Saravsar Upanishad #11

Many ornaments can be made of gold. Many forms and shapes—beautiful or ugly; but the shape is not gold. Yet the shape cannot appear without gold; the shape cannot stand by itself. Pure form has no existence of its own. Form becomes visible only when it is cast upon something.
So gold can take on many forms, but no form is gold. The being of gold is free of forms. And precisely for this reason one form can be melted into another. If gold itself belonged to any one form, no other form could ever be assumed. Though we have never seen gold without some form—whenever gold is seen, it bears a form—still, because gold can change its form—today a bracelet, tomorrow something else, the day after yet another—the form changes, but the nature of gold remains steadfast. Therefore, even if we have not seen formless gold, gold is not a form.
With this example the Rishi begins the discourse. He says: whatever we see in this world is all form. That upon which the form appears is free of form. The search for that which is free of form is the search for Truth. If one is to find it, then form must be renounced—every form has to be laid aside, every upadhi—every imposed title, limitation—has to be dropped, all boundaries have to be broken—only then can one approach the Infinite, the Boundless, the Eternal.
But the mind gets encircled by form. The first recognition is through form. Shape is what the eyes first behold. With the formless there is no meeting outside. Outside, whatever appears is shape. That is why we become possessed by shape and forget that That-Which-Is must be formless—otherwise how could it take so many shapes?
There is a seed; it is a seed today, tomorrow it will be a tree. The seed that can become a tree must have something formless hidden within it—at times it takes the shape of the seed, at times the shape of the tree. And surely the formless is concealed in that seed, because from a single seed so many trees can be born as to fill the whole earth. From one seed a single tree arises, and upon that tree millions of seeds appear. Then if we sow those millions of seeds, again from each seed millions are produced. One seed could fill the entire earth with trees; the earth would become too small and would declare, Enough, no more...
So much is hidden in a single seed; it cannot be hidden in shape. The shape of the seed is so petty—almost nothing. The formless must be concealed there; because one seed can bring forth infinite seeds. The infinite is never born of shape; whatever arises from shape will have a boundary. If a seed had only a limited capacity, then its shape would have some meaning. But I say, to fill a whole earth is still a small thing—if we unfold the arithmetic rightly, a single seed could fill this whole cosmos with trees—and still the cosmos would be too small, and the seed would ask for more space. For there is no end! From one seed a million, from a million again...from each seed a million, and from each of those another million...there is no end to it.
Satyam jñānam anantam ānanda
sarvopādhivinirmuktaṁ
kaṭaka-mukuṭādy-upādhirahita suvarṇa
-dhanavad vijñāna-cinmātra-svabhāvātmā
yadā bhāsate tadā tvam padārthaḥ
pratyag-ātmocyate.
Satyam jñānam anantaṁ Brahma.
Satyam avināśi.
Avināśi nāma deśa-kāla-
vastu-nimittēṣu vinaśyatsu
yatra na vinaśyati tad avināśi.
When the Self—whose nature is sheer knowing and consciousness, pure like gold free of the upadhi of bracelet, crown and the like; Truth, Knowledge, Infinite, Bliss—appears free of all upadhis, then it is addressed as tvam—Thou, not I.
Brahman is Truth, Infinite and of the nature of Knowledge. That which is imperishable is called Truth. Even when the causes of space, time, object, etc., perish, that which does not perish is the imperishable.
Many ornaments can be made of gold. Many forms and shapes—beautiful or ugly; but the shape is not gold. Yet the shape cannot appear without gold; the shape cannot stand by itself. Pure form has no existence of its own. Form becomes visible only when it is cast upon something.
So gold can take on many forms, but no form is gold. The being of gold is free of forms. And precisely for this reason one form can be melted into another. If gold itself belonged to any one form, no other form could ever be assumed. Though we have never seen gold without some form—whenever gold is seen, it bears a form—still, because gold can change its form—today a bracelet, tomorrow something else, the day after yet another—the form changes, but the nature of gold remains steadfast. Therefore, even if we have not seen formless gold, gold is not a form.
With this example the Rishi begins the discourse. He says: whatever we see in this world is all form. That upon which the form appears is free of form. The search for that which is free of form is the search for Truth. If one is to find it, then form must be renounced—every form has to be laid aside, every upadhi has to be dropped, all boundaries have to be broken—only then can one approach the Infinite, the Boundless, the Eternal.
But the mind gets encircled by form. The first recognition is through form. Shape is what the eyes first behold. With the formless there is no meeting outside. Outside, whatever appears is shape. That is why we become possessed by shape and forget that That-Which-Is must be formless—otherwise how could it take so many shapes?
There is a seed; it is a seed today, tomorrow it will be a tree. The seed that can become a tree must have something formless hidden within it—at times it takes the shape of the seed, at times the shape of the tree. And surely the formless is concealed in that seed, because from a single seed so many trees can be born as to fill the whole earth. From one seed a single tree arises, and upon that tree millions of seeds appear. Then if we sow those millions of seeds, again from each seed millions are produced. One seed could fill the entire earth with trees; the earth would become too small and would declare, Enough, no more...
So much is hidden in a single seed; it cannot be hidden in shape. The shape of the seed is so petty—almost nothing. The formless must be concealed there; because one seed can bring forth infinite seeds. The infinite is never born of shape; whatever arises from shape will have a boundary. A seed would need a limited capacity for its shape to have meaning. But I said, to fill one earth is also a small thing; if we spread this mathematics rightly, a single seed could fill this entire universe with trees—and still the universe would be too small, and the seed would say, I still need more space. Because there is no end! From one seed a million, from a million again...from each seed a million, then again from each seed a million...there is no end to it.
So what was hidden in that first seed—could it be hidden in shape? The infinite cannot be hidden in shape. Whatever hides in shape will be finite, bounded. Shape itself is boundary; how will it hide the formless within itself? So when a shape appears in the seed, it is our error of seeing, because we cannot see the seed in the totality of what it can be. And what it can be, in some sense it already is; otherwise it could not become. If all the seeds of the world were not concealed in this one seed, how would they ever manifest? They are hidden here—today, now, right here; only our eyes cannot catch them.
Thus the shape of the seed is our delusion; the nature of the seed is formless. Wherever shape appears, it appears because of us.
Understand it this way: I stand at the window of my house and look at the sky. If I have never stepped outside to see the sky, the sky will appear set like a jewel into the frame of my window—the shape of my window becomes the shape of the sky; the window’s shape seems to belong to the sky. The shape is given by my window, the sky is formless. Yet even when we stand outside and look at the sky—without any window—the earth itself functions like a window all around; hence the sky appears round. The reason it appears round is only that the earth is round; the sky is not round. The earth becomes a window again, the earth again lends a shape. And our eye too is no more than a window; whatever we see, our eye will fix a shape upon it.
So, in truth, whenever we search outside we will find form, not the formless. If the formless is to be sought, we must go within—because there one can bid farewell to all windows. With closed eyes within there is no need to remember that we stand in any window—no need of eyes, no window, no earth—as soon as we enter within, we enter the formless.
Truth is outside too, and Truth is within too—but the seeker must first know Truth within. The day one knows the formless within, that day the outside too remains formless; shapes then are only superficial figures—forms imposed by us.
This formless—this Truth, Knowledge, Infinite, Bliss, free of upadhi, pure gold-like knowing and consciousness—when such consciousness shines, then...this sutra is very precious...when such consciousness is revealed, it is addressed as tvam—Thou; called Thou, not I—Thou, tvam.
The day such a formless Truth is experienced, there is no way to call it I, because the I has a boundary. And what we used to call I leaves no trace—what shall we call this now? It surrounds us from all sides—outside and within, it is present everywhere. And we have only two words for address: I, or Thou. I cannot be said, because only when the I disappears does this formless get experienced. So language, helpless as it is, is left with only one possibility: to call it Thou. This is why devotees called the Divine Thou; they called it Thou, tvam.
The reason for calling it Thou is simply this: there is no way to call it I. Strictly speaking, even Thou is not accurate, because Thou always exists in reference to I; it is a relationship. As long as there is I, there is Thou. And as long as there is Thou, I remains I. At such moments one begins to sense how utterly inadequate language is. I cannot be said, for it is gone; even Thou feels troublesome—who is there to say Thou?...who would say Thou? But if something must be said, then Thou is more fitting than I. Even if still not right, it is at least nearer...at least it declares the absence of the I—that much.
There is yet another reason. We could have said That as well—neither I nor Thou, but That. The jñani has said That—Tat. But when we say That about the Divine, there is no glimmer of intimacy; when we say That, it seems like an object. That is for things; Thou is for persons. And when the Divine is experienced, it is not as a thing; it is as Supreme Personhood—supremely alive; overflowing with a rain of infinite love. Its felt presence is like coming into someone’s embrace—into the arms of a lover. To say That would be crude. I cannot be said. Hence the Rishi says: when such purest formless, upadhi-less consciousness is realized, it is called tvam—Thou.
A very precious Jewish thinker of this century, Martin Buber, wrote a book: I and Thou. Possibly, in the history of humankind, he is among the few who probed the deepest link between I and Thou.
There are three ways man can live. One: make I the center and Thou the periphery...as all ordinary people live— I always sits at the center; Thou is always on the circumference. We use the Thou, exploit the Thou, create relationships with Thou—but always for the sake of the I. We even bow before Thou in the hope that one day we will make Thou bow before our I. The end is always I. This is the state of ego...the desire to place the whole world at one’s feet and enthrone the I. The I becomes the center and the world the periphery. This is the inner state of the irreligious.
A second inner state: where Thou becomes the center and I moves to the circumference; where only the thirst to dissolve oneself and to surrender remains—the single longing: how may I dissolve for the sake of Thou! This is the state of the bhakta, the religious person; Thou remains, the I keeps thinning; the I becomes a faint rim, Thou becomes the center. This is egolessness.
And there is a third state, always difficult to express: where Thou does not remain and I also does not remain—where there is no circumference and no center. Buddhas stumble in trying to say just this; they cannot say it. There is no way to say it, because the entire language is a commerce between I and Thou—language as such! Language is born as a dialogue between I and Thou. Hence there is no way in language to say that which lies beyond I and Thou. Therefore the Rishi says: we call it tvam. The Rishi chooses the minimization of error—the nearest possible untruth to Truth.
The complete Truth cannot be said; so he speaks the closest untruth to it. Precisely that cannot be said, for there both I and Thou are not—still, it must be indicated; a message must be carried; one who has returned from that unknown land wants to share with his beloved ones...what he has known, what he has seen.
So the Rishi says, tvam. He says this to the disciple...to the one who sits to learn, who sits to inquire: when the purest consciousness is known, we give it the name Thou.
This Thou is endearing, it is nearer to Truth...and if a person begins to live around this Thou, it is profoundly revolutionary.
All the sadhana of Ramakrishna was close to Thou. A Vedantin monk, Totapuri, came as a guest to Dakshineshwar. Totapuri said, What is this Thou-Thou you keep chanting! Drop even this; reach where neither remains. Ramakrishna was as humble as a bhakta must be. Sometimes humility becomes an extraordinary event. Ramakrishna said, Take me there; I am willing. Totapuri had not thought that one so honored, so revered, a Paramahansa at whose feet multitudes place their heads, would so quickly consent to learn. Perhaps if someone had asked Totapuri to learn, he himself would not have agreed so readily. Aham Brahmāsmi was his tone...the note of Vedanta: I am Brahman.
For one who proclaims I am Brahman, nothing remains to learn. If the proclamation is authentic, learning is needless; but often the proclamation deceives. If it is uttered after knowing Brahman, then the I in I am Brahman is only a word—there is no I, only Brahman is.
Totapuri too was amazed, but he did not know that one who has made Thou the center can agree, with such simplicity, to anything. If Thou is the center! If I is the center, then there is no way. Ramakrishna said, Completely right—help me do it. This is the way of one who lives on the periphery.
But a most delightful event occurred. Totapuri asked, Are you fully prepared?
Ramakrishna said, Let me go to the temple and ask the Mother...that now I wish to leave even You—do I have your permission? I want to leave even Thou—may I?
Totapuri said, Now it’s all foolishness. Why go to ask the one you must leave? And even if you ask, how will you leave?
Ramakrishna said, But I am no longer there. So how can I leave? Only She remains now...to leave or to hold...I am no more; I cannot even make the decision to leave. The day I left everything in Her hands, that day I left this decision too. If I do not receive Her permission, I will die ignorant—but I have no choice now.
This is the feeling of one who lives by making Thou the center; he is even ready to die in ignorance—for he does not want to leave even this little corner for the I, that if the chance of knowledge arises the I may stand up and say, All right, I agree.
Devotees have sung: we do not want liberation, we do not want moksha, we do not want nirvana; the lane of Your Vrindavan is enough, sufficient—the lane of Your Vrindavan is enough, sufficient; for moksha belongs to the I, Vrindavan’s lane belongs to Thou.
So devotees have said, we do not want moksha, because moksha means my liberation. There is no liberation for God! Mind it, moksha is mine, nirvana is mine, knowledge is mine. Therefore devotees have sung: we do not want knowledge, not moksha, not nirvana; let us lie in the lane of Your Vrindavan—that is enough. This is the feeling of one who lives by making Thou the center.
Behind calling this purest consciousness Thou there are many reasons; one is this: if the purest consciousness is to be attained, to move as if that pure consciousness is of the nature of Thou becomes a great help. If you assume it to be of the nature of I, there arises a danger—on ninety-nine out of a hundred occasions—the danger that instead of dissolving, the ego will be strengthened.
The Upanishads are right in saying Aham Brahmāsmi, but those who said it are the ones that occur perhaps once out of a hundred. It is an exceptional declaration. It is said by those whose I has absorbed all—whose I has become so vast that no Thou remains outside; they have said it. It is very difficult, because the juice of the I is immense. And all the relish of the I lies in standing stiff against some Thou; otherwise it loses its savor. If there is no Thou in the world, if I alone am, what remains the meaning even of saying I?
The intoxication of ego depends on the other. Curious: however much the ego declares independence, it knows not that it is dependent to the core; without the other it cannot exist. When one says, I am emperor, he knows not that in the very breath where he stands on the chest of his people calling himself emperor, he is dependent upon those very people; without them there is no emperor. One who says, I am master, knows not that without the slave he cannot be a master; and that mastery which cannot be without a slave—what mastery is that? It is bound to the slave, dependent upon him. All the proclamations of I stand upon making the other Thou small. Ego can relish this too.
When the Upanishads declared Aham Brahmāsmi, the world was simple-hearted and innocent. Gradually experience showed that keeping the I at center brings greater danger. Once in a hundred, someone may reach the Divine keeping I at center; ninety-nine go astray. And this Sarvāsāra Upanishad aims that the maximum number of people may be able to make it their path, and that the maximum essence of truths be contained in it. Hence it has said tvam, not Aham Brahmāsmi...it has said that It is of the nature of Thou.
Therefore be prepared in advance: to move towards That means to erase the I; that journey is the journey of the dissolution of I. If someone can keep the simple remembrance, with each breath in and out, that I am not, Thou art—then in a few days he will find all the tensions of the mind have dissolved; all the anguish has fallen; worry has disappeared—for for worry, for anguish, for tension, the peg of the I is essential; they hang upon it; without it they cannot hang. If this feeling deepens that I am not, only Thou is—then one day, suddenly, you will find it is difficult to worry. Even if you try, you cannot worry—because worry is the shadow of I. When the I is gone, worry is not. And carefreeness is the shadow of Thou. If the feeling of Thou deepens—that Thou alone is—carefreeness fruits of its own accord.
Nietzsche struggled lifelong to live as though there is no God—he declared that even if He ever was, He is now dead. Nietzsche was a man of such prodigious genius—of the same stature as a Buddha or a Krishna—of such fierce intellect; but by denying God all that intelligence turned into anxiety; the whole brilliance became worry. When small talents become worried, their worries too are small. When a great genius becomes worried, his worry becomes great. For Nietzsche there was no way but to go mad; derangement was the fruit. The talent was so colossal that petty worries do not befall such a man; a great anguish arises. The root reason was only this: this person, Nietzsche, could have attained the peace of a Buddha; there was not the slightest lack. But he attained singlehanded the madness of thousands. And the sole cause: he tried to erect his entire being upon the foundation of I.
Nietzsche wrote in his diary: If there is any God, then first I will want to be God; He can only have the second place. If there can be a God at all, what lack is there in me? And if there is a God, at least I can declare—and exercise the freedom—to deny Him...that He is not. Nietzsche said: at least in this I can be absolute—that I say, You are not. And no one can force me to accept that God is; not even God can force me. At least in this one respect I become superior to God—when even for Your being, You need my assent. If I deny You, You have no means to persuade me that You are.
This...this is the shape living can take when the I is kept at the center.
It is hard to understand Nietzsche’s pain. But some little pain we can understand, for we too have a small ego and we live by it.
Try a small experiment: for twenty-four hours remove the I from the center—just for twenty-four hours; place Thou at the center. Just for twenty-four hours, let there be a continuous remembrance: Thou. When a stone strikes your foot—then too; when someone hurls abuse—then too; when someone throws a live coal upon you—then too; when someone garlands you with flowers—then too; when someone places his head at your feet—then too...for twenty-four hours remember that I am not at the center, Thou is. A new chapter will begin in your life. If this remembrance can sustain for twenty-four hours—even if not fully, even if for twenty-four minutes within those hours—then you will never be the same person again. For once the carefreeness of living with Thou is tasted, you will never wish to live with I again.
When the burden shifts from I to Thou, the search for pure consciousness becomes easy; or the very meeting with pure consciousness immediately turns feeling away from I towards Thou. Hence it is called tvam.
Brahman is Truth, Infinite and of the nature of Knowledge. That which is imperishable is called Truth.
Much effort has gone into defining Truth. What is Truth? From many, many doors man has pondered—what is Truth? What shall we call Truth?
Science calls fact Truth; and the scientific definition today is widely accepted. Science says: what is factual is Truth. Fact means that which can be tested and verified by experiment; for which proofs can be found in the objective world.
Understand. I raise this hand; if out of so many people sitting here only one person says, Yes, I see the hand raised, and all the others say, We do not see it—then science will say, This person is dreaming, because there is no other testimony to support it. It is not a fact; if it were a fact, the others present would also see this hand. It is a dream. Dreams are personal, facts are collective. The table in your house can be seen by all; more or less all can agree there is a table. But if you say, In my room God is present, then all will say, Perhaps you see Him; we do not. You are lost in some imagination, caught in some dream.
It is curious that dreams cannot be shared. Two persons cannot see the same dream together...can they? Not yet. No partnership, no friendship functions in dreams. Dreams are always private. Therefore science says, whatever is private is dream, not fact. And what is collective is fact. And fact is the definition of Truth—for science.
The Upanishad has no objection to this. The Eastern mind has no objection to calling fact Truth. But the Eastern mind raises a deeper question—and science is embarrassed. The Eastern mind says: granted that what exists objectively before the group is Truth; but what exists today becomes non-existent tomorrow; and what was non-existent yesterday appears today. Therefore the Eastern mind says: we call that alone Truth which never becomes non-existent. Not that it is today and not tomorrow. That which always is—we call only that Truth; the rest we call facts.
So the Eastern mind divides into three—dream is that which is the private fancy of a person; fact is that which is the experience of the group; and Truth is that which belongs to the order of the Eternal, which always is. Because what was a fact yesterday is not a fact today.
Yesterday you were young, and all bore witness that you were young; and today you are not young! What happened to Truth? And if Truth changes like this in ten years, then what is the difference between that and the dream that lasted the night and changed in ten hours? A man was a king in his dream; he remained a king for eight hours; morning came and he was again a beggar—he was a king for eight hours. You will say, We are not witnesses to it; but the man will say, All the people present in the dream were witnesses. I was not the only one—there were servants, ministers, armies, a great capital—everything; and all were witnesses, because all accepted me as king.
The difference is only that that man dreams for eight hours, and your youth lasts ten or twenty years...the difference is merely in duration. Suppose a man falls into a coma for twenty years and keeps seeing his dream of being a king...!
It happens. I went to a village—there a woman had been unconscious for nine months; physicians said she might remain unconscious for at least three years, and alive...in a coma. If for nine months she is seeing some dream—and surely she would be; unconscious and a woman—surely she would be dreaming—then for nine months there is no way at all to know that what she sees is a dream. And whoever is there in the dream will agree. Will the dream become Truth by being long for nine months? It is also possible that what I dream today may become the group’s fact tomorrow.
Abraham Lincoln, three days before he died, saw a dream. He got up in the middle of the night and woke his wife and said: I have seen a very strange dream—that I have been assassinated, and I am lying dead in such-and-such room of the White House; you are standing near my head; two men are standing near my feet...and one man is dressed in black, but he seems unknown to me. The wife said: Go to sleep, it is a dream. Lincoln said, I just told you...and slept.
Three days later Lincoln was assassinated...and his corpse lay in the very room he had seen, the wife at his head. Two men stood at his feet, and one man in black stood there—and the wife knew he was a stranger to Lincoln. The whole scene as it was.
So what was a dream three days earlier became a collective fact three days later. How far will you separate dream and fact? The difference is only three days. It is a matter of duration.
Dreams become facts, facts become dreams. What we had taken as absolute fact one day slips from our hands—and we cannot even tell where it went. Today I love someone and can say I could give my life—this love is so true. And tomorrow? Tomorrow not even a handful of ashes of that love can be found; not even a wisp of smoke can be traced to the fire that once burned so bright! It cannot be found anywhere. That which was so true, so factual that I would stake my life—who ever thought it would become so untrue?
Materialist thinking can distinguish only two things: dream—meaning non-fact, fiction; and fact. And by fact it means that upon which more people agree, which has objective existence, which we can test objectively. But the Rishi of the Upanishad says: That which is imperishable alone is Truth.
We make three divisions—dream we call the individual experience. Not necessarily untrue; it may become a fact someday. What is the collective experience we call fact—but it is not necessary that it remain fact forever; it may become a dream. We do not call either of these Truth. We call Truth that which is always uniform, the same—which is never dream, never fact, never changes, never turns from this to that, from that to this—what simply is. Before that we are not ready to count anything as Truth. Therefore our definition of Truth rests on the foundation of imperishability, eternality. That is why we called the world maya; for no other reason.
When we say the world is maya, or when Shankara says the world is maya, it does not mean the world is not; it only means the world is such that it will not remain forever. When Shankara says the world is maya, many have misunderstood and thought Shankara means: this tree you see is not; that you who sit here are not. No, that is not Shankara’s meaning.
Shankara says, you certainly are—but you are such that you are now, and tomorrow you will not be. Therefore we do not call you Truth; we call you maya. We call Truth only that element within you which is even now, and when you will not be, it will still be; which was there before you were born; and when you die it will still be; when you are young it is, when old it is; when you are at the peak of fame it is, and when you fall into the pit of disgrace it is—that which is in every condition. In every condition...a condition that does not make the least difference to its being—we call only that Truth; all else is maya. All else is maya!
Then what difference shall we make between maya and dream?
From the standpoint of the Eastern mind, the collective dream is called the world, and the private world is called dream. The collective dream is the world; the private world is dream...and Truth is in neither.
But this needs reflection. The imperishable does not appear. Have you seen anything imperishable? The imperishable is not visible; everything seems perishable. All is momentary. Nothing can cross beyond time; nothing becomes timeless; all scatters in time. Some a little sooner, some a little later—it makes no difference. Sooner or later is not the point—time erases all.
Have you seen anything imperishable of which you could say, This never vanishes? Outside we cannot see it, because the medium by which we see is itself not imperishable; the eye by which we see is mortal. The imperishable cannot be seen with the perishable; this is very simple. The eye cannot see beyond itself; it sees within its limits. The eye itself is perishable, so it can see the perishable; the ear is perishable, so it can hear the perishable; the hand is perishable, so it can touch the perishable. How will the hand touch the imperishable?...how will it touch the imperishable?
To know the imperishable, an imperishable medium must be found; with mortal instruments the imperishable cannot be known. And all the senses we possess are mortal; they belong to the body. So if we would move toward the imperishable, the Rishi will say: move within, where the senses need not be used. Within there is the capacity to see without eyes, and to see without external light; and within there is hearing without ears, and touches are felt within without hands.
Those touches, those visions, those experiences do not occur through the mortal senses. But is it necessary that whatever does not occur through the mortal senses must be imperishable? For within too, what appears today disappears tomorrow.
A friend came yesterday; he said: the first day there was much light, the next day in meditation it did not appear. Surely then that light cannot be imperishable—what appears, disappears; it was, and now it is not...it too was a form, a shape. I told him: whether light appears or not, in both states one thing is eternal: the seer. When light appeared, the seer said: Light appears. When it did not appear, the seer said: Light does not appear. In both, one remains steady.
So inner experiences too are not necessarily imperishable, because they also are at times and are not at times. But there is one element within that always is: the knower, the drashta, the witness—the one who sees—is always there. That is the imperishable tone within us. If we recognize That, we will begin to recognize the imperishable tone in the world as well. Other than that, all else is perishable.
I was a child; childhood is gone—but the one who saw childhood is still within me. I am young; youth will pass—but the one who saw youth is still within me. I am old; old age too passes—but the one who saw old age is still within me. The one who has seen childhood, youth, old age—that one alone seems the eternal note within me; all else came and went. Pleasures were seen, pains were seen, honor and dishonor were seen—but only the one who sees remains; all else keeps disintegrating.
If we search a little for this witness, we will discover: this witness saw birth happen, and this witness will also see death happen. Then we have grasped an eternal note. Once this one note is in our hands, the whole world at once becomes suffused with the eternal. With this one recognition, we gain the vision to distinguish wherever the eternal is and wherever the non-eternal is. Then all forms remain non-eternal and the formless hidden behind them is recognized as the eternal.
Fact is form, and Truth is the formless.
Therefore the religious definition of Truth goes deeper—and farther—than the scientific definition of fact.
Brahman is Truth, Infinite, and of the nature of Knowledge.
Truth—meaning imperishable. Infinite—meaning without boundary; for whatever has a boundary will meet with destruction.
In fact, destruction begins at the boundary. The boundary itself begins to decay...because at the boundary you come into relation with the other, and there is struggle. If your body were boundless, death could not happen; for a boundless body would mean there is nothing outside you. Even if death were to come, where would it come? How would it enter? There would be no messenger of death. No disease—nothing would be other than you—so you could not die.
The body dies...because outside the body there is so much with which it is in ceaseless struggle. Scientists say the human body could live for hundreds of years—but it wears out in the struggle. As rust eats iron, as gusts of wind weaken a tree, as sun...from all sides struggle. So too the body is in struggle. It wears and tears. In seventy years it becomes worn and frail. Death draws near: it simply means that the blows at your boundary have made you frail.
So what is limited will grow worn, cannot be imperishable; because there will always be assaults from beyond the boundary, struggle will continue. At every moment there is struggle. If we were to freeze a person’s body completely—make it utterly cold—and free it from all struggle, that body could be kept alive for thousands of years. No problem. Because death comes from outer conflict. But even after thousands of years it would rot—because its boundary is still a boundary. The time can be long, but not eternal.
Therefore we call Brahman Infinite; without boundary; nowhere any end. And only when there is no end can it be Perfect; because if there is an end, an end is always by the other, not by oneself.
Your house ends where the neighbor’s begins. If there were no other house on earth, you would not need a boundary wall around your house; the whole earth would be your house. It is because of the neighbor that your boundary is formed; because of the other, the limit arises.
If the Divine is Perfect, it must be Infinite. And what is not perfect cannot be imperishable; because from imperfection born is destruction; from imperfection flowers death.
Therefore Brahman is called Truth, Infinite, and Knowledge.
Among human experiences, the supreme experience is Knowledge. This may be a little difficult to understand, because someone may say the supreme experience is love; another may say it is bliss—or something else. But in truth, the supreme experience in man is Knowledge—because without Knowledge, love is not known, and without Knowledge, bliss is not known. That without which love cannot be known, without which bliss cannot be known—has gone beyond both. Knowledge can be without love, and Knowledge can be without bliss; but bliss and love cannot be without Knowledge. Therefore the Rishis have called the Divine Knowledge.
Jesus said: God is love. He said something very significant: God is love. But the reasons are different; the definition is circumstantial—the reasons are utterly different. He wants to have man understand and say that God is love, so that man may hope for compassion; God is love, so you are not helpless. Ask for His love, it will be given. That man may feel reassured—therefore Jesus put love into the definition of the Divine.
I too continually say that God is love; or I say, love is God. That too is only for the sake of man, because it serves man little to be told that God is Knowledge...it serves him little. God may well be Knowledge, but no relationship is made with us by Knowledge...no bridge is built by Knowledge; with Knowledge, a detachment remains, a distance remains. It is difficult to touch Knowledge; it cannot be touched; no bridge is constructed between us and pure Knowledge.
Hence the reason to call God love is only this—surely God is love, but that is not the ultimate definition; the final statement is that of the Rishi...that God is Knowledge. The love-definition is circumstantial; it is made with man in mind. It is of great use to man; this definition of Knowledge is of no use at all. It is wholly right—this is the right definition—but of no practical use.
Those who said God is bliss—Sat-Chit-Ananda—who called Him of the nature of bliss—that too is a circumstantial definition. Man is in such sorrow that only if God is blissful will he venture upon the journey.
Buddha’s thought lost its roots in India within five hundred years; it was cut off entirely. The main reason was that Buddha made no circumstantial definition of the Divine. He said: shunya—emptiness. Now toward emptiness no inclination arises...rather, if one comes to know emptiness lies ahead, one keeps away—that danger must be avoided. Emptiness! What will we do going there? If someone asked Buddha: Is God bliss? he said, No—only the cessation of dukkha; only the ending of suffering. But from this, inspiration does not arise. That suffering will end is good; but not enough to lift the feet. Man is in suffering, deep suffering—hence the circumstantial definition: God is bliss.
But the absolute definition—what we would call the definition without man, where there is no concern for man—then the definition is this: Brahman is of the nature of Knowledge.
Because of such ultimate definitions the Upanishads have never been able to enter the popular mind; for from ultimate definitions no relation with man is forged. The Bible enters more deeply into human hearts than the Upanishads can—though the Bible is as nothing before the Upanishads. But its definitions are circumstantial, nearer to man, useful to man. If the sun burns millions of miles away, of what use is it? We must walk here; a small lamp here becomes useful. We must take steps here, in this darkness—and you define the sun at an infinite distance. It may be, but it does not help us take one inch forward. Admit that this lamp is small—not the sun—but it helps the step. And once the steps are taken, perhaps one day we may reach that sun where lamps are thrown away.
But the Upanishad is giving the ultimate definition. The reason is that in those days man was not in such suffering that one had to say: bliss; nor so helpless that one had to say: love; man was very healthy, innocent. The ultimate definition could be given—that the Divine is Knowledge.
This Knowledge—this Truth—is imperishable.
Even when the causes of space, time, and objects are destroyed, that which still remains, that which is the substratum of all that exists—that alone is imperishable.
Enough for today.