Personality, Individuality, Ego and Self

Given below are excerpts from Osho’s spontaneous response to a question one of his disciples asked him about Personality, Individuality, Ego and Self.

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Q. JESUS AND BUDDHA WERE CERTAINLY INDIVIDUALS. CANNOT THEIR INDIVIDUALITY AND ITS EXPRESSION BE CALLED PERSONALITY? YOU TOO, IT COULD BE SAID, HAVE A PERSONALITY, YET NOT AN EGO. PLEASE CLARIFY THE CONCEPTS OF PERSONALITY, EGO, INDIVIDUALITY, AND SELF.

OSHO:

THE FIRST THING to be understood is about the words ‘individuality’ and ‘personality’. ‘Individuality’ means one who is indivisible, one who has become a unity, one who is no more divided. It is a beautiful word. In this sense, Buddha, Jesus, Zarathustra, can be called individuals—in this root meaning of the word, not the way you use it.

Your use of ‘individuality’ is almost a synonym for ‘personality’. ‘Personality’ has different orientations. It comes from Greek drama. In Greek drama the actors used to have ‘personas’, masks. They would be hiding behind the mask. You could not have seen their faces, you could have only heard their voice. ‘Sona’ means sound. ‘Persona’ means you can have a contact only with their sounds, not with their faces. They are hiding somewhere. From that comes the word ‘personality’.

In that sense Buddha, Jesus, Zarathustra, Lao Tzu, have no personalities. They are just there in front of you, not hiding anything. They are naked, confronting you in their absolute purity. There is nothing to hide. You can see them through and through, they are transparent beings.

So you cannot say rightly that they have personalities or that they are persons. They are individuals, but remember the meaning of the word—they cannot be divided. They don’t have fragments. They are not a crowd. They are not polypsychic. They don’t have many minds. Their manyness has disappeared and they have become one, and their oneness is such that there is no way to divide it. No sword can cut them in two. Their indivisibility is ultimate.

In that sense you can call them individuals. But it is dangerous. Because this oneness comes only when the many is lost. When the many is lost how can you say even that one is one? Because one can be called meaningfully one only when the possibility for many exists. But the very possibility has disappeared.

That’s why in India we call God advaita, non-dual. We could have called him one, but we have resisted that temptation. We have never called him one, because the moment that you call something one, the two has entered—because one cannot exist without the two, the three, the four. One is meaningful only in a series. One is meaningful only in a hierarchy.

If really one has become one, how can you call him one? The word loses meaning. You can call him only not-many; you can call him non-dual, advaita, not two. But you cannot call him one. Not-two is beautiful. It simply says that the twoness, the manyness, has disappeared. It does not say what has appeared, it simply says what has disappeared. It is a negative term.

Anything that can be said about the ultimate truth has to be negative. We can say what god is not, we cannot say what he is. Because to say what he is, we define him. Every definition is a limitation. Once god is defined he is no more infinite, he becomes finite.

So in a way you can call Buddha an individual, but it will be better to resist the temptation. He is certainly not a person, he has no personality, but to call him individual is also not right—better than calling him a person, but still not perfect. He is not a person, he is not an individual—because he is not.

The very idea of his being has disappeared. He is just a vast emptiness. He is space. He has no boundaries now.

Somebody becomes an individual only when he has become infinite. It will look paradoxical, but let me say it: somebody becomes individual only when he has become universal, when he is one with the whole. Then somebody is an individual. But then to call him an individual will be stretching the meaning of the word too far. It will be a little too outlandish. It is better to call Buddha a nobody—neither a person nor an individual. All those things have been left far behind. He has transcended all limitations.

The question is from Prem Divya. She asks, PLEASE CLARIFY THE CONCEPTS OF PERSONALITY, EGO, INDIVIDUALITY AND SELF.

Personality and ego are two aspects of the same coin, just as individuality and self are two aspects of the same coin. The personality has a center—that center is called the ego. Because personality itself is false, the center is also false, because a false circumference cannot have a real center and a real center cannot have a false circumference.

Personality is unreal. Personality is that which you pretend to be, but you are not. Personality is that which you show, but you are not. Personality is your exhibition, not your reality. Personality is that which you create around yourself a fiction to deceive—but you are not. This personality has a false center, as false as it is itself. That false center is the ego. When you drop personality, ego disappears. Or you drop the ego and the personality collapses to the ground, to the dust.

Remember not to pretend that which you are not, otherwise you will never be able to drop the ego. Then you go on feeding the ego. Never try to look in any way different than you are. Whatsoever the cost, be true to yourself. Don’t try to decorate it, to clothe it in manners, etiquettes, a thousand and one falsities. Be naked as you are. Let people feel your real pulse, and you will not be at loss.

In the beginning you may see that you are getting into trouble, but soon you will find that you are never at a loss. With reality nobody ever loses. With unreality you only think you are gaining, you go on losing. That’s how many people destroy their whole life—by being unreal—and then they say that they are not happy. How can an unreal person be happy?

It is as if you have put stones in the soil instead of seeds and you are waiting, you are waiting for them to sprout and bloom and fill your life with flowers and fruits. It is impossible—those stones cannot grow. Those stones are not seeds of something, they don’t have any potentiality. They may look like seeds, you may have coloured them in such a way, you may have painted them in such a way that they look like seeds, but they are not seeds, they cannot grow.

The ego cannot grow. It is dead, a false entity. It is not alive. You can go on and on living with it, but your whole life will become like a desert... empty. No fulfillment, no contentment, no bliss will ever knock at your door.

You can wait for eternity, nobody will ever come. Because in the very beginning you missed something—something very essential and basic. Only you can grow, not the pretensions.

I told you the word ‘personality’ comes from ‘persona’. If you have a mask, the mask will not grow. You will grow. You may have put the mask on your face when you were a child, now you may be a young man—but the mask will remain the same... a dirty old thing, rotten. It will simply rot, it cannot grow. You will be growing behind it, and it will give you many pains because it will be a confinement. It cannot grow and you are growing. It is as if you are still wearing your childhood clothes. You are growing and those clothes are not growing, so they have become a bondage. They don’t give you freedom, they confine you, they crush you. You feel continuously a pressure, a tension, an anguish.

You can try it. You can wear shoes which are smaller than for your feet, and walk—and you will know what is happening to millions of people. Their personalities are too small and their being is growing. Try to walk with shoes two sizes too small....

Look at the faces of people—their agony and anguish is written so clear. They are broadcasting nothing else but their agony and their anguish. And the problem is they are wearing a dead mask, a personality, which cannot grow with them. Of course it is always lagging behind. It cannot grow. They are growing continuously and it becomes a dead weight.

Remember, with the false you will be crushed. Never keep company with the false. If you really want to grow into a blooming being, if you really want to give freedom to your being, never keep company with the false. Be true, whatsoever the cost. I repeat again: in the beginning it may seem that these pretensions are very good. They are not. Your mind is deceiving you.

And if you try to keep company with the true, ego will disappear on its own accord. Otherwise it goes on finding new ways, new methods to feed itself.

People go on keeping their etiquette, their mannerisms, their falsities, their pretensions, even in such situations where it is unimaginable.

I know one man whose house was on fire, but the first thing that he did running out of the house was to tie his tie. The house is on fire and he could not run out of it without his tie. The personality becomes so clinging to you and you become so clinging to it.

I have heard about a great professor who was so polite that even when he was angry he would be polite—even in the expression of his anger. One day he was so angry with a student that he was boiling hot, and he said, ‘Please go to hell!’... Please go to hell?

Just watch yourself. Personality is the father of the ego. If you drop personality you will find the ego has died on its own accord.

The ego is the child of the personality. Many people would like to drop the ego, but they don’t understand the inner connection. They would like to drop the ego because it gives so much misery. It continuously hurts, it is like a wound. It never allows you any rest, it always keeps you restless. It is a disease. Many people by and by start feeling that it is better if they can get rid of the ego, but they never think that this is the child of the personality. If you want to get rid of the ego, you will have to drop your personality.

That’s why Buddha left the palace—because it was impossible to drop the personality and still be a prince. Mahavira became naked, he dropped even his clothes—he was one of the most courageous men the world has ever known—because he came to realize that even clothes are not for the body; they are just part of a social mannerism, just part of a social etiquette. Of course he suffered for it. He was chased out of towns—people used to throw stones at him. They thought he had gone crazy. He suffered for it, but his achievement was tremendous out of it.

Mahavira for twelve years completely dropped everything. He was the perfect dropout. Language, clothes, society, security, everything he dropped. Then by and by his innocence surfaced; all the layers of personality dropped, ego disappeared.

Remember, ego is very tricky. It is very subtle, its ways are very subtle. You drop it from one side, it comes from another. Unless you become very, very alert how it arises, how it feeds....

The ego can find food from anywhere. Whatsoever the game, I am the top. Whatsoever the game—the name of the game may be humbleness, but I am the topmost humble man. The names can be different. Always remember that whenever you start feeling that you are the topmost—maybe it is humbleness, it makes no difference; maybe it is egolessness, it makes no difference—if you think that you are the most egoless person in the world you are again in the same trap.

The ego lives on claims. The ego is competitive and personality goes on feeding it through subtle ways. Personality is the circumference of your pretensions, of your exhibitions, of your deceptions, and ego is the center. They go together, they remain together.

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Now the second couple: individuality and self. Individuality is the circumference, self is the center. They are more real than personality and ego, they are more real than the first couple, but still not ultimately real.

When personality is dropped, you become individual. When you become individual then a sense of self arises—‘I am.’ It has no claim, it is not competitive. Self is not competitive: it does not say that I am better or worse, that I am ahead or far behind. It does not compare, it is not comparative. It simply says ‘I am’. It is not relative to others. Individuality is a simple expression of whosoever you are, and a deep sense of ‘I am’.

But Buddha or Jesus cannot be even called individuals because they go a little further, where even the sense of self disappears.

The ego is comparative, very ill; the self is a little healthy, not so ill—it has no comparison with anybody—but still the very idea that ‘I am’ divides, separates from the total unity. The way of Jesus is: ‘My father and I are one.’ That is his way of saying, ‘I am not a self, my father is myself.’ You can translate it better if you say that the center of the whole is my center; then the language becomes more scientific.

Buddha is even more keen. He says simply, ‘I am not.’ Because the danger is—saying that I am god, or god is my center—the danger is that the ‘I’ may enter again from the backdoor. Buddha says, ‘I am not.’ He simply goes on dissecting the very phenomenon of ‘I’, and comes to a point where nothing is left. Just as matter disappears in the hands of the physicist, self disappears in the hands of Buddha.

I have heard:

One day an elephant went walking through the jungle. He was feeling in the pink, ready to challenge the whole world. As he walked along he met a poor little mouse with a runny nose and pink eyes.

‘Why are you not as big as I am?’ he roared.

The mouse looked up at him and said, ‘I have been very sick lately.’

Everybody, even a mouse, has his own ego. Everybody, even a religious man, has his own ego. Even while declaring, ‘I am just dust underneath your feet,’ you are gathering ego.

The ego and the personality have to be dropped, then you will find individuality arising... a feeling of uniqueness. Yes, you are unique. Everybody else is also unique. In this world only unique people exist, so comparison is just stupid, because you alone are like yourself. There is nobody like you, so how to compare?

Comparison is possible if there are many people alike, similar to each other, but this existence is so tremendously creative, so originally creative, it never repeats. It does not believe in carbon copies. It makes everybody an individual, unique. When personality is dropped you suddenly feel you are unique—but remember, you also feel everybody else is also unique. Uniqueness is a common quality of all, there is nothing to brag about. It is the universal quality of every being.

With the individuality you have a subtle center of a feeling—‘I am’. Buddha goes far beyond it. Mahavira, Krishna, Jesus, they don’t say anything beyond this. But Buddha goes to the very end of his logic. He says personality has been dropped, now drop this individuality also. The ego has been dropped, now drop this ‘I-amness’ also, this self-hood also.

Then nothing is left, then only nothing is left, and in that emptiness you become virgin, uncorrupted. Emptiness cannot be corrupted. Being is, but there is no feeling of ‘I am’.

Have you not ever come to some moments when you are, tremendously you are, but still there is no feeling of ‘I am’? Those are the moments of grandeur, grace. They happen to everybody. You may not have noticed, you may not have accepted them, you may not remember them, you may have rejected them because they seem so outlandish. They don’t fit with your life—with your life of the ego and personality. They don’t fit. They are not consistent with your routine way of life, so you drop them, you forget them. You think that they may be just the imagination, a dream.

But to everybody those moments come. I have not come across a single human being who has not in some way or other, in some moment or other, felt himself tremendously there and yet with no sense of ‘I’. Those are the moments when you feel beauty, when you feel love, when you feel wonder.

Looking at the stars in the night suddenly something disappears, suddenly an emptiness arises in you... virgin, uncorrupted, unpolluted by society, culture, civilization, religion, scripture, tradition. Again you are pure, innocent. You are. In fact, for the first time you are very substantial but with no ‘I’ anywhere. There is empty sky and the stars shining, and here you are—empty—and the stars reflecting. Two skies, both empty, meeting.

These are the religious moments—moments of prayer, beauty, wonder, awe. They come to everybody.

But remember, whenever you are a doer you are missing, because the doer carries his ego. The doer is the ego.

Whenever you are a non-doer there is a possibility you may fall into line with the whole, you may fall into harmony with the whole—what Buddha calls the way, the dhamma. You will become one with the dhamma, and suddenly a rush of bliss—it rains all around, your whole being becomes saturated with a new benediction that you have not known before.

Personality has to go. With personality goes the ego. Then individuality has also to go, and with individuality goes the self. Then nothing is left and you are at home. Gone—you have arrived.

One of Buddha’s names is tathagata. It means ‘who has gone very skilfully, disappeared very skilfully’. Gata means gone. Another of Buddha’s names is sugata—well gone, who has gone so well that you cannot find a trace behind... nothing is left, just pure innocence. Become a sugata, become a tathagata. Allow yourself to evaporate and disappear. Only then will you find who you are.

You are not you. Your very sense of ‘I’ is a confinement, a bondage, an imprisonment, a cage. When the cage disappears the whole sky is yours.

Even the sky is not your limit. You contain the sky in your inner being. You are vaster than the sky, bigger than the space.

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Courtesy: The Discipline of Transcendence, Vol. 1

The Copenhagen Summit and the Mahabharata

There is a beautiful story we all know from the Mahabharata. It is in the Udyoga Parva of the epic.

The Mahabharata war is about to begin. Both the Kauravas and the Pandavas are seeking allies and troops. Both Arjuna and Duryodhana reach Dwaraka seeking Krishna’s help. It so happens that both of them reach Dwaraka on the same day. Duryodhana is the first to enter the chamber where Krishna is asleep. He chooses for himself a fine seat at the head of the bed. Soon Arjuna too enters the chamber. Seeing Krishna asleep, he stands at the foot of the bed, bowing to him, his hands joined in prayer.

When Krishna wakes up from his sleep, it is Arjuna who is at the foot of the bed that he sees first. He greets him and then seeing Druyodhana, greets him too. Krishna enquires about the purpose of their visit.

Duryodhana is the first to speak. He tells Krishna that since Krishna is equally friendly with both him and Arjuna and have the same relationship with both of them, Krishna should be guided by who came first seeking his help and since it was he, Druyodhana who came first, Krishna should help him in the impending war.

Krishna replies that though it is no doubt Duryodhana who came first, it is Arjuna that he saw first. So he is going to offer his help to both of them.

The Narayana Sena, his huge army, each soldier of which rivals him in strength and is capable of fighting in the thick of the battle, would fight for one of them. And he himself would join the other side, but with the condition that he would not fight on the field.

He then says he is going to give the choice to Arjuna, saying that not only did he see Arjuna first, but Arjuna is the younger of the two and the younger one always gets preference.

Arjuna’s mind is clear. There are no conflicts in his mind about which of the two he is going to choose. His trust in Krishna is so total and complete that he would choose him against the whole world.

There are no doubts in Duryodhana’s mind either about which of the two he wants. He has no trust in Krishna. Nor does he love Krishna as dearly as Arjuna does, or hold him in the same awe and reverence in which Arjuna holds him. Besides, Krishna is not going to wield weapons and fight in the battle. He knows what Krishna would at best be to him: a burden. He wants the Narayana Sena.

And he is afraid that Arjuna might choose the Sena. Any sensible man would choose the Narayana Sena. Only a fool would choose Krishna.

Perspiration breaks up all over Duryodhana. If only he had stood at the foot of the bed, instead of seating himself at the head of the bed! Or if only he had come a day earlier – at least an hour or two earlier!

Every fibre in Duryodhana’s body desires Arjuna should choose Krishna. That is the only way now that he, Duryodhana, can get the all important Narayana Sena. Krishna’s army is a force of veterans that has fought and won battle after battle under Krishna. If he gets the Sena for himself, the war is his.

Duryodhana closes his eyes in a silent prayer to all the gods he knows: Make Arjuna choose Krishna.

And he cannot believe his ears when he hears Arjuna say: “I choose you, Krishna.”

Such was Duryodhana’s relief that he collapses in his seat.

Krishna now turns to Duryodhana with a smile on his face. “The Narayana Sena is yours now,” he tells him.

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One of the most mysterious truths about the world is that all our prayers are answered here, all our desires are fulfilled here. Such is the nature of this world, which is made more of mindstuff than of physical matter. Thought is the most powerful force in the world. It controls everything and begets realities in the outside world.

It is for this reason that the wise have said: desire wisely. Desire wisely for your desires are going to be turned into realities.

In our ancient stories we read about the Asuras. An Asura does tapas to acquire power and the Lord appears before him. When the Asura asks for power – in whatever form it is – the Lord says: Tathastu, may it be so! When Ravana asks for power over the three worlds, Shiva says, “Tathastu!” When Bhasmasura asks that anyone he touches on the head with his hand should be turned into ashes, Shiva says, “Tathastu!”

Such is the power of the human mind that every desire of ours is fulfilled.

If Duryodhana wishes for Narayana Sena, he gets it. And if Arjuna wishes for Krishna, he gets it.

In my own personal life, I have noticed this repeatedly: every desire eventually is fulfilled.

And I have learnt to fear the power of desire. For even negative desires are fulfilled.

Indian scriptures have extolled the virtue of desirelessness. There are many ways of understanding desirelessness. One of the ways in which I understand it is to surrender all your desires and accept what life brings. And I have observed that what life brings is better than what you would have desired – better than what you would have got if it had been your desire that is fulfilled.

Allow things to happen rather than trying to make things happen. When you try to make things happen, they will happen. But what happens without your trying to make it happen is always better than what happens when you try to make things happen.

Osho puts this beautifully when he says: be the essential man, do not be the accidental man.

The essential man for Osho is the one who allows things to happen, knowing that that way the best will happen. The accidental man is the one who struggles for things to happen the way he wants them to happen.

The essential man swims with the current. The accidental man swims against the current. The essential man can let go and float with the current. The accidental man fights the current.

Durydohana is the accidental man. Arjuna the essential man.

The essential man is not a non-doer. He is a doer, as Arjuna is a doer. But he acts in harmony with the current – the current that ancient India called Ritam, the cosmic flow. And the accidental man acts against this Ritam.

Swimming with the current is the Tao, to use a Chinese term. Swimming against the current, living against the Tao.

The successes of the accidental man are temporary successes. But eventually he fails.

The Duryodhanas of the world can at best have immediate good – preyas; Shreyas evades them: lasting good is not for them.

Shreyas is for those who act in harmony with the world. In harmony with the Tao.

The philosophy of the west is the philosophy of preyas. The philosophy of the east, that of the shreyas.

For the last three hundred years or so, inspired by the philosophy of the west, we have been working for preyas forgetting shreyas. The result is what called for the just completed Copenhagen Summit. Three hundred years of preyas and the world is facing the threat of extinction!

This is akin to what happened in the wild west of America when the Europeans first reached there. Native Americans and the buffalo have been living in harmony there for countless ages. The natives have always been hunting the buffalo and living on them, without causing any harm to the species. And in a less than a hundred hears, the white hunters brought the buffalo population in America to the brink of extinction!

The forests of the world, our mineral and oil resources, are disappearing at an alarming rate.

Remember the film they recently showed on HBO: The Eleventh Hour.

I recently saw a powerful documentary called Gaanv Chodbo Nahin. The documentary is inspired by the feelings of the tribals of Chhota Nagpur and other areas against what is being done to their land. A question one of the tribals asks remained in my mind long after the documentary was over: “Were our forefathers fools that they worshipped this land?”

Were our ancestors fools when they tried to live in harmony with the world, rather exploit it? Were our ancestors fools when they worshipped our trees and lived in harmony with them, rather than exploit them? Were our ancestors fools when they worshipped our mountains and lived in harmony with them, rather than exploit them?

In the Bhagavata, Krishna asks the cowherds of Brindavan to worship Mt Govardhan rather than offer prayers to Indra. While still a child, he leads his people in a revolt against the worship of Indra. In the symbolism of India, Indra has always stood for the mind, the lord of the senses: indriyanam raja indrah. Worshipping Indra is worshipping the senses and the mind and that is what leads to the destruction of the earth through man’s insatiable greed.

We need Krishna once again now: to lead us against the worship of Indra and teach us to worship our mountains and rivers, our forests and animals.

We need once again to learn to desire wisely.

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J Krishnamurti and the Upanishads

I am still with Mary Lutyen’s beautiful book, Krishnamurti: The Years of Awakening.

So far as I know, J Krishnamurti never taught the Upanishads, never gave a lecture on the Upanishads. He did not believe in scriptures or teachers, did not believe in traditions or paths. And yet while going through Mary Lutyens’s book, I was once again reminded of how amazingly close his personal experiences and teachings are to those of the Upanishad seers.

Here is one of the profound, life altering experiences from his early life described in the book. This happened in August 1923, when Krishnamurti was twenty-eight years old. He describes the experience in a letter he wrote to Mrs Annie Besant, his adopted mother, two days after the experience happened.

“Then, on the 17th August, I felt acute pain at the nape of my neck and I had to cut down my meditation to fifteen minutes. The pain instead of getting better as I had hoped grew worse. The climax was reached on the 19th. I could not think, nor was I able to do anything, and I was forced by friends here to retire to bed. Then I became almost unconscious, though I was well aware of what was happening around me. I came to myself at about noon each day. On the first day while I was in that state and more conscious of the things around me, I had the first most extraordinary experience. There was a man mending the road; that man was myself; the pickaxe he held was myself; the very stone which he was breaking up was a part of me; the tender blade of grass was my very being, and the tree beside the man was myself. I almost could feel and think like the roadmender, and I could feel the wind passing through the tree, and the little ant on the blade of grass I could feel. The birds, the dust, and the very noise were a part of me. Just then there was a car passing by at some distance; I was the driver, the engine, and the tires; as the car went further away from me, I was going away from myself. I was in everything, or rather everything was in me, inanimate and animate, the mountain, the worm, and all breathing things. “

This oneness with the universe, in which we see ourselves in all beings and all beings in ourselves, is precisely the experience of the Upanishadic seers, which they give words to in numerous Upanishads.

The sage of the Taittiriya Upanishad, for instance sings out in the moment of self-realization:

“Hāa vu! Hāa vu! Hāa vu!
Aham annam aham annam aham annam!
Aham annādo’ham annādo’ham annādah!
Aha’m ślokakrt aha’m ślokakrt aha’m ślokakrt!
Aham asmi prathamajā rtāasya!
Poorvam devebhyo’mrtasya nāabhāayī!
Yo mā dadāti sa ideva māavāh!
Aham annam aham annam adantam āadmi!
Aham viśwam bhuvanam abhyabhavāam!
Suvarnajyotīh!”

I have quoted the words of the seer in Sanskrit because of the ecstasy that pulsates in every word he utters. He is not making a statement, but singing out full throated, as the ‘āa’s appearing throughout shows. [These are the extra long vowels of Vedic Sanskrit, which does not exist in classical Sanskrit. The short vowels [hrasva] are one mātrā long, the long vowels [dīrgha] two mātrās long, and these, called plutas, three mātrās long.

Here is a translation of the seer’s song.

Hāa vu! Hāa vu! Hāa vu! [Sounds of his ecstasy] I am the food, I am the food, I am the food! I am the eater of the food, I am the eater of the food, I am the eater of the food! I am the maker of verses [poet], I am the maker of verses, I am the maker of verses! I am the first born of this world, the manifestation of truth as the formed and the formless! I existed before the gods! I am the centre of immortality! He who offers food, it is this me he protects! I am food, I am food and I am the one who eats up the eater of food! It is I that has become the entire universe! I am the golden light!

The seer of the Shwetashwatara Upanishad expresses the same idea – the only difference being that his expression is in the third person. Here it is ‘He’ the sage sees in everything, rather than ‘I’ – but for him the He and I are one and the same. Here is what he says:

“tvam strī tvam pumān asi tvam kumāra uta vā kumārī tvam jīrno dandena vañcasi tvam jāto bhavasi viśvatomukhah
nīlah patango harito lohitākshhas tadidgarbha rtavah samudrāhanādimat tvam vibhutvena vartase yato jātāni bhuvanāni viśvā”

“Thou art the woman, Thou art the man. Thou art the youth and the maiden too. Thou art the old man who totters along, leaning on the staff. Thou art born with faces turned in all directions. Thou art the dark blue butterfly, and the green parrot with red eyes. Thou art the thunder-cloud, the seasons and the oceans. Thou art without beginning, and beyond all time and space. Thou art He from whom all the worlds are born.”

The Upanishad seer might as well have sung: “I am the man, I am the woman. I am the youth and the maiden too. I am born with faces turned in all directions. I am the old man who totters along, leaning of the staff. I am the dark blue butterfly, and the green parrot with red eyes. I am the thunder-cloud, the seasons and the oceans. I am without beginning and beyond all time and space. I am He from whom all the worlds are born.’ Strangely, this sounds somehow more correct!

It is the sage of the Kaivalya Upanishad who says this:

“mayyeva sakalam jātam, mayi sarvam pratishthitam
mayi sarvam layam yāti tadbrahmādvayam asmyaham.”

“Everything is born in me, all things have their existence in me and everything merges back into me. I am that Brahman, the one without a second.”

The Kaivalya Upanishad rishi is very clear that there is only one way to attain the Vast and no other – by knowing oneself as existing in all beings and all beings as existing in oneself:

“sarvabhootastham atmanam, sarvabhootani chatmani
sampashyan brahma paramam yati nanyena hetuna.”

[I had an interesting experience while thinking about this mantra. The mantra came to my mind as I thought about such mantras in the Upanishads, but couldn’t recall from which Upanishad it is. I closed my eyes and I saw my teacher sitting majestically in our ashram temple, where he frequently taught us, sitting in the special teacher’s seat that was placed there. Tall and fair, he looked every inch a royal sage, as he always did. I heard him chanting this mantra in his deep, resonant voice, his body swinging with it, his eyes intoxicated with the power of the mantra. The words I heard were chanted in his unique accent and then suddenly I knew from which Upanishad the mantra came – Kaivalya Upanishad.]

O0O

Vagambhrini [Vak Ambhrini - Vak, the daughter of sage Ambhrina] is one of the several wisdom-intoxicated female seers [rishikas] of the Rig Veda. She too had the experience and this is how she sings about it:

Aham rudrebhir vasubhiś charāmyaham ādityair uta viśvadevaih
Aham mitrā varunobhā bibharmyaham indrāgnee aham aśvinobhā. [1]

I move with the Rudras and also with the Vasus, I wander with the Adityas and the Vishwadevas. I hold aloft both Mitra and Varuna, and also Indra and Agni and the twin Ashvins.

Aham somam āhanasam bibharmi aham tvashtāram uta pūshanam bhagam
Aham dadhāmi dravinam havishmate suprāvye yajamānāya sunvate. [2]

I uphold Soma the exuberant; I uphold Tvasta, Pushan, and Bhaga. I endow with wealth the offerer of oblation, the worshipper and the pious presser of the Soma.

Aham rāshtrī sangamanī vasūnām chikitushee prathamā yajniyānām
Tām mā devā vyadadhuh puritrā bhūristhātrām bhooryāveśayantīm. [3]

I am the ruling Queen, the amasser of treasures, full of wisdom, first of those who are worthy of worship. That me the Gods have installed in all places, with many homes for me to enter and dwell in.

Mayā so annamatti yo vipaśyati yah prāniti ya ī śrnotyuktam
Āmantavo mām ta upa kshiyanti śrudhi śruta śraddhivam te vadāmi. [4]

Through me alone all eat the food that helps them see, breathe and hear the spoken word. He is not aware of me, yet he dwells in me alone. Listen, you who know! You must trust the words I speak to you.

Ahameva svayam idam vadāmi jushtam devebhir uta mānushebhih
Yam kāmaye tam tam ugram krnomi tam brahmānam tam rshim tam sumedhām [5]

It is I who announces the tidings that the gods and men alike rejoice to hear. The man I love, I make mighty in strength. I make him a priest, a sage, or a learned scholar, as I please.

Aham rudrāya dhanurā tanomi brahmadvishe śarave hantavā u
Aham janāya samadam krnomi aham dyāvā prthivee ā viveśa. [6]

I bend the bow for Rudra that his arrow may slay the hater of the words of sacred wisdom. I rouse the people, and make them strive. I have entered the Earth and Heaven, filling everything.

Aham suve pitaram asya mūrdhan mama yonir apsu antah samudre
Tato vi tishthe bhuvanānu viśvotāmūm dyām varshmanopa sprśāmi [7]

I give birth to the creator in the heavens atop the world and my own origin is deep in the ocean, in the cosmic waters. From there I permeate all existing worlds, and even touch yonder heavens with my forehead.

Ahameva vāta iva pra vāmi ārabhamānā bhuvanāni vishvā
Paro divā para enā prthivī etavatī mahinā sam babhūva [8]

It is my breath that blows as the mighty wind, while I hold together all the worlds.
Beyond the heavens and above the earth I tower, such am I in my might and splendour.

O0O

Like the Upanishad seers, Krishnamurti too believes that Truth is a pathless land. His words while dissolving the Order of the Star, the organization that was created to make the world ready for the World Teacher [Krishnamurti] and of which he was the head, sound like they are taken straight from the Upanishads. Those words have the same quality – the same fearlessness, the same directness, the same clarity and the same lightning power of the truth.

“I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organisation be formed to lead or coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others.

“That is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain top to the valley….

“No man from outside can make you free; nor can an organized worship, nor the immolation of yourselves for a cause, make you free; nor can forming yourselves into an organization, nor throwing yourselves into work, make you free. You use a typewriter to write letters, but you do not put it on an altar and worship it. But that is what you are doing when organizations become your chief concern….

“Again, you have the idea that only certain people hold the key to the Kingdom of Happiness. No one holds it. No one has the authority to hold that key. That key is your own self and in the development and the purification and in the incorruptibility of that self alone is the Kingdom of Eternity.”

One of my all time favourite verses in Sanskrit is the first one in the Bhagavata Mahatmya:

yam pravrajantam anupetam apetakrtyam
dvaipayano virahakātara ājuhāva
putreti tanmayatayā taravobhineduh
tam sarvabhootahrdayam munim ānatosmi

The verse describes how once Shuka, the son of sage Vyasa, was going away from him, while he was still very young, while his Upanayana was yet to be performed. Shuka was leaving his father to wander the earth as a pravrajaka – a lifelong wanderer. A tormented Vyasa calls him back with a father’s natural agony, calling out “Oh son!” And the trees and plants around answer Vyasa, for Shuka had already become one with the whole creation and was in the heart of every being.

Here is a precious parting thought from Krishnamurti: “Meditation is the flowering of goodness; it is not the cultivation of goodness.”

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J Krishnamurti: The Reluctant Messiah

Recently I was looking for a book that was handy to take with me for reading in the train. I debated between Mahashweta Devi’s Five Plays and Mary Lutyens’ Krishnamurti: The Years of Awakening. I do not know what eventually made me decide – perhaps the fact that I had already read two of the five plays – but it was an old copy of Kkrishnamurti that has been with me for several years now that I eventually picked up. I am back from the journey now, and I am only half way through Lutyens’s fascinating biography of one of the most original teachers the world has ever seen. I just finished reading the chapter entitled In Love, which, among other things, deals with Krishnamurti’s falling in love with an American girl called Helen Knothe. I had to stop reading here because my eyes wouldn’t allow me to continue.

As a genre I am not particularly fond of biographies and autobiographies, though one of my all time favourite books is an autobiography: The Sky Dancer, by Keith Dowman. Dowman is actually the translator of The Sky Dancer, which is, as the subtitle says, “The Secret Life and Songs of the Lady Yeshe Tsogyel.” The book is what Tibetans call a ‘terma’, a book written for the future and kept psychically hidden until its time came. Yeshe Tsogyel was the chief consort of Bodhisattva Padmasambhava, Tibet’s greatest Buddhist guru. He is the Tibetan Buddha held by the followers of Vajrayana Buddhism as an equal to the Buddha himself, and sometimes even greater. Yeshe Tsogyel practiced tantric sadhanas with Padmasambhava and became an enlightened master and Tibet’s greatest yogini, or dakini, as Tibetan tantric yoginis are called. The book is a tour de force and reading it, depending on how receptive you are to it, could be a life transforming experience. It was, to me.

Mary Lutyens’s wonderful book covers the first thirty-eight years of Krishnamurti’s life. The book, as the author’s Foreword says, was written at Krishnamurti’s own suggestion and with help from the master himself. Describing the book, Mary Lutyens says: “It is a very personal account, recording his strange upbringing and the many phases he went through in growing to maturity – his difficulties, doubts, unhappiness, personal relationships and spiritual awakening, which was followed by years of intense physical suffering.”

Mary Lutyens is the daughter of Edwin Lutyens, the architect who designed New Delhi, and her maternal grandfather was a viceroy of India. She knew Krishnamurti from 1911, when she was three years old, and her mother was a major influence on Krishnamurti in his early years. She is a part of many of the experiences described in the book, particularly in the very crucial years between 1922 and 1929. Mary, however, appears as a character in the biography, rather than as the narrator. Much of the early part of the book is revealed through Krishnamurti’s letters to Mary’s mother, Lady Emily, whom he addressed in these letters as his ‘dear mother’.

I wouldn’t attempt to introduce Krishnamurti here – I assume he should be known to you. Well, if you really do not know, just this much: at one time he was accepted by much of the world as the new messiah that many religions have been waiting for – the new Christ, the new Buddha. And he had the courage to stand up and declare to the world one day that he was no messiah but an ordinary man like anyone of us, and what he is, is something anyone could become through inner awakening.

Richard Bach, of the Janathan Livingston Seagull fame, in the introductory chapter of his Illusions, narrates this tale.

Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river.
The current of the river swept silently over them all – young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.

Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth.

But one creature said at last, “I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom.”

The other creatures laughed and said, “Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom.”

But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.

Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.

And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, “See a miracle!

A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!”

And the one carried in the current said, “I am no more Messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.”

But they cried the more, “Saviour!” all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone and they were left alone making legends of a Saviour.

J. Krishnamurti is the messiah who was reluctant to don the robes of a messiah and showed the courage to tell the world he was like anyone of us and not special, and what he was, is something anyone of us could become, if only we would let go.

I once met J Krishnamurti. Met in the sense that I attended one of his sessions in the Krishnamurti Gardens [I am not sure if that is the official name] in Chennai, then called Madras in English [Chennai is not a new name – it was Chennai in Tamil even then.]. Perhaps saw is the right word – saw and heard. Mary Luytens’s book on him was published in 1975, and it is in that year that I heard him, or maybe in 1976. We were a small group, maybe around sixty people, and Krishnamurti was then eighty-two years old – he was born on May 11, 1895 [His zodiac sign is the Taurus, like mine!]. What I remember, above everything else, is the way he walked. At eighty-two, he was as sprightly as an eighteen-year old boy! In fact, I do not think a young boy of eighteen would have been able to keep up with him for long – he was so fast, energetic and agile.

He came before us and then, with the same nimbleness with which he had walked, ‘leapt’ onto the cement platform under a tree in the Gardens. And the next moment he was speaking to us, cool and relaxed, as poised as the tree under which he sat, and equally serene. His words had an elemental quality to them, and his speech, like his walk and his posture, was not that of an old man but of a youth. It was not an oration – neither in his gestures, nor in his words or facial expressions was there anything oratorical. He spoke to us in simple, everyday words, and he spoke to us as though he has known us all our life.
His talk was short and I do not remember a single word of what he told us in that talk – all I retain in me is the memory of his stillness, his serenity and his energy. That memory will remain with me forever.

For those who have not read any of his books, I recommend the small Freedom from the Known to begin with. It is a book one could read in a single sitting, but should never. Books like Freedom from the Known are not to be read in a single sitting. They are to be read slowly, relishing each phrase and each image. I read the book when I was passing through a personal crisis. A Swiss friend of mine who was at that time studying with me lent me the book asking me to read it, seeing how troubled I was. My indebtedness to her remains to this day. Incidentally, I believe that was the first Krishnamurti book I ever read, and it had to come from a European girl!

I have a close friend who worked for the Krishnamurti Foundation for several years – he frequently shares with me many lesser known incidents from JK’s life, including some about his final moments, which are shrouded in mystery.

In one of my recent blogs here [Yatra Yatra Mano Yati: Sri Ramakrishna, Krishnamurti and Samadhi] I wrote about some of J Krishnamurti’s beautiful spiritual experiences. His Notebooks are full of such wonderful experiences, which used to happen to him on an every day basis. Here is one I have not covered in that article.

The moon was quite young yet it gave enough light for shadows; there were plenty of shadows and they were very still. Along that narrow path, every shadow seemed to be alive, whispering amongst themselves, every shadowy leaf chattering to its neighbour. The shape of the leaf and the heavy trunk were clear on the ground and the river down below was of silver; it was wide, silent and there was a deep current which left no mark on the surface. Even the afternoon breeze had died and there were no clouds to gather around the setting sun; higher up in the sky, there was a solitary rose-coloured whisper of a cloud that remained motionless till it disappeared into the night. Every tamarind and mango was withdrawing for the night and all the birds were silent, taking shelter, deep among the leaves. A little owl was sitting on the telegraph wire and just when you were below it, it flew off on those extraordinary silent wings. After delivering milk, the cycles were coming back, the empty tins rattling; there were so many of them, single or in groups, but for all their chatter and noise that peculiar silence of the open country and immense sky remained. That evening nothing could disturb it, not even a goods train crossing the steel bridge.

There is a little path to the right wandering among the green fields and as you walk on it, far away from everything, from faces, tears, suddenly, you are aware that something is taking place. You know it is not imagination, desire, taking to some fancy or to some forgotten experience or the revival of some pleasure and hope; you know well it is none of these things; you have been through this examination before and you brush all these aside, swiftly with a gesture and you are aware something is taking place. It is as unexpected as that big bull that comes through the darkening evening; it is there with insistency and immensity, that otherness, which no word or symbol can catch; it is there filling the sky and the earth and every little thing in it. You and that little villager who without a word, passes you by, are of it. At that timeless time, only there is that immensity, neither thought nor feeling and the brain utterly quiet. All meditative sensitivity is over, only that incredible purity is there. It is the purity of strength, impenetrable and unapproachable but it was there. Everything stood still, there was no movement, no stir and even the sound of the whistle of the train was in the stillness. It accompanied you as you walked back to your room and it was there, too, for it had never left you.

I wonder if the letters Krishnamurti wrote to Lady Emily are available in book form! At one stage in his life, those letters were written practically every day. I do not think any other master of Krishnamurti’s level has revealed his inner struggles in such intimate details through correspondence as Krishnamurti does in these letters. St Augustine’s name does come to mind, but then his Confessions are very different in nature and style.

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Yatra Yatra Mano Yati: Sri Ramakrishna, Krishnamurti and Samadhi

Samadhi is the highest spiritual experience – an experience worth waiting for birth after birth, worth striving for through lifetimes. The real purpose of all yoga, of all bhakti and of all sadhana is making this experience possible. And yet for the mind that is awakened, whether through bhava and bhakti, or through meditation or any other means, Samadhi is an everyday experience, as common as, let’s say, falling asleep and waking up, and as natural as breathing, as frequent as walking from one room into another, which is not to say that the momentousness of the experience or the immensity of its power is reduced by the frequency of its occurrence. Speaking of such awakened masters and their mental condition, our spiritual tradition says: yatra yatra mano yāti, tatra tatra samādhayah – wherever the mind goes, it finds samadhi there.

Today is my new-year day – Vishu. Traditionally Keralites open their eyes to the Vishu-kani the first thing in the morning today – flowers, fruits, vegetables and lighted lamps arranged just for that purpose. My kani for years have been my books. Early in the morning I picked up The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna and began reading it at random when I came across the following.

“Oh, what a state of mind I passed through! When I first had that experience, I could not perceive the coming and going of day or night. People said I was insane.”

This is Sri Ramakrishna speaking of himself, about the times before his marriage. One of the first things that happen in India when a young man has experiences like this is for his people to conclude that he now needs a woman, and they give him a woman to cure him of his disease. And that is precisely what Sri Ramakrishna’s people did too. They got him married. The marriage, fortunately, had no negative impact on the master’s life, though. He continued to live seeing the Divine everywhere and in everything, and entering samadhis as effortlessly as we get carried away by a thought or an image into worlds of memories or fantasies.

"Oh, what an ecstatic state it was! Even the slightest suggestion would awaken my spiritual consciousness. I worshipped the 'Beautiful' in a girl fourteen years old. I saw that she was the personification of the Divine Mother. At the end of the worship I bowed before her and offered a rupee at her feet. One day I witnessed a Ramlila performance. I saw the performers to be the actual Sita, Rama, Lakshmana, Hanuman, and Bibhishana. Then I worshipped the actors and actresses who played those parts.

"At that time I used to invite maidens here and worship them. I found them to be embodiments of the Divine Mother Herself.

"One day I saw a woman in blue standing near the bakul-tree. She was a prostitute. But she instantly kindled in me the vision of Sita. I forgot the woman. I saw that it was Sita herself on her way to meet Rama after her rescue from Ravana in Ceylon. For a long time I remained in samadhi, unconscious of the outer world.

“Another day I had gone to the Maidan in Calcutta for fresh air. A great crowd had assembled there to watch a balloon ascension. Suddenly I saw an English boy leaning against a tree. As he stood there his body was bent in three places. The vision of Krishna came before me in a flash. I went into samadhi.”

After speaking briefly of his life as a guest in a house in Janbazar in Kolkata, where he lived feeling he was a handmaid of the Mother Goddess and seeing Mother in all women, he concludes:

"Even now the slightest thing awakens God-Consciousness in me. Rakhal used to repeat the name of God half aloud. At such times I couldn't control myself. It would rouse my spiritual consciousness and overwhelm me."

Sri Ramakrishna’s biographer describes another beautiful samadhi experience of the master:

“About half past nine in the morning Prankrishna took leave of the Master. Soon afterwards a minstrel sang some devotional songs to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument. The Master was listening to the songs when Kedar Chatterji, a householder devotee, entered the room clad in his office clothes. He was a man of devotional temperament and cherished the attitude of the gopis of Vrindavan. Words about God would make him weep. The sight of Kedar awakened in the Master's mind the episode of Vrindavan in Sri Krishna's life. Intoxicated with divine love, the Master stood up and sang, addressing Kedar:

“Tell me, friend, how far is the grove
Where Krishna, my Beloved, dwells?
His fragrance reaches me even here;
But I am tired and can walk no farther. . . .

“Sri Ramakrishna assumed the attitude of Sri Radha to Krishna and went into deep samadhi while singing the song. He stood there, still as a picture on canvas, with tears of divine joy running down his cheeks.”

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In his Notebooks, J. Krishnamurti, a very different kind of awakened master, as remote from bhakti as Sri Ramakrishna was close to it and as different in his sophistication as could be from the ‘unpolished’ master of Dakshineshwar, speaks of his own experiences in his Notebook.

“The immeasurable was there, filling the little space and all space; it came as gently as the breeze comes over the water but thought could not hold it and the past, time, was not capable of measuring it.”

Here is another experience: “It was a cloudy day, heavy with dark clouds; it had rained in the morning and it had turned cold. After a walk we were talking but more looking at the beauty of the earth, the houses and the dark trees. Unexpectedly, there was a flash of that unapproachable power and strength that was physically shattering. The body became frozen into immobility and one had to shut one's eyes not to go off into a faint. It was completely shattering and everything that was didn't seem to exist. …It was something indescribably great whose height and depth are unknowable.”

And again: “Early this morning, just as dawn was breaking, with not a cloud in the sky and the snowcovered mountains just visible, woke up with that feeling of impenetrable strength in one's eyes and throat; it seemed to be a palpable state, something that could never not be there. For nearly an hour it was there and the brain remained empty. It was not a thing to be caught by thought and stored up in memory to be recalled. It was there and all thought was dead.”

If Sri Ramakrishna saw the Divine Mother everywhere and in everything, it is himself that Krishnamurti sees everywhere and in everything. Just as the presence of the Mother is living and throbbing in everything for the Master of Dakshineshwar, the presence of his own Being is vivid in everything for Krishnamurti. Here is one more of Krishnamurti’s beautiful experiences which speaks of this:

“There was a little girl of ten or twelve leaning against a post in the garden; she was dirty, her hair had not been washed for many weeks, it was dusty and uncombed; her clothes were torn and unwashed too, like herself. She had a long rag around her neck and she was looking at some people who were having tea on the verandah; she looked with complete indifference, without any feeling, without any thought of what was going on; her eyes were on the group downstairs and every parrot that screeched by made no impression on her nor those soft earth-coloured doves that were so close to her. She was not hungry, she was probably a daughter of one of the servants for she seemed familiar with the place and fairly well-fed. She held herself as though she was a grown-up young lady, full of assurance and there was about her a strange aloofness.

“As you watched her against the river and the trees, you suddenly felt you were watching the tea party, without any emotion, without any thought, totally indifferent to everything and to whatever might happen. And when she walked away to that tree overlooking the river, it was you that was walking away, it was you that sat on the ground, dusty and rough; it was you who picked up the piece of stick and threw it over the bank, alone, unsmiling and never cared for. Presently you got up and wandered off around the house. And strangely, you were the doves, the squirrel that raced up the tree and that unwashed, dirty chauffeur and the river that went by, so quietly.”

Krishnamurti describes yet another of his samadhi experiences:

She was carrying a large basket on her head, holding it in place with one hand; it must have been quite heavy, but the swing of her walk was not altered by the weight. She was beautifully poised, her walk easy and rhythmical. On her arm were large metal bangles which made a slight tinkling sound, and on her feet were old, worn-out sandals. Her sari was torn and dirty with long use. She generally had several companions with her, all of them carrying baskets, but that morning she was alone on the rough road. The sun wasn't too hot yet and high up in the blue sky some vultures were moving in wide circles without a flutter of their wings. The river ran silently by the road.

“It was a very peaceful morning, and that solitary woman with the large basket on her head seemed to be the focus of beauty and grace; all things seemed to be pointing to her and accepting her as part of their own being. She was not a separate entity but part of you and me, and of that tamarind tree. She wasn't walking in front of me, but I was walking with that basket on my head. It wasn't an illusion, a thought-out, wished-for, and cultivated identification, which would be ugly beyond measure, but an experience that was natural and immediate. The few steps that separated us had vanished; time, memory, and the wide distance that thought breeds, had totally disappeared. There was only that woman, not I looking at her.”

Just as Sri Ramakrishna’s life and his Gospel are, Krishnamurti’s life and Notebook too are filled with such experiences happening every day, sometimes several times a day. Of all the numerous experiences he describes, here is my favourite, an experience that sends thrills through me every time I read it, as much for the beauty of the experience as for the beauty of his description of it.

“A single parrot was perched on a dead branch of a nearby tree; it wasn't preening itself, and it sat very still, but its eyes were moving and alert. It was of a delicate green, with a brilliant red beak and a long tail of paler green. You wanted to touch it, to feel the colour of it; but if you moved, it would fly away. Though it was completely still, a frozen green light, you could feel it was intensely alive, and it seemed to give life to the dead branch on which it sat. It was so astonishingly beautiful, it took your breath away; you hardly dared take your eyes off it, lest in a flash it be gone.

“You had seen parrots by the dozen, moving in their crazy flight, sitting along the wires, or scattered over the red fields of young, green corn. But this single bird seemed to be the focus of all life, of all beauty and perfection. There was nothing but this vivid spot of green on a dark branch against the blue sky. There were no words, no thoughts in your mind; you weren't even conscious that you weren't thinking. The intensity of it brought tears to your eyes and made you blink – and the very blinking might frighten the bird away! But it remained there unmoving, so sleek, so slender, with every feather in place.

“Only a few minutes must have passed, but those few minutes covered the day, the year and all time; in those few minutes all life was, without an end or a beginning. It is not an experience to be stored up in memory, a dead thing to be kept alive by thought, which is also dying; it is totally alive, and so cannot be found among the dead.

“Someone called from the house beyond the garden, and the dead branch was suddenly bare.”

This is precisely what the tradition means when it says: yatra yatra mano yāti, tatra tatra samādhayah. Masters like Sri Ramakrishna and J Krishnamurti, and others who have such experiences, are the proof for the statements of the scriptures and the living tradition. They convince us that such things as the timeless tradition speaks of are possible, in a world in which believing in their possibility is increasingly becoming more difficult.

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