Sannyas darshan of Veet Nisha, from Believing the Impossible Before Breakfast, Ch 27, dated 27 February 1978: “To open your eyes needs courage because you may have to see things that you never wanted to see in yourself.”
Veet means beyond, nisha means night.
The night is just ending, the dawn is entering. The night is taking itself away. We cannot do anything to disperse it; it comes and goes on its own. But we can do one thing: even when the morning is there, already there, and the sun has risen, we may not open our eyes; then inside us the night still continues. And just the reverse is also true: if you open your eyes, really open your eyes in the deepest dark, the darkness disappears. So all depends on whether you open your eyes or not. To remain with closed eyes is to remain in the night, to open your eyes and start seeing is the beginning of the day, the beginning of light, and the beginning of the divine. The word ‘day’ comes from divine.
So the night depends on each person’s resistance to light, their fear of light. One feels cosy with closed eyes. To open your eyes needs courage because you may have to see things that you never wanted to see in yourself, outside yourself. Your dreams may be shattered; they are bound to be shattered because they can exist only with closed eyes, they can exist only in sleep. They may be beautiful, sweet dreams, and one wants to cling to those dreams. People have become so addicted to dreams that they don’t open their eyes, they don’t see the light of the day.
Let sannyas be the beginning of seeing. Seeing is light. Remaining with closed eyes is darkness. That is the meaning of veet nisha: go beyond the night, open your eyes, see.
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