Nirvan Upanishad #8

Anitya means: that which is, and yet, every moment, is also not what it just was. Anitya does not mean non-being. The world is; it truly is. There is no doubt about its being. If it were not, how could we be deluded by it, fascinated by it? If it were not, how could there be any way to be free of it?
The world is. Its being is real. But the world is not eternal; it is anitya. Anitya means: changing every instant. What was just now will not be the same a moment later. Not even for a fraction of a second does anything stand still.
Therefore Buddha said: the world is a moment-truth. It remains true only for a moment. Heraclitus in Greece said, you cannot step twice into the same river. One can say as well: you cannot look twice at the same world. Blink, and the world has already become something else.
Thus Buddha said something very astonishing. Buddha said, the word “is” is wrong. “Is” should not be used. Everything is occurring. No thing is in a state of “is.” When we say, this person is young, the use of “is” is deeply misleading. Buddha would say, this person is becoming young. There is movement, a process. Nowhere is there a fixed state. We say, this man is old. As if old age were some condition that has settled, stagnant. No. Buddha would say, this man is becoming old. There is no state of “is.” All states are of becoming.
The first time the Bible was translated into Burmese there was great difficulty. Because the Burmese language grew after Buddhism reached Burma, the foundations of Buddhist thought entered the language. So in Burmese there is no precise word for “is.” Whatever words there are mean “is happening.” If you say, the river is, in Burmese it becomes the river is happening. That was fine—until they came to translating God: God is. Rendered in Burmese it became, God is happening. Quite a snag!
And Buddha would say: nothing is—everything is happening. And he is right. You see this tree; we say, the tree is. But by the time you have said it, the tree has become something else. A new shoot has emerged. An old shoot has grown older. A blossom has opened a little more. A falling flower has fallen. The roots have drunk fresh drops of water, the leaves have imbibed fresh rays of the sun. In the time it took you to say “the tree is,” the tree has already changed. No such state as “is” exists in the world. Everything is happening—just a process.
This is what the Upanishads say.
The Rishi of the Upanishad says: the world is anitya.
Nitya is that which is—always is. In which there is never any change, no transformation. That which is as it always was, and will remain so.
Surely, the world is not so. The world is anitya. It appears to be, and it is constantly changing, running on. The world is a race—pure dynamism, a momentariness. But the delusion is vast. Everything seems to be. The body seems to be. But it too is a stream, a flow.
Ask a scientist: he will say, in seven years not a single part of your body remains what it was seven years ago. In seven years all flows away; the body is new. One who lives seventy years changes his body ten times over. Cell by cell it is changing—every instant.
You think you die once. Your body has already died a thousand times. Each cell dies, is expelled. Daily new cells are created by food. The old cells are thrown out—through excreta and by other routes the body keeps discarding its dead cells.
You may not have noticed: you cut your nails—no pain. You cut your hair—no pain. These are dead parts; hence no pain. If they were living body parts, cutting them would hurt. They are dead.
Inside the body the dead cells are being expelled—through hair, through nails, through excreta, through sweat. Every moment the body throws out its dead portions and gives life to new portions through food. The body is a river. But the illusion arises that the body is.
Till three hundred years ago it was not even known that blood circulates. It was thought the body is full of blood like a stagnant pool. We do not feel the motion of blood. Yet in the body the blood flows like a swift river. What was in your feet is, a moment later, in your head. A rapid circulation is going on. It serves also as the stream that carries dead cells out of the body. It is engaged in throwing out the dead portions.
In this world the only thing that arises is illusion—that things are. Nothing remains for even a moment what it was. All is changing. The Rishi calls this change anityatā.
Why point out this anityatā? Because if we remember that the very nature of the world is anitya, then we will not create any fixed attachments in it. If the nature of the world is anitya, if all things will change, we will drop the insistence on holding things still. The young will no longer demand to remain young—it is impossible. It cannot be. Youth is only a road toward old age, nothing else. Youth is the effort of becoming old, nothing else. Youth is not the opposite of old age; it is part of the same current. Two steps earlier the current is youth; two steps later it is old age. In the same river there is the ghat of youth, and in the same river there is the ghat of old age.
If it dawns on us that in this world everything is dying every instant, we will drop our mad insistence on living. For what we call birth is the first step of death. In truth, whoever is not to die should not be born. There is no other way. If born, then dying is certain. The day we are born, the journey toward death begins—the first step has been taken. Birth is the first step of death; death is the last step of birth. If you see it as a flow, there is no difficulty. If you see them as fixed states, then birth is separate and death is separate; youth is separate and old age is separate.
But the Rishi says: the world is an impermanent flow. Here birth is bound to death, and youth is bound to old age. Here pleasure is bound to pain. Here love is bound to hate. Here friendship is bound to enmity. And whoever wants to make things stand still falls into suffering and misery.
Man’s anxiety is just this: where nothing stays, he insists on making it stay. If I have fame, I want it to remain. If I have wealth, I want it to remain. Whatever I have, I want it to remain. If someone loves me, I want that love to be eternal. Every lover desires that love become everlasting. Hence every lover falls into sorrow. Because in this world nothing can be everlasting—not even love.
Here everything changes. Change is the nature of the world. Therefore whoever desires anything to stay will suffer. The world does not run by our desire. The world has its own law. It moves by its own law.
You sit under a tree and wish that a green leaf remain green forever—you will be in trouble. It is no fault of the leaf. No fault of the tree. The arrangement of the world has done nothing to you. Your desire itself puts you in difficulty—that the leaf should remain green. The leaf is green precisely because tomorrow it will dry. Its greenness is a journey toward drying, a preparation for drying.
If in the green leaf you can also see the dry leaf, then you will know the world is anitya. If in the newborn child you can see the dying old man, then you will know the world is anitya. If in rising love you can also see love descending, then you will understand the world is anitya. All things are like this. But we live in the moment, we see the moment and take it to be fixed; we forget the before and after. From forgetting the before and after arises great pain and great anxiety.
The root of our anxiety—of the human anxiety—is this: that which cannot be held, we want to hold. That which cannot be bound, we want to bind. That which cannot be saved, we want to save. That whose nature is death, we want to make immortal. Hence anxiety. Anxiety is: will the one I love remain my love tomorrow? The one I loved yesterday, is that love still alive today? The one who honored me yesterday, will he honor me today? Those who deemed me good yesterday, will they deem me good today? This is anxiety.
Therefore, whenever materialism increases in the world, anxiety increases. If the West today is more anxious than the East, there is no other reason.
In the East there is more trouble—hunger, poverty, famine, floods, everything. In the West famine is gone, disease is less, life seems longer, wealth is more, comforts abound—and yet anxiety is greater. By arithmetic it should have been otherwise: less anxiety in the West, more in the East. But hunger gone, disease gone, comfort arrived, a man could live without working—still anxiety grows.
In twenty or twenty-five years the West will work no more; machines will do it all automatically. And every nation where automatic machines take over will write into its constitution—just as we say freedom is the birthright of the individual—within twenty years the Western constitutions will carry the clause that wealth is the birthright of every person without labor. It will have to be so. When wealth is abundant, what else can it mean? When machines produce wealth, then to receive wealth without labor will become one’s birthright.
Yet anxiety keeps increasing. And I say, the day machines take all work, that day man—in the West at least—will be in such trouble that saving him will be hard. Why? For one reason: the Western gaze is on matter, and it seeks permanence in the material world. That permanence cannot be found. It cannot be; it is impossible.
The Rishi says, the world is anitya. Therefore to try to make the world nitya is madness. Acceptance of anityatā is wisdom, is prajñā. And one who knows the world is anitya—not hears, not reads, but learns in the school of experience that the world is anitya… The school is open all around. Everywhere anityatā. And yet man is amazing—he lives as if it were nitya. Nothing remains; everything changes. Still the blindness is astonishing. We sit with our eyes closed. Where flow is on every side, there in the middle we weave dreams that all will remain. The Rishi says: open your eyes and see the fact.
The world is anitya. Whoever is born in it is as if born in a dream-world.
To hold dream and world together—this is one of the discoveries of Indian intuition. No one elsewhere has had the precise courage to say: the world is dreamlike—just a dream. Hard to say. Anyone can prove you wrong. He can pick up a stone and strike your skull—then you will know the world is not dreamlike. No argument is needed. A blow to the head is enough. Blood will flow, pain will arise. If the world is a dream, why be upset?
Those were brave people who said: the world is dreamlike. And they said it knowing.
Consider two or three points. First: when we say dreamlike, it seems to mean non-existent. This is wrong. The dream also is—as much as anything. The dream also is; the dream has existence; it is existential. It is not that the dream is not. The dream also is.
And there is one special quality to dreaming: while it happens, it appears true. The nature of the dream is that while it is happening it appears true. Have you ever realized, in a dream, that what you are seeing is a dream? If some day you realize it, you have become a Rishi. In a dream it seems that what you see is real. Yes, the dream breaks—then you know it was a dream. Within the dream it is never known to be a dream. If it is known, the dream will break that very moment. If it is known, it breaks immediately. The essential condition for the dream to continue is: you must feel what you are seeing is true. Otherwise the dream cannot continue. The life of the dream is in this “truth.”
At night you dream—people see very absurd dreams—utterly nonsensical; yet no doubt arises.
Leo Tolstoy wrote: I have seen one dream at least a thousand times. When I wake I say, how absurd! How can this be? But when I sleep again, and someday the same dream returns, in the dream I do not remember at all. In the dream it seems absolutely right.
Tolstoy wrote: I see a vast desert. And this dream repeats again and again. In that desert two shoes keep walking—only shoes! No feet, no person! And I have seen it so many times, and yet when I see it again not the slightest doubt arises—no doubt—it seems perfectly right that the shoes are walking. In the morning there is great unease: how can shoes walk when no one is in them? And a deep anxiety arises: what is the matter? Why does this dream repeat? And the shoes just keep walking; an endless desert; two shoes; and no one. And when Tolstoy gets utterly frightened watching them, his sleep breaks. But after seeing it so many times, when he sees it again, again it seems true.
While in a dream, it is not a dream—it is truth. And if you remember, “this is a dream,” the film snaps; a white screen remains. You come out. In the morning you realize it was a dream.
But the Rishi says: let that be—those were dreams. What you see upon waking in the morning—that too is dreamlike. We say, do not say that! This at least seems quite real. This house, this family, these friends, this wife, these sons, this wealth—this all seems utterly real. Do not call this a dream!
But the Rishi says: there is another awakening—viveka labhyam—attained by discrimination. Another awakening. When you awaken there, you will discover that what you saw upon waking was also a dream.
To know a dream as dream, the state must change—only then can there be comparison. At night the dream seems true; in the morning you know it was false. And the morning that seems true— the Rishi says, we tell you of another awakening: awaken there and you will see that too was dreamlike.
To call it dreamlike is to compare. It does not mean that if someone strikes your head it will not split, blood will not flow. In a dream too, if the head is struck, it splits and blood flows—in the dream too. If someone climbs onto your chest in a dream and starts stabbing you, the chest trembles, blood pressure rises, the heart races—and even after waking it keeps racing for a while. You now know it was a dream; no one really climbed on your chest—only your pillow was there. You are awake, yet the heartbeat is still fast, the blood is racing, the pressure is high. In the dream someone died—you were crying your heart out. The dream broke; you know the one who died was in a dream—yet your eyes still overflow with tears.
So deeply does the dream penetrate! But it is known only with a change of state; otherwise not. Comparison is needed to know.
Einstein used to joke that the whole world is relative—he would joke, but it was his experience too—that the world is relativity, comparison. Whenever you say something, it is meaningful only in comparison. No direct statement can be made. You say, so-and-so is tall. It has no meaning unless you say—taller than whom? You say, so-and-so is fair. Meaningless unless you say—compared to whom?
Mulla Nasruddin is walking. A friend meets him: “You’re fine, I hope?” Nasruddin asks, “With whom in comparison?” The other is puzzled; it was just the morning pleasantry—“How are you?”—and the answer should have been: “I’m fine.” But Nasruddin says, “In comparison with whom? In this village there are those in better condition than I, and those in worse—which comparison are you asking for?”
All statements in this world are comparative, relative. When we say, this man has died, we should ask: by what criterion? For a dead man’s nails still grow, his hair grows. In the grave the nails lengthen and the hair lengthens. Shave the head and later the hair grows again. If hair growth is taken as a sign of life, this man has not died. If you think life means prāṇa in the body, he is not alive.
In each body there are some seven hundred million micro-organisms. When you die, their number suddenly increases. Count their life, and this man is now more full of life than before. Earlier there were seven hundred million; with the beginning of decay their numbers multiply. Ask those organisms: has the town you live in died? They will say, what are you saying! It has grown, not died. The measure of life is rising. The cells within you know nothing of “you.”
Gurdjieff used to say something very strange. He said: it could be that just as seven hundred million living cells dwell in our body and do not know us, similarly human society as a whole might be but a single living cell in some vaster body—and we would not know it. It is possible.
Gurdjieff also said—and among the wise of the last fifty years he stands tall—he said: just as the cells within us, for whom we are nothing but food—they live by eating us—so it may be that we who dwell on this earth—for whom the earth is nothing more than food—are but cells in the great body of the Earth; and we know nothing of the Earth’s soul, of its personality, of its consciousness.
He also said: everything is food for something else; why should man be an exception? Everything is food for something. Man too must be someone’s food. He would say playfully: man is food for the moon. When a man dies, we think he has died—only the moon has eaten him.
He said it in jest. But it could be true, because in this world everything is food. A fruit grows on a tree; it becomes your food. One animal becomes food for another. Why not man for some greater life?
By which accounting we speak—everything depends on that. All statements are relative. In such a relativity-filled world, no thing can be nitya, absolute. Everything is changing.
Einstein said that if all of us suddenly became taller together—everything, at once—if I am six feet and the tree beside me sixty feet, and in a moment I become twelve feet and the tree one hundred twenty, the mountain doubles, everything doubles by some magic—no one would know anything had changed. The proportions would remain fixed. You only know because proportion wobbles; otherwise you would not know.
Those among us who awaken in viveka know. Then a great difficulty arises for them: everyone is walking in sleep, living in dreams. They know; we do not. We are all dreaming alike. So whenever someone among us awakes, we feel very restless. We try in every way to drag him back to sleep: “You too sleep.” We tell him, “Dreams are sweet, very sweet.”
Buddha left home; he left his father’s kingdom. Fearing disturbance, he went into a neighboring kingdom. The neighboring emperor heard that his friend’s son had become a sannyasi; he felt pain and came to see him. “Look,” he said, “you are young; you have not tasted life. Why this madness? If there is any obstacle with your father, come to my palace. I will marry you to my daughter and give you half my kingdom.”
Buddha said, “I fled thinking no one would pursue me. And here you are.” As it should be said to an elder, he said, “You are still unknowing. You know nothing of life. Return.”
Wherever Buddha went, pursuit followed. Some “wise” person would arrive and say: “Come, go to sleep. We will arrange everything.”
Whenever someone moves toward awakening, hands clutch from all sides, like an octopus. From every side he is held: “Sleep!” All sorts of temptations gather and call: “Sleep!” Because whenever someone awakens among us, he brings in new values. He says, “You are dreaming. You are asleep. You are not conscious. This world is anitya. All this will be lost. All this will vanish.”
Tell a man building a house, “This world is anitya,” and his life will go out of him. He cannot accept that like those ruins lying around, his house will someday also lie in ruins. He cannot accept it.
Two or three years ago I was in Mandu. A meditation camp. I asked and learned that six hundred years ago the population of Mandu was seven hundred thousand; and now, the signboard at the motor stand says—nine hundred thirteen. I was amazed. A city of seven hundred thousand, and now ruins spread everywhere. A mosque so large that ten thousand could pray together—and today not even ten pray. Rest houses big enough for ten thousand to lodge. And only nine hundred thirteen people in town. Ruins everywhere—and yet the man building his little hut does not see the vast palace in ruins behind him. He builds with the same relish—as if it will remain forever.
The awakened one begins to remind you of things that feel painful. They feel painful because, understanding them, you cannot continue to live as you were living. You will have to change. And change appears painful. We do not want to change. We want to remain as we are. Because change asks for effort; to remain as we are asks for none.
The Rishi says: the world is anitya. Whoever is born in it is born in a dream, like the world of dreams, like an elephant in the sky.
Sometimes clouds gather in the sky—and you can make anything out of them: see an elephant. Children see an old woman spinning on the moon. Your choice; project what you will. See chariots in the sky, elephants, beauties, apsarās—whatever you want. There is nothing in the clouds. Everything is in your eyes. The clouds are only clouds. You make in them whatever you wish.
In the West psychology has made many new discoveries about projection. Those who know a little psychology must have seen pictures of inkblots in the books. Psychologists use these. They give the patient pure inkblots—nothing has been drawn, just blots as on blotting paper—and ask: “What picture do you see?” The patient finds some picture. And his finding tells about him; the picture is nothing.
They say Mulla Nasruddin went to a psychologist. His mind was disturbed, restless. He went for counsel. The psychologist wanted to know the seeds of his unrest. He gave him some inkblots. “Look carefully—what do you see?” “A woman,” said Nasruddin. Good—on the right track. For most of a man’s illness is woman; and of a woman’s, man. Not many other illnesses. Second blot: “What is it?” “A naked woman,” said Nasruddin. The psychologist—perfect—he’s on track; the way will be found quickly. Third blot: “What do you see?” Nasruddin said, “Must I speak? The woman is doing something nasty.”
The psychologist said, “Your illness is clear. I see what goes on in your mind.” Nasruddin said, “My mind? Are these your pictures or mine? Did you make them or I? Your mind seems to be in trouble. I’m in a hurry today; I’ll come tomorrow. But can you lend me these pictures for a day? I’ll look at them at night—and enjoy.”
This world is like elephants seen in the sky. Empty clouds, inkblots—you see in them what you want to see. What appears is not there. You are seeing. You project from within. It is the expansion of your own mind. It all depends on you.
The world in which we live is our creation. And we have no knowledge of that world which is beyond our mind—different from us, outside our creation. That is known only to one whose mind is no more. For as long as mind is, the projector is on, working from within.
In the same face you see beauty; know that there are those who see ugliness in that very face. In one person you see all virtues; know that he too has enemies who see only vices. What you see—the person is but a pretext, like clouds in the sky. What you see is your expansion. Then daily you suffer, because the person remains what he is. He cannot live according to your projection. You have assumed something; today or tomorrow it will break. Then the trouble begins. You create expectations.
A man comes smiling, praises me. I think, “What a good man.” At night he runs off with my money. I wonder, “How could a good man do this?” Into his smile, into his praise, I had imposed something. That imposition began expectation. I did not expect theft from that man. Theft—what the man will do—is within him. In a cloud you saw an elephant; how long that elephant will remain—who can tell? The cloud will disperse and become something else. You will not then weep and shout, “But I saw an elephant—I have been deceived!”
Our expectations deceive us. The person is what he is. We imagine. And then we suffer because he does not fulfill our imagining. Therefore, as long as there is mind, we will keep meeting the wrong people—because we keep seeing wrongly. We go on seeing what is not there.
This web we spread—the mind—this is our dreamlike world. Mind is world. To go beyond mind is to go beyond the world. Mind is dream. To go beyond mind is to go beyond dream.
Likewise this body and all its aggregates are endowed with the qualities of delusion. All this is false like a snake imagined in a rope through error. Tad-rajju-svapnavat kalpitam—like a rope and a dream, imagined.
A rope lies on the path, and someone sees a snake. It is not difficult to see a snake in a rope. A fearful man will see it immediately. He is ready for snakes, hoping not to see one. He glimpses the rope—and runs. Even a snake seen in a rope will make you run. Sweat breaks out. The chest thumps. Panic spreads. Hands and feet tremble. The snake seen in the rope does the same work as a real snake. What is the difference?
None—as far as you are concerned. As for the rope—it might be puzzled by your running: “What is wrong with this fellow? I am only a rope.”
Mulla Nasruddin was going out of the village. Friends said, “Don’t take that road. There are bandits. It’s deserted.” But he had to go. “I must,” said Nasruddin. “I’m not carrying much—just me and my donkey.” “They may snatch the donkey,” said his friend, and handed him a sword: “Take this in case you need it.”
Nasruddin set out with the sword, afraid the donkey would be taken. Men fear less for themselves than for their donkey, their house, their money. The fear for oneself is small—we do not know our own worth. The house’s worth we know, the donkey’s worth we know.
Nasruddin, sword naked in hand, ready to strike at the first attack, saw a man coming from afar. “Now trouble,” he thought. The road is deserted; there are no travelers; so he cannot be a traveler, he must be a bandit. Seeing Nasruddin’s naked sword, the other also drew his sword—he too was afraid, warned by villagers to carry a sword on that dangerous road. The moment the other drew, Nasruddin cried, “Brother, wait! I carry two things—a donkey and a sword. If you want to loot, we will ourselves give them to you!” The man thought: free gain! The sword is more valuable. “Keep your donkey,” he said. “Give me the sword.” “Take it,” said Nasruddin.
Returning, his friend asked, “All well? No trouble?” “The sword was very useful,” said Nasruddin. “Where is it?” “It did its job. The man was ready to snatch my donkey—so I gave him the sword and saved my donkey.”
Projections. Twenty-four hours we see what we want to see. We see snakes in ropes. And projections work in reverse too—you can see a rope in a snake. We all know Tulsidas’s story. It is not only that we see snakes in ropes—we can see a rope in a snake. It depends on the time, on the mind’s projection. Tulsidas runs to meet his wife. Three days away; in great agitation. He enters the flooded river in the rainy season, crosses clinging to a corpse floating in the water, thinking it is a log. Did the corpse not smell? The wife’s fragrance must have so filled his nose that the corpse’s stench remained outside. He cannot enter by the front door—only three days since she went to her parents’ home; what would people say? He climbs by the back. Seeing a rope hanging, he climbs. It was not a rope; a snake was hanging there.
But the mind imagines. Imagination is its only capacity. Therefore truth cannot be known by mind—only imaginations can be. Whatever we know through mind is like the snake seen in a rope. Therefore what is not, appears. What is not, is heard. What is not, is touched. And we go on living nursing our own illusions, weaving our own web of illusion around us. We have no relationship with truth.
The Rishi says: the sannyasi is out in search of that which is—not what his mind says is. Choose one of the two. If you would know what is—that which is—you will have to drop mind. If you hold to mind, you will know nothing but the net of imaginations.
Vishnu, Brahma and the rest—hundreds of names—Brahman alone is the Goal.
The Goal is truth. To attain that which is. For only by attaining what is, is sorrow dissolved, anxiety ends, pain ceases, duḥkha is extinguished. Only by knowing what is, is there mukti, freedom. Only by knowing what is, together with truth, is the taste of amṛta—death’s end.
But that which is can have many names—indeed it must. Without giving a name it is hard for us to speak.
Thus the Rishi says: shatābhidhāna lakshyam—the Goal with hundreds of names.
That truth which has infinite names—someone calls it Brahman, someone Brahma, someone Vishnu; someone says Ram, someone Rahim; someone says something else—truth with hundreds of names. In itself it has no name; therefore it can have any name.
Remember: if it had one name, it could not have hundreds. Because it has no name, any name will do. It is the Nameless. But in different tongues, different ages, different experiences, human beings have given many names. Their pointing is one. The gesture is one. Only the words differ.
But great trouble arose. The insistence on names became so intense that the bearer of the name was forgotten. The one who says Ram fights the one who says his name is Rahman. Swords are drawn. The one who says Allah kills the one who says his name is Bhagwan. People of mind erect even false gods; they see snakes in ropes; they begin to see truth in the name itself.
A name is only a name, a pointing. And every pointing is useless when that to which it points is seen. If I raise a finger and say, “There is the moon,” and you grab my finger and say, “I have found the moon,” you create the same mess. The finger is useless; the pointing is enough. Leave the finger; look at the moon. But we do not look at the moon; the finger is what we see first. Names come into our grip.
On this soil, those who knew warned of the danger of names long ago. Others have still not understood. They said again and again: it has hundreds of names. All names are his. Any name will do. No name is sufficient, and any name is workable, a support.
This is why Hindu dharma could not become a converting religion. It did not try to convert those of other faiths. There was no need. When all names are his, then one who says Allah is saying what the one who says Ram is saying. One who takes the pointing from the Quran takes the same pointing as one who takes it from the Veda. Therefore trying to draw a lover of the Quran toward the Veda is pointless. If the Quran works, it is enough. The work is the same. If the Bible works, that is sufficient.
From the Hindu vision no more generous view has appeared on earth. But this became a trouble for Hindus. It had to. In a sleeping world, if the words of the awakened are used by the sleeping, they can become trouble.
All names are his. No conflict, no opposition. Any pointing will suffice. The Rishi says: call him Brahman, call him Vishnu, call him Shiva—whatever you call—the Goal is one: that which is. To know that which does not change; which is eternal, nitya; which was the same yesterday, is the same today, will be the same tomorrow. Which is neither new nor old. For what is new will be old tomorrow; what is old was new yesterday. What changes we can call new or old. But the nitya is neither new nor old. It cannot grow old; therefore calling it new has no meaning. It simply is.
To know that which is—only that is the Goal. But to know it, the imaginations we spread must be broken, dropped. We all look at the world with eyes full—full of notions; we must look with empty eyes. We all look with a mind full; we must look with an empty mind. We go to the world with conceptions—and view through their veil. Then the world appears as the conceptions tell us it is.
If you would see it—Existence, Truth, as it is—you must go as shunya, as silence. Empty, naked. Drop all garments of assumptions. Drop all garments of thought. One who stands without thought, in silence and emptiness, becomes available to the experience of truth—that truth which is nitya, shashvata, sanātana.
And in the final sutra the Rishi says: ankusho margaḥ. The goad is the path.
Where to place the goad? On this mind—which spreads, which projects. The goad upon it—that is the path. To stop this mind, to hold it, to not let it move, to not let it run, to not let it be active—that is the path. In tiny sutras are nectarlike directives.
Ankusho margaḥ.
So small—a sutra of two words. Upon this mind—the inner factory of dreams—the goad is the path. Slowly, slowly to dissolve this mind is the siddhi.
A Zen fakir, Lin-chi. When he went to his master he said, “How shall I make the mind so that I may know truth?” The master laughed. “Make the mind how you will—you will not know truth.” “Then shall I never know truth?” “I did not say that,” said the master. “You will know truth—but have the kindness to drop mind. No-mind is meditation. The disappearance of mind is dhyāna. Do not try to make the mind this way or that—good or bad; paint it this color or that; make it saintly or pious. Whose mind will you make?”
It will not happen through mind. Whatever kind of mind, it will project. A good mind will project good; a bad mind, bad. But projection will continue. If there is no mind, then the web between us and the world, between us and truth, falls at once. We see what is.
What I call meditation is also no-mind, a-man—throwing the mind aside. Ankusho margaḥ. With a goad the journey must begin—slowly, slowly. Stand by a tree, and look at it dropping all assumptions. Do not let the mind say, “How beautiful”—that is an old notion; do not let it come in between. Nor let the mind say, “How ugly a tree.” Tell the mind, keep quiet, be silent; let me see the tree. Do not come between.
Sit; the sun is falling on you. The mind says, “This is so troublesome.” Tell the mind, be quiet. Let me experience the sun—what is happening. The mind says, “It is such a delight in the sun.” Say to it, be quiet; do not come between. Let the sun and me meet directly. Then great changes will begin. Then the sun will be experienced as it is. The mind will not interpret in between.
All these are interpretations. And once fashion changes, interpretations change. In the East there is a great infatuation for white skin—white is beautiful. In the West white is common; what is abundant loses value—scarcity has value. In the West the beauty is she who brings a little dusk to her skin. Beauties lie on the seashore, taking sun—so that a slight dusk enters the skin. Great discomfort lying in the sun; but it does not feel like discomfort because the mind says, beauty is arising from the sun.
Where the mind savors, there beauty seems; where it becomes tasteless, discomfort begins. With change of fashion, all changes.
There are tribes who shave women’s heads. They say, a shaven head is very beautiful. They say, until the head is shaven the full beauty of a woman’s face cannot be known; hair hides it. Real beauty appears when the head is clean, smooth, pure. Hair—what dirt! Women shave. There are tribes who think there can be no beauty without hair—so women wear wigs, false hair. Today wigs are a big business in the West—because hair!
It is all our fancy—the play of the mind. Whatever we seize upon, that is how it appears. The Rishi says: keep a goad upon this mind, slowly dissolve it, and bring that moment when we may say, there is no mind now. Here remains consciousness; there remains truth. Where mind is not, consciousness and truth meet. There is bliss. There is the realization and experience of the Nitya.
Enough for today.
Now we will prepare for meditation. Remember two or three things.
Throw the mind completely—ankusho margaḥ. But the mind can be thrown only when you put your total urgency and total energy into throwing it.
For ten minutes breathe in such a way that every pore of the body fills with energy and begins to dance. Then ten minutes of dance—jumping, moving, rejoicing. Do it so totally that you are utterly mad—nothing less than mad will do.
Then ten minutes of the roar of HOO. Do it so that the whole valley is filled with the roar.
Spread out far. The farther you spread, the more pleasant it will be. Those who know they run fast—go to the very back. It is not right to push others. If someone comes up from behind, that is different—but in advance make arrangements so that no obstruction comes to another.
Put in your total energy. Close your eyes. Remove clothing as needed—if in between you feel like removing, do it at once. Drop all hesitation, all coverings of mind; with your whole heart, put in all your energy.
Close your eyes. Tie on blindfolds. Those who do not have blindfolds—get them quickly. Otherwise you are wasting your time; you will not have the full benefit. Do not keep the eyes open. And if there is no band, keep your eyes closed—and do not open them for forty minutes, whatever happens.
Begin!