Samadhi Ke Sapat Dwar #11

When you have attained that state of dispassion, of vairagya, then the doors you are meant to conquer on the Path will open their whole heart to take you within. Even Nature’s mightiest powers will not be able to hinder your movement then. Then you will become the master of the seven-hued Path; but, O candidate of the ordeal! before that it is not possible.
Until then you have a very difficult task to do: you must, at once, experience yourself as all-thought, and also expel all-thought from your Atman.
You must attain such stillness of mind that even the fiercest wind cannot drive a single earthly thought into it. Purified thus, the inner temple is to be emptied of all worldly acts, words and earthly lights. As a frost-struck butterfly drops in a heap upon the threshold, so must all earthly thoughts heap up outside the temple.
Read what is written:
"Before the golden flame can burn with a steady light, the lamp must be well guarded in a windless place. In the face of shifting winds the stream of light will begin to waver, and from that wavering flame fallacious, dark, ever-changing shadows will be cast upon the shining temple of the soul."
A deep law of Existence must be understood. You will have seen it in many experiences of life, but perhaps its essential inner core has not come into your awareness.
A living man can drown in a river if he does not know how to swim; a corpse floats without swimming. What skill does the dead have that the living man did not? The corpse does not sink; the river itself lifts him up. Surely the living one was making some mistake that the dead one is not making. The living one was doing something wrong, which the dead one is not doing; for a dead man cannot do anything right—he cannot do anything at all. Only this much can be said: whatever the living man was doing, the dead is not doing—and therefore he floats.
The living man was fighting the river; he took the river as an enemy; against the river he tried to do something on the strength of his personal desire. The river drowned him, broke him. Things turned upside down: he wanted to be saved and perished. And the dead wants to save nothing—for he has nothing left to save, no means to save, no power, no life. The one who does not want to save himself is floated and saved by the river itself.
A great French mind-physician, Émile Coué, called this the Law of Reverse Effect. What you want, the opposite happens. It happens because of your wanting. And our whole life is full of this law. We desire happiness, and sorrow comes. We desire success, and failure lands in our hands. We want victory, and nothing but defeat happens! Everywhere the opposite of what we want seems to occur. Then we scream, we cry, we pray: O God, what mistake am I making, what is my fault? By which karmas is it that whatever I want does not happen, and its opposite takes place! And what I never want, that happens! And what I always wanted and labored for, that never comes to be!
Understand this law rightly.
Whenever you place your personal desire before Existence, in that very moment you stand in opposition to It. Whatever you do against the will of Existence, in it you will be defeated and broken. And all desire is against It. There is no desire that is not against Existence. There cannot be. We even pray in the temple to God against His own will. There is someone sick at home; we say to God: make him well. If God does all, then the illness too is by Him. And when we say make him well, we are saying that we are wiser than You, why did You not consult us before making this man ill? Change it.
All our demands, all our prayers, are refusals. We do not accept what is. And note well, until what is becomes our acceptance, whatever we desire will bring its opposite. And the day what is becomes our total acceptance—this acceptance I call astikya, religiosity. Astikya does not mean believing in a God, because one can be religious even without believing in God. And countless people who believe in God are in truth irreligious.
Astikya means: the feeling of total acceptance—being in accord with what is.
As the corpse floats wherever the river carries it, so too the day a person becomes like a corpse amidst Existence, wherever Existence carries him, that day Existence itself lifts him up. And so long as we keep snatching and grappling with Existence, all Its secret doors remain closed; we are not worthy.
To an enemy the secret of Existence cannot be opened. From enmity what has ever opened in this world? All things close. The key to open Existence’s heart is the same as the key that opens any person’s heart. When in a moment of love we accept a person, he removes all his defenses; his heart opens; now we can enter it. Now he has no fear of us. This is the meaning of prayer. This is the meaning of trust. This is the meaning of deep love.
Existence opens before us, reveals all its secrets, only on the day it finds that we are no longer struggling, no longer opposing; that now we have no personal desire.
Now let us understand the sutra.
"When you have attained that state of dispassion, then the doors that are to be conquered upon the Path will open their whole heart to receive you."
But only when you have attained the state of vairagya! The state of vairagya means: you have dropped wanting. As long as you want—this should be, that should not be—there is attachment, raga. And the day you say: whatsoever is happening is what I want; what is not happening, I do not want.
At present we say: the desire is mine. If the world moves according to it, I shall be happy; if against it, I shall be miserable. We are misery upon misery, never truly happy.
The state of vairagya means we have reversed the whole thing. Now I do not say the world must be according to my desire. Now I say: whatever is, I am in accord with it. Or, whatever is, my desire is in accord with it.
Vairagya means that now I have no demand, no expectation from Existence; I am content. However it is, whatever it is, I am ready to be one with it. Now there is no raga in me.
This sutra says: the moment such a state of vairagya descends, the secret doors of Nature, of the Divine, open; the doors that were closed become wholly willing to take you in.
Much is closed; all around us are walls, there are no doors. Those walls are because of us—because we are struggling so hard to force them open.
Swami Ram used to tell that once, in an American office, he made a great mistake. He was a sannyasin, knew nothing of doors. In the Himalayan hut in which he had lived there were no doors at all. To enter an office he pushed the door hard—without seeing whether it said "pull" or "push." He pushed hard. The door would not open; it turned into a rigid wall. Then he looked down. It said: pull. He pulled and the door opened. Later he would often say that on God’s door too it does not say "push"; it says "pull"—not "push," but "draw toward yourself."
What is this art of drawing toward yourself?
The art of drawing toward yourself is surrender.
It rains upon the mountain too, but the mountain cannot retain the rain; for it is already full, there is no room for more. The rain that falls upon the mountain flows down and fills the hollows, the ravines, the lakes; because the lakes are empty—they draw it in.
Surrender draws, because when inwardly you are empty, bowed, receptive, you become a womb. Then you begin to draw, and in that drawing walls become doors.
Love draws, struggle pushes. Surrender draws, struggle pushes.
And we are all struggling. That is our trouble, our pain. With our own hands we have turned doors into walls; then we beat our chests, bang our heads, and cry: what is happening—how hard I labor, and the door does not open. But upon this door there is an eternal rule: do not push, draw.
And the art of drawing is deep. Pushing is easy; drawing is difficult. Because in pushing there is violence, and we have plenty of that. For drawing, love is needed, and we have none. Pushing is easy because pushing is aggression and our ego is very aggressive. Drawing is difficult because drawing is surrender, and our ego does not allow surrender.
Today a friend came to me and said: I wish to learn much from you, but I cannot surrender. I told him: then do not surrender and try to learn. But you will not be able to learn, because the attitude that learns flowers only after surrender; before that, it does not.
Surrender means simply this: whatever you give, I am ready to receive—that I have become a hollow; if there is rain, I shall fill, and become a lake. It is like a mountain saying: I am ready to become a lake of rainwater, but I am not ready to become a hollow. What will you say to that mountain? Do not become then. But drop the idea of becoming a lake.
Learning is possible when one is ready to bend. And the more one bends, the more one learns. Nor is it a question of in front of whom you bend. Learn the art of bending, keep the feeling of being bowed, and then you learn from all sides. Then you need not go only to a so-called great Guru. In truth, if you know how to bow, this whole Existence becomes your Guru. And if you do not know how to bow, even if God Himself stands before you—He will not be Guru for you. By bowing you can make anything your Guru. And by stiffening yourself you shut the door to anything whatsoever.
This Existence is always ready to pour out its wealth; there is not the slightest miserliness in it. Existence is not making any attempt to keep you deprived. If you are deprived, understand that your own cleverness, your art, your intelligence, your smartness has become the cause. You are pushing where one must draw. You are fighting where losing is the very art of winning. Not everywhere is victory gained by conquering. And the deeper the journey, the more difficult it becomes to win by aiming at victory. In some places, the conquerors lose badly.
There is an experience generally known to all—perhaps not known, but it could have been—and that is the experience of love. If anyone tries to win in love, he will be deprived of love. If he forces, all the doors of love will close. If he snatches and grabs, he will get nothing; his begging bowl will remain empty; he will die a beggar. Those who have even a glimpse of love can understand that there, losing is the art of winning. And the more one loses there, the more one is victorious.
Prayer is the expansion of love. Worship is love in its vast form. There, before the Whole, we leave ourselves defeated. We say: we are vanquished; we bow; we consent to be effaced. And the one who is ready to be effaced will never be effaced. And the one who insists on remaining stiff is perishing every moment and becoming a ruin. When someone dies, the river takes care of him; and when someone fights, it drowns him. Keep this in mind in relation to the river of Existence.
"When you have attained the state of vairagya, then the doors that are to be conquered upon the Path will open their whole heart to receive you. Even Nature’s mightiest powers will not be able to hinder your movement."
Right now, even Nature’s smallest forces drag us away; for there is no greater pull within us to become our protection. The trivial attracts us because the way to be attracted by the Vast is not yet open.
We are influenced by the trivial for only this reason: we have closed the way to be influenced by the Vast. And people keep on fighting—either to obtain the trivial or to be free from the trivial.
A man came to me—and many come in the same way—and said: I just want freedom from anger. I told him: freedom from anger cannot be attained directly. Anger happens because you have no taste of peace. If a taste of peace begins in you, anger will fall by itself and quieten. Drop the worry about anger. Your worry about anger will increase anger, not lessen it. This constant preoccupation—how to avoid anger—concentrates your mind all the more upon anger.
And wherever attention is concentrated, that thing becomes powerful.
That man tries twenty-four hours that anger should not happen, and for twenty-four hours he is entangled in anger. Somehow he manages to hold himself together through the day. But he does not manage; the anger that would have escaped in small spurts in the day gathers, and then in the evening or at some time it bursts forth. This anger becomes more dangerous; it would have been better if it had come out in small doses—less lethal. But now the poison has been collected; it becomes terrifying; it flames.
You may not know: those who vent small anger day by day never create great calamities. Be sure, they cannot murder anyone, nor commit suicide. But those who suppress are dangerous. If someone around you suppresses anger, beware—he is accumulating poison and extracting the essence out of poison. He will not make a small disturbance. Whenever it happens, it will be a big one. The outlets through which filth used to pass daily and there was purgation have been closed. Now the filth will only come out when he cannot manage it at all, when it exceeds him and is beyond his control.
Small anger is not bad; it is cathartic. Big anger is dangerous. But small or big, you cannot be free of anger directly. Drop the worry about anger. Be concerned with the art of becoming peaceful. As waves of peace begin to descend within, as the music of peace begins to echo, as a few flowers of peace begin to bloom, suddenly you will find that the capacity for anger has vanished. It was only there because…
The trivial attracted because the door to the Vast was closed. The futile seemed meaningful only because we had no taste of the meaningful. The moment the meaningful is known, the futile becomes futile. Once it is futile, no one clings to it. As long as we cling to it, it is meaningful. And because we have had no glimpse of the meaningful, the futile appears meaningful.
This sutra says: "Then even Nature’s mightiest powers will not be able to hinder your movement. Then you will become the master of the seven-hued Path; but, O candidate of the ordeal! before that it is not possible."
Before vairagya, it is not possible.
We live amidst trivial forces. We have to—there is no other way—for the Vast is not available to us. Its springs are near; a little knocking and they could be ours. But either the thought to knock does not arise, or we knock wrongly.
Jesus has said: Knock and the door shall be opened unto you. Knock, and the door will open. The truth is, the door is not even closed. But we do not know how to knock. And whatever we do, we do the opposite. Our condition is like that of a man who cannot sleep and tries a thousand ways to bring sleep. The more means he uses, the more difficult sleep becomes—for sleep cannot come by methods. Method and sleep are opposed. Tell one who cannot sleep: do not do anything. He will be annoyed. He says: as it is, I do not sleep; with methods, I still do not sleep—and you say do not do anything! What does he do?
I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin could not sleep. He had tried a thousand methods. Whatever anyone suggested, he did. Because of the methods, a new trouble arose: the nights were spent in performing methods. And having performed them, he became so excited, so stimulated, that sleep became even more difficult.
At last his wife said: Mulla, you fool around with complex tricks. I have heard since childhood there is no need to do much; count sheep. We have sheep at home. Count from one to a hundred. By the time you reach a hundred—dropping all other thoughts—one sheep, two sheep, three sheep—watching them—before a hundred sleep will come.
Mulla tried that too. In the morning his wife asked: how are you? He said: you idiot, you entangled me so that not one night, many nights I shall not sleep. What happened? He said: I went on counting, went on counting—past lakhs; my head swam. Then I thought this is not right, I should do something else. There were hundreds of thousands of sheep in the house—what to do? I sheared them. The wool of lakhs of sheep was cut. Then what to do with all this wool? I tailored coats. Then came a new problem: these lakhs of coats piled up—who will buy them, where will they sell? And I was still worrying about this when you came and asked.
Sleep comes only when you are not doing anything. If you are doing something, it does not come. Doing itself is the obstacle; effort itself is the opposition; striving itself disturbs. Sleep comes when you are not doing—even trying to bring sleep. When all trying ceases, suddenly you find sleep has descended.
If we knock upon life’s doors in a wrong way, there is trouble. And the subtler the entry, the more complex it becomes. The gross we may understand, but the subtle is more difficult. Our greatest trouble is that we are entangled with the trivial, whether householder or sannyasin. The householder is entangled in how to collect the trivial—how to amass wealth, build a house, extend property, enlarge land. The sannyasin is entangled with the same trivial: how to be free of attachment to house, how to drop the thirst for wealth, how to be free of the nuisance of land and property. He too is entangled with it. The feelings are opposite, but the center is one. Both are possessed by the trivial. One faces it; one turns his back on it. One runs toward the trivial; one runs away from it. But the trivial inhabits both their hearts.
A true sannyasin does not bother about the trivial; he concerns himself with vairagya. He does not even think of the trivial. He does not give it even so much value as to oppose it. To oppose is also to value; to oppose is also to acknowledge the power of the trivial. Vairagya means: we give no concern to the power of the trivial—neither pro nor con. We search for the Vast.
And the day a ray of the Vast begins to break, the trivial vanishes. It abides in your heart only until there is no touch of the Vast. Therefore do not fall into negation—into negating the world. Most religions did not become expansive because they fell into negating the world, into fighting the trivial.
I know sannyasins whose minds are occupied twenty-four hours with this—eat not this, drink not that; sit thus, stand thus; sleep by this hour, rise by that hour. Nothing wrong in itself. But if all their hours pass only in this, then the man is surrounded by the excessively trivial. It is fine that one rises at five in the morning, fine that one goes to sleep at nine at night—nothing amiss; very good. But if this becomes an obsession—if one thinks all day that if I do not sleep by nine I commit a sin, if I do not wake at five at Brahma-muhurta I shall fall into hell—then it has gone too far. This man is ill. Psychologists call such a man neurotic. The illness appears in many ways.
I know a gentleman who is mad about house-cleaning. Cleanliness is a good thing, and no one would call it bad, but if it becomes a madness! He does not invite friends to his home—their sofas and chairs can get dirty. When someone goes to his home he looks him over from head to toe to see if he is fit to be seated! Not even a speck of dust can enter his house. The house is absolutely clean; but it is so clean it is unfit to live in! He himself barely lives there, because he too may make some little dirt! It is as if he were born only to clean that house. Cleanliness is fine, but it becomes a disease when it becomes life’s goal.
Vivekananda said: the religion of my country has been destroyed in the kitchen. The whole time the worry is whether someone touched the food or the water.
I know a friend. Once I had to travel with him. Seeing his anxieties I was amazed. I said: if these worries lead a man toward moksha, then better to go to hell—because these worries are worse than hell—hellish. He is occupied with them all day. He said to me: we are traveling, but I could not make inquiries, because I only drink the milk of a white cow. White cow—if she is black or spotted, I do not drink.
Auspicious—good indeed. But who said this? This has become madness. Who has said a white cow is good and a black is bad? How deeply the evil of black has entered the mind. And he takes nothing but milk—only milk; and that too of a white cow! Whose house he stays in goes crazy with him. It is excess. He rises at three in the morning; everyone whose house he visits must wake at three. From three he begins chanting so loudly. His wife complained to me; through her I met him. She said: he comes to you sometimes—please explain to him that midnight recitation is not right. There are children in the house; I too am there; we all are in difficulty. But he is religious; if we say anything, he believes this is irreligion. In his eyes we all are going to hell and he is going to heaven. From midnight he begins.
I asked him: do you chant at midnight? He said: who told you? At three in the morning; it is not midnight. And he was not wrong—three is not midnight. And whoever sleeps at three is at fault. His condition worsened; entangled in such little things he became almost diseased. God and moksha remain far away; none of these things have anything to do with that. Better than this…
I have heard that Eknath said: whenever I wake up, that is Brahma-muhurta; because when Brahman awakens me, then it is Brahma-muhurta. I do not attempt on my own to wake, nor to sleep. When Brahman puts me to sleep, I sleep; when Brahman awakens me, I rise. Why should I worry when He is taking the worry?
We are such people that even when sitting in a train we keep our bedroll on our head lest the train be burdened. In the Existence in which we are being carried, it bears us and our loads. Why then put further loads upon our own heads? This does not mean I am saying fill your house with filth. There are such people too, and they have been taken as religious; they are worthy of psychotherapy. Some you must have heard of—people call them paramahansas—who will defecate where they eat; then people say: he is a paramahansa; now all distinction is gone. They need treatment.
Cleanliness can possess you to madness, and filth can possess you to madness. And at both extremes saints are seated. Remain in the middle—with understanding, with awareness. Do not make any thing a disease. To be free of the trivial does not mean to get busy abandoning the trivial. It only means: do not give the trivial any value.
Care for the Vast; put your consciousness, your attention, your energy toward the Vast. The doors can open soon.
And the day the power of the Vast begins to be yours, the trivial is washed away just as a great flood carries off all garbage; just as when the morning sun rises, the dew-drops vanish. Only a madman goes about wiping off dew-drops. No need. Wait for the sun to rise. Or think of someone trying to remove darkness—such a man is mad. Lighting a lamp is enough; when the lamp is lit, darkness is not found.
"Then you will become the master of the seven-hued Path. But, O candidate of the ordeal! before that it is not possible."
Before what?
Before vairagya, it is not possible.
One more thing about vairagya, then we shall go further.
Vairagya is an affirmative state, not negative. The word is negative; that creates trouble. And there is a reason words turn negative—words are coined seeing man as he is. For instance, himsa (violence) is treated as positive and ahimsa (nonviolence) as negative. It should not be so. It is a great mistake. Ahimsa is a profoundly positive state. Himsa is negative.
Why then are the words reversed?
Because as man is, in him violence seems affirmative; and ahimsa has almost no presence. Man made the words; he made them for his needs. In man violence appears positive, and ahimsa is unknown. Only in a Buddha or a Mahavira does ahimsa become affirmative. And when in them ahimsa manifests, then it is known that violence was negative—the absence of ahimsa. Violence had no existence of its own.
But our prized words are negative: krodha (anger) is positive, akrodha negative; parigraha (possessiveness) positive, aparigraha negative; raga (attachment) positive, viraga negative. Whereas the truth is exactly the opposite. Raga is there only because viraga is not. Darkness is there only because light is not. Darkness has no being of its own. Let light be, and darkness is not. Let vairagya be, and raga is zero.
Understand well: vairagya is an affirmative state of consciousness. It is not opposition to raga; it is the absence and ending of raga. And not only the absence of raga; it has its own being.
What is the meaning of vairagya?
Raga means: the mind runs after something. Vairagya means: the mind has stopped, it does not run after anything. Raga is the running mind; vairagya is the stilled mind. Raga is the begging mind; vairagya is sovereignty. But even our emperors are beggars. Sometimes it has happened that our beggars became emperors.
Buddha is a beggar. And he named his sannyasins bhikkhu—beggar—knowingly. Because emperors looked such beggars that it was proper that emperors stop calling themselves emperors and call themselves beggars. Where beggars are imagining themselves emperors, it is proper that the true emperor not call himself emperor. Therefore the Hindu word swami Buddha did not use—because swami means lord, sovereign. Buddha said: where all beggars think themselves sovereigns, then if the true sovereign calls himself sovereign it will be too much; it will become an irony. Therefore I will call my swami, my sannyasin, my emperor—a bhikkhu.
It was a slap upon our face, but we could not understand. Our emperor is also a beggar; because he is in raga, he is asking.
I have heard: there was a Muslim fakir, Farid. His village was in great trouble. The villagers asked Farid, since Akbar respected him greatly, to go and ask Akbar to arrange at least a small school for the village.
Farid had never asked from anyone. The villagers pressed him; he could not refuse—for refusal too was not his habit. He set off for Delhi. Early in the morning he arrived, and learned the emperor was at namaz, at prayer. Farid stood quietly in the rear: the right moment—right after prayer a man’s tendency to give is a little greater.
That is why beggars come to you in the morning. In the evening no beggar comes. By evening you are battered and angry with the world—you cannot give. The fear is you may snatch something from the beggar. In the dark, in solitude, there is fear you might take what he has. The beggar comes in the morning light. After the night, fresh, a little quiet from the world—less fear, more hope.
So Farid thought: let me stand behind; as soon as the emperor’s worship, his prayer is over, instantly I will say: open a small madrasa in my village. But when he stood behind he heard Akbar with joined hands saying: O God, increase my wealth, enlarge my riches, expand my empire. Farid’s breath caught. This one himself is asking—of this poor fellow to ask for a little school will make him poorer! He began to leave lest he be seen; otherwise he would have to tell why he had come. He fled.
Akbar turned back and saw: what, Farid! With great respect he called him. You came—and go! How so? Farid said: ask not; I cannot lie, and to tell the truth now would be improper, discourteous. Forgive me; I came by mistake; I am going. Akbar held his hand: I will not let you go like this; at least tell me. If it is in my power, I will surely fulfill it. Farid said: it is not in your power, it is difficult. I came by mistake. And I learned of the One in Whose power it is—this much benefit I got by coming.
Akbar said: still tell me; even if I cannot fulfill it, do not leave this worry on my mind that you came. Farid said: the matter is a little tricky. The villagers pressed me to ask for a school. They said: tell Akbar. No, no—do not trouble yourself, Akbar, because I just saw you begging. If one must beg, we will beg from the same One from Whom you were begging. Why make a middle beggar a broker now!
Our emperor too is a beggar, asking, desiring.
Raga is begging; vairagya is lordship.
It is the affirmative state when we are no longer asking. And as long as we ask, nothing can be gained from Nature. The day we do not ask, Nature’s entire wealth showers. The Law of Reverse Effect—the law of the opposite result.
"Until then you have a very difficult task to do: you must at once experience yourself as all-thought and also expel all-thought from your Atman."
This is a little intricate. If you try to understand, it looks intricate; if you start to do it, it is not so intricate. Right now we are filled, possessed by thought. But we take some thoughts as our own and some not as our own; some we take as enemies. A Hindu takes Hindu thoughts as his own; a Muslim takes Muslim thoughts as his own. Someone’s Quran is his own; someone’s Gita; someone’s Bible. And for the one whose Bible is his own, the Quran is an enemy, the Gita an enemy.
We have made a selection in thought. As if upon the whole earth we have built a small house and say: this land is mine! Yet the earth is indivisible; there is no way to divide it. All partitions exist on maps, not on the earth. You may say India is mine and Pakistan not mine; yet on the earth India and Pakistan are one. On maps they are separate. In man’s maps there is division; Nature is indivisible. As earth does not divide—no way to cut it into fragments—the division we do upon maps, and then create great havoc. For maps we fight. No one can fight for India or for Pakistan or for China. The earth is one. But our fight is like this.
I have heard: a Master slept at noon. He had two disciples—both keen to serve. Both wanted to serve at once. The Master said: do this, divide me half and half—one my left, one my right. The disciples were delighted. What more will disciples like than to divide the Master! One took the left leg and left side; the other the right. The Master fell into great trouble, for he could not be divided. He turned over: the right leg fell over the left. The disciple of the left said: remove your leg! Keep it off mine—this will not do! There was a scuffle; the Master was beaten. Somehow he saved himself. He said: stop, wait—see also that I am indivisible!
The earth is undivided. The realm of thought too is undivided. The field of thought is just like the earth—undivided. In it, Hindu and Muslim, mine and thine—this thought good, that thought bad; this the enemy’s, that the friend’s; this of my sect, that of yours—all these are like divisions on maps. On the map of thought we have divided; all such divisions are false. The thought-world is one, as the earth is one.
In this age, Teilhard de Chardin, a great scientist, gave a notion helpful here. Just as there is the earth—first layer—then around it the atmosphere, about two hundred miles of air surrounding the earth—the atmosphere; Chardin suggested that around this atmosphere there is a sphere of thought. He called it the Noosphere—the thought-sphere. Atmosphere, then Noosphere. This is true to a great extent.
Whatever thought there is in the world also accumulates. Nothing is destroyed; nothing can be destroyed. Things change, they are not annihilated. Nothing is finally ended, nothing finally born—there is a continuous flow. What appears to us destroyed at one point has only become invisible and appears again at another. A river flows underground and we think it has vanished; or it falls into the ocean and we think it is finished. Nothing is finished. Clouds will form again; the river will rise into the sky and rain upon the Himalayas; again Gangotri, again Ganga, again ocean—a circle. From one place manifest, from another unmanifest; but nothing is destroyed. Thoughts too keep gathering. Around the atmosphere the sphere of thought keeps forming.
This sutra says: do not divide yourself in thought; take yourself as all-thought. Understand that your mind is all-thought.
Why?
Because if one can take his mind as all-thought, if one understands I am all-thought, then release from thought begins. For bondage to thought is possible only if some thoughts are mine and some are not. Only then can there be walls. If the whole earth is mine, where will I raise walls, for whom will I make defenses? If there is a small plot, I can wall it off, enclose a courtyard. If the whole earth is mine, where will I raise a wall—and for whom? When there is nothing to divide, for whom will I raise a wall?
The one to whom it is revealed that "I am all-thought" becomes free of sect, free of narrowness. And something else unique happens: if all-thought is mine, then you will see that what appears opposite also is not opposite; it too is joined, connected. What seems contrary, like an enemy, is also your own part. Where contradiction appears, it is also only an appearance. There too there is no opposition. But this will be only when there is unity with the All. And if such unity occurs, then renunciation becomes easy.
It is a wonder: if I have a tiny house and a small plot of land, I must enclose and defend it—from others. And then it is very hard to leave. What I have defended so much, around which I have raised fences—attachment grows; I enter into it, and that plot enters into me.
It is astonishing that the trivial is very hard to drop. But if the whole earth is mine, leaving is very easy. Because whether the whole earth is mine or not mine, it makes no difference. Keep this in mind. If a small plot is mine or not mine, there is a great difference. If the whole earth is mine or not mine—what difference does it make? Both are equal. If the whole sky is mine or not mine—both are equal. The total is very easy to leave.
Therefore if people like Buddha and Mahavira could renounce wealth, there is a reason: they were not poor; they had much; and the more there is, the easier it is to leave. The trivial is hard to leave. Emperors can leave their kingdoms; a fakir cannot leave his loincloth. Compared with an empire, the loincloth becomes enormous. There is so little—what more to leave? And it is so little that if it goes, life goes.
The more there is, the easier it is to leave—this will surprise you. And if it is total, then leaving is utterly simple. Because between two totals there is no difference. If the whole earth is mine and if the whole earth is not mine, these two are not different. Both are total. If all-thought is mine, then the renunciation of all-thought is easy.
This sutra says: "Until then you have a very difficult task to do: you must at once experience yourself as all-thought and also expel all-thought from your Atman."
Both things happen. If all-thought is mine, the renunciation of all-thought becomes equally easy. Attend to the first task; the second follows like a shadow. The first alone is difficult.
A man clings to the Vedas—how to leave? Because the Vedas are mine. The Quran is yours; I can leave the Quran; the Bible I can leave—they are not mine. The Vedas are mine—or the Bible is mine—so the Quran I can leave; it is already left. But if all scriptures are mine, then there is no obstacle in leaving; no attachment remains. All has become equal. There is no comparison—what is greater, what lesser; what is mine, what is not. All is mine, and can be dropped.
One who cannot drop sect can never be religious. However much a sectarian tries to be religious, he cannot be. The boundary restrains. Where there is a boundary, there is no meeting with the Boundless. Take all thoughts as yours. In thinking so, you will find the burden of mind lightens. The mosque is mine, the temple is mine, the Shiva-shrine is mine, the church is mine—the matter ends. There is nowhere to go. Wherever you sit, there is temple, church, Shiva-shrine.
"You must attain such stillness of mind that even the fiercest wind cannot drive a single earthly thought into it. Purified thus, the inner temple must be emptied of all worldly acts, words and earthly lights. As a frost-struck butterfly drops in a heap upon the threshold, so must all earthly thoughts heap up before the temple."
You must attain such stillness of mind that even the fiercest wind cannot drive a single earthly thought into it.
Stillness of mind.
Our mind is quivering, trembling each moment. Because of this trembling anything can enter us. Because of this trembling gaps occur, holes appear. Because of this trembling we have no inner strength, no stable state within.
Understand it this way: when your mind is very anxious, notice how countless thoughts start entering. When your mind is silent, thoughts have no influence upon you; thoughts are around you like flies buzzing. Whenever they get a gap, they enter. The gap comes from your trembling. If within you are still, if the mind does not tremble, no thought enters.
Verify it by experience. When you are quiet, it is as if an impenetrable wall has arisen within you—nothing enters. When you are disturbed, it seems everything enters—trash and refuse enter—and you are unable to stop it.
How to attain stillness of mind? What to do so the mind stands still, stops?
Keep two or three things in mind. We are using exactly these here.
First: the moment you become aware the mind has gone into the past, immediately bring it back into the present. You have begun to think of childhood—no meaning. You have perhaps wasted childhood thinking of old age; now you waste youth thinking of childhood. What is gone is gone; what has passed has passed. Do not think of it. Nothing can be done there now. By thinking of it you are losing the time you now have; tomorrow you will repent for this.
I was speaking somewhere on the Gita—the second chapter. A gentleman came with a question from the tenth. I said: wait, let the second be understood; when I speak on the tenth, we will see. By coincidence, when I was speaking on the tenth, the same gentleman came with a question from the second. I told him: you forgot; I have not. When I was on the second, you brought the tenth; now I am on the tenth, you bring the second!
You will not understand what is; you worry about what is not! Thus you will miss all. And that is what we do. This moment is sufficient. Do not go back. If it has become a habit, then the moment you notice it, return to the present. Use any device and return. If a thought of childhood has come, drop it. There is a stone lying in front—pick it up and look at it; the moon is in the sky—look at it; a flower has opened on the tree—look at it; a fragrance is on the breeze—inhale it. If nothing else, lie down upon the earth and feel her warmth or her coolness. But return to the present. Enter into what is happening here and now.
Similarly, when the mind runs into the future, immediately bring it back to the present. Avoid past and future. In a few days you will begin to find the mind growing still. For there is no way to tremble in the present. All trembling comes from behind or ahead. The past that is no more, the future that is not yet—their anxieties shake you.
Second: whenever the mind trembles much, become a witness to it. Watch—as if you are standing at a distance from your mind. As if the mind is like a river flowing; or like a flock of birds flying in the sky; or like the traffic on a road—moving—and you are on the side, watching silently. Watch your mind from afar. Soon you will find the mind becoming still, quiet. As this art grows, so instantly—whenever you are a witness—the mind will become still.
Third: whatever work you are doing, be totally absorbed in it—even if it be small. If you are eating, be utterly absorbed, as if in the world there is nothing else to do now but to eat. Use all devices to be absorbed; taste rightly.
You will say: we do taste. I cannot agree, because when you eat you are not absorbed in eating; you are at the office, the shop, the market, with your friend, quarreling with someone or doing a thousand things. With so many things you cannot taste. Taste; chew slowly. Taste; experience the fragrance. See with the eyes; touch with the hands; involve all the senses. Let one thought remain in the mind: now that I am eating, I will only eat. If I am bathing, I will only bathe. If I am at the shop, I will be only there. If I come home, I will be only at home. Dive into what you are doing. You will find the mind beginning to come to rest.
If you keep these three points in mind, the mind becomes still soon. Then even the fiercest wind cannot drive a thought into it. Then thoughts thrown from outside fall like frost-struck butterflies on the threshold. Likewise, at your threshold thoughts will fall into a heap. This is not a mere symbol; it is actual reality. You can see a heap of thoughts lying at your own threshold. If this stillness arises in you, you will find how for countless days you were prey to thoughts—how all sorts of thoughts kept entering you. The house was unguarded; there was no watchman at the gate. Now the watchman of witnessing has been seated. And those winds that blew from past and future—you have renounced them. And that habit of leaving the action of the present moment and running here and there—you have renounced that too. Now there is no way in. Thoughts will pile at your threshold, and within will grow the thought-free. This thought-free openness becomes the path toward Samadhi.
Read what is written:
"Before the golden flame can burn with a steady light, the lamp must be well guarded in a windless place. In the face of shifting winds the stream of light will begin to waver, and from that wavering flame fallacious, dark, ever-changing shadows will be cast upon the bright temple of the soul."
Make your mind like a windless chamber in which, if a lamp is lit, it does not flicker.
The day the thought-free chamber arises within you, the airless room is made. The day that chamber is thought-free, the inner flame will burn in full radiance without the slightest tremble. And if even a single thought comes, near that flame it will instantly become a shadow upon the wall of the mind. If many thoughts come, the wall turns dark—the flame is completely covered. If there is not even one thought, the inner wall of the temple remains utterly clean, pure, flawless—not a trace of shadow. In this shadowless mind, in this still, windless chamber, the event happens that we call Brahman-knowledge, Brahma-jnana. For that, one must pass through all this preparation.