Nirvan Upanishad #3

In this existence, apart from the sky nothing is unstained. Here, everything becomes involved; only the sky remains uninvolved. It is necessary to understand this a little, so that the state of consciousness of the Paramhansa, of the siddha, may come within our feeling as utterly untouched.
The sky contains all things. Things arise in it, dissolve in it, appear and disappear—and the sky remains unaware of them. All colors manifest in the sky, yet the sky itself stays colorless, uncolored. Night comes, morning arrives, light appears—but the sky is bound by neither darkness nor light. The sky remains untouched by whatever happens. No line ever lingers upon it. Hence, beyond the sky there is no other example of detachment.
Sky means space, empty openness. You are sitting—there is sky all around you. There is sky within you too. A seed breaks open, takes birth in the sky. It will become a tree in the sky. Tomorrow it will wither, grow old, decay in the sky; it will fall and disappear in the sky. Yet no outline is ever left upon the sky. Even a trace does not register. If we draw a line upon water, it forms and dissolves at once. Draw on stone, it remains. Draw in the sky—it will not draw at all. Nothing can be inscribed upon it.
Therefore the rishi says: the principle of the Paramhansas is detached like the sky.
Principle! If the principle is detached like the sky, then it cannot be a creed, not an opinion. Wherever there is a creed, a line gets drawn. When thoughts gather like clouds upon consciousness and consciousness clutches at them, a creed, an opinion, is born. When clouds clear away and a blank, empty sky is left—vacant, shunya—so too, when within there remains a naked consciousness with no clouds of thought, no drifting veils, no creed, then that empty consciousness—what happens there, the rishi calls the principle of the Paramhansa.
We do not use the word principle in this way. By principle we mean doctrine, opinion, idea. One says, my principle is Jain; another says, my principle is Buddhist; another says, my principle is Hindu. But a principle cannot be Hindu, Buddhist, or Jain—then the sky would be partitioned, tinged, qualified.
Principle means that which is established in the end, finally established. When life reaches its ultimate peak, what is seen there, what is realized there—such a principle is called detached like the sky.
Hence a rishi belongs to no religion. All religions are born from rishis, but the rishi belongs to none. Neither is Jesus a Christian, nor Muhammad a Muslim, nor Krishna a Hindu, nor Mahavira a Jain. The amusing thing is that from Mahavira a Jain doctrine begins, from Muhammad arises Islam—but Muhammad is not a Muslim, cannot be.
Then why does this accident occur—that the rishi, unattached like the sky, without insistence, without fanaticism, having only vision—why does it go wrong? Because when even the rishi goes to say what he sees, it binds into words and is narrowed. And when we hear—who know nothing of truth—what we understand is something else. What the rishi knows is one thing; when he says it, it becomes another; when we hear it, it becomes yet another. And after traveling for thousands of years it becomes as far from truth as falsehood is—no less.
Jain doctrine becomes as far from Mahavira as falsehood is from truth; Islam from Muhammad likewise; Christianity from Jesus likewise—and it is bound to be so.
The process is this: the rishi sees; the veil drops, the wall between is gone; he is one with truth. But the moment he speaks, the veils and walls of words begin to rise. Hence many rishis remained silent and said nothing. But even that solves nothing—by not saying, it still is not said. By saying, it cannot be said; by not saying, it cannot be said. Saying carries the danger of error; not saying removes that danger. But in saying there is still one hope: perhaps someone may hear and not err. In not saying, even that hope is lost. If truth is spoken to a thousand, perhaps one may understand. It is spoken for the sake of that one. Nine hundred ninety-nine may not understand, may misunderstand—but if it is not spoken, then not only the thousand, even that one will remain deprived.
When Buddha became enlightened, he pondered: how to say what has been known? So Buddha was silent for seven days. There is a sweet story: the gods laid their heads at Buddha’s feet and implored him, say what you have known, for a man like Buddha comes upon the earth once in thousands of years. It is a rare moment when even the blind can hear of light, the deaf can be filled with music, the lame can move in that direction, and the dead can turn green with the hope of life. Please speak.
Buddha said: what I have known cannot be spoken. Moreover, I think that those who can understand me would understand even without my speaking. Those fit to understand me would understand me wordlessly; and those who cannot understand me when I speak are precisely those who would not understand me without my speaking either. So what harm if I remain silent?
The gods were distressed and anxious. They deliberated among themselves. Then they prayed again: there are some who stand exactly on the boundary. If you do not speak, they will remain on this shore; if you speak, they may take one step and cross. You are right: some will understand with or without your words; and some cannot understand even if you speak. But between these two kinds there are those who, if you do not speak, will stay here—and if you speak, may cross over. They are exactly at ninety-nine degrees—your touch may bring them to a hundred; vapor may arise. Granted that ice will chill your hand; and granted that that which has already reached a hundred degrees needs no hand at all. But for those between—be compassionate.
Buddha had no argument left; he agreed—to speak for those in between. Rishis have always spoken only for those in between.
But what the rishis have spoken is principle—not dogma, not ism. Only the supreme secret of life. It is not their thinking; it is their experience. Understand the small difference between experience and thought.
Thought is about that of which we have no knowing. If someone asks you, what is your view about God, you will surely provide a view: I believe in God; or I do not believe in God. Both are thoughts. Neither the believer knows, nor the disbeliever knows. They stand in the same pit, only they have named their pits differently. Both stand in the same darkness. The knower does not say I believe or I do not believe. He says, I know.
A great scientist, Laplace, in Napoleon’s time wrote five volumes on the entire order of the universe. The work is unique—on the whole cosmos. Napoleon glanced through the thousands of pages. Astonished, he said: such a profound work on the universe, and not once is God even named—not even for refutation. He summoned Laplace to the court and said: your book is marvelous; you’ve labored a lifetime. But I thought, in a work so deep about the universe, there would be some mention of God. Not once. Not even to deny. Laplace replied: the hypothesis of God is not required to explain the universe.
Napoleon’s prime minister sat nearby, a mathematician and thinker himself. He said: perhaps the hypothesis of God is unnecessary for you, but the hypothesis is beautiful—and it explains many things. I, for one, believe in God. Laplace said: I do not believe in God.
Napoleon said: I see no difference between you two! Both say, the hypothesis of God. One says, not needed; the other says, needed. Yet neither of you says, I know God is.
A hypothesis is what works best among available ideas—today. If tomorrow a better one appears, we replace it. Hence science keeps changing its hypotheses. They work until they don’t.
A hypothesis is hypothetical—we imagine it to be true; we do not know. Imagining it to be true helps untangle certain knots; tomorrow we find a better one and replace it.
Napoleon rightly said: you both agree in one thing—that God is a hypothesis. One says useful, one says not useful. But neither of you says God is.
A rishi does not say the hypothesis of God is useful. Nor does he merely say God is. The rishi says: that which is is what we call God. He will not even say God is—for whatever we say “is” may also not be. We say, the tree is—tomorrow it will not be. The river is—tomorrow it may dry. Youth is—tomorrow old age will come. Beauty is—tomorrow ugliness will be. Whatever “is” holds within it the possibility of not being. Therefore the rishi does not say, God is. He says: what is—that is God. That which exists is God.
This is far deeper. It means God equals existence, equals being. Whatever is, is God. God is not one thing among things; God is the quality of isness. So to say God is is repetition. God already means isness; isness already means God.
To speak such a supreme principle is hard. God, existence, the ultimate truth—is not so difficult to know as it is to say. For in saying, one must lean on words built to speak the partial, not the total.
The rishis’ principle is not a doctrine, not a dispute, not a hypothesis—it is their realization. This realization is detached like the sky. No veil of thought covers it. It is like the open, free sky.
When you look at the sky, it appears blue. You may think the sky is blue; you err. The sky has no color. Blue appears to you. The reason lies in the air—layers of atmosphere stretching two hundred miles. The sun’s rays passing through them create the illusion of blueness. When the traveler rises beyond those layers, into space, the sky becomes colorless.
The sky has no color—we supply it. Existence has no color either. Our thoughts and our manner of seeing pour colors into it. We see what we are able to see, not what is.
But the rishi sees what is. If the real is to be seen, one must be freed from the eyes. If the real is to be heard, one must be freed from the ears. This sounds upside-down—how will you see without eyes, hear without ears? Yet I say: to see what is, the eyes must not stand in between; otherwise they create mischief.
Experiment a little and you will understand.
When Galileo first made the telescope and the microscope—through which distant things could be seen and near things magnified—rumors spread: this man is deceiving us. How can it be? Things are as big as they are: a stone three inches cannot appear a thousand inches—if it does, there must be trickery. If the telescope shows stars not visible to the naked eye, there must be deception.
Great pundits and professors refused to look through it. Those who agreed, withdrew in alarm: there is some chicanery here. A face we called beautiful and charming, under the microscope looks like a rugged terrain. Magnified, the tiny pores become craters. The most beautiful woman seems like a mountain country—frightening.
Now the telescope and microscope are accepted. But a difficulty remains: is what the eye says true, or what the instruments reveal? The eye calls a face beautiful; the microscope, which sees deeper, shows another picture. Which is true?
Now LSD has been discovered. Under LSD, even a plain or ugly woman can appear beautiful. When Huxley first took LSD—a chemical that carries one into deep hypnotic trance—the ordinary chair before him seemed more beautiful than Layla ever did to Majnun. He was shaken. Colors poured from the chair; it felt so delightful that he said: if the greatest poetry is to be written, if Kalidasa or Shakespeare are to be born again, they should sit before such a chair. Most inspiring! The drug wore off; the chair was the same. Which was true—what he saw under LSD, or with the bare eye?
The rishis say: whether through microscope or naked eye, as long as there is a medium, whatever appears is determined by the medium. Mediumless! If the real is to be seen, no medium must be in between.
I recall Mulla Nasruddin. In the last days of his life he became prime minister to an emperor. Every month or two he would go to a hill station to rest, where he had a bungalow. The emperor grew puzzled. Nasruddin would say he would return in twenty days and come back in five; say five—and return in twenty. The emperor asked: what is this? By what calculation do you return?
Nasruddin said: if you must know—keep it secret—I’ll tell you my yardstick. I have hired a maid at that bungalow, about seventy years old. No teeth left, one glass eye, one wooden leg, a body that should have died long ago. Whenever that woman begins to look beautiful to me, I run away. Five days, seven days, ten days—whenever she looks beautiful, I know my senses are no longer in my own hands; time to flee.
It happens. LSD can arise from within; you need not take it from without. What we call sexual attraction is nothing but the play of chemicals in the glands. If certain ducts in your body are altered, women will cease to appear beautiful; men too. Between you and what you see, a stream of juice flows—the inner LSD—whether ingested or generated. In youth similar trances arise; the same intoxication seizes you.
The rishis say: whenever there is a medium, there will be distortion. That principle, detached like the sky, can be seen only when the seer drops all instruments of seeing—drops all instruments. Neither using ears to hear, nor eyes to see, nor hands to touch.
Remember, in the depth of meditation comes a moment when there is touch without touching, vision without eyes, sound without ears. That which is heard without ears the rishis called anahata. That which is seen without eyes they called agochar. That which is touched without hands they called amurta. Before that experience, one must oneself become as clear and detached as the sky. All the senses must move aside; then the inner sky of consciousness is freed and becomes one with the outer sky.
Their principle is as detached as the sky.
Endowed with waves of nectar…
Like a river filled with waves of amrita—such is their soul. Hard to understand for us. It may help to begin from our side: everything here is filled with waves of sorrow, with the flames of hell—this is our condition. There is no sign of nectar; only poison upon poison. No taste of bliss; thorns of suffering pierce us from all sides. No flower of joy blossoms. Then how shall we conceive the rishis whose consciousness is like a river brimming with amrita?
We know death, not nectar. We know sorrow, not bliss. We know melancholy and pain, not elation and wonder. All our experience is hell.
But precisely within our hell lies the clue to the opposite. We feel suffering because our consciousness is not made for suffering. If our consciousness were suffering itself, we would not experience it as suffering. Experience is always of the opposite—note this well.
If I experience pain, it means there is something within me whose nature is not pain. Otherwise it would simply merge and enrich me—no hurt, no trouble. A little more darkness added to darkness—what disturbance would that bring? A little more poison poured into poison—what difficulty would arise?
Trouble arises because of the contrary. Within us is hidden that whose nature is supreme bliss; therefore a small pain pricks like a thorn. Within us is condensed nectar; hence death, however much we try to forget, will not be forgotten—it stands all around and becomes visible. If genuinely within we were also death, there would be no fear of death. If we were death, there would be harmony with it. But within us is life; hence there is a constant struggle with death.
More curious still: every day we see people die, saints urge us—remember death—and yet no matter how many die, the thought never truly takes root that I too will die. Even when a corpse lies before us, we say, poor fellow died—but it does not occur, I too will die. Try to convince yourself—you will not be convinced. Some things cannot be grasped that way.
Mulla Nasruddin was in a coffeehouse telling friends: there are some things that simply cannot be believed. For example: last night it was dark; I passed by a doorway where two people were talking—have you heard, they said, Mulla Nasruddin is dead. I also heard, but I could not believe it. How could I?
You may be surprised to know: those who die quietly without pain often take hours afterward to believe they have died. Hence our arrangements: as soon as someone dies, the whole house beats their chests and wails, the bier is prepared, drums sound, the body is rushed to the cremation ground and burnt. The purpose is to make it clear to the departing consciousness that its link with the body is broken, that what it had always known as “I” is gone.
Burial does not have this effect. Those who have done the deepest research into soul and death—people of this land—did not emphasize burial. Only the sannyasin is buried, for he already knows; burning will teach him nothing new. He knew before dying what would burn. Small children are also buried, for they are still so innocent that life has perhaps not yet distorted them. Others are cremated.
We are so tightly bound to the body that unless someone burns it to ashes, we do not believe it was ours and is finished.
Hindus are unique on earth in certain profound insights. When the father dies, the eldest son must crack his skull. It seems harsh and cruel. Without that, cremation could proceed—why this? A servant could do it, or even an enemy who would enjoy it. Why the son? Fathers feared having no son—who would perform the last rite? The son is born to do the kapala-kritya. Why? They knew some secrets.
Along with burning the body, there is this device too—that the son, who was given birth by the father, now assists the father’s dying, completes the event, so that the departing consciousness is cut free even from relational clinging. The sense of mine and thine dissolves. Who is friend, who enemy—falls away. Who is son, who is not—falls away. The attachments that bind, the raga, are broken. Death was used for this too. And when the father has bestowed such grace as birth, the son cannot return the favor with birth; he can with death—the circle completes. It is severe, but there is mathematics behind it.
That we cannot truly remember that we shall die is not only ignorance. Deep down the reason is that within us is something that cannot die. Something above us will die; something within us will not. When we watch another die, we see only the outer die; the inner is invisible. That which is immortal within refuses to accept death. However many deaths occur, a voice inside says: you may have died, but I am the exception; I will not. Not only ignorance—deeply the cause is that something within has no nature of dying.
However much suffering we meet, we go on hoping for joy. Why? Because what is not my nature can never become my destiny, my ultimate. Today or tomorrow, in this life or another, someday I shall attain what is my nature. Therefore the endless search for bliss.
The rishi says: those who are Paramhansas, their consciousness is like a river brimming with waves of amrita.
Note: the rishi says, endowed with waves of amrita. This inner stream is dynamic, not stagnant—river-like, not like a pond. Not a filled tank, but a flowing river—surging, running, alive. A lake is closed and confined; a river is on pilgrimage to the ocean. That pull toward the ocean, that longing—that is the river’s life.
So the rishi says: whose consciousness is like a river filled with waves of amrita—ever dynamic, moving, racing in quest of the unfathomable, the infinite.
And do not think that when the river meets the ocean, the search ends. The river dissolves for us; but in the ocean it goes deeper and deeper still. Shores vanish, the river’s limits disappear, but the ocean’s depths have no end. The search continues. Small ripples become great waves; storms of nectar arise; the ocean of amrita is—yet the search goes on.
This search is infinite, for God can never be exhausted. No moment can come when someone says, now I possess God. Yes, a moment does come when the seeker says: ah, only God remains—where have I gone? The one who set out to seek is lost; that which was sought is. A strange event: the person and the supreme never meet. So long as the person is, the divine cannot be revealed; when the divine reveals, the seeker is no more—he has become one with it. Hence the rishi symbolizes an unending stream of searching consciousness.
Akshaya and detached is its nature.
Akshaya—imperishable—and detached is its nature. However much the movement, there is no loss. However long the journey, the energy does not exhaust. Walk on—untiring, without fatigue. That which is within never thins. Its source is infinite. However much you pour, it never runs out. Akshaya—without decay. The inner consciousness does not decay. And that which does not decay must be detached, for decay belongs to what adheres.
Understand this a little.
All the layers upon us decay. The body-layer decays. Today young, tomorrow old; strong today, frail tomorrow; walking today, unable tomorrow; rising today, falling tomorrow—dust unto dust.
Mind too is a layer; it decays. Layers decay because they are overlaid—from outside—joined, they break; conjoined, they separate. But that which is within, not a layer but nature, the very form—what I am, what I have always been and can never not be—that does not decay.
Someone asks Buddha: will I die? Buddha says: that which is already dead within you—that will die; and that which has never been born—how can it die?
There is something within that was born; what is born will die. You cannot find a stick with only one end. If birth is one end, death is the other. If ever you find a one-ended stick, know that what is born will not die.
But no—there will be the other end. What is born dies; what has died will be born again. Is there something within that is unborn? If that is found, that which does not die is found.
Surely, there is. But one must go deep, beyond layers. And we are such keepers of layers!
Someone meditates; his cloth slips a little—he quickly adjusts the cloth, and loses the meditation. The cloth he saves quickly— that is valuable; meditation can be lost, it is cheap. How poor man is by his own hand! He guards the trivial. He locks what must perish in safes, and leaves the priceless lying in the street.
I see how small things become obstacles. One saves the cloth, the body. Someone’s elbow touches—you escape, go sit far away; you protect the body. How long will you protect it? Avoid small knocks now—will the final blow not come? Better to get used to small jolts; then when the last comes, panic will be less. But we go on protecting the petty. Heat grows—one abandons meditation because of the sun. What does it matter? A bit of sweat, a little darkening of the skin. Today or tomorrow, that skin is to become coal, and you protect it—while your own relatives will burn it tomorrow.
We protect layers that cannot be protected; and the ever-protected within we never discover. Thus we waste births.
The rishi says: it is akshaya.
Seek only that which is akshaya. Whoever attains the imperishable alone is rich; all others are poor. For he has attained that which thieves cannot steal, fire cannot burn, weapons cannot pierce, which cannot be killed or erased. Then fear ends. And whoever descends into that akshaya stream finds everything unstained—no impurity there.
All impurity belongs to the layers. Without impurities, layers cannot adhere—learn this. If I want dust to stick to my skin, I must first apply oil; otherwise it won’t stick. Between dust and skin, some smoothness, some raga, some adhesive is needed. If you are to remain glued to the body, desire is needed—longing, thirst, craving. These are the viscosities that bond. If they dry up…
Hence Buddha and Mahavira insist—drop thirst, drop desire, drop craving. Why? Because if the glue ceases, the dust-layer drops.
But we keep the layers; to keep them, we must keep the entire arrangement by which they stick to us. Therefore we have no glimpse of detachment. With layers we know only impurities—for it is impurities that hold layers together. If all impurities are dropped, the layers fall away; the bonding element disappears, the other falls apart and only what I am remains.
Thus the rishi says: it is akshaya, it is detached.
He alone is rishi who is empty of doubt.
And empty of doubt—that is the essence of a rishi. But doubt does not end until the imperishable is experienced. It does not end by faith, belief, or trust—only by experience. You may tell me, you will not burn in fire—I won’t jump. Even if I did, the cause would not be your word, but something else.
It is said that before the war a British statesman went to meet Hitler, to see his preparation. Hitler took him to his room on the seventh floor. Ten soldiers stood guard. Hitler said: do not tangle with us Britishers; I have men who will die at my word. He told the first soldier: jump. He leapt from the seventh floor. The British statesman was aghast. Hitler told the second—he jumped. The statesman trembled: if these are his soldiers, Britain is finished. Hitler turned to the third… The statesman cried, stop! I am convinced. He asked the third soldier, why such haste to die? The soldier said: if we were to go on living with this man, better to jump from the seventh floor.
The cause is different. If you jump into fire because I say so, I will not believe it is due to me. Faith and belief are superficial. Until one knows the amrita for oneself, at the edge of fire doubt will remain: who knows whether the Upanishadic rishis are right?
What another says will always leave doubt. One’s own knowing alone brings doubtlessness. A rishi is one who knows for himself.
Therefore it is said: to be doubtless—empty of doubt—is the mark of a rishi.
It is the right mark. If you ever meet a rishi, look first for this: does he have any doubt? Does he ask questions? Is he still going anywhere to find out what truth is?
A rishi is doubtless; what he has known has dropped all his doubts. No more questions arise—he is without question. No inner query remains. No search for any answer.
Nirvana is his chosen end.
Doubtless is his mind; Nirvana is his aim. The one goal—how to be extinguished. We all aim to survive—by any device. Even religion we seek for survival. We read scriptures hoping for a way to save ourselves. We even believe the Atman is immortal so that we need not die—hoping the saints are right; if they are not, we must die.
Thus the weaker nations are quick to believe in the immortality of the soul; and those who believe so have proved weak on earth. We are such—none more fearful. And none more soul-believing. There is no harmony between the two. For to be a believer in the soul means death is no more—what fear then? Yet our country could be enslaved for a thousand years, shackles on our hands while we read scriptures on the immortality of the Atman.
Believing that the Atman is immortal does nothing. One must know. To know is arduous, difficult—almost impossible as we are. We lack courage even for one leap; we fear one step. Once we cling to a rung, we don’t want to let go. We resist moving from the ground beneath our feet.
But the rishi says: the aim, the ishta, is Nirvana—extinction. The one aim—when shall I disappear?
Why such eagerness to disappear? Because the rishi knows that only the perishable can perish; that which cannot perish will not. Let me die, so that what is mine and what is not mine becomes clear. Let the decision be made. Let me die while alive, to know what was mine and what was not. Death alone is decisive.
Hence meditation is experimentation with death. Samadhi is the experience of death. That is why we call a sannyasin’s tomb a samadhi—because he knew before dying what would die and what would not; he knew the deathless.
What is the seeker’s aim? You have come here after a long journey—why? If you ask me, I say: so that, while returning, you do not return. Come as you are; go empty. Let what you brought be buried here—then meditation is complete. If you yourself return, no entry has happened.
The aim is that I disappear—so that only Paramatman remains. And the wonder is: as long as I remain, I am joined only to that which will perish; when I disappear, I am joined to that which never dies.
They are free of all upadhis.
Once one is gone, what upadhis—conditioning, afflictions—remain? All upadhis gather around the “I”; they are its court. Around ego gather all diseases: greed, because I must preserve myself; fear, violence; lust, thirst, craving. A thousand upadhis stand around. It is the entire security apparatus to protect the “I”. When I am ready to disappear, this entire arrangement becomes unnecessary and falls.
They are free of upadhis.
There only pure knowing remains—nishkevalajnana.
Only knowing remains. This was Mahavira’s beloved term—kevala jnana. Only knowing. No knower remains, no known remains—only knowing. I am gone; you are gone; only the living stream of consciousness, the flame, remains. Ordinarily, whenever we know, there are three: the knower, the known, and the relationship between, which we call knowledge.
When the rishi disappears, attains his aim, finds Nirvana, upadhis drop—then neither knower nor known remains—no jnata, no jney—only jnana remains. That knowing is the supreme nature of existence. Knowledge-as-such, just knowing.
Meditation is the ladder to that knowing, step by step. A double experiment: on this side, to let the “I” and its upadhis fall, preparing to disappear; on that side, as I vanish, knowing appears. The knower won’t remain—then knowing remains.
And upward movement alone is their path.
Their way is ever to rise. Have you seen the lamp? Its flame always rushes upward. Fire, in any case, moves up. Water moves down. To lift it upwards needs effort; drop the effort and it sinks. To drive fire downward needs great device; upward it goes by nature.
Body’s nature is downward; matter’s nature is downward. Consciousness’s nature is upward. Think of man as an earthen lamp—clay, oil, and a living flame. The clay sticks to the earth’s pull; if the vessel breaks, the oil flows down; but the flame always runs upward.
A rishi is one who has broken identification with the earthen bowl, left the fellowship with the oil, and known his very form to be the flame ever rising.
Upward movement is their path.
Higher, and higher, and higher they go on.
Enough for today.
Now we shall go into the night meditation—first, listen for two minutes to the instructions. Sit; do not get up yet. First two minutes for instructions, then rise.
Before the night meditation, two things about the afternoon. Today’s afternoon experiment did not unfold as it could. Two reasons. One compulsion—I understand—so much feeling gathers within that it longs to express; therefore there was no silence afterward. Tomorrow we shall arrange differently.
There will be fifteen minutes of kirtan. I said do not stand during kirtan—pour your total energy out. Otherwise what remains behind will not allow silence afterward. We keep silence after the kirtan so that first you empty out, then settle into quiet.
So fifteen minutes of kirtan; then fifteen minutes of freedom for catharsis. Whatever arises—dancing, jumping, shouting, singing, crying, laughing—do it. Then thirty minutes of total silence. No sound at all, not even a small one. Remember, if you make a sound you harm yourself and you harm others. No sound. Lie like a corpse for thirty minutes.
Second, in the afternoon some sat inside like spectators—do not. Those who will do, sit inside; those who will not, go sit far away on the hill. Otherwise harm comes to both.
The harm is deep. Where so many people are throwing out inner feelings, impurities, sicknesses, if someone sits empty, he becomes receptive; he will catch it—he will acquire twenty-five diseases. He may think himself very wise, sitting as an observer while others act mad; but he does not know he has become a pit and the madness will pour into him. No one should sit inside as a spectator. Sit far, very far, and watch. Beware of the seeker; the seeker is dangerous—keep a little distance. Either become a seeker and come in—or stay far away, sit on the hill and watch from there.
Do not be over-clever. Excess cleverness is sometimes great foolishness. If you will do, good; if not, go away. Tomorrow I do not want to see a single person sitting inside with eyes open as a spectator—if anyone does, the volunteers will escort him out. So do not sit there.
In the afternoon silence, not a single spectator. Spectators should go far away to the hill and watch at leisure. But if you wish real darshan, then do it yourself; see from within. Others are doing; you do too. Watch from within what is happening—and great benefit will come. Watching from outside brings none. You will only think, these mad people! The day you feel, oh, I am the mad one—that day something may happen. Therefore, do not look at others.
During the thirty minutes of silence the eyes must remain completely closed. Everyone should take blindfolds and tie them over the eyes. Because you cannot be trusted—if the eyes open in between, the blindfold will at least restrain them. So use blindfolds—for the afternoon.
Now the instructions for the night meditation. The night meditation is trataka. For thirty minutes you will gaze fixedly at me, standing. No blinking. Those who have kept the blindfold on all day will enjoy a special benefit; those who have not will not receive it. If the eyes have been closed all day, they will remain fully open for forty minutes without blinking; such power will have gathered. You judge. From tomorrow, take care.
For now, for thirty minutes look at me—look, look with total eyes. Tears may stream, lids may tire—no matter—just keep looking. In a little while the fatigue will vanish, the water will dry, the eyes will become clear and fresh and luminous—and you will go on looking at me.
If you have looked rightly, unblinking, many times it will seem I have disappeared from here—your eyes fully open, yet I am not here. Do not be alarmed—that is the right moment. It means your eyes have become steady. From there, movement into meditation begins. To some I may appear huge; to some, very small—do not fear. To some, only light may be seen in my place—do not be troubled. Whatever happens—if nothing remains here and only empty space is left—fix your eyes upon that emptiness. Keep your gaze fixed for thirty minutes.
This will be done standing. You will go on jumping, shouting, making the sound hu, and in between I— I will remain silent—but with my hand I will indicate. When I sweep my hand from below upward, feel within that the total life-force, your kundalini, is rising—racing upward—on an ascent. You have become a flame, a blaze, going up. Shout with full force, dance, and support the arising of the inner energy.
First I will sweep my hand upward—again and again. When I feel many of you have entered that state where your inner energy is dancing, then I will move my hand from above downward—that is an invitation to the divine: so many are dancing with such thirst—let the divine descend. And when I bring the hand down, even then jump and cry with all your power—then the touch of that power will enter every pore, to the beating of your heart.
Everyone will first stand, far from one another. Leave space. All around, even behind me, so that you can see me. I shall stand on the platform so you can see me.