Ami Jharat Bigsat Kanwal #10

Ramanand Bharati! Spiritual value is always an individual phenomenon, never a collective one. Morality is collective; spirituality is individual. A society can be moral, because morality can be imposed from the outside; but no society is spiritual. The individual is spiritual. A society has no soul—so how could it have spirituality? A society has only conduct, interrelationships. Interrelationships can be moral or immoral; good or bad; sinful or virtuous. Spirituality is transcendence. Spirituality is that state of consciousness where neither sin remains nor virtue; neither iron chains nor golden chains. Where there is no mind, where is conflict? Where is duality?

And certainly, such spirituality has been disappearing from India. Buddhas, Mahaviras, Krishnas, Kabirs, Dadus, Dariyas—such people are becoming fewer; such flames are becoming rare, very rare! In the name of religion there is plenty of hypocrisy and pedantry—that has not diminished; it has increased. But there is no religion, because the fundamental ground needed for religion has been lost.

First, when a country is very poor, when a society is very poor, then all life, all energy gets entangled and exhausted in bread-and-butter. When is a poor man to play the veena? When to play the flute? If he cannot arrange his bread, how will he take the flights of spirit? Spirituality is the supreme luxury; it is the last enjoyment, the ultimate indulgence! As the country sank into poverty, people’s capacity to soar to those heights diminished.

In my view, the greater the prosperity, the greater the possibility of buddhas. Hence I am not against prosperity; I am in favor of it. I want this country to be prosperous. Let this golden bird once again be a golden bird. This “Daridra Narayan” nonsense should stop. Lakshmi Narayan is right; do not replace him with Daridra Narayan.

When Buddha was born, the country truly was a golden bird. The twenty-four Jain tirthankaras were sons of emperors—and so were Rama and Krishna, and Buddha too. The great geniuses that arose here came from royal palaces. Not without reason, not accidentally. Only one who has enjoyed becomes dispassionate. Tena tyaktena bhunjithah! Only he can renounce who has known, who has lived, who has enjoyed. One who has no wealth—if you tell him to renounce wealth, what on earth will he renounce? One who has never tasted the world—if you tell him to renounce the world, how will he renounce it?

Freedom comes through experience; detachment comes through experience. The experience of attachment leads you to the temple of non-attachment. The deeper you descend into enjoyment, the denser becomes your capacity to renounce.

My words may sound inverted, upside-down. They are not inverted at all. Their arithmetic is straightforward. Whatever you have truly consumed reveals its futility. Whatever you have not consumed retains its flavor somewhere in a corner, in some dark recess of the mind, where a desire lurks, waiting for a chance to enjoy. You have not known it—yes, Buddha says it is insubstantial. But have you known it to be insubstantial? Until you have known it, a thousand Buddhas saying it will not help. The Buddha’s eyes cannot become your eyes. My eyes cannot become your eyes. Your eyes are yours, and your experience is yours.

To move toward the divine, the world is the ladder. And in India the possibility of spirituality keeps diminishing because India keeps becoming poorer day by day. Why? Because of our notions.

First notion: we have assumed that people are poor or rich because of fate.

This is sheer stupidity. No one is rich by fate, no one poor by fate. Poverty and wealth are matters of social organization. Poverty and wealth are matters of intelligence. Poverty and wealth are matters of science and technology. Do you think all the fortunate are born only in America? If your scriptures are right, then all the fortunate are born in America, and the unfortunate in India. If your scriptures are right, then only sinners—those who sinned in the past—are born in India; and in America are born those who did virtue.

Your scriptures are wrong, your arithmetic is wrong. America is prosperous not because the virtuous are born there, but because there is science, technology, the application of intelligence. America keeps becoming more prosperous, day by day. And you can see how strong a wave of spirituality is there! How much longing for meditation! How much eagerness for the inner journey! Thousands travel from West to East in the hope that perhaps the East has the keys. They do not know the East has lost its keys. The East is very poor. And in these impoverished hands, the keys to the temple of God are very difficult to hold.

So first, India must become prosperous again. And for prosperity it is necessary that India be freed from Gandhian notions. Without big technology, this country cannot become prosperous now. Its numbers are too great. In Buddha’s time the total population was two crores—about twenty million. Certainly the country must have been prosperous—so much land and only two crores of people. The land is still the same, and now sixty crores—six hundred million! And I am speaking only of India; Pakistan and Bangladesh should be added too, because in Buddha’s time they were part of those two crores. Add them and it is eighty crores—eight hundred million. Where twenty million then, and eight hundred million now! Not an inch of land has increased. Yes, the land has shrunk in another sense. In these two and a half thousand years we have exploited the soil so much, harvested so much, that the soil has been drying up day by day. We have snatched everything from the earth. We have given nothing back. We had no sense of returning—only of taking, taking, taking. The soil became impoverished, and with it we became impoverished. And the poorer a society becomes, the more children it produces.

The equations of this world are strange! In rich homes fewer children are born; in poor homes, more. Why? The rich often have to adopt. There are reasons. The more comfort and ease in life, the more relaxation in life, the more varied means of enjoyment there are in life, the less the grip of sex becomes. Those who have no other means of enjoyment have only one entertainment—sex—and no other. To go to a film costs money; radio, television, dance, music—everything costs. Sex seems costless. So the poor man’s sole entertainment is sex. So the poor keep producing children. The poorer the countries, the poorer they become; the richer the countries, the richer they become—because in rich countries children are born with much deliberation.

We need fewer children, more science—and an end to the aversion that sits in your minds toward materialism. For spirituality can stand only on the foundation of materiality. When you build a temple and gild the spire with gold, in the foundation you must still fill in rough stones; you do not pour gold into the foundation. Yes, in the temple of life the spire should be spiritual, but the base must be material.

In my view there should be no enmity between the materialist and the spiritualist—there should be friendship. Yes, do not stop at materialism, otherwise it will be as if the foundation has been filled but the temple is never built. Do not stop at materialism. Lay the material foundation, then raise the temple of spirit upon it. Materialism is like a veena made of wood and strings; spiritualism is like the music that arises upon it. There is no opposition between the veena and the music. The veena is physical; the music is non-physical. You can hold the veena, touch it; you can neither hold nor touch the music—you can only experience it. You cannot clench it in your fist.

Spirituality cannot be the foundation of life. That is precisely the mistake India made—wanting spirituality as the base, wanting music without the veena. We kept missing.

The West’s mistake is the other half—the veena has been made, but they do not know how to play it; the foundation is filled, but they have forgotten the art of building the temple, even the very reason for the foundation. The West has made half a mistake; we have made the other half. And still I tell you: the West’s half-mistake is better than yours. If there is a foundation, a temple can be built; but with only fantasies of a temple and no foundation, it cannot be built.

India must relearn the lessons of materiality. And I tell you: the Vedas and Upanishads are not anti-material. Look at the stories.

Janaka organized a great shastrartha, a debate on scripture. He had one thousand beautiful cows, their horns plated with gold, studded with diamonds and jewels, standing at the palace gates, with the proclamation that whoever would win the debate would take these cows. Rishis and munis came, great learned pandits came. The dispute was raging—who would win? No one knew. It was noon, the cows were standing in the sun. Then Yajnavalkya arrived—a remarkable rishi of that time. He must have been a man like me! He came with his disciples—sannyasins like you. Before entering the palace he said to his disciples: “Listen—surround the cows and take them back to the ashram! The cows are tired, soaking in sweat. As for the debate, I will win.”

A thousand cows, with golden-plated horns studded with jewels. Look at Yajnavalkya’s daring! Is this some anti-materialist? And look at his daring—and his trust! Such trust can only be in those who have known. The pandits were arguing. They were left gape-eyed, open-mouthed—when they saw the cows being driven away by Yajnavalkya’s disciples! They were speechless. Someone whispered to Janaka, “What is this? The victory has not yet been won!” But Yajnavalkya said, “It will be won. I have arrived. Victory will happen, but why should the cows suffer?”

And Yajnavalkya won. His very presence was victory. There was power in his utterance, because there was experience behind it. Now, one whose ashram has a thousand cows, with gold-plated horns—his ashram cannot be a beggarly ashram. It must have been beautiful, scenic, full of amenities.

The ashrams were prosperous. In the Upanishads and Vedas there is nowhere any praise of poverty. Poverty is a sin, because all other sins are born of poverty. The poor will become dishonest; the poor will become a thief; the poor will become a deceiver. It is natural; it will have to be so.

Out of prosperity all virtues arise, because prosperity gives you the chance to see that dishonesty is unnecessary—what dishonesty would gain is already gained.

Then a time came when plunderers came from the West, hundreds of invaders—the Huns came, the Turks came, the Mughals came, then the British, the Portuguese—and this country kept being looted, looted! And it grew destitute.

And remember, the human mind finds arguments for everything. When this country became very poor, how to save our ego? We began to praise poverty. We began to say, “The grapes are sour.” The grapes we could not reach, we began to call sour! And we began to say, “We have no taste for grapes.” As we became poor, we began to sing the glory of poverty. It was to console our ego, to whitewash it. And that whitewash is still going on.

It must be broken. This country can be prosperous; this soil can once again yield gold. But your vision must change. Scientific insight must arise within you. There is no reason to remain poor. And once you become prosperous, within you too the longing to touch the sky will grow strong. Then what will you do? When wealth, position, prestige—everything is there—what then? Then the ultimate questions of life begin to arise—Who am I? These arise only with a full belly. “Gopala, bhajan does not happen on an empty stomach.” This bhajan, this kirtan, this song, this joy, this celebration—this is possible only with a full belly. And the divine has given everything. If you are deprived, you are deprived because of yourselves. If you are deprived, it is because of your wrong notions.

America is three hundred years old. And in three hundred years it has touched the sky! It has piled up heaps of gold! And this country has lived at least ten thousand years, and we have grown poorer day by day! So poor that we had to dress our poverty in beautiful garments—Daridra Narayan! We had to sing the praises of poverty. We began to make poverty into spirituality.

A German thinker, Count Keyserling, when he returned from India, wrote a diary of his travels. Here and there in it he wrote something truly astonishing. He wrote: “By going to India I came to know that there is spirituality in being poor. By going to India I came to know that there is spirituality in being sick, infirm, destitute. By going to India I came to know that there is spirituality in being sad, in being like a corpse.”

Let me tell you: if this goes on, there is no ray of hope, Ramanand! There is one ray—only one—that this country be filled with a longing to be prosperous. From that longing, spirituality will be born of its own accord.

These days there is a poisonous intoxication in the air.
Every head is burdened
with mountains of trouble.
Every soul is half-dead
from uncertainties and distress.
Everyone is angry with everyone,
yet strolls arm in arm.
Man’s relationship with man
lies shattered to pieces.
These days there is a poisonous intoxication in the air.

A heavy poison hangs in the air. In place of love we have sown the seeds of hatred—Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jain...! We have fragmented ourselves. Spirituality is born in an unfragmented atmosphere. We have abandoned even brotherhood, we have forgotten even friendship—how will prayer be born? We have become enemies of love—how will prayer be born? And if I speak of love, the whole country is ready to shower abuse.

If you do not love, you will never be able to pray. For prayer is the fragrance of love. You love your wife, your husband, your friend, your son, your mother, your brother, your relatives—and everywhere you find that love is vast, and the vessel of love is small. You pour yourself out and the vessel proves too small. It cannot contain you fully. Through many such experiences one day you will seek the supreme vessel—God—in whom you can pour yourself, where you become small, not the vessel; where you can exhaust yourself completely. You are the ocean, and you are pouring yourself into little pitchers; you do not find fulfillment. How can you? To pour an ocean, you need the sky. But before the ocean rises to the sky, many small pitchers are a necessary experience.

Love! Do not be in opposition to the naturalness of life; do not deny life. Embrace life, with a great yes. For through that embrace one day you will be able to embrace God too. God is hidden here—in these trees, in these people, in these hills, in these mountains. Learn to love this existence. Your so-called religion teaches you to hate existence—teaches you to hate the nature outside and the nature within you. Love nature, for nature is God’s veil. Love nature, and you will be able to lift the veil.

There is certainly a ray of hope. The ray of hope is never destroyed. However dark the new-moon night becomes, the morning will come. Morning is bound to come. However long the night of new moon, and however deeply this country has sunk into wrong notions, still there are some who are thinking, reflecting, meditating. It is precisely such a few who are slowly gathering around me.

Hounded by bread,
this country
still recognizes
the lotus rightly.
Granted, it is hungry, granted it is destitute; yet some eyes still lift toward the sky. There is much mud, but it is not that the recognition of the lotus is completely lost. In a hundred thousand, one or two still recognize the lotus—the primal remembrance awakens. Otherwise how would you be here? Despite all the abuses hurled at me, all the opposition, all the rumors—you are still here. You certainly recognize something of the lotus. Whatever the world may say, you are ready to be with me, leaving aside all social opinion. There is a ray of hope.

Hounded by bread,
this country
still recognizes
the lotus rightly.
From the water’s depth
to the very silt below,
the beauty that arises—
without bowing before hunger—
it calls its very own.
Layer upon layer of fresh butter
on dry bread,
thrust into the hands of some people
with half-baked minds,
who, chanting “Krishna, Krishna,”
want to snatch away their lotus—
it knows full well
what their intention is.
A devotee of the Innocent One,
a carefree mendicant,
a dyed-in-the-wool drunkard,
with towel tied at his waist,
right here on the ghats of the Ganges,
he scrapes together both his meals;
but when the moment demands,
crying “Har Har Mahadev,”
he can also brandish
the cataclysmic trident.
Hounded by bread,
this country
still recognizes
the lotus rightly.

Recognition has not completely died. It is lost—yes, much lost. Now and then one meets a person—someone with whom you can speak, who understands. Even now such people can be found. The crowd has gone blind, but not all are blind. In a hundred thousand, one or two still have eyes, have ears, have a heart. In that lies the hope. Even now there are some who are ready: if there is somewhere the tavern of the divine, they will knock at its door—Open the door! Even now there are some ready that if there is a possibility of buddhahood somewhere, they will join with it, whatever the price. Even now there are some ready that if there is a gathering of drunkards, they too will drink, they too will drown—whatever the stake, even if life itself must be staked.

Therefore there is a ray of hope, Ramanand! The ray of hope has not been lost. There is no reason to despair. The truth is: the darker the night becomes, the nearer the morning. The night is becoming very dark; therefore understand that morning is very near. People are getting lost in the darkness of petty things; therefore understand that if truth is revealed, if it is made manifest, those who recognize will join, lovers of truth will gather. And truth is contagious. If it touches one, if it catches fire in one, it goes on spreading. From one lit lamp, infinite lamps can be lit.

There is hope—great hope. There is no reason for despair. It is on the strength of that hope that I am at work. I know the crowd will not recognize me; but I also know that within that crowd there are some aristocratic hearts, some thirsty hearts—who are yearning and find no spring anywhere. Wherever they go, there is hypocrisy; wherever they go, empty prattle; wherever they go, parroted scriptures, repetition. There are a few such people. If only a few of them begin to gather, the sangha will be formed. The sangha has begun to be formed. This torch will be lit. This torch can break this darkness. It all depends on you!

Krishna Satyarthi! I know Acharya Tulsi very well. We met two or three times. There is sheer hollowness—nothing else. How will he touch your heart? A heart can be touched only if there is a heart. It’s just talk—exegesis of scriptures, analysis. And even that is not original; borrowed and stale leftovers.

Acharya Tulsi had invited me, so I went to meet him. He said: We will meet in private. Many people were eager to hear the two of us talk. But he said no, only one of my disciples, Muni Nathmal, will remain—no one else. Everyone was sent away. I said, What’s the harm? Let people stay. They will simply sit quietly and listen. Why deprive them? They have come with such hope. There were a hundred, a hundred and fifty people. But he wouldn’t agree. I was a little surprised—what was the obstacle?

Later it became clear what the obstacle was. After people left he asked: Explain about meditation—how should I meditate? Then I understood: asking in front of two hundred people, “How do I meditate?” would have been difficult. It would mean he had not yet meditated. He is the acharya of seven hundred Jain monks and the guru of thousands of Terapanthis—yet the guru, the acharya, has not known meditation! Such news would spread like wildfire. It had to be asked in private.

I said: You haven’t known meditation! Then what have you been doing till now? What have you been explaining to people? If you yourself don’t know meditation, what will you share?

He said: That’s precisely why I invited you—so I could learn how to meditate.

But even that was untrue. That too was the talk of a politician. In Acharya Tulsi I saw pure politics. He had not called me to learn. The purpose was something else, which later became clear. He began asking me questions about meditation; I began explaining; and Muni Nathmal started taking notes.

I said in between: There’s no need to take notes. You too have the opportunity—just sit silently and understand while I’m here. Don’t waste time taking notes.

No—but Acharya Tulsi said: Let him take notes, so they can be useful later.

Notes are needed only when there is a lack of understanding. Otherwise, what are you taking notes for! But the purpose was different. The Terapanthis were holding a convention—some twenty thousand people had gathered. I was to speak at their convention that afternoon. Muni Nathmal took down all the notes of my hour-and-a-half talk with Acharya Tulsi.

Suddenly—this wasn’t on the program—before announcing me, Acharya Tulsi said that before I spoke, Muni Nathmal would speak. Then I understood the purpose of those notes. Muni Nathmal repeated word for word the hour-and-a-half I had spoken—verbatim.

Neither he knows meditation, nor does his guru—and yet they “explained” what meditation is! Then the purpose was clear: that before I spoke to people about meditation, Muni Nathmal should speak so that it would appear to the crowd that “we too know meditation.” Lest anyone think their monk didn’t know meditation.

But you know me—I have no difficulty with contradiction. I refuted it. Both of them were startled. They stared, eyes wide—What happened? I refuted, word for word, what I had said for an hour and a half and what Muni Nathmal had parroted. Inch by inch I dismantled it. That night when I met Acharya Tulsi again, he said: You bewilder one! These were the very things you yourself said.

I said: Now do you understand? I had told you—let people stay. If they had stayed, I wouldn’t have been able to refute. You played politics. I am not a politician, but I can recognize a politician’s games.

It also became obvious why those notes were taken, and why suddenly, without prior program, Muni Nathmal was made to speak before me. But there was a snag. When you repeat someone else’s words, there is no life in them. They remain on the lips; they don’t carry the heartbeat of your heart. There is no flow of your blood in them, no warmth of your lifeblood.

So Muni Nathmal repeated like a parrot—Ram Ram, parrot-Ram, Sita Ram! What does a parrot have to do with Sita or with Ram! It doesn’t even know who Sita is, who Ram is! But teach a parrot and it will repeat. Now, on hearing a parrot chant “Ram-Ram,” do you think suddenly the remembrance of Ram will descend on you? That you will bow down to the parrot? He repeated, and they hoped that just as people are stirred, touched, and resonant when I speak—so too they would resonate. But there was no resonance. Then they searched for an excuse: the reason there was no resonance, they said, was that so many people were there and Muni Nathmal spoke without a microphone. Until then Acharya Tulsi and his monks did not use microphones, because there is no mention in Jain scriptures that one should speak by microphone. So that day they came up with the excuse that people were not affected for lack of a mic. Although Muni Nathmal put in whatever strength he could muster, the voice did not reach people. From that day, the Terapanth began to use microphones—perhaps the lack was the mic.

It was a lack of soul, not a lack of microphone. If you make a parrot speak through a microphone, granted the clamor will reach more people—“Sita Ram! Sita Ram!”—but a parrot is a parrot. You can’t rely on a parrot. And there are no lamps lit in a parrot’s eyes. A parrot speaks, yes, but it doesn’t feel like the parrot understands.

You say Acharya Tulsi has now made that same Muni Nathmal his successor. Parrots find parrots. It’s perfectly natural. You were born in that house, in that family, and yet they could not affect you. The reason is plain and simple: you have a little intelligence; a bit of sparkle; some edge to you—that’s why. Had you been utterly dull, they would have affected you. But you have eyes that see, and so they could not. You can discern whether words come from the heart or only from the lips. You can tell whether the song is one’s own, or borrowed and stale.

You say they give discourses in exactly my style.
That too is learned. You’ll be amazed to know that those most opposed to me read my books the most. The largest orders we receive at the ashram for books are from Jain monks. There is hardly a Jain monk or nun who does not read my books. But don’t imagine that by reading they understand, or that transformation happens in their lives, or that there is any urge for revolution in them. No—they read so they can give discourses, so they can catch the style. For they all believe there must be something in my style that influences people.

There is nothing in style. Do I have a style? Have you seen anyone speak more awkwardly than I do? My speaking is like the little mention I made the other day: a poet saw a Jat walking with a cot on his head. The poet said, “Jat re Jat, tere sir par khat!” And how could the Jat keep quiet! The Jat said, “Kavi re kavi, teri aisi ki taisi.” The poet said, “But the rhyme doesn’t fit, the meter doesn’t scan.” The Jat said, “Whether it rhymes or not, I said what I had to say.”

That is how I speak. Is that a “style”? You did not connect with me because of style. The reasons for connecting are inner, not outer. I have neither scriptural jargon nor doctrinal systems. I don’t know Sanskrit, nor Prakrit, nor Pali, nor Arabic, nor Latin, nor Greek! But I know myself. I know the divine. And in that knowing, all is known.

Once I was speaking and I said, “Mahavira said this.” A Jain pundit stood up—in Kashi. He said, “He did not say that. Please correct yourself.” I said, “I don’t believe in correcting myself. If any correction is to be made, make it in your book wherever Mahavira’s words are.” He stood dumbfounded. He said, “What are you saying? Amend Mahavira’s words!” I said, “I am speaking from knowing myself. If Mahavira did not say it, he should have; add it. I testify that he should have said it.”

I was in Nagpur. In a discourse I mentioned a story from Buddha’s life. That evening a well-known Buddhist monk came to see me. He said, “The story was lovely, but I have read all the scriptures—it’s nowhere. On what authority did you tell it?” I said, “The story carries its own authority; it is self-evident.” He said, “Self-evident?” I said, “If it didn’t happen, it should have happened.”

The story was small: Buddha is passing through a village—before enlightenment, just two or four days before. Dawn is near; perhaps the last stars are sinking, the birds waking; the east reddening—the sun about to rise. Only a few days are left. Buddha is passing through a village. Ananda is with him. Ananda has asked some question; Buddha is answering. Just then a fly settles on his forehead. He brushes it away with his hand. They walk two steps; Buddha stops. Again he raises his hand toward his forehead. Now there is no fly—it’s long gone. He brushes away a fly that isn’t there. Ananda asks, “What are you doing? The first time there was a fly; this time I see none. Whom are you brushing away?” Buddha says, “The first time I brushed it away mechanically. That was a mistake. I did it in a stupor. I kept talking to you and brushed away the fly—not attentively. My hand might have struck the fly; it might have died. That is not the conduct of an aware mind. I missed. Now I brush as I should have brushed earlier—with full attention. Though there is no fly, the practice must be set; so that next time a fly sits there is no such mistake. Now there is no fly, but I brush attentively. My whole hand is filled with awareness. Now it is not mechanical.”

The monk said, “The story is very lovely—but where is it written?” I said, “Whether it is written or not—what has writing to do with it! Write it. Soon it will be written in one of my books—then read it, if you rely on the written.”

“No,” he said, “that’s not what I mean. I mean—is it historical or not?” I said, “If you start worrying about history, then even whether Buddha is historical or not will be hard to decide. Whether Krishna is historical or not will be hard to decide. Whether such people ever happened at all will be hard to decide. If you worry about history, then even Buddha will not be proven. And moreover, inner events do not leave footprints on the sands of history. As the saying goes: like a bird flying in the sky leaves no tracks; like a fish moving in water leaves no marks. History counts the trivial. History has little real value. It keeps useless accounts. What I am speaking is not history; it is Purana. And Purana does not end. Purana is a process. Buddhas will keep coming, and in the lives of past Buddhas they will keep adding—new stories, new awakenings, new incidents, new dimensions. Each Buddha pours new color and new life into the Buddhas of the past—reviving them again and again.”

If you have a heart, there is no way out—you will beat with my heart. And that is what happened, Krishna Satyarthi!

Religion has no relation to birth. If only religion were so easy that one received it by birth, then everyone in the world would be religious—some Christian, some Hindu, some Muslim. But religion has nothing to do with birth. To link religion with birth is as foolish as someone being born in a Congressman’s house and saying, “I am a Congressman because I was born in a Congressman’s home.” You would laugh—have you gone mad! Born in a communist’s house, so now you are a communist!

Birth has nothing to do with thought; religion is deeper still—it is beyond thought. If thought itself is not related to birth, how will the thoughtless, the beyond-thought, be related?

But you are fortunate that you did not walk the rut. Otherwise people walk in ruts. There is convenience in the herd. The crowd you were born into—if it’s the Terapanthis, you go with the Terapanthis; if Muslims, with the Muslims; if Hindus, with the Hindus—just going with the crowd. In a crowd there is comfort: father goes, mother goes, brothers go, friends go, family and neighbors go. To walk alone raises anxiety, doubts, dilemmas—Who knows whether I am right or wrong! In the crowd there is the feeling: when so many are doing it, it must be right. And the fun is that each of them is thinking the same: when so many are doing it, it must be right.

There is a kind of safety in the crowd. But the crowd turns you into a sheep. And if you become a sheep, will you find the divine? Will you find truth? To find it, you must be a lion; you must give a lion’s roar. You must walk by making your own path.

Yes, sometimes when the roar of a lion falls upon your ears, the sleeping lion within you will awaken. Listening to parrots, at most you can become a parrot—nothing more. Hearing a lion’s roar, perhaps the talent that has slept in your chest for lifetimes will sprout.

You have heard the story of the old lion who one day saw a young lion running helter-skelter among sheep! He was amazed—he had never seen such a miracle—and the sheep weren’t even disturbed by him; they were running along with him. They were running from the sight of the old lion, and the young lion was running with them. The old lion couldn’t help himself. He ran, and with great difficulty caught him. He seized the young lion. The young one whimpered and bleated, because by chance he had been raised among sheep. His mother had been leaping from one knoll to another and in between the cub was born. The mother leaped on; the cub fell down into a flock of sheep. He grew up there, grazed grass, learned their tongue—bleating and whining—learned to fear and to panic. How would he even remember he was a lion! Who would awaken him! Whenever the sheep ran at the sight of a lion, he too ran—along with his own. But this old lion caught him. The young one pleaded, sweating all over! The old one said, “Be calm.” But he cried, “Let me go! Let me go! My people are going! They all have gone—my Terapanthis have all gone! And you are stopping me. Spare my life.”

But the old one wouldn’t agree. He dragged him to a lake and said, “Peer into the water! Look at my face and yours.” They both peered in—and in a single instant, revolution happened. A roar arose. From the young lion’s chest the slumbering thunder broke out. The mountains trembled, the valleys echoed.

Nothing was said—he just showed a face. The young lion saw, “Ah! I was living among sheep—I am like you! I am as this lion is!” Just that much recognition.

That is the only work of the true master: to catch hold of you. However much you bleat and whine, or try to run, he will still drag you to a mirror. All his words are mirrors. His very presence is a mirror. His communion is a mirror. He is arranging for you to recognize your own face. And the only way is that he lay bare his inner being before you, so you can see: “Ah! This is within me too!” And the roar rises. And you too are filled with the sound of Om. And in you too the lion’s thunder breaks out.

Something like this must have happened, Krishna Satyarthi! You came for the very first time and surrendered—you took sannyas. When you go back now, the sheep will trouble you. They will say, “Come back to Terapanth! What has happened to you? Have you lost your senses? Have you been hypnotized? Have you thrown away the family’s religion, your own religion? Think a little of public opinion! Think a little of the family’s prestige! If you had to take sannyas, you should have taken it with Acharya Tulsi or with Muni Nathmal. How did you fall into the hands of this troublesome man! He will mislead you; he will take you into dangers.”

When you go home the sheep will trouble you a bit; don’t be afraid. Whenever the sheep gather—give a lion’s roar. Acharya Tulsi will tremble, and so will Muni Nathmal.

Ramvilas! Sorrow never comes alone. No sorrow can live alone. Sorrow comes in a chain—like links of a chain, one joined to the next. One sorrow brings another. And joy too has its chain. One joy brings another. It is in your hands which chain you set in motion. If you give birth to joy within, joy will begin to spread all around your life.

There is a very famous and very strange saying of Jesus: “To those who have, more will be given; and from those who have not, even what they have will be taken away!”
It doesn’t sound logical. It doesn’t sound just. Our logic would prefer the opposite: “To those who have not, give; and from those who have, take away.” That would sound fair. But what Jesus said is exactly right; it is the supreme law of life. Whatever you have within you begins to be attracted to you from every side. If there is joy in you, streams of joy will flow toward you. If there is sorrow, streams of sorrow will flow toward you. And if you get absorbed in chopping away at outer sorrows, forgetting that you have set up a magnet for sorrow inside, you can go on cutting at the outside forever; nothing will change. Sorrows will keep coming and keep tormenting you. Hell will gather around you.

But if you understand that the root is within, then cutting sorrow is not difficult. With one stroke of the sword, sorrow can be cut. And the delightful thing is: the moment sorrow goes, what remains is joy. Joy is not the opposite of sorrow; joy is the absence of sorrow. Where sorrow is not, what remains is joy. That is why joy cannot really be defined—just as health cannot be defined. Ask physicians to define “health.” They say: whoever is not ill is healthy. If you go to have your health tested, do you think anyone can test your health? They can only test your diseases. There is no instrument that can declare, “This man is healthy.” There are a thousand instruments that can declare, “This man is full of this or that disease.” When all the instruments that detect disease say there is none, the physician declares, “You are healthy.”
So health means the absence of disease. In the same way, joy means the absence of sorrow.

What is the greatest sorrow? The greatest sorrow is your perpetual belief that sorrow comes from the outside. This is the most basic thing to understand. Sorrow does not come from outside; it comes when you invite it. No guest comes uninvited. All the guests come because you called them. Yes, it may be that you write love-letters to sorrow while in such a stupor that you don’t even notice when you mailed them. You summon it in unconsciousness—and then you writhe.

Someone said to Mulla Nasruddin, “Blessed is the young man whose monthly income is only seventy-five rupees, and yet he lives like a decent fellow.”
Nasruddin said, “With that much, what else could he possibly do?”

Even to buy sorrow you need means. To purchase sorrow you need opportunity, time, favorable conditions. Sorrow is not free—you have to work hard for it! In truth, joy is free; sorrow is not. Because joy is your nature—it is already given. Just don’t let it be covered by sorrow. Sorrow is borrowed; it is not inborn. You have to fetch it from outside.

And you too are eager to fetch sorrow, because there are vested interests in sorrow. Sorrow has many “advantages.” Otherwise why would everyone cling to it? The greatest advantage is that the sorrowful man receives everyone’s sympathy. People serve the sorrowful. No one criticizes the sorrowful. No one envies a sorrowful man. People do what they can to serve him—these are the perks of sorrow. If you weep, people will wipe your tears. If you laugh, people are suddenly filled with envy.

If your house catches fire, the whole neighborhood comes to console you. Look closely and you will see their consolation has a sweet relish in it: inside they are saying, “Thank God it was his, not ours; and it had to burn—sin eventually gets exposed!” Inside they are saying that; on the surface they say, “How terrible, how terrible!” They show great sympathy—“You’ll build again. Money is only the dust of the hand; you’ll earn it back. Don’t be sad; what’s done is done. Perhaps some karma from a past life is cleared; the trouble is over! You can build again.” They will speak lofty wisdom and show sympathy. But if you build a magnificent house, nobody from the neighborhood will come to congratulate you: “We’re happy, we’re delighted that you built such a grand home.” If they meet you on the road they’ll slip aside and avoid you.

I used to be a guest in a house in Calcutta—the most beautiful house in the city. A great garden, the whole house in marble. No children in the family; a great deal of wealth. Whenever I stayed with them, they would proudly show me their house, again and again, though they had already shown it many times—through the garden, this and that.

One time I went and they didn’t mention the house at all. I became a little concerned. They used to be full of the house. I asked, “What happened to you? Have you suddenly attained Buddhahood—or what? What about the house? You aren’t talking about it at all this time! I come from so far to hear you talk about the house.”
They said, “We don’t want to talk about the house anymore. For a year or two we won’t be able to talk about it.”
“What’s the matter? There must be something behind this silence.”
They said, “Don’t you see the neighborhood?”
A bigger house had risen next door. Their hearts sank; their chests caved in.
I said, “But your house is exactly as it was—why be upset?”
They said, “It’s not the same now. Look at that bigger house!”
Then I remembered Akbar’s story: one day in court he drew a line and told the courtiers, “Make it shorter without touching it.” None could do it. Then Birbal drew a longer line below it. He hadn’t touched Akbar’s line—and it became smaller.
I understood their pain. I said, “At least go and thank your neighbor.”
They said, “Thank him! You’re invited to his house tomorrow; he’s invited me too. I know why—so he can show it off. I’m not going. You’ll have to go alone.”
They did not go. In this world you’ll find people to sympathize with the sorrowful; with the happy you’ll mostly find people who envy. So sorrow brings an advantage: you relish the sympathy. That’s why people recite their epics of suffering to each other, force their tales of woe even on those who do not want to hear.

A listener once got trapped at a poet’s house.
At first he laughed on seeing the poet.
Then he felt pity
and at once ordered two cups of tea,
drank one himself, and made the poet drink the other.
After that the poet came into full mood—
in three hours he recited twenty quatrains and twenty-one songs.
When the listener tried to leave,
a commanding voice came from behind, from a wrestler:
“Don’t bother trying to get up. Sit right there.”
The listener asked, “Who are you?”
“I am the poet’s servant.
I am paid precisely for this:
to force people to listen to his songs.
When a listener faints,
I also take him to the hospital.”
The listener said, “If I listen two more hours,
my soul will fly away.”
The wrestler’s voice came again:
“If the poet doesn’t finish reciting his entire oeuvre,
he will die.”
An hour later the listener said,
“Poet-ji, with your permission,
I’ll be going home now.”
The wrestler’s voice again:
“You’re getting nervous already?
His father is also a poet.
He is coming next.”

One sorrow follows another. The son finishes and the father arrives. But the beginning—why did you go to the poet’s house at all? And when he laughed, why didn’t you run away then? When he ordered tea, why didn’t you take the hint? Once you drink the tea, leaving becomes difficult. If you eat someone’s salt, you must play along—otherwise they’ll call you ungrateful!

Be careful in advance. Where is the root of sorrow? It is in the ego, in the sense “I am.” This is the root of all diseases; all the ailments are its leaves. And you do not let go of it; you cling to it. Yet it is a sheer, downright untruth. You are not; the divine is. I am not; the divine is. A wave imagines, “I am,” whereas only the ocean is—where is the wave? And once you start living a lie, you must heap up a thousand more lies to support it. To prop one lie you need a thousand struts of lies.

One day Mulla Nasruddin told me, “Today I made my wife walk on her knees.”
“Indeed!” I asked. “How did that happen? That would be rare—wives usually make their husbands walk on their knees. How did you manage it?”
Nasruddin smiled, “After all, I am somebody.”
I asked, “And what did your wife say while she was on her knees?”
He said, “She said, ‘Come out from under the cot—then we’ll see!’”

One lie—that I am “somebody”—and then you must gather twenty-five more. Falsehood feeds on falsehood. Recognize the fundamental falsehood: you are not. You are a limb of this vast existence. You are indivisibly one with the Vast. If you take yourself as separate, pain arises. Know yourself as non-separate—and bliss showers. When nectar showers, the lotus blooms!

But no—you won’t drop this “I,” no matter how many troubles it brings.

Nasruddin’s young son was picking stones in a field for quite some time. I watched silently for a while, then asked, “Son! What are you doing?”
“Nothing—just picking stones. Father says the more stones I pick today, the more toffees he’ll give me. Don’t you know he has to recite a poem in this very field today?” the obedient son replied.
Stones are being collected—because they know what happens when poetry is recited: the audience throws stones.
Whenever Nasruddin goes to read his poetry, he first goes to the vegetable market and buys up all the rotten bananas and tomatoes. Otherwise those are exactly what will be hurled at the poetry gathering. But he does not stop reading poetry.

Such is your state. The ego brings so much sorrow, so many rotten tomatoes, banana peels, stones—where is the nectar shower, where the blooming lotus? Yet you keep guarding the ego so it won’t be hurt; you live protecting it—and so you suffer.

You say, “I am so familiar with sorrow that I can’t trust happiness.”
I understand—how could you trust joy, having known only sorrow?

“One sorrow goes and another comes; the chain just keeps going.”
It will keep going—until you awaken.

“Will I ever have a glimpse of happiness?”
Certainly you can. Why “ever”? Right now! But cut the root.

“Show me the path—what should I do to attain happiness? I am ready to do anything.”
Are you saying honestly that you are ready to do anything? I am not asking you to do everything. I am asking for a little: let this ego go—and see. Let the I-sense grow thin. Do not take yourself to be separate from existence. Let the seer and the seen become one. As often as possible, let them be one. When the sun rises in the morning, watching, merge into it—let there be neither you nor the sun, just one happening—only sun! When in the evening you see the sun set, be one with it. When you see a flower blooming, don’t stand apart—bloom with the flower. When you watch leaves falling from a tree, don’t remain distant—fall with the leaves. In the twenty-four hours, do not miss any opportunity to drown yourself, to dissolve, to merge. Melt—as ice melts in sunlight. In such nearness, melt. Through that melting you will one day become liquid. And once fluid, you will begin to move toward the ocean—toward joy. Joy is your nature—your rightful inheritance.

Satsang! I have been giving you that gaze every day. And that gaze has begun to come to you, little by little. That is why this question has arisen. Once the taste comes, the longing to have more and more awakens. Only the one on whose tongue a drop or two of nectar has fallen asks such a question. It has begun to fall. A drizzle has begun. Now don’t protect yourself, don’t hide. These unprecedented experiences that have begun to descend—don’t deny them in any way, by calling them imagination, by calling them dreams; don’t shut the doors and windows.

People do not trust bliss. Even when bliss comes, they doubt, “Who knows what is happening! Bliss—and me? Impossible. Surely I’m getting caught in some delusion.”

That is why, as people here begin to drown in bliss, the outsiders think they’ve been hypnotized. When spectators from outside come, when journalists come, they conclude: all these people have been hypnotized! Where is such ecstasy possible in a human being! Surely they’re not in their senses. They must be intoxicated—some drug, gross or subtle, has been given to them.

Thousands will cast doubt on your joy. The eye that has begun to be born in you—people will call that eye blind, because it is the eye of love, and they say love is blind. They call mathematics clear-sighted, logic clear-sighted, intellect clear-sighted; they call the heart blind. People will call you blind. They will call you crazy. They will call you mad.

‘Satsang’ is getting the same treatment. His family has taken him for utterly mad, so he had to leave home. Just yesterday I heard that now Satsang looks for a place to live, but no one is willing to rent him a house! Who rents a house to madmen! Who knows what they might do—dance, sing, start leaping about. People must be asking: you won’t do Kundalini Meditation, will you? You won’t start Active Meditation, will you? And don’t bring those other ochre-clad madcaps into the house!

People outside are living in such misery that when a glimpse of happiness comes into your life—when spring arrives for the first time, when Phagun is born, when gulal flies—they will not believe it. And since you have always believed people, you too will become anxious: so many people can’t be wrong—maybe I am the one who is wrong? This doubt will arise in the mind again and again.

Satsang! The eye has begun to be born. I can see that the eye has started to open a little. Yes, only a small aperture has opened yet, but is even that too little! If that much is open, more will open. To those who have, more shall be given.

Spring has come,
the heart is restless.
Now the breeze
plays its flute.
Swaying, swaying
are the bodies of trees.
O life of withered leaves,
come, my Beloved.
Come, break open
these tightening bonds.
Your remembrance
fills me with tremors.
Very headstrong
is the mind’s young bride.
For ages she has pined,
a lone beloved.
“Meet me in rapture,”
says the spring.
Come, come—
spring has come.

Phagun has arrived! Dance! Tie the bells upon your feet and dance!

The season has staked
its wager of ecstasy,
and stirred in the eyes
a village of memories.
Anklets are chiming,
spring at every step,
there’s a knock at the door
from the Phaguni breeze.
Leaves too, swaying,
are keeping the beat,
flowers have strewn
their fragrant gulal,
a hundred loves are
gathering in the heart—
there’s a knock at the door
from the Phaguni breeze.
On the flute, again
the notes start to dance,
birds are frolicking
upon the water.
On restless lips
run messages to and fro—
there’s a knock at the door
from the Phaguni breeze.

Phagun has rapped at the door—open it! You have opened it a little, just a crack. From that much, the light has begun to enter. Open the whole door! Open all the doors! Open all the windows! This life is but four days long; it must be lived as a celebration, made into a great festival. If the world calls you mad, let it—because on the path to the divine, there is no greater wisdom than to go mad, no greater intelligence.

Now that you are with me,
moments reel, intoxicated,
every pore fragrant
with sandalwood.
A sliver of sunlight
makes the body shiver,
when the vermilion of the parting
turns into every touch.
By the touch of the philosopher’s stone,
the body blazes into gold.
Again and again the
butterfly-mind weighs itself,
on the threshold sprout
groves of saffron,
every flower in the heart smiles—
who knows what it whispers!

An unprecedented happening is taking place. Don’t scatter away, don’t wander. The direction has been found; now go straight ahead. The eye is being given; it will go on being given. And this eye is such that it opens and goes on opening. It has no end. One day the whole sky becomes your eye. One day God’s eyes are your eyes.

It is a very long journey. But the first step has been taken—you are blessed. And many others too have taken it—they are all blessed. Around me a fair of the fortunate is gathering.

Enough for today.