THE SEVENTH SAYING

JESUS SAID: THE KINGDOM OF THE FATHER IS LIKE A MAN, A MERCHANT, WHO POSSESSED MERCHANDISE AND FOUND A PEARL.

THE MERCHANT WAS PRUDENT. HE SOLD THE MERCHANDISE AND BOUGHT THE ONE PEARL FOR HIMSELF.

DO YOU ALSO SEEK FOR THE TREASURE WHICH FAILS NOT, WHICH ENDURES, WHERE NO MOTH COMES NEAR TO DEVOUR AND WHERE NO WORM DESTROYS.

If you look without, the world of the many exists; if you look within, then the world of one. If you go outside you may achieve much, but you will miss the one. And that one is the very center; if you miss it you have missed all. You may attain much but that much will not count much in the end, because unless one attains to oneself nothing is attained.

If you are a stranger to yourself, even the whole world will not fulfill you. If you have not got into your own being, then all the riches will make you even poorer. This happens: the more riches you have, the more poverty you feel because now you can compare; with outer riches, the inside in comparison looks poorer and poorer and poorer. Hence the paradox of the rich man: the richer he gets, the poorer he feels; the more he has, the more he feels that he is empty -- because the inner emptiness cannot be filled by outer things. Outer things cannot enter into your being. The inner emptiness can be filled only when you achieve yourself, when you attain to your being. Make a clear distinction: the world outside is the world of the many, but the one is absent there -- and that one is the goal. That one is within you, so if you are searching outside you will miss. Nothing will be of much help; whatsoever you do, you will be a failure.

The mind will go on saying, "Attain that! -- then you will be fulfilled." When you attain it, the mind will again say, "Attain something else, then you will be fulfilled." The mind will say, "If you are not succeeding it means you are not making enough effort. If you are not reaching, you are not running fast enough." And if you listen to the logic of the mind -- which looks logical but it is not -- then you will go on running and running and running, and in the end there will be nothing except death.

The many is the realm of death, the one is the realm of the deathless. The seeker has to be sought, not in outside objects but in your subjectivity; you have to turn within. A conversion is needed, a turning, an absolute about-turn is needed, so the eyes which see outside start seeing within. But how will this happen?

Unless you are totally frustrated with the world, this cannot happen; if even a slight hope remains, you will go on moving. Failure is great and with the failure of the many a new journey starts. The sooner you fail in the outside world the better, the sooner you get totally frustrated the better -- because failure in the outside becomes the first step towards the inner.

Before we enter this sutra of Jesus, many more things have to be understood. Who is the wise man? The one who is ready to lose all for the one. And who is the fool? He who has lost himself and purchased ordinary things, who has sold the master and filled his house with useless things.

I have heard, once it happened: A friend of Mulla Nasruddin became very, very rich. And when somebody becomes rich he wants to go back to his old friends, old neighbors, old village, to show what he has attained. So he came from the capital to his small village.

Just at the station he met Mulla Nasruddin and he said, "Nasruddin, do you know, I have made it! I have become very, very rich, you cannot even conceive! I have a palace with five hundred rooms, it is a castle!"

Mulla Nasruddin said, "I know a few people who have houses with five hundred rooms."

The friend said, "I have two eighteen-hole golf courses, three swimming pools and acres and acres of greenery!"

Nasruddin replied, "I know one man in the other town who has two golf courses and three swimming pools."

The rich man said, "In the house?"

Nasruddin said, "Listen -- you may have made much money, but I have also not done too bad: I've got donkeys, horses, pigs, buffaloes, cows, chickens."

The other man started laughing and he said, "Nasruddin, lots of people have donkeys, horses, cows, chickens...."

Nasruddin stopped him in the middle and said, "In the house?"

But whatsoever you get -- whether it is eighteen-hole golf courses, three swimming pools and five hundred rooms, or donkeys, horses and cows -- whatsoever you can get outside will not make you rich, because really the house remains empty, you remain empty. Nothing enters into the house, these things remain outside because they belong to the outside -- there is no way to put them in. And poverty is within. Had it been outside, then there would have been no problem.

If you had felt the emptiness outside, on the periphery, then it could have been filled by houses, cars, horses or anything. But the emptiness is felt within, you feel meaninglessness within. It is not that you don't have a big house that is creating the trouble, it is that inside you feel totally meaningless: why do you exist? Why this whole trouble of being in existence? Why be alive? Where is it leading?

Every day in the morning you wake up again to go -- and nowhere to go! Every day in the morning you get dressed, but you know by the evening nothing is attained, no goal is achieved. Again you fall asleep, again in the morning the journey starts -- the whole meaningless business of it! Inside you go on feeling empty, there is nothing. So with outside things you can at the most deceive others, not yourself. How can you deceive yourself?

The more things accumulate, the more life is wasted because they have to be purchased at the cost of life. You are less alive, death has come near, things are growing more and more, the pile goes on becoming bigger and bigger, and inside you are shrinking. Then comes the fear: "What am I achieving, where am I reaching? What have I done with my whole life?"

And you cannot go back, the time that is wasted cannot be returned to you, there is no way. You cannot get it back, you cannot say, "Sorry, I will start again"; that is not possible. Then by the time you become old you become more and more sad. That sadness is not because of physical age, that sadness is because now you realize what you have done to yourself: you have made a house, of course you have succeeded, you are rich, you have attained prestige in the eyes of others -- but what about your own eyes?

Now you feel the pain, the suffering of a wasted life, of time lost. Death is coming nearer and soon you will dissolve with your hands empty. This emptiness is inner; you cannot fill it with anything that you can get in the world -- unless you get yourself. Hence the insistence of Jesus that, "Even a camel can pass through the eye of a needle, but a man who is rich cannot pass through the gate of heaven." Why? What is wrong with a rich man?

Nothing is wrong with a rich man. The emphasis is that one who has wasted his life in accumulating things of the world -- that is what is meant by a rich man -- cannot enter into the kingdom of God, because there only one who has attained the inner enters. He cannot deceive at the gate of heaven. He cannot enter because he will be too wasted, rotten, a ruin. He cannot dance at the door, he cannot sing. He cannot enter with a certain significance that he has attained in his life. He is uprooted: he possessed much, but he never possessed himself -- and that is the poverty. If you possess yourself you are rich, really rich. If you don't possess yourself, you may be an emperor but you are poor.

The second thing to be understood is why we go on accumulating things. The truth is so clear, but still we go on. Nobody listens to Jesus or Buddha, and even if you listen, even if you feel that you understand, you never follow it. There must be some very deep reason. So Buddha and Jesus are neglected and you continue on your path. Sometimes a doubt arises, but that is all; again you get settled and you follow your own path. There must be something very deep-rooted which even a Buddha or a Jesus cannot shake, cannot uproot. What is that deep-rootedness?

We exist in the eyes of others: our identity consists of the opinion of others; others' eyes are the mirrors, we look at our faces in others' eyes. There is the rub, the problem -- because others cannot see your inner being. Your inner being cannot be reflected in any mirror whatsoever. Only your outer can be reflected: reflections are only of the outer, of the physical. Even if you stand before a mirror, the best mirror, only the physical part of you will be reflected. No eye can reflect your inner part.

So others' eyes reflect your riches, your achievements in the world, your clothes; they cannot reflect you. And when you see that others think you are poor -- that means you don't have good clothes, a good house, a good car -- you start moving towards these things. You accumulate things just to see that you are rich in the eyes of others. Then others' eyes start reflecting that you are becoming richer and richer, you are gaining power and prestige. Your identity consists of your reflection; but others can only reflect things, they cannot reflect you. Hence, meditation is very, very necessary.

Meditation means closing your eyes; not looking at the reflection, but looking at your own being. Otherwise, the whole day you are engaged with others. In the night also, when you sleep, either you are unconscious when there is deep sleep, or you are again engaged with others in your dreams. Continuously living with the other is the problem: you are born into a society, you live in a society, you die in a society -- your whole existence consists of the social. And society means eyes all around.

Whatsoever those eyes reflect, they impress you. If everybody says you are a good man, you start feeling good. If everybody thinks you are a bad man, you start feeling bad. If everybody says that you are ill, you will start feeling ill. Your identity depends on others, it is a hypnosis through others. Move into loneliness -- live with the others, but don't exhaust yourself with the others.

At least for one hour a day just close your eyes -- closing your eyes means you are closed to the society, no society exists, only you -- so you can face yourself directly. Move once a year for a few days to the hills, to the desert, where there is nobody, only you, and see yourself as you are. Otherwise, continuously living with others will create a hypnosis in you. That hypnosis is the reason why you go on influencing others, impressing others. The real thing is not how to live a rich life, the real thing is how to impress others that you are rich -- but these are totally different things.

The others are impressed by whatsoever you possess, they are never impressed by you. If you meet Alexander in a beggar's garb you will not recognize him, but if you meet the beggar who has always been begging on your street sitting on a throne like Alexander, you will fall at his feet, you will recognize him!

It happened once: A great Urdu poet, Ghalib, was invited to a dinner by the emperor. Many other people were invited, almost five hundred. Ghalib was a poor man, it is very difficult for a poet to be rich -- rich in the eyes of others.

Friends suggested, "Ghalib, you can borrow clothes, shoes, a good umbrella... because your umbrella is so rotten, your coat is faded, almost gone, and with these clothes and these shoes which have so many holes, it won't look good!"

But Ghalib said, "If I borrow something I will feel very uncomfortable inside, because I have never borrowed from anybody -- I have lived on my feet, I have lived in my own way. To break the habit of my whole life just for a dinner is not good."

So he went to the emperor's court in his own clothes. When he presented his invitation card to the watchman, the man looked at him, laughed, and said, "From where have you stolen this? Escape from here immediately, otherwise you will be caught!"

Ghalib could not believe it. He said, "I have been invited -- go and ask the emperor!"

The watchman said, "Every beggar thinks that he's been invited. And you are not the first, many others have knocked at the door before. Escape from here! Don't stand here because the guests will be arriving soon."

So Ghalib went back. His friends knew that this was going to happen, so they had arranged a coat, some shoes, an umbrella for him -- some borrowed things. Then he put on those borrowed things and went back. The watchman bowed down and said, "Come in."

Ghalib was a very well-known poet and the emperor loved his poetry, so he was allowed to sit just by the side of the emperor. When the feast started Ghalib did a very strange thing, and the emperor thought that he looked a little mad -- he started feeding his coat and saying, "My coat, eat it! Because really you have entered, not I."

The emperor said, "What are you doing, Ghalib? Have you gone mad?"

Ghalib said, "No -- I had come before but I was refused entry. Now this coat has come -- I'm just with it because the coat couldn't come alone -- otherwise I could not have come!"

But this is happening to everybody: not you but your coat is recognized by others; so you go on embroidering your coat, dressing yourself.

Meditation is needed to give you a break from the others, the eyes of others, the mirror of others. Forget them! For a few minutes just look inside -- then you will feel the inner pain and suffering, that you are empty there. Then a transformation starts: then you start looking for the inner riches, the treasury that exists within you -- not for the treasures that are spread all around.

Many are the riches outside, only one is the treasure within. Many are the dimensions and directions outside; one, one-pointed is the goal within.

Jesus says:

THE KINGDOM OF THE FATHER IS LIKE A MAN, A MERCHANT, WHO POSSESSED MERCHANDISE AND FOUND A PEARL.

THE MERCHANT WAS PRUDENT. HE SOLD THE MERCHANDISE AND BOUGHT THE ONE PEARL FOR HIMSELF.

The story is this: One man went to a faraway country to earn money. He earned much, he collected much merchandise, but at the last moment he came upon a pearl. He made an exchange: he sold all the merchandise and purchased the one pearl. When he was coming back, there was an accident and the ship sank. But with one pearl he could swim ashore and he reached his home with his entire treasure.

This is the story to which Jesus refers: that man purchased one instead of many, so even when the ship sank nothing was lost. The one can be saved, not the many. When death comes and your ship sinks, if you have one pearl you will be able to carry it to the other shore; but if you have many, many things, you will not be able to carry them. A pearl can be carried, but how can you carry much merchandise?

Jesus says:

THE KINGDOM OF THE FATHER IS LIKE A MAN, A MERCHANT, WHO POSSESSED MERCHANDISE AND FOUND A PEARL. THE MERCHANT WAS PRUDENT....

He was wise, because it is foolishness to sell the one and to purchase the many. This is wisdom: to sell the many and to purchase the one. The pearl is symbolic of the one, the inner.

THE MERCHANT WAS PRUDENT. HE SOLD THE MERCHANDISE AND BOUGHT THE ONE PEARL FOR HIMSELF.

DO YOU ALSO SEEK FOR THE TREASURE WHICH FAILS NOT, WHICH ENDURES, WHERE NO MOTH COMES NEAR TO DEVOUR AND WHERE NO WORM DESTROYS.

Then be like that merchant, the prudent, the wise one. Whatsoever you can get in this world will be snatched away from you. Have you observed the fact that you cannot possess anything in the world, in reality? You simply feel you possess -- but the thing was here when you were not, somebody else possessed it. Soon you will not be here, but the thing will be here and somebody else will possess it. Your possession is just like a dream: sometimes it is there and sometimes it is gone.

It happened: There was a king, Ebrahim. One night he heard a noise on his roof, somebody was walking there. So he asked, "Who is there?"

The man said, "Don't be disturbed -- my camel is lost and I am searching for it." On the roof of the palace his camel was lost!

Ebrahim laughed and said, "You madman, get down! Camels are never lost on the roof of a palace. Go home!"

But then he couldn't sleep because he was a man of contemplation. He thought, "Maybe the man was not mad, maybe he was saying something symbolically; maybe he is a great mystic, because the voice was such that when he said, 'Don't be disturbed,' there was so much consolation and silence in it, the voice was so musical and harmonious, it cannot be that of a madman. And when he said, 'My camel is lost and I am searching for it,' the voice was so penetrating, it seemed to indicate something. The man has to be found tomorrow morning! I must see who this man is, whether he is mad, or a madman of God; whether he was just on the roof in his madness, or whether he was sent for me particularly, to give me a message."

The king couldn't sleep the whole night. In the morning he told his courtiers to go and find this man with this type of voice. But the whole capital was searched and the man could not be found, because how can you find a man just by the tone of his voice? Difficult!

Then just in the middle of the day, there was much hustle at the door. A fakir, a beggar, had appeared and he was saying to the watchman, "Allow me to enter, because I want to stay here for a few days in this sarai, in this inn."

The watchman was saying, "This is not an inn, not a sarai -- this is the king's own palace, his own residence!"

But the fakir said, "I know very well this is an inn: travelers come in, they stay and they go. Nobody is a resident here so let me in. I will talk to the king, who seems to be a foolish man."

This was overheard and the fakir was sent for. The king was very angry and he said, "What are you saying?"

The man said, "Listen! I came once before but then somebody else was sitting on this throne. And he was also the same type of foolish man as you are, because he thought this was his residence. Now you are thinking this is your residence!"

The king said, "Don't be stupid! And don't behave in such an uncivilized way -- he was my father, now he is dead."

The fakir said, "And I tell you that I will come again and I will not find you here. Somebody else will be here. He will be your son and he will say, 'This is my residence!' What type of residence is this? People come and go -- I call it a travelers' inn."

The voice could be recognized! The king said, "Then you are the madman who was looking for the camel on the roof!"

The fakir said, "Yes, I am the madman and so are you: if you are looking for yourself in riches, you are looking for a camel on the roof!"

The king came down from his throne and said to the fakir, "You stay in this sarai, but I am leaving it, because I was staying only believing that this was a residence, this was a home. If this is not a home, then I must go and search for home before it is too late!"

Ebrahim became a mystic in his own right. And when he became known, when he became a realized man, he used to live outside the capital -- his own capital. Once it was his possession, now it was just a sarai. He used to live outside it and people would come and ask, "Where is the BASTI?" 'Basti' means 'the city'; but the word is very beautiful, it means, 'where people reside'. But Ebrahim would show them to the cemetery. He would say, "Go to the right and you will reach the basti, where people reside."

And then people would go. Later they would come back very angry and say, "What type of man are you? We asked about the basti, the city, where people reside -- and you sent us to the cemetery!"

Ebrahim would laugh and say, "So, we use terms in a different way it seems -- because there in the cemetery, once you enter you are a resident forever. That is the real basti, the permanent residence where your address never changes, because you are there forever and forever and forever. So you are not asking for the real basti, then you are asking for this city which is a cemetery because people are standing in the queue just to die.

"Somebody's time has come today, somebody else's will be coming tomorrow, somebody else's the day after tomorrow -- but everybody is waiting just to die! And you call it 'basti'? You call it the place where people reside? I call it marghat, the cemetery, where people are simply waiting to die, where nothing exists except death."

If life exists, it is nothing but a waiting for death, and how can life be a waiting for death? How can life be momentary? How can life be just like a dream? It is there -- and it is gone and not there. Life must be something eternal. But if you are looking for the eternal, then be like the prudent merchant: sell all that you have got. Sell it and purchase the one, the one pearl of your inner being which cannot be drowned, which cannot be snatched away -- because that pearl is you. You can possess only yourself, nothing else can be really possessed.

You can live in an illusion -- that's another thing. You can live in the illusion that you possess this house, this wife, this husband, these children, but this is an illusion; sooner or later the dream will go away. You can possess only yourself because that will never go away. The being is permanent, eternal; it is timelessly yours. It cannot be taken away from you.

This is the difference between a worldly search and a religious search: religion means looking for the eternal, the worldly is looking for the temporal. The world exists in time and religion exists in timelessness. Observe a clear fact: that whenever you close your eyes and thoughts have dropped, there is no time; whenever you close your eyes and thoughts are not there, time disappears. When thoughts are there, then there is time; when things are there, then there is time.

Around you exists time, the ocean of time. Within you exists eternity, timelessness. That's why all the realized ones say that when you have transcended time, when you have gone beyond time, then you have reached yourself, you have come home.

Once it happened: A man worked in a factory. The man was very poor, and he used to come to the factory on his donkey. But he was always late coming back home and his wife was always angry. One day he said to her, "Try to understand my problem: when the last whistle, the quitting whistle goes, this donkey has become so accustomed to it that even if I am two or three seconds late, he goes on his own, he leaves for home without me. And there is such a rush! Everybody wants to leave the factory immediately, so when I get outside many times I have missed him, the donkey has gone! He waits two or three seconds at the most. If in that time I have jumped on him, it is okay; otherwise he goes without me and then I have to walk back. So this is the trouble." So he thought this would help, and then he asked his wife, "Do you understand the moral of the story?"

The wife said, "I understand it well. Even a jackass knows when it is time to go back home!"

Even a jackass knows when it is time to go back home -- but you have not yet become aware of where your home is and when to leave for home. You go on wandering, you go on knocking at others' houses; you have completely forgotten where your home is. So if you are uneasy it is not strange. If you never feel at ease anywhere, it is not strange. You go on traveling from one corner of the world to the other. Why is there this madness to go from one town to another? What are you seeking? Whenever anybody can afford it he goes traveling. People work, then they save money just to go around the world -- why? What are you going to gain?

I have heard that once an American hunter was looking into a Greek volcano, right into the center of the volcano. Then he said to the guide, "Heavens! It looks like hell!"

The guide said, "You Americans -- you have been everywhere! Once you can afford it you will even go to hell!"

But why does this uneasiness exist? Why is man a vagabond deep down? -- because your home is missing and you are in search of it. Your direction may be wrong, but your uneasiness is indicative. Wherever you are it is not your home, this is the problem. So you go on searching for it, you can even go to hell in search of it, but you are not going to find it anywhere because your home exists within you. And even a jackass knows when it is time to go back!

It is time, it is already time, you have waited enough. Don't search for it in things, don't search for it in others, don't search for it outside -- there you will meet the many, the multiple, what Hindus call maya. Maya means the many, the multiple; maya means the endless. You go on searching and searching and there is no end to it. It is a magical world -- maya means the magic of the many. The magic remains, you go on searching, but you never get anything because it is a magical world: whenever you come closer to it, it disappears like a rainbow. From a distance it is beautiful. It catches you, you become obsessed with it, it enters in your dreams, in your desires; you would like to have the rainbow in your fist. And then you go on and on, and the rainbow goes on receding.

Whenever you arrive you find there is nothing. The rainbow was a dream, an illusory reality. Hindus have called this world of the many, maya -- a magical world, as if a magician has created it. Nothing exists really, everything exists through desire and dreaming. You create it through your desire; you are a creator through your desire -- you create the world of the many.

There is a car, a beautiful car. If there is no man on the earth, what will be the value of the car? Who will appreciate it? Who will bother about it? The birds won't look at it, the animals won't bother. Nobody will pay any attention to it -- it will rot, it will become junk. But when man is there it is valuable. Where does the value come from? It comes from your desire: if you desire it, it is valuable; if you don't desire it, the value disappears. The value is not in the thing, it is in your desire.

The old law of economics was: wherever there is demand, supply follows. But now the law has completely changed: you supply and demand follows. Can you think of any person in Buddha's time dreaming about a car? There was no problem because the supply was not there, so how could you desire a car? Now the whole business world exists on creating new supplies. First they create supply, then they advertise, they create desire; then the demand comes in -- then you rush because then you see, "Now here is the goal I was missing my whole life. Now here is the goal and once I achieve it, everything is achieved."

But the businessman goes on inventing new things, advertisers go on creating new desires. Every year they create new cars, new houses, new goals. Constantly they supply you with ways of moving outwards; they don't give you a gap to think. Your car may be okay, but they say the new model has come. So now, moving with the old model hurts the ego. The new model may not be better -- it may even be worse -- but the new has to be purchased. You have to get it because the neighbors have got it, because everybody is talking about it.

One woman came to a doctor and said, "Do any operation on me!"

The doctor said, "What? Have you gone mad? Why an operation? You are completely healthy and okay!"

The woman said, "But it is very difficult -- whenever I go to the club all the women are talking: somebody's appendix has been removed, somebody's tonsils have been removed, and only I feel somehow abnormal -- nothing to talk about! Remove anything so that I can go to the club and talk about it!"

There is even competition in disease! You have to be ahead of each and everyone; whatsoever the consequence, you have to be at the top.

Three commuters were talking in a train. One bragged about his wife saying, "I have a wife. We got married ten years ago, and she still comes every night to meet me at the station when I come back home." Impossible!

Another man said, "I can understand, because I have been married for twenty years and the same thing is happening -- my wife still comes to meet me at the station."

The third man said, "I can beat that! My wife has been coming to meet me for thirty years -- and I am not even married to her. She still comes to meet me -- I can beat you!"

Even if people are telling lies, you have to top them, you have to be the first -- whatsoever people are doing. If the style of dress changes, the new dress may look neurotic but you have to follow it. Nobody is at home because everybody is knocking at each other's door.

Remember this well: nobody is a goal for you except your own self. You are the goal, and you have to achieve yourself -- nothing else is worthwhile.

This is what Jesus says:

THE KINGDOM OF THE FATHER IS LIKE A MAN, A MERCHANT, WHO POSSESSED MERCHANDISE AND FOUND A PEARL.

THE MERCHANT WAS PRUDENT. HE SOLD THE MERCHANDISE AND BOUGHT THE ONE PEARL FOR HIMSELF.

DO YOU ALSO SEEK FOR THE TREASURE WHICH FAILS NOT, WHICH ENDURES, WHERE NO MOTH COMES NEAR TO DEVOUR AND WHERE NO WORM DESTROYS.

Look for the deathless and remain alert; don't waste your time with that which is not going to endure, don't waste your life for that which is going to change, which is part of the changing world.

Then what can you think of which is going to endure? Have you come upon any fact in your life which gives you a feeling that it is going to endure? The visible world is all around you -- nothing endures in it. Even the hills will not endure forever; they also become old, they also die; even continents have disappeared.

The Himalayas were not there in the days of the Vedas, because the original Rigveda never talks about them. It is impossible not to talk about the Himalayas if they are there -- impossible! How can you neglect the Himalayas? And the Vedas go on talking about other things, but they never talk about the Himalayas. Because of this, Lokmanya Tilak decided that the Vedas were created at least seventy-five thousand years ago. It looks meaningful, it may be so; they may not have been written so far back, but they must have existed in oral form for many thousands of years. That's why the Himalayas are not mentioned there.

Now, scientists say that the Himalayas are the latest addition to the world, the youngest mountains; they are the highest, but the youngest. They are still growing, they are still young -- every year they go on growing higher and higher. Vindhya is the oldest mountain on the earth -- maybe that's why it is bent like an old man dying. Hindus have a beautiful story about Vindhya.

One seer, Agastya, went to the south, and it was very difficult to cross Vindhya in those days, for no means existed. The beautiful story is that when the seer came, Vindhya bent down just to touch his feet, and the seer said, "I will be coming soon; you remain in the same posture so I can cross you easily!" So Vindhya has remained bent, and the seer never came back again -- he died in the south. But the story is beautiful: Vindhya, the oldest part of the earth, is bent like an old man.

Even hills are young, old; they die, they are born. Nothing is permanent in the outside world. Look at the trees, at the rivers, at the mountains: they give the feeling that everything is permanent, but look a little deeper and the feeling disappears.

Then go within and look at your thoughts -- they are even more temporary. They continuously go on moving, not a single thought stays: a moment ago you were angry and the mind was filled with angry thoughts; a moment later you are smiling and those thoughts have disappeared completely, as if they never existed. Just like clouds in the sky they come and go; they are constantly changing their shape, just like the clouds -- they are exactly alike.

Meditate on the clouds and you will see their form is constantly changing. If you don't look you may not become aware, otherwise you will see their form is continuously changing; not for a single moment is the form of a cloud the same. The same happens in your mind: the form of a thought is just like a cloud, it goes on changing. That is the reason why people cannot concentrate, because concentration means the form of the thought should remain constantly the same. That is the problem, because thought goes on moving and changing. Whatsoever you do it is changing: one thought changes into another, one form into another form. The world of thought is also not that which endures.

Hills change, clouds change, only the sky remains the same -- it endures. The same is within you: things change around you and clouds, thoughts change within you -- but the sky of the self, the witnessing self, remains the same. That is the pearl: the witnessing self. It is formless so it cannot change. If there is form, change is going to happen. If there is no form, how can change happen? It is formless, nirakar.

If you go to this formlessness within you, in the beginning it will look empty because you don't know formlessness, you only know emptiness. But don't be afraid, don't get scared, enter into it. When you become acquainted with it, when you have settled in it, then the emptiness is not emptiness: it becomes formlessness. When this formlessness is achieved, you have the pearl. Then you have purchased one at the cost of the many. Right now, at the cost of the one you have purchased the many. And the one is the pearl, the many are just false stones. They may look very valuable but they are not, because they cannot endure.

Endurance, nityata, eternity, is the criterion of truth -- remember this well. What is truth? That which endures, and endures infinitely. What is a dream? That which begins and comes to an end; that which cannot endure forever. So look to that pearl which nobody can snatch from you, not even death. In death the body will die, in death the thoughts will disappear; but you? -- you will go on and on and on.

Death happens near you, but never to you. It happens in the neighborhood, but never at the center; it happens at the circumference. You have never died, you cannot die. Mountains disappear, clouds come and go, but the sky remains the same. And you are the sky. The nature of the self is just like space: empty, infinitely empty, formless. Everything happens within it, nothing happens to it. This is what Jesus means.