Now, is any one of us prepared to face this kind of encounter? If the whole earth becomes yours, you will jump just now. You will leave the hall and run. All of you will run from this hall because the whole earth is coming to you. That temptation becomes inevitable in the case of most of us because we do not understand the significance of the answer to this question. We think there are so many questions and this is also one question; and there so many answers and this is also one answer. What do we gain by knowing the answer to this question of whether the soul is there or not? Let it be; let it not be. We are so foolishly complacent and idiotically ignorant of the meaning of the answer to the question that we do not see the truth behind it. Otherwise, why should there not be an answer? Why did Lord Yama deviate from the point and say, "Take something else; I will give you diamond and gold, but not the answer to this question"? What did he mean? What would he lose? There is something very problematical about it. That problem is the problem of the Upanishads. It cannot be handled like that, so easily. Why do we consider the answer to this question to be so simple that Yama could have immediately answered it? It is because of the fact that our mind is not yet prepared to comprehend the significance and the in-depth reality of this matter.

When we speak of the soul, we do not know what it is that we are speaking about, finally. It is a nebulous, flimsy, slippery object. What are you talking about when you say "self"? Everybody uses the word 'self'. "I myself I have done this work." "He himself is responsible for that mistake." Do we not use the word 'self' in this manner? We are very well acquainted with the use of the word 'self': myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself - everywhere this 'self' comes in. It is so common in our daily life that we do not see any special significance in that usage at all. We do not see the significance because we do not know the meaning of the word 'self', and no dictionary gives us the correct meaning of this word. Even if the dictionary says it is you, one's own Self, the basic Reality, the Atman, these are only words which will mean as little as the word 'self' itself. This is because here is a question of the handling of one's self by one's Self. You may ask me: "Why should I handle my self when there are more important things in the world? The world is so rich and beautiful and grand and vast; instead of that I handle my self? What is the great thing that I am going to gain out of it?" Terrible is the problem. If you have answers and questions of this kind and you have doubts as to why this Self is to be considered as so important, you will not be immediately fit for the knowledge of the Upanishads. People had to stay with the Guru for many years.

I will tell you another story. One day Prajapati, the Creator, announced: "He who knows the Self knows all things."

Both the gods and the demons heard this and said, "Oh! Is it so? If one knows the Self, all things are known? Then it is worth knowing. Let us go."

"Great Master, we have come to learn the Self from you which - as you proclaimed - is the source of all knowledge." The gods sent Indra as their representative to obtain this wisdom. The demons sent Virochana as their leader. Both of them went to Prajapati and said, "We have come for Knowledge."

"Stay here and observe discipline for many years," replied Prajapati.

They stayed with Prajapati and served him for years and years - thirty-two years. After the lapse of so many years of discipline and hardship under the tutelage of Prajapati, these two persons approached him and said: "Now, please initiate us into the nature of the Self."

"Come on," Prajapati replied. "Go and look at yourself in a pan of water, a vessel filled with water. You will see something there. That is the Self."

"Oh, good; very good. It is a very simple matter," they said.

They looked. What did they see? They saw their own face - their own body.

Virochana said, "Now I know what is the Self. This body is the Self."

Virochana returned home and proclaimed to all the demons: "Now we know what the Self is, by knowing which all things are known and all things can be obtained. This very body is the Self. Eat, drink, be merry and enjoy."

Thus it is that the philosophy of enjoyment, hedonism and materialism started with Virochana, because he concluded that the Ultimate Reality is this body, which was very clear from the instructions he received from Prajapati. And what does this body need? It needs eating, drinking, enjoying, sleeping and all the appurtenances of physicality.

Indra also got this knowledge. He left, thinking that he had this wisdom. On the way, he had a difficulty.

"Is this the Self? This thing? No, it cannot be. The Self is supposed to be a permanent entity, but this body is not permanent. So if the body gets old, the Self will also become old; if the body become sick, the Self will also become sick; if the body dies, the Self will also die. No, no, there is something wrong in this," he thought.

Indra went to Prajapati again. Virochana did not come back; he was happy. But Indra came back.

"How is it that you have come back?" asked Prajapati.

"Sir, there is some problem. I see no good in this instruction."

"What is the matter?"

"If this body falls sick, the Self will also fall sick. If the body dies, the Self will also die. Is this the Self?" asked Indra.

"Stay here another thirty-two years," Prajapati said.

"Okay, I will stay," replied Indra.

After thirty-two years, Indra went to Prajapati a second time and requested, "Please instruct me."

"What you see in dream is the Self," said Prajapati.

"Oh, I see; okay, good," said Indra.

Indra left, but on the way he again had a problem: "Dream? What do I see in dream? I see in dream whatever I see in waking - the same thing. There is hunger and thirst. There is old age and decrepitude. There is even death in dream. All the difficulties and pains of life are capable of being experienced in dream also. The dream self also dies. No, this is no good."

Indra again came back.

"Why have you come again?" asked Prajapati.

"There is some problem, sir," replied Indra. "The dream self is fickle. It seems to be dying, just like the waking self about which you told me. I see no good in this instruction. Please give the correct instruction."

"Stay another thirty-two years," said Prajapati.

Indra stayed another thirty-two years, and then Prajapati told him, "What you see in the state of deep sleep, that is the Self."

"Good" Indra said, and went away.

On the way, again a doubt arose. "What do I see in deep sleep? Nothing. It is like a negation of all things - darkness; it is veritable death. Is this the Self? No, this is no good," thought Indra. Again he went back.

"Oh, how are you here again?" asked Prajapati.

"Sir, this instruction is of no use. What do I see in deep sleep? I see complete darkness, negation, annihilation. So, is the Self an annihilation? No, I don't see good in this instruction; please give me proper instruction."

"Oh, I see. Stay again and undergo discipline here," said Prajapati. This time it was for five years. Prajapati was a little considerate.

When Indra came back after five years, Prajapati said: "Now listen, Indra, my dear one. This Self is not what you can see with your eyes, because it is the Seer of things. How can you see it? This body is the seen; it is an object like any other object in this world. If the Ultimate Self, which is the Supreme Reality, is not an object that is perishable, it cannot be the body either. Otherwise, the Self will die along with the death of the body. What good is this knowledge of the Self? The Self is not what is seen in dream because in dream there is such fluctuation, fickleness of thought and veritable transition, transitoriness, and all the sorrows that are incumbent in the waking life. The waking perception also is not the Self. The dream, the waking are both not the Self. The sleeping experience also is not the Self. What you experience in the state of deep sleep is not the Self; it is a negation of it."

Now, what is the Self? Here a little bit of in-depth thinking may be good. Every one of you has a good sleep in the night. Do you know that you slept last night? Were you endowed with any kind of consciousness, awareness in the state of deep sleep? If you had no knowledge of any kind in the state of deep sleep, how are you now telling me that you slept last night? Who is telling this? You may say that you have a memory. How can there be a memory of an experience which is bereft of all consciousness? Can a stone remember anything? Were you a stone? Memory is a recollection of a past experience, and no experience can be called experience unless it is attended with a kind of awareness. So you cannot explain the fact of memory of sleep unless you concede somehow or the other, by the force of logic, that there was a kind of consciousness in sleep. Why you could not experience it is a different matter. By inference, logically, you conclude that there must have been some sort of an awareness. Did you exist in the state of deep sleep? Were you dead? No, you were not dead; you were existing. In the state of deep sleep, did you exist as this body? No. Did you exist as the mind? No, because the mind was not thinking. In sleep, you did not exist as the body and you did not exist as the mind. What else have you got with you?

Today, for instance, when you think of yourself, you think of the body-mind complex. "This body is me" or "this mind is me" or "the intellect is me" or "the psyche is me", and so on. Other than that, what else is there in you? But, did you exist in the state of deep sleep as something other than the body and the mind? You are forced to conclude: "Yes, I did exist." In what condition did you exist? "Not as body, not as mind." What else, sir? "I must have been there as only Existence." Existence of what? "It is not existence of what, it is not existence of anything because anything was not there; it is existence of my Self." You were conscious of the existence of your Self, though that consciousness was covered and you were not aware of it directly, for some reason - without which fact, memory of the sleep would have not been possible. You were consciousness. What kind of consciousness? Consciousness of something? Because when you say "I am conscious", you always mean conscious of this world, this tree, these people, this mountain, etc. It was not a consciousness of something; it was consciousness of Being only - just Awareness of the fact of your existing. In Sanskrit we call this Consciousness chit, and the consciousness of Being is chit-sat or sat-chit. Were you happy? You were very, very happy. Otherwise, you would complain that you had slept yesterday and it was a painful thing. All the pains of life get abolished and they vanish. Even a great pain or agony or sickness or any other pain is negated in the state of deep sleep; you get rejuvenated. You feel happy when you wake up.

So you were existing, you were conscious, you were happy. Existence-Consciousness-Bliss was your real nature. What kind of existence? What kind of consciousness? What kind of bliss? Were you existing in some place only, or in some other place? You will say, "I was existing in one place only - on the bed." Now, if you have been conscious of one point only, you would not be conscious of another point; you would exclude that which appears to be away from the point which is supposed to be your existence. "I was existing there - only on the cot, not elsewhere." So, if you were not elsewhere, then the "elsewhere" must be there as outside the purview of your consciousness. If that is the case, you were conscious of the fact that there was also something outside you. When you say "I was only in one place", you are making a reference to the existence of other things or other places or other spots, of which you had no knowledge. If you had no knowledge of that which is not in your location, how could you say that there were things of which you had no knowledge? You make a contradiction in your statement. As there is a difficulty in finding out what condition you were in the state of deep sleep, there is another difficulty here in knowing what kind of consciousness it was that was prevailing in the state of deep sleep.

Prajapati goes deep into this question and gives a tremendously illuminating answer. "This Consciousness was not of some particular thing like this self or that self or this thing or that thing, because there was no question of this thing and that thing there. It was Pure Being as such, which is the Being of all things. Universal Consciousness was prevailing there; that is the reason why you are so happy. If it had been finite consciousness, you would have woken up miserably from sleep."

Hence, the great teaching of Prajapati to Indra was that the Self is Universal Existence and Universal Consciousness. The difficulty, the problem before us, is how to conceive this Universality which is supposed to be inseparable from us - in other words, how to conceive our own Universality while we are sunk in this body consciousness, social consciousness, political consciousness and a hundred types of irrelevant consciousnesses.

I have placed before you this little introduction in order to present the teaching of the Upanishads, which is the knowledge of the Self.