Shiv Sutra #8

Waking, dream, deep sleep — within these three states the fourth, Turiya, is threaded just as a string runs through the beads of a mala. Even while asleep, someone within you remains awake. Even while dreaming, someone within you who sees is outside the dream. Even while awake in the day, in your daily activities, there is a witness present within you. It has to be so; for that which is your nature, no matter how deeply you sleep, you cannot lose. What you are will remain. It may be pressed down, it may be hidden, it may be forgotten — it cannot be destroyed.

So whether there is sleep, or dream, or the so-called daily waking, deep within Turiya is always present; deep within, you are forever a Buddha. However far you may wander on the surface, all that wandering is of the periphery, of waves. In the depths you have never wandered, because in the depths there is no way to wander.

Therefore Turiya is not to be attained, only revealed. Turiya is not to be acquired, only uncovered. It lies concealed. As if a treasure were buried — remove only a few layers of earth, and you are an emperor. There is nowhere to go in search; your treasure is within. And you receive a glimpse of it continually, but you do not give heed to that glimpse.

In the morning you say, “Last night I slept very deeply, it was blissful, the sleep was delightful.” When you say this, have you ever wondered: who knows that the sleep was delightful? If you had slept totally, then who remembers in the morning? If you had utterly slept, who would have the memory? Who is it that says, “The night’s sleep was very deep, very blissful”? Surely someone kept seeing even in the depth of sleep. Even in the depth of sleep a twinkling light was burning. The darkness was not absolute; the darkness was seen.

At night you dream; in the morning a memory, a trace remains. You rise and say, “I saw a very painful dream.” Then the one who saw was separate; you were not lost in the dream. You did not become the dream. You were the spectator. The dream must have played upon the stage of the inner being, but you were outside the drama. Otherwise no memory would be possible.

Even in the day when anger seizes you, it is not that you are utterly asleep; flashes come from within. When anger grips you, you also know that anger is gripping. Even before it grips, when the smoke is just about to appear, you know, “Now anger is coming.” As the sky gathers clouds before rain, so you begin to feel, “Anger is near.” When you are filled with attachment, then too; when you are calm, then too; when you are restless, then too — someone within is seeing.

But you have not paid attention to this seer. Your attention flows toward the seen. You become absorbed in what appears. You have not turned back to see the one who sees. Only this much is to be done — and your unconsciousness will break, Turiya will be available. And to the one who has found Turiya, all is found. To the one who has not found Turiya — who has not found that fourth, wakeful state of meditation — he may earn everything, collect everything, yet in the moment of death he will find that all that earning, all that collecting, proved worth two pennies.

I have heard: one day Mulla Nasruddin ran to the riverbank. He had to travel. He was in haste, and feared the boat might depart. Delighted, he saw that only a few steps away the boat was just leaving. He leapt and climbed aboard. His foot slipped; he fell flat on his back. His clothes tore, his elbows were bloodied. Still, he rose happily and, with joyful pride, said to the astonished passengers, “At last I made it! A little late perhaps, but I caught the boat.” The passengers said, “We don’t understand, Nasruddin! Why such hurry? This boat isn’t going away, it’s coming in.”

At the moment of death you will discover that the whole life-long race you ran — you arrived — but that boat was not departing; it was coming to shore. But then it will be too late. Nothing can be done then. Now there is time. Now something can be done. And the one who awakens before death has no death thereafter. And the one who remains asleep until death has no life; his life is a long dream which death will break. The one who awakens while living has no more death; for the one who has awakened has seen his inner nature and experienced that it is immortal.

But life moves half-conscious. You walk as if intoxicated. Where you are going is not very clear; why you are going is not very clear either.

Two beggars were sitting by the roadside, talking. I overheard them. One asked, “What is the purpose of life? Why is there life?” The other said, “What else can you do except live?”

You too agree with the second: in life, what else can you do except live? And even living is not in your hands; it depends on infinite conditions. All that is unconscious. Why did lust arise in you? Why did you create a family? Why did greed arise? Why did you hoard wealth? Why did anger arise? Why did you create enemies? Why did you commit wrongdoing? Why did you deceive? Nothing is clear. You are like a puppet; the strings are in someone else’s hands. As if another makes you dance and you dance. You are under the illusion that “I am dancing.”

Look closely at your life and you will find you are no more than a puppet. And in the life of such a puppet, can an event of truth occur — one who is not even his own master?

One evening it happened that Mulla Nasruddin and two friends ran to catch a train. Nasruddin missed; his foot slipped, he fell. Two got on. The station master came, lifted him up, and said, “Nasruddin, what a pity you missed!” Nasruddin said, “Don’t pity me. Those two who got on had only come to see me off. I’ll catch another train; what will happen to them?”

All three were dead drunk.

What a wonder here: the one who got on, who ‘succeeded’, do not assume he will reach somewhere. The one who failed to get on, do not assume he has lost something. Here the boarder and the non-boarder, the successful and the unsuccessful, the winner and the loser — all are equally unconscious. At life’s end the account balances. Successful and unsuccessful become equal. Rich and poor all become equal. Death makes you as clean as a blank slate.

Only one person death cannot equalize — the one who has recognized the fourth hidden within the three; for he has no death. Only he has succeeded; all the rest have failed. Whether Napoleon or Alexander — they all failed. Only some Buddha sometimes succeeds.

Here there is only one success: that you have known that which has no death. Whatever is destroyed by death — take it to be failure. Make this your definition of failure. Do you possess anything that death cannot snatch away? Contemplate this continually: Do I have something that death cannot take from me? And if you find that there is nothing, then hurry. If you find that all you have is that which death will take, then do not waste time; the hour to awaken has come!

The three — what you call waking, your day; dream, your night; and sleep where even dreams are lost — all three will be extinguished in death. These three have no essential relationship with you. As clouds gather around the sun, so these three have encircled your sun. And if you have organized your life within these three, then at the moment of death you will find yourself dying destitute. But if you catch even one ray of the sun — even one ray — then the sun is not far. Then your back will be toward the clouds and your face toward the sun.

The first sutra is: “In all three states, the fourth must be irrigated like oil.”

In all three states — whether you are awake, asleep, or dreaming — you must keep alive the remembrance of the fourth. Let your attention remain on the fourth. Let whatever happens on the periphery happen; keep your gaze on the center. Guard awareness while rising and sitting. While eating, going home, going to the shop — keep guarding awareness.

Remember one thing: I am the seer, not the doer. Do not take life to be more than an enactment. Do not identify too much with the role. Whether you are a husband or a wife, a shopkeeper or a customer — do not get lost in it. Your being a husband or wife, a shopkeeper or customer, is part of the play. But within, remain outside. Go to the shop; it is needed. The play is dear — there is nothing to break. But it is dear as play; deadly as life. Fine — play the given play to its completion; do not run away midstream. The ones you call sadhus, sannyasins are often escapees. They are weak — unable to stand in life and unable to maintain the witness in life, so they ran away. Running away does not make anyone a sannyasin. Running away only shows the world was stronger and he was weak. He could not be awake at the shop, could not be awake while working — so he fled.

But if you cannot be awake at the shop, how will you be awake in the mountains? The act of awakening is one and the same. Where you are makes no difference. What you are doing makes no difference. It is irrelevant. The act of awakening is one — whether you awaken sitting in the shop, or in the temple, or on velvet cushions, or beneath a tree — the act is one. It is this: whatever act is happening, I am separate from the act. Whether the act is of the shop, of work, of prayer, of worship — it makes no difference. The act is other than me; it belongs to the world; and I am the watcher. Do not become so absorbed in the act that only the act remains and the witness is lost. This is how it has been till now.

This sutra says: in all three states keep irrigating the fourth.

Slowly, slowly, by irrigating, the tree of the fourth will stand. Begin with waking; for it is closest to the fourth. There is a faint ray of wakefulness there, a little awareness. Use that ray. How will you at once awaken in sleep? How will you awaken in dreams?

So begin with waking. In waking there is one percent awareness, ninety-nine percent unconsciousness. Use that one percent; water it. Whenever during the day you find a moment, shake yourself and awaken. Again and again the state will be lost. You will forget. Then give yourself a jolt and awaken. As a man ties a knot in his garment while going to the market so he won’t forget — so that you do not forget, tie a knot on your consciousness everywhere. Whatever you are doing — at least once remember: I am not the doer, only the watcher.

The moment this remembrance arises you will find all tension has vanished. All tension belongs to doership, to the ego. As soon as you feel, “I am the witness,” tension disappears. Even if it disappears for a moment, a glimpse will come. The ocean within will begin to take waves. Again and again it will be lost; for for lifetimes you have practiced unconsciousness — breaking it will take time. But if you irrigate continually, and even ten or twenty times a day you awaken for a little while — while walking on the road you stop and watch in the witness-bhava; while eating you shake yourself awake and look in the witness-bhava; sitting in the shop, speaking with a customer, you were forgetting and then you gather yourself — then slowly you will find it becomes easier; day by day easier. And small glimpses of Turiya will begin to come in the day.

When Turiya becomes easy in the day, then you can use it even in dreams. At night as you fall asleep, carry only one remembrance: I am the watcher, I am the seer. As sleep approaches, let a single tone resound within: I am the witness, I am the witness, I am the witness. Repeating this feeling-stream, fall asleep. You will not even notice when sleep came and when this stream broke.

If you keep guarding this stream, sleep will come — the stream will continue. For the stream is flowing within you; sleep comes to the body. If the inner stream continues, one day suddenly even in a dream you will experience: I am the watcher. And the moment you experience this, something unique will happen — the dream will break instantly. As soon as within the dream you remember, “I am the watcher,” the dream stops. The dream runs only through your unconsciousness. And when this begins to happen in dreams, then the third event becomes possible: that you let the dream continue and keep the inner remembrance, “I am the witness.” The dream will disappear; keep the inner remembrance going, “I am the witness, I am the witness.” Sleep will return — and now even in sleep this current will enter.

And the day this current enters sleep — “I am the witness” — you have in your hand the key to the supreme treasure. Now nothing will be able to make you unconscious. The one who has awakened even for a moment in sleep — his unconsciousness is utterly broken. The day you awaken in sleep, that day you have become a yogi. A yogi is not made by doing postures. That is all exercise — good, healthful for the body; it’s not bad to do. But if someone takes bodily exercise to be yoga, he has fallen into a great illusion. Yoga means: the one who becomes wakeful in sleep — only he is the yogi. Before that, no one is a yogi.

This sutra says: In all three states keep irrigating the fourth like oil.

One day that unique event will happen! When you are awake even in sleep you will become established in the fourth. When one is established in the fourth, then a state arises like a lamp burning where there is no wind, and the flame becomes unwavering — not trembling at all. Such will be your prajna; such will be your knowing; such will be your soul — unmoving, filled with light. Then you will rise, you will awaken, you will sleep — and many things will be transformed.

The first thing: for one who awakens in sleep, dreams cease forever. A Buddha does not dream. This is the first happening upon awakening in sleep. When you awaken within a dream, that dream will break — but other dreams will continue. Upon awakening in deep sleep, when there were no dreams, only sushupti — when you awaken there, then all dreams will fall away. Then at night you will not dream.

This will occur — all dreams will drop — because it is a mind surrounded by vasana that sees dreams. What is a dream? That which you cannot complete in the day, you complete at night in dreams. Not all can be emperors; there is great struggle, great competition — so beggars at night dream of being emperors. And the balance is maintained. For if a man is emperor all day, then for eight hours at night, he will dream and his empire will be lost. The beggar sleeps eight hours and dreams, “I am an emperor.” The final account balances.

It happened that Aurangzeb grew very angry with a fakir. One day he had the fakir seized and brought to the palace. People had said, “It is difficult even to offend this fakir.” Aurangzeb said, “We shall see.” It was a cold night — a Delhi winter. In the palace there was revelry, and the fakir was stripped naked and made to stand in the Yamuna. Aurangzeb said, “We will ask in the morning.”

All night the fakir stood naked in the icy river. In the morning Aurangzeb asked, “Tell me, how was the night?” The fakir said, “Somewhat like yours — and in some ways better than yours!” Aurangzeb asked, “I don’t understand.” The fakir said, “Dreams came. In them I was an emperor. I was in palaces, there was music, festivity. Between those dreams and the revelry in your palace, there is not the slightest difference. I enjoyed as much as you did. So, like yours. And in some ways better — for in between, awareness came and the dream broke. You still have not had even a little awareness.”

At night you complete exactly that which remains incomplete by day. Deeds left unfinished by day are completed at night. The desires you could not fulfill by day — because there are difficulties, and desires are difficult to fulfill, being by nature insatiable — you fulfill in dreams. Even if all the wealth of the world is given to you, they will not be fulfilled.

It is said that Diogenes told Alexander, “Alexander, the day you conquer the whole world, you will be in great trouble. Drop this work. Until you conquer you are in trouble — and when you conquer, you will be in even greater trouble.”

Alexander, it is said, became sad. He said to Diogenes, “Do not speak thus. The very thought that I have conquered the whole world saddens me — because then there is no second world left to conquer. Even after conquering the whole world the mind will not be satisfied. The mind will say, ‘What now? What now to conquer?’ And the mind will be sad.”

Emperors dream; beggars dream. For what remains incomplete is completed in dreams. Dreams have one virtue: the dream is very compassionate. The dream is kind to you. If you have fasted in the day — got entangled with some sadhus and starved yourself — then at night you will attend a royal feast. The dream is more compassionate than your sadhus. It will invite you to the royal table. The finest delicacies you never received — the most beautiful food you will eat, and there will be no difference in its taste from real food. Perhaps its taste will be even greater. If you chase women and cannot possess them, in dreams you will possess them. The world’s most beautiful women will be yours — or the most handsome men will be yours.

The dream opens doors for you to fulfill all your desires. And if a man lives sixty years, he sleeps twenty, is awake twenty, and twenty go in other things. If for twenty years you are an emperor in dreams, and another man is emperor while awake — what is the difference? The account is equal. Perhaps the waking emperor, entangled in hassles, cannot remain an emperor, while you remain an emperor at ease in dreams.

Dreams are lost only on the day one awakens in sleep. Then dreams become futile — because the one who awakens in sleep has no desires left. All desires belong to the sphere of torpor, to unconsciousness.

One day Mulla Nasruddin got off a train. He seemed dizzy. A friend asked, “You look ill — what’s the matter?” Nasruddin said, “Whenever I travel by train and have to go backwards — with my back toward the direction of travel — I get nauseous, dizzy, and a headache.” The friend said, “Good man, you could have asked the person sitting opposite to change seats — told him you were ill.” Nasruddin said, “I thought of that too. But the seat in front was empty; there was no one to ask.”

What you do in life is almost of just such unconsciousness. You are drunk with a certain intoxication. This intoxication must be broken somewhere. Where will you begin? Begin with waking. On rising in the morning, rise with only one feeling: that today I will experiment with witnessing. And when your eyes first open, the mind is very fresh, light; there are no thoughts, no dreams. After the night’s rest there is a dawn within you also — a morning within and a morning without. There is no tension. There are no clouds in the sky. You are light. Soon the world of work and running will begin — then it will be difficult.

So as soon as you know your sleep has broken, do not open your eyes. At that time the mind is very sensitive. As soon as you become aware the sleep has broken, do a first meditation: I am the witness. Every morning, while waking, remain lying with eyes closed for five minutes. Do not open the eyes. The moment you open the eyes the world appears and you will be lost. Keep the eyes closed, and within create one feeling: I am the witness, not the doer. Let this witness-feeling be set so it can be remembered again and again through the day — soaked in this feeling, rise. And for a little while try to hold it — for in the beginning this will be the easiest time. Rise, put your feet on the floor — place them consciously; go to bathe — bathe consciously; take breakfast — take it consciously.

Consciously means: all this is happening outside me. These are the needs of the body, not mine. I have no needs. There are none — for you are yourself Paramatman; what need can you have? You are complete. You are Brahman in form. Everything is yours. You have no need. The Atman does not run by any need. It requires no fuel — wickless, oilless. I have no need; the body has needs — bathing, eating, rising, working.

Try to hold this. Stretch this thread as long as you can. Soon it will be lost. The world of work is there; the old habit is there. But water it daily. This plant will slowly grow. You will not even see when it is growing, for it grows so slowly. But one day suddenly you will find that a thread, like a ray of light, remains within you all day long. And that ray of light will chemically change your life. Anger will lessen — for what anger for a witness? Attachments will grip less — for what attachment for a witness? Things will happen, success and failure will come, pleasure and pain — but you will be less shaken, for how can the witness tremble? Pleasure will come — you will see it. Pain will come — you will see it. And within a steady current will remain: I am the seer, not the enjoyer.

No one can say how much time it will take. It will depend on your urgency, your intensity, your concentrated longing, your ardor. How do you move? Do you run, or do you walk like an ant? Usually in religion people walk like a wedding procession. With the gait of a wedding party you will reach nowhere. It is suitable — because a wedding procession has nowhere to reach; it circles the village and returns to where it began.

There was Aesop, a writer of parables — none has written like him. He was a man of great wisdom. One day he sat by the roadside. A man came by and asked, “Brother, can you tell me how far the village is — how much time it will take?” Aesop said nothing; he rose and walked along with the man. The man was a little afraid. He said, “I asked how far the village is — how long it will take. Give some answer. There is no need to walk with me.” But Aesop silently kept walking with him.

After fifteen minutes Aesop said, “It will take two hours.” The man said, “You are the limit of madness! You could have said this there. There was no need to come a mile with me.” Aesop said, “Until I saw your gait, how could I say how long? It is not determined by the length of the path — but by the man’s gait. Now I can say with certainty — two hours.”

It will depend on your gait. You can run — you will reach quickly. You can walk like a wedding procession — then when you will arrive, who can say? Your speed can be so total that in a single instant you leap. Or you may boil so slowly, so lukewarmly, that infinite births pass and you do not arrive.

If with total urgency, with your whole being, with all your life-energy — holding back nothing, putting all at stake — then you will arrive now — this very moment! Because this journey is not an outer journey. It is a journey within, where you already are. It is only a matter of turning the gaze. There is no distance at all. But if you delay even the turning, postpone, say “tomorrow,” “the day after,” then countless births have already gone by; countless more can go.

And remember, Nature has no special interest in your religious attainment. Nature brings man up to the point where man now stands; beyond that, only your own effort can take you. Nature makes you an animal, not beyond. That much Nature does. Manhood has to be earned. Therefore man lives in a great crisis — in a great peril!

All animals are at ease, except man — for Nature has completed its work for them and they have nowhere to go. You cannot say to a dog that he is less of a dog than another dog. All dogs are equally dogs. Thin or fat, strong or weak, but in dog-ness there is no difference. But all men are not equally men. In humanity there is difference. A thin, frail man may be a very great man. A big, sturdy man may be a very small man.

With man a new dimension begins. On what does it depend? The more awareness there is, the more humanity will flower. And the day you are filled with perfect awareness, that moment you become divine. The danger is great — for the one who can rise high can also fall low. Only the one who can climb can fall; the one who cannot climb cannot fall.

Therefore you will not find Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna among animals; but you will not find Hitler, Stalin, Napoleon, Genghis Khan there either. Where there are no mountain peaks, there are no abysses.

In Tokyo there is a zoo. The animals of the whole world are assembled there — a huge, the biggest of zoos. The most dangerous animals — lions, tigers, leopards, elephants, rhinos — wild beasts, hippopotamuses — a great display of all kinds. After touring the entire zoo, the last cage bears a sign: “The most dangerous animal of all.” You hasten your steps to see which animal is caged there. And you find only a mirror, reflecting your face. The cage is empty.

Man is certainly the most dangerous animal; because in him is the capacity to be divine, therefore the possibility to fall below. If you do not climb upward, you cannot remain where you are — you will fall. In this world there is no standing still. No one can stay in the middle. Either you rise, or you fall. If you are not moving toward consciousness, you will move gradually toward stupor.

It is a great wonder — and a great sadness — that small children are more conscious than the old. What happens? It should be the reverse — that after a lifetime of experience an old man becomes more aware, more careful. But the reverse happens — he becomes more cunning; through experience more dishonest; more thievish, more skilled in the world.

An old crow was instructing his son: “Listen, this is a matter of experience — beware of men; men are not to be trusted. And if you see any man bending down, fly away at once; he must be picking up a stone.” The son said, “And if he comes already with a stone tucked under his arm?” Hearing this the old crow flew away: “This boy is dangerous too; it is not safe to stay near him.”

Old people, through life’s experience, do not become more aware; they become more dishonest, more cunning. But what will cunningness give? There is nothing here to obtain. Neither is there anything to be lost by innocence, nor anything to be gained by cunning. Whatever we build here are houses built on sand; even if built, they will be erased; if not built, nothing is harmed.

Children seem more conscious. Look at children! Their eyes seem more full of awareness. They seem more alert. To put them to sleep we have to devise methods. In every way we blunt their senses so their consciousness becomes less. We do not let them laugh loudly; we do not let them cry loudly; we do not let them run, jump, play. We imprison their life-energy from all sides. We want to make the child dishonest as quickly as possible.

I asked Mulla Nasruddin’s son, “How old are you?” He said, “At home I am seven — on the bus I am five.”

This son the father has already set on the road!

I was a guest in a home. I overheard the housewife putting her child to sleep in the next room. He wouldn’t sleep; she patted him and said, “Go to sleep! If at night you need anything — water, thirst — anything — then call out loudly to mother, and father will come at once!”

“Call out to mother and father will come at once.” All mothers are doing this. But what is being taught to the child? A lie, a dishonesty, a trick! With milk we begin to feed poison. Our entire effort is to make the child dishonest and cunning as soon as possible. Our effort is not to make him more aware.

When true culture arises in the world, and the mode of education changes, the first thing to teach a child will be this: to be more aware. Turiya is to be taught; everything else is not worth teaching. The rest is practical. And the child is fresh — as you are a little fresh in the morning — the child is utterly fresh; it is the morning of his life. If right there he receives the sutra of Turiya, the art of awakening, then by the time he is old he will have reached the peak — he will have attained Buddhahood.

There is only one thing worth cultivating: irrigate the fourth like oil through all three states — Turiya, awareness, vivek, awakening, un-stupor, non-negligence.

“So absorbed, one enters one’s own consciousness.”

So absorbed, one simply enters one’s own mind.

“Magnah svachitte pravishet.”

And the one who is absorbed in Turiya — and there is no greater absorption than this — all your intoxicants give juice for a moment, then it dries. The juice of Turiya never dries. That stream is eternal. The one who is absorbed in it, who dances in it, who is filled by it, whose every pore is permeated by Turiya, whose way of being has become wakefulness, in whose rising and sitting Turiya rises and sits, in whose walking Turiya walks — the one whose every particle bathes in Turiya, who is so absorbed — only he enters his own consciousness. Otherwise you will remain a stranger to yourself. You will become familiar with this whole world — only to remain a stranger to yourself. This entire world will become your family, yet you will remain a stranger to your own being.

You can say much about others — their names, addresses, whereabouts you know — but about yourself you know nothing. And until a man knows himself, all his knowing is worth two pennies. It has no value, for the foundation is ignorance.

“So absorbed, one enters one’s own consciousness.”

If in all three states you keep irrigating Turiya, soon you will find that the sap of Turiya has entered the plant of your life. A Buddha’s walking, rising, sitting are different. Even when he rises, there is a wakefulness; when he walks, there is a wakefulness. Whatever happens through him is not in stupor. There is awareness. Whatever he does is conscious.

All that you have done until now is unconscious. Even though you say, “I did it knowingly,” that too is false. Your child comes home with torn clothes or with a broken slate, and you beat him, scold him, rebuke him. If someone asks you, you say, “I did it consciously — for the child’s betterment.” But analyze a little. Did you truly do it thoughtfully? Were you truly conscious? Or did you become enraged, annoyed, and take revenge on the child? The child disobeyed you — you are angry. If you are angry, then whatever you are doing is in unconsciousness — because anger is unconsciousness. And what you say are only words to justify. You say — “for his improvement.”

Mulla Nasruddin was beating his son and saying — “for your improvement.” He said, “Look, you are such that if I do not beat you twice a day there is no way out! And I myself in my childhood — my father never beat me.” His boy looked at him and said, “That proves your father must have been a good man.”

You are beating your son and you believe you are doing good; the son understands something else. Because he is not seeing your beating, he is seeing your anger. Whatever you do, you rationalize, you build arguments around it. You convince yourself that you are absolutely right.

Just yesterday a friend came with his wife. The wife doesn’t allow him to meditate. She thinks this meditation is not proper — old-fashioned ideas. But that is on the surface; the unconscious reason is altogether different. No wife wants the husband to meditate. No husband wants the wife to meditate. Because as soon as someone meditates, the old relationship falls into danger. As soon as meditation happens, the interest in sex declines. This is the unconscious reason. The rest are excuses on the surface. A wife may even prefer the husband go to a brothel; it doesn’t matter. But if the husband turns toward sannyas, that matters. Going to a brothel he does not go very much against the wife — because his interest in the woman is still alive. But if the interest in meditation increases, interest in the woman will be lost.

So if the wife must choose between the husband going to a brothel or entering sannyas, she will choose the brothel — if that is the only choice. But she will argue: “There are children at home; they need to be raised; if you become absorbed in meditation, how will they be raised?”

Meditation does not oppose the raising of children; nor does meditation oppose working in the shop. In truth, none can do things as skillfully as a meditator. Because meditation breaks your inner bondage to the world, not the outer. Externally the play continues as before, but it becomes a play. A new light begins to glow within. The outer enactment continues.

But husbands and wives suffer. Whatever they may say on the surface — even their own mind believes this to be the reason for their obstruction — but within the reason is other: the relation of sex. Going into meditation means that the bond of sex will loosen. The husband’s interest in sex will slowly decrease.

These days friends often come who say: “My wife had no interest in sex at all; but since I became interested in meditation she has become aggressive about sex.” Usually women do not show much interest, for they feel secure — no fear, no risk. They show little interest in sex — rather they keep sex as if, “Okay, for your sake.” This is also false — sheer falsehood. But when the husband begins to circle around meditation, why should they show interest! They then maintain the pose of chastity and character — that for the husband’s sake they have to descend into this despicable act. But as soon as the husband becomes interested in meditation, anxiety arises — there is danger now — and now to pull the husband back into the body becomes necessary.

And the same happens to the husband. A few days ago a wife came to me. She is truly interested, and deep results are possible. Her husband burns my books, throws them out of the house. The husband says, “As long as I am here, why do you need to go and ask anyone else? Ask me what you need to ask — when I myself cannot tell you anything…!” But the wife knows very well what the husband can tell.

But the husband’s ego is hurt. If the wife becomes interested in a master, the husband’s ego suffers a great wound — someone higher than him is entering his wife’s heart. It hurts! But this hurt will not be admitted directly.

Whatever you are doing, whatever you are saying, is not true; the inner causes are something else. A meditator must always search for causes within. He must catch the root cause — because the root can be changed. If, in place of the root, you have decided on some other cause that is not true, then no change is possible.

As you become more aware, the root causes will become visible in life. Then you will find you are not angry at your son because he made a mistake; you are angry because you relish being angry. His mistake is an excuse. You returned from the office enraged. You wanted to be angry at your boss, but you could not — because anger at the boss is an expensive affair. Now you want to be angry somewhere. You cannot be angry at your wife — for ninety-nine times out of a hundred she defeats the husband in anger. That is also expensive — for if she gets angry she keeps the chain going for two or three days. So you catch hold of the son. And being a child, he is a child — he will tear books; he isn’t old yet. He will play with ‘bad’ children — because leaving your child aside, all other children are bad.

I asked a little boy, “Are you a good boy? Do people consider you good?” He said, “If I tell the truth, I am such a boy that my mother would not allow me to play with me.” He said, “If I tell the truth — I am the sort of boy my mother wouldn’t let me play with.”

Except for your child, all children are bad! So he will have played with someone; he will have torn clothes; the book will have torn; he will have bruised a knee. You will grab him — he is weak — and vent your anger. But you will say it is for his improvement.

As you become aware, the real causes will begin to show. And when the real causes are seen, dropping them becomes absolutely simple. Then there is no difficulty. Then you will laugh at the false life you have raised around yourself! You have become a lie. And with this lie you wish to reach the Truth? Reach Paramatman? You will never reach.

In my heart sannyas means: dissolve the web of lies you have woven. Let life be real and authentic — as you are: if bad, then bad; if angry, then angry. But do not cover anger with a coat of beauty. Hiding a wound with flowers will do nothing — the wound will only grow. Do not cover yourself — uncover yourself. Say, “This is how I am — if bad, then bad; if good, then good.” But do not hide it with rationalization, with argument, with ideation. Do not seek good reasons for badness — because then the bad will never die if you have found good reasons for it.

Even when you are angry you look for good reasons. Then how will anger die? With good reasons you support it; you make anger good. You decorate it. You make the prison seem like home — decorating it with flowers — and you are comfortable. You take illness to be health! Then there is no way out.

As the awakened person awakens more, he finds that his waking is false; he finds his dreams perverse; his sleep unpeaceful. On all three levels there is a restlessness, a disturbance, a turmoil. And as he begins to see the truth and removes the false causes, he finds that as the false causes drop and truth is seen, his awareness becomes denser.

Your condition is such that I have heard: a man slept at night. An earthquake came at midnight, heavy thunder, lightning. The wife panicked, shook her husband, “Get up! It seems the house will fall.” The man said, “We live only on rent. Sleep peacefully. The house is not ours.”

The house you live in may not be yours, but if it falls you will die. The lies you have erected may not be yours — many lies are borrowed: some learned from gurus, some from scriptures, some from sects; they may not be yours — but if they collapse you will die. And you are surrounded by lies.

But a lie seems useful now; it helps you beautify your face. With lies you appear decorated. Within there is sorrow, pain — above, smiles. They are all false. Better that you cry, let tears fall. Let the paints you have applied wash away — no harm. Only through truth can one reach Truth.

As you irrigate awakening, so all paints will begin to wash away. The washing away of these paints is sannyas. And as you become true within, you will find that curing the illness is not difficult at all.

But curing a false illness is very difficult. Suppose you have cancer. But out of fear you do not accept that you have cancer — because the word “cancer” terrifies. So you decide it’s a cold. And you keep treating a cold. What will happen? How long can you deceive yourself?

Gurdjieff used to say: the first thing a seeker must know is — what is his real disease?

All seekers hide it. And the one who hides the real disease — his diagnosis never happens, and then you keep treating the wrong disease. That treatment too will kill you; it will not save you — because that was never your disease.

People come to me. Someone says he wants to seek God; someone says he wants to seek the soul.

On their faces no sign of such a search is seen. This search is false. They are seeking something else altogether. But under the name of “God” they hide it.

An elderly friend came and said, “I have been seeking God for thirty years.”

I said, “Thirty years is quite long! If God were not hiding from you, by now you should have found him. I fear that God is hiding from you. And if he is hiding, then even thirty births…! Or else you are searching elsewhere — you never go toward his house. Either you are hiding from him, or he is hiding from you. Tell me exactly — what is the matter?”

“No,” he said, “I am searching for God — and practicing meditation — but there are no fruits.”

“What fruits do you want?”

“No siddhis come to hand.”

Now this man is not seeking God. He is seeking powers. He has labeled it “God.” He seeks siddhis within, and has labeled it “God” without. You will find even in the marketplace boxes labeled one thing with another thing inside; you will find such people even in temples — outside the label says one thing, inside there is something else.

A husband was searching for salt in the kitchen. It took long; his wife said, “Why so long? Can’t you see the salt?” He said, “I am looking — I can’t see.” She said, “It is right in front — in the box labeled ‘turmeric.’ It is right in front of your eyes. Are you blind?”

All searches are going like this. You do not know for sure what you are searching for — why you are searching.

As you irrigate awakening, a direction will come into your life. The futile will fall, the essential will remain. And the day only the essential remains, the goal is not far.

“So absorbed…”

And as this intoxication of Turiya fills you — as this ecstasy enters your life — this ecstasy is very different. In language we must use the words available. When one drinks wine there is an ecstasy, but in that ecstasy the legs stagger. This ecstasy is the reverse — here the staggering legs become steady. There is an ecstasy in wine — in that intoxication one forgets oneself. This ecstasy is the reverse — here one remembers oneself. Self-remembering, surati, smriti arises. There is an ecstasy of wine in which one errs, goes astray. And there is the ecstasy of Turiya where error becomes impossible.

Akbar once rode out upon an elephant, and a man standing on a rooftop abused him. He was seized at once. Next day he was brought to court. Akbar asked, “Fool, what were you doing?”

He said, “I was not there; I had drunk wine. I did not abuse; the wine abused. Since sobering up I have repented. Do not punish me, for I was not there.”

Akbar understood, for he was very interested in Turiya — he was seeking a sutra for awakening. He understood: how to punish the unconscious! That he errs is certain; that he does right — that is a miracle.

If sometimes something right happens through you, it is a miracle. If you do wrong, that is natural — for you are not conscious. Gurdjieff used to say: for the sins you have committed, God cannot send you to hell — for you committed them in unconsciousness. The unconscious is pardoned even by the courts. God will not send you to hell for these sins — for you did them in unconsciousness. He must be at least as sensible as the courts. If it is proven that a man killed someone in a drunken state, even then the court pardons him; for he was not in his senses. It will give him lesser punishment. Punish him for drinking, but for murder — what punishment? The man was not there.

Your sins have been done in unconsciousness; your virtues too have been done in unconsciousness. Therefore there is not much difference between your sins and virtues — their quality is the same. Whether you build a householder’s life or become a renunciate — it makes no difference. You are unconscious! Unconscious at the shop, you will be unconscious in the temple too. Unconscious at the office, you will be unconscious in the monastery. No difference will come. Dressed in clothes you will be unconscious; naked you will be unconscious. The real question is to break unconsciousness; the real question is not to change acts. Changing acts is very easy. In one act there is unconsciousness — it will move into another act.

And the one who is absorbed thus, who has mastered Turiya, enters his own consciousness. As soon as one enters one’s own, for the first time the news of prana arises in his life.

“From the news of prana — that is, by experiencing that everywhere only the energy of Paramatman is pulsating — one attains equal vision.”

And as soon as one knows oneself, instantly he knows: this same lamp is burning in all. Until you have seen yourself, the other seems alien. Until you have recognized yourself, you take the other to be an enemy. As soon as you have seen yourself, you will see the lamp of light in all, surrounded by earthen walls; you will attain samadarshan. Then there is no friend, no enemy; no ‘mine’, no ‘other.’ Then truly you are spread within all. Then only One abides.

This is called prana-samachar in the Shiva Sutras — that now you have received the news that one prana is everywhere; one flame in all lamps, one ocean residing in all drops. Some lamp is black, some fair; some of red clay, some of yellow; some of this shape, some of that; some with this name, some with that form — but the inner flame has no name, no form. The one who has known himself has known himself in all.

The first event from Turiya is that you know yourself; instantly the second event happens — you know Paramatman. Knowing the Atman here, there the Paramatman is revealed.

Do not seek God directly. If you seek directly it will be imagination. You can sit and imagine that Krishna is playing the flute — God will not be found by this. It is a dream. A beautiful dream — but a dream nonetheless. There is no difference between such a dream and any other dream; the mind is imagining. You can imagine that Mahavira has appeared, Buddha has appeared, Rama has appeared — and many people keep imagining exactly this. They sit and dream. Religious dreams — but dreams.

There is no way to seek God directly because you yourself are his doorway. Until you pass through your own door, his door remains closed. The Atman is the door to Paramatman. The door opens here — as you know yourself here, God is revealed there. Then you begin to see him everywhere. In the tree, in the stone, in the rock, he is bound. Somewhere very asleep, somewhere very awake. Somewhere lost in dreams, somewhere in sleep, somewhere in awareness — but he alone.

Shiva has called the recognition of the One the ‘news of prana.’ It is the greatest news. But it is available to the one who knows himself.

And when one becomes established in equal vision, he becomes Shiva-like.

“Shivatulyo jayate.”

Then he has become Paramatman. You are an ‘I’ only so long as you do not know yourself. This sounds paradoxical. You shout, “I, I, I,” only as long as you do not know who you are. The day you come to know, that day the ‘I’ falls, the ‘you’ falls. That day you become Shiva-like. That day you are yourself Paramatman. That day the sound arises day and night — Aham Brahmasmi! That day you do not repeat it — you know it. That day you do not have to understand it — it is your existence, your experience. That day everywhere there will be the resonance of the One, the reverberation of the One. As a drop disappears into the ocean, boundaries melt, the infinite remains! Then you become like Shiva.

This is the wish of Shiva. This is the effort of the Buddhas — that you also become like them. What they have known as supreme bliss is your inheritance too. You are a seed; they have become trees. The trees say only this to the seed: do not remain a seed; become a tree. And until you become Shiva-like, you will not find peace. Man cannot be content with less. The soul cannot be satisfied with less; the thirst will remain until you drink from the goblet of God. Then the thirst is lost forever. All desires, all running, all bustle ceases; because you have become That which is supreme. Beyond that there is nothing.

Irrigate the fourth state like oil through the three states, so that you become so absorbed that you enter your own consciousness; so that you receive the news of prana; so that you may know that the One dwells in all — equal vision; so that you may become Shiva-like.

Enough for today.