We Are In It!

[NOTE: This is a translation of the Hindi series ADHYATMA UPANISHAD. This version is the final edit pending publication.]

A fish in the sea remains a stranger to the sea, not because the sea is far away from the fish but because the sea is too close. Whatsoever is at a distance is seen but what is very near becomes invisible to the eye. It is not difficult to know the distant, it is difficult to know what is close. And it is impossible to know that which is the closest of the close. Let this be understood properly, because it is something that must be known for the inner journey.

People ask where to seek God. They ask, "How did we forget that which is hidden within? How has that been separated which is nearer to us than our heartbeats, which is nearer to us than our breathing? How has that been forgotten which I myself am?" And their question seems to be logical.

It appears that what they are asking has validity and that it should not have happened like this.

If I am unable to know even that which is hidden within me, if even what I am remains unknown, then who else will we know, who else will we recognize? When even the near slips out of the hand, how could we achieve that which is far? And it is not that it has only come close to us today. It has always been close to us - since endless time. Not even for a single moment have we been separated or away from it. Wherever we run, it runs with us; wherever we go, it goes with us; it travels with us to hell as well as to heaven; it stands by us in sin as well as in virtue. It is not right to say that it stands by us, because even in standing by there is some distance. Actually our being and its being are one and the same thing.

If this is true, then it is a great miracle in the world that we have lost our own selves - which sounds impossible. How can one lose one's own self? It is not possible even to lose our shadow, and we have lost our souls. How it is possible? But this has happened. How this losing of the self takes place - that is the essence of this sutra. Before we enter into the sutra, let us understand its basic foundations.

Eyes have a limit of vision, a range. If an object is beyond that range the eyes cannot see it. If an object is within that range but too far to either side, then too the eyes cannot see it. Eyes have a

range of vision. A thing brought too close to the eyes cannot be seen and taken too far away it also cannot be seen. Beyond either side of a certain range of vision the eyes cannot see - they are then blind. Now, you are so near yourself that you are not only near the eyes but you are behind them.

And that is the problem.

Let us understand it this way. If you are standing before a mirror, at a certain distance your image is very clear. If you move too far away from the mirror there will be no image. If you come too close to the mirror, so much so that you put your eyes against it, then you cannot see your image at all.

But here the situation is that you are standing behind the mirror; thus there is no possibility of there being any image of you in the mirror - the eyes are in the front and you are behind them.

Eyes see that which is in front of them. How are the eyes to see that which is behind them? Ears hear that which is outside the ears. How are the ears to hear that which is within the ears? Eyes open outwards, ears also open outwards. I can touch you, but how can I touch myself? And even if I am able to touch my body, it is just because I am not the body - the body too is the other, hence I am able to touch it. But how can I touch the one that I am, the one that is touching? With what can I touch?

Therefore the hands touch everything but cannot touch themselves. The eyes see everything but cannot see themselves. In regard to our own selves we are blind, none of the senses that are known to us are of any use. Unless some other senses open up - some eye that can see withinwards, backwards, in the reverse, or some ear that is affected also by the inner sound - there is no way we would be able to see and hear and know ourselves. Till that happens there is no way of touching our own selves.

What is near is missed; what is nearest of all is not possible to be known. This is why the fish is not able to know the sea.

The second thing: a fish is born in the sea, it lives in the sea, the sea is its food, the sea is its drink, the sea is its life, the sea is its everything. Then it dies and dissolves into the sea, but it never gets the opportunity to know the sea because it does not have any distance from the sea. A fish, however, comes to know what the sea is if someone comes and lifts it out of the sea. This is a very contradictory thing: the fish comes to know the sea when it is away from the sea - when it is struggling for its life on the sand under the hot sun, then it knows what the sea is. For knowing, this much distance is necessary.

How can we know the one that existed even before we were born and that will remain existing even after we are dead? How can we know the one in which we are born and in which we shall disappear?

For knowing, some separation is a must. That is why the fish does not know the sea; only when someone throws it out onto the shore does it come to know.

Man is in a greater difficulty. The divine is the ocean that surrounds us. It has no shores to it where you can be thrown out, where you may start writhing with pain like a fish. It would have been very easy if there was such a shore. But there is no such shore; God is the ocean. This is why those who look for God as a shore are never able to find him. The shore is available only to those who are ready to drown in the ocean of the divine.

There simply is no shore so there is no way to find it. How can there be a shore? Everything else can have a shore; the whole cannot have a shore - because something else is needed to form the shore. The bank of a river is formed of something other than the river. The shore of the sea is formed of something other than the sea. But there is nothing other than God which can form the shore.

The very meaning of God is that there exists nothing other than it. God does not mean someone sitting somewhere up in the sky and administering the world from there. No, these are stories for children. What is meant by God is that element other than which nothing exists. This is the scientific definition of God.

God means the whole, the total, everything - whatever is. What is cannot have a shore, because there remains nothing else to form the coast. Therefore God is everywhere; there is no shore. One who is ready to drown is saved. One who tries to be saved, drowns.

We are in it. We are in what we are trying to find.

There is no need to call who we go on calling, because there is not even that much gap that one has to call. That is why Kabir asked, "Has your God gone deaf that you shout your ajan so loudly?"

God is so near that there is no need even to call him. Even if there is silence within, that too will be heard - he is so near. If you have to call the other, you have to speak. But for calling oneself, where is the need to speak at all? One can hear others only when words are spoken, but even one's own silence is heard.

Being so near is the difficulty. Let this be understood properly: we have missed the truth because we are born in it. Our flesh, the marrow, the bones, the whole body is made of it. It is our breath, our life, everything. In numerous ways, through numerous doors, we are combinations of it - we are its play. There is no gap at all, therefore there is no memory. Therefore its remembrance has become impossible. Therefore we see the world, but the truth is not seen at all. The world is at a distance, there is a gap between the two, this is why the passion for the world arises.

What is the meaning of passion? Passion means an attempt to close the distance between you and the object from which you have a feeling of distance. There is no passion for God because there is no distance between you and God. Or even if someone seems to be searching for God it looks like a false passion. The person seems to be searching for something else in the name of God. He is making God an excuse but he wants something else. Maybe he wants power, maybe he wants prestige, wealth, position or something else.

A friend came and told me, "Since the time I began to absorb myself in meditation experiments in your camps, I have been benefitting greatly."

I asked, "What benefit are you getting?"

He replied, "Spiritual benefit there is none, but financial benefit has begun!"

Very good! Where is the haste for the spiritual, it can be postponed. Monetary benefit is the immediate need!

We search for something while we name it something else. Wherever we have put the label God, if we tear the label off we will find something else underneath. We want something else. A person who wants something else in the name of God is more dishonest than the person who is openly seeking worldly pleasures. At least there there is honesty, an authenticity. One person says, "I want money," another says, "I want sexual pleasures," still another says, "I want position, I want ego fulfillment," and there is one who says, "I want God," but in this desire for God is also his feeling that one day he will show to the world that God too is in his fist.

Therefore watch the seeker of God carefully. If his ego is increasing, understand that his search is for something else; if his ego is decreasing, shattering, disappearing, then his search is really for God.

The conceit of sannyasins and your so-called saints is well known. Even the conceit of big politicians stands nowhere against it. At least the politician's very search is for that conceit, so it is fine, it is a clear-cut matter, there is nothing much of a fabrication in it. The fun of being something special is the whole game for them. But for a saint the matter is different. He says that he is in search of being nothing... and he then goes on becoming something. If two saints meet, they cannot be made to sit on the same dais because there will be problems as to who sits where, higher or lower. So usually saints simply do not meet each other, because many problems arise.

There is a friend who is a little crazy - crazy in the sense that he tries to arrange for saints to meet with each other. He told me once that great problems surfaced. Even such questions arise as to who should join hands first in greeting. A difficult situation. Even worldly people do not look so worldly.

They may not be wanting to greet somebody with folded hands, yet they do it. In their minds they may think that it would have been better had the other folded hands first, but they hide such feelings; it looks ungentlemanly. To some saints it does not appear even ungentlemanly - these saints do not even respond to greetings, they have stopped the very arrangement. They only give blessings.

That friend was busy arranging a meeting of such a saint with another. The other saint said, "Everything else is okay, but if I do not greet him and he immediately gives me blessings, that will spoil everything."

Our search is of something else. It has nothing to do with religion or with the divine. We are desiring something else, we are asking for something else, but we are dishonest and we have covered ourselves with claims that are different. How can the search for God begin, because there is no distance. If there is a distance, a passion arises. If there is a distance, one feels like running. If there is a distance, a desire arises to win. If there are difficulties, ego becomes interested - to defeat, to win. But as far as God is concerned, there is no distance. The situation is that God is already with us.

When Tensing and Hillary climb Mount Everest, what is their joy? They are the first in human history to have stood on the highest peak. There is nothing else on Everest. But the first man on Everest!

History is created; the ego finds importance in the act. Now as long as there is Mount Everest in the world, the names of Hillary and Tensing cannot be effaced.

There was so much competition to reach the moon until recently. It is very interesting to know what we have left behind on the moon. Those who reached the moon were Christians, but they did not

leave a statue of Jesus there, they have left the flag of America. Just think, flags are real, Jesus is unreal! Even the idea did not cross the minds of the Americans to take at least a small statue of Jesus. They took the flag! The flag is the real ego of man. And if the name of Jesus is remembered sometimes, that too means a kind of a flag, it does not mean anything else. When it is a question of fighting, of keeping the flag aloft, at those times Jesus, Rama, Krishna, Buddha are all remembered; but their use is also not more than that of a flag. They are also a flag on the ego of man.

On the moon, we have left behind flags. Man is busy desiring to find something which only he can do so that his ego acquires importance. But if you were born on Everest then you would be in great difficulty as to where to hoist the flag.

Man is born in God; only he is. You are already there, you have never gone away. That is your land on which you are already standing. Therefore, in attaining God there is no scope for any ego. Ego is not interested in it. Then how can any longing or thirst arise when there is no desire for God?

A thirst for the divine arises in a very strange way. Understand this properly, because there is no other way than this. A thirst for the world arises because of the distance. If the distance is impassable, the attraction becomes tremendous. And this is why, in the world, that whenever things are achieved one's interest in them is lost, because the distance is covered. You desired a woman, you found her; you desired to build a house, you built it; you desired to raise a gold spire on your house and you put it there - what next?

So whatever is achieved, it then becomes worthless because it has come close to you, it is not distant any more. If it is distant and there are difficulties in the way so that not everyone can achieve it, only then you feel the thrill, the joy of it.

The joy of richness is not in the richness itself, it is in the poverty of many others. If everybody becomes rich, the whole thing is spoiled. That is the problem in America - the joy of being rich is becoming less and less. The poor are wearing the same type of clothes as the rich, driving the same type of cars, living in similar houses. There is not much basic difference between the rich and the poor. The fun of the rich is getting spoiled. The rich are feeling troubled due to it. They are searching for new tricks, which only they should be able to enjoy.

We are in God, hence there is no call, no invitation in it for the ego; there is no challenge, no motivation for the ego. How then can the longing for the divine arise?

The longing for the worldly things arises due to their distance and due to their challenge and calling.

The longing for God arises from the failure of worldly things. Let this be understood. When you have run in all the directions and are defeated everywhere; when you have achieved everything and it has all proved worthless; when your search for things is complete, and with the completion arises their negation, everything comes to a zero; then only arises the longing for God. All things appear gold from a distance, but they all prove to be a lump of mud as they reach your hands. The longer the distance, the purer the gold. As it starts coming closer, it starts becoming more impure. Even more close, and it starts turning into clay.

There is the story about Midas of Greece. There is a great satire in it. Midas was blessed with a supernatural power; the gift from the deity was that whatever he touched became gold. We are all the reverse of Midas, whatever we touch becomes a lump of mud!

But it is very interesting.... Even Midas was in great trouble - how can there be any end to our troubles? Whatsoever Midas touched became gold. He touched his wife, she became gold. He touched his food, it became gold. He picked up a glass of water, before it reached his lips it became gold. Poor Midas! He was in great difficulty. You cannot quench your thirst with gold. No matter how much we may talk about "a body like glittering gold," no satisfaction will arise from such a body. No matter how much a lover may praise the body of his beloved as "a body of gold," he should realize what happens if that body really becomes gold. He would beat his head, if that ever happened. He would feel that the earlier body was better.

So Midas was in a great difficulty. He was attracted to gold by the talk of the poets. Now what?

Everything became gold - his wife, water, food! People began to run away from him. His own children started keeping a distance from him - who knows when he may touch you! No friends would come near him. Midas became very lonely. He was a king, and he became lonely. His ministers would not come too close to him; they would keep a safe distance so they could run away if necessary. Midas started dying of hunger. He could not take any food, he could not take any water.

He started shrieking and shouting, "Oh, God, take back your gift! I was better as I was before! This blessing has turned into a curse."

Midas was in such a state - everything that he touched was turning into gold. Just imagine what our condition would be when whatever we touched turned into a lump of clay. The wife appears to be beautiful and golden when she is at a distance. The day the marriage takes place she begins turning into dust. Within four or five years she becomes as good as dirt. Everything turns into dirt.

The day you realize that all running is futile you come to a dead stop right where God is. The day you come to know that you have not gained anything by running, you do not run anymore. And because of not running, now you see what was not seen before because of running.

When the mind was engrossed in running, things that were far away were seen. When the running becomes useless, the eyes return to the nearer scene. And if the running ceases totally, the eyes start seeing in reverse. Up until now they were seeing only outside, now they begin to see inwards.

The mirror performs an about-turn. Then you do not find anything worth seeing in the world, or worth getting and worth searching for in the world. Now the world does not remain a desire any more. That is why Buddha, Mahavira and the Upanishads have laid so much stress on the fact that desirelessness is the door.

Desire is a door to go out far away; desirelessness is a door to come near.

Let us now understand this sutra:

"Within the body is hidden the unborn and eternal."

It is never born. It is there forever and ever. The eternal and unborn is hidden within the body but the body does not know it. Body is part of the earth; it is hidden within the earth, but the earth does not know it. In this sutra the same thing is repeated from different angles.

The unborn and the eternal is hidden within fire, but the fire does not know it. It is hidden everywhere, but the one behind which it is hidden does not know it because the one behind which it is hidden is

running outside. Have you ever realized this? If you can experience the inward running of your body you will attain samadhi. You have experienced only the outside running of the body - a beautiful body is seen and a thrill runs through your body; every cell of your body begins to run after it. A beautiful flower is seen and the eyes begin to run. A sweet melody is heard and the ears begin to run.

The body is always running outwards. Have you ever experienced the body running inwards? No, you have not. Then how is the poor body to know who is hidden within? Where the body never goes, where the body never looks, never hears, never explores... how can the body know what is there within? Therefore the body remains a stranger to the one whose body it is. All the running is outwards, hence an ignorance prevails inside. This sutra is a repetition of the same thing from different doors.

What is hidden within the air, the air does not know. Mind does not know the one whose body it is. The ego is unaware of the one whose body it is. The reasoning mind, the imperishable, the unmanifest - they all do not know the one whose body they are and who is hidden within them. Even death remains unacquainted with the one whose death happens. This statement is a little strange:

"The death remains a stranger of the one who dies! Nothing dies when one dies."

When death happens, who actually dies? Nobody. Body does not die, because it has always been dead. There is no question of its dying. The one who is hidden within the body is eternally immortal.

There is no question of its dying either. Only the relationship breaks. In death the relationship between the dead and the immortal breaks. But death itself, even after coming so close, remains ignorant of the one that is immortal.

How many times have we died, and yet we have not come to know so far that within us is the one which is immortal. The very situation of this non-acquaintance is that even in coming close we are unable to look inwards; our seeing continues to focus itself outwards. See a man lying on his deathbed: he still goes on looking outwards. Even now he does not feel like looking within. Death is pulling and dragging him from the body, but he still clings to the body - clings more forcefully, more than ever before.

This is why old people become ugly and the young look beautiful. If we look at it deeply, the reason for this is not the body alone. The young person does not cling to the body, he is still confident of it.

The old person begins to cling to the body; and because of that clinging, all sorts of ugliness is born.

The old person begins to be afraid: here comes death... now comes death... death is close by. The more the old person is afraid of death, the more strongly he clings to life. And the more strongly the person clings to life, the more ugly he becomes.

How lovely children look! They simply do not cling at all. They have no idea that death exists. Look at the birds and the animals: however old they become, they look the same. I am talking of those animals and those birds who are not yet spoiled through the company of man. A man just spoils everything.

So, it appears very strange that in the jungle the birds and the animals do not appear to become old.

The kind of old age that catches man does not seem to catch birds and animals. They remain like children. In some deep sense they are not aware at all that death will be coming, therefore there is no clinging to the body.

The freshness that is in children is because life is natural, there is no fear of death. It becomes difficult in old age, death becomes clearer. Life is an effort now, the old man lives by effort. Every inch of the journey he is conscious of death now. That creates an uncertainty; tension grows within him and anxiety and anguish catch hold of him permanently - and that turns the mind ugly.

Even death does not come to know the immortal hiding within the body. The only reason for this is that the phenomenon of looking inwards happens only when the looking outwards becomes futile and meaningless. Let this be understood properly. It seems to become meaningless many times, but it does not really become so. It is not that the meaninglessness does not dawn upon you, it does dawn upon you. You were thinking of buying a car and you have bought it. When you had not bought it, you were dreaming about it in the night. The night before the day of its delivery, you could not even sleep well - the whole night!

Someone has written about his friend who purchased a very beautiful car, a Ferarri. It was a costly car. On the very first day he was driving it, the car was a little scratched.

That friend was not a child, he was a fifty-year-old man; and he was not an illiterate, he was a professor in a university - and a professor of philosophy at that. But he was seen weeping that day, resting his head on his mother's shoulder. Just because the Ferarri got scratched! The car was costly. How much he must have dreamed about it. That scratching of the car must have entered deep into him, to his very soul - that is why he wept.

Weeping you all do. That man must have been more honest. On the open road, resting his head on the shoulder of his mother, he started weeping. But how long will this state last? In a few days the Ferarri will become old. After a month or two this man will be sitting in the same car and he will not even feel in what car he is sitting. He will get bored with this car - but not with cars. Dreams of some other car will catch hold of him. He may think of owning a Rolls Royce now, or some other car. Mind will get bored with one woman or one man - but it will not get bored with woman as such, or man as such.

We all get bored, but our boredom remains tied to particular things. But the very reality of this boredom does not become a part of our experience. When we are tired of one thing, we just select another new one of the same type and this process continues forever.

This is the only difference between you and a buddha - you get bored with one woman but your interest continues in another woman. If you are bored with your wife, your interest continues in someone else's wife. Whatever is near and available becomes useless, but what is at a distance sustains your interest. That thing at a distance will also become useless tomorrow when it comes close to you. But it is not possible that all things can come near one. Some things continue to remain at a distance, thus the interest continues, the desires go on racing.

A buddha, in getting bored with one woman, is bored with all women. A buddha, in living in one palace, has lived in all palaces. For a buddha, just one happening is enough. This is a scientific approach. If one drop of water has been known, then the whole sea has been known. He would be a mad scientist who continues to go on testing all the oceans and saying, "When I complete the tests of all the drops of all the oceans, I will make a statement that water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen." We are a similar kind of mad entity. A scientist tests just one drop, discovers that water

is made up of hydrogen and oxygen atoms and that H2O is the equation for its constituents, and the matter is over for him. All water of all seas is now known. Wherever there is water, even on any other planets - and the scientists say there are at least fifty thousand earths like ours in the whole expanse - or anywhere in the universe, it will be made up of the same arrangement of atoms: H2O.

All water is known by knowing one drop.

Understanding the pattern and the behavior of one desire, he comes to know the whole nature of all desires and becomes a buddha. On knowing one desire, he who sees its futility - the compulsory futility - and its unavoidable failure, his desires simply drop. The desires drop like the crutches of a lame person falling down suddenly. He was walking with the help of the crutches, he had no feet to walk, he had wooden feet. Suddenly the crutches fall down and the lame person collapses: a similar thing happens when the crutches of desires drop down. There are no real feet to walk on in the worldly life; they are artificial, wooden, made of desires. Desires falling down are the crutches falling down, and one suddenly finds oneself there - from where he had never moved, where he has always been, in his basic nature. That is God, that is soul.

The end part of the sutra explains this:

DEATH IS ITS BODY, IT DWELLS WITHIN DEATH, BUT DEATH DOES NOT KNOW IT. IT IS THE INNERMOST SELF OF ALL THESE ELEMENTS, ITS SINS ARE ALL DESTROYED, AND IT IS THE ONE DIVINE GOD NARAYANA.

THE BODY, THE SENSES, ETCETERA, ARE ALL NON-SOUL MATTER, AND THE FEELING OF 'I-MYNESS' OVER THEM IS ADHYAS - ILLUSION. THEREFORE, AN INTELLIGENT PERSON SHOULD DROP THIS ILLUSION THROUGH ALLEGIANCE TO BRAHMA - THE ABSOLUTE REALITY.

The last thing is this sutra.... The race after desires is due to the fact that some dream always appears to be coming to its fulfillment somewhere in the far distance. A person looks in the desert, sees a lake of water near the horizon, runs for the water and on reaching there discovers that there is no water, that there is nothing but sand, and sand. But then the lake of water appears somewhere else. This is called an illusion.

When the sun's rays become hot and are reflected on sand, the vibrating rays create an illusion of ripples and waves. The ripples and waves are so continuous that a sort of vast, reflecting stretch of surface appears. If a tree is nearby, even that tree will be reflected in that surface, which acts like a mirror. When from a distance you see not only water but even the reflections of the fleeting clouds in water, how can you disbelieve? If there are also reflections of the rows of birds flying in the sky in the so-called water, and if the nearby trees are also getting reflected in water, your confidence regarding the existence of water is confirmed. Not only waves are seen, even the reflections in the waves are seen. But as you go nearer the reflections cease to appear, and on reaching the spot you find nothing but sand.

Adhyas, or illusion, means seeing what is not there. Shankara loved this word very much and for the Upanishads it is very fundamental. Adhyas means projection, seeing what is not there: what is seen is not really there, you are projecting it from within. You are the cause of the projection.

A face appears beautiful to you: is that beauty there or are you projecting it?... because tomorrow the same face can appear ugly to you. Maybe it did not appear beautiful to you yesterday. Today suddenly your divine eye has opened up and the face has begun to look beautiful to you. To your friends, it still does not look beautiful.

It is said that Laila was not beautiful, only to Majnu she looked beautiful. The whole village was troubled, and people tried to persuade Majnu: "You are naive; there were many other more beautiful girls in the village, you are unnecessarily obsessed with Laila." Majnu replied, "If you want to see Laila, you have to have the eyes of Majnu." This is adhyas, illusion. The question is not of Laila but of the eyes of Majnu. The question is not of what is being seen but of the one who is seeing her. So Majnu said, "See with my eyes, then you will be able to see Laila." There is no doubt that with the eyes of Majnu she will look beautiful. If it were possible to borrow Majnu's eyes, then Laila would appear to you as beautiful as she appeared to Majnu.

Eyes are also a type of spectacles. The colors of the spectacles get projected onto the objects seen. All your senses are projecting. You are creating a world all around you. Your mind is not only a receiver, it is a creator as well. You are creating a world all around you - of beauty, of fragrance, of this, of that.

This world is not as you see it. It is dependent on you. If you change, the world also changes. A young man sees one world, an old man sees another, and children see yet another. What makes the differences? The world is the same. But the children do not have the same eyes that the young man has. Children are still interested in collecting stones and pebbles. Just the colorfulness of things is enough. The young man says, "Throw them away! What is in them? What value do they have?" For a young man money has become valuable. He has started understanding the value of money. Now collecting stones and pebbles won't do. Now it is no use running after butterflies.

Children are catching butterflies, they look heavenly to them. The young man takes children to be ignorant but when the man becomes old, his senses get tired, his experiences turn pungent and bitter and he feels as if his mouth is full of a kind of tastelessness. Now even young people appear like children to this man. For him, young people are running after different kinds of butterflies.

Only the kind of butterflies has changed, but not the butterflies as such. Old people go on saying, explaining, that these are butterflies, but no young man listens to them. They themselves had not listened to their fathers and grandfathers. There is a reason for not listening, and that is that they have different eyes. If the young man receives the eyes of an old man he will see the same. And remember, the interesting thing is that if the old man can receive the eyes of the young again, he will forget all these experiences; he will forget all this wisdom he is displaying; the world once again will become colorful to him.

I have heard: a chief justice of the Supreme Court of America had come to Paris when he was young and got married. After thirty years, when he became old, and after his children had also become married and had visited Paris, the chief justice came again to Paris with his wife. His name was Peare. He saw Paris, and said to his wife, "It is not the same Paris. Its colorfulness has gone. Beautiful were those days in Paris when we came here for the first time. Everything was incomparable; Paris was different!" His wife replied, "Excuse me, you have forgotten. The first time we came Peare was different, Paris is still the same. If you can see Paris with the eyes of a young man, it is still the same. How can Paris change?" People change and their vision changes.

If the world appears changed with the change in your vision, understand well that what you had seen and thought it to be was only adhyas, an illusion. It was created by your projections, it was not the world as it is. Is there any way that the world can be seen without your projections? If there is, only then one would see the world as it is.

Projections are illusions. Therefore, remember, seeing does not mean just seeing with the eyes.

Seeing means such a state when all your projections cease, when you have no viewpoints. When you do not have your individual eyes to impose conditions, when you have no emotions and desires to project, then seeing happens.

See the desert when you are not thirsty - the desert cannot deceive you then. Deception happens because of the thirst. You want water, and when you do not get it the desire becomes more intense.

And when desire is too intense, your mind goes insane and it wants to believe even in that which actually is not there.

But there is a state where all visions cease and seeing arises. When do the visions cease? Visions cease only when all desires cease, because every vision is a game of your desires, an extension of your desires.

The sutra says, THE BODY, THE SENSES, ETCETERA, ARE ALL NON-SOUL MATTER, AND THE FEELING OF 'I- MYNESS' OVER THEM IS ILLUSION. THEREFORE, AN INTELLIGENT PERSON SHOULD DROP THIS ILLUSION THROUGH ALLEGIANCE TO BRAHMA, THE ABSOLUTE REALITY.

THROUGH ALLEGIANCE TO BRAHMA - allegiance to the self.

Our allegiance is always to the other, to somebody else, not to our own self. We are running after other things, not towards our own center. We are always going somewhere else, avoiding the one place which is within.

Allegiance to Brahma means that the race of desires is gone, the person has arrived at his self. He has come to the place where there is no mind, no senses, no body, but only pure consciousness. In his being rooted there, all illusions are at once shattered; then there is no world but only Brahma, the absolute reality.

When I am speaking in Hindi - many people do not understand Hindi but they can also utilize this occasion. Those who do not understand Hindi should close their eyes and listen just to the sound.

They should sit in silence as if in meditation. And many times the truth that one does not understand through the words one comes to understand merely by listening to the sound.

When I am speaking in English, friends who do not understand English should not think that this is of no use to them. They should close their eyes and meditate on the sound of my words without attempting to understand the language. There is no need to try to understand a language which you do not know. Sit silently, become like an ignorant person, and meditate upon the impact of the sound. Just listen. That listening will become meditation and it will be beneficial.

The real question is not the understanding, but to become silent. Hearing is not the point, becoming silent is the point. So many times what happens is that what you have understood becomes a barrier, and it is good to listen to something that you do not understand at all; then thinking cannot interfere. When something is not understood there is no way for thoughts to move; they simply stop.

Therefore, listening sometimes to the wind passing through the trees, to the birds singing, to the sound of running water is better than listening to the seers and sages. The real Upanishads are flowing there, but you will not understand them. And if you do and you can just listen, your intellect will soon quieten down because it is not needed. And when your intellect quietens, you are transported to the place you are in search of.

Enough for today.