Shunya Samadhi #1

I said it in the morning—perhaps he didn’t hear. I did not say that you should forget; I did not say that when you leave here you should no longer remember your home address. I did not say you should forget your name. I said none of that. I only said this much: know that what you have come to “know” through words and information is not knowledge. That is enough. The moment you see this, a new ripple of restlessness will run through your being: then what is knowledge? A man is holding a stone in his hand, guarding it, believing it to be a precious diamond. I do not tell him, “Let it go, throw it away.” If I can simply tell him, “This is not a diamond, it is a stone,” and he remembers, he sees, he understands—then the matter is finished. The question of throwing or not throwing does not arise. The moment the stone is seen as stone, the entire inner relationship that was there with the diamond dissolves; such a relationship cannot exist with a stone.

Two ascetics were passing through a forest. One was old, with a sling bag over his shoulder; his young companion walked behind. Night fell, darkness thickened, the forest was unknown and wild. The old ascetic began asking his young friend, “Is there any danger in the forest? Anything to fear? The night feels ominous, the jungle threatening.” The young ascetic was amazed: how can an ascetic be afraid! And one who is afraid—what kind of ascetic is he! Till today this old man had never asked whether the night was dark or the jungle dangerous. What had happened today? How had fear seized his life? A little later the old man again asked, “Is the path dangerous? Is there fear of thieves and bandits?” The young man was stunned! What was going on? An ascetic has nothing to lose—what point is there in fearing thieves and robbers!

They stopped at a well to drink. The old man started drawing water, handed his shoulder-bag to the youth and said, “Take good care of it!” At once the thought flashed in the youth’s mind: there must be something in the bag that is the cause of this fear. While the old man drank at the well, the youth slipped his hand inside, found a solid gold brick. He took it out, threw it away, and put a lump of stone back in its place.

The old man quickly filled water, glanced around nervously, hoisted the bag onto his shoulder, felt it from the outside—there was a “brick”—and set off. After a while he again asked, “There isn’t any danger, is there? The road never ends, the village feels far away.” The youth said, “Now relax—there is no danger now. I threw the danger behind us.”

The old man panicked. He thrust his hand into the bag, pulled out the “brick”—it was stone. For a moment he stood silent in that dense night. Then he threw the stone away, sat down right there, and said to his young companion, “There is no point worrying about reaching the village; let’s sleep here tonight, we’ll go in the morning. Now there is no fear.” And the old man said in wonder, “Amazingly, now there is no fear! Until now I was terrified. Now there is neither night nor thieves nor bandits. No fear, no danger.”

What happened? Simply this: what he had been taking as a gold brick turned out to be a stone; the story ended. The gold brick was not there. Yet when he felt the bag from outside, it still seemed there; the weight was there. Stone has weight and gold has weight. The hand kept insisting, “There is a brick, it is present.” Pressing it to his chest, afraid, he hurried along. But then the bag was opened and seen.

Learned, second-hand knowledge also has a weight—like stone; direct knowing, lived knowing also has a weight—like gold. To the hand, both weights feel the same. The scales cannot tell you which is stone and which is gold. To recognize, open eyes are needed. One must look inside one’s skull, peek into one’s own bag: what we have stored—could it be learned, borrowed, stale knowledge? If so, it is stone. If it is known by oneself, lived by oneself, come in one’s own experience—some news, some ray—then it is another matter, that is gold of another order. For the one who recognizes this within, nothing needs to be thrown away. The question of dropping does not arise; the matter ends on its own. Some bond snaps, some tie shifts, something transforms. What turns out to be soil, what turns out to be stone, cannot retain the same relationship one had with gold.

If we mistake our scriptural, verbal information for knowledge, one kind of relationship will form with it. If we see it as mere information, a different kind of relationship forms. These two relationships are fundamentally different. If we have taken information to be knowledge, we will construct a false relationship. That very relationship misleads and ruins life.

Therefore I said: wonder is needed. And toward learned knowledge, a wakefulness, an alert understanding is needed. As this understanding grows, you will find a burden lifting. You still know everything you knew yesterday—nothing is lost or forgotten—but now you also know this: it is not part of your life-breath, not the light of your own soul, not your own wealth. It is alien, borrowed, a loan. And no one ever became rich on loans. It is borrowed, begged. And with begged things no one becomes an emperor. No matter how much one begs and piles up palaces and wealth, one only becomes a bigger beggar, not a sovereign. How can one become an emperor by begging? Emperors are only those whose begging has come to an end—who have found such a treasure that they can give. And nothing is depleted from that treasure. They can distribute, and it does not end. The days of begging are gone.

You must have heard a story of a capital city. Perhaps you too have lived in such a capital. In that city, a fakir, an ascetic, was nearing death. All his life people had brought him offerings; some gold coins had accumulated with him. He had the town crier announce: “Let the poorest, the greatest beggar in the village come; I will give him my wealth.” The village beggars gathered. Is any village short of beggars? And it was a capital—capitals teem with beggars. They all crowded at the fakir’s door, each claiming, “There is no one more beggarly than I; I should receive it.” The ascetic said, “Let me inquire a bit. I have not yet seen the one who is this city’s greatest beggar. I accept that you are beggars, but you are not the greatest. I will wait for him. If he does not come, I will give it to whoever among you is the greatest.” They all knew each other well—people of the same trade know that trade’s people. They were certain all beggars were present; who was he waiting for? His eyes stayed fixed on the road. Then the beggar arrived—but he was no beggar. The beggars were astonished: it was the king of the city, riding his elephant. The ascetic came out and flung his pouch of gold coins onto the king’s elephant. The pouch fell into the king’s hands. He said, “What is this?” The beggars cried out, “What fraud is this! You said you would give it to the poorest, the most beggarly.”

The ascetic said, “I am giving it to the poorest man in this city. Your asking can be satisfied; there is no end to this man’s asking. If you get something, you quiet down. Whatever this man gets, he does not quiet down. He is the greatest beggar.”

There are beggars of wealth, and there are beggars of knowledge. Beggars of wealth are not so dangerous, because wealth is an outer thing. Beggars of knowledge are more dangerous, because knowledge is inner. What cure is there for the beggary of those who, in the inner world of the soul, continue to beg? The beggars of the outer world cause not so much trouble; and the outer world has little value anyway. But the inner world is of immense value. Therefore I said: do not mistake borrowed, begged knowledge for knowledge; otherwise you will stop there, come to a halt. If you want to be a sovereign in the world of knowing, begin with unknowing, begin with wonder—that is the first step. If you want to become an emperor for free, by persuading your mind quickly and cheaply that “I know,” then the easiest way is to treat what you hear on all sides as your wealth—collect it, parrot it, churn it, live by it. Those around you will not even notice that you are a beggar, because you are surrounded by beggars. No one will know what you are doing, what is happening. In fact, the situation is the reverse.

I have heard of a small island on which all the people were blind—always had been. Whenever a seeing child was born, the island’s physicians would remove his eyes, declaring, “This person seems ill.” Where everyone is blind, to have eyes is to take a great risk—because the blind will feel there is something wrong with that body. In a family of five fingers, if a child is born with six, we quickly operate and remove the sixth. Rightly so, we think: five is correct, six is wrong. Where there are no eyes, if someone is born with eyes, he is “wrong.” The physicians, the surgeons, would remove them. So the possibility of anyone with sight ever remaining was finished. If by some mistake someone was born with eyes, they removed them. And the blind were at ease. They called the seeing “abnormal,” “pathological,” “sick.”

Because we all live on borrowed knowledge, it doesn’t even occur to us to ask what real knowing might be. There is no greater joy than real knowing, no greater revolution, no greater beauty, no greater wealth. But with the “knowledge” we have, no joy arises, no peace arrives, no life is transformed. Nothing happens—and still we go on calling it knowledge. Not even a doubt arises.

I say to you: doubt it, be suspicious, inquire—what kind of knowledge is this of ours? What kind of deception is this? What kind of self-deception? If someone else were deceiving you, there would be hope of escaping; but this deception you are perpetrating upon yourself. It is easy to escape another’s deception; when one deceives oneself, it becomes very difficult.

Therefore, in the first sutra I wanted to say: become aware of this deception—look, understand, recognize what it is. This thing we take as “we know”—what is it? Ask, seek, test it: what use is it to life? This learned Gita, this learned Quran—where are they changing my life? Where are they taking me toward the divine? How close have I come? How many steps have I crossed, how many rungs climbed? Other than the rungs of words, have we climbed anything? Children build houses of cards, children float paper boats. I tell you: in a paper boat someone might still manage to cross a river; but sitting in a boat of words, no traveler has ever crossed the river of life. Paper is at least solid; a word is not even that solid. And I tell you: one might still live in a house of cards—for cards at least exist—but those who build houses of words and live in them are utterly homeless, only deluded that they live within homes.

Therefore I said: it is essential to acquire the eye of wonder.
And some friends have asked a few more questions.

Do it and see what happens. Don’t ask. Because what will happen cannot be told. And even if I were to tell you, it would only become borrowed knowledge for you—and nothing more. We are utterly addicted to borrowed knowledge: “Let someone tell us, let someone tell us,” so that we can escape the labor pains of knowing.

When a child is born from the mother’s womb, she endures labor. When knowledge is born, man too must undergo labor. If a mother wants to avoid labor, dolls are sold in the market—she can buy them and pretend they are children. But that is not the way to give birth to real children.

What will happen, what will happen in that peace in which the notion vanishes that knowledge is not with me? What happened to that old fakir when he discovered that the brick in his bag was not gold but stone? What changed for the old man? A new recognition stood before him: I was carrying a brick and taking it to be gold; I was hauling a stone and valuing its burden as precious. Hence I was afraid, hence I was troubled. Then he slept there that night—fearless. Something within him changed. Can you imagine the peace with which he slept? The unrest with which he had been walking! The peace with which he slept that night! Can there be any accounting, any measurement of what happened within him that night? There was a storm inside; then the storm departed, and a deep silence arrived.

Let me try to explain with another incident.

An emperor became angry with his only son. Some mistake occurred; the father, in rage, ordered his son banished from the kingdom—at once. Horsemen escorted the prince beyond the far borders. That prince—only son of the king, destined to be emperor—had a vast realm and immense wealth. He had learned no trade, had never labored. What should he do? He stood outside the kingdom poorer than the poorest. He had no way even to earn two pieces of bread. Yes, he had learned a little music. So in the villages he began to sing and beg.

Five years passed. The king grew old, repented; he had lost his only son. Death drew near. Who would inherit his wealth and empire? He summoned his ministers and said, Run quickly, and wherever on earth my son may be, bring him back with honor. Tell him, Your father has forgiven you; you are called to the throne. Return.

The ministers hurried and searched distant lands. At last an old minister found the youth in a village, begging outside a small inn—dancing, singing, bowl in hand. The sun blazed like fire; his feet were blistered; his face had darkened; his body had withered; he was barely recognizable. He wore the same clothes he had worn five years earlier when he was cast out—now in tatters.

The minister recognized him and approached. He had no shoes. His feet burned, blistered; he was pleading for a few coins to buy cheap shoes—“I am dying without shoes. The desert sun is fierce; the ground burns beneath me. If only I get a little money for shoes.” He was collecting for that very purpose; a few coins lay in his bowl. Tears ran from his eyes as he begged outside the inn. The chariot stopped; the minister descended, touched the prince’s feet, and said, Your father has forgiven you—come, let us return.

In that instant, like a flash of lightning, he became another man. He flung away his bowl; coins scattered on the road. The light and radiance of his eyes changed. He said to the minister, Good—go, buy fine garments. Bring the most precious shoes.

People from the inn gathered around. “What happened? He was begging just now.” He was hardly recognizable—the man had become someone else. His clothes were still a beggar’s, but his eyes carried the bearing of emperors. He no longer even looked at those before whom he had been holding out his hand. “What has happened? He has changed completely, become another man.”

The minister too stood astonished. “What happened?” The youth said, The very thought that I have been called back and am heir to the throne—and everything changed in that moment. I became another man. The beggar who had been within me for five years—where has he vanished? I cannot find him though I search. My whole consciousness has become different.

A small remembrance: for five years he held the notion “I am a beggar,” so he was abject; his eyes were abject; his face dull. In a moment a recognition, a remembrance, an awakening occurred: “I am an emperor”—and everything changed. That abjectness dissolved from his eyes; eyes once dull filled with brilliance; life-energy that had grown sluggish became vibrant; breaths that seemed dead inhaled the air of life again. What happened to that youth?

The day you realize that what you have so far taken as knowledge is worth two pennies—no knowledge at all—a revolution will rise within you. Counterfeit coins will become useless; the gold brick will show itself to be a mud brick. What you had considered important till yesterday will simply dissolve and be gone; your fist will open from it. And this relaxation—this unclenching from the false brick, from the illusory game; this withdrawal of the eyes from that place—when the eyes withdraw from the false, they arrive at what is right. To turn the eyes away from the wrong is to arrive at the right. To know the false as false. Recognizing what is untrue, mistaken, illusory, mere appearance, mere deception—that is to arrive at what is correct, at truth.

The first step toward knowing truth is to recognize what is not truth, what is delusion, what is false, what is mere semblance, what is only a cheat. Through this recognition the first step of revolution occurs. The eyes will move from that place and arrive where it is right. When the eyes withdraw from false knowledge, they rise in search of true knowledge. And that true knowledge is not in caves of the Himalayas, not in the deserts of the Sahara, not across seven seas to be sought. The knowledge I speak of is within each of you. It is your own innermost nature, your own essence. Once our eyes turn from the false, we can discover that which we are, which has always been ours.

But if the fist clutches the wrong thing, the hand cannot reach out to seek the right. Therefore the first thing is to know the wrong as wrong, the futile as futile, the insubstantial as insubstantial—so that we can at least lift our eyes toward what is meaningful.

And so long as we take the futile to be meaningful, the nothing to be everything, how can the eyes lift toward truth? As long as substitutes fill our hands, there is great confusion; even the thought cannot arise. As long as some false thing is providing a sense of fulfillment, the idea will not occur to seek that which is proper and true.

That is why I first said this to you, and again I have tried to bring a few points back to your attention: Why do I emphasize so much? Why do I call words, doctrines, and scriptures so futile? Why do I want the remembrance of not-knowing to arise within you, the learned to become useless, that you rise above it? So that with an open mind you can look at the world anew—not learned, not remembered, but with utterly fresh eyes. Remember: if, with the eyes you now use, the Divine could be seen, it would have been seen already. How long will you keep trying with the same old eyes? If anything were to be found through them, it would have been found. How long will you wait? It is clear that through them the glimpse of what is has not come. Might it be that the very eyes with which we look are wrong?

One early morning, as a few people finished prayer and stepped out of a mosque, a man entered. He removed his shoes gently, left them by the door, and went inside. Those standing there thought, Those shoes are costly, very shiny, very valuable. But the way he left them so carefully—they were surprised and wondered among themselves: Why did he leave his shoes outside? What if someone steals them? And he went inside as though unconcerned, as though those shoes had nothing to do with him. They thought, We will wait and ask him when he comes out. They waited. Then another man arrived. He took off his torn, old shoes, held both in his hands, and went in. Someone said, Here is a man who even takes his shabby shoes inside. One who cannot leave his shoes outside—how will he pray? They thought, We will ask him too when he returns: why did he take his worn-out shoes inside? Is he afraid someone will steal them?

The first man finished his prayer and came out. As he put on his shoes they asked, May we ask why you left your precious shoes so quietly outside? What is the reason? Why did you not take them in? People usually take even old shoes inside. Just after you another man went in carrying his shoes to pray. The man said, My friends, I left my shoes outside so that, if someone wished to steal them, I would not become an obstacle—first. Second, I left them outside so that if desire, temptation, excitement arose in someone to steal and he managed to conquer that temptation and refrained, I too would have the good fortune of providing an opportunity for his merit. That is why I left the shoes outside.

He put on his shoes and departed. They stood amazed: What a wondrous man! “Lest I obstruct someone’s theft, I left them outside; lest someone be tempted, I left them outside so he might earn virtue—and I share in the fortune.” Then they said, And that other man? He must be a base fellow. Then the second man came out, shoes tucked under his arm. They stopped him: Friend, can you tell us why you did not leave even these shabby shoes outside—when others leave even precious shoes? The man said, Since you ask, I will tell you. I did not leave them outside lest someone be tempted to steal; otherwise I would become a partner in his sin. If I give him the chance to steal, I share in the theft. And even if he did not steal—if only the temptation arose, the urge, the desire to steal—even then his mind would have become a thief. I did not wish to give occasion for anyone’s mind to become thievish. That is why I took the shoes inside.

They were astonished at him too. “What a saintly man, how good!” He put on his shoes and went his way. Just then an old man among them began to laugh. “Why do you laugh?” they asked. He said, I laugh because what both men said has nothing to do with the truth; the facts are quite different. “What are the facts?” they asked. He said, You did not even see that a third man also entered. But he had neither shoes to leave outside nor shoes to take inside. You did not notice him; because he had no shoes either to leave outside or carry in, he slipped in quietly. You noticed these two—and both gave very learned explanations of their acts. The truth is something else.

The man who left his precious shoes outside—I know him well, said the old man. He left them outside so you would get a good look at how shiny and costly they are. Otherwise there was no need to bring the matter of shoes into the mosque at all. The reason he gave was not the truth; it was a trick, a justification—the cleverness by which a man renders something seemingly righteous. I know him well: he is fond of exhibition, of display. He wants to show everything so people will see. Once, when his wife died, he would not weep inside his house; he would stand at the crossroads and weep so everyone would know his wife had died and he was crying. I know why he left his shoes outside.

He spoke very learnedly and hid a deep ignorance—and you were deceived. And the man who took his shoes inside—I know him well too. He prays little; he watches his shoes more. He lacks the courage to leave even torn shoes behind. But he hid his weakness behind lofty words. He told you a fine reason: “That is why I took the shoes in.”

But the one who neither left shoes outside nor carried them in—you did not even see him. You did not think of him. You did not ask him, “You don’t even have shoes?” He did have shoes—but he had given them to a poor, old man who was walking barefoot on the scorching road. He gave his shoes to that old man. But no one noticed him.

Attention goes to those who attract attention. It does not go to those who pass quietly along the road of life. And the knowledge we learn—we use it to cover and conceal our whole life. We stitch garments out of knowledge and, behind the curtain of knowledge, hide all our tendencies, all our dark impulses. This learned knowledge does not lead anywhere, but it does serve to cover life’s futility, life’s darkness, life’s wounds.

Hence, the more this so‑called knowledge grows in the world, the more man seeks justifications for every sin. Whatever wrong he does, he gives reasons. Whatever wrong he does, he quotes scriptures. Scriptures occur to him precisely when he has something to hide; then his knowledge steps in and becomes a hindrance.

This knowledge does not serve in the work of transforming life; it cannot. It surely serves to prevent life from changing. If a man steals, he will quote from Marx’s Capital that all wealth is theft; whoever has wealth is a thief. So if I steal, what of it? And those who have amassed wealth by theft—if they are robbed, that is a virtuous act; I am returning wealth to its rightful owners.

Bandits the world over can find their justification here—and they do. But they give their banditry the name of principle. If a man amasses wealth through sin, dishonesty, every kind of theft, he does not say, “I amassed wealth through theft and deceit.” He says, “Wealth is the earning of merit; those who do good deeds in past lives receive wealth. The scriptures say so.” The scriptures become his witnesses. And in the world’s scriptures there is perhaps not a single thing for which a testimony cannot be found—not a single sin without a citation. Life is vast. A man gambles and cites Yudhishthira—“Yudhishthira gambled. And what do I gamble compared to them? They staked even their wife!”

All this so‑called knowledge we accumulate becomes support for our refusal to change—and nothing else. No one has ever been seen to be transformed by false knowledge, but many have been seen not to change. The whole earth bears witness. We do what we intend to do and then gather knowledge as our witness.

At least the ignorant have no witnesses. The ignorant at least say, “I am guilty; I have erred.” And for one who says, “I have erred,” there is a way for error to change. But one who says, “What question of error? All the scriptures stand on my side”—

Every war is called a holy war; for every war scriptural testimony is sought. For every evil, scriptures are collected. Behind every evil, knowledge is shouted so loudly that the evil disappears from sight and only knowledge remains visible. There is nothing in this world for which a crutch of knowledge cannot be found. And in this way learned knowledge has not transformed humanity, but it has certainly obstructed it.

I say to you: abandon the crutch of knowledge. Lose it. And as you are—straight and clear, un-justified—seek no justifications for yourselves. If we are bad, we are bad; if we are good, we are good. Put all knowledge aside and look at that plain truth. Otherwise, a thug murders someone and enjoys it—but says, “I am a Hindu and he is a Muslim, and eliminating Muslims is religion.” Another thug drags away a woman and violates her—he is a Muslim and the woman a Hindu—and says, “She is a Hindu woman; therefore I carry her off—this is a religious act.” Mosques are burned and temples demolished. Idols are smashed and books set on fire. And human beings are killed in the name of fine principles and lofty knowledge. Astonishing, this knowledge. A curse upon such knowledge. It is our misfortune that we keep carrying its cover. The sins of the whole world are committed under the shelter of knowledge and books—and they will continue until we abandon our false infatuation with books and become ready to look at life directly. Only one who bids farewell to knowledge and attains eyes of wonder, eyes of amazement, can see straight.

Therefore I said these things in the morning and have clarified a few sutras again. I hope they have become clear to you. Think over them, reflect, ask, inquire—so that one day this matter stands very clearly before you. If it becomes clear, the beginning of revolution in your life has arrived.

These two talks complete the first sutra. Tomorrow morning we will consider the second sutra.

You have listened to my words with such silence—many, many thanks. In the end I bow to the Divine who dwells within all. Please accept my pranam.