The Ultimate Alchemy

Talks on the Atma Pooja Upanishad

There are some points to ponder over before we step into the unknown. The unknown is the message of the Upanishads. The basic, the most foundational, always remains unknown; that which we know is always superficial.  So some points must be understood before we can go deep into the realm of the unknown. These three words -- the known, the unknown, and the unknowable -- must be understood first, because the Upanishads are concerned with the unknown only as a beginning. They end into the unknowable.  The known realm becomes science, the unknown is philosophy and the unknowable belongs to religion.
 Philosophy is the link between the known and the unknown, between science and religion.

Philosophy is totally concerned with the unknown. The moment something becomes known, it becomes part of science; it remains no more a part of philosophy.  So the more science grows, the more philosophy is pushed ahead.  The field that becomes known becomes science, and philosophy is the link between science and religion.  So as science progresses, philosophy has to be pushed ahead because it can only be concerned with the unknown. But the more philosophy proceeds ahead, the more religion is pushed ahead, because religion is basically concerned with the unknowable.
The Upanishads begin with the unknown; they end with the unknowable. That's how misunderstanding arises...


So before we enter this mystery, some points have to be understood, otherwise there will be no entrance.
One is how to listen, because there are different dimensions of listening. You can listen with your intellect, with your reason. Mm? -- that is one way of listening to a thing: the most common, the most ordinary and the most shallow -- because with reason you are always either in defense or in attack. With reason you are always fighting, so whenever someone tries to understand something through reason he is fighting with the thing.
At the most, a very rudimentary understanding is possible, just an acquaintance is possible. The deeper meaning is bound to be missed because the deeper meaning requires a very sympathetic listening.
 Reason can never listen with sympathy. It listens with a very argumentative background. It can never listen with love; that is impossible.  So listening with reason is good if you are trying to understand mathematics, if you are trying to understand logic, if you are trying to understand any system which is totally rational.
If you listen to poetry with reason, then you will be blind. It is as if one is trying to see with one's ears or hear with one's eyes. You cannot understand poetry through reason.

So there is a deeper understanding, the second type of understanding, which is not through reason but through love, through feeling, through emotion, through heart.
Reason is always in conflict; reason will not allow anything to pass in easily. Reason must be defeated; only then can something penetrate. It is an armour around the mind; it is a defense method, a defense measure. It is alert every moment that nothing should pass without it being aware, and that nothing should be allowed -- unless reason is defeated. And even when reason is defeated the thing is not going to your heart, because in defeat you cannot feel sympathetic.


The second dimension of listening is through heart, through feeling. Someone is listening to music; then no analysis is needed. Of course, if you are a critic, then you will not be able to understand music. You may be able to understand the mathematics, the meter, the language, everything about music -- but never music itself; because music cannot be analyzed. It is a whole. It is a totality. If you wait for a single second to analyze it, you have missed much. It is a flowing totality. Of course, paper music can be analyzed, but never real music when it is there, playing. So you cannot stand aloof, you cannot be an observer. You have to be a participant. If you participate, only then do you understand.
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So the first thing to remember is how to listen just by your presence. Absorb through your faith and trust -- drink! Do not fight with reason, do not feel with feeling. Just be one with your being. This is the key -- the first thing.


The second thing is that the Upanishads use words, they have to use them, but they stand for silence. They talk and they talk continuously, but they talk for silence. The effort is absurd, paradoxical, contradictory, inconsistent -- but this is how it is possible, this is the only way. Even if I have to provoke you toward silence, I have to use words. They use words, but they are completely against words and language; they are not for them. This must be remembered continuously; otherwise it is very easy to be lost in words.
Words have their own magic, they have their own magnetism., And each word creates a sequence of its own. Novelists know, poets know. They say sometimes they only begin their novel. When it ends, they cannot say they have ended it. Really, the words have their own sequence. They begin to be alive in their own way, and then they go on.
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Thirdly: I am not going to comment on the Upanishad, because commentary can only be something concerned with intellect. Rather, I am going to respond, not comment. Response is a different thing -- altogether different. You whistle in a valley or you sing a song or you play on a bamboo flute, and the valley echoes. reechoes, reechoes. The valley is not commenting: the valley is responding.
A response is a living thing; a commentary is bound to be dead. A response means that the Upanishad will be read here -- I will not comment on it; I will just become a valley and give an echo. It will be difficult to understand it, because even if the echo is authentic you may not be able to get the same sound back.

You may not be able to find out the relevance, because when a valley responds, when it echoes something, that echo is not just a passive echo -- it is creative. The valley adds much. The nature of the valley adds much. A different valley will echo differently. That is how things should be. So when I say something, it is not meant that everyone is bound to say this. This is how my valley echoes it.

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