And Now And Here.doc

And Now, And HereTalks given from 28/10/69 to 31/10/69Original in Hindi15 ChaptersYear published: 1994Hindi at Dwarka, Gujurat, previously published as two Volumes.Contains material from "The Mysteries of Life and Death" and possibly "The Gateless Gate".And Now, And Here, Vol 1Chapter #1Chapter title: No Bigger Lie Than Death28 October 1969 pm in Meditation Camp at Dwarka, Gurujat, IndiaArchive code: 6910285ShortTitle: NOW01Audio: NoVideo: NoWe become free from that which we have known. We also triumph over that which we have known. Our failure and defeat are only because of our ignorance. Defeat is because of darkness; when there is light, defeat is impossible - light itself will bring triumph.The first thing I would like to tell you about death is that there is no bigger lie than death. And yet, death appears to be true. It not only appears to be true but even seems like the cardinal truth of life - it appears as if the whole of life is surrounded by death. Whether we forget about it, or become oblivious to it, everywhere death remains close to us. Death is even closer to us than our shadow.We have even structured our lives out of our fear of death. The fear of death has created society, the nation, family and friends. The fear of death has caused us to chase money and has made us ambitious of higher positions. And the biggest surprise is that our gods and our temples have also been raised out of the fear of death. Afraid of death, there are people who pray on their knees. Afraid of death, there are people who pray to God with folded hands raised towards the sky. And nothing is more false than death. That is why whatever system of life we have created, believing death to be true, has become false.How do we know the falsity of death? How can we know there is no death? Until we know that, our fear of death will not go. Until we know the falsity of death, our lives will also remain false. As long as there is fear of death, there cannot be authentic life. As long as we tremble with the fear of death, we cannot summon the capacity to live our lives. Only those can live for whom the shadow of death has disappeared forever. How can a frightened and trembling mind live? And when death seems to be approaching every second, how is it possible to live? How can we live?No matter to what extent we may remain oblivious to death, it is never really forgotten. It makes no difference if we put the cemetery outside the town - death still shows its face. Every day someone or other dies; every day death occurs somewhere, and it shakes the very foundation of our lives.Whenever we see death happening, we become aware of our own death. When we cry over somebody's death, it is not just for that person's death alone, but also for the hint we get of our own. Our suffering from pain and sorrow is not only over someone else's death but also over the apparent possibility of our own. The occurrence of every death is, at the same time, our own death. And so long as we remain surrounded by death, how can we live? Like that, living is impossible. Like that, we cannot know what life is - neither its joy, nor its beauty, nor its benediction. Like that, we cannot reach the temple of God, the supreme truth of life.The temples which have been created out of the fear of death are not the temples of God. The prayers which have been composed out of the fear of death are not prayers to God either. Only one who is filled with the joy of life reaches the temple of God. God's kingdom is filled with joy and beauty, and the bells of God's temple ring only for those who are free from all kinds of fears, for those who have become fearless.Because we like to live in fear this seems difficult. But this is not possible - only one of the two things can be right. Remember, if life is true then death cannot be true - and if death is true then life will be nothing but a dream, a lie; then life cannot be true. These two things cannot exist simultaneously. But we hold on to both together. There is the feeling that we are alive and there is also the feeling that we are dead.I have heard about a fakir who lived in a faraway valley. Many people would go to him with questions. Once a man came and asked him to explain something about life and death. The fakir said, "You are welcome to know about life; my doors are open. But if you want to know about death then go somewhere else, because I have never died nor will I ever die. I have no experience of death. If you want to know about death men ask those who have died, ask those who are already dead." Then the fakir laughed and he said, "But how will you ask those who are already dead? And if you ask me to give you the address of a dead person, I cannot do it. Because ever since I have come to know that I cannot die, I have also come to know that no one dies, that no one has ever died."But how can we believe this fakir? Every day we see someone dying; every day death happens. Death is the supreme truth; it makes itself apparent by penetrating the center of our being. You may shut your eyes, but no matter how far away it is from you, it still remains apparent. No matter how much we escape from it, run away from it, it still surrounds us. How can you falsify this truth?Some people do, of course, try to falsify it. Just because of their fear of death people believe in the immortality of the soul - just out of fear. They don't know; they simply believe. Every morning, sitting in a temple or a mosque, some people repeat, "No one dies; the soul is immortal." They are wrong in believing that just by repeating this, the soul will become immortal. They are under the impression that death can be falsified by repeating, "The soul is immortal." Death never becomes false by such reiterations - only by knowing death can it be falsified.This is very strange, remember: we always accept the opposite of what we go on repeating. When someone says he is immortal, that the soul is immortal - when he repeats this he is simply indicating that he knows, deep down, he will die, he will have to die. If he knows he will not die then there is no need to go on about immortality; only one who is frightened keeps on repeating it. And you will see that people are more scared of death in those countries, in those societies which talk the most about the immortality of the soul. This country of ours talks untiringly about the immortality of the soul, and yet is there anyone on earth more scared of death than us? There is no one more afraid of death than us! How can we reconcile these two?Is it ever possible for people who believe in the immortality of the soul to become slaves? They would rather die; they would be ready to die because they know there is no death. Those who know that life is eternal, that the soul is immortal, would be the first to land on the moon! They would be the first to climb Mount Everest! They would be the first to explore the depths of the Pacific Ocean! But no, we are not among those. We neither climb the peak of Everest nor land on the moon nor explore the depths of the Indian Ocean - and we are the people who believe in the immortality of the soul! In fact, we are so scared of death, that out of the fear of it we go on repeating, "The soul is immortal." And we are under the illusion that perhaps by repeating it, it will become true. Nothing becomes true by repetition.Death cannot be denied by repeating that death does not exist. Death will have to be known, it will have to be encountered, it will have to be lived. You will have to become acquainted with it. Instead, we keep running away from death.How can we see it? We close our eyes when we see death. When a funeral passes by on the road, a mother shuts her child behind closed doors and says, "Don't go out; someone has died." The cremation ground is put outside the town so it rarely meets your eyes, so that death won't be there, right in front of you. And if you ever mention death to somebody, he will forbid you to talk about it.Once I stayed with a sannyasin. Every day he would talk about the immortality of the soul. I asked him, "Do you ever realize that you are coming closer to death?"He said, "Don't say such ominous things. It is not good to talk about such things."I said, "If, on the one hand, a person says that the soul is immortal, but also he finds it ominous to talk about death, then this fouls up the whole thing. He shouldn't see any fear, any omen, anything wrong in talking about death - because for him there is no death."He said, "Although the soul is immortal, I nevertheless do not wish to talk about death at all. One should not talk about such meaningless and threatening things." We are all doing the same thing - turning our backs on death and escaping from it.I have heard: Once a man went mad in a village. It was a hot afternoon and the man was walking along a lonely road all alone. He was walking rather fast, trying not to be scared: it is possible to be scared when someone is already there, but how can anyone be scared when there is no one around? But we do feel scared when there is no one around. In fact, we are afraid of ourselves, and when we are alone the fear is even greater. There is no one we fear more than ourselves. We are less afraid when accompanied by someone and more afraid when left all by ourselves.That man was alone. He became scared and began running. Everything was still and quiet - it was afternoon; there was no one around. As he began to run faster, he sensed the sound of running feet coming from behind. He grew frightened - maybe someone was following him. Then, afraid, he glanced behind out of the corner of his eye. He saw a long shadow chasing him. It was his own shadow - but seeing that some long shadow was pursuing him, he ran even faster. Then that man could never stop, because the faster he ran, the faster the shadow ran after him. Finally the man went mad. But there are people who even worship madmen.When people saw him running like that through their villages, they thought he was engaged in some great ascetic practice. Except in the darkness of night, when the shadow would disappear and he would think there was no one behind him, he never stopped. With daybreak he would start running again. Then he didn't even stop at night - he figured that in spite of the distance he had covered during the day, while he rested at night the shadow had caught up with him and would follow him in the morning once again. So even at night he continued running.Then he went completely mad; he neither ate nor drank. Thousands of people watched him run and showered flowers upon him, or someone might hand him a piece of bread or some water. People began worshipping him more and more; thousands paid their respects to him. But the | man became more and more crazy, and finally one day, he fell down on the ground and died. The people of the village where he died made his grave under the shade of a tree, and they asked an old fakir of the village what they would inscribe on his gravestone. The fakir wrote one line on it.In some village, someplace, that grave is still there. It is possible you may pass it by it. Do read the line. The fakir wrote on the gravestone: "Here rests a man who fled from his own shadow all his life, who wasted his whole life escaping from a shadow. And the man did not even know as much as his gravestone does - because the gravestone is in the shade and does not run, hence no shadow is created."We also run. We may wonder how a man can run from his shadow, but we too run from shadows. And that which we run away from starts pursuing us itself. The faster we run, the faster it follows because it is our own shadow.Death is our own shadow. If we keep running away from it we will not be able to stand before it and recognize what it is. If that man had stopped and seen what was behind him, perhaps he would have laughed and said, "What kind of a person am I, running away from a shadow?" No one can ever escape from a shadow; no one can ever win a fight with a shadow. This does not mean, however, that the shadow is stronger than we are and that we can never be victorious; it simply means that there is no shadow, that there is no question of being victorious. You cannot win against that which does not exist. That's why people keep facing defeat by death - because death is merely a shadow of life.As life moves forward, its shadow moves along with it too. Death is the shadow that forms behind life, and we never want to look back, to see what it is. We have fallen, exhausted, so many times - after having run this race again and again. It is not that you have come to this shore for the first time, you must have been here before - maybe it was not this shore; then some other shore. It may not have been this body; then some other body - but the race must have been the same. The legs must have been the same; the race must have been the same.Through many lives we live, carrying the fear of death, and yet we are neither able to recognize it nor to see it. We are so scared and frightened that when death approaches, when its total shadow closes in on us, out of fear we become unconscious. Generally, no one remains conscious at the moment of death. If, even once, one were to remain conscious, the fear of death would disappear forever. If, just once, a man could see what dying is like, what happens in death, then the next time he would have no fear of death because there would be no death. Not that he would be victorious over death - we can achieve victory only over something which exists. Just by knowing death, it disappears. Then nothing remains over which to be victorious.We have died many times before, but whenever death has occurred we have become unconscious. This is similar to when a physician or a surgeon gives anesthesia before an operation so you won't feel the pain. We are so very afraid of dying that at the time of death we become unconscious willingly. We become unconscious just a little before dying. We die unconscious, and then we are reborn in a state of unconsciousness. We neither see death, nor do we see birth - and hence we are never able to understand that life is eternal. Birth and death are nothing more than stopping places where we change clothes or horses.In olden times there were no railroads and people traveled in horse-drawn carriages. They traveled from one village to another, and when the horses grew tired they exchanged them for fresh horses at an inn, and they changed them again at the next village. However, the people changing the horses never felt that what they were doing was like dying and being born again, because when they changed horses they were fully conscious.Sometimes it used to happen that a horseman would travel after drinking. When he would look around in that state, it would make him won