Adhyatma Upanishad, Chapter 47

The world does not remain the same as before for one who has known the supreme; therefore, if one sees the world as the same he should be taken for one who has not attained the knowledge, and who is still extrovert.So far as the experience of happiness, sorrow, et cetera, is concerned, it is assumed to be due to PRABDHAKARMA - that is the predestined cause-effect chain - because every effect flows from the cause of action. There is no effect anyway without the cause.As upon waking, the effect of dreaming ends, so also upon the attainment of knowledge that "I am the supreme," the accumulated karmas, conditionings of millions of births, become extinct.One who does not ever discriminate through intellect between the individual self and the supreme self, and between the supreme and the universe, is called a JIVANMUKTA.

Some more qualities of a JIVANMUKTA; something more about the state of mind of a jivanmukta, of the state of consciousness.

The first: there is no division. He sees the whole world as an organic unity, there is no division.

Things are not divided; the whole universe is one. He sees the unity. The diversity is there, but the diversity is just on the surface; a jivanmukta sees the unity behind it. Every diversity is just a hidden unity. Why? Why do we divide? - and a jivanmukta never divides.

It is because of the intellect, the medium of intellect. If you look through the intellect, everything is divided immediately. Intellect is the instrument to divide, to analyze. For example you see light, you see darkness, you see birth, you see death. Birth and death in existence are one; birth is death, two poles of one process. If you are born you are on the journey to die. The whole of your life is nothing but a gradual process of dying. But the mind divides; mind says birth is good, death is bad. Mind says life is good, death is bad. But death is part of life, life is part of death - they cannot be divided.

Have you ever seen anything alive which is not also dying simultaneously? A flower has come up, has opened its petals. This opening of the petals - can you see it as a process of death? The flower is alive, young, but it is dying already. The evening will come and the petals will wither away. And the withering of petals is really nothing but the conclusion; in the morning the process began, the petals opened. The very opening in the morning will become withering in the evening; the petals will wither away.

So where do you divide? Where is the line where you can say that the flower was alive, and then the flower started to die? Is there any distinction? Can we mark a boundary that up to this point the flower was alive, in the process of more and more life, and from this point the flower started to die?

No, there is no possibility of division.

Birth and death is a continuous process. One pole is birth, another pole is death. But mind, intellect, thinking, divides. Mind says birth is good, celebrate it; death is bad, weep over it. And the same goes on; the whole of life becomes a division between things which are not divided. Because of this division we live in a false world, a mind-created world. You say this is love and this is hate, and this is religion and that is irreligion, and this is sin and that is virtue - all divisions, on all layers, on all planes, are through the mind.

Put aside the mind and look at life, and then everything is one: then life and death are one, then darkness and light are one, then love and hate are one.

A jivanmukta never divides because a jivanmukta looks at life without the mind coming in, interfering.

Can you look without the mind, even for a single moment? Try it. It is one of the most arduous things, but if possible, the most beautiful. Look at a flower and don't allow the mind to come in between you and the flower. But the mind comes immediately - you have not even seen really, and the mind says, "This is a rose - beautiful, red," and the desire to possess it, to pluck it, arises. The mind starts functioning. The flower is there and the cloud of mind comes in, and you look through the mind.

Don't allow this.

Look at the flower. Don't let your mind say, "This is a flower. This is a rose." Just look.

Stop the mind and just look.

Don't allow the mind. Don't move, and don't allow the mind any movement; just look. Become a stare. Let your whole consciousness flow from your eyes, and don't allow the mind to create any cloud between you and the flower. Then what happens? If you go on trying....

This is a meditation - a meditation based on non-verbalization. Don't verbalize, let the flower be there. Observe it, be a witness to it, but don't verbalize the experience. Don't translate it into language. The rose is there - red, alive. Feel it, see it, remain with it. But don't allow the mind to come in and say something - "This is beautiful," or something else. It is difficult in the beginning, but if you go on trying, sometimes for seconds there will be no language. The flower will be there in all its beauty, in all its aliveness, youngness, but with no name, with no linguistic concept attached to it.

The rose has never known that it is a rose; it is you who have called it a rose.

A rose is a rose without ever being aware of being a rose. The name is given by your mind. The rose is simply a rose without knowing whether it is beautiful or ugly - you have called it so. If there is no mind in the world, the rose will be there but it will not be a rose, it will not be a beautiful flower; it will be just existence flowering with no name attached to it - no verbalization, no language, no valuation. It will flower. It will be just the same, simple existence. If you don't verbalize you will come to be acquainted with the flower as it is, without human interpretation. And when the mind is not there, for a single moment there is a breakthrough. The rose is there, you are here; and if the mind is not there to divide you, if the mind has dropped, suddenly you become one with the rose.

I don't mean that you become a rose. It will be very difficult then to become a human being again.

I don't mean that you become a rose. You remain whatsoever you are, and the rose remains whatsoever the rose is - but suddenly there is a communion, a meeting. Your consciousness moves directly, with no hindrance, and the rose also moves, comes nearer. You become close and intimate, and the flower enters you; the doors are open, and you enter the flower. The doors of the flower are always open, there is no mind to close them - but when your doors open, the flower moves in you, and you move in the flower, and there is a constant harmony. The flower contributes, you also contribute, and there is a meeting.

That meeting can become a glimpse into the cosmos, because a flower is not just a flower. It is the whole cosmos grown into a flower, the whole cosmos become a flower. You are also not just a human being - the whole cosmos has become consciousness in you; that too is a flowering. And when these two flowerings meet, that meeting is ecstatic, blissful. And through that meeting you for the first time become aware of a non-verbal existence.

Man has created verbalization, man has created language, man has created mental concepts. They all drop, and the whole of existence becomes a deep silence, a no-music.

The jivanmukta lives in this no-music. The jivanmukta lives in this silence. The jivanmukta lives without mind. It seems absurd - how can one live without mind? Then he will go mad....

So the last point to be remembered is never think that a madman has no mind. Really, a madman has a very fixed mind, solid. A madman has really more mind than you, that's why he has gone mad; too much mind has created the whole mess.

A madman and a jivanmukta are poles apart. The madman is too much mind; a jivanmukta is no mind, and we are in between somewhere. And we go on moving - sometimes we reach the madman, sometimes we have the glimpse of a jivanmukta. At any moment you can become mad.

In anger you become temporarily mad, in sex you become temporarily mad - any moment you can become a madman, but fortunately you can come back. If you cannot come back, and become fixed in the extreme, you become mad.

So the madman is not without a mind; rather, he is with too much or with many minds - multi-minds.

He is a crowd of minds. And a jivanmukta is just the opposite pole: no mind. That doesn't mean that he cannot think. Really, on the contrary, only a jivanmukta can think; you cannot think. What is the difference?

Thoughts go on in you, thinking is an obsession with you. You are not the master. Thoughts go on and on, you cannot stop them. You cannot say, "Don't come," you cannot say, "Now I want to relax, no more thoughts." Whatsoever you say they are not going to listen to you; rather, if you disturb them they become more mad. If you say, "Don't come," they come more.

Try with a single thought: try to forget it, and you cannot forget it. Try to stop it, and it will haunt you.

It will go on and on, and it will defeat you; you are not the master. You cannot think; just this mad crowd of thoughts, and you think that you think - you cannot think. Only a jivanmukta can think, because thoughts are not his masters. He uses thoughts just like you use your legs. When you want to walk, you use them; when you don't want to walk, the legs are relaxed, non-moving. But think of a man who says to his legs, "Please, now stop," and they go on moving! They say, "We cannot stop.

Who are you to stop us?" Then we will say that the legs have gone mad.

Your mind is like that. You say, "Stop and it never stops. You say, "Think over this," and it goes on to think of something else. Try, and you will know your mind is not your slave.

So it is better to say that your mind thinks you, not that you think with your mind. Your mind possesses you, it is not you who are in possession of the mind. A jivanmukta uses his mind just like you use your legs: when he wants to, he thinks - and he thinks whatsoever he wants. If he never wants to think he remains quiet, silent; there is no mind inside.

When this mind is not there constantly, you come into contact with brahman, and then you know TAT TWAMASI - THAT ART THOU Without the mind there is no division; then the self inside becomes the supreme. When there is no division, the self and the supreme are one, one wave of existence.

Your self is nothing but the supreme come down to your body, resting in you - your body has been taken as an abode. Your body is just a host and the supreme has become a guest in you.

Now get ready for meditation.