---
section: Library
booktitle: "I Am That"
booktype: "Discourses"
bookcode: "ITHAT"
dategiven: "19 October 1980 am"
place: " in Buddha Hall"
chapternum: "Chapter #9"
chaptertitle: "Both and More"
acode: "8010190"
shorttitle: "ITHAT09"
audio: "Yes"
video: "No"
esttime: "0mins"
displaytitle: "I Am That: Chapter #9"
---

```style
.sutra {
  font-style: italic;
  white-space: pre-wrap !important;
}
```
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<p class="sutra">INTO A BLINDING DARKNESS GO THEY WHO WORSHIP ACTION ALONE.
INTO AN EVEN GREATER DARKNESS GO THEY WHO WORSHIP MEDITATION.</p>
<p class="sutra">FOR IT IS OTHER THAN MEDITATION,
IT IS OTHER THAN ACTION.
THIS WE HAVE HEARD FROM THE ENLIGHTENED ONES.</p>
<p class="sutra">MEDITATION AND ACTION --
HE WHO KNOWS THESE TWO TOGETHER,
THROUGH ACTION LEAVES DEATH BEHIND AND
THROUGH MEDITATION GAINS IMMORTALITY.</p>
<p class="sutra">INTO A BLINDING DARKNESS GO THEY WHO IDOLIZE THE ABSOLUTE,
INTO AN EVEN GREATER DARKNESS GO THEY WHO DOTE ON THE RELATIVE.</p>
<p class="sutra">FOR IT IS OTHER THAN THE RELATIVE,
IT IS OTHER THAN THE ABSOLUTE.
THIS WE HAVE HEARD FROM THE ENLIGHTENED ONES.</p>
<p class="sutra">AUM
PURNAM ADAHA
PURNAM IDAM
PURNAT PURNAMUDACHYATE
PURNASYA PURNAMADAYA
PURNAMEVA VASHISHYATE</p>
<p class="sutra">AUM
THAT IS THE WHOLE.
THIS IS THE WHOLE.
FROM WHOLENESS EMERGES WHOLENESS.
WHOLENESS COMING FROM WHOLENESS,
WHOLENESS STILL REMAINS.</p>


P D OUSPENSKY has written a tremendously significant book, TERTIUM ORGANUM. The fundamental of TERTIUM ORGANUM is based and rooted in this sutra: From the whole comes the whole, yet the whole remains behind, intact. From that comes this. That is whole, this is whole, but even though it has come from the whole, the whole is not reduced in any way. It remains the same, as if nothing has been taken out of it.


This is a strange mantra, one of the most strange ones, because it goes against the very idea of arithmetic. It belongs to meta-mathematics. The ordinary mathematics will not agree with this. If you take something from anything, then that much is reduced in the original, and if you take the whole then nothing is left behind.


Ouspensky has done a great service to humanity by proposing a higher mathematics, a mathematics of the beyond. That's what the Upanishads are.


First: the whole is not a finite entity. If it is finite, then of course if you take something out of it it will be reduced, it will not be the same any more. The whole is infinite, so whatsoever you take from it, it remains still the infinite.


And where you can take? The whole pervades all, so the very idea of taking is just an idea. As far as reality is concerned nothing is taken out of it and nothing is added unto it; it is always as it has always been.


Secondly: in the ordinary mathematics the whole is the sum total of its parts; in the higher mathematics that is not so. The whole is not the sum total of its parts, it is more than that. That "more" is very significant. If you cannot understand that more you will remain absolutely unaware of the religious dimension of things.


For example, the beauty of a rose flower -- is it just a sum total of its parts? It should be, according to the ordinary mathematics -- it is not. The beauty is something more. Just by putting all the chemicals, the water, the earth, the air, and everything that constitutes the flower -- even if you put all that together the beauty will not arise. The beauty is something more, hence in analysis it disappears.


If you go to the chemist, the scientist, to inquire about the beauty of a rose, he will analyze it. Analysis is the method of science. Analysis means breaking it into its parts so that you can know of what it constitutes. But the moment you break it into parts, the invisible "more" disappears. The invisible more exists in the organic unity; you cannot analyze it. It is synthesis, it is totality.


The same is true about all the higher values. A beautiful poem is not just the words that compose it; it is something more. Otherwise anybody who can put words together in a rhythmical form will become a Shakespeare, a Kalidas, a Milton, a Shelley. Then any linguist, grammarian will become a great poet. That does not happen. You may know the whole grammar of the language, you may be acquainted with all the words of the language, still to be a poet is a totally different phenomenon. Poetry comes first, then come the words, not vice versa -- it is not that you arrange the words and the poetry arises.


A few of the students of Charles Darwin once played a trick on the great scientist -- because he was continuously searching about all forms of life and he was always categorizing to what species a certain animal or insect belongs to.


It was his birthday and his students thought of playing a trick, just a joke. They dissected many insects and glued their parts -- legs from one insect, wings from another, head from the third one, the body from the fourth, and so on. At least from twenty insects they managed to glue together a new insect which exists nowhere.


They brought it to Charles Darwin and they said, "Here is a great surprise for you, as a birthday present. You may have never come across this insect! And we have been hiding it for this day. Can you tell us to what species it belongs, what is its name?"


Darwin looked at the insect and he asked only one question to the students; "Does it hum?"
They said, "Yes, when it was alive it used to hum."
"Then," he said, "it is a humbug!"


You can put parts together, but you will create only a humbug; you will not be able to create life. You will not be able to create a new form, a new manifestation of something living.


The Upanishads talk about two trinities. One is called SATYAM SHIVAM SUNDERAM. SATYAM means truth; SHIVAM means good, virtue, goodness; SUNDERAM means beauty. Upanishads say these three are beyond ordinary mathematics.


And they also talk of another trinity: SATCHITANAND -- SAT, CHIT, ANAND. SAT means being, CHIT means consciousness, ANAND means bliss. Upanishads say this trinity also belongs to the higher realm, the world of synthesis, wholeness. It is beyond ordinary logic, ordinary mathematics.


These two trinities are far more beautiful, far more meaningful than the Christian trinity of God the father and Christ the son and the holy ghost. Compared to these two trinities the Christian trinity looks very immature, childish. Sometimes even children have more insight than the Christian trinity.


When Sigmund Freud said that God the father is nothing but a deep desire of an immature person to cling to the father, the idea of father, it is a father-fixation, he was right. But he had never heard about satyam shivam sunderam or satchitanand. He would not have been able to say anything derogatory about these ultimate visions.


The Christian trinity is certainly very childish, and I say to you, sometimes even children are far more intelligent.


A small child was asking another child, his friend... they were learning the alphabet and the first child asked the second, "Why it is so that B always comes before C?"


And the other child said, "Obviously, you can see only if you are. First you have to be and then only you can see! That's why C comes after B. How it can come before?"


Now even these two children are far more developed, far more perceptive than the Christian trinity -- father, son, holy ghost -- what nonsense they are talking about?


Higher values are truth, good, beauty, being, consciousness, bliss. And why they are called higher? -- because they don't come within the realm of the lower mathematics. The lower mathematics means the whole is simply the sum total of its parts; that defines the world of the lower mathematics. And the higher mathematics, the meta-mathematics, means the whole is more than the sum total of its parts.


You cannot know beauty by analysis; it needs a different vision, a synthetic vision. The poet can understand the beauty, not the scientist. The painter can understand the beauty, but not the chemist. Truth can be understood only by a mystic, not by a philosopher. It can be understood by a lover but not by a logician. It can be comprehended by intuition but not by intellect. Intellect divides; intuition puts things together, and not only put things together -- it creates an organic unity.


Life can be looked in two ways: the scientific, the analytical, or the religious, the synthetical.


Today's sutras are of such great value that they are incomparable in the whole religious literature. Even in the world of the Upanishads -- there are one hundred eight Upanishads in all these sutras are incomparable, unique.

The first sutra:
<p class="sutra">INTO A BLINDING DARKNESS GO THEY WHO WORSHIP ACTION ALONE.
INTO AN EVEN GREATER DARKNESS GO THEY WHO WORSHIP MEDITATION.</p>


Action means that which is external to you, meditation which is internal to you. Action is outer, meditation is inner. Action is extroversion, meditation is introversion. Action is an objective approach; science is rooted in it, hence science insists on experimentation. And because science insists on action, experiment, it destroys all that is more than the external -- it denies. It simply denies the world of interiority, the world of subjectivity. It is so absurd that science accepts the outer without accepting the inner. How the outer can exist at all without the inner? It is nonsensical.


If there is a coin it is bound to have two aspects; you cannot find a coin which has only one aspect to it, only one-sided coin; it is impossible. Howsoever thin you make it it will always have two sides to it; you cannot make it so thin that it has only one side.


But science goes on insisting on this foolishness: that the external is true and the internal is false. It believes in matter, but it does not believe in consciousness. It says matter has validity, and science asks for objective validity. Of course the world of subjectivity cannot have an objective validity -- it is so obvious. The very asking is wrong. The inner cannot come and manifest itself as the outer, but science is blind about it And those who believe in science say that consciousness is illusory.


Karl Marx, who thinks he is creating a scientific communism, says that consciousness is an epiphenomenon. a byproduct of matter. It does not exist in its own right; it is just a combination of material elements, chemistry. physics. It is just a combination, nothing more than that. When a person dies the elements start falling apart and then there is left no consciousness. Hence there is no immortality, no soul. Man becomes just a machine with a wrong notion that it has a soul. Man is not a he or she but only an it.


This scientific approach has colored even the world of psychology. In fact, ninety percent of the psychologists should not use the word "psychology" at all; it is just wrong for them to use the word because they deny the psyche, and still they go on using the word "psychology".


Ninety percent of psychologists belong to the school called Behaviorism -- Pavlov, Skinner Delgado and others. They say man is nothing but his Behavior; there is nobody inside him. The inside exists not; whatsoever man is, he is on the outside. Hence he can be studied just like any object, any other object, he can be studied like any other machine.
Isa Upanishad says:
<p class="sutra">INTO BLINDING DARKNESS GO THEY WHO WORSHIP ACTION ALONE.</p>


They are falling into a blinding darkness by only following the outer, the extrovert, the objective. They are losing all sense of the inner. They will exist like robots.


That's why it was so easy for a man like Joseph Stalin to kill millions of people. You see the strange world of logic? Krishna could say to his disciple, Arjuna, "You can kill, there is no problem, because the soul is eternal; it cannot be killed, it cannot be burned. No weapon can enter into it. Nainam chhindanti shastrani: there is no way -- no sword, no spear can even touch it. Nainam dahati pavakah: neither the fire can burn it. The soul is immortal, eternal; only the body dies."


Hence he says to his disciple, Arjuna, "Don't be worried, don't feel guilty. You can kill because nothing is killed: NA HANYATE HANYAMANE SHAREERE. When you kill a body nothing is killed, because the body is already dead and the soul is immortal, so who is killed? The body was already dead, has always been dead; it is matter. And the soul has always been immortal, is still immortal. You are only de-linking them, and there is nothing wrong in de-linking them. You are just separating them -- separating the essential from the non-essential. In fact, you are doing a great service to the person you are killing! He himself was not able to separate the essential from the non-essential. In fact, you are doing a great service to the person you are killing! He himself was not able to separate the essential from the non-essential -- you have done it for him."


And Joseph Stalin could kill millions of people... the logic was totally different. but the result is the same. That's why I say the world of logic is very strange. Joseph Stalin is a scientific communist, a fanatic follower of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. He says there is not soul, so nothing is killed -- you can kill! The body is only matter. and the matter will remain. The air will remain in the air, the earth will go back to the earth, the water will go to water, and all the elements will be dispersed back. And there is no soul, so nothing is killed. Without any guilt he killed millions of people.


Arjuna also killed millions of people without any guilt, Mao Tse-tung did the same, but their approaches are very different. But is seems to deny one, either the external or the internal, is dangerous: its ultimate outcome will be destruction.
Hence the Isa Upanishad is right:
<p class="sutra">INTO A BLINDING DARKNESS GO THEY WHO WORSHIP ACTION ALONE.
INTO AN EVEN GREATER DARKNESS GO THEY WHO WORSHIP MEDITATION.</p>


Meditation alone again leads to another extreme. Meditation means the internal, the subjective; it means introversion. And obviously the introverts start denying all external reality. They start saying it is maya, it is illusion.


Karl Marx says the inner is illusory, epiphenomenon. And Shankara and Berkeley, they say the external is illusory, the internal is the only truth. Both are incapable of accepting the totality. They choose, they are not choiceless people.


Religion is born out of choiceless awareness. The first, who has chosen action alone, becomes a scientist. The second. who has chosen meditation alone, becomes a philosopher. But both miss the whole.


And remember one thing: the half truth is more dangerous than the untruth itself, the partial truth is more harmful than the untruth itself. Why? -- because it is very difficult to refute the partial truth because it has something of truth in it. Although it is partial, but because of that presence it is difficult to deny it.


It is difficult to deny Karl Marx and it is difficult to deny Shankara. Both are believers of one aspect of reality? neither of them is religious. One is moving towards the external, the other is moving to the internal, and reality is both AND more.


That's my approach here, the total approach to life. Therefore I don't say to my sannyasins, "Escape to the monasteries or to the Himalayan caves." I don't say, "Renounce the world." Renouncing the world means renouncing action. Then what will you be doing in your caves and in your monasteries? Then only meditation is left.


In the past this has been the case: either a person lived in the world... then he was very active but his action was superficial because there was no meditation in him, no depth, no inner world He was just his behavior. he was just his outer garb, his periphery. Naturally he created a superficial world with no depth, with no height; he created a very poor world.


And then there was the other extremist who escaped from the world. Seeing its superficiality, seeing its peripheralness, he renounced it. Of course he started going deeper into himself, but his going deeper into himself became uncreative. He had depth, but that depth remains unexpressed. He was silent, but there was no song in it. And when a silence is without song it is dead; it has depth but no manifestation.


You may be a great painter but unless you paint, w hat is the point of being a great painter? You may be a great poet but unless you sing, what is the point of your being a great poet?


So on the one hand there were people who had chosen action, the world -- the extroverts; and on the other hand were the introverts who had chosen their own being. Both were lopsided. Hence I agree with the Upanishads: life has to be total, not lopsided. Only then there is balance and in that balance is music; in that balance there is a center and a circumference. In that balance you are rooted in yourself, but you are not uncreative, you are creative.


The monks, the nuns down the ages have been absolutely uncreative; they have not contributed anything to the world. In fact, the superficial people have contributed far more, hence this emphasis. The Isa Upanishad says:
<p class="sutra">INTO A BLINDING DARKNESS GO THEY WHO WORSHIP ACTION ALONE.
INTO AN EVEN GREATER DARKNESS... remember the emphasis:</p>
<p class="sutra">INTO AN EVEN GREATER DARKNESS GO THEY WHO WORSHIP MEDITATION -- ALONE.</p>


The Upanishads are really courageous: they say the truth as it is, with no compromise. Nobody would have thought that the Upanishads will be so hard on meditation. It can be understood easily that they are hard on the extrovert mind but they are harder on the introvert for the simple reason that the extrovert was superficial but at least he has contributed something to the world.


You can see it: the East has lived with meditation alone and the West has lived with action alone. The West lives in a kind of blindness, but the East lives in a deeper darkness, in a deeper blindness. The western mind is superficial, but it at least has contributed much -- technology, industry, scientific farming. It has given people a better standard of life; it may not have given them a better quality of life but at least it has given them a better standard of life. It has given them better houses, better roads, better cars, better airplanes. It may not have given them a better consciousness, but it has contributed, it has been creative -- of course superficially. But the East which became escapist m the name of meditation, became basically a drop-out, has not contributed even that much.


What your so-called saints in the East have contributed? It is poor because of those saints, and it is going to remain poor unless those saints are no more respected. But people go on respecting the same old rotten traditions; they cannot see. Deeper is their blindness, darker is their darkness. They cannot even see who is the cause of all this misery.


Twenty-two centuries of slavery in India. Who is the cause of all this? Your saints, your mahatmas, your so-called sages who escape to the monasteries, who escape to the Himalayan caves, to the forests, to the jungles -- and you have worshipped them, you have respected them. When you respect somebody it means deep down you would also like to be like him -- that's what respect means.


The word "respect" is beautiful; it means seeing again and again -- "re-spect". When you pass a beautiful woman, if she is really beautiful you will have to look again and again. That is respect: seeing again and again. You will walk slowly you will find excuses to go back, you will enter into the same shop the woman has entered, you will start asking for the same commodities she is purchasing so that you can be on the same counter. You will not be looking at things, you will be looking at her. This is respect -- literal meaning of the word!


When you respect a person it means you are fascinated, infatuated. You would like to be like him. And the East still goes on respecting the same fools who are the cause of its misery, its starvation, its whole ugly state.


People are dying; sixty percent people in India are starving, and by the end of this century India w ill be the biggest country as far as population is concerned. It is going to surpass China; by the end of this century it will be the most populated country. Right now its problems are immense -- what is going to happen by the end of this century? A great calamity is awaiting: at least half of the population will die through starvation, famine, floods. By God's grace something is bound to happen!


Who is responsible for all this? -- the people who have insisted at least for three thousand years continuously that the real is inner and the outer is maya, illusory, why bother about it?


In the whole world things have changed, except in this unfortunate country. India is not yet part of twentieth century; it lags behind at least one thousand years. People in India have not been able yet even to provide themselves simple toilet facilities. The whole country is used as a vast latrine and nobody seems to be bothered about it! It is taken for granted. The whole country is living in unhygienic conditions, in illness, but that too is taken for granted. And we have found explanations and rationalizations for it -- that it is because of our past karmas that we are suffering. That means all the sinners are born only in India and all the saints are born in the western countries -- which are materialist! They should not go there at all! But these are ways to avoid seeing the truth. The truth is that you have praised the inner too much and destroyed the outer.


And I agree with the Upanishad: that if you have to choose between action and meditation, it is better you choose action. It will lead to darkness, but it will not be so dark as it will be if you choose only meditation alone. But there is no need to choose in the first place -- you can have both! When you can have both, why choose?
<p class="sutra">FOR IT IS OTHER THAN MEDITATION . .</p>


The truth is other than meditation.
<p class="sutra">IT IS OTHER THAN ACTION.</p>


The truth is far more than action: it is both AND more. And you will know the "more" only if you are capable of creating a synthesis between the outer and the inner, between action and meditation. Meditate, but let your meditation be expressed in action. Act, and let your action become a part of your meditation. There is no dualism, there is no antagonism between the two. One can act meditatively, one can dance meditatively.


When you dance meditatively your dance starts having a new flavor -- something of the divine enters into it -- because if you are meditatively dancing then the ego disappears, the DANCER disappears. That is the whole art of meditation: disappearance of the ego, disappearance of the mind. The dancer become thoughtless, silent. the dance continues and the dancer disappears. This is what I call the divine quality: now it is as if God is dancing through you, you are no more there.


One of the greatest dancers of this age was Nijinsky, and there must have happened, by coincidence, a certain synthesis between dance and meditation in him. He was not the master of it, because he had never learned the art of meditation. It must have happened. Just as a consequence of his total effort to go into dance, his total commitment.


And a miracle used to happen once in a while: Nijinsky will take such high jumps, leaps in the air, which are not physically possible because of the gravitation of the earth. And the spectators were simply mystified; they will miss few beats of their heart. It was a miracle to see Nijinsky moving, as if there is no gravitation -- he will take such high leaps and so easily!


And the second thing was, when he will start descending back, he will come as a feather comes very slowly, as if there is no hurry, as if the gravitation is not pulling him like a magnet. It is. according to scientific rules, impossible, but what can you do when it is happening? Even scientists observed Nijinsky and they were puzzled.


Again and again Nijinsky was asked, "How do you manage it?" He said, "That I cannot say, because when it happens I am not there. I have tried to manage it and I have always failed. Whenever I try to manage it, it doesn't happen. Once in a while when I forget myself completely, when I am utterly abandoned, it happens. It happens on its own; I cannot manage. I cannot say that tomorrow it will happen. You are not the only one who is surprised. When it happens, I am myself surprised, utterly surprised, because I become weightless."


A meditator can be a dancer, in fact far greater a dancer than anybody else. A dancer can be a meditator, far greater meditator than anybody else. A painter can be a meditator, and then his painting will have a totally different fragrance, a different flavor, a different beauty.


And this is so about all the actions: whatsoever you are doing, don't renounce it -- transform it through meditation. Action has to be transformed, not renounced. The world has to be transmuted, you are not to escape from it. It is a God-given opportunity.


And remember, the ultimate truth cannot be reduced either to action or meditation: it is both and more. Never forget the more, because it you forget the more you will miss the whole point -- you will miss the higher mathematics. It is transcendental; it is surpassing all dualism and all polarities. It is not just the sum total of its parts, it is something more -- like beauty, like music, like poetry.
<p class="sutra">THIS WE HAVE HEARD FROM THE ENLIGHTENED ONES.</p>


Remember, these Upanishads were not written by the Masters themselves; these are notes of the disciples. The Masters have always believed in the spoken word; there are reasons for it. The Masters have never written books. The spoken word has a lively quality to it; the written word is dead, it is a corpse.


When I am speaking to you it is a totally different thing than when you will be reading it in a book, because when you are reading in a book it is only a word; when you are listening to the Master it is more than the word. The presence of the Master is overpowering! Before the word reaches you, the Master has already reached; he is already overflooding you. Your heart is breathing with the Master, beating with the Master in the same rhythm. You are breathing in the same rhythm. There is a communion, an invisible link. the presence of the Master, his gestures, his eyes... the words spoken by him are ordinary words, but when spoken by a Master they carry something of the beyond; they carry some silence, some meditativeness, some of his experience, because they come from his innermost core.


It is like passing through a garden: even though you have not touched a single flower, but when you reach home you can still feel the fragrance of the garden; your clothes have caught it, your hairs have caught it. The pollen of the flowers was in the wind. You have not touched anything, but the fragrance was in the air; it has become something part of you.


The Master simply means a certain noosphere. The word "noosphere" is coined by Chardin, one of the very strange men of this century. He was basically trained as a scientist -- he was a geologist -- but his whole heart was that of a mystic. It is very unfortunate that he belonged to the Catholic Church, and the Pope prevented him from publishing any of his ideas while he was alive. And he was such an obedient person, he followed the order, so while he was alive nobody came to know about him. His books were published only posthumously, but those books are of tremendous import, because he was a scientist and yet a meditator, a man of great prayer; there is a certain synthesis. His approach is very clear, like that of a scientist and vet full of poetry.


But the world missed a direct communion with Chardin. The Catholic Church is the culprit -- they prohibited. They have always been against anything new happening in the world. So only when he died his friends started publishing his books. Now the people who have come across his books can see what the world has missed, because now they are only words -- beautiful words.


Chardin coined the word "noosphere". We are acquainted with the word "atmosphere"; atmosphere means the air that surrounds you, the climate that surrounds you. Noosphere means the world of subtle vibes, thoughts, feelings, that surrounds you.


A Master carries a noosphere around himself; I call it the "Buddhafield". Jains have a very specific idea about it; they worked very hard to find it, exactly what it is. And I think no other tradition has discovered all the details about the Buddhafield that surrounds a Master like Mahavira. Jains have worked -- they were a little bit scientific in their approach -- and I agree with their discoveries about the Buddhafield.


They say a Master has a Buddhafield around himself extending in all the directions for twenty-four miles -- a circle with the radius of twenty-four miles becomes a Buddhafield whenever a person becomes enlightened. No other tradition has worked it out with such scientific detail -- even they have measured the length, how big is the circle that surrounds the awakened person.


Whosoever is a little bit open entering in the Buddhafield will start feeling something strange that he has never felt before. But it happens only if one is open.


Many people ask me, "If we come here and don't become sannyasins, will not we be able to receive your grace?" From my side there is no problem: I am not addressing my energy to anybody in particular, it is simply there. It is a noosphere; it all depends on you. To become a sannyasin simply means that you are dropping all your defenses, that you are withdrawing all your arguments, that you are opening your windows and doors to me -- that's all! It is a gesture from your side that you are vulnerable, that you are receptive, sensitive, that you are available. I am available whether you are a sannyasin or not; it does not matter. I am available even to these poles of the Buddha Hall! But what can I do? -- if they are not orange they will miss!


A sannyasin simply means a readiness to receive. The energy is there; if something is missing it is on your part.


All the Masters of all the ages have depended on the spoken word for the simple reason because the spoken word comes directly from their innermost core. It carries the fragrance of their inner world, the richness of their inner world, the beauty of their inner world. It is soaked with their inner being, it is full of their energy. By the time it is written it will be not the same thing.


The spoken word means a communion between the Master and the disciple. The written word is not a communion, it is a communication; anybody can read it. The student can read it, he need not be a disciple. The enemy can read it, he need not even be a student. Somebody can read it just to find faults in it, just to find something so that he can argue against it.


But with the spoken word it is totally different. Even if the opponent comes, the spoken word dances around him. There is every possibility that although he had come with a conclusion, a fixed idea, his fixed idea may become a little bit loosened, he may become a little relaxed. He may start looking again before he takes any decision. He may start putting his a PRIORI ideas aside. The rumors that he has heard can be easily put aside if he comes in the contact of the spoken word.


That's why the disciple who has written these beautiful sutras, recorded them -- they are his notes -- says:
<p class="sutra">THIS WE HAVE HEARD FROM THE ENLIGHTENED ONES.</p>


He is not saying that, "This is MY experience." He is not saying that, "I am the writer of these beautiful sutras." His humbleness... that is the sign of a disciple. It has disappeared from the world; the very phenomenon of the disciple has become more and more rare, it has become almost non-existential. Otherwise there was nobody to prevent him to sign these sutras. He could have said, "These are mine."


Just a few days before a book in Marathi was published from Bombay. He has stolen a whole chapter from one of my books -- the whole chapter without any change; not even a single word is added or deleted. And he has used that whole chapter as an introduction to his book. It is one of my introductions to Ashtavakra Gita, and when it was found a letter was written to him that, "How it has happened?" He didn't reply. Then a notice was given to him -- then he came running and he said, "I was not aware of the law." But he was told it is not a question only of law.
"Were you not aware that you are translating the whole chapter into Marathi without changing a single word? You have not mentioned from where you have taken it, you have not asked our permission, but that is not much important. You have not even mentioned... even that is not much important. We had written a letter to you; you have not even replied to that."


People have lost all sincerity, and this is not so with the ordinary people -- even it happens sometimes with my sannyasins. When they go back to their countries and they start a center there, sooner or later, only a few of them -- but that too should not happen -- start functioning as if what they are saying is their own. They start pretending that they are enlightened people, that they are Masters. If you are enlightened people, there is no problem, if you are a Master there is no problem, but you are NOT! And they go on coming to me, and they go on asking the same stupid questions they used to ask before, but back in their own countries they start behaving as if they are enlightened or Masters in their own right. They repeat my words.


Just the other day I had seen a booklet of a commune in Spain. The commune is absolutely run on the same lines as my commune, even they call themselves "the orange people". They call themselves sannyasins, they use orange clothes, they wear a mala. The only difference is that there is no locket in the mala, instead of the locket they have this Hindu symbol AUM. They do Dynamic Meditation, they do Kundalini Meditation, they do Nadabrahma. They change their names -- they use Sanskrit names, Indian names -- but they don't want to be known that they belong to me. A commune of thirty people behaving independently.


And the man who is the head has never been here, but he goes on sending his people. Many people have come here, they take sannyas here, and when they go back the only change that has to be done is to drop the picture from the locket and put AUM, and everything is okay!


In their brochure they have used my words, my statements, without mentioning me, just translated into Spanish, and it has become their own. And you will be surprised: they run a mala shop, a boutique, a Vrindavan. It is a true carbon copy!


People have lost all truthfulness. The person who has taken these notes has not even given his name, but he again and again repeats:
<p class="sutra">THIS WE HAVE HEARD FROM THE ENLIGHTENED ONES.</p>


And remember, he does not say, "This I have heard" even we have heard. He is simply representing the whole world of the Masters' disciples. He is not even using the word "I", that this I have heard.
<p class="sutra">THIS WE HAVE HEARD FROM THE ENLIGHTENED ONES.</p>


"Those who have known. we have heard it from them." He does not bring himself in at all.


Just the other day I have received a letter from Sudha. Few days before she wrote a letter that, "Osho, I am in a great conflict: I cannot leave you, I cannot live without you, and yet when I am in the commune I don't feel absolutely sur-rendered to you. That makes me feel sad. I want to be abso-lutely surrendered, to drop all my mind and all my ego. That I cannot do, and because I could not do it you have sent me to the West. But I cannot live in the West either! I hanker for your presence, I want to be back home as soon as possible."


She talked this with one of our sannyasins, Gunakar, who runs a beautiful center in Germany, Karuna. She talked to him on the phone and Gunakar wrote her a letter that, "You come to me and I will help you to get rid of Osho, I will help you to go beyond this attachment."


Now he runs a center for me -- helping people to get rid of me! He was here. Twice he tried to become enlightened and failed! He will declare he has become enlightened and then he will come to his senses again. Now running a center he is imitating; now he is trying to help people to get beyond the attachment.


Sudha has done a good job of writing a letter to him that, "I don't want to get rid, I want to get rid of MYSELF, not Osho! And I don't need your help. First you help yourself Physician, heal thyself first!"


But Gunakar is getting into stupid ideas... just few days before he wrote a letter to all the members of UNO that, "I represent Osho, I represent the hierarchy of the esoteric Masters, and I want you to do these things. Unless these things are done, the world is not going to be saved."


Now he is trying to save the world -- he has not even been able to save himself!


But these egoistic ideas are bound to happen because deep down the ego has lived for so long that it does not want to leave you. Even when you think you have dropped it, it simply hides somewhere, in some dark corner of your unconsciousness, and it starts functioning from there.
This is the true way of a disciple to say:
<p class="sutra">THIS WE HAVE HEARD FROM THE ENLIGHTENED ONES.</p>
<p class="sutra">MEDITATION AND ACTION --
HE WHO KNOWS THESE TWO TOGETHER,
THROUGH ACTION LEAVES DEATH BEHIND
AND THROUGH MEDITATION GAINS IMMORTALITY.</p>


Words which should be written in gold, far more precious than any diamonds can ever be. This is my whole approach:
<p class="sutra">MEDITATION AND ACTION --
HE WHO KNOWS THESE TWO TOGETHER...</p>


It is so clear! And in India people go on reciting the Isa Upanishad, but I don't think that they ever ponder over what they are reciting. They are all escapists, they are all renouncers of the world -- they have left action behind. If they have understood the Isa Upanishad and its message they will be my sannyasins, not the old, traditional ones.


My sannyasin represents togetherness of action and meditation He is in the world and yet not of it. He is like a lotus flower coming out of dirty mud, but transforming the mud into the beauty of a lotus, living in a lake yet untouched by the water, absolutely untouched.


A true sannyasin should be in the world, in action, and deeply rooted in meditation. Your roots should be in meditation, your branches should be in action. You should be like a tree: its branches go high in the sky, they are longings for the stars; it goes on rising high. But remember, a tree goes high only if its roots go deep, in the same proportion: deeper the roots, higher the branches; higher the branches, deeper the roots. They balance each other. Roots have to be in meditation and branches in the world -- in the full sunlight, dancing in the wind, whispering with the clouds -- and deep inside you, in the inner world, growing roots into meditation. Then you will be a full tree.


Up to now two types of people have existed: a few have existed without roots -- of course, without roots a tree is bound to be false -- and few people have existed just as roots without trees, and just roots are ugly. Have you seen beautiful roots? Flowers are beautiful, but flowers need foliage, branches, the sun, the moon, the stars, the rain, the wind -- they need the whole world -- then those colorful flowers... these both have to be together; only then you will be an integrated, whole being.


The worldly has only branches but no roots, hence he is dull, juiceless, dry, dead, a corpse, just somehow dragging, out of old habit. And your monks, your nuns -- Catholic Hindu, Jain, whatsoever their denomination -- they are just roots, ugly, not worth looking at. No question of respect, not even worth looking once -- the question of twice does not arise -- and without any flowers.


My sannyasin has to be both: with roots in the interior world and with flowers in the exterior world. My sannyasin has to be both: capable of intellect and also capable of intuition. There is no need to choose: whatsoever God has given has to be used to its fullest.
<p class="sutra">THROUGH ACTION HE LEAVES DEATH BEHIND
AND THROUGH MEDITATION GAINS IMMORTALITY.</p>


It is only through action, through creativity, that you go beyond death. Action functions as negative: it is the art of removing hindrances. For example, you are digging a well: Action means removing all the layers of earth and the rocks -- if sometimes needed, dynamiting the rocks, drilling so that you can find the water sources. The function of action is negative: it is removing hindrances, obstacles, obstructions. And the function of meditation is realization of that which is. When the water starts coming up, meditation is drinking of the water to quench the thirst. Both are needed: action to remove the rocks and meditation to make you capable of drinking the ultimate, the wine of the ultimate.
<p class="sutra">THROUGH ACTION LEAVE DEATH BEHIND
AND THROUGH MEDITATION GAIN IMMORTALITY.</p>


And these are two aspects of the same phenomenon. If you don't leave death behind, how you can enter into the world of immortality? Leave time behind so that you can enter into the timeless, into the deathless.
<p class="sutra">INTO A BLINDING DARKNESS GO THEY WHO IDOLIZE THE ABSOLUTE.</p>


Philosophy idolizes the absolute. Bradley, Hegel, Shankara, they idolize the absolute and they deny the relative. The relative means it is illusory; absolute is true and whatsoever is relative is illusory.
<p class="sutra">INTO AN EVEN GREATER DARKNESS GO THEY WHO DOTE ON THE RELATIVE.</p>


Science emphasizes on the relative. Albert Einstein discovered the theory of relativity. Jainism has a little bit of scientific attitude, hence Jains were the first to contemplate on the theory of relativity. Albert Einstein without knowing it is a Jain! Before Albert Einstein, twenty-five centuries before him, Jains have discovered SAYADVADA; SAYADVADA means the theory of relativity. Einstein says everything is relative. Sayadvada can literally be translated as "perhapsism": everything is just a perhaps; nothing is absolutely certain, just a perhaps.


If you had asked Mahavira, "Does God exist?" he will say, "Perhaps." If you ask him, "Are you absolutely sure about it?" he will say, "Perhaps." He will never budge from his perhaps. Everything is only a perhaps, because everything is relative. Nothing can be said absolutely, certainly, categorically. It depends, and one thing can be looked from many standpoints.


SAYADVADA -- "perhapsism" -- has seven standpoints. If you ask about God, Mahavira will give you seven statements. He will confuse you more than you were ever confused before! He will say, "Perhaps God is" -- his first statement. "Perhaps God is not" -- his second statement. "Perhaps God is both" -- his third statement. Fourth: "Perhaps God is and inexpressible" -- his fourth. "Perhaps God is not and is inexpressible" -- fifth. "Perhaps God is and is not both, and also is inexpressible." You may have come to him with a little bit of understanding for or against, but he will destroy all your standpoints. He will give you the whole perspective, from all the standpoints.


That's what Albert Einstein has done, of course in a more scientific way; Mahavira's way is far more philosophical. Albert Einstein used to say that, "Only at the most one dozen people in the whole world understand what I am saying." Not that there are not many more intelligent people in the world, but the very idea of relativity has something fundamentally wrong about it.


Something can be relative only if you accept the absolute. If you don't accept the absolute, then what do you mean by relative? Even the meaning of the word "relative" loses all significance; it loses meaning. Relative simply means that which is not absolute, but what is absolute? According to Albert Einstein there is nothing absolute, all is relative. And according to the absolutists there is nothing relative, all is absolute. Then what do you mean by absolute? The VERY TERM has meaning only in contrast to the relative.
Upanishads are very clear. They say:
<p class="sutra">INTO A BLINDING DARKNESS GO THEY WHO IDOLIZE THE ABSOLUTE.</p>


Because they have chosen again one side of the coin: the unchanging, the axle. And:
<p class="sutra">INTO AN EVEN GREATER DARKNESS GO THEY WHO DOTE ON THE RELATIVE.</p>


They have chosen the other side, the wheel, the moving, the momentary, the temporary, the changing. But change is possible only on the foundation of no-change. The wheel cannot move without the axle. And what is the meaning of axle if there is no wheel? They are together and they are meaningful only in their togetherness.


Isa Upanishad is trying to make it clear that: never choose, remain choicelessly aware and accept life as it is. don't impose any choice of your own. The absolute is there, THE relative is there. Your mind is relative, but your consciousness is absolute. Your body changes, your mind changes -- they are like a wheel -- but your witnessing consciousness is like an axle; it remains always the same, never changing. It is on that axle that the mind-and-the-body wheel moves. And they are not against each other; they are supporting each other, they are complementary to each other. This high synthesis is the message of the Upanishads
<p class="sutra">FOR RT IS OTHER THAN THE RELATIVE,
IT IS OTHER THAN THE ABSOLUTE.</p>


Because it is beyond both and more.
<p class="sutra">THIS WE HAVE HEARD FROM THE ENLIGHTENED ONES.</p>


The disciple again and again repeats it so that you don't forget that he is not speaking on his own authority, he is simply recording the words of the Master. This sincerity is part of disciplehood, and only through this sincerity a disciple one day can become enlightened.


Enlightenment happens only if you become more and more sincere and authentic. And you have to be very alert because the ways of the ego are very subtle: it would like to claim that which you don't have. Beware of the ego!
<p class="sutra">AUM
PURNAM ADAHA
PURNAM IDAM
PURNAT PURNAMUDACHYATE
PURNASYA PURNAMADAYA
PURNAMEVA VASHISHYATE</p>
<p class="sutra">AUM
THAT IS THE WHOLE.
THIS IS THE WHOLE.
FROM WHOLENESS EMERGES WHOLENESS.
WHOLENESS COMING FROM WHOLENESS,
WHOLENESS STILL REMAINS.</p>
			

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> Copyright 1964-1990 Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh)
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