In the morning we discussed four steps: right listening, right thinking, right meditation, and right SAMADHI.
This sutra goes beyond samadhi. This sutra says samadhi is the door into the unknown - not only the unknown, but the unknowable. it opens into the eternal, into the infinite.
The moment you enter samadhi you have to leave your mind behind. Your mind cannot enter samadhi; you can enter, but not your mind. Unless you can leave your mind behind, samadhi is not for you. Your luggage - thinking, memories, karmas, all your past lives, the whole luggage which is your mind - has to be left behind. When you have left your mind behind... and this is a basic condition: the mind cannot enter samadhi, only you can enter. Why? Because you are at the center; mind is just the periphery.
If you want to enter the center you have to leave the periphery. You cannot go with the periphery to the center. If you insist, "I will take my periphery, my circumference to the center," then you will remain on the circumference. Howsoever you endeavor, if you cling to the circumference you can never enter the center. Entering the center means leaving the periphery, leaving the circumference; mind is the circumference - this is a basic condition.
Samadhi means entering into yourself without the mind. But if you enter samadhi without the mind, you cannot FEEL samadhi - this is the essence of this sutra - you cannot feel, you cannot think.
Really you cannot know what is happening, because the knower, the instrument of knowledge, is the mind.
It is as if you enter a garden. Your eyes are weak, and you cannot see without your specs. And this is the condition: you have to leave your specs at the gate. So you enter without specs. You enter the garden, but you cannot see because the very instrument of seeing is not with you.
Mind is the instrument to know, to feel, to recognize. Mind has been left behind. So a man who enters samadhi enters totally ignorant, just like a child. Jesus says, "Be like children; only then you can enter my kingdom of God. Be like small children." At the door of samadhi everyone is like a child - with no mind - just being, pure and simple and innocent. But then you cannot see what is happening, you cannot feel what is happening. The happening is there and you are too much in it; there is no distance.
Mind creates the distance between the known and the knower. If there is no mind, the known and the knower merge, they become liquid, they enter into each other and the distance cannot be maintained. And without distance, knowledge is impossible.
So in samadhi you know nothing. In samadhi, knowing, the knower, the known... they all cease and they become one ocean, just one unity, liquid, flowing. That doesn't mean that you are unconscious.
You are conscious - fully conscious, for the first time - but the consciousness is so much, the consciousness is so unlimited, the consciousness is so infinite that it is impossible to make any differentiation between who is the knower and what is the known. You are immersed in it totally, as if a drop of water has become one with the ocean.
There is a beautiful story, and Ramakrishna used to repeat it many times. He used to say that there was a great gathering near the ocean once - some religious festival, and a great crowd gathered there. Two pundits, two great scholars also came, and they began to discuss whether the ocean is unfathomable or fathomable, whether the ocean can be measured or not. So they discussed around and around - discussions are always around and around, you go on beating around and around the bush. No discussion goes deep and direct, it cannot.
One simple man, just a villager, an innocent one, said, "I have been listening to your discussion, days have passed, and there seems to be no conclusion. And I think - I am an ignorant man - I suggest that unless you go deep into the ocean, how can you decide whether is is fathomable or not? You remain on the bank and you go on discussing; you go on arguing, quoting scriptures, and authorities. But I am asking a simple question: have you been to the ocean?"
Those two scholars said, "Don't interfere, you don't know scriptures." But the poor man said, "I know the ocean. I need not know your scriptures. You are talking about the ocean; what is the need for scriptures to be brought in? I suggest you take a jump, go to the bottom, and then come back and tell us."
So those two scholars jumped into the ocean, but they never came back.
Ramakrishna says, "They never came back because those two scholars were really men of salt, so as they went in, they began to melt. They were just salt; their bodies were made of salt."
In a way it is not inconceivable. Our bodies are made of ocean water, they are salty. Your body is seventy-five percent water - seventy-five percent! - and the water is just the same as the water which is found in oceans. The proportion of salt in your bodies is the same as it is in the ocean water, because man is just a developed form of fish and nothing else. So the story is not very absurd.
Man comes from the ocean, and is salty. Those two scholars were men of salt; their bodies were made of salt. They came out of the ocean - everyone has come out of the ocean. Now science says that man has come out of the ocean, just a developed form of fish - nothing else. And who can say whether he is developed or not? If you ask the fish they could not say that. They would say that some fish have gone astray - out of the ocean. They could not say those fish have developed - there would seem to be no reason. Only in man's reasoning it seems that man has developed; in a fish's reason it cannot seem so.
The two scholars never came back; the crowd waited and waited and waited. Ramakrishna used to say, "They cannot come back, because the deeper they went the more they melted, and when they reached the bottom, they were no more. So who can come back and who can say?"
When you leave the mind behind, you leave the bank; you take a jump into the ocean and you are part of the ocean - just the salt. When you enter into samadhi you take a jump into the ocean of consciousness - and you ARE consciousness. So when consciousness takes a jump into greater consciousness, infinite consciousness, it becomes one, the division is lost; you cannot experience anything. You experience the absolute, but you cannot say it is an experience. You cannot feel it as an experience.
This sutra says, when consciousness comes back to the mind again, and sees retrospectively from the specs of the mind what has happened, then it infers.
So all knowledge about God is inference. Those who have known... they too have to think it, to remember it, to live it again in memory, through the mind; then they can say what has happened:
existence, consciousness, bliss - sacchidananda. This is not the experience itself; it is mind looking at the experience - that's why the division. There was no division in the experience itself; mind divides it into three.
And remember, mind divides everything into three. Three is the basic division of the mind - it divides anything into three.
Look at the world, all the divisions, and you will find the basic division is always of three - always three; not only in religion, but in science also. Now they say - since the atom was split - now they say the basic unity of the atom is constituted of three elements: electron, neutron, proton. You may call them Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh - TRIMURTI, the three figures.
The basic division by the mind is three. Seen by the mind retrospectively, mind infers what has happened. Existence has happened, consciousness has happened, bliss has happened - but this is an inference.
This sutra says when you come back from that peak of ecstasy, back to the ground, you look again - now you remember. So all the scriptures, all that has been said about the ultimate truth is an inference of the mind, from memory. Remember it.
In samadhi, mind is not there; that's why you become spontaneous. Mind is the instrument which always destroys spontaneity. Mind always brings the past into the present, and that destroys spontaneity. This part of the sutra has also to be understood before we enter into meditation.
A spontaneous act is never from the mind. A spontaneous act always happens in the present. If it happens through the mind, then the past has come in. I say something to you; you react - the reaction is from the mind. You think about it, you bring your past memories, your knowledge, your experiences, and then you react accordingly. Then this act is not spontaneous; this act is dead, it is not alive. Reaction is dead, never alive; response is alive and spontaneous. I say something to you and you respond - IMMEDIATELY, without bringing the past in, without bringing the mind in - you respond.
For example, if you ask something to a buddha, to an enlightened one, you will get confused. If you ask the same question today and the same tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, you are not going to get the same answer. It is impossible for a buddha. He is not reacting. He is not a parrot; he responds. You ask the question and immediately his consciousness responds - responds to it. It is not a reaction of the mind; it is an encounter, direct, immediate. Every moment you go on asking the same question, but the same answer will not be coming.
Repetition is through the mind. Spontaneous consciousness is always new and fresh.
This sutra says that samadhi brings you back to your center of spontaneity. That spontaneity is known in the upanishadic terminology as DHARMA. Dharma means your natural, spontaneous, being, undistorted by the mind; your natural, spontaneous mirror, undistorted by anything, pure and innocent. Through samadhi you become spontaneous. Really, through samadhi you become religious. Before that, you can belong to a religion, but you are not religious. You can be a Christian, you can be a Hindu or a Mohammedan, but you are not religious.
You belong to a certain organization, a certain church, a certain sect. This belonging is mental.
When you enter samadhi for the first time, you come into the world of dharma, of real religion. Now you become spontaneous, you become natural. Nothing is imposed from the mind, you act in totality, moment to moment. Your acts become atomic, always new and fresh and young. Whatsoever you do now is always fresh. This freshness of being is known as dharma. This is what a religious mind is. And unless you become a religious mind in this way, through samadhi, you cannot know what is meant by this MAHAVAKYA - TAT TWAMASI - THAT ART THOU. When you become spontaneous then you know you are THAT.
With the ultimate, now you are one.
Now your finite being is not finite.
Now the divine is not far away.
Now you are divine, and the divine is you - the duality is lost. You become for the first time a knower that this sutra of tat twamasi - THAT ART THOU - is real, authentic. Now you can become a witness, now you can say, "This is so, because I have known it." And unless you can say, "I have know it," nothing is worthwhile.
Just a few days ago, a theologian came to me and he began to talk about God. I asked him again and again, "Please tell me, have you known? Have you seen?" But he began to quote THE BIBLE; he began to quote scriptures. And he said, "This is written there, and that is written there."
I told him, "It may be written; I accept that it is written there, but that's not my question. I am asking whether YOU have know it?" But he would not answer the question. He would again repeat, "Jesus has said this in the New Testament." He opened the book - he had a book of the New Testament in his pocket. He opened the book and he began to read.
I told him again and again, "Don't read it! I have read it already, so I know what is written it it. Tell me directly, have you seen? Have you realized?" But there was no answer.
If someone asks you, "Have you seen the divine?" and you go on quoting the UPANISHADS, that's stupid. Say yes or no - and you cannot deceive, because there is no question of deceiving anyone.
Say TO YOURSELF whether you have seen it, known it, realized it. If you have not, then start on a long journey - from right listening to right thinking; from right thinking to right meditation; from right meditation to right samadhi. Then only you will be able to know. And unless you know, the whole knowledge of the world is futile - unless you know.
Now be ready for our meditation.