Kaivalya Upanishad, Chapter 19

The KAIVALYA UPANISHAD begins with an enquiry into the ultimate.What is the ultimate BRAHMAN? How can it be known and achieved? Not only known, but ACHIEVED. Knowing is secondary, being is primary; and the basic enquiry is concerned with being, not with knowing.

But the disciple who is asking, who is enquiring, is not an ordinary man. He is a great rishi, a great scholar, a great so-called knower. He knows, still he enquires because whatsoever he knows has not become a transformation to him. The knowing has remained just knowing, it has not changed his being. His being has remained the same, has remained unconnected, unrelated to his knowing, to his knowledge. Knowledge has become something else - a growth in itself - and the being has remained untouched.

The disciple is not an ordinary one; the disciple is extraordinary. He knows everything that can be known about brahman; but he doesn't know the brahman itself. He knows ABOUT, he knows everything about, but to know ABOUT brahman is not to know brahman. You can know everything about, and still the brahman remains absolutely untouched, absolutely unknown. Knowledge can be gained without knowing, knowledge can be accumulated without knowing.

By this I mean, if your being is not transformed simultaneously with knowing, it is worthless. You can become a person who knows, but you will be a person who is untransformed. A deeper mutation is asked for.

This wise man, this well-informed man, this well-learned man, comes to the teacher enquiring how to to be transformed into brahman. How to achieve the being of the cosmos? How to be one with the center of existence?

It is not an intellectual enquiry at all; it is existential. And unless an enquiry is existential, it is not religious. One can go on enquiring philosophically, and one can go on ad infinitum, but one reaches nowhere. Knowledge can go on growing infinitely, it reaches nowhere. It CANNOT reach. It is intrinsically impossible because knowledge grows in memory, not in being.

There have been persons who were absolutely ignorant in the ways of knowledge, but they had being, they WERE being; they had something more substantial, more inner, more authentic. They cannot tell you anything about the brahman, but just being near them you feel something. You are in contact with a live wire. You are in contact with something alive.

In a way intellect is just a dead thing. Memory is just past. The moment you know something, it has become a past, dead thing - it has become material. The moment you know it you can accumulate it - it has become a gross thing. The moment you have experienced something, it has become part of your memory.

But the being is always alive, mm? It is life itself. Being must have a growth, an explosion; only then, you know authentically, only then you are wise. Unless that happens your wisdom is just a hidden ignorance.

So this wise man comes to the teacher to ask how to achieve that being, that oneness with the ultimate, with the substratum, with the center of existence.

The teacher says that you come to know by four things. KNOW THIS BY MEANS OF FAITH, DEVOTION, MEDITATION, AND YOGA.

The word FAITH is difficult to understand; it doesn't mean belief. A belief is an intellectual thing based on reason; you can reason about it. A belief is a rationalization; has proofs around it, behind it, below it, above it. A belief is supported by reasons, proofs, arguments, and is always argumentative.

So a believer is not a man of faith.

A Christian is a believer, a Hindu is a believer, a Mohammedan is a believer. By belief, I mean, they believe in some concepts, in some system. And every system has become intrinsically a very rational thing. They go on producing proof - they even produce proof for the existence of God, which is absurd because no proof can be given for the ultimate.

The ultimate remains unproved, because if even the ultimate needs proof, then the proofs become more ultimate. And if the proofs can be destroyed then the ultimate is destroyed. If your God needs proof, then he can be disproved, because there has been no proof which cannot be disproved.

There has been no logical argumentation which cannot be disproved, that cannot be argumented against. No belief is such that it cannot be converted into a disbelief. So a believer is potentially a disbeliever. He has, deep down in himself, doubt, disbeliefs. He puts his own doubt underground in the unconscious by using arguments, reasons, proofs; he is simply suppressing his own doubts.

But a suppressed doubt is not faith.

A mind with no doubt is faith. A mind in a state of no-doubting is faith, but you cannot achieve no-doubting by using proofs. Proofs can help to suppress, proofs can help you to believe, but not to have faith.

To have faith is one of the most impossible things - THE most impossible. Really, to be in faith is to take a jump into madness. And all religious people, all religious minds, are in a way, mad.

When I say mad I mean they LEAVE reasoning; they don't use reasoning because faith is absence of reasoning, absence of argumentation. Faith is a sort of love. It is a happening, NOT a mental construct.

How can it be achieved? It becomes very difficult because if you can achieve it, you can achieve it only by your mind. If you can achieve it, you can achieve it only by reason. So how can faith be achieved? It cannot be achieved really, only doubts can be destroyed. And the moment there is not doubting, faith flowers.

So faith comes negatively. If you become totally disgusted with your reasoning, if you come through your reasoning to nothing, if all reasoning leads you to absurdity... when your whole reasoning becomes just absurd and meaningless, only then it drops. And the dropping of reasoning is the flowering of faith.

So faith cannot be achieved; it happens when there is no reasoning. How to achieve faith means how to go beyond reasoning. And the only way is to reason to the very extreme. Reason so much that you come to the point where you can see that this whole effort has been basically wrong; reason so much that you become aware of the futility of the whole effort.

Faith is not achieved by those who have never reasoned, mm? Remember this. Those who have never reasoned cannot achieve faith. Only those who can reason to the very climax, to the very peak - only they fall into the abyss, the abyss of faith.

That's why faith has been mentioned as the first thing, because the person, the disciple, is a man of reasoning. He is not an ignorant man, he is wise, learned - well-learned. He was known as a Maharishi Asvalayan, one of the most learned persons. He knew everything that could be known by intellect. He has reasoned in every way, in every way possible. He has gone through reasoning through all its dimensions, and now he has come to a point where he has become aware that his whole reasoning has led him nowhere - he remains the same. That's why faith has been mentioned as the first thing. It is possible for Asvalayan to take a jump now. It may not be possible for you; it may not be possible for a person who has never reasoned.

Reasoning IS a necessity, so when I say a no-reasoning has to be attained, I do not mean that I am anti-rationalist; I am not. Neither is this UPANISHAD, nor is anyone who has ever said something meaningful been anti-rationalist. Reasoning is a part. Of course, you cannot reach through reasoning, but you have to pass through it. No one has reached WITH reasoning, but no one has reached WITHOUT reasoning also. Reasoning has to be there, and then it is to be discarded. It will be good if we try to understand through something else.

A beggar on the street begging, a poor man deep in poverty... then comes a Mahavira, a Buddha from a royal family, from a luxurious life, from riches, and becomes a beggar on the same street.

They are beggars who are poles apart.

One, the first beggar, is JUST a beggar; his poverty is very poor, it is not rich. But a Buddha, a Mahavira begging alongside, is a rich beggar: his poverty has a different dimension. He has KNOWN riches and has discarded them.

In a way, a buddha is not poor; he cannot be, because poverty consists of longing, of desire, desire for riches. Poverty cannot be measured without the desire for riches - a man is poor in the same proportion in which he is desiring riches, wealth. He is poor only because he desires riches; he is poor against the riches.

A buddha is not desiring riches; on the contrary, he is desiring poverty. In the same way your riches can be measured only by your desire for poverty. If you can discard riches for poverty, you are rich in your poorness.

The buddha is a royal beggar; his begging has a different dimension, a completely different quality.

The second beggar has to pass through riches; only then will he really become a royal beggar.

The same happens in reasoning also: A person who has never reasoned and has come to believe, is a poor believer; he cannot attain faith. Deep down he remains a disbeliever, because reasoning has not been transcended. A person who has reasoned totally, completely, with his whole heart and mind, with his whole being, has left no stone unturned. He has done whatsoever can be done; he has passed through all the bypaths of intellect and now he has come to a point where he discards reasoning. He says, "I have reached nowhere. This whole effort was meaningless!

But this meaningless effort has been meaningful in a way. Now he can discard it without leaving any scar behind. And he will not be poor now, he will not be ignorant. He will not be a man without reasoning; he will be a man who has gone beyond reasoning. His faith will not be belief. His faith will be rich - a richness that comes to a Buddha, to a Mahavira when they begin to beg on the street.

The same richness in a different realm of being, the realm of mind, will belong to this man who has reasoned absolutely. And unless you reason absolutely, you will not come to the point where reasoning can be transcended.

That is why faith has been mentioned as the first thing, the first step. Go through reasoning, pass through it; but go beyond also. When one goes beyond reasoning, faith is attained.

Then devotion: When faith is attained, it begins to be express in devotion. By devotion is meant a loving attitude towards existence, what Schweitzer calls, "reverence for life." By devotion is meant a reverence for existence as such, unconditional. That word "unconditional" has to be remembered. If it is conditional, it becomes love; if it is unconditional it becomes devotion.

If it is conditional it becomes love, the so-called love. A lover and a beloved, whatsoever they may say, remain conditional. Whatsoever they may DREAM, they remain conditional. They go on expecting, and they go on continuing in a subtle bargain: "I can love you only if you are this way, if you are like this. I can love you only if you are doing this - if you are NOT doing this, love is broken.

If you are not according to me, love is broken. If my conditions are not fulfilled then love evaporates.

Love is a conditional relationship.

Devotion is unconditional.

Devotion means you are not to be in any way conditioned by me, and I do not expect anything from you. Devotion is not objective, it is subjective; love is objective.

I love someone because the object of love is such; it is lovable. Or, I am in devotion because in me there is devotion; the object is irrelevant. My subjectivity is the source of it, and then anything - a stone lying on the street - begins to be an object of devotion. A tree, a river, a hill - anything, anything that exists - simply by being there it begins to be an object of my devotion. The whole of existence becomes the object.

And the difference is that in love hate is implied. If you love someone, you hate someone else. If you love one, then you have to hate many, because love is a choice. If someone says, "I love everyone equally," then you will not feel his love at all. If your lover says, "I love everyone equally," then the beloved is going to depart, because if you are loving everybody equally, it means no love. Love exists against hate; you must hate others. Against all, you must choose one. That's why lovers are so possessive.

Possession comes because love should not be dissipated, it should not be given to others. It must be taken whole, totally. You must give your hate to everyone else, and love to one. Every love is a monopoly, and a lover is chosen AGAINST the whole existence. The whole of existence must be unloved, only then is the lover satisfied; anything else will become a distraction.

That's why persons who exist as sensitives for many things, are not good lovers. A Socrates is not a good lover to his wife, he cannot be, because sometimes the wife feels he loves philosophy more; philosophy becomes the competitor. A musician, of course, loves his wife, his beloved, but loves music even more; then the wife feels that music has become the competitor. So any genius begins to feel that love is a hindrance. The feeling is only because every love wants to be a monopolizer.

Devotion differs. Devotion exists for the total existence, without the counterpart, mm? There is nothing against devotion. There is hate against love; there is nothing against devotion. No-devotion is not against devotion, it is just absence.

So when someone says, "I am devoted to Rama," really he is using a wrong word. If he loves Rama, then he cannot love Krishna. If someone says, "I am devoted to Krishna," then he cannot love Christ.

He is using a wrong word. He is continuing the love phenomenon; it is not devotion.

Devotion means for the total; it is never for Rama, never for Krishna. Of course, Rama and Krishna are implied in the total, but it is never for a chosen one. Love is always for the chosen one, devotion is for the whole. So you cannot be a devotee of Rama. If you are for Rama, you are only a lover; and when you are a lover, then competition is bound to be there. Then Krishna will be a competitor, and Christ will be a competitor, and the same jealousies, the same conflicts, and all the same nonsense will follow. It has followed.

The whole religious world is really in conflict because of this love phenomenon being misunderstood as devotion. It is not. A devotee is simply a devotee of no one; a devotee is simply a devotee of all. A devotee is just devotion; it is not addressed to anyone. Love is addressed; devotion is unaddressed - or it is addressed to all which means the same.

Then meditation. Really, this is strange, strange because meditation should come first. Ordinarily, we think meditation is the beginning; it is not. That's why it looks strange, and that's why meditation becomes such an arduous thing.

So many people come to me and say, "We cannot meditate; it is so difficult." It IS difficult; I know it, but the difficulty is NOT in meditation, it is because there is no faith. It is because there is no devotion. If faith is there, if devotion is there, then meditation is just a shadow which comes by them, by itself, it comes spontaneously.

They say, "We have also felt it, but we never think about it, we never reflect." If you love someone, your mind becomes silent. If the beloved is near you, you cannot think; thoughts cease. The moment a lover begins to think, it means love has waned. When you are with your beloved or with your loved one, and you are thinking many things, it only means one thing, that love has ceased. Because when there is love, thinking ceases. You are in such a deep communion that thoughts will be a hindrance, thoughts will be a disturbance.

That's why real deep lovers will not ever talk, they cannot. They will sit silently, but they cannot talk because talking will be a disturbance. Only husbands and wives talk, because if they don't talk then silence becomes heavy. So they go on talking - anything, any nonsense. They go on talking, because if silence is there, then is is very heavy. And then it is bound to explode in some conflict, so it is good to go on talking.

Talking is avoiding. It is just trying to escape from a situation which can become ugly. Once two lovers begin to talk it shows that the love has waned, it has gone, it is not there now. And then they are bound to talk nonsense. The talk is just to evade the situation, just to escape from a situation which can become explosive any moment.

But two LOVERS are always in silence, they cannot talk. If this happens even in love, you can imagine what can happen in faith. When someone is in faith and devotion, the whole of existence begins to take the shape of a loved object. Then you can be with the trees silently, then you can be with the river silently, then you can be with the wind silently. Then you can be with anything silently, because devotion creates silence. And meditation is nothing else but silence.

Then yoga, and the last, the fourth. Ordinarily, we start with yoga; in this sequence it is put last. If the mind is silent then the body is integrated. If the mind is in meditation then the body becomes tranquil and quiet itself. Then every gesture of the body, every posture of the body, just reflects what is happening deep down in the mind. What is happening to the center is reflected by the periphery and the body is just the periphery.

This is the right sequence: to begin with the cosmic, then to come to the self, then to the mind, then to the body.

The cosmic, the brahman, is the absolute center of existence. Second comes the individual soul, the self; then the third circle. The third concentric circle is the mind, the thinking soul, and the fourth concentric circle is the body, the embodied soul - from the cosmic to the material.

Begin from the within and then come to the without; start from the center towards the periphery and then everything becomes easy. Everything becomes so easy and so spontaneous that one begins to feel that it is effortless.

Effort is felt because we begin from the without towards the within, we begin from the body. But there is a problem because we exist in the body, and we don't know anything else; we know only the body, and not even that. We know it only in a very illusory way. We are not even aware of our body, because we are so asleep. That's why we have to begin with the body.

This sequence cannot be told to anyone; it was told to a very extraordinary disciple. Ordinarily one has to begin with the body, then go to meditation, to devotion, and then to faith, because ordinarily we are so asleep that only at the body are we a bit aware. Everything else is in darkness, deep darkness. And then it is difficult, very difficult.

It becomes difficult because to begin with the body is the most gross instrument. If you can begin with faith, then you have begun with the most subtle, most powerful, most potential instrument. If you can begin with faith, it is okay. If you cannot being with faith, then it is better to begin with the body than not to begin at all.

THE MORNING MEDITATION The morning meditation is divided into four parts. The first part is ten minutes of vigorous breathing, chaotic, violent - just be nothing. Just be a breathing instrument for ten minutes - mad breathing.

Then for ten minutes, body movements used as catharsis. So whatsoever happens to your body, cooperate with it. The body begins to dance, to jump, to cry - anything. Whatsoever happens with the body, allow it; cooperate with the body. And third, go on dancing and jumping, but use "hoo" as a mantra. Go on crying, "hoo! hoo! hoo!" Go on for ten minutes and then in the fourth we will relax and go in a deep silence.

Make a space around you so that you can jump very freely and easily.