Sarvasar Upanishad

Chapter 1 
 
The being must grow; not knowledge, not accumulation, not information -- but being. Not knowledge, but consciousness, must grow. And only that growth which is of consciousness is spiritual. All else that just adds to your knowledge is nothing but a burden.

before one comes to that bliss which is our seeking, one has to pass through a deep suffering. That deep suffering is a must. That is the birth pain -- you cannot escape it.

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WHAT IS BONDAGE? WHAT IS FREEDOM?
THE SELF OR SOUL IS BOTH GOD AND LIVING BEING. BUT THE BODY, WHICH IS NOT THE SOUL, GETS INFECTED WITH A SENSE OF EGO, AND THAT IS WHAT IS CALLED LIVING BEING'S BONDAGE.
THE CESSATION OF THIS EGO IS WHAT IS CALLED FREEDOM.
WHAT IS VIDYA (RIGHT LEARNING) AND AVIDYA (FALSE ONE)?
THAT WHICH GIVES RISE TO THE EGO IS CALLED AVIDYA (FALSE LEARNING).
AND THAT WHICH LEADS TO THE CESSATION OF THE EGO IS CALLED VIDYA (RIGHT LEARNING).
WHAT ARE THESE FOUR STATES: WAKING, DREAMING, SLEEPING AND TURIYA (THE FOURTH)?
THE STATE IN WHICH THE SOUL, WITH THE HELP OF THE ENERGIES OF THE SUN AND OTHER GODS, AND THROUGH THE INSTRUMENTALITY OF THESE FOURTEEN: MIND, INTELLECT, MIND STUFF, EGO, AND THE TEN SENSE ORGANS -- BECOMES SENSITIVE TO SOUND, TOUCH AND SUCH OTHER GROSS OBJECTS, IS CALLED THE WAKING STATE.

WHEN THE LIVING BEING, ON ACCOUNT OF THE UNFULFILLED DESIRES OF THE WAKING STATE, BECOMES SENSITIVE TO SOUND, TOUCH AND SUCH OTHER GROSS OBJECTS -- EVEN IN THE ABSENCE OF THE LATTER -- IT IS CALLED THE DREAMING STATE OF THE SELF OR SOUL.


WHAT ARE THESE FIVE KOSHAS (BODIES): SHEATHS OF FOOD, BREATH, MIND, KNOWING AND BLISS?
THE SLEEPING STATE IS ONE IN WHICH ALL THE FOURTEEN ORGANS ARE STILL AND TRANQUIL, AND WHEN -- FOR LACK OF REAL KNOWLEDGE -- THE SELF OR SOUL IS INSENSITIVE TO SOUND, TOUCH AND SUCH OTHER OBJECTS.
AND THE ONE WHICH IS AWARE OF THE CREATION AND DISSOLUTION OF THESE THREE STATES -- WAKING DREAMING AND SLEEPING -- BUT WHICH IS ITSELF BEYOND CREATION AND DISSOLUTION, IS KNOWN AS TURIYA -- THE FOURTH STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS, THE STATE OF TURIYA.

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THE DOER, LIVING BEING, PANCHVARGA (FIVE GROUPS), KSHETRAGYA (KNOWER OF THE FIELD), SAKSHI (WITNESS), KUTASTHA (THE SUPREME) AND ANTARYAMI (THE IMMINENT)?

THE SAME WAY WHAT ARE THESE THREE: SELF, SUPREME SELF AND MAYA (THE WORLD OF APPEARANCES)?
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The first thing towards freedom is to know that you are not free. The first step, the basic, is to know that you are in bondage. Then comes the longing, then is created the desire; then one begins to dream about freedom. But one must be aware that one is not free, one is just a slave. So the enquiry begins with the question: What is bondage?

Bondage doesn't mean knowledge. VIDYA is not knowledge. Vidya means the methods, the techniques. "What is wisdom?" It doesn't mean, "What is knowledge?" it means, "What is the methodology? How to achieve it; how to be free? Tell me about the highest, the supreme-most truth -- because the supreme-most truth is not to be born at all.

The primary truth, the foundational truth, the best, the highest the supreme-most is not to be born at all. And the second is to die as soon as possible after you are born.

Vidya means the methods, the techniques.  AVIDYA means pseudo-methods
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To be identified with something which you are not, is the formation of the ego. Ego means to be identified with something you are not.

Whatsoever one is needs no identification.

You need not be identified with it: You are already it.

So whenever there is any identification, it means WITH something else -- that you are not. One can be identified with the body, with the mind. But the moment one is identified, one is lost to oneself. This is what ego means. This is how ego is formed and becomes crystallized.

Whenever you assert "I," there is identification with something -- with some name, with some form, with some body, with some past; with mind, with thoughts, with memories. There is some deep identification: only then you can assert "I." If you are not identified with anything else and can remain with yourself, then you cannot say "I"; the "I" just drops.

"I" means identity.

Identity is the basis of all slavery:

Be identified and you will be in a prison.

The very identity will become your prison. Be non-identified, remain totally yourself, and then there is freedom. So this is what bondage is: Ego is the bondage, and egolessness is freedom. And this ego is nothing but to be identified with something that you are not. For example, everyone is identified with his name; and everyone is born without any name. Then the name becomes so significant that one can die for his name's sake.

What is a name? But the moment you are identified, it becomes very meaningful. And everyone is born without any name -- nameless. Or, you take form; everyone is identified with one's own form. Every day you are standing before your mirror. What are you seeing? -- Yourself? No. No mirror can mirror YOU, just the form you are identified with. But such is the stupidity of the human mind that every day the form is changing constantly, but you are never disillusioned.

When you were a child, what was your form? When you were in your mother's womb, what was your form? When you were in your parents' seed, what was your form? Can you recognize -- if a picture is produced for you -- the egg in your mother's womb? Will you be able to recognize and say, "this is `I'"? No, but you must have been identified with this egg somewhere back.... You were born -- and if the first scream can be reproduced for you, will you be able to recognize it and say, "this is MY scream"? No, but it WAS yours, and you must have been identified with that.

If an album can be produced before a dying man.... A constant changing form -- there is a continuity but still every moment a change.... The body is changing every seven years, completely, totally; nothing remains the same, not a single cell. Still, still we think, "this is my form, this is me." And consciousness is formless. The form is just something outside that goes on changing and changing and changing -- just like clothes.

This identification is ego. If you are not identified with anything -- with name or with form or anything -- then where is the ego? Then you are, and still you are not. Then you are in your absolute purity, but with no ego. That's why Buddha called the self, no-self; he called it ANATTA, ANATMA. He said, "There is no ego, so you cannot call yourself ATMA even. You cannot call yourself `I'; there is no `I.' There is pure existence." This pure existence is freedom. This term AVIDYA really cannot be translated. It is not synonymous with ignorance; it is not ignorance... because ignorance is just negative. You don't know something, you are ignorant. But this avidya is not something negative, it is very positive. It is not that you don't know something; it is rather, on the contrary, that you know something which is not. This avidya is, rather, a positive projection of something which is not.

The "I" is not -- the ego is the most non-existential thing in the world.

It looks very substantial, and is absolutely empty.

Avidya means the projective source in you of this ego, of this identified image of yourself. Avidya is a projective force within you. It is not just ignorance, it is not that you don't know something; it is that you can create something which is not. You can dream something which is not, you can project something which is not.

When the mind is projecting something which is not, it is avidya .When this mind destroys all projections, all identifications, remains without any projective activity, then this method of destroying all projections, all that is not, but appears to be -- is called vidya. Vidya is not knowledge; again, vidya is a positive force to destroy all that which avidya creates. Vidya is untranslatable. Vidya means a positive force in you which can destroy ego formation. Both are positive: avidya creates that which is not, and vidya destroys that which is not. So vidya means yoga, vidya mean the science of religion.

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whenever anything is reported by the senses to the consciousness, it is not a passive receptivity; the senses have added something to it, they have interpreted it, they have imposed something on it. This imposition creates an illusory world around every consciousness, and everyone begins to live in a world of his own. This world, the Eastern esoteric mind says, is the MAYA, the illusion. It is not the real, the objective, that-which-is: it is something that you have created.

Everyone is within his own world, and there are as many worlds as there are minds. So whenever two persons are near, two worlds are in collision. And otherwise is not possible, because you have not known the objective as it is.

The second dimension, the alternative dimension to know the world as it is, is not through senses, but through transcendence of the senses. And human consciousness can be in a direct encounter: the senses are just dropped; and still, knowing happens. That knowing is about the truth, because there has been no mediator. Now you have known directly. To know the truth through the senses is maya; to know the truth immediately, directly, face to face, is BRAHMAN. That which we know remains the same, but the KNOWER changes. If he is using senses, then he creates an illusory perception; if he is not using the senses, then he is face to face with the reality.

Meditation is the path of how to drop the senses, how to drop the windows and just to be in reality without anyone in between. The rishi says that this contact with the world through the senses is the first state of consciousness, the awake state of mind, JAGRUT. When you are in contact with the world through the senses, this is jagrut -- the awake state of the mind.

Dreaming is the second state, deeper than the state we call the awake. Dreaming is a substitute state, secondary, but deeper. Whatsoever has been left unfulfilled in the state when you were awake, has to be completed. Mind has a tendency to complete things. If you leave something incomplete, then you will create a dream to complete it. The mind tends to complete a thing. You must complete it; otherwise, there is something restless inside.

You have seen a beautiful figure, but you couldn't look at it as you liked, as much you liked. Now a lingering incompletion will continue inside. You can suppress it when you are awake -- you are occupied in many other things, and the suppression is possible -- but when you go to sleep, the incomplete link unfolds a dream and completes the thing.

This state of dreaming, the rishi says, means without the instrumentality of your senses. The senses are closed -- they are not aware of the world beyond you; now you are within your cells, within your body, but still you can create you own worlds. This creation of your own worlds in dreams becomes possible because your mind is a conditioning of everything you have known, you have felt; everything has been accumulated in it. It is an accumulation, not only of this life, but of all the lives one has lived; and not only of human lives, of animal lives also; and not only of animal lives, but of vegetable lives also.

So in a dream you can become a tree; in a dream you can become a lion. Sometime you have been a tree: that memory is still there -- it can unfold. This unfolding of past memories, of past lives, means only that you have never lived totally -- always partially. You have not loved totally, you have not been angry totally, you have not been ANYTHING totally. Everything is incomplete. So many things incomplete inside, create the situation in which dreaming happens. The moment one begins to live totally, everything is completed, dreaming ceases.

A christ, a buddha, will not dream, because he has not left anything incomplete. A Jesus says this moment is enough -- live it totally. Do not think of the other moment that is to come; do not think of the other moment that has gone. That which has gone is no more, and that which has not come yet, has not come yet. Both are non-existential.

This moment, this very moment, this passive moment is the only existential time. Live in it! And leave all else aside. Be totally in it, then there will be no dreaming, then everything is complete. And by the night, when you are dropping into sleep, nothing is incomplete and needs to be completed. And when dreaming ceases, mind becomes more aware.

This is the second state: dreaming. When dreaming ceases you become more awake; and when there is no dreaming in the night, in the morning when you are awake, you have more innocent eyes, more fresh, more alive. In your eyes there is no dust, there is no smoke; the flame is clear without the smoke. Dreaming creates a smoke around your eyes.

And one who has been dreaming in the night, really goes on dreaming in the day also. Deep down there is always a continuous dream film. You are hearing me: just close your eyes and look inside and there is a dream unfolding.

You are too occupied outside, that's why you cannot become attentive to your inside dreaming; but the dreaming continues.

Look at the sky; there are no stars now. Where have they gone? They cannot go anywhere; they are where they have been in the night, but only because of the sun, we cannot see them. Our eyes are so occupied with the sun, they cannot penetrate through to them. They are still there. If you can go down into a deep well, even in the day, you can look at the stars, because then there is a gap of darkness and again stars appear.

Just like this, you are continuously dreaming. But when you are occupied in the outside world, the dreaming continues inside without your being attentive to it. The moment you are not occupied, relaxed, you become again aware of the dreaming. This is a constant state -- in fact, continuous. And this dreaming is more indicative about your mind than whatsoever we call being awake, because it is less inhibited, less suppressed, more naked and therefore more true.

So, if your dreaming can be known, if your dream can be known, much is known about you. You cannot deceive -- in dreams, at least. They are still not a part of your will, they are not voluntary. You are not the controller; that's why they are so wild, so animal-like. This second stage must be penetrated, must be transcended. Only then we can come to the third -- still deeper, the deep sleep, the dreamless sleep.

The more you go deep inside, the nearer you are to existence. The deeper you go to the center, the nearer you are to the center of the universe. These three are concentric circles around the center: awake, dreaming and deep sleep. These are three concentric circles. If you transcend all these three, then suddenly you are face to face with your own center. Then you are centered in it. That centering is all.

That centering is to achieve the deathless.

That centering is to be deep inside the heart of the universe.

That centering is divine realization.

Dreaming has to cease, one must cease dreaming. Dreaming has to be transcended -- dreaming is the barrier. A dreaming mind can never know the truth; a dreaming mind is bound to live in illusory worlds. Dreaming is the problem, and if dreaming stops.... And it stops when ambition stops, it stops when desiring stops, it stops when one begins to live moment to moment, just here and now. If you can remember two words, "here" and "now," dreaming stops. Be here and now, and there can be no dreaming, because dreaming is always from the past and for the future. It originates in the past; it spreads into the future.

Dreaming can never be in the present. To be in the present and to be in a dream is impossible; they never meet. So if one is awake, aware, attentive of the time that is just here and now, dreaming stops. And when dreaming withers away, you can become aware, really aware; you can really become awake. And when you are awake, this awareness can penetrate the third state of consciousness: dreamless sleep. Really, in no language other than Hindi, is there a word for it -- SUSHUPTI. In no language is there a word for it -- sushupti.

Sleep is not sushupti -- that's why we have to add DREAMLESS sleep. It is not just sleep, it is non-dreaming sleep -- without any ripple of the dream, with no waves of the dream. The ocean is totally silent, not even a dream is there to disturb. Then you are in sushupti -- the third state, dreamless sleep, the non-dreaming sleep. But you can never become aware of it unless dreaming ceases.

The waves must cease; only then can you become aware of the ocean; otherwise, you are always aware of the waves. Waves are on the surface, so when you see, you see the waves, not the ocean. The waves must stop totally. Only then, for the first time, do you become aware of the ocean, the waveless ocean -- the dreamless sleep. And if one can become aware of dreamless sleep, one transcends sleep. One transcends sleep only when one becomes aware of it. And then you are turiya, the fourth; then you have passed all the three.

This fourth is the being; this fourth is the search. For this fourth effort is needed. And one may go on continuously dreaming and dreaming and dreaming -- one can never achieve this fourth state through dreaming. That's why there is so much insistence on non-desiring, non-ambition. The buddhas go on saying, "Do not desire," because if you desire then dreaming cannot cease. The buddhas go on saying, "Do not be attached," because if you are attached the dreaming cannot cease. Do not be ambitious, do not long for any becoming, do not think in terms of the future; otherwise, dreaming cannot cease. And unless dreaming ceases you will never be. You CAN never be! You will always be a becoming, just a becoming: "a" changing into "b," "b" changing into "c," "c" changing into "d" -- and always the longing for the far off. And then you go on running, and you never reach; then you go on becoming this and that and you are never a being.

The being is here and now.

Drop dreaming and you are there where you have really been always, but you were never aware.

All meditation techniques are just antidream efforts, just dream-negating devices.
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Consciousness in itself is nothing. One is always conscious about something; so the "about" is important. Consciousness is always objective: you are conscious of something. If there is nothing in front of you, consciousness will drop -- you will not be conscious.

This state, the oriental religious perception says, is the sushupti; this is the third state. When there is no object to be known, the knower is lost. When then is no object in the outside world to be aware of, and when there is no object in the mind, dream object, when all objects have dropped -- outside all are dream objects -- then consciousness drops. Then you are not conscious; then you are unconscious. This unconsciousness is sushupti, the third stage.

But this is amazing: it means that we are not conscious really, we are only objectively conscious. We have not known ourselves, we have known only objects and things. Our consciousness is other-oriented; it is not self centered. I can be conscious only when something else is present. When nothing is present I will go to sleep. I have not known any subjective consciousness which can exist without the object. That's why in the third state, consciousness equals unconsciousness -- it becomes unconscious. When there is no object as a challenge, one becomes unconscious.

So this consciousness, this so-called consciousness, is just a struggle, just a challenge, just a constant stimulus-response; it is not anything in itself. You are not the master of it; you are not really conscious: you are only being forced to be conscious constantly. Everything is forcing you to be conscious; otherwise, to go to sleep will be the spontaneous act -- one will just drop into a coma. So can we call it consciousness? It is not. This state is not the state of self consciousness, it is just a constant tension between you and the world, between you and the thoughts. If there are no objects and no thoughts, you drop... and be unconscious. This is the third state, sushupti. And unless one transcends it, one cannot be called conscious.

Gurdjieff used to say that man has no soul. He used to say that you have got no self, because self means self consciousness; otherwise, how can you be said to have a self? If you are not conscious, how can you be a self? How can you be an individual? So Gurdjieff's teaching doesn't believe that every man has got a soul. He says, "Every man has got a potentiality he can develop, he may not develop."

If you become self conscious, then you develop the individual; then you become the individual. If you are not self conscious then you are just one object among other objects, and there is nothing more. Gurdjieff's teaching makes this central point the supreme point. He says, "Try to remember yourself without any object. Try to remember yourself without any object, without any relation to anything else. Remember yourself directly, simply." It is very arduous; in a way it seems impossible. You cannot remember yourself without in any way relating to something else -- Can you?

Can you remember yourself?

Can you feel yourself?

Whenever you feel, you feel in relation to: someone's son, someone's daughter, someone's husband, being rich or poor, belonging to this country or that, being healthy or ill -- but this is all in relation to something else. Can you remember yourself without any relation? -- unrelated? without any context? just you? It becomes inconceivable. Really, we have not known ourselves, we have known only in relation. And this is the miracle: you know yourself in relation to someone, who knows himself in relation to you. See the absurdity of it! Everyone knows themselves because of others -- and the others know themselves because of him.

Everyone is ignorant, but by being related with other ignorant people, you become wise. You know yourself because you know your name, you know your house, your address, your city, your country -- and not for a single moment have you known who you are. This sushupti, this third state of unconsciousness must be broken apart, must be penetrated beyond. One must become aware of oneself without being related to anything else -- this is self knowledge. This fourth is known as the turiya.

We must make a distinction between the being and the states. Any state, whether it is awake, or dreaming, or nondreaming sleep, cannot be synonymous with the being, because the being is that upon which these states happen. The being is one who goes through all these three states. He cannot be identified with any; otherwise, he cannot move.

You cannot be awake if you are identified with dreaming: if you are dreaming, then you cannot be awake. If you are awake, then you cannot go into sleep. But you move -- just as one moves into one's house and out of one's house, you come in and you go out; so you cannot be identified with the inside of your house or the outside of your house. You move: you can come in, you can go out; so you become the third. You move from dreaming to non-dreaming; you move from sleep to dream, from dream to wakefulness.

So this mover must be something else, more than all the three -- this is the fourth; hence, it is called "the fourth." And therefore no name is given to it... because from the fourth it can never move. From the fourth it can never move. When I say this, a question must come into your mind: "But this fourth goes into sleep, goes into dreaming and other states?"

This is something very subtle to be understood. No, this fourth never goes anywhere; those states come upon it and pass -- this fourth remains in itself constantly. Dreaming comes over it just like clouds coming over the sun. Mm? The sun remains, then there are clouds, then the clouds have gone. This fourth is the non-moving center within you. Dreams come, then objects are seen, then thoughts are seen; then objects drop, and thoughts drop, and you are engulfed in a dark sleep; but the fourth remains its center -- it has never moved. That's why no name has been given to it; no name is needed -- it remains the nameless. One has to penetrate to this fourth, mm?

This is not a state really; when we talk we have to call it the fourth state, but it is not a state. All the three are states; this fourth is beyond these states. This fourth is the being -- this fourth is the very nature of one's self. Unless one goes to this fourth, unless one becomes aware of this non-moving center, unless one is centered in it, there is no freedom and there is no bliss. Really, there is nothing except dreaming, many many dreamings, many types of dreamings; but nothing else -- just bubbles in the air.

This fourth.... How to achieve this fourth? How to reach this fourth? How to penetrate this deep sleep? How to destroy this darkness within? What to do?

The one basic thing is to be aware first: in the first state when you are awake, be aware. Be aware whatsoever you are doing. Walking on the street, then be aware that you are walking. Let your awareness be double-arrowed: one arrow conscious of the act of walking, another arrow going deep inside and aware of the walker. Listening to me, be aware, double-arrowed: one arrow of your consciousness going outside listening attentively, another going inside constantly aware of the listener.

Mahavira has a very beautiful word. He used "listener", shravak, with a very original meaning, and he has given a very new shape, a new nuance to it. He says if you can be simply a right-listener, nothing else is needed. This much will do: if you can be a right listener -- samyak shravak. If you can listen attentively with double-arrowed attention, then this much is enough, you will be awakened. No other discipline is needed.

Buddha has used the word, "mindfulness" -- samyak smriti, right mindfulness. He says whatsoever you are doing, do it mindfully; don't do it in sleep, do it mindfully -- whatsoever you are doing. Do it consciously, then consciousness begins to crystallize in the first state, wakefulness. When you have become conscious, when you are awake, the your consciousness can penetrate the second state, dreaming. It is not difficult then. Then you can become conscious of your dreams; and the moment you become conscious of you dreams, dreams disappear. The moment dreams disappear you become conscious of your dreamless sleep, and the arrow goes on. Now be aware that you are asleep, and by and by the arrow penetrates -- and suddenly you are in the fourth.

Religion cannot be a belief.

Religion cannot be a tradition.

Religion cannot be an accepted dogma.

Religion is totally individual:

One has to discover it again and again.

One has to know it for oneself, for oneself.

Unless you know there is no knowledge.

All knowledge gathered from others is just false, it is pseudo, it is deceptive. One has to encounter the reality oneself. This is just like love -- you know if you love. If you have not loved you may know everything about love, but love will not be known, because love is not really a knowledge, it is a realization, it is an experience... rather, not even experience, but experiencing. Experience means something which you have experienced and now it is dead. Experience means something which has finished, which is finished with a full stop. Experiencing means a process, a continuous process. You have to go on discovering, discovering -- and there is no end to it.

Religion is like love:

There is a beginning to it but no end.

You have to begin it but you never reach it -- you go on reaching. You go on reaching, but it is never of the past. It is not that there comes a full stop and you can say, "I have reached." No, never. That's why we call the religious search, the ultimate search. By "ultimate" we mean that which begins, which never ends. Rather, on the contrary, a moment comes when you are lost but the end has not been achieved. But this, this seeker being lost is the explosion.

So unless you know, never believe. Unless you know, never feel at ease with words, doctrines, scriptures. Unless you know, remember continuously that you have to seek and find, that you have to go on a far, faraway journey. And that's why religion really is the only adventure; all else is just childish. That which can be found is just childish; that which can be found is not really the adventure; that which is possible needs no courage. Only the impossible needs courage, only that which cannot be found. If you go on the search for it, you have gone on an adventure.

But the moment one is ready for the impossible, the impossible become possible. The moment one is ready to take the jump, the miracle happens. You are not in a way, in the jump -- you are lost. And still, for the first time, you are -- you have found yourself.

The states are lost, the identities are lost, the names and forms are lost. There only remains the original source of all This rishi says: These are the states; these three are the states. The fourth is the knower of all these states. These three states come out of the fourth, again are dissolved in the fourth, and the fourth never comes out of anything and is never dissolved in anything else.

The fourth is the eternal principle, the eternal life, the eternal aliveness.

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[14]
THAT WHICH IS BEGINNINGLESS AND YET WHICH ENDS, WHICH IS NEITHER BEING NOR NON-BEING AND WHICH IN ITSELF IS SEEN AS THE PUREST OF ENERGIES IS CALLED MAYA OR THE MAGICAL WORLD.

IT CANNOT BE DESCRIBED IN ANY OTHER WAY EXCEPT THIS.

THIS MAYA IS IGNORANCE-LIKE, PETTY AND UNREAL, BUT IS SEEN BY THE DELUDED PERSONS AS REAL AT ALL TIMES -- PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. THEREFORE TO SAY THAT IT IS SUCH CANNOT EXPLAIN ITS REAL CHARACTER.

Now, the enquiry goes into MAYA. After brahman, it must be discussed. By maya is meant something which IS and yet IS NOT, which appears to be -- the appearance.

Things as they appear to us are not as they are. Immanuel Kant says somewhere that we cannot know the thing in itself; a thing cannot be known in itself. Whatsoever we know about a thing is a projection; it is a contribution, we have contributed something to it. When you fall in love with someone, it is your projection. You contribute to your beloved, to your lover, something -- you give something, and then you are impressed by your own contribution. This is maya.

We go on creating illusions around us. We go on creating dreams around us. The real, that-which-is, is engulfed with out dreams, projections. This force to create illusions around oneself is maya -- this magic, this power of the mind to create things which are not, or to give things qualities which are not. And we live in this world, this created one. Of course, obviously, disillusionment is bound to come. It may take time, but it comes -- any moment the reality asserts, the dream is scattered.

And we also help each other to create dreams. Someone falls in love, and then they both help each other to create the dream; they both bring qualities, show appearances which are not real -- masks, faces. They help each other deceive themselves. All that is beautiful comes up, and all that is ugly goes down. All that is lovable is brought out, and all that is not lovable is just forgotten; it goes into the unconscious and we create a false face. Because really, no one can love unless he can hate -- so whenever someone loves, it means that there is every possibility of hatred as intense as love. They both exist simultaneously, they are part of one phenomenon.

You cannot love if you cannot hate; both are one energy. But the hatred part is suppressed into the unconscious, and the loving part is brought out. Both are bringing the loving part above and suppressing the other, inevitable part, which cannot be denied. They create dreams around themselves, and because of these dreams which THEY have created, they fall in love.

But how long can you continue? The denied part will assert; it will have its revenge. It will explode. The more suppressed, the more dangerous is going to be the explosion. You can go on having faces when you are not so near and intimate. The moment you are near and intimate, and love demands now be near, now live in one house, now be married, now we cannot live apart.... It is impossible. This demand, that "now we cannot live apart," creates the situation in which the other suppressed part will have its revenge; it will come up. It will begin to assert, then the dream is shattered.

But again, again we begin to believe that, now this person is just hatred. First, we believe this person is just love, now we again fall into the second trap, the other trap; now this person becomes just hatred, poison. This again is just a projection: the other part is being projected. And we go on living in these projections.

This is the power of maya. This is the inner magic of your mind. It can project, and then it can create disillusionment for itself. It can create dreams and then it can believe in them -- BOTH; it can create and can believe in them! And when those dreams are shattered, it is not that one becomes aware of this whole fallacious game. When the dream is shattered, again you begin to create another dream. This shattering of particular dreams is not the shattering of the maya.

The rishi says that the maya is a natural capacity to hypnotize oneself, it is auto-hypnosis. This auto-hypnosis can create things which are not, and can hide things which are. And for a seeker of the truth, of the real, this has to be understood; this has to be felt very deeply. This power, this maya must be understood deeply, because this is our bondage, this is our ignorance, this is our insanity, this is our suffering -- creating dreams and then creating frustrations; creating illusions then disillusionments. And one goes on repeating -- lives and lives one goes on repeating, and the power goes on working again and again.

But whenever we are disillusioned, we are not responsible for it; the other one, the situation, the object, is responsible. When we create this illusion, then again we are not responsible; the other one, the object, the lover, the beloved, the world -- they are responsible. This happens because the projector is within. We never become aware of the projector, we always become aware of the projected scene, of the projected phenomenon. Just as in a cinema hall the projector is behind -- no one looks back to see the projector; the projector is behind. Everyone is facing the screen, and on the screen are just projected images. The real, the power is behind. The film, the power to project, is behind, but no one looks at the projector; everyone is looking at the screen.

The whole world is just a screen; the whole objectivity is just a screen, and the projector is within. And we go on projecting images on the screen of the world, and then we begin to believe. Whatsoever we see on the screen, we begin to believe. This is maya: the capacity to project images on the screen of the world. If you stop your projections, the whole world just withers away, just disappears. And when the world disappears with your maya, with your projective mechanism... when the screen remains just a screen without the images, you are face to face with the brahman.

Brahman is the screen. But we have never seen the screen, because there is a continuous flow of images. One image is followed by another, one image is replaced by another. There is a gap, but we are so concerned with images that the gap is never felt. Slow down your projecting. Slow down your projecting machinery. Sometimes it happens in a cinema hall, some defect in the mechanism, and the film is slowed, and then you see the gaps. One image has gone, another has not come, and there is a sudden gap and the screen is seen.

By meditation we try to slow down the mechanism of projections. If the mechanism is slowed down and even for a single moment you begin to be aware of the gap -- imageless gap of the screen -- you have the glimpse. Suddenly you know that you have lived in the dreams of your own creation; and whatsoever you have known as the world was not the world really, it was YOUR world.

Pearl Buck has written her autobiography; she has named it MY SEVERAL WORLDS. It is good; the title is good -- everyone is living in several worlds, in several dreams, in several projections. And you can continue forever. That's why the moments of suffering sometimes become blissful; the moments of suffering sometimes suddenly create a situation in which the mechanism stops, falters, and you see the gap. Someone has died, you loved him. Suddenly there is a gap; suddenly you cannot project -- now the person is dead, you cannot go on projecting on him. You will need some time to find another object to project the same dreaming; there is a gap. So sometimes death, sometimes deep suffering, sometimes illness, sometimes sudden dangers and the mechanism falters and you have the gap.

But we are cunning. We are so cunning we just close our eyes. The moment there is a gap, we just close our eyes. Someone has died, you begin to weep, and your tears will become a screening phenomenon, and you cannot see the gap. The gap is there. Someone has died! Now be aware and see that the object has disappeared, and your dreams are just in a vacuum, and they cannot find an object! Be aware in this moment and you may be able to see the gap, the screen, not your world.

But no, the mind is cunning. The moment there is a sudden gap, our eyes are filled with something else. Again, we are not able to look in the interval. One is weeping and crying; and he will weep and cry unless he can find another object again to laugh, again to live, again to create the old illusion.

Buddha says when there is death, meditate -- meditate on it. This is the moment.

When there is suffering, meditate on it.

When there is disillusionment, meditate on it.

This is the moment!

Don't lose ANY moment  which deviates you from the gap!

This mechanism, this capacity, this power to create illusions is maya. It is there, and very real because it works. Very real, and very actual because it works and we are in it. This auto-hypnosis must be broken; otherwise, you are never face to face with the reality. And unless one is face to face, unless one is in an encounter with the real, one is not.

You can dream only if you are asleep, and you can project only if you are in ignorance. So ignorance means spiritual sleep, a spiritual somnambulism. This ignorance you cannot destroy by learning more and more. By any information, by any accumulation of knowledge, this ignorance cannot be destroyed, because this ignorance is not the LACK of knowledge. So one can be a very learned man and still in illusion, and still in the same hypnotic trance, in the same sleep.

That is the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Wisdom comes when there is no ignorance-ignorance conceived as a positive force of maya, not just absence of learning, information -- not just absence. And wisdom comes only when there is no ignorance. This positive energy which is creating illusions just stops to create. Knowledge means ignorance is still there, but hidden, hidden in information. And you can hide it, you can cover it, you can create a false sense of knowing without knowing at all.

Scriptures can help; teachers can help; religions can help; philosophy systems can help. Only meditation will not help you to create a false sense of knowing; everything thing else can help, help this dreaming. Only meditation cannot help you; only meditation can destroy the whole structure of ignorance and so-called knowledge. And then there is a sudden burst of wisdom. Then you are face to face, encountering the real.

Meditation is a technique to destroy another, another natural technique of auto-hypnosis, maya. Maya can be destroyed only by meditation, because meditation brings your mechanism of projections to a halt. And if you can go deep, it comes to a full stop. The moment it comes to a full stop, the whole changes; you are transformed and you are in a new world, in a new consciousness. That consciousness is brahman. As we are, we are in maya; as we can be, as is our potentiality, is brahman. This seed of brahman, this seed of supreme consciousness is covered in ignorance, in maya.

Use meditation as a technique of de-hypnosis.

Maya is hypnosis; meditation is de-hypnosis.

Of course, it looks like hypnosis, because it is going back on the same path you have come. It is retracing your steps back, so it looks like hypnosis. In a way it is hypnosis, only the direction is different. In hypnosis you are projecting things; in de-hypnosis you are taking your projections back, collecting back your projections, bringing back the web of your projections into the projector. It looks the same, only the direction is just the opposite.

In hypnosis you go far away from yourself on the same path. In de-hypnosis you come back -- on the same path but towards yourself. So meditation is de-hypnosis, the technique to de-hypnotize yourself from a natural hypnosis, from a natural power called maya.