and widespread mistake and I want to caution you against this fundamental error.
Meditation means to be in non-doing. Meditation is not a doing but a state of being. It is a state of being in one’s own self.
In action we come into contact with the outside world; in no-action, with ourselves. When we are not doing anything we become aware of what we are. Otherwise, remaining involved in all sorts of doings we never get to meet ourselves. We don’t even remember that we exist. Our busyness is very deep. Perhaps our bodies may get to rest but our minds never do. Awake, we think; asleep, we dream. Engrossed in these constant preoccupations and doings, we simply forget ourselves. We lose ourselves amidst the crowd of our own activity. How strange this is – but this is our reality. We have become lost, not in the crowds of other people, but in our own thoughts, in our own dreams, in our own preoccupations and activities. We have become lost in ourselves. Meditation is the way to extricate ourselves from this self-created crowd, from this mental wanderlust.
By its nature, meditation cannot be an activity. It is not a busyness, it is the term for an unoccupied mind. This is what I teach. It looks rather odd to say that I teach non-doing, but this is what I teach. We have gathered here to practice non-doing. The language of man is very poor and very limited, designed to express action only; that is why it is never able to express the soul. How can what is tailored for speech express silence? The word meditation suggests that it is some sort of a doing but it is by no means a doing of any kind. It would be wrong to say “I was doing meditation”; it would be correct to say “I was in meditation.” It is just like love. One can be “in” love, one cannot “do” love. Hence I say meditation is a state of mind. It is of prime importance to be clear about this from the very beginning.
We have gathered here to do nothing but experience that state where we simply exist – where no action takes place, where there is no impurity of action. It is a state where only the pure flame of being remains, where only the self remains, where even the thought that “I am” no longer remains, where simply “am-ness” remains. This is shunya, emptiness. This is the point where we see not the world, but truth. It is in this void, in this emptiness, where the wall that keeps you from knowing your self topples, where the curtains of thought rise and wisdom dawns. In this void there is no thinking, there is knowing. Here there is seeing; here there is vision.
But the words vision and seeing are also not appropriate because here there is no distinction between the knower and the known, no distinction between the subject and the object. Here there is neither the known nor the knower – simply the knowing. In this context no word is appropriate, only wordlessness. If anyone asks me about this state I remain silent – or I could say I convey my answer through my silence.
Meditation is non-doing. Doing is something we may do if we want to or may not do if we don’t want to. But self-nature is not a doing. It is neither doing nor non-doing. For example, knowing and seeing are parts of our self-nature, parts of our being. Even if we don’t do anything they will still be there. Self-nature is constantly present in us. Only that which is constant and continuous in us is called self-nature. Self-nature is not something of our creation, it is our foundation. We are it. We do not create it, we are sustained by it. Hence, we call it dharma, that which sustains. Dharma means self-nature; dharma means pure isness, existence.
This continuous nature of ours becomes suppressed in our fragmentary stream of actions. Just as the ocean becomes covered by waves and the sun by clouds, we become covered by our own actions. The layer of activities on the surface hides that which is deep inside. Insignificant waves hide the ocean’s unfathomable depths. How strange it is that the mighty is suppressed by the trivial, that a speck in the eye makes mountains invisible! But the ocean does not cease to exist because of the waves. It is the very life of the waves and is present in them as well. Those who know will even recognize the ocean in the waves, but those who do not know must wait until the waves subside. They can only see the ocean after the waves disperse.
We have to dive into this very self-nature. We have to forget about the waves and jump into the ocean. We have to know our own depths where there is isness, where there is ocean without waves, where there is being, not becoming.
This world of waveless and motionless knowing is always present in us, but we are not present to it. We have turned away from it – we are looking outside, we are looking at things, we are looking at the world. But bear one thing in mind: we are looking; what is seen is the world, but the one who is seeing is not the world, it is the self.
If seeing is identified with the object that is seen, it is thought; if seeing is free from the object that is seen and turns toward the seer, it is meditation. Do you follow my distinction between thought and meditation? Seeing is present in both thought and meditation but in the former it is objective and in the latter it is subjective. But whether we are in thought or in meditation, whether we are in action or in no-action, seeing is a constant factor. Awake, we see the world; asleep, we see dreams; in meditation, we see ourselves – but in each of these conditions there is seeing. Seeing is constant and continuous. It is our nature. It is never absent no matter what the condition.
Seeing is even present in unconsciousness. After regaining consciousness one says, “I don’t remember anything, I don’t know where I was.” Do not think that this is a not-knowing. This is also knowing. If seeing had been totally absent, then this knowing that “I don’t know where I was” would not have been possible either. If that were the case, then the time that passed by while you were unconscious would have become nonexistent for you. In no way would it have remained a part of your life; it could not have left any trace on your memory. But you know you were in some state where you were not aware of any knowing. This too is a knowing; seeing is also present here. The memory has not recorded any internal or external phenomena happening during this period, but your seeing has definitely noted, has definitely experienced this gap, this interval. And this experience of the interval, of the gap in the recording of events, later becomes known to the memory as well. Similarly, during deep sleep when there are not even dreams, seeing is always present. When we wake up in the morning we are able to say we had such a sound sleep that we did not even dream. This condition too has been observed.
You must realize from all of this that situations change, that the object, the content for the consciousness changes, but that seeing does not change. Everything in the realm of our experience changes; all things are in a flux, seeing and seeing alone is ever-present. That alone is the witness to all this change, to all this flow. To realize this ever-present and eternal seeing is to know one’s self. That alone is one’s self-nature. All else is alien, the other. All else is sansara, the world.
This witness cannot be attained or realized by any doing, by any kind of worship or adoration, by any mantra or technique, because it is the witness of all those things as well. It is separate and apart from all those things. It is separate and different from all that can be seen or done. It cannot be realized by doing but by non-doing; not by action but by emptiness. It will be realized only when there is no activity, when there is no object to be seen, when only the witness remains, when only seeing remains.
When there is seeing but nothing to be seen, when there is knowing but nothing to be known, then in this contentless consciousness the knower of all is known. When there is no object to be seen, the curtain in front of the seer drops away, and when there is no object to be known, knowing emerges. When there are no waves, the ocean is seen; when there are no clouds, the blue sky is seen.
This ocean and this sky, this empty space is there within everyone and if we wish to know this sky, this space, we can. There is a path that leads there and that too is present within us all. And each one also knows how to walk on this path. But we know how to walk on it in only one direction. Have you ever thought of the fact that there can be no path that leads in one direction only? Each path inevitably goes in two directions, in two opposite directions. Otherwise it is not a path; it cannot exist. The path
