satori has happened, it is no longer a faith, it has become a knowing. Now the trust is not an effort; now you trust because your own experience has shown you. After the first glimpse, the real search starts. Before it, you are just going round and round. Right reasoning leads to right reflection, right reflection leads to a state of bliss, and this state of bliss leads to a sense of pure being.
A negative mind is always egoistic. And that is the impure state of being. You feel the “I,” but you feel it for the wrong reasons. Just watch and you will see that the ego feeds on no. Whenever you say, “No,” the ego arises. Whenever you say, “Yes,” the ego cannot arise because it needs fight, challenge, to put itself against someone or something. It cannot exist alone, it needs duality. An egoist is always in search of a fight – with someone, with something, with some situation. He is always trying to find something to say no to – to win over, to be victorious.
The ego is violent, and no is the subtlest violence. When you say no to ordinary things, the ego arises even there. A small child says to its mother, “Can I go out to play?” and she says, “No” Nothing much was involved, but when the mother says no she feels she is someone. For instance you go to a railway station and ask for a ticket and the clerk simply doesn’t look at you. He goes on working even if he has no work to do. But what he is saying is, “No, wait!” He feels he is someone, somebody. That’s why, in offices everywhere you will hear, “No.” Yes, is rare, very rare. An ordinary clerk can say no to anybody, whoever you are. He feels powerful. No gives you a sense of power – remember this. Unless it is absolutely necessary, never say no. Even if it is absolutely necessary, say it in such an affirmative way that the ego doesn’t arise. You can say… Even no can be said in such a way that it appears like yes. You can say yes in such a way that it looks like no. It depends on the tone, the attitude, the gesture.
Remember this: for seekers, it has to be constantly remembered that you have to live continuously in the aroma of yes. That is what a man of faith is. He says, “Yes.” Even when no is needed, he says, “Yes.” He doesn’t see that there is any antagonism in life. He affirms. He says yes to his body, his mind, and to everybody; he says yes to the total existence. The ultimate flowering happens when you can say a categorical yes, with no conditions. Suddenly the ego falls – it cannot stand up, it needs the props of no. The negative attitude creates the ego. With the positive attitude the ego drops, and the being is pure.
Sanskrit has two words for “I” – ahankar and asmita. It is difficult to translate. Ahankar is the wrong sense of “I” which comes from saying no. Asmita is the right sense of “I” which comes by saying yes. Both are “I.” One is impure; no is the impurity – negate, destroy. No is destructive, a very subtle destruction. Never use it, drop it as often as you can. Whenever you are alert, don’t use it. Even if you have to say it, try to find a roundabout way that has the appearance of yes. By and by you will become attuned, and you will feel through the yes such a purity coming to you.
And asmita; asmita is egoless ego. There is no feeling of “I” against anybody – just feeling oneself without putting yourself against anybody. Just feeling your total loneliness… And total loneliness is the purest of states. When we say “I am,” “I” is ahankar, “am” is asmita – just the feeling of amness with no “I” to it, just feeling existence, the being. Yes is beautiful. No is ugly.
In asampragyata samadhi there is a cessation of all mental activity, and the mind only retains unmanifested impressions.
Sampragyata samadhi is the first step: right reasoning, right reflection, a state of bliss, a glimpse of bliss, and a feeling of “amness.” Pure simple existence without any ego in it – this leads to asampragyata samadhi. First is a purity, second is a disappearance because even the purest is impure because it is there. “I” is wrong; “am” is also wrong – better than “I,” but a higher possibility is there when “am” also disappears – not only ahankar, but asmita too. You are impure, then you become pure, but if you start feeling, “I am pure,” purity itself has become impurity. That too has to disappear.
The disappearance of purity is asampragyata samadhi; the disappearance of impurity is sampragyata samadhi. The disappearance of purity as well as impurity is asampragyata. There is a cessation of all mental activity. In the first state, thoughts disappear and in the second state, thinking also disappears. In the first state, thorns disappear; in the second state, flowers also disappear. When no disappears in the first state, yes remains. In the second state, yes also disappears because yes is also related to no. How can you retain yes without no? They are together, you cannot separate them. If no disappears, how can you say yes? Deep down yes is saying no to no. Negation of negation – but a subtle no exists. When you say yes, what are you doing? – you are not saying no, but the no is inside. You are not bringing it out; it is unmanifested.
Your yes cannot mean anything if you haven’t no within you. What will it mean? – it will be meaningless. Yes has meaning only because of no; no has meaning only because of yes. They are a duality.
In sampragyata samadhi, no is dropped; all that is wrong is dropped. In asampragyata samadhi, yes is dropped; all that is right, all that is good, that too is dropped. In sampragyata samadhi you drop the Devil; in asampragyata samadhi you also drop God, because how can God exist without the Devil? They are two aspects of the same coin.
All activity ceases. Yes is also an activity, and activity is a tension. Something is going on… Beautiful even, but still something is going on, and after a period even the beautiful becomes ugly. After a period of time you are bored with flowers; after a period of time, activity, even very subtle and pure, gives you tension; it becomes an anxiety. In asampragyata samadhi there is a cessation of all mental activity, and the mind only retains unmanifested impressions.
But still, it is not the goal. What will happen to all the impressions you have gathered in the past? For many, many lives you have lived, acted, reacted. You have done many things, undone many things. What will happen to it? The conscious mind has become pure; the conscious mind has dropped even the activity of purity. But the unconscious is vast and you carry all the seeds there, the blueprints. They are within you.
The tree has disappeared; you have cut down the tree completely – but the seeds that have fallen and are lying in the ground will sprout when their season comes. You will have another life, you will be born again. Of course, your quality will be different, but you will be born again because those seeds are yet to be burned.
You have cut down that which was manifested. It is easy to cut down anything that is in manifestation; it is easy to cut down all the trees. You can go into a garden and pull up all the grass on the lawn; you can kill everything, but within two weeks it will come up again because what you did was to pull up the manifested. You haven’t touched the seeds which are lying in the soil. That has to be done in the third state.
Asampragyata samadhi is still sabeej – with seeds. And there are methods: how to burn those seeds, how to create fire – the fire that Heraclitus talked about – how to create that fire and burn the unconscious seeds. When they disappear, the soil is absolutely pure, and nothing can arise out of it. There is no birth, no death. The whole wheel stops for you, you have dropped out of the wheel. Dropping out of society won’t help unless you drop out of the wheel. Then you become a perfect dropout!
Buddha is a perfect dropout; Mahavira, Patanjali, are perfect dropouts. They haven’t only dropped out of the establishment or society, they have dropped out of the very wheel of life and death. But that happens only when all the seeds are burned. The final is nirbeej samadhi – seedless.
In asampragyata samadhi there is a cessation of all mental activity, and the mind only retains unmanifested impressions.
