Adhyatma Upanishad, Chapter 40

This sutra is concerned with choicelessness. Mind is always choosing - choosing this against that.

Mind is the mechanism of choice. Have you observed this?

Observe:

Mind is always choosing this against that.

There is not a single moment when the mind is not in a state of choosing. We go on choosing - choosing pleasure against suffering, choosing happiness against unhappiness, choosing respect against insult - choosing, and choosing, and choosing. But if you go on choosing, you go on living in the mind.

Mind creates a dichotomy, it divides. Existence is one everywhere, in every dimension, but mind divides: Mind says, "This is black, this is white - choose white, don't choose black. This is good, this is evil - choose good, don't choose evil." But good and evil are not two; black and white are not two.

In reality, only gray exists. One pole of the gray is black, another pole of the gray is white. White and black are just two poles of gray; the difference is only of degrees. White means less black, and black means less white. There is no absolute black and no absolute white.

Life is not a dichotomy, a division; life is one. Even in polar opposites life is one - but mind goes on dividing. Mind says, "This is good, this is bad; this is love, this is hate." But have you observed or not? - hate can turn into love any moment; love can turn into hate any moment. You love someone, and suddenly you start hating - if love and hate are opposites, then love can never become hate; then there is no possibility of its being turned into hate. But your love can turn into hate any moment - what does this mean? This means love and hate are not two - just two polarities of one thing.

Love and hate are polarities of attachment.

On one pole, attachment becomes love.

On another pole, attachment becomes hate.

That's why you cannot hate someone directly. You cannot hate someone suddenly; first you have to love him, to hate. You cannot create an enemy without first creating a friend. Can you create an enemy without creating a friend? First, friendship has to be established; only then it can grow into enmity. It means friendship and enmity are not two things, but just a growth of one. But mind goes on choosing, so mind creates a false world of divisions which exists nowhere.

In existence there are no divisions. Existence is liquid, flowing from one pole to another, moving again to another. Existence is like a pendulum moving from left to right continuously - from hate to love, from love to hate. But mind divides; and mind says, "This is to be chosen and this is not to be chosen." Then suffering comes in, because when you choose one part of a long movement, you have chosen the other part also. If you choose love, remember, you have chosen hate also. And when love turns into hate, you will suffer.

You have chosen happiness; you have immediately chosen unhappiness also. And now when happiness turns into unhappiness, you will suffer. But you will never become aware that this is your choice. You will not become aware because of the mind which divides. The mind says, "Happiness is something else. Unhappiness is opposite to it." Only in dictionaries is unhappiness opposite to happiness, not in life. Only in dictionaries - and dictionaries are not life; they are created by the mind. In words there are opposites - in existence, no; there are no opposites.

When you choose love, know well you are choosing hate. When you make a friend, remember you are making an enemy also. When you get respect, wait - insult will be following, it will come. It will take a little bit of time, but it will come. When you choose one part of one unity which cannot be divided; you will suffer.

Either choose both, or don't choose at all.

Remember, in both the ways you become choiceless.

Choose both, then mind cannot function - choose love and hate both. The moment you fall in love with someone, know well you are falling in hate also. Don't make any division; know that love is hidden hate. Choose both.

See the beauty of it... if you can choose both, you have not chosen at all, because choice always means choosing AGAINST something; you can choose love against hate. If you choose both, it is not a choice; you have chosen both love AND hate. You can choose happiness against unhappiness.

How can you choose both? If you choose both it is choiceless.

So either choose both, or don't choose at all, and mind dissolves.

Mind dissolves only when you don't choose. And when there is no mind, you are for the first time in your crystal clarity, for the first time in your original freshness. For the first time your real face is encountered. Mind is not there - the divider. Now existence appears as one. Mind has dropped; the barrier between you and existence is no more. Now you can look at existence with no mind. This is how a sage is born.

With the mind - the world.

With no mind - freedom, MOKSHA, KAIVALYA, NIRVANA.

Cessation of the mind is cessation of the world.

So really, you are not to renounce the world, you are simply to renounce the mind. Don't try to renounce the world, don't try to escape to some monastery or to some mountain, to some Himalaya; that will not help, the mind will go with you. The mind is subtle. Just by leaving the world you cannot leave the mind. Really, now your mind will create a new division: the world and the monastery, the world and sannyas, renunciation. Now you have created a new dichotomy. You choose renunciation against the world; then it is no longer renunciation . When you don't choose, it is renunciation; or when you choose both simultaneously, it is renunciation. Because in both cases you become choiceless.

To be choiceless is to be in meditation.

To be choiceless is to enter the eternal.

To be of choice is to enter the world: the dream world, the divided world, the false, the pseudo, the illusory world.

So how to be without a mind? - That's the basic enquiry.

This sutra says, be choiceless and you will be without the mind, because mind is choice. Try it:

whenever the mind says, "Choose this," choose also the opposite - IMMEDIATELY. The mind says, "This face is beautiful, this body is proportionate. Love this body, this is beautiful." Immediately remember, "This body is also ugly. Love this body because it is ugly also." Don't create the division between beauty and ugliness; they are two poles of one phenomenon.

The mind says, "Make this man your friend, he is so loving." But remember, whosoever can love, can hate. The mind says, "This man is good, he respects me so much." Immediately make your mind aware: the man who can give you respect is capable of giving you insult also. Only one who never respects you will never insult you; otherwise, the other is bound to come. So whenever you are choosing, and the mind says, "Choose this; this is good, gratifying," don't allow the mind to choose.

Tell the mind, "I am going to choose both."

The mind says, "Life is good and death is bad." Tell the mind, "I am going to choose both" - and whether you choose or not, you cannot escape death. Once you have chosen birth, you have chosen death. But the mind will go on saying, and deceiving itself, and thinking, in the hope that somehow death can be escaped. You cannot escape; death has entered with birth. Birth is the first step of death; death will be following. It will take a little bit; it will take time. Wait - when birth has come, wait - the other pole will be coming. Don't choose.

Don't choose life against death.

Choose life AND death.

Choose life PLUS death.

When I say, choose life plus death, what I really mean is, then you cannot choose; choice becomes absurd - choice becomes impossible! If you can see life and death as one process, you will not choose; you will become choiceless. Then things will go on happening, death will come... but when death comes to a choiceless mind, it is a very different phenomenon. When death comes to a choiceless mind, you can enjoy death as you have enjoyed life.

Death is beautiful when it faces a choiceless mind. When death is mirrored in a choiceless consciousness, it has a beauty of its own, a silence - a deep silence of its own, a depth - a very dark depth of its own, a bottomless abyss, infinite.

When it faces a choiceless mind, death is divine.

But when it faces a choosing mind, death is ugly, death is the enemy. Not that death is the enemy, death appears as the enemy, because you have made friendship with life. You have chosen life; death appears as the enemy. You have said, "Life is beautiful," you have longed for life; that's why death becomes ugly. Otherwise, if you don't choose, if you don't divide, the totality of life is always bliss. It is always beautiful.

But remember, when I use the word beautiful I am not using it against ugly. When I say, "beautiful,"

I mean not against ugly, because division is ugly; and when beauty is against ugliness it is ugly.

When I say life becomes bliss I'm not saying it against misery. When bliss is against misery, bliss itself is a misery. When I say "bliss," I mean the division has disappeared, the dichotomy has gone, the dilemma is no more; the mind is not there to divide.

Choicelessness is the deepest state of consciousness. Mind is the surface; choicelessness is the depth. Don't choose, or if you feel it is difficult not to choose, then choose both the polarities immediately, simultaneously.

Now be ready for the morning meditation. Make space for yourself so that you can move easily.

Close your eyes. Use the blindfold. Close your eyes. Now start the first step.