Perfect knowledge

A person wishes to go into the depths of an ocean after tying himself with chains to the shore. He wants to go deep into the depths of the ocean and also wants to know what difficulties, hurdles, he will have to face. We shall have to tell him that his first problem is that he is clinging to the chains on the shore. The second one is to learn to swim to save himself, instead of directly going into the depths of the ocean. The third hurdle would be the experience of the depth which is like death. As he goes down he will start losing himself. And there is only death when you reach the final depth.

The world is all around us. And we have tied ourselves to many things in the world. This strong hold is the greatest hurdle on our way to the depths of the self. Buddha used to tell his Bhikshus - Sannyasis - that life is a great deception and he who comprehends the meaning of this maxim, loses his grip of life. So try to understand this first maxim - life is a deception. Things are not that which they appear to be. Here what we hope for is never fulfilled. We try to find happiness and we get unhappiness. We try to find life and get death. We want fame and nothing remains in our hands except infamy. We try to get riches, but the inner poverty goes on increasing. We desire for success and the whole life is a long story of failures. We start for victory and return defeated.

It is essential to understand this deception of the entire life. If a sadhak who is desirous of going within himself realizes that life is a great deception, then the hold of life on him will be loosened - will go away. His hand on the chain fastened at the shore will be free at once, We know this but we do not see it, we ignore it. We want to see, to persuade ourselves, that life is not deception. We desire to deceive ourselves thus.

Life is only a tool. Life for some is awakening and for the other it is a sleep. It is like mistaking a rope for a snake in the darkness while walking on the road. There is no desire to see the rope as a snake, but I can see it as a snake. The rope is merely a cause. I plant a snake in it. Then I run away sweating. In fact there is no snake, but it is there in me. It is not right to say the rope deceived me, but it is my projection on the rope which deceived me. I go near it examine it, the rope is distinctly seen and my fear vanishes immediately. It is therefore necessary to see life in its true perspective and forms.

When a child is born, it cries, and we all celebrate the birth by playing music and are happy. It is a mistake. When Zoraster was born he had laughed. No child till then had laughed at the time of his birth. Ever since then it was asked as to why Zoraster had laughed at the time of his birth. This question has not yet been answered, but I think Zoraster must have laughed at the people around him who were very happy and singing.

Every birth is sure to be followed by death. Zoraster must have laughed at those people who have held a snake tightly thinking it to be a piece of rope. He must have laughed at those people who look at life superficially and did not go deep into the meaning of life. We also take life only at its face value (superficially) because the atma of life is not seen by us. In spite of that life shows its face to us, but then we close our eyes. Life wants to be manifest but we refuse to see it.

An old person - a friend of mine - lost his son. He was crying and was very sad. When I went to his house he asked how could it happen that he had lost his young son? I replied, ask how did it happen, that you a man eighty years old, have not died till now. Death is nothing to wonder about.

You can wonder about everything else but death is the only certain thing in the world. Everything is happening, everything can happen, everything changes, but only death stands steady like the polar star.

Life is insecure. The whole scheme of life is full of insecurity. There is insecurity throughout, but we go on giving feeling fully secure. We believe that everything is all right. It is doubtful if anything is all right. But man's mind continues to deceive itself. He goes on saying everything is all right, where there is nothing right, where the ground under the feet is more slippery everyday. Where nothing but death seems to be approaching, man says everything is okay.

Buddha used to advise his bikshus - Sannyasis - to go to the cremation ground to see what life is But when we go to a cremation ground we only waste our time talking about the death of someone who had passed away. We return talking about his death how unexpected it was etc. We never worry or think that each death is a pre-warning to our own death. If we can see life in its true colours, our grip on life, infatuation for life decreases automatically.

We have purposely kept these cremation grounds on the boundaries of the towns so that they may not be seen by us. We beautify them so that we may hide death among the Rowers. We construct this entire structure of life as a great deception. That is the reason when I tell you, he who desirer, to go within unconsciousness, who desires to touch those depths within, shall have to loosen his grip on the world outside.

So the first thing to remember is that things are not what they appear to be in this world. Have you an account of the times you desired for happiness and an account of achievements. We do not do that kind of arithmetic. Every evening man tallies his account to see how much he has earned and how much he has lost during the day. But we never tally the accounts of what we have gained and how much we have lost in our life on any day in the evening.

If we go no pondering over this every evening for some days, we shall find it very difficult to entertain hopes of happiness for the future. And when it becomes absolutely impossible for a person to hope for happiness then his journey within begins. As long as we hope to find happiness from the world outside, the inner journey never begins. So the first thing to remember is that life is a deception. But this deception is broken at the last moment when there is nothing left to do.

Is it broken at the last moment. Generally it so happens that we repeat those old desires, make future hopes. stronger within, continue to hope for future happiness, and so death becomes the cause for a new birth and the same old circle which was completed by the death, begins again.

When a Sadhak approached Mahavira or Buddha they used to ask him to enter into remembering of his past births. Mahavira called this remembering jate smarana - self remembering. New Sadhaks used to say that past births have no meaning for us, we want to be calm - devoid of cares and anxieties, we wish to know the Atma, we wish to be liberated. Then Mahavira used lo reply: you cannot get that you cannot know them.

The first thing to do is that you should see your past birth. They could not understand what would happen by looking into their past births. But Mahavira used to take them through the process of knowing their past births. The process took some time but they could reach that state of remembering in deep meditation. Mahavira used to ask them what they saw. On hearing their replies Mahavira used to ask them: Don't you wish to get all these in this life?'

We forget our past births. That is why we go on repeating what we had done yesterday. Man is so absurd that even if he remembers his past birth, it is not certain that he may change. You remember you had been angry yesterday, and you also remember what you got. But you get angry again and you will be angry tomorrow also. You desired for happiness yesterday, what did you get? You remember it well. And yet you will wish it today. You will do so tomorrow also. You have desired it everyday and have got unhappiness instead, and yet it seems man has endless courage to deceive himself.

Everyday you are pierced with thorns, and never get flowers, but the search for flowers goes on.

Perhaps he is afraid to see life in its true colours so that he may not have to change. But he who wants to enter the world of sadhna, of devotion, penance, awareness, in consciousness should remember the first slogan for all the twenty-four hours. As soon as he gets up in the morning he should remember that he awoke yesterday, the day before yesterday, fifty years have passed waking thus, and also remember if the same desires of yesterday have also caught him today.

Don't do anything, simply remember. Don't swear that I shall not do what I did yesterday. The swearing means you did not realize your mistake of yesterday. You did not benefit by them, so you had to swear. Remember your yesterday fully well. Don't say, I shall not do it again. Don't say I shall not be angry now. Say only this much 'yesterday I had been angry.' Remember only that. I had repented yesterday and also the day before yesterday.

Don't take any decision on that matter today. It would be impossible to be angry if yesterday's remembering shadows you. To run after happiness would be looked upon as madness. The hope that something can be obtained from another person will decrease. And your hold on life will loosen day by day, and your fist will open. You entry within begins as soon as your grip on life loosens. So this slogan that life is a deception should be kept in mind always.

The second maxim to remember is that the body is sure to die. Norman Brown has written a book entitled LOVES BODY. I think I should write a book entitled DEATH'S BODY. This body is simply the preparation for death. Nothing but death is to be had from this body. When we consider the world a deception, our grip on the world outside will be loosened. We have such a tight grip on our body that it seems to be everything to us.

He who thinks the body is everything cannot go within. He has caught the chain on the shore of the body very tightly. He shall have to give it up and let loose the boat. Don't think that this body will die and I am immortal. Don't entertain the desire to be immortal, you should know this much that when the body dies you are nowhere. If you say I am immortal, the Atma is immortal, the body will die, then you cannot go within. These are superficial words picked up by you. You have heard these words from the Gita and the Upanishad. These words are from the Koran and the Bible, not yours.

These words will stop you at the intellectual level - a barrier which has to be broken to go within. I shall discuss this point in the third maxim. It is enough if you remember that the body is to perish, and please don't link the second maxim - The Atma is immortal - because you don't know anything about it. You can know it, but when you will know it, it will not be necessary to repeat it. At present, know this much that the body is to die and there is no difficulty in knowing this.

The body is perishable, this is a living fact - the experience of the entire human race. It is not necessary to believe in somebody to accept this fact. This body was a child, it has become young, it is getting old, it is on the path of death. Every step it takes leads towards death. It lives in a gradual death-process. People are wrong when they say so and so died at the age of seventy. The process of dying is completed in seventy years. Nobody dies at that moment.

The process of dying is going from the moment of birth. Just as water is changed into vapour at 100 degrees though that change starts from the first degree, what we call life is only the commencement of death. It will be easy to loosen the grip on the body if this remembering about the body deepens.

When you get up in the morning, look at your body thoughtfully and know that the body is to perish.

When you go to bed at night, then also look at it thoughtfully and know that the body is to die. While taking a bath or taking your food, look at the body thoughtfully and remember that the body is to die.

Repeat this several times during your daily activities. If this remembering like the turning of beads of a rosary enters your inner self, your attachment to the body will be broken in no time. Our identity within the body - 'I' is shattered as soon as this is realised. It must be shattered, it must be wiped out. That identity must be broken. This is the chain tying the body .

Now the third maxim. We can never learn the truth by what we call the mind, the intellect or the thought. Man has produced thousands of philosophies, has established innumerable principles in the holy books. No one knows how many systems have been found out to show what life is. But philosophies have failed, they could not find the right answer.

Bertrand Russell has noted in his autobiography that when he went to the university to study philosophy as a young man, he had expected that he would get answers and solutions of at least the essential problems of life. Philosophy means that which should contain answers to those doubts and those questions which ariss in man's life. After his experience of 90 years, Russell has written that he was old enough then to say that he only got new questions from the study of philosophy, but could not get answers. Every answer which he considered true due to his foolishness became the source of other questions, he got nothing but that.

Philosophy was defeated by reasoning - intellect, so no new book on philosophy is being written nowadays. Now the students, experts in philosophy in all the universities of the world do not establish new principles. They are now trying only to prove that old philosophies were wrong. So a vacuum is created. Philosophy has no solutions - answers. Religions - shastras have given answers, but they are memorized not understood. Intellect tries to be satisfied with them but it has never been satisfied. As long as true knowledge is not obtained, there will be no contentment in life.

Faith cannot give contentment. Our intellect is full of faiths. Someone is a Christian, someone is a Hindu, someone is a Musalman, someone is a Jain, someone is a Buddhist. These are all characteristics of people who live in intellect. Truth is not found in intellect and it cannot be found there, because Truth existed when there was no intellect and it will be there even when there is no intellect.

Truth cannot be compared to the intellect. Man's brain is like a small computer. Now computers better then the brain are being manufactured but no computer can claim that it can give the truth. A computer can only give that information for which it has been programmed. The intellect is also not more than a computer. It is a natural computer. The intellect is repeating what it has accumulated.

When I ask you, 'Is God there?', the reply which you give is not your reply, it is the reply given simply by your intellect, and the intellect re-echoing back what it has accumulated.

If you are born in a Jain family you would say. 'What God?' There is no God. The Atma is everything.

If you are born in a Hindu family you would reply, 'Yes, God is there.' And if you are born in a communist family, you would say, 'There is no God, it is all chatter.' All these are computerized answers, all these are accumulated by the intellect and are repeated. The intellect only reproduces, it docs not know anything. It has not known anything - neither religion, nor philosophy, nor science.

While thinking about science, it seems that science has acquired much knowledge. This is a great illusion because what Newton knew is disproved by Einstein. And what Einstein knew is being disproved by the next generation. No scientist in this world can die with the satisfaction that what he knew was the Truth. He can say that his untruth is more appealing than the previous one. The future generation may disprove that. This is how big statements are made. He says this is the approximate truth.

Are there approximate truths anywhere in the world? The thing should be either true or untrue.

When a thing is approximately true it means it is untrue. What would it mean if I say I love you approximately. It means nothing. On the contrary it would be better if I tell you that I hate you, because it would be a truth. The word approximate love has no meaning. Either there is love or it is not there. Things do not happen in approximation in this world.

Science declares approximate truths, but every such truth becomes questionable everyday. A hundred years ago science declared quite confidently that there is matter. It was found out and is known during the last hundred years that there is no matter. Before hundred years science said matter is a fact - Truth. God is not truth.

Today the scientist says we do not know. God may be there, we have not been able to disprove him.

It is now established that there is no matter. Now they say there is only energy. It is difficult to say how long they will continue to do so. All the principles of man are found wanting. Truth is very great.

Truth is always found great - unattainable.

So a sadhak should always bear in mind not to confuse truth with beliefs of his mind. The mind has no truth, it has only notions of truth, principles of truth. He only knows words as truths. The mind has the word 'God', but it has no idea of God at all. The mind is crowded with words. The mind deceives man with words. Deceptions about the world outside are broken quickly, deceptions about the body do not take much time to break, but to break the deceptions of the mind takes a long time. Therefore a Sadhak should always remember that what the mind says is the imagination of the mind. They are beliefs of the mind, not truths.

The mind does not know the truth, and it cannot have it. If this third maxim is borne in mind it will be devoid of principles by and by, will be free from shastras, and free itself from philosophy, religion and ism is gradually. If these three things happen an individual jumps immediately into his unconscious mind. He goes deep within himself. Attachments get broken, and transformations begin as soon as he enters the unconscious mind. We come into contact with the deep surface of life for the first time.

We experience life from within for the first time.

Unconsciousness is the first stage. Three things are to be kept in mind about unconsciousness.

Unconsciousness has its own body. This is composed of atoms cf actions of all his past births. It is his own body of the unconscious. In modern times psychologists like Jung, Freud and Adler talk about the unconscious, but they have no experience of the unconscious as a Sadhak has.

The unconscious has been made use of as a principle to understand the conscious. But those who have known the unconscious as a sadhak does, say the body which the unconscious has got is made up of atoms - of actions. The actions of the past innumerable births have their own body.

Having entered the unconscious an individual will have to remember that this subtle body of actions is not 'I', this will also perish. This body of mine which is made up of tangible objects, dies in every life-birth. But the body made up of actions dies only once at the time of liberation, it also his to die. We shall have to remember the same point about the inner body in the unconscious which we have kept in mind for the outer body. Both have the same ideas, thoughts, imaginations and desires.

The unconscious body is made up of past births, and the unconscious mind is the storehouse of memories of past births. Everything is lying; hidden in it.

There is one wonderful law about the mind, it never forgets anything which it has memorized even once. You might say it does not seem so. We forget many things. It only appears to be so. You cannot forget. It can be remembered. It is only in a disorganised condition. Sometimes a person tells you that he had your name on the tip of th tongue, but could not remember it at the moment.

What is the meaning of these two contradictory statements? If you have it on the tip of the tongue, please say it. In fact, he remembers two things. He remembers that he had it on the tip of the tongue - he knew it - but for the present he does not get it. After some time he goes to the garden, is digging a pit, is smoking or doing some other work. And he speaks out, yes, I now remember the name.

Exactly in the same way when you enter into the unconscious all the memories of the past births come to the surface but that is also in the mind. If you remember that this is a also in the mind, and I shall not be able to achieve truth by this mind, then take the second jump. That second jump will be in the collective unconscious. When you jump into collective unconscious from the unconscious, then you can see another person passing in front of you and you will know that he is going to murder someone. You will know what his intentions are. You pre-see all that is going to happen. In that depth we are linked with the unconscious of all. It is a huge and a very deep experience. The whole world begins to appear as one from within, the whole living world is open before you. The whole living world appears as if it is ours. But this is not the ultimate - you still have to jump further. In this condition, the body of actions of all the people, become his body, and man almost experiences, feels that he is like God. This is the reason why many people declare, 'I am God, I am the incarnation of God.'

He who enters the collective consciousness, cannot deceive you. He feels he is God, because he begins to feel, experience everything of the consciousness of all as his own. But it is not the final stage. In this stage, the conscious of all, the conscious actions of all, look like has own, so Meher Baba can say, I have absorbed Gandhi in me after his death. When Nehru died he said the same thing. People will consider him a clever imposter. This will look like a deception from the stage where we live. But he experiences that because he experiences the unconscious mind of all people as his own. He feels whoever dies is absorbed in him.

All bodies, the body of actions of all, is now my body. All thoughts are now my thoughts, but even in this stage, the 'I' is present. Therefore Meher Baba says, 'I am the incarnation of God.' But the supreme achievement is not possible as long as there is 'I' present. And even in this stage if we can remember these maxims that this God-like body of mine is also a body, this divine-mind is also a mind then there is another jump and the individual goes into cosmic unconscious. And in that state of cosmic unconscious he can say, I am the brahma - the Supreme Being.

He then experiences these moon and stars revolving within himself as Swami Ram Tirth always said, 'The moon and the stars, revolve within me, the sun rises within me.' To a psychologist, this man may appear a neurotic or a psychotic. His brain is deranged he moon and stars are always in the outer world, how can they be within. There is truth in what the psychologist says. He is right as far as his understanding goes, but he hasn't got the experience which people like Ramtirth have.

People like Ramtirth have expounded upto cosmic-body. The endless boundaries of the universe are now their boundaries, so they will experience all revolvings within themselves. Such an individual can say, 'I see the world being created and being destroyed, I see the moon and stars taking births and dying.' The memories of such a person begin to come from the cosmic theory.

The people who have talked about the birth of the universe, are mostly those who have experienced cosmic unconscious. When God created the world, when the earth was created, when the moon and stars were created. But the experiences of these individuals are authentic, but not ultimate. If an individual even in this cosmic unconscious, can remember these maxims, he will know that this body also is the body of that huge Brahma. If the body is small - six feet only - or it expands to endless miles, there would be no difference.

It makes no difference if the thoughts are mine or of the Supreme Brahma. There is only a difference in degrees. If that can be remembered at this stage, then there is the fourth jump and the individual enters mahanirvana. The mind is completely wiped out there, the 'I' disappears, the individual here does not say even this, I am the Brahma. he does not say, I am God, he does not even say, I am the Atman. So Buddha found it very difficult to explain this, because he says, there is no Atma, there is no God, there is no Brahma. He says, what remains is, is now the question Only a void vacuum remains, which has no limits, in which there are no currents of thought, no centre and no ego. Only the void remains. It should be said nothing is saved, nothing remains. That which is the losing of everything is the achieving of everything. It is the Supreme, it is the final. Beyond it? There is no way beyond it, because there is no beyond. The jump from the cosmic unconscious is into the void, into the Supreme, into the Truth, into mahanirvana, into the moksha. You can call it whatever you will.

The chief difficulties are three - hopes of happiness in the world outside, hope for death in the world of body, and hope for truth in the world of mind. These difficulties or hurdles return at every stage, but you are not much concerned with them. If you go beyond these three hurdles, God will give you three new hurdles. If you cross them, there will be new hurdles in the deeper stage. Hurdles will be the same, only their form and their stage will go on changing. They will pursue you till the end.

When no hurdles remain, when you experience, nothing remains now, then and only then should you know that you have known Him. But to know Him, one has to wipe out oneself completely, totally.

One has to wipe out oneself on body-level, soul-level, God-level, and Brahma-level. I will finish this topic by quoting Jesus. Jesus said, Blessed are those who are bold enough to wipe themselves out, because they alone can achieve Him, and they are unfortunate who are busy in saving themselves because those who save themselves will lose everything.

These are the three maxims. Start your journey from where you are, and the journey forward will open of its own accord. You will have to practise these three maxims always till something is left and also till nothing remains. You also do not remain and the maxim also vanishes. There is an occasion to say everything but is there reason enough to say, like Meher Baba that 'I am God.' There may not be any reason to say, like Ramtirth, that the moon and stars are revolving in me: you may hive no opportunity to say 'I am the Brahma.

To whom do you want to say this? When all words become void, when speech falls down, all individuality is lost, then what remains is the Supreme, the ultimate, it is the search of all religions, it is the thirst of all life, it is the search of all Atmas. That is the nectar. As long as there is shape, there is death, wh re there is shapelessness there is nectar, it is bliss. There is unhappiness as long as long as there is another, and where there is no other, there is bliss, it is absolute peace. As long as there is 'I' there is worry and when there is no 'I', there is peace. The sat (Truth), the chit (the mind), and anand (Bliss) are there. They are not just words, but they have been experienced; not only in speech but in knowing, not in show but in being. To know sat, chit and anand is to become one with it.

SADHANA OR TOTAL AWARENESS It will be useful to understand these three words - witness, awareness, and total acceptability for the sadhana or practice of awareness. The witness is the first step. To witness means to pass through life as a witness. It means I shall live like an onlooker, a seer, a witness in my life. If you abuse me, I should not feel or experience that you abused me or I was abused. You abuse him who is 'I'. If you hurt me with a stone, I should not feel so I threw the stone and I was hurt, but I should feel you threw the stone and this person was hurt.

I should always stand at the third corner of the triangle. I should always jump to the third corner. If my house catches fire I should feel my house is on fire, I should feel that his house is burning and I am looking at it. The commencement of Sadhana for a witness is to separate life into three parts.

We do it in two parts. I am here and you are there. You are the abuser, I am the receiver. That's all, there are only two ways, the third is not there. In being a witness, we add the third person. I should always be a third person and not a second person, under all circumstances.

As this third corner becomes clearer both the other corners seem fit to be laughed at - the person who abuses and the person who was abused. Ram was in New York. So the people threw stones at him, some abused him. Having returned to his room he told his friends. Ram was caught in a great difficulty today, people began to abuse him and some people threw stones at him, It was great fun. Those friends said, 'What are you saying? You yourself were abused.' Ram replied, 'How can they abuse me? because I myself do not know my name, how can they know it? They were abusing Ram. The friends asked him was he not Ram? Ram replied, if I were Ram, I would have returned much afflicted and unhappy. I was standing and watching some people abusing and poor Ram taking it. I was telling myself today Ram got caught in a great difficulty.

Now this third person is made to manifest itself. To be a witness is the first step for a Sadhak. It is easy. 'The witness' is the easiest word of all the three words. Always try to see it. When you are eating your food, see that the food is being eaten. The person whom you know as 'I' till now is eating. Now wait at a corner of the table and see. You are not eating, food is being eaten.

Somebody is eating and you are watching it.

As this manifests itself, your interest in life becomes less and less, because a witness cannot act harassed, only the doer gets harassed. When you think I am eating my food, you can be made unhappy. When you say, I am making love, you can be troubled. But when you say, one person is making love and other being loved, you are the third person witnessing it, then you cannot be troubled. You are not anxious worried. If you remember to act as a witness five to ten times a day, you will stop dreaming at night because he dreams who remains a doer throughout the day, he remains the doer during the night also.

How can the habit of doing - being a doer - the whole day be given up at once during the night? If a person runs a shop during the day, he also does the same at night. If I am quarreling in a court the whole day, T stand up in the court at night also. He who remains a doer during the day, becomes a doer during the night also. Contrary to this, one who is a witness during the day also becomes a witness during the night.

Now this is a very interesting thing - if you become a witness during the day, your shop will not stop functioning. But the shop within you will be closed, because a shop in a dream is not a real shop, it is only an idea. When you become a witness. it disappears. The shop outside will go on working but the shop of the dreams will disappear. There is no possibility of cares and worries when you become a witness. So, cares and worries go on increasing in that country in the same proportiOn as the idea that I am the doer is increasingly prevalent.

Today America is the most worried country, because the notion that I am doing is the strongest there.

Whatever is done, 'I' is always standing behind it. There were not too many cares and worries in the past in the ancient world. The reason is not this that the people were travelling in bullock-carts and not in airplanes. It was altogether different. Why were there less worries in the past?

The third corner of a witness along with the doer was there in the past, and they always tried to develop this idea. He saw things were happening, I am not doing them. He used to look at it in many ways. At times he would say, God is doing it. This was his one way of saying, I am not the doer. At times, he would say, fate is doing it. At times, he would say what is written is happening.

This was also his way of saying, I am not the doer.

We are mad people. We misunderstood their ways so completely that the idea why they said so was forgotten completely and we caught only what they said - words - very vehemently.

Even now we believe in fate. But we still run to a palmist or an astrologer to show our palm and to find out ways and means to perform some sacrificial worship etc. so that the fate may change. All these words were simply used to denote the real notion behind them of the third corner of being a witness, of not being a doer. That is why Krishna can tell Arjun, fight, why do you worry and think that you ar fighting. I am fighting. And Krishna further tells him, kill them, why do you worry and think you are killing, because they whom you think you are going to kill, have been already killed before. Arjun doesn't understand this statement of Krishna, because he had considered himself as the doer of the deed. He says, how can I kill my dear ones. They are mine, no, I cannot kill them.

His worries are those of a doer.

If you wish to understand the essence of Gita, it is contained in two words. Arjun is in a delusion of being a doer, and Krishna goes on persuading him all the time to be a witness. There is nothing to understand in Gita. Krishna goes on repeating, you are simply an observer, a seer, and not a doer. All this has been already finished previously. This is just a way of telling him, you are not the doer. Forget this completely. This illusion alone will defeat you and will throw you in deception. This delusion is keeping you worried, keeping you infatuated.

The witness is the first step of the Sadhak. It is not the easiest, but compared to other higher steps it is certainly easy. But if you practise a little, it is not all that difficult. While swimming in a river observe how the others swim. While walking on the road, observe how others walk. This is not difficult. You will get a spark sometimes. And as soon as you get the spark-experience of the third corner, you will, all of a sudden, see that the whole world is changed. Everything will be changed, things will now have a different colour. The whole world is as we look at it. When the vision is changed, the world is changed.

The second step of Sadhana is awareness. It goes deeper than the act of being a witness. While in the act of witnessing, we take two people, you and I, and in that act stand apart from oneself as a third person. We divide the world into three parts in being a witness. We make a triangle. In awareness, no such division is made. We live in awareness. While walking, one is aware that one is walking, one is doing it consciously.

Mostly what happens is that all our actions are performed by habit. When you turn towards your home, you do it automatically like a machine. When you see your wife you smile, and it is a recorded smile but you smile out of sheer habit. It is only a defence measure all performed unconsciously. So if you observe properly you will notice that we do not meet at all, we only go on repeating the same old things like a record. We meet when we relate to each other in full consciousness.

In this state of full consciousness one is always totally aware of every action being performed. One is always aware of what is being done. It may be eating, talking anything. In being a witness, the third point manifests itself, and he who becomes a witness, will find awareness easy, because a witness has got to be aware to be a witness. One does not stand aloof. Whatever is happening, is happening in the light of awareness burning within. Even if I raise my foot, I do it consciously. Even a word is uttered in a state of full consciousness. If I say yes, I mean to say yes. I have said that consciously. And if I say no, I mean to say no. I have certainly said so with awareness.

In this state of awareness everything that is meaningless in life stops because nobody can do anything worthless and meaningless while being aware of it The web of meaningless things in life which we spin like a spider and often get ourselves caught, is at once broken. If I tell a lie, and to maintain that lie throughout life, you go on telling other lies, you forget the original lie, the net goes on spreading and step by step you move into it thoughtlessly. We walk on those roads where we did not wish to go. We make such connections which we did not wish to make. We perform such actions which we had never wished for. Then the whole life becomes perplexed and shattered. Awareness means I am totally aware of what I am doing at the time of doing it. After having experimented with it you will realize and experience that peace which you never new before.

The third maxim of tathata - total acceptability is still mere difficult. If one can master awareness, he can master total acceptability. Tathata means suchness what is is. There are no complaints, and I am pleased. In the case of a witness, I am the observer of whatever happens. In awareness we are fully awakened. In total acceptability, we are pleased with whatever there is, whether it is misery, death, a meeting with a loved person or annuity etc. There is no rejection, there is tranquility.

Tathata is the supreme belief in God. He is not a believer who says I believe in God. He is not a believer, who says I have trust in God. He is a believer who does not complain. He says, whatever is, is all right. Every breath is full of willingness. Total acceptability is the throbbing of his heart.

Voltaire has written somewhere, Oh God, we might accept you some day but are not able to accept your world. There are some who accept the world but are not able to accept God. We all accept happiness but who would accept unhappiness? And as long as it is not accepted unhappiness will remain. This is perhaps the importance of unhappiness in the evolution of spiritual life. Whatever the scheme of life holds, has to be accepted, this total acceptance brings rains of bliss. Anybody accepts flowers, but the real question is of accepting thorns. Everybody accepts life, embraces it, the question is of accepting death.

Tathata means total acceptability. Such an acceptability can take place when one is totally aware.

It is possible only after being a witness. When such an acceptability is fixed in the heart of anyone, the dance of endless bliss begins in his lire. The music of that flute, which is void, begins to play in his life. That dance which has no rhythm to it, enters his life. That smell which has no flower, begins to come in his life. But total acceptability is a very difficult thing to achieve.

A mendicant was passing under a tree. A man hit him with a stick, but in his nervousness his stick fell down and he ran away. That mendicant returned, and took his stick, went to a shop nearby and told the shopkeeper to keep that stick with him, and to return to that poor man if he comes back in search of it. The shopkeeper said, 'What a kind man you are. He has struck you with the stick.' The mendicant replied, Once when I was passing a under tree, a branch of the tree fell on me, and I accepted it. This man must at least be better than the tree.'

For example if you are sailing in a boat in a river another empty boat comes from another side and bumps against your boat, and you say nothing. You accept this and sail further. But if a man is sitting in that boat, there would be a quarrel. You will pardon that boat but you will not pardon the man. You pardoned the boat because you accepted it, because there was no other way for you not to accept it. You could not pardon the man because it was found difficult to accept him.

When both the situations - whether an empty boat bumps or a boat with a sailor bumps against your boat - are one and the same to you. That is total acceptability. Even if there is the least amount of difference in your attitude you miss total acceptability. If one person throws flowers at you and another person throws stones at you, and if you accept both the situations, you make no distinction between the two, then there is total acceptability. Then you have no desire of having a different thing than that which is happening in this world. You are pleased with this entire, huge, endless universe where waves are moving in the ocean, tempests of wind are rising, flowers are growing on trees, stars are moving in the sky, someone is abusing and someone is singing songs. You accept the whole as it is. Tathata is the third maxim for a Sadhak.

To reach the state of full of awareness, one has to begin with being a witness and finish with total acceptability. At first separate yourself an as observer from being a doer, combine your knowledge with your action and then like your acceptability with the whole. Awareness becomes stronger and goes deeper slowly by following these three steps. Buddha is called tathata. He liked this name very much, whenever he passed through a village he said that tathata is passing. It means one who has achieved the mental attitude of total acceptability. Thus came thus gone. Just as the swans fly over a lake, and cast their shadows and are gone, neither the swans nor the lake know about these reflections. There is no desire to do anything other than what is happening. Whatever happened, just happened, no account is kept, there is no hope for success or failure, no frustration is entertained and no victory is considered.

Tathata is an individuality is emptiness - in a void. It should be said, it is a living void within. It is a void which is surrounded by bones, flesh and tissues. He is a tathata who becomes like this void.

He reaches the fourth stage. To be a tathata is to jump from collective unconsciousness to cosmic unconsciousness. In the condition of a witness, we go from the outer world, and the individual enters the unconscious. In awareness, the individual goes beyond unconscious, and enters collective unconscious. In collective unconscious the individual has to practise to be a tathata, then he enters the cosmic unconscious. There is no Sadhna left after cosmic unconscious. There is no Sadhana in tathata. In this stage, everything in life goes on by itself, no effort is needed to work it up. The effort to go within is no longer there, what one was within is lost. Tathata is the achievement to sink deep down the abyss of life. Religion is the door. Yoga is the process of going up to that door. And tathata is the presiding God in that temple.

THE DOER AND THE SLEEPER An unawakened - sleeping - person is not a doer. Things are happening to him, but he thinks I am doing. The awakened person also is not a doer but thinks I am not the doer. This is the only difference. There is no difference in their actions but there is difference in their attitude - knowing - of their performance. The awakened also walks, the unawakened also walks. An individual full of awareness walks with the knowledge of, 'I am not', and a person without awareness walks full of ego - full of pride. This is the difference.

The crystallization of an awakened person happens when an individual takes birth in such a person.

Jung also says the same thing which Gurdjieff says, when a person is a awake within, his individuality becomes stronger. So, it is natural to raise a question whether the individualization of an awakened person becomes strong or dies out. Is it transformed into ego or does it go away? This is merely the difference in language, nothing more. I call that as the birth of void - emptiness which Gurdjieff calls crystallization. Really speaking 'an individual is born for the first time by being 'void', because by becoming void, he achieved that virat - huge individual. By becoming void, by losing individuality, a person becomes 'an individual' for the first time, but this is difficult to understand.

This is one of those contradictions of religion we fail to understand. When a drop of water falls into the ocean, someone can say the drop is lost, where is it now? And someone else can also say that the drop has become the ocean. Someone can say, the drop is lost, it is non-existent, it has become void. Someone can say the drop has become the ocean. It was nothing before, but it has become the ocean now for the first time. These are the negative and positive ways of speaking. Gurdjieff and Jung call this individuation, crystalization. The person has become an individual for the first time like the drop has become the ocean now. Mahavira calls it the Atma. It means the same. Shankara calls it Brahma - it is the same thing. All these are positive terms. Only Buddha used negative terms. He said, 'Anatma' which is non-Atma. It does not become Atma, has perished. There is now no Atma, no Brahma and what remains now has no words.

He says the drop is not there, now let this subject go. When you say that drop has become the ocean you give it a boundary. Buddha says, when you use positive words, there will always be a boundary, man's mind runs after the positive very quickly. If man is asked to lose himself, he would ask, 'why should I lose myself; what would be the result'? And if you reply, you will be God, he will understand it quickly. If you say you will be Brahma, he will understand it quickly. That is why, Buddha's teaching did not take firm roots in this country. We are used to a positive language.

In the history of mankind, Buddha used negative language to a large extent for the first time. And the fact is only negative statements can be made with regard to Supreme Truth, because all positive statements will form boundaries. That is why the Upanishads say, Not that, not that. It is a negative statement. It says, not this, not that. If you say that Brahma is like this, then it is not this, and if you say Brahma is like that, then it is not that also. Buddha also uses negative language. Buddha says, it is nothing - void. This is why the word he used is nirvana. That word is very significant and meaningful. The extinguishing of a lamp is nirvana. There is a lamp, if you blow it, it will be extinguished. If we ask, where has the light gone? We shall say it is gone - lost. Or if you want to say, you can say that the light has become all, it has been one with all, now it has no limits.

Buddha or all those who want to be precise talk in negative terms. It is not that Mahavira did not know this or Shankara did not know this. But people are eager to know if the drop of water is willing to be lost, if it is willing to merge into the ocean; it will be willing only when it knows that there is no harm in being lost. The drop will go away but it will become the ocean. But the drop says if any drop falls into the ocean with an infatuation to become the ocean, it will not be able to become the ocean because this desire - infatuation will keep it as a drop of water. This avarice, this desire, will keep its individuality tied down from all sides.