Prem Nadi Ke Teera #6

Two things must be understood. First: in some things there is evolution. Evolution carries continuity, a flow, a sameness. But in evolution nothing truly new is ever born; the old remains present. A little difference appears here and there, but the old abides. Wherever there is evolution the old does not end; it only reappears in new ways, new forms, new shapes. Like when a child becomes a youth — that is evolution. There is no jump, no leap, hence you never quite know when the child became young. It happens slowly. Youth arrives, yet the child does not end; it is the child who has become young. So, now and then the young man can behave like a child — there is no difficulty in it. We too often turn back and act like children. An old man can behave like a child. Then the youth slowly, slowly grows old. But because it happens so very gradually, the youth never gets erased; youth remains present, and upon it old age is added.

Ordinarily, in life there is evolution. Therefore, the child who was — when he becomes old, everything that was in the child is still present; it has gone nowhere. Yes, life’s experiences and blows have altered things, but one can recognize the same child who has now grown old. There has been no discontinuity anywhere, no gap has come. It never happened that the old stream broke and a new stream began. The old stream kept flowing.

A river is moving toward the ocean. It is the very river that sprang from the source. The waters have grown, the rains have joined it, tributaries have merged in. The banks have widened, spread out. It will be hard to recognize that this is the same river you once saw at its origin, a thin trickle. Here, near the sea, it has become vast like an ocean. Recognition becomes difficult: is it the same river? Has it become something else?

And if there is a difference, it is of quantity, not quality. The measure has increased — the water was little, now it is much. But it is the same river. Nowhere has the river taken a jump; nowhere did it happen that the old river just ceased to be and a new river began. No such gap arose that the old finished and the new started.

But meditation is not evolution. It is a leap. I am calling it a leap to make the distinction clear: meditation is a leap. It is not that after meditating, after meditation happens, you will remain the very person you were before. No — that person will have gone. The difference will not be like that between childhood and youth. It will not be that the same person who yesterday did not meditate is now meditating. No — it will not be so. Because the one to whom meditation has happened is an altogether different man. He is not the same. Though the face will be the same, the body the same. We — ordinarily — will not even be able to recognize what has happened within.

When Buddha returned home, the whole town went to receive him, the father too. The father still held the picture of the son who had run away twelve years ago as a boy. He could not see that a leap had occurred. The one who has come is not my son. Now he is no one’s son — he has gone beyond the very polarity of son and father. But how would the father know? The father is sitting in his old anger. The whole town is celebrating; the father is annoyed. He comes and, right at the gate of the town, says to Buddha: I am not happy that you left home. My only son — and you left. You want to destroy our lineage. He scolds him, pours out his anger. He is speaking to the very person who left twelve years ago.

That person is not there at all. That person is no more. How could he know that a leap has happened? That person is not. He goes on saying: my door is still open, I will forgive you — after all, a father’s heart is forgiving. Come back, return. He has no idea that the boy has reached the point of no return; there is no way back. There are places from where one simply cannot return. When the jump has happened, one cannot go back. But if there is continuity one can return. There is a point of no return — that comes after the jump — from where you simply cannot turn back, where there is no way, because all the old pathways are gone. The old place is lost. The old person is lost. There is no going back.

So Buddha is smiling. He feels like laughing at what the father is saying. But the father is angry; he goes on: I will forgive you — my door is still open. You have caused me much suffering in this old age, much pain — yet I will forgive you. A father’s heart is forgiving. After he says all this, it suddenly occurs to him: the boy is not speaking; he is standing silently. So much has been said — he should respond, he should apologize, at least say something. Then he looks at him closely; Buddha begins to laugh and says: You are not able to recognize — the one who went has not returned.

Whom are you speaking to? Whom are you speaking to? The one who went has not come back. When he went he was your son; now I am no one’s son. And, in his anger, the father says: A prince’s son begging on the streets! It is a disgrace to us — a shame that my son should carry a begging bowl on the roads! Never in our lineage has anyone begged. What are you doing? Buddha says: In your lineage it may not have happened, but as far as I remember, I have always begged. It may not have happened in your lineage, but what have I to do with your lineage?

Now this simply does not make sense to the father, because this conversation is happening in two utterly different languages. The father is enraged: What are you saying? I don’t recognize you? Will I not recognize my own son? My blood, my bones, my flesh — will I not recognize you? He says: That blood, those bones, that flesh may be yours — but where am I in that?

But this does not fit anywhere for the father… there is no meeting point. Because these are two different planes. The father is speaking to the son who was there before the leap, and this son is replying from a space beyond the leap. There is no possibility of harmony here. It becomes very difficult.

Meditation is not evolution; it is revolution. Not development, but revolution — an upturning. And this is the difference between revolution and evolution. Revolution means: in between, a break has come — a gap — where the old ended and the new began. It has nothing to do with the old. It is another dimension altogether. Do not try to connect it to the old.

There was a bhikshu, about seventy years old. Buddha asked him: How old are you? He said: Four years. Others began to laugh — he is joking. A seventy-year-old saying he is four! They laughed. And Buddha said: Do not laugh — he is right. Seventy years is not his age. He used to be another man — that man died four years ago. This is a different man. His age is only four.

He told his bhikshus: You too now count your age like this. This is the true rule for counting age. So all the monks surrounded the old man and asked: How did you say this? He replied: Four years ago I was not. And the one who was, I cannot connect with him at all. The one who was used to be angry; the one who was used to be anxious; the one who was troubled; the one who was miserable; the one who stood in darkness — blind. He is no more.

I am not blind now; nor do I stand in darkness; nor am I restless; nor anxious; nor miserable. The one before me feared death; and now I know death is not — so how can I be that? These four years are my age. Only four years ago I was born. This birth of mine is altogether another.

Hence, in this land we used a very precious word — Dwij. Dwij means: twice-born. But slowly the Brahmins seized it, and “Brahmin” became the Dwij. Dwij means: one who has been born again. That man has gone, and another has been born. But the Brahmins invented a trick: put a sacred thread on someone and he becomes Dwij.

The meaning of Dwij is supremely precious — there is no word like it anywhere in the world, it is very deep. One who has taken a second birth is called Dwij. A true Brahmin, in fact, is one who has known Brahman — but to know Brahman a second birth is necessary. And for the second birth, the first man has to die. Otherwise, how will the second be born?

Therefore, meditation is a process of dying — and of a new birth. In it the old will go. It is not that you will attain meditation; no — the moment meditation is attained, you will have gone. What will come will be so new that even to recognize it as the same person will be difficult — and hence the great difficulty.

All the difficulty arises because the face remains the same, the man looks the same — and yet everything has changed. The whole content within has changed. Only the box remains the same. The box is the same, but the Atman within has utterly changed. So when I speak of birth, I mean: do not take meditation to be a continuity.

Meditation is a discontinuity. The old stream has broken, and the new has been born. But because this birth happens very close to the old stream, everything else will remain the same — and because of that everything-else, our difficulties will continue. If a husband attains knowing, the wife will go on taking him as her husband and will continue the very expectations she had yesterday. If a wife attains, the husband will go on taking her as his wife and continue the very expectations he had yesterday. He does not know that everything has changed. And such a tremendous difficulty and trouble arises.

When someone attains meditation, he suddenly becomes a stranger in this world. Because this world proceeds as if… the old mode still applies; but that man is no more. There is no way left in him to speak, walk, act as before. He becomes a stranger at once. An outsider at once.

In our world, where we were all insiders, he becomes an outsider. He stands utterly outside. There is no longer any tuning with him. So either he must go on acting, acting continuously, and then the tuning remains — otherwise, there is no tuning. That is to say, if he is a husband he must keep saying the same things he used to say yesterday when he knew nothing — though now he knows there is no meaning in it, what am I saying? But if he keeps acting, it is okay. If not, it will become very out-of-joint. Everything will be upset.

So the meditator has to become a constant actor — otherwise, it becomes very difficult. He will not be able to live, and he will become a hindrance to others’ living. He has to become purely an actor. Now he will act only. Even now he will say to his wife: I love you more than anyone else. But now it is sheer acting. It has no meaning left. Because now, in truth, either he loves the body or he loves no one. Now there is no way to decide whom he loves, and more or less — there is no comparison possible. But he will go on saying it, or else a great mess will be created. Such difficulty will arise, because the wife cannot even imagine what has happened.

There is an extraordinary incident in Mahavira’s life. This revolution happened to Mahavira. He went to his mother and said: Give me permission — I want to take sannyas. Now, this was acting. Because after meditation, who is the mother? From whom is permission to be taken? And can sannyas ever be taken by asking permission from anyone? Yet Mahavira said: Give me permission — I want to become a sannyasin. The mother said: Never utter these words in front of me again. As long as I am alive, do not speak of this. I cannot bear it — I will die on the spot. So you will have to wait until my death. Mahavira said: All right. There was no hurry either — because the essential had already happened, so there was no hurry. The mother died. Returning from the cremation ground, on the way home, he said to his elder brother: Now I shall take sannyas. The brother said: Are you mad? We have suffered such a blow — mother and father are gone. And you — my only brother — you too will leave me? Do not speak of this. Mahavira said: As you wish. He never spoke of it again. But gradually the family began to sense that Mahavira had already gone. He lived in the house, yet he was not there. He stayed in the house, but slowly he became like a shadow — a mere shade. He neither interfered with anyone, nor told anyone “do this” or “don’t do that.” He took no part in the affairs of the house, neither increased its honor nor decreased it, neither brought wealth nor earned it. He did nothing — he lived like a shadow. As if the house were a dharmashala, an inn, or a dream. He would rise, sit, move about; if someone called him to eat, he would eat; then sleep. After two or four years had passed, the family gathered and said: There is simply no meaning — he has already gone. Now, what is the point of restraining him? Only the body is present in this house — what has he said to us anyway? Then they said to him: Since you are not really here — you have already gone — we will not hinder you. Mahavira rose and left.

As I understand it, he could have stayed his whole life. Had they said “remain,” he would have remained. But the event had already happened. For him, being in the house or outside the house was part of the same acting. To stay or not to stay. Our trouble is that when such an event happens in someone, we — standing outside — cannot know it. To us it seems the same man is moving forward. But within, everything has changed. And this change is so intense that it has not happened gradually. For whenever it happens gradually it is evolution. Revolution does not happen gradually.

Revolution is instantaneous. In a single moment all is done. You are here — and suddenly you are there. That is why I said: by birth I mean a leap — wherein you do not walk in between; you do not place even a single step in the middle. You were upon one piece of land — and then there is a leap. And you are upon another piece of land. And upon the piece in between you have not walked at all, you have not placed a single step. Therefore there is no connection between the old patch of ground and the new. You have leapt. You have jumped — hence I have spoken of the jump.

This too is something to be understood. This too is to be understood—deeply understood. And it is very difficult to understand. It is difficult because it seems to us that even if a leap happens, something must have been done; some cause must have been there, and from that cause the leap occurred. But if the leap is caused, then continuity remains. If the leap is caused, then the sameness continues. Then there has been no leap; only development.

It is hard to understand because we cannot conceive of anything without a cause. In the life we are living, everything has a cause. Without a cause nothing seems possible. In this life, as we know it—and as science knows it—there is cause and there is effect. We sow a seed; therefore there is a tree. There is no leap between seed and tree, because the seed itself has become the tree. Had we not sown the seed, there would be no tree. So between seed and tree there is no leap—there is growth. Later, the tree bears seeds; that too is not a leap, it too is growth. In the life we know, science’s life, it is cause and effect. And here lies the deep difference between religion and science.

Science says nothing happens without a cause. Religion says the ultimate is uncaused. This is the very deep difference. Science says: without cause, nothing happens; give the cause and the event will follow. Religion says: the ultimate is uncaused. Why does religion insist on the uncaused? Because religion is seeking the ultimate, the last things.

I was born because my father and mother were the cause. They were born because their parents were the cause. We can keep tracing causes backwards. But what is the cause of the whole universe? A great difficulty arises when you try to find the cause of the total. If someone says even God was caused, then the problem shifts to God: what caused God?

So we say: God is uncaused. There is no cause for him—he simply is. Or, one who does not accept God will say: the universe is. It is uncaused. The leap from non-being to being is without cause. Otherwise, if we keep seeking a cause, there will be no end to the regress—no end at all.

And when a person takes the leap—life changes, a new life is born—those standing behind still look for a cause. They ask: why did he change? His wife died; sorrow came to his heart; dispassion arose. But many people’s wives die and no dispassion arises—rather, the hunt for a second wife begins. Someone will say: his house burned down, his wealth was destroyed; dispassion arose. But many houses burn, and no dispassion happens. None of these is the cause.

If such things are the cause, then the man has not changed at all. He remains the same. When the house was not burned, he lived in it; when it burned, he became a renunciate. He is the same man. When the wife lived, he lived with her; when she died, he no longer lives with her. He is the same. Nothing essential has changed. No—the leap in life is uncaused. Uncaused, such that we cannot give any reason for why it happened. If we can give a reason, then the chain has begun again; then it is no longer a leap.

Granted, the rest of our life is linked with causes. If we love, there is a reason; if we hate, there is a reason; if we make a friend, there is a reason; if enmity arises, there is a reason. Everywhere there are causes—except at one point: at the ultimate leap, where no enmity remains and no friendship remains; where neither love nor hate remains; where no one is mine and no one is other. There, something uncaused happens. It is hard to grasp because understanding insists: how can it be without a cause?

Understanding will demand a cause. It will say: there must be some hidden reason; we must find it out. And this hunt for reasons has created many difficulties—because when we go looking, we do manage to find some “cause.”

For example, we conclude: his wife died—that was the cause of his inner revolution. Then we think, “Let me kill my wife so I too can have a revolution!” Or: someone’s house caught fire, and he walked out of it—“Let me set my house on fire and my life will be transformed.” Or: a man kicked away his wealth and great peace descended—“Let me kick away mine and peace will come.”

It won’t come. Only self-deception will happen. The “cause” we found, we only imagined it. Because the ultimate jump is absolutely uncaused. And also uncaused for another reason: if it had a cause, and tomorrow that cause were removed, the leap could be undone. If by any cause I entered the divine, and tomorrow that cause is no more, I would have to come back. You go to the forest thinking your wife is dead; then you learn she had only fainted and has revived, and the cremation party has brought her home—you’ll run back. Or you learn the house that burned was insured; you didn’t know your son had insured it; the money has come, a new house is being built—you’ll return.

Do you see what I mean? I am saying: if there is any cause, then the possibility of return is always there. But no one ever returns from the divine, because that happening is uncaused. Yet the law of the intellect is that it will not agree to anything without a cause. It says: there must be a cause; uncaused cannot be.

Therefore the divine is beyond understanding; religion is beyond understanding; meditation is beyond understanding—it is beyond the intellect. Because understanding has its own laws, and they are strict. They say: nothing can exist contrary to the law. Everything must have a cause. You may not know it, but a seed must have been sown for the tree to be—otherwise there cannot be a tree. Understanding is right in its own domain. It says: water was heated, therefore it became steam. It cannot be that it was not heated and yet became steam.

Thus understanding becomes more and more scientific. And as the intellect grows in the world, religion diminishes. That is why: because when the mind starts demanding a cause everywhere, the one uncaused thing falls outside its range. The mind denies it: “We cannot accept this. Everything is within law—why should this one thing be outside it?”

But if even this ultimate were within law, then one day religion would end—science would seize it too. Today science has found that if you have malaria, there is a cause: a poison, a germ has entered. We introduce an opposing agent and finish it; malaria ends; plague ends. We find the causes of things. If someday we were to find the cause of the revolution in Mahavira, or Buddha, or Krishna—if we found that cause, we could inject it into anyone, and the revolution would happen.

Religion says this can never be. You cannot manage it from the outside. It is unmanageable. But religion cannot “explain” it; therefore, in argument with a scientific mind, religion seems weak and gets into trouble. It cannot say how it happened. It can only say: it happened. Neither did we do anything, nor was there any cause. It just happened. And so the religious person adopted a certain language—which has put him into more difficulty. He says: it happened by God’s grace. All he means is: uncaused.

When the religious person says “by grace,” he is saying: no cause is visible. I find no worthiness in myself. Within the intellect, nothing is known—yet it has happened. Then only one way remains to speak: it happened by his grace.

But even that becomes another cause. And then others go to obtain that grace. They say: “We will kneel in the temple and lay our heads at your feet. Shower grace on us too. You were gracious to that man—be gracious to us.”

No—I am saying: not even by grace, because to make “grace” a reason is still to be seeking a cause. This fact must be accepted as uncaused. It happens. And when it happens, one sees there truly was no cause. Until it happens, we live in the world of causes. The mind’s mode of thinking is cause-and-effect; it cannot think without causes. As long as we live in the mind, we will say, “No—this doesn’t sit right.” I too would say: it doesn’t sit right. I too would say: it doesn’t satisfy the intellect. But there is no help for it—whether it satisfies or not, the fact is this: it is utterly uncaused—only then is it a jump.

Have you understood what ‘jump’ means? Only if it is uncaused is it a jump. If there is a cause, it is development. Without a cause, it is revolution. Only when it happens without a cause is the birth of the new possible. Cause never allows freedom from the old. Cause means the old remains present. The seed was there—the old—and out of it came the tree.

But this tree is of that same seed; there is nothing new in it. Everything was hidden in the seed; it has only manifested. In the language of science, therefore, nothing is new; everything is old becoming apparent. You wore a coat; you took it off—what is new? Your body became visible. The seed had a coat on; the coat decayed in the earth and what was inside came out. The seed became naked and the tree appeared.

A child is in the mother’s womb, hidden; tomorrow he will be born. Still, he is the old—what is new? Where cause operates, the new is impossible. Cause means determined by the old. But the experience—call it liberation, truth, God, nirvana—is not determined by the old.

It is a complete severing from the old. It is a total parting from the old; not even the slightest thread remains by which we could say, “this was the cause.” No—one becomes utterly separate from the old. And when there is utter separateness from the old, we have no connection at all—no bridge by which we have crossed. If there is a bridge, there is continuity. Here there is no bridge—there is a gap, an abyss, a chasm. And suddenly we find: the old is no more, and the new has happened. Hence the whole matter is beyond understanding.

No, it does not come because of that. I am saying that whether not doing—or doing, doing, doing—the moment still comes. I am not saying it comes only by doing; it also comes by not doing. One man, praying and praying, takes the leap; another, without any prayer, also takes the leap. One, reading the Gita, takes the leap; another, throwing the Gita away, takes the leap. No such thing as a cause can be found.

And once a person has fallen into that leap, it becomes utterly difficult. If we go and ask him, “How did it happen?” he cannot tell. His inability to tell does not mean he knows but cannot express; nor, if he says “I don’t know,” does it mean he is ignorant. “Cannot tell” means there is no cause—It has happened. For this, nowhere is there any formula. There is no path anywhere.

If the intellect even gets the slightest inkling that this is possible, the leap can happen right now. But until then, the intellect will always obstruct the leap. It will say, “No, there must be some path we don’t know. Those who reached must have reached from somewhere. Maybe they themselves don’t know—but there must be a way. Perhaps they were pushed onto it; perhaps, eyes closed, they just arrived there while walking. But there must be a place from which it happened. We should find that place, that path. Where is the bridge? On what base did they stand? What was their jumping board? We must find that board too.” Our intellect, saying this, puts us in trouble—and then we get busy with that very search. No: the intellect will seize up.

The day even a small sense arises that the event is causeless, the intellect will freeze; it will jam. The intellect will say, “This is beyond my capacity. It was within my scope as long as there was a relation of cause and effect; now it is outside.” And if the intellect understands this much—that it is beyond it—it steps aside from the way; otherwise it does not.

And the irony is: what I am explaining to you, I know it won’t sit well. It’s not that, as I explain, I believe it will fit you. I would not have believed it either if someone had explained it to me. I would have argued and proved him wrong: How can it be without a cause?

But what has happened has happened without cause. Therefore, there is no worthy or unworthy in it. No one can claim, “It will happen to me, not to you. You are unworthy. You smoke bidis—so it cannot happen to you; you were seen at a prostitute’s house—so it cannot happen; you eat at night—so it cannot happen.” Hence my difficulty: there is nowhere any cause. Nowhere.

Yet in this world there is an event that is causeless—and that very event is what is spiritual; that very event is the miracle; that very wonder is the causeless. Wherever there is cause, religion has no concern; that belongs to the laboratory and to science. They will find all that; they are already busy saying that in a man like Buddha the hormones are different, that chemically Buddha’s body has a distinct hormonal arrangement. If someday the complete composition of Buddha were known—what substances in what quantities—then by reproducing those quantities we would manufacture Buddhas. This is science’s assumption: there must be causes. If we could fully dissect Buddha and discover everything, then by putting exactly those amounts into someone, a Buddha would be produced.

But even to think this is very painful: that if someday we could produce Buddha in a laboratory, the world would become even more meaningless. Because then even Buddha would lose meaning. To attain someone’s enlightenment would become idle chatter—meaningless. What I am saying is wholly irrational; there is no logic or intellect in it.

In this matter I am entirely irrational; in this matter I side completely with the fools. Here, where the leap happens—where there is no cause. Even if we were to know everything about Buddha’s body and reconstruct it entirely, still Buddha would not happen.

So the intellect has spread a vast net of causes. Our rebirth, karma—the doctrine of karma—these are all expansions of cause. In them, all the so-called scientific talk resides; it is all nothing but the extension of causality. We say that in a past birth this person did such and such; therefore he has become like this now. We are searching for causes. And that is why I say that rebirth, the theory of karma—none of these are spiritual matters. The spiritual begins only from the point where the intellect stops giving answers. It says: our time is up; beyond this our journey does not continue. If we are to go there, we will have to leave it behind.

If you want to enter religion, you will have to leave the intellect somewhere. Just as you take off your shoes outside a temple, in the same way, outside the temple of the Lord you must take off the intellect and leave it there. And the greatest obstruction comes precisely when the question of cause is raised. Because then the intellect says, “Are you making a mistake? Where are you going—are you going to go mad? You will go mad. Let me stay with you; I will keep examining whether things are right or not. We will check whether God is true or not—whether the one sitting there is not a fraud. Without me, how will you find out?”

So the intellect says, “Keep me with you. Keep me with you at all times.” That is its claim, and it even appeals to us, because we are habituated to it. But there is another claimant too.

Yes, it is a miracle. It is not the brain’s affair. If it were a matter of the brain, often it is just the opposite: the more intelligent a person is, the more difficult it is for him to be religious. Because his intellect says: these things seem odd, they don’t fit. The whole thing looks topsy-turvy. Something here doesn’t seem right.

So the brain can be changed. It is being changed. The brain is altered by very small things. The brain is no issue at all, because it is completely physical, a bodily thing. Whatever is in it—the components, the elements—all that can be changed. And yet, however good a brain you may have, no revolution happens because of it. That revolution is of a different order. Sometimes it happens to a fool, and sometimes it does not happen to an intelligent man; sometimes the greatest intellectual bangs his head and dies in frustration, and sometimes the utterly unintelligent attains.

Nor is it true that by becoming unintelligent the attainment will happen. If it were so… it is not that if we become unintelligent, realization will happen. Then you would have found a cause again—again a cause. No, not like that. It is the same story all over. You can make the intellect a little less—if attainments were for the unintelligent, you could reduce the brain a bit. You could damage it, break some parts, spoil them. You would become unintelligent. But the unintelligent may still just sit there; it may not happen to him either.

That is why I say that to look for a cause is impossible. There is no cause. It is causeless. And if this idea arises—even the idea that it is causeless—then a great road is cleared. Because then all fears dissolve. All supports drop. There is no need to cling to a master. Use this method, or that method; practice karma yoga; meditate; be devotional—this all drops.

And if for a single moment, in this very moment, we pause and say, All right then, it happens causelessly. I have no control in it. I am helpless—then there is no movement left for the ego. If there is a cause, there is scope for the ego: it will say, We’ll make the arrangements. We’ll arrange it—if not today, tomorrow. Then there is no movement; it stalls. A dead end arrives. And the more total this dead end, a leap happens—yet even then, there is no relationship of cause and effect.