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Chapter: 1

The Meaning of Samadhi

Sampragyata samadhi is the samadhi that is accompanied by reasoning, reflection, bliss, and a sense of pure being.

In asampragyata samadhi there is a cessation of all mental activity, and the mind only retains unmanifested impressions.

Videhas and prakriti-layas attain asampragyata samadhi because they ceased to identify themselves with their bodies in their previous life.

They take rebirth because seeds of desire remained.

Others who attain asampragyata samadhi

attain through faith, effort, recollection, concentration, and discrimination.

Patanjali is the greatest scientist of the inner; his approach is that of a scientific mind. He is not a poet. In that way he is very rare because those who enter the inner world are almost always poets; those who enter the outer world are almost always scientists.

He is a rare flower with a scientific mind, but his journey is inner. That’s why he became the first and the last word: he is the alpha and the omega. In five thousand years nobody could improve upon him. And it seems he cannot be improved upon. He will remain the last word – because the very combination is impossible. It is almost impossible to have a scientific attitude and to enter the inner. He talks like a mathematician, a logician. He talks like Aristotle, and he is a Heraclitus.

Try to understand his every word. It will be difficult because his terms will be those of logic and reasoning, but his indication is toward love, ecstasy, godliness. His terminology is that of the man who works in a scientific lab, but his lab is one of the inner being. So don’t be misguided by his terminology, just retain the feeling that he is a mathematician of the ultimate poetry. He is a paradox, but he never uses paradoxical language – he cannot. He retains a very firm logical background. He analyzes, dissects, but his aim is synthesis. He analyzes only to synthesize.

So always remember the goal: to reach to the ultimate through a scientific approach. And don’t be misguided by the path. That’s why Patanjali has impressed the Western mind so much. He has always been an influence. He has been an influence wherever his name has been heard because you can understand him easily – but to understand him is not enough. To understand him is as easy as to understand an Einstein. He talks to the intellect, but you have to remember this: his aim, his target, is the heart.

We will be moving on a dangerous terrain. If you forget that he is also a poet, you will be misguided. You will then become too attached to his terminology, language, reasoning, and forget his goal. He wants you to go through reasoning to go beyond it. That is a possibility. You can exhaust reasoning so deeply that you transcend it. You go through reasoning, you don’t avoid it. You use reason as a step to go beyond. Now listen to his words. Each word has to be analyzed.

Sampragyata samadhi is the samadhi that is accompanied by reasoning, reflection, bliss, and a sense of pure being.

He divides samadhi, the ultimate, into two steps. The ultimate cannot be divided. It is indivisible, in fact there are no steps. But just to help the mind, the seeker, he divides it first into two. The first step he calls sampragyata samadhi – a samadhi in which the mind is retained in its purity.

This first step: the mind has to be refined and purified – you cannot simply drop it. Patanjali says, “It is impossible to drop it because impurities have a tendency to cling. You can drop it only when the mind is absolutely pure – so refined, so subtle, that it has no tendency to cling.”

He does not say, “Drop the mind,” as Zen masters say. He says, “It is impossible to drop it. You are talking nonsense.” You are saying the truth, but that’s not possible because an impure mind has a weight – it hangs like a stone. And an impure mind has desires – millions of desires, unfulfilled, hankering to be fulfilled, asking to be fulfilled – with millions of incomplete thoughts in it. How can you drop it? The incomplete always tries to be completed. Patanjali says: “Remember, you can only drop a thing when it is complete.”

Haven’t you noticed? If you are an artist and painting a picture, unless you complete it, you cannot forget it. That picture continues to haunt you. You sleep badly; it is always there. There is an undercurrent in the mind. It moves, it asks to be completed. Once it is completed, it is finished. You can forget about it. The mind has a tendency toward completion. The mind is a perfectionist, so whatever is incomplete creates tension.

Patanjali says, “You cannot drop thinking unless it is so perfect that there is nothing more to be done; you can simply drop it and forget.” This is diametrically opposite to Zen, to Heraclitus. The first samadhi, which is samadhi only for name’s sake, is sampragyata – samadhi with a subtle purified mind. The second samadhi is asampragyata – samadhi with no mind. But Patanjali says, “When the mind disappears and there are no thoughts, then too subtle seeds of the past are retained by the unconscious.”

The conscious mind is divided in two. First, sampragyata – the mind with a purified state, just like purified butter. It has a beauty of its own, but it is there. And however beautiful, the mind is ugly; however pure and silent, the very phenomenon of the mind is impure. You cannot purify a poison, it remains a poison. On the contrary, the more you purify it the more poisonous it becomes. It may look very, very beautiful; it may have its own color, shades, but it is still impure.

First you purify it, then you drop it. But still the journey is not complete because this is all in the conscious mind. What will you do with the unconscious mind? Just behind the layers of the conscious mind is a vast continent of the unconscious mind. In the unconscious are the seeds of all your past lives.

Patanjali divides the unconscious into two. He says, “Sabeej samadhi” – when the unconscious is there and the mind has been dropped consciously, it is a samadhi with seeds: sabeej. When those seeds are also burned, you attain the perfect – the nirbeej samadhi: samadhi without seeds.

So the conscious and the unconscious are in two steps. When nirbeej samadhi, the ultimate ecstasy, is reached… And without seeds within you to sprout and flower and to take you on further journeys into existence, you disappear.

In these sutras he says: Sampragyata samadhi is the samadhi that is accompanied by reasoning, reflection, bliss, and a sense of pure being. But this is the first step. Many are misguided; they think this is the last step because it is so pure. You feel so blissful and so happy that you think that now there is nothing more to be achieved. If you ask Patanjali, he will say, “The satori of Zen is just the first samadhi. It is not the final, the ultimate; the ultimate is still far away.”

The words he uses cannot be exactly translated into English because Sanskrit is the most perfect language; no language comes even close to it. So I will have to explain it to you. The word used is kutarka. In English it is translated as reasoning. It is a poor translation. kutarka has to be understood. Tarka means logic, reasoning. Patanjali says that there are three types of logic. One he calls kutarka: reasoning oriented toward the negative; always thinking in terms of no, denying, doubting, nihilistic.

Whatever you say to the man who lives in kutarka – negative logic – he always thinks how to deny it, how to say no to it. He looks to the negative. He is always complaining, grumbling. He always feels that something somewhere is wrong – always. You cannot put him right because this is his orientation. If you tell him to look at the sun, he will not see the sun, he will see the sunspots. He will always find the darker side of things; that is kutarka: wrong reasoning. But it looks like reasoning.

Finally, it leads to atheism. You deny God, because if you cannot see the good, and the lighter side of life, how can you see God? You simply deny it. The whole of existence becomes dark. Everything is wrong, and you create a hell around you. If everything is wrong, how can you be happy? It is your creation, and you can always find something wrong because life consists of duality.

The rosebush has beautiful flowers, but also thorns. A man of kutarka will count the thorns, and come to an understanding that this rose must be illusory; it cannot exist. Amidst so many thorns, millions of thorns, how can a rose exist? It is impossible, the very possibility is denied. Somebody is deceiving you.

Mulla Nasruddin was feeling very, very sad. He went to the priest and said, “My crop is destroyed again – no rains. What can I do?”

The priest said, “Don’t be so sad, Nasruddin. Look at the brighter side of life. You can be happy because you still have so much in your life. And always believe in God who is the provider. He even provides for the birds of the air, so why are you worried?”

Nasruddin replied, “Yes!” very bitterly. “Off my corn! God provides for the birds of the air off my corn.”

He can’t see the point. His crop is destroyed by the birds, and God is providing for them, “and my crop is destroyed.” This type of mind always finds something or other, and is always tense. Anxiety will follow him like a shadow. This Patanjali calls kutarka – negative logic, negative reasoning.

Then there is tarka – simple reasoning. Simple reasoning leads nowhere. It moves in a circle because it has no goal. You can go on reasoning and reasoning, but you won’t come to any conclusion because reasoning can come to a conclusion only when there is a goal at the very beginning. If you are moving in a direction, you reach somewhere. If you move in all directions – sometimes to the south, east, west – you waste energy.

Reasoning without a goal is called tarka. Reasoning with a negative attitude is called kutarka; reasoning with a positive grounding is called vitarka. Vitarka means special reasoning. So vitarka is the first element of sampragyata samadhi. A man who wants to attain inner peace has to be trained in vitarka – special reasoning. He always looks to the lighter side, the positive. He counts the flowers and forgets the thorns – not that there aren’t any thorns, but he is not concerned with them. If you love the flowers and count them, a moment comes when you cannot believe in the thorns, because how can it be possible that thorns exist where there are so many beautiful flowers? It must be something illusory.

The man of kutarka counts the thorns, and the flowers become illusory. The man of vitarka counts the flowers, and the thorns become illusory. That’s why Patanjali says, “Vitarka is the first element; only then is bliss possible. Through vitarka one attains heaven.” One creates one’s own heaven all around.

Your standpoint counts. Whatever you experience around you is your own creation – heaven or hell. Patanjali says, “You can go beyond logic and reasoning only through positive reasoning.” You can never go beyond through the negative because the more you say no, the more you find things to be sad about, negative, denied. By and by, you have a constant no inside – a dark night with only thorns, and flowers unable to blossom in you, a desert.

When you say yes, you find more and more things to say yes to. When you say yes, you become a yea-sayer. Life is affirmed and you absorb all that is good and all that is true through your yes – beautiful. Yes becomes the door for the divine to enter you; no becomes a closed door. With your door closed, you are in hell; with all your doors open, existence flows in. You are fresh, young, alive; you become a flower.

Vitarka, vichar, ananda: Patanjali says, “If you are attuned with vitarka – a positive reasoning – you can be a thinker, but never before it. Only then does thinking arise.” He has a very different meaning of thinking. You also think that you think; Patanjali will not agree. He says, “You have thoughts, but no thinking.” That’s why I say that it is difficult to translate him.

He says that you have thoughts, vagrant thoughts like a crowd, but no thinking. Between your two thoughts there is no inner current. They are uprooted things, there is no inner planning. Your thinking is a chaos, it is not a cosmos; it has no inner discipline. It is like when you look at a rosary: there are beads held together by an invisible thread running through them. Thoughts are beads; thinking is the thread. You have beads – too many, in fact, more than you need – but no inner running thread. Patanjali calls that inner thread thinking, vichar. You have thoughts, but no thinking. If this goes on and on, you will become mad. A madman is one who has millions of thoughts and no thinking. Sampragyata samadhi is the state when there are no thoughts, but thinking is perfect. This distinction has to be understood.

In the first place, your thoughts are not yours – you have gathered them together. Sometimes in a dark room, a beam of light comes from the roof and you can see millions of dust particles floating in that beam. When I look into you I see the same phenomenon: millions of dust particles. You call them thoughts. They are moving in you and out of you. From one head they enter another and on they go. They have their own life.

A thought is a thing; it has its own existence. When a person dies, all his mad thoughts are released immediately and they start finding shelter somewhere or other. They immediately enter those who are nearby. They are like germs, they have their own life. Even when you are alive you go on dispersing your thoughts all around you. When you talk, of course you throw your thoughts into others. But when you are silent, you also throw thoughts around. They are not yours; that is the first thing.

A man of positive reasoning will discard all thoughts that are not his own. They are not authentic, he hasn’t found them through his own experience. He has accumulated them from others, they are borrowed. They are dirty, and have been in many hands and in many heads. A man of thinking does not borrow, he likes to have fresh thoughts of his own. If you are positive, and look at beauty, truth, goodness, flowers; if you become capable of seeing even in the darkest night that the morning is approaching – you will become capable of thinking.

You can then create your own thoughts. A thought that is created by you is really full of potential; it has a power of its own. These thoughts that you have borrowed are almost dead because they have been traveling – traveling for millions of years. Their origin is lost. They have lost all contact with their origin. They are just like dust floating around. You catch them – sometimes you even become aware of it, but because your awareness is such, it cannot see through things.

Sometimes you are sitting somewhere, and suddenly you become sad for no reason at all. You cannot find the reason why. You look around, you can find no reason; nothing is there, nothing has happened – you are just the same and suddenly a sadness takes over. A thought is passing; you are just in the way. It is an accident. A thought was passing like a cloud – a sad thought released by someone. It is an accident, and you are in the grip of it. Sometimes a thought persists – you don’t see why you go on thinking about it. It looks absurd, it seems to be of no use. But you cannot do anything, it goes on knocking at the door. It says, “Think about me.” A thought is waiting at the door, knocking. It says, “Give me some space. I would like to come in.”

Each thought has its own life; it moves. It has such power and you are so impotent because you are so unaware that you are moved by thoughts. Your whole life consists of such accidents. You meet people, and your whole life pattern changes. Something enters in you, you are possessed, and you forget where you were going. You follow this thought, and change your direction. This is just an accident. You are like children.

Patanjali says, “This is not thinking. This is the state of absence of thinking; this is not thinking.” You are a crowd. You haven’t a center within you which can think. When one moves in the discipline of vitarka, right reasoning, by and by one becomes capable of thinking. Thinking is a capacity; thoughts are not. Thoughts can be learned from others; thinking, never. Thinking you have to learn yourself. This is the difference between the old Indian schools of learning and the modern universities. In modern universities you are receiving thoughts; in the ancient schools of learning – wisdom schools – they were teaching thinking, not thoughts.

Thinking is a quality of your inner being. What does thinking mean? – it means to retain your consciousness; to remain alert and aware, to encounter a problem. When a problem presents itself, you face it with your total awareness and an answer arises, a response. This is thinking.

A question is posed, you have a ready-made answer. Before you have even thought about it, the answer comes automatically. Someone says, “Is there a God?” He hasn’t even uttered it before you say, “Yes.” You nod your wooden head and say, “Yes, there is.”

Is it your thought? Have you thought about the problem right this minute, or do you carry a ready-made answer in your memory? Someone gave it to you – your parents, teachers, society; someone has given it to you. You carry it as a precious treasure, and this answer comes from that memory.

A man of thinking uses his consciousness freshly each time there is a problem. He encounters the problem, and a thought arises within him which is not part of his memory. This is the difference. A man of thoughts is a man of memory; he has no thinking capacity. If you ask him a new question he will be at a loss, he cannot answer it. If you ask a question he knows the answer to, he will answer immediately. This is the difference between a pundit and a man who knows, a man who can think.

Patanjali says, “Vitarka, right reasoning, leads to reflection, vichar; vichar, reflection, leads to bliss.” Of course, this is the first glimpse, and it is a glimpse; it will come and it will be lost. You cannot hold it for long. It is going to be just a glimpse. It’s as if lightning happened for a moment and you saw all the darkness disappear – but the darkness returns again. It is as if the clouds disappeared and you saw the moon for a second – again the clouds return. Or, on a sunny morning near the Himalayas, you have a glimpse just for a moment of Gourishankar – the highest peak. But then there is mist and clouds, and the peak is lost. This is satori. That’s why – never try to translate satori as samadhi. Satori is a glimpse. Much has to be done after it is attained. In fact, the real work starts after the first satori, the first glimpse, because then you have had a taste of the infinite. Now a real authentic search starts. Before it, it was just so-so, lukewarm, because you were not really confident, not certain of what you were doing, where you were going, what was happening.

Before it, it was a faith, a trust. Before it, a master was needed to show you, to bring you back again and again. After satori has happened, it is no longer a faith, it has become a knowing. Now the trust is not an effort; now you trust because your own experience has shown you. After the first glimpse, the real search starts. Before it, you are just going round and round. Right reasoning leads to right reflection, right reflection leads to a state of bliss, and this state of bliss leads to a sense of pure being.

A negative mind is always egoistic. And that is the impure state of being. You feel the “I,” but you feel it for the wrong reasons. Just watch and you will see that the ego feeds on no. Whenever you say, “No,” the ego arises. Whenever you say, “Yes,” the ego cannot arise because it needs fight, challenge, to put itself against someone or something. It cannot exist alone, it needs duality. An egoist is always in search of a fight – with someone, with something, with some situation. He is always trying to find something to say no to – to win over, to be victorious.

The ego is violent, and no is the subtlest violence. When you say no to ordinary things, the ego arises even there. A small child says to its mother, “Can I go out to play?” and she says, “No” Nothing much was involved, but when the mother says no she feels she is someone. For instance you go to a railway station and ask for a ticket and the clerk simply doesn’t look at you. He goes on working even if he has no work to do. But what he is saying is, “No, wait!” He feels he is someone, somebody. That’s why, in offices everywhere you will hear, “No.” Yes, is rare, very rare. An ordinary clerk can say no to anybody, whoever you are. He feels powerful. No gives you a sense of power – remember this. Unless it is absolutely necessary, never say no. Even if it is absolutely necessary, say it in such an affirmative way that the ego doesn’t arise. You can say… Even no can be said in such a way that it appears like yes. You can say yes in such a way that it looks like no. It depends on the tone, the attitude, the gesture.

Remember this: for seekers, it has to be constantly remembered that you have to live continuously in the aroma of yes. That is what a man of faith is. He says, “Yes.” Even when no is needed, he says, “Yes.” He doesn’t see that there is any antagonism in life. He affirms. He says yes to his body, his mind, and to everybody; he says yes to the total existence. The ultimate flowering happens when you can say a categorical yes, with no conditions. Suddenly the ego falls – it cannot stand up, it needs the props of no. The negative attitude creates the ego. With the positive attitude the ego drops, and the being is pure.

Sanskrit has two words for “I” – ahankar and asmita. It is difficult to translate. Ahankar is the wrong sense of “I” which comes from saying no. Asmita is the right sense of “I” which comes by saying yes. Both are “I.” One is impure; no is the impurity – negate, destroy. No is destructive, a very subtle destruction. Never use it, drop it as often as you can. Whenever you are alert, don’t use it. Even if you have to say it, try to find a roundabout way that has the appearance of yes. By and by you will become attuned, and you will feel through the yes such a purity coming to you.

And asmita; asmita is egoless ego. There is no feeling of “I” against anybody – just feeling oneself without putting yourself against anybody. Just feeling your total loneliness… And total loneliness is the purest of states. When we say “I am,” “I” is ahankar, “am” is asmita – just the feeling of amness with no “I” to it, just feeling existence, the being. Yes is beautiful. No is ugly.

In asampragyata samadhi there is a cessation of all mental activity, and the mind only retains unmanifested impressions.

Sampragyata samadhi is the first step: right reasoning, right reflection, a state of bliss, a glimpse of bliss, and a feeling of “amness.” Pure simple existence without any ego in it – this leads to asampragyata samadhi. First is a purity, second is a disappearance because even the purest is impure because it is there. “I” is wrong; “am” is also wrong – better than “I,” but a higher possibility is there when “am” also disappears – not only ahankar, but asmita too. You are impure, then you become pure, but if you start feeling, “I am pure,” purity itself has become impurity. That too has to disappear.

The disappearance of purity is asampragyata samadhi; the disappearance of impurity is sampragyata samadhi. The disappearance of purity as well as impurity is asampragyata. There is a cessation of all mental activity. In the first state, thoughts disappear and in the second state, thinking also disappears. In the first state, thorns disappear; in the second state, flowers also disappear. When no disappears in the first state, yes remains. In the second state, yes also disappears because yes is also related to no. How can you retain yes without no? They are together, you cannot separate them. If no disappears, how can you say yes? Deep down yes is saying no to no. Negation of negation – but a subtle no exists. When you say yes, what are you doing? – you are not saying no, but the no is inside. You are not bringing it out; it is unmanifested.

Your yes cannot mean anything if you haven’t no within you. What will it mean? – it will be meaningless. Yes has meaning only because of no; no has meaning only because of yes. They are a duality.

In sampragyata samadhi, no is dropped; all that is wrong is dropped. In asampragyata samadhi, yes is dropped; all that is right, all that is good, that too is dropped. In sampragyata samadhi you drop the Devil; in asampragyata samadhi you also drop God, because how can God exist without the Devil? They are two aspects of the same coin.

All activity ceases. Yes is also an activity, and activity is a tension. Something is going on… Beautiful even, but still something is going on, and after a period even the beautiful becomes ugly. After a period of time you are bored with flowers; after a period of time, activity, even very subtle and pure, gives you tension; it becomes an anxiety. In asampragyata samadhi there is a cessation of all mental activity, and the mind only retains unmanifested impressions.

But still, it is not the goal. What will happen to all the impressions you have gathered in the past? For many, many lives you have lived, acted, reacted. You have done many things, undone many things. What will happen to it? The conscious mind has become pure; the conscious mind has dropped even the activity of purity. But the unconscious is vast and you carry all the seeds there, the blueprints. They are within you.

The tree has disappeared; you have cut down the tree completely – but the seeds that have fallen and are lying in the ground will sprout when their season comes. You will have another life, you will be born again. Of course, your quality will be different, but you will be born again because those seeds are yet to be burned.

You have cut down that which was manifested. It is easy to cut down anything that is in manifestation; it is easy to cut down all the trees. You can go into a garden and pull up all the grass on the lawn; you can kill everything, but within two weeks it will come up again because what you did was to pull up the manifested. You haven’t touched the seeds which are lying in the soil. That has to be done in the third state.

Asampragyata samadhi is still sabeej – with seeds. And there are methods: how to burn those seeds, how to create fire – the fire that Heraclitus talked about – how to create that fire and burn the unconscious seeds. When they disappear, the soil is absolutely pure, and nothing can arise out of it. There is no birth, no death. The whole wheel stops for you, you have dropped out of the wheel. Dropping out of society won’t help unless you drop out of the wheel. Then you become a perfect dropout!

Buddha is a perfect dropout; Mahavira, Patanjali, are perfect dropouts. They haven’t only dropped out of the establishment or society, they have dropped out of the very wheel of life and death. But that happens only when all the seeds are burned. The final is nirbeej samadhi – seedless.

In asampragyata samadhi there is a cessation of all mental activity, and the mind only retains unmanifested impressions.

Videhas and prakriti-layas attain asampragyata samadhi because they ceased to identify themselves with their bodies in their previous life.

They take rebirth because seeds of desire remained.

Even a Buddha is born if in his past life he attained asampragyata samadhi, but the seeds were there. He had to come once more. Even a Mahavira is born – once; the seeds bring him. But this is going to be the last life. After asampragyata samadhi, only one life is possible. But the quality of this life will be totally different because this man will not be identified with the body. This man really has nothing to do because the activity of the mind has ceased. What will he do? And why is this one life needed? He has just to allow those seeds to be manifested and he will remain a witness. This is the fire.

A man came to Buddha and spat on him; the man was very angry. Buddha wiped his face and asked, “What else do you have to say?”

The man couldn’t understand it, he was really angry – red-hot. He couldn’t even understand what Buddha was saying. The whole thing was so absurd because Buddha didn’t react. The man was at a loss – what to do, what to say. He went away, and couldn’t sleep the whole night. How can you sleep when you insult somebody and there is no reaction? Your insult comes back to you. You threw the arrow; it has not been received. It comes back. Finding no shelter, it comes back to the source. He insulted Buddha, but the insult couldn’t find a shelter there, so where will it go? – it comes back to the original master.

The whole night he was feverish; he couldn’t believe what had happened. He started repenting – that he was wrong, that he had not done a good thing. Early next morning he went and asked for forgiveness.

Buddha said, “Don’t worry about it. I must have done something wrong to you in the past. Now the account is closed. I am not going to react; otherwise again and again… Finished! I have not reacted because it was a seed somewhere and it had to be finished. Now my account with you is closed.”

In this life, when a videha – one who has understood that he is not the body, who has attained asampragyata samadhi – comes in the world, it is just to finish accounts. His whole life consists of finishing accounts; millions of lives, many relationships, many involvements, commitments – everything has to be closed.

It happened…

Buddha arrived at a village; the whole village had gathered together, and they were eager to listen to him. It was a rare opportunity because even the capital cities were continually inviting him, and he never visited. He had come to this small, out-of-the-way village without any invitation. The villagers would never have gathered enough courage to ask him to come to their village. It was small with just a few huts, and he had arrived without an invitation! The whole village was afire with excitement, and he was sitting under a tree and not speaking.

They asked him, “Who are you waiting for? Everybody is here; the whole village is here. You can start.”

Buddha replied, “But I have to wait because I have come for someone who is not here. A promise has to be fulfilled, an account closed. I am waiting for that one.”

A girl arrived, and Buddha started. After he had finished speaking, they asked him, “Were you waiting for this girl?” The girl belonged to the untouchables, to the lowest caste. Nobody thought that Buddha was waiting for her.

He replied, “Yes, I was waiting for her. When I was traveling here, she met me on the road and said, ‘Wait, because I am going to the other town for some work, but I will come soon.’ Somewhere in a past life I had given her a promise that when I became enlightened I would come and tell her what had happened to me. That account has to be closed. That promise is hanging on to me and if I cannot fulfill it, I will have to come again.”

A videha or a prakriti-laya… Both words are beautiful. Videha means bodiless. When you attain asampragyata samadhi the body is present, but you become bodiless. You are no longer the body. The body becomes the abode – you are not identified with it.

So these two terms are beautiful. Videha means one who knows that he is not the body – he knows, remember, not believes. And prakriti-laya, because one who knows that he is not the body, is no longer the prakriti, the nature.

The body belongs to the material. Once you’re not identified with the matter within you, you are not identified with the matter without, outside. A man who attains the state that he is no longer a body, attains that he is no longer the manifested, the prakriti – his nature is dissolved. There is no longer “the world” for him; he is not identified, he has become a witness to it. Such a man is also born at least once because he has to close many accounts; many promises have to be fulfilled, many karmas to be dropped.

It happened…

Buddha’s cousin, Devadatta, was against him; he tried to kill him in many different ways. Once, when Buddha was sitting under a tree, meditating, Devadatta pushed a big rock down from the top of a hill. Everyone ran away as the rock rolled down. Buddha remained there sitting under the tree – it was dangerous, the rock rolled down just touching him, brushing him.

Ananda asked him, “Why didn’t you get out of the way when we all did? There was enough time.”

Buddha replied, “There is enough time for you. My time is over. Devadatta has to do it. In the past, in some other life there was some karma. I must have given him some pain, some anguish, some anxiety. It has to be closed. If I escape, if I do anything, a new line starts again.”

A videha, a man who has attained asampragyata, does not react. He simply watches, witnesses. This is the fire of witnessing which burns all the seeds in the unconscious, and a moment comes when the soil is absolutely pure; there is no seed waiting to sprout. Then there is no need to come back. First the nature dissolves, and then he dissolves himself into the universe.

Videhas and prakriti-layas attain asampragyata samadhi because they ceased to identify themselves with their bodies in their previous life. They take rebirth because seeds of desire remained. I am here to fulfill something; you are here to close my account. You are not here accidentally. There are millions of people in the world. Why are you here and not somebody else? Something has to be closed.

Others who attain asampragyata samadhi attain through faith, effort, recollection, concentration, and discrimination.

So these are the two possibilities. If you have attained asampragyata samadhi in your past life, in this life you are born a buddha – just a few seeds have to be fulfilled, have to be dropped, burned. That’s why I say that you are born almost a buddha. There is no need for you to do anything, you simply have to watch whatever happens.

Hence Krishnamurti’s continuous insistence that there is no need to do anything. It is right for him, it is not right for his listeners. For his listeners, there is much that needs to be done, and they will be misguided by this statement. He is speaking about himself. He was born an asampragyata buddha, he was born a videha, he was born a prakriti-laya.

When he was just five years old he was taking a bath near Adyar, and one of the greatest Theosophists, Leadbeater, was watching him. He was a totally different type of child. If somebody threw mud at him, he would not react. There were many children playing there. If somebody pushed him into the river, he would simply go with it. Yes, he was not angry, he was not fighting. He had a totally different quality – the quality of an asampragyata buddha.

Leadbeater called Annie Besant and told her to watch this child. He was no ordinary child, and the whole Theosophical movement whirled around him. They hoped very much that he would become an avatar – that he would become the perfect master for this age. But the problem was very deep.

They had chosen the right person, but they hoped wrongly – because a man who is born an asampragyata buddha cannot even be active as an avatar. All activity has ceased. He can simply watch – he can be a witness. You cannot make him very active. He can be only a passivity. They had chosen the right person, but still wrong…

They hoped very much… And the whole movement whirled around Krishnamurti. When he dropped out and said, “I cannot do anything because nothing is needed,” the whole movement flopped because they had too many hopes for him, and the whole thing turned out completely differently. But this could have been prophesied.

Annie Besant, Leadbeater and others, were very beautiful people, but not really aware of Eastern methods. They had learned a lot from books, scriptures, but they did not exactly know the secret which Patanjali is showing: that an asampragyata, a videha, is born, but he is not active. He is a passivity. So much can happen through him, but that can happen only if somebody comes and surrenders to him. He is a passivity, he cannot force you to do something. He is available, but he cannot be aggressive.

His invitation is for everybody and for all. It is an open invitation, but he cannot send you a particular invitation because he cannot be active. He is an open door; if you like, you can pass through. The last life is an absolute passivity, just witnessing. This is one way asampragyata buddhas are born from their past life.

But you can become an asampragyata buddha in this life too. For them Patanjali says, “Shraddha virya smriti samadhi pragya.” Others who attain asampragyata samadhi attain through faith, effort, recollection, concentration, and discrimination. It is almost impossible to translate it, so I will explain rather than translate – just to give you the feel, because the words will misguide you.

Shraddha is not exactly faith, it is more like trust. Trust is very, very different from faith. Faith is something you are born into, trust is something you grow in. Hinduism is a faith; to be a Christian is a faith, to be a Mohammedan is a faith. But to be a disciple here with me is a trust. Remember – I cannot claim faith. Jesus also could not claim faith because faith is something you are born into. Jews were faithful; they had faith. In fact, that is why they destroyed Jesus because they thought that he was bringing them out of their faith, and destroying it. He was asking for trust. Trust is a personal intimacy, it is not a social phenomenon. You attain it through your own response. Nobody can be born in trust; in faith, okay.

Faith is dead trust, trust is alive faith.

So try to understand the distinction. One has to grow in shraddha, trust – it is always personal. The first disciples of Jesus attained trust. They were Jews, born Jews. They moved out of their faith. It is a rebellion.

Faith is a superstition; trust is a rebellion.

First, trust leads you away from your faith. It has to be so because if you are living in a dead graveyard, first you have to be led out of it. Only then can you be introduced to life again. Jesus was trying to bring people toward shraddha, trust. It will always look as if he is destroying their faith.

Now when a Christian comes to me, the same situation is repeated. Christianity is a faith, just as Judaism was a faith in Jesus’ time. When a Christian comes to me, once again I have to bring him out of his faith to help him grow toward trust. Religions are faith, and to be religious is to be in trust. To be religious doesn’t mean to be Christian, Hindu, or Mohammedan because trust has no name; it is not labeled. It is like love. Is love Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan? Is marriage Christian, Hindu, Mohammedan? Love? Love knows no caste, no distinctions. Love doesn’t know if you are a Hindu or a Christian.

Marriage is like faith; love is like trust – you have to grow into it, it is an adventure. Faith is not an adventure; you are born into it, it is convenient. If you are seeking comfort and convenience, it is better to remain in faith. Be a Hindu, a Christian; follow the rules. But it will remain a dead thing unless you respond from your heart, unless you enter religion on your own responsibility, and not because you were born a Christian. How can you be born a Christian?

How is religion associated with birth? Birth cannot give you religion. It can give you a society, a creed, a sect; it can give you a superstition. The word superstition is very, very meaningful. It means, unnecessary faith. The word super means unnecessary, superfluous – faith which has become unnecessary, faith which has died. At some time it may have been alive.

Religion has to be reborn again and again. Remember, you are not born in a religion. Religion has to be born in you, then it is trust – again and again. You cannot give your children your religion, they will have to seek and find their own. Everybody has to seek and find his own. It is an adventure – the greatest adventure. You move into the unknown.

Patanjali says that if you want to attain asampragyata samadhi, shraddha is the first thing. And for sampragyata samadhi, reasoning, right reasoning. See the distinction? – for sampragyata samadhi, right reasoning, right thinking is the base; for asampragyata samadhi, right trust – not reasoning.

No reasoning… But a love. And love is blind. It looks blind to reason because it is a jump into the dark. Reason asks, “Where are you going? Remain in the known territory. What is the use of moving to a new phenomenon? Why not remain in the old fold? It is convenient, comfortable, and whatever you need, it can supply.” But everybody has to find his own temple. Only then is it alive.

You are here with me – this is trust. When I am no longer here, your children may be with me. That will be faith. Trust happens only with a living master, faith happens with dead masters who are no longer there. The first disciples have the religion.

By and by, the second and third generation loses the religion, it becomes a sect. You simply follow because you are born into it. It is a duty, not a love. It is a social code. It helps, but it hasn’t gone deep in you. It brings nothing to you; it is not a happening. It is not a depth unfolding in you – it is just a surface, a face. Just go and look in the church: the Sunday people attend, they even pray. But they are just waiting for it to finish.

A small child was sitting in church. He was just four years old and had come for the first time. His mother asked him how he liked it.

He replied, “The music is good, but the commercial is too long.”

It is a commercial when you have no trust. Shraddha is right trust; faith is wrong trust. Don’t take religion from somebody else. You cannot borrow it; that is a deception. You are getting it without paying for it, and everything has to be paid for. And to attain asampragyata samadhi is not cheap. You have to pay the full cost, and the full cost is your total being.

To be a Christian is just a label. To be religious is not a label, your whole being is involved. It is a commitment. Some people come to me and say, “We love you. Whatever you say is good. But we don’t want to take sannyas because we don’t want to commit ourselves.” But unless you are committed, involved, you cannot grow, because there is no relationship. There are just words between you and me, not a relationship. I may be a teacher to you, but not a master. You may be a student, but not a disciple.

The first door is shraddha, trust; the second is virya. That too is difficult. It is translated as effort. No, effort is simply a part of it. The word virya means many things, but deep down it means bioenergy. One of the meanings of virya is semen, sexual potency. If you really want to translate it exactly, virya is bioenergy, your total energy phenomenon – you as energy. Of course, this energy can be brought only through effort; hence, one of the meanings is effort.

But that is poor – not as rich as the word virya. Virya means that your total energy has to be brought into it. With only the mind, it won’t do. You can say yes from the mind, but that will not be enough. That is the meaning of virya: your totality, without holding anything back. And that is possible only when there is trust. Otherwise you will hold on to something, just to be secure and safe because who knows, “This man may be leading us in the wrong direction, so we can step back at any moment. Any moment we can say, ‘Enough is enough; now no more.’”

You hold back a part of you just to be watchful. Where is this man leading us? People come to me and say, “We are just watching. First let us watch what is happening.” They are very clever – clever fools because these things cannot be watched from the outside. What is happening is an inner phenomenon. Many times you cannot even see to whom it is happening. Many times only I can see what is happening. Only later on do you become aware of what has happened.

Others cannot watch. There is no possibility of watching it from the outside. How can you watch from the outside? You can see gestures; you can see people doing meditation, but what is happening inside, that is meditation. What they are doing outside is just creating a situation.

It happened…

There was a great Sufi master, Jalaluddin. He had a small school of rare pupils – rare, because he was a very choosy master. He would not accept anyone unless he had chosen the person himself. He worked with very few, but sometimes people passing by would come to see what was happening there.

Once, a group of professors came to his school. Always being very alert, clever people, they decided to have a look for themselves. In the master’s house, which was in the compound, a group of fifty people were sitting, making mad gestures – someone was laughing, someone was crying, someone was jumping around. The professors watched and said, “What’s going on? This man is leading these people into madness. They are already mad, and are fools. And once you become mad it’s difficult to come back. This is nonsense; we have never heard of… People sit silently when they meditate.”

There was a lot of discussion between them. Eventually, a group of them said, “We don’t know what is happening, so it’s better not to make any judgment.”

There was a third group among them who said, “Whatever it is, it is worth enjoying. We would like to watch. It looks beautiful. Why can’t we enjoy it? Why be bothered about what they are doing? Just to watch is a beautiful thing.”

After a few months, the same group of professors came again to the school to watch. What was happening now? – everyone was silent. Again there were fifty people, and the master was also there. They were sitting silently, so silently, as if there was no one there, like statues. Again they had a discussion. One group said, “Now they are useless. There is nothing to see! When we came the first time it was beautiful. We enjoyed it. But now they are just boring.”

The other group said, “But now we think they are meditating. The first time they were simply mad. This is the right thing to do, this is how meditation is done. It is written in the scriptures and described in this way.”

But there was still a third group who said, “We don’t know anything about meditation. How can we judge?”

After a few months, the group came again. Now there was nobody there. Only the master was sitting, smiling. All the disciples had disappeared. They asked, “What is happening? The first time we came there was a mad crowd here and we thought that this is useless, you are driving people crazy. The next time we came it was very good. People were meditating. Where have they all gone?”

The master replied, “The work is done, the disciples have disappeared. I am happily smiling because the thing happened. And I know that you are the fools! I have also been watching – not only you. I know what discussions were going on between you, and what you were thinking the first and second time you came.” Jalaluddin continued, “The effort that you have made in coming here three times would have been enough for you to become meditators, and the discussion that you have been involved in, that much energy was enough to make you silent. In the same period, those disciples have disappeared and you are standing at the same place. Come in! Don’t watch from the outside.”

They said, “Yes, that is why we came again and again, to watch what was happening. When we are certain, okay. Otherwise we don’t want to be committed.”

Clever people never want to commit, but is there life without commitment? Clever people think commitment is a bondage, but is there any freedom without bondage? First you have to move into a relationship, only then can you go beyond it. First, you have to move into a deep commitment, depth to depth, heart to heart. Only then can you transcend it. There is no other way. If you just move out and watch, you can never enter the shrine. And there can be no relationship. The shrine is commitment.

A master and disciple is a love relationship, the highest love that is possible. And unless there is a relationship you cannot grow. Patanjali says: “The first is trust – shraddha; the second is energy – effort.” You have to bring your whole energy in; a part won’t do. It may even be destructive if you only come partially in and remain partially out because that will become a rift within you. It will create a tension within you; it will become an anxiety rather than bliss.

Bliss is where you are in your totality; anxiety is where you are only in part because you are divided and there is a tension. The two parts are going separate ways. You are in difficulty.

Others who attain asampragyata samadhi attain through faith… trust, effort, energy, recollection. This word recollection is smriti: remembrance – what Gurdjieff calls self-remembering. That is smriti.

You don’t remember yourself. You may remember millions of things but you go on continuously forgetting yourself – that you are. Gurdjieff had a technique; he got it from Patanjali. In fact, all techniques come from Patanjali. He is the past master of techniques. Smriti is remembrance – self-remembering, whatever you do. You are walking; remember deep down, “I am walking, I am.” Don’t be lost in walking. Walking is happening – the movement, the activity – and the inner center is there, just aware, watching, witnessing. You need not repeat it in the mind, “I am walking.” If you repeat it, that is not remembrance. You have to be nonverbally aware: “I am walking, I am eating, I am talking, I am listening.” Whatever you do, the “I” inside should not be forgotten, it should remain. It is not self-consciousness, it is consciousness of the self. Self-consciousness is ego; consciousness of the self is asmita, purity, just being aware that “I am.”

Ordinarily, your consciousness is arrowed toward an object. You look at me, and your whole consciousness is moving toward me like an arrow. But you are arrowed toward me. Self-remembering means you must have a double-arrowed arrow, one side showing me, another side showing you. A double-arrowed arrow is smriti, self-remembrance – very difficult because it is easy to remember the object and forget yourself. The opposite is also easy – to remember yourself and forget the object. Both are easy; that’s why those who are in the market, in the world, and those who are in the monastery, out of the world, are the same. Both are single-arrowed. In the market they are looking at things, objects. In the monastery they are looking at themselves.

Smriti is neither in the market nor in the monastery. Smriti is a phenomenon of self-remembering, when subject and object are both together in consciousness. That is the most difficult thing in the world. Even if you attain for a single moment, a split moment, you will have the glimpse of satori immediately. Immediately you have moved out of the body… Somewhere else.

Try it. But, remember, if you don’t have trust it will become a tension. These are the problems involved. It will become such a tension that you could go mad because it is a very tense state. That’s why it is difficult to remember both: the object and the subject, the outer and the inner. To remember both is very, very arduous. If there is trust, that trust will decrease the tension – because trust is love. It will soothe you; it will be a soothing force around you. Otherwise the tension can become so much that you will not be able to sleep. You will not be at peace for one moment because it will be a constant problem, and you will be continuously anxious.

That’s why we can do just one: go to the monastery, close your eyes, remember yourself, forget the world – that’s easy. But what are you doing? – you have simply reversed the whole process, nothing else. No change. Or, forget the monasteries, the temples, the masters and be in the world, enjoy the world. That too is easy. The difficult thing is to be conscious of both. When you are conscious of both and the energy is simultaneously aware, arrowed in the diametrically opposite, there is transcendence. You simply become the third; you become the witness of both. When the third enters, you first try to see the object and yourself. But if you try to see both, by and by, you will feel something is happening within you – because you are becoming a third; you are between the two, the object and the subject. You are neither the object nor the subject now. …attain through faith, effort, recollection, concentration, and discrimination.

Shraddha – trust, and virya – total commitment, effort, energy have to be brought in; all your potentiality has to be brought in. If you are really a seeker of truth you cannot seek anything else. It is a complete involvement. You cannot make it a part-time job: “Sometimes in the morning I meditate and then I go out.” No, meditation has to become a twenty-four-hour continuity. Whatever you do, meditation has to be continuously there in the background. Energy will be needed; your whole energy will be needed.

And now, a few things: if your whole energy is needed, sex disappears automatically because you don’t have energy to waste. Brahmacharya for Patanjali is not a discipline, it is a consequence. You put your total energy in, so you don’t have any energy left. It happens in ordinary life too. Watch a great painter; he forgets women completely. When he is painting there is no sex in his mind because his whole energy is moving. You don’t have any extra energy.

A great poet, a great singer, a dancer who is moving totally in his commitment, automatically becomes celibate. He has no discipline for it. Sex is superfluous energy; it is a safety valve. When you have too much in you and you cannot do anything with it, nature has made a safety valve. You can throw it out, you can release it; otherwise you will go mad or burst, explode. If you try to suppress it, then too you will go mad because suppressing it won’t help. It needs a transformation, and that transformation comes from total commitment. A warrior, if he is really a warrior, an impeccable warrior, will be beyond sex. His whole energy is moving.

A very, very beautiful story is reported…

There was a great philosopher, thinker. His name was Vachaspati. He was so involved in his studies that when his father said to him, “Now I am getting old, I don’t know when I will die, maybe any moment, and you are my only son. I would like you to be married,” he was so involved in his studies that he said, “Okay.” He didn’t hear what his father was saying. So he married. He married, but completely forgot that he had a wife because he was so involved.

This can happen only in India; this cannot happen anywhere else. His wife loved him so much that she never wanted to disturb him. So, it is said that twelve years passed. She served him like a shadow, taking every care, but without disturbing or saying, “I am here. What are you doing?” He was continuously writing a commentary – one of the greatest ever written. He was writing a commentary on Badarayana’s Brahma Sutra, and he was so involved, so total, that he not only forgot about his wife, he was not even aware who had brought the food, who had taken the plates back, who came in the evening and lit the lamp, who had prepared his bed.

Twelve years passed, and the night arrived when his commentary was complete. He only had to write the last word, and he had taken a vow that when the commentary was complete, he would become a sannyasin. Then he would not be concerned with the mind, and everything would be finished. This was his only karma that had to be fulfilled.

That night he was a little more relaxed because he had written the last sentence nearabout twelve o’clock, and for the first time he became aware of his surroundings. The lamp was burning low and needed more oil. A beautiful hand was pouring oil into it. He looked again to see who was there. He didn’t recognize the face. He said, “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

His wife replied, “Now that you have asked, I must tell you that twelve years ago you brought me here as your wife, but you were so involved, so committed to your work, that I didn’t like to interrupt or disturb you.”

Vachaspati started weeping, his tears started flowing. The wife asked, “What is the matter?”

He replied, “This is very complex. Now I am at a loss because the commentary is complete and I am a sannyasin. I cannot be a householder, I cannot be your husband. The commentary is complete, and I had taken a vow and now there is no time left for me here, I am going to leave immediately. Why didn’t you tell me before? I could have loved you. What can I do for all your service, your love, your devotion?”

So he called his commentary on the Brahma Sutra, Bhamati. Bhamati was the name of his wife. The name is absurd – to call Badarayana’s Brahma Sutra commentary, Bhamati… It has no relationship. He continued, “Now I can’t do anything else. The last thing to do is to write the title of the book, so I will call it Bhamati, so that it is always remembered.”

He left the house. His wife was weeping, crying – not in pain, but in absolute bliss. She said, “That’s enough. This gesture, this love in your eyes, is enough. I have received enough; don’t feel guilty. Go! And forget me completely. I wouldn’t like to be a burden on your mind. There is no need to remember me.”

It is possible… If you are totally involved, sex disappears because sex is a safety valve. When you have unused energy, sex becomes a thing haunting you all around. When your total energy is used, sex disappears. That is the state of brahmacharya, of virya, of all your potential energy flowering: …effort, recollection, concentration, and discrimination.

Shraddha – trust; virya – your total bioenergy, your total commitment and effort; smriti – self-remembrance. And samadhi. The word samadhi means a state of mind where no problem exists. It comes from the word samadhan – a state of mind when you feel absolutely okay, no problem, no question, a nonquestioning, nonproblematic state of mind. It is not concentration. Concentration is just a quality that comes to the mind that is without problems. This is the difficulty in translating. Concentration is part – it happens. Look at a child who is absorbed in play; he has a concentration without any effort. He is not concentrating on his play; concentration is a by-product. He is so absorbed in the play that concentration happens. If you knowingly concentrate on something, there is effort, there is tension, and you will be tired.

If you are absorbed, samadhi happens automatically, spontaneously. If you are listening to me, it is a samadhi. If you listen to me totally, there is no need for any other meditation. It becomes a concentration. It is not that you concentrate – if you listen lovingly, concentration follows.

In asampragyata samadhi, when trust is complete, when effort is total, when remembrance is deep, samadhi happens. Whatever you do, you do with total concentration – without any effort to do concentration. If concentration needs effort, it is ugly. It will be like a disease in you, you will be destroyed by it. Concentration should be a consequence. You love a person, and just being with him you are concentrated. Remember never to concentrate on anything. Rather listen deeply, listen totally, and concentration will come by itself.

And discrimination – pragya. Pragya is not discrimination; discrimination is again a part of pragya. In fact, pragya means wisdom – a knowing awareness. Buddha has said, “When the flame of meditation burns high, the light that surrounds that flame is pragya.” Samadhi inside, and a light all around, an aura follows you. You are wise in your every act; not that you are trying to be wise, it simply happens because you are so totally aware. Whatever you do, it happens to be wise – not that you are continuously thinking about doing the right thing. A man who is continuously thinking about doing the right thing will not be able to do anything – he will not be able to do even the wrong thing because this will become such a tension on his mind.

How can you decide what is right and what is wrong? A man of wisdom, a man of understanding, does not choose. He simply feels. He simply throws his awareness everywhere, and in that light he moves. Wherever he moves is right.

Right does not belong to things, it belongs to you – the one who is moving. It is not that Buddha did right things – no. Whatever he did was right. Discrimination is a poor word. A man of understanding has discrimination. He doesn’t think about it, it is just easy for him. If you want to get out of this room, you simply walk out the door. You don’t grope, you don’t go to the wall first and try to find the way, you simply go out. You don’t even think that this is the door.

But when a blind man needs to go out, he asks, “Where is the door?” He also tries to find it. He knocks on various places with his cane, he will grope, and in his mind he goes on thinking, “Is this the door or the wall? Am I going the right way or the wrong way?” And when he comes to the door, he thinks, “Yes, now this is the door.” All this happens because he is blind.

You have to discriminate because you are blind; you have to think because you are blind; you have to believe in right and wrong because you are blind; you have to be involved in discipline and morality because you are blind. When understanding flowers, and the flame is there, you simply see and everything is clear. When you have an inner clarity, everything is clear; you become perceptive. Whatever you do is simply right. Not that it is right, so you do it; you do it with understanding, and it is right.

Shraddha, virya, smriti, samadhi, pragya. Others who attain asampragyata samadhi attain through trust, infinite energy, effort, total self-remembrance, a nonquestioning mind and a flame of understanding.

Enough for today.