Adhyatma Upanishad, Chapter 38

Man is embodied, but man is not a body at all. The body is just the periphery, the circumference; the body is just clothing. And not only this, this sutra says that the very attraction towards the body, the attachment to the body, is based on a very false notion about the body.

We never encounter our bodies. Whatsoever we know about our bodies is known from without - as if you have seen your body in a mirror. So you don't know what the body in reality is.

Look at your body from within; then you will not encounter beauty, then you encounter filth, ugliness.

Then you will encounter something totally different. Then it is not a beautiful face - the mirror has given you the beautiful face. When you look at your body from within, when you enter your body from within, you will meet bones, skeleton - a totally different world, never encountered. Go to a hospital; look at the ill bodies, diseased bodies. Go to an operation table; look into the body being operated on. Go to a cemetery; look at the dead bodies. Go to a funeral; then you will encounter what a body really is.

But the body can carry on a deception because you look only at the skin, just the outermost clothing of the body. This creates an illusion, and this creates an attachment with the body. This attachment is one of the greatest barriers. Unless it is broken, unless you are removed, away from your body, you cannot enter into the dimension of the spiritual. Attached to the body, you are not facing the spiritual dimension; you are facing the body - and through the body, the world. You are facing the body and through the body, through the senses, the world.

That's why you encounter matter and matter and matter. People go on asking: Where is the soul?

Where is the divine? Is there a God. Does God exist? Their questions are relevant, not because there is no God - their questions are relevant because their way of looking at things is through the body. Through the body you cannot know anything except matter. Through the body you can know only other bodies. Bodies cannot feel the bodiless; bodies can feel only bodies. That is their capacity and limitation.

When I want to touch you, I cannot touch anything immaterial in you. If I want to touch, I will touch the material. Touch cannot penetrate to the immaterial; touch is limited to the material. All the senses of the body can lead you only to the world of matter. And because the whole scientific edifice is nothing but extensions of the senses, that's why science goes on denying anything like godliness, anything divine in the world.

Science is the extended body of man. That's why science never encounters God, cannot encounter.

Not because there is no God, but because your very approach is through matter. Through matter, only matter can be encountered. Unless you are removed from the body - not only removed, transformed totally, turned.... An about-turn is needed, so that you are facing the body. Now through an about-turn you are not facing the body, but facing the bodiless; both are there in you. Both are there in you - both dimensions.

The body is there as a door towards the world.Consciousness is there as a door towards the divine.

But you know only one door, you have never opened the other. The other remains there unopened; and not only unopened, you have forgotten it completely because you have never opened it, never tried it. It is there.

Scientists say, biologists say, that only half of your mind is functioning; half the mind is non- functioning. It is difficult for biology to account for it - why is half of the mind non-functioning?

It seems useless. It can be operated on and thrown away, and you will not feel any absence; it was not used at all. Half your brain can be cut out and thrown away like an appendix, like anything unnecessary, and you will not feel even the absence, that you are lacking something. You have never used it.

Science is still unable to say anything about this. They go on saying this is just an accidental growth.

But really this is very unscientific - to accept accidents is basically unscientific, because nothing can grow without any cause. Science means the link between cause and effect, the discovery between cause and effect. If there is some effect, it means there must be some cause.

Nothing is accidental, nothing can be.

It looks accidental if we don't know the cause.

Ignorance creates the illusion of accident.

Otherwise, there is no accident in the world.

Science goes on throwing things to the law of accident. Whenever science cannot explain anything, they will say, "This is accidental, unnecessary growth.

Either there is some cause behind it somewhere.... So there is one explanation that somewhere back in the history of man, man using that part, and we have forgotten how to use it. Or, somewhere in the future, man will need that part, and we have not yet discovered how to use it. Only these two explanations can be scientific, and in a way both are true. Both ARE true.

There have been civilizations in the world which have used that part, that non-functioning part of the mind. There have been individuals who have used that part, that non-functioning part - a Buddha, a Jesus, a Krishna. They are not just bigger brains than you, they are not just more intelligent than you; they are totally different. They use a different type of intelligence. The difference is not of degrees - the difference is qualitative, not quantitative. A Krishna, a Christ is not just quantitatively bigger than you, no. An Einstein is quantitatively bigger than you; the difference is of degrees - he is a great mind, a giant. You are just children before him. But a Buddha is not different quantitatively.

He is not a great mind; he is a different mind altogether. His mind cannot be measured with your mind.

An Einstein can be measured through your mind. You may have a small mind; he may have a bigger mind - but you are both on the same path. You may be very much behind, but the path is the same.

Einstein is with you on the same path - leading, on the peak. You may be the valley and he may be the peak, but you are both related; you are not different. A Krishna, a Christ is totally different; they are using something which we are not using at all. They are using a different door. They are not looking at the world from the body; they are looking at existence from consciousness. They are not coming to meet you through the body; they are coming to meet you through consciousness - that is the second door.

This sutra is concerned with the second door, how to open it. The first basic requirement is to create a distance between you and your body. A distance is needed; otherwise, you cannot take the about-turn. Space is needed. Create a distance. How can you create a distance? You cannot force a distance; the distance happens if you can become aware of the reality of the body, what the body is. If you become aware of the ugliness, the filth, the inner reality of the body, your attraction disappears. You are not to make it disappear; it disappears. The moment you know the filth of the body, suddenly your attachment is no longer there; you have taken the about-turn. In the disappearance of attachment, attraction, the turning, the about-turn happens. And for the first time you encounter another door in you.

Jesus says, "Knock, and the doors shall be opened unto you." About what doors is he talking? - "Knock, and the doors shall be opened unto you." What doors? He is talking about this door: Move away from the body, create a distance, let your back be towards the body, and suddenly you are facing a door you have never faced - and this door is not locked. That's why Jesus says, "Knock," and knocking is enough; this door is not locked. Just a knock and the door shall be opened unto you.

They have been waiting for centuries and centuries - for millennia - to be knocked on. That's why Jesus says, "Ask, and only for asking, it shall be given to you. Knock, and just a knock is enough."

No key is needed, there is no lock.

So the only key is how to face the door. Once you face the door, knock, and it opens.

This sutra says: Know the filth of the body, the death of the body, the deadliness of the body; the body is just a tomb. Look at it, but don't go on saying that the body is filthy; sayings will not help.

Don't go on saying that the body is ugly; just repeating these things will not be of any use; on the contrary, your repetition shows that you don't know that really the body is a filthy thing; that's why you repeat. Through repetition you want to create some auto-hypnosis.

No, this sutra is not a suggestion for auto-hypnosis, so don't say the body is filthy. Don't believe in the teacher in this UPANISHAD - don't believe. Just try to find out whether he is right or not. Just feel the body from the inside. From your head, go on down, down, down - feel the whole body. Then suddenly you will become aware that the UPANISHAD is saying a truth, a very valuable truth. And truth itself is the turning. Then you need not turn yourself; truth itself is the turning.

You see a diamond; you are attracted, you are pulled. You begin to move towards the diamond.

Suddenly you see it is not a diamond but just an ordinary stone. The pull has disappeared, the movement stops.

If you are attracted towards the body - and everyone is attracted, remember. How do you know that you are attracted towards the body? You may not have felt it consciously that you have ever been attracted to your own body. But if you are attracted to anyone's body, another's body, that shows you are unaware of the fact of what your body is. If you are attracted to a beautiful body of a man or a woman, it shows you don't know what the body is. If any body becomes attractive to you, it shows that you have not known your body; otherwise, NO body can be attractive.

If you know your body and the reality, then all attraction towards bodies will disappear. Suddenly, then this whole world of bodies becomes a filth. Then you are not pulled, the pull disappears.

Then you don't gravitate towards bodies, the gravitation disappears. And then a new law begins to function.

Remember, there are contrary laws in nature. While one law operates, another cannot operate.

When the one law disappears, is not operating, the opposite law starts operating. If you are pulled by bodies, you are pulled by matter. If this goes on, you will be again and again pulled towards matter. This is what sex is, this is what biological reproduction is. One goes on reproducing oneself again and again - more bodies, more bodies, more bodies. You go on being pulled by matter continuously.

When you are attracted to a beautiful body, male or female, to what are you attracted? If you ask the biologists, they will say, "To certain hormones, to certain chemicals." A feminine body is constantly creating certain hormones; those hormones create the pull - you are attracted. A subtle pull is there, it is chemical. A feminine body has a different magnetism; a male body has a different magnetism.

That magnetism goes on working.

If you have a magnet, then the iron is attracted, pulled. Man-woman attraction is again a gravitation, a magnetism - biological, hormonal, chemical - but material.

If you are attracted to bodies, know well you have not known your own body at all. Then, try to know your own body. Don't believe what the UPANISHAD says, just go in and find out. Observe, analyze, and find out what your body consists of - what is the stuff the body is made of? If you can be daring enough, courageous enough to know the truth about your body, one law will disappear and you will enter a world of a different force.

Gravitation is one force.

Gravitation means being pulled downwards.

Grace is another force.

Grace means being pulled upwards.

You can say gravitation means being pulled outwards or downwards - both mean the same, they are synonymous. And you can say that grace means being pulled inwards or upwards - again both are the same; they are synonymous. Once you are not in the grip of gravitation, you will be in the grip of grace. Then God can pull you upwards and inwards; then you are open, vulnerable to grace - receptive.

So find out the facticity of the body. Then, attachment disappears; sex becomes meaningless, the pull of bodies is no longer felt. You enter another world, of another dimension, of another law: grace.

Now you are pulled inwards and upwards; you are available for the divine.

As you are now, you are not available for the divine. The divine cannot do anything with you; you are just closed.

Meditations, methods, techniques, systems, schools - they exist only to make you available, to create the situation in which you can become available to the second law of existence - grace.

How is it possible? What to do?

Be more conscious of the body, be more conscious of what constitutes the body. Be more conscious of the desires of the body. Be more conscious of the totality of the body, and then nothing more is needed. You will be facing the door, the closed door. Knock, and the door shall be opened unto you.

And once you enter the second door, you are no longer limited to the body. You become joined with the infinite space.

That's why man is anguish - man IS anguish, constant anguish, conflicts, tensions, anxiety, insanity.

Because a very infinite space is being confined, forced to live in a very small body. The infinite is being forced to live in the finite; that creates anguish, that creates uneasiness. Unless you can be infinite again, your anguish will remain.

Man remaining as man is incurable. Man remaining as man is the basic disease, and there is no medicine to cure it.

Man is a disease.

Unless man becomes divine, he cannot be cured.

Create the distance between you and the body, and the more the distance, the nearer you will be to the divine. And this nearness goes on transforming you. Then no effort is needed to transform you; the very law of grace starts transforming you.

So remember this: YOU are not to transform you; you are only to take a turn. Then you are available for the forces of transformation - THEY will transform you. The meditation which will follow just now is just a turning. It is to create a turning in you, just a turning. It is not concerned with your character, it is not concerned with your morality. It is not concerned with what you have been doing - not at all.

You may be a sinner - everyone is. You may be a criminal - everyone is. Some are caught, some are not caught - that's another matter.

This meditation is not concerned with what you are doing or with what you have been doing, no - not with your doing at all. You cannot do otherwise. As you are, all that you do naturally follows from it. So we are not going to change your doings. That's absurd, and cannot be done. And if you go on thinking that you can change your character, your action, your doings, then you are in an illusion, because if you remain as you are, available to the gravitational force, you cannot change anything. Your actions will be the same: you can change the names, but you cannot change anything substantially. Remember, in the whole life - this life at least, you don't remember the others - in this life, this whole life, you have been trying to change many things. Have you succeeded?

You have tried not to be angry. Have you succeeded? Fifty years, sixty years, seventy years... really, have you succeeded in creating a state of no-anger? You have been trying to be non-sexual, have you succeeded?

But man goes on in deceiving himself. He goes on thinking, "I will change." You cannot change as you are, because you are in a pull, in a gravitational force. You cannot do anything unless you change the law. Unless you become available to another law, you cannot change. You will remain angry, you will remain sexual, you will remain greedy. Moral teachings are just useless, just consolations. But they give you a certain ego... even the conception, "I can change myself, and if I am not changed, I have not made much effort - that's the reason. Any day I will make the necessary effort, and I will change."

No sir, you cannot change. Whatsoever you do, you cannot change. And if you become aware of this fact that just ordinary things.... One man smokes, and he goes on thinking he can change, he can stop smoking. He goes on thinking and he will go on smoking. And many times he will stop, and will start again. And if he stops smoking, then he will substitute something else for it; he will start chewing gum - it makes no difference. It makes no difference; only the thing has changed, not the mind. The mind has to be occupied somehow, so he was smoking. Smoking is an effort to be occupied. You cannot remain unoccupied, you become uneasy. One goes on smoking; it gives you a feeling of occupation, you don't feel alone. The cigarette becomes your companion, mm?

This is the reason: you cannot be alone, the cigarette gives you company. You feel you are doing something - one of the reasons; there are many, because everything is multi-causal.

Everyone wants to go on feeding the body, because everyone is afraid of death, and food seems to be the antidote of death. So go on, but you cannot go on throwing food in the body. That's impossible. You can throw the food twice or thrice a day. But the mind says go on, go on feeing the body. One starts smoking, one feels one is feeding something without feeding.

So there are many reasons. You can stop smoking; then you will substitute it by something else which will do the same - the inner needs will have to be fulfilled. You cannot change AS YOU ARE.

But don't be disappointed. I am not saying you cannot be changed at all. But the change can come only if you start a journey towards another law of existence.

Change the law.

Don't change yourself.

Become unavailable to the law of gravitation.

And become available to the law of grace.

You will be changed - completely transformed.

THE MORNING MEDITATION Now we shall try to become available to the law of grace. Be in a complete let-go.

Now start the first step: ten minutes of fast, vigorous, anarchic breathing. Just let yourself go totally.

Move into breathing. Forget everything. Just be the breathing.

Go fast, only breathing. Forget everything. Just be breathing - fast, fast, fast.

Two minutes more. Just go mad in breathing. Only breathing remains; you are no more.