Samadhi Kamal #2

(The audio recording of the question is unclear.)
Not just deep—slow and deep.

As long as the mind keeps getting some kind of food, it will continue. And if it continues, the experience of the self will not happen. So we have to take its food away, render it supportless—that is our sadhana. If we ourselves provide it a support, the mind will happily accept it. Give it one support and it is somewhat pleased; give it many supports and it is very pleased. It delights in restlessness. In concentration it is less pleased, because we take many supports away and give it only one. In meditation it feels even more discomfort, because there we are taking supports away altogether.

Do you see this?

It cannot remain without a support. It fears its own death—and that is quite natural. This is precisely the austerity: when it asks for a support, we gather our courage and do not give it one. It will ask for a support; we do not give it.

In the beginning it may, without our giving, still grab hold of some supports on its own. But such supports won’t last long. The supports we give it can last—if we ourselves teach it to repeat Ram-Ram, then it will persist; if we teach it to chant Arihant-Arihant, that too will persist—because we are giving it, and we want it to persist. But understand: even if it tries to find supports by itself—like catching on to sounds coming from outside—and you are not eager to give it supports, rather you are intent on making it supportless, then such supports will not last more than a little while; they will fall away on their own.

We must not give it a support. Even if the mind goes about searching for supports, we must continue with the experiment we are doing. We are not to cooperate with its search for supports. Then, by itself, it will become supportless; it will become empty. As soon as its supports are gone, it will dissolve. The moment the mind is absolutely absent—that state of no-mind, when no mind remains—at that very moment you know yourself.

So if you want to know yourself, free the mind from the other things it keeps knowing. Because if the mind is busy knowing other things, you will not be able to know yourself. If I am looking at all of you, I cannot look at myself. A moment must come when none of you is seen. When no one is seen, whom will I see? My capacity to see will still be present. My seeing is not in you; you are the seen, not my seeing. When you disappear from in front of me, where will my seeing go? It will remain within me. When there is nothing to see, whom will that seeing behold? Then that seeing will see itself.

Self-vision happens when we are free of all other-seeing. Self-knowledge happens when we are emptied of all other-knowledge. Attention turns inward when we snatch away all supports from it and make it supportless.

Do you understand?

This is what we call samayik, or this is what we call samadhi. When we have taken away all the supports of attention, where can it go? We keep removing its supports one by one. In the end it becomes without support. When it is without support, it must stand on its own. It becomes self-supported. To be without support is to become self-supported; to be without props is to become self-reliant. We must render it supportless, without props, so that it becomes steady in itself, stands in itself. Standing in oneself is called samadhi.

And as long as you keep giving it supports, it will stand in something other than itself. Then self-knowledge will not be available to you.

No name of God will take you to godliness; that very name is a form of mind—it is also just a word. No mantra will take you to self-knowledge; it too is only a process of the mind, another thought. When you are without thought, when there is no thought within you, where will you be? Think on this a little. When there is no thought within you, where will you be? You will not vanish. In that thought-free moment, where will you be? You will be in yourself. Being in yourself is called samayik. Being in yourself is called samadhi.

So I am not asking you to take any support. You may have done experiments before that involved supports. And in any experiments that involve supports…
(The audio recording of the question is unclear.)
Kundalini is so named because it lies coiled within itself, asleep. It is not a serpent, but like a serpent that sleeps coiled up within itself, so our inner power lies hidden, asleep within itself. That power awakens.

All of us are asleep. We walk while asleep. We walk along the road and many thoughts are moving within—we are asleep in them. They surround us. We may be walking on the road, yet we are walking almost asleep. We put on clothes, but do so asleep. We eat food, but eat asleep. To be asleep means: within us something else is going on at that time which envelops us.

You must have experienced it: you are walking down the road, someone passes very close by, and you didn’t see them. Your eyes were open—how did you not see? Or while reading: you read an entire page, and then realize you have not read anything at all. That was asleep-reading. You were indeed reading, the eyes were seeing, but the mind was engaged elsewhere; you were almost seeing, yet asleep-seeing. You are walking on the road, someone passes close by, and you don’t notice. Your eyes were seeing, but you were asleep within, so you didn’t see. Almost all our actions are performed asleep.

Mahavira called such actions promatta kriyas—negligent acts. This sleepiness he called pramada. We are asleep. If, in this sleep, we practice awakening and attempt to make our actions wakeful, your continuous twenty-four-hour life will be transformed into meditation.

So I also want to remind you that here, in these three days, you will try a little of this as well. When you are eating, keep only this awareness: I am only eating. Let nothing else run in the mind; only eating is happening. If I have made a morsel, then I am only making a morsel. If I have lifted it, I am only lifting it. And in my mind there is nothing else; only that action is occurring.

Gandhiji used to spin at the wheel; he would say, “Spinning is my meditation; it is my prayer.” And what he meant was: when I spin, I only spin. As the thread goes out, my awareness goes out with it; as it winds back, my awareness returns with it.

Just as I have asked you to watch the pulsation at the navel—the breath goes in and the belly rises: watch; then the belly falls: watch—in the same way he kept watching the thread on the spindle. If you can do that while spinning, you will find that spinning becomes meditation.

In China there was a monk. When he went to his master’s monastery, the master said, “If you truly want to be a monk and not merely look like one, it will take a long time. If you only want the appearance, you can have it today. If you want to be, it will take time. Choose.”

The young man said, “I want to be. What will I do with mere appearance?”

“Then do one thing,” said the master. “In this monastery there are five hundred monks; the kitchen needs a lot of rice pounded. You go and pound rice. And only pound rice! Do nothing else. Rise in the morning and pound rice; when you are tired, sleep; when you wake, pound rice again. And remember only one thing: just pound rice—do nothing else. Let nothing else run in the mind. Let the whole of your mind’s energy be engaged only in pounding rice; no residual energy should be doing anything else. Let the entire energy of the mind pound rice. When your pestle rises, keep watching; when it goes down, keep watching, keep watching. And do not come back to me again. If needed, I will come to you.”

For twelve years that man kept pounding rice behind the monastery. People in the monastery forgot that he even existed, or that he had once come to become a monk. They came to know him simply as “the rice-pounder.” But something wondrous happened. He pounded rice every day; he did nothing else. He spoke to no one, read no scriptures. Silently, in a secluded corner behind the monastery, he kept pounding rice. When done, he would deliver it; then bring more and pound again. When tired, he slept; in the morning he rose and pounded again. You might wonder—for how many days? Twelve years is a long time. He kept pounding and pounding—gradually only the pounding remained. The mind no longer did anything, no longer thought; it was absorbed in pounding rice. And what is there to think in pounding rice? What scope is there for thought? You pound—what is there to think? So he pounded. First all thoughts fell away, then thought itself fell away; only the pounding remained. Now, fully awake, he simply pounded rice.

After twelve years the master’s death drew near. He announced, “On such-and-such a day I will leave the body, and I would like to choose someone after me. Whoever can write, in four lines, the essential substance of dharma, I will seat him in my place. But remember—those four lines must not be stolen or borrowed; they must come from your own experience. I know and can recognize which lines come from experience and which from scripture. No trickery will do—no quoting four lines from the scriptures. For the scriptures have everything written in them. But I can tell.”

And you will be surprised: in no scripture is the complete truth written so fully that you could quote its lines and think the truth is done. Something remains. No scriptural line is complete; something remains that you must add from your own experience. That is the test. And the master can tell—when you add, to a line, that which is not written in the scripture but comes from experience, then the master knows the line is coming from you. Understand: no scripture has been written complete. Not one is complete. This is a great insight—something has been left out, which you must join from your own experience. Whoever merely repeats scripture is unwise; there is no truth in that—some part is missing.

So the master said, “Lines from your scriptures will not do.”

There were five hundred monks, many of them great scholars. But they knew that whatever they knew was from books; nothing was known by themselves. Only one person dared—he went and wrote four lines. Even he, out of fear, did not hand them over directly; he wrote them on the master’s door at night. The lines were remarkable. He wrote: “The human mind is like a mirror; dust of thoughts and defilements gathers upon it. If we wipe away the dust—dharma is no more than this.”

Beautiful lines. But in the morning the master awoke and said, “Who has written this rubbish here? This is all trash, nonsense. Wipe it off.”

The whole monastery was abuzz. Those lines were extraordinary, valuable; in them the meaning of dharma seemed revealed. People discussed them. Some monks passed by the rice-pounder and said, “Even such precious lines he rejected! Yet the essence of dharma is there.” For the writing said: “The human mind is like a mirror; dust of thoughts and defilements settles upon it. If we wipe away the dust—dharma is no more than this.”

The rice-pounding monk said, “Truly, it is rubbish.”

In twelve years, that was the first time he spoke. Those who heard him said, “Did pounding rice also reveal truth to you? Those who spent life in scriptures wrote that!”

He said, “Even if life has been spent in scriptures, those lines are utterly useless. The lines should be these: There is no mirror of the human mind at all—where will the dust gather? Whoever knows this truth knows dharma.” He said, “There is no mirror of the human mind—where will the dust gather? Whoever knows this truth knows dharma.” And the master accepted him, and that rice-pounder became the head of the monastery thereafter.

With the gradual practice of meditation it will become evident to you: there is no mind. The mind was an illusion. That dust upon it was a second illusion. There is no mind. And when you come to know that there is no mind, you will be filled with a transcendent experience. Only that experience leads a person into religion. And that experience becomes possible by awakening in your actions.

So for these three days that we are together, I ask this of you: when you go walking, walk with awareness. Walking with awareness means: walk with full alertness that you are only walking, doing nothing else. When the foot lifts, you know; when you turn on the path, you know. Do not walk like a blind, asleep person. When you speak, you know you are speaking. And you will be amazed: if you create this state of mindful living, wrongdoing will stop happening through you. You cannot abuse someone if, before abusing, you become aware that you are about to abuse. It is impossible. Abuse can only be done in unconsciousness, in sleep. You cannot be angry at someone if you become aware that anger is arising. It is only possible in stupor. My definition of sin is this: actions you do in unconsciousness are sin; actions you do with perfect awareness are virtue. Because with perfect awareness it is impossible to do sin. Filled with perfect alertness, it is impossible to do any sin.

So Mahavira or Buddha do not “give up” sins; they have simply awakened, and therefore sins no longer happen to them. Understand this a little. They have not given up anything called sin. They have not “renounced” violence, falsehood, anger. They practiced awakening. Through meditation and the practice of awareness they became so awake that now sin is impossible. For sin, unconsciousness is essential. For any bad act, you must first be unconscious. Before all bad acts you become totally unmindful. Remember: when you are filled with anger, you become unconscious—only then can anger happen. When you come back to awareness, you repent: If only this awareness had been present at that very moment, anger would have been impossible!

So practice an awakening of awareness over these three days. The three meditations are, step by step, to awaken awareness within you. The real use of that awakened awareness is in your small daily actions. If you are sweeping the house—sweep awake, sweep with awareness. Sweep, and it will become your meditation. If you are putting on clothes, put them on with awareness—don’t dress in a daze where your mind is elsewhere and your hands have dressed you. When awakening enters small actions, the entire twenty-four hours turn into meditation.

The three meditations I am giving are only a preparation to produce this fourth meditation. The real thing is this—the fourth thing: that your twenty-four-hour life becomes permeated with awareness. You become un-negligent, abide in non-negligence—in awareness. Whatever you do, let it be done with awareness—from bathing to dressing, from eating to sleeping.

Buddha used to say, “Even when I turn over at night, I know.” And those who lived around him for twenty or thirty years observed that the leg upon which he had placed his other leg as he fell asleep remained resting there all night; the side on which he lay remained the same, and in the morning he rose from that very side…