Chapter 11

The Choice is Always Yours

2 August 1970 pm in Bombay, India

Question 1

AT THE DWARKA MEDITATION CAMP YOU MENTIONED THAT ALL SADHANAS, ALL SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES ARE FALSE, BECAUSE WE HAVE NEVER BEEN SEPARATE FROM GOD.

DOES THAT MEAN THE STATE OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS IS FALSE? IS THE GROWTH OF BODY AND MIND FALSE? IS THE CESSATION OF CONDITIONING FALSE? IS THE ACHIEVEMENT OF MOVING FROM THE GROSS TO THE SUBTLE FALSE? IS ALL THE PREPARATION FOR THE JOURNEY FROM THE FIRST BODY TO THE SEVENTH BODY FALSE? IS THE LONG PROCESS OF THE DISCIPLINE OF KUNDALINI ALL A SHAM? KINDLY EXPLAIN.

First of all, when I refer to something as false, as untruth, it does not mean it is nonexistent.

Even a falsehood has its own existence.

One could not call it a falsehood if that were not true.

A falsehood has its own existence and so does a dream.

When we say a dream is false, it does not mean a dream has no existence.

It only means that the existence of a dream is psychological, not real.

It is a whim of the mind, not a fact.

When we say the world is maya, illusion, it does not mean the world is nonexistent, because if the world does not exist then whom are you addressing? Who is talking? Why? When one calls this world an illusion, he at least assumes that the speaker exists and so does the listener.

He also assumes that somebody needs to explain, and someone needs to understand.

At least this much truth is established.

So when we call this world an illusion, it does not mean the world does not exist.

It means the world appears to have an existence.

Calling this world maya simply means the world is not what it looks like; rather, it is merely an appearance.

It does not look the way it actually is, it appears like what it really is not.

For example, a man is walking down the street when it is almost dark.

He sees a piece of rope lying there and, mistaking it for a snake, runs for his life.

Someone tells him it wasnt a snake, that what he saw was all false, that he ran for no reason.

Now what does this mean? To say the snake was false does not mean the man did not see the snake.

He would not have escaped had he not seen it -- he did see the snake.

As far as the question of his seeing the snake is concerned, the snake was there.

Since he saw

And, had the rope not been there, he could not have seen the snake in an empty space.

So the rope undoubtedly gave credence to his illusion.

What he saw inwardly was different from what existed outside.

A rope was lying there and he thought it was a snake.

He did not see the rope as a rope -- which it was; the rope appeared to him like a snake, which it was not.

So he did not see that which was, he saw that which was not.

Actually, that which did not exist was superimposed on that which did.

So when you apply words such as falsehood, untruth, illusion, appearance, do keep one thing in mind: it does not mean something is nonexistent.

Take, for instance, this man who fled, believing he had seen a snake.

If you try and convince him there is no snake on the street he will refuse to believe you; he will insist he has seen the snake.

You may persuade him to go back and look once again, but he wont agree unless you lend him a stick for his safety.

You know very well there is no snake and carrying a stick is meaningless, but the man is sure of the snake and finds the stick useful.

So when you offer him a stick for his safety someone may ask, "If the snake is not really there, then why do you give him the stick? That shows you believe the snake is there as well.

" Nevertheless, you reiterate, "There is no snake, the snake is false.

However, the man has seen it and is scared to go there again.

For him the snake is real.

" So you give him the stick and tell him, "If there is a snake, kill it.

" If there is none, then there is no question.

What man sees in life is not the truth of life.

Only when one is fully aware can one see the truth of life.

Truth is adulterated with falsehood in the same proportion to which one is unconscious.

Things appear distorted, perverted, to the same degree one is asleep.

For one thing, what appears to us is not the reality.

So when one points out to a person who is asleep that everything is false, that it is illusion, he refuses to believe you.

He says, "How can I believe everything is illusion? My son is sick -- how can that be an illusion? I am hungry -- how can I take it as an illusion? I need a house.

How can I believe all these things are illusion? I have a body.

When someone hits me with a stone I hurt, my body bleeds and I feel pain.

"

Then what shall be done about it? Some device will have to be found to awaken this man.

And all these devices will be similar in nature to the stick.

The day he will wake up he will do the same thing with these devices that the other man did with the stick you gave him.

He went to where he had spotted the snake, found a rope lying there, laughed at himself and threw away the stick.

He said, "The snake was indeed false.

Now it is useless even to carry the stick.

" He may come back and be amazed at you for having had him carry the stick all that way unnecessarily -- the snake was not there.

What I call meditation, or kundalini, or the technique of spiritual discipline are essentially means of searching for that which does not exist.

The day you find, for certain, that what you saw did not even exist, is the day all techniques become meaningless, all means become useless.

That day you will realize the illness was false and so was the cure for it.

Actually, there cannot be a cure for a pseudo illness -- or can there be? If the illness is false the cure can never be right.

A pseudo illness requires a pseudo treatment; that is the only way it can be cured.

Two falsehoods negate each other.

Thats why, when I say all techniques of spiritual discipline are false I mean it in the sense that what we are seeking was never lost in the first place.

The rope, in our example, was always a rope; not for a second did it ever turn into a snake.

The rope was lying there all along.

What did happen, however, was that the man lost sight of the rope.

Not even for a moment did the rope change into a snake, but for the man it became a snake -- a snake which did not exist even for a second.

Now this obviously creates a stalemate, a rather complicated situation.

It is indeed a rope but it looks like a snake.

The snake has to be killed and the rope has to be found -- without killing the snake the rope cannot be found.

Without finding the rope the snake will not be killed.

So something has to be done.

And yet, in a case like this what do you think will result from doing anything about it? At the most we will come to see that that which never was, was not there; and that which is, will be visible right before us.

And the day this realization dawns on us, will we say we attained something? Will we be able to say we lost the snake and found the rope? Not in the least -- because there was no possibility of losing the snake; the rope was there all the time.

There was no question of finding it, it was there all along.

The rope was always present, right there.

When Buddha attained enlightenment people came to him and asked, "What did you attain?"

Buddha said, "The question is meaningless, I attained nothing.

"

"Does that mean your labor, all these years, was all in vain?" they asked.

"Your years of penance, years of seeking, did they not yield any results?"

"If you ask me in terms of attainment -- my efforts have certainly been in vain, because I gained nothing.

And yet I say to you: follow the same path I did, do what I did.

"

They said, "Are you out of your mind? Why should we do something which was so fruitless?"

Buddha replied, "I didnt achieve anything, of course, but I lost for certain, I lost something that was not really there.

I lost something which was not there at all, something I had believed to be there.

What I found was something I always had, which was already found, something which did not have to be found.

Being surrounded by lies, what I had assumed to be nonexistent -- thats what I found.

"

Now what does this mean? How to convey that that which was already present was found again, that that which was already attained was found, that that which was never attained was lost?

So when I say all methods of spiritual discipline are false, it does not mean that you dont have to do them.

I am merely saying that you are so deeply steeped in falsehoods that there is no other alternative but to use equally false methods in order to neutralize them.

You have moved so much on the side of falsehood that even while coming back, this much ground -- the distance you have traveled going into lies -- will have to be covered.

For example, I walk ten steps into this room.

If I wish to get out of this room I will have to walk back at least ten steps -- in this very room.

Now if someone were to persuade me to walk ten steps more in order to get out of it, I would find it very confusing, for in the first place I got inside the room because I walked ten steps.

Now if I were to take ten steps more, I would have walked twenty steps inside the room.

Actually, what someone needs to show me is the way to get out of the room without proceeding further inside the room.

Regardless, I will surely have to walk ten steps; although now my attitude will be different, my course will not be the same, I will not be facing the same direction -- my back will be towards what I was facing before, and vice versa.

We are living in lies.

In following a spiritual discipline, only the direction you face will change.

We will have to live in lies, that is unavoidable.

Your back will be towards what you were facing before, and your face will be where your back was.

The fact remains, we will have to retrace the same route to the same extent we have walked ourselves forward into lies.

The day we return on the same path, the whole thing will look very amusing.

It is like giving an antidote to someone who has taken a wrong medicine.

The antidote was not needed; it was only used because the man took the wrong medicine.

Since the poison, the wrong medicine, has already entered his body, it is necessary to give the man another poison to counteract the former one.

Remember, however, the antidote is a poison too.

Only a poison can act against another poison.

The second potion is a poison too, except that it is meant to work in the opposite direction.

You would be horrified if a physician were to tell you your body is poisoned and that he is giving you more poison.

You might cry out, "As it is, I am dying of poison.

Now you are adding more to it!" The doctor explains, "This is an antidote.

It is indeed a poison, but antithetical to the former one.

"

So when I say this world is a lie, then a sadhana, a spiritual discipline, cannot be true.

How can a true sadhana be applied to counter a false world? You cannot use a real sword in order to kill an imaginary ghost -- you will hurt yourself if you do.

Make sure you have a false sword to kill an imaginary ghost.

You will obviously create a problem for yourself if you go to kill a nonexistent ghost with a real gun.

The real gun can cause you harm.

So if you need to drive out a ghost it would be good to wear a talisman; it is neither a sword nor a gun.

It is a false cure, it is an antidote too.

It is perfect, an exact antithetical lie meant to counter another lie.

All spiritual disciplines are nothing but ways of getting out of the samsara, the mundane world.

And since I call this mundane world an illusion -- illusion in the sense that it is not what we understand it to be

So the question is: What can we do to remove this illusion? We need to retrace our steps to the same extent we have gone deeply into the illusion.

Why do I feel like reminding you of this? -- because a seeker constantly faces a danger.

And the danger is: he may use a talisman in order to keep the ghost away; however, in doing so, although he succeeds in saving himself from the ghost, he holds on to the charm tightly.

He finds the talisman the savior of his life.

Now he is as afraid of losing the charm as he was of the ghost.

Naturally.

How can he afford to lose something that saved his life? So he is freed from the ghost but gets hooked to the talisman.

Thats why he needs to be reminded that just as the ghost was unreal so is the talisman.

Now that the ghost is gone, he had better throw the charm away as well.

Again and again, I would like to remind every seeker that, whatever sadhana he may be following, basically it is an antidote for his getting himself into a falsehood.

And an antidote for a lie will inevitably have to be a lie.

Only a poison can counter another poison -- for it works in the opposite direction.

It is essential to bring this point home to a seeker, otherwise he may succeed in dropping the samsara, but grab on to sannyas, to renunciation.

He may drop the marketplace but seize upon the temple.

He may give up money but latch onto meditation.

It is dangerous to cling to anything, because whatsoever one hangs on to becomes a bondage -- regardless of whether it is money or meditation.

The day meditation is not needed, the day it becomes meaningless, that is when the sadhana becomes real.

Obviously, one who has reached the roof should find the ladder useless.

If he still insists the ladder is useful to him and clings to it, then understand he has not yet reached the roof, he must still be standing somewhere on the ladder.

It is conceivable one may reach the top rung of the ladder and yet hold tight to it.

Should this be the case, then remember the man is still as far away from the roof as he was when he was standing on the first rung of the ladder.

He has not reached the roof yet.

In both cases he is far away from the roof.

You may climb almost the entire ladder, but if you stop at the last rung, it doesnt mean you have reached the roof -- you are still on the ladder.

And that makes the difference.

Initially you were on the first rung, now you are on the hundredth rung, but you are on the ladder nevertheless.

And one who is on the ladder is definitely not on the roof.

If you want to be on the roof, you will have to do two things: you will have to climb the ladder, and after reaching the roof, get rid of it.

Thats why I say, on the one hand, that meditation is useful.

And at the same time I also say that meditation is nothing more than an antidote.

Hence, I maintain, follow a spiritual discipline, and then drop it too.

So when I say both things simultaneously it obviously creates a difficulty.

It is natural you feel that on the one hand I say, do this, do that, and then I declare all sadhanas are false.

"If this is so then why should we follow them?" you naturally ask.

Your logic says, "If one has to get off the ladder eventually, then why climb it in the first place?"

Remember, however, that one who doesnt climb the ladder stays off it, and one who has climbed it and stepped out on the roof is also off the ladder -- but both exist on totally different planes.

One will be on the roof while the other will be on the ground below.

Although neither is on the ladder, there is a fundamental difference between the two.

One is off the ladder because he didnt climb it, while the other is off because he did climb the ladder and then got off.

Life is a great mystery wherein one needs to climb up certain things and climb down other things; wherein one needs to cling to certain things and drop certain other things.

But the human mind says, "If you want to hold on to something then hold to it completely; if you want to drop it then drop it absolutely.

"

This kind of reasoning is dangerous.

It cannot help bring about any dynamism in life.

I am aware of both things, and I can see the problem.

Some people are holding on to their riches while others are holding on to their religion.

Some are clinging to the samsara, while some are holding tight to the idea of moksha -- but basically the holding remains.

Only he is liberated who hangs on to nothing.

One who is free from all clinging, attachments, blocks, demands, he alone knows the truth.

Only he can know the truth who makes no conditions.

Even this much of a condition -- that you would rather be in the temple worshipping than attending to your store -- can prevent you from knowing the truth.

In such a case you will end up knowing only the truth that is born out of a lie -- such as the temple itself.

Even this much of a condition on your part -- that you would live only in a particular way, that you wish to live like a sannyasin -- if this too became a condition, you would never come to know the truth.

This would amount to holding on to the ladder after having climbed to the top rung.

Often it may have even occurred to you that "How can the very ladder which helped me climb so high be thrown away all of a sudden?" So you want to hold fast to the ladder.

We find this happening all around us.

For example, a man begins to earn money so that he can live a comfortable life later on.

It takes him years to make money, and in the process he misses his rest and recreation.

How could he have succeeded in creating his wealth otherwise? He had assumed at that moment he would earn a great deal and live in comfort and ease later.

His aim was to live in comfort which, without having money, was naturally impossible.

So the man was busy making money.

And when you have to make money you cant afford to relax.

The only way to make money is to give up rest and relaxation for years at a time.

So lets assume this man gives up his holidays and vacations for the next twenty to twenty-five years and earns a lot of money.

No doubt he creates wealth, but he loses the habit of relaxing.

Not relaxing at all becomes a habit to him, and that creates the problem.

A practice of twenty-five years is behind him.

Now if you ask him to stay home and relax, he cant do it.

He arrives at his office an hour earlier than his secretary; his staff quits at five oclock, he leaves at seven.

Apparently the man has forgotten that the ladder he climbed was for getting off one day.

The objective was to get off at some level, and relax.

The idea was to earn enough so that someday he could quietly slip off.

His sole aim was to make money so he could retire.

Now he finds himself in a very difficult situation.

In the pursuit of earning money he has lost his ability to relax, he got hooked to the habit of not relaxing.

He thinks, how can he relax? So he goes on piling up money.

He keeps on climbing the ladder, refuses to get off the ladder.

His roof never comes closer.

He goes on climbing -- raising one ladder on top of another.

No matter how much you persuade him, "Its enough, now its time to get off," he persists by saying, "How can that be possible? I will have to build the ladder before I sit down and relax.

" So he goes on building his ladder and keeps climbing.

It would not have mattered much had this been true only in regard to money.

The same thing happens with regard to religion as well.

Our mind functions exactly the same way -- regardless.

A man enters the world of religion, and begins to renounce things.

He gives things up so he can arrive at a point where his mind will be free of all attachments.

His assumption is that as long as there is attachment, there will be bondage.

So he says, "Leave everything, renounce everything that creates bondage!" He starts disowning his home, his business, his family, his wealth, his clothes -- he goes on dropping things.

In twenty to twenty-five years his habit becomes so solid that now he cant give up the habit of renouncing.

The habit hangs around his neck like a rock.

He continues to find ways and means -- what to drop next? -- and his ladder goes on rising.

He begins to try to figure out whether to drop food, water, salt, butter, sugar, whatever.

He goes on playing with ideas as to what he should renounce next -- whether he should give up sleep, or stop bathing.

He is continuously looking for ways to renounce things.

Ultimately he even arrives at a point where he talks of giving up his life, begins to think in terms of committing suicide.

He gets ready to do santhara, the religious practice of embracing death voluntarily.

One who renounces and one who clings are of the same kind.

One is holding on to the ladder meant for renouncing things, while the other has seized upon the ladder meant for latching on to things.

But none of them is willing to get off the ladder.

And in my view, truth lies where ladders cease to exist and you land on plain ground, where there is no longer the need to climb up or down.

Truth lies where you drop your attachment, where you drop your conditions, where you stop seeing things through your conditioned mind, where you begin to perceive things with a mind free of all conditioning -- thats where the truth lies.

Perhaps thats precisely what Jesus means

When Jesus was asked who would inherit the truth, he replied, "Those who are like children.

" Now what can this mean, "like children"? What it means is: the one who looks at things without any preconditioning.

You will be amazed if you watch how children look at things.

There is a difference between how we see things and how children do.

When we see, we are looking at something, we are looking for something, while a child just looks.

He doesnt look for something in particular; his eyes simply move.

Whatsoever is, whatsoever is visible, he just looks at it.

He is not attached to seeing a particular thing.

He is not fixed on the idea that what he sees should only appear in a particular way.

He sees whatsoever there is.

To put it rightly, his seeing is purposeless.

A child does not look with a purpose.

Thats why in the eyes of an adult you dont see the innocence you see in the eyes of a child.

An adult sees things with a reason.

If you have money in your pocket, he looks at you in a particular way; if your pocket is empty, he looks at you differently.

If you happen to be beautiful, the man has a look of one kind; if you are not beautiful, he has a different look in his eyes.

He looks at you in a special way if he is interested in you; otherwise he looks differently, or doesnt look at you at all.

His seeing is purposive.

For an adult even the simple act of looking is not without purpose.

When a purpose enters your view, a rope begins to look like a snake; the rope ceases to exist.

Actually, just reflect, if you will, as to why a rope appears to someone like a snake.

It is simply his projection -- the man is scared.

There is fear in his look.

That means, whenever he looks at things, he looks out of fear.

He is walking down the street in the dark, and there is fear in his eyes.

He spots something lying on the road, it looks like something is moving.

He immediately believes it to be a snake, because he is looking out of fear.

He is guided by a purpose, he is looking through his unconscious mind to see if there is any snake on the street -- and that makes him see a snake instead of a rope.

A child wont see a snake superimposed on a rope.

Often, what is possible is that if a snake stays still, a child may take it to be a rope; he may not see it as a snake and may actually pick it up.

If there is any purpose, any expectation, any fear in what we see

Understand well, if you are seeing through the mind, you will distort the object of your perception.

So the question is, can we see without the use of mind? Seeing without the mind is the ultimate state.

All our motives, our fears, our desires, our passions are stored in the mind.

Chekhov has written a short story.

Two policemen were patrolling a street.

They saw a crowd gathered near a tea stall.

One man was holding a dog by his leg.

He was saying he would kill the dog because it had bitten him.

Everyone in the crowd was having fun and encouraging the man to kill the dog who was a menace and had bitten many people before.

The policemen also stood in the crowd.

Dogs harass policemen too, they pay special attention to them!

So the policemen were pleased to see someone taking care of the dog.

"You are doing the right thing.

Kill this dog; he is a great trouble to us at night," one policeman said.

Right then the other policeman took his partner aside and said, "Watch it, I think it looks like thats our bosss dog.

" At once the first policeman, who had been urging that the dog be killed, went up to the man holding the dog, grabbed his collar and said, "You rogue! What do you mean by drawing a crowd in the middle of the street and holding up traffic? What do you mean by creating this nuisance? Come with us to the police station!" He immediately picked up the dog in his arms and began petting him.

As the policeman started showing affection to the dog, and as the man holding the dog was apprehended, the entire crowd grew very puzzled.

The crowd could not figure out what was going on -- the policeman was ready to kill the dog just a while ago.

The next moment, the second policeman looked at the dog a little more closely and said, "No, this doesnt look like our bosss dog!" Right away the first policeman got rid of the dog and yelled at the man, "Take hold of this dog and kill him.

He is extremely dangerous.

" However, by the time the man got hold of the dog the second policeman once again expressed his doubt by saying, "I cant be sure, but he does look like our bosss dog.

"

The story continues like this.

The attitude towards the dog changes many times because many times a change in purpose occurs.

The dog is the same, the man is the same, the policemen are the same -- everything is the same.

The characters remain unchanged, but the story takes turns a few times because each time there is a change in motive.

Sometimes he is perceived as the bosss dog, and sometimes not.

The policemen changed their attitude at once when the dog was seen not to belong to their boss.

And they began petting it with a totally different attitude once it was perceived that the dog was owned by the boss.

This is the way we all live.

As long as the mind exists, we shall continue to live like this.

So what I am saying is that sadhana

What is sadhana, spiritual discipline really? Sadhana means becoming free from this mind.

But once you have become free, of what use will the sadhana be? You will need to bury it along with your mind.

You will have to let go of the spiritual discipline as well, along with the mind.

You will have to tell your mind, "Take this sadhana with you.

I was following it because of you.

Now that you are leaving, kindly take this sadhana with you too!"

When a person is free from both the mind and the sadhana, free from the disease as well as the cure

Remember, if one is free from the illness alone but still continues the cure then one is not really free.

Very often the illness does not prove to be as dangerous as getting hooked on the cure.

It feels rather easy getting rid of illness because the illness is painful.

One feels good about going through the cure, hence one never wants to drop it.

But does that make the cure something worth hanging on to?

A cure is desirable indeed for a man who is ill, but what meaning can it have for a person who is healthy? For a healthy person, a cure is totally worthless.

Since you are so determined to embrace illness, you are forced to accept the cure too.

But if you stop insisting on falling sick, the cure will become totally meaningless.

The illness and the cure belong to the same plane, there is no difference between the two.

There cannot be, otherwise they would cease to function.

The cure exists on the same plane as the illness: the germs present in the drugs are opposite to the germs that cause illness.

It is true that the disease and the cure stand with their backs to each other; however, the plane on which they exist is the same.

I am not only talking against the disease, I am talking against the cure as well, because my experience is that, for the last thousands of years, a great deal has been said against the disease.

Consequently, although people got rid of the disease, they latched on to the cure.

Those who got attached to the cure turned out to be even more dangerous than the ones who were ill.

Hence, both things need to be considered.

The illness and the cure both need to be dropped.

Mind and meditation both have to be given up.

Samsara and religion are both to be renounced.

One needs to arrive at a point where nothing is left -- either to hold on to or to drop.

Then, only that which is, remains.

So when I talk about all these techniques -- whether it is about kundalini, chakras, the seven bodies -- they are all part of a dream.

The fact is, you are already dreaming, and you wont be able to come out of it until you have rightly understood what the dream is all about.

It is necessary we have a right understanding of the dream in order to come out of it.

A dream, a lie, has its own existence too.

It has its own place in this world, and there are means to get rid of it.

But ultimately, both are worth giving up.

Hence I say to you, both are false, the samsara as well as the sadhana.

If I were to say one of them is true, how will you drop it? Then you will hold fast to it.

"How can truth be dropped? Truth has to be embraced," you might say.

So you may not hold on to anything, so you may not have any clinging, so you may not become subject to any complexes, so you may not become attached, I say to you: neither the samsara is true nor is the sadhana.

The falsity of sadhana is for the purpose of negating the untruth of samsara.

When both falsehoods attain parity and neutralize each other, then what remains is the truth.

That truth is neither of this world, the samsara, nor of the sadhana.

That truth is outside of both, or before both, or beyond both, or transcending both.

It exists when both are not.

Thats why I am talking about a third type of man who is neither worldly nor a renunciate.

When somebody asks me, "Are you a sannyasin?" I find myself in great difficulty, because if I say I am a sannyasin, I see myself caught in the same duality which exists between a worldly man and a monk.

Similarly, when someone asks, "Are you a worldly man?" then too I face the same difficulty, because if I say I am a worldly man, I once again find myself facing the duality that exists between a worldly man and a renunciate.

So either I should say I am both simultaneously -- which is meaningless

.

because if, at the same time, I am worldly and a renunciate both then the whole meaning is lost.

The meaning existed because of the duality: the meaning was in the dichotomy.

Leaving the world meant becoming a sannyasin; not accepting the life of a renunciate meant being a worldly man.

So if I say I am both, the words lose their meaning.

The same difficulty arises if I say I am not both, because we have no idea there is something beyond the two, that there can be a third.

People say, "Either you belong here, or there.

Either affirm that you are alive, or admit that you are dead.

How can you say both are not true? That wont be acceptable.

"

The only way we live is by dividing things into two -- either this or that.

We either see darkness or light -- there is no room in our lives for dusk, which is neither.

Grey has no place in our lives.

We divide things either into black or white, while the reality consists mostly of grey.

When grey becomes a little dense it turns into darkness; when it becomes sparse it turns into white -- but there is no room for grey.

Either you have a friend or an enemy -- there is no third place in between.

As a matter of fact, the third place is the really true place -- but it has no room in our language, our way of thinking, our way of life.

Suppose you were to ask me, "Are you my friend, or an enemy?" If I answer, "I am both," you will have difficulty in following me.

How could I be both? If I say I am neither, even then it turns out to be meaningless, because my answer carries no sense.

And the truth of the matter is that a healthy man will either be both or neither.

These are just two ways of expressing the same thing.

In such a case the man will neither be a foe nor a friend.

And in my view, it is only then that he will be a human being in the true sense of the word.

He will neither have enmity with anyone, nor friendship; he will neither follow any act of renunciation, nor will he have any attachment to samsara.

I am looking for this third type of man.

What I am talking to you about is only for the purpose of breaking your dream.

And if the dream is already broken, then what I am saying has no meaning.

Let me tell you a story.

Once a Zen master got up from his sleep.

He was a great believer in analyzing dreams.

Dreams are, of course, very useful; they give much information about man.

And since man is a liar, only a lie such as the dream can tell us about his lies.

When you see a man in the marketplace, in the middle of the day, he is not as authentic as he is in his dream -- in a dream which is totally a lie.

If you come across a man telling his wife, with folded hands, that she is the most beautiful woman in the world -- just look into his dreams.

His wife hardly ever comes into his dreams -- other women you will find most certainly.

His dream will tell you more exactly about him.

A dream, which is essentially a lie.

Since man himself is a lie, a lie will have to be used to find out the truth about him.

Had the man been authentic, his life itself would have revealed who he is.

Then there would be no need to go into his dreams; his face would show it.

An authentic man would tell his wife, "You dont look too beautiful to me, the woman next door looks very beautiful.

" That such a man does not exist among us is beside the point, but if there were to be such a person, dreams would stop coming to him.

A husband who can tell his wife, "I feel no love for you today.

I am attracted to the woman walking down the street" -- a man who can be so simple and direct -- will stop dreaming.

The other woman no longer need come in his dream, he has taken care of the business during the day.

The matter is over, the dream is no more.

A dream is a lingering phenomenon.

Whatsoever did not happen during the day, what you couldnt say, couldnt do, remains dormant within and then attempts to revive itself at night.

Since the man lived all day long in lies, the very lies will keep appearing as realities at night in his dreams.

Thats why the entire field of todays psychology -- whether it be of Freud, Jung or Adler -- is the psychology of analyzing dreams.

It is strange we have to resort to analyzing dreams in order to understand man.

Dream analysis has become the means to know a man.

Just think: what does this mean? If you visit a psychoanalyst, he doesnt show much concern about you, he becomes interested in your dreams -- because, as you are, you are a lie.

It is useless to ask anything about you, hence the need to consult your dreams.

Your reflection comes through clearly, your picture emerges sharply in the dreams -- which are false.

So the psychoanalyst wants to peek into your dreams.

The whole discipline of psychology is based on the analysis of dreams.

The Zen master was very keenly interested in dreams too.

He used to ask his disciples, the seekers, about their dreams, because it was possible a seeker might come and say he wished to find God, but instead might dream of finding a diamond mine.

In reality he might have nothing to do with God.

It is also possible he might be seeking God so that some day he might ask him the whereabouts of the diamond mine.

This is how his dream tells what his real search is all about.

The master would ask his disciples to keep a diary of their dreams.

If people were to write honestly in their biographies only about what happened when they were asleep and leave out the time they were awake, the world would become a much better place to live in, and we would come to know much truer facts about men.

The daytime world is full of lies.

The phony man plans it very well.

At least in the dream a kind of truth exists, because the dream is unplanned: it happens on its own, it has its own reality.

If we were to uncover the dreams of all the holy men, we would find a great many of these holy men of no worth.

Most of them would appear to be criminals -- of course, criminals of the kind which do not commit crimes in the marketplace, but in their minds.

One morning the master had just got up when a disciple of his happened to pass by.

The master called him and said, "Last night I had a dream.

Interpret it for me, will you?"

The disciple said, "Please wait, let me go and bring the interpretation!"

The master asked, "Youll go and bring the interpretation?" But he waited.

The disciple went inside, brought a jug of water, and said, "Here, just wash your face.

Now that the dream is broken, whats the sense in interpreting it? Please wash your face so that whatsoever little illusion, whatsoever little trace of your dream that may still be left can be cleaned away.

"

The master said, "Sit beside me.

I like your interpretation.

"

Then another disciple passed by and the master called him and said, "Last night I had a dream.

This fellow has given a little interpretation.

Here is a jug filled with water.

Would you give any further interpretation?"

The disciple said, "If you will wait for just one minute I will be back soon.

" He went running and brought a cup of tea.

Addressing the master he said, "Please have this cup of tea and the whole matter will be over.

Now that you are up from your sleep and have washed your face, why do you want to get me into the trap?"

The master asked him to sit beside him and said, "I liked what you said.

But had you tried to give an interpretation to my dream, I would have thrown you out of the ashram.

You saved yourself, you saved yourself by a hairs breadth.

When the dream is broken anyway, then whats the point in interpreting it? The interpretation is valid only as long as the dream is happening.

"

So all my explanations are explanations of dreams, and the explanations of a dream can never be true.

Do you follow what I am saying? How can an explanation of a dream have any real meaning whatsoever when the dream itself is never true? An explanation of a dream, however, can be helpful in putting an end to the dream -- and should that ever happen, you will wake up.

And the day you wake up, you wont say the dream was true; you wont say the explanation was right, you will say it was just a play which ended.

And you will say there were two sides to the game: one of indulging in the dream, the other of destroying it.

Indulgence in the dream is samsara; explanations that break the dream make up sannyas -- although, basically, both are happenings of the dream state.

Samsara signifies indulgence in the dream, while sannyas is an effort to destroy the dream -- but both happenings are of the dream.

When the dream is over, there will be neither samsara nor sannyas.

Then whatsoever will be, will be the truth.

Question 2

IS SADHANA A NATURAL GROWTH, OR IS IT A JUMP OUTSIDE THE EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS OF NATURE? IF SADHANA IS NOT A JUMP AND TRANSCENDENCE OF THE NATURAL EVOLUTION, THEN IS IT POSSIBLE THAT THE ENTIRE HUMAN RACE CAN REACH SPIRITUAL HEIGHTS ALL BY ITSELF? IF IT IS TRUE THAT THE COURSE OF EVOLUTION CONTINUES TO MOVE AHEAD, WHY WERE THE GREATEST SPIRITUAL CULTURES OF THE PAST LEFT BEHIND IN THE WHOLE EVOLUTIONARY PROCESS?

There are many things that need to be taken into account.

The first thing.

As soon as we see man separate from the universe, questions such as these begin to come up.

For example, if we heat water to a hundred degrees, on the hundredth degree the water takes a jump and turns into vapor.

The heating of water, as well as the water turning into vapor by taking a jump, are natural phenomena.

This is not an unnatural event.

Had there not been a natural law for the water to take a leap and turn into vapor, by itself the water hadnt the means to become vapor.

If nature had not been equipped to make the water heat up to a hundred degrees, the water itself did not have the capacity to heat up to a hundred degrees.

However, if water has consciousness it can either save itself from heating or it can give itself up to the fire -- and in either case it would be a natural phenomenon.

What I mean to say is, nothing unnatural can ever happen in this universe.

In fact, that which can never happen is the unnatural.

Only what is natural takes place in this universe.

There is no way for anything unnatural to happen; whatsoever happens is natural.

If man is evolving spiritually, it is because of his natural potential.

If he is jumping out, then that too is his natural potential.

His choice whether to jump or not to jump is a natural possibility too.

This means there are multi-potentialities in nature.

Actually, our mistake is that we use the word nature in the sense of a single potentiality.

Nature is a cumulation of infinite possibilities.

Within these possibilities the heating of water to a hundred degrees is a natural happening, and the freezing of water at zero is also a natural happening.

A natural phenomenon such as the freezing of water at zero does not negate the natural phenomenon of water turning into vapor at a hundred degrees.

It is not that one event is natural while the other is not -- both are natural.

Darkness is natural and so is light.

Falling down is natural and so is rising up.

There are infinite possibilities in nature.

We are always standing on the crossroads from where an infinite number of paths emerge.

And the interesting thing is that whatsoever we choose, the capability to choose will itself be a gift from nature.

Even if we were to choose a wrong path, nature will bring us to the very end of it.

Nature is very cooperative.

If we choose the road to hell, it begins to clear the way and invites us to proceed.

It will not stop you.

Why would nature stop you from turning water into ice, if you wish to do so, and have you rather turn it into vapor? Nature will be happy to clear your way if you wish to go to hell, or heaven: whether you wish to live or die, nature will always be willing to cooperate.

To live is natural, to die is natural, and your ability to choose either of the two is natural too.

If you can grasp this multidimensionality of nature, you will have no difficulty in understanding what I am saying.

Suffering is natural, and so is happiness.

To live like a blind man is natural, and to live with open eyes is natural too.

To be awake is natural, and to stay asleep is natural as well.

Nature contains endless possibilities.

And the interesting thing is that we are not living outside of nature, we are part of nature.

Our choosing is also due to the natural capability we have within us.

As the individual becomes more and more conscious, his ability to choose becomes more and more profound.

The more unconscious an individual is, the less profound is his ability to choose.

For example, there is no way that water lying in the sun cannot turn into vapor -- it would be difficult for it not to.

The water cant decide whether to become vapor or not.

If it stays in the sun, then it is sure to become vapor, and lying in the cold, it is sure to become ice.

This, the water will have to live through, although it will have no knowledge that it is living through it, because its consciousness is low, or not at all, or dormant.

Trees in Africa rise hundreds of feet in search of the sun.

They grow in height.

Trees in India wont grow to such heights, because in India there arent forests that thick.

In a dense forest the tree has to grow higher and higher in order to survive.

It needs to overcome other trees in height so it can receive the sunlight.

The tree would die if it didnt find the needed height.

It is a matter of life and death for the tree.

The tree has to exercise its choice a little.

In a dense forest the trees will widen less; instead, they will grow taller, become conical.

In a thick forest it is dangerous for a tree to grow wide; that will cause it to die.

The branches of the nearby trees will get entangled with each other and the trees wont be able to reach the sun.

So if the tree has to reach the sun it cant grow its branches wide, it has to grow tall.

This too is a trees choice.

If you were to plant the same tree in a country where there are no dense forests, its height would be shorter.

There are trees which actually move a few feet every year.

This means there are trees which move their roots as we move our feet.

They strengthen the roots that lie in the direction where they wish to move, and relax the roots of the area they wish to abandon.

This is how they move forward a little.

A swampy area makes this movement easier.

There are trees that are carnivorous.

They lure birds, trap them, and once the birds have landed on them, they close their leaves.

These trees have developed quite a system for luring birds.

They have leaves the size of a plate.

The platelike leaves contain a very fragrant juice, and the fragrance naturally attracts birds from far away.

As soon as the bird arrives and sits on the leaf, the leaves from all around close in on the bird, press it, and the tree sucks its blood.

Now it is difficult to accept that the tree is not exercising a choice.

It certainly is, and it is making some plans as well: it is on the lookout for something.

Animals make even greater choices -- they run, they move swiftly.

Nevertheless, as compared to the choices made by man, their choices are very ordinary.

Man faces much greater choices because his consciousness is much more evolved.

He chooses not only through his body, he chooses through his mind as well.

He not only chooses to travel on earth, he also chooses to travel vertically, in space.

That too is within his power to choose.

Although this area has not been researched yet, I feel, however, that in the near future science may discover there are trees which have suicidal tendencies -- trees who may not be choosing to live, who may be wanting to stay short in the dense forest and eventually die.

This is yet to be discovered.

Among human beings we can see clearly that there are people who are suicidal -- they dont choose to live; they keep looking for ways of dying.

Wherever they see a thorn, they rush towards it like a madman; flowers dont appeal to them.

Wherever they see defeat they are drawn towards it as if hypnotized, but when they see victory they look for scores of excuses.

People find thousands of arguments against the possibility of growth, but where they are certain of decay people keep moving head on in that direction.

All choices are open to man.

The more conscious man becomes, the more his choices will lead him towards happiness; the more unconscious he is, the closer he will move towards misery.

So when I say to you, you will have to make a choice

There are ways to become vapor, but you will have to reach to the point where vapor comes into being.

There are ways to become ice, but you will have to come to the point where ice comes into being.

There are ways to live, but you will have to explore the order of life.

There are ways to meet death, but you will have to find the order of death.

The choice is yours.

Furthermore, you and nature are not two separate entities -- you are nature.

So what this means is, natures multidimensionality is of two kinds.

Mahavira has used a term which is worth considering.

The term Mahavira has used is anant-anant -- infinite infinities.

There is already a word anant, infinite; it means infinite in one direction.

The word anant-anant means infinite in infinite directions.

It is not that the infinity is only in a couple of directions -- it is in all directions; there are infinities in all infinities.

So this universe is not just infinite.

Rather, one should say the universe consists of infinite infinities.

What I am saying is, first, there are infinite directions, and nature provides the opportunity for all of them.

There are infinite choices and nature makes all of them available too.

There are an infinite number of people who are indeterminable parts of nature itself.

And each one has a free choice whether to choose or not to choose.

All of this, however, is not being controlled from above -- it is regulated from within.

This infinity, or one should say this infinite infinities, is not like someone pulling an ox forward with a rope tied around its neck.

Nor is it like someone lashing and shoving the ox from behind.

Rather, its like spring water which has burst forth through its own inner power and is flowing.

Neither is anyone pulling it forward, nor is anyone pushing it from behind; neither is anyone giving it a call, nor is anyone forcing it to move ahead.

It has a tremendous power, tremendous energy.

And what is the energy doing? It is bursting forth, it is flowing.

Thats its inner expansion.

So there are infinite dimensions, infinite choices, infinite parts making choices.

But there is no controller-type God supervising from above.

There is no God sitting above and giving directions; there is no engineer.

Rather, the infinite energy within is the only source that causes everything to expand.

So there are three planes.

One plane consists of the state of unconsciousness, where, because of unconsciousness, whatsoever happens just happens.

The choice is almost none.

The second plane, where choice exists, is the human plane, the plane of consciousness.

Here, whatsoever happens, happens because of our choice.

Here, we cant hold anyone else responsible for it.

If one is a thief, it is his choice; if one is honest, that too is his choice.

On this plane whatsoever one is, it is ultimately his choice.

On the human plane whatsoever occurs, it is because of choice.

Since this plane consists of the state which is half-conscious and half-unconscious, we occasionally choose things we dont want to choose.

This is very interesting.

To say that we occasionally choose things we didnt wish to choose in the first place sounds very contrary, but in fact we do so every day.

You dont want to get angry, but you do get angry.

What does this mean? It means that the anger arises from your unconscious part, while the thought about not wanting to be angry comes from the conscious part of you.

Your conscious part says, "Dont be angry," while the unconscious part goes on being angry.

You remain divided in two.

One half of you is joined with the lower world -- the world of rocks and mountains where everything is in a state of unconsciousness.

The other half is awakened.

It is filled with consciousness and is connected to the world that lies ahead -- the world of wholeness, the world of the divine, where everything is fully conscious.

Man is in between, and thats the reason he is in a state of tension.

It would be better if we say man is the tension itself -- half of him being pulled to one side, half to the other.

In other words, he does not have any individuality.

He is schizophrenic.

He sleeps at night and becomes part of nature; he wakes up in the morning and begins his journey towards the divine.

When he is in a rage he is blind with anger; when he works on a mathematical problem, he does so with great awareness.

No one has been heard to say, while doing arithmetic, "I wanted to add two and two to make four, but I added them up as five.

" But as far as anger is concerned, a man admits he didnt want to be angry and yet became angry.

Obviously there does exist a gap between the state of anger and finding the solution to an arithmetic problem.

Perhaps arithmetic is a part of our awakened state, while anger is a part of our unconscious state.

This is the reason why man is in continuous anxiety, why he is always plagued by worries, tension, anguish.

He is always in misery.

He does what he does not want to do, and he cannot do what he really wants to do.

This is how he is always in tension.

Man is swinging like a pendulum all the time -- sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right.

Thats why you cant trust him -- now he is to the right, now he is to the left.

You cant be sure about him because the man moves back and forth like the pendulum of a clock.

Beyond the human plane lies the third plane -- that of total awakening.

There is no choice on this plane either.

However, there is a difference between the state of no-choice of the first plane and that of this plane.

The first plane consists of the unconscious state.

The chooser is not present, hence there is no question of making a choice.

What can a man who is asleep choose? He will continue to remain asleep.

Even when his house is on fire he wont be able to decide whether to stay in or go out until he wakes up.

There is no choice in the world of unconsciousness, because the chooser is asleep.

The world of consciousness, of awareness -- which I call God -- is the awakened state of nature.

As soon as a man enters this fully awakened world, there is no more choice here as well.

Choice is not there because the man is fully awake.

He unquestionably sees that which is right, hence he has no reason to choose.

The situation for choosing arises only when things appear hazy; that is, when one is in a quandary, whether to do this or that; when one is caught in the situation of either/or.

This shows he is unable to see clearly; everything looks hazy to him.

Both things seem worth doing, and both things dont seem worth doing as well -- hence the choice.

If one is able to see precisely what is worth doing and what is not, then where is the question of choosing? Then all choosing ends.

Then one does what is worth doing and leaves what is not worth doing.

Hence, on this plane a man cannot say he did something he never wanted to do -- the question doesnt arise.

He cant even say, "I regret what I have done," because the question doesnt arise at all.

He cannot even say he committed a mistake which he never should have -- that too is out of the question.

There is no choice involved in what a fully awakened person does.

He acts only upon what he sees, upon what is worth doing.

It is not that he feels he has to do it.

Whatsoever needs to be done, it happens.

So there is neither any choice on the plane of total awareness, nor any choice on the plane of total unconsciousness.

Choice exists on the human plane, which consists of half consciousness and half awareness.

Here it is all up to you -- you can go in either direction.

You are standing in the middle of the bridge -- you can either turn back or move ahead.

It always looks easier to turn back.

Why? -- because the place to which we return is known territory.

We come from there; the place does not hold much of a threat.

The terrain is familiar.

Moving ahead always looks dangerous because we dont even have any sense of direction.

Thats why man drinks, becomes unconscious, regresses.

This shows he is giving up on being a human.

This way he makes it evident, in fact, that, "I want to get out of the bother of choosing.

I want to reach a point where one doesnt have to make any choice.

I want to remain in a state of stupor -- where I may remain lying in a gutter, languishing on the roadside, talking filthy if I want to, not talking filthy if I dont want to.

I want to be in a condition where whatsoever is happening is happening, where I dont have to make any choice.

"

So man arrives at a point where he no longer has to bear the tension and burden of making a decision.

Hence all the intoxicants pull man back from the bridge.

They call him, "Come back, you were fine in your previous location.

" You will have to raise consciousness in order to move forward, because as you move ahead on the bridge, youll become more and more aware -- only then will you be able to advance.

Moving ahead means only one thing: become more and more aware.

This too is a matter of choice, and it is up to you and up to everyone else what to choose.

You cant make anyone else responsible for it, because there is no one sitting up above who can be blamed for causing you to make a wrong choice.

There is nobody up there.

The sky is empty.

There is no god or goddess, no divine being sitting up in heaven whom you can drag into the court and say, "We were moving along on a right path; you made us go astray a little.

" You wont be able to say, "Things would have worked out better had you kept yourself out of it.

"

There is no one you can address like that; hence there is no way to do it.

Ultimately the individual is responsible.

He is responsible for the good as well as the bad.

There is no one else you can hold responsible, who can answer why a certain thing happened -- there is no one at all.

Of course those who have gone ahead say, crying loudly, "Dont turn back in fear, because much joy lies ahead of you.

Once you reach there, all worries, all restlessness, all misery comes to an end.

" They say this, shouting aloud, but their voices sound strange to us because the place from where they speak is unknown to us.

"How can we attain bliss?" is how it appears to us.

If, advancing this far, so much pain has been our lot, how much more of the same will not come to us if we move even further ahead? So a man feels he should turn back to where misery did not exist.

Everyone says how blissful childhood was, so if man could, he would immediately return to the state of childhood.

Since he cannot, he stays where he is.

Man says there was no misery in childhood.

He may even go a step further and say, "It was so blissful being in the mothers womb.

" If he could, he would love to be back there, but he cannot.

So he moves on ahead.

We can choose to regress in life; we can return to the unconscious state; we can find ways of becoming unconscious -- if thats what we want.

We dont even understand the language of the voices that come from afar because we have no idea what bliss is.

We dont even know what sort of thing it is that people call bliss.

We are familiar with what misery is -- all too familiar, as a matter of fact.

We also know the more we tried to attain happiness, the more we found misery.

Now we are afraid lest, in our quest for bliss, we land ourselves in more trouble.

Since we came across more misery trying to find happiness, we take the state of bliss to be more or less similar to the state of happiness -- perhaps as a little more intense state of happiness.

But we are afraid of facing trouble as well.

The fact remains that in attempting to gain happiness we encountered pain, so now, in an effort to find bliss, the fear is we may have to face even more trouble, even greater misery.

So we hear these voices coming from far away, and with folded hands we salute and say to the people of the other shore, "You are gods, you are avataras, you are tirthankaras, you are great! We will worship you, but we want to go back!"

We are afraid of the unknown.

The fear is we will lose whatever little happinesses we have collected; they seem to be dropping away as we move ahead.

The reason is we have built our houses on the very bridge that was only meant to be crossed.

We have started living there.

We have settled down there, we have turned it into our living room.

Now when someone tells us to move ahead, we feel worried about losing the things we have gathered around us.

It becomes obvious that moving ahead means leaving behind whatsoever we now have.

So we say, "Let the time come.

When I am old, when death is at hand, when all I have begins to drop, thats when I will come forward right away.

Then there wont be anything to worry about.

" But the closer we come to death, the stronger the grip becomes.

As death approaches we close our fists more tightly.

Thats why an old man becomes utterly miserly; a young man is never so miserly.

An old man becomes a miser in every way.

He holds tight.

At the time of his departure the old man becomes paranoid lest everything he is holding on to might slip through his hands.

He holds his possessions firmly, lest his grip loosen.

This very clinging to things so firmly turns one into an ugly old man; otherwise, the beauty and grace of an old man can be matchless.

We are aware of beautiful children and we know of less beautiful young people, but beautiful old men are very rare to find.

Only once in a while does one come across someone who has grown into a beautiful old man.

Otherwise, ordinarily, with the increasing miserliness and holding fast to possessions, everything starts becoming uglier and uglier.

An open hand looks beautiful, a closed fist looks ugly.

Freedom is beautiful, attachment is slavery.

Everyone thinks he will give up his attachments sometime in the future, at the right opportunity.

He waits until the last moment and lets go only when death finally snatches everything away.

Since man never likes to let go of things, it hurts when they are taken away.

There is no pain in parting with things voluntarily.

Now this whole matter of moving ahead is essentially our own choice.

An impetus can be given towards making this choice; there are laws for that too.

The bridge is already there; it is natural too.

Do you see my point? The bridge is ready to take you forward too; it allows you to go ahead.

This too is nature.

And the bridge is ready to provide you passage to move backwards.

This too is nature.

Nature is prepared to greet you under every condition.

On all her doors is a Welcome sign -- which is dangerous too.

Not a single door has a sign, No Admission; each and every door has a Welcome sign.

Hence the choice is in your hands.

Its sheer compassion on the part of nature that it does not prevent you from entering any door.

You are free to go wherever you feel like.

The door to hell says Welcome, and so does the door to heaven.

Which welcome sign to choose is ultimately your decision.

In that case you wont be able to hold nature responsible for putting out the welcome sign.

Nature has put the sign everywhere.

Nature had no problem, it did not create any hindrance.

To welcome means to allow freedom.

That means, intrinsically, nature is absolutely free.

We are a part of nature, hence we are absolutely free.

We are doing what we want to do.

Nature is assisting us in all our actions, but the choice is always ours.

Dont misunderstand me when I say the choice is ours because, essentially, we are part and parcel of nature.

Putting it in ultimate terms, it means we are the infinite possibilities of nature itself; we are the infinite openings of nature.

Basically it is nature which, seeking through its infinite parts, knocks on its infinite doors -- chooses, wanders, goes astray, and reaches.

But this is a very circular way of putting things -- there are no nooks and corners.

And the problem is that all the ways of nature are circular -- none of its modes is angular, none of its courses is square.

All its stars, moons, planets and satellites are circular.

Their movements in space are circular.

The entire system in nature is circular.

This is the reason we find the circle used in many religious symbols.

So nature is a circular phenomenon.

You can start from anywhere and reach anywhere you like -- the choice is always yours.

Once it is understood that the choice is always yours, then one can use the laws of nature in a right manner.

For example, while walking on the street you also make use of the law of gravitation.

If the earth did not have gravity, you wouldnt be able to walk on the earth.

By the time you lift your other foot, if the first foot did not remain steady on the ground and were to lift on its own, where would you end up? Where would you stand? When you lift your left foot, the earth holds the right foot -- thats how you are able to lift your left foot.

The earth holding the right foot is responsible for your left foot lifting.

Should the right foot also lift at the same time, youve had it! While the earth holds the right foot, you lift the left foot.

You put the left foot down and nature holds it until you have lifted the right foot.

This is how gravity works.

But gravity also works when a man jumps from the roof.

At that moment the earth welcomes him and pulls him down too.

Just as the earth pulls the left and the right foot, it pulls the jumping man too.

Now, when the bone of the falling man hits the ground, it breaks.

We complain, "What kind of nature is this? It broke the poor mans bone!" But nature simply does its job.

It says, "Welcome to you, come and get your bone broken.

"

The same law works.

The same gravity which helped you walk will break your bone and make you a cripple.

Nevertheless, you wont be able to hold it responsible, because nature merely does its job.

It does a totally perfect job; it never falls short.

Its faultless.

Whether you move your feet, or break your neck -- whatsoever you wish to do, the law of nature works as always.

Keeping this law in mind, you have to choose whether you wish to break your bone -- then you may jump from the roof.

If you wish to walk, you will need to lift your feet appropriately.

You will have to watch that you dont go against the law of nature.

To me, science has only one meaning.

The application of science does not mean we have conquered nature -- there is no way to conquer nature.

Science only means that we have discovered certain ways and means of living in accord with nature.

Thats all it means.

Put conquering aside.

The question is, who is going to conquer whom?

The fact is, we have discovered the ways of living in accord with nature.

For example, nature was willing to run this fan a long time ago.

We took so long to put the fan in the right place and make it work.

Do you follow me? The breeze was always ready to blow from outside.

We prevented it by raising the wall; we did not make a window.

But if you did make a window, would that mean you conquered the breeze? You simply gave way to the breeze.

The breeze was always ready to pass through.

Our being able to run the fan and burn the light with electricity does not mean we have found victory over nature.

We simply learned the way to be in agreement with nature.

Now we fix our bulbs and switches, lay out electric wires in such a way that electricity can pass through them.

In fact, electricity was always ready to pass through them.

Our act simply amounts to opening the window.

Science stands for the search for natures laws favorable to the external world.

Religion stands for the search for natures laws agreeable to the inner world.

There are certain laws of nature that exist in the outer world.

If we conform to these laws, nature becomes agreeable; if we go against them, it becomes disagreeable.

In a way it is wrong to say nature becomes agreeable or disagreeable; the right way to put it is whether we are able to take natures help or not.

Rather, one should say that if we conduct ourselves in a manner that nature can be helpful to us, we stand to gain from it.

If we conduct ourselves in a manner that nature cannot be helpful, we stand to lose from it.

For example, you are walking with an umbrella over your head and the wind is blowing against you.

Now if you bend it forward, no harm will be done, but if you place it backward on your shoulder, the wind will turn it inside out.

Here nature will not be at fault.

You did not place the umbrella agreeably to the wind -- thats all youll be accountable for.

In both instances nature was working in the same way.

It was pressing against the umbrella when you bent it forward, but its force was towards you.

It also pressed against the umbrella when it was resting on your shoulder, but this time it was being pressed away from you.

So although the pressure was the same, the difference was in how you had positioned the umbrella.

Similarly, there are inner laws of nature too.

A man who lives with anger has his umbrella resting on the shoulder.

Now that will cause him difficulty -- all his inner umbrellas are bound to fall apart.

A person who spreads love is placing his umbrella forward; he is being agreeable to nature.

One who has learned how to love has actually mastered one law of the inner science.

He has learned that love brings agreeability, harmony in the inner life; whereas anger creates discord, disharmony within.

This is very much like the law of gravity.

In anger you break your leg, in love you mend it.

Nature is willing to work in both instances, depending upon what you wish to do.

In anger, man wants to jump from the roof.

Meditation is the ultimate agreeability of the inner life, the uttermost harmony, the most profound of all.

Meditation means that, from within, one is now in complete harmony with the ultimate law of life.

The word Lao Tzu has used for it is beautiful.

He calls it Tao.

Tao means the law.

Or the name given by the Vedic seers is also appropriate.

They call it rit.

Rit means the law.

Similarly, dharma also means the law.

Dharma means your inner nature, the law.

Dharma means: if you act according to the law, you will attain happiness.

adharma, an unrighteous act, is that which would go against the law and cause you unhappiness.

This is the principle of inner science.

Meditation, in the ultimate sense, in the innermost sense, means to be agreeable -- agreeability.

In other words, one who is agreeable in every way, one who is nowhere in conflict with life; one who is at no point separate from life; one who has become harmonious with all the laws of life, he attains to the ultimate truth, the ultimate life, the ultimate bliss.

We exist under the same law too.

But fighting against the very law, we end up in ultimate bondage -- fighting against the very law.

Its kind of like this: there are people who understand the value of gold and make ornaments out of it, and there are others who do not understand its value and make shackles out of it.

There is a law that works on gold.

There is a law that governs the moulding, the casting of gold.

Now whether you make ornaments or chains is entirely up to you.

One who totally establishes ones agreeability with the inner law of nature attains dharma.

One who totally comes to an agreement with the law of nature in the outside world attains vigyana.

These words are so beautiful they are worth understanding.

What is achieved through dharma we call gyana.

What is gained through science we call vigyana.

Both words are very meaningful.

We do not use any prefix before gyana, we do not put any adjective before it.

Vigyana means a specialized knowledge; gyana means just knowledge, natural -- not any special knowledge.

Religion means having an understanding of how to become spontaneous, how to be one with the inner nature of life.

Hence, it is just knowing -- not a specialized knowledge.

Vigyana is a specialized knowledge.

It has to explore each and every direction in order to find out what would be agreeable to this law of nature and that law of nature.

There are millions of laws working in the outside world.

Obviously, the more you go inside, you ultimately end up with only one law.

And the laws keep on increasing as we move more and more in the outer world.

It is like drawing lines away from one point.

They will be one at the point of origin, but as they move away from the point their number will go on increasing, their distances will go on increasing.

This is similar to the sun rays that spread all around.

They are one on the sun, but in moving away from it, the one becomes two, four, a thousand, millions, and billions -- they go on spreading.

Their distances become greater and greater.

Vigyan, science, is a specialized knowledge -- knowledge of each and every ray, hence specialized.

Once science gets hold of one ray, it will find out all about it.

As I was telling you yesterday, science means to know more and more about less and less.

But in that case the ray will keep on becoming thinner and thinner -- the greater the distance, the narrower it will be.

Thats why science becomes more and more narrow.

Religion expands, it becomes more and more vast, it keeps on becoming formless until advaita, nonduality, oneness remains at the end.

Then there wont be two left.

Hence, I say to you, there can be many sciences, not many religions.

Religion can only be one because it is knowledge -- not a specialized knowledge.

If we understand this, then it would mean that the laws exist, that we exist, and what we do with the laws and with ourselves -- that capacity to choose -- also exists.

Whatsoever we do, we have the capability of living it through as well.

Now, this is the way it is.

One who is intelligent, however, continues to work towards enhancing the direction of bliss.

One who is determined to choose stupidity continuously goes on diminishing the capacity to attain bliss.

There is no one up there to be held responsible; the entire responsibility rests with man.

Hence my emphasis on sadhana, and my telling you repeatedly: get on with it, take a jump; the laws are firmly rooted.

You are already on the diving board, but just standing there.

The ocean is waving down below.

You can take a jump.

The sun is hot, the heat is intense, you are sweating, and the cool ocean is rolling below.

You can, of course, take a jump and be in cool waters.

You are standing on the diving board.

If you are willing to jump, the diving board is ready to help you; it has springs, they can toss you below.

But you are standing there sweating in the sun.

The diving board, the springs, are shedding tears beneath you.

If you care to take the jump, they are anxious to help you.

But since you are not taking the jump, the diving board is quiet.

The cool ocean down below is watching you sweat.

Given this state of affairs, you will have to choose decisively, you will have to make the decision.

It is fine if you wish to wait, there is no problem.

But make a decision: "I want to wait.

I dont want to be in cool water, I want to stand in the heat, I want to sweat.

I dont want to jump, Ill stay right here.

" Make this your choice and then wait.

I believe, if you did this, then even that decisive act would show you have grown.

At least you made a decision.

But you are a very strange type of people.

You say, "We dont want to jump in the ocean.

We would like to enter the cool water; we know the sun is hot and we are sweating profusely, but we cant take a jump right now.

We do wish to jump, to leap forward, but please wait.

How can we rush into it? We will do it tomorrow, or the day after.

"

This stops your growth.

By and by it makes you inert; you get stuck in the place where you are.

You become used to this sweating, the heat, and to the nonsense that you would like to jump -- but tomorrow.

You will say the same thing tomorrow as well, that you would like to jump the next day.

Then you will get used to saying this, you will keep on repeating the same thing, and all the laws of nature will wait patiently.

The sun will continue to shine, he will welcome you and invite you to enjoy him.

While we go on sweating, the ocean will keep calling, "Come if you like, its your pleasure.

The cool waters are ready to receive you.

" The diving board will keep saying, "I am ready to bounce, but you need to make a choice first -- you need to take off.

" This is how the situation is.

In my view, the real harm is not because of the fact that you are suffering from misery, it is due more to the reality that your misery is not the product of your decision.

Suffer decisively! The suffering should be your decision too.

If one wants to steal, then he should do so decisively, by becoming a thief.

He should make it clear, "I intend to be a thief, and I want to say to all the holy men they should stop all their nonsense.

It is of no use to me; none of their talk has any meaning for me.

If they want to be holy, then let them be.

I have decided to be a thief.

"

So remember, compared to a person who has become a holy man without his own decision, a man who has become a thief through his own decision would live a far superior life.

.

Because the decision enhances his consciousness, the decision lends weight to his being, the decision raises his level of responsibility.

When he makes the decision he becomes responsible.

Being himself the decision-maker, when he decides, when it becomes his own choice, will is created.

And when will is created, the consciousness is awakened.

Then it cant remain asleep any longer.

Your making the decision alone will bring an end to the state of unconsciousness, because a decision cannot emerge in an unconscious state.

Lacking decisiveness, you will simply go on drifting here and there, pushed by the society.

The father enrolls you in a school, so you go there.

The mother finds you a job, so you take that job.

The wife asks you to stand on your head, so you stand on your head.

Then the children surround you; you are more and more confined.

You are just pulled and pushed from all sides.

So if you stay indecisive, the state of unconsciousness will become more and more condensed.

There is no harm if one has to make a decision -- even for the wrong reasons.

As I see it, there is only one wrongdoing -- not to make a decision.

And there is only one virtue -- to be decisive.

So be decisive.

It doesnt matter if you decide to be a thief, but make the decision with a total mind -- then you wont stay a thief for long.

One who decides with a total mind attains so much consciousness that he can no longer steal.

He comes to such understanding that to him stealing seems foolish.

Even when people become holy men or women, they do so because they are somehow pushed into it.

Somebodys wife dies and he turns into a holy man.

A womans husband dies and she ends up being a holy woman.

A man files bankruptcy and becomes a holy man.

Someones father is about to become a renunciate; the son has no choice but to follow his father -- the father initiates him too.

Now this is meaningless, this doesnt serve any purpose.

A decision must be there.

For one who lives decisively every moment, his consciousness will continue to grow every moment.

Make decisions in small matters, and learn how to stick to them.

Let me mention something briefly, and then we will conclude this talk.

Gurdjieff used to have his followers go through a small experiment.

As such, it was a very small exercise, but it used to prove very effective in raising consciousness.

It was called the stop exercise.

For example, if Gurdjieff were to address people sitting here, all of a sudden in the middle of the talk he would say "Stop!" It would mean everyone sitting here would freeze -- your hands, head, legs, the whole body would remain motionless, like a statue.

He would keep watching, and if anyone moved he would say, "Cant you muster enough will to stay as you are for a while?"

It so happened that once, along with his followers, he was experimenting in Tiflis.

They were staying in a tent outside the village.

A canal was situated nearby.

It was dry at the time; the water had not run through the canal yet.

Three of the seekers were crossing the dry canal when suddenly Gurdjieff called from inside the tent, "Stop!" All the three stood in the middle of the canal, motionless.

Meanwhile, somebody released the canal waters.

The canal began to fill up, while Gurdjieff stayed inside the tent.

The seekers stood there, unmoving.

Dauntless, the three remained until the water reached their waists.

As the water began rising further up, they became worried.

They couldnt utter a word because that would have meant breaking the "Stop" command.

Gurdjieff was still in the tent; they were not sure whether he even knew the canal was filling up.

Perhaps he didnt even know his disciples were standing in the middle of the canal.

They couldnt figure out what to do.

They kept their courage until the water came up to their necks.

When it began rising even further, one of them exclaimed, "This is foolishness!" and jumped out of the canal.

The second one held out until the water reached his nose, in the hope Gurdjieff might call off the stop exercise.

Then he felt it was dangerous to hold on any longer, and he jumped out of the water too.

The third young man stood there without budging.

The water went over his head.

Gurdjieff came running from the tent, jumped in the canal and brought the man out.

Gurdjieff asked how he had felt inside at that moment when the water went over his head.

He said, "The thing I was waiting for happened.

But it happened only when I stood firm in my resolve.

The consciousness I attained to when the water went over my head was simply the ultimate.

Now I dont need to learn anything further -- my resolve has come to its completion!"

This man stood firm in his resolve even in the face of death.

Gurdjieff said, "This was all planned by me.

I had the canal water released.

I wanted to see if you were capable of something more than merely stopping the movements of your hands and feet.

" He dismissed the other two seekers and told them never to think of coming back -- never at all.

He told them they didnt have any business there.

The greater the intensity of will, the more profound the feeling of resolve, the more ones consciousness comes closer to being total.

If you show your absolute will even for a single moment, that very moment you attain to a total consciousness.

All the preparations are geared toward attaining this total consciousness; they are meant for creating that absolute will.

Hence, in my view, it is always good to make a choice.

If God is having us dance like puppets -- making some as sinners and others saints -- then the whole thing becomes useless, absolutely useless.

Not only does everything become useless, even God himself turns out to be very foolish.

What kind of craziness is this? If God alone is the decision-maker, and if he alone creates someone good and someone bad -- makes one man Rama and the other Ravana -- then whats the point? Then everything becomes nonsense, carries no meaning.

No, the individual is the decision-maker -- there is no one imposing a decision on you from above.

The moments when the decision comes from within you are the moments of awakening.

Twenty-four hours a day, a seeker will look forward to making even ordinary decisions -- it doesnt matter how insignificant they are.

One should remain in search of making just minor, very ordinary decisions.

Right from the morning you should be continuously anxious to find opportunities for making decisions.

And whenever such opportunities arise

The opportunities come your way all the time, all kinds of opportunities

If you can make decisions every moment, in a few days you will find your consciousness shooting up within you like an arrow.

You will find it rising, gaining speed every day, simply through very ordinary decisions.

What we have named as sacrifice, austerity -- and who knows what other foolish words -- are all nonsense.

If ever they had any validity, if ever any man had even made a meaningful application of them, that meaningfulness lay in their will.

Someone decides, for example, that he will not eat for a day.

Now, the value of this does not rest as much in the act of not eating, as it does in his coming to a resolution.

If this man eats even once in his mind, the whole thing is finished, it becomes totally useless.

Not eating means not only abstaining from eating physically, but even mentally.

If a man could mindfully stay without eating food for twelve hours, he would have gone a long way in maintaining his resolve.

Not eating is not significant by itself -- it simply works as a peg for the man to hang his will on.

After twelve hours the quality of his being is sure to change.

When I see a man has fasted for years and yet the quality of his being has not changed, I know he must have been eating in his mind, otherwise the quality would have changed.

He has been fasting all through his life -- going through this fast and that fast -- and yet nowhere does he show any change of quality.

The man has remained the same.

He is like one who sets a lock and then comes back again to check whether it is locked or not.

I know such a man.

He lives across from my house.

He fasts, worships regularly, but he is a man of such poor will.

I have watched him many times.

He will lock his door, walk ten steps, then come back and shake the lock to be sure.

I asked him, "Why do you do this? You locked the door yourself!"

He said, "Often I am not sure whether I locked it or not, so I come back to double check.

And whats the harm in checking at least once?"

I said, "Having already checked once, doesnt it occur to you the second time whether or not you have indeed gone back once and seen to the lock?"

He said, "How did you know? It does occur to me indeed.

Not only once but twice, even three times I feel like going back and checking the lock -- but I feel embarrassed to do it.

"

Here is a man who fasts, but he does not know what fasting means.

The purpose of fasting is to bring decisiveness, to bring a decision-making power.

Having made the decision once, a man should not turn back.

And whosoever makes such a decision -- which proves to be a point of no return -- in the life of such a man nothing remains asleep, everything is awakened.