On Emptiness

A man came to a village and found a shop, and while he was buying something he saw a jar, a box, and over the jar was written “Ram” — Ram, the name of God. When he had bought his goods, the man asked the shopkeeper what was in that jar. And the shopkeeper told him: this jar is empty, there is nothing within. Upon the jar the name of God was written, and yet the shopkeeper said it was empty. And of a sudden the man grasped something — that true realization comes to pass only when we grow wholly empty. Only the box that is empty may hold godliness. Only the man whose mind is empty may win godliness. This is from the spiritual view. But nowadays, emptiness itself is a trouble; every man feels himself empty.

Both these things are the same. You may be empty and reach godliness; and you may feel emptiness and reach nowhere — reach a state of the mind's trouble, a state of grief. The state of godliness, and the state of the mind in which a man feels himself wholly in trouble, wholly empty, wholly alone — both these states look the same. Those who are at the highest spiritual state and those who suffer some trouble of the mind — the outward state will be the same. A grieving man's condition and a greatly realized man's condition will look the same; both bear themselves as though they know nothing. Both will bear themselves like a child; both will bear themselves like a fool; both will do things that ordinary men feel ill at ease to be near, for they do things that seem mad. So the condition is the same, but the ground is wholly other. The realized do these things because they are wholly empty; those who suffer some trouble of the mind do them because they are in a wavering state, in a state of chaos. The realized are doing everything of a clear mind; the troubled are doing them for they have no clearness. So the ground is other, but the end is the same.

This is why those who are very enlightened, very spiritual, ever pass through some trouble to be in society; they ever feel ill at ease in society, and society too feels ill at ease to have them. It is a trouble on both sides. For ordinary men do what they do out of some way, some habit, some sway of culture, their schooling, their manner of living, and so many other things; and the realized do things only because they are very clear what to do and what not. They are not following any way, any culture, any schooling; they are not even using their wit; they are doing straightway whatever is in their mind, whatever is very clear to them. So both kinds of men are empty in their end. In the ground there is a difference: one is wholly empty; the other is empty within only because so many thoughts clashed that he reached, you may say, the state of nought. He is nowhere now; his mind is caught, his mind is not working. The realized man's mind is also not working in the ordinary sense, but of clearness. So the end is the same — both do something that ordinary men cannot understand.

And today we are meeting this emptiness. Most men are meeting this inner emptiness, this loneliness, this wavering state — what should they do, in which direction should they move, how should they do it. There is much information, we have so much information, but we know not how to set it in order, how to set all the thoughts in order. We know each and every grain, but we know not how to make the necklace; we know the pearls, but we know not how to thread them into a necklace. So we have lost this thread, this weighty thing by which we might make something creative.

We are empty only because we are losing our creativeness. We have no creativeness. We have much information, but we are not letting our mind make something of it. We are ever caught up in thoughts, but we never strive to make something creative of these thoughts; we are only churning all these thoughts, but no butter comes out. So the chief cause is that we are taking in much and doing nothing with all this information — and this is the cause of the emptiness. Another cause is that we ever have fear. All the while we match ourselves with some man we see upon some platform of the world, with whom we have no dealing, but unknowing we are matching ourselves, and feeling that we are not so able, not so much as they are; and somehow, within ourselves, we are slaying ourselves, raising the sense that we are lesser — that we are nothing in this world, that our worth is nothing. We look upon men who are far above us, but we look not upon the men who have not so much as we have. So we are ever in a state of matching; and this matching is slaying our creativeness, slaying our feeling to live, slaying our passion to live.

I remember a tale. Once a race was held in a village, and it was declared that any might take part. So many men entered this striving. One of those who took part was deaf; he could not hear, and still he took part. As the day of the race drew near, some who were to take part spread word that this race was harmful, for the road was not good, and that it were better not to take part. So many who had made up their minds to take part now made up their minds not to. But the deaf man, who could not hear, still ran. And in the morning he alone came; he began to run very fast, and found that he was the only one, and finished the race so fast, and he was the winner. All were amazed: why had he alone taken part? What had moved him, in spite of all these troubles? Men asked him — this converse was going on in his house — were you not aware of the troubles of this race? Then one of the house came and said: the one you speak to is deaf. And as these words came to their ears, they grasped it: he had taken part only because, being deaf, he had heard none of the word. But the chief thing is how full of eagerness, how full of passion that man was for the race. He heeded not all the troubles, heeded not any trouble, and ran — only because he was deaf, and cared not what went on about him. He was in no state to match himself. To match — we are ever matching ourselves, and ever unmoving ourselves. This is why the speeches that spur, the talks of self-help, all these books do so well: they spur. But at the same time, we ourselves are slaying our own spur. We need no spur from without; we need only to know what we would have. There is so much information, so much guidance, so many counsels, so much advice, that we grow confounded which way to move, whose counsel to take, whose advice to follow. All this information comes, and we are in a state of chaos, a wavering state, where we cannot decide what to do — a palsy of weighing; we cannot weigh, cannot think, what we should do.

And this is why, nowadays, many men say that they are not religious, they are spiritual. And the cause is that religion does not let you take in so much information and give this food to your intellect. For the intellect ever works upon information, and religion does not let in this information; religion lets you be realized — you should realize of yourself, and not, by working upon some information, come to realize a thing. Religion says: realize straightway, take in no information from without. This is why rites are very common there. A rite means the doing-over — to do the same thing over and over, without number, giving no leave, no room to the mind to work upon information. The more you do over some work, the more you find that you are flowing with it, and you are giving nothing to your mind to work upon; your mind grows calm, your intellect grows calm, and in this state your power of beholding grows, and this beholding gives you some insight.

Nowadays it is also a trouble that many men feel weariness, only because they are doing one work over and over — rising in the morning, going to the office, doing the same clerk's work. Is he a builder of engines, he does some reckoning; is he a keeper of accounts, he does some work with numbers; and even a teacher, who has a great charge, is in this doing-over, giving the students the same thing that was given to him, the same yield, nothing new, nothing helpful for life — only some knowledge of books, which is very good for the intellect but not very good for life. So all are living like a machine, a mechanical life. In religion too there are rites, and they are also mechanical — you do one thing over and over — but there is a cause behind it: that one day you will gain some last realization, some silence of the mind.

I remember a Zen tale, from China, from the way of Bodhidharma. Once the head of the Zen monks was thinking who should be the next head of all the monks. He was thinking upon the gifts of so many monks — who was the best, who might be head. So he gave a task to all of them. He called them and said: write down what you have gained in your monkhood, what you have realized, upon the board that hangs without. So the next morning all wrote what they had realized, what they had known. There were forty monks — but only thirty-nine wrote. One wrote nothing. And the head was much amazed: we have forty monks, so why did only thirty-nine write? Who is the fortieth? For none was even aware of him. The head asked all the disciples: who is that fortieth monk? We know we have forty, but we know not who he is. So all began to seek, and they found one man in the kitchen, cutting vegetables and making soup, some food. They came and told him: our head calls you, please come. And when he stood before the head, the head asked him his name, and the man set forth all his tale. He said: I came to you twelve years ago, in a very hard pass, with many troubles of the mind; I came for some healing, some remedy, some counsel, and you told me to go and cut the vegetables in the kitchen and speak to none — and since that day I have been doing only that, cutting vegetables, speaking to none, holding converse with none. Then the head reminded him: thirty-nine men have written their realization; you too have been in this monkhood twelve years, so what have you realized? Could you write anything? He went there, wrote his number, the fortieth, and came back. And the head declared that he would be the next head of all of them. All were amazed: he only wrote his number, and the head chose him as the next head — what came to pass? So they asked the head, in wonder: how did you decide? A few of the monks were so clever, so mighty, so spiritual, so ruled in their ways; they had gone through all the spiritual texts. Why did you not choose one of them? Why did you choose this man, who has not spoken twelve years? And the head said: he wrote the number I gave him, and from his own side he wrote nothing. And this is the realization. This is emptiness. He was doing over the same work — cutting vegetables, making food, cutting vegetables, making food — for twelve years, and he gained at last this emptiness, this peace, this silence.

I am favouring no one religion; we are only speaking. Our matter is: why spirituality, and not religion? Nowadays more men lean to spirituality than to religion. In differing countries it has been seen that the number of men who follow religion falls day by day; men are not going to so many holy places, not upholding religion, but upholding spirituality. We do not go into the contention of whether we should follow it or not; we speak only of the notion. And the notion was the doing-over. This doing-over was not without reason; there was a reason to it. But somehow, in this long passage, we have lost the notion; and as we lost the notion, we lost the chief things of religion too. Spirituality gives us more leave for the intellect, and this is why we move toward it, for there is leave. In the rite there was no such leave — you should do the thing over and not question. And it was very good that there was no leave to ask a question, only the leave to do the thing that had been guided to you, told to you — to do the same thing over without question — for it was calming the mind, the monkey mind; it was staying the monkey mind, saying: do one thing, at the least. For if you do one thing over and over, you make yourself able to go deep into that one thing.

Nowadays it is a trouble that we have no deep experience of anything. We go to some place men journey to, snap some pictures, put them upon some platform of the world, and think that our end in coming to that place is done — but we have realized nothing of that place. We go to some place of nature, take some snaps, and come back, but we realize not the energy, the air, the nature; we are not feeling that nature, not knowing it, only because we have grown so shallow. We go only to show men that yes, we were here. And this little glass, this smartphone — we think it very useful for us, and yes, it is; but on the other end we are over-using it. It is useful so long as we use it to a certain point; but if we cross the bound — anything used beyond a certain point becomes a poison; even a good thing may become a poison. So the smartphone is good, but now we are so bound to it that we care for nothing. Even our neighbour — now we know not who our neighbour is. Now we know not what we are eating; we eat, but we know not the taste of the food.

I remember a jest I read a few days ago. A man ordered soup in an eating-house. The waiter took the order, came back, and gave him the soup. Then, after a few spoons, the man asked the waiter what the soup was made of. And the waiter said: after tasting it, after eating this soup, you could not tell what it is made of — will you be able to tell if I set it forth to you? So our state is such that we are eating and cannot tell what it is made of, for our mind is elsewhere. We are doing one thing here, but our mind is journeying elsewhere. We do everything for other men; we snap the pictures that other men may like them, that other men may say a word. At the least you should feel, and ask your own mind; let your mind say a word upon something, let your mind realize something. But we give not this leave to our mind. We offer everything to others; and if others say a word, if others like it, then we find some joy within; and if they like it not or say no word, then we think nothing good came to pass. So we do everything for other men. And realization, the depth of experience, has now grown so shallow. All our experiences are very shallow; we have no deep experience of anything. We are at home, but we know not what goes on in the home; we know everything that goes on upon the platforms of the world, but not what goes on about us.

Everywhere we look for a nod of worth — for some praise, some approval. Even for a small task we look for some praise. Even small children now ask some approval on finishing every task: if you top the class, if you learn this, I will give you this. And this leaning has grown very harmful for us. We offer something for each and every thing; we let not the child move without a prize, without a gift. In the early twentieth century, many men of the mind tried, and found that reward moves men to work more and more. And nowadays it has grown a poison for us: we give so much reward for each and every thing that the worth of the reward itself has come down — now there is no worth to a reward, for we have a reward only by scrolling, by watching a one- or two-minute picture, a thirty-second picture; we have all this pleasure of the mind that once we had only after a long work of ten, thirteen, fifty years. Once we had some reward after a long toil; now, in one moment, you have all the reward. So we are not going deep into experience; we are only looking for reward. And we are not letting the age that follows live without reward; we begin it in the beginning, and then they grow so bound to reward that they begin to look for it upon the platforms of the world — when none gives them a reward, when they have it not from without, they begin to scroll and have the reward. This is a troublesome pass. First we made the habit, and now they are not ready to leave it; and this is the fruit of childhood — that in childhood we gave them a gift for each and every doing, and now they have the reward of pleasure by themselves. It is a bondage — a bondage of the mind; not the bondage of drink or of tobacco, but one of the mind.

So we must understand what we are feeding to a child, what we are giving them, for what we give a child now will go on with him a long while. So let him be natural. We should find the natural leaning of that child and let him move in that direction, and not give him a gift only because we would have him move in the direction we would. If he find his natural direction, he will ask no gift; he will move by himself, will ask nothing, will move by his own passion. But somehow we meddle with his passion, for we think his passion will earn nothing, will bring him nothing in life, and so we turn his passion in another direction — and for that we must give him some prize, some gift. And of man's nature: some say that man by nature is very good, and some say that man by nature is not so good. There are two theories, one bright and one dark. In the social contract, Rousseau said that man by default is very good; but some other thinkers say that man by default is not good. So we feed a child in such a way that in his coming years he suffers, only because he is not following his own passion; he is following the direction given him by his parents, by society, by the way of schooling; and because of this he is now bound — bound to reward, to some gift — and so he scrolls and has some reward. He is not following his passion, not following his own inner self; he is following something that is not his own.

And religion works in another direction. Again — I favour no religion; I say not that you should be religious or spiritual. We speak only of what is good in religion, of what is now weighty for us — the doing-over. Behind the rites there was a reason: that you should follow one rite a long while, that you may at the least make your mind calm and begin to behold. For when you do over some work without cease, your mind grows calm, and you begin to see deep within that rite, to see something deep in anything. This is very good; and it is a good thing that we too should do something that lets us see something much deeper. But these rites grew mechanical. Now there is no reason for the doing, for we know it not. When something begins, there is ever some reason for beginning it; but as we move on in time, we stick only to the rite, only to that one doing, and we somehow lose the reason behind it. And this is the cause that men now do not follow religion. I say not that you should follow religion; but at the least there is something in it that is weighty for us, and we should take these things up. We should not deny everything wholly; we should take what is good — and everywhere you may find something good, everywhere. We should not deny everything wholly only because it is now the way to deny. We should keep what is weighty.

And life too has grown mechanical. As the rites have grown mechanical, in the same way life has grown mechanical. We are doing the same things — rising in the morning, going to the work, working, eating, sleeping — but mechanically. Just as we followed religion mechanically, with no notion behind these things, in the same way we are living life with no notion behind the doing of all these things; we are doing everything mechanically. So life grows more wearisome. And nowadays we are not living life; we are passing life. We are, in truth, not living the life — for to live the life is a very other thing, and to pass the life is what we see now. There is no joy in it, no eagerness, no passion for this life; we only pass, we live mechanically. Rise in the morning, ready yourself for the work, and do the work — mechanical work, clerk's work, the same work, no use of the brain, only work done over and over. And this doing-over brings weariness to us. As the rites of religion bring some weariness, in the same way life brings weariness, for everything is mechanical — no newness, no creativeness, nothing. We have much information, much data, many little engines, but we know not how to be creative with all this information, for we are flooded with information; and when there is a flood, you cannot till anything. You can till something only when there is a fitting rain; if there be a flood, you cannot till, cannot grow anything.

So we are living a mechanical life, and this life grows a burden for us — a burden only because there is no creativeness. There is a flood, a flood of information, but in this flood we cannot grow anything, for to grow, to till anything, we need something in measure, and that we have somehow lost. So the emptiness — nowadays we are empty. It is not the emptiness of having nothing; it is the emptiness of having so much and having nothing to do with it. There is a flood; the water is there, but we cannot grow anything, cannot till anything, for the water is so much. So we may say that in the desert there is nothing, no plant; and in the flooded land, the same, there is no plant. Both are empty, both without a plant. So in one place we may say emptiness is of the lack of something; and in the other we may say emptiness is there, but not of the lack of something — of the abundance of something. There is a greatness of something; the water is great there, and you cannot grow anything. So the emptiness nowadays is another kind of emptiness. It is not spiritual emptiness. At the high level of spirituality you also feel emptiness, but that emptiness is something else — it is lack, a desert, the lack of each and every thought. That emptiness is other. But the emptiness we are passing through now is another emptiness; it is the emptiness of flood. We have so much information, but we cannot make anything of it. And it is also the emptiness of so many goods being to hand — a confounding of choice. We are so confounded what to choose. You may have so many kinds of one thing, and now you are confounded; so many engines for one thing, so many food-goods, so many books upon one matter, and you are confounded. Everywhere there is a strife — one says this theory is right, one says that theory is right, this psychology, this ground, this dogma; so many theories, so many grounds, so many rules, so many laws, and which is right, none knows, for we have no clearness in our mind which is right. All theories are right, and all theories are wrong; it hangs upon us.

If I live in some place where I should not use much salt, and there is some other place where men use much salt — then to use salt hangs upon the place, the world about, the climate. So one study may say that to use salt is ill, and another that it is harmful. A paper of study loosed a few days ago said that women, in the main, have low blood pressure, and so they may use more salt — five to seven grams a day, or a little more than seven — but a man should not use more than five grams. For the growing of man and of woman shows that man has ever been the fierce one, since he went out for the hunt, for differing work without the home, while women stayed at home doing work that asked not so much fierceness, so much energy; and so, of the growing, women have low blood pressure, and may take more salt than a man. So now both studies are right — one says you may use more salt, the other that you should not — and both are right, but both are relative: it is of who should use and who should not. Information is so much, but we must reason which information fits me. If a man read that we may use more salt, what will come to pass? It will be unhealthy for him; and he will name the source — I read this trial, I read this book, and there it was set down that you may use up to seven grams. The theory was right; but for whom was it fit? It was fit for women only, not for men. So we must understand things in the relative sense, and for that we need some room in our mind — some room to think upon that information. If we let not our mind think upon the information, how shall we be helped by it?

So nowadays emptiness is of much information, not of the lack of information. Lack means nothing — the mind wholly blank, just like a blank slate. Both emptinesses we cannot call good; but the one, the spiritual emptiness, is very good, while the emptiness made by this information is not good for us. So we must be very careful whether this emptiness is good or not good for us. The end will be the same — a man very spiritual and a man not spiritual, both empty, the end the same; from without you will see both doing the same mad things, but within there is another state of mind. So we must understand which kind of emptiness we bear — whether it be spiritual, or whether it be something of chaos.

So we must give room for creativeness. We should not use everything up; rather, we should take a pause and give a room to think upon the information. And we should not take in all the information that is not needful for us; we should take in what is needful, not the unneedful. We should take what is weighty for ourselves, and not deny a thing only because it seems of no use. We should be spiritual — but we should not lay ourselves open even to a kind of spirituality that is not good for us. So we must be careful what we should deny and what we should take. We should be open to each and every thing, and be very much aware what we should take, and whence we should take it. Nothing is good; nothing is ill; all hangs upon our reason — upon what we are taking, and how we are using it. And if we may make our life happy by taking something that other men are denying, then we should not deny it only because all others deny it. We should not follow the crowd; we should hear ourselves, feel ourselves; then alone may we realize. So ever be aware what to deny and what to take. Go not too much into the ground of what it was and how it is now; only take what is good, and strive to make your life happy with it. For we are here in this world to live a life of peace and happiness — not to judge what is wrong, what is ill, what is unfit, what is allowed and what not. Only be reasonable; think for yourself which is good and which is not good. For our whole end here in this world is to feel ourselves, to make our life happy. So make your life happy — but make no man's life unhappy. Strive to make your life happy without troubling any other's. Give counsel to none; give a word of advice to none; if none is asking, give it not. Meddle not in any man's life; let them live their life. Whatever good you have of anything, of any man, only take it and make your life happy. For the last thing is how you are living; that is what is weighty, and that is the last end of our life. There is a saying — I know not whose it is — that how long you lived matters not; how you lived, that is what matters. So our end is how we are living our life; and to live a good life we must be very reasonable, and we should not look upon and meddle in some other man's life. We should look into our own life, look into the self, take what is good, and deny what is not good for us. We take things only because they are common, in fashion, liked by so many, counselled by so many — take them not for that cause. Many liked something, said a word, gave their rating — and only for that, we take it; do it not. First have the experience of it yourself, whether it be truly needful for you; then, by your own experience, with your own realization, take something, and deny something. Follow not some other man — follow yourself. The more and more you follow yourself, your own self will give you the right direction, the right counsel, the right light too. For the inner light is the weightiest thing. In India men commonly say that the light of the heart is weightier than the light of the world, the light of the sun. So our inner light is weightier than any other counsel, any other information, anything else. So we should look for, and find, that inner light, which may guide us in each and every pass of our life.