Question 8

QUESTIONER: YOU TALKED ABOUT SWADHARMA, SELF-NATURE, THE INNATE INDIVIDUALITY OF MAN. THE GEETA SAYS THAT ONE'S OWN NATURE, EVEN IF IT BE INFERIOR IN QUALITY, IS PREFERABLE TO AN ALIEN NATURE OF SUPERIOR QUALITY. THEN THE QUESTION IS: HOW CAN SELF-NATURE, WHICH IS ONE'S INNATE INDIVIDUALITY, BE INFERIOR IN QUALITY?

Let it be the last question for this discourse, and then we will sit for meditation.

You ask how one's self-nature or the innate individuality can be inferior in quality. In this connection two things have to be considered.

The first. Everything in its origin is without any attribute, quality; it gathers attributes only after it takes a form and grows. There is a seed; it has no attributes whatsoever. The seed has just potentiality; it has no quality other than this. It can give birth to a flower which is not yet there. Tomorrow it will turn into a flower, and then this flower will have certain attributes, qualities. It will be red in color, it will be fragrant; then it will have an individuality of its own. But right now, as a seed, there is nothing in it. It will take on attributes only after it comes to express itself, after it sprouts, grows and blossoms into a flower.

The world has many attributes; God has none. God is seed-like; he is unmanifest. When God manifests himself in the form of the world he acquires attributes, and these attributes disappear when he again becomes unmanifest. Someone is a saint and another person is a thief. As saint and thief they have certain attributes, but when they, the saint and the thief, go to sleep, they are without any attributes. Neither does the saint remain a saint nor the thief remain a thief. In sleep all attributes disappear; sleep is a state without attributes. Attributes appear with the waking state; with sleep they go to sleep too. When they wake up the saint will become a saint and the thief will become a thief again. In sleep we are very close to our individuality, our innate nature; rather, we are closest to it. And in samadhi, in ecstasy, we actually attain to our supreme nature, which is of the highest.

So the experiencing of the pristine nature has no attributes, no traits whatsoever. But when self-nature manifests itself it acquires attributes. Attribute and non-attribute are not two things; they are not contradictory. They are just the ways of the manifest and the unmanifest.

Self-nature, supreme nature, has two states. One is the unmanifest state when it is in seed form, asleep, absorbed in itself. And the other is the manifest state when it takes form and attributes. Really, no manifestation can be without form and attributes; it has to have a form, a shape, a color and a speciality.

A small story comes to mind, a Zen story. A Zen Master teaches his disciples how to paint. Painting is the medium through which he really leads his disciples into meditation. One can travel to meditation from anywhere and everywhere. There is no point in the world from where you cannot make a start for meditation. This Master has ten disciples who are gathered round him one morning. He tells them, "Go and make a picture whose broad outlines should be like this. There is a cow in a grassy land, and the cow is grazing. You have to paint it, but remember, the painting has to have no form, no attributes."

The disciples find themselves in great difficulty. It is the job of a Master to put his disciples in difficulty, in crisis, because only in crisis can they become aware of themselves. The disciples find it extremely hard to paint a picture without form and attributes; it seems an impossible task. They have to use lines and colors. They have to give the cow some form; they have to show the grass all over the field.

Nine of the ten disciples attempt to paint and the next day return with some sort of paintings which don't have any clearcut outlines, everything is hazy and unclear. But a sort of cow is there in each painting. In drawing the grass they certainly made use of abstract art so it is formless as much as possible. Nevertheless, they have to use colors of some sort.

Inspecting each other's paintings, a disciple asks one of his friends, "Where is the cow?"

The other says, "I had some idea of a cow when I was in the process of painting, but now I cannot say where the cow is."

And the Master rejects all nine pictures saying, "How can you have color and a cow in a painting that has to be without form and attributes?"

The tenth disciple has just a blank sheet of paper in his hand, and the Master says, "Yes, this is it."

The nine disciples who have attempted to paint feel disappointed and they protest, "Where is the cow?"

The Master says, "The cow went home after grazing."

"And where is the grass?" they protest further.

The Master says, "The cow ate it up. So things have gone back to their original places. Things have returned to their unmanifest state. This is really painting without form and attributes. It shows a cow who is finished grazing and a plot of grass the cow has eaten up. Empty space, just space is there."

At its deepest level self nature is without any form, without any attributes; it is utter emptiness. It becomes manifest with the grass appearing and the cow coming to graze on it. Then the play of attributes happens. And it all becomes unmanifest once again after the cow has eaten up the grass.

This vast expanse of our world was born out of emptiness, which is without form, and it will return to the same emptiness. Everything appears and disappears, but the source is the same emptiness, the immense void. And the whole is hidden in that emptiness which by its nature cannot have a name, a shape and an adjective.

In this sense, self-nature, like everything else, has two states: the manifest and the unmanifest. While the manifest has a name and form, attributes, the unmanifest has none whatsoever.

In the same way we have to see Krishna from two sides, because he has two sides. His one side is visible and his other side is invisible. The skeptic will see only the visible, the manifest form of Krishna, but one who has faith, who is trusting will see the other side too, the invisible, the unmanifest. Thought, contemplation and logic cannot go beyond the form, the manifest; but trust, prayer and meditation can enter the reality, the unseen, the unmanifest. But one who fails to grasp even the form, the manifest, the gross, can hardly be expected to reach the formless, the unmanifest, the subtle.

But thought and logic, rightly used, can take you to the point where the seen, the manifest ends and the unseen, the unmanifest begins. Beyond it thought is absolutely useless; beyond it a jump, a leap is a must. Beyond it you have to get out of your intellect, your mind; you have to go beyond your own mind, beyond self. Actually you have to transcend yourself.