Ami Jharat Bigsat Kanwal #14

Rakesh! All the old difficulties are still there, and a few new ones have appeared. The old ones have not been cut off. The problems man faced in Buddha’s time or Krishna’s time are still here—just as many. Not a single one has truly departed, because the “solutions” we devised never proved to be solutions. They were hollow, superficial. They never cut the root; they only whitewashed the surface.

There was anger within, so we taught repression. But repressed anger is not destroyed; it burns even more fiercely inside. The ordinary man who gets angry once in a while is better than the man who keeps sitting on his anger, suppressing it. The ordinary man’s anger drains off day by day; it does not accumulate. The one who represses accumulates a great store within—and when it explodes it will be terrible.

For centuries we taught repression; it did not transform man—it made him rot. It did not make him soulful; it made him distorted, deranged. In the name of liberation we taught things that only made people hypocrites: one thing on the outside, another within. Show-teeth for display and other teeth for eating. Thus we created duality in human life.

Those problems all still stand, demanding resolution. And new problems have arisen too—unknown to the people of the past. For example, a new problem is that man’s relationship with nature has started to break—and has broken. The more modern a person is, the more impoverished he is of nature. Uproot a tree’s roots and the tree begins to wilt; flowers fall, leaves lose their green—so have we torn man away from nature.

And once man is cut off from nature, the very way to connect with the divine is lost—because in nature the first glimpse of God appears. Modern man lives surrounded by man-made things. There are vast cement roads. How could they remind you of God? A blade of grass can remind you of Him, but grand cement highways never do. They are man’s creations; at most they remind you of man.

A little flower blooming by the roadside brings news from the Unknown, a message—God’s love-letter. You may build houses that touch the sky, skyscrapers, and still they do not remind you of Him; they only recall human craftsmanship, technology, cleverness—and such reminders only strengthen the ego.

Nothing man-made grows; it stays stuck, because it is dead. Everything made by God grows, because it is alive. A sapling becomes a tree; a river becomes the ocean—everything is in motion. Man’s creations are all static; they do not develop. They remain what they are—mere objects without life. And from the lifeless how will the memory of the Great Life arise?

So the greatest curse upon human life today is this: all the old diseases remain, and a new one has arisen—we have built an artificial environment. And the artificial is spreading wider and wider.

A survey in London found that a million children had never seen a cow, and hundreds of thousands had never seen a field. Children who have never seen fields, never seen the heads of wheat, millet, or sorghum swaying in the breeze—something essential will be missing from their lives, something profoundly basic. They have seen cars, buses, trains.

I have heard: in a church a pastor was teaching children in Sunday school. In the Bible there is a line, “And God created all creeping things.” A small child stood up and said, “Give an example.” The pastor was a little startled—the child had never seen a snake or any creeping thing. So he said, “A train—like a train.” The child was satisfied.

What can the pastor do? Using a train as an example of a creeping thing! As if God made trains! Even our examples are vanishing. The more modern a man becomes, the less natural he is, the more artificial—more plastic: not real, but fake. His fragrance is fake, his color fake—everything fake! Lips are painted with lipstick; that is their “color.” It is hard to know the color of real lips. Clothes are worn in such a way that the real body is hard to discern. Those without a chest pad their coats with cotton. We live encased in the artificial on all sides. Machines keep multiplying. And man’s greatest difficulty has always been this: he is unconscious. Amid machines he has become even more stupefied, even more mechanical.

You ask: “What is the greatest difficulty of modern man?”
Mechanicity. Living with machines you will inevitably become mechanical—unless you remain very alert. You must catch the 7 a.m. train, so you’ll have to run in that rhythm. No train will stop and wait for you. You cannot walk in your unhurried, carefree way. You cannot go listening to the birds. Haste and scramble, rush and race.

Vidyasagar wrote that one evening he was out walking, and just ahead of him a Muslim gentleman, elegantly strolling with a beautiful cane, was coming along. The gentleman’s servant came running and said, “Mir Sahib, hurry! The house is on fire.” But Mir Sahib kept walking as before. The servant said, “Did you understand? Did you hear? The house is burning, burning furiously! Walk fast! This is no time to promenade. Run!” Mir Sahib replied, “The house is burning anyway; my running won’t put out the fire. And here everything is burning, and all is destined to burn. I cannot abandon the gait of my lifelong joy so cheaply.”

Vidyasagar was astonished. Mir Sahib kept on at the same pace—the same tap of the cane, the same carefree stride, that Lucknow grace and style. A revolution happened in Vidyasagar’s life. The next day he was to be honored as a great pandit in the Viceroy’s council. Friends had asked, “Will you go in these simple, worn clothes? It won’t look right. We’ll have proper attire made, as the court demands.” He had agreed: churidar pajamas, an achkan, the right cap, shoes, and cane—his friends arranged everything. But that Muslim stranger’s gait, a house in flames, and his words—“Why should I change my lifelong gait just because my house is on fire?”—changed him.

The next day Vidyasagar did not wear the prepared clothes. He went before the Viceroy just as he was, in his plain, simple dress. Friends were surprised. “What happened to the clothes?” He said, “A certain Muslim spoiled it. If he would not abandon his lifelong gait because his house was on fire, why should I abandon my way and style merely because I am to attend a durbar? If they wish to confer a title, let them; if not, let them not. But I will go in my own style.”

But today, everywhere, machines have tightened their grip. Style cannot survive, individuality cannot survive, privacy cannot survive. If you do not live with extraordinary awareness, the machine will dominate you, overtake you. You will start moving like the hands of a clock, whirling like the cogs of a machine—and slowly you will forget that there is a soul within you. First, the bond with nature is sundered; second, the bond with machines is forged—both are proving costly.

The mirror’s eyes are open.
The eyes of the Source are shut;
The ground of being has gone inert—
Only the shadow moves!
A mere mirror, no seeing;
He worships stone as if it were conscious!
Life has lost its consciousness;
Smearing collyrium on eyeless eyes,
Darkness’ illusion keeps deceiving.
He honors wealth—and the death of mind;
Life goes in search of death—
a grain of food, a wasting moment!
The sun abandons the sky its lamp;
the day’s life is ebbing away!
Snuffing out the lamp of mantra,
stuffing the arms with the power of systems,
mounting and bewitching the earth,
the illusion of the machine
keeps flowering, bearing fruit!

Everything else is gone—mantra gone, tantra gone—while the machine has mounted the throne.
The illusion of the machine
keeps flowering, bearing fruit!

And man, little by little, is becoming mechanical. Scientists do not concede that man is anything more than a machine. The imprint of science settles on people’s hearts, because scientific education is all that is given. No one teaches the heart. The songs of love are taught nowhere. The veena of the heart is played nowhere. We teach logic, mathematics, how to employ machines skillfully. And surrounded by all this, modern man is cut off from nature, cut off from God, and is being cut off from himself. All the bonds with life’s vastness are being uprooted.

This is today’s greatest difficulty. Therefore, for today, one thing has become supremely important and urgent—that meditation be spread as far and wide as possible, to as many people as possible. For meditation is now the only means to remind you of your own soul. It is the only means by which you can again glimpse the divine in trees and in moon and stars. It is the only means that can take you back toward nature. And it is the only means that, while you live among machines, will keep you the master of machines, not their slave.

I have heard about an eccentric nawab. He was ill, but his old habits continued: singing and dancing until two or three in the morning; then sleep. He would wake at ten, eleven, twelve. The doctors said, “This won’t do now. Your health cannot take it. You must rise at brahma-muhurta—at six in the morning. Only then can you be healthy.” He said, “What obstacle is that? I will get up at six.”

The doctors did not believe him. He had never once risen at six in his life. So readily agreeing! No haggling—“If not ten, then eight or seven”? He simply said, “Six means six.” His family too was astonished—the begum, the wazir. But later the secret was out. The nawab had told his people: “Do this—whenever I wake up, set the clock to six. End of problem. Whether I rise at ten or at twelve, whenever I wake, the clock must read six. As soon as I turn over, quickly set it to six.”

He was eccentric, yes, but there is something important in his eccentricity: he did not allow the clock to be the master; he remained the master. He said, “Is the clock the master, or am I? Shall I run according to the clock, or shall the clock run according to me? Did the clock buy me, or did I buy the clock? The clock will run by me!”

Machines should run according to you. Do not let them make you a slave. Your mastery must remain. This is possible now only through meditation.

Rakesh! The greatest pain, the greatest challenge, the greatest danger, the greatest problem of modern man is one: being cut off from nature and being tied to machines. Meditation has never been as essential as it is today—because earlier, even without meditation, God’s remembrance would arise. Nature was lush all around; how long could you escape? How could you? The peewit would call “pi-pi” and you wouldn’t remember your Beloved? The cuckoo would pour her coo-coo into the air, and no answering echo would arise in your breath? Flowers bloomed, the seasons turned, the wheel of seasons revolved—and you would not remember that the world is orderly, not anarchic? The moon and stars arrive on time; the rains come; heat comes; cold comes—seeing this great circular dance of nature, would you not remember that some mysterious, hidden hand must be behind it? It was hard to escape; His fragrance was everywhere.

Gradually we have completely shut out that fragrance. The more modern a man is, the farther he has moved away. All day he lives with machines. Even at home he turns on the radio or sits before the television. In leisure he goes to the cinema. There is no time to converse with the stars, no occasion to exchange a few words with rivers, no longing to meet the mountains. And so many wrappings are worn that even when two people meet, no meeting happens.

Psychologists say: when husband and wife sleep in one bed, do not think two persons are sleeping there. There can be four; there can be six. One husband is what he is; a second husband is what he shows to his wife; a third husband is what he wants to show but cannot manage to show. So there are three husbands and three wives—six people asleep. The bed is small; it gets crowded.

Do you say what you want to say? You say something else. And what you say often has no connection with you. Its roots are not in your life-breath; your voice bears no relation to it. Look closely at people’s faces. Learn the language of the body. You will be amazed: the lips say one thing, the eyes say another. The lips say, “Welcome!” The eyes say, “What misfortune, to meet this face so early in the morning.” The lips speak; the eyes speak something else. People say, “We are so happy you came,” while the whole body says something different.

Much research is being done on body language. The body makes tiny gestures you are not even aware of. When you want to meet someone, you lean toward him; your posture inclines to him. When you don’t, your body pulls back. Watch carefully. A woman interested in you will lean toward you; a woman who wants to avoid you will be angled away. If she is interested, she will slide closer; if not, she will, by any means possible, sit as far from you as she can. Perhaps she herself is not clear. But the body has its languages. The lips say one thing; the body says another. The body speaks truer, because we have not yet learned the art of lying with the body. The eyes say something else—whatever your lips may say.

Psychologists did an experiment with the eyes. They mixed some nude images with ordinary pictures and asked people simply to glance through them, while instruments measured their eyes. They did not ask what the subjects thought—only examined the eyes. The surprise: an ordinary picture is viewed in one way; when a naked woman’s picture appears, the pupils suddenly dilate. The person reading the instrument, without seeing the pictures, can say, “This person is now looking at a nude.” This is dangerous. You could test your monks and saints! You have no voluntary control over the pupil, no “at will” expansion and contraction. You don’t even realize it. The very desire to see—however repressed—causes the pupils to dilate. Why? You want to take it in completely.

Sitting in a cinema: when something comes on that excites your interest, you leave the back of the chair; your spine straightens; you watch alertly. When something routine is on, you sink back—if you miss it, no harm done.

Your body has a language. You say one thing; your body says something else—often the opposite. Your lips say something, and the way the lips move says something else. The lips say one thing; the nose says another; the eyes say another. Man has become fragmented. The fragmentation is increasing; he is being torn into pieces and trapped in those pieces.

Meditation means: become unfragmented—become a single consciousness. And for that one consciousness it is essential that you drop mechanicalness from your life. The machines themselves cannot be dropped now, that is certain. There is no going back. You may wish for a world without airplanes, with people traveling again by ox-cart—this will not happen. You may wish for a world without radio or electricity—this will not happen, nor should it. But it is possible that man not become mechanical. Until now the danger was less; now the danger has arrived. Even in Buddha’s time, when men were not surrounded by machines, he taught de-hypnosis, discrimination, awakening, awareness. Today the obstacles are greater. Today only one thing needs to be taught: drop your stupor! Live consciously! Whatever you do, do it so alertly that your act is not the act of a machine. The only difference left now between you and a machine is this: you can act with awareness; a machine needs none. If you too lack awareness, you too are a machine.

The sages of old shocked man, repeating one warning—Kal Dariya also said it yesterday: “See that you remain a man; do not fall to the level of an animal!” Today the danger is greater: “See that you remain a man; do not become a machine!” This is a fall even worse than to the animal, for the animal is still alive; it is not a machine. Buddhas did not say, “Do not become a machine,” because there were no machines. But I must tell you: the danger has grown; the abyss has deepened. In the old days, if you fell, at worst you became an animal. Now if you fall, you will become a machine—and there is no lower fall than to a machine. And the one medicine against the machine is: live awake. Walk mindfully; sit mindfully; listen mindfully; speak mindfully. For twenty-four hours, as much as possible, cultivate awareness. Do every act with awareness. Even the smallest acts—because the point is not the act; the point is to find new opportunities for awareness. You are bathing: nothing else to do—do it with awareness. Sit under the shower, alert, feeling each drop. You are eating: be awake.

Where do people eat awake? They gulp. No sense of taste, no awareness of chewing or digesting—just gulping. Even water is gulped. Feel its coolness. Feel the thirst being quenched. Then the experiencer in you will slowly grow dense and centered. And once you begin to live awake, then let the world be filled with machines as much as it may—your bond with the divine will not break.

Awakening, or meditation, is the bridge between you and God. And the more meditation there is in your life, the more love there will be—for love is the fragrance of meditation. Or the reverse is also true: the more love there is, the more meditation there will be.

There are two things machines cannot do: they cannot meditate and they cannot love. In these two alone lie man’s dignity, his glory, his greatness—his godliness. Attain these two, and everything else is attained. And you need not even attain both; attain one of them, and the other follows on its own.

Satish! It’s simple: I am no sadhu or saint. And you are right to feel irritated with sadhus and saints. By now you should. It’s been thousands of years! When will you free yourselves from these dead ones? How long will you carry these corpses? If you have even a little intelligence, irritation is bound to arise. Like parrots, your so‑called sadhus and saints keep repeating—stories of Ram, the Upanishads, the Vedas, the Satyanarayan tale. There is no trace of Truth in their lives, nor of Narayan. No glimpse of Ram, no flow of Krishna’s rasa. Neither does Krishna’s flute play in their lives, nor is there the jingle of Meera’s anklets. No celebration, no spring revelry, no Diwali. There is nothing in their lives. They have merely learned an art of exploiting you in the name of religion. They have become adept at it. And they use precisely those levers by which you can be most easily exploited.

Even beggars in this country talk of wisdom, but their purpose has nothing to do with wisdom. Beggars say there is no greater merit than charity. They care neither for merit nor for charity; their concern is your pocket. They stroke your ego: there is no greater virtue than giving—where are you going? Give! And they proclaim that greed is the father of sin. They tell you greed is the father of sin—beware of it! Hand it over; we’ll lighten you. And they keep asking. They are beggars. Their asking springs from greed, yet they preach non‑greed!

There isn’t much difference between your beggars and your sadhus and saints. Only this much: the beggars are poor, the sadhus and saints a bit schooled, a bit polished; the beggars a little wretched, and your sadhus and saints more skilled at exploiting you.

Just yesterday I was reading a poem—

On Diwali day
a sadhu baba said:
“Child! Bhole (Shiva) will protect you,
today is Diwali.
Our kamandalu is empty.
Fill it up,
not much—just
get me five rupees.”

We said: “Babaji!
If it were a matter of ‘getting,’ then not five—
we’d get you five lakhs;
we’d deed all of Hindustan
in your name.
We are the youth of India;
what we have is a blind future,
a limping present, and a mute voice.
The government gives no work,
father gives no money,
the world gives no respect,
the beloved sends no letter.
On Diwali day
people light lamps;
we are burning our hearts,
frying our desires in tears
and calling it a festival.
People living in Hindustan
outdo London;
with the flag of Hindi in hand
they speak English.
And they tell us:
embrace your culture—
now we are free,
celebrate festivals.
A festival
binds a person to the nation’s culture,
and culture
binds a person to light.
But Babaji!
There’s a vast distance between saying and doing.
In a country where light
is locked up in rooms,
there the festival
is an imposed compulsion.”

Babaji said:
“Don’t be sad, child,
you are fortunate—
on Diwali
you have our darshan;
I feel like giving you a blessing.”

We said: “Restrain your mind, please;
touching the feet of blessers, blessers,
our backs have bent;
the cart of life
has stopped moving forward.”

He said:
“You are insulting our blessing.
We are seers of the three times,
we are Vedantins.
Look! not a single tooth in our mouth.
Child, it isn’t a laughing matter.
People in these times
are naked even in clothes;
we, with a single loincloth, cover nakedness,
eat dust in the land of saints.
With an empty kamandalu in hand
we go door to door, awakening the Name,
and people drive us away as thieves.
Surdas found no peace,
so he gouged out his eyes;
we found no grain,
so we broke our teeth.
They are Surdas;
we are ‘Popal Das’—toothless Das;
they are the glory of the past,
we the torment of the present!”

We said: “Babaji!
You’re outdoing the men of letters—
a sadhu talking of torment.”

He said: “You don’t recognize us.
You see our present,
you don’t know our past.
Ten years ago
we were an all‑India poet.
People called our drivel ‘alliteration,’
our obscenity ‘ornament.’
Big organizers lived in our pocket.
We made meanings out of words,
made poetry do a naked dance on the stage.
Now we are reaping the fruit of that,
smearing ash on our body,
wandering with an empty kamandalu.”

We said: “Don’t be sad, Baba!
Your kamandalu is empty,
our pocket is empty.
To hell with Holi,
and let Diwali go into the fire.”

Irritation is natural. You must feel it, Satish; you should. Anger too must arise; it should. Not all irritations are useless, nor all anger. Sometimes anger has meaning. If this country began to feel even a little anger, that too would be a blessing. This country has forgotten all its fire. It has been so well cooked in slavery, so dyed in it, that it keeps getting yoked; hitch it anywhere—yoke it to any oil‑press—and the Indian agrees to pull.

For centuries fate has been taught, destiny has been taught. For centuries one thing has been hammered in: everything is written in fate; whatever is to be will be. So if you are to be tied to the oil‑press, you will be tied! And such reverence has been taught for sadhus and saints... Who taught it? They themselves taught it. They have been your teachers. They kept telling you.

Mulla Nasruddin one day went to the marketplace and said, “There is no woman in the world more beautiful than my wife. Nur Jahan was nothing. Mumtaz Mahal was nothing. And these Hema Malinis of today are worth nothing at all.”

Someone asked, “But Mulla Nasruddin, how did you suddenly come to know this?”

He said, “How did I know? My own wife told me!”

Who has been explaining to you: honor sadhus and saints, welcome them, serve them? These very sadhus and saints have been explaining it. They have planted that conditioning for centuries. You bow when you see them. The bowing is mechanical, merely formal. Your father bowed, his father bowed, centuries have been bowing; you too bow—bound in that chain of links.

It’s good, Satish, that irritation arises. The youth of this country should feel a little irritation—then something will break, something new can be created! Otherwise so‑called grand revolutions keep happening. You saw it just now—the “total revolution” went totally flat! Revolution here is blather, because in people’s very life‑energy there is no sense of revolution. Revolution is surface whitewash—scrape one man off, seat another. But that other may be worse than the first; or the same. If “sisterji” isn’t there, “brotherji” will be—no special difference. One corpse will be removed, another enthroned. The name will be revolution. But we don’t know the language of revolution; we have no understanding of it. The first understanding is that we begin to see how, for centuries, we are bound by so many wrong notions.

Who is a saint? What is our definition of a saint? Ask a Hindu and he has one definition: smear ash, sit by a sacred fire—that’s a saint.

Does one become a saint by smearing ash and tending a fire? He should have joined a circus; why a saint?

Ask a Jain—he won’t accept the ash‑smeared, fire‑tending one as a saint at all; he’ll call him un‑saintly, because lighting a fire involves violence. Insects will die; fire itself is violence. A Jain muni simply cannot light a fire. So he has another definition: someone who fasts—long, long fasts—starves himself, tortures himself in many ways; then he is a muni.

But that is the Shvetambara Jain’s definition. Ask a Digambara, and until he is naked he is not a muni, no matter how many hundreds of thousands of fasts he has kept. He will be a muni only when he stands naked, renounces clothing.

Ask Christians—another definition; Muslims—another; Buddhists—another. There are three hundred religions in the world and three thousand definitions, because those three hundred have at least three thousand sects.

Who is a saint? It cannot be settled by such definitions. They won’t do. I call that one a saint who has known Truth. The word “saint” arises from knowing truth. One who has experienced, who has drunk Truth. In whose presence, in whose company, the winds of Truth begin to blow within you, the light of Truth begins to dawn. In whose presence, in whose companionship, your extinguished lamp lights up. That is the saint.

Until your lamp is lit, there is no reason to call anyone a saint. Yes—if somewhere your lamp lights and within you the illumination of bliss happens, and you begin to remember the Divine—then the one by whose nearness it happened, that one is a saint. Then whether he is naked or clothed, in a palace or a hut, fasting or relishing good food—it makes no difference. None of these things matter. Then whether Hindu or Muslim or Christian; woman or man—no difference. Only one thing is decisive: in whose presence the sleeping God within you turns over; within you a tune begins that never played before; your eyes moisten with a new joy—unknown, untouched; your feet begin to dance with a new ecstasy; your heart begins to throb with a new music; you become eager to step beyond yourself. That one is the saint.

And Satish, whenever such a saint is met, how can irritation arise? With such a one, reverence happens. A wish to bow arises. Not that you will make yourself bow; you will suddenly find you have bowed. No effort will be needed to bow—no, not at all. You will feel yourself bowed. You’ll suddenly find your ego is gone, carried off, swept away in a flood.

Only those can come to me who are like you. Those who still have faith in the old, rotten religion cannot even come here. Only those can gather the courage to come to me who have seen the rottenness of the old religion; who have seen its reality and have set out to seek—who are on the quest. Who say: now walking the beaten track won’t do; we will search, break our own footpath, seek—somewhere there must be some light of the Divine! Somewhere, through some one crack, His light must still be reaching the earth; we will search for that crack. The hypocrisies worshipped for centuries have proved futile. The temples built for centuries stand empty. Now we will set out ourselves in search. We will no longer follow the crowd. Only if it becomes our own experience will we accept.
In my presence, you say you feel reverence. So you have asked the reason for my “mystery,” for my secret.
There is no mystery, no secret. The matter is simple and straight—clear as two plus two equals four. I do not represent any fixed tradition. I am no one’s monk, no one’s saint. I live in my own individuality. I live in the way my joy moves. I don’t care a whit for anyone else’s opinions. Those who care about others’ opinions will not connect with me. My connection is only with those who don’t care about public opinion—who care for only one thing: to know the truth, no matter what it costs. If culture has to be staked, it will be staked. If religion has to be staked, it will be staked. If prestige has to be staked, it will be staked. If life itself has to be staked, it will be staked. They will bear insult, dishonor, slander—even being called mad, they will endure—but they will not rest until they find truth! Such people suddenly discover that a note begins to sound between their heart and mine. They are my people. I am theirs. I am for those few who have that kind of audacity.

And for the search for truth, audacity is essential. The crowd deals in falsehood, because the crowd has no use for truth. The crowd wants consolation. Consolation comes from lies. Truth shatters all consolations. Truth comes like the edge of a sword and cuts you through. Truth erases you. And when you are gone, that which remains—that is God. Where the ego is not, there is the experience of the Divine.

But yes, seek truth—only do not make a pointless irritation toward monks and saints into your lifestyle. What is that to you? Let them be as they are. If someone wants to be a hypocrite, they have the right to be a hypocrite. If someone wants to live in falsehood, that too is their soul’s freedom. If someone wants to live a double life, that’s their choice. Don’t impose any of that on yourself. Otherwise your time will be wasted in hating this one, despising that one, getting irritated here, angry there, fighting and quarreling. When will you begin your own search?

And among a hundred monks and renunciates, there may be one who is genuine. Beware you don’t throw away the diamond along with the rubbish.

So drop this worry. Pour all your energy into the search for truth. Do not divide your energy. Remember this distinction. Otherwise you will become a reactionary, not a revolutionary. Some people spend their whole lives breaking what is wrong. But breaking the wrong does not create the right. If you take a pickaxe and knock down all the faulty houses in a village, a proper house still won’t arise from that. Demolishing doesn’t build. Better that you first build a house—build it rightly, build a temple—so that the wrong will appear wrong of its own accord. Then even demolition becomes easy. And then you won’t run the risk of pulling down the right along with the wrong. That often happens.

There is an English proverb: don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater! It often happens that when people get angry, they throw out the trash—and the diamonds too. There are diamonds there; one in a hundred, but a diamond nonetheless.

“I failed to recognize You then!
On a frosty, cold, dark night
when You came to my door
in the form of a shivering beggar,
afraid to enter my home,
I did not give You shelter—on the contrary,
I frightened You away to my heart’s content!
I failed to recognize You then!

“The sky was spitting embers.
You, a traveler, parched upon the road,
sat weary by the wayside
asking for a little water.
I had plenty of water,
yet I left You to thirst!
I failed to recognize You then!

“That day You became a hungry child,
crying in a ruined place.
Near me were storerooms
overflowing with grain,
yet I did not lift You with love
and clasp You to my breast!
I failed to recognize You then!

“Today I stand at Your door
with who knows how many hopes.
Shamelessness has its limits too—
how can these eyes lift their lids?
I am small, but You are great—
that faith alone has brought me!
I failed to recognize You then!”

Who knows in what form God may come! Who knows in what form you may meet the Divine! So do not bind yourself to any form. Do not insist. Even if the form is that of a monk or a saint—what is it to you? You apply yourself to seeking your truth. When your truth is revealed, in that very instant you will know where truth is and where it is not. Before that, you cannot know.

There is a certain thrill in breaking; a certain pleasure in opposition; a certain taste in slander. Don’t get caught in it. Otherwise, even at the very door, you can miss. The seeker of truth must be free of bias. The seeker must be free of preconceptions. If you carry preconceived notions, wherever you go you will not see what is—you will see only what you went there to see.

And life truly is very mysterious. Here, happenings occur that you could never have imagined. Here, in this or that form, truth is attained in ways you could not have dreamed. So, Satish, do not bind the mind in insistence—or in anger.

What you say is true. There has been much deceit, much hypocrisy. In the name of religion there has been much mischief, much exploitation. But such exploitation doesn’t continue without reason. The responsibility is not only on those who exploit; a great responsibility lies with those who allow it to continue. Perhaps they need it. Perhaps they cannot live without it.

Among the important things Sigmund Freud said, one is this: after forty years of studying human psychology, after observing innumerable people, my conclusion is that human beings—at least the vast majority—cannot live without untruth. Most people need a web of illusions. How many truly have the capacity to bear the blows of truth?

Friedrich Nietzsche said something equally profound: please do not rob people of their illusions! Without illusions, they will die. Illusions are the very basis of their lives.

So exploitation doesn’t run on its own. There are those who cannot live without it—therefore it runs. Economics has a rule—though it hardly holds now. Economics too stands on its head now. But the old rule was: where there is demand, there will be supply. Without demand, there is no supply. If hypocrites sit on your head, then surely you wanted someone to sit on your head. Why would you enthrone them without your own demand? You must be getting some support from them—some consolation, some security. Something in you is being satisfied by them. Some need of yours they are certainly meeting.

Now the rule of economics has changed a little—because of advertising. When that rule was framed, advertising wasn’t so developed. Advertising has changed the scenario. Now advertising says: supply first, demand will follow. The world of advertising has made a revolution. Earlier, when people had a need, they demanded; when demand arose, someone invented a supply. Suppose people felt cold and needed blankets—blankets would appear in the market. Now it’s the reverse. Now bring the blankets to market first. Advertise hard that wearing blankets makes the body beautiful, that draping a blanket gives such-and-such benefits: longer life, prolonged youth. Say whatever you like. Claim that whoever owns this blanket will be surrounded by beauties! That beauties will be instantly enchanted at the sight of this blanket! The moment this blanket appears, magic descends! Then whether there’s winter or not, you’ll see people in summer draped in blankets—drenched in sweat, waiting for beauties. This is the changed condition.

You have heard the English saying, Necessity is the mother of invention. Replace it now: necessity is not the mother of invention; invention is the father of necessity. Invent first; then worry about creating the need—by advertising loudly. In America, a product enters the market, and advertising starts two or three years in advance. Now people live by advertising! Things people had never heard of, things they had never needed—advertising teaches them to need. Just pitch it right; persuade people that without it life won’t run. They begin to buy.

Originally the priest arose from human need. What needs? Man was afraid, frightened. Death stood before him. What lies beyond death? The question was urgent. In life there were a thousand miseries, diseases. Why are there diseases? Answers were needed. Monks and saints arose. They gave answers. One said you sinned in past lives. Past lives aren’t even proven, but you sinned there, and now you suffer the fruits! And that man sitting on wealth enjoying life—he did virtuous deeds in his past lives, hence he enjoys their fruit! An answer—hence consolation. A little relief. Much restlessness calmed—and the ego found a great support. Otherwise it seems: we work hard, others work hard; they succeed, we fail. So we must lack intelligence—but no, our intelligence is better than theirs! It’s just those past-life karmas hindering us. Relief!

After death—don’t be afraid—the soul is immortal. That’s exactly what we wanted to hear: someone, somehow, convincing us the soul is immortal. That we won’t have to die. No one wants to die. And that after death the world is heavenly, full of bliss.

The monks added a few conditions—fair enough—serve us and you will have your reward. After all, they were serving you; they took a little service from you too. The world is a matter of give-and-take. You gave something, they took something. They gave something, you took something. The deal was struck. They said: serve here, and we guarantee you that in heaven nymphs will serve you. Thus began the trade in the invisible. What you want will be given in heaven; give here, take there.

But there was a snag. Here you have to give visibly; whether you’ll receive after death—who knows? So the saints said: give one coin here, take a crore-fold there. Look at the greed offered! Priests at the pilgrim places assure people: give one, get a crore. Who won’t be lured? A penny donated, and a crore in return—better than a government lottery! This is the lottery—the real spiritual lottery! One rupee now, and crores later! Who will leave such a profit? And if it’s lost, it’s only a rupee; not much. And if it’s gained—who knows, maybe it is! What a bait! It consoled you.

They painted luscious pictures of heaven’s pleasures—and frightened you too. Reject them and you will rot in hell. And the torments of hell—what imaginations those authors had! What inventions for roasting and torturing! In heaven, all pleasures; in hell, all torments—and what’s the criterion? Whether you accept these saints or not.

A huge problem arose, for the world has many kinds of monks and saints, many sects, each with its claims. Christians say: only those who accept Jesus go to heaven; the rest to hell. As long as one religion didn’t know of the others, the shops ran smoothly. Now a great confusion has arisen. People are anxious: what to do? Who is true? What if we arrive there and Jesus refuses us—Christians say Jesus recognizes his own. He will choose his sheep; he is the shepherd. He will pick his flock; the rest can go to hell.

So they found many ways to frighten people.

I heard of a tribal village—simple, innocent folks. To convert them, simple tricks are needed that work for them. They don’t grasp big arguments; they don’t know Bible or Vedas. A priest prepared to convert the whole village. His trick was simple—but your tricks are not very different. However complex, their basic method is the same.

He gathered the whole village. On one side he lit a fire; on the other he set a pot full of water. He said, “How shall we know the true? The tribals say the world is an ocean of becoming; the true one is who ferries us across. So, whoever sinks in water is false; whoever floats is true.” He had prepared two idols: one of Rama in iron, and one of Jesus in wood. He had a second set in his bag as well—for the fire test, the reverse: Jesus in iron, Rama in wood. He dropped the two into the pot. Rama sank immediately—being iron. Jesus floated. Applause! The villagers said, “What clearer proof? The world is an ocean; go with Rama and you’ll drown. Jesus is the savior—see how he floats! He will ferry us too.”

All would have gone his way but for one man—a Hindu sannyasi staying in the village. He heard, ran over, saw the scene, grasped the trick. He said, “No, the test must be by fire—India has always used the fire test. Even Rama gave Sita the fire test. Ever heard of a water test?”

The villagers said, “True—never heard of a water test; it’s fire!”

The priest grew fearful. He tried to switch idols from his bag, but deceiving this sannyasi wasn’t easy. The sannyasi took out the very idols from the pot. “Now the real test,” he said—and tossed both into the fire. Rama stood firm, Jesus burst into flames. The sannyasi said, “See, the fire test—who passes that, will ferry you across.”

This is how man has been toyed with—fed such arguments, such arithmetic. Man is afraid; he longs to be saved. Death stands before him. Monks and saints did not miss the chance. They exploited it—spun a thousand doctrines.

But now a difficulty has arisen: for the first time the religions of the world have become acquainted with one another. Earlier each was enclosed in its own well. Science has broken the wells, broken the boundaries. The world has shrunk—like a small village. What is the distance now between New York and Pune? Hours. So close you can breakfast in New York, lunch in London, and suffer indigestion in Pune! So close and connected. In such a close world the mind is bewildered—who is right, who is wrong?

I want to tell you: these beliefs are futile. Don’t waste time choosing among them. There is no right or wrong among these—they are advertisements of different shops. The shops were wrong. Religion has nothing to do with the afterlife. Religion concerns the present. Religion does not concern what lies beyond death; religion fundamentally concerns the flowering of life. Religion has nothing to do with sin and merit; it has to do with unconsciousness and awakening.

Awaken! And if you awaken, it can only be now—not tomorrow. Make this very moment a moment of awakening. Refine this moment. Make this moment a celebration, suffused with juice. Then everything else will set itself right. For the next moment is born of this one—it will be even more full of savor. And if there is rebirth—and I know there is life after death—but I do not ask you to believe me. My knowing is my knowing; you must not build your foundation on it. But if this life becomes beautiful, then the next will sprout from this one—and be even more beautiful.

And instead of choosing between sin and merit, choose between awakening and stupor. For “sin” and “merit” differ among religions; awakening and stupor cannot. If a Christian awakens, he awakens; if a Hindu awakens, he awakens; if a Jain awakens, he awakens. Awakening is not Hindu or Muslim; awakening is awakening, and stupor is stupor.

Yes, in sin and merit there are great differences. If you eat meat, it is not a sin for Muslims or Christians. Christians are ready with quotations that God created the animals for human use—that’s in their Bible. Ask the Jains, and meat-eating is a great sin—the greatest. Yet Ramakrishna ate fish and attained liberation. By Jain standards he could not. They would say, “A swan picks pearls—and this one picks fish! Became a paramahansa by pecking fish?” And a Bengali cannot manage without fish.

So who will define sin? Who will define merit?

In Russia there was a Christian sect—now almost gone—that believed that when you eat an animal, you liberate its soul from bondage. Not only are you not sinning; you are doing merit—freeing a soul. Like opening a cage and letting a parrot fly free—would you call that a sin? They believed: if you eat a parrot, the body was the cage—you digest the cage; the soul is freed. You did the parrot a kindness! And since a human digested it, the parrot’s next birth will be favorable.

In the same hope Hindus offered human sacrifices; even today some still do. In this country there were horse-sacrifices (ashvamedha). And those who worship the cow as mother performed cow-sacrifices too. The same rishis! Leave aside cow-sacrifice—they performed human sacrifice. But an animal offered on the sacrificial altar goes straight to heaven!

Buddha made fun of this. In a village, a sacrifice was underway—sheep and goats being killed—and Buddha arrived at just the right moment. He asked the priest who was performing the slaughter. There were special priests who did this killing. You may be surprised—if any Sharmas are present, don’t be offended. “Sharma” was the name of such priests. Sharma means one who performs sharman—the cutter, the slaughterer. He who cut animals in the sacrifice was called Sharma. Now people have forgotten. Today “Sharma” is a highly respected word—so respected that Vermas and others drop their own names and write Sharma. But Sharma originally meant “killer”—not an ordinary killer, an extraordinary one: one who sends souls to heaven.

Buddha asked, “What are you doing?” They said, “This is not killing; not violence. The souls of these animals will go to heaven.” Buddha joked, “Then why not kill your parents? Send them to heaven. The door is open—why send animals? Send your parents, your wife, your children. Send everyone—and then go yourself! But don’t send these animals. They don’t want to go—they’re writhing, they want to run. They are pleading for mercy. They cannot speak—look into their eyes, they are beseeching. They are bleating: ‘Let us go.’ They don’t want heaven—and you are sending them. The yajman who is funding this sacrifice wants heaven—send him!”

Clever folks have always been around. Tricks kept running; we kept bearing them. Sin and merit are difficult to determine. On one side are people along the Amazon who eat humans—and it is no sin to them. On the other side are the Quakers who won’t even drink milk—because milk comes from the body, filtered from blood. It is of the body. Whether you cut a hand and eat it, or you take milk from a mother’s breast—it’s violence nonetheless.

And you drink cow’s milk; it wasn’t made for you—it’s for the calf. You snatch it from the calf—so you are sinning. Besides, except for humans, no animal drinks milk after a certain age. So it’s unnatural too. Babies should drink from the mother—fine. But as soon as the teeth emerge and they can digest, milk should be given up.

So there are Quakers who don’t even drink milk. A Quaker guest once stayed with me. In the morning I asked, “Will you have tea, coffee, or milk?” He looked at me as if you had asked a Jain monk whether he’d like eggs, or fish, or beef—utterly shocked. He said, “You—and you ask such a thing!”

I said, “Did I blunder?”

He said, “A Quaker—and milk, tea, coffee! We cannot touch milk. Milk is sin, milk is violence; a part of meat-eating.”

A strange world! In India people think milk is the purest diet—sattvic. If someone drinks only milk, people regard him as a saint. In the Quaker’s eyes, none more sinful than this—drinking milk alone, a pure carnivore!

So what is sin, what is merit?

In my view, all this sin and merit are social arrangements. They are not truly valuable. They are like traffic rules—keep left or keep right. Left is fine; right is fine. In India the rule says “keep left.” In America, “keep right.” You need rules; if everyone drives any which way, there will be accidents—perhaps no one will reach home. There will be traffic jams. So we need rules; they are useful—but not eternal.

So are your rules of sin and merit. In whatever society you live, on whatever road you travel—keep left or keep right accordingly. But they have no ultimate value. What does? Only two things: live in stupor and it is sin; live in awareness and it is merit. And I have seen that as a person lives more and more in awareness, the wrong falls away on its own—on its own! You don’t have to renounce; it drops. How can a person filled with awareness do the wrong? An eyeless person may try to walk through a wall; but one with eyes—will he try that? He takes the door. Likewise, one with the eye of meditation, of awakening—whatever he does, he does rightly.

When people ask me what is right, I tell them, don’t go into details. Details are impossible to settle. On one side are Christians who say, serve; the more you serve, the closer heaven is—open hospitals, massage the limbs of lepers, run schools. On the other side are Terapanthi Jains who say, even if someone lies dying of thirst by the roadside, go your way silently—don’t even give him water. Why? They have their calculation: he is suffering the fruit of some past sin; if you give him water, you deprive him of that fruit. To deprive him means he will have to suffer it sometime later. You extended his journey. Let him finish it and be done. One chain cut. You brought water just as the bird was stepping out of the cage; you bolted the door and gave water—saved him from his suffering.

And there’s another danger: suppose you save him and tomorrow he turns out to be a bandit, a murderer, a thief, a politician, a scoundrel—you don’t know! He may go and kill someone; then you become a partner in that sin. Had you not given water, he wouldn’t have lived; no murder would have occurred. You became part of the chain. Beware—he might become a politician! Anything is possible.

When I was in school, I quarreled with my civics teacher. He said: in a free democracy, any person can become the prime minister. I said: how can just “any” person? Some competence must be required. He passed away later. When Morarji Desai became prime minister, I begged his departed soul’s pardon: “Forgive me, my teacher—you were right. If Morarji Desai can be PM, anyone can. It was my mistake to argue.”

Who knows—give him water and tomorrow he becomes PM and unleashes a thousand troubles! On whom will the sin fall?

So Terapanth says: don’t even give water to a thirsty man by the road. On the other hand, Christians say: always carry a rope and bucket—if you find someone thirsty, lower the bucket and give him water. Keep all arrangements at hand.

I’ve heard a Chinese story. A fair is on. A man falls into a well. There’s a lot of noise; he shouts, but no one hears. A Buddhist monk comes by, looks down. The man cries, “Save me, sir! O monk, save me! I am dying!” The monk says, “God has said life is fleeting—death is certain. Death comes to all who are born.” The man says, “All that is fine, but for now—get me out! When it’s time to die, I’ll die.” The monk says, “What does timing matter—today or tomorrow? Since you must die, die now. And if you die having renounced the hope of life, you’ll be free from rebirth; if you die hankering for life, you’ll rot—84 million wombs!” The man is dying as it is—and now the 84 million cycles! The monk moves on—he’s said the wise words; take them or leave them.

Behind him a Confucian monk arrives. He looks down. The man cries, “Sir, you save me!” The Confucian says, “Do not panic. Confucius wrote in his book that every well should have a cover—today it’s proven. This well has no cover; that’s why you fell. We will run a movement across the country so that every well has a cover.” The man says, “Do that later. I’ll be dead. What good will a cover be then?” He says, “Don’t worry; this is not about individuals. Individuals come and go; society is the issue.” He goes and mounts a platform to tell the crowd: “Brothers! Every well must have a cover.”

Then a Christian pastor arrives. Quickly he pulls a bucket and rope from his bag, drops the bucket, lowers the rope. “Grab the rope, sit in the bucket.” He hauls the man out. The man falls at his feet: “You alone are truly religious. The Buddhist monk recited the Dhammapada. The Confucian promised covers for wells—‘your children won’t fall in.’ You alone saved me. But one thing—how did you have a bucket and rope ready?” The pastor says, “I’m a Christian. We carry provisions beforehand. Service is our religion. And we request just this much: there’s no need for well-covers, no need to memorize the Dhammapada. Just keep falling in—so we can keep rescuing you, and our children too. Tell your children to keep falling. If you don’t fall and we don’t rescue, how will we get to heaven?”

Here everyone has their own arithmetic. No one really cares for anyone else. What sin, what merit! In my arithmetic there is only one sin: to live in stupor—as if drunk. And people do live like that. Dariya says: “Be awake while awake.” We are asleep even while awake. Asleep in sleep, yes—but also asleep in waking. We must be awake while awake—and awake even in sleep.

Krishna says: “What is night for all beings, the disciplined one is awake therein.” Even in the deepest sleep, the lamp of his awareness does not go out; it keeps burning.

So I say: wake up! Gather your awareness! Then whatever you do will be right. Doing right does not bring awareness; awareness brings what is right. Renouncing the wrong does not bring awareness; awareness makes the wrong drop. My whole religion I can say in a single word—meditation. And meditation means awareness, wisdom, awakening.

Ramchhavi Prasad! There are three steps of awakening. The first step—primary awakening—the bad comes to an end and the good grows. The unwholesome departs; the wholesome deepens. The second stage—the wholesome begins to melt away; emptiness deepens. And the third stage—even emptiness departs. Then what remains is the natural… then what remains is the natural state, the pure consciousness, sheer awareness—that is Buddhahood, that is nirvana.

Begin to awaken, and first you will find—what is wrong starts dropping. Try smoking a cigarette with awareness, you won’t be able to. Not because smoking is a sin. What sin can there be in smoking? A person takes smoke out, brings it in; out and in. What sin is there in that? Whom is he harming? Smoking is not a sin. It is certainly stupidity, but not a sin. Foolishness, yes—but not a sin. Foolishness because you could have taken in clean air and practiced pranayama. You are doing pranayama—but needlessly, after dirtying the air. Smoking is a kind of foolish pranayama. You are practicing yoga, but even that you spoil. There was pure water; you first mixed mud into it, then drank it. If you smoke a cigarette a little consciously, smoking will become difficult. Because the foolishness will become visible—so plainly visible that the cigarette will just stay in your hand.

First, such futile things begin to drop. Then, gradually, the wrong habits you had—getting angry over trifles, taking offense—will begin to fall away. For the Buddha has said: to be angry at another’s mistake is like punishing yourself for someone else’s fault. When a little awareness dawns you will see: he hurled an abuse, and I am buzzing with it! I am burning! I am getting scorched! This is madness! Let the one who abused bear it. I neither gave it nor took it.

The very moment you awaken, the giving and taking of abuse stops. Within you, anger will not arise; compassion will arise, a forgiving mood will arise—Poor fellow! He is still caught in abusing. The very words that could become a song are becoming abuse. The same life-energy that could become a lotus is still mud.

So first the bad starts dropping. And as the bad drops, the energy tied up in the bad begins to engage in the good. When abuse drops, song is born. When anger drops, compassion arises. This is the first stage. Hatred drops, love grows.

Then the second stage—the good too begins to end. Because love cannot live without hatred; it is only the other face of hatred. That is why, whenever you wish, hatred can turn into love and love can turn into hatred. Anger can become compassion, compassion can become anger; they are convertible. They are two sides of the same coin.

So first the bad goes—one face of the coin departs; then the other face will also depart—the good goes too. And emptiness increases. Within you, peace deepens. Neither wholesome nor unwholesome. You begin to be without objects, without distortions.

And in the third, the final stage, even the awareness “I have become empty” does not remain. For as long as the awareness “I am empty” remains, one thought still remains—“I am empty.” This thought must also go. It too will go. Then you remain thought-free, choice-less. Patanjali has called that seedless samadhi; the Buddha has called it nirvana; Mahavira has called it the state of kevalya. Whatever name is pleasing to you, you may give it.

Ramdulare! There is not the slightest mistake. Curiosity is natural. When you set out to seek, what will happen when you find? When you meet the One you are searching for, what will happen? This is the spontaneous feeling that arises in the mind. When the lotus blooms, what fragrance will there be? What color? What form?
When nectar showers, the lotuses blossom!

When ambrosia rains and you bathe in it again and again, what will the experience be? What ecstasy will arise? This curiosity is completely natural. There is no mistake.

And yet there is no way to quiet this curiosity without experience. Without it, it will not rest. However much I say, it is like a mute tasting jaggery—only the one to whom it happens knows. Yes, I can torment you sweetly. I can make you very thirsty. But I cannot tell you what the satiation is like when you reach the lake and, with cupped hands, drink and drink!

That satiation has happened to me. It can happen to you as well. But there is no way to express that fulfillment in words. Your curiosity is right—there is not even the slightest error. There is no reason to ask forgiveness. But understand my inability too, my helplessness. And it is not only mine; it is the helplessness of all the Buddhas. Who has ever been able to say what actually happens in union with the Divine? Whatever has been said falls far away, falls short. Whatever you say, it is too small. How to bind the sky in your fist? How to reveal the wordless in ordinary, makeshift words? It is very difficult. It is impossible.

Night arrived draped in a shawl of flames.
Beating the stars into gossamer threads,
then weaving them, moon-drenched, deep as the dark-blue sky,
she adorned a dusky veil with sandalwood droplets,
dyed it in the colors of molten fire.
With smoky lines of agar-clouds her tresses rippled,
in her clear gaze flew flocks of cranes,
her breaths, perfumed, trembled again and again,
the soft breeze of aura flowed, whispering.
Storms shed themselves and spread like yellow leaves,
the wave of darkness brought the message of day,
lightnings were ground under the chariot-wheels on the path,
yellow dust rose and veiled the horizon.
The sky’s kadamba blossomed into lamp-flowers,
the bird of sorrow forgot the earth’s nests,
the seven-hued heat of day turned into shade,
becoming night, entered every atom, every breath.
Dreams flared in the eyes, sweat-drops on the brow,
in the memory of radiant dawn the heart burns,
my life is the unwavering flame of a lamp,
flame meeting flame has now found infinity.
Night, wearing a silken mantle of flames, smiled.

Only this much can be said—
my life is the unwavering flame of a lamp,
flame meeting flame has now found infinity.

A drop merges into the ocean and becomes boundless. A small flame becomes one with the infinite light. A wave becomes the ocean. The finite breaks, the infinite is revealed. Death dissolves, the nectar of immortality is experienced. Colors pour down in abundance. Holi is played—colors that never fade. Gulal flies—such gulal as never seen, never heard—of a world not of this world!

The water-syringe has blossomed
the color of new love—
oh, the days of Phagun have come!
Who has rubbed gulal,
red, over the fair one’s every limb—
oh, the days of Phagun have come!
The heartbeat keeps the beat,
the feet begin to dance,
the whole season sways,
the village dances,
anklets, bangles, drum and cymbals—
the mridang resounds—
oh, the days of Phagun have come!
Gestures, movements,
the ways of walking—everything has changed—
oh, the days of Phagun have come!
Abir flies, Kabir resounds,
all is overwhelmed,
a veil yellow as mustard bloom,
youth red as flame-of-the-forest,
breaths filled with fragrance—within life
a new surge rises—
oh, the days of Phagun have come!
In the free sky of memories
the heart-bird soars—
oh, the days of Phagun have come!

A Holi of the inner world! An explosion of colors in the inner world!
When nectar showers, the lotuses blossom!

That is all for today.