Whatever
you need to know to function in this world
intelligently and sanely is already there in you.
You don't have to do a thing, to learn anything, to
function in this world. Whatever you learn
afterwards is of no use to you. Knowledge is
widening. They say that the growth of intelligence
stops by the time you are sixteen. Whatever you
learn afterwards is only widening the horizon and
not in anyway improving your understanding.
As far as the body is concerned, the growth of the
body stops by the time you are twenty-two or
twenty-three years. From then on it is slowly
deteriorating. It is aging slowly. The interest of
everybody is to stop the aging process. That is all
the interest of people. In that sense I am not
interested in expanding having more and more
people. One or two more it doesn't interest
me. Moreover, I feel uncomfortable. It is happening
in India and it is happening in America. Because
there is more and more publicity, more and more
curiosity is created in people. I don't know if
there is anything to astrology, but they say, "You
will become the idol of the masses."
Assuming for a moment that there is an enlightened
one, that man cannot die unless everybody in this
world comes to know that there is such a man. They
may not even know what he is saying. That is the
great tradition. It is in that sense that this
fellow has a message to give. Not like Rajneesh
scandals and all that. The astrologer said, "Until
that happens you are not going to die. Another
twenty-one years you will constantly move, running
away from the people in order to avoid them from
following you." I don't know. The age is going to
catch up. I don't care what the astrologers
say.
Question: Do you have volition, a wish
that something should happen?
U.G.: You see, there is no gap between my
needs and my goals. I have no goal independent of
my needs. The needs are the physical needs of the
body. There are no other needs.
Question: There is nothing connected with
what you see?
U.G.: No. I don't know what I am
looking at. I really don't know. What I know is in
the background; and that is brought into operation
in response to the demands of the situation. The
background plays its part and then it is gone.
Question: So, there is
no volition.
U.G.: I don't know. Thoughts are there. They
are not your thoughts or my thoughts. They come and
go. They are neither holy nor unholy. You have to
use thoughts to achieve something, to accomplish
something. In my case, I can't use thoughts.
Wanting is thinking. They go together. My wants are
limited to my physical needs. The moment a thought
arises there, the action is complete. You may feel
the time-lag between what I call an "action" here
and the completion of that "action" out there. But,
to me there is no time-lag. For example, there is
thirst. You have to say to yourself that you are
thirsty. Thought has got to come into operation and
separate itself from that sensation of what you
call "thirst". Then the action is complete. That is
what I mean by "action".
Question: The action is not quenching
of the thirst?
U.G.: No. That is of secondary
importance. In that sense the action is complete.
Every action is independent. Life is action. Life
is acting all the time. There is not one moment
where there is no sensation of some kind or the
other. You are responding to the sensations all the
time. But, of course, there are some moments the
nature of which you will never know. I don't know
what you
call samadhi or nirvikalpa samadhi.
The body has to go through the process of death
every now and then to renew itself. It is a renewal
process. All the sensory activity has to come to an
end for a fraction of a second; and it is
impossible for you to visualise and capture that.
But if the body is in a state of repose, it takes a
longer time. Sometimes for forty nine minutes the
body goes through a very elaborate process of
dying. Somehow it has to snap out of it, because
there are constant demands on the body. This can
hit you all of a sudden while you are walking in
the street. But the demands of the body are so
great that they cannot allow this for long.
Question: After that process of death
is there anything like a "you"?
U.G.: You are talking of a "you" after
death. Is there anything like what you call "you"
now? Where is it now? Are you awake? Are you alive
now?
Question: I feel I am awake. I have come
here. I started from home and have come to see
you.
U.G.: That is true. I also function as if
the whole world is real. You have to accept the
reality of the world up to a point. Otherwise, you
can't function in this world. But I can't say that
I am awake. I can't say that I am asleep either. I
see and I don't know what I am looking at. My
sensory perceptions are at their peak capacity; but
there is nothing inside of me which says that is
green, that is brown, and that you wear a white
shirt, a dhoti and glasses etc. No
anaesthesia has been administered on me, but still
I really don't know what I am looking at. The
knowledge I have about things is in the background,
but it is not operating. So am I awake or asleep? I
have no way of knowing it for myself. That is why I
say that in this consciousness there is no such
division as jagratta, swapna and
sushupti aren't those the words for
wakeful, dream and deep sleep states? A total
absence of this division in your consciousness into
wakeful, dream and sleep states may be called
"Turiya" not transcending these things but a
total absence of this division. So you are always
to use your Sanskrit phrase in the
turiya state.
Question: Because we are involved in every
perception we are not in the state you are
describing?
U.G.: Because there is a constant
demand on your part to experience everything that
you look at, everything that you are feeling
inside. If you don't do that, "you" as you know
yourself and as you experience yourself is coming
to an end. That is a frightening thing. You don't
want to come to an end; you want continuity. All
the spiritual pursuits are in the direction of
strengthening that continuity. So, all your
experiences, all your meditations, all
your sadhana - all that you do is
strengthening the "self". They are self-centred
activities. Whatever you do to be free from the
"self" is also a self-centred activity. The process
you adopt to attain what you call "being" is also a
"becoming" process. So, there is no such thing as
"being". Anything you do any movement, in
any direction, on any level is a becoming
process.
Question: You say that if the thought
barrier, the protective mechanism, is removed, then
the body responds to or resonates with anything
that happens?
U.G.: Then there is no mirror which is
reflecting. All your actions from then on are
reflex actions. Many of these things are handled by
the spinal column. That is why so much importance
has been given to the spinal column. Then
sensations don't reach the sensorium at all. They
are handled and disposed off before that point. The
moment they reach the sensorium, thought has got to
come into operation. Then there is an action
necessary, which is for the protection of the
body.
The comparative structure is absent here. When you
ask some questions, naturally I use this
comparative structure. I have to use adverbs and
adjectives because they are part of the language,
but really they don't mean anything to me. Not that
I am a hypocrite or any such thing. I say, "It is a
beautiful thing." Yes, it is a beautiful thing
within that framework. I have to accept the reality
of the world. Otherwise, I can't function in the
world. But actually there is nothing beautiful.
There, indeed, is beauty. That "beauty" is not an
idea, not a concept. It is not a thought. It is a
response to something there. Maybe that is why they
used the phrase "satyam shivam sundaram"
["Truth is eternal and beautiful"]. They
didn't mean this beauty. For example, there is a
mountain or some extraordinary thing. Here is a
response to that beauty and that response is a
sudden change in your breathing. You take a deep
breath and look at it. By the time you realise what
is happening, you have moved on from there to
something else. So, you don't sit there and watch
the sunset for hours and hours and write poems.
Nothing of that sort occurs, because you are moving
with it.
Question: Isn't a response a reaction
to something?
U.G.: No. I make a distinction between
reaction and response. Reaction is the interference
of thought and the translation of thought in terms
of the experiencing structure. But the response to
the stimulus, or sensation, is one movement. You
cannot separate the response from the stimulus. For
example, you have moved your hand from there. I
don't move my hands in response to that movement,
but all that movement is felt here. This is the
feeling not an emotion, not a thought, not
any of those things. If you hit something there,
here you automatically say "Ouch!" the
expression of pain, you see. There is nothing here
independent of what is happening there. That is why
I call this a "movement." This body is totally
attentive. Not that there is somebody who is
attentive. Everything that is happening there is
registered here as a movement. Where is the
movement taking place? Is it there? Is it here? Or
where? I can't say. I really don't know.
There are no images for me. Impressions are made
through words like the rods and cones. They come
out of me in exactly the same way. So, there is
nobody who is remembering anything. Memory, in my
case, is extraordinarily sharp. Supposing,
however, I want to memorise a poem or something
it is very difficult for me to do that. It's
very strange. So, if I look at anything, it is
automatically registered. There is no effort. Any
effort means that there is a distortion of the
whole thing. If there is a demand for that, the
information about it automatically comes out
without any effort. Sometimes I can't recall names.
At the same time, I don't bother even if I don't
happen to remember.
What I am saying can't be experienced by you except
through the help of thought. In other words, as
long as the movement of thought is there, it is not
possible for you to understand what I am talking
about. When it is not there, then there is no need
for you to understand anything. In that sense,
there is nothing to understand.
You are all occupied. You are interested in
listening to what I am saying. I am not interested
in telling you anything at all. Do you hear the
barking of the dog out there? You translate it and
say that is the barking of a dog. But if you are
just aware of that, it echoes here inside of you.
There is no separation from you. There is no
translation. You are barking, and not the dog out
there.
But one thing I must say. What I am saying is not
born out of thinking. This is not a logically
ascertained premise that I am putting forth. These
are just words springing forth from their natural
source without any thought, without any thought
structure. So, take it or leave it. You will be
better off if you leave it.
Many people come here and tell me about their
spiritual experiences. What do they expect? They
want me to pat them on their back and tell them,
"You are doing alright. Do more and more of the
same and you will reach your destination." I can't
do that. I emphasise that the experience which you
are considering as something extraordinary is
totally unrelated to the final thing you are after.
I always give the example of these tremors. Tremors
do not mean that one day there will be an
earthquake. These tremors have nothing to do with
the earth quake. This earthquake hits somewhere
else; not at the place you think it would occur.
When this thunderbolt hits you, you will find out
that all those tremors you have been experiencing
during what you call "sadhana" are in no way
connected to that. That is why all those
doing sadhana ask me that question: "How
do you know that what you did all
the sadhana - is not responsible for
where you are today.?" I can say that now: this is
not in any way related to what I did or did not do.
Not a whiff of it. Then you see, the whole business
of "sadhana" collapses. Because
the sadhana is always related to the goal
you have fixed to yourself. As I was telling
yesterday, as a matter of fact, what is going on
here in this dialogue is sadhana
because I am blocking every escape door. Somebody
said, "Why don't you leave at least one ventilator
open?" Even that has to be blocked. You must be
choked to death as it were. Only a real teacher can
tell and point out that. Nobody else. Nobody else
should talk about that. Not that I claim that I am
the real teacher or any such thing. Don't get me
wrong. They [the real teachers] are not
those who interpret the texts. Only such a man can
talk and such a man will never encourage any kind
of sadhana, because he knows
that sadhana is not going to help.
Life is energy. It is all the time trying to
convert itself into energy. In the final analysis
there is neither matter nor energy. Matter and
energy are interchangeable. But when thought takes
its birth, then it is matter. In its very nature
thought splits itself into two. If through
some luck or strange chance it remains without
splitting itself into two, something has got to
happen to that. And there it explodes. It is an
atomic explosion. The human organism has trillions
of atoms. It's an electromagnetic field. When one
atom explodes, it blasts everything that is there.
It triggers a chain reaction. You can't make this
kind of a thing happen at all. Yet the possibility
of its happening in everybody is 100%. Not that I
am placing a carrot before you. That is its nature.
That is why it happens in one in a billion. "Why
does it happen to one individual? Why not me?" If
you question in that fashion, you haven't got a
chance.
|