Saravsar Upanishad #14

It would have been very simple to understand the truth of life if existence had only two modes — sat and asat. We could say of something that ‘it is,’ or say that ‘it is not.’ If life, if existence, had such two clear divisions, there would be no difficulty at all. But there is a third category of existence, of which we cannot say ‘it is,’ and also cannot say ‘it is not’ — and it is from this that the whole entanglement arises.
As, in the dimness of dusk upon the road, a rope lying there appears to you as a snake. This snake that has appeared to you — does it exist or does it not exist? If only it were simple and we could clearly say ‘it is not’… or say ‘it is,’ then there would be no confusion. But the snake that appeared in the rope is, in one sense, not; for when you search you find a rope in the hand, not a snake. Yet in another sense it is, because it was seen. And not merely seen: the one who saw it will run, may even fall, may be hurt; his heart will race, he will be drenched in sweat — and if he never returns to look and inquire, he will live all his life with the conviction that there was a snake.
So can a man run because of that which was not? Because of that which was not, can sweat pour down? Can the heart tremble with fear because of that which was not? If such happenings can occur, then in some sense one has to concede its being; for when even in non-being happenings occur in our being, to deny its existence absolutely is impossible.
At night you see some frightful situation in a dream. You wake, and you know it was a dream; yet the heartbeat does not lessen for that reason. Your hands and feet keep trembling. Granted that it was a dream, and now you know it was a dream; yet the real heart is still quivering and the panic continues. And for sleep to return a little time will be needed.
Thus that which is unreal and yet can influence the real, the Rishis say, we would be unjust to declare outright ‘it is not.’ And the irony is, this third category is so effective that our whole life is steeped in it; it cannot be denied. This third category is so significant that our entire life is built around it and moves by it.
Therefore India invented a new word: ‘Maya.’
Maya is neither sat nor asat; Maya is between the two. In one sense it is not, and in another sense it is.
It is given the name Maya for this reason: for Maya’s literal meaning is this — as a magician makes a tree grow larger. Before the eyes, before a thousand eyes, the tree begins to grow. Before a thousand eyes, in a moment fruits appear on it, and the fruits become large. All who are seeing know this cannot happen; it is not. And yet it appears!
The original meaning of Maya is: the art of illusion. The original meaning of Maya is: magic. Its meaning is that that which is not may also appear — there is this possibility; and the reverse possibility too — that which is, may not appear. That which is can be hidden, and that which is not can be revealed.
There are three situations — that which absolutely is not, of which even illusion is not possible. That which absolutely is, of which illusion too is not possible. But that which in one regard is, and in another regard is not — of that, illusion is possible. This third form of existence also is; and its name is Maya.
This is Maya’s literal meaning. If we grasp its circumference rightly, then the dimensions it opens within life will come into our view.
That which is — has always been. It has no beginning, no commencement, and it has no end either, for it will remain forever. That which is not, absolutely is not, has no beginning either; for how will that which is not begin? And it will have no end either; for what would end that which never is? Maya has no beginning; it has an end. It belongs to the middle. It has no beginning — it has always been; but it has an end.
Let us understand it so.
Darkness is… darkness is from the very beginning; but darkness can end. A light is kindled and darkness is no more. The light burns, and the darkness is not. Darkness has no starting point… ‘when did the darkness begin?’ — it is beginningless, always has been; but it comes to an end — the lamp is lit and it is gone.
This third category in existence — Maya — is there from the very beginning, like darkness. When one awakens into consciousness, it ends; when awareness is illumined, that darkness is cut through.
Maya is an extended dream.
The beauty of the dream is that when it happens it feels real. As long as it lasts, it feels real. We all have dreamt. And every morning we find the dream was false; yet tonight when a dream comes, in the seeing it again becomes real. In the dream one never remembers that what is being seen is false. If remembrance comes, the dream will break.
A dream has an inner characteristic: when it is happening, it is utterly real… it appears real; not a trace of doubt arises, not the slightest suspicion. Even great skeptics, who can doubt this world — whether it is or is not — cannot doubt the dream while dreaming.
In the West there was a great thinker, Berkeley. He said: I doubt the world — whether it is, or is not! For perhaps it is a great dream. How can I trust that you are truly sitting here? Perhaps I am only dreaming. How can I be certain that those I see actually are? It may be I am speaking to them in a dream. A dream too appears just as real as you appear real here.
So Berkeley says, what assurance is there? What certainty that you are? We call the dream a dream only because it breaks in the morning. But that which we call waking also breaks at dusk. In the morning we wake from the dream and see it was false, it vanished. By night one was an emperor, and by morning one is a beggar on the road. But all day long, being a beggar on the road, when night comes and sleep descends, then this beggarhood too is equally forgotten. Where does it remain remembered in sleep that one was a beggar? Does an emperor retain the remembrance in a dream that ‘I am an emperor’? That day’s dream breaks as dusk falls.
Then what is the difference? One dream breaks in the morning; one breaks in the evening. In the night’s dream we forget the day; in the day’s dream we forget the night — what is the difference?
So Berkeley says: how shall I trust that anything exists outside me? It is an amusing matter; but even Berkeley in a dream cannot remember that what is, may be suspect. In waking doubt is possible; in sleep even doubt is not possible. The greatest atheist, skeptic, doubter cannot doubt within the dream.
The Maya of dream is very wondrous. Waking does not seem to have so strong an effect. Waking seems less effective, because we can doubt — we can say, who knows whether what appears is or is not. But the Maya of the dream is marvelous. In a dream we are completely lost, immersed. And we accept even such things as reason could never accept. But in the dream there is no reason at all. If reason were there, doubt would be there too.
In a dream you see a friend standing before you and suddenly he becomes a horse… and not even the slightest doubt arises — ‘how can this be!’ In a dream no doubt arises. The dream is very full of faith. The dream’s faith is absolute. Even the supremely faithful in life are not so faithful as the supreme atheist becomes faithful in a dream. Not even a doubt arises that the friend standing there has in an instant become a horse, and not even a thought comes, how can this be!
The dream accepts everything. The dream has no reason. The special feature of the dream is that in a dream doubt is impossible. Whatever appears in a dream is real so long as the dream lasts. Whatever happens in a dream, it does not seem incongruous. There is the spread of an inner consistency.
What is the special feature of the dream is also the special feature of Maya. Understand that Maya is a waking dream. Therefore, the more the mind is surrounded by Maya, the harder it becomes to doubt Maya; doubt about Maya does not arise… and Maya appears absolutely real.
A face appears beautiful to you and you feel that for this face life itself can be given. Layla does not appear to anyone as she appears to Majnu. The whole village was afflicted by Majnu’s anguish. The lord of the village summoned Majnu and said: ‘You are utterly mad. The one you… I don’t know what you think of her — an ordinary, very ordinary girl — why are you crazy for her? And I too have felt pity for you… because in the village Majnu goes about weeping, shouting, tears flowing — standing at doors he calls “Layla, Layla.” The emperor’s ears received the news. He too had seen his pain, had felt it — it was authentic, his sobbing was real. So pity arose. He had ten-twelve beautiful girls brought to the palace and said, you may choose any one. Forget this Layla.’
Majnu went near those twelve girls. They were the most beautiful in that realm. But Majnu said: ‘Where is Layla among these? They are not even the dust of Layla’s feet.’
The emperor said: ‘Either you are insane and not in your senses; what are you saying! You are calling these girls the dust of Layla’s feet!’
Majnu said: ‘Certainly.’
The emperor said: ‘I too have seen Layla; she is a very ordinary girl.’
Majnu said: ‘To see Layla one needs Majnu’s eyes.’
But what is this eye — this eye of Majnu — doing with Layla? This eye is giving something to Layla which is not in Layla; this eye is spreading some dream upon Layla; this eye is creating some Maya around Layla which is not in Layla. In the Layla whom Majnu knows there is less Layla and more Majnu. Even if it be ten percent — that would be much — Layla; ninety percent is Majnu. The likelihood is that only one percent is Layla; ninety-nine percent is Majnu. What he is seeing is his own projection. He has spread it. It is his own mind that is weaving a dream around Layla’s face and body — weaving a fabric of fragrance, beauty, music — it is Majnu’s mind.
As the spider draws the filament out of herself and weaves the web, so man’s mind weaves Maya — drawn from within himself. Outside, pegs are needed — that’s all. Just as the spider needs them too. When the spider weaves its web it fixes it somewhere in a wall, somewhere across a door. That much peg-support there is; the rest of the web is entirely her own.
Man too, in the Maya he weaves, takes pegs from outside. Layla is just a peg. And the Layla that appears is Majnu’s own web. Maya means: the mind’s capacity to braid a dream all around itself. And the fascinating thing is that the web the spider weaves, she then walks upon, lives upon, dwells in it. That web drawn from within her becomes her path; it becomes her way. It is her home; it is her means of food; it is her livelihood. It is within that web that, having been trapped, her food will arrive. And the web she herself spread.
And sometimes it even happens that the spider gets caught in her own web and it becomes difficult to get out. Sometimes the web tangles; in a gust of wind it falls upon the spider herself. Sometimes the web breaks and the spider dangles in midair. And the irony — it was all a play of her own belly; all emerged from within her, and the same submerges her. And sometimes the spider is so caught in her own web that she cannot come out; the very web that was her life one day becomes her death.
Maya means: the mind’s capacity to create a dream-world all around itself. In this dream there is much pleasure too, otherwise we would not create it; in this dream there is much pleasure, otherwise why would we create it? In this dream there is much pain too, otherwise why would any Buddha, any Mahavira set out to break it? In this dream there is pleasure only so long as we can keep dreaming it. But the interesting thing is that the very object on which we project the dream begins to break the dream; for it does not at all conform to our dream — it has its own existence, its own dreams.
I see a person — very lovable, beautiful, pleasing… I spread my dream upon him. It is not necessary that he also spread his dream upon me. Hence lovers fall into trouble.
Lovers come and ask me: ‘I love such-and-such a person so much, but why does he not love me?’ There is no necessity; he is free to spread his dream where he will. He may make you a peg, or he may not; he may have chosen some other peg. There is no compulsion. He is weaving his web upon his pegs, you are weaving yours upon yours — somewhere, some disturbance is bound to be. Somewhere your web will feel like bondage to him; somewhere his web being woven elsewhere will become painful to you. And even if we concede that two persons weave their webs upon each other, still each is weaving his own web — therefore conflict becomes inevitable, pain becomes inevitable — paths cross; expectations break; the dream is shattered; each has his own inner plan for spreading his dream.
Understand it thus: upon one and the same screen two projectors are set and two persons are running two different films — on the same screen. Trouble is bound to happen; and all will be mixed up — nothing will be seen clearly. But here it is not a question of two; it is as if upon a single screen ten, fifteen, twenty people are all running films. All becomes confusion, all becomes delusion; nothing comes to hand — only misery. All dreams are broken. Apart from disillusionment, apart from dream-breaking, apart from ashes in our hands, apart from torn webs — in the end man has no other wealth.
This capacity of the mind is twofold: one part of it is the projector… that we are capable of spreading any thought, any feeling, any imagination; and the second capacity is auto-hypnosis — self-suggestion. We ourselves spread it, and then we ourselves become hypnotized by it. First, we place beauty into a face — it is we — and then we ourselves are enticed! This is its second part — becoming self-hypnotized. First we say ‘be beautiful’; it is we who construct beauty.
Till today no definition of beauty could be found. Nor will it ever be found, because beauty is a personal projection; it is not some factual reality. Hence, ages change, fashions change, and the standards of beauty change. Sometimes a flat nose is beautiful, sometimes a long nose becomes beautiful; sometimes a fair face is beautiful, sometimes a dark face becomes beautiful.
We kept Krishna and Ram dark, for in that time the dark complexion was the most beautiful. Whether they were truly dark or not is not certain, but the esteem for dark color in that time never returned again. Charm lay only in the dusky then. Hence we could not make Krishna fair. His very name ‘Krishna,’ ‘Shyam’ — are symbols, synonyms of black.
Now we cannot even conceive what beauty there could be in black, because for the last hundred, hundred-fifty years the white color has been very influential upon the whole world. So when we say ‘dark is beautiful,’ it feels dubious. Though it will not take long — because American beauties are deeply engaged in efforts to become dusky — lying on the sea-shores so that the sun may tan them a little; because too much whiteness brings boredom. And the white looks a little shallow. A river, when slightly deeper, turns dusky; when shallow, it is white, with foam. In the dusky there is felt a little depth. The surface gives a glimpse of the within. White becomes flat. But this notion too changes with the age. Sometimes white becomes pleasing, then we grow tired of it, then the dusky becomes pleasing.
There are peoples who prefer women with shaven heads. We shave only the heads of sannyasins — and that only to make them ugly, for no other reason; because a sannyasi should not appear beautiful, since he is going beyond the world of beauty.
But there are tribes — African aboriginals — who shave the heads of women, not of men, because a man can manage without beauty; they shave the heads of women because a shaven head is beautiful. And perhaps their point too is meaningful in a sense, because they say: until the head is shaven, the fine details of the skull are not visible; if the skull is uneven, high and low, the hair covers it. So even an ugly skull remains hidden. When the skull is completely bare, then it can be seen whether there is real form and proportion in it; otherwise one may be deceived.
What is beauty? We ourselves project it… we ourselves project it; we spread our own notion. Then it begins to appear beautiful to us. And then we are enchanted by the beautiful. So first we project something, put an image upon the screen — a feeling drawn from within is placed upon the screen — and then we get enthralled by it.
Have you ever stood before a mirror and been enchanted by yourself? If so, you will know what I am saying.
There is a Greek tale of Narcissus who looked into a lake, saw his own reflection, and was enchanted… and fell in love with himself. Then he fell into great difficulty, because to seek oneself is very difficult. Where is the way? He searched the whole land, but the face he had fallen in love with, he could not find again.
Freud called ‘narcissists’ those who fall into infatuation with themselves. And almost most of us are narcissists; they are like Narcissus. We are all in love with ourselves. We might not say so. Byron, for instance, fell in love with hundreds of women… he might not say it, but psychologists say that he fell in love with hundreds of women only so that each woman would say to him, ‘You are very beautiful.’ Merely for that assurance. This search is the search to love one’s own face. If a thousand women say, ‘How lovely you are,’ the trust deepens. He loves himself, but if a thousand women say so, the confidence becomes stronger.
Even when we love another person, we love our own notions, our own imaginings of beauty, our own feelings, our own ideals — we are surrounded by ourselves; all are Narcissus. But within this enclosure there appears so much reality that it seems all this is.
And if on one side the web breaks, the spider immediately finds another peg and begins weaving again. We too do the same. If our infatuation breaks with one person, we make another person a peg and begin to weave our web; if one dream breaks, we immediately begin to dream another, complementary dream — but we never become aware that what we are doing has anything to do with truth.
Certainly it is not utterly asat, for otherwise we could not do it at all; nor is it utterly sat, for otherwise we would not fall into misery. It is in the middle… it is asat, and appears like sat. This is the meaning of Maya.
‘That which is beginningless, yet comes to an end.’
That which never began, but at some point is brought to a close. One does not remember when Maya began! One does not remember when we fell into this web! There is no way to discover when we descended into this deep darkness! It is beginningless; but it can end.
Someone asks Buddha, ‘How did suffering begin?’ Buddha says: ‘Leave that concern; ask how it can end.’ Buddha says: ‘Forget the question of how it began — ask instead how it can end. I know the ending.’
Buddha says: ‘A man has fallen pierced by an arrow; his chest is impaled by a dart. I go to draw it out; the man says, first tell me who shot this arrow? Why did he shoot? When did he shoot? From where did he shoot? Is it poisoned or not? Which karma-fruit has brought this about?’
Buddha says: ‘Ask none of this. I can tell you the way to take the arrow out; how this can be ended.’
Maya is beginningless. This is of great value — that Indian insight is very courageous in accepting facts. Very few streams of thought are willing to accept that something is beginningless; for the mind says… somewhere it must have begun… somewhere it must have begun!
Hence Christians long said the world began four thousand and four years before Jesus. They even fixed a date. Then they were in great trouble, for when science explored it found this earth is very ancient… some three billion years old. But see how the mind lives in its dreams and arguments! The Christian clergy fell into great difficulty when the bones of animals were found that are millions of years old; and ores were found in the earth that are tens of millions of years old; and rocks were found with a history of billions of years. But the Christian clergy was saying, four thousand and four years before Jesus — that is, some five or six thousand years ago.
So great difficulty arose. Civilizations were found that were at their summit seven thousand years ago. Records were found a hundred thousand years old. In the Rig Veda there are references to stars and constellations which are ninety-five thousand years old. Now what to do about that? Man can give himself such deluded reasons… Christian clerics began to say that God created the earth only four thousand and four years ago, but he placed in it such things as give the illusion of billions of years — so that man’s faith could be tested; his devotion could be examined. He placed bones… for what is impossible for him? If he can make the entire earth, can he not make a bone that appears a million years old? He hid such bones so that man’s faith could be tested — whether you are faithful or not.
And a test of faith is only then a test when every reason for unfaith is fully displayed and yet a man goes on believing — he says, no, it is only four thousand and four years old. This is rationalization; we keep trying to give our delusions the support of arguments.
This Indian insight is, in a sense, brave — it accepts facts. The seers say this world never had a beginning. Hence fundamentally we are the only culture on earth that accepted the beginningless; no one else has managed to accept it. Somewhere, somehow, it must begin — perhaps we do not know the date; for how can it be that something never began and yet exists? But this is a very shallow form of reasoning. The truth is, if anything is to begin, even for its beginning something must already be present; otherwise how will it begin? Even for a beginning something must be present within which it begins.
Therefore Indian insight says: even for a beginning something must be already present. Hence talk of a beginning is nonsense; whenever we place the beginning, any date we fix — earlier or later, billions and trillions of years ago — whenever we fix a beginning, that beginning is not a beginning, for even for the beginning something prior must be present. Then the search for a beginning again begins. But when we go within ourselves a moment comes when the whole web of our projections breaks and we are outside Maya. The disease has no beginning but has an end — this we know by fact; we know it by experience. Therefore the Upanishads are not our logical proclamations; they are the conclusions of our inward witnessing. And whenever fact is significant, logic must be dropped; there is no other way.
In the West, psychology too has now come near yet another fact where straight logic must break. I just spoke of physics. Western psychology too, with Jung, stepped into a new phenomenon. We had always believed that a man is man and a woman is woman. But Jung discovered that in every man there is also a woman and in every woman there is also a man. He said, it is only a difference of degree. What we call a man is, say, sixty percent man and forty percent woman — so to speak. What we call a woman is sixty percent woman and forty percent man — so to speak. The difference is quantitative, not a straight division. So within every man there is a woman, and within every woman there is a man.
Thus Jung said, our old notion is wrong that man is man and woman is woman. And to call a woman ‘manly’ or a man ‘effeminate’ is foolishness. Man is bisexual. The old division of sex has broken down.
And Jung embarrassed us further. He said, as I went deeper into experience I found that this ratio is not fixed; it can change ten times in a day. It may be that in the morning you are more woman — even while being a man — and by evening you become more man. It can also be that today you are manly and tomorrow you behave like a woman.
Have you ever noticed? I know a man — very brave — his house caught fire; he beat his chest and pulled his hair and wept in such a way that even a woman might not weep. When I saw him crying it was hard to believe he was the same man! He began to behave just like a woman. If we follow the old straight logic we would say this is a moment of weakness, he is not in his senses; but the new psychologist will say, no, it is not a moment of weakness — the ratio has shifted… the feminine has become predominant.
We have also seen some women fighting and struggling like men. Sometimes a Jhansi ki Rani is exactly like a man, and we call her ‘manly,’ but we think she is a special woman. There is nothing special in that. It can manifest in any woman. It is a question of change in ratio.
And many times it happens that when a woman becomes manly she is more manly than a man — the reason is: her manliness is very fresh and new; it has always remained hidden. She has not used it. As a land that has not been sown for centuries becomes very fertile, if seed is cast, the first crop will be heavy — all the surrounding fields that have produced harvests for a thousand years will seem poor. So if a woman becomes manly, the man inside her is very fresh and intense because it has remained unexpressed; there is an explosion. And when a man becomes feminine his tenderness is such that even a woman cannot match it; he becomes more feminine than a woman.
Thus straight logic has broken down for the psychologist as well. He says logic rightly says that woman is woman and man is man; man is not woman, woman is not man; but the fact says that both are both. And we must drop the old notion.
Jung says even our attraction is because of this; otherwise there would be no attraction. A very unique discovery has come: that you, being a man, are searching for a woman to love — that woman coincides with the woman within you; only then does love happen. Otherwise love does not happen.
Hence it may be you love a woman and tomorrow you find love is not happening; you love a man and tomorrow find your harmony does not fit. Then we get angry — perhaps this man is not right, perhaps this woman is not right. The only reason is that harmony is not fitting with the woman within — or not fitting with the man within. Within each of us there is an image of man or woman; it is that we seek. And when someone fits precisely into that image, we say we have fallen in love.
To fall in love is nothing more than this: the inner image falling into exact accord with someone — and we say, love has happened. But everyone is changing. So today it may fit, and tomorrow it may not. Therefore in the morning it fits, by evening it may not fit.
Indian insight came one day to this experience — that that which does not begin can also end, and that which does not end can also begin.
Let me tell you the second half as well: Maya does not begin, it ends; Moksha begins, it does not end.
Moksha means: rising beyond Maya. It has a beginning, because one day you rise beyond Maya; but then it never ends. Mahavira became liberated — now this Moksha has no end.
So the Indian mind has understood this: Maya is a fact that does not begin but ends; Moksha is the other fact that begins but does not end. And if we place both together the circle is formed. That which is beginningless in Maya is that which is endless in Moksha. That which is at the beginning in Moksha is that which is at the ending in Maya. The end of Maya is the beginning of Moksha. The circle is formed.
This circle is a spiritual experience; it is not logic. And whoever goes towards this by logic is trying to walk with hands and feet tied. If he cannot walk, the fault is not that walking does not happen; he is sitting bound — his own logic has bound his hands and feet.
‘That which is neither sat, nor asat; of which we cannot say sat-asat; of which we cannot say both; nor can we say, neither — such a power, which appears most free of modification, is called Maya.’
And it does appear free of modification; because when it appears, it appears utterly pure — like a dream seems completely true, seems real. When it disappears it is not that it appears distorted; it simply does not appear. As long as it appears, it seems pure truth. When it does not appear, it becomes pure untruth. This in-between existence of Maya is what we have been calling the world.
‘It cannot be described any further than this.’
Nothing more can be said about it. This much is enough to say. If more is to be known, then it has to be known. This is sufficient to be said. More is neither necessary nor possible. The sutra is complete. Now if more is to be known, one can come to know it.
‘This Maya is of the nature of ignorance, mean and false.’
This Maya is of the nature of ignorance, it is mean, it is false.
‘But to the deluded it appears real in all three times; therefore by saying “it is so,” its form cannot be made understood.’
There are three points here: ignorance — we do not know, hence Maya appears; our not-knowing is its very foundation.
In the rope the snake appeared — what is the basis of that? — that we did not rightly know the rope. A correct and complete knowing of the rope was lacking, hence the snake appeared. Had we gone nearer, lit a lamp, looked, then the snake would have disappeared. The existence of the snake lies in our not-knowing, not in the rope.
Understand it well.
The snake’s existence lies in our not-knowing, not in the rope; for the rope will be rope whether we know it or not. But there came a moment in between: darkness came, there was delusion, we saw from afar and ran away. It was dark, twilight, things were not clearly visible; then the snake that we saw — from where did that snake come? It came from our not-knowing and from our memory. We had seen a snake before. Something in the rope matched that snake. The rope appeared like a snake, and it was dark, there was no light, and we ran away — fear played its part, memory played its part, lack of knowledge played its part — and we ran; so that which was not became real. Fear played its part, memory played its part — the old memory of the snake spread upon the screen — and darkness played its part; we did not go near, ignorance played its part — and the rope became a snake.
Sometimes the reverse happens too; sometimes a snake becomes a rope. It happened to Tulsidas. He went to meet his wife, stealthily. He could not go through the front door because it was not even a day since his wife had gone to her mother’s house. With what face to go through the front? So he climbed from the back of the house. It was a rainy night; a snake was hanging — he climbed it thinking it a rope. That happens too; for if a rope can become a snake, why cannot a snake become a rope?
But even there the reason is the same: memory… that it is a rope; and such great haste to climb that there is no leisure to know what it is. Fear that someone may see, someone may catch. There is no convenience for much checking. Otherwise he would have gone through the front door. Nor is there any way to go with a lamp, for thieves do not take lamps. And a heavy infatuation, a heavy Maya to meet the wife — so the snake becomes a rope. Yet the snake remains a snake. The basis is ignorance.
‘… mean and false.’
Because what is actually there is utterly trivial, nothing; we make it into very much. We endow it with our dream and make it much. Therefore when the dream breaks, the person upon whom we had spread our dream suddenly becomes insipid, tasteless. The person is the same; only we have taken back our dream.
Trivial is what lies around us upon which we erect our Maya — utterly trivial; almost nothing. It is exactly like the screen of the film. There is nothing in it — only a blank white screen. Yet we cast moving pictures upon it, and people become intoxicated. They go mad — over pictures! And those pictures are only play of light and shadow; only circles of light, nothing more — and even over them people become mad.
And now there are three-dimensional films. When the first three-dimensional films were shown, the affair became completely real. The first day when a three-dimensional film was shown in London, a horseman comes riding and throws a spear. The whole hall ducks their heads to escape the spear; because it is three-dimensional, it appears completely real — length, breadth, depth are all there in the spear. And when the spear is thrown it seems to whistle past your head. There is no time to think that we are in a cinema. Heads bow down. There remains no difference between the real spear and that spear. But what passed there? Nothing at all — trivial! A play of light and shadow. Yet illusion is created.
‘And false…’
False means: that which is not at all, and yet appears absolutely as if it is.
Mithya is the synonym of Maya. Maya is the name of the power; mithya is the name of the fact. By Maya we produce mithya facts — pseudo-facts. Maya is the power to create false facts. Thus mithya is born of Maya.
‘But to the mūḍha…’
Mūḍha does not mean ‘stupid.’ Note well, mūḍha does not mean stupid; even the intelligent can be mūḍha; great pundits can be mūḍha. Mūḍha does not mean foolish; mūḍha means drowned in Maya — bemused, lost, hypnotized.
So even a great pundit can be mūḍha. Tulsidas was a great pundit. There was no lack in his scholarship, but he became mūḍha.
In the West they say — there is a saying: what a mother takes twenty-five years to make her son intelligent, a young woman can make him mūḍha in two seconds. The mother wastes twenty-five years — teaching, educating, explaining — and she has no idea that an ordinary woman will come and make him mūḍha in two minutes; all his intelligence lying aside.
Mūḍha does not mean stupidity; mūḍha means a state of being bewitched. Anyone can be bewitched. And when one is bewitched, all intelligence lies aside. A moment before, one was very intelligent; within a moment intelligence is lost — as if suddenly intoxication has come. A man was walking with full awareness on the road, and someone suddenly gives him a pill and he becomes unconscious and his feet begin to stagger — just so.
We have within us the capacity of Maya’s power; as soon as we give it a chance to spread, it spreads and raises its pavilion; we are within it.
To be within Maya is called mūḍhatā, delusion.
So we have three words: ‘Maya’ — meaning the power. ‘Mithya’ — meaning the facts born of this Maya. And ‘mūḍhatā’ — consciousness veiled by this Maya.
Thus when we call someone mūḍha, we do not mean he is stupid; we only mean he has made himself stupid by his own hands. He can also become intelligent. Therefore it is not necessary — to be free of mūḍhatā — understand the second part — it is not necessary that a man be very intelligent. Even the stupid can drop mūḍhatā, because the intelligent can also be mūḍha.
Therefore sometimes it happens that a completely rustic villager attains the supreme knowing. It means he goes beyond mūḍhatā — that’s all. Kabir, or Nanak, or Tarana, or Dadu, or Farid… these are not learned people… Mohammed himself, Jesus — in no sense can they be called erudite. They have no refined, educated minds; they are utterly simple folk. But suddenly they leap out of mūḍhatā, and become supremely wise… supremely wise!
This supreme knowing happens by the disappearance of mūḍhatā; and scholarship happens by the disappearance of stupidity. So it is easy to remove stupidity — gather information and stupidity disappears. Not knowing the many facts we call a man stupid. He learns, and we say he is a pundit. But pundit and fool are of the same genus. The difference is one of measure. The fool knows less, the pundit knows more. The quantity of information is greater — the difference is quantitative, not qualitative, because both can be mūḍha — at any time! At any time both can be deluded.
Opposite to mūḍhatā is what is called jnana — and opposite to stupidity is what is called scholarship. Opposite to mūḍhatā is prajna — wisdom. Therefore scholarship can be learned; wisdom cannot be learned. Scholarship is borrowed, wisdom can never be obtained by borrowing. Scholarship is accumulation; wisdom is an inner revolution.
Let mūḍhatā break. What does mūḍhatā mean? It means: the tendency to be subjugated by Maya. The tendency to come under the influence of Maya is mūḍhatā. The capacity to be free of the influence of Maya is jnana.
‘To the mūḍha Maya appears true in all three times.’
Which are these three times in which Maya appears true to the mūḍha?
Every thing’s being has three moments — the moment of not-being, the moment of being, and the moment of not-being again. Every thing passes through these three states of time.
Just now I saw you; just now there is no love in me for you — this is one state. I see, love arises — this is the second state. Tomorrow love is lost — this is the third state. These are the three times of love — it was not, it was, now it is not.
The Rishi says: the mūḍha take the Maya to be real in all three states. When it was not, they understood ‘there is no love’ — as a reality. When it is, they believe ‘love is’ — this is reality. When it disappears, they again believe ‘it is not’ — as reality. And these three are not realities; they are the three times. For every experience of Maya, for every phase of delusion, there are three moments — before being, being, and after being. And in all three states, whatever stands before him, a man believes, ‘this alone is right.’
What does this mean? It means this: that the person who, when love is present, believes ‘now this love is and is real’ — when love is lost, he will believe ‘now love is not’ — with just the same depth with which he had believed in love; but he will not be able to see whether that which is no longer might not be something which never was. And that which has now come to be, and a moment before was not — might it not be that it was never there and just now there is a delusion in between these two moments of no-love? For that which is, is always; and that which is, will remain forever. That which comes and goes is illusory, is of Maya; it is only magic; mere hypnosis.
The mūḍha considers it real in all three times. Therefore it is extremely difficult to explain to the mūḍha what Maya is.
The Rishi says:
‘By saying “it is thus,” it cannot be explained to him.’
Why cannot it be explained? Because when his love breaks, then if we say to him ‘this was not love’ he accepts ‘it was not,’ but tomorrow his love is born again — then just try to persuade him! He will say, ‘No, this is. That might not have been, but this is.’
And man has a circular capacity to become mūḍha.
I have heard of a man who married eight times in his life. In one sense it is good to have such an opportunity to marry so often. Perhaps by repeating delusion so many times one may get the idea. But man’s capacity is infinite. It is surprising — when he first married, six months later the delusion was gone, everything broke, the dream was shattered; then he thought, I chose the wrong woman. He married again; six months later it turned out he had again chosen the same kind of woman. This was a second woman, but she was just the same. He chose eight times in life, and each time the same kind of woman resulted. Yet it never occurred to him that since the chooser is the same, how can the choice be different? How can that be? The first time too it was I who was choosing.
My way of choosing, my way of seeing, my spread of Maya, my notion of beauty, my imagination of love — was the same the second time, the third time — yet each time he keeps thinking, the wrong woman, never thinking that the one who chooses can only choose wrongly. Only the wrong one fits him, matches his inner template.
The difficulty of mūḍhatā is that it never sees, in all three times, that this delusion is my own web which I spread outside; the blame always falls on the other. If I have fallen in love with you, I do not see that I have fallen; I see that you are very worthy of love, very lovable. Then tomorrow… the trouble begins right there, because I made you a love-object. What I should have said is only this: that being the sort of man I am, I fall into love — you are irrelevant; you are a peg, I am the coat; I hang upon you. You are irrelevant; you are outside the context; had you not appeared I would have found some other peg… and as a coat can be hung on many pegs, I would have found one. You came by, a coincidence. I hung my coat upon you.
But the one to whom I now say you are so worthy, so capable, therefore I love you — he too does not understand that tomorrow he will be in trouble. Even now he should say, ‘Please, have mercy; I am not worthy — I only appear worthy to you’ — because very soon the moment will come when love will be uprooted and you will begin to remove your coat from the peg; then you will also say, ‘You did not prove worthy, therefore I remove the coat.’
But our mind, when someone says to us, ‘You are the ocean of love; therefore I love you,’ our mind does not want to refuse; for we too delight in our mūḍhatā — very good — because no one wants to be just a peg. We feel we are the ocean of love, therefore he is loving us. But we do not know that we are taking a trouble upon ourselves. Tomorrow when this man’s heart is uprooted from this peg and he starts removing his coat, then he will say, this is a rotten peg; we cannot hang our coat on it. Then we will feel pain. But in both conditions he is saying the same thing — he is making us responsible; he is not responsible himself.
Mūḍhatā always holds the other responsible; jnana always holds oneself responsible.
Hence if you go and abuse a man like Buddha, even then Buddha knows: this man is in search of a peg. If you touch his feet, he knows: this man is in search of a peg. But he never makes himself important in either case. Therefore when you touch his feet he is like a stone, and when you abuse him he is like a stone; because he believes: this is your need; it has nothing to do with him. It is only a coincidence that he was at the edge and you came along. It is purely a coincidence. Therefore when you say ‘you are very bad,’ he listens and says: all right. ‘To a man like you I appear bad; the matter ends here. There is nothing more in it.’ When you say, ‘you are supremely wise,’ then too he understands; he says: all right — ‘To a man like you I appear supremely wise.’ This is your eye; neither do I take pride nor do I take condemnation.
But we face great difficulty with such a man; we feel great restlessness, because such a man again and again throws us back upon ourselves. And our mind wants to mount upon someone, to ride someone’s shoulders, to sit upon someone. He sends us back again and again.
Therefore such a man — as long as our mūḍhatā remains — becomes a cause of sorrow for us. Even a man like Buddha is a cause of sorrow for us so long as mūḍhatā remains. Whatever he says, whatever he does, what we will extract through our mūḍhatā will be sorrow. Until we are ready to break mūḍhatā, that form of Buddha cannot be visible to us; for what we are seeing is our own projection.
Therefore nothing more can be said to the mūḍha than this: such is the situation — wake up from it, recognize it, search into it, become filled with awareness towards it.
Now let us begin meditation…