Ami Jharat Bigsat Kanwal #13

Nectar rains down; the lotus blossoms.

Nectar rains—surely it rains. Lotuses open—surely they open. But the ground must be prepared.

Grass and weeds sprout from the very soil where roses bloom. In one sense there’s no difference: both draw sap from the same earth. And yet what a difference! One remains mere weed; the other becomes the earth’s poetry. If roses do not prove God to you, you’ll not find proof anywhere. If a rose doesn’t leave you astonished, spellbound, silent—if it doesn’t halt you and empty the mind even for a moment—then all temples and mosques are futile.

The same soil gives birth to weeds and to roses; the same sap flows in both—yet the transformation is utterly different. Both have seeds, both need sun, water, earth. Their needs are identical. Where then does the difference arise?

In the gardener. He uproots the weeds; he tends and gathers the roses.

This world is just this: here someone becomes a buddha, and here someone lives and dies in vain. The difference is yours. Awaken the gardener! He lies asleep, and weeds are overrunning your garden. Where flowers were to be, where fragrance was to be, there is only the stench of life. The energy that should have journeyed skyward gropes blindly in pits and caves. The energy that could be nectar has turned to poison. What could have been a throne has become a cross.

How to awaken this gardener? What call will rouse him? That call is the Name—Ram-naam—call it prayer, call it meditation!

“On the wild, solitary road of the world I walk—
my feet have grown weary.
How shall I sing your song?

A dense cry of condensed pain
never leaves me even for a moment.
Stirring an endless thirst on my lips,
tears pour like a monsoon cloud.
Dusk smears the ache of separation,
and silence serves me briny tears.
How shall I sing your song?

No dream-weaving ever happens
though the moon smiles down.
No lamp of awareness lights
though the moth sings and flutters.
The mute invitation of hopes
never reaches the door of remembrance.
How shall I sing your song?

Who crosses deserts on false beliefs?
Who steps forward on life’s road
without knowing the path?
Gathering the tired sails of the mast,
no one ever reached the shore.
How shall I sing your song?”

There is only one essential question, worth asking, worth trembling in every pore: How shall I sing Your song? How shall I call You? How will You take a seat in the shrine of my mind? How may Your awakening, Your energy, Your consciousness become my awakening too—my energy, my consciousness? How will the sleeping master, the sleeping gardener within me wake up—so that my garden flowers as well: champa, jasmine, rose, and finally the lotus! Let my life not remain mere mud.

This mud must be transmuted into lotus. It can be. The alchemy isn’t even hard. It is a touch of understanding in life. Without understanding, all is wasted. And just a little understanding—just a little—turns earth into gold. Nectar rains; the lotus blossoms! One small revolution, a single spark.

“Without the Name, the sense of doership and karma do not fall away.”

Darīya points to that spark: until your sense of being the doer drops, you cannot remember God; or, remember God and the doer drops. The sense of doership is precisely our ego—“I do this, I do that; I have done this, I must do that.” Your enemy hides in the smoke behind deeds. And if, because of ego, you perform worship in temples, offer namaz in mosques, kneel in churches—everything is wasted, for that same ego will be fattened by these prayers. They will buttress the very wall: “I am doing it!”

Prayer is not done; prayer happens—just as love happens. Can love be done? Could it be commanded? Someone orders soldiers—left turn, right turn. Could someone command—“Do love!”?

Left and right turns will happen—they are bodily gestures; but love? Love is no act at all. It is a gift from the Vast. It descends from the Infinite. It comes to those who open the doors of their hearts and wait. Love is rain. Nectar rains! It falls from above—from the sky. That is the hint.

In this tiny sutra—“Nectar rains; the lotus blossoms”—are two indications. First: nectar showers from the sky; the lotus opens on the earth. The divine descends from the heavens; the devotee blossoms on the earth. It is not in the devotee’s hands to make the nectar fall, but he can extend his bowl! He can remove obstructions! If the bowl is lidded, nectar may pour and yet the bowl stays empty. If the bowl sits upside down, it will remain empty. If the bowl is cracked, it will seem to fill yet never fill. If the bowl is filthy, brimming with poison, even nectar falling into it will be lost in the poison. The vessel must be pure—emptied of poison.

And knowledge, erudition—are poison. The more you “know,” the greater your ignorance, because your ego swells: “I know!” The more scriptures stuffed into your vessel, the more poison there is.

Empty the vessel. Empty it unconditionally. For only in that hollow emptiness is innocence, is purity.

And your vessel is full of holes—desires. One desire pulls east, another west, another south, another north. Nothing but holes through which your life-stream leaks away. Let only one desire remain so the vessel has a single mouth. Let all desires, all perforations be gathered into one mouth—one longing for the Divine, one deep thirst for Truth, one urgency, one intensity! Blaze like a torch! Let there be one yearning to touch the sky—then the holes seal.

And don’t keep the bowl upside down. You may seal the holes, purify the bowl—yet if you place it inverted… And people do keep it inverted. Their eyes face the world; their back faces God. This is the bowl turned upside down: facing the world, turned away from the Divine.

Face the Divine; turn your back to the world. I do not say: abandon the world or run away. Keep your back to it and do your work, but keep your back turned. Don’t let your eyes be snagged by the world. Let it not be all in all. Keep shop, go to the market, do your job. Fulfill the duties where God has placed you. But keep one thing in mind—the eye fixed on the Eternal! Walk on earth, but remember the sky. Then there is no worry. Then your bowl is turned towards the Beloved. It will not be long: nectar will rain.

And when nectar rains, the lotus opens in no time. Like sunrise and the lotus blooms! The sun rises here, and petals unfold there. Nectar showers here; the lotus within you blossoms there. The blossoming of your inner lotus is prayer. Through prayer you become a flower. Without prayer life is nothing but thorns.

“Without the Name, the sense of doership and karma do not fall away.”

Two sides of the same coin. Either remember the Lord… But how? Go to temples? Ring bells? Arrange plates for worship? Many do—but remembrance does not come. What then? Memorize scriptures? Become parrots? Many have—and remembrance does not come. The pundit is further from God than the sinner. A sinner, in a moment of deep pain, remembers God; a pundit never does. He prattles about God, writes fat treatises perhaps, but does not remember. The sinner sometimes weeps—bitterly! He is filled with remorse, with pain; sometimes in some moment he raises his hands to the sky and cries: When will I be freed? When will you save me?

That’s why I tell you: even a sinner’s prayers can reach; the pundit’s do not—because the pundit’s “prayers” are no prayers. Yes, they are pure—language, grammar, meter, measure—everything correct. And the sinner’s prayer is like a child’s lisping—no language, no capacity to express. The pundit’s prayer is eloquent; the sinner’s is silent.

Don’t become a pundit. No one has remembered God that way. Don’t be formal. Do not learn “how to pray.” It’s not a drill, not a yogic exercise—headstands, shoulderstands, peacock poses. These are not bodily practices. Prayer is known by a deeply sensitive heart.

So wherever sensitivity rises, make those moments your practice. Wherever sensitivity grows, dive in. The sky is strewn with stars—and you sit enclosed in a temple? His temple—this whole firmament—is decked in its glory, the canopy hung with stars—and you gaze at walls made by man? Lie down on the earth—she is his too. Look at the stars—dissolve. Let seer and seen become one for a few moments. Let there be neither stars there nor a watcher here. Come closer, closer, closer—so close the stars drown in you and you in them. Or at sunrise, or a bird winging through the evening sky, or the tinkle of a brook, or the roar of the sea, or a peacock’s dance, or a cuckoo’s coo! Use such springs of sensitivity—one day you may stumble upon prayer.

Prayer rises in a poet’s heart. Become a poet! Prayer needs an artistic vision of life; a sense of beauty. Refine your eye to beauty and one day it will discern God, for beauty is God’s glimmer. Listen to music and drown. You will find nothing in temples and mosques. The Vast surrounds you from every side! Trees so green—yet you never plunge into their greenness! Flowers so fragrant—yet you never dance near them! Existence is so lovely! If you cannot love this visible existence, how will you love the invisible God? If you stand so far from what is so near, you will never relate to the Unseen.

And I tell you: if you relate to the seen, the unseen is hidden within it. In these very flowers you will catch God peeping. In these stars, one day, you’ll glimpse his radiance. In the wings of some flying bird you may feel the vast design of the Divine. This whole existence is bound in such an exquisite orchestration. It’s no accident; no mere coincidence. A great music is here! Day and night its sound swells. Listen to that sound; recognize it.

And remember—begin from the seen. No one begins from the unseen. If you try, your beginning will be false. With the unseen, at best you can believe; you cannot know. So why not set foot on what is visible and build steps there? Then remembrance of God will begin. It is impossible that it won’t.

Be sensitive. Make the heart a little fluid. Drop hardness. Don’t stand stiff like stone. For centuries your so-called saints have taken stoniness to be austerity—standing aloof from everything, untouched, not immersing in anything. This is not sadhana, for it will not bring you near to God.

So one path is this—grow in sensitivity; then gradually what gross eyes cannot see will be visible to subtle, sensitive eyes; what hands cannot touch will be touched by the heart. Or the other approach: drop the sense of doership. Some run shops; some renounce. The attitude is the same. Some hoard wealth; some hoard virtue—the ledger remains! The doer stays. And as long as the doer stays, how can the Great Doer enter? When you are the doer, there is no room within for Him. The two are one coin’s two faces: if one happens, the other follows. If you become deeply sensitive, the doer’s sense dies by itself—it is false; before sensitivity it cannot stand. A flood of feeling will come and wash away all debris. In that debris, your doer will also float away. You won’t even have to drop it; it will be gone. One day you’ll find suddenly: I am not. And the day you know “I am not,” you know “God is.”

Or, drop the doer—and sensitivity will bloom. It is this doer-sense that has made you stone. It has raised an iron wall around you. Melt, thaw, flow!

“Without the Name, the sense of doership and karma do not fall away.”

Let remembrance arise and the doer falls; or let the doer fall and remembrance arises. The knowledgeable don’t find; the ascetic doesn’t find. Either the meditator finds, or the lover. The meditator first drops the doer and then realizes the Divine. The lover first becomes sensitive, brims with love, remembers the Divine—and in that remembrance the doer drops. Two options only. Choose what fits. If you have a poetic heart, a painter’s temperament, a musician’s leaning—be a devotee. If none of these, if you have a mathematician’s eye, a prose-like lifestyle, an insistence on intellect and thought—be a meditator.

In meditation, mind dissolves; in love, the heart drowns. Break open somewhere; open some door. Two doors are within you. One opens by meditation—through the mind. One opens by love—through the heart. Both doors lead into the same temple.

And be quick—lest all your energy and time be spent in the dream called life.

“Life was given to me by the First Day with this word:
Here, take this truth of sorrow—and dream of reliefs.”

Creation announced it clearly as life began:
“Here, take this grief…
…and here, take lovely dreams.” Dreams will bring relief. You will go on suffering; dreams will soothe. Dreams will bandage; grief will make wounds. That is how we live. Life is sorrow—and the hope of dreams. Tomorrow something will happen—surely tomorrow!

Nothing ever happened tomorrow; nothing will. Whatever is happening today, will happen tomorrow too. If there is to be change, change now—else tomorrow will be unchanged. Do what you must now, this very moment. This moment conceives the next; it is the womb of what comes.

“Without satsang and the remembrance of Ram, Time robs you incessantly.”

Lost in life’s dreams, death will go on robbing you—robbing and robbing. You will gather; death will loot. How many times you gathered; how many times death looted. When will you awaken?

“Satsang” means: where those who remember Ram gather; where remembrance is in the air; where the quest to touch the invisible is on. It means a circle where some have sipped a little, where a certain intoxication reddens their eyes; where life shows more than you know; where the eye has sharpened, the intelligence been honed; where some have begun to stir, to turn over in their sleep; where dawn is near, sleep is cracking or has cracked. Sit with such people. Sit with the awake and it won’t be easy to sleep long. Sit with the asleep and you too will likely fall asleep. Everything is contagious.

Did you notice? Someone near you yawns and without knowing when, you begin to yawn too. Someone nods and drowsiness settles on your eyes. We are not so separate; we are connected. Our feelings stir each other. Four sit in joy; you arrived sad, but their laughter and joy—your sadness is forgotten; you laugh too. Four are gloomy; you came laughing, happy; enter their field of gloom, and you grow sad. We are not little islands; we are a continent. We enter one another.

Hence the value of satsang. Where the awake sit, it becomes hard to sleep. Where God’s remembrance hums, you too will start groping. Where there’s such ecstasy from remembrance, will no longing arise in you—When will the day come when such intoxication is mine? Will Darīya not rock your heart? Sitting with Kabir will the Kabir within you not stir? Hearing Meera’s anklets will you remain asleep? You are not stone. They say even the stone-like Ahalyā was revived by the touch of Ram’s feet. Satsang! Stone becomes living—will you not? Have you turned harder than Ahalyā?

No; no one was ever that stone, nor can be. Our original nature is indestructible. However much you sleep, however many layers bury you, however lost—you are a diamond. Layers or no layers, they can be chipped away.

Satsang is the hammering: where layers are broken; where seeds split and sprout; where new births happen. You see: one who slept beside you has awakened; one who wept is laughing; one who was sad is dancing. Your feet will start keeping time. Your hands will begin to clap.

When you hear beloved music, don’t your feet begin to move? Don’t you clap? Don’t you sway? Satsang is the music of the Divine. Where it is sung, don’t miss it—for that is the one chance. The earth has grown empty of the Divine; but wherever living satsang happens, don’t miss those occasions.

Yet people crowd dead shrines. Once there was satsang there, true—but otherwise no tirth would arise. When Mohammed lived, the Kaaba was a living shrine; now it is stone. When Buddha walked, Gaya was a shrine; now only memory. Just footprints on the stone of time. Buddha has gone; the footprints remain. Worship them as you will—you won’t become a Buddha. Revolutions happen near living buddhas.

Human misfortune is this: by the time news reaches us, the buddha has departed. By the time we make up our minds, he’s gone. By the time we finally come—after postponing and postponing—only the shrine remains; the Tirthankara has gone. Then stones are worshiped for centuries.

Satsang! Sitting with stone statues will do nothing.

Remember, the Divine is supremely compassionate. It never happens that no lamps are lit on earth. Somewhere, shrines are being born. Somewhere nectar rains and lotuses bloom. Seek! Abandon old notions and seek! You will find a living tirth.

Otherwise death will rob you. Either let sadhus rob you, or death will. To be robbed by sadhus is sweet—for what is stolen is trash, and what is given are gems. To be robbed by death is agony. What you took for gems—wasn’t—death snatches that junk and leaves you writhing. Such torment—and such clinging to “gems,” such craving—junk really, but clutched as diamonds—that as we die, we die yearning for the same junk. And from that yearning, a new birth arises. The race begins again.

Psychologists say: the last thought at night is the first thought in the morning. Try it yourself. Watch your very last thought as sleep overtakes you. At daybreak, as awareness returns, see—astonished—that the first thought is the same. This is life’s secret: the last thought at death becomes the first in the womb. Death is a long sleep. Die hankering for wealth, and as you are born, the hankering will seize you again.

Hence the differences in children. A child becomes a prodigy in music—unbelievable. They say of Beethoven: at seven he routed the maestros of his land. Seven! We call it “talent,” but such skill is not accidental. His father wasn’t a musician, nor his mother; the home was hostile to music. The father and mother were against the racket: Do you study or not? Homework or not? And Beethoven persists! At seven, such genius! Science has no better explanation than this: he must have died clasping music. Perhaps the instrument was in his hand as he died; perhaps it was pried away only after death.

Some are born mathematicians; some born thieves—though their homes have everything. They cannot help themselves.

When I taught at the university, a friend—a wealthy professor—had one son and one problem: theft. Everything was given—car, room, all conveniences. And what would he steal? Trifles! A button from your coat. A spoon when visiting. Worthless things. They tried explaining and failed. He wouldn’t stop. What to do?

Such people befriend me quickly. I didn’t lecture him; I made friends. He wanted to tell someone. For him it wasn’t theft; it was a thrill. “Today I fooled so-and-so,” he’d say. “The vice-chancellor kept watch—you know everyone knows—but I am skilled.”

I said: Show me your stash—where do you hide it?

He took me to a cupboard, with history attached! Buttons, spoons, matchboxes, empty cigarette packs—each labeled neatly: On such date, such time, from Professor so-and-so’s pocket. He’d arranged them with pride.

He must have died a thief—pressed into that mood. The body is dropped; the mind travels on. Now he has everything; no reason to steal, so he invents a new reason—takes pride in his cunning: See whom I fooled!

I’ve heard of a compassionate priest who saw a man leaving prison on a cold night. He stopped his car, asked: Where do you have to go? How long were you in? “Twelve years. For theft.” He seated him, drove him home. “If you ever need help, come to my church,” the priest said at the door. The thief, too, felt kind; he pulled out a money-bag: “Your wallet—thank you! I lifted it on the way.” Even from the very man who brought him home! Twelve years among grandmasters—he’d learned more. “Now let’s see who catches me!”

The human mind is strange; punishment changes little. I doubt anyone returns from hell reformed—if such a place exists. The Puranas never say anyone returned better. More likely he returns a master-devil. In hell, one meets the best teachers—who show where you erred and why you were caught. “Now you won’t be caught again.” Leave the priest aside—if a thief met God, he’d pick His pocket so deftly God wouldn’t notice. There is joy in skill.

Be watchful. Whatever you cling to—has it any substance?

“Notice the narrowness of this perishing world—
and remember there is a day of death in these two days of life.”

This life is but two days—and one of them is death. And the other you will waste. When will you remember Ram? When satsang?

“A dark, arduous road,
where is the end?
How would I know?

I kindle life’s flame,
carry the lamps of hope,
walk on day after day
with delight in my breath.
Defeats have become my progress,
where is victory?
How would I know?

Each unknown guide
points to me in silence.
I know not whose I am;
I know not who is mine.
I have only loved—
where is the ritual?
How would I know?

Deep worship, ceremonies,
incense, lamps, offerings—no.
My unstained heart is my adoration,
no split in mind and speech.
Deed itself is my sadhana—
where is renown?
How would I know?

Seeing the far-off ray of the goal,
my restless feet move on.
I had never known distance;
every village was drowned in dark.
I have only learned to walk—
where is the code?
How would I know?

Thorns taught me grace,
casting eternal shade on beauty.
Flowers taught me their glory
by receiving every thorn along the way.
Deception became the loveliest gift—
where is love?
How would I know?

A darkness!”

“A dark, arduous road,
where is the end?
How would I know?”

We grope along. In the dark we snatch whatever comes. We don’t know what we’re collecting, why we’re collecting, where we’re going, why we’re going, why we are. We don’t know the goal of our love, nor its meaning. We drift like a piece of wood on water—no direction, no destination. In such blindness, whatever you’ve hoarded—death will take.

“Without satsang and the remembrance of Ram, Time robs you incessantly.”

“Washing dirt with dirt—how will the dirt go?”

People try to cure disease with disease. You think: I’m worried because I have too little wealth; a little more and I’ll be fine. Ask those with a little more! They think the same. How will “more” solve what “enough” didn’t? The man with a lakh is as restless as the man with a crore. The crore-man wants an arab. Restlessness is the same. You wash dirt with dirt.

“Washing dirt with dirt—how will the dirt go?
Love is the soap; the Name is the water—wash with both and the chain breaks.”

Two things—then the chain of eighty-four lakh births breaks. The wandering ends.

“Love is the soap; the Name is the water…”

Darīya speaks simply, with village images—sweet, meaningful, evocative.

“Love is the soap; the Name is the water…”

Remember, when you wash clothes with soap, soap alone won’t do; you must rinse it with water. So love alone is not enough. Love must be joined to God to become prayer. Otherwise, you lather the clothes and fail to rinse—the soap becomes dirt.

And so it has happened. I sing of love endlessly—don’t misunderstand me. Love is crucial—the soap is necessary. Water alone won’t cut the grime of lifetimes. But once love has cut the grime, wash away both grime and soap with the water of the Name.

There are two kinds of people. The worldly rub and rub with soap—the lather piles up; the cloth is forgotten. All you smell is soap—no cleanliness. And the old-fashioned renunciates won’t touch soap at all—they scrub with water only. Alone, water won’t remove the muck of many births. Hence religion never truly flowered. Half-and-half people. Some smell of soap; others have no soap-smell—but the dirt remains.

My sannyasin should use both—that is my longing. Wash life with love’s soap, but don’t forget Ram’s water. The day love’s soap and the water of the Name are both used, prayer bears fruit. When love is joined to Ram, it becomes prayer. And prayer purifies.

“The pot of ‘difference and non-difference’—all such confusions—burst wide open.”

Then your doctrines—difference/identity, dualism/nonduality, and all the rest—shatter. No need to argue doctrine. Doctrines are conjectures of the unexperienced. All doctrines are hypotheses, not experience. And experience cannot be doctrined; it is too vast.

“Hundreds sketched maps of happiness,
but when the lines rose into relief,
the same portrait of sorrow emerged.”

Man has drawn grand pictures—what bliss should be, what God is, what soul, what liberation. Scratch a bit and you’ll find nothing. Your doctrines don’t have the thickness of skin—scratch and blood oozes, the blood of sorrow. Man is miserable—and to defend misery he drapes it in doctrines: God, heaven, hell, sin, merit, rebirth—believed because of misery. In happiness, all is forgotten.

Think: if there were no sorrow in your life, would you remember God? If death were taken away, would you remember God? Why would you?

Scientists say soon bodies need not die: parts can be replaced by plastic. Lung gone? Fit a plastic lung—cheap, durable. Slowly the entire body could be plastic. If even the heart is plastic, where is pain? Sorrow? You become a lovely machine. Then who remembers God? Who prays? No need.

But that would be no blessed day. Man is animal now; then he will fall below the animal—become machine. We must rise above the animal. Science drags man below; religion aspires to raise him above. The next sutras point to this.

“The pot of ‘difference and non-difference’—all such confusions—burst wide open.”

In the open field, all Hindu/Muslim divisions drop. Just rub love’s soap and rinse with Ram’s water.

“All life we never slept a single full sleep—
so afraid a stain might mar our sheet.

We’ve decorated the room so strictly with morals,
it’s now forbidden to stretch our legs at home.

Our hands, our pen, our fates are our own—
we wrote what we could in our destiny.

We set up assemblies of etiquette ourselves,
so passion speaks only in muffled tones.

The result of not opening up and speaking plain:
fire and water merge only when they reach the sea.

We’ve decorated the room so strictly with morals—
it’s now forbidden to stretch our legs at home.

And:
All life we never slept a single full sleep—
so afraid a stain might mar our sheet.”

People protect doctrines, not life! Jain, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim—guarding doctrines, as if man were born to live for doctrines.

No—everything is for you, not you for anything. All scriptures are means; you are the end.

Chandidas—the wondrous fakir-poet—said: “Above all is the truth of man; above that, nothing!” The truth of man is supreme—not any scripture or creed.

Everything is for you—remember this. Never think you are for something else. The day you do, you become a slave; your soul falls.

“Take into your heart the word of one who has seen—then all delusions drop.”

If you would escape this entire net, where a luminous one is found, drink his word into your heart in silence.

Don’t listen with the intellect. To listen with intellect is to be deceived that you have listened. Listen with the heart. Lay the mind aside. If the mind could have solved it, you’d have solved it. It doesn’t—set it aside. Now listen with the heart—with eyes full of love; with a feeling steeped in prayer.

“Take into your heart the word of one who has seen—then all delusions drop.”

Sit in satsang; meet the intoxicated; let your hand fall into the hand of someone awake—that is the greatest fortune. Don’t snatch your hand away.

“Hold the remembrance of Ram, O man—then the showers of nectar will fall.”

It will rain—surely it will!

“Hold the remembrance of Ram, O man—then the showers of nectar will fall.”

They will pour—dark and dense. But the remembrance of Ram! That remembrance can be received only from one in whom it is alive. We can give only what we have. I can give you only what is with me—not what I don’t have. From one in whom Ram has appeared, the sleeping Ram in you will tingle awake.

“Surrender your self to one who has become a river—then birth and death are shattered.”

If you find a master, only one thing is asked—offer your “self,” surrender, give yourself up.

In the very moment you lay your ego at a true master’s feet, birth-and-death are gone! No more birth, no more death. You become heir to the Eternal. The kingdom of the Eternal is yours.

“When clouds gather in my eyes,
the rains of song roll in.
When the flowers were pierced by thorns,
the ache in the hem fell away.
Amid the storm of silent sorrows
the garden’s stupor grew heavy.
When buried fire flamed again,
the grove loved autumn most.
When the pain of separation brimmed over,
youth touched my lips to melody.
The deserts in my eyes were parched,
yet the full sea felt no shame.
When someone pressed old wounds,
sleeping oppression went wild.
The Great Deceiver began to tease
through the veil’s gentle smile.
The moon’s smile blossomed,
only to beguile for a moment.
When the flute of the mind fell mute,
only then did the cuckoo repeat.

The heart’s liquid waves were stirred;
a sultry languor stretched my limbs.
When dry imagination writhed,
a storm of confusion raved.
My very breath deceived me,
calling me ‘mine,’ then casting me aside.
The bonds slipped from my hands;
henna dried, but never soothed.
Desires were looted by the unknown,
asking the vermilion to adorn.
Whenever a distant shehnai sounded,
the mirror summoned me near.
When the flute of the mind fell mute,
only then did the cuckoo repeat.”

The cuckoo sings—but the din of your own mind drowns it. Be still, be quiet, become silent—and the cuckoo’s voice will fill you. The true master has always spoken and will keep speaking—but you become quiet, and listen quietly!

“Whenever a distant shehnai sounded,
the mirror beckoned me close.”

The shehnai has always played. There has never been a time when no lamp burned, when no lotus bloomed. So those who truly seek—find. They travel across horizons and find. If the thirst is deep, the lake will be found, because this world’s foundational law is: before thirst, water is prepared.

Look—the birds in the garden have begun building nests. Days are approaching. They do not know it; but soon there will be eggs, chicks. Nests begin now. The chicks haven’t arrived. The birds know nothing—yet nests begin.

Such is the law. Your thirst exists because water has already been created. Awaken the thirst. You will find the lake nearby. If the thirst is intense, the waters will seek you out. If profound, the stream will find you.

“If the Name of Ram is not held in the heart, man is the same as an animal.”

Darīya says: without the Name in the heart, there is no difference between human and animal.

Many have tried to define man. Aristotle said: man is a rational animal—the difference is reason. That definition is obsolete. Science has found intelligence in animals—leave animals—plants too. If there is a difference, it is of degree, not of kind. Is a difference of degree a difference?

And now a scientist—John Lilly—has raised doubts. He worked on dolphins. Dolphins have larger brains than humans—truly. Perhaps there are things dolphins know which we cannot, precisely because of brain size. Dolphins laugh; dolphins can be taught language, can communicate in signals.

And this is one small earth. Scientists say life exists on at least fifty thousand earth-like planets. Who knows what forms of intelligence have evolved!

No; Aristotle’s yardstick is worn out. Animals have intelligence—perhaps less. Trees have intelligence. Who decides how much? We don’t yet know how to measure it. New discoveries have shocked us; they’ve given scientific support to voices like Mahavira’s.

You sit; a man approaches with a hidden knife—“Jai Ram” on his lips, dagger under his arm. You won’t know he’s come to kill. But the tree will. Trees cannot be fooled by “Ram in the mouth, knife under the arm.” Experiments show: a man enters the forest with an intention to cut—trees know. His thought-waves ripple; trees register them. More: go hunting; kill a lion or deer; trees become sad, pained. Who then is more intelligent? Man kills, slaughters for food; trees weep, tremble, suffer. Who has the finer intelligence?

Trees catch feeling-waves; you cannot read human feelings. Anyone can deceive you. If you could read feelings, who could deceive?

Freud remarked: if for twenty-four hours people decided to speak no lie, everything would collapse—friendships, marriages. He’s right. If for twenty-four hours everyone spoke exactly what’s in their hearts… wife says to the mother-in-law: Your very sight frightens me! Son says to father: Why live? What use are you? Wife to husband: This is nonsense—“husband is god”? You are the most vulgar man I’ve seen. A lecher, not God! If all spoke as they feel, hardly a friendship would remain.

Mulla Nasruddin told me: “I haven’t seen my friend Fareed in years.” “What happened?” “Nine years ago we decided we are such deep friends we’ll be honest and speak truth. From that day we stopped speaking; nine years now—can’t stand each other’s face. He told his truth; I told mine.”

The world runs on lies. Friendships, marriages, love—relations—all on lies. What if man could read another’s feelings? You say to the guest: “Welcome! Please, please…”—and inside: “Scoundrel, you picked today to come!” If he could read that! Trees read. Who is more intelligent?

No, Aristotle’s definition is gone. Darīya’s is better. The saints have always said: the difference between animal and man is remembrance of the Name. Call it devotion, call it meditation. No animal meditates, no animal prays. That’s the only difference. Man prays, meditates; he aspires to transcend himself—touch the unseen beyond the seen; unveil the mystery—lift the veil from nature’s face to see who hides within, the true Master—and befriend Him.

“If the Name of Ram is not held in the heart, man is the same as an animal.
The animal browses in the jungle; man eats by industry.”

So what is the difference between man and the jungle-grazing animal?

Man eats by effort; animals graze. This is no great dignity. If anything, it suggests animals are better—no toil, yet they eat; you must worry. It’s no great achievement.

“Animals come; animals go.”

They are born, they die. You are born, you die. What happens between your birth and death that did not happen to them?

Yes, a buddha can say: I did not go as I came. I came as a sleeper, as a corpse; I go awake, alive. I carry a new life, an eternal life. Nectar rains; the lotus blossoms! Nectar fell; my lotus bloomed. When I came, I knew nothing of the lotus—only mud. I go as lotus. When I came there was poison, not nectar. Now I go a fountain of nectar.

Can you say, as you go: I go other than I came? If not, animals too came and went.

“Animals graze and animals eat.”

They eat, digest; grow young, grow old; mate, marry, bear young. You do the same. They fight, envy, hate, befriend, feud; you do too. What’s the difference?

Darīya is right: one difference. The animal does not remember Ram. No yearning for the sky rises in its heart. It creeps on earth; never stretches for the stars. No impulse to transcend.

“He who has not meditated on Ram, mother,
his birth is the same as an animal’s.”

He should know: he lived a dog’s life and died a dog’s death—because his life itself was death.

I asked, “How long does a rose endure?”
Hearing this, the bud smiled.
“This garden is no place to linger long,
be it the scent of rose, be it the nightingale’s song.”

“How long does a rose endure?” I asked—its permanence? Its life?

The bud smiled: “No one lingers here. This garden is an inn, not a home. Whether you are the rose’s scent or the bulbul’s song—it makes no difference. All here is momentary.” If you live only in the momentary, you live like an animal. When the search for the Eternal begins, your humanity is born. Thus the true man is called “twice-born.”

Jesus told Nicodemus: unless you are born again, in this very life, you will not enter the kingdom of my Father.

We call the brahmin “twice-born.” All the twice-born are brahmin; but not all brahmins are twice-born. Remember, all twice-born are brahmin—Mohammed is a brahmin, for he was twice-born; Christ is brahmin; Mahavira, Buddha—brahmins. But not all by caste are twice-born. Birth in a brahmin family does not make a brahmin. Birth in Brahman does.

“He who has not meditated on Ram, mother—
his birth is the same as an animal’s.
He who has no love for the Name—
this is the way of animals.”

Awaken! How long will you live like beasts? Eat, drink, sleep, wake; then eat, drink, sleep, wake—like the oil-press bull circling. Even the bull might sometimes think…

A philosopher went to the oilman’s shop. He stared—the bull circled by itself; no one prodding it; the oilman’s back was turned, weighing oil. “Brother,” said the philosopher, “you’ve found a religious bull! Such piety! No strike, no blockade. Where did you get such a bull in these times—in India! No one’s driving it and it goes!”

The oilman laughed: “This is not the bull’s virtue, it’s mine. See the blinders on its eyes?”

Blinders—like on carriage horses. Why? So they can’t see on either side—only forward, as the driver wills.

“I’ve blinded the bull as well. It doesn’t know whether anyone is behind it.”

The philosopher persisted: “Still, the bull could stop and check if anyone’s there to lash it?”

Deeper smile: “You take me for a fool? If it were so, I’d be the bull and the bull the oilman. See the bell around its neck? As long as it walks, the bell rings. If the bell stops, I get it with a shout and a lash. It never learns whether I am there or not. I too hear the bell; as long as it rings, I relax. If the bell stops, I shout…”

“But,” said the philosopher, “the bull could stand still and shake its head to ring the bell!”

Now the oilman grew worried. “Speak softly, sir—lest the bull hear! And please buy your oil elsewhere. Two paisa of oil you buy, and ruin my life. Dangerous talk! Are you a Naxalite? A communist? Agitating the bulls! No shame? You drink my oil and betray me?”

Bulls might think. The oilman is right: read the Communist Manifesto to bulls and they might get ideas. But man does not think. He lives like the oil-press bull. No one blindfolded you; you blindfolded yourself. No one tied the bell; you hung it yourself—because others hang them. The bell sounds good. Others wear blinders; you copy them—blinders feel safe. Strange stories pass for wisdom.

Yesterday I read history. A hundred years ago, when the first bathtub was made in America, one state banned bathtubs by law. Bathtubs cause disease; people will die; the devil invented this! Anyone installing a tub would be punished. A harmless thing—but new—so satanic. Those lawmakers decided with grave seriousness. Some rebels smuggled bathtubs home; some got caught and punished—for a heinous crime. If God wanted bathtubs, He’d have made them! Nowhere in the Bible are bathtubs mentioned; hence the devil’s trick. Doctors and lawyers aided the foolishness. People cling to the old.

You too see everyone wearing blinders; you quickly put them on, lest your eyes be harmed. Labels differ—Hindu, Muslim, Christian—but a blindfold there must be. Temple, mosque, gurdwara—somewhere to go. Quran, Bible, Gita—parrot something.

Accept responsibility—for within it lies your freedom. If you grasp that you put on the blinders—not some oilman—you can drop them today. The bell—you tied it; cut it off today.

In my view, a truly intelligent person can, in a single moment, be free of society’s snares. That is genius: to see and instantly break whatever is false and hollow.

“He who has no love for the Name—
this is the way of animals.”

You live like animals. The human in you has not appeared. If “manana”—reflection—has not arisen, how will “manushya”—the human—be born?

“Days are filled somehow with pleasure and pain;
after death, you fall into the cycle of eighty-four.”

And what is your life? Filling the day somehow, with pleasure and pain. After peering into thousands of lives, my conclusion: people are intent on one thing—staying occupied. One thing ends—grab another. Return from office—run to cricket. Sunday off—play golf. If nothing else, go kill fish. Do something.

Wives are anxious on Sundays—husbands at home must do something. Children too at home—uproar. The husband cannot sit idle. He’ll open a good watch to “fix” it. Raise the car bonnet to “clean” it. He cannot rest without mischief. He too suffers: if I’m not busy, I remember—life is being wasted. So sit before TV or radio; read the newspaper again—the same one thrice read—maybe something was missed! Any excuse to be occupied. Two cannot sit silently; they must talk. On trains, the first question: Where are you going? Let me tell you where I’m going. People tell strangers in transit what they never told friends. What else to do sitting idle?

Keeping a secret is difficult. Tell someone: keep it secret—and know the whole village will know. If you want a thing to spread, whisper: keep it secret. Then he cannot rest—he must find someone to tell: “Brother, keep this strictly secret!” By evening the whole village knows—and each believes he’s preserving the secret.

Why can no one keep a secret? Because any occupation will do. You read the same paper; your neighbor reads the same; you tell him the same things; he tells you the same; you’ve heard them often; he has heard yours. Why continue? Why talk?

In China there was a contest: the biggest liar would win the top prize. Many came. One said: I saw such a huge fish—look at the tail, the head is out of sight; look at the head, the tail disappears! Another said: I caught a fish; when I cut it open, there was a lantern in it—must have swallowed it. “No big deal,” others said. “Wait—Napoleon’s signature was on it!” “Still no big deal.” “Wait—it was still burning!” Even he didn’t win. The winner said: “I entered a garden; two women sat on a bench and remained silent for an hour. Not a word was spoken.” He won. Perhaps Napoleon’s lantern may still be burning in some fish’s belly; but two women keep things burning in their bellies—impossible. Two women sit silently?…

A preacher addressed a women’s gathering. He spoke; they all spoke. Finally he shouted: “Listen—one profound, womanly thing: beautiful women speak less.” At once—silence. Who dare talk then?

People seek occupation—of all kinds.

“Days are filled somehow with pleasure and pain.”

Just get through the day—get through life. People cut life short. Funny: they seek long life, ask elders’ blessings—“May you live long.” Ask them: what will you do with it? “We’re playing cards.” “Why?” “To pass time.” Passing time is passing life. Movies—to pass time.

I know a man in a small town who watches the same film twice a day for the three or four days it runs—both shows every day. “What a man!” I said. “What else to do? Time doesn’t pass. Sitting at home—what to do? At least time passes.”

We want long life—what will you do? Kill time. People brim with desires, ambitions—what do they get? Deception.

“The short tale of life in love is this:
first, a little laughter; then tears for a lifetime.”

A brief smile—and a lifetime of tears. That is your love. Yet people prefer crying to sitting empty. They prefer anything to nothingness. Better sorrow than emptiness. Better an enemy than no one; better noise than silence. Just fill somehow.

Why this frenzy to fill? Fear—lest the inner void appear. Lest the real question stand face to face: Who am I? Whence have I come? For what am I here? What am I doing? If that question arises, revolution becomes inevitable. That question is the threshold of religion. And where do people go by cutting life thus? They wander in the cycle—this life to the next to the next. They get fed up with life; they wish to die.

Many commit suicide; millions attempt. And the attempts are funny—they leave safety nets: sleeping pills, but only enough to be saved; a ruckus at home; the doctor arrives. Nine out of ten survive. Why attempt then? The mind is fickle, uncertain: to do or not to do? One foot here, one there. Tired of life, ready to die—but not ready to awaken.

“Life is a shoreless sea; the boat is broken.
Panicked, I pray for a storm.”

Life is tempest; the boat, decrepit. “I pray for a storm.” But these are “prayers.”

A Sufi story: a woodcutter, seventy, staggering under his bundle, often prayed—“God, take me now. Old age, sickness, bent back, still chopping wood—why? When ill, I starve. As soon as I’m a little better, off to chop again. What for? For whom?” The prayer was never heard. Great kindness that your prayers are not all granted—or you’d be in trouble. One day, by chance, Death passed nearby. He cried: “O Death! How long? Youths died before my eyes. Those who came after me left. When will you take me? Must I carry this burden forever?” Death was moved and appeared: “I am here. What do you want?” The old man had dropped his bundle in pain. Seeing Death, he sobered up. “Nothing—just hoist this bundle back on my head. I see no one else, so I called you. I’ll never make such a prayer again.”

People say: better to die. No one truly wants to die. It’s another way to fill oneself. He who truly wants to die—there is only one dying: meditation. He who dies in meditation is never born again.

“Die, O yogi, die! Sweet is this death!
Die the death by which Gorakh saw.”

Die as Gorakh died and saw. Those who saw, died first. Let ego die, mind die, the I-sense die. Dissolve into emptiness. In that emptiness, the sound of the Name will resound—the Om will rise.

“O Darīya, he who has not remembered Ram
has wasted his birth like an animal.”

Don’t waste your life! Don’t waste your birth! Use it. And what is the use? Die, O yogi! There is only one utility: while living, let the ego die; then the eyes open, the door appears. Nectar rains; the lotus blossoms!

Enough for today.