Prabhu Mandir Ke Dwar Par #6

Let me explain with a small story. Germany’s highest cleric, the arch-priest, went to inspect a little village church. The rule was that whenever he visited a church, its bells were rung in welcome. But at that village church the bells did not ring. When he reached inside, he asked the parish priest, “Every church rings its bells to welcome me—why didn’t yours?” That priest had a habit: whatever the reason, he would begin with his stock phrase, “There are a thousand reasons.” He said, “There are a thousand reasons. The first is: this church has no bell.” The arch-priest said, “Then leave the rest—one reason is enough.”

You ask me: Why don’t I stay in a “Harijan’s” home?

First of all, in my vision there is no such person as a Harijan. Where am I to find one? There are human beings—no “Harijans.” In Gandhi’s vision there were “Harijans,” therefore he could seek out a “Harijan’s” house.

Remember, “untouchable” and “shudra” were harsh words; they carried a sting, a wound, a pain. “Harijan” is a very dangerous word. With “untouchable” or “shudra,” one felt hurt and would protest. With “Harijan,” a kind of pride can creep in: “We are Harijans.” The reality is the same. Changing a label doesn’t change the condition; coating poison with sugar only makes it easier to swallow.

Words like “Harijan” are dangerous. To grant recognition to that label—whether by insult or by honor; whether by refusing to touch, or by making a show of staying in someone’s house—keeps the label alive. The recognition itself says, “This person is a ‘Harijan’—either don’t touch him, or it is obligatory to stay in his home.” In both cases the label is preserved. The point is not to save “Harijan”; it is to let the category disappear.

Gandhi had a difficulty: he loved the larger framework called “Hindu,” and this whole business of shudra, untouchable, “Harijan” is its offspring. He wanted to preserve the larger structure and then find a compromise within it for this smaller wrong. In truth, identifications like Hindu, Muslim, Christian—all such labels—should fade. Those who feel oppressed within Hindu society should gather the courage to say, “We are not Hindus.” Why must they be? What has it given them? But even when they muster courage to say, “We are not Hindus,” they rush to ask, “Then what shall we be—Muslim, Christian, Buddhist?” They have not left one prison before they are already choosing the next.

Ambedkar gathered some courage and said, “Leave Hinduism!” But even that courage was incomplete; he was immediately sent into another prison. Perhaps the second prison was a bit more comfortable. Comfortable prisons are worse, because one no longer feels like leaving them. To step away from being Hindu only to become Buddhist, Christian, or Muslim—those too are confinements. “Harijans,” “untouchables,” “shudras” should free themselves from all such cages. They should say, “We are simply human beings; we do not attach ourselves anywhere.” Yet many are eager to be acknowledged as “Harijan,” eager for the respect that label might bring. They have endured enough insult; now they seek honor in exchange. But remember: whether insult or honor, so long as you are a “Harijan,” you cannot be a free human being.

What the world needs now is human beings. We should attempt an experiment: let us step outside the prisons. Until there are enough courageous people on this earth who reject all jails and say, “We are only human,” nothing will change.

And look at this country that calls itself secular. Even here, job forms ask: What is your religion? What madness is this? Why should one’s religion be asked? Being human ought to be enough. School admission forms ask the same thing. The census too: Which religion do you follow? Then this secularism is dishonest. True secularism means: in this land we regard a person first and only as a human being; we place no other boundary or adjective upon him.

With a little courage, India could become a society of human beings. Yet on every side there is insistence on building walls between man and man. Gandhi spent his life striving to unite Hindus and Muslims—but first he accepted the very afflictions and then sought to unite them. He would say, “Hindu is fine, Muslim is fine—let them unite.” Both, as labels, are the problem; there is no need to unite them, there is a need for those identifications to dissolve. When they dissolve, our shared humanness will be one. As long as one remains Hindu and the other Muslim, that very being is a separation, a division. Let those identities fall away; then humanity can be one. Trying to combine two ailments does not help; what is needed is healing, not compromise among illnesses. All his life Gandhi kept seeking compromises with every affliction. The same story continued with shudras and “Harijans.”

Do you even need to ask what my opinion is? All scriptures that create distinctions between one human being and another are criminal. Any scripture that entertains notions of higher and lower among human beings must have been written by exploiters; it cannot be the utterance of rishis and sages. And anyone who wants to maintain any idea of higher and lower between human beings is a criminal. We need to be even more alert towards such offenders than we are with a thief or a murderer. For what harm can a thief do? He can lift money from here and put it there—at most, move one household’s things into another. And what can a murderer do? He can kill today a man who would have died ten or twenty years later anyway. But one who supports and recommends something like the varna system becomes responsible for turning the lives of hundreds of millions into hell. Such people, such ideas, such scriptures should be discredited; they should have no place.

But this country is very dishonest. If the Shankaracharya of Puri says it, you oppose him. Yet the very scriptures on which he bases himself continue to be worshipped. What kind of country is this? What kind of people are these? You oppose the Shankaracharya when he speaks, and at the same time you keep worshipping the scriptures on which his words stand. Then this does not look like an issue of understanding; it looks like dishonesty. It seems the winds of time have changed, so you oppose the Shankaracharya; but the inner mind has not changed—so you also worship the scriptures. What is the Shankaracharya’s fault? At most that he seems to have no intelligence of his own; the scripture is his intelligence. No other fault is apparent. He seems like a tape recorder: whatever is written in the scripture, he repeats. What is his fault? Yet the whole country pounced on him—while the worship of those scriptures continues. This is not right; it is unjust. We need to be free of scriptures. In truth, we need to be free of the past.

Because it is that past which created all these stupidities. In the roots of that past—our bygone history—are the germs of all these diseases. And yet we glorify it; we make a great din about it; we want Ram-rajya to return. If Ram-rajya returns, then the Shankaracharya is right and you all are wrong. If Ram-rajya comes back, there will be Shudras—and it will also be that no Shudra may hear the words of the Vedas. And if a Shudra hears the words of the Vedas, molten lead will be poured into his ears—indeed it will be poured. If you want to bring back Ram-rajya, be prepared for this. Otherwise, don’t indulge in such futile talk. What is gone is gone; it cannot be brought back, nor is there any need.

But the whole mind of our country is tied to the past. We want to be free of the illnesses the past has given us, and yet we do not want to be free of the past itself. Thus a kind of tug-of-war, a tension, has arisen in the country’s psyche. And remember: don’t imagine you can save what is good in the past and discard the bad. Understand this a little. Every era is an organic unity. It’s not as if you can keep the beautiful eyes of a man and discard the rest. It’s not possible to keep the heart because you like it and let the rest go. A human being is an organic, integrated whole. Every age, every time, every century, every scripture, every idea, every religion is an organic unity. If it goes, it goes as a whole; if it remains, it remains as a whole.

But in this country we try to say: discard what is wrong and preserve what is right. The very mind from which the right arose is the one from which the wrong arose; the right and the wrong are two parts of the same thing. Hence we are in great difficulty. We keep thinking we’ll preserve the good and throw out the bad. It doesn’t work that way. The previous whole has to be left, and a new whole has to be born. When a father dies, we don’t say, “His skull was very good—so remove the son’s skull and attach the father’s.” The father dies as a whole; the son is born as a whole. Every age should die completely so that the new age can be born completely. If we try to save parts of the old, the new age’s hands and feet are crippled; it cannot be born. India has long been stuck in this difficulty: the old does not die here, and the new gets no chance to be born. Those who are plainly partisan to the old are at least clear; but those who oppose the partisans of the old are themselves partisans of the old. That’s why the mind of this country cannot see clearly what to do and what not to do.

Those who oppose the Shankaracharya and say he is wrong will also pick up the scriptures and try to prove from them that there is no Shudra in the scriptures. But they will try to prove it within the scriptures themselves. They will not say, “It may be in the scriptures; what have we to do with scriptures?” Have the scriptures taken a perpetual contract that we are bound to them? Has Manu Maharaj taken a contract that the coming world can never be free of him? Manu Maharaj is dead; his thought should also die. Everything should die if life is to remain alive. As people change, so must society, scriptures, ideas. Civilization must also learn to die; a civilization that does not learn to die stops being reborn. Civilizations also die. But in this country we think our civilization is something extraordinary. Rome died, Babylon died, Syria died, Egypt died. We? We never die. Could it be that we are already dead—therefore we do not die? Only what is dead does not die. Remember, a dead man has one advantage: he cannot die again; the question of dying doesn’t arise. A living people dies and is born—that is the sign of life. Ages should die so new ages can be born. Scriptures should die so new scriptures can be born. Thinkers should take leave so new thinkers can come. This current should flow; it should not stop. But all this has stalled.

That Shankaracharya says, “It is written in our book.” His claim is the book. His opponents say, “No, that book means something else.” But both are claimants of the book. Both are enemies of the country; not just one. Not only the Shankaracharya—the other one too. Because he says, “It isn’t written”; but if it is proved that it is written, he too will agree. No one has the courage to be free of the book.

What is this? Do we have no intelligence of our own, that we go on thinking with borrowed minds? Has complete knowledge been attained, so that no further knowledge is to be attained? Knowledge will move forward every day. A people that decides, “We will not think any further,” will begin to rot. And remember, the older a civilization becomes, the more hypocritical it becomes. A new civilization has freshness, newness, honesty. An old civilization becomes dishonest—experience makes one cunning. A child is born: there is innocence, guilelessness, freshness. The same child, at seventy, becomes cunning. It’s hard to find an old man who is innocent; it’s hard to find a child who is cunning. What is true of child and old man is true of new and old civilization.

Our entire civilization has become cunning. Its heap of experiences has made it dishonest—and that heap goes on piling up. New civilizations are fresh, alive, strong; they have the courage to act. We have no courage to do anything. We don’t even have the courage to discard something as rotten and degraded as the category “Shudra.” Even for that we ask, “How shall we bring it down? How shall we erase ‘Shudra’? What must we do to erase it?” Something must be done? Will the country merely think it, and “Shudra” will vanish today? To eliminate something, must there be some procedure? Is “Shudra” some TB or cancer needing treatment? It is only a belief. That a man is a Shudra—this is only a belief. To erase a belief, does something need to be done? One simply has to drop the belief. But we cannot drop even that belief; even that belief is not being erased. That is the limit. Perhaps we have become incapable of doing anything.

I do not consider any person higher or lower.

There is a reason they came to be. In the world there have always been classes. But varna? Varna is India’s own invention. Varna exists nowhere else. Classes are everywhere—the poor and the rich—but nowhere else are there classes like Shudra, Brahmin, Kshatriya, and Vaishya. Varna exists nowhere. Class means a person is poor, and if he wishes, tomorrow he can become rich—there is no barrier. There is fluidity. A rich man can become poor; a poor man can become rich. India did something very cunning: it eliminated the fluidity between poverty and wealth and created fixed varnas. Varna means the class has been made solid—frozen—so that change is not possible. The Shudra, the poor, the meek and the lowly, were told, “You are fixed.” Now no change can arise from within you; you cannot move upward. The upper classes benefited because competition from the lower classes ended.

India invented a device to end competition. Competition from millions of Shudras was eliminated. Their sons would no longer be able to contend with Brahmins’ sons for the status of rishi. Their sons would no longer contend with Vaishyas’ sons to become magnates. Their sons would no longer be able to fight like the brave and contend with the Kshatriyas. We froze a vast segment—the immense lower mass—and shut the doors: “You will not be able to come and go anywhere.” The upper groups gained. Then gradually we kept freezing the rest. After the Shudra, we froze the Vaishya and told him, “Wealth is your world; you can go no further. Fame and knowledge are not your domain.” To the Kshatriya we said, “Fame is your world, but knowledge is not.” And above all sat the one who claims knowledge—the scholar, the Brahmin. These strata were solidified; competition ended, and society became inert. The death and stagnation that came to India through varna have come from nothing else to such an extent. The consequences were ruinous in countless ways.

India was attacked. When India was attacked, the Shudra said, “What does it have to do with us? What concern is it of ours? A bhangi will remain a bhangi, whether Muslims sit in Delhi, or Hindus, or the British. What difference will it make to the bhangi? The bhangi will remain a bhangi.” He said, “Our fate is fixed. Whichever king rules, what harm is it to us? We will carry on as we do—keep doing what we do.”

The vast populace of India, because of varnas, became disinterested in the life of the nation—dispassionate. India would never have been enslaved had there been no Shudras in India; India would never have been enslaved had there been no varnas. The varna system carved up India into such compartments that a person felt no need to be concerned. Only a few—Kshatriyas—felt anxiety to save their kingdoms. For the rest of the country there was no stake. What stake does the poor man have in the quarrels of the rich? None. And that is what happened again. The British left India; the poor thought they would get something. Then they discovered: nothing changes. The British capitalist leaves, and a Hindu capitalist takes his place. The poor remain where they are. It makes no difference to him.

These are the quarrels of the rich, quarrels at the top. What has the man at the bottom to do with them? The millennia-long varna system of Shudras created such a frozen condition that no social vision, no sense of a nation, could be born in India. And even those who have stood up against this are not opposed to its fundamental basis. Gandhi wanted untouchability to end, but he did not utter a single word against the doctrine of karma. Perhaps it has not occurred to you how systematic the Hindu mind has been; it is such a system-maker that it has fashioned a whole architecture of doctrines. It would be hard to find people better than us at making doctrines to counter any doctrine. We construct such astonishing theories—our skill at theory-making is beyond measure. We did not set up the Shudra just like that; we built a complete psychological and philosophical backdrop. We said: as a man acts, so is he born. Those who have committed sin are born into the Shudra class; those who have earned merit are born Brahmin. According to the actions in past lives, there are four divisions, and people are born into those four. Therefore the poor Shudra consented; he did not rebel. He said, “All right, we must have done bad deeds in a past life—hence we are Shudra. Now if we do good deeds, in the next life we will become Brahmin.” In hope of the next life, he agreed to be Shudra today. The Indian Shudra consents and waits for the next birth. And the Indian mind is dishonest: whoever you want to placate, dangle the temptation of the next life and he agrees.

Until this thought-stream of karma is broken and we reinterpret it, it will be very difficult for the Shudra to be free. And the great irony is that he is being tied precisely to that from which he needs freedom. Vinoba or Gandhi are busy securing him entry into the very temples from which he should be freed. What a strange thing! From the Hindu priests he needs liberation, and Gandhi and Vinoba say the Shudra should be admitted into their temples. Is this the great revolution—that the Shudra may enter the temple? Whose temple? The very temple that made him a Shudra? The temples of the very priests who tormented and exploited him for thousands of years?

I would say a Shudra should not go into any temple. Even if all the Brahmins fall at his feet, he should not go. Why go into a temple that has broken you, destroyed you, ruined you, exploited you? But Gandhi and his companions say, “Open the temple doors; we will take the Shudra into the temple.” This is hailed as a great revolution—taking the Shudra into the temple. It is merely a device to tighten again the Brahmin’s loosening grip. The moment he goes into their temple, the Shudra will be back in the Brahmin’s hands. Today varna is on the verge of breaking; the system is close to collapse. They are trying to give it a new shape and keep him within it. The fear is that the Shudra may leave the Hindu fold altogether.

But why does a Shudra need to remain within Hinduism? In truth, why does anyone need to be a Hindu? Why does anyone need to be a Muslim? To be human is enough. And if being human does not seem sufficient to someone, will becoming Hindu or Muslim make him any more evolved? Being human is enough. India needs a revolution in which the Shudra at least declares, “We are no longer Hindus.” And many who are not Shudra but are intelligent should also say, “We are not Hindus.” And many who are intelligent should say, “We are not Muslims.” Many who are intelligent should say, “We are not Jain or Christian—we are human.” And if we wish to seek truth, if we wish to seek the Divine, we will seek—but not in the Hindu’s temple, not in the Muslim’s temple. This vast world is His temple; we will seek here. Why should we go within the closed walls of any temple when His temple is so immense? We will have His darshan here. But even the Shudra does not muster this courage. He too says, “Give us Harijans our rights, give us our place; open the temple doors so we may enter.” From whom are you begging rights? And remember: those who beg for rights can never be free. How can those who beg for rights be free? Those from whom rights are obtained, you remain dependent upon them. And those who for thousands of years have molded the mind and clamped man into frames—they are so clever that they will fashion new molds and clamp again.

No—there is a need to break all these nets and come out. No Shudra needs to go into any Hindu temple. And no Shudra needs to call himself “Harijan.” To say “human” is enough. So don’t ask me why I don’t stay in a Harijan’s home. I stay in a home. Harijan and non-Harijan mean nothing to me. If you come and say, “Please come to my house,” I will stay there; but if you harbor even the slightest illusion and advertise that I stayed in a Harijan’s house, I will not agree to join in such madness. That is a madhouse. There is a human being’s house. I can be a guest of a human being; I have nothing to do with “Harijan” and such labels. There may be a thousand reasons, but one is enough.

It is useful to understand this a little. Suppose I come to you with my fist clenched and ask, “I want to open this fist—how do I do it?” What will you say? You will say, “Don’t clench it; it will open by itself.” For opening, nothing needs to be done; for clenching, effort is required. I am laboring to keep the fist tight. If I don’t clench it, the fist opens. Openness is the fist’s nature.

Two points must be understood. First: thoughts are happening because we are doing them, holding them; that is why they keep moving. So don’t ask, “How do I drop a thought?” Ask, “How am I holding the thought?” If you see the trick by which you hold, release happens by itself.

How do we hold? By identification. With each thought we become identical. Anger arises, and you say, “I am angry.” You cannot keep the distance that I am separate and anger is separate. A thought moves within, and you become one with it; it feels, “This is me.”

Have you noticed that you are always separate? Your thoughts move separately. A blue cloud floats across the sky. You see it. Do you say, “I am that blue cloud”? You say, “The blue cloud passed— I am the one who sees.” On the sky of the mind a thought moves; you instantly say, “This is me”—and you are in trouble. The thought moving on the mind’s sky is as distant from you as a piece of cloud on the outer sky. You are still separate. You are nothing but the distant witness. We must remember constantly: I am separate from thought, distinct from it. I am not bound to any thought.

But what do we do? We are so habituated to fastening ourselves to thoughts that it doesn’t even occur to us. When anger comes, instead of saying, “Anger has appeared before me,” you say, “I have become angry.” You speak wrongly. When happiness comes, instead of saying, “Happiness has appeared before me,” you say, “I have become happy.” If you have become happy, then will you never be unhappy again? But we know happiness will pass and sorrow will come.

I sit in a room in the morning. The sun rises; light fills the room. I don’t say, “I have become light.” I say, “The room is full of light; I am seeing the light.” Then evening comes; darkness fills in. Do I say, “I have become darkness”? I say, “Now darkness has filled the room; now I am seeing the darkness.” Light and darkness come and go in the room; I am the seer. In the mind, thoughts come and go; pleasure and pain come and go; anger, love, hate come and go; feelings arise and subside—and the one sitting inside starts saying with each, “This is what I have become.” Then holding begins. Then clinging begins. Then freedom becomes very difficult. That is why I said in the morning: meditation means witnessing. Let me see what comes.

An emperor told his ministers, “I want a formula that will help me in every situation—when happiness comes and when sorrow comes. Write a formula on a talisman that will work everywhere.” The ministers were in great difficulty. What to write? What formula works in every situation? They consulted a fakir. He gave them a talisman with a small folded paper inside and said, “When happiness or sorrow comes, open it and read.” Happiness came; the king opened it. Sorrow came; he opened it. There was only a small sentence: “This too will pass.” That was all—“This too will pass.” Happiness came; the king read it—“This too will pass”—and he became separate. Because what will pass cannot be me. I will remain. Then sorrow came; the king read—“This too will pass”—and he became separate. Because what will pass is not me. Things come upon me and go; I am separate. To discover this separateness is witnessing.

So do not ask how to stop thoughts. There is no need to stop them. Let thoughts come and go; you become separate, distinct, other. If you can know that I am separate, thoughts gradually dissolve on their own. The grip loosens. Then only that which is remains—alone. In that aloneness, the experiences of thoughtlessness are the experiences of meditation.

But what do we do? We fight with thoughts. By fighting, you can never separate from thought. Remember, fighting is a way of inviting. Fight with a thought and say, “I will get rid of it,” and you will be in trouble. You will never be free of that thought. The more you fight, the more it will come. Because the more you fight, the more you affirm, “I am one with it.” Otherwise, why fight? What need is there? It is separate; I am separate. It has come; it will go. What have I to do with it? But we fight.

I have heard: in Tibet there was a fakir. A man came and asked for a mantra, to gain a siddhi. The fakir said, “I have no mantra.” The man would not relent—caught his feet, folded his hands—“Please give me one.” So the fakir wrote a mantra on a paper and said, “Recite it five times.” The man ran off without even thanking him. As he was going down the temple steps, the fakir shouted, “Wait—I forgot to tell you a condition. Remember, when you recite this mantra, do not think of a monkey. If a monkey comes to mind, the mantra becomes useless. The monkey is this mantra’s enemy.” The man said, “I’ve never in my life remembered a monkey. Don’t worry.” But the mischief was done. He couldn’t even descend the steps—monkeys started crowding his mind. On the road home, monkeys swarmed in his mind. He closed his eyes tight to drive them away; they came stronger. He reached home, bathed; the monkeys closed in. Night fell. He sat with the mantra in his hand; inside, only monkeys. Panic. “I’ve never had anything to do with monkeys—what’s happened today? Will these monkeys not stop for even five minutes?” The whole night was torment; not five minutes’ relief. In the morning he was frantic, returned the mantra and said, “Forgive me—perhaps next birth this siddhi can happen.” The fakir asked, “Why? What happened?” He said, “The monkeys are taking my life. There can be no escape from them now in this life. And if you knew the obstacle was monkeys, you should have waited a day and told me later—then the mantra would have worked. Now it won’t.” The fakir said, “What can I do? That is the condition. It must be fulfilled.”

What happened to that man? He could not get free of monkeys. The thought you fight is the thought you become centered upon. The thought you fight is the thought that hypnotizes you. The thought you want to move away from becomes the very focus of the mind. Try to forget someone and you will be in trouble—you won’t forget. Ask lovers: trying to forget a beloved is very difficult. Those you don’t need to forget are forgotten; those you try to forget never are. Such is the mind: whatever you fight, the mind centers on.

A beginner learns to ride a bicycle. There is a stone on a sixty-foot-wide road. He sees it and fears colliding. Even a sharpshooter, trying to hit that stone on such a wide road, would likely miss; but this gentleman will hit it. He cannot avoid it now. The sixty-foot road vanishes from his awareness; only the stone remains. His wheel wobbles, his breath quickens, and he is hypnotized by the stone. The bicycle veers toward it; he collides.

A man crashes into precisely what he wants to avoid. He is surrounded by precisely what he tries to flee. Ask celibates: they see nothing but women. It cannot be otherwise. Even if God were to appear, he would appear to them in the form of a woman—no other form is possible. The poor celibate’s misery is that he fights sex and is surrounded by sex. That is why rishis and munis have expressed such anger toward women. For whom is this anger? For the women who besiege them within, not for real women. What have real women to do with it? They say, “Woman is the gate to hell; avoid women.” Whom are they telling you to avoid? The inner woman who surrounds them. And why does she surround? Because they run from women; therefore the woman surrounds. Whatever you run from will encircle you. Whatever you try to avoid will seize you. What you push away will come. Tell something “Don’t come,” and it understands you are afraid—so it must come.

To fight the mind and its thoughts is suicidal. The same entanglement returns. One must avoid this. How? By not fighting thoughts at all. If you want freedom from sex, don’t fight sex—be a witness. If you want freedom from anger, don’t fight anger—be a witness. Whatever you wish to be free of, look at it and know: I am separate; it is separate. There is distance, a gap—an infinite gap—between the two. I am one thing; it is another. And this is the truth. The clearer this becomes—that I am separate—the more you will laugh: with what am I to fight? Where there is no quarrel, no relationship, what is the need to struggle? And then, when fighting stops—as I said—by fighting, something comes; by not fighting, it starts going. By not fighting, it goes. Brahmacharya does not come by fighting sex. By becoming aware regarding sex, sex departs; what remains is called brahmacharya. Brahmacharya is not the opposite of sex; it is the absence that remains when sex has gone. By fighting sex, no one becomes a brahmachari.

I meet sadhus and sannyasins: in public they speak of soul and God. Then they say, “Meet me privately.” And in private they talk of nothing but sex. That is the real issue. They cannot ask in public, because from morning to night they teach others things that have not happened to them—and never will, because the method is wrong: ignorant, unpsychological, dangerous, inconsistent. It has no harmony with transformation—only with conflict.

In Gandhi’s ashram the Ramayana was read. There is a familiar episode: Ravana abducts Sita. While being carried away, Sita drops her ornaments along the path so that when Rama searches, he can discover which way she was taken. The ornaments are found. Rama and Lakshmana search; the ornaments are found. But Rama is so grief-stricken, his eyes so full of tears, that he cannot recognize them. And in truth, no husband recognizes his wife’s ornaments. To recognize a wife’s ornaments is very difficult—no one looks at one’s own wife with such attention that her ornaments can be recognized. The neighbor’s wife’s ornaments can be recognized. Rama too does not understand whether these are Sita’s ornaments. He asks Lakshmana, “Do you recognize these?” Lakshmana says, “Ornaments? I recognize only the ornaments of the feet, because I touch those feet every day; I recognize the anklets. As for the others, I know nothing.” Gandhi said, “How could it be that Lakshmana, who had been with them so long, did not recognize Sita’s ornaments?” Vinoba said, “The reason is that Lakshmana had undertaken brahmacharya. He did not look at Sita’s face; he never looked above her feet—he kept his eyes only on her feet. He was a brahmachari.” Gandhi liked this interpretation and said, “Vinoba explains very rightly.” I was astonished when I read this. If Vinoba is right, then Lakshmana is not a celibate but proves to be adulterous-minded. Because one who is afraid to look at Sita’s face—he is a brahmachari? One who is afraid even to look at Sita’s face—is that the meaning of brahmacharya? It is not. That is the meaning of an extremely lustful mind—where there is fear even in looking at Sita’s face!

What does fear mean? Somewhere inside there is a desire; hence fear. Otherwise, what fear is there in Sita’s face? No, Lakshmana did not fail to recognize the other ornaments because he never looked at Sita’s face. He recognized the foot ornaments because he touched those feet daily; those ornaments were familiar. That is another matter. But to say he could not recognize the other ornaments because he never looked up at Sita, as he was practicing brahmacharya—then he was practicing a very wrong kind of brahmacharya. If Vinoba is right, he was engaged in a very wrong practice, and must have suffered badly—as celibates do. And one who is afraid to look at Sita’s face would see nothing but Sita’s face in his dreams.

No, but to impose such an interpretation on Lakshmana is wrong—the interpretation itself is wrong. He recognized the foot ornaments because he touched those feet daily; they were familiar. This does not mean he had not seen the other ornaments or looked at her face. But our so-called brahmacharya is escapist like this—running away. It says: run; don’t look. It frightens; it is based on fear. And where there is fear, flight, escape, closing the eyes—remember, what you close your eyes to stands inside the eyes. Then release becomes very difficult.

Therefore I say: never fight any disorder of the mind, any perversion, any thought, any tendency. Do not, by mistake, fight. If you wish to lose, fight. Whoever fights will lose; his defeat is certain. No one has ever won by fighting his own mind. Yes—if you want to win, do not fight. See, know, become a witness. And the moment you become a witness you will find: I am outside—beyond. I am other than what is seen. That smoke surrounding on all sides is separate; I am separate. Even if darkness surrounds the sun, the sun is not darkness. But if the sun starts fighting darkness, concentrates on it, and says, “I’m finished; this darkness is closing in; I am becoming dark,” then the sun will be in trouble. But if the sun knows, “All right, that is darkness; I am the sun; I am separate—let darkness encircle,” then however near darkness comes, he remains the sun. However close it comes, he is separate. The distance between light and darkness remains infinite.

By awakening this witness within—this consciousness—by becoming alert, awake, a witness, thoughts dissolve. Tendencies dissolve. The mind dissolves. Gradually a space comes where the sky of the mind becomes empty and only awareness remains. It is for this witnessing that I said this morning: do not ask how to fight; do not ask how to expel thoughts; do not ask how to stop thoughts. Do not ask this—the very question is wrong. Ask how to awaken. How to see? How to recognize? How to become a witness? That I said in the morning; tomorrow morning we will speak more.

There are one or two small questions more.

It was my mistake to speak in gentle, soft language. And speaking gently and softly, I saw—it was my mistake. The mistake was that this society likes gentleness and soft speech, because gentle, soft language does not hurt anyone; it brings no change. Gentle, soft language is pleasant, entertaining, but it does not change life. Now the world needs people who, however gentle and soft they may be within, can be aggressive on the outside; only then can the ugliness of this life be changed—otherwise it cannot. Many good men have lived in the world. And the difficulty has been precisely that the good man was gentle and soft. That is why the world is bad. If the good man remains gentle and soft, the world will remain bad. The good man too will have to gather courage.

Jesus went to the church. Jesus’ friends knew him: very gentle and soft. But there he saw moneylenders sitting outside the church, and for generations interest had been running—and it never got paid off. The lives of old men had passed, and many times over they had repaid what they had borrowed, yet the debt was never settled. And right in front of the temple the moneylenders sat. They were all agents of the priests. Jesus picked up a whip. He overturned the stalls and began to lash. Jesus’ friends must have said, What are you doing? You who say, If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other—so gentle, so soft—and you pick up a whip and overturn the moneylenders’ stalls? I say, Jesus did the right thing. Someone has to overturn the moneylenders’ stalls. If no one overturns them, the moneylender naturally wants you to speak in gentle, soft tones so that his shop of interest keeps running. Gentle, soft language does not hurt anywhere, causes no damage anywhere. The Buddhas to come in this world now—the Mahaviras to come, the Confuciuses to come, the Jesuses to come—will have to be aggressive. The world has been ugly too long. Mere gentleness will no longer do. So, what you have asked—you have asked rightly.

But do you ever understand that to be aggressive need not necessarily arise from violence? Aggressiveness can also arise from compassion; it can be compassionate. Yet we know only one kind of aggressiveness—the aggression of violence. We do not know the other kind—the aggression of compassion. Until now, violence has been aggressive; nonviolence has been gentle; compassion has been gentle. Because compassion has been gentle, many good things have been said in the world, but the world has not become good. Compassion too will have to be aggressive. Compassion too will have to be revolutionary if there is to be transformation. Compassion too will have to strike. And many times it happens that we cannot see that the blow is for our benefit, for our well-being. The difficulty is that those for whose good the blow is struck are the very ones who come and say, You are speaking of such blows? For thousands of years they have been taught not to speak of blows at all.

I have heard: There was a fakir. A man came to him and said, I want spirituality, yoga, the discipline of knowledge; I want to be spiritual. Take me under your refuge, tell me the scripture which, if I study it, I will become spiritual. The fakir said: Stop your nonsense! Don’t talk about spirituality and such. Get out of here—and never come back to this ashram. Out! The man was frightened. The ten or twenty-five others sitting around were also alarmed. The poor fellow left. Those ten or twenty-five said, Master, we have always considered you gentle, and what kind of misbehavior is this? We didn’t understand. Why did you speak so harshly?

The fakir said, Wait a little. Before I throw you out too, I will give you a parable. He sat silently for a while. A bird flew in through the window and began circling the room. You know birds—their intelligence is much like that of men. If a bird flies into a room, it will leave the open window and bang itself everywhere else, trying to get out—ignoring the open window. Its intelligence is like that of men. Leaving the open window, it will strike against the walls. And where it cannot get out, there it will strike even harder. And when it still cannot get out, it will panic, and in panic it will dash about like a mad thing. Then seeing the open window becomes even more difficult. The bird is circling fast, colliding with the walls. Then, agitated, it goes and sits above the open window. The fakir watched it for a moment and clapped loudly. At the clap, the bird fluttered in fright—and was out the window.

The fakir said to the friends sitting there: See, on hearing my clap the bird must have thought, What a wicked man, how rude he is! But in that very fluttering it went into the open sky. Now perhaps it will understand why the clap was made. Perhaps even now it won’t. So the one I drove out with harshness—if he has even a little understanding, he will reach the open sky. My vehemence, said the fakir, is for his freedom.

I say this to you as well: there are many things I want to say with great vehemence. I say them only so that the life-breath of this country, which has been in bondage for who knows how long—has forgotten even that it is in bondage—may be freed. The soul of this country has been enslaved for so long it has forgotten that it is a slave; it takes slavery to be freedom and chains to be ornaments. Let a blow fall upon that. Let it become visible. Certainly, to awaken a sleeping person seems very aggressive to the sleeper. Wake a sleeping person and he becomes angry: he was dreaming—you shattered it; you spoiled his sleep. But if you would awaken the sleeper, you have to shake him. My vehemence has no purpose other than to shake: let the roots break loose underneath; let the hypocrisy of the past fall away; let slavery break; let the chains snap—so that the soul of this country may be free, may fly in the open sky. For this, merely speaking of peace and chanting the Ram-dhun will no longer do. Enough of Ram-dhun! Enough of bhajans and kirtans! Enough of talk about peace! Someone has to turn peace into revolution. Someone has to set a spark to peace. The flame of revolution must be given. Someone now has to give even peace a cutting edge—so that it gains an edge; so that peace, while remaining peace, does not become a corpse, but becomes alive and transforms life.

Therefore I say: the friend who asks is right—it was my mistake that I was gentle. Such a mistake will not happen now.

And a few questions remain; we will talk about them tomorrow evening. In the morning I will speak on the fourth sutra. Tomorrow at dusk I will give you the answers.

You have listened to my words with such love and peace—for that I am obliged. And in the end, I bow to the Divine dwelling within all. Please accept my salutations.