On Where to Seek

A woman was searching for something. From the morning she had been searching. Those who went out to the field came home at evening and found the same old woman still searching. So they asked her, in wonder: what do you seek? When we passed this way in the morning, we saw you searching; and now, coming home, we see you searching still. What do you seek? And she said: I have lost my necklace, and I am searching for it. Then the whole company said to her: that necklace hangs already at your neck. And the woman was struck with wonder — that the whole day she had sought this necklace, and the necklace was at her neck all the while.

What we seek is clear enough: we seek the necklace. But where we seek — there is the question. Many a man is searching; many a man knows what he seeks; yet he knows not where he should search, in what quarter, in what direction he should move. And it is not clear. In our day it is a great confusion: every student is confused, every young man is confused — we may say every man is confused — as to which way to move, which stream to choose, what kind of work to do. In matters of the heart too: should we wed, or not; where should we dwell, where not. So the question is not of the what; it is of the where. Where? Where have we lost it, and where should we seek?

In the ancient philosophy, and in psychology too, they sought the what — what is psychology, what is science, what is philosophy. But an age came when science began to ask how a thing comes to pass. Now they forgot what science is, what psychology is, what philosophy is. Now the question of the what is not weighty; the question of how a thing comes to pass — that is weighty. For we cannot find the last truth, but we can find how things work. “What is this?” is not the weighty question. How does this thing work? What is the process? — that is weighty. And modern science works wholly upon this ground: how things work — how gravity works, how electricity works, how the magnetic force works. So they seek the question “how” — how each and every thing works, how the neurons speak to one another, how the clouds are formed. Science now asks but one question: how do these things come to pass? There is no other. The question of the what is now not weighty; that was a question of the ancient day — what is this, what is that. These are outworn questions.

So in our day we should all be well aware that we should not ask “what is this?” What is spirituality? — this question is of no use. What is religion? — this question is of no use. The question is how spirituality works, how things work. That is weighty, for the moment we grasp the process, how they work, we may gain the more, we may stand in a state the more fruitful. For “what is philosophy, what is psychology, what is religion” will give you nothing. They will only tell you that this is religion, this philosophy, this psychology, this spirituality. But these words will not work for you. In the end you must do something to gain what they speak of. What is spirituality? — they may set it forth to you very well. But would it make any sense to you? No. In the end you must practise; in the end you must realize; in the end you must know the process — how we may gain what spirituality promises, what religion promises, what science promises. In the end we must do it, must practise it, must bring it into our doing. Then it will work for us. So the question of the what is now not so weighty in any stream of learning, of thought, of ideology. The weighty question is how things work — what the ground rule is upon which they all work. How does light work? How do particles work? How do atoms work? So now the question is: how does spirituality work? How does your mind work? How do your thoughts work? That is weighty.

The woman was searching, but she knew not where she should search. So the next question is the “where.” Where should we begin? We seek a great many things, but from where should we begin? There must be a starting point; there must be some quarter from which to set out. So the first question, the what, is not weighty; the question of the how is weighty now; and the next is the where — where we may gain what we seek, where we may find what we search for. So first the how, and then the where: how things work, and where they work.

In the sixteenth century they made a clock to keep the time; they made the clock and tried it. But they found that these clocks did not work upon a long voyage — that when they voyaged over the seas, from one continent to another, the clocks did not show the true time. Then, after long study, they found the cause: near the equator the pull of gravity is weaker, and by this the clocks did not work aright. So they made a new clock, and tried it again, and found that now the clocks worked truly everywhere. So where the clock works and where it does not — this we must find. To make a thing, to fashion a thing, is not enough. Newton found certain laws, the laws of motion. But these laws of motion did not work when a few men of science began to study the motion of the planet Mercury — at what motion Mercury turns. They found that Newton's laws did not work there. Then they took Einstein's formula, and found that Einstein's relativity worked there, where Newton's laws did not. So where things work and where they do not — that is weighty. And where should we seek the last things we seek, where shall we gain them? Would we try the clock, we must try it everywhere, to see whether it works or not. Would we try Newton, we must try everywhere, to see whether the laws work or not.

In the same way, when the question of spirituality comes, we must also find where these spiritual laws work — where all these things work, where meditation works and where it does not. Yes, it may be a wonder to hear that there is somewhere meditation does not work. But meditation too does not work everywhere. It may be a wonder, for we hold some notion of meditation. As in ancient days, before the beginning of any civilization, when men were but hunters and gatherers, they thought the gods of nature did everything — that all hung upon God; whatever God did, that would come to pass; all was under the hand of God, and nothing beyond it. But an age came when men of science proved that all is mechanical, that all comes to pass by certain laws, and that now nothing is in the hand of God. In the same way, meditation too does not work everywhere. Meditation works — but everything has its bound. Where meditation works, and where it does not: if we know where meditation works, we may very easily grasp where we should use this practice, this means — where we should use this instrument. We have so many things in the mind that we seek to solve in our day-to-day life — our conflicts, our troubles of mind, our troubles of thought or of feeling — and we take the help of meditation. There, at the level of the mind, of thought, of feeling, it works. It works — but it does not work everywhere.