Having obtained the use of the inner senses, having conquered the desires of the outer senses, having conquered the desires of the individual soul, and having obtained knowledge, prepare now, O disciple, to enter upon the way in reality. The path is found; make yourself ready to tread it.
Having obtained the use of the inner senses… We know about our outer senses, but each sense has a double dimension. For example, eyes: they can look out. This is only one dimension of their functioning. They can also look inward, that is their other function. Or, ears: you can hear what is happening outside. That is one function, one dimension. You can also hear what is happening within. That is another function, another dimension.
Every sense has two doors. One opens into the outer world, the other opens into the inner world. Each sense is both outer and inner, but we only use our senses in one way. We have become fixated, we have forgotten that those same senses can be used to reach within.
Having obtained the use of the inner senses… Having obtained the hidden dimension of the senses, many things can become possible because a new world opens before you. The inner is as vast as the outer, the inner is as great as the outer. You are standing just in between, you are standing just in between the inner and the outer – two universes.
The outer is vast. They say it is infinite, endless, beginningless: there is no boundary to it. The same is also true for the inner: no boundary – the inner space is, again, infinite. The outer is being searched by scientific methods and the inner can be searched through yogic methods.
Science has developed much, and has come to know much about the outer world. But the inner has become forgotten; it is no longer remembered. We are rich now as far as the outer world is concerned, outer experiences are concerned, and we have become absolutely poor, beggars, as far as the inner is concerned. But what is the use of gaining the whole world if, in gaining it, you lose yourself?
If the self is lost, what is gained? Even if you gain the whole world, nothing is gained. If you lose yourself then the very meaning of life, the very significance – the beauty, the truth, the good, everything – is lost. Man can accumulate things, can accumulate powers, at the cost of losing himself. Then the whole point is missed.
Science tries to magnify the outer senses. Now, through mechanical devices we can look far away into space, the eyes are magnified by scientific method. Now we can hear over long distances, scientific technology magnifies your ears.
The same is also possible for the inner senses. Through meditation, through Yoga, through Tantra – the inner technologies – your inner senses are magnified. And once they are magnified, many things are revealed to you.
Unless they are revealed to you, they appear like myths, superstitions. We hear, we read, many things about Buddha, Jesus, Krishna, which cannot be believed. Mohammed, Zarathustra, Moses look mythological now because whatsoever they say, we cannot ourselves experience. We have lost the touch. Moses says that he heard the voice of God on Mount Sinai. How can we believe it? We have never heard anything like it.
If you go to a primitive tribe and tell them that we hear voices traveling over long distances on a radio, they will not be able to believe it: “What are you talking about?” Or, if you say that we see pictures traveling over long, long distances on television, they will not believe it, because they have no experience of it.
In the same way, we have become primitives as far as the inner is concerned. Moses says he hears God. Jesus talks with his father who is in heaven. They look neurotic to us. They must be mad. There are many psychological studies on Jesus that say he must have been insane. “What does he mean, talking with God? Where is God? How can you talk to him? And how can God talk to you? Jesus must have been insane. He must have had illusions and believed in them. He was neurotic.” He looks neurotic because we have become primitives as far as the inner world is concerned.
If your inner senses are penetrating, if your inner senses are alive, if you have come to know how to use them, you can also attune yourself to the divine. You can hear, you can listen, you can see, you can touch the mysteries. They are always there. Moses is not neurotic – we have become primitive. Jesus is not mad – we have lost contact with the inner.
Having obtained the use of the inner senses, having conquered the desires of the outer senses – because if the desires of the outer senses are still alive, you cannot move within. Desire means the way to go out; desire is the path that leads you outward. If your mind still desires, you cannot move within.
That’s why there is so much insistence on desirelessness. It is not a moral concept. Desirelessness is a very scientific concept: if you want to move within, your mind must lose all desire to move without. Otherwise, how can you move within? It is simple mathematics. If you want to go to the left, you must leave behind the desire to go to the right. Otherwise, one leg moves to the right, the other moves to the left. You will become mad, you will go insane. You cannot move simultaneously in two directions. Desire leads without; desirelessness, within.
…having conquered the desires of the outer senses, having conquered the desires of the individual soul… If you are still self-centered, you always think in terms of your own ego; you always think in terms of your own individuality, your own selfishness. The deeper truths of existence cannot be revealed to you. You are not yet capable of it, you are not worthy of it. And, it is also dangerous.
Try to understand it: for example, science has now revealed some very basic mysteries of matter. Science has forced matter to reveal certain secrets about atomic energy. Now it has become destructive. Man was not yet capable, not yet worthy to know such a great secret. Science forced matter; science is aggressive.
Einstein is reported to have said, “If I was born again, I would not want to be a scientist. Rather, I would like to be a plumber. Whatsoever I have done is destructive. Whatsoever I have revealed, my whole life is wasted. It seems that I may be one of the persons responsible for the destruction of the whole of humanity.”
His last days were of deep suffering. A secret had been revealed, but man was not yet ready, not yet worthy of the revelation. Man is childish, stupid, foolish. Such a great power – atomic energy – cannot be given into his hands.
And now, politicians have captured the secret. And politicians are bound to be stupid; they cannot be anything else, because any person who has political ambitions is an egoist. The desire to capture power is the desire of the ego, and the ego is the most foolish thing possible. It can force you to do anything, it is mad. Political ambition is an obsession with the ego.
Scientists have revealed certain secrets and politicians have captured those secrets, then they destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And now they are ready to destroy the whole planet. The whole earth could be destroyed any moment. We have more destructive force now than is needed to destroy the earth – seven times more. We can destroy seven earths like this, this is nothing. And we are developing more and more destructive powers. For what? Why is there so much hankering after death and destruction? Einstein says that it was foolish on the scientists’ part to reveal, to force nature to reveal certain secrets for which man was not yet worthy. But you can do it, because matter can be forced.
You cannot do it inwardly. Consciousness cannot be forced. No inner secret can be revealed to you unless you are ready for it. Unless it is going to be beneficial to you and others, it cannot be revealed. So this sutra says: having conquered the desires of the individual soul – ambition, ego, power-lust, thinking yourself to be the center of the universe – unless you have conquered these, the innermost secrets of consciousness cannot be revealed to you.
…having conquered the desires of the individual soul, and having obtained knowledge, prepare now, O disciple, to enter upon the way in reality. Whatsoever we were working with up until now was work on the consciousness: your own consciousness, subjective consciousness. All the sutras up to now were meant to work, to function, to change, to transform, to mutate subjective consciousness. When one comes to be totally aware in his subjective world, he can enter the objective, he can now enter reality.
Remember this: if you move within, you move into the subjective; if you move out, you move into the objective; if you move beyond both, you move in reality. Objectivity is not reality, objectivity is part of reality. Subjectivity is also not reality. It is, again, part of reality. When subjectivity and objectivity are both transcended, you enter reality.
If you use your senses for an outer journey you will reach objects. If you use your senses for the inner journey you will reach the subject, the knower. Through the outer, the object – the known. Through the inner, the knower, the subject – the self. But both are parts. Reality consists of both.
In reality, both are one. This we have called brahman: the ultimate reality. You cannot enter the ultimate reality through either object or subject, you have to lose both. That’s why to know the soul you have to use the inner senses, to know matter you have to use the outer senses, but to know brahman you do not have to use any senses, neither the outer nor the inner. If you want to enter the ultimate reality, then both outer and inner senses have to be completely dropped. Without the senses, one enters reality.
That’s why Shankara cannot concede that science knows reality. He says that science knows only the objective. Shankara cannot concede that those who say there is no brahman know reality, because they know only the subjective self. Only those who go beyond both – this duality of object and subject – know the ultimate truth.
…prepare now, O disciple, to enter upon the way in reality. The path is found; make yourself ready to tread it.

The tenth sutra:
Inquire of the earth, the air and the water of the secrets they hold for you.
If you are ready to lose objective and subjective distinctions, you can ask directly: Inquire of the earth, the air and the water, of the secrets they hold for you. You can ask the elements directly. If you are ready to lose the division between subject and object, if you are ready to lose all thought, if you are ready to lose your mind, your mentation, if you are ready to be vacant and empty, you can ask the elements about the secrets they hold for you.
And what secrets do they hold? Buddha happened in this world. He is recorded by the earth, by the air, by the water, by the sky, by space – everything. The happening of a buddha is such a great phenomenon that the universe records it, how it happens. Krishna danced on this earth. He is recorded. The very phenomenon is such a peak that the earth cannot forget it, the sky cannot forget it. They record it. Whatsoever happens of such great magnitude is recorded by the elements.
You can ask directly. If you are totally empty, you can ask directly and the earth will reveal its secrets and the air will reveal its secrets. If Krishna really delivered the sermon of Gita on the battlefield of Kurukshetra it must be hidden somewhere in the air, in the heart of the air. If you are ready, if you are worthy, the air can reveal the most secret doctrines to you.
You will feel very strange when it is revealed, you will feel very puzzled, because the Gita that has been recorded by man is nothing. It is deeply erroneous: many things have been projected into it, many things have been deleted from it. It is not the real thing; it is just a human record, and it is natural for the human mind to err.
But the elemental forces of existence record, and their records are absolutely true, because there is no mind to interpret, to change, to add or to delete. There, the purest is recorded. If Mohammed spoke, if Jesus spoke, it is recorded there. The earth cannot lose contact with such highly evolved, highly developed, transformed ones. It cannot lose contact with them, the contact remains. It can be revealed to you. The development of your inner senses will enable you to do this.
The eleventh sutra:
Inquire of the holy ones of the earth of the secrets they hold for you.

The conquering of the desires of the outer senses will give you the right to do this.
Inquire of the holy ones of the earth of the secrets they hold for you. We exist in bodies, but there are many holy ones around you who exist bodilessly. The human spirit can exist either in a body or in an unembodied form. The unembodied form is still a part of the universe; it is still in the world. It has not escaped it, liberation has not yet happened. It is prone to come back, it tends to come back. It simply waits for the right womb.
There are many holy masters existing in an unembodied form – not absolutely enlightened, because when one is absolutely enlightened he disappears from the body and from the form itself. He disappears completely; he dissolves into the world’s source. A Buddha, a Jesus, dissolves back to the original source. But there are many who are not absolutely enlightened but who have come to know many things, who have realized many beauties, who have realized many truths, not the truth. They have realized many, many experiences and have become good – not enlightened, but they have become good.
That is why they are called “the holy ones.” They can be of much help to you. If you are open to them, you can be in contact with them. In theosophy, they are called “the masters.”
The book, Light on the Path, was dictated by the masters to Mabel Collins. They know many secrets that have disappeared from the earth, from the records of humanity, or have been distorted. Or, we just cannot read them because the language is forgotten. It is still not possible to know what is written in the Harappa Mohenjo Daro culture. It still remains a secret. We know something is written, but we don’t know what it is. The form remains but the keys are lost. We know many scriptures from many cultures, but the language is lost.
These holy ones can reveal many things that last. They can make us remember. You can make contact with them if you are silent, innocent, moving inward. If you are using your inner senses you can make contact with them and your life can very easily become transformed. You, alone, may take lives to reach the goal, but with these holy ones you can be easily helped.
And there are many of them. You just need to be open, unafraid, ready to receive guidance, and the guidance will be given to you. But before you can receive it, you have to prepare yourself to be in receptivity, in deep receptivity. That receptivity will happen to you through meditation. And there is no other way. Only through silence will you become capable of hearing something that comes from the beyond.
Remember one thing continuously: that you have to be more and more silent, and more and more centered within. Whenever you have time, close your eyes and move within. Whenever you are not doing anything, close your eyes, move within. Don’t be busy without business and, don’t remain unnecessarily occupied.
I see people who are unnecessarily engaged. I have seen people reading the same newspaper again and again. They don’t have anything to do so they start reading the same newspaper again. They cannot remain empty, they cannot remain vacant. To be meditative means to learn how to remain vacant, unoccupied. Close your outer senses and just fall within.
Use any time you can find for this and soon the day will come when it will become as easy as moving in and out of your house. You come out of your house without any difficulty, you go back into your house again without any difficulty. You need not even think about how to go in and how to go out. You come out when you are needed outside, you go in when you are not needed outside. The phenomenon becomes this simple if you practice it. Then you can jump out at any moment, and you can jump in at any moment.
And once you have become capable of this easy movement, you have become free. Then the world cannot disturb you. Nothing can disturb you, because at your innermost center nothing reaches. When you are on the periphery, the world touches you. When you are at the center, you are beyond the world.

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