" If the thought remains one, without splitting into two, that does the trick! " - UG

    The question of 'how' has been instrumental in plumbing the depths of nature and revealing to us the many secrets, giving us science, technology and also driving the human progress. 

    'How' propagates reductionism and science, is the golden key to all our knowledge. 

    UG in this penetrating discussion (see the audio clip below) points out that the same 'how' is also responsible for creating the illusion of 'duality', the artificial division between the 'question' and 'questioner'. 

    " The question you are asking 'how' is NOT separate from the questioner when the question 'how' remains as one, without splitting itself into two, splitting itself into two means - 'the questioner' and 'the question'. "- UG

   As the instrument of inquiry, the 'how' fabricates the artificial division or split in the inquiry (thinking) by creating the 'questioner' (thinker) as an illusory entity different from the 'question'(thought). 

   "So, when once it dies to this duality (thought splitting into question and the questioner), what is there is an immortal thing, not that there is something which becomes immortal, but life is immortal because it has no beginning, it has no end." - UG 

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Audio Clip (Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SetGGxUwMZA)

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Audio Transcription

    UG: This body is not an isolated point in the totality of the electromagnetic field.

    What creates or what gives you the impression that it is an isolated point is because the thought is creating an isolated point there (as the ‘I’ or the ‘self’). It is separating, you see, from the totality of the things.

    And so, the idea of integrating these two things, to me, has no meaning, you see. It is already an integrated unit.

    So, what you are trying to do is to separate yourself from that (thanks to culture that brands ‘you’ and maintains ‘you’ throughout as an independent identity) and then try to integrate these two things.

    Q:  No, no. You see, the gist of what all I have understood is, our thoughts, our knowledge, our trying to do certain things in some beliefs is the one that is causing the separation, and we have to do away with it. No, but the thing is, how to go about it? You see, that is where...

    UG: The question ‘how’ is the stumbling block, you see, that is a very, very clever thing, you know. It is only interested in continuity.

    So, when you come to a point where you think there is an impasse, you ask the question, ‘how can I break through this impasse?’

    So, the how implies continuity, that is the basic question, the how, the why and what.

    These are the three basic questions. You always put these questions to yourself, how, why and what.

    And wait for an answer for these questions, either from within or from outside.

    So, when this ‘realization’ or whatever you want to call it, dawns on you that no outside agency can be of any help to find an answer for your questions, the helplessness that you feel because of your dependence on outside agency also goes with it.

    Q:  I was only thinking, you see, when the child just has to know how to step, you are going to give that free wheeler. Once it starts walking it has no use. (UG:  I know all the similes.) So, I was thinking, you see, maybe there are certain things which are means to an end, but if you entirely depend on that, you would really depend on that totally and you can never depend on it.

    UG: The very question which you are asking, ‘how’ means time, you see, I don't know. 

    The time, because the questioning mechanism there has come into being in the course of time, you know, in the course of time. So that cannot conceive of the possibility of finding an answer or a solution for the question except in terms of time, you know. 

    If there is no answer to that question ‘how’ then the how cannot stay there.

    It is that how I was talking about that one thought, if it remains as one, without splitting itself into two, then that does the trick.

    Nobody has any answer for that question.

    You have to come to that point, the outside agency cannot help at all because the answers given by others or by me or by anybody, those are not the answers. Otherwise, the question wouldn't be there.

    This is what I am trying to emphasize.

    So, they are not the answers. When they are not the answers, how can this question remain there?

    So, you don't brush aside those answers, reject those answers because you are rejecting the man (or guru or guide or scripture) who has given the answers, you see.

    The authority of some scriptures which you have taken for granted is in jeopardy.

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    The question you are asking 'how' is not separate from the questioner when the question 'how' remains as one, (that's all that I am talking about) without splitting itself into two, splitting itself into two means - 'the questioner' and 'the question'.

    So, the how demands time.

    Because you don't know, if you knew you wouldn't ask that question. They are so interrelated. 

    So, is there anything that you can do to prevent this separation and the isolation?

    There isn't anything that you can do through any volition of yours, that's all that I am saying.

    So, it is there that the 'luck', I use the word luck not in the general sense of the word, some strange chance.

    That is the duality that I am talking about, not the soul and the other.

    So, when this comes to an end, that is the end.

    The immortality that those Upanishads talked about, I don't want to use it because you think that I am interpreting.

    So, when once it dies to this duality (thought splitting into question and the questioner), what is there is an immortal thing, not that there is something which becomes immortal, but life is immortal because it has no beginning, it has no end.

    But the thought has a beginning, and it has an end.

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