Samund Samana Bund Main #3

Even if they called the world insubstantial, they were wrong; the world is not insubstantial. If the way you look at the world is wrong, the world will appear insubstantial. If your way of seeing is right, this very world is transformed into the form of the Divine. Only the vision can be wrong; nothing else is wrong.

But man has an old weakness: he never wants to take the blame upon himself; he always wants to lay it on someone else. Saying “the world is insubstantial” feels convenient, rather than admitting “my vision is blind, my vision is wrong.” If I say the world is insubstantial, I don’t have to change myself. If I say the way I look is wrong, then I will have to change myself.

Let me try to explain with a small story. At the gate of a village, at sunrise, a horseman stopped and asked an old man sitting there, “I want to know one thing: What are the people of this village like? I have left my old village and I’m looking for a new one to live in. If this village is good, I will settle here.”

The old man looked him up and down and said, “I can answer your question only if you first answer one of mine: What were the people like in the village you left?”

At once the man’s eyes flared with anger. “Don’t even remind me of that wretched place! There cannot be worse people anywhere on earth. Because of those villains I had to leave. I departed with the prayer that when I have power, I will show them—I’ll make them taste the fruit of their misdeeds.”

The old man said, “Then forgive me! I have lived here seventy years. The people of this village are even worse than those. Look for another place; the people here are not good.”

The horseman had barely moved on when a bullock cart arrived. The man on it asked, “Baba, may I ask—what are the people of this village like? I have left my village.”

The old man said, “How surprising, what a coincidence! I have just been asked the same. But again I must ask you: What were the people like in the village you left?”

The cart driver’s eyes filled with tears of joy. “Even their memory fills me with bliss. Perhaps such loving people cannot be found anywhere. My misfortune forced me to leave. I left with the hope that if fate smiles, I will return and settle among them. What are the people here like?”

The old man said, “Turn your cart into the village. I welcome you and assure you—these people are the sweetest and best on earth. I have lived here seventy years.”

I too was at that gate and heard both. I was puzzled. If I had heard only one answer, it would be fine. To the first man he said you won’t find worse people anywhere. To the second, you won’t find better people anywhere. When the bullock cart went in, I asked the old man, “I am in difficulty—what are the people here really like?”

The old man said, “People in every village are as you are. The people depend on you—on who you are. If there is love within you, a village becomes heaven; if there is hate, it becomes hell.”

The world is a big village. For a little while we are its guests. I call irreligious those who call the world insubstantial. I call religious the one who, if he seeks insubstantiality, seeks it in his own vision, in his own mind, in himself. If the world appears bad, hollow, hostile, know it is a projection of what is hidden within you. We discover in the other what we are. If you are hollow, the world becomes hollow. The day you find essence within, nothing in this world remains without essence.

Essentially, the individual is what matters; essentially, what we are within is what matters. The entire world appears in the form of what is within us. To a mind without essence, to a wrong vision, the world seems full of thorns. To a right vision, a samyak vision, the world looks filled with flowers. The world is neither flower nor thorn; it becomes what you are.

Therefore I am in favor of neither calling life insubstantial nor calling the world insubstantial. The whole responsibility is mine; everything depends on how I see. I emphasize this because you cannot change the world, but you can change yourself. Nor can you escape from the world. Those who think of running away from the world are mistaken. The householder lives in the world; the renunciate also lives in the world. No one can go outside the world. While alive there is no way out. The householder lives one way, the sannyasin lives another way—but no one is outside the world. The way of living can change, the vision can change—but where will you run from the world? Wherever you reach, that which is there is the world.

There is as much world in the home as in the ashram. There is as much world in white clothes as in ochre robes. Wearing ochre does not lessen the world. The world is the total situation within which we live. Breath by breath is world; standing, sitting is world; opening and closing the eyes is world. Life itself is the world. Where will you go by running away? There is no way to run.

Those who fall into the illusion of running from the world forget the idea of changing themselves. They keep running and find they remain the same; nothing has changed.

A sannyasin lived in the Himalayas for thirty years. He was very angry by nature, very egoistic. Tormented by anger and ego, he went to the Himalayas, thinking: Leave the world, anger and ego will be left behind too. The world is bad. There was no society, no human beings. Gradually he felt his anger and ego were finished.

In truth, when there are no people, the door for the inner to manifest is closed. What is within does not get destroyed. A well holds water; to draw it out you need a bucket and rope. If there’s no bucket and rope, it doesn’t mean the water is gone. To draw out what is in a person, the presence of others is needed. If anger is within you, another’s presence draws it out; the other is the rope and bucket. If there is no other, whatever is in your well—anger, ego—doesn’t come out, it just remains. From this the illusion arises: my anger is finished.

After thirty years of solitude he was convinced there was no anger, no ego. His fame drifted down to the foothills. A great Kumbh Mela was happening. Some people came and requested him to come down and give darshan. He thought: Now I have conquered anger and ego; I can go.

He came down. There were millions in the fair. He entered the crowd. It was a crush, people running like mad, and no one knew him. Someone’s shoe hit his foot. In a second the thirty years vanished and he became the man he was before. He shouted, “Blind fool! Can’t you see?” Anger stood there, alive! He was shocked. He had thought it was gone.

He turned back immediately. But he told those who had brought him, “I am not going back to the Himalayas; I am going back into the world. Because in thirty years the peace of the Himalayas did not show me the truth that a slight contact with a man just revealed. I thought anger was finished; perhaps the conditions for its expression were absent, not the anger. Now I will return to people, and if living among them my anger disappears, I will understand it has truly disappeared. Otherwise, solitude deceives; solitude is very deceptive.”

Alone, anyone becomes a saint. The test is to be amid the crowd. Alone, what difficulty is there? Alone, there is no alternative but to be a saint. The presence of the other becomes the touchstone of where I am. The other’s presence opens and reveals me.

No one attains truth by running from the world; one attains it by changing one’s way of seeing while living in the world. The truth attained is not opposed to the world. In fact, when the eye opens, the whole world appears as God.

In my view, what we call the world is truth seen through our blindness; what we call God is this world seen with open eyes. World and God are not two; there is no opposition, no chasm. This very world is truth; this very world is liberation. The difference is in my seeing, in my vision. Everything depends on how I see.

So if someone has said the world is insubstantial, they have spoken wrongly. Those who talk of the world’s insubstantiality have obstructed the process of human self-transformation. All emphasis must be placed here: if there is wrongness, it is in man. The emphasis must be that if something is wrong, it is you who are wrong. Nothing in life is wrong. The day you are right, the whole of life becomes right.

People are running away from wives, leaving children—thinking the world is insubstantial, so they abandon it. Such people’s minds will be deranged; they will go mad. Whom does a wife bind? Whom do children stop? And if a wife and children can bind a man, he is so weak he will be bound by anyone, wherever he goes—disciples, followers, the ashram crowd. If he is that weak that wife and children bind him, anywhere he runs someone will bind him. If by fleeing the wife one finds God, then God seems terribly afraid of wives! And what a two-penny experience that is, gained by abandoning one’s wife—so cheap a price!

Those who have produced the most misery on earth have not been killers, robbers, thieves, and cheats; those who have produced the greatest misery are those who taught people to run away from life. The sorrow they have created, the homes and lives they have destroyed—if ever accounted for, the badmashes and goons won’t even be in the scales. But such accounts are not kept because these sins are committed in God’s name.

Gandhi once went to Ceylon. Kasturba went with him. Gandhi called her “Ba” (mother). She was a year older, and looked older too. The organizers assumed Gandhi had come with his mother. Hearing him say “Ba,” they were sure. Without asking, when introducing him at the meeting they said, “We are blessed—Gandhi has come, and so fortunate that his mother has come too and is seated by his side.”

Gandhi’s secretary panicked: They’ve called his wife his mother! Gandhi will be upset. He’ll blame the secretaries for not informing them who was with him. But it was too late; the introduction was done, and Gandhi was seated to speak.

What Gandhi said is worth pondering. He said, “My friends have mistakenly introduced my wife as my mother. But by mistake they have announced a truth: in recent years Ba has become my mother, not my wife. By mistake they have spoken truly—Kasturba was once my wife, now she is my mother.”

This man did not run from his wife, but the wife transformed into mother. This is what I call a change of vision; this is the sannyasin’s turn. Running away from the wife is ordinary. But for the wife to become mother—that is the question, that is extraordinary. Running from the wife involves no revolution in vision; only the circumstance changes, not the mental state. When the wife becomes mother, the inner vision changes; I change. Running from one wife only changes the situation. How has a mind ever changed by a change in situation? The mind that makes a wife of a woman will again start seeing another woman as a wife. That mind is with me. The angle with which I turned one woman into a wife is with me—that is me. I will abandon one wife, and tomorrow on the street I will see another woman and my mind will make her a wife, whether the world knows it or not.

Those who run away from women dream of women day and night. Twenty-four hours the woman pursues them. Waking, sleeping, even remembering Ram, the image of woman trails behind. They did not call woman hell because of woman herself; they said, “Woman is the gate of hell” frightened by the pursuing fantasy and desire. No woman can be saved from man by leaving men, no man can be saved from woman by leaving women. But if the vision changes, there remains neither man nor woman.

The world is not insubstantial; nor is the family, nor wives and children. If anything is insubstantial, it is my vision—my focal point, my way of seeing. It is great fun to put the blame on the other and spare oneself.

But this is not the fun of a religious person. Those who have abused women have ceased to be religious precisely because they abuse women. To abuse women means that sex has not yet left their minds. Woman attracts them; what attracts, they abuse in anger and revenge. In truth, we become obsessed with what we try to escape from.

There was a Muslim fakir, an extraordinary man—Nasruddin. One evening he stepped out of his house and saw an old childhood friend arriving on horseback. He stopped at the door. Nasruddin welcomed him, “Friend, come in and rest. I must go to meet two or three people on urgent business. I’ll be back in an hour. Or, come along if you like—we can chat on the way. It doesn’t feel right to leave you in an empty house, and I must go.”

The friend said, “I can come, but my clothes are dusty. If you have some good clothes, lend them to me and I’ll change and go with you.”

Nasruddin had kept a fine coat and a turban for special occasions. He gave them to his friend. As they walked, Nasruddin felt awkward. His friend wore the fine clothes; he himself was in ordinary ones. The friend looked splendid and Nasruddin like a servant. He told himself: What does it matter! He is my friend. Forget that the clothes are mine.

They reached the first house. Nasruddin introduced his friend: “This is my friend Jamal, my childhood companion, a lovely man, truly good, just arrived. As for the clothes—well, the clothes are mine.”

He had been suppressing the thought—“the clothes are mine”—and as he spoke, it burst out. He regretted it: Why did I bring up the clothes! Outside, his friend said, “Are you all right? Why mention the clothes? What will they think—that I’m wearing borrowed clothes!” Nasruddin apologized: “A big mistake! It won’t happen again.”

At the next house he said, “This is my friend Jamal, my childhood companion. As for the clothes, the clothes are his, not mine.”

That too puzzled the people: Why mention the clothes at all? The friend grew more annoyed. Outside he said, “I won’t go with you further if you keep bringing up the clothes.” Nasruddin said, “Forgive me! The second mistake was a reaction to the first. I suppressed my mind and it caused trouble. It won’t happen again.”

At the third house he said, “This is my friend Jamal, my childhood companion. As for the clothes—there is no need to talk about the clothes at all, whoever may own them.”

This is how the suppressing mind works: whatever it suppresses starts circling it. Avoid woman, and woman will pursue you. Avoid man, and man will pursue you. What you flee from will chase you; flight is a sign of weakness, a sign of fear. What we fear and flee becomes stronger; we become weaker—and the weak can be hunted.

Those who run from the world did not change man, and themselves lived hemmed in by the world—mind circling it in new guises.

You know what arrangements those who imagined heaven have made there? Here they teach: be desireless, drop desire. But they say: by being desireless you’ll attain heaven—and in heaven are wish-fulfilling trees; sit beneath them and whatever you desire is instantly fulfilled. What fun! How astonishing! You reach there by dropping desire—and once there, simply desire and it is granted.

This is the suppressed mind: while repressing desires here, it organizes their fulfillment there. Here they say, leave women, the body is insubstantial, beauty is vain. And in heaven? There are apsaras whose age never exceeds sixteen; it stops there. Eternal beauties! Strange mind! Here they say form is vain; leave it. Why leave it? So that in heaven you can enjoy apsaras. Here they say, don’t drink! There they arrange not shops but rivers of wine. Here they forbid a cupful; there they promise streams—bathe, drown, drink, do what you like.

You will be surprised: heaven is the projection of repressed desires. Whatever desires are suppressed here, the mind sets up their fulfillment there. Here the world is condemned as illusory and bad; there arrangements are made.

And those who imagined hell—here they say, don’t see anyone as enemy, don’t harm anyone; if someone slaps one cheek, offer the other. But they also say: whoever doesn’t believe our scripture will be boiled in cauldrons of oil, thrown into fire—not for a day or two, but for eternity.

What strange people! Why must these good people design hell? Here too their minds want to boil those who don’t agree with them. But if they do it here, who will call them saints? So they arrange it in hell—for enemies to fry. For themselves they arrange heaven: apsaras, houris, wish-fulfilling trees. For their enemies: cauldrons and infernal pits. The suppressed mind, what it represses, reappears in new forms, taking new revenges.

I do not say run from the world, because running from the world means suppression. Suppression never liberates; it invites bondage. The law of the mind is: whatever you forbid it, it accepts the invitation to do precisely that.

If we hang a sign on this building: “Peeking prohibited,” perhaps only one or two truly restrained people in the city would pass by without peeking. Or is there anyone at all? Someone may try not to peek, but he will be in trouble. He will go to his shop, but his mind will hover: What was behind that sign? He will go to the temple to chant the Gita, and his mind will circle this house: What was behind that sign?

Most likely, in a quiet moment he will come here and try to peek from the back door. The wicked peek directly; the “good” come from the back. The simple will stand and lift the sign; the cunning, the hypocrites, will pass by with pious faces and come around later. If they fear being seen—from the back door too, because if seen, people won’t vote for them, won’t make them gurus, won’t call them saints—then worse trouble begins. They will think about this house all day and dream of peeking at night. You cannot escape what you run from. By running, you have already granted it power over you.

Running from the world is suppression; suppression is an invitation, not liberation. No one is more bound than the suppressed.

You have heard of Sigmund Freud. This one man did more for human liberation than thousands of rishis and seers together. One evening in Vienna, Freud went with his wife and child to a park. Night fell; the closing bell rang. As they exited, they realized the child was gone—lost in the big park. His wife panicked. Where to search?

Freud said, “Don’t worry. Answer one question, and in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases we will find him immediately. Did you forbid the child to go anywhere? Warn him against a particular place?” She said, “I told him not to go to the big fountain.” Freud said, “If our child has even a little intelligence, in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases he’ll be sitting at the fountain. If he’s completely unintelligent, it will be harder.”

They went to the fountain; there he was, dangling his feet in the water. The wife was amazed: “What magic did you use?” Freud said, “This is the direct law of the mind: wherever it is forbidden to go, there it goes.”

Those who push prohibition and suppression are the ones who lead people into vice. This world has become so perverse and deranged thanks to such “good teachers.”

The precious law of the mind is still not understood properly: suppression does not free; it binds. What frees?

Understanding frees—awareness, not suppression. Whatever you wish to be free of, understand it thoroughly. If you want to be free of the wife, understand her fully; understand your own vision regarding her. The deeper the understanding, the freer you become. If you want to be free of sex, understand sex—layer by layer, its mystery. Expose it completely, discover it, break all its coverings—know it. The deeper the understanding, the freer you are. Whatever you would be free of requires understanding, knowledge, complete acquaintance. If you wish to be free of the world, know the world completely. For knowing, a very quiet mind is needed, filled with understanding, with awareness—so we can look at life and understand. Whatever you truly understand, you are freed of. Whatever you run from, you become bound to. The day the world is understood, God appears. The day the wife is understood, her compelling allure dissolves.

But we have done the opposite. Let me explain with two small incidents. A very “self-controlled” father decided: I didn’t attain brahmacharya (celibacy), but I will make my son a celibate.

First, no one can make anyone else anything. Those who insist on “making” others end up destroying them. Fathers often decide, “I will make my child.” That’s why it is so hard for a good father to have a good son. A bad father may sometimes have a good son; a good father almost never. He tries too hard, and all forcing becomes suppression. When suppression bursts, it sweeps a person away in unconsciousness.

That father decided his son should never even glimpse lust. A difficult matter. God has placed desire within man, but these moralists think they are wiser than God. They want to eradicate desire from man. No one creates desire in himself; it arises from the inevitable laws of nature, of God. Transforming desire is meaningful; fighting it and trying to break it is foolish—war against God, which can never be won.

He resolved: I will not let even the seed of desire arise in this boy. When the boy was a month old he told his wife, “I will take him to the forest—and I will not take you. If a woman is present, the child may get the idea that there is such a thing as woman. For twenty years I won’t let him know that women exist. Then we shall see—if a child who has never seen films or books or women develops sex or not.” Never, he thought. It arises from wrong education and wrong films.

These teachers always say: wrong films have filled people with lust. It is exactly the opposite: because people are full of lust, wrong films get made. Films don’t fill people with lust.

He took his son deep into the forest, far from any news of women. He raised him by his own labor. He took no book that mentioned women, allowed no word to suggest women’s existence. He wanted to keep him entirely “pure,” in innocence, for twenty years.

As the boy reached fourteen or fifteen, restlessness began. The father noticed changes: he did not enjoy study, wanted to avoid his father, to run here and there. The father was still confident—there were no women, no films, no dirty books—how could the boy go astray?

At twenty, the father felt secure: his celibacy education was complete. They had spoken only of God, taught only the Upanishads and the Gita, never let the boy know that such a thing as lust exists. When twenty years were complete, the father brought the boy back to the capital, to his village. As they entered, a girls’ school had just closed; a crowd of girls poured out. The boy froze and asked, “What kind of animals are these? What species of creature?”

The father thought: If I say women, trouble starts. He said, “Son, these are a special kind of animal. They are called rajhans—royal swans.” He led the boy on, but the boy kept looking back again and again to where the girls were. The father became anxious: Is some idea arising? He did not take the boy into the village after all. “Let’s go back,” he said.

On the way back the boy fell into deep sadness. The father asked, “You saw many shops and goods. Do you want to buy something? Is that why you are sad?” The boy said, “Yes, I want to buy one thing: buy me a rajhans. Such a lovely creature! It would be wonderful to have one at the ashram.”

No film, no book—and the boy is “spoiled.” God, it seems, is bent on “spoiling.” You cannot stop anything by such suppression. The child will be more intensely tormented.

Life is not flight and suppression. Life is to know and to awaken, to recognize and become acquainted. This is the key I want to speak of tonight—how to know and recognize life so that gradually life is transformed into God; how to know sex so that gradually lust becomes brahmacharya. Life is a transformation—through understanding. There is no other transformation.

A man may pile manure in front of his house and the whole neighborhood will stink. If he spreads that manure in his garden and sows seeds, flowers will come, and by way of those flowers the manure will be transformed into fragrance that fills the village. Manure creates stench, but passing through the plant it is transformed into perfume.

Whatever seems bad in life can become auspicious. What seems ugly can become beautiful. What seems inauspicious can become auspicious. What seems false can become true. What seems insubstantial can become essential. It is only a matter of passing through the alchemy of your vision. Only a matter of transforming your vision. And then everything changes—utterly.

One last small incident and I will conclude. In Japan a famous case was tried. Three years before, on a dark night, a thief had entered the hut of a monk. The door was stuck; in the dark the thief pushed and it opened. The monk was awake, writing a letter. The thief, frightened, drew a knife. The monk looked up and said, “Friend, sit down a bit; let me finish this letter. Don’t stand, sit.”

In his nervousness the thief sat. The monk finished his letter and asked, “Now tell me, why have you come? What is the knife for—do you want my life?” The thief said, “No, not your life.” “Then put the knife away. Why tire yourself holding it? I’m writing; you’re just clutching that knife—foolish! Put it away.” The thief, flustered, put it away. The monk asked, “How can I serve you? You’ve come at such an hour; surely there is a purpose.”

The thief thought: This is a simple, guileless man. He doesn’t realize I came with a knife at midnight to steal. He said, “Perhaps you don’t understand—but you seem so simple that I can’t lie. I came to steal.” The monk laughed, “You idiot! If you wanted to steal, you should have gone to a mansion—what could you get here? And if you had told me a day or two in advance, I could have arranged something for you. There’s nothing here except ten rupees. A man forced them on me this morning; I kept refusing. If you go away with only ten rupees, I’ll feel sad—that you came so far at midnight and got so little. But still, there is nothing else. Take the ten rupees; they are on the shelf.”

The thief took the ten rupees and moved to leave. The monk said, “Do me a favor—leave me one rupee. I’ll need milk in the morning. Consider it a loan; I will return it to you.” The thief left one rupee and reached the door. The monk said, “Listen—what a madman you are! You didn’t even say thank you. Remember, the rupees will be spent today or tomorrow, but a thank you can be useful later. At least say thank you. Learn a little manners!” The thief said thank you and ran.

Three years later he was caught, with many thefts charged, including this monk’s. The monk was called. The magistrate asked, “Do you recognize this man?” “Very well,” said the monk. “He is my friend. One night, when he was in trouble, he remembered me. In trouble a man remembers a friend. Leaving the whole village, he came to my hut at midnight. Who else comes at such an hour but a friend? He is my old friend. And I am in his debt too—I owe him one rupee.”

The magistrate said, “We don’t need that story. Tell us, has this man ever stolen from your house?” The monk said, “Stolen! He is so sweet—how could he steal? He is so loving he gave me a rupee and has not asked for it in three years. He cannot be a thief. If he were skilled in stealing, he would be a magistrate or a moneylender; he wouldn’t be standing in the dock. He could be a great donor, a temple-builder, a maker of pilgrimages—if he were a real thief. This man is simple; he is no thief.”

It depends on a person’s vision how things appear. To a monk, even a thief may not appear a thief. To a thief, thieves are everywhere. A pickpocket always guards his own pocket. If you see someone constantly guarding his pocket, know he is a pickpocket—no one else bothers. As a man is within, so everything appears without. To lovers, the world becomes a world of lovers; to haters, the world becomes an enemy. Hitler would not let even his closest friend sleep in his room; he was afraid someone would strangle him at night. He slept alone his entire life. He could not trust any woman, fearing poison or a bullet. With a heart full of hate, he had one crore people killed in Germany. Can such a man trust anyone? He sees a murderer in everyone. In twelve years he never ate food not first fed to dogs, never drank water not first given to someone else. He locked all doors and kept the keys under his pillow. With hate and violence inside, the whole world becomes an enemy.

Stalin had between three and six million people killed in Russia. Fear gripped him so much he had to find a double—someone with his face. When there were parades or public events, Stalin stayed at home; the double took the salute and gave speeches. If a bullet came, it would strike the double. Stalin himself could not stand in a crowd.

For the man of hate, the world is an enemy. For the man of love, the world is a friend. For the man of light, the world becomes God. For the man of darkness, the world appears insubstantial. So I say to you: the world is not insubstantial. If anyone is insubstantial, it is we, it is I, it is you. And then what we are is what we begin to see.

How can I be transformed? How can I attain a new vision, a new memory, a new consciousness? I will speak with you about that this evening.

You have listened to my words with such love and peace—I am deeply obliged. Finally, I bow to the God seated within all. Please accept my pranam.