Chapter 5
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Find Your Own Way30 October 1969 pm iation Camp at Dwarka, Gujarat, India
Question 1
A FRIEND HAS ASKED: YOU MENTIONED OHAT THERE IS NO OTHER TRUTH GREATER THAH.
YOU HAVE ALSO SAID SOMEWHERE THAT THERE IS NOTHING LIKE DEATH.
WHICH OF THE TWO STATEMENTS IS TRUE?
Both are true.
When I say there is no other truth greater thah, I am drawing your attention to the fact that the phenomenon of death is an enormous reality in this life -- in what we call life and uand as life; in terms of ones personality, which sists of what I describe as I.
This personality will die; what we call life will die too.
Death is iable.
Certainly, you will die and I will die, and this life will also be destroyed, turned into dust, erased.
When I say there is no reater truth thah, I want to remind you of the fact that we are all going to die.
And when I say that death is totally false, I want to remind you that within this I, within you, there is someone else who will never die.
And there is also a life that is different from what you believe to be life, a life without death.
Both these things are true; they are simultaneously true.
If you take only one of them to be true, you will not be able to prehend the whole truth.
If someone says that the shadow is a reality, that darkness is a reality, he is right.
Darkness exists and so does the shadow.
And if someone else says there is no darkness, he is right too.
What he is saying is that darkness does not have a positive existence.
If I ask you t me a couple of bags of darkness, you wont be able to.
A room is filled with darkness, and if you are asked to throw the darkness out, you wont be able to.
Or, if I say, "If darkness is in there, then please bring it out," you will be uo.
Why? It is because darkness has a ive existence; darkness is merely the absence of light.
Although darkness exists, heless it is only the absence of light.
And so if someoo say there is no darkness, he is right.
There is the presence of light and there is the absence of light, but there is nothing like darkness as such.
Thats why we do whatsoever we want with light, but with darkness we do nothing.
If you want to remove darkness, you will have t in light; if you want t in darkness, you will have to put out the light.
With darkness, nothing be done directly.
You are jogging along the road.
Your shadoears behind you; it also runs with you.
Everyone see the shadow; no one deny it.
A be said that there is no shadow because it has y of its own.
The shadow exists because your body obstructs the sunlight.
When the light is covered by your body, a shadow is formed; when the sun es above your head, no shadow is formed because the sunrays are not obstructed.
If we were to make a human figure of glass, no shadow would ever appear because the rays would pass through the glass.
When light is hindered, a shadow is formed; a shadow is merely an absence of light.
So if a person says the shadow exists, he is n.
But this is a half-truth.
He should further add that the shadow does .
Theruth bees plete.
This means a shadow is something which exists a does .
But with our way of thinking, we ot see anything unless it is divided into two indepe parts.
Once a man was tried for murder.
He had killed a man, and those who had seen the crime being itted had e forward as witnesses.
Oness said, "The crime was itted in the open and there were stars shining in the sky.
I saw the stars as well as the murder.
" He was followed by another eyewitness who said, "The crime was itted ihe house, he door, close to a wall.
There are bloodstains on the wall, and since I was standing beside the wall, my clothes were also stained with blood.
This murder took plaside the house.
"
The judge uzzled.
How could both be telling the truth? Obviously, one of them was lying.
The murderer began to laugh.
The judge asked what was so funny.
The man said, "Let me tell you that both of them are right.
The house was inplete; the roof had not yet been laid -- the stars could be seen above.
The murder took plader the open sky, but close to the door, close to the wall which bears the bloodstains.
The house was almost ready; the walls had been raised, only the roofing was not yet done.
So both are right.
"
Life is so plicated that evehings we find tradictory in it turn out to be right.
Life is highly plex.
Life is not the way we think it is -- it tains many tradis; it is very vast.
In one sense, death is the greatest truth -- because the way we are living will e to an end; we will die the way we are, and the framework we have created will also be destroyed.
Those we see as stituting our whole world -- wife, husband, son, father, friend -- they will all die.
A death is a falsehood, because there is someone who dwells ihe son who is not the son and who will never die.
There is someone who dwells ihe father who is not the father and who will never die.
The father, of course, will die, but there is someohin him besides -- different from the father, separate, more than aive -- who will never die.
The body will die but there is someohin the body who never dies.
Both these things are simultaneously true.
So both these things o be kept in mind to uand the nature of death.
Question 2
ANOTHER FRIEND HAS ASKED: THE THINGS WE WANT TO DESTROY -- SUCH AS THE S OF BLIND FAITH OR SUPERSTITION -- FIND EVEN MORE FIRMATION IN YOUR TALKS.
IT SEEMS, ACC TO WHAT YOU ARE SAYING, THAT THERE IS LIFE AFTER DEATH, THAT THERE ARE GODS AND THERE ARE GHOSTS, THAT THERE IS TRANSMIGRATION OF THE SOUL.
IN THAT CASE, IT WOULD BE DIFFICULT TO GET RID OF SUPERSTITIONS, WONT THEY BEE EVEN STRONGER?
Two things o be uood here.
One is: if something is accepted as a superstition without researg and iigating it properly, then that is tantamount to creating an eveer superstition; it shows a highly superstitious mind.
One man believes there are ghosts and evil spirits and you call him superstitious; you believe there are none and that makes you feel that you are very knowledgeable.
But the question is: what is superstition? If someone believes there are ghosts and evil spirits without any iigation, that is superstition; and if someone else believes there are no such things, without iigation, then that is superstition too.
Superstition means believing something without knowing it to be true.
Just because someone holds beliefs trary to yours does not mean he is superstitious.
A believer in God be as gullible as a nonbeliever.
We must uand the definition of superstition.
It means to believe in something blindly without verification.
The Russians are superstitious atheists; the Indians are superstitious theists -- both suffer from blind faith.
The Russians have never cared to discover there is no God and then believed it to be so, nor have the Indians tried to ascertain that God is before believing it to be so.
So do not be mistaken in thinking that theists alone are superstitious; atheists have their own superstitions too.
And the strahing is that there is also a stific superstition.
It sounds tradictory: how there be a stific superstition?
If you have studied geometry, you must have e across Euclids definition where he says a line has length but no breadth.
Now, what be more superstitious than this? There has never been a lih no breadth.
Childreaught that a point has her length nor breadth, and even the greatest stist works on the assumption that a point has h or breadth.
a poi without length and breadth?
We are all used to the digits ohrough nine.
One may well ask: is this ahan superstition? Why nine digits? No stist explain why nine digits.
Why not seven? Whats wrong with seven? Why not three? There are mathematis -- Liebnitz was one of them -- who got along with three digits.
He said: owo, three is followed by ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen; they, twenty-owenty-two, twenty-three.
His numbering system was such; he got along very well with it, and he challehose who disagreed with him to prove him wrong.
He questiohe need for nine digits.
Later oein said that even three digits are also unnecessary, that one eve along with two; it will be difficult with only one digit, but one mah two.
That there should be nine digits in mathematics is a stific superstition.
But the mathemati is not ready to give up either.
He says, "How you work with less than nine digits?" So this is just a belief too; it has no more significe than that.
From a stific point of view we believe thousands of things to be right, but they are actually superstitions.
Stists are also superstitious, and in this age religious superstitions are fading while stific superstitions are growing.
The differeweewo is simply that if you ask a religious person how he came to know about God he will say it is written ia, and if you ask him how he came to know there are nine digits in arithmetic, he will say it is written in sud-such a mathematis book.
What is the differeweewo? One kind of answer is found ia, in the Koran; another kind of answer is found in a book of mathematics.
What is the differehis shows we have to uand what is really meant by superstition.
Superstition means that which we believe in without having knowledge of it.
t many things and we reject many things without knowing anything about them -- this is superstitious too.
Suppose a man in a village is possessed by a ghost.
Educated people will say it is superstition.
Let us assume the uneducated people are superstitious; we have already brahem as superstitious because, being uneducated, these simple people are uo offer any argument in favor of their belief.
So all the educated people of the village maintain that the story of this man being possessed by an evil spirit is fake, but they dont know that at a uy like Harvard, in America, there is a department dug researto ghosts and spirits.
The department has even circulated photographs of them.
They have no idea that, currently, some highly reized stists are deeply involved in researto ghosts and spirits, and have attained so mas that sooner or later they will e to see that it was they, the educated men, who were superstitious, and that those they called superstitious may not have known anything about what they believed in, although what they were saying was right.
If you read Ryon or Oliver Lodge, you will be amazed.
Oliver Lodge was a Nobel prizewinning stist.
Throughout his life he was involved in iigating ghosts and spirits.
Before his death, he left a dot in which he said, "All the truths of sce I have discovered are not half as true as ghosts and spirits.
But we have no knowledge of them because the superstitious educated do not care to find out about the discoveries happening in the world.
"
If one man says he read anothers mind, we will call it superstition.
In Russia, where there are what we may call rigorous stists, there is a man by the name of Fiodev.
He is a great Russian stist.
Sitting in Moscow, he has unicated his thoughts, without any visible means, to the mind of a person sitting a thousand miles away in Tiflis.
This was examined stifically and found to be correct.
Stists are engaged in this kind of research because sooner or later it will be useful in space travel.
In the event of a meical failure in a spaceship, which is alossible, through these means stists establish tact with the travelers.
Otherwise the spaceship may be lost forever.
It is out of this that Russian stists are dug intensive researto telepathy and have achieved some astoundis.
Fiodev carried out his research with the help of a friend.
A thousand miles away in Tiflis, his friend hid himself behind a bush in a garden with a wireless set in his hand, and he and Fiodev stayed in touch with each other.
After a while he informed Fiodev that a man had arrived and sat on benumber ten.
He asked Fiodev to send this man a message to go to sleep within three minutes.
The man was wide awake; he was smoking and humming away to himself.
Fiodev began sending him suggestions -- the same as I do -- that "You are relaxing, you are relaxing.
" From a distance of a thousand miles, for three minutes Fiodev suggested intensely, "Go to sleep, go to sleep," and, trating on benumber ten, he tinued suggesting the same thought, "Go to sleep, go to sleep.
" Ily three mihe man sitting on the bench was asleep, the cigarette fallen from his hands.
But this could have been a ce.
Perhaps the man sitting on the bench was tired and so he had fallen asleep.
And so the friend told Fiodev that the man had indeed fallen asleep, but that it could be a ce, so he asked Fiodev to wake him up ily seven minutes.
Fiodev kept suggesting to that man to wake up, and in seven minutes precisely the man opened his eyes and got up.
The man on the bench was a total stranger; he had no idea what was happening, and Fiodevs friend approached him and asked if hed felt anything unusual.
The man said, "Yes, I certainly did.
I was very puzzled.
I came here to wait for somebody, and suddenly I felt that my body was about to fall asleep.
I lost trol ao sleep.
And then I felt strongly as if someone was telli up, get up.
Get up in seven minutes! I t figure any of this out.
" The man had no idea what had happened.
unication of thought without any medium has bee a stific truth, but an educated man would call it superstition.
It is possible that a sick man iown be cured from a faraway town; its not too difficult.
Its also possible that a se be healed from a distance of thousands of miles; theres not much difficulty to it.
But there are many different kinds of superstitions.
And remember, the superstition of an educated man is always more dangerous than that of an uneducated man, because the educated man does not sider his superstition to be superstition.
For him it is a result arrived at after great deliberation.
Now this friend says we have to break the s of superstition.
First make sure there are any s, otherwise you may break somebodys arms and legs in the process.
s only be broken if there are any.
What if there are none? You must also make sure that what you believe is a that o be broken does not happen to be an or you may have to remake.
All these things require very careful sideration.
I am absolutely against superstition; all kinds of superstitions must be destroyed -- but this does not mean that I am superstitious about this destru.
It does not mean one should go about destroying them without a clear uanding of them, that without due sideration one should simply be bent upon breaking them.
Then such arbitrary destru will also bee superstition.
Every age has its own superstitions.
Remember, superstitions have their fashion too.
In every age superstitions take on a new form.
Man drops old superstitions and takes on new ones, but he never gets rid of them forever; he alters them and he ges them.
But we never realize this.
For example, once upon a time there erstition that the man lied tilak, the forehead mark, was sidered religious.
What has applying tilak to do with being religious? But thats the way it was uood.
And someone who didnt apply the tilak was looked down upon as irreligious.
This old superstition is no longer in vogue.
Now we have new superstitions, equally as foolish.
If a man wears a tie he is sidered distinguished; otherwise he is sidered ordinary.
It is the same thing, there is no differe all.
The tie has replaced the tilak, while the man has remaihe same.
Where is there any difference?
The tie is er thailak.
Perhaps its even worse, because at least there was a meaning to applying the tilak.
The tie has absolutely no meaning in this try, although it may have a meaning in some other try.
A tie is useful in cold tries where it helps protect the throat against cold.
In those tries, a man who ot afford to cover his throat against the ust obviously be a poor man.
A man of means is able to cover his throat with the help of a ie; however, when somebody puts a tie around his ne a hot try such as this, then it seems a little scary -- one wonders whether such a man is affluent or insane!
To be affluent does not mean one has to suffer from heat or wear this noose around his neck.
A tie means a noose; a tie means a knot.
Using it in a cold try makes sense, but in a hot try it is totally meaningless.
A, a man who has an idea of dignity -- the magistrate, the attorhe politi -- is out there with this noose around his neck! And these very people denouhe tilak wearers as superstitious! One well ask them, "Isnt wearing a ie a superstition too? Which stific system are you applying, that you have tied this tie around your neck?" But sihe tie is a superstition of this age it is acceptable, and sihe tilak is a superstition of the past, it is uable.
As I said earlier, as the tie has some meaning for people in cold tries, applying a tilak also have meaning, but without first looking into it, it is utterly dangerous and wrong to call it a superstitiht away -- you may not have given any thought as to why a tilak is applied.
People mostly apply it out of superstition; however, there was some stific reason when people applied it for the first time.
Actually, tilak is applied on the forehead at the spot betweewo eyes where the agya chakra, the third-eye chakra, is located.
Even with a little meditation this spot gets hot; however, it cools down with the application of sandalwood.
The application of sandalwood is a highly stific teique, but now it is lost; people are not ed with that symore.
Now anybody goes on applying sandalwood whether he has any knowledge of the agya chakra or has ever done aation or not.
It is strao find people wearing ties in hot tries.
Wearing a tie have a stific basis in cold tries, and similarly, a tilak has a stific meaning for one who meditates on the agya chakra because sandalwood cools that spot.
Meditating on the agya chakra, stimulation occurs a is created in that area -- and it needs cooling down or else it will harm the brain.
But were we determio remove the tilak altogether, we would of course take it away from those who are wearing it pointlessly, but we would also be removing it from the forehead of the puy who may have applied it for his own reason.
And if he wont remove it, we will call him superstitious.
What I am saying is that there is no way you determine what is superstitious and what is not.
Actually, the same thing be a superstition under one dition and stifider different ditions.
Something which might appear to be stifider a certain dition may appear uifider a differe of ditions.
For example, in Tibet there is a practice of taking a bath once a year -- which is quite stific, because there is no dust in Tibet and, being in a cold climate, people do not sweat.
So they doo bathe.
Taking a bath every day would simply harm their bodies; it would cause them to lose much body heat.
And how are they going to replace that heat? It could prove very costly to stay uncovered in Tibet.
If mao keep his body uncovered for a whole day, he would need forty pert more food to replace the calories lost.
In a place like India, if a man goes about without clothes he is revered as a renunciate.
Mahavira was sensible: he remained naked -- and in a hot try like this, the more the heat leaves the body, the cooler it feels inside.
But if a follower of Mahavira were to arrive in Tibet naked, he would deserve to be admitted to a mental asylum.
To appear in Tibet like this would be absolutely uific, stupid.
But thats how it always happens.
When a Tibetan lama es to India, he never bathes.
Once I stayed with Tibetan lamas in Bodh Gaya.
They were stinking so badly it was a torture to sit hem.
When I asked why they were like that, they replied, "We follow the rule of bathing only once a year.
" This is where I make the distin between superstition and sce.
That which is a s Tibet is a superstition in India.
Here, these lamas are stinking without realizing their bodies are perspiring heavily and that there is much dust all around.
We have no idea, but there are some tries where there is no dust at all.
When Khrushchev first came to India he was taken to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, and on the way he saw a whirlwind of dust taking shape.
He had the car stopped, got out and stht in the middle of the whirlwind.
He was so happy.
He said, "I am so lucky, I have never had su experience before.
" We wouldnt feel lucky to be caught in so much dust.
But where he es from there are piles of snow, not dust.
It was a fasating experience for him, as it is for us when we are in snow.
How excited we feel when we walk on snow in the Himalayas.
So do into breaking things simply believing them to be s, without first taking into sideration the age, the ditions, and their usefulness.
A stifid is that which always hesitates.
A man with a stifid never makes a decision in haste,<dfn>99liｂ?</dfn> saying, "This is right and that is wrong.
" Rather he always says, "Perhaps this may be right, but let me search more and more.
" Even at the end of his search he never es to a decision and says with finality, "Okay, this is wrong, so destroy it.
" Life is so mysterious that nothing be said in such defierms.
All we say is, "So far, we have known this much, and based upon this knowledge sud-such a thing appears to be wrong" -- thats all.
A man with a stific attitude will say, "Based on the information available so far, sud-such a thing does not seem to be right today; however, with added information it may appear right tomorrow.
Something which is right today may prove to be wrong tomorrow.
" Such a man never makes a hasty decision about what is right and what is wrong.
He always keeps on searg with an inquiring and humble mind.
There is fun in holding on to a superstition, and there is also fun in breaking it.
The fun in holding on to a superstition is that it spares us the trouble of thinking -- we believe what everyone else believes.
We dont even want to ask the reason behind it, or why its so.
Who wants to bother? One simply follows the crowd.
Its veo have superstitions.
And then there are people who are out to crack superstitions -- that too is very ve.
The man who cracks them appears to be rational, without actually being rational.
Its not easy to be rational; to see things rationally is to strain every nerve.
This man looks into things so closely it bees difficult for him to make any categorical statement.
And so his statements are always ditional.
He will say, "Under such ditions it is valid not to bathe in Tibet, while uher ditions it is utterly superstitious not to bathe in India.
" The man who thinks rationally will speak this kind of language.
Oher hand, a social reformer shows no for what he is saying: he is ed with destroying things; he wants to destroy certain things.
I say: go ahead aroy -- there are many things which have to be destroyed -- but the first thing that has to be destroyed, however, is thoughtlessness.
The tendency to act without first giving something rational thought is the primary thing that o be destroyed.
So what it means is: if you destroy something without first giving it proper thought, then such destru has no value.
The tendency to think rationally has to be created, and the tendency to believe thoughtlessly has to be destroyed.
This will lead us to see different texts, deeper meanings.
Then we will make an intensive search; we will think and reason.
Then we will sider all the possibilities.
Psyalysis is very popular in the West, and the iing thing is that psyalysis is doily the same kind of work as the good old witch doctor did in the villages.
Nowadays, in Frahere is an active sect created by Cuvier.
Cuvier works on the same principles as the witch doctor did, except that Cuvier is a stist and he uses stific terminology -- other than that everything is the same; there is no difference.
You will be amazed to know that when a sadhu, a mendit, an ordinary man of the village, with no knowledge of medie, gives a pinch of ash to a sick man in the name of God, we call it superstition.
A, it works as effectively, and people are cured in the same proportion as with allopathic treatment.
It is very iing -- the same ratio.
Many experiments are being carried out in this area.
A unique experiment was ducted in a London hospital.
A hundred patients with the same illness were divided into two groups.
Fifty were given the regular iion, while the other fifty were ied with water.
And the amazing thing is that the ratio of cured patients in both cases was the same.
So the question was raised: whats going on?
In view of this experiment, it became necessary to examihe issue more closely.
And what became clear was that the idea, the feeling that medie is being given, works more than the medie itself.
Also, even the medie, the dispensing of the medie itself, does not work so much as does the idea of how expehe medie is and how well known the doctor is.
A lesser known doctor fails in his treatment not because he does not know his profession, but only because he is not very well known.
A well reized dopresses a patient at once.
With his impressive attire, the overbeari up, his fees, his big car, the long wait for an appoi, the crowd, the standing in line -- you are already so impressed that whether he knows what he is giving you or not has very little effect.
The truth is that to be a good doctor you dont need a first class knowledge of medie, what you need is an excellent knowledge of advertising.
The question is how well you publicize yourself.
Publicity pays more, not the medie.
Retly, a medical survey revealed that in Frahere are about eighty thousand physis and about one hundred and sixty thousand quacks.
Wheieired of the practig physis, he is cured by those who have no knowledge of medie.
But they know the trick of how to treat a patient.
Thats why you see so many kinds of pathies prevalent.
you imagine -- all these different kinds of pathies abounding in this age of sce? Even naturopathy works -- a bandaging of mud oomach works; an enema with water works; the witch doctors charms work.
Even homeopathy, which sists of nothing but tiny sugar pills, works.
These all work, and so does allopathy.
So the question arises: how does a patie well? If a village quack prescribes a little dust and cures his patients, then we will have to think carefully; we will have to be ed about whether to break such superstitions or not.
The man with a stethoscope around his ned a big car is also able to cure patients through his stific means.
But a magic is w there too -- the magic of the car, of the stethoscope.
I know one quack.
He has no degree from any uy, a he has cured many patients I sent to him, patients who had otherwise been pronounced incurable by other doctors.
The man is smart; he has a remarkable uanding of human nature.
Actually, thats how one happens to be a professional physi! So if you go to his ic for treatment, your diagnosis will be ducted in such a way that half your illness will go away while you are still being diagnosed.
He is aremely clever doctor; all other doctors feel quite intimidated by him.
He has a large, impressive and serious-looking sulting room with a big table on which he makes the patient lie down.
Above the patients chest hangs a thing which looks like a stethoscope.
This traption is ected to two transparent tubes taining colored water.
When he applies the stethoscope-like traption to the patients chest, the heartbeat causes the water iube to jump.
The patient looks at the jumping water and is vinced he has e to a great doctor indeed; he has never seen such a doctor before.
The thing he uses is a sort of stethoscope, except that he doesnt ect it to his ears, he watches the rising and falling of the water iubes, and this assures the patient that he is no ordinary doctor.
Do you know why an allopathic doctor writes prescriptions in such illegible handwriting? The reason is that if you could read it, you would find it is su ordinary thing that you could even go and buy it in the market -- and so it is deliberately written with such skill that you are uo read it.
The truth is, if you were to take this same prescription back to the doctor, he himself wouldnt be able to figure out what hed written.
Another iing thing is that the names of all medies have to be written in Latin and Greek.
The reason is simple: if he were to write in English, Hindi ujarati, you would never pay him ten or fifteen rupees for an iion; you would know it is nothing but a co of caraway seeds.
These are all magical tricks.
It is the same as the villager who gives his patients a pinch of ash.
But this will not be effective either if he looks like an ordinary man.
If he is dressed, however, in an ochre robe, it will have more effect.
And if the man is known to be ho, virtuous, kind and truthful, the pinch of ash will be far more effective.
If it is known that he does not charge mohat he does not even touch mohe ash will have arifying effect.
So it is not the ash that works, it is the other factors which are at work.
It needs careful sideratioher or not such cures be allowed to tinue, because, if you ban this type of cure, others equally as false will have to be found to replace them.
It never ends.
Man must be made to think so that he does not fall sick out of ignorance, so that he does n pseudo illnesses upon himself.
As long as fake illnesses keep happening, fake doctors will keep on appearing as well.
If you remove the old, pseudo methods, new ones will crop up -- and if you then remove these, new ones will be born.
There are so many types of treatment in the world, but there is no way to decide whie is right; they all claim to be successful in g illnesses.
And their claims are valid -- they do cure illnesses.
The more we probe into the human psyche, the more it bees clear that the disease exists somewhere in the human mind.
As long as the disease exists in the human mind, the pseudo treatments will also tio exist.
Hence, I am not so much ed with doing away with pseudo methods, I am more ed with putting ao the disease in the human mind.
If the disease in the human mind disapp<mark></mark>ears, if mans sciousness awakens, if he bees discriminating, he will not be surrounded by annoying troubles.
It is not that you go and collect ash because a man distributes it in a village -- no, it is because you are eager to collect the ash; thats why someone has to distribute it.
No one bees your leader on his own -- but you ot live for a sed without ohats why somebody has to bee the leader.
If you remove one leader, you will find another -- and if he is removed you will find a third.
And, in fact, while you are removing one leader you will have first made sure who you want for your .
And so leaders all over the world know very well the need for leading opposition parties.
They know, with fidehat when the people get fed up with one leader they will automatically elect the sed, and when they get tired of the sed they will replace him with the first.
Thats why two-party politics goes on all over the world.
Everywhere, people are the same.
I was in Raipur during the last eles.
A friend of mine, an old resident of Raipur, had been successively elected several times as a member of parliament, but this time he was defeated.
Another friend of mine who was totally unknown and had retly settled in Raipur was elected in his place.
I asked my friend how this happened.
How did he lose and a total newer win the ele?
He said, "Its very clear.
People have bee too used to me.
This man is a new face; people dont know him yet.
Dont worry, let him bee a familiar figure and he will be defeated too.
I will have to bide my time until then.
By then I will be unfamiliar once again, and then I will have the upper hand.
"
Deep down, it is not a question of whether to remove this leader or that leader, whether to do away with this superstition or that superstition -- that is not the issue.
The question is t about a fual ge in man.
A stifid will not care much about superstition, but superstition will tio exist as long as man is tent with his blindness.
If a man is not ready to open his eyes, then blindness is bound to exist.
A me ask: who among us is really willing to open his eyes? None of us is willing to see with our eyes open, because with our eyes open we may see truths we dont want to see.
Thats why we close our eyes and see whatsoever we fancy.
Have you ever opened your eyes and observed closely what life is like? Have you ever seen yourself with your eyes open? That you never want to do, because then you will see horrifying things.
Everyone siders himself to be absolutely pious, a mahatma.
If he were to open his eyes and look closely, he would find, to his horror, the greatest sinner of all hidden within himself.
He doesnt want to see that, of course, because then it will be difficult for him to be a mahatma.
And so he shuts his eyes to himself.
And not only that, in doing so he uses those people who help him shut his eyes -- around him he gathers all those people who e and tell him what a great mahatma he is.
Thus he goes on gathering followers.
Around him, he gathers all those people who cooperate in keeping him blind.
And there are many wonderful tricks for colleg people; incredible deceptions are practiced in this respect.
One of the tricks fathering people is to keep on shouting, "Dont e near me! I dont want anyone around me!" People are terribly impressed with this trick.
They flock to such a man.
The more he drives them away, the greater the mahatma they think he is.
An ordinary mahatma would wele people, but this one swings his staff and sends them away.
He shows no for anyone.
I have heard about a man who had wandered a bea California for years.
He had bee a kind of attra.
The story that went around about him was that he was such a simple man that if you offered him a ten-dollar bill and a dime, he would pick up the dime c<bdo>99ｌib?</bdo>heerfully.
Thats how i he was.
Out of curiosity, a man visited him five or six times and always found him surrounded by a crowd.
People would ask, "Baba, what do you want -- this or that?" and he would pick up the dime at once, saying he liked it, he liked the shine of it.
People found him su i man.
The an found it hard to believe that even after so many years this fellow could nen-dollar bill! That was too munoce! One evening, after the crowd had disappeared, this an approached the fellow and said, "I have been watg you for the last twenty years, and I am astoo find this game going on for so long.
Do you still nen-dollar bill?"
The fellow laughed, and said, "I k was a ten-dollar bill from the very first day, but if I had shown I reized it the game would have stopped right then and there.
By nnizing the bill, I have collected dimes from thousands of spectators.
If I reize it ohen that will be the only bill Ill ever have in my hand -- no other bill will e from these people afterwards.
So if I really want to make mohen I must spurn riches -- and the bills will start piling up on their own.
I have a good uanding of the whole thing; my job is going very well.
During the day, I collect up to five hundred dollars from the crowd.
The game will tinue for sure.
"
The so-called mahatma also knows the value of money, although if you talk to him about money, he will say he never even touches it.
But his disciple, sitting nearby, will pick up the s and put them in the safe -- because the mahatma ouches money!
What anyone do if a man wants to remain blind? Who will be stupid enough to do anything about it? That fellow on the beach is not the cause of mischief.
The mischief-mongers are those people roach him.
It is because of their mischief the poor fellow has to put o.
Let me tell you that if he had not do, somebody else would have dohe same thing.
And people are stupid: wherever they , they will tio do what they did with this fellow; they want somebody to snatch their money away from them.
Hence, such acts will tinue.
They only be brought to an end when we begin to destroy the stupidity of man.
So dont worry too much about breaking the s of superstition, because if the man who is wearing the remains the same he will make new ones.
He ot live without s.
The kind of man he is, he will create new s.
All religions strive to break these s, and every religioes a new -- so things remain the same.
The world has seen so many religions.
They were all fou about reforms; they all proclaimed their io eradicate all prevailing superstitions, but in the process of destroying superstitions nothing ever really gets destroyed.
Of course, those who are fed up with the old superstitions replace them with new ones and are very happy, feeling they have brought about ge.
In fact, an intelligent man never holds on to anything -- not even to any belief, let aloo superstition.
He lives intelligently; he doesnt hang on to anything.
He never creates any because he knows there is immense joy in living in freedom.
Dont create any s.
So the real question is to awaken enough sciousness in eadividual that will create a desire in him to bee free, to bee intelligent, to bee self-realized, to be filled with awareness.
If the tendency to live blindly -- to bee a follower, a pursuer, a believer in somebody -- could be reduced, all superstitions would crumble.
But in that case it would not be that one kind of superstition would break down and another would survive -- all would collapse; they would leave all at once.
Otherwise, they will remain forever.
Actually, what o be uood is that nothing happens by merely ging clothes.
Let anyone wear whatsoever he pleases.
If someone wants to wear ochre-colored clothes, let him do so, why stop him? If someone wants to wear black clothes, let him do so.
What one o realize is that a ge in clothes does not equal a ge in ones life.
Ohis is realized, then there is o ge clothes, because the man who will make you ge your clothes will immediately replace them with clothes of a new kind.
A sannyasin, wearing ochre clothes, went to see Gandhi and told him he was very impressed with his ideas and would also like to serve the try.
What Gandhi told him was highly signifit.
He said, "Thats fine, but first you will have to give up your ochre clothes, because they will e in the way of your service.
Generally, people serve those who wear ochre clothes rather than being served by them.
" This was very true.
But then Gandhi, having made him drop the ochre clothes, made him wear clothes of khadi, of handspun cotton.
Now those who are wearing khadi are doing things even the people wearing ochre clothes never did before.
What difference has it made? Now the khadi people are accepting service.
The poor ochre people never accepted as much service as those who are wearing khadi are doing now.
So khadi has proven to be very costly for this try.
The sannyasin was very happy that his superstition about ochre clothing had dropped -- but now he wears khadi; now he is holding on to the superstition of khadi.
Whats the difference?
The real question is not of letting people drop ohing and making them take on another.
The question is to e to uand that very mentality which holds on to things.
Gandhi did not sharpen that mans intelligence; he remained as stupid as ever.
He simply made him ge his clothes, and the ma very happy to do so.
But what difference did it make? This is how it has always been.
For the last five thousand years the story of humanity has been one of great misfortune.
By an effort to break doerstition we never ge the man, we simply do away with the superstition -- but then he creates a new superstition.
Whatever we offer, he seizes upon it.
"All right," he says, "let it be this.
Ill drop the other superstition and hold on to this one!" And we feel very happy because he has accepted our superstition.
A young mao visit me.
Day and night he used to talk about the scriptures.
He khe Upanishads, the Gita, the Vedas, by heart.
I told him, "Stop all this nonsense.
You will gain nothing from it!" He became very angry with me, but heless he tio visit me.
Someone who gets angry with you ops visiting you, because anger alss you into a relationship.
He was certainly angry at me, yet he still kept ing.
As the days went by and as he heard me more and more, something touched him.
One day he came to me and said, "I bundled up the Gita, the Upanishads, the Vedas, and threw them all in a well.
"
"When did I tell you to throw them away?" I asked.
"I had to empty my shelf in order to make room for your books.
Now I fully agree with your books," he said.
I said, "But this has made things more difficult.
Nothing has ged.
I was merely telling you not to agree with a book.
I never asked you to throw that book away and grab on to my book.
What difference has your doing so made?"
The so-called gurus feel very happy if their kind of superstition is held by people.
This is how, even though superstitions keep ging, man himself tio remain superstitious.
So I told the young man to throw my books into the same well too.
He said, "How that be possible?" He could never do that, he asserted.
So I said, "Then the whole thing has remained as it was.
Now my book has bee yita.
What was wrong with poor Krishnas Gita? If you o carry something, h<q></q>is Gita was suffit -- it served your purpose; it was much thicker than my book; it added enough weight to you.
How are things different now? When did I ever blame Krishna? When did I ever say that Krishna was at fault?
This is how it has always been -- and still is.
What simply happens is that man remains the same, only his toys ge.
I feel very happy if someoakes my toy; I feel delighted that at last someone has taken my idea.
My ego finds satisfa in seeing that someone has started to believe more ihan in Krishna.
But this does n about a ge in humanity; humanity ever be beed by this.
What we o be ed about is how to break, from within, this humaality that grabs on to things.
How man overe his blindness?
I suggest to this friend: do about breaking down superstitions; instead, ge the superstitious mind.
ge that mind which breeds superstition, so that a new man take birth.
But it is an arduous task; it will require a great deal of effort.
It is not an easy job.
To be aplished, it will require very stific thought.
Dont be in such a hurry to deny the existence of ghosts and evil spirits.
They are far more real than you.
There is no falsity about their existence, but you will have to explore.
And it so often happens that those who are scared of ghosts also begin to deny their existence.
They say so, not because they have bee very knowledgeable, the only reason is wish-fulfillment -- they dont want ghosts to exist, because if there are ghosts it will be difficult to walk down a dark alley.
So in a loud voice they keep repeating, "There are no ghosts.
Absolutely! It is all superstition; we will destroy the superstition!" What they are saying is they are very scared of ghosts.
If there really are ghosts it will cause a lot of trouble, so they should in the first place -- thats the wish.
Such a mind ever make ghosts ent.
If ghosts are, then they are.
Whether you believe it or not, it makes no difference.
What is, is, and its better we iigate it -- because whatever exists is related to us in one way or another; it is bound to be so.
He is more appropriate to uand them, them, and to find ways to establish tact with them, to figure out how to i with them.
Its not an easy matter.
The empty space you see between you and someone else may not necessarily be empty.
There may be someoting there.
You may not be able to see him; thats a different matter.
But the idea that somebody might be sitting there frighten you, so we dont leave ay space, we stick together.
We are always afraid of ay space; thats why we fill our room with furniture, dars, pictures of gods and goddesses, anything.
Being in ay space, being in ay house, we are frightened.
We fill them with people, with furnishings, so y space is left.
Evehere is plenty of empty space which is not altogether empty.
And it has its own sce.
If one wants to work in this dire, it be done.
One systematically work on this -- it is an indepe sce; it has its own laws ahods.
However, before you begin w in this area, never say whether these thi or do .
It is better to suspend your judgment, to keep your clusions in abeyance for a while -- just say you dont know.
If asked whether there are ghosts or not, it will be characteristic of the stifid to answer, "I dont know, because I havent looked into it yet.
Also, I havent even looked into myself yet.
How I find out whether or not there are ghosts? I am not even able to find myself as yet!" So never be in a hurry to answer yes or no.
Someone who gives a quiswer is superstitious.
Keep thinking, keep searg.
An intelligent man, in fact, will answer with great reluce.
Onebody asked Einstein how he differentiated between a stist and a superstitious man.
Einstein replied, "If you ask one hundred questions to a man of superstition, he will be prepared to offer a hundred and one answers.
And if you ask one hundred questions to a stist, he will claim absolute ignorance about y-eight of them.
About the remaining two he will say, I know a little, but that knowledge is not ultimate; it ge tomorrow.
"
Remember, a stifid is the only artless mind.
A superstitious mind is not.
But in appeara looks the opposite.
It looks as if a superstitious mind is very simple, but it is not; it is very plex and ing.
The greatest ing of the superstitious mind is that it affirms things it has no knowledge of.
A person with such a mind doesnt even know anything about a rock lying at his doorstep, but in his frenzy to prove his God is right and yod is wrong, he will go out and kill people.
If, as yet, he ot even explain what a rock is
And when he ot prove that a rock is Mohammedan or Hindu, how will he be able to easily prove that God is Hindu or Mohammedan? But he will go ahead and kill people! And remember, res to violence shows that those things such acts are itted for must all be rooted in superstition.
People never e to blows over matters pertaining to knowledge; it is impossible.
Wherever there is flict, rest assured superstition is there -- because a superstitious man wants to prove through flict that he is right; he has no other means.
If a mao jump on me and put a sword to my throat saying, "Tell me I am right or Ill chop your head off" -- he y head off, of course, but that doesnt prove him right.
No one has ever been proven right by chopping off somebodys head.
Even if all the Mohammedaogether and massacre all the Hindus, they will never be proven right -- just as the Hindus will never be proven right if they all join together to slaughter all the Mohammedans.
They will merely prove themselves stupid, nothing else.
Has the sword ever proven anything right? But thats the only means available to the superstitious man.
With what other means he say that sud such a thing is right? He has no cept, he has never probed; he has no proof, he has no dire.
He knows only ohing: might is right.
All over the world everyone is doing this.
I am not saying that only religious leaders are involved in such acts of violehe politis are no different.
Whether Russia or America is right will be settled through the use of hydrogen bombs -- obviously; there is no other means.
It is exactly the same sort of foolishness.
Is this how it be resolved as to which of the two is right? How it be determined whether Marx is right ? Will it be by the use of the sword? Or by dropping the hydrogen bomb? Which will it be? It will have to be determihrough the application of thought -- but man is not yet free to think; he is still beset by superstition.
So remember, my emphasis is not on breaking the s, my emphasis is on doing away with the superstitious mind that creates these s.
If that mind persists, then no matter how many s you break it will create new ones.
And remember, new fetters are far more attractive, more lovable, more worth holding on to.
And remember this too: the new is always strohan the old one, because by now our knowledge of how to make s is also more developed, more advanced.
It often occurs to me that those in the business of breaking down superstitions only succeed in providing much tougher superstitions as substitutes for the worn-out ones -- they do nothing more than that.
The superstitious mind has to be discarded, or else it will keep on breeding superstition.
Be cogitative, and make others cogitative also.
"Be cogitative" means: think, search, be inquisitive.
Speak only after you have the right experience, and still admit readily that your experience is not necessarily right.
People may have other experieomorrow.
You may even have to gh different experiences, and it is not certain that what you experienced was not an halluation.
So until that experience has been verified by scores of experiences more, it is better not to say anything about it.
Thats why a stist ducts an experiment, repeats it a thousand times, makes a thousand other people do it, and only then does he arrive at some kind of a clusion.
And even then he never reaches a final clusion.
One who wants to reach a clusion in a hurry ever think.
A man in a hurry to reach a final clusioably fills himself with superstition.
And we are all in a great hurry.
A friend, in his question, has asked everything the whole of humanity is searg for and has not yet been able to find! He asks:
Question 3
DOES GOD EXIST OR NOT? WHAT IS JEEVATMAN, THE INDIVIDUAL SOUL? WHERE IS MOKSHA? WHO CREATED HEAVEN? IS THERE A HELL? WHY HAS MAN APPEARED ON THE EARTH? WHAT IS THE GOAL OF LIFE?
He is in such a hurry he wants to know about all of this instantly.
A man in such a hurry will undoubtedly bee superstitious.
Search requires great patieremendous patie doesnt matter if we dont find what we are looking for in one lifetime, but we will tio search.
In fact, for one who is cogitative, attaining is not important -- searg is.
For a man of superstition, attaining is important, seeking is totally unimportant.
A superstitious man is anxious to know how he attain.
"Where is God?" he asks.
He is not much ed with first finding out whether there is a God or not.
He is not ied in the pursuit of God; that is not his cup of tea.
He says, "You seek him and then show me.
" Thats why he is out looking furu.
Whosoever is looking furu is bound to end up being superstitious -- he t stop short of that.
In fact, looking furu implies, "You have found, now please show us.
Since you have already found, what is the point in our searg now? We bow down to your feet.
Please give us what you have attained.
" The idea is for someone else to place his hand on your head and have you realize God.
So people are wandering around accepting mantras, being initiates, paying fees, massagi, serving, in the hope that what someone has already attained bee their own.
This ever happen.
This shows clearly the hold of the superstitious mind.
Someone elses achievement ever bee yours.
That poor fellow went in seard found, and you want to have it free? And remember, if he has searched, then while searg he must also have realized that oains through seeking, not by asking.
And so he will not evee any disciples.
Only those are after disciples who have themselves not yet attained.
They are hanging on to some uru above them.
There is a long series of gurus, all hoping to gain from the other.
Many gurus are already dead, a people hang on to them in the hope they will give them something.
There is a long of dead gurus, going back thousands and millions of years, and they are all hanging on to each other hoping someone may give something.
This is the mark of a superstitious mind.
The characteristic of a searg mind, the indication of a reflective mind is, "If there is God, then I will search for him.
If I succeed in finding him, then it will be because of my merit, my birthright.
If I ever find him, then it will be because of my lifelong dediy sacrifice, my meditation.
It will be the fruit of my effort.
"
And remember, if God does bee available free, a cogitative individual will turn him down.
He will say, "It is nht to accept something that has not e out of my own effort.
I will attain through my own effort.
" And bear in mind there are certain things which only be attaihrough ones own effort.
God is not one of those things sold in the market, a pieerdise available anywhere.
Truth is not one of those articles sold in a department store where you go and purchase it.
But such stores are open.
There are stores, there are bazaars, where a signboard hangs, saying "Real Truth Available Here.
" Even truth is of the real and artificial kind! On every shop the sign says, "The real Master lives here.
The rest are all fake masters; they live somewhere else.
This is the only authentic shop.
Buy from us! Give us the ce to serve you!" And once you have entered one of these shops, the owner wont want you to leave that easily.
All this mischief is the creation of the superstitious mind.
I would like to say to you: have faith in seeking, not in begging.
You will at<tt></tt>tain to God not by begging but by knowing.
Also, never believe what others say.
Someone may have attained -- it is possible of course -- so dont disbelieve either, because that is superstition too.
her believe nor disbelieve.
If someone es along and says he has attained God, say, "gratulations.
God has been very passioo you, allowing you to find him.
But kindly dont show me.
Let me find him also; otherwise I will remain a cripple.
"
If you are carried to a destination someone has already walked to, you will arrive as a cripple.
Feet grow stronger by walking.
Reag a destination is not so important, the really important thing is that the traveler bees stronger in the pursuit.
Attaining something is not as important as the transformation of the one who attained.
God, knowledge, or moksha are not readymade things.
They are the fruit of the of ones life, of a lifetime of effort and sadhana.
It is like the ultimate flower whies on its own.
But if you go to the market you will find plastic flowers.
They last longer.
You just o dust them -- they last longer and create deception too.
But whom do they deceive? Plastic flowers deceive others -- those walking oreet be fooled; they may think the flowers in your window are real -- but you t be deceived because you bought them yourself.
For real flowers one has to sow the seeds, one has to put in effort, one has to raise the plants.
Then, on their own, flowers bloom -- they are nht in.
The experience of God is like the flower, ones sadhana is like the plant.
Care for the plant and the flower will e by itself.
But we are in a hurry.
We say, "Fet the plant; just give us the flower!"
Sometimes when children go to school for an examination, they dont solve the arithmeti, they look up the answer in the back of the arithmetic book and write it down.
Even though the answer given is absolutely right, it is totally wrong.
How the answer of one who has not followed the method be right? His answer is absolutely right -- he has written five -- and those who followed the method have also written five.
But do you see the differen the answer given by those who followed the method and those who stole it from the back of the book? And what difference does it make whether they have stolen it from the back of the Gita or the Koran?
Even though the answer given by both is the same, it is not the same; there is a fual difference.
The real question is not finding the ahe real question is not arriving at five, the real question is learning how to arrive at the sum.
And the one who looked in the back of the book didnt learn that.
He didnt learn the arithmetic, he only got the answer.
And so, if you have learned something from somewhere, if you have received something from somebody, if you have heard something from someone and grabbed on to it -- then such a God is stolen from the back of the book.
Then such a God is lifeless, dead, useless, good for nothing, not alive.
An alive religion es into being by living it, not by stealing answers from the back of some book.
But we are all thieves.
We scold little children and warn them not to steal.
The teacher also makes it clear that his students must not look for answers in the back of the book, that they should not steal their answers from somewhere -- but if he were to ask himself whether all his answers were stolen or not, it would seem all his answers were stolen as well.
The guru is a thief, the disciple is a thief, the teacher is a thief.
All lifes answers are stolen.
From stolen answers one ever find peace or joy.
Joy is attained by going through the same process by which flowers of answers bloom on their own.
They are not borrowed.
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