vedanta-seven-steps-to-samadhi-02

The sage Sankriti once visited Adityalok, the abode of the sun god,
and bowing to him he worshipped him with what is known as
chakshusmati vidya.

Aum, salutation to the sun god who illumines the organ of vision!
Salutation to the sun who is a great warrior!
Salutation to the sun who represents the three conditionings:
tamas, rajas and sattva (dark, red and white)!
O Lord, from untruth lead me to truth, from darkness lead me to light,
and from death lead me to the eternal. Salutation to the sun,
the son of Aditi, who is the light in our eyes.
And we dedicate all that we have to the sun who rules the universe.

Much pleased with being worshipped with chakshusmati vidya,
the sun god said:
A Brahmin who recites this vidya – knowledge – every day will not suffer from eye diseases, nor will anyone in his family ever be struck blind.
The power of this vidya is obtained if it is taught to eight Brahmins,
and knowing it one achieves greatness.
Man is blind. He cannot see that which is. We have eyes, but we can see through them only that which is illusory. Only the appearance is seen, not the real – the real is missed. That’s why those who have known have called man blind.
Jesus goes on saying to his disciples, “If you have eyes, look; if you have ears, then listen.” Of course, his disciples were not blind, nor were they deaf. They were as with eyes as we are, they had all the senses we have got. Then he must be referring to some other eyes, to some other senses.
These eyes which can look only outwards, which can only look into the without, are blind unless they also become capable of seeing within. If you cannot see yourself you are blind, and one who cannot see himself, what else can he see? And whatsoever he sees, whatsoever his knowledge, it remains based on a deep blindness. Unless you become self-seeing, unless you turn within, unless you can have a look at the reality that you are, whatsoever you encounter in the world is going to be just the appearance. The same will be the proportion: the more you penetrate within the more you can penetrate without, because reality is one.
If you are not acquainted with yourself, all your acquaintance, all your knowledge is just false. Without self-knowledge there is no possibility of any knowledge. You can go on knowing and knowing; you can go on collecting more and more information, but that information will remain information – dead, borrowed. It will never become a knowing eye.
How to attain those eyes which can penetrate the illusory and can encounter the real? This is going to be the base of this whole Upanishad. In the old days it was called chakshusmati vidya, the wisdom through which eyes are attained. But the first thing to be constantly remembered is that as we are, we are blind; as we are, we are dead; as we are, we are illusory, the stuff dreams are made of.
Why cannot our eyes see the real? They are so much filled with dreams, so much filled with thoughts, that whatsoever you see, you are not seeing that which is; you project your ideas, your thoughts, your dreams upon it. The whole world becomes just a projection screen, and you go on projecting things. Whatsoever you see outside, you have put it there. You live in a man-created world, and everyone lives in his own world. That world consists of his own projections.
Unless your eyes are completely vacant, unless there is no content within your eyes, no thoughts, no clouds; unless you become mirrorlike, pure, innocent, contentless, you cannot encounter the real. The real can be seen only through naked, empty eyes; it cannot be seen through filled eyes.
This is all the art or the science of meditation consists of: how to make your eyes mirrorlike, nonprojecting – just looking at that which is, not creating it, not imagining it, not adding anything to it…just encountering it as it is. You never see things as they are, you always see through your mind; you color them.
A girl looks beautiful to you or a man looks beautiful. The same man or the same woman was not beautiful a day before, and the same man or the same woman may not be beautiful again. So what happened? How does a person suddenly become beautiful? And your whole logic is illogical. You say, “l love this person because this person is beautiful.” The contrary is the case: this person becomes beautiful because you love. The beauty is not the cause but a side-effect.
When you are in love with someone the person becomes beautiful. To others that same person may not be beautiful, and to others the same person may even be ugly. To you also the same person was not beautiful before, and later on the same person can become ugly – to you also. But at this moment, in this mood of love, you project something on the person. You project your dreams, the person becomes just a screen. The whole beauty is put there by you. It is you who create the beautiful face, the beautiful face is your interpretation. It is not the real, because the reality is neither ugly nor beautiful.
If man disappears from this earth what will happen? Will the hills be beautiful, the flowers beautiful, the thorns ugly? – what will happen? With the disappearance of man, beauty and ugliness will disappear. The earth will be there as it is. The sun will rise and the moon will be there in the night, and the sky will be filled every day with stars. Flowers will flower, trees will bloom, the hills will be as they are. Everything will be as it is, but there will be no beauty and no ugliness.
With the disappearance of man all his interpretations disappear. The reality is neither beautiful nor ugly – it is there. You interpret it according to yourself. That’s why a certain thing can be beautiful in China and may not be beautiful in India. A certain type of face is beautiful in Africa, it may not be beautiful in England.
When for the first time Christian missionaries came to Africa, they were in a great difficulty. The Bible was to be translated, and God is always depicted as white and the Devil as black. So it was a problem – how to tell the black people that the Devil is black and God is white? They could conceive of God as black and the Devil as white. And that was natural, they had always depicted their God as black; their Devil had always been white. You may not be aware of what the Christian missionaries had to do. In African translations of The Bible, God is depicted as black and the Devil as white; otherwise there could be no communication, no possibility of any meeting.
We conceive of things through our mind; that mind goes on interpreting. But we can understand about beauty and ugliness – what about other interpretations? If man disappears there will be no good and evil in the world, nothing will be moral and nothing will be immoral. All our morality, all our judgment is through conceptions.
A lion jumping on an animal and eating it, tearing it – is he bad or good? Is he evil? If we interpret then it looks very evil, violent. But the lion is not doing anything, he is simply eating. He is not aware of anything – of what is good and what is bad. And he is not doing anything bad; he is taking his lunch, as you take your lunch. If man disappears, then there is nothing good and nothing bad.
And the same happens to the sage. When a man becomes enlightened the man has disappeared from him with all the interpretations, judgments. He has become pure, as if he is no more. The mind has been dropped. He is conscious, fully conscious, but with no contents to project. He looks at the world as it is, without any interpretation. And for the first time he comes to know reality.
Man cannot know the real because man goes on projecting his ideology; and all ideologies are home-made, the existence doesn’t support them, you create them. That’s why it is said again and again, all over the world – Eckhart says it in the West, Boehme says it in the West, Rinzai says it in Japan, Lin Chi says it in China, Buddha says it in India – all over the world, wherever a mirrorlike mind has appeared, it has said that nothing is bad and nothing is good. There is no evil and no God – existence is one. And if you can accept this existence without any interpretation, for the first time you are creating a way which can lead to the truth.
You cannot carry your mind to the truth. If you carry your mind, whatsoever you come to know will not be the truth. You may encounter the truth but you will not know it, because the moment you see something you have interpreted. You pass through a garden and you see roseflowers. You have not seen them and immediately the mind says, “Beautiful.” The flowers have disappeared, your concept has come in. You have projected, you have judged. Jesus says, “Judge ye not.” Don’t judge.

I have heard about one Mohammedan Sufi mystic. He used to sell small things in the village, and the people of that village became aware that he had no judgment. So they would take the things and give him false coins. He would accept them, because he would never say, “This is wrong and this is right.” Sometimes they would take things from him and they would say, “We have paid,” and he would not say, “You have not paid.” He would say, “Okay.” He would thank them.
Then from other villages also people started coming. This man was very good; you could take anything from his shop, you need not pay, or you could pay in false coins, and he accepted everything!
Then death came near to this old man. These were his last words: he looked at the sky and said, “Allah, God, I have been accepting all kinds of coins, false ones also. I am also a false coin – don’t judge me. I have not judged your people, please don’t judge me.” And it is said that how can God judge such a person?

Jesus says, “Judge ye not, so ye may not be judged.”
If judgment disappears, you have become innocent. If you don’t divide things into good and bad, ugly and beautiful, acceptable and nonacceptable; if you don’t divide things, if you look at reality without any division, your eyes will come into existence for the first time. This is chakshusmati vidya, the signs of gaining eyes.
If you divide you will remain blind, if you judge you will remain blind, if you say this is bad and this is good, you will persist in your blindness…because existence knows nothing. There is nothing good and nothing bad – existence accepts everything. And when you also accept everything you have become existence-like. You have become one with it.
So remember, morality is not religion. Rather, on the contrary, morality is one of the hindrances in gaining religion, just like immorality. Morality, immorality – both are hindrances. When you transcend both you have transcended the mind, the dual, the dualistic attitude. Then the sage and the sinner have become one. Then you remain in your self, you don’t move to judge. And when you don’t judge, your mind cannot project: the mind projects through judgment.

You may have heard this story, so famous, but Christianity goes on missing the meaning of it. In a village a crowd came to Jesus, and they had brought a woman who had sinned in the eyes of the crowd. So they said to Jesus, “This woman is a sinner, and she has confessed. So what should we do now? It is written in the old scriptures that she should be killed by throwing stones at her, she should be stoned to death. What do you say? What should we do?”
They were trying to put Jesus in a dilemma, because if he said not to kill her…as it was expected he should say, because he was saying, “Love. And if someone strikes you on one cheek, give him the other cheek; if someone forces you to carry his burden for one mile, go two miles with him; if someone snatches your coat, give him your shirt also.” This man could not say, “Kill, murder, stone this woman to death.” And if he said, “No, don’t kill her,” then they could say, “You are against the scriptures, so you cannot be a prophet. You don’t belong to us. You are a destroyer.”
But Jesus escaped their dilemma – because the dilemma exists only for the obsessed mind. When there is no mind dilemma disappears, because dilemma consists of division. You divide things in two, in opposites, and then there is the question, What to choose, how to choose? Then the problem arises. But if there is no mind, there is no question of choice – a choicelessness has happened.
So Jesus said, “It is right, it is written in the scriptures to stone this woman to death. It is okay. Bring the stones and kill this woman – but only that man is allowed to stone this woman who has himself not committed sin in his actions, or in his mind.”
Then those who were leading the crowd started dispersing, because there was none who had not committed adultery in act or in mind. And there is no difference whether you commit it in action or you commit it in the mind, it is the same for the consciousness. There is no difference. Whether you think of killing a person or you actually kill, there is no difference, because you have killed inwardly when you have thought. If, just in your mind, you want to rape a woman, you have raped. Your whole being has done it. Whether it has become actual in the world of events or not, that is irrelevant, that is secondary. As far as you are concerned the sin has been committed.
Nobody could throw a stone at that woman. The crowd disappeared, only the woman was left. So the woman said to Jesus, “But I have committed…I have done a wrong. I am immoral. So whether the crowd is going to stone me to death or not, you can punish me. I confess.”
Jesus said, “Who am I to judge? It is between you and your God, you and the ultimate, you and the all – who am I to judge? It is something between you and existence. Where do I come in?”

This is the mind of the sage, the no-mind of the sage. He cannot divide, so he cannot judge; he cannot say this is good and this is bad. Only this type of consciousness can attain eyes – eyes that can see penetrate into the real.
Now we will enter the sutra.
The sage Sankriti once visited Adityalok, the abode of the sun god, and bowing to him he worshipped him with what is known as chakshusmati vidya.Aum, salutation to the sun god, who illumines the organ of vision! Salutation to the sun who is the great warrior! Salutation to the sun who represents the three conditionings: tamas, rajas and sattva!
A person is called a sage who has become choiceless; a sage means one who cannot judge. A sage in India is not the same as he is in the West. In the West they have been doing many absurd things. One of them, the peak of foolishness, has been this: the pope gives sainthood to people. It is like a certificate or a degree. The pope has to declare that a certain person has become a sage. The council of bishops has to agree, confirm it. So it’s just like a university giving a doctorate – LL.D or D.Litt. or something.
So sometimes this has happened, as it happened with Joan of Arc. She was killed, murdered, burned; and she was burned because of the pope, because of the church. They thought she was against Christianity. Then later on the judgment was changed, later on other popes found that the pope who condemned her was wrong. So later on when she was dead, posthumously she was awarded sainthood, she was made a saint. She became Saint Joan of Arc.
But what to do with the man who had condemned her? What to do with the bishop who was solely responsible for her burning and murder, who had proposed to the pope that she should be condemned? He was dead, so what was to be done with him? So his bones were taken out of the grave, out of the town, and they were beaten, insulted, thrown to the dogs. Now Joan became a saint by the decree of the pope.
In the East this looks like the peak of foolishness, the climax of foolishness. Nobody can make a man a sage – nobody, no judge. This is not something like a degree to be given by somebody else; it is an inner achievement, an inner realization. It doesn’t depend on anybody else. A sage is a person who has become enlightened. Now he has no choices. For him nothing is bad and nothing is good. He has become natural. He is, just like a tree or like a hill, like a river or like the ocean. He has no mind to say anything, to interpret. He doesn’t divide.

It is said of one Zen master, one Zen sage…. He lived in a small hut three or four miles outside a village. One night he found that a thief had entered his hut. He was very much disturbed, because there was nothing in the house, and this thief had traveled for three or four miles in the night and he would have to go back empty handed. The sage started weeping and crying. The thief also became concerned. He said, “What has happened? Why are you crying so much? Are you disturbed that I may take something from your hut?”
The sage said, “No, that is not the thing, I am disturbed because there is nothing here. At least you could have been a little more gentlemanly, you could have informed me before; I would have arranged something for you to steal. There is nothing – what will you think of me? And this is such an honor, that you traveled three or four miles in this night, this cold night, to come to my hut. No one has given such an honor to me before. I am just a beggar and you have made me a king, just by the idea that something can be stolen from me. And there is nothing, so I am crying. So what should I do now? You can take my blanket.”
He had only one blanket, otherwise he was naked, just under his blanket he was naked. And the night was very cold. He said to the thief, “Please have some compassion on me and don’t say no, because I have nothing else to give to you. Take this blanket, and whenever you again think of visiting, just send a hint. I am poor, but still I will arrange something.”
The thief could not understand what was happening, but he saw the man crying and weeping so he took compassion on him; he couldn’t say no. He took the blanket and disappeared. And that night this Zen monk wrote a small haiku, in which he said…he was sitting still at his window, the night was cool, cold, the full moon was in the sky, and he says in his haiku:
God
if I could give this moon
to that thief….
This is the mind of a sage, or, the no-mind. With this same sage, again a thief happened to come to his hut. He was writing a letter, so he looked at the thief and said, “For what have you come? What do you want?”
And this sage was so innocent that even the thief couldn’t tell a lie. So he said, “Looking at you, so mirrorlike, so innocent like a child, I cannot tell a lie. Should I tell the truth?”
The sage said, “Yes.”
He said, “I have come to steal something.”
The sage said, “There in that corner I have got a few rupees. You can take them” – and then he started to write his letter again.
The thief took the money, was trying to go out, and then the sage said, “Stop! When somebody gives you something you should thank him. The money may not be of much help, but thanking a person will go a long way and will be of help to you. So thank me!” The thief thanked him and disappeared into the dark.
Later on the thief was caught, and it was discovered that he had been to this sage’s hut also, so the sage was called to the court. The sage said, “Yes, I know this man very well – but he has never stolen anything from me. I gave him some rupees and he thanked me for them. It is finished, it was nothing wrong. The whole thing is finished, the account is closed. I gave him some money and he thanked me for it. He is not a thief.”
This mind, or no-mind, of a sage is the base.
The sage Sankriti once visited Adityalok.
This is a parable. Adityalok means the abode of the sun or the abode of light, enlightenment. The sun is just a symbol. The sun is not only a life-giving source, it is a light-giving source also. So the sun is symbolic. Sankriti, a sage, visited the abode of the sun.
It means that only sages can visit the abode of light. We remain in darkness, we remain in dark nights – not because there is night all around, but because our eyes are closed. Filled with so many projections, we cannot see the light all around. The light is there, the abode is everywhere. You need not go to visit the sun – the sun reaches everywhere. To every nook and corner of the earth the sun reaches, but only one who has become a sage can enter into its abode.
The sage Sankriti once visited Adityalok, the abode of the sun god, and bowing to him he worshipped him with what is known as chakshusmati vidya.
He bowed down to the sun and worshipped him, and this worship was done by the science of attaining real eyes. This is beautiful, because this is the only way you can worship light. The only way to worship light is to attain eyes; the worship is finished. If you can look at the light without any projection, this is the worship. If you project, you have changed the light into darkness. You are behaving like a blind man.
No other worship is needed. There is no need to go and kneel down on the earth and say a prayer to the sun. That is useless. The only worship is to attain those eyes which can see light. So the sage, Sankriti, worshipped the sun, bowing down to him with what is known as chakshusmati vidya. If you attain those eyes which can see the real you have become a worshipper, and only that worship can be accepted by existence, no other.
Your prayers are nothing but demands, your prayers are nothing but childish, foolish demands. They are of no use. You cannot persuade existence to move according to you. But go to the churches, to the temples – what are people doing there? They think they are worshipping, praying, meditating. They are not doing anything like that. They are just persuading the divine power to follow them, to do whatsoever they desire, to be according to them. They are giving advice. They know more than the divine; they know more what is to be done than the divine knows, so they have come just to give some advice.
They are trying to persuade, but there is no way to persuade the whole, be-cause the whole always knows more than the part. And the whole cannot follow the part, the part has to follow the whole. The whole cannot follow you. And it is good that it doesn’t follow you, otherwise you would create a chaos – you don’t know what you are asking.

You may have heard this story. Once it happened that a man was worshipping Shiva. He worshipped and worshipped, prayed and prayed for years. Then Shiva appeared and he said, “You can ask for three blessings, three gifts; three boons can be given to you.”
The man had been worshipping for so long that he really had forgotten why he had started. His mind was so constantly changing. The worship had become an obsession. He had forgotten for what, so he said, “Let me think.”
Then he asked for one gift. The gift was given. Then he became aware that this wouldn’t do; he had asked for something wrong. He was angry with his wife, so he had said, “Kill her!” Immediately she was dead. And this can happen to any husband or any wife. They are fighting, filled with hate. But hate is also not total, there is love also. Mind is divided: you love the person and you hate the same person. It is always fifty-fifty. He asked that the wife should be killed, and the wife was dead; immediately she fell down. The moment she was dead he became aware that he loved her very much, so he said, “Please, revive her again.” So the second gift was wasted. Two gifts wasted: first she was killed, second she was revived – only one was left. Then he said, “Now, give me time enough to think; otherwise I will again make a mistake, and then there is no fourth.”
Shiva waited and waited. Years passed and he would come again and again and he would ask, “Now you ask for the third.”
The man was so puzzled he couldn’t sleep. He became almost insane just thinking about the one wish, because only one was left. He went visiting all the persons he knew who were wise, and they suggested many things, but nothing seemed worthwhile. Then he asked Shiva himself. “You tell me. I am going mad!”
And what Shiva told him is to be remembered. He said, “There can be only one wish, one desire which is worthwhile. Ask for desirelessness, otherwise nothing is worthwhile. Whatsoever you ask, the next moment you will want something else, even just the opposite of the first.”

The mind is divided; our prayers are through that divided mind. A sage is a person who has become undivided. He cannot pray; his prayer is not through words, his prayer is through his being. The way he is, is his worship. So when this sage, Sankriti, looked at the sun, the god, the god of light, the very look, the way he looked, was his worship. The way he was, was his prayer. Those pure eyes, with no dreams, no clouds, no tears, no demands, not asking anything; just simple, innocent, childlike, just looking at the god – that was the worship.
O Lord, from untruth lead me to truth.
And when the sun god was happy and was ready to bless him, this was his wish.
O Lord, from untruth lead me to truth; from darkness lead me to light; and from death lead me to the eternal.
This is what every seeker is asking: From untruth lead me to truth, from darkness lead me to light, and from death to deathlessness. This is all that everyone is seeking.
The sun god is holy; he is without parallel. The sun god holds all manifestations, and is adorned with a garland of constellations. He is all fire, luminous like gold, effulgent and hot. With a thousand rays and presenting himself in a hundred ways, this sun makes itself manifest to all creatures. Salutation to the sun, the son of Aditi, who is the light in our eyes. We dedicate all that we have to the sun who rules the universe.

Much pleased with being worshipped with chakshusmati vidya the sun god said: A Brahmin who recites this vidya – knowledge – every day, will not suffer from eye diseases, nor will anyone in his family ever be struck blind. The power of this vidya is obtained if it is taught to eight Brahmins, and knowing it one achieves greatness.
Many inner meanings have to be understood. That which is to be said is said through a parable. Don’t be much concerned with the parable, don’t be much concerned with the words that have been used. Rather be concerned with the significance, the inner meaning.
Much pleased with being worshipped with…the science of real eyes….
Existence is pleased with you when you are real. When you are unreal existence is not pleased with you. Not that there is someone who is pleased and unpleased. The way existence behaves is like any natural law, for example gravitation. If you walk in a balanced way gravitation is pleased with you, the gravitation will not be destructive to you. But if you lose balance you will fall down on the earth. You may become crippled for your whole life, you may break your bones. Gravitation is unpleased with you, not pleased with you. But there is nobody deciding – this is a natural law. If you follow the law you will be happy, if you don’t follow the law you will be unhappy.
This is what in the East has been called the law of karma, the law of action. If your action follows the ultimate law, you will be attaining more and more bliss. If you go against it, immediately you will fall into suffering. There is no one like a grand manager deciding everybody’s actions, who is doing wrong and who is doing good, and who is to be sent to the heaven and who is to be thrown into hell – there is no one. With every movement you create your heaven and your hell. If you follow the ultimate law, you are creating heaven for yourself moment to moment. If you go astray, if you go against the law, you are creating hell, not the law.
This is just a way of saying that the god was pleased. Why was he pleased? He was pleased because this man, Sankriti, this sage, Sankriti, had the real eyes to look with. He had become pure, innocent. His eyes were vacant of all theories, doctrines, scriptures. He was not projecting anything from his eyes. He was simply absorbing. His eyes were used to look, not to interpret.
Much pleased with being worshipped with chakshusmati vidya, the sun god said: A Brahmin who recites this vidya every day, will not suffer from eye diseases.
We are all suffering from eye diseases. This is just symbolic. Not that we use specs – those eyes are not what is meant. Even a blind man suffers from eye diseases and he has no eyes. These eyes, these visible eyes are not what is meant.
The world that we create around us is created through our eye diseases. We go on looking wrongly, we go on dividing. The universe is one, but our eyes go on dividing. That division is the disease. The existence is just as it is. We go on condemning or appreciating, that is the eye disease. We go on judging. Facts are just facts, there is no way to judge.

One Zen monk, Bokuju, was passing through a street in a village. Somebody came and struck him with a stick. He fell down, and with him, the stick also. He got up and picked up the stick. The man who had hit him was running away. Bokuju ran after him, calling, “Wait, take your stick with you!” He followed after him and gave him the stick. A crowd had gathered to see what was happening, and somebody asked Bokuju, “That man struck you hard, and you have not said anything!”
Bokuju is reported to have said, “A fact is a fact. He has hit, that’s all. It happened that he was the hitter and I was the hit. It is just as if I am passing under a tree, or sitting under a tree, and a branch falls down. What will I do? What can I do?”
But the crowd said, “But a branch is a branch, this is a man. We cannot say anything to the branch, we cannot punish it. We cannot say to the tree that it is bad, because a tree is a tree, it has no mind.”
Bokuju said, “This man to me is also just a branch. And if I cannot say anything to the tree, why should I bother to say anything to this man? It happened. I am not going to interpret what has happened. And it has already happened. Why get worried about it? It is finished, over.”

This is the mind of a sage – not choosing, not asking, not saying this should be and this should not be. Whatsoever happens, he accepts it in its totality. This acceptance gives him freedom, this acceptance gives him the capacity to see. These are eye diseases: shoulds, should nots, divisions, judgments, condemnations, appreciations.
A Brahmin who recites this vidya every day….
Recites means lives. Through his whole being the recitation continues, through his whole being he is just a looker, not a judger. His eyes are just working like a mirror, whatsoever comes before them is mirrored. The moment it passes the mirror is again vacant. It does not cling; it does not think about the past, it does not look into the future.
The mirror remains in the present – whatsoever passes is mirrored. When it has gone the mirror is vacant again, nothing is left. You cannot destroy its mirrorlike innocence. This is the recitation. The whole day, moment to moment, one who lives this vidya, this knowledge, this seeing, will never suffer from eye diseases.
…Nor will anyone in his family ever be struck blind.
By family, the natural family is not meant. When a master is there his disciples are his family, not his sons and daughters. That has been called kul, the family. In the East, particularly in India, the house of the master, his ashram, was called gurukul – the family of the master. His disciples were really his descendants.
And if a master lives constantly seeing mirrorlike, his disciples will never be blind; blindness will never strike his family – those who belong to him in spirit, not in body. Ordinarily those who belong to you in body, they are your family, but for a master his family is those who belong to him in spirit. Those who belong to him in knowing, in discipline, in yoga, in sadhana, they are his family. And if a master lives constantly mirrorlike, the disciples are bound to be transformed just by his presence – even if they don’t do anything, even if they just sit by the side of the master.
The word upanishad is very meaningful. It means sitting by the side of the master. The word upanishad means just sitting in the presence of the master, not doing anything. It is not a question of doing, it is a question of being – absorbing the master. That’s what is meant in Christianity when Christ said, “Eat me. I will become your food.”
When you are near a master who is living this innermost science of being mirrorlike – mind has ceased, a simple consciousness, a flame – you can eat him, he can become your blood and bones. Nothing is to be done, you have simply to remain receptive in his presence – intimate, close, receptive, not fighting it, just open. He will flow, he will become a flow within you. He will come to you, he will fill you to the very deepest center. Just living with the master, not doing anything, just being in his presence, you are eating him. And he wants to be eaten, he wants to become the food.
But the food is very subtle. It is so subtle that if you are a little disturbed, judging, arguing, fighting in the mind, resisting, you will miss it. It is such a subtle music. You should be as if you are absent when you are in the presence of the master; as if you are not – just a passage so he can travel. He is not going to do it by his will – there is no will. If you are open he simply travels…that’s how it happens. If you are open he simply flows in you.
…Nor will anyone in his family ever be struck blind. The power of this vidya is obtained if it is taught to eight Brahmins, and knowing it one achieves greatness.
This is also to be understood. This is the secret of why a Buddha goes on trying for almost forty years, traveling from one village to another village seeking disciples; why Jesus is ready even to go to the cross; why Mahavira suffers so much – just to make contacts, to commune whatsoever he has attained.
A responsibility falls on you when you are enlightened, and that responsibility is not a duty enforced from without; it is something that is coming from within. When you become enlightened you have to share it. So it has never been otherwise; a person who has become enlightened, he has to share it. It is not a question of his decision to share or not. He has to share it, the very phenomenon is such that he has to give it to others. He has to find persons who can receive, who can eat him, for whom he can become food.
Buddha came to a village one evening. The whole village gathered, but he was waiting, as if for someone. Then somebody asked, “Why are you waiting? Everybody has come, now start your sermon.”
Buddha said, “The one for whom I have come is still absent. I will have to wait. You can hear me but you cannot listen. The person for whom I have come….”
They were very much disturbed, because all the respectable persons were present. All the rich were present; all the good, saintly, religious were present. For whom was he waiting? And then a girl came – a very ordinary, poor girl. She was coming back from her field. The moment she came, he started. So they asked, “You were waiting for this girl? We were not even aware that she lives in this village.”
Buddha is reported to have said, “In this village only she is receptive. For her I have traveled. She does not know much, she is not a scholar, she is not rich in any way. She is not respectable, she belongs to the untouchables, is poor, unknown, but she is receptive, and she has called me. Her receptivity is such that I became aware in the neighboring village that someone was calling me to flow. I have come to this village because of her.”
A disciple is one who is ready to receive, who can become like a womb, who is passive, open, vulnerable. And a master is one who is flowing, overflowing, dispersing his last body into the existence. And the best way is to become food for those who are seekers. This is Jesus’ sacrament. That is why the last thing he did on this earth was to call his disciples for the Last Supper. That is a symbol: before he leaves they should eat him totally.
The power of this vidya is obtained if it is taught to eight Brahmins….
But to find eight brahmins is very difficult. Eight brahmins means eight seekers – seekers of Brahman. It is very difficult; you have to go all around the world, then you can find eight. And even then it is not certain. Jesus had only twelve disciples.
Very few are there who are ready to receive; very few are there who are really in search; very few are there whose effort is authentic. Curious are many, but their curiosity is childlike, childish. They are curious about new things, but not authentically interested, not ready to do something, not ready to be transformed.
So the sun god says that the power of this vidya grows greater if you can share it with at least eight persons. A Buddha becomes more a Buddha, a Jesus becomes more a Christ the more he shares. This is the nature of bliss – the more you share it the more it grows. If you can share it with the whole existence it becomes the ultimate. But our minds are very miserly, we cannot share.

I have heard, once it happened: one man’s wife died in a Buddhist land, somewhere in China. The man called a Buddhist monk to pray for his wife who was dead now and had gone on a new journey – just to pray to protect her. The monk prayed, meditated, and then he said, “Everything will be good. Don’t you worry.”
The man asked, “But I heard you saying something like ‘for all the beings of the earth.’ You never mentioned my wife in particular. You were asking blessings, you were asking bliss for all the beings of the earth, but you were not mentioning my wife in particular. Mention her name in particular!”
The monk said, “It is difficult, because Buddha has said that whenever you ask for something, ask for all. It has to be shared with all. I cannot ask only for your wife. And if I ask only for your wife she will not get it. If I ask for all, only then is there a possibility.”
Then the man said, “Okay, but at least make one exception – just my neighbor. Exclude him! – and ask for everyone else. But at least make one exception. Exclude him, because I cannot bear this idea that he is also getting blessings of the divine.”

This miserliness, this mind of jealousy, hatred, cannot understand how to share. You never share anything. You may give something to somebody, but there is always a hidden bargain. Remember the difference. You can give many gifts to your husband, to your wife, to your friends, but they are deep bargains – you are expecting something to be returned. That is not sharing.
Sharing means you are never expecting anything in return, you are simply giving. You are not even expecting thankfulness.

It happened with Dozo, one Zen monk. A rich man came to Dozo with ten thousand gold coins. That is very much, a big amount. He was going to make that a gift for the temple where Dozo was the priest. Dozo accepted as if it was nothing. The man became disturbed. He said, “Do you know these are ten thousand gold coins?”
Dozo said, “You have said it so many times, I have heard it so many times. You have said it already too many times – do you think I am deaf?”
The man was just asking for thanks, only thanks, nothing more. Then he said, “Ten thousand golden coins is a big amount, even to me. I am a very rich man, but that amount is very big.”
Dozo said, “What do you want? What are you really asking? Are you asking for some gratitude? Are you asking that I should be thankful to you?”
The man said, “At least that much can be expected.”
So Dozo said, “Take your gold coins back. Or, if you want to give them to this temple, you will have to be thankful to me that I accepted.”
On the temple it is written even still…it is written that the giver should be thankful; only then is it a sharing. Somebody accepted your gift. This is such a great thing, because he could have rejected. Somebody accepted you through your gift. He could have rejected, there was no necessity to accept it. The giver should be thankful. Then it becomes a sharing, otherwise it is always a bargain. You are expecting something – something more valuable than you have given.
When someone becomes enlightened he can share, and he will do whatsoever he can just to share it.