Samadhi Ke Sapat Dwar #12
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Read in Original Hindi (मूल हिन्दी)
Questions in this Discourse
A friend has asked:
Osho, in Dynamic Meditation we use the maha-mantra “Hu.” The followers of Islam believe that using this mantra brings everything to fana, to annihilation. Therefore they are not in favor of making the sound “Hu” in the city. Please say something about this.
Osho, in Dynamic Meditation we use the maha-mantra “Hu.” The followers of Islam believe that using this mantra brings everything to fana, to annihilation. Therefore they are not in favor of making the sound “Hu” in the city. Please say something about this.
It is true. This mantra is indeed for fana—for ending, for effacement. But this “disappearing” is the way to becoming vast. The Sufis have used this mantra. It is the final part of “Allahu.” The Sufi seeker begins with “Allah.” He raises the echo of “Allah, Allah, Allah.” As this echo grows denser, “Allah” naturally becomes “Allahu.” It happens by itself.
If you cry inwardly, loudly and swiftly—“Allah, Allah, Allah”—you will slowly find it turning into “Allahu, Allahu, Allahu.” It all happens on its own; it does not have to be done. When the echo becomes very intense and you leave no gap at all between two “Allahu”—one “Allahu” starts riding upon the next—then only “Lahu, Lahu, Lahu” remains. And when you bring even more intensity, condense it further, then even the “La” drops, and “Hu” remains. Then only the roar of “Hu” remains.
This “Hu” mantra is certainly for fana. The practitioner uses it to erase himself, to bring himself to an end. It is an invitation to your own death—not this ordinary death of the body; rather that great death which is of the ego and the mind, which will wipe “me” out entirely. What we call death does not really wipe you out. The truth is: it does not wipe you out at all. In fact, it saves you from being wiped out. When a body is utterly decayed, if we continued to remain in it, we would be destroyed; so death gives you a new body. It is as if someone, seeing your old collapsing ruin of a house and fearing you might be buried in it, invites you to come and live in his new house. Death does not annihilate you; it merely removes the ruin and gives you a new, healthier, fresher body.
“Fana” is the Sufis’ word; it means the real death. That real death truly effaces you. It shatters the inner sense of “I.” The secret hidden in the sound of “Hu” breaks your feeling of “I.”
And what is this “I”? Many people wonder how a sound can break the “I.” You don’t know: the “I” too is a sound. It is a tone. There are counter-sounds; if employed, the “I” dissolves, breaks, is annihilated. After thousands of years of practice those sounds have been discovered which are antidotes. “I” is a tone; “Hu” is also a tone. The tone of “Hu” is the antidote, the opposite medicine. And therefore fear also arises—“I will be erased”—so panic arises.
But there is no need to be afraid of practicing it in the city. Fear arises—yes—but there is no need to be afraid; because without fana, without being erased, none of those in the city will find real life. And the panic is understandable; a person wants to save himself, he thinks, “Let there not be some device that wipes me out.” You may not realize it: seat one man in the middle, have twelve people stand around him with arms linked, and begin loudly roaring “Hu”—that man will begin to tremble and panic, even if he does not want to. “Hu” creates a fear within.
A very amusing incident occurred—hardly believable; that is why I have not told it until now. A sannyasin, Anand Vijay, built a solitary dwelling on the outskirts of Jabalpur, and there he began practicing this maha-mantra “Hu” with great intensity. Sometimes more friends gathered to do it together; alone he did it anyway; the two or four who were his family also did it. He fell seriously ill. One day his condition became almost delirious. But sometimes when delirium happens, the doors to the other side open. Sometimes, when a person comes very near to dying here, certain things become visible to him which the living never see—because he has slid close to death and moved away from life. He had a fever of about one hundred and six degrees, and in the delirium he felt there were many spirits standing in his room. And they were all telling him, “You will not get well until you stop the utterance of ‘Hu’ you are doing at Devtal outside the city. We are spirits that have been living here for a long time, and we have become very frightened by your chanting of ‘Hu’.” When he returned to consciousness, this remained in his memory. He wrote to me and said, “I cannot believe this is true. It could be my imagination, just some notion.” Later the same incident occurred twice more. Now he even began to recognize their faces. And all those spirits wanted him to move from there, because their abode had long been there, and if you continue with “Hu,” either we will have to leave or you must go from here.
This could be imagination—but there was another reason that made it seem it was not imagination. Anand Vijay too was concerned that it might be imagination; his sincerity is clear. He was afraid even to tell anyone—because it could be purely a dream. And he himself could not believe that spirits might be alarmed by the roar of “Hu.” Merely for verification, he tried an experiment. Around that time—just a few days earlier—Lama Karmapa had said something about me which he had read. The Karmapa had said that one of my bodies from a previous birth is preserved in a cave in Tibet. There are ninety-nine bodies preserved there; among them one is mine.
In Tibet they have tried to preserve, as experiments, those bodies in which certain special events have occurred over thousands of years—because such events do not recur easily, sometimes only after millions of years. For example, someone’s third eye opened, and with the opening of the third eye a hole formed in the skull where the third eye is. Such an event may occur once in millions of years. Many people’s third eye opens, but not everyone has that hole. When that hole happens, the third eye opens in its fullness; then the hole appears. They preserve such a skull or such a body.
Or say someone’s sex-energy rose in its totality and burst through the brain and merged into the cosmos; then a hole appears there. That hole occurs only sometimes. Many merge into the world-soul, but the energy moves so slowly and over such a long interval that no hole forms—it seeps away drop by drop. Sometimes, suddenly, with such velocity, the entire energy breaks through the brain and dissolves; then a hole forms. They preserve that body. In this way they have, to date, undertaken the greatest grand-experiment in the history of humankind. Ninety-nine bodies have been preserved. The Karmapa had said that one of those ninety-nine bodies is also mine.
Anand Vijay had read this. So he thought: If this is true, and if—in this delirious condition in which I myself cannot believe whether I am in my senses or mad—if I am coming so close to the spirits, I would like to know which body among the ninety-nine is mine. I will count, and if it comes into view and turns out to be that one, then I will understand that what is happening is true.
He informed me. I said, “Do the experiment.” He let me know it was the third body. One-two-three—such counting is prone to error. But still, all right. He had counted from the other end. It is not the third body; it is the ninety-seventh body—yet it is true. Ninety-nine bodies are kept; he began counting from where he thought the beginning was, but that was not the beginning, it was the end. That he could count it as the third is very significant. It is the ninety-seventh; but if you count in reverse, it can be the third.
So I told him, “Do not be afraid; what is happening is going well. Continue, and wait for one more event.”
That event also occurred. He kept getting sicker, and the spirits kept telling him again and again. And I had told him: Say plainly, “I am not going to move from here. This ‘Hu’ will continue here. If you want to stay, stay; if you want to join, join; if you want to flee, flee—I am not moving from here.” The day he fully made this resolve, that day other spirits appeared to him and said, “You keep going. We too are spirits living in this very place, but we are good spirits. And if these troublemaking spirits, who are disturbed by your ‘Hu,’ should leave, it will be a great blessing for us as well.”
You may not believe it—these are matters of that realm. But “Hu” can indeed create disturbance. Still, to friends who feel such disturbance, explain that on the path to the Divine there is no other way than fana. One has to erase oneself—if you want to attain that which never perishes.
Death is the gate to the deathless nectar.
Whoever embraces death with simple acceptance—death comes to an end for him.
He who saves himself is lost, and he who loses himself is saved forever.
If you cry inwardly, loudly and swiftly—“Allah, Allah, Allah”—you will slowly find it turning into “Allahu, Allahu, Allahu.” It all happens on its own; it does not have to be done. When the echo becomes very intense and you leave no gap at all between two “Allahu”—one “Allahu” starts riding upon the next—then only “Lahu, Lahu, Lahu” remains. And when you bring even more intensity, condense it further, then even the “La” drops, and “Hu” remains. Then only the roar of “Hu” remains.
This “Hu” mantra is certainly for fana. The practitioner uses it to erase himself, to bring himself to an end. It is an invitation to your own death—not this ordinary death of the body; rather that great death which is of the ego and the mind, which will wipe “me” out entirely. What we call death does not really wipe you out. The truth is: it does not wipe you out at all. In fact, it saves you from being wiped out. When a body is utterly decayed, if we continued to remain in it, we would be destroyed; so death gives you a new body. It is as if someone, seeing your old collapsing ruin of a house and fearing you might be buried in it, invites you to come and live in his new house. Death does not annihilate you; it merely removes the ruin and gives you a new, healthier, fresher body.
“Fana” is the Sufis’ word; it means the real death. That real death truly effaces you. It shatters the inner sense of “I.” The secret hidden in the sound of “Hu” breaks your feeling of “I.”
And what is this “I”? Many people wonder how a sound can break the “I.” You don’t know: the “I” too is a sound. It is a tone. There are counter-sounds; if employed, the “I” dissolves, breaks, is annihilated. After thousands of years of practice those sounds have been discovered which are antidotes. “I” is a tone; “Hu” is also a tone. The tone of “Hu” is the antidote, the opposite medicine. And therefore fear also arises—“I will be erased”—so panic arises.
But there is no need to be afraid of practicing it in the city. Fear arises—yes—but there is no need to be afraid; because without fana, without being erased, none of those in the city will find real life. And the panic is understandable; a person wants to save himself, he thinks, “Let there not be some device that wipes me out.” You may not realize it: seat one man in the middle, have twelve people stand around him with arms linked, and begin loudly roaring “Hu”—that man will begin to tremble and panic, even if he does not want to. “Hu” creates a fear within.
A very amusing incident occurred—hardly believable; that is why I have not told it until now. A sannyasin, Anand Vijay, built a solitary dwelling on the outskirts of Jabalpur, and there he began practicing this maha-mantra “Hu” with great intensity. Sometimes more friends gathered to do it together; alone he did it anyway; the two or four who were his family also did it. He fell seriously ill. One day his condition became almost delirious. But sometimes when delirium happens, the doors to the other side open. Sometimes, when a person comes very near to dying here, certain things become visible to him which the living never see—because he has slid close to death and moved away from life. He had a fever of about one hundred and six degrees, and in the delirium he felt there were many spirits standing in his room. And they were all telling him, “You will not get well until you stop the utterance of ‘Hu’ you are doing at Devtal outside the city. We are spirits that have been living here for a long time, and we have become very frightened by your chanting of ‘Hu’.” When he returned to consciousness, this remained in his memory. He wrote to me and said, “I cannot believe this is true. It could be my imagination, just some notion.” Later the same incident occurred twice more. Now he even began to recognize their faces. And all those spirits wanted him to move from there, because their abode had long been there, and if you continue with “Hu,” either we will have to leave or you must go from here.
This could be imagination—but there was another reason that made it seem it was not imagination. Anand Vijay too was concerned that it might be imagination; his sincerity is clear. He was afraid even to tell anyone—because it could be purely a dream. And he himself could not believe that spirits might be alarmed by the roar of “Hu.” Merely for verification, he tried an experiment. Around that time—just a few days earlier—Lama Karmapa had said something about me which he had read. The Karmapa had said that one of my bodies from a previous birth is preserved in a cave in Tibet. There are ninety-nine bodies preserved there; among them one is mine.
In Tibet they have tried to preserve, as experiments, those bodies in which certain special events have occurred over thousands of years—because such events do not recur easily, sometimes only after millions of years. For example, someone’s third eye opened, and with the opening of the third eye a hole formed in the skull where the third eye is. Such an event may occur once in millions of years. Many people’s third eye opens, but not everyone has that hole. When that hole happens, the third eye opens in its fullness; then the hole appears. They preserve such a skull or such a body.
Or say someone’s sex-energy rose in its totality and burst through the brain and merged into the cosmos; then a hole appears there. That hole occurs only sometimes. Many merge into the world-soul, but the energy moves so slowly and over such a long interval that no hole forms—it seeps away drop by drop. Sometimes, suddenly, with such velocity, the entire energy breaks through the brain and dissolves; then a hole forms. They preserve that body. In this way they have, to date, undertaken the greatest grand-experiment in the history of humankind. Ninety-nine bodies have been preserved. The Karmapa had said that one of those ninety-nine bodies is also mine.
Anand Vijay had read this. So he thought: If this is true, and if—in this delirious condition in which I myself cannot believe whether I am in my senses or mad—if I am coming so close to the spirits, I would like to know which body among the ninety-nine is mine. I will count, and if it comes into view and turns out to be that one, then I will understand that what is happening is true.
He informed me. I said, “Do the experiment.” He let me know it was the third body. One-two-three—such counting is prone to error. But still, all right. He had counted from the other end. It is not the third body; it is the ninety-seventh body—yet it is true. Ninety-nine bodies are kept; he began counting from where he thought the beginning was, but that was not the beginning, it was the end. That he could count it as the third is very significant. It is the ninety-seventh; but if you count in reverse, it can be the third.
So I told him, “Do not be afraid; what is happening is going well. Continue, and wait for one more event.”
That event also occurred. He kept getting sicker, and the spirits kept telling him again and again. And I had told him: Say plainly, “I am not going to move from here. This ‘Hu’ will continue here. If you want to stay, stay; if you want to join, join; if you want to flee, flee—I am not moving from here.” The day he fully made this resolve, that day other spirits appeared to him and said, “You keep going. We too are spirits living in this very place, but we are good spirits. And if these troublemaking spirits, who are disturbed by your ‘Hu,’ should leave, it will be a great blessing for us as well.”
You may not believe it—these are matters of that realm. But “Hu” can indeed create disturbance. Still, to friends who feel such disturbance, explain that on the path to the Divine there is no other way than fana. One has to erase oneself—if you want to attain that which never perishes.
Death is the gate to the deathless nectar.
Whoever embraces death with simple acceptance—death comes to an end for him.
He who saves himself is lost, and he who loses himself is saved forever.
Osho's Commentary
Be alert, lest, preoccupied with the ego, your Atman lose its footing upon the ground of divine knowing!
Be alert, lest your Atman forget Paramatman, lose control over your trembling mind, and in that way squander even the fruit of your victory.
Beware of change, for change is your great enemy. Change will wrestle with you, drive you off your path, and sink you into the wicked quagmire of doubt.
An even deeper difficulty begins to appear. The moment we turn our consciousness from the world toward the within, the inquiry into what is real and what is unreal becomes arduous. As in a dream—whatever appears in the dream seems real; because in a dream there is no measure, no criterion. There are no companions to consult, no society present. You are alone, and what you see, is. If I see you now, I can verify by asking others whether they also see you. If no one sees you and only I do, suspicion will arise that it is an illusion. But if I am utterly alone, and you appear, and there is no one to ask, there remains no way to test it.
This is the only difference between dream and reality: a dream is a private experience in which no other can participate. Can you take someone into your dream as a companion, so that he too may see your dream? There is no way. Two persons cannot see the same dream. Hence there is no way for the two to align and confirm whether what one saw, the other also saw or not. Then how to examine whether what is seen is reality or dream? In the outer world examination is possible; a difference appears between collective truth and private truth. The one who lives in collective truth we call sane; the one who begins to live in private dreams we call mad. What is the difference between a madman and you?
Only this: the madman lives in such truths as are truths only for him and for no one else. A madman sits alone and talks to someone. That one to whom he speaks is visible to no one; only to him. You can call him mad because what appears only to him and to no one else must be a delusion. The madman is taking his dream as truth. If that companion began to be visible to you as well, and to everyone, then he would not be mad—because the matter would no longer be private; it would have become public. Even if a dream becomes public, it will seem real.
And if some truth be private, there still remains great difficulty in examining whether it is truth or dream. Therefore the guru becomes very useful: on the inner journey, what is coming to your experience—whether it is truly happening or only imagination playing—is hard to sort. With whom will you align? Who will say, “This is right,” or “This is wrong”? If there is another in whom the experience has already flowered, your experience can be matched against his. Then a small convenience arises—at least we are not getting lost in a dream. But on the inner journey the greatest danger is precisely this: much begins to happen there which you cannot weigh—whether it is truly happening or only appearing, a mere semblance. And inwardly you will be utterly alone.
This sutra concerns this very thing—this great danger. Many times mad people too begin to believe that they have become spiritual. And if you investigate the so‑called spiritual crowd, ninety out of a hundred are in derangement. Not a small number—ninety out of a hundred. And what appears to them is only dream. Yet they are also to be pitied; what should they do? They are having experiences. Someone is conversing with Krishna within; someone is beholding Rama within; to someone heaven and hell are appearing. Is this actually happening, or is imagination at play? Is this the sport of dream, or is Krishna truly present?
It is difficult. And the mind has a tendency to accept whatever is happening as true, for the ego finds gratification there. If you are seeing Krishna within and I say, “No, this is not true,” you will be angry—because you were enjoying it; the dream was sweet, delightful. Once someone disturbs it saying, “It is a dream,” the delight evaporates.
In a dream, delight lasts only so long as we go on believing it to be true. The moment the thought of its falsity arises, the delight totters. Both possibilities exist—that what is happening within is real, and that what is happening within is imaginary. Both are possible.
What is the way? How shall we know whether what is happening is real or unreal? And how shall we be saved from the inner derangement that may arise?
There are ordinary madmen, and there are spiritual madmen. Often it happens that if ordinary madmen get the chance, they very quickly become spiritual madmen. The ordinary madman is censured; the spiritual madman begins to be honored. People say, “He is intoxicated with the divine,” people say, “He is in Samadhi.”
You may be surprised to know that the latest researches of modern psychology show that in those countries where religion wanes, the number of madmen rises. From this some people conclude—at least religious people in India do—that religion is a very high thing; hence where religion is absent, people go mad. That is not the case.
Where religion exists, madmen have a chance to become spiritual—mad in a spiritual way. Therefore the number of madmen there does not appear so large, because a great portion among them starts sitting as spiritual sadhus and saints. Where religion is absent, the madman has only one option—to remain an ordinary madman; he has no option to become a spiritual madman. Hence in countries without religion, the number of madmen increases. Do not conclude from this that where religion is present, the number of madmen is small. The number is the same, only there the mad are not recognized as mad; they have another route.
Consider this. I have had much to do with such madmen. If a man washes his hands under a tap a hundred times for purification, he will be considered mad everywhere in the world; in India he may be taken for a sadhaka! I know a gentleman who reaches the tap at three or four in the morning to fill water, because he holds the notion that if any woman’s glance falls on him while he is drawing water, the water becomes impure. And if a woman’s glance does happen to fall, he immediately empties the pot, cleans it again, and refills it. Often it happens that he has to clean the vessel a hundred times and refill it. People pay him great respect, calling him a wondrous sadhaka! This is his work; most of his time is spent in washing the pot and drawing water again! Then a woman is seen—there is no shortage of women—they are passing by—just a hint and it is impure! People say he is a deep practitioner of Brahmacharya. That water becomes impure at the sight of a woman! Brahmacharya may indeed be his practice—but the man is mad. It is an obsession, a repression in his mind; he is so frightened of woman that even his water is defiled! And the man himself is born of a woman. Wash the body as much as you like—this body cannot be freed from woman. Woman’s blood, flesh, marrow, bone form this body. The water he purifies and drinks enters a body permeated by woman; that would nullify everything. Anywhere else in the world this man would be in a madhouse. In this land he is honored and revered.
Nor is it that only men honor him; women honor him even more.
A woman can never honor the man who honors women. She can honor only the one who condemns her—because the one who condemns appears to have risen above; the one who honors seems to be standing at her side. Such madmen are honored by women even more than by men, for they condemn women fiercely. What could be a greater condemnation than that the sight of a woman should defile the water in one’s pot!
These are derangements. Such derangements operate outwardly and inwardly. Outwardly they are visible; inwardly they are not even visible to us.
This sutra is a caution concerning this—that when the sadhaka enters within, what dangers can seize him.
Projection is the greatest danger.
“And then, O seeker of truth, your mind, your Atman may become like a mad elephant roaming in the forest. Taking the trees as living enemies, the mad elephant destroys itself in trying to strike the unstable shadows that dance upon sunlit rocks.”
Before this sutra we understood that when a person’s consciousness becomes still within, like a flame in a place where there is no ripple of wind, then even a small thought coming near that consciousness casts its shadow upon the screen of mind. Imagine a room with white walls, closed, no breeze enters; the lamp’s flame burns steady, unshaken. Then a small butterfly begins to fly in the room; in relation to the lamp’s light a large shadow of the butterfly is cast upon the wall. The butterfly flies; the shadow flutters on the wall.
Ordinarily this is not noticed, for there are many things in the room; many shadows are being cast. And the flame itself is flickering, so all shadows are trembling. The room is filled with shadows, stained and cluttered, and the walls are not white but dark; nothing is clear. As the mind becomes purified, the walls grow white. Even the slightest shadow becomes distinct, is etched. And as the flame grows still and the walls clear, when the flame stands utterly motionless, then even the slightest vibration of thought will create a shadow.
Thought too has a shadow. Thoughts are not transparent. And when consciousness is steady, the shadow of thought appears upon the screen of mind. If we seize that shadow with force, we will become deranged. Very pleasant shadows too are formed, very charming; one feels like grasping them. If Krishna is standing on the wall playing the flute—who would not clasp his feet? And who would have the courage to let go? When all the thoughts of the world are dropped, those thoughts which lie in the unconscious womb as impressions from centuries, which have entered our blood, flesh, marrow—
If a man has been born many times in a Hindu home, then Krishna and Rama have descended deep within him. If someone has been born often in a Jain home, Mahavira has descended deep. That thought has penetrated the deepest strata. When we uproot and throw away all thoughts, even then that thought has not been uprooted; it remains. And when the mind becomes completely pure and the flame of chitta becomes calm and steady, that thought of Mahavira lying in the unconscious—that image of Mahavira—its shadow begins to form. The shadow cast upon the wall will seem like a vision of Mahavira. How often we had wished for darshan of Mahavira, of Krishna, of Christ—and today the blessed moment has come, the vision is happening. Now this shadow can be dangerous.
Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Mahavira, Christ are companions—great companions, far along the way; but in the final moment they too become obstacles. In the final moment one must be free even of them. If these shadows are pleasant, one feels like clinging to them. If they are unpleasant, terrified, one can go mad. Two kinds of madness can arise within. If hell begins to appear within, you will start fighting with it. If heaven begins to appear, you will begin to merge with it. In both cases you will miss the flame and be entangled in shadows.
There is a world outside us. And there is an inner world of dream as well. When we slip free of the outer world, we meet that world of dreams. That inner world differs person to person, because each has dreamt differently, thought differently, gathered within himself a different essence of desires, longings, ambitions. In India’s vocabulary this gathered essence is our karma‑sanskaras. When everything else drops, then the purest conceptual residuum—pratyaya, concepts—begins to appear upon the wall of chitta.
In the West there is much work going on with LSD and other such drugs. An unusual thing has been discovered—something India knew for thousands, even hundreds of thousands of years. But in the West nothing is accepted until known in a scientific manner. With LSD an uncanny observation came to light.
Aldous Huxley, a great Western thinker, took LSD. After taking it, this world disappeared and, in its place, a realm of heavenlike fulfillment of desires manifested! Huxley was so impressed by LSD, so overwhelmed by that intoxicating medicine, that he wrote: that condition which Kabir, Nanak, and Mira attained after hundreds of births and countless means—one injection of LSD, or one pill, instantly ushers you into that realm. Heaven appeared! Even an ordinary stone, Huxley saw, was no longer ordinary; no Koh‑i‑Noor could rival it—so many colors burst forth! The simple room he sat in became such that even Indra’s palace would not be so beautiful! The slightest sound became sweet music! All colors deepened and intensified! The trivial vanished; the beauty of the vast manifested. He wrote, “I saw heaven.”
Then an Oxford Catholic scholar, R. C. Zaehner, took LSD, but he saw hell. He did not see heaven. He saw terrible tongues of fire, burning people, immense pain and lamentation. The slightest sound became a dance of destruction within. Whatever he saw was devastation. He wrote against Aldous Huxley—that it is not true that heaven lies within; that LSD produces heaven is not true—LSD produces hell.
LSD produces nothing. Neither Zaehner is right, nor Huxley. LSD only makes visible what lies hidden deep within you. That is what is projected. LSD breaks open inner doors, breaks the walls of your unconscious; what is hidden within becomes manifest. If hell was hidden within Zaehner, hell appeared; if heaven was hidden, heaven appeared. What was concealed came into view—you saw it on the screen of your own mind. The seven colors, the fragrances, the experiences of music or of tandava, of destruction, of fire—all are the sanskaras of your mind. When they come before consciousness, they are projected upon the mind’s wall. Properly understood, heaven and hell exist nowhere. At the moment of death some feel they are going to hell; some feel they are going to heaven—that too is the breaking of the unconscious under the shock of death, and things spread upon the screen of the mind.
In Tibet deep experiments were devised for this. A great experiment is Bardo. In Tibet, at the time of dying, they have a practice they perform—but it cannot be performed suddenly; if it has been practiced in life, it can be used at death. Bardo is a kind of meditation. In it, the sadhaka is made to journey, consciously, through heaven and hell. The sadhaka lies down in repose, relaxes. He surrenders himself to his guide, his guru, and says, “Now take me wherever you will.”
In a special atmosphere, when the sadhaka is utterly relaxed, almost hypnotized, and has laid aside his own thinking, his own reasoning, then he agrees to go with the guide who is to take him through heaven and hell. The guru then leads him, step by step, as a hypnotized person can be taken deeper and deeper. First he gives the suggestion: “You are swooning, becoming unconscious.” He accepts, he cooperates. Then the suggestion: “Your swoon has become so deep that now your ears will hear no voice except mine.” He accepts this too. All other sounds cease. The same is done in ordinary hypnosis. When all sounds are stilled, and only the guide’s voice is heard, then the guide tests. He pricks a needle into the hand and says, “I am pricking nothing; you will feel no pain.” He pricks; the hand does not withdraw; the sadhaka reports no pain. He touches a live coal to the foot and says, “I am touching an ordinary cool stone to your foot.” The sadhaka does not utter a cry or snatch his foot away. The coal touches the foot; the sadhaka knows nothing. Now the guide understands that the sadhaka has surrendered completely.
If the surrender is total, even a coal touching the foot will not raise a blister. And if you have heard of people dancing across fire without being burned, do not imagine any magic there. It is only a posture of mind. The reverse also happens. If into the hand of a hypnotized person you place a pebble and say, “This is a blazing coal,” the hypnotized person will cry out and fling it away. This much is understandable as a matter of mind. But the wonder is—a blister appears on the hand.
Much of what we see is the play of our mind.
Much of what we live is the play of our mind.
If someone’s presence gives you great happiness, that too is the mind’s play. If another’s presence gives you great sorrow, that too is the mind’s play. When a pebble can raise a blister, and a coal may not—then you can glimpse the mind’s capacity.
When the guide is satisfied that the sadhaka has surrendered completely, and that even if he were to cut his throat there would be no scream, then he leads him upon the journey. “First, to the gate of hell,” he says. Then he gives a full description of hell’s gate; then of the interior; then of hell entire. As he speaks, the sadhaka sees exactly that. The sanskaras lying within the sadhaka arise in this cooperation, and upon the wall of mind hell is constructed. By looking at the sadhaka’s face from outside, you can tell he is passing through terrible pain. Then the second hell, then the third—he is led through the seven hells. In all this agony, the images in hell are only symbols of the pains that lay hidden in him. Whatever the possibilities of suffering he could imagine—hell contains the pictures of those.
Hell has been conceived by looking into man’s mind—so has heaven. When one has passed through all these agonies, all the thoughts that were hidden within become conscious. And becoming conscious, one is freed of them. Modern psychology too now says this: whatever lies deep in the mind—if it becomes conscious, we are freed of it.
Freud’s psychoanalysis does just this for years. Someone is ill, and the analysis continues for years. The patient goes on speaking; the therapist goes on listening—asking and asking—drawing out whatever is repressed within. When everything that was inside comes out into thought, suddenly the patient is free of his illness.
The thought suppressed in the unconscious keeps pushing to come out. From its effort to emerge and our effort to repress it, illness is born. Let it come out. Like steam packed inside a kettle; if the spout is sealed, the lid is clamped—then the kettle becomes diseased; an explosion will follow. Allow it to escape.
We are all in the same condition—a volcano. Who knows what we have repressed and hoarded across births upon births? There lie our hells. And how many desires and cravings we have stored! There lie our heavens.
When the sadhaka has passed through hells, he is taken through heavens. The first heaven, the second, up to the seventh—described in full—and the sadhaka’s face shows that he is entering a wondrous realm. The quietude of his face, the thrill of joy, the gooseflesh—outwardly it is felt that inwardly he is going somewhere. He is going nowhere; he is coming from nowhere. The mind is working as a projector, and upon the screen of mind all these forms arise. He sees them.
This experiment is performed at the time of death too. And the sadhaka is instructed—by means of this experiment—that all this is the mind’s play. And that, once the body drops, whatever was repressed in the mind—repression was possible only with the body’s support—will explode. Then remember, do not panic—this is only the play of mind.
Therefore those who experience heaven and hell at the time of death—it is the mind’s play. But those who have written of such experiences—have taken them as real. What they saw was real—utterly real within.
Heaven and hell may be symbolic, yet not utterly false—they are truths of the mind.
In Bardo the sadhaka is told at death: what you are seeing now, you will see with great intensity after death—then do not be afraid; keep your awareness—this is the mind’s play. These hells are mine; these heavens are mine. If you can remember both, that they are only the play of your mind, you will go beyond both and be free. If this experiment has been performed many times before death, even after death the remembrance can be kept.
There is an art of living—and there is an art of dying.
We do not know how to live—how then shall we know how to die? We do not even know how to live! One must learn how to die too. If one does not die rightly, he falls into great trouble. The one who dies rightly is freed from trouble.
This sutra says: when you enter wholly within, and the outer world drops, your condition may become like that of a mad elephant. Be alert. The mad elephant sees, on the rocks, the shadows of swaying branches; he imagines an enemy. He grapples with the rocks and shatters himself—what can the rocks lose? He lacerates himself, is covered in blood, becomes the cause of his own death. But when the mad elephant fights with the rocks, he does not know that what he fights is the play of imagination.
Even in the world, if we inquire a little, we will find that much of what we fight is only the play of imagination. Then inwardly the same battle can continue. Do not fight—and do not be fascinated. Remain a witness. Know that surely there is some thought between my consciousness and the wall of mind, some sanskara in between, by which all this appears. Keep this awareness—whether it is pain or pleasure; whether hell or heaven.
“Be alert, lest in concern for the ego your Atman lose its footing upon the ground of divine knowing!”
Your feet can be uprooted in two ways. Either you begin to fight, or you begin to enjoy. If heaven begins to appear, one begins to indulge. If hell begins to appear, one begins to fight. In both cases the feet are uprooted from that ground. In both cases the gaze leaves the consciousness and moves to the play upon the outer screen of mind.
“Be alert, lest your Atman forget Paramatman, lose control over your trembling mind, and thereby lose even the fruit of your victory.”
“Beware of change, for change is your great enemy. Change will wrestle with you, drive you off your path, and sink you into the wicked quagmire of doubt.”
Beware of change!
What will be the basis inwardly to test whether what I am seeing is dream or truth?
One basis will be this: if it is changing, it is dream; if it is not changing, it is truth.
Change—let us understand it.
Many definitions of truth have been sought in the world. Many sages have defined truth in many ways. What is truth? The inquiry has continued for centuries. All philosophy, all scriptures, are engaged in this search—what is truth and what is untruth. The work is not easy. As easily as we call one thing false and another true, it is not so easy. It is very complex, very subtle. There must be a criterion by which we may examine what is true and what is false.
Some say that which is seen by the eyes is true; the apparent is true. But dreams too are seen by the eyes; falsehood too is seen by the eyes. A rope lies there, and by the eye a snake is seen. It is the eye that sees it. If you close your eyes, it is not seen. The blind cannot see it; the seeing can. No blind man ever mistakes a rope for a snake; neither rope is seen nor is there any possibility to see snake. The one with eyes sometimes sees the rope as snake in the dimness and runs away. What was seen was indeed seen, seen by the eye, and seen by one’s own eye.
People say, do not trust another’s eyes. But what use is trusting your own? Dreams we see with our own eyes; delusions too. And when they appear to us, they are utterly real; not a shadow of doubt. Vision by the eye does not determine truth.
What then shall we call truth?
What everyone accepts?
There are such definitions too—that which has social consensus is truth. Do not get lost in the statements of individuals, for an individual may fall into error. But entire societies can fall into error; they have. One society believes one thing, and it appears to that society by force of belief. It appears because of belief. To you the idea may not even occur; to that society it occurs, and it is seen.
In China, if they consider a flat nose beautiful, then across China it appears beautiful; and you cannot even think how a flattened nose could be beautiful. Do not think you are wise and they foolish. A long nose is beautiful—that is your belief. What measure of beauty is there? Why long? What beauty is in length? It is a notion; if one holds length as beautiful, the whole society will see it thus.
If fair skin is deemed beautiful, then the whole society will see beauty there. But there are societies where fair skin is not beautiful. In this land we did not, earlier, consider fair skin very beautiful, hence we made Rama and Krishna dark. Whether they were or not—we cannot be sure; and as we paint them, no such dark hue even exists. But at that time we considered the dark to be beautiful. Times change; fashions change. If Krishna were born now, it would not do for him to be dark. If he must be born dark, then America among the Negroes would be better—for now they have declared, “Black is beautiful.” But “black is beautiful” is also a belief; and “white is beautiful” is also a belief. Training determines it. What we learn appears beautiful; what we are taught is ugly appears ugly. These are beliefs, not truths. And when a whole society believes, it seems very true.
Consider the Digambara Jain monks. They do not bathe, they do not brush their teeth; their mouths smell—inevitably. Sitting near them and talking, one begins to feel nauseated, anxious. Yet Jains respect them greatly. Why? Because there is a belief: they have dropped attachment to the body. If there is no attachment, what is a toothbrush and what is a bath? These are ornaments, adornments. Bathing and brushing are adornment. One who does not consider himself the body at all, who knows himself as Atman—why should he brush, why bathe? Why decorate the body?
Those who hold this belief find the odor of the monk’s mouth fragrant. In that stink is the perfume of renunciation; in that stench, the fragrance of detachment. And if the monk’s mouth did not smell, the devotee would suspect he is secretly using toothpaste. And indeed, some do—because some are clever: they take double advantage. On the sly they keep toothpaste and use it; and if they get a chance they also sponge their bodies, because a stink is a stink. But if the body does not smell, the devotee begins to doubt that something is amiss. This may seem difficult, but it is not so difficult.
In America now there are groups of youth—hippies. They have revolted against all the beauty‑aids of the West. They will not use soap, deodorant, or powder; they say the body’s own scent is pleasant, natural. If sweat smells, it is natural and should. To hide it is artificial. To suppress it with soap, to mask it with powder, is false. The man who does so is false; if you go near such a man, you will not meet the real person.
So hippies say: that which is spontaneous is beautiful; that which is natural is beautiful. Therefore if a woman’s body has an odor, enjoy that aroma—because it is natural. All the animals in the world enjoy it; why not man? Because man is false. Thus hippies remain dirty—dirty according to those who believe this is dirt, not according to themselves. In their view they are simple, natural. You are dirty—because you are false. These are all beliefs.
If you enter a hippie group well‑bathed, neatly dressed, without the smell of sweat, the hippies will not accept you; they will push you out. You are not the right kind of man; you are a bit warped, conventional, false—not authentic.
When a group accepts a belief, it begins to appear true. And one born in that group is brought up in that notion; to him it appears true.
So what is truth?
What is seen with one’s own eyes can be false; social consensus can also be false. The one whom one group regards as a great soul, another group is not ready to accept at all.
Ask the Jains: Is Krishna God? They cannot accept it—they have consigned him to hell in their books. How can this man be God? God should be dispassionate. And this man plays the flute and dances. Women dance around him. How can this man be God? He is not. So the Jains have thrown Krishna into hell in their scriptures. And only after the end of this eon will he be released from hell. There is nothing to be annoyed about here; the Jains are merely saying that in their belief of truth Krishna does not fit—at all.
Beliefs of one’s own.
Those who hold non‑violence—how can they accept Muhammad as a prophet, with a sword in his hand? And those who follow Muhammad consider Mahavira and Buddha as escapists—because they left life and ran away. Life is the place where evil must be fought and conquered; how can those who fled be prophets and Tirthankaras? They are cowards. Muhammad fights in life. Where there is evil, it must be cut down. He stands with sword in hand, and these others fled. By fleeing, evil does not vanish. Hence Islam says evil must be fought. And if the evil man holds a sword, the good man too must hold a sword, else the evil will triumph. Islam says that because of Mahavira and Buddha, evil has won—because the evil man does not drop his sword, the good man does. Now tell me, who is true?
The truths of groups are truths of belief. The one who grows up within a group looks through that group’s spectacles; he sees what the group has given him to see.
India discovered a different touchstone for truth. Not your eye, not the eye of society. A touchstone that works both outside and inside: that which is changing is not truth; that which is eternal is truth.
You dreamt in the night; upon waking in the morning you found it false. Why do you find it false? What is the basis? What grounds your claim that the dream was false?
First, the dream is no longer present for you to weigh against waking; it is gone. When the dream was, waking was not.
You slept in a room and in the night you saw in dream that you were in a palace. In the morning you awoke and found yourself in your room. You say the palace was false. But how do you measure it? The palace is no longer present to weigh against this room—which is false, which true? And when you were in the palace, this room was not present. For two things to be weighed, both must be present together. It could be that the palace in the night was true, and through a door of consciousness you had entered a palace; and it could be that this room is also true. And it could be that just as the palace was false, this room too is false—and one day you awaken and find that even this room was false.
What is the basis?
The conclusion of Indian wisdom is this: our sole basis is that whatever changes is not truth. The changing is dream. The inner dream is changing, and the outer world too is changing every moment; therefore we do not accept it as truth. Hence we have called the world maya. When you dream at night, it is not contrary to the world; it is a small dream within the great dream of the world. A dream within a dream.
You may have noticed—sometimes you dream within a dream. You dream that you are asleep; you dream that you are lying on the cot asleep. This sleeping man is in a dream, and then you see that the sleeping man is having a dream. A dream within a dream, and within that another. Those whose imagination is powerful can see many layers of dreams within dreams; poets often do.
This vast universe too is a dream—but by dream we do not mean it is non‑existent. By dream we mean it is changing. Everything is changing. In this world not a single thing remains still. All things are in flux.
If you keep this sutra in mind—that change is untrue and the eternal, the nitya, is true—then it will serve you inwardly as well. Notice that the images forming upon the wall, the screen of mind, are all changing. They do not remain the same for even a moment.
No thought within you stays for two moments. It comes and goes. Another comes, then a third—the current keeps flowing. Even if you try to grasp one thought, you cannot hold it; it slips from your fist. Hence people say concentration is so difficult. Of course. That which you want to bind is a flow. Like trying to hold mercury in your palm and it scatters into a thousand droplets—whatever you grasp within is fleeing; nothing stays.
Be watchful of these shadows cast upon the wall—whether they are of hell or heaven, of Krishna or Rama, of Christ or Buddha. Watch one thing: are they changing? Just watch closely—are they changing? If they are changing, know that they are not truth. Only one thing does not change—your center, your consciousness; it never changes. Clouds gather in the sky; they change. The sky does not change in which they gather. It remains the same—whether clouds gather or not; whether they come or go; whether they rain or not. That sky in which they gather remains itself. Flowers bloom and fall. Trees rise and vanish. Planets are formed and destroyed. Worlds come and go. That which encompasses them, the sky, remains the same. Everything changes—only this vastness, this space, this shunya, Mahashunya, remains itself. I say this as an illustration.
Exactly so, within the sky of consciousness, many things come—heavens come, hells come; births come, deaths come. You become animal, bird, plant, stone, god, demon, householder, sannyasin—so many forms appear. Only the inner sky of consciousness, empty and full, remains forever the same. Until you reach there, you will go on meeting change. Wherever there is change, know that it is dream, untrue.
Beware!
This vigilance is to be maintained so that one day, by leaving aside the changing, eliminating it, negating it again and again, you arrive at that place where suddenly you know—here there is no change. That alone is truth. You dream at night; in the morning you awaken and it becomes false. In the morning you see the world; at dusk sleep comes again and that becomes false, the dream becomes true again. But in both states everything changes. What you saw awake changes; what you saw asleep changes. Only the seer does not change. The one who saw the dream at night is the same who sees the world upon waking in the morning—the same; he does not change. The drashta does not change; awareness does not change.
Change is without; the eternal is within. Change is the wheel of the cart. The eternal is the peg upon which the wheel turns. Gradually move away from the turning wheel, away and away, and come to the center where there is no change. Until you have known this changeless, you wander in dreams. Dreams can be of many kinds—of the good man, of the bad man, of the sinner, of the virtuous, of the great soul—but they are all dreams. Until you come to know the dreamer, beware.