How Can Mind Know the Total?
As the various particular kinds of notes of a drum, when it is beaten, cannot be grasped by themselves, but are grasped only when the general note of the drum or the general sound produced by different kinds of strokes is grasped.
And as the various particular notes of a conch, when it is blown, cannot be grasped by themselves, but are grasped only when the general note of the conch or the general sound produced by different kinds of blowing is grasped.
And as the various particular notes of a vina, when it is played, cannot be grasped by themselves, but are grasped only when the general note of the vina or the general sound produced by the different kinds of playing is grasped.
(~ Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Verse 09)
Acharya Prashant: We never know the total. These senses are limited. The mind is limited. The grasping power is limited. We look at only the partial, and we are not humble enough to admit that we are men of parts. What do we do? We term the part as the total.
As persons, obviously the total is beyond our reach. But if the total is beyond reach, one still has an opportunity, and that opportunity is to be totally humble. That opportunity is to humbly admit that all that this mind can know is little and partial. But you know the partial, and you think of yourself as very clever. You start concluding. You start acting. You start deciding and doing. And that is hell. That is foolishness.
And then you wonder why you stumble upon every step. Then you wonder why life has been so harsh upon you. That clichéd metaphor of the blind man feeling the elephant is age-old and still so relevant. And the totality, the reality, is much bigger than the elephant, just as we are much, much more blind than the blind men. It is quite possible that one day the blind man will be able to feel, touch and know the entirety of the elephant. But it is not at all possible that, even if unlimited time is given to us, we will be able to one day know the Truth using the intellect and the senses and the mind.
The Truth is not a function of time. The Truth is not a function of experience. You can have all the experience of the world, and still you would be as distant from the Truth as anybody else, if you do not have the humility to admit that you are just a part, a figment, a fraction, a negligible grain of sand in an endless desert. Are you getting it?
What Yājñavalkya is saying is not an invitation to know the total. That is the way of science. Science says, "I will know everything that constitutes the universe." That can never be known, because if you want to know all that which is apparent, then you will also have to know the one who is looking at the appearance. You'll have to turn inside. And turning inside is not the province of science. So the way of science is bound to fail.
Using the mind, using the senses, using this dualistic apparatus, you can never know the total, because the total is not only that which is there (pointing towards outside), but also that which is here (pointing towards the inside of oneself). In fact, the more you look for that which is outside, the more you will be pointed towards something which is inside.
Those who want to know the reality of the world have to turn inside to look into the reality of consciousness. And those who want to know consciousness must fall very, very silent so that they can watch the entire movement of consciousness. Movement can be watched only in stillness and silence.
So to know the world, you'll have to come to consciousness, and to know consciousness, you'll have to come to stillness and silence. Why not be directly still? Why not be just silent? Why not just bow down and surrender? Are you getting it?
The total is available in silence, in noise, in movement, in appearance, in grasping, in holding, in intellect. Only a little will be available to you, which is all right for day-to-day living. After all, when you are thirsty, you do not drink the entire ocean. For practical purposes, a tumbler of water is enough. But you must know that what you are holding in your little hand is just a little bit of water. The oceans are incomparable to that which you are holding in your hand.
When you are still, then that which is to be known is known just by itself — without reason, without cause, without preparation, without desire.
In your silence, all the mysteries are solved. You just know, and you do not even want to know how you have come to know. In fact, the question looks quite stupid. You do not feel like asking what is the source of this knowledge.
Having really been determined to know, you go past little curiosities. Most of us are only mildly curious in the name of knowing. So what do we want to know then? We want to know just a few rungs of the infinite chain of cause and effect. And that satisfies us. We say, "Oh, now we know."
You want to ask, “Why does that wall have blisters over there? Why is the paint coming off?” And some knowledgeable soul comes and says, “That is because maybe there is some seepage of water.” And you say, “Ah, now I know.” Two rungs of the chain of cause and effect, and your curiosity is satisfied.
We are only very feebly curious. Ours is the curiosity of the mediocre mind. We do not really want to know; we just want some passable explanations. You do not ask, “Why is the water seeping?” And if you ask, “Why is the water seeping?,” you’ll have to ask, “Why is that cause there?” And then you’ll have to go one step backwards, and again ask, and again ask, and again ask. That is an infinite chain.
The really intelligent man gives up the path of curiosity. He understands that there are really things without a cause. Then he starts living in the present. To live in the present means to not to bother about the cause. Because the past appears as the cause of the present. That is how it appears. Right? Whatever is happening now is happening because of something in the past.
If you are wedded to curiosity, then you are wedded to memories, because all curiosities will only take you back to the past and memories. The really intelligent man does not bother for the cause. He will not ask, 'Why are people fighting?' He will just see them fighting and say, "Ha.., now that is something that I do not like." Asking for reasons of the conflict will only take you backwards and backwards and backwards and backwards and backwards, and ultimately you will reach the age of dinosaurs, and still you would not know the complete reason. You would still be as far away from the source reason as you were in the beginning. So he will not ask, why are people fighting? He'll just say, now come on, that does not look good. Finished. Why does it not look good? I do not know. It does not look good. So stop.
But the man of intellect looks for reasons. He thinks that solutions can be obtained by going into reasons. And his little intellect does not let him know that reasons never come to a finality. There are reasons after reasons after reasons after reasons after reasons.
The total is available to you, but not through the root of intellectualization, not through the root of causation. The total is available to you right now. If people are fighting, that is the total that begs no reason or cause. It is the only thing that is real. Yes, people are fighting and that is it. Now do not look for reasons. Reasons will become justifications.
Are you getting it?
If you are tense and sad and disappointed and anxious and ambitious, do not look for reasons. And if you want to get rid of your anxiety and ambition and disappointment, again do not look for a method. Methods are reasons. If you are looking for reasons in the past, you will also look for methods in the future. And the past and future will remain. What you will lose out on is life, which is here.
If you are looking for reasons for everything, and you cannot be contended with things without reason, you can never have God in your life, because God is the ultimate reasonless being. God does not have a father. God has no reason or cause behind him. And you look for reasons for everything. If you want everything for a reason, then you can never have God. God has no reason. God was never born. God does not come from anywhere. No reason, no cause, no effect, only that, only this.
The total is available in silence. The total is available when your mind is not wandering here and there — not in the past, not in the future, not in causes, not in future effects. You see this and you know — just like this, that is the total. Are you getting it? It is counter to common sense. If you will start applying intellect, you will only get contrary arguments.
The mind will say, when you want the total, obviously you look for this and that, you look far and wide. The way of spirituality is different. The reality is very different. When you want the total, you have to stop looking here and there. The total is available. Here. Not there, not there. When you stop looking, the total comes upon you. Let me be a little more exact. When you stop looking for the total, when you stop looking for it, the total comes upon you. The total will not be available as a sum of fragments. Never.
Well, Maitreyi got it quite quickly, and that proves that she already had it. Yājñavalkya didn't even have to speak this much. He just pointed, and even as he was pointing, Maitreyi was smiling faintly. The husband and wife both knew that. It's fun teaching the other when one does not need to teach, and it's great fun learning when everything has already been learnt.
That's the game being played between the husband and wife here. He has already taught everything. She has already learnt everything. And now it's such fun, like fighting after you have won the war, just for fun. Nothing is to be gained. No fear, no accomplishment.
“As the ocean is the one goal of all waters, so the skin is the one goal of all kinds of touch. the nostrils are the one goal of all smells, the tongue is the one goal of all savours. the ear is the one goal of all sounds, the mind is the one goal of all deliberations, the intellect is the one goal of all form of knowledge, the hands are the one goal of all actions, the organs of generation is the one goal of all kinds of enjoyment, the excretory organ is the one goal of all excretions, the feet are the one goal of all kinds of walking, the organ of speech is the one goal of all the Vedas.”
(~ Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Verse 11)
You will have many. And unless you can directly look at the one in the middle of the many, you're not seeing anything. You see so much. But have you ever seen that behind all the things that you see, there is just the one who, who sees? You get lost in all the diverse things that you?
Listener: See.
Acharya Prashant: And you never are able to be one with the one who?
Listener: Sees.
Acharya Prashant: That's what Yājñavalkya is pointing at. You taste so many different things, but do you know the one who is behind all tastes? And that one, if he's not there, then no taste is any taste to you.
Does a dead man not have a tongue? Does a dead man not have eyes? All right, forget the dead man. When you are asleep, do your eyes pop out? Do you keep your eyes somewhere else safe when you retire to sleep? The eyes are still there, but you cannot see. Do the eyes see then? Is it the eyes that see? Had the eyes been the ones that see, then eyes are there even with the dead man and the sleeping man. Why don't they see?
But as long as these eyes look only outwards, you will live in the illusion that it is the eyes that see.
All right, forget even the dead man and the sleeping man. When the mind is lost in thoughts, are the eyes seeing? You are sitting over here, looking right in front, and the mind is elsewhere. Now are the eyes seeing? So is it the eyes that see?
Spirituality is just this one question, 'Who sees, Who is the watcher?' And asking this one question, one returns to himself. I am the seer. I am the watcher. The watcher am I. When I am gone, then these eyes do not see. When these eyes lose touch with me, then these eyes do not see. When the mind loses touch with reality and is lost in imaginations, do the eyes see anymore?
So I am the one to whom the eyes must be devoted if the eyes are to see. I am the one to whom the mind must be devoted if the mind is to see.
Are you getting it?
We see a thousand things. But do you know why those thousand things are there? They are there so that you may, accidentally or by sheer grace, one day start seeing yourself. Every single object in the universe is a messenger, a pointer. It is telling you, do you look at me? Do you look only at me? Now come on, you cannot be so stupid. Do you look at me? You say yes. Then it asks, do you look only at me? Am I only that much? Am I just what I appear to be? But we fail to go beyond appearances. We fail to go beyond duality. We fail to go beyond this unidirectional approach. The looking fails to turn into itself. Ulati samaana aap mei hua brahm samaan. That doesn't happen. Are you getting it?
These diversities exist so that you come upon the one. Otherwise they have no role. And that is why the universe has a great purpose. The purpose of the universe is to show that it exists only as a proxy, as a reminder, as a pointer, as a shadow. And that is also the purpose of being born in this universe.
You are born in this universe so that you may know the reality of the universe and hence transcend it.
Everything here is singing a song that must act like a reminder. These walls, this air, these sounds, these people, these animals, the civilization, the cities, the rivers, the mountains, the greenery — all of these are telling us stories in their own way. If only we could listen to those stories. If only we could go to the crux of the song. Everything is telling us, “Yes, yes, yes, yes. Come on, come on. Read me, read me. Listen to me. I’m telling you of that, of that, of that. I might be partial, but I come from the total. Please see the total in me.”
But we look at the partial and give it the status of the total by making it an object of thought and desire. That is the blunder that we commit. Are you getting it?
It's like hugging the messenger. When the messenger is bringing you news of the beloved, now the beloved is gone and the messenger is suffocated in your embrace. And that is why we are suffocating the earth. We are suffocating everybody who comes in contact with us.
We are so desperate for the beloved that we just pounce upon the messenger. And the messenger wants to run away. He's saying, please, I'm a little one. I cannot fulfill your desires. I have come to just deliver a message. Why are you taking me as the ultimate one? But we are so desperate. We can't wait. That is why there is a certain cuteness even in our foolishness. And that is why we are forgiven again and again.
Because in whatever we want, of course it is God that we want. And God knows that. So He forgives us for our mistakes and miscalculations. He knows that. “Ah, I know you are chasing that man or a woman. But I know you are chasing me. So it’s okay. Fine. You can go about your business for as long as you want. You’re not committing any sin. You’re just mistaken. You are not evil.” Are you getting it?
