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Upanishads, but it remains only a beginning. It cannot penetrate the deeper valleys of the
Upanishadic mystery because it remains philosophical. The Upanishads begin with philosophy, but
that is only a beginning. They end in religion, in the unknowable. And when I say ”unknowable”, I
mean that which cannot be known.
Whatsoever the effort may be, howsoever we may try, the moment we know something it becomes
part of science; the moment we feel something as unknown it is part of philosophy – the moment we
encounter the unknowable, only then is it religion. When I say the unknowable, I mean that which
cannot be known but which can be encountered; it can be felt, it can even be lived. You can be
face to face with it. It can be encountered, but still it remains unknowable. Only this much is felt –
that now we are deep in a mystery which cannot be solved. So before we enter this mystery, some
points have to be understood; otherwise there will be no entrance.
One is: how to listen, because there are different dimensions of listening. You can listen with your
intellect, with your reason. Mm? – that is one way of listening to a thing: the most common, the most
ordinary and the most shallow – because with reason you are always either in defense or in attack.
With reason you are always fighting, so whenever someone tries to understand something through
reason he is fighting with the thing. At the most, a very rudimentary understanding is possible,
just an acquaintance is possible. The deeper meaning is bound to be missed because the deeper
meaning requires a very sympathetic listening.
Reason can never listen with sympathy. It listens with a very argumentative background. It can never
listen with love; that is impossible. So listening with reason is good if you are trying to understand
mathematics, if you are trying to understand logic, if you are trying to understand any system which
is totally rational.
If you listen to poetry with reason, then you will be blind. It is as if one is trying to see with one’s
ears or hear with one’s eyes. You cannot understand poetry through reason. So there is a deeper
understanding, the second type of understanding, which is not through reason but through love,
through feeling, through emotion, through heart.
Reason is always in conflict; reason will not allow anything to pass in easily. Reason must be
defeated; only then can something penetrate. It is an armour around the mind; it is a defense
method, a defense measure. It is alert every moment that nothing should pass without it being
aware, and that nothing should be allowed – unless reason is defeated. And even when reason is
defeated the thing is not going to your heart, because in defeat you cannot feel sympathetic.