Now try to penetrate the sutras of Patanjali.
IN THE STATE OF NIRVICHARA SAMADHI, AN OBJECT IS EXPERIENCED IN ITS FULL PERSPECTIVE, BECAUSE IN THIS STATE KNOWLEDGE IS GAINED DIRECT WITHOUT THE USE OF THE SENSES.
When senses are not used, when the keyhole is not used to look at the sky – because the keyhole will give its own frame to the sky and destroy everything the sky will not be bigger than the keyhole, cannot be. How can your perspective be bigger than your eyes? How can your touch be bigger than your hands, and how can a sound be deeper than your ears? – Impossible! The eyes, ears, nose are keyholes: through them you are looking at reality. And suddenly you jump out of yourself, in nirvichara; for the first time the vastness, the infinity is known. Now the full perspective is attained. The beginning is not there, the end is not there. There are no boundaries in existence. It is unbounded; there are no limitations. All limitations belong to your senses; they were given by the senses. Existence itself is infinite; in all directions you go on and on and on. There is no end to it.
When the full perspective is attained, then for the first time the subtlest ego that was still clinging to you disappears. Because existence is so vast – how can you cling to a small puny ego?
It happened: a very great egoist, a very rich man, a politician, came to Socrates. He had the biggest, most beautiful palace in Athens, in fact, in all of Greece. And you can see when an egoist walks, you can see when an egoist says something, the ego is always there, mixed in everything. He walked in a haughty way. He came to Socrates, talked to Socrates in a haughty way. Socrates talked for a few minutes and he said, “Wait. Now there is an urgency first that has to be solved, then we will talk” – and he asked a disciple to bring the map of the world. The rich man, the politician, the egoist, couldn’t understand what type of urgency has so suddenly arisen, and he couldn’t see the point of bringing a map of the world. But soon he realized the point was there. Socrates asked, “Where is Greece in this big map of the world? – A small place. Where is Athens? – Just a point.” And then Socrates asked, “Where is your palace? Athens is a point. Where is your palace and where are you? And this map is only of the earth, and the earth is nothing. The sun is sixty thousand times bigger and our sun is a mediocre sun. Millions, times bigger suns are there in the universe. Where will be our earth if we make a map of the solar system? – And our solar system is a very mediocre solar system. There are millions of solar systems. In one galaxy millions of suns and millions of solar systems. Where will be our earth if we make a map of the galaxy to which we belong? There are many millions of galaxies. Where will be our solar system? Where will be our sun?”
And now scientists say there is no end – galaxies upon galaxies continue. Wherever we move, there seems to be no end to it. With such vastness, how can you cling to the ego? It simply disappears like a dewdrop in the morning when the sun rises. When the vastness rises and the perspective is total, your ego simply disappears like a dewdrop. It is not even that big. It is a misconception given by the idiot messengers. Because of the tiny hole of senses, you seem to be too big, comparatively. When you come under the sky, suddenly the ego disappears. It was a creation of the keyhole, because the keyhole was so small, and through the keyhole the whole world was so small, you are so big behind it. Under the sky it simply disappears.
Socrates said, “Where is your palace on this map? Where are you?” The man could understand the point, but he asked, “What was the urgency in it?” Socrates says, “Urgency was there, because without understanding this there is no possibility of any dialogue; you waste my time and your time. Now if you have understood the point, then there is a possibility of dialogue. You can put aside this ego; it doesn’t matter.”
Under the vast sky your ego becomes simply irrelevant. It drops on its own accord. Even to drop it looks foolish; it is not even worth that. When the perspective is full, you disappear: this is the point to be understood. You are because the perspective is narrow. Narrower the perspective, the bigger the ego; blinder the person, the bigger the ego… No perspective, there exists a perfect ego. When the perspective grows, ego gets smaller and smaller. When the perspective is perfect, ego simply is not found.
This is my whole effort here – to make the perspective so full that the ego disappears. That’s why from many directions I go on hitting the wall of your mind, so at least a few more keyholes in the beginning can be made. Through Buddha a new keyhole opens, through Patanjali another, through Tilopa still another. That is what I am doing. I don’t want you to become a follower of Buddha, Tilopa or Patanjali, no, because a follower can never have a bigger perspective – his doctrine is his keyhole.
Talking about so many standpoints, what I am trying to do? – I am trying to do only this: to give you a bigger perspective. Many keyholes in the walls and you can look at the east and you can look at the west, you can look at the south and you can look at the north; and looking at the east you don’t say, “This is the only direction,” you know other directions are there. Looking at the east, you don’t say that, “This is the only true doctrine,” because then the perspective becomes narrow. I am talking about so many doctrines so that you can be freed of all directions and all doctrines.
Freedom comes through understanding. The more you understand, the more you become free. And by and by, when you come to know that through so many holes your old keyhole has just become out of date, doesn’t mean much, then an urge arises in you: what will happen if you break down all these walls and just simply run out? Even a single new hole and the whole perspective changes, and you come to know things which you have never known, not even imagined, not even dreamed. What will happen when all the walls disappear and you are direct face to face with reality under the open sky?
And when I say under the open sky, remember that the sky is not a thing, it is a nothingness. It is everywhere, but you cannot find it anywhere; it is a nothingness. It is simply a vastness. So I never say God is vast – God is vastness. Existence is not vast, because even a vast existence will have limitations. Howsoever vast, somewhere the boundary must be there. Existence is vastness.
That is the Hindu conception of brahma. Brahma means: that which goes on expanding. The very word brahma means that which goes on expanding. The expanse is brahma. In English there is no word; you cannot call brahma God because God is very limited, a concept. Brahma is not God. That’s why in India we don’t have a conception of one God, but many gods. Gods are many; brahma is one. And by brahma… the very word simply means the vastness, the expanse; you cannot exhaust it.
That is the meaning when I say under the sky, open sky: with no walls around it, no doctrines, no senses, no thoughts, no mind; you are simply out of the mechanism, for the first time naked, face to face with reality. Then it’s full perspective… an object is experienced in its full perspective, and to experience an object in its full perspective means that the object simply disappears and it becomes; the vastness. It may be a focusing of energy.
It is just like, go and look at a well. A quantity of water is there in the well; if you draw the water out, more water is supplied through the hidden springs. You don’t see the springs. You go on taking the water out and new water is continuously flowing. The well is just a hole to the ocean. Many hidden springs are bringing water from all around. If you enter into the well, the well is nothing; really those springs are the things, the real things. The well is not a storage, because in a storage there are no springs. A storage is dead; a well is alive. Storage is a thing; a well is a person. Move now with the springs, go deeper into the springs, and finally you will reach to the ocean. And if you move through all the springs, then from all directions the ocean is flowing in the well: it is all one.
If you look at an object with full perspective, the object is joined from every part of it with the infinity; it cannot exist without that. No object exists independently. There is no individuality. Individuality is just an interpretation. Everywhere the whole exists. If you make the part the whole, you are misguided. That is the standpoint of ignorance – then you make the part as if it is the whole. When you look at the part and the whole appears in it, this is the standpoint of an awakened consciousness.
AN OBJECT IS EXPERIENCED IN ITS FULL PERSPECTIVE IN THE STATE OF NIRVICHARA SAMADHI, BECAUSE IN THIS STATE KNOWLEDGE IS GAINED DIRECT, WITHOUT THE USE OF THE SENSES.
No mediums are used; then many new things suddenly become possible. These new things are the siddhis, the powers. When you have no dependence on the senses, telepathy becomes simply possible. It is because of the senses telepathy is not possible. Clairvoyance becomes simply possible. It is because of the senses clairvoyance is not possible. Miracles become ordinary things. You can read anybody’s thoughts; there is no need for him to say, no need for him to communicate it. With full perspective, everything becomes revealed, all the veils are taken up. Now there are no more veils; the whole reality is before you. Materialization of things becomes possible. Just whatsoever you want to do, immediately it happens; action is not needed. Action was needed because of the body.
That’s what Lao Tzu means when he says, “The sage lives in inactivity and everything happens.” Millions of things happen around a sage without his doing anything. He looks at you and suddenly there is a transformation – suddenly you are no longer the body; while he looks you have become a consciousness.
Of course this cannot be permanent with you, because when his look has moved you are again the body. Just by being near him you become citizens of some unknown world. You have a taste of the unknown through him because he is now the vast sky himself. Not doing anything, many things happen. But when these things become possible… the desires of the sage have disappeared before these things become possible, so a sage never does any miracle. And those who do miracles are not sages, because the doer is not there, and their miracles cannot be miracles; they are ordinary magical tricks. They are fooling people and deceiving them.
A miracle happens – cannot be done. It happens near the sage. Not that he produces Swiss-made watches… a sage producing Swiss-made watches is a fool. What you are doing? – And there is no miracle in fact, because no Sathya Sai Baba is ready to do his miracles under scientific observation. He cannot do, because Swiss-made watches have to be purchased from the market, have to be hidden in the long robe or the Negro-style hairdo! Under scientific observation no Sathya Sai Baba is ready to do anything, and if these people are really true, they should do first before scientific observation. These are just ordinary magical tricks. When a magician does it you think, “Just a trick, and when a Baba does it, suddenly it becomes a miracle. The trick is the same.”
Miracles happen only when nirvichara samadhi is attained and you come out of your body, but they are never done. That is the basic quality of a miracle – it is never done, it happens, and when it happens, it never produces Swiss-made watches. To attain, to nirvichara samadhi and then to produce Swiss-made watches does not make sense! It transforms beings; it helps others to attain, to the highest.
Through a sage you can become more watchful, but you will not get a Swiss-made watch! Watchfulness happens; he makes you more aware, alert. He does not give you time, he gives you timelessness. But these things happen, nobody does them, because the door is gone. Only then the nirvichara samadhi is possible. With the doer, how can you cease thinking? – Doer is the thinker. In fact, before you do anything you have to think; the thinker comes first, the doer follows. When the thinker and the doer both are gone and only a witnessing, only a consciousness has remained, then many things simply become possible, they happen.
When Buddha moves, many things happen, but they are not so visible. Only few people will be able to understand what is happening because they belong to a very unknown world. You don’t have any language for it, no concepts for it, and you cannot see it unless it happens to you.
… IN THIS STATE KNOWLEDGE IS GAINED DIRECT, WITHOUT THE USE OF THE SENSES.
The mind has gone, and with the mind all the assistants, all the idiots. They are not functioning, they don’t distract you, they don’t disturb your perception, they don’t create any types of hindrances, they don’t project, they don’t interpret. That whole thing is no more there. Simply consciousness is there before reality. And when this happens, consciousness faces consciousness, because there is no matter.
The most beautiful metaphor that I have come across is a mirror facing another mirror. What will happen when a mirror faces another mirror? One mirror mirrors another mirror; the other mirrors this mirror, and there is nothing in the mirror, only mirroring reflected millions of times into each other. The whole world becomes millions of mirrors – and you are also a mirror – and all mirrors empty, because nothing else is there to reflect, not even the frame of the mirror. There is just the mirror – two mirrors facing each other. That is the most graceful moment, the most blissful; grace descends, flowers shower, the whole celebrates that one more has attained, one more traveler has reached home.
Tags: Patanjali Yoga Sutra 15.1 Full Perspective
