Adhyatma Upanishad, Chapter 35

Jean-Paul Sartre has named his autobiography, WORDS. This christening of his autobiography as WORDS is significant, deeply significant.

Everybody's biography is just words and nothing else because what is your mind? - words and words and words.... If you analyze the mind, then what are you? Just words? A long sequence, a long procession of words; this is everybody's autobiography. But if you are nothing but words, then you are not. Then you are yet unborn, then you are yet to exist authentically. Because words are just words, sounds; they mean something, but basically they are meaningless. The meaning is given to them.

And mind is just a mechanism, a natural computer. It feeds on words and then creates more words out of them. Then you go on associating those words, you go on creating principles, philosophy systems. And ultimately, where are you?

Truth is not a by-product of a long process of words. Truth is not a word at all. Truth is outside of words: truth is beyond words or below words. Truth is experience, not words. Truth cannot be said, because when you say something, language has to be used, words have to be used. And truth is not a word, so when you say it, you miss it. The moment you say it you have missed it - it cannot be said. It can only be experienced; it can only be lived. Unless you live it, you cannot know it.

But we know - that's the problem; rather, we know too much; we know more than enough. What is our knowledge? - words accumulated. You can accumulate them logically, rationally. You can create an edifice, a beautiful system, just as you can make a house with playing cards, but you cannot live in it. It is a house just in name; you cannot live in it. Out of words you can create a palace, a system, a philosophy - but you cannot live in it.

Philosophers create beautiful systems, but they always live outside of them. They cannot live in them, that is impossible. Nothing is wrong with them; the very system is such that it cannot be lived in.

An Immanuel Kant or a Hegel... they create principles and hypotheses out of words; they go on explaining the whole universe, but they themselves remain unexplained. They can explain the whole cosmos; they can say how the world was created; they can say what destiny is. And look inside them, dig deep and you find very miserable men, just as unhappy as anyone, as much in hell as anyone.

Don't believe in words.

They are the greatest deception created by humanity.

And the word has become our world: we live in it, we eat it, we write on it; the word beats in our hearts, and the word circulates in our blood. We are just a collection, a big collection of words. Mind is very miserly about words, it goes on accumulating. But remember, the word is never the reality.

I can use the word "love," but love, the word, is not love the experience. I can go on repeating, "Love, love, love," and I can create a sort of autohypnosis, and I can believe that I know love because I know the word. To know the word is easy. To know love is difficult - not only difficult, but impossible, impossible not because the experience is impossible, impossible because you are incurable. Because love can come only to you when you are not. And that is the path of everything that is great, deep - love, truth, God - they come only when you are not; your non-being becomes the passage.

Someone was asking Mozart... Mozart was one of the greatest musicians of the world - rare, unique. Someone asked him, "Which music do you like most?" And Mozart is reported to have replied, "No-music, sir. No-music I like most."

Difficult to understand, difficult to penetrate, but very significant. The reply is just unique, unexpected - and from a musician. He says, "No-music is the best." Have you ever heard the music which Mozart calls "no-music"? You have heard sounds. And if sounds can be put in a system, in a rhythm, it becomes music. Music means rhythmic sounds, but sounds. If they are unrhythmic it becomes noise; if they are rhythmic it becomes music. But what is "no-music"? No-music means no sounds, silence.

Silence has a music of its own, but you cannot hear it as you are.

You are filled with words, so you can understand sounds. You are filled with noise; that's why music has so much appeal. You are so filled with noise, crowdy noise, mad noise, that when someone creates music outside you forget your noise inside. You are magnetized by the music outside. You forget yourself, you become concentrated on the music outside; that's why music is loved so much.

Music is a hypnosis created by sounds, rhythms, technique. Unless your inner noise ceases; unless your constant inner talk, chattering, ceases; you cannot hear no-music.

The UPANISHAD is concerned with no-music. No-music means meditation, the state of mind when there is no noise within. Then suddenly you become aware of a silence without. When you are silent the whole universe becomes suddenly silent.

When the whole universe is suddenly silent, for the first time you are authentically existent.

For the first time you have being.

For the first time you know who you are.

No-music is meditation. No noise inside creates the possibility, the situation in which you can hear the soundless silence - which is everywhere. Just here and now it is there, but you are chattering inside; you cannot hear it. You are too engaged, too occupied; it cannot penetrate you.

Become silent, and silence begins to penetrate you. And when your silence and the silence of the universe meet, you have encountered God; you have come face to face. This is what is meant by "immediate brahman," immediate experience of the divine - when your silence meets the silence of the universe. When these two silences meet they become one, because two silences cannot be two. Remember this: Two noises are two; two silences cannot be two, because there is nothing in between them which can become a wall, which can become a division. Two silences immediately become one. They cannot remain two, because where is the point which can divide them? So when your inner silence meets the silence of the universe, you are no more, neither is the universe. A new oneness... you explode into a new oneness. You ARE brahman - not really encountering, because there is no OTHER.

Note this point, because the UPANISHADS are the first teachings in the world which say, "You cannot see God." All the religions go on talking about "seeing God." The UPANISHADS are the first teachings, the oldest which say, "You cannot see God, because in seeing, two are needed: you and God."

God cannot be made an object of knowledge.

God is your subjectivity, so you cannot put God before you, or there is no way of meeting God; you can only dissolve in Him; or He can dissolve in you.

Oneness is God.

When two silences meet, oneness is created.

Two silences meeting transform everything.

In this camp, we will try to create a silence within you. We have not to do anything for the silence of the universe; it is always here and there, it is always the case. Only you are missing your silence.

Once you gain your silence, suddenly you are transformed into a different world, in a different being.

You are no more the same - the old man is dead, and a new is born.

Creating this inner silence is all that is meant by meditation; remember this. We are not interested in teachings. Teachings are of no use in themselves, unless they are practiced. We are interested in this UPANISHAD only as a practical device.

The UPANISHAD is not, for me, some doctrine to be believed, or some system to be believed, or some philosophy to be believed. The UPANISHADS are practical guides. They believe not in changing your mind, but in changing YOU. They are not concerned with you directly, with your being.

Remember this: Knowing is your periphery, and being is your center. Knowledge is added to you, being can never be added.

Being is that which you are already.

Knowledge is that which goes on being added to you. And it happens - unfortunately it happens for many - that their being becomes just more and more burdened with their knowledge. Knowledge is going to be piled up on you by the society, by culture, by everything.

Knowledge is utilitarian; it is needed. So everyone goes on accumulating knowledge. Knowledge is power, it gives you energy, particularly to move in the world, to act in the world; it helps, it is instrumental. But if you become too identified with this knowledge, you forget that you are more than what you know. Then you forget that you are prior to your knowledge; then you forget that your foundational being is not your knowing.

What you know is just your memory. How to penetrate this knowing and reach the innermost center which you are? - silence, no music, no chattering, no inner talk. But how to do it? It is difficult. It is difficult because you can start a new talk inside. How to stop it? How to meditate?

You can start a new talk. That will not do. The way to do it is to throw this inner nonsense out completely, to go through a catharsis. Whatsoever goes on inside, make it outside - throw it out!

Express it. If you can throw all your mind out, you create space within. In that space silence happens.

So we are not going to sit silently here with closed eyes, and make an effort to stop the inner talk, the inner noise. You cannot do it that way, you can only add something more to it. Your efforts for stopping anything inside will create more noise. So here we will be concerned with a technique of expression, not suppression. We will be throwing the mind out - throw it out completely! Throw it out so much that inside, no mind happens. If even for a single moment you can find that inside there is no mind, no talk, no words, you have tasted something of the beyond. Immediately... IMMEDIATELY you are in tune with the infinite.

This, we are going to do; this is not a camp for teaching anything. I am not going to teach you something; I am going to help you to grow into something, to be something different. Cooperate with me, because unless you cooperate, nothing can be done.

Not only is this cooperation needed from you; you must ask, you must request, you must invite and pray, so that all the forces of the world, all the forces of the universe cooperate with you. That's why this UPANISHAD - ADHYATMA UPANISHAD - starts with a prayer. This prayer is beautiful.

AUM, LET THE SUN BE BENEFICENT TO US.

LET VARUNA BE BENEFICENT TO US. LET ARYA BE BENEFICENT TO US. LET INDRA AND BRAHASPATI BE BENEFICENT TO US. LET VISHNU BE BENEFICENT TO US.

SALUTATION TO THAT SUPREME, THE BRAHMAN.

O AIR, SALUTATIONS UNTO YOU, FOR YOU ARE THE IMMEDIATE BRAHMAN, THE SUPREME.

I SHALL CALL THEE ALONE, THE IMMEDIATE BRAHMAN. I SHALL ALSO CALL THEE RITAM AND SATYAM, THE LAW AND THE REALITY.

LET THEM PROTECT ME, LET THEM PROTECT THAT ACHARYA, THE TEACHER.

AUM SHANTI, SHANTI, SHANTI.

With prayer we start. Why? - because man alone is helpless. Man alone cannot do anything, because man alone is nothing.

Man is just a meeting point of millions and millions of forces. In you, every universal force is crossing.

You are just a crossroads. The sun, the air, the earth, the fire, the ether, everything is passing through you. You are just a crossroads. Remember this, because then you become part of this cosmos. And this is very significant to remember, because the modern mind thinks itself to be isolated - not in tune with the universe, but in conflict, in struggle.

The Western attitude has always been of a struggle, conflict; and now the Western mind has become the universal mind. Now there exists no such thing as the Eastern mind. This UPANISHAD belongs to the Eastern mind; it existed once. It is totally different.

The Western attitude is of fighting with the universe, of conquering. How to conquer nature? How to conquer natural forces? This makes man alienated - man becomes a stranger in this universe.

A conqueror is bound to be in conflict. And ultimately a conqueror is bound to be violent. And ultimately, a conqueror is bound to find himself isolated, alone.

The Eastern mind is totally different. The very approach is not of fight, but of deep resonance: The universe and I are not two; I am part of it, just a wave in the great ocean. I belong to it, and it belongs to me - there is a belonging. I am not a stranger in this world, I am not forced on this world. I am not an enemy and the world is not inimical towards me. I am part of it - and not a mechanical part, but an organic part, just like my eyes are my organic part, my hands are my organic part. I touch through my hand, I see through my eyes; my seeing has become my eyes and my touching has become my hand.

The universe has become man in you.

The universe has become a particular individual in you.

You are not different from it - You are just a wave.

And the universe is flowering through you.

This is the Eastern way of looking at the world - man in tune. That's why prayer. Prayer is a bridge, it makes you feel again at home. Even the sun is not so far away, mm?

The UPANISHAD says: LET THE SUN BE BENEFICENT TO US. Let everything be beneficent to us; let everything be a blessing to us, and a help. Why? - because truth is not yours or mine. Truth means the center of this universe. And if you are in conflict with the universal forces, you can never reach it. Only in a deep friendship, deep intimacy, the universe opens its doors for you. So prayer is just creating a forgotten intimacy.

Look at it in this way. A child is born. The moment a child is born he is separated from his mother.

Before birth, in the womb, he was one with the mother. There was no separation, the child and the mother were one. The child existed within the mother as part, an organic part. The child was even not breathing; the mother was breathing and the child was alive through the mother's breath.

The child's heart was not beating. The mother's heart was beating and the child was alive through the mother's heart. The child was not eating, the child was not doing anything. The child was just part and parcel of the mother. Then the child is born and separated. Then the child grows as an individual, and the child goes away from the mother.

The same happens with human consciousness. Before consciousness is born, you are one with the universe. In deep sleep you again fall into that oneness. When there is no dreaming and no thought, there is no mind; and when there is no mind there is no ego. In deep sleep you are no more, because your mind is no more. Who are you in your deep sleep? Can you say what your name is? When you are deeply, dreamlessly asleep, who are you? What is your name? There is no name, because if there is a name you are not deeply asleep. The name is just a surface thing.

Who are you? A Hindu or a Mohammedan? A Christian, Catholic or Protestant? Who are you?

Educated, uneducated, poor or rich - a beggar or a king? Who are you? Man? Woman? Young or old? In deep sleep you are none of these, still you are. You cannot say that you are absolutely not.

You ARE, but you are not that which you are when awake. While dreaming, while awake, you are a mind; while deeply asleep, you are a no-mind. The mind is lost, dissolved, but the being is.

Deep prayer gives you this feeling of no-mind, of deep oneness, as if the whole universe has become a womb; you have become just a child in the womb of your mother. The whole universe has become motherly, no conflict, just prayer, just a feeling, and a trust.

Prayer is a trust.

The child in the womb of his mother cannot distrust - or can he? How can he distrust? He trusts his mother totally. He is no-mind, so how can he doubt, how can he distrust? Whatsoever the mother is, is good, is beneficial.

When you pray, you are throwing yourself back into a motherly universe; you are back into the womb of the world, of existence itself. And you trust; this trust is shown in the prayer. The sun will be beneficial, the air, the earth, everything. All the forces of the universe will be helpful. This is a deep trust.

How does it work? What is the mechanism of it? Is it that all these forces are going to help you? No.

No one is going to help you, but the moment you create this trusting, this prayerful attitude... once you create this bridge, all the barriers are withdrawn. Those barriers were created by you; now they are withdrawn. You are not in fight; you are ready to surrender. You are not going to conquer; you are ready to surrender. You are ready to withdraw your ego.

They are not going to help you positively, but now negatively all the problems, all the barriers, all the hindrances that were bound to be created by your ego will not be created anymore. Now you will not be your enemy. Understand this deeply: these forces, once taken as deeply related with you - intimate, friendly, homely - and the whole universe taken as a home, a motherly womb, then your fighting attitude dissolves. Then your conflicting mind dissolves. Then your violence, then your ego - the effort to BE constantly this or that; the very becoming - dissolves. And if you have no ego and a prayerful mind, suddenly - with full awakening - you fall into deep sleep. This is the mystery:

Suddenly, with full awareness you fall into deep sleep.

That's why the UPANISHAD says, constantly declares, that SAMADHI, the ultimate ecstasy which is achieved by meditation, is just like deep sleep, with one difference: and that difference is awareness.

In deep sleep you are unaware, unconscious. In samadhi, in ecstasy, you are conscious, aware. But the phenomenon is the same: in deep sleep you become part of the cosmos; in samadhi, ecstasy, you become part of the cosmos. In sleep you are unconscious of what is happening; in samadhi you are fully conscious. And once you can become consciously a part of this universe, you have achieved the goal.

So from tomorrow morning we will try to re-enter the womb of the universe by dissolving ourselves, by throwing away the main disease of the human mind, the ego - by surrendering, by being receptive.

We are not going to conquer the truth; rather, we are going to allow the truth to conquer us.

Now, for some instructions for the morning meditation:

First, don't be serious at all. For this whole camp, don't be serious at all. I consider seriousness to be a fatal disease, so please don't try to be long faces. Why do I particularly say this? - because religious people are usually trying to be that. Don't be serious. Be more and more laughing, enjoying like small children; because before the divine force we are small children. So don't be serious. You cannot approach the divine force with a serious, sad face - that's a barrier. Laugh and dance and enjoy like small children, and you can enter the temple very easily. The doors are always open for children - be childlike.

Jesus is reported to have said that only those who are like children will enter the kingdom of God.

And look what Christians have done: they have created a very serious, sad religion - Jesus on the cross, a weeping religion, crying. Christians say that Jesus never laughed. This is unbelievable, because the man who said, "Only those who are like children will enter the kingdom of God," cannot be a man who never laughed. Vice versa can be believed: that he continuously laughed, never stopped laughing, even in his sleep. But this cannot be believed, that he never laughed.

Be like children. Forget your ages, your experience, your knowledge; throw them all away, wholesale.

Don't try by and by to throw them away, because unnecessary time is wasted. Just THROW them; forget them. You may be someone - everyone is someone; if not in other's eyes, in his own eyes, everyone is someone; you MUST be someone - here, be nobody; forget. Leave your identities outside the campus ground. You may be a doctor, you may be a professor - leave all these diseases outside. You may be a rich man, you may be a politician - there are thousands and thousands of types of diseases. Please leave them outside. Here, come like small children. Then something is possible; otherwise, nothing.

So the first thing, be completely non-serious.

The second thing: for all these eight days, laugh as much as you can. Why? - because you don't know the mechanism of the mind; suppressed energies can be thrown out in many ways. Laughter is the easiest. Any energy... try it. Someone has abused you, you feel anger coming in. Immediately laugh! And this same energy, the same energy which was going to be anger, will become laughter.

You are sad, something has happened; the moment you remember you are sad, immediately laugh.

Don't wait for someone to help you - laugh. And suddenly you will feel the change: The same energy which was going to take a shape, a sad shape, is transformed into laughter; it has been released. The laughter I give you is a technique of release, and don't try to be miserly about it. And don't try to find any reasons for it; no reasons are needed. Take it as a help for meditation and the whole thing takes a different dimension.

Thirdly, for all these days to come, remember one thing constantly, that you are to create a situation in you in which the divine can be invited. So don't do anything, don't behave in such a way that the situation is disturbed. What do I mean? Be more graceful, be more loving, be more compassionate, so that you can create a situation in which the divine can become a guest. Be a host. Just think of it - the divine coming to you as a guest. What will you do? How will you behave? How will you clean your house, how will you celebrate? How will you create space in your house?

Constantly, for all these eight days, remember this, that you are going to be a host, a host to the divine, so behave always thinking of that.

Remember, your laughter can become many things. It can be violent, it can be angry, it can be insulting to someone - then you are not behaving like a host. Your laughter must become a grace; it must not be insulting to anybody. It must not be insulting, disturbing. It must not create something which can become a barrier. So do whatsoever you like, but constantly remember that in these eight days, any moment the divine can enter into you. Any moment the divine can enter, so remember that you are ready to receive.

Don't talk much. Fourthly, don't talk much. If you can be silent completely, that's better. If you cannot be, then talk less and less. Be telegraphic. Use only as many words as are absolutely necessary.

That will conserve energy. Our talking is very much a wastage. Conserve energy; don't talk, don't read. In the morning we will be doing meditation, and in the afternoon, and in the night. The remaining time, be more and more silent, happy, blissful. Sit somewhere, don't waste time in talking, and just wait. Remember this word, "wait." Everyone knows the meaning, but no one knows the experience. Or sometimes when you really wait - you are waiting for your beloved or your lover to come - you are a different man, a different quality enters into you. You are waiting for your beloved; someone passes by the door, you just become eyes. The whole energy is transformed into eyes.

Someone knocks on the door, you become attentive; the beloved may have come. Even the rustling of the leaves outside - dry leaves falling on the ground - and you feel the beloved has come. You are constantly alert - alert but not tense, alert, but waiting.

For all these eight days, wait. Do meditations, be happy, and wait. Don't be impatient. That's what I mean; be alert and not tense. Don't be impatient!

You cannot force the guest to come.

You can only invite and wait.

So give the invitation and wait: any moment the guest can come, and if you are not alert you may miss the moment. Any moment the guest can come - and you are angry, and talking to someone else; you may miss him. Any moment the phenomenon is possible; but if you are not there, you may miss for lives. No one can say when the next moment of such opportunity will come. Wait.

And lastly, meditation needs you in your totality. Nothing less will do. If you withhold something, and just do it halfheartedly, it is better not to do it, because the whole effort is useless. You will be simply tired and nothing will happen. So why unnecessarily tire yourself? If you are half in it you will be tired. And if someone feels tired - remember this, and find out - he will be half in it. If you are totally in it, you will be refreshed, not tired. This is the difference. If you are TOTALLY in it - nothing has been retained, nothing has been withheld; you were in it totally, the doer was not standing outside; the doer has become the doing - then you will come out of it fresh, fresh like the dew in the morning, fresh like a rose just opening; fresh, full of energy, light, dancing... blessed. And not only blessed, in such a state of mind that you can bless others.

But that happens only when you are total in it; it never happens when the major part is just standing, and only the minor part has moved. Then there is a tension between you standing, and you moving.

Then you have become two, then you are split. That split, that inner tension between two, creates tiredness. You feel exhausted, not vitalized. You feel just as if your energy has been sucked out.

You will feel it. So whenever you feel it, go deep and ask: Are you split into two? Divided? Is the effort partial? Then either stop completely; don't do it - that's better, because you are not deceiving yourself; it is honest - or, be totally in it; move into it. When you move totally into it, it has a different quality. Suddenly there is no tension, no conflict, no struggle within. Your whole being has gone into it.

And you have never gone into anything totally. You have not loved totally, you have not observed totally, you have not done anything totally - always partially. That's why your life is just moment-to- moment exhausted, you feel as if you are dying every moment - no beauty, no flowering out of it, just death. Out of lie, only death? That shows what you are doing with yourself.

Otherwise, life is every day, every moment, a new flowering; every day a new achievement, every day a new height and a new depth, every day more life. And if you can go on moment to moment moving totally in your life, death itself becomes the deepest experience of life. There is no death then. But it is difficult to move totally in anything.

At least try this meditation. If you can move in meditation totally, then you can also move in other dimensions totally.

And a total life is a religious life.

Religious life doesn't mean any ritual, doesn't mean any formalized religious worship, doesn't mean any religious affiliation; it means energy moving in its totality. And when you move totally, you become holy. Why? - because all that is known as sin is possible only when you move in parts.

You can love someone totally, but you cannot hate someone totally - that's impossible. You can be compassion totally, but you cannot be anger totally. Really, a very strange phenomenon happens.

If you can, just try to be totally angry: suddenly, when the anger comes nearer and nearer to its totality, it will change into compassion. If you can try just to be angry totally, with your full being, you will reach to the ninety-ninth degree of anger. Then if you move more, just nearing a hundred percent, suddenly you will know that the anger has disappeared. And the object of your anger has now become the object of your compassion.

Anger can never be total. I define sin as that which can be done only partially, with only one part; and I define virtue, PUNYA, as that which can be done only totally. If you do it partially, it cannot be done. The sin cannot be done with your total being, and virtue cannot be done with your partial involvement. You have to move with your whole being, and when the whole being moves into something, you become holy. This is what I mean by being a religious man.

Wait, try for these eight days. The thing, the happening is positive for everyone. It is also possible for you; no one is excluded, everyone is called and invited. Be courageous and take a jump. We start with a prayer; we start with a surrender to all the universal forces. Let them be beneficent to us. Let their blessings be with us.

Enough for today.