Osho Vedanta: Seven steps to Samadhi, Discourses Series Chapter 14 The Motionless Flame of a Lamp

ON THE ATTAINMENT OF THE FIFTH STATE, THE MIND OF THE SEEKER CEASES, LIKE CLOUDS IN AN AUTUMN SKY, AND ONLY TRUTH REMAINS.

IN THIS STATE, WORLDLY DESIRES DO NOT ARISE AT ALL.

DURING THIS STATE ALL THOUGHTS OF DIVISION IN THE SEEKER ARE STILLED

AND HE REMAINS ROOTED IN NONDUALITY.

ON THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE FEELING OF DIVISION, THE FIFTH STAGE, KNOWN AS THE SUSHUPTAPAD -- SLEEPING --

DRAWS THE ENLIGHTENED SEEKER INTO ITS NATURE.

HE IS PERPETUALLY INTROVERTED AND LOOKS TIRED AND SLEEPY,

EVEN THOUGH EXTERNALLY HE CONTINUES HIS EVERYDAY ACTIVITIES.

ON THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THIS STAGE, THE DESIRE-FREE SEEKER ENTERS THE SIXTH ONE. BOTH TRUTH AND UNTRUTH, BOTH EGOISM AND EGOLESSNESS AND ALL SORTS OF MENTATION CEASE TO EXIST IN THIS STATE,

AND ROOTED IN PURE NONDUALITY, THE SEEKER IS FREE FROM FEAR.

AS THE ENTANGLEMENTS OF HIS HEART DISSOLVE, SO ALL HIS DOUBTS DROP. THIS IS THE MOMENT WHEN HE IS COMPLETELY EMPTIED OF ALL THOUGHT. WITHOUT ATTAINING NIRVANA, HE IS IN A NIRVANA-LIKE STATE

AND BECOMES FREE WHILE YET DWELLING IN THE BODY.

THIS STATE IS LIKE THAT OF THE MOTIONLESS FLAME OF A LAMP.

AND THEN COMES THE SEVENTH STAGE.

The first three stages belong to the part of your mind which is called will. The first three belong to the realm of effort. You have to do them, they will not happen on their own; and unless you have done them the other states will not follow.

After the third stage everything becomes spontaneous. There is a sequence: one after another things will happen, but you will not be doing them. The only thing to remember for the other stages after the third is to allow them to happen. The first three you have to force to happen, they will not happen by themselves. After the third you have to allow them to happen, if you don't allow they will not happen.

So the first three belong to the positive effort and the remaining belong to the negative effort. Let it be understood well what I mean by positive effort and negative effort. By positive effort is meant: you have to do something, only then will something happen. By negative effort is meant: you are only to allow, you have to remain passive, not doing anything, open, receptive, that's all, and things will happen. For example, the sun is rising outside. You can close your doors. If the doors are closed you can leave them closed. The sun will be outside, the sunrays will be outside, but you will remain in darkness. Negative effort means let your doors be open, that's all. But you have to open the doors, that is positive effort in the beginning. Open the doors, then you have not to do anything else. The sun will rise, the light will enter. And as the sun rises more and more, more and more light will come to your room. The darkness will disappear.

You cannot bring the sunrays inside, you cannot put them in a bucket and bring them inside. You cannot force the sunrays to come in. No positive effort is needed, only to open the doors you have to be positive, that's all. Then the sun by itself will fill the room. If you are open, passive, receptive like a womb, nothing can then prevent the light from entering. Or in other words, the first three steps are male, and the remaining steps are female. In the first three steps you have to be aggressive, masculine; in the remaining steps you have to be female, feminine, passive, receptive. That's why I say that in the negative steps you have to be just a womb to receive.

Have you observed it? No woman can rape a man, so all over the world, in no law book is there any law against it. No woman can rape a man because her whole sexuality is receptive, she cannot be aggressive. But a man can rape a woman, even if she is not willing she can be raped. If a man is not willing he cannot be raped, you cannot do anything, rape is impossible, because male energy moves outward, female energy simply waits inward -- just waits.

That's why no woman worth the name will be aggressive in love. She will not initiate any love affair. She will not say, "I love you." She will just wait for you to say that you love her. And if a woman says in the beginning that she loves you and you have not initiated it, escape from her; that woman is dangerous, you will suffer for it. That woman is not really feminine; she is aggressive, unwomanly. She will wait. She will seduce you, but her ways of seduction will be passive, indirect. She will not hit you directly on the head, she will not say anything. So in the end no man can say, "You persuaded me into this love affair." No man can say that. The woman will always say, "You dragged me into this affair, you initiated me, so you are responsible," because she can wait, she can be patient, she can be only receptive. And that is natural.

The first steps are male, the last steps are female. Then there are a few things implied. The first three steps will be difficult for women, they will have to make more effort for them. The first three steps will be easy for men. The last steps will be easy for women and they will be difficult for men. This will be the difference in sadhana. The first three steps will come easily to a man. There is no problem because they suit his nature, he can be aggressive easily. The first three steps will be difficult for a woman; she will have to exert force, she will get tired easily. But if she can wait for the fourth then the whole wheel turns. The last steps will be very easy for a woman -- she can wait, she can be receptive. Negative effort just suits her nature.

Nobody is at any advantage and nobody is at any disadvantage. The whole -- half is male, half is female. So remember this: if you are a woman the first three steps are going to be a little difficult. Knowing it well, make all efforts. If you are a man then remember that after the third difficulty will arise for you, because it is difficult for a man to be in a letgo. He can do something, that's easy. But to not do anything, to just remain waiting, is difficult. But if the first three steps have been done well that difficulty will not be so difficult, it will dissolve by and by.

Now the sutra. Before we enter it one thing more: that after the third the fourth will follow, you are not to drag it. After the fourth the fifth will follow, after the fifth the sixth will follow, after the sixth the seventh will follow. They will come automatically. Once your life energy starts moving things will happen automatically.

That's why it is said that samadhi, the last, the seventh step, happens by the grace of God. That's true in a way, because you will not be making any effort for it. Suddenly one day you will feel yourself filled with grace -- suddenly, not knowing any visible cause. So sometimes samadhi has happened in such moments that one was not even aware, one could not even imagine that samadhi would happen in such a state.

One Zen nun, an old woman, was coming one night from the well carrying two pails of water on her shoulder on a bamboo pole. The full moon was in the sky. As she was walking towards her hut, towards the monastery, suddenly the bamboo broke. The two earthen pots fell down on the ground, were broken, shattered to pieces, the water flowed out -- and the woman became enlightened. She started to sing and dance.

In the morning the people of the monastery found her still dancing, singing. She was transformed, metamorphosed -- a completely different being. They asked, "What happened?"

She said, "When those two pots fell down, shattered, the water flowed out -- the moon in the water disappeared. The moon was in the sky, it was reflecting in the water of the pots. The pots fell down, water spread, the moon in the water disappeared -- and then I looked at the real moon and I was enlightened."

What is she saying? Just when those two earthen pots fell down on the ground... she must have been waiting for long, all effort had been done. She must have been growing by and by, spontaneously. And when growth comes spontaneously you cannot be very much aware of it, it goes on and on. It is just as when a child becomes a young man, he never knows when he became a young man. A young man becomes old, he cannot draw the line when he became old. It is happening so spontaneously moment to moment, it is happening always all the time, there is no demarcation. So after the third things will flow. Your master may become aware, you will not be aware. You will become aware only when the seventh has happened.

The pots fell down on the ground, shattered, water spread out, and the moon disappeared. The falling of those pots triggered it, the sound, the shattering of earthen pots. Suddenly... as if the body disappeared, because the body is earthen. The water flowed out because there was now nothing to hold it together. The soul is the water. The body broken, the water spread out, became one with the cosmos. There was nothing to hold it in. And then the ego disappeared -- which is a reflection of the real moon, of the real God. Only God can say 'I'. We go on saying 'I' -- that is just a reflection.

Water in the earthen pot reflects the moon.

Consciousness in an earthen body reflects the divine, becomes 'I'.

But such an ordinary situation -- the shattering of two earthen pots -- became the cause of enlightenment. But it is not a cause, because you can break as many pots as you like and it will not happen, so it is not a cause. A cause means something which can produce the effect, so it is not a cause, it has not caused it -- it was already happening. It was as if the woman was asleep and suddenly the sound of the breaking of the pots awoke her, she became aware. What has happened? Then she must have looked at the pots and at herself. Suddenly there was no body, no pots, no ego; everything had disappeared. Then the energy was dancing, not that woman; that was the metamorphosis, that was the transformation.

In the morning when the monastery found her she was no more the same. So they asked her, "Where has the old woman gone?" It has become one of the oldest Zen sayings to ask a person who has been transformed, "Where has the old woman gone?" or, "Where has the old man disappeared to?" ... Because now there is only energy with no will of its own, dancing. The dance is not willed, it is spontaneous.

In many situations enlightenment has happened, sometimes very ordinary situations. It is told of Nanak that he was serving in an ordinary store, just selling things to people, the whole day weighing, measuring things and selling them to people. One day -- he must have been growing inwardly, he was not aware of it -- he was weighing something and giving it to a man. He counted: one, two, three, four, five... and then he came to thirteen. Thirteen in Hindi is tera. Tera means thou, thine. The word for thirteen in Hindi is tera. Tera has two meanings: one -- thirteen; another -- thine.

Suddenly when he said "Tera," he forgot the shop, he forgot the weighing, he forgot the counting, he forgot that tera means thirteen; suddenly he became aware that tera means thine. Then he went on weighing, but never the fourteen came again. He would weigh something that he was selling and would say, "Tera, tera, tera."

Evening came. The owner of the shop was informed that Nanak had gone mad; he was not proceeding further, he had become obsessed with tera. The owner came and he looked. He must have been a man who knew scriptures, who knew something about mysticism. He bowed down to Nanak, because his whole face was transformed, he was no more the same man. And after that moment everything became God's; Nanak was not now his own, he was God's. The whole existence was God's.

He left the shop, became a monk, a wandering monk with a follower, Mardana, who would play on an instrument and Nanak would sing the glory of the lord. And then Nanak moved all over the country and even outside the country. He went even to Mecca, everywhere -- but the song remained the same: "Thine, tera -- everything is yours, nothing is mine."

It happened just in an ordinary shop. It can happen anywhere, no bodhi tree is needed. It was accidental that Buddha was sitting under the tree and Nanak was sitting in that shop, it was accidental. It can happen anywhere because every spot on the earth is his, and every spot on the earth is sacred. Wherever you are, if you have done the right effort then things will grow, and one day -- the happening. And that happening is going to be grace, because you cannot say, "I have done it." You were not doing anything at all. That's why so much insistence that the ultimate happens through grace, it is a gift of God. It is nothing which you have produced.

But remember, you have still been doing something which is negative: you were not creating hindrances. If you create hindrances even God's grace cannot be available to you. There is a reason for it. As I told you, love cannot be aggressive, and grace is the suprememost love -- the love that existence has for you. It cannot be aggressive, it cannot even knock at your door. If the doors remain closed the grace will simply wait there for millions of your lives. If the doors remain closed the grace will not knock, because knocking is aggression. Unless you open the doors on your own the grace will not enter. It is not aggressive, it has no sex center in it. It can wait infinitely.

One thing you have to do: don't create hindrances after the third. And once the fourth has happened these stages will follow. They follow just as a river flows to the sea. Once it has started, once it has crossed mountains -- because in the mountains there will be a little struggle, effort, resistance; the rocks, the valleys, the mountains.... Once the river has followed the mountains, has crossed them and has come to the flat land, then there is no problem, things flow easily. It will reach one day to the ocean.

The three stages for your river are as if in the mountains, then from the fourth you are on plain ground, you can flow. Sooner or later the ocean will be there and you will fall down into it. And the whole course is now going to be spontaneous, you have just to flow and not do anything. And for flowing one need not do anything, flowing is not something to do.

You enter a river: if you want to swim, then you will have to do something. But if you just want to flow with the river you need not do anything, you have simply to allow the river to take you -- no resistance. That's why a miracle happens. A live man may be drowned, but no river can drown a dead man, no river is so powerful it can drown a dead man. And any man who is live, alive, can be drowned by a small river also. The dead man must know some secret which alive men don't know.

The alive man fights with the river. The river is not drowning him; through his own fight he gets exhausted, he becomes tired, dissipates energy, becomes impotent -- through his own fight, unnecessary fight. The river is not fighting him, he is fighting the river and wants to swim upstream. Every one of you wants to swim upstream, because only when you fight with the river and swim upstream is ego created. Then you feel you are winning, you are becoming victorious. The swimming upstream creates the ego.

One day you are bound to get tired of it, and then the river will drown you because then you will have no energy left. But a dead man knows a secret. He cannot fight, he is dead; he cannot flow upstream. He simply allows the river to take him anywhere it wants. Not he, but the river now wills. No river can drown him. He can move, he can become the flow.

After the third stage you have to become like a dead man, that is the negative effort. That's what is meant by old Indian scriptures when they say that the guru, the master, is like death, he will kill you. Only when you are dead will the grace become possible to you. So all the efforts you are making here are just to become available to me so I can kill you. I have to be a murderer, because unless you are dead grace will not be possible for you, you cannot receive it.

Dead men flow. They are spontaneous because they have no will of their own. After the third stage you should be like dead men. Then these stages follow:

ON THE ATTAINMENT OF THE FIFTH STAGE --

the fourth is advaita, the feeling of nonduality --

THE MIND OF THE SEEKER CEASES, LIKE CLOUDS IN AN AUTUMN SKY, AND ONLY TRUTH REMAINS.

The fourth is advaita, nonduality, when you can see that only oneness exists, clouds start disappearing, only the sky remains. Clouds are there because you divide, because duality is there. Your mind is clouded, many clouds float there, because you cannot see the one sky hidden behind the clouds. You are too obsessed with the clouds, with the contents.

One psychologist was conducting an experiment. He came into his class, fifty students were present there. On the big blackboard in the classroom he pasted a white paper of just the same size as the blackboard. On that white paper there was a simple small black dot, the only thing; otherwise the whole paper was white, clean, clear. There was just a small dot, difficult even to see.

And then he asked the students, "What do you see here?" So they stared, and everybody had to write what he was seeing. And the fifty students, with not even one exception, all wrote that they saw a small black dot. Nobody saw that big white sheet, just a small dot. Nobody saw, nobody wrote that they saw a big white sheet. Everybody saw the small black dot.

We see the clouds, not the sky. The background is always missed, and that background is the real, the big, the wide and the vital and the vast. Whenever you look in the sky you see a small cloud floating there, you never see the sky! The emphasis has to change, the focus has to change -- from the black dot to the white sheet, from the cloud to the sky. When you look inside the mind you always see small thoughts. They are nothing compared to your consciousness; your consciousness is vast, but you always see small dots floating there.

When nonduality comes to you dots will disappear and the background will become clear. And once you can see the white sheet, once your mind is focused on the white sheet, that small dot will disappear, because if you are focused on the small black dot you cannot see the white sheet so big. Focusing on the black dot the big white sheet disappears. So why shouldn't it be otherwise? -- when you focus on the white sheet the black dot disappears. When you can see the sky clouds disappear. When you can see the consciousness thoughts disappear.

ON THE ATTAINMENT OF THE FIFTH STAGE THE MIND OF THE SEEKER CEASES, LIKE CLOUDS IN AN AUTUMN SKY, AND ONLY TRUTH REMAINS.

The sky is the truth, the vagabond clouds are not true. They are not eternal, they are momentary phenomena, they come and go. Remember, this is the definition of the Upanishads, the definition of truth: that which remains always. The real is not true if the real moves and changes. Upanishads have a particular definition of truth: truth is that which always remains, and untruth is that which comes and goes.

The untruth can exist, but it is momentary, it is dreamlike. Why do you call dreams untrue? They exist, they have their existence, their reality; in the dream you believe in them, but in the morning when you have awakened you say they were dreams, untrue, unreal. Why? They were there, so why do you call them unreal? You must be following unknowingly the definition of the Upanishads -- because they are no more. They were, but are no more. There was a moment when they were not, then there was a moment when they were, now there is again a moment when they are not, and between two nonexistences how is existence possible? That existence which exists between two nonexistences must be unreal, dreamlike.

One day you were not here on this earth, in this body. If your name is Ram, then Ram didn't exist before your birth. Then, after your death, Ram will not exist again. So two nonexistences on two poles, and between is your existence, the Ram. It is dreamlike. If there is something which existed before your birth and will exist after your death, the Upanishads call that the truth.

They say, "Find the eternal, the nonchanging. Unless you come to that which has always been, will always be, consider all else dreaming." They say, "Clouds are dreams. Not that they are unreal -- they are real, they are there, you can see them, but they are dreams, because they were not and they will not be again. And when they were not the sky was, when they are the sky is, when they will not be again the sky will be. So the sky remains, the space remains, and everything appears in it and disappears.

This world of appearance and disappearance is called maya -- the illusion, the dream. The background which remains always constant, continuous, eternally there, which never changes -- which cannot change -- that is the truth.

Your life is also divided by the Upanishads into two parts: one that changes and one that remains permanent, eternal -- eternally permanent. That which changes is your body, that which changes is your mind, and that which never changes is your soul. Your body and mind are like clouds, your soul is like the sky. At the attainment of the fifth stage clouds disappear; your body, your mind, clouds in the sky... and all that is impermanent disappears, and the permanent is revealed... AND ONLY TRUTH REMAINS.

IN THIS STATE, WORLDLY DESIRES DO NOT ARISE AT ALL.

... because worldly desires can arise only for the clouds, for the objects, for the impermanent; you cannot desire that which is always. There is no need to desire it, it is always there. You can desire only that which will not be there. The more impermanent the more you are attracted towards it. The sooner it flies into nonexistence the more your obsession with it.

All beauty appeals, because it is the most impermanent thing in existence. A flower has an appeal, not the rock just lying down there beside the flower. You will never see the rock, you will see the flower, because the flower is impermanent. In the morning it is there, by the afternoon it will be no more -- or at the most by the evening it will disperse, fall down, dissolve. The flower attracts you, not the rock.

You may have heard about Zen gardens, which are called rock gardens. They don't make flower gardens in Zen monasteries, they make rock gardens. They say, "Flowers disappear, they are not true; rocks remain." That is just symbolic. So Zen gardens are really unique in the world; nowhere else do such gardens exist. In their gardens only sand and rock is allowed, no flowers. Vast grounds with sand and rocks, and a Zen disciple has to sit there just to meditate on rocks, not on flowers. It is just symbolic.

You never see the rocks, you always see the flower, because your mind is concerned with the impermanent. And you become more concerned because it is going to dissolve soon; before it dissolves, possess it. Possession arises in the mind. Beauty disperses, is impermanent; possess it before it disperses. That's why there is so much possessiveness in human relationship and so much misery in it -- because you are aware that this is something which is not going to last forever. It is moving: the young woman is becoming old, the young man is becoming old; every moment death is coming in and you are afraid, the fear is there. You want to possess and indulge more and more so that you have tasted it before death appears.

At the fifth stage only truth remains. WORLDLY DESIRES DO NOT ARISE AT ALL -- because they arise only for the impermanent. The world means the impermanent: power, prestige, beauty, wealth, fame -- all are impermanent. You may be a president today and next day a beggar on the street and no one looking at you. Have you observed? -- this is happening every moment.

Where is Doctor Radhakrishnan now, do you know? He was the president. Then his photograph was in every newspaper. Now he lives in Madras. Nobody knows about him, nobody reports what he says. He must be wiser than when he was a president, he has lived more; whatsoever he says is now more significant -- but nobody reports it. The newspapers will report only when he dies, and that too in a corner and that too only because he is an ex-president, not because he is Radhakrishnan. Fame is flowerlike; power, prestige, flowerlike.

I was reading Voltaire's life. He was so famous, so loved by people, by the masses, that it was impossible for him to go to Paris, because whenever he would go such a great crowd would gather to receive him that he was almost crushed many times by the crowd. A big police force had to be maintained whenever he came. And there was a superstition in those days in France that if you could get a piece of the clothing of a famous man like Voltaire, it was worth preserving, it helped you. So whenever he would go to Paris he would reach his home almost naked because people would snatch his clothes. His body would be scratched.

Then suddenly the fame disappeared, people forgot him completely; he would go to the station and there would be no one even to receive him. And when he died only four persons followed him to the cemetery -- three men and one dog. But these things attract the mind, and the more impermanent the more the attraction -- because if you are not in a hurry you may lose.

At the fifth stage WORLDLY DESIRES DO NOT ARISE AT ALL -- because now your focus has changed, your emphasis changed. Your gestalt has moved from the foreground to the background, your gestalt has changed from the content to the container. Now you don't look at the clouds, you look at the sky. And the sky is so vast, so infinite, that your clouds don't mean anything now. Whether they are there or not, they are not -- they have no significance.

DURING THIS STATE ALL THOUGHTS OF DIVISION IN THE SEEKER ARE STILLED, AND HE REMAINS ROOTED IN NONDUALITY. ON THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE FEELING OF DIVISION, THE FIFTH STAGE, KNOWN AS THE SUSHUPTAPAD -- SLEEPING -- DRAWS THE ENLIGHTENED SEEKER INTO ITS NATURE. HE IS PERPETUALLY INTROVERTED AND LOOKS TIRED AND SLEEPY, EVEN THOUGH EXTERNALLY HE CONTINUES HIS EVERYDAY ACTIVITIES.

The Upanishads say there are four stages or four steps of human consciousness. First, the waking state of consciousness. Just now you are in the waking state of consciousness. The second, the dreaming state of consciousness, when you dream in the night. The third, the sleeping state of consciousness, when you don't dream, simply sleep, deep sleep. These three are known to you. Then the fourth, when all these three have disappeared and you have transcended them. This fourth is simply called turiya; turiya means the fourth.

The first three, which need your will and effort, belong to the waking consciousness. The fourth and fifth belong to your sleeping consciousness, to your dreaming consciousness. The sixth belongs to your sleeping consciousness. And the seventh will belong to the turiya, the transcendental state of consciousness.

ON THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE FEELING OF DIVISION, THE FIFTH STAGE, KNOWN AS THE SUSHUPTAPAD, DRAWS THE ENLIGHTENED SEEKER INTO ITS NATURE.

In deep sleep mind disappears, because there is not even dreaming, no content. In deep sleep you have fallen back again into your nature. That's why deep sleep refreshes you. In the morning you feel alive again, rejuvenated, young, vital, because in deep sleep you had fallen again to your original nature. You were no more an ego, you were no more a mind -- you were just part of nature. While you are deep asleep you are just like a tree or a rock, you are no more an individual. You have become part of the ocean, of course unknowingly, unconsciously.

If this can happen knowingly, consciously, sushupti, deep sleep, becomes samadhi, becomes ecstasy. In sushupti, deep sleep, you touch the same point which Buddha touches, which Ramakrishna, Ramana, Eckhart or Jesus touch. But they go to that point conscious, you go to that point unconscious. You move into your nature but you are not aware of what is happening. They also move to the same nature, but they are aware. That is the only difference between sleep and samadhi; otherwise they are the same.

Alert, conscious, aware, you move into yourself, you are enlightened. Unconscious you move every night, but that doesn't make you enlightened. You give yourself to nature. Tired of your ego, tired of your day-to-day activities, the routine, tired of your personality, you fall into a sleep. Nature reabsorbs you, recreates you, gives you back your vitality in the morning.

So if a person is ill, very ill, the physicians will try first to give him deep sleep, because nothing will help, no medicine can help if you are not falling back to your nature. If an ill person can go into deep sleep, even without medicine he will become healthy. So the first effort of the physician is to help you to fall into deep sleep, because nature spontaneously rejuvenates.

ON THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE FEELING OF DIVISION, THE FIFTH STAGE, KNOWN AS THE SUSHUPTAPAD -- SLEEPING -- DRAWS THE ENLIGHTENED SEEKER INTO ITS NATURE. HE IS PERPETUALLY INTROVERTED -- IN THIS STAGE, THE SEEKER WILL REMAIN PERPETUALLY INTROVERTED -- AND LOOKS TIRED AND SLEEPY, EVEN THOUGH EXTERNALLY HE CONTINUES HIS EVERYDAY ACTIVITIES.

If you go to Sufi monasteries you will see there many persons very sleepy, as if someone has hypnotized them. They will look like zombies -- as if they are walking in sleep, working in sleep, following orders in sleep. And monasteries were created because of such things.

A person who is in the fifth stage will have many difficulties in the world because he will move sleepily. He is constantly deep in his nature, as if fast asleep. He will have to make effort to be awake. He will be introverted, he will not be interested in the outside world. He would like more and more time to move inwards. You will be able to see from his eyes also; they will be droopy, tired. He doesn't want to look out, he wants to look in. His face will show the same state as that of a hypnotized medium. The face will be relaxed, as if he can fall any moment into sleep. He will become just like a child again.

The child in the mother's womb sleeps twenty-four hours a day for nine months; never awakens, just sleeps, goes on sleeping for nine months. Those nine months are needed, because if a child awakens then the growth will be hindered. In those nine months of deep sleep his whole body is created. Nature is working. The waking consciousness will create disturbance in nature, so the child sleeps completely.

Then the child is born and after his birth he sleeps less and less. Twenty-four hours he was sleeping in the womb; out of the womb he will sleep twenty-three hours, then twenty-two hours, then twenty hours, then eighteen hours. His sleep will come to eight hours only when he has become sexually mature -- that is at fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, somewhere around there. Then his sleep will remain fixed because now the body has grown up completely, biologically. He can reproduce, he can now himself give birth to a child, he is sexually mature. Now there is no work left to do in the body; the body has stopped working, no new creation is going on. Eight hours sleep will do.

Then as he becomes old, after fifty, there is less and less sleep. Old men cannot sleep; four hours, three hours, then two hours, then even one hour will be too much, they will not be able to sleep. If you can understand this then when you get old you will not be worried. There is no need now for more sleep. And if you can understand this then you will not force small children to be awake when they feel sleepy.

Every family tortures children, because you want them to behave like you. If you get up early in the morning, at five, you would like your children also to get up in brahmamuhurt. You are foolish. That is destructive to children, they need more sleep. You can drag them and they cannot do anything because they are helpless. Sleepy they will get up. You can force them to sit and read. Sleepy they will somehow do it. You force small children, and then when you become old and when they become old, they will think that if they cannot sleep for eight hours then something is wrong. Nothing is wrong. An old man doesn't need... there is no new work in the body. Sleep will be less and less.

When this fifth stage happens the seeker will become again like a small child. He will feel sleepy, he will need more sleep, he will be more introverted. His eyes will like to be closed more than open, because he is not interested in looking outside, and a new work has started in his being again. Now he is again a child. Something new, phenomenal, is happening now; alchemically a new being is created again. He himself has become the womb now. He will feel more sleepy.

Monasteries were needed for such people, because in the world people will not tolerate you in this stage. They will say, "You have become lazy! Go to the doctor, take some activizers. This is not good." You will look dead and dull, your shining face will become dull. People will think you are ill or that somebody has hypnotized you. You will look like a zombie. Monasteries were needed for the fifth stage, really. The first three can be done in the world, but after the fourth you will need.... And in the fifth you will certainly need a monastery where people understand you.

Meher Baba used to sleep for forty-eight hours, sixty hours when he was in the fifth stage. Ramakrishna would fall asleep for weeks and he had to be taken care of, he had to be fed milk while he was asleep. The body was to be taken care of. Very loving friends, disciples who would care, were needed to help him. For two weeks he would remain as if in a coma. He became so introverted that it was impossible to open the eyes. The whole energy was moving inwards. If he had been left alone he would have died.

Monasteries will be needed for such people, masters will be needed for such people, because they have again become children. Somebody has to mother them. The monastery becomes your mother, and there people know what is happening, where you are and what you need. In this stage only milk can be fed; nothing else will be good for the body, because the man has again become a child. Anything solid will disturb him, just milk will be enough.

He has to be taken care of just like a child. He will be asleep and you need not disturb him, because the more he remains in this state the sooner the sixth will follow. If you disturb him then he will remain in the fifth, and he will feel just as you feel if something awakens you in the morning suddenly -- an alarm clock, or something else -- the whole day you feel depressed. If the sleep is disturbed, ordinary sleep, the whole day you will feel disturbed, frustrated, angry, irritated -- anything will create the irritation -- and you don't know what has happened. It is because you were taken forcibly from your nature; when you were deep in it, suddenly you were called. An alarm is dangerous, because you have to come suddenly to the surface.

People who understand will not disturb anybody's sleep, one must come out of it gradually. But this is for ordinary sleep. When the person is in the fifth state then it is a very deep sleep -- you don't know about it. It is falling to the original nature so deeply that it is very difficult to be pulled out. Nobody should disturb. That's why monasteries were made deep in the hills, forests, where nobody would come. Nobody would disturb anybody unnecessarily, and only a few people would be there who knew.

Sometimes a seeker will remain for months at a time in sleep, and then very loving care is needed, no disturbance. He is being created again. And this can happen continuously even for nine months, just as it happens in the womb. And when the seeker comes out of it he will be totally new. A new child is born, the old man is no more. He will be completely, totally fresh. You look into his eyes and they will have a depth, an abysslike depth. You cannot find the bottom. You can go in and in and in and there is no end to it.

This is what Jesus says: "Unless you become like children again, you will not enter into the kingdom of my God." The fifth stage will make you again a child.

HE IS PERPETUALLY INTROVERTED AND LOOKS TIRED AND SLEEPY, EVEN THOUGH EXTERNALLY HE CONTINUES HIS EVERYDAY ACTIVITIES.

He can continue but he will look like a robot. He will go to the bath, take his bath; he will go to the kitchen, eat his food. He will do, but you can see that he is doing as if walking in sleep, somnambulistic.

ON THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THIS STAGE, THE DESIRE-FREE SEEKER ENTERS THE SIXTH ONE.

All desires disappear in the fifth. He becomes totally introverted: no extroversion, no outgoing energy. Desire-free, then the seeker enters the sixth one.

BOTH TRUTH AND UNTRUTH, BOTH EGOISM AND EGOLESSNESS, AND ALL SORTS OF MENTATIONS CEASE TO EXIST IN THIS STATE, AND ROOTED IN PURE NONDUALITY, THE SEEKER IS FREE FROM FEAR.

Remember, in the fifth untruth disappears, truth remains. In the sixth even truth disappears. In the fifth clouds disappear, the sky remains. In the sixth the sky also disappears -- because you cannot continue to remember the sky without the clouds. And when there is no untruth how can you remember the truth? The duality is needed. When there is no black how can you remember the white?

Think, if the whole earth was populated by white men and there were no colored people, nobody would have been called white. Because of black people, colored people, a few people are white. Or think, if the whole earth was populated by Negroes, Negroid people, black, nobody would have been black. The contrast is needed. Only in contrast can the thing continue to be remembered. When untruth has disappeared how can you carry truth any more? How can you remember that it is truth? It has to be dropped, it will drop automatically. But first untruth drops, then truth is forgotten, it ceases. And when truth also drops you have reached something, not before it.

The sixth is the door, the real door, to the infinity. The sixth is the door, the real door, to the ultimate. Lao Tzu says -- and whatsoever he says belongs to the sixth and seventh -- he says, "If you are good you are still bad. If you feel that you are a saint you are still a sinner. If you look in the mirror and feel you are beautiful you have ugliness in you"... because when a person is really beautiful he cannot remember that he is beautiful, only ugliness can remember. When a person is really good he cannot feel he is good, because first the bad disappears, then the good also. No divisions.

IN THE SIXTH... TRUTH AND UNTRUTH, BOTH EGOISM AND EGOLESSNESS, AND ALL SORTS OF MENTATIONS CEASE.

Ego disappears in the fifth, because ego is a cloud, it is part of the world of the clouds. It is just like a rainbow in the clouds -- false, dreamlike. When you become aware of the soul you are not an egoist; you become egoless, you become humble. But Lao Tzu says that if you are still humble the ego exists somewhere; otherwise, how can you feel that you are a humble person?

Go to somebody who is humble, watch him, and you will feel that his ego is very subtle, that's all. He goes on saying, "I am a humble person." He insists that he is humble. His humbleness has now become his ego and pride, and if you say, "No, you are not," he will be angry. If you say, "I have seen a more humble person in your town," he will say, "This is impossible. I am the most humble, the humblest." But "I am" remains. Now the 'I' claims humbleness, before it was claiming something else.

I have heard: Once it happened that a great king went to a mosque to pray. It was a religious day for the Mohammedans so he was praying. It was dark, just in the morning when there was no one there, and he was saying to God, "Allah, O my God, I am nobody, just dust on your feet."

When he was saying this, suddenly he became alert that somebody else was also in the dark mosque, in another corner, and was saying the same thing: "Allah, my God, I am nobody, just dust on your feet."

The king was irritated. He said, "Who is saying in front of me that he is nobody? When I am saying I am nobody, who else is claiming here that he is nobody?" Even nobodiness....

And then the morning dawned and the king looked; the man who was claiming was a beggar. So the king said, "Remember, when a king is saying that he is nobody, nobody else can claim that -- and you being just a beggar!" So even nobodiness can become part of the ego.

In the sixth stage ego disappears, egolessness also. Then there will be problems. If egolessness disappears then you will have difficulty in interpreting. A real sage is without the ego and without humility. If humility is there the sage is not real, not yet real. He has not reached the sixth stage, he has not reached the door.

But then you will be in a difficulty, because you always think that humility is the quality. If you go to a buddha you will not see any humility in him. You will not see any ego either, but you will not see any humility also. And this disappearance of humility may make it seem to you that he is not humble. Buddha says, "The Vedas are of no use, scriptures are to be thrown." If you go to him it will look as if he is not humble. He is saying that scriptures are of no use, the Vedas are to be thrown -- he looks very egoistic. He is not, but he is not humble either. So whatsoever he is saying is neither related to ego nor related to egolessness. That will be the problem.

Look at Jesus, he was not a humble person at all. He was not an egoist, but not humble either. That created the problem, that led him to the cross. He was not humble at all. And now many psychologists say that he was neurotic, and they have a point. Many psychologists say that he was an egomaniac; they have a point. If psychologists study Buddha and Mahavira they will conclude the same things -- but they have not studied them. They should have been studied very minutely.

So they say he was an egomaniac. Why? You can find reasons -- because he was not humble. He used to say, "I am God," or "I am the son of God. I and my father in heaven are one." To the egoist mind this will appear like ego. And nobody can say that this man is humble who claims that he and God are one, or who claims that he is the son of God. It looks like a claim to us; to Jesus this was a simple fact.

And he was not claiming that you are not the son of God: claiming that he is the son of God, he claimed for you all. It is Christianity which claimed the wrong thing; Christianity started to claim that he is the only son of God. That is absurd, that is egomania. But Jesus was saying a simple fact: if the whole creation is out of God, the whole creation is the son, God is the father. He was saying a simple fact with no ego in it, but this disturbed people. They thought a sage must be humble. He used to say, "I am the king of the Jews." This has been said many times, but to people who were more wise than Jews. Jews were offended that this man who was just a beggar on the street, no more -- just a vagabond, just an old hippie -- that this man claimed, "I am the king of the Jews." But he was not claiming anything, he was in a state of mind where there is no ego. Kingship comes into being, but that is not ego. And that kingship doesn't belong to any worldly affairs, it is not a claim to rule anybody. That kingship is just felt as an inner nature.

Ram Teerth, an Indian mystic of this century, used to call himself Emperor Ram. He was a beggar, but nobody took offense in India because we have known so many beggars saying that, and we know that that happens: a moment comes when a person becomes an emperor without any kingdom. Really, a person becomes an emperor only when there is no kingdom.

He went to America, and the American president invited him to visit. The American president felt uncomfortable because Ram Teerth always used to say "Emperor Ram." Even while talking he would say, "Emperor Ram says this." So the president humbly asked, "I cannot understand this. You don't seem to have any kingdom, why do you claim that you are an emperor?"

Ram Teerth said, "That's why I claim -- because I have nothing to lose, nobody can defeat me. My kingdom is of the eternal, you cannot take it from me. Your kingdom can be taken, your presidency can be destroyed. Nobody can destroy me, I have nothing to lose. I am an emperor because I have no desires."

If you have desires you are a beggar. So there are two types of beggars, poor beggars and rich beggars. When Jesus said, "I am the king of the Jews," he was saying this. But people got offended. They said, "This is too much. This man cannot be tolerated -- he must be crucified, he must be killed." But Jesus was a humble man, humble in this sense, that even humbleness was not there -- egoless, egolessness was not there -- truly humble. But then one starts saying facts. And you live in a world of ego, you interpret because of your egos. So people thought, "This man is claiming something -- that he is the son of God, he is the king of the Jews -- and he is nothing, just a beggar, a vagabond!"

In India nobody would have taken any offense. India has seen so many Jesuses, nobody would have taken offense. In India every sannyasin is called swami; swami means the master, the king. We call a man swami; swami means the lord. When he leaves everything, when he doesn't claim anything, when he has nothing, then he becomes swami, then he becomes the lord. Jesus was claiming something Indian in a country which was not India; that became the problem.

... AND ALL SORTS OF MENTATIONS CEASE IN THIS STATE, AND ROOTED IN PURE NON-DUALITY, THE SEEKER IS FREE FROM FEAR.

Fear can exist only if the other is there. If you are alone, there can be no fear -- the other creates the fear. You are sitting in a room alone, then somebody looks in through the window. Fear has come in. If you know the person well then less fear; if the person is absolutely a stranger then more fear, because then he is more other. If the person speaks your language then less fear, because he is somehow related. But if the person doesn't speak your language then more fear. If the person is a Christian and you are also a Christian then less fear. But if the person is a pagan then more fear.

If the person is totally other -- doesn't belong to your country, doesn't belong to your language group, doesn't belong to your religion, doesn't belong to your race -- more fear is created. The more the other is other, the more you become afraid. But whatsoever the other may be, howsoever near, the fear continues. The husband is afraid of the wife, the wife is afraid of the husband. They are close but the fear remains. Sartre says that the other is hell....

Sartre has a very beautiful story to tell. Somewhere in one of his dramas called "No Exit" a person suddenly awakens and finds himself in hell. So he looks around for the usual, traditional concept of hell -- fire burning, oil boiling, sinners being thrown in it -- but there is nothing. It is one air-conditioned room, but without any exit, you cannot go out. And he is not alone, there are three other people also.

They live in the room. Every desire is fulfilled immediately. That too is contrary, against the traditional concept of hell -- that you will have your desires fulfilled. You will be thirsty, water will be flowing, but you will not be allowed to drink -- that is the traditional concept. Desire will be there, the possibility to fulfill it will be there just in front of you, and you will not be allowed. But every desire is fulfilled immediately. Somebody comes in -- from where nobody knows because there is no door -- and brings food, drink, everything. And these four persons, one old lady, one young girl, another young man, and this person who has awakened, live together.

For one or two days they gossip -- from where they have come, inquiries, introductions -- but then they have finished. And there are no more newspapers, nothing, so they cannot continue. They have even repeated many times the same things. Then they get fed up -- and nobody can go out. You cannot put the light off, there is no switch. So they sit, they eat, they sleep. Even while sleeping they know that three persons are there, they are not alone. So all become torturers -- all the other three for each one. For each one the three are always present.

Then suddenly it is revealed to the man that this is hell. It becomes so impossible to live there, just the presence of the other three becomes so heavy that they want to commit suicide, but there is no way. They ask the person who brings the food. The person says, "In hell you cannot commit suicide. That much freedom is not allowed here -- you can only live."

So they ask, "How many years do we have to live?"

And the man says, "Hell is eternal. You will have to live here forever and forever and forever."

Just think! Sartre says the other is hell -- and this is a more dangerous hell than all the theologicians combined have invented ever, because you can tolerate other things. If you are burned or thrown into boiling water or oil, or you cannot drink, you can tolerate it because still something is going on. And you are not alone, many are being thrown in the same suffering. You can even enjoy it, by and by you can get accustomed to it. But just living in a closed room with no exit, with a few people forever and forever, will be hell.

Your life is a suffering because the other is everywhere. You cannot destroy the other. You try to do it -- the husband tries to destroy the wife so that the wife becomes a thing and the other is not felt. You may not have observed -- you do it. Your servant enters the room, you don't take any notice. If you are reading the newspaper you go on reading as if no one has entered. You have forced the man, the servant, to be a thing, just a utility. You don't take any notice. It will be difficult to take notice because the other will bubble up.

Servants are forgotten as if they are not, and they are taught to behave in such a way as if they are not: to not make any noise, to not bump here and there, to just move silently, absently. A good servant is one who is not a person but a thing, a mechanism. We try this. We try with children: they should not create a noise, they should not jump, they should not play, they must behave, they must be obedient. All these teachings are just to force them not to be persons but things.

The husband tries the same with the wife, the wife tries the same with the husband, and we create hell for each other. The other cannot be destroyed; he remains a person, howsoever forced. Just look in the eyes of your servant and he remains a person. The "thingness" is just a surface, just a device to avoid you, just a device not to disturb you because he has to serve you, that's all. He cannot exist without it so he has compromised -- but he remains a person.

That's why masters will not talk to servants, will not laugh with them, will not make any personal relationship, because once you laugh with a servant he is no more a thing. The person has come out. Then he will start behaving like a friend. You have to be strict. But when you are strict with a servant not only is he reduced to a thing, you are also reduced to a thing, because you cannot be open, you cannot be free. Not only is he confined, you are also confined. Whenever you create a prison for somebody else it is also a prison for yourself. Whenever you possess something you are also possessed -- and then you suffer.

So what to do? How to kill the other? It is impossible. And you cannot exist without the other. If you can kill.... That's what a Hitler tries to do -- kill. But even then the others are there. Hitler wouldn't allow any woman to sleep in his room in the night. Even his mistresses were not allowed to sleep in his room, he would remain alone. He was afraid of the other. He didn't get married his whole life. He got married only on the day when it was absolutely certain that Germany was defeated and everything was destroyed and he had to commit suicide. The same day he married and committed suicide -- both within three hours.

First he got married, then he committed suicide with his mistress who had become his wife. The mistress had been continuously saying, "Marry me," but he would not marry because once you marry a person they come close and the other remains always there. He got married only when it was certain that within hours he would be committing suicide -- then there was no fear of the other. But even if you are alone in the room like a Hitler, all around the room there are persons who are guarding. They are there, even in your sleep you know they are there.

The world remains around you, because you cannot exist alone. So what is the way to get out of this hell that the other creates? The Upanishads say, "You disappear!" When you are no more, the other is no more. You create the other by being yourself. The more the ego, the more the other will be there. The other is a creation, a by-product of the ego. And then, when you are no more and the whole has become one, the other and 'I' are not divided, there is no fear. THE SEEKER IS FREE FROM FEAR. And you cannot be free from fear in any other way.

Many people come to me to ask how to get rid of fear. You cannot. They say, "Would it be helpful if we pray to God?" No, it will not be helpful because of the other; the God will be the other now and you will be afraid of him. You will be constantly in fear whether you have been praying rightly or wrongly, whether God is happy with you or not. You will be in fear again.

If the other is there fear will remain. And the other can disappear only when you are not.

AS THE ENTANGLEMENTS OF HIS HEART DISSOLVE, SO ALL HIS DOUBTS DROP.

Remember this. One man came to me just a few days ago. He had a long list of doubts, he had noted them down, and he told me, "Unless all these, my doubts, are dissolved, unless you answer all these I cannot meditate, I cannot become a sannyasin, I cannot surrender -- so first these doubts. What do you think, can they be answered?"

I said to him, "I will not look at your list. You just close it and go. If I answer one doubt, I will say something and your doubting mind will create more doubts about what I have said." Doubts cannot be answered, they can only be dropped, because doubts are not significant, the doubting mind is significant. And you can focus the doubting mind on anything, you can go on.... Doubts arise in your mind just as leaves arise in a tree: the old fall, the new take their place. And you can go on cutting leaves but the tree will think you are pruning, so you cut one and four leaves will come out.

This Upanishad says that only at the stage -- this stage, the sixth -- when all the entanglements of the heart, all the confusions of the mind, the mentation itself drops, then all doubts drop, never before. Only at the sixth stage a man becomes doubtless, never before. You can trust before it, but you have to trust with doubts; the doubts remain by the side. They will always remain unless you reach the sixth. All that you can do is push them aside, don't pay much attention to them. Nothing can be done. They cannot be answered, you cannot be satisfied. And you cannot drop them before the sixth.

Then what should be done? You can just put them aside in the corner. Let them be there but don't pay much attention to them, be indifferent to them. Buddha has said, "Be indifferent to your doubts and wait, and go on doing whatsoever is possible." A state of mind comes when doubts disappear, when suddenly at the sixth stage you look -- the doubts are not there in your consciousness, they have gone. They go with the change of your consciousness, not with answers.

THIS IS THE MOMENT WHEN HE IS COMPLETELY EMPTIED OF ALL THOUGHT. WITHOUT ATTAINING NIRVANA, HE IS IN A NIRVANA-LIKE STATE, AND BECOMES FREE WHILE YET DWELLING IN THE BODY. THIS STATE IS LIKE THAT OF THE MOTIONLESS FLAME OF A LAMP. AND THEN COMES THE SEVENTH STAGE.

WITHOUT ATTAINING NIRVANA, HE IS IN A NIRVANA-LIKE STATE. The sixth state is not nirvana. He is still in the body, the mind has disappeared but the body is there. He has still to live, he has still to fulfill his karmas, he has to pay his debts, he has to finish all the accounts, close all the accounts that he has opened in many lives -- but his mind has gone. The body will go when the time is ripe, when all the accounts are closed -- then he will reach nirvana. But HE IS IN A NIRVANA-LIKE STATE, it is just close to nirvana.

You are not exactly in the garden but just sitting by the side of it. You can feel the coolness, the cool air comes to you. You can smell the scent coming from the flowers. You can feel, it is showering on you, but you are standing outside. Soon you will enter. You are just at the gate but still not in it. That's why the sixth state is called nirvana-like, but not nirvana.

THIS STATE IS LIKE THAT OF THE MOTIONLESS FLAME OF A LAMP.

No movement, no wavering, all mentation has ceased, all thoughts stopped. You are unwavering, the consciousness is nishkam, without any wavering, like a flame with no wind. In a closed room where no breeze is coming, the flame of a lamp or a candle will become static, there will be no movement. Your consciousness in the sixth becomes a motionless flame.

AND THEN COMES THE SEVENTH STAGE....

VEDANTA: SEVEN STEPS TO SAMADHI

Chapter-14

The Motionless Flame of a Lamp