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CHAPTER 4
Thought and vision
Date Unknown
I KNOW ONLY TWO TYPES OF MEN – those who have turned their backs on truth and those who have opened their eyes to truth. There are no other types of men.
THE POWER OF THOUGHT IS AS GREAT AS THE POWER OF ELECTRICITY. We have
understood the power of electricity, but most of us know nothing at all about the power of thought. And those who do know it cannot use it, because to use the power of thought you have to transform yourself at your very roots.
TRY TO THINK of things about which you are unable to think at all – and you move outside the sphere of thinking. Doing this is entering the circumference of the self.
THE DOOR TO TRUTH, IMMORTALITY AND ETERNITY is neither a languishing love nor an unquenchable thirst nor an insatiable passion. In fact, neither the mind nor anything of the mind is the pathway that leads to truth. Truth exists where the mind has no access whatsoever.
THERE IS NO GREATER POWER than the power of thought. Thought is the essence of individuality. The flow of a man’s life is centered in thought; all that is manifested within him is expressed through thought. It is thought that separates man from the animal.
It must be remembered, however, that there is a great difference between possessing the power of thought and being overpowered by thought. Not only is there difference, there are also contradictions involved. When a man in overpowered by thought he becomes incapable of thinking. Being overpowered by thought can reduce a man’s mind to madness, which is nothing more than a
disordered stated of thinking. It is possible that the roots of all madness lie deep in the evolution of this kind of thinking on a global scale. Under the chaotic burden of thought the spontaneous and natural ability too think is stifled, the inspiration to think is killed. And this tumult of thoughts is mistaken for the actual power to think.
The error of confusing one’s thoughts with one’s capacity to think is the basis of human ignorance. Collecting ideas is no proof of one’s ability to think. But what it can do, though, is compensate for one’s inability to think. There is no easier way to satisfy one’s ego than with false knowledge acquired in ignorance. The greater the lack of thinking-power a man senses in himself, the more he is inclined to hide it with the thoughts of others. It is hard work to acquire the ability to think for oneself, but it is as easy to amass the ideas of others as it is to collect shells on the seashore.
Although the power to think is innate within us most of our thoughts belong to other people. Developing one’s power to think involves an inner search; borrowing the thoughts of others necessitates looking outside oneself. This is why I say there are two different approaches, two contradictory journeys.
The man who is preoccupied with the study of knowledge negates his own ability to think. Real knowledge cannot be acquired outside oneself. Only knowledge that grows out of one’s own consciousness is genuine.
When a man attempts to hide his ignorance, he does not eradicate it. Nor does he attain knowledge. It would be much better were he to face his ignorance in all its nakedness and try to understand it. Isn’t knowledge that is acquired in an attempt to conceal one’s ignorance more detrimental than ignorance itself? Surely a foe disguised as a friend is more dangerous than an out and out enemy! Knowledge that is not born out of oneself is the enemy. It is false knowledge.
Why do we want knowledge that is false? Why do we chase dreams? Nothing happens without cause, and in this case the ego is the culprit. To hide our ignorance we want instant knowledge, right away, and so we accumulate the ideas of others. The ego’s drive is strong, and this is what pushes people into memorizing scriptures, into blindly accepting all sort of doctrines. False knowledge makes the ego feel stronger. The awareness of one’s ignorance breeds humility; the illusion of being knowledgeable enhances the ego.
To acquire real knowledge it is essential to annihilate the ego. The core of the ego is possessiveness; it has no real existence, no real center of its own at all. Being in the state of non-possessiveness means the extermination of the ego, and so it wants to possess as much as it possibly can. As long as the mind has this tendency towards acquisition it cannot know itself. Its frantic race after knowledge does not allow it the time to come to know itself. Whether this race after status, fame, religion, knowledge, renunciation or the nature of the soul is irrelevant, because wherever there is desire of any kind there is ego. And where there is ego there is ignorance.
The quest for knowledge is the same as the search for wealth. Wealth may be a gross possession and thought may be subtle, but all outer possessions are simply indications of inner poverty. It is this feeling of inner poverty that dives a man to explore the external.
And this is mankind’s basis mistake. This outward search negates any possibility for him to draw any real conclusions. Because of his inner poverty a man hankers for outer riches, and this creates
a disharmony in him that is tremendously disruptive. It is also completely futile. Outer prosperity can never eradicate inner poverty. There is no relation between the two whatsoever. The poverty is inner, and if we want prosperity we must look within for that as well. Only knowledge that comes form within can dispel ignorance.
Do you want wealth or do you just want to appear wealthy? Do you want knowledge or do you just want to hide your ignorance? All outer wrappings are deceptive, yet you cannot really deceive yourself in this way. As soon as you realize the truth of what you are doing to yourself, a basic and radical change in your outlook takes place. If you see the reality of your ignorance, don’t run away from it. What will you achieve by this attempt to escape? What is the point of all this hiding behind doctrines and scriptures? What purpose will you serve by trying to cloud your self in a haze of borrowed ideas? This is no remedy. All it does, under the pretense of treatment, is worsen the disease. A quack doctor can be more dangerous than the illness he diagnoses, and the medicines he prescribes can set off a whole new chain of diseases. Wanting to stuff your self with a whole lot of ideas just for the sake of knowledge is like falling prey to the promises of some cure-all medicine. And being bound to the scriptures for the sake of freeing yourself from your ignorance will only lead to greater bondage. Truth does not exist in words; truth is inherent in the self.
To attain truth it is necessary to free yourself from all doctrines, from all formal structures. The realization of truth only happens when one is totally free. Attachment is a sign of dependence; it indicates a lack of confidence in oneself. Faith in others and none in oneself is a form of slavery. Only the man who is free from faith in others is really free. Faith in priests, in sects or in scriptures means you are dependent; faith in words or in creeds is dependence too. I tell you, only real freedom leads to truth. You have to discard all thoughts and all beliefs you have acquired from others, no matter from whom.
It is part of a man’s natural growth for him to come to realize his ignorance. And once he realizes it, he must never forget it. This tendency to forget is self-deception; it is an attempt to brighten the dark emptiness, and those who suffer from a sense of inferiority hanker after status, strength and power. They are like lame men longing to accomplish great feats of physical prowess.
Hitler was a concrete example of this age-old truth; the greater a man’s fear of death, the greater is the violence that develops in him. By killing others, he feels he has risen above death. Exploitation and war only exist because people with disturbed minds are trying to escape from the madness in themselves, and society is stagnating because we are not even able to see the magnitude of our mental unrest.
This race after power and possessions is a fatal disease. The illness is not external, but internal, and so man cannot escape from it. His ignorance of it simply makes him run all the faster. But this cancer is within. And running away from it only intensifies it. This course ultimately leads to madness. Insanity is the natural result of any attempt to accomplish the impossible.
It is impossible to escape from one’s self, and to make the tension bearable, a man needs intoxicants – be they wine, women and song, the repetition of mantras, prayer or worship. The desire of wealth, for power and knowledge is the desire to forget the self. And to do this a really strong wine is needed. Some turn to religion, and for them it becomes a powerful opiate. This is the reason, in the so-called affluent societies, for the upsurge of interest in religion. But it is still a race. The basic question is not how to change the direction of the race, but how to finish it completely.
The philosopher escapes through thought, the artist through his creation, the politician through power, the wealthy through riches, the ascetic through renunciation and the devotee through God. But the truth can only be realized by the man who does not try to escape from his self at all. Think about this. Isn’t the desire to amass things, to collect things, to own things, just trying to escape from one’s self? And learning is the same. Studying other’s ideas is simply another attempt to conceal one’s own inner ignorance. I am in favor of the power of thought, but I am not in favor of thoughts at all. No thought touches the core of an individual. Nor does any kind of wealth. All wealth is external. Wealth cannot reach the soul. It can simply create an illusion of riches.
Last night I met a man who said, “I am a beggar.” His eyes and his words both betrayed his poverty, but yet I laughed. “Why do you call yourself a beggar?” I asked. “You may have no money, but is that reason enough to call yourself poor? I know people of great wealth, yet they are really poor. If you call yourself poor for lack of money alone, you are mistaken. As far as the deeper poverty is concerned, all men are poor, all men are beggars.”
One who does not know the truth of the self is poor. He is a beggar. And one who is unfamiliar with his inner being is ignorant. Remember, fine clothes do not mean prosperity and knowledge is not gained by cloaking oneself with great thoughts. One thing just conceals your poverty and the other simply hides your ignorance. For those with deeper insight, lordly garments are a manifestation of poverty and grandiose thoughts are a sign of ignorance. Consider this for yourself. Are you not depriving yourself of truth? Is anything worth attaining at he cost of your self, at the expense of your soul?
Once I stayed with a maharajah and I asked him, “Are you under the illusion you are a king?” “Illusion!” he said. “I know I am a king!” He said it with deep conviction and I felt great compassion for him. Every day I meet learned men and find they have nothing but the illusion of knowledge. I also meet monks and find them living in the illusion they are ascetics. The illusion of knowledge is created by thoughts. The illusion of kingship is created by a title and illusion of asceticism is created by renunciation. If one has outer wealth but is inwardly poor, how can one become an ascetic simply by giving up one’s riches? There is no truth to be found in possessiveness, nor is there any to be found in the renunciation of possessions either. Truth lies in the awareness of what is hidden beyond both.
Knowledge is not to be found in thought or in the absence of thought. Knowledge is to be found where the seer is, where the one who witnesses both thought and no-thought exists. Thoughts are only memory, and we mistake the training of the memory for knowledge. The memory simply provides answers to external questions and we incorrectly assume this is thinking.
Do you understand the difference between thought and memory? Memory is totally of the past. It is a dead collection of past experiences. Then where are the answers to the questions of life to be found? Life is a riddle, a puzzle, because the old solutions are incapable of solving new problems. There is no relation whatsoever between the old solutions you have accumulated and the fresh problems that arise from day to day. And so the mind loses touch with life, and so a man ages and dies long before his physical body actually perishes. To investigate truth you need a mind that is never too old to face the mysteries of life. When a mind is tied to the past it loses its freshness, its inspiration, its power of thought. It becomes closed to life. The possibility of pure unbiased thought only exists when one’s mind is not bound to the memory, when it is not tied to the so-called knowledge that has taken the form of memory.
Looking at life though the memory is viewing the present through the veil of the past. Only when the mind is freed from this slavery does it attain the capacity of real perception. And real perception leads to real knowledge. If your vision is pure, the latent power of self-knowledge awakens within you. Your vision is freed from the past as soon as you liberate yourself from the burden of the memory and focus on the present.
Never mistake memory for knowledge. Memory is just a mechanical process, just an aid to thinking. The invention of computers has shown clearly that memory is a mechanical thing. Given the appropriate knowledge, given the correct facts, these machines provide the correct answers. There is no margin of error whatsoever. We feed our minds in the same way – with the Gita, with the Koran, with the Bible, with the words of Mahavira, of Buddha, of Mohammed and even with the daily newspapers – but the memory can only printout what has been put into it. The memory cannot think of its own accord. It is important, but its role should not be misunderstood. It should not be taken for what it is not. Real thought is always original; memory is always mechanical.
Thought born of memory is neither original nor alive. Knowledge, on the other hand, it totally different. Knowledge is not a mechanical process, it comes out of conscious awareness. And because the nature of knowledge is such, it cannot be produced by machines. Wisdom is never mechanical, but learning is. And the most stagnant of minds belongs to the so-called learned man. This type of mind provides the answers to questions even before they arise. This is nothing more than a repetitive process, relying on faith rather than on initiative. Thought that is dependent on memory needs faith to stand on, and faith, in turn, is supported by repetition which depends on memory. It is a vicious circle.
Only this morning I met a so-called learned man who had memorized the entire Gita. He has read it over and over for the last forty years and now he recited it night and day and whether the occasion calls for it or not. People avoid him because of his learning. He is restless and argumentative. He does no see this about himself and yet he is filled with ideas on how to bring peace to the world. He is typical of such a mind – mechanical, rather than creative. Such people become slaves to doctrines and it is in this way that the scriptures become sources of sectarianism and violence. How is it possible for the words of Buddha, Christ, Mahavira and Zoroaster to separate one man from another? How is it possible for their words to become the basis of hostility and violence? It happens when their words are exploited and twisted by uncreative minds.
A learned mind is stale, and although the problems of life change continuously, the solutions these minds have to offer do not. They are totally uncreative. If the world moves on to Marx this kind of mind will remain with Manu, and when the world moves beyond Marx this kind of mind will stay with him. Whether he looks to the Bible or to Das Kapital, an unoriginal man needs the reassurance of some kind of scripture. Doctrines and ideologies are more important to him than real life. The mature intellect will approach the problem from a fresh angle, from a new point of view, and not from some preconceived position, but the so-called learned man cannot imagine there could be any mistake in the scriptures. Out of his lack of wisdom this kind of man says the error must be in life. He is like a tailor who blames your body when something he has made for you does not fit.
Because of the great burden of scriptures and traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years, mankind has become incapable of solving anything. Man’s mind has become paralyzed. And not only are we unable to find answers to our problems, we are not even able to see where the roots of these problems lie.
Man must rise above his memory; he must awaken his power of thought. To accomplish this you must reduce the profusion of thoughts you have accumulated to the absolute minimum. Your memory must not be allowed to be a dead weight any longer. You must learn not to view your problems through the veil of memory but to look at them directly, as they are, each in its present context. It is fatal to put the scriptures between you and life, between life and yourself. The more direct your contact with the self is, the greater your capacity to understand your problems will be. To solve a problem you must live it. No doctrine will help because the solution is hidden in the problem itself. It can only be uncovered by a totally unprejudiced mind.
The power of thinking will only begin to stir in you when you free yourself from the ideologies of others. You only learn to think by thinking for yourself. Then a new power will awaken in your inner being; then, a new and unfamiliar energy will manifest itself in you. It will be as if a blind man is suddenly able to see, as if a house that as been in darkness is suddenly brilliant with light.
When the power of thought awakens in your inner heart it is filled with light. And with this illumination, comes bliss. When this light exists, within you, no obstacle is hidden from you. In the light of pure thought the misery of your life becomes a symphony.
I URGE YOU to light the lamp of free-thinking in your life. Do not become anyone’s slave by accepting his thoughts. Truth belongs to him who is his own master.
THOUGHT CANNOT TRAVEL BEYOND THE KNOWN. No matter how high it may soar it is impossible for it to cross the frontiers of the known. Thought is the source of all that is known and the extent of the known is its whole existence. Thought is the essence of one’s past experiences and the memory is its abode. But the memory is dead; it is of the past. And thought is also lifeless. Although the truth is unknown, it is what life really is. And this is why thought can never lead a man to truth.
Thought is forbidden to enter the realm of the living, to enter into the unknown. Fish may be able to survive out of water for a few moments, but it is not possible for thought to take even one single step beyond the circle of dead memories that orbit the known.
IN INTELLECTUAL PURSUITS the power of thought exists, but not experience. Experience happens in the heart, in the most vital part of a man’s being. Thoughts that are not based on experience are dead. But lifeless words and notions are continuously reverberating in our heads and we are staggering under the burden of their weight. They do not free us; they enslave us.
Experience that is of the heart is essential for freedom; it is imperative if we are to shake off this heavy load. This is why I tell you not to look for the meaning of truth, not to look for some interpretation of truth, but to seek the experience of truth itself. Seek life. Dive into the depths of truth, become totally immersed in it and then you will be free from untruth. The intellect only allows you to float on the surface; the heart submerges you completely. The heart, not the intellect, is the way to liberation.
WHAT IS IT THAT I SPEAK? Words? No, not at all. Those who only hear the words do not understand what I am saying. Are we pondering great thoughts. No, not at all. We are not pondering any kind of thoughts. In fact, we are not engaged in deliberation of any sort. Not at all. What we are
doing is seeking a certain side of life, a particular aspect of existence. We are seeking an entry into pure existence itself.
Besides the idea of comprehension, the word “understanding” also carries with it the concept of entry, of penetration – and life can only be understood if one can penetrate into it. Life can only be understood by going through the doorway of love, not down the empty halls of thought and deliberation. Life has to be lived.
Am I making you understand my words? But if you do not understand them, don’t worry. Worry will be a block; it will stand in the way of your comprehension. Just stop for a moment and see what I am saying.
Look at the flowers that blossom on the gulmohr tree outside. Do you ponder over them or do you just see them? Do you hear the cuckoo calling? Do you think about it or do you simply hear it’s song? Just listen to me and see what I say.
It is not deliberation, but sharp and penetrating vision that will lead you to an understanding of my words. Deliberation drowns in words; vision pierces through silence. Deliberation ponders in vain; vision unfolds meaning. Vision is a much deeper understanding, because it is free from the binding process of deliberation. Deliberation involves time and action, but in realization, in inner vision, neither time nor activity is present at all.
Inner vision is the crowning of understanding; it is understanding developed to the optimum. Have you not seen this in moments when you have experienced beauty, love, bliss? Isn’t it only deep and profound awareness that is present is you at those moments? Aren’t those the moments thoughts have bid you farewell? Truth, beauty, happiness – whatever is authentic in life – can only be known in silence, in waveless thoughtlessness, and never in the billows and breakers of thought.
Where are you going? What you are seeking is close at hand. If you keep on walking to find what is near you will be going astray. Stop and look. To realize what is so close it is enough just to stop and look.
DOESN’T THE INTELLECT KNOW ANYTHING AT ALL? No, it certainly does not. All the intellect can do is explain; it can only comment. As far as the outer world is concerned, the senses perceive and the intellect clarifies; in relation to the inner world, it is the heart that perceives and the intellect that explains.
The intellectuals who accept the intellect as the knower are mistaken. Through the intellect nothing at all has ever been known. It is not the way to knowledge. But because of the illusion that it is the route it has become an obstacle, a hindrance in finding the true path.
Then what, you ask, is the reality of the intellect? The answer lies in not allowing your intellect to become a hindrance. When your intellect does not stand between you and life, between your self and life, an open and understanding attitude is created in you. And this becomes the eye of truth.
I AM OPPOSED TO SUPERSTITION AND TO BLIND BELIEF, in fact, all belief is blind. If a man hold beliefs his power of discrimination never sharpens, never becomes a flame.
If a healthy child is made to walk on crutches when he is young his legs will never function properly when he grows older. He will be lame. And the same kind of habitual dependence on belief cripples the intellect. Can there be a greater affliction in a man’s life than an infirm intellect? But this is what belief causes.
No society or nation ever really wants its citizens to develop their faculties of thinking. All tyrants and oppressors who hold the reins of administration face great danger if men develop their abilities to think. Then there is the possibility of revolution, there is always the fear that men may begin to search for the truth. Organized societies, the so-called religions and all kingdoms have been built on foundations of untruths.
The moment a baby is born a collective effort is made to chain him to servile dependency on various beliefs. This is all the educational systems have ever done, and yet they say their aim is to liberate man. But what really happens is that a shrewd and subtle mental slavery slowly overtakes the mind of the individual. This system does not teach people how to think, it simply pumps them full of beliefs. It does not encourage doubt, it does not allow rebellion, and the products of such an educational system are usually unable to think for themselves.
An active, vital quest for truth springs out of doubt, not out of belief. In the quest for truth there is no greater support, no stronger impetus than a healthy sense of doubt. Faith is not the beginning of the search for truth; faith is the outcome. Doubt characterizes the beginning. Any well-planned investigation begins with doubt and ends with faith. The badly planned investigation starts on faith and is both conducted and concluded in doubt. This kind of faith cannot be founded in reality.
How can any faith founded on belief be real? Only perfect knowledge gives birth to real faith. Perfect knowledge and real faith go together. Belief is ignorance; true faith is perfect knowledge. Belief is a faith that is borrowed; belief is a faith that has been thrust upon you, thrown over you, superimposed.
A faith you have to work at is just a belief. Only that faith that awakens within you, that faith that comes to you naturally and on it own through the illumination of perfect knowledge can be called true faith. You don’t have to go looking for that faith somewhere. You don’t have to learn it, it comes of itself. What you do have to learn is doubt, the right kind of doubt. The right kind of doubt is the beginning of the process of attaining true faith.
Doubt is not disbelief. Disbelief is merely the negative aspect of belief. If one’s doubt is only disbelief, it is both unhealthy and incomplete. Doubt is neither belief nor disbelief, it is unbounded inquisitiveness. It is the irrepressible desire to know. It is the urge to attain knowledge; it is unceasing investigation. It is the firm resolve not to stop anywhere before reaching the truth, before reaching the truth that comes out of your own experience.
As I see it, both belief and disbelief are impediments on the search for truth. Doubt is the only way to achieve truth. Only doubt can ultimately lead a man to truth.
There was one a man who was in search of the truth. After years of wandering he came to a holy man who lived in a cave crammed with volume upon volume of sacred books. The topics they covered were infinite. Everywhere one looked were scriptures, scriptures and more scriptures. The sage said to him, “All the knowledge of the universe is preserved in these books. These volumes, full
of mysteries and secrets, have been collected and are being kept here only for those who come in search of truth. Each seeker can take away with him one book of his choice. Which of the scriptures would you like to have?”
The young man looked over the endless pile of books, thought for a moment and said, “Please give me the volume that supplies everything all the others profess to contain.”
When he heard this the old man laughed. He said, “Of course I do have such a text, but it is rare that anyone asks for it.” Then he gave him a volume entitled, “Scripture of the Greatest Doubt”
I would also like to give everyone the same book, because this is the only one that can free the seeker from the chaotic muddle of all the other scriptures and lead him to the eternal truth.
I NOTICED A LUTE IN ONE HOUSE I visited and it struck me how much the lute and the human mind resemble each other. The mind is an instrument too; it can produce either harmonious or discordant notes. But whatever note you mind produces you are responsible for it. So make you mind an instrument of harmony and truth. Keep your mind open and keep it in tune. Keep it free from the ego. Nothing produces a more discordant note than the ego.
Only the man who is filled with the inner music can approach truth. It is not the man who intellectualizes about point and counterpoint but the man who is a full symphony unto himself who will find his way to truth
I DO NOT SPEAK TO YOU OF LIGHT, of illumination, because that is not the question. The question is one of vision. With vision, light exists; without it, there is no light at all. You cannot perceive what is beyond your vision, and so the issue is not one of knowing existence but of your capacity for knowledge. Your perception of existence is proportionate to the extent to which your knowledge is awakened.
Someone asked me earlier whether the soul existed or not. I answered, “If you have eyes to see it the soul exists; otherwise, it does not.”
Normally, you are only able to perceive the objective reality. Your senses are only attuned to that. Through the medium of the body, it is not possible to know anything apart from the body, it is not possible to know anything apart form the body itself. The soul is beyond the body; its essence is totally different. The soul must be approached another way.
Religion is the way to know the soul, the way to know the self. Religion is the disciplining of one’s inner eye, of the inner vision that enables you to see beyond the objective world, that allows you to surpass you physical existence. Religion is not thinking, however; it is an experience that requires practice to attain.
Thought is always related to the senses; all thoughts are grasped through the senses. The inspiration for thoughts comes from without, not from within. Thoughts belong to others, not the self. The culmination of thought is science, and like science, thought is always centered on objective things.
Thought can never lead beyond the objective world. By its own very nature any possibility for thought to perceive the soul is negated, because all thought is born of and experienced through the senses. What exists beyond the senses does not enter into the realm of thought at all. This is why any thought that attempts to describe or depict the soul seems both illogical and incoherent when given utterance.
Religion is beyond logic; it is beyond both thought and the senses. And with religion comes coherence.
Religion is not an experience that comes through thought, it is an awakening into thoughtless consciousness. The terminal point of a thought is an object; the ultimate perception of a consciousness devoid of objects is the soul. All thoughts that pertain to the soul are, therefore, futile. The only path which is meaningful is the path that leads to thoughtlessness.
The state of being awakened, of discrimination and of intelligence, exists beyond thought, but the man who is preoccupied with thought is not aware of this at all. Thoughts smother the underlying reality as smoke envelops a fire, and so the individual remains ignorant of the real nature of existence.
Thought is the domain of the multitude; the real fire of knowledge is uniquely personal. Thought is not knowledge, but if it did not exist we would be blind – and the blind man is neither aware of darkness nor of light.
A monk once explained light at great length to a blind man, but the man would not accept what the monk said at all. He was right to disagree, and as far as thinking goes his arguments were coherent. To him what he could not see did not exist. Most people possess this same kind of logic. The blind man was a thinker and his disagreement was in absolute accord with the rules of thought. The monk finally said to the man’s friends, “Why have you brought him to me? He needs medical treatment more than he needs explanations about light!”
I say the same thing. If you have vision then you can see light, then you can know yourself.
What you perceive is the truth of you, although it may not necessarily be the only truth. Truth is infinite, yet it is perceptible. Thought is your limit; the senses are your limit – and what you can know through them is limited. To know the limitless you must rise above them.
What you will perceive when you go beyond thought is the infinite, limitless and timeless soul. The soul is known through meditation, through the science of yoga. When the currents of the mind dissolve and your vision perceives the inner light, your life is transformed. Then there is no question as to whether the soul exists or not, for then you know, then you have realized it for yourself. Then you are beyond thought; then you experience knowledge.
The ultimate is achieved through emptiness, and emptiness is attained by remaining an impartial and inactive witness to the processes of thought in your mind. These processes are the life of the mind, the essence of the mind, and you must free yourself from their bondage.
Impartiality, inactivity and thoughtlessness are attained through meditation. You only have to see, to watch; there is nothing to choose, nothing to be decided. But this kind of perception requires great
effort. The habit of activity has become so strong in you that the simple task of not doing anything has become tremendously difficult.
If you concentrate your vision on a single point thoughts begin to disappear, just as the drops of dew on the grass evaporate in the warmth of the morning sun. The heat of your concentrated observation is enough to dissipate thought. This is the point where emptiness begins, where man begins to attain vision, where he begins to perceive his soul.
One dark night I was sitting by myself. No one was with me; there were no thoughts within. I was totally passive, simply looking, with no point of focus. My vision was without object, without any reason behind it. I was engaged in experiencing perception itself. Someone passed by and asked me what I was doing. What could I say? I was not doing anything. I was just there, alone. But that is the beginning of emptiness. This is the point where you pass the physical world by and the realization of God begins in you.
I teach emptiness, I teach dissolution, I teach death, I teach this so that you may become prefect, so that you may become immortal. It may come as a surprise to you, but a man gains life through death. Those who cling to life lose it. The man who worries about perfection achieves nothing, but the man who frees himself from worry by becoming empty attains perfection.
A raindrop cannot become the ocean by holding itself aloof from the other drops. Its ego is the hindrance, the obstacle. By standing on its own the drop can never amount to anything; all that can happen is that it will be reduced to nothing. The ocean does not keep it out, its only obstacle is its own desire for individuality. Its walls and boundaries are its alone. It wants to merge with the ocean but it does not want to lose its own existence, it does not want to cease being a drop. This is the problem. And the problem for man is the same. It is impossible for the drop to remain an entity unto itself and become the ocean at the same time. Man’s case is the same. An individual cannot remain an individual and still become one with God.
When the ego dissolves, the soul is attained. The soul is so near, so very close at hand, and yet we are so unnecessarily and foolishly concerned with the ego. The ego has to be destroyed; we have to remove these walls, these boundaries, with our own hands. Then and then alone can we become part of the infinite and limitless truth.
Those who do not possess the courage to do this can never become religious. Becoming religious is the bravest thing possible for a man because it means the annihilation of his ego. Religion is not for cowards. It is not for those who are tempted by heaven or afraid of hell. These enticements and fears belong to the ego alone. The ego must be destroyed. The individual has to die. Only a fearless and courageous man can embrace the infinite realization of truth.
YOU WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH and yet you allow the dust of thoughts to accumulate in your mind. The mind is like a mirror. Wipe it clean. Then you will see the truth standing in front of you. Then you will see that the truth has always been there, right in front of your eyes.
THE TINIEST SPECK OF DUST IN ONE’S EYE CAN HIDE THE BIGGEST MOUNTAIN, and the
closing of a fragile eyelid can shut off the world from one’s vision. For sight, for pure sight, there must be no obstacle between the seer and the seen. But when there is an obstruction, the closer
it is to one’s eye the bigger it looms. And a similar thing happens spiritually. It is something that is very, very close to the seer himself that keeps him from being able to see the truth. And what, you ask, is the closest thing to the seer? It is “I”. The sense of “I” is the nearest, closest thing. Is it any wonder it becomes an obstacle between you and the truth?
A MAN’S OUTWARD APPEARANCE is a reflection of what he is inside. The outer is painted with the colours of the inner. If everything within is blissful, everything is beautiful outside; if there is misery inside, everything outside is ugly. A man only sees himself everywhere he looks. If you are in hell, know that you have caused it to be so – but know too that it is within your power to be in heaven as well.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW GOD you have to merge with him, you have to become one with him. This may seem paradoxical to you, because how can you become one with God when you do not know him at all. And how can you ever get to know him if you have to become one with him to know him? The whole thing certainly appears paradoxical indeed! But to unscramble this puzzle is to understand clearly and correctly the entire base of all spiritual practices.
Once I came upon an artist who was painting a sunset. “When you paint,” I asked him, “What is the first thing you do?”
“I become one with the scene I am about to paint,” he replied.
“How do you do this?” I inquired. “How is it possible to become one with this sunset for example?” He said, “The moment a man forgets himself he becomes one with everything.
The artist put it very well. God is all that exists; the totality of existence is God. And to become one with existence, there is no other obstruction than yourself, than your “I”.
God is only there when the “I” is absent. This is knowing God; this is living in God. To really know something you have to live it. God can only be known from within, never from the outside, and so you have to become one with him, you have to lose yourself in him.
When you are separate from God and look around you, what you see is the world. You may not see it, but that is God too. But when you look at the world from inside that merger, everything you see is a manifestation of God.
The outer vision of truth is the world; the inner vision of truth is God himself.
WHAT IS THE REAL PROOF THAT GOD EXISTS? As far as God is concerned the language of proof is completely inapplicable. No thought, no argument no proof can rise to the level of God. In thought, argument and proof, “I” exists, and wherever “I” is, God is not.
Kabir was right when he said God’s street was so narrow that two could not walk along it at the same time. Love is the name of that street. Love is where I live, where I exist, where I am – and that is where there is no ego, where “I” is not.
It is only in this state that the blinders fall away from one’s consciousness and the vision of God becomes possible. That vision itself is the proof. What other proof of love do you need than being in love? There is no other proof of God’s existence than being in him.
But all kinds of proofs have been put forward in the past and many more will be advanced in the future. Those who are unable to love talk about love and those who have no eyes are the ones who discuss vision. There is only deliberation and discussion about God where there is no sight to see him, where there is no heart to experience him. And it matters not whether the arguments are for God or against him. The pros and cons do not make one iota of difference. The theist and the atheist are just two sides of the same coin. Neither has any vision.
This lack of sight is the central bone of contention. Whether a blind man accepts or does not accept the existence of light makes no difference whatsoever. The only thing that has any significance for him is the realization that he is blind, because it is only through that understanding that he will begin to search for sight. He doesn’t have to concern himself with light, it is sight he needs. When sight is present, so is light. And if there is no sight, how will you prove to him there is light? If there is no sight there is no proof of Gods existence either.
So do not ask for proof that light exists, simply understand that you have no sight. And do not ask for proof of God either. Simply know that what is, is unknown to you and that you are in ignorance. The light may by unknown but your own blindness can be known. God is unknown but your own ignorance can be known.
Now, I ask you, what do you hope to achieve by thinking about the unknown? No thought can move beyond the limits of the known; it only runs on the track of the known, in the groove of the known. The unknown can never be known this way. The unknown only comes when the known gives way and makes room for it. The advent of the unknown is dependent of the removal of the known. Only when the known says farewell does the unknown appear on the threshold of one’s consciousness. It does not come through discussion; only when there is no discussion does it come. It only sprouts in a soil that is free of deliberation.
This barren land of discussion and deliberation is your blindness, and busying yourself in it pointless cultivation is your unconsciousness. Only when all discussion and deliberation have vanished and you consciousness is totally alert do you attain the sight that allows you a glimpse of the light called God.
To me, a man shows his earnest desire to know the truth not by talking about light but by treating the blindness of his self. Religion is the cure for the blindness of the self.
What is the irrefutable proof of God? Eyes. What I myself saw when I gained my sight was that only God exists, that nothing else exists. What I thought in my blindness was that everything else existed but that God did not.
THE MOMENT YOU REALIZE the divinity within you, you begin to see visions of God everywhere you look. You only see on the outside what is within you. If you do not see God everywhere, then realize you have not yet sought him within.
IN ORDER TO DISPEL ONE ILLUSION DO NOT CREATE ANOTHER. It is foolish to move into a new dream to rid yourself of an old one. Do not try to conceive of God; do not create concepts of him. Let all your inventions go and just open your eyes. What you see in front of you is God. That alone is God.
TRUTH IS LIKE THE FIRMAMENT – endless, beginningless, boundless. Is there a door for entering the sky? Then how can there be one for entering truth? But if one’s eyes are closed, then there is no sky. And the same is true of truth. The opening of your eyes is the entrance to truth; closing your eyes is shutting the door.
I DO NOT LIVE IN A DIFFERENT WORLD. I live in the same world everyone else lives in. But my way of looking at life has changed totally. And this change is a change in the world itself, because what we see is what we are.
Our vision is our world; our vision is our life. Our vision creates the world around us. If life appears miserable to you, know well that the misery is yours, that it is your creation. Try to alter your vision, not life. Transforming your vision is transforming yourself.
Everything depends on you, on the self within you. Hell and heaven live in the self; worldliness and salvation abide there too. The self is unchangeable, it remains the same forever, but one point of view looks at is as a prison while another sees it as the essence of salvation.
When life is viewed from the standpoint of the ego it becomes hell, because the ego is in opposition to everything, to everybody. I can remain “I” as long as I want to, but only by remaining different from and opposed to the rest of existence.The effort to become “I” is an attempt to flight with the all. And it only results in anxiety and distress. It leads to the fear of destruction, to the dread of death. It is no wonder misery is the only result of achieving this rigid “I”, of attaining this stubborn and impossible unreality.
But the word can also be looked at from the viewpoint of egolessness, “I” conflicts with the all; “non-I” is the assimilation of everything. And only that absorption is real because existence is unseverable, undivisible.
All bits and pieces and divisions are only the products of man’s fantasy. If “I am”, I am only a piece, only a part; if “I am not”, I am absorbed into the undivided whole. Being a part is slavery; being whole is freedom. As long as “I am”, I am in misery, because the very existence of “I” is an eternal duel with life, a battle to the death. But when “I am not”, I am in bliss. Non-being is infinite peace.
When consciousness is liberated from “I” it is released from all traditions, freed from all conditionings. Separating the self from “I” is merging with God.
I DO NOT CONSIDER THOUGHTFUL MEDITATION, the idea of meditation upon something by thinking about it, as true meditation. True meditation is thoughtless, because thoughtlessness itself is what meditation is. Where there is neither thought nor deliberation there is meditation. There are no thoughts in deep sleep either, so to say that meditation is only the absence of thoughts is not quite accurate. This is a negative approach, and meditation is not the negative aspect of anything. On the contrary, meditation is a positive presence. It is the positive presence of sensitivity, of awareness,
of understanding. Only complete wakefulness, only total consciousness is meditation. And perfect, consciousness is only possible when one is completely free of thoughts.
YOU WISH TO MEDITATE? Then while you meditate, bear in mind that nothing lies before you and that nothing lies behind you. Let the past perish and let the future go. Empty your memory and empty your imagination. There will be no time; there will only be emptiness. And during this moment of emptiness you will know you are in meditation. This moment of meditation is a moment of eternity as well.
YOU ASK WHAT IT IS THAT IS KNOWN IN THE ECSTASY OF Samadhi? Nothing. As long as something remains to be known you are not in SAMADHI. SAMADHI is union with existence. Not even a hair’s breadth of separation remains to be known.
TRUTH IS ONE – but splitting existence into two is the most deep-rooted of all mankind’s blind beliefs. What exists is one; there is not two. Nature versus God, body versus soul, animate versus inanimate – these differentiations have no place whatsoever in existence.
But it is because of these seeming differences that the arguments of the materialist and the spiritualist carry weight. Existence is one, yet its manifestations are many, in its diversity, it is also one. In each and every part the undivided whole exists. But discussion and deliberation give rise to differentiation because they only look at the surface and do not plumb the depths. They look at things from the outside; they do not penetrate within.
In any discussion the personality of the speaker also has to be taken into consideration. When the speaker believes himself to be separate from existence, this very feeling prevents him from entering into existence. To enter into existence the ability to merge is essential; to penetrate deeply, oneness is needed. But he can never attain this unless he loses himself. And he cannot lose himself unless he gives up all his thoughts and all his ideas, because he is only the shadow of his thoughts. He has no existence of his own; he is only a collection of thoughts. But what he wants to do is preserve his identity, not lose it. And he can only do this by diving into more thoughts, into more discussion. And as he deliberates on truth he moves further and further away from truth itself.
It is this discussing of truth, this deliberating on truth that creates the chasm between truth and one’s self. In that perception that comes when the mind is empty of thoughts neither the soul exists, nor the body, nor God, nor nature – but there is something that cannot be given a name. For the sake of convenience, let me call it the universal soul. That unknown, nameless, undivided unity is truth. When you try to think about it, it appears in different pieces – but when you are free from thoughts it manifests in its undivided form. That is its original form; that is its real face. Deliberation breaks it asunder to look at it.
Deliberation is an analytical process and the nature of analysis requires that something be dissected, that something be broken into pieces before it can be looked at.
The man who is integrated, synthesized, simply looks at it as it is. There is no action involved in his looking; he is just looking. His gaze is a perfect mirror and truth is reflected in it exactly as it is. In the mirror of a synthesized consciousness there is no one single trace of duality.
That unknown entity that I have called the universal soul is body and soul, both God and nature. These are all just notes of a single melody. All is life. Nothing is dead; nothing is inanimate. Death is nowhere to be found. The waves surge up in the ocean of life and then they fall back, and then they merge. They are there when they crest and there when they ebb. In both conditions they exist, because the ocean exists.
Individuals die because there really is no such entity as an individual. Theism perishes because it really does not exist. Whatever has no real existence perishes, but what exists, exists always. This is not just my idea; this is not just my thought – this is what I see. And anyone who avoids thoughts and opinions, who remains silent and calm and empty and aware will have exactly the same vision.
If you look at the world through analytical eyes you will see duality, you will see division, but if you look at it directly and clearly, with nothing in your eyes but pure sight, you will see that it is one.
A consciousness that is empty of thoughts is in meditation, and meditation is the doorway to truth. This is my invitation to you, an invitation to move into the miraculous world of meditation.
YOU ASK ME WHAT TO DO TO MEDITATE. I say not to do anything at all. Just be quiet and be aware of your breathing. Consciously watch your breath. Witness the incoming and the outgoing of your breath. Don’t make it a strenuous activity, just watch it in quiet, peaceful restful awareness. Then in a totally natural way and without knowing how, you will find you are experiencing a sensation that is tremendously pleasant. You will not be aware of how or when you entered that state, but suddenly you, will be somewhere you have never been before. This, in fact, is the very place your consciousness has been forever.
THERE ARE TWO WAYS TO INVESTIGATE TRUTH. One way is by thinking; the other, by realization.
The path of thought is a circular one. You go round and round, but you never once to the end. This is a false, illusory direction; it only leads to division, to sectarianism. A thought, an ideology, is nothing more than an intellectual proposition, whereas the realization of truth is the experience of the whole vital force of life itself. All sects depend on logic and that is why they have no stability at all. Truth is unchanging, and the attainment of truth establishes a man once and for all in existence, in the eternal, in God.
The path of thought is a borrowed one; you proceed along a road paved with the ideas of others. Through argument and through different combinations of these secondhand thoughts you create the illusion of originality. Realization alone is original because realization is born within one’s self. The known cannot lead to the unknown. Truth is unknown, and so familiar thoughts can never become stepping-stones to truth. Only by leaving thought behind can you pass through the doorway to truth. The perception of truth cannot happen in thought, it can happen only in the clear stream of thoughtless consciousness.
Man collects experiences through his senses. All of these experiences belong to the outer world, because the senses only know that which is external. The senses have no access to one’s inner being. It is these outer experiences that give rise to thought. On the level of scientific exploration thought can be very constructive, tremendously helpful, but in the search for inner truth thought is
totally useless. Thought is bound to the senses; it cannot touch the consciousness at one’s inner core.
It is of great importance to remember that thoughts are external. They cover the self rather than help reveal it. And the greater a man’s accumulation of ideas is, the more difficult it will be for him to attain to his self.
A man who does not know the self can never know truth. To reach the truth there is no other way, there is no other alternative. Being caught up in intellectual speculation about truth is like being a blind man and constantly thinking about light. His thinking will lead nowhere; light is something to be seen, not thought about. He needs medical treatment, not the ideas of some philosopher. Thought is the malady; realization is the medicine. The question is not one of light, but rather of vision.
This is exactly how thinking and meditation stand in relation to one another. Thought is the pondering and analysis of light by a blind man; meditation is attaining the sight to see the truth. And yoga is the science of meditation.
As I see it, meditation is a state of mind, a state of emptiness and of perfect wakefulness and awareness. When the mind is empty of objects and fully awakened to the seer himself one has attained to the state of meditation.
Meditation is the ability to see the truth. Our minds are generally cluttered with objects – with thoughts about things, with reactions to outer stimuli – and this creates a wall that shuts us out, that separates us from our selves. The consciousness of man is hidden by his intellect, just as the clouds obscure the light of the sun.
Man is free to close the door to his own inner being if he so desires. But someone who is capable of chaining himself can also free himself. There are two sides to freedom, just as the power to create always hides the power to destroy. It is important to keep this truth in mind.
The man who spires to attain the truth, to know the self, must attack on two fronts. He must mount an offensive for wakefulness; he must launch a drive for emptiness. When the two fronts meet he is in meditation.
To awaken, one must discard not only unconsciousness but also personal pride in one’s thoughts and in one’s deeds. All thinking and all activity must take place in a totally conscious state. And through constant practice the witness is eventually born within the self. One’s latent wisdom begins to stir and with it, the consciousness of true knowledge. This comes from a steady and continuous battle against the lethargy of the mind. And finally, even in sleep, awareness is ever present. This is the first line of attack.
The second thrust is for emptiness. The inherent peace of the mind must be protected from the restlessness and agitation caused by the constant flow of thoughts and ideas. One must become like a man walking in the night, protecting his candle from the wind.
Each of these onslaughts complements the other; the launching of one assists the other. The birth of consciousness helps lead to emptiness; the beginning of emptiness helps the growth of one’s consciousness. It is difficult to say which of the two is the more important.
When both consciousness and emptiness ripen, when they both reach fruition, the mind passes through a revolution that is virtually impossible to imagine or to describe. No other change in a man’s life is greater than this one. This revolution is so basic, so fundamental, that his whole life is transformed. The closest I can come to putting it into words is to say that it is like a blind man’s sudden achievement of sight. Through this incredible experience of indescribable light a man becomes established within his self.
Through this revolution a man comes to realize the bliss, the consciousness and the reality of his existence. Death dissolves; he perceives immortality. Darkness disappears; he realizes truth. Only after this experience does real life begin. Up to this point a man experiences life only in a very limited way.
A FRIEND SAID TO ME “WOULDN’T IT BE WONDERFUL IF WE COULD TRANSFORM THE WORLD?”
I replied, “It would be very nice, but where is this world? I look for it but cannot find it. I seek the world and only see the reflection of myself. Leave the world alone. Let us transform ourselves instead. When we do that, the world will be transformed. What else is the world but that deep inner connection we are all a part of, that we all share?
THE REALIZATION OF TRUTH IS A DIFFICULT PROCESS because it has to be sought and it has to be lived. But it is very easy to accept what the scriptures say about truth; the scriptures only have to be believed. To realize truth you need open-eyed discrimination; for the other, blind belief will do quite nicely. It is for this reason that the scriptures are obstacles that stand in the way of realizing truth.
Where blind belief exists there can never be any sort of discrimination whatsoever. And remember well, all beliefs are blind. How can blind eyes perceive the truth? Blind eyes are the closed doors of consciousness and truth only knocks at that door where an impartial and unbiased mind stands ready to bid it welcome.
Are you ready to become impartial? Are you brave enough to free yourself of beliefs? Are the doors of your heart open to truth? If you answer “yes”, I tell you that nothing will be easier for you than the realization of truth. It is only in your mind that it seems difficult. Your beliefs your convictions, the values you have accepted have complicated everything.
THE MAN WHO IS ABLE TO SWEEP AWAY THE WEB OF THESE COMPLICATIONS will find truth
standing before him. It has always been there. Your eyes were just too cloudy to see it.
EVERY HOUSE IS FULL OF MIRRORS. But have you noticed that a little bit of truth, a little bit of love or a kind act brings a fresh beauty to your eyes, to your face, to your whole being? If not, you are as blind as a bat. You have been wasting your time in front of the mirror. Smash all your mirrors to smithereens then; you have no idea how to use a mirror at all.
MAN IS SUFFERING. Our whole age is suffering. What is the reason for this? You don’t have to look very far for the answer. We know so very much, but we have no direct experience at all. Only the brain is intact; the heart has dwindled into nothing. And no true realization ever comes by
knowledge alone; it comes through experience. The eyes that light the path of life are not connected to the brain, their link is to the heart. And if your heart is blind, then darkness is all you can expect in life.
IS THIS DISAPPOINTMENT I SEE IN YOUR EYES? Do you know that when disappointment shows in one’s eyes it means the fire in one’s heart has gone out, that one has become stagnant and dull. Disappointment is a great sin; it restrains the energy of life, it keeps it from moving upwards. Not only is it sin, it is suicide, because the man who is not striving for a better life is moving like an automaton towards death. It is an eternal law that one who does not rise falls back, that one who does not move ahead is pushed backwards.
Whenever I see someone falling I know he has stopped trying to scale the peaks of life. Rising to the summit of life is a positive action; falling back, plunging into the dark valleys is the negative aspect of not striving onwards and upwards. When I see such disappointment in your eyes it is only natural my heart fills with sorrow, love and compassion, because this kind of disillusionment with life is the beginning of the descent into the valley of death.
Like a sunflower, hope turns towards the sun. Disappointment lives in darkness. The disillusioned man is unaware of the great potential that is latent with him; he forgets what he is, what he can become. Like a seed that lies in the earth, unaware of what life has in store for it, the situation of the man who is engrossed in his disappointment with life is the same. Today, everyone is in this same predicament.
Nietzsche has said “God is dead”, but I do not find this as disturbing as the death of hope, for as long as hope exists there is a possibility for men to find God. If hope does not exist, whether there is a God or not is irrelevant. It is the impetus of hope that sets a man off on his journey into the unknown, and it is hope alone that gives him the inspiration that can awaken his sleeping energies and activate his dormant consciousness.
What should I say about hope? Should I say that hope is theism? Should I say that hope is the source of all growth? But more important, where is hope to be found? I look for the fires of hope everywhere; all I find are the ashes of disillusionment. If you have no hope how can you live? Without it you are not really alive at all.
Pardon me for saying so, but you are all dead. You have not lived yet. You may have been born but you are not yet up to life. Birth is not life. You may have been born, but you have to attain life personally. You have to achieve it on your own.
Birth may be cancelled out by death, but death cannot destroy life. Life is neither birth nor death. Life exists before birth; life exists beyond death. Only the man who knows this will be able to rise above his fear and misery. But how can someone who is cloaked in disillusionment realize this? Such a man simply perishes from the tension of birth and death.
Life is just a possibility; it requires effort, a spiritual SADHANA to transform it into a reality. And one’s SADHANA, one’s journey to truth, is not born out of disappointment. Disappointment is barren; nothing whatsoever is born out of it. This is why I say it is suicidal. It is incapable of manifesting any sort of creative power whatsoever.
All you have to do is stand up. Just get up on our feet and throw off this mantle of disillusionment.You have allowed it to envelop you all by yourself. You only have to decide to be rid of it and then throw it off. You and only you are responsible for its existence.
A man becomes his thought. What he thinks creates him. Man is the architect of his own fate. The constant repetition of some thought or idea will eventually consolidate into an actual situation, so remember, whatever you are is what you have wanted to be. You have thought about it; you have hankered after it. Search you memory and you will see the truth of what I am saying to you. When you see the truth you will also find the key to changing yourself. Once you have his key it will not be difficult to throw away the thoughts and ideas you have borrowed. It will even be easier than taking off your clothes, because these ideas you have accumulated are illusory, they only exist in your own imagination.
We imprison ourselves in our own ideas. And we do this all by ourselves. But what exists deep inside you has always been free. It has been free since time immemorial. And can you conceive of any greater prison than that of disillusionment? I cannot. What stone walls cannot accomplish, disappointment can. It is possible to break down walls of stone, but disillusionment even destroys a man’s desire to be free.
Break these chains! They can be broken; that is why I am asking you to smash them. They are not real, and all it takes is your resolve to shatter them forever. Just as darkness disappears the moment you light a lamp; the unreal in you dissolves as soon as determination awakens in you. The light that pervades one’s consciousness when the shackles of disillusionment have been cast off is what I mean by hope.
Disillusionment is a self-imposed condition; hope is the innate nature of the self. Disillusionment is a veil over one’s mind; hope is a manifestation of one’s spirit. If it were not, then the constant movement of life towards development and growth would not exist at all. A seed is anxious to sprout because somewhere in it hope exists.All of life wants to flower; whatever exists contains within it the desire for its own fruit.
Without hope how can there be any desire for perfection in the perfect? Without hope how is the journey to God possible at all? When I see a bonfire reaching towards the heavens I see hope in the flames. The light of hope shines in the eyes of children, in the eyes of animals, in the songs of birds. Whatever lives, lives in hope; whatever is dead has died in disillusionment.
If you observe young children who have not yet been spoiled by society, education and civilization, you will see three distinct threads of the life force in them. You will find hope; you will find curiosity; you find faith. These qualities are natural; they have not been acquired. These things exist within us, but they can be lost. Yet you cannot really lose them entirely because the essence of nature can never be destroyed. Nature can only be hidden, veiled. Whatever is unnatural can be nothing more than a cover, it can never be the inner essence itself.
This is why I urge you to throw off your clothes and see who you are in your nakedness. Clothes are bondage, and one thing is for certain – God is not swaddled in tight-fitting clothes. How wonderful if would be if you would remove your clothes! But remember, I am not speaking of clothes that are fashioned from threads of cotton. I am talking of clothes woven from the iron chains of negative
ideas. These are your bondage. Whoever discards them can attain to that pure nakedness in which Mahavira lived and of which he spoke.
You have to become naked to know the truth, to know your self, to become established in the very nature of your self. But you will have to discard the mantel of disillusionment first. Your other clothes can only be removed after you have shed this heavy cloak.
If you falter or hesitate at the idea of attaining God then you had better realize that the poison of disillusionment exists somewhere within you. This is what makes you negligent and lethargic. Negligence may cost you the final goal of life.
Before God and other than God there can be no goal to life. Let this understanding resound throughout your entire being. Let it sink deeply into you that there is no peace in life except in God, that perfection is to be found in God alone. The man who drops out of life before reaching God has insulted himself. He has given up before becoming what he could have been.
The greater your sense of determination, the higher your sights, the deeper is the awakening of the energies latent within the self. The height of your achievement is in proportion to the power of your energies. Look at the trees that touch the sky. Their roots go deep into the ground. If you are bestirred by hope and by the desire to touch the sky then the dormant powers lying in the innermost recesses of your being are awakened.
The height of your aspiration is the depth of your power. Setting your sights low is demeaning your self – but if you must beg, at least beg for God. What you ultimately wish to become must be your dictate from the very beginning, because the beginning itself is part and parcel of the final attainment.
I know that you are constantly surrounded by situations that go against you, that prevent you from rising to God – but remember, all those who have ever attained to God were also encircled by similar circumstances. Do not use situations as excuses, because the excuse, not the situation, is the real hindrance.
No matter how unfavorable circumstances may be they cannot be real obstacles between you and God. It is impossible. It is like saying it is too dark to light a lamp. The darkness is never that black nor are conditions that unfavorable that they can prevent you from reaching the light. The only obstacle is your own disillusionment. Really, there is no obstacle but you.
Do not attach too much importance to what is here today. It will be gone tomorrow. Something that changes from moment to moment is of very little value. The flow of situations is like the current of a river.
Concentrate on something solid, like a rock in the middle of the stream. That is your consciousness; that is your soul. That is you in your natural state. Everything else changes but that is unchangeable. Catch hold of that point of immobility because you are drifting in the winds, you are being tossed about by the waves.
You must locate the solid base of your being. Focus on it; zero in on it in your mind. As soon as you focus on this firm foundation your disappointment turns to hope and the darkness is transformed into
light. Remember, whosoever knocks at the door of the soul with a heart full of hope and confidence, with strength and determination, with love and prayer, is never unsuccessful. He is never turned away. Such a man cannot help but find God.
On the road to sin, success is as impossible as failure is on the path to God. If sin brings you success it is only as illusion; if you seem to fail on your way to God it is only a test. God’s door is never closed. Your eyes may be closed – but you have only closed them in your disappointment. Throw away this disappointment, this disillusionment, and see what stands before you. Isn’t it the sun you have been searching for? Isn’t it the beloved you have always longed for?
Christ has said, “Ask and you shall receive. Knock, and the door shall be opened unto you.” This was true before Christ as well. And it will be true in the future. Most men stand at God’s door with their eyes closed. Blessed are those who open their eyes and knock.
OPEN YOUR EYES AND LOOK AROUND YOU CAREFULLY. Don’t you see constant change wherever you look? Whatever your eyes behold is part of the perpetual current of life. The man who wants to build a storehouse for his treasures in the midst of a rushing river is not in his right senses.
TRUTH IS NOT SOMETHING YOU CREATE. It cannot be created at all. The only thing you can create is untruth. It is possible to see the truth, but not to create it. Truth is always present. You only needs eyes to see it.
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