You can't experience your own death. That is why I tell some of those people who are so much interested in moksha, liberation, that every one of you, all of you without exception, will attain moksha just before you die.
(Laughter) But you can be sure it is too late then: the body is in a prostrate condition and can't renew itself. That death can happen to you now — it is a thing that happens now.
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You have no way of knowing anything about your death, now or at the end of your so-called life. Unless knowledge, the continuity of knowledge, comes to an end, death cannot take place. You want to know something about death: you want to make that a part of your knowledge. But death is not something mysterious; the ending of that knowledge is death. What do you think will continue after death? What is there while you are living? Where is the entity there? There is nothing there — no soul — there is only this question about after death. The question has to die now to find the answer — your answer; not my answer — because the question is born out of the assumption, the belief, that there is something to continue after death.
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Q: At certain moments I am able to follow the particular chain of logic that you have expressed, and I can feel very strongly what you are saying. How that point is reached, I don't know, but, once it is reached, suddenly there is great insecurity.
UG: You see, the existence of the very thing that is questioning, the questioner, is at stake.
Q: Yes, exactly, that produces a lot of panic.
UG: You see, that is the trouble: you dare not question that basic thing, because that is going to destroy something there which is very precious to you: the continuity of yourself as you know yourself and as you experience yourself.
Q: Once you dare question it, then what?
UG: "Then what?" is absent. Then it begins to act. That is the action.
Q: I very much want to dare. Is there a way to dare?
UG: The question itself has the inherent capacity to find out the answer for itself. You see, if there is no answer, the question can't stay there. You are waiting for an answer either from outside or from inside. When both these areas prove to be of no use at all, what happens to that question? The rejection is not because I don't agree with the statements or experiences of others, but because they are not valid as far as I am concerned. So, it may be true, but it is not valid, so I reject them all. All outside help is finished for me. When that goes, there is no helplessness here at all — they are linked together; you really can't separate them.
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The real problem is the solution. If you can't solve the problem, the problem ceases to be a problem. You are interested more in the solution than in the problem. But the solution applies only to tomorrow, not to the present — when are you going to solve the problem? — so it is not the solution. Why are you interested in finding out the solutions? They have not helped you. But you are looking at the solutions, you are interested in the solutions, not the problem. What is the problem? — that is all I am asking. You have no problem there, but you are talking of solutions.
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You are not satisfied with the answers given by others. You come to me — you think I am a realized man. Answers have been given to those questions, but still you put this question. You want confirmation of what you know, but this man says something which does not fit into your framework, so you don't agree with me. You have to find out the answer to that question.
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The search ends with the realization that there is no such thing as enlightenment. By searching, you want to be free from the self, but whatever you are doing to free yourself from the self is the self. How can I make you understand this simple thing? There is no 'how'. If I tell you that, it will only add more momentum to that (search), strengthen that momentum. That is the question of all questions: "How, how, how?"
The 'how' will remain as long as you think that the answers given by others or by me are the answers. "I have found the answer" — they have found the answers for their questions. As long as you depend upon the answers of those people who you think are the ones to give you the answers to your questions, the questions will remain there permanently. They are not the answers; if they were, the questions would not be there. It has to be your answer.
And the answer must be found without any process. Any process takes you away from the question, waters down the question. The question becomes more and more intense in its own way. You don't want anything except the answer to that question. Nothing else. Nothing interests you any more except the answer for that question. Day in and day out, all the rest of your life, that is the only question for you — "How?"
That 'how?' is related to the answers given by others, so you have to reject all those answers. The question has to burn itself out, and the question cannot burn itself out so long as you are waiting for an answer either from within or from without. When the question burns itself out, what is there begins to express itself. It is your answer, not anybody else's answer. You don't even have to find the answer, because the answer is already there and will somehow express itself. You don't have to be a scholar, you don't have to read books, you don't have to do anything; what is there begins to express itself.
So, do you want an answer to that question that badly? You know, even those who spent their lives standing on their heads or hanging from the trees got nowhere — ant-hills grew around them, and they got nowhere. It is not that simple. When this thing happened to me, I realized that all my search was in the wrong direction, and that this is not something religious, not something psychological, but a purely physiological functioning of the senses at their peak capacities. That was the answer to my question.
All questions are variations of the same question; they are not different questions. How earnest are you? How serious are you? How badly do you want the answer to that question? A question is born out of the answers that you already know. You want to know what my state is and make it part of knowledge, your knowledge, i.e. the tradition; but knowledge must come to an end. How can you understand this simple thing? Your wanting to know only adds momentum to your knowledge. It is not possible to know what this is, because knowledge is still there and is gathering momentum. The continuity of knowledge is all you are interested in.
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If books could teach people anything, the world would be a paradise. Technical matters, yes — how to fix a tape-recorder and so on — but books on matters like this have no value. I don't know whether there is any value in this conversation or dialogue. But I want to make it very clear that there is no movement: you are not going to move from what you are. You haven't even taken one step. There is no need for you to take any step.
Q: I'm convinced that in our meeting it is not the words that are important, but that there is something beyond the words.
UG: I don't know, and you can't be sure: it may be a projection of your own. If there is anything, it acts in its own way. This consciousness which is functioning in me, in you, in the garden slug and earthworm outside, is the same. In me it has no frontiers; in you there are frontiers — you are enclosed in that. Probably this unlimited consciousness pushes you, I don't know. Not me; I have nothing to do with it. It is like the water finding its own level, that's all — that is its nature. That is what is happening in you: life is trying to destroy the enclosing thing, that dead structure of thought and experience, which is not of its nature. It's trying to come out, to break open. You don't want that. As soon as you see some cracks there, you bring some plaster and fill them in and block it again. It doesn't have to be a so-called self-realized man or spiritual man