The search for truth, or the search for oneself, or the search for Paramatma, happens neither through knowledge nor through devotion; for knowledge gathers around the center of our ego, and so does devotion. Wherever man's ego stands, there is no possibility of the doors of truth opening. And whatever man does becomes nourishment to his ego. Behind all that man does, it is impossible to drop the sense of “I am doing.” Even if he surrenders, the awareness remains standing behind that “I have surrendered.” He may serve, he may love, he may pray, he may acquire knowledge from the scriptures, but the feeling of I, the ego, lingers behind. And whatsoever is done, by all that the ego becomes even more robust.
Other than ego there is no barrier; other than ego there is no obstruction; other than ego there is no closed door. Therefore, whatever man does—be it knowledge, be it devotion, be it renunciation—through what man does, it cannot be reached. That is why I told you the first night: the one who runs will lose; the one who stops will find. The doer will not attain, but one who settles into non-doing will certainly arrive.
So this morning I want to begin with a small incident.
A wholly imaginary incident—it was seen in a dream. Some two thousand years ago, in Greece, there was a fakir, Diogenes. He did not live among men; he had raised two or three dogs—lived only with them. In a small cave the dogs were his only companions. Two thousand years back, in his cave, I went to meet him. I asked him, “I don’t see any human beings here! You are alone, and all these are dogs. Have you abandoned living among people?”
That fakir Diogenes said, “Men and dogs? To compare a man to a dog is itself uncouth! I found men unfit to live with, so I began living with dogs. And the dog is a very intelligent creature.” And Diogenes said, “A time will come when no man will prefer to live with another man. Instead a man will keep a dog and live with it. Man is far worse than a dog,” he went on.
I was very surprised and I asked, “For what reason is it so?”
But Diogenes did not laugh, he said nothing—his dogs began to laugh. Seeing this I was amazed, for no animal except man laughs. Laughter belongs to man's life alone; no other birds or beasts laugh. When those dogs began to laugh I said, “What is this? Do these dogs laugh too?”
One of the dogs spoke and said, “Not only do we laugh; we also speak. Living with man has spoiled us like this. Living with Diogenes, we have gone astray—we have started laughing, we have begun to talk. We have even started to talk like men. And that dog said to me, ‘Diogenes thinks dogs are very good, that one should live with them; and perhaps the time will come when others will think the same. But the real secret is known neither to Diogenes nor to any other man. The real secret is known to us dogs—what the matter is. We dogs have discovered man's weakness. We wag our tails and man becomes happy. Only dogs have understood man's weakness till now; no other creature has grasped it. So man stays pleased with us. We wag our tails—he is delighted. So weak is man that even our tail-wagging makes him happy. Ego is his weakness.’”
My dream broke upon hearing this. But later I reflected long and found that what those dogs said was true. Ego is man's weakness. Around the center of this weakness his whole life is constructed. For this weakness he lives and dies. He spends his entire life upon this weakness. For what? A notion: I am something! I am something! And whatever gives confirmation to this notion, whatever strengthens it—doing that he spends his life. And what does he find in the end? Finally death comes and carries everything away. The whole ego, all that had been gathered and reinforced all through life, scatters and is shattered.
Man does not fear death because he does not know what will happen in death. No—that is not the real fear. The real fear is that the ego he has constructed his whole life will scatter, will break. Therefore he fears death.
Not because death is terrifying. Death no one has seen—there is no reason to fear it. How can we fear what we do not know? To be afraid, one must know, one must recognize. Death is the unacquainted, the unknown; what cause is there to fear it? Who can say it will not be better than life? Who can say it will not be the supreme life? Who can say it will not be the beginning of a new life? We do not know death, so there is no reason to fear it. Then what is the fear?
The fear is this: that what we raised and labored for all our life—death scatters it and carries it away.
Yet we live revolving around this center. The ordinary worldly man, and the one we call a renunciate or sannyasin—both live around this center of ego. One wants to build big mansions in this life, another wants them in the beyond. One wants to secure himself here, another in the coming life. Someone seeks wealth and fame, someone seeks Paramatma. But the whole chase is of the ego—because wherever there is the race to attain, there is the race of the ego. Who wants to attain? Why does he want to attain? Who is this attainer? The mind is very weak at that point.
There was a fakir, Nasruddin. Before he became a fakir, he ran a small shop, an inn, near a forest in a village. The king of that country once went hunting into the forest, got lost, and by mistake reached that village at night—the village where Nasruddin's shop was. He had to stay there for the night. In the morning he bought two or four eggs from the shop and asked, “How much?” Nasruddin said, “One hundred gold coins.”
The king was astonished. He said, “This is remarkable! Are eggs so rare here? Are hens’ eggs so hard to find that four eggs cost one hundred gold coins? In the capital they cost a few pennies.”
Nasruddin said, “Eggs are not rare, sir—but kings are.”
The king immediately handed over the hundred coins.
The king had barely left when Nasruddin's wife asked, “It is so strange, he said nothing further and simply paid a hundred!”
Nasruddin said, “I know man's weakness. Kings come rarely. I just touched the point of weakness.”
And Nasruddin said, “Once more something like this happened. I went to a royal court. I had a turban on—very cheap, but very gaudy and glittering. Often it happens that cheap things are colorful and flashy—their cheapness hides in their dazzle. So, wearing a cheap turban, I entered the court. Seeing the sparkling turban, the emperor asked, ‘How much is it?’ I said, ‘A thousand rupees.’ The king was shocked—it wasn’t worth ten or five. The chief minister whispered into the king’s ear, ‘This man seems very dishonest. This is a two- or four-rupee turban; do not fall into his talk.’ Just then I said, ‘Your Majesty, shall I take your leave? I bought this turban for a thousand, and I was told there is a king upon this earth who could even buy it for two thousand. Shall I go? This is not that court, you do not seem to be that emperor. I came here by mistake. Let me seek some other court, find some other emperor who can buy it for two thousand. You do not seem to be him; this does not seem to be that court.’ The king said, ‘Give him two thousand and buy the turban.’”
The turban was purchased and two thousand were given. As I was stepping out, the minister said to me, “You are a very strange man!”
I whispered in his ear, “Sir, you may know the price of turbans; I know the weakness of men.”
Man is very weak at a single point. At the point of ego lies all the weakness. Yet we think that is our strength, our power. If someone mistakes his weakness as strength, then freedom from weakness becomes impossible; and if sickness is taken to be health, then it is very difficult. But we all have taken weakness to be strength—and taking it thus, we circle around it our whole life. We do not even see that from that circling arise all our misery, all our restlessness, all our anxiety, all our pain.
Have you ever peeped behind any of your sorrows? Have you ever searched behind your pain, your unrest, your worry, your insult? What will you find there?
On searching you will find the ego. On searching you will find the I. All the hurt, all the blows of life, land upon my I. And I writhe, I writhe, and I make arrangements for security—I build walls so that no blow can reach me. And in this way I try to live continuously so that this I of mine may flourish and bloom.
But on the tree of ego no fruits grow other than sorrow, anxiety, and pain. They cannot, have never, and will never grow. The very seed of ego contains the possibilities of suffering—of pain, of worry, of insult, of anger, of war, of violence, of hatred—all the possibilities are gathered there. And the great jest is that without ever asking, “Who am I?” we go on saying, “I am, I am, I am something”—without knowing who I am.
There are two kinds of paths in the world. One path bears the sign: I am something. The other path bears the sign: Who am I? The irreligious man journeys on the path of “I am something.” The religious man, before he says “I am something,” wants to know—Who am I? And the great secret is that when he sets out to inquire “Who am I?” he finds that the I is not there at all. And he who sets out to be something, he keeps seeking, wastes his life; he is not able to become anything—and remains deprived even of knowing what is.
A Chinese fakir named Chuang Tzu was returning one night to his village. A cremation ground lay in between, and a skull lay there—his foot struck it. He picked up the skull, placed it upon his head, and brought it home. His friends said, “What are you doing?”
He said, “I have committed a great mistake; my foot touched this skull. And that cremation ground was not for small people—it was for great people.
“In life there are small and great—even cremation grounds are separate for the small and the great. Even after death we keep a distance—you were a small man, I was a great man.”
“So the cremation ground was for the great; this is the skull of some great man—and my foot touched it. This is mere coincidence that this man is dead; otherwise there would be no saving my head. If he were alive and my foot struck his head, there would be no escape. It is only by coincidence that he died. But for such a mere coincidence I should not err—I must seek forgiveness. That is why I have brought it upon my head; at home I will pray to it, ‘Forgive me.’”
They laughed and said, “What madness you speak!”
He said, “And I have also brought it so that I may keep it by me, so I remember that today or tomorrow my head too will lie in some cremation ground and people’s feet will strike it. And when people’s feet are anyway to strike, and the head is anyway to fall into dust, and people’s steps will pass over it—what difference does it make if someone kicked me while alive? What difference does it make—how much difference does it make? Let this be my remembrance; that is why I brought it.”
The ego we nurture through life—at the end we find it lying in the dust and people’s feet falling upon it. That ego which we guard our whole life—where is it? Turned to dust, turned to ash, blown by the wind—no trace to be found. Smoke in the fire, earth in the earth—where is it? How many have lived upon this earth! Even where we sit, who knows how many lie buried beneath. There is no patch of earth where crores upon crores have not been interred. There is no piece of earth that is not a cremation ground. And how many egos they had! For their egos how much pain they suffered, how they struggled, how they were violent, how they hated, how they dreamt of sorrow and pain, how they lost nights, lost sleep, lost their lives. Where are those people? Where are those egos? And those who suffered the torment of ego all life long—could they have known any peace or joy? Could they have known any truth?
Yet we walk the same road they walked. And we make the same journey. And every man travels the same mistaken path that countless before him have traveled. But we do not search consciously to see what we are doing.
And let none think that only those who build palaces, seek high offices, and great positions are egotists—do not think so. Those who leave everything and stand naked—their egos too know no end. Those who renounce all and become sannyasins—their ego also knows no end. Ego is a very strange thing! It can fill itself with wealth, and it can fill itself through the renunciation of wealth. It can nourish itself from position, and from the renunciation of position. It can find its food in palaces and in huts alike—in the worldly and in the monk. Wherever I do something, from that very doing ego begins to seek its nourishment. Then what to do? Drop the ego?
Dropping would be another effort—and through dropping the ego never drops. Yes, it may happen that humility is draped upon oneself from the outside—and then the humble man declares, “There is none more humble than me.” And this declaration is the declaration of ego. Humility too can become food for ego. Ego means: I am! And I am something which no one else is. Then it can take any form. A sannyasin may say, “I am a renunciate—and no one else is. I am the one who has let go—everyone else is false.” And there the ego will stand again.
How to drop the ego? The ego cannot be dropped. Then what? What is to be done? And this same ego fills the consciousness. Because of it, the mind cannot be empty, cannot be a void, cannot be silent, cannot be in meditation. What to do?
The first thing is not to do anything—the first thing is to inquire: where is this ego? What is it? It needs to be searched within—where is it, and what is it? Is it really something? Or has a shadow taken its seat in the mind and we are running after it? Is it something? Or is it a delusion arising due to some momentum of life?
If we lift a torch and whirl it fast, a circle of fire appears. The circle is nowhere; it does not exist. The torch whirls so fast that the gaps between movements are not seen—so an entire circle seems to be there. If we stop the torch we find that the circle was nowhere—there was only the torch.
Could it be that the ego too is a circle arising due to the swift motion of life, of thought? And if there is such a point, born only of speed, which appears solid—
Do you know, what appears solid to you is not solid at all! Electrons—particles of electricity—are whirling so fast in these solid things that the empty spaces between them are not visible; hence they appear solid. In this world nothing is solid; all things are fluid. And among all things there is vast empty space.
Scientists say a railway engine can be compressed so much that it can fit into a matchbox—so much empty space is inside that solid iron. And scientists even say the entire world can be compressed into a small ball—there is that much empty space within it. But atoms are racing at great speed. Their velocity—the intensity of their movement—hides the emptiness between.
A fan spins fast. There are three blades, and much empty space between—but it is no more seen. The fan spins and the emptiness vanishes.
Things moving fast give rise to the idea of solidity. Could it be that if we go in to search, we find that this ego, which seems so solid, is not there at all—a delusion born of some great speed!
As soon as one engages in this inquiry, so it is found. The ego need not be dropped—through inquiry it is found to be nonexistent. And then, the state of mind that remains is neither humility nor ego. It is something entirely different, which has no relation left with ego—because it has been found that there is no ego. If we sit in the house in the dark, darkness appears to be. But if we bring a lamp to search for the darkness, a great difficulty arises—we find there is no darkness.
Once darkness lodged a complaint in God's court: “This sun is after me most terribly! Every morning he sets upon me; he has brought my life into danger.” So God summoned the sun and asked, “A complaint has come from darkness that you are unjustly persecuting it! What enmity have you with it?”
The sun said, “Darkness! I have never yet met it. Where is it? Where is that complainant? Let me see it, then I will say whether I have any enmity.”
But even God grew weary—thousands of years have passed since that complaint, and still he has not been able to bring darkness before the sun. Many times the sun has gone to him saying, “What is the matter? Where is the complainant?” Now even God has had to admit that it is very difficult—darkness cannot be brought before the sun.
In truth, darkness is not. If it were, it could surely be brought. If it had any existence, it could be brought. But it has no existence—it is only an absence. Darkness is the absence of light; it has no being of its own, no substance. It is only the name of light’s non-presence. Hence it can never be brought before light—where light is present, how can non-presence be brought? Darkness is an absence, not a presence.
Ego too is an absence, not the presence of something. Within us there is an absence of being awake—we are not awake within—hence there is ego. Ego is the result of our not being awake—of our non-presence, our absence. Ego has no being of its own. Ego is not existential.
There are two kinds of things in the world: those that have being; and those that are only the absence of some being—they have no being of their own. The Atman has being; the ego has none. Therefore those who try to fill the ego are in error; those who try to drop the ego are in a deeper error. How will you drop what is not?
So the one we call egotistical is one error; the one we call humble is another error. How will you drop what is not? What is not cannot be filled; what is not cannot be dropped either.
The house is filled with darkness. All of us together bundle up darkness and try to throw it out—will we be able to throw it out? We will take our bundles outside, the darkness will remain behind—bundles will reach out empty. Shall we bring guns and swords and frighten darkness—“Get out!”—will darkness go out? Or shall we organize ourselves, gather strength, and drive darkness out? Or shall we fight darkness and thus be rid of it?
No—we will go mad. Because however much we fight, darkness will remain where it is. However many guns and swords we wield, nothing will happen—darkness will remain as it was. If darkness were something, swords would work; if it were something, we could bundle it and throw it out. But darkness is nothing.
So no one fights darkness—but people fight the ego, and they do not see that darkness and ego are exactly alike. There is not the slightest difference—not even an iota of difference. That is why, fighting the ego, people die, but in the end they find that the ego stands where it was—it goes nowhere; it does not stir. Then they begin to think, “Ego is a great power—we have been defeated, it has not.” They think, “Ego is very strong; it is impossible to conquer it.”
And I tell you, ego is not—it is not a question of strength at all. If it were strong, somehow we could subdue it. However strong something is, a greater strength can be found. But how will you win against what is not? How will you defeat it? How will you erase it?
Ego is like darkness. It is our absence—our inner absence; we are asleep within, hence there is ego. If we awaken within, awakening has never found ego there. Then there is no need to drop it or to fill it—ego is simply not found. It is not, it never was.
Therefore I do not say, “Drop the ego.” The usual education of thousands of years—“Drop the ego, drop pride”—is wrong. For that teaching assumes it exists. And what we have assumed to exist, which in reality does not—life will be wasted in trying to drop it, and nothing will happen—nothing at all.
A fakir was to come to a village. He was very renowned, famous far and wide—news of his austerities had spread beyond the land. He lived totally naked, a great ascetic, a man of fasts. He was to enter the capital. The king of that state was his childhood friend. He thought, “I will arrange a grand welcome.” He made great arrangements—spread costly Persian carpets along the roads, lit lamps throughout the city, sprinkled perfume across the town, filled it with fragrance.
The fakir was on his way. People said to him, “The king, your childhood friend, wants to stun you. He has adorned the capital so that you look faded, reduced to nothing; so that he can show he is a great emperor and has inexhaustible heaps of wealth. And you—what are you? A naked fakir! To display his wealth and power he is decorating the capital.”
The fakir said, “Do not worry—we shall see what he wants to show.”
At dusk, when the fakir arrived, the king stood outside the village beneath a great archway. His queens, his ministers—all were present. They accorded a royal welcome. But they were all stunned. It was a hot summer day, yet the naked fakir's legs were plastered with mud up to the knees! Everyone was astonished—there was no possibility of such mud anywhere. It was a desert land—water was scarce; how then thick mud? And it was not the rainy season—the roads were dry, the sun boiling fire. Where had this fakir waded so deep into mud? But to ask straightaway was not appropriate. The fakir walked with his mud-caked feet over the Persian carpets. Even the palace steps were carpeted—he walked over them too. Once inside, the king asked, “It seems some trouble befell you—your feet are filled with mud! What happened? Any mishap?”
The fakir said, “No mishap. What do you think of yourself—that by laying Persian carpets upon the road you wish to flaunt your splendor? Then we too are fakirs—we will walk upon them with muddy feet and show you!”
The king embraced the fakir and said, “My friend, I thought you might have changed. We both stand where we parted. I thought I am the egotist—that is why I expand the empire. It never occurred to me that you too are an egotist—that is why you have become naked.”
There are two kinds of egotists in the world. One who seeks position, power, and wealth—and one who renounces position, renounces wealth, renounces power. These are the two extremes of ego; both are ego. There is a third orientation in life—and a third experience—not the filling of ego, not the dropping of ego. It is the knowing of this truth: ego was a shadow, an absence. Ego is not, never was.
Through awakening within the mind it is realized: ego is darkness. Awakening is the way of becoming empty; ego is fullness. And he who is full of ego—remember—will be empty of Paramatma. For after all, when we go to invite the Divine, there must be room within for him to come—some space, some place for him to enter. Even if he comes to the door, what will happen? If we are filled within, he will have to return from the threshold. And he stands at the door perpetually—but within we are full. And we are full within because within we sleep—within all is stupor and sleep; no ray of awakening within.
But no one admits he is asleep within. As a madman never admits he is mad, so the sleeper never admits he is asleep. But remember: one who would break his inner sleep must first know and accept—“I am asleep”—then something can happen.
A fakir had gone to a village—he was explaining things to people. The whole village gathered. A very rich man too came, sitting right in front. But all day, all day he had been involved in making money—tired and worn. The fakir spoke, the wealthy man slept. As often happens—fakirs speak, the rich sleep. He too was asleep. His name was Asoji—it was a village in Rajasthan. The fakir saw he was asleep, so he paused in his talk and said, “Asoji, are you sleeping?”
He quickly opened his eyes and said, “No, sir—I listen with my eyes closed; I do not sleep.”
After a while the fakir spoke some more—Asoji slept again. How long can a sleeping man stay awake? Wakefulness is not by opening eyes—he slept again. Again the fakir paused and asked, “Asoji, are you sleeping?”
Asoji became angry. A sleeping man becomes angry quickly. He said, “Why do you keep repeating—‘Are you sleeping, are you sleeping?’ I am listening with eyes closed, attentively—and you think I am sleeping. And this whole village will hear ‘Asoji sleeps’—there will be disrepute. Do not say this again. Continue your talk. What is the point, what I am doing?”
Again the discourse proceeded. The fakir must have been stubborn too. A little later, Asoji slept once more. The third time the fakir paused and said something new. He said, “Asoji, are you alive?”
In sleep Asoji thought the same old question had been asked. He said, “No, no—who says so?” He thought perhaps the fakir had again asked, “Asoji, are you sleeping?” So he replied, “No, no—who says so?”
The fakir said, “Now the matter is caught. And you speak rightly, for he who sleeps does not live.”
Life is awakening; life is not sleep. But we all are asleep. On the outside we may seem a little awake; within we are fast asleep. And even outside our wakefulness is very slow and dim—not very intense, not very radiant.
You are sitting here—it seems you are listening to me. But you are not listening to me much. Inside a kind of sleep is going on—dreams are afloat, who knows what thoughts are passing. In that stupor, how can you hear me? If you hear at all, it will be like this—I will say, “Are you alive?” and you will understand, “Are you sleeping?” You will hear thus.
Inside there is stupor, a fainting, a swoon. You walk on the road—inside the swoon goes on; you keep walking. Life is passed nearly in sleep. Every morning you get up—do not think you have awakened. There is only a little, dim awareness outwardly. Groping in that haze, somehow life is spent—but life is not known. To know, great intensity is needed—of awakening; great urgency, great passion.
We are sitting here. If we lay a wooden plank upon the ground—one foot wide and a hundred feet long—and ask everyone to walk upon it, all will walk—small children, women, old people—none will fall. But if we place the same plank between the roofs of two buildings—one foot wide, a hundred feet long—and ask people to walk—no one will agree. If someone does, after two steps he will return—“This risks my life.” What is the matter? The plank is the same; on the ground you could walk—what changed?
What changed is that on the ground you could walk in stupor; now you cannot. Now you must walk with great awareness. There is no habit of awareness. On the ground you could walk even in sleep—there was no danger; you could sleep-walk. But now the plank is strung between roofs—the plank is the same, the width is the same, the length the same, you are the same—what difference has arisen in walking? A new danger has appeared. And that danger is—you will have to walk with awareness.
Wherever in life there is great danger, a little awareness arises in us—otherwise we walk asleep. And we are very clever—if dangers come, we arrange something so that even through them we can pass while asleep.
A danger comes, there is a jolt—we feel a little awareness. But then we go back to sleep. Someone in the house dies—someone we loved—there is a shock; for a second something within begins to wake. But immediately we begin to say, “Ah, the soul is immortal. Why worry? The Atman is immortal.” The shock of death—repeating “the soul is immortal, immortal”—understanding it, “no need to be upset, it is the fruit of karma”—finding twenty-five explanations—we go back to sleep. A chance had come—a jolt of death—and some blow within could have awakened us. But we took up explanations, read scriptures, consulted a pundit; cried a day or two; then all became fine—again we began to move, again sleep was reestablished.
In life there come some moments when we are suddenly shaken and the chance to awaken arrives, a shock—and the chance to awaken. But no, we are very clever people. We carefully protect our sleep, set it again, arrange again. Then the carriage begins to move asleep once more.
This sleep of ours, this inner slumber—it is this sleep that has deprived us of knowing what we are. Let us see—who am I?…
Sleep has deprived us of ourselves. And in the state of being deprived of oneself, we have constructed a substitute personality—a pseudo-self—an ego: “I am this, I am that.” I have wealth, so I am this; I have position, so I am that. I became president, so I am this; I became that, so I am that. We then build our ego as a substitute. There is no clue to the Atman—who am I?—so we put on garments and, according to them, we decide what I am.
Hence we are hurt—if someone slightly pulls at our garment, we are deeply hurt. For if the garment is pulled, within it will not be known who I am. By that garment I have held myself together.
If someone is removed from office, how he suffers—as if his life were leaving him. Why? Because while on the post he felt “I am something.” Without the post he will be a nobody; he will not know who he is or is not. The search for position and wealth is for this very reason. It is so intense that I may feel I am something—somebody. The higher a man climbs upon the peaks of position, the more he feels, “I am something.”
But the great joke is—this feeling that I am something, I am producing it, and to avoid the real question I am seeking a substitute; without knowing who and what I am!
Who am I? The whole foundation of religion's search is this inquiry. And to know this, there is no need of scriptures or devotion—but of awakening within and entering within. Whatever is happening in life, observe and examine it with much awareness. As you become awake to each act of life… as of now you are not awake to any act.
A man sat before Buddha, shaking his big toe. Buddha said, “My friend, can you tell me—why does this toe move?” No sooner had Buddha asked, “Why does the toe move?” than the toe stopped right there. Buddha said, “Tell me—why does the toe move?”
He said, “I have no idea why it moves—I do not know.”
Buddha said, “Your toe moves and you do not know why—does this become you? Is this becoming? Your toe—and you do not know why it moves! Then not only about the toe—you probably do not know about other things either—why they happen!
“If you sleep on one level, you will sleep on other levels too. And if you awaken on one level, you will awaken on other levels as well.”
The effort to awaken on every level—I call that sadhana. To awaken on the level of the body—what is happening; to awaken on the level of the world—what is happening; to awaken on the level of the mind—what is happening there. And the person engaged in the labor of awakening on these three levels—gradually a new awareness, a flame, begins to be lit within him which sees everything. And as this capacity to see develops in him, transformation begins within. Because as he awakens, first of all his ego begins to dissolve. He begins to see, “I? There is no such thing as I!”
For now we say, “My birth happened.” To such a man it appears: what is this ‘my’—birth happened; it is enough to say this. Life took a form—it is enough to say that. To say, “My birth happened,” is sheer foolishness—for before birth neither was I asked, nor informed, nor was my opinion taken. How can I say, “My birth happened”? And we say, “I breathe.” One who knows, knows: breath comes and goes—where do I breathe? And if I breathe, then death cannot come—for when death arrives I will keep breathing—then what will happen? Death will have to return empty-handed.
But no—we know that the breath that goes out—if it does not return inside, I will not be able to bring it back. Then, if at the moment of death I cannot take breath, in life my saying, “I breathed,” was it not a mistake?
Are you breathing? Then keep the breath inside! In a little while you will find breath wants to go out and will leave you there and go. Breath is coming and going—are you taking it? The one who awakens a little sees: breath comes and goes—where am I?
We say, “I felt hungry, I felt thirsty.” The one who knows sees: thirst happens, hunger happens—where am I? As he searches in life, he finds events are happening—and I am joining them to my I, needlessly. Death will come; birth will be; breath will move. We were children, we became young. We say, “I became young.” What a joke—as if you brought youth with you. Youth came. Youth comes, old age comes, birth happens, death happens. But we join everything to the I—“I!”—and we erect a false I which is nowhere.
A small story is very dear to me. Near a palace some children used to play. In play they lifted a stone from a heap and threw it toward the palace window. As the stone rose upward it said to the stones lying below, “Friends, I am going on a journey to the sky.”
The stones below listened in silent envy—what else could they do? It was surely going upward. They too had longed to go; but they had no wings—never could they fly. But today a stone of their heap, without wings, was going upward—it was a miracle! And naturally that stone said, “I am going on a journey to the sky.”
It had been thrown—but it said, “I am going to the sky.” It went up and struck the palace window—the glass shattered. So it said, “How many times have I said—do not come in my way, or you will be shattered!”
The glass had indeed shattered—but it said, “Let no one come in my way! How many times have I said—whoever comes in my way, I will shatter!” Now see, shattered to pieces you lie!
The glass lay in fragments, weeping. The stone went inside and fell upon the carpet. As it fell it said, “So tired—I destroyed an enemy, made a long journey—let me rest a little. And how good is the master of this mansion! It seems the news of my arrival had already reached—carpets have been spread, arrangements of welcome are complete. How good these people are, how hospitable! The arrangements were made in advance—everything arranged properly. Perhaps word had gone that I was coming. After all, I am no small stone—I am a flying stone, a traveling stone. I am not an ordinary, common stone—I am special. Ordinary stones lie on the ground; those who are great among stones travel the sky. So it is proper that arrangements were made to welcome me.”
Just then the palace servant must have heard the sound of breaking glass and the arrival of the stone—he came running. He picked up the stone in his hand. The stone said, “How loving these people are!” A thank-you arose in his heart. “How wonderful is the master of the house! He has sent his special representative to welcome me, to lift me in his own hands and love me.”
And that servant flung the stone back through the window. As it returned, the stone said, “Now I shall go. I missed my home and friends greatly—I felt homesick.” It fell back into the heap of stones. The stones below had been staring up at it—when it fell, it said, “Friends, I missed you very much. Granted, we lie out here in the open and there I received the welcome of palaces—but I kicked that palace aside, I spurned it, I renounced it. One’s own home is one’s own, another’s house is another’s. It is a different joy—to live with you all. The master of the palace had even lifted me in his hands and started loving me—but I did not fall prey to his attachment. I said, ‘I will go home.’ It was very difficult—very difficult for them to let me go. He was holding me in his hand—but I made my way back. I missed you all so much.”
All the stones began to listen to it closely, and they said, “Such a thing has never happened in our lineage—in our history it happens very rarely that one of us travels the sky. You are greatly fortunate—there seems to be special grace upon you from God. Do write your autobiography—it will benefit coming children. They will read and feel proud—what great ones were born in the past, what knowers, what travelers.”
That stone is writing its autobiography. Many stones have written theirs before; it too is writing its own. The children of many stones are very delighted—very thrilled—singing the glories of the past; the children of that stone will do the same.
We laugh at that stone—but we do not laugh at ourselves! What are we doing? Is our life-story any different from that stone’s? But that stone connected every event to the center of I—erected a false center and connected every occurrence to it. We too are erecting a false center and joining all events to it.
My submission is: search within—does this center of I exist anywhere? And whoever has searched has never found such a center within. There is no such center within. And when this center is not found, then what is found is that—which we call Atman, or Paramatma, or whatever name you give. When this center of I is not found—when it scatters, when it melts like a shadow, disappears like darkness—then what remains is truth. First it appears within oneself, so we call it Atman. But as the realization of that truth deepens, the same truth begins to be seen within all—and we call it Paramatma.
What is within me is within all. But when I do not see it within me, how will I see it in all? The knower learns from scriptures that there is God—that God is false. The devotee imagines there is God—that God is false. But one who finds that his ego is not—and when the ego dissolves, what is seen, that is truth—that is Paramatma. Neither through knowledge, nor through devotion—but it is found when one’s own ego is not found. When the ego is not found, then That is found. Those who are filled with themselves remain deprived of That.
But I do not say, “Drop the ego.” That is a mistaken teaching. It has led thousands astray. I say—do not drop, inquire! Do not run from ego—awaken! In awakening, it is not found. And then a revolution happens in life—the only revolution that can happen in man’s life. And then man becomes something else—someone else entirely. He is no longer merely a man—he becomes one with the cosmic presence. Then there is no sorrow, no pain. Then no anguish, no hatred. Then there is no anger. Then there is bliss, then there is a music, then there is a love, then there is a light. And in all that, there is moksha, there is liberation.
When the ego dissolves, what is found is truth—and truth sets one free. All fetters—every bondage of life—fall away, just as dry leaves fall from the trees. And what is found cannot be said in words. It has never been said, nor can it ever be said. Words are too small; what is found there is too vast. Words are man-made; what is found there is Paramatma himself. The journey is to be made toward this emptiness.
Now we shall sit for the morning meditation. Move a little away from one another. Leave the body as relaxed as possible. Hold no kind of resistance in the mind. Outside there are sounds—the winds are shaking the trees, birds will call—whatever happens—hold no inner resistance to any sound. Sit like an empty void. The winds will bring sounds; they will resound within you and pass on. Birds will speak; their sound will enter within you and pass through. As if there is an empty room—sound comes, echoes in the empty room, and passes; then silence settles again. Again sound comes, again echoes in the empty room, passes; again silence deepens. And after each sound, the silence becomes deeper and deeper—deeper and deeper.
Sit like an empty void—as if you are not—and sounds will resound and pass. Listen to those sounds peacefully; remain awake toward them in silence. But no resistance, no blockage. Slowly, slowly, slowly, in listening, a deep peace will begin to descend. In that peace it will not even be known that the winds are separate and I am separate, the trees are separate and I am separate, the birds are separate and I am separate. It will not even be felt that I am distinct. Slowly, slowly, slowly, it will feel that I am joined with all and gathered into all. That very joining, that gathering-with-all, is meditation.
That peace in which all my walls have fallen—the walls which were cutting me off from the world—there, there is union.
Leave the body utterly loose and relaxed; no stiffness, no rigidity. You are doing no work—you are resting. No strain, no tension on the body—let it be loose. Let the eyes close gently—very gently; put no pressure upon the eyes, close the lids softly.
Osho's Commentary
Other than ego there is no barrier; other than ego there is no obstruction; other than ego there is no closed door. Therefore, whatever man does—be it knowledge, be it devotion, be it renunciation—through what man does, it cannot be reached. That is why I told you the first night: the one who runs will lose; the one who stops will find. The doer will not attain, but one who settles into non-doing will certainly arrive.
So this morning I want to begin with a small incident.
A wholly imaginary incident—it was seen in a dream. Some two thousand years ago, in Greece, there was a fakir, Diogenes. He did not live among men; he had raised two or three dogs—lived only with them. In a small cave the dogs were his only companions. Two thousand years back, in his cave, I went to meet him. I asked him, “I don’t see any human beings here! You are alone, and all these are dogs. Have you abandoned living among people?”
That fakir Diogenes said, “Men and dogs? To compare a man to a dog is itself uncouth! I found men unfit to live with, so I began living with dogs. And the dog is a very intelligent creature.” And Diogenes said, “A time will come when no man will prefer to live with another man. Instead a man will keep a dog and live with it. Man is far worse than a dog,” he went on.
I was very surprised and I asked, “For what reason is it so?”
But Diogenes did not laugh, he said nothing—his dogs began to laugh. Seeing this I was amazed, for no animal except man laughs. Laughter belongs to man's life alone; no other birds or beasts laugh. When those dogs began to laugh I said, “What is this? Do these dogs laugh too?”
One of the dogs spoke and said, “Not only do we laugh; we also speak. Living with man has spoiled us like this. Living with Diogenes, we have gone astray—we have started laughing, we have begun to talk. We have even started to talk like men. And that dog said to me, ‘Diogenes thinks dogs are very good, that one should live with them; and perhaps the time will come when others will think the same. But the real secret is known neither to Diogenes nor to any other man. The real secret is known to us dogs—what the matter is. We dogs have discovered man's weakness. We wag our tails and man becomes happy. Only dogs have understood man's weakness till now; no other creature has grasped it. So man stays pleased with us. We wag our tails—he is delighted. So weak is man that even our tail-wagging makes him happy. Ego is his weakness.’”
My dream broke upon hearing this. But later I reflected long and found that what those dogs said was true. Ego is man's weakness. Around the center of this weakness his whole life is constructed. For this weakness he lives and dies. He spends his entire life upon this weakness. For what? A notion: I am something! I am something! And whatever gives confirmation to this notion, whatever strengthens it—doing that he spends his life. And what does he find in the end? Finally death comes and carries everything away. The whole ego, all that had been gathered and reinforced all through life, scatters and is shattered.
Man does not fear death because he does not know what will happen in death. No—that is not the real fear. The real fear is that the ego he has constructed his whole life will scatter, will break. Therefore he fears death.
Not because death is terrifying. Death no one has seen—there is no reason to fear it. How can we fear what we do not know? To be afraid, one must know, one must recognize. Death is the unacquainted, the unknown; what cause is there to fear it? Who can say it will not be better than life? Who can say it will not be the supreme life? Who can say it will not be the beginning of a new life? We do not know death, so there is no reason to fear it. Then what is the fear?
The fear is this: that what we raised and labored for all our life—death scatters it and carries it away.
Yet we live revolving around this center. The ordinary worldly man, and the one we call a renunciate or sannyasin—both live around this center of ego. One wants to build big mansions in this life, another wants them in the beyond. One wants to secure himself here, another in the coming life. Someone seeks wealth and fame, someone seeks Paramatma. But the whole chase is of the ego—because wherever there is the race to attain, there is the race of the ego. Who wants to attain? Why does he want to attain? Who is this attainer? The mind is very weak at that point.
There was a fakir, Nasruddin. Before he became a fakir, he ran a small shop, an inn, near a forest in a village. The king of that country once went hunting into the forest, got lost, and by mistake reached that village at night—the village where Nasruddin's shop was. He had to stay there for the night. In the morning he bought two or four eggs from the shop and asked, “How much?” Nasruddin said, “One hundred gold coins.”
The king was astonished. He said, “This is remarkable! Are eggs so rare here? Are hens’ eggs so hard to find that four eggs cost one hundred gold coins? In the capital they cost a few pennies.”
Nasruddin said, “Eggs are not rare, sir—but kings are.”
The king immediately handed over the hundred coins.
The king had barely left when Nasruddin's wife asked, “It is so strange, he said nothing further and simply paid a hundred!”
Nasruddin said, “I know man's weakness. Kings come rarely. I just touched the point of weakness.”
And Nasruddin said, “Once more something like this happened. I went to a royal court. I had a turban on—very cheap, but very gaudy and glittering. Often it happens that cheap things are colorful and flashy—their cheapness hides in their dazzle. So, wearing a cheap turban, I entered the court. Seeing the sparkling turban, the emperor asked, ‘How much is it?’ I said, ‘A thousand rupees.’ The king was shocked—it wasn’t worth ten or five. The chief minister whispered into the king’s ear, ‘This man seems very dishonest. This is a two- or four-rupee turban; do not fall into his talk.’ Just then I said, ‘Your Majesty, shall I take your leave? I bought this turban for a thousand, and I was told there is a king upon this earth who could even buy it for two thousand. Shall I go? This is not that court, you do not seem to be that emperor. I came here by mistake. Let me seek some other court, find some other emperor who can buy it for two thousand. You do not seem to be him; this does not seem to be that court.’ The king said, ‘Give him two thousand and buy the turban.’”
The turban was purchased and two thousand were given. As I was stepping out, the minister said to me, “You are a very strange man!”
I whispered in his ear, “Sir, you may know the price of turbans; I know the weakness of men.”
Man is very weak at a single point. At the point of ego lies all the weakness. Yet we think that is our strength, our power. If someone mistakes his weakness as strength, then freedom from weakness becomes impossible; and if sickness is taken to be health, then it is very difficult. But we all have taken weakness to be strength—and taking it thus, we circle around it our whole life. We do not even see that from that circling arise all our misery, all our restlessness, all our anxiety, all our pain.
Have you ever peeped behind any of your sorrows? Have you ever searched behind your pain, your unrest, your worry, your insult? What will you find there?
On searching you will find the ego. On searching you will find the I. All the hurt, all the blows of life, land upon my I. And I writhe, I writhe, and I make arrangements for security—I build walls so that no blow can reach me. And in this way I try to live continuously so that this I of mine may flourish and bloom.
But on the tree of ego no fruits grow other than sorrow, anxiety, and pain. They cannot, have never, and will never grow. The very seed of ego contains the possibilities of suffering—of pain, of worry, of insult, of anger, of war, of violence, of hatred—all the possibilities are gathered there. And the great jest is that without ever asking, “Who am I?” we go on saying, “I am, I am, I am something”—without knowing who I am.
There are two kinds of paths in the world. One path bears the sign: I am something. The other path bears the sign: Who am I? The irreligious man journeys on the path of “I am something.” The religious man, before he says “I am something,” wants to know—Who am I? And the great secret is that when he sets out to inquire “Who am I?” he finds that the I is not there at all. And he who sets out to be something, he keeps seeking, wastes his life; he is not able to become anything—and remains deprived even of knowing what is.
A Chinese fakir named Chuang Tzu was returning one night to his village. A cremation ground lay in between, and a skull lay there—his foot struck it. He picked up the skull, placed it upon his head, and brought it home. His friends said, “What are you doing?”
He said, “I have committed a great mistake; my foot touched this skull. And that cremation ground was not for small people—it was for great people.
“In life there are small and great—even cremation grounds are separate for the small and the great. Even after death we keep a distance—you were a small man, I was a great man.”
“So the cremation ground was for the great; this is the skull of some great man—and my foot touched it. This is mere coincidence that this man is dead; otherwise there would be no saving my head. If he were alive and my foot struck his head, there would be no escape. It is only by coincidence that he died. But for such a mere coincidence I should not err—I must seek forgiveness. That is why I have brought it upon my head; at home I will pray to it, ‘Forgive me.’”
They laughed and said, “What madness you speak!”
He said, “And I have also brought it so that I may keep it by me, so I remember that today or tomorrow my head too will lie in some cremation ground and people’s feet will strike it. And when people’s feet are anyway to strike, and the head is anyway to fall into dust, and people’s steps will pass over it—what difference does it make if someone kicked me while alive? What difference does it make—how much difference does it make? Let this be my remembrance; that is why I brought it.”
The ego we nurture through life—at the end we find it lying in the dust and people’s feet falling upon it. That ego which we guard our whole life—where is it? Turned to dust, turned to ash, blown by the wind—no trace to be found. Smoke in the fire, earth in the earth—where is it? How many have lived upon this earth! Even where we sit, who knows how many lie buried beneath. There is no patch of earth where crores upon crores have not been interred. There is no piece of earth that is not a cremation ground. And how many egos they had! For their egos how much pain they suffered, how they struggled, how they were violent, how they hated, how they dreamt of sorrow and pain, how they lost nights, lost sleep, lost their lives. Where are those people? Where are those egos? And those who suffered the torment of ego all life long—could they have known any peace or joy? Could they have known any truth?
Yet we walk the same road they walked. And we make the same journey. And every man travels the same mistaken path that countless before him have traveled. But we do not search consciously to see what we are doing.
And let none think that only those who build palaces, seek high offices, and great positions are egotists—do not think so. Those who leave everything and stand naked—their egos too know no end. Those who renounce all and become sannyasins—their ego also knows no end. Ego is a very strange thing! It can fill itself with wealth, and it can fill itself through the renunciation of wealth. It can nourish itself from position, and from the renunciation of position. It can find its food in palaces and in huts alike—in the worldly and in the monk. Wherever I do something, from that very doing ego begins to seek its nourishment. Then what to do? Drop the ego?
Dropping would be another effort—and through dropping the ego never drops. Yes, it may happen that humility is draped upon oneself from the outside—and then the humble man declares, “There is none more humble than me.” And this declaration is the declaration of ego. Humility too can become food for ego. Ego means: I am! And I am something which no one else is. Then it can take any form. A sannyasin may say, “I am a renunciate—and no one else is. I am the one who has let go—everyone else is false.” And there the ego will stand again.
How to drop the ego? The ego cannot be dropped. Then what? What is to be done? And this same ego fills the consciousness. Because of it, the mind cannot be empty, cannot be a void, cannot be silent, cannot be in meditation. What to do?
The first thing is not to do anything—the first thing is to inquire: where is this ego? What is it? It needs to be searched within—where is it, and what is it? Is it really something? Or has a shadow taken its seat in the mind and we are running after it? Is it something? Or is it a delusion arising due to some momentum of life?
If we lift a torch and whirl it fast, a circle of fire appears. The circle is nowhere; it does not exist. The torch whirls so fast that the gaps between movements are not seen—so an entire circle seems to be there. If we stop the torch we find that the circle was nowhere—there was only the torch.
Could it be that the ego too is a circle arising due to the swift motion of life, of thought? And if there is such a point, born only of speed, which appears solid—
Do you know, what appears solid to you is not solid at all! Electrons—particles of electricity—are whirling so fast in these solid things that the empty spaces between them are not visible; hence they appear solid. In this world nothing is solid; all things are fluid. And among all things there is vast empty space.
Scientists say a railway engine can be compressed so much that it can fit into a matchbox—so much empty space is inside that solid iron. And scientists even say the entire world can be compressed into a small ball—there is that much empty space within it. But atoms are racing at great speed. Their velocity—the intensity of their movement—hides the emptiness between.
A fan spins fast. There are three blades, and much empty space between—but it is no more seen. The fan spins and the emptiness vanishes.
Things moving fast give rise to the idea of solidity. Could it be that if we go in to search, we find that this ego, which seems so solid, is not there at all—a delusion born of some great speed!
As soon as one engages in this inquiry, so it is found. The ego need not be dropped—through inquiry it is found to be nonexistent. And then, the state of mind that remains is neither humility nor ego. It is something entirely different, which has no relation left with ego—because it has been found that there is no ego. If we sit in the house in the dark, darkness appears to be. But if we bring a lamp to search for the darkness, a great difficulty arises—we find there is no darkness.
Once darkness lodged a complaint in God's court: “This sun is after me most terribly! Every morning he sets upon me; he has brought my life into danger.” So God summoned the sun and asked, “A complaint has come from darkness that you are unjustly persecuting it! What enmity have you with it?”
The sun said, “Darkness! I have never yet met it. Where is it? Where is that complainant? Let me see it, then I will say whether I have any enmity.”
But even God grew weary—thousands of years have passed since that complaint, and still he has not been able to bring darkness before the sun. Many times the sun has gone to him saying, “What is the matter? Where is the complainant?” Now even God has had to admit that it is very difficult—darkness cannot be brought before the sun.
In truth, darkness is not. If it were, it could surely be brought. If it had any existence, it could be brought. But it has no existence—it is only an absence. Darkness is the absence of light; it has no being of its own, no substance. It is only the name of light’s non-presence. Hence it can never be brought before light—where light is present, how can non-presence be brought? Darkness is an absence, not a presence.
Ego too is an absence, not the presence of something. Within us there is an absence of being awake—we are not awake within—hence there is ego. Ego is the result of our not being awake—of our non-presence, our absence. Ego has no being of its own. Ego is not existential.
There are two kinds of things in the world: those that have being; and those that are only the absence of some being—they have no being of their own. The Atman has being; the ego has none. Therefore those who try to fill the ego are in error; those who try to drop the ego are in a deeper error. How will you drop what is not?
So the one we call egotistical is one error; the one we call humble is another error. How will you drop what is not? What is not cannot be filled; what is not cannot be dropped either.
The house is filled with darkness. All of us together bundle up darkness and try to throw it out—will we be able to throw it out? We will take our bundles outside, the darkness will remain behind—bundles will reach out empty. Shall we bring guns and swords and frighten darkness—“Get out!”—will darkness go out? Or shall we organize ourselves, gather strength, and drive darkness out? Or shall we fight darkness and thus be rid of it?
No—we will go mad. Because however much we fight, darkness will remain where it is. However many guns and swords we wield, nothing will happen—darkness will remain as it was. If darkness were something, swords would work; if it were something, we could bundle it and throw it out. But darkness is nothing.
So no one fights darkness—but people fight the ego, and they do not see that darkness and ego are exactly alike. There is not the slightest difference—not even an iota of difference. That is why, fighting the ego, people die, but in the end they find that the ego stands where it was—it goes nowhere; it does not stir. Then they begin to think, “Ego is a great power—we have been defeated, it has not.” They think, “Ego is very strong; it is impossible to conquer it.”
And I tell you, ego is not—it is not a question of strength at all. If it were strong, somehow we could subdue it. However strong something is, a greater strength can be found. But how will you win against what is not? How will you defeat it? How will you erase it?
Ego is like darkness. It is our absence—our inner absence; we are asleep within, hence there is ego. If we awaken within, awakening has never found ego there. Then there is no need to drop it or to fill it—ego is simply not found. It is not, it never was.
Therefore I do not say, “Drop the ego.” The usual education of thousands of years—“Drop the ego, drop pride”—is wrong. For that teaching assumes it exists. And what we have assumed to exist, which in reality does not—life will be wasted in trying to drop it, and nothing will happen—nothing at all.
A fakir was to come to a village. He was very renowned, famous far and wide—news of his austerities had spread beyond the land. He lived totally naked, a great ascetic, a man of fasts. He was to enter the capital. The king of that state was his childhood friend. He thought, “I will arrange a grand welcome.” He made great arrangements—spread costly Persian carpets along the roads, lit lamps throughout the city, sprinkled perfume across the town, filled it with fragrance.
The fakir was on his way. People said to him, “The king, your childhood friend, wants to stun you. He has adorned the capital so that you look faded, reduced to nothing; so that he can show he is a great emperor and has inexhaustible heaps of wealth. And you—what are you? A naked fakir! To display his wealth and power he is decorating the capital.”
The fakir said, “Do not worry—we shall see what he wants to show.”
At dusk, when the fakir arrived, the king stood outside the village beneath a great archway. His queens, his ministers—all were present. They accorded a royal welcome. But they were all stunned. It was a hot summer day, yet the naked fakir's legs were plastered with mud up to the knees! Everyone was astonished—there was no possibility of such mud anywhere. It was a desert land—water was scarce; how then thick mud? And it was not the rainy season—the roads were dry, the sun boiling fire. Where had this fakir waded so deep into mud? But to ask straightaway was not appropriate. The fakir walked with his mud-caked feet over the Persian carpets. Even the palace steps were carpeted—he walked over them too. Once inside, the king asked, “It seems some trouble befell you—your feet are filled with mud! What happened? Any mishap?”
The fakir said, “No mishap. What do you think of yourself—that by laying Persian carpets upon the road you wish to flaunt your splendor? Then we too are fakirs—we will walk upon them with muddy feet and show you!”
The king embraced the fakir and said, “My friend, I thought you might have changed. We both stand where we parted. I thought I am the egotist—that is why I expand the empire. It never occurred to me that you too are an egotist—that is why you have become naked.”
There are two kinds of egotists in the world. One who seeks position, power, and wealth—and one who renounces position, renounces wealth, renounces power. These are the two extremes of ego; both are ego. There is a third orientation in life—and a third experience—not the filling of ego, not the dropping of ego. It is the knowing of this truth: ego was a shadow, an absence. Ego is not, never was.
Through awakening within the mind it is realized: ego is darkness. Awakening is the way of becoming empty; ego is fullness. And he who is full of ego—remember—will be empty of Paramatma. For after all, when we go to invite the Divine, there must be room within for him to come—some space, some place for him to enter. Even if he comes to the door, what will happen? If we are filled within, he will have to return from the threshold. And he stands at the door perpetually—but within we are full. And we are full within because within we sleep—within all is stupor and sleep; no ray of awakening within.
But no one admits he is asleep within. As a madman never admits he is mad, so the sleeper never admits he is asleep. But remember: one who would break his inner sleep must first know and accept—“I am asleep”—then something can happen.
A fakir had gone to a village—he was explaining things to people. The whole village gathered. A very rich man too came, sitting right in front. But all day, all day he had been involved in making money—tired and worn. The fakir spoke, the wealthy man slept. As often happens—fakirs speak, the rich sleep. He too was asleep. His name was Asoji—it was a village in Rajasthan. The fakir saw he was asleep, so he paused in his talk and said, “Asoji, are you sleeping?”
He quickly opened his eyes and said, “No, sir—I listen with my eyes closed; I do not sleep.”
After a while the fakir spoke some more—Asoji slept again. How long can a sleeping man stay awake? Wakefulness is not by opening eyes—he slept again. Again the fakir paused and asked, “Asoji, are you sleeping?”
Asoji became angry. A sleeping man becomes angry quickly. He said, “Why do you keep repeating—‘Are you sleeping, are you sleeping?’ I am listening with eyes closed, attentively—and you think I am sleeping. And this whole village will hear ‘Asoji sleeps’—there will be disrepute. Do not say this again. Continue your talk. What is the point, what I am doing?”
Again the discourse proceeded. The fakir must have been stubborn too. A little later, Asoji slept once more. The third time the fakir paused and said something new. He said, “Asoji, are you alive?”
In sleep Asoji thought the same old question had been asked. He said, “No, no—who says so?” He thought perhaps the fakir had again asked, “Asoji, are you sleeping?” So he replied, “No, no—who says so?”
The fakir said, “Now the matter is caught. And you speak rightly, for he who sleeps does not live.”
Life is awakening; life is not sleep. But we all are asleep. On the outside we may seem a little awake; within we are fast asleep. And even outside our wakefulness is very slow and dim—not very intense, not very radiant.
You are sitting here—it seems you are listening to me. But you are not listening to me much. Inside a kind of sleep is going on—dreams are afloat, who knows what thoughts are passing. In that stupor, how can you hear me? If you hear at all, it will be like this—I will say, “Are you alive?” and you will understand, “Are you sleeping?” You will hear thus.
Inside there is stupor, a fainting, a swoon. You walk on the road—inside the swoon goes on; you keep walking. Life is passed nearly in sleep. Every morning you get up—do not think you have awakened. There is only a little, dim awareness outwardly. Groping in that haze, somehow life is spent—but life is not known. To know, great intensity is needed—of awakening; great urgency, great passion.
We are sitting here. If we lay a wooden plank upon the ground—one foot wide and a hundred feet long—and ask everyone to walk upon it, all will walk—small children, women, old people—none will fall. But if we place the same plank between the roofs of two buildings—one foot wide, a hundred feet long—and ask people to walk—no one will agree. If someone does, after two steps he will return—“This risks my life.” What is the matter? The plank is the same; on the ground you could walk—what changed?
What changed is that on the ground you could walk in stupor; now you cannot. Now you must walk with great awareness. There is no habit of awareness. On the ground you could walk even in sleep—there was no danger; you could sleep-walk. But now the plank is strung between roofs—the plank is the same, the width is the same, the length the same, you are the same—what difference has arisen in walking? A new danger has appeared. And that danger is—you will have to walk with awareness.
Wherever in life there is great danger, a little awareness arises in us—otherwise we walk asleep. And we are very clever—if dangers come, we arrange something so that even through them we can pass while asleep.
A danger comes, there is a jolt—we feel a little awareness. But then we go back to sleep. Someone in the house dies—someone we loved—there is a shock; for a second something within begins to wake. But immediately we begin to say, “Ah, the soul is immortal. Why worry? The Atman is immortal.” The shock of death—repeating “the soul is immortal, immortal”—understanding it, “no need to be upset, it is the fruit of karma”—finding twenty-five explanations—we go back to sleep. A chance had come—a jolt of death—and some blow within could have awakened us. But we took up explanations, read scriptures, consulted a pundit; cried a day or two; then all became fine—again we began to move, again sleep was reestablished.
In life there come some moments when we are suddenly shaken and the chance to awaken arrives, a shock—and the chance to awaken. But no, we are very clever people. We carefully protect our sleep, set it again, arrange again. Then the carriage begins to move asleep once more.
This sleep of ours, this inner slumber—it is this sleep that has deprived us of knowing what we are. Let us see—who am I?…
Sleep has deprived us of ourselves. And in the state of being deprived of oneself, we have constructed a substitute personality—a pseudo-self—an ego: “I am this, I am that.” I have wealth, so I am this; I have position, so I am that. I became president, so I am this; I became that, so I am that. We then build our ego as a substitute. There is no clue to the Atman—who am I?—so we put on garments and, according to them, we decide what I am.
Hence we are hurt—if someone slightly pulls at our garment, we are deeply hurt. For if the garment is pulled, within it will not be known who I am. By that garment I have held myself together.
If someone is removed from office, how he suffers—as if his life were leaving him. Why? Because while on the post he felt “I am something.” Without the post he will be a nobody; he will not know who he is or is not. The search for position and wealth is for this very reason. It is so intense that I may feel I am something—somebody. The higher a man climbs upon the peaks of position, the more he feels, “I am something.”
But the great joke is—this feeling that I am something, I am producing it, and to avoid the real question I am seeking a substitute; without knowing who and what I am!
Who am I? The whole foundation of religion's search is this inquiry. And to know this, there is no need of scriptures or devotion—but of awakening within and entering within. Whatever is happening in life, observe and examine it with much awareness. As you become awake to each act of life… as of now you are not awake to any act.
A man sat before Buddha, shaking his big toe. Buddha said, “My friend, can you tell me—why does this toe move?” No sooner had Buddha asked, “Why does the toe move?” than the toe stopped right there. Buddha said, “Tell me—why does the toe move?”
He said, “I have no idea why it moves—I do not know.”
Buddha said, “Your toe moves and you do not know why—does this become you? Is this becoming? Your toe—and you do not know why it moves! Then not only about the toe—you probably do not know about other things either—why they happen!
“If you sleep on one level, you will sleep on other levels too. And if you awaken on one level, you will awaken on other levels as well.”
The effort to awaken on every level—I call that sadhana. To awaken on the level of the body—what is happening; to awaken on the level of the world—what is happening; to awaken on the level of the mind—what is happening there. And the person engaged in the labor of awakening on these three levels—gradually a new awareness, a flame, begins to be lit within him which sees everything. And as this capacity to see develops in him, transformation begins within. Because as he awakens, first of all his ego begins to dissolve. He begins to see, “I? There is no such thing as I!”
For now we say, “My birth happened.” To such a man it appears: what is this ‘my’—birth happened; it is enough to say this. Life took a form—it is enough to say that. To say, “My birth happened,” is sheer foolishness—for before birth neither was I asked, nor informed, nor was my opinion taken. How can I say, “My birth happened”? And we say, “I breathe.” One who knows, knows: breath comes and goes—where do I breathe? And if I breathe, then death cannot come—for when death arrives I will keep breathing—then what will happen? Death will have to return empty-handed.
But no—we know that the breath that goes out—if it does not return inside, I will not be able to bring it back. Then, if at the moment of death I cannot take breath, in life my saying, “I breathed,” was it not a mistake?
Are you breathing? Then keep the breath inside! In a little while you will find breath wants to go out and will leave you there and go. Breath is coming and going—are you taking it? The one who awakens a little sees: breath comes and goes—where am I?
We say, “I felt hungry, I felt thirsty.” The one who knows sees: thirst happens, hunger happens—where am I? As he searches in life, he finds events are happening—and I am joining them to my I, needlessly. Death will come; birth will be; breath will move. We were children, we became young. We say, “I became young.” What a joke—as if you brought youth with you. Youth came. Youth comes, old age comes, birth happens, death happens. But we join everything to the I—“I!”—and we erect a false I which is nowhere.
A small story is very dear to me. Near a palace some children used to play. In play they lifted a stone from a heap and threw it toward the palace window. As the stone rose upward it said to the stones lying below, “Friends, I am going on a journey to the sky.”
The stones below listened in silent envy—what else could they do? It was surely going upward. They too had longed to go; but they had no wings—never could they fly. But today a stone of their heap, without wings, was going upward—it was a miracle! And naturally that stone said, “I am going on a journey to the sky.”
It had been thrown—but it said, “I am going to the sky.” It went up and struck the palace window—the glass shattered. So it said, “How many times have I said—do not come in my way, or you will be shattered!”
The glass had indeed shattered—but it said, “Let no one come in my way! How many times have I said—whoever comes in my way, I will shatter!” Now see, shattered to pieces you lie!
The glass lay in fragments, weeping. The stone went inside and fell upon the carpet. As it fell it said, “So tired—I destroyed an enemy, made a long journey—let me rest a little. And how good is the master of this mansion! It seems the news of my arrival had already reached—carpets have been spread, arrangements of welcome are complete. How good these people are, how hospitable! The arrangements were made in advance—everything arranged properly. Perhaps word had gone that I was coming. After all, I am no small stone—I am a flying stone, a traveling stone. I am not an ordinary, common stone—I am special. Ordinary stones lie on the ground; those who are great among stones travel the sky. So it is proper that arrangements were made to welcome me.”
Just then the palace servant must have heard the sound of breaking glass and the arrival of the stone—he came running. He picked up the stone in his hand. The stone said, “How loving these people are!” A thank-you arose in his heart. “How wonderful is the master of the house! He has sent his special representative to welcome me, to lift me in his own hands and love me.”
And that servant flung the stone back through the window. As it returned, the stone said, “Now I shall go. I missed my home and friends greatly—I felt homesick.” It fell back into the heap of stones. The stones below had been staring up at it—when it fell, it said, “Friends, I missed you very much. Granted, we lie out here in the open and there I received the welcome of palaces—but I kicked that palace aside, I spurned it, I renounced it. One’s own home is one’s own, another’s house is another’s. It is a different joy—to live with you all. The master of the palace had even lifted me in his hands and started loving me—but I did not fall prey to his attachment. I said, ‘I will go home.’ It was very difficult—very difficult for them to let me go. He was holding me in his hand—but I made my way back. I missed you all so much.”
All the stones began to listen to it closely, and they said, “Such a thing has never happened in our lineage—in our history it happens very rarely that one of us travels the sky. You are greatly fortunate—there seems to be special grace upon you from God. Do write your autobiography—it will benefit coming children. They will read and feel proud—what great ones were born in the past, what knowers, what travelers.”
That stone is writing its autobiography. Many stones have written theirs before; it too is writing its own. The children of many stones are very delighted—very thrilled—singing the glories of the past; the children of that stone will do the same.
We laugh at that stone—but we do not laugh at ourselves! What are we doing? Is our life-story any different from that stone’s? But that stone connected every event to the center of I—erected a false center and connected every occurrence to it. We too are erecting a false center and joining all events to it.
My submission is: search within—does this center of I exist anywhere? And whoever has searched has never found such a center within. There is no such center within. And when this center is not found, then what is found is that—which we call Atman, or Paramatma, or whatever name you give. When this center of I is not found—when it scatters, when it melts like a shadow, disappears like darkness—then what remains is truth. First it appears within oneself, so we call it Atman. But as the realization of that truth deepens, the same truth begins to be seen within all—and we call it Paramatma.
What is within me is within all. But when I do not see it within me, how will I see it in all? The knower learns from scriptures that there is God—that God is false. The devotee imagines there is God—that God is false. But one who finds that his ego is not—and when the ego dissolves, what is seen, that is truth—that is Paramatma. Neither through knowledge, nor through devotion—but it is found when one’s own ego is not found. When the ego is not found, then That is found. Those who are filled with themselves remain deprived of That.
But I do not say, “Drop the ego.” That is a mistaken teaching. It has led thousands astray. I say—do not drop, inquire! Do not run from ego—awaken! In awakening, it is not found. And then a revolution happens in life—the only revolution that can happen in man’s life. And then man becomes something else—someone else entirely. He is no longer merely a man—he becomes one with the cosmic presence. Then there is no sorrow, no pain. Then no anguish, no hatred. Then there is no anger. Then there is bliss, then there is a music, then there is a love, then there is a light. And in all that, there is moksha, there is liberation.
When the ego dissolves, what is found is truth—and truth sets one free. All fetters—every bondage of life—fall away, just as dry leaves fall from the trees. And what is found cannot be said in words. It has never been said, nor can it ever be said. Words are too small; what is found there is too vast. Words are man-made; what is found there is Paramatma himself. The journey is to be made toward this emptiness.
Now we shall sit for the morning meditation. Move a little away from one another. Leave the body as relaxed as possible. Hold no kind of resistance in the mind. Outside there are sounds—the winds are shaking the trees, birds will call—whatever happens—hold no inner resistance to any sound. Sit like an empty void. The winds will bring sounds; they will resound within you and pass on. Birds will speak; their sound will enter within you and pass through. As if there is an empty room—sound comes, echoes in the empty room, and passes; then silence settles again. Again sound comes, again echoes in the empty room, passes; again silence deepens. And after each sound, the silence becomes deeper and deeper—deeper and deeper.
Sit like an empty void—as if you are not—and sounds will resound and pass. Listen to those sounds peacefully; remain awake toward them in silence. But no resistance, no blockage. Slowly, slowly, slowly, in listening, a deep peace will begin to descend. In that peace it will not even be known that the winds are separate and I am separate, the trees are separate and I am separate, the birds are separate and I am separate. It will not even be felt that I am distinct. Slowly, slowly, slowly, it will feel that I am joined with all and gathered into all. That very joining, that gathering-with-all, is meditation.
That peace in which all my walls have fallen—the walls which were cutting me off from the world—there, there is union.
Leave the body utterly loose and relaxed; no stiffness, no rigidity. You are doing no work—you are resting. No strain, no tension on the body—let it be loose. Let the eyes close gently—very gently; put no pressure upon the eyes, close the lids softly.