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CHAPTER 7
17 January 1975 am in Buddha Hall
SADHU, CONSIDER THIS:
RIDE IN A BOAT AND DROWN MIDSTREAM; HELPLESS, GET ACROSS.
REACH THE TOWN BY SOME BACK WAY; GET LOOTED ON THE HIGHWAY.
BY ONE ROPE ALL GET TIED, BOTH THE BOUND AND THE FREE.
ENTER YOUR TEMPLE; BE BATHED FROM ALL SIDES. WHO REMAINS WITHOUT STAYS DRY.
CHOP OFF THE HEAD FOR ETERNAL JOY; AN UNCHOPPED HEAD IS SUFFERING.
THE WHOLE WORLD LOOKS WITHOUT SEEING, EYES REMAINING BLIND.
SAYS KABIR: I UNDERSTAND,
SEEING THE WAYS OF THE WORLD.
To be the opposite to what you are at present is the path. You will attain if you walk in the direction opposite to that in which you are now walking. The Ganges flows towards the ocean, and the Gangotri, the source is left far behind. And as the Ganges proceeds further, the distance from the Gangotri will increase. The path to the ocean is not the way to reach the Gangotri. To reach its source, the Ganges will have to turn back. When the Ganges of your consciousness flows in the opposite direction, flows towards its Gangotri, then you will be able to attain. Him you have missed has been missed at that source. He is not ahead of you; you have left him somewhere behind. Ponder this deeply. This sutra of Kabir’s draws our attention to this fact.
Kabir says that this is the most important piece of knowledge for a SADHU, for a seeker, to understand – him you are seeking has been left behind. He was once part of you, but now you are missing him. You were once the total celebration of existence; you were once innocence incarnate. You were born a SADHU, a person devoid of sin. Everyone is born a SADHU; SADHUTA, sinlessness, is your nature. Your state of non-sinlessness has been earned; it has been learned. Through your own cleverness you have become ASADHU, non-sinless.
In your innocence, when you were born, you were certainly a SADHU. At the time of their births, all children are great SADHUS, but by and by they are given the poison of SAMSAR, of the world – education and information, impressions and ideas that cut them off from their real nature. A child is cut off from his own center and the search for it goes on his whole life. But his search is in accordance with tradition, in agreement with the rules of society – and this is the problem. You follow these traditions and move farther and farther away from the ecstasy you are seeking. By following the rules which have caused your downfall you keep going further and further astray.
Society has become your guru; you have completely stopped listening to the dictates of your own conscience. Within you, society has created a conscience that is absolutely false. Whenever you think of committing a theft or some other evil act, someone within you tells you not to do it. But this someone, this conscience, is given to you by society; it is not the voice of yourself. Society teaches you what is good and what is bad, and so there are different kinds of consciences in different countries, in different communities. If your conscience were the one given to you by God and it had not been touched by society, its voice would be the same throughout the world, the same down the ages. That voice is eternal, perpetual.
If you want to kill someone, your conscience – a gift from society and therefore a deception – will tell you not to kill. But suppose you become a magistrate. That same conscience will not say to you now, “Don’t sentence anyone to capital punishment.” You will send hundreds to the gallows without any feeling whatsoever. Or say you go to war. Only yesterday the conscience given to you by society said that killing was sinful – even if you killed an ant you used to feel guilty inside – but now, on the battlefield, you will kill others with all your heart and with all your might. And that very conscience society has given to you will tell you that you are doing your duty, that you are doing a great thing, that you are a great hero. People will throng around your funeral pyre to pay their last respects to you, and your name will be immortal, written in the annals of history.
Whether you wanted to murder someone, were a magistrate in the court or a soldier on the battlefield, the voice of your own conscience, of your natural conscience would be consistent. It
would say that you are committing a sin to kill, that it is wrong to destroy because God is the creator of all. It would say, “Who are you to kill, to destroy? If you do so, you are moving away from God.” In each and every situation your true conscience, you authentic conscience, will pronounce its judgement without any “ifs”, without any preconditioning; it will simply say that killing is bad. But your society-given conscience will advise you according to its own convenience or inconvenience. If it is in the interest of society it will even say that killing is a religious act, that it is holy. The real question is not one of killing or of not killing, it is one of convenience or inconvenience to society.
You will never be able to find your own conscience while you remain filled with the one society has given to you. You are using this false conscience in your attempt to seek your real conscience. You are trying to reach religion by the path of morality, but it is morality itself that has bereft you of religion.
These words of Kabir are very revolutionary. One would not believe a saint could utter such words. But remember, only a saint can say such things because a saint is a great revolutionary. He doesn’t care about the result; good or bad, he doesn’t care what society will think. Try to understand Kabir’s words:
SADHU, CONSIDER THIS:
RIDE IN A BOAT AND DROWN MIDSTREAM; HELPLESS, GET ACROSS.
And then he says:
REACH THE TOWN BY SOME BACK WAY; GET LOOTED ON THE HIGHWAY.
Kabir says that the man who walks on the main highway gets robbed and that the man who takes the back way, the opposite way, reaches his destination. The sage takes the opposite road; his Ganges has begun to flow towards the Gangotri, towards the source. While society wanders about in the outside world, he turns his back on society and begins to travel within. He does not listen to what society says; he listens to what his own conscience says.
The path of the sage is always the opposite one. That is why we crucify a Jesus; it is not done without reason. And that is why we go on ignoring Kabir, why we try to forget him, why we even doubt his very existence. We poison Socrates and we chop off the hands and feet of Mansoor. None of this is done without a reason. There is a reason. These people are very dangerous to society; they advocate ideas and ways that are opposed to society’s established beliefs and traditions.
You have probably heard stories about me, opinions expressed about me. Everywhere they say, “Don’t go there. He talks about things that are against established beliefs.” They are absolutely right. If you are the slightest bit afraid to walk the opposite path, then stop coming to me.
The highway is the path everyone uses, and if this highway could have led people to the ultimate destination then everyone would have already arrived. A highway is very convenient for walking. It
is very broad; it has no obstacles on it; it is very clean and well-swept. All your friends and relatives are walking along it as well, so you are not alone there. I will segregate you from them. You feel comfortable in the crowd. There are so many people walking on the highway you don’t even have to walk in an orderly fashion, you are simply pushed along by the jostling of the crowd. Have you ever walked in a crowd? It moves like a tempest. You hardly have to raise your legs; they are practically lifted for you. And if they weren’t, you would be crushed to death. The force, the push of the crowd propels you. You don’t even have a chance to think; the crowd does not even afford you that.
The crowd gives you your education and your ideas, but it does not give you the power to think. It gives you blindness, not vision. When so many people follow a particular path of action, one would think it must be good; otherwise why are so many people following it? A path that has been trodden for centuries is more trusted than a new one. A new thing is hardly trusted at all, and that is why each religion claims it is very ancient, that it has been there forever, that it was the first, that others followed it.
Why are they all so eager to be ancient? Is religion a kind of wine? Is it because the older something is, the better it is supposed to be? The reason is that something is considered more trustworthy when it can claim to be old. When a shop has been running for years, when it is old, people will say, “Its merchandise must be genuine; they could not have cheated so many people for such a long time!” This is how a shop acquires a name, a reputation – and then it can even sell rubbish. That is also why all the religions claim to be old.
But bear in mind that God is new every moment. God does not believe in the old. That is why he removes old people and gives birth to children; that is why he casts down the old experienced leaves and brings forth new sprouts, sprouts devoid of experience. Experience makes one deformed; it becomes a burden. Experience creates ego. And it has a bad smell. The freshness of new sprouts is unique. God has trust in them, and that is why he becomes fresh and new every moment.
God may have created the universe in the past, but he has not stopped his work; he is creating it every moment. Creation is an eternal, everlasting and continuing process. It is going on at this very moment. Otherwise how could new leaves come? How could new eggs break open and new birds fly away? How could seeds break apart and new sprouts burst forth? How could a foetus be created? How could new births take place? God creates new things every moment.
God believes in freshness and newness – and your religions believe in oldness. It appears your religions have no relation to God whatsoever. Your own self-confidence increases when you can claim that your religion is very ancient and that hundreds of thousands of people follow it.
People want to be with the crowd because they lack self-confidence. When you are alone you have no self-confidence. When you are walking down a lane at night you begin to hum a song. You hear your own humming and feel that you are not alone; you think there are at least two people, the singer and the listener. Then you feel bolder; then you feel more self-confident. You become as confident as you would if you were surrounded on all sides by a great crowd. And then you think, “If this path were really wrong, someone would have found it out by now.”
No one has ever reached the truth by walking on the highway. The man who seeks the smooth path of least resistance can never attain to God. The path to God is the path where one must be
prepared to face difficulties. Kabir says that God is only known when one is alone, when one is not accompanied by anyone else. One has to travel there alone, and the meeting takes place in absolute aloneness. There is no one there; not even a witness. Keep this in mind. Remain alert to this fact.
SADHU, CONSIDER THIS:
RIDE IN A BOAT AND DROWN MIDSTREAM.
Those who rode in the boat were drowned in the current in the middle of the river. HELPLESS, GET ACROSS.
And those, says Kabir, who did not accept the help of the boat were able to cross the river. When those who climbed into the boat did so, their drowning had already begun. They climbed into the boat because they did not know how to swim. But the journey to God is a swimming. And it has to be undertaken on your own. Who can accompany you into your SAMADHI?
Once a Zen disciple was bidding farewell to his master. The night was dark and he was a little afraid; the road was deserted and he had to pass through a dense forest where there were many wild animals. He looked so nervous his master remarked, “You seem afraid.”
The disciple replied, “I am afraid. The night is dark, I am alone, and I have to pass through a thick forest full of wild animals.”
The master said, “Wait a moment. I will light a lamp for you.” He did so, and handed it to the disciple. As the disciple began to descend the staircase to set out on his way, the master suddenly blew out the lamp. Now the darkness seemed even darker than before.
The disciple had been given a little self-confidence and now it had been snatched away from him. He was startled. He asked, ” What have you done? Why did you give me this lamp when all the time you intended to blow it out? What are you trying to tell me? Please explain all this to me.”
The master said, “This is the kind of journey where a lamp given to you by another cannot accompany you. It is a journey to be undertaken quite alone. No help is allowed; you must depend on yourself alone. If you are helpless, then remain helpless – but do not grab onto any false hope. Your mind will always persuade you to seek some support, to look for some help.”
People come to me and I tell them just to be quiet, just to remain quiet. And then they say, “Give us something to depend on. Shall we repeat a MANTRA? Can we practice a MANTRA? They want a boat, a MANTRA-boat. They find it difficult just to sit quietly, doing nothing. They want to remain engaged, to keep busy doing something. They do not realize what it is to remain quiet without doing anything at all.
People are afraid to be without any help, to be helpless, so they try to catch hold of anything that is handy. Even a boat in the shape of a MANTRA will do. It is said that a drowning man clutches at a straw; he tries to make a straw into a log. All your boats are no better then straws. The straw may
ease your mind for a while, but you will still be drowned in the middle of the river. How long can you deceive yourself?
The first thing to remember about this journey is that it is an inner journey; no type of support will be of any use whatsoever. Everything and everyone must remain outside; no friend or relative can be of any help. It is an inner journey and you will have to depend on yourself; you are the only boat.
Awaken your confidence in yourself. It does not matter how dense the forest is or how dark the night is, all you have to do is kindle the lamp within. It will accompany you to the end. Up to what point and for how long can outside lamps be trusted? Won’t the lamp the master blew out eventually be blown out anyway by the gusts of wind along the disciple’s way? And in the trembling hands of a frightened person, would not the lamp have fallen to the ground and broken in any case? If such a man were to hear even the slightest rustling of leaves he would immediately turn on his heels and run, totally forgetting the lamp. How long can the lamp of the outside world accompany you? Is there really any such thing as help from the outside world?
What Kabir is saying is of very great importance. There is a deep meaning hidden in it, and it is this – the whole of existence helps the man who takes no help from the world outside. God is the support of the man who is help-less. The man who accepts help and support from outside does not need God at all.
Once a Sufi fakir returned from a pilgrimage to Kaba. All of his disciples gathered together and asked him to tell of his experiences on his pilgrimage. The fakir said, “I have to tell you one thing – God’s bounty is the greatest. When I started on this pilgrimage I had only one PAISA with me. How can I express his grace, his bounty? There is no end to his greatness. I have completed the pilgrimage and that PAISE is still in my pocket. I received food and drink whenever it was needed. All my wants were fulfilled; he filled my every need. There is no end to his grace.”
When he heard this, another fakir sitting in the crowd began to laugh loudly. The first fakir asked, “What’s the matter? There seems to be some sarcasm in your laughter. Why are you laughing?”
The second fakir replied, “If you had such absolute confidence in him, then why did you even take one PAISA with you?”
To carry even one PAISA with you indicates your lack of confidence. What difference does it make whether you take one PAISA or ten million rupees with you? You have kept something; you are still depending upon yourself. Whenever you depend upon something in the outside world you are indirectly stating that you have no confidence in God. Otherwise why should you accept a ride in a boat? Set all help aside. Be help-less. Be willing to drown in the middle of the river; don’t even move your hands and feet to help yourself float.
Once a fakir was drowning in a river, and some people on the bank saw what was happening. The river was deep and dangerous, and the people on the bank did not know how to swim. They watched, surprised, as the drowning fakir went under the water and resurfaced time and time again. What surprised them was that there was no struggle, no movement of his hands and feet whatsoever. Even a man who does not know how to swim will flail about and cry out for someone to save him. When the drowning fakir came up for the third time a man standing on the bank shouted, “You are
killing yourself! Why don’t you at least move your hands and feet a little? Why don’t you at least cry out for help?”
The fakir answered, “I have left everything to him, so the middle of the river is the same to me as the shore. I am willing to drown or to be saved. It is as he wishes. I shall do nothing to get in his way.”
Even if this man drowns he will attain to him. His drowning is a great revolution for him; it will transform him. If he drowns with this confidence in God, the middle of the river is the same as the shore. You cannot drown a man who has surrendered himself; his very surrender transforms the middle of the river into the shore. There is no greater achievement than surrender. There is nothing higher.
And suppose you reach the other bank in a boat? Where have you reached? You will be there and your boat will be there, but that bank will be just the same as this one; it will be no better than this shore. There will be no real difference at all. Your ego will still be there. And it will probably have increased, because you will think, “At least I have reached the other bank by my own effort!” You become more egoistic; you become more worthy to be drowned.
This is why Kabir says that the man who accepts outside help is drowned, while the man who remains helpless crosses the river. From this statement one would think the helpless man reaches the other shore, but whether he reaches it or does not reach it is not the question. The helpless man reaches the other shore the very moment he surrenders himself completely.
Gurdjieff once conducted a small experiment. He gathered some of his disciples together in a solitary place outside the city of Tiflis and said to them, “Whenever I say ‘Stop!’ you are to stop immediately, then and there, in whatsoever position you find yourself. Even if one of your legs is raised to walk, keep it in that position, do not lower it to the earth. When you hear the word ‘Stop’, you must stop.”
There was an empty canal nearby and three young men were crossing it early one morning. Gurdjieff was sitting in his tent and he suddenly shouted, “Stop!” Immediately the three young men in the canal froze. At that time the canal was dry, but a few moments later someone opened the floodgates. Those who opened it were unaware that three young men were standing like statues in the middle of the canal. Gurdjieff did not know it either; he was sitting in his tent. So the three men waited, just standing there. As long as danger is far off, man’s mind is able to wait; it just hopes that the danger will go away.
The water kept on rising and was soon up to their necks. When it reached their mouths, one of them jumped out. He said, “There is a limit to everything. Even trust has a limit.” But trust has no limit. A trust with a limit is in fact not trust at all; it is a deception. It is a trick of the mind. Real trust is that trust which is limitless.
Can there be any limit to trust, to surrender? If it has a limit, then it is not surrender at all. If you say, “I will only trust up to a certain point”; if you only trust until the water reaches your mouth, it means you have never surrendered. What danger is there if the water reaches your mouth? You are simply playing tricks. You think you are displaying your cleverness, but in actual fact you are only deceiving yourself. When you are faced with danger you know whether your surrender is real or fake. Then
your surrender is tested; then the true nature of your surrender is known. When there is no danger, how can you know whether your surrender is real or not? If your surrender is real then there is no turning back.
One of the men in the canal jumped out, but the second man was a bit more cunning. He waited a little longer in the hope Gurdjieff might shout “Stop!” and tell him to come out of the canal. Even though his lips were under water there was still no danger to his life, but the second the water reached his nose he jumped out. “It is sheer foolishness to wait any longer,” he said. “Gurdjieff does not even know what is happening. There is no point in committing suicide.”
The third young man just stood there even though his nose and eyes were now under water. Soon even his head was under the water and he was struggling for breath. At that very moment Gurdjieff rushed out of the tent like a whirlwind, caught hold of the young man and pulled him out of the canal. With great difficulty he was brought back to consciousness. But that very day he reached the other shore. He opened his eyes, bowed down at the feet of Gurdjieff and said, “I have known what is to be known; I have achieved what is to be achieved.”
This, Gurdjieff calls crystallization. He used to say that at such a moment, at the moment when you have risked everything you have and there is nothing left to be saved, a jump takes place – a jump that takes you from the periphery to your center. Then, for the first time, your self, your soul, becomes crystallized, becomes as solid as a rock. And then nobody can shake you.
The first two men missed; they accepted the help of their own powers of reasoning. The third man achieved because he did not grab hold of anything, because he remained help-less, because he was ready to die. And then Gurdjieff rushed to him. It could happen that the master might forget, but God never forgets. When you risk everything, all of existence is ready to save you. If you are trying to save yourself, there is no need to save you at this moment.
There is a wonderful story about Krishna. It happened when he was sitting down to dinner one evening. His wife Rukmini had kept his dinner warm for him. He sat down, Rukmini began to fan him, and no sooner was he preparing to taste the first morsel than he suddenly stood up. Rukmini asked, “What is the matter?”
Krishna said, “One of my devotees is in difficulty,” and then ran towards the door. But then he suddenly stopped, came back and sat down to his food once again. Rukmini said, “I can understand your running off to help your devotee in his difficulty; I can understand that it was absolutely essential to postpone your dinner, but I cannot understand why you turned back at the door. Why did you not go to your devotee?”
Krishna explained. “A devotee of mine was walking down the road in a certain town. His love for me is ecstasy, and although people were throwing stones at him he was laughing. Blood was pouring from his head and still he was laughing. Nothing existed within him except my name. And so I had to run to help him.”
Rukmini asked, “Then why did you turn back?”
Krishna replied, “No sooner had I reached the door than the whole thing had changed. He had picked up stones to retaliate. Now he is strong enough to protect himself. Now he has forgotten me; he is facing the danger directly. Now it is all in his hands. There is no need for my presence there.”
When you take the fight into your own hands, your relationship with God is severed that very moment. As soon as you become clever or active or cunning, your relationship with existence is broken. And as Kabir says, when a man in his simplicity leaves everything to God, becomes help-less, he cannot be drowned. No matter how hard you may try, you cannot drown such a man. He transforms the drowning; he even transforms that into a way to go beyond. It is impossible to drown him. You cannot kill him; you cannot even cut him into pieces. As soon as you try he will say, “This is ecstasy for me. I have been waiting to be no more; I have been waiting to meet him.” For such a man this is a moment of PARAMANAND, of man’s greatest bliss. No, it is impossible to harass such a man.
RIDE IN A BOAT AND DROWN MIDSTREAM; HELPLESS, GET ACROSS.
Be support-less, be help-less, and God will be your support. But beware. The mind is very cunning. It will say it is fine to make him your support; it will say it understands. So then you decide to depend on God; you start to repeat his name, RAM, RAM, making it a MANTRA, And then you miss again.
Of what value is a God you can make into a support? Such a God is your own creation; it simply means you are depending on yourself. To be help-less means not to worry about making him your support, and not worry about not making him your support. Leave everything completely to him. God knows his job. When you do not try to make him your support, that is when he becomes it. And not before.
REACH THE TOWN BY SOME BACK WAY; GET LOOTED ON THE HIGHWAY.
You are being robbed by society. Society can only survive by killing you, by killing your individuality. First it humiliates you; and then it enslaves you. No one can enslave a man of spirit. First society dethrones you, topples you from your center, and then keeps you suspended on the periphery so that you are neither here nor there. And finally, when your life-force is exhausted, you have no idea where you are, what you are or who you are. Then and then alone you can be made a slave. Then society can keep you busy with trivialities; then society can be your master.
A society is built by annihilating the individuality of its members. And so you are robbed; you are kept occupied with the kinds of things for which you have not come into this world. Some are kept busy accumulating wealth, some in the race for position, and some in the pursuit of flattery, of false praise. Have you come here for these trifles? Are flattering inscriptions on your gravestone any kind of achievement? What will you take with you when you die? Wealth is useful; it has a purpose, but not one for which it is worth losing one’s self. Wealth is a means; it is not the goal. If you amass wealth by forgetting your self, how is that going to help you? You will leave the world empty-handed.
We begin the indoctrination of a child by sending him to a school we have chosen. This is how we begin injecting ego into him. Children hardly make any distinction whatsoever between the first and second grades; they come home jumping and dancing even if they fail in their examinations. Then you explain to them that it is very humiliating to fail, that one must pass an examination; and not only should one pass, one must also stand first so the family’s reputation will be enhanced. By and by the innocent child becomes egoistic.
You are aggressive; you are a disease. And you will infect the child with your disease. He will forget his innocence and be preoccupied with this race throughout his life. At first he is pushed by his parents, then by his wife, and lastly by his children. This is your SAMSAR, your world. Someone or other is constantly pushing you to stand on your own feet, but in actual fact your feet have no substance to them at all. This is the highway upon which you are being robbed. Everyone in the world is being robbed like this.
SANNYAS is the point from which you begin your journey towards the real riches, towards the authentic wealth. But SANNYAS is a reverse journey. And all your relatives and those you consider as friends are joined together in robbing you. Their happiness depends on robbing you. But this traffic is not one-way. You also rob them; your happiness depends on stealing from them as well. In the final analysis, you come to realize that everyone is being robbed. But by this time your journey is over and you die empty-handed. That is why you die weeping and wailing. You have lost the opportunity that was given to you; you were unable to use it in a profitable way, nothing has been achieved and now everything is lost.
You are so conditioned that, for a while, you will stick to anything that has been propagated over a period of time, no matter what. This is because you are not alert. You may be quite well off in your present house with no need for a bigger one, but if your neighbor begins to build a larger house you will immediately be caught up in his disease. Then you will have to build a bigger house too. It becomes a matter of prestige. In this world, who is prestigious? You come from dust and to dust you will return. The one who owns the big house and the one who owns the small house – both will return to dust. There is no distinction between the two; in the face of death, no one is bigger or smaller.
Death makes no distinction between poor and rich, between follower and leader, between fakir and emperor. Death only knows one distinction – the distinction between the ignorant and the wise. But death only takes notice of the wise man; there is no need to notice the ignorant man because he is part of the crowd. When a man like Kabir arrives at its door, death knows that someone important, some VIP has come; that someone filled with nectar has arrived. Death cannot destroy him; death cannot throw him into the dust. Death hides its face from him and runs away. You are trying to hide yourself from death; you are trying to avoid it. Go where you like, death is certain to catch hold of you.
Analyze the workings of your own mind at some point and find out just how it is influenced. Someone buys a new car. Your car is serving you well and you are not sure whether the new model is better or not – generally they are worse – but now you are in difficulty; now you are restless all day and all night. You dream about a new car; you are constantly thinking how you can arrange things to buy a new car. You hanker after luxuries; you cut down on the necessities of life to buy things you don’t need. Look around your house carefully and you will find you have purchased many unessential things.
Have you ever gone to an auction? Hearing others bid, you are tempted. You hear someone saying, “One hundred and one”, someone else offering, “One hundred and two”, and a third person immediately calling, “One hundred and three”. Now it is difficult for you to control yourself and so you shout, “One hundred and four!”
Once Mulla Nasruddin was bidding at an auction. He was very excited and kept on increasing
his bid. A parrot was being auctioned and the Mulla finally purchased it for one hundred and one rupees, although it could have been bought for about ten. After making the purchase he asked the auctioneer whether the parrot could speak or not. The man replied, “What do you mean, can the parrot speak? Who do you think was bidding against you?”
When a man is not conscious he does not listen to others; he just keeps on beating his own drum. The ego is your intoxication and it is because of its intoxication that you are being robbed. You will be robbed in proportion to your egoism, and you are as safe from being robbed as you are free of ego. That is why society teaches you to be egoistic; that is the secret society uses to rob you, to exploit you. You can be exploited only when you are full of ego.
REACH THE TOWN BY SOME BACK WAY; GET LOOTED ON THE HIGHWAY.
What does this BACK WAY mean? To walk consciously is to REACH THE TOWN BY SOME BACK WAY. People do not know where they are going because they are not alert; they move simply because the crowd is moving. Take every step consciously. Be aware of where you are going, why you are doing something, why you are purchasing these particular things, why you are building a house.
The necessities of life are not many, but desires have no end. A man should be very happy if he can fulfill his needs. And he can easily do that; his needs are not many. He wants food twice a day and a roof under which he can sleep. Man’s needs are limited but his desires are limitless. A roof will not do; a palace is required. And even if it is a big palace, the mind wants a bigger one still. If you look at the things in your house and think about them, you will find that there would have been no inconvenience whatsoever if ninety per cent of them had not been bought. You will see there was no necessity for them at all. And the amazing thing is that you are unable to do that which is essential because of those unnecessary things.
When I suggest to people they practice meditation they say, “We have no time for it.” Yet I see them playing cards. And if you were to ask them, “Why do you play cards?” they would reply, “Just to pass the time.” It is difficult to understand man. Those very people who say they have no time are also to be found going to the pictures, to the cinema. And if you ask them why, they will tell you time hangs heavily on them. If you look at these people during their holidays you will find they are very uneasy; they have plenty of leisure time but no idea how to use it. These are the very people who ask without a moment’s hesitation, “Where can we find the time for meditation?”
What is the reason for all of this? The reason is that man wants to be with the crowd. Playing cards, going to the cinema, going to a nightclub – all these activities are just to remain with the crowd. These are all highways. But as soon as the question of meditation arises, travelling the BACK WAY begins. There, one has to walk alone; there, one has to walk with full alertness. So the mind immediately protests, “Where can I find the time for meditation?” It will also argue, “What is the advantage? What will I get out of it?”
Nothing that can be deposited in the bank to increase your balance is obtained through meditation. Meditation neither adds to your bank balance nor lessens it. Are you quite sure anyone is benefitted
by meditation? Only a few madmen in this world practice meditation. What guarantee is there that these few achieve something? Who knows for certain if they achieve something or not? “They may not be mentally well,” you say. “Don’t listen to them. Many have been misled by their words. Don’t pay any attention to them. Look at the crowd – millions of people spend their whole lives without meditating at all And they are all wise people.” To the mind, the crowd appears wise; to the mind, the majority is right. It is rare one comes across a buddha. A buddha is alone; he has left his palace.
When Gautam the Buddha left his palace, the charioteer who took him to the outskirts of the city began to weep. He asked Buddha, “Why are you doing this? Have you lost your senses? Why are you leaving your palace? I am only your charioteer, only your servant, but I must try to advise you; I cannot help it. Look at what I am saying; think it over. I am old and I have seen life through and through. Men spend their whole lives striving for that which you already have. Where are you going that you can leave all this? Where will you find such a beautiful wife? Where will you find such palaces? Why do you choose to be a beggar? You must be out of your mind.”
Buddha replied, “You poor fool, I see nothing but flames in the place you call a palace; everything there is being consumed. I am not leaving in search of some other palace, I am going in search of my self, to find out who I am.”
The charioteer was unable to understand this. He began to weep loudly when he saw Buddha begin to cut off his hair and remove his ornaments. Buddha wanted to give them to him as a gift, but he began to argue, “Don’t do this thing. No one in our city has such beautiful hair. Please don’t cut it off.”
Buddha said, “What shall I do with it? Everything is on fire. I will die tomorrow and this beautiful hair will burn; you will put me on the funeral pyre and this hair will burn like grass.”
People like Buddha are travelling in the opposite direction. They have taken the BACK WAY, the unknown, unfrequented path; they are in search of the self. You are also on a journey but you are seeking something else. Some of you are in search of a beautiful woman, someone else is after a fine palace, and others want wealth or fame. But all of your seeking is worthless. As long as you are not seeking your self, you are being exploited. But no one else is robbing you. It is your mistaken search itself that leads you down the highway where you rob yourself.
REACH THE TOWN BY SOME BACK WAY; GET LOOTED ON THE HIGHWAY.
BY ONE ROPE ALL GET TIED, BOTH THE BOUND AND THE FREE.
Kabir is saying a very wonderful and uncommon thing. He says that everyone is tied by the same rope, those who think they are in bondage as well as those who think they are free. All are tied by the same rope. Slaves are undoubtedly slaves, but kings are also in bondage. And the rope is the same.
BOTH THE BOUND AND THE FREE.
The rope that binds some men is poverty, and in the case of others it is riches. Some may even have precious stones woven into their rope, but it is a rope nevertheless. All are in bondage. Those of you who think you have been defeated in life and those of you who believe you have been victorious are both in bondage. Alexander and Napoleon are in the same bondage as the beggar, because as long as there is attachment, there is bondage. As long as your mind is seeking someone else or something other than your self, you are in bondage.
There was once a fakir who earned large amounts of money begging by the side of the road. He never asked anyone to give him anything, but passers-by used to throw alms at his feet. People had a great tenderness for him. By and by, his hut overflowed with money. When death was approaching he said, “I wish to give all this money away to some poor man.” And so, many beggars gathered, each claiming to be poorer than the next. The fakir said, “Just wait a little. The poorest of all has not yet arrived.”
At that point, the king was passing with his retinue. The fakir called aloud to the king, “Please wait a moment. Please come here and take all this money away.” Then the poor people began to protest loudly, “This is unfair; it is unjust! We did not expect you to act like this! Are you giving all your money to the king?”
The fakir answered, “In this land there is none poorer than he. You are satisfied with what little you have, but even though he possesses much he is still not satisfied. His desire for more is as yet unfulfilled, so it is obvious his poverty is very great indeed. There is no end to his desire, so perhaps this money may help. It may even lessen his thirst a little.”
The poor man is poor, but the rich man is also poor. One who is defeated is obviously a defeated man, but if you look at the one who is victorious you will see that he has been defeated too. There is no way to be victorious in this world; to be defeated is the world’s only process. Everyone is defeated; everyone remains defeated. The only man who wins is the man who seeks his self.
There is yet another profound meaning to these words of Kabir. Let us try to understand it. Those who think they are worldly men are entangled in MAYA, are entangled by illusion, and your so-called SADHUS and SANNYASINS who claim to be free are also in bondage.
Kabir and other enlightened men stress that when a person becomes liberated, he does not claim that he is now liberated. No sooner does a man become liberated than he knows the rope was false. It was not a real rope; it was a rope made of dreams. The bondage was not real, and even the idea of becoming free from it was false. What does it mean, to become liberated from an unreal rope? Your bondage was sheer madness, and your claim that you have become liberated is also madness. The rope was false.
At night you dream you are tied up. When you get up in the morning will you say, “I am liberated now”? You will simply say, “It was a dream; the bondage was unreal.” Since you are not in bondage, how can there be any question of liberation? The enlightened man says that both the bondage and the liberation are false, because the rope itself is false.
BOTH THE BOUND AND THE FREE.
These words of Kabir have a very deep meaning. When someone claims, “I am liberated,” his claim itself indicates that he is still in MAYA, that he is still living in illusion. It shows that he has not yet known, that he is not yet fully awake.
The Zen fakir Rinzai said there was no doubt that SAMSAR, the world, was false, and that MOKSHA, liberation, was also false, was also a trumped-up thing. The people who heard Rinzai were very surprised. They asked him, “What are you saying? We can accept that SAMSAR is an illusion, but is MOKSHA also an illusion?”
Rinzai replied, “SAMSAR is a creation of your mind and so is MOKSHA. When the mind is no more, who is there to think about liberation?”
When the rope is broken, who will there be to think about liberation? People often asked Buddha, “Where will you be when your body perishes? In what stage of liberation will you be then? What form will that liberation have?” Buddha always remained silent in reply. Any answer would have been dangerous, because ordinary men are unable to grasp this phenomenon.
It is as if a sleeping person is dreaming, and in the dream he asks a question about the form of the dream. But when he awakens, where will the dream be? What form will it have then? The fact is that when he is awake there will be no dream at all. Dreams only exist as long as you are sleeping. As soon as you are wide awake, your dreams are broken; your dreams disappear. Then you cannot even find the rope that bound you.
The truly liberated person is one who does not even claim that he is liberated. When he hears you ask he will simply smile. He will say that everything is false, SAMSAR as well as NIRVANA. There are some famous words of Nagarjuna where he says one has to save oneself from SAMSAR and one has to save oneself from NIRVANA as well. Otherwise you are entangled in SAMSAR first, and then in NIRVANA. The rope is the same; there is no difference between the two. First you were filled with ego because of SAMSAR, and now you are filled with ego because of liberation. Now you say, “I am liberated.” But so long as “I”, as the ego is there, no matter what the cause, you are still asleep; you are not awake. If “you” claim MOKSHA, your ego is still present; if “you” claim , understand that your unawareness continues.
Have you ever had a dream in which you see yourself as awake? You must have had such a dream; many times people have such dreams. Seeing yourself as awake is also part of the dream. When you really awaken in the morning, you realize that you were only awake in the dream; it was a trick to protect your sleep.
You are hungry. You dream that you get up out of your bed and go to the refrigerator. You see all this in your dream; you are awake in your dream. You eat, and you think that everything is real. And then you fall asleep again. Thus it is possible to have a dream within a dream. But then a great difficulty arises. How will you distinguish between the two awakenings, between the one that is real and the one that belongs to the dream? Both look alike. How will you make a distinction between them? There is only one way to do it, and that is, in the state of real awakening, when you are wide awake, not to make any claim that you have awakened.
But the need to make the claim only arises because the awakening is not real; you want to support it by a declaration. You make the claim vehemently – not to convince others, but to convince yourself that it was real. And when others begin to believe it, you will have faith in it too. Your sleep is very deep and very sound. That you are in bondage is for certain, but your so-called liberated people are in bondage as well. They may have gone to a jungle and sat for a long time under a tree, but a new type of ego has entered; now they believe they are beyond SAMSAR, beyond the world. How can anyone be beyond something that does not exist at all? You simply have rouse yourself from your sleep. You simply have to be alert.
It happened once, when a certain Zen monk arose from his sleep, that one of his disciples entered the room. The monk said, “Before you do anything else, listen to me. I had a dream in the night. Explain its meaning to me.”
The disciple said, “Please wait a moment. Let me prepare tea first.” He prepared the tea and gave it to the monk.
The monk asked, “Will you explain the meaning now?”
The disciple replied, “Drink your tea quietly. That is my explanation.”
Then another disciple entered the room. The monk said to him, “Listen. I had a dream during the night. Will you explain its meaning?”
The disciple said, “Please wait.” He went out and returned with a jug of water. “Wash out your mouth,” he said. “That is the meaning of the dream.”
The monk laughed loudly. He said, “If you had tried to explain the meaning of the dream I would have dismissed you. Is there any need, is there any point in explaining a dream? The dream comes; one’s sleep is broken; one takes a cup of tea – the whole matter stops there. There is no discussion; no explanation of these trivial matters is required. What else is there to be done with dreams?”
Both disciples gave correct answers.
This is the sort of question generally asked by Zen monks. Their questions are not like those asked by Hindu gurus. They ask things such as, “What is the meaning of these lines from the Vedas?” This can be answered by any scholar, but when the Zen monk gets up in the morning, he will ask a question like the one you just heard, a question that is not written in any of the scriptures.
A lot of investigation is going on these days to define dreams, to explain them. Freud, Jung, Adler and other psychologists have been very busy interpreting dreams. The mind is inquisitive; it wants to know. But the two Zen disciples displayed great awareness. They were very alert. They said, “Why prattle on about it? How will it help us? Why should we bother interpreting something that has no existence at all? A dream is like a line drawn on the surface of water; it cannot be preserved. So what is there to say about it?”
BY ONE ROPE ALL GET TIED, BOTH THE BOUND AND THE FREE.
And then Kabir says:
ENTER YOUR TEMPLE; BE BATHED FROM ALL SIDES. WHO REMAINS WITHOUT STAYS DRY.
In the art of expressing truths in a topsy-turvy way, Kabir is unparalleled. He expressed them in phrases quite contradictory in meaning. When it is raining it is obvious that someone standing outside will be drenched, and it is also obvious that the man who goes into the house will remain dry. But Kabir says that the man who goes into the house is drenched and that the one who stays outside remains dry. Kabir is speaking of another kind of house, of another kind of rain. He is not speaking of your worldly houses or of the rains you know. His is the story of the inner temple where nectar rains down incessantly. And so, the one who goes within is drenched and the one who remains outside stays dry.
Remaining dry means you are being robbed. The temple was so near you didn’t even have to take a step to reach it; it was so near all you had to do was bend your head; but you sat on the bank and remained thirsty, even though the lake was so near. Kabir says, I LAUGH WHEN I HEAR THAT THE FISH IN THE WATER IS THIRSTY. The fish was swimming in the water and yet it was thirsty. Kabir is saying this about you, about you fish. But the fishes swimming in the water are not as foolish as you. You are sitting in that place where nectar rains down on all sides, where light pours from all sides, where existence is celebrating on all sides, and you are weeping aloud that you have been robbed. It is your own fault you have been robbed. You are still dry because you did not enter the temple.
CHOP OFF THE HEAD FOR ETERNAL JOY. AN UNCHOPPED HEAD IS SUFFERING.
Kabir says that the man who masters his mind achieves that happiness which is everlasting. He achieves ANAND, bliss – not the happiness that is the opposite of unhappiness, but that ecstasy from which there is no fall. And the man who does not master his mind always remains miserable. You are following the dictates of your own mind, so if you are miserable who is responsible for it? To whom should you complain? Who else is deceiving you? If you have remained dry, it is because of you. Are you trying to achieve happiness by following the dictates of your mind? If you are, you are trying to make the impossible possible. It has never happened; it will never happen. By giving you the hope of happiness, the mind drags you into misery. Of this, there is no doubt. Who is foolish enough to go into misery in hope of more misery? The mind gives you hope of heaven and leads you into hell. And you have experienced this so often! Is there anything more to know? Yet you always keep on listening to the mind.
Once Mulla Nasruddin went to a racecourse with four friends. They considered the Mulla to be an intelligent man and so they asked him to decide which horse to back. After a considerable amount of thought and study of the horses’ previous records, the Mulla decided to back a horse called Maharajah. His friends gave him the money and he bought the ticket. When he returned he informed his friends that, although it had been decided to back Maharajah, at the betting window he had met a friend who was a great gambler and very experienced in racing. “He advised me to bet
on Maharam and not on Maharajah,” the Mulla said, “so I have backed Maharam.” The horse came last in the race.
His friends told the Mulla not to worry. A second time they selected a horse and once again the Mulla went to purchase the ticket. When he came back he said he had backed another horse, not the one they had selected, because the same gambler had advised him to do so. “He is a man of great experience,” he explained. “There is no limit to your foolishness,” his friends said. “We lost the first time because of his advice, and you have followed it again! This strains our patience; it is really beyond endurance!” “But he argued so convincingly I couldn’t help agreeing with him,” the Mulla answered. “He might have been mistaken once, but he cannot always be wrong. Moreover he is a man of experience. He has no ulterior motive; he has no reason to give us bad advice.”
They lost on the second horse too. All the money they had was gone; now they had only a few ANNAS among them. They sent the Mulla to buy some nuts; when he came back he had bought roasted chick-peas. The Mulla said, “I met the same man there. He told me the nuts weren’t any good. He said to buy these.”
You are always running into this man. His name is Mind. Wherever you go he is sure to meet you there. He immediately tells you, “Do this. Do that.” If you begin to meditate, even then he will advise you about the method; he will tell you how to do it. Do not heed his advice.
You think because the mind has the experience of so many births behind it, it is good to listen to it. When will you come to your senses? When will you wake up? You have wandered through innumerable lives listening to the dictates of the mind. You will be able to listen to a master only when you can tell it to be quiet, and not before. And you are so cunning, so clever, that you only listen to that master you consider to be right. If you choose your master on the advice of the mind you will be in the wrong.
The mind’s main function is to go the wrong way, to mislead you. This is what it lives on; if you choose the right path, it dies. This is its death. Your mind is your disease. It will not allow you to choose the right medicine. So be a little wary of it. You have followed it quite a long time; now there is no need to give it any more chances. You have given it chances enough.
CHOP OFF THE HEAD FOR ETERNAL JOY. AN UNCHOPPED HEAD IS SUFFERING.
The man who has mastered his mind has reached the source of everlasting happiness, and the man who has not will remain in misery forever. Your mind is your hell. What trick does it use to entangle you? It knows a trick all fishermen use. They put a bit of dough on a hook to entice the fish. The mind uses the same trick. First the mind will tell you, persuade you, that you will be very happy if you acquire a certain thing; and when you try and you get it, you find that there is no happiness in it at all. Quite the opposite; you become miserable.
One evening Mulla Nasruddin was sitting on a bench in the park with his wife. Just near them, sitting under some bushes, a young man was talking to a young lady. They seemed very happy, and their conversation seemed quite interesting. The Mulla’s wife grew very excited as she overheard them.
It seemed as if the young man was about to propose marriage, so she told the Mulla to cough so as to warn the couple they could overhear them. “Why should I cough?” the Mulla asked. “When I was proposing to you nobody coughed and warned me. I wasn’t warned by anybody; why should I warn him? Leave him alone. He will suffer for his own actions.”
The mind weaves a great net of temptations for you; it holds dreams of happiness out before you. As far as creating false hopes and making promises are concerned, you will never find a more clever politician than the mind. And no promise is ever fulfilled. Can you point out a single example in your life in which the mind has fulfilled a promise it has made?
There is a limit even to blindness! How long will you continue to have faith in this mind? Set this faith aside. The mind will keep on making promises; it is its habit. Just as an elephant on the highway ignores the dogs that bark at him, you must also ignore this barking mind. Say to your mind, “Go on barking if you enjoy it. Keep exercising your lungs if you want, but it isn’t going to disturb me. I am going on my own way.” And once you say this with determination, you will find that by and by the mind begins to become quiet.
What is the point of knocking on a door if nobody listens to you? If you want to kill the mind, just gradually stop giving it any cooperation. Your cooperation is its life. It lives on your cooperation; in itself it is powerless. To kill it, nothing else need be done. Just stop giving it your cooperation. It will keep working for a while because of the old momentum, but that will not last long. It has no legs to walk, no heart to throb, no blood to circulate, no hands to work – it has nothing of its own. Now it has you to help it function, but as soon as you stop cooperating with it, the mind is removed and you enter the temple. The temple begins where the mind ends. That is why it is a temple. And at the door of the temple the shower of nectar begins.
ENTER YOUR TEMPLE; BE BATHED FROM ALL SIDES. WHO REMAINS WITHOUT STAYS DRY.
Now Kabir says:
THE WHOLE WORLD LOOKS WITHOUT SEEING, EYES REMAINING BLIND.
SAYS KABIR: I UNDERSTAND, SEEING THE WAYS OF THE WORLD.
Having seen the ways of the world, Kabir says, I have come to know, to understand, that whatever the eyes see should not be taken for the world; it is simply a dream, just make-believe. And whatever the eyes see should not be taken for sight, because the eyes that see the outside world are blind; they see nothing real. When they cannot see you, when they cannot see your self, what can they see? When the one who is nearest is not seen, how can things that are far away be seen? When we cannot see our own quality, how can we see the quality of others? And when we cannot achieve self-knowledge, how can we obtain knowledge of others?
THE WHOLE WORLD LOOKS WITHOUT SEEING, EYES REMAINING BLIND.
Close your eyes. Be without eyes. Stop this race to see. And when you are without eyes and you remain within, your eyes will open in the real sense of the word. And then you will be able to see.
THE WHOLE WORLD LOOKS WITHOUT SEEING, EYES REMAINING BLIND.
Despite the fact that they possess eyes, Kabir says, people remain blind. Only when they close them, he says, do they obtain real sight.
SAYS KABIR: I UNDERSTAND, SEEING THE WAYS OF THE WORLD.
This understanding has come to me, Kabir says, because I have seen the ways of the world. He is not saying this because he has studied the scriptures; he says this from his experience of life and the world. He is describing what he has actually experienced, what he has actually seen. He has seen people being robbed as they walked along the highway and he has seen those who walk alone in the opposite direction reach their destination. He has seen those who turn their backs on the world reach their destination; he has seen those who stay with the world wandering aimlessly here and there. He has seen those who take a boat, drown; he has seen those who proceed on their journey without anyone’s help, arrive.
Kabir has seen that those with eyes are blind – even though people have eyes they are unable to see the real, the only thing worth seeing – and he has seen that those who close their eyes are the ones who see reality. And he has seen that those who stand outside the temple remain dry. And he has seen that those who enter the temple are drenched; he has seen them filled with a new kind of ecstasy. All the dryness of their lives disappeared and he saw in them the grandeur of a fresh and shining life. Kabir does not say this from the study of some scripture; he is telling us this from his own experience of life.
Keep these sutras carefully in mind. Kabir says that the man who kills his mind reaches the destination, and that the man who depends on the mind is undertaking the journey to hell, the journey from one hell to another and another and another. In the hope of happiness, such a man is dragged from one misery to another. But that hope is just like the dough the fisherman puts on his hook.
Kabir has seen that both worldly people and SANNYASINS alike are in bondage. He has also seen that the same rope binds you all. And what is that rope? That rope is nothing but your sleep, your unconsciousness; nothing but your dreams; nothing but your mind.
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