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’Why?’ is a wrong question to ask. Things simply are. There is no why to them.

The question why, once accepted, will lead you farther and farther into philosophy, and philosophy is a wasteland. You will not find any oasis there, it is desert. Ask the question ’why?’ and you have started moving in a wrong direction; you will never come home.

Existence is, there is no why to it. That’s what we mean when we say it is a mystery, because there is no why to it. In fact it should not be there and it is. There seems to be no need for it to be there, no reason for it to be there, and it is there.

’Why’ is a mind question.

And now you can be in a very great puzzle, because the mind is asking a question about itself: ”Why is the mind?” The question comes from the mind, the answers will come from the mind, and the mind is capable of turning each answer into a new question. You will be moving in a vicious circle. To ask the question ’why?’ is to fall into the trap of the mind. You will have to see to it. The question ’why?’ has to be dropped; that’s the meaning of trust.

Mind is. We can try to see what it is, how it is, but we cannot know the why. To know the why we will have to go to the very beginning of existence, and there has never been a beginning. To know the why we will have to go to the very bottom of it, and there is no bottom. To know the why we will have to move to the foundation, but there is no foundation.

That’s the difference between a philosophic inquiry and a religious search. Philosophy asks why and gets lost more and more in the mire of the question ’why?’ Religion is not concerned with why, science is not concerned with why.

The approach of science and religion is pragmatic. It is practical, utterly practical. Ask the question ”What is mind?” because then there is a possibility. Because the mind is there, you are there, you can look into it, you can observe it, you can watch it and you can know what it is. Awareness can reveal its secret. To know why you will have to move backwards, into the beginning of things. That is not possible.

Ask ”What is mind?” and soon you will be able to see the reality of it.

Mind is nothing but the process of thinking, the traffic of thought. There exists not some faculty called mind. It is like a mirror. A mirror can be in two states: one is when the mirror is reflecting something – people are passing and the mirror reflects, pictures arise and disappear. This is the state of the mind: onsciousness is reflecting outside reality. Then the other state of the mirror is when nothing is reflected, nothing is passing by. The mirror is utterly silent, no picture arises. This is meditation.

Mind is a state of consciousness when the outer world is reflected in, and meditation is a state of the same consciousness when the outer world is not reflected in. Mind and meditation are two aspects of the same reality called consciousness. Mind is burdened with the outside. Meditation is a state of unburdened consciousness, nothing is reflected, consciousness is in its purity. There is no foreign matter moving inside it. Mind is nothing but consciousness reacting to reality, and meditation is nothing but consciousness simply there, not reflecting anything.

There is no need to fight with the mind; just understanding, awareness, observation, and mind starts dissolving.

Yous ask "Why is the mind? It seems to be a very real part of our being. I would dig to function without it, but why, why is it there?"

It’s being there cannot prevent you from knowing the other state. In fact both states are of the same energy, phases of the same energy. Mind makes it possible for you to have the other state. Without mind you would not be able to meditate, without mind you would not know anything of meditation. That’s why animals don’t know anything of meditation. Buddhas are not born there. Why? – the mind is not born yet. If the mind is not born yet, how can you know the state of no-mind? The mind has to be there; only then sometimes can you put the mind aside and see into reality without any mind. Mind is a must!

And when we say you have to transcend mind it doesn’t mean that we are against mind. We are simply giving you a message: Don’t be finished with the mind. Mind is only the beginning of meditation. Make it a jumping board, use it. A man who has not attained to meditation remains with the seed, thinking that this is all. The seed has to be dropped into the soil so that it disappears. The seed has to be transcended by the tree, then only is it fulfilled.

This is very paradoxical: the seed is fulfilled only in its death. Mind is fulfilled only in meditation, and meditation is mind’s death. But that’s its function – it simply clears the way for meditation.

So mind is not the enemy of meditation. You can make it the enemy; that depends on you. If you become very antagonistic to mind, then you are turning a friend into an enemy. Then you are turning a stepping-stone into an obstacle. Remember it always: nothing is unnecessary, everything has its own place in the ultimate harmony of things. Mind is a must!

When Adam left the Garden of Eden what did he do? He started creating mind. Hence, the symbolic Tree of Knowledge. He had been prohibited from eating of the Tree of Knowledge. Why had he been prohibited? – because that was the only way to seduce him into eating it. It is not that Adam had disobeyed God. In disobeying God, Adam had fulfilled God’s desire. God wanted him to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, hence the denial, hence the commandment: ”Don’t eat from it!”

The Garden of Eden was a big garden. The whole existence is the Garden of Eden – millions and millions of trees. If Adam had been left on his own he might not yet have found the Tree of Knowledge. It was almost impossible to find it, it was not probable to find that one tree amongst millions and millions of trees. But God made it clear, saying, ”Don’t eat from this tree.” He created the desire in Adam.

It was not the serpent who had seduced Adam, it was God Himself.

Why this seduction? – because mind has to be created. Otherwise Adam would have lived like an animal, happy but unaware. And what is happiness if you are not aware? You may be the king of the whole world and if you are not aware what does it mean? Animals live in a kind of happiness, but unaware, not knowing that they are happy. Without knowing that you are happy, happiness means nothing. It is better to be miserable, but knowing is a must.

Socrates is reported to have said, ”Even if I am going to be miserable, I would like to be a Socrates rather than a satisfied pig. An unsatisfied Socrates I would like to be, but not a satisfied pig.”

What is he saying? He is saying awareness is more valuable than any happiness, because only in awareness does happiness become bliss. Adam has to disobey. God planned it beautifully, very psychologically – He made certain that Adam would go astray, that he would eat from the Tree of Knowledge and would create mind. Because without mind, Adam would have never known what meditation is. Without going astray, Adam would never have become Jesus and come back home.

To come back home one has to go astray. To become a saint one has to go into the dark realms of sin; there is no other way. If a tree wants to grow high in the sky, it has to grow deep roots into the darker soil.

Nietzsche has said, ”If a tree wants to touch heaven then it will have to send its roots to hell.” Without sending your roots to hell, you will not be able to bloom in heaven. Adam has to go to hell, he has to disobey, because only through disobedience can you learn the beauty of obedience. He has to doubt, because only through doubt, one day, are the mysteries of trust revealed. He had to become a mind. Only after you have become a mind, crystallized as an ego, is there a possibility of surrender, is there a possibility of transcending mind.

So when I say to you that mind has to be transcended, never for a single moment think that I am against mind. I am not. How can I be against mind? Without mind, how will you transcend it, how will you go beyond it? Mind is a must, a friend on the way, but going only so far. And one has to go beyond it too. And its function is to take you so far, so that you can go beyond.

"Sometimes is seems that the mind screens out awareness, but also it seems that mind can be very practical, can help to do things."

That’s true. Mind screens out awareness; that’s its function. It makes you aware of the reality only to that extent with which you can cope. Otherwise you would go mad. Life is impinging on you from all sides, in millions of ways, every second. Mind screens out ninety-eight percent, it allows only two percent of reality to enter you – and that too in a very modified form, in such a form that you can digest it. You are not able yet to digest totality. Mind narrows down, it allows only a little bit of reality. Only in bits does it allow reality.

It is like when a small child is born, he cannot eat food directly. The mother has to eat the food, transform the food into milk, and the child will drink the milk. Slowly, slowly he will become able to eat food directly. Mind is a necessary phenomenon; without it you would have died. If a child were born without the capacity of mind, the reality would be too much. It would drive him crazy – so many colors, so many sounds, so many people. The world is multi-dimensional. If all this simply starts jumping on the child’s consciousness it is bound to destroy the delicate phenomenon that the child is. The reality is to be bracketed out. Just small bits have to be allowed. Slowly, slowly the child will be able to digest more.

The problem arises that you remain a child for your whole life. That is the problem; not that the mind creates any problem. You are like a child who becomes addicted to milk and cannot drink anything else, cannot eat anything else forever. Now that is foolish. Milk was the right food at a certain time. It was the only food, the only nourishment, but a moment comes when the child has to move, become independent. He cannot go on depending on the mother’s breast, he has to be on his own.

Mind protects you from reality; that’s a must in the beginning. But the protection can also become a prison – there arises the problem. The guard that protects you can also become the jailer. He may protect you so much, and you may become so dependent on the protection, that you cannot become independent. A moment comes in life when you start feeling that mind is giving you only little bits of reality and you feel discontented.

A really intelligent person is bound to feel discontented with the mind. Only unintelligent people can remain in the mind. Intelligent persons are bound to feel, one day or other, that the mind is allowing only little bits: ”I am not a child anymore! I am a grown-up. I can have bigger windows in my being, and bigger doors, and I can allow more reality.”


That’s what meditation is – the beginning of creating bigger windows than the mind allows. And when your windows have become so big that all the walls have disappeared, that is samadhi. Now you are really grown-up. This is buddhahood, this is being a christ. Now you don’t need any protection.

It is like when you plant a small tree, you have to protect it. A day comes when the tree has become strong enough; you remove all protection. It can protect itself. With the mind the problem is that there is nobody to remove it. The society creates it, the parents create it, the society, the college, the university create it, and there is nobody to help to uncreate it. That’s the function of a Master.

And the world has become very poor because Masters don’t exist now as they used to exist. It is difficult now to find a Master. Teachers, you can find many, they abound, but to find a Master is very difficult. And what is the difference between a teacher and a Master? The teacher creates the mind, the Master uncreates the mind. The teacher teaches you, gives you knowledge. The teacher is the snake. The school is the snake: it helps you to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. It is a great help: it takes you out of the Garden of Eden, it teaches you how to doubt, it teaches you how to disobey so that you can be out of all kinds of bondages. But then, finally, the mind itself becomes the bondage, and there is nobody to teach, there is nobody to help you come out of it. The university makes you a perfect Adam, and there everything stops. And we think education is finished: it is only half of the education, half of the journey. The real half is still there.

Somebody is needed, some place is needed, some milieu is needed where you can go and dissolve all that you have learned, where you can unlearn – that is satsang. Being with a Master, you start unlearning, you start un-minding. You start loosening all that you have learned. You start dissolving Adam and you start becoming a Christ.

Mind has its utilities. It is practical, it is needed, and even when you have become a meditator mind will be needed. But then it will be a servant, not a Master. I am using mind – talking to you the mind has to be used. But the mind is not using me. Then the mind is a beautiful mechanism; you can use it. It has to be used. It keeps your memories, it keeps your experiences, it goes on sorting things out – what is necessary, what is unnecessary. It is a must in life. Even a Buddha needs it.

But Buddha himself has gone beyond, he stands above it. Whenever the mind is needed, he uses it, just as you use your legs. When you want to run you use your legs, when you want to walk you use your legs, but when you are lying down on your bed, resting, you don’t use them, there is no need. But ordinarily that is not the case; the mind is using you. There is no need for the mind – you are lying on the bed, resting, and the mind goes on running, chasing unnecessary things. You are fed-up, you want it to stop. You shout, ”Stop!” but it doesn’t stop, it doesn’t listen to you. You are not the master. It does not care a bit about you. You want to go to sleep and the mind goes on and on and on.

I have heard about a man, a great philosopher, who suffered from insomnia. A great philosopher must suffer from insomnia, otherwise he is not a great philosopher. He had lost all sleep. He would brood and brood and brood and think and think, and that sleeplessness was creating almost a maddening situation for him. He tried all methods. Somebody said, ”Do this”, he did that. ”Count from one to a hundred and then backwards”, and he counted and counted, and the whole night he would count, and the morning would be there, and his counting would continue and there would be no sleep. Somebody would say, ”Eat this, drink that. Do this exercise, do this mantra – TM.” He tried all, nothing was helping. Years went by and he was almost mad. One day he simply committed suicide, he shot himself in the head. The story goes that even after that he could not sleep. The mind continued, because the mind is not the body.

I love the story. Insomnia is such a thing: you can commit suicide and it will be with you. You may become a ghost but you will not be able to sleep, because mind is your master. The mastery of the mind is the problem, not the mind itself, remember. Always remember, mind in itself is not the problem, but you have made the mind your master. Dethrone it, put it in its place. Mind has be to a servant. Claim your masterhood. That is the meaning of ’swami’ – that’s why a sannyasin is called a swami – ’swami’ means one who has declared his mastership over the mind, one who has become a lord, one who is not any longer a servant, a slave.

But still the mind’s practical use will remain. And you will be able to use it more intelligently then because you will not be under its sway, under its rule. You will be able to choose, you will be able to watch, you will be able to improve upon the mind.

You say "It seems that mind can be very practical" ...

It is.

... "can help to do things. Does the mind have a place or is it something to be totally transcended?"

It has a place, and still it has to be totally transcended. In fact when you have totally transcended it then you will be able to use it perfectly, skillfully.