Nirvana

Upanishad
Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh
Chapter 3 : Only Knowing Remains

The sage says:

The paramhansa’s system is untouchable,
unimpressionable and indifferent, like the sky;
his consciousness is like a river flowing with waves of
nectar.
Inexhaustible, imperishable is his self-nature.
He is beyond doubt, devoid of all uncertainty.
Nirvana is his only aim.
He is free of all tension.
In this state, only knowing remains.
Rising is his only path.

The sage begins this sutra by indicating the characteristics of the

paramhansa. He says:

The paramhansa’s system is untouchable, unimpressionable and

indifferent, like the sky...

In this existence, nothing is unimpressionable except the sky.

Here, everything is impressionable: only the sky always remains
unimpressionable. It will be good to understand this; then the
unimpressionable state of a paramhansa, a siddha, can be
perceived.
Everything is in the sky. There is birth and then there is death,
there is existence and then disappearance - the sky does not even
notice. All colors manifest in the sky but the sky itself remains
uncolored. Darkness comes, the morning follows and the light
comes, but the sky does not attach itself to the darkness or to the
light. The sky remains untouched by all that happens; events leave
no imprint on the sky. Hence, there is no better example of
unimpressionability than the sky.
Sky means space, empty space. You are sitting here, and all
around is the sky. Even within you is sky. A seed is sprouting: it is
being born within the sky; it will become a tree within the sky;
tomorrow it will become old, it will wither, will fall down in the sky. It
will disappear in the sky but no trace of it will be left on the sky. The
sky will never know of this. If you draw a line on water with your
finger, it will disappear immediately. If you draw a line on stone, it
will remain there. If you draw a line in the sky, it will not even take
form; nothing imprints itself on the sky.
Hence the sage is saying, “Those who are paramhansas, their
system is unimpressionable like the sky."
If the system is unimpressionable like the sky, then it cannot
become a doctrine, an opinion, because where there is a doctrine
a line is drawn. When thoughts gather over the consciousness like
clouds in the sky and consciousness catches hold of thoughts, then
they become a doctrine, a creed, an opinion. When the clouds go
away the sky remains spotlessly clean, utterly void. In the same
way when there is pure consciousness, whatsoever remains is the
system of the paramhansa.
Here, the word system is not used in the sense that you use the
word. What you mean by the word system is a doctrine, an
ideology. One man says, “My system is Jaina,” another man says,
“My system is Buddhist," while yet another man says, “My system
is Hindu"; but a system cannot be Hindu or Buddhist or Jaina,
because then the very sky has been divided. An impression has
been left on the sky, the sky has taken on adjectives.
No, system means something which comes as a conclusion at
the very end, that which gets proved in the ultimate analysis. When
life reaches peak experiences, what gets proved there, what is
seen there, is the system that we are calling “the unimpressionable
sky"
Hence a sage does not belong to any particular religion. All
religions are born from the sages but the sage himself does not
belong to any particular religion. Neither is Jesus a Christian nor is
Mohammed a Mohammedan nor is Krishna a Hindu nor is
Mahavira a Jaina. The interesting thing is that the Jaina ideology is
derived from Mahavira; the Mohammedan ideology is derived from
Mohammed, but Mohammed is not a Mohammedan - he cannot
be.
Why does this tragedy happen? The sage himself is like the sky,
without any demands, without any fanatical thinking or doctrines.
The sage has only his perceptions. What is, is seen by him, but
when he begins to speak of it in words, what was seen becomes
limited by the words - it shrinks. Then when we, who have no
experience whatsoever of truth, hear those words, we understand
something quite different. What the sage knows is one thing, what
he says is something else, and when we hear it, it becomes a third
thing. When such a thing travels over a period of thousands of
years, it is so far away from the truth that it ceases to be truth; it
becomes untruth. Thus, what is known as Jaina doctrine now is as
far from truth as it is from Mahavira. In the same way, Islam is far
from Mohammed, and Christianity from Jesus. This is bound to
happen.
The sage perceives the truth directly and becomes one with it.
There is no curtain between him and the truth. But when he begins
to describe that truth, curtains of words begin to arise. That is why
many sages have remained silent because by speaking nothing
can be achieved. Neither can truth be told in words, nor can it be
told in silence. There is the fear that in saying it a mistake will be
made; there is no such fear of a mistake in not saying it. But there
is one hope in telling it: perhaps the one who hears may not
misunderstand. In not saying anything at all, there can be no such
hope. If the truth is told to a thousand people, there is the possibility
that one person may understand. In the hope of that one person
understanding the truth rightly, the truth is shared. The remaining
nine hundred and ninety-nine persons may not understand, or may
even misunderstand, but if nothing is told not only will one thousand
persons not understand, but that one person will be denied the
opportunity of understanding.
 When Buddha became enlightened he felt there was no way of
telling what he had known, so he remained silent. For seven days
he was silent. There is an anecdote about this incident.
When the gods came to know of Buddha’s silence they went to
his feet and said, “Tell what you have known, because a person
like you is born on this earth only after thousands of years. An
opportunity for the blind to learn about light and for the deaf to be
filled with celestial music is rare. The lame will begin to walk and
the dead will rise from their graves in the hope of life. We beseech
you: speak!”
Buddha replied, “What I have known cannot be told. Those who
will understand by my speaking can understand even without my
speaking. Those who are ready and who deserve to understand
will understand even without my speaking. Those who cannot
understand without my speaking will not understand even if I
speak. So what is the harm in my remaining silent?”
Hearing this, the gods became very anxious. They talked among
themselves for a long time. Then again they asked, “But there are
a few people who are just on the border; if you speak they will take
a step and cross the line. Otherwise, they will remain where they
are. There are people who will understand even without your
saying it and there are people who will understand you wrongly if
you speak. But between these two, there is another category of
people, on the borderline, who will cross the river if you speak but
who otherwise will remain on the bank."
When water is heated to ninety-nine degrees centigrade, even
the heat of your hand can turn it into steam. Water that has reached
one hundred degrees centigrade will become steam even without
your help. Water that is in the form of ice will only cool your hand,
it cannot become steam: but water that is at ninety-nine point nine
degrees needs your help.
Buddha decided to speak for those people who were just on the
border. The sage also speaks for those people who are in the
middle, on the border.
The sages have spoken the truth, they have not just expressed
an opinion. They have told only that which is the greatest mystery
of life. These are not the thoughts but the experiences of the sages.
It will be good to understand the difference between a thought and
an experience.
We think about those things which we do not know anything
about. If someone asks you what you think about God, you will give
some answer. You may say that you believe in God, or you may
say that you do not believe in God - but these answers are your
thoughts. Neither the one who believes in God nor the one who
does not believe in God knows what God is. Both are standing in
the same darkness, but with different names for their own type of
darkness. One who is awakened will not say whether he believes
in God or not: he will say that he knows what God is.
During the time of Napoleon, the great scientist Laplace wrote
five volumes about the workings of the universe - a unique effort,
to write about the whole universe! Napoleon went through all five
volumes. He was surprised to find that in such a big compilation of
facts about the whole universe, with thousands of pages, there was
no mention of God anywhere, not even to deny his existence.
Laplace had not even said that God does not exist.
Laplace said, "There is no need for me to use the hypothesis of
God to explain the universe.”
The chief advisor to Napoleon was sitting beside Laplace. He
also was a mathematician and a thinker. He said, “It might not be
necessary for you to use the hypothesis of God to explain the
universe, but the hypothesis is beautiful and it explains many
things.” He added, “The hypothesis is very useful, so I believe in
God.”
Napoleon then said, “I do not find any difference between the
two of you; both of you are talking about the hypothesis of God.
One believes in God and says it is necessary, the other does not
believe in God and says it is not necessary - but neither of you say
that you know that there is God or that there is no God.”
A hypothesis is useful; with its help it becomes easier to explain
certain things. Tomorrow, if we come across another hypothesis
that explains things in a better way, we can do away with the first
hypothesis. A hypothesis best explains a problem in the light of the
thinking that has evolved so far. Tomorrow, a better hypothesis
may be found. Therefore, science keeps on changing its
hypotheses as new facts come to light.
All thinking is hypothetical. You do not know what truth is, but
with the help of a hypothesis you try to explain many complex
things. Old hypotheses are replaced by new ones that explain
better.
Napoleon observed correctly; “You both agree on one thing - that
God is a hypothesis. One says it is useful, the other says it is not
useful, but the conflict is not very deep. Neither of you says
positively whether God is or is not.”
The sage does not say that the hypothesis of God is useful.
Neither does he say that there is a God. He says, “Whatsoever is,
its name is God.” He does not say that there is a God because if
he does, there will be someone who will say that there is no God.
We say, “There is a tree,” but tomorrow it may not be there. We
say, “There is a river,” but tomorrow it may not be there, tomorrow
it may dry up. We say, “There is youth,” but tomorrow youth will
turn into old age. We say, “There is beauty,” but tomorrow it may
turn into ugliness. Therefore, whatsoever is contains within itself
the possibility of not being.
The sage does not say that God exists; he says that whatsoever
is, its name is God. This is a completely different thing. It amounts
to saying: God means existence, God means isness, all that is, is
God. God is not a thing like all other things; God is the very
phenomenon of isness. Hence, the sages say that to say “God is,”
is a repetition because the very meaning of God is isness, the very
meaning of isness is God.
To utter, to express, such an ultimate system is very difficult.
God, existence, ultimate truth - it is not as difficult to know them as
it is to express them. Knowing is difficult, very difficult, but not as
difficult as the expression - for expression one has to depend on
words which have been created to express the imperfect, the part,
and not to express the perfect, the whole.
The wisdom of the sages is not opinions, “isms.” It is not
expressions of a hypothesis, it is their experience. These
experiences are unchangeable like the sky. There are no layers of
thought in them, they are like the cloudless sky.
When you look at the sky its color looks blue. You may think that
the sky is blue, but then you are making a mistake. The sky has no
color, although it appears to be blue. It appears to be blue because
there are layers of air extending for a few hundred miles; the rays
of the sun create this illusion when they enter this extensive layer
of air. When an astronaut goes beyond these two hundred miles,
he finds that the sky has no color, it is colorless. There is no color
in the sky but your eyes give color to it. Existence also has no color
but your thinking and your way of viewing it give it a color.
You see only that which you can see, not what actually is. But
the sage sees only that which is. If you want to see what is, you
must be free of eyes. This will appear very contradictory to you:
how can one see without eyes or hear without ears? But I am telling
you: if you want to see that which is, eyes are not necessary
because that medium creates the mischief. If you experiment with
this, you will be able to understand.
When Galileo first made a telescope with which faraway things,
very far away, could be made visible and nearby things could be
magnified hundreds of times, his contemporaries spread all sorts
of rumors. People began to claim that Galileo was doing some trick.
How could it be possible? - things are only as big as they are. If a
stone is three inches long, it has to be three inches long. How can
it appear to be one thousand inches long? If it appears to be so big
there must be some trick, some cheating somewhere. Whichever
stars are there can be seen with the naked eyes. If there are some
stars that are seen only through the telescope but cannot be seen
with the naked eye, there must be some deception. Many well-
known scholars and professors were not willing to look through
Galileo’s telescope; they said the telescope would trick them!
Those who gathered enough courage to look through the telescope
also claimed that there was some trick.
When magnified, a face that we call beautiful appears like an
uneven, hilly area. If a face is magnified, small pores appear like
big pits and trenches; the most beautiful woman appears through
binoculars like a mountainous landscape. This can be a very
frightening experience.
Now, binoculars and the telescope have both come to be
understood. Now, what is right? Is what the binoculars show right,
or is what our eyes see right? What is true: what the eyes see as
beautiful or what is seen through binoculars? The binoculars only
increase your range and capacity to see, but the face that is
presented through the binoculars is also true.
Now a new drug, LSD, has been discovered. If one takes LSD,
a woman who looked ugly before will begin to seem very beautiful.
When Huxley took LSD for the first time, an ordinary chair in front
of him looked so beautiful that even Laila would not have looked as
beautiful to Majnu. Huxley was surprised at the beautiful colors
emanating from the chair. The chair was so beautiful to him that he
remarked that if a great poet like Shakespeare or Kalidas wants to
write a poem, he should do it while sitting in front of that chair. The
chair was such an inspiration! After the effects of the LSD wore off,
the chair appeared as wooden as before. Which was right, what
was seen under the influence of LSD or what was seen when its
influence had disappeared?
The sage says that you may look either directly with your eyes
or through binoculars, but as long as you look through any medium,
what is seen is determined by the medium. If you want to see what
really is, there should be no medium.
In the last days of his life Mulla Nasruddin became the chief
minister of an emperor. Every few months he went to rest at a
bungalow he had built at a hill station. The emperor was surprised
because sometimes Nasruddin would come back within five days
when he had taken leave for twenty days, and sometimes he would
come back after twenty days when he had taken leave for only five
days! The emperor asked him, "What is the matter? Why do you
never return as you have planned in advance? How do you decide
when to return?”
Nasruddin replied, “Now that you have asked me, I will tell you
my method ”
The emperor said, “I hope it is not a secret.”
Nasruddin said, “Yes, it is a great secret. I have kept a
maidservant at the bungalow. She is seventy years old, none of her
teeth are left and one of her eyes is false. One of her feet is made
of wood. Her body is in such a condition that it should have died
long ago. When that woman begins to appear beautiful to me, I
come running back. It is a question of time. Sometimes this
happens after five days, sometimes after seven days, sometimes
after twenty days. I never know in advance how long it will take for
her to look beautiful,. But my measuring rod is this: as soon as she
starts looking beautiful to me, I know I have begun to lose my
senses and I decide to return.”
A type of LSD is manufactured within our bodies. It is not
necessary to take it from the outside; it is manufactured within. The
whole experience of sexual attraction is due to nothing else but
certain chemicals secreted by glands in our bodies. If certain
glands are surgically removed, no woman will appear beautiful to
you, no man will appear handsome. Between you and what you are
seeing, a layer of chemicals intervenes. It may be there because of
your taking LSD or it may be due to chemicals that are within your
body. Even within the body of man, hypnotic drugs are produced.
During youth, they bring about a sort of madness: something robs
you of awareness and you lose all self-control.
The sage says that whenever anything is seen through a
medium - whatever that medium may be - it will bring about a
change, a distortion. Only after the seer has given up all media, all
instruments of vision, can that system which is unaffected,
unchangeable like the sky, be seen. He does not use his ears to
listen or his eyes to see or his hands to touch.
With meditation, the day arrives when you can see without eyes
and hear without ears and touch without hands. Whatever is heard
without ears is described by the sages as “the soundless sound."
Whatever is seen without eyes is described by the sages as
“beyond the senses.” Whatever can be touched without hands the
sages have called “the formless." But before experiencing such
things one has to become clear, untouched like the sky. As soon
as the senses stop interfering, the inner sky of pure consciousness
becomes clear and merges with the limitless sky outside.
His soul is like a river flowing with waves of nectar.
The soul of the paramhansa is like a river of nectar, bubbling with
the current. This will be difficult for you to understand. It will be
easier if you begin from what you see daily - that everything is full
of misery and unhappiness, that everything is engulfed in the
flames of hell. There is no sign of nectar anywhere, only poison.
There is no happiness, only thorns of misery pricking you from all
sides; no flower of happiness has blossomed. This is why you
cannot conceive this statement about the paramhansa, that his
consciousness is like a river of nectar. You can find no way to
understand this.
You know only death, immortality is not known to you. You know
only misery, bliss you cannot understand. You know what sorrow
and pain are, you do not know what delight and gratitude are. All
your experiences are of hell - but something else is possible, the
opposite is possible.
In your very hell itself is hidden a hint of the existence of the
opposite. You experience unhappiness only because happiness is
hidden in your consciousness. If your consciousness contained
only unhappiness, you would never experience unhappiness; the
experience is always that of the opposite. Try to understand this.
Experience always contains its opposite. If I am experiencing
unhappiness, it means that there must be something within me
whose nature is not unhappiness. If my nature is just unhappiness,
then whatever unhappiness comes from the outside will just merge
with the inner unhappiness, and I will experience only a larger
degree of unhappiness. There will be no pain or anxiety. If all is
darkness and a little more darkness comes in, where is the
difficulty? If a little more poison gets mixed up with some poison,
the increase in the degree of how poisonous it is will not cause any
trouble. No, unhappiness is due to the existence of happiness. The
nature of what is hidden within you is supreme bliss, and that is
why a little unhappiness causes you great pain, like the pricking of
a thorn.
What is hidden within you is immortal, so however much you
may try to forget death, you cannot do it. Death surrounds you from
all sides. If death were
really hidden within you, you would not fear it. If you were death,
there would be a harmony, a kind of oneness, between you and
death. But within you there is life; that is why there is such a
continuous conflict.
You see people dying every day. The saints and priests go on
telling us, “Look! So many people are dying. You also will die.
Remember: your death is coming.” But inside you, no matter how
many people you may see dying, you never feel, "I too will die
someday.” Even when someone is lying dead in front of you, you
say, “Poor fellow, he died.” But the thought “I will also die” never
occurs to you. You may try to explain it to yourself again and again,
but you cannot understand it. Certain things are difficult for the
mind to understand.
Mulla Nasruddin was once sitting in a coffee house telling his
friends that there are certain things that cannot be believed, that
are impossible to believe. They asked, “Can you give an example?”
Mulla said, “Once I was passing by a road when it was dark. Two
people were standing near a gate, saying they had heard that Mulla
had died. I also heard it, but I could not believe it!"
You may be surprised to know that people who die painlessly
and silently need a few hours after death before they realize that
they have died. That is why we have devised the custom that
whenever someone dies, the whole household cries aloud,
weeping and beating their chests. Sad music is played and the
body is prepared to be taken to the burning grounds or the
cemetery. No time is wasted unnecessarily: the body is taken as
fast as possible to the burning grounds and burned. There are
reasons for all this: it is done to make the consciousness aware
that its relationship with the body is broken and that what it had
been identified with until then, the “I,” is now dead.
This awareness does not happen when you bury the body. This
is why those who have explored deeply into the soul and into death
have not recommended burial after death. Yes, sannyasins are
buried because they have known what death is in advance; by
burning their bodies nothing more can be conveyed to their
consciousness. So in India, only sannyasins and small children are
buried after death: all others are burned. Small children are buried
because they were so small and innocent that life had not yet made
them egoistic. The sannyasin is also buried because he has
become child-like and innocent; he has dropped all the false
acquisitions of his earlier life. Others have to be burned. In fact, you
are so identified with your body that unless someone burns it and
turns it to ashes, you will not believe that your body is now dead,
that it is no longer yours. Hindus are right in this sense; they have
looked deeply into this. When a father dies, his eldest son is
supposed to crush his father’s skull. This seems to be very cruel
and ugly; you can burn the skull without crushing it. What is the
need to break a hole in the head? It could be done by a servant;
there may even be some enemies of the dead man who might enjoy
this ceremony. Why should this be done by the son?
In India, a father is unhappy if he is not given a son who will
perform this last rite. For this reason an effort is made to beget a
son who can perform this head-breaking ceremony. Why? - the
Hindu father knows that his body is going to be burned and the
head-breaking ceremony is associated with it. In this way, the son
cooperates with the father in his death. The son helps the father
complete the process of disassociating the consciousness from the
body at the time of death, and breaking all bodily relationships. All
relationships must be broken, both with the enemy and with the
son. In life we become attached to our relationships; those bonds
must be broken. This ceremony after the death of the father is used
for that purpose. When the father has done the favor of giving life
to the son, what can the son do for the father? He cannot give birth
to his father. How will he be free from the debt? - he can give death.
The circle is complete. This appears to be very cruel, but there are
reasons behind it.
The fact that you do not remember that you too will die is not just
due to your ignorance. Actually, there is something within you that
cannot die. When you see others dying, you see their outer part
dying, but what is inside and immortal you do not know. So it is
difficult for you to believe that there is something immortal within
you.
You may witness thousands of deaths, but something within you
goes on repeating, “Others may die but I am an exception - I will
not die.” This is not due just to ignorance: the deeper reason is that
there is something within you whose nature is deathless, immortal.
However unhappy you may be, you go on hoping to become
happy. The reason is that no matter how unhappy you may be,
what is not your nature cannot become your destiny, your ultimate,
final being. "If not today, tomorrow; if not tomorrow, the day after; if
not in this birth, in the next birth; sometime or other, I will definitely
realize my true nature” - that is why there is an endless search for
bliss.
The sage says the paramhansa's consciousness is ...like a river
flowing with waves of nectar.
Remember: the sage speaks of waves of nectar. The inner
stream of life is like a river; dynamic, not stagnant; flowing, not still
like a pond. It is not like a dead pond full of water; it is like a river,
flowing, bubbling, alive. A pond is imprisoned within its boundaries,
but a river is always rushing in search of the sea. Flowing toward
the sea is the life of a river. The sage therefore says that the
consciousness of a paramhansa is like a river, full of waves of
immortality, always in motion in search of the unknown, in search
of the inconceivable, moving toward the infinite.
Remember this also: do not think that as soon as the river meets
the sea the search is complete. When the river falls into the sea it
goes on merging deeper
and deeper into the sea. Its banks are left behind, its boundaries
vanish, but there is no end to the depths of the sea; the search
continues. Small waves become big waves, storms of immortality
are experienced, the sea of immortality is felt and the search
continues, on and on...
It is an endless search because the infinite can never be
reached. The moment never arrives when a man can say, “Now I
hold existence in my fist" But the moment does come when man
can say, "Only existence is: I am not.” The one who began the
search is himself lost: he has become the one he had been
seeking.
An individual and God can never meet. As long as the individual
exists, God does not become manifest; and as soon as God
becomes manifest the individual ceases to exist. The individual
merges in oneness with God. Hence the sage says that the stream
of consciousness is symbolic of the eternal search.

The sage says:

Inexhaustible, imperishable is his self-nature.

The consciousness of a paramhansa is inexhaustible and

unaffected. Howsoever long the road and fast the speed, there is
no exhaustion. Howsoever long the journey, his strength is never
exhausted. Howsoever long the walk, his feet do not tire. What is
residing within is not depleted; howsoever much he may consume,
the source of energy is infinite. It is inexhaustible, imperishable.
Consciousness is undying. That which is undying is also
unchanging. Only that which changes is perishable.
It will be good to understand this. What is form in you is also
perishable: the body is perishable. A man is youthful today, he will
become old tomorrow. A man is powerful today, he will become
weak tomorrow. A man is able to walk today, tomorrow he may not
be able to. Whatsoever arises today will merge with dust tomorrow
- dust unto dust.
 Mind is another accumulated layer; it also has to die. Everything
that has been added to consciousness will become separated from
it. Whatsoever is joined will break; whatsoever is united will be
divided. But whatsoever is residing within you - your nature, your
immortal being, the one that is eternal; the “I” that was never
different before nor will become different afterward - that alone is
imperishable.
Someone asked Buddha, “Will I die or not?” Buddha replied,
“That which is within you that is already dead, will die. What is
within you that was never born can never die; there is no question
of its death.”
There is something within you that was born; that something is
bound to die. When there is one end, the other end is bound to be
there. You can never find a stick that has only one end: if there is
one end the other end is bound to exist; it exists with the other end.
Whatsoever is born will die, and whatsoever is dead will be born
again. But is there something within you that was never born? If
that can be found, then you have found the deathless.
There is certainly something deathless within, but for that you
will have to dive deep, through many layers.
You are so protective of all these layers that it is beyond
imagining. Someone is meditating and his clothing slips a little.
Immediately he takes care of his clothing and forgets about his
meditation. While taking care of his clothes meditation is lost, as if
meditation is a cheap thing that one can afford to lose, but
clothes are precious; they have to be taken care of. Man is very
poor, poor by his own choosing: he goes on saving the trivial, he
goes on saving that which is bound to perish. Whatsoever is of no
value he locks in a safe, but what is precious is thrown out on the
road; no one bothers about it.
I often see trivialities becoming hindrances. A man is trying to
save his clothes, to save his body. If someone is pushed or jostled
while meditating, he saves himself by moving out of the group. He
sits outside, away from the other meditators. How long will he go
on saving his body? He is trying to save it from a small push, but
what will happen at the time of the final push? It will be better if he
becomes accustomed to small pushes, so that when the last push
comes he won’t get frightened. And the last push cannot be
avoided.
If the sun is hot, the meditator gives up. What difference does it
make? - he will perspire a little more, his skin will get tanned. If not
today, then tomorrow, that skin is going to burn to black coal and
ash. What you are saving today from the hot sun, tomorrow your
own relatives will burn. But you are so busy saving these layers
that can never be saved. And that which is always saved inside
you, you do not even care to know. You become entangled and lost
in the trivial and waste your precious life.
The sage says:...imperishable is his self-nature. He is telling us
to go in search of that which is imperishable. Whosoever has
attained to the immortal and the imperishable is rich; all others are
poor. He has gained that which cannot be stolen by thieves, cannot
be burned by fire or harmed by weapons and cannot be killed or
destroyed. Now, no form remains. And whenever someone jumps
deeply into the flow of the immortal, he finds that there, all is
unchanging.
All changes are in your accumulated layers, no layer can be
unchanging. This has to be understood. If I want to put dust on my
body, to make it stick I will first have to apply oil. Otherwise, the
dust will not stick to the body. There must be something sticky
between the body and the dust; some bond must be there to unite
them. If you want to remain attached to the body, there must be a
desire, a want, a wish, a hankering: these are the adhesives that
will hold them together. If these adhesives dry out, consciousness
will immediately be freed from the body.
That is why Buddha and Mahavira always advised people to give
up desires. Why? - because if desire is dropped, your identification
with the dust that has gathered is broken. To protect these layers
you have to go on protecting all the arrangements that prolong the
continuity of these layers. Hence, you never become aware of the
empty sky.
 With the layers you are aware only of desires, because it is
desire which keeps you glued to the layers. If all desire is dropped,
then the layers too will drop on their own. When the glue is gone,
what is separate from you will fall away. Only you will remain, as
you are. That is why the sage says that the soul is imperishable: it
has no layers.

He is beyond doubt, devoid of all uncertainty.

To be empty of all uncertainties is the essence of wisdom. But

uncertainty will remain until there is an experience of the
imperishable. Without that experience, doubt will persist. Please
remember that doubt is not destroyed by faith or belief. Doubt
cannot be destroyed in any other way except by experience.
Howsoever much I say, "Even if you are put into fire, you will not
be burned,” you will not accept it. You will say, "How can it be?"
Even if you believe in what I say, you will not be prepared to jump
into the fire. And if you are ready to jump into the fire it will not be
because of what I have said, but because of something else.
I have heard...
Before the last war a British politician went to meet Adolf Hitler,
just to find out what preparations he was making. Hitler took him to
his room. The room was on the seventh floor and ten sentries were
standing guard.
Hitler said, "You British! Give up any doubts you may have. I
have people with me who will give their lives on one single order."
He asked the first sentry to jump out of the window; the sentry
immediately jumped from the seventh floor. The British politician
became afraid.
Hitler asked another man to jump; the second sentry also
jumped. The British politician started to tremble. He thought, “If he
has such soldiers, Britain can never withstand his power.” Hitler
asked the third sentry to jump when the Britisher intervened and
asked him to stop.
"What are you doing? I need no further proof,” he said. He
agreed to Hitler's claim. He asked the third sentry, “What is the
hurry? Why are you in such a hurry to die?"
The sentry replied, "If we were really living, do you think we
would obey such orders?”
His reason for dying was that it was better to die jumping from
the seventh floor than to live with a person like Hitler!
If you jump into a fire because I tell you to, I will not agree that
you have jumped in obedience to my order. There must be some
other reason. Faith, belief, confidence are all superficial. As long
as you yourself do not know the deathless, at the moment of
jumping into the fire doubt will be there; "Can what this man says
be true?"
Can what the sage of this Upanishad asserts be true?
Whatsoever is told to you by somebody else, there will always
remain a doubt. It is bound to be so, there is no other alternative.
Only your own experience can lead you beyond doubt.
The sage is one who knows from direct experience. That is why
it is said that to be devoid of all uncertainties and free from all
doubts is the characteristic of a sage, the right characteristic. This
is how to recognize a sage. If you ever have the opportunity to be
with a sage, first look for the existence of any lurking doubt in him.
Does he sometimes ask questions or raise any doubts? Is he still
trying to know what truth is?
The sage is free of all uncertainties. From what he has known,
all doubts have vanished. Now no question arises, he has become
questionless. Now there is no problem within, there is no search for
any answer.

Nirvana is his only aim.

Nirvana is the only desire of the paramhansa. His mind is free of

doubt, his only aim is to be a zero, a nothingness.
How can you be a nothingness, by what means? Your goal is
how to be saved, how to be a something. If you are moving toward
religion, you do it to be saved. If you are reading scriptures, that
also is to find some means of saving yourself. Even having faith in
the immortality of the soul comes from the hope that you may not
have to die. You believe that it is right what sages say because if
they are not right, you will have to die. So the weaker a society is,
the sooner people will believe in the immortality of the soul.
The Indian society is one example: it will be difficult to find a more
fearful society. It will also be difficult to find a community that is
more involved in the spiritual search. Actually, there should be no
parallel between the two: one who believes in the immortality of the
soul should also believe that there is no death. Then what can be
the fear? But India has remained enslaved for a thousand years,
your hands have remained bound in chains, and you have
continually read in your scriptures that the soul is immortal.
Nothing is gained by believing in the immortality of the soul: it
has to be experienced and known. But it is very difficult to know, it
is almost impossible. You have no courage even to take one jump;
you are afraid to take even one step. Whichever rung of the ladder
you have grasped is held so tightly that you never want to let go of
it.
The sage says that nirvana is the paramhansa's only aim - and
nirvana means to be extinguished. So his only aim is how to
disappear, how not to be. Why is he so eager to disappear? -
because he knows that only that which is perishable can be
destroyed. That which is imperishable can never be destroyed.
Hence he says, "By disappearing, I will know what is mine and what
is not mine."
The sage wants to be clear about this. He wants to be decisive
about what is his and what is not. Death alone can decide this;
hence meditation is an exploration into death. Samadhi,
enlightenment, is an experience of death. This is why we call the
grave of a paramhansa his samadhi, because before death he has
known what will die and what will not die. He has experienced the
immortal.
What is the desire of a seeker? Why have you made this long
journey to come to this place? If you ask me, I will reply that you
have come so that your "you” can be dissolved. You may live, but
the one who has come will not live. You will return to your usual
life, but within you everything will have been transformed.
Whatsoever you have brought here with you, bury it here. Only
then will you make progress in meditation, will you really have
entered meditation. If you return as you came, then you have not
entered meditation at all. The only aim is that the "I" should not
remain; the universal self alone should remain. As long as the “I" is
saved, you are identified with that which is destined to die. The day
the “I” dies, you are identified with that which never dies, which is
immortal.
He is free of all tension.

When you are not, what tension can there be? All tensions crowd
around the T; they are the servants of the “I." Around the ego, all
diseases gather. Once the ego is dissolved, all the servants depart
of their own accord; there is no place for them, they have no place
to be. There is only one difficulty and one obstacle; the idea of “me."
If you want to save the ‘‘I,’' you have to acquire the means to do
it. Due to this ego-disease fear comes in, violence is born; with this
disease sexuality, desires and wants come in. Then, all around
them, thousands of tensions gather. Just to save this “I," all this
paraphernalia is needed. When the “I” is ready to die there is no
longer a need for all this; the arrangements drop automatically.

In this state, only knowing remains.

For the sages, only knowing remains, just knowing. Mahavira

was very fond of the word kaivalya-gyan: it means “only knowing."
...only knowing remains. Neither does the knower remain nor the
known; neither is there one who knows nor something to be known
- only the knowing remains. "I" dies, “you" die - but that flow of living
consciousness remains. Whenever you know something, there are
three elements: I, the knower; you, that which is to be known; and
the connecting link between the two, the knowing.
 When a sage dies as the “I" he is merged with the whole, he
attains liberation. When all tensions dissolve, neither the knower
nor what is to be known remains, only knowing remains. That
knowing is the supreme form of existence: just knowing.
Meditation is a climbing, step by step, toward this state of
knowing. Meditation is the ladder to knowing. It is a two-sided
experiment: on one side the "I” has to be dropped along with its
servants, one has to become ready to be lost; on the other side,
just as the “I" goes on dissolving, knowing is born. The knower is
no more, only the knowing is.

Rising is his only path.

Rising upward is the path of the sage, always moving higher and
higher. You have seen the flame of a lamp always drawn upward;
all flames leap upward. You can change the position of the lamp
however you like, but the flame will remain vertical, pointing
upward. Water always flows downward. If water is to flow up, much
arranging will be needed. If the arrangements do not work, the
water will again begin to flow downward. If a flame is to be directed
downward, many arrangements will have to be made because a
flame rises naturally.
The nature of the body is to gravitate downward - the nature of
all matter is to gravitate downward. But the nature of
consciousness is to rise upward.
We can say that man is a lamp, an earthen lamp. In this lamp
there is earth, and there is also a burning flame, and oil fills the
lamp. But because of the force of gravity the lamp remains tethered
to the earth. If the lamp is broken, the oil will flow downward - but
the burning flame will always point upward.
Those who have broken their attachment to the lamp and who
know only the upward-rising flame as their reality, they are known
as the sages. Rising is his only path, upward, higher and higher.
Now we will go into our night meditation, so listen to some
instructions and understand them. But remain seated, do not stand
up yet.
Before the nightly meditation, let me say a few things about the
afternoon’s meditation. This afternoon’s meditation didn't quite
happen the way it should have, for two reasons. I understand your
helplessness: you are so full of feeling inside that it wants to
express itself. So it was not possible for silence to follow the first
part. From tomorrow, we will have to create some other
arrangement.
For the first fifteen minutes there will be kirtan. I told you not
remain standing still during the kirtan but to empty yourself out,
using your total energy. Otherwise, the energy that remains
unspent will not allow you to become silent. And this is why silence
follows the kirtan - so first you can become empty by throwing
everything out, and then you can be silent.
So from tomorrow, first there will be kirtan for fifteen minutes,
and after that you will be free to empty out everything for a further
fifteen minutes. Whatsoever comes to you - dancing, jumping,
shouting, singing, weeping, laughing - just let it happen. After that
there will be total silence for thirty minutes. During that time there
should be no sound at all, no sound at all. And remember: when
you make sounds in the silent part of the meditation, you are not
only harming yourself but others too. So there should be no sound
at all; remain lying like a corpse.
The second thing: in this afternoon’s meditation some people in
the meditation area sat there as spectators. They should not be
here; only those who want to participate should be here. Those who
don't want to do it should sit over there on the hill, at a distance.
Their sitting inside the meditation area is harmful to them as well
as to others.
And they are deep harms. Where the inner emotions, impurities,
sicknesses and psychological disturbances of so many people are
being released, if someone is just sitting there idly, he becomes
receptive to them and picks them up. He will catch dozens of
neuroses. He may be thinking that he is very smart: “See how I am
sitting like a wise man, and look at this man next to me behaving
like a madman!" But he is not aware that he is functioning like the
lowest point into which all this madness will flow.
So no one is to just sit inside the meditation area. They should
go and sit a good distance away - at quite a good distance. Beware
of these seekers; a seeker is a dangerous phenomenon, so best
keep your distance from them! Either you become a seeker
yourself - then come inside the meditation area - otherwise keep
your distance.
Don't try to be clever - too much cleverness sometimes proves
to be the biggest stupidity. If you want to meditate for yourself, fine;
otherwise, move away. Tomorrow, I don’t want to see even a single
person sitting there with open eyes. And if someone is seen to be
sitting as a spectator, then the volunteers should take him away.
Such people should not sit here. No audience is needed for the
afternoon meditation.
The spectator should go and sit on the hill at a distance, and
then watch happily from there. But if you really want to see, you
must experience it firsthand by doing it yourself. See it from within.
Others are doing it, you can also do it. And go on seeing from the
inside what is happening, then it will benefit you tremendously.
There will be no benefit at all in seeing the meditation from the
outside. You will only feel, "My God! These people are mad!” But
the day that you feel, "My God! I am mad!” - that day some benefit
is possible. So don’t just look at others.
During the thirty minutes of silence, your eyes should be
completely closed. Everyone should get a blindfold and use it to
cover his eyes. You cannot be relied upon: who knows, one eye
may open in the middle. But if it does open in the middle, at least
the blindfold will prevent you from looking at others. So everyone
gets a blindfold.
Let me explain the experiment involved in the night meditation.
The night meditation is Tratak, eye gazing. For thirty minutes you
have to stand and look at me without blinking your eyes. Your eyes
are not to blink at all. So the joy those who have used their
blindfolds all day long will experience will not be possible for those
who have not used them. It will not be possible for those who have
not used their blindfolds all day long to experience the same joy as
those who have. If the eyes have been under a blindfold all day
long, they will easily remain open for forty minutes without blinking
because so much energy will have accumulated. But it is your
concern; take care of it from tomorrow on.
So now, for thirty minutes you will first look at me. Go on looking,
go on looking, go on looking at me deeply, totally focused. Tears
may start flowing, the eyelids may get tired, but nothing to worry
about - you just go on looking. Very soon the tiredness will
disappear, the tears will dry up, the eyes will become clean, fresh
and luminous - and go on looking at me.
If you have looked at me rightly, without blinking an eyelid, many
times it will happen that I will disappear; your eyes will be fully open
and I will not be here. If this happens, there is no need to panic or
become puzzled. This is the right moment; it means that an
attunement has taken place. When you cannot see me, understand
that your eyes have become attuned with me. You are at the right
place, and from there you can slip into meditation.
To some I may seem to have become very big, to some I may
seem to have become very small - but do not be afraid because of
it. Some may see only light in place of me - don't be disturbed
because of that either. Whatever happens, happens. If nothing
remains here, only an empty space, keep your eyes focused on
that empty space. But you have to keep your eyes fixed for thirty
minutes.
This experiment will be done standing. Simultaneously, you will
go on jumping, shouting, making the sound “hoo.” Although I will
not speak, now and then I will gesture with my palms. When I
change the position of my hands from low to high, experience
within yourself that your whole life force, your kundalini, is rising
upward, rushing upward, going on an upward journey. You have
become a light, a flame moving upward. Deep screams will come -
allow them. Dance and co-operate with the inner energy that is
rising upward.
 First I will raise my hands upward: again and again I will raise
my hands upward. When I feel that many friends have come to the
state where your inner energy is dancing, then I will change the
direction of my palms from up to down. That is an invitation to the
divine: so many people full of thirst are dancing - it must descend!
When I change the palms of my hands from facing upward to facing
downward, then too you should jump, shout, scream with all your
energy. Then the touch of that divine energy will reach to your every
fiber, to your very heartbeat.
Now, all of you stand up. Stand apart, leave gaps. Come all
around me. Come even behind me, so that you can easily see me.
When I stand up you will be able to see me clearly.