Chapter 8
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Ignorance of Life is Death4 November 1969 pm in Bhulabhai Auditorium, Bombay, India
Ma even know what life is.
And if we t know what life is, then there is no possibility of our knowih either.
As long as life itself remains unfamiliar, as long as it remains an enigma, there is no way one be familiar with death, no way one ever know what death is.
The truth is, death seems to occur because we have no idea of what life is.
For those who know life, death is an impossible word.
It is something which has never occurred, never occurs, ever occur.
There are certain words which are absolutely false; they tain not even an iota of truth.
The word death is one of them.
It is a totally false word.
like death occurs anywhere.
But we see people dying every day.
Every day, death seems to be happening all around us.
Every village has a cremation ground.
And if we uand rightly, we will e to realize that wherever we may be standing on the earth, the dead bodies of tless people have beeed on that very spot.
The very piece of land on which we may have built our houses has been a cemetery at some time or other.
Millions upon millions of people have died, and are dying every day.
A, you will be surprised if I say there is no other word iire human language more false thah.
There was a mysti Tibet by the name of Marpa.
Someone once came to him and said, "I have e to ask you about life ah.
" Marpa gave a big laugh and said, "If you want to know about life you are most wele, because I know what life is.
As far as death is ed, I have not had aing with death, I am not acquainted with it.
If you want to know death, go and ask those who are as good as dead, or those who are alread<u>..</u>y dead.
I am familiar with life, I talk about life.
I show you what life is.
I am not familiar with death.
"
This story is similar to the tale of darkness and light.
Perhaps you may have heard it.
Once darkness went to see God and implored, "Lord, this sun of yours is out to get me.
I am exhausted.
He starts chasi dawn and only after much trouble leaves me alone in the evening.
What wrong have I done? What kind of enmity is this? Why is this sun following me and harassing me? I barely mao rest after a hectic day when once again I find him standing at my door at dawn.
Again I have to run for my life, again I have to escape -- this has been going on siernity.
I have run out of patience.
I t take it any more.
I beg you, please make him uand.
"
It is said that God called the sun and said, "Why are you after darkness? What wrong has he done you? Why the enmity? What grievance do you have against him?"
"Darkness?" asked the sun.
"I have been wandering the universe siime immemorial, but I have never e across darkness.
I dont know who darkness is.
Where is he? Please bring him before me so that I may ask his fiveness, e to know him, and stay out of his way.
"
Infiime has passed sihis iook place.
The matter is still pending in Gods files; he has still not been able t darkness before the sun.
He never , and this matter is never going to be resolved.
How y darkness before the sun? Darkness has no positive existence of its own at all.
Darkness is merely the absence of light.
How the absence of the sun be brought into the presence of the sun? No, darkness ever be brought before the sun.
It is even difficult t darkness before a little lamp, let alohe sun, which is so vast.
It is difficult for darko pee the radius of light around a lamp; it is difficult for darko have an enter with a lamp.
How darkness be where there is light? How death be where there is life? Either there is no life at all, or else there is h.
Both ot be true together.
We are alive, but we dont know what life is.
And this ignorance makes us believe in the certainty of death.
Ignorance is death.
The ignorance of life itself bees the phenomenon of death.
If, God willing, we could e to know the life that is within, a single ray of that knowing would destroy forever this ignorahat one die, or that one has died at some time in the past, or that one will die at some time iure.
We dont know the light that we are, and we bee scared of the darkhat we are not.
We fail to bee acquainted with the light that is our vital energy, our life, our existence, and we are frightened of the darkhat we are not.
Man is not mortal, he is immortal.
The whole of life is immortal, but we never look at the immortality.
We never sear the dire of life; we dont even take oep towards it.
And since we remain unfamiliar with life, we seem frightened of death.
So the question is not one of life ah, the question is only of life.
I have been asked to speak on life ah, but this is impossible.
The question is only of life, there is nothing like death at all.
When one knows what life is, only then does life exist, but when life remains unknown there is only death.
As a problem, life ah do not both exist simultaneously.
Either we know we are life, then there is h -- or we do not know we are life, and in that case death alone is, there is no life.
They dont both exist together -- they t.
But we are all afraid of death.
The fear itself shows we are unfamiliar with death.
The fear of death has only one meaning, unfamiliarity with life.
And the fact is, life is flowing within us every moment.
It is flowing in every breath, in every particle, all around, within and without -- a is unknown to us? This mean only ohing, that man is in a deep sleep.
Only in sleep is it possible a man could remain unfamiliar with who he is.
It boils down to the fact that man is deeply unscious.
It only mean that the whole vital energy of man i<cite></cite>s not scious, not awake.
When a man is asleep he doesnt know who he is, what he is, where he is from -- everything is lost in the darkness of sleep.
He does not even know whether he exists or not.
He bees aware of his sleep only after waking up; only then he es to know that he has been asleep.
In sleep a ma know he is asleep.
When he was not asleep he knew he was about to sleep.
And as long as he was awake he knew he was still awake and not asleep.
But as soon as he falls asleep he doesnt know he is asleep, because if he were to notice that he is asleep then that would mean he is still awake, not asleep.
When a man is no longer asleep, only then does he know he was asleep before.
In sleep one doesnt know whether one really is or not.
Obviously, man has no idea whether he is or not, or who he is.
This only meahing, that some deep spiritual hypnotic sleep is surrounding him.
Thats why he doesnt know life itself, what life is.
But we wont accept this.
Well say, "We know very well what life is.
We breathe, we walk, we rise, we sit, we sleep.
" A drunkard also walks, breathes, moves, talks, and so does a madman.
But that does not prove the drunkard is in his right senses or that the madman is scious.
Once, while a royal procession assing, a man stood in the main square and began throwing stones and shouting abuse at the emperor.
It was, after all, a royal pageant, so the man was immediately arrested and thrown into prison.
But while the man was hurling stones and abuse at the emperor, the emperor himself was laughing.
His soldiers were puzzled.
His prime minister asked.
"Why do you laugh, my lord?"
The emperor replied, "As far as I see, the ma know what he is doing.
I believe he is drunk.
heless, bring him before me tomorrow m.
"
m the man was brought before the emperor.
The king asked, "Why did you shout abuse at me? Why did you swear at me yesterday? What was the reason?"
The man said, "Me? Swearing at you? No, your majesty, I must not have been myself; thats why I must have said such things.
I was drunk, I was unscious, I wasnt there.
I have no idea what I said.
"
We too exist as if we are not.
We walk and talk and love and hate, wage war -- all in sleep.
If anyone from a distant pla were to watch us, he would think the entire human race is behaving as one behaves in sleep, in a state of unsciousness.
In the last three thousand years man has fought fifteen thousand wars.
This shows the human race is not awake.
From birth to death it is one long story of ay, misery, pain ah.
Ma find a single moment of bliss, a single spot of joy in his life.
He remains pletely ignorant of what joy is.
Life passes and he has not a single glimpse of joy.
Obviously, one ot say man is living in awareness.
Misery, pain, ay, sadness and insanity make up our lives, but we never notice it because people around us are also as asleep as we are.
On a while, when an awakened oakes birth, we who are asleep bee so angry at this awakened person that we immediately kill him.
We dont tolerate him for long.
The reason we give for crucifying Jesus is "
.
because you are an awakened man, and that is your fault.
Seeing you awake, we who are asleep feel very insulted.
For people like us who are asleep, you bee a symbol of disgrace.
You are awake; your presence disturbs our sleep.
Well kill you.
" So we give poison to Socrates, we execute Mansoor.
We treat the awakened ones in the same mahe inmates of a madhouse would treat someone who is not mad.
A friend of mine once went mad.
He ut in a lunatic asylum.
In his insanity, one day, he actally drank a bucket of phenyl that had bee for ing toilets.
For fifteen days he was violently sick.
He suffered from tinuous vomiting and diarrhea.
This brought about such a drastic ge in his body that he became well -- as if all the excess heat were expelled from his body.
Actually he was to stay in the asylum for six months, but his stay was extended for three more months even after he became well.
These three additional months in that asylum, he told me later, were worse than hell for him.
He said, "As long as I was mad, there was no problem, because everyone else was the same as I was.
But when I recovered, I couldnt figure out where I was.
I was fast asleep and two men jumped on me; I was going my way and someoarted pushing me.
I never noticed these things before because I was mad too.
When I was mad I never could reize that everyone around me was mad as well.
Only when I came out of my madness did I realize that all those people were mad.
"As I ceased to be mad, I became the target of everyohere.
My problem was that I knew I was quite well, but I wondered and worried what would happen to me now.
How would I get out of there? My screaming I am not mad, was of no avail because all madmen scream they are not mad.
No doctor was ready to believe me.
"
We are surrounded by people who are asleep, hence we dont realize we are asleep too.
We immediately kill the one who is awakened because he appears very troublesome, very disturbing to us.
A British scholar, Keh Walker, has dedicated a book of his to a mystic, Gurdjieff.
The w of his dedication is tremendous, wonderful.
He has written, "To Geurdjieff, the disturber of my sleep.
"
There have been very few people in the world who have tried to break mans sleep.
But if you attempt to break anybodys sleep, he will take revenge on you.
Dont ever try to waken a sleeping man, he will be at your throat.
Up to now, whosoever has tried to shake man out of his spiritual sleep, we have been at his throat as well.
We dont notice it because we are all sleeping too.
I have heard: A magi oered a city.
He threw some powder into a well and declared that whosoever would drink water from that well would go mad.
This was the only well iy.
There was one more, but that was ihe kings palace.
By the time it was evening everyone in that city became thirsty, so even at the cost of turning mad, people drank the water.
How long could they hold out? They were helpless.
And so by evening the ey had gone mad.
The king and his queens were happy that they didnt have to drink the water from that well and bead.
His ministers were happy to be saved from madness as well.
The palace was filled with musid celebration, but by evening they realized they were wrong.
The people had surrouhe palace; they had all gone mad.
The palace guards and the soldiers of the kings army had gone mad as well.
Surrounding the palace, they shouted, "It seems our king has gone mad.
We ot tolerate a mad king sitting ohrone.
"
From the tower of his palace the king saw there was no way to escape, that he was pletely surrounded by the mad crowd.
The king was terrified.
He asked his prime minister what he should do.
"What will happen now?" he worriedly asked.
"We thought we were fortuhat we had our own well.
Now we have to pay very dearly for it.
" Sooner or later, all kings have to pay dearly for owning an exclusive well.
This is true all over the world.
One who has retly bee a king will certainly find his separate well proves costly tomorrow.
Owning an exclusive well is dangerous.
But, until then, the king had not realized the sequences of having his own separate well.
So he turo the prime minister for advice.
The prime minister said, "Now there is nothi for which to seek advice.
Just escape by the back door, drink the water of the well outside and hurry back; otherwise this palace is in grave danger.
"
The king asked in horror, "You wao drink water from that well? You wao go mad?"
"There is no other way you save yourself except by being mad," replied the prime minister.
The king and his queens rushed to the city well and drank its water.
That night a great celebration took pla the city.
The people expressed their joy, singing and dang the whole night.
They thanked God for rest the kings mental state, because now the king was also dang in the crowd and shouting abuse.
Mentally, the king had bee normal.
Since our state of sleep is so on, so universal, and because we have been asleep since birth, we remain unaware.
In this state of sleep what do we uand about life? We uand only that the body itself is life and that one is uo pee the body.
This kind of uanding is similar to a man mistaking the outer wall of a palace for the palace itself, or a man walking on the parapet and thinking he is in the palace, or a man sleeping, leaning oer wall, thinking he is resting in the palace.
One whose uanding revolves around the body is like this fool who imagines himself to be the palaces guest while standing outside its walls.
We have no access ihe body.
We live outside the body.
We are familiar only with the outer layer of the body; we never e to know its inner layers.
We dont even know the inner sides of the palace walls, let alohe palace itself.
We sider the outside of the wall to be the palace, we remain ignorant of the inside of the wall.
We know our bodies externally; we have never gone inside ahe body from within.
For example, we are all seated in this room; we see this room from within.
A man, wandering around outside, sees this house from the outside; he t see it from within as we do.
Man is not even able to see his own body, his own house from within -- he knows it only from the outside.
And this gives rise to the idea of death.
That which we know from without is only the sheath, it is only the outer c.
It is only the outer wall of a house, it is not the master of the house.
The master of the house is within, and we never get to meet him.
When we dont even know the wall from the inside, how will we e to know the master seated within?
This experieng of life from outside bees the experience of death.
When this experience slips away from ones hands
.
the day ones vital energy tracts within -- leaving the house, the body behind, and the sciousness moves inside, away from the outer wall -- people looking on from outside feel the man is dead.
The man also feels he is dying.
He is dying, because his sciousness begins to move within, away from what he had uood as life.
The sciousness begins to move within, away from the plane where he knew life to be.
On its way to the new, unknown journey, his soul starts screaming in agony, "I am dying! I am gone! Everything is sinking!" -- because what he had sidered as life up to now begins to sink, to drop away.
People outside think the man is dead, and in this moment of death, in this moment of ge, the person also feels, "I am dying! Dying! Dying! I am gone!"
This body of ours does not really represent our authentic being.
Deep inside we have a kind of being which is entirely different from the body.
It is totally opposite, reverse to the body.
Look at a seed.
It has a very hard shell which protects the tender, delicate seedling of life hidden i.
Inside lies the very delicate sprout, and a tough wall, an enclosure, a sheath covers the seed in order to protect it.
But the sheath, the enclosure itself, is not the seed.
If a man takes the sheath for the seed, he wont be able to know the sprout hidden within it.
He will just g to the sheath and the sprout will never e out.
No, the sheath, the cover is not the seed.
On the trary, the truth is that when the seed is born the sheath has to efface itself, has to burst, has to diffuse itself, has to dissolve in the earth.
When the sheath is dissolved, the seed inside mas itself.
Our physical body is the sheath taining the seed, and ihere is a sprout sisting of life, of sciousness, of being.
But, taking this sheath for the seed, we ruin ourselves and the sprout is never born, the seed never sprouts.
One experiences life when the seed sprouts.
When it sprouts, man ceases to be a seed and grows into a tree.
As long as man is a seed, he is only a potentiality, and wheree of life is born in him, he bees authentic.
Some call this authenticity the soul, some call it God.
Man is the seed of God.
He is only a seed.
Its the tree that will have the experience of the wholeness of life.
How the seed have su experience? How a seed ever know the blissful state of the tree? How a seed ever know that green leaves will appear someday, and that the suns rays will dan them? How a seed ever know the winds will pass through the leaves and the branches, and a resounding music will emerge from their beings? How a seed ever know that flowers will bloom, eclipsing the beauty of the stars? How the seed ever know that, sitting on top, birds will sing and that travelers will rest in the shade? How a seed ever know the experieree has? The seed has no idea.
The seed t even dream of the possibilities awaiting when it grows into a tree.
It only realize them by being a tree.
Ma know what life is because he has believed his fulfillment is in being a seed alone.
He will know it only when his iree of life has maed itself totally.
But this is a far cry when, in the first place, we dont even realize there is somethiing within that is different and separate from the body.
We are never able to remember, to realize there is something different and separate from the body as well.
Hehe real issue in life is experieng that which is within, but we believe life to be that which pervades outside.
Once I asked a tree, "Where is your life source?"
The tree replied, "In the roots, which are not visible.
" The life of the tree springs from those invisible roots; the tree which is visible draws life from the roots that are invisible.
Mao Zedong has written ae from his childhood.
He tells that there was a little garden close to the hut he and his mother lived in.
All her life his mother had tehe garden with great love and care.
People used to e from faraway just to see the large, beautiful and lovely flowers of that garden.
There was never so hard-hearted a person who, passing by the garden, would not stop for a moment or two and admire such appealing flowers.
In her old age his mother fell ill.
Mao was very young then.
There wasnt any grown-up around, but Mao told his mother not to worry about the plants and flowers.
He said he would take good care of them.
Day and night, from dawn till dark, Mao would toil in the garden.
Assured, the mother rested.
In fifteen days the mother recovered from her illness and came out in the garden.
What she saw was awful.
The entire garden had withered away.
Not only were the flowers long go the leaves were dead too.
Everees had bee sad.
The old woman must have felt the same way ah eyes would feel looking at the garden of humanity today.
All the flowers had fallen off, all the leaves had dropped, all the trees were sad.
The old woman cried out, "What have you done? What were you doing from dawn till dusk?" she wailed.
Mao also burst into tears.
He said, "I did the best I could.
I used to dust ead every flower, I used to dust ead every leaf.
I used to kiss each flower and spray water on each flower.
I dont know what happened! I put in so much effort, and the whole garden has withered away!"
Even though she was g, his mother couldnt hold back her laughter.
"You foolish child!" she said.
"Dont you know trees never have their life-energy in their flowers and leaves? It lies in their roots, which are not visible.
Your watering the flowers and leaves, your kissing them, your p love on them was all meaningless.
Never worry about the flowers and the leaves.
If the invisible roots begin to gain strength, the flowers and leaves e on their own -- you dont have to worry about them.
"
But man has uood life in terms of the outer expanse of the flower and has ed the roots pletely.
Mans inner roots are lying there, totally ed.
He doesnt even remember that he is something inner as well.
And actually, whatsoever is, is within.
The truth is within, the energy is within, all potentialities are within -- they ma from there.
Being is within, being takes place outside.
That which is authentic is within.
That which expands and mas is without.
Maion is all outside.
Being is within.
Those who take the outer maion as life, their entire life is threatened with the fear of death.
They live as if almost dead.
They are afraid they may die some day, any moment.
And those very people who are frightened of death, weep and are troubled over someone elses death.
Although, in fact, they dont really cry aroubled over anyones death -- each death reminds them of their own, and the closer the dying person, the strohe reminder.
And then a chill goes up ones spine, fear grips one, one begins to tremble.
In this state a man thinks hings.
He thinks, "The soul is immortal, art of the divine, we are the form of Brahman.
" This is all rubbish, it is nothing more than self-deception.
To boost his strength, one who is scared of death repeats, "The soul is immortal
" What he is saying in effect is, "No, I wont have to die, the soul is immortal.
" Although his being shakes with fear, yet outwardly he says that the soul is immortal.
If a man knows the soul is immortal, he doesnt have to repeat it even once.
He knows.
The matter is over.
These people who are scared of death tio fear it.
Meanwhile, they fail to know life and i a rick, a new deception that the soul is immortal.
Thats why it is difficult to find a nation more afraid of death than the one which talks about the immortality of the soul.
That misfortune has occurred in this very try.
Of all the people in the world who believe in the immortality of the soul, most are in this try.
And in this try the number of cowards afraid of death is the greatest as well.
How did these two things happen together?
There is no more death for those who know the soul is immortal.
The fear of death has disappeared for them; now no one kill them.
You should also keep ahing in mind: her anyone kill them, nor they be now uhe illusion that they kill anyone -- because now, for them, the very phenomenon of death is finished forever.
This secret o be uood.
Those who believe the soul is immortal are people afraid of death.
They are merely repeating, "The soul is immortal.
" Afraid of death, such people will also talk a great deal about non-violence -- not because they wouldnt want to kill anyone, but because, very deep down, they dont want ao kill them.
They believe the world should bee non-violent.
But why? Their answer will be, "It is bad to kill anyone.
" But deep down they are saying, "Lest we are killed by someone.
" To kill is evil indeed, but if these people know there is h at all, then there is her room for the fear of dying nor of killing.
Then such matters bee irrelevant.
Otlefield, Krishna says to Arjuna, "Do not be afraid, because those you see standing in front of you have existed many times before.
You have certaied before, and I have too.
We have all been here many times in the past and will be here many more times again.
" Nothing is ever destroyed in this world; hehere is no place for the fear of dying or of killing.
The question is of living life.
Those who are afraid to kill or to be killed bee impotent in the eyes of life.
One who either die nor kill has absolutely no idea that that-which-is either be killed by anyone nor it ever die.
How exg the world will be when, as a whole, it will e to know from within that the soul is immortal! That day the whole fear of death will disappear.
The fear of dying will vanish as well, and the threat of killing will be gone food.
That is when wars will disappear -- not before.
Wars ot disappear from the world as long as it appears to man that he be killed, that he die.
Regardless of how much Gandhi may teaon-violence, or Buddha and Mahavira may teach it; no matter how many lessons of non-violence are given in the world, as long as man does not experience from within that whatsoever is, is eternal, war ot cease.
Dont think those who wield swords are brave people.
A sword is proof that the man is a coward.
Statues iy square of those holding swords are statues of cowards.
The brave man needs no sword in his hand because he knows it is childish to kill and to be killed.
But maes a strange deception.
He pretends he knows things he is ignorant about -- all because of fear.
Deep down he is fraught with fear, deep down he knows he will have to die -- people are dying every day.
He sees his body growing weaker inside -- youth has passed, old age is approag.
He sees the body is on its way out, but inside he keeps reiterating, "The soul is immortal.
" He tries to muster up his belief, his ce by doing so, and tells himself, "Dont be afraid.
Of course death is there, but the sages, the wise men say the soul is immortal.
" Around such wise men who talk about the immortality of the soul, people afraid of death gather in big crowds.
I am not saying the soul is not immortal.
What I am saying is that the doe of the immortality of the soul is a doe of those who fear death.
Knowing the immortality of the soul is a totally different thing.
And remember, only they know the immortality of the soul who experiment with death while being alive -- there is no other way of knowing it.
This o be uood.
What happens ih really? The eal energy that is diffused, spread all around, it tracts, returns to its ter.
This essential energy that is reag out to every nook and er of our bodies, withdraws, es back to its core.
For example, if we go on dimming a diffused light, it will begin to shrink and darkness will gather.
At some point the light will be reduced to the point where it es close to the lamp itself.
And were we to dim it even further, the light would be lodged in seed form and darkness would surround you.
So the vital energy of our life shrinks, returns to its ower.
Again it bees a seed, an atom, ready for a new journey.
Because of this very tra, this very shrinkage of the essential energy, one feels, "I am dying! I am dying!" What one had taken to be life until then begins to slip away; everything begins to drop.
A mans limbs start losing their strength, he begins to bee short of breath, his eyesight bees poorer, his ears bee hard of hearing.
In fact, all these senses were alive, and the whole body too, because of the e with some energy.
And ohe energy begins to recede, the body, which was essentially lifeless, bees lifeless once again.
The master prepares to leave and the house bees depressed, desolate.
And the man feels, "Here I go!" At the moment of death he es to feel, "I am going.
I am sinking, the end is near.
"
The nervous feeling that he is dying -- the worried and melancholy state, the anguish and a..y of dying, the feeling that his end is approag -- brings such terrible suffering to a mans mind that he fails to be aware of the very experience of death.
To know death one o be peaceful.
Instead, a man bees so restless he never knows what death is.
We have died many times before, an infinite number of times, but we have never known what death is.
Each time the moment of death has arrived, we have bee so perturbed, so restless, so troubled -- how we have known anything in that state? What knowledge one have had? Each time death has e -- a we have remained unfamiliar with it.
No, death t be known at the moment of dying, but one certainly have a planned death.
A planned death is meditation, yoga, samadhi.
Samadhi means only ohing: bringing about the event that, otherwise, occurs by itself ih.
In samadhi, the seeker brings it about with effort by knowingly drawing his entire life energy within.
Obviously, there is no need for him to feel restless, because he is experimenting with pulling, drawing the sciousness in.
With a ind he tracts the sciousness within.
What death does anyway, he does himself.
And in that silent state he finds that the life energy and the body are two separate things.
The bulb that emanates electricity is ohing, and the electricity that is emanated from it is another.
When the electricity tracts totally, the bulb lies there, lifeless.
The body is nothing more than aric bulb.
Life is the electricity, the energy, the vital force that keeps the body alive, warm, excited.
In samadhi, the seeker himself meets death.
And because he enters death himself, he es to know the truth that he is separate from his body.
O is known that "I am separate from the body," death is finished.
And ohe separatioween the body and the being is known, the experience of life has begun.
The end of death and the experience of life take place at the same point, simultaneously.
Know life, death is gone; know death, there is life.
If uood correctly, these are just two ways of expressing the same thing.
They are two pointers in the same dire.
Hence, I say religion is the art of dying.
You might say, however, that I have often said religion is the art of living.
I certainly talk about both things, for only one who knows how to die is able to know what life is.
Religion is the art of living and dying.
If you wish to know what life is, what death is, you will have to lear of withdrawing energy from your body voluntarily.
Only then you know, not otherwise.
This energy be withdrawn; it is not difficult.
Its easy to pull this energy inside.
This energy is diffused at will and withdrawn at will.
This energy is simply an expanse of the will.
It is merely a matter of will.
One just needs a determined resolve to go within.
If you resolve that for half an hour you want to turn within, you want to die, you want to drown within yourself, you want to withdraw all your energy, then within days you will e close to experieng the tra of energy.
It will be a state in which the body will lie separate from you.
A deep three-month long experiment will make you see your body lying separate from you; you see your own body lying distant from you.
First you will see from within that inside, you are standing separate -- radiating, like a flame.
You will see the entire body from within as you see this building.
With a little more ce you even bring this inner living flame outside, and from outside you see the body lying there, removed from you.
Let me tell you an incredible experience I had.
It has just occurred to me; I have old it before.
About seventeen hteen years ago I used to meditate until late at night sitting iop of a tree.
I have oftehe body has a greater influence over you if you meditate sitting on the ground.
The body is made of earth, and the forces of the body work very powerfully if oates sitting on the ground.
All this talk of the yogis moving up to the higher elevations -- to the mountains, to the Himalayas -- is not without reason; its very stific.
The greater the distaween the body and the earth, the lesser the pull of the earthly element on the body.
So I used to meditate every night sitting in a tree.
One night
.
I dont know when I became immersed in deep meditation, and I dont know at oint my body fell from the tree, but when it did, I looked with a start to see what had happened.
I was still iree, but the body had fallen below.
Its difficult to say how I felt at that time.
I was still sitting iree and the body was below.
Only a single silver cord ected me with the navel of my body -- a very shiny silver cord.
What would happe was beyond my prehension.
How would I return to my body?
I dont know how long this state lasted, but it was an exceptional experience.
For the first time I saw my body from outside, and from that very day on the body ceased to exist.
Sihen I am finished with death, because I came to see another body different from this one -- I came to experiehe subtle body.
Its difficult to say how long this experience lasted.
With the breaking of dawn, two women from the nearby village passed, carrying milk pots on their heads.
As they approached the tree they saw my body lying there.
They came and sat o the body.
I was watg all this from above.
It seems the women took the body to be dead.
They placed their hands on my head, and in a moment, as if by a powerful force of attra<bdi>.</bdi>, I came bato the body and my eyes opened.
At that point I experienced something else too.
I felt that a woman create a chemical ge in a mans body, and so a man in a womans body.
I also wondered how the touch of that woman caused my return to the body.
Subsequently, I had many more experiences of this kind.
They explained why the tantrikas of India, who experimented extensively with samadhi ah, had lihemselves with women too.
During intensive experiences of samadhi, mans luminous body, his subtle body, ot return without a womans help if it has e out of the physical body.
Similarly, a womans luminous, subtle body, ot be brought back without a mans assistance.
As the male and female bodies ect, arical circuit is pleted and the scioushat has go returns swiftly to the body.
Following this event, I sistently had the same kind of experience about six times in six months.
And in those six months I felt I had lost at least ten years off my life.
If I were to live up to seventy, now I only live up to sixty.
I went through some strange experiences in six months -- even the hair on my chest turned white.
I couldnt prehend what was happening.
It occurred to me, however, that the e between this body and that body had ruptured, had been interrupted, that the adjustment, the harmony that had existed betweewo, had broken down.
What also occurred to me was that the reason for Shankaracharya dying at the age of thirty-three and Vivekananda dying at the age of thirty-six was something else.
It bees difficult to live ohe e betweewo bodies breaks abruptly.
This explained why Ramakrishna was besieged with illnesses and Ramana died of cer.
The cause was not physical; rather, the breaking of the adjustmeween their physical and subtle bodies was responsible for it.
It is generally believed that yogis are healthy people, but the truth is pletely the opposite.
The truth is, yogis have always been ill, and have died at early ages.
The sole reason for this is that the necessary adjustmeweewo bodies bees interrupted.
Ohe subtle body es out of the physical body it never reenters fully and the adjustment is never pletely restored.
But then it is not needed.
There is no reason for it; it has no meaning.
With the use of will power, simply with will power, the energy be drawn inside -- just the thought, the feeling, "I want to turn in, I want to go ba, I want to return within, I want to e ba.
" Were you to have su intense longing, such a powerful emotion; if your whole beio fill with a passionate, intense desire to return to your ter; if your entire body were to pulsate with this feeling, someday it happen -- you will instantly return to your core and, for the first time, see your body from within.
When yoga talks about thousands of arteries and veins, it is not from the point of view of physiology.
Yogis have nothing to do with physiology.
These have been known from within; hence, when one looks today one wonders where these arteries and veins are.
Where are the seven chakras, the ters within the body that yoga talks about? They are nowhere in the body.
We t find them because we are looking at the body from outside.
There is oher way to observe the body -- from within, through the inner physiology.
Thats a subtle physiology.
The nerves, veins aers of the body known through that inner physiology are all totally different.
You wont find them anywhere in this physical body.
These ters are the tact fields between this body and the inner soul, the meeting points for both.
The biggest meeting point is the navel.
You may have noticed, if you suddenly get into an act driving a car, the navel will be the first to feel the impact.
The navel will bee disordered at once, because here the tact field between the body and the soul is the deepest of all.
Seeih, this ter will be the first to bee disturbed.
As soon as death appears, the navel will be disrupted iion to the bodys ter.
There is an internal arra of the body which has resulted from the tact between this body and the inner body.
The chakras are their tact fields.
So obviously, to know the body from within is to know a totally different kind of world altogether, a world we know absolutely nothing about.
Medical sows nothing about it, and wont for some time.
Once you experiehat the body is separate from you, you are finished with death.
You e to know there is h.
And then you actually e out of the body and look at it yourself from outside.
Questioing to life ah are not matters of philosophietaphysical thought.
Those who think about these things never aplish anything.
What I am talking about is aential approach.
It be known that "I am life;" it be known that "I am not going to die.
" One live this experience, one enter into it.
But those who only think, who say, "Well think about what death is, what life is," may think about it a million times, may think about it life after life, but they wont know anything.
What oh is there to think about?
We only think about something which is known to us.
About something which is unknown nothing be thought.
You only think about that which is known to you.
Has it ever occurred to you that you t think what you dont know? How you think, how you ceive that which you know nothing about? We dont know what life is; we dont know what death is.
What are we to think? Thats why I say that whatsoever the philosophers have said about life ah is totally worthless.
Whatsoever is written about life ah in the philosophy books is worth nothing, because those people have written it after a lot of thinking.
It is not a question of thinking and then writing abou<tt></tt>t it.
Except for what yoga has said about life ah, everything else that has been said is only playing with words.
What yoga is ed with has to do with aential, living experience.
That the soul is immortal is not a theory; it is not an ideology.
It is the experience of certain individuals.
Only when experience is what you want experience alone solve the riddle, "What is life? What is death?" And as soon as you have the experience you will e to know that life is, that death is not -- that only life is, that there is h at all.
Then we will be in a position to say that death just happens.
And what this simply means is that we leave the house, the body we were living in, and a jourowards a new home begins.
We set out, leaving one house for another.
This house has a limited capability.
This house is a mae.
It wears out, it gets tired, and we have to go beyond it.
If sce would have it so, it would be possible to keep the human body alive for one huwo huhree hundred years.
But that would not prove there is no soul.
It would only prove that the soul woo ge homes anymore, that sce had now worked out a way to fix the old house.
heless, stists should not remain uhe illusion that by increasing the loy of man to five hundred years, to a thousand years, they would have proved there is no soul in man.
It wouldnt prove anything.
It would only demonstrate that because the meism of the body used to wear out, the soul had to ge it.
Now, if the parts of the body could be replaced -- the heart, the eyes, the limbs -- if they could be replaced, then the soul would have no reason to ge bodies.
In that case the old house would do -- it is now repaired.
But this doesnt eveely prove there is no soul in the body.
It is also possible that in the near future sce may succeed iing a child in a test tube, in produg life.
And then, perhaps, stists may fall uhe illusion they have created life.
But that would also be wrong.
Let me say this too: su achievement wont prove anythiher.
What happens when a unioween a man and a woman takes place? Together, they dont create a soul ihers womb, they just create a situatiohe soul enter.
Whewo elements of man and woma, an opportunity is created for the soul to ehe womb.
It may be that soon stists may create a similar situation in a test tube, but that is not the same as creating a soul.
The mothers womb is a meical system too; its a test tube.
It is a natural system.
Soon, with full discovery and knowledge of those chemical elements which make up the male sperm and the female egg, a stist in his laboratory may succeed in produg the same chemical anization in a test tube.
In that case, souls, which before had ehe mothers womb, would er test tubes.
But even so, it would not be the soul taking birth, it would be the body -- the soul would still just be arriving.
The phenomenon of birth is a double event -- the formation of the body and the arrival of the soul, the desding of the soul.
The future looks very dangerous and dark as far as the soul is ed, because with eaew discovery sce will vince man there is no soul.
But the existence of the soul will not be disproved by it, it will only weaken the will of man to turn within himself.
If, because of increased loy and the creation of test tube babies, man should e to believe there is no soul, evehe existence of the soul will not be disproved, only the tinuing inner searan will e to an end.
And this unfortunate circumstance is sure to occur in the fifty years.
In the last fifty years, the ground has already been prepared for it.
There have always been poor, wretched, miserable, sick people in the world.
Their lifespan was short: they her had good food to eat nor proper clothes to wear.
But from the point of view of the soul, the number of poor has never been so great as it is today.
This is only because man has e to believe there is nothing within, and so, for him, the question of turning i arise.
Once humanity believes there is nothing within, the whole idea of reag inside is finished.
The future may turn out to be terribly bleak and dangerous.
Therefore, experiments must be carried out in all ers of the world so that a few individuals may stand up and assert -- not merely an assertion of words and does, not just a reiteration of the Geeta, the Koran, The Bible, but a living affirmation, "I know I am not the body.
" And this should not be just a verbal declaration, it should be reflected through their entire way of living.
Only then may we succeed in saving humanity -- otherwise, the whole of stific development will turn man into a mae, an automaton.
The day man es to believe he is nothing more than a body, that there is nothing within him, perhaps all doors leading inwards will be shut.
What will happen after that is hard to say.
Even to this day, the inner doors of the majority of people have remained shut.
But on a while a ceous person breaks through the inner walls.
A Mahavira, a Buddha, a Christ, a Lao Tzu breaks through the wall aers within.
But the possibility of such a phenomenon happening again is decreasing every day.
I say: Only life is, death is not.
But it may be that in the one hundred or two hundred years man might say, "Only death is, life is not.
" The ground is ready for it.
People asserting it have already e forward.
After all, what is Marx saying? Acc to Marx, "Matter is, God is not.
And what looks like God to you is nothing but a byproduatter.
" Marx says, "There is no life, only death is.
" Now if the soul is not and only the body is, then obviously there is no life, only death is.
You may not be aware of it, but what Marx has said is gaining ground.
There have always been people in the world who have dehe soul, but up to now a religion was never born of these people.
Up to now there never has been an anization of atheists.
Charvaka, Brihaspati, Epicurus and many other such remarkable people in the world dehe existence of the soul, but they never formed any church, any anization.
Marx is the first atheist in the world who created an anized church.
Today, half the world is already within its fold, and the remaining half will join it in the fifty years.
The soul exists, of course, but all the avehrough which it be known, reized, are closing down one by one.
Life is there, but all the possibilities of eg with it are fading away.
Before all the doors and avenues close down, those who have even a little bit of ability and ce should experiment on themselves and make an effort to turn within so they have the experience.
If even one huwo hundred individuals could experiehe inner flame, we will be out of danger.
The darkness of millions of people be dispelled with the inner flame of the few.
Even a tiny lamp cuts through a long darkness.
With the presen a village of a single man who has known the immortality of the soul, the whole atmosphere, the whole vibe, the entire life of the village will ge.
A single flower blooms and its fragrance spreads to faralaces.
The very presence of a person who has known the immortality of the soul bring about the purification of the spirit of aire village.
This try is full of sadhus, monks and other people who make themselves hoarse shouting "The soul is immortal" -- there is a whole line of them, a huge crowd.
A, such a low moral character! Such a downfall of the try! This degradation proves they are all involved in a double-dealing business.
None of these people know anything about the soul.
Look at the crowd, at this queue, at this platoon of sadhus, at this whole great circus of sadhus all over the try.
Some with bandages over their mouths, some perform acrobatics with a staff in their hands, others prese aype of circus! Such a crowd of people know the soul and this try is in such a dee! Its hard to believe.
There are people who blame the an for causing the moral dee in the world.
I would like to say they are wrong.
The an has always been the same.
In the past, around the world, the moral character was high because of a few self-realized individuals.
The an always remaihe same; he has remained unged.
There have been a few beings, of course, who always raised, always uplifted human sciousness.
Their very presence has always worked as a catalytic agent and has always elevated human life.
The responsibility for the present low state of human character lies with these sadhus, with the so-called holy men, with the hypocrites and charlatans who talk abion.
The an bears no responsibility for it whatsoever.
her did he before, nor does he now.
If you want to ge the world, stop talking nonsense about improving the moral duct of ead every person, about teag moral education to everyone.
If you want to ge the world, a few individuals will have to be willing to gh very intense inner experiments.
Those who are ready to undergo the experiment deep within themselves
Not too many, just a hundred people.
If a hundred individuals in a try reach a point of knowing what the soul is, the life of that entire try will be automatically uplifted.
With the presence of a hundred shining lamps the whole try be uplifted.
I agreed to speak on this subjely because I felt that in case some ceous man came forward, I would invite him, "e on! If you are ready to go on an inward journey, I am willing to take you.
There, it be shown what life is and what death is.
"
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