Ajhun Chet Ganwar #16

Blessed you are—at least you do get intoxicated! There are others, even more unfortunate than you, who don’t get intoxicated at all. If you are getting intoxicated, someday you will also become unconscious. These are good signs. Even to be intoxicated is difficult.

To be intoxicated means: to lose the mind. To be intoxicated means: to lose control. To be intoxicated means: to climb down a little from the throne of your ego. To be intoxicated means: to become innocent again like a child; to be filled again with the wonder of life; to find again meaning in the trees’ exultation, in the fragrance of flowers, in the dance of the winds. It means losing the mind’s arithmetic. That constant web of logic within, that endless spread of reasoning—breaking through it, stepping out, if only for a moment; as if someone were to step outside a prison. Leaving those shut walls and the stale air within them, if only for a little while!

It is a good sign. You are moving in the right direction. But your question is valid. First, why is even intoxication so difficult? Because all things that are greater than your ego are difficult. Whatever is smaller than your ego and fits inside your fist doesn’t scare you—you become its master. But the moment something greater than you takes hold of you—some gale, some storm, something you cannot possess—whatever you command, it won’t obey; whatever you order left or right, it will heed you not. You will have to hear it; you will have to obey it; you will have to go wherever it takes you. Any such gale—whether of love or of prayer—you will try to escape, you will get frightened. It is too much. And who knows where it will end! Your cunning mind grows anxious: who knows where it will lead!

You’ve been taught to swim; not to flow. Ego is built by swimming. And the joy of swimming is only there when you swim against the current. When you fight the river—then the ego gets its full delight.

But intoxication means: to float with the current; not even to move arms and legs; to belong to the flow. Wherever the flow takes you—if it drowns you, that’s the shore, that’s the bank. Now you are ready even to drown. If it carries you into ravines or to the open seas—you are ready. That’s why people fear love. And that’s why they fear devotion too. If with love alone you are afraid—people can’t even love one another, because even there they feel the panic of a storm.

That is why people invented marriage. Marriage is a device to escape love. Marriage is arrangement; love is danger. So the so-called wise men of the world, before love’s danger could arise, instituted marriage. In this country we even had child marriage. That was the so-called wisdom here, the arithmetic. Before someone grows up—once they are young, how will you stop them? The storm will come. And once it comes, your feet wobble lifelong. Once someone tastes the joy of wobbling, they stop caring to walk carefully, prudently. Before love’s storm arrives, lay down the arrangement of marriage; build walls of stone. And if love comes at all, it will come within marriage—then it won’t be dangerous; there will be a border, a definition. Mostly it won’t come. At best, living together creates a sort of affection—that will arise. Two people live side by side, affection grows—just as between brother and sister; so between husband and wife too.

Consider this: Existence gave you brother and sister, mother and father—but not a wife, not a husband! There was that much space left for your freedom. Brothers and sisters are given by birth; there is no option to choose; you get no freedom. And where there is no freedom to choose, how can there be any freedom at all? One single doorway was left open in your prison, by which you might step out and become intoxicated; you might take a risk, accept a challenge. Your wise ones bricked it up. The small door God had left, they too sealed with stones.

Child marriage means: by the time you grow up you will find, just as brother and sister were given by birth, so too wife and husband were given by birth. Infants, suckling children, were married. They won’t even remember when they were married. Before awareness dawned they were already married. When awareness comes, they’ll find, “We are married!” They will always find themselves married. This was a device to save them from love.

And one who escapes even love—devotion will never arise in his life. Why? If you cannot take the risk of loving even one person, cannot play the Holi of fire with one person, how will you play with God? That is the great danger—the vast danger. There you will be utterly dissolved. In human love, you burn a little, you do not get annihilated; only some sparks fall on you. The ego is only somewhat chipped, dusted; it doesn’t vanish. But in the love of God you will be gone to the roots; nothing will remain. Looking back, you will find no bridges remaining; all bridges will have fallen. A moment comes when, like a drop merging into the ocean, you too are gone.

So, first, we fear even intoxication. The first cause of fear is that intoxication is greater than you; you won’t be able to hold it in your fist.

O proud heart, well done—
that moment of joy the fates once granted,
you even rejected that.
What joy is it if it cannot become your maid?
Love has, since the first day, ruled land and sea;
love—and the slave of fleeting comforts?
If there is a wind that will not fit your fist,
then breathing that wind is forbidden.

Understand. O proud heart, well done! O self-respecting heart—well done that you even refused that one moment of happiness destiny handed you! That fleeting moment of bliss, that glimpse from beyond, that gust of wind that scattered the infinite upon your consciousness, that ray of delight that broke through—well done, you rejected it. Because there was danger in it—terrible danger. The danger was precisely this: What joy is it if it cannot become your handmaid? That joy was greater than you and would not serve you, would not become your lackey. It would have drowned you. You could not have locked it in your safe. It was too vast to fit into your fist. It could only be had with an open palm. The fist could be contained in it; it could not be contained in the fist.

And to those whose only vision of life is the safe: how will they enter the ocean? You cannot lock the ocean in a safe!

You cannot possess God! Yes—if you wish, you can let Him be your possessor; but you cannot possess Him. So for those whose entire life-structure is possession, who say: we trust only what fits in our fist; we trust only what obeys us; we trust only what is smaller than us…

Notice: in life you always seek what is smaller than you. You fear what is greater than you beyond reckoning. You befriend those whose intelligence is less than yours—because befriending someone more intelligent is scary: who knows where he will take you! In every situation you seek the one who can be your slave, because only the slave feeds your ego—you become the master. Now God will not become your servant. For that matter, those who have truly loved cannot even make their beloved their servant. Love never becomes anyone’s slave.

What joy is it if it cannot become your maid—
we don’t even count it as joy. We say: what happiness is it that will not be our servant?

Love has, since the first day, ruled land and sea;
love—and the slave of fleeting comforts?
Our so-called wisdom, puffed with ego, says: I will not allow my love to depend on anything.

If there is a wind that will not fit your fist,
then breathing that wind is forbidden.
Thus our ego constantly tells us: if the wind won’t fit into our fist, we will not even breathe it. Then you will breathe dead air—air in a closed room that fits your fist. You will breathe stale air, the kind of air in which death can enter but life does not. You won’t be able to play with the open tempests. You won’t accept great challenges.

And the greater the challenge you accept, the greater you become. When someone accepts the challenge of the Infinite, he becomes infinite. You become what you dare.

We are afraid. We have made our little courtyard and we stay confined within it. We don’t even glance beyond it.

Mind won’t let you become intoxicated—so even intoxication is difficult. And the whole strategy of mind is: tomorrow. What hurry now? There are other things to do—finish them. If it’s intoxication you seek, do it tomorrow. Now your son’s wedding must be done. The shop must be run. A lawsuit must be fought. A thousand tasks. The time for intoxication hasn’t come. Tomorrow; some day in the future we will revel.

I have heard:
The head of Omar Khayyam went astray,
who said, “Come today—let’s make merry;
tomorrow we die.”
“Friends, the message of history is: for the good of the many—
today let’s kill, be killed;
tomorrow we will make merry.”
The mind says: today let’s die and kill; tomorrow we shall have fun. So the mind calls people like Omar Khayyam foolish.

The head of Omar Khayyam went astray,
who said, “Come today—let’s make merry;
tomorrow we die.”

Intoxication can happen now, not tomorrow. Joy can happen now, not tomorrow. Whoever postpones to tomorrow postpones forever—it will never be. Tomorrow never comes; whenever it comes, it comes as today. What passed as yesterday’s tomorrow was also a today. And what will come as tomorrow will arrive only as today. This today that has arrived—yesterday it too was tomorrow.

And whoever learns the habit of postponing—tomorrow, tomorrow—never becomes intoxicated. Such people we call wise. We say they are far-sighted, planners of the future, organizers. And those who, for the future’s planning and organization, waste the present, we call wise; while those who, for the present, can let go of the entire future—we call them foolish, mad. And only the mad can become intoxicated.

Hence you will find something common between saints and madmen: intoxication. In saints there is a touch of madness; and in madmen a glimmer of sainthood. Not exactly the same, but something similar. The madman has fallen below mind—he too is outside mind. The saint has risen above mind—he too is outside mind. Both are out of mind; that is their commonality. Many other things differ: the madman is tormented, for he has fallen below; the saint is supremely blissful, for he has risen beyond. But both are beyond mind.

That’s why sometimes you will see a touch of craziness in the paramahansas, and sometimes in the talk of madmen you will glimpse the flavor of a paramahansa. Sometimes a madman says something that you never hear from the mouths of the so-called wise. Sometimes a madman brings a far horizon. Sometimes a madman utters sentences fit for the Upanishads, worthy of being minted as verses of the Vedas or the Quran. And sometimes saints say such things that, if handed to psychologists, they would lock the saints in asylums.

What do you think—if Ramakrishna were handed over to psychologists, would they spare him without treatment? They would treat him! They called Ramakrishna’s samadhi hysteria. There is a certain resemblance between hysteria and samadhi—both lose consciousness. An epileptic falls unconscious; in samadhi too, sometimes someone falls in ecstasy. From the outside, the difference is not obvious. The difference is inside—but who will look within? It is subtle. Grossly, they look the same: both lie unconscious. But no one notices how Ramakrishna’s unconsciousness filled his life with such wakefulness; no one sees how, after that unconsciousness, he returned like a lotus blooming—in supreme bliss, supreme peace. An epileptic, after his fit, returns exhausted, beaten, broken—as if all is lost. Ramakrishna, after coming back from unconsciousness, returned as if everything had been gained: “Ram-ratan dhan payo re!”

The epileptic dreads that it might strike again. Ramakrishna, as soon as he came back, would lift his face to the sky and cry: When will you give me such moments again? When will grace shower again? Often, when Ramakrishna returned, he would weep and cry: Why did you bring me back so soon? Such an incomparable delight was pouring—why deprive me? Had you filled a little more of my bowl, what would it have cost you? You are the great giver! Why did you become stingy?

But the psychologist will not hear these things. From outside it will look like part of the same madness—that he is babbling. “This man is utterly deranged—hence he speaks any nonsense.”

Seeing Buddha sitting silently, the thought will arise in you too: is this man lazy? For the lazy also sit like this. What difference will you make between a lazy man and a Buddha? From the outside there is none: both are sitting, slack. A Buddha sits leaning against a tree; a lazy man sits leaning against a tree; neither moves. From the outside, both look lazy.

Western thinkers accuse the East of laziness. Their accusation carries the undertone that the seers of the East taught people laziness, inactivity. Indeed, the wise have spoken of non-doing. They have said: only when you are free of doing will you know what is. Now the statement of non-doing can be interpreted as laziness. Buddha also seems lazy, doing nothing, sitting empty. He looks like a burden. If he had been born in a communist society, his life would have passed in prison or in Siberia. In China he would be doing forced labor in a camp.

Even today in China many sannyasins—followers of Lao Tzu and Buddha—are in military camps; under the lash they are made to break stones. In China the condemnation is that these are lazy people. Among these “lazy” people some Buddha may be present—after all, Buddhas arise among human beings! Among these lazy people some Lao Tzu may be there, someone who has attained the state of non-doing. But that is an inner matter; how will you distinguish?

How to distinguish between non-doing and laziness? From the outside they look the same. The difference is within. The lazy is becoming dead. In the state of non-doing the flame of life burns more intensely. Open a lazy person’s eyes and you will see a fog. Look into the eyes of one in non-doing and, if you see fog there, look closely—you will find smoke within, darkness; no life-energy, no waves of life, no flame, no light. Then look into the eyes of one who has attained non-doing and you will see vast skies, without clouds, without fog, the sun shining in its full brilliance. You will find a great flame of life, a lamp burning very intensely. His consciousness is unmoving; there is no tremor—for when there is no doing, why should there be vibration? But he is not dead.

Do you understand the difference between a corpse and one in samadhi? Sometimes one in samadhi may look like a corpse; sometimes a corpse may look like one in samadhi. From the outside there are no measures.

That is why even a Sufi like Omar Khayyam has been misunderstood. Whatever notion you have about Omar Khayyam is wrong. The wine he spoke of is not the wine sold in taverns. The beloved he praised is not flesh-and-bone. He called the Beloved—God. And he called wine—devotion. Fitzgerald, who first translated Omar Khayyam into English, because of whom Omar became world-famous, did not understand him. Fitzgerald thought wine meant wine. He was a Western man. He took two plus two to be four. He took “wine” as wine and “beloved” as beloved. The subtle intention of the Sufis fell into a great misunderstanding. On the basis of Fitzgerald’s version the whole world translated him, and the mistake spread everywhere. Today taverns are named “Omar Khayyam.” Nothing could be more foolish.

Temples should bear Omar Khayyam’s name—not taverns. Because the tavern he spoke of is of another kind.

There is one kind of intoxication that leads to stupor, and out of which a very deep awareness arises. But the first condition of this intoxication is: do not postpone to tomorrow. Postponement is the device of the mind.

Listening here—if you think, “He is right; the thing sounds right. I will think about it; some day I will do it,”—you have arranged to not do it. I am not asking you to do anything here. I am saying: sway with me a little while. The reed-flute is playing; let the serpent hidden within you sway a little. If you sway, your inner serpent will sway. What we call kundalini we have imagined as a serpent. If someone’s flute is playing, let your serpent sway a little. Don’t postpone. Don’t be clever. Don’t worry what those around will think. “What will people say if you sway? Educated, intelligent, respectable—swaying like that? Let the fools sway—fine; but you are intelligent; and you sway?”

Ego will stop you. And there is fear too—if I begin to sway, where will it end? This is just the beginning; what will be its end? The intellect wants to compute everything in advance. It wants two and two to be four—guaranteed.

A sannyasin of mine came from Kathmandu: Arun. Someone wrote a book on Shivpuri Baba and sent it to me through Arun. A small book—but lovely. Shivpuri Baba was a lovely man—one of the few in this century in whom God dwelt. For about thirty-five years he traveled the world quietly, as an unknown man. In those travels he met many great figures, even Albert Einstein. In their conversation, Shivpuri Baba asked: “What do you think—do two and two make four?” Einstein said, “Certainly, two and two make four. What a question!”

Shivpuri Baba said, “But I submit, two and two cannot make four. One and one cannot make two—because here no two things are alike; how will you add them? There are no two identical ‘ones.’ Each thing is so unique! One and one can make two only if both ones are exactly alike. But here nothing is identical.”

You say, one man is in the room; another man enters, so there are two men. But these two are so different—will you count both as “one” in the same way? In mathematics, deception will happen. One might be like Krishna, the other like Kansa—if these two go in, they will not make two; they will cut each other. Or one might be Majnun and the other Laila—if these two go in, two will come together into one; two will not remain. It will depend. One and one will not always make two; two and two will not always be four. Sometimes one and one will make one-and-a-half; sometimes one and one will make one; sometimes one and one may make ten. Hard to say.

It is said Einstein fell silent and pondered—the point was true. Life is a little more than mathematics. Life is mysterious; mathematics ends all mystery.

Intoxication means rising beyond mathematics, beyond logic. Logic is utilitarian. In the marketplace it is fine; in the temple it is not fine at all. While you are engaged in work, in accounts, use it—but do not be deluded that this is your life. Keep some windows open—through which fresh air may blow. Keep some space for mystery. Don’t imagine that you have known everything.

He who thinks he has known—there is no greater ignorant person in the world. Because that very “knowledge” will no longer let him journey into the unknown. Who here ever knows all? Those who have known say: the more we knew, the more we found left to know. The more we knew, the more it seemed we knew nothing.

To be intoxicated means: you do not end in your head; you have a heart too. Your skull is not your soul; your soul is bigger than your skull. Within you there are points where two and two make five; and places where two and two remain three; sometimes two and two remain one. Within you are such possibilities, such dimensions where arithmetic becomes futile; where arguments have no substance; where the conclusions of logic have no value; where poetry appears. Within you is a spring of heart where love is born, poetry is born; where songs arise; where flowers bloom; whence mystery surges and samadhi is born.

When you sway, when you are intoxicated, you are descending from the head. Your energy is leaving the head and falling on the heart. Your stream is turning heartward. Swaying is not just swaying. If you only shake the body you are doing useless exercise; it has no value. If you shake—it is worthless. Let it shake. Just don’t stop it—that is enough. You can stop it. The head will become the master and leave no room for the heart; it will chain it and order: you are ignorant, blind—stop! Be silent! It will not allow reverence to arise; it will not let love tremble. Like a soldier it will stand with bayonet drawn.

And the heart is very tender—tender as a flower. If you stab a flower with a bayonet, the bayonet won’t break; the flower will. The filaments of the heart are very delicate.

You can stop the tremor if you wish, but you cannot produce it. If you try to manufacture it, it becomes a circus. You can try and sway—good drill, good exercise—but you will miss. The inner serpent will not sway. You didn’t even hear the flute.

So don’t try to make it happen. Only be mindful that the urge to stop does not arise. When a surge arises, drop worries of propriety. Then you can be intoxicated.

How long will you guard your heart against the winds of longing?
Whatever counsel the season gives—obey.

When spring has come, when the winds are colored, when flowers are fragrant, when birds sing, when peacocks spread their plumes—then don’t hold back.

How long will you guard your heart against the winds of longing?
Whatever counsel the season gives—obey.

When spring arrives, leave the doors of your heart open.

If you have drunk the wine, taste a little of its delight;
why such caution? Stagger a little!

Why so much caution? Why such care? If you have come here at all—if you have sipped a little wine—then savor it. Let the color flow. If something within sways, let it sway. If something hums within, let it hum. If gooseflesh arises, let it arise. If tears flow, let them flow.

If you have drunk the wine, taste a little of its delight;
why such caution? Stagger a little!

Why such caution? Why such cleverness? At least sometimes, set cleverness aside. For a little while, don’t be clever. For a little while, become innocent again, childlike again.

Jesus said: Only those who are like children will enter the kingdom of my Father. He said it perfectly. In this country we have always said: those who become childlike again are the saints. Therefore saints are called dvija—twice-born. They are born again; they have become children again.

Not every Brahmin is dvija—remember. Not every Brahmin is a Brahmin. He who knows Brahman is a Brahmin; and he who is reborn. One birth is from parents—that everyone gets; that does not make one twice-born. Wearing the sacred thread does not make one twice-born. Whom are you deceiving? One becomes twice-born when he clears the dust of mind, puts logic aside, and allows childlike consciousness to well up within.

If you have drunk the wine, taste a little of its delight;
why such caution? Stagger a little!
Is it only in love that hearts are risked, O moralist?
My intent was to stake life itself.

Why fear? Are you afraid of losing the heart? Afraid that in love your heart might sink, be lost?

Is it only in love that hearts are risked, O moralist?
Do you think only in love you must forfeit the heart? That is nothing—that is only the beginning.

My intent was to stake life itself.
Even if life must be staked—be ready. Only by losing the little life does one gain the Great Life. Only by losing oneself does one become God.

Is it only in love that hearts are risked, O moralist?
My intent was to stake life itself.
The preacher’s talk of paradise is very fine—but
go one day to His court yourself.

You hear me. What I am telling you is news of the realm I have seen. It is news of that court I have visited. It is news of that spring I have witnessed. It is news of those flowers I have seen bloom. Hearing this, it is fine if you become intoxicated—but that is not the end, until you too visit that court; until you too are granted that vision.

From here take the thirst. If you don’t even get intoxicated, even thirst won’t awaken. Here I only kindle thirst. Become very thirsty—so thirsty that only thirst remains, that you begin to burn with thirst.

The preacher’s talk of paradise is very fine—but
go one day to His court yourself.

If you get intoxicated, you are joined to me. If you become unconscious, you have been in His court. Intoxicated—the song touched you. Unconscious—the door opened.

And now you ask: “I do get intoxicated, but I don’t lose consciousness.” You are doing it half-and-half. This will put you in a great difficulty. You will belong neither to the world nor to the Lord. Better not to be intoxicated at all. You are taking the risk and will end up in trouble. Neither home nor ghat—nowhere. Your delight in the world will wane, and the courage to go to God you will not muster. You will hang in-between—become Trishanku—suspended. A state of great dilemma.

Now that you are getting intoxicated, gather a little more courage. If you have come this far, take a few more steps. Now, become unconscious too. And remember, this unconsciousness is the kind from which awareness is born. Not the stupor of ordinary wine; this is the drunkenness of God. In this, the more unconscious a man becomes, the more he attains awareness. What you call awareness now is actually unconsciousness—the world’s unconsciousness. What you take as wakefulness now is only sleep.

Sri Aurobindo said: Until samadhi bore fruit, what I took to be day proved a night worse than night; what I took to be life proved a death worse than death; what I took to be nectar proved to be poison. After samadhi, all valuation changes—there is a revaluation.

What you call wakefulness now will not be wakefulness after samadhi—it’s only open-eyed sleep. Eyes are open, yet you sleep. In sleep you walk, you rise, you speak. Within you is deep drowsiness, swoon, heedlessness.

If you begin to sink into intoxication a little and then become unconscious, you will be amazed: here you become unconscious to the world; there a new awareness begins. Here the outer eye closes; within, the eye opens. Here the body is forgotten; there the soul is remembered. Here the world’s frenzy is forgotten; you become unconscious to the world—and instantly you find yourself standing before the Beloved.

That was Ramakrishna’s state. When he became unconscious, he forgot the world, forgot his body. The Beloved was remembered; he stood before the Lord.

So I say to you: having done so much, do this much more. Intoxication—the first step; now take the second. There are only two steps. With these two the journey is complete. First step: intoxication. Second: unconsciousness. And on the third, you do not remain—only God remains. It is but a two-step distance.

It is the season of blossoms; the air is perfumed, O cupbearer.
Look at the garden—it looks like paradise, O cupbearer.

It is the season of flowers! Spring has arrived! The air is sprinkled with scent.

It is the season of blossoms; the air is perfumed, O cupbearer.
Look at the garden—it looks like paradise, O cupbearer.

See—heaven has descended in spring!

Today Nature has lifted her veil in the rose garden.
O fortunate one, today His gaze has fallen upon you, O cupbearer.

Whenever an awakened one—Buddha or Mahavira or Mohammed or Krishna or Christ—walks among you, spring arrives. It is as if God lifts His veil, removes His burqa, takes off His veil. We are God with veils drawn; Buddha lifted the veil.

Today Nature has lifted her veil in the rose garden.
O fortunate one, today His gaze has fallen upon you, O cupbearer.
That cloud rose swaying, youth poured down;
today everything in the world is young, O cupbearer.
See with what majesty they move toward the tavern—
a delight to behold is the joyous procession of the wine-bearers, O cupbearer.

If you become intoxicated, the way you will move toward the tavern—the sight will be worth seeing. You go to the temple like a corpse—performing a duty. You go to the mosque because you must. You bang your head in the gurudwara because, what to do, it’s a question of prestige! But no intoxication is visible. And until you stagger toward the temple—more and more as you approach—everything is useless. Don’t waste your effort. And when the staggering comes, the temple comes home; it comes where you are.

See with what majesty they move toward the tavern—
a delight to behold is the joyous procession of the wine-bearers, O cupbearer.
In such a season, to desire paradise is folly;
this earth has the pride of the Beloved’s garden, O cupbearer.

And when a Buddha is on this earth, to speak of paradise is pointless. In such a season, to desire heaven is folly. We would be fools then to think of going to heaven—heaven is before us. We would be mad to talk of God then.

The true Master is before you. Dive—there the door will be found. In the process of becoming, it becomes.

It becomes by becoming.
Hold fast to the feet of the Lord, O brother.

But remember, courage is needed. Hence Paltoo Das repeatedly says: only he is a Rajput who enters the battlefield and does not return until victory is won—staking himself, staking his life—but not returning until the supreme victory.

And what is the supreme victory? To lose oneself. We have decorated and groomed ourselves so much, enthroned our ego so high, that we have left no room for God. Vacate the throne. Step aside. Become empty, and God descends. When you become unconscious, only then you become empty. And remember this, though today it will be only a statement for you—because you have not yet been to that court. Today you must accept it on my trust; there is no other way. Take it as a mere indication: the day a man truly becomes unconscious for God, that very day awareness dawns. This is a paradox.

This wine that I want to pour into you—that I am pouring—if you agree to drink, and you let it pass down your throat, then for the first time in life you will be filled with awareness. For the first time the flame will begin to rise upward within you. For the first time your dreams will vanish and the world will dissolve. For the first time, you will come home.

Man is a circle. And of course every circle has a center. So within you are both—center and circumference. The center is your soul. For now I say “soul”; the day you know it, I will say “the divine.” It is one and the same. As long as the divine within you sleeps, we call it soul; when it awakens, it is the divine.

Inside you there is the center—soul or the divine. And your circumference is the body or the world. Ordinarily a person is asleep to both; neither does he know the divine within nor is he truly aware of the world without. He just goes on—sleep-walking through life.

You have heard, haven’t you, that some people walk in their sleep? Perhaps one of you does. Scientists say one in ten can sleepwalk. With so many people here, at least a few must be doing it. The sleepwalker himself is startled in the morning; if you tell him he won’t believe it. If you see him at night you too will be startled: his eyes are open, yet he is asleep. If you wake him he will be shocked, frightened, “What’s the matter?” Psychologists say: don’t wake a sleepwalker; he may be badly frightened, even have a heart attack. He thinks he is asleep in bed and suddenly you have woken him and he is standing in the living room—he’ll panic. Don’t wake a sleepwalker.

And in sleep one can move about quite easily—at least in one’s own house. It’s all habit; mechanical. He knows where the door is, where the wall is, where the chair is. In the daytime he may bump into the chair or the table or stub his toe on the door; but at night, sleepwalking, he bumps into nothing—eyes open.

Psychologists have researched car accidents and found that the highest number occur between three and five in the morning. Drivers who drive through the night meet with most mishaps between three and five. After much study they discovered that for most people that is the deepest sleep period. In the night there are two hours when one sleeps the deepest. If one gets those two hours, one feels fresh; if one misses those two hours, even eight hours of sleep won’t refresh. During those two hours the body temperature drops—by about two degrees. That is why around dawn, near five a.m., you feel a slight chill—as if you could use another blanket. The cold hasn’t increased; your temperature has dropped. And when it drops two degrees for two hours, that is the deepest sleep window. Note: it differs from person to person.

For some, the drop is between two and four; for them sleeping in those two hours is essential for health and mental balance. Such a person can rise at four with no trouble. He can wake in brahma-muhurta and then condemn others as sinners for not doing so. He will preach: “Rise in brahma-muhurta. Look at me!”

But for one whose drop is between four and six, it’s hard; he cannot get up at four. If he does, he’ll be off all day—heavy head, drowsy. And the early riser will call him a sinner, and he will start feeling guilty: “What a tamasic fellow I am.” These are foolish theories.

But everybody’s temperature drops for two hours at night, at different times. For men, generally between three and five; for women, often between five and seven. That’s why the Western arrangement seems more scientific: the husband gets up and makes the morning tea, not the wife. It’s her sleep window. The Eastern arrangement seems unscientific—wife rises first, sweeps, makes tea, then wakes the husband and attends to him. Modern research does not support this.

So when men drop into deep sleep between three and five, that’s the time of car accidents. Psychologists found that many drivers keep their eyes open between three and five, yet fall asleep inside. Eyes open, they seem to be looking; even the person in the passenger seat won’t notice. That micro-sleep is the biggest cause of accidents. If this single factor were eliminated, accidents would drop by fifty percent, they say—though it’s very hard to eliminate; between three and five the nod will come.

I want to tell you: even with eyes open, one can be asleep. What we call wakefulness is open-eyed sleep. We are not really aware of the world, nor of ourselves. We know nothing. We just go on mechanically. Such a person knows neither great sorrow nor great joy. He is pushed and pulled along. His skin becomes thick—insensitive. That’s why the ordinary person does not feel suffering much.

Buddha cries out that life is suffering—birth is suffering, living is suffering, youth is suffering, old age is suffering, death is suffering—nothing but suffering. You hear it, but it doesn’t really reach you. Buddha is a very sensitive being—few on earth have been so sensitive. Because his sensitivity is so deep, he sees suffering everywhere. Where you see flowers, he sees thorns. It depends on you.

If you practice, day after day, sleeping on a hard bed, and keep increasing the rigor, a day will come when you can sleep on a bed of thorns. In Kashi you will find people sleeping on thorn-beds. It is practice; their sensitivity has died.

You will be surprised: ask your spouse or child to prick your back with a needle at many places. In some spots you will feel the prick; in some, nothing—your husband is pricking and you don’t feel it. There are many points in the body utterly insensitive, and many very sensitive. With practice the whole body can be made insensitive.

And because life holds so much pain, we all have invented our own practices so that we won’t feel it. You walk down the road and a man begs. If you are sensitive you will feel pain—because you are a shareholder in a society that has forced this man to beg. You will be disturbed. You were on your way to work; now your mind is entangled. Your work will suffer. If you are a poet and a poem was arising in you, clouds had gathered in the sky and a great sense of beauty had come—one beggar ruins it. The poem is lost; irritation arises. Sadness and gloom descend. You were going to court; now this beggar will haunt you. You were going to eat; now you won’t be able to—nausea arises. The sight of his sore-ridden body by the roadside won’t leave you; his stench will surround you as you eat.

What to do? There is so much misery in society. There is only one way: become insensitive. Wrap yourself in layers, put on armor so that the beggar begs and you don’t even notice, someone beats someone and you pass by; whatever happens, you remain unconcerned. You already have enough worries; if you become very sensitive, how will you live?

So a strange thing happens: amidst oceans of suffering, the person floats as if there were none. But remember, when your sensitivity is deadened to the point you don’t feel pain, your sensitivity to joy dies with it; they go together, in the same proportion. The one who does not see the beggar’s wounds will not see the lotus either. It’s the same ratio. If you want to see the lotus, you must also see the beggar’s sores. If you want to touch the velvet of the flower, you must experience the sting of the thorn. If you pull your hand back so as never to feel thorns, you will miss the flower too.

Whoever blocks sensitivity to suffering also loses the sense of joy. And there is enough suffering; so joy is lost too. We have all become insensitive.

Then, when a society becomes prosperous, the insensitivity we had cultivated to escape pain is no longer so necessary. This is what is happening in the West.

Your question: “In the West today the sensitive existentialist thinkers are all pessimists. Why?”

There is a reason. In the West, suffering has decreased. This will sound strange, even contradictory, but listen: outer, visible suffering has decreased. Streets are clean. People do not beg. There is little visible poverty. Children’s bellies are not swollen from hunger and malnutrition. People are beautiful, bodies healthy, lives longer. Outwardly a certain affluence has arrived. As the outer structure of life has been raised, the Westerner can afford to let his armor loosen a little; there is less to be defended against outside. And because there is less pain outside, the need to be numb lessens—so more pain becomes visible! Sensitivity returns, and with it the perception of suffering.

In the East suffering is so overwhelming that if you became sensitive you would die, you would commit suicide. You couldn’t even make it from home to the market; you would hang yourself from a tree on the way. Everywhere is unbearable pain. A widow is crying. Someone is starving. A beggar child clutches your clothes and runs after you; you grow embarrassed: “Leave me! Go somewhere else!” As if you had no heart! How will you live with a heart here? If you walk with a heart, nothing will be possible. You took money to buy vegetables—some beggar will take it. You went to get medicine for your child—a widow will take it. How will you live? How will you return home? There is so much begging, so much suffering—if you begin to share you will die of sorrow. So to protect yourself there is only one way: grow a thick skin.

This is why friends from the West—many are here—constantly face a difficulty. They ask again and again… No Indian asks: there are beggars on the streets, what should we do? But every day a Western sannyasin’s question arrives: “Meditation is fine, but there is so much poverty and begging—what should be done?” Daily someone from the West writes: “Meditation brings me joy, but going outside the ashram I feel disturbed—so much begging. What can be done? Their plight haunts me.” No Easterner asks. No Indian has raised such a question in five years. There is a reason. If the Indian asked, how would he live? It would become impossible. He has had to dull his sensitivity.

Buddha said: there is suffering. He was born in affluence, sheltered from pain, with every comfort. The most beautiful women, food, clothes, palaces. Separate palaces for each season. He was forbidden to go outside because astrologers had warned: if he sees the world’s misery, he will renounce. So out of fear his father kept him inside. There was exquisite music, beautiful dancers—everything arranged so that he would have no desire to go out. That created the trouble: Buddha could not develop a protective armor—the armor which in India is almost essential. The outer shell never formed; there was no need.

It’s like this: if you always walk in shoes, and one day you walk barefoot, you will feel how many pebbles there are. But one who has walked barefoot all his life doesn’t feel pebbles—he could walk on embers and not feel them. His feet have hardened; they have arranged their own protection. The feet have become shoes.

Look at a villager’s feet: they are shoe-soles, not human feet. The body has managed; denied shoes, it made shoes of its own. Now he walks happily—on thorns, in mud, in garbage—feels nothing. A city-dweller would find it hard to take even a few steps.

Buddha ran into trouble because he had no armor. If he had gone out since childhood—seen beggars, the dying, the old, the leprous, the blind—slowly the repeated blows would have made him devise protection. That protection did not arise. Then one day the inevitable happened: you cannot hold him inside forever. There was a youth festival in the city; naturally the prince was to inaugurate it. On the way, there was great difficulty. People had been cleared from the route; no old or sick person supposed to appear. The warning had been sounded. But what can you do, roads are roads. An old man came out of his house and began coughing—maybe to get a glimpse of the prince. Seeing the old man, Buddha asked his charioteer: “What has happened to this man?” Buddha had never seen old age; so age itself became a great question. “What has happened to him? How did he become like this? The back bent, limbs wasted, coughing. I’ve never seen such infirmity. Skin shriveled, eyes sunken, bones protruding, belly stuck to the spine. What has happened?”

The charioteer said, “What can I tell you! This happens to everyone in the end. This is not a disease; it is the natural course of life.”

Buddha asked immediately, “Will this happen to me as well?” The question had never arisen before.

The charioteer said, “Forgive me; I cannot lie to you, but I fear to tell the truth: it will. It happens to all; there are no exceptions.”

Buddha said, “Turn the chariot back. There is no point inaugurating a youth festival. I am already old. What youth! Take me back.”

On the way back he saw a funeral. “What has happened to this man?” The charioteer said, “This is the next stage after that coughing old man—the subsequent condition. He is dead.” Buddha asked, “Will I also die?” The charioteer said, “All die; there are no exceptions.” At the palace gate Buddha’s eyes were full of darkness; hands and feet trembling. As he alighted, he saw a monk in ochre. “What has happened to this man? Why these ochre robes?”

The charioteer said, “Seeing what befell those two—age and death—this man is seeking a way beyond. He has seen that life is suffering and is trying to cross it. He is a sannyasin—seeking the great life where there is no sorrow. He has renounced in search of the nectar, the immortal.”

That very night Buddha fled. Ochre robes became alluring. He dyed himself in ochre. Sannyas was born that night. Strange grace of the astrologers who warned the father not to let him out! Otherwise, like countless princes, Buddha too would have been lost in the crowd.

I tell you this so you can understand: today the West is in a condition that in the East was once accessible only to a few princes. What only kings had yesterday, the ordinary Westerner has today. If Akbar or Genghis Khan or Nadir Shah or Napoleon came now, they would envy the outer comforts of an ordinary man.

The result: the West’s armor is breaking. What happened to one man—Buddha—is happening today to many Western thinkers: life is suffering, nothing but suffering. Existentialism is a significant event.

Have you ever noticed that the Jains’ twenty-four tirthankaras are all sons of kings? Why? Buddha too is a king’s son—why? The Hindus’ avatars—princes—why? The same reason: when there is affluence and ease all around, one doesn’t develop the numbness that protects against pain. Then, when confronted with suffering, it pierces like an arrow in the heart. Thus existentialism was born.

And it arose by a coincidence—the Second World War. Until then, prosperity had been rising and the West thought it was reaching the peak; then suddenly came a crash and rivers of suffering flowed. Blood was scattered everywhere. Death danced naked. Seeing that, translating that condition into thought, existentialism was born.

Western thinkers have become aware of the outside; hence sorrow. Soon existentialism will take the next step. If it does, the West will become religious; the possibility grows daily. The sun of religion will rise in the West; in the East it has set. In the East there is the possibility of communism, not religion. The slogan in the East is socialism; who talks of “religion” and such nonsense!

People ask me, “People come to you from all over the world, but Indians don’t seem so eager!” How can Indians be eager? Their eagerness is different: they are going West—to become scientists, engineers, physicists; to study atomic energy. India’s talent is heading West to become more affluent—socialism, technology. And the intelligent from the West are running East to discover what the buddhas spoke of. Before the West collapses under the weight of suffering, they want to find a ray of inner bliss. Outside there is sorrow; turn within and find the joy.

Existentialism is the beginning of the revolution. It has made the first proclamation: the world is suffering. If the world is suffering, the second proclamation is needed: then where do we seek happiness? If not outside, there remains only one way—to search within. The West has awakened to the periphery; now it must awaken to the center, the soul. It must look within. Outside there is sorrow; look within. And whoever has looked within has found eternal joy—heaven.

Existentialism is the dawn before the religion to come in the West. The sun will rise soon. It is early dawn now; it will ripen. It is not necessary that the existentialists themselves become religious; but existentialism is the dawn. The next generation will be religious. It is becoming so.

Existentialism was born in the Second World War; and the children born in the West after the war have an unprecedented interest in religion. The young who are with me today were all born after 1945.

Existentialism has prepared the foundation; the temple is being built. And this is happening naturally. Only when one is affluent can one be religious. Religion is the last summit of affluence. The poor seek wealth, not meditation. The sick seek medicine, not the soul. The healthy seek the soul. The affluent seek meditation.

So I say: religion is the ultimate height of this world. Only one who has had everything turns to religion. As long as there remains something to get in the world, the search for religion does not begin.

Keep this in mind. Many ask: why do only the affluent come to you? Because only the affluent can seek religion. The poor are still seeking other things. “Bhukhe bhajan na hoye Gopala”—on an empty stomach, one cannot sing the Lord’s name. The hungry one is seeking food, not prayer. And if sometimes you find him praying, he is praying for food—remember. He may go to Sathya Sai Baba, because there he feels that perhaps a miracle will happen and food will come; a broken leg will be healed; illness cured; a job obtained. If a man can produce ash from nothing and amulets from thin air, then anything can happen. Hence the wrong kind of people gather around Sathya Sai Baba—the worldly, not the religious. They wanted things from the world and did not get them; now they try the baba: perhaps he will give. Illness hasn’t left, the job doesn’t come, the daughter isn’t getting married—maybe with his blessing it will happen.

But is that the search for religion? Then what is the world for? That is why worldly people are impressed by miracle-mongers. They are not impressed by religion, but by miracles. Someone has a court case, someone is contesting an election—he goes. He runs to Sathya Sai Baba: “We are contesting; bless us.” What has that to do with religion?

Mark this: when the body’s needs are met, the mind’s needs arise. When the mind’s needs are met, the needs of the soul arise. Put a Picasso or a Van Gogh before a hungry man and he will bang his head: “What are you putting before me? I am hungry!” Picasso, Van Gogh, Beethoven’s music, Mozart, Kalidasa—“remove them, burn them!” He will throw your Kalidasas and Shakespeares into the Holi fire. What use are they to him? What has he to do with the depths of poetry? Where has he the leisure to enter metrics? How will he drown in the notes of music?

And I don’t say he is wrong. It is natural. Whenever a country is poor, its culture becomes petty, mean, cheap. The refined has no acceptance. Aristocracy is attacked. It is no wonder that your Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti flourished in royal courts. A trade union cannot patronize Kalidasa—ridiculous. The union will say, “Master Kalidasa, resume your old job—chopping wood; we don’t need poetry. What will poetry do? We are dying here. We need communism, not poetry. Go back to chopping wood—even upside down if you like!” What kind of intelligence are you displaying?

The beauty and grace of Sanskrit require an aristocracy. And I tell you: religion is the greatest aristocracy, the supreme aristocracy. Today it is hard to say such things—they sound dangerous. No one dares speak for aristocracy; even aristocrats can’t—they’d be hanged. Even they shout: “Long live socialism!”

Socialism is a low-level concern—necessary, yes. Bellies must be fed. But Jesus is right: man cannot live by bread alone. He needs something more—something higher than bread. As long as bread is missing it seems to be everything; the day it is available, it becomes meaningless. You know this. Bread secured—no meaning in it. House secured—no meaning. Car secured—no meaning. Whatever is secured becomes meaningless. Until then it pricks the mind like a thorn: a car, a house, bread, a shop, a livelihood, money in the bank! And as soon as all is obtained—then? Suddenly you halt and ask: now what? Then the needs of the mind begin to rise—music, literature, painting, dance. You begin to enter the subtle.

One day even the mind is satiated. You’ve sought music—listened to Beethoven and Mozart and Wagner; read poetry—Kalidasa, Milton, Tennyson; seen dance—now what? Now you enter the super-subtle. Now the question arises: Who am I? All this has been done. Outside there is nothing left worth having. What could be had has been had, and having it you discover there was nothing worth having. Only by having do you discover its vanity. Without having, you cannot know. How would you know it is futile without experience? Then arises the question: Who am I? This remains. Everything else is known; the world has been seen—found insubstantial. Now one thing remains: Who am I? With that question religion begins.

The West has seen the outer. Body and mind are filling there; the search for the soul has begun. India too was religious only when it was affluent. As it grew poor, religion became distorted—reduced to miracle-babas, to showmanship. Jugglers impress the meanest minds. The juggler is cheap, and those impressed by him are cheaper still.

You won’t be impressed by Buddha! If you are impressed by Sathya Sai Baba, you will pass Buddha by: “What’s there? Show some miracles!” Buddha never showed a miracle. He is the supreme symbol of the aristocracy of religion. The true miracle is this: a man becomes silent, blissful, utterly at rest. The true miracle is the ending of sorrow within.

First, sorrow is seen outside; seeing it, one turns within. Entering within, one discovers joy. And when that inner joy is revealed, a new light descends on the eyes. Then, in this whole existence, everywhere, in every form, you see the reflection of what is within you. Know the One within and you have known the hidden in the many, because it too is That. What you are, That is also outside— in the tree, the rock, the stone, the river, the mountains, the moon and the stars. Know the One, know all.

So there are three states. One: neither aware of the outer nor the inner—living like a corpse. This is the condition of ninety-nine percent. Second: awareness of the outer begins; the inner is still dark. This is the existentialist’s state. One feels sorrow, melancholy surrounds, anxiety and angst. Hence, if you look at the themes of existentialism you will be surprised. The usual subjects of philosophy—soul, God, meditation—are hardly discussed. You will find: melancholy, anxiety, meaninglessness. These are the subjects. This is the second state: insight into the outer with inner darkness.

Third: light within and without. One sees that outside there is suffering, and inside there is joy. This is the meditator’s state. And beyond the third is a fourth, which cannot be described—the turiya. Turiya simply means “the fourth.” No name was given because none can be given. Only “the fourth.” In that state nothing remains as inner or outer; transcendence happens. Awakening to both, one discovers: I am beyond both; neither inside nor outside. I am other, different. I am the witness of both. This witnessing is the divine state—the ultimate aristocracy, the ultimate luxury available to man in existence. The ultimate delight, the supreme enjoyment.

I do not call the sannyasin a renunciate; I call him a seeker on the journey of supreme enjoyment. The worldly are entangled in cheap enjoyments; their “enjoyment” is hardly enjoyment. The sannyasin is the real enjoyer; his enjoyment is true—supreme.

What happiness does the worldly person get? He keeps thinking: I will get it, I will get it—he never does. A mirage; he just keeps running. The sannyasin attains—and such that it never leaves. What is attained is one’s own nature. Then, day and night, that bliss rains within.

Anahad bajat bansuri—the unstruck flute resounds!

Enough for today.