Sadhana Sutra #15

The tenth sutra: “Ask of the earth, of the air, of the water—the secrets they hold for you. Through the development of your inner senses you shall be able to do this.”

The tenth sutra is well worth pondering. After a long journey—having understood and lived the earlier sutras—one may experiment with the tenth; not before. Earlier it will seem strange, incomprehensible, perhaps poetic, symbolic. But it is not poetry or symbol; it is a scientific fact—one that becomes apparent only after all the inner experiments are complete.

“Ask of the earth, of the air, of the water—the secrets they hold for you.”

This is among the basic foundations of the esoteric science of spirituality. Let us understand it.

Whatever supreme truths are proclaimed in this world are preserved in scriptures—and also in existence itself. In scriptures there can be error, because man compiles them. In existence there can be no error, because no one compiles it; it compiles itself.

Buddha spoke. His first utterance manifested under the Bodhi tree. Before even that, the supreme state of knowing dawned to Buddha under that tree. The Buddhists have tried to preserve that very Bodhi tree; it is alive even now. A branch of it was sent by Ashoka with his daughter Sanghamitra and his son Mahendra to Lanka. The monks, who could peer into the future, felt that Buddhism would not survive in India. Buddha too had declared that his dharma would not last more than five hundred years in India. The reason? The entry of women into the order.

For a long time Buddha insisted that women not be given sannyas. For years he postponed it; the sangha should be only for men. It seemed somewhat excessive. It was. Innumerable women were ready to become nuns; their petitions grew. At last, under their pressure and out of compassion for them, Buddha relented and gave initiation to women. The very day he did so, he said: if I had not admitted women, my dharma could have lasted thousands of years; now it will last only five hundred.

I too used to think Buddha overdid it, that it was not right to keep women out for so long. But as my contact with women increases, I begin to feel perhaps he was right.

Women’s emotional state, their way of working, is very different from men’s. As a result, many needless disturbances arise, which could be avoided. They weave such webs—of feeling, of imagination—and hold them so true that to pull them out of those imaginings is difficult. They entangle others in their webs. Women’s and men’s modes of thought are different, even opposite.

A man moves by intellect, by thought, by logic; thus there is order and plan in his work. Women move by feeling, by imagination, by dream; thus their work has no plan or order. And ten people can agree upon logic, but no one can agree upon imagination—imagination is private, logic can be shared. If I offer a logical argument, we can decide which side to accept. But if it is all feeling, there is no method of decision. Feeling is private.

Therefore women can never be easily organized. Even bringing four together is difficult. To build an army of women is impossible—every woman will become a commander; none can be a soldier. Every woman will issue orders; none will obey. Every woman will be so firm in her view that she cannot yield; and there is no way to make her yield, because logic is not in play. With logic there is the facility of thinking and concluding; with feeling there is none. Twenty or thirty women gathered can cause more upheaval than fifty thousand men. The working process is different; the manner is different.

So sometimes I too think Buddha was right. Perhaps pressing him to admit women was not appropriate. Earlier I thought this was lack of compassion—why stop women? Now I think perhaps greater compassion would have been to keep them out, so the dharma might have lasted thousands of years. Which is the greater compassion—admitting women and having it vanish in five hundred years, or keeping them out? It is hard to say.

Ashoka sent his son and daughter with a branch of the Bodhi tree to Lanka to safeguard it. Because the day Buddhism ended in India, the Bodhi tree would be burned, cut, destroyed—would dry up. That Bodhi tree stayed alive in Lanka. Only a few years ago, a branch from it was brought back and the Bodhi tree was re-established at Bodh Gaya.

The attachment to this tree is not merely sentimental. The supreme illumination that happened in Buddha’s life is imprinted in it. This tree drank that light; the explosion of Buddha’s being pervaded every fiber of this tree.

What man has compiled about Buddha contains errors—inevitably. Buddha speaks and twenty-five listeners draw twenty-five meanings. After Buddha’s death, when the sangha gathered to compile his words, there was great difficulty; no agreement. Even those always with him differed. One said, “He never said this.” Another, “He said this always.” One, “It means this.” Another, “It can never mean that.” It was arduous. Somehow, sifting through, what matched across testimonies was compiled.

If Buddha came today, he would deny it, because it is not original. First fifty people compiled it; then whatever did not match was removed; then only what everyone could agree on was kept. If Buddha appeared, he would say, “I never said this.”

Consider: I speak here; then your opinions are collected about what I said. From them a summary is extracted in which no one is offended, in which none disagrees. You can be quite sure: whatever that is, it will not be what I said. So many people together will destroy it.

But this Bodhi tree has no mind; it is silent and mute. What happened beneath it—Buddhahood—entered it. Not only into the tree, but into the nearby Niranjana river, into the earth whose particles were witness to such blazing light, into the sky that stood as witness—it entered all.

The sutra says: “Having acquired the power to use the inner senses, having conquered the desires of the outer senses, having overcome the cravings of the soul and attained knowledge, O disciple, prepare to enter the path. The path is found; prepare to walk upon it.”

“Ask of the earth, of the air, of the water—the secrets they hold for you.”

We need scriptures only because we do not know the art of asking existence. Otherwise the Bodhi tree will tell you what happened. The Niranjana will tell you. The earth will tell you what it witnessed when Buddha walked, when Mahavira sat, when Krishna danced.

Now, slowly, scientific bases for this are emerging, so understanding becomes easier. Scientists say that words spoken are never lost. They cannot be lost; they keep reverberating in the waves of the air. Sooner or later, they say, an instrument may be invented that can capture voices of the past. We will be able to determine whether Krishna truly spoke the Gita on the battlefield or not, because sound does not perish; it reverberates—subtle, subtler, but still there. It can be captured.

Consider: a New York radio station broadcasts; you hear it here. But it takes time to travel. If the announcement was made two minutes earlier in New York, you hear it two minutes later. What does this mean? It means what happened two minutes ago can be heard two minutes later—it becomes past. If two minutes later, why not two days later? In principle it is clear: the past can be caught. Previously, without radio, even two minutes later we could not catch it; now we can. Laboratories are working on this. They say it is not impossible that we could capture voices from two thousand, even two hundred thousand years ago. There are complexities, but the sound exists.

This sutra speaks of that. When science will catch it, who knows. But the one who conquers outer and inner senses, who settles in the void, who attains meditation—that person, without any instrument, need only focus silently, take his attention into the past and center it where Krishna spoke the Gita; then inwardly the Gita can be heard again.

Because in the inner realm there is no distance of time; there is no time there. There is no distance of space; there is no space there. That inner center is eternal. From there you can go to the past, and to the future. Then the secrets hidden in the air are revealed to you.

The sutra says: ask of the air, ask of the earth, ask of the water—these three hold many secrets.

Hindus built their temples on riverbanks for specific reasons. Their places of practice were on rivers—for specific reasons. All Hindu tirthas are on rivers—for specific reasons. The deepest processes of Hindu sadhana were preserved in water; hence the tirthas are so valuable.

People, in ignorance, keep traveling to Ganga, Yamuna—go to the confluence, gather fairs—without knowing that originally profound secrets lay behind this. Hindus hid their experiential secrets in the Ganga. One who can ask the Ganga can receive answers. So sitting by the Ganga is not merely tradition—it is meaningful.

The Jains built their temples and tirthas on mountains—deliberately. Because Hindus had deeply infused their processes along rivers; there was risk of the two mixing, getting entangled. So the Jains chose mountains for their tirthas and infused their vibrations into stone.

On a small mountain, Parasnath Hill, twenty-two of the twenty-four Jain tirthankaras left their bodies. This is no accident. In thousands of years, twenty-two out of twenty-four on the same mountain! The two who did not were due to incidental mishaps. Otherwise the plan was for all twenty-four to depart there. Because at the time of leaving the body, the light that arises from a tirthankara is imprinted forever on the rocks. One who knows the secret can still go to Parasnath Hill and ask the mountain: what happened here when Parshvanath left his body—what did you experience?

The procedures differ. To imprint in a river requires one method, because the river is in constant flow. To imprint in a mountain requires another, because the mountain is still. The whole process and technology differ.

All religions did not rely only on scripture—paper is unreliable. They found deeper ways. In Egypt, the religious built pyramids. In the design, in every stone, in the entire plan they hid everything they had known. Those who study the pyramids are amazed at the depth of mystery. It is said Egypt poured all it knew into the pyramids. But the keys have been lost. When a key is found here or there, some secrets are understood. Nowhere did the old religions rely on books alone. But pyramids are man-made; however strong, they can perish. Therefore in India we did not try to hide in man-made things; we placed it in nature’s own elements.

“Ask of the earth, of the air, of the water—the secrets they hold for you.”

In a particular state of meditation, contact is established; answers begin to come. But before that, your heart must be so quiet that you do not project your own answers into it; otherwise everything will be distorted. You must be so silent that there remains no way for you to add anything—only then will you know what is being said. Otherwise you will mix in your own.

People come to me and say, “You told me this in a dream.” I tell them: first learn to be quiet. Otherwise the dream is yours, the ‘I’ in your dream is also yours; it is not me. You create the dream and you create me in it, and then you make me say what you want to hear—because you dare not trust yourself, so you make me your mouthpiece.

There is no end to the ways a person can deceive himself. People come and say, “You ordered it; therefore we did this!” When did you take orders from me? “You said it in a dream.” And what they did is precisely what they wanted to do. Many times I am amazed: I am directly telling them, “Do not do this,” and they do not even hear it. They say, “You ordered it in a dream, so we did it.” I am plainly instructing them; they do not hear it, much less do it. This is what I call deception—though they do not realize it. I tell them openly, “Do this,” and they shake their heads, “That we cannot do.” But what I supposedly said in a dream, that they obey! Clearly, they only do what they want.

Until your mind has become completely quiet, you will hear only what you wish to hear. You will do only what you wish to do. The world’s secrets cannot open to you, because you are so jammed with your own feelings, desires, cravings that even if existence wants to reveal something, it cannot. But if your meditation deepens and such a moment comes when you can experience there is no thought, then experiment a little.

Experiment a little. In such a meditative state, spend some days under a tree. Any tree can do. But if it is a special tree, the result will be quicker and clearer—like the Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya. If you sit beneath it in meditation for seven days—if your meditation has ripened—then go there and sit seven nights under the tree, meditating. And when you feel utterly empty, say to the tree only this: “If you have anything to say to me, say it.” Then sit silently and wait. You will be astonished—the tree will say something to you, and something that can transform your whole life.

The tree has stored something, preserved something, and it is preserved only for those who have the capacity to ask. If they ask, they will receive the answer. But there is no need to go that far. This sky holds all the Buddhas within itself. Upon this earth, all the Mahaviras and all the Jesuses and all the Krishnas have walked and risen. You can ask the earth itself.

In full meditation, lie naked upon the earth as a small child lies upon his mother’s breast. Feel that the whole earth is your mother—you hold her breast in your hand and lie upon her chest. Become utterly quiet and empty. When you feel that there is no difference between the soil of your body and her soil, that both have become one, and the void reigns within you, then ask. If the earth holds any message for you, it will be given. You will find that never before have you received such a powerful message. After receiving it you will not remain who you were. Then you can go deeper into this process. In this way, much that is otherwise lost can be obtained.

This book by Mabel Collins too was recovered in this way. Its original Sanskrit manuscript was lost thousands of years ago. There is no original now. Mabel Collins obtained these sutras through such secret methods; therefore she is not their author. She did not write this book; she read it through certain hidden doors of life. She compiled what she heard. She herself notes that these sutras belong to some lost Sanskrit text. “I am not the author; I did not compose them; I heard them,” and she has preserved them as they are.

Many books are lost. Whatever man makes is lost. But there are other means by which the lost can be recovered. Many books have been interpolated; much has been added by later hands. Until their original can be recovered from the earth and sky, we cannot trust them, for much that is added is not original. But we do not know the keys that unlock the locks of the air. One master-key is clear—by it all locks open. It is your state of emptiness. Then you can speak with Mahaviras, meet Buddhas face to face; Krishna’s flute can be heard again. But your becoming a void is essential.

“You shall be able to do this through the development of your inner senses.”

The eleventh sutra: “Ask the holy ones of the earth the secrets they hold for you. By conquering the desires of the outer senses you shall obtain the right to know these secrets.”

“Ask the holy ones of the earth.”

This too needs a little understanding.

Those who carry bodies are not the only ones in this world; there are bodiless beings—disembodied souls. Whenever a person dies, if he is ordinary—full of ordinary desires and virtues and faults—he is reborn instantly, because ordinary wombs are always available; there is no shortage. He need not stand in any queue.

But if someone is extraordinarily evil, there is a wait, because to find an equivalently disturbed womb is difficult. When a Hitler dies, he has to wait—sometimes for hundreds of years—until a womb as chaotic as his is found. Likewise, if someone is extraordinarily good, very saintly, there is a long wait; a suitably noble womb is hard to find. The extremely good and extremely bad are difficult; the ordinary is readily available. Those bad souls who remain without bodies we call ghosts; those good souls who remain without bodies we call devas. The reference here is to the devas.

“Ask the holy ones of the earth the secrets they hold for you.”

If you can be quiet, you will find yourself entering another realm, where many disembodied souls are eager to help you; they can open many doors that you might not reach through your personal effort in many lifetimes. These souls have not attained liberation, because those who are liberated are extremely difficult to contact. But those disembodied souls waiting for an auspicious birth are easy to contact. It is only a matter of tuning—like turning the knob of a radio until the needle rests exactly at the station. If it is even slightly off, there is only noise. If it stops at the right point, reception begins. Likewise, if you master the art of stopping attention at the right spot, you can connect anywhere. Many souls are eager to help and lighten your work. Many souls are eager to harm and ruin what you have built.

Those of wicked nature delight in troubling others; the good delight in delighting others. Around you are many souls that can benefit you—and many that can harm you. If you are very fearful, anxious, tumultuous within, you are more likely to connect with bad souls, because then you are an open door to them. Often, when you are frightened, ghosts appear to you—not because fear creates them, but because fear connects you to them; fear opens you to them.

When you are fearless, quiet, joyful, then your door to bad souls is closed. In those moments you can connect with good souls. That is why I keep saying in meditation: only in joy, in supreme joy, can you unite with the divine; there is no other way. It is a tuning. When you are filled with joy, you connect with the source of joy in existence. When you are filled with sorrow, you connect with the spread of sorrow in existence.

A sorrowful man, we say, goes to hell—he need not go anywhere; he opens to hell, and hell enters him. A happy man opens to heaven, and heaven enters him. One who is blissful opens to the supreme being, and the supreme enters him. To which side are you open? In that direction your life will begin to expand.

This sutra says: “Ask the holy ones of the earth the secrets they hold for you. By conquering the desires of the outer senses you shall obtain the right to know these secrets.”