Ultimate Question – In Gita Verse 18.22 And that knowledge by which one is attached to one kind of work as the all in all, without knowledge of the truth, and which is very meagre, is said to be in the mode of darkness.

Krishna says that one can come out of darkness only through the Truth.

Many of us sometimes while just sitting, the question comes up in our mind: What is Truth?

That is the most important question that can arise in anybody’s mind, but there is no answer for it. The most important question, the ultimate question, cannot have any answer; that’s why it is ultimate.

When Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” Jesus remained silent. Not only that, the story says that when Pontius Pilate asked the question, “What is truth?” he did not wait to listen for the answer. He left the room and went away. This is very strange. Pontius Pilate also thinks that there cannot be an answer for it, so he didn’t wait for the answer. Jesus remained silent because he also knows it cannot be answered.

But these two understandings are not the same, because these two persons are diametrically opposite. Pontius Pilate thinks that it cannot be answered because there is no truth; how can you answer it? That is the logical mind, the Roman mind. Jesus remains silent not because there is no truth, but because the truth is so vast, it is not definable. The truth is so huge, enormous, it cannot be confined in a word, it cannot be reduced to language. It is there. One can be it, but one cannot say it.

For two different reasons they behaved almost in the same way: Pontius didn’t wait to hear the answer, he already knew that there is no truth. Jesus remains silent because he knows the truth, and knows that it could not be said.

The question is absolutely significant. There is no question higher than that, because there is no religion higher than truth. It has to be understood; the question has to be analysed. Analysing the question, trying to understand the question itself, you may have an insight into what truth is. I will not answer it, I cannot answer it; nobody can answer it. But we can go deep into the question. Going deep into the question, the question will start disappearing. When the question has disappeared you will find the answer there at the very core of your heart – you are the truth, so how can you miss it? Maybe you have forgotten about it, maybe you have lost track of it, maybe you have forgotten how to enter into your own being, into your own truth.

Truth is not an hypothesis, truth is not a dogma. Truth is neither Hindu nor Christian nor Mohammedan. Truth is neither mine nor yours. Truth belongs to nobody, but everybody belongs to truth. Truth means that which is: that is exactly the meaning of the word. It comes from a Latin root, verus. Verus means: that which is. In English there are a few words which are derivations of the Latin root verus: was, were – they come from verus. In German, war – that comes from verus. Verus means that which is uninterpreted. Once the interpretation comes in, then what you know is reality, not truth. That is the difference between truth and reality. Reality is truth interpreted.

So the moment you answer the question, “What is the truth?” it becomes reality; it is no longer; truth. Interpretation has entered into it, the mind has coloured it. And realities are as many as there are minds; there are multi-realities. Truth is one because truth is known only when the mind is not there. It is the mind that keeps you separate from me, separate from others, separate from existence. If you look through the mind, then the mind will give you a picture of truth. That will be only a picture, a photograph of that which is. And of course, the photograph depends on the camera, on the film used, on the chemicals, on how it has been developed, how it has been printed, who has done it. A thousand and one other things enter in; it becomes reality.

The word reality is also beautiful to be understood. It comes from the root, res; it means thing or things. Truth is not a thing. Once interpreted, once the mind has grabbed it, defined it, demarked it, it becomes a thing.

We ask: “What is the truth?”

So no answer is possible, hence Jesus remained silent. But if you look at it with deep sympathy, if you look into the silence of Jesus, you will have an answer. Silence is the answer. Jesus is saying, “Be silent, as I am silent, and you will know” – not saying it in words. It is a gesture, it is very, very Zen-like. In that moment when Jesus remained silent, he came very close to the Zen approach, to the Buddhist approach. He is a Buddha in that moment. Buddha never answered these questions. He had eleven questions listed: wherever he would move his disciples would go around and declare to people, “Never ask these eleven questions of Buddha” – questions which are fundamental, questions which are really significant. You could ask anything else, and Buddha was always ready to answer. But don’t ask the fundamentals, because the fundamentals can only be experienced. And truth is the most fundamental; the very substance of existence is what truth is.

The question is immensely significant, but you will have to be very respectful towards the question. Don’t be in a hurry to find any answer, otherwise some rubbish will kill the answer. Don’t allow your mind to kill the question. And the way of the mind to kill the question is to supply answers, unlived, unexperienced.

You are the truth! But it can happen only in utter silence, when not a single thought moves, when the mind has nothing to say, when not a single ripple is in your consciousness. When there is no ripple in your consciousness, your consciousness remains undistorted. When there is a ripple, there is a distortion.

Whenever there is a thought moving in your consciousness it distorts. And there are many thoughts, millions of thoughts, continuously rushing, and it is always rush-hour. Twenty-four hours a day, it is rush-hour, and the traffic goes on and on and on, and each thought is associated with thousands of other thoughts. They are all holding hands and linked together and interlinked, and the whole crowd is rushing around you. How can you know what the truth is? Get out of this crowd.

That’s what meditation is, that’s what meditation is all about: a consciousness without mind, a consciousness without thoughts, a consciousness without any wavering – an unwavering consciousness. Then it is there in all its beauty and benediction. Then truth is there – call it God, call it nirvana, or whatsoever you like to call it. It is there, and it is there as an experience. You are in it and it is in you.

Krishna says use this question. Make it more penetrating. Make it so penetrating; put everything at stake so that the mind cannot befool you by its superficial answers. Once the mind disappears, once the mind is no longer playing its old tricks, you will know what truth is. You will know it in silence. You will know it in thoughtless awareness.

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