Neti Neti Sambhavnaon Ki Aahat #7

It is true. The one who is asking is also the answer. But because of the asking, the answer cannot be known. One must ask! Not because asking will yield the answer, but keep asking, keep asking, and all answers will start proving useless. Ultimately, when no answer remains, the question too becomes futile. And when the question drops—you never “get” an answer—when the question drops and the mind becomes questionless, then we know that which used to ask and which also is the answer.

The purpose of questioning is not to find an answer. The purpose of questioning is to render all fixed, borrowed, learned answers useless—and to arrive at that point where, in the end, the question itself becomes useless.

Where the question drops, there is knowing.
Where an answer is found, there is no knowing. Where the question drops, there is knowing.

This needs a little understanding.
We think knowledge is the obtaining of an answer. I tell you: knowledge is the falling away of the question itself.

A young seeker went to Buddha. All his life he had gathered many questions that had no answers. He laid them before Buddha and said, “I want their answers.”

Buddha asked, “Have you put these questions to others before?”
The young man said, “To many. I’ve labored at this for thirty years—half my life gone in it.”
Buddha said, “And from all those you asked—did you receive answers or not?”
He replied, “Everyone gave answers.”
Buddha said, “They gave answers—did you get the answer?”
He said, “If I had, I wouldn’t have come to you. I did not get the answer.”
Buddha said, “After asking so many and not getting the answer, still you go on asking! Did it never occur to you that perhaps by asking one never gets it? I too will give you an answer, and you still won’t get it, because up to now, answers have never yielded the answer.”

The man asked, “Then what should I do?”
Buddha said, “Stay here a year, and become so silent—so silent—that even the questions fall away. Then, after a year, when your mind is utterly quiet, if you ask, I will answer, and you will receive the answer.”

A monk sitting under a tree was listening; he burst out laughing. The newcomer asked, “Why are you laughing?”
The monk said, “Don’t be deceived. A few years ago I came to Buddha in exactly the same way. He told me, ‘Stay a year, be silent, then ask; I will answer.’ It’s a great trick. Don’t fall for it, because when I became silent after a year and he urged me to ask, I had nothing to ask. I didn’t ask; he didn’t answer. I tell you, if you want to ask, ask now—because after a year you’ll have nothing to ask. And it’s not just me—I see this happen to hundreds. They come and ask; Buddha says, ‘First be silent, then ask, then I will answer.’ They become silent; they no longer ask. And no one ever finds out what Buddha’s answer is!”

Buddha said, “I will stand by my word. If, after a year, you ask, I will answer. If you refuse to ask, what can I do!”
The man stayed. His name was Malunkyaputta. After exactly a year, Buddha said, “Malunkyaputta, stand up and ask.”
Malunkyaputta laughed and said, “I don’t want to ask. I don’t want to ask!”
Buddha said, “But why not?”
He said, “There is nothing left to ask. The mind has become so silent that there is no question. And now I’m not going to get entangled in answers. When there is no question, who will bother with an answer!”

Questions drop one day—there the answer is found. One never gets the answer by getting an answer.
All answers are learned—others’ answers, borrowed, from books and scriptures. One’s own answer is found on the day all questions fall away. But even that answer is not “obtained”; when all questions drop, we ourselves become the answer.

Suppose a man is in delirium, running a high fever, has lost his senses, and says, “My cot is flying in the sky—toward the east or toward the west?” Will you give him an answer, or will you run to call a physician? Will you tell him whether the cot is flying east or west?
You know the cot isn’t flying; the man is delirious. He doesn’t need an answer; he needs treatment. You’ll bring a physician.
If he says, “First I need my answer—east or west?” you’ll say, “Wait, wait; we’ll answer in a while. Let a little treatment be done; come to your senses, then ask. Then we will answer.”
And when he’s treated and regains his senses, you say, “Ask—where is the cot flying? We’ll answer.” The man says, “The cot isn’t flying; why should I ask!” The matter ends.

All human questions are asked in delirium, and all philosophy is written in delirium. All scriptures, all philosophies, all the thousand systems are answers to questions asked in delirium.

‘Knowing’ is where the delirium ends—where the fever of questioning itself subsides.

I am not giving you an answer. Nor am I telling you to ask “Who am I?” so that you will get an answer. No—by asking, asking, asking in the intense fire of inquiry, all questions and all answers will fall away. In the end, that alone remains which is. And that is the answer. But that answer does not come; you alone remain—you become the answer.

Right now the mind is sick; therefore you are a question. When the mind is healthy, you yourself are the answer. And the question and the answer never meet, because the diseased mind and the healthy mind never meet. When the diseased mind goes, the healthy mind arrives. Therefore, as long as anyone is asking, there is no answer. And when the answer is, the question has long since departed. They never meet.

Keep this in mind: the question and the answer never meet. As long as the question is within, the knowing answer will not be. On the day the answer is, the question has already gone.

This insistence on inquiry and search is only so that all answers fall away. Neti neti—no, not this, not that—let everything be negated. Let all answers fall; then the lone question remains—how will a lone question survive? A question lives because answers feed it; perhaps you’ve never noticed! Ask one question, you are given one answer—and after it, ten questions arise! Ten answers, and a thousand questions stand up! Every answer gives birth to new questions.

If you observe closely you’ll see: the food of the question is the answer. So long as answers are supplied, the question breeds new offspring. All the answers ever given have generated new questions. No answer has been an answer.

As the hen comes from the egg and eggs again from the hen, so answers come from questions, and from answers more questions. There is no end! And an answer that brings no end—can that be an answer? Our search is for that which is final, ultimate, the last—beyond which nothing remains to be asked.

But such an answer cannot come through asking. It comes when even the asking drops. Yet only those can drop asking who have asked. If one has never asked, what is there to drop? Therefore intense inquiry is needed within: keep asking—Who am I? Who am I? Keep asking, keep asking. Soon, here and there, answers will arise. The mind will say, “You already know who you are.” Do not accept those answers—because by accepting them, the question never dies; new questions sprout. The mind will say, “You are the soul!” If you accept it, the mind will ask: “Does the soul die or not? Where did the soul come from? Why did God create the soul? Who is God?”

Answers will go on generating new questions. No—ask to the very limit. Do not accept any answer. Only the weak accept answers; the strong do not—they keep asking. The weak and the lazy accept answers, because, having accepted an answer, they say, “Now there is no need to search. We’ve assumed this is it. What more is there to ask? Finish.”

But the one willing to ask to the ultimate, the final, goes beyond all answers—and then, in the end, beyond the question too. Like lighting a lamp at dusk: the wick seems to burn, but in truth the oil burns. The wick draws up oil; the oil burns through the night. When the oil is finished, then the wick begins to burn. The very wick that burned up the oil never knew that in burning the oil it was inviting its own death; when the oil is gone, it will have to burn.

The wick does not know it is arranging its own death—suicidal—by burning the oil; for as soon as the oil is finished, the wick will burn. For now, the wick “protects” itself by burning the oil. Through the night the oil is consumed; the lamp empties; then the wick burns and becomes ash. But the wick burns only after the oil is finished—and the wick burns the oil, and in the end, burns itself.

Exactly so, questions first burn up the answers—“This answer won’t do; that answer won’t do.” But the question does not know that when all answers are burned away, in the end, when nothing remains right, the wick—this “I”—will reach the moment of burning too. When all answers fall, on what support will the question stand? The question also falls. First it is seen that the answers are wrong; then it is seen that the question itself is futile. And when neither answers remain nor questions, that alone remains which is. Only then is it known. Therefore I have spoken of inquiry and search.

He sensed a contradiction between these two. It is good to understand it.

First, why does a person say, “From today I will not be angry”? He knows he will get angry; that is precisely why he says it. If he knew that from tomorrow anger simply would not arise, he would not take a vow.

Have you ever sworn, “From today I will not go out through the wall; I will only go out through the door”? You never have, because you know you never go through the wall—you go through the door. And if you found a man standing in a temple declaring, “From tomorrow I have firmly decided that whatever happens I will not go out through the wall,” you would all be startled: has this man been going through walls? And does he still hope, imagine, aspire to walk through one tomorrow?

When a man says, “From tomorrow I will not be angry,” he knows he is going to be angry tomorrow; it is against that that he makes the resolution. Against whom is he taking it—someone else? Controls, vows, rules are all taken against oneself. I know full well I will be angry tomorrow, and the more certain I am of it, the more vehemently I swear, “Tomorrow I will not be angry!” Against whom is this whole arrangement? Against myself.

Any arrangement against oneself splits the personality in two. One part says, “I won’t,” the other says, “I will.” Consider this as well: did you ever, earlier in life, resolve, “I will be angry”? Did you ever vow, “I will be angry”? Never. That is natural. And what you are now taking—“I will not be angry”—is not natural; it is artificial. What is natural will prove stronger; what is artificial cannot. When the natural and the artificial clash, the artificial loses and the natural wins. You are splitting yourself in two. Your nature itself is saying, “I will be angry,” while your learned intellect, your conscious mind, says, “No, now we will not be angry.”

You do not realize that nature is very powerful and your resolutions are next to nothing—nothing at all. When the whirlwind of anger comes tomorrow, all resolutions and vows will blow away like dry leaves. Think of a dry leaf lying on the ground. The wind is still, and the dry leaf says, “I swear I will not be blown about anymore. From tomorrow, whatever happens, I will not fly.” A dry leaf on the road is taking a vow. The wind is not blowing just now; the leaf feels sure: fine, we are lying on the ground, let us swear we will not fly now. But why is the leaf swearing that it will not fly? The leaf has old memories: whenever the wind has blown, it has had to fly—that is what it is swearing against. But it is the leaf that is swearing—and the leaf does not know it is dry and how much strength it has! When nature’s storm, the gusting winds, arise, what will happen to its vow? What worth has a dry leaf’s oath? When the wind comes, the leaf will fly; when the wind passes, the leaf will fall. Then it will repent and say to itself, “No, today it broke; but from tomorrow we make it firm. Tomorrow we will go to some sannyasin, to some monk, fold our hands at the temple, and take a vow that now we take the ‘small vow’ and will not fly.” What sense is there in a leaf’s vow?

What strength has this conscious mind with which we are making all these declarations, compared to the unconscious nature standing within us? Your vow will not even be remembered in sleep. You take an oath today that from tomorrow you will not be angry; tonight you go to sleep—will you remember your vow in sleep? You will be, but the vow will not be present. Why not? Because the mind that swore it is a very small mind; it has gone to sleep. And the mind that did not swear is very big; it is awake even in sleep. In sleep anger will continue; in sleep the knife will be thrust; in sleep murder will happen.

What is called for is the transformation of man’s nature, not man’s decisions. And nature is vast; decisions are always weak.

So I say: do not take decisions. Understand. Understand your nature: what is my nature? What is anger? And the day there is complete understanding of nature—understanding of nature is more powerful than nature, because understanding too is nature’s deepest form. Understanding too is nature; it is not your personal possession. It too is born of nature, grows from it, and expands.

One who understands the whole nature of his mind, becomes aware, recognizes the entire mind, does not take oaths. He does not say, “Now I will not be angry.” He says, “Anger is gone—now how will I be angry? If an occasion arises, how will I be angry now?” The one who has understood anger within will say, “Now I am in difficulty—if a chance comes tomorrow, how will I get angry?” Because after understanding, anger becomes impossible. It is like knowingly falling into a pit; like walking into thorns with eyes open; like banging into a wall while your eyes are open. It is to know, not to take vows.