Saravsar Upanishad #2

The emperor was a little astonished. He said, “Still, tell me about number one.” Diogenes said, “No, there is no way to know that—because the supreme-most truth is not to be born at all. And you have already been born! The highest truth is: not to be born. That is the first truth. But now there is no way to that—you have already been born; it is without remedy. So I will tell you the second truth: having been born, die... having been born, die!”

“Why?” the emperor asked.

Diogenes said, “Life and suffering are one; unless you are utterly effaced, suffering will remain. To be is to suffer. There is no way out of it. Naturally, if that is the situation, then apart from self-annihilation there is no ‘practice’ at all.”

There have been such thinkers who maintain that there is no way out of suffering; no way out of the prison, because existence itself is a prison; there is nowhere outside it.

Hence the question is meaningful: ‘What is vidya?’ Is there a path, a method? Are we truly not without remedy? Otherwise it is reasonable that we go on dreaming, sleeping, taking the prison for a palace and the chains for ornaments. That is the “wisdom.” Many live by just such wisdom—keeping themselves befogged so that the prison and its pain do not come to light, because no way out is apparent.

“What is vidya, and what is avidya?”

Here avidya does not mean ignorance. If vidya means the method, the way to reach That, then what would avidya mean? Avidya means: a method that seems like a method but does not take you there—false methods. Certainly, false methods do exist, spurious techniques exist; there are doors that are not doors at all yet appear to be doors; and keys that look exactly like keys but there is no lock they fit—keys to play with for a lifetime, yet nothing opens.

Wherever there is seeking, counterfeit locks and keys will also be produced; for they are free, cheap, easily available—bought in the marketplace. What we ordinarily call “religion” is, ninety-nine percent of it, avidya; because the craving for cheap search and cheap attainment creates bogus paths in the bazaar.

There are many paths. The most delusive among them are paths of forgetfulness... in any way at all, let a person forget himself; then the prison also disappears. If in a jail you ply a man with liquor, does the prison remain? No—drunk, the prison vanishes; even the man vanishes; in unconsciousness all is erased. And the drunk in the prison becomes an emperor. And the drunk imagines within the prison that he is flying in the sky. Now he can imagine anything, for with alcohol comes the power to dream and the sense of truth is lost. He can even have visions of God—one who has not even seen his own self “sees” God; one who does not yet know himself “finds” the Ultimate. These are tricks of self-deception.

And in this world, the ignorant do not harm as much as those “knowers” who hand you false keys. They too are delighted to distribute keys. You too feel delighted—because you seem to be getting something for nothing, needing to do nothing. And most people want to obtain without doing anything.

The greatest disease of man is laziness, the greatest malady is negligence: to get without effort, to have the goal arrive without your walking—without taking a single step, let the destination itself come walking to you—what could be more auspicious? Such people will naturally gather crowds. Those crowds also gratify them, for the ego is fed. Thus a mutual exploitation goes on, a reciprocal abuse continues. Gurus appear who “have” keys; disciples appear who are ready to buy those keys. And then it becomes a business.

Avidya means: all such methods by which no door opens, but the illusion arises that the door has opened. That is why the seeker asks—what is vidya? what is avidya?

“What are the four states: waking, dreaming, deep sleep, and turiya?”

In fact, the difference between vidya and avidya cannot be understood unless these four states—jagrat, swapna, sushupti, and turiya—are understood.

India was the first, the pioneer on this earth to mention, for the first time in human consciousness, the four states of the human mind. Western psychology, till barely fifty years ago, even up to 1900, circled around only the waking state; the whole of psychology was around waking. To speak of dreams was foolishness. Whoever spoke of dreams was mad. “What is there in dreams? Dreams are only dreams—what can be in them?” But in the last fifty years, as psychologists have gone deeper into understanding the human mind and its disorders, they discovered that beneath the waking there is a layer of dreaming which is more important than waking, not less—more. Till then it was always thought that dreams are mere phantasy, idle stuff; not worth attention. Western thinkers laughed at the East that even talks about dreams! But as a result of the efforts of Freud, Jung, and Adler over the last fifty years, the situation now is that psychologists speak almost of nothing but dreams.

If you go to a psychoanalyst, he first wants to know your dreams; he says that what happens in your waking is very superficial—it does not reveal the truth about you; only your dreams reveal your truth. Through dreams, truth! Because in dreams you fail to deceive. Man has become expert in deception. All day you can talk celibacy, but your dream will reveal how deep your celibacy goes; you can fast all day with ease, but in dreams the hunger for food shows how deep it is.

So far man has not managed to deceive in dreams. Dream discloses the truth: in dreams, the thief is a thief and the saint a saint. Waking cannot be trusted: here thieves can be saints, and at times saints look like thieves. Waking cannot be trusted—man has painted and plastered his waking in every way.

So what you claim yourself to be in waking is more false and dreamlike than anything else. And nothing is as true as the dream, because so far you have no trick by which to deceive in the dream. If someday you find one, people will start dreaming falsities too; but not yet. If someday you devise a way, you could be a saint even in dreams. As of now, you cannot enter dreams at will; you cannot manage dreams; you do not get inside them—you remain standing outside. Therefore if your dream can be caught, a deeper truth about you is known; it is the second, deeper layer.

Over you is one layer, the waking. From morning to evening what we do in the world—bhajans, worship, prayer—not so deep. What you do in dreams is more telling; it reveals the state of your inner being. Thus psychologists now concede that the dream is not “just” a dream but truer than the waking.

The question is: what are these four? Because without understanding them, inner entry is impossible. People say they want to know the soul. They probably think knowing the soul will be a straight, simple thing. No—first you must know: what is waking? what is dream? what is deep sleep? what is turiya? Then... then entry into the soul will become possible.

Turiya itself is the soul.

This is a very psychological truth. The West has accepted that dreams are important; and a sage like Freud spent his whole life studying people’s dreams. But the West still has not accepted the third layer. It has not yet asked: what is dreamless sleep? For the notion there is that sleep is just sleep—just as once they thought dreams are just dreams; now they think sleep is just sleep, merely rest—a man is tired and sleeps. But doubts have begun to arise.

Since 1950, in these twenty years, doubts have arisen and the idea is dawning that sleep too is not “just” sleep. Today in America about ten major laboratories are working on: what is this deep sleep?

In the last twenty years, it has become clear that unless we understand a person’s sleep, it is difficult to understand the person; because if a man lives sixty years, he sleeps twenty years. That is no small matter—twenty of sixty years in sleep! A third of life asleep! So sleep must be a very deep condition. It has some function. It is indispensable in life. A man can live three months without food, but not without sleep; a man can fast for three months, but cannot fast from sleep.

Another curious thing has begun to occur to Western researchers: a man will go mad even without dreams; he cannot live without dreams either. If a person is not allowed to dream, only allowed to sleep... they have now done experiments, because instruments are available that show when you are dreaming and when you are in deep sleep. Their needle swings strongly when dreams are going on, because the brain is active during dreams. You can even tell by placing a hand over the eyes at night whether someone is dreaming, because in dreams the eyeballs move—exactly as they do while seeing, because a dream has to be seen.

Gradually it is becoming possible to infer, from the speed of eye movement, what kind of dream you are seeing. When you see a sexual dream, the pupils move very rapidly. From their vibrations patterns are emerging of how fast they move. So now—do not be so sure that your dream cannot be detected from outside; a person in your room can tell what you are doing inside. Today or tomorrow we will be able to map what eye-movements occur and what neural vibrations happen in the brain. It will be known what sort of dream the “mahatma” is seeing.

They have discovered that if you are not allowed to dream—ordinarily at night a man has eight to ten dreams, with intervals of deep sleep between them—then the instrument shows when a dream starts, and just then the person is awakened; as soon as a dream begins he is woken up, the dream breaks; he is put back to sleep—allowed to sleep only when he is not dreaming; as soon as he starts dreaming again, he is awakened. To great surprise, however much he is allowed to sleep, if he is not allowed to dream, then after fifteen days madness begins.

Dreams are that essential; otherwise a man goes insane. You may think dreams cause you a lot of trouble; in fact they are the outlet for your madness. If dreams are blocked, you will surely go mad; for what remains inside will then roam about by day; if it cannot come out at night, it will during the day. As of now it is a blessing that in the night, under cover of darkness, it flows out in dreams; if it comes out by day, there will be trouble.

The anger you discharge at night by murdering someone in a dream—if you are not allowed to discharge it for fifteen days, you will commit murder; it will accumulate so much within that you will have to do it.

Dreams are indispensable—until life reaches turiya. Only for one who reaches turiya do dreams cease to be necessary, and neither deep sleep nor waking is necessary. He goes through all three, but nothing is necessary; he is awake even in dreams, awake even in deep sleep; he is awake in waking too. We, even in waking, keep dreaming, and even in waking we doze off now and then.

What are these states?

In the last twenty years it has begun to occur to Western science as well that we must investigate deep sleep. If only we properly understand human sleep, the understanding of personality and nature will become easier. Sleep too has qualities. Not everyone sleeps with the same depth. But they still have no notion of turiya. Jung did say that we had to bow to the East and accept that dreams are valuable, worth inquiry. Earlier, when the Upanishads were first translated in the West, people said: “What kind of scripture is this? To ask ‘What is a dream?’—is that a spiritual question? Ask, ‘What is God, what is liberation?’—that makes sense... but ‘What is a dream’—what are they asking? And these are the Hindus who say the world itself is a dream! They are asking what a dream is!” But Jung said we had to accept—bowing our heads—that dreams are more valuable than waking itself.

Jung died before he could know that now they are having to accept that deep sleep is even more valuable. The deeper it is, the more valuable. But about turiya they have no inkling yet—that beyond deep sleep there is also a “state” which is not a state at all, but our very nature.

These three are states: waking, dreaming, deep sleep; the fourth is not a state—it is our nature, our being.

So the asking is precious. In the Upanishad we will search out the answers one by one.

“What are the five sheaths—annamaya, pranamaya, manomaya, vijnanamaya, anandamaya?”

We hear, “What is the soul—seek it.” But until we know what this body is, we cannot seek the soul. This is a very scientific inquiry.

What is this body? And if there were only one body it would be easy; within us there are five bodies. The Upanishads have divided the strata of our embodiment into five. What appears on the surface is the annamaya body—the “food” sheath. Behind it is hidden what Western scientists now call “bio-energy,” life-energy; the East called it prana—the energy-body, the body of force—this is the second layer just within the gross body. Behind that is the manomaya body—the mind. Those who have journeyed inward know that the mind too is a body. Body simply means a layer that encases us, embodied—another sheath that surrounds us. Behind mind is yet another body, called vijnanamaya—the body of knowing, consciousness. That very capacity for knowledge within is also a body. Beyond that the Upanishads posit another body, anandamaya—the bliss-body. Those fleeting gleams of happiness that occasionally come to us in life are events of our anandamaya body.

These are the five bodies; behind these five is our bodiless soul. These five are the rings of our prison. These five are our incarceration. These are the five walls. Beyond these walls is God, and within these walls too is God. When these five walls fall, the two “Gods” become one. Even from within these walls, now and then we get a touch of the God without. And even from within these five walls, sometimes the outer God lets a ray reach us inside.

But this happens only now and then; it is an occasional happening. Sometimes, in deep love, suddenly crossing these five walls, one glimpses God within another. But it is only a glimpse. The glimpse comes, and it is lost. That is why when we are in love, the other does not appear as a mere person—suddenly the other looks divine. There is no mistake here; it is a glimpse. But it is only a glimpse. The event crossed the five walls; a slight fragrance entered within. It will not happen every day. Hence lovers later get into great difficulty, for later it is discovered that this is a very ordinary man, a very ordinary woman. Where did that glimpse go? It vanished. It was the affair of a moment. In some very sensitive moment such a glimpse is received—sometimes by seeing a flower bloom; sometimes by seeing a cloud winging across the sky, for an instant one peeps beyond the five bodies; sometimes at dawn as the sun rises, its ray touches not only the gross body but, passing through all five, touches within.

The doctrines of religion in the world arose out of such glimpses. A rishi is bathing at dawn on a riverbank—the sun rises, he stands freshly bathed, and a ray enters within... the sun becomes a deity, the sun becomes God. There was no deficiency in his experience. But now someone goes and stands folding his hands because the sun is a deity, and nothing happens. In a science book he reads it is only a blazing ball of fire and nothing else. That makes sense; the deity does not.

Sociologists say those who were frightened seeing the sun thought the sun was a god. All these religions were born out of fear. Someone, frightened by fire, cowered and to placate it, to honor it so it would not harm them—people stood with folded hands and bent knees before fire and sun. That is a mistaken notion.

These five bodies must be known—then the inner journey begins.

“What is karta? What is jiva? What is panchavarga? What is kshetrajna? What is sakshi? What is kutastha? What is antaryami? What do these terms mean? Likewise, what are jivatma, Paramatma, and maya?”

These are the questions posed in the preface; the Upanishad will then enter into their answers.

In this morning’s talk, let us only understand the questions well; let us understand the mind that asks; let us understand the right direction of questioning. The answers are not so difficult—the real thing is the question; because it is in the questioner that the answer has to be born. The answer does not come from outside; it is nowhere outside—it is within you. If you can ask the right question, the answer within you begins to awaken. A right question means you start striking your inner answer. A wrong question means nothing within is struck and the answer never arises. From outside, answers can be supplied, but they will never reach you within. A conjunction is needed—your inner answer must awaken and an answer must be given from without; only then does the answer reach you. Unless there is a deep inner response, a resonance—unless a string is plucked within you when a string is plucked outside, unless your inner veena begins to sing—let the outer veena play, it avails nothing.

In the Upanishad we will give answers from outside, but that is not enough; you will have to awaken a sensitivity within—then those answers begin to fall in the right place. And their falling in the right place is everything. If within you there are sensitive ripples, outer answers can also cooperate; at the meeting-point of the two, the answer is obtained. And it is possible that the outer may not be needed at all and the inner may yield—what is not possible is that the outer alone will do without the inner. The outer is secondary—useful, but secondary; necessary, not indispensable.

So it can happen that without any answer from outside you obtain the answer. If the question is that unerring, that heartfelt, that deep—that your whole life is at stake—then without any outer answer the answer can come. But the converse is impossible. Even if Buddha stands outside, Mahavira stands, Krishna stands, Christ stands, and all cry out the answers—if within you sensitivity has not awakened, if your being is not thirsty, if there is no call, no ardent longing within—then there is no way... no way; all those answers, all those questions go in vain.

So from the evening we will begin to understand the answers.

For now we will do a meditation experiment—to awaken that inner sensitivity; if that arises, we will be able to enter the answers.

So understand two or three things about the meditation experiment.

First... sit for now—first understand, then we will spread out. One: the first fifteen minutes will be kirtan; you must plunge into it totally. If you hold back even a little, the first step will not be taken; the second cannot even be considered. Whoever shows even a little stinginess is utterly uncomprehending. Better that he leaves—he is toiling in vain. Here it is all-in or nothing—keep that in mind. Nothing in-between will do. Either throw yourself in completely, or don’t—don’t waste your effort; partial effort has a bad consequence—you feel you exerted and nothing happened; then a despair arises. No—then don’t do it at all. At least hope will remain. In some birth you may gather courage. Not lukewarm—absolutely not. If you are to boil, then at a hundred degrees; only then does steam arise. Lukewarm—cool again, lukewarm again, cool again—you will go on like this all your life. Slowly even the hope will die that you too can ever boil and become steam.

So first keep in mind that in the first fifteen minutes of kirtan, you must give yourself totally—totally means like a madman; nothing less will do. A blindfold will be on your eyes; eyes will remain closed; people will be far apart. There is ample space here, so spread out far enough that you can dance with complete freedom.

So: fifteen minutes, keep dancing with the kirtan; then the kirtan will stop but the beat will continue. For the next fifteen minutes, to that beat you must dance individually—whatever strength you have, pour it all in. Let there be a current of energy—let the dancer disappear and only the dance remain; let the beat become everything. Dance to that same beat. If you can do it with such intensity you will immediately sense you have become separate from the body. Separation from the body is not difficult—it is quite easy. When total energy is engaged, separation happens instantly; this is its science.

So totally... fifteen minutes the collective kirtan will run; then the kirtan will cease and only the beat will remain—then you need do nothing with the mouth, just dance, jump, expend your full strength. The second step will run for fifteen minutes. If you feel like shouting, you may shout, but do not start the kirtan; do whatever comes in your own flow. If someone, in his own flow, continues kirtan, he may, but the collective kirtan will drop—individually do what you will; only do not stop—fifteen minutes give all your power.

Then we will rest for thirty minutes. For thirty minutes lie on the ground like a corpse. If you prefer to lie on your back, lie on your back; if on your belly, on your belly—however it suits you. If someone prefers to remain standing, remain standing; if sitting, then sit—but become like a corpse. If you remain standing, stand in such a way that if the corpse falls in between, do not interrupt—let the body fall.

During those thirty minutes I will give you a few suggestions. When I ask you to rub your forehead with your hand, then slip the blindfold down or up for a minute or two—when I ask you to rub the forehead with the hand. I will give all the suggestions—what to do in those thirty minutes. Complete those thirty minutes fully, and then I will tell you what to do in the next thirty minutes, and your journey will proceed within.

If this journey can happen, only then will the Upanishadic answers be understood; otherwise they will be missed.

Yes—no one should come up here; spread out only in the grounds.