Ramnam Janyo Nahin #7

Anand Maitreya, dharma is a medicine. A medicine is needed only so long as there is illness. When the illness is gone, the medicine is useless. But there is a danger: the disease may drop away, yet we may become attached to the medicine; we may cling to it, even begin to worship it. It will even seem logical—because the medicine through which the illness was cured naturally evokes gratitude. That is precisely the danger: to clutch the medicine. One must drop the illness—and the medicine too.

Dharma is a path. Once the destination is reached, what use is the path? After arriving, are you to carry the path on your head?

Gautam Buddha told a loving parable. He said: Five fools crossed a river in a boat. They had to cross, for night was falling, wild animals prowled, life and death were at stake. The boat proved of great help; it saved their lives. The fools thought, “How can we simply leave the boat and walk away—the boat that saved us?” It did not seem right. So they hoisted the boat onto their shoulders. When people saw them and asked what they were doing, they said, “We can never abandon the very boat that saved our lives. From now on we will always carry it on our heads.”

Granted, the boat helped you cross—thank it by all means—but if you keep carrying it on your shoulders, that is foolishness.

Buddha’s story is, to a great extent, true of the whole of mankind. People are carrying boats. The irony is, they carry even those boats that did not carry them across. Those five fools were less foolish than you: at least their boat had served them. But you—Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jain—have these boats carried you across? They have only promised to do so. Can these boats carry you across at all? They are paper boats—boats of scriptures, doctrines, words. Has anyone ever crossed in these?

Do you think Mahavira crossed because of Jainism? Do you think Jesus crossed because of Christianity? Jesus had not even heard of Christianity; he did not know the name. Do you think Buddha crossed because of Buddhism? The religions that arose after Buddha and Jesus were not made by Buddha or Jesus; they were crafted by scholars and priests.

The founder of the Church was Peter—one of Jesus’ disciples. But when Jesus was crucified Peter fled. Had there been a throne, he would have stayed; there was a cross, so he ran and hid. And this very Peter—the first pope—laid the foundation of the Christian Church.

Mahavira did not lay the foundation of Jainism; his eleven ganadharas did. And you will be surprised to learn: Mahavira was a kshatriya, and all twenty-four tirthankaras of the Jains were kshatriyas. Jainism was essentially a rebellion against Brahminism and the exploitation perpetrated in its name. But Mahavira’s eleven chief disciples were Brahmin pundits. They doused the rebellion. They smothered the fire of revolution. Where there were embers, only ash remained—and from that ash arose Jainism.

So it was with Buddhism. So it was with all religions. Those who knew did not make them. Others did—men who did not miss their chance; who saw that on the strength of the Buddha’s prestige millions could be exploited; who saw that under Mahavira’s name there was a grand opportunity for punditry and priestcraft; who saw that, resting a gun on Jesus’ shoulder, great hunting could be done. Religion has been manufactured by the blind.

Certainly one must go beyond such religions. These are paper boats. They cannot carry you across—and they have not. In truth, they have forged your chains; they have built your prisons. To be a Hindu is no honor, nor is it an honor to be a Muslim. It merely declares that you are dependent, mentally enslaved; that you lack even the self-respect to say, “I will seek truth for myself.” Even your truth is borrowed, stale, centuries old—long since decayed and dead. You are worshippers of corpses; you are heaps of the dead. You light lamps on graves and offer flowers at tombs.

So first, the common meaning of dharma—as sect, as creed—must be transcended. For a seeker of truth, until truth is realized, binding oneself to any religion becomes an obstacle on the path. The first condition for seeking truth is impartiality. And if you have already adopted a belief, a doctrine, a scripture, a religion, how will you remain impartial? If you have believed beforehand, how will you seek? If you have concluded before inquiring, what is left to inquire into?

For one who would seek truth there is no way to “believe” any religion. He will have to renounce all religions. He must begin like a blank page. Whatever is written on the sheet of your mind must be wiped off—because it was written by others, and those who wrote did not know. Your parents wrote, your teachers wrote, your politicians wrote, your religious leaders wrote—each with vested interests.

No sooner is a child born than the religious functionary is ready to grip his neck. The child is born, and the rituals begin—From birth to death! You will be shocked to know that some religions do not even wait for birth; they begin before it.

Vedic religion begins with conception. Dayananda praised this greatly. It is absurd, indecent, vulgar—but in the name of religion everything passes. Dayananda supported the ancient Vedic practice that at the very time of intercourse, when conception is taking place, the seed of religion should be sown. How? Husband and wife copulate while four priests stand in the four directions chanting the Vedas. Even nonsense should have a limit! Conception should occur to the sound of Vedic chant. What a fraud!

From conception to after death—your ancestors have long been dead, yet during the fortnight of the ancestors the priest still milks you. He bleeds you in the name of the dead. He bleeds you in the name of those not yet born. From before birth to after death he has erected chains on every side. Can a man bound in such chains seek truth?

The primary condition for the search is one: you must be without bias, without any fixed idea. Only one who is free of all conceptions can seek truth. Burn all bias to ash. Become free of all scriptures. Only then will you discover the scripture within. Only then—and only then—will the sun of truth rise in the sky of your innocent, impartial consciousness. If you are already bound by a notion, you will see only what your notion allows you to see. You will not see what is; you will see what you wish to be. Your eyes will not be capable of perceiving truth; they will project. You will go out looking everywhere only for confirmation of your belief.

Remember: if you carry a belief, you will surely find support for it. Life is vast. One who searches for thorns will find thorns. One who searches for flowers will find flowers. One who goes out to find falsehood will find falsehood. It is enough to assume; assuming is essential. Whatever you assume, that you will find. The human mind can give the illusion of reality even to dreams.

I had a teacher. On the very first day he came to class—I was in matriculation—and in his introductory talk he kept repeating that he was very brave, fearless, free of fear. He repeated it so often that I had to stand and say, “Your constant repetition that you are fearless, that you have attained fearlessness, only informs me that deep within you a great fear is hiding. Otherwise why insist on it? It is as if a man stood in the market crying, ‘I am virile, I am not impotent’—what would that mean?”

He grew angry—so angry his body began to tremble. I said, “See? Such a small thing and you are shaking. Surely you are afraid. Are you afraid of ghosts?”

He said, “Never! I do not believe in ghosts.”

I said, “Then a small experiment is necessary. I know a place where there are ghosts. Will you agree to spend the night there?”

His face went pale. Yet he could not refuse; his own words had trapped him. He said, “Yes, I agree.”

I saw his hands shaking, his face drained. I said, “No problem. Why delay? Let’s test it tonight.”

Next to my house lived a merchant who dealt in kerosene. Opposite his shop was his warehouse—a two-story building filled with empty metal drums. In summer, during the day, the tins expanded with heat; at night they contracted from the cool, making loud sounds. Drums were stacked on top of drums. As one contracted, then another, then a third, the sound would ripple along.

I told the teacher, “Let me explain the ‘arrangement.’ This house is haunted. The ghosts move from one drum to another all night. You can sleep on the second floor. If you survive the night, we will accept that you are fearless.”

His very life was trembling. I had prepped the neighborhood: if he asked, tell him the place is indeed haunted. “No one has had the courage to sleep there. Once a man did—he never returned; he disappeared. They say he became a ghost too. Anyway, it’s up to you.”

He inquired around town wherever he could—everywhere I had already spread the word. Whoever he asked said, “Why get into trouble? Don’t you value your life? Think of your wife and children! The children will be orphans, your wife a widow. Just say you won’t do it. At most you’ll get a bad name for not being as fearless as you claimed—what else? And persuade that boy. Don’t throw your life away so cheaply.”

But he was stubborn and could not back out. He was trapped. At night I took him there and made a bed for him on the second floor.

And exactly what was bound to happen happened. At midnight he began to scream; his throat seized; he started babbling incoherently, speaking nonsense. He came onto the landing—no one could make out what he was saying or what language it was. His throat had locked. A crowd gathered.

I tried to persuade him: “Just come down the stairs! You yourself have bolted the door from inside—open it and come out.” But he did not have the courage to pass through the room where, he believed, the ghosts were moving from one drum to another. He folded his hands and pleaded, “Lower me from here.”

The whole neighborhood gathered, clapping and making a racket. We had to set a ladder and bring him down from the landing. As he descended, he fell off the ladder, fainted, and had to be taken to the hospital. He came to with difficulty. I asked, “See? Did you see ghosts?” I told him, “Let me tell you the truth—there are no ghosts there.”

He said, “I cannot accept that. There are! I never believed it before, but now I am certain: ghosts exist. What they did to me—! You said they glide from drum to drum, but they were jumping on my chest, strangling my neck. That is why my throat locked. I was not speaking; the ghosts inside me were babbling. I tried to say one thing and something else came out. How can I accept there are no ghosts? They exist. And forgive me: I will not agree to any more experiments.”

The funny thing is, the entire neighborhood knew there were no ghosts; I had planted the tale. Yet even the merchant, the owner of the building and the drums, stopped going into that house at night. I asked him, “Lala-ji, you of all people know better!”

He said, “What use is ‘knowing’ after you have seen with your own eyes? I can never go there at night again. Even by day I go only with the manager and servants. Ghosts are ghosts!”

Those I had briefed to say “Yes, there are ghosts” began asking me, “How did you find out? We’ve lived here all our lives and never knew of ghosts—until you told us.” I said, “There are no ghosts.” They replied, “Come on—don’t say that. We saw with our own eyes. What we hear may be false, but what we see cannot be false. What happened to that poor man, the whole neighborhood saw.”

The house was dubbed the Haunted Bungalow. It became impossible to sell. No buyer would come. The owner said to me, “You take the house. Take it for free. If you need money, I’ll add some on top—but I want no connection with it.”

That “haunted” house is still empty. Now there are not even drums in it. Who would go in to put them? Who would dare to remove them?

Such is the potential of the human mind: whatever it once accepts—though outwardly it may deny—if inwardly it accepts, it becomes real. In just this way you see Krishna; in just this way you see Christ; in just this way Kali appears before you, or Ganesha. They are your mental projections, your self-hypnosis.

The first fundamental condition for the search for truth is to close all avenues of the mind’s projection. The mind must hold no belief, no doctrine.

Therefore the first meaning of Veet Dharma, Anand Maitreya, is: Do not be a Hindu, do not be a Christian, a Jain, a Buddhist. Then the possibility arises that one day you can be a Mahavira, one day you can be a Buddha, one day you can attain to the consciousness of Jesus. A Christian can never attain to the consciousness of Jesus, nor a Jain to Mahavira’s dispassion. Impossible. Mahavira did not begin with a belief; he began with silence.

What does silence mean? Not merely “do not speak.” “Do not speak” is the outer coin of silence. The inner essence is: do not think. For if you think, you will speak within; if not with others, then with yourself. Whether you speak with another or with yourself, what is the difference? You will talk in the mind; you will raise the question and you will answer it. Thought will continue.

The outer limb of silence is not speaking with others; the inner soul of silence is not speaking even with oneself. When one becomes utterly wordless within—that is silence. It took Mahavira twelve years to become wordless. To be wordless means: saying goodbye to all scriptures; bidding farewell to all words and doctrines. As leaves fall from a tree in autumn, so in silence must words fall—every word, without exception. When you become utterly empty within, in that emptiness—in that mirror of emptiness—the reflection of truth appears.

There is a lake full of ripples—waves upon waves, the whole surface trembling. The moon’s reflection appears there too—but it cannot form; it shatters. Even if it is a full moon, if waves are there, the reflection does not form. Yes, silver scatters on the crests, broken and fragmented. But if the lake is still, silent, without ripples or waves, the moon descends into it exactly as it is.

When consciousness attains silence, it becomes waveless. You may call that state silence or meditation, but one thing is certain: there are no thoughts there. And where there are no thoughts, how can you be Hindu? To be Hindu is to choose certain thoughts, to cling to certain ideas. How can you be Jain? Christian? Communist? Theist? Atheist?

A meditator can only say, “I am nothing; I am empty.” This emptiness is Veet Dharma. It is the first limb, the first stage of “beyond dharma.”

The second stage is even deeper. For what we have said so far concerns the outer meaning of dharma as sect. There is a deeper meaning of dharma: svabhava—intrinsic nature. As the dharma of fire is heat, the dharma of ice is coolness. So one’s own dharma, one’s nature—that is the subtle meaning.

Even from svabhava one must be free, because one must be free from the “self.” So long as the “self” is, some trace of ego remains. “Self” means: I am still alive at some subtle level. The gross forms may have gone—the arrogance of wealth, of knowledge, of renunciation may have dropped—but the sense that I am distinct, I am an individual, I have my own separateness from existence—somewhere on a fine plane this feeling still persists. “I must be liberated; I must attain bliss; I must achieve moksha”—but this “I” still is. And where “I” is, what kind of liberation? The “I” itself is hell.

This “self” too must be dissolved—let it evaporate like water turning into vapor. Blow out this “self” as one blows out a lamp. Buddha called that state nirvana—a beautiful word. Nirvana means the extinguishing of a lamp. One puff—and the flame is gone. It was just now; now it is not. Where did the flame go? It merged into the vastness.

There is a lovely story from the life of the Sufi fakir Hasan, worth remembering again and again. Hasan entered a village. All day he had met no one; and he had the attitude of a guru—someone to advise, to instruct. No one came. At dusk he entered a village; the sun was setting, night descending. A small boy was carrying a lamp, shaded in his palm, to place on a tomb. Hasan thought, “Here is my chance. I have met no one all day. I must not miss this.” He asked the child, “Dear boy, can you answer one question? Did you light the lamp?”

The child said, “Yes, I lit it.”

Hasan asked, “Then tell me: when you lit it, from where did the flame come? Since you lit it, you must know—from where did the flame arise?”

Hasan thought, “What answer can a child give? Then I will preach a little.” But sometimes children defeat old men badly. Children have an insight long dead in the old; time’s dust so thickly covers the mirror that it is no longer a mirror. Children see directly; they have their own logic.

The child said, “You ask a deep question. Now please do one thing—watch carefully!” He blew out the lamp and asked, “In front of your eyes the lamp has gone out—now tell me, where has the flame gone? You ask me: when I lit it, from where did the flame come? Just now, before your very eyes, the flame was here—I have blown it out. Tell me, where has it gone?”

Hasan was dumbfounded. At the moment of his death, when his disciples asked who his guru was, he said, “I had many gurus.” He mentioned that child among them: “That little boy shook me awake. He threw me on my back. The flame vanished before my eyes and I could not say where it had gone.”

Buddha calls the blowing out of the ego-lamp nirvana. Nirvana means extinguishing the lamp.

When the self is extinguished, what “nature” remains? Where there is self, there is other. Where there is self, there is a separation from existence. Where separation is, there is duality. Where duality is, there is conflict. That is why Buddha made a unique declaration, unlike any other true master in the world—here he is unparalleled: he did not accept the soul. Buddha is not an atma-vadi. Hence the Hindus were angry with him; the Jains were angry; all of India was angry—because Buddha did not accept the soul. He said “soul” is just another name for ego. Changing the label changes nothing. If you call poison “nectar,” what difference does it make?

And the statement is true, however bitter it feels. What does “soul” mean? “I am separate.” Those who posit the soul are, in some form, saving the ego. They want their souls to be liberated. “My soul should be free, my soul should attain moksha.” Buddha says: So long as there is this sense of “my,” how can there be moksha?

He gave a new definition of moksha. Before Buddha—and after him too—religions defined moksha as the liberation of the soul. Buddha said: moksha means liberation from the soul—not the soul’s liberation, but liberation from the very notion of a soul. The day the “soul” dissolves, the sense of “self” disappears—like a drop falling into the ocean and becoming ocean. Where then is the drop? What “drop’s soul”? Even Shankaracharya, who speaks of Brahman, accepts the soul; he cannot muster the courage to allow it to vanish utterly. Somewhere, even in Brahman, he preserves the soul. Buddha took dharma to its ultimate peak: let the soul go too. There is no “I.”

Then the second, deeper meaning of Veet Dharma is revealed: no self, hence no “own-nature.”

Anand Maitreya, you ask: “Until now it was understood that one has to attain dharma.”

One has to attain dharma—but that is the first step. And once you attain dharma you must transcend it—that is the second step. The whole journey is contained in these two steps. One attains dharma in order to go beyond it. Dharma delivers you from adharma—untruth, disorder, disease. Once you are beyond adharma, don’t go on carrying the medicine. Don’t shoulder the boat. Become free even of the remedy.

And you ask, “Must one transcend dharma too? If yes, please tell us what lies beyond it.”

What lies beyond cannot be told—for if it is told, it is no longer beyond; it has been dragged into words. Beyond is experience. Beyond is realization. It has no expression. It cannot be said—never has been, never will be.

All his life people told Lao Tzu, “Write down what you have known, so that the coming centuries may receive your light.” He laughed and evaded them. He wrote nothing. At the end he took leave of his disciples and said, “I am going to the Himalayas—for what place is more beautiful, serene, and silent to die? And I wish to die where no one will know, where no tomb will be built; I want to dissolve in a place where no footprints remain—so that no one is tempted to follow in my tracks. People have gone astray by following others’ footprints. I do not wish to leave any. I have left no words. I want to die where no one sees me. Even my corpse should not become an object of worship. My tomb might start a religion; priests might gather.”

And surely they would have. Lao Tzu set out for the Himalayas. The emperor of China learned of it and ordered the border guards: “Do not let Lao Tzu leave the country. Wherever he attempts to cross, stop him and tell him, ‘Until you write down your experience, we will not let you go.’ It would be wrong to let a great treasure remain unwritten.”

Lao Tzu was stopped at the frontier. He was told he could pass only if he wrote down his experience. Under compulsion, he sat for three days in the guard’s hut and wrote. That book is the Tao Te Ching. But the first sentence he wrote is worth remembering. He said: “Truth cannot be spoken or written. Therefore remember: whatever I write, whatever I say, by the very fact of being written or spoken, has become untrue. The moment truth is said, it becomes untruth. About that, nothing can be said. Yes—I can point to the door through which you too may realize.”

Scholars explain what truth is. A true master points in the direction—only the finger. You must go. You must attain. You must live it.

Truth is a taste. How will you explain sweetness to one who has never tasted? Truth is music. How will you explain to the deaf? Truth is light. How will you tell the blind—or one who, though not blind, sits with eyes closed? One can teach the art of opening the eyes. That is what I am doing here. The name of that art is meditation.

Through meditation your sensitivity reaches its peak. As your sensitivity becomes keen, aflame, the flimsy religions burn away—and finally, what you call svabhava, “own-nature,” burns away too. Then nothing remains. Within you is a clear, open sky. And that empty sky is full of moons and stars. That empty sky is full of flowers. It is fragrant. That empty sky is nirvana, is moksha. To attain that empty sky is to go beyond adharma—and beyond dharma as well.

Divyanand, ati sarvatra varjayet—avoid excess everywhere. Excess is forbidden in all places. Spiritualism is one excess, materialism is the other. Both extremes are wrong. It is the very excess that is wrong. The moment you go to an extreme you lose balance; lose balance, and you lose music; go to extremes, and you stagger.

Life is like watching a tightrope walker. He leans neither left nor right; he keeps himself in the middle. Of course, to keep balance he sometimes must lean left—but only to balance. Remember, when the acrobat leans left, he does so because there was a danger of falling to the right. To prevent falling right, he leans left. And when a danger of falling left arises, he leans right. Between these leanings he is continually seeking the center. He uses right and left only as supports to regain balance.

Life is in the middle—in the supreme middle.

One extreme was spiritualism; I oppose it, because the East has suffered its consequences. Adi Shankaracharya gave spiritualism its basic formula: Brahman is real, the world is illusory—Brahma satyam, jagan mithya. This was an extreme. Because of this extreme, the East collapsed. Collapse was inevitable. It leaned to one side. It forgot how to lean toward the world at all; it leaned only toward Brahman—leaned completely. Poverty arose, slavery arose, abjectness arose. The entire East, because of this excess, lost itself—was plundered.

And remember: with such want, such abjection, such bondage—what spirituality will you practice? If the belly is hungry, will you meditate? “Devotion does not happen on an empty stomach, O Gopala.” When your wrists are in chains and your feet are in fetters, can you hope for liberation? You cannot even preserve the freedom of ordinary life; do not dream of attaining that extraordinary freedom. They are only dreams.

Yes, it can happen that such dreams console you: “No matter—if there are chains here, they are only for a couple of days; life itself lasts but four days—two are already gone, two more will pass; then there is moksha and its supreme freedom; somehow tolerate these two days.”

But that moksha is only opium. It is not real liberation; it is only a consolation to help you put up with slavery. Because there is poverty, people have created wish-fulfilling trees in heaven. Those wish-fulfilling trees betray the news of the poor. The poor man thinks: “Here there is hunger, disease, no roof over my head—no matter, soon the supreme moment will come…after death it will come. And it will come if you bear this bondage, this slavery, this poverty with contentment. If you do not rebel it will come. If you do not struggle it will come. If you do not fight it will come. If you remain ‘peaceful’ it will come.”

That is why there could be no revolution in India. The East remained revolution-less. Centuries passed, and we taught consolation. How can revolution arise out of consolation? We taught patience: keep patience. We explained to people: in God’s kingdom there may be delay, but never darkness. So, a little delay—keep patience; there is no darkness; you will receive in fullness. Then we invented wish-fulfilling trees: under them whatever you wish is granted the moment you wish it.

Here you are dying of unfulfilled desires; none are fulfilled; and there all desires will be fulfilled! This is the dream of the poor man, the dream of the hungry man. It is only the projection of poverty. The hungry man dreams at night that a king has invited him to dine, and thirty-six delicacies are laid out in golden platters! The hungry will indeed dream such dreams. All these heavens and these promised delights in heaven are only proof that what you have not been able to fulfill here, you have postponed to the hereafter. Hope is needed, otherwise living becomes difficult.

Shankaracharya is one extreme; the other is materialism. Materialism declares: the world is real, Brahman is unreal. Karl Marx says exactly this: only matter is real and consciousness is unreal—merely an appearance arising from combinations of matter. The modern materialists only repeat what the ancient Charvakas said long ago.

Charvaka’s old example is useful. He says: you chew betel, your lips turn red. Take the ingredients separately—chew the betel leaf alone, your lips won’t redden. Chew areca nut alone, they won’t redden. Chew lime alone—far from reddening, your lips will crack. Chew catechu alone—far from reddening, your mouth will turn bitter. Chew each thing separately, the lips do not redden. Mix them all into paan, and the lips redden. Where does the redness come from? Charvaka says: from the combination of the ingredients. But the redness has no separate existence; it is a by-product.

Exactly this say the world’s materialists: that consciousness is a by-product of the physical and chemical atoms joined together in your body—the redness of paan, nothing more. Do not imagine that if you remove the catechu, the lime, the betel leaf, the areca nut—if you remove all the ingredients—the redness will somehow remain. Nothing will remain; redness was only the combination.

Hence the materialist says: if you remove all the bodily components, no soul remains, no consciousness remains, no Brahman remains.

This is the second extreme: it affirms the truth of the world and denies the truth of Brahman. This extreme too has had disastrous consequences. The West has gone neurotic. There is money, comfort, opulence, beautiful houses, beautiful roads; science has gathered every convenience, piled them high; yet people are as unhappy—indeed, as unhappy as nowhere in the East. Although all sorts of miseries exist in the East, a person there is not as miserable; and in the West, though all kinds of comforts exist, man is deeply miserable. Life feels meaningless. People live as if carrying their own corpse. Western thinkers circle around one single question: What is the meaning of life? And most have agreed that life has no meaning; life is an accident. Where, then, is the question of blessedness? How will celebration arise?

You ask, Divyanand, that materialists too live by accepting the world—but where is celebration in their lives?

No. What I am saying is lived by neither materialists nor spiritualists. They are enemies of each other. They have accepted only half the truth. Whoever accepts half the truth cannot arrive at supreme bliss. Supreme bliss is the shadow of wholeness, the flower of totality, its fragrance. And till today the totality of life on Earth has never been embraced; always only a half has been embraced. The reason is clear: because in embracing the half you can remain “reasonable”; to embrace the whole you must go beyond reason.

Shankaracharya is also rational, very rational. Not trans-rational—thoroughly a logician. That is why he roamed all over India carrying a flag, debating and defeating people. What was that debating? Mere argumentation, nothing more. Such debates do not establish what truth is; they establish only who has the stronger argument. And argument is not a means to truth; it is an obstacle, not a path.

Karl Marx too is a logician. And if things are to be decided by argument, then understand this: the materialist will be more convincing, because he accepts what is evident. Brahman is not easy to prove; matter is not easy to disprove.

In the West, the man closest to Shankaracharya is Berkeley. He says: the world is illusory, Brahman is real. Berkeley’s friend was Dr. Johnson. One morning they were walking along a path, and Berkeley was going on with his talk: the world is only dreamlike. Dr. Johnson listened and listened; when he was fed up, he picked up a stone and dropped it on Berkeley’s foot. Berkeley screamed; a fountain of blood spurted. Dr. Johnson said, “If the world is unreal, why this outcry? This stone is only a dream. Why tears in your eyes? Why clutching your foot? How can the unreal hurt you?”

If things are to be decided by logic, the atheist will win; the theist cannot. What the theist seeks to prove cannot be proven by argument. That is why through centuries no theist has been able to defeat atheism. No theist has answered atheism.

Those whom Shankaracharya kept defeating were theists of another kind. Not one of them was an atheist. Had there been even one atheist, Shankara’s conquering tour would have stopped; there would have been no difficulty. It is easy, because matter is completely evident and God is non-evident—matter is visible, God is invisible.

The materialist can logically prove that only matter exists. But proving this solves nothing. It creates a new difficulty: if matter alone is true, then everything majestic in life becomes untrue. The beauty of a flower becomes false; the flower becomes merely a chemical object. The beauty of sunset becomes false. The joy of music becomes false; music becomes only an aggregate of sounds. Love becomes false—what is love then? The redness of paan, nothing more! Poetry becomes false. And when all the majestic elements of life become false—no love, no poetry, no beauty, no music, no meaning (for what meaning can there be in matter? What meaning in stones?)—meaning belongs to the expression of consciousness—then naturally life becomes meaningless.

Hence most Western thinkers have reached the conclusion that life is meaningless. But how will you live a meaningless life? Granted there is money and a beautiful marble palace and all the gadgets of science—but life is meaningless. The machines are there; but where is the man? The very life-breath of man is lost. Lose meaning, and the very soul is lost. Without meaning, how will you live? Meaninglessness brings derangement.

That is why more and more people in the West are going mad. Either they kill themselves, or they kill others. Or they drink to forget somehow the meaninglessness of their lives. And now new scientific means of self-forgetfulness are available, deeper than alcohol—LSD, psilocybin. Science has found even newer ways by which you can completely forget the question of meaning—forget even your meaninglessness. The very question disappears.

The West suffers from materialism; the East suffers from spiritualism. The East lost the body; the West lost the soul. The East lost the outer; the West lost the inner. Both have lost. Now a new energy is needed, a new proclamation: the world is true, and Brahman is true. This is my proclamation. Both are true. Therefore I say: the sannyasin is not to run away from the world—that would be Shankaracharya’s method. And I also say: my sannyasin is not to drown in the world either—that would be Karl Marx’s method. I say: the sannyasin is to live in the world in such a way that the world surrounds him, yet does not touch him. Live like a lotus: be in the water, yet untouched by water.

So, Divyanand, what I am saying has been fulfilled by neither spiritualist nor materialist. Do not remain in the illusion that I am saying what the materialist says. How could he? I am not a materialist. I am not a spiritualist. I am not an “-ist” at all. I trust no ideology. I accept the wholeness of life. Therefore, no “ism,” no dispute. I accept all the facets of life.

There can be no celebration in the materialist’s life, nor in the spiritualist’s life. Both are crippled. Both are lame. One has chosen one leg, the other the other. Both are lame. Where will celebration be? How will the lame dance? And when they cannot dance, they say, “The courtyard is crooked.” The materialist thinks, “We need more materialism; then we will dance—first fix the courtyard.” The spiritualist says, “We need more spiritualism; then we will dance—fix the courtyard.” But the matter is different. Even if the courtyard is crooked, the one who knows how to dance and whose two legs are sound can dance just fine. The crookedness of the courtyard does not hinder the dance. What has dancing to do with whether the courtyard is crooked? One who knows how to dance can dance anywhere. But for the dance, both legs must be healthy. To fly in the sky, both wings are needed.

The East tried to fly with one wing—and fell badly. The West tried to fly with one wing—and fell badly. They look opposite, but in one thing they agree: to fly with one wing. This stubbornness has filled humanity with sorrow.

Both wings are beloved. There is nothing wrong with matter. Matter too is a manifestation of the divine. Matter is not false, nor is the divine false. The divine is hidden within matter—just as flowers are hidden within the seed. If you cut open the seed, you will not find flowers. That is no way to obtain flowers. Give the seed soil, give it earth, give it water; then, at the right time, in the right season, spring will come and flowers will blossom, will shower. You do not get flowers by cutting seeds; the seed must be grown.

In my understanding, the whole art of meditation is the art of making actual the potential that is hidden within you; the art of turning your possibilities into reality; the art of taking the seed to the flower.

Therefore I am neither theist nor atheist. Neither spiritualist nor materialist. Naturally, I will be abused from both sides—and I am. But I take it as natural. Materialists are annoyed with me because I tell people: seek the spiritual. Spiritualists are annoyed with me because I tell people: do not abandon the material. If you discard the seed, where will you get the flower?

The flower is hidden in this very world. Just as in your very body your consciousness is hidden, so in this cosmos Brahman is hidden. You are a small symbol of the whole cosmos: the body is your cosmos, within is Brahman. Likewise in the whole universe, at its innermost core, is Brahman. With me there is no denial, there is acceptance—acceptance of the whole. And only in the acceptance of the whole can celebration happen.

Therefore I do not say: remain poor, remain destitute. There is no need. Outer wealth is not a hindrance to inner wealth; it is a help.

Consider: all your avatars were princes, your Jain tirthankaras were princes, Buddha was a prince. Outer prosperity did not fracture their inner dimension. In truth, outer prosperity gave them the clue to turn inward. When the outer can be so comfortable and pleasurable, the question arises: how immense must inner richness be! So I am not a partisan of poverty. I do not accept Gandhi’s doctrine of Daridra Narayan. Enough of this deception. We have tried to persuade the poor in many ways: your poverty is beautiful, there is great spirituality in it, you are Daridra Narayan, you are God Himself!

We have become very adept at finding nice words. We called the untouchable “Harijan,” and thought the matter was settled. Earlier the “untouchables” were burnt; now “Harijans” are burnt. Earlier there was rape against the untouchables; now there is rape against the Harijans. Earlier there were agitations against the untouchables; now against the Harijans. Everything remains the same. In Gandhi’s own province of Gujarat there has been terrible unrest, saying the Harijans should not receive reserved benefits. The land of Gandhi, his birthplace!

But these words are deceits. Calling the poor “Daridra Narayan” solves nothing, nor does calling the untouchable “Harijan.” Yes, it gives a little relief, a bit of balm and bandage. But the disease remains. It gets covered; it does not heal.

I am not a supporter of poverty—neither outer poverty nor inner poverty. I want every person to be prosperous. And today science is capable of making every person prosperous. There is no need for us to sit with spinning wheels. This is the height of foolishness, the last limit of inertia—that people are still turning charkhas. As if we have taken an oath to remain poor. No one now needs to be poor. Poverty can be erased from this earth as if it never was. Today this is possible; earlier it was not. Because it was not possible, people invented all sorts of false theories. After all, something had to be said. The question stood: why are people poor? So theories were invented: because of sins from past lives. Or: it is written in their fate to be poor. God, the ordainer, wrote poverty on their foreheads in advance.

What a God! On one person’s head he writes poverty, on another’s wealth. Is he drunk? Is he in his senses? Why does he write poverty on someone’s head? What harm has he done?

Then the past-life theory—more poisonous, because its net is long: infinite births! Who knows how many sins you must have committed? Who knows how many infinite births you will suffer for your sins! And the problem is, through infinite births you will not just be suffering old sins; you will also be doing something new, won’t you? Only suffering? In the very suffering of sins you will commit more sins. Then there is no way out at all.

Such a vicious circle was fabricated that the poor must remain poor. And the rich were given protection by these theorists: they are rich because of the merit (punya) of past lives. Thus the rich got a shield. The poor cannot raise a finger and say, “We have been exploited.” There is no question of exploitation—they are enjoying their merits, you are reaping your sins.

These are hollow notions, created only because there was no other way. But today there is no need of such notions. Nothing is written in fate; there is no ordainer somewhere writing; there is no question of your past-life deeds. In truth, when you act, you experience the fruits then and there. Will it take so long? You put your hand in fire in a past life and will burn in this one? Consider the absurdity! The accounting makes no sense. If you put your hand in fire in a past life, you burned then and there. Will you burn now? Why such delay? Cause and effect do not wait so long. If you were angry in a past life, in the very anger a person burns and writhes, suffers enough. If you murdered someone, there is guilt, remorse. What more is needed? Those flames are enough. Each birth’s account is settled in that birth itself. Whenever you are born, you are born with a clean slate.

And today none of this drivel is needed. Science can make this entire earth prosperous. But the spinning wheels must be consigned to fire. Some fools have gone even further—they are turning hand-spindles. They have decided not to move beyond Adam’s age.

I support neither outer poverty nor inner poverty. The East needs science; the West needs religion. If both wings come together, man can soar in the sky of bliss. That is his birthright.

Gunavantarai Parikh, the soul is indeed free—but you don’t even know where your soul is! You have no awareness of the soul yet, no wakefulness. The soul is free, yes, but first there has to be a soul for you; and if you have no awareness of it, then take it as good as not being there.

George Gurdjieff used to say, not everyone has a soul. There is a truth in what he said; it stings. He’s saying: for one who has not become aware of his soul, who has not realized his own consciousness, the question of whether the soul is there or not makes no difference.

Suppose the Kohinoor diamond lies in your pocket but you have no idea of it—does that make you wealthy? Are you rich just because it is there? Let it lie there. That is, in fact, the story of the Kohinoor. It was found by a farmer near Golconda—a poor farmer. A small stream ran through his field, and one day he found there a shining stone. He thought, “The children can play with it,” and brought it home.

For three years the diamond lay in his courtyard. The children would play with it, toss it here and there. But the farmer remained poor. The Kohinoor lay in his courtyard. Even then it was the most precious diamond in the world. The truth is that today’s Kohinoor is only one-third of the original. In that farmer’s home it was three times larger. Later it was cut, given facets, polished, cleaned; only a third of its weight remains—even so, it is the world’s most valuable diamond. Then it was thrice that! And yet the farmer remained poor.

By chance a wandering monk stayed at his house one night. Before becoming a monk he had been a jeweler. He saw the diamond and said, “I’ve seen many diamonds in my life, but never one this large. You’ve thrown it in the courtyard—are you mad? Someone will steal it.”

The farmer said, “It’s been lying there for three years; no one has stolen it.” The poor villagers had no idea it was a diamond—why would anyone steal it? But once he became aware it was a diamond, he hurriedly brought it inside. He rushed out in a panic to make sure no one had taken it. It was midnight. He couldn’t even wait for morning. He couldn’t sleep all night, fearing thieves might come. For three years it had been there and he had no worry at all.

At daybreak he went straight to the Nizam of Hyderabad. He received a large reward—though compared to the diamond it was nothing. But the farmer felt it was enormous, unparalleled—what more could there be! How could he know the worth of a diamond?

Your soul is like that—lying there, unknown to you. And when you don’t know, Gurdjieff is right: what difference does it make whether it is or isn’t? In a proper sense, only the one who knows has a soul. Only the meditator is a jeweler. The non-meditative person has no soul—he’s an empty shell. Granted, the soul may be lying in the courtyard, but for him it has no price, no value. And if you don’t know it, how on earth will you make use of the soul’s freedom?

You ask, Gunavantarai: “The soul is completely free to assume a body...”

Not your soul—an enlightened person’s soul. But then a difficulty arises: an enlightened soul is free to enter any body, but why would it enter at all? After all, every body is a small prison. You are saying the soul is free to enter any prison. But once you know freedom, why enter any prison?

That is why one who awakens does not enter a body again. He enters the universal soul. He dissolves his soul into the vastness. He becomes one with the infinite. Those who keep entering bodies have no awareness of the soul; they are unconscious. And what will an unconscious person choose? He will choose in accordance with his unconsciousness.

So you ask: “Then why the choice of bodies full of suffering—crippled, blind, and helpless children?”

Because people have their fixations. Consider this: Mahatma Gandhi believed the poor are Narayan, God. If he truly and honestly believes that the poor are Narayan, then after death he will naturally enter the poor. Why enter the rich and move away from Narayan? His belief will take him to the poor.

And if the “untouchables” are “Harijans”—people of God... earlier “Harijan” had a very different meaning. Narsinh Mehta gave a beautiful, precise definition: “Call him a person of God who knows another’s pain as his own.” Where is that meaning now, and where the political “Harijan”! Chamars became “Harijans,” sweepers became “Harijans.”

Mahatma Gandhi himself cleaned latrines in his ashram, and had others do it too. Now you ask, Gunavantarai Parikh, why the choice of bodies filled with the suffering of crippled, blind, and helpless children? If Gandhi had to choose a body, he would choose a sweeper’s—he would clean latrines, carry excreta on his head. Only then would his mind be at peace; otherwise it wouldn’t. Your beliefs will press you to choose accordingly. After all, you choose according to your convictions!

All your life you live like the blind; you never open your eyes. You’re afraid to open them lest you see something that contradicts your beliefs.

You’ve heard the story of Ghantakarna, who kept bells hanging from his ears—the bells kept ringing so that nothing contrary to his doctrine could reach his ears.

There is a story from Japan. A Buddhist nun kept a small Buddha statue carved from ruby. Being a nun, she would stay in temples where there were many other Buddha statues. All were Buddhas, of course—but one’s own Buddha is special! The ego takes such forms. Every day she worshipped her ruby Buddha, lighting incense and lamps. But she was afraid: the incense smoke would rise, and there were so many other Buddhas seated there—what if the smoke reached their noses and her Buddha was deprived? So she fashioned a little funnel and fixed it to her Buddha’s nose to channel the incense smoke directly.

The result was that her Buddha’s nose turned black. She lost face—and so did the Buddha! In the hands of the unknowing, even a Buddha meets with misfortune.

If the foundations of your life are wrong, you will make such choices. In that case, you cannot truly be free. Your notions, your convictions, your beliefs will keep you bound.

Now see—he couldn’t find any other name: Garibdas! And even that didn’t satisfy him: “the jholi-wala” too! Even if he dies, he’ll surely take the bag along—be certain of it. He’ll be born with that bag dangling. Just look at this skull! But there are plenty of such skulls in this country.

Now just think—Garibdas Jholiwale considers himself entitled to say: “You are always engaged in criticizing monks and saints like us who live by moral conduct!”

What conduct, and what kind of monks and saints? One thing is certain: anyone who regards himself as a monk or a saint has no idea what monkhood or sainthood is. Garibdas, read the Upanishads a little. The Upanishads say: “He who thinks ‘I know’—know that he does not know.” They also say: “The ignorant wander in darkness; the learned wander in great darkness.”

Now will you say the Upanishads are busy criticizing the learned, breaking people’s reverence for the learned, and praising the ignorant? Because the Upanishad says: the ignorant wander in darkness, but the learned in great darkness. And “he who says ‘I know’—he certainly does not know. He who says ‘I do not know’—he knows.”

So this becomes praise of ignorance and criticism of knowledge!

The same Upanishadic thing is happening here. And the criticism is not of monks and saints; it is of the thousand kinds of hoaxes and charades being run in the name of monks and saints. And they should be criticized. What is false should be criticized.

And why so much panic? If I am criticizing truth, there are so many monks and saints—let them explain to people that I am attacking truth and that my criticism is wrong. But there isn’t a single answer to my criticisms—only abuses from the “monks and saints.” They should answer. And whenever I criticize something, I do not do it without cause. I do not care whether it is in some scripture or a doctrine—if it is wrong, it is wrong.

There is a saying in the Rigveda: “Satyonat tabhita bhoomih”—the earth is upheld by truth.
How can one not criticize this? The earth is not stationary at all. The earth is rotating. Whatever the Rigveda says or anyone else says, what can I do? Where is my fault in it? The earth is rotating—on two counts: one rotation on its own axis; a second rotation—its revolution around the sun. And scientists now see a third rotation as well, for the sun too, with the earth, is revolving around some great sun. So it’s a triple rotation: turning on its axis; circling the sun; and circling, with the sun, some vast sun. And who knows—perhaps that vast sun is circling yet another vast sun! Here it’s circles within circles—a veritable whirl. The Rigvedic statement is simply wrong. The earth is not at all stationary. And yet it says the earth is held fast by truth.
The earth does not stand on “truth.” Objects do not stand on truth. Consciousness stands on truth. Objects stand on facts, not on truth. Science inquires into facts; religion inquires into truth.

But there are no answers!

So, Garibdas Jholiwale, give an answer to this. Pull something out of your jholi—rummage around; perhaps an answer is hiding there.

And which monks and saints am I criticizing? Read your Puranas a little, and look at the conduct of your monks and saints. You even call Durvasa a rishi! If Durvasa is a rishi, then no one on this earth should ever wish to be a rishi. A man who curses at the drop of a hat! A rishi is one whose very life is a benediction, in whose presence blessings shower upon you. But you call even Durvasa a rishi—an immensely angry, ill-natured man who, for some petty trifle, can ruin you for lifetimes to come! And you will call such men rishis?

Vinoba Bhave praises a certain rishi: Raikva the cart-driver. Some gentleman like Garibdas Jholiwale—Raikva the cart-driver. His dwelling was his cart; he lived on it. Vinoba praises him highly. But he tells only half the story. I call that dishonest.

The emperor of the land came to Raikva with his golden chariots loaded with diamonds and jewels, laid them in a heap at Raikva’s feet, bowed, and said, “Grant me knowledge of Brahman.” Raikva said, “Hey, shudra! Do you think knowledge can be bought with wealth—diamonds and jewels?”
Vinoba stops there. The story is incomplete—trimmed. Let me tell you the whole story; then you’ll understand what Raikva’s “secret” was. Up to here, it sounds lofty: Raikva calling even an emperor a shudra, meaning: your faith is in wealth; you think truth can be bought with jewels. Anyone hearing this will feel Raikva has spoken to the point. Truth cannot be bought; it is not a commodity.

But the full story is this. In those days slaves were sold in the markets—especially beautiful women. The ages you call the Golden Age, the Satya Yuga—astonishing golden ages they were! Women were sold like goods in the bazaar. A very beautiful woman had come up for sale, and Raikva the cart-driver went to buy her as well. Rishis and seers also kept women they had purchased!
You will be surprised to know the original meanings of words we now use. We use the term “var-vadhu”—bride and groom. In the Vedic sense, vadhu meant a bought woman, not a wife. Rishis had wives—and many vadhus besides. Vadhus—women bought in the market, secondary wives. Every rishi had a wife and also kept purchased vadhus. Such were these “rishis”! But no surprise—when an avatar like Krishna can keep sixteen thousand women without buying them, snatching others’ wives by force or stealth, then these poor fellows at least were paying!

But that men and women were bought and sold—this is unseemly. And rishis going to buy them!
Raikva went to buy her, and the emperor also went to buy her—everyone had an eye on that beautiful woman. The bidding rose higher and higher. The rishi was not short of money either, but how could he match an emperor? In the end the emperor won, bought the woman, and left. Raikva’s ego was bruised.

Years later the same emperor came to Raikva’s feet with diamonds and jewels to learn truth. Raikva said, “Hey, shudra! Take your money away! Truth cannot be bought with wealth.”
Then the emperor’s ministers said, “Do you recall you bought that woman whom Raikva wanted? He is saying: bring that woman! Hey, shudra! Truth is not bought with money.”
So the emperor brought the woman, and then Raikva began to teach him religion.

That is the full story. Not with money—but bring the woman, and then truth can be “bought”! Such amazing rishis! And it’s not just one; look closely at your rishis and seers and you will be astonished. In their lives you will find little that can truly be called of value.

Forget your rishis; even your gods are all libertines! They descend from heaven and debauch other men’s wives. And you feel no shame in calling them gods and goddesses! Your Puranas are full of such stories.

And now you say to me: “You are always engaged in criticizing monks and saints like us who live by moral conduct.”

I want to define “monk” and “saint” precisely. Therefore I will criticize what is false, so that the meaning of truth may be made clear.

And you add: “This breaks the ordinary person’s reverence for us.”

If it breaks, it was never reverence. If someone has reverence for me, you try breaking it! I invite you, Garibdas Jholiwale—stay right here. Try breaking the reverence of those who have it for me. In trying to break it, your bag will be gone, your “conduct” will be gone, your sainthood will vanish.

Reverence simply does not break—that is why it is called reverence. What breaks was counterfeit. If even reverence can be broken, what remains unbroken in this world? True reverence never breaks. False reverence will break—that is why you are afraid.

And you call others “ordinary people,” while calling yourselves “monks and saints of moral conduct.” You are special; the others are ordinary. They are low; you are pure. This very attitude is irreligious; this very notion is base. True holiness is filled with respect for all. In true holiness, no one is ordinary.

For me, the Divine resides in everyone. How can the Divine be ordinary? Godliness abides in all—whether you know it or not. Even if you don’t, what does it matter? I know that God resides in you exactly as He resides in me. So I am not above you, and you are not below me. I am not special; you are not ordinary.

This division into categories is the language of ego. And what has ego to do with holiness? Egolessness is holiness.

And Garibdas says, “In saints, reverence is the very basis of life.”

Who said that? Reverence in oneself is the basis of life, not reverence in saints. Who is a saint? Have they taken a franchise on it? What one person calls a saint, another does not. For a Digambara Jain, only a naked muni is a saint. Leave others aside—even a Shvetambara muni, who wears a white cloth, is no saint. Until you are naked, how can you be a saint?
Ask any Jain: can a man with a bag—a jholi—be a saint? Never. If you still carry a bag, how are you a saint? A saint must renounce everything. A bag means the intentions are not good. You’ll pick someone’s pocket, you’ll put someone’s shoes into it—something or other you’ll do. Why carry a bag? No one slings a bag without a purpose. The bag has to be filled. No Jain will accept you as a saint.

Jain saints don’t recognize others as saints. Ask a Muslim, ask a Christian: what has nudity to do with sainthood? He will say: serve the lepers; that is sainthood. And a Jain muni serving lepers? Never! Why should he expiate sins from a past life by serving lepers? Those who committed heavy sins became lepers; those who committed fewer sins serve lepers. Simple arithmetic. Why should a Jain muni serve anyone? A Jain muni receives service; he does not render it.
Ask Jain lay followers going for darshan of a muni, “Where are you going?” They say, “To serve the saint.” Saint’s service must be done; the saint does not serve.
But a Christian’s notion is different: the saint serves—only then is he a saint.
Who, then, is a saint? And you say, “Reverence for saints is the basis of life.” Whose definition should we adopt? Ramakrishna Paramhansa is a saint to Hindus; ask Jains. They will at once say, “A fish-eater—how can he be a saint? He ate fish.” A Bengali not eating fish and rice—that’s impossible. By Paramhansa’s grace, the fish too were digested; they too became paramhansas!

But no Jain will accept it. A Jain saint cannot even eat potatoes. Poor potatoes—utterly innocent! They never sinned, never hurt anyone. But even potatoes cannot be eaten, because they grow under the ground in darkness; the darkness breeds tamas—so it’s tamasic food. Fish is out of the question. He won’t eat tomatoes, because tomatoes look like flesh—just look like it! Otherwise tomatoes are perfectly innocent—always sitting in padmasana, forever meditative. And how lovely they look—truly saintly! But a Jain muni will not eat them.

Whom, then, should we revere?

No, I say: do not place reverence in another—place it in yourself. The foundation of life is reverence for oneself.

And you ask, Garibdas: “By shaking people’s reverence you are arranging their hell.”

You are in hell! Where else is hell? From here, there is no lower to fall. There is nowhere else to go down. This is hell—and your so-called monks and saints have a hand in making it.

I am trying to turn this hell into heaven. Look at my sannyasins. Even if my sannyasins land in hell, they will turn hell into heaven. What difference does it make? There too there will be song, there will be music, there will be dance, there will be celebration. And I have no hesitation—I will give sannyas to the Devil as well! No one else can give sannyas to the Devil. The Devil will accept sannyas from no one but me.

And Garibdas Jholiwale, even if you make it to heaven—seeing the crowd of people like you gathered there, I have heard that God no longer lives there. Those forlorn faces, those dead expressions, those rotten souls—up to their same old tricks: someone standing on his head, some Khadeshri Baba standing forever, someone fasting himself to death. Old habits won’t die. Some wandering around stark naked. What circuses must be going on in heaven! I have heard that long ago God vacated heaven. He doesn’t live there now. He has changed His address.

So no problem—I am not concerned. If I go to hell, if my sannyasins go to hell—no worry. We have no hankering for heaven. Wherever we go, we will make a heaven of it.

That’s all for today.