weep.

All husbands think their wives are like Kalidasa’s heroines—sending messages by clouds, wasting away—seeing no other man; as if there is only one window to joy, and that is the husband; as if the only fresh air must come through him and all other directions are blank.

This is not trust, nor love; it is an attempt to mold the other to one’s own pattern—as if the other were a tool, an object to be decorated and arranged; not a person, not a soul.

This urge to change the other—whatever the relationship—this urge is what we call society. It becomes so heavy that Buddha has to go to the forest.

And where will he sit in the forest? Anywhere—under a tree. That’s why I say it is coincidental. There is the tree’s shade; he sits beneath it, away from society. Society burns like fire; its poison must be cleansed. And we have not yet created a society on earth in which Buddhahood can be born within it. Only that society I would call true society where one need not go to the forest for enlightenment. Until then, we must admit that what we have is a deception of society—a group of killers and violent people pressing on everyone’s neck.

But the methods of pressing on the neck are so subtle that even the one being choked feels happy; he may think it is all being done for his good. So it is explained, with a propaganda of thousands of years, that whatever “we” do to you is for your benefit. Even if we kill you, it is for your good.

And what is being done to you is exactly what you are doing to others.

One must step out of this tumult. Therefore the event happens there. But remember: after enlightenment, the Buddha returns to society; after attaining Jina-hood, Mahavira returns. Very little thought has been given to this second event: why do they return?

Now there is no fear. Now, however many hands press on his neck, they cannot erase the Buddha. He has attained that which cannot be erased. Immortality has become part of his life; the stream is now eternal. Now when you go to the Buddha, you will be in difficulty; you can no longer put him in difficulty. If you go to him, you take the risk upon yourself. And the Buddha will not be trying to change you, but the way a Buddha is, you will change.

A master is not one who is after you to change you. A master is one in whose presence change begins to happen. A master can be no more than a catalytic agent; if he is more, he is dangerous. If he tries directly to change you, he too is jumping on your neck. If he flatters or condemns you, cajoles or coerces you, smiles when you obey and is angry when you don’t—then he is using the carrot and stick of heaven and hell. He will torment you and destroy you. That is why most gurus are enemies of their followers; with most gurus, disciples never find new life—they only rot and are ruined.

Only that master can set you free who doesn’t even make a direct effort to set you free, who is not overtly eager to change you; yet whose very presence transforms you indirectly. You go near him, and transformation begins—like when the sun rises and a bud below starts to open. No ray is prying it open; and if the bud doesn’t open, the sun won’t be sad. If it doesn’t open, the sun won’t be concerned. But in the presence of the sun’s rays, the bud begins to blossom, because blossoming in the sun is such a joy; drinking the sunbeams is such a benediction; dancing in the sun is the bud’s dream of lifetimes.

The bud opens by itself; the sun is not opening it. The birds open their eyes on their own; the sun does not knock on their doors, saying, “Wake up, dawn has come, get up now, the Brahma-muhurta is proper.” The sun says nothing. The rays begin to arrive; birds’ throats awaken; their eyes open; they start singing. A moment of festival has arrived—and they join in. Their joining is their own doing. Whatever the sun’s presence accomplishes, it is indirect. In its presence something happens, but the sun itself does nothing.

Even if the whole earth sleeps, if not a single bud blooms nor a single bird sings, the sun’s joy is unaffected. It is not that at noon it will grow sad, retract its rays, and tears will drop from its eyes. Nor will it think the next morning, “Should I rise or not? Should I drive my chariot on this journey or stop? If people have rejected me, why should I care?”

The true master is like the sun; disciples blossom around him, but he makes no effort. Whether saint or sinner, all are the same in his eyes. There is no special praise for the saint, no condemnation for the sinner. Only such a person holds catalytic possibility; around such a person, something can happen.

Buddhas return like the sun. In their presence, events begin to happen.

Being with such a master is what we call satsang—being in the company of truth. The very name of our unique literature is Upanishad; it means, “to sit near the master.” Do nothing—just be near; so that rays emanating from his unknowable depths may begin to open your buds.

We have to say “open,” but even that word is not quite right—because “opening” suggests someone is doing something. No; in his presence your buds suddenly begin to open. The master does nothing, yet much happens around him. With the one who “does,” nothing real happens.

Buddha-like ones return to society. Now, for them, society no longer exists. Yesterday, before Buddhahood, society existed—because it could erase them. Now no one can erase them; they can return. Society’s poison is no longer poison to them; destruction is impossible. Now whoever goes to destroy them returns carrying something from them—sharing in their love, accepting a gift that will affect his life for lifetimes.

Enlightenment is found in the forest—and enlightenment is distributed back in society. No enlightened one has remained in the jungle; if he remains, enlightenment is not yet complete. Because when bliss comes, the urge to share comes with it.

Understand this a little. We give what we have: if we have misery, we share misery; if we have joy, we share joy. Whatever we have grows by sharing. Share misery and misery grows; share joy and joy grows. Whatever you share, that increases. Sharing is the way of growth.

So if you are wise, you will not give others sorrow—for that will increase your own sorrow. You will not scatter thorns in another’s path—for they are thorns on your own path, and sooner or later you will meet them. If you are intelligent, you will never share sorrow, because sharing increases it and not sharing lets it die. If you are wise, you will always share joy—because sharing increases it and hoarding kills it. Sharing is the formula for expansion.

The miser only dies. The miser has no life; he is a corpse. No festival ever comes to the miser’s life, it cannot—because festival comes only by sharing, by giving.

That is why on festival days we exchange gifts; we share something. And if nothing else, at least we offer good wishes—share the delight of our heart. All festival days are days of sharing.

A miser can never share; no thrill can ever come to his life. You will not find anyone more dead in this world than a miser. Even the dead are not as dead as a miser.

I have heard: A man died in a village—a Scot. The doctor was called because the death seemed suspicious. He came to examine, but instead of examining, he only slipped his hand into the Scot’s pocket. He pulled it out and said, “This man is utterly dead.” People said, “What a strange method! We’ve seen many examinations—what is this?” He said, “Put your hand in a Scot’s pocket—if he is alive, he cannot lie still, even if the pocket is empty. In Europe, Scots are considered the stingiest. If even one breath remained, the man would have sprung up, ‘Who put a hand in my pocket!’ He is completely dead; there is no need for any further test.”

Miserliness means contraction, a shrinking personality. And one who is shrinking—how will he find the vastness of Brahman? Brahman means expansion. Only the one who expands finds it. So when joy happens, joy is shared; when knowing happens, knowing is shared.

You too share. If enlightenment has not happened, you share ignorance. There is nothing people give away more than advice. There are so many ignoramuses—and everyone is giving advice. Ignorance multiplies endlessly through counsel. Because the ignorant never even wonder whether they know what they are advising about. The question of knowing does not arise; giving advice feels like knowing. A wise man hesitates to advise; the ignorant never hesitate. Ask him anything—he is ready with advice.

We share ignorance, we share sorrow, we share jealousy and ambition—we release the germs of every disease into the world, freely. And so we turn the world into a madhouse—a great sickness.

The wise also share. The joyful also share. Consciousness that has touched the divine shares too. And sharing can only happen in society. Knowledge may dawn under the Bodhi tree—but the sharing of it can only happen among you.

All awakened ones return to society—but they return only when this social web can no longer affect them in the least; when not a single line drawn by society can land upon them; when society may draw countless lines, but they turn into lines drawn on water—before they are drawn, they scatter and vanish. Neither your praise then affects them nor your blame. What you say becomes meaningless.

No, there is no esoteric, secret connection. And do not think enlightenment will happen only under a tree. It can happen anywhere. The sky is as innocent as any tree. It can happen under the roof of this house, because even the tiles on the roof are more innocent than men. It can happen anywhere—behind a rock, under the open sky.

There is no causal connection between enlightenment and a tree. It has often happened under trees only because society is not yet worthy enough to be made into a Bodhi tree. Society is still incompetent, weak, diseased—that’s all.

But there is no need to search for any occult or hidden link.

All three are true together. The discipline is extremely difficult—because it concerns the Unknown. And when you come to learn about that which you have never known, with which you have had no contact, no recognition, whatever is said simply disappears into the void.

If there were even a tiny experience of it within, then the words pointing toward the unknown could gather around that experience. But such an experience is missing; so everything flows over your head. This is a wisdom of the unknown, and it does not connect with what you already know. If it did connect, it would lodge inside you, find a place and stick. As it is, it passes by without touching you; you cannot catch hold of it.

How could you catch it? That with which you try to grasp has no relation to it. It is like trying to seize the wind in your fist. You clench the fist, and the wind is outside. The irony is: in the open palm the wind is there; in the clenched fist it is lost. And if someone discovers that when he clenches his fist the wind slips away, what will his logic say? “I didn’t clench tightly enough.” “I was a moment late; next time snap it shut faster so the wind can’t escape.” “There must be tiny holes in my fist where the wind leaks out.” All very reasonable—and all wrong. Logic will never say, “It is your clenching that makes the wind vanish. Don’t clench at all—the wind is always here.”

But our mind protests: how can anything be had without holding? Money we lock in a safe and it stays; money we close in a fist and it stays. If we left money in an open palm it wouldn’t remain for a moment. “If it won’t stay even in a clenched fist, then how in an open palm?” Forget the key to the safe and the treasure is gone.

Life’s experience says: hold, grasp tight—only then do you keep anything. But we know nothing about holding the wind; its way is the opposite. Open, free, and then the wind is yours. The moment you bind it, you miss. The moment you bind, you lose.

There can be no safes and keys for the wind; the very meaning of wind is freedom. It is always flowing. Even if you somehow trap it, it will turn stale; the life-giving element in it will dissolve. Close air in and the oxygen is lost; only nitrogen and other deathly elements remain. First, it is nearly impossible to bind the wind; second, if you succeed, whatever was worth keeping in it is exactly what will be lost—and what is worthless will remain.

Such is our situation. What we know belongs to matter, to the world, to the body. Of the unknown we know nothing. We try to apply to the unknown the very methods by which we succeeded with the known. Hence, success in this world turns into failure in that one.

Until now whatever you have learned, you have learned through memory. Nothing of the other world can be learned through memory; it is known only through experience. What you have known so far is small, limited, definable. What I am pointing to has no limit; it is vast, and it cannot be defined.

People ask, “What is the definition of God?” The very question is foolish. A definition is possible only where there is a boundary. And definitions are always made by bringing in the opposite. If someone asks you, “What is life?” you immediately have to invoke death and say, “That which is not death.” If someone asks, “What is light?” you must bring in darkness and say, “That which is not darkness.” Even the greatest dictionaries play this child’s game. Look up “matter” and it says, “not mind.” Turn to “mind” and it says, “not matter.” Are these definitions—where you must smuggle in the opposite? It is only a game.

The difficulty is that this game cannot be played with God, because God has no opposite that could help you define Him. The boundary of your house is formed by the existence of another’s house. If you alone were on the earth, how would you draw a boundary? A boundary requires the other, the opposite, even an enemy. With God there is none other—no “other” can be said, no adversary. Therefore God cannot be forced into the categories of duality.

Visitors come and ask me, “What is the definition of God?” I say, “There is none.” They reply, “Then there’s no further discussion to be had.” They are right. If a term cannot be defined, what is there to discuss? For this reason many modern Western thinkers say words like “God” are meaningless—since they cannot be defined, how can they have meaning?

In the West a major movement has arisen in the last fifty years among linguists and philosophers: a new school based on the analysis of language. They say, “Until a term is clearly defined, we refuse to discuss it. How can discussion proceed without a settled meaning? Otherwise I say one thing, you understand another, a third takes a third meaning, a fourth a fourth.”

They argue that philosophy has been wasting centuries in such futile debates. First make the definition clear; only then proceed.

But then the way forward toward God is blocked, toward the soul is blocked, toward love is blocked, toward meditation is blocked; all doors are closed. That is the difficulty: what you have known in relation to this world will not work there—and the very methods you used here will also fail there. Therefore this discipline is difficult.

Because of its difficulty, this wisdom had to be kept secret for thousands of years—not for any other reason. If you cannot understand, what is the use of talking? First you must be prepared to understand; when you become worthy, a vessel, when you stand in the space from which the gesture of these ineffable words can reach you, then you can understand. The discipline is difficult.

And the second point is also true: man is dull—hence the complexity increases. The wisdom is difficult and man is dull.

What is dullness? Not lack of information—because scholars too can be dull; and sometimes the unlettered are not dull.

Dullness is a state of consciousness veiled by ego. Dullness does not mean knowing less or more. If knowing less were dullness, Kabir would be dull. If knowing less were dullness, it would be difficult to make Buddha pass matriculation. If he were brought straight down from his mahaparinirvana and sat in a high-school exam, he would certainly fail. Does that mean your children who pass matric are less dull than Buddha?

Where will Jesus stand? Where will you place Muhammad? Muhammad did not know how to write. When the first verse of the Quran descended, the first thing he said was, “What are you asking of me? I do not even know how to write! How will I write what is being said?” The divine voice answered: “Do not worry. When the experience happens, writing will also happen. Those who do not know how to speak will speak when the experience arrives—because the experience will flow. Do not be afraid.”

Yet Muhammad was shaken: “What is this task being taken from me? I cannot write; I cannot even sign my name.” The voice replied, “Your signature is not needed. On the one who is eager to sign, the Quran will never descend. Your autograph is of no use. Disappear completely—and do not fear.”

Muhammad returned home and said to his wife, “Bring a blanket—I have a fever.” She piled blankets on him; his body trembled. She asked, “How did this happen so suddenly? An hour ago you were fine—what fever is this?”

Muhammad said, “This fever is of another kind. My entire being is shaking, because a task is being taken from me for which I find myself utterly incapable. I cannot do it, and yet it is beyond my power to stop it. Something is flowing through me. This heat is not mine; this fever is not a fever—it is something else, something I cannot even recognize. It is the first time—how can I identify it? It has never happened before—how can I recognize it? It is a divine fever. Let me rest.”

For three days Muhammad lay in that fever. When he rose, his face had changed—as if gold had passed through fire. An ordinary, unlettered man had suddenly become a knower.

What happened? Otherwise, by ordinary standards, Muhammad is “dull.” Hence the Quran does not have the literary refinement of the Upanishads. A Hindu reading the Quran may wonder, “What is special here?” He doesn’t realize it was voiced through an uneducated instrument. The instrument was not trained in letters; he did not have fine words. Yet because of that the Quran has a quality the Upanishads do not: like the speech of a rustic villager—no literary flourish, but it strikes. It comes from life, not from books; it is not dead; it is not delicate, but it is alive.

In that sense the Quran is perhaps the most alive scripture in the world. It speaks in a rustic way; it hits like a stone, like a staff on the head—its impact is deep and it comes straight from lived experience. There is no delicacy, no poetry, no great metaphors or soaring imagination—just the direct words of a simple villager, but crystal clear. Therefore the Quran needed no commentary. Even the simplest can understand it.

The Gita, on the other hand, has needed thousands of commentaries, and still it remains elusive. Its language is of a refined mind. The Quran is immediately grasped. That is why there are countless commentaries on the Gita, and many have read it, but Hinduism never spread like wildfire the way Islam did. Hinduism is the scholar’s religion; it has never touched the common heart as Islam did. And the way Muslims are ready to die for Islam, you will hardly find a Hindu ready to die for Hinduism—because what has not become your life but remains only of the intellect, who will die for that? Islam has a deep, gripping power—it seizes the heart from within. And it descended upon Muhammad, whom we would call unlettered, unschooled, uncultured.

Jesus had no scholarly learning. He was a carpenter’s son—he came from a lowly family. Therefore the Bible too has no great poetic splendor. But where else will you find such direct words, piercing like arrows?

So when I say “dull,” I do not mean you know little. I mean you may know everything—and not know yourself. Then you are dull. And if you know nothing else but know yourself, you are a knower.

Here, knowledge has only one meaning: to know oneself. And you cannot know yourself so long as you know your ego, so long as you say, “I am.” The “I” is the obstacle. Ego is dullness—utter dullness. Egolessness is wisdom.

Certainly man is dull, and the discipline is difficult. And a third thing is also true: you keep saying you want to know—but you do not want to know. You say you want to know, yet you do not. Deep down you are not ready; you want to avoid knowing.

What creates this complexity? If you do not want to know, the matter is finished. If you want to know, then get to it. Why this split?

The split is subtle and worth understanding. Until you see this inner duality, you cannot become non-dual. From my experience of watching thousands up close, all say they want to know, but rarely does anyone truly want to. Then why say it? Whom are they deceiving? And to what end—wasting their own time and life? If you want to know, engage yourself in knowing; if not, drop the matter. Why this conflict? There is a reason.

First, you do not want to know because in the life you are living there is not only suffering; there are also glimpses of pleasure. You do not want to let go of those glimpses. You want to drop the suffering and keep the pleasure. That creates the conflict.

Understand it well. Your life contains both: pain and pleasure. Pleasure may be less—only flashes, hints, hopes—but it is there. There is pain too. You want to be free of pain; therefore you go to the wise, because there is assurance that suffering can end. But when you go to the wise, they say: drop both pleasure and pain—only then is there knowing.

There you stumble. Because the pleasure is yours—you do not want to leave it. You have just married; you have brought home a beautiful wife. People have garlanded you for this good fortune. You want to keep the pleasure; you are searching for some method by which the pleasures of the world remain and the pains vanish.

This is impossible. No one has ever done it, and no one ever will, because worldly pleasure and pain are two sides of the same coin. Either you keep the whole coin, or you throw the whole coin away. You are attempting the impossible; hence you are split within. You want to save half and discard half. But life cannot be partitioned; it is whole. There is no way to divide it.

So when you hear the wise say there is freedom from suffering, a path to supreme bliss, you misunderstand. When the wise say “supreme bliss,” you think of your pleasures. “Exactly—that is what we want: let our pleasures become supreme.” The bliss of the wise and your pleasure are different things. Their word “bliss” deceives you. You assume they mean the magnification of your pleasure. You listen and then you are stuck, because they say: let your pain go and your pleasure go—leave both, and there will be bliss. Intellectually this makes sense to you.

Consider: your wife gives you pleasure; the very same wife will give you pain. Only one who can give pleasure can give pain; from one who cannot give pleasure, how would pain arise? The neighbor’s wife cannot cause you pain. If she does, know that some pleasure is coming from her too—even if only by looking. From whom you derive pleasure, from that one you will receive pain. When you go to pluck the rose, the thorns will prick—they are of the same plant.

Today your wife’s smile is a flower when she is happy; tomorrow when she is sad, that very face becomes a thorn. You want your wife to be happy because that pleases you. But she cannot be happy twenty-four hours a day. In the ordinary flow of life the polarities keep changing. Except for the fully awakened, no one can be happy twenty-four hours a day. As there is day and then night, so there is pleasure and then pain, gladness and then gloom.

If your wife is very happy today, be ready—gloom will soon come. If her happiness gives you pleasure, her gloom will bring you pain. You too cannot remain happy and calm twenty-four hours a day; the opposite will come. Like a river flowing between two banks, you flow between dualities. A river cannot flow with just one bank, nor can you flow with just one side.

A Buddha begins to flow without banks. He is like the ocean—not that one bank is dropped; both are dropped. Whoever wants to drop only one will never succeed.

Your greed brings you to the wise. Your intellect even agrees with them: as long as there is pleasure, there will be pain; as long as you take delight in position and prestige, when position is lost—and it will be lost, otherwise how would others gain it?—you will suffer. Today there is fame, tomorrow defamation. Today people sing your praises, tomorrow they will abuse you.

People cannot sing forever; they tire of their own songs. Abuse too becomes necessary. And note: the one who sang the most is the one who will abuse you most—wearied by his own singing. While he sang, he chose all that was good in you and hid your flaws. How long can he keep hiding them? Sooner or later he will see them. The more he sings, the more he notices that he is exaggerating.

The strangest thing is: take anything to its extreme and its opposite will immediately appear. Call someone “the most beautiful ever,” and his ugliness will begin to show—because you have gone to an extreme. Everyone stands somewhere between beauty and ugliness; no one is absolutely one or the other. In this world there is no absolute; all is in the middle. If you exaggerate to one side, the other side will become visible.

He who sang will be ready to curse; and he who cursed, sooner or later will sing. Whoever became a friend prepared enmity; and whoever is your enemy is either an old friend or a future one.

Thus, from whatever gives you pleasure, today or tomorrow you will receive pain. Intellect acknowledges this; the heart does not. In the presence of a saint you grasp it perfectly. The moment you leave, even before you reach far, the accounting of the intellect scatters. Your inner tendencies, your dullness and ignorance rebel: “What are you thinking? All of life will be lost this way! If pleasure is also to be dropped, what is the point?” Do something to save pleasure and cut out pain.

The worldly man does exactly this: he protects pleasure and tries to eliminate pain. The sannyasin drops both. This is the only difference between the worldly and the renunciate. The worldly thinks, “There must be some trick, some method, by which I can keep pleasure and cut off pain.” A sannyasin is one who has realized this attempt is impossible. It cannot be—because it is against the very law of life and nature.

It is as absurd as the story: a man rushed into a doctor’s office, removed a handkerchief from his ear—blood everywhere, the skin hanging. Someone had cut off his ear. The doctor asked, astonished, “How did this happen?” The man hesitated and then said, “By mistake I cut off my own ear.” The doctor said, “Impossible—how can you cut off your own ear?” The man too realized, and blurted out, “I was standing on a chair.” As if standing on a chair could help reach your own ear! In truth his wife had cut it off, and had warned him, “Don’t tell that!” Frightened, as husbands usually are, he claimed, “I did it myself”—and trapped himself. Even on a chair—or on a mountain—you cannot cut off your own ear. Whether you live in a hut or a palace, it cannot be done.

There is no way to save pleasure while cutting off pain. When this realization becomes dense—no longer just in the intellect but in the heart, when every fiber of your being experiences it—then, for the first time, you will want to change yourself. Not before.

And the day you truly want to change, no dullness can obstruct you. The day you want to change, dropping the ego is easy—very easy. As easy as this: a man is carrying a heavy load on his head, groaning under the weight, thinking there are gold coins inside, so he bears it. Someone tells him, “It’s only stones, not gold,” and in that very moment he throws the bundle down.

The day you truly want to change, your ego will be seen as a load of stones—not gold, not precious diamonds. That very moment you will drop it. And the day your dullness falls away, this discipline is no longer difficult; it becomes utterly simple.

How can it be difficult to come home to your own nature? How can it be hard to be what you have always been?

Enough for today.