This is a very unique happening. The teacher was saying that this world is just a dream, and unless this dream ceases, the world of reality, the world of truth cannot be attained. "Cease dreaming and enter the world of reality," he was teaching. And he would never have imagined that just by listening to this, the disciple attained to knowledge. How can it happen? It is not happening to us. We have heard it also; it has not happened to us. Why? And why could this happen to that disciple? What is the difference?
You are listening, but that listening is not of the heart.
You are listening, but that listening is not total.
You are listening, but you go on standing outside.
Only the mechanical part of your ears hears it. Or at the most, the mechanical part of your mind thinks about it, but the heart remains untouched. You go on protecting your heart from the teaching.
You are afraid that if this teaching goes deep into your heart, you will not be the same again. And then you will be thrown into insecurity; you will be thrown into the unknown - and everyone is afraid of the unknown. That fear becomes a barrier.
Unless you are ready to go into the unknown, to move into the unchartered, to move in a world where you do not know anything... insecurity will be there, you will be vulnerable; danger will be there, even death. Unless you are ready to take a jump into the unknown, this teaching cannot become a deep happening for you.
But to this disciple it happened. He heard it; he must have heard it through his heart. He must have heard it through his total being; he must have become one while the teaching was being delivered.
The teacher and the taught must have felt a deep communion. The teacher must have gone deep into the disciple's heart through his teaching. The disciple was ready and receptive. He never doubted; he simply believed - there was no question.
The whole UPANISHAD is without a question, there is no question, no questioning at all. The disciple remains completely silent through the whole discourse. Only in the end do we suddenly become aware that there has been a disciple present. The teacher was talking, the teacher was giving his message, but we were never aware that a disciple was there. Suddenly we become aware in this last part of the UPANISHAD, when the disciple says, WHITHER HAS GONE THAT WORLD I HAVE JUST SEEN? Where is that world? When I came to you, there was a world around me. Now I look and there is no world to be found. Where has it gone? It is immensely astonishing. You were teaching me that the world is not, and now I see that it is not!
What has happened to the disciple? Now he is looking from a new standpoint; now he is looking from a deeper center. Now he is looking really, from his being. When you look from your being, the world of becoming disappears like a dream.
That's how I started this commentary on the UPANISHAD. When we live on the circumference, then the world is real. When we move towards the center, the world becomes more and more unreal.
When you stand at your center, when you are centered in yourself, the world completely disappears.
WHAT HAVE I NOW TO RENOUNCE IN THIS GREAT OCEANLIKE BRAHMAN, WHICH IS WHOLE AND FULL OF A NECTAR OF BLISS? WHAT IS THE OTHER? WHAT IS MORE UNIQUE?
The disciple is just shocked - what has happened to the world? When for the first time one explodes into that realm of the divine, the first thing is a shock - the world disappears. And when the world disappears suddenly, you cannot face, you cannot see the other world that arises. The curtain falls, the barriers fall, but your mind has been always attuned to this world of ignorance, of dream. When this dissolves suddenly, you cannot become aware of the other world that is now before you.
Your eyes will need a new attunement; your consciousness will need a new way of looking. Now you will need a new dimension, a new opening in you. Only then you will feel that although the world has disappeared, a new existence has come up and has appeared: HERE, I DO NOT EVEN SEE ANYTHING. I DO NOT EVEN HEAR ANYTHING, AND I DO NOT EVEN KNOW ANYTHING....
All old knowledge has become futile. All old ways have become futile. All the senses have become futile, because they were meaningful only when the world was there - but the world of senses has disappeared, senses have become useless: "I cannot see, I cannot hear, I do not know; because all my knowledge was concerned with the world.
Whatsoever you know is concerned with the world If the world disappears, what will be the difference between a learned man and one who is ignorant? What will be the difference? No difference - if the world disappears, then the learned will be just like any ignorant man, because all your learning is concerned with the world. So the disciple says: I DO NOT EVEN KNOW ANYTHING... only this much I know: I AM THE EVER-BLISSFUL SELF... UNIQUE. I CAN BE COMPARED TO NONE. I CAN BE COMPARED ONLY TO MYSELF... I am like myself; only this much I know.
The knowledge of a Mahavira, the knowledge of a Buddha, or a Jesus, or a Krishna, is not the knowledge of a learned man. They do not know anything about the world; they know only about their own selves.
Mahavira has said that if you can know your own self, you have known all; and if you know everything except yourself, you know nothing.
They know about their own central force, energy, life. They know about their own inner being, and they do not know anything about the world, because the whole world has disappeared. They know only one thing, that I AM THE EVER-BLISSFUL SELF.
When you know about the world, you know many, many anxieties, you know anguish, you know tensions, you know misery. When you know many things about the world, the misery goes on growing with your knowledge. The more you know, the more miserable you are. We can observe this all over the world. Now, for the first time, we have gathered great knowledge - not only have we gathered, we have dispersed it to everyone through universal teaching, education. And now every man is miserable, and the misery keeps growing. On the one hand, knowledge grows, on the other hand, misery grows.
What is happening? This seems quite inconceivable, because if with knowledge misery grows, then for what is this knowledge? Knowledge of the without goes deeper and deeper, but then misery also goes deeper and deeper.
There is another knowledge also, that this UPANISHAD is talking about - the knowledge of the inner self. With the knowledge of the inner self, blissfulness grows. So this is just an indication: if you are becoming more and more blissful, know that you are growing in inner knowledge. If you are becoming more and more miserable, know that you are growing in outer knowledge.
The biblical story is beautiful:
Adam was expelled from Eden because he disobeyed God. And what was the disobedience? The disobedience was this: God has forbidden Adam and Eve... he has said to them that they are not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. In the Garden of Eden in heaven, there was a tree, the tree of knowledge, and God has forbidden Adam and Eve to touch that tree, to eat the fruit of that tree. But because of this, Adam and Eve must have become attracted to the tree.
The garden was big and there was only one tree of knowledge. But because of this order, they rebelled. And when they ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge they were expelled from Eden.
This story is beautiful. They were expelled because of knowledge, and man is continuously being expelled from Eden because of knowledge. The more you know, the more heaven becomes just impossible, and hell the only possibility. But there is another tree also in the Garden of Eden. It is not mentioned in THE BIBLE, but I will tell you about it. That tree is the tree of inner knowledge, and unless you eat the fruit of that tree you can never enter again into heaven.
There are two types of knowledge: knowledge of things and knowledge of self. The devil tempted Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree of knowledge - and the UPANISHADS tempt you to eat the fruit of the other tree of knowledge. Unless you enter yourself, and eat the fruit of inner knowledge, you cannot be redeemed; you cannot be liberated, you cannot become free. And you can never be blissful.
I AM ABSOLUTELY ALONE, WITHOUT BODY.
I CANNOT BE INDICATED.
NO SYMBOL CAN REPRESENT ME.
I AM THE SUPREME GOD, HARI.
I AM IMMEASURABLY SILENT.
I AM THE INFINITE, ABSOLUTE, AND THE MOST ANCIENT.
I AM NOT THE DOER, I AM NOT THE ONE WHO INDULGES.
I AM WITHOUT GROWTH.
I AM IMPERISHABLE.
I AM ALREADY PURE AND KNOWLEDGE ITSELF.
I AM THE SADASHIV, THE ETERNALLY GOOD.
The disciple tells his teacher his own experience now. The teacher was telling the disciple his experience; the disciple is not saying, "I am convinced now that whatsoever you say is true," or "I am convinced a little bit, and later on I will think more about it"; nor "Whatsoever you say must be true, because you are a reliable man." No, he simply tells his own experience. He has not even mentioned it, that "Whatsoever you have taught me is true." No reference is made to the teaching at all. He simply says, "Now this is my experience: I am the divine, I am Hari. I am immeasurably silent. I am absolute, infinite." He has attained to experience. This is not a conversion, intellectual; it is a transformation.
THIS KNOWLEDGE WAS TRANSMITTED BY THE GURU TO HIS DISCIPLE, APANTARAM, WHO IN HIS TURN TRANSMITTED IT TO BRAHMA. BRAHMA GAVE IT TO GHORA ANGIRASA, AND THE LATTER TO RAIKWA. RAIKWA GAVE IT TO RAMA, AND RAMA GAVE IT TO ALL OF HUMANITY.
THIS IS THE TEACHING OF NIRVAN, OF KNOWLEDGE, OF THE VEDA. IT IS ORDAINED BY THE VEDA ITSELF.
HERE ENDS THIS UPANISHAD.
This last paragraph, last sutra, has to be understood:
Knowledge of the absolute is eternal.
It is never new, never old.
It is not a growing body of knowledge.
Science grows; religion is eternal.
Science goes on growing, increasing. No scientific truth is absolute; it is relative. And no scientific truth can be called really a truth, because it is always more or less approximate. Time will change it, time always changes it. Whatsoever Newton said is no longer said; even what Einstein said is now doubtful.
Time changes science, but time never changes religion. Why? - because the religious experience is attained only when you enter a timeless moment. When you enter in yourself and time stops completely - no flow of time is there... no past, no present, no future; time stops completely - you are here and now. Only this moment remains, and this moment becomes eternal. In timelessness, religious experience is attained; that's why time never alters it.
This sutra says that whatsoever is taught in this UPANISHAD is not something new, it is not original.
Our modern world is too obsessed with originality. People go on saying, and trying, and proving that whatsoever is said is original. Particularly in the West, every thinker tries to prove that he is original, that whatsoever he is saying, no one has ever said before. Unless a theory can be proved original it is never appreciated in the West. If someone else has already said it then what is the use? Then what are you doing wasting your time? So everyone tries to be original.
But originality is impossible as far as religion is concerned. As far as science is concerned, originality is possible. In science there are old truths dying, new truths being born. Science is relative, growing.
But in religion there can be nothing original. In religion everything is eternal. Whatsoever a buddha says will be said always by anyone who becomes enlightened, who becomes a buddha. Language may differ, terminology may be different, but the experience can never be different.
So in the old India, in the East, it was a tradition always: whenever someone would say something, he would say, "I am not the originator of it. I have also attained to it, but before me it was given by A to B, by B to C, by C to D - it is an eternal message." When one thinks and says, "I am original," this is an egoistic standpoint. The ego always tries to be original; only then it feels strengthened. But these teachings are not ego teachings, ego oriented; they are egoless teachings. Those who had attained to egolessness have said them. That's why this sutra:
THIS KNOWLEDGE WAS TRANSMITTED BY THE GURU TO HIS DISCIPLE, APANTARAM, WHO IN HIS TURN TRANSMITTED IT TO BRAHMA. BRAHMA GAVE IT TO GHORA ANGIRASA, AND THE LATTER TO RAIKWA.
RAIKWA GAVE IT TO RAMA, AND RAMA, GAVE IT TO ALL OF HUMANITY.
HERE ENDS THIS UPANISHAD.
The scripture ends here but not the journey.
For you, really, now begins the journey.
The UPANISHAD ends, your journey begins.