Pilgrimage Within

PILGRIMAGE WITHIN

By VIMALA THAKAR

English
1. Eternal Voyage ∑
2. Nijmegan University Talks, 1970 & 1972
3. Meditation, a Way of Life
4. Friendly Communion
5. Life & Living
6. Talks, Ceylon and California
7. Meditation Booklets, One, Two, Three & Four
8. Science and Spirituality
9. Himalayan Pearls
10.Being & Becoming
11.Glimpses of Raja Yoga
12.Glimpses of lshavasya
13.The Mystery of Silence
14.The Urgency for Self Discovery
15.Beyond Awareness
16.From Intellect to Intelligence
17.Towards Total Transformation
18.Mutation of Mind
19.Life is to be related
20.The Benediction of being alive
21.Exploring Freedom
22.Eloquence of Living
23.Passion for Life
24.Spirituality and Social Action
(Note:Books also available in Hindi,Gujarati and Marathi)

AVAILABLE FROM :
For Indian Orders: Vimal Prakashan Trust, Maitri, 6 Sunset
Row House, Near Gurukul,Drive-in Road, Ahmedabad 380052.
For Foreign Orders: Shiv Kuti, Mt. Abu, Rajasthan 307 501.

EUROPE
1.Bookfund Vimala Thakar, Hopstraat 12, 2611 TC Delft, Holland.

NORTH AMERICA
1.Jan Surrey, 75, Bellevue Street, ∑ New’ ton Centre,
Massachusetes 02158, U.S.A.

SOUTH AMERICA
1. Cecil Dockeudorff, 833 AV ltalia, Santiago, Chile.
2. Luz Reynal De Asis, Chalat La Isleta.
1178 Cruz Chica, Sierras De Cordoba, Argentina.
3. Francisco Laissue, Pea, Clava Bilac, 28
Sobveloja, 20 Rio de Janeiro 10041. Brazil.

VIMALA THAKAR

PILGRIMAGE WITHIN

VIMALAJI’S FRIENDLY COMMUNION WITH
BOMBAY INQUIRERS

DURING FESTIVAL OF FRIENDSHIP AT MOUNT
ABU
16-21 NOVEMBER, 1992

INDIA
VIMAL PARIVAR, BOMBAY
1993

Price in India Rs. 40.00

@1993 Vimal Prakashan Trust
Maitri,6 Sunset Row.House
Near Gurukul, Drive-in-Road
AHMEDABAD 380 052

Publishers:
Vimal Parivar, Bombay
C/0 Y.R.Rajguru & Co.
28/32, Mint Road, 1st Floor
Near G.P.O.,Fort
BOMBAY 400 001

Printed In India by:
Priya Graphics
A/203, Shree Ram Bhawan
Malad Marve Road
Kharodi, BOMBAY 400 095

FOREWORD

Vimal Parivar, Bombay feels extremely happy and privileged
in publishing this book, containing Vimalaji’s friendly
communion with Parivar members from Bombay during the
weeklong ‘Festival of Friendship’ camp at Mount Abu in
November, 1992.

Vimalaji’s talks and the participative questions and
answers had been recorded during the camp. These have
been transcribed and printed practically verbatim with very
little editing. Almost all the material has been retained in the
‘as spoken’form. This would help the readers in establishing
a better communion with Vimalaji and participate in the
‘relived’ camp, as it were, while reading this book.

The publication of this book has become possible due to
the whole-hearted co-operation from many Bombay friends
to whom we express our thanks. We are specially grateful
to Kaiserben Irani who recorded the discourses, to Shri
Sudarshan Dheer for very willingly preparing, as a labour of
love, the excellent artwork for the cover page, to Shri
Krishnakant H. Parekh for providing the beautiful photograph
which he had taken during his pilgrimage to Mount
Kailas and Mansarovar and to Shri Haridas Soni for a faithful
transcription of the majority of the tapes.

We now sincerely urge the readers to undertake their
own ‘Pilgrimage Within’.

15th Aug 1993 Vimal Parivar, Bombay

CONTENTS

Chapter Page

1
:The Pilgrimage Within 1
:What Is a Pilgrimage? 1
:Who Is a Pilgrim? 3
:Civilization Is a Process of Conditioning 6
:The Mystery of Wholeness’ 7
:Observing the Movement of Conditioning 10
:The Dimension of Silence 12

2
:The Implications of Observation, 14
Attention and Awareness In Dally Living

3
:Questions & Answers 22

4
:From Self Observation to 36
:Self Knowledge to Silence
:Looking 37
:Observation 38
:Silence 42

Chapter Page

5: Awareness & Attentivity 51
6: Questions & Answers 62
7: Why Scientific Approach to Enquiry 75
Is felt Difficult ?
8: Probing Silence with Sensitivity 83
9: Why is not One able to Live 91
In the Present ?
10: Questions & Answers 102
11: Silence is the Substance of 114
Consciousness and Emptiness is the
Substance of Creation
:Understanding Images 116
:Living in Silence: An Alternative 118
Way of Living
12: What Is Insight? 129
: Identification 131
: The Act of Living 132
: Awareness of Death 135

:Total Involvement in the Inquiry 136
:Learning in the Stream of Relationship 140
:Integrity of Inquiry 142

:The Pilgrrmage Continues 145
:The Present Context of the Spiritual 147
:Inquiry
:From Human Consciousness to the 150
:Energy of Awareness
:Should the Inquirer 154
:Search for a Master?
:Who is a Master ? 156

I

PILGRIMAGE WITHIN

We should be thankful to Life for bringing us together.
We can be in a house without feeling each other’s presence
which has a language of communication by itself. We may
be looking at one another without seeing one another and
we may be hearing the words spoken by each other without
listening to them. Interaction, a dialogue, a conversation, a
meeting requires receptivity which is the essence of mutuality.
An open-ness or receptivity implies that inwardly we
are not pre-occupied with any activity other than the action
of perception, the action of audition, listening.

For the five full days that we are going to be here
together and perhaps another half a day, may we hope that
there will .be a togetherness and the consciousness of we,
the many, will merge into the awareness of the Wholeness,
the Oneness of Life? That is why one said, let us be thankful
to Life for bringing us together.

WHAT IS A PILGRIMAGE?

We are going to communicate with one another about
the Pilgrimage Within. What is a pilgrimage? And who is a
pilgrim? Life itself is a pilgrimage. The whole lifetime is the
time for undertaking a pilgrimage. A willingness to live, a
willingness to look at Life when it manifests before us in
innumerable aspects and forms is required. Sometimes it
appears as pleasure and sometimes as pain; Sometimes as
honour and sometimes as humiliation; Sometimes as joining
together and sometimes. it separates us -an irreversible
separation.

Manifestations of Life have been innumerable and
perhaps shall ever be innumerable, inconceivable by the
human brain. That is the beauty of Life. That is the essence
of the Infinite or Eternity of Life. Are we willing to look upon
our whole life time as a time for undertaking a pilgrimage?
Is it not a movement or a journey towards a place which you
regard as holy or sacred?

A pilgrim is a person who undertakes a journey willingly,
not under pressure. A pressurised journey cannot be a
pilgrimage. If there is a reluctance to live, if there is a
resistance to various aspects and manifestations of Life, it
will not be a pilgrimage. It will not have that perfume of
sacredness or holiness.

Which is the holy place towards which we would like to
move if we are to become pilgrims? Surely, Life itself. The
ever-moving, the self-created, self-generated, self-regulating,
self-controlling cosmic dance of Life, is something
which we would like to understand, which we would like to
see squarely, understand it and live it.

Life itself is the Divinity, the Wholeness. The homogeneity
of Life is something sacred and perhaps we are going
to undertake a journey from fragmentation to homogeneity,
from partialness to Wholeness, from the movement of
knowing to the action of understanding, from the slumber of
knowledge and experience to the state of being Awake, to
Awareness – that could be perhaps the implication of our
pilgrimage.

When you undertake a journey, say to the Himalayas,
or to Mecca or Medina, or to Jerusalem and so on, soon
you are open, you are receptive, you are eager to learn to
see for yourself. To discover every step that you take, is as
important to you if not more, than the pre-determined
destination. lf the journey itself is not important, it cannot be
a pilgrimage. Then it will be sight seeing. Then it will be
indulging in interesting sensual, psychological experiences
which have their own relevance in life. But they do not have
that quality of sacredness or holiness ingrained in your
blood as it were, in your breath as it were.

During these five days we will launch upon a journey
together to discover individually and collectively, the secret
of Wholeness and homogeneity, the secret of understanding
and Awareness, the secret of dimensional transformation.

Life is not only Divine, it is Divinity itself. As long as
Divinity is conceived to be apart from, independent of, the
cosmic drama of manifested Life, individuated Life, obiviously
the act of living cannot have any.holiness at all, because we
have relegated the holiness, sacredness to something
which is independent of Life and separate from our act of
living. Please do see this with me.

This is the 20th century scientific approach to religion
and spirituality. Do we dare to consider Life itself as holy and
sacred and the act of living as the act of worshipping that
Divinity?

WHO IS A PILGRIM?

If the implication of the word ‘pilgrimage’ is sufficiently
clear, let us turn to the pilgrim. Who is the pilgrim? When we
say I will undertake the journey within, the voyage within, the
probing within, the perception through Insight within, who is
the pilgrim? Who are we, making a verbal effort at the
cerebral level? Who are we, who is that pilgrim? That is the
question that the scientists are asking themselves today.

Natural sciences, a science like physics, looks upon the
manifest Life as object. The scientist, his brain equipped
with verbal knowledge, his talents, his capacities, his faculties
‘as his tools and the technological implements invented
by mankind as the helm – he looks upon himself as the
subject and Life as the object.

The physicist today says unto himself that something
has gone somewhere wrong in the evolution of physics in
the 20th century, right from the theory of big bang to the
theory of streams, string of streams or the explosion of
silence. They are asking themselves, ‘what is this subject?
Is the subject capable of analysing ? And what is interpre-∑
tation? How does analysis, how does synthesis take place?
How does verification or experimentation take place ? Who
is the subject?

Unless the nature of the subject, the mechanism of its
operation is understood, scientists feel that their search for
the nature of Ultimate Reality might remain not only incomplete,
not only imperfect, but perhaps full of faults and shortcomings.
Who is the ‘me’,the ‘I’, that is going to consider
himself or herself as a pilgrim, as an enquirer, as a
‘sadhaka’and how does the person equip oneselffor undertaking
the pilgrimage?

To undertake that magnificent act of observation how
does one equip oneself to sustain effortless attention or
attentivity? How does one sustain receptivity which is
uncontaminated by any preference or prejudice, unpolluted
by pre-determined theories or conclusions of the ances-
tors? You and I who are anxious and eager to undertake the
journey within must ask ofourselves,’whatisthis ‘I’, the ‘me’,
what is its nature?

On the sensual level, physical level, you stand before
a mirror and you see yourself in the mirror. You have a form,
there is a name given to that form. The form has certain
characteristics. You get acquainted with it biologically. The
human civilization, the human culture has provided you with
many branches of knowledge. So you get acquainted with
the biological structure, having a form, characteristics,
tendencies, inheritance, that which is a product of time, that
which is a product of collective, organized, systematic
efforts at refinement, at sophistication, so biologically an
evolved human creature. I have to understand who is this
pilgrim. What are the contents? What is the state of those
contents? How far are they equipped? All that has to be
seen by me.

We are beginning at the very beginning. Go very slowly,
step by step, so that we don’t miss any link and we can pierce
with perception every material fact and as we proceed
perhaps also the psychological facts. The piercing through
perception, the feeling through sensitivity, the analysis
through intelligence, this is what is going to happen during
the pilgrimage, during the lifetime journey. If the journey is
to be from fragmentation to homogeneity, from partialness
to Wholeness, from uniformity to uniqueness, we have to go
very slow, and understand our motivation, our attitudes, our
state of consciousness and so on.

Biologically it is not very difficult if we take the trouble of
acquiring knowledge about it and then, looking at oneself,
getting introduced to the functions of the biological organism,
its way of feeling the appetite, the thirst, the need for
sleep, the sex impulse. How it provides itself and satisfies
those needs. It is a fantastic study, fantastically interesting.
And after getting acquainted with it, we can manage to keep
it healthy as far as we can, keep it supple, fresh and subtle.

But then it seems that inside the biological structure,
besides the various organs, there is an order like the notes
of music creating a harmony, a melody, a raga, a ragini. The
human organs work together, co-operate with one another
and function as one unit, retaining their autonomous nature.
And you probe within, you probe the nervous system, you
probe the chemical system ofthe body, piercing the organs
with your sensitivity and perception and you find that the
neurological, the nervous system, the chemical system, the
glandular, the muscular, working as one homogeneous
whole, are conditioned.

CIVILIZATION IS A PROCESS OF CONDITIONING

Civilization is a process of conditioning. Education also,
in the beginning to some extent, is a process of conditioning,
moulding, shaping, sophisticating, refining, purifying. What
is education if not purification? What is education if not
liquidating the imbalances and stimulating spontaneous
equipoise and equibalance? That is education. We find that
this nervous system or the chemical system and even the
organs respond to words, letters, situations; the nervous
and the chemical. system together. They respond. They
react. They get provoked. They get disturbed by words, by
the pronounciation of words, by certain gesticulations. And
the sensual contact of this biological organism with any
object whatsoever evokes a name. We have travelled
through millions of years, through centuries with these
words, these names, these symbols associated with ideas
and concepts.

The nervous system, the chemical system and the
sensitivity operating through these systems is a product of ‘
time and human efforts. Something has been fed into it and
it has become the substance of the human organism, even
the marrows of the bone, all conditioned. Education, literature,
the socio-economic structures, organised institutions
like religions, concepts, theories, they have been fed into it
and every human person is conditioned.

The word ‘conditioned’ is not to be taken in a derogatory
sense. We would have been only human creatures and
animals had it not been for the organised, systematic,
beautiful, fantastic process of civilization and culture. Culture
is something that grows, that changes. At every point
of collective human growth, the quality of culture changes.
And with every structural change or change in the socioeconomic
patterns, the quality, the taste, the flavour of
civilization also changes.

THE MYSTERY OF WHOLENESS

I would like to live as a pilgrim trying to discover the
mystery of sacredness or holiness or the mystery of Wholeness
and homogeneity. In universal Life, in cosmic Life,
there is homogeneity, not integrity, not things put together,
assembled together, organized together. There is homogeneity
and if homogeneity is not holiness, if that spontaneous
Wholeness of every expression right upto the blade of grass
is not holiness, one does not know where the so-called
sanctity or sacredness would be invested.

I would like to convert myself into a pilgrim. I want to
convert myself into a person, who is open, who is receptive,
whose perception is not polluted by theories, whose listening
is not disturbed and mutilated by emotional reactions. I
would like to undertake that adventure and convert myself
into a pilgrim, open, out to learn, to discover.

First of all, we will have to look at the mechanism of this
inner operation. What the naming, the identifying and the
verbalization have done to our consciousness. How the
conditioning has taken place. How it has resulted in layers
and layers of enclosures in consciousness. We will have to
look at all that. If we read, it will be acquiring verbal
knowledge. We cannot borrow perception. We cannot
borrow experiences. Knowledge, verbal knowledge can be
borrowed. We can read again and again and get it by heart,
recite it, talk about it, give discourses.

Our first step would be to appreciate the beauty and the
inevitability of having been conditioned, biologically verbally,
psychologically cerebrally. Biologically inter -related to
the whole Cosmos. We are inter-related to the oceans, the
mountains, the rivers, the trees, the forests, the birds, the
animals-organically related to them. We are not connected
with them. We are related to them, as your arm is related to
the wholeness of your body, or the feet are related to the
heart, to the brain. lt is an organic inter-relationship. Biologically
we are part of the cosmic Nature and psychologically
we are a product of human civilization.

And now we want to move away from these enclosures
without condemning, without rejecting; without denying,
without trying to throw them away, we want to move away
so that a pilgrimage can take place. If we remain in the
enclosures and just look at tbe map, then the journey will not
begin. You may sit in your house, take maps of all the
countries of the world, guides, routes, discuss them, but the
journey will not begin unless you step out of the door,
willingly welcoming the risk of insecurity to some extent,
unpredictability to some extent, difficulties, obstacles. We
will have to look atthis inner -most substance of the so-called
‘I’, the ‘me’, the entity, that wishes to convert itself into an
enquirer, into a pilgrim.

If the nature, the factual reality of the nature of the .
pilgrim is sufficiently clear, shall we proceed further? Why
have we used the term ‘within’ ? What does this ‘within’
mean? What is ‘within’, ‘without’, ‘inner’, ‘outer’? We have
said, we are gqing to take a pilgrimage within – from selfobservation
to self-knowledge, to Silence and that which is
beyond Silence. That is what all of us would like to do
together in these six days.

This is a traditional parlance-inner and outer. It reflects
upon the limitations of the tools of perception that we have.
That which is outside the body, I call’external’, ‘outer’. That
which exists away from the body, I say it is ‘without’ and that
which is ‘within’, that is inside, I say ‘inner’, ‘within’, ‘inward’.
These words have come into existence, perhaps as the
natural sciences went on evolving. I do not know if we will
have time to look into the origin of this idea of ‘we’ being the
subject and the outer being the object.

As this is not a formal camp, but a ‘Festival of Friendship’
being celebrated by friends together, may I mention an
incident? All of you must be knowing the life of Swami
Vivekananda. Before he took the name of Vivekananda, he
was wandering through the Himalayas, before 1892, before
he left India for the World Religious Conference at Chicago.
He was climbing towards Kedarnath and there were many
pilgrims going that way, among whom was an elderly
person who was blind.

Vivekananda must have been 26-27, a fiery young man,
vital, vigorous, intoxicated with God consciousness. He was
climbing and he looked at this gentleman. Again he walked
and he looked at him for the third time. He approached the
elderly person and said, “Where are you going, Sir? Why are
you climbing? This is rather stiff, a steep mountain. Where
are you going?” and he said, “Kedarnath, to see the Lord”.
And the young man as he was, he said, “But don’t you realize
that you are blind?”And the gentleman smiled and said, “My
son, I may be blind, but Kedarnath is not blind. He will see
me. He will see that I have climbed these steep mountains
to be with Him”. For that elderly gentleman, 100 years ago,
it was Kedamath. Do we realise that the Intelligence of Life
sees us, feels our presence, it is our companion in our ingoing
and out-going breath?

Coming back to our point, we will see that the conditioned
nature of the enquirer is not a bondage, it is neither
a blessing nor a bondage.

OBSERVING THE MOVEMENT OF CONDITIONINGS

After having enquired verbally and gathered verbal
knowledge, the pilgrim would look, would observe the word
with which you are acquainted, will observe the actual
movement of these conditionings. The movement of
conditionings is called the mental movement, we call it
generally the mind, moving through the brain, the neurochemical
system and various sensual senses and sensual
organs and so on.

This afternoon we will sit together and find out what is
this looking. Acquiring information through books, through
talks, through lectures, through discussions-that is easy,
because we have been trained for that. We, the human
race, have been trained to do that. Listen to word, retain it
in memory, reproduce it when needed. We have become
quite skilled in that profession of acquiring knowledge. And
after that we are going to look. This afternoon, we will
analyse the implications of looking or observation. What is
observation and how do the conditionings observe themselves?
Who monitors the movement of observation? Is
there a ‘Who’? What monitors? Is that a mechanistic,
automatic process common to all human beings, or unique
to individuals?

We are going to take that up this afternoon – ‘What is
Observation’, ‘What is Attention’. But in this introductory
talk, spreading out the canvas of our pilgrimage or enquiry
before all of us, we will be exploring the possibility, if all the
conditionings amalgamated, organized, standardized together,
functioning as the mind, can these conditionings go
into abeyance? Can these enclosures which we have loved
and. cherished and nourished and nurtured and refined- can
they at all go into abeyance so that the receptivity, the
sensitivity, the enquiry, is exposed to a Consciousness
which has no walls of knowledge, no doors and windows of
experiences? Will the observation lead to the abeyance of
the observer and exposure of our whole being to that which
is called ‘Silence’ or ‘Emptiness’?

The pilgrimage begins from the factuality of being
conditioned. The pilgrimage begins, even the enquiry begins
at the conditioned level and the verbal enquiry at the
conditioned level is very important because it lays the
foundation. If there is no clarity, if there is confusion at the
verbal level, at the intellectual level, there can not be clarity
as we proceed.

The right foundation is laid at the verbal level through
knowledge, personal first-hand encounter with the psychological
facts indicated by the verbal knowledge undertaken
through observation. Then, with a sense of non- attachment
and non-identification to these cultivated, individualized
conditionings, we allow them to go into abeyance and
invite the risk of being in the emptiness of Silence.

From knowledge to understanding- observation leads
us to understanding- and from understanding to stimulation
of a new energy which is called the energy of Awareness,
that has no centre, that has no past, no conditionings -that
has no form – the energy of Awareness, the energy of
Intelligence as some have called it.

THE DIMENSION OF SILENCE

The dimension of Silence, where this non-personal
energy, non-individualized energy of Awareness or Intelligence
functions- it cannot be captured in the framework of
a modus operandi, it cannot be captured in the framework
of any system, any method or any technique. It defies all
human calculations, logic and mathematics. It has its own
rhythm. One has to live in that nudity of Silence, that nudity
of Consciousness, which is called Emptiness or Silence, to
live in that dimension in daily relationships.

We do not mind having an experience of Silence, sitting
down in a closed room for an hour or 10 hours – we do not
mind that because the walls of the room or the cottage or the
hut or the cave are there. But when you are exposed to the
movement of human relationships, the global human family
which is a garden of innumerable models of conditionings
with their different perfumes or odours, when you have to
move through these relationships, living in the dimension of
Emptiness- that becomes the crucial point.

Knowledge we love, we adore, we get addicted to. The
hazardous task of observation we might go through because
it is still the ‘I which feels that it can survive through
observation. But in Silence you get reduced to nothingness
-nobodyness. It is a dimensional jerk. It is not a dimensional
transformation. But it is a dimensional jolt, a jerk, that
plunges into Emptiness if it is allowed to happen. It is not yet
a quantum jump and yet it is a leap, it is a jump. The mutation
or the dimensional transformation may be the by-product of
living anonymously, living in the Emptiness.

That is what we have promised ourselves to do in the
next few days. You have come to a friend. Her communications
are friendly communications. They may be intense. So
please correct me whenever you find it necessary or supplement
me. Let it be a participative enquiry. Pilgrimage is a
joint adventure that we are undertaking, a pilgrimage within.
It is probing Consciousness, it is probing conditionings. It
may be painful sometimes. It may shatter our images about
ourselves. It may tear down to pieces the theories that we
have fondled for 40 – 50 – 70 years . But we will be together
And when that agony and pain is shared, it becomes less
and the joy gets enhanced in the company of like minded
enquirers.

Mount Abu, 16-11-1993, Morning.

II
THE IMPLICATIONS OF OBSERVATION,
ATTENTION AND AWARENESS IN DAILY
LIVING?

The 20th century being a century of science and technology,
the urge to apply scientific approach to spirituality must
have been dormant in the human psyche. And In the person
of J. Krishnamurti that urge blossomed and flowered and we
get the words ‘observer’ and ‘observation’ as a total action,
as the first and the last step in his communications.

We are interested in finding out about observation,
attention, Awareness and their implications in our daily
living. Observation is a very scientific term. If we proceed
with our enquiry by believing that observation is just to look,
to perceive, we might be mislead. Because to observe non-subjectively,
to observe without any evaluatory comparisons
or judgements creeping in, that act of observation, is
not easy.

If we are really desirous of applying a scientific approach
to spirituality, we will have to learn to observe. If the
evaluatory judgement or conclusion is not to creep in the act
of perception and pollute it, it would imply that the perception
does not arouse the particular name associated with the
object. To perceive without naming, identifying, without
emotionally reaCting, requires an intensive education. It is
not only a word. We may sit down and watch the movement
of the conditionings, which is a mental movement and when
one begins to do so, one notices that unpolluted perception
is very, very rare.

With very great patience one has to learn. It cannot be
taught. In fact learning gets arrested when things are taught
to you. When learning is without anyone teaching or
imposing a rigid method or technique, that learning results
in a holistic growth of the person. So the first shock that a
sincere enquirer gets, at least in lndiawheretheconditionings
are very heavy, the country being an ancient country, is that
one does not know how to observe. That shock is to be lived
through. We have to assimilate that shock, the ego gets
hurt, it feels humiliated. One has to have tremendous
energy to digest and assimilate that shock that one doesn’t
know the scientific observation. We are not saying at this
point about observation without the observer. We are just
talking about observation as a scientific action.

If we want to use binoculars, the lenses have to be
perfect, precise; otherwise the binoculars are of no use. If
we are using a microscope, it must be perfectly, meticulously
prepared. Our organism has to be equipped with
sensitivity. Sensitizing the whole organism is another name
for Sadhana. Sensitizing all the layers of one’s being, all the
functions of the organs, is what is called, most probably,
Sadhana in this country.

When one sits down and looks and the name comes in,
the association of events with that name, with that object,
come up, then they disturb you emotionally. Either you are
elated or you are depressed, or you get worked up, or
become tense and so on. You notice that and you stop,
because the reactions cannot be suppressed, wished away,
explained away. They have to subside.

A wave comes on the breast of the ocean, it rises out of
the waters of the ocean and it subsides. In the same way,
this process of naming, identifying, judging or the association
of ideas and emotions, is like a wave in the ocean of
conditionings, in the ocean of memory. It comes up and if
one doesn’t hold on to it, one does not catch hold of it, if one
does not arrest its movement, the wave subsides, unless
you want to use that identification which is perhaps another
term for consciously using that which memory brings up.
You touch it, you handle it, you accept it, you reject it, you
use it, you do something with it. But if one learns to look at
it, then it doesn’t matter if the naming and identifying comes
in. If one does not touch it, one does not wish to handle it in
any way whatsoever, then it subsides.

In the beginning this painful process of memory coming
up, you becoming conscious of it, avoiding to utilize it, there
is exertion in it, there is effort in it because it is the
conditioned mind which has split itself into two capacities. It
is moving and it is looking at its own movement. It is the
individual conditioning operating in the person, which has
split itself into two positions. It is learning to observe and it
is moving. You know, human consciousness is a multidimensional
consciousness, so such an activity is possible for us.

We acquire knowledge and we are conscious that we
are acquiring. We are sitting here in this room and we are
aware for what we have come, we are conscious of what is
being said. We are even conscious whether we understand
it or not, or perhaps even agree with it or not. It is a multidimensional
activity. That is why observation becomes
possible in the highly advanced state of human consciousness.
It is not a simple consciousness which operates in the
mineral world, in the vegetable kingdom. The consciousness
among the birds, the animals is more evolved, more
complex and when the biological evolution reaches the
human level and emerges in a human form, it has this
capacity of looking backward-forward, looking and being
conscious of what it is looking at, why it is lookfng at and, so on.

We are going to use this sophisti’cated consciousness.
This individual conditioned consciousness is the tool and it
is the entity that is using the tool, the double entity. The
sculptor and the piece on which the sculpture is taking place
are the same. When it is put into words, it sounds rather
abstract. It is not so. In our daily living, we are doing it. In our
daily life, in our various capacities this happens. We have
not looked at the quality of our consciousness, the way it
functions, the sophistication we have inherited.

When we sit down and begin to learn by ourselves, we
watch the various functions of the conditionings. Then this
is noticed. The split is there, the voluntarily provoked
division. Perhaps ‘division’ is a better word than the word
‘split’. In the beginning it is the activity of the conditioned
consciousness. Please do see this. As we operate through
the thoughts, the feelings, the sentiments, the emotions
which are conditioned in daily living, we use that. We use the
knowledge. We use the experience. We live in the enclosure
of the known. We live in the enclosures of the conditioned
dimension.

Now what will such obseNation by the conditioned mind
result in? If the efforts are without any self-deception, it may
result in one becoming very conscious of the distortions, the
peNersions, the shortcomings, the trends, that are rampant
in our movement of relationship. One becomes aware of the
quality of one’s behaviour. And as an enquirer of the
meaning of Life, of the nature of Reality, of the Truth behind
the facts, when one becomes conscious, then the activity of
self deception gets arrested. I no more believe that I am not
an angry person, I am not a petty minded person, I am not
a person who easily gets jealous of others, not an ambitious
person. All the images that one had carved out of beliefs,
credulity, they begin to melt away.

The activity of the conditioned consciousness at learning
observation, the unpolluted, uncontaminated perception,
non-evaluatory perception, even that limited activity
can cause, if it is allowed to do so, a qualitative change in
the texture of our behaviour, in the quality of our relationship
with others. So it has a social value. It has a cultural value.

But then one notices that one has been observing and
one has become conscious of the nature of conditionings,
the nature of one’s limitations, distortions and yet they are
there. One realises that this is going round and round. You
notice, you become conscious, you make an effort. Sometimes
you succeed, sometimes you do not succeed and you
go round and round.

So one says to oneself, this activity is the activity of the
‘I’ consciousness, the traditional centre of consciousness
with which there is a kind of identification. No one questions
the validity of such an acceptance. It is a blind acceptance.
This activity of dividing oneself into the observer and the
observed has a very limited value. Now what is to be done?
It is something beautiful when someone learns by oneself. ∑
One falters. One stumbles. One gets up. One takes a few
steps. One feels impatient with oneself. One would like to
find out a short-cut, getting it done through some trick of
tantra, mantra and so on.

If one does not fall a prey or a victim to such
temptations, escapes, dodging the issue, one says, ‘Well,
supposing this conscious effort of observation by the I
consciousness, by the centre, the me, supposing that effort
discontinues, will there be observation?’ One questions,

Self-knowledge, knowledge about the self is possible
through books, through discourses of people, through
discussions and through the activity of the conditioned mind
of ‘observation’ in quotes. It is not yet the pure observation
it is not yet that observation without the observer which is
nothing but subject-free, object-free attentivity. It is not yet
that. But we have to begin from where we stand. We cannot
imagine that we are unconditioned and we cannot just
believe that there is no observer. You cannot wish away the
movement of the past taking place in you.

We begin from where we are and when we have learnt
even that, observer-observation, and found its effects in our
movement of relationship, then it becomes easy for us to let
that go for the sake of further exploration.

A scientific approach and the scientific way applied to
spiritual enquiry is something new which the human psyche
is not used to. It has not been talked about. The psyche has
heard about Bhakti, devotion, has read and heard about
Tantra, Mantra, where the I consciousness has to be
refined. It has to be sharpened. It has to be enriched with a
new code of conduct. That is what we have been hearing
for centuries. We have read about it and perhaps that is the
content of our thought and memory. So this is breaking away
from the past. The very action of observation, the very
movement of reaction-free perception, unpolluted percetion,
that is the very first step, that breaking away from the
traditional path of Sadhana, of enquiry.

Mount Abu, 16th November, 1992, Afternoon.

III
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Questioner: Can you kindly explain observation with some
examples from daily life? How do observation & distortion
take place?

Vimalaji: I have to imagine the distortion. But let us try. Look
Sir, I have learnt to observe, that is to say, I have learnt to
perceive without bringing in any evaluation or judgement
about it. Now I am in my family of my children, my wife, my
husband and they do something which does not please me,
which is not up to my standard, up to my expectation. So it
hurts me. And I have learnt now, so I notice my anger coming
up with tremendous velocity when I notice that behaviour.
This could be treated as a concrete example of what you are
asking for.

What has this observation brought to my notice? First,
I have been cherishing a number of expectations. I am
ordering the people in the family to behave towards me
according to my norms and criteria – certain expectations. It
may be the traditional way of the head of the house, of the
husband, the father. This may be a tradition. I am not going
into the right or wrong of it. But I am just saying, that I notice
I have many expectations. I say, ‘Goodness, if I have
expectations from my children, from my wife, I must be
having expectations from my friends. In human relationships,
I judge according to my expectations.’ This is a lesson
that the observation of my anger, annoyance, irritation, has
taught me. It has also shown to me, exposed to me the
quality of my consciousness. What does that anger do to
me? I feel a kind of tenseness in the whole being, artificial
heat getting generated with a tremendous speed and all that
affecting my behaviour for another half an hour or 10
minutes or whatever be the period.

As an enquirer, I ask myself, is this the way of human
relationship, to carry expectations? I carry expectations
about them and they carry expectations about me. Is a
person entitled to get hurt if something occurs which is not
up to the aesthetic mark of that person? So throughout the
day, if I get hurt like this 10 times, what happens to my life,
my behaviour, because every hurt creates a tension and an
imbalance. Every disappointment, every frustration may
lead to depression or aggressive provocation. I may shout
back. I may raise my voice. I may like to hurt them back- ‘tit
for tat’ and so on.

Is this the way of human relationship? If I justify,if I
defend by saying- this is the way my father behaved, my
mother behaved, this is the way, this is human nature, then
the enquiry stops. One defends, one justifies and one
carries on. If one does not like to defend, justify and block
the further exploration, then one asks oneself, is this the
way, is this the dimension of human relationship? Or can
there be a different, alternative dynamics of human relationship,
where you can talk with your partner, your children,
your colleague, your boss, your assistants. You can point
out where one has gone wrong. May be they have gone
wrong, may be I have gone wrong. When one notices that
one has gone wrong, one also gets angry. One begins to
blame oneself and inwardly shouts and screams against
oneself and creates grudges against oneself. There are
people who carry grudges against themselves. The guilt
conscience, all that burden spreads a dark shadow over
their being, and they carry that shadow wherever they go.

If one is observing, learning as an enquirer, if it is a
pilgrimage, if the whole lifetime is a pilgrimage, and if the act
of living is a movement of that pilgrimage, if we are pilgrims
of Life, then one says, ‘Well,this does not seem to be a very
healthy way of relating to one another.’

Questioner: But in what you are saying cerebral activity
takes place. Isn’t it? The activity of the mind takes place.

Vimalaji: Yes.

Questioner: Again one is tossing here and there. So then
how does the observation take place in this process? The
reasoning starts, the analysis starts, cause and effect starts.

Vimalaji: We are talking about observation as an activity
by the conditioned consciousness in the field of the known,
for growing into a state of attentivity. We are talking about
observation which involves a division of the human consciousness,
which is still associated with the naming, identifying,
etc. We are looking at the state of observation first
from the point of conditioned consciousness. When this
activity results in the learning of perception without reaction,
perception without judgement, then the abeyance or the
non-action of the observer and the emergence of attentivity
takes place. But I am talking about the conditioned consciousness
and its activity for learning by itself.

Questioner: I have seen in life, that when I am hurting some
one and I am honest enough to know myself, to tell myself
that by a certain act I am hurting some one, but still I find that
in spite of this self-knowledge, the action keeps on repeating
at times. The activity of hurting or the activity of greed or
ambition or whatever it is, as and when it arises, as and when
it happens, I do see that Didi, but still I find the action being
repeated.

Vimalaji: Look, Sir, could it be that somewhere I justify
that anger inwardly? I defend it. Could it be that I like to hurt
people somewhere? That element of sadism is in most of us.
Could it be that? Like small children playing with the tail of
a dog, hurting the dog, not with some personal motivation,
but an inherited trend. If there is no justification and no
defence of my activity of hurting or getting angry or ambitious,
then we can find out logical reasons for it. I understand
verbally, intellectually what ambition does to a person, how
in the fulfilment of every ambition is concealed the dark
shadow offrustration. I understand all that. And yet, I like the
social prestige, respectability or money or wealth or whatever,
which ambition brings.

I realise that this is a psychological obstacle, but I like
the social prestige, respectability, the money that it gives
me. It tickles somewhere. And so, when I sit down, I say to
myself- yes, I have understood what is ambition and in the
movement of relationship I carry on with the push that
ambition gives to me. So even the dead ambition gets life
because of my pushing.

Observation by itself does not liquidate what has been
observed, if the observer wants to hold on to it. It is like a
judiciary. Judiciary has no executive responsibility. lthas no
responsibility to implement the verdicts that it gives. In the
same way, in the state of observation, the facts are exposed.
That exposure takes place. Now what I do with the
exposure after that is a different matter.

The difficulty with us is that the scientific approach does
not permeate our whole life. The scientific approach is at the
intellectual level. It is restricted to the cerebral, to the
intellectual, to the theoretical, to the academic. When it
comes to relationship, so called daily living, we are gov-
erned by, controlled by, regulated by, social pressures,
economic considerations, the opinions and respectability of
the people around oneself.

Cerebral activity is in one direction where we would like
to shed the load of the past and discover the new, but in
relationship, in society, as husband, wife, parents, businessmen,
industrialists, or teachers or politicians, we carry
on with the old. We allow a division to grow into our life. It is
a division. If it becomes a split and crystalizes, then we would
become neurotics and schizophrenics. But we do have the
potential :of becoming schizophrenic when we allow such
divisions to come up and to lie even dormant in our consciousness.

As an enquirer of Truth, as a person interested in
discovery of Truth, what would I do? If I discover, if I notice
something, if the observation has exposed acertain truth
behind the psychological fact or the falseness behind a
certain thing, I would allow it to drop away from my life. But
my other interests make me cling on to it. Distortions,
perversions, imbalances, falsehoods have no strength of
their own. They have no life of their own. They do not cling
to us. We cling to them. Without a conscious intention, this
game goes on.

If observation is to be learnt as a scientific tool for further
non-cerebral exploration, then one has to have that willingness
and readiness to let the distortion, let the habit, let the
trend of my behaviour drop away completely and instantaneously
if possible. If we enquire scientifically on the one
hand and on the other hand we do not live the truth exposed
by that learning, then will it not be a waste of life?

That great World Teacher, J.Krishnamurti, used to tell
us-the human race- very explicitly, ‘Live the Truth that you
understand’. What does that mean? Live the Truth that you
understand. Otherwise that Truth might destroy you, might
destruct you, to use the exact word.

What does that mean? I sit down. I spend time. I leam
what is observation. I notice the movement of the mind,
which I have never noticed before, its repetitive nature. I
notice everything. I do not allow anything to drop away. Then
the intellectual or verbal enquiry becomes a kind of luxury.
It is something that you play around with. It is a very serious
thing. As a research scholar in his laboratory, analysing,
mixing chemicals, letting the blending of different chemicals
emerge into some new chemical and so on, he has no
preference, prejudice, he has no attachment- so dropping
something as soon as he notices that it is not relevant to
what he intends to do. He throws it away. There is nothing
to throw away here, because it is the substance of our
consciousness. The only thing that we can do is not to cling
to it, not to hold on to it. But if it gives us pleasure, if it gives
us security, if it gives us prestige, we may notice it and we
continue. We continue as we did before.

Could it be, I am asking myself, could it be that spirituality
for me, religion for me, such enquiry and exploration for me,
has not got that depth, that intensity? It is not a question of
life and death for me. It is a side business in addition to what
I look upon as family life, social life, economic life, etc. It is
in addition to that. Not at the cost of these, if I feel it is going
to remove all my sense of belonging to the family, the caste,
the creed, the religious sect, the country, the nation. If the
energy of Awareness that Life is one, that Life is holistic, is
going to denude me completely of all the sense of belonging,
then I tremble in my shoes, because I like to belong
somewhere, I would even like the attachment that others
feel for me or I feel for them. I want all that.

If the status quo has to be protected at the cost of the
Truth that is exposed or discovered, then what can observation
do? It is not a question of one individual. It is a
question of the whole human race. That is why people say
that I have been observing for years and there is no change,
here in India, in other countries, Europe, America. I say – are
you willing to pay the price? When the things are exposed
– when you let them go – when you let the false drop away
– let the untruth drop away from your life. Really it disturbs
the status quo of your present life, the way of living, the
standard of living, the image that people have about you. Is
our concern to protect that first? You see, Sir, the act of
observation should be accompanied by the fire of renunciation.
It is only renouncing the untruth. It is only renouncing
the false.

In 1991, in my lastvisitto U.S.A., we were going through
a camp in Boston University and a very leading Doctor, a
cancer specialist, was participating in the camp. He had
given up his job as the Surgeon at a cancer hospital and had
established a Holistic Healing Institute. So one day he was
talking. He was giving a small talk on holistic approach to
health and he told us something very interesting.

He said that he had practised as aS urgeon for more than
18 years at a cancer hospital. And then there was this
realisation that there should be a holistic way, a holistic
approach to health. The healing has to take place in the
whole way of living, in the life style. The disease cannot be
cured unless the whole style of living changes. That was his
realisation. So he had established the clinic. He said,” Look
here, the patients would come there and if I would recommend
a change in diet, a change in the way of living, they
would say, ‘Better give us an injection.’ Do not ask us to
do that- an injection, a surgery- that is much better”. But the
very idea of changing the quality of perceptiQn, the quality
of response, the quality of relationship, was too complex.

So there is a holistic approach to spirituality. There is a
holistic approach even to our cerebral explorations. Cerebral
explorations, what you call the movement of the
conditioned mind, have untapped potential, just as our
physical organs, the energies of the physical organs are
untapped and unexplored by us. It is only a student of Yoga
who explores that potential and utilises it to the maximum.
The conditioned consciousness and the observation, even
born of the imagined duality of the observer and the
observed, even that exposes the Truth behind the psychological
facts. We say, well I know that. Put it in the cold
storage.

Questioner: Is observation not total till there is utter
humility?

Vimalaji: What is utter humility, Sir?

Questioner: I feel that observation must come out of
humility. Just as you said, having understood the truth, if we
do not live it, probably there is some untruth in us.

Vimalaji: Look my friend. Is not humility the pre-requirement
of learning? When I wish to learn, there has to be
humility. We were referring to this quality of humility as
unconditional open-ness or receptivity. A child learns. During
the first two or three years of a child’s life, it learns with
its whole being. It is not very eager to know aboutthings. But
it is all eager. The whole of the child is open – there is
receptivity. No resistance. So the child learns. I think learning,
exploring, requires that humility.

Questioner: One has got that humility to learn. But we fall
somewhere like a child. We falter somewhere. In that
faltering, we also learn how to walk. How can we keep the
flame going on – the flame of attention?

Vimalaji: What is wrong with faltering? You falter. You
fall down. You commit a mistake. What’s wrong with the
mistake? We learn through that. So the faltering or the
mistake or the failure has no effect. It cannot affect the urge
to learn.

Questioner: One is trying to understand. There is a gap
between the development and the action. If it gives rise to
an inner conflict, it will affect the process of learning. But with
humility if one approaches that faltering, then one can learn
something after the mistakes. Is it not?

Vimalaji: Look my friend. What one learns and understands
and what one lives – there is bound to be a distance
between the two, as long as we are living on the mental
plane. Now, when I observe and notice the gap, that I have
understood this much and I can live only this much, I make
it my concern to see that there is no contradiction. That is the
first thing I do as a student. No contradiction. No inconsistency.

Now, I see that wall over there and if I stand up and begin
to walk, the perception is timeless. It does not require any
time. Understanding does not require time. But living in
relationship with the conditioned brain, with the conditioned
senses, with the pressures of the society, that living takes
time. Tentatively we are talking about these things. So
perception is timeless. Now living takes time. Doesn’t matter.
But I see the wall. I want to walk in that direction. I don’t
start walking in the other.

It seems to me that it is necessary and perhaps it also
happens spontaneously, that observation and the exposure
of the Truth behind the psychological actuality helps me to
eliminate inconsistencies and contradictions. Still I perceive
so much and I live a little out of it. As long as the dimensional
quantum jump does not occur, as long as there is no
emergence of a new energy of Awareness or Intelligence,
that distance may be there. But let one not worry about the
distance between what I understand and what I live as long
as there is no inconsistency and contradiction.

As long as there is an urge not to allow that gap to
remain, as long as there is a willingness to let go even this
fondled mind and ego if it is necessary, as long as that
willingness is there, then the tremendous energy of willingness
will close the gap.lfthere is reluctance and resistance,
unverbalised reluctance, an unverbalised resistance, then
you may sit in silence and you may continue in discussion.
Nothing happens. The negativity of reluctance, the negative
energy of resistance does not allow the change to occur. So
you are saying when there is humility, one learns also from
the mistakes. I should think so, yes.

Questioner: When I understand in one way, and it is not
reflected in my action, does it not create an inconsistency?

Vimalaji: No.ltexposesthat I am not a genuine enquirer.
Then there is some clandestine dishonesty about my enquiry.
I want something different and I believe that I want
something else. It is a very subtle, sophisticated selfdeception.
There is no inconsistency, but it could be that the
sustained seriousness, the integrity of purpose, the integrity
of enquiry is not there.

Questioner: No, but I am still aware and my observation
also reveals that on one hand I want to cling to the pleasures
and that probably becomes my first priority and at the same
time I cannot say that there is no interest whatsoever. The
interest in the spiritual enquiry is also genuine to some
extent, but must be tainted because it has been made into
a second priority. Or may be I want all the pleasures of this
world and when I end up in pain, I may be escaping through
this. These are distinct phases which my observation from
time to time reveal. But lately I had let the things happen,
happen in the psychological sense. I say to myself, O.K. let
the fact operate and let me not resist it or justify it. After that
I find that the intensity of those desires, to some extent, is
getting lesser.

Vimalaji: Has the priority changed? It is also a question
of priority. When I talked about integrity of enquiry, or
integrity of purpose, I was asking myself, is that my supreme
priority? If the pleasures, sensual, psychological and others,
if they are my first priority, then everything else will be
seconctary to it. Everything else will be a means to an end.
So the priority has to change.

Questioner: If “what is” is the first priority,and the
pleasure,or the mixed interest, the second priority, then I
think the observation has to reveal many more things to me,
or to many of us who may be sailing in the same boat. It is
drifting & tossing.

Vimalaji: Sir, intellectually brilliant people feel tremendously
attracted by the description of the state of meditation,
the verbal description of the state of transformation, mutation.
Intellectual attraction of a cerebrally brilliant person is
one factor. But intellectually getting attracted towards the so
called mutation, transformation is only a minor part of my
life. My emotional side, my sensual side, psychological side
-those demands are pressing hard upon me and so I yield
to them. And the intellectual attraction has to be satisfied
through verbal discussions, verbal descriptions, discourses,
dialogues. Attraction is satisfied rather quickly. the satisfaction
of the attraction about spirituality, about meditation, or
mutation does not give you the sense of fulfilment, but the
sensual pleasures, the emotional pleasures, the gratification
of all that gives you satisfaction as if you have really
lived.

My spirituality has a grip over my intellect- the descriptions
you know. The lives of the by-gone spiritual teachers,
the glow of their teachings – all that attracts me intellectually
and I feel a sophisticated, intelligent person. An intellectually
equipped person is bound to be attracted by that. But
attraction is not enquiry. Attraction does not provide you
with the momentum, with the intensity, with the depth. It
does not become the priority number one for which you live
and you die. lt does not become the need of the whole being,
as food becomes the need of the whole person when there
is appetite.

This mutation or transformation becomes the need of
my whole being. I cannot live without air. I cannot live without
water. Is that the state of enquiry that I cannot live? All the
pleasures become like ashes, until I have understood the
nature of Reality and I am there. So we have to be satisfied
with the tainted or mixed enquiry. We begin from there and
then we see that the enquiry gets purified, becomes an
integrate enquiry, genuine enquiry, it becomes the top
priority of my life.

Questioner: Is the relinquishment of priorities a solution to
this? Relinquishment of priorities which I am holding to –
which is a bar- if I relinquish the priorities- will it be a solution
to this?

Vimaluji: Sir, how will I relinquish the priorities? We are
holding a dialogue. Sir, how do we relinquish the priority?
What do you mean when you are using that term? What is
the exact implication?

Questioner: We have certain temptations and earthly requirements,
wealth or whatever. It gives me pleasure. Now
at that time, the observation is there. But I am not able to
conquer it. In which case, as you said the priorities are there
-as first priority, second priority or secondary priority. Now
if there is a relinquishment of the priorities as a result of
observation, will that be a solution to this?

Vimalaji: Let us see. Is relinquishment a conscious
effort? Do ! feel that I am sacrificing some things? Do I feel
by relinquishing, I am depriving myself of certain things? If
the relinquishment is a conscious effort into which I push
myself, if there is an inner resistance to relinquishment, then
it may not be the solution. If the relinquishment takes place
spontaneously, out of understanding, then there is no sense
of being deprived of anything. There is no sense of sacrifice,
a martyr complex. It happens without a rub, without a prick.

If relinquishment is not to take place as a pressurised act
or movement, if it is not going to be suppressing, repressing,
controlling, denying, rejecting, then what do I rely upon for
causing the radical change in priorities? And here we come
back again to the scientific approach, returning to our daily
living, and from morning till night I watch and find out the
expression of priorities in my physical, verbal and mental
behaviour. I try to sort them out and I again watch the
behaviour from morning till night, whether there is understanding
and yet not acting upon the understanding. I start
with the very, so-called minor details of life.

Realistically speaking, there is nothing unimportant,
minor, major. The Wholeness of Life is sacred. It is holy. The
sanctity of Life is felt by the pilgrim. So I say now, look. I
understand. I realise that my body requires 7 hours or 8
hours of sleep. Am I in bed after those 8 hours, 7 hours or
6 hours? Am I there in bed, though I am awake, just out of
laziness? There relinquishing laziness with a physical effort,
because I would like to sensitize the body, has some
relevance. Take any so-called minor details of life, and let
me exercise the so-called minor relinquishment, so that it
gets into my blood, without the sense of deprivation and
sacrifice, letting go the irrelevant, letting go the imbalance,
the impurity. I grow into it.

And then it comes to the subtle field of consciousness.
I educate myself on the physical and verbal level so that in
the field of consciousness events occur by themselves. I
begin with education, thesensitization, therefinement, at
the biological level, at the verbal level. So is it not a question
of education? If there is only intellectual attraction and the
discovery of Truth and living the Truth is not my supreme
priority, then I begin to educate myself from the very
beginning. What else can I do? Because I am having a non-authoritarian
approach. I am not going to go in for some
authority, surrender myself, and say you do it for me. You get
it done by me- that would not be freedom. There would not
be the uninhibited initiative. That would not result in my
hqlistic growth. Education is a supportive measure for the
inner growth.

Mount Abu, 16th November 1992, Afternoon.

IV
FROM SELF-OBSERVATION TO
SELF-KNOWLEDGE TO SILENCE

Considering the difference between seeing, looking and
observing, I wonder if we have noticed that the seeing that
takes place in the waking hours of our life has nothing
whatsoever to do with our volition. It is enough that we are
awake and the eyes are open, the organic intelligence
permeating the biological structure does the rest. The
seeing takes place. The contact between the optical nerves
the instrument of the eye and the outer forms, objects, their
colours, their shapes, sizes, their beauty, their ugliness,
the contact takes place, the hearing takes place, the breathing
takes place, without our volition.

It seems that we are born with these autonomous
processes functioning in an interrelated, inter-twined, com-plex
and yet homogeneous way as an expression of the
organic Intelligence which surrounds us also in nature.
The occurrence of seeing or hearing, smelling or breathing is a
movement in the sphere of non-duality.

If one draws a line with a chalk on a black-board, there
are two ends of the line. In the same way, in the organic
Wholeness of Life at the one end of the line are our sense
organs and senses, and at the other end of the line are the
objects, the nature surrounding us. They are not divided.
There is no gap. There is neither continuity nor a gap, but a
mysterious inter-relatedness. The same relatedness exists
in the big toe of the foot and the brain cells in the head. A
thorn pricks the big toe or other fingers of the foot and
immediately there is an action in the head, in the brain cells.
There is no time gap. It is a kind of simultaneity which seems
to be the principle of Cosmic Life.

What I am trying to share with you this morning is that at
the biological level, the movement of organic Intelligence
takes place without the division of the I and the thou, the we
and the they, the I consciousness and the outer world. There
is no subject-object division and no movement born of the
tension of duality. It is not that I see. I am alive and this
biologically alive organism has its own way of functioning.
Have you noticed how a seed sprouts? You sow the seeds
and they are concealed under the ground for some time and
the seed sprouts within the earth and then it comes out of
the earth. How does the seed see? How does it divide the
atoms of the earth and come out? How does it receive the
energy of the sun or the energy of the moon and assimilate
the energy out of water? The seeing does not require the
optical nerves or the eyes in the plant world! Hpw different
colours, different flavours come to life in the plant world!
There is seeing. They do hear. They do see. They feel. This
is a dance of Intelligence in the Life – call it Cosmic Life,
Multiversal Life, Universal Life – we may use any word that
pleases us.

LOOKING

Now, let us proceed to the movement of looking. I have
gone out for a walk, or I am in the market place. The eyes
see so many things and the impressions as the residue of
the act of seeing, the movement of seeing, get impressed
in the electro magnetic apparatus that the body is. But I have
gone to the market place to look for my friend or I have gone
to a meeting. I see so many persons. I look for my acquaintance,
my friend. It is a conscious effort of the ‘I’ consciousness.
There is a motivation. I would like to have a word with ∑
my friend. I look for a certain shop. I would like to buy certain
things. So looking has a motivation. It is a conscious activity
of the conditioned mind and out of that activity the ‘I’
consciousness not only gathers impressions but formulates
opinions, assessments, evaluations.

Looking is the movement of the conditioned thought
structure, that is contained in the biological structure, in the
biological organism. The looking has a subject. The conscious
movement of the conditioned mind has created a
subject and the looking creates an object. This activity of
motivation, the duality, the discrimination as subject and
object, goes on. I hear the words. But I listen to music. There
may be noise around me, but when my child calls, even that
tender whispering of the child, I listen to.

The looking, the listening presumes a motivation, presumes
an accepted relationship and it could be for all we
know an acquisitive activity. I want to get something out of
that listening, out of that looking. I smell to evaluate, to
assess. I touch for either pleasure or some kind of measuring
of the hardness, the softness, the brittleness, etc. So
please see the difference between the movements of the ‘I’
consciousness and the movement of organic Intelligence.
The movement of organic Intelligence in the complexity of
cosmic Life, is a movement born of non-duality and conducted
in non-duality. No association with volition. It is.
nonvoluntary.

OBSERVATION

Now, if the contents of seeing and looking are sufficiently
clear, let us proceed to what we were talking about
yesterday- observing, observation. The ‘I’ consciousness,
the me, the self, has acquired knowledge about matter,
about energy, about geography, about botany, about bioi-
ogy and so on. It would like first to gather knowledge about
itself, self-knowledge. It would like first to know about itself.
Knowledge. is always an indirect activity. There is the ‘I’, the
activity of knowing or acquiring verbal, organised, systematic
information and the net product is knowledge. The
knower, the knowing and the knowledge. It is not only
duality, now there is a triangle. I want to know about myself.
First I turn to books and get the information, get the acquired
knowledge. I attend the talks, the meetings, and I gather
knowledge. I am not satisfied with that. I would like to have
a first-hand personal encounter with the movement taking
place. I would like to know about myself by watching the
movement.

Now there is the observer. The conditioned ‘I’ consciousness
has voluntarily accepted the role of an observer.
Knowing fully the implications of observation, that there is
no luxury of reacting to it. Observing and reacting are
incompatible. Observing and assessing, evaluating are
incompatible. After having known all that, it decides to play
the role of an observer in order to know about the self,
directly, not indirectly through books or talks or lectures,
discourses, so the first-hand knowledge. It focusses the
energy on the movement of thoughts relaxing, sitting,
somewhere quietly. It makes a conscious effort to turn away
from all distractions, absent-mindedness, half-heartedness.
It collects all the energy and focuses it on the movement of
thought. Please do see this.

It is a conscious effort of the conditioned mind to know
about itself first-hand and thereby it takes recourse to
unpolluted movement of observation. And yet the observation
is not free of the word, the name. As soon as it notices
a movement of energy, the ‘I’ consciousness records it as
fear or jealousy or anger. The words accompany the move-
ment of observing. It is on the conditioned level. It is the
conditioned consciousness conducting something on the
mental plane. It observes the images that the people have
created about himself or herself. So observing images,
observing memories, observing reaction, what does all that
mean? The word is still there. How do I call a certain
movement in my body or a certain disturbance in the
chemical system as fear? I have got the name from the past.
I have inherited the name. How do I identify that happening
as fear or jealousy? I have been brought up that way to call
it fear or anger or hatred or whatever. So this is not yet free
from the past.

Observation at the mental level, as a conscious effort of
the ego is still rooted in the past. It does give me some
strength. It improves the quality of my behaviour with myself
and with others, because I know what is what in me. I have
believed that I am a very gentle person and that activity of
observation, even at the conditioned level, exposes that
there is roughness. I had an image that I am a very organised
person- and it exposes the shabbiness, the shoddiness, the
disorder. So I get first-hand knowledge through that activity.

From looking to observing, by the conditioned mind, at
the conditioned level, some learning has taken place. Some
knowledge has taken place. But it hasn’t got the vitality. It
hasn’t got the potential to cause a transcendence from the
conditioned level to the unconditioned level. The work is still
at the verbal level. It has brought about honesty, absence
of self deception. It has liquidated arrogance, pride. It has
done so many things on the periphery and yet the centre of
the ‘I’ is very deeply rootedttlere. l observe this, I experience
that. So the centre is there. The dimension is still there, of
cognition, of consciousness, of effort, and I am not satisfied.
I realise that knowing, the activity of knowing however
purified it could be, the activity of observing at the conditioned
level by the conditioned ego or the ‘I’ consciousness
cannot take me any further.

If an enquirer arrives at this realisation, at this discovery,
which is a very significant discovery, that the movement of
thought, the movement of the ‘I’, the me, of knowing, carries
with it the whole paraphernalia of the past, the inheritance,
the human knowledge, the human experience, that it is
rooted in the human experience and knowledge, if this
discovery really takes place, then the ‘I’ consciousness
which is eager to learn, not satisfied with knowing, says unto
itself, this movement of observation by myself has no
relevance for further exploration.

It is a self-consciousness energy. It is a very complex
energy, capable of multi-dimensional movement. This selfconscious
conditioned energy, this self-conscious conditioned
ego, says unto itself, my movement in any direction
is bound to be rooted in the past. So, what is warranted is
my non-action, my stillness, my non-motion. So, there is an
organic readiness. There is a willingness, to go into abeyance,
to stop moving, to discontinue its movement of
observing, associating, being with the word, being with the
name, the images, all products of the human past, individual
or collective. So, it realises, that the discontinuity of its
movement in every possible way is the only way out of this
vicious circle. Knowing, increasing the content of memory,
using it with effort, giving out limited results, it is always
going to have the enclosure of the past, the inheritance, the
acquired knowledge, the assimilated experience. So it says,
nothing doing. Let me stop. Does it say that in your life, in
my life?

We have to see the implications of what we are saying
rather seriously, because it is the conditioned ‘I’ consciousness
that tells me that I am a Hindu, I am a Muslim, I am a
woman, I am a Jain, I have a family, I am a member of the
society, a race, a country, a nation, a responsibility.lfthe ‘I’
consciousness creates a pressure of the so-called responsibilities,
commitments, sense of belonging to family, to
caste, to creed, to country, to race, to ideologies, if the ‘I’
consciousness says that further exploration has to take.
place maintaining the status quo of all these limitations, then
it may accept going into non-action for an hour or 10 hours
a day. But as soon as it comes back to the movement of
relationship, it will bring about all those pressures, because
it says the status quo has to be maintained.

SILENCE

The content of Silence is the utter, unconditional
discontinuity of this movement of the ‘I’, the ego, the self,
not in the two hours that you sit in silence, not the 10 or 12
hours that you do Vipashyana (Vipasana), but in the actual
movement of relationship. Is the ‘I’ consciousness willing to
go into non-action though it may result in a vacantness of
mind. Please do see. The content of Silence is the absolute
vacantness of what you call the mind. That is emptiness.
That is nudity. No theories. No norms. No criteria. No
evaluations. No conclusions drawn by yourself. No sense of
belonging anywhere, because any subtle sense of belonging
will keep you attached to the past.

Is there any willingness for this total renunciation of the
movement of the conditioned mind? There is a willingness
for a limited time – sit in Silence and let the mind become
vacant or let the mind go into non action. That is easy. One
can play around with it.

Let us see from another angle. The non-action or the
non-continuity of the mental movement which leaves me
utterly empty and vacant, also implies that all verbal, intellectual
enquiry of the unknown, the unknowable, the Infinite,
the immeasurable comes to an end. We don’t mind going up
to the point of observation by the conditioned mind and
using that personally acquired knowledge of the self to your
advantage for the sublimation of emotions, instincts, for
sophistication of the texture of one’s relationship. But is
there a willingness, is the urge to learn, so deep, so intense
that come what may, there is no resistance to such vacantness,
such an utter emptiness?

We look upon the verbal, the academic, the theoretical
the intellectual enquiry as a lifelong occupation. It goes on.
If the teachings of one person do not satisfy me, I turn to
another. If I find that the observation leads to blankness, I
turn to some other short cut – Shaktipat. If there is vacantness
how do I live? We cannot guess. Conjectures and
guesses are of no use. They have no relevance. The
conjecture, the guess, is going to be by the conditioned
mind. It wants to know in advance. It wants to have a blue
print of the Unknown and what happens there to me. Please
do see this.

Our urge to learn is a conditional urge- if it sustains the
status quo, if it does not create any insecurity, if it does not
expose me to any unpredictability, if I have everything
worked out step by step. If I sit in meditation, these Chakras
will open. If I do Pranayama, then these powers will be
aroused. If I do this, that will happen. Then I want a time
table, a time duration, the blue print. You know how we have
been playing with our life. We the human race, in the name
of religion, and in the name of spirituality, how we have been
deceiving ourselves. Thinking about the Unknown is easy.
I can put it poetically. Is it that how we have created our Gods
and Goddesses?

And now we come to a scientific approach. Tentativeness
about everything that we discover. There is fear of the
new. We feel secure with the old. Fear of the new prevents
us from allowing the thought structure and its movement to
go unconditionally into abeyance or non-action. So 12 hours
or 14 hours a day, I continue belonging to idealogy, having
my own pet theories, judging people and events, all the time
according to the norms and criteria of the past and then I
return from these 12 hours, or retire for sometime and spend
4-5 hours indulging in the imagination that now I can be free
of that movement of the ego.

Mutation, after all is a radical change in the quality of the
mutant, in the substance of the mutant. It is not a peripheral
change. It is a radical change in the whole of the mutant.
What we call Silence, what we call the abeyance of the
conditioned mind, is not something very pleasant. It is not
something very comfortable. It could be very uncomfortable,
because there is no assurance, there is no guarantee
of the retention of the status quo of the psychological
structure.

We like Silence when ‘I’ can go into Silence and ‘I’ have
those experiences in Silence. That game I can play. I enjoy
that. I can go to the Himalayas. I can sit in a room, in a cave
and that is something new. A new sensation that you relax.
All the nerves are relaxed. For a couple of hours you are
neither the doer, nor the spectator. Then back to the so-called
normal consciousness, as if Silence was abnormal.

The discontinuity of the conditioned ego, may take us to
a different dimension of consciousness altogether, where
knowing or experiencing may not happen at all. But perception,
understanding and action, a new dynamics of behaviour,
may come to life, may get activised. If there is the idea of
retaining the dynamics of knowing, experiencing,
memorising, reproducing, that is equating all that to the
movement of living, then I think there would be a very subtle,
non-verbalized resistance of the neuro chemical system.

Then our sitting in Silence would be at stopping the
verbalization process, not using the sound waves for speech.
That’s all. It would be a very gross thing. It would be a very
external thing. It may give rest to the voccll chords, it may
also relax the breathing, etc. and yet that’s not what Silence
is. Silence is an entirely different dimension. The non-action
of the ‘I’ consciousness is a different dimension of
vancantness, completevacantness.ltis.adimension where
you are not identified with∑ anything at all. It is a nudity of
consciousness.

Atthis juncture, a cerebrally sophisticated and a verbally
educated person has to ask of himself or herself, would I like
to proceed with the exploration? I have come to the frontiers
of the known. I have seen the limitations of knowledge, the
built-in limitations of knowledge. Is there a fearlessness to
proceed further, because a dimensional change may take
place? The energies that have been mobilized by the
human race, used and channelised by the human race, the
energy of thought, the energy of speech, the energy of
emotion, the energy of patterns and structures, I have been
living with all that.

Now when I allow all that to go into abeyance, it will not
be possible for me to know what is happening. There will be
no way to identify it, give it a name and evaluate it. It is not
very easy to let go the activity of knowing .ï experiencing. We
want to know what is happening, to evaluate it.

So, from self-observation to self-knowledge, that first
phase of the enquiry goes on smoothly and as soon as the
frontiers of knowledge are noticed, then one gets stuck up.
One feels afraid, or one makes a compromise. But there
cannot be fifty-fifty in revolutions, in mutations. You can’t
have 50% slavery and 50% freedom, 50% authority and
50% non-authoritarian approach. Do you see the implications
of a scientific approach to spirituality which is something
very new to the human race?

We have had spirituality and religions based on authority
of the experience of the Enlightened Ones, their words.
We have attributed sacredness to them. Without calling it
right or wrong, without calling it desirable or undesirable, let
us see. Right from Vedas upto today, our explorations, our
experimentations and our verifications are based on the
acceptance of authority and it is the acceptance of authority
that gives me terms of reference to find out whether what is
happening is correct or incorrect.

To be in a state of non-knowing, to be completely empty,
to be vacant, so that the organic Intelligence which was
functioning at the sensual level and expressing itself in ∑
instinctive movement, will express itself at this refined and
sophisticated level as Intelligence. The mental plane, the
mental dimension, is the dimension of voluntarily accepted
divisions, discriminations, voluntarily accepted, invented
words, names, norms, criteria, concepts, symbols, this is the
content of civilization. This is the content of philosophies
and religious teachings.

We can not rule out the thought level, the mental level,
where there the acceptance of authority, acceptance of
divison, acceptance of enclosures, the concepts -ideas are
enclosures – and they have their own beauty. It has its
relevance in our life. But we are exploring here what is
beyond knowledge. What is beyond Silence, if at all there
is anything. We are exploring what is beyond the game of
change, approximation, authority, through fearlessness
born of humility and willingness to be in the lap of Cosmic
Supreme Intelligence, permeating Life, surrounding me and
permeating Life within. So from instinctive to thought level
and from thought level to non-cerebral dimension of Silence,
that’s what we are trying to understand.

Silence is a very revolutionary dimension. It is only in that
vacantness, it is only in that emptiness that the communion
with ‘what is’ takes place, without the burden of the past,
without the past interfering in the quality of perception and
the quality of the response. It will be the energy contained
in the vacantness of Silence that will look through the eyes
and look through the ears. Not the thought, not the mood of
the mind, not the word, but a non-verbal communion between
what is outside of me and what is within me.

We have no relationship with the present, because all
the time it is the past that is looking towards the present and
therefore the very perception is coloured by the past, the
pressures of the tensions of the past in me. So the past
looking at the present and trying to use it for securing its own
continuity, that is what happens with us.

Is there a willingness to let the organism plunge into the
dimension of Silence? Is there a willingness to let the verbal
enquiry come to a stop? No more reading books. No more
attending talks. No more discussions at the verbal level, so
that the organism that has digested the knowledge, that has
gone through the process of acquiring, knowing, memoriz-
ing, whatever its substance, let the organism with its
substance live and move. No effort on my part to shape, to
regulate, to control, to direct the movement. We would like
to direct even the movement of Silence and its energy. We
would like to invoke the so-called Divine and fulfil our desires
or our ambitions.

This is something new. The scientific approach of letting
a plunge into the unknown, the scientific approach of letting
vulnerability permeate your life, is necessary for further noncerebral,
non-verbal explorations. Even to call it an exploration
is not perhaps proper. But I have no other word to use.

Silence is the virgin freshness of Intelligence contained
in the organism, my body, which is one expression of cosmic
Life. We are organically related to the wholeness of Life. We
are not the subject and the cosmic Life is not the object. If
the cosmic or the supreme Intelligence can function in the
cosmos, keeping the earth and the ocean related to each
other, keeping the skies and the oceans related to each
other, keeping the planets, the rhythm of seasons, the cycle
of seasons, mutually incompatible elements co-operating ‘
with one another, keeping the equipoise in the cosmic Life,
the Nature and its Life, then it is surely sustained by some
energy of Intelligence. And that energy is within me, within
this organism, as we are the expressions of that wholeness
of Life. We are not parts of Life, we are expressions of Life.

So, is there a willingness to allow that supreme Intelligence
permeating whole Life, permeating the wholeness of
Life, the homogeneity of Life, the complexity of Life, is there
a willingness to to let that take over? Take over this life,
which I call my life? That is a crucial question. That is the crux
of the issue.

Will that necessitate my going into solitude for some time
so that the dimensional change and the new energies that
are activated and mobilized by that change, are assimilated
by the organism and can express themselves without
causing any imbalance at the sensual level, at the psychological
level? It may be necessary. It may not be necessary.
One cannot make any sweeping statement. In the dimension
of Silence, knowing and experiencing come to a stand
still. It is not destroyed. It is not mutilated. It is not damaged
in any way. It just goes into abeyance, non-movement, non
action. And when the tensions of identification are no more
there, when the pressures of belonging, not belonging,
exclusive loyalty, come to an end, there is an indescribable
relaxation for the first time. It is the tension-free and pressure-
free state of the organism as a physical factor, as a
psychological factor.

Will that necessitate my going into solitude for some time
so that the dimensional change and the new energies that
are activated and mobilized by that change, are assimilated
by the organism and can express themselves without
causing any imbalance at the sensual level, at the psychological
level? It may be necessary. It may not be necessary.
One cannot make any sweeping statement. In the dimension
of Silence, knowing and experiencing come to a stand
still. It is not destroyed. It is not mutilated. It is not damaged
in any way. It just goes into abeyance, non-movement, non
action. And when the tensions of identification are no more
there, when the pressures of belonging, not belonging,
exclusive loyalty, come to an end, there is an indescribable
relaxation for the first time. It is the tension-free and pressure-
free state of the organism as a physical factor, as a
psychological factor.

That tension-free, pressure-free state, that division-free
state, that duality free state, activises the energies of the
Wholeness. Intelligence is the energy of Wholeness. Intelligence
is the energy of that complex inter-relatedness of
Life. It is not a mysterious something, a privilege of some
chosen few. Spirituality is as precise, if not more, as the
science of physics and mathematics. It is consummation of
human growth, not acquisition of some experiences by
exceptional individuals. Why should we care for something
which is the privilege of only of the selected or chosen few?
We are talking of the future of the human race.

We enquire on behalf of the human race for an alternative
way of living, an alternative culture, an alternative
dynamics of human relationships.

The Silence frightens us. Silence, not as a game indulged
in by the conditioned consciousness, but Silence as
a different dimension altogether. We take a vow for observing
verbal silence. I shall go into ‘Maunam’ for so many days,
I will go into retreat and I will go into Silence. ‘I will go into
silence!” You see, that is a different matter. It is the activity
of the’l ‘consciousness, an activity that has no sting of pride
and vanity in it, it is something beautiful and yet it is the
activity of the conditioned mind.

We are talking about Silence as a different dimension,
containing different unknown energies which have not been
chanellised by the human civilzation. We are talking about
this pilgrimage within from self-observation to self-knowledge,
Silence and beyond.

Mount Abu, 17-11-1992, Morning.

v

AWARENESS AND ATTENTIVITY

This afternoon we will be looking into the nature of
Awareness, choiceless Awareness, if it is possible to be in
choiceless Awareness at the level of conditioned mind. If it
is not possible, why is it not possible?

I wonder if we should start with looking into “what is a
choice?” Where does the activity of choosing, selecting has
relevance in our life, a role to play in our living, and is there
a dimension where the choice is utterly irrelevant, unnecessary,
unwarranted. What do we do when we choose and
why do we choose?

There are needs. The body needs a shelter, a sheltered
place to live in. It needs food, water. In order to provide the
needs on the biological level, you have to obtain, acquire
places, food, water, etc. The needs of the body are the
regulating factors in your perception, and you would like to
give the body healthy food, so you choose,you select- select
the water to be used, select the food to be used as diet. One
perhaps couldn’t say that as far as the places to live in are
concerned, because people choose or select cities, towns
or places, even countries,to live in, according to their
intellectual equipment. They go where their jobs carry them
and even that becomes very complex, if greed is added to
the needs. The choice of the places to live in is not as simple
as the choice about food or water or the kind of clothes that
one would like to use. There is proliferation of consumer
goods due to industrial civilization & this proliferation of
consumer goods is getting expanded ad-nauseam. So one
chooses. The point is, the activity of selecting or choosing
is relative to the needs on the biological level.

When you move from the biological level to psychological,
the psycho-physical, then the activity of choice, choosing,
selecting becomes rather complex. The choice as per
your religious conditioning, the ethos that a particular religious
sect or dogma has taught you, the choice according
to your ideology, you may be a socialist, a communist, a
capitalist, a Gandhiite, is related to conditionings inherited,
related to ideologies accepted, cultivated. Choice may be
related to your personal preferences, prejudices. It may
even depend upon the temperamental mood of the moment,
of the hour, of the day. Choice doesn’t stand by itself.
It is not an absolute need of human life, but it becomes
relevant at different levels of living, due to the needs and
the conditionings.

If you have an executive responsibility in an industry, a
business, a school, the Village Government, the District
Government, the Government of a State, the Nation, then
the movement of choice is related to the -is supposed to be
related to the – welfare and the well-being of the people.
Unfortunately it is nowhere so. It is nearly Statism vs.
people. For retaining power, for acquiring, this choice is
used in imports, exports, education, the whole financial
scope of social life and so on.

Thirdly choice becomes relevant when there is a particular
motivation – physical needs, psychological needs, psychological
distortion which is greed, social responsibility,
commitment, the pressures of the profession that one is in,
etc. The point that one wants to share with friends, is the
relevance of choice when one is divided in one’s own mind,
when one is not clear what one would like to do. One goes
playing around with the idea, what if I do this, what if I do that.
It is not humanly possible to find out an alternative, which will
satisfy a person 100 percent, which will be entirely “auspi-
non-motion. There is no centre that will see, look, be
attentive or observe. The knowing, the experiencing has
come to an end.

In the beginning, the inquirer learns to expose herself or
himself to this dimension in the security, privacy of his or her
house/room whatever, then in the movement of relationship
in the family, extends it to the movement of relationship
among friends. This extending of the field of Silence, this
extending as a gradual process, is the way to learn. One who
does not require this gradual process, he is there, whether
in the privacy of a room or with hundreds of people around.
But one who has to contend with the habit patterns and the
conditionings on the one hand, react to the pressures –
social pressures – for earning a livelihood and the compulsions
and pressures in the family situation, may find it easy,
using the term tentatively- to have a gradual process, go on
extending so that it becomes the normal dimension of
consciousness. What does that mean? That means that
you move in your family or the circle of your intimate friends
as a ‘Nobody’.

We are taught to develop the personality, become
‘Somebody’. We not only learn medicine and become a
Doctor in the medical field, but we carry that doctorship
through out the day. We do not learn engineering and
function as an Engineer in the limited field where it is
relevant, but we carry the image of an Engineer. We can
learn engineering, function as an expert in engineering
without crystallizing an image of an Engineer, a Doctor, a
Politician. We can also learn to know without creating a
knower, to move through the experiences without creating
a crystallized static experiencer, who measures, compares,
evaluates. Letthe knowledge, the experiences, the talents,
the intellectual equipment flow through you, function in its
respective field without becoming a chain on your psyche.

You cannot goon a pilgrimage if there are chains on your
feet. You cannot walk. Can you? In the same way, if there
are chains of images around the psyche, then every image
creates its own inhibition. its own fears and learning gets
arrested. Learning, like walking or swimming, requires that
there are no chains around the psychological structure,
around the sensitivity.

The extension of Silence as a dimension in daily living,
in the movement of relationship, means as far as I can say
it, that you move as a ‘Nobody.’ What does that mean that
I move as a ‘Nobody’? I do not take an initiative unless it is
warranted by the emergency of a situation. Of course, I am
a mother and I have a child of 2 years or 5 years, I have to
help the child to learn. I do not educate the child. I just
cooperate with the child. It is eager to learn and I become a
comrade. I learn along with the child and my learning keeps
me fresh and enables me to cooperate with the child in its
growth and in its learning.

Teaching is not surely imposition of our experiences
and the darkness of the shadows of pain and pleasure on
the psyche of the child. To be a mother, a father, a teacher
-are fantastic roles that one takes upon oneself.

I do not take initiative unless that initiative is strictly
warranted. Four or five persons are there in the family and
I see them moving around, talking around. I do not like
certain things. As per my assessment and evaluation it is not
proper, so I intervene. Intervention unless there is receptivity
on the part of the other becomes an interference. If there
is receptivity, if your intervention is sought- verbally, through
gesticulation, through indication, even non-verbally if it is
sought through a glance- then you are there available to
give whatever they call it-advice or help.

You are a ‘Nobody’ till the intervention is sought. But we
go on expressing and exclaiming our prejudices, our preferences,
likes, dislikes, our norms, criteria practically every
second hour, if not every second moment. We are the
judges of the people in the family. Why?

A certain friend from Madras went to Ojai, California, to
celebrate his 61 st birthday in the presence of Shri J.
Krishnamurti and when he got a moment with Krishnaji, he
said,” Sir, Sir, I have completed 60 years of life. What shall
I do now?” And that grand old man said, “Sir, go back and
live in your family as if you are dead.” That was Krishnaji for
us. Live as if you are dead. That does not mean insensitive,
that does not imply passivity. Ever alert, ever ready but no
initiative, no intervention, no interference and no judging
unless the executive responsibility requires the judgement.
There you cannot back out. You walk down a street and you
have judged so many people, somebody’s dress, somebody’s
words, I do not know. Judge them in so many ways and you
have gathered likes and dislikes about them, preferences
about them. So, our consciousness is heavy. Nobodyness
implies living without judgements .and without unwarranted
initiatives and interventions in daily living.

Secondly, such an extension implies that one is not very
anxious or worried about the reactions, misinterpretation,
misunderstandings of the people around. They are not
interested in your dimensions of Silence, which becomes a
state of Meditation when it settles down in the neurochemical
system. The living and moving Silence settled down in
the neurochemical system is called state of Meditation. So,
the people around me may not be interested in it. They may
not like, they may misunderstand, they may misinterpret.
We cannot expect them to appreciate, to cooperate, to
understand, not to misinterpret. That will be expecting too
much.

The psychological aloneness is the content of the
extension of Silence to all the fields of relationship and
action in daily living. If and when that is done, the effect on
the physical, psycho-physical structure, the psychological
structure, the thought structure and the physical structure,
the effect, the impact on this structure is : they are ever
relaxed. Somebody insults you, humiliates you, tries to hurt
you, your intelligence understands that. You go through a
moment of agony or deep pain. You live through it and you
are free of it. You do not allow that experience of pain to get
converted into a personal grudge against the one who has
unfortunately hurt or insulted or humiliated you. That
misbehaviour, that undignified behaviour, is the problem of
that person, not my problem. In the pilgrimage of Life, I
cannot command the temperamental moods and behaviour
of others. I am not there to dominate, to create a terror of my
Sadhana in my family.

It is the sensitivity, the Intelligence which notices it,
registers it and the pain, the agony is lived through. And as
you have lived through, you allow it to end, not carry it over
with the help of a thought, with the help of an idea- “I was
insulted.” You know – to live through the event of insult
without creating an idea that ‘I’ was insulted, humiliated
intentionally, the motive was like that. The idea of having
been insulted or humiliated is more painful than the actual
pain of those words. Please do see the difference. And
religion is ending such psychological suffering. You go on
creating an idea of what has happened, transfer it to
memory and then you gather the raw material for psycho-
logical misery and suffer.

A pilgrim has to travel light. You cannot gather heavy
burdens or heavy luggage. And we are probing within, it is
a pilgrimage within the consciousness. So this new art of
living through the pain and the pleasure without allowing
them to crystallize into a sensation of preference or prejudice,
joy or sorrow, like or dislike, with no fermentation
within, is to be learnt. One has to jolly well go through them.
There would be tears when one feels the pain and agony
and one does not restrict the tears. There would be tickling
in the nervous system when somebody appreciates and one
is thoroughly pleased and one lived that. As the petals of a
flower smile happily when they are kissed by the sunrays,
when they are tickled by gentle wirid, so we are tickled by the
appreciation, words of acknowledgement, and even words
of praise.

A religious person is not an insensitive person. But
again, one does not allow that event to get converted into a
positive like for the person, because of the words, and a
prejudirle for the person, because of his insult or words
hurting one. That is the art. That is what we call Yoga.
Samatvam Yoga Uchyate. The equanimity is the essence of
Yoga. Raga Dwesha Viyuktaistu. It is the movement of
relationship without generating Raga -attraction,
attachement, infatuation, obsession or Dwesha-dislike, prejudice,
bitterness, hatred, enmity. They create the sense of
pleasure and pain you carry in thought and then say, “Poor
me, I have suffered so much.”

How can a religious person suffer psychologically?
There may be physical pain, sickness, illness. Religion is, to
be religious is, to end psychological suffering. Meditation is
the dimension where this process of suffering psychologically
has ended completely. Avidya, Asmita, Raga, Dwesha,
Abhinivesha, Pancha Kleshaha, Klesha Vimukti Kaivalyam.

Mount Abu, 18 November, 1992, Morning.

IX
WHY IS NOT ONE ABLE TO LIVE IN THE
PRESENT?

Why is not one able to live in the present and why is it that
one does not or cannot live one’s understanding in daily life,
that is perhaps the query we shall take up this afternoon.

Why is not one able to live in the present?

What is the present,Sir? What is implied in the term
‘present’? How does the present acquire factuality ? We
have inherited that division of life’s span into the past, the
present and the future. As we have inherited many other
concepts, we have inherited also the concept of time. The
framework oftime and space around the life span has nearly ∑’
become the substance of conditioned consciousness and
we are never encouraged to question the validity if the time
really exists, if really the numerical equations, the numbers
from 1 to 100 have any factual content.

What is self-generated, self-created as the Cosmos is,
has factual substance. But the conceptual world is a human
creation. And as we are organically related to the selfgenerated,
self-sustained, self-regulated Cosmic Life, the
contents of our thought structure, the contents of our
conditioned consciousness are a variety of concepts, ideas,
theories, symbols representing these concepts and ideas
and the techniques or the methods for handling the symbols
and even using the concepts.

We never question whether this division of the infinite
Life into the past, the present and the future has any validity.
Perhaps we will have to discriminate between the nature of
facts on the biological level, material level and the nature of
psychological facts. We use the term ‘fact’ for both.

Biologically there is birth, there is evolution, growth,
there is decay and what we call death. These events of
emergence, the birth, expansion, the growth, and merging
back, the death, have been very skillfully organised and
fixed into the framework of time and space. It is a mental
construcl ! n order to measure the expansion or the growth,
the human 1ace constructed psychological time to measure
the biological facts, to relate to the biological facts. As
naming is one way of relating and identifying, measuring is
another way of relating to the biological facts. We had to
have measurements and the concept of time, sorted out and
worked into seconds, minutes, hours, days and years has
been invented.

Time as a measurement is a human invention. Emergence
and what we call growth, decay and disappearance
are biological facts. So as an inquirer, I would ask myself if
this division, the psychological division has any relevance
to the actuality of Life. Actually there is nothing like time
divided into days, hours, past, present and future. If the truth
behind the psychological fact as the truth behind the content
of conditioned consciousness, is understood and appreciated,
then the term ‘present’ would mean for us, perhaps,
timelessness.

Life is a simple Is-ness. It is a pure and sheer Is-ness,
existence with an existential essence in it, contained in it,
concealed in it. So living in the present would be living in the
timeless. Using the measurement of time and the divisions
into the present, the past or the future on the biological level,
to be free of that measurement symbolism etc. on the
psychological level, this is a dual responsibility for those who
are born in the complex and evolved human organism.

Why is it that one cannot live in the timeless? Why one
cannot live in the present would mean really why cannot one
live in the timeless. Why does the concept of time create
such a heavy burden? Could it be that knowing, experiencing
and memorising what has been experienced has been
the way in which the human race has brought itself up? You
perceive biologically. On that perception is grafted, the
invented concept of a name, of an evaluation quantitatively,
qualitatively. Then the ways of using those objects for
physical survival, sensual pleasure, psychological comforts
and so on are evolved.

Perception and grafting the concept on the perception is
a dual life we have been living. The authority of the process
of naming and identifying – not as a way of relating to the
Reality outside, but as the only way of living – perhaps, this
is what we have accepted. Knowing, naming, identifying,
conceptualising, proliferation of symbols – in other words,
knowledge has been our way of living. You know about the .
thing, you know about your own self, you know about your
physical organism and then you use that knowledge for
handling the organism.

As long as the knowledge would be the source of our
action and the sanction behind the movement of relationship,
the division of time into the past, the present and the
future will remain with us, because knowledge is the past.
Past means that which has happened. The biological inheritance,
the psychological inheritance become the source of
perception and the sanction for responses.

There is a difference between knowing and understanding.
We are going to inquire why one cannot live one’s
understanding. We have never cared for understanding.
We have been ruled by the verbal knowledge, the traditions,
the customs, the theories, the ideologies, etc. To accept the
authority of knowledge for relating to Life is to accept the
authority of the concept of time. So I feel the necessity to
retain in the memory whatever I do or others have done to
me, and then I base the texture of my relationship on the
authority of those experiences or that knowledge that I have
acquired or cultivated.

Supposing we learn the art of living fully with the wholeness
of our being, from moment to moment, we live thoroughly
and there is a full stop. If you don’t like the word
‘dying’ from moment to moment, if the words ‘dying’ and
‘death’ have some frightening association, depressing association
then let us say we live and there is a full stop.

The living, the going through an event is not accompanied
simultaneously by the process of creating memory.
The authority of the past accumulated, inherited is gone with
the dawn of understanding. If we let it fall away, drop away,
and the new past is not created, then new memory is not
created.

In your Indian terminologies and the science of Yoga,

Prarabdham Sanchitam Kriyamanam
Prarabdhasya Bhogaha Eva”Kshayaha

Understanding is Bhogaha. You look at it, you understand
it and you are free of it.

What is freedom? You do not identify with it consciously
and if there are subconscious identifications, as soon as
they are exposed, they do not overwhelm you in spite of the
exposure.

Prarabdhasya Bhogaha Eva Kshayaha. That which has
been set into the motion, inheritance, is Prarabdham. It is
something which has been set into the motion.

My body, given to me by my parents, cannot be changed
and it will live its own momentum, its own potential with my
cooperation or in spite of me, in spite of my non-cooperation
it is going to go through that biological process of growing
and decaying and dying.

Sanchitam – that which we accumulate since childhood
intentionally or unintentionally, and Kriyamanam – that
which we go on creating every moment, which will have its
own momentum, because thought is matter and the matter
has its own energy, its own movement, so it will fulfil itself.

If we learn the art of living in such a way that the
inheritance, Prarabdham, is not identified with and we do
not create, build up moment by moment new memory, if we
let it end, then would there be a psychological past?

If we are concerned with the act of living which is
possible only in the now, the here, the timelessness, the Isness
of life, if we are concerned with the act of living, then
we are in the timeless present. To call it present is just a
human way of conversation or verbalization. It is timelessness.
If we are concerned with life and living and we have
learned the art of not allowing any interaction to leave a
shadow behind, any event to leave any scr~tches of memory
behind, then the living and dying psychoLogically get blended
into one rhythm.

But as we are educated and equipped to earn money
and we put it into Bank and we consider the Bank balance
as the protection against so called future, in the same way
we have been taught to look upon knowledge and experience,
theories and evolutions, norms and criteria, everything
as a Bank balance to be used in the future. Unless you
know what a person is, how can you deal with him tomorrow
? So try to know him today, as the politicians do. Well, for
their game, every friend is a prospective enemy or competitor.
So that is their funeral. But we, who are not interested
in power politics, who are interested only in living, for us
storage of information as an investment against the future
does not seem to be a very scientific way of living.

We look at Life in the light of the past, in the light of the
knowledge, which is stale, which has no dynamism, which
is sterile. So what shall I do ? May I begin as an inquirer?
– May I begin to watch my behaviour and find out if my
movement, my speech, my actions, my responses are born
of understanding or they are borrowed from some scriptures,
from some religious books, spiritual celebrities, grafted
by me on my psyche. We observe how we behave and like
a student, note whether we live out of borrowed knowledge
or personal understanding in every detail of life-but who has
the time? We are in such a hurry -‘lti Asmabhihi Shruyate’.
We have heard, generations have lived like this, therefore
I do it. We have no time to watch and find out if we
understand even the known, leave aside the unknown.

I would begin by watching and sorting out what I do out
of personal understanding spontaneously. Understanding
flows into action without the exercise of will or effort. As the
Being, Life, Cosmic Life expresses itself, manifests itself
and is fulfilled in that manifestation, in the same way,
understanding exists and is fulfilled by its manifestation in
the movement of life, in the movement of relationship. It
flows into action. You do not have to make conscious effort
-“I understand this. Therefore I must do. I must behave in
this way and not in any other way.”

Understanding in not an idea. Understanding is the
sub-stance of your being. Like the food digested which is the
substance of the physical organ, that which is understood,
is assimilated and becomes the substance of conscious~
ness, not the content of it.

I hope, we realise the difference between the two. A
vessel, a pot, a pan can be made of gold, silver, steel- the
substance. A jar can be made of clay, mud, or marble, i.e.
the substance. It contains water, it can contain liquids.
There is a difference between the substance of consciousness
and the content of consciousness. Of course, conscious.
ness has no solidity except the vibrations. It is a
vibrational energy and yet we have to use similes to feel the
nature of consciousness, the difference between the two.

Understanding is the substance of the vibrations, not like
knowledge, which is the content of it. So I learn to live from
the first step. I begin, whatever be the age, the age of the
physical organism, I begin the inquiry. I start learting. Never
to utter a word without having understood its meaning, so
that I never have to say, “Oh ! I did not mean it. I might have
said so, I did not mean it.” We say something, we mean
something else. We want the people to interpret our words
in still another way. These complications, inconsistencies,
contradictions ! Can’t I learn it at the verbal level?

Can’t I do it on the physical level in relation to diet? I take
the diet that is agreeable to the body, according to the
season and not because it is the Gujarati, the Marathi, the
Bengali way of eating. Then I have relationship. If I do it the
way it has been done, following the traditions, I have no
relationship with it. It is just repeating and projecting something
mechanically. But if I go into it and understand what I
am eating, why I am eating it, the frequency of the intakes,
the quantity, the quality – I have sorted out things. Then I
have relationship, then I am living. Otherwise, even consuming
food will not be a firsthand personal movement. It
would be a repetition. It will not be my life. You know, we live
secondhand, thirdhand.

At the physical level, whether it is exercise, whether it is
sleeping, whether it is diet, I try to understand why I do things
in certain ways, and do them with understanding. Then I am
aware how I stand and how I sit, how I talk and how I glance
at people. Then there is an awareness. Nothing is done
unconsciously in the darkness of inattention.

There is a difficulty in living the understanding, because
in society there is no sanction for this event of understanding.
Nobody cares whether you understand what you talk
about or why you do things. Nobody cares for that as long
as you fit into the social, economic, political structure and
satisfy the value structure of society. Whether you understand
or you do not understand, whether you are indulging
in hypocracy or you are doing out of fear or you are doing
out of pressure, it is nobody’s concern. Not even the concern
of so called religious or spiritual teachers.

We have been acquiring knowledge, accumulating knowledge
and making a struggle to live according to the knowledgethat
has been the lifesytle. Now we are saying, I would
like to understand, not only know, not only acquire information.
And then let the understanding flow, so there is
spontaneity. There is no struggle, no split, no division in me.
Understanding has its own momentum. Even if you want to
arrest it, it will express itself through you. It has a dynamism.
So if I have noticed that in my daily living I am not living my
understanding, I will start from the very beginning and learn
to differentiate between action based on knowledge and
action based on spontaneity and understanding. On the
physical, verbal, mental levels, I will never indulge in any
expression physically, verbally, psychologically, cerebrally,
which is not my own, which is not born of understanding.
That is one way of looking at the question.

There is a second way to look at the question. I do not
know whether we have done it or we do it consciously or it
is done unconsciously, sub-consciously, butthe authority of
the existing socio-economic structures is there in our psyche.
So the spiritual inquiry has to adjust itself to the convenience
of the social, economic needs of our life. The findings of the
inquiry have also to adapt themselves or adjust themselves
to the socio-economic sanctions prevalant in the country in
which I am living, happen to be living. The pressure of the
acceptance of the value structure of society is there behind
me. Living the findings of my inquiry, living the truth discovered
through that inquiry is secondary. The primary concern
is to fit into the socio-economic structure, be successful,
have wealth, respectability that has the supreme priority
without our knowing it. We may not be even conscious of
that. So whether it is morality, immorality, virtue, vice, sin
I have accepted all those definitions. The authoritarian
pattern of Indian families, the lust for money, accumulation
of money, does not matter if I don’t use it, my children will use
it, hence the acquiring, accumulating for the future generations.

Now if all that is there and that creates its own compul-
sions, then where does the frail, fresh, tender understanding
have a place in your life? It gives you some satisfaction
-I have understood – and perhaps, that is all. But it is not for
me to live. You see, living is equated with certain activities.
You might say, is not earning a livelihood a necessity of life
? Yes, it is. But it can be simple or it can be complicated.
Living in a country I can be satisfied. I can say that this much
and no further. This is my energy, this is the time that I will
devote to satisfy the needs. But one may go on working for
12 hours, 14 hours, 16 hours. It has its own intoxication.
Acquisition, accumulation has its own intoxication and one
gets intoxicated. The pleasure of money, the pleasure of
sex, the pleasure of power.

Understanding is austere. It does not give pleasure. It
gives a sense of fulfilment which has no excitement about
it, and pleasures have excitement. So we require excitement,
tension and then we react to those tensions and we
run after those pleasures and we believe that we are living.
We are pushed, we are pulled, we are dragged. We float on
the foam of pleasure and we feel we are swimming, or we
are living. Unfortunately, as I see it, that is not living or that
is not living firsthand. There is no fun in living then. Then you
require some stimulants to keep you going – physical
stimulants, verbal stimulants, psychological stimulants.

Retaining the concept of time and the divisions implied
in that concept as the past, the present and the. future, to be
utilised on the material and the biological level, and to be
free of the shackles of that concept and the divisions
generated by the concept at the psychological level – this is
the dual role. Living and using time as a concept as you use
colours for a sketch. You know very well that a river or a
mountain that you paint on the piece of paper or the canvas

Vimalaji : Let me see, if I have understood you. Sir, a
person is not supported or cared for by the relatives, by_th e
friends.

Questioner : When he starts living the sort of life which he
wants to live or which he values, it happens that his wife or
the friend or the very relative who has been having a
different image about him, now regards∑ that it is no longer
possible to support him or to give him respect, or to follow
him.

Vimalaji : So what does one do about what?

Questioner : About his living, his livelihood, or to earn the
money, or to produce money just for the sake of living, living
that sort of life which he wants.

Vimalaji: How does one earn money?

Questioner: What he is saying is, that his relations are not
supporting the way of life that he would like to live, even for
making a living. Therefore he wants to live, but the others do
not give him any regard, are not encouraging. But he has to
make a living. One has to live in the present society, work to
earn for a livelihood and yet has a different view or value for
life than those among whom he is working or living, and all
the time he has to be supported, may be in such a case as
his, supported for whatever reason, of health, or things like
that – then what does he have to do?

Vimalaji : Sir, is it not a social question that you have
posed? Is it not a social question?

Questioner! : Yes, it is.

Questioner2: How does one pursue Sadhana under these
circumstances?

Vimalaji : How does one do Sadhana, is that the question,
in this situation? I thought that he is asking what does one
do. That is the question. What he should do under these
circumstances, that is what he wants to ask.

Questioner: I have been trying to live a life since few years
which I value, but which I find has never been valued in our
class of society, friends and as such I cannot open out
myself, nor can I lead that sort of life which I like inwardly,
with the result that one feels a little lost, if one can say.

Vimalaji : Will you please sit down, Sir. I am sorry I have
taken so much time to understand. I could not understand
whether it is the social content, social anomaly that he was
referring to, or a personal, psychological difficulty, that he
was referring to.

I would like to live in one way. I value it. I live it. But the
people around me do not value it. They do not see it that
way. Yes.ltistheirsweetchoice. Theydon’tvalueitandthey
think thatthere is something wrong with me. That living in the
present context, in the present society, I value such things
-spirituality, meditation, Sadhana and what have you. So
what?

Questioner: The trouble is that I have to depend on them
for various needs.

Vimalaji : There it comes. It is the financial or economic.
dependency in the life of an elderly person. It is not an
individual question. It has something to do with the present
Indian social structure. And the ground realities of old age
in many families, the life of the elderly persons – so I have
to depend upon them. Now, do they only non-cooperate with
me or do they try to prevent me, try to oppose me.

Questioner : No, no. Neither.

Vimalaji: You see it is their perspective of life, their way
of living. I feel lonely. I don’t find any encouragement. I don’t
find any companionship, because of that. I may feel lonely,
not lost, if I have understood why I want to live in a certain
way. It is a choiceless way of living. It is a choiceless action
for me and I don’t find any company. To live alone. Flight
from alone to alone. Flight in the solitude. It is really the
compassion of heart that understands the unfortunate
condition, unfortunate situation. The others may be members
of my family or relatives or friends or whatever with
whomsoever I am living. It will be my compassion towards
them that they are in a deep slumber, while I have woken
up. I am awake.

I remember, years back, some 25 years back, sitting in
a huge tent in Saanen listening to J . Krishnamurti ‘s talks,
and one day when we assembled in the tent, Krishnaji
looked at the 2000 people sitting there and asked, ‘Sirs, are
you sure you are awake?’ All that was new to me, his way
of addressing people, his way of shaking people, and I said
to myself, why he does this? They are not sleeping. He was
not referring to the physical sleeping. He was referring to the
psychological slumber.

So, though the billions inhabit the planet, it is very few
who wake out of the slumber of tradition, of addiction to
traditions, authorities, exclusive loyalties, etc. So one who
is awake is always alone. People would like to make him also
accompany them and sleep away the life, not live it. So the
agony, if at all there is, will indicate that I am feeling lonely
and I am alone, you know. I want company on the path of
enquiry which may happen, which may not happen.

When I move out of the existing style of living, norms and
criteria of life and living, I have set myself free from the
majority. I have come out of that. The moment I became an
enquirer, the moment I became a learner of Life, a kind of
discoverer ofthe meaning of Life, I am alone. I have chosen, _
selected, aloneness of the pilgrimage within. So people may
not understand, may not appreciate. Aloneness is the
privilege. But if there is a sense of loneliness, and a
psychological need of companionship in enquiry then one
will have to find places where such enquiry is undertaken by
groups. Join them. I don’t know if there are such groups or
places, educational institutions making it possible for at
least for elderly people, elderly enquirers to go and live
there. I don’t know. But even if you feel lost, you would not
like to go back from the way of living that you value, Sir?

Questioner : We would not like to go back.

Vimalaji : That’s what I am saying, because you have
tasted the Truth. One who has tasted the Light, tasted the
Truth, doesn’t like to go back to the darkness of den, or the
aggressiveness of pleasures, the glamour of the falsehoods
and lies. That is what happens when one has tasted the
Truth. One may stumble across it, one may come upon it,
one may come by it. But if once the light of the Truth is seen,
then one doesn’t like to go back. So I am afraid, one will have
to live with this aloneness without feeling lost.

One would have to, because we are like the pioneers.
Those who undertake an enquiry in spirituality from a
scientific approach, in a scientific way, are pioneers of new
dimensions of consciousness, new dynamics of human
relationship and the new global human culture. We are not
enquiring or doing Sadhana for acquiring transcendental
powers, for awakening Kundalini or for all such things. We
are doing it because we are concerned with the miserable
plight of the human life today. We are concerned with the
worn out brains and find that no solution to human problems
is possible through the movement of thoughts and ideas
and ideologies. So we are out to explore, if there are new
horizons and new vistas and new pastures. So we are
bound to be a fraction of the minority today, a negligible
minority collectively and alone individually in our respective
lives.

If nobody non-cooperates with you or opposes you, you
are fortunate. Your friend who is sitting here was turned out
of her house when she was fifteen and she had to earn and
learn, all throughout her college, university education.

She refused to get married because she refused to back
out from her God intoxication, as we used to call it. Life tests
the integrity of your inquiry in many ways. And that vulnerability
and those hard days with one meal a day without any
guarantee for the future, they were marvellous days,
because they were challenges to the creative energy. So I
say that the pioneers of new dimensions of consciousness
and new dynamics of human relationships are bound to be
alone. Of course, within a few years, those who had caused
the event of my being turned out and away from the house
and the family, realised the mistake and invited me back and
we have marvellous, beautiful relationships. And honestly
one has no regrets for what happened, no bitterness, no
grudge. It was to be so. If you want to strike out new paths
-people can’t understand you. There may be some who do
not want to understand, but generally it is beyond them, that
the money, sex, security, social prestige should not attract
you at all, should not tempt you. So they are not at fault, we
are not at fault. That is how it happens.

VII
WHY SCIENTIFIC APPROACH
TO INQUIRY IS FELT DIFFICULT

I wonder if you would like to accompany me this morning
and find out together why the austere scientific approach to
a religious inquiry is felt rather difficult by us.

A scientific approach does not begin with the acceptance
of assumptions and presumptions. It does not presume
that there is a God or there is not a God. There is no
presumption even of a static destination towards which one
has to proceed in the pilgrimage.

We are psychically used to the authority of a destination,
theories about personal or impersonal God, one or many
Gods. There is no incentive to set upon a pilgrimage unless
there is the authority of a point of destination in space and
time. But a student, a research student, does not presume
that there has been the last word about spirituality, about
the potential of human consciousness, about the dimensions
of human consciousness, and perhaps, that absence
of a static point of destination even in an idea, frightens the
inquirer.

A static point, towards which one has to move, creates
a direction for the inquiry- an exclusive direction -and when
one has realised and reconciled to the absence of such a
point of destination, there is no exclusive direction in which
one has to move. No roots, no routines, no ∑schedules, and
no measurements to measure whether one is progressing
or one is not progressing. The measurements, the symbols
representing the measurements, are the substance of the
past. Ideational, verbal descriptions or pictures of divinity or
destination are not there. The present is empty, no terms of
reference, no briefing. Please do see this. It is sheer
freedom and an unchartered sea of consciousness.

One is not saying all this to frighten anyone or intimidate
anyone, but spirituality as a science has its own austerity.
The past is not to be denied, rejected or fought against. But
the authority, the finality that one attributes to the past is no
more there. Is not that the content of humility? Is not that the
content of non-knowing ? A presumption – free consciousness
is extremely pliable. It has the elasticity, pliability. The
content of receptivity or humility is this psychic freedom to
learn.

Once the authority of the past is accepted and finality is
attributed to it, there is nothing to be learnt, to be discovered.
One can imitate, one can approximate one’s life, to what has
happened in the past. One can graft upon one’s psyche, the
words, the ideas, e>ven the experiences, and the styles of
living of the liberated ones, who have lived in the past, and
one may even try to conform to their ways of living, to their
ways of thinking – this approximation, this conformity, this
imitation is something to which we are used. We have only
to react to the past. Imitation may be one reaction , conformity
would be another, struggling to approximate is a third
way. Reacting to the past becomes an escape from the
present. Learning, inquiring, discovering requires an inner
freedom. And could it be that we are afraid of freedom?

We are educated to react to the compulsions and
pressures. There is an economic compulsion. I must have
a degree from some University, must have a job, enter into
the competitive examinations, compare, compete, measure
my intellect, talents. There is the pressure and I react to it.
The more skillfully you react, the more shrewdly you react,
the more successful person you can be in the world, in the
society.

Our daily living is nothing but a chain of reactions to the
compulsions that surround us- socially, culturally, economically,
politically and we look upon ourselves as victims of
these pressures. And living is reacting to the pressures,
escaping from the pressures, dodging the pressures. Added
to these compulsions and pressures, don’t we create, my
friends, compulsions and pressures also from within ourselves?
I like to become an authority for my wife or husband,
for my children. I would love to see them to conform to what
I am doing, even to imitate me. I accept the authority of the
past, of the compulsions and pressures, without questioning
even the validity of those pressures and compulsions
and I create emotionally the pressures and compulsions
within the family, for myself and for those who live with me.
I react to their compulsions- temperamental, emotional and
impose compulsions of my temperament and so on.

What we call our living has a very poor calibre. We don’t
like to see that and perhaps we don’t like even to be
reminded of that, don’t like it to be pointed out to us. Truth
feels bitter, because we are used to living with masks and
we are brought up where masks are provided to us.

We were talking about this inquiry being difficult, the
path being difficult, yesterday afternoon. So this morning
one felt it necessary to analyse why one feels it difficult. The
conditionings, the habit patterns etc., why do they become
obstacles?

If these two points are clear, may we proceed to another
angle and another point? This is a verbal voyage together.
We have to keep together and penetrate into the meaning
of the words as we speak them or we listen to them. A
dialogue takes place when the listening and speaking are
simultaneous and companionship takes place, when the
meaning is penetratively perceived and appreciated together.

In our living we are used to measuring the quality of the
challenges that every dawn brings to our doorstep as gifts
of Life. Life is evernew. Challenges do not repeat themselves.
They have infinite nuances and every dawn when
you open your eyes, you have new challenges which keep
you on your toes, keep you fresh and alert.

Life is not a school time-table. The unpredictability, the
infinity of Life is its beauty. It won’t be worth living. There
would be no fun in life ifthe movement of relationships would
not throw up challenges, if your interactions with the members
of the society would not throw up challenges, if Nature
does not throw up challenges. What would life be? Repeat,
repeat certain schedules ? It would be a boredom.

We are used to measuring the challenges, the situations,
the words, the movements of the people around us
and to find out whether it is easy of difficult. The word
‘difficult’ would not creep into the psyche unless there is the
acceptance of the word ‘easy’. What is easy is what is one
used to. One has seen one’s parents doing it. One has seen
people around doing them. So repeatiflg with certain
variations of my physical and psychological get-up, I repeat.
Repetition is easy, conformity is easy.l do not have to think.
The path is there. The technique, the methodology is there
and I join the crowd. That is easy.

What is difficult? That, which I am not used to, which I am
not acquainted with. There is nothing with which I can
measure, I can assess or evaluate the quality. We measure
the external challenges and we measure our inner potential
as if we knew what the human potential is. If Life is divinity,
if we are organically related to the infinity of Life, then our
potential is as infinite as that of the Life surrounding us.
There may be limitations on the expression of that potential.
Supposing you and I do not measure whether I will succeed,
whether I will fail, whether this kind of challenge has
appeared before in the lives of my parents, elders, friends,
relatives and so on. If I do not measure, will the words
‘difficult’ or ‘easy’ have any relevance? If exercising the
physical and . psychological capacities and energies that
one has, if there is a willingness to do that- exercising the
energies – will the words ‘difficult’ or ‘easy’ have any relevance
whatsoever?

I See the challenge and I respond to it willingly without
any concern for success or failure, because I am learning.
I may fail, I may succeed. There is no static point of
destination. How much time is required is not a question
having any relevance to my inquiry, to my learning. When
there is a point of destination in space and time, then the
language of, ‘it will take so much time’ or ‘it takes so little
time’, will have some meaning.

Learning is timeless and every step perhaps is the
destination, the path and the joy together. The timeless
present is the emanation of Eternity, it is flowering of Infinity.
The moment I see, I meet it. I meet Life as best as I can and
if I fail, I learn from the failure. If I succeed, there is
contentment. Perhaps this concern about measuring and
concern about being successful, if these two are understood
for what they are and there is no more attachment for
these two, then the word ‘difficult’ will have no place, not only
in Napolean’s dictionary, but in the dictionary of every
human being. He used to say, ‘Nothing is impossible’. The
word ‘Impossible’ had no place in Napolean’s dictionary.

Thirdly, we are used to being led, to follow, never taking
the total responsibility upon ourselves. The personal factor,
the cult of personality, investing the person with absolute
authority, surrendering the freedom to think, to act, to a
person – has not that”been our way of living in this country
? Relegating the authority to. tell us what is best for us, to
give us solutions- this is the content of our living- please do
see this- social, economic, political, cultural, religious living.

And now here you listen to a scientist of spirituality, a
person, J. Krishnamurti, who says, ‘no authority whatsoever.’
He talks about observation as a tool. He talks about
Silence of Meditation as a different dimension and he says
you have to learn non-author!tatively. So, congregations,
where you feel a sense of belonging; crowds, where you feel
a sense of security -they all disappear. The relationship of
absolute authority and unconditional surrender between
two individuals disappears.

Do you remember what the great teacher said on the
1Oth of January 1986 in Madras? ” What is your last
message, Sir?” and he said, “Do not create a God out of me
when I am gone. Will you please drop me, Sir, When I am
gone?” Beautiful words ! The elegance, the majesty of that
message ! May be humanity requires another 50 years to
appreciate the scientific significance of these terms – not as
a personal exclamation.

We hav∑e been, we the human race have been following
the path of authority and unconditional surrender between
individuals, in family, in political parties, in religion and so on.

Here, when we launch upon a pilgrimage within, there is
no point of destination, no surrendering of freedom, no
acceptance of authority, no exclusive direction: only beautiful
vulnerability and vibrant interaction between what is
around me and wihtin me, the communion between what is
surrounding me and what is vibrating within. The only thing
to be done is, remove the screens and the obstructions so
that the communion takes place effortlessly, gracefully.

Could it be that one would love subconsciously to invest
all the freedom in some person and feel safe? Here you are
thrown back on yourselves, your resources, your potential.
Path is to be carved out of our own being. The wholeness
of Life is the only direction. Attentivity, the sensitivity, the
receptivity is the only energy to be exercised.

Lastly, if I do not compare then this evaluatory judgement,
of something being difficult or something being easy
would have no meaning. Why should I compare what is
happening to me, to what has happened in the lives of
Sadhakas who have gone before me, or who are living today
? Comparision is the soil in which many a misery grows. Why
compare? Comparison does bring about an evaluatory
judgement, assessment. So perhaps we will not be put off,
we will not be intimidated by the ever new challenges which
we have to encounter every morning on this Pilgrimage
within.

If the bodies are pampered and they want to have
everything ready made, instant results, methods and techniques
that give you instant net product. If the bodies are
pampered to excessive protection and excessive sensual
indulgence, then learning is felt strenuous.

Our minds are full of preferences and prejudices regulating
many a relationship in our daily living. And we draw
conclusions on the basis of our likes, dislikes and preferences
and prejudices. Those conclusions become the
criteria of judging others. Isn’t that our life? lsn.’t that what
happens everyday? We imagine that we are living whi le we
are moving in this vicious circle. So there is nothing easy and
nothing difficult. Everything is ever fresh and ever virgin to
be interacted with, to be gone into communion with, so that
the communion results in our inner flowering and blossoms.

I wanted to take up what happened yesterday, because
when we went back to our places, I was busy with what I had
heard and the concern for anyone of us feeling this thing
difficult. It is a new path, it is a pathless path. It is unprecedented,
unheard of. But that does not mean that it is
difficult.

Mount Abu, 18 November, 1992, Morning.

VIII

PROBING SILENCE WITH SENSITIVITY

Let us proceed where we had left – the dimension of
Silence-and probe into it, penetrate into it piercingly with our
queries, with our sensitivity. When we say the dimension of
Silence is a dimension of emptiness, vacantness, surely,
the word vacantness,the word emptiness does not imply
void.

The emptiness is not lifeless. The Silence is sound-free.
aut that does not mean it is lifeless. Sound is an extension
of Silence and those who are engineers of sound, they
manipulate the sound energy and carve words out of
Silence and develop them into ideas, construct into sentences.
That is how languages are built-up – the history of
languages, linguistics, phonetics, syntax, semantics is very
interesting. How sound is engineered, manipulated, words
are carved out, the pitch, the tone, the accent, the intonation,
the pronounciation, the beauty of diction, is a fascinating
subject!

Spund is an extension of Silence. Silence is not absence
of sound but sound has merged into its own source. When
words enter the source of sound and sound enters the
source of emptiness, you call it Silence. And the modern
scientists will tell us, as they do, that all the multi-verses that
are existing in the cosmos are nothing but explosions of
Silence, of emptiness, whether it is David Bohm’s implicate
and explicate order, whether it is explosion of emptiness as
a theory of the creation by Hawkins and others, whether it
is Tao of Physics by Fritzof Capra.

The scientists are very busy, because they are confronted
with emptiness as the ground Reality, as the substance
of Life, as the source of all energies- emptiness as
the source of all Life and energies, and they are busy with
that. As we are busy with the inner emptiness of consciousness,
they are busy with the outer emptiness of space.

The first half of the 20th Century they were busy with the
atom, atomic theory, theory of relativity and so on. Then
quantum theory, then vibration theory. After having exhausted
the atoms, the protons – the minutest particles of
matter-they found that it is nothing but energy. The minutest
analysed particle of matter contains a quantum of energy
which defies logic and mathematics. So they started learning
and discovering the nature of energies in the second half
of the 20th Century and by the ’80s, they discovered that
energies are contained in the emptiness. If you are interested,
you may go through that, a book, ‘Ending of
Time’,discussions between Shri J. Krishnamurti and David
Bohm and discussions between brain surgeons and Shri J.
Krishnamurti held in Europe.

Silence is not absence of something, it is not negativity,
it is not a void. The emptiness is full. Silence is full of
innumerable sounds and their shades, the unexpressed
music of the Cosmos. It takes a Madam Blavatsky to hear
that sound of Silence and its eloquence. It takes a
Gyaneshwara to listen to that music and talk about the
essence of emptiness in his Commentary on Gita, and so
on.

We being students, I am just showing the new answers
expressed by different persons whose primary concern was
discovering and revealing as far as they could, verbally, the
secret, the mystery of Life that they had come upon. Why
have I talked about the dimension of Silence ? Just to point
out, just to share with you, that there is nothing to be afraid
of Silence. The thought-structure goes into total non-action,
non-motion. There is no centre that will see, look, be
attentive or observe. The knowing, the experiencing has
come to an end.

In the beginning, the inquirer learns to expose herself or
himself to this dimension in the security, privacy of his or her
house/room whatever, then in the movement of relationship
in the family, extends it to the movement of relationship
among friends. This extending of the field of Silence, this
extending as a gradual process, is the way to learn. One who
does not require this gradual process, he is there, whether
in the privacy of a room or with hundreds of people around.
But one who has to contend with the habit patterns and the
conditionings on the one hand, react to the pressures –
social pressures -for earning a livelihood and the compulsions
and pressures in the family situation, may find it easy,
using the term tentatively- to have a gradual process, go on
extending so that it becomes the normal dimension of
consciousness. What does that mean ? That means that
you move in your family or the circle of your intimate friends
as a ‘Nobody’.

We are taught to develop the personality, become
‘Somebody’. We not only learn medicine and become a
Doctor in the medical field, but we carry that doctorship
through out the day. We do not learn engineering and
function as an Engineer in the limited field where it is
relevant, but we carry the image of an Engineer. We can
learn engineering, function as an expert in engineering
without crystallizing an image of an Engineer, a Doctor, a
Politician. We can also learn to know without creating a
knower, to move through the experiences without creating
a crystallized static experiencer, who measures, compares,
evaluates. Let the knowledge, the experiences, the talents,
the intellectual equipment flow through you, function in its
respective field without becoming a chain on your psyche.

You cannot go on a pilgrimage if there are chains on your
feet. You cannot walk. Can you? In the same way, if there
are chains of images around the psyche, then every image
creates its own inhibition, its own fears and learning gets
arrested. Learning, like walking or swimming, requires that
there are no chains around the psychological structure,
around the sensitivity.

The extension of Silence as a dimension in daily living,
in the movement of relationship, means as far as I can say
it, that you move as a ‘Nobody.’ What does that mean that
I move as a ‘Nobody’? I do not take an initiative unless it is
warranted by the emergency of a situation. Of course, I am
a mother and I have a child of 2 years or 5 years, I have to
help the child to learn. I do not educate the child. I just
cooperate with the child. It is eager to learn and I become a
comrade. I learn along with the child and my learning keeps
me fresh and enables me to cooperate with the child in its
growth and in its learning.

Teaching is not surely imposition of our experiences
and the darkness of the shadows of pain and pleasure on
the psyche of the child. To be a mother, a father, a teacher
-are fantastic roles that one takes upon oneself.

I do not take initiative unless that initiative is strictly
warranted. Four or five persons are there in the family and
I see them moving around, talking around. I do not like
certain things. As per my assessment and evaluation it is not
proper, so I intervene. Intervention unless there is receptivity
on the part of the other becomes an interference. If there
is receptivity, if your intervention is sought- verbally, through
gesticulation, through indication, even non-verbally if it is
sought through a glance – then you are there available to
glve whatever they call it-advice or help.

You are a ‘Nobody’ till the intervention is sought. But we
go on expressing and exclaiming our prejudices, our prefetences,
likes, dislikes, our norms, criteria practically every
second hour, if not every second moment. We are the
judges of the people in the family. Why?

∑A certain friend from Madras went to Ojai, California, to
celebrate his 61st birthday in the presence of Shri J.
Krlshnamurti and when he got a moment with Krishnaji, he
said, ” Sir, Sir, I have completed 60 years of life. What shall
I do ,now ? ” And that grand old man said, “Sir, go back and
live in your family as if you are dead.” That was Krishnaji for
us. Live as if you are∑dead. That does not mean insensitive,
thatdoes not imply passivity. Ever alert, ever ready but no
initiative, no intervention, no interference and no judging
unless the executive responsibility requires the judgement.
There you cannot back out. You walk down a street and you
have judged so many people, somebody’s dress, somebody’s
words, I do not kn’ow. Judge them in so many ways and you
have∑ gathered likes and dislikes about them, preferences
about them. So, our consciousness is heavy. Nobodyness
implies living without judgements and without unwarranted
intiatives and interventions in daily living.

Secondly, such an extension implies that one is not very
anxious or worried about the reactions, misinterpretation,
misunderstandings of the people around. They are not
interested in your dimensions of Silence, which becomes a
state. of Meditation when it settles down in the neurochemical
system. The living and moving Silence settled down in
the neurochemical system is called state of Meditation. So,
the people around me may not be interested in it. They may
not like, they may misunderstand, they may misinterpret.
We cannot expect them to appreciate, to cooperate, to
understand, not to misinterpret. That will be expecting too
much.

The psychological aloneness is the content of the
extension of Silence to all the fields of relationship and
action in daily living. If and when that is done, the effect on
the physical, psycho-physical structure, the psychological
structure, the thought structure and the physical structure,
the effect, the impact on this structure is : they are ever
relaxed. Somebody insults you, humiliates you, tries to hurt
you, your intelligence understands that. You go through a
moment of agony or deep pain. You live through it and you
are free of it. You do not allow that experience of pain to get
converted into a personal grudge against the one who has
unfortunately hurt or insulted or humiliated you. That
misbehaviour, that undignified behaviour, is the problem of
that person, not my problem. In the pilgrimage of Life, I
cannot command the temperamental moods and behaviour
of others. I am not there to dominate, to create a terror of my
Sadhana in my family.

It is the sensitivity, the Intelligence which notices it,
registers it and the pain, the agony is lived through. And as
you have lived through, you allow it to end, not carry it over
with the help of a thought, with the help of an idea – “I was
insulted.” You know – to live through the event of insult
without creating an idea that ‘I’ was insulted, humiliated
intentionally, the motive was like that. The idea of having
been insulted or humiliated is more painful than the actual
pain of those words. Please do see the difference. And
religion is ending such psychological suffering. You go on
creating an idea of what has happened, transfer it to
memory and then you gather the raw material for psycho-
logical misery and suffer.

A pilgrim has to travel light. You cannot gather heavy
burdens or heavy luggage. And we are probing within, it is
a pilgrimage within the consciousness. So this new art of
living through the pain and the pleasure without allowing
them to crystallize into a sensation of preference or prejudice,
joy or sorrow, like or dislike, with no fermentation
within, is to be learnt. One has to jolly well go through them.
There would be tears when one feels the pain and agony
and one does not restrict the tears. There would be tickling
in the nervous system when somebody appreciates and one
is thoroughly pleased and one lived that. As the petals of a
flower smile happily when they are kissed by the sunrays,
when they are tickled by gentle wind, so we are tickled by the
appreciation, words of acknowledgement, and even words
of praise.

A religious person is not an insensitive person. But
again, one does not allow that event to get converted into a
positive like for the person, because of the words, and a
prejudice for the person, because of his insult or words
hurting one. That is the art. That is what we call Yoga.
Samatvam Yoga Uchyate. The equanimity is the essence of
Yoga. Raga Dwesha Viyuktaistu. It is the ∑movement of
relationship without generating Raga -attraction,
attachement, infatuation, obsession or Dwesha-dislike, prejudice,
bitterness, hatred, enmity. They create the sense of
pleasure and pain you carry in thought and then say, “Poor
me, I have suffered so much.”

How can a religious person suffer psychologically?
There may be physical pain, sickness, illness. Religion is, to
be religious is, to end psychological suffering. Meditation is
the dimension where this process of suffering psychologi-
cally has ended completely. Avidya, Asmita, Raga, Dwesha
Abhinivesha, Pancha Kleshaha, Klesha Vimukti Kaivalyam.

Mount Abu, 18 November, 1992, Morning.

IX

WHY IS NOT ONE ABLE TO LIVE IN THE
PRESENT?

Why is not one able to live in the present and why is it that
one does not or cannot live one’s understanding in daily life,
that is perhaps the query we shall take up this afternoon.

Why is not one able to live in the present?

What is the present,Sir? What is implied in the term
‘present’? How does the present acquire factuality ? We
have inherited that division of life’s span into the past, the
present and the future. As we have inherited many other
concepts, we have inherited also the concept of time. The
framework of time and space around the life span has nearly
become the substance of conditioned consciousness and
we are never encouraged to question the validity if the time
really exists, if really the numerical equations, the numbers
from 1 to 100 have any factual content.

What is self-generated, self-created as the Cosmos is,
has factual substance. But the conceptual world is a human
creation. And as we are organically related to the selfgenerated,
self-sustained, self-regulated Cosmic Life, the
contents of our thought structure, the contents of our
conditioned consciousness are a variety of concepts, ideas,
theories, symbols representing these concepts and ideas
and the techniques or the methods for handling the symbols
and even using the concepts.

We never question whether this division of the infinite
Life into the past, the present and the future has any validity.
Perhaps we will have to discriminate between the nature of
facts on the biological level, material level and the nature of
psychological facts. We use the term ‘fact’ for both.

Biologically there is birth, there is evolution, growth,
there is decay and what we call death. These events of
emergence, the birth, expansion, the growth, and merging
back, the death, have been very skillfully organised and
fixed into the framework of time and space. It is a mental
construct In order to measure the expansion or the growth,
the human race constructed psychological time to measure
the biological facts, to relate to the biological facts. As
naming is one way of relating and identifying, measuring is
another way of relating to the biological facts. We had to
have measurements and the concept of time, sorted out and
worked into seconds, minutes, hours, days and years has
been invented.

Time as a measurement is a human invention. Emergence
and what we call growth, decay and disappearance
are biological facts. So as an inquirer, I would ask myself if
this division, the psychological division has any relevance
to the actuality of Life. Actually there is nothing like time
divided into days, hours, past, present and future. IUhe truth
behind the psychological fact as the truth behind the content
of conditioned consciousness, is understood and appreciated,
then the term ‘present’ would mean for us, perhaps,
timelessness.

Life is a simple Is-ness. It is a pure and sheer∑ls-ness,
existence with an existential essence in it, contained in it,
concealed in it. So living in the present would be living in the
timeless. Using the measurement of time and the divisions
into the present, the past or the future on the biological level,
to be free of that measurement symbolism etc. on the
psychological level, this is a dual responsibility for those who
are born in the complex and evolved human organism.

Why is it that one cannot live in the timeless? Why one
cannot live in the present would mean really why cannot one
live in the timeless. Why does the concept of time create
such a heavy burden? Could it be that knowing, experiencing
and memorising what has been experienced has been
the way in which the human race has brought itself up? You
perceive biologically. On that perception is grafted, the
invented concept of a name, of an evaluation quantitatively,
qualitatively. Then the ways of using those objects for
physical survival, sensual pleasure, psychological comforts
and so on are evolved.

Perception and grafting the concept on the perception is
a dual life we have been living. The authority of the process
of naming and identifying – not as a way of relating to the
Reality outside, but as the only way of living – perhaps, this
is what we have accepted. Knowing, naming, identifying,
conceptualising, proliferation of symbols – in other words,
knowledge has been our way of living. You know about the .
thing, you know about your own self, you know about your
physical organism and then you use that knowledge for
handling the organism.

As long as the knowledge would be the source of our
action and the sanction behind the movement of relationship,
the division of time into the past, the present and the
future will remain with us, because knowledge is the past.
Past means that which has happened. The biological inheritance,
the psychological inheritance become the source of
perception and the sanction for responses.

There is a difference between knowing and understanding.
We are going to inquire why one cannot live one’s
understanding. We have never cared for understanding.
We have been ruled by the verbal knowledge, the traditions,
the customs, the theories, the ideologies, etc. To accept the
authority of knowledge for relating to Life is to accept the
authority of the concept of time. So I feel the necessity to
retain in the memory whatever I do or others have done to
me, and then I base the texture of my relationship on the
authority of those experiences or that knowledge that I have
acquired or cultivated.

Supposing we learn the art of living fully with the wholeness
of our being, from moment to moment, we live thoroughly
and there is a full stop. If you don’t like the word
‘dying’ from moment to moment, if the words ‘dying’ and
‘death’ have some frightening association, depressing association
then let us say we live and there is a full stop.

The living, the going through an event is not accompanied
simultaneously by the process of creating memory.
The authority of the past accumulated, inherited is gone with
the dawn of understanding. If we let it fall away, drop away,
and the new past is not created, then new memory is not
created.

In your Indian terminologies and the science of Yoga,

Prarabdham Sanchitam Kriyamanam
Prarabdhasya Bhogaha Eva Kshayaha

Understanding is Bhogaha. You look at it, you understand
it and you are free of it.

What is freedom? You do not identify with it consciously
and if there are subconscious identifications, as soon as
they are exposed, they do not overwhelm you in spite of the
exposure.

Prarabdhasya Bhogaha Eva Kshayaha. That which has
been set into the motion, inheritance, is Prarabdham. It is
something which has been set into the motion.

My body, given to me by my parents, cannot be changed
and it will live its own momentum, its own potential with my
cooperation or in spite of me, in spite of my non-cooperation
it is going to go through that biological process of growing
and decaying and dying.

Sanchitam -that which we accumulate since childhood
intentionally or unintentionally, and Kriyamanam – that
which we go on creating every moment, which will have its
own momentum, because thought is matter and the matter
has its own energy, its own movement, so it will fulfil itself.

If we learn the art of living in such a way that the
inheritance, Prarabdham, is not identified with and we do
not create, build up moment by moment new memory, if we
let it end, then would there be a psychological past?

If we are concerned with the act of living which is
possible only in the’ now, the here, the timelessness, the Isness
of life, if we are concerned with the act of living, then
we are in the timeless present. To call it present is just a
human way of conversation or verbalization. It is timelessness.
If we are concerned with life and living and we have
learned the art of not allowing any interaction to leave a
shadow behind, any event to leave any scratches of memory
behind, then the living and dying psychologically get blended
into one rhythm.

But as we are educated and equipped to earn money
and we put it into Bank and we consider the Bank balance
as the protection against so called future, in the same way
we have been taught to look upon knowledge and experience,
theories and evolutions, norms and criteria, everything
as a Bank balance to be used in the future. Unless you
know what a person is, how can you deal with him tomorrow
? So try to know him today, as the politicians do. Well, for
their game, every friend is a prospective enemy or competitor.
So that is their funeral. But we, who are not interested
in power politics, who are interested only in living, for us
storage of information as an investment against the future
does not seem to be a very scientific way of living.

We look at Life in the light of the past, in the light of the
knowledge, which is stale, which has no dynamism, which
is sterile. So what shall I do ? May I begin as an inquirer ?
– May I begin to watch my behaviour and find out if my
movement, my speech, my actions, my responses are born
of understanding or they are borrowed from some scriptures,
from some religious books, spiritual celebrities, grafted
by me on my psyche. We observe how we behave and like
a student, note whether we live out of borrowed knowledge
or personal understanding in every detail of life-but who has
the time? We are in such a hurry -‘lti Asmabhihi Shruyate’.
We have heard, generations have lived like this, therefore
I do it. We have no time to watch and find out if we
understand even the known,.leave aside the unknown.

I would begin by watching and sorting out what I do out
of personal understanding spontaneously. Understanding
flows into action without the exercise of will or effort. As the
Being, Life, Cosmic Life expresses itself, manifests itself
and is fulfilled in that manifestation, in the same way,
understanding exists and is fulfilled by its manifestation in
the movement of life, in the movement of relationship. It
flows into action. You do not have to make conscious effort
– “I understand this. Therefore I must do. I must behave in
this way and not in any other way.”

Understanding in not an idea. Understanding is the
sub-stance of your being. Like the food digested which is the
substance of the physical organ, that which is understood,
is assimilated and becomes the substance of consciousness,
not the content of it.

I hope, we realise the difference between the two. A
vessel, a pot, a pan can be made of gold, silver, steel – the
substance. A jar can be made of clay, mud, or marble, i.e.
the substance. It contains water, it can contain liquids.
There is a difference between the substance of consciousness
and the content of consciousness. Of course, consciousness
has no solidity except the vibrations. It is a
vibrational energy and yet we have to use similes to feel the
nature of consciousness, the difference between the two.

Understanding is the substance of the vibrations, not like
knowledge, which is the content of it. So I learn to live from
the first step. I begin, whatever be the age, the age of the
physical organism, l’beginthe inquiry.! start learning. Never
to utter a word without having understood its meaning, so
that I never have to say, “Oh! I did not mean it. I might have
said so, I did not mean it.” We say something, we mean
something else. We want the people to interpret our words
in still another way. These complications, inconsistencies,
contradictions ! Can’t I learn it at the verbal level?

Can’t I do it on the physical level in relation to diet? I take
the diet that is agreeable to the body, according to the
season and not because it is the Gujarati, the Marathi, the
Bengali way of eating. Then I have relationship. If I do it the
way it has been done, following the traditions, I have no
relationship with it. It is just repeating and projecting something
mechanically. But if I go into it and understand what I
am eating, why I am eating it, the frequency of the intakes,
the quantity, the quality – I have sorted out things. Then I
have relationship, then I am living. Otherwise, even consuming
food will not be a firsthand personal movement. It
would be a repetition. It will not be my life. You know, we live
secondhand, thirdhand.

At the physical level, whether it is exercise, whether it is
sleeping, whether it is diet, I try to understand why I do things
in certain ways, and do them with understanding. Then I am
aware how I stand and how I sit, how I talk and how I glance
at people. Then there is an awareness. Nothing is done
unconsciously in the darkness of inattention.

There is a difficulty in living the understanding, because
in society there is no sanction for this event of understanding.
Nobody cares whether you understand what you talk
about or why you do things. Nobody cares for that as long
as you fit into the social, economic, political structure and
satisfy the value structure of society. Whether you understand
or you do not understand, whether you are indulging
in hypocracy or you are doing out of fear or you are doing
out of pressure, it is no body’s concern. Not even the concern
of so called religious or spiritual teachers.

We have been acquiring knowledge, accumulating knowledge
and making a struggle to live according to the knowledge
that has been the lifesytle. Now we are saying, I would
like to understand, not only know, not only acquire informa-∑
tion. And then let the understanding flow, so there is
spontaneity. There is no struggle, no split, no division in me.
Understanding has its own momentum. Even if you want to
arrest it, it will express itself through you. It has a dynamism.
So if I have noticed that in my daily living I am not living my
understanding, I will start from the very beginning and learn
to differentiate between action based on knowledge and
action based on spontaneity and understanding. On the
physical, verbal, mental levels, I will never indulge in any
expression physically, verbally, psychologically, cerebrally,
which is not my own, which is not born of understanding.
That is one way of looking at the question.

There is a second way to look at the question. I do not
know whether we have done it or we do it consciously or it
is done unconsciously, sub-consciously, but the authority of
the existing socio-economic structures is there in our psyche.
So the spiritual inquiry has to adjust itself to the convenience
of the social, economic needs of our life. The findings of the
inquiry have also to adapt themselves or adjust themselves
to the socio-economic sanctions prevalant in the country in
which I am living, happen to be living. The pressure of the
acceptance of the value structure of society is there behind
me. Living the findings of my inquiry, living the truth discovered
through that inquiry is secondary. The primary concern
is to fit into the socio-economic structure, be successful,
have wealth, respectability that has the supreme priority
without our knowing it. We may not be even conscious of
that. So whether it is morality, immorality, virtue, vice, sin-
I have accepted all those definitions. The authoritarian
pattern of Indian families, the lust for money, accumulation
of money, does not matter if I don’t use it, my children will use
it, hence the acquiring, accumulating for the future generations.

Now if all that is there and that creates its own compul-
sions, then where does the frail, fresh, tender understanding
have a place in your life? It gives you some satisfaction
– I have understood- and perhaps, that is all. But it is not for
me to live. You see, living is equated with certain activities.
You might say, is not earning a livelihood a necessity of life
? Yes, it is. But it can be simple or it can be complicated.
Living in a country I can be satisfied. I can say that this much
and no further. This is my energy, this is the time that I will
devote to satisfy the needs. But one may go on working for
12 hours, 14 hours, 16 hours. It has its own intoxication.
Acquisition, accumulation has its own intoxication and one
gets intoxicated. The pleasure of money, the pleasure of
sex, the pleasure of power.

Understanding is austere. It does not give pleasure. It
gives a sense of fulfilment which has no excitement about
it, and pleasures have excitement. So we require excitement,
tension and then we react to those tensions and we
run after those pleasures and we believe that we are living.
We are pushed, we are pulled, we are dragged. We float on
the foam of pleasure and we feel we are swimming, or we
are living. Unfortunately, as I see it, that is not living or that
is not living firsthand. There is no fun in living then. Then you
require some stimulants to keep you going – physical
stimulants, verbal stimulants, psychological stimulants.

Retaining the concept of time and the divisions implied
in that concept as the past, the present and the. future, to be
utilised on the material and the biological level, and to be
free of the shackles of that concept and the divisions
generated by the concept at the psychological level – this is
the dual role. Living and using time as a concept as you use
colours for a sketch. You know very well that a river or a
mountain that you paint on the piece of paper or the canvas
is not the river and the mountain but it gives you the concept.
Fine arts give you the utilization of concept at, perhaps, their
best.

We have to use the brain, again the faculty of knowing.
We have to use experiences, the faculty of experiencing at
the neuro-chemical level of our being, and yet be aware
inwardly that this has no factual substance. The perceptual
and the conceptual is grafted on that experiencing or rather,
it is nearly blended in human life.

We can pierce through obsevation and sort out the
demarcation between the precept and the concept. So we
have to live at that level and yet inwardly be free. Then it will
be possible to look in the timeless, so called present, as you
call it ‘timelessness.’

And another aspect of the same query -learn to live only
out of your understanding. It may be a very small lamp of my
own understanding but I live in the light of that. It may not
have the glow of the past around it and yet it saves me from
being in the darkness, it saves me from groping around in
darkness.

Mount Abu, 18 November, 1992.

X

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Questioner 1: Didi, mind at functional level or non-functional
level, is a mystery as well as a miracle, though I am
aware of my own mind through observation. Yet, I fail to
understand my own my mind. Sometimes I feel that my own
mind is not my personal or individual property and it does not
belong to me at all. It is like a sun which belongs to everybody
and everything on this.Cosmos. To my surprise now I am
able to observe, a mind, though it is not mine, much clearer
than before. Please tell me why it is so and whether I am on
a correct path?

Vimalaji: Who am I to say that it is right or wrong, but let
us go through it. Let us go round the question or the
statement and find out if it is clear to all of us as it is to you.

Questioner 1: If I say it is my mind, I am not able to
understand it. But if I say it is a …

Vimalaji : Human mind …

Questioner 1 : Yes human mind, then I understand some-
thing much clearer than before. If I say it is mine then I cannot
see it, observe it, be aware of it. If I say it is not my mind e.g.
People are walking, I can see them clearly. But if I am
walking I cannot see myself clearly.

Vimalaji : Sir, what is the question?

Questioner 2 : Can you put the question differently? It is
not clear to me.

Questioner 1: I feel that my mind is not my personal
property.

Vimalaji : The question is – it seems that there is no
peq;onal individual mind, that there is a human mind – not
personal or individual mind. As soon as the questioner calls
it his own, it becomes a miracle for him or mystery for him but
when he takes a distance and looks at it as a human mind,
then it becomes possible for him to analyse and understand
it. Right, Sir?

Questioner 1: Yes, that’s correct, very true.

Vimalaji: In the last two days we have listened to each
other. We have been talking about conditionings fed into the
neuro chemical system of human being as the content of
mind. Previously the term ‘mind’ was used in western
psychology. However later on the words, ‘conditioning’,
‘consciousness’ and ‘conditioned consciousness’ started
getting used in place of the term ‘mind’.

Concepts, ideas, thoughts, feelings, patterns of
behaviour, codes of conduct all have been called
conditionings and they are the content of what is called the
mind. The psychologists have found outthatthere is nothing
like an individual mind. There is a physical individual body,
but the conditionings fed into the human body are universal.
They may have different designs and models as per different
races, the Hindu conditioning, the Muslim conditioning,
the Jew conditioning, the Christian conditioning, the Parsi
conditioning, the Irani conditioning.

According to the findings of science of psychology, there
is nothing like an individual mind. There is only a structure
of conditionings contained in the human organism with its
own momentum provided to it through identification, generation
after generation.

So I thought what the friend is stating is the latest
position in psychology. The ‘I’ consciousness, the ‘ego’, the
‘self’ has no factual existance. There is nothing like an
individual ego, the self, according to the science of psychology
today at the end of the 20th Century.

The biological organism has the energy of impulses
incorporated in it – the impulse of hunger, the sex impulse,
the impulse for sleep, the process of breathing. I say I
breathe, but really it breathes. I say I have digested. In fact,
it is the organism that has digested the food. The blood
circulation has its own momentum. So, like these impulses
incorporated in the biological organism, what we call knowledge,
the verbalized knowledge, the non-verbalized trends,
tendencies, inclinations, instincts are all fed into it – the
religious, the racial, the educational, the cultural context.
And they operate.

At the level of perception it is the conditionings that get
blended into the act of perception. So it is a conditioned
perception and an inhibited response. We may agree or we
may not agree but these are the findings of the science of
psychology. That is why I said where is the question? It is
a statement of psychological fact that the friend has made.
If he has seen it personally, if he has realised it personally,
if it is a fact for him in his own life, well and good.

But as regards the other aspect of it – the mind being a
mystery or a miracle as soon as it is called mine – it is
something that one hesitates to say that one has understood.
One can see that it becomes difficult because one
has identified with pettiness, with anger, with fear, with
jealousy, with ambition. One has identified, one has become
one with it. So, to take a distance from the movement
of those energies and to objectivise the subjective movement,
becomes difficult but it need not be a mystery or a
miracle. It is something about which one has to educate
oneself, looking at it, taking a distance from it. If you see
anger as anger and not my anger, then it gives it objectivity.
But the people identify even with pain, suffering – my
suffering, my pain, my agony. But it need not be a miracle.

Questioner: To we, who are with a deeply conditioned
mind, the idea of being reborn and dying from moment to
moment becomes a very romantic idear which we find very
difficult to break, to break away from the past.

Now in our day-to-day life, say, my wife is conditioned,
my friend is conditioned and I am conditioned and I do find
there is a repetition and a pattern, a conditioned response
from each one of us, with the result that my conditionings
and the conditionings of those I am in relationship with, both
work against each other. Even if I tried to forget the past and
try to see the new life, I find most ofthe time same responses
coming from the person with whom I am in relationship with
and the idea of dying, looks a very romantic idea, I must say,
a very beautiful idea. I can understand intellectually that
people can live every moment and that every moment has
the entire Eternity and Infinity in it. It can be something very
very beautiful but it is not so. So how do we travel to this state
and where can we break away from the past?

Vimalaji: I beg your pardon, Sir. I was not dealing in ideas.
We are talking about psychological facts and an alternative
way of living. So an idea, to imagine that unconditioned
living is possible, can work as a stimulant and generate a
temporary excitement around it. But if we Jisten to it or if we
look at it as a statement of fact, it may not be a fact for me
today, but to look at it as a fact which can become possible,
then we can proceed to the difficulty that you are describing.

I am conditioned. My wife or my husband is conditioned,
the other persons are conditioned. We are living together.
As I have discovered that these conditionings, this past, this
knowledge, this pattern of reactions is a bondage, is an
obstruction, it works like chains on my psyche. So, I would
like to set myself free of them but the others do not do that.
They function from the conditioned realm. Thus far I could
understand you. But then where does the difficulty come?
Their responses may be the same, may be from the conditioned
dimension of mind but that does not compel me to
identify again with my past conditionings and say husbands
must function this way or wives must function this way and
then I try to project that way of behaviour. Why should the
limitations of other people compel me to keep on identifying
myself with the conditioning that I have been brought up
with? Is not that the question that we could ask ourselves?

Questioner : No. I am saying that my limited conditionings
make the problem more complex. So how can I be free from
the conditionings of the past? How do I realise that state of
mind where I can be free from my past conditionings and live
in the present?

Vimalaji : I can’t realise unless I stop identifying, I refuse
to act out of the conditioning. There may be a temporary
stalemate. There may be a blind alley. But I refuse to act out
of conditionings. Unless I refuse to act out of the conditionings,
unless I refuse to identify myself, but go on projecting the
past as if it is the present, I think, I get stuck up.

The so called human relationships, are really not
relationships, there is hardly any relatedness, but they have
become ways and means of keeping together as a family,
as a community, as an organisation, institution or whatever.
Unless I refuse and stop- when you see something as wrong
or false, how can you proceed with it? I say, I stop and then
what? I can’t ask ‘then what?’ from this conditioned state of
mine. Let me first stop, let me first stop and refuse to go
under the authority, get overwhelmed by the reaction. They
will come up. They might come up but I see them coming up
and I stop. I say no, not out of this conditioning.

So, acute conditions require drastic measures – stopping,
unconditionally stopping, from identifying one self from
the activity of projecting. It requires a tremendous energy
of fearlessness and it requires truth of my understanding as
the superme priority of my life – the inner freedom as the
supreme priority of my life.

Questioner : Didi, there is another factor, for example,
programming of the mind also. The mind is programmed,
the registration takes place, it becomes a memory and it
operates. In the functioning of the mind, everything gets
recorded and then you act out of that recording and create
complications and keep on repeating those complications.
You say, if there is a priority, if there is a total understanding,
that at any cost I shall not act out of that past background and
! will strive my best to see the fact as it is now, one may be
able to see something new. Is that what you are saying?

Vimalaji : The first day we had communicated about the
need for sensitising the whole being. It seems to me that
exposure, unconditional exposure to-the dimension of Silence
sensitizes, revitalizes, energizes the neuro-chemical
system. The neuro-chemical system, which is a prey, which
is a victim of the past conditionings and therefore which
goes on repeating endlessly what has been fed into it, gets
a new energy, a new vitality due to the exposure to Silence,
due to being in the state of non-action, non-motion. The
more you expose yourself in daily living as if it is a part of
daily bread and as a part of daily sleep, the more you expose
yourself to that dimension of Silence, then I think, the vitality,
the passion that we feel we lack today, will not be there. The
lack of vitality will not be there. It will be energized. The whole
organism gets energised in the Wholeness of Silence. Not
that I energize it. It gets energized. It is a question of
unconditional exposure to the emptiness, to the Silence. It
is vitality which generates the strength of patience. It is
vitality that generates the freshness and fearlessness.

Use the conditionings in their relevant fields and be
inwardly aware that they are conditionings. Use the concepts
and symbols where they are relevant, for example you
say this is time by the watch and we must stop.

In the timelessness of Life we are using the concept of
time, the symbol, i.e. watch, and playing the game of
communication with one another in that framework of time
and space.

So, inward awareness bf the concept-free Life, conditioning-
free consciousness, being aware of that potential in
us, may be the way out.

This religious or spiritual inquiry is a commitment of your
whole life and not a question of cerebrally knowing something
new and trying to live upto it. It is not something limited
to the intellectual, the cerebral. It is the commitment to live
the truth you understand. It may be a very small light but I live
by it. I live in it and with it. If it is not a commitment of your
whole life and if it remains at the emotional or the intellectual,
then it will be a romantic world that I have created for myself
and I indulge in it whenever I have leisure and I go back to
the other which is real for me.

The unreal, that which is created by the human race, the
human brain-I mean thereby the socio-economic structures
-they have become real to us. We have been brought up
to fit into those structures and move according to the rules
and regulations and laws. And we are far away from the self generated,
self-sustained Cosmic Life around us.

We are born in the Cosmos – not only in a society, in a
village, in a city. Yes, you are born in a room, in a house, in
a village but you are born in the Cosmos. We are related to
that. That relationship is not lived. Relationship with solitude,
relationship with Silence, relationship with nature,
exposure to nature, to the earth, to the skies, to the sun, to
the moon – that is not lived.

The organic relationship with the Life that is not
manmade, is far far away and we have to spend all the time
in the manmade structure, with manmade machines, indulging
in the conceptual all the time.

Therefore when we launch upon such a pilgrimage,
when we launch upon such an inquiry, we are baffled by the
deep-rootedness of our identifications and though weverbally
perceive, intellectually perceive, that perception is
always subordinated to the other.

Religion is an inner revolution. It is a mutation and in a
mutation or in a revolution the statusquo is shaken sometime
or other. Revolution is not grafting or adding something
new to the old, being anxious about the sustenance or
survival o.f the old. That is not revolution. That is a reform.

Are we concerned with reforming our behaviour, polishing
our behaviour, bringing about changes on the periphery? If
we are concerned with that, that also has a value. I say to
myself, I go thus far. But the meditative way of living is an
alternative way of living. That is preceded by a mutation in
consciousness.

Questioner : How do we say that thought is a matter?

Vimalaji : Because it emanates from my material body.
As a sound emanates and it has a vibration, thought
emanates. It is born in me as a movement. When we speak,
does not sound emanate from us? When a thought emanates,
it has its own sound, it has its own colour, it has its
vibration.

When you think a thought or you feel an emotion, there
is a movement that goes on in the body, connected with the
flesh, the blood, the chemicals and it has a cummulative
result of all that blended movement of so many autonomous
systems.

It is long back, Sir, 1937, when a scientist wrote the book,
‘Man The Unknown’. He had studied and traced the colours
and sounds of thought.

So, even the physics of matter confirms it. One can
notice thought emanating from the body when one studies
Yoga, observes the movements, the inner movements.
Thought is clothed in a word. Can there be a thought without
a word? And that thought with the word having a sound
travels in the body. You may not articulate it through the
mouth – that is a different matter. Therefore, it may not
become audible to me but it has a sound and when I have
thought a thought or an emotion that emanates from my
whole body and as a vibration mingles into the ether around
me. It is a verified physical fact. It is a material process.

Questioner: There is a small question. We are organically
related to the Whole Being. What is the meaning of organically
related? Our body is known to have five elements,
there are five elements in the Cosmos, does it imply that we
have an organic relationship meaning more intimate relationship.
Because very often you have used that particular
sentence that we are organically related. In our group
discussion we are not able to comprehend. How does one
understand this organic relationship?

Vimalaji : This is not a small question. You began by
saying it is a small question. With one sentence you are
asking me the whole Ramayana.

Would you allow me to talk about it tomorrow ? Briefly
speaking, Yes. We contain the earth, we contain the water,
the fire element etc., and there is an inter-action between
the earth outside, the earth which we touch by our feet and
sky that we see overhead and the air that we breathe. There
is a constant interaction going on between them. That is why
pollution affects us. We are organically related to the plant
world, not only to the earth and water and fire. And the
deforestation and the concrete jungles of buildings every where,
they are affecting the peace of mind. The neurological
relaxation becomes so very difficult.

If you are near a tree or in a garden or -I can’t say woods,
because we have destroyed them – but if you sit even in
company of plants for some time, their company relaxes you
chemically and neurologically. A pat on your back by your
mother is only a physical action, a biological action. But that
organic relationship gives so much meaning to that pat and
you feel encouraged. In the same way, when you sit with the
sun, the moon, by the riverside, by the ocean, by the trees,
they actually vitalise you. You may not touch them but they
touch you by their presence. They vitalise you by their
beauty, by their peace.

Some 30 years ago, when I used to be in Netherlands for
long periods, months together; or in Norway, I used to go out
for a walk in the woods. Netherlands had beautiful woods
then. Now those woods have nearly disappeared. Some
retained. But those ancient trees! You just sat there on the
grass or near the trunk of a tree for some time and they
operated upon you.

But about this organic relationship I do not know if you
are interested in going into the details of it. Isn’t that your
experience, Sir? That relationship works without verbalization.
There is no ideational screen between you and them.
Why does the moonlit night make you feel bathed in the
nectar ? Why does the darkness of the darkest night of the
fortnight fill you with a mysterious peace?

So the communication, the inter-action, the give and
take between nature and ourselves is a verification. So we
are organically related in this sense.

Secondly, the relationship is not invented by the human
mind. It is not generated by human thought. It is something
existing as the essence of Life. Existential essence, “if we
may call it. And this organic relationship is emphasised to
encourage an inquirer. An inquirer can watch a blade of
grass dancing in the sunshine or moonshine. A tiny seed
has Intelligence when it sprouts and becomes the sapling
and the plant. When you see that the tiny seed has
Intelligence, you realise that within you is also that energy
of Intelligence in addition to the cerebral and other psychological
faculties. That Intelligence is the source of Life, of
living. So one does not feel lonely, one does not feel afraid
of what will happen to oneself if the mind and its thought do
not function. There is that Intelligence as there is in the tiny
seed, in’ the blade of grass. Where do the flowers get their
colours from? Who has painted them? Where do the leaves
of the trees get that oiliness ? Nobody has painted them.
The colours, the scents, the beauty. In the same way, the
same beauty is here in this organism also which is covered
up by the manmade patterns and conditionings.

So’living is allowing the inner beauty to manifest itself.
As the inner beauty contained in the tiny seed becoming the
gaint Banian tree fulfills itself by expression, the human life
gets fulfilled by expressing the inner beauty of love, tenderness
of love, compassion, and friendlyness.

Mount Abu, 18 November, 1992, Afternoon.

XI

SILENCE IS THE SUBSTANCE OF
CONSCIOUSNESS AND EMPTINESS IS THE
SUBSTANCE OF CREATION

One has the sensitivity to invade the emptiness of
Silence with sound waves. To be together without the
intervention of thought waves or sound waves, is something
really majestic. Emptiness is the substance of creation and
out of Emptiness have arisen multi-verses.

Na Tatra Sat Aasit, Na Asat Aasit
Na Tatra Diwaso, Na Raatrihi

Na Tatra Mrutyuh, Na Amritam Hi

In the 1Oth Mandala of Rigveda the sage tries to describe
the source of creation : “There was neither the Truth nor
falsity, neither the day nor light, nor the darkness of night.
There was neither mortality nor immortality.” What there
was cannot be known but can be felt. That is how the ancient
inquirers some fifty thousand years ago in this country had
perceived Emptiness as the source of creation and the
substance of creation.

A tiny seed of the Banian tree contains the gigantic
Banian tree. If you break the seed, you will not see the tree
there, and yet it does contain the whole tree – the trunk, the
branches, the twigs, the leaves, the fruits. And the seed
travels through the trunk, through the branches, through the
flowers ‘and again takes the form of a seed to be sown again.
The cycle of life emerging and merging back. Emptiness
expressing itself in forms and forms withering away into the
formlessness. The soundless, soundfree music of creation
goes on.

In human terms, Emptiness of consciousness or Silence
as the substance of consciousness implies, that the consciousness
is not cluttered with any image about itself. It
may function and operate on the psychological and physical
levels, taking upon itself various roles, functional roles, that
are necessary for the survival of the physical organism and
the maximum utilisation of the cerebral energies. But it is the
Emptiness that is taking upon itself these various roles. As
the Emptiness that we see around us and call it the space,
contains the earth, the water, the fire, the air in itself-though
the fire and the water appear to be incompatible-don’t we
know that deep in the oceans are fires? The solidity of the
earth and liquidity of the water appear to be contradictory
and incompatible and yet does not the earth contain water?

The solidity of the earth and the non-solidity of the space
are not descriptions of facts but they reflect the limitations
of our capacity to perceive the nature of Reality. We
perceive through the senses, we perceive through verbalization,
we perceive through conceptualization. So all our
descriptions, all our verbalizations-be they in the Vedas, in
the Bible, in the Zend-avesta or the Kuran-E-Sharif, are
limitations and efforts at conditioning the lsness of Life,
covering it up with our limited perception.

As the seed contains the tree and the emptiness of
space contains the universe, the Emptiness of consciousness
in human life is capable of using the cerebral and the
sensual energies, without any images taking place in the
process of that movement.

The movement of thinking is possible without creating a
thinker. The activity of knowing is possible without creating,
building up step by step, a crystallized static knower.
We are trying to probe within Silence, we are trying to
look at the Emptiness of consciousness in human terms in
daily life. So, to be alive, to be awake, to be attentive, to be
in a state of awareness and yet to be totally free of any
images about oneself, and any images about others appears
to be the content of Silence or Emptiness. And with
the grandeur of that image free Consciousness one moves
into relationships, one functions biologically, psychologically.

It is only in the absence of images that communion with
‘what is’ becomes possible. As long as images cover up the
Reality, there is no perception of the real and therefore no
communion with ‘what is’.

UNDERSTANDING IMAGES

Now, if you would like to probe the word ‘images’, dig into
them, what do we find? What is an image? Is it a conclusion
about oneself? Is it a judgement about oneself? I do certain
things which please my parents and they make a remark :
“What a wonderful boy you are, what a brilliant boy you are
!” I hear those words. If I am pleased by those words, I live
the pleasure, the tickling sensation and move ahead, then
there is no harm done. The sensation of pleasure is not
immoral, it is not irreligious, it is not anti spiritual. But if I carry
the sensation of pleasure and create a conclusion about
myself: “I am a brilliant person.” It could be that in a flash of
brilliance I did something. The brilliance was referring to the
action, to the expression but I attribute it to my whole person
and I start believing, I am a brilliant person.

Somebody says how gentle you have been, and then I
create an image of gentleness and believe that I am gentle.
Such remarks are going to be there. I commit a mistake and
somebody criticizes – the husband, the wife, the children,
the friends- “What a shoddy, what a shabby person you are,
or how stupid you are.” It is the stupidity expressed in an
action, a word, a gesture. It should be an adjective of that
expression. I attribute it to myself and then develop an
inferiority complex. Self-pity is an image. Inferiority complex .
implies an image about oneself, and you lose self-confidence,
or you are pleased, then you develop arrogance.

This image-building occupation is a devastating occu-
pation. Someone does something which hurts me and I
create, I build up an image. I start attributing certain
motivations : he did want to hurt me, she did want to insult
me and she did it out of motivation. May be he or she did it,
a sheer impulsive push for a moment. We don’t know. But
that is how the image-building business begins and we,
without our knowing, start gathering conclusions and judgements
about others, conclusions and judgements about
oneself, and then that image becomes much more important
than what I really am. I must behave in such a way that
people will continue believing that l am a religious person,
I am a spiritual Sadhaka. So I must project that ‘Sadhaka’ in
my behaviour, in my words, in the dress I wear, in the
company that I cultivate.

The images become more important than the reality and
projecting images leads to hypocrisy, projecting images
leads to fear. Somebody realises that I am not what I present
myself or project myself to be. Then one goes on the
defensive because of the fear of being exposed, getting
exposed, the anxiety to continue projecting, because we
are seeking the goodwill, the acknowledgement, the recognition,
the respectability. So do you see that due to the
building up of an image, a permanent decision about
someone – whether it is you or the other it does not matter,
that is secondary – this consciousness gets cluttered with
innumerable images and they sprout into fear, anxiety,
worry, defensiveness, hypocrisy, etc. Images sprout and
then life becomes complicated. And may be everyone of us
is indulging in this game and therefore silence is possible for
us only as a mental activity, physical isolation, abstinence
from actual verbalization, closing our eyes, sitting in
Padmasana or whatever – Sukhasana, Sthirasana. We
cover ourselves up with the appearances of silence. It
becomes a psycho-physical activity, not the substance, not
the reality, not the actuality.

LIVING IN SILENCE : AN ALTERNATIVE WAY OF LIVING

So common persons as we are, living in our families,
having responsibilities, doing jobs, moving around in this
neurotic rotten society, how do we set about it?

It is going home, it is going back home. Emptiness, the
source of creation, Silence as the source of all sound, and
sound contains light and so on. So how do we go home ?
Meditation is home-coming. It is not attaining, acquiring,
obtaining some state which is not there, but it is probing
within, pilgrimage within, removing the screens and the
obstacles that we had created for ourselves, during the
process of growing up and during the process of operating
as a member of society.

Meditation is home-coming and for that home-coming,
Silence has to become a way of living and not a particular
activity to be taken up at a particular hour of the day, with a
particular technique or methodology. It is an alternative way
of living, living in the Emptiness.

We had seen one implication of living in Silence or
Emptiness yesterday. We had talked about not taking any
initiative- no initiative, no intervention, no interference. That
is one aspect of living in Silence. No intervention except
when the situation warrants it. And one has to be very
sensitive to feel where such an intervention is warranted by
the situation and where it is unwarranted.

An inattentive person will never notice whether his or her
intervention is warranted in a family situation or a social
situation. The situation requires it and you can’t back out,
you can’t withdraw, you can’t escape, you can’t dodge it.
You know, it is like singing, it is like music. All the seven notes
are necessary for music, but in certain ragas you avoid some
in ascendance and in certain others you avoid them in
descendance- Aroha, Avaroha- and the whole character,
the personality of the Raaga or Raagini changes with just
touching one or dropping one gently or emphasizing the
other one. The splendour and the beauty of music is
contained in how you touch those notes. In the same way,
how we move in relationship constitutes the beauty, the
splendour of living. Life is in living the details. It is not in the
grasp of the fundamentals with your brain or the intellect.
That is easy. The theoretical grasp remains atthe ideational
level and the actual living of your own understanding
converts that knowledge into understanding.

Living means – how you get up in the morning, how you
brush your teeth, how you bathe the body, how you clothe
it, how you take your food, how you look at your wife or
husband. If the preoccupation with the image of being a
husband or a wife prevents me from looking at the other
person as a human being with a human individuality, a
uniqueness, who requires the inner freedom as the body
requires water or air, if this preoccupation with the psycho-
physical roles that are necessary, prevents me from looking
at the other person as a human being-may be that is a child
of 3 or 4 or a person you call your wife or husband- then
relationship gets blocked, it gets arrested.

So, as the non-initiative, non-intervention, non-interference,
is one aspect of Silence and Emptiness or Freedom,
the other aspect is image-free Consciousness. You never
draw a permanent conclusion and say he is a devilish
person because he did that. I am entitled to say that he did
something which was rather evil or devilish, but then to draw
a conclusion and permanently condemn the person-that
becomes an inhibition in perception, that becomes a block age
in the movement of relationship.

A scientific approach requires the austerity of not building
up any images whatsoever. So perceptions are always
fresh and responses are born of that perception at that
particular moment and not born out of the collected, accumulated,
fermented past kno’-“ledge or experience. It is very
easy to throw away the external authority of other persons
and sects and dogmas but it i& immensely difficult for a
person who is not atteQtive or who has not got the humility
to be free of the authority that one creates out of one’s
knowledge and experience. Of course, the authority of
knowledge and experience is required in an office when you
work as an Engineer, Doctor, Judge, Lawyer or in any such
capacity. It is a limited functional role played according to the
rules of the game. You play cricket, you have certain rules
to follow. When you function as a judge, there are certain
norms and criteria built up by society, which you accept.
Then only you can function as a Judge or a Lawyer. So you
are playing the game there as a member of society. But
there may be some, for whom playing those roles becomes
impossible, because they have tasted the ‘Other’. Then they
may turn away from the sense of belonging to the society
and renounce those roles for enjoying the solitude of their
own beingness.

The third aspect of the Silence and Emptiness-how one
probes and how one sets about it- the third aspect is -I begin
from the outer. For example, I will be turning to verbalization
only when it is necessary. We are addicted to verbalization.
Every reaction is verbalized. A wish that flashes across the
consciousness is verbalized, once, twice ten times a day to
ten different persons. An event takes place. It becomes
experience due to conditionings and you go on verbalizing
about the experience, whether you liked it or did not like it,
how beautiful it was and so on.

Unwarranted verbalization generates impressions in the
neuro-chemical system, because your verbalization is first
listened to by yourself and that sound energy affects your
own biological organism as well as psychological structure.

It is a very dangerous thing-this addiction to verbalization,
the audible verbalization and the inaudible verbalization
with which one plays around.

For proceeding towards the image-free consciousness,
for going home towards the Emptiness of consciousness, I
begin at the outer and educate myself to verbalize, fo speak,
only when necessary and relax into non-verbalization as
much as possible. In the beginning, as in other fields of
learning, a conscious effort is necessary, minimizing the
verbalization consciously, intentionally as an act of selfeducation.
In order to minimize the verbalization, minimise
the occasions when verbalization is necessary, one minimises
socialization. These are steps that can be taken for selfeducation.

Getting together for just talking shop, as an outlet for
pent-up emotions and reactions, verbalizing the reaction
inwardly first, and then using the telephone if you cannot go
physically. Just to keep up the traditions. So it seems to me
that a person who is interested in a pilgrimage within, in a
dimensional transformation in his life, will take the step of
minimizing socialization. As there is load-shedding, in the
same way, you shed the extra-superfluous unnecessary
socialization indulged into just for the sake of maintaining
your status. God knows what is that! So, that is minimizing
the occasions for verbalization. As verbalization minimizes,
the sensitivity of the being increases.

After finishing the University education one went to the
Himalayas and spent months in a cave to the north of Tihari,
the cave where Swami Ramatirtha had lived for years. Your
friend Vimala wanted to find out for herself how Silence
sensitises and energises the being, how it affects the
haemoglobin, how it affects the blood circulation;just to find
out by herself. So when I refer to minimization of occasions
of socialization, occasions for verbalization, minimization of
verbalization itself in family situations, or even when one is
alone in the privacy of a room, I am referring to something
which is verified in one’s life.

This home-coming towards the Emptiness or imagefreeness
also requires the humility not to refer to the store
of knowledge in one’s memory, not to fall back upon
memory, to give a verdict. We treat memory as if it is a
judiciary and whatever verdict the memory gives about a
person, we rely upon that and then evaluate the person at
the moment in the present.

So, when I am alert, and my mem9ry says, ‘Oh ! he had
done such and such thing to me, I better not turn or talk to
him or her’. I say wait, that was in the past, that had
happened. The person may have changed. A person, a
human-being, is not like a motor car assembled together,
assembling different parts, integrating them into a totality. A
human-being is an organic wholeness with the potential of
growth, of change, of mutation. So if I am growing and I find
changes occurring in me, for all know the other person also
might have changed. So, the verdict, the judgement given
by the memory does not become the source of perception,
it cannot colour my perception any more. It does come up,
I notice it and I say, “Wait, By Jove! This is not the way to
live. This is not the way to relate.” This is how I educate
myself. I am the teacher and I am the disciple. I am the
learner and I am the teacher.

A little patience is necessary. lf there is impatience, there
is going to be imbalance. Impatience keeps you hurrying
around, and the speed of such hurrying is not efficiency.
Impatience prevents efficiency – factually speaking, because
it generates imbalances- neurological, chemical. It
generates impulsiveness and you act upon the impulse
which is not co-ordinated or correlated to the wholeness of
your being. One impulsive act can wash away many things
in one sweep. It may be completely in disharmony with the
way you want to live. You are trying to educate yourself and
one impulsive imbalanced action can destroy, can wash
away all that one had learnt.

To see the authority of impulses on my nervous system,
to be aware of the authority that impulses have on my
chemical system – it requires energy, it requires vitality, it
requires alertness. Please do see this, because we are
learning by ourselves. We are following a non-authoritative
way of probing, of pilgrimage. We are the path and we are
the pilgrims. Our lives are the path, the relationships are the
path. You know, Krishnaji used to say, “Relationships are
the mirrors in which the factual content of your being is
reflected. See how you behave, see how you relate and you
will know what you are.” That was his way of putting it.

The third factor of self-education, or the third factor in
this third step in this pilgrimage towards home-coming,
towards image-free consciousness, is not to accept the
authority of the images of the past which are inherited. You
have no choice about the inheritance-the biological inheritance,
the psychological inheritance, the RNA or DNA.

One has to educate oneself in the capacity for selfrestraint.
Understanding stimulates this faculty of self restraint,
which is not suppression, which is not repression,
which is not denial, you see it and you accept that it is there
-the impulse, the impatience, the neurotic tendency. You
see it for what it is, you don’t deny, you don’t try to cover it
up, but you take a break, you create a space, a distance
between that what the past has brought up and your present
response to the situation. The moment you look at it, you are
aware of what is what, then it loses the grip over your
response. It cannot shape and mould your response any
more. If you deny its existance, then it is going to take its
revenge on you. Your denial is like fuel added to fire. Your
efforts at suppression and repression vitalize the reaction,
the memory, the thought of the past. It vitalizes the inheritance.

No suppression, no repression, but the very gentle
restraint awakened by the understanding of the fact, by the
austerity of not denying the fact. Not accepting, nor rejecting.
To be with the fact- just for a moment- and when you
are with the fact, to be totally aware of what it is, or if not
aware, at least to understand what it is. That communion
with the psychological fact operates upon you and gives the
energy for self-restraint. Please see this, do see this. It is
something marvellous.

In Indian languages, self-restraint is really Samyama. Not
Damana, Nigraha, Peedana, but Samyama. I had lifted my
foot to take a step and I take it back, that is all. I stand where
I am. ‘Samyamagnishu Juhwati’. In the fire of self-restraint
are offered the impulses or the imbalances that creep up
because the flesh is weak. Understanding and this capacity
of self-restraint go together.

This being with facts and exercising restraint become a
step of self-education or become a step towards homecoming,
because the moment you are in communion with
the fact, there is Silence. You are not dodging it, you are not
trying to run away from the fact, not trying to escape it. You
are there and you look at the fact without fear, without
getting nervous, without getting worked up, without getting
tense.

In the simplicity of understanding you are with the fact
and that generates what is called the faculty of restraint. If
you do not see this step, do you know what will happen? No
discipline, no suppression, no repression and without your
knowing it, you glide into a cult of indulgence. Indulgence is
one extreme, suppression is the other. And the cult of
indulgence is the cult of pampering your minds -whatever
they bring up and pampering your bodies. As an instrument
in a scientific research or a laboratory has to have the
precision and accuracy, in the same way, this electromagnetic
apparatus has to be kept neither loose not tight
-in between -like a musical instrument. All the strings ofthe
Sitar tuned in, so that you touch one and it gives a note that
is required.

All the mal-adjustments with Reality, mal-adjustments
with the challenges of Life or lack of adjustment come about
through inattention and through the absence of this beautiful
capacity of restraint which is completely, qualitatively
different from indulgence and suppression. With attention,
understanding and self restraint you don’t remain at the
level of romantic ideation.

Education, self-education or Sad han a, if you like to call
it, does not allow you to remain at the level of abstraction.
An idea is an abstraction. The concrete situations where you
are testing your understanding, do not allow the luxury of
casually playing around with ideations, ideas. An alternative
way of living is not an idea. It is so. Individuals have lived that
way. We are not going to repeat their ways of living. They
carved the path out of their own conditioning. They paid the ∑
price for it.

May be, during the period of self-education in our
pilgrimage, we might have to pay the price: giving up certain
conveniences, certain indulgences, certain pamperings.
The holistic growth may exact its price from us. But when a
person sets upon a pilgrimage, he does not want to stay at
home- the starting point. When the pilgrimage begins, you
leave the starting point and move. Growth is a holistic
movement, self-education is a holistic movement.

Have we not listened to Krishnamurti when he says that
education is the only way for total revolution ? So self-education
is the only way for equipping the organism,
sensitizing it to such an extent that the dimensional transfermation
occurs, happens. Avoiding this sensitization or self-education,
if we are going to wait for it to happen – here I
understand it and therefore it should happen- then perhaps
we may go on waiting endlessly, and in the evening of life
our hands will be empty.

If we are concerned only with the destination, the
transformation is converted not only into an idea but a deity,
and the transformation has not happened- as the traditional
people in India say : I have not seen God. lshwarasakshatkar
has not happened. They are obsessed with that idea, they
forget to take the steps. The mind is obsessed with the
destination, the idea, the romanticism about the transformation,
mutation or self-realization or liberation, and therefore
the journey becomes secondary.

For us, who are pilgrims, and who are concerned with
the pilgrimage within, we can’t afford to be static at one
point, obsessed with the other. The journey is more important
or at least as important as the concern for the destination.
lfthe journey is not joyful, if I do not enjoy the steps that
I take as a pilgrim, then I think, the path becomes an obstacle
and the journey becomes an ordeal.

You know, the act of living is its own fulfilment. It should
be full of joy, full of concern for learning, growing, as far as
you can. So the act of living is the only time for selfeducation.
The movement of relationship is the only opportunity
for discovering the essence of freedom and moving
through various psychophysical roles that we are obliged to
play. Moving through those roles is the only opportunity to
enjoy the Emptiness or image-freeness of consciousness.
That can’t happen in physical isolation and that can’t
happen in psychological isolation.

We began by saying this morning that Emptiness is the
substance of creation. It is the substance of creation and
Silence is the substance of consciousness. When the
Silence is the substance of consciousness, it is Liberation
or Enlightenment or Moksha whatever you call it, because
you are no more tethered to the past. Even the past that you
have acquired and accumulated, you are totally free from it.
Though it exists in your biological organism, though it exists
in the psychological structure, through which you have to
express yourself, you are free-you the Intelligence, you the
Silence, you the Nobodyness, and Nothingness. Is not that
the content of Emptiness Nobodyness, Nothingness?

And the willingness to get reduced to Nobodyness and
Nothingness is renunciation, my friends. That is Sanyaasa.
To live without an image is Sanyaasa.

There is so much to communicate and so little can be
expressed at the verbal level. It seems to me that communication
at the non-verbal level can say much more than
my feeble words can ever do.

Mount Abu, 19 November 1992, Morning.

XII

WHAT IS INSIGHT?

Life has been commercialized and living has become a
commercial proposition. Commercialization of Life implies
∑that the movement of living is for acquisition. You acquire
not only the material goods that are necessary for providing
the physical needs, but you acquire knowledge, thought,
experience, sensual experiences, extra-sensory perceptions,
transcendental experiences.

Religion is also for acquisition of the Other – may be
acquisition of Moksha-Liberation, Enlightenment, Nirvana.
Obtain, acquire, experience and feel gratified that you have
acquired wealth, property, erudition, scholarship, transcendental
experiences, extra-sensory powers. You have acquired
Enlightenment, you have become liberated. The ‘I’,
the ‘You’. It is a squirrel-consciousness. Acquire, collect,
gather, store and use. So there is always the language of
profit and loss, acquisition and storage.

The quality of life becomes secondary, if at all even
secondary. What happens to the quality of your being, the
quality of your consciousness, the quality of your movement
of relationship with others, while you are acquiring money,
wealth, property, knowledge, political power, transcendental
powers? Nobody bothers even to look at the quality of
one’s living, one’s being, one’s consciousness. It seems to
me that such acquisitive culture encourages ambition,
pushing around, comparing, competing, which is a psychological
aggressiveness. And this psychological aggressiveness,
which is a very subtle kind of violence, has converted
the whole human race into a civilised violent community.

The violence of today is sophisticated, and we are a
violent human race in spite of the advance in science and
technology, theology and philosophy, literature and fine
arts. Those of you who have a history consciousness might
have noticed that the 20th Century is nearly the bloodiest
century in human history. Not only the two World Wars
waged in Europe, but violence wherever you turn your gaze,
political, economic, cultural. Violence even in education and
family life.

The acquisitive culture and the sanction for psychological
aggressions benumb the sensitivity. You have asked
me, friends, what is Insight ? When the sensitivity is
benumbed and the activization of Intelligence is blocked or
arrested, there cannot be penetration into the meaning of
Life.

Insight is penetration into the meaning of Life as one
passes through events on the physical and the psychological
levels. When you pass through an event, a happening,
an occurrence, things are happening to you, to the other, the
inter-action with whom results in an experience. But if the
experiences and experiencing produce dry knowledge and
value judgements about others and ourselves, then Insight
does not come to Life.

It requires a tentativeness of approach. It requires a non-comparative
perception of oneself. For such a non-comparative
approach to one’s own being and non-evaluatory
perception of other people, it seems to me, that love is
required. If we ask ourselves whether we love life, what
would be the answer ? If we ask that of ourselves in the
privacy of our own rooms, sitting quietly in the room? Do we
love Life, do we love living ? Are we acquainted with the
tenderness of love ?

IDENTIFICATION

We have been brought up in an atmosphere where a
sense of belonging to the family, the caste, the community,
the religious community, the racial community, the national
community, is systematically developed. Not only a sense
of belonging, you are required to identify yourself with the
family. I hope, we appreciate the difference between a
sense of belonging and a sense of identification. A sense of
belonging is a natural affinity, affection, concern; but when
there is a sense of identification, then if my brother, son,
husband, wife do something wrong, immoral, illegal, I take
Care that, that illegal, immoral action is not exposed. I am
concerned wittl protecting him or her, because Y:’e belong to
the family. I will beg, borrow, steal for protecting the person,
if something illegal, immoral is done. He is my brother, my
husband, my wife, my son.

So identification is something devastating to the perception
of moral values, sense of propriety, correctness. Then
my family first and last, my caste first and last, my country
-right or wrong- is not that what is happening the world over?

Then you justify the wrong, you defend the wrong, you
protect the wrong. We are brought up and we are trained in
the art of attaching ourselves to the sense of family, caste,
religion, ideology, country and trained to identify. Such an
attachment, such an infatuation, such an identification,
which, in the science of, in the language of psychology is an
obsession, does not allow love to get activized, mobilized.
Love is something very tender.

Do we love life ? Do we love living ? Can identification
allow any freedom to the consciousness ? Or does the
identification become an inhibition at every step, at every
moment, in every relationship ? Justification of identifica-
tions, defence of identifications become the primary concern.
Are they not the primary concern in our life as we live
them ? Not as we wish them to be ?

So, our involvement with the act of living is conditional,
it is partial and even fragmentary. So, in certain movements
of relationships, in certain activities of living, we are terribly
attentive, because it is going to give us something, going to
give me something, something to my family. And if there is
no obvious visible acquisition, then the movement of living
becomes casual, if not callous. Our interest in living is
conditional. Life by itself, Life ‘perse’ is not sacred to us. The
act of living is not the act of worshiping the wholeness of life.
And unless there is total unconditional involvement in the
act of living, in perceptions, in responses, we do not come
upon that marvellous faculty of what is called Insight.

THE ACT OF LIVING

Insight is the essence of the act of living. So, either we
repeat traditions or we try to conform to ideologies or we run
ambitiously after acquisitions-gross, subtle, crude, refined,
sensual, trans-sensory and so on. So, it may not be a ratrace
but it is surely a squirrel-race, a squirrel consciousness,
and your friend includes herself. This is not a value judgement.
All of us are living this way. That is the quality of our
living.

Going beyond knowledge, beyond Silence, mutation,
meditative way of living are our intellectual aspirations and
an intellectual aspiration does not involve total life. Intellectual
aspiration leads to the cerebral exercise of knowing.
May be psychological involvement at experiencing or grafting
experiences of other liberated ones upon oneself,
believing them to be one’s own, trying to churn the words of
the enlightened ones, and hope for something to happen to
ourselves. Please do see this. This is what we do with Life.

Life is not a pilgrimage. We would like it to be a
pilgrimage but where is the sense of sacredness to whole
life, every moment, every relationship? Do we have a sense
of sacredness or holiness, when we walk upon the earth?
When we drink a glass of water, what is our relationship to
that water ? Just the means to quench the thirst ? And
casually you take the glass and drink the water, gulp it down.
Are we even conscious how it cools different organs in the
body? Is there a communion ? Is that a total act? Or, when
we take our meals, are we conscious ? Not only of the
nutrition quality, but the flavour, the blending of flavours.
How the cereals, the vegetables, the fruits, the spices are
the compassion of the earth, the sun and the oceans ? Are
we conscious ? The taking of meals everyday does not
relate us to the oceans, the earth, the sun, the water. It
becomes a partial activity. It is not a total relationship ,
because it is not a total involvement.

Meditation is being aware of the Whole while you are
inter-acting with the particular. Being aware of the timefreeness,
the so called Eternity, while you are passing
through the so called every moment. Sensually, interacting
with the particular, while in the dimension of at least consciousness,
if not Awareness, be related to the Whole. After
all Wholeness is not an abstraction. It is the substance of
Life and one can relate to that Wholeness, that substance
of Life through Awareness or at the conditioned level by
being conscious of it.

When I look at my child, talk to him or her- talk to the child
-am I aware that whole human-being is concealed in that
tiny little tot ? Have I respect for that human-being, who is
going to flower through that child, out of that child ? Or, am
I conscious – it is my child, I feel proud, or I feel that it is
something to be owned by me, a decoration in my life, to be
ordered around, to be dominated upon or to be fondled at
my pleasure. What is my relationship ?

The act of living, the movement of relationship, isn’t it
partial, is it not momentary, isn’t it acquisitory in a subtle
sense? So, Insight does not evolve, it does not get activated
though we live on this planet 50, 60, 70, 80 years. We go
through innumerable experiences at different levels of our
being, gather knowledge. We can be scholars and yet
scholarship may not result in wisdom. Wealth of experiences
and not an iota of Insight.

So, what do we do ? I just ask myself, do I love Life and
Living? Unless there is love, there can’t be reverance or
respect, and therefore no sense of sanctity, sacredness.

This commercialization has perhaps made our hearts
dry. It is only give and take. It is only getting or losing. How
much did I get out of it ? Not what happened to me, to the
quality of being, to the quality of Life, but how much did I get
out of it?

So, a pilgrimage, whether within or without, is not
possible unless there is this foundation of lo.ve for Life. It is
a benediction to be alive, it is a benediction to have been
born in a human form with such an evolved complex
consciousness, multi-dimensional consciousness, and one’s
life would have that perfume of thankfulness, gratefulness,
towards the creation and towards that supreme energy of
Intelligence, which is the creator and the creation simultaneously.

AWARENESS OF DEATH

If these points are clear, will you accompany me and look
at it from a slightly different angle ? We know that our
physical organism is born at some point in psychological
time, also chronological time and it is going to end, some
day, somewhere at some point of chronological time. The
biological organism is born with a certain limited momentum
and it will stop functioning, operating, which we call dying or
death. And the marvellous thing is, the moment of death is
not known to us. It is unpredictable, it does not depend upon
the age of the body, especially in this frightening, so called
civilization, which creates an obligation to move fast at
inhuman speed in physical movement. Inhuman speed is
also required on the psychological level to function on
various fronts simultaneously, as a Businessman, as an
Engineer, as a Lawyer, as an Industrialist, this moment and
next moment, as a member of a politicaL party; third
moment, as a member of a religious community and fourth
moment, asamemberofacertainfamilyfollowingthefamily
tradition, the caste and so on. So many roles to be played
with their different norms and criteria and with their, perhaps,
incompatible codes of conduct. That is demanded of
the individual.

So in this frightening civilization, moving with such a
terrible speed, there is no time even to be conscious, to be
aware, that death is standing by, the breath of death is on
your shoulder. We are brought up in such a way of living,
way of forgetting that the death is walking with you. It is with
you, nearer to you than your shadow. We are brought up in
such a way that we are inclined to forget that. Death and
dying, something inauspicious. Don’t talk of it, something to
cry about, to weep, to indulge in self-pity. That irreversible
separation from what I have gathered as wealth, property,
my relatives, my family, irreversible separation is to take
place some day.

If there is an awareness that death is waiting at the other
end, if such an awareness is activized, then it can wake up
the sense of sacredness about Life. The unique opportunity
between the two points of birth and death, to live and to
move, and to learn and to discover, the meaning, the
mystery behind the Wholeness. So, we are inclined to forget
it, we are inclined to push it away, out of our consciousness.
So we nearly become Charvakas – “Runam Kritva Ghrutam
Pibet, Bhasmibhutasya Dehasya Punaragamanam Kutah.”
Do whatever you like, whichever way you like. And in this
unfortunate country where the Governments do not know
how to govern and law and rule exist only in the books, it is
so easy to live callously, harshly, in cruelty to oneself and
to others. So, if one has the sense of sacredness of Life and
sacredness of the act of living then it is a privilege that we
have opportunities to move in relationships, to inter-act with
people, to inter-act with nature.

TOTAL INVOLVEMENT IN THE INQUIRY

When there is love and reverance, there is a sense of
sanctity, sacredness, which is the sunshine of Life. Without
the sense of sacredness really there is no fun in living. It is
just dragging the days after the nights and pushing the
nights after the days of repeating or projecting. So, in order
that the sense of sacredness should be activized and
should get mobilized, total involvement in the inquiry is
necessary. The inquiry which brings us here together is not
an intellectual exercise, it is not some thing academical,
theoretical; it is not a romantic, ideational play or game; it is
not intellectual gymnastics – better concepts than yours,
better concepts than his/her. And surely that would not
make you come over to this mountain village Abu, all the
way from Bombay and go through so many inconveniences
even at the physical level. There is sustained seriousness
that has caused your coming here and let that sustained
seriousness develop this total involvement, not only intellectual
attraction, exercise.

What does total involvement imply ?

We are going to look at what is total involvement and
what is the implication of total involvement in the pilgrimage
within, in the religious or spiritual inquiry that we are all
engaged in or we believe that we are engaged in.

It seems to me that one indication of total involvement is
our non-divided presence in that action. Inwardly I am Not at
all divided. I am totally present there. I am present there with
the whole of my being with all the energies at my disposal.
When I read a book, when I listen to a sentence, or when I
utter a word, I am not doing it fragmentarily, not with the
acquisitive motive. It is not acquisition. Living is a total
involvement, the movement of my whole being. So I would
be there without any distraction – undistracted, undivided.
There is no motivation. The act of living is not a means to an
end. But the act of living is its own act. As if that is the last
act of my life, I pour my whole being into it.

Whether I am looking at you, whether I am listening to
you, whether I am cooking a meal, whether I wash my
clothes, not absent-mindedly, not casually. Most of us
spend our days casually most of the time. So, totally present
in everything that I do- physically, verbally, psychologically,
intellectually – whichever words you like to use, no acquisitive
motive and this total presence are required.

Now, what does the absence of an acquisitive motive do
to my living ? When I am looking at you, if there is an
acquisitive motive, my energies are not focused on what you
are doing or you are saying, but I am preoccupied, non-verbally,
with finding out how much I can use you to my
advantage, how much friendship should be cultivated with
you. I am measuring you, I am calculating, I am judging you.
That preoccupation at judging, that preoccupation with .
using the perception as an investment for the future, does
not allow the action to be total. A holistic perception cannot
take place.

A holistic listening to another does not take place,
because you are absent minded, you are preoccupied with
something else. So, you do not live through that perception.
You are living through the perception, through the listening,
through the washing of clothes, or scrubbing the floor, or
cooking the meal or ironing your clothes or writing a letter,
listening to music-nothing becomes total, because you are
preoccupied with something else. Acquisitiveness divides
you. It does not allow you to remain a whole being. So, I
hope, this point of acquisititive motivation behind everything
is clear.

Whether I am talking to my wife or husband, that
acquisitiveness does not leave me. How much pleasure do
I derive from that, how much security will that give to me ?
The abandonment, which is the essence of spontaneity,
abandonment which is the flowering of love, does not come
there. So, I am totally present in what I do, I have no
acquisitive motive, but I am concerned with expressing the
being. Relationship is an occasion to express the being, the
content of being, the substance of being.

Acquisitiveness takes you towards the process of becoming.
How can I become popular with you ? How can I
secure your goodwill ? It is not concerned with manifesting
the being, but it is concerned with becoming. The becoming,
the activity of becoming has relevance when I am studying
at the College, the University. I am learning, educating
myself for a certain requirement. I become. But in psychological
relationship, can there be any becoming? Can there
be any acquiring, holding on to, clinging to ?

Where will freedom breathe in our life, if not in psychological
relationships? It is our destiny to lIve in society. We
are not born in jungles and forests. So, limitations have
been set upon us by being born in a society and we have to
adjust, we have to adapt to the social structures, respond to
the compulsions, the pressures. But in psychological relaionships
can we allow unconditional freedom to breathe?
After all, we are concerned with freedom. Aren’t we? What
is Liberation and Enlightenment, if it is not unconditional
freedom?

So, totally present, absence of acquisitive or commercial
motivations in psychological relationships and the awareness
that death is nearer to me than my shaqow. So, let this
be the best action, let this be the best expression of my life,
let this be the best worship of Life, Cosmic Life. So,
movements of relationship become the occasions of learning
and the activity of learning results in discovering the
Truth behind every fact personally . It is the discovery of the
Truth behind the fact that enriches your being with the
quality of religiosity.

Religion is personal discovery of the Truth behind the
fact, discovery of the meaning behind a fact. So you become
a religious person. You do not borrow truths, but they are
discovered and they become the substance of your being.
Like the food digested becomes the substance of your
physical body, the truths discovered every moment in every
relationship, become the substance.

LEARNING IN THE STREAM OF RELATIONSHIP

lf this point is clear, may we look atthis total invorvement,
this flowering of Insight, this meaning of pilgrimage from a
still different angle ? We are looking together. Taking the
verbal journey together, we are learning to look at the
meaning, the Truth together.

In physical isolation, in psychological isolation, there is
survival of the organism, but then mere survival of the
organism is merely vegetation of that organism. In isolation
there is no living. In isolation there is existence but not then
vibration of the essence, the existential essence. So, physical
isolation, psychological isolation, withdrawal from relationships,
withdrawal from responsibilities is not the way to
freedom.

If I run away to privileged isolations-in the caves, in the
Ashrams, in the Muthas and so on, so that I do not get
attached to anything, anyone, if I deny, if I reject, if I isolate,
will inquiry be richer by that ?

A scientific approach to the essence of religiosity, scientific
approach to a spiritual inquiry requires that the learning
takes place in the stream of relationship, the learning takes
place while handling the thought structure as you handle
your physical senses and sense organs. We do not throw
away the sense organs. We are not going to close our eyes
because looking at a beautiful thing or a woman or a man
will create attraction and attachment. We do not keep our
mouths shut because if I open my mouth, I may utter a lie or
falsehood. You know, denial, rejection, isolation in any way
whatsoever is not the way to freedom. This total involvement,
as the substance of inquiry, unconditional involvement
seems to be absolutely warranted.

I am physically going somewhere, say for a walk, or –
nobody does the pilgrimage on foot these days, all go by
conveyances. I hear that now the buses can go straight to
Badrinath. I had climbed 84 miles in 1955 when I went first
time to Badrinath. 84 miles ! There were many dangers and
it was difficult climbing and all that. We did it in two days and
a half, if I remember right. But there was much joy in that
exertion.

Now, supposing you are climbing in the mountains and
you have gone upto some distance and somebody comes
down the mountain and says, “My friend, where are you
going?” And you say, I am going to a certain place. And he
says, “No, No, this is not the path to be taken. I have been
there. This is not the path to be taken.” What do I do? Do
I say I have climbed by this path so much, I have spent so
much time, so much energy, so I must climb this way. Or, do
I stop and take another, a different path?

When I notice that something is wrong on the physical
level, there is no difficulty in stopping and turning to a quite
different way. Why is there so much hesitation and reluctance
when it comes to the psychological behaviour ? I
notice that the anger, the jealousy, the fear, the cowardice,
the petty-mindedness, the impatience, these are wrong
ways, they prevent relationship. It creates an illusion of
being related to the other, whereas in fact it does not. It
blocks the relationship. When I notice all that, do I stop ? If
I were totally involved in discovering the meaning of Life, I
would stop immediately using those ways of relating, those
paths of relating. I won’t say to myself, “If I get angry with my
children, I can get the work done quickly.” It is not the
quickness of getting the work done that is important, but
what happens to the child and how he does it, that becomes
my primary concern, if I am totally involved. If not getting ‘
angry requires more time for getting things done, it does not
matter. I pay that price. Today it takes more time, tomorrow
it may not take more.

Continuing the wrong way of living, in spite of perceiving
its wrongness becomes impossible for an inquirer, because
the involvement of your whole life is the inquiry. You don’t
have to sacrifice, there is no sacrificing the wrong. You are
not sacrificing the lies and the falsehoods. You just leave
them because they are lies, they are falsehoods. That
leaving does not create a martyr complex. You don’t say that
I pay the price for dropping the lies and falsehoods. Do you?

INTEGRITY OF INQUIRY

So, let us ask ourselves if there is an integrity of inquiry.
It is the integrity of inquiry that will mobilize the intensity. It
is the integrity of purpose that will give the depth to the
inquiry and it is integrity that would stimulate fearlessness.
If the inquiry is only at the cerebral level, if it is an intellectual
luxury, if it is the way to keep up with the latest fashion in the
religious and so called spiritual circles, then there will not be
that sustained integrity, sustained seriousness.

Supposing I do not love Life, supposing this concern with
the act of living as the occasion of expressing the content of
my being, non-acquisitively, is not my concern, and it is only
an intellectual interest in the subject, then I should be
satisfied with knowing the latest approach, the scientific
approach as knowledge. At least I have known about it. I
can’t live it, because there is no willingness and readiness
-willingness ofthe mind and readiness of the senses. Living
requires the readiness atthe sensual system, sensual level,
willingness at the psychological, that is, emotional level, and
clarity at the intellectual level.

And if mutation does not take place, transformation does
not take place, it is because of the lack of total involvement.
If the act of total involvement disturbs the statusquo of my
life, family-wise, society-wise, finance-wise, if it disturbs the
status quo, then I do notthink I am prepared for it. Therefore,
the mutation does not take place as I am not prepared for
it. I am prepared for knowledge. I am prepared for knowledge,
I would love that mutation to be, if it is in addition to
what I have on the social, economic level. Let’s be honest
and say, “Thus far I can go. No further.” Without any guilt
conscience, without any self-pity, can I face that fact, that it
is my unwillingness and my unreadiness which are responsible
for the mutation and the transformation not taking
place. Then I won’t complain to myself that I have been
observing for so many years and that has not happened. I
have been sitting in silence for so many years and that has
not happened.

Sitting in Silence may be a help for learning. It is not
sitting in Silence that is important, it is Living in Silence that
is required. So, if there is no willingness and readiness for
total involvement, we should leave the transformation, the
mutation, the meditative way of living alone. And say, ‘I am
a man of the world. I am a person of senses. I want
security,safety psychologically. So that transparent honesty
with oneself could save us, at least from self-pity and
save us from blaming the scientific approach.

Observation as a tool of, a help for learning, Silence as
a different dimension of consciousness and Meditation as
an alternative way of living – this is what the scientific
approach is indicating today. We do not know what it will be
tomorrow. The last word in science, spirituality and revolutions
has not yet been said and shall never be said. Because
Life is infinite and the potential in human beings is also
infinite. This is where human race stands today. This is
where you and I stand today.

So let us face the facts of our unwillingness, of our
sensual unpreparedness. I cannot leave the senses, let
them move as they have been moving in the past, sanctioned
by society. Let the past structure move as it is used
to, and still there must be the dimensional quantum jump, it
can’t happen my friends. It does not happen that way.

Mount Abu, 20 November, 1992, Morning.

XIII

THE PILGRIMAGE CONTINUES

We are at a critical and thrilling period of history. The
middle ages were a critical period when primitivity of the way
of living got replaced by efforts at industrialization, and
development of natural sciences, on the one hand, and
replacement of credulity and superstitions by the cult of
reason and rationality on the other hand. In the same way,
the second half of the 20th Century has been a very critical
period, especially the last fifteen years of this Century have
seen some fundamental revolutionary changes in human
attitudes and approaches to nature, to their own beings, to
social structures and so on.

And what has happened in the last two years is just
indescribably thrilling. A philosophy that had captured the
psyche of the global human race in the early 20s of the
Century, a philosophy claiming to establish a class-less and
an exploitation-free society, establishing the unity of the
Workers of the world, had resulted in the emergence of the
Governments of the Proletariat, which had developed quite
an empire – the socialist, the communist countries – in
Europe, in Asia, in South America and also at the tip of
U.S.A. – countries like Cuba and so on.

That empire got demolished and that philosophy got
devaluated. Nobody has conquered the Communist countries,
nobody has defeated them, but authoritarianism permeating
the whole philosophy and the ways and means of
implementing it, applying it, to individual and collective life,
created many a contradiction and a super-power collapsed
before our own eyes hardly an year ago. And people started
questioning what is wrong with the teachings of Marx and
Engels and Lenin.

This is not a simple event. It is a turning point for the
evolution of human psyche. It is a structural crisis that is
permeating all the countries. One super-power has collapsed
and the other is suffering from progressive decay in
culture, education, and perhaps even in economy.

Organised religions based on authoritarianism have
realised that their days are numbered. In spite of the
emergence of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran-the talk of an
Islamic Empire in Central Asia or Europe, the wars that are
waged in the Middle East and the tensions between the
Indian and Pakistan Governments, or the South East Asian
Countries, it is very obvious that structures even in the name
of religion or spirituality based on authoritarianism, vitiating
relationship among human beings by overt, gross or subtle
exploitation, cannot survive in the era of science and
technology.

The human psyche is vibrating with the urge for freedom
in every field of relationship, in every field of action, and in
every field of social relationship. So the times are very
thrilling.

As regards natural sciences, there is a talk about the
physics of consciousness, the biology of cognition, the
chemistry of sentiments, emotions. And exploration in the
emptiness of space around us and emptiness in consciousness
within us, is going on. It is a huge churning that is going
on, on the global scale. The Third World is running after a
consumerist, materialist culture, which has outlived its days
in affluent countries of Europe, America, Australia, New
zealand, etc. And those affluent countries are running after
the Science of Yoga, Meditation, Tantra, Mantra and what
have you.lt is a marvellous period. It is a privilege to be alive.
When the whole civilization and culture is in a melting pot,
it is a challenge to the creative energy of every responsible,
alert, sensitive individual.

THE PRESENT CONTEXT OF THE SPIRITUAL INQUIRY

I hope, we realise this context of our pilgrimage within
our consciousness, this context of our explorations in
consciousness, in the dimensions of consciousness. If a
religious inquiry is merely self-centred, then it does not have
any social, cultural, educational value. It is a self-centred
egoistic activity of some individual and that individual is
welcome to have it if it pleases him or her. But it has no value,
it has no social content. We are born in society and by our
very birth we are members of the global human society.

I have money, I have means of pleasure, sensual,
sexual, psychological. Now let me have the pleasure of
acquiring something beyond the senses -transcendental
experiences, Kundalini awakening, some Siddhies or occuH
powers and so on. These activities have nothing to do with
religion, which is the inner transformation in the quality of
consciousness. It is a mutation. It is a dimensional transformation.
So, people who are interested in self-centred acquisitions,
in the extra-sensory regions or trans-sensual regions,
are as materialistic as any other, and there are
sciences, Shastras, galore, in India to deal with such
adventures.

There was a period in human history, in Indian history
when the sciences like Tantra Yoga, Mantra Yoga, Hatha
Yoga, Laya Yoga, Naada Yoga, Raaj Yoga and so on
developed. Nobody denies that behind, beneath and beyond
the visible material world, is the invisible vistas of
energies – beneath and beyond or within the energies –
which have converted the emptiness of space into their
dancing field. The Cosmos is a field where innumerable
energies are interacting with one another, as your body is a
field in which many energies are interacting. Through their
interaction they get inter-related and they function
marvellously, homogeneously as one unit, as one whole.

So, the transcendental, the occult, ‘the extra-sensory
does exist. It has been probed into and those who are
interested in acquisitions of the invisible, acquisitions of
occult or transcendental powers and experiences, may
wander into those fields. But that has nothing to do with
meditation, which is the essence of religiosity, which is an
entirely new way of living, a new dimension of consciousness
and a new dynamics of human relationship. So let us
be very clear that the self-centred or ego-centred aspirations
for transcendental acquisitions are as materialistic as
aspiration for sensual pleasure. Every experience generates
pleasure. Every experience adds to memory and every
experience conditions us in very many ways.

So I do hope that the members of the group that has
come here are not interested only in personal, transcendental
or occult experiences. If they come, they are welcome.
If they happen to have the experiences, if the powers get
activated, well, that is a part of the game. But they are not
a means to an end. No experience, no piece of knowledge
is going to cause transmutation in consciousness. Mutation
is not the result of an action and meditation is not the
product of human activity. It is something much more-subtle,
tender, something which our words cannot touch, cannot
reach. It is beyond the reach of verbalization.

So, our pilgrimage with our conditioned bodies and
minds is towards the unconditioned, the unlimited, the nonpersona!
abode of the supreme Intelligence which in Indian
languages has been addressed in very many terms. Aadya
Shankaracharya called it ‘Samvit’ some 1200 years back.
Somebody called it Chiti-Shakti, somebody calls it Chaitanya,
somebody called it Atma- Ati Aaharati Sarvam lti Atma That
which devours, consumes everything and from which everything
emanates, that is the definition of the word ‘Atma’
according to Panini. So, our pilgrimage is towards the
unconditioned, towards Unconditional Freedom, if I may
use the term.

Secondly, our pilgrimage is not following of any authoritarian
structure. There are mariy authoritarian structures
that have come about in the name of spirituality and religion.
There is the Hindu model of authoritarian structure and
Islamic model, the Christian, the Buddhist, the Jain, the Jew,
and even non-theist structures based on authority.

We, as lovers of science, learning to apply a scientific
approach to religion and spirituality , we say that the
authoritarian structures might have had relevance when
they came about, they might have served some purpose.
There is no question of accepting or rejecting them, but let
us begin anew, afresh, because if we try to conform to a
pattern, it will not be our exploration and at the end, it will not
be our finding.

Religion is a personal discovery of the meaning of Life,
uncovering the mystery behind the movement of relation’
ship, discovering what it means to relate, to anything at all.
So, we are concerned with personal discovery, learning. We
are not concerned with conformity, we are not interested in
lifetess, mechanistic repetitions.

There is no need to utter one word in a derogatory sense
about the past. Let the past bury the past. Whether it is right
or wrong, scientific or unscientific, has it not helped thousands,
millions -these questions are irrelevant. You are
living in a context, where science, technology, cybernetic
revolution, computers and who knows even Robotism – all
these are∑ the ground realities of your daily living.

FROM HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS TO THE ENERGY OF
AWARENESS

So, we have a different context completely. It is not an
agrarian culture. It is not even now an industrial culture. We
are heading towards a post-industrial revolution culture.
Reason and rationality that had captured human consciousness
have discovered their inbuilt limitations and they are
moving away from the centre of the human consciousness,
perhaps getting replaced by the energy of Awareness, the
energy of Jntelligence, which is not a muscular, glandular,
cerebral energy, but which is an energy born of the emptiness
of Silence, of Moun am, born of the homogeneity, the
Wholeness of our being.

So we say, let me begin afresh in my life and first get
acquainted with my body, my physical structure. I watch it
and get acquainted with it. Its needs – I try to sort out the
needs of the physical organism from the beliefs about the
so called needs. You push aside traditions, customs, beliefs,
credulity and watch the movement of the body – the
diet, the sleep, the exercises, the sitting of it, the standing
and the moving of the body and so on. We cannot rely upon
knowledge. If we rely upon knowledge and act upon its
authority, it will not be a personal finding. So, I have to get
acquainted with the unique physical organism that I have
got, in which I live, it is. my house. So the impulses, their
movements, what they do to the consciousness- this can be
watched, this can be observed. Doesn’t matter if the
observer is conditioned. But let me get acquainted with it.
Acquaintance with the known could be the first step.

And let me proceed and watch the movement of verbalization
in my life. I wonder if you have ever watched how a
word is born in your body. A thought flashes across consciousness
and gets clothed into a word which has a mute
sound unless you articulate it. So the birth and the growth
of words – how they get connected and formulate a sentence
-is very interesting, it is a great fun.

Have you ever watched the movement of thought and
what it does to your nervous system? How a thought affects
the neurological system ? Every thought creates a tension
and every emotion upsets the equilibrium of the chemical
system. It is very natural. It is a physical fact that has been
verified by the Doctors.lfthat were not so, the Doctors would
not talk about psycho-somatic illnesses and sicknesses.
The inter-relation between the movement of word, thought,
ideas and the functioning of the biological structure is
immensely fascinating if one can observe it for oneself.

Unless we observe – how the thought obstructs relaxation
and how emotional disturbances and upsets, disturb
the chemical balance of the body, how they affect the sleep,
the appetite, the cerebral freshness- unless we watch it for
ourselves, the urge for freedom from tensions and pressures
will not be there. We will have to watch how the
thoughts repeat themselves – how the desires, wishes,
sentiments go on repeating themselves, how the desire to
dominate, the desire to depend, the desire to exploit, the
desire to identify – how they dominate our daily living has to
be watched. Then only we will become aware that we are
prisoners of the thought structure and we are pushed
around by the momentum of memory.

A thought moves in the body and one feels that one is ∑
thinking. This human body, this human organism contains
the whole human history. The whole human evolution is
contained in your body and my body. So we have inherited
the thoughts, the ideas, the knowledge, the trends, the
inclinations, the instincts, the disinclinations, likes and dislikes-
all this is the substance of our psychological structure.
It moves.

You open your eyes, some object is noticed by the sight,
it evokes the name, the name evokes the emotional association
or association of ideas, then the interpretation takes
place, immediately a value judgement springs up and then,
in a fraction of a second you react to. that value judgement,
looking at it as a fact, according again to the education, the
upbringing, the conditioning. This goes on with a tremendous
speed.

It is a marvellous drama that is going on in the field of our
body and consciousness. ∑When one watches that and sees
that getting repeated, repeated, year after year, then that
observation, that watching could result, and in the life of an
honest person, interested in living, it does result in an urge
for freedom.

Surely, the person says, man is not born to be doomed
and to live as a prisoner of the thought structure. So, the
yearning, the urge for freedom, the urge for unconditional
inner freedom is the bud out of which, at some timeless
moment the flower of Enlightenment, the flower of mutation
blossoms. The bud blossoms into a flower. The urge is the
indication that the potential for blossoming does exist in me.

One inquires, one watches, one observes and very
modestly, in all humility, corrects the incorrect. If, as per
even the verbal understanding, I notice that some wrong
behaviour is getting repeated, I correct it. It gets corrected
in the life of those for whom perception and understanding
and action are intermingled. Those who have passion for
life, those who live intensely, for them there is no time lag
between understanding and action.

But supposing there is not that passion, not that vitality,
vigour, vibrating in every nerve of the being, then, it is still
possible for such a person to correct the incorrect, to adjust
the mal-adjusted -does not matter if effort is involved.
Otherwise,it has to happen effortlessly. If it does not happen
in your life, you become despondent, depressed. Either you
blame and condemn yourself or you start doubting the
efficacy of the scientific tools of observation. Or you start
doubting if there is any dimension like total unconditional
state of consciousness at all. Let us not glide into such
psychological impotency. Let us keep at it in a scientific way.
So it does not matter, if it is piecemeal, does not matter if it
is a very minor thing. In fact, there is nothing minor and
unimportant in Life.

Life as a whole is holy, and to live is to move with the
holiness of Life. The act of living, the act of relationship-with
others, with the nature, with non-human fellow-beings, with
human fellow-beings, the act of relating is the act of worshiping.
We can’t worship Life in any other way. You may build
temples and have idols and do the worship, ifthat helps you
psychologically.

Our psychological needs are very distinct from spiritual
or religious needs. Living in an unfriendly, callous, violent
society, the mind likes t9 find somewhere solace, consolation.
It feels lonely, it looks for some company. It tries to find
out some surroundings which are supportive to the inner
inquiry.

So, sitting near an idol, which for the person represents
the formless. The form representing the formless. The
limited one representing the unlimited. Look at the poetic
capacity of the ancestors. They built up symbols to represent
that which cannot be symbolised, just to satisfy the
psychological needs.

SHOULD THE INQUIRER SEARCH FOR A MASTER?

Let me, for a brief moment, turn to a point which is
considered very relevant, not only in India but in the whole
world today. In such an observation, for such a pilgrimage,
don’t we need a Master or a Guru ? .It is only a disciple that
needs a Master. And you know who is a disciple? One who
is eager to learn, one who is busy with the movement of
learning. So, for such a person, busy with learning physically,
verbally, mentally, it is quite natural that his biological
or psychological conditioned limited powers sometimes get
somewhere stuck up or confused or perplexed. Only at such
a moment help is needed genuinely – I am using the term
‘help’- call it support. Only at such a moment the person
requires some help from somewhere.

Have you watched how the law of gravitation helps you
to walk? I am using the term ‘help’ in that scientific sense.
I stand up and I would like to walk. If there were no gravity
in the earth, it would be impossible for me to lift up my foot
and place it ahead and start walking. Walking is an interaction
between the law of gravitation contained in the earth
and the capacity to move contained in my body. So the earth
helps me to walk. The breathing process with which I am
born gets the help of the air. So the breathing in and the
breathing out occurs or happens. If the air did not help, then
the breathing-even the movement, the motion ofthe breathing
process-would not be possible.

As there is a law of gravity, as there is a law that H20
(water) quenches the thirst universally-not exceptionally,
not only for the privileged human race, but right from the
mineral to the human world it quenches the thirst of the
earth, of the plants, of the birds, ofthe animals, of the human
creatures- it is a law of Life, it is a principle of Life.

In the same way, love is a principle of Life. Love which
is uncontaminated, unpolluted is Intelligence. Love is a
perceptivity, which does not require the optical instruments
for perception. Love is understanding without the help of
verbalization. It is a perception without the help of optical
instruments. It is a perceptive sensitivity. So, Love is the
substance which fills the emptiness of Cosmos.

When a person, who is learning, who is discovering, who
is terribly concerned about discovering the nature of Reality,
understanding the Truth of Life, gets stuck up, the supreme
Intelligence extends its help in some way or the other. It
defies human calculations – logic and mathematics. You
cannot predict from where the help shall come – a word, a
gesture, a touch, an indication, a suggestion, just presence.

So, the help is extended through a person who has gone
through the inquiry, the explorations, the experimentations,
the verifications in life, one who has conducted one’s own
life- as one conducts a laboratory- looks upon one’s life as
a laboratory for the discovery of Truth, discovery of the
content of Divinity, discovery of the content of Holiness,
Sacredness.

So, Life brings together the inquirer and the understander.
One who is trying to break the shell of conditioned consciousness
and one who is already on the wings. They are
brought together by Life.lfthat is the implication of the word
Master, Yes, such meetings have had relevance and they
have occurred. But that is only Life bringing you together.
You see, you listen, you feel through the presence and you
get it, you understand it. You get it means you understand
it. My term ‘get’ has no acquisitive overtones or undertones.
Ignorance is dispelled and understanding blossoms. That
is what I mean by ‘getting’ it. The candle is lit. The unlit candle
gets lit. That is all what happens when a disciple meets a
Master.

WHO IS A MASTER ?

A Master, a Guru, is one from whose consciousness, the
darkness of the ‘I’ consciousness has disappeared completely,
irreversibly. In the sense that it never becomes the
source of perception or response or relationship. It is there
within the consciousness, but defunct. No initiative. It is the
Intelligence that might use the ‘I ‘consciousness, it might use
the knowledge, the inheritance, it might use the talents, but
by itself the ‘I’ consciousness does not move. That is the
implication of the word dimensional transformation. So
there is a relevance to such occurrences, but the whole
panorama of a psychological relationship built on this
incident has no spiritual content.

A Guru belongs to none. A Master, it is flesh and bones,
it is emptiness clothed in flesh and bones. There is no sense
of belonging anywhere whatsoever, neither to this planet
not the other. The physical needs are there, they are
provided, and whichever level of communication is neces-
sary, it is gone through, but it is gone through impersonally.
The universal content of personal communication is there.

So, the inquirer need not begin hunting for a Guru,
hunting for a Master. The inquirer need not begin with fear.
It is the fear of life and living that inhibits our pilgrimage. We
are not only afraid of death, of dying. We are afraid of life and
living, and we want to cover up ourselves. As they have
waterproof clothing, we want to make some lifeproof measures
in our consciousness, because life touches you at
every point, in hundred and one ways and it is so fresh- what
you call every day, every dawn. It is ever fresh, ever
renewing. Do you know what is the meaning of Eternity ?
The capacity for renewal, revitalization. That is why the
Universe has remained fresh and virgin in spite of your
billions of years as you count it or you look backwards. That
is why we call it holy, that is why it is sacred. That which is
manmade has no feel of holiness in it. It has its own utility,
it has a relevance, it can have magnificence. And yet,
manmade things and manmade thoughts have an earthiness
about them. They stink of matter.

So, one proceeds in the inquiry without being affaid that
one will be lonely, forsaken at any moment. You are
surrounded by that supreme Intelligence, that cosmic Intelligence,
and every expression of your inner maturity will find
a response, a mature response from the Cosmos. Your
inner readiness and willingness will find a response in such
a way, that the outer circumstances will become favourable
for your inquiry and explorations. The agreeability, the
favourableness in the circumstances are not the result of
your or somebody else’s action. It is the expression of the
Intelligence of life.

So, if and when the need is, the helping hand shall be
there. This is not a statement, categorical statement, but
that is how your friend Vimala has seen Life and has lived
Life. Every inquiry, every exploration, every experiment,
because of its authenticity, genuineness and integrity has
found cooperation by the Cosmos, by the circumstances,
and if it can happen in an individual born somewhere in a
middle-class family in India, educated in some University in
India, without any priv ileged background – if it can happen
in somebody’s life, it is an indication that it is the birth-right
of every human-being to grow into that dimensional transformation,
an entirely new way of living.

There the pleasing or the agonizing circumstances and
challenges do not mutilate your inner peace and balance.
You respond to them, not getting worked up and tense, but
you respond to them out of the invincible equibalance or
equipoise within you. You know, equipoise, that invincible
peace within, a balance at the sensual level. Balance in the
sensual outward behaviour and simultaneously marvellous
peace, which is unconditional relaxation, which is Silence,
which is Emptiness. Meditation is Silence in motion, in
movement. Relationships are movements of that relaxation
and then there is the fun, the charm.

I have noted how you have listened to the communication.
The intimate informality of such gatherings has a
beauty and a charm of its own which can never be there in
huge public meetings. You sit as if you are sitting in a family,
with members of family, and you converse. Of course,
though we wanted it to be participative, perhaps, because
so many of you have never met me before, you hesitated
for participative discussions in the afternoon. I don’t know,
butthe way you have cooperated with me, the quality of your
listening, has encouraged me to feel free in sharing.

I thank you all and I hope that your ‘pilgrimage within’ will
be free of all inhibitions, that pilgrimage will be full of faith in
Life, Trust in man and faith in the – Intelligence of Life. Trust
in the integrity of your own inquiry – that is what I mean by
trust in man. And I hope that we shall never forget that the
journey is more important that the discovery. By taking each
step, we are setting into motion in the human consciousness
something new, a scientific approach. A scientific ‘Sadhana’
is something new for this human psyche which is cluttered
with authoritarianism against which it is fighting.
Thank you all.

Mount Abu, 21 November, 1992, Morning.

PILGRIMAGE WITHIN

“Pigrlmage Within” contains a living, pulsating communion by
Vimalajl with serious Inquirers. In a series of talks and Questions and
Answers, she takes the seeker on an Inner voyage of self-discovery
from self-observation through self-knowledge to Slence. All
important aspects are covered like the Integrity of Inquiry, observation,
attention, conditioning and Its movement, understanding images,
Identification, the nature of Insight, awareness of death, learning in
the stream of relationship, the mystery of Wholeness, from human
consciousness to the energy of Awareness, living In the dimension
of Slence. This Is an Important and Intensely practical book for all
those who would undertake the Plgrlmage Within.