CHAPTER 6
The Sutra of Ultimate Life
20 October 1970 pm in Poona, India
[Note: This is a translation from the Hindi Neo-Yoga Sutras, which is in the process of being edited. It is for research only.]
My Beloved Ones,
The eighth sutra of Yoga. In the seventh sutra I told you, that conscious life has two forms - self- conscious and self unconscious. The eighth sutra is: Yoga begins from self consciousness and ends in dissolution of self. To be self conscious is the way, to become free from self is the goal. To be full of consciousness for the self is meditation and finally only consciousness remains and the self disappears, that is enlightenment.
Those who do not know themselves, they are certainly backward, those who get stuck at themselves, they also lag behind. Just as if someone, after climbing the ladder, remains on the ladder then the climb becomes useless. One has to climb on the ladder and one also has to leave the ladder. If he stops on the way, then also he does not reach to the goal. One has to walk on the path and one also has to leave the path. Then one reaches the goal. The path can lead you upto the goal only if you are prepared to leave the path. And the path will become a barrier in reaching the goal if one insists on staying on it.
To be full of consciousness for the self is helpful in order to dissolve the self. But if self itself is held on to, then that which is helpful, the same becomes an obstacle. Perhaps it is most important to understand this sutra. It is our earnest desire to attain to ourselves but to dissolve oneself is a difficult thing. That is why many seekers reach the seventh sutra but are unable to enter into the
eighth. Upto the seventh sutra there is no barrier to our ego. The journey upto the seventh sutra is ego-centered. Hence upto the seventh sutra if the seeker is asked to renounce wealth, he will renounce wealth. If he is asked to give up his family, he will renounce his family. If he is asked to give up fame, ambition, the throne, he will give up all that. But behind all this renounciation, the ego goes on becoming stronger.
He will be interested in meditation so that ‘I’ becomes more enhanced. He will be engaged in meditation so that I become something. He will search for the divine so that he does not remain without it. There is no difficulty, no obstacle to come upto the seventh sutra. The real problem is understanding the eighth sutra after the seventh sutra because the eighth sutra is of losing oneself, of dissolving oneself. Upto the seventh sutra one can attain great powers. Upto the seventh sutra boundless energy will be born but there will be no becoming one with the divine. Upto the seventh sutra one will meet oneself only.
Even meeting with oneself is not a small thing, it is very big. But it is big in the context of the last six sutras, in the context of the eighth sutra, it is not a big thing. Attaining to oneself is difficult. To know oneself totally is also very difficult, but it is much more difficult to lose and dissolve even oneself. If a person is imprisoned in a prison then the first condition for him to become free of the prison will be that he realises that he is in a prison. If he does not realise that he is in a prison then there is no way for him to get out of the prison. The first condition for him to get out of the prison will be to know that I am in a prison. The second condition would be to know the prison well, that what it really is? Where there is a wall? Where there is a way? Where there are windows? Where there is glass? Where there is the weak point from where it is possible to escape, where are the guards? The second sutra will be to become completely familiar with the prison, to be totally aware of the prison, only then it is possible to get rid of the prison.
Deep down inside man self is the prison, in the self ego is the only prison. It seems to be a small prison but it is big. It is full of great energies, full of great treasures, but still it is a prison. Out of it, is the vast expansion of existencewhere there is freedom, where there is liberation. First of all we are not aware of our own self, that which is so big. To get to know it gets completed upto the seventh sutra. And when you come to know it completely then there is danger, great danger, I will tell you about that danger. One who manages to get across that danger will be able to understand the seventh sutra. The moment you become aware that I am the master of so many treasures, so many jewels, so much wealth, the prison starts looking like an emperor’s palace and not a prison anymore. Even if a prisoner comes to know that there are so many treasures in the prison, so much gold, so much wealth, if he comes to know about the treasures of the prison then probably he would also say no to the fact that this is a prison and say that this is an emperor’s palace. And perhaps this treasure only, will now become a barrier in his getting out of the prison. It is possible that the guards may not have been able to stop him, chains may not have stopped him, all the arrangements of the prison may not have stopped him from escaping but the treasures found by him in the prison can stop him.
The day we come to know about the whole treasure of our being, the entire power of our bliss, the danger is that we may forget that this self is a very small piece of land, it is a very small part of the vast infinite land. It is as if somebody has filled water in an earthen pot and dropped it into the ocean. The water which is inside the earthen pot is also of the ocean. But how can there be any comparison between the water of the ocean inside the earthen pot and the ocean outside the earthen pot!
We are also earthen pots. There is plenty inside. It is a part of the divine, a part of the ocean but how can it be compared with what is outside? The earthen pot has also to be broken one day. This self, this ‘I’, this ego is surrounding you. But the day you come to know the entire beauty of the self, that day the earthen pot becomes a pot made of gold. It becomes very difficult to break it. That is why many times strange kinds of egos are born in a seeker. Many times the last thing which stops the seeker on his path of meditation is that place where his ‘I’ becomes of gold, where he feels that I am the master of infinite energy, infinite knowledge, infinite power. This declaration becomes very deep declaration of his inner ‘I’. Those who stop at this, stop at the seventh sutra. And this stopping is just as if a person after coming closer to his destination stops at the gate. He completes the whole journey but stops outside the destination. And this does happen. A person walks thousands of miles but as he comes clser to his destination, it becomes difficult to take even a single step. He is able to walk for miles, he is able to run till the destination is far away but as it starts coming closer, exhaustion starts taking over. It has happened quite often that just after coming outside their destinations, people have gone on to rest.
Many seekers get stuck at the seventh sutra. The eighth sutra is a jump. A big jump. The fact of attaining is not such a big thing, the fact of losing yourself is much bigger. Then the question arises in the mind why to lose oneself? If we are not there ourselves then whatever there will be what is its meaning, its purpose? If the self will not be there then what will be enlightenment, what will be the divine, what will be Yoga, what will be religion? Freedom can be dropped for the self. Freedom from the self is a very difficult thing. Freedom for the self is very easy, your mind feels that I should become free, liberated. But in freedom from the self, you get stuck. Mind is ready for that last jump. But Yoga has a way with which that last jump can be completed.
The most important search that starts for entering the eighth sutra after the seventh sutra is of ‘Who am I?’ The search for this starts. ‘What am I?’, you come to know till the seventh sutra. But ‘Who am I?’, you do not know till the seventh sutra. The search for ‘Who am I?’, becomes the eighth sutra. And the deeper we search, the more we find that my end is not here also, I am not only till here but beyond this also, beyond and beyond. The search goes on and on and all the boundaries get dissolved, and in the end you come to know that whatever there is, I am all that. The day you come to know that whatever there is I am all that, that day ‘I’ does not remain because only ‘You’ remains. No ‘You’ remains in the outside world. Everything is ‘I’.
At the time of revolution in 1857, British soldiers had killed a sannyasin. He had been silent for thirty years. People had asked him, “Why are you becoming silent?” He had said, “What I want to say, I cannot say because words are incapable and what I can say, I don’t want to say because it is futile.” And then for thirty years he was silent. He used to wander around, naked, silent. Once in the night he was walking on the road and nearby there was a British camp. They caught him thinking him to be a detective. They asked him many times, “Who are you?”. But whenever they asked him, “Who are you?, he laughed. He was in silence so he could not answer also. And who has been able to answer the question of”Who am I?” till now? And the answer has been impossible to give. When you find the answer, the answer is no more there.
So this puzzle has not been solved yet and will never be solved. When the seeker gets dissolved only then the answer is achieved. But then the answer no longer means anything. And till the seeker exists, the answer cannot be found. So the answer cannot be given because it has not been found.
He used to laugh heartily. The more he laughed, the more angry the soldiers got and in the end they
plunged the bayonet in his chest. They thought that he was deceiving them. At the time of his death he did say two words- he broke his thirty years silence at the time of his death. And the breaking of his silence of thirty years was really strange. And the answer that he had given was even more strange, because the soldiers were asking him, “Who are you?” He did not give any answer to this. At the time of his death he opened his eyes and laughed again and he had used a great line from the Upanishad. He had said to the British soldiers who had plunged the bayonet in him, “That art thou, white man, you are also that! They had asked,”Who are you?” He had replied at the time of his death, “You are also that.”He had not said, “Whoever I am, you are also that.” The rest he dropped, that is understood. He dropped saying I am also that because who will say, “I am that”, there is no ‘I’ left. He had replied in a round-about-way. He said, “You are also that, That art thou.”
Who knows, maybe the soldiers did not get the hint, it is difficult that they could have understood. “Who am I?” In the end, this search becomes in the disappearance of ‘I’. The search for it can only be done after the seventh sutra, before that it is very difficult. It is easy after the seventh sutra. Now we can ask because now we are awake, now we are filled with light, we can ask, “Who am I?” And this question is the only religious question. You can never find its answer. It is not that you get the answer that you are god. Till you get this answer, understand that it is your mind answering. The scriptures you have read, they are answering. The words you have heard, they are answering. The doctrines that you have learnt, they are answering.
That eighth sutra does not get solved by scriptures, will not get solved by doctrines. So if your mind gives the answer to this eighth sutra that you are Brahma or what I said just now’That art thou’, you must have also read it, then that is not the solution. You ask yourself, “Who am I?” and the mind says, “You are that”, that is also not the solution. Till you can give the answer, you will not find the answer because you don’t have the answer, you only have words. “Who am I?”, this question should go so deep in you that the answer does not arise in you, only the question remains - only a silent question remains. Each breath starts asking, “Who am I?”,every core starts asking, “Who am I?”, every heartbeat starts asking, “Who am I?” - sitting, standing, walking, questioning or not questioning; only one question starts echoing in your mind, “Who am I?” And you don’t find any answer. There is no answer because if you have the answer with you then there is no need to ask.
But all of us have answers, that is why in the eighth sutra all scriptures become barriers. All knowledge becomes a barrier. That which we call knowledge, all that we have learnt, understood, memorized, all becomes a barrier. Even the greatest words become barriers-Geeta, Kuran, Bible all become barriers. Whatever we have read, whatever we have learnt, all starts becoming a barrier in the eighth sutra because it is our memory which answers that I am this, I am this, I am this. All these answers have to be destroyed. These answers are not ours. Those who have given them, must have known before giving them, must have understood before giving them but these answers are not ours. This answer is not mine. This knowing is not mine, it is borrowed, it is stale.
Before this eighth sutra, a person will have to drop all knowledge and become totally ignorant. And one who is capable of becoming ignorant - this ignorant is of a completely different kind. Socrates has made a small, very beautiful distinction. And the people who have reached near the eighth sutra, Socrates is one of them. Some people of the village went to Socrates and said, “The Goddess of Delphi has declared that no one is wiser than Socrates.” They said, “These are the words of the Goddess of Delphi that no one is wiser than Socrates! - what do you say?”Socrates said, “Somewhere or the other, there has been some mistake because I say to you that no one is more
ignorant than Socrates.” The people said, “This is a difficult situation. Now if we believe the Goddess of Delphi then we will have to believe Socrates also. And Socrates says that no one is more ignorant than Socrates. And if we believe Socrates that no one is more ignorant than Socrates then what about Delphi’s words. Socrates has put us into difficulty.”
Socrates said, “It is my job to put you into difficulty. I also faced many difficulties before it became possible for me to reach here.” But they asked, “What should we believe?” Socrates said, “Go back and ask the Goddess of Delphi.” They went back and asked the Goddess of Delphi, “Socrates says no one is more ignorant than me and you say that no one is wiser than him.” The Goddess of Delphi said, “That is why, that is why I say that nobody is wiser than him because one who has come to know about one’s own ignorance, he is standing at the door of knowledge.” They came back and said to Socrates, “The Goddess says that is why. Now the puzzle has become more complicated. She says that Socrates can call himself ignorant because he is standing at the door of his destination.” Socrates said, “Did you notice that when you came and told me I thought from where did the Goddess of Delphi get this wrong notion?”
But her words were very meaningful. In these words she had not said that Socrates is the wisest. She had said that no one was wiser than Socrates. She had said the negative. She had not said that he was the wisest.
So Socrates said, “You went back to the Goddess, I went to enquire in the village if there was anybody wiser than me or not? So I went and asked each and every person. They had answers to all the questions except they did not have the answer to the question, ‘Who are you?’ ‘Who am I?’, they did not have any answer to this question. So I said to them that what kind of wise people are you? who still don’t know who we are? what is the meaning of their knowing anything else? Those who have not yet been able to know who I am, what else will they be able to know? I went to each and every wise person and came back.” And then he said, “The Goddess is very clever. She said that nobody is wiser than Socrates.” The only meaning of this is that everybody is ignorant in the village but only Socrates is aware that he is ignorant. There is no other meaning. Nobody in the village has even this much knowledge.
Only the person who experiences his ignorance will be able to get across the seventh sutra. One who becomes aware that I don’t know anything. Not even who I am. And when you come to know it deeply, intensely, then its pain is utterly exquisite. The pain of ‘who am I’ spreads into each and every core. Then it does not remain a question, then it does not remain an intellectual enquiry. Then it does not remain an existential question which has an answer somewhere. Then it becomes the craving of your being, the thirst of your being, then it becomes a continuous anticipation of your being. The being starts trembling with only one burning desire, to know:“Who am I?” And you don’t find any answer anywhere, there is no answer anywhere. One who will get the answer from somewhere is deceiving himself. There is no answer anywhere.
When you do not find any answer anywhere and the question goes on hurting, drives you mad, destroys you inside; when the question remains only a question, even the hope of getting an answer fades away, the possibility of an answer fades away, the expectation of an answer also fades away; that you will find an answer when that possibility also fades away, only the question remains, rather it should be said that when the questioner and the queation become one, at that moment the question also disappears. You do not find an answer, the question is also dropped. Unquestioning, in that
moment the person enters into the eighth sutra from the seventh sutra. At that moment he does not ask, “Who am I?”, at that moment he says, “Tell me that which I am not.” At that moment he asks, “Where I am not?”
Nanak went and slept outside the temple of Mecca. His feet were towards the holy stone of Mecca. The priests came and said, “Remove your feet. Idiot, you don’t even know that you should not point your feet towards the holy stone. He points his feet towards the divine.” Nanak said, “I am in a diliema. You point my feet in the direction where there is no divine. Grab my feet and point them where there is no divine.” Those priests got into great difficulty. They did not dare to point Nanak’s feet anywhere else because the divine is everywhere.
The day the very question “Who am I?” is dropped, that day there remains no concern anymore about “Who am I?” That day even if somebody questioned it, our only answer will be: “Who am I not? I am everything.” That day the barrier of the wall of ‘self’ standing in between disappears. It crumbles. It is absolutely a wall of dreams. It is a wall of thoughts, a wall of memories, a wall of beliefs, you have believed that you are like this and this and that is why the wall is there. This wall crumbles. The moment it crumbles, the person becomes one with the infinite. Then the self- centered personality disappears.
It is not that you get destroyed. It is not that you are finished. No, you are still there, and with more totality. But you do not remain ‘I’, you become everything. Then you do not remain a wave, then you become the ocean. Then you do not remain a drop, you become the vastness. You die as ‘I’ but become like the divine. That is why nothing is lost by losing the ‘I’. Just as nobody loses anything by waking up from a night’s dream, in the same way nobody loses anything by waking up from the dream of ‘I’. He gains something by waking up from a night’s dream, some awakening. He also gains something by waking up from the dream of ‘I’, a divine life. The insignificant barrier breaks down. That meaningless cycle breaks. That dividing line of ‘I’ gets dissolved. There is no need for it now. It was needed till the seventh step, till the seventh sutra, it was needed. The journey till now has been completed with the help of this ‘I’. If that ‘I’ is not there then that much journey cannot be completed. Lies also help in the journey, illusions also help in the journey. They cannot take you to the destination, they cannot go with you to the destination.
One Christian priest was imprisoned in a Russian jail for twenty years. He has written a very unique book “In God’s Underground”. He was a beautiful man that he called his prison which was a dark cell under the ground, “In God’s Underground” and wrote a small book. That was also God’s hidden house under the ground. He was imprisoned in a dark cell for twenty years. Food used to be thrown in once a day, but he did not hear anyone’s voice. But after five-seven days suddenly somebody started knocking at the wall from next door. He tried to understand but what could he understand from the knocking. But he understood this much that there was another prisoner next door. Then for twenty years, they lived together with a wall in the middle. Then they slowly invented a language by knocking. one knock for A, two knocks for B, three for C-this kind of language they slowly developed. Then they got to know each other’s name and started giving messages to each other. Then they also started greeting each other after getting up in the morning. Then they started wishing good-night to each other at night. Then their communication gathered speed, a code was developed. If these two persons come out of the prison then will they still talk by knocking on the wall? No, they will not. They had to develop a sign language without which it was not possible to talk through the wall.
A person’s ‘I’ is also a code language which has to be used all around the world where we are
enclosed in our own walls, where we have to knock and talk to each other. So we name the other, we call somebody Ram, somebody Krishna, somebody something else and so on. All names are false. No child is born with a name, but without a name it would be very difficult to talk through walls. So Krishna means two knocks. Ram means three knocks. So we get acquainted with each other by knocking that if we knock three times then know that we are calling you. You are now Ram and you Krishna. We stick names on people, this is a code language, where there is no other way to talk through walls. We give everybody a name. If I want to call somebody then I say, “Ram, come here.” I can also have a name. I have a name but if I call out my name then it would be very difficult to make out whether I am calling someone else or myself. That is why the code-language is two-sided. When I want to call myself then I say ‘I’ and when I want to call somebody else then I call out his name. When you also want to call yourself you also say ‘I’ and when you want to call someone else you call out their name.
Swami Ram went to America, he used to call himself Ram. He had stopped saying “I”. Naturally if you break the code language, there will be difficulty. He used to call himself Ram. If somebody used to laugh on the way or somebody swore at him, he used to come back and say, “Today, Ram was in a great difficulty. Some people came-by and started swearing.” So people who were unacquainted, in America used to ask, “What do you mean? What are you saying? Ram who?” Then he used to say, “This Ram.” They were in great difficulty. Slowly they understood the code that this man calls himself Ram.
But whether we call ourselves ‘Ram’ or say ‘I’, give ourselves a name or use a pronoun, use ‘I’ – we are born neither with ‘I’ nor with a name. Children come to know about ‘you’ first. Later on they come to know about ‘I’. Children become ‘thou’conscious first, first they come to know about others, ’I’, they come to know later. When ‘you’ becomes very certain, that is why sometimes some children are heard saying, “He is hungry.” Small children will say, “Who is hungry?”, ‘I’ has not developed yet. ‘I’ has to develop.
In the communication of this life where each of us is enclosed in a circle of his own, in walls of his own, a code language has to be developed. ‘I’ is an indicator, is a hint towards whom even I don’t know that who he is. Krishna, Ram are indicators towards whom even I don’t know who he is. We are all standing on the other side of the wall. We are all like prisoners who go on knocking at our own walls. But life is like that, we do not understand this because we move carrying our cells, our walls with ourselves. ‘Those prisoners are imprisoned, the walls are fixed at one place.’
Right from birth we carry our prisons with ourselves, that is why we never come to know that I am carrying my walls with me. A husband and wife, their whole life, go on talking in code language through two walls, which is understood only once in a while, and when it is not understood, then it is not understood. A father and son also talk, friends also talk but through walls. They knock saying something else, the other understands something else. He knocks in fear and they understand something else on the other side. But they forget one thing that both ‘I’ and ‘you’ are utilitarian words, not the truth. They have utility, but they are not the truth.
That is why the moment we start searching for ‘I’, we will find that ‘I’ is nowhere to be found. It is nowhere to be found. Just as the man whose name is Krishna, if he goes inside himself in search of Krishna, then would he find Krishna anywhere? That label is stuck outside the container. If you go searching for it inside, you will not find it anywhere. ‘I’ is also nowhere inside. They are utilitarian
words, inventions of language but are not important. And till the seventh sutra, the seeker is not hindered by them, in fact they help him, because he comes till the seventh sutra in the search of ‘I’ only. Power for ‘I’, peace for ‘I’, freedom for ‘I’, the divine for ‘I’, he comes in search of these till the seventh sutra. Till the seventh ‘I’ is utilitarian not the truth. After the seventh ‘I’ starts becoming a barrier, its utility has gone waste now. At the eighth that code language has to be broken. There is pain when you break it at the eighth, because we did everything for this ‘I’, we lived for this ‘I’, we died for this ‘I’, just for this ‘I’ who knows how many times we took birth.
A fakir went to China from India. His name was Bodhidharma. The Emperor of China had come to welcome him. On the way to entering the kingdom, the Emperor who had come to welcome him, saw his chance and said to him, “I am very disturbed, please tell me some way.” Bodhidharma said, “Come tomorrow morning at three o’clock and I will make you peaceful.” That Emperor had asked that question to many fakirs and they had given him different ways, but this man seemed to be strange. He said, “Come tomorrow morning at three o’clock and I will make you peaceful. He had his doubts also that this matter cannot be so easy. He had been disturbed his whole life, had tried many ways, but he did not attain peace. He said again to Bodhidharma,”Perhaps you do not know about my difficulty. Whatever wealth I need, I have attained it, but I cannot find peace. Whatever fasting fakirs told me to do, I did, but I cannot find peace. I have built lakhs of temples, but I cannot find peace. Whatever good deeds I was told to do, I did their double, but I cannot find peace.”
That fakir said, “No more talk, come tomorrow morning at three o’clock and I will make you peaceful.” He felt amazed. He thought, alright, we will see at three o’clock. Now he felt doubtful that whether it is even right to go to this man or not. He was coming down the stairs of the temple where Bodhidharma was staying, he had just reached the last step when Bodhidharma shouted and said, “Listen, bring”I” with you, otherwise who shall I make peaceful.” He thought, “More madness!” He thought that when I will come then “I” will naturally be with me. Bodhidharma said, “Remember to bring it, don’t leave it at home.” In the night the Emperor thought about it many times that whether he should go or not but thought he had never encountered a man who said that he would make him peaceful.
In the morning, gathering all his courage, he came at three o’clock. He started climbing the stairs. He had not even climbed the first stair when Bodhidharma said, “Did you bring”I” with you or not?” Emperor Wu said, “Why are you joking with me, when I have come then what is the question of bringing”I” with me?” Bodhidharma said, “I ask deliberately – I am here and I can see it but still my”I” is not with me now. That is why I asked whether you had brought it with you or not, otherwise who will I make peaceful?” Emperor Wu could not understand what Bodhidharma was saying. Then again Bodhidharma said, “Alright, now that you have come. And you say that you have brought it with you, then sit. Close your eyes and look for your”I”, where it is and then get hold of it and give it to me so that I can make it peaceful.
He said to Bodhidharma, “I was doubtful last night only that I should not go. What are you talking about? Is”I” something that I can catch hold of and give to you?” Then Bodhidharma said, “Alright, if you cannot give it to me then at least you yourself can catch hold of it inside you?” The Emperor said, “I have never tried it.” Bodhidharma said, “Then try it.” The emperor is sitting there with his eyes closed and Bodhidharma is sitting in front of him with a big stick in his hand.
The emperor was feeling scared also. It is night, it is dark and he had come alone trusting that monk. Who knows, what he intends to do? Bodhidharma would sometimes move his head with the stick
and say, “Search, don’t miss any corner. Wherever you find it, grab it.” Half an hour has passed, quarter of an hour has passed, an hour has passed, two hours have passed and that emperor has got lost somewhere! The morning sun started rising. Bodhidharma said, “Now should I take my bath and do other things? You have not been able to catch it till now?” The emperor opened his eyes and fell at Bodhidharma’s feet. He said, “I had never noticed that there is no such thing as”I” inside. When I went to look, it was nowhere to be found. I looked into every nook and corner. Everywhere I looked, but “I” is nowhere to be found.
Then Bodhidharma, “Now whom should I make peaceful? I am sitting here with this stick in my hand for three hours.” The emperor said, “Now it has become silent, because when”I” is not there, then what kind of disturbance can there be? These three hours were the hours of my silence only. As I started looking and as I started becoming aware that I am not achieving, something went on becoming silent. Now I can say that it was wrong to say that I was disturbed. ‘I’ itself was the disturbance. Bodhidharma said, “Go and beware of”I” in the future, don’t cling on to it again.
Emperor Wu has got it written on his grave that I heard words of lakhs of sannyasins and saints, I heard thousands of scriptures, but I could not catch hold of the secret. And then after coming in contact with a strange fakir, I looked inside and all the secrets came out into the open. There was no ‘I’ which had to be made silent. There was no ‘I’ which had to be purified. There was no ‘I’ which had to fought with and conquered. There was no ‘I’ for which God and enlightenment had to be found. There was no ‘I’ there.
The eighth sutra is the sutra of looking for “I” and then losing the “I”. The moment “I” is lost, everything is attained. “I” means that we are holding on to something against everybody. If we say “I” rightly, then “I” means a point of resistance.
We are holding on to this ‘I’ against everybody, in enmity with everybody. We have dropped everybody and caught hold of this “I”. This “I” is just like the boundaries of countries – India, Pakistan. If we go looking, then there is no boundary where India ends and Pakistan begins. There is no boundary anywhere, there is no boundary where India ends and China begins except in the minds of the politicians. These boundaries are nowhere. And it would have been alright if the politicians had any brains. There are no boundaries except on the political maps. Go up, if you look from above from the sky, then there is no India, no Pakistan, no China, no Japan. There are no boundaries. If there is somebody on Mars and looking towards the earth then will he be able to see any boundaries?
When Yuri Gagarin went into the space for the first time, his countrymen were expecting that he would send some message from there, from the space, that he would shout ‘Long live Soviet Russia’, that he sould say something like that. But the first words that came out of Yuri Gagarin’s mouth are worth understanding. “My Russia” did not come out of Yuri Gagarin’s mouth, the words which came out of his mouth were “My World”, “My Earth”. Looking from such a great height, no country remained. Looking from such a great height, the whole earth had become one, the whole world had become one. The words that he said were, “My World! My Earth!” When he returned, Moscow asked him, “Why did’nt you say, ‘My Russia?’” He said, “No Russia remained from there. All the boundaries were lost there!”
In the same way when one goes into the inner sky, the boundaries of “I” and “You” are lost there. They are also man’s utilitarian boundaries drawn on a map. Just as my house makes a false
boundary, my “I” also makes that false boundary. Just as my country makes a false boundary, my “I” also makes a false boundary. But these lies will work only till the seventh sutra, not after the seventh sutra. If you want to walk on the earth, if you want to walk horizontally, then Russia, India and Pakistan will walk, but if you want to make a vertical flight, then Russia, India will be lost. One who wants to rise high in the inner sky, his “I” and “You” all will be lost, and when “I” and “You” are lost then that which remains, the remaining is the divine. This is the eighth sutra.
And the ninth sutra is a small one, I will finish my talk after telling you about it.
The first sutra, I had said, was life energy. The ninth sutra is of yoga. Death is also energy. Death too is energy. It is not that only life is energy, death too is energy. It is not that only life is life, death too is life. And it is not that only life is worth liking, death too is very beautiful. It is not that only life is worth welcoming, death also needs an open door. And one who does not accept death will remain deprived of life. And one who accepts death will be entitled to the ultimate life.
Death too is energy, death too is divine, death too is god. It is the ultimate sutra of yoga. It is the last sutra. One who will be able to see death in the same way as life; it is like that, it is just a question of seeing it. And after the eighth sutra, it will be possible to see. The day you come to know that there is no “I”, that day you will come to know, whose death? What kind of death? Who will die? Who can die? Till the people say that I will not die, I am immortal, my soul is immortal, till then understand that all that talk is just what they have heard. When someone says that there is no “I” and what is there is divine, then understand that this is something. I want to be immortal but I am not there. One who wants to become immortal is not there and one who is immortal, we do not know about it.
At the time of Ramakrishna’s death, it had become clear three days before that Ramakrishna is taking leave now. So his wife Sharda became very worried and upset. Ramakrishna asked her, “Why do you cry? Because the one who is, is not going to die. And did you love this body known as me or did you love the one who is?” Sharda said, “I loved the one who is.” Ramakrishna said, “Then drop the worry. Then, when he who is not dies, do not break your bangles.” There was only one widow in India who did not break her bangles after her husband’s death Then Ramakrishna died. Everybody else cried and wept but Sharda did not agree to break her bangles. She remained the same as she always was. Everybody said, “What are you doing? Ramakrishna is dead.” She said, “One who has died was not there in the first place, and the one who was there, still is. These bangles are in this memory. Sharda remained a bride even after Ramakrishna’s death. She never said that Ramakrishna is dead and whenever somebody asked she would say,”That body had become worn and torn, he has only changed clothes.” In reality, only clothes are changed, only garbs are changed.
The day you come to know this – you will know at the eighth sutra that I am not there, then who will die? Then where is death? Then there is no way to die. Then if someone cuts with a sword then who will be cut? He can only cut “I”, who else? When there is no “I”, then there is nobody to be cut. What Krishna said to Arjuna that neither anybody dies nor anybody kills – its meaning is only this much that there is nobody. The shadows which are seen become small and large with the rising and setting of the sun. They are not there, they become small and large with the sun’s shadow.
Gibran has written a story that a fox has come out in search of food. The sun is awake and is behind the fox. The fox’s shadow falls very big like big tall trees. The fox thought today I will need a lot of food. I have such a big body. The fox does not have any mirror to see her body, she has only her
shadow. And even in the mirror only the shadow will be visible, what else? And one who is standing on the other side of the mirror, it is said by those who know, that he is also a shadow. She had seen her shadow, long shadow like the trees. She thought in her mind, “This is a great difficulty. Today I will have to search for bigger food. I will need at least a camel. She went on searching, then it was afternoon and the sun came overhead. The shadow shrank and became small. The fox looked down and said,”I am very hungry. Now even if I find something small, it will do. The shadow has shrunk. It has become small. But that fox believes the shadow to be its being.
What we call body, in a very deep dimension is not more than a shadow. A shadow materialized. A shadow, which has become visible because of the density of energy particles. The coming and going of that shadow. But till “I” is there, till then there is identity with that shadow.
The ninth sutra is, death too is life, death too is energy, death too is the divine. And one who knows death too as the divine attains to enlightenment. Enlightenment means, there is no death for such a person. Enlightenment means such death where there is no death.
I said to you these nine sutras of yoga. These nine sutras can be said in twelve dimensions, can be said in twelve different ways. I said in only one way. These nine sutras can be said in twelve different ways. And when you multiply twelve with nine it becomes one hundred and eight. The malas with one hundred and eight beads that you have seen in the necks of sannyasins are nothing more than a symbol of these nine sutras which can be said in twelve ways. And below those 108 beads you must have also seen the one hundred ninth part which is known as sumeru. Anybody starting from anywhere on these one hundred and eight ways will reach to that same ultimate one. I said these nine sutras of yoga to you only in one dimension. They can be said in twelve ways, thus making for 108 methods of meditation. One method of meditation is developed from each sutra. But from wherever one starts, he definitely reaches the same place. Even if somebody does not start from anywhere, then too, wherever he is standing, he is standing at the same place. The only difference is that he does not come to know where he is standing.
I have heard about one fakir that he used to just lie in the way of a pilgrimage. The pilgrims used to climb and go on the top of the mountain. They used to say to the fakir, “You go on lying there, go on lying there, shouldn’t you climb up for the pilgrimage? So the fakir used to say,”Where you are going, I am already there.” Then again while returning when somebody asked him, “Will you go on lying here or climb up and travel?” The fakir used to say, “From where you are coming, I am there.” Those pilgrims would not understand and used to go away from there.
The day you come to know, after the journey, you find it very funny. Zen masters say that when you come to know you find it very funny. Zen masters have a saying that ‘when you come to know then except for laughing while sipping a cup of tea, nothing remains.’ When someone was asking Rinzai, “What is this? What kind of talk is this that we have heard that when you attain enlightenment then except for laughing and sipping tea, nothing remains?” Rinzai said, “Really, nothing remains, because when you come to know, then you also become aware that I was like this always. What I have found, I already had it and what I searched for, I had never lost it. But still you have to make such a long journey.
A small story and then I will complete my talk.
I have heard, just before his death, a billionaire became aware that he had never experienced bliss. He must have been fortunate. Some people become aware only after death. He became aware before death that he had not experienced bliss. Death was close-by. Astrologers said, “There are not many days left, be quick.” He said, “I have been hurrying all my life but where is bliss? And now I have the means to buy it. I am ready to buy it at any cost.” Those astrologers said, “That we do not know. We can only say that hurry because death is close-by. And if you come to know, then let us know also because we will also have to hurry, death is close-by. But he said,”But where should I look for it?” They said, “We don’t know. You just go look for it, anywhere, just look for it.
He climbed his fastest horse. He put diamonds, jewels worth crores of rupees on his horse and then going to each and every village started shouting, “If somebody gives me a glimpse of bliss then I am ready to give him all this.”
Then he reached a village, where there was a Sufi fakir. The people of the village said, “You have come to the right place. There is a man in this village who solves this kind of absurd problems.” He said, “Absurd problems!” The people of that village said, “We have also learnt a few absurd things by being in his company. One thing we have learnt, it is quite absurd absurd because nobody can buy even a glimpse of bliss with money, bliss is very far away. But still you have come, you did right. You have come to the right place. There is such a man in this village.
That man was searched for. The villagers took the billionaire to him. That Sufi fakir, Nasruddin was sitting under a tree. The sun was setting. The villagers said, “This is that man.” That billionaire threw down his bag full of gold and diamonds, jewels, and said, “I am ready to give all this. There is wealth worth crores in it. I want a glimpse of bliss.” That fakir looked at him from top to bottom. He said, “You want a true glimpse?” He said, “Yes, a true glimpse.” He was able to utter only that much, when the fakir grabbed the bag and ran away. For a moment that rich man stood there dumb-founded and then started crying, “I am ruined, I am dead.” But till then the fakir had gone far away into the darkness. The villagers knew that fakir, that he would do something absurd. They said, “We told you right in the beginning that this is the man who can answer absurd questions.” The rich man said, “Is this an answer! Catch him!” The people ran. The rich man also ran. The village was known to that fakir. He started eluding them by running through the alleys. The whole village woke up. He eluded everybody just to wake up the whole village. Then the whole village was running. Then running he came to the same place, the tree under which the horse was standing. He threw the bag down from where he had picked it up and stood under the tree. The rich man, huffing, puffing, perspiring, reached there. He saw the bag, picked it up, hugged it and said to god, “A great thanks to you!” That fakir said from behind the tree, “Did you get a glimpse?” The rich man said, “Yes, I definitely did. I experienced great bliss.” That fakir said, “So now get on your horse and go.”
The thing that we own, until we lose that also, we do not know. The whole journey of this world is of losing that which we have to attain. What we already have, we are not aware of it till we lose it once. We have lost it, we will have to search for it. The day we find it then except for drinking tea and laughing, nothing will remain.
In China, when three saints attained to enlightenment, they started roaming in villages, laughing
. And whenever somebody asked them, they laughed. One laughed, the second laughed, all three laughed, then the laughter would spread in the whole village, then people would gather at the crossroad and laugh. People asked them that why are you laughing, then they used to look at
each other and laugh. And then a wave of laughter would spread everywhere. Then those three became famous in whole China as “Three laughing saints”. Before dying they left a paper with this written on it, “We laugh at ourselves because what we were searching for, we already had, and we laugh at you that what you are searching for, you already have it.
These nine sutras I said to you in these four days. Not because your knowledge may increase. Not because you may become more knowledgeable. You are already very knowledgeable, you all are. Nothing will be achieved by making any addition to this knowledge of so many lives. I said these sutras to you, not to increase your knowledge, but to take away your knowledge from you. I have not said these sutras so that you may get some doctrines and become dependent on them. You already have many doctrines and many scriptures to depend on and if you had saved yourself from those, even then you might have been saved. You will not be saved by being dependent on these few words of mine.
All the doctrines, all the scriptures, all the words become a burden on your head and drown you.