Indian, Gorakh, Death is Divine Chapter 6: Sadhana: the fruit of understanding, Question 1

[Note: This is a translation from the Hindi Maran Hey Jogi Maram, which is in the process of being edited. It is for research only.]

The first question:

Question 1

YOU HAVE PLACED GORAKH NATH JI AMONG THE FOUR SUPREME MOST ENLIGHTENED MEN OF INDIA. BUT IT IS SURPRISING THAT EVEN THE PLACE OF BIRTH AND PERIOD IN TIME OF SUCH A GREAT AND EXALTED MAN ARE UNKNOWN. WHY IS THIS?

Anand Maitreya, in these matters the visions of West and East are different. The West thinks in the language of history, the East thinks in the language of myth. History is of facts, myths and parables are of truths. A fact happens in a particular place and at a particular time. A fact has limits. A fact is temporal, an event in time. The truth is eternal. Its expression is also in time, nevertheless it is not bound by time.

This is why in the East we have not been concerned at all -- neither an accurate history of Rama is known, nor of Krishna. What we have in our hands are stories. If you look with the vision of the West they are mere stories, imaginary fantasies. Until there is solid proof the West is not ready to accept anything as history. The twenty-four thirtankaras of the Jainas appear to be imaginary fantasy. There is no proof.

It is difficult to ascertain even the exact date of the Buddha's birth. We have not worried about this. What difference does it make? What is the difference if Buddha was born in village A or village B? And if Buddha was born in this year or that, what difference does it make? We have tried to understand Buddhahood. What does it have to do with Buddha's personal life? His body was momentary, here today and gone tomorrow. His message is eternal. And it is not the message of only one buddha, it the message of all buddhas.

Hence note this too, when we made the statue of Buddha we weren't concerned much whether it looked like Buddha or not. We didn't create the image of the Buddha by looking at Gautama the Buddha. We created the image of the Buddha by extracting the essence of all buddhas. How buddhas live each and every moment -- the accumulation of the essence of all buddhas is what we have cast in Buddha's statue. The statue of Buddha is the symbol of all buddhas.

If you go to a Jaina temple you will be surprised seeing the twenty-four statues of the Jaina tirthankaras, they all appear exactly the same. These twenty-four individuals cannot be alike. In the whole world no two individuals can be exactly alike, so how can these twenty four individuals be exactly the same? Even identical twins are not exactly the same. So these twenty-four individuals spread out over a long time, very remote, with thousands of years between them, how can they be all alike?

They were not all alike. But there was something inside of them that was the same: the same meditation, the same samadhi, the same flow of energy... It is because of this inner sameness that we did not pay attention to the outer. We preserved the memory of the inner experience. The outer image is simply an indication towards that inner experience. The statues of the Jaina thirtankaras are not based on fact, they are based on truth.

A fact is outer. For instance when you see a rose flower it is fact, if you see two rose flowers it is fact. But it you extract the perfume from thousands of rose flowers it is truth. It has no relationship to any one flower. It is the essence.

This is why the concern of this country is very different. It never bothered with where Gorakh was born. There are various claims. Someone says Punjab, someone says Bengal, and the biggest claim is Nepal's, because the Nepalis say the name of the village that Gorakh was born in is Gorkhali, and this is why there is an ethnic group of Nepalis called Gurkhas. It is from Gorakh's name. But the endings on Gorakh's words indicate that he may have been born in Bengal: HANSIBA, KHELIBA, KARIBA DHYANAM -- LAUGHING, PLAYING, DOING MEDITATION. His personality was multi-dimensional.

As I see it he must have been a wandering monk moving all the way from Bengal to Kashmir, from Nepal to Kanya Kumari. He must have stayed many places, must have mixed with many people, his lovers must have emerged in many places. Many places people must have felt that he is ours. Who wouldn't like to make such a lovable man their own? Those who took him as theirs must have made up stories themselves.

Stories are affectionate. Stories don't say anything about the facts, but they say something about the feeling that must have come up between Gorakh and other people. If Gorakh went to Bengal he would have become a Bengali. He must have merged so much into the Bengali flow of life that people felt that he is a Bengali.

People come to me here. If I speak on Jesus then Christians come and ask me, are you a Christian? If I speak on Buddha then Buddhists come and ask me, are you a follower of Buddha? When I spoke on Nanak then Sikhs came and said to me, you have revealed meanings that we had never thought of: you are the true Sikh! Whoever I speak upon I get deeply involved in. I let him speak through me. So Sikhs can feel that I am a Sikh and Buddhists that I am a Buddha and Christians that I am a Christian.

They must have felt like that with Gorakh. Wherever he went, wherever he stayed, wherever his feet touched, people there must have felt he is ours. They must have felt it because of his love. And the matter of when and where he was born becomes even more difficult to decide. Such a person neither talks about his birth, nor about his house and home. What house and what home does such a person have? The whole sky is his home! The whole earth is his.

Just yesterday I was looking at a letter published in CURRENT magazine that some Hindu sannyasin has written against me. He requested the government to initiate a court case against me because I am a traitor. He is right. The government should pay attention to his statement. I can be called a traitor because I don't believe in countries at all. I have no country or region. I know this whole earth as my own.

The sannyasi who said this -- a Hindu fanatic -- must be troubled: why am I not declaring myself a Hindu? I am not. I am not bound by any limits. Mosques are mine and temples are mine and churches are mine and gurudvaras also... And I do not believe in nations. I believe that humanity is suffering because of nations. Nations should be destroyed. Too many national anthems have been sung, too many flags have been flown, too many idiocies have happened on this earth. Accept the unity of mankind now. Now, one world and and one mankind... These national governments must go. And until they go man's problems cannot be solved, because man's problems are bigger than nations.

For instance India is now poor. India cannot come out of this poverty by its own efforts alone. There is no way. India can come out poverty only if it receives the cooperation of all humanity, because now mankind has the technology, the science is available that the poverty of this country can be destroyed. But if you remain arrogant that we will destroy our poverty ourselves... but you yourself are the creator of this poverty: how will you destroy it? Your understanding is the basis of it, how will YOU destroy it? You will have to open your doors. You will have to expand your heart a little. You will have to take help from the rest of mankind.

And it is not that you have nothing to give. You have something to give to the world. You can give meditation to the world. If America wants to seek meditation it won't be able to do it through its own strength. It will have to lift its eyes towards India. But they are sensible people. They are coming to the East to learn meditation. They don't have any difficulty. There is no hindrance.

The sign of the intelligent is to take something where it is available. The whole earth is ours. By dividing it into sections we have created disturbances. Today man has means available that if nations are destroyed then all the problems can be destroyed. If there were a way for all mankind to gather together then there is no reason at all for any problem to remain on this earth.

But there old habits. Our country -- 'Hindustan is better than the whole world'... And this kind of idiocy exists in other countries too. They have the same idea. Conflict is because of these egos. Then because of conflicts and national boundaries all of man's energy goes into war.

You will be surprised to know that now we have collected enough war material in the whole world -- especially in Russia and America -- that each and every man can be killed a thousand times over. We have available the means to destroy one thousand earths. There is however only one earth. Armaments go on piling up. And any day the mania of a single mad politician and this whole earth will be a heap of dust, it will become a pile of ashes.

And from politicians, madness can be expected. Who else will you expect it from? From a single politician going mad this whole earth will move into such terrible chaos that you won't even have a chance to think of understanding it. It will take from five to seven minutes for the whole world to be reduced to ash. The news will not be able to reach before death comes. When such terrible preparations have been made for violence the old ideas of nations cannot work. Now it is dangerous. It is because of these same nations that armaments have accumulated. For their security... So the other doesn't somehow get ahead, we have to keep ahead of them.

Eighty percent of humanity's ability goes into war. If this eighty percent ability went into farming, went into gardens, went into factories, this earth would become a paradise. The dream that your seers and prophets used to see of heaven in the sky can now be created. There is no obstacle. But old habits... This is our country, that is their country. We have to fight, they have to fight. The poorest of the poor nations are also engaged in an effort to make atom bombs. They are dying of starvation but they want to make atom bombs. Underneath, this same idea chases even after a country like India. We may starve but our glory must be preserved.

I don't believe in countries. If I am listened to then I will say that India should be the first country to renounce nationalism. It would be good if the country of Krishna, Buddha, Patanjali and Gorakh renounces nationalism and says we are an international area. India should become an area of the United Nations Assembly. It should be said that we are the first nation that entrusts itself to the United Nations -- you take custody. Someone must start it... And if it is started there is no need for wars. These wars will continue as long as there are borders. These borders must go.

He is right it can be said that I am a traitor -- in the sense that I am not a traitor to humanity. But all your lovers of nations are traitors to humanity. The very meaning of patriotism is treason towards humanity. Love of nation means dividing into parts. You have seen haven't you that a person who is patriotic towards his region becomes an enemy of the nation. And one who is patriotic towards his district becomes an enemy of the region. I am not an enemy of the nation, my idea is international. This whole earth is one. I want to abandon the small for the vast.

And these small-small enclosures, these dikes have troubled man too much. In three thousand years five thousand wars have been fought. And previously it was okay if wars fought with bows and arrows went on happening, there was no harm. If a few people died there was no problem. Now, war is total war. Now it is the suicide of all mankind. Now every place can become a Hiroshima -- any day, at any moment... Consider the horror of this war and think of how much energy is going into it. This same energy can fill the entire earth with greenery, can fill it with prosperity. For the first time man can dance absorbed in bliss, can sing songs of ecstasy, can follow the quest of meditation.

But this will not happen. Your so called patriots, these nationalists...

Nationalism is a great sin. It is due to this nationalism that all these problems exist in the world. I am not a nationalist. I want to break all boundaries. Whoever on this earth who has received a small glimpse of the truth has no boundaries. They do not belong to any country, any community, any class, any sect, any caste. They belong to all, all belong to them.

And this kind of person, a person like Gorakh, doesn't bother to talk about when he was born, or talk about which house he was born in, or talk about which town he was born in. These are useless things because Gorakh knows: I was never born and I will never die. These statements are of the body-minded. These statements are of those who are attracted and identified with the body. A person like Gorakh has known that which is never born, that which never dies. That which cannot die, cannot be born. After knowing the unborn, the unbegun, the unending who will talk about birth? Who will he be talking about?

This is why people like this don't talk about it. Naturally many stories will be left behind them but definite facts will not be left. And such people have such a vast heart that they cannot agree to any kind of distinction. Because distinctions are an indication of ignorance. One who says I am a Hindu, I am a Muslim, I am a Christian -- these are the signs of the ignorant. Where the light is burning distinctions have gone. Distinctions live only in darkness. There is the emergence of the one free of distinctions, the indescribable. Because of this nothing can be known with certainty where he was born, when he was born.

But some people are involved in this inquiry. Some people have put their lives into it. This type of person does research in universities, becomes a great researcher. He receives degrees -- Ph.D. and D. Lit. and D. Phil. They are very respected. And what is their job? Their job is to decide when Gorakh Nath was born. Someone says at the end of the tenth century, someone says at the beginning of the eleventh century. A great debate goes on about this. The wise of great universities go on prattling and researching in scriptures, proofs of this, of that. Their whole lives go into it. What can be more unwise than this?

If you know when Gorakh was born what will you do? If you know it what will you gain? If it is proven that Gorakh was never born, what will be gained? Whether he was or he wasn't is meaningless -- have a taste of what it was that Gorakh lived.

Your universities are occupied with such meaningless projects that it is surprising: should they be called universities or not? Their work, the research done in your universities is all rubbish.

I was speaking somewhere. A very famous researcher, a great scholar stood up. And he asked me, "If you could answer just one question of mine: who was the elder, Buddha or Mahavira? They were contemporaries. ... because I have been researching this for thirty years."

I looked at him with a feeling of pity. I said, "Your thirty years are spent. What truth would there be if Buddha was older or younger?"

"No," he said, "it should become historical knowledge."

I said, "If you had ascertained that Buddha was older or that Mahavira was older what would you attain? And those that read history what will they attain? And thirty years? You have wasted your life. And other people think that you are involved in a very important project."

Sometimes in the name of so called knowledge such stupidities go on that if you reflect on it you cannot even imagine. If you enter into the innermost of Buddha, into the innermost of Mahavira, you will find there are not two persons there. There is only one. A single cloudless sky, a single silent music, a single festival of bliss.

Zen monks are right when they say, did Buddha ever exist? They are people who revere Buddha saying, did Buddha ever exist? Buddha never existed, it's all useless nonsense. They worship Buddha everyday and say, Buddha never existed, it's all lies. What is the motive of these Zen monks? They are saying if we said he is then some people will go enquiring about when he existed, on what date he existed. They will waste their time on it. This is why we say, he never existed, drop this mischief. But what happened to Buddha certainly happened. Who it happened to is not important. If his name was Gautama or something else, if his father was this one or that one -- it is all of no use.

Something happened to Buddha. Sitting at the base of a tree one morning he didn't get up the same way he had sat down in the evening: some new man got up. This is the real birth. Call only this birth. And it has no connection with date, day of the week, month or year. A moment came when thoughts became calm, became silent. Consciousness became a pure mirror. Let your consciousness become the same, put your time into this process. It is better if you become a Buddha yourself. It is better that the sound of Gorakh echoes inside of you. Instead of your going into the life history of Gorakh, it is better if you go inside Gorakh.

This is why this country did well not to consider useless things, they didn't get pulled into these meaningless things. They said only what was real and essential. Man is so mischievous, so ignorant, that if a tiny scrap of the unessential is put into his hand he will tend to it and forget about the essential. This is why we have not talked about the inessential, we have only talked about the essential. If you want to catch hold of something then catch hold of the essential. You have already attained the inessential, so we have erased all the inessential, we have rubbed it out.

It is not that the beautiful stories we have fashioned necessarily happened. There is no reason for them to. They are symbols. And symbols are poetic. They are not connected with history, they are connected with the inner being. For instance we have said that when Buddha became enlightened flowers bloomed out of season. This is not history, flowers never bloom out of season. We have written that when Buddha went into a forest if he sat under a withered tree that green leaves would come. This has never happened. It is not history that seeing Buddha's meditation, seeing Buddha's samadhi, leaves came to the tree. But it is an indication that wherever Buddha's feet stepped greenery spread. Life became green there. A new upsurge of inner life came, a new grace rained down. Buddha is a shower of nectar. This is a poetic way of saying it. It is not more than this.

Jesus was crucified and after crucifixion he came back to life. This coming back to life is not a historical event. This being resurrected is a profound symbol, it is poetry. It is just saying that death cannot happen to a person like Jesus. Death happens to the unenlightened. Those who believe that they are the body, they die. How can those who have known that they are bodiless inside the body die? For them the cross too is the inception of a new life. For them the cross too is a throne. They do not die. They live in eternal nectar, they die in eternal nectar. Their nectar continues, the stream of nectar goes on flowing... if in a body then in the body, or if not in a body then outside of the body.

But people are engaged in trying to prove that it is a historical fact. And then there is trouble. I told you recently that when a snake bit Mahavira milk came out. There are Jainas that try to prove this milk coming out is a historical fact. They are foolish themselves and they are inviting others to be foolish. This much is obvious: milk is a symbol of love. When a child comes into the mother's womb, then in manifestation of her love, the mother's breasts fill with milk for nourishing the child. The mother begins to flow for the child in a stream of milk. The child starts to receive life from the mother's milk. Love gives life! It is merely a symbol in this story that if a snake bit Mahavira even then there was only compassion and love in Mahavira's heart. How to say it in poetry? In poetry it is said: when Mahavira was bit, blood did not come out, milk came. Blood should have come, but milk came. This is poetry. It is lovely poetry, if you take it as poetry. But if you stubbornly insist that it is a scientific statement then you are being idiotic.

We have fashioned stories around all unique persons. All these stories are very loving. Consider these stories as indications. They are not concerned with true and false. There are a few hints in them. And if you grasp the hints the stories will fall behind. You will be getting started on a pilgrimage.

Drop your concern with where Gorakh was born, when he was born. Leave this work to the scholars. In the end those poor people need some work too don't they? Leave this to the researchers, otherwise who will give them Ph.D.s? Gorakh has been very compassionate that he didn't write it down. If he had written it down who knows how many people's doctorates have would been missed! It is also his kindness that he didn't give any message as to where he was born. Who knows how many people are engaged, engaged in this very job. Idiots need something to be engaged in! Sensible people don't get entangled in such things. Get acquainted with Gorakh's message. Let Gorakh's sutras descend into your heart. If you become a Gorakh it is good, if you don't become it's okay. The sutras are important. Whether Gorakh existed or not makes no difference in the significance of these sutras.

Do you think that if Krishna existed the Geeta would be more valuable, and if Krishna did not exist the Geeta will lose value? What madness are you suggesting? Will the theory of relativity be more valuable if Einstein existed? Does the theory of relativity receive strength from the existence of Einstein? It receives no strength. Whether Einstein existed or not the theory of relativity is powerful in its own right. Its support is within itself. It is irrelevant who gave birth to it.

Do you know who first kindled fire? Scientists say that fire is the world's greatest discovery. Who first kindled it is unknown to us. At least some fifty thousand years or more must have passed since some man first kindled fire. No one even knows his name. But will you not bake your bread on the fire because you don't know his name? Will you sit near a fire and not take heat when it is cold? What's the difference whether it was A or B or C? -- whether he was black or white? -- whether it happened in India or in Africa? What difference does it make where fire was first lit, who lit it? We know that fire is valuable in its own right.

The methods of sadhana are just like this -- they are fire, flaming fire. If you are courageous, take the jump.

DIE, O YOGI, DIE! DIE, SWEET IS DYING.

DIE THAT DEATH GORAKH DIED AND SAW.

Leap into that fire that Gorakh lept into. You also be burnt to ash in that fire of no-thought. And from your ashes a new form will arise, a new light, a new life that is eternal.

Gorakh

DEATH IS DIVINE

Chapter-6

Sadhana: the fruit of understanding