The Art Of Listening

Mahavira has described four starting places from which you can reach the other shore. Of these, two can be understood: that of a sadhu and that of a sadhvi, a holy man and a holy woman. The other two seem more difficult: that of a shravaka and shravika. Shravaka means one who has learned the art of listening; he knows how to listen and understands what listening means. And shravika is used for the female.

Mahavira says that there are some who must keep on performing sadhanas in order to arrive. This is necessary for those who are not adept at hearing because if you can listen - totally - there is nothing more to be done to reach the other shore.

These sutras of Nanak depict the glory of shravana, listening, although on the face of it, it seems an exaggeration that everything can be attained merely by listening. We have been listening for infinite births and nothing has happened. It is our experience that no matter how much we hear, we remain the same. Our vessel is greasy; words fall on it but they slide off, leaving us untouched.

If our experience is correct, Nanak is exaggerating. But it is not true; our experience is incorrect, because we have never listened. We have many tricks and devices not to listen. Let us understand them first.

The first trick is: we hear only that which we want to and not what is being said. With great cleverness we hear what lets us remain as we are; nothing goes in which may cause a change in us. This is not only the observation of the sages; scientists who have carried out research on the human mind say that ninety-eight percent of what we hear we do not take in. We only hear the two percent that fits into our understanding; that which doesn't, cannot bypass the many obstructions.

Anything that synchronizes with your understanding cannot change you. It can only help to reinforce that understanding. Rather than transform you it gives yet more stones and cement to strengthen your foundations.

The Hindu hears only what strengthens his Hindu mind; the Muslim hears only what strengthens the Muslim mind; so also the Sikh, the Christian, the Buddhist. If you listen only to strengthen your own preconceptions, to strengthen your own house, then you will miss hearing completely, for truth has no connection with Hindu or Muslim or Sikh. It has nothing to do with the conditioning of your mind.

Only when you set aside your entire way of thinking will you be able to understand what Nanak means; however, this is a very difficult thing to do, because our concepts are invisible They are microscopic, or as transparent as a wall of glass; they cannot be seen. Unless you knock against them you are not conscious of their existence. You think that there is wide open space ahead, and the sun, moon, and the stars. You are not aware of the transparent wall in between.

Hearing a speaker you tell yourself that he is correct when what he says is consistent with your thoughts. to other things you say that it is not so because it disagrees with your thoughts. So you are not truly listening but only lend your ear to what agrees with you and strengthens your opinion.

The rest, that you don't care about, you ignore and forget. Even if you do happen to hear something that is contrary to your understanding, you tear it to bits with your reasoning, because one thing you are sure of: whatever matches your thoughts is correct, what doesn't is incorrect, false.

If you have attained truth there is no further need to listen, but you have not attained truth so it is incumbent on you to listen. How can you still be searching for the truth if you have the idea that you have already attained it? Instead, you have to stand before truth absolutely bare, empty, void, naked. If your scriptures, your beliefs, your doctrines stand in the way you will never be able to listen; whatever falls on your ears will be nothing but the echo of your own concepts and you will hear only your own thoughts throbbing within you. Then Nanak's words will seem a preposterous exaggeration.

Another way to escape listening is to fall asleep when something significant is being said. This is a trick the mind uses to save itself; it is a very deep process by which, when something is about to touch you, you fall asleep.

I was a guest at the house of a very learned pundit. He was well-versed in the Shastras and there was no one to equal him in reading the Ramayana. Thousands of people came to hear him. We were staying in the same room and as we put off the lights to prepare to sleep, I heard his wife come in. She spoke in a low tone but I could still hear. "Please say something to Munna. He won't go to sleep."

"How will my talking help?" asked the pundit.

"I have seen a number of people falling asleep when you speak at your meetings, so how could a small child resist your words! Come, say a few words to him," she answered.

People go to religious services only to fall asleep. Even those who suffer from insomnia sleep well in religious meetings. What happens? It's a trick of your mind. Sleep is like the soldier's armor; it protects you against all you don't want to know. So you look as if you are listening, but you are not awake; and without being awake how can you hear?

While talking you are awake; while listening you are not. And this doesn't happen only at a religious meeting. As soon as another person talks to you, you are no longer alert, but lost in an internal dialogue of your own. While he talks to you, you pretend to be listening, but you are really talking to yourself. Then to whom do you prefer to listen? Definitely to your own self, because the voice of the other person doesn't even reach you; your own voice is enough to drown out all the other voices.

And then you fall asleep out of boredom with yourself, because what you are saying inside you have said and heard so many times before. Sleep is an escape from the repetitive talk that is going on internally.

He alone is capable of listening who has broken this conversation within. And that is the art of shravana. If the internal dialogue stops even for a moment, you find the whole expanse of space opening within you; all that was as yet unknown begins to be known. You find the boundary of that which was boundless; you become familiar with the unfamiliar. He who was a total stranger, with whom you were not acquainted at all, becomes your very own! And it all happens so suddenly. The universe is your home!

All gurus, all religions aim at one thing only: how to break the constant dialogue within. Whether we call it yoga or meditation or repetition of mantra, the aim is to break the constant internal flow of words in order to create an empty space within. If it happens even for a little while you will understand what Nanak is talking about.

It is hard to believe what Nanak says - that by listening alone a person can attain siddhis, occult powers; or a person can become a pir, a saint; or a devta, a celestial being; or even Indra, the king of the devtas; that by listening, the sky and earth revolve and worlds and lower worlds exist, and death does not touch you.

It all seems a gross exaggeration, but it is not so in the least, because as soon as you learn the art of listening you learn the art of becoming acquainted with life itself. And as you begin to acquire the knowledge of existence, you find that the same silence you experience at the moment of shravana is the principle of all existence. It is the basis on which the sky and the earth are maintained; it is on the hub of this void that terrestrial bodies revolve; it is in silence that the seed breaks and becomes a tree, that the sun rises and sets, and moon and stars are formed and disintegrate. When words fall into silence within you, you reach the place where all creation is born and where it becomes extinct.

Once it happened: A Muslim fakir came to Nanak and said, "I have heard that you can turn me to ashes by your will, and that you can also create me by your will. I cannot believe this." He was an honest, genuine seeker who had not come out of idle curiosity.

Nanak said, "Close your eyes. Be relaxed and quiet and I will do for you what you wish." The fakir at once closed his eyes and became tranquil. Had he not been a serious seeker he would have been frightened, because what he had asked was very dangerous - to be turned into ashes and remade, because he had been told that creation and extinction lay in Nanak's hands.

It was morning, a day just like this. Nanak was sitting under a tree beside a well at the outskirts of the village. His disciples Bala and Mardana were also with him. They were very much perturbed, because never had Nanak said such a thing to anyone before. What would happen now? They too became alert and the very trees and stones also became alert because Nanak was about to perform a miracle!

The fakir sat, silent and tranquil. He must have been a man of great faith. He became absolutely empty within. Nanak put his hand on his head and pronounced the omkar. As the story goes, the man turned to ashes. Then Nanak again sounded the Omkar and the man regained his body.

If you take the story at its face value, you will miss it, but this did happen within the seeker. When he became completely empty within, when the internal dialogue was broken and Nanak gave out the chant of Omkar, the sadhaka attained the state of shravana - there was nothing but the resonance of Om within him. And with this resonance the annihilation took place on its own. Everything within the man was lost - all the world and its boundaries - turned to naught, to ashes. There was nothing within, nobody. The house was empty. Then Nanak once again chanted the Omkar and the man came back to himself. He opened his eyes, fell at Nanak's feet and said, "I had thought this could never happen, but you have proved it possible!"

There are those who miss the point and believe that the man actually turned to ashes and Nanak brought him back to life, but this is a foolish interpretation. Internally, however, the annihilation and creation did take place. The fakir was capable of listening. When you develop the art of listening then it is not me you will hear. I am an excuse. The guru is just an excuse. Then you will be adept at hearing the breeze as it passes through the trees; in the silence of solitude you will hear the Omkar, the basis of all life. And in the resonance of Omkar you shall find that everything depends on the void. The rivers flow in the void, the ocean becomes one with it. When you close your eyes you will hear your heartbeat and also the faint sound of the blood flowing, and you will know that you are not these; you are also the observer, the witness. Then death cannot touch you.

For those who have mastered the art of shravana there is nothing more to know. All existence comes into being through shravana. All existence happens through the void; and when you are listening, the stamp of the void falls on you. Then the void vibrates in you and that is the basic resonance of existence - it is the basic unit.

By shravana death cannot touch you. Once you know the art of listening, where is death? Because the listener attains the knowledge of the witness. Right now you think and think, and then listen. The thinker will die because he belongs to the flesh. The day you listen without thinking you will become the witness. Then I shall be speaking, your head will be hearing, and there will be a third within you who will simply watch that listening taking place. When this happens a new element begins to unfold within you, the beginning of crystallization of the witness; and there is no death for the witness.

Therefore Nanak says that through shravana death does not touch. It is through listening that the devotee achieves permanent happiness; it is through shravana that suffering and sin are destroyed.

How is this internal dialogue to be broken? How can you become silent? How can the clouds be made to disperse so that the clear skies can be seen? This is what the process is all about. When someone is speaking, there is no need for you to keep on talking. You can be silent, but this habit dies hard, so you go on and on, talking away.

I asked a little boy, "Has your little sister started talking?" He said, "Talking? And how! It's so long since she started to talk that now she won't stop. Now we are all busy trying to keep her quiet."

When you came into this world you were silent. Do you want to be talking away all the time till you leave it? Then you will miss life and even deny yourself the supreme touch, the supreme bliss of death. You entered this world in silence; prepare to leave it in silence, too. Talking is for in-between, and only in the mundane life is it useful, in relating to another person.

When sitting by yourself it is madness to talk since silence is the process by which we relate to our own self. If silent you will find it difficult to keep up outside relationships; if you talk, it will be difficult to relate to yourself. Talking is a bridge that is connecting us to others; silence is a bridge that connects us with our self. Somewhere, somehow, you err in your selection of the means.

If a person becomes quiet and talks to no one, he establishes no relationships and gradually people will begin to forget him. Dumb people are the most miserable, even more so than a blind man.

Notice carefully that you feel more pity for the dumb than the blind. While it is true that the blind man cannot see, he does establish relationships; he can have a wife; he can talk to his children; he can be a part of society; he can have friends. But the mute is closed within himself with no way out, no way for him to establish contact with others. You can sense his difficulty in the agony of his gestures. When you cannot follow him, how helpless and miserable he feels. There is no one more pitiable than a dumb person: he cannot talk, he cannot open his heart to anyone, he cannot express his feelings of love or joy or sorrow and unburden his mind.

As the mute is incapable of establishing contact with others, so you have become incapable of establishing contact with yourself. Where you should be dumb - absolutely silent - you keep on talking. The other is not there at all, so to whom do you talk? You raise questions yourself and then answer them yourself. This is nothing but a sign of madness. The only difference between a mad person and you is that the mad person talks aloud to himself while you talk silently. Some day you too may join their ranks and begin to talk aloud. Right now you manage to repress the insanity within, but it can erupt any moment, because it is a cancerous ulcer.

Why does this internal dialogue go on? What is the reason? It is out of simple habit. All life long you are taught how to speak. A child is born and the first concern of all around him is that he should speak as early as possible since this is considered a sign of intelligence; the longer he takes, the duller he is considered to be.

Since talking is a social art and man is part of society, how happy the parents are when the child talks. Also many necessities of life are fulfilled by talking: when you are hungry, thirsty, you can express your need. It affords a protection in life.

What on earth is the use of silence? It seems to be useless. It holds no meaning in our day-to-day life. How can you go shopping if you are silent? How will you satisfy the various needs of the body without communication? We are so habituated to talking that we talk even in sleep, all twenty-four hours of the day; talking is automatic.

We keep on talking and rehearsing. Before talking to someone we rehearse the dialogue internally; and then, after the conversation, we repeat over and over all that happened - what I said and what you said, and then what I said - and we gradually forget what we are losing by this useless talk.

Externally you may be gaining something, but within you are certainly losing contact with yourself.

You are getting closer to people while you are becoming further removed from yourself. And the more adept you become at this game, the harder it will be for you to go into silence. Habit! And habit cannot be broken just like that.

When a person walks he makes use of his legs; while sitting there is no need to move your legs.

When you are hungry you eat; if a person keeps on eating when not hungry it is a sign of insanity.

Similarly, if you try to sleep when you are not sleepy it is inviting unnecessary frustration. But we do not think the same way when it comes to talking. We never say that we shall stop all talk unless it is a necessity.

It seems as if we have completely forgotten that the process of talking can be begun or ended at will, which it certainly can, or else all religions become impossible. Religion is possible only through silence. This is why Nanak praises shravana so much, which is in praise of silence, to glory in silence so that you may begin to hear. But you go along merrily talking, carried along by your own momentum and even if it comes to your understanding it is very difficult to stop, since habits take time to leave and often require the development of opposite habits in order to break them. So you will have to practice silence. To stay in the company of holy men means to practice silence. In the presence of the guru there is nothing to say and everything to hear. You listen and sit quietly. You don't go to the guru for a chat.

A few days ago a friend offered to come for a discussion. I said, "In that case, you talk. I shall listen but say nothing."

He said, "But I want to exchange views with you."

I answered, "I have nothing to do with your thoughts. If you are prepared to be without thoughts I can give you something. Or, if you have something to give, I'm prepared to take."

We have nothing whatsoever to give, but we are eager to carry out transactions in thoughts. We say exchange of thoughts and what we mean is you give me a bit of your insanity, and I give you a bit of mine. As both are mad enough, there is no need of any give-and-take.

We do not go to the guru to exchange views but to sit quietly next to him. Only when we are silent can we hear, and that requires a little practice. How can you begin? In the twenty-four hours of a day you need to be silent for an hour or so, whenever it is convenient. The internal dialogue will go on but don't be party to it. The key to it all is to hear the talk within just as you would hear two people talking, but remain apart. Don't get involved; just listen to what one part of the mind is telling another. Whatever comes, let it come; don't try to repress it. Only be a witness to it.

A lot of rubbish that you have gathered over the years will come out. The mind has never been given the freedom to throw away this rubbish. When given the chance, the mind will run like a horse that has broken his reins. Let it run! You sit and watch. To watch, just watch, is the art of patience. You will want to ride the horse, to direct it this way or that, because that is your old habit. You will have to exercise some patience in order to break this habit.

Wherever the mind goes, merely watch; don't try to enforce any order as one word gives rise to another and another, and a thousand others, because all things are connected. Perhaps Freud was unaware, that, when he based his entire psychoanalytic method on this "free association of thoughts" as he called it, it derived from yoga. One thought comes, and then another, and each thought is linked to the other in a continuous chain.

Once I was traveling in a train that was very full. When the inspector came to check our tickets he looked underneath my seat, where there was an old man hiding. He said, "You, old man, come out!

Where is your ticket?"

The poor man fell at his feet and said, "I don't have any ticket nor any money but I have to go to the village in connection with my daughter's wedding. I would be grateful if you let me go this time."

The inspector took pity on him and let him go; but when he turned to the next row he saw another man underneath the seat. This man was young. "Are you also going for your daughter's marriage?"

the inspector joked with him.

"No, sir," said the young man, "but I'll soon be this old man's son-in-law, and I too am penniless."

This is how things are joined. Someone is the son-in-law; someone is the father-in-law. The connections are hidden and need to be brought out. There is a whole chain of them within you and you will often be shocked when you know how, and in what queer ways, your thoughts are interlinked. Sometimes you will also be frightened and think you are going mad.

This is, however, a very wonderful method. Whatever is happening, allow it to happen. If it is convenient and possible, speak your thoughts out loud so that you can also hear them, because within the mind the thoughts are subtle and there is the fear you may not be very conscious of them.

Speak them aloud, listen to them, and be very aware and alert to remain well separated from them.

Resolve to speak out whatever comes to mind, but be absolutely unbiased and neutral. If abuse comes - abuse! If ram, ram comes or omkar, give voice to that.

It is absolutely necessary to empty the mind patiently for six months, because all your life long you have done nothing but load it with thoughts. If you persist patiently and diligently then only six months is enough; otherwise it might take you six years, or six lives! All depends on you, how wholeheartedly and sincerely you work at this method.

Many a time it will happen that you will forget to be a witness; you will ride the horse once again and set out on your journey of thoughts, involved once again. If you identify yourself with some thought, then you will have failed; as soon as you become aware of this, get off the horse and let the words, the thoughts, go where they will without riding them. Just keep watching.

Gradually, very faintly, you will begin to hear the footsteps of silence, and experience the art of listening. Then, when you are qualified to listen you no longer need look for a guru, because wherever you are, there the guru is. The breeze will stir in the trees, the flowers and the dry leaves will fall - you will hear all. Sitting on the seashore you will hear the waves. You will hear the river in spate, the lightning in the sky, the thundering of clouds. You will hear the birds sing, a child cry, a dog bark - under all conditions you will hear.

When the art of listening is mastered, the guru is present everywhere. If shravana is not known, all the masters sitting before you cannot make you listen. The guru is - only when you can listen.

If you have learned the art of listening you will be filled with joy, because then you have become the witness; and the witness is joy itself. Shravana occurs, the mind is no more, and its extinction is joy.

Bliss is to go beyond the mind. At the moment when listening takes place, the chain of thoughts is broken and there is bliss, there is transcendence. You are no longer in the valley of thoughts but on the lofty peak where thoughts do not reach - beyond the dust and grime, where there is only unbroken silence. On this lofty, silent peak there is nothing but the resonance of bliss and you reach the supreme blessedness.

Through shravana alone suffering and sin are destroyed. Where is sin for him who has acquired the art of listening? For sin is connected with thoughts only. Understand this a little. A car passes you on the road and the thought occurs: I should have a car like that. Now you have become glued to the thought. There is only one refrain within you: how to get such a car. By fair means or foul the car must be had. You cannot sleep nights, your days are equally restless; your dreams are filled with the car, your thoughts are filled with the car; the car surrounds you on all sides.

What actually happened? The car passed and a thought arose within you, because everything that you see is reflected in the mind. But once you are identified with the thought, you cannot stand apart.

A beautiful woman passes and a thought arises in the mind. This is natural, because the mind is only a mirror; its function is to reflect whatever happens around it. When the woman passed, the mind registered the reflection. When the woman is no longer there, the reflection must also cease.

Had you been just a witness there was no way to sin. But once you became identified with the thought you wanted this woman at any cost. By love or by force, by violence or by nonviolence, you must have her.

Thus a single thought catches hold of you, possesses you. Had you allowed the thoughts to rise and fade, and been only a witness, there would be no question of sin. All sins arise because of your identification with thoughts. Then the thoughts get hold of you so badly that you shake like a leaf in a storm. Thoughts have brought you nothing but unhappiness and suffering, but you are not even conscious enough to realize that all suffering coincides with thoughts, and bliss occurs only in the state of no-thoughts.

Nanak says, Through shravana suffering and sin are destroyed because the fruit of sin is suffering.

Sin is the seed and suffering is the fruit.

When sin is gone suffering is no more. What remains when sin and suffering are no more - that state is samadhi, which is bliss itself.

He who becomes an adept at listening is absolved of all sin. Such a devotee, says Nanak, attains bliss and his bliss develops more and more each day. The word vigasu is used, which is very meaningful; it contains both bliss and the idea of its continuous flowering and development. So ananda, bliss, is a flower that keeps on blooming. The moment never comes when it is in complete bloom: It just blooms and blooms and blooms - from perfection to more perfection. As if the morning sun rises and keeps on rising, and never sets. Such is this ananda. It is like a flower that never withers, like a sun that never sets.

When the void begins to crystallize in the heart and silence is born, the ripples of ananda rise and, having arisen, keep spreading more and more. Remember, ananda is not an object that you are done with once attained. It keeps on increasing constantly, limitlessly, once it is attained.

Thus we say: God is infinite. Thus we say: God is bliss. Because bliss is infinite, you can never attain it completely; every moment you feel it increasing and increasing, and each time it satiates you completely. This is a riddle that cannot be solved by the intellect, which argues: If once attained, what is left to be attained? Satiation is also not a goal but a live happening.

Ananda is not something to measure in kilos; you can't buy a kilo or two and be done with it, because bliss is infinite. Once you step into it, you drown in it more and more, and the delight is that each time you feel you have got it in full measure, yet each time it feels so much more than before.

Purna, the whole, the perfect, is also progressive; it is not a dead thing. It stops nowhere but keeps spreading more and more. Furthermore we have given existence the name of Brahma, that which is endlessly expanding.

The word also means that there is no limit to its expansion, that it is not just as much today as yesterday, but it spreads and spreads endlessly.

He who has heard truth in the guru's words has known fragrance in sitting quietly next to him. He finds that the happening flows towards him through such a person, and begins to penetrate him.

Knowledge is contagious; bliss is contagious. If your doors are open bliss enters into you like a breath of wind from a person who has attained it. While you stand to gain he loses nothing since it increases and expands to the extent that it is shared. If you are silent a space is created within you.

Remember, existence prefers a vacuum. No sooner do you become empty than existence fills your vacuum. As the river water rushes in to fill your empty jug, create a vacuum and air will rush in to fill it. Prepare to be empty and you will be filled, but as long as you are filled with yourself you will remain empty. Empty yourself and you will be filled with supreme energy. As you depart from one corner God will enter from the other.

Nanak says, Even those who lead sinful lives, whose lips have never spoken a good word, whose tongue has always uttered abuse, whose heads are filled with curses, if even these listen but once, they are filled with glory. An infinitesimal glimpse of shravana can make you fresh, can bathe your entire being.

Nanak does not tell evildoers to stop sinning. He just tells them to listen and the isms will fall away.

He doesn't tell them to improve first and only then can they listen, because that would be impossible and then there would be no hope for people to listen.

Nanak says: Listen and forget about sin, forget about evil. And no sooner do you hear than a new sutra, a new path, begins to unfold in your life. A new spark will kindle a fire that will burn away your sins; your past turns into ashes as soon as you become silent.

What is sin? What have you been doing in the past? You have identified totally with your thoughts, constantly turning them into actions, and this is sin. Stand away from your thoughts; actions will crumble, the doer will be lost, and all connection with the past will snap. Then you realize that the past was no more than a dream. Through infinite lives everything you have done is because of the illusion of doing; the day that illusion is broken, all actions come to an end.

People will be unable to understand Nanak if they hold the common belief that each sin has to be wiped out by an equal virtue. For people of calculating minds this seems but fair - that for each sin you must atone with a corresponding virtue. But if this were so you would never be liberated; for infinite lives you have sinned and where is the guarantee that in the course of your equalization you will not sin further? Then this chain is impossible to break and liberation is impossible.

Your sins spread over infinite lives. If God is a shopkeeper or a magistrate who insists on the cleansing of each sin, when will it ever end? And even assuming that all present deeds are virtuous, it will still take infinite time to make up for the past. And how can you be sure you will perform only good deeds? Wise men follow a different method of calculation altogether, because they say that the question is not of sin but of the basis of sin, its very roots.

Say you have watered a tree for fifty years. Do you think you will have to starve its roots of water for another fifty years before it dies? The tree no longer depends on you for water; it draws its supplies directly from the soil. Cut off its roots and the tree will die today, but you can tear off the leaves one by one and the tree will not die even in fifty years; no sooner do you break one leaf than two new ones are born. No, by cutting leaves and branches you are merely pruning the tree. In the same way you cannot nullify sin by virtue. Eradicate one sin and four new others spring up.

Catch hold of the roots. Actions are the leaves, and the sense of doing is the root. Remove doing and the tree will dry up at once. All flow came from: I am doing. The art of eradicating doing is witnessing, and to witness means shravana.

Nanak sings of such unique and wonderful glory! He says, Be silent and listen. In moments of such listening you are no longer the doer. Listening is a passive state since you have nothing to do in order to listen; it is not an action.

Now this is interesting. In order to see, one has to open one's eyes; whereas the ears are already open. You have nothing to do in order to hear. Therefore, there can be some sense of doing in seeing, but hearing does not involve doing at all! Someone speaks. You listen, sitting empty, motionless, passive; you are in non-action. Therefore that glory is not attained even by seeing which is attained by listening; hence the stress on shravana.

Mahavira speaks of samyak shravana, right listening, which Buddha also emphasizes. To Nanak it is a wonderful glory to hear. There is no doer there. No one is present at the moment of listening.

If you are silent, who is there within? There is a solitude in moments of listening in which a voice resounds and passes away. There is no one within. If a thought comes, you come along with it; when thoughts are not, you are not. Since ego is the name given to a collection of thoughts, shravana also means the ego-less state.

Nanak says: Through shravana alone you know the tactics of yoga and the secrets of the body.

This is very significant. The Western physicians have not been able to understand where and how the East acquired its knowledge of the human body and its secrets. Surgery developed in the West mainly because the dead are not burned by Christians and corpses were therefore available to be removed from their graves and taken for dissection.

Since Hindus burn their dead and no bodies were available for dissection, then how did the East acquire its knowledge of the human body? The East had no means: no corpses, no scientific development, no technique, no technology, and yet its knowledge of the human body is perfect.

There is much research and discussion on the subject, but this sutra of Nanak provides an answer to the mystery.

Through shravana alone you know the knack of yoga and the secrets of the body. When you become empty and are established within yourself, you begin to see your body within. Right now all you have seen of your body is the skin. Until now you have gone round and round your house and know only the outside walls; you have no knowledge of what is inside.

From within you begin to see the entire network of the different systems. It is a unique experience to enter the palace and see all the grandeur within. It happens when you become silent and tranquil, when the mind poses no problems. The mind is a door to the world outside, and the moment you join it you move outward; whatever you think will be outside of you - wealth, woman, house, car, fame, status. All objects of thought are outside of you.

So as soon as you stop thinking, you withdraw from the outside and the energy is focused within.

Now you sit on your own throne and see inside yourself for the first time. Then you know that this body is not as small as it looks; this small body holds a miniature universe within itself. It is a model of the vast universe, the vast existence. Therefore the Hindus say the whole of the universe is contained in an eggshell. Nanak says that he who becomes quiet, he who has become silent and learned the art of listening, and who has begun to hear his own body from within, comes to know the secrets of the body as well as the methods of yoga.

Whatever Patanjali has written in the Yoga Sutras derives from the experience of his own body and no one else's. His findings still stand totally correct even to this day. All the methods of yoga have been discovered with his own body.

I shall give you a few examples. If you become tranquil you will find that the rate of your breathing changes. As soon as thoughts stop, respiratory movements change; when thoughts start again the rate of breathing changes. If you begin to recognize the rate of breathing when you are tranquil, all you have to do is breathe in that rhythm and you will become tranquil. So you have learned one secret; you have the key to one mystery.

When you are absolutely peaceful, the spinal column becomes perpendicular to the ground you are sitting on. This happens on its own if the man is healthy and not ill or too old. Therefore, when you want to be peaceful, fix your spinal cord at a ninety-degree angle. Thus gradually a yogi comes to experience what is going on within him.

As you progress further you will feel energy rising upwards from your spine. You will feel it as a sharp warmth that flows through the spine. Ripples of electricity rise within, and as they climb higher and higher, you are filled with joy. Pain and despondency begin to vanish and a feeling of joy arises. As the electrical waves go even higher, all that is trivial and base in life falls away into the valley below and you are as if on a high mountain. The fog of the village, the talk of people and the mundane struggles of life are left far behind as you have risen.

This is why the spinal column is called the meru dand. Meru is a mountain in heaven; thus it is the Meru spine and it is said that he who climbs the heights of Meru Dand reaches the same height as Mt. Meru in heaven. The Hindu never shaves a tuft of hair at the top of the head; this is the last peak, the seventh door from which the energy then is absorbed into the infinite. When your energy begins to diffuse from this place you attain to brahmacharya, celibacy. You need do nothing to attain brahmacharya; whenever sexual desire arises you needn't actively suppress it. You have only to straighten your spine for all the energy to flow upward. The same energy that flowed into sexual desire becomes the energy of brahmacharya. It is the same whether it flows downward through the first door into nature, or upward through the seventh door to reach pARAMATMA, the divine.

The person who develops the art of sitting quietly finds that his own body begins to provide a thousand experiences. You can know all of the Yoga Sutras through your own body. There is no need to read Patanjali. Actually, Patanjali should be read later on, only for corroboration, to show that you are on the right path. When you go within, many a time you will be frightened and not know whether the proper things are happening to you. By referring to scripture, it can be encouraging and reassuring to know that all who have attained have followed the same way. Such-and-such happened to them also and such-and-such will occur again in the future.

The scriptures are the evidence of the sages, but the authentic knowledge is attained only from within oneself and not through their words.

Nanak says:

To arrive at the ultimate freedom, Hindus require that a person bathe at sixty-eight holy places.

These holy places are marked on the map of India, but in reality they represent sixty-eight points within the body through which one must pass to attain virtue. The Hindus have performed a wonderful task that no other race has equaled in discovering these points. However, places on the map are merely symbols; unfortunately, wandering in these symbols as if real, the Hindus have lost their consciousness of life. It is said: "Get the water of the Ganges and offer it at Rameshwara."

These really refer to points within the body; the energy is to be taken from one point and directed into another, which is the holy pilgrimage. But what do we do? We actually carry water from the Ganges up to Rameshwara!

The external map is a symbolic translation of man's internal world. Everything within man is very subtle. To exemplify it, these external symbols were created, but in mistaking the symbols for reality we went astray.

Symbols are never truths; they only hint towards truth. They are pointers when Nanak says: through shravana truth is obtained, so also contentment and knowledge, and through it is attained bathing at the sixty-eight centers of pilgrimage. When you become silent you begin to find the holy places within the body. Then you do not have to ponder what truth is for you see truth directly. As long as you think, there is no truth - only opinions, concepts. Truth is an experience. And once you can see, why still think?

CONTENTMENT IS ATTAINED. As long as you think, you are discontented, because thoughts lead to thousands of suggestions: do this, do that! Thoughts give rise to new desires and desires lead to discontent. It is very harmful to have thoughts as friends; they lead you astray. If there is any bad company worth giving up, it is that of thoughts. It is all right to use thoughts, but if you begin to obey them you are in for all kinds of trouble. They are like drugs; if you get addicted to them you go astray and will be so confused that you won't know what to do.

Mulla Nasruddin had so much to drink one day that he was afraid to go home. He knew he would have to furnish an explanation and he couldn't think of a plausible answer, so he wandered here and there aimlessly. A policeman came upon him in the middle of the night, demanding to know, "What are you doing here at this time of the night? Answer quickly or I'll have to take you to the police station." Mulla Nasruddin answered, "If I had an answer wouldn't I have gone home already?"

Thoughts are an addiction that has no answer. Had there been an answer you would have reached home long ago. Why are you roaming at such a late hour? You have no answer to explain your life.

Thoughts have no answer. A real answer can only be found in the no-thought state.

Nanak says: contentment and truth through shravana; the sixty-eight holy places through shravana; and through shravana alone you attain the natural samadhi.

If you were only to listen, it becomes meditation. Without meditation you cannot hear. What is the meaning of meditation? Meditation exists only where mind is not; where the internal dialogue is gone.

Through listening alone the blind find their way, the beggar becomes a king, and you reach the depths of the boundless! Thoughts are like a teaspoon, and you try to measure the ocean with it!

Listening is to enter into the ocean. You will reach the bottom only by drowning in it and not by measuring it with a teaspoon!

Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, was walking along the seashore lost in high thoughts. Suddenly he came upon a man who was trying to empty the ocean into a pit he had dug, with the help of a spoon. He became curious and asked, "Brother, what are you doing?"

The man replied, "If you have eyes you can see. It is as clear as day. I mean to empty this ocean into this pit."

Aristotle laughed and said, "Is it not madness? Are you in your right senses? Can oceans be measured by spoons? Can pits be filled by spoons? Why waste your life in senseless tasks?"

The man laughed and said, "I thought it was you who is mad, because aren't you engaged in filling the infinite with your spoonful of thoughts?" It is said that Aristotle tried to locate that man later but he never found him.

The man was correct: how small is a thought, how vast existence! How will you measure this vast existence with your measuring spoon? Where will you keep it? Your head is so small, the universe so vast. Look at your arms, how short they are - how far can they reach? You are engaged in a worthless task. Perhaps that man may have succeeded in emptying the ocean, because the ocean is finite. A spoonful of water does make the ocean less by a spoon, but the infinite you can never attain through thoughts.

Therefore, says Nanak, the beggar becomes a king as soon as he becomes silent. The depths of the depthless become known, the unknown becomes familiar, the stranger becomes the beloved, and the blind find their way - all through shravana.