Chapter 7. You Are The Knot

Osho - Finger Pointing to the Moon

Chapter 7. You Are The Knot

The delusion of things being in one's soul is an imposed phenomenon.

Dropping it, one is oneself the perfect, non-dual and actionless brahma - the absolute reality.

The world that appears as a different thing from the soul is almost untrue.

Where is the division in a pure, formless and organless entity?

The conscious-soul is free of the notions of seer, seeing and the seen etcetera. It is immune and utterly full like the ocean at the time of deluge.

Even as darkness dissolves in light, the cause of illusion dissolves in the unparalleled absolute reality which is without organs - so where is the division in it?

The supreme reality is one singularity; how can there be division in it? The state of sushupti - dreamless deep sleep - is blissful; who has seen divisions in it?

A very important question has been raised in this sutra. This question has been arising in man's mind for centuries, since time infinite - how to be free from this world in which we are entangled, this world in which we have become encompassed by sorrow and anguish? And what actually is this world and what is the nature of this darkness in which we are drowned and lost?... because without knowing its nature, there cannot be any way of being free from it.

Whatsoever one wants to be free from, one will have to know it well. The bondage is created by our ignorance. So if the bondage is to be opened and loosened, it is only through knowing that the knots can be opened.

One day, when Buddha came amidst his disciples, he was holding a silk handkerchief in his hands.

The disciples were surprised, because Buddha never carried anything in his hands when he came to address his disciples. Then he sat before them and tied one knot in the handkerchief, then a second knot, then a third - five knots, one upon the other. Then he asked his disciples, "When I came here with this handkerchief there were no knots in it, and now there are five knots. Now I ask you, whether anything is changed in the handkerchief or if it remains the same handkerchief I came with?"

Certainly the disciples must have had difficulty. It is incorrect to say that the handkerchief has changed, because the handkerchief remains exactly the same. Tying knots in a handkerchief does not make even an iota of difference in the nature of the handkerchief - how large it was and what it was still remains the same. But it is also not right to say that the handkerchief has not changed at all, because previously it was an open handkerchief and now it is covered in knots. That much change has certainly taken place.

One disciple stood up and said, "You are asking a very difficult question. The handkerchief has almost changed."

Understand this a little, because this word almost will soon be coming up in the sutra and then it will be imperative that you understand it. "Has almost changed" - it means that it is changed and it is also not changed. It is changed if we look at the body of the handkerchief, and it has not changed if we look at the nature of the handkerchief. It is changed if we look at its body. It is not changed if we look at its soul. A change has taken place externally because of the knots, but it is not changed on the inside. The shape and form are changed. It is not changed if we look at its real nature, but it is changed if we look at the practicality of it because the handkerchief that was open can be used as a handkerchief, but the handkerchief that has five knots in it cannot be used as a handkerchief. It cannot even be called a handkerchief, because 'handkerchief' is the name of a utility.

Remember, when we give a name to something it is in fact naming a utility. It is a compulsion of language to use the same name even when the utility is not there. For example, a fan; when one is fanning with it in hot weather, it is called a fan. But when the fan is not in use and is put away it should not be called a fan. A fan means, something that is already being used to fan, which is presently functioning as a fan. But when it is lying idle, when it is not fanning the air, it should not be called a fan.

Legs are something with which you walk. But when you are not walking, they should not be called legs. The name should be of the function, of the action. But language would become too difficult - a separate name for a walking leg, a separate name for an idle leg - it would all get too complicated; so somehow we carry on.

Thus the word fan has two implied meanings. One, a fan which is already fanning the air; and the second, a fan which can fan the air, which has the potential to fan the air. We use the same word in both the senses. There are uses for a handkerchief: something can be tied up in it. But a handkerchief which is itself tied up, now nothing else can be tied up in it.

Buddha said, "I want to ask one more question, and that is, if I want to untie this handkerchief, what shall I do?" Saying this, Buddha began to pull the handkerchief from both its ends; the knots became even smaller and tighter.

One disciple shouted aloud, "Excuse me, but what you are doing is going to make the knots even tighter and render its untying almost impossible."

Buddha said, "One thing is now clear, that the handkerchief cannot be opened up by doing just anything. I am doing something, but you are saying that this is making the situation worse. So what will have to be done to open up the handkerchief?"

One disciple replied, "First of all we shall have to know how the knots have been tied. As long as the nature of the knots is not understood, it is not possible to undo them. So first we would have to see how the knots are tied. The manner of undoing the knot is just the reverse of the manner of making the knot. And as long as we do not know the manner in which the knots were tied, it is better not to do anything than to do something, because by doing something the complications may increase and the knots may get tighter, rendering the solution more troublesome."

In our consciousness there are also knots. And the situation is exactly the same: we are not changed at all and yet we are changed. Our nature is exactly the same as that of the supreme Brahma, but there are some knots in us. And as long as these knots are not undone, we cannot be that ultimate nature which is knotless.

Jainas have given a name to Mahavira which is very lovely. The name is: nirgrantha, the knotless one. Whenever Buddha refers to Mahavira he always calls him nirgrantha natputta, that son of the Natha family, that boy born in the Natha community, who became knotless; whose knots were cut, opened.

This word nirgrantha is very valuable. Brahma, the absolute one, is knotless, and we are full of knots - that is the only difference.

But how were the knots tied and what are they? It is necessary to understand their nature. This sutra is about this nature of the knots. Let us understand this sutra, there are some very valuable hints in it.

The delusion of things being in one's soul is an imposed phenomenon.

Dropping it, one is oneself the perfect, non-dual and actionless brahma, the absolute reality.

When a knot is made in a handkerchief it is not separate from the handkerchief. Have you ever seen a knot alone without the handkerchief? Have you ever seen a knot alone without any string? Did you ever see a pure knot - a knot all by itself? Whenever there is a knot it will be in something, it can never be all by itself. It shows one thing clearly, that a knot cannot be separate from that from which it is constructed. When it cannot exist all by itself, how can it be imposed from outside?

No, the knot does not come from the outside. And even in the handkerchief the knot was not there until it was tied. So it is a very interesting question. The knot just cannot come from outside - nobody has ever seen a knot all by itself, nothing of the sort exists. It is always in something, never alone. And the handkerchief itself was knotless just moments ago, it was not carrying any knots in it. Then from where did the knot come? Did it come from within the handkerchief? How can it come from within the handkerchief, when there was no trace of it in the handkerchief just moments ago? It did not come from outside, because on the outside no knot is ever found. Neither it has come from outside nor has it come from within; the handkerchief has imposed it upon itself, the handkerchief has created it. Created means it was not in the nature of the handkerchief, it has achieved it.

The world is our achievement; we have created it with great effort, through many devices. The knot does not exist somewhere in existence, the handkerchief has imposed it upon itself with great effort.

Whatsoever appears to be in the consciousness is an imposition. Whatsoever comes to be experienced within, it is all imposition.

As we were discussing earlier, things come before a mirror and they are reflected in it. If the mirror commits the same mistake that we do, thinking that it is these reflections, it will be in the same trouble that we are in. But the mirror does not commit such a mistake, though some other mirror-like things - photographic plates or photographic films - do commit such mistakes.

A film hidden inside a camera and a mirror are similar. An image forms in a mirror as well as in the film in a camera, but the mirror does not catch hold of the image, whereas the film does. Thus, whatever image forms on a film is caught by it, and because of this catching the film becomes useless. Now no other image can form over its surface, it is full.

A mirror is never full. However many images may form in it, it always remains empty. Images come and go, the mirror goes on letting go of them. The renunciation of the mirror is continuous. It goes on letting go of its indulgences, it never holds on to them. Your face is seen in the mirror, and it lets go of it. No sooner do you move away than the mirror has forgotten you, as if you had never come before it.

The consciousness of man is like a mirror and the mind of man is like a photographic film. The inner consciousness of man is like a mirror, nothing sticks to it. But man has another mechanism called mind - mind is like a film, whatever is reflected in it gets caught by it.

In fact if the mind does not catch hold of things it loses its utility. This is why we say that a good memory is a valuable thing. The society, the education, is all based on a good memory system. To whom does that good memory belong? It belongs to the mind which holds onto things.

Mind is a mechanism like a film. It goes on retaining like a film; whatever comes in front of it, it retains. Whatever is of no use is also retained; what is useless, rubbish and meaningless, is also retained. What is not needed at all is retained. A film cannot choose. Anything exposed to it - it cannot choose what to retain, what not to retain. Whatever comes in front of it is caught by it.

Your mind goes on catching hold of things: you have no idea how much mess you accumulate during the day. Psychologists now say that your mind does not catch hold of only that of which you are aware, it also catches hold of that of which you are not aware. For example, we are sitting here, I am speaking and you are listening to me. You are not even aware that a bird warbled and flew away, that there was a sound of a horn on the road - you have no idea of all this, but the mind is catching hold of all of this too. If you are later asked whether a bird had flown by while you were listening to the talk, you may say you do not remember this at all. However, if you are hypnotized and then asked what other things had happened, you will admit both: the bird had flown by and the horn was also sounded on the road.

Psychologists call it subliminal memory. Hidden behind the conscious mind is the subconscious mind which is taking in things the whole time - even those of which you are not aware. While you are sleeping at night, then too your subconscious mind is absorbing - it goes on absorbing even what is happening outside.

You will be surprised to know that the latest scientific discoveries reveal that a child gathers memories even in the womb. The child goes on gathering impressions of whatever is happening on the outside. Yoga has recognized this since ancient times, that whatever takes place to the mother, or around her, the child catches it and his growth is influenced by it. And the science of the West is coming closer to recognizing this now.

As our understanding grows, things are becoming more complex. Now the psychologists say that by the age of four the child has gathered fifty percent of his knowledge. Fifty percent! The total knowledge he will have when he dies at the age of eighty years, fifty percent of it he has gathered by the age of four; the remaining fifty percent is gathered later.

From the point of view of knowledge, you have completed half your life within four years; you have become half old! But yoga says that when we understand what the child gathers while in the womb, perhaps the situation will be even different. Perhaps the child gathers a greater percentage in the womb itself, but the child himself has no memory, everything is subliminal; it is there in his mind.

Governments in the West are very concerned about it, because the information is caught by the subconscious mind and this phenomenon can be exploited, and dangerously exploited. The advertisements at the movies that say smoke such-and-such a cigarette, or use such-and-such soap, or do this, do that - all this still needs to be displayed on the screen. In this displaying, there is still a subtle resistance. Because you know this is an advertisement you are not influenced as much as it is possible to be. A beautiful woman holding a cake of soap in her hand and telling you that the secret of her shining beauty lies in this soap - now everybody knows that it is not something to be believed. Still, through repetition it works, it catches your mind.

But now subliminal advertising has been discovered. Now, "Use Lux toilet soap," won't be visible on the screen. The movie you have gone to watch will continue and at some point during it, in a flash moment, in the one-thousandth part of a second, the advertisement of Lux toilet soap will pass. Your eyes won't be able to catch it because it will pass so quickly, but your mind will catch it.

This is dangerous. Governments of many countries are thinking of putting a ban on such a thing, because it is too dangerous. You are not even aware of it, you have not been able even to read it, you have not even sensed that something else took place in between the film images. You were busy watching the movie, and in between two sequences of the movie an advertisement has passed in a flash.

After much investigation it has been established that one in a thousand persons will get a faint inkling that something happened, that something else was there in between - but he too won't be very sure of it. The remaining nine hundred and ninety-nine will have no idea of it, they will be happily there in their seats and their subconscious mind will catch it. This is dangerous.

This means that someone may be running for a seat in an election and his advertisements may go on flashing in this fashion in the movies - and you will go and vote for that person without even realizing why you are doing so. This is dangerous. This can be misused. The dictatorial governments can misuse it badly because you can be victimized so easily.

But the mind is catching things the whole time, catching everything. Thousands of suggestions are being caught each moment, they are all accumulating. Mind is like a film, or like a tape in a tape recorder; it goes on accumulating everything. And in everybody's mind there are some seventy million cells, and each cell can store millions and millions of units of information. A man, given a long enough life, can memorize all the books of all the libraries in the world. It is a question of life being long enough; on the mind's part there is no problem. Mind has a long enough film, it is life that falls short. If a man may have a hundred or two hundred thousand years to live, in this very tiny skull all the libraries of the world can be accommodated.

The mind accumulates. It is a collector. There is no bigger hoarder than the mind. All safes are too small, and all the rich are poor compared to the accumulation the mind can have.

Hidden behind this mind is the consciousness. That consciousness is spotlessly clean like a mirror, it does not hold onto anything. Whatever comes in front of it, it sees it; when the object moves away, it is over for it - the mirror is once again clear and empty. Whether it is a moon reflected in the consciousness, or a thorn or a flower, whether it is a beautiful face confronting it or an ugly event - it is seen in the consciousness only for those moments when it is facing it. As soon as it moves away it disappears from the consciousness.

Mind is a mechanism.

You are not the mind, you are the consciousness. But we have all believed ourselves to be the mind.

We do not have any idea of that mirror which is spotlessly clean and pure.

This sutra says:

The delusion of things being in one's soul is an imposed phenomenon.

Dropping it, one is oneself the perfect, non-dual and actionless brahma - the absolute reality.

Nothing is to be done, you already are the Brahma - this is what Vedanta declares. You have not to become Brahma, you already are the Brahma. You do not have to go anywhere to achieve the truth, it is always with you. What has gone wrong then? The mind is in front of the consciousness, so whatever gets accumulated in the mind, all that accumulation goes on shimmering in the consciousness.

Let us understand it this way. The moon rises and is reflected in the lake. Then, when the moon sets, the reflection disappears from the lake also - for it is seen in the lake only as long as it is in the sky. When it is not in the sky, it disappears from the lake also. Now if we hang an artificial moon in the sky so that it never moves away, then its reflection will always be there in the lake. It will never disappear from the lake, because as long as the moon does not move away, its reflection in the lake will not move away.

Try to understand this. It is subtle, and a complete understanding of man's inner mechanism is necessary.

If this situation continues for a long, long time, the lake itself may begin to suspect that the image is its own and not a reflection of the moon, because it never disappears. The sun rises in the morning every day and the moon rises in the night, but they also set and their reflections vanish from the lake, leaving it empty. Thus there is an interval every day, and the lake can come to remember that the sun came and it has gone now, the moon came and it has gone now, and that, "I am merely a mirror, a lake."

The consciousness is deep within you; in front of it is the mind and in front of the mind is the world.

In the world everything is changing, changing every moment. In the mind nothing changes; mind is photographic, static. So whatever picture from the world is imprinted on the mind, it remains stuck in the mind forever. That stuck picture appears stuck in the consciousness also - it is always there. This creates an illusion that consciousness and the mind are one and the same. They both appear to be one, because no distance between the two is visible. Whatever is seen in the mind, it is also seen in the consciousness; there seems to be no border line between the two. Therefore this illusion: the world seems to be superimposed in the consciousness, and it appears as if the world has entered into the soul.

Nothing ever enters into the consciousness, everything enters into the mind. So as long as we have not learned the art of removing the mind from in between so that the consciousness and the world can come face to face without the mind being there as a middleman, so that the world of mind does not come in between, so that the projections of the mind are not there - till then we shall not come to know that everything was imposed from the outside. "I am the Brahma, not the world, and I am the consciousness, not the body. It only appeared that I was the body because the picture was imprinted in the mind that I am the body." The same picture was reflecting in the consciousness. Nor is there in reality any greed, or anger, or sex in the consciousness. These are all in the mind and all the images in the mind are reflecting inside, and they have been reflecting for so long, for such an eternity, that it is only natural to fall into the illusion that it is not a reflection or an image, that it is your very nature.

Remember, your body is destroyed in every life. But what about the mind? The mind is not destroyed, and your mind transmigrates from one life to the other. When you die your body is left behind, but not the mind. The mind is dropped only when you are enlightened.

Even death is not capable of destroying the mind; death destroys only the body, not the mind.

Mind goes beyond the death also. Only samadhi, enlightenment, is capable of destroying the mind.

Therefore those who know have called samadhi the great death, because in death only the body dies, but in samadhi both the body and the mind die and only the one survives - that which is deathless and cannot die.

Thus the mind goes on forming, accumulating and increasing over the endless span of time, and all the time, always, whether there is body or there is no body, the mind remains attached to the soul.

The shadow of the mind remains constantly on the soul. And slowly, slowly the soul also begins to feel, "Whatsoever is there in the mind is what I am."

This is our world, this is our knot. The only way of opening this knot is to be without the mind for a while; to move the mind aside and come face to face with the world - not to have a broker, a middleman in between. If we can have even a single glimpse of the world directly, without the presence of the mind in between, we shall come to remember clearly that nothing has ever entered the consciousness, that the inner mirror is ever clean and spotless, that no images have ever stuck to it. All images have come and gone; the events of lives upon lives have happened, but no trace, no scratch has ever been left on the consciousness.

The experience of that spotless nature is the param brahma, the supreme ultimate reality. When Brahma, the ultimate reality, associates with the mind it becomes the world; when Brahma dissociates from the mind it becomes Param Brahma, the supreme ultimate reality. And when the soul associates with the mind the body becomes inevitable, because satisfaction of the passions of the mind are not possible without the body. Mind impels and excites passions, but they cannot be fulfilled without a body.

You may have heard, and it is now fast becoming a scientific reality, that some ghost has entered into the body of a person. Some would call it a superstition, some would call it an illness, some would call it this or that, but you may have never thought that even if ghosts are there, why do they enter into other human bodies? You may perhaps think that it may be some old enemy who has entered to torture the person. You may think perhaps it is a matter of some revenge, some fruition of karma, of past actions, some settlement of past deeds. No, nothing of that sort.

A ghost is a consciousness whose body has dropped but not the mind. And the mind demands a body, because all desires and passions of the mind can be fulfilled only through a body. Its mind wants to touch some lovely body, but the ghost cannot touch it because it has no hands; its mind wants to taste some delicious dish... The ghost still has the mind which desires to taste things, but it does not have the tongue. So the problem of a ghost is that it has a mind, but no senses through which to fulfill these desires. The whole complex of desires is intact with the mind, but all the means for their fulfillment are missing.

The whole meaning of a ghost-soul is one who has not yet received a body. There are two types of souls which have difficulty in getting a body. Ordinary persons get a new body easily; one died here and is conceived there, there is no gap. Sometimes there is at the most a gap of a minute, two minutes or five minutes. Normally you died here and are conceived there immediately. But the extreme souls, the most evil souls or the most noble souls, do not find conception easily because they need suitable wombs. If a Hitler dies, it would not be easy for him to find parents, because to give him birth equally evil parents are needed. So for years, sometimes for centuries, they have to wait. The difficulty is similar for a noble soul also.

The noble souls that wander without a body we have called devas, gods; and the evil souls that wander without a body we have called preta, the ghosts.

Whenever there is a moment when a person is so weak that his soul shrinks in his body, some ghost enters in him - neither for harassing him nor for torturing him, but for satisfying its own desires through his body.

If you are weak and without any will, some ghost can push his way inside you, because it does not have a body and its desires are burning. That ghost will touch some woman through your hands, will taste some food through your tongue, will see some beauty through your eyes and will listen to some music through your ears. It is for these reasons that ghosts enter into someone's body, not to harass the person. You are harassed in the process, but that is a by-product, not the motive of any ghost. But certainly when two souls are residing in the one body, trouble and harassment is bound to be there.

That harassment is like that of a guest coming to one's house and then staying for good, not even thinking of leaving. Slowly the guest starts beginning to expand his territory in the house and the owner of the house begins to shrink into a corner; and slowly, slowly there comes a time when it is no longer clear as to who is the guest in the house and who is the owner of the house. And the guest? His conceit goes on welling up because the owner serves him, for he is a guest and "a guest is God." Thus the guest starts falling into the illusion that he is the owner; and one day he asks the actual owner to leave, for it has been too long that he has stayed in his house. A situation of suffering may arise. The mind demands a body immediately after the death, hence the new birth.

The soul is associated with the mind and the mind is associated with the body.

There are two types of spiritual disciplines. One spiritual discipline is of separating the body from the mind, which we often call asceticism. This is a very long journey, arduous, and the outcome is uncertain. The other spiritual discipline is of separating the mind from the consciousness, which we call vedanta, the path of knowledge. If we want to assign proper names they would be: separating the mind from the body is named yoga, and separating the mind from the soul is named sankhya, knowledge. These are the only two disciplines.

Sankhya means that knowledge alone is sufficient, nothing else is required to be done; and yoga means, much would have to be done, and only then something would be possible.

This sutra is of sankhya, knowledge. It says, the delusion of things being in one's soul is an imposed phenomenon.

Dropping it, one is oneself the perfect, non-dual and actionless brahma, the absolute reality.

Nothing else is to be done.

The world that appears as a different thing from the soul is almost untrue.

Hence I was saying that the monk told Buddha that the handkerchief was almost changed. This sutra says that this whole world of divisions which is seen is almost untrue. Because, WHERE IS - and how can there be - the division in a pure, formless and organless entity?

Almost untrue - this is a very valuable philosophical concept. And it is necessary to understand it a little, because what is meant by 'almost untrue'? Something can be untrue, this is understandable, but what is meant by almost untrue? Something is true, this can be understood, but when someone says 'almost true', what would that mean? This 'almost' disturbs everything. It is like you say to somebody, "I almost love you." Now this disturbs everything. If there is love, say, "Yes, there is love," if not, say, "There is no love," but what is this "almost in love"? What to call it: love, non-love or what?

If you say a certain person is "almost a saint," what would it mean?

This word almost is precious and valuable in Indian philosophy. India has created a new category, a new level of thinking. In the philosophy of the whole world there are two categories of thought: of truth and of untruth. In Indian philosophy there are three categories of thought: of truth, of untruth and of almost truth - a third, in between category. This 'almost true' or 'almost untrue' we have called maya, the illusion, or mithya, the false. Thus we have created three words: satya, the truth, asatya, the untruth, and mithya, the false. Now, what is meant by this mithya? Ordinarily, people understand that mithya means untrue, a lie. No, mithya does not mean untruth; it means something in between the truth and the untruth. In between the true and the untrue? It means that which is untrue but appears as true.

It is dark and there is a rope lying on the road and it appears to you as a snake. In the darkness you lose all courage. You are on the run, sweating profusely, your heart racing fast. Then somebody says, "You are frightened and troubled unnecessarily. Take this lamp and go back and see for yourself; there is no snake, it is only a rope lying there." You then see it in the light and find it to be a rope. Now what will you call that snake you had seen? It certainly was not a true snake, but you cannot call it untrue either, because it worked as if it were true. You ran away from it just the way you would run away from a true snake; you perspired - and the perspiration was real; and it was caused by an unreal snake! Your heartbeat had increased and there was fear of a heart attack! A heart attack was very possible, and you could have died. And this is the puzzle: how does a true heart attack happen due to an untrue snake? But a true heart attack can happen due to an untrue snake. Indian philosophy is not prepared to call that snake altogether untrue.

The snake is definitely not true, because on investigation it is discovered that it is a rope lying there.

But it is not untrue either, because it brings the same results that a true snake will bring. This India calls, 'almost untrue', or 'almost true'; mithya - false, maya - illusion. This is the third, the middle category. It is difficult to translate it into the English language, it is difficult to find words for this category in other languages. Whatever translations are done, they carry the meaning of asatya - untruth, and not of mithya - the false. Mithya is purely an Indian word.

Take note of the meaning of mithya. It means what is not but appears as if it is. And there are things which are not but appear as if they are. So India says it is necessary to create a third category for such things.

This false world... You must have heard the vedanta describing this world as false so many times.

The Upanishads call it false, Shankara calls it false from morning till evening in his statements. So we come to think that they are all saying that this world is untrue. No, they are not calling it untrue; they are saying that it is like seeing a snake in a rope. This world is not appearing as what it is but is appearing as what it is not. It is an optical illusion, a defect of the vision.

It is like looking at the moon after pressing the eyes and thus seeing two moons. There is no second moon. But if you are asked while your eyes are in that condition as to which one is the true moon and which one is the untrue, you would not be able to answer correctly. Both appear to be true. But both are not true, and if you stop pressing the eyes you will see only one moon, the second one disappears. What was that other moon? It was, after all, seen by the eyes. If there was a way to keep somebody's eyes permanently pressed in this fashion, he would always be seeing two moons.

Our vision is pressed under the experiences, images and accumulations of the mind the whole time.

So we see what mind shows us.

Just imagine for a while that you are a resident of a country where snakes do not exist. You have never seen a snake, or their picture - you simply do not know the word snake. Now can you ever see a snake in a rope? It is not possible. How can you see one? If you have no experience of snakes, the rope may be lying there but how can a snake be seen in it?

The snake is seen in a rope because the mind has an association with the snake, an image, an impression of the snake; mind has seen a snake. You may have seen one in a picture, or in reality, or with a snake charmer - but you have seen one somewhere. That image is in your mind; it is hiding within your mind.

A rope is lying in the darkness; suddenly seen, the rope creates several illusions. The darkness creates fear. With this fear gets associated another fear that has arisen on seeing the snake, that it may bite you. With all this you start seeing on the rope even the wavy patterns of a snake's body.

Fear, fear of snakes, the similarity of the wavy patterns... the snake within your mind is projected on the rope. You escape. The rope is not even aware what has happened. What has made you run away, and why?

It happened once with me, many years ago. I used to get up at 3 a.m. in the night and go for a walk. It was a lovely night and the roadside was thickly covered by clusters of bamboo groves.

There was a slight opening at one point, otherwise it was covered all the way along. I used to run straight from one end to the other of that stretch one way and then run facing backwards the other way. In an hour - from 3 a.m. to 4 a.m. - I would do my exercise there. One day a weird thing happened. While I was running backwards and still under the bamboo-shaded area, a man - a milkman - was approaching me with all his empty containers on his way to collect milk from some dairy. Then suddenly as I emerged from the shaded area - it was a moonlit night - he could see me all of a sudden. A moment before I was not visible, so all of a sudden... and running backwards!

Only ghosts are known to run backwards!

That milkman threw the empty containers away and ran off. There was something odd about the way he ran off. I had no idea he had become so scared of me, so I ran after him to help. Now he ran for his life! The faster I ran after him, out of concern, calling him to stop, the more wind-like speed he was gaining. I had never before seen anyone run like that! Then I had an inkling that perhaps I was the only other person around here and he had become scared of me.

Hearing the noise of the falling containers and running feet, a man in the nearby hotel woke up. I went to him and asked him if he knew what had happened. He said, "If you are asking me, I know that you run backwards here every day, but still I get scared sometimes. That man must have been new on this road."

I said, "Keep these containers with you, maybe the man will return in the morning." He has not returned even until today! Whenever I have passed by that hotel again, I have inquired if that man has ever returned. That man never came back.

Now there is no way of telling that man that what he had seen was 'almost false'. There was no ghost there, but he managed to see it! For him the ghost was a complete reality, otherwise he would not have disappeared for that long a time. That man must have had some past experience that he imposed over the scene.

What really is is not what we are seeing, we are seeing what our eyes are showing us. Our mind is imposing things each moment and we are seeing who knows what, and it certainly is not out there in the world.

This whole world is the extension of our mind. What we see is projected by us. First we project and then we see. First we project a snake in a rope, then we see it and run away. This whole world is like that. We ourselves attribute beauty to somebody, then we become infatuated by it and then wander around maddened by it.

The seers of the Upanishads say that this whole world as seen by man is 'almost false'. In saying 'almost' a very beautiful thing has been said. What has been said is that it is not totally false, otherwise how could so many people have been troubled by it? Some reality is there in it. It is a rope, this much is true; it is not a snake, that much is false. The rope resembles a snake to a certain extent, that is true; but yet a rope is a rope and it does not become a snake, that too is true. And the world of fear that has arisen between these two, the world of seeing a snake in the rope - that is false, that is illusion.

As long as the mind is not totally removed and we are not able to see the world directly, we will not be able to see the truth of the world. As one sees the truth of the world, the world disappears and only the absolute reality remains. At the moment the absolute reality is seen divided. Somewhere the absolute reality is a stone, somewhere a tree, somewhere it is a man and somewhere a woman - the absolute reality is seen divided. If the whole projection arrangement behind the eyes is removed then this whole world becomes one pure consciousness, one ocean. All divisions fall.

The conscious-soul is free of the notions of seer, seeing and the seen, etcetera. It is immune and utterly full like the ocean at the time of deluge.

Where that inner witness is - that conscious-soul freed of mind and having become void - there is no division. Seeing, seen, all these notions have disappeared. Neither is there a seer, nor is there anything to be seen: all dualities have disappeared. There is only one expanse of consciousness there. For that expanse a beautiful simile has been used here, which says:

It is immune and utterly full like the ocean at the time of deluge.

Our oceans, however big they may be, are limited, and no matter what their expanse they still have coasts. Whoever or whatsoever has a boundary is incomplete, because it is bound. A small pond has a small boundary, a big ocean has a big boundary. What is the difference between a small boundary and a big boundary? A boundary is a boundary. You are imprisoned in a small place or in a very big place. What difference does that make? - a prison is a prison!

Therefore the example does not say, "like an ocean," it says, ... Like the ocean at the time of deluge.

The time of deluge, pralaya kal, is a mythological theory that when this creation, this world dissolves, it will be covered in water - the whole creation. There won't be even an inch of land left anywhere.

So the condition of the oceans at the time of the deluge is that there will be no border, no coast to them... because the very meaning of coast is that there is still some land left to border the ocean, and that land becomes its boundary.

The witnessing consciousness is like the ocean at the time of the deluge. It has no coastline left around it; it is absolutely full - there is no boundary anywhere to it, it is limitless. But this is true only when divisions drop. As long as there is division, there are limits.

Even as darkness dissolves in light... A marvellous thing has been said here, ... The cause of illusion dissolves in the unparalleled absolute reality which is without organs - so where is the division in it?

Even as darkness dissolves in light... A very unique insight. There is darkness in your house, and you light a lamp - did you ever think where the darkness goes? When you light the lamp, where does the darkness go? Does it go out of the house? So do one thing - first light a few lamps outside the house and keep a few people on watch. Then light a lamp in the dark cellar in the house. If the darkness goes outside, the people sitting outside will see it coming out of the house.

No, the darkness does not go outside. Where does darkness go then?

It is a very beautiful thing the Upanishad is saying, that the darkness merges into the light. It will be difficult to understand, because we consider light and darkness to be enemies. How can there be a merger? And we believe that they are opposites. There is struggle and conflict between the two and we want to leave darkness and hold on to light.

So it will be very difficult for us to believe that darkness merges into light. Our fear will be that if the darkness merges into light, all light will become darkness. For example, black ink merging into a white cloth: what will it mean in fact? It will not mean that the black ink will disappear in the white cloth, it will mean the white cloth will disappear into the black ink. Make an experiment and see.

Merge the black ink and a white cloth and see. Then you will find out that it is the white cloth that has disappeared, not the black ink.

Darkness dissolves in the light. Many other points arise out of this fact. First, it means there is no enmity between darkness and light. What will this mean? This will mean there is no enmity between the world and enlightenment, and that the world merges into enlightenment. It means there is no opposition between the false and the true, and that the false merges into the true.

The darkness merges into the light - it is as if the darkness was just waiting for the light to come so that it can merge into it. Have you ever seen darkness hesitating? When you light a lamp does the darkness think whether to merge or not to merge - "Let me think a little"? Or, "I will come back tomorrow after thinking whether to take sannyas or not." Or, "Should darkness merge or not! Let me think and ponder." No, it does not think. It seems as if it was just ready and waiting, waiting that, "You will appear and I will merge into you." It does not delay a bit, not even a moment. The appearance of light and the merging with darkness happens simultaneously.

What are its implications in spirituality?

Its implications are that as soon as the light arises within, the mind and its illusions, carrying all their situations with them, merge totally in that light. They do not survive, they cannot be found anywhere even with great searching. It becomes hard even to conceive how they were there until yesterday.

When you see a rope in a rope, you will have difficulty in understanding how until just a moment ago there was a snake in the rope and where it has gone now. You yourself will start having suspicions about yourself: have you fallen in some kind of delusion to even entertain the thought that it was there?... how could it be?

Those who are awakened find it difficult to even think that there is or there can be a world.

Just this morning I was talking to a sannyasin. She had come and she was asking when she would get rid of all this misery and anxiety: "Sometimes it appears that it has happened, but then again I revert to the same misery."

I told her that I am also in a difficulty. Slowly, slowly it has become very difficult for me to even understand how misery becomes possible, how it becomes possible for misery to occur. It is not that I was never in misery. I was, but now I find it difficult to understand.

It is as if somewhere far away in the past one might have seen a snake in a rope and now, on remembering, one finds it difficult to grasp how it was even possible to see a snake when it was a rope. And if somebody is still seeing the snake, it becomes a very difficult situation for me. The difficulty is that what is appearing to you like a great question is no longer a question at all to me.

And it feels that you are carrying all kinds of meaningless things with you. But to say so also feels wrong, because that person is suffering, running fast; he is still seeing the snake. If you say to a person who is running fast in fear, whose heart is shaking and sinking, "Why are you running and talking all this nonsense, it is a rope and not a snake," he will become very angry.

Remember, you have no idea of the difficulties of a Buddha, a Mahavira, a Krishna and a Christ in teaching you, because they have to give you treatment for a sickness which really does not exist at all. The sickness is simply not there, but the patient is trembling; the patient is complaining that he is dying.

In medical science there is the word placebo. This name is used for a medicine which is almost a medicine. Placebo means it is not a medicine at all; it works for a disease which is actually not a disease. It is an 'almost medicine' for an 'almost disease'. It works - it is just a sugar tablet.

Homeopathic medicines are more or less placebos, they are not medicines as such. But they work, because where is the real disease? No problem - medicine was not needed in the first place. Real medicine is needed only if there is real disease, and ninety out of a hundred diseases are unreal - common diseases included. And it is dangerous to give real medicine for an unreal disease because the medicine will then bring harmful effects.

This spiritual disease, this disease of misery and anguish, the disease of worldliness, is one hundred percent unreal. But it is not right to call it one hundred percent unreal - if Buddha says it or Shankara says it, it is a true statement on their part, but out of compassion for the millions and millions of people who are suffering from this disease they have to say 'almost'. These people have to be seduced, persuaded - try taking this medicine, repeat this mantra, recite these chants, do this, do that. Taking the medicine continuously, perhaps you will forget about the disease. Or taking the medicine continuously, perhaps you will become so fed up that you throw both the medicine and the disease away. Or taking the medicine continuously you will say, "Enough is enough, it has been enough taking the same medicine life after life, I will not take it any longer, now I accept the disease."

If anything like this happens you will find that there was no disease at all; the enemy you had been fighting with was not there at all - it 'almost was', it only appeared to be there.

Hence all religions have developed false devices, and it is difficult to find bigger liars than Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna and Christ! The reason for this is not that they are liars - there have never been truer people than these - but because all your diseases are false. And those who have to work to treat these falsely sick people, they know what they have to do.

All the big philosophies created by these wise people are false. False means 'almost false'. They are only devices to cut away your diseases.

For example, you have run away from a rope and believe it to be a snake. Now I may say a million times that it is not a snake but a rope, but it is only words and you will say, "How can I trust in what you are saying? Who knows, it may be your experience; it may not be! Even if you do have the experience it may be of some other rope, of some other snake. Who knows whether it is about this snake or this rope?"

Instead of trying to explain to you, it is better that I tie an amulet on you saying, "It is a snake and not a rope, but here, take this amulet - no snake in the whole world dares to face this amulet." This will be more effective. Instead of explaining that it is a rope and not a snake, put on this amulet. There is no real snake there, true, but here too there is no real amulet. But this amulet will give you strength, a confidence will arise in you that this is something real. And if this miracle can also be staged, that a rope is placed in the darkness of a house and you are taken to it wearing your amulet, and from a distance you see it to be a snake but on your coming closer it turns out to be a mere rope, then everything is solved - the amulet works! Then you may go anywhere in the world, and it may come to such a state that even a real snake appears to be a rope - the amulet!

The mind of man creates illusions. These illusions are self-imposed. All of these illusions merge in the ultimate truth. The moment the witness is experienced, the whole world, the whole panorama of our projections, shrink and merge in the witness - in the endless, coastless ocean.

The supreme reality is one singularity; how can there be division in it? The state of sushupti - dreamless deep sleep - is blissful; who has seen divisions in it?

Understand this last thing in this sutra: the state of sushupti, the dreamless deep sleep. Those who have searched into the inner layers, they have accepted three states of human consciousness. One we call the waking state, which prevails from the time we wake up in the morning. The second we call the dream state, which prevails during sleep when we see pictures and images of things. And the third state comes sometimes during sleep for a short while when there is neither dreaming nor waking but only a deep sleep - sushupti - remains. Sushupti means, such a deep sleep where not even dreams remain.

The Upanishads believe - no, one should say know - that no divisions remain during the sushupti state. They cannot remain because the very mind from where they were arising... When you are awake, the divisions are there. This is your house, the neighbor's house is not yours; you are poor, your neighbor is rich; you are black, your neighbor is white - thousands of divisions, they all remain there. These divisions are created by mind. You may have observed one very interesting fact - that the divisions remain in the dream state but the dividing lines disappear.

Understand this a little. In the waking state, the divisions are there and the dividing boundaries are there. There is a friend, there is an enemy; a friend is a friend, an enemy is an enemy; in the waking state A is A and B is B. However, during the dream state the divisions are there but their dividing boundaries in between are lost. Divisions are no longer solid, they become liquid. You are seeing that a friend is approaching and suddenly he turns into an enemy! And you do not even have doubt, in the dream you do not even question how this can be possible! You were talking to a man, and he suddenly turns into a horse. Still you do not doubt during the dream that a man can suddenly become a horse.

Boundary lines do not remain. Divisions remain - a man is a man, a horse is a horse - but the boundary lines do not remain; everything becomes liquid, everything is mixed up as if mind is shaken. During the waking state things remain clearly separate, logical, rational and distinct. During the dream state the mind gets unsettled. It is as if a reflection of the moon was there in the water, then somebody disturbed the water and the reflection was then divided into thousands of pieces and the moon was spread all over the water. The moonlight remained, but not the moon; it was broken into pieces. In the same way the mind is shaken in the dream state. Thus shaken and unsettled, all boundary lines are lost. Things are mixed up with each other. Nothing is clear anymore as to what is what, what is A and what is B, when A turns into B and no logic is followed?

Dreams do not believe at all in logic, they proceed in a non-understandable manner. Anything trespasses into anything, and you cannot say why it is happening like this. There are no rules in the dream state. The rules of the waking state do not function there.

The third state is sushupti, the dreamless deep sleep. Even dreams no longer remain here. And remember, where dreams cease the mind also ceases. Where there are no thoughts there can be no mind.

In the waking state the mind is solid, in the dream state it is liquid, and in the deep sleep state it disappears like a vapor. These are the three states of all matter that science recognizes. India has recognized these three states for the mind also. Science says there are three states of matter: solid, liquid and gaseous. If you make ice of water it has become solid; if you make steam of it, it has become vaporous. So water has three states: steam, water, ice. Every material in the world has three states. But India says mind is also matter and it too has three states. Waking is the solid state, dreaming is the liquid state and deep sleep is the vaporous state - mind simply vaporized, it simply is not there. In deep sleep no sense of anything remains. No sense will remain, because there remains no sensor. The whole world becomes one.

In sushupti you reach the same place which sages attain in samadhi, the supreme awakening. The only difference is that the sage is fully conscious while you are unconscious. The deep sleep state and samadhi are the same with only a slight difference, but it is a big difference. The sage attains sushupti fully awake and full of consciousness - then it becomes samadhi, the supreme awakening.

Deep sleep plus awareness is equal to samadhi.

You also reach there daily. You report it when you get up in the morning saying, "I had a very pleasant deep sleep." Had there been dreams going on the whole night you would never have said that you had a pleasant deep sleep. Then you would have said, "I had a restless night; there were dreams upon dreams, I could not sleep at all." When dreams cease you have a pleasant sleep. But when you are actually having deep sleep you are not aware that it is pleasant and good, because even that much cannot be sensed while sleeping in the unconsciousness. Only after waking up in the morning, you are left with a feeling of pleasantness, of well-being - as if a faint shadow, a far away but reverberating echo of pleasantness is left behind.

It is very interesting to note that so far no man has ever reported, upon waking up, that he had a very unpleasant deep sleep. Have you ever experienced it, that there were dreams and nightmares and... then it was not deep sleep. The deep sleep never came to you then. In the whole history of mankind no one has yet reported, "I had such a deep sleep in the night, with so many nightmares!"

Nobody has ever said so, it has simply never happened. How can anybody say so? A deep sleep is a pleasing sleep; no unhappiness can exist there.

Therefore we cannot call that pleasure a pleasure, we call it bliss, because pleasure has its opposite called sorrow, but bliss has no opposite to it. Therefore the deep sleep state is bliss; only one feeling remains - that of bliss without any division. Just as the deep sleep state is a singularity, similarly the experiencing of the witness is a singularity. Only bliss remains there. And just as the utterly full ocean of Pralaya kal - the time of the deluge, the dissolution of the universe - is limitless, coastless, with no shores, so is bliss without any divisions.

Enough for today.

Author : John Nguyen

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