Nahin Ram Bin Thaon #9

In this small parable the entire anguish of life, all its sorrow, and also the full possibility of the benediction that comes to one established in samadhi are hidden. Agony and ecstasy, both lie concealed in this little symbol. Let us first understand life’s agony, then life’s ultimate bliss; the meaning of the parable will become clear by itself.

At night you see a dream: you are lost in a dense forest; you seek the path and cannot find it; you ask and none can tell; you are thirsty and no spring is in sight; you are hungry and not a fruit can be seen for miles. You weep and shout and suffer greatly. Then you awaken. In a single instant everything changes. Where there was anguish, laughter arrives. You even smile, thinking, “It was only a dream.”

But how did the dream come so close? Why did the dream seem so true? Why were you so lost in it? Why did you not remember within the dream that it was a dream? Why did the understanding not arise that what you are seeing is not real, that it is your own imagination?

It did not arise because even while awake to be a witness is difficult—so how will you be a witness in sleep, in a dream? Even awake, we become the doer; in sleep we certainly will. And becoming the doer is life’s anguish, its pain.

Doer means: what is happening by itself, we assume “I am doing.” What is occurring in the senses, we take to be occurring in “me.” What is happening outside me, we believe is happening inside. To be the doer means: where I am only a witness, where my presence is merely that of a seer, there by delusion I have taken myself to be an actor in the play, not the spectator.

The one who wandered in the dream is not you, because you were resting well in your bed. The one who got lost in the jungle is but a form of the mind.

I have heard: A man’s wife died. When she was alive she had him bound from all sides. He was timid, fearful, and, to avoid trouble, he obeyed whatever she said. Before dying she warned him: “Remember, never even think of another woman, otherwise I will come as a ghost to torment you.”

He was a frightened man. And a frightened mind is capable of creating its own ghost. Fear becomes a ghost. The wife died. For a few days he kept restraint—out of fear.

Remember, any restraint that arises from fear—can that be restraint? Most so-called monks are restrained out of fear. So was that husband’s condition. Fear of hell, fear of punishment, fear that God might catch him doing wrong and torment him—through such fears restraint is practiced.

Restraint born of fear is not only false; it is a great deception. One who restrains himself out of fear will never know true restraint. It can last only a little while.

He held himself together for some days—but how long? Then the mind’s desires whispered, “Are you crazy? You feared her while she lived—must you fear her even after death? Who knows if she has become a ghost or not? And it isn’t in her hands to become a ghost anyway!” So he began a love affair.

That night he returned home to find the wife present, seated on the bed. His hands and feet shook; he collapsed in fright. The wife said, “I know where you are coming from. The woman’s name is such-and-such, this is where she lives. What you said to her—you said this and that. Be warned, you’ve only taken the first step.”

Now it seemed certain: not only had the wife become a ghost, but every single word he had spoken to the other woman, the sweet nothings and poems—she repeated them all. She described the house, the woman’s manner, her looks—everything. It was clear the wife had been present there too.

He was tormented. Daily the wife began to haunt him. He went to a Zen master, named Nan-in. Hearing him, Nan-in laughed and said, “The wife who troubles you does not exist. Those whose wives have not died are also troubled—by wives that are not. All wives are ghosts, and all husbands too. Reality is given by the mind. Whatever we endow with mind becomes real; when we withdraw the mind, the reality vanishes.”

But the man said, “Don’t talk philosophy. You don’t know what trouble I’m in! I can’t go home; she stands at the door. My whole body trembles; when she was alive, I wasn’t this afraid—I knew at least she was alive. Now she is dead. Give me some trick. And she knows everything. The moment I arrive she’ll say, ‘You went to Nan-in? To ask for a trick? You want freedom from me?’ Whatever I say, she will hear; whatever you say, she will hear. Whatever trick you tell me, that’s the problem—she will hear it, and it won’t work.”

Nan-in said, “I’ll give you a trick that will work.” Someone had just gifted him a bag of flower seeds. He filled the man’s fist with seeds and said, “Clench your fist around them and go home. She will say everything—just listen. Then ask her, ‘How many seeds are in my hand? Tell me the exact number.’ If she cannot, know that it is all false.”

The man ran home with the seeds, and the trick worked. The wife told him what Nan-in had said, what he had asked, and that he was now preparing to ask about the number of seeds. The man trembled: “If she tells the number, then it’s all over.” Still he thought, “One last try.” He asked. The wife vanished. Astonished, he returned to Nan-in: “What was the trick?”

Nan-in said, “Whatever your mind knows, only that your ghost can tell. What your mind does not know, your ghost cannot. Your ghost is an extension of your mind. If you had counted the seeds, even the ghost would have told the number, because it is your projection, your shadow.”

Yet we are afraid of ghosts. We live in fear of ghosts. Shankara calls the world maya; this means the whole world is a ghost. It is not, and yet it appears. It is not, and yet “is.” And whatever “is-ness” it has, you have put there. First you invest it with “is-ness,” then you get entangled, then you are bound. You have the power to make a dream appear true. You get lost; you forget yourself.

Hunger comes, and you think, “I am hungry”—there the delusion begins. Hunger belongs to the body; it has never belonged to you, and never can. Yes, you are very close—this is true. There is not even a hair’s breadth between you and the body; even so, you are separate, only standing very near.

The old scriptures say: place a piece of glass near a sapphire; the glass will look blue. The glass has not become blue, but the sapphire’s shadow falls upon it. So too, you are close to the body—you are not the body. Whatever happens in the body happens so near that its shadow falls on you. You say, “I am hungry,” and there starts the error, and the world is born.

The body is hungry, and you say, “I am hungry.” The body is hurt, and you say, “I am hurt.” The body grows old, and you say, “I am old.” The body begins to die, and you say, “I die.” There lies the illusion.

If only you could see: the body is hungry—and I am seeing, knowing. If only you could understand: the body is sick, the body is aging, the body is nearing death—and I am knowing, I am seeing, I am the witness. The whole drama is on the body. The body is like a vast stage; the actors are projections of your mind. And you are standing in the gallery, watching.

Your sense of doership creates the world. Your sense of witnessing ushers vision of the Brahman. In sleep the remembrance is lost; even awake you often forget. The body is hurt, and instantly you forget that the body is hurt and you have known it.

This alone is the sutra of sadhana: when the doer begins to form, become filled with awareness and do not allow the doer to crystallize. Leave all action to the body. Leave all desires, all appetites, all ambitions to the body. Keep only the capacity to know—only awareness, only the art of seeing—with you.

Hence in this land we called philosophy “darshan”—seeing.

Save the capacity to see. The moment you become capable of seeing, all dreams will vanish, all ghosts will dissolve; the world will not be. The dream subsides. You awaken.

This supreme awakening we call Buddhahood. Buddha means “the awakened one.” The supremely awakened attains supreme bliss. The sleeping mind attains pain and anguish.

There is but one sorrow: to forget one’s reality. And there is but one joy: to regain it. Call it self-realization, God-realization, samadhi—whatever name you like, it is one thing.

The Upanishadic parable is small. One tree on which two birds dwell.

Since ancient times the tree is a symbol of life. From a seed it spreads; its branches reach toward the sky—vast aspirations to touch the heavens. Life spreads from a tiny seed, a drop of semen. Then immense ambitions, a great expansion, the urge to cover the entire sky, to reach the horizon.

It is the tree of life. On this tree two birds sit. One tastes the fruits; he savors their sweetness. The other only watches; he neither tastes nor descends into any action. The enjoying bird perches on the lower bough. The witnessing bird sits on the higher branch.

The final outcome of indulgence is anguish. Pleasures do come, but they are always mixed with pain; each pleasure brings along its own kind of sorrow. Pleasure stays only for a moment; pain trails behind like a long, dim smear. For one pleasure, who knows how much pain we must endure.

And if you observe pleasure closely, it proves deceptive. On closer look, even whether it truly happened becomes doubtful. Without close examination it seems we had pleasure; looking back after fifty, forty, sixty years, is there a single moment that, tested rightly, stands as pure joy?

Socrates has a famous saying: “An unexamined life is not worth living.”

But if you examine life, you will be astonished—under examination, nothing remains.

Go back and see: when did joy happen? Perhaps a few memories surface—you fell in love for the first time, there was joy. But memory is hazy now; dust has gathered. If you blow away the dust and search again, your hands and feet inside begin to tremble—for the search will reveal: even then there was only an appearance of joy; it was not attained. The more you probe, the more it fades.

Those who think deeply experience life as emptiness. The thoughtless alone feel “full.” Even if they fill their bag with roadside pebbles, they imagine they are collecting jewels. Open the bag and you’ll find stones; the bag will drop, and life will look very empty.

If your life’s emptiness has not revealed itself to you, the door of religion cannot open. Only when indulgence appears futile does yoga take birth.

Not a single moment of pure joy—and we endure so much pain to get it.

A man builds a house. He labors, sweats, gathers money with difficulty. Then he stands in the house and wonders, “Where is happiness?” Yet out of old habit he starts building something else. He has ten rupees; he makes ten thousand. He sits with ten thousand and wonders, “Where is happiness?” But we seldom give the mind leisure to reflect—because leisure is dangerous. Before ten thousand is in hand, we start worrying about a million, thinking, “When I have a million, then I’ll be happy.”

This becomes the mind’s pattern. Even with a million, there will be no happiness—then the craving for ten million will arise. We never leave a little empty space to look back and reconsider: “After all this effort to gather a million, did the joy I expected come or not?”

If you place your labor and your achievement side by side, you’ll be in trouble. Achievement is nil; labor is immense. You spared no effort; so much effort that you are losing yourself in it. But you fear examining. You fear that inspection will reveal you have gained nothing—then you will be a failure. The fear of failure is heavy.

I’ve heard of two beggars sitting by a roadside. One was lamenting—as beggars do, whether rich beggars or poor. He complained about his trade: “Everything is ruined. No one is willing to give. People avert their gaze when you stretch out your hand. If you ask, they offer twenty-five lectures, not a single coin. The world is going bad—Kaliyuga has come. There is no compassion, no charity, no love. People are clutched by money; not one penny will they part with. I am tired of this vagrancy—one village to another; no respect, no dignity. In trains we are shoved around; we travel without tickets; we’re thrown out everywhere. The police are always after us—as if appointed just for that. Life is miserable.”

The other said, “Then why don’t you leave this begging profession?”

The first raised his head and spine and said, “Do you think I should accept my failure?”

Even a beggar will not accept failure—how will you? And because the ego won’t accept failure, it won’t allow reflection—since reflection would conclude in failure. It will be clear that all has failed. Not a shred of happiness; a mob of misery.

This is the first bird’s style of living. He is filled with anguish and sorrow. Then, in some moment, he raises his head and looks up.

His companion—just like him, as if the two were born together, mirror images, shadows of each other—sits calm and blissful. No tremor there, no gloom of sorrow, a sun of joy ever risen, never setting.

What is the secret of the other’s bliss? Simply this: he is neither doer nor enjoyer. He merely sees the frolic going on below. When you are not the doer, not the enjoyer, how can sorrow be yours—and how can even pleasure be yours? One who wanted to make pleasure his own, sorrow became his. The one who said, “Even pleasure is not mine; I am only the seer,” for him sorrow is gone forever.

We too want distance—but only from sorrow. We seek closeness to pleasure. We want: let pleasure be mine, let me remain the enjoyer; but let sorrow not be mine. Many try to be a witness only in suffering.

The sorrowful come to me. They say, “We try hard to be a witness; nothing happens.” I tell them, “Do not try in suffering; try in pleasure. If you succeed in pleasure, you will succeed in pain.”

All long to be free of suffering—that is not sadhana. Not all long to be free of pleasure—that is sadhana. So when a moment of joy arises in your life, sit a little apart from it. When peace descends, sit apart from peace too. If you are on the path of meditation and one day a supreme calm begins to settle, immediately step back.

It will be hard, because people think they must withdraw only from bodily pleasures.

But the pleasure of meditation is also a pleasure. If one day in prayer a new fragrance surrounds you, as if lamps of ghee were suddenly lit in the dark, or where nothing had ever bloomed, a lotus blossoms within and you are ecstatically happy—instantly move away.

The pleasure that comes from woman or man, from food, from fine clothes, from health—withdraw from it, of course. But also withdraw from the pleasure that comes from meditation. Wherever pleasure arises, be a witness there; do not be the enjoyer.

Then you lay the foundation for transforming life. Suddenly you will find that suffering no longer touches you. Sorrow touches only the one who wants to grasp pleasure. To grasp pleasure is to invite pain. You all are eager to grasp pleasure, though it is always pain that comes into your grasp. Yet you have never calculated: you always tried to grasp pleasure, and always it was pain that came. You are in such haste, such hurry, such a scramble to seize the next pleasure that who will sit and do the accounting?

Whenever a moment of joy descends upon you, when some little bell of bliss rings within—instantly gather your awareness. This is real meditation. Holding awareness in pleasure—this is real meditation.

It is difficult, because when peace finally comes, you are told to step back even from that. When a first glimpse of light comes!

So when I tell seekers, “Whatever you get in meditation, do not become one with it,” they look at me as if I am about to destroy their hard-won glimpse. Their eyes say, “Not so fast—let me relish this a bit, let me drown a little. We came to ask how to increase it, how to make today’s joy return tomorrow, how to make a fleeting glimpse eternal; and you say, ‘Step away from it!’”

What I say—step away—is precisely the way to make it eternal. If you cannot step away, what you have will be lost. Tomorrow you will be empty-handed and sorrow will arise. Those who taste joy in meditation often taste sorrow the next day, because that joy does not return. Then they ask how to bring it back. “How to keep the window that opened from closing?” Thus the recipe for suffering begins. Whoever tried to clutch pleasure caught hold of pain. Whoever wanted a repeat lost even what he had.

Jesus has a saying: “To those who have, more will be given; from those who have not, even what they have will be taken away.” Remember this in relation to pleasure. Any pleasure you have will be taken away. If you yourself throw it away, no one can take it from you. And to those who have not, ever more will be given. Whenever it comes, throw it away. Each time you multiply the infinite by the infinite.

A moment comes when you understand: clinging is the art of suffering; letting go is the art of joy.

The more you cling, the more miserable you are. Those in hell are not suffering from anything else; they are clutching big pleasures. Those in heaven are not happy due to anything else; they have let all pleasures go.

If you grasp this, the meaning becomes clear: joy is freedom; sorrow is bondage. Hence we called supreme bliss moksha—liberation, the ultimate freedom, where everything is dropped.

That bird above sits within you also, on your tree. Sometimes you catch a glimpse of him. Whenever you become a watcher, your consciousness moves from the lower bird to the upper. You too have had glimpses—whether you recognized them or not. It is hard to find a person who has never, even for a moment, felt the flavor of witnessing.

Whenever such a taste has arisen, joy has showered. A breeze has come and everything around you has come alive.

The sense of being the doer is with us twenty-four hours a day. We are identified with the lower bird, suffering. It is time to raise your eyes and look at the upper bird—he is seated on your very tree. From eternity he has waited: how long will you suffer? Even in suffering you do not look up!

It seems you take a certain relish even in sorrow. Paradoxical as it sounds, there is some pleasure hidden in your pain. You say you want to drop it, but you don’t. You come to those who can help you be free of suffering, but you don’t come wholly; perhaps you leave your soul at home. You come in fragments. There is vested interest in your sorrow.

I knew a woman. Whenever she came, she lamented: her husband was a drunkard, a gambler—every sin there was, he had. Complaint upon complaint. “I alone run the household; he neither works nor holds a job.” Indeed she kept the house going; she worked, managed small business, cared for him. There was a paralyzed daughter too, bedridden; feeding her needed help—everything fell to this woman. She lived like a martyr.

Whenever she came, she recited her woes. But when I watched her eyes and face closely, I felt she had a taste for it. Because her husband’s being a drunk and gambler greatly satisfied her ego. If the husband is worth two pennies, she becomes a million-dollar diamond. We live by comparison. If the husband were noble, the wife would be ordinary. Her extraordinariness and the village’s praise—“a woman should be like her”—depended on his vices.

So she said she was miserable—but truly she did not want to be free, because with the end of that misery would go her prestige, her pride. The ill daughter too was part of her martyrdom. People relish sorrow because it makes them martyrs. She was not really complaining—she was advertising. Look into her eyes: not complaint—self-publicity.

Then misfortune: the daughter died. From that day half her joy was gone. She should have rejoiced—“the girl is free of suffering; I too am free”—but her face’s radiance diminished. Worse yet, at last the husband ran away.

I kept watching all this, for she came often. The day he ran away should have marked the end of her suffering, because she always said, “If only he would die or disappear.” He did go, and never returned. But from that day her face’s luster—gone. She became sad; the very content of her life was lost. It had been in that gambler and drunkard. Because of him her life had business, meaning, purpose. All meaning vanished.

The last time I saw her, she had become an ordinary woman. No one praised her; no one sang her songs. She will die soon—because the current, the movement in life, has ebbed away.

You talk about your sufferings. Think a little: are you not a martyr because of them? Is there not some hidden pleasure in your pain?

Man is a great trickster. He plasters and paints even his suffering; he adorns it and makes it an ornament. Then it becomes difficult to throw it away. You would have discarded pain long ago if you had not ornamented it. You would have left the prison had you not made it a home. No one but you holds your chains—but you have taken the chains to be jewelry.

So the upper bird sits waiting, while you below loudly broadcast your sorrow. The upper bird must be laughing. He sits within you; you know it well. Sometimes you glimpse him too, because he is your real nature. However much you forget, how can you forget forever? Now and then, in a quiet moment, his voice is heard; sometimes he fills you when you are sitting empty.

But you avoid him. You are so intoxicated with being the doer that you avoid being the witness. For the sake of that “fun,” you bear a lot of pain and even advertise it. Perhaps your suffering hasn’t yet reached the boiling point where your throat is choked and you must raise your eyes.

Just once raise your eyes and look up—you will be astonished: all you have suffered over lifetimes was nothing more than a long, sorrowful dream. Your real nature has always been beyond it.

Hence the Hindus say you are eternally the sat-chit-ananda Brahman. You have never committed a sin, never done evil. You cannot—for doing is not your nature.

When the Upanishads were first translated in the West, thinkers could not accept them. The West knew only one religion—Christianity—whose whole base is guilt and sin: you are sinners, strive for virtue; you have gone astray, return to the path; you are exiled from God’s kingdom, win your way back by pleasing Him; you have sinned, repent.

Christianity rests on repentance. The Upanishads say: you have never sinned. You cannot sin, even if you want to—because doing is not your nature. At most you can dream that you have sinned. You cannot go outside God’s kingdom because there is no “outside.” You can be thrown out of this garden, but not out of God’s garden—wherever there is, is His garden.

The Christian Eden must have been small. The Hindu Eden is vast. They say there is no place outside where you can be sent. Even if God wants to banish you, where will He send you? He alone is. Wherever you are, you are in Him. And He is everywhere in equal measure—neither more nor less anywhere.

Understand existence a little. In all things there can be differences of quantity—color, size, intelligence. But in existence there is no more or less. A tree exists, a bird exists, a stone exists, a man exists—in existence there is not the slightest difference. Existence is not small or large.

Existence is the one thing equal and same. A stone is as existent as you are. Its manner of being differs from yours, but the fact of being is equal. That being we call Brahman.

So when the Upanishads first reached the West it was difficult for people to understand: “What kind of religion is this? Dangerous! If people believe they have not sinned and cannot sin, why would they repent? And without repentance, how will they enter God’s temple? If sinners believe ‘we are Brahman,’ what need remains for priests? Who will they reform? The church will be lost.”

Know this: Hinduism is the only religion that has no church, no organized priesthood, no pastor in the temple. Its religion is guided by private insight, not by any system. There is no administrator above. Religion is personal, inward, driven by one’s own realization.

Hinduism is like flowing rivers. Christianity is like trains running on tracks—organized, regulated. Hinduism is an anarchy.

Religion can only be anarchic, because it is not a state; it is ultimate freedom. Ultimate freedom can be realized only through anarchy. And this is the greatest anarchic sutra: you have never done anything; you cannot do anything; you will never do anything. Your being is pure. You need not be purified; you have never been impure. You need only recognize—Pratyabhijna—remember, “I am pure.”

Therefore in India we are not “seeking” Brahman; we are simply remembering Brahman. Hence the saints call their method smriti, remembrance. Kabir says surati—just another form of smriti. Only a remembering is needed. As if a king’s son is begging and suddenly remembers, “What am I doing? I am a king’s son.” The matter is finished.

With this remembrance, the very quality of consciousness changes.

When your suffering is enough, and when you cease to relish it—till then, who am I to stop you? As long as you find it tasty, drink it fully. Nothing will happen “quickly.” Fruits fall only when ripe; plucking unripe fruit is not right. If you still have a taste for suffering, that is your destiny—taste it fully. Do not turn back midway because of someone’s advice; otherwise you will have to walk that road again. There is no shortcut.

In this world, no growth can be borrowed. If you still enjoy poison, drink it fully—so that its result comes to completion. If you must drink poison, drink it to the brim—so that you drown and thus can surface.

Your trouble is: you neither go toward nectar nor drink poison completely—so you are stuck in between. You want poison—it tastes good to you—but you don’t want its pain. You seek the impossible: “Let me drink poison and enjoy nectar’s bliss.” It will not happen. Things do not work that way. Drink nectar and joy will come; drink poison and suffering will come. If poison is your taste, drink it fully—so that suffering is complete and you are ripened through it.

Anguish ripens. Pain prepares you for the ultimate leap. One day you will look back and see the other bird sitting above.

And note: nothing will happen from hearsay about that other bird—you must see for yourself. The Upanishads can say it, but that is like seeing the Himalayas in pictures—the white snow on its peaks. You won’t feel the cold. One who climbed those peaks knows what you won’t. Lines on paper cannot be the Himalayas. You can clutch them to your heart and believe you have arrived at the realm of peace—but then your journey is finished; you won’t get up and walk.

I have heard: once, by misfortune, a donkey in Kashi became educated. Misfortune—because a donkey as such is enough, but an educated donkey is like putting bitter karela on a neem tree—bitterness upon bitterness. In Kashi, surrounded by punditry, he soon became a pundit. Scriptures he memorized.

Donkeys often have good memories. Where intelligence is less, memory compensates. Very intelligent people are often forgetful. The dull cannot rely on intelligence, so they run life by memory.

This donkey had excellent memory. Whatever he read, he memorized. He would stand near pundits’ discussions, in their satsangs. Often he heard about bhang—the cannabis—and its drinking and delight, its “ghutas,” and “Jai Bhavani!” So much he heard about bhang, and saw bhang-drinkers swaying in bliss, that desire arose: “Bhang is the gate to Brahman; without it none can enter. I must seek it.” In scriptures he read its glories; he memorized them.

One day in a junk shop he saw the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Flipping through, he found a picture of the bhang plant. He etched it in his eyes.

Now he had the whole method. He knew bhang’s greatness from the scriptures; he had seen bhangis’ ecstasy and behavior; he had overheard their talk of some otherworldly realm; he had a sense through those words, and now he had the picture. He would soon find it.

Grazing on the Ganges bank, he saw a plant looking exactly like the picture. But how to be certain it was bhang? It might be a similar plant. Best to ask the plant itself.

It was ordinary weed, often uprooted and thrown away as useless.

The donkey asked, “Brother, are you the bhang plant? The very one celebrated in scripture? I saw your picture in Britannica—you look exactly the same. As far as my understanding and memory go, you are the one I seek.”

The plant had never been given such glory—no one had ever saluted it, “Jai Bhang Bhavani!” Though it knew the donkey was a donkey, even donkeys’ praise pleases the ego—the ego doesn’t check who is praising, otherwise flattery would cease on earth.

The plant hesitated to say “no,” but the chance might never return. Such respect must not be missed. So the plant said, “Yes, I am the one you seek.” The donkey at once performed the rituals he had learned from the bhangis and ate the plant.

After eating, he noticed no intoxication. Perhaps lack of practice—so he swayed his legs, walked like the bhangis, babbled nonsense. But inside he doubted: “This is all outer. Either Britannica has an error, or the bhangis are also faking, or this plant has deceived me.” He tried to convince himself that all was fine, but inside a watcher saw that things were not right: “This is all I am doing—I am doing.”

You can hear the Upanishads and memorize Brahma-knowledge; you can be told of the upper bird and even imitate the gait of a sannyasin—but inside you will feel something is off.

Without self-experience, another’s knowing is meaningless. Understanding the Upanishadic story won’t make you understand. When the story within you opens and, on the tree of your life, you see the other bird, then the Upanishad will be understood. Before that, it cannot.

So understand my predicament. I have explained this parable to you, knowing well how you will “understand” it; knowing that if you take my words as understanding, damage is done. Still I explained it so that at least a sense of possibility may arise in you. Do not quickly believe, “A witness sits behind me.” Who knows—the Upanishad may be wrong; Britannica’s picture misprinted; the plant deceiving; no one knows. Do not be in a hurry to believe, for those who quickly believe miss knowing. Let there only be a possibility.

My whole effort is to awaken in you the feeling of a possibility. Just this much—that what you are is not your completeness; something remains. Where you stand, you can go a little further—the journey has not ended. What you have attained is not all—there is more. Even if the notion is faint and hazy, no harm; it will be hazy at first—a mere notion.

To awaken that notion I speak. Once it is born, two paths open. One: you memorize it; without drinking bhang your legs begin to wobble; you act intoxicated—false wobbling, false ecstasy; then you are lost.

The other: let the notion “something more is possible; I am not finished; more existence within me can open; this book is not complete, some bound chapters remain; I have not explored the whole house—some cellars might hold treasure”—let this not become mere belief but become your sadhana. Do not sit believing it; do not make it a conviction of the intellect; begin to act in the direction of meditation and samadhi.

To see that second bird, take a few sutras to heart. First: right now you are the first bird, sitting below. Become thoroughly acquainted with him. Suffer his pain completely; feel his sting and burning fully. Let the thorns piercing you pierce through—so their full pain encircles your heart. Do not drug yourself with consolations.

You invent many tricks. You say, “I am suffering due to past-life karma, not because of this life’s actions.”

What assurance does this give you? That nothing can be done about past karma. What is done is done—now I must bear it.

If I say, “Because of this life’s actions,” it is nearer—you could do something. If I say, “Because in this very moment you are the doer,” you are in real difficulty, for “karma” means what is already done.

You do not suffer because of karma; you suffer because you are the doer. You were the doer in past lives—that too you are bearing. You are the doer now—that too you are bearing. But the cause of suffering is not what you “did,” it is your identification with doing. This you can drop this very instant.

So gradually reduce doership. Instead of searching for the second bird elsewhere, transform where you are: lessen the doer, emphasize the seer. Wherever you get the chance. Two options—be a doer or be a witness. Choose witnessing.

Here I am speaking; you are listening. If you are only listening, you have become the doer, because listening has become your action. If you try to be the witness, then I speak and you listen—and you also see. If my witness is awake and yours is awake, then where there are two persons, there are now four: a speaker and his seer; a listener and his seer. Listen—and also see that you are listening.

This you can do this very moment. It requires no arrangement. Listening is happening in the body-mind; stand a little behind and watch that listening is happening. The slightest glimpse, and instantly you’ll find that sorrow disappears, restlessness vanishes, tension drops.

Wherever there is a chance to choose between witness and doer, lean toward witnessing. The habit of doing is old; conditioning is deep; at the slightest lapse the doer will pull you. No harm. However deep the conditioning of falsehood, it has little weight or value. However much you have forgotten the witness, it is your nature; however great the oblivion, it is not hard to regain—it can be reawakened.

Eating, walking, bathing—let doing be less, seeing more. In your bathroom, under the shower, bathe—and watch that the body is bathing. While eating, eat—and watch that the body is eating.

Soon the second bird will begin to flutter. You will become aware that someone else too is present on the tree; you are not alone as the doer. As the sense of the second grows dense, the first grows thin. As the second appears, the first fades.

And what the parable does not say, I will tell you: the day your awareness of the witness becomes total, the second also disappears—you will find only one bird on the tree.

The ignorant also sees only one bird—the doer. He cannot see the other. The wise also sees only one bird—the witness. He does not see the other.

The Upanishad speaks of two birds to encompass both the ignorant and the wise. In reality, there are not two. For the ignorant there is one—the doer. For the wise there is one—the witness. Since the wise is speaking to the ignorant in the Upanishad, the talk is of two birds. He is acknowledging your experience and his own—because only by accepting your experience will you begin the journey. A moment will come when you yourself will see: there is only one bird. And the day only one remains, the experience of nonduality arises. The name of that one is Advaita.

It is worth considering—important too. And the question naturally arises: if the intellect is such a great obstacle, why train it at all? Why not give children meditation while they are still simple and innocent, rather than sending them to universities? Instead of organizing their logic and thought, instead of educating them, why not simply immerse them directly in the innocence and ease of meditation? If intellect is an obstacle, why increase the obstacle? Why not destroy it before it grows?

If the intellect were only an obstacle, the point would be valid. But an obstacle can also become a step. You walk along a path and a big rock lies in your way; it is an obstacle if you turn back, thinking the way is closed. But if you climb upon it, a new path opens—an altitude unlike the level of the road below. A new dimension is born. The foolish take the rock as a barrier and retreat; the wise turn it into a step.

And understanding—wisdom—is a very different thing from what is commonly called intellect. Without intellectual training, children would remain like wild animals; they would not become the wise. They would not become Buddhas, Mahaviras, Krishnas, or Christs; they would remain like wild creatures. They would have no obstacle, true—but no means to climb either. No rock to block, and no step to ascend.

Therefore every child must pass through intellectual training. And the more refined and sharp this training is, the better. The stronger, larger this stone of intellect, the better, because it gives you a higher perch to stand upon. The one who is crushed beneath the stone is a scholar; the one who stands atop it is a knower; the one who, out of fear, never approaches it at all is ignorant.

The ignorant person’s intellect was never trained. The scholar’s intellect was trained, but he could not go beyond it. The wise one’s intellect was trained—and he went beyond it.

Avoidance achieves nothing. One has to cross over. And whatever experience we pass through, that very experience condenses and enlivens us.

Buddha or Krishna are extraordinarily intellectual men. Muhammad may not have been formally literate, yet he is intellectually extraordinary. Consider this: an unlettered man gave the world the Qur’an, and the Qur’an has stirred and influenced nearly a third of humanity. For a Muslim, its word is still a formula for life. He may have been unlettered, but there can be no doubt about the sharpness of his intelligence. The rules he framed are still effective, guiding millions upon millions of hearts. And the order he brought to the Qur’an—such an ordering is found neither in the Bible, nor in the Upanishads, nor in the Gita. In one sense the Qur’an is comprehensive. It is not only religion; it is sociology as well. Not only sociology; it is politics too. Muhammad attempted to discipline life from every side—from life’s smallest details to the vastness of the Absolute, he gathered it all within the Qur’an.

Therefore, for Islam the Qur’an alone suffices as scripture. Hence Muslims say there is one Allah and one Prophet of that one Allah. One prophet is enough. Such a man must have been deeply intelligent; no doubt can be cast on his intellect. He was unlettered, but literacy has nothing to do with whether intelligence is present. We see plenty of the educated and do not find intelligence. What has mere schooling to do with wisdom? Wisdom is the capacity to distill the essence from the experiences of life.

So the child’s intellect must be trained; his reasoning must be honed till it becomes like a sword. With that sword he may cut himself—commit a kind of suicide—or he may save lives; that depends on wisdom.

Reason is a tool. With it we can destroy life; with it we can create and build. But one thing is certain: if we deprive children of intellect, they will not become wise. They may remain as innocent as animals, but they will not become meditative like saints.

Many times it has happened that wolves have stolen away small children. Some forty years ago, near Calcutta, two girls were found in the forests. And about ten years ago, near Lucknow, a boy was found who had been raised by wolves. He had grown quite big—about fourteen years old. He had received no training, never gone to school, never lived among humans. A little child lifted from the cradle by wolves, he grew up among them. He could not even stand on two legs, because that too is part of education.

Do not think that you stand on two legs by yourself; you were taught to do so. The human body is fashioned to go on all fours. No child is born walking on two legs; he walks on all fours. Two-legged walking is learned.

Ask the scientists, the anatomists; they say something striking: man’s body can never be as healthy as that of animals, because it was made to go on all fours, and man upset the whole arrangement by walking on two. The entire design was disturbed.

A car not built to climb mountains is being driven up a mountain—the whole rule of gravity gets violated. When you move on all fours you are balanced; the weight rests evenly on four limbs, and between you and gravity there is a parallel line. Your spine and the pull of the earth are in harmony; there is no hindrance. When you stand on two legs, all the mischief begins. Blood must flow upward toward the head; the lungs must do unnecessary work; at every moment you must fight the pull of the earth. The ground draws you down.

So if man dies of weakness of the heart, it is no surprise. No animal dies of heart failure. Such weakness cannot arise in animals; in humans it will. Those in whom it does not occur are exceptions; otherwise the heart is bound to grow weak, because you are doing an inverted task—the heart must pump incessantly in a way for which nature did not design you.

That boy could not walk on two legs; he ran on all fours. And he did not run like humans; he ran like wolves. He ate raw meat, like wolves. He was so strong that even eight men could not tie him down. He was, in every way, a wolf—snarling, ready to tear and devour, ferocious!

A meditative saint was not born there; a wild animal was. Similar incidents have occurred in the West. Children raised in forests among animals were found to be animal-like.

They tried to teach this boy for six months. With endless massage and electrical heat, they barely got him to stand on two legs. But if you relaxed your attention even slightly, he would drop back to all fours—because standing on two was great suffering. You do not know the joy of fours; you stand on two and endure the pain.

They named him Ram. They struggled to teach him, but before he died he learned only a single word: Ram. He could tell you his name. Within a year and a half he died. And the scientists studying him said he died because of the teaching—for he was a child of the wild.

From this it also becomes evident how much of children’s lives we kill by sending them to school. We kill their exuberance; we kill their wildness—that is precisely the disturbance in school. Thirty children are seated in a classroom under one teacher—thirty wild creatures! And these teachers must civilize them. No profession is more weary than that of a teacher; no one is more harried. Their task is immensely difficult.

And yet these children must be educated; otherwise they will not become human. They will be innocent, yes—but it will be the innocence of ignorance. One can be innocent through not-knowing. But when someone is innocent and also knowing—that is when life’s flower blossoms.

The training of the intellect is necessary; then the transcendence of the intellect is necessary. And what you do not have—what will you renounce?

Therefore I say again and again: before you can know the poverty of a Buddha or a Mahavira, you must first gather the wealth they had. You cannot know the poverty that Buddha knows. The joy of that poverty is tasted only when one steps out from a palace.

If you would know a Krishna-like consciousness, you must also seek a Krishna-like intelligence. Because only what you truly possess can you meaningfully put aside. If Einstein were to renounce intellect, the peace he would experience—how could you? That peace would be unique: the calm after a storm. Your storm never came. As the taste of health after illness is uniquely pure, so too, after the great uproar of intellect, when one flings the intellect aside, the flavor that arrives!

Renunciation is supreme bliss in this sense: before renunciation, indulgence is supreme sorrow. Pass through the suffering of intellect, so that the joy of wisdom can become available to you. Pass through the world’s anguish, so that the samadhi of the Divine can be yours.

One must go by way of the opposite—there is no other path.

Enough for today.