Saravsar Upanishad #16

If you wish to enter deeper and still deeper into that Existence, a few more negations must be understood.
Yesterday we understood: I am not the body, not the senses, not the mind, not the intellect—I am consciousness. But there are subtler coverings than these, and they arise only because of proximity.
Consciousness, whatever comes near it, it fills. As light, whatever comes near it, it illumines. You light a lamp: at once, all that falls within its circle is illumined.
Just so, the consciousness within us—whatever is close to it becomes illumined. In that very illumination the difficulty begins. If the lamp were also conscious... when the lamp was not, there was darkness, nothing was seen... then the lamp is lit—if the lamp had awareness, it would be deluded into thinking that whatever is illumined is itself; the light would be deluded that whatever is revealed is itself. Because when I am not, nothing is—no walls are seen, no furniture is seen; when I am, then all this is. Naturally, the straight logic arises that their being is included in my being.
This too is the experience of consciousness: if consciousness were not, the five bodies would not be, nor the mind, nor the intellect, nor the senses—nothing would be; with the manifestation of consciousness, all is. If consciousness goes unconscious, falls into deep sleep, the body is not known; the intellect is not known. That is why for an operation a deep layer of unconsciousness has to be placed around consciousness; then if your hand is cut there is no pain; even if your whole body is cut to pieces you do not know—because the very light of the lamp in which all this was seen is veiled by unconsciousness.
Whatever consciousness illumines, because of nearness an experience of oneness arises with it; through proximity it seems, this too is me. This is our error of identification. And then, with that with which we take ourselves to be one, we begin to behave accordingly.
For example, we breathe. If consciousness departs from within, the breath will disappear. The process of breathing goes on, the light of consciousness falls on that process, and consciousness feels: only when I am does breath move, when I am not it does not. So I am the breath, I am the one who breathes.
But it is not true. You have never breathed. Breath goes on; you are only the witness. Certainly, only when you are does the movement of breath become known; but the movement of breath is entirely separate—it can continue even in your unconsciousness. And now scientists say that even if you have died we can, by connecting machines, keep the process of breath going.
Breath is a separate mechanism, a separate arrangement; you only come to know of it. Have you ever breathed? If you were the one who breathed, you would have died long ago; miss even a single moment and the chain is broken. A man can make all kinds of mistakes and still manage; but if he makes the mistake of not breathing, it will not do. Therefore, you do not breathe; it breathes. You are not the doer—only the witness.
Blood flows in your body; you do not make it flow—you are not the doer. The heart beats; you are not the doer, only the witness.
And if the matter of heart, breath, and pulse is understood—if the flow of blood too is understood—then it will not be difficult to see that the intellect also functions and you do not make it function. It too is a mechanism; the mind is a mechanism.
A man becomes filled with sexual desire and he perhaps thinks, I am creating this desire—he is mistaken. It too is just happening. These are glands of the body and the juices spreading in the glands. When the glands mature at fourteen, sexual desire arises. Cut the glands, the desire will depart. You are not the doer of desire; hence it is so difficult to be free of it. If you were the doer, how easy it would be—just stop it. If you were the doer of desire, what obstacle was there? You would say, I will not do it now—and the matter would end.
But you go on saying, I will not entertain desire, and desire keeps arising; it does not leave you. Why? If you are the doer, why so much difficulty? The difficulty is only one: you are not the doer. And by assuming yourself to be the doer you fall into a double bind. First you assume, I am the doer; and because of that assumption you also think that if I want I will become the controller as well—if I am the doer, then when I want to stop, I will stop. Yet it does not stop—neither does it move by your pushing, nor does it halt by your restraint.
Does this mean you will never be free of sexual desire? You can be free this very moment—only the sense of doership must drop and you remain merely a witness; then you are free of desire. Desire remains on its own side, the mechanism lies apart, you are separate; a gap arises between.
And one more thing must be understood: you are not the doer of this mechanism, but your presence is necessary for it to function—only your presence; just your presence. You are not the doer.
In the morning the sun rises—yet the sun does not go and try to open each bud. Perhaps it does not even know how many flowers have blossomed on the earth, how many birds have begun to sing; it is not their doer, though without it none of this would be. If tomorrow the sun does not rise, the birds will not sing; petals will not open, lotuses will remain closed. And yet the sun is not the doer—because there is no question of doing; ray by ray it does not wake each bud, nor does each ray become the song in each bird’s throat. There is no effort, only presence—only its being present.
Science accepts one thing—the catalytic agent. Science says there are things whose mere presence is consequential. Hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water. But if you simply bring hydrogen and oxygen together, water will not be formed. However much you mix them, water will not arise, because the catalytic agent is not present; and yet water contains nothing else but hydrogen and oxygen.
This matter of the catalytic agent should be understood properly, because it will be deeply useful in understanding the witness. When we divide water we find nothing other than oxygen and hydrogen—just these two. Then why, when we bring hydrogen and oxygen together, does water not form? Because in water there is nothing apart from these two; so by combining two, water should arise—but it does not, until electricity is present. That is why, in the rains, water is being produced due to lightning in the sky; otherwise clouds may wander but water will not be produced.
But science has been greatly puzzled: what is the contribution of electricity to water? Nothing seems to be contributed; nothing of electricity enters the water. When we decompose water, we do not obtain electricity. Then what did electricity do? It did nothing, and yet its presence was necessary; without its presence the event does not occur.
So electricity became a catalytic agent. A catalytic agent means: without its presence, the event will not occur, and yet it does not do anything. Without your presence, breath will not move; without your presence, the heart will not beat; without your presence, the intellect will not function—and yet you are not the doer.
From this arises the delusion of doership: because without me it does not happen, therefore I am the doer. Our mind has only two conceptions: if I am the doer, then it happens; it happens only when I am; when I am not, it does not. The natural conclusion: I am the doer.
We have no inkling of the third dimension—where only presence, mere presence, works. When this presence turns into doership, that is our bondage. When this presence remains only presence, that is our witnessing. If we can know only this much—that we are the witness—then in our presence things surely happen, but we are not the doer.
Thus a distance is created between us and the mechanism. And then profound things become possible through this presence. The center of sexual desire, the gland of desire may say, I must manifest, but if you remain the witness it will not be able to manifest—because by becoming the witness your non-presence occurs for the gland; becoming a witness you slip into yourself and move far from the gland. The nearness the gland needed—your proximity, your presence—breaks. The gland may tremble, may call; its substances and juices may insist, desire, desire... but your presence...
Hence, sometimes strange things happen: you are sitting full of sexual desire, the mind drowned in passion; suddenly someone shouts, The house is on fire!—and desire vanishes in a single instant. Why? Because the mind has moved from there; the presence of the mind has gone to the fire. Otherwise, if you try to separate mind from desire even for a single moment, you will know it does not separate—yet with a single shout, The house is on fire!—even if there is no fire—desire’s whole mechanism immediately stops; you forget, the matter ends.
What happened? Your presence moved away. Such an urgent work came—an emergency—that the mind could not remain where it was; it moved. In that very moving away, desire vanished. The mechanism of desire remains in its place, you too are present in the mechanism—then what changed? Only this: you were no longer present near desire; your presence was lost; you became absent; your attention moved away.
Freedom from desire does not come by effort; it comes by effortless witnessing—because you are not the doer.
Thus the Rishi begins his sutra:
“I am not the doer. I am not even the enjoyer.”
To understand that you are not the doer is one thing; to understand that you are not the enjoyer is still more arduous—because doing is always outward, while enjoyment is inward. When we do, we go outward; when we enjoy, we go inward.
Enjoyment is inward, hence even closer. Therefore, even if a man can understand that he is not the doer, it becomes very difficult to understand that he is not the enjoyer. But he who is not the doer cannot be the enjoyer either—because enjoyment too is a subtle action. To enjoy is also karma. To say “I enjoyed” is a subtle doing; “I did” is gross, “I enjoyed” is subtle.
So, when the doer-sense is outside, the enjoyer-sense is inside. And the bigger the doer-sense, the greater the longing to enjoy. Thus, the larger the doer-sense, the more sorrow comes—because the larger the desire to enjoy. And the larger the desire, the more the dissatisfaction left behind. Hence those who do a lot are often found very unhappy; they feel, so much done... and what was gained? What was enjoyed? The truth is, man keeps doing in the hope that he will enjoy tomorrow; the whole life he does, and the moment to enjoy never arrives.
Here lies another kind of nearness within us. When you are eating, we can admit that you do not create hunger—so you are not its doer; this is not difficult. Hunger arises; you do not produce it. And if it does not arise there is no way to produce it. It is clear: hunger happens; we do not make it. So we eat because hunger has arisen.
But taste—we do experience it. Pleasant, unpleasant; bitter, harsh, sweet—we do get the taste. So let it be that hunger we do not create, it happens; we are not its makers. But taste—we do take it. Taste is even subtler. Do we truly taste? Or does taste too occur only in our mechanism? And merely because of proximity we feel, I am tasting! Taste also occurs in our mechanism. That is why when you have fever you cannot taste. You remain the same, but the mechanism is dull and not capable to taste. Taste happens in the mechanism.
Pavlov in Russia conducted many experiments. There is something to understand here. Pavlov says: whether taste is pleasant or unpleasant... You are eating; if whenever you eat, a foul smell is released around you, then slowly eating will become unpleasant. Or whenever you eat, your chair gives you an electric shock. In ten or fifteen days, when you sit to eat you will await suffering: now... And even if today no shock is given, you will not be able to enjoy the taste.
Many mothers have the same difficulty—that their children do not eat; they make a thousand attempts, but the children will not eat. They do not realize the child is not at fault. In fact, whenever the child has asked for milk, the mother’s behavior has been such that food itself has become distasteful; an association has been formed. Whenever the child asked for milk, the mother was not very loving; that unloving behavior got associated with food.
The strong attraction men have toward women’s breasts is actually the outcome of mothers trying to wean their children from the breast. Every mother is trying to separate the child as quickly as possible: be done soon. He never manages to be done; till old age he keeps looking at breasts. This intense male attraction to breasts is not without cause. In childhood, when the breast was everything—life itself—it was snatched away so roughly that the memory haunts him all life long; it holds his mind.
And around the breast a strange bewilderment arises—bewilderment. It begins to seem the most important part of a woman’s body. Painters waste their lives on it. People say they are very talented, yet their only work is to paint women’s breasts; sculptors shape them; poets write poems. These are intelligent people.
So much poetry, sculpture, painting around the breast only shows insanity. Man is mad. Yet the event that begins it all is small. Thus among those peoples where mothers enjoy breastfeeding their children, the breast carries no attraction. Primitive tribes—undeveloped—there the mother enjoys it.
And it is very interesting: it is not only the child who enjoys drinking milk; that is only half the story; the mother enjoys giving milk even more—if culture and conditioning do not interfere. She feels light, relaxed; the child relieves thousands of her tensions.
Therefore among primitive peoples there is no fascination with the breast. We are surprised: why do tribal women walk with breasts uncovered? The surprise should be: why do we cover them? To cover what is natural is madness. And the great joke is that the attempt to cover is part of the effort to show; if breasts were completely uncovered nobody would look. There would be nothing to see. Whatever parts of the body are uncovered, nobody looks at them. If you want a part to be seen, adorn it and cover it—then it becomes visible.
So there is a double accounting: what you want to show, hide; what you want to reveal, conceal. Out of this sickness many consequences arise.
You eat; whatever pleasure or pain you feel, it is created by the surrounding arrangement. And when certain impacts fall upon your mechanism, it goes on saying: this is pleasant, this is unpleasant. Hence amazement: those who do not eat fish wonder how anyone can eat it—such stink! But to someone else it is very delicious.
So what is taste? A conditioning, a habit. And the habit happens in your mechanism. You are only very near behind it. The nearness is so great that whatever is illumined by you you take to be yourself. Even taste cannot be experienced without you; hence you become the enjoyer.
In truth, if you look deeply, you are the witness even of taste. You come to know: a sweet taste is coming, a bitter taste is coming—the knower of that experience is you. The sweetness is not you. The one to whom the taste of sweetness is revealed, that is you. Three events are happening: the sweet is eaten; the experience of sweetness arises; the awareness of that experience arises. He to whom the awareness of experience happens—that is you.
Therefore the Rishi says:
“I am not the doer, nor the enjoyer; I am only the witness of Prakriti.”
I am seeing... everything is happening in Prakriti. Purusha only sees; all happens in Prakriti. All is happening around you; you are only seeing.
But this seeing is lost—we become the doer, or we become the enjoyer. The moment we become doer or enjoyer, suffering begins.
I have heard: a man’s house caught fire. He was crying, beating his chest. A neighbor came and said, Why worry? I know for certain your son sold this house yesterday; the money has been received. Tears vanished, crying stopped, the man became absolutely fine. What happened? The house is still burning; the man is the same. Nowhere, in Prakriti, has any change occurred. The flames have grown higher; he should cry harder—yet he is not crying. The sense of nearness broke; it was no longer his—matter finished.
But then, I have heard, the son came running: What are you doing standing there? The father is watching. The son said, The deal was only under discussion; the house is not sold. Then the crying returned, the chest was beaten again. Prakriti is still exactly the same. What happened in between? For a moment, what occurred? The flames were there—why did the tears disappear? Nearness had broken. The moment we feel, mine, we become near; the moment we feel, not mine, nearness breaks.
Nearness is the key—proximity is the key—of our joy, our sorrow; of being doer, of being enjoyer—proximity is the very key.
I have heard: in an inn a man stayed a night. At four in the morning he left. A year later, he came again the same way, stayed in the same inn. The innkeeper stood amazed: You are still alive? The man asked, What do you mean? Did you hear a rumor I died? The innkeeper said, Rumor? No—on the night you stayed here, everyone who ate dinner died in the morning; only you left at four. The food had turned poisonous. The man said, What!—and fell unconscious on the spot.
This is a real fact. What happened? Suddenly the same thing happened as with the burning house. Then the gap had broken; here proximity returned. He experienced the poison near; he fainted and died. Fewer people die of poison; more die of proximity to poison. Poison is not so powerful; it needs your nearness.
I was speaking of a Brahmayogi who could hold his breath for ten minutes; he could also hold any poison in his body for thirty minutes—he would take it by mouth, keep it in his stomach, and pass it out through urine. Thirty minutes he could keep it. Yet he died in Rangoon, because he could not keep it longer than thirty minutes. And thirty minutes is no small matter. Chemists were astonished and surprised—poisons that, upon touching the tongue, become death itself... upon touching the tongue; one cannot even inform—put poison on the tongue and the person dies; he cannot even say, I am dying. Yet that poison this man could keep for thirty minutes.
What was the secret? Even he died—he died in this very experiment in Rangoon. He took poison in Rangoon University, and set out for where he was staying, but the car broke down on the way; he arrived only after thirty-five minutes. He reached unconscious; beyond thirty minutes he could not hold it. The five minutes delay due to the car’s breakdown became the cause of death. His secret was that within thirty minutes he would reach his place and eliminate it.
When asked, What do you do that you can hold poison for thirty minutes? he would say, I do not let nearness form; I do not let the notion arise that I have taken poison. That is all. Beyond thirty minutes I cannot manage. In thirty minutes I begin to loosen; and the thought arises: I have taken poison; what if I die? The moment this thought arises, the trouble begins—proximity! That very thought brings consciousness close at once; consciousness becomes doer and enjoyer. If consciousness can be kept far, anything can happen. If you have seen experiments in hypnosis, you would be utterly amazed.
If you are laid across two chairs, far apart—your feet resting on one, your head on the other—could you remain straight? One chair supports your feet, the other your neck; can the middle remain straight? How would it? You would fall at once.
But you are hypnotized—made unconscious—and told, You have become a wooden plank that cannot bend; your feet are placed on one chair, your head on the other—someone can walk across you and you will not bend. What has happened? The body is the same—no change has occurred in the body. The bones that bent before bend now; yet a man sits on your chest, and your waist does not bend. What has happened?
Nearness has been removed. The lifelong notion—If I am bent like this, I will fall—has been broken; only that notion has been broken, the body remains the same. Consciousness has been removed from there and given a new notion: You are a rigid plank of wood.
Ramamurti used to make an elephant stand on his chest. What was the secret? No chest is strong enough to bear an elephant’s foot—not anyone’s; it cannot be; that is not the question. A man’s chest is a man’s chest, however strong; the elephant’s foot will smash it. Even Ramamurti’s. In that experiment there was nothing but the art of removing proximity. If you too remove proximity, even if an elephant stands, you will not break. We break because the idea “I will break” becomes intense. The elephant does not break you—this is the great joke.
Lao Tzu has said: four people sit in an ox-cart. One is drunk; three are sober. The cart overturns. The drunk is not hurt; the three break their bones. What art does the drunk possess? What virtue has he got that he falls and is least harmed? He is the one who should be most injured—drunk, on the path to hell—yet his bones are safe; he lies comfortably on the roadside. The other three scream; their bones have broken.
In truth, he does not even know the cart is overturning; he has no idea bones will break. If there were awareness, then proximity would come. He is unconscious. He does not know whether the cart is overturning or moving, whether he is in the cart or out of it. He cannot come near the bones; thus the bones are saved. That is why children fall so often. You see drunkards lying fallen on the road; nothing much seems to happen. In the morning they walk off fresh and fine. You try falling like that—without drinking! Once will suffice; then getting you out of bed will be difficult.
Proximity! At once consciousness comes near: Dead! The bone broke! We overturned! Whatever you say within in brief, happens. If the distance can be kept, it makes a difference... it makes a difference.
“I am neither doer nor enjoyer; I am only the witness of Prakriti. Because of proximity there is an appearance of consciousness in it, and it begins to act so.”
And it accepts that it is thus. This is our assumption. Our world is our assumption. And until our assumption breaks, there is no way to liberation.
“I am still, eternal, ever blissful, pure, knowledge-full, stainless Atman; and as the witness I pervade all beings—there is no doubt in this.”
The moment the sense of doer and enjoyer departs, the experience of the witness begins. The moment you begin to experience the witness, the enjoyer and the doer begin to crack. From where you begin is up to you. Begin anywhere, the other happens. While doing, do not be the doer; while enjoying, do not be the enjoyer—then the birth of the witness begins. Keep endeavoring for the birth of the witness; keep trying to remain continually alert—and the enjoyer and the doer begin to dissolve. They are the two poles of the same thing.
There are two methods: one is dhyana, the other is tapa. Tapa is the method of not being the enjoyer and the doer; and dhyana is the method of being the witness. Begin anywhere; the same event happens.
It is worth understanding why a tapasvin stands in suffering. Why does he choose suffering? What need is there for Mahavira to stand naked in the hot sun? What need to shiver bare-bodied in the cold? What need to walk barefoot on rough paths? What need to go without food for months? Either he is mad—which is not the fact, because it is hard to find one as calm, as healthy, as discerning as he. So we cannot dismiss him as mad.
Sometimes Western psychologists suspect that Jesus was mad—but not even they can suspect that about Mahavira; because some of Jesus’ statements seem to indicate he must have gone mad: “I am the Son of God; apart from me there is no Son of God; I am the emperor of the whole creation; in liberation my throne will be beside the Lord’s; those who come with me will be saved; those who turn from me will fall into eternal hell.” And then suddenly he is hanged on the cross like any ordinary man and dies just so.
What empire did he own? Whom was he going to save, who said he would save the whole world—and he could not save himself! And if he was the Son of God, how did God permit that he be crucified?
Perhaps he lived in delusion—Western psychologists suspect. There is no truth in the suspicion; it is a misunderstanding of Jesus’ language. Those he was speaking to were very rustic, uneducated people; the language spoken to them could not be of Vedanta; it had to be worldly.
But about Mahavira no such suspicion can arise, because the language he speaks is supremely cultured; you cannot find a flaw suggesting his brain was deranged. Yet why do these Mahaviras seek suffering with their own hands? The reason is: it is an experiment to break the enjoyer and the doer.
In happiness you easily become the enjoyer; in suffering you cannot. Suffering does not allow you to be the enjoyer. When a thorn is piercing your foot, at that time you become a witness—because how will you enjoy this? There is no juice in it, no taste. You desire distance. With suffering, a distance is created by itself; proximity breaks—because none wishes nearness to suffering. We have no longing for closeness to suffering... it may come—that is another matter; but we try to keep our distance.
When happiness comes, we slide entirely close; we do not wish distance. When someone puts a garland of flowers around your neck, you do not feel: now remain a witness. In that moment remaining a witness has no charm. You feel: let me come utterly close; let there be only garlands upon garlands. At such a time, you do not feel that this person is mistaken; you do not feel he came to garland someone else and by mistake placed it on me; you do not feel all this is a play of Prakriti. The mind says: it is not a play of Prakriti; it should have happened long ago; only your foolishness delayed it; now at last you have understood me. What should have happened long ago has happened only now.
But if someone places a garland of shoes around your neck, immediately a distance is created—you know it has not been placed on my neck; the man is mistaken; or mad; or evil; or a devil. In that time you are not responsible; the other person is responsible. But when a flower garland is placed, then we are responsible; the other is not.
So with the garland of flowers, nearness arises. We long for nearness to pleasure, because we have desired it. To what we have desired, we draw near. Suffering we have never desired; always we desired that it not be. So when it arrives, we move away.
Tapa becomes a method: stand in suffering... so that slowly it becomes clear: I am not the enjoyer, I am not the doer.
Mahavira fasts for thirty days; in hunger he knows: this is hunger; I am the witness. On the thirty-first day, he comes to the village and eats; in eating he knows: neither was I hunger, nor am I food; that too was outside me, this too is outside me. In suffering he keeps seeing the distance; then he creates the same distance in pleasure.
So tapa is a method. Tapa means: we break the doer and the enjoyer; then the witness begins to be born. As soon as the doer-enjoyer scatter, the witness is born.
Try this sometime. It is not necessary to go searching for suffering, because suffering is already searching for you—there is plenty. When suffering comes, then try the method of tapa a little. You need not do tapa as Mahavira did; for Mahavira came from a house where he had received plenty of pleasure—perhaps he did not even know suffering; hence he had to choose it.
Where you are living, there is suffering enough; no need to seek more. In that suffering, practice breaking the doer and the enjoyer. When illness comes, remain far within it and keep watching the illness. Do not feel, I am ill; feel only, I am the seer of illness. At once you will be amazed: the moment you experience this, the illness begins to decline; the moment you experience this, an infinite distance begins to arise between you and the illness; the moment you experience this, suddenly you find that within, all is healthy—suddenly! As if in the dark someone lights a lamp and everything becomes clear. The moment of clarity is the moment of the witness.
The second method is dhyana. Mahavira’s emphasis is on tapa; Buddha’s emphasis is on dhyana. That is why the followers of Buddha and Mahavira could not understand each other at all—both contemporaries, yet their followers not understanding—because the emphasis is entirely different, seemingly opposite. Mahavira says: without tapa, what meditation? Buddha says: without meditation, tapa is foolishness. And both are right.
The wonder of Existence is that here, because things are so complex and mysterious, opposite statements can both be true at once. Ordinary logic says: if two statements are opposite, either both are wrong—possible—or one is right and the other wrong—possible; but it can never happen that both are right. This is due to unfamiliarity with the mystery of life. Life’s mystery says: both can be right at once. Thus Mahavira and Buddha are both right together, equally right—the paths differ.
Mahavira begins by breaking the enjoyer-doer; what remains is the witness. Buddha begins by awakening the witness; as the witness awakens, both begin to break. When the witness is fully awakened, the doer-enjoyer fall. Therefore Buddha’s impact spread more widely than Mahavira’s; there is a reason. The basic reason is that no one today is so affluent that he will now go seeking suffering; people are already so full of suffering that to embrace more seems futile. Enough suffering as it is.
Buddha’s word is more understandable, because he does not try to increase suffering; he directly teaches witnessing, through which suffering will lessen.
Mahavira’s word may one day become influential—when the world is very prosperous; then Buddha’s word may fade—possible that in the coming century, in America, Mahavira’s word is proclaimed anew; so much prosperity that even suffering becomes juicy; so much pleasure that a change arises: come...
Two foreign sannyasinis here are sleeping under trees. Today in the morning they told me, We are greatly troubled; all the Indians are very concerned, whoever meets us says, Don’t do this; what are you doing? And we are enjoying it so much. I told them: you do not know—an Indian cannot yet enjoy sleeping under a tree; we are anyway lying under trees. You can enjoy—because the distance between you and trees has become so great that being under a tree is an unprecedented event.
Whichever way the event happens, if the witness remains, then this witness is not mine or yours—it is then all-pervasive. The moment the witness is experienced, ego dissolves—because ego is the sum of doer and enjoyer: I did, I enjoyed, I attained. I—this is built by that. If I did not do, did not enjoy, did not attain—then where am I? The sum breaks.
So the witness is not mine. Understand this well: the witness is not mine; rather, I am of the witness, of that which I have been calling mine. The moment witnessing happens, the “I” dissolves. The witness is an ocean spread within us. It is within me, within you—within all—somewhere asleep, somewhere awake; somewhere turning from side to side, somewhere fully alert; somewhere dreaming, somewhere buried in deep sleep.
But the witness is one. In the tree it is the same—in the stone the same—in very deep sleep, profound sleep. In the animal the same—slightly moving. In us the same—sometimes awake for a brief moment. In Buddha and in Christ the same—fully awake.
These are differences of degree. But the one who has known it fully awake, in that instant discovers it is an ocean.
The witness is an ocean that surrounds us all—we all are in it, and it is in us; but it is one, it is all-pervading.
The Rishi says:
“There is no doubt in this.”
He says this having known; he speaks out of experience; this is how he has found it.
Many times the Rishis’ utterances seem extreme declarations of ego. To those who do not know, they will seem so. Those who know no language other than the language of ego will indeed feel so. To say, There is no doubt in this—is it not a claim? If we gave this sentence to Krishnamurti, would he not feel it is authoritative? Is it not an attempt to make an apocryphal pronouncement? Krishnamurti would not like such a thing—saying, What I say is beyond doubt—for he says that to say so means I am pressuring you to believe me.
Perhaps he is partly right; there are such people—who make authoritative declarations so that they may be believed. But it is also wrong to assume all are like that. There are also people like these Rishis who are not claiming over anyone; they are only conveying a fact—this is a humble communication: that I have no doubt. And if there is no doubt, is it wrong to say so? Or, out of fear that it may sound authoritative, should one say: I have doubt? Or should one say: I do not know whether I doubt or not? Or should one remain silent and not say whether I doubt or not—only out of fear that for someone it may become an authoritative word?
But even with such caution what difference does it make? Krishnamurti has been saying all his life: I am nobody’s guru; do not take my words as apocrypha; there is no need to believe what I say; I am no authority. Yet the great joke is that hundreds regard him as an authority and authoritative. And the joke grows deeper still—precisely because he denies authority they regard him as authoritative; they consider him worthy to be a guru because he says, I am not a guru.
This is a big game of the human mind: when someone says, I am not a guru, your ego is gratified—Good, one can be friends with this man; no need to touch his feet; we can embrace him; we can be friends... he is not above us.
It is true that if someone tries to be above you, it is ego; but when someone proclaims, I am not above you—so you may like it—this too is ego, from the other side; on your side. A man says, Touch my feet—and we feel, he is egotistic. Another man says, Do not touch my feet—what is special about my feet?—and you do not see the satisfaction you receive is your ego. If he even touches your feet, then what to say!
A friend once came to me: Only Krishnamurti appeals to me; he alone seems enlightened. I asked, Why? He said: When I went to meet him, he came near, sat by me, and patted my foot. In some moment of love he may have patted—but you do not know: he patted your foot, but your ego got patted; hence, This man appeals.
Man is a tangled riddle!
So when the Rishi says, There is no doubt, it does not mean he says, Believe what I say. It only means: I do not speak by thinking and thinking; I speak having known. And there is nothing wrong in saying so. He declares his undoubting. And if it is so, what harm is there? If he has known, he should say it.
To declare truth is humility.
Now, for a hundred years one foolish idea has taken deep root and has greatly influenced people: We say, All are equal—no one is low, no one high. The result is not that we stop considering ourselves high; the result is only that we stop considering anyone else high. When we say, No one is low, no one high, it does not mean we will stop considering anyone low; it only means we will stop considering anyone high.
And when we say, All are equal—this is true in a very deep sense, but we have no awareness of that depth. Where it is true we have not gone; where we are, it is utterly untrue. We are not equal at all; we are utterly unequal. Where it is true we have not gone, and where it is utterly untrue—where we live—there we accept it.
Another calamity arises: the person who accepts, We are equal, will never reach the place where equality is possible. The person who accepts, We are unequal, will someday reach the place where equality is possible—because one who knows inequality will do something—travel, refine, culture, polish, practice. But one who takes it that Buddha and I are equal—it does not harm Buddha; if it harmed him, there would be no problem. It harms the believer. And if Buddha says to him, No, you are mistaken, it will appear this man is egotistic—that he says with his own mouth, You are not equal!
What should Buddha do? If he says, Yes, we are equal—not only equal, you are higher than me—our ego is satisfied, but the journey of our refinement and transformation does not happen. Or Buddha may say simply, No, we are not equal—and our ego is deeply hurt.
Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, Christ—none declared equality where we are. Certainly they know we are equal at some point, some center—but that is our final destination; where we are, we are not equal. On the path we have great distances between us; at the goal, there are no distances.
That is why Krishnamurti’s word is pleasing but dangerous; he says on the path that we are all equal—no guru, no disciple, no one ahead, no one behind. True at the goal; utterly untrue on the path. And one who believes this on the path will never reach the goal.
When the Rishi says, There is no doubt, it is only self-reporting. He says, I do not say this after pondering; I say it after knowing.
And in another sense also this is useful: because we live in non-trust; we live in doubt. As I told you, the fledgling bird has just come out of the egg; it sits at the edge of the nest and weighs... courage does not gather, because it has never flown. Who knows if these little wings can be of use in the vast sky? How can trust arise for the unknown? That which is unfamiliar, never known, the path untrodden, the sky never flown—how can faith awaken?
But even when another bird is flying, trust does not arise that because it is flying, I can fly—because it is not necessary that what another does, I can do. But if that bird can say to this bird: I too passed through this same state; one day I too sat on the edge of the nest anxious; I too could not trust my wings in that vast sky, because I had no experience. But now I tell you from experience—there is not the slightest doubt: your small wings... but this sky is small; you can fly. Your wings are big enough; this entire sky is small—you can fly. There is not the slightest doubt; I tell you from experience.
And experience means: one who has known both states. Otherwise it is not experience. One who has known the first state—the one in which this bird now flutters but cannot gather courage—and who has also known the second—flying in the sky—he can say to this bird: Do not fear; jump.
“There is not the slightest doubt in this.”
This declaration is cooperative. It does not mean—necessarily, as Krishnamurti would take it; it can mean that, but not necessarily—that the bird is creating authority: Believe me because I say so. It does not mean he is saying: Become my follower, I am your guru.
No—nothing of that. That too can happen—but it is not necessary. He only says: Look at me; and what I say I do not say casually—I say knowing. And if you can see me and know me, perhaps this trust may become contagious and self-trust may arise in you.
A guru becomes a calamity when he creates trust in himself; a guru becomes a companion when he awakens trust in your own self. In both cases, the declaration of non-doubt is necessary.
Now let us enter the experiment of meditation....