Anahad Mein Bisram #2

Amrit Bodhisattva!
To become a theist, it is absolutely essential first to be an atheist. Unfortunate are those who have never tasted atheism, because they will never understand the flavor of theism. Theism rises into being; it needs the backdrop of atheism. Like writing with white chalk on a blackboard: each letter stands out clearly. You can write on a white wall too, but then the letters won’t be visible.

One of the greatest misfortunes of this world is that we make every child a theist before he has become an atheist. Such theism is false; it has no breath in it. It has no wings; it is impotent, lifeless. We thrust toys into a child’s hands—Krishna, Rama, Buddha, Mahavira—before any curiosity has stirred, before any question has arisen, and we have already given the answers! Where there is no question, any answer will be false; there is no scope for an answer. There is no illness and you have begun treatment! You start dosing him with medicine—your medicine will become poison.

And theism has become poison. The whole earth is sick with theism, not with atheism. And man is so foolish he jumps from one extreme to the other without delay. Russia, China, and other communist countries have gone to the other extreme: the child is born, and they begin to teach him atheism.

A taught atheism will be just as hollow as a taught theism. One doesn’t have to teach hunger, thirst, or sleep.

Atheism arises naturally. Its exact meaning is: a curiosity, a longing to know; inquiry, search. It is a journey. Everyone brings its seeds with him. No one needs to be made an atheist, and no one needs to be made a theist. The moment you make, you miss. To make is to fake, to paste a mask. Whether the mask is Hindu, Muslim, Christian, atheist, or communist makes no difference. A mask that others have tied onto you is not your face. And only your own face will do.

Life cannot be lived on loan. Life must be authentic. We should have the patience to wait until curiosity descends of its own accord upon the child. When he asks, we should accompany him—accompany him with great care.

Accompanying does not mean that when he asks, you answer. The question is his; how can the answer be yours? If the question is his, the answer must also be his. Only then will there be fulfillment, only then contentment, only then awakening, Buddhahood.

So when curiosity awakens in a child, when questions arise, when the storms of doubt come, then the mother, father, family, loved ones, teachers should cooperate—not by thrusting answers, but by sharpening his questions, giving them keenness and urgency. Give his questions such depth that until he finds their answers himself, he cannot rest. Give value to his questions.

But who has the time! We are in a hurry to impose our answers. It is our vested interest to do it quickly. The son is born—“Come, let’s give him the sacred thread; let’s have him circumcised; let’s make him a Muslim, a Hindu, a Christian; get him baptized.” As if he has no share in it! This is other people’s hocus-pocus in which he must be trapped. And those who are trapping him were trapped in their turn. Their fathers and grandfathers were trapped; and theirs too. These diseases slide down the generations and grow more and more monstrous, so dense that remedy becomes difficult.

Amrit Bodhisattva, you are blessed that when you came to me you were an atheist. To come to me as an atheist is the precise season—like spring. And your atheism was not draped on you, for who in India would drape you in atheism! It was natural, your own; there was privacy in it, personality. Not only did you fall in love with me—I fell in love with you. Wherever there is authenticity, I pour down like a cloud pregnant with rain.

Amrit Bodhisattva was a socialist—and an important one. The story is that Mao Zedong himself placed Amrit Bodhisattva’s portrait in Peking and saluted it, because Amrit Bodhisattva had occupied a factory in Gujarat and distributed its ownership among the workers. It was the first socialist experiment. In India it was hardly discussed, but in China and Russia it was.

When I met Amrit Bodhisattva, perhaps he had never imagined such a turn would come in life—one he could neither conceive nor dream—that he would become a sannyasin. Nor had his comrades imagined it.

But my own insight is: only the one who has the courage to be an atheist can one day be a sannyasin. Sannyas requires even greater courage than atheism. The one who lacks the courage even to be an atheist and therefore is a theist—his theism is worth two pennies, worthless. Trash. The sooner he is rid of it, the better. If he doesn’t even have the guts to say no, what theism will he ever know! Theism is a great thing. Atheism is the smaller thing; no is always smaller.

Have you noticed—when you say no, you shrink; when you say yes, you expand! And theism means saying yes to existence as a whole. Let all the no’s fall, all denial drop. There is no great difficulty in saying no, because no feeds the ego. That is why we like to say no; no is food for the ego. The more you say no, the more the ego enjoys it. Therefore, where there is no need to say no, even there we don’t miss the opportunity; even there we say no.

Stand at a railway ticket window: you’ll see the clerk has no work, yet he flips files, won’t even look at you. He is saying, “Who are you!” It is a way of saying no. If you intrude and say, “Sir, I need a ticket,” he says, “Be quiet! Don’t disturb my work. Come back in fifteen minutes.”

A small child asks his mother: “May I go out to play?”
“No!”—as if he were asking to commit a crime. There’s sunshine outside, birds, flowers on the trees, a thousand invitations. Neighboring children are laughing and playing. He asks, “May I go out to play?” “No!”—as if the word were kept ready on the tongue.

There is a kick in saying no because power is felt. In yes, power isn’t felt. Anyone with a tiny bit of authority will also say no. Even a peon will say no. He is a peon, sitting on a stool—but when you arrive he will behave as if he were the president: “Wait first! Stop! The boss is busy.”

To say no is a very small thing. If you don’t even have the courage to say that small no, then how will you accept the vast experience of yes?

Atheism is the saying of no. Every child must pass through atheism. It is an essential process. He must learn to say no, because only among the thorns of no will the rose of yes ever bloom.

The one who has truly said no and suffered for it will not go on saying no for long. He will begin to see: no gives no fulfillment, no contentment, no joy. You may give pain to another, but does the other’s pain give you joy? Does the other’s annihilation make you be?

The king of England was sending his ambassador to France. The French emperor of that time was utterly whimsical—so whimsical that no one wanted to go as envoy, because for the smallest thing he could get your head cut off right there in court. First cut off your head, then do anything else.

The man being sent—named Moore—said to the English king, “Look, I have a family, children, a wife, aged parents; please send someone else! That man is crazy. You know I’m hot-tempered too. Things will go wrong between us. If he says even one word that doesn’t suit me, then whether my head remains or not—he’ll have it cut off.”

The English king said, “Moore, don’t worry. If he has your head cut off, I’ll have at least a thousand French heads cut off in England at once. Be at ease!”

Moore said, “If you say so, you’ll do it. But tell me this: will any head among those thousand fit onto my neck? If I am gone, whether you cut a thousand or a lakh—what difference does it make!”

Moore spoke truly. Destroying the other, you do not become. The other’s death is not your life. You can ruin the flowers of another’s garden, but that won’t make champa, chameli, or juhi bloom in yours. Set the neighbor’s house on fire—your hut won’t become a palace.

So the one who has said no—authentically, who is an atheist... My definition of an atheist is: one who has become absorbed in saying no; who says no so much that he says no even to God, no to soul, no to life’s highest values; who says life is only matter and nothing else—mere dust, with no essence, nothing eternal.

For a little while, there may be some fun in saying no. But how long? Soon the thought will dawn: If nothing exists—no God, no truth, no beauty, no goodness, nothing eternal, no deathlessness, no Buddhahood—then life is utterly futile, “a tale told by an idiot—full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

An atheist, if authentic—not Russian or Chinese, because in Russia and China atheism is as false as the theism of India. In India theism is imposed; in China and Russia atheism is imposed. Every imposed thing becomes false. True atheism arises from within—and in every child it does; it should. It is a psychological necessity.

Psychologists say a moment comes in every child’s life when he must say no; only by saying no does he slowly free himself from his parents. Only by saying no will he leave his mother’s sari; otherwise he clings to it. Only by saying no will his individuality flower; otherwise he remains a part of his parents’ world, never separating his own capacity, never polishing his own genius. So the child must necessarily say no.

That biblical story—God telling Adam and Eve: “Do not eat of this tree; it is the tree of knowledge. Beware, I warn you—do not eat its fruit!” They ate the fruit, and the punishment was banishment from Eden. I see the story as profoundly psychological; it happens in every child’s life. It is not a once-upon-a-time event; it recurs inevitably.

Parents say, “Don’t smoke,” and the child smokes. Parents say, “Don’t do that,” and the child does exactly that. In truth, if there is something you don’t want him to do, don’t mention it. What you want him to do—deny him that. For whatever you forbid, the child will break. Only by breaking it can he become free of you.

As one day the child must come out of the mother’s womb, one day he must also come out of the parents’ psychological womb. And there is only one process to come out: he must say no. He must say no to the parents’ religion, no to their principles, no to their code of conduct. Only then will he emerge from that psychological womb and attain to his individuality. That is his real birth. Otherwise, he will remain a gobar-Ganesh—a lump-idol made of dung; a blockhead.

Most children remain gobar-Ganeshes. Parents are delighted with gobar-Ganeshes. They praise them to the skies: “If there is a son, let him be like this! What obedience! Sit here—he sits here. Sit there—he sits there.” A gobar-Ganesh! Sat down and that’s that—if you raise him, he rises; sit him, he sits. But such gobar-Ganeshes have never increased the world’s beauty. What have they given?

Whatever the world has received has come from those children who broke commandments; who went against their parents’ orders; who had courage and dared. Great courage—because a small child is dependent on the parents in every way: food, clothing, education, his entire life depends on them. Yet he puts that dependence at stake and does what he must.

Mulla Nasruddin’s son, Fazlu, cut down an apple tree. Nasruddin thrashed him soundly. Before beating him, he asked, “Did you cut the apple tree? Did you?”

The boy said, “Yes, I did.”

Nasruddin said, “How many times I told you, don’t cut it! Why do you wander in the garden with an axe? You are ruining it! With great difficulty I had planted that tree; in this soil and climate apples don’t grow, but it had begun to bear fruit. You were forbidden, and yet you cut it! And on top of that you admit it!”

The boy said, “You told me the story yourself that America’s first president, Washington, cut down a tree; when his father asked him, he said, ‘Yes, I cut it.’ The father praised him and rewarded him for telling the truth. I’m acting on that basis. And I get a beating!”

Nasruddin said, “I know that story; I told it to you. But bear one thing in mind: when Washington cut the tree, his father was not sitting on it. I was sitting on the tree, you rascal! Was this any time to cut it!”

But however much you harass them, children with even a little talent, a little radiance, will say no; they have to—it is a psychological necessity.

Atheism is the collective name for all this no—the no to doctrines, dogmas, scriptures, tradition, organized interests, established values.

In my view, Amrit Bodhisattva, the one who says no so much inevitably reaches a day when the question arises: What have I gained by this no? Yes, I broke from my parents, became free, stood on my own feet—now what? How to go on? And only then, for the first time, can a ray of theism dawn—if there is the good fortune of meeting a true theist.

You were blessed that you met me. I gave you the name Amrit Bodhisattva. I used two words for you—exactly those two you had been denying. Amrit—meaning the Eternal, the deathless that always is; and Bodhisattva—one who has known it, recognized it, experienced it; who has attained Buddhahood. I gave you those two words against the entire blackboard of your forty years of atheism. Against that background they stand out.

You say, “For forty years I was an atheist. After wasting my life in socialist ideology, I have been in touch with you for fifteen years. And the joy and celebration I have experienced—how can I describe it!”

In these fifteen years, hundreds of thousands have come into contact with me, but not all have experienced the joy and celebration you have. The reason was your atheism. You were ready; your background was prepared. Theists have also come, but since their theism was false, their contact with me remained false. A wall remained between us. You were exposed, naked. There was no wall between you and me. You had already thrown off all your garments. You stood naked in the sun. My contact with you could be direct.

When a theist comes here, he has great difficulty, because his beliefs stand in the way. He wants me to support his beliefs. And I am not his enemy—so how can I support his beliefs! If I support them, there will never be a revolution in his life. I have to break them. You had no beliefs; half the work had been done by you. You had erased the old; only the new had to be built. That is easy. The real problem is to erase the old, because we are attached to it. Everyone becomes eager to build something new, but attachment to the old is fierce.

I have heard: there was an old church. It was on the verge of collapse—so decrepit that even to enter and pray was frightening; a gust of wind would make it tremble and creak. Now it falls, now it falls! Leave others aside—even the priest didn’t go inside; he would pray from outside and go away.

At last the church elders met. They said, “We must do something. People have stopped going to the church; not only that, they have stopped even passing by—who knows when it might fall. And the church is old.”

And the older something is, the more valuable people believe it to be. This is a strange notion: the older, the more valuable. Even if it is dead and rotting, it becomes more valuable. Only the corpse remains, the skeleton is left—more valuable still. People go mad trying to prove their religion is the oldest; they have no care for truth or lies. They turn even jaggery into manure. Prove it old, it must be old!

On sound scientific grounds it’s clear the Vedas are not more than five thousand years old; but Lokmanya Tilak spent his life trying to prove they are ninety thousand years old. Why? What kind of madness is this? Old must mean valuable! The older, the more valuable! As if religion were wine: the older, the costlier. All religions are engaged in this effort, striving to outdo one another.

Christians used to believe the earth was created four thousand and four years before Jesus. So “Vedas ninety thousand years old” becomes absurd—the time wasn’t there! But there is clear evidence that time is far older.

Do they listen to evidence? Do the blind listen to evidence? Christian priests found a clever argument: the evidence is correct, but God has placed it there to test the faithful. He who could make the world can do anything! He put bones in the ground that appear ninety thousand years old—but they are not. This is to test who has true faith and who is fake.

Lokmanya Tilak says the Vedas are ninety thousand years old. Jains get delighted: “Quite right! They must be, because the Rigveda mentions our first Tirthankara. So certainly our first Tirthankara is older than your Rigveda—and with great respect!”

Such is man’s habit: does anyone respect a living saint? We insult the living; we revere the dead. It’s simple arithmetic. The living saint earns abuse; the dead saint earns honor. Jesus is crucified first; then for two thousand years he is worshiped in thousands of churches. Socrates is given hemlock; then for twenty-five centuries every philosophy book declares no philosopher greater than he. It is all remorse—nothing else.

A person who arrives full of doctrines makes things difficult for me. He wants me to fulfill his notions. How can I?

Ajaykrishna is here. Kammu Baba is harassing him—standing between him and me. Kammu Baba is not standing—Ajaykrishna has placed him there. That Baba has already gone; yet Ajaykrishna hides behind him still. He brings everything to Kammu Baba. Kammu Baba said: always honor your parents; do not go against their wishes. Ajaykrishna wants to take sannyas, but his mother says, “That would hurt me.” How can he take sannyas? Kammu Baba said: never hurt your parents!

But ask: how much hurt must Kammu Baba have caused his own parents! Otherwise, could he have become Kammu Baba? Will these Ajaykrishnas ever become Kammu Babas by such obedience? Think! You would be hard-pressed even to find the address of Kammu Baba’s parents. He must have fled causing them sorrow, never looking back.

But no—our notions must be fulfilled.

Someone asked Gurdjieff, “All scriptures say: honor your father and mother. Why?” Gurdjieff said, “There is a reason—a divine trick.”

The man was startled. Gurdjieff was unique, and such men speak uniquely. “A divine trick?”

Gurdjieff said, “Certainly a divine trick. God knows well: the one who honors parents will also honor God. The one who doesn’t care even for his parents—what care will he have for God! God is the great Father. If he has pushed the small father aside, who will worry about the Father in heaven? We will see when we meet Him! And the conditioning begins here. If here you remain afraid of small parents, then before the great Father you will tremble and fall on your knees: ‘O Lord, have mercy, save me, protect me! I am fallen; you are the savior of the fallen!’”

Gurdjieff spoke truly: all scriptures say it—if not God’s trick, certainly the priests’. Parents say: honor the priest. Priests say: honor the parents. Priests support parents; parents support priests. They are two parts of the same conspiracy.

But whenever you go to someone like Buddha, Mahavira, or Jesus, there can be no endorsement of your notions.

Ajaykrishna has become so nervous that yesterday he asked a question under a false name. The question under the name Navalkishore D.D.K. was his. I know Navalkishore; I’ve known him for years. He has never asked a question. Suddenly he would? Unlikely. And he can’t—he’s afraid of his father. If his father, D.D., found out he asked a question here, he would break his hands and legs. Ajaykrishna asked it and wrote his friend’s name—Navalkishore. He must have asked permission to use the name, or informed him after—or perhaps not. Kammu Baba never said: “Never ask a question under a friend’s name!”

Even when Ajaykrishna listens to the talk, he doesn’t sit here in Buddha Hall; he sits outside, in the garden. Dangerous to sit so close—who knows, you might get hypnotized; for a moment you might forget Kammu Baba; some word might go down the throat! So he sits near the door—if some word does catch him, at least there’s an escape: he can dash out the door! The body is a little weighty; better to stay by the door. From this side if you bolt, some guard might catch you; and in the meantime the word might do its work. Sometimes a single word is enough. Better to move with safety.

When Amrit Bodhisattva came to me he was an atheist, a socialist—both helped. There was no loss in that. Being an atheist, there was nothing for me to demolish; he himself had razed the old church. The ground was clear.

I told you that story of the old church. People became afraid, gathered together, and said, “What to do? The church is old; it isn’t right to demolish it. And it cannot be saved either. So some middle way.” They found a middle path and passed four resolutions—unanimously:
1) We are very sad, but compelled—Lord, forgive us—that we must demolish Your old church.
2) Although we will demolish the old church, we vow that in the new church we will not put a single new thing. We will use the old church’s doors, its windows and glass, the old idols and stones, the old bricks—everything old!
3) Until the new church is built, we will not demolish the old one. When the new stands ready, then we will bring the old down.
4) And we will build the new church exactly where the old stands—the same foundation, same site, same plan, same style.

And these fools didn’t see what they were resolving! But this is man’s foolishness. We clutch the past tightly; it gives great consolation.

When Amrit Bodhisattva came to me, he had no past. I was delighted. I am always delighted when I see an atheist. People come dragging Kammu Baba, or Muinuddin Baba, or Nizamuddin Baba—I think, “First go smash your head on these babas! Somehow tunnel through the babas, then perhaps you might be seen.” They are hidden far behind. And often it isn’t just one baba; babas are rarely found alone. One baba—and behind him more and more babas. A whole queue, a lineage, a silsila.

Whenever I see an atheist, I feel exhilarated. Provided his atheism is his own. His slate is blank; one can work on it. His canvas is empty; a painting can arise. His mirror is clean; the image of the Divine can appear.

And you were a socialist, Amrit Bodhisattva—that helped too. Only the socialist can truly understand the value of the individual. Life is a strange arithmetic! Those in whose lives there is no clear contour of socialism also have no clear outline of the person. They remain part of the crowd; and because their idea of society is unclear, they do not have the capacity to separate and see the individual.

What does “socialist” mean? It means the individual has no value; he is merely a tool for society, a means. Society is the end; the person is the means. The individual can be sacrificed to society.

But the reality is: “society” is only a word. Have you ever encountered society? Go looking and you’ll always meet a person. The person is the reality; society is a mere name. Pretty words—society, humanity—mislead and befog. People come to me and say, “We love humanity.” I say, “Love a human being. How will you love humanity? Will you embrace ‘humanity’?” It’s a trick to escape the human. You want to avoid the person who is real; you have found a lovely word—humanity—an airy word with nothing in it. Empty words that we carry like flags—“May our flag fly high!” And what is a flag? A piece of cloth tied to hide a stick. When you say, “May the flag be high,” understand: you’re saying, “May our stick be high.” But if you say, “May our stick be high,” other sticks will rise: “Who are you to raise your stick?” “May the flag be high”—fine, what’s the harm in a flag? But inside the flag, it is the stick that is raised.

“We love humanity! We love divinity! We love truth! We love beauty!” But reality? Reality is different. You won’t find “beauty”; you will find a beautiful flower, a beautiful sun, moon, and stars. Some beautiful element will be found, but not “beauty.” These are hollow words—but they become so important that we sacrifice reality for them.

Socialists sacrificed the person. In Russia, by estimate Stalin killed ten million people—and without hesitation, without guilt. Why? Because of a lofty word! “I am not killing for myself. This is not violence. This is an offering on the altar of socialism. These are those who obstruct the coming of socialism; they must be sacrificed.”

Individuals are killed for socialism; and what is socialism for? For individuals. What a vicious circle! Socialism is for persons, and persons are slaughtered for socialism. Stalin’s logic is old, not new: “The lower can be sacrificed for the higher.”

But beware: does the “higher” even exist, or is it merely an empty word?

People wage war for peace. What fun! “Peace,” they say—and they make war; “We are protecting peace!” It was engraved on Muhammad’s sword: “Peace is my religion.” Engraved on a sword! And he named his religion Islam: Islam means peace. And yet perhaps no religion has spread as much unrest. By the strength of the sword Islam was forced upon millions. And this is the religion of peace!

Hindus speak of tolerance—and for thousands of years no one has oppressed the shudras as Hindus have. And tolerant! They claim to see God in every particle—yet not in the shudra; not in the woman. Woman is the gateway to hell! What fun! “Every particle is suffused with Rama; the whole world is Sita-Rama”—but ask them about Sita separately: the gateway to hell! Sita Ma the gateway to hell; joined to Rama it’s suddenly heaven. They can see God in every speck, but not in the shudra.

Hindus have done with women and shudras what perhaps no one else has done. And this is the religion of tolerance, the religion of love, of universal brotherhood! Our boast: “The whole world is our family.” And we couldn’t make the shudra part of the family! Leave the shudra aside—we couldn’t even make the woman our equal!

Jains believe that from a woman’s state no one can be liberated. What fun! And these same Jains say: you are not the body; you are the soul. Do you see the contradictions? Are souls male or female? Only the body is male or female. If one is not the body, then when someone attains meditation, will that person be male or female? Yet the Jains say: from a woman’s state there is no liberation.

A Jain woman—God knows by what oversight, she must have been supremely courageous—became a Tirthankara. She surely gave the Jains a hard time. Her name was Mallibai. The Jains must have suffered! She must have been powerful enough to “make the Jains drink water”—and it seems she gave it unstrained! For, from a woman’s state there is no liberation—and she declared she was a Tirthankara. Not only liberated, but entitled to liberate others—tremendous courage.

But see the Jain trick: they changed her name. Not Mallibai, but Mallinath. So when you read the list of Jain Tirthankaras you won’t even know there’s a woman in it. Neminath, Parshvanath—and Mallinath. What trickery! She was a woman—a “bai”—but they made her a “nath.” If you admit “bai,” the whole scripture goes haywire. If a woman can be a Tirthankara, then how will you call woman the gateway to hell?

Jains speak of the soul, yet are stuck in the body—even now talking female-male. Lofty words!

Krishna said to Arjuna, “Do not worry about killing, because the soul never dies.” What an astounding doctrine! If the soul never dies, then kill with abandon. If this is true, what fault is Hitler’s? Stalin’s? Mao Zedong’s? What fault is Nathuram Godse’s? If God has already killed, then he is only an instrument. And if not a leaf moves without God’s will, how will you kill? He must already have killed; if you don’t, someone else will.

Through lovely words we hide mountains on the human chest. “The soul never dies, so kill without worry.” “Without God’s nod, even a leaf can’t stir.” Good words—and what they conceal!

Socialism is a pretty word, a sweet word—but utterly false. In the world there are persons; there is no society. There are human beings, not “humanity.”

When you came to me, drenched in socialist ideology and atheism, I saw the possibility. By then you were weary of socialism; you had seen its hollowness. You had lived atheism and seen its futility. From there, the flower of sannyas could bloom. So I named you Amrit Bodhisattva. And today that moment has arrived when you can say: now life is joy, celebration—and how to describe it! It cannot be described.

You say, “Having met you, everything has been found!”

To say it becomes difficult. Whatever is essential remains unsaid.

Who knows the art of the savior—whom should I call?
Speak, O fierce loneliness, whom should I call?
Reading and reading, my eyes are sore,
The lamp of sight is dimming—whom should I call?
If I stay silent, each breath bites like a serpent;
Even a sigh brings disgrace—whom should I call?
Alas, in this jungle of hardship, whom should I call?
With whom do I have acquaintance—whom should I call?
Yawn upon yawn—God preserve us, God protect!
Stretch upon stretch—whom should I call?
Ah, these arms of silence beguiling the heart,
Ah, this shehnai of stillness—whom should I call?
Moonlit lancets run across life,
The evening breeze pricks the heart—whom should I call?

Now it will be difficult to speak; to give voice will be difficult.

Ah, these arms of silence beguiling the heart,
Ah, this shehnai of stillness—whom should I call?

But the shehnai that is playing within you—I can hear it, whether you speak or not. Even if you wish to say it, you will not be able to.

Yesterday Amrit Bodhisattva was present in darshan. For a moment I too was startled—such transformation! Such revolution! You are new, like a newborn child. Whether you say it or not, I hear the shehnai within you.

Aroopananda!
Have you forgotten so soon? Only yesterday I said—
Our caste is Brahman; our mother and father are Ram.
Our home is in shunya; in anahad we repose.

What more do you need? For parents, write Ram; for caste, Brahman; for religion, Shunya; and for language, Anahad.

Our caste is Brahman; our mother and father are Ram.
Our home is in shunya; in anahad we repose.

First of all, Krishna Satyarthi, am I some famous person? Call me notorious—fine! I even have a taste for notoriety; I have no taste for fame.
And you call me a religious guru! Then who will be the irreligious guru? Leave such nice titles for Acharya Tulsi, Vinoba Bhave, the Shankaracharya of Puri, and the rest. My work can get along with notoriety; it can get along even with being an irreligious guru.
As for the matter of imitation, have compassion on them. What can they do? They are helpless! They have no awareness of their own, no experience of their own. They imitate—and they don’t even know how to imitate; that’s another matter!

Meditation means the search within for one’s original nature. Meditation cannot be borrowed, cannot be stale, and certainly cannot be an imitation. What have these poor fellows to do with meditation!

Only one thing is pricking them: that my words are reaching the far corners of the world, millions are being stirred. They feel this is the stumbling block: surely there must be something in my words because so many people are being affected. And lest they be deprived of that impact, lest they lag behind, lest they be left behind in this race—therefore imitate. Imitate the very words. Perhaps there is something in the words.

Tell them all: there is nothing in the words; it is in the person. However much you copy the words, nothing will happen. In this way you will not attain to meditation, and those you are leading into meditation you are also misleading and deluding. For that too you commit a sin.

Have compassion on them; do not be angry. And there is no need to take any concern about them.

That’s all for today.