Techniques for Liberation — Jain Sutras Decoded

Understand these simple one or two techniques that may give you the real liberation - freedom from the known. Whatever you know, or whatever you think as boundaries for your senses, is the only difficulty. That is the real problem. The ideas which you are already carrying about what you can and what you can't do is the main problem.

As of now you have a program, 'If I do all these things, by then my senses should become tired or I should have excitement,' 'If I eat all these things I will feel excited in my senses,' or 'If I do all these things I will become tired.' These boundaries which you are carrying for yourself is the most dangerous thing. You do not allow the natural process to happen through you, you do not allow the automatic updating system.

See, each of your senses is so powerful, it can update itself if you allow its intelligence to express itself.

Patanjali says beautifully, 'With more and more experience, your senses are supposed to become sharper and stronger.' But as age grows, you actually become weaker and duller. Why? Because you hypnotize yourself.

See, the more you enjoy you always think and also expect that your senses will become dull. You are hypnotized. You are taught again and again, the more you use your senses, there is every possibility your senses will become duller and duller.

One important Truth you don't understand: living inside the senses even when they are not directly used for enjoyment is the main reason for dulling the senses.

Understand, it is a very important secret. Living inside your senses even when they are not being used for pleasure or joy is the main reason why you make your senses dull and dead.

Let me give you an example, then you will be able to relate with the idea which I am saying: having unnecessary anger, unnecessary lust, unnecessary taste, which is not directly useful to your life. For example, your anger towards Saddam Hussein is not going to do anything. Can you do anything about him? No.

But when you see some news, some people who are not directly related to your life, or some incident which you don't have direct contribution or direct part in, you cherish it, you enjoy it. For example, if you belong to a particular religion, and some other religious leader is assassinated, you just cherish that information. You enjoy it, you want to listen to that once more.

Many times if you are conditioned for some religion or society or country, if the opposite side or the enemy is killed, you just cherish and enjoy even though you have no direct relationship with that. In the same way lust - enjoying the fantasies with persons with whom you can never connect with in the physical level, in the personal level, you can't even imagine seeing them, but you enjoy those fantasies. Living with the fantasies which are not directly related to your life, which are not going to enrich your life, which are not going to add anything to your life, is what I call living inside the senses even while you are not deriving pleasure directly from them.

Understand, it is very important to understand this, how we waste our life, how we waste our energy. Living inside the senses while you are really deriving excitement or pleasure, you do not lose energy, because your senses are created to sense or to experience. For example, when you are seeing something which gives you pleasure, it is not even eyes which are seeing. Through the eyes you are seeing. Chakshu is the energy which sees through the eyes. Whenever the chakshu comes in contact with a beautiful scene and derives pleasure in the two points of the eyes, it does not make your senses dull.

When your eyes are closed, you are not directly seeing those scenes. But those scenes are going inside your eyes, the fantasy about that place is there in front of your eyes. For example, whenever you see a beach or a hill or a snow mountain in television, you always have a fantasy that you should be there, that you should see those scenes and enjoy.

But the big difficulty is, when you go there you don't have the joy. Actually when you go there, when you are on the spot, you are only thinking when to get out of that place and what to do next.

The real reason why you want to go there is, deep down every person has got a thirst to just disappear somewhere where you will not be recognized, where you don't have to hold your identity to protect you, where you don't need your identity for survival.

So whenever you see a distant place, where you are clear that nobody knows you, you always want to go there, but after going there you try to establish this same old nonsensical identity to everybody. To whoever is staying there you tell, 'Hey, do you know who I am? Do you know who I am? Do you know who I am?' In two days the whole world knows, and again you want to escape from that place - because now again you have to keep your identity to protect you!

Understand, you want to go to a new place but the main reason is so that nobody will recognize you, you will be away from your identity. But after going there you try to establish your identity and create more suffering and try to escape from that place also.

Anyhow, understand this one important Truth when actually the pleasure is happening through your senses, when actually you are deriving pleasure through the senses.

Sense means the eye or the nose or the tongue or the ear or the touch. These are called senses. Your consciousness when it touches all the five senses, takes different names. When it touches your eyes it is called chakshu, when it touches your ears it is called ghrana, when it touches your tongue it is called vak?. It takes different names.

Actually when these senses meet the object, pleasure happens in you. In the exact moments in which the pleasure itself is happening, your senses do not become dull or tired. But when you try to fantasize and keep yourself in that same excitement, that is the moment your senses become dull.

Understand, this secret will help you how to go beyond the senses without missing the pleasures. Let me be very honest, people come and tell me, 'In this young age you have become a swami,' they feel very sympathetic. But I tell you honestly, I feel sympathetic towards them, these people are still suffering with the body, still caught in the world, and do not know the intense pleasure or bliss which you achieve when you don't live inside the senses, when you don't receive the pleasure.

Understand, in your case you may receive that pleasure through the eyes, few minutes per day. Few minutes in your day you may see some good scenes which you really enjoy, which you want to see again and again. But you spend the whole day sitting inside your eyes. What I mean by the words 'sitting inside your eyes and spending the whole day' is, you can see even while you are not enjoying the pleasures or beautiful things through your eyes a lot of things will be crossing inside your eyes. When your eyes are closed, you can see constantly the scenes which you want to see or which you see will be crossing unnecessarily. That is what tires your senses.

Let me give you one more important secret, this is also from Patanjali: person who is filled with fantasy will not be able to enjoy the reality.

Person who is constantly fantasizing even about sex will not be able to really enjoy the moment if it happens in the physical level. When in physical reality, when the other person is there, he will not be able to enjoy.

In the same way, the person who is constantly fantasizing about food will only fill himself, he will never feel fulfilled. You see, filling yourself is totally different from feeling fulfilled. A person who feels fulfilled will never fill himself.

Obesity means that person is not enjoying the food, that is the Truth. You always think obesity comes because you enjoy the food too much. No. Obesity means you are not enjoying food. You are only filling yourself with too much of fantasies about food.

In Bharat if you drive on the highway you can find out a small village is coming up, by seeing the temple tower. In the West, you can find out a county is coming up, by seeing the fast food tower. There is so much of publicity for food! You are constantly reminded about food. God saved me, I was born and brought up in Hindu villages!

You should cook and eat. Especially the seekers are requested by all the traditions including Mahāvīra, to cook and eat. The monks in Jaina tradition or the Vedic tradition are not supposed to accept food specially cooked for them. They are supposed to cook and eat. Do you know the reason?

If you cook yourself, you will feel a little tired and eat only once or twice a day. If it is readymade and directly available everywhere, you will think, 'Why not one more?' Understand, you are not enjoying the food, that is the Truth.

See, muscles are the place where you store the memory. Understand, you can't think by forgetting your body. Try to imagine, try to visualize your body is burnt, and you don't have a body, and try to think. You will not be able to think even one thought.

To burn the samskaras, there is a beautiful technique in Jainism and Buddhism. Both religions use the technique: sitting and visualizing as if your body is burnt and you don't have a body. You may think how that can remove the samskaras or the engrams. It is because your muscles are the places where you store your memories and from where you retrieve the memories.

Now understand these few things, then you will be able to correlate and see. You start storing many memories inside your senses even while you are not using them, while you are not deriving pleasure from them. For example, your memories about food, even while you are not eating, are getting stored inside your senses. And when really the food comes in front of you, you think you should finish at least this much and you try to grab and fill with the idea you will have more pleasure if you eat more.

In fantasies, if you fantasize for more time, you will have that excitement. But in reality it is not true. It is not based on quantity, it is based on the quality. In fantasy it is based on quantity, in reality it is based on quality.

In fantasy with your pleasure about eating or sex or listening, you always think, 'Oh, I received pleasure by listening to one song for five minutes. If I listen for three hours then I will have three hours pleasure.' No. In the five minutes you receive pleasure because in those five minutes you are intense. Try to do that same thing for three hours, and the pleasure never continues.

But in fantasy you always calculate based on your logic. In fantasy you are not in reality. You conveniently forget important data. You conveniently forget many important data for pleasure. In reality, you will see that you are not experiencing pleasure anymore. But you do not want to say to yourself that you are not deriving pleasure because you created too much of hope on that sense. So you try to force your sense, 'No, no you are going to have pleasure. Enjoy more, don't leave, don't stop. Maybe now you are not having, maybe tomorrow you will have, don't stop.'

First thing, you create more fantasies. I don't know whether I am exactly expressing or making you understand what I am saying because it is such a subtle Truth, such an important Truth. And when you go deeper and deeper it is very difficult to reproduce the same understanding.

And moreover there are some things which you cannot talk openly also. When it comes to senses talking too much openly becomes a taboo. If I give some sharp examples you will understand that in fantasy whether it is seeing or touching or tasting, it gives so much of joy the more time you spend in fantasy. But in reality itself suddenly you feel you are done.

You don't have any more that drive. Your system is tired. It wants to move away from the food or the sense pleasure or that object. Why? See the sense - eye or tongue or the touch - that sense is there, the object is there.

Your power, your energy, consciousness is there, the object comes and touches the senses, and connects with your consciousness, all three of them are there together as long as you feel excited or new about the object which you are enjoying.

The moment you think 'Oh I know this object,' once it becomes known, your consciousness moves away to something else. Then even if the sense objects are touching your senses you don't derive pleasure.

Once your consciousness moves away, even if the sense objects are touching your senses it is no more pleasure. But now you feel empty because you expected too much from the sense objects. You had too much of expectation from the sense objects, you were thinking they will give you totally different feeling, they will show you a different world. You do not understand the limitations of the senses, and you think we will derive the pleasure eternally. No.

But now you do not want to accept the reality that it is not going to be eternal because you believe it. You tell your senses, 'No, no, no, try once more, try little more. Try little more, you will have it. You can have it.' You force, the forcing happens because you have more memories about those sense objects or those pleasures than you can enjoy. You have more memories than your capacity, that is where the difficulty starts.

Living a simple innocent life is, when your senses want to enjoy you come in contact with the sense objects, and your senses enjoy. The moment you feel that you know this joy and you relax the sense objects also relax. It is such a beautiful experience, such an innocent phenomenon. It is so beautiful it will only enrich your senses, you will never feel tired. But our lives are not so simple, we do not let go so easily, so freely, so joyfully.

We catch, we hang on. Even after our senses tell us, 'Enough, we are done, relax,' you say, 'No, who said? Once more, let us have once more.' We just try to be more greedy because of too many memories recorded inside the senses. Here only we create problem and not only that, we stay inside those senses when it is not necessary also.

As of now you are not really enjoying, there are some senses which you are not really enjoying. But it is not that you come away from them. You think, 'Who knows, anytime I may get some object? Why unnecessarily move away from the sense and then again enter? Let us wait.'

You wait inside every sense, that is why you are not full in any sense. Because half of your energy is sitting with your eyes, half of your energy is sitting with your ears, half of your energy is sitting with the tongue, half of your attention is sitting with touch. Then how do you think you will feel fulfilled with one sense? No.

So when Mahāvīra says here, 'Go beyond the five senses of touch, smell, sight, taste and hearing,' he is not telling you to kill the senses. He is telling you to live inside only them when it is required.

You may ask how to do that. The best way is whatever you are enjoying, be intense so that your whole attention comes away from the other senses. Now if you are sitting and seeing me, visualize for few minutes I will not do anything except seeing. Let your whole being become seeing. Let your whole energy be only in the eyes. Visualize clearly you are nothing more than the eyes, nothing but eyes. Just eyes, forget about all other parts. Visualize there are only two eyes seeing me. Seeing what is going on, forget all other senses.

Suddenly you will see this rose will look deeper, this green will look greener. You will see things more intensely. You will see the things deeply, you may not need lights. You need lights because you have lost light in your eyes. Your seeing is corrupted.

Your seeing is covered by a film of thinking, you have always a film in front of you which is called thinking. As long as you have that film, the thinking film in front of your eyes, you will never be able to see. You will never be able to see the reality.

In the same way, sit in your chair and touch something for five minutes, and visualize that you are alive only in that few inches space. Your whole body is dead and you don't have any other parts except those few square inches. Be alive only on that, suddenly you will see your whole attention and energy is gathering towards one sense. This is what we call pratyahara, moving away from unnecessary senses.

Understand, pratyahara does not mean moving away from all senses. I am not even asking you to move away from all senses. If you move away from all senses you will fall into depression. No. Move away from unnecessary senses, the senses which are not directly useful in that moment.

This moment naturally you don't need few of your senses, for example taste. Now you don't need the taste because you are sitting and seeing. You may need eyes and ears, move yourself completely to that and relax from all the other three senses of smell, touch and taste. Just move yourself away from all the three and be only hearing and seeing. Suddenly you will see you become intense and that tiredness or feeling sleepy will disappear.

You feel sleepy if you are distributed to all your senses. You do not have that intensity, that is why you feel tired and sleepy, and you are thinking of something else when you are sitting here. You yawn, yawn, and just if the next person pokes at you, you say, 'I am listening, I am listening. You listen, why are you disturbing me? I am okay, you do.' And even that you don't want to tell in full words because if you utter full words, your sleep may get disturbed! So you just say 'Hmm'!

You say you are listening in a deep meditative state. I always tell people, 'Please do not meditate while you are listening!' Because actually I know that they are not meditating! Sometimes it becomes too much to keep your eyes open. You just feel like, 'Why not have a small nap? Just a few minutes after all.'

In Bharat for people who have got houses near the railway track, if the train does not cross and create sound they wake up from bed. Understand, they are tuned, if a train does not come on time and if the sound is not clear, if that noise is not created, they wake up from sleep. If there are too many memories inside your eyes and if you are using your eyes even while you are not seeing, your eyes will become tired.

You can understand this example: in the night, you are not seeing anything worthy but you use your eyes and see the dreams. Understand this one example. You use your eyes and see the dreams, memories recorded inside your eyes, fantasies recorded inside your eyes. And you are tired next day morning when you get up.

If your sleep was filled with dreams you will be tired early morning. If you had a dreamless sleep you will feel so fresh, alive. All the memories which are stored in your muscles fight with each other and come out illogically. They give you the experiences in turn and that is what you call a dream.

All the memories which you stored in your muscles come out, fight with each other and give you all illogical experiences. The unconnected, completely broken disturbed experiences is what you call as a dream next day morning. It will not be logical. You will be with your wife but you will be thinking you are studying for your college examinations. It is completely illogical. There is no time, no space. The dreams are completely disconnected and disturbed.

The sage should go beyond the five senses of touch, smell, sight, taste and hearing. In all the worlds including the celestial regions the attachment to the sense pleasures is the root cause of physical as well as mental suffering.

Understand, he says, even celestial regions people are sometimes ready to renounce this world but not heaven. People do tapas, control their senses so that they will achieve heaven in the other world. What are they going to have in heaven? Higher level enjoyments. People don't drink here, and if you ask why, they say, 'No, no, we will go there because we get soma rasa'. Who knows nowadays whether they serve there or not!

Please do not give up these senses for that pleasure, no. Then it is a bargain. Give up out of understanding, that is okay, but not for some other sense enjoyments. Person who follows such a strict brahmacharya goes beyond mental and physical sufferings. You expand, you go beyond mental and physical sufferings. All beings including devas, gandharvas, rakshasas, danavas, yakshas, salute such a being.

One more important thing, when we say all beings including devas, gandharvas, rakshasas, danavas, yakshas salute such a being, not only the so called devatas who are in the metaphysical plane, even your own energies salute, your own energies surrender themselves to that being who has gone beyond the senses.

When you see somebody who has really gone beyond the senses, without even your knowledge all your senses will just sit in front of him like a pet. They will just sit, you will feel completely relaxed, in tune and completely at ease. Such brahmacharya is eternal and ultimate and never ending. By this several have become siddhas in the past or becoming siddhas now and continue to become siddhas in the future. He says this is the technique: going beyond the five senses, not living inside your senses when you are not directly deriving enjoyment from them.

Do not waste your emotions like anger or lust when you are not really enjoying. Use your anger when it is directly needed for your business or your comforts or your luxury. Do not waste it by cherishing the violent information like somebody is killed or somebody is murdered or somebody is kidnapped. See, you affiliate yourself with some religion, some nation, and if the other enemies or the opposite party is suffering, you feel enjoyment.

Usually you affiliate yourself, you have some sympathy towards one party, one political party. Always both parties are going to go through ups and downs, but whenever you see the opposite party is going through some ups and downs, some difficulties, you enjoy it, 'Yes, yes, let these fellows suffer. They need it.' You suffer, you cherish, you enjoy your violence and anger for no reason. Directly you don't receive anything, you are not going to do anything. You have no role to play, but you just cherish.

In the same way you are seeing so many things on the television or cinema which create fantasy. Directly you are not even going to see that person, but you just enjoy. You enjoy the fantasy, and waste your lust towards the objects which are not directly going to give you the pleasure.

In the same way, you waste your anger which is not directly going to add to your life. Use the emotions only in the way in which your life is enriched. If emotions are used only to enrich your life you are living a beautiful life. But many times you waste your emotions in a way in which your life is not directly enriched.

You can see vengeance many times. If you hear that some opposite party is suffering, you feel a subtle joy, 'Yes, yes, those fellows, they deserve it!' So do not waste your emotions. That is why Mahāvīra says, 'Do not enjoy even mentally if your enemy is suffering,' that is like wasting your emotions, wasting your energy, tiring yourself unnecessarily. Your mind, your stress, your tension, everything is just because you live inside your senses even while you are not receiving pleasure or excitement directly from them. That is where the whole difficulty is.

With a person who doesn't have memories in His muscles, who is not living inside His senses when he is not receiving pleasure, His body will look so graceful. It won't be ugly. When it becomes so graceful, he won't feel like covering it. That is why Mahāvīra lives a naked life, because he did not have memory. He did not have memory of any outer world. He did not have memory of any sense pleasures. No memory was stored in His muscles. He is so beautiful, so natural, because he has nothing unnatural.