Tag: Advaita

Continuous Attentiveness Will Come with Long Practice – Annamalai Swami

You can only stop the flow of thoughts by refusing to have any interest in it. If you remain in the source, the Self, you can easily catch each thought as it rises. If you don’t catch the thoughts as they rise, they sprout, become plants and, if you still neglect them, they grow into great trees. Usually, the inattentive sadhaka only catches his thoughts at the tree stage.

If you can be continuously aware of each thought as it rises, and if you can be so indifferent to it that it doesn’t sprout or flourish, you are well on the way to escaping from the entanglements of the mind.

Questioner:  It is relatively easy to do this for some time. But then inattentiveness takes over and the trees flourish again.

Annamalai Swami:  Continuous attentiveness will only come with long practice. If you are truly watchful, each thought will dissolve at the moment that it appears. But to reach this level of disassociation you must have no attachments at all.

If you have the slightest interest in any particular thought, it will evade your attentiveness, connect with other thoughts, and take over your mind for a few seconds. This will happen more easily if you are accustomed to reacting emotionally to a particular thought.

If a particular thought causes emotions like worry, anger, love, hate, or jealousy to appear in you, these reactions will attach themselves to the rising thoughts and make them stronger. These reactions often cause you to lose your attention for a second or two. That kind of lapse gives the thought more than enough time to grow and flourish.

You must be completely impassive and detached when thoughts of this kind appear. Your desires and your attachments are simply reactions to thoughts that appear in consciousness. You can conquer them both by not reacting to new thoughts that arise.

You can transcend the mind completely by not paying any attention to its contents. And once you have gone beyond the mind you never need be troubled by it again.

After his realization, King Janaka said, ‘Now I have found the thief who has been stealing my happiness. I will not allow him to do this anymore.’ The thief who had been stealing his happiness was his mind.

If you are always watching with open eyes thieves cannot enter. They can only break-in while you are asleep and snoring. Similarly, if you are continuously alert, the mind cannot delude you. It will only take over if you fail to keep your attention on rising thoughts.

-Annamalai Swami

You can see more from Annamalai Swami here.

Here you can read Osho describing the very process that Annamalai Swami is talking about. Osho calls it “thought birth control.”

From Living by the Words of Bhagavan, David Godman, page 348

Yoga Means the Growth of Consciousness – Osho

The evolution of life is to become more and more conscious, but the consciousness is always other oriented: you are conscious of some thing, some object. Yoga means to be evolving in the dimension where there is no object and only consciousness remains. Yoga is the method of evolving toward pure consciousness; not being conscious of something, but being consciousness itself.

When you are conscious of something, you are not conscious of being conscious. Your consciousness has become focused on something; your attention is not at the source of consciousness itself. In yoga the effort is to become conscious of both the object and the source. The consciousness becomes double arrowed. You must be aware of the object, and you must be simultaneously aware of the subject. Consciousness must become a double arrowed bridge. The subject must not be lost, it must not become forgotten when you are focused on the object.

This is the first step in yoga. The second step is to drop both the subject and the object and just be conscious. This pure consciousness is the aim of yoga.

Even without yoga man grows toward becoming more and more conscious, but yoga adds something, contributes something, to this evolution of consciousness. It changes many things and transforms many things. The first transformation is a double-arrowed awareness, remembering yourself at the very moment that there is something else to be conscious of.

The dilemma is this: either you are conscious of some object or you are unconscious. If there are no outside objects, you fall into a sleep; objects are needed in order for you to be conscious. When you are totally unoccupied you feel sleepy – you need some object to be conscious of – but when you have too many objects to be conscious of, you may feel a certain sleeplessness. That is why a person who is too obsessed with thoughts cannot go into sleep. Objects continue to be there; thoughts continue to be there. He cannot become unconscious; thoughts go on demanding his attention. And this is how we exist.

With new objects you become more conscious. That is why there is a lust for the new, a longing for the new. The old becomes boring. The moment you have lived with some object for a while, you become unconscious of it. You have accepted it, now your attention is not needed; you become bored. For example, you may not have been conscious of your wife for years because you have taken her for granted. You no longer see her face; you can’t remember the color of her eyes; for years you have not really been attentive. Only when she dies will you again become aware that she was there. That is why wives and husbands become bored. Any object that is not calling your attention continuously creates boredom.

In the same way, a mantra, a repeated sound vibration, causes deep sleep. When a particular mantra is being repeated continuously, you are bored. There is nothing mysterious about it. Constantly repeating a particular word bores you, you cannot live with it anymore. Now you will begin to feel sleepy, you will go into a sort of sleep; you will become unconscious. The whole method of hypnosis, in fact, depends upon boredom. If your mind can be bored with something then you go into a sleep, sleep can be induced.

Our whole consciousness depends on new objects. That is why there is so much longing for the new – for new sensations, a new dress, a new house – for anything that is new, even if it is not better. With something different, you feel a sudden upsurge of consciousness.

Because life is an evolution of consciousness – this is good. As far as life is concerned, it is good. If a society is longing for new sensations, life progresses, but if it settles down with the old, not asking for the new, it becomes dead; consciousness cannot evolve.

For example, in the East we try to be content with things as they are. This creates a boredom because nothing is ever new. Then for centuries everything goes on continuously as it is. You are just bored. Of course, you can sleep better – the West cannot sleep; insomnia is bound to exist when you are constantly asking for the new – but there is no evolution. And these are the two things that seem to happen: either the whole society becomes sleepy and dead, as has happened in the East, or else the society becomes sleepless, as has happened in the West.

Neither is good. You need a mind that can be aware even when there are no new objects. Really, you need a consciousness that is not bound with the new, not bound with the object. If it is bound with the object, it is going to be bound with the new. You need a consciousness that is not bound with the object at all, which is beyond object. Then you have freedom: you can go to sleep when you like, and you can be awake when you like; no object is needed to help you. You become free, really free, from the objective world.

The moment you are beyond object you go beyond subject also, because they both exist co-jointly. Really, subjectivity and objectivity are two poles of one thing. When there is an object, you are a subject, but if you can be aware without the object, there is no subject, no self.

This is to be understood very deeply: when the object is lost and you can be conscious without objects – just conscious – then the subject is also lost. It cannot remain there. It cannot! Both are lost, and there is simply consciousness, unbounded consciousness. Now there are no boundaries. Neither the object is the boundary nor the subject.

Buddha used to say that when you are in meditation there is no self, no atman, because the very awareness of one’s self isolates you from everything else. If you are still there, objects are still there. “I am,” but “I” cannot exist in total loneliness; “I” exists in relationship with the outside world. “I” is a relata. Then the self, the “I am,” is just something inside you that exists in relationship to something outside. But if the outside is not there this inside dissolves; then there is simple, spontaneous consciousness.

This is what yoga is for, this is what yoga means. Yoga is the science of freeing yourself from subject and object boundaries, and unless you are free from these boundaries, you will fall into either the unbalance of the East or the unbalance of the West.

If you want contentment, peace of mind, silence, sleep, then it is good to remain with the same objects continuously. For centuries and centuries there should be no visible change. Then you are at ease, you can sleep better, but this is nothing spiritual; you lose much. The very urge to grow is lost, the very urge for adventure is lost, the very urge to inquire and to find is lost. Really, you begin to vegetate, you become stagnant.

If you change this, then you become dynamic but also diseased: you become dynamic but tense, dynamic but mad. You begin to find the new, to inquire for the new, but you are in a whirlwind. The new begins to happen, but you are lost.

If you lose your objectivity, you become too subjective and dreamy, but if you become too obsessed with objects, you lose the subjective. Both situations are unbalanced. The East has tried one; the West has tried the other.

And now the East is turning Western and the West is turning Eastern. In the East the attraction is for Western technology, Western science, Western rationalism. Einstein, Aristotle, and Russell have taken hold of the Eastern mind, while in the West quite the opposite is happening: Buddha, Zen and yoga have become more significant. This is a miracle. The East is turning communist, Marxist, materialist, and the West is beginning to think in terms of expanding consciousness – meditation, spirituality, ecstasy. The wheel can turn and we can change our burdens. It will be illuminating for a moment, but then the whole nonsense will begin again.

The East has failed in one way and the West has failed in another way, because they both tried denying one part of the mind. You have to transcend both parts and not be concerned with one while denying the other. Mind is a totality; you can either transcend it totally or you cannot transcend it. If you go on denying one part, the denied part will take its revenge. And, really, the denied part in the East is taking its revenge in the East, and the denied part in the West is taking its revenge in the West.

You can never go beyond the denied; it is there, and it goes on gathering more and more strength. The very moment when the part you have accepted succeeds is the moment of failure. Nothing fails like success. With any partial success – with the success of one part of you – you are bound to go into deeper failure. That which you have gained becomes unconscious and that which you have lost comes into awareness.

Absence is felt more. If you lose a tooth, your tongue becomes aware of the absence and goes to the absent tooth. It has never gone there before – never – but now you can’t stop it; it continually moves to the vacant place to feel the tooth that is not there.

In the same way, when one part of the mind succeeds, you become aware of the failure of the other part – the part that could have been and is not. Now the East has become conscious of the foolishness of not being scientific: it is the reason why we are poor, it is the reason why we are “no one.” This absence is being felt now and the East has begun to turn Western, while the West is feeling its own foolishness, its lack of integration.

Yoga means a total science of man. It is not simply religion. It is the total science of man, the total transcendence of all the parts. And when you transcend parts, you become whole. The whole is not just an accumulation of the parts; it is not a mechanical thing in which all the parts are put in alignment and then there is a whole. No, it is more than a mechanical thing; it is like something artistic.

You can divide a poem into words but then the words mean nothing, and when the whole is there, it is more than words; it has its own identity. It has gaps as well as words, and sometimes gaps are more meaningful than words. A poem becomes poetry only when it says something that has not really been said, when something about it transcends all the parts. If you divide and analyze it, then you have only the parts, and the transcendental flower that was really the thing is lost.

So consciousness is a wholeness. By denying a part you lose something – something that was really significant. And you gain nothing; you gain only extremes. Every extreme becomes a disease, every extreme becomes an illness inside, then you go on and on in turmoil; there is an inner anarchy.

Yoga is the science of transcending anarchy, the science of making your consciousness whole – and you become whole only when you transcend parts. So yoga is neither religion nor science. It is both. Or, it transcends both. You can say it is a scientific religion or a religious science. That is why yoga can be used by anyone belonging to any religion; it can be used by anyone with any type of mind.

In India, all the religions that have developed have very different – in fact, antagonistic – philosophies, concepts, perceptions. They have nothing in common. Between Hinduism and Jainism there is nothing in common; between Hinduism and Buddhism there is nothing in common. There is only one common thing that none of these religions can deny: yoga. […]

-Osho

From Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy, Chapter 1

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

For a related post see Consciousness, Witnessing and Awareness.

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.

This Witnessing Consciousness – Osho

When the self as consciousness, which is truth, knowledge, infinity, and bliss, devoid of all its attributes, shines like pure gold freed from all its forms such as a bangle and a crown, it is called twam or thou, The brahman is truth, infinity and knowledge. That which is destructible is truth. And that which does not perish even after the destruction of space, time, et cetera is called the avinashi, the imperishable.

-Sarvasar Upanishad

There is a dialogue, a deep dialogue between my existence and existence itself, a constant dialogue, a continuity every moment: the incoming breath, the outgoing breath. I am constantly linked with the universe, with existence.

If we take two points, between these two points the dialogue continues. One point is “I,” and the other point – the total – is “thou.”

A non-religious mind, a material mind, will say that the dialogue is not between “I” and “thou,” the dialogue is between “I” and “that,” because the world is just a thing; it is not a person. And really, if the world is just a thing and it is not a person, then there can be no dialogue, there can be no intimacy. But if the whole world is just a thing, then myself – I myself cannot be a person; this “I” is also a thing. This is what is meant by a materialist conception of the world.

Of course there are relations – stimulus-response relations – but no dialogue, no intimacy. You cannot address existence as “thou,” because there then is no poetry, and then there is no religion. Among things only science can exist; among persons religion grows.

The religious attitude towards existence is a personal attitude: the whole universe is taken as a person. The you can talk, then you can love, then you can be angry with the total; and your life becomes deeply rich, because life and richness develop only through deeper dialogues with the reality.

But still, even if a religious person thinks that the world is not just material, the world is personal, and existence has a personality – then too, “I” continues to be the center; “thou” is just the periphery, just the circumference. I remain at the center of the universe, and the whole universe just belongs to me as a periphery.

In this sutra, the rishi says that when the pure consciousness is known, when the witnessing consciousness is known, there is a mutation, a total change of emphasis. “Thou” becomes the center and “I” becomes the periphery. “Thou” becomes the center, and “I” just the periphery. This pure consciousness therefore is known as “thou – twama, tu. It is not known as “I” because now I exists only as a periphery. It is really non-existential because periphery, in fact, is non-existential. It is just a line, a demarcation line and nothing else. It belongs to the center; it is just a projection of the center, an extension of the center.

When pure consciousness is known, pure consciousness is known as “thou.” This has many implications. One, the moment we conceive pure consciousness as “thou,” the whole universe, the whole of existence becomes a very different thing than we know it now. If you address the tree as “thou,” the tree is not the same; it has become a person, and a new dimension opens – a new dimension. And when the tree has become thou, you also cannot remain the same, because with a new relationship, with a new dimension, you are also different.

But as we are, even a living person, even a human person, is not “thou” for us. We use the word, but not meaningfully. We behave with persons as if they are not persons. For example, you love someone and then you begin to possess him or possess her. A person can never be possessed; only a thing can be possessed. How can a person be possessed? And how can love be possessive? If love becomes possessive it means that you are transforming a person into a thing.

That’s why a beloved may be a person, but a wife becomes just a thing, just a thing to be used. Why this possession? Because we just go on saying “thou,” but we never mean it – we never mean it. If you are really saying “thou” to someone, it means you accept the other as a person and you cannot possess him. A person means a freedom; a person means: now you cannot be the master. So we turn even persons into things. But with this pure consciousness developing inside, things turn into persons, and the whole universe by and by takes a shape of “thou,” of a great “thou” – everything becomes a person.

We live among things, mm? Even if we are living among persons, we live among things. And the more you live among things, the more you will be a thing yourself – that’s bound to happen. So a person who tries to possess someone becomes himself a possession. The phenomenon is reciprocal – if I try to possess someone as my property, I am bound to become myself a thing, a property. So it is not that the husband possesses the wife; the wife also possesses the husband. They both are possessors and both are things.

The moment you begin to feel someone as a thing, you begin to expect. With a person there can be no expectation, because person means a freedom. You have loved me this evening, you have been loving towards me; if I expect that tomorrow also you must give me love, it means I am thinking of you as a thing. And if tomorrow you are not going to love me, then I will be angry, I will be frustrated, and I will take revenge. I will begin to feel that my possession is being lost. Why?

With a thing you can expect that it will behave the same tomorrow also – but not with a person. A person is a constant flux, the freedom to move. He may be something else tomorrow, who knows? He may be not love me at all. If I take you as a person, then I will never be frustrated with you, because the frustration comes when I take you as a thing.

But this pure consciousness begins to feel the whole universe as a “thou”; therefore this consciousness is never frustrated. Never! There is no reason to be frustrated at all. Whatsoever happens, happens. It is never against expectation, because there has been no expectation at all. If tomorrow the tree moves from my garden to somewhere else, even that will not frustrate me. I will just say, “Oh, so thou hast gone. So thou hast moved.”

The truth, the infinite truth, the eternal consciousness, the formless is known as “thou,” never as “I.” Then you begin to live in a world of freedom, of non-possession. And when you behave in a non-possessive way, the whole world begins to behave non-possessively towards you. The whole universe becomes non-possessive of you.

This is what is meant by freedom: if you give freedom to the whole universe, you become free. But this freedom happens only when “I” is not at the center, but “thou.” Really even “thou” is not exactly what the case is; even “thou” is a bit less than true, because “thou” cannot exist without a subtle feeling of “I.” I cannot address someone as “thou” without myself being there, even indirectly, even in a very absent ways – even unconsciously. But the “I” must be there to address someone as “thou.”

So this is just to express something in language which cannot be expressed. Really, when you are not in the center, not even the “thou” is the center. “I and thou” both dissolve into oneness. But that oneness is inexpressible, and still, the rishi tries to say something about it to the disciple, to the enquirer. So what to say? He says at least one thing is certain; it cannot be called “I,” it is called “thou.” And when the disciple is ready, the inexpressible can also be indicated. But in the beginning, it is more than enough. “I” is not in the center, that consciousness is impure. And “I” is in the center, so consciousness IS impure. That happens only when you know the formless. And if it is not happening and “I” is in the center, that means you are in the form, obsessed with the form, obsessed with the superficial. You have not gone deep; you have not gone to the innermost core of your being. You have just lived outside your house; you have not know it from the inside.

“I” in the center is symbolic, indicative that we have not known what we are. We have known only identities with the for. The body is form, the mind is form, thought is form – all that we know about ourselves is form. And these forms happen upon the ocean of the formless. With that formless coming into your awareness, the “I” becomes the periphery and “thou,” the center.

Now the definition of truth. What is truth? Everyone is seeking, and everyone is trying to find it out, but what is it? How to define it? The materialist mind defines truth as the fact; whatsoever is objectively true, objectively factual, is truth. And personal experience which cannot be objectified will not be considered as truth. So if Jesus says, “I see my father in heaven,” either he is a dreamer or just psychotic, neurotic, just mad – because no one else can see the father in heaven. So either he is just a poet, just an imaginary dreamer, or just mad, insane, abnormal . . . seeing things which are not.

This definition of truth as fact is dangerous in many ways. It is useful, it is utilitarian, it helps – particularly it helps the scientific research – but it is dangerous. Because even if there is no objective proof, even if all cannot see a particular thing, the thing can be. It is not necessarily that because all others are not seeing it, it is not there.

For example: there are colorblind people; out of ten one is colorblind. By being colorblind it is meant that he cannot see a particular color. For example, George Bernard Shaw was blind to yellow; he couldn’t make any distinction between yellow and green. But for sixty years continuously he was not aware of it, because how could he be aware? It was just an accident that he became aware.

On one of his birthdays, someone presented a suit of a green color, but he forgot to send a green tie with it. So Bernard Shaw went to purchase a green tie, but he purchased a yellow one, because there was no distinction for him between yellow and green. His secretary said, “What are you doing? This will look very funny. This is yellow and the suit is green.” For the first time after sixty years’ living in this colorful world, he became aware that he was colorblind. He could not see any distinction between yellow and green – both were the same.

If ten persons are colorblind just like Bernard Shaw, and you can see yellow and ten cannot see yellow, what will be the truth? You will be either neurotic or just a dreamer.

There are personal faculties which may not have developed as a communal thing – the community may be lacking. There are personal faculties . . . But this definition of truth as fact will deny them. So sometimes even very intelligent people, very logical rational people, go on being superstitious in denying things which are, but which cannot be shown objectively. The whole psychic phenomenon has suffered only because of this. There are people who have faculties, but only individuals. So either they are deceivers – either they are playing tricks, deceiving others – or they are just claiming things which are not real.

There is one man, Peter Herkos. He can see things from very, very far off. Three hundred miles distance makes no difference to him. From here he can see three hundred miles away, a village on fire. No one would believe him, no one; but by and by, people became aware that yes, he was seeing things, and things proved objectively true. There was a fire and someone died. He said from just here that someone had died in that village, and that very moment someone had died; but still scientists tried to disprove it. They thought somehow that he was maneuvering things – someone might have telephoned, some signal, something… something was there which they did not know about. But many, many experiments were carried out, and still no deception was found. And the thing became more amazing because Herkos himself was a skeptic; he himself did not believe that such things could happen. How could they happen? So he said, “If this would have been the case with someone else, I myself would say that he is deceiving. But how can I say it now? I am not deceiving at all – I go on seeing things.” But they are personal . . .

A buddha experiencing what he called nirvana – it is a personal experience. It is not a fact, but it is a truth. So it is not necessarily that truth should be a fact, and not vice versa also that a fact is bound to be a truth.

The rishi defines truth more deeply, more absolutely. He says truth means that which is always unchanging, which is always. If a fact changes, it is also not a truth. And if a dream remains continuously, eternally, it is true; it is truth. So by truth, the Upanishads mean: the absolutely eternal.

What is absolutely eternal in this world of movement and change? Only change seems to be eternal and nothing else. Everything changes except change. And change cannot be called the eternal truth, because the very definition is “the unchanging one,” and change means “changing one.” Where is the eternal? – we never see it, we never feel it, we never know it – nowhere; everywhere is form and movement and change, and everything is impermanence itself.

Buddha says, “Everything is impermanent, everything – even you yourself – just impermanent. Nothing is permanent here.” So is there any truth, or not? Only one thing seems to be deeply eternal: the see-er, and nothing else – the witnessing soul, nothing else. Buddha says, “Nothing is permanent.” But who has seen this? This “nothing is permanent” – who has seen this? Someone must have seen this impermanency. Someone must have felt this constant flux, change. And to feel the change, this constant change, to be aware of it, at least the awareness must be eternal. So that’s why truth and the inner consciousness become synonymous.

For a philosophically minded person the enquiry into truth becomes a logical enquiry – metaphysical, philosophical. He goes on finding what is truth, logically, rationally. He may create a philosophy but he is not going to find the truth. For a religious mind, the enquiry begins to be a search for the eternal. And when a religious man says, “I am seeking the truth,” he means “I am seeking that which is always, that which is eternal – the eternity itself.” Time ceases, space ceases, everything is dissolved, but that which is remains still.

This witnessing consciousness . . . You are ill, then you are healthy; you are rich, then you are poor; you are respected, and then you are condemned; you are in hell, and you are in heaven – everything is changing. Only one who goes on knowing, “Now I am in hell, now I am in heaven; now they are respecting me, now they are condemning me; now I am ill, now I am healthy; now I am this, now I am that” – only one, and all else goes on moving, moving, moving. But this movement is known, and the knower is immovable, because only an unmoving knower can know movements. Only an immovable knower can know movements. Only the eternal one can know change. If the inner one is also changing, then change cannot be felt. You know that once you were a child, now you are not. If the inner consciousness itself has changed, who will remember that you were a child? If you have completely changed, then there will be no continuity. Who will remember that once you were a child and now you are not? Something behind all change remains the same. That something remembers, “I was once a child, now I am young, now I am going to be old, now I am going to die.”

This continuity, this consciousness, for the rishi of the Upanishads, is the truth. This truth is eternal, infinite, and the nature of it is just knowing, pure knowing. It is not love, it is not bliss; it is pure knowing, because even love has to be known, even bliss has to be known. So ultimately, love and bliss and all else become objects of knowledge. This remains to be always the knower, always the transcending knower, the transcendental one.

-Osho

From That Art Thou, Discourse #11

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com  or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.

Realization is a Deep Communion – Osho

Sarva niramaya paripoornohamasmiti mumukshunam mokshaik siddhirbhawati.

I am that absolutely pure brahman: to realize this is the attainment of liberation.

Existence is divided into two. Existence, as we see it, is a duality. Biologically, man is divided into two: man and woman. Ontologically, Existence is divided into mind and matter. The Chinese have called this “yin and yang.” The duality penetrates every realm of Existence. We can say that sex penetrates every layer of Existence. The duality is always present.

This duality also penetrates into mind itself. There are two types of mind, two types of mentality – masculine and feminine. You can give other names also, Western and Eastern, or, more particularly, you can call it Greek and Hindu. In a more abstract way, the division can be called philosophical and religious.

The first thing to be discussed today is the differences between the Greek mind and the Hindu mind. The Upanishads are the peak of the Hindu mind – of the Eastern mentality or the religious way of looking at Existence. It will be easy to understand the Hindu mind in contrast to the Greek mind, and these are the basic minds.

When I say, “Greek mind,” what do I mean? The Greek mind is one aspect of the duality of minds. The Greek mind thinks, speculates; the approach is intellectual, verbal, logical. The Hindu mind is quite the contrary. It doesn’t believe in thinking, it believes in experiencing. It doesn’t believe in logic, it believes in an irrational jump into Being itself. The Greek mind speculates as an outsider standing outside – as an observer, an onlooker. The Greek mind is not involved. The Greek mind says that if you are involved in something, you cannot think scientifically. Your observation cannot be just: it becomes prejudiced. So one must be an observer when one is thinking.

The Hindu mind says you cannot think at all when you are standing outside. Whatsoever you think, whatsoever you try to think, will be just about the periphery: you can not to know anything about the center. You are standing outside. Penetrate in! So much penetration is needed to know that ultimately you become one with the center. Only then do you know rightly; otherwise, everything is just acquaintance, not knowledge.

The Greek mind analyzes: analysis is the instrument for it to know anything. The Hindu mind synthesizes. Analysis is not the method – not to divide into parts, but to look for the whole in every part. The Hindu mind is always looking for the whole in the part. The Greek mind, in Democritus, comes to atoms, because if you go on analyzing, then the atom becomes the reality – the last particle which cannot be divided. The Hindu mind reaches to Brahman – to the Absolute. If you go on synthesizing, then ultimately the Absolute, the Whole, is reached. If you go on dividing, then the last particle – the last divisible particle – is the atom. If you go on adding, then there is the Brahman, the Ultimate, the Absolute.

The Greek mind could develop to be a scientific mind because analysis helps. The Hindu mind could never develop to be a scientific mind because synthesis can never lead to any science. It can lead to religion but not to science. The Western mind is the development of the Greek seed. So logic, conceptualization, thinking, rational analysis, they are the foundations for the West. Experience, not thinking, is the foundation for the Indian mind. So I would like to say that the Hindu mind is basically non-philosophical – not only non-philosophical, but, really, anti-philosophical. It doesn’t believe in philosophizing: it believes in experiencing.

You can think about love, you can analyze the phenomenon, you can create a hypothesis to explain it, you can create a system about it. In order to do this, it is not necessary to be in love yourself. You can be an outsider, you can go on observing love, and then you can create a system, a philosophy, about love. The Greeks say that if you yourself are in love, then your mind will be muddled. You will not be able to think. Then you will not be able to be impartial. Then your personality will enter into your theory and that will be destructive to it.

So you must be as if you are not. You must be out of it completely, totally. Do not become involved. To know about love, it is not necessary to be in love. Observe the facts, collect the data, experiment on others. You must always remain outside; then your observation will be factual. If you yourself are in love, then your observation will not be factual. Then you are involved, you are part of it, you are prejudiced.

But the Hindu mind says that unless you are in love, how can you know love? You can observe others love, but what are you observing? Just the behavior of two persons who are in love. You are not observing love – just the behavior of two persons who are in love. They may be just acting. You cannot know whether they are acting or really in love. They may be hiding their real hearts. You can see their faces, you can listen to their words, you can look at their acts, but how can you penetrate into their hearts? And if you are not capable of penetrating into their hearts, how can you know love?

Sometimes love is absolutely silent and sometimes the deception of love is very much vocal. So you can observe thousands and thousands of lovers, but still you cannot penetrate into the very phenomenon of love unless you are in love.

So the Hindu mind says that experience is the only way, not thinking. Thinking is verbal; you can do thinking in your armchair. You need not go into any phenomenon. When I say that thinking is verbal, I mean that you can play with words, and words have a tendency to create more words. Words can be arranged in a pattern, in a system. Just as you can make a house of playing cards, you can make a system of words. But you cannot live in it; it is only a house of cards. You cannot experience it; it is only a system of words – mere words.

Jean-Paul Sartre has written his autobiography, and he has given a name to his autobiography which is very meaningful, very significant. He has called his autobiography Words. It is not only his autobiography – this is the whole autobiography of Western thinking – words.

The Hindu mind believes in silence, not in words. Even if the Hindu mind speaks, it speaks about silence. Even if words are to be used, they are used against words. When you are creating a system out of words, logic is the only method. Your words must not be contradictory; otherwise the whole house will fall down. Your system must be consistent. If you are consistent with your words, then you are logical in your system.

So many systems can be created, and each philosopher creates his own system, his own world of words. And if you take his presuppositions, you cannot refute him, because it is only a play, a game of words. If you accept his premises, then the whole system will look right. Within the system there is an inner consistency.

But life has no systems. That is why the Hindu emphasis is not on word systems, but on actual realization, actual experiencing. So Buddha reaches the same experience that Mahavira reaches, that Krishna reaches, that Patanjali or Kapil or Shankara reaches. They reach to the same experience! Their words differ, but their experience is the same. So they say, “Whatsoever we may say, howsoever it may contradict what others have said, whenever someone reaches to the experience, it is the same.” The expression is different, not the experience. But if you have no experience, then there is no meeting point at all. My experience and your experience will meet somewhere, because experience is a reality and the reality is one.

So if I experience love and you experience love, there is going to be a meeting. Somewhere we are going to be one. But if I talk about love without knowing love, I create my own individual system of words. If you talk about love without knowing love, you create your own system of words. These two systems are not going to meet anywhere, because words are dreams, not realities.

Remember this: the reality is one, dreams are not one. Each one has his own individual dreaming faculty. Dreams are absolutely private. You dream your dreams; I dream my dreams. Can you conceive of it – I dreaming your dreams or you dreaming my dreams? Can you conceive of us both meeting together in a dream, or of two persons dreaming one dream? That is impossible. We can have one experience, but we cannot have one dream – and words are dreams.

So philosophers go on contradicting each other, creating their own systems, never reaching to any conclusion. The Greek mind taught in abstract terms, the Hindu mind in concrete terms of experience. Both have their merits and demerits, because if you insist on experiencing, then science is impossible. If you insist on logic, system, reason, then religion becomes impossible.

The Greek mind developed into a scientific world view; the Hindu mind developed into a religious world view. Philosophy is bound to give birth to science. Religion cannot give birth to science: religion gives birth to poetry, art. If you are religious, then you are looking into the Existence as an artist. If you are a philosopher, then you are looking into the world as a scientist. The scientist is an onlooker; the artist is the insider. So religion and art are sympathetic, philosophy and science are sympathetic. If science develops too much, then philosophy, by and by, gradually transforms itself into science and disappears. […]

In the West, religion has no roots. Poetry is also dying because it can exist only with religion. These two types of mind develop into totally different dimensions.

When I say that religion gives birth to poetry, I mean that it gives you an aesthetic sense, a sense which can feel values in life: not facts, but values; not that which is, but that which ought to be; not that which is just before you, but that which is hidden. If you can take a non-rational, aesthetic attitude, if you can take a jump into Existence by throwing your logic behind, if you can become one with the ocean of Existence, if you can become oceanic, then you begin to feel something which is Divine.

Science will give you facts, dead facts. Religion gives you life. It is not dead: it is alive. But then it is not a fact – then it is a mystery. Facts are always dead, and whatsoever is alive is always a mystery. You know it and yet you do not know it. Really, you feel it. This emphasis on feeling, experiencing, realization, is the last sutra of this Upanishad.

This Upanishad says: “I am that absolutely pure Brahman. To realize this is the attainment of Liberation.”

Before we probe deeply into this sutra, one thing more: if you have a logical mind, a Western way of thinking, a Greek attitude, then your search is for Truth, for what Truth is. Logic inquires about Truth, about what Truth is.

Hindus were never very interested in Truth, never! They were interested more in mokska – Liberation. They ask again and again, “What is moksha? What is freedom?” not “What is Truth?” And they say that if someone is seeking Truth, it is only to reach freedom. Then it becomes instrumental – but the search is not for Truth itself.

Hindus say that that which liberates us is worth seeking. If it is Truth, okay, but the search is basically concerned with freedom – moksha. You cannot find a similar search in Greek philosophy. No one is interested – neither Plato nor Aristotle: no one is interested in freedom. They are interested in knowing what Truth is.

Ask Buddha, ask Mahavira, ask Krishna. They are not really concerned with Truth: they are concerned with freedom – how human consciousness can attain total freedom. This difference belongs to the basic difference of the mind. If you are an observer, you will be interested more in the outside world and less with yourself, because with yourself you cannot be an observer. I can observe trees, I can observe stones, I can observe other persons. I cannot observe myself because I am involved. A gap is not there.

That is why the West remained uninterested in the Self. It was interested in others. Science develops when you are interested in others. If you are interested in trees, then you will create a science out of it. If you are interested in matter, then you will create physics. If you are interested in something else, then a new science will be born out of that inquiry. If you are interested in the Self, then only is religion born. But with the Self a basic problem arises: you cannot be there as a detached observer, because you are both the observer and the observed. So the scientific distinction, the detachment, cannot be maintained. You alone are there, and whatsoever you do is subjective, inside you: it is not objective.

When it is not objective, a Greek mind is afraid – because you are travelling into a mystery. Something must be objective so that if I say something others can observe it also. It must become social! So they inquire into what Truth is. They say, “If we all arrive at one conclusion through observation, experimenting, thinking, if we can come to a conclusion objectively, then it is Truth.”

Buddha’s truth cannot be Aristotle’s truth because Aristotle will say, “You say you know something, but that is subjective. Make it objective so we also can observe it.” Buddha cannot put his realization as an object on a table. It cannot be dissected. You cannot do anything with Self. You have to take Buddha’s statement in good faith. He tells you something, but Aristotle will say, “He may be deluded. What is the criterion? How to know that he is not deluded? He may be deceiving. How to know that he is not deceiving? He may be dreaming. How to know that he has come to a reality and not to a dream? Reality must be objective; then you can decide.”

That is why there is only one science and so many religions. If something is true, then in science two theories cannot exist side by side. Sooner or later one theory will have to be dropped. Because the world is objective, you can decide which is true. Others can experiment on it and you can compare notes.

But so many religions are possible because the world is subjective – an inner world. No objective criterion of judgement, of verification, is possible. Buddha stands on his own evidence. He is the only witness of whatsoever he is saying. That is why in science doubt becomes useful; in religion it becomes a hindrance. Religion is trust because no objective evidence is possible.

Buddha says something. If you trust him, it is okay; otherwise, there is no communion with him, there is no dialogue possible. There is only one possibility, and that is this: if you trust Buddha, you can travel the same path, you can come to the same experience. But, again, that will be individual and personal; again, you will be your own evidence. You cannot even say this, that “I have achieved the same thing Buddha has achieved,” because how to compare?

Think of it in this way: I love someone; you love someone. We can say that we are both in love, but how am I to know that my experience of love is the same as your experience of love? How to compare them? How to weigh? It is difficult. Love is a complex thing. Even simpler things are difficult. I see a tree and I call it green. You also call it green, but my green and your green may not be the same because eyes differ, attitudes differ, moods differ.

When a painter looks at a tree, he cannot be seeing the same green as you see when you look at it, because the painter has a more sensitive eye. When you see green it is just one green; when the painter sees a tree it is many greens simultaneously – many shades of green. When a Van Gogh looks at a tree it is not the same tree as you see. How to compare this – whether I am seeing the same green as you are seeing! It is difficult – in a way, impossible – even in such small simple things as the experience of green. So how to compare Buddha’s nirvana, Mahavira’s moksha, Krishna’s Brahman? How to compare?

The deeper we move, the more personal the thing becomes. The more in we go, the less possibility of any verification. And ultimately, one can only say, “I am the only witness of myself.” The Greek mind becomes afraid! This is dangerous territory! Then you can fall prey. Then you can fall a victim of deceivers, of deluded ones! That is why they go on insisting on objectivity: “What is Truth?” is the inquiry. Then one is bound to fall on objectivity.

The Hindu mind says, “We are not interested in Truth. We are interested in human freedom. We are interested in the innermost freedom where no slavery exists, no limitation; where consciousness becomes infinite, where consciousness becomes one with the Whole. Unless I am the Whole, I cannot be free. That which I am not will remain a limitation to me. So unless one becomes the Brahman, he is not free.”

This is the Eastern search. This too can be contemplated. You can think about it; you can also philosophize about it. This sutra says, “I am that absolutely pure Brahman. To realize this . . .” not “to contemplate about this,” not “to think about this” – because you can think, and you can think beautifully, and you can fall a victim to your own thinking. Thinking is not the thing. “To realize this is the attainment of Liberation.” Know well the distinction between thinking and realizing.

Ordinarily, everything is confused and our minds are muddled. A person thinks about God, so he thinks he is religious. He is not! You can go on thinking for lives together, but you will not be religious – because thinking is a cerebral, intellectual affair. It is done with words; life remains untouched. That is why, in the West, you will see a person thinking of the highest values and yet remaining on the lowest rung of life. He may be talking about love, theorizing about love, but look into his life and there is no love at all. Rather, this may be the reason, the cause: because there is no love in him, he goes on substituting it by theories and thinking.

That is why the East insists that no matter what you think, unless you live it, it is useless. Ultimately, only life is meaningful, and thinking must not become a substitute for it. But go around and look at religious people, so-called religious people; not only at religious people, but at religious saints: they are only thinking – because they go on thinking about the Brahman, go on talking about the Brahman, they think that they are religious.

Religion is not so cheap. You can think for twenty-four hours, but it will not make you religious. When mind stops and life takes over, when it is not your thoughts but your life, your very heartbeat, when your very pulse pulsates with it, then it is a realization. And to realize this is the attainment of Liberation – moksha, freedom. When one realizes that “I am the Absolute Brahman” – remember the word “realization” – when one becomes one with the Absolute Brahman, it is not a concept in one’s mind, now one is that, then one is free. Then the moksha, the Liberation, the freedom, is attained.

What to do? How to live it? This whole Upanishad was an effort to penetrate from different angles toward this one Ultimate goal. Now this is the last sutra. The last sutra says that you have gone through the whole Upanishad – but if it is only your thinking, if you have been only thinking about it, then howsoever beautiful it is, it is irrelevant unless you realize it.

Mind can deceive you – because if you repeat a certain thing continuously, you begin to feel that now you have realized it. If you go on from morning to evening repeating, “Everywhere is the Brahman, I am the Brahman, aham brahmasmi, I am Divine, I am God, I am one with the Whole,” if you go on repeating it, this repetition will create an autohypnosis. You will begin to feel – rather, you will begin to think that you feel – that you are. This is delusion; this will not help.

So what to do? Thinking will not help. Then how to start living? From where to start it? Some points: first, remember that if something convinces you logically it is not necessarily true. If I convince you logically about something, it doesn’t mean that it is true. Logic is groping in the dark. The roots are unknown: logic gives you substitutes for roots. […]

The whole life is a mystery. Everything is unknown, but we make it known. It doesn’t become known that way, but we go on labelling it and then we are at ease. Then we have created a known world: we have created an island of a known world in the midst of a great unknown mystery. This labelled world gives ease; we feel secured. What is our knowledge other than labelling things?

Your small child asks, “What is this?” You say, “It is a dog,” so he repeats, “It is a dog.” Then the label is fixed in his mind. Now he begins to feel that he knows the dog. It is only a labelling. When there was no label, the child thought it was something unknown. Now a label has been put: “dog,” so the child goes on repeating, “Dog! Dog!” Now, the moment he sees the animal, parallel in his mind the word “dog” is repeated. Then he feels he knows.

What have you done? You have simply labelled an unknown thing, and this is our whole knowledge. The so-called intellectual knowledge is nothing but labelling. What do you know? You call a certain thing “love,” and you then begin to think that you have known it. We go on labelling. Give a label to anything and then you are at ease. But go a little deeper, penetrate a little deeper beyond the label, and the unknown is standing. You are surrounded by the unknown.

You call a certain person your wife, your husband, your son. You have labelled; then you are at ease. But look again at the face of your wife. Take the label off, penetrate beyond the label, and there is the unknown. The unknown penetrates every moment, but you go on pushing it, huffing it. You go on trying – “Behave as the label demands!”

And everyone is behaving according to the label. Our whole society is a labelled world – our family, our knowledge. This will not do. A religious mind wants to know, to feel. Labelling is of no use. So feel the unknown all around; discard the labelling. That is what is meant by unlearning – to forget whatever you have learned. You cannot forget it but put it aside. When you look again at your wife, look at something unknown. Put the label aside. It is a very strange feeling.

Look at the tree you have passed every day. Stop there for a moment. Look at the tree. Forget the name of the tree; put it aside. Encounter it directly, immediately, and you will have a very strange feeling. We are in the midst of an unknown ocean. Nothing is known – only labelled. If you can begin to feel the unknown, only then is realization possible. Do not cling to knowledge, because clinging to knowledge is clinging to the mind, is clinging to philosophy. Throw labelling! Just destroy all labelling!

I do not mean that you should create a chaos. I do not mean that you should become mad. But know well that the labelled world is a false creation of man – a mind creation. So use it. It is a device, so it is good. Use it; it is utilitarian. But do not be caught in it. Move out of it sometimes. Sometimes, go beyond the boundaries of knowledge. Feel things without the mind. Have you ever felt anything without the mind – without the mind coming in? We have not felt anything. […]

You go to a tree. You say, “Okay, this is a mango tree.” Finished! The mango tree is finished by your label. Now you need not bother about it. A mango tree is a great existence. It has its own life, its own love affairs, its own poetry. It has its own experiences. It has seen many mornings, many evenings, many nights. Much has happened around it and everything has left its signature on it. It has its own wisdom. It has deep roots into the earth. It knows the earth more than you because man has no visible roots into the earth. It feels the earth more than you.

And then the sun rises – for you it is nothing because it is a labelled thing. But for a mango tree it is not simply that the sun is rising: something rises in it also. The mango tree becomes alive with the sun’s rising. Its blood runs faster. Every leaf becomes alive; it begins to explode. We also know winds, but we are sheltered in our houses. This tree is unsheltered. It has known winds in a different way. It has touched their innermost possibilities. But for us it is just a mango tree. It is finished! We have labelled it so that we could move on.

Remain with it for a while. Forget that this is a mango tree, because “mango tree” is just a word. It expresses nothing. Forget the word. Forget whatsoever you have read in the books; forget your recipe books. Be with this tree for a while, and this will give you more religious experience than any temple can give – because a temple, any temple, is finally, ultimately, made by man. It is a dead thing. This is made by the Existence itself. It is something that is still one with the Existence. Through it, the Existence itself has come to be green, to be flowering, to be fruitful.

Be with it; remain with it. That will be a meditation. And a moment will come when the tree is not a mango tree – not even a tree: just a being. And when this happens – that the tree is not a mango tree, not even a tree, but just a being, an existence flowering here and now – you will not be a man, you will not be a mind. Simultaneously, when the tree becomes just an existence, you will also become just an existence. And only two existences can meet. Then deep down there is a communion. Then you realize a freedom. You have expanded. Your consciousness expands. Now the tree and you are not two. And if you can feel oneness with a tree, then there is no difficulty in feeling oneness with the whole Existence. You know the path now. You know the secret path – how to be one with this Existence.

So repeating a sutra like, “Aham brahmasmi – I am Divine,” will not do. Realize that knowledge is useless. Be intimate with the Existence. Approach it not as a mind, but as a being. Approach it not with your culture, your education, your scriptures, your religious philosophies – no! Approach it naked like a child, not knowing anything. Then it penetrates you. Then you penetrate into it. Then there is a meeting, and that meeting is samadhi. And once you feel the whole Existence in your nerves, when you feel yourself spread all over the Existence, “Then,” this sutra says, “this is the attainment of Liberation” – to realize this, not to think about it.

So realization is a deep communion – oneness. What is the difficulty? Why do we remain outside this Existence? The ego is the difficulty. We are afraid of losing ourselves: that is the only difficulty. And if you are afraid of losing yourself, then you will not be able to know anything in this life. Then you can collect money, then you can strive for higher posts, then you can collect degrees, diplomas, you can become very respectable, but you will be dead – because life means the capacity to dissolve oneself, the capacity to melt.

When you are in love you melt: love is a melting. And if you cannot melt in love, then it is going to be simply sex; it cannot become love. When you love someone, you melt. When you do not love, you become cold: you freeze. When you love you become warm and you melt.

Religion is a love affair. One needs a deep melting into the Existence. Science is a cold thing. Logic is absolutely cold, dead; life is warm. The capacity to melt yourself is known in religious terms as “surrender”; and the capacity to be frozen, cold, is known in religion as “ego.” Ego makes you ice-cold, frozen. Then you are just stone, dead. We are afraid of losing ourselves; that is why we, are afraid of love. Everyone talks about love, everyone thinks about love – but no one loves, because love is dangerous. When you love someone, you are losing yourself: you will not be in control. You cannot know things directly; you cannot manipulate. You are melting. You are losing control.

That is why, when someone loves someone, we say he has “fallen” in love. We use the word “falling”: we say “falling in love.” It is a falling, really, because it is a melting. Then you cannot stand aloof, cold, in yourself – you have fallen.

Look at a person who lives through mind: you can never feel any warmth in him. If you touch his hand, you cannot feel him there. If you kiss him, you cannot feel him there. He is like a dead wall. No response comes out of him. A man who loves is in continuous response. Subtle responses are coming from him. If you touch his hand you have touched his soul. It is not only his hand: he has come to meet you there – totally! He has moved: his soul has come to his hand. Then there is warmth. And if your soul can also come to the hand to meet him, then there is a meeting – a communion.

This can happen with a tree. And if it happens at all with anyone then it can happen with anything else – anything! It can happen with a stone, it can happen with the sand on the beach, it can happen with anything if at all it can happen – if you know how to melt, if you know how to dissolve yourself, if you know how to move in response and not in words. Words are not responses. […]

Religion is a love approach. It is a deep melting. And when you melt into the Existence, you become free. What is this freedom? When you are not, you are free. Let me say it this way: when you are not, you are free. Until you are not there, you cannot be free. You are your slavery, so you cannot become free: the “I” cannot become free. When the “I” dissolves, there is freedom. When you are not, there is freedom. So moksha, freedom, means a total dispersion of the ego. So learn it, or unlearn the coldness that everyone has created around himself. Unlearn the coldness and learn warmth. […]

So learn the language of love and unlearn the language of reason. No one is going to teach you, because love cannot be taught. If you have become bored with your mind, if it is enough, throw it! Unburden yourself, and suddenly you begin to move into life. Mind has to be there, and then it has to be thrown. If you throw the mind, only then will you know that “I am the absolute pure Brahman,” because only the mind is the barrier. Because of the mind you feel yourself finite, limited.

It is like this: you have colored specs. The whole world looks blue. It is not blue; it is only your spectacles which are blue. Then I say, “The world is not blue, so throw your specs and look again at the world.” But you do not know the distinction between your eyes and the specs. You were born with your spectacles, so you do not know the distinction between where specs finish and ‘I’ begins.

You have been thinking that your specs are your eyes: that is the only problem; that your thoughts are your life: that is the problem. The identity that your mind is your life: that is the problem. Mind is just like specs. That is why a Hindu looks at the world differently and a Mohammedan looks differently and a Christian differently: because specs differ. Throw your specs, and then, for the first time, you will reclaim your eyes. In India, we have called this approach darshan. It is a reclaiming of the eyes.

We have eyes, but covered. We are moving in the Existence just like horses move when they are yoked in front of carts. Then their eyes have to be covered from both the sides. They must look straight ahead – because if a horse can look around everywhere, then it will be difficult for the driver. Then it will go running anywhere and everywhere, so a horse is allowed to see only straight ahead in order that his world becomes linear. Now his world is not three-dimensional: he cannot look everywhere. The whole Existence is lost except the street. It is a dead street, because streets cannot be alive. It is a dead street, a dead road. […]

Every road leads to death. If you want life, then for life there is no fixed road. Life is here and now, multi-dimensional, spreading in every direction. If you want to move into life, throw your specs, throw your concepts, systems, thoughts, mind. Be born into life here and now, in this multi-dimensional life, spreading everywhere. Then you become the center and the whole life belongs to you, not only a particular road. Then the whole life belongs to you! Everything that is in it, all, belongs to you.

This is the realization: “I am that absolutely pure Brahman.” You cannot reach to the Brahman by any road. The path is pathless. If you follow a path, you will reach something, but it is not going to be the All. How can a path lead you to the All? A path can lead you to something, but not the All. If you want the All, leave all the paths, open your eyes, look all around. The Whole is present here. Look and melt into it, because melting will give you the only knowledge possible. Melt into it!

Thus ends “The Atma Pooja Upanishad.” This was the last sutra; the Upanishad ends. It was a very small Upanishad – the smallest possible. You can print it on a postcard, on one side. Only seventeen sutras, but the whole life is condensed into those seventeen sutras. Every sutra can become an explosion; every sutra can transform your life – but it needs your cooperation. The sutra itself cannot do it; the Upanishad itself cannot do it.  You can do it!

Buddha is reported to have said: “The teacher can only show you the path; you have to travel it.” And, really, the teacher can only show you the path if you are ready to see it. Finally, the teacher is a teacher only if you are a disciple. If you are ready to learn, only then can a teacher show you the path. But he cannot force you; he cannot push you ahead. That is impossible! […]

The Upanishad can give you a light, but then that light will not be of any help, really. Unless you can create your own light, unless you start on an inner work of transformation, Upanishads are useless. They may even be dangerous, harmful, because you can learn them. You can easily become a parrot, and parrots tend to be religious. You can know whatsoever has been said, you can repeat it – but that is not going to help. Forget it. Let me blow out the candle. Whatsoever we have been discussing and talking, forget it. Do not cling to it! Start afresh! Then one day you will come to know whatsoever has been said.

Scriptures are only helpful when you reach realization. Only then do you know what has been said, what was meant, what the intention was. When you hear, when you understand intellectually, nothing is understood. So this can help only if it becomes a thirst, an intense inquiry, a seeking.

The Upanishad ends; now you go ahead and move on the journey. Suddenly, one day, you will know that which has been said and also that which has not been said. One day you will know that which has been expressed and, also, that which has not been expressed because it cannot be expressed.

One day Buddha was moving in a forest with his disciples. Ananda asked him, “Bhagwan, have you said everything that you know:”

So Buddha takes some leaves from the ground into his hand, some dead, fallen leaves – and he says, “Whatsoever I have said is just like these few leaves in my hand, and whatsoever I have not said and have left unsaid is like the leaves in this forest. But if you follow, then through these few leaves you will attain to this whole forest.”

The Upanishad ends, but now you start on a journey – deep, inward. It is a long and arduous effort. To transform oneself is the greatest effort – the most impossible, but the most paying. This Upanishad has been a deep intimate instruction. It is alchemical. It is for your inner transformation. Your baser metals can become gold. Through this process, your utmost possibility can become actual.

But no one can help you. The teacher only shows you the path – you have to travel. So do not go on thinking and brooding. Somewhere, start living. A very small lived effort is better than a great philosophical accumulation. Be religious – philosophies are worthless.

-Osho

From The Ultimate Alchemy, V.2 #16

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

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We Only Meet Ourselves – Jean Klein

We all meet here together, but in reality, we only meet ourselves. In a meeting of people, there is only demand, a desire to overcome the feeling of loneliness and insecurity where the ego is constantly present. What is called love and giving between people, between objects, still comes from insecurity and the need for security. True contact occurs when there is no one left to meet, in a place that cannot be placed in time and space.

We exchange ideas to test its value, to identify the best way to see things, but we never try to place ourselves in our relationship with an idea or concept. Basically, it’s a form of reasoning that contains its own elimination, so sooner or later, you’ll discover that there’s no place for a personal identity. So, everything that preceded this living knowledge is totally cleared. There is only deep peace, free of conflict and problems, where there is no need to add or subtract anything. In this unit, there is no difference between you and me. But in your present situation, you know your thoughts, emotions, feelings, without knowing the knower. That’s the only difference between us.

-Jean Klein

From Consciousness and the World, pp. 67-68

You can read more from Jean Klein here.

Make Haste to Become the Fourth – Osho

Gurdjieff used to say that there are seven types of men. Let me explain those seven types to you.

The first three types are very ordinary. You will find them everywhere, within and without.

The first, man number one, Gurdjieff calls ‘body-oriented’. He lives in the body. He is ninety-nine percent body. His whole life is body-oriented. He eats not to live; he lives to eat.

The second type of man, number two, is emotional – the feeling type, sentimental.

Number three is the intellectual.

These are the three common types. They are almost on the same level.

These three, in India, we have known long before. The body-oriented we have called the sudra. The feeling-oriented, the emotional we have called the kshatriya, the warrior. And the intellect oriented we have called the brahmin, the intellectual, the intelligentsia.

The fourth, the vaisya, the businessman, is in fact not a type – but an amalgamation of all the three. Something of the sudra exists in him, something of the intellectual also exists in him. He is not a pure type; he is a mixture. And, in fact, he is the majority, because to find a pure type is very difficult. To find a really perfect sudra is rare. To find a perfect brahmin is also rare. To find a pure warrior, a samurai, is also rare. The world consists of the fourth, which is a mixture, which is not really a type, just a crowd.

These are the three types. Unless you go beyond the three you will not be able to see. They are all blind.

One is blinded by the body. Another is blinded by feelings, emotions. Another is blinded by the intellect, thinking. But they are all blind.

Number four Gurdjieff calls: one who has become aware. Up to number three they are all unaware, unconscious, fast asleep. They don’t know where they are. They don’t know who they are. They don’t know from where they come. They don’t know where they are going. Number four is the one who has become a little alert, who can see. […]

Only number four can be called to the window. Only with number four can the Master share his experience.

With the first it is almost impossible to talk. To the first you can give prasad. The first one you can invite for a feast. Religion is nothing for him but a feast. Whenever a religious day comes, he eats better, he dresses well, he enjoys it.

To the second you can give emotional food: prayer, tears flowing down, sentimentality.

To the third you can talk much. He will appear to understand but will never understand. He is the intelligentsia, the intellectual.

Only with the fourth is a sharing possible – only with one who is a little alert, or is just on the brink of being alert. He is asleep, but turning in his sleep, and you know, now he is going to wake up; now any moment he is going to wake up. In this moment only, can a Master share his vision. When he sees that you are just on the brink of waking up, or are already awake and just lying down with closed eyes, or if just a little shaking is needed and you will open your eyes. […]

God is the possibility only for those who can see: the fourth, number four. With number four, religion enters into the world.

Up to number three the world is materialistic. Number three may be found in prayer houses, churches, temples, gurudwaras – but that makes no difference. With number four, religion becomes alive – throbs, beats, breathes. […]

I’m here only for those who belong to number four. Make haste to become number four, because if you are a little alert, I can lend my being. You can have a vision through it. I can bring you to my window and can ask you: ‘Do you see?’ But this is possible only with number four.

Then there is number five, whose awareness has become settled. Now for number five there is no need of lightning; he has his own inner light burning.

Then there is number six, all of whose discontent has disappeared, who is absolutely content. Nothing is there for him to achieve any more.

Then you will be surprised – then why does number seven exist? For number six everything is attained, fulfilled; there is nothing to attain. There is no higher than number six; number six is the highest. Then why number seven?

With number seven even contentment disappears. With the sixth, there is the feeling of fulfillment, a deep content, and arrival. With number seven, even that disappears. No content, no discontent; no emptiness, no fullness. Number seven has become God Himself. Number seven we have called the avatara: a Buddha, a Mahavir, a Krishna, a Christ. They are number seven.

-Osho

From The True Sage, Discourse #7

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

An MP3 audio file of this discourse can be downloaded from Osho.com or you can read the entire book online at the Osho Library.

Many of Osho’s books are available in the U.S. online from Amazon.com and Viha Osho Book Distributors. In India they are available from Amazon.in and Oshoworld.com.

Neo-Advaita Meets Dzogchen: The Unraveling of a Pseudo-Enlightenment

The following is an excerpt from Sam Harris’s book Waking Up. I must confess that I have not read Sam’s book, but I find the excerpt below to be an incredibly insightful exposé on the deficiencies of neo-advaita.

“Poonja-ji’s influence on me was profound, especially because it came as a corrective to all the strenuous and unsatisfying efforts, I had been making in meditation up to that point. But the dangers inherent in his approach soon became obvious. The all-or-nothing quality of Poonjaji’s teaching obliged him to acknowledge the full enlightenment of any person who was grandiose or manic enough to claim it. Thus, I repeatedly witnessed fellow students declare their complete and undying freedom, all the while appearing quite ordinary—or worse. In certain cases, these people had clearly had some sort of breakthrough, but Poonja-ji’s insistence upon the finality of every legitimate insight led many of them to delude themselves about their spiritual attainments. Some left India and became gurus. From what I could tell, Poonja-ji gave everyone his blessing to spread his teachings in this way. He once suggested that I do it, and yet it was clear to me that I was not qualified to be anyone’s guru. Nearly twenty years have passed, and I’m still not. Of course, from Poonja-ji’s point of view, this is an illusion. And yet there simply is a difference between a person like myself, who is generally distracted by thought, and one who isn’t and cannot be. I don’t know where to place Poonja-ji on this continuum of wisdom, but he appeared to be a lot farther along than his students. Whether Poonja-ji was capable of seeing the difference between himself and other people, I do not know. But his insistence that no difference existed began to seem either dogmatic or delusional.

On one occasion, events conspired to perfectly illuminate the flaw in Poonja-ji’s teaching. A small group of experienced practitioners (among us several teachers of meditation) had organized a trip to India and Nepal to spend ten days with Poonja-ji in Lucknow, followed by ten days in Kathmandu, to receive teachings on the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Dzogchen. As it happened, during our time in Lucknow, a woman from Switzerland became “enlightened” in Poonja-ji’s presence. For the better part of a week, she was celebrated as something akin to the next Buddha. Poonja-ji repeatedly put her forward as evidence of how fully the truth could be realized without making any effort at all in meditation, and we had the pleasure of seeing this woman sit beside Poonja-ji on a raised platform expounding upon how blissful it now was in her corner of the universe. She was, in fact, radiantly happy, and it was by no means clear that Poonja-ji had made a mistake in recognizing her. She would say things like “There is nothing but consciousness, and there is no difference between it and reality itself.” Coming from such a nice, guileless person, there was little reason to doubt the profundity of her experience.

When it came time for our group to leave India for Nepal, this woman asked if she could join us. Because she was such good company, we encouraged her to come along. A few of us were also curious to see how her realization would appear in another context. And so it came to pass that a woman whose enlightenment had just been confirmed by one of the greatest living exponents of Advaita Vedanta was in the room when we received our first teachings from Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, who was generally thought to be one of the greatest living Dzogchen masters. Of all the Buddhist teachings, those of Dzogchen most closely resemble the teachings of Advaita. The two traditions seek to provoke the same insight into the nonduality of consciousness, but, generally speaking, only Dzogchen makes it absolutely clear that one must practice this insight to the point of stability and that one can do so without succumbing to the dualistic striving that haunts most other paths.

At a certain point in our discussions with Tulku Urgyen, our Swiss prodigy declared her boundless freedom in terms similar to those she had used to such great effect with Poonja-ji. After a few highly amusing exchanges, during which we watched Tulku Urgyen struggle to understand what our translator was telling him, he gave a short laugh and looked the woman over with renewed interest.

“How long has it been since you were last lost in thought?” he asked.

“I haven’t had any thoughts for over a week,” the woman replied.

Tulku Urgyen smiled.

“A week?”

“Yes.”

“No thoughts?”

“No, my mind is completely still. It’s just pure consciousness.”

“That’s very interesting. Okay, so this is what is going to happen now: We are all going to wait for you to have your next thought. There’s no hurry. We are all very patient people. We are just going to sit here and wait. Please tell us when you notice a thought arise in your mind.”

It is difficult to convey what a brilliant and subtle intervention this was. It may have been the most inspired moment of teaching I have ever witnessed. After a few moments, a look of doubt appeared on our friend’s face.

“Okay . . . Wait a minute . . . Oh . . . That could have been a thought there . . . Okay . . .”

Over the next thirty seconds, we watched this woman’s enlightenment completely unravel. It became clear that she had been merely thinking about how expansive her experience of consciousness had become—how it was perfectly free of thought, immaculate, just like space—without noticing that she was thinking incessantly. She had been telling herself the story of her enlightenment—and she had been getting away with it because she happened to be an extraordinarily happy person for whom everything was going very well for the time being.

This was the danger of nondual teachings of the sort that Poonja-ji was handing out to all comers. It was easy to delude oneself into thinking that one had achieved a permanent breakthrough, especially because he insisted that all breakthroughs must be permanent. What the Dzogchen teachings make clear, however, is that thinking about what is beyond thought is still thinking, and a glimpse of selflessness is generally only the beginning of a process that must reach fruition. Being able to stand perfectly free of the feeling of self is the start of one’s spiritual journey, not its end.”

-Sam Harris

From Waking Up, Chapter 4

A Direct Apperception – Jean Klein

Presence, the now, refers to our eternity. We can never think of it, represent it, because we are it. It is an instantaneous apperception that it refers to our totality. Every step undertaken to find it is going away. It is the ultimate goal in every human being to know it, to be it. It is everlasting peace and joy.

Jean:  Any questions?

Q:        You’ve said that it is only through inquiry, by asking the question, “Who am I?” that we come to know our real nature, ourselves. At what point in a life time does the question really come up? When do we really feel the question?

Jean:  It needs a certain maturity to come to this question. By maturity I mean that you know, in a certain way already, what you are not. This knowing what you are not brings you to the fore feeling what you are. The moment you know what you are not, you are free from all directions, and you are brought back to the starting point which means, “Who am I?” And in this moment, there is no more reference to anything, anything known. And then, I would say, you are taken by reality. There is no more a knower and something known. There is only being the known.

Q:        But how can I ask the question so that it doesn’t remain mental? So that it has real transformative power to change my life? Otherwise, it remains mental repetition, or a mental inquiry. How do I make it a really existential question, living question?

Jean:  When you ask the question, you don’t know the answer. So automatically you find yourself in a state of not knowing. In this state of not knowing, your mind is completely unfurnished. You are free from all representation. It is only in this state of not knowing, in this openness of not knowing, waiting for the eventual known. When the waiting becomes free from what it is waiting for – in this waiting without waiting – there is the living answer.

Q:        What does it mean to be enlightened?

Jean:  It supposes that there is somebody to be enlightened. As long as you take yourself for somebody, you live in darkness. When you realize that the somebody is a mental image, and it is when you think of it and you produce it. Then you give it up. This image has no more a role to play. And in this instantaneous giving up, it gives you up. It produces, I would say, a great laughing. In this laughing, it’s like you will feel yourself free from all representation. You function in daily life and all functions refer to you.

Q:        Many teachers teach different forms of meditation practice. If a person sincerely follows a meditation practice, will that lead him to the consciousness or the non-state that you have referred to?

Jean:  Going to meditation means to find yourself in a laboratory. The entity which looks for peace, joy, security, in other words God, will never find it because our cerebrality can never know what truth really is. So, as long you can find the meditator, meditation is an illusion. And this giving up the meditator and even the meditation, then what remains, I would say, is a current of love. There is not another, only the love.

Q:        But the conditioning to take ourself as a person runs so deeply, don’t we need some kind of technique or process to break ourselves of this identification, to decondition the mind and the body?

Jean:  Every state, every object refers to the now. It appears in the now, and it vanishes in the now. Every technique remains [keeps] you in the realm of the mind, but that can never free yourself from the mind, free from memory. So I would say, see really what is next to you, what is the near to you, look at your nearness. It can never be an object. It can never be a state. You are your nearness. Otherwise, there is conditioning and conditioning. To see it really clearly means wisdom.

Q:        Jean, isn’t this rather confusing for someone who would come to one of your seminars and find that there is meditation. There is bodywork, an advaita yoga you might say, where we are working with sensation and feeling the energy body. All of which ultimately have to be objects. All of which are existent and not eternal. What do they have to do with this nearness, this presence you are speaking of?

Jean:  We are working with objects, sensation, feelings, but really, we don’t know this original perceptions, original feelings. We know only a certain pattern. In this session, you become familiar with listening, listening to your sensation, to your feelings, your reactions, resistance. In this listening, you give the feeling, the sensations, the opportunity to unfold itself in the observation. It comes to a new reorchestration of your feelings and sensations. This unfolding is only possible because you are open to it, you welcome it. Now welcoming is an idea, but really with your whole being being open to it, what refers to your totality. You realize that it isn’t you, that you are not in the body, in the perception, in the feeling.

Sometimes we use certain techniques, which generally are used in a progressive way, but it is only occasionally. It is the idea behind that which we are looking for – we are it fundamentally – because in the end all things appear in the now, and it has its reality in the now. It is the now which gives the perceptions, the apperceivings, its reality. I would say, only then we have a certain reality. We have an expanded reality, but at the end, it belongs to the now, to the present. All what appears is a prolongation, an expansion, of the now, of consciousness, of awareness.

So, it brings you back, in other words, to your real nature, because all that is done emphasizes not on the object part but on the ultimate subject part, consciousness.

Q:        This listening that you speak of, is this an integral part of being or is it an attribute, a way toward being?

Jean:  The listening of which you are speaking is free from all memory. There are no expectations. There is no goal. In this listening we are looking away from the goal, looking away from the target. So it is unconditioned listening. In listening, the listening is open to itself. It refers to itself. And at the end, it knows itself by itself.

Q:        You said that all objects point to our true nature or the background, do some objects point more directly, and just what do you mean by this?

Jean:  All objects point where [toward] your real nature, but then? When? you see nearer an object the smallest sense perceptions. It belongs to our five senses. So generally, when the mind is not informed that you are behind all sense perceptions, then you are more or less fixed to the sense perceptions. So your question, is there other form of objects which reveals your real nature, I would say these are objects which point directly to beauty. This means these are objects which have been conceived, produced in beauty, and these objects, the artist which offers it to you in a certain way, don’t emphasize the object part what is producing. It is why he produced it in a very economic way. He frees the object of its objectivity. So the listener, or the person who looks at it, may be free from the senses and brought back to real beauty.

The artist has from time to time, this feeling of absolute beauty, free from the person. And then this state, free from the person, the artist likes, I would say, to thank – thanking to be allowed to be. And this thanking brings him to offering. He offers it. And the object which he offers is free from any anecdotic part, and free from keeping it for the senses. So in a certain way, he shares his inner beauty. His beauty is your own beauty and oneness. It is so in listening to music, and it is also looking at any art objects – sculpture, painting, architecture, and so on.

Q:        In this enlightened non-state, what about feelings and emotions? Do you feel anger or happiness and joy in the same way or is there a difference?

Jean:  When you are established in the now, the present, there is no place for somebody who reacts, who resists. All what appears to you, appears to your totality. All counterparts – positive, negative – are, I would say, abolished. You may say certain things appearing in your life are not completely appropriate. That is sure, but there would not be a reaction. When you qualify it, it is more or less; it is not functional, but you are not more psychologically involved in it.

Q:        Jean, I would like to ask a question about relationships. When two people come together, like a man and a woman, and live with each other, and one of them is interested in this kind of approach to life and the other perhaps isn’t, it is often a lot of ground for conflict, which has led me to feel sometimes that it might be better if I were living alone. It might be somehow easier to accomplish this kind of awakening. And I wondered what you had to say about that?

Jean:  It is love which brought both together. And it is in this oneness that the personality of each unfolds, but both personalities refer to oneness, to love. When the personality of the woman, of the man don’t refer to the oneness, to love, you can be sure there is a kind of degeneration because the personality, the character, or what you call the individual, has its reality in this oneness, in love. It is so on every level. Every activity in its own level refers to this oneness. Otherwise, there is a moment, there is no more stimulation. It is this oneness which gives life to all activities. The moment we believe in this restricted being, of personality to personality, of man and woman, then you can be sure there is not only a kind of degeneration in its form of energy, but there is constant comparison because the personality is completely insecure, looks for security, for the moment that doesn’t refer to the oneness. There is only asking, demanding. So, you must refer to the original encounter, you as a man with a woman which means love.

Q:        Jean, you just mentioned referring to the oneness. I notice that when I experience fear, I identify almost totally with my body and biological survival. How can I break that restricted identification when I am in that state?

Jean:  Fear is first a perception. You feel fear. And then feeling, you qualify it. You name it; you say “fear”. But the word fear is memory refers to a certain pattern that you have, the notion that you mean by fear. So the idea of fear doesn’t refer to the actual fear, the actual perception. So pedagogically I would say, free yourself from the concept fear then you face really the perception which is localized in your body.

See in this moment how you function. You try to change the fear. You try to escape. You try by all means to refuse it. In the refusing, in the escaping, you give more or less fuel to the fear. When you see it really, there is a moment natural that you allow the fear to be fear. And it becomes energy – really energy alive. You accept it completely. It is not psychological acceptance, but it is functional acceptance – accepted to know it more and more deeply. Then the perception refers completely to your accepting. It is in this accepting position that what you accept frees itself; and it dissolves in you, in your presence. It reveals really what you are profoundly.

Live with the fear more and more deeply. Accept it. Even love it. You are not more bound it. When you are not more bound to it, when you are not more involved in it, it frees itself. It is a reaction. But in accepting it you will come completely through the fear. You remain completely a witness to it. It vanishes in your witnessing. It means intimate living. You are able to do it.

Q:        Jean, this question has probably come up many, many times, but it is the issue of money and our desire for it, and how we use it, and our feeling that it is going to provide security for us. Could you speak about the issue of money and our proper relationship to it.

Jean:  I have observed that many people have a wrong relationship with money. First, I would say that you are not the owner of your money. You are the administrator. And being an administrator of your money, you are detached in a certain way. You have a non-relation with your money because an ownership is avidity, a striving, a coming. An administrator is only functioning. Try functioning with your money and spending it and then earning it.

The first thing what I think is that you are completely emotional, psychologically involved with your money. It is generally when you take your money for [as] yourself, an expansion of yourself, belonging to yourself, that you will have a bad death. You will only dying [die] but never really dying [die]. It is your money which keeps you from dying. Many people take risk with your [their] body and mind, but they would never take risk with the money, for money is something which keeps you. Owns you. Lets you never go. Because there is a moment in life that they have to go. But what is important [is] that when you be really [are] an administrator of your money, the distribution and the earning become really functional. It’s been coming to you because somebody has spent it.

Apparently, I don’t see that you spending money [is] an augury. The question may be more or less the mind. (Soft laughter.)

Q:        Thank you.

(More laughter.)

Jean:  I think in daily life you should come often back to the starting point and the starting point you can never think of it because the moment you think of the starting point the point is already in the past. The starting point is the presence, the eternal now. All flows out from the now, and all appears and disappears in the now. And the now is a kind of original perception. It is a direct apperception; you know yourself in your totality. There is not a knower there is only known.

-Jean Klein

From Dialogues with Jean Klein, Part 1

Here you can read more from Jean Klein.

Here you can listen to A Direct Apperception (Dialogues with Jean Klean part 1).

Here you can listen to Dialogues with Jean Klein part 2.

Here you can watch the videos of the Dialogues with Jean Klein on YouTube.

The Great Dance of Suchness – Osho

Brahman is well known by the name Tatvanam – that – so it is to be meditated upon as Tatvanam – that. All beings love him who know Brahman as such.

“Sir, teach me the Upanishad.”

“The Upanishad has been imparted to you. We have, verily, imparted to you the Upanishad relating to Brahman.”

Of the Upanishad, tapas – austerities; daman – self-restraint; and karma –dedicated work; form the support. The Vedas are its limbs, and truth its abode.

One who realizes it – knowledge of Brahman – thus destroys sin and is well established in Brahman, the infinite, the blissful and the highest.

-Kenopanishad

The word god is not God, because the ultimate cannot have a name. It is nameless – because names are given by others. A child is born. The child is born nameless, then a name is to be given. That name doesn’t come from the inner source of the child’s consciousness. It comes from without. It is a label – useful, utilitarian, but artificial. The child will become a victim. He will identify himself with this name, which is given, which really doesn’t belong to him.

But who will give a name to the Brahman? There are no parents, no society, no ‘other’. And what is the use when the Brahman alone is? A name is needed because you are not alone. You need to be categorized, named, defined, so that others can call you, remember you. If you are alone on the earth, you will not need a name. And Brahman is alone, so who will give him a name? There is no other and there is no utility in it either.

So that is the first thing to be understood and very basic to the Upanishad – because all the religions have given certain names. Hindus have given thousands of names. They have a book, Vishnu Sahastranam – God’s one thousand names. The whole book consists only of names. Christians, Mohammedans, Hindus, all have given certain names to God to make prayer possible. The name remains false but how are you going to call the divine? How are you going to invoke him? How are you going to relate yourself to him? You need a name for the divine, but the Upanishads are not ready to give a name.

The Upanishads are the purest teaching possible; they do not make any compromise. They do not make any compromise for you. They are rigorous, very hard and they try to remain totally pure. So what do the Upanishads call Brahman? They simply call him Tat – that. They do not give him a name. ‘That’ is not a name; ‘that’ is an indication. And there is a great difference. When you do not have a name, then you indicate and say, “That.” It is a finger pointing toward the unknown. ‘That’ is a finger pointing toward the unknown, so the Upanishads call him Tat.

You may have heard one of the most famous sentences of the Upanishads: Tat-vam-asi – That art thou. You are also the Brahman, but the Upanishads go on calling him ‘that’. Even to say calling him is not good because the moment we use he, him, the ultimate becomes a person. The Upanishads do not say that he is a person; he is just a force, energy, life, but not a person. So they insist on calling him Tat – that. That is the only name given by the Upanishads to the ultimate.

Many things are implied, of course. One: if there is no name, or if Tat, that, is the only name, prayer becomes impossible. You can meditate on that but you cannot pray. The Upanishads really do not believe in prayer; they believe in meditation. Prayer is something addressed to a person. Meditation is simply sinking, drowning, within yourself. The person is somewhere outside you but that, the Brahman, the ultimate force, is within you. You need not relate to it as the other; you can simply drown yourself inwardly. You can simply sink within yourself and you will find that – because “That art thou.”

To take Brahman as the other is false for the Upanishads. Not that the other is not Brahman: everything is Brahman; the other also, the outer also, is Brahman. But the Upanishads say that if you cannot feel him within, it is impossible for you to feel him without – because the nearest source is within; the without is far away. And if the nearest has not been known, how can you know the faraway, the distant? If you cannot feel him in yourself, how can you feel him in others? It is impossible.

The first step must be taken within. From there the Brahman, that, is nearest. You are that. To say nearest is false; there is not even that much distance – because even when someone is near there is distance. Nearness shows a certain distance; nearness is a sort of distance. He is not even near you – because you are that. So why go wandering without? He is in the home. You are looking for the guest and he is the host. You are waiting for the guest to come, and he is already the host. He is you.

So the first implication is: for the Upanishads there is no prayer; there is meditation. Prayer is a relationship between two, just like love. Meditation is not a relationship between two. It is just like surrender. Meditation is going withinwards, surrendering yourself unto yourself – not clinging to the periphery but sinking deep to the center. And when you are at your center you are in that – Tat, Brahman.

The second implication: when the Upanishads call him that, it means he is not the creator; rather, he is the creation – because the moment we say, “God is the creator,” we have made him a person. And not only have we made him a person: we have divided existence into two – the creator and the created. The duality has entered. The Upanishads say that he is the creation. Or to be more accurate, he is the creativity – the very force of creation.

I always like to illustrate this point by the phenomenon of dance. A painter paints but the moment he has painted his picture, the painter is separate from the picture. Now the painter can die and the picture will remain. Or you can destroy the picture but by doing that the painter will not be destroyed – they are separate. Now the picture can exist for centuries without the painter. The painter is not needed. Once painted, it is finished; the relationship is broken.

Look at the dancer! He dances but the dance is not separate; it cannot be separated. If the dancer is dead, then the dance is dead. Dance is not separate from the dancer; the dance cannot exist without the dancer. And the dancer cannot exist without the dance either because the moment there is no dance, the person may be there, but he is not a dancer.

God’s relation to the world, for the Upanishads, is that of dance and the dancer. Hence, we have pictured Shiva as Nataraj, the dancer. A very deep meaning is there – that this world is not something secondary that God has created, then forgotten about and become separate from. The world is not of a secondary order. It is as much of the first order as the divine himself because this world is just a dance, a leela, a play. It cannot be separated.

Calling Brahman That says all that is is Brahman, all that is, is he – the manifested and the unmanifested, the creation and the creator. He is both.

The word that – Tat – also has a very subtle meaning. Buddha has used that meaning very much and Buddhists have a separate school of teaching just based on this word. Buddha has called that suchness, he has called it tathata; hence Buddha’s name, Tathagata – the man who has achieved suchness, who has achieved That.

This word suchness is very beautiful. What does it mean? If you are born, Buddha will say, “Such is the case that you are born.” No other comment. If you die, he will say, “Such is the case – you die!” No other comment, no reaction to it; things are such. Then everything becomes acceptable. If you say, “Things are such that now I have become old, ill; things are such that I am defeated; things are such that I am victorious; things are such . . .” then you don’t claim anything, and you don’t feel frustrated because you don’t expect anything. Such is the nature of things. Then one who is born will die, one who is healthy will become ill, one who is young will become old, one who is beautiful will become ugly. Such is the nature of things.

Unnecessarily you get worried about it; this suchness is not going to change because of your worry. Unnecessarily you get involved in it; your involvement is not going to change anything. Things will go on moving in their own way. The suchness, the river of suchness, will go on moving in spite of you. Whatsoever you do makes no difference; whatsoever you think makes no difference. You cannot make any difference in the nature of things.

Once this feeling settles within your heart, then life has no frustration for you. Then life cannot frustrate you, then life cannot disappoint you. And with this feeling of suchness a subtle joy arises in your being. Then you can enjoy everything – you are no more, really. With the feeling that “Such is the nature, such is existence, such is the course of things,” your ego disappears.

How can your ego exist? It exists only when you think that you can make certain changes in the nature of things. It exists only when you think that you are a creator – you can change the course, you can manipulate nature. This very moment, when you think that you can manipulate nature, ego enters, you become egoistic. You start functioning and thinking as if you are separate.

Someone asked Rinzai, “What’s your sadhana – what’s your meditation?”

So he said, “No meditation. When I feel hungry, I feel hungry, and I go begging. When I feel sleepy, I fall asleep. When sleep is gone and I feel awake, I am awake. I have no other sadhana – no other meditation, no other practice. I move with things as they are. When it is hot, I move into the shadow of a tree; the very nature moves towards shadow. When it becomes cold under the shadow of a tree, I move under the sun – but I am not doing anything. Such is the nature of things.”

Look at the beauty: he says, “Such is the nature of things. When feeling hungry, I go begging – not that I go begging . . . such is the nature of things. The hunger goes begging. Not that I move from the hot sun towards the shadow of a tree – such is the nature of things. The body moves and I allow it all to happen, and I am happy because I allow everything to happen. Nothing can make me miserable.”

Misery enters into you because you start interfering, you become resistant. You don’t allow the suchness to move; you start creating blocks for it. You want to change the course of things, then misery enters.

Someone gives you respect, honors you – you feel elated. You think something very great is within you and now it is being appreciated. It was always there – that was your feeling – but now people have become recognizant, now people have become more understanding so they can recognize the greatness of your being. But then dishonor follows . . . and such is the nature of things, that dishonor follows honor, it is the shadow of it. It is just the other part, the other aspect of the same coin. And when it follows you feel dejected, you feel depressed, you feel like committing suicide. The whole world has gone wrong around you; the whole world has become inimical to you.

The person who understands the nature of things will enjoy both. He will say, “Such is the nature of things, that people honor me. And such is the nature of things, that dishonor follows honor, defeat follows victory, happiness is followed by unhappiness, health is followed by disease – such is the nature of things! Youth is followed by old age and birth is followed by death – such is the nature of things!”

So whatsoever is the case, if you can feel it is so and nothing else is possible, then that which is possible happens. It is always happening – that which is possible. And that which is impossible is never happening. And if you start asking for the impossible, you are trying to move against the nature of things. The philosophy of suchness or that, thatness, is simply this statement: “Do not try for the impossible; move with the possible and you will never be unhappy.” Bliss happens to those who can move with a feeling of suchness.

Buddha became old and his followers thought, “Buddha should not become old. A buddha becoming old?” The followers could not conceive of this because followers have their own fantasies. They think Buddha is not part of the nature of things. They think he must not die, that he must always remain young. So Ananda said to Buddha, “It is very depressing that now old age is settling upon you. We never imagined that you, one who has become awakened, one who has realized the ultimate, should become old.”

Buddha said, “Such is the nature of things. For everyone, whether a buddha or non-buddha, enlightened or ignorant, the nature of things is the same – equal. I will become old and I will die, because whosoever is born will die. Such is the nature of things.” Ananda is unhappy; Buddha is not. Ananda is unhappy because he is expecting something impossible, against the nature of things.

When Shri Aurobindo died, the whole ashram of Shri Aurobindo was not ready to accept the fact that Aurobindo could die. They couldn’t believe it. The followers all over the world were surprised that Shri Aurobindo could die. For a few months this was the rumor – that he will resurrect again. And for a few days they tried to preserve the body. This was the rumor around the circle of his followers – that he is in deep samadhi, in deep meditation, and he has not died. But after three days, the body started deteriorating and a bad smell started coming out of it. He was really dead. Such is the nature of things.

Nature is a great equalizer; it makes no distinctions. And it is good that it doesn’t make any distinctions. It is not partial. If you are awakened, the only change will be this – that you will accept this suchness. If you are ignorant, the only difference will be this – that you will go on resisting, fighting with the suchness. This is the only difference – the only, I say. And this difference is great, the greatest, because the moment you realize that things move in their own way, that nature has its own law, its own order, you are freed from it. Not that it will change its laws for you, but that you will have changed, your attitude will have changed. You will say, “Such is the nature of things.”

Brahman is the ultimate nature of things, the very suchness. With this comes total acceptance. In total acceptance, suffering disappears. Suffering is your resistance, suffering is your nonacceptance. You create your own suffering. Bliss is always available but because of your attitudes you are not available to it. Now we will enter the sutra.

Brahman is well known by the name Tatvanam – that – so it is to be meditated upon as Tatvanam – that. All beings love him who know Brahman as such.

Brahman is well known by the name that – Tat – so it is to be meditated upon as Tat – as that. Do not meditate upon him as a person. Then your imagination will have entered. There is no person there. Do not meditate upon him as sagun – with attributes. That is not the teaching of the Upanishads. Do not conceive of him in some form. Just remember him as that.

But this is very difficult. How do you remember him as that? You can remember him as Krishna, as Rama, as Christ, as Buddha, but how can you remember him as that? The very concept of ‘that’ shatters your mind. It will stop. If you remember him as that, as the suchness of things, as this great cosmos – and all is implied in it – your mind will stop through shock. You cannot think about that – or can you? You can think about Krishna because you can picture, you can imagine, that he is playing on his flute or he is dancing and his girlfriends, gopis, are dancing around him – or can you picture him making love to Radha?

You can picture him but how to picture ‘that’? There is no flute, there are no girlfriends, there is no dance. There is nothing to be pictured. How can you imagine that? Imagination stops. If you really try to conceive of that, through that very effort mind will stop and you will enter meditation. This that is just like a Zen koan. That which cannot be conceived – if you try to conceive of it your mind will stop and stopping of the mind is meditation.

The very effort to meditate on that is absurd. You cannot meditate upon that: there is nothing to meditate upon; there is no object. That is not an object. But if you try hard, in the very effort . . . because you cannot meditate upon it . . . Not that you will succeed in meditating upon that – in the very effort, in the very failure that you cannot think about it, thinking will stop . . . Because thinking has no goal it cannot move with that and when thinking stops you are in meditation.

It is not that Tat, the Brahman, will appear before you; it is not that you will come to know and realize the truth in front of you – no! The moment your thinking has stopped, you have become that, you have fallen into it. The wave has disappeared into the ocean. And this disappearing always happens within because you fall from there. The wave disappears in the ocean. You are that. Meditating upon that, you will become that.

The Upanishads go on saying that one who knows the Brahman becomes the Brahman; one who meditates upon him becomes him: he becomes that.

Brahman is well known by the name that, so it is to be meditated upon as that. All beings love him who know Brahman as such.

And the person who comes to know Brahman as that, as the suchness of existence, all beings naturally fall in love with him.

Why does this happen? You suddenly feel love arising within your heart and flowing toward the person who has come to attain suchness. Why does it happen? It is not that it is necessarily so; you can even hate such a person because hate is a form of love. But you cannot be indifferent to such a person, that is the point. If such a person is there, either you can love him or hate him, but you cannot be indifferent. Hate is possible because hate is the opposite form, the reverse, of love. It is just love doing shirshasan – standing on its head. But you cannot be indifferent.

Why does love happen? Why does hate happen? And why is indifference not possible? Because the very being of such a person touches your heart deeply. It goes on playing on your heart; your heart becomes a musical instrument. Just the presence of such a person stirs something within you. The very presence of such a person makes your own ‘that’ alive. It becomes a magnetic force, and your own sleeping Brahman feels its sleep disturbed. Your own sleeping Brahman opens his eyes and looks at this awakened Brahman and a love or hate happens.

If you are receptive, surrendering, trusting, then love will happen. If you are doubtful, skeptical, non-surrendering, egoistic, then hate will happen. But indifference is impossible. You cannot conceive of Buddha moving in a town and someone being indifferent. Either love or hate is bound to happen. But both are relationships; you will start being related.

Love says, “I am ready to move with you.” Hate says, “Do not pull me. I am not ready to surrender; I will resist.” Love says, “I am ready to follow you and fall with you.” Hate says, “I cannot surrender my ego. And just because I cannot surrender my ego I will hate you, because the moment I love the surrender will happen.” And sometimes it happens that when you are in love with a person you may not be so deeply related as when you hate him.

There is one anecdote I have heard: one rishi got angry with someone. He was so angry that he cursed the man. The curse was terrible, and this man would have to be born again and again and suffer. The man fell down at the feet of that rishi and asked forgiveness. But a curse cannot be reversed. The rishi said, “Now nothing can be done to reverse the curse. You will have to pass through it. Only one thing can be done. If you remember God’s name, then the curse will not have such a terrific effect upon you. You will remain detached; you will not suffer so much. But you will have to pass through suffering.”

So the man asked, “Tell me the secret of remembering the name so that I may not forget it.”

Then the rishi said, “Then hate God. Do not love – because love can forget, but hate cannot. Hate God, and go on cursing and cursing him, swearing against him. Just by cursing him you will remember him.”

Love may forget; hate cannot forget. Love can forget because love, by and by, becomes one with the object of love. Hate is a constant vigilance; you have to protect yourself. The pull is there – a buddha is pulling you – you have to struggle. If you lose for a single moment, if you are forgetful for a single moment, you will be in the current. So you have to be constantly alert. Hate is just a love relationship in the reverse order.

A person who happens to be enlightened will attract you – either your love or your hate. But one thing is certain: you cannot be indifferent to him, because he has gone so deep that his depth will resonate within you, will resound, reflect. His depth will call your depth. He will become an invocation. It is not that he will do something: just his being, just his very being, will do something – no effort on his part.

Just looking at a flower, you say, “Beautiful!” Something has happened within you. It is not that the flower has done anything; the flower is completely unaware that you are passing. But you say, “Beautiful!” When your heart says that something is beautiful, something has happened within your heart; the flower has touched you deep down. You see the full moon in the night and suddenly you become silent. The depth, the beauty, the grace, has touched you.

Similar is the case here: when a person who has achieved Brahman, who is enlightened, touches you, it is deeper than any flower can touch. It is deeper than any full moon can touch, it is deeper than anything in the world can touch you because the feeling of Brahman is the deepest, the ultimate core, the very ground. Just by being near such a person you are changed.

Hence so much insistence in India just to be near the master – just to be near the master! The very nearness goes on changing you because the depth calls your depth, the inner silence calls your inner silence, the bliss invokes your bliss. The very presence of a master is seductive. He goes on changing you, transforming you.

“Sir, teach me the Upanishad.”

Now speaks the disciple. Up to now the master was speaking, and now the disciple asks the first and the last question – the only question. This is beautiful . . . because he was simply waiting. You must not have even been aware that there was a disciple. Only the master was speaking, as if the disciple was not. He must have been just ears and eyes; he has not interrupted at all. Now, in the last moment, he asks for something:

“Sir, teach me the Upanishad.”

The word upanishad means the esoteric teaching, the hidden teaching, the secret teaching. Upanishad means the secret path, the secret key – the esoteric, the hidden, the unknown. Upanishad means the mystery. Asks the disciple: “Sir, teach me the Upanishad.”

And the master says,

“The Upanishad has been imparted to you. We have verily imparted to you the Upanishad relating to Brahman.”

Here there is a very subtle and delicate point to be understood. The master has been teaching, talking, and the disciple must have been intensely, intellectually alert, aware, to understand whatsoever was said. And all that can be said has been said. All the knowledge relating to Brahman has been imparted. All that can be verbalized, all that can be spoken has been spoken.

And the student asks, the disciple asks, “Now teach me the Upanishad, the secret of secrets. What is the meaning of it?”

And the master says, “The Upanishad has already been imparted to you.” The master is talking – this is on one level – and while the disciple is engaged in listening, on another level the secret is being imparted.

That is why the disciple is not aware: he is intellectually engaged. His attention is on the words but deep down something else is being transferred. And that transfer is the secret: that is the real Upanishad. But that cannot be said. It is a transfer without words, a communication without language.

Bodhidharma, one of the greatest masters India has ever produced, went to China. It is said about him that he came to China with a scripture that didn’t exist – with a scripture that didn’t exist! He transferred the scripture without transferring anything at all. He must have been a past master in communicating things, silently, without words.

He used to sit looking at the wall; he would never look at his audience. Just his back would be toward you. He would never look at you; he would just look at the wall. And many people would ask Bodhidharma, “What type of way is this? What type of manners? What type of man are you? We have never seen anyone looking at the wall and we have come to listen to you.” Bodhidharma used to say, “When the right man comes, I will turn toward him. And the right man is one who can understand me in silence. I am not interested in you at all.”

And then one day a right man came, and that right man said to Bodhidharma, “Turn toward me; otherwise, I will cut off my head.”

So Bodhidharma turned immediately and said, “So you have come? Now sit in silence and I will impart.”

Not a single word was uttered in imparting and the other was made a master. And Bodhidharma disappeared. He had said, “I was waiting for this man for nine years.” And the other became a master but not a single word was used.

There are layers in your being. The uppermost layer, the most superficial, understands language, and the deepest understands silence. And masters have to create devices. These teachings, verbal teachings, are just devices. I have just been talking to you . . .

One young man came to me just the other day and he said, “You are very contradictory. You go on saying nothing can be said and you go on talking every day continuously for three hours in the morning and in the evening. You are very contradictory. You say nothing can be said about that and yet you go on saying.”

He is right, I am contradictory. Nothing can be said about that, and still I go on saying something. This something is just to catch your attention on one level so that on another level something can penetrate in silence.

The master says, “The Upanishad has already been imparted to you, and you are saying, ‘Teach me, sir, the Upanishad.’ And what have I been doing all the time?” But the disciple was engaged intellectually. He is not yet aware what has happened to him. The news has not yet reached to his intellect. It will take time.

So it happens. While you are here you may not have understood me but that doesn’t make any difference. If there has been a contact in silence, it will take time for you to realize that something has happened within. The news will take time because intellect is very far away from the deepest center of you. If something happens there, you will not become aware. Rather, I will become aware first. So I go on looking at you while you are meditating, just to feel what is happening – because you are not yet able to feel what is happening. It will take time. The message will come one day; it will travel; it will pass through all the centers and layers. And then it will come to your mind and then you will recognize – but it may take years.

Someone very near to me was saying just the other day, “You have not done anything for me, and I have been with you for two years.” The news has not yet reached. It will take time.

The master says:

“The Upanishad has been imparted to you. We have verily imparted to you the Upanishad relating to Brahman.”

Of the Upanishad, tapas – austerities; daman – self-restraint; and karma – dedicated work; form the support. The Vedas are its limbs and truth its abode.

In short, the master defines what the Upanishad calls tapas. Tapas means effort – intense effort. When you bring your total energy to any effort it becomes tapas – any effort! If your total energy is brought to it, it becomes tapas.

While doing meditation, if you withhold yourself it is not tapas. You are just making an effort which is so-so, on the surface. You are not deep in it, not moving in it totally. When you move in it totally, it creates heat; hence, the name tapas. Tapas means heat. When you move totally in any effort, it creates heat within you. Exactly that: it creates heat, and that heat changes many things chemically. You become a different being. You become a different person through tapas because that heat changes you chemically. It makes a different type of personality for you.

Gurdjieff used methods of tapas very much in this age. He would give some method to you, and he would say, “Bring your total effort to it. Not a single fragment should be left behind to watch it. Bring yourself totally in it, become the effort.” And you may be surprised that any effort . . .

Gurdjieff would say to someone, “Go into the garden and dig a hole and bring total effort into the digging. Forget the digger completely; become the digging.” And the man would go, and he would dig and he would dig. The whole day he would have been digging. Then Gurdjieff would come and throw all the mud back and he would say, “This was useless. Start again tomorrow morning.”

And the man would start again the next morning and this would go on for days and days. And he would come every evening and he would throw the mud back, and he would say, “Start again.”

When the digger becomes the digging, when there is no one left behind, when the whole being has moved into effort, it becomes tapas; it becomes a subtle heat.

The master says tapas and daman. Daman is self-restraint, not suppression. This word daman has been very wrongly used. It is not suppression; it is self-restraint. And there is a deep difference.

While doing meditation, while standing in silence, you may feel a sneeze coming. You can suppress it, you can start fighting with it, then it is suppression. But if you simply remain indifferent, if you do not do anything about it, if you do not suppress and you do not express, if you do not do anything about it and you simply remain indifferent, this is self-restraint. You remain in yourself. You don’t move towards the sneeze to do anything.

If you move to express it, you have come out of yourself. If you move to suppress it, again you have come out of yourself. You simply remain in yourself as if the sneeze is happening to someone else – you are not concerned. You don’t suppress it, you don’t fight with it. You simply remain indifferent, a witness. That is self-restraint.

Suppression is easy because you are allowed to do something. Self-restraint is very difficult because you are not allowed to do anything. You are to remain passive, a non-doer, non-active, simply watching.

. . . Tapas, daman and karma – dedicated work – form the support. These three things form the support of the secret teaching of the Upanishad. Dedicated work – all karma, all action, is not karma. When a karma is dedicated; when a karma is egoless; when a karma becomes a sort of prayer, a meditation; when a karma is only outwardly a karma and inwardly something else is reaching toward the divine; then it is karma – then it is dedicated work.

For example, you are serving an old man or an ill man. If you can make it a meditation, if you can make it a prayer; if you can see the divine, ‘that’, in that old, ill man; if you serve not to achieve anything, you serve to be in deep meditation – in this moment your service becomes meditation. Then it becomes karma. If you want to achieve anything out of it, it will create a chain of cause and effect.

If you want this old man – he may even be your father – to have property, a bank balance, if your eyes are on the bank balance, then it is not karma. But the bank balance can be there in many shapes: you may be serving this old man to achieve heaven; that again is a bank balance. You may be serving this old man because you have been taught that service leads to God; then again it is a sort of bank balance. You are not here. Your mind is somewhere else.

When karma is totally here and now, when your mind is not moving anywhere else into the future, then it doesn’t create any chain. In this very moment it becomes a meditation.

These three – tapas – austerities; daman – self-restraint; and karma – dedicated work; form the support. The Vedas are its limbs.

Veda is a beautiful word: it simply means knowledge. Whatsoever has been known about the Brahman, wherever, it is all Vedas. So I call the Bible a Veda and I call the Koran a Veda; to me there are thousands and thousands of Vedas. And whenever a person becomes enlightened, whatsoever he says is a Veda. So the Vedas are not only four. The word Veda comes from vid; vid means to know. And wherever this knowing is accumulated, wherever this knowing is symbolized, it becomes a Veda.

The Vedas are its limbs and truth its abode.

These three things have to be remembered: make intense effort so that an inner heat is born and changes you chemically; be in a self-restraint so that you become more self-centered, unmoving, unwavering, centered, rooted; and make your work a karma – a dedicated prayer, a meditation. Try to know all that has been known before. Not that through it you will come to truth but all that will become a help. It can also become a barrier if you become too much attached to it. Otherwise, it will be a help, an indicator.

Ultimately truth is the abode – and truth means that. And that comes to you when you live a life of suchness.

One who realizes it – knowledge of Brahman – thus destroys sin and is well established in Brahman, the infinite, the blissful and the highest.

-Osho

From The Supreme Doctrine, Discourse #16

Copyright © OSHO International Foundation

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Here Ends this Upanishad – Osho

By listening to these above teachings, the disciple attained knowledge and he exclaimed, “Whither has that world gone? Whither has gone that world I have just seen? Who did it take away? And in what way has it dissolved? Is it not immensely astonishing that it is not?

What have I now to renounce in this great oceanlike brahman, which is whole and full of a nectar of bliss? What is the other? What is more unique? Here, I do not even see anything. I do not even hear anything, and I do not even know anything, because I am the ever-blissful self.

I am unique.
I can be compared to none.
I can be compared only to myself.
I am absolutely alone, without body.
I cannot be indicated.
No symbol can represent me.
I am the supreme god Hari.
I am immeasurably silent.
I am the infinite, absolute, and the most ancient.
I am not the doer.
I am not the one who indulges.
I am without growth.
I am the imperishable.
I am already pure and knowledge itself.
I am the Sadashiv, the eternally good.”

This knowledge was transmitted by the guru to his disciple, Apantaram, who in his turn transmitted it to Brahma. Brahma gave it to Ghora Angirasa, and the latter to Raikwa. Raikwa gave it to Rama, and Rama gave it to all of humanity.

This is the teaching of nirvana, of knowledge, Veda. It is ordained by the Veda itself.

Here ends this Upanishad.

-Adhyatma Upanishad

By listening to these above teachings, the disciple attained knowledge and he exclaimed, “Whither has that world gone? Whither has gone that world I have just seen? Who did it take away? And in what way has it dissolved? Is it not immensely astonishing that it is not?

This is a very unique happening. The teacher was saying that this world is just a dream, and unless this dream ceases, the world of reality, the world of truth cannot be attained. “Cease dreaming and enter the world of reality,” he was teaching. And he would never have imagined that just by listening to this, the disciple attained to knowledge. How can it happen? It is not happening to us. We have heard it also; it has not happened to us. Why? And why could this happen to that disciple? What is the difference? You are listening, but that listening is not of the heart.

You are listening, but that listening is not total.

You are listening, but you go on standing outside.

Only the mechanical part of your ears hears it. Or at the most, the mechanical part of your mind thinks about it, but the heart remains untouched. You go on protecting your heart from the teaching. You are afraid that if this teaching goes deep into your heart, you will not be the same again. And then you will be thrown into insecurity; you will be thrown into the unknown – and everyone is afraid of the unknown. That fear becomes a barrier.

Unless you are ready to go into the unknown, to move into the unchartered, to move in a world where you do not know anything . . . insecurity will be there, you will be vulnerable; danger will be there, even death. Unless you are ready to take a jump into the unknown, this teaching cannot become a deep happening for you.

But to this disciple it happened. He heard it; he must have heard it through his heart. He must have heard it through his total being; he must have become one while the teaching was being delivered. The teacher and the taught must have felt a deep communion. The teacher must have gone deep into the disciple’s heart through his teaching.

The disciple was ready and receptive. He never doubted; he simply believed – there was no question.

The whole Upanishad is without a question, there is no question, no questioning at all. The disciple remains completely silent through the whole discourse. Only in the end do we suddenly become aware that there has been a disciple present. The teacher was talking, the teacher was giving his message, but we were never aware that a disciple was there. Suddenly we become aware in this last part of the Upanishad, when the disciple says, “Whither has gone that world I have just seen? Where is that world? When I came to you, there was a world around me. Now I look and there is no world to be found. Where has it gone? It is immensely astonishing. You were teaching me that the world is not, and now I see that it is not!”

What has happened to the disciple? Now he is looking from a new standpoint; now he is looking from a deeper center. Now he is looking really, from his being. When you look from your being, the world of becoming disappears like a dream.

That’s how I started this commentary on the Upanishad. When we live on the circumference, then the world is real. When we move towards the center, the world becomes more and more unreal. When you stand at your center, when you are centered in yourself, the world completely disappears. What have I now to renounce in this great oceanlike brahman, which is whole and full of nectar of bliss? What is the other? What is more unique?

The disciple is just shocked – what has happened to the world? When for the first time one explodes into that realm of the divine, the first thing is a shock – the world disappears.

And when the world disappears suddenly, you cannot face, you cannot see the other world that arises. The curtain falls, the barriers fall, but your mind has been always attuned to this world of ignorance, of dream. When this dissolves suddenly, you cannot become aware of the other world that is now before you.

Your eyes will need a new attunement; your consciousness will need a new way of looking. Now you will need a new dimension, a new opening in you. Only then you will feel that although the world has disappeared, a new existence has come up and has appeared: Here, I do not even see anything. I do not even hear anything, and I do not even know anything . . .

All old knowledge has become futile. All old ways of seeing have become futile. All the senses have become futile, because they were meaningful only when the world was there – but the world of senses has disappeared, senses have become useless: “I cannot see, I cannot hear, I do not know; because all my knowledge was concerned with the world.”

Whatsoever you know is concerned with the world If the world disappears, what will be the difference between a learned man and one who is ignorant? What will be the difference? No difference – if the world disappears, then the learned will be just like any ignorant man, because all your learning is concerned with the world. So the disciple says: I do not even know anything . . . only this much I know: I am the ever-blissful self . . . unique. I can be compared to none. I can be compared only to myself . . . I am like myself; only this much I know.

The knowledge of a Mahavira, the knowledge of a Buddha, or a Jesus, or a Krishna, is not the knowledge of a learned man. They do not know anything about the world; they know only about their own selves.

Mahavira has said that if you can know your own self, you have known all; and if you know everything except yourself, you know nothing.

They know about their own central force, energy, life. They know about their own inner being, and they do not know anything about the world, because the whole world has disappeared. They know only one thing, that I am the ever-blissful self.

When you know about the world, you know many, many anxieties, you know anguish, you know tensions, you know misery. When you know many things about the world, the misery goes on growing with your knowledge. The more you know, the more miserable you are. We can observe this all over the world. Now, for the first time, we have gathered great knowledge – not only have we gathered, we have dispersed it to everyone through universal teaching, education. And now every man is miserable, and the misery keeps growing. On the one hand, knowledge grows, on the other hand, misery grows.

What is happening? This seems quite inconceivable, because if with knowledge misery grows, then for what is this knowledge? Knowledge of the without goes deeper and deeper, but then misery also goes deeper and deeper.

There is another knowledge also, that this Upanishad is talking about – the knowledge of the inner self. With the knowledge of the inner self, blissfulness grows. So this is just an indication: if you are becoming more and more blissful, know that you are growing in inner knowledge. If you are becoming more and more miserable, know that you are growing in outer knowledge.

The biblical story is beautiful:

Adam was expelled from Eden because he disobeyed God. And what was the disobedience? The disobedience was this: God has forbidden Adam and Eve . . . he has said to them that they are not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. In the Garden of Eden in heaven, there was a tree, the tree of knowledge, and God has forbidden Adam and Eve to touch that tree, to eat the fruit of that tree. But because of this, Adam and Eve must have become attracted to the tree.

The garden was big and there was only one tree of knowledge. But because of this order, they rebelled. And when they ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge they were expelled from Eden.

This story is beautiful. They were expelled because of knowledge, and man is continuously being expelled from Eden because of knowledge. The more you know, the more heaven becomes just impossible, and hell the only possibility. But there is another tree also in the Garden of Eden. It is not mentioned in The Bible, but I will tell you about it. That tree is the tree of inner knowledge, and unless you eat the fruit of that tree you can never enter again into heaven.

There are two types of knowledge: knowledge of things and knowledge of self. The devil tempted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree of knowledge – and the Upanishads tempt you to eat the fruit of the other tree of knowledge. Unless you enter yourself, and eat the fruit of inner knowledge, you cannot be redeemed; you cannot be liberated, you cannot become free. And you can never be blissful.

I am absolutely alone, without body.
I cannot be indicated.
No symbol can represent me.
I am the supreme god Hari.
I am immeasurably silent.
I am the infinite, absolute, and the most ancient.
I am not the doer.
I am not the one who indulges.
I am without growth.
I am the imperishable.
I am already pure and knowledge itself.
I am the Sadashiv, the eternally good.

The disciple tells his teacher his own experience now. The teacher was telling the disciple his experience; the disciple is not saying, “I am convinced now that whatsoever you say is true,” or “I am convinced a little bit, and later on I will think more about it”; nor “Whatsoever you say must be true, because you are a reliable man.” No, he simply tells his own experience. He has not even mentioned it, that “Whatsoever you have taught me is true.” No reference is made to the teaching at all. He simply says, “Now this is my experience: I am the divine, I am Hari. I am immeasurably silent. I am absolute, infinite.” He has attained to experience. This is not a conversion, intellectual; it is a transformation.

This knowledge was transmitted by the guru to his disciple, Apantaram, who in his turn transmitted it to Brahma. Brahma gave it to Ghora Angirasa, and the latter to Raikwa. Raikwa gave it to Rama, and Rama gave it to all of humanity. This is the teaching of nirvan, of knowledge, of the Veda. It is ordained by the Veda itself.

Here ends this Upanishad.

This last paragraph, last sutra, has to be understood:

Knowledge of the absolute is eternal.

It is never new, never old.

It is not a growing body of knowledge.

Science grows; religion is eternal.

Science goes on growing, increasing. No scientific truth is absolute; it is relative. And no scientific truth can be called really a truth, because it is always more or less approximate. Time will change it, time always changes it. Whatsoever Newton said is no longer true; even what Einstein said is now doubtful.

Time changes science, but time never changes religion. Why? – because the religious experience is attained only when you enter a timeless moment. When you enter in yourself and time stops completely – no flow of time is there . . . no past, no present, no future; time stops completely – you are here and now. Only this moment remains, and this moment becomes eternal. In timelessness, religious experience is attained; that’s why time never alters it.

This sutra says that whatsoever is taught in this Upanishad is not something new, it is not original. Our modern world is too obsessed with originality. People go on saying, and trying, and proving that whatsoever is said is original. Particularly in the West, every thinker tries to prove that he is original, that whatsoever he is saying, no one has ever said before. Unless a theory can be proved original it is never appreciated in the West. If someone else has already said it then what is the use? Then what are you doing wasting your time? So everyone tries to be original.

But originality is impossible as far as religion is concerned. As far as science is concerned, originality is possible. In science there are old truths dying, new truths being born. Science is relative, growing. But in religion there can be nothing original. In religion everything is eternal. Whatsoever a buddha says will be said always by anyone who becomes enlightened, who becomes a buddha. Language may differ, terminology may be different, but the experience can never be different.

So in the old India, in the East, it was a tradition always: whenever someone would say something, he would say, “I am not the originator of it. I have also attained to it, but before me it was given by A to B, by B to C, by C to D – it is an eternal message.” When one thinks and says, “I am original,” this is an egoistic standpoint. The ego always tries to be original; only then it feels strengthened. But these teachings are not ego teachings, ego oriented; they are egoless teachings. Those who had attained to egolessness have said them. That’s why this sutra:

This knowledge was transmitted by the guru to his disciple, Apantaram, who in his turn transmitted it to Brahma. Brahma gave it to Ghora Angirasa, and the latter to Raikwa. Raikwa gave it to Rama, and Rama gave it to all of humanity.

Here ends this Upanishad.

The scripture ends here but not the journey. For you, really, now begins the journey. The Upanishad ends, your journey begins.

-Osho

From That Art Thou, Discourse #51.

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