Ajhun Chet Ganwar #8

Religion is born in solitude, in aloneness. Wherever there is crowd, attachment to the crowd, where it is difficult even for a moment to be without the crowd—there there is not religion, but the world.

And remember, merely running away from the crowd, one does not escape the crowd. One can be in solitude even while among the crowd. The crowd should not be inside. And one can be in the crowd even while in solitude. Sitting in a cave in the far Himalayas, if you keep brooding about others—friends, loved ones, enemies, the bazaar, the shop—you are in the crowd.

As long as the crowd is a psychological need, as long as it feels that without the crowd I will cease, I cannot live; I must have a crowd: if it’s not outside, I’ll raise a crowd inside my mind—till then you are in the world.

This diseased condition of the mind is what I call “the world”: that without others I cannot be; dependence on the other—that my very existence depends on others being there; that my happiness depends on the other; alone I am miserable; the other will give me happiness. Whether it is husband, wife, mother, father, brother, friend—someone else will give me happiness! Happiness is with the other; I am a beggar. That is the world.

My joy is within me; I am the emperor—that is religion.

So religion is born in solitude. But solitude does not mean loneliness. Do not mistake solitude for loneliness. Loneliness is a negative state.

For example, everyone has gone out and you are left alone in the house—this is not solitude. You are alone in the house, but the mind is running in a thousand directions. You are alone in the house, but there is no relish in being alone; no cadence is born out of aloneness; you are not absorbed, not ecstatic—you are sad. You think: let someone come, let a friend knock on the door; let a neighbor call; let someone come! And if no one comes, you switch on the radio, start watching television, read the newspaper, read a novel—somehow get lost in something!

Loneliness is when aloneness bites. Solitude is when a stream of sweetness flows through being alone.

So understand the difference between solitude and loneliness.

Solitude is when you are utterly blissful; you do not even remember the other; not for a single moment does an alternative of the other arise; no thought of the other ripples. You are in supreme intoxication. You sway in your own ecstasy. You are drinking yourself. Songs arise from within you. Within you is supreme peace—not negative, not the graveyard’s—such peace in which the flowers of life bloom; such peace from which the fragrance of the divine arises; living peace, joyous peace. Keep this distinction in mind again: peace can also be dead—dead meaning gloomy, depressed, dejected. Peace can also be jubilant, dancing. And only when it is dancing does it lead to the Divine. When it is sad, you lie like a clod of stone by the roadside; there is no movement in your life, no dynamism, no river-flow. You do not flow; you become a dry pond. And day by day the water dries up, and day by day the fish flounder, suffer, and are distressed.

A flowing peace!
Peace filled with the murmur of the brook!

Religion begins in solitude. Whether the path is devotion or meditation; love or knowledge—it makes no difference.

Solitude, however, can be of two kinds, because humanity is divided in two types. One which Carl Gustav Jung called the extravert; and the other, the introvert.

There are two kinds of people. One, for whom it is natural to see with open eyes; if they wish to see the beauty of the Divine, it will appear in the greenery of trees, in the moon and the stars, in the white clouds drifting in the sky, in the sun’s rays, the waves of the ocean, the lofty snow-clad peaks of the Himalayas, in human eyes, in the peals of children’s laughter.

Extravert means: his God will be seen with open eyes. Introvert means: his God will be seen with closed eyes, within himself. There too is light. There too are no fewer moons and stars. Kabir has said: thousands upon thousands of suns—inside as well! As many moons and stars as outside. As much greenery as outside. The same vastness is present within as without.

Outside and inside are balanced, in equal proportion. Do not mistakenly think: “How can such vastness fit into this small body? The vast is so big—out there it is vast; inside it must be small!” Do not think so. You have not yet gone within. Inside is just as vast—within, and within, and within! It too has no end. Just as you can go on and on outward and never meet a boundary to the universe—so too you can keep diving, and diving, and diving within, and never meet a boundary to yourself. Existence is infinite in all directions. That is why we call the Divine the infinite; the boundless, the beginningless—in every direction!

Mahavira used the precise word. He called existence “anantanant”—infinite-infinite. He alone said this; others called it simply infinite. But Mahavira said: even infinity is of infinite kinds; it is not of one kind, not in one direction, not in one dimension—it is infinite in many dimensions: anantanant! Infinite here, infinite there! Go down—still infinite; go up—still infinite! Go within, go without—wherever you go it is infinite. This infinity is not one-sided; it is manifold. Infinite in infinite ways—that is the meaning of anantanant.

So the same vastness sits within you. Now either open your eyes—and see; or close your eyes—and see! In both cases seeing is required. You will have to become the seer. Consciousness will be needed. You will have to awaken awareness. Half-asleep will not do.

Many people are asleep with eyes open. And many close their eyes and fall asleep. Sleeping will not do; then whether the eyes are open or closed, it is the same—you are not; the watcher is not—so you will see neither outside nor inside. The eyelid is the hinge: when the lid is up, the outer vastness; when it drops, the inner vastness.

Extravert means: to whom the Divine will come from the outside. Introvert means: to whom the Divine will come from within. The introvert will be a meditator; the extravert, a devotee. That is why the introvert will not talk of “God” at all. “God” is para—the other. The introvert will speak of the self, the atman. Hence Mahavira and Buddha did not speak of God; they are supremely introvert beings. And Meera, Chaitanya—these spoke of God; they are supremely extravert beings. The experience is one, because what is within and what is without are not two; they are one. But from where will you reach? From the outside or from the inside—that makes a difference. Whether you catch the ear from this side or that, that is all; the same ear will be in your hand. Whatever comes into the hand is God alone; there is nothing else to come into the hand. And the hand in which it comes is also God. God comes into the hand of God.

But the extravert travels in one way, the introvert in another. The extravert will keep an image of God, build a temple, adorn God, dance around the image. He will salute the sun. He will people the moon and stars with deities. Good. In whatever way, the perception of that supreme beauty should happen.

The introvert will put away images and such; there is no need of them. He will not deck out God.

It happened once: Rabia, a Sufi fakir, a woman, had another Sufi fakir, Hasan, staying at her hut. Morning came, darkness dispersed, the sun rose. Hasan was standing outside the hut. Seeing this extraordinary morning, he was enraptured. He was a devotee. He began to dance. And he called to Rabia, “Rabia, what are you doing sitting inside? Come out; what a beautiful morning has dawned! Such a beautiful morning of the Divine, and you sit inside? The sun has flung out its net. The birds are singing. The morning breeze is cool. The night’s darkness is gone. These are moments of supreme joy. What are you doing inside?”

And do you know what Rabia said? She burst into laughter and said, “Hasan, you come inside. For the sun you are seeing outside, I am seeing its maker within me.”

She took “inside” in an utterly deep sense. She was not speaking of the hut’s interior. She said: “What you are seeing outside, I am seeing the maker of it within. The sun is beautiful outside because his handprint is upon it. Wherever his signature is, there is beauty, there is blessedness, there is grace. But I am seeing him. You close your eyes and come within, Hasan—how long will you go on roaming outside?”

This is the difference between the devotee and the knower. Hasan is a devotee; Rabia a knower. If you ask me, neither does the one who is savoring on the outside need to come inside, nor does the one who is savoring within need to come out. Let each, wherever the juice is, go on dipping and dissolving in that very juice.

So I would not tell Hasan to come inside. Had I been there, I would have told Hasan, “You dance outside,” and said to Rabia, “You dance inside.” Neither call Hasan in, nor, Hasan, call Rabia out; for Rabia will not be able to see outside—she is introvert. And Hasan will not be able to see within—he is extravert.

And remember, in speaking of extravert and introvert I am not evaluating who is good and who is bad. There is no good or bad here. From wherever the Beloved is found, to find the Beloved is good.

Certainly. Both begin in aloneness. Both begin by becoming free of the crowd. But the flavor of the two is a little different. At first they differ; ultimately they become one. The paths are different at the beginning. The river is one; the ghats are many. The ways of the ghats are different, but the river is one. If you keep your attention on the ghats, differences will be seen; if you keep your attention on the river, differences will not be seen. That which is known is one; that by which it is known is also one—but the methods by which it is known are many. The ghats are many.

The devotee’s aloneness is different; the knower’s aloneness is different—in the first stage. You may be surprised: how can aloneness and aloneness be different? Try to understand. When the bhakta is alone he begins to erase himself; only then can he be alone. When God remains and the devotee is gone—then there is aloneness. One remains. As long as the devotee also remains, there are two. Hence the whole effort of bhakti is: let God remain, let me disappear. Kabir says: Love’s lane is exceedingly narrow; two cannot enter it. Either I or Thou. If that is the matter, then let me erase the “I.”

Therefore Paltu has said: only he who is ready to cut off his own head with his own hands should step onto this path. One that mad, that courageous—only he should proceed. You will have to wipe yourself out, erase yourself. Only one will remain. God will remain.

What does the knower do? What does the meditator do? The meditator leaves the crowd—and he even leaves God. He says, as long as there is “God,” the second remains. Hence the Buddhist Zen masters have said: if even Buddha meets you on the path, draw your sword and cut him in two—so that you alone remain; the second is not needed. The Zen masters have said that if even the name of Buddha comes to mind, rinse your mouth and cleanse it.

These are Buddha’s devotees speaking in this way. This is the path of knowledge. They say: there is not the slightest place for the other; only the One must remain. Let only your pure consciousness remain; let nothing else remain. Let no object remain in consciousness; let nothing visible remain. If anything remains as other—even God—there is a hindrance.

Totapuri, Ramakrishna’s master, told him: so long as your Kali remains, you are not yet liberated. This Kali will have to be dropped. This Kali will have to be removed.

Here the knower is speaking to the devotee. Because something of the other still remains; the second remains; duality remains. Nonduality is needed: let the mirror remain, but let no reflection remain in the mirror. Formerly the reflections were of people; now they are not—but the reflection of God has begun. Yet God too is “other.”

So the knower says: forget the “other” completely, drop the “other” utterly. Let only you alone remain. Let not even the remembrance of Rama remain; let not even the image of Rama remain. Let only pure, stainless, thought-free consciousness remain. There—you have arrived.

Understand the difference. The meditator, leaving all that is “other”—and in “other,” God too is included—when only he alone remains, there is aloneness. And the devotee, leaving everything, preserves God. In “everything” he includes himself too. Leaving all, he saves only God. Then there is aloneness.

But whether God remains or the Self remains—when only the One remains, the taste of both becomes the same. Then the difference is only of name. What Mahavira calls atman, Shankara calls Paramatman. Then it is only a matter of names; not the slightest difference remains. Where only the One remains, it is only a question of what you call it—call it the Self, call it God. The meditator will say “Self,” because the meditator has already let go of, has erased, God. So what remains now is my own purest form: Aham Brahmasmi! I am Brahman.

And how can the devotee say, “I am Brahman!” He will say: I am gone—gone long ago. I have long been gone. Now there is only Brahman. Now only Thou art!

Both begin in aloneness, leaving the crowd, and both are fulfilled in the supreme solitude. In the beginning there will be small differences—of inwardness and outwardness. In the final stage no difference remains; non-difference reveals itself.

Astrology is a pursuit of the worldly mind. No spiritual person goes to an astrologer. It is the worldly man who goes to astrologers: “We must do the ground-breaking for a new house—find a lagna-muhurt; we’re opening a new shop—find a lagna-muhurt; we’re inaugurating a new film—find a lagna-muhurt; my son’s getting married—find a lagna-muhurt.”

The worldly man is afraid: “What if something goes wrong!” And there is reason for fear—everything is going wrong; so the fear is that even more might go wrong! That is how he is stuck: “May nothing else go wrong!”

He is frightened. Out of fear he tries every possible safeguard. And he forgets the One from whom true safety can come. That is exactly what Paltu is saying: the One on whose support all becomes right—you don’t remember Him. Instead you arrange everything else: you ask for auspicious timings. With simple trust, with faith, if you hold the One, everything is settled—but you don’t hold Him, because that is a costly affair. To hold Him you have to drop yourself; you have to place your head on the block.

So you don’t do that. You say, “We’ll make other arrangements: we’ll save our head and consult the muhurta; we’ll arrange more safeguards; we’ll be clever; we’ll calculate; we’ll keep our eyes open; we will secure happiness in the world.”

It’s the worldly man who goes to the astrologer. What need has a spiritual person to go to an astrologer? Will a spiritual person go to the Light itself or to the one who calculates light? Will he go to the maker of moon and stars, or to those who keep accounts of the stars’ motions?

For a spiritual person every moment is auspicious, every instant is blessed—because each moment arises in the Divine. How can it be inauspicious? How can any muhurt be inauspicious? This stream of time is flowing from His very life-breath. This Ganges issues from Him, flows in Him, and will merge back into Him.

For the spiritual person the whole world is sacred; every moment and hour is auspicious. These are the entanglements of the unspiritual. He thinks: “Let there be no mistake; I’ll set out at the right time, on the right day, in the right direction; I’ll set out after asking the muhurta.”

Whom are you afraid of? You have not yet recognized the Friend; He is hidden on all sides. What kind of arrangements are you making? And will anything really come of your contrivances?

How carefully people marry—and what do they find? Have you noticed that in this country almost all marriages are done by choosing lagna-muhurts—and what is the fruit? Leave films aside; I’m asking about life. In films, the wedding happens, the shehnai plays—and the film ends right there. The shehnai is still playing when the film ends, because taking the story beyond that is not without danger. All stories end with: “The prince and the princess were married, and they lived happily ever after.” After that, no one is seen living happily. In truth, after that the suffering begins. But it isn’t nice to bring that up.

With so many auspicious timings consulted, does your marriage bring happiness? With so many muhurts checked, does life ever gain real flavor? After all the calculations, what finally comes into your hands is death—which snatches everything, strips you naked, makes you helpless and poor. After so much arranging and cleverness, what remains in your hands? Paltu says: you are clinging to your cleverness—but what is the result of this cleverness? In the final accounting, what do you gain?

Alexander too departs empty-handed. Here everyone loses. In the world, defeat is certain—though at the beginning one may appear to win or to lose, one way or the other. But at the end, only defeat comes to the hand. Even the victors end in defeat; the defeated, of course, end defeated. Those who are poor remain poor; and those who are rich are ultimately shown to be poor as well. Those whom no one knew—no name, no fame, no repute—vanish; but even those who were well-known, greatly famous—they too vanish. The earth swallows all. In the flames of the pyre everything is consumed. Not even a line remains.

How many have lived on this earth! Where you sit, scientists say, on every inch of ground at least ten human corpses are buried. We are all sitting in a cremation ground. Wherever you are, it is a cremation ground. The whole earth has become a cremation ground many times over, and then a town again; today there is a settlement, once it was a cremation ground; today there is a cremation ground, one day a town will arise there. How many upheavals have there been! How many has this earth devoured! It will devour you too. How many names have remained? And even if a name remains, what remains? When you are not, what use is the name remaining?

By consulting muhurts, where do you arrive? Have you ever accounted for that? The more worldly and ambitious a person is, the more he inquires about muhurts. In Delhi you will find astrologers of every kind with their shops set up. During elections their trade thrives. Every politician has his astrologer. And the astrologers tell them, “Stand at this exact muhurta; file your nomination at this muhurta; do this at that muhurta; tie this amulet, wear this charm; this time your victory is assured.”

I have a friend who does the business of astrology. And among all dishonest businesses, this is one. He invented a little trick and became famous. In a presidential election two candidates were standing; he went to both and told each, “Your victory is certain.” He told both.

One of the two would win anyway.

He went to the one who won; that one even bowed at his feet and gave him a written certificate: “His astrology is very accurate; he told me beforehand.” He had told both. The one who lost—his story ended there. There was no need to go to him; he wouldn’t even remember who came and who went. But to the winner my friend went and got the certificate.

When he brought me the certificate, I said to him, “I know what your astrology is worth; I know what is in astrology. How did you make this prediction?”

He said, “What is there to hide from you! I made the prediction to both. One would win, no? From the one who wins, I’ll get the certificate.”

He got the certificate, then had it printed in all the newspapers, a photograph with the president alongside. Since then his business has flourished. Now many people come to him. And when a hundred people come, you keep on saying, “This will happen, that will happen.” Some of it will happen—fifty cases will happen. Those for whom it happens, their crowd keeps increasing; those for whom it doesn’t happen, they go seek another astrologer; you don’t suit them, the matter ends; they get caught in someone else’s circle. But those who get a “benefit” from you start coming; their crowd grows; their noise grows. Then a new person comes and, seeing so many getting “benefit,” thinks, “Surely there must be something to it.”

These are psychological trades. Their basic foundation is suggestion and hypnosis. They run on delusion—and the delusion lasts as long as a person has the illusion that he will gain something in the world. There is the fear that it is difficult to gain; who has truly gained! But, “Let me do the remedies. Let there be no lack in remedies. Let me do them all. Let me also consult the muhurta—who knows...!”

I have heard of a great scientist who lived in Sweden; in his drawing room he had a horseshoe hanging. An American journalist went to see him. He said, “Amazing—such a great scientist, a Nobel laureate—and you have a horseshoe hanging here! In Sweden people hang them; they say it brings good fortune. People have all sorts of notions about good fortune. But you! You are caught in this superstition?”

The scientist laughed. He said, “I don’t believe in it at all. It’s pure superstition.”

“Then if you don’t believe it and say it’s superstition, why is it hanging in your drawing room?”

He said, “The man who gave it to me said, ‘Believe it or not, it works.’”

See how human greed is! “Believe it or not, it will still benefit you!”

“So I thought, let’s hang it and see. I don’t believe in it. It is superstition. But the one who gave it said, ‘Believe or not, it will work.’”

If there is a hunger for benefit, you will be trapped somewhere. With muhurts and auspicious timings, you will be trapped somewhere.

Paltu is saying something very profound. He says: What muhurta does a seeker of the spiritual need? To attain the Divine you don’t have to perform rites and rituals. All this lagna-muhurt is false, says Paltu: “All auspicious timings are lies!”

To enter the Divine, every moment is the moment. You can go this very instant. It depends on you. God is not stopping you. He is not saying, “Come at the right time.”

Was the muhurta auspicious at the moment Buddha awakened? Yet the whole earth remained asleep—and among them no one else awakened at that very moment. The muhurta was auspicious—and Buddha awakened. When Meera awakened, was that an auspicious muhurta? But no one else awakened then.

It depends on you. Every moment is auspicious; the moment you open your eyes, it happens.

Paltu Das is saying: if you must hold on to something, why grab small-time astrologers? Hold on to the Bearer of Light. Take refuge in the One who made time. Fill yourself with the remembrance of the One who made all moments. When the remembrance of Ram arises, when His Name resounds—that is the auspicious hour. Whenever you remember, that very moment is auspicious.

Whatever ripens, interest in it diminishes. Once ripeness has come, we have gone beyond it. A ripe fruit falls from the tree—ripen, and it drops. While it is unripe, it remains on the tree; it needs the tree’s sap to ripen. When the sap is received, it ripens. Once ripe, it falls—because the tree has other unripe fruits needing attention. Now you have ripened, you have fallen. That is why the ripened ones do not return. Buddha does not return, Paltu does not return—they have ripened. From the tree of the world they drew as much sap as was needed; they fell from this tree.

Whatever ripens in life brings liberation from itself. You may be a little startled, because you thought that when sex ripens—when the sexual urge ripens—it will drop, and then love will be born. Then when love ripens—what then? When love ripens, love too drops, and prayer arises. And when prayer also ripens, prayer too drops. Then only emptiness remains. “Our knot is in the void; our rest is in the unstruck.” Then nothing remains.

Sex drops—love arrives. The same energy that was invested in sex, once freed, becomes love. Then love ripens, love too drops; the same energy that was ripening love becomes prayer. And one day prayer also ripens.

It is not that Buddha is still sitting somewhere in some realm meditating, and Meera is still somewhere dancing. That would be madness. Everything ripens; the moment of ripening comes to everything; it comes to an end. And where everything ends, that we call God. The moment when nothing remains to ripen, nothing remains unripe—that moment we call the moment of God. All has ripened; there is freedom from all. Whatever remains unripe keeps you in bondage.

Therefore I keep telling you: do not leave any desire unripe. Ripen it. Do not be afraid. If there is an urge to acquire wealth, then acquire it; do not turn back halfway. Do not turn back on my say-so. If someone says there is nothing in wealth, do not turn back just by hearing it. You must see for yourself that there is nothing in it; what use is another’s seeing? I proclaimed that there is nothing in wealth, and to you there still appeared to be a lot in it: you fell under my spell; you fell for my words; the logic of my words made sense to you. The logic may be clear, but logic bears no experience. I silenced you; you could not grapple with me, could not argue. With strong arguments I pacified you, and you began to walk with me. But your mind will keep running toward the marketplace. Your body may be with me; your mind will keep running in the bazaar. You still had to get wealth. Ambition will remain within. At night you will dream. Whenever you sit to meditate, meditation will not happen; only the thought of money will come. Then you will be troubled. You will say: What is this? I sit to meditate—why does money arise in my mind? There is no mystery: wealth has not ripened yet. You have not yet known from your own experience that wealth is futile. To you it still seems meaningful. You came along just by hearing me. “What the ears hear is false; what the eyes see is true.” Trust the eyes, not the ears.

In this country this mishap has happened often. The reason it happened is the good fortune of this land—that many saints arose here. We turned that good fortune into our misfortune. We heard the ambrosial words of the saints. Their words appealed to us. Not only was their reasoning powerful, the weight of their presence was powerful too. In their presence we felt that what they said must be right. “Must be right.” But “must be right” is not the same as our own experience bearing witness that it is right. The dignity of their being, their luminous aura, their stream of consciousness moved us, influenced us: we followed behind, and our mind kept wandering in the world. From this a great deterioration has occurred here. People call themselves religious, yet inside they are so worldly as you will hardly find anywhere. Here people abuse money, and yet the grip of money in this country is stronger than anywhere else. There is hardly any money left to hold—only the clutching remains. And still they go on abusing money.

Often it seems they abuse money the way the fox called the grapes sour. She couldn’t reach them; she leapt and leapt—but the clusters were too far. A rabbit, hiding, was watching. He asked: Auntie, what’s the matter? You look exhausted—couldn’t you reach the grapes? The fox was annoyed. She said: You foolish brat! The grapes are sour.

Man’s ego is such that whatever he cannot obtain he starts calling sour. But the urge to obtain keeps running within. This fox will dream at night and leap to snatch the grapes, and tomorrow she will come again when no one is watching. She will try again. The day after, too, she will come. And if people are around, she will pass by with some excuse. But she will come again and again. She will devise a thousand tricks, try to put up a ladder, seek some way. She will practice leaping higher. And she will keep saying the grapes are sour—thus saving her ego as well.

It has become like this in this country. The grip on money here is stronger than in any country in the world. The countries you call materialist—America and such—do not have so tight a grip. As easily as an American lets go of money, an Indian simply does not—he won’t let go of a single paisa.

Lately this is my daily experience. So many have come here from the West! They have no hold on money: it’s trash. Exactly as the saints said, it’s the dirt of the hand—that is how they actually experience it. But the Indians’ grip is heavy. There isn’t even money to hold onto, they haven’t even reached the grapes, and they keep repeating that the grapes are sour.

How did this happen? How did this mishap occur? It happened because of a great good fortune. It is a great miracle, a great paradox. The good fortune is that supreme saints were born in this land. They spoke from great experience; they spoke of their own realization. For them the matter had ripened. When Buddha said there is nothing in wealth, he said it knowingly. When you accepted it, you accepted it without knowing; the mistake happened right there. And then you get into difficulty.

There are several things to understand. First, being poor does not make one guileless or simple. Do not fall into this mistake. We carry a deep assumption in the mind: if someone is poor, he must be innocent. Does poverty make a person guileless? Is poverty sufficient for simplicity? Whenever we use the word “guileless,” we tend to add “poor” to it—as if poverty were some certificate of innocence! Poverty, by itself, does not reveal that you are guileless; it only reveals that you are not skillful. You are in the same race as everyone else.

The poor chase money just as the rich do. The rich have succeeded; the poor have not. There is no difference in the race at all.

So, in the world there are two kinds of “wealthy”: the affluent and the wealth-aspiring. There is hardly anyone truly poor. Rarely is someone genuinely poor. The day Buddha left the palace, a poor man was born. “Poor” means: wealth is worthless. But how will one who has no wealth declare wealth to be worthless? He can only say, “the grapes are sour.” I call Buddha poor.

Jesus has a famous saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” What does it mean? Whom are we talking about? We are speaking of Mahavira and Buddha—those who, through experience, came to know that wealth is futile; and because of that recognition, wealth dropped from their hands. I do not even say “they left it.” What is futile drops on its own; it need not be renounced. I do not even say “they sacrificed it.” Does anyone “sacrifice” the trash? You clear the trash from your house every day and throw it in the garbage dump—do you go to the newspaper office to announce, “Today again I sacrificed the trash; please print the news”?

If it is trash, the matter ends there—what is there to renounce?

Buddha and Mahavira are poor—in the very sense that Jesus uses. But do you think those whom you call poor are poor in that sense? Their race is the same, their ambition is the same—only they are not succeeding. Is failure another name for innocence? It is simply lack of skill. What is innocence? Do you imagine village folk are guileless? Do not be deluded. Villagers are engaged in as many tricks as city people—only the tricks differ because the settings differ. In a village a man schemes to acquire a fine horse carriage; he does not strive for a Fiat—that is true, because a Fiat does not belong to the village world. But he wants a splendid buggy to show the landlord: “My horse and my carriage outshine yours!” That is his race. The small-town man strives for a Fiat: “Let the village see what I’ve got!” The Bombay man goes after a Rolls-Royce. But the striving is one and the same. They are on different tiers, in different environments, yet their race does not differ at all.

So do not call someone guileless just because he comes from a village. Often when people use the word “guileless,” they add “poor.” Being poor only proves that you are less cunning than others—nothing more. It does not prove you are not cunning; only that you are less adept. It does not prove you are honest; only that your expertise in dishonesty is less, your initiation incomplete. You want exactly what others want, what others are trying to get or have gotten; only you do not find the means.

Even in the poorest man’s mind the craving for wealth is just as strong as in the rich man’s. There is no difference. Every poor person is trying to become rich. Where, then, is the poverty? What innocence is there?

In my view, a rich person can sometimes become free of wealth; a poor person never becomes free of wealth. Therefore it is not accidental—it is not accidental—that those who, having attained wealth, have seen its futility, become interested in religion. It is according to simple mathematics. And if you ever find a poor person genuinely interested in religion, it only means one thing: in past lives he has already run the race for wealth—nothing else. His interest does not arise from today’s poverty but from yesterday’s affluence. I am not saying a poor person cannot be religious. He can. Paltu remained poor, Kabir remained poor, Daria remained poor. But their insight—the recognition of wealth’s futility—is the distilled essence of many lifetimes of running after wealth. It does not arise from poverty. How could it? One who has never had wealth—how will he experience that wealth is empty? To know the futility of wealth, having it is necessary. I am not saying everyone who has wealth will realize this—but whoever realizes it must have had wealth.

Those who have run in the race of lust see the futility of lust. Those who have run after status gradually begin to see the emptiness of status. Those who have wealth and position and still do not see their futility—such people are boorish; they lack intelligence; they are dullards.

In my view, if a poor person becomes interested in religion, he is very intelligent; and if a rich person is not interested in religion, he is a great fool. If the poor become interested, it shows they possess great wisdom, great understanding—an understanding accumulated over lifetimes; its essence is with them. To remain poor and yet turn toward religion requires a revolutionary understanding. And to have wealth and yet not be free of it requires a very dense mind: everything is there, and still he cannot see that there is nothing of substance in it. When all is attained, it should be visible that there is nothing in it.

Always, whenever a country becomes wealthy, it turns religious. And when a country becomes destitute, it is left with only one religion: call it communism, call it socialism, give it any name. A poor country has only one religion: communism. Only a rich country has religion. In the time of Buddha and Mahavira this land reached its heights—golden peaks. This country was a golden bird; then it took a flight into religion.

Today this country is poor. Today it has only the ashes of religion left—the corpse. Its real mood today is toward communism, toward socialism. Hence, whichever the politician, whichever the party, both must bow their heads before socialism. Even a non-socialist must shout socialist slogans—only then will he get votes. Whether someone is truly socialist or not makes no difference. People know one thing: the masses are hungry, miserable, poor, and they can understand only one language today—the language of: How will we get better housing, better clothes, better food, a job?

And this is right; there is nothing wrong in it, no mistake. A hungry man understands the language of food. For centuries we have heard and said: “The hungry cannot sing hymns, O Gopala.” It is true. On an empty stomach there can be no devotion. In hunger, the only hymn is hunger; how can one remember Gopala? One is angry with Gopala.

So it is not accidental that the prosperous are interested in religion. Only they can be. The poor will still be interested in wealth. And even if the poor go to a temple, a mosque, a gurdwara, they go to ask for money, not for meditation.

People like this sometimes come to me; their requests are very strange. I see it here every day. If someone comes from the West, from a prosperous country, their questions are different. They ask: “There are anxieties in the mind—how to be free of them?” They ask: “The mind is agitated—how to make it peaceful?” They ask: “Life seems meaningless—how can meaning arise?”

People from this country come, and their questions are strange. Someone says, “My son’s health is bad, please bestow your grace so he gets well.” Another says, “My husband has lost his job; give some blessing!” It is a very pitiable situation. What does it mean to come to me for a blessing for a job? And one who comes to me for a job—can he have any interest in religion? If the world itself has not ripened for him, how will he rise toward truth?

Only one who has passed through all the pleasant and painful experiences of life, who has borne all its good and bad, and whose wisdom has matured—that person becomes religious.

Sex is of the body. Love is of the mind. Prayer is of the soul—these are the three planes. When you are tired of sex, love is born. When lust is exhausted, love begins. As long as you are filled with lust, what love can there be? Then you are interested only in the body; you are not truly interested in the other person. You exploit. When sex becomes tired and it is realized through experience that nothing more is to be had from it, you no longer see only the body in the other; the person hidden within begins to be felt. A new direction opens. Love dawns in your life. The tender strands of love unfurl.

When love too ripens, you no longer see just a person in the other; you see the soul in the other, the abode of the Divine—then prayer begins.

Understand sex as the bud—the flower in bud. Understand love as the bud blossoming into a flower. And understand prayer as the fragrance released from the flower; the air filled with scent. But when prayer also ripens, it, too, becomes silent. When sex is gone, love is gone, prayer is gone—everything has fallen away and only emptiness remains within; no feelings arise, no thoughts arise; no world remains, nor any liberation; neither matter remains nor God remains. Where nothing at all is left—there you have reached the source. There the revolution happens. There samadhi bears fruit. This state we have called nirvana. It is the supreme state. From it there is no fall. One who reaches it, Buddha called an anagami—one who will not return; there will be no coming back.

But remember: if sex has not ripened and you get in a hurry and run to seize love, your love will be false. If love has not ripened and you summon prayer, you will not be able to call with your whole heart; the love hidden in your prayer will keep pulling you down. Therefore, plant your feet firmly on each step, and fully experience each step. And as long as even a little taste remains, stay; there is no haste, eternity is available. No anxiety. When you are completely free of that step—no clinging at all, no taste at all, no feeling at all—then place your foot on the next step. Then there will be a firmness in your steps, and wherever you are you will be wholly there; not half-and-half, not in fragments. Otherwise, one foot in one boat and the other in another. Then great restlessness and great dilemma arise. Never try to ride two horses.

And there are people here who are riding three horses at once. Sex is still going on. They have also struck up the melody of love. The note of love is just rising. And they are trying to grow quiet for prayer as well. So nothing happens. Because of sex, love cannot happen, and because of love, prayer cannot happen. Because of prayer, even love does not happen properly—and because of love, even sex does not happen properly. Life becomes a mess, an irony. People stand bewildered, not knowing what to do. They stand at a crossroads and try to go down all four roads at once—one hand stretched one way, one foot another, their head elsewhere. You will go mad.

The meaning is plain and simple. Everything means everything. If you are asking for the meaning, you must be wanting to save something. If you are asking for the meaning, you must be looking for a trick. It is straightforward. Does it really need an explanation?

If someone tells you to take off all your clothes, would you ask, “What does it mean to take off all my clothes?” It means all your clothes.

If someone tells you to leave all your belongings here, not to take anything inside, would you ask, “What does it mean to leave all my belongings?” All belongings means all belongings. What is there to ask?

To put everything at stake means that by your own intelligence you have not arrived; now offer even your intelligence up. Don’t play tricks. Don’t be clever. People keep being clever. That’s why, even on meeting the Satguru, you still won’t meet—because you go on playing tricks even with the Satguru.

People come here. A gentleman came, took sannyas. The moment he took it, I sensed it. I asked him: Why are you taking sannyas? For what? He said: Now that you’ve asked, how can I hide it! I’m taking it because perhaps by taking sannyas, meditation will happen.

Then I asked him: And when you return home from here, will you be able to wear these ochre robes? He said: Now that you’ve asked, how can I hide it! I thought, well, take it here—who is going to come to my house to see! I’ll change clothes on the train. On the way home I’ll put my own clothes back on. But take it here at least. Maybe taking it here will give some momentum to meditation.

This is trickery. You are being dishonest. And you think dishonesty will give momentum to meditation! Whom are you deceiving? Only yourself.

Who told you to take sannyas? You meditate. From meditation, sannyas may happen; but how will meditation happen from taking sannyas? You meditate. At least here, be a little guileless. Even here you resort to deceit and tricks. Even here you think, what’s the harm in taking it here—no one is watching, no one at home will even know!

…Now, you have come from faraway Guwahati. Who there is going to know that you wore ochre robes here? And even if it does get known, you will say: I wore them there—everyone there was wearing them; I thought it good to go along with the crowd; when in Rome, do as the Romans do; I’ll reach home in my own clothes.

I am not going to chase you, I won’t come to Guwahati to see whether you are wearing the clothes or not. But you missed the opportunity. If you came here for fifteen or twenty days, you spoiled even those fifteen or twenty days; you brought your dishonesty along.

People keep playing tricks. With God too… if they get the chance, they would pick His pocket; if they get the chance, they would rob Him as well.

To put everything at stake means: no more trickery. Now lay everything bare. Say: This is me! As I am, good or bad, accept me. I don’t say there are no faults; I don’t claim that my virtues are virtues. This is what I am—a jumble of good and bad. Accept it. Now I am in your hands; make me as you will.
It has been asked by Yog Chinmaya. This question is Yog Chinmaya’s. There is this kind of dishonesty in Yog Chinmaya. The question has not arisen without reason—there is cleverness behind it. Even when he does something—if I may say so—he does it only so far as it suits his intellect; not an inch beyond. He is being clever. Be clever—no harm in that; it doesn’t harm me. You alone will miss. And you keep on missing. He is among the earliest ones who came to me here, and yet he is falling behind. Because he does not have the courage to put everything at stake. He stakes, but with his intellect kept safe. He says: I must at least keep my own accounts straight. If tomorrow you start saying, “Jump into the pit,” how will I jump? I’ll first check—if there’s velvet spread below, I’ll jump. But if there are stones at the bottom, then I’ll stop. As long as velvet is spread, I’ll jump; if I see stones in the pit, I’ll say, “Now I cannot jump.”
…So if you carry your cleverness along—you will miss. Then don’t blame me. The fault was yours. You did not leave yourself unconditionally.

And there are many such friends. And if they miss, they will get upset; they will think perhaps my grace is less upon them, perhaps I am partial. But they will never look to see why they are missing, for what reason they are missing.

The mind is a trickster.

I have heard: a man put a notice in the newspaper—“A servant required.” Reading the ad, a man came applying for the job. The candidate asked, “What salary will I get?” The man who had placed the ad said, “No salary, only food.”

The man was poor. He said, “All right, food it is. And the work? What will the work be?” he asked.

The gentleman said, “Twice a day—morning and evening—go to the gurdwara and eat at the langar, and along with that bring food back for us as well.”

What a dishonest fellow! What a clever trick: go eat at the langar, you eat too—your food is taken care of, finished! Your job is also done, and bring food back for me. That’s your work. …So everything happens for free.

People want to do spirituality in just such clever ways—to get it for free: nothing should be at risk, no line should be drawn, nothing should be staked! Keep yourself safe and the event should still happen. Get it for nothing. No effort should be required, and no hardship endured.

And wherever your ego is hurt, wherever your intellect is hurt—there you will step back. And it is exactly there that the touchstone lies.

That is why Paltu is right when he says: if there is a man, let him advance. Not merely a man—be mad, and then dare that much.

To put everything at stake means: to stake it like a madman; then never look back. To stake it like a blind man; then never look back. Think and consider thoroughly before you stake—no one is saying don’t think, don’t reflect. Think deeply, reflect deeply, spend years in contemplation, examine from every side; but once you decide, “Yes, this is right, I have come close to the right person, this is the person”—once it feels, “Yes, this is the one,” then don’t think of the consequences. Then place your head at the feet. Then say, “All right, now I go with you: if you go to hell, then to hell; if you go to heaven, then to heaven. Wherever you are, that is my heaven. And however you keep me, that is my heaven.”

That is what it means to stake the ego.

Even when you take sannyas, you do not stake the ego.

There are two kinds of people who take sannyas. One is those who take sannyas after thinking and considering; they say, “We will think it over, weigh all the pros and cons, then take our own decision, then take sannyas.” The second are those who take sannyas out of feeling, not out of thought. Their sannyas is of a very different order. They take sannyas through tears, not through logic. They take sannyas in rapture; not through inference, not through conclusion. They put the intellect aside and take sannyas. They come to me; I ask them, “Think it over a little.” They say, “What is there to think?” I say, “First consider.” They say, “What is there to consider! We saw you—everything happened. If you consider us unfit, don’t give it. If you don’t grant it, that is your wish. But I am ready to receive. And now there is no thinking and considering. I have thought a great deal and wasted a whole life in thinking, and nothing came into my hands. Now let me do at least one thing without thinking.” This is sannyas that arises from feeling.

When Chinmaya took sannyas, he did a lot of thinking, and even now the thinking goes on. He must have done a lot of accounting within, spent days. He entered sannyas hesitantly, bit by bit. And even now the entry has not happened; even now he is stuck at the door. Still standing at the threshold. Still standing at that boundary from where turning back is possible. He does not move beyond the point from which turning back becomes difficult; he does not step to the point from which there is no return. Then he will miss. He is missing. And when he misses, he will blame me. That too is the fun of it. When you miss, naturally you will blame somewhere, someone! …So you will blame me.

Someone asked a woman, “How did the glass in your window break?” She said, “Don’t ask me, ask my husband. He broke it.” He said, “But I just asked your husband outside. He says, ‘Ask my wife.’” The wife said, “He broke it. He was standing near the window, and when I threw the rolling pin at him, like a coward he moved aside; so the glass shattered. Who broke it? If he hadn’t moved, it wouldn’t have broken. Ask him!”

Man’s mind is always filled with the tendency to blame the other. If it does not happen to you, you will be angry with me. And it will never occur to you, even by mistake, that if it did not happen, perhaps I kept on playing tricks. Understand well: if your cleverness serves you even this much—to understand that this is not a matter for cleverness at all, this work belongs to the mad, to the intoxicated, to the masti—then the happening will happen, everything will be staked.

Say not, with a cold sigh,
“Now forget that burning story.”
Only if there is fire in the heart
will the eyes be adorned with tears today.
Even your defeat will become,
O proud one, the banner of victory.
The ash of a momentary moth
is the sign of the immortal lamp.
Pierce my heart,
let me become a garland—what is adverse in that?
If I recognize you on this shore,
then what is that other shore?

The disciple is ready to be pierced.

Pierce my heart—
let me become a garland; what is adverse in that?
Let me become a flower in the garland… “Pierce my heart, bore my heart. Let me become a garland; what is adverse in that?” There is no enmity in your piercing. Pierce me, otherwise I will not become part of the garland.

If I recognize you on this shore,
then what is that other shore?

Recognition may happen anywhere—on this shore here, on that shore there—wherever you lead me. I am willing to go.

If I recognize you on this shore,
then what is that other shore?

Say not, with a cold sigh,
“Now forget that burning story.”
Only if there is fire in the heart
will the eyes be adorned with tears today.
Even your defeat will become,
O proud one, the banner of victory.

Only when the disciple is defeated is he the victor. There is no victory greater than to be defeated by the Master. Your attempt to win against the Master, your effort to protect yourself—that is your defeat. Keep this paradox well in mind. Blessed are those who are defeated by the Master, for therein they have won.

Even your defeat will become,
O proud one, the banner of victory.
The ash of a momentary moth
is the sign of the immortal lamp.
Pierce my heart, let me become a garland—
what is adverse in that?
If I recognize you on this shore,
then what is that other shore?

As long as the urge to live is powerful, it is not possible.
As long as there is a powerful jiveshana—the lust for life—as long as there is a great craving to live, you do not become a devotee, you do not become a disciple. Only when this lust for life is defeated… after testing life in many, many ways, when you find there is nothing in it; that something else is needed which is beyond life—then.

Buddha left the palace. That night… a very sweet story is told in the Buddhist scriptures. Buddha was young. He had everything. A beautiful wife. And that very night a son was born to him. Buddha named him Rahula. He chose carefully. Rahul means Rahu—the demon whose snare sometimes catches the moon and brings about an eclipse. So Buddha said, Today yet another has arrived… I had been thinking of escaping; a wife was enough to stop me, a father was enough to stop me; the palace, wealth, empire—enough to hold me back—and now Rahula has come too! This Rahu has arrived! Now the attachment to this son will stop me.
Therefore he named him Rahula. And out of fear that this son might hold him back, he left that very night. When he slipped out of the palace and climbed into the chariot, it is said the gods strewn flowers along the way, lotus flowers, so that the sound of the horses’ hooves would not carry and wake the palace! Otherwise this great revolutionary moment in a man’s life would be halted, obstructed. Once in centuries there is a Buddha. The world waits for the true master. Let this chance not be lost…

The city gates were such that when they opened, their sound carried for miles. So the gods opened the gates in such a way that not the slightest noise arose. All the guards were plunged into deep sleep. The astrologers had told Buddha’s father to be alert on the day this son was born. When the son was born, the watch was greatly increased, troops posted all around, for there was the likelihood that the son would run away. All those guards the gods put to sleep.

Why were the gods so concerned? This is a very sweet story—symbolic. It says only this: the whole existence rejoices when a person turns toward truth. Help comes from every side. Cooperation comes from every side. When someone goes toward untruth, the whole world becomes your enemy. And when someone goes toward truth, the whole world becomes your companion. Just go.

Then, after he had left the palace and gone far into the forest, he said to his charioteer, Now take the chariot back, forgive me, my dear horse; I am going into the forest, I have set out in search of truth. The old charioteer, tears in his eyes, said: What are you doing? This beautiful palace, this beautiful wife—you are leaving all these pleasures. And for this very thing every man yearns. Every man wants such a palace, such wealth, such a beautiful wife, such a beautiful son. You are leaving it? Are you in your senses?

Buddha said: When I look back, I do not see a palace—I see only flames. I do not see a wife, I do not see a son. There is fire everywhere. And the sooner I discover what the truth of life is, the better. Before I burn up in this fire, before this life turns into death—I want to find out; I want to stake everything. Whatever I have, I am ready to leave. But this I want to know: what is the truth of life!

Buddha spoke with such completeness that, it is said, the old charioteer too understood. The words were true. He too had seen life. He had found nothing at all. But it had not yet occurred to him that there might be a life beyond life! It is said, he too dismounted and followed Buddha into the forest.

But even if the matter had stopped there, it would have been all right. This is not history—this is purana, myth. It is said the horse too was listening while Buddha was explaining to the charioteer. The horse also loved him deeply. From childhood it had carried Buddha around. It was Buddha’s beloved horse. Tears fell from its eyes. And when Buddha and the charioteer went into the forest, it is said the horse too went into the forest.

I find this very lovely—that the horse too went into the forest! It too saw that when there is nothing in Buddha’s life, when there is nothing in a human being’s life, then what could there be in the life of me, a horse! Its lust for life was quenched. It too set out on the search. It said: If Buddha stakes everything, I will stake everything too.
The horse too staked everything! Feeling is needed. Now, the horse may not have thoughts, but a horse also weeps. A horse’s tears also fall. The horse does not have much intellect. But it had love for this man—for this Buddha! And when he began to leave, even the horse was startled; alertness came; awareness dawned.

As long as there is a powerful life-urge, you will not be able to become a disciple, will not be able to become a devotee. Yet it is precisely the powerful life-urge that brings you to the moment when the urge drops. By running and running in that urge, one day it becomes clear: there is nothing in this life. The day it is seen that there is nothing in this life, that very day the turn; that very day Paltu is born; that very day you return. On that day your new search begins. Then you do not seek wealth, you seek meditation; you do not seek the world, you seek renunciation; you do not seek bondage, you seek liberation; you do not seek lust, you seek prayer. When such a search begins, only then does surrender happen; only then is one willing to take off one’s head and lay it down.

He called a bumpkin the one still entangled in the world; he has no awareness of what he is doing. “Bumpkin” is what the awakened, the ones who have come to their senses, call him—“Wake up!” And then, the one who is becoming absorbed in love of the Divine is called a fool, an idiot, a madman. Who calls him that? Those who are asleep.

These are relative words. Both are spoken from two different sides. The first Paltu says from his own side: “Wake up now, you bumpkin! Enough—wake up!” The second he says in irony, in jest, in humor. He says: Look, if you wake up, wake up knowingly, because this is the work of “madmen.” The world will call you mad. The world will laugh. The world will say, “His brain is deranged.” Your position and prestige will go. Your honor and respect will go. The very people who till yesterday called you wise will now call you a fool. Those who came to you for advice will start coming to advise you: “What are you doing? Are you in your right mind? Whose talk have you fallen for? Where have you got yourself entangled? Hey, this world is all there is—eat, drink, make merry; there’s nothing more. What ‘God’ are you talking about? When did anyone see him, when did anyone meet him?”

So Paltu is speaking playfully in the second instance. He is saying: be ready to be called mad—because the world will call you mad. And remember, there are very few saints who will call you a bumpkin; they are almost none. Only once in a while will you meet someone who will call you a bumpkin. And if you don’t go to him, there’s no question of hearing it. But the world is all around you—and it will call you mad.

So if you have to choose—being called a bumpkin by saints or being called mad by the world—you will think, “How many saints are there anyway?” Now and then a Buddha, a Mahavira, a Nanak will say “bumpkin,” but where are you going to meet them! Why worry about them! You can deny them. Don’t go near them; you’ll be spared their blows. And what weight is there in the words of a handful? The world believes in the majority. This crowd—how will you escape it? It will call you mad. It will point fingers everywhere you go. It will scatter thorns in your path. Wherever you go it will say, “Your brain has gone wrong.” And this crowd is not made up of strangers; your own will say it. Your wife will laugh. Your children will laugh. Your dear ones and relatives will start mocking you. The crowd is vast.

Paltu uses both words. He is saying that if you want to come to this side, to be conscious, if you want to drop your bumpkinhood, you will have to become “mad,” because the whole world will call you mad. But if you find even one saint who can say to you, “You are no longer a bumpkin,” then let the whole world call you mad—no harm in it. One saint’s word is enough. The statements of this entire world have no value. If you receive the blessing of one Buddha, let the whole world abuse you—their abuse can do nothing. One Buddha’s blessing is enough; that blessing will become a boat, it will carry you across.

And the world does abuse. The world has its “virtues”: it abuses—for reasons. First, when someone begins to do something out of the ordinary—praying, worshiping, dancing, humming a song, remembering the Name—people become uneasy. This uneasiness is natural. His very presence makes them begin to doubt themselves: “Are we perhaps wrong? Are we making a mistake?” And it rankles that someone is showing them they are mistaken. They pounce—in resistance, in revenge, in reaction. They want to prove that you are wrong. And of course they are the majority. They fall upon this person from all sides: “You are wrong.”

One of my friends, a sannyasin, wrote from Patna. He had taken sannyas, was overflowing with joy. When he came to take leave of me I had told him, “Hold this joy a little; don’t let it spill too much, people won’t understand. They’ll think you’ve gone mad.”

He said, “But how can I stop it? It’s overflowing.” And he truly was intoxicated, in deep ecstasy. Ten days later his letter came: “You were right. I’ve gotten into a real mess. I’m hospitalized. The family thinks I’ve lost my mind. They say, ‘Why are you happy for no reason? You were never like this before! Why do you laugh for no reason? Why do you sit up in the middle of the night? What do you do with your eyes closed?’”

“My wife, children, the whole family—together they got me admitted to the hospital. And here if I laugh or sing a bhajan, the doctor says, ‘Brother, stop that—or we’ll have to give you electric shocks if the medicines don’t work.’ Then I laugh even more: this is rich! All my life I was miserable—no one came to give me an electric shock. All my life I was troubled, restless, anxious—and no one thought I was mad; how marvelous! For the first time in life a faint fragrance of joy has come—and I’m mad! Even my wife doesn’t understand; I try to explain and she says, ‘Be quiet, don’t say a word! You’re not in your senses.’ I called my son—‘You’re educated, perhaps you’ll understand…’ He said, ‘You please keep quiet; the doctor has forbidden talking. Don’t babble nonsense. Don’t spout your wisdom. Your brain has gone bad.’”

Now no one even asks this man what is happening inside him! They don’t let him speak. And he writes truly: “It makes me laugh even more. Seeing this play of the world, I am even more delighted. But my joy is putting them in difficulty.”
Someone has asked: Will I now be allowed to get out of the hospital or not? I had his family write in. Somehow he was released; he came, met me, and went. I sent him off after explaining at length: now keep your joy guarded within. This pitcher is full; don’t let it spill over. And this diamond you have found—tie it up in a knot; don’t keep untying it again and again to look at it. Because when people see you opening your knot over and over, they won’t see the diamond; they have no eyes. They will say, “What are you looking at again and again? There’s nothing there.” The diamond will be visible to you, and you will laugh that these blind ones—none of them can see. And they won’t be able to see; what can they do, they too are helpless.
That is why they call you mad.
That is why Paltu warns. He is saying: if you want to come on this path, to be free of boorishness, be prepared to be called mad. Because only those whom the world calls mad go to mount this cross.
This thing that to the whole world looks like a cross is, in truth, a throne. But the throne is seen only by the one who has taken his seat upon it—or by those few who have. Their number can be counted on the fingers. The rest—the crowd, the majority—will take you to be deranged, mad.
In the West’s asylums many are confined who are not mad; if they were in the East, we would call them paramahansas.
In the West there is a great psychologist, R. D. Laing. He has created a great revolution. He has vigorously campaigned on behalf of these so‑called mad people, saying they are not mad; they are mast—those whom Sufis call “mast,” whom Hindus call “paramahansa.” They are God‑intoxicated. You have thrown them into asylums, you torment them, you have put chains on their hands! And they have no fault; their only fault is that they are happy, blissful.
This world is so miserable that to be joyful here is a crime. This world is so… so uncouth that to be intelligent is, in the eyes of the uncouth, to be proved mad.
That is all for today.