THE HIGHEST KNOWLEDGE BORN OF THE AWARENESS OF REALITY IS TRANSCENDENT, INCLUDES THE COGNITION OF ALL OBJECTS SIMULTANEOUSLY, PERTAINS TO ALL OBJECTS AND PROCESSES WHATSOEVER – IN THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE – AND TRANSCENDS THE WORLD PROCESS.
… And transcends the process world, and transcends the world of all processes.
TARAKAM SARVA-VISHAYAM SARVATHAVISHAYAM AKRAMAM CHETI VIVEKAJAM GYANAM.
Through the eye we can see only a part of reality. Because of that part, life looks like a process. Just; for example, you are sitting under a tree and the road is empty, and then suddenly a man appears on the road from the left side; he goes on the right side; after walking a little distance he disappears again. Somebody is sitting in the tree. Long before the man appeared to you, he appeared to the man who was in the tree. When the man disappears to you, he does not disappear for the man who is sitting in the tree; but after a time the man disappears for him also. But somebody is in a helicopter. Now his vision goes farther; the man continues to walk – long before you became aware that he was on the road and long after he disappeared for you.
What is happening? Exactly this is the case with things. The higher you rise, the closer you reach the sahasrara – you are climbing the tree of life. Sahasrara is the ultimate point to look from. There is no more height than that. From sahasrara you see things: everything goes on and on and on. Nothing stops, nothing disappears.
It is very difficult; it is as difficult as the physicists’ explanation of the ultimate electron, quanta, that it is both a wave and a particle, both a dot and a line.
You are flying in an aeroplane, over the Ganges, and the Ganges is flowing. If I ask you, “Is the Ganges a process? Is the Ganges flowing, or is it that the Ganges IS?” what will you say? You will say, “Both.” You will say, “The Ganges is,” because you can see it from one end to the other simultaneously. You can see the Ganges in the Himalayas, you can see the Ganges on the plains, you can see the Ganges falling into the ocean, simultaneously – past, present, future have disappeared. The whole Ganges is available to you from a certain altitude. It is, and yet you know it is flowing. It is both being and becoming; it is both wave and particle, dot and line; is and still a process.
It is paradoxical, it looks paradoxical, because we don’t know how things appear from that height.
This sutra says, “The highest knowledge born of the awareness of reality is transcendent….” It transcends all dualities, polarities of is and process, of static and dynamic, of wave and particle, of life and death, of past and future – all dualities, all polarities. It is transcendent. “TARAKAM SARVAVISHAYAM” – it transcends all the objects of knowledge.
“… includes the cognition of all objects simultaneously….” And for this consciousness is used the word “omniscient.” Everything exists for it simultaneously. Very difficult to understand, almost impossible to comprehend. It means for a man of ultimate understanding, if he looks at you, he will see you while you were in your mother’s womb – simultaneously – and you are being born – simultaneously – and you are growing and you have become a child and you have become a young man and you are marrying a woman and you have fallen in love and your children are born and you have become old and you are dying and people are going in a funeral procession – all simultaneously. The whole will appear in total.
Difficult to comprehend, because how is it possible? A child is being born. How can he die right this moment? He is either a child or young or old, either in the womb or in the coffin, either in the cradle or in the grave. But that is our division because we cannot see totally.
A certain scientist in Soviet Russia has photographed buds with such a sensitive photographic instrument, films, that nobody has tried before; and the picture has come of the flower. The bud has been photographed, but in the picture the flower has come. It is still a bud. What has happened? Because the bud is also a flower, simultaneously. You cannot see it because you see only in parts. First you see it as a bud; then a few petals open, then a few more, then a few more; then the whole flower opens. But with a very sensitive camera, Kirlian photography has given a tremendous insight into reality. You can photograph a bud, and the photograph comes; of a flower. Because when the bud is there, deep down, surrounding the bud, the energy flower has already opened. The visible petals will follow, but the energy field has already flowered. It is there. And later on, when the real flower had flowered, they were surprised to see that the photograph was absolutely exact. They could compare the real flower later on.
Some day or other it will be possible to photograph a seed, and one photograph will not come but many – of the seed, of the sprout, of the buds, of the flowers, of the tree, and the falling of the tree, and the disappearing of the tree.
“TARAKAM… SARVATHA VISHAYAM AKRAMAM….” Ordinarily we see everything in a gradual process, in karma, in a gradual process – a child becoming young, a young man becoming old – slowly, as if a film is being projected very slowly on the screen. That’s how we see it. But the ultimate knowledge is total and absolute. In a single moment everything is revealed.
Ordinarily we move with a small torch in the dark night. When the torch shows us one tree, other trees are hidden in darkness. When the torch moves to other trees, the first tree has moved into darkness. You can see only a little patch of the path. But that ultimate knowledge is like lightning: suddenly you see the whole forest, in a single vision.
These are all just symbolic. Hmm?… Don’t extend and don’t stretch these symbols too much. They are just to give you subtle indications of what happens. In fact it cannot be said.
Now, chronological time is politics, history, economics, money, things, intellect, the market, Wall Street. Psychological time is dream, myth, poetry, love, art, intuition, painting, dance, drama. Real time is existence, science and religion.
Science is trying to penetrate the existence through the objective approach; and religion tries to penetrate the same reality through the subjective approach; and yoga is the synthesis of both.
The word “science” is beautiful; it means “the capacity to see.” It exactly means what the Indian word darshan means. The word darshan should not be translated as “philosophy”; it can be translated more accurately as “science” – the capacity to see.
Science is trying to penetrate the ultimate through the objective, from the outside.
Religion is trying to penetrate the same ultimate through the subjective. And yoga is the highest synthesis; yoga is both science and religion together.
Yoga is the supra science and supra religion. Yoga is neither Hindu nor Mohammedan nor Christian – it is super religious. And of course it is a supra science because it is the science of man – it is the science of the scientist himself. It touches the ultimate. That’s why Osho call it the alpha and the omega, UNIO MYSTICA, the ultimate synthesis.
Tags: Patanjali Yoga Sutra 44 Ultimate Synthesis
