Nirvan Upanishad #7

Even when awake we remain lodged in matter. Sleep is far away, unconsciousness farther still. What we call awareness does not seem to be awareness either, because even in that so-called awareness we are not established anywhere except in matter. The mind keeps running downward.
The rishi says: Those who arrive at knowledge, those who set out on the pilgrimage of knowing, those who awaken themselves and are established in vivek, even in their sleep they abide in Shiva. Even in sleep their awareness does not go.
As for us, we have no awareness even in our awareness. We sleep even while awake. Our wakefulness cannot be called wakefulness, because in our wakefulness we do such things as can only be done in unconsciousness. Our wakefulness cannot be called wakefulness for another reason also: what sort of wakefulness is this in which we do not even know who I am? Nor do we know from where I come, where I go, what the purpose of this life is, why this life is, what this life is!
If at a crossroads we ask someone, Where are you going? and he says, I don’t know. And we ask, From where are you coming? and he says, I don’t know. And we ask, Who are you? and he says, That is exactly what I wanted to ask you—what would we call such a man? In his senses? Awake? But our condition is no different.
I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin was traveling by train. The ticket checker asked for his ticket, and he searched all his pockets. Seeing his restlessness and his sweating, the checker said, Let it be. Surely you have it—when you are searching so hard, it must be there. Don’t worry. Nasruddin said, I am not worrying for you, I am worrying for myself. The question is: where am I going? Who is worrying on your behalf! If the ticket is lost, how will I know where I am headed?
But our ticket is lost already. We know nothing. This is our state. Our unconsciousness is so steady. We have no taste of awareness; hence we do not even taste our unconsciousness—because we know only by the opposite. If darkness is continuous and we have never seen light, we won’t even know it is dark. If somewhere a lamp is seen burning, then we realize how we had been living in darkness, that it was darkness. To know darkness one must know light; otherwise darkness is not recognized.
I am reminded of another of Mulla Nasruddin’s tales. He had just been married. Fifteen or twenty days had passed. His wife was very sad and told a friend, It has become very difficult. Only yesterday I discovered that Nasruddin drinks. The friend asked, Did he come home drunk yesterday? The wife said, No, yesterday he came home without drinking—that’s how I found out. Before the marriage, when I met him, he used to drink every day, so I thought, This must be his way. After the marriage too for fifteen days he kept drinking; I thought, This is his way. Yesterday he came home without drinking and started talking nonsense. Then I suspected something. I asked, Have you been drinking? You never talk like this. He said, Forgive me, today I forgot to drink.
Our sleep is so steady that we do not even know it is sleep. Our unconsciousness has filled our blood and our bones. Within is a density of darkness collected over many births. We do not come to know. So we go on living quietly and call this awareness. This is not awareness; this is only waking sleep.
Sleep has two forms—sleeping sleep and waking sleep. Sleeping sleep means we sleep inside and we sleep outside. Waking sleep means we sleep within but we are awake outside. In the same way there are two kinds of awakenings. As there are two kinds of sleep, so there are two kinds of waking.
The rishi speaks of that waking. He says: Those who become sannyasins, even in sleep they remain awake. Their sleep too is filled with the Lord. However deep their sleep, within them someone stands alert at the temple of the Divine. They do not dream of anything else. They do not think of anything else. They are absorbed in the One.
Buddha used to say: They become like the ocean—taste it anywhere, it is salty. Taste them from anywhere, they are filled only with the Lord. Their flavor becomes the Lord himself.
The sutra says: Even in sleep those who are established in Shiva—Shivayoganidra cha Khechari Mudra cha Paramanandi.
Those who in sleep too abide in supreme Shivahood, and whose roaming is in Brahman. Rising, sitting, walking—they are in Brahman. Not in the world, in Brahman. But we see them walking in the world. We saw Buddha walk on this very earth, Mahavira walk on this very earth. This same earth, their footprints stamped here, in this dust, under these trees we saw them seated. And the sutra says they roam only in Brahman.
They roam only in Brahman because what appears to us as earth appears to them as Brahman. What appears to us as a tree appears to them as the shadow of Brahman. And the body that moves upon this earth appears to them as a form of Brahman. For them, all has become Brahman.
Whoever has looked within—everything becomes Brahman for him. And whoever keeps looking outside, slowly even within him only matter seems to remain. One whose vision is outward will not see Atman within either. One whose vision is inward sees Atman outside as well.
They roam only in Brahman, and thus they are supremely blissful.
One whose roaming is in Brahman, whose sleep is also in divine consciousness—how can sorrow enter there? How can misery enter there!
But understand one thing. There, neither sorrow exists nor happiness. Otherwise we are always mistaken. When we read this sutra, or any such sutra, it seems to us that there will be nothing but happiness there. But our sorrow does not exist there, our happiness does not exist there either—because we do not exist there. What we have known as sorrow is not; what we have known as happiness is not. Both become void. And then what manifests is called bliss, ananda.
Ananda is not pleasure. Understand this well. Ananda is not pleasure. Ananda is the absence of both pleasure and pain. In truth, pain has its own agony, and pleasure has its own agony. Pain is pain indeed; those who know say pleasure too is only a mode of pain. Pain is pain, pleasure is agreeable pain, the one we desire. That is the only difference.
Therefore any pleasure can any day turn into pain. Our desire moves away, and it becomes pain. And any pain can any day become pleasure—if our desire joins to it, that too can become pleasure.
Pleasure and pain are not in events, not in circumstances, not in objects; pleasure and pain abide in our wanting and not-wanting. What we want seems pleasurable; what we do not want seems painful. But there is no barrier that what we want now we must want a moment later too. A moment later we may not want it. Nor is there any guarantee that what we do not want today we shall not want tomorrow.
Mulla Nasruddin’s mother-in-law died. He was very happy, looked very joyous. His wife said, Have some shame. My mother has died and you are so happy! Nasruddin said, That is exactly why I am happy. The wife said, Could you not see something good in my mother, ever! And now she is dead—could you not see one single virtue? Nasruddin said, There were none. I tried hard to see, trusting your word, but when there aren’t any, how could they be seen?
His wife, already pained by her mother’s death, beat her breast and wept, saying, My mother was right. Before my marriage she insisted hard: do not marry this man. Nasruddin said, What are you saying? Your mother forbade the marriage? If only I had known, I would never have thought so ill of her. Poor woman! Had I known, I would have tried to save her. I didn’t know she was such a good woman.
Just now the mother-in-law’s death was pleasure; now it has become pain.
That desire within—if it loosens or links even slightly anywhere, everything changes. This mind of ours—wherever it attaches, there pleasure appears. Pleasure is a delusion that appears along with that to which the mind attaches. Pain is also a delusion that appears along with that from which the mind detaches.
Buddha has said again and again: Meeting with the beloved is pleasure, separation is pain. Meeting with the un-beloved is pain, separation is pleasure. The ratio is equal. Meeting with the beloved is pleasure, separation pain. Meeting with the un-beloved is pain, separation pleasure. The ratio is equal.
Pleasure is also a tension upon the mind which we prefer. Pain is also a tension upon the mind which we do not prefer. The tension of pleasure makes a man sick, the tension of pain also makes him sick—because both burden him. Ananda is atension—tensionless, without excitation; neither pain is there nor pleasure is there.
Understand the difference well: meeting with the beloved brings pleasure, separating from the un-beloved brings pleasure. Separating from the beloved brings pain, meeting with the un-beloved brings pain. When is ananda? Where no one remains—only I remain; only consciousness remains. Neither meeting with someone nor parting from someone. Where stillness settles in one’s own nature, there is ananda.
The rishi says: thus they are Paramanandi—supremely blissful.
They live in supreme bliss, because they live in their nature, in Shiva, in the Lord, in Brahman—the ultimate truth. Not outside, they live inside. They live linked to the inner source. There sorrow is not, because there pleasure is not. Our logic is different. We say: there is no sorrow there, because there is only pleasure. The rishi says: there is no sorrow there because there is no pleasure. Where pleasure is not, pain cannot be. And where neither is, what remains is ananda. Therefore ananda has been called our swabhava, our intrinsic nature.
Sorrow comes from the other, pleasure comes from the other—have you noticed? It comes to you, but it comes through the other. Always the other is the occasion. Abuse is given by someone, praise is given by someone. Ananda comes from oneself, not from the other. Pain is dependent, pleasure is dependent. If the other wishes, he can snatch away your pleasure; if he wishes, he can remove your pain. It is in others’ hands; you are a slave. But ananda is independent. It is not in others’ hands. No one can destroy it.
He who lives so awake that his roaming is in the Divine—he lives in supreme bliss.
They are free of the three gunas. The consciousnesses that attain such a state are nirguna gunatrayam—empty, freed, beyond the three gunas.
The entire world is made of three gunas. Whatever is made is made of the three. This number three is very precious. Perhaps India first discovered the mathematics of three. Names change, but the number three does not change.
Indians have said there are three gunas—rajas, tamas, sattva. From these three this world is made. Christians say there is a Trinity—God the Father, the Holy Ghost, and Jesus Christ the Son: Father, Holy Spirit, and the Son—three; from these three all life is. Names differ. Scientists say that the deeper we enter existence, the more it is seen that the whole is made of three. Their names are different: electron, proton, neutron. From these three the entire world is composed.
A strange thing: no one says four, no one says two. Definitions and names vary—that is another matter. Ages change, words change, definitions change, but the number three seems significant, seems steady.
The world is a triad, made of three. But science says: with these three, all is finished. There is its mistake. It has yet no inkling of the fourth. For he who knows these three cannot be the third, cannot be among the three. He who knows and recognizes the three must be the fourth—the Fourth.
Hindus have been marvelous in their discovery of words. An ancient people, they have experimented much and discovered many things. For the fourth they did not give a name—because no name is needed, since there is no fifth. So the fourth state we called Turiya. Turiya simply means: the Fourth. No name—just the Fourth is enough, because beyond it there is nothing more to say.
A great Russian thinker, P. D. Ouspensky, wrote a book: The Fourth Way. And Ouspensky has almost circled back exactly where the notion of Turiya arises.
Three will not suffice, because that which knows the three that are constructed is a fourth, distinct. Matter is constructed of three—true; the world is constructed of three—true; but there is also a fourth who, though within the world, is beyond it—consciousness, awareness, bodha—that is the Fourth. He who knows this fourth—nirguna gunatrayam—goes beyond the three gunas.
The Fourth must be known. Without knowing the Fourth, man does not get outside the three. Until the fourth is known, one goes on joining oneself with one or another of the three and thinks, This is what I am. For lives upon lives this error persists. We join ourselves to one of the three and say, This is me. And we do not know the one who is saying, who is seeing, who is knowing.
We do not know because, as if in front of a mirror a crowd passes by constantly; the mirror is hung in a marketplace, say at a betel shop; the crowd passes all day. Someone sits and looks—the mirror never seems empty, always full, always full. If a man has never seen an empty mirror, how will he know that beyond the images of the crowd the mirror is something else too? He will think the word mirror means the crowd that is passing. He will never know the mirror. The mirror can be known only when the mirror is empty and no crowd is passing. In the crowd it is lost. Leave that; an easier example.
You have gone to a movie. The screen is not visible as long as the film runs. How can the screen be seen? It is veiled, the film is running, images are moving. And the strange thing is: the screen is more real than the images. But what is more real is buried under the pictures. And the pictures are nothing—only light and shadow, their combination. But you will not see the screen until The End arrives and the pictures stop. When the pictures stop you are startled: The movie was false; behind that falsehood there was a different truth. The screen—white.
That fourth within us, our real nature, the Turiya hidden inside—we will not find it as long as we are burdened by the crowd of thoughts and the film of thoughts. The day thoughts stop, suddenly it is known: I am not thoughts, I am something else. I am not the body, I am something else. I am not the mind, I am something else. I had no idea.
The rishi says: Those who, even in sleep, sleep while awake—whose conduct and roaming are in Brahman, who are stable in supreme bliss—they come to know the Fourth, they recognize Turiya. They go beyond the three gunas.
To go beyond the three gunas means: now they no longer connect themselves with sattva, rajas, tamas. Now they know: We are separate, distinct, other. In every state they know it. If they grow old, they know: What has become old is the compound of three gunas; not I. If they fall ill, they know: That which has become ill is the composite of three gunas; not I. If death comes, they know: In death only that is ending which was bound at birth—the compound of three gunas; not I. They always see themselves beyond, transcending—always, in every situation.
And when such knowing arises—that in every situation one can see oneself beyond the three gunas—what is the formula of that experience? How will this be attained? The rishi says: Vivek labhyam. Such a state is attained through vivek, through awareness, through wakefulness.
Vivek labhyam.
Vivek is commonly misunderstood. Usually we take its meaning to be what is meant by the English word discrimination. Dictionaries say: Vivek means the power of discrimination. In truth, that definition is very limited, partial.
The full meaning of vivek is: awareness, non-stupor, awakeness. Vivek means: apramada. Vivek means: living with self-remembrance—what Gurdjieff called self-remembering.
Gurdjieff used to say: When you walk on the road, there must be the act of walking—and simultaneously the capacity must be active to know, I am walking. When you see, there must be the act of seeing—and there must remain the remembrance of the seer hidden within, that I am seeing. There must remain the awareness that the act of seeing is happening. Amid the mesh of actions, at the center, someone like a lit lamp must stand alert, watching.
Vivek labhyam.
Such a lamp, such a gain, such a fruit—its result is to take one beyond the three gunas.
Observe our actions and you will understand. Sit by the roadside and watch people walking. Many are talking to themselves as they walk. Expressions pass across their faces; much is happening inside. They are crossing the road, but they do not know they are crossing, because their consciousness is entangled elsewhere.
Psychologists say most accidents on the roads are the result of our stupor. A man is driving and lost inside. He is not aware. Danger is inevitable. It is astonishing there are so few accidents; considering people, they should be far more.
Bring yourself into awareness. When you talk to someone, do you talk with awareness? Or does the talking go on and inside something else goes on and unconsciousness remains? We conduct all our actions in stupor.
If you are to awaken vivek—the vivek that becomes the gain of spiritual attainment—you must join awareness to each act. When you eat, eat with awareness. What does with awareness mean? It means: even as the hand lifts a morsel, the inner consciousness knows, Now the hand is rising. As the morsel is formed, consciousness knows, Now the morsel is formed. When the morsel enters the mouth and you chew, consciousness knows, Now I am chewing. Even the smallest act must occur in the knowing of consciousness. Nothing should be done unknown to consciousness.
It is difficult, very difficult. To remain filled with awareness even for one second is very difficult. But with experiment it becomes simple. Keep making small experiments.
Sit quietly, close the eyes. Watch the breath—Keep awareness of the breath. You will be amazed: for a second or so awareness is there; then it goes elsewhere. The breath is forgotten. Bring awareness back; again watch the breath. Go for a walk and step attentively—Remain knowing: left foot lifts, right foot lifts; left lifts, right lifts. I do not mean that when the left lifts you must say within, Left lifted, and when the right lifts you say, Right lifted. If you start saying, the awareness of the foot will be lost. You will get busy with the saying.
I am not asking you to say. Feel it. When the left lifts, feel within: the left is lifting. I have to say it, but you need not. When the left lifts, simply know that it lifted. When the right lifts, know that it lifted. In ten or fifteen steps you will find you forget a thousand times. One foot rises and the other is forgotten entirely. Not a trace that the right has risen. Then you will know how deep the stupor is.
If I do not know even of my moving foot, how will I know the other paths of life? If I cannot keep awareness even of the breath for a moment, how will I keep awareness of anger? Breath is such an innocent act—nothing is at stake for anyone; it concerns no one—utterly harmless, utterly private—yet even there awareness does not remain. And I take oaths that I will not be angry—how will these oaths work? The oath will lie aside; when anger comes there will be no awareness. Anger will happen; later I will come to know. And later—everyone is wise later. Everyone is wise afterwards.
Mulla Nasruddin said: I was returning home after giving a speech. I told my wife, The third speech was the most powerful. The wife said, Third speech? You gave only one speech! Nasruddin said, My third speech. The wife said, But third? You gave just one. Nasruddin said, First listen. One speech was the one I had prepared at home to give. One was the one I actually gave. And one is the one I am now thinking I should have given. This third, the best—nothing can match it.
An unconscious man lives just so. What he wanted to say, he didn’t. What he said, he had not wanted to say. What he wanted to say, he is saying now inside. All this goes on because of unconsciousness.
If awareness is to be awakened, if vivek is to be awakened, if this gain of going beyond the triguna is to be had—without going beyond the three gunas there is no attainment of the immortal. Within the three gunas there is only death; in the Fourth is the nectar. So it has to be practiced—rising, sitting, walking, sleeping.
How many times you have slept in life! If a man lives sixty years, he sleeps at least twenty. If he sleeps eight hours daily, in sixty years twenty years pass in sleep. Twenty years! If you are sixty, you have slept twenty. Yet have you ever seen sleep coming? Have you seen it going? Do you know, after sleeping twenty years, in which moment sleep comes and what it is like? Do you know when it leaves? Your own sleep—and no awareness! Your own waking—and no awareness!
So experiment. At night, lying in bed, keep awareness: When does sleep come? While remaining awake, watch when the smoke of sleep descends. When the darkness of sleep spreads within. When the heartbeat slackens. When the breath becomes drowsy. When dreams begin to arise. Keep watching.
For months there may be no sign. In the morning you will only know: Ah, sleep came! But if the effort is made, slowly, slowly, one day an unprecedented experience happens—when someone sees sleep descending upon oneself. And remember: when you see sleep descending upon you, you become capable of remaining awake in sleep. For then what is the matter? Sleep has been seen—we are seeing it; we are awake. Sleep has come and surrounded on all sides and we are watching—then within us someone is awake.
But for now, try to be awake in waking. Trying to be awake in sleep won’t help yet. He who is not awake in waking—how will he be awake in sleep! For now, awake in waking. Whatever you do, try to keep awareness while doing it. Any small act, try to keep awareness along with it.
You are listening to me now. I am speaking, you are listening. Do not put all your awareness on me. Listen—but also keep in mind the listener within: someone is listening inside. Someone is speaking outside, someone is listening inside. Words are flowing between the two. Do not become so hypnotized by the speaker that the listener is forgotten. For the real is the listener. The remembrance of the listener must remain. Double-arrowed—let the arrow of consciousness be on both sides: towards the speaker and towards the listener. Awareness on both sides.
Then your understanding will become very deep. Because when the listener is asleep, what can the speaker make you understand? If the listener is awake, even if the speaker falls silent, understanding can happen.
In this connection let me give you news for tomorrow: the half hour of silence at noon is not without purpose. In that half hour I shall try to speak to you in silence. So be receptive, be available. Fifteen minutes of kirtan, fifteen minutes as your mood wishes, and then for thirty minutes sit with all doors and windows open, aware, so that if a voice comes by some subtle pathway, your doors are not closed.
I shall try to speak to you in silence beginning tomorrow. Today your silence came to a right point. So from tomorrow, if in silence you remain only open and quiet, then without speech something may be said. In truth, what is essential cannot be said by speech; it can only be said in silence. And if speech is used, it is only so that in some way you may gain the capacity to go beyond speech—the aptitude and worthiness to understand in silence.
The rishi says: Vivek labhyam—the state is attained through vivek.
Manovag agocharam—and that state is beyond mind and speech.
That state which is attained through vivek can be known neither by mind nor explained by speech. It is avishaya for both—not their object. Understand this clearly.
It is beyond the mind and speech.
What is beyond the scope of mind? That which is beyond the mind cannot become the mind’s object. Mind can see what stands before it. It cannot see what is behind it. As I said: a mirror can reflect what is before it; it cannot show what is behind it. But if the mirror cannot show what is behind, it does not mean there is nothing behind. The mirror’s not seeing is not the absence of existence; it only indicates the mirror’s limitation.
Mind is our mirror for the world—just a mirror. To mirror this vast material universe, to show it, to reflect it—this is the faculty of mind. The senses are the doors of mind. The eye is a doorway of mind where form, shape, color enter. The ear is another doorway where sound, word enter. The hands, the nose—these are all doors. The five senses are the doors of the mind. Mind is their base. They are extensions of mind. Through them mind goes out and knows the outer world. It is necessary. Mind has great utility.
But the eye can see outside, not inside. The ear can hear outside, not inside. The hand can touch outside, not inside. The senses can objectify the outer, but what is inner they cannot make into an object. Behind the mind too is consciousness. Behind the mind, at the back, consciousness. That is avishaya for the mind. The mind has no means to know that consciousness. And this is our entanglement. Because we come to know all things of the world through mind, we suppose we shall also know consciousness, the Atman, through the mind.
We see a chair by the mind, a rock by the mind, a shop by the mind. We study mathematics, geography, language by the mind. We become scientists by the mind. Then arises the delusion that since everything taught in the university—those three hundred and sixty subjects at Oxford and the like—is known by mind, then why not Atman and Paramatman too! When the mind has such capacity, it will know all. And because the mind cannot know what lies behind it, the mind declares: What I cannot know is not.
This has become the difficulty of the West. The West has known much by mind—far more than the East—in matter it has advanced greatly, discovered great mysteries. From that arises the trouble. When a scientist thinks: I can know the atom by mind, I can know the farthest star by mind—then this soul, said to be so near—Mohammed says the vein of the neck, if it is cut a man dies; Atman is nearer than that—shall we not know what is so near? We shall. So he tries by mind. Not finding, he concludes the soul is not.
The rishis say: The reason for not knowing is not that the soul is not; the reason is that Atman is agochar for the mind, avishaya—not an object for the mind.
Understand it like this and it will be easy. The eye can see but cannot hear. If someone goes with the eye to listen to music, he may say, My eye is perfect, I don’t even need glasses—why is this music not audible? But for the eye, hearing is avishaya—not an object for the eye. The eye is not at fault; it has no instrument to grasp sound. It grasps color, form, shape, light—not sound. No fault of the eye. Avishaya. In the same way, the mind grasps matter. Consciousness is avishaya for it.
Therefore the rishi gives one reason: it is avishaya for mind—agochar. It will not be seen by the mind. He who goes searching with mind goes with the wrong tool. If Atman is not found, that does not prove Atman is not; it only proves your instrument was irrelevant, mismatched. Another path must be found.
Dhyana is that path. What the mind cannot do, meditation can. What is avishaya for the mind is vishaya for dhyana. Meditation awakens within a new power beyond the mind—not of eye, ear, nose, hands, body, or mind—other than all these. Through that dhyana.
Understand it this way. A mirror is hung. What comes before it is seen. If we hang another mirror behind it, what is behind becomes visible too. Mind is a mirror to catch matter. Dhyana is also a mirror—to catch the Divine. Without dhyana, it will not come into view.
The rishi also says it is beyond speech, because mind can think but cannot know—it can think, but it cannot know. Mind means the capacity to think; hence the word manas. Hence man is called man—one who can think.
Mind means the capacity to think, to reflect. But knowing is a different matter. In truth, where we do not know, mind substitutes; where there is no knowing, we get by with thinking. Where knowing is, there is no need to think. Is there?
A blind man wants to go out of the room—he asks, Where is the way? He thinks, Where might the way be? He seeks the way. A man with eyes, when he wants to go out, neither thinks nor even considers where the way is. There is no question of asking; he does not even think within himself, Where is the door? A seeing man, if he has to go out, he simply rises and goes. If you remind him, perhaps he will notice he went through the door; otherwise even the door may not come to mind. When the eye can see, there is no need to think.
Where there is knowing, there is no need to think. In ignorance, thinking functions. In knowing, thinking stops. Understand: for ignorance, mind is the device. To live with ignorance, a very active mind is needed. For one in knowing, the mind is of no need. It becomes useless; it can be thrown into the junkyard.
Therefore the rishi says: it is not an object of mind; it is an object of knowing. Knowing belongs to consciousness; thoughts belong to mind.
And the rishi says: it is also beyond speech.
It cannot be said by words. Therefore there is no way to communicate it. The dumb man’s sweet—when one tastes, one cannot tell. He who comes to know falls into great difficulty, because he wants to say and cannot. He finds a thousand devices to convey it. Still he finds all devices vain—unsayable. Speech is of the mind. What mind cannot know, how shall speech say? If mind could know, speech could say.
Remember: whatever mind can know, speech can say. What mind cannot know, how shall speech say it? Speech is the servant of mind, a part of it. Therefore speech cannot carry it.
Still, the Upanishads are said. The Vedas are spoken. Buddha speaks continuously for forty years. Jesus, speaking and speaking, gets caught and is crucified.
The court says to Socrates: If you will stop speaking, we will pardon you. Socrates says: How can I stop speaking? You may hang me or give me poison—that will do. Speaking cannot stop. Yet the same Socrates keeps saying: Truth cannot be spoken. And the same Socrates is ready to die for speaking. He dies—he drinks the poison. He says: How can I live without speaking? Speaking truth is my trade—without it how will I live? And he keeps saying: Truth cannot be said!
The court was not insisting unreasonably. Since Socrates himself says truth cannot be spoken, the court’s demand was not big. It only said: That which cannot be said—please don’t say it. Why get into the frenzy of saying what cannot be said? And get into trouble! You have reached the court.
Socrates said: It cannot be said—but I cannot stop trying to say it. For when I see someone walking toward a ditch, and I know I cannot say to him there is a ditch, still I will shout. I will call out. Who knows, by some hint something may reach. And even if no hint reaches, at least I will be content that I did not stand silently. I did what I could. If it is not the will of God, not the rule of existence—that is not my fault, not my responsibility.
After knowing truth an ultimate responsibility descends upon a man, that he must say what he has known. Whether anyone listens or not; understands or not; whether what is said can be said or not—let there not remain a burden on the mind that I knew something which another was also seeking, and I found no way to tell him.
Sometimes it happens—if the other is intelligent—that what cannot be said by words is still somewhat understood by the helplessness of words and the urgency behind them. What cannot be spoken can stir a chord in the heart through the compassion hidden behind the words.
The rishi says: It is beyond mind and speech, not their object. Therefore he who would know it must go beyond speech and beyond mind, and he must fashion that new mirror whose name is dhyana—or call it vivek. Whatever word you give, it does not matter. Without awakening that vivek or that dhyana, the truths spoken by the rishis reach only our ears, not our life-breath. We seem to hear and yet remain deaf.
Jesus again and again said: He who has eyes, let him see; he who has ears, let him hear.
All who came to hear him had ears. Those who come to listen come with ears. All who came to see had eyes. Those who come for darshan come with eyes. And to those with eyes and ears Jesus saying, If you have eyes, see; if you have ears, hear—sounds strange. Yet it is not wrong. If truth could be seen with eyes, all would have seen it by now. If it could be heard by ears, all would have heard it by now. Eyes and ears we get by birth. But another faculty—our inner intuitive capacity—we do not get by birth; we must give birth to it.
By birth we get the instruments useful for living. The instrument useful for knowing truth, for knowing life—this we must activate ourselves. Its seed is within, but we must quicken it. Otherwise it lies like a seed and is lost. Birth after birth the opportunity comes and we go on missing.
That seed is of dhyana, of vivek. A little effort, some waiting, a little patience, a little courage, a little resolve, a little surrender—and from that seed the sprout of life begins to break forth. One within whom the sprout of meditation is born, only he can say that some meaning has been found in life; otherwise life is nothing more than squandering oneself.
What lies beyond mind and speech is known by dhyana.
Enough for today.
Now we shall descend into meditation. We shall move to know what lies beyond mind and speech. Two or three instructions, then you stand up.
You are doing the experiment well—except perhaps ten or fifteen friends. Those ten or fifteen too should not waste time. The strange thing is: since you have come already, are standing already, the time will pass anyway—whether you meditate or not. If you have come and are standing, and meditation is going on, why remain on the shore? When the Ganga flows so close, why remain thirsty?
Let none be deprived, none stand aside. At least experiment—if nothing is gained, nothing is lost. If nothing is found, there is nothing to lose. So let none stand empty. And if someone is utterly uncomprehending—eyes yet no eyes, ears yet no ears—then he should withdraw to the distant hill and sit there; do not stand here.
Second: for the first two minutes take deep breaths so that energy is stirred in the body.
Third: unblinking eyes—do not lower the lids—keep looking at me.
Fourth: those who wish to do very intensely will be in front, and in the same proportion it will thin out towards the back. Those who wish to stand and do it slowly, be in the last row. And those standing close to me, leave some space so you can jump, you can dance.
And the last thing: when I stand up and give the signal, you have to give the sound Hoo—a strong blow of Hoo—and dance. When I raise my hands from below upward, that is the signal for you to put in your total energy. When my hands go higher, give all the strength you have—voice, dance...
And sometimes when I turn my hands over and bring them from up to down, then gather even more of your energy and pour it in. For then I hope that if you put your whole energy into it, upon many of you Shaktipat will be possible—the touch from above of the Divine.