Ami Jharat Bigsat Kanwal #7

Whenever the tide rose with tempests,
my shore turned into midstream.
The shade of affection slipped from my hand,
the path of shadow turned into embers.

Life burst into tears, dazed and undone; dreams stayed dreams, unfulfilled.
The light of the eyes turned alien; the lamps stood lit, yet nothing was illumined.

A dream, false and flimsy,
handed me faith in living.
It shackled my feet with fetters,
and gave the illusion of walking.

Tear-drops pricked the eyes,
the mirror of hopes shattered.
The moment I tried to step ahead,
my feet slipped, the vessel of song cracked.

Tears stalled upon my lips,
delight scattered into dust.
Desire was looted; drowsy longings stretched,
spring got tangled in thorns.

Song became a mute ache; feelings remained duped and duplicitous.
The mirror told the whole tale; the lips stayed sealed, stitched shut.

Hiding autumn within,
the garden grew storm-mad.
Harsingar fell unawares,
the tender vine of youth got scorched.

The heart-pleasing fragrance scattered;
a virgin yearning kept watching.
Dust-dimmed, empty sky,
an evening that had lost its light.

Branch broke from branch,
breath lost rhythm from breathing.
Desire stood a lifeless stump,
the ache of oaths lay ravaged.

The sprouted leaves of youth trembled, merely trembled.
The garden’s spring was plundered; the flowers bloomed only to be left behind.

A stranger of a snake-charmer
arrived, borne on spells.
To the music of his flute the serpent was bitten,
one’s own turned into a stranger.

The vermilion bindi sobbed,
the kohl of eyes dissolved.
The waiting for union turned barren,
anklets became a foreign bondage.

The last sandcastles fell apart,
the dream stayed sleeping on.
Everything kept looking on,
the courtyard reeled in trance.

The bonds slipped from the hands, the eyes met and yet did not meet,
the mad one climbed the palanquin; the doors stayed open, merely open.

This life is so fleeting, and yet we trust it. Our capacity for trust is immense. Our trust is a miracle. This life is a bubble of water—now it bursts, now it bursts. Still we hoard so many dreams. Even in dreams we place so much faith, that the dream begins to feel true. With faith, even a dream looks true—at least it seems so. And who knows how many dreams there are! As many people, so many dreams. As many minds, so many dreams. Dreams of the world, dreams of renunciation. Dreams of hell, dreams of heaven.

Those who know say: apart from the dreamer, everything is a dream. Only the seer is true. All that is seen is false.

And this is the revolution—to move from the seen to the seer. This is the leap. Dreams are false; the dreamer alone is not false.

But we are perverse. We never look at the one who sees the dreams; we keep entangled in the dreams themselves. One dream breaks and we weave another. It happens that when the dream of wealth breaks, we construct a dream of renunciation. When the dream of home breaks, we fashion the dream of detachment. When the dream of this world breaks, we craft dreams of the next.

This is not revolution. This is not religion. This is not transformation. Transformation is only one thing—sliding from the seen to the seer. Whatever appears—pleasure or pain—it is all the same. Defeat or victory—it is all the same. Only the one who sees is true. When will you turn to the seer? The day you see the one who sees, you are awake.

Awakening means nothing else. It means only this: the seer is filled with the sense of his own being. This is meditation, this is samadhi! And then it doesn’t take long—nectar showers, the lotus blossoms! Nectar starts to rain, the lotus begins to bloom. Just awaken.

Dreams have lulled you to sleep. Dreams have intoxicated you, made your eyes heavy. Dreams have shut your eyelids. And you know it. It’s not as if you don’t. It’s not as if you will know only when Daria says so. Every day a bier is carried out. And yet the mind sustains a delusion: the bier is always of someone else. In one sense it seems true. You have always seen someone else’s bier—sometimes A’s, sometimes B’s, sometimes C’s; you never saw your own. And you never will. Others will see it. So it feels as if death always happens to the other; I never die. We keep coddling this delusion. Each person lives as if this life will never end; fights as if he will always be here; grapples so that not a shred can be snatched from him; and yet everything will be snatched away.

The bonds slipped from the hands, the eyes met and yet did not meet,
the mad one climbed the palanquin; the doors stayed open, merely open.

The sprouted leaves of youth trembled, merely trembled,
the garden’s spring was plundered; the flowers bloomed only to be left behind.

Song became a mute ache; feelings remained duped and duplicitous.
The mirror told the whole tale; the lips stayed sealed, stitched shut.

Life burst into tears, dazed and undone; dreams stayed dreams, unfulfilled.
The light of the eyes turned alien; the lamps stood lit, yet nothing was illumined.

Everything will be left lying. The lamps will keep burning, you will go out. The flowers will keep blooming, you will wither away. The world will go on as it goes. The shehnai will keep playing, you will not be there. Springs will come, flowers will bloom. The sky will be studded with stars. There will be mornings, there will be evenings. Everything will go on as ever—except you will not be.

Who is this one who suddenly appears at birth and then suddenly dissolves in death? Know this one. Recognize this one. Awaken the memory of this one. The life of the one who has known this one is fulfilled. Nectar showers, the lotus blossoms! All others are asleep.

Dariya says: The whole world sleeps, without self-remembrance.

There is no remembrance of oneself. There is, however, a very meticulous remembrance of dreams.

You have heard the old story, haven’t you! Ten men crossed a flooding river. They were villagers, unlettered. On the far bank one said, Count us; did as many cross as had set out? The flood is fierce. Someone might have been swept away.

They counted. And all ten sat under a tree and wept for the one who had drowned. Because the count was always nine, though ten had come. It wasn’t nine because someone had drowned; it was nine because each counted everyone except himself. He counted the rest; the counter was left out. One counted, another counted, a third counted… all ten counted. Then the conclusion became ironclad. One might err, two might err, but ten cannot err. Everyone’s result was nine. Surely one companion was lost. All ten sat and wept.

A fakir happened by. Seeing ten hale men crying, he asked, What happened? Why do you weep?

They said, One of our companions is lost. Ten left home. Now we are nine.

The fakir glanced once. There were ten. He said, Count again. He watched their counting. He understood they were making the very mistake the whole world makes. The mistake is not new; it is ancient. Whoever makes this mistake is the rustic; whoever commits it is the ignorant. Whoever escapes it—the sun of knowledge dawns in his life. Nectar showers, the lotus blossoms!

The fakir began to laugh—burst out laughing. He said, You are doing what I used to do, what the whole world does. You are perfect representatives; you are the very epitome of the world. You are not ordinary folks, you are the distilled essence of humanity. Now I will count you. Learn my way of counting. I will slap you one by one. The first I slap will say, One. When I slap the second, I will give two slaps, and he will say, Two. When I slap the third, three slaps, and he will say, Three. That’s how the counting will go.

He was a merry, wild fakir. He laid on ringing slaps. To each he made them remember their mother’s milk! When a slap landed, the count rose, One. Two slaps, Two. And so the count rose. When the ten slaps fell and the count rang out, Ten, all ten caught the fakir’s feet. They said, Beat us if you must, but thank you for returning the lost one, saving the drowned one, restoring the one we thought irretrievably gone.

A true master only slaps. He slaps hard—so hard you remember your mother’s milk! But the sleep is deep; there is no other way. Only if he shakes you with force might you awake. And once you count yourself—then nothing remains to be done.

The whole world sleeps, has no self-remembrance. Those who speak talk in their sleep.

In this world the people who are talking are sleeping and talking. Conversation goes on regardless. They are all muttering in their sleep.

Do you ever feel that the way you talk to people, you do it with awareness? Do you talk because it must be done? Because there is essence in doing so? Is it of any benefit to anyone? Any blessing? Any welfare? Why do you talk? Talk goes on for talk’s sake. Words beget more words. From talk arise tangles. You say one thing; another says something else. No one can remain empty. People are engaged day and night in dialogue. Yet nothing comes to hand.

Dariya is right: You are muttering in your sleep. Your words have no value. Your words are worthless. Because you are not awake. Only the words of the awakened carry meaning. Meaning is born of awakening. The words of the buddhas carry life, soul. Your words are corpses, rotting—no breath within them. You yourself don’t know, and you go on delivering others!

In this world everyone gives advice. They say, the thing most given in the world is advice, and the thing least taken is also advice. Everyone advises; no one takes advice. If you get a chance, you won’t miss it, you won’t keep silent. Even when you don’t know, you answer. If someone asks you, Is there a God? you don’t have the honesty to say, I don’t know. It’s hard to find bigger cheats than your so-called religious folk! You cheat in small ways—two plus two to make five. Your cheats are minor. But the cheats of your priests and pundits, your mullahs and maulvis, are vast. They have no clue to God and they declare, Yes, God exists! They pound their chests and proclaim, God is!

Have you known God? Without knowing, how do you say so? This is the greatest dishonesty. None greater is possible. On the other side, the other cheats—who haven’t known and yet say, There is no God.

In the West there was a thinker—T. H. Huxley. He gave birth to a new outlook. He coined a new word—agnostic. In English, gnostic means one who claims to know. Huxley coined agnostic. He was very honest. He said, I don’t know that God is. I also don’t know that God is not. People ask me, Are you theist or atheist? Do you believe or not? Theist or anti-theist? What can I say? He must have been a very honest, genuine man. He said, I will have to coin a new word. Because people ask, and saying nothing seems rude. And people have boxed everything into two slots—either say atheist or theist. But both would be lies.

So Huxley coined a new word a mere hundred years ago—agnostic. It means: I don’t know. I know nothing yet. I am searching, seeking, groping.

I say: Huxley is far more religious than your Shankaracharyas, or the Pope of the Vatican. More religious—because religion means honesty. And honesty should begin here. Neither is there honesty among Russia’s atheists—they have no clue; they haven’t searched, meditated, concentrated, entered samadhi—and they say, God is not! In Russia, little children are taught that there is no God. There are lessons in school that God is not. Little children repeat it, and repeating they grow up, and grown up they keep repeating.

Do you think your God is any different from Russia’s atheism? You heard since childhood that He is, so you repeat. At home, outside, everywhere it is repeated, and you too repeat. You are gramophone records. When will you speak your own? Until you speak your own, there is no honesty.

Seek! Search! And the moment you begin to search, the question becomes paramount: Where to search—outside or inside?

Naturally, first inside. First know yourself! First seek the seeker! The wonder is, whoever seeks and finds the seeker, finds all. Knowing oneself, the doors of truth open. Recognizing the soul, the Supreme is recognized. The soul within you is the window toward the Divine. The soul is the wave of His ocean within you. The soul is His particle, His drop. And within the drop is the secret of all oceans. Understand a single drop rightly, and you have understood the secret of all seas; the principle of water will be clear.

The whole world sleeps, has no self-remembrance. Those who speak, chatter in their sleep.

And here are priests and pundits, sermons delivered, scriptures explained, Ramayana read, Gita parsed, Quran expounded. From whom are you understanding? Can the expounder place his hand on his chest and say he has known? Look into his eyes. They are as blind as yours—perhaps a little more, certainly not less; the burden of words and scriptures lies heavier upon his eyes than upon yours. Search his life. You will find neither the fragrance of truth nor the light of soul. Sit near him. You will not feel the spring of joy flowing, nor the breezes of peace. Yes, perhaps he will explain the Ramayana neatly and analyze every word of the Gita. But all this is splitting hairs. It has no value.

When will the new dawn come?
When will my sun awaken?
Seeing the spry youth of darkness,
the heart’s longing gets erased.

Waiting and waiting,
a lifetime slips away.
Wherever I lift my eyes,
dense groves of thorns.

Flowers burned after blooming in bowers,
deserts passed for lush gardens.
Seeing the earth’s scorching heat,
the thirst of the heart is plundered.

I lived with this hope,
that desire would turn into grace.
The relentless austerity of craving
would become the emblem of monsoon.

Seeing monsoon in the season of fall,
the gathering cloud keeps shrinking.
The vow of rising as the sun
was the vow of waking resolve.

But like trembling stars,
the mind sprouted alternatives.
Thinking in doubt alone,
the winning move gets crushed.

Every dawn’s ray kisses
sleeping dreams awake.
But in the emptiness of evening,
a silent ache descends.

Counting finger-joints one by one,
I tire and pull back.
I’ve come so far walking,
yet the goal is nowhere in sight.

The vision of my two eyes
splits into double and misleads.
Waiting and waiting,
a lifetime slips away.

Will you spend your life merely waiting? Will you squander it in hope upon hope, or is there something to attain? If you want to attain, do not postpone to tomorrow. If you want to attain, look today, now. If you want to attain, do not deflect. Postponement is a device of sleep. Postponement is a sedative. Don’t postpone. Don’t say tomorrow. Today, now!

If you want to awaken, it is now; if you want to sleep, then tomorrow. He who slept, lost. Because today you will push it to tomorrow; tomorrow again to tomorrow. Postponement will become a habit. Beware lest waiting become your habit. That which can be attained—why wait for it? That which is already within you—why defer it? Why not now? There is nothing more precious.

Postpone everything—do not postpone self-knowing. Put off everything—do not put off the longing to awaken. Put off everything—pour your whole energy into awakening. If only for a single moment you awaken and the dreams scatter, a revolution will enter your life. You will never again be who you were. You will be new. Your link will be joined to the eternal. Nectar showers, the lotus blossoms!

The night of doubt, attachment, delusion.

It’s a very dark night—woven of doubt, of attachment, of illusion. The mind lives by feeding on doubt. Mind says: do this, do that. Mind always wavers between this or that. Mind can never decide. Indecision is its very nature.

When you do decide, you do so under compulsion—when no options remain. But then it is too late.

There are two kinds of people in the world. The crowd belongs to those who live without making any decision. Like a piece of wood bobbing in the currents—sometimes here, sometimes there—wherever waves carry it. No knowledge of any shore, no awareness of any destination, no self-sense. Bound by the waves, by gusts of wind. No direction, no goal. A deranged motion. Such are most people.

Observe how you live. Your life is almost like that. You were walking down a street; someone said, Have you seen that film? It’s beautiful! You thought, Let’s go. A gust of wind came. A nudge. You went to see the film. A woman happened to sit nearby. You got acquainted. You had never thought this film affair would grow this far. You got married. Children came. And all this just kept happening.

A Jewish thinker wrote his autobiography. He said, My being is sheer coincidence. He wrote, Let me begin from the beginning: my father was traveling by train. He got off at a station. The train arrived six hours late. It was past midnight. Snow was falling. This is Russia. No taxis were available. At such an hour no driver was waiting. Seeing no other way, as the hotel doors were about to close, he went in and said, At least let me have a cup of coffee; then close up.

The woman closing the hotel gave him a coffee. She had one herself. The night was cold. They talked. The traveler said, I’m in real trouble. I have to go six miles, and there is no taxi.

The woman said, Do this: I too have to go home. Come in my car.

They sat in the car. It was cold; they slid closer together. The hotel was closed, the manager long gone. There was no place to stay. The woman said, Spend the night at my house. A few hours of night remain. In the morning go back to the hotel.

Thus things went on, and on—and then went wrong! The thinker wrote, If only the train hadn’t been late that night, I would never have been born; or if the hotel had been open, I wouldn’t have been born; or if a taxi driver had been loitering, I wouldn’t have been born; or if the woman had shut the hotel a moment earlier, I would never have been born. Everything appears accidental.

Look closely at your life, and you’ll find the same chain of accidents! A string of coincidences! And you call this life? A chain of accidents is not life. At most it can create a dream, not truth. But mind works like this. It lives in indecision and drift. Like a blind man groping, sometimes grasping something, finding something—that is our life. And whatever we obtain, death snatches away.

The night of doubt, attachment, delusion.

What are our attachments? Our clings? Just this—accidental meetings, river-boat-chance. And how many illusions we nurse! How many expectations from each other! We never consider whether the other can ever fulfill them. And when the other cannot, we think we’ve been deceived.

No one is deceiving you. Your expectations are such that no one could meet them. The other is with you only because he has his expectations too; you are not meeting his either. Attachments and the illusions of attachment break daily; but we make new ones. Such is this dark night of illusion, attachment, doubt, indecision. In this dark night we are searching. For what, even that is not clear.

In the West they define philosophy like this: a philosopher is a blind man who, in a pitch-dark night, in a pitch-dark room, looks for a black cat that isn’t there. Blind, no moon, closed room, black cat—and it’s not there, yet he is searching!

This is not only the definition of philosophy; it is the definition of your life.

In the dark, asleep, blind.

Thus in sleep, blindness increases; darkness deepens.

Every day darkness grows, and blindness grows. Children still have some eyes; the old don’t have even that much left. Children have a fresh awareness; the old have it dimmed. Soot gathers thick. Dust settles. Children have an innocent mind; where is innocence in the old?

Jesus said: Those who become again like children will enter my Father’s kingdom. You will have to learn the art of becoming childlike again. You will have to drop so-called knowledge. Drop borrowed scholarship, so you can be innocent again; so that with open eyes you can see the world, you can see existence. Drop dreams—because the more you get entangled in dreams, the more your gaze upon yourself is lost.

The pitcher keeps seeping drop by drop,
yet the hope of life remains as it is.
At every step, every pace, known or unknown,
a drop falls and scatters.

Seeing the deception of the cracked pitcher,
the thirst of the lips shivers even more.
The noon of beauty keeps declining,
yet the thirst of youth remains as it is.

The pitcher keeps seeping drop by drop,
yet the hope of life remains as it is.

When the desert of desires
drinks embers,
the ocean of the eyes
swells all the more.

Then the hours of evening slip quietly,
as the sun of hope climbs sharper.
Evening comes daily to deceive,
yet the unspoken breath remains the same.

The pitcher keeps seeping drop by drop,
yet the hope of life remains as it is.

When in the spring season, branch to branch awakens,
the flower-like thrill keeps rising.
Turning on the side of curses,
autumn tiptoes in holding its hand.

Petals keep breaking and scattering,
yet the fragrance of dust remains the same.
The pitcher keeps seeping drop by drop,
yet the hope of life remains as it is.

And life is being spent each day. Life is flowing away every day. Awake! Awake in time! Later there will be much regret. But regret too is vain. While strength remains—awake!

And who knows of tomorrow? We don’t even know of the next moment. The breath that went out—will it return? Even that is not certain. Therefore awake! Do not delay even for a moment. Awake this very instant!

Chanting, austerities, self-control and conduct—these are all dream transactions.

How revolutionary these words are. Simple, yet like burning coals. Your chanting, your penance, your restraint, your conduct—all are dreamlike dealings. Because you are not awake at all. Asleep, you do your shopkeeping; asleep, you go to the temple. Your shop is a dream, your temple too is a dream. Let’s say your shop is an irreligious dream and your temple a religious dream. You eat in sleep. You fast in sleep. The sleep never breaks. Awareness never rises. Self-knowing never awakens. Then your mantra too is futile.

Look at the chanters—you’ll find them fingering the rosary beads. Beads rolling, and the eye on the shop lest some customer cheat them, lest the servant pocket money. Beads rolling; a dog strays in—they drive it away. Beads rolling, and by the eyes they signal—look who came, who left!

What sleep! You chant Ram-Ram while inside a thousand dreams, a thousand thoughts run riot. Ram-Ram on the surface and within, all turmoil!

Chanting, austerities, self-control and conduct.

You may leave home, dry the body, stand on your head, live in mountain caves, go hungry and thirsty—nothing will change. Even if you switch from a rogue to a gentleman, stop stealing, stop cheating—still nothing will change.

Dariya says: Only one thing makes the difference—that the flame of awareness ignites within you. Understand where his emphasis lies. He is not saying go steal—mind that. He is not saying don’t practice restraint. Dream as you please. Some dream of being sinners; some dream of being virtuous. Dariya says: Both are dreams as far as I’m concerned.

One man sleeps at night and dreams he’s stolen—reached the treasure-house, unlocked it, shifted billions. Another dreams he has renounced everything, gone naked into the forest to meditate. Do you think there will be any difference in the morning between their dreams? When both wake, they will find themselves lying on their own cots. The treasure is not in one’s hand; the other has not reached the forest. Both were dreaming. Will you say the one who dreamed of sannyas saw a good dream, and the one who dreamed of theft saw a bad dream? Can dreams be good or bad?

Dreams are false—neither good nor bad. So the question is not choosing between good and bad, but between dream and truth.

Remember this fundamental point. The question is not, What to do—good or bad? The question is, Who is the doer? Do while awake! Then whatever you do is right. Whatever happens in awareness is virtue. And whatever happens in sleep—even if you build temples, open inns, perform penances—will be sin. When you die you will discover it—just as wealth slips into others’ hands, so too your restraint will slip away. When you die, sleep will break. Death is morning; the sleep of life breaks. Only those whom death cannot frighten are the ones who have broken their sleep while alive. For them, there is no death. Not that their bodies do not go; bodies will go. But they enter death awake.

Pilgrimages, charity, service to images—this too is dream give-and-take.

Understand—go on pilgrimage, give in charity, worship idols, serve the world, open hospitals, build schools…

This is all dream transaction.

Speaking, listening, winning and losing—

Without awakening, whatever you say and whatever you hear, whether you lose or win—

Siding and opposing—dreamlike and contrary.

Whether you are for or against, Hindu or Muslim, theist or atheist—no difference; all belongs to the realm of dream.

The four castes and the four stages—

Whether you deem yourself Brahmin or Shudra; young or old; householder, forest-dweller or monk—no difference.

All dealings within a dream.

The six philosophies and all discriminations—all are dreamlike displays.

Choose any philosophy—Vedanta, Jain, Buddhist, Sankhya, Yoga, Vaisheshika—choose what you will; still, all this is the play of dreams.

After every answer I kept adding the question mark ceaselessly,
therefore the heart of my heart turned into a question.

The more the line of logic extended, the more distance grew;
even on simple conclusions, a thick crust formed.

Mouth in the eyes, light in the eyes, the world contained in the light—
How can I claim the world is true, how can I claim it is mere illusion?

Whenever I open my lids, the world dissolves;
whenever I close them, the world dissolves.

There can be countless answers, but the question is one—
as in the womb of every untruth, one truth sleeps.

After every untruth, I mistook the truth,
hence artificial living became the world’s currency.

Possessed by confusion, whenever I tested a question,
the mold of my hypothesis kept shifting.

When I weighed questions on the scale of right and wrong,
at times it tilted toward restraint, at times it trembled the other way.

Many answers came, but the mind did not trust;
answers were found, but the practice of those questions did not.

Whenever I walked the tightrope like a performer,
the feet of my faith trembled;
the shaking balance in my heart
drew black lines of fear.

Why, how, when, what happens—I kept thinking endlessly;
therefore the pan of doubt became the endless ocean of fear.

The wish was to gain everything, but when I gained, I could not gain;
I fed my heart false assurances, but could not appease it.

When there was hope of gaining, the heart had no trust;
when the hours of losing came, there was no sense of loss.

Gaining, I lost; losing, I gained—and yet I could not gain.
Everything was in my grasp, but I could not convince my mind.

When I had gained, there was fear of losing; in loss, the hope of gaining.
Ever it is this un-understood mute craving that misleads me.

With dry lips at the ocean’s edge I sat ceaselessly;
therefore remaining thirsty became the business of life.

Sometimes, frightened by doubt, from every straw I built a nest;
sometimes, renouncing all wealth, I laughed at myself.

The very branch on which I made my nest broke and fell to dust;
what I left as unattainable bloomed into thorn.

This world is only a problem,
every dispute the tremble of restraint,
a mindless lovely delusion,
the bondage of intoxicating attachment.

If the question of truth is truly a question,
silence alone is its answer.
One’s own experience is the eternal solution;
all other replies are futile.

To fool this world I kept corrupting speech,
therefore the sandalwood-house of the heart
became the property of snakes.

Make conjectures! All your philosophies are conjecture, not experience. Experience has no scripture. Where there is vision, there is no philosophy. Experience cannot be bound in words or doctrines.

Dariya is right: the six systems are mere discriminations.

All are dreamlike displays.

Kings, queens, even great ascetics—

You have been told again and again: What will come of being an emperor? What of amassing wealth? But Dariya goes deeper.

He says: Kings and queens—yes, and even great ascetics—

Nothing happens from being a king; and even if you become a great tapasvin, still nothing happens.

All dealings are within a dream.

Peers and saints, all the wise—within dreams they indulge in many ways.
Qazis, Sayyeds and sultans—within dreams they all make their journeys.
Sankhya, Yoga and the nine modes of devotion—within dreams these are but tendencies.

They say Sankhya, that grand philosophy; Yoga with its disciplines; the nine forms of devotion—these too are dream-tendencies. Such revolutionary words are rarely found even with diligent searching. Why does Dariya call them dream-tendencies? Because experiences are dreams; the experiencer is truth.

Understand. You sit in meditation. Inside, light upon light. Then there are two in you: one who knows that light is happening, and one who appears as the light. The light is not you. You are the knower of the light. Do not forget, else a new spiritual dream begins. Don’t sway in its sweetness. Much relish there—inner light brings delight! But this is the beginning of a new dream. Mind will pursue you to the end, casting its lures, saying, Ah, see how blessed you are! The light has dawned! This very light of which the saints sing!

But the truly awakened saints have called even light a dream. They have called inner experiences dream—only one is true: the seer, the witness. When inner light arises, don’t fall into this new delusion. Keep knowing: I am the knower; I am not the light. This light is before me, the seen; I am the seer. This light is an experience; I am the experiencer. Keep reminding yourself—witness, witness, witness. Then a moment of supreme fortune arrives when all experiences fall away. The formless spreads. Emptiness pervades. No trace of experience remains. Only the lamp of witnessing burns. In that ultimate moment—nectar showers, the lotus blossoms!

Mortification of the body, compassion and virtue—heaven in dreams and karmic bondage too.

Listen! Dariya must have been a man of courage. He worried about nothing. He poured water over all—your knowledge, philosophies, devotion.

Mortify the body, practice compassion and dharma—

Squeeze the body as much as you like, torment it, become a great sage—nothing will happen. Do as much dharma as you like—nothing will happen.

Heaven too is a dream; so is the bondage of karma.

A wondrous statement! Your heavens are dreams, your hells are dreams. And the bondage you imagine—karmic bondage—is also your dream; because you are not the doer, you are the witness. The bondage of karma cannot be upon you. This is an incendiary formula of revolution. Priests have kept telling you that you are bound by karma. If you suffer, you are reaping past deeds; if you enjoy, past merits. Do good now; next life you will reap good fruits; do evil and you will suffer.

Dariya says: I am not the doer; how can deed bind me? I am only the witness.

Witnessing is freedom—supreme freedom. No bondage has ever touched it. Bondage is believed. Believe it, and it becomes so. Accept it, and it becomes so. Your belief alone binds you. People come and ask me, You say samadhi can happen in a moment. What about our karmas from past lives? Must we not settle them first? Neutralize them? Reap their fruits? And you say, In a moment!

I say, In a moment! Because past karmas need not be dropped—you never did them. You only believed in them. If right now you awaken and are steady in witnessing, all karmas are gone. The doer gone—where do deeds remain? All bonds gone. All past gone, all future gone—only the present remains, the pure present! And that pure present is the gate of the Divine, the gate of nirvana.

We build dreams about this world. We also build dreams about the next. We have settled down amidst dreams!

Had you not met me,
my songs would have remained virgins.
Who would, smiling, adopt
the garland of my dreams upon the heart?
Who, hiding quietly within the song,
would touch it with honeyed lips?
Who would take the flowers of worship
into her veil?
Who would make them her adornment
and call them the treasure of her life?
Your sweet surrender alone
is the wealth of my beggar’s heart.
Drinking your love,
the lamp in my heart’s temple lives.
To burn is life—burning is the life of life—
each page sacred as a Veda,
pure as Ganga-waters.
When your love seeps,
the river of songs overflows.
Had you not become my pain,
my tears would have stayed salty.

At whose well would I go
to speak the hope of life?
Door to door, with thirst,
I would roam, stumbling at every threshold.
Who would touch me like sandal,
filling me with intoxicating bliss?
Who would drown me in enchantment
and gather me into her arms?
Drinking your heady fragrance,
even autumn turned to spring.
The breaths scented like a scarf,
the canopy the blue sky.
Green trees became wedding guests,
the cuckoo’s cooing the shehnai.
With songs of unfurling imagination,
an unseen wedding was celebrated.
How intoxicating your union,
how novel your creation.
Had you not become my spring,
the coals of Cupid would have remained embers.

At whose dark, cloud-like tresses
would the peacock of my heart dance?
When would the cloudburst of monsoon arrive
to keep the yellow pain green?
My thirsty, foolish lips
would daily chant the raga Bhairav.
No swings would hang on boughs,
dry notes would not sing Malhar.
You came, my heart began to sway,
black clouds of joy gathered.
The scent of your kohl-dark hair
dissolved into my eyes as kohl.
The body thrilled, the mind too;
the restless breeze frolicked.
Memories woke as honeyed mango groves,
love became an intoxicating orchard.
When you rained, memories turned to a lake;
when you rejoiced, the drops rained down.
Had you not become my monsoon,
the sprouts would have remained in darkness.
Had you not met me,
my songs would have remained virgins.

This applies to both worlds. In this world, lovers and beloveds weave just such dreams. In that world too, the devotee weaves such dreams with God. As lovers here decorate the dream of love, so devotees adorn their dream of God.

Dariya lifts a sword and shatters all your dreams. Navadha bhakti—your sweet, sweet colors of devotion—are futile. Not only your thoughts are dreams; your feelings are dreams too. Not just the head is in vain, the heart is also in vain. Above is the intellect. Beneath it are feelings, the heart. And below even that hides the witness.

Dariya says: apart from witnessing, there is no refuge.

Buddham sharanam gacchami—I go to the refuge of Buddha.

Someone asked Buddha: You say there is no need to take refuge in anyone. Yet people come to your feet and say, Buddham sharanam gacchami—why don’t you stop them?

Buddha said: They do not go to my refuge. Buddham sharanam gacchami—Buddham means awakening, witnessing, awareness. I am only a symbol, a pretext. They go to the refuge of Buddhahood.

Dariya too says: Take only one refuge—the witness. The moment you hold to witnessing, you become a buddha. He won’t settle for less. Dariya agrees to no compromise. He stands for total revolution.

Lust, anger, murder, adultery—
these too are dreams; hell too is residence in a dream.

You may be startled! He says lust, anger, murder, adultery—they too are dreams.

Hell is residence in a dream.

Mother Shakti, Lord Shankar—these are all dream deals.

Let’s go to the temple of Ambaji! let’s go serve Shiva! Let’s ask Shiva for something, they say he is the generous one—he will surely give! Or let’s please Hanuman, because he pleases Ram. Some route might open. Hard to reach Ram directly, so hold on to the chamcha. Through him, perhaps. So people recite the Hanuman Chalisa: if Hanuman is pleased, the matter is in our hands. If Hanuman is pleased, Ram will have to agree. These are the nets of your mind. Ram is not outside. Ram is a name for your innermost core.

Brahma, Vishnu, the ten avatars—these are all dream transactions.

All this—ten avatars—is a dream dealing. For the Divine has incarnated in every particle. Why count to ten? And look at those who counted ten—at their behavior. They accept a turtle as God’s avatar, but not the fisherman. They can accept a turtle but not a Shudra. Strange! They accept beasts as avatars, but can’t accept Mahavira, Mohammed, Christ; leave others aside.

All nets of belief, conjecture, the inflations of imagination. Let the imagination fly as much as you like. God has descended into all—into me, into you, into trees, rivers, mountains. This entire existence is Divine. Why count to ten? Here there is no counting. Here the Divine is present in numberless forms, for all are His expressions. All songs are His, all throats are His.

Brahma, Vishnu, the ten avatars—dream transactions all.

Born of sprout, of sweat, of womb or egg—dreamlike is the entire cosmos.

Whether sweat-born, womb-born, egg-born—however one is born, the whole cosmos is no more than a dream. Consider this cosmos a dream, so that you may move toward your witnessing. The day you take this cosmos wholly as a dream, your grip will loosen. And the moment the grip loosens, you will become steady in witnessing.

It arises, abides and dissolves.

Why call this world a dream? What is the proof after all?

The wise have distinguished truth and dream with a small mark—small, yet immense. They define the dream as that which is born, exists a while and ceases. And truth as that which is never born, simply is, and never ceases. Truth means the eternal. Dream means the fleeting.

It arises, abides and dissolves.

It is born, lingers a little, and is gone. A bubble rises, floats a moment, bursts. A rainbow appears—now it is, now it is gone.

It arises, abides and dissolves—dreamlike are all such showings.

Consider as dream all that arises, pauses for a moment, and is destroyed. Seek that which is never born, never destroyed. That is the true treasure. That is the kingdom. The witness is never born and never dies. The witness has nothing to do with time. The witness is timeless. In meditation the first glimpse of this witness begins to dawn. Meditation means becoming free of dreams, free of thoughts, so that the glimpse of the witness must arise.

Renunciation and acquisition are dream transactions. He who is awake is set apart from all.

Dariya says an extraordinary thing—what I tell you daily.

Renunciation and acquisition are dream transactions.

The indulgent are dreaming; the yogis are dreaming. Because both renouncing and grabbing are dream deal­ings. One says, I have millions. Another says, I have renounced millions. You imagine a difference between the two? Not an inch. One says, Millions are mine, I am the owner. The other too says, I am the owner—I left millions! They were mine; only then could I leave them!

Two opium-eaters sit under a tree. The opium begins to work. Night is beautiful. Full moon in the sky. Moonlight pouring, silver everywhere. One says, I feel like buying the night, this moon, this moonlight—everything.

The other thinks a moment: No, that won’t be possible.

Why not?

Because I’m not selling. If I sell, then you can buy. Will you buy it just like that?

Night, moon, moonlight—two opium-eaters, buying and selling!

What is there here that is yours? The one who clutches is mad; the one who throws away and flees is even more mad. Wherever you are, live without clinging. All is a dream. Keep the sense of witnessing alive wherever you are. Let it steady in the shop; let it steady in the temple; let it steady in the marketplace. Let the memory of the witness grow dense. By and by, all grasping and dropping will drop. Grasping will drop, and dropping will drop. Then know you are a sannyasin.

This is my definition of sannyas: neither grasping remains, nor renouncing. Both are the two sides of the same coin, the two halves of the same delusion. There is no difference between indulger and renunciate. They stand back-to-back perhaps, but they hold the same view: It is mine. One clenches a fist; the other throws away. Both share the delusion—mine. Years pass and the renunciate keeps boasting, I kicked millions!

I knew a sannyasin. Whenever we met he reminded me, I kicked crores!

One day I asked—tired of hearing it repeatedly—I asked, When was this kick delivered?

He said, About thirty years ago.

Then I said, Let me tell you—your foot never landed.

Meaning?

If thirty years have passed and you still remember it, the kick didn’t land. Had it landed you would have forgotten. Thirty years—it would have been over. But it doesn’t leave you. Your attachment remains. You are still savoring it, still sipping on it.

Renunciation and acquisition are dream dealings. He who is awake is apart from all.

One who awakens is neither a renunciate nor an indulger. He is set apart. Therefore he is hard to recognize. For he appears like the indulgent, and like the renunciate too. He is neither, and both.

He who awakens is apart.

The renunciate is easy to spot, the indulgent is easy to spot. The knower is very hard to recognize. You can recognize Alexander and Mahavira. But Janaka is hard to recognize, for Janaka lives in Alexander’s world and lives like Mahavira. To recognize Janaka requires a deep eye, a very deep eye. Janaka’s life is neither indulgence nor renunciation, but witnessing.

Therefore I call the dialogue of Ashtavakra and Janaka the Mahageeta. Krishna and Arjuna’s dialogue I call simply the Gita. Ashtavakra and Janaka’s dialogue is the great Gita—because there is only one note in it: witness, witness, witness. Neither drop nor grasp—become only the one who sees. If it drops, let it drop; if it comes to hand, let it come. But within, neither the urge to grab nor the urge to drop. Within, no urge at all. A life free of urge is the supreme life.

He who awakens is apart from all.

Whoever wants to awaken—

Let him come to the refuge of the Satguru!

Connect yourself to one who is awake. Without such a connection, recognition will not dawn. This is subtle. Indulgence and renunciation are gross and easy to see. No trouble there.

You know the Jain monk is a renunciate. The man in the bazaar is an indulger. The one sitting in a brothel watching dance—indulger; the one who fled to the forest—renunciate. But what will you do with Janaka? Janaka sits in the palace while courtesans dance, and within is forest; within is silence; within the inner cave; within, the witness. Outside, the play goes on—dancers dancing, goblets being poured—and Janaka is there and yet not there. How will you recognize this rare one? Only by linking with the rare can recognition arise.

Fortunate and fulfilled the rare yogi,
by the Master’s word the word within awakens.

Blessed is he who joins such a being; his very word can awaken you.

Doubt, attachment and delusion—night is dispelled.

His presence dissolves doubt, attachment, delusion. The night of confusion ends; the morning of trust dawns.

The Self, Ram, shines in effortless light.

Near him you begin to dive within. The natural light of the soul begins to be available.

Hold to Ram with an easy, natural attention.

With him you learn—neither grasp the world nor renounce it. If anything is to be held or dropped, let it be Ram. Leave the outer; hold the inner. You are doing the reverse—clutching the outside while letting go within.

Hold to Ram…
Hold only one thing—hold Ram within. Hold the sense of witnessing within.

…with simple, natural attention.

What flows within you is innate. It is birthright. It is your nature. It is not to be brought from anywhere—natural. Attune to that natural meditation.

Afterwards, knowledge dawns of itself.

After that, knowledge comes of its own accord—in a long procession, the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Quran, the Bible. They arrive on their own. But first meditation, first awakening.

Dariya says: blessed is he whose attention has awakened with the Brahman within.

Leave all else. Awaken the remembrance of the Brahman seated within. Then surely there will be a shower of nectar. Then surely the lotus will bloom. Nectar showers, the lotus blossoms!

Enough for today.