Vysat Jeevan Main Ishwar Ki Khoj #2
Chapter Summary
Nonattachment is not silence or avoidance but a luminous separateness: act with full skill in the world while inwardly witnessing every movement as mere acting. Osho uses the Ramlila actor and theatrical metaphors—the lips speak, the feet walk, the body eats—while the soul remains aloof, to show that meditation is the slow discovery of an observing center. Thoughts are surface waves; allow vibrations to arise—sensitivity is life—but break identification so thoughts grow thin and come only when called. Practice this twenty‑four hours in every act, sleeping or waking, and the outer play loses power while suffering drops away. On nonattachment: remain separate while doing—speak about mistakes and perform your duties fully, yet keep an inner point that stands outside the action. On meditation and silence: do not force silence; realize you already are silence and stop taking passing thoughts as “me.” On disturbances and work: vibrations signify life; do not run away as a pretender sannyasin does, meet disturbance with the witness and continue to function skillfully. On death and ultimate practice: one who has entered meditation can watch the body die, regulate the moment, and pass in full awareness rather than in unconsciousness.
Questions in this Discourse
Second: while sitting in meditation a feeling keeps arising in the mind that one must be aware, silent. Should this feeling arise or not? Sometimes thoughts to the contrary also come.
Third: some thoughts arise that are not about others—rather about my own work: that if such-and-such happens it will be fine, or how so-and-so’s work can be set right.
Fourth: during the time one sits in meditation, should one keep exhaling long breaths the whole time, or let it be natural as it is? Every morning I sit for about three hours—one hour sitting, one hour lying down, one hour in siddhasana. In this, quite a lot of time passes without thoughts, but thoughts do not disappear entirely. If I miss alertness even a little, a thought comes in. My effort remains to be aware and silent. You are transparent; you know others’ souls; you even converse with them—as with the soul of Gandhi. From my soul, regarding meditation, could you give it some direction in advance? You have also said somewhere that even in silence conversation can happen—how?
Nonattachment means the state of acting. What is happening on the outside has no more value than a performance. For it, I have no reason to be inwardly tormented, anxious, unhappy, or filled with tension. Outside, a performance is going on.
Like a man playing the part of Rama in the Ramlila—Sita has been abducted; he is weeping, beating his chest...
One expression of this is the feeling of acting: that what we are doing has no more value than an act. And as this feeling deepens—that it is only acting—then it’s finished; once it is over, it is over, and we have nothing to do with it anymore. Someone makes a mistake; we tell him it is a mistake, we even explain it. And we remain outside it—because we were outside the whole time, even while we were speaking.
So it means finding within yourself a point that always remains outside—that is what nonattachment means. To discover within a state that stands outside in every situation. You are walking; that is not walking. You are speaking; that is not speaking. You are working; that is not working. This has to grow slowly—and that very growth is meditation.
For example, when you are walking, know as you walk that it is the body that is walking. Where am I walking? How can I walk at all? The soul has no feet, the soul has no movement—how would it walk? I simply am, and the body is walking.
Now we are speaking; it is the lips that speak, the throat that speaks. The soul has neither throat nor lips. So the lips speak; the soul sits silently.
You are listening; it is the ears and the body that are listening. The soul stands far, aloof.
Keep this remembrance in every action, even the ordinary ones. You are eating; the body is eating. The soul is continuously silent, in an eternal fast. There, the fast goes on unbroken; there, food has never been eaten. In every small action, keep aware: I am separate.
This sense of separateness, of being other—of standing far and apart—develops a new point of consciousness within. Then you will see a twofold functioning. Suppose someone has made a mistake and you are explaining it to him. As it is now, you become the explainer; only two remain: the one you explain to, and you. Then there will be three: the person addressed; your body and your mind, which are explaining; and you, who are watching these two happenings—watching that...
To labor in this direction is what is called the attitude of nonattachment. While doing everything—nothing is to be left undone—keep the sense that all this is play, acting, nothing more than an act. Sitting at the shop—it is a part of the act. Talking to someone—it is a part of the act. Therefore do it with complete skill, because in acting, full efficiency and skill are needed. Do it with total skill—do not miss even a whit. But even with all the skill, keep remembering that I am separate; what happened, happened; what did not happen, did not happen.
So, nonattachment means that within us there is a point that remains outside everything. It has not attached anywhere; nonattachment is to be outside association. We stand in a crowd, and we are alone. We are working and yet not working. We are eating and yet not eating.
When you sit in meditation, thought is moving. We made the mistake of taking up an identity, an identification: “This thought is me, it is mine.” That was the error. This is a thought, and I am I. And this thought is circling around me—like a fan whirring, like a fly buzzing… this thought is circling. This is this, and I am I; what have I to do with it! As this sense deepens, the thought will grow thin. For the power that has entered this thought has come through us; it is our own gift. Because we called it “mine,” the poor thing showed up. The moment the “mine” breaks, a bridge breaks. Its coming will, by itself, grow feeble. And then it will come only when I call it; without that it will not come. When I say, “Come,” or I say, “Do this work,” only then will it come; otherwise it will not.
So it is wrong to say that in meditation we have to become silent. In truth, meditation means to know, continuously, that we are silence. We have always been silence. That is, there—where we are—no thought has ever entered, nor can it enter. There is no avenue of entry where our consciousness is.
So, breaking identification is meditation.
The trouble is that these things cannot be explained to people; therefore one has to speak to them step by step. Step by step one has to say, “Become silent, become this, become that.” All this is useless talk.
But if you shut this down, you are as good as dead—because then you cannot do anything. And that is why the sannyasin becomes like a dead man: he runs away from wherever there is wind. Wherever the wind comes, vibrations begin. He says: stay away from money, away from woman, away from house, away from son, away from society—run off somewhere. He says this because if we stay near these, vibrations will be produced. And having kept himself aside from vibrations, he ends up in difficulty.
What I say is: let the vibrations arise. That is the very meaning of life—that vibrations will arise. And the mark of a living consciousness is that it will generate intense vibrations; it will be sensitive, more and more sensitive.
We are so many people sitting here. Put a stone here and a flower here. When the fan runs, the flower will tremble more, and the stone will just lie there—because the stone is not that sensitive. The more sensitive the mind, the more subtle vibrations it will catch. Therefore, do not run from vibrations. Know this: while catching all the vibrations, at the center I am unmoving—there, there is no vibration. So what is there to fear?
And deepen only this sense: I am not the vibrations. Non-attachment is the central process of meditation. And the person who cultivates the sense of non-attachment—then there is no need of meditation or anything else. Slowly, everything will drop away.
Where will you go? The difficulty is: where will you go? Wherever you run, disturbances are like that—suppose you become a Jain monk. He sets out with the rule: only if such-and-such condition is met in such-and-such house will I eat. He comes to that house, the condition isn’t met—disturbance. Then he goes to another house; again it isn’t found—disturbance again. He sits to eat in your home, and some child pees, and he will leave the food, because a disturbance has occurred.
What I’m saying is: disturbance is the sign of life, the very sign of life.
And until this art is learned, where will you run? Nothing will come of it. Here children make a racket; go and sit in the forest and the birds will make a racket and disturb you. Life is present everywhere and in every way. Right now you have a big house and you worry so much about it; a sannyasin worries just as much about his loincloth—that it might get stolen.
Once, this happened: I boarded the train at Jabalpur. Some people had come to see off a sannyasin—seemed to be great devotees of his, perhaps he was from out of town. He had a strip of burlap tied around him—you know, that gunny-sack cloth, burlap. One piece tied on, one draped, and two more in a basket along with some fruit. He was traveling first class with me. I was coming to Bina. It was just the two of us. He asked me, “When will Bina come?” I said, “Bina will come around six-thirty or seven in the morning. This train terminates at Bina, so rest easy, sleep—Bina is in the morning.”
I lay down to sleep. I saw that some devotees had offered him ten–fifty rupees, kept in the basket. Seeing that I had fallen asleep, he quickly took the money out and counted it, all the while glancing at me to see if I was watching. He put the money back in the basket, then took it out again, wrapped it in a piece of burlap and placed it under his head. One piece under his head, one as a cover, one spread out—and he went to sleep.
Two hours later I saw him open the door and ask someone, “When will Bina come?” I said to him, “I’ve told you Bina is at seven, and the train ends there. So be absolutely carefree and sleep. If you keep waking up all night to ask, you won’t let me sleep, and you won’t sleep either.”
An hour later I saw him again asking someone, “When will Bina come?” Now he has nothing at all, yet the disturbance of the mind is there.
Then it got amusing: near six-thirty at Bina he got up, took the burlap strip in his hand, and stood before the mirror tying it. He unties once, ties again. He ties it with the same relish as someone tying a necktie—no difference at all. Like someone putting on a tie and getting ready. He ties it once, it doesn’t look right to him, so he ties it a second time. Then he wraps everything and looks in the mirror again.
Now, my point is not whether you tie a tie or wear trousers; whatever you wear, your mind is the same—you will do the same with it. To onlookers it may seem, “What a great renunciate!” But inside, the mind is just the same. So don’t worry about swapping a tie for a strip of burlap. Wear a tie—see it as acting. Wear the burlap—see it as acting. Whatever you do, don’t give it too much value.
Therefore it is not so much a question of changing things on the outside; it is a question of your inner change. And inner change has only one meaning: either we take it that we are the doers of what we are doing—in that case there will be suffering. Or we understand that things are happening; such a vast universe, and within it things are happening. We too are players, as are millions upon millions of players. This play is going on… As this feeling deepens, liberation is possible while remaining in all situations. And I say, only in this way is liberation possible; otherwise, it is not.
When they don’t come, we are not to be pleased; when they come, we are not to be unhappy. When they are not coming, simply know they are not coming right now; when they come, simply know they are coming. In both conditions we must keep a sense of nonattachment. If they come, fine; if they don’t, fine.
(The audio recording of the question is not clear.)
Yes, two things: first, I have in mind to write a Diary of Mahavira—written from Mahavira’s own side, as if Mahavira himself were writing his diary.
(The recording of the question is not clear.)
Because whether I come here or there, in either case it will be convenient if a questionnaire is ready. Prepare the questionnaire so that it covers every aspect of Mahavira’s entire life. Two hundred questions, even two hundred fifty—no need to worry. Let them frame questions on each individual point, and make divisions.
For example, regarding his birth they should prepare two or three questions. Prepare questions about his childhood; about the economic condition of his household; then about the later period of his life; then about his austerities. Prepare questions on all of these. Then I will go on having a detailed recording made on each question, one by one. That will make it very easy, very systematic.
(The audio recording of the question is unclear.)
A person like that is not of a simple heart. Rather, the one who says, “That sweet looks good; I will eat it,” is the simple-hearted person.
Simple-heartedness is a far greater thing. This man has a very complex mind.
(The audio recording of the question is unclear.)
It only seems so to us. To us—about such subtle secrets of the human mind... Why do you step out after applying good oil and wearing good clothes—have you ever thought?
No, no, it’s not the same thing. Others get impressed by you; that pleases you. Others get impressed by you. If people start getting impressed by your going out without applying oil, by your going out naked—then your purpose will be served by going naked, by not applying oil as well. What is the inner work of the mind? The mind wants—respect, honor, status, prestige. If it gets them by applying oil, it applies oil; if it starts getting them by not applying oil, it doesn’t. If respect comes from remaining naked, it will stand naked; if it comes from wearing clothes, it will wear clothes.
A simple person is a very different kind of person. Simplicity means there is no stubbornness, no insistence; he accepts life as it is.
Now, for example, if you were to put a velvet shirt on Gandhi-ji then...
No, no—this cannot be simplicity. This cannot be simplicity. Simplicity means that by which no one is hurt. He would not refuse to do any such thing.
But those whom you call renunciates and “simple”—not a single one of them is simple. They are extremely complicated people—extremely. Their minds are very complex and very cunning. And the whole thing they are doing is a calculation of cunningness—who cooked this food, how it was cooked, this one touched it, that one touched it. In short, the whole thing is cunning, through and through.
(The question’s audio recording is unclear.)
If I show love toward you, it will be costly, because I will have to give up something—give up something for you. But if I show it toward a stone, there is nothing to lose. There sits a dead stone, and I circle around it and return home. Feeling should awaken toward life, not toward stones. And when feeling awakens toward life, your feeling will rise higher. But we have devised a trick: to escape life, we have erected temples.
(The question’s audio recording is unclear.)
I will speak. There should be temples. Certainly, certainly...
A man used to come to Ramakrishna. Whenever Kali’s day came, when Dussehra arrived, he would give a grand feast and celebrate with great pomp. Many goats were slaughtered and all that. Then the man grew old. Ramakrishna asked him, “These days you don’t celebrate Dussehra? What happened—everything stopped?” He said, “Now I have no teeth.” Ramakrishna said, “Fool! When it was for your teeth that you had goats killed, why were you dragging Kali into it? At least be straight and honest. If you want to eat goat, eat goat. But cutting a goat before Kali and then eating it—that’s your cleverness. You are deceiving—yourself and others. The point was only to eat goat, and by making Kali the pretext you are also escaping the pang of eating it—because ‘we are offering it to God; we aren’t the ones eating’!”
So my point is: live life however you want to live it. I am not against living. Do what you like. But do it straightforwardly. And don’t invent these tricks of deception. If I want to wear silk clothes, let me wear silk; but to say, “I am a devotee of God, therefore I am wearing silk”—that is something else.
Yesterday a gentleman came to see me—there in Amritsar—with many medals, wearing a coat—and a certain mahant, a Sikh, the head of a monastery. He came. Over here—what do you call it—an entirely silver-embroidered coat, turban and all, silver stars woven on it, and ten or fifteen of his devotees; they came to meet me. I asked, “Why are you wearing these? What is all this?” He said, “One cannot go into God’s court in ordinary clothes.”
Now, wear whatever you want—who is stopping you! But why this ploy, this cunning? This cleverness—why? Go to God.
Over there, in Aurobindo’s ashram, there is the Mother. She wears nothing less than velvet and silk. There is no prohibition; let whoever wishes wear what they like. I don’t say that wearing is bad—wear whatever you please. But what did Aurobindo say? He was asked, “Why does the Mother wear such costly clothes?” He replied, “In the court of God, ordinary clothes don’t do. In the court of God, ordinary… God means aisvarya—opulence. There it is all grandeur. The Mother has reached where God is; there it is nothing but magnificence. Ordinary clothes do not work there.”
Now this is what I say: don’t run this fraud. I don’t say—if I were to say that wearing silk is bad, that would be wrong. I don’t say that. My whim is my own—if I want I’ll wear khadi, or I’ll wear silk; there is no question of anyone in the world having anything to say. But if I say that I have worn these clothes because they are for God...
“Mataji is not an ordinary woman,” Arvind said. “Therefore she cannot wear ordinary clothes.”
For a sensible man like Arvind to speak in such a dishonest way—it’s all a bad business. So I end up with all the hassle. And the trouble is that now the matter keeps getting more and more difficult—how to...
I’m not objecting: by all means, enjoy your golden throne; who can stop anyone? The golden throne is set up, and then he climbs onto it, khadau on his feet, clattering on the throne.
Ask him and he will say he is the Shankaracharya; therefore the golden throne. How can he sit in an ordinary place? Now, let anyone sit wherever they like; that’s not the issue. But this alibi! And what happens is, because of that alibi you can’t say anything. Otherwise you would call the man an absolute fool—that when ten thousand people are sitting there, he walks in carrying his own throne! Four men bring the throne ahead, and he comes walking behind.
(The audio recording of the question is not clear.)
Immediately! They first have the chairs measured.
In Calcutta about four years ago, when Dugad-ji was still alive, I went and stayed at Rajiv Singh-ji’s place. Perhaps Tulsiji was there at the time. The incident had happened before I arrived. Sushil-ji was there too, and others.
Dugad-ji told me they had organized a function to bring everyone onto one platform. Then representatives of each came asking, “Where will you seat our acharya, our guru? Settle that first.” Because they cannot sit below anyone. And since no one could sit below anyone else, the difficulty arose: how to build the stage? No one could sit lower than another. In the end it came to nothing—they couldn’t sit together.
More recently in Allahabad—there’s a baba there, Sachcha Baba. He had organized a gathering and invited me too. He had a large stage built to seat sixty people; he had invited sixty. But in the end, one by one they had to sit and give their speeches; the sixty could not sit together. Because who would be higher, who lower! And no one was willing to sit alongside—“How can we sit with him? Our seat must be four inches higher than so-and-so’s!”
At this recent conference in Puri, the other Jagatgurus did not come, the other Shankaracharyas did not come. Simply because it’s the same hassle—some Shankaracharyas demand a seat higher than the others’. And no one is willing to be equal with anyone. So at any one place only a single Shankaracharya can come; a second cannot—because if he sets up his bigger throne, a quarrel erupts immediately.
Such boorishness—so many stupid minds gathered together! And we go on tolerating them all. We just keep tolerating them all.
We take it as just a child—he doesn’t have the sense yet. But these are children too. They sit four inches higher and think they’ve become great. Childish—that’s what it is: a mind stuck in childhood. Yet these are our gurus, our leaders, our saints. It’s all a show, really. All very amusing talk.
It must have been about eight years ago. Some eight years back, there was a gathering of Tulsi-ji in Rajsamand. I too had been invited; Morarji was there, Sukhadia was there, and they had invited ten to twenty-five people. In the morning they arranged an intimate sitting for the special guests who had come. Tulsi-ji climbed onto a big dais and sat there, and all of us were made to sit below. The others did not mind so much, but Morarji felt hurt. At that time Morarji was in the ministry. He was quite upset that he had been seated below. So, as soon as he sat down, he said, “Before this intimate sitting begins, I want to raise a question, and the discussion should begin with that question.” Tulsi-ji very gladly said, “Yes, yes, ask.” He had no idea what he was going to ask.
Tulsi-ji became flustered.
No—he didn’t even have the courage to give it up. Ah, that’s exactly it! Even if he had given it up, you could say the man has courage. If he had that courage, he would have stepped down; he doesn’t even have that much courage. And they couldn’t even offer an explanation. With some other person they might have deflected the issue, but Morarji is hard to put off. And they didn’t want Morarji to get annoyed either, because he had been invited to be flattered. So the other monk—the elder brother of their Acharya Tulsi, himself a monk—was down below. He said, “Let me tell you: it is our tradition to seat the Acharya above. He is our guru; we seat the guru on a higher seat.”
Then there was more fuss. I said, “If Morarji would like an answer from me, I would like to give him one—provided both Tulsi-ji and he agree that I should speak; otherwise I have nothing to do with it, because no one has asked me anything.”
Tulsi-ji said, “Yes, yes, please speak.” And Morarji said, “I want an answer.” So I said, “First of all, why did it catch your eye in the first place that he is sitting up there on a dais? What hurt you was having to sit below. And so long as it hurts you to sit below, someone will continue to enjoy sitting above; there is no difference in it. The two are linked. You are asking why he is sitting above—you know very well. The very pain you feel in sitting below is the pleasure he feels in sitting above; there is no need to ask anyone about it.
“And if you too had been seated on the dais, I can say with certainty you would not have raised this question. And there must have been other occasions when you sat on the dais and did not think, ‘Why am I on the dais and others are sitting below?’ So understand this clearly: what is becoming your sorrow is becoming his joy. There is no great complication in it. The ailment is the same in both of you.”
(The audio recording of the question is unclear.)
So, the priest—the very meaning of “priest” is a person who gives answers to all these things. He knows nothing at all.
It’s not a question of knowing or not knowing. It’s not a question of knowing or not knowing. Who created the world? The man who said “God created it” became the priest. And he installed himself as the master, because he became the greatest knower. Knowledge is power.
The knowledge of science is such that the more it spreads, the more science grows. Because it isn’t false; you can experiment, you can test it. So science has nothing to fear. But the priest’s knowledge was such that if everyone came to know it, his whole game would be up. There was no substance in it. So it was made a secret, guarded so it would not reach everyone. To keep it from reaching everyone, education was not given to all.
Women were forbidden, so half of society was cut off. For them there was no question of education. And the striking thing is that it was understood early on that woman remained in a state of greater ignorance than man, because she had no opportunity to receive knowledge. And therefore woman became the instrument of man’s exploitation. And even today it is the same. Even today the holy man survives because of women; by men’s support he would have died. Even today it is your women who keep the sadhus and priests alive. They are the reason they are sustained. And you men go only trailing behind your wives; there isn’t much more to it.
So it was very necessary to keep women in ignorance; only if she remained ignorant could she stay with the priest. Therefore women were barred from education. They were to be given no education. The Shudras were barred from education as well. Because wherever education arrives, revolution begins. So if the poor get education… educating the poor is dangerous. Now that the poor are becoming educated, poverty will not remain in the world—they will wipe out the rich. The poor have been forcibly made poor; they too can become rich, but they cannot until they receive education. Therefore the lower class—the poor, the Shudras—their education was absolutely forbidden.
So half of society—women—were barred from education; they became the base of exploitation. They became collaborators in all kinds of foolishness. And the section from which an uprising could come—the lower, the Shudra, the laborer, the working class—was prohibited; it received no education. Without education, it never even occurs to him that he can change his condition. He accepts things as they are.
Then three classes remained to society: a class of businessmen, a class of the intelligent, and a class of Kshatriyas, the warriors. These three divided their domains so there would be no quarrel or conflict. The merchant would do trade, earn money, and gain prestige from wealth. The Kshatriya would fight, win, and gain prestige from power. And the Brahmin would do the work of intelligence and gain prestige from intellect.
Now, it is also to be understood that there was a reason for giving the Brahmin the highest honor. For one thing, by rule he was the Brahmin. But the Vaishyas and Kshatriyas also realized why the Brahmin should be given the greatest respect. Because here is the curious thing: in a society where the intelligent are given the highest honor, there is never a revolution. If the intelligent receive the highest honor, there is never a revolution—because those who start revolutions are the intelligent. Therefore, in India no revolution could take place, because we gave the greatest respect to the intellectual.
They were put on a pedestal. Although they had no money or anything like that—the Brahmins remained poor. The Brahmins had nothing, but they enjoyed the greatest respect and honor; even the king would touch their feet. So when the king touches their feet, they will keep singing his praises; they will never speak against the king.
In India the Brahmins were given the highest honor; that is why there has been no revolution here for five thousand years. If the Brahmin gets filled with anger he can bring about a revolution. And this is exactly the mistake the British made in India. Had the British managed to placate India’s intellectuals, there would never have been a revolution. That was their mistake—they missed completely. The rebellion that did happen in India—by whom did it happen? Did you make a revolution? The Indian intellectual was not appeased; he became angry; his ego was not satisfied; he took offense; he started the trouble and spread it. If the British had kept conferring great respect on the few intelligent people, there would have been no revolution at all—never.
So, to save society from revolution, they kept giving the greatest respect to the intelligent, and the three made a division. The Kshatriya would receive great honor, because only he could be king. The wealthy would receive much honor, because only he could be the capitalist. The Brahmins would be highly honored, because only they could be the intelligentsia. And there would be no conflict among these three. The Kshatriya had no need to become a Brahmin, nor the Brahmin to become a Vaishya. And that quarrel you speak of between Vashishtha and Vishwamitra—at bottom it is only this: a Kshatriya trying to become a Brahmin. Which is forbidden; it should not be. Because the division that was made is disturbed by it.
This is exactly the quarrel with Mahavira and Buddha. They are Kshatriyas and are trying to become Brahmins. Mahavira and Buddha’s conflict with Hindu society is precisely this: they are Kshatriyas attempting to become Brahmins—that is, staking a claim that “we too are knowers.” This is a mistake; you are entering the Brahmin’s domain. Therefore the Brahmin became an enemy: “This cannot be allowed.”
Do you understand? This was a division of labor, and these are the people who disturb it. For they are Kshatriyas, yet they say, “We are omniscient.” So you are claiming to be Brahmins, Brahma-jnanis. The Brahmin has his own monopoly; you are encroaching upon it. Whereas the Brahmin does not intrude into the Kshatriya’s sphere—when Parashurama did, it created a mess, a whole tangle. Otherwise there was no trouble. Now and then a stray individual would try to enter another field—sometimes a Brahmin wanting to be a Kshatriya, sometimes a Kshatriya wanting to be a Brahmin—and then quarrels arose. But the general custom remained: stay within your bounds and do not quarrel.
Most quarrels happened between Kshatriya and Brahmin, because the Kshatriya had the power of the sword and the Brahmin the power of intelligence. The Vaishya raised no quarrel, for he had only the power of wealth. And one who has the power of wealth is very fearful, because wealth can be snatched away. Concerned with guarding it, he is very afraid; therefore he never ventures far into any sphere of action.
When Mahavira and Buddha rebelled—they were Kshatriyas and they took on the challenge—they went outside the Kshatriya fold; they stepped out of that fold. They could not become Brahmins, because the Brahmins did not admit them. They were no longer Kshatriyas. They had no path left except to become traders, hence all the Jains became Banias.
That was the only fold left to enter. They could not become Shudras; so there was no way left except to become Banias. The Brahmins did not let them in; they did not accept Mahavira and Buddha as capable of being knowers. And by talking of knowledge they moved outside the Kshatriya fold—they laid down the sword for matters of knowledge. They had no way left but to become Banias. And the Vaishyas could not stop them, because the Vaishya has no power; poor fellow, he remains preoccupied with his own protection. He does not get into any hassle—whoever comes, let him come.
Therefore no one has a conflict with the Vaishya. Whether a Brahmin opens a shop or a Kshatriya does, he says, “Fine, brother—whoever can, do it.” There is no occasion for all this hassle there. But the Brahmin will not let you in; nor will the Kshatriya let you in. He will say, “You are a Bania—what sword will you wield?”
And the Shudra was put outside the circle of honor altogether—he had no need of respect. Let him remain within his bounds; there was no use for him—he was out. He had no need to come in, no need to be in the middle of it.
This social arrangement—the varna system—was a very crafty and very clever arrangement. Until that entire arrangement changes, nothing can change in India. It is a very dangerous arrangement—one that sucks the very life. There should be a liquid condition, but we made it solid. No one becomes intelligent merely by being born in a Brahmin’s house. There must be a liquidity in society.
The development of the West happened because of liquidity. There no one is Shudra, no one Vaishya, no one Brahmin, no one Kshatriya. There are Kshatriyas, there are Brahmins, there are Shudras, there are Vaishyas—but there is no fixed demarcation. A Shudra’s son can become a Brahmin; a Brahmin’s son, if he cannot manage anything, will become a Shudra. The condition is liquid, not solid—so that if you are a Brahmin it does not mean only Brahmins will be born to you.
The result has been that all the intelligent people from all classes turn to the development of knowledge. In this country they could not turn to the development of knowledge; only the children of Brahmins could do so—no one else’s children could. Therefore we lag behind the world in competition. Hence today knowledge has been born in the West, because the whole society—whoever’s house a child is born in, whether he is the child of a sweeper or anyone—he can become a knower; the path is open for him. And if he is not a knower, then even Einstein’s son, if he lacks it, will simply go and work in some factory. There is no quarrel in this, no hassle—open competition.
So open competition has given immense strength to the West. The West’s Brahmin became the scientist, and India’s Brahmin kept sleeping. The loss from this is that we lost and they won—and we will still go on losing, because even now our “knower” merely does the work of a priest. And there is a difference between priest and scientist. The scientist disseminates his knowledge, and the priest hides his knowledge—lest you come to know the secret, for then his kingdom is finished. He will say, “These are esoteric things. In the Namokar there is a great hidden mystery—its calculation is unknown; no one knows it.” So the priest became the enemy of knowledge, because he hides it.
(Recording of the question is unclear.)
So you go on converting everything, all the time, into a relationship of sex. And “mother” means my father’s wife—what difference beyond that will it make? But my relationship with her remains defined by sex.
A woman—as a “friend”... apart from that, all sentiments... and the moral man begins with “friendship” only to advance all the other relations from there.
A very amusing thing happened. The first time I stayed at Govinddasji’s place, Sohan Ma came along from Poona. There was a girl, Yasha—when she comes I will introduce you; a rare girl. So she came with me. On the way she asked, “Where will you be staying?” “At Govinddasji’s.” “Then he will certainly ask who I am to you—he will surely ask. It is very hard to find such a virtuous man who, seeing a woman with you, will not ask what the relationship is.”
(Recording of the question is unclear.)
The chance to know love never even comes. Before they can know love, a wife becomes available.
Lately I have been thinking about this a lot. And my view is: the world cannot be happy unless we give priority to love. We have been giving priority to sex. And the irony is that those who prioritize sex call love “sexual,” and have arranged everything in favor of sex. If there is one thing in life that can rise above sex, it is only love. Wealth cannot rise above sex; fame cannot rise above sex. Only one thing can transcend it—love. And it can offer a relationship that is beyond the body.
But there is no problem if that love also wishes to meet on the plane of the body—there is no harm in that. Yet for those whose beginning is merely a meeting at the body, it becomes very difficult for the journey to move further; no reason arises to go beyond. It starts at the body and ends at the body. Many people come to know sex; very few come to know love. And one who does not know love remains unfamiliar even with the mystery that sex holds. He knows only the mechanical act; he does not know its mystery. Because when sex is with the one with whom we have a relationship of love, then sex takes one into a wondrous realm of mystery. But first let there be love; then let sex follow.
Yes—what is it you want to ask? Speak!
In the beginning, when you start moving toward meditation, then the conditions of body and mind do influence it—because from where you start, you are nothing more than body and mind. It’s like I begin to walk out of this room: I take one step, but I’m still inside; I take two steps, I’m still inside. So the smell of the room—its fragrance or stink, its air—still affects me. But I am walking toward the door, where the room ends and I can go beyond. Once I step outside, the room’s fragrance or stink has no meaning; it no longer affects me.
In the primary journey, as you move into meditation, you are still passing through the room of body and mind. So it will affect you—very much so. If the mind becomes a little dull, the body unwell, meditation will get disturbed—because you are still within that circle. But as you gain momentum, one day you will find you have stepped outside the doorway of body and mind.
The day you step out, the situation reverses. Then the state of consciousness begins to affect your body and mind, rather than body and mind affecting it. As soon as you are out, you become the one who affects, not the one who is affected. Your body may be as sick as it is, but it will not feel that sick to you; your mind may be as dull as it is, but it will not feel that dull. You come upon a source of freshness that is continuously available, and you start sharing it even with your mind and body.
As this state deepens, you discover that beyond body and mind there is no experience of death. So those who live only within body and mind collapse at the time of dying—utterly. In fact, shortly before death they become unconscious, and death occurs in that unconsciousness. But those who are alert and have moved into the world of meditation, when they begin to die, they meditate on death. They already know what it is to be separate from the body. Now the body is dying—they can watch it. The body is becoming slack—they can see it.
I was saying the other day: Ouspensky died while walking—he died in 1960. He had invited about fifty disciples: “Come and watch my death.” Those fifty gathered, and Ouspensky kept pacing up and down. He said, “It will take a little more time, because the body has sunk this far; these many nerves have snapped.” And he kept walking. He said, “I am walking so that I can die giving the final report in perfect awareness—so I don’t lie down and doze off...”
He walks and walks... all his friends are gathered. One man present there—Nicoll—later wrote a full memoir. He wrote: “That very day we were freed from the fear of death. Because watching that man die, we were astonished—it became visible the whole time that he was both dying and yet present. On one side he was dying, and in his presence we all felt that on the other side he was simply being—he was. Something was ending, and something was sinking. As if something were subsiding: like when you pluck a vina and the last note keeps resonating, resonating, fading—so something was disappearing, but something in his eyes, in his very being, was entirely there.”
He walked till the last moment. He said, “This is the final stretch I can go. Up to there I will still manage; beyond that I will not, because the body’s last strength is giving way. I feel I can take fifteen more steps.” And exactly on the thirteenth step, he fell.
All those friends wrote that for the first time they saw a death so alert. Mystics have done this many times—many times. One who has gone into meditation reaches the place from where it is possible to stand behind the body. As if I have already entered the inner room: now the house is collapsing, and I keep stepping back inside the room; I say, “This house will fall now; this wall is about to go,” and I retreat. And you watch me at the doorway, hearing me say, “The house is going to fall,” and see that I have stepped out of it. But I am neither worried nor unhappy, because there are other houses—and there is existence.
So one who attains to meditation dies in perfect awareness. And that is why death can often be announced beforehand.
Recently in Amritsar, a rumor was spread—a big rumor—that I had died. They phoned around that I was finished. A legislative convention was to be held, and certain sadhus, wanting me not to come, spread the rumor that I was gone. When I went there, two sadhus came to meet me. I told them, “Go tell your fellow sadhus: I am not going to die so soon. I will see off quite a few of you first, then I’ll go. And second, when I do die, I’ll inform you in advance. So from now on, don’t bother with the newspapers.”
Someone spreads a rumor... They had done the same earlier in Rajkot two years ago. I had a meeting, and beforehand they spread the rumor: “He is finished; how can he come?”—so people wouldn’t show up. The result was very good: ten thousand used to come there to hear me—on that day twenty-five thousand came. People came to find out: “There are two news items—one says he’s dead, and another says there will be a talk. Let’s go see what’s what.”
Death can absolutely be foretold—absolutely. Not only foretold, it can be regulated. One can die at the exact chosen moment—that too is no problem.
(The audio recording of the question is unclear.)
What is happening is happening. We don’t even need to say, “This is right,” “That is wrong.” Truly, there is no need—none at all. Calling something good or bad may not help others, and it harms us, because our consciousness falls into unnecessary dualities—without any reason. Without any reason. Meaning: where we have no real cause, nothing to do with it. Keep this first in mind.
Second, whatever work you are doing, while doing it, do only that. If you are eating, then while eating take care to just eat. Let the mind not wander to the shop and so on; keep it with the eating—just eat. If you are bathing, then just bathe—don’t go anywhere else during that time. Keep this second thing in mind: in whatever you are doing, remain in it as much and as long as you can—that is best.
And third, keep the attitude of the witness. Whatever is happening—success or failure, gain or loss—we are only the watchers. Beyond that, we have no involvement.
My own view is that many times very wondrous things have been discovered, but we have grabbed them and trapped them in the wrong place—things, ideas—like fate. Fate is not factual, but for samadhi it is very meaningful. If a person is a complete fatalist, then as far as samadhi is concerned, there is no obstacle for him. The matter is finished. The point is not the factuality of whether fate exists or not. To reduce it to “Does fate exist or not?” is to throw the whole thing into foolishness. For those who discovered it, it was a device for meditation. These are all devices within which meditation will happen. The meaning of fate is: now there is no question left.
It becomes such a strange affair, doesn’t it, a strange affair... and they’ll keep applying it to tiny, foolish little matters. Then a person starts asking about the factual: “How is this factual?” It is a device, absolutely—a mere device. That is, it is only a method. And any method is imaginary, because it is imagination that has to be cut. How can a method be truth!
So if you understand very deeply, all methods are false. Because we are caught in falsity, they exist only to remove the false. Once it is removed, the matter is finished. Both falsities fall away, and we stand in our own place.
Now fate is so astonishing that if it occurs to someone that all this is fate, then the matter is finished. That is, what remains to think about? What method remains to consider? Poverty has come, wealth has come, sorrow came, joy came, illness came, someone lived, someone died—the person says: it is all fate. If this feeling is complete...
Yes, complete. Otherwise it becomes useless; it will have no meaning. So, about fate—as I said about tathata: tathata is a Buddhist idea, fate is a Hindu notion, but the value in both is the same. Its value is this: that even if you were to slap me...
Yesterday a man came and asked, “Do you say that if someone slaps us, abuses us, we should take it as the fruit of past karma?”
Now, this is not a fact. But it is also a device. It is not the fruit of some karma-and-all. The fruits of your karmas are all finished. Yet this too is a device. If someone were to slap me and in my mind there were the complete feeling that this is the return of something I had done, then I would neither worry nor be angry. Because it is only a returning current; what I had done has come back—matter finished. Then it becomes an aid to meditation.
But all these are auxiliary arrangements for meditation, and all of them are false. And when I say both these things, it creates a difficulty. Because they are not true; I cannot call them true.
Now this tathata—suchness—won’t bring samadhi either. A foolish person will start doing petty thieving, thinking, “It’s a matter of tathata; what’s the fuss? Whatever is to happen will happen. What am I to do? If a theft is to happen, it’s happening; who can do anything about it?” That’s the whole matter. Even the highest principle can be given the lowest meaning and can cause harm.
So there are a thousand things connected behind it. Well, and with raw eating—what it is, is this: the human stomach… An animal walks so much, runs, does all that; its belly generates so much heat that it digests the raw. Now a human being neither runs nor walks like an animal, nor breaks stones; so the heat doesn’t arise in the belly—and then he takes to raw eating. To digest the raw, his digestive fire is not up to the job. So the fire on the stove is only a substitute for it. The fire we are not able to kindle in the belly, we kindle in the stove. The fire burning in the stove is doing half the work there that otherwise we would have to do. An animal has no need of that; such a fire is already burning in its belly. And matters of fire are beyond reckoning.
Now you’ll be surprised to know: the Kashmiris—what do you call it, a kangri?—they keep a kangri on them. Their whole chest gets scorched. And so much heat is produced in their belly that it is believed for a non-Kashmiri, to have intercourse with a Kashmiri woman is a very difficult affair. If one does, it feels like fire all over the body. So much fire arises in her belly that her whole body seems like embers.
The English wrote of their experience: never get into intercourse with a Kashmiri woman. They used to warn new officers to avoid Kashmiri women, because to have intercourse with them is to surely fall ill. And officers—well, they would manage it, call someone in; what difficulty did they have! Wherever they stayed, they would summon them. So the instruction was: avoid a Kashmiri woman.
So now, each and every thing…
That's why I didn't say anything to you about it. There's nothing to worry about. Just continue as you are; there's no harm in it.