There are two delusions in life. Both seem very true. One is the delusion of matter, and the other is the delusion of the ego. One delusion is outside, one delusion is inside. They are born together and they die together. They are the two ends of the same delusion, two poles of the same illusion.
Matter appears, and it doesn’t even occur to us that there could be such a thing as no matter. It feels so solid. How solid is a stone?
A great thinker, Johnson, once went walking with Berkeley. Berkeley said, whatever appears outside is all illusion. Johnson picked up a stone and smashed it on Berkeley’s foot. Berkeley grabbed his foot and sat down, badly hurt, bleeding. Johnson said: ‘Is this stone an illusion, that has made you bleed?’
Perhaps Johnson thought he had given a great argument for stone, for matter. But stone is an illusion. Today science says matter is not—matter does not exist.
Long ago some people said that matter is maya, illusion. Perhaps it sounded laughable then. Matter and maya? Matter is the truth! What appears is truth—so we ordinarily say. We say, what appears is real, what does not appear, how can that be real? Now science says, what appears is not at all true. The solidity of matter, its being, is all untrue.
But how to accept this? When a stone falls on your foot it hurts. Try to walk through a wall and your head breaks. How can we deny as real a wall that breaks our head? The head certainly breaks, and yet the wall is not as it appears. What appears to us as the outer world—the trees, the sun in the sky, the earth, the stones—all this expanse around us appears to be solid, to be material.
But as deeper inquiry was made and matter was broken, it was found there is only energy, shakti; there is no matter. What we call matter is a heap of molecules; and molecules are not matter. Matter is an accumulation of atoms, and atoms are only particles of energy, quanta of force.
Then why does matter appear? Matter appears because of the tremendous speed, the whirl, of energy-particles. Their speed gives rise to the illusion of solidity. The empty spaces between them do not appear. The emptiness becomes solid to our eyes. They whirl so fast; their velocity is immense, the same as the speed of the sun’s rays. Sunlight travels one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles in one second. Atoms whirl within a tiny space with this very speed—at one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second. How many revolutions will they make within a second?
Tiny atoms! And how tiny are atoms! If we lined atoms along a strand of hair, one hundred thousand atoms would stand side by side in the thickness of a single hair. So small are the atoms; so tiny is the orbit in which they spin; and the speed of that orbit is one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second. Therefore things appear solid. Nothing is solid. Matter is utterly illusory.
One delusion is outside, and the other end of that same delusion is inside. Inside it appears that ‘I am,’ the ego. This ‘I’ is also entirely false. This ‘I’ is also sheer maya, sheer illusion.
You will say: let us grant that matter is a whirl of energy—how is this ‘I’ false? Was my birth not? Was I not a child? Did I not study? Did I not grow up? Am I not young today? Sometimes I fall ill, sometimes I am healthy. If I am not, then where do all these happen? On whom do they happen? Upon whom do all these experiences pass? I am. My honor is, my prestige is, my dignity, my respect, my knowledge, my renunciation is! Am I not? If I am not, then all is erased.
If we enter into this ‘I’ the way the scientist entered the atom—entered matter and said, there is no matter—so too, when someone enters within this ‘I’ and comes to know the atoms of the ‘I’, he discovers that ‘I’ too is a delusion. What are the atoms of ‘I’?—experiences. Just as matter’s atoms are electrons, so the ‘I’ has atoms—particles of experience. Those particles of experience have clustered and are spinning rapidly. Because of their speed a circle seems to arise, a ring seems to be there: an ego-circle, and it feels as if ‘I am.’
If we light a torch and whirl it fast, a fire-circle appears. A flaming ring seems to be there. But it is nowhere. Only a single torch is moving—moved swiftly—and a circle is seen. The torch will not be seen; the ring will be seen. Stop the torch and you will see—the ring was false, the fire-circle was false; there was no fire-ring, only a torch spinning fast.
When one goes within, one finds that particles of experience, particles of memory—bits of what has happened—are revolving so rapidly that their whirl creates a circle, a ring, an ego-circle; and it seems, ‘I am.’ It seems ‘I am’ because we say, ‘my birth happened.’
But the truth is: ‘my’ birth did not happen. Birth happened—when did ‘my’ birth happen? Do you know the moment of your birth? Birth happened. You grew. But you say, I grew! Growing happened—there was a process of growth. Illness came. Health came. But to each event we add, ‘I was ill, I felt hungry, I became healthy, I went!’
If we enter into each experience, we will find events have occurred. But our language is misleading. We say, lightning flashed in the sky! Language creates the mistake that lightning is one thing and flashing is another. Lightning flashed—we think there is lightning that flashed. Science will say, ‘lightning flashed’ is wrong. Flashing is the very name of lightning. Lightning has never flashed; that which flashes is what we call lightning. Flashing and lightning are two names of one thing, not two different things.
You say, I went. If you look within, you will find, going happened; ‘I’ did not go. ‘I’ and going are two names of one event. But our language says, I went!
We say, I felt thirsty. The truth is, thirst arose. And in the moment of thirst, there were not two—the ‘I’ and thirst. I was thirst.
But language splits in two. It says: I felt thirst. We say, I am suffering. Look very closely and only suffering is. That suffering is ‘I’. But language splits it in two—‘I am suffering.’
By the construction of our language, the ‘I’ gets constructed. There is no ‘I’ anywhere, but this construction goes on from childhood through life. And slowly the illusion of an ‘I’, a falsehood, accumulates, stands, hardens. And this hardened ‘I’ is the greatest burden upon us.
I spoke to you of two burdens: the burden of the past and the burden of the future. And the ultimate burden is the burden of ‘I’, the burden of ego.
So long as this burden of ego remains upon consciousness, we cannot enter truth; for ego is untruth, ego is false.
Try to enter within. Already our whole language is mixed up! When we say ‘within’, the ‘I’ is strengthened. We should say only ‘within-ness’—but even ‘within’ strengthens ‘I’; it seems as if inside ‘I am’ and outside ‘I am not.’
The fact is, ‘outside’ and ‘inside’ both are false words. There are not two such things that some is outside and some is inside. One and the same is spread as both outside and inside. Outside and inside are not two things; they are extensions of the same. That which is within is that which is without. But in our seeing it seems as if inside is something else, outside something else.
We say, outside there is nothing, inside there is everything! We say, leave the outside, go within! All this strengthens the ‘I’. But look very carefully—what is outside and what is inside? Which thing is inside and which outside? Is breath inside or outside? We will discover breath is both outside and inside. Breath goes out and breath comes in. Where is breath? Breath is a bridge between outside and inside.
Is the sun outside us or inside? The sun’s warmth is continuously within us. We live by it. Is the sun outside or within? Is the sun part of me or separate from me? If the sun were to go out, would I not also go out? If the sun dies, we all would die here. Then was the sun outside or inside?
Are these trees outside or inside? We will say, surely outside. Trees appear outside us. That appears true. But have you ever considered—from where do you bring wheat? From trees. Food—from where? From trees. Trees are continuously preparing your food. You cannot eat soil, but you sow wheat. The wheat eats the soil. The plant grows; a single grain becomes a thousand grains. It has drawn it all from the earth. The wheat has drunk the sun’s rays. In that wheat the whole process has occurred so that by that process the wheat can become part of your body. It will enter you, become your blood, your bones, your flesh.
If all the plants stop making food, can you live even a moment? You will depart this very moment. Then are plants outside you or inside—or are they parts of the same vast process of life of which you too are a part? The same process of life is producing wheat on one side and producing you on the other—and then that wheat nourishes you, and tomorrow you fall and dissolve again into soil!
So are you, and earth, separate? From that very soil you are born; to that very soil you return. By that very soil you live, and then you become soil again. How many times have you become plants, and how many times have plants become man! How many times man has become earth again and again plant again! Are these parts of one circle or separate? What is outside and what is inside?
What is outside is entering within every moment; what is within is going out every moment.
Outside and inside are waves of one life-energy. When the wave turns inward we say ‘I’; when it turns outward we say ‘You’. But ‘You’ and ‘I’ are two ends of one life-wave.
It needs to be seen that this ‘I’ is a delusion. This feeling of within is also a delusion. Until it is seen, there can be no freedom from burden. For as long as I take myself to be separate, distinct, apart, a burden will remain—since a struggle will remain with the rest that is ‘not-I’. ‘I’ struggles with the ‘not-I’; as long as I am ‘I’ and you are ‘you’, conflict continues. As long as the trees are separate and I am separate; the sun is separate and I am separate—an inner duel continues. That duel is the greatest burden upon man, for where is peace in struggle? Where is peace in conflict?
We are fighting at every moment, fighting with all around. And the point of fight is the delusion that I am separate. If it is known I am not separate, I am a limb of this vast process of life—then with whom is there to fight? With whom to struggle? Who is the enemy?
Then the whole vast life is one.
Imagine if my hand were to get the idea that it is separate. If my eyes were to imagine they are separate. If eyes begin to fight with hands, stomach with head, hands with feet—what will be the fate of that person, that body? The whole organism will disintegrate in inner conflict and struggle. Life in that body cannot be joy. But in truth, the eye is connected to the toe, the hand to the head, the belly to all—everything is connected. Within there is a cooperation, an inter-relationship, an inner unity. Inside, all is one. Eye and big toe are not separate; they are parts of one life-process. Look closely, understand, recognize—and all life will appear as one process.
And the day it appears that all life is one process, that very day God is experienced. ‘God’ means: all is one. ‘God’ means: there are not many. ‘God’ means: there are no fragments. All is unfragmented, an indivisible flow of life.
Yet we have broken ourselves off from that indivisible. Even the devotee says, I am separate! The devotee says, O God, have compassion on me! He says, I am separate—you are the compassionate, I am the receiver. You are the purifier of the fallen, I am the fallen. He too says, I am separate. He too says, redeem me!
To whom are you saying it? You are that very one to whom you pray! From whom are you begging alms? The one from whom you beg—you are that! There is no one there to listen. The beggar is the receiver; the giver is the taker. There are not two. And still all the devotees stand with folded hands—before whom?
Therefore I say, all devotees are atheists. No devotee has any scent of God. To whom are you folding hands? Folding hands means there is another. And where there is another, there begins all mischief. There we have broken ourselves. To whom are you praying? At whose feet do you lay your head? Who is there as the second?
No one at all. Life is an endless expanse of one energy, one life-force. But even the devotee says, God is separate! I am trying to attain God! The effort to attain God is an illusion—because in that effort it is assumed that ‘I am’, and I shall attain God!
No, religion neither believes nor knows that there is any ‘other’. Religious knowing is precisely this: ‘I am not.’ And then all becomes one.
Then whom to pray to? Then one hand is folded to one’s own head! One’s own head is placed at one’s own feet! All prayer, all worship, all ritual becomes absurd—because to whom are you doing it?
The original illusion remains—the primal delusion—that the other is separate and I am separate. Enter that inner end of the outer delusion and inquire: ‘Am I?’ Go and search: where is this ‘I’? Ask at every step—am I this? Am I the body?
We say seekers ask. Seekers ask, am I the body? But their answer is ready-made; they say, I am not the body! That answer is not coming from realization; it is read from a book. The answer is known beforehand; they ask afterward. The asking is false. The answer is already known—like children copying in math: they look up the answer before doing the problem. The answer is known in advance; then they ‘work’ the sum.
So do the religious. The answer is fixed: we are the soul. Then they ask: am I the body? And then they themselves reply: I am not the body. What madness! To whom are you asking? And to whom are you answering?
If you have begun to ask, go on until the end—don’t stop quickly. Ask: am I the body? And do not bring the answer from the book, for what comes from the book will be false for you. It may have been true for someone to whom it happened. You have not got it—you got it from a book, not from your being.
Ask: am I the body? Ask: am I the mind? But do not stop here. The one who stops never truly asks. Ask also: am I the Atman? And at each step the answer will be: no. It will be no for the body, no for the mind, no for the Atman as an object. In truth, whatever we can ask about—‘am I this?’—the answer will be: this I am not. Keep asking, keep searching—and finally you will find that ‘I am’ is not. No answer will be found. In the end it will be seen that I am not. All is—but I am not.
As if someone begins to peel an onion—removes one layer. He says, this layer is not the onion. Throws it away; peels another—this too is not the onion. And he goes on peeling, layer upon layer. What will he find at the end? He will find emptiness; he will discover there was no onion—there were only layers upon layers.
In the same way, if one goes on searching, there will be only layers; ‘I’ will not be found anywhere. Finally all layers will become still and the sense of ‘I’ will fall silent. Where ‘I’ is silent, ‘I’ is not found—but the whole is found!
Ask, Who am I? and in the end it will be known: I am not. And then what is known—that alone is. Its name is Truth; its name is Paramatman. But the one who says ‘I am the Atman’ never comes to know the Paramatman, because he proceeds with the premise that ‘I am’. The so-called atma-vadi is not a paramatma-vadi, for the atma-vadi says, ‘I am’—and his insistence persists that I am separate! He says, I want moksha! He says, even in moksha ‘I’ will remain!
The atma-vadi is ready to give up everything—but not the ‘I’. He says, I will give up wealth, I will give up house, wife and children, I will give up the world. He even says, I will give up the body, I will die, I will take santhara. But he says: I will not give up ‘I’! I shall survive! In moksha I shall be! I shall experience perfect peace and bliss in moksha! But ‘I’—I shall remain!
It is curious: the real property is ‘I’, not money. And the pleasure in money is the pleasure of strengthening the ‘I’—no other pleasure. The joy of ‘I have’ is the joy of making ‘I’ strong. If you have a big house, to that extent your ‘I’ will be big. A small house—‘I’ becomes small. The pain is not from the small house; the pain is from the shrinking of ‘I’. Sit on a big throne, you have a big ‘I’. Get pulled down from the chair, the ‘I’ shrinks. The hurt is not from the chair. What pleasure can there be in a big throne? The pleasure is that the ‘I’ grows big upon it.
That ‘I’ is utterly imaginary. It grows big leaning on a big throne, on great wealth, on a high position. We say, leave position, leave wealth. But the ‘I’ is very cunning; even by leaving it grows bigger. It says, ‘I’ abandoned wealth! See, ‘I’ kicked away the ministry! ‘I’ renounced position! ‘I’ left everything! But ‘I’ says: ‘I’ left everything! It rises anew in fresh forms. Therefore giving up money is easy, because ‘I’ does not die by giving it up; it becomes stronger. Money can be stolen by thieves; renunciation no one can steal. If you want a strong vault, build the vault of renunciation. Iron vaults can be broken; thieves are clever.
The householder’s ego can be robbed; the sannyasin’s ego cannot. The householder is naive; the sannyasin is clever, more cunning. He is strengthening such an ‘I’ as none can steal. How will you steal his ‘I’? If you snatch away his clothes, he will say, I have renounced clothes also. Good, this fuss too is gone—no clothes now. Now I am even more free! And the ‘I’ grows stronger—‘I’ have left even clothes!
The householder is a naive egoist; the sannyasin is a sophisticated egoist.
When a householder’s naivete breaks, he also begins to become a sannyasin. He understands what madness he was caught in! There is no substance in it. Money is stolen. If the government changes, all is upset. If communism comes, all is upset.
From the sannyasin nothing can be taken. He has nothing left to take. He has a pure ‘I’ left now, with nothing left to drop. But the real question is the dropping of ‘I’. The question is not leaving money, nor house, nor position. The question is leaving ‘I’. Yet even the seeker of moksha does not leave it! He says, I shall remain—purely. The body will fall, but I will remain. Mind will fall, I will remain. Desire will fall, I will remain.
This is astonishing: that which is most illusory—that alone we strive to preserve. No—so long as ‘I’ is, nothing is dropped. The day ‘I’ drops, that day something drops. And the day ‘I’ drops, that day is moksha. There is no moksha for ‘I’; liberation is from ‘I’. There is no liberation of the ‘I’—as if I shall become free. To be free means the ‘I’ has died, the ‘I’ is gone. In freedom no ‘I’ remains.
Freedom means: the life of the Paramatman. Where I am not, only the Whole remains. I am one with all—one-flavored. I do not have to become; I only have to know what is true. Am I separate? Am I distinct? Can one live even for a moment in separateness? Is a separate life possible at all? Lock a person into a capsule, sever every connection—will he live? Will he last even a moment?
Life is interrelationship. Life is vast interconnection.
Imagine a person locked in a vacuum capsule, sealed in emptiness, unrelated to the world. Could he be there even for a moment? He would not be. It cannot be.
But all of us have built a capsule of ego. Inside that ego we stand apart and say: ‘I am!’ Although we are connected, still we say, ‘I am’—separate and distinct!
Life is union. Ego is disjunction.
It is necessary to inquire into ego—whether it is not a delusion. Have you ever sat in aloneness and looked inward—where is the ego, where am I? Keep asking—Is this me? And the answer will come: no. The answer ‘neti, neti’—not this, not this—will come: no, I am not this.
If you have learned answers from books, then the answer will come—Yes! I am not the body, but I am the Atman! I am not the Atman, but I am the Paramatman! If the answer is learned, it will be useless.
Only ask—inquiry is needed, exploration is needed—Is this me? And instantly it will be evident I cannot be this. I cannot be the hand, because I am knowing the hand, recognizing it. Am I the body? I cannot be the body, because I am knowing the body. That which I know, I cannot be—that which knows is ‘I’. Then ask further—Am I thought? I am knowing thoughts as well. Am I mind? I am knowing mind too. Keep asking, keep asking. Am I the soul as an object? In truth, whatever we can put as a question ‘Am I this?’—that I am not. Ask and ask until a moment comes when nothing remains to ask, ‘What am I?’ Nothing remains to ask—as to who I am. And no answer is found! The answering drops, the tendency to question drops, and with it the ‘I’ also drops.
Then remains an infinite peace. Then remains infinite silence. There, neither question nor answer is. Then remains an infinite expanse. Then remains life and the throb of life. Then it will be seen—this tree is also me, this body is also me, this moon is also me, that star is also me. Those other eyes looking at me—through them also I am peeping. I am speaking—and that which hears from the other end is also I. I am speaking; from the other corner I am hearing. The one I love is also I. And the one who loves is also I.
The day it is seen ‘I am not’—that very day a revolution happens. And it is seen ‘I alone am.’ Both statements mean the same. Whether you say, I am not, all is—or you say, nothing is but I alone—both are the same. Both mean: life is—an endless, boundless expansion of life. It is an ocean of energy, one energy vibrating in infinite forms. But the vibration is one. Until this awareness becomes clear, there can be no freedom from burden.
Ego is the greatest burden.
A man once went to Lao Tzu and said, I desire moksha. Lao Tzu laughed. He said, ‘Madman, you desire moksha—you?’ He said, Yes I—I want to attain moksha. How can I attain it?
Lao Tzu said: First go and understand whether there is an ‘I’. If there is, I will tell the path to free it. First go, search whether ‘I’ is. If there is an ‘I’, I will tell the way to be free. And if there is no ‘I’, whom shall I show the way to free?
The man went back. Years later he returned and laid his head at Lao Tzu’s feet. Lao Tzu asked: Did you find the ‘I’?
The man said: What a wondrous thing you said. I went to find ‘I’—and I was lost!
Lao Tzu said: And your intention for moksha?
He said: The matter is finished. Since I am not, who is to be freed! And since I am not, I am free—because I was the bondage.
But we all search for moksha. We say, I want to be peaceful. Remember, as long as ‘I’ is, there can be no peace. Yet we ask, How shall I become peaceful? We ask, How shall I become peaceful?
It is like cancer asking, How shall I become healthy? If cancer comes and asks you—if tuberculosis asks—How shall I become healthy? We will tell it, You are the disease. Therefore you cannot be healthy. If you are not, health will be. Cancer cannot be healthy; the absence of cancer is health.
‘I’ can never be peaceful. Yet we are all trying to make ‘I’ peaceful. We say, we have nothing to do with the world—how shall I become peaceful! And ‘I’ itself is unrest, ‘I’ itself is conflict, ‘I’ itself is suffering, ‘I’ itself is bondage. And we ask, how shall I be free?
And there are teachers to tell us: chant, do austerities, fast—and you will be free! And the ‘I’ says, wonderful! Now I will fast. And ‘I’ fasts. And after fasting the ‘I’ comes into the marketplace and says, I have done so many fasts! I have done so much japa! I have turned a hundred thousand rosary beads! I have filled thousands of notebooks writing ‘Ram Ram’!
I went to a village. There is a Ram temple there. In that temple there is only one activity: thousands of notebooks, and each person sits and writes ‘Ram Ram, Ram Ram’ in them. They store those notebooks. They say, we have crores of Ram-names in this temple. From all over the country thousands of people keep writing ‘Ram Ram’ and send those notebooks, and the pile grows.
And each person keeps a tally—how many hundred-thousands of ‘Ram’ I have written, how many hundreds of thousands of names I have taken, how many rosaries I have turned, how many fasts I have done! The ‘I’ is delighted! It says, Good, I have found new ways to fatten myself. Earlier I counted how much money is in my safe. Now I count how many ‘names’, how many ‘Rams’ are in my safe! Earlier I said how many stories my house had. Now I say how many storeys of fasting I have—fast upon fast, storey upon storey! Now I say, I have left this and that; I have done this and that. I have read so many Navkars, so many namaz; I have done this, I have done that! And ‘I’ begins to build new mansions. Then ‘I’ says, I want moksha. Where is moksha? How will moksha be attained?
This is the fundamental illusion by which the seeker goes astray. It is the ‘I’ that misleads—nothing else. Then ‘I’ invents countless new devices. It is necessary to understand this ‘I’—that the very one we want to make peaceful, is it not itself the unrest?
Have you ever noticed—what is unrest? If ‘I’ were to drop this instant, what unrest would remain? Consider for a moment: if ‘I’ is not, what unrest? Have you ever even thought that in the birth of my unrest, besides my ego, my ‘I’, there is any other cause?
Someone did not greet you on the road—and the mind is disturbed. Someone looked at you with a certain eye—and the mind is disturbed. Someone said you are nothing—and the mind is disturbed. The son did not obey—and the father grew restless. The husband did not follow the wife’s will—and the wife grew restless.
Ever thought what the cause is? Is the cause the husband not obeying? Is the cause the son not obeying the father? Or is the cause the father’s ‘I’, the wife’s ‘I’, the son’s ‘I’? Who is causing unrest? Who disturbs whom?
It is my ‘I’. It says, he did not heed me—I am the father. That ‘I’ has taken on the role—‘I’ am father, ‘I’ am mother, ‘I’ am husband. It says ‘I’. It has taken on a thousand forms. From all directions it demands that its gratification be met—that what ‘I’ say, happens!
This network of ‘I’ is unrest. When unrest becomes too much, when unrest becomes baseless, unbearable—then ‘I’ asks how to find peace. Then ‘I’ goes in search of peace. ‘I’ moves in search of peace; ‘I’ catches the feet of gurus and says, show us the way to peace, we want to be peaceful! ‘I’ wants to be peaceful!
And there are gurus—who have their own ‘I’. If there were no ‘I’, who would sit as a guru? So they say, Come, we shall give you peace! And the one who says, ‘I’ will give peace—that poor fellow himself cannot have peace, because where ‘I’ is, how can peace be? He says, I shall give peace—come!
Around him gather disturbed ‘I’s. Thus sects arise, gurudoms arise, ashrams are built, creeds march. All is the mischief of ‘I’.
The guru is the mischief of ‘I’, the disciple too.
And the disciple seeks a big guru—and wants to prove that his guru is truly big—because with a big guru the disciple’s big ‘I’ is strengthened. He feels, I am not the disciple of some ordinary guru; I am the disciple of a big guru—a big disciple! Thus ‘I’ grows strong.
If you tell him, your Mahavira is not a big guru, your Buddha is not a big guru, your mahatma is a half-mahatma—he is hurt. He is not hurt out of any wound to Mahavira. He is hurt because ‘my guru’—‘my guru’ is weak! A ‘half guru’! Impossible! ‘My guru’ is always the ‘complete guru’! ‘My guru’ is a Tirthankara, my guru is an avatar, my guru is God! And then he says: let swords be drawn!
Poor Mahavira has been gone two and a half thousand years; Mohammed died fourteen hundred years ago; Jesus has been gone ages. Their dust has long since joined the ashes; they have already dissolved into That which is in all. But the one brandishing the sword stands behind. He says, we shall draw swords if anything is said against Mohammed. Why, brother, what does it harm you?
If Mohammed is small, this poor fellow’s ‘I’ becomes small. He is a Muslim—and the pleasure of the Muslim’s ‘I’ lasts only so long as Mohammed is ‘great’. He is a Jain—and his joy lasts only as long as Mahavira is a Tirthankara. If it turns out Mahavira is not a Tirthankara, his ‘I’ dies. Then to which small guru was he clinging? All is gone. The pain he feels is the pain of his ‘I’.
Understand it well: the unrest of the world is the unrest of ‘I’. All unrest is the unrest of ‘I’. There is no other unrest than that of ‘I’.
But see the trick—‘I’ says, ‘I’ want to be peaceful! This is the last device of ‘I’. Then it fabricates practices even in the name of peace. It sits with eyes closed, strikes a pose, and says, I am becoming peaceful. And now and then opens its eyes to see if anyone is watching or not—has anyone noticed how peacefully I am sitting? I have been sitting long in the temple—have other worshippers arrived? Has news reached the village? The ‘I’ keeps peeping—am I being recognized for so much practice? Are people starting to come or not?
I went to a sannyasin’s ashram. I saw a delightful scene there—and in all ashrams it is the same. The sannyasin sits upon a great throne. Beneath it a smaller seat—another sannyasin sits. Beneath that, a still smaller plank—a third sannyasin sits.
I went in; the sannyasin said to me, Do you know who is sitting beside us?
I said: I don’t. Kindly tell me.
He said: Don’t you know? This man was a High Court judge—he became a sannyasin. Left everything; very humble he is. See—he never sits on a seat equal to mine; he keeps a smaller seat.
I said: Master, he keeps a smaller seat than you—but he is waiting for you to die, because under him sits a third man, on a still smaller plank. When you die, he will sit on your seat, and the one below will move up to his. The hierarchy is in place. Here too there are ranks and dignities.
And why is this man delighted that a High Court judge sits below? Why the need to advertise that he was a judge? He is no longer; the matter is finished. He is now a sannyasin in ochre—what judge?
But he declares it: this man was a High Court judge—not an ordinary fellow. The one sitting below me is no ordinary man. Why declare it? To say that I am not seated above some ordinary person—even High Court judges have become sannyasins at my hands! I sit high. And this man is ‘humble’. Why? Because he does not sit equal to me. But if he is humble, what are you? And why are you rejoicing that he does not sit equal? You are so pleased!
You have touched the guru’s feet many times. Touch once his feet to your head—and you will see the truth of the matter. Then the guru will grab your neck—then you will know ‘I’ is seated there too. Touch the feet, he is gratified. Do not touch, he is annoyed. And if you touch your head to his feet, he will go mad. And not only he—the disciples will go mad too—because their guru…! The whole net is woven of ‘I’.
This network of ‘I’ has religious forms and irreligious forms; political forms, cultural forms, literary forms, artistic forms. By a thousand routes ‘I’ holds man.
It must be recognized; it must be searched for within. Inch by inch it must be investigated—where it sits. Wherever you reach with your seeing, from there it will vanish. Wherever you see—here it is—there it begins to dissolve. Search—do not leave even an inch inside that has not been searched. Search inch by inch within, and in the end you will find it is nowhere.
Like taking a lamp into a dark house to search for darkness—wherever the lamp goes, there is no darkness. In the end you will come out and say: there is no darkness. I took a lamp within and looked—it was nowhere. But if you do not take the lamp, there is darkness; if you take the lamp, it is not.
So long as we have not searched, the ‘I’ is. When we search, it is not.
Therefore avoid changing the ‘I’, avoid the ‘I’s trick of changing form. ‘I’ is always ready to change shape. It says, if this form is no longer pleasing, I am willing to take another. You say, I no longer enjoy money—then I am ready for renunciation. You say, I no longer enjoy sin—then I am ready for virtue. You say, I no longer find satisfaction in going to the tavern…
Remember—those who drink, those who smoke—within they are gratifying the ‘I’. Even a small child wants to smoke with swagger, because he sees those who smoke carry a certain strut—an ego feels there. Small boys do not smoke for the cigarette; they smoke to get the sense of being grown-up. They feel, yes, we are something too—not ordinary. The flavor in smoking is not tobacco; it is ‘I’.
What flavor can there be in smoke? Nothing but madness. A man takes smoke in and blows it out—what are you doing? What has happened to your brain? But since the whole world is mad, no one asks anyone: what are you doing—why in and out? It may lead to cough, to illness; there is no flavor in it.
But there is a flavor—of another kind. That is why when someone warns a smoker about health, it has no effect—because the real relish is not in the smoke. The relish is that the smoker comes into a certain swagger; the ‘I’ feels, yes, I am something. Then there are brands—those are brands of ‘I’. Cheap cigarettes are for the poor man’s ‘I’. The rich man’s ‘I’ smokes such a brand that very few can smoke; and he does not even smoke it often—he just holds it and lets the smoke drift. He does not need to draw frequently—he can afford to waste such costly cigarettes. It is all ‘I’. He takes one puff and throws it away. The point is not smoking; the point is showing—see!
Our whole web—whether we smoke, or go to taverns, or wear certain clothes—behind it all the reality has turned into something else. Behind it all ‘I’ is at work. This must be searched out, recognized—where it has caught me. Am I living on the foundation of ‘I’?
If we live on ‘I’, only unrest is possible—not peace. And we do live—on that very foundation. This inquiry is necessary; this investigation is needed. We must play detective within; we must follow it—where it hides. For births upon births it has held us.
When recognition is complete—when it is recognized, identified, this is the ‘I’; when the recognition is grain by grain, particle by particle, when its subtlest vibrations are recognized—it begins to depart, to dissolve. A moment comes when ‘I’ departs. Along with ‘I’, even the so-called soul as a separate entity departs. Then what remains… what remains—the Remaining—what remains then? That remainder alone is Truth, that remainder alone is Peace, that remainder alone is Bliss. Call it what you will—Truth, moksha, Paramatman—names make no difference. Any name will do for that. And even without a name, it will do. But here, the dissolution of ‘I’ is essential.
Science has reached the dissolution of matter. Religion too must reach the dissolution of ‘I’, of the separate soul. When both dissolve—matter and self—what remains is that pulsating ocean. That same ocean appears on one side as ‘matter’ solidified; on the other side as ‘I’ solidified.
That ocean is not solid; it is a living ocean of waves. The day this is felt, then walking on the road, it will not seem ‘I am walking’; it will seem—energy is moving. It will not seem ‘I am speaking’; it will seem—energy speaks, that One is speaking.
Therefore the rishis of the Vedas and Upanishads could say, ‘We do not speak; it is his voice.’ The reason was not that they were claiming, what we say is God himself; the sole reason was: we are not—how can we speak! He alone speaks, he alone walks, he alone eats, drinks, rises, lives, goes; he alone is born, he alone dies—we are not.
As this awareness becomes clear, what unrest remains? What sorrow? What death? What ignorance? What darkness? All gone! Let the person vanish—and all that is painful vanishes. And what are we all? We are all bundles of ‘I’!
I have heard, in a village of Bengal there is a little folk-play. In that play, a man arrives at a temple in Vrindavan. He is about to enter. He has nothing in his hands, no bundle. Shoes left outside, staff left outside. But the gatekeeper stops him—‘Wait! Leave your baggage outside!’
The man says: I have left it—see, my hands are empty! Shoes are outside, the stick too. I am empty. Let me go—I have come to pray.
The gatekeeper says: Not like that—leave all baggage outside.
The man says: Are you mad? What baggage is there?
The gatekeeper says: Even if you bring back what you left outside, no harm—just leave this baggage: ‘I will go inside; I will have darshan of God; I will worship!’ Leave this ‘I’ outside—for with this ‘I’, no one has ever entered God’s temple.
The man says: What was visible I left. But this ‘I’—how can I take it out and leave it?
The gatekeeper says: Go search. If you cannot find it, then come—then it is already left outside. If you find it, then leave it and come.
Rumi has a song: a lover knocks on his beloved’s door. From inside comes a voice: Who is it? Who are you?
He says: It is I—did you not recognize? The voice? The footfalls? It is I, your lover.
Inside there is silence. He beats on the door more. As if no one is inside—so still.
He cries, What has happened to you? Why do you not speak? Why not open? I have come—your lover.
From within comes only this: Two cannot dwell in the house of love. Here I am already ‘I’. If another ‘I’ comes, it will be great difficulty.
And you know—two ‘I’s dwell in every house of love, and there is great difficulty. In every house of love two ‘I’s sit—and hell is born there.
She says: I am ‘I’ here—there is no room for another ‘I’. Go back for now. And she adds, Remember, the love that says ‘I’—how can that be love?
The lover returns. Years pass—monsoons, sunlight, nights, moon, darkness and dawns go by.
He returns, again taps at that door. Again from within—Who are you?
He says: Now I am not—I am you. And Rumi’s poem says the door opened!
But Rumi died long ago. Often I feel like going to the grave and saying—You stopped your poem in the middle. It is not complete. Because he still says, I am not—you are! But when one’s ‘I’ dissolves, the ‘you’ dissolves too—for ‘you’ appears only so long as ‘I’ is. He began to say, ‘I am not’—but if you are not, who is there to say ‘I am not’? And if you are not, how can you say ‘you are’? Rumi opened the door too soon!
I am not ready to open the door. I say—the beloved fell silent and said, Go back still—because so long as ‘you’ is, how can ‘I’ dissolve? But to extend the poem beyond that is very difficult—and perhaps that is why Rumi feared and stopped. To carry the poem further is hard—because poetry too requires at least two.
For drama, at least two are needed. When only the One remains, what poetry? When only the One remains, what coming? When only the One remains, at whose door to knock? Who will ask, who will answer?
So I say, the poem still goes on: the lover goes away again—rain comes, sun, more rain, more sun. But he never returns—because the one who could return is gone. He does not return—but that which was sought comes of itself to him. For once the ‘I’ is gone, what remains to hold back? Then love flows of itself.
Therefore I say—you can never reach Paramatman. But Paramatman will reach you the day you are not. No man has ever reached God, nor can he. The day man disappears, moksha arrives, Paramatman arrives. He is already arrived—only the ‘I’ prevents seeing. He is present. He stands everywhere—he alone is. But because of ‘I’ he is not seen. This ‘I’ is the only blindness. Let ‘I’ go, the eye opens—he is. In this experience life’s meaning and blessedness are attained. In this experience comes that moment of bliss—after which there is no question of sorrow, for that which ached has gone, that knot which hurt has gone. The knot of ‘I’, the ego-complex—what hurt was that; it is gone. What sorrow now, what pain, what death?
For it was the ‘I’ that died. That which is has never died. That which is never dies. It is the ‘I’ that is born again and again and dies again and again. Therefore never say, the Atman is reborn. The Atman has no rebirth. Only the ‘I’ is born and dies again and again. All rebirths are of the ego.
And the day ‘I’ is not, that day there is no rebirth. Only life is. Then there is no birth, no death. Then beginningless, endless life is. The name of that beginningless life is Paramatman; its name is moksha; that alone is Truth.
We are untrue; therefore we do not find that Truth. Search out this untruth. With this untruth retained, that Truth cannot be found. Search this untruth—and by searching it will drop, vanish, become void. As it becomes void, Truth is revealed.
‘I’ must be erased. One must know ‘I’ erasing. Know in such a way that ‘I’ dissolves.
Where there is no ‘I’, there is meditation; there is the door.
At the place from which we began, there are many closed doors. Only one is open. All closed doors are doors of ‘I’. The one open door is ‘not-I’, the door of ‘no-I’—that alone is meditation. Meditation means: where you are not. Non-meditation means: where you are. The self, the ‘I-sense’, the soul as a separate entity—all are to be bid farewell. But you cannot bid it farewell by will; search, and you will find it is not—and it goes.
Now we will sit for meditation.
For ten minutes, do what I have said. Move a little apart—no one touching anyone. Do not speak. Sit anywhere. When one is ready to dissolve, everywhere is equal. Sit anywhere.
Close your eyes. Let the body loosen, relax, eyes closed.
And what to say—dissolve, as if you are not. Become one with this entire expanse. The bird that is calling, the winds, the sunlight—they are I. I am one with all of this. Let go of yourself—dissolve, as if you are not.
(One seeker sobs loudly…)
Yes—let no one worry about anyone. Whatever happens to someone, let it happen. Mind your own. Dissolve yourself. If someone cries, let it be. Let go completely. Whatever sounds are heard, keep hearing. Whatever sounds—keep hearing: a bird calls, someone begins to weep. The one who is weeping is also you. The bird’s voice is also you. Accept everything.
Keep listening, keep knowing. Let only one thing become clear within: I am not. Let go… relax completely… whatever is happening, whatever is, become one with it. Slowly the mind will become quiet… slowly the mind will become quiet… for ten minutes dissolve completely.
Let go… let go completely… as if dissolved, become one with all of nature. Whatever the atmosphere around, become one with it. As if you yourself have dissolved and become one with the whole. Then there is no anxiety, no pain, no attachment. Let go… let go completely…
Become one—the birds’ voices, the sun’s rays, shade, trees—whatever is all around, we are one with it, not separate. We too are that. See it within and understand that we are connected, not separate. As this connectedness appears, the mind will grow quiet. As ‘I’ dissolves, all will grow quiet.
Dissolve… dissolve completely, as if you are not… dissolve, as if you are not… become one with all that spreads around. Then see how the mind grows quiet and empty. We are not separate.
Slowly take two or four deep breaths… with each breath feel connection with the Whole. Slowly take two or four deep breaths… slowly… with each breath feel: connected with the outside, with all.
Then slowly open the eyes… and see, outside and inside are one. There is no distance between. What is outside is within; what is within is outside. Slowly open the eyes… and for two minutes look: is not what appears outside the very extension of the within?
Osho's Commentary
There are two delusions in life. Both seem very true. One is the delusion of matter, and the other is the delusion of the ego. One delusion is outside, one delusion is inside. They are born together and they die together. They are the two ends of the same delusion, two poles of the same illusion.
Matter appears, and it doesn’t even occur to us that there could be such a thing as no matter. It feels so solid. How solid is a stone?
A great thinker, Johnson, once went walking with Berkeley. Berkeley said, whatever appears outside is all illusion. Johnson picked up a stone and smashed it on Berkeley’s foot. Berkeley grabbed his foot and sat down, badly hurt, bleeding. Johnson said: ‘Is this stone an illusion, that has made you bleed?’
Perhaps Johnson thought he had given a great argument for stone, for matter. But stone is an illusion. Today science says matter is not—matter does not exist.
Long ago some people said that matter is maya, illusion. Perhaps it sounded laughable then. Matter and maya? Matter is the truth! What appears is truth—so we ordinarily say. We say, what appears is real, what does not appear, how can that be real? Now science says, what appears is not at all true. The solidity of matter, its being, is all untrue.
But how to accept this? When a stone falls on your foot it hurts. Try to walk through a wall and your head breaks. How can we deny as real a wall that breaks our head? The head certainly breaks, and yet the wall is not as it appears. What appears to us as the outer world—the trees, the sun in the sky, the earth, the stones—all this expanse around us appears to be solid, to be material.
But as deeper inquiry was made and matter was broken, it was found there is only energy, shakti; there is no matter. What we call matter is a heap of molecules; and molecules are not matter. Matter is an accumulation of atoms, and atoms are only particles of energy, quanta of force.
Then why does matter appear? Matter appears because of the tremendous speed, the whirl, of energy-particles. Their speed gives rise to the illusion of solidity. The empty spaces between them do not appear. The emptiness becomes solid to our eyes. They whirl so fast; their velocity is immense, the same as the speed of the sun’s rays. Sunlight travels one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles in one second. Atoms whirl within a tiny space with this very speed—at one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second. How many revolutions will they make within a second?
Tiny atoms! And how tiny are atoms! If we lined atoms along a strand of hair, one hundred thousand atoms would stand side by side in the thickness of a single hair. So small are the atoms; so tiny is the orbit in which they spin; and the speed of that orbit is one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second. Therefore things appear solid. Nothing is solid. Matter is utterly illusory.
One delusion is outside, and the other end of that same delusion is inside. Inside it appears that ‘I am,’ the ego. This ‘I’ is also entirely false. This ‘I’ is also sheer maya, sheer illusion.
You will say: let us grant that matter is a whirl of energy—how is this ‘I’ false? Was my birth not? Was I not a child? Did I not study? Did I not grow up? Am I not young today? Sometimes I fall ill, sometimes I am healthy. If I am not, then where do all these happen? On whom do they happen? Upon whom do all these experiences pass? I am. My honor is, my prestige is, my dignity, my respect, my knowledge, my renunciation is! Am I not? If I am not, then all is erased.
If we enter into this ‘I’ the way the scientist entered the atom—entered matter and said, there is no matter—so too, when someone enters within this ‘I’ and comes to know the atoms of the ‘I’, he discovers that ‘I’ too is a delusion. What are the atoms of ‘I’?—experiences. Just as matter’s atoms are electrons, so the ‘I’ has atoms—particles of experience. Those particles of experience have clustered and are spinning rapidly. Because of their speed a circle seems to arise, a ring seems to be there: an ego-circle, and it feels as if ‘I am.’
If we light a torch and whirl it fast, a fire-circle appears. A flaming ring seems to be there. But it is nowhere. Only a single torch is moving—moved swiftly—and a circle is seen. The torch will not be seen; the ring will be seen. Stop the torch and you will see—the ring was false, the fire-circle was false; there was no fire-ring, only a torch spinning fast.
When one goes within, one finds that particles of experience, particles of memory—bits of what has happened—are revolving so rapidly that their whirl creates a circle, a ring, an ego-circle; and it seems, ‘I am.’ It seems ‘I am’ because we say, ‘my birth happened.’
But the truth is: ‘my’ birth did not happen. Birth happened—when did ‘my’ birth happen? Do you know the moment of your birth? Birth happened. You grew. But you say, I grew! Growing happened—there was a process of growth. Illness came. Health came. But to each event we add, ‘I was ill, I felt hungry, I became healthy, I went!’
If we enter into each experience, we will find events have occurred. But our language is misleading. We say, lightning flashed in the sky! Language creates the mistake that lightning is one thing and flashing is another. Lightning flashed—we think there is lightning that flashed. Science will say, ‘lightning flashed’ is wrong. Flashing is the very name of lightning. Lightning has never flashed; that which flashes is what we call lightning. Flashing and lightning are two names of one thing, not two different things.
You say, I went. If you look within, you will find, going happened; ‘I’ did not go. ‘I’ and going are two names of one event. But our language says, I went!
We say, I felt thirsty. The truth is, thirst arose. And in the moment of thirst, there were not two—the ‘I’ and thirst. I was thirst.
But language splits in two. It says: I felt thirst. We say, I am suffering. Look very closely and only suffering is. That suffering is ‘I’. But language splits it in two—‘I am suffering.’
By the construction of our language, the ‘I’ gets constructed. There is no ‘I’ anywhere, but this construction goes on from childhood through life. And slowly the illusion of an ‘I’, a falsehood, accumulates, stands, hardens. And this hardened ‘I’ is the greatest burden upon us.
I spoke to you of two burdens: the burden of the past and the burden of the future. And the ultimate burden is the burden of ‘I’, the burden of ego.
So long as this burden of ego remains upon consciousness, we cannot enter truth; for ego is untruth, ego is false.
Try to enter within. Already our whole language is mixed up! When we say ‘within’, the ‘I’ is strengthened. We should say only ‘within-ness’—but even ‘within’ strengthens ‘I’; it seems as if inside ‘I am’ and outside ‘I am not.’
The fact is, ‘outside’ and ‘inside’ both are false words. There are not two such things that some is outside and some is inside. One and the same is spread as both outside and inside. Outside and inside are not two things; they are extensions of the same. That which is within is that which is without. But in our seeing it seems as if inside is something else, outside something else.
We say, outside there is nothing, inside there is everything! We say, leave the outside, go within! All this strengthens the ‘I’. But look very carefully—what is outside and what is inside? Which thing is inside and which outside? Is breath inside or outside? We will discover breath is both outside and inside. Breath goes out and breath comes in. Where is breath? Breath is a bridge between outside and inside.
Is the sun outside us or inside? The sun’s warmth is continuously within us. We live by it. Is the sun outside or within? Is the sun part of me or separate from me? If the sun were to go out, would I not also go out? If the sun dies, we all would die here. Then was the sun outside or inside?
Are these trees outside or inside? We will say, surely outside. Trees appear outside us. That appears true. But have you ever considered—from where do you bring wheat? From trees. Food—from where? From trees. Trees are continuously preparing your food. You cannot eat soil, but you sow wheat. The wheat eats the soil. The plant grows; a single grain becomes a thousand grains. It has drawn it all from the earth. The wheat has drunk the sun’s rays. In that wheat the whole process has occurred so that by that process the wheat can become part of your body. It will enter you, become your blood, your bones, your flesh.
If all the plants stop making food, can you live even a moment? You will depart this very moment. Then are plants outside you or inside—or are they parts of the same vast process of life of which you too are a part? The same process of life is producing wheat on one side and producing you on the other—and then that wheat nourishes you, and tomorrow you fall and dissolve again into soil!
So are you, and earth, separate? From that very soil you are born; to that very soil you return. By that very soil you live, and then you become soil again. How many times have you become plants, and how many times have plants become man! How many times man has become earth again and again plant again! Are these parts of one circle or separate? What is outside and what is inside?
What is outside is entering within every moment; what is within is going out every moment.
Outside and inside are waves of one life-energy. When the wave turns inward we say ‘I’; when it turns outward we say ‘You’. But ‘You’ and ‘I’ are two ends of one life-wave.
It needs to be seen that this ‘I’ is a delusion. This feeling of within is also a delusion. Until it is seen, there can be no freedom from burden. For as long as I take myself to be separate, distinct, apart, a burden will remain—since a struggle will remain with the rest that is ‘not-I’. ‘I’ struggles with the ‘not-I’; as long as I am ‘I’ and you are ‘you’, conflict continues. As long as the trees are separate and I am separate; the sun is separate and I am separate—an inner duel continues. That duel is the greatest burden upon man, for where is peace in struggle? Where is peace in conflict?
We are fighting at every moment, fighting with all around. And the point of fight is the delusion that I am separate. If it is known I am not separate, I am a limb of this vast process of life—then with whom is there to fight? With whom to struggle? Who is the enemy?
Then the whole vast life is one.
Imagine if my hand were to get the idea that it is separate. If my eyes were to imagine they are separate. If eyes begin to fight with hands, stomach with head, hands with feet—what will be the fate of that person, that body? The whole organism will disintegrate in inner conflict and struggle. Life in that body cannot be joy. But in truth, the eye is connected to the toe, the hand to the head, the belly to all—everything is connected. Within there is a cooperation, an inter-relationship, an inner unity. Inside, all is one. Eye and big toe are not separate; they are parts of one life-process. Look closely, understand, recognize—and all life will appear as one process.
And the day it appears that all life is one process, that very day God is experienced. ‘God’ means: all is one. ‘God’ means: there are not many. ‘God’ means: there are no fragments. All is unfragmented, an indivisible flow of life.
Yet we have broken ourselves off from that indivisible. Even the devotee says, I am separate! The devotee says, O God, have compassion on me! He says, I am separate—you are the compassionate, I am the receiver. You are the purifier of the fallen, I am the fallen. He too says, I am separate. He too says, redeem me!
To whom are you saying it? You are that very one to whom you pray! From whom are you begging alms? The one from whom you beg—you are that! There is no one there to listen. The beggar is the receiver; the giver is the taker. There are not two. And still all the devotees stand with folded hands—before whom?
Therefore I say, all devotees are atheists. No devotee has any scent of God. To whom are you folding hands? Folding hands means there is another. And where there is another, there begins all mischief. There we have broken ourselves. To whom are you praying? At whose feet do you lay your head? Who is there as the second?
No one at all. Life is an endless expanse of one energy, one life-force. But even the devotee says, God is separate! I am trying to attain God! The effort to attain God is an illusion—because in that effort it is assumed that ‘I am’, and I shall attain God!
No, religion neither believes nor knows that there is any ‘other’. Religious knowing is precisely this: ‘I am not.’ And then all becomes one.
Then whom to pray to? Then one hand is folded to one’s own head! One’s own head is placed at one’s own feet! All prayer, all worship, all ritual becomes absurd—because to whom are you doing it?
The original illusion remains—the primal delusion—that the other is separate and I am separate. Enter that inner end of the outer delusion and inquire: ‘Am I?’ Go and search: where is this ‘I’? Ask at every step—am I this? Am I the body?
We say seekers ask. Seekers ask, am I the body? But their answer is ready-made; they say, I am not the body! That answer is not coming from realization; it is read from a book. The answer is known beforehand; they ask afterward. The asking is false. The answer is already known—like children copying in math: they look up the answer before doing the problem. The answer is known in advance; then they ‘work’ the sum.
So do the religious. The answer is fixed: we are the soul. Then they ask: am I the body? And then they themselves reply: I am not the body. What madness! To whom are you asking? And to whom are you answering?
If you have begun to ask, go on until the end—don’t stop quickly. Ask: am I the body? And do not bring the answer from the book, for what comes from the book will be false for you. It may have been true for someone to whom it happened. You have not got it—you got it from a book, not from your being.
Ask: am I the body? Ask: am I the mind? But do not stop here. The one who stops never truly asks. Ask also: am I the Atman? And at each step the answer will be: no. It will be no for the body, no for the mind, no for the Atman as an object. In truth, whatever we can ask about—‘am I this?’—the answer will be: this I am not. Keep asking, keep searching—and finally you will find that ‘I am’ is not. No answer will be found. In the end it will be seen that I am not. All is—but I am not.
As if someone begins to peel an onion—removes one layer. He says, this layer is not the onion. Throws it away; peels another—this too is not the onion. And he goes on peeling, layer upon layer. What will he find at the end? He will find emptiness; he will discover there was no onion—there were only layers upon layers.
In the same way, if one goes on searching, there will be only layers; ‘I’ will not be found anywhere. Finally all layers will become still and the sense of ‘I’ will fall silent. Where ‘I’ is silent, ‘I’ is not found—but the whole is found!
Ask, Who am I? and in the end it will be known: I am not. And then what is known—that alone is. Its name is Truth; its name is Paramatman. But the one who says ‘I am the Atman’ never comes to know the Paramatman, because he proceeds with the premise that ‘I am’. The so-called atma-vadi is not a paramatma-vadi, for the atma-vadi says, ‘I am’—and his insistence persists that I am separate! He says, I want moksha! He says, even in moksha ‘I’ will remain!
The atma-vadi is ready to give up everything—but not the ‘I’. He says, I will give up wealth, I will give up house, wife and children, I will give up the world. He even says, I will give up the body, I will die, I will take santhara. But he says: I will not give up ‘I’! I shall survive! In moksha I shall be! I shall experience perfect peace and bliss in moksha! But ‘I’—I shall remain!
It is curious: the real property is ‘I’, not money. And the pleasure in money is the pleasure of strengthening the ‘I’—no other pleasure. The joy of ‘I have’ is the joy of making ‘I’ strong. If you have a big house, to that extent your ‘I’ will be big. A small house—‘I’ becomes small. The pain is not from the small house; the pain is from the shrinking of ‘I’. Sit on a big throne, you have a big ‘I’. Get pulled down from the chair, the ‘I’ shrinks. The hurt is not from the chair. What pleasure can there be in a big throne? The pleasure is that the ‘I’ grows big upon it.
That ‘I’ is utterly imaginary. It grows big leaning on a big throne, on great wealth, on a high position. We say, leave position, leave wealth. But the ‘I’ is very cunning; even by leaving it grows bigger. It says, ‘I’ abandoned wealth! See, ‘I’ kicked away the ministry! ‘I’ renounced position! ‘I’ left everything! But ‘I’ says: ‘I’ left everything! It rises anew in fresh forms. Therefore giving up money is easy, because ‘I’ does not die by giving it up; it becomes stronger. Money can be stolen by thieves; renunciation no one can steal. If you want a strong vault, build the vault of renunciation. Iron vaults can be broken; thieves are clever.
The householder’s ego can be robbed; the sannyasin’s ego cannot. The householder is naive; the sannyasin is clever, more cunning. He is strengthening such an ‘I’ as none can steal. How will you steal his ‘I’? If you snatch away his clothes, he will say, I have renounced clothes also. Good, this fuss too is gone—no clothes now. Now I am even more free! And the ‘I’ grows stronger—‘I’ have left even clothes!
The householder is a naive egoist; the sannyasin is a sophisticated egoist.
When a householder’s naivete breaks, he also begins to become a sannyasin. He understands what madness he was caught in! There is no substance in it. Money is stolen. If the government changes, all is upset. If communism comes, all is upset.
From the sannyasin nothing can be taken. He has nothing left to take. He has a pure ‘I’ left now, with nothing left to drop. But the real question is the dropping of ‘I’. The question is not leaving money, nor house, nor position. The question is leaving ‘I’. Yet even the seeker of moksha does not leave it! He says, I shall remain—purely. The body will fall, but I will remain. Mind will fall, I will remain. Desire will fall, I will remain.
This is astonishing: that which is most illusory—that alone we strive to preserve. No—so long as ‘I’ is, nothing is dropped. The day ‘I’ drops, that day something drops. And the day ‘I’ drops, that day is moksha. There is no moksha for ‘I’; liberation is from ‘I’. There is no liberation of the ‘I’—as if I shall become free. To be free means the ‘I’ has died, the ‘I’ is gone. In freedom no ‘I’ remains.
Freedom means: the life of the Paramatman. Where I am not, only the Whole remains. I am one with all—one-flavored. I do not have to become; I only have to know what is true. Am I separate? Am I distinct? Can one live even for a moment in separateness? Is a separate life possible at all? Lock a person into a capsule, sever every connection—will he live? Will he last even a moment?
Life is interrelationship. Life is vast interconnection.
Imagine a person locked in a vacuum capsule, sealed in emptiness, unrelated to the world. Could he be there even for a moment? He would not be. It cannot be.
But all of us have built a capsule of ego. Inside that ego we stand apart and say: ‘I am!’ Although we are connected, still we say, ‘I am’—separate and distinct!
Life is union. Ego is disjunction.
It is necessary to inquire into ego—whether it is not a delusion. Have you ever sat in aloneness and looked inward—where is the ego, where am I? Keep asking—Is this me? And the answer will come: no. The answer ‘neti, neti’—not this, not this—will come: no, I am not this.
If you have learned answers from books, then the answer will come—Yes! I am not the body, but I am the Atman! I am not the Atman, but I am the Paramatman! If the answer is learned, it will be useless.
Only ask—inquiry is needed, exploration is needed—Is this me? And instantly it will be evident I cannot be this. I cannot be the hand, because I am knowing the hand, recognizing it. Am I the body? I cannot be the body, because I am knowing the body. That which I know, I cannot be—that which knows is ‘I’. Then ask further—Am I thought? I am knowing thoughts as well. Am I mind? I am knowing mind too. Keep asking, keep asking. Am I the soul as an object? In truth, whatever we can put as a question ‘Am I this?’—that I am not. Ask and ask until a moment comes when nothing remains to ask, ‘What am I?’ Nothing remains to ask—as to who I am. And no answer is found! The answering drops, the tendency to question drops, and with it the ‘I’ also drops.
Then remains an infinite peace. Then remains infinite silence. There, neither question nor answer is. Then remains an infinite expanse. Then remains life and the throb of life. Then it will be seen—this tree is also me, this body is also me, this moon is also me, that star is also me. Those other eyes looking at me—through them also I am peeping. I am speaking—and that which hears from the other end is also I. I am speaking; from the other corner I am hearing. The one I love is also I. And the one who loves is also I.
The day it is seen ‘I am not’—that very day a revolution happens. And it is seen ‘I alone am.’ Both statements mean the same. Whether you say, I am not, all is—or you say, nothing is but I alone—both are the same. Both mean: life is—an endless, boundless expansion of life. It is an ocean of energy, one energy vibrating in infinite forms. But the vibration is one. Until this awareness becomes clear, there can be no freedom from burden.
Ego is the greatest burden.
A man once went to Lao Tzu and said, I desire moksha. Lao Tzu laughed. He said, ‘Madman, you desire moksha—you?’ He said, Yes I—I want to attain moksha. How can I attain it?
Lao Tzu said: First go and understand whether there is an ‘I’. If there is, I will tell the path to free it. First go, search whether ‘I’ is. If there is an ‘I’, I will tell the way to be free. And if there is no ‘I’, whom shall I show the way to free?
The man went back. Years later he returned and laid his head at Lao Tzu’s feet. Lao Tzu asked: Did you find the ‘I’?
The man said: What a wondrous thing you said. I went to find ‘I’—and I was lost!
Lao Tzu said: And your intention for moksha?
He said: The matter is finished. Since I am not, who is to be freed! And since I am not, I am free—because I was the bondage.
But we all search for moksha. We say, I want to be peaceful. Remember, as long as ‘I’ is, there can be no peace. Yet we ask, How shall I become peaceful? We ask, How shall I become peaceful?
It is like cancer asking, How shall I become healthy? If cancer comes and asks you—if tuberculosis asks—How shall I become healthy? We will tell it, You are the disease. Therefore you cannot be healthy. If you are not, health will be. Cancer cannot be healthy; the absence of cancer is health.
‘I’ can never be peaceful. Yet we are all trying to make ‘I’ peaceful. We say, we have nothing to do with the world—how shall I become peaceful! And ‘I’ itself is unrest, ‘I’ itself is conflict, ‘I’ itself is suffering, ‘I’ itself is bondage. And we ask, how shall I be free?
And there are teachers to tell us: chant, do austerities, fast—and you will be free! And the ‘I’ says, wonderful! Now I will fast. And ‘I’ fasts. And after fasting the ‘I’ comes into the marketplace and says, I have done so many fasts! I have done so much japa! I have turned a hundred thousand rosary beads! I have filled thousands of notebooks writing ‘Ram Ram’!
I went to a village. There is a Ram temple there. In that temple there is only one activity: thousands of notebooks, and each person sits and writes ‘Ram Ram, Ram Ram’ in them. They store those notebooks. They say, we have crores of Ram-names in this temple. From all over the country thousands of people keep writing ‘Ram Ram’ and send those notebooks, and the pile grows.
And each person keeps a tally—how many hundred-thousands of ‘Ram’ I have written, how many hundreds of thousands of names I have taken, how many rosaries I have turned, how many fasts I have done! The ‘I’ is delighted! It says, Good, I have found new ways to fatten myself. Earlier I counted how much money is in my safe. Now I count how many ‘names’, how many ‘Rams’ are in my safe! Earlier I said how many stories my house had. Now I say how many storeys of fasting I have—fast upon fast, storey upon storey! Now I say, I have left this and that; I have done this and that. I have read so many Navkars, so many namaz; I have done this, I have done that! And ‘I’ begins to build new mansions. Then ‘I’ says, I want moksha. Where is moksha? How will moksha be attained?
This is the fundamental illusion by which the seeker goes astray. It is the ‘I’ that misleads—nothing else. Then ‘I’ invents countless new devices. It is necessary to understand this ‘I’—that the very one we want to make peaceful, is it not itself the unrest?
Have you ever noticed—what is unrest? If ‘I’ were to drop this instant, what unrest would remain? Consider for a moment: if ‘I’ is not, what unrest? Have you ever even thought that in the birth of my unrest, besides my ego, my ‘I’, there is any other cause?
Someone did not greet you on the road—and the mind is disturbed. Someone looked at you with a certain eye—and the mind is disturbed. Someone said you are nothing—and the mind is disturbed. The son did not obey—and the father grew restless. The husband did not follow the wife’s will—and the wife grew restless.
Ever thought what the cause is? Is the cause the husband not obeying? Is the cause the son not obeying the father? Or is the cause the father’s ‘I’, the wife’s ‘I’, the son’s ‘I’? Who is causing unrest? Who disturbs whom?
It is my ‘I’. It says, he did not heed me—I am the father. That ‘I’ has taken on the role—‘I’ am father, ‘I’ am mother, ‘I’ am husband. It says ‘I’. It has taken on a thousand forms. From all directions it demands that its gratification be met—that what ‘I’ say, happens!
This network of ‘I’ is unrest. When unrest becomes too much, when unrest becomes baseless, unbearable—then ‘I’ asks how to find peace. Then ‘I’ goes in search of peace. ‘I’ moves in search of peace; ‘I’ catches the feet of gurus and says, show us the way to peace, we want to be peaceful! ‘I’ wants to be peaceful!
And there are gurus—who have their own ‘I’. If there were no ‘I’, who would sit as a guru? So they say, Come, we shall give you peace! And the one who says, ‘I’ will give peace—that poor fellow himself cannot have peace, because where ‘I’ is, how can peace be? He says, I shall give peace—come!
Around him gather disturbed ‘I’s. Thus sects arise, gurudoms arise, ashrams are built, creeds march. All is the mischief of ‘I’.
The guru is the mischief of ‘I’, the disciple too.
And the disciple seeks a big guru—and wants to prove that his guru is truly big—because with a big guru the disciple’s big ‘I’ is strengthened. He feels, I am not the disciple of some ordinary guru; I am the disciple of a big guru—a big disciple! Thus ‘I’ grows strong.
If you tell him, your Mahavira is not a big guru, your Buddha is not a big guru, your mahatma is a half-mahatma—he is hurt. He is not hurt out of any wound to Mahavira. He is hurt because ‘my guru’—‘my guru’ is weak! A ‘half guru’! Impossible! ‘My guru’ is always the ‘complete guru’! ‘My guru’ is a Tirthankara, my guru is an avatar, my guru is God! And then he says: let swords be drawn!
Poor Mahavira has been gone two and a half thousand years; Mohammed died fourteen hundred years ago; Jesus has been gone ages. Their dust has long since joined the ashes; they have already dissolved into That which is in all. But the one brandishing the sword stands behind. He says, we shall draw swords if anything is said against Mohammed. Why, brother, what does it harm you?
If Mohammed is small, this poor fellow’s ‘I’ becomes small. He is a Muslim—and the pleasure of the Muslim’s ‘I’ lasts only so long as Mohammed is ‘great’. He is a Jain—and his joy lasts only as long as Mahavira is a Tirthankara. If it turns out Mahavira is not a Tirthankara, his ‘I’ dies. Then to which small guru was he clinging? All is gone. The pain he feels is the pain of his ‘I’.
Understand it well: the unrest of the world is the unrest of ‘I’. All unrest is the unrest of ‘I’. There is no other unrest than that of ‘I’.
But see the trick—‘I’ says, ‘I’ want to be peaceful! This is the last device of ‘I’. Then it fabricates practices even in the name of peace. It sits with eyes closed, strikes a pose, and says, I am becoming peaceful. And now and then opens its eyes to see if anyone is watching or not—has anyone noticed how peacefully I am sitting? I have been sitting long in the temple—have other worshippers arrived? Has news reached the village? The ‘I’ keeps peeping—am I being recognized for so much practice? Are people starting to come or not?
I went to a sannyasin’s ashram. I saw a delightful scene there—and in all ashrams it is the same. The sannyasin sits upon a great throne. Beneath it a smaller seat—another sannyasin sits. Beneath that, a still smaller plank—a third sannyasin sits.
I went in; the sannyasin said to me, Do you know who is sitting beside us?
I said: I don’t. Kindly tell me.
He said: Don’t you know? This man was a High Court judge—he became a sannyasin. Left everything; very humble he is. See—he never sits on a seat equal to mine; he keeps a smaller seat.
I said: Master, he keeps a smaller seat than you—but he is waiting for you to die, because under him sits a third man, on a still smaller plank. When you die, he will sit on your seat, and the one below will move up to his. The hierarchy is in place. Here too there are ranks and dignities.
And why is this man delighted that a High Court judge sits below? Why the need to advertise that he was a judge? He is no longer; the matter is finished. He is now a sannyasin in ochre—what judge?
But he declares it: this man was a High Court judge—not an ordinary fellow. The one sitting below me is no ordinary man. Why declare it? To say that I am not seated above some ordinary person—even High Court judges have become sannyasins at my hands! I sit high. And this man is ‘humble’. Why? Because he does not sit equal to me. But if he is humble, what are you? And why are you rejoicing that he does not sit equal? You are so pleased!
You have touched the guru’s feet many times. Touch once his feet to your head—and you will see the truth of the matter. Then the guru will grab your neck—then you will know ‘I’ is seated there too. Touch the feet, he is gratified. Do not touch, he is annoyed. And if you touch your head to his feet, he will go mad. And not only he—the disciples will go mad too—because their guru…! The whole net is woven of ‘I’.
This network of ‘I’ has religious forms and irreligious forms; political forms, cultural forms, literary forms, artistic forms. By a thousand routes ‘I’ holds man.
It must be recognized; it must be searched for within. Inch by inch it must be investigated—where it sits. Wherever you reach with your seeing, from there it will vanish. Wherever you see—here it is—there it begins to dissolve. Search—do not leave even an inch inside that has not been searched. Search inch by inch within, and in the end you will find it is nowhere.
Like taking a lamp into a dark house to search for darkness—wherever the lamp goes, there is no darkness. In the end you will come out and say: there is no darkness. I took a lamp within and looked—it was nowhere. But if you do not take the lamp, there is darkness; if you take the lamp, it is not.
So long as we have not searched, the ‘I’ is. When we search, it is not.
Therefore avoid changing the ‘I’, avoid the ‘I’s trick of changing form. ‘I’ is always ready to change shape. It says, if this form is no longer pleasing, I am willing to take another. You say, I no longer enjoy money—then I am ready for renunciation. You say, I no longer enjoy sin—then I am ready for virtue. You say, I no longer find satisfaction in going to the tavern…
Remember—those who drink, those who smoke—within they are gratifying the ‘I’. Even a small child wants to smoke with swagger, because he sees those who smoke carry a certain strut—an ego feels there. Small boys do not smoke for the cigarette; they smoke to get the sense of being grown-up. They feel, yes, we are something too—not ordinary. The flavor in smoking is not tobacco; it is ‘I’.
What flavor can there be in smoke? Nothing but madness. A man takes smoke in and blows it out—what are you doing? What has happened to your brain? But since the whole world is mad, no one asks anyone: what are you doing—why in and out? It may lead to cough, to illness; there is no flavor in it.
But there is a flavor—of another kind. That is why when someone warns a smoker about health, it has no effect—because the real relish is not in the smoke. The relish is that the smoker comes into a certain swagger; the ‘I’ feels, yes, I am something. Then there are brands—those are brands of ‘I’. Cheap cigarettes are for the poor man’s ‘I’. The rich man’s ‘I’ smokes such a brand that very few can smoke; and he does not even smoke it often—he just holds it and lets the smoke drift. He does not need to draw frequently—he can afford to waste such costly cigarettes. It is all ‘I’. He takes one puff and throws it away. The point is not smoking; the point is showing—see!
Our whole web—whether we smoke, or go to taverns, or wear certain clothes—behind it all the reality has turned into something else. Behind it all ‘I’ is at work. This must be searched out, recognized—where it has caught me. Am I living on the foundation of ‘I’?
If we live on ‘I’, only unrest is possible—not peace. And we do live—on that very foundation. This inquiry is necessary; this investigation is needed. We must play detective within; we must follow it—where it hides. For births upon births it has held us.
When recognition is complete—when it is recognized, identified, this is the ‘I’; when the recognition is grain by grain, particle by particle, when its subtlest vibrations are recognized—it begins to depart, to dissolve. A moment comes when ‘I’ departs. Along with ‘I’, even the so-called soul as a separate entity departs. Then what remains… what remains—the Remaining—what remains then? That remainder alone is Truth, that remainder alone is Peace, that remainder alone is Bliss. Call it what you will—Truth, moksha, Paramatman—names make no difference. Any name will do for that. And even without a name, it will do. But here, the dissolution of ‘I’ is essential.
Science has reached the dissolution of matter. Religion too must reach the dissolution of ‘I’, of the separate soul. When both dissolve—matter and self—what remains is that pulsating ocean. That same ocean appears on one side as ‘matter’ solidified; on the other side as ‘I’ solidified.
That ocean is not solid; it is a living ocean of waves. The day this is felt, then walking on the road, it will not seem ‘I am walking’; it will seem—energy is moving. It will not seem ‘I am speaking’; it will seem—energy speaks, that One is speaking.
Therefore the rishis of the Vedas and Upanishads could say, ‘We do not speak; it is his voice.’ The reason was not that they were claiming, what we say is God himself; the sole reason was: we are not—how can we speak! He alone speaks, he alone walks, he alone eats, drinks, rises, lives, goes; he alone is born, he alone dies—we are not.
As this awareness becomes clear, what unrest remains? What sorrow? What death? What ignorance? What darkness? All gone! Let the person vanish—and all that is painful vanishes. And what are we all? We are all bundles of ‘I’!
I have heard, in a village of Bengal there is a little folk-play. In that play, a man arrives at a temple in Vrindavan. He is about to enter. He has nothing in his hands, no bundle. Shoes left outside, staff left outside. But the gatekeeper stops him—‘Wait! Leave your baggage outside!’
The man says: I have left it—see, my hands are empty! Shoes are outside, the stick too. I am empty. Let me go—I have come to pray.
The gatekeeper says: Not like that—leave all baggage outside.
The man says: Are you mad? What baggage is there?
The gatekeeper says: Even if you bring back what you left outside, no harm—just leave this baggage: ‘I will go inside; I will have darshan of God; I will worship!’ Leave this ‘I’ outside—for with this ‘I’, no one has ever entered God’s temple.
The man says: What was visible I left. But this ‘I’—how can I take it out and leave it?
The gatekeeper says: Go search. If you cannot find it, then come—then it is already left outside. If you find it, then leave it and come.
Rumi has a song: a lover knocks on his beloved’s door. From inside comes a voice: Who is it? Who are you?
He says: It is I—did you not recognize? The voice? The footfalls? It is I, your lover.
Inside there is silence. He beats on the door more. As if no one is inside—so still.
He cries, What has happened to you? Why do you not speak? Why not open? I have come—your lover.
From within comes only this: Two cannot dwell in the house of love. Here I am already ‘I’. If another ‘I’ comes, it will be great difficulty.
And you know—two ‘I’s dwell in every house of love, and there is great difficulty. In every house of love two ‘I’s sit—and hell is born there.
She says: I am ‘I’ here—there is no room for another ‘I’. Go back for now. And she adds, Remember, the love that says ‘I’—how can that be love?
The lover returns. Years pass—monsoons, sunlight, nights, moon, darkness and dawns go by.
He returns, again taps at that door. Again from within—Who are you?
He says: Now I am not—I am you. And Rumi’s poem says the door opened!
But Rumi died long ago. Often I feel like going to the grave and saying—You stopped your poem in the middle. It is not complete. Because he still says, I am not—you are! But when one’s ‘I’ dissolves, the ‘you’ dissolves too—for ‘you’ appears only so long as ‘I’ is. He began to say, ‘I am not’—but if you are not, who is there to say ‘I am not’? And if you are not, how can you say ‘you are’? Rumi opened the door too soon!
I am not ready to open the door. I say—the beloved fell silent and said, Go back still—because so long as ‘you’ is, how can ‘I’ dissolve? But to extend the poem beyond that is very difficult—and perhaps that is why Rumi feared and stopped. To carry the poem further is hard—because poetry too requires at least two.
For drama, at least two are needed. When only the One remains, what poetry? When only the One remains, what coming? When only the One remains, at whose door to knock? Who will ask, who will answer?
So I say, the poem still goes on: the lover goes away again—rain comes, sun, more rain, more sun. But he never returns—because the one who could return is gone. He does not return—but that which was sought comes of itself to him. For once the ‘I’ is gone, what remains to hold back? Then love flows of itself.
Therefore I say—you can never reach Paramatman. But Paramatman will reach you the day you are not. No man has ever reached God, nor can he. The day man disappears, moksha arrives, Paramatman arrives. He is already arrived—only the ‘I’ prevents seeing. He is present. He stands everywhere—he alone is. But because of ‘I’ he is not seen. This ‘I’ is the only blindness. Let ‘I’ go, the eye opens—he is. In this experience life’s meaning and blessedness are attained. In this experience comes that moment of bliss—after which there is no question of sorrow, for that which ached has gone, that knot which hurt has gone. The knot of ‘I’, the ego-complex—what hurt was that; it is gone. What sorrow now, what pain, what death?
For it was the ‘I’ that died. That which is has never died. That which is never dies. It is the ‘I’ that is born again and again and dies again and again. Therefore never say, the Atman is reborn. The Atman has no rebirth. Only the ‘I’ is born and dies again and again. All rebirths are of the ego.
And the day ‘I’ is not, that day there is no rebirth. Only life is. Then there is no birth, no death. Then beginningless, endless life is. The name of that beginningless life is Paramatman; its name is moksha; that alone is Truth.
We are untrue; therefore we do not find that Truth. Search out this untruth. With this untruth retained, that Truth cannot be found. Search this untruth—and by searching it will drop, vanish, become void. As it becomes void, Truth is revealed.
‘I’ must be erased. One must know ‘I’ erasing. Know in such a way that ‘I’ dissolves.
Where there is no ‘I’, there is meditation; there is the door.
At the place from which we began, there are many closed doors. Only one is open. All closed doors are doors of ‘I’. The one open door is ‘not-I’, the door of ‘no-I’—that alone is meditation. Meditation means: where you are not. Non-meditation means: where you are. The self, the ‘I-sense’, the soul as a separate entity—all are to be bid farewell. But you cannot bid it farewell by will; search, and you will find it is not—and it goes.
Now we will sit for meditation.
For ten minutes, do what I have said. Move a little apart—no one touching anyone. Do not speak. Sit anywhere. When one is ready to dissolve, everywhere is equal. Sit anywhere.
Close your eyes. Let the body loosen, relax, eyes closed.
And what to say—dissolve, as if you are not. Become one with this entire expanse. The bird that is calling, the winds, the sunlight—they are I. I am one with all of this. Let go of yourself—dissolve, as if you are not.
(One seeker sobs loudly…)
Yes—let no one worry about anyone. Whatever happens to someone, let it happen. Mind your own. Dissolve yourself. If someone cries, let it be. Let go completely. Whatever sounds are heard, keep hearing. Whatever sounds—keep hearing: a bird calls, someone begins to weep. The one who is weeping is also you. The bird’s voice is also you. Accept everything.
Keep listening, keep knowing. Let only one thing become clear within: I am not. Let go… relax completely… whatever is happening, whatever is, become one with it. Slowly the mind will become quiet… slowly the mind will become quiet… for ten minutes dissolve completely.
Let go… let go completely… as if dissolved, become one with all of nature. Whatever the atmosphere around, become one with it. As if you yourself have dissolved and become one with the whole. Then there is no anxiety, no pain, no attachment. Let go… let go completely…
Become one—the birds’ voices, the sun’s rays, shade, trees—whatever is all around, we are one with it, not separate. We too are that. See it within and understand that we are connected, not separate. As this connectedness appears, the mind will grow quiet. As ‘I’ dissolves, all will grow quiet.
Dissolve… dissolve completely, as if you are not… dissolve, as if you are not… become one with all that spreads around. Then see how the mind grows quiet and empty. We are not separate.
Slowly take two or four deep breaths… with each breath feel connection with the Whole. Slowly take two or four deep breaths… slowly… with each breath feel: connected with the outside, with all.
Then slowly open the eyes… and see, outside and inside are one. There is no distance between. What is outside is within; what is within is outside. Slowly open the eyes… and for two minutes look: is not what appears outside the very extension of the within?
Our morning sitting is over.