Sahaj Samadhi Bhali #7

For those who know, life is nothing more than suffering. For those who do not know, life is a hope for happiness. Even the unknowing suffer—but they suffer without seeing their suffering. They endure pain in the hope of pleasure. And that very hope becomes a mist over their eyes.

They suffer today because they feel: tomorrow happiness will come. Tomorrow’s dream hides today’s reality. People even pass their lives in hell because they believe that someday, somehow, heaven will be attained. There is no darkness greater than hope. And there is no intoxication greater than hope.

Whoever drops hope and looks at life will see only suffering. Suffering is. But the ignorant person takes suffering to be a staircase—to reach to happiness. Somewhere far in the future there is happiness. The journey will be painful, but the destination is bliss. For that destination one becomes ready to bear anything. But the world is only staircases upon staircases: there is no destination here. Here there are only roads upon roads; here there is no station. And for a destination that does not exist, we keep enduring the useless hardships of the road. We climb steps that lead nowhere; we tire, we are harassed. The steps are endless, so you never come to their end.

Remember, if there were a destination, then the steps would end too. Because there is no destination, the steps are endless. You keep walking; however far you go, you find more steps ahead. It always seems: just now, the destination is about to arrive.

Buddha was once passing by a village. He was in a hurry—he had to reach another village before dusk. He asked a farmer, “How far is the village?” The farmer said, “Just two miles; start walking and you’ll be there!” Buddha walked two miles. The sun was close to setting. He met another villager and asked, “How far now?” He said, “Just two miles; walk and you’re there!”

Buddha smiled and said to his disciples, “Listen well to what they say. The first villager took us two miles away!” The disciples still didn’t understand.

After two more miles it was getting dark. A third villager came by; Buddha asked again. He said, “No need to worry. Just two miles.” Buddha said, “Do you hear? This is how the mind’s hope keeps moving us along—‘the destination is near.’ These villagers are wise. They aren’t lying. They understand the mind’s formula.”

Two miles is easy—on the hope of two miles a man can walk two thousand. If you knew beforehand it was two thousand, you’d collapse and die right there.

You have been walking through so many lives and have found nothing but steps. Each step begins another. No step ends at the destination. Every road takes a new turn, and becomes more road. No road completes, none concludes.

The world is a way. In liberation there is no way; there is only destination. In the world there are only ways; there is no destination.

Emperor Akbar, after his great campaigns, founded a small city—Fatehpur. Fatehpur means “City of Victory.” At the end of his life’s victorious journeys he wanted to create a city of victory, so he turned the small village of Sikri into Fatehpur. He spent millions. He built a very beautiful city. When he was growing old, he asked a fakir, “I want an inscription on the city’s gate—a precious saying that, when a traveler arrives at Fatehpur Sikri, will say all that needs to be said.” That Sufi fakir gave him a saying attributed to Jesus—“Have this engraved.” It still stands on the gate of Fatehpur Sikri. You won’t find it in the Bible, but the Sufi tradition remembers it. The saying is priceless: “This world is a bridge; pass over it, but do not build your dwelling on it.” This world is a bridge: pass through it, but don’t make a home upon it.

Akbar had it inscribed, then grew troubled. He told the fakir, “You’ve put me in a fix. I thought I was building a city of victory. You say this world is a bridge. Then no city of victory can ever be built here. There is no victory here.”

Akbar’s interest in Fatehpur Sikri vanished. The city was built, and yet it remained uninhabited. From the day it was made, it has been a ruin. No one ever settled in it. The matter ended there. Akbar too saw that no victory is possible in this world. No destination is attained here.

How does man bear so much suffering—even the unbearable? What is his trick? Why doesn’t he awaken—why doesn’t pain jolt him awake? There is a deep stupor. That stupor is hope. Hope seems to promise happiness; the truth is, hope only makes you capable of enduring suffering.

Columbus set out to find India with three large ships and around a hundred sailors. They carried food for about three months—the maximum they could take. The provisions were almost finished; only three days’ food remained. The sailors grew angry. No destination seemed to be coming into view. The journey seemed lost. Only sea, only sea—no shore in sight.

At night, while Columbus pretended to sleep, they met and decided to throw him overboard and turn back. “He has put us in trouble! We’ll die; the food is gone. Nowhere to be seen is any land. This man has trapped our lives.”

Columbus heard them. He had been afraid of just this. He rose and said, “I have one question. We had three months of provisions; they are gone. Three days are left. Even if you turn back, will you reach home? It will take at least three months to return—if you can find exactly the same route, and on the ocean there is no road. With three days of supplies you can sail back three days—what about the rest? If we are to die on the way back, then have the courage to go forward. If death is certain either way, why go back? And I tell you: turning back will take at least three months. Going forward, we might reach land in three days. It’s possible.”

Hope was kindled; the logic was clear. Perhaps in three days they might reach land; who knew how far it was. But returning would take no less than three months; death was certain. Hope was kindled; the sailors resumed their labor.

As soon as hope arises, you start exerting. As soon as hope drops, your limbs go slack. When hope drops, suffering becomes visible. When hope rises, the taste of happiness seems to come.

It is not the world that binds people. It would be hard to find a place more provoking to wakefulness than the world: suffering is twenty-four hours a day, all around, every moment a thorn pricks. But you are not here to be pricked—you are wandering in some realm of hopes.

I have heard: a Sufi fakir died and reached heaven. He was astonished to see four people chained right at the gate. He hesitated—“Should I enter or not? I had heard that bonds are in the world; here in heaven people are chained?” He asked the gatekeeper, “What’s this mystery? Why are these people tied?” The gatekeeper said, “First come in, then you’ll understand. Their hope is broken; they aren’t willing to stay even in heaven. In the world, you stayed—because you hoped. To keep these from leaving, we had to chain them.”

Heaven too is hope—the last hope. If that also breaks, no obstacle remains to your freedom. Then to stop you, you would have to be chained.

Understand this clearly: the mist over your eyes is your own hopes. Therefore, to the Buddha’s four noble truths I add one more—more primary than all.

Buddha says: “All life is suffering.” You hear it, but you don’t experience it so. You feel there is suffering, yes—but as steps. And without the labor of the journey, how will one reach happiness? One must bear hardships; suffering is the price, happiness the fruit.

But remember: when the middle is suffering, the fruit cannot be happiness. When the journey is pain, the end cannot be bliss—because the end is the sum total of the entire journey. How can you die happy if you have lived unhappy? The long night of your suffering culminates in the moment of death.

Why does death seem so painful? Death is not the cause. Death hurts because all the pains of life gather together there. And death means: there is no future left. Hope will no longer remain to hide the truth. The intoxication breaks, and the sum of lifelong suffering appears. Steps, steps, steps… path after path, countless hardships—and now no further place to go, no more device of hope. Death means: no more hope; time is over. There is no tomorrow for you to say “tomorrow happiness will come.”

Death forces you into the present. And you have always lived in the future. Death jerks you into the present—you will see suffering, and you will have no narcotic left to cover it.

The pain of death is not death’s; it is the revelation of life’s truth.

Death is a great awakener. It startles you—wakes you up. It brings you out of your anesthesia, your deep unconsciousness. That is why the wise have called death the true master.

If there were no death, you might never awaken. So the sages have said: without death, no one would be religious. Rightly said. In life you remain asleep. And the technique of sleeping is simple—hope for tomorrow. Then you can bear anything; no hardship is too great.

I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin went to sea for the first time. He got seasick—fits, vomiting, nausea. He became so panicky that the captain came to reassure him: “Listen, Nasruddin, I will tell you from experience: however bad it feels, no one in the history of mankind has ever died of seasickness. Vomiting and nausea happen, but no one dies of it. So don’t panic.”

Nasruddin beat his chest: “That was my only hope—that I would die and be rid of this mess. You snatched that too!”

Man is strange. He hopes in life—and he hopes even in death. That’s why people commit suicide. Suicide is hoping in death. To commit suicide is to hope that death will deliver something. “I’ll be rid of pain; this life will end. Perhaps something better will begin. It can’t be worse than this.”

The wise say: drop hope even from life. The unwise say: keep hoping even from death.

Therefore no sage can commit suicide. A sage is not even ready to live, why would he be eager to die? The sage has no hope. He has seen life as it is. It seems as if the sage is a pessimist—that is a misunderstanding.

In the West, people think of Buddha as a pessimist—this is wrong. The sage is not a worshiper of suffering; he is a worshiper of fact. Such it is.

Buddha is not “seeing” suffering in life; suffering is in life. You are the clever ones—you see happiness where there is suffering! You have made arrangements; a mental structure that keeps suffering at the door, so it never reaches inside.

I have heard: a fakir was traveling by ship. A huge storm came; the boat was about to sink. All the sailors fell to their knees, praying to God. Only the fakir stood silent. The captain grew angry: “Why do you just stand there? As a religious man, can’t you at least join the prayer?” The fakir said, “Is this boat my father’s? Whoever owns it can worry.”

His statement seems strange—but it is worth deep thought.

The captain said, “Even if the boat isn’t yours, you’ll drown too!” The fakir said, “One who has understood that the boat is not his never drowns. ‘Mine-ness’ drowns you. The boat is not mine, the body is not mine, life is not mine. Let the owner cry out and pray. I have nothing to save. There is nothing worth saving. I am content—whatever happens.”

Hope has two directions. Regarding what is, hope never lets you be content. Regarding what is not—and never will be—hope keeps the illusion alive.

From the very breaking of hope, the religious person is born. When the eye is freed of hope, the eye becomes clear—and then what is, is seen.

“Buddha has said four noble truths: suffering, the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path to the cessation of suffering.”

First, there is suffering in life. Second, suffering is not causeless—for what is causeless cannot be removed.

If a lamp burns without wick and oil, you cannot put it out! But if it burns by oil and wick, you can. Remove the oil and it will go out. If a fire burns without cause, there is no way to extinguish it. The ‘causeless’ cannot be eliminated.

Buddha says: suffering has a cause; therefore do not be afraid. Because it has a cause, it can be ended.

The state of cessation is a state of consciousness in which suffering is not. It is not merely that you remove one suffering and yet never reach the state of cessation—otherwise the second and third will keep arising. You blow out one lamp, another appears. You blow out the third, a fourth appears. Buddha says: there is a state of consciousness in which suffering does not arise. Therefore suffering can be ended, and one can live in a state of freedom from it. And there is a path to that cessation—the way by which the causes are removed, the roots are cut.

Buddha divided his whole religion into four parts:
- To know suffering.
- To recognize the cause of suffering.
- To know the possibility of cessation.
- To practice the path to cessation—the disciplines that end the causes.

In these four, he says, the whole religion is contained. Therefore he called them the four noble truths—noble meaning supreme; beyond them there is no higher truth.

But I say there is another truth, prior to these four.

“I see a fifth noble truth—and this fifth comes before the other four. Without it, the four cannot stand.”

“This fifth, or first, noble truth is: stupefaction with regard to suffering.”

That is the difference between Buddha and you.

What distance lies between you and Buddha? A very slight one—the difference between sleeping and waking.

You do not see suffering. Buddha sees nothing but suffering. Your numbers are large; the Buddhas are few. Your crowd is vast; you reinforce one another’s delusions. The Buddha’s voice vanishes into emptiness.

Someone asked John the Baptist, “Who are you?” He had given initiation to Jesus; he was Jesus’ guru. He said, “I am just a voice crying in the wilderness.” Just a voice—echoing in the jungle. That is exactly right. The voice of Buddhas is a voice in the wilderness. No one is listening. People seem to listen, then continue on their ways. From the way they walk it is clear they did not hear.

There is a veil over the eye that distorts everything. Hearing Buddha we distort even his words. As soon as we hear “life is suffering,” hope springs up in our mind: perhaps Buddha will give us a way to remove suffering. We instantly clutch at his feet: “Show us the path to end suffering.”

There is no path to remove suffering as such. In fact, there is no need to remove suffering. If your hope drops, along with hope both happiness and suffering dissolve.

Hope has two faces—future happiness and present pain. When hope breaks, the future happiness is lost and the present pain also vanishes. What you call suffering appears as such only because you are carrying dreams of happiness—by comparison, by expectation, suffering is created.

All your sufferings are produced by your expectations of happiness. The greater the expectation, the greater the suffering. One who has no expectation has no suffering. But you hear Buddha and create new dreams of happiness. You extract dreams even from Buddha. You turn Buddha into a sleeping pill. You ask him: “Show the path—to attain happiness.”

Remember, Buddha can only show you how to see suffering. There is no question of “attaining happiness.” The day you see suffering, the day no dream of happiness lures you, the day you are free of greed and know everything is illusory—the day you consent to suffering, that very day suffering dissolves.

Suffering is so dense it can wake you up. If a person is to be operated on in a hospital, we first render him unconscious. Then cut bone and flesh, open the heart—he won’t know. The stupor is so strong pain is not felt.

Unconsciousness allows you to bear pain. The greater the pain to be borne, the deeper the anesthesia must be. If it breaks midway, it is dangerous. For great pain, deep unconsciousness; for small pain, a lighter one. And if you want not to bear pain at all, you need total awareness.

With awareness, the whole form of life changes. Where yesterday you saw suffering or happiness, both vanish together. Sun and shadow both disappear—you remain alone. That aloneness is liberation. In that aloneness the shower of bliss begins. In that aloneness the nectar is first tasted.

On the day there is no hope—no future—on that day there is no present pain either. Future and present end together.

I constantly say, “Live in the present.” This is a little inaccurate—but I must speak inaccurately to those who are inaccurate. You never even ask: if there is no future and the past is gone and the future not yet come, how can there be a present? If a river has neither “this” bank nor “that” bank, how can there be a bridge in the middle? The present moment can exist only if the past supports it from behind and the future from ahead. If there are two banks, past and future, there is a bridge of the present.

I say to you again and again: “Live in the present.” But the day you truly live, the past and future will be lost—and the present will be lost too. Because when the banks are gone, how can the bridge remain? That day you will find that time is gone. Hence the wise say samadhi is timeless. It is not even in the present, because the present is only a line between past and future.

If both past and future are false, the present is false too. How can the middle remain when both ends are gone?

The day you hold no hope for the future and no memory of the past, it is wrong to say that you will “remain in the present,” because even the present will not be there. Instantly time will disappear—you will become beyond time. You will find yourself where nothing ever happened, nothing is happening, and nothing will happen.

This is Buddha’s state. In this state there is no suffering, because in this state there is no craving for pleasure. There is no sorrow, because there is no hope. You want nothing; therefore you cannot be afflicted. Only you remain—pure being.

Buddha calls this moksha, Mahavira calls it kevalya—because “onlyness,” only you, remains. Hindus call it Brahman, because even the “you” dissolves, only the total remains.

These four noble truths are not visible to you because before them there is a veil over your eyes—the stupor regarding suffering.

You never look at suffering. You never look suffering full in the eye. You always avert your gaze. Have you ever faced suffering? When someone dies at home, have you sat near and faced death? You beat your chest, cry, scream—do everything—but all are ways to avoid.

An event has occurred—death—and you try to forget it. You go to hear wise men say, “The soul is immortal, no one dies; only the body dies. The five elements have returned to the five elements, and what was within is eternal, unborn.” You gather consolation. But one thing you never do: while death stands before you and is happening, you look at it. Because it would scare you.

If you look at death even once—without losing time, without inserting other thoughts—you will see the Buddha’s four noble truths. Death will shatter your stupor.

It happened in Greece: a very thoughtful emperor wrote in his Meditations that a foolish man cannot learn even from his own experience. The wise man learns even from others’ experience. His name was Marcus Aurelius—the most thoughtful emperor there has been. His slim book is worth deep reading. He says, “The foolish man won’t learn even from his own experience; he will die beating his chest and making noise so he won’t have to see death. The wise learn even from others’ experience; another man dies, and the wise feel the same pain that death brings.”

This is what happened with Buddha. Seeing a stranger’s corpse was enough. He said, “Then life is futile. When that man died and I will die, it is not right to waste these few in-between days. I will put them into the search. Since death is coming, whether in two days or four, let me, before it comes, at least know what life is! Before the opportunity is snatched away, let me peek into what world I was sent and what it contained!”

From another’s death Buddha became wise. Even your own death does not make you wise. And that corpse was an unknown man. Even when your loved ones die, you do not awaken—because you know how to avoid. You know how to avert your gaze.

Have you been to a hospital? You walk as if not to see the patients. Someone’s leg is in a cast, someone’s head is bandaged, someone’s arm is broken—you hurry past. No one wants to go to a hospital.

And the cremation ground? You don’t like to pass it. If compelled, you go—but notice how people there dive into chatter, all kinds of talk, so that the fact of the pyre does not enter the mind.

No gossip anywhere is like that at the cremation ground. They bring up the life of the whole village. They must sit there for an hour or so; it is uneasy. If they would sit in meditation silently, how difficult it would be! The one who returns would not be the one who went—because another’s death is news of your death. Every death is your death. If you see your own death, you will stop hoping from life.

Buddha said: he who has seen death can no longer be bound by this world. So we keep death outside the perimeter of life; we build cremation grounds outside the village. When someone dies, the mother calls the children back inside so they won’t see.

But your hiding will not stop death. However much you console yourself, death will come. The sooner you recognize it, the better. If you face death directly, you will see—life is suffering—your stupor will break.

Death is far; you don’t even face small pains. The process of seeing suffering is tapas—austerity. Hunger arises; you watch it. Watching hunger is called fasting. Dying of hunger is not fasting. When hungry, you keep yourself busy reciting God’s name—that is not fasting.

Hunger arises—you look at it, you focus on it. Hunger spreads through every hair; it strikes every corner of the body. The whole organism demands—and you watch. You don’t do anything to remove it, to quench it, to be free of it, to forget it. You look straight into its eyes: “What is hunger?” Whoever sees hunger arrives at true fasting. Thereafter, hunger never afflicts him. Not that he won’t eat or drink—he will—but hunger will no longer belong to him. It will be a functioning of the body; he is separate.

A fire broke out in Mulla Nasruddin’s house. At night his wife shook his quilt: “Wake up, the house is on fire!” He said, “Why worry? Is it our house? We live on rent!” He pulled the quilt over his head and slept. Why should a tenant be so concerned?

If you really see hunger, you will discover: the house you live in—this body—has its own needs. They aren’t yours. Fine—you arrange for them; but there is no cause for anxiety. While it’s there, you take care. If the body is to drop tomorrow, you won’t say, “Wait till the day after.” No restlessness will arise.

Whenever suffering comes, look at it—you enter tapas.

If there’s a headache, watch it. You’ll suddenly find you are separate, the pain is separate. Whatever you can see, you begin to be separate from it. Vision creates separation, because what you see becomes the seen, and you are the seer. Identification breaks.

Headache—watch. Don’t miss this precious opportunity. The pills for headaches are anesthetics: aspirin or anything else—they don’t remove the pain; they make you forget. Better that you watch. One who has seen pain stands outside it. Standing outside, he will begin to laugh. Then life appears as a net you wove with your own hands by running away.

Whatever you avoid looking at keeps following you.

You are bankrupt. Don’t run—look closely and you will find you always were. This bankruptcy is not new; only the illusion that you had something has broken. A fact is revealed: you never had anything.

You brought nothing; you will take nothing. How can you be an owner in the middle? Your ownership is a deception.

Whenever suffering comes—pain, death—whether it comes to you, your friends, your loved ones, or a stranger—watch it. Don’t let the eye waver. Don’t close your eyes. If you close your eyes, you miss a precious chance. If you look with open eyes, the Buddha’s four noble truths will begin to appear.

Buddha gave no doctrines, no scripture to the world. These truths are direct experiences of life. As true as hydrogen and oxygen making water. No theory. The four truths are the foundations of life: suffering is; every suffering has a cause.

Buddha’s vision is scientific. He analyzes life like a scientist. That is why his religion has been called the religion of analysis—of logic and intellect. He keeps clear accounts.

Buddha is no mystic? Not in the sense of talking about mystery. It is not that he has no experience of it; he has. He simply does not talk about it. He analyzes your world. When your world disintegrates, you awaken—mystery is born. Mystery cannot be spoken. Therefore Buddha is silent about it. He only indicates the process. Regarding the destination he is silent; the map of the path he gives completely.

Awakening, he saw life is suffering. Why was it not known until now? Because you always dodged your eyes. Whenever suffering came you explained it away. You never accepted, “This is suffering.” You are so afraid.

Remember, if you are afraid and you avoid one suffering, you will fall into a greater. Escape here is impossible. On one side is a well, on the other a ditch. You may trade one pain for another. You might forget for a while—then fall into a third; forget again. All your life you keep changing shoulders for the same load.

People carry a corpse to the cremation ground—when one shoulder tires, they shift to the other. The weight remains the same. All your life you shift from one suffering to another. You tire of one wife and think of a second. You tire of one business and imagine another. One desire turns your mouth bitter, you instantly bring in a second to sweeten the tongue. The rest is only changing pains—from one to two, two to three.

All your life: changing shoulders. At the end, when death appears, you see your life is a sum of suffering. Panic arises. That is why man fears death. Not death, but the revelation of the accounts—the earnings of a lifetime: with such effort, such involvement, such determination—you earned this.

Death leaves everyone bankrupt—except for those few who, before death, directly encountered the suffering of life.

When Buddha left his palace, the old charioteer said, “Don’t do this. You are still young. You have no experience of life. Don’t run away. There are great pleasures. You lack nothing. If we poor leave, it’s understandable. You are a prince—look back: what is lacking in the palace?”

Buddha looked back and said, “I see nothing but flames. Where you think there is happiness, I looked deeply and found suffering. There is only hidden pain.”

There is suffering in the life of a poor man—the means to hide it are poor. There is suffering in the life of a rich man—the means to hide it are expensive. One hides in a hut, another in a palace. But suffering is everywhere. And you know this well. Many times you have met suffering and run away. Religion begins the day suffering comes and you stop—look it straight in the eye.

If you can encounter suffering, the first experience will be: life is suffering—unconditionally so.

Buddha says: birth is suffering, life is suffering, old age is suffering, death is suffering. From one end to the other, life is filled with suffering.

As soon as you see that life is suffering, the second layer appears: suffering has a cause.

What is the cause? You asked for happiness. You desired something that cannot be. You desired the impossible. Here everything is momentary—yet you demanded the eternal. The river’s nature is to flow—yet you wanted the river to stand still.

Even love here is momentary—yet you wanted it to be eternal. Therefore no other thing creates as much suffering as love.

The unfortunate are those who have no love—they suffer from absence. The unfortunate are also those who have known love—they suffer because of it. Here the celibate suffers, and the married suffer.

A young woman was drowning in a river; a man jumped in and saved her. She was the only daughter of the richest man in the village. The father wanted to reward the youth: “You are brave and took such a risk.” The young man said, “Forgive me—there was no risk. I am already married.”

The married also take risks; the celibate fears even to come close to woman—he too is in danger.

Those who have—suffer. Those who don’t—suffer. The poor are miserable because they have no wealth. The rich are miserable because they do—and then what to do with it?

Jesus passed through a village and saw a man running after a prostitute. He caught him and said, “What are you doing? Did God give you eyes for this?” The man said, “You have forgotten. God made me blind. You touched my eyes and gave me sight. Jesus, have you forgotten? But what shall I do with these eyes? Better blindness than this. Eyes show forms; forms cannot be grasped. What grace did you do to me? You have burdened me with pain.” Jesus became very sad.

Leaving the village, he saw a man hanging half off a roof, drool dripping from his mouth. “What! Do you drink so much?” The man opened his eyes: “Are you Jesus? I had died; you raised me. What shall I do with life? I’m trying to forget it.”

Those who have—suffer. Those who don’t—suffer. Have you ever seen a happy man? If you do, you won’t believe he is real. That’s why people don’t believe Jesus ever existed, or Buddha, or Krishna—they think these are myths. We know: how can happiness be? Only suffering is. But if you pierce your eyes into suffering, you will see the cause.

The cause of your disappointment is your hope. Think—if there is no hope, who can disappoint you? The cause of your poverty is your desire for wealth. If there is no desire, can anyone make you poor? Your humiliation is your craving for honor. Without it, who can insult you?

Behind every suffering—you are the cause. You asked for something—hence your sorrow. Drop asking and sorrow disappears.

Buddha says: thirst (tanha) is unfillable. It never fills, so sorrow remains. Drop thirst. Thirst is the root of suffering. If you drop thirst even for a moment, you will immediately know that the path of cessation is in your hands. Thirst is the path of suffering; a consciousness empty of thirst is the path of cessation.

Until now you have traveled only by the road of desire. Whenever you moved—it was out of greed. Even when you prayed, you asked for something. Your prayer was also desire. Even when you meditated, you wanted results. Your every act lays another step on the road of thirst.

Not a single act of yours is free of desire. The day you can perform even one act—however small, even breathing—free of thirst, you will know the fourth state: cessation. Buddha calls it nirvana, Mahavira calls it kevalya.

So first, let stupor break—so you can see suffering. Second, the direct encounter with suffering—tapas. Third, search for the causes. There are not many causes—only one: thirst. Fourth, the dissolution of thirst—the path.

And the day even for one instant your mind is cloudless, empty of thirst, you will suddenly find you are free. That day you will trust that Buddhas have existed. And then you will wonder how, with such a vast world, so few have entered nirvana! That will be your only concern.

Jesus has a very unique saying, preserved not by Christians but by Sufis—who have collected many priceless sayings of Jesus: “The day you find, you will be very disturbed; after the disturbance, your mind will become quiet.” The day you find, you will be very disturbed. We think the opposite—that we are disturbed until we find.

But when you find—that thirstless moment—you will be disturbed for the whole world: “What madness is this? What are people doing? Those who could be Buddhas, oceans of bliss, are beggars weeping on the road.” Then gradually peace comes. The first shock is disturbing.

Right now you cannot believe Buddhas existed. You think they are myths. Scientists, historians, materialists all say: these are projections of human desire. Perhaps a man named Gautama was born, but nirvana is a fantasy. Man wants it, so he attributes it.

Freud says happiness cannot be. As far as you are concerned, Freud is right. As far as you are concerned, Buddha is a myth. How can you trust otherwise? You know yourself, your neighbors, your friends and loved ones—nowhere a ray of joy. Buddha speaks of a great sun of joy rising—hard to believe. We trust only what we have tasted a little.

The day you are thirstless even for a moment—that is a moment of meditation—you will know Buddhas have been. From that day the rest of history becomes pale and mad; only the Buddha’s existence remains eternal and true.

But to the four noble truths I add a fifth. Without it, you will not understand the four.

If these were philosophical propositions, there would be no difficulty—you could grasp them like mathematics. But these are experiences, not theories. You must become the laboratory. No scripture or logic can give them to you. You will know only by your own seeing. For that I add a fifth noble truth: awaken; find a way to awaken.

Your stupor is so deep that you sleep in suffering and in so-called happiness. You sleep-walk through life. Your life is a long sleep. Have you noticed? Sometimes you read a page—your eyes pass over every word—then suddenly you realize you didn’t read at all; nothing is remembered. The page is blank in your mind; your eyes moved but you were asleep.

Sometimes you are talking to someone, you seem to be listening; moments later you realize you didn’t hear a thing. You were asleep.

You eat asleep; you walk, sit, rise asleep. Every ordinary act can be done in sleep. Only one thing cannot: meditation. Everything else can. Hence meditation is the key—the only ray that can take you from the world of sleep to the world of wakefulness.

Meditation means un-stupefaction.

Even meditation you can turn into stupor—many do. They finger their beads; the fingers move, the mind wanders. Suddenly they realize they don’t know how many beads have passed.

People read the Gita and the Quran, offer prayer and namaz—everything goes on in sleep.

Nasruddin went to the mosque. When everyone bowed, he tugged the shirt of the man in front. The man said, “What are you doing?” Nasruddin said, “What can I do? The man behind me tugged mine—I thought it must be the rule here.” The man behind had simply straightened Nasruddin’s shirt which had ridden up; so Nasruddin tugged the one ahead. “Ask the reason from the one behind!”

People imitate blindly. You go to the temple behind someone; you become an enemy of temples behind someone else. Someone makes you a theist, someone an atheist. You wander from one guru to another. This has been going on for lifetimes. You have knocked on many doors, except one—your own. You have listened to many, except one—the possibility of awakening within you. You have done everything—except one thing: you have never done anything with awareness. Without that, all doing is futile.

Awaken. And the most favorable condition for awakening is suffering. In happiness the stupor is heavy; there it is hardest to wake. That’s why people say, “In suffering, God is remembered; in happiness, never.”

When you are happy, you forget God completely. In pain, perhaps you startle a little; the sleep breaks a bit; you turn over. Use suffering.

All the wise have used suffering—to awaken. Use it as you would use a thorn in your foot: with another thorn you remove it, then throw both away. Let suffering be a thorn to pull out the thorn of suffering.

Awaken in suffering. If you don’t, there is no other way. When the body is low, full of pain, sick, bedridden—if you don’t awaken then, will you awaken when health returns, desires surge, energy is there to run after cravings? Then it will be far more difficult.

From the little child to the old man—the game of thirst goes on.

In a shop a woman bought a lot of goods. Her little boy was with her. The shopkeeper, pleased, said to the child, “Take a handful of pine nuts.” The boy stood still. “Your mother won’t mind—take them.” Still he didn’t move. The shopkeeper said, “I’ve never seen such a child! Others grab without being told.” So he himself took a handful and filled the boy’s pocket. Outside, the mother asked, “Pappu, you love pine nuts. What restraint you showed! How did you manage?” He said, “His fist was bigger. He said take a handful. Mine would hold fewer.”

Even a small child knows the arithmetic of desire. And from there till death, the arithmetic of “a bigger handful” goes on. However big your fist becomes—you die with an empty one.

Awaken—in suffering. This is why men like Janaka are rare on Earth. Many like Mahavira have been. Because awakening in suffering is easier; Mahavira’s path is easier. Janaka’s is very hard: awakening in happiness. Hence Janaka-like beings can be counted on your fingers—perhaps a Janaka, a Krishna. Buddhas and Mahaviras left their homes; all Jaina tirthankaras left home.

What is the process? To leave means to step away from pleasure and enter suffering—so that suffering on all sides helps to awaken. Janaka is unique among them—standing in gold, he awakened.

Think: when you are in happiness, you don’t want to wake. Even if someone tries, you say, “Wait. I am seeing a beautiful dream. Wake me later. What’s the rush?”

If you don’t wake from a nightmare, will you wake from a dream of a beautiful woman? Very hard. Hence few Janakas. Remember though: Janaka’s path is harder. However hard Mahavira’s may seem, compared to Janaka’s it is not.

Happiness is deep stupor. In happiness you don’t even think of waking. Suffering becomes tapas. If one is determined, one can also turn happiness into tapas. That’s why I say: use both suffering and happiness. Who knows your destiny—Mahavira’s or Janaka’s? So I say: even in sexual union, try to be awake—because it is the deepest moment of pleasure. If you can be awake there, nothing in the world can put you to sleep again.

Use suffering and use happiness. Who knows your nature? There is no need to choose; life gives both in plenty. There is taste and there is sickness; there is health and there is disease; there is beauty and there is ugliness—wake in both. Make both the banks between which your river of awakening flows.

Therefore there is no need to go anywhere—not to the forest. Don’t go looking for suffering—it is enough as it is. Glimpses of happiness and suffering are both there. Use both for one thing: to keep your awareness from being bypassed by whatever comes. But the mind wants to close its eyes.

In a courtroom, a woman rushed in: “Catch that man outside! He grabbed me on the road, hugged me, and kissed me—right in front of the court!” The magistrate asked, “What did he look like? How tall? His eyes, his hands?” She said, “That’s difficult.” The magistrate said, “He hugged and kissed you, and you can’t describe him?” She said, “When he kissed me, out of old habit I closed my eyes. Whenever someone kisses me, I close my eyes.”

Generally women close their eyes—pleasure is so sweet it seems it can be savored best with closed eyes.

Everyone closes their eyes in happiness. You, keep them open—in happiness, and in suffering.

Let open-eyedness become your practice. Soon Buddha’s four truths will appear—because you have fulfilled the first: awakening.

Revolution is not impossible. It is difficult—because you have invested so much in sleep.

Nasruddin’s wife was trying to wake him. “Not now,” he said. “Wait.” After a while she tried again. “You ruined everything,” he said. “In my dream a man was giving me ninety-nine rupees. I was insisting on a hundred. You woke me at the crucial moment. Later I tried to sleep again; I even said, ‘All right—ninety-nine… ninety-eight…’ I came down to one! But he wasn’t there. You woke me at the wrong time. If only you had waited—but you have this habit!”

When your dream is sweet, you won’t even want to hear the Buddha—because the ninety-nine were almost turning into a hundred! The dream was nearing conclusion. But a dream is a dream—pleasant or unpleasant. The false is false. Pleasant or not, it is ultimately painful. It has no value. It only wastes your life.

Let this fifth truth—awakening—be remembered. Let it become the basic thread of your daily living. As beads are strung on a thread, let awakening be threaded through all your acts. When you rise, let the effort be to walk with awareness. When you read, to read with awareness. When you listen, to listen with awareness. Whatever you do—even the small things of life, and life is nothing but the sum of small things—do with awareness. Any day—it can be any day—if your eyes are filled with awareness, they will be illumined.

In that moment of light, the Buddha’s four truths will be revealed. Then they will not be Buddha’s—they will be yours. And until a truth becomes yours, it is only a word, not truth.

The moment a truth is your experience, you are transformed.

Jesus said: “Truth shall set you free.” Doctrines bind you; truth frees you. But truth is gained by your own experience—doctrines can be borrowed.

Enough for today.