Chapter 8

[NOTE: This discourse is in the process of being edited for publication. It is for reference use only.]

The first question

Question 1:

Yoga Chinmaya has asked.

... what is happening is good. It is happening just as it should. Don't be frightened by it. Let it happen. Help it in every way. A unique process has begun, whose final crescendo is liberation.

We are certainly imprisoned in the body - a lion locked up in a cage. Confined for such a long time that the lion has forgotten his own roar. Confined for such a long time that the lion has started thinking the cage is his home. No only this, he has started thinking, "I am the cage. I am the body!"

A hit is needed. That's why you are with me, so I can hit - and you wake up.

These words that I say to you are not mere words. Think of them as arrows. They will pierce you. Sometimes you will be angry with me too. Because everything was moving along peacefully, comfortably and suddenly there is confusion. But there is no other way to wake you up, you will have to pass through pain.

When energy rises within, the body will not be able to bear it. The body has not been made to endure it. The capacity of the body is very small. The energy is vast. As if one wants to enclose the whole sky in a small courtyard... so when the energy awakens many disturbances will arise in the body. The head will be splitting with pain.

And sometimes it happens that even after enlightenment disturbances continue in the body. It is completely natural before enlightenment, because the body is not ready. It is as if you put one thousand candles of electricity into an electric line that has the capacity to carry one hundred candles - it will rattle and catch fire! It is just the same when the energy which had been sound asleep within you awakens - it manifests and your body is not ready for it. Your body is ready to accept your being a beggar, it cannot accept your being an emperor. The body has limits, you have no limits.

... it will be jolted, storms will arise. Before enlightenment happens, before samadhi, these shocks are completely natural. And sometimes it happens that samadhi happens and the shocks continue coming, the storms continue, because the body was not able to get ready.

This is what happened in Krishnamurti's case. The process continued forty years after attaining the ultimate. The body could not absorb the shock. Krishnamurti will wake up in the middle of the night shouting and screaming. He starts to growl - really growling. And for forty years he has had a headache that doesn't go away, it comes and goes but it never totally leaves him. Sometimes the pain is so strong that it feels his head will burst.

From the standpoint of the body, these last forty years have been years of great difficulty for Krishnamurti. Sometimes it happens this way. But usually the body becomes ready as samadhi happens. But with Krishnamurti the body could not adjust because samadhi had been forced. The thinkers that brought Krishnamurti up, those Theosophists worked hard, made untiring efforts to bring on samadhi. Their aspiration was to give birth to a world teacher. The world needs it - if a Buddha can be incarnated....

If Krishnamurti had worked only by his own efforts, perhaps he would have needed one or two more births. But then this problem would not have arisen. The worked was forced: what needed two lifetimes to happen, happened instantly. It happened but the body could not get ready. It happened suddenly when the body was not ready. So there have been forty years of physical suffering. Even now Krishnamurti growls at night and wakes up again and again from his sleep. The energy won't let him sleep. He screams!

It seems amazing that a person who has achieved the ultimate should scream at night. But the cause is clear. An enlightenment that should have taken two lifetimes to happen, was forced too quickly. Because of this the body was not ready and the process continues. It has happened but this process continues. He has reached home but the body remains behind, still being dragged along.

The being has reached home, the body has not reached. The pain and suffering of this dragging continues.

Don't be frightened by what's happening. These are the first indications of samadhi, the first steps of samadhi. Take them as auspicious, accept them happily. If you are ready to accept them as blessings, then very soon they will slowly become quiet. And as soon as the body begins to accept, begins to cooperate, the readiness and capacity of the body increase.

You have called out to the infinite, so you will have to become infinite. You have challenged the vastness, so you will have to become vast.

There is a very unique story in the Old Testament - the story of Jacob. Jacob was seeking god. He distributed all his wealth. He sent all his beloved friends, his wife, his children, his servants - he sent them all far away. He was waiting for god on the deserted bank of a river. God arrived.

But it was very strange - Jacob started wrestling with god. Does anyone wrestle with god? But Jacob started struggling with god. It is said that they fought the whole night. As morning approached, as dawn was about to come Jacob was defeated. When god was about to leave him, Jacob fell at god's feet and said, "Please give me your blessing."

God said, "What is your name?"

Jacob told him his name.

God said, "Today you have become Israel" - the name that the Jews are known by - "From today on you are Israel. Now you are no longer Jacob, Jacob has died." - just as I change your name when I give you sannyas initiation. The old is gone.

God told Jacob: "Jacob has died, from now on you are Israel."

This story is from the Old Testament. There is no other story of someone fighting with god. But there is a great truth in this story. When that ultimate energy descends, what happens is almost like a fight. And when the ultimate experience happens and you are defeated by the divine and the body is vanquished and you accept defeat - then your final initiation happens. In that moment divine blessings shower on you. Then you are new. That is when you taste the nectar of the eternal for the first time.

Yoga Chinmaya is almost there where Jacob must have been. It is difficult to say how long the night may be. It is hard to say how long the struggle will last. No prediction can be made. But this struggle is auspicious.

Cooperate with this energy. This lion inside that wants freedom - it is you. This energy that wants to rise towards the head, that wants to go from the sex center to the crown chakra, that wants to create a path - it is you. For many lives it has been subdued and lying coiled up, now it is starting to raise its hood. You are fortunate, you are lucky. With this you are approaching the final blessing.

Your real transformation will happen.

Krishnamurti has written in his notebook, whenever my head is splitting, when at night I cannot sleep and the screaming and shouting come and something inside me growls - after all this is over a unique experience comes. After this a great peace descends. Blessings shower in every direction.

Everywhere lotuses and more lotuses are blooming.

Exactly this is starting to happen to Chinmaya. It is good.

AFTER THIS I FALL DEEP INTO AN EXTRAORDINARY INTOXICATION AND ECSTASY.

When the energy arises after it has had its struggle, and the body becomes a little ready, then a new ecstasy will come: there is growth. You have come up a little. You have transcended a little. You have come out of the prison a little, you have found open sky. You will be fulfilled. You will dance, you will dance for joy.

THEN THE LION BECOMES A LITTLE QUIET, SHAKES, WALKS SLOWLY AND GOES ON GROWLING. AND THEN IN KIRTAN OR IN REMEMBERING YOU HE DANCES ECSTATICALLY.

The lion wants to dance. There isn't room enough to dance in the body. More space is needed for dancing - what space is available in the body? Dance can only happen outside of the body. This is why if you dance totally you will find you no longer remain a body. In the ultimate grace of dance, at the ultimate height, you are out of the body. The body goes on turning, goes on moving rhythmically but you are outside, you are no longer inside.

This is why I have invariably included dance in my methods of meditation, because there is nothing more miraculous for meditation than dancing. If you dance fully, it you dance totally, then in that dance your being comes out of the body. The body will go on moving in rhythm but you will experience that you are out of the body. And then your real dance begins: below, the body will go on dancing; above, you will dance. The body on the earth, you in the sky! The body in the earthly, you in the celestial. The body will dance the dance of matter, you will dance the dance of consciousness. You will become nataraj, the king of the dance.

You ask, "PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT IS GOING ON?

The unprecedented is happening, the wondrous is happening, the rare is happening! What is happening is not to be explained, it is to be experienced. Whatever I say will not help you understand this experience, at the most it can help you become capable of accepting it more easily. Accept it with joy. Do not repress it.

Naturally the idea will come to suppress it thinking, "What madness is this, I am growling like a lion?

What is this roaring? People will think I am mad!"

So naturally the idea will come to suppress it, to hide it - don't let anyone know. What will they say?

Don't worry. Don't bother about what anyone says. If people say you are mad, then go mad! Has anyone become enlightened without going mad? Give your attention to your interiority. If bliss is coming from this, if ecstasy is coming, if wine is raining then don't worry. This world has nothing so valuable as this to give to you. So don't make any compromise with the world. Don't sell an inch of your being, even if in exchange you will get the whole universe as your kingdom.

Jesus has said, what use is it if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? If you save your soul, even if you lose the whole world you have everything.

Have courage, be daring. Let your trust, your faith in yourself grow. Soon your body will start gradually accepting it. Then the roaring will disappear. Then only dance will remain. Then the lion will not suffer, because the lion will have found a path: when he wants to go out he can go out, when he wants to come in he can come in. Then this body is no longer a jail, then this body becomes a place to relax. When you want to come in, come inside; when you want to go out, go outside.

When you can go out and in as easily as you come and go from your house... it is cool, you feel cold, you go outside and sit in the sunshine. Then the sunshine increases, the sun climbs high, it starts getting hot, you start sweating - you get up and come in. Just as you come and go from your house, then the house is not a prison - if you are sitting in prison you don't have the possibility to come out or go in whenever your heart feels like it. In jail you are a prisoner, at home you are a master. When your lion can dance outside, can fly in the sky, can play with the moon and stars - then there is no problem. Then there is no fight with the body. Then the body is a place for relaxation. When you get tired you can return inside and rest. Then there is no enmity with the body either. Then the body is a temple.

The second question:

Question 2:

It has happened many times that I have given initiation to people who have no idea about sannyas.

I have given sannyas to those who have not come to take sannyas. I have initiated those who have never thought of sannyas even in their wildest dreams. Because I don't look only at your mind, I look at the many things repressed in your unconscious.

Last night a young woman came. I didn't even ask her. I said to her, "Close your eyes and take sannyas." I didn't even ask if she wants to take sannyas. She closed her eyes and accepted initiation.

Ordinarily one would be surprised if asked to take sannyas and want to think it over. Some people think of taking sannyas for months, for years. Some have kept on thinking about it and died before taking it. She graciously received it. On a conscious level she doesn't know anything about it.

But we are not new here - we are very ancient! This girl has been seeking for many lives. She carries treasures of meditation. Just seeing this treasure I said, "Close your eyes and go inside." I told her, "I am not going to ask you whether you want to take sannyas or not. There is no need to ask."

I gave Dayal sannyas in the same way. This question is from Dayal. I didn't ask Dayal, Dayal also didn't know.

What do you know about yourself! You don't know where you came from. You don't know about the treasures you have gathered. You don't know what you have been doing these many many lives.

You don't know what you have found in your search and what remains incomplete. Every time death has come and rubbed out everything that you have done. There are many among you who have taken sannyas many times - every time death came and erased everything. And you don't have the ability to recall it.

Understand it like this, you had been creating something... you had been painting a picture, when death came and it remained incomplete. Death came and you forgot. You were born again. Then even if you get a message about that incomplete painting - even if that incomplete painting is put in front of you, you won't remember. Because in this life you had never even thought of yourself as a painter And if I tell you, "Finish the painting, it has been left incomplete, you had made it with great hopes, you had created it with a very deep thirst - now just go ahead and finish it. Death had come in between and it was left incomplete."

You will say, "I don't know anything, you can have me take up the brush but I don't even know how to hold it. You can put the colors in front of me and I will paint but I don't know anything about how to paint." Still, I tell you to start, and just by starting the memory will come. Just take the brush in your hand and perhaps you will be reminded.

It happened in the Second World War, a soldier was wounded and fell. He lost his memory. He had received a blow to the head. His memory cells got messed up. He forgot. He forgot - even his own name. He forgot who he was. And he was unconscious when he was taken from the battlefield. His identification had fallen off somewhere, his number too had fallen. It was a great problem. When he came to his senses he didn't know his number, he didn't know his name, he didn't know his rank.

The psychologists worked hard. They tried in every way to remind him but couldn't find out anything.

The man had gone completely blank. As if all connection with his memory had suddenly broken off.

Someone suggested that now there was only one way: have him taken all around England. He was a soldier in the British army. If he was taken around England, perhaps when he came near his own village he would remember.

So he was taken around England on the trains. Two men took him around. The train stopped at every station and they brought him down. He stood and stared. They got tired. England is a small country, so it wasn't very difficult to take him everywhere. In the end at a very small station where the train didn't usually stop, but for some reason it did this time, the man got off, read the sign on the station and said, "This is my village!" He began to run. He forgot that there were two men with him. The two men began running after him. He ran out of the station and into the village. ... he remembered everything. He remembered the lanes and paths. He didn't even ask anyone. Passing through the lanes and bypaths he arrived in front of his house. He said, "Oh! This is my house, this is my name. This is my name plate hanging here." He remembered everything. Just one hit and his whole memory came back again. Forgetfulness disappeared, the memory cells came back together again.

So sometimes I give sannyas as I gave it to Dayal in the hope that if I send you around in orange clothes, perhaps you will remember that you have previously moved in orange clothes too. If I say:

"Dance!" Perhaps while you are dancing, one day you will arrive at that psychological space, where you will remember your dancing of past lives. I say, "Meditate." While you are meditating perhaps some door in the unconscious will open and a flood of memories will come.

This is why I go on speaking - sometimes on the Geeta, sometimes on Ashtavakra, sometimes

on Zarathustra, sometimes on Buddha, sometimes on Jesus, sometimes on Krishna - who knows which words will stir your heart. Who knows which words will become a key to your inner depths.

Who knows which words will awaken you from your slumber. I go on trying everything. My effort is simply to create a continuity, a harmony, a connectivity with what deaths have broken and scattered.

With this continuity your destiny will start unfolding in front of you. Many times you have made the house, it was abandoned again and again.

Hence Dayal is right, I DO NOT REMEMBER ANY MOMENT WHEN I TOOK SANNYAS... He didn't take it, I gave it.

... NEITHER WHEN NOR WHERE. YOU JUST GAVE IT. EVEN NOW HAVE I COME NEAR YOU?

You will come near me, when you reach yourself. There is no other way to come near me. Reach yourself and you have reached me. Know yourself and you have known me. You don't need to make any outer pilgrimage towards me - descend deeper and deeper within.

I DIDN'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT SANNYAS THEN, NOR DO I KNOW ANYTHING NOW.

... it will happen, soon you will know. I DIDN'T KNOW ANYTHING ... THEN, NOR DO I KNOW ANYTHING NOW. - this is true. But this attitude is good where you think, where you know, that you don't know. Unfortunate are they who don't know but think they know. You are in the right state. This is the attitude of the innocent mind, "I don't know." You are empty, you can be filled. There are some who don't know anything - and their number is vast - but they think they know. Through this wrong idea, they miss even what they could have known.

Knowledge prevents - prevents you from real knowing. If you know that you are ignorant, then you are moving in the right direction. The ultimate happens only in such innocence of mind. To know that I don't know, is the first step towards knowing.

WHAT WORTHINESS DO I HAVE? WHAT TRUST AND SURRENDER HAVE I GOT?

This feeling arises in a worthy person's heart, "What worthiness do I have?" The unworthy think, "Who is as worthy as I am?"

This feeling of humility itself is worthiness, that what do I deserve, what surrender, what trust do I have? This is the indication of trust. The seed is present, one just needs to wait: at the appropriate time, in the appropriate season, it will sprout, the transformation will happen.

And this journey is a rare journey. This journey is a journey of the unknown, of the unknowable.

This hiding behind the veils of continuing silence. It is in vain that now I have become one who knows the secret.

In the madness of you I lost my peace. In your pain I have become a flame filled with joy.

In the hands of time I have been so bent that I who was once an arrow, have now become a bow.

No companion, no guide for this journey. What path is this I have set out on?

I have found great joy in self-oblivion. Being lost, I have become the very beacon of the goal.

This goal is such that it is reached by losing yourself. As long as you exist, you will not arrive, when you disappear you reach.

I have found great joy in self-oblivion.

... when you are not, when your ego has gone, when self-forgetfulness comes...

I have found great joy in self-oblivion. Being lost, I have become the very beacon of the goal.

As I have disappeared, I have arrived.

This path is the path of obliteration.

So if you feel, 'Where is my worthiness to surrender,' you have started to be effaced, self-oblivion is arising. If you feel that WHAT TRUST... HAVE I GOT? then self-effacement starts coming, you start being obliterated.

Sannyas means to be obliterated, so existence can be.

No companion, no guide for this journey.

This is a journey of great aloneness.

No companion, no guide for this journey.

There isn't any companion, no one to guide the path. Finally, the master too has to be dropped, because there is no space. Kabir says, "The path of love is very narrow, there two can never pass!"

Where is space enough that three can exist? Not even two can exist. The disciple, the master, the divine; they are three! There, not even two can exist. There, the master is dropped, you also are dropped. There, only the divine remains.

No companion, no guide for this journey. What is this path I have set out on?

Sannyas is a very unknown journey. A journey of great courage, of great daring! Those who are ready to accept the risk of going into the unknown - it is for them. It is not for the clever, those who calculate everything. It is not mathematics, it is a leap of love.

The third question:

Question 3:

If you ask 'how' you have missed. You didn't get it. This is Ashtavakra's whole message: practicing...

'How' means practicing. 'How' means by what method, by which rites and rituals. If you ask 'how' you have missed. Then you cannot understand Ashtavakra. Then you should go knock on Patanjali's door: he will tell you 'how.' If you are insistent upon this 'how,' then Patanjali will be your path. He will tell you to do outer discipline, inner discipline, control, breath control, turning inwards, concentration, meditation, samadhi. He will make it so extensive that even you will say: "O Maharaj, make it a little less. Tell me some easy method. This is too long, it will take many lives."

Most yogis are only practicing outer discipline. They never reach even to inner discipline. Most yogis die still trying to master asanas - yoga postures. Where is concentration, where is meditation?

There are so many yoga postures it seems impossible to ever complete the training in them. At the very most those who seek deeply reach to concentration. And the real happening can occur only in samadhi. And even samadhi Patanjali divides in two: samadhi with distinctions and samadhi without differentiation. He goes on dividing, he goes on making more and more steps. He makes steps all the way from the earth to the sky.

If 'how', if practicing, appeals to you, then ask Patanjali. Even though in the end Patanjali also says drop everything, enough of this 'doing'. But there are some people that cannot stop doing, so they will have to do.

Think of it like this: there is a child in the house making noise and causing mischief. You tell him, "Sit quietly," but even if he sits, he will be bubbling over. His hands and feet will wriggle, his head will shake - he wants to do something, he is bursting with energy. This is no way to get him to sit still. It is dangerous. There can be an explosion. This way he is going to do something or other. It is better you tell him, "Go and run around the house seven times." Then he will come back huffing and puffing and sit quietly on his own. You won't even have to say be quiet. He will sit quietly on the very chair that he could not sit quietly on before.

Patanjali is for those who cannot become quiet directly. He says, "Run seven rounds. Run long and hard. Distort and twist your body, stand on your head, do this, do that."

Doing these practices finally you will ask one day, "O Maharaj, I am tired of this doing!"

He will say, "You should have said so in the very beginning, then both of us would have been saved from all this botheration. Now go and sit quietly!"

Man wants to do. Because without doing - it just doesn't fit your logic that anything can happen without doing. Ashtavakra is beyond your logic. Ashtavakra says you are liberated! But you still misunderstand. You say, ..."YOU ARE LIBERATED HERE AND NOW, THIS VERY MOMENT." BUT HOW CAN I GET FREE OF THIS "I"?

Ashtavakra says that 'how' exists when one thinks he is unfree. First you have accepted that you are bound: "Now how can I get free?" Ashtavakra says there are no chains - only the illusion of chains.

But you will still say, "How can I get free of this illusion?" You still don't get it. Illusion means that which is not: free of what? Just watching, just being wakeful - you are free.

If you get involved in methods, you will be in great difficulty.

Every method proves false, and finally life itself proves too short.

If you get stuck in methods you will find that not just this life but many lives are not enough. Methods are many. Life after life you have gone on practicing them. You put faith in doing because doing inflates your ego.

Ashtavakra is saying don't do anything. The whole is the only doer. What is happening is happening, just become one with it. Don't even ask: "How to get free of this I?" If this 'I' is happening let it happen, who are you to try to get free of it? You can also accept it: good, if this is happening, then this is what is happening. You didn't create it. Do you remember having created it? You didn't cast its mould. You didn't bring it. How will you drop what you didn't bring? How will you destroy what you didn't cast? You ask, "What can we do?" You have two eyes and a nose, you also have an ego.

You have received all of these. Nothing is in your hands.

Whatever exists is good. If 'I' exists, that too is good. Don't complain even a little about it. In this attitude of no complaint, in this total acceptance, you will suddenly find the 'I' is gone! Because the 'I' is created from doing. When you do something the 'I' is created.

Now you are asking something new, "How can I destroy this 'I'?" The one who destroys will become the 'I'. You will not be able to escape. This is why a humble man also has an ego - and sometimes it is bigger than in an egoist.

Have you seen the ego of the humble? He says. "I am just the dust at your feet." But look into his eyes - what is it he is saying? If you say, "You are absolutely right, I knew already that you are just the dust at my feet," then he will start fighting. He is not saying it for you to agree with it. He is saying it so you will say, "You are such a humble man... you are very kind to give us your darshan." He is saying it so you will refute it saying, "You and dust at my feet? No, you are pure gold. You are the very spire of the temple." The more you say high, he will say no, just the dust. But when he says he is the dust, if you agree, "You are absolutely right, everyone thinks that you are just the dust at their feet," then he will never even look at you again. It was not humility - it was ego in a new color, ego dressed in new clothes, ego dressed in humility.

So if you try to drop the 'I', the one who is dropping it will create a new 'I'. Man goes on changing costumes. The clothes change but you remain the same.

Try to understand what Ashtavakra is saying. Don't be too quick to ask what to do, how to get rid of this ego. Don't be in a hurry to do. Relax and take a little time to understand. Ashtavakra is saying, "Understand how this 'I' is created - it is created by doing, it is created from striving and effort, it is created from success. So wherever you make efforts, it will be created. Then one thing becomes clear that if you want to be free of ego, then don't make efforts, don't try. Accept whatever is, just like it is. In this acceptance you will find the ego has disappeared as if it had never existed, because the element that was giving it energy has slipped out, the foundation has fallen down so the house cannot stand long.

And if the feeling of being the doer falls away, then all of life's diseases fall away. Otherwise there are many traps in life. Running after money is also the running of the doer. Running after power is also the running of the doer. Running after fame is also the running of the doer. You want to show something to the world.

Many people come to me saying, "Tell us a way to show something to this world." What is it you want to show? They say, "No, it's just we want to make a name for ourselves. We will be going but our name should remain behind!" What's the use of your name remaining? No one else is interested in your name. When you yourself are gone who is going to bother? When you couldn't be saved from death, will your name be saved from dying? You cannot be kept alive, how can this name which is only an indication be saved? Who bothers about your name? And so what if your name does remain? It will be hidden away in some old books, it will be grieving there. Alexander's name, Napoleon's name - so what?

But no, we have been taught these diseases since childhood. Since childhood we have been told, "Do something before you die. Don't die without doing anything. If you can, do something good, if not, do something bad, but make a name for yourself." People say, "So what if you get a bad name, at least your name is known. If you don't find the right way, then do something crazy, but make a name for yourself!"

People are so crazy that they go to the mountains and inscribe their names in stone. They go visit an ancient castle and scribble their name on the walls. And the man writing his name doesn't see that he is rubbing out another name to write his: someone else will come and rub his out and write over it. You have erased someone else's, you are writing over the top of others writing - and in big letters. If someone else comes they will write in even bigger letters. What madness have you fallen into?

Many are the frivolous longings woven by snares of dream, many are the trampled down passions arisen with a brilliance.

The joy of beauty, love's drunkenness, the greatness of name, the pride of wealth, for man on this earth many are the spread out snares of illusion.

Each to his own destiny and each to his own nature, many are those trampled by happiness, many are those made rich by sorrow.

Many are the famines that have passed, but when have such hard times come?.

Treasure of the heart is found little, though treasure is found aplenty. Many are the wealthy I saw whose hearts were paupers.

How many scenes are latent in the depths of unconsciousness? The world of consciousness is one, the nether worlds of unconsciousness are many.

"How many scenes are latent in the depths of unconsciousness?" This is our unconscious, in it so many scenes are hidden - scene after scene, curtains behind curtains, stories within stories! This is our unconscious, there are so many hells hidden in it - of wealth, of power, of fame, of dreams - the snares are set!

How many scenes are latent in the depths of unconsciousness? The world of consciousness is one, the nether worlds of unconsciousness are many.

But one who becomes aware, his world is one, his nature is one, his being is one, his flavor is one!

Buddha has said, "Wherever you taste the ocean it is salty - likewise if you taste me I am everywhere fully conscious. I have only one flavor: consciousness."

This same is the flavor of Ashtavakra. Not the doer, not the one who enjoys and suffers - the witness.

So don't ask 'how'? Because with how the doer comes in, the enjoyer comes in - then you miss, you miss Ashtavakra's message. Ashtavakra is saying, "Whatever is, observe it. Be a witness.

Just watch. If there is ego then watch ego. What else to do? Only watch - and by watching the transformation happens."

Do you understand? It is a little subtle, but not so subtle that you can't understand it. It is straight forward also. Ashtavakra is saying just observe and when you observe the doer disappears, only the witness remains. With the doer gone everything that got energy from the doer, got strength from it will fall away. Without the doer how can one run after money, run after power? Without the doer where is the ego? These will all fall away by themselves.

Master just one thing - the witness. There is nothing else to be done. Everything else happens by itself. Everything else goes on and on, always. Why should you uselessly get in the way?

I have heard, an elephant was crossing over a bridge. The bridge started shaking under his weight.

A fly was sitting on his trunk. When they both got to the other side, the fly said, "Son! We really shook that bridge."

The elephant said, "Sweetie, until you spoke I didn't even know you existed."

You think you are shaking the bridge but it is not you who is shaking the bridge, it is life energy. You are like a fly that sits on top of life energy and says, "Son! Look how I have shaken it!"

This ego is just sitting on top of you. Everything is happening from your limitless energy. It is the energy of existence, you don't have anything to do with it. This same breathes in you, awakens in you, sleeps in you. You stand proudly in between. This much is certain, it doesn't take objection to your pride. At least the elephant objected. The elephant said, "Sweetie, I didn't even know you were sitting on top of me." At least the elephant said this much. Existence doesn't even say this much.

Existence is silent. If you stand proudly, it lets you. If you lay claim to its work, it lets you. If you say you are doing what you have not done, then too it doesn't intrude and say, "No, I am doing it." It has no I, how can it tell you I am doing it? So illusion goes on and on.

But look closely, open your eyes a little and see: you are not doing anything. Everything is happening by itself!

This is the incomparable concept of destiny, the unparalleled concept of fate: everything is happening by itself. Wrong people have given it incorrect meanings. Otherwise fate means merely...

If you understand the idea of fate rightly, you will remain a witness and there will be nothing else to do. But people don't become a witness of fate, they become lazy. They don't become non-doers, they become idlers.

There is a difference between non-doing and idleness. Idleness is lazy, indolent, dead. Non-doing is full of energy - one doesn't think I am doing: "... existence is doing! I am only watching. This play is going on, I am observing."

Man is very tricky. He uses even the most beautiful truths in the ugliest way. Fate is a very beautiful truth. It means that everything goes on by itself, you are not doing anything. All is destined. What will be, will be. What is to be, is. What was to happen, has happened. You can sit quietly on the bank and watch the play. There is no need for you to jump into the middle of it. Your running back and forth doesn't make any difference. What is to happen is happening. What will be, will be. Then you become a witness.

The idea of fate was devised to take you towards witnessing. People have not gone towards witnessing. People sit idling. They say, "When what is to be is happening, then good, why should we do anything? Fate means we have no power to do, why should we do?" Before they said they will show the world, now they say, there is nothing in doing! But the feeling of the doer hasn't gone, it remains standing in the same place.

If you understand Ashtavakra, then there is no method, there is no practice: Ashtavakra says practice is bondage, methods are bondage, doing itself is bondage.

The fourth question:

Question 4:

The first thing: be a witness of sex too. Don't be the controller of it. Don't try to forcibly bring it under control, remain a witness of it too. Just as you are a witness of everything else, remain a witness of sex too.

It is difficult, because you have been taught for centuries that sex is sin. That concept of sin has been fixed in your mind.

Sin does not exist in this universe - there is only godliness. Drop that idea. In this universe there is only one - it pervades all - it is godliness. It is in the tiniest of the tiny, in the most vast of the vast.

It is in the lowest, in the highest. It is in sex, it is in samadhi too. There is no sin here.

This does not mean that I am suggesting that you remain stuck in sex. I am only saying: understand it too as a form of godliness. There are other forms. Perhaps the first level of his forms is sex. And there is a small taste of samadhi reflected in sexual experience, hence so much attraction. When greater samadhis start to happen, the attraction will disappear by itself.

The friend has asked that getting absorbed in meditation, I... BECOME ONE WITH THE FLOW WITHIN. BUT WHEN SEX OVERTAKES ME, I WANT TO DROWN IN THAT JUST AS MUCH...

Drown! There is no need to stop. Just remain a witness as you go on drowning. Go on observing

that you are going under. Go on observing that sex has encircled you. In fact the word sex brings condemnation into the mind. Think of it this way: a kind of godliness has encircled, this divine energy has encircled, this divine nature has encircled, the divine maya has encircled. But don't use the word sex - the old associations connected with the word are wrong - they make it appear like sin. Then it will be difficult to remain a witness - either you will become unconscious or you will control. To be a witness is neither to go unconscious nor to control - it is to stand firm between these two. On this side you fall in a ditch, on the other you fall in the well - remain in between, master this, then samadhi.

Both are easy: it is perfectly easy to go unconscious in sex, to completely forget what is going on, to get intoxicated is easy. To control sex, to force it to stop, to prevent yourself is also easy. But in both you miss. The one who indulges misses, the celibate misses too. The real brahmacharya happens when you stand in the middle between these two, then you are only watching. Then you will find that sex arises in the body and reverberates in the body; in the mind a shadow briefly falls and departs.

You remain standing far away. How can sexual desire be in you? How can any desire be in you?

You are nothing but the observer.

And it usually happens that when meditation starts going well, sexual desire becomes stronger.

Understand this because it happens to most people. When meditation is going well, when you start relaxing into the rhythm of your life, tension is less, then the suppression you have been forcing on sex for many lives will be gone. Then the repressed desire will arise like a volcano. Hence if sexual desire increases with meditation, don't worry, it is a good sign, indicating that meditation is progressing well. Meditation is doing good work. Meditation is getting rid of your tensions, removing your control, getting rid of your repressions. Meditation is taking you towards your naturalness.

First meditation will make you natural and then it will bring you to godliness. Because it is impossible to bring what is not yet natural, to its deeper nature. What is not yet natural, cannot reach the divine.

So meditation first brings you to nature, then brings you to the divine. Nature is god's outer covering.

If you are not in tune with it, how can you be in tune with the innermost godliness? Nature is the steps of the temple. If you don't climb the steps, then how will you enter into the inner sanctum of the temple?

If you can understand what I am saying then don't suppress any more. Now quietly accept it. What this existence shows to you will be good. Existence is presenting it, so it must be good. Neither control, nor become the one who decides, nor stand back saying this is good and that is bad - I want to do this and don't want to do that. You simply observe.

A life is descending like the sun, the candle of desires too is melting down, slowly slowly the fire is burning itself out. Longings are settling down, the floods are ebbing to a stop, passion is ebbing to a stop, the reign of silence is deepening, the fire is burning itself out.

It is going well. But before the fire goes out it will flare up one last time. You can ask the physicians - before dying a man becomes completely healthy for a little while. All symptoms disappear. One who was lying on the bed like a corpse sits up, opens his eyes and looks fresh. A little before dying all symptoms disappear because life is making its last leap, life energy comes up once again.

You have seen how an earthen lamp when it is going out flares up one last time. As the last oil burns

out, it drinks the last drop of oil and flares up. It is its last burst of flame. Before the dawn you have seen how dark the night is. It is the last burst of darkness.

It is the same when you go deep in meditation, you will find when the fire is about to go out, then the last burst of flame.... Sex energy arises.

A life is descending like the sun, the candle of desires too is melting down...

... the lamp of desires is melting, life is going out.

... slowly slowly the fire is burning itself out. Longings are cooling down, the floods are ebbing to a stop... - the flow of life is stopping.

... passion is ebbing to a stop, the reign of silence is deepening... - the juiciness of meditation is increasing. - the juiciness of silence is deepening.

the reign of silence is deepening, the fire is burning itself out.

In this state a burst of flame will flare up at any moment. Such a blaze is flaring up in you. Observe it. Do not suppress it, otherwise it will move into you again. You are very close to getting free of it, don't suppress it, otherwise the bondage will start again. What has been suppressed will flare up again and again. Whatever you have forced down will come again and again. Let it go, let it come out, let it flow out.

However high it flares up, you go on watching peacefully.

It will not interfere with your meditation.

You continue witnessing.

The fifth question

Question 5:

If you have understood, then don't ask. If you ask then you have not understood. If you have understood not to get into any bondage and to be at peace and happy, then just by understanding you will become happy and at peace. Then where did this question come from? Do serene and happy people ask questions? All questions arise from discomfort, from suffering, from misery. If you are still asking questions, then you are not yet at peace, you will need sannyas initiation. If you become serene then what need is there of sannyas? You have become a sannyasin! But don't deceive yourself. If you don't have the courage to take sannyas, don't use Ashtavakra as an excuse.

Yes, if you have attained peace there is no need for sannyas. It is in search of peace that one takes sannyas.

If you have become happy, if you think you have become happy, if you have become as worthy as Janak, then the matter is finished. But then this question would not have arisen. Janak did not ask questions, Janak said, "Amazing, master! Then I am liberated! It is surprising how I had fallen under the spell of maya until right now!" If you are ready like Janak you would say, "I am blessed! Then I am liberated! How had I fallen under the spell of maya until right now!" You wouldn't be asking this question.

The truth is, you have the desire to take sannyas in your mind, but not the courage. Listening to Ashtavakra you thought, it is good to know that sannyas is bondage, now there is no need to get into it. Will you drop your other bondages or only the bondage of sannyas? And you are not yet a sannyasi - there is no way to drop what you don't even have. What other enslavements will you drop? Will you leave your wife? Your home? Your money? Your power? Your mind? The doer? Will you drop your ego? What else will you drop from what you actually have? Certainly it is possible for you to drop what you have. Let sannyasins ask this question, those that have become sannyasins.

You have not yet taken sannyas. It would be understandable if a sannyasin asked if now he should drop sannyas. He has sannyas, you don't have sannyas. How will you drop what you don't have?

Ask about what you do have. Ask whether you should renounce your house and home.

Hearing everything that Ashtavakra is saying, is this all you could understand, that sannyas initiation is bondage? Is nothing else is bondage?

Man is cunning. The mind is deceptive. The mind is very calculative. It says, "If I can extract the meaning I want it is very good, then I can avoid trouble. I was very hesitant about taking it, it is good I have met Ashtavakra on the way. He has explained well, he has put me right, now there is no need to make the mistake of taking sannyas."

Will you learn anything else from Ashtavakra?

People come to me saying, "Shall we drop meditation now? - because Ashtavakra says there is bondage in meditation." Will you drop wealth, will you drop power? Or only meditation...! And meditation hasn't happened yet, but you will drop it? If meditation has happened and you ask, shall I drop it, I will say drop it. But one who is meditating will never ask about dropping, he is beyond dropping and holding onto. He will understand Ashtavakra, he will be blissful, filled with joy. He will say, "Great, it is absolutely true. In meditation meditation itself is dropping away. In sannyas bondages are dropping by themselves. Sannyas is no bondage. It is only a device for dropping all bondage. In the end it too will drop."

Understand it like this. You get a thorn in your foot, then you use another thorn as a needle to take the first one out. The second thorn is also a thorn, but it is useful in removing the first thorn. Then you throw both of them away. You don't keep the second thorn thinking it has done a great kindness in removing the first thorn. Or thinking how very loving it is, you don't put the second thorn back into the same place where the first thorn was stuck!

Sannyas is a needle. The thorn of the world is stuck in you, this is a way to take it out. If you can pull it out without a needle, that's even better. What could be more auspicious than your understanding Ashtavakra? Then there would be no need for sannyas. But make sure you aren't deceiving yourself!

If it is deception, then be courageous and jump into sannyas. And that moment will also come, when you will be worthy of dropping sannyas too.

But what is there to drop? When you understand, then there is nothing to drop - everything has fallen away. This is what Janak has said, "O Lord, this body has also dropped." Janak is still in the body, the body hasn't fallen away, but Janak says, "This body has also dropped! This whole world has dropped! Everything has dropped! I am completely unattached, beyond emotions! What great skill in your teaching! What an art! Nothing has happened, I have not left the palace, not left the world, not left the body - and I have left everything!"

The day you understand it, there is nothing to drop - not the world and not sannyas. The very idea of dropping comes only to the man who thinks there is something to hold onto.

Renunciation is just a shadow of indulgence. The renunciate is a worldly person standing on his head. When the world goes, renunciation also goes. These two live together and leave together.

This is why you see the worldly at the feet of the renunciates! They are together. The renunciate does half the job, the worldly does the other half - they are joined together. The worldly cannot live without the renunciate, the renunciate cannot live without the worldly. Have you seen this conspiracy!

A man came to me, saying I want to learn to meditate. He was a sannyasi - an old fashioned sannyasi. So I said, "Good, come to the morning meditation."

He said, "That is a little difficult."

I said, "Why, what's difficult in that?"

He said, "The difficulty is, I cannot come without this man who has come with me, because he keeps the money, I don't touch money. He has to go somewhere else in the morning, so I won't be able to come tomorrow morning."

This is just hilarious! If you need money, what difference does it make whether it is in your pocket or in someone else's? And this becomes another bondage - the one who keeps the money in his pocket is better off than you, at least he can go wherever he wants. It is a peculiar situation: unless this man comes along, you cannot come because you need to have money for the taxi - but you don't touch money! So you are having this man sin for you? Commit your own sins. This is great fun - you will ride in the taxi and he will go to hell for it! Have a little compassion on him. This is the great connection of the worldly and the yogi!

All your renunciates live bound to worldly people. And your worldly people also live bound to renunciates, because they touch the feet of the renunciates thinking, "Today I am not a renunciate, but at least I touch the feet of one. I get some satisfaction of having done something! If not today, then tomorrow I too will become a renunciate. But right now I worship him."

If you ask Jainas where they are going they say they are going to serve the sadhu. Serving him they think, it is gain - earning some merit. There the sadhu sits, looking down the road to see when the worldly is coming. Here the worldly are looking, when will the sadhu come to town. Worldly and sadhus, two sides of the same coin.

Think a little. If the worldly quit going to the sadhus, how many sadhus will there be? They will all start running away. Who will organize, who will make arrangements? They will all go. But the worldly go on taking care of the sadhus, the sadhus go on taking care of the worldly. It is mutual.

The real wise man can be neither a renunciate nor indulgent. He knows only that I am the witness.

Now what difference does it make whether the money is in his pocket or in someone else's pocket?

He is the witness. ... if it is, he is a witness; if it is not, he is a witness. Poor, he is a witness; rich he is a witness. In witnessing what difference is there between poverty and wealth? Do you think that if a beggar becomes a witness, that his witnessing will be a little less, and an emperor becomes a witness, his witnessing will be a little more? Can witnessing ever be less or more? Poor or rich, healthy or unhealthy, well-read or illiterate, beautiful or ugly, famous or infamous - it makes no difference. Witnessing is a treasure that is equal inside everyone, there is no less or more to it.

We can be a witness of every circumstance - success, failure; respect, disrespect.

Be a witness, this is all Ashtavakra is saying. But if you find it is difficult to be a witness and you want to use some method, then use a method, don't be afraid. Continuing to use the method will help you become capable of becoming the witness of the method too. This is why I say, meditate, and don't worry about it. Because I know, not meditating you will never come to witnessing, not meditating you will only continue thinking. So the choice is not between meditation and witnessing, the choice is between thinking and meditation.

Do you understand what I am saying? If you don't meditate - you have heard Ashtavakra - Ashtavakra said that meditation and methods are bondage (and he is absolutely right, one hundred percent correct!) so you quit meditating. What will you do? Will you become a witness now? You will go on repeating the same old rotten thoughts. It is so hilarious: because of Ashtavakra you have fallen deeper into the world. This ladder is for you to climb up. You have started using it to descend.

The same steps!

I tell you to meditate. Because the alternatives before you are meditation and thinking: right now witnessing is not an alternative for you. Yes, if you continue to meditate your thoughts will be finished, a new choice will present itself. Now you can choose: witnessing or meditation? Then you can choose witnessing, and meditation can be dropped.

But if you decide not to take sannyas now you will remain indulgent. The choice is between sannyas and the world now. I say take sannyas now. And one day the moment will come when the choice is no longer between the world and sannyas. The world is gone, sannyas remains. Then the choice is between ultimate sannyas and sannyas. Then I will tell you, forget about sannyas, now merge yourself into ultimate sannyas. Yes, if you can go immediately, like Janak, then I am not going to object! Be joyous! Be happy! If you can't then no one else can decide. If you are not able to be happy, you will have to decide what you need to do.

You can turn truth into untruth, and you can even turn flowers into thorns - it all depends on you.

Don't run eyes closed in the sunlight, my naive heart! The routes are all unknown. On the way you meet thorns and rocks. Just smelling a delicate fragrance, don't believe there are only flowers.

Remember, take your steps carefully. The step you take shouldn't be chosen just by the sweetness of a delicate fragrance.

On the way you meet thorns and rocks. Just smelling a delicate fragrance, don't believe there are only flowers.

When a delicate fragrance comes to you, be careful that it is not just your projection. That it is not just your greed. That it is not just your fear. That it is not just your weakness that your are projecting.

And don't be led astray by that sweet soft smell.

It appears very easy - not to do anything. It seems easy when you hear it, but when you come to doing 'not doing anything', then there is nothing harder. Hearing about witnessing it seems so simple, that there is nothing to do, you only have to watch. When you come to do it you will find, "Oh! This is tremendously hard!"

Try this: sit down with your watch in front of you. The second hand makes its round in one minute.

Look at the second hand, witness it's movement and try to go on witnessing it. You will find it moves two to four seconds - and the witness is gone! Some other thought has come. You forgot. You will be shocked that the second hand has slipped on ahead. Then you will be a witness for two to four seconds, and forget again. In completing one minute you will lose it two, four or ten times. You cannot remain a witness for even one minute, so there is no question now of the witness. Now you can choose thinking or meditation. Then eventually choosing between meditation and witnessing will become possible.

You ask about sannyas, sannyas is only feeling that you want to be with me. It is not a commitment.

You are not bound to me. I do not give you any discipline. I give no rules of conduct. I don't tell you when to get up, what to eat, what to drink; what to do, what not to do. I only tell you to be a witness.

I only tell you my hand is available, take my hand in yours. Perhaps taking a few steps with me, you will also catch my disease. This disease is contagious. Move a little distance with Buddha and you will be dyed a little by his color. You won't be able to prevent it. A little of his fragrance will begin to emanate from you too. If you pass through a garden, the fragrance of the flowers gets into your clothes - even if you didn't touch the flowers!

Sannyas is showing a little courage to move with me, having a feeling to be with me. It is falling in love with me. The whole idea behind this love is that I am making arrangements for you to be free.

Move with me, I want to give you the fragrance of liberation.

I am a puppet of breath. I am tied to old age. And to death I am given over. But there is this thing called love, you know! By him, I have been liberated. The club of time eternal, a weight impossible to bear, is balanced by one fun-filled childlike moment.

What are you?

I am a puppet of breath. I am tied to old age. And to death I am given over.

Birth and death, this is all that you are. Breath comes in and goes out and in between there is a brief tale, a short drama. If there is anything here that can take you beyond death and birth - But there is this thing called love, you know! By him, I have been liberated.

If love happens between life and death...

Sannyas means to fall in love with me, nothing more than this. This is enough, this is the definition.

If you are in love with me and are ready to move with me a little way, then moving that little way will take you a great distance.

And everything else is superficial: changing the color of your clothes, wearing the mala. These are only to awaken courage and to help you remember your being. These are only outer beginnings, then much happens inside. Those you see dyed in these orange clothes, don't look only at their clothes, take a look into their hearts too - there you will find a new stream of love beginning to arise.

But there is this thing called love, you know! By him, I have been liberated.

Let me rain over you. Even if you are stone right now, don't worry, this stream of water will cut through your rock.

When the ray of light showered on me, I said, "I am as hard as diamond, a stone eternal."

The ray said, "Is it so? You are the very one I have been searching for. I will create a temple out of you. From your interiority I will carve a statue of light." Dumbfounded. The ray cuddled me in her deep love.

When the ray of light showered on me, I said, "I am as hard as diamond, a stone eternal."

You also say this to me, "No, you cannot change us, we are stone, very ancient, we have taken a vow not to be transformed."

But I say unto you:

The ray said, "Is it so? You are the very one I have been searching for. I will create a temple out of you. From your interiority I will carve a statue of light." Dumbfounded. The ray cuddled me in her deep love.

These orange clothes are only an indication of my love - of your love towards me, of my love towards you. This is a love tie.

The last question:

Question 6:

Jaya has asked.

Jaya has been close to me for many years. She has a heart exactly like that of Meera. In her heart a song just like Meera's is waiting. In her heart a dance just like Meera's is hidden. When it appears, she will manifest her greatness, then another Meera will appear: an awaiting for the right moment, any time the ray of light will descend and chase away the darkness. And she is courageous - this is why a prediction can be made that it will happen.

But is it not this very mist the ongoing gift in which your cloudlike compassion is showering day and night. Once in a while a shadow glanced. The ultimate language. Possible name. Abode of compassion. This seed mantra, this basic thread, this the only measure of depth, this our grateful bowing down. How deep is thy mist covered cistern - how tiny are our hands.

Facing the divine our hands always appear small! The cup of our palms is so small.

How deep is thy mist covered cistern - how tiny are our hands.

Whoever has love in their heart, always feels how small his hands are.

Jaya has asked:

Question 7:

This is a filling such that one becomes more and more empty. This is a filling of emptiness. This is filling up with emptiness. My effort is to make you blank. If you have become blank then I have succeeded. If you remain full then I have failed. When you become absolutely blank and nothing more remains inside of you - no trace, no word, no rubbish - in this emptiness the divine manifests.

I want to say to Jaya:

Go, o soul go, virgin girl, become a bride, His companion. Now that great void is thy only path and destination. Protector of grains and water, lord of light and religion. He alone will make you joyous, thrilled. O, soul! You are chosen. O united one. O wedded one thy wedding with the great void is celebrated.

"... thy wedding with the great void is celebrated." This being empty, this being blank - is to celebrate your wedding with the great silence. Dancing, letting that ecstasy manifest, singing, ecstatic - you have to lose yourself!

There is only one way of being - disappearing. The moment you become totally empty, immediately the divine descends in its totality. You are the only barrier. So don't be afraid! When you become blank, you have achieved all.

A story from Maharashtra: once Eknath wrote a letter to Nivrittinath. He sent blank paper, nothing written on it. Nivrittinath read it very thoroughly - a blank sheet of paper with nothing to read on it.

He really got into it, reading it again, and again, and again! Muktibai was sitting nearby, he gave it to her and she read it. Her tears started flowing! She was completely gone! Other people were present, they started saying, "This is sheer madness! First, Eknath is mad sending a blank sheet of paper. A letter means to write something! Then this Nivrittinath is mad that he is reading it, not just once but time and again. Then strangest of all, this Muktibai, she is completely gone and her tears start flowing!"

All scriptures are blank paper! And if you learn how to read blank paper, then you know how to read all scriptures - Vedas, Koran, Guru Granth, Gita, Upanishads, Bible, Dhammapada. One who can read blank paper achieves everything.

My whole effort here, is that you become like blank sheets. I am trying to obliterate you, because you are the only barrier.

O beloved soul, young girl naive and virgin thy wedding with the great void is celebrated.

Hari Om Tat Sat