You go to see a movie. The screen remains the same, but the scenes on the screen go on changing. Both are real. The scenes are for a moment there and then they are gone, but the screen remains the same. Because of the scenes you cannot see the screen. When the scenes stop, the projector stops, suddenly the screen is there utterly empty. That is the experience of absolute: it is emptiness, just a white screen; nothing moves, nothing changes. It is eternal, timeless. But the world of time, the world of change is also part of it.

Remember the metaphor of the wheel and the axle: the axle is absolute and the wheel is relative. But the wheel needs the axle; without the axle the wheel cannot move – on what it will move? And the axle needs the wheel; without the wheel it won’t be an axle at all. They are complementary. not antagonistic.

This and that are two aspects of the same coin. The sutras:

Absolute and relative –
He who knows these two together,
Through the relative leaves death behind
and through the Absolute gains immortality.

See the point: One who knows these together…The Upanishad is not saying know the absolute and renounce the relative. It is saying know them together in their togetherness. Then only your knowing is whole, then only your knowing is total. The person who turns away from the world remains lopsided as much as the person who remains in the world and forgets the beyond. Both are partial, and to be partial is to be ill because then you cannot have your whole being, only a fragment. And to have a fragment only is to suffer, is to be miserable.

Hence my observation is: the worldly people suffer in one way and your so-called spiritual people suffer in another, but both suffer. Suffering comes from the partial truth. Bliss is the fragrance of the whole.

Bliss comes only when you live life in its totality. The totality includes this and that and it does not make any hierarchy. that is not higher than this; that is hidden in this. This is the visible part of that, and that is the unmanifest part of this. This is the body of that and that is the soul of this.

And you can see within yourself: the body and the soul are living in absolute harmony. In the same way the God and his existence are living in deep harmony there is no conflict. The conflict is created by your so-called religious people; they have created all kinds of unnecessary struggles.

Hence true religion will be closer to the Upanishads than to Shankaracharya, than to Mahavira, it will be far closer to the Upanishads. And this Isa Upanishad is the very essence of the whole Upanishadic philosophy of life.

Absolute and relative –
He who knows these two together
Through the relative leaves death behind
and through the Absolute gains immortality.