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‌Chapter 5: Why Can’t you Dance?

Right-knowledge has three sources: direct-cognition, inference and the words of the awakened ones,

Wrong-knowledge is a false conception not corresponding to the thing as it is.

An image conjured up by words without any substance behind it is vikalpa, imagination.

The modification of the mind which is based on the absence of any content in it, is sleep.

Memory is the calling up of past experiences.

The first sutra:

Right-knowledge has three sources: direct cognition, inference and the words of the awakened ones.

Pratyaksha, direct cognition, is the first source of right-knowledge. Direct cognition means a face-to-face encounter without any mediator, without any medium, without any agent. When you know something directly, the knower faces the known immediately. There is no one to relate, no bridge. Then it is right-knowledge. But then many problems arise.

Ordinarily, pratyaksha, direct cognition, has been translated, interpreted, commented on, in a very wrong way. The very word pratyaksha means before the eyes, in front of the eyes. But eyes themselves are a mediation, the knower is hidden behind. Eyes are the medium. You are hearing me but this is not direct, this is not immediate. You are hearing me through the senses, through the ears. You are seeing me through the eyes. Your eyes can wrongly report to you, your ears can wrongly report. No one should be believed; no mediator should be believed because you cannot rely on the mediator.

If your eyes are ill they will report differently, if your eyes are drugged they will report differently, if your eyes are filled with memory they will report differently. If you are in love then you see something that you can never see if you are not in love. An ordinary woman can become the most beautiful person in the world if you see through love. When your eyes are filled with love then they report something else. And the same person can appear ugly if your eyes are filled with hate. Eyes are not reliable.

You hear through the ears. Ears are just instruments, they can function

wrongly; they can hear something which has not been said, they can miss something which was being said. Senses cannot be reliable, senses are just mechanical devices.

Then what is pratyaksha, what is direct cognition? Direct cognition can only be when there is no mediator, not even the senses. Patanjali says then it is right- knowledge. This is the first basic source of right-knowledge: when you know something and you need not depend on anybody else.

You transcend the senses only in deep meditation. Then direct cognition becomes possible. When Buddha comes to know his innermost being, that innermost being is pratyaksha, that is direct cognition. No senses are involved, nobody has reported it, there is no one like an agent. The knower and known are face to face, there is nothing in between. This is immediacy, and only immediacy can be true.

So the first right-knowledge can only be that of the inner self. You may know the whole world, but if you have not known the innermost core of your being all your knowledge is absurd, it is not really knowledge; it cannot be true because the first, basic, right-knowledge has not happened to you. Your whole edifice is false. You may know many things, but if you have not known yourself, all your knowledge is based on reports given by the senses. And how can you be certain that the senses are reporting rightly?

In the night you dream. While dreaming you start believing in the dream, that it is true. Your senses are reporting the dream: your eyes are seeing it, your ears are hearing it, you may be touching it. Your senses are reporting to you, that’s why you fall under the illusion that it is real. You are here… It may be just a dream. How can you be certain that I am speaking to you, in reality? It is possible it may be just a dream, and you are dreaming me. Every dream is true while you dream.

Chuang Tzu once saw in a dream that he had become a butterfly. And in the morning he was sad. His disciples asked, “Why are you so sad?”

Chuang Tzu said, “I am in trouble. I have never been in such trouble before. This puzzle seems to be impossible, it cannot be solved. Last night I saw in a dream that I have become a butterfly.”

The disciples laughed. They said, “What is there? This is not a riddle. A dream is just a dream.”

Chuang Tzu said, “But listen, I am troubled. If Chuang Tzu can dream that he has become a butterfly, a butterfly may be dreaming now that she has become Chuang Tzu. So how to decide whether I am now facing reality or again a dream? And if Chuang Tzu can become a butterfly why can’t a

butterfly dream that she has become a Chuang Tzu?”

There is no impossibility, the reverse can occur. You cannot rely on the senses. In dreams the senses deceive you. If you take a drug, LSD or something, your senses will start deceiving you; you will start seeing things which are not there. They can deceive you to such an extent that you can start believing things so absolutely that you will be in danger.

One girl in New York jumped from the sixtieth floor because under LSD she thought she could fly. Chuang Tzu was not wrong: the girl really flew out of the window. Of course, she died. But she will never be able to know that she had been deceived by her senses under the influence of the drug.

Even without drugs we have illusions. You are passing through a dark street and suddenly you get scared, you see a snake. You start running, and later on you come to know that there was no snake, just a rope was lying there. But when you felt that there was a snake, there was a snake. Your eyes were reporting that the snake was there and you behaved accordingly – you escaped from the place.

Senses cannot be believed. Then what is direct cognition? Direct cognition is something which is known without the senses. So the first right-knowledge can only be of the inner self, because only there will the senses not be needed. Everywhere else the senses will be needed. If you want to see me you will have to see through the eyes, but if you want to see yourself eyes are not needed. Even a blind man can see himself. If you want to see me light will be needed, but if you want to see yourself darkness is okay, light is not needed.

Even in the darkest cave you can know yourself. No medium, not light, eyes, nothing is needed. The inner experience is immediate, and that immediate experience is the basis of all right-knowledge.

Once you are rooted in that inner experience then many things will start happening to you. It will not be possible to understand them right now. One who is rooted in his center, in his inner being, one who has come upon it, to feel it as a direct experience, cannot be deceived by the senses. He is awakened, his eyes cannot deceive him, his ears cannot deceive him, nothing can deceive him. Deception has dropped.

You can be deceived because you are living in delusion. You cannot be deceived once you have come to be a right knower. You cannot be deceived! Then everything, by and by, takes the shape of right-knowledge. Once you know yourself, then whatsoever you know will automatically fall into being right because now you are right. This is the distinction to be remembered: if you are right then everything becomes right, if you are wrong then everything

goes wrong. So it is not a question of doing something outside, it is a question of doing something inside.

You cannot deceive a buddha, it is impossible. How can you deceive a buddha? He is rooted in himself. You are transparent to him, you cannot deceive him. Before you know, he knows you. Even a glimmer of thought in you is clearly seen by him. He penetrates you to your very being.

Your penetration goes to the same extent in others as it goes into yourself. If you can penetrate into yourself, you can penetrate into everything to the same extent. The deeper you move within, the deeper you can move without. And you have not moved within even a single inch, so whatsoever you do outside is just like a dream.

Patanjali says the first source of right-knowledge is immediate, direct cognition, pratyaksha. He is not concerned with the charvakas, the old materialists, who said that only that which is before the eyes is true.

Because of this word pratyaksha, direct cognition, much misunderstanding has happened. The Indian school of materialists is Charvaka. The source of Indian materialism was Brihaspati, a very penetrating thinker, but a thinker; a very profound philosopher but a philosopher, not a realized soul. He says only pratyaksha is true, and by that he means whatsoever you know through the senses is true. And he says there is no way of knowing anything without the senses, so only sense-knowledge is real for charvakas.

Hence he denies there can be any God because no one has ever seen him. And only that which can be seen can be real, that which cannot be seen cannot be real. God exists not because you cannot see; the soul exists not because you cannot see it. And he says, “If there is a God, bring him before me so I can see him. If I see, then he is, because only seeing is truth.” He also uses the word pratyaksha, direct cognition, but his meaning is totally different.

When Patanjali uses the word pratyaksha his meaning is on an altogether different level. He says immediate knowledge not derived from any instrument, not derived from any medium is true. And once this knowledge happens you have become true. Now nothing false can happen to you. When you are true, authentically rooted in truth, then illusions become impossible.

That’s why it is said that buddhas never dream; one who is awakened never dreams – because even dreams cannot happen to him, he cannot be deceived. He sleeps, but not like you. He sleeps in a totally different way, the quality is different. Only his body sleeps, relaxes. His being remains alert, and that alertness won’t allow any dreaming to happen.

You can dream only when alertness is lost. When you are not aware, when you are deeply hypnotized, then you start dreaming. Dreaming can happen only

when you are completely unaware. The more unawareness, the more dreams there will be; the more awareness, the fewer dreams; fully aware, no dreams. Even dreaming becomes impossible for one who is rooted in himself, who has come to know the inner being immediately.

This is the first source of right-knowledge. The second source is inference. That is secondary, but that too is worth consideration because, as you are right now, you don’t know whether there is a self within or not. You have no direct knowledge of your inner being. What to do? There are two possibilities. You can simply deny that there is an inner core of your being, there is no soul, as charvakas do, or in the West as Epicurus, Marx, Engels and others have done.

But Patanjali says that if you know, there is no need for inference, but if you don’t know then too it will be helpful to infer. For example, Descartes, one of the greatest thinkers of the West, started his philosophical quest through doubt. He took the standpoint from the very beginning that he will not believe in anything which is not indubitable. That which could be doubted, he would doubt. And he would try to find a point which could not be doubted, and only on that point would he create the whole edifice of his thinking. It was a beautiful quest – honest, arduous, dangerous.

So he denied God, because you can doubt it. Many have doubted and no one has been able to answer their doubts. He went on denying. Whatsoever could be doubted, conceived to be dubitable, he denied. For years he was continuously in an inner turmoil. Then he fell upon the point which was indubitable: he couldn’t deny himself, that was impossible. You cannot say, “I am not.” If you say it, your very saying proves that you are. So this was the basic rock, “I cannot deny myself, I cannot say I am not. Who will say it? Even to doubt, I am needed.”

This is inference. This is not direct cognition. This is through logic and argument, but it gives a shadow, it gives a glimpse, it gives you a possibility, an opening. And then Descartes had the rock, and on this rock a great temple can be built. One indubitable fact and you can reach to the absolute truth. If you start with a doubtful thing you will never reach anywhere. In the very base, doubt remains.

Patanjali says inference is the second source of right-knowledge. Right- logic, right-doubting, right-argument can give you something which can help towards real knowledge. That he calls inference, anuman. You have not seen directly, but everything proves it; it must be so. There are situational proofs that it must be so.

For example, you look around the vast universe. You may not be able to conceive that there is a God, but you cannot deny; even through simple

inference you cannot deny that the whole world is a system, a coherent whole, a design. That cannot be denied. The design is so apparent, even science cannot deny it. Rather, on the contrary, science goes on finding more and more designs, more and more laws.

If the world is just an accident then science is impossible. But the world doesn’t seem to be an accident, it seems to be planned. And it is running according to certain laws and those laws are never broken.

Patanjali will say that design in the universe cannot be denied, and if once you feel there is design, the designer has entered. But that is an inference, you have not known him directly – but the design of the universe, the planning, the law, the order; and the order is so superb, it is so minute, so superb and so infinite, the order is there. Everything is humming with an order, a musical harmony of the whole universe. Someone seems to be hidden behind, but that’s an inference. Patanjali says inference can also be a help towards right- knowledge, but it has to be right-inference. Logic is dangerous, it is double- edged. You can use logic wrongly, then too you will reach conclusions.

For example, I told you that the plan is there, the design is there; the world has an order, a beautiful order, perfect. Right-inference will be that there seems to be somebody’s hand behind it. We may not be directly aware, we may not be in direct touch with that hand but a hand seems to be there, hidden. This is the right-inference.

But from the same premises you can also infer wrongly. There have been thinkers who have said as Diderot has said, “Because of order I cannot believe there is a God. In the world there seems to be perfect order. Because of this order, I cannot believe in God.” What is his logic? He says if there is a person behind it, then there cannot be so much order. If a person is behind it then he must commit mistakes sometimes. Sometimes he must go whimsical, crazy, sometimes he will change. Laws cannot be so perfect if someone is behind them. Laws can be perfect if there is no one behind them and they are simply mechanical.

That too has an appeal. If everything goes perfectly, it looks mechanical because man is imperfect. It is said, to err is human. If some person is there then he must err sometimes; he will get bored with so much perfection. And sometimes he must like to change.

Water boils at one hundred degrees. It has been boiling at one hundred degrees for millennia, always and always. God must get bored. “So, if someone is behind,” Diderot says, “just for a change, one day he will say, ‘From now onwards the water will boil at ninety degrees.’” But it has never happened, so there seems to be no person.

Both arguments look perfect. But Patanjali says that right-inference is that which gives you possibilities of growth. It is not a question whether the logic is perfect or not. The question is your conclusion should become an opening. If there is no God it becomes a closing. Then you cannot grow. If you conclude there is some hidden hand, the world becomes a mystery. And then you are not here just by accident, your life becomes meaningful, you are part of a great scheme. Then something is possible, you can do something, you can rise in awareness.

A right-inference means one which can give you growth, that which can give you growth; a wrong-inference, howsoever perfect looking, is that which closes your growth. Inference can also be a source of right-knowledge. Even logic can be used to be a source of right-knowledge, but you have to be very aware of what you are doing. If you are just logical you may commit suicide through it. Logic can become a suicide, and for many it does become.

Just a few days ago a seeker from California was here. He had traveled a long way to come to meet me. He said, “Before I can meditate, or before you tell me to meditate – because I have heard that whosoever comes to you, you push them into meditation – so before you push me in, I have many questions.” He had a list of at least a hundred questions. I think he had not left out any possible ones. He had questions about God, about the soul, about truth, about heaven and hell and everything – a sheet full of questions. He said, “Unless you solve these questions first, I am not going to meditate.”

He is logical in a way because he says, “Unless my questions are answered how can I meditate? Unless I feel confident that you are right, you have answered my doubts, how can I go in a direction which you show and indicate? You may be wrong. So you can prove your rightness only if my doubts disappear.”

Now his doubts are such that they cannot disappear. This is the dilemma: if he meditates they can disappear, but he says he will meditate only when these doubts are not there. What to do? He says, “First prove there is a God.” No one has ever proved it, no one ever can. That doesn’t mean that God is not there, but he cannot be proved. He is not a small thing which can be proved or disproved. It is such a vital thing that you have to live it to know it. No proof can help.

But logically he is right. He says, “Unless you prove, how can I start? If there is no soul, who is going to meditate? So first prove that there is a self, then I can meditate.”

This man is committing suicide. No one will ever be able to answer him. He has created all the barriers, and through these barriers he will not be able to

grow. But he is logical. What should I do with such a person? If I start answering his questions, a person who can create a hundred doubts can create millions, because doubting is a way, a style of mind. You can answer one question and through your answer he will create ten more questions because the mind remains the same.

He looks for doubts, and if I answer logically I am helping his logical mind to be fed, to be more strengthened. I am feeding it; that will not help. He has to be brought out of his logicalness.

So I asked him, “Have you ever been in love?”

He said, “But why? You are changing the subject.”

I said, “I will come to your points, but suddenly it has become very meaningful to me to ask if you have ever loved.”

He said, “Yes!” His face changed.

I asked, “But you loved before, or before falling in love, you doubted the whole phenomenon?”

Then he was disturbed. He was uncomfortable. He said, “No, I never thought about it. I had simply fallen in love, and only then I became aware.”

So I said, “Do the opposite: first think about love, whether love is possible, whether love exists, whether love can exist. And first let it be proved. And make it a condition that unless it is proved you will not love anybody.”

He said, “What are you saying? You will destroy my life. If I make this a condition, then I cannot love.”

“But,” I told him, “this is the same as you are doing. Meditation is just like love, you have to know it first. God is just like love. That’s why Jesus says that God is love. It is just like love. First one has to experience.”

A logical mind can be closed, and so logically that he will never feel that he has closed his own doors to all the possibilities for all growth. So inference, anuman, means thinking in such a way that growth is helped. Then it can become a source of right-knowledge.

And the third is the most beautiful, and nowhere else has it been made a source of right-knowledge: the words of the awakened ones, agama. There has been a long controversy about this third source. Patanjali says you can know directly, then it is okay. You can infer rightly, then too you are on the right path and you will reach the source.

But there are a few things you cannot even infer, and you have not known. But you are not the first on this earth, you are not the first seeker. Millions have been seeking for millions of ages, and not only on this planet but on other planets also. The search is eternal, and many have arrived. They have reached the goal, they have entered the temple. Their words are also a source of right-

knowledge.

Agama means the words of those who have known. Buddha says something or Jesus says something: we don’t know what he is saying, we have not experienced that, so we have no way of judging it. We don’t know what and how to infer rightly through his words. And the words are contradictory so you can infer anything you like.

There are a few who think Jesus was neurotic. Western psychiatrists have been trying to prove that he was neurotic, he was a maniac. These people claim that in saying, “I am the son of God, and the only son” he was mad, an egomaniac, neurotic. It can be proved that he was neurotic because there are many neurotic people who claim such things. You can find them; in madhouses there are many such people.

It happened once in Baghdad. Caliph Omar was the king, and one man declared on the streets of Baghdad, “I am the paigambara, I am the messenger, I am the prophet. And now Mohammed is canceled because I am here. I am the last word, the last message from the divine. And now there is no need for Mohammed, he is just out of date. He was the messenger up to now but now I have come. Now you can forget Mohammed.”

It was not a Hindu country. Hindus can tolerate everything; no one has tolerated like the Hindus. They can tolerate everything because they say, “Unless we know exactly we cannot say yes, we cannot say no. He may be the messenger, who knows?”

But Mohammedans are different; they are very dogmatic. They cannot tolerate. So Caliph Omar, having caught the new prophet, threw him in jail and told him, “Twenty-four hours are being given to you. Reconsider. And if you say you are not the prophet, that Mohammed is the prophet, then you will be released. If you insist in your madness, then after twenty-four hours I will come to the jail and you will be killed.”

The man laughed. He said, “Look! This is written in the scripture – that prophets will always be treated like this, as you are treating me.” He was logical. Mohammed himself was treated like that, so this was nothing new. The man said to Omar, “This is nothing new. This is how things are naturally going to be. And I am not in any position to reconsider. I am not the authority, I am just the messenger. Only God can change. In twenty-four hours you can come, you will find me the same. Only he can change who has appointed me.”

While this talk was going on another madman, who was chained to a pillar, started laughing. So Omar asked, “Why are you laughing?”

He said, “This man is absolutely wrong. I never appointed him! I cannot

allow this. After Mohammed I have not sent any messenger.”

In every madhouse these people are there, and it can be proved that Jesus is a similar case.

Words are so contradictory and illogical, and every person who has known is compelled to speak contradictorily, paradoxically, because the truth is such that it can be expressed only through paradoxes. Their statements are not clear, they are mysterious. And you can conclude anything out of them if you infer. You infer, your mind is there. The inference is going to be your inference. So Patanjali says there is a third source.

You don’t know. If you know directly, then there is no question, then there is no need for any other source. If you have direct cognition, then there is no need for inference or for the words of the enlightened ones; you yourself have become enlightened. Then you can drop the other two sources. Then inference, but the inference will be yours. If you are mad then your inference will be mad. But if this has not happened, then the third source is worth trying – the words of the enlightened ones.

You cannot prove them, you cannot disprove them. You can only have trust, and that trust is hypothetical; it is very scientific. In science also you cannot proceed without a hypothesis. But a hypothesis is not belief; it is just a working arrangement. A hypothesis is just a direction, you will have to experiment. And if the experiment proves right then the hypothesis becomes a theory. If the experiment goes wrong then the hypothesis is discarded. The words of the enlightened ones are to be taken on trust, as a hypothesis. Then work them out in your life. If they prove true, then the hypothesis has become a faith, if they prove false then the hypothesis has to be discarded.

You go to Buddha. He will say, “Wait! Be patient, meditate, and for two years don’t ask any question.” This you have to take on trust, there is no other way.

You can think, “This man may be just deceiving me. Then two years of my life are wasted. If after two years it is proved that this man was just hocus- pocus, just a deceiver or self-deceived, in an illusion that he has become enlightened, then my two years are wasted.” But there is no other way. You have to take the risk. And if you remain there without trusting Buddha, these two years will be useless because unless you trust you cannot work. The work is so intense that only if you have trust can you move wholly into it, totally into it. If you don’t have trust then you go on withholding something, and that withholding will not allow you to experience what Buddha is indicating.

There is risk, but life itself is risk. For a higher life there will be higher risks.

You move on a dangerous path. But remember, there is only one error in life, and that is not moving at all; that is, just sitting afraid that if you move something may go wrong, so it is better to wait and sit. This is the only error. You will not be in danger but no growth will be possible.

Patanjali says there are things which you do not know, there are things which your logic cannot infer; you have to take on trust. Because of this third source, the guru, the master, becomes a necessity – someone who knows. And you have to take the risk, and I say it is a risk because there is no guarantee. The whole thing may prove just a waste, but it is better to take the risk because even if it is proved to be a waste, you have learned much. Now no other person will be able to deceive you so easily. At least you have learned this much.

If you move with trust, if you move totally, follow a buddha like a shadow, things may start happening because they have happened to the person. They have happened to this Gautam Buddha, to Jesus, to Mahavira, and they know the path they have traveled. If you argue with them you will be the loser. They cannot be the losers, they will simply leave you aside.

In this century this has happened with Gurdjieff. So many people were attracted to him, but he would create such a situation for the new disciples that unless they could trust totally, unless they could trust even in absurdities, they would have to leave immediately. And those absurdities were planned. Gurdjieff would go on lying. In the morning he would say something, in the afternoon something else. And you were not to ask! He would shatter your logical mind completely.

In the morning he would say, “Dig this ditch. And this is a must! By the evening this must be complete.” The whole day you would spend digging it. You exerted, you were tired, you were perspiring, you had not eaten, and by evening he would come and say, “Throw the mud back in the ditch. And before you go to bed it has to be completed.”

Now even an ordinary mind will say, “What do you mean? I have wasted the whole day. And I was thinking it was something very necessary, by the evening it has to be completed and now you say, ‘Throw the mud back!’”

If you asked such a thing Gurdjieff would say, “Simply leave! Go! I am not for you, you are not for me.”

The ditch or the digging was not the thing. What he was testing was whether you could trust him even when he was absurd. And once he knew that you could trust him and you could move with him wherever he led, only then real things would follow. Then the test was over, you had been examined and found to be authentic, a real seeker who could work and who could trust. And then real things could happen to you, never before.

Patanjali is a master, and he knows this third source very well through his own experience with thousands and thousands of disciples. He must have worked with many, many disciples and seekers; only then is it possible to write such a treatise as the Yoga Sutras. They are not by a thinker, they are by one who has experimented with many types of minds and who has penetrated with many, many layers of minds, every type of person who has worked. He makes this the third source: the words of the awakened ones.

The second sutra:

Wrong-knowledge is a false conception not corresponding to the thing as it is.

Now some definitions which will be helpful later on: The definition of viparyaya, wrong-knowledge. Wrong-knowledge is a false conception of something not corresponding to the thing as it is. We all have a big burden of wrong-knowledge because before we encounter a fact we are already prejudiced.

If you are a Hindu and someone is introduced to you and it is said that he is a Mohammedan, immediately you have taken a wrong attitude that this man must be wrong. If you are a Christian and someone is introduced as a Jew you are not going to “dig” this man, you are not going to be open to this particular man. Just by saying “a Jew” your prejudice has come in; you have already known this man. Now there is no need, you know what type of man this is, he is a Jew.

You have a preconception, a prejudiced mind, and this prejudiced mind gives you wrong-knowledge. All Jews are not bad; neither are all Christians good nor are all Mohammedans bad; neither are all Hindus good. Really, goodness and badness don’t belong to any race, they belong to persons, individuals. There may be bad Mohammedans, bad Hindus, good Mohammedans, good Hindus. Goodness and badness do not belong to any nation, to any race, to any culture, they belong to individuals, personalities. But it’s difficult to face a person without any prejudice; and you will have a revelation.

Once it happened to me while I was traveling…

I entered my compartment on a train. Many people had come to see me off, so the person who was in the compartment, another passenger, immediately touched my feet and said, “You must be a great saint. So many persons have come to see you off.”

So I told this man, “I am a Mohammedan. I may be a great saint but I am a

Mohammedan.”

He felt shocked! He had touched a Mohammedan’s feet and he was a brahmin! He started perspiring, he was nervous. He looked again and he said, “No, you are joking.” Just to console himself he said, “You are joking.”

“I am not joking. Why should I joke? You should have inquired before you touched my feet!”

Then we were both together in the compartment. Again and again he would look at me and would take a long, deep breath. He must have been thinking to go and take a bath! But he was not encountering me. I was there, and he was concerned with a concept of “Mohammedan.” And he was a brahmin; he had become impure by touching me.

Nobody encounters things, persons, as they are – you have a prejudice. These prejudices create viparyaya, these prejudices create wrong-knowledge. Whatsoever you think, if you have not come freshly upon the fact, it is going to be wrong. Don’t bring your past, don’t bring your prejudices. Put aside your mind and encounter the fact. Just see whatsoever there is to be seen. Don’t project.

We go on projecting. Our mind is just completely filled and fixed from the very childhood. Everything has been given to us ready made, and through that ready-made knowledge our whole life becomes an illusion. You never meet a real person, you never see a real flower. Just by hearing “This is a rose” you say “Beautiful!” mechanically. You have not felt the beauty, you have not sensed the beauty, you have not touched this flower. Just “rose is beautiful” is in your mind; the moment you hear “rose” the mind projects and says “It is beautiful.”

You may believe that you have come to feel that the rose is beautiful; this is not so. This is false. Just look. That’s why children come to things more deeply than grown-up people, because they don’t know names. They are not yet prejudiced. If a rose is beautiful only then will it be beautiful; not all roses are beautiful. Children come near to things, their eyes are fresh. They see things as they are because they don’t know how to project anything.

But we are always in a hurry to make them grown-ups, to make them adults. We are filling their minds with knowledge, information. This is one of the most recent discoveries of psychologists: that when children enter school they have more intelligence than when they leave the university. The latest findings prove that when children enter the first grade, they have more intelligence, and they will have less and less intelligence as they grow in knowledge. And by the time they become bachelors and masters and doctors, they are finished. When they

come back with a doctor’s degree, a Ph.D., they have left their intelligence somewhere in the university. They are dead, filled with knowledge, crammed with knowledge, but this knowledge is just false, a prejudice about everything. Now they cannot feel things directly, they cannot feel live persons directly, they cannot live directly. Everything has become verbal, wordy. It is not real now, it has become mental.

Wrong-knowledge is a false conception not corresponding to the thing as it is.

Put aside your prejudices, knowledge, conceptions, pre-formulated information and look fresh, become a child again. And this has to be done moment to moment because every moment you are gathering.

One of the oldest Yoga aphorisms is: Die every moment so you can be reborn every moment. Die every moment to the past, throw off all the dust that you have collected and look afresh. But this has to be done continuously because next moment the dust has gathered again.

Nan-in was in search of a Zen master when he was a seeker. He lived with his master for many years, and then the master said, “Everything is okay. You have almost achieved.”

But he said “almost,” so Nan-in said, “What do you mean?”

The master said, “I will have to send you to another master for a few days. That will do the last finishing touch.” Nan-in was very excited. He said, “Send me immediately!” A letter was given to him. And he was excited; he thought he was being sent to someone who was a greater master than his own. But when he reached to the man he was a nobody, just a keeper of an inn, a doorkeeper of an inn.

He felt very disappointed and he thought, “This must be some sort of joke. This man is going to be my last master? He is going to give me the finishing touch?” But he had come, so he thought, “It is better to be here for a few days at least to rest, then I will go back. It was a long journey.” So he said to the innkeeper, “My master has given this letter.”

The innkeeper said, “But I cannot read, so you can keep your letter; it is not needed. And you can be here.”

Nan-in said, “But I have been sent to learn something from you.”

The innkeeper said, “I am just an innkeeper. I am not a master, I am not a teacher. There must have been some misunderstanding. You may have come to a wrong person. I am just an innkeeper. I cannot teach; I don’t know anything. But since you have come you can just watch me. That may be helpful. You rest

and watch.”

But there was nothing to watch. In the morning he would open the door of the inn. Then guests would come and he would clean their things – the pots, the utensils and everything – and he would serve. And in the night again, when everybody had gone and the guests had gone to sleep to their beds, he would clean things again, pots, utensils, everything. And in the morning, again the same.

By the third day Nan-in was bored. And he said, “There is nothing to watch. You go on cleaning utensils, you go on doing ordinary work, so I must leave.” The innkeeper laughed, but said nothing.

Nan-in went back. He was very angry with his master and said, “Why? Why was I sent for such a long journey? It was tedious, and the man was just an innkeeper. And he didn’t teach me anything, and he simply said, ‘Watch’ – and there was nothing to watch.”

But the master said, “Still, you were there for three, four days. Even if there was nothing to watch, you must have watched. What were you doing?”

So he said, “I was watching! In the night he would clean the utensils, pots, put everything there, and in the morning he was again cleaning.”

The master said, “This! This is the teaching! This is what you were sent for! He had cleaned those pots in the night, but in the morning he was again cleaning those clean pots. What does it mean? Because even in the night, when nothing had happened, they had become unclean again, some dust had settled again. So you may be pure – now you are – you may be innocent, but every moment you have to continue cleaning. You may not do anything, still you become impure just by the passage of time. Moment by moment, just with the passage of time, not doing anything, just sitting under a tree, you become unclean. And that uncleanliness is not because you were doing something bad or something wrong, it happens just through the passage of time. Dust collects, so you go on cleaning. And this is the last touch – because I feel you have become proud that you are pure and now you are not aware of a constant effort to clean.”

Moment to moment one has to die and be reborn again. Only then are you freed from wrong-knowledge.

The third sutra:

An image conjured up by words without any substance behind it is vikalpa, imagination.

Imagination is just through words, verbal structures. You create a thing – it

is not there, it is not a reality, but you create it through your mental images. And you can create it to such an extent that you yourself become deceived by it and you think it is real. This happens in hypnosis. Hypnotize a person and say anything; he conjures up the image and that image becomes real. You can do it, you are doing it in many ways.

One of the most famous Swedish actresses, Greta Garbo, has written a memoir. She was an ordinary girl, just a homely, ordinary girl, very poor, and working in a barber shop. Just for a few pennies she would put lather on the customers’ faces. She did this for three years.

One day, an American film director was in that barber shop and she was putting soap on his face, and just the way Americans are – he may not have even meant it – he simply looked in the mirror at the reflection of the girl, and said, “How beautiful!” And Greta Garbo was born that very moment.

She writes that suddenly she became different. She had never thought herself beautiful, she couldn’t conceive of it. And she had never heard anybody saying that she was beautiful. For the first time she also looked in the mirror and the face was different, this man had made her beautiful. And her whole life changed. She followed the man and became one of the most famous film actresses.

What happened? Just hypnosis, hypnosis through a word beautiful, worked. It works, it becomes chemical. Everybody believes something about himself: that belief becomes reality because that belief starts working on you.

Imagination is a force, but it is a conjured-up force, an imagined force. You can use it and you can be used by it. If you can use it, it will be helpful, but if you are used by it, it is fatal, it is dangerous. Imagination can become madness any moment. Imagination can be helpful if through it you create a situation for your inner growth and crystallization. But it is through words, a conjured-up thing.

For human beings words, language, verbal constructions have become so significant that now nothing is more significant. If someone suddenly says, “Fire!” the word fire will change you immediately. There may be no fire… You will stop listening to me. There will be no effort to stop; suddenly you will stop listening to me, you will start running here and there. The word fire has taken your imagination.

In that way you are influenced by words. The people in the advertisement business know what words to use to conjure up images. Through those words they catch you, they catch the whole market. There are many such words. They go on changing with the fashions.

In the past few years new is the word. So everything you see in the

advertisements is new – a “new” Lux soap. Lux soap won’t do; the new appeals immediately. Everybody is for the new. Everybody is searching for the new, something new, because everybody is bored with the old. So anything new has appeal. That may not be better than the old – it may be worse – but just the word new opens vistas in the mind.

These words and their influence have to be understood deeply. A person who is in search of the truth must be aware of the influence of words. Politicians and advertising people are using words, and they can create through words, they can capture your imagination so much that you can even stake your life; you can throw your life away just for words.

What are these? – “Nation,” “the national flag” – just words. “Hinduism”… You can say “Hinduism is in danger” and suddenly many people are ready to do something or even to die – just a few words! “Our nation is insulted”: what is “our nation”? – just words. A flag is nothing but a piece of cloth, but a whole nation can die for the flag because someone has insulted the flag, lowered it. What nonsense goes on in this world because of words! Words are dangerous, they have deep sources of influence within you. They trigger something in you and you can be captured.

Patanjali says imagination has to be understood, because on the path of meditation words have to be dropped so that influence by others can be dropped. Remember, words are taught by others, you are not born with words. They are taught to you and through words, many prejudices are taught. Through words religion, through words myths, everything is fed to you through words. The word is the medium, the vehicle of culture, society, information.

You cannot excite animals to fight for a nation. You cannot excite them because they don’t know what a “nation” is. That’s why there are no wars. In the animal kingdom there are no wars, no flags, no temples, no mosques. And if animals can look at us, they are bound to think that man has some obsession with words, because wars go on around them, millions are killed just because of words.

Someone is a Jew, kill him – just the word Jew. Change the label, he becomes a Christian, and then there is no need to kill. But he is not ready to change the label. He will say, “I would rather be killed but I cannot change my label. I am a Jew.” He is also adamant, others are also adamant. But just words! Jean-Paul Sartre has written his autobiography and he has given it the title Words. It is beautiful, because as far as mind is concerned the whole autobiography of any mind consists of words and nothing else. And Patanjali says one has to be aware of this, because on the path of meditation words have to be left behind. Nations, religions, scriptures, languages have to be left

behind and man has to become innocent, freed of words. When you are free of words there will be no imagination, and when there is no imagination you can face truth. Otherwise you will go on creating.

If you go to meet God, you must meet him without any words. If you have some words, he may not fit and suit your idea. Because if a Hindu thinks God has one thousand hands and if God comes with only two hands, he will reject: “You are not a God at all. With only two hands? God has a thousand hands. Show me your other hands, only then can I believe.”

I have heard…

One of the most beautiful persons of this past century was Sai Baba of Shirdi. Sai Baba was a Mohammedan. Really, no one knows whether he was a Mohammedan or a Hindu, but he lived in a mosque so it was believed that he was a Mohammedan. He had a friend and a follower who was a Hindu who loved, respected, had much faith in Sai Baba. Every day he would come for his darshan, and unless he saw him he would not leave. Sometimes it would happen that for the whole day he would have to wait, but he would not go without seeing him, and he would not take food unless he had seen Sai Baba.

Once it happened that the whole day passed, there was a big gathering and much crowding; he couldn’t enter. When everybody had gone, just in the night he reached Sai Baba and touched his feet.

Sai Baba said to him, “Why do you wait unnecessarily? There is no need to see me here, I can come there. And drop this; from tomorrow, now I will come. You will see me every day before you take your food.”

The disciple was very happy. So the next day he waited and waited: nothing happened. Really, many things happened, but nothing happened according to his conception. By the evening he was very angry. He had not eaten and Sai Baba had not appeared, so he went again. He said, “You promise and you don’t fulfill?”

Sai Baba said, “But I appeared thrice, not even once. First time I came I was a beggar, and you said to me, ‘Move away. Don’t come here.’ The second time I came as an old woman, and you just wouldn’t look at me; you closed your eyes” – because the disciple had the habit of not seeing women; he was practicing not seeing women, so he closed his eyes. Sai Baba said, “I had come, but what do you expect? Should I enter your closed eyes? I was standing there but you closed your eyes. The moment you saw me you closed the eyes. Then the third time I came as a dog, and you wouldn’t allow me in. You were standing at the door with a stick.”

And these three things had happened. And these things have been happening to the whole humanity. The divine comes in many forms but you have a prejudice; you have a pre-formulated conception, you cannot see. He must appear according to you, and he never appears according to you, and he will never appear according to you. You cannot be the rule for him and you cannot put any conditions.

When all imagination falls away, only then truth appears. Otherwise imagination goes on making conditions and truth cannot appear. Only in a naked mind, in a nude, empty mind, truth appears, because you cannot distort it.

The fourth sutra:

The modification of the mind which is based on the absence of any content in it is sleep.

This is the definition of sleep, the fourth modification of the mind: when there is no content. Mind is always with content, except in sleep. Something or other is there. Some thought is moving, some passion is moving, some desire is moving, some memory, some future imagination, some word, something is moving. Something is continuously there. Only when you are fast asleep, deeply asleep, content stops, mind disappears and you are in yourself without any content.

This has to be remembered because this is going to be the state of samadhi also, with only one difference: you will be aware. In sleep you are unaware, mind goes completely to non-existence. You are alone, left alone with no thought, just your being. But you are not aware. Mind is not there to disturb you, but you are not aware; otherwise sleep can become enlightenment.

Contentless consciousness is there, but the consciousness is not alert. It is hidden, just in a seed. In samadhi the seed is broken, the consciousness becomes alert. And when consciousness is alert and there is no content, this is the goal. Sleep with awareness is the goal.

This is the fourth modification of the mind – sleep. But that goal, sleep with awareness, is not a modification of the mind, it is beyond mind. Awareness is beyond mind. If you can join sleep and awareness together, you have become enlightened. But it is difficult because even when we are awake in the day, we are not alert. Even when we are awake, we are not awake; the word is false. When we sleep, how can we be awake, when even when we are awake, we are not awake.

So one has to start in the day, when you are awake. You have to be more awake, more and more intensely awake. And then you have to try with dreams:

in dreams you have to be alert. Only if you succeed with the waking state, then with the dreaming state, will you be able to succeed with the third state, of sleep.

Try first walking on the street: try to be aware. Don’t just go on walking automatically, mechanically. Be alert of every movement, of every breath that you take – exhale, inhale – be alert. Of every eye movement you are doing, of every person you look at, be alert. Whatever you are doing, be alert and do it with alertness.

Then at night, while you are falling asleep, try to remain alert. The last phase of the day will be passing, memories will be floating – remain alert and try to fall asleep with alertness. It will be difficult, but if you try, within a few weeks you will have a glimpse: you are asleep and alert. If you can manage even for a single moment, it is so beautiful, it is so bliss-filled that you will never be the same again.

Then you will not say that sleep is just wasting time. It can become the most precious sadhana, because when the waking state goes and the sleeping starts there is a change, a change of gears inside. It is just like a change of gears in a car. When you change gears from one gear to another, for a single moment between these two there is a neutral gear, there is no gear. That moment of neutrality is very significant.

The same happens in the mind. When from waking you move into sleep, there is a moment when you are neither awake nor asleep. In that moment there is no gear, the mechanism is not functioning. Your automatic personality is nullified in that moment. In that moment your old habits will not force you in a certain pattern. In that moment you can escape and become alert.

In India this moment has been called sandhya, the moment in between. There are two sandhyas, two in-between moments: one in the night when you go from waking to sleep, and the other in the morning when you again move from sleep to waking. Hindus have called these two the moments of prayerfulness, sandhyakal, the period in between, because then for a single moment your personality is not there. In that single moment you are pure, innocent. If in that moment you can become alert, your whole life will change. You will have a base for transformation.

Then try to be alert in the dream state. There are methods for how to be alert in a dream state. If you want to try, first try in the waking state. When you succeed in the waking, then you will be able to succeed in the dreaming because dreaming is deeper, more effort will be needed. And it is also difficult because what to do in a dream and how to do it?

For the dreaming state, Gurdjieff developed a beautiful method. It is one of

the old Tibetan methods, and Tibetan seekers have worked very deeply into the dreamworld.

The method is: just when falling into sleep try to remember one thing, any one thing, perhaps just a roseflower. Just visualize a roseflower and go on thinking that you will see it in the dream. Visualize it and go on thinking that in the dream, whatsoever the dream, this roseflower must be there. Visualize its color, its scent, everything. Feel it so it will become alive inside you, and with that roseflower fall into sleep.

Within a few days you will be able to bring that flower into your dream. This is a great success, because now you have created at least a part of the dream. Now you are the master. At least one part of the dream, the flower, has come. And the moment you see the flower you will immediately remember, “This is a dream.” Nothing else is needed. The flower and, “This is a dream” have become associated because you have created the flower in the dream. And you were continuously thinking for this flower to appear in the dream and the flower has appeared. Immediately you will recognize, “This is a dream,” and the whole quality of the dream will change, the flower-dream and everything around the dream. You have become alert.

Then you can enjoy the dream in a new way, just like a film. And then if you want to stop the dream you can simply stop, put it off. But that will take a little more time and more practice. Then you can create your own dreams. There is no need to be a victim of dreams: you can create your own dreams, you can live your own dreams. You can have a theme just before you fall into sleep, you can direct your dreams just like a film director and you can create a theme out of it.

Tibetans have used dream creations because through dream creation you can change your total mind, the structure. And when you succeed in dreams then you can succeed in sleep. But there is no technique for sleep because there is no content. A technique can work only with content. Because there is no content, no technique can help. But through dream you will learn to be aware and that awareness can be carried on into sleep.

The last sutra:

Memory is the calling up of past experiences.

These are definitions. He is clarifying things so later on you need not get mixed up.

What is memory? – calling up of past experiences. Memory is continuously happening. Whenever you see something, immediately memory comes in and distorts it. You have seen me before. You see me again and immediately

memory comes in. If you had seen me five years before, then the picture of five years ago, the past picture, will come into your eyes and fill your eyes, and you will see me through that picture.

That’s why if you have not seen your friend for many days, the moment you see him you immediately say, “You are looking very thin,” or “You are looking very unhealthy,” or “You have gained weight.” Immediately! Why? – because you are comparing; the memory has come in. The man himself is not aware that he has gotten fat or he has become thin, but you become aware because immediately you can compare. The past, the last picture comes in, and immediately you can compare.

This memory is continuously there, being projected on everything you see. This past memory has to be dropped. It should not be a constant interference in your knowing because it doesn’t allow you to know the new. You always know in the pattern of the old. It doesn’t allow you to feel the new, it makes everything old and rotten. Because of this memory, everybody is bored; the whole humanity is bored. Look at anybody’s face – he is bored, bored to death. There is nothing new, no ecstasy.

Why are children so ecstatic? You cannot imagine how this ecstasy is happening for such simple things. Just a few colored stones on the beach and they start dancing. What is happening to them? Why can’t you dance? – because you know those are just stones, your memory is there. For those children there is no memory, those stones are a new phenomenon, as if they have reached to the moon.

I was reading that when the first man reached the moon there was excitement all over the world. And everybody was looking at their TV’s – but within fifteen minutes everybody was bored, finished: “What to do now? The man is walking on the moon.” After just fifteen minutes – and this dream had taken millions of years to reach there – and now nobody was interested in what was happening.

Everything becomes old. Immediately it becomes memory, it becomes old. If you can, drop your memories, and dropping doesn’t mean that you cease to remember, dropping only means dropping this constant interference. When you need it you can pull it back into focus. When you don’t need it just let it be there, silent, not continuously coming.

The past, if continuously present, will not allow the present to be. And if you miss the present you miss all.

Enough for today.

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