Awareness, not knowledge
25. THE DISASSOCIATION OF THE SEER AND THE SEEN WHICH IS BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE DISPERSION OF IGNORANCE IS THE REMEDY THAT BRINGS LIBERATION.
26. THE UNWAVERING PRACTICE OF DISCRIMINATION BETWEEN WHAT IS THE REAL AND WHAT IS THE UNREAL BRINGS ABOUT THE DISPERSION OF IGNORANCE.
27. THE HIGHEST STAGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT IS REACHED IN SEVEN STEPS.
THE state of ignorance is the cause of all delusions, of all unrealities, of all appearances, but to know more is not the state of knowledge. Ignorance is the cause, but knowledge is not the remedy -- knowledge in the sense of knowledgeability. You can know more and more and more, but you remain the same. Knowledge becomes an addiction. You go on adding it. but the being to which you add it remains the same. You know more, but you are not more.
And the root cause of ignorance can be dissolved only when you are more, when your being is stronger, when your being is powerful, when your being has awakened. The root cause of all suffering is ignorance, but knowledge is not the remedy -- awakening is the remedy.
If you don't understand this subtle distinction, first, you are lost in ignorance, and then you will be lost -- and lost more so -- in knowledge. In the Upanishads there is one of the most radical statements ever uttered. The statement is that in ignorance people are lost, but in knowledge they are lost in a deeper way.
Ignorance misguides, knowledge misguides more.
Ignorance is not absence of knowledge. If it was absence of knowledge then things would have been very, very easy -- and cheap. You can borrow knowledge; you cannot borrow being. You can even steal knowledge; you cannot steal being. You have to grow into it. Remember this as a criterion: that unless you grow in something it is never yours. When you grow, only then something belongs to you. You may possess something, but don't be misguided by the possession. The possession remains separate -- it can be taken away from you.
Only your being cannot be taken away from you. So unless knowing happens into your being, ignorance cannot be dissolved.
Ignorance is not absence of knowledge; ignorance is absence of awareness.
Ignorance is a sort of sleepiness, a sort of slumber, a sort of hypnosis; as if you
are walking in sleep, doing things in deep. You are not aware what you are doing. You are not a light; your whole being is dark. You can know about light, but that knowledge about light will never become light. On the contrary, it will become a hindrance towards light, because when you know too much about light you forget that the light has not happened to you. You are deceived by your own knowledge.
It is as if you have been living in a dark cell. You have heard about light but you have not seen it. And how can you hear about light? It can only be seen. Ears are not the medium to know light: eyes are. And you have heard about light. And hearing again and again about light you have started to feel that you know light.
You know about; but to know about is not to know. You have heard. How can you hear light? It will be as if someone says that he has seen music. It will be absurd.
Hearing about light, the mind becomes more and more greedy. You consult scriptures. You go and seek wise, old men. You may even come across somebody who has seen, but the moment he says something about that, to you it becomes the heard. In India the oldest scriptures are known as shruti, that which has been heard. That's beautiful. That's really beautiful. How can truth be heard? And all the old scriptures are called shrutis, and smritis. Shruti means "the heard," and smriti means "the remembered." You have heard and you remember. You have memorized it, but how can you know truth by hearing? You have to feel it. In fact you have to live it.
The man living in the cave, in darkness, can collect many facts about light. He can almost become a great pundit. You can consult him and you can rely on him.
He will say everything that has ever been said about light, but he will live all the same in darkness. And he cannot help you towards light; he himself is blind.
Jesus says again and again, "The blind are leading the blind.' Kabir says, "If you are suffering, become alert; you must have been led by a blind man. If blind people lead blind people, they fall in the well," says Kabir. And you are all in the well of suffering; you must have heard too much about truth; you must have heard too much about God. Thousands of pulpits continuously preaching God -- churches, temples, scholars -- continuously talking "about."
God is not a talk. It is an experience.
Ignorance cannot be dissolved by knowledge. It can be dissolved only by awareness. Knowledge you can go on collecting in the dream; but it is part of the dream, and the dream is part of your sleep. Somebody has to shake you.
Somebody has to shock you. Somebody has to bring you out of your sleep; otherwise you can go on and on. Sleep is alcoholic. Ignorance is alcoholic; it is a drug. You have to be pulled out of it.
I will tell you one anecdote I have always loved. It is about Siddha Naropa, the disciple Of Tilopa. It happened before Naropa found his Master, Tilopa. It happened before he himself became enlightened. And it is a must for every seeker; it has to happen to everybody. So whether it happened to Naropa or not
is not the point -- it is a must on the journey. Unless it happens, enlightenment is not possible. So I don't know historically whether it happened or not.
Psychologically I am certain, absolutely certain, it happened because nobody can move without it further into the beyond.
Naropa was a great scholar, a great pundit. There are stories that he was a great vice-chancellor of a great university -- ten thousand disciples of his own. One day he was sitting surrounded by his disciples. All around him were scattered thousands of scriptures -- ancient, very ancient, rare. Suddenly he fell asleep, must have been tired, and he was a vision. I call it a vision, not a dream, because it is no ordinary dream. It is so significant, to call it a dream won't be just; it was a vision.
He saw a very, very old, ugly, horrible woman -- a hag. Her ugliness was so much that he started trembling in his sleep. It was so nauseating he wanted to escape -- but where to escape, where so go? He was caught, as if hypnotized by the old hag. Her body was nauseating, but her eyes were like magnets.
She asked, "Naropa, what are you doing?"
And he said, "I am studying."
"What are you studying?" asked the old woman.
He said, "Philosophy, religion, epistemology, language, grammar, logic."
The old woman asked again, "Do you understand them?"
Naropa said, "Of... Yes, I understand them."
The woman asked again, "Do you understand the word, or the sense?"
This was asked for the first time. Thousands of questions had been asked to Naropa in his life. He was a great teacher -- thousands of students always asking, inquiring -- but nobody had asked this: whether you understand the word, or the sense. And the woman's eyes were so penetrating that it was impossible to lie -- she will find out. Before her eyes Naropa felt completely naked, nude, transparent. Those eyes were going to the very depth of his being. and it was impossible to lie. To anybody else he would have said. "Of course, I understand the sense," but to this woman. this horrible-looking woman, he couldn't speak the lie; he had to say the truth.
He said, "Yes, I understand the words."
The woman was very happy. She started dancing and laughing.
Thinking that the woman has become so happy.... And because of her happiness her ugliness was transformed; she was no longer so ugly; a subtle beauty started coming out of her being. Thinking "I have made her so happy. Why not make her a little more happy?" he said, "And yes, I understand the sense also."
The woman stopped laughing. She stopped dancing. She started crying and weeping, and all her ugliness was back -- a thousandfold more.
Naropa said, "Why? Why are you weeping and crying? And why were you laughing and dancing before?"
The woman said, "I was dancing and laughing and was happy because a great scholar like you didn't lie. But now I am crying and weeping because you have lied to me. I know -- and you know -- that you don't understand the sense."
The vision disappeared and Naropa was transformed. He escaped from the university. He never again touched a scripture in his life. He became completely ignorant: he understood that just by understanding the word, whom are you befooling; and just by understanding the word you have become an ugly old hag.
Knowledge is ugly. And if you go near scholars you will find them stinking -- of knowledge -- dead.
A man of wisdom, a man of understanding, has a freshness about him, a fragrant life -- totally different from a pundit from a man of knowledge. One who understands the sense becomes beautiful; one who only understands the word becomes ugly. And the woman was nobody outside: it was just a projection of the inner part. It was Naropa's own being, through knowledge became ugly. Just this much understanding that "I don't understand the sense," and the ugliness was going to be transformed immediately into a beautiful phenomenon.
Naropa went in search, because now scriptures won't help. Now a living Master is needed. Then after long journeys he came across Tilopa. Tilopa was also in search of this man, because when you have something, you want to share; a compassion arises.
The Buddhist term for compassion is karuna. The English word does not carry exactly the same sense -- it cannot carry. The word karuna is very, very meaningful. It comes from the same Sanskrit root as kriya. Kriya means action.
Kriya and karuna -- kriya means action, karuna means compassion -- they both come from the same root kra. The Buddhist term karuna means "compassion in action." And that is the difference between sympathy and compassion; when you are in sympathy there is no need for action -- you simply show your sympathy and the thing is finished. Compassion is active -- you do something. When you are really in compassion you will have to do something. How can you just be in sympathy? Sympathy will look so pale, so cold. Compassion is warm.
Compassion means it has to be active.
When a man knows, compassion arises. Tilopa had known. He had come face to face with the ultimate: and now compassion arose. And he started seeking and searching for somebody who'll be ready to receive... because you cannot throw this knowing of the ultimate before those who will not understand. A receptive heart, a feminine heart is needed. A disciple has to be feminine because the Master is to pour, and the disciple is just to allow.
They met and Tilopa said, "Naropa, now I will say everything that I have been waiting to say. I will say everything because of you, Naropa. You have come; now I can unburden myself."
This vision of Naropa is very significant. This vision is a must. Unless you feel that knowledge is useless you will never be in search of wisdom. You will carry
the false coin thinking that this is the real treasure. You have to become aware that knowledge is a false coin -- it is not knowing, it is not understanding. At the most it is intellectual -- the word has been understood but the sense lost. Once you understand this you will throw all your knowledge and you will escape in search of somebody who knows, because only with somebody who knows -- heart to heart, being to being, the transfer happens. But if the disciple is already a man of knowledge the transfer is impossible, because the knowledge will become the wall.
I can see a subtle wall around you always. Whenever you come to me I see whether I can approach you or not, whether you are approachable or not. If I see a very thick wall of knowledge it seems almost impossible to approach you; I will have to wait. If I can find even a small crack I enter from there. But scared people, full of fear -- they don't even leave a crack; they make a solid wall. They make a citadel around them of knowledge, knowing, concepts -- abstract words.
Futile! Just noise! In fact a nuisance, but you believe in them.
So this is the first thing to be understood: knowledge is not knowledge. And only that knowledge which is not knowledge but wisdom, understanding, knowing, can cut the roots of ignorance.
Remember the word "awareness." Just as in the morning you become, by and by, alert and you come out of the sleep and the sleepiness falls down, disappears; the same happens again: you come out of your slumber; by and by your eyes open, you start seeing, your heart becomes available, your being open; and immediately, you are no longer the same person you were while asleep. Have you ever observed, in the morning, when awake, you become a totally different person -- you are not the same who was asleep? Have you observed, in sleep you become a totally different person -- in sleep you do things you cannot even imagine doing while you are awake -- in sleep you believe in things you cannot believe while you are awake? In sleep every sort of absurdity is believed. While you are awake you laugh at your own foolishness, at your own dreams.
The same happens when you finally awake. Then, the whole world that you had lived up to that moment becomes part of a dream, a great dream. That's why Hindus go on saying the world is maya: the stuff it is made of is dream; it is not real. Awake! And you will find all those phantoms that surrounded you have disappeared. And a totally different vision of existence becomes available -- that is freedom. Freedom is freedom from illusions. Freedom is freedom from sleep.
Freedom is freedom from all that is not and appears to be there.
To come to the real is to come to home; to wander in unreality is to be in the world.
Now, try to understand Patanjali's sutras.
THE DISASSOCIATION OF THE SEER AND THE SEEN WHICH IS BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE DISPERSION OF IGNORANCE IS THE REMEDY THAT BRINGS LIBERATION.
From where to begin?... because Patanjali is always interested in the beginning. If the beginning is not clear we may go on talking about what liberation is, but that will remain a talk. The beginning has to be absolutely clear -- every step clean-cut so that you can move from where you are. If you listen to Lao Tzu, Lao Tzu talks from the peak, the highest peak possible to human consciousness; if you ask Tilopa, he answers from where he is. If you ask Patanjali, he talks from where you are. He does not say anything about himself; he simply talks from where you are, the beginning. He is more practical; Lao Tzu is more true. Patanjali is more practical.
The other day somebody asked why I cannot continue talking on Lao Tzu.
Because of you. If I were alone that would be good, perfect; but you are also there, and I cannot forget you. When I am talking about Lao Tzu I have to leave you far behind. Then. immediately I start talking about Patanjali, or somebody, who talks about you and your first steps. There is a vast difference.
Lao Tzu you can enjoy but you cannot practice, because he doesn't say anything about practice. He has achieved and he talks about his achievement -- from that vision. Things are totally different. You may be hypnotized by that vision, that vision may have a great appeal to you, but it will remain a poetry. It will remain a romance: it will not become empirical; it will not become practical. You will not be able to find the way from where to go through Lao Tzu. Everything is perfectly true, but from where to go? The moment you become aware of yourself, Lao Tzu is somewhere so far, so distant....
Patanjali is just by your side. You can move with him hand in hand. He talks about the beginning.
"The disassociation of the seer and the seen...." So the first step is to remember, to be mindful, that you are separate from the seen: whatsoever you see you are the seer. The tree is there, so green and so beautiful, blossoming -- but the tree is an object; you are the subject. Separate them. Know well that the tree is there and you are here; the tree is out, you are in; the tree is the seen and you are the seer. It is difficult to remember because the tree is so beautiful and the flower so magnetic, they hypnotize you. You would like to be lost. You would like to forget yourself.
Tn fact you are always in search of forgetting yourself, trying to escape from yourself. You are so fed up with yourself.... Nobody wants to remain with oneself. A thousand and one paths you create just to escape from yourself. When you say, "The tree is beautiful," you have escaped; you have forgotten yourself.
When you see a beautiful woman passing by, you have forgotten yourself. The seer is lost in the seen.
Don't lose the seer in the seen. Many times it will be lost -- reclaim it. Reclaim it again and again. By and by you will become steady. By and by you will have a strength. Anything passes by, anything whatsoever -- even if God passes by -- Patanjali says, "remember that you are the seer and he is the seen." Don't forget
this distinction, because only with this distinction will your vision become clear.
will your consciousness concentrate. will your awareness become consolidated, will your being become rooted and centered.
Go again and again, fall again and again to self-remembering. Remember, self- remembering is not ego-remembering. It is not to remember that "I am," no. It is to remember that inside is the seer and outside is the seen. It is not a question of "I"; it is a question of consciousness and object of consciousness. The disassociation of the seer and the seen which is brought about by the dispersion of ignorance is the remedy that brings liberation." The more you become aware of everything that surrounds you, by and by, you will see that not only the world surrounds you, your own body surrounds you. That too is an object. I can see my hand, I can feel my hand, so I must be separate. If I were the body then there would be no way to feel the body -- who will feel it? To know, separation is needed. All knowledge. all knowing, separates. All ignorance is forgetfulness of the separation. When you become aware that the body is also the other." your consciousness is settling at home.
Then you become aware that your emotions, your thoughts -- they are also "the other," because you can see them. You have seen them again and again, but you don't remember that you are separate. You see a thought passing on the screen of the mind. It is just like a cloud passing in the sky: you see a white cloud passing or a black cloud passing, moving towards the north. When a thought passes just look where it is going, from where it is coming. Watch it. Don't get involved; don t become one with it. That getting involved, becoming one with it, is called identification, tadatmya: and that is ignorance. Identified, you are in ignorance.
Unidentified -- separate, witnessing, watching -- you are moving towards awareness.
This is the method, what Upanishads call the method of "neti, neti," the method of elimination: you see the world -- then I am not the world; you see the body -- then I am not the body; you see the thought -- then I am not the thought; you see the emotion -- then I am not the emotion. You go on, go on, go on... a moment comes, only the seer is left; all seen disappeared, and with the seen, the whole world.
In that aloneness of consciousness there is tremendous beauty. tremendous simplicity, tremendous innocence, austerity. Sitting in that consciousness, centered in that consciousness there is no worry, not a worry at all -- no anxiety, no anguish, no suffering, no hate, no love, no anger. Everything has disappeared; only, you are. Even the feeling that "I am" is not there, because if you feel "I am" you can become aware of the feeling -- that is separate from you. You are.
Simply, you are. So simple that there is no awareness that "I am," just an "amness," being. That is the definition of being. It is not a question of philosophy, how to define it; it is a question of experiencing, how to experience it.
All eliminated, all dreams dissolved, the whole world disappeared -- you sitting in yourself, not doing a thing, not even a ripple of thought, not even a breeze of
emotion passes you -- everything is so still and so silent: time has stopped, space disappeared. This is the transcendental moment. In this moment, for the first time, you are no longer ignorant. This is how you grow in being. This is how you become a knower, not a knowledgeable person. You have not gathered any information; on the contrary, you have separated all that was around you.
Totally nude, naked, like a sunya, a void, you are.
Patanjali says this is liberation from ignorance. So the first step is to go on separating. Whatsoever you see, always remember the seer, that "I am separate," and immediately, a sort of silence will surround you. The moment you remember, "I am the seer and not the seen," instantly, you are no longer part of this world -- instantly, you have transcended.
You may forget again. It is very difficult to go on remembering in the beginning, but even in twenty-four hours if you can remember for one single moment, that will be enough nourishment. And by and by more moments will become possible. A day comes when you remember so constantly that the very effort to remember is not needed: it becomes just natural, like breathing -- you breathe, you remember. It is not good to say "remember" then, because there is no effort.
It simply happens; it has become sahaj, spontaneous.
THE UNWAVERING PRACTICE OF DISCRIMINATION....
Then the second step. First step: of separation, disidentification between the seen and the seer. The second step: THE UNWAVERING PRACTICE OF DISCRIMINATION BETWEEN WHAT IS THE REAL AND WHAT IS THE UNREAL BRINGS ABOUT THE DISPERSION OF IGNORANCE.
This is one step; then there is another step. They both work together. It is not good to say the other is the second step -- they move simultaneously. But it is better to start first with the discrimination between the seen and the seer; then the other will be possible, because the other is more subtle, the distinction between the real and the unreal.
For example, in ordinary life you have got completely messed up. You don't know what is real and what is unreal. You are so messed up that any fantasy can become real for you; and when it becomes real, that means when you take it to be real, it starts affecting you; and when it starts affecting you it looks more real, because it is affecting you. It becomes a vicious circle.
In the night you dream that somebody is sitting on your chest with a knife and is just going to kill you -- a nightmare. You scream. Because of the screaming, the sleep is broken. You open your eyes; there is nobody sitting on your chest.
Maybe in your sleep you have pulled your own pillow on your chest, or just your own hands, and the pressure gave you the impression; the pressure created
the dream. Now you know it was a dream, but still your heart goes on throbbing fast. You know that it was a dream. Now you are fully awake. You have put on the light -- there is nobody, nothing -- but your body goes on trembling a little. rt will take time to settle again.
An unreal dream, how does it create real phenomena in the body? Only two possibilities are there. One, the body is also not very real. That is the Hindu standpoint about life: because a dream can affect it, it must be like the dream; it cannot be real. The second possibility is: because you take the dream as real, that s why it affects you. It becomes real. It is only your own mind: if you take something as real it becomes real. If you understand. it is unreal. Immediately it stops affecting you in any way.
Just watch: you are feeling hungry. Is it real, your body need, or just because you eat every day at this time; so the clock says now is the time? "Feel hungry!" says the clock, and you immediately follow the order: you start feeling hungry. Is it real hunger? rf it is real hunger. the more you stay hungry, the more it will grow.
If you eat every day at one o'clock and you are feeling hungry at one o'clock, wait: just after fifteen minutes you are not feeling hungry; after one hour you have completely forgotten. What happened? If the hunger was real, after one hour it would have been more -- but it has disappeared. It was a mind creation -- not a real body need, just an imaginary need, an unreal need.
Watch what is real and what is unreal and you will become aware of many things. And then you can sort them out and life will become more and more simple. This is what sannyas means: to find out what is unreal. If it is unreal, if you have found it so, it simply has no power over you. The moment you understand "this is unreal," the power is lost, the thing is dead, it no longer affects you. Life becomes more simple, more natural. And then, by and by, you become aware that ninety-nine percent of things are unreal. Ninety-nine percent, I say. I leave one percent for the final step, because in the final step that too becomes unreal -- the only reality that is left is you. Everything, by and by, is felt to be unreal and dropped. Finally, only consciousness is real.
For instance, in the night you sleep, you see a dream. The dream is real in the night. You take it to be real. You live through it -- you feel, you are angry, you love -- all sorts of emotions, thoughts, all sorts of life pass through you. Then, in the morning it has become unreal. Now you are moving to the office, to the shop, to the world, to the market -- now this world is real. By the evening you come back. You go to sleep -- the market, the shop, the marketplace -- everything has become unreal again. In deep sleep you don't remember the market, the family, the house, the worries -- they all have disappeared.
But only one thing remains always real: the seer. In the night, while the dream is passing, the dream may be a dream, but the seer is not a dream -- because even for a dream to exist, a real seer is needed. Both cannot be dreams.
You are a young man, then you become old, but the seer remains the same. You are ill, you become healthy; but the seen remains the same. The consciousness
within you;s always the same, the constant factor -- the only reality, because Hindus define reality as that which abides forever and forever. Their definition is, "That which is eternal is real, and that which is momentary is not real," because one moment it is there, next moment it is gone. Why call it real? It was a dream. Anything that was meaningful for a single moment and then becomes meaningless is a dream. The whole life, Hindus say, is a dream because when you die the whole life has become meaningless, as if it never existed.
By and by, discriminating real from the unreal, sorting it out, more and more authentic awareness will arise out of it. Remember, this sorting out, discrimination between the real and unreal, is a method to create more awareness. The real point is not to know what is real and what is unreal. The real point is: trying to know what is real and what is unreal, you will become intensely aware. It is a methodology. So don't get caught in it; because people can be caught in their methodology. Always remember it is a methodology. It is just a device. The more you become penetrating and aware of what is real and what is unreal -- what is happening between these two? Your intensity is becoming more and more intense, alive. Your eyes are becoming more penetrating, far- reaching into the phenomena of life. That is the real point.
For yoga everything is a device. The goal is to make you perfectly aware, so not even a fragment of darkness remains in your heart, not even a corner remains dark -- the whole house is lighted. "The unwavering practice of discrimination between what is the real and what is the unreal brings about the dispersion of ignorance." So the point is: the dispersion of ignorance.
In India there are a few very, very poisonous snakes, cobra and others. When a cobra bites a man, the only problem is: if you can keep the man awake for thirty- six hours, the body itself throws the poison out of it. The blood circulates and purifies itself; the poison is thrown out of the system. But the only point is fo.
thirty-six hours the man should not fall asleep. once he falls asleep, then it is impossible. So when a cobra bites a man in the forests of India or among primitive tribes where no other medicine exists, the whole village gathers together. Once I was in a village and it happened, and I watched the whole phenomenon -- for thirty-six hours. It was beautiful, because that is the whole process of becoming aware.
The problem is that the poison makes the man sleepy. He feels a tremendous urge to fall asleep. It is not ordinary sleep -- tremendous urge to fall asleep. He cannot be allowed to sit; people have to prevent him, hold him. Sitting or standing he has to be shocked, and continuously a situation is to be created -- drums and bands and singing and dancing all around, and howling and screaming and shouting -- so he cannot fall asleep. The moment his eyes are closed he is to be shocked out of it, again and again. He is even to be beaten. A moment comes after twelve hours, it becomes almost impossible for him to be awake: you go on shouting, he doesn't listen; his body becomes limp, you cannot hold him -- standing or sitting. Then he has to be beaten hard; only that keeps
him awake. If thirty-six hours are complete then the poison is thrown by the body and the man remains alive. If he falls asleep, even for a few minutes, the man is lost.
