Saravsar Upanishad #12

That Supreme Power, that Brahman, that deathless One—the Rishi has called it knowledge. But the knowledge we know has no kinship with that. If we understand what we call knowledge, it will become easy to understand what the Rishi calls knowledge.
Our knowledge—the first thing is this—is always of some known; bare knowledge alone never occurs to us. We always come upon knowledge in relation to some object; pure knowing as such we never know. We know a tree, we know a man, we know a stone lying on the road, we know the sun in the sky; but whenever we know, we always know something—we never know knowing in its purity.
And whenever we know something, the Rishis have called such knowing impure; because in it the known becomes important, not the knowing. You look and know the sun in the sky—the sun is important, the knowing is not.
This knowledge of ours will be lost at once if all objects are taken away from us; for without the object, it has no existence. Which means this knowledge does not depend on us; it depends on the object. If all objects are removed and there is emptiness all around, our knowledge will vanish; for we have never known such a knowing as abides in itself. All our knowledge stands lodged in objects.
So it is a straight...simple, clear reflection: if all substances are removed, our knowledge too will be lost. It is a strange thing—this means that knowledge was not dependent on us at all; it was dependent on the objects we used to know. This is our knowledge.
When the Rishi calls Brahman knowledge, he does not mean such knowledge; for knowledge that depends on the other the Rishis have called ignorance. If for knowledge too I am not sovereign, not free, then for what else can freedom and mastery ever be?
This knowledge is tied up with all our other experiences. All our experiences are like this knowledge. If there is no one to love, can you be in a moment of love? If there is no beloved, can you love? You might think you could; but you should notice—even then you will be able to love only after you first imagine a beloved in the mind; otherwise you cannot. That imagination will again serve as a support. Alone, you cannot be loveful. Then can such love be your nature? That love too has become dependent on the other.
Hence lovers become such utter slaves—no other slavery on this earth is so bitter—although love should bring mastery; by love a person should become supremely free, for love is a great wealth. But we do not know that wealth. What we call love always depends on the other. It becomes so dependent on the other that love turns into bondage. And love is freedom. So between our love and that love which Jesus or Buddha call freedom, there is no relationship at all.
You look at a flower—you have a sense of beauty; you watch the setting sun—you have a sense of beauty. But have you ever known a beauty that does not depend on any object—direct, pure beauty? No, we have known no such beauty. All our feelings are other-dependent; and we are merely the sum of these very feelings.
Then do we have any being of our own, any individuality of our own—or are we merely an aggregate?...an aggregate of experiences that depend on others? If flowers do not bloom our sense of beauty is lost; if objects are not there our knowledge is lost; if there is no beloved our love is lost.
Whatever is in us has been borrowed from another; we are entirely on loan. That is why we must stand lifelong dependent upon others, for the fear persists all the time that if the other withdraws his hand we will slip and be gone!
When your beloved dies, the pain you feel is not over the beloved’s death; it is the death of your love—for without the beloved you know no love. When wealth is taken from you, the pain is not over the loss of wealth; with the loss of wealth your being rich is lost. If you snatch a book from a scholar, not only is the book taken—the scholar’s knowledge is gone. That is why the scholar holds his book above himself, carries it on his head, bows his head at the book’s feet. If the book is touched by a foot he is alarmed. Is knowledge so dependent on a book? Then it is not knowledge at all.
The first thing, then, is that all our experiences are borrowed...we ourselves are borrowed. If you pull out our experiences one by one, we will be finished just as a machine disappears when you remove its parts one after another—soon the machine is not there at all; there was no machine as such, there was only a combination.
And the one who is only a combination will have no experience of that Atman which is utterly free.
So the knowledge that the Rishi calls knowledge—Brahman is knowledge—let us understand what that knowledge is. First: that knowledge does not depend on the known; it does not depend on any object.
When knowledge depends on the known, knowledge is a relationship. When knowledge does not depend on the known, knowledge is a state. Understand the difference between a relation and a state.
I say: I love you. If you are not there my love will be lost, because my love is a relation, in which the meeting of two is necessary; if two are there, then a bridge of love is joined between them; if one is removed, the bridge collapses instantly. We cannot raise a bridge on one riverbank! The other bank is needed. A bridge is only the connection in-between.
But Buddha sits alone beneath a tree, with no one around—and his love is the same as when thousands pass by. In that love not a grain of difference is there. This love is not a relationship; it is Buddha’s state. It is not tied to a lover; it is Buddha’s nature. This love will rain in the wilderness just as it rains on an unfamiliar path where no traveler passes—like a flower that blooms and its fragrance pours forth. Not because someone will pass to take its fragrance will the flower release its fragrance. Or as a lamp burns in the dark, even if there is no one to see, the lamp keeps burning; for the lamp’s burning has nothing to do with a viewer—the lamp’s burning is its nature.
Before we were on the earth the sun shone just like this, and when we are no more it will shine just the same; the sun’s rising has nothing to do with our seeing—it is the sun’s nature to shine.
One like Buddha is also full of love...indeed only he is truly full of love, because his love cannot be snatched away; he is just as loveful alone. This love is not a bridge, not a relation; this love is a state of consciousness; it is a state of chaitanya.
When Brahman is called knowledge, or when the supreme Atman is called knowledge, it means knowledge is nature; it is not a relation. Therefore the Rishi says:
"That which is the eternal chaitanya, free of arising and ceasing, is called knowledge."
Relations arise and are destroyed; only nature neither arises nor is destroyed.
I love you; yesterday I did not, today I do. Love was born. And a great madness begins when we want to make a born thing eternal. Then madness ensues. That which is born will die...the day it is born, know that it will die. The day we beat the drums of birth, the bier begins to be prepared. The interval of time may appear long. A flower is blossoming...and already its falling has begun, the shedding has begun.
With birth comes death; birth is one pole, death the other. So the love that is born will also die; and whatever has arisen will be annihilated. The knowledge that is born...and such knowledge is born—you open your eyes, a flower is seen blossoming before you—knowledge occurs that the flower is, it is beautiful, fragrant—this is a birth. This knowledge, too, will die. The flower will die, this knowledge will die.
Brahman will be such knowledge as neither is born nor dies. Which means that knowledge will not be in reference to any object; that knowledge will be nature itself; it will be there always.
Zen masters say to their seekers: search for your original face. What was your face like before you were born; and what will your face be when you are dead? They make you meditate on this.
It is very difficult! What will you think? On what will you meditate? They make you meditate so that in thinking and thinking about it, thinking may come to a stop; for that which cannot be thought—if you try to think on it, a moment will come when thinking stops.
Zen masters say: meditate on how a clap can happen with one hand. A clap with one hand cannot happen; yet they say, meditate on precisely this. If the seeker says, it simply cannot happen, they say: drop the worry about whether it can or cannot happen; first make the effort—we say it can happen. First try—meditate...for months. They make you meditate on this utterly absurd thing—how will one hand clap? The question of "cannot" does not arise at all.
The seeker comes back again and again and says, twenty-four hours have passed...it cannot happen. The Master says: do not worry about whether it cannot happen; I ask: how can it happen? Go and meditate.
Months pass...the head begins to reel, the intellect turns, thoughts do not work, everything inside becomes stalled—thinking...thinking...and it all begins to seem pure madness—then a moment comes when it becomes so clear that in this direction thinking is impossible. And if for a single instant thinking stops, that seeker comes running and says: the clap happened; because as soon as thought stops, there is a vision of nature.
Search your face that was before birth. It cannot be searched out, for before birth there was no face—birth itself gives birth to the face. And after death there will be no face, for death snatches the face away. Think! Thinking...thinking...a moment comes when thinking breaks, the chain stops; and then what is seen is the original face—the very nature, the very swarupa that was before birth and will be after death as well.
"That which does not encounter arising, does not encounter ceasing—that eternal chaitanya is called knowledge."
Here knowledge pertains to chaitanya, not to knowing; for what is known is always some thing. Here by knowledge we should mean chaitanya, Buddhahood.
The word "knowledge" has been distorted among us, because we forever bind it to knowing something else.
If someone says about you, he is very knowledgeable, someone will promptly ask: about what? If you say, not about anything, he is simply knowledgeable—no one will believe it. What does it mean? What does he know? Is he knowledgeable in medicine, economics, philosophy, or religion? If you say, no, he is simply knowledgeable, it will appear meaningless, because we always bind knowledge to something; we always attach knowledge to something else.
This knowledge has no relation to the knowledge by which Brahman has been defined. That knowledge is the eternal chaitanya, free of arising and ceasing. "Chaitanya" is the right word for that knowledge...awareness—or even better: alertness; because even in awareness it feels as if we are bound to something. Alertness...mere bodha. A lamp is burning, nothing is being illumined; simply the lamp is burning—around it there is nothing upon which the light falls. Nothing is being illumined; there is only light. I am giving an example so that the meaning of that knowledge may come to your feeling.
"Like clay within all things made of clay, like gold within all things made of gold, and like thread within all things made of thread—so the chaitanya that stands all-complete and all-pervading in the whole creation is called the Infinite."
And this chaitanya is not confined within the boundary of the individual. We sit here, so many of us; our many-ness is because of our bodies, not because of our chaitanya.
Light a thousand lamps in one room; whatever differences there are between the thousand lamps will be because of the clay of the pitcher, the oil, the wick—but the light in the room will be one. We light a thousand lamps in a room—each lamp is different, because the shape and mold of the clay is different; each lamp’s oil is different, each wick is different—but can you distinguish in the room which light belongs to which lamp? The light will be one, pervading—lamps different, light one.
Our differences are also the différence of lamps. The clay of the body is different, the form different; the fuel in the body is different, the wick of the body different; but that chaitanya, that light within us all, is one. The deeper we go within, the more we come upon unity; the more we come outward, the more we come upon multiplicity.
So the Rishi says: as gold in gold, as clay in clay—but that which pervades is one.
Even scientists will consent to this now. Fifty years ago they would not, because science said one thing cannot be transformed into another. Those who believed otherwise were considered only simpletons. In the West such people were called alchemists. In the East too there were such seekers whom we call searchers for the Paras stone—the philosopher’s stone. They were hunting a stone...that by its very touch iron might become gold. Alchemists also sought such a secret that base metals might be transformed into precious metals.
For the last two hundred years science had been saying this is sheer madness; it cannot be done. How can clay become gold? No way is visible. And those who speak like this are either naïve or cunning, deceiving people. If they even turn iron into gold, there must be a trick. Iron cannot become gold; it must be some deception and sleight of hand.
Events occurred to provide a factual proof—yet even then they were not deemed believable. A great German thinker and scientist who had been engaged for years in the study that alchemy appears to be outright false—one morning he was sitting at his door—his name was Hezen Hof—and a man came and said: I have heard that you do not believe in alchemy, but I can turn iron into gold right here, right now.
Hezen Hof said: you seem an amusing fellow, but iron cannot become gold. Either your brain is not well; I have been studying this for years—it is impossible.
The man said: if I do it perhaps you will not believe either. He opened a little box and said: in this is a thing by whose slightest touch iron will become gold.
Hezen Hof did not believe it; the man seemed utterly mad. How can iron become gold?...and he had been studying alchemy for years. Still, he passed his hand over the thing and scratched a tiny bit with his nail. He told the man: come tomorrow; I will arrange a full experiment so that no cheating can happen. I will have iron brought and gold assayers invited so that all may be tested tomorrow.
The man did not come the next day, but Hezen Hof was astonished and wept all his life; because he had touched iron with his fingernail and it became gold. The tiny scrap he had taken—the man never came again—but with that small scrap iron turned into gold.
Hezen Hof has written in his autobiography: for births upon births I will now await that man...but it has become very difficult. If it is a deception, it is a wondrous one. And there is now no way to call it a trick, for that scratching was with me. I turned my own iron into gold—and it became the purest gold. All tests were done. People began to suspect Hezen Hof himself, that he was being dishonest. No one was ready to accept it, because now what could he prove? And he said: I myself cannot believe it either, and yet the event has happened. But now no one is ready to believe me. And people wrote: studying alchemy, it seems Hezen Hof has gone mad. He has deceived himself. The man is honest, sincere—one should not doubt that. But it seems he himself has fallen into delusion; reading and reading, his mind has become confused. Such purest gold!
But in the last twenty years science has come to the conclusion that there is no fundamental difficulty in this. Perhaps what the alchemists were seeking, they were rightly seeking. Perhaps those in search of the Paras stone were searching rightly, because now the scientific verdict is: every object is made of the same kind of atoms...there is only a difference in the number of atoms. If one has—say for convenience—one hundred, another has one hundred and one. The atoms are the same—the fundamental particles of which things are made—the electrons are the same.
So if by any means we remove one atom from a thing that has one hundred and one, it will be transformed into the thing that has an atomic count of one hundred.
The difference between gold and iron is not of nature; it is of number. If we remove some atoms from iron, iron will immediately become gold. Or if we add some atoms to gold, gold will immediately become iron.
In its search science has reached to such depth in matter that its experience is: the nature of matter is one; only forms are different. That nature it calls electricity; the same in all matter. Although science has not yet found a method to make the conversion of iron into gold economical; it would currently cost more than actual gold, because separating atoms is a very expensive process—for now. But today or tomorrow we will find a cheaper process—that is another matter. Even if we cannot find a cheaper method, one thing is certain: iron can become gold.
Any thing can be transformed into any other thing; not only into another thing—matter can be transformed into energy. This is the secret of atomic energy...the conversion of matter into power; then there is an atomic explosion. And when a minuscule atom explodes, an immense energy is released.
The Rishis of the Upanishads have always said: within the individual too the atom of chaitanya is not different—it is one. The outer forms differ; within, the consciousness is one.
So the moment we go within...the moment we move out of the "me"...the deeper we enter within, the more we dissolve, and the Vast goes on happening. Right at one’s own center one’s own death happens. To enter truly within is to be absorbed in one’s own death; for we will be lost...like the lamp we will be lost as a lamp, and remain as light.
That light is infinite.
"It is in gold as gold, in clay as clay, in thread as thread; and that which pervades the entire creation—that chaitanya we call the Infinite."
Infinite, because though it is surely within finite forms, it is not confined by them; it is in gold, yes, but does not end with gold; it is in you, yes, but does not end with you—it goes on spreading, and spreading; indeed it is already spread. It is all-pervading.
Understand it this way: we are like fish in a vast ocean. The fish is born in the ocean and dissolves in the ocean; it is made of ocean’s water and is immersed back into ocean’s water. But while it is a fish, it appears entirely a person; then it is lost in the ocean...and it is made from the ocean itself—it is ocean.
If fish seems hard to grasp, see an iceberg floating in the sea. It appears completely separate, head raised, distinct from the water in every way—solid, and all—but even so, it is ocean...and the moment it melts, it is absorbed.
This process of melting we have called the dropping of ego. As we melt, the ego dissolves; we become one with the vast ocean.
The iceberg may deem itself however different—it is not different. Our difference is our ignorance; and our knowledge becomes the declaration of our non-difference.
This infinite, all-pervading One is called Brahman. The word "Brahman" is very precious; it means sheer vastness; Brahman means: the supreme expansion. Vistar (expanse) and Brahman arise from the same root. Brahman means: that which keeps on expanding; that which keeps on spreading; that which is spread out; whose expanse knows no limit.
There is no word like Brahman in other languages of the world. Brahman cannot be translated. Ishwar, God—have nothing to do with Brahman...nothing! Therefore Shankara had the courage to say that even Ishwar is part of maya—even Ishwar. Because he too has form and shape. Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh—each has form and figure; they too are parts of maya. Beyond them, the formless is Brahman; it is only another name for expanse—endless expanse...which is spread through all and never stops anywhere, only goes on spreading...hence Infinite.
"That which is of the nature of blissful chaitanya, that which is an ocean of immeasurable Ananda, that which is the very essence of the happiness that remains—thus it is called Ananda."
This must be understood.
"That which is of the nature of blissful chaitanya"...
Whenever we experience happiness, we do not experience that "I am happiness"; rather, the experience is: I am, and something has come upon me—happiness. Happiness is an event, not nature; because that which is nature cannot be lost—but happiness is lost. In the morning, happiness; by evening, sorrow.
Happiness comes, sorrow comes—they come upon me; they happen upon me and take leave. They are events. So when Brahman is called of the nature of happiness, it means that for Brahman happiness is not an event; it is nature—It abides in happiness...or is happiness itself.
When happiness is nature, we call it Ananda.
When joy is only an event, we call it pleasure. Event means: alien, foreign. It happens outside us; it happens without; it happens outside the house. We can never become one with it—however much we suppose we have become one; we never can.
Diogenes, a Greek fakir, used to move about naked. Someone asked Diogenes: why did you discard clothes? Diogenes said: I tried hard to grasp them, but could not; so I let them go. I tried hard to grasp clothes and become the cloth—I could not. Then I thought: that which I can never become, which remains only an external happening, let me leave it. Nakedness is my nature, said Diogenes; and clothes were on top—fine, the clothes were on top, but within I was naked.
Within clothes all are naked; there is no way around it. Clothes may deceive another’s eye that you are not naked, but they cannot deceive you. Yet they deceive even us—that is the marvel. A man within clothes begins to feel that now I am not naked. But clothes are an external event.
So Diogenes says: I tried hard to grasp them; at last I found I cannot grasp them— they remain loose, outside. There is no way to make them mine. Then why believe as mine that which can never be mine? So I left them.
Diogenes lay at the roadside, and Alexander was coming to India. He met Diogenes and said: you seem very delighted, very blissful—but nothing is visible with you on account of which you should be blissful.
Because Alexander cannot even conceive that someone can be blissful without a cause. How can one be blissful causelessly? Though the Rishi says: the day bliss is without cause, only then is it bliss. But our logic says: you have nothing—no wife, no child, no wealth, no palace, no comforts—you lie naked on the sand by the roadside; you seem very delighted! What is the cause?
Diogenes said: so long as I was delighted by a cause, I could not be delighted. Then I thought: let me drop the cause...let me drop everything; and let me search for that delight which is causeless; because then it cannot be snatched from me.
Whatever has a cause can be taken away, because the cause can be taken away. There is a woman; on account of her I am happy. She may die tomorrow...and will die; she can be taken away...even if she neither dies nor goes away, she can be lost for me; the relationship may break. Happiness will go. Wealth is today; tomorrow it may not be—happiness will go. And even if it remains, even then it will go; because that which is there always ceases to give pleasure.
Where there is a cause, joy will be snatched. Joy born of a cause will be momentary. But can there be joy without cause? That very causeless joy we call Ananda.
Causeless Ananda means: joy does not come from outside; it arises from within. Caused joy means: joy comes from outside. Therefore we must remain dependent, obliged to the outside. Anyone can snatch it. Anyone can snatch it; at any time it can be taken away. What mastery do I have over the outside?
But there is another dimension too: Ananda flows from within to without. The current is entirely reversed.
Krishna’s beloved is named Radha. It is the reversal of the current. This is very interesting in this name, for nowhere in Krishna’s life is Radha mentioned—not even the word. In no ancient scripture is Radha mentioned; there is no story of Radha. Much later...much later—one should say, only recently—in the medieval period Radha was born; this Radha began to be joined.
There is mention in Krishna’s life of an unnamed sakhi, a companion. Unnamed. She is deliberately unnamed; for only beyond name and form can she be the sakhi. There is no description of her form either; what her face is like—nothing at all—no name, no form. It is she whom later the medieval saints called Radha. And they called her Radha knowingly, because she is the reverse flow of the current.
There is a stream of joy that comes from outside to within—that is one flow. And when joy flows from within to without, then it becomes Radha. And Krishna can love only such a Radha, who moves from within to without...Krishna has nothing to do with one who comes from without to within.
So then...when Ananda starts flowing from within to without, when it becomes Radha, then you have attained such a companion who will never be lost; whom no one can seek either.
"Its nature is blissful chaitanya. It is an ocean of immeasurable Ananda. And it is the very essence of the happiness that remains."
When everything drops—everything from which you used to get happiness—when everything drops and still happiness remains, that remaining happiness is its nature. Such a nature is called Ananda.
We do not know Ananda at all; we have no clue of it, because the clue to Ananda comes only when the current becomes Radha; when a wholly new dimension is born within us.
So Diogenes says: I am blissful because I am Ananda; I am not blissful because there is any cause. Alexander’s mind too fills with jealousy. And this is the supreme event in the world—when a monarch’s mind becomes jealous upon seeing a beggar. Even Alexander says: if I get another birth I would want to be not Alexander but Diogenes; this very Ananda is what I too am seeking.
Diogenes says: you seek it? You will never find it by seeking. Stop; there is space enough here; you too rest beside me; without going anywhere we have found it—right here. Why do you run and run? And there is ample space here; you too lie down.
Alexander said: just now it is very difficult; I am on a campaign of conquest. Diogenes said: for one who is on a campaign of conquest it is not difficult only now—it will always be difficult; because the journey of conquest is a search for suffering. If you must conquer, conquer yourself; in conquering others your inner defeat happens; as you go on conquering others, a man goes on being defeated within. In the end, nothing is gained but defeat. Leave the other, for with the other only inner defeat happens; conquer yourself; know yourself.
Alexander said: on my return I will stay with you for a while. Diogenes said: you may never return; because you are missing this very moment—the moment that is surely present now; you are thinking of that moment which as yet is not present!
And as fate would have it, Alexander could not return; he died on his way back from India.
No campaign of conquest is ever completed; death comes in-between. We have made many campaigns across many births...each time the campaign is left incomplete, death comes; then we set out again to complete the campaign—but that is never completed; death comes again and again.
Only one victory can be complete, and only one Ananda is attainable...and that is the Ananda that can never come from outside—never has, never will—but which is present within this very instant.
Enough for today.
Now let us make an effort for meditation....