Athato Bhakti Jigyasa #1

Athato bhakti-jijñasa!
This morning, this hush among the trees, the birds’ chirping… or the wind moving through the branches, the stillness of the mountains… or rivers descending from the hills… or the stir, the resonance of waves in the oceans… or the thunder rumbling in the sky—this all is Omkar.

Omkar means: the essence-sound; the quintessence of all sound. Om is not some mantra; it is the name of the soul hidden in all meters and measures. Wherever there is song, there is Om. Wherever there is speech, there is Om. Wherever there is sound, there is Om.

And this whole world is filled with sounds. The origin of this world is in sound. The life of this world is in sound; and the dissolution of this world too is in sound.

From Om all is born, in Om all lives, in Om all one day dissolves. That which is the beginning is also the end. And that which is the beginning and the end is the middle as well—how could the middle be otherwise!

The Gospel says: In the beginning was God, and God was with the Word, and God was the Word; and through that Word all came to be.

It speaks of Omkar. If I speak, it is Om. If you listen, it is Om. If we sit in silence, it is Om. Wherever there is rhythm, there is Om. Even in silence—remember—where no audible tone is born, there too a hidden tone abides—the music of silence! The music of the void! When you are quiet, a song still streams, softly, softly. When words do not form, the subtlest meter still gathers. It is unmanifest, inexpressed; yet it is. So in emptiness and in word alike, Om is immersed.

Om is like the ocean. We are like fish in that ocean.

Understand this Om. It has not been rightly understood. People think it is a mantra to be repeated. It is not about repetition. Only when a deep inner rhythm flowers in you will you understand what Om is. Not by being a Hindu. Not by reciting the Vedas. Not by decorating a puja plate and muttering Om. When your life becomes a festival, then you will understand. When song breaks open in your life, then you will understand. When streams begin to flow within you, then you will understand.

The beginning with Om is wondrous.

Om. Athato bhakti-jijñasa!
In that Om everything has been included; now there will be elaboration. For those who know, Om has said it all. For those who do not know, the matter must be spread out in words. Otherwise the scripture is complete with Om.

Om is made of three sounds: A U M. These are the three primal tones; all other sounds are variations upon them. This is the true Triveni—the confluence—A U M. This is the Trimurti. These are the three faces of the Word-Brahman.

All scriptures are encompassed in A U M. Whether Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jain—no difference. Whatever has been said till now, and what remains unsaid as well, is contained in these three sounds. Utter Om, and all is uttered. Know Om, and all is known. Hence the Vedas declare that one who has known Om has nothing more left to know.

Surely this is not about the Om you chant in your prayer room. That Om will be understood only when it reveals itself like the fragrance of your whole life.

There is a great arrhythmia in your life. Your life is a broken, battered sitar, whose strings are either too slack or too taut; and you have forgotten the very science of how to place the fingers upon it; you do not know the language of how to play it, how to make it resonate. You sit with the sitar in your lap; the music hidden in it waits for you, and life is full of pain. All this pain can be transformed: sing, hum; let the inner river flow; dance.

Bhakti is life’s supreme acceptance. So it is auspicious that Shandilya begins this incomparable garland of sutras with Om. Rightly so, because bhakti is the method of birthing music in life. The day you become musical, the day not a single note remains within you that creates discord, the day you are no longer off-key—that day the meeting with the Beloved happens. The Beloved is not elsewhere—He is in harmony, in rhythm. The day the dance becomes total, the song finds its voice, the inner meter unfurls in freedom, in that very instant union with the Divine is.

That is why the Vedas say those who have known Om have nothing left to know. This is not the Om written in scriptures, but the cadence experienced in life, lived and felt.

Gayatri is hidden within you, as is the Bhagavad Gita. The verses of the Quran stir and ache within you—free them! A great sob is inside you—like a tree whose flowers have not blossomed; like a river that, because of rocks, could not flow and meet the sea. Do you know the sorrow of a tree that bears no flowers? It’s a kind of being and not-being. Until the flowers come, the fragrance lying hidden in its life—the scent that longs to be released from the roots, to take wing like a bird into the sky, to spread its feathers, to speak with moon and stars—so many days in the prison of roots it has lain—it longs to snap all chains; until that fragrance is freed through flowers, how can the tree be fulfilled? Where is contentment then? What peace? What joy? Until then the tree is sad. You are that tree.

Om lies within you—bound, in chains. Free it! Sing! Dance! Dance so fully that the dancer disappears and only the dance remains—in that instant you will recognize Om. Sing so wholly that the singer is no more, only the song remains—in that moment you become the Bhagavad Gita. The moment no singer is inside and the singing flows of its own accord, in that moment you become the Quran. On that day, the supreme poetry is born within you. On that day life is no longer ordinary—it becomes extraordinary. On that day a radiance dawns, an aura arises.

Therefore the beginning is with Om. In this Om is the indication that you are like a tree whose flowers have not yet bloomed. And without flowers there is no satisfaction, no fulfillment.

Om. Athato bhakti-jijñasa.

And if it occurs to you that my flowers have not bloomed yet, my fruits have not formed yet, my spring has not come; the song I had brought I have not yet sung; the dance lying in my feet—I have not even tied the anklets—has not yet burst forth—if this you understand, then “athato bhakti-jijñasa”—now the inquiry into devotion. Before this, there can be no inquiry into bhakti.

The very meaning of the inquiry into bhakti is this: I am still broken, I need to be made whole; I am still incomplete, I need to be complete; there are lacks, there are a thousand limitations on me—I must break all boundaries and flow; I am a drop now and must become the ocean. Athato bhakti-jijñasa! Only then will you enter the inquiry.

Let us understand: what is bhakti?

There is an element within us which we call love—priti. It is on this element that we live. Even if we live wrongly, our base is still love. Someone is busy accumulating wealth; money is on the surface, but inside he lives by love—he loves money. Someone is mad after status; the position is secondary, what he loves is prestige. Search anywhere, and you will find love. Someone has gone to a brothel, someone has murdered another—in sinner and saint alike you will find one element together: love. The difference arises in what the love is attached to. Attach it to money and you become money. You become shards. You die as decaying scraps of paper currency. What you love, that you become.

This is a basic truth; keep it safe in your heart. Love is a costly bargain—don’t give it to just anyone. You will become like whomever you love. Love only if you’re willing to become that. Love means precisely this: I want to become this. A politician comes to the village and you rush in crowds with garlands—what does it show? Deep down you want position and prestige; hence the worship of position and prestige. A fakir comes to the village and you rush to him too; that too reveals your love—that you are yearning to be a fakir—to be free of all clinging, to reach that moment of release. Someone listens to music and slowly a shadow of music falls across his consciousness. What you love, you become; those you love, you become like.

Thus love is transformative. Love is inner alchemy. And no one can live without love. Love is as indispensable as breath. As the body lives by breath, the soul lives by love. If there is no love in your life, you will be driven to suicide. If the bridge of your love breaks, you will be driven to suicide. Your house burned down and all your wealth burned; you committed suicide—what are you really saying? You are saying: that house was me, that was my love. Now that it is gone, what meaning is left in my staying? Your wife died and you killed yourself—what are you saying? You are saying: she was the base of my love. When my love was devastated, my world collapsed. Now there is no substance in my living.

We identify ourselves with our love. No one can live without love. Living is possible only by the support of love. As the body cannot remain without breath, the soul cannot remain without love. If there is love, the soul abides. Even if love is misplaced, still the soul abides. But love—love is needed—right or wrong.

Now, love has many modes; they should be understood. One mode of love is for wife or husband, for friends, brothers, sisters. We call that prem—love. Prem means: with one who is on equal ground. Neither above you nor below you; one like you, whom you can embrace—that is love. When love happens between equals, we call it prem.

Another form of love is for mother, father, or guru; that is shraddha—reverence. Someone is above you; love must climb a mountain. Therefore shraddha is difficult. In shraddha, you wager yourself. In shraddha, there is ascent. Hence very few people have the kind of love called reverence. Who truly loves their parents? People perform duties. They show. Formalities. You have to show. But where is love! To love someone above you requires the courage to climb. And remember: as high as you love, so high you begin to rise; your consciousness moves upward. This is why, for centuries, we have valued shraddha so deeply—because shraddha transforms a person, takes one beyond oneself. Your hands start lifting beyond you, your feet begin to move toward an upward journey. Your eyes meet high peaks and accept their challenge.

Where there is no shraddha in a life, there is no growth. It cannot be. If someone has reverence for Mahavira, he will grow; for Buddha, he will grow; for Krishna, he will grow; for Christ, he will grow. Growth comes through reverence; Krishna and Christ are merely pegs. Where you hang your reverence is secondary. But hang your reverence somewhere. It is not of great importance whether you choose Mahavira or Mohammed, Krishna or Christ. The value lies in this: you chose a worthy object of shraddha. You chose someone beyond you. You chose one in the sky—like a snow-white peak. The very choosing starts the journey—your eyes begin to lift upward. You stop crawling, rooted to the ground. Your wings start to flutter. If not today, tomorrow you will fly. Because once love-as-reverence has happened, you must go to its object. Even if the journey is difficult, you will go. Even if there are a thousand obstacles, you will go. When love takes hold, the hardships do not seem like hardships.

So one form of love is shraddha—toward someone above you. It is upward-moving. Another is prem—toward your equals. That takes you nowhere; you go round and round like the oil-press bullock. Wife is like you, husband is like you, friend is like you. People choose those like themselves; they are attracted to their own kind. Attraction to one greater than oneself seems risky. Why? Because first, to accept someone as higher is against the ego. To accept a guru is against the ego. The egoist cannot accept a guru. He finds a thousand excuses to prove there is no guru at all. Where are the gurus now! They were in the Golden Age; this is the Dark Age! All stories, all fancies. He protects himself. For in choosing a guru you declare that you are accepting the challenge. You cannot end where you are; you have to rise.

So people choose their own kind. With them there is nowhere to go; only to quarrel here. Husband and wife will go on fighting; like the oil-press bullock, repeating the same thing every day—the same yesterday, the same tomorrow; a whole life passes in repetition. No movement. None can be.

The third love is sneha—tenderness—for those below you: children, pupils, disciples. We easily consent to those below us. Truthfully, we are delighted. That is why you are so overjoyed when a son is born to you. What is this delight? It is that in comparison you are now the greater.

You know the story: Akbar drew a line in court and said, “Make it shorter without touching it.” None could. Birbal drew a longer line below it; without touching it, the first became shorter. If he had drawn a shorter line, that would have made the first longer—without touching it.

Why do you take such delight in sons and daughters? At least there is someone who looks up to you and considers you big! Your ego is gratified. That is why being a disciple is hard; being a guru seems easy.

A disciple came to a guru: “Will you accept me? I have come to be initiated.”

The guru said, “It will be difficult. The path is arduous. Will you manage? Are you qualified?”

The young man asked, “What will I have to do? What is so difficult?”

The guru said, “You will have to do what I say. For years you will be cutting wood in the forest, grazing the ashram’s cattle, sweeping, cooking—only this. When I find your surrender is right, when your strings are tuned, then experiments with truth will begin—then meditation and tapas.”

The youth asked, “This is a big hassle. How many years will it take—this going to the forest, cutting wood, cooking, cleaning, grazing cattle?”

The guru said, “There is no telling. It depends on when you are ready. When you are ready—then. It could take years; sometimes even lifetimes.”

The youth said, “Let that be then. It does not appeal to me. What must one do to be a guru?”

The guru said, “To be a guru—nothing. Sit as I sit and go on giving orders.”

The youth said, “Then do that—make me the guru. That I like.”

Who doesn’t want to become a guru! You too miss no chance. If you find someone who needs advice, whether you are qualified to give it or not, you will certainly give it. You won’t miss the opportunity. Let someone fall into trouble, you catch him by the neck. You start pouring advice down him. And such advice as you never followed in your own life; advice you never lived and never will. But someone once grabbed your neck and poured it down you; now you are settling scores by passing it on.

So much advice is given in the world—but who takes it? Have you ever taken anyone’s advice? And note it well: whoever used your helpless hour to advise you—you are still offended with him; you have not forgiven him. Because you were vulnerable and he took advantage. Your house was on fire and some wise man began telling you: What’s there to cling to! The world is burning anyway! All will burn! All will be left behind—when the caravan moves on! Hey, what is there here! You know all that, but your house is burning and this gentleman finds it a good moment to preach! Your wife has died and someone says the soul is immortal! You feel like setting him right on the spot. My wife died, and he remembers philosophy! And you very well know that when his wife died he too wept; and if tomorrow his son dies he will weep again. Then you will have your chance to take revenge—you too will advise him.

Advice is mutual insult. Advice says: I know, you don’t; I am wise, you are ignorant. You are seizing the chance to play guru. Examine your life a little. Ready to advise everyone! Someone smokes and you itch to tell him smoking is bad. And you are chewing betel! But chewing betel is different! Still, you won’t miss the chance to advise. Your father advised you and you never listened. Yet you pour the same counsel on your sons. They won’t listen either. You didn’t. Who listens to advice? Why not? Because the giver enjoys his ego; the receiver’s ego is hurt.

Children are born in your house, you are delighted. You have acquired helpless creatures whom you can mold as you wish; send them where you like; whatever you command, they must obey.

Psychologists say that no one has been abused as consistently in history as children. Not even the slave is as enslaved as your child—because he is helpless, dependent on you; he cannot live without you. A small baby: without milk, care, protection—he will die, he cannot live. His life is at stake. You do not miss this chance. You take full advantage—more than full. Though you say you love him and hence you act so. But if you really search within, become a little alert, you will find you are savoring the taste of ego. No one else listens to you; your child must.

So which son can forgive his father? None. And if the chance comes when you grow old and weak, helpless, become childlike—then your son will take revenge. Then you will be scolded for the smallest things. You will writhe and say, What sin have I committed? I raised you, I poured my life into you, and you take revenge on me? What ingratitude!

No—examine carefully. You must have inflated your ego aplenty. The wounds in this son are still raw. We behave most inhumanely toward children. And we go on saying we have great tenderness—sneha.

The love for those below you is called sneha. In my view, true and right tenderness toward those below is possible only when there is shraddha—reverence—toward those above; otherwise it is false. One who has proper reverence for those above will have proper tenderness for those below. And one more revolution happens in such a person—he develops proper love for equals. The meter of love is set in his life. Toward the small there is right tenderness, his love flows like a stream—unconditional. He does not bind with clauses: If you do this I will love you; if you become that I will love you. He does not say: When you grow up become this kind of person; since I am a Hindu you must be a Hindu; since I am a communist you must be a communist; since I am a Christian you must remain Christian; I want you to become a doctor, an engineer, so you must become an engineer. No, he holds no insistence. He says: I loved you, and in loving I was delighted; you lightened me. As a cloud is lightened by raining upon the earth, so by raining upon you I was lightened. I am obliged. Become whatever you wish to become; I will support you—whatever you wish to become—but I will not try to make you something in particular. Who am I? You are free. You are a soul unto yourself.

But such love, such tenderness is possible only in one whose life has known reverence and who has sat in the company of a guru. A guru is one who gives you so much freedom that he supports you in becoming whatever you wish; he opens all his treasures before you—choose—and he doesn’t even expect a thank-you. Only when you have met a guru will you be capable of right tenderness toward those below you. Otherwise your tenderness is a noose. And when you have reverence for those above and tenderness for those below, then in the middle love happens; otherwise it does not. Only then will you truly be able to love your wife or your husband. And in that love great flowers bloom, great fragrance arises. In that love, great music is born.

These are the three ordinary states of love. And when all three become right, when their strings are tuned and they fall into cadence, then the fourth, supreme state arises—that is called bhakti. Athato bhakti-jijñasa! One who has known sneha, who has known prem, who has known shraddha—and in whom the strings of all three have come together, and through them an unparalleled aura of joy has arisen—only such a person can be skilled in bhakti. Bhakti is the culmination of love.

Bhakti means love for the All-Self. Having loved the lesser, the equal, the greater—now the All, now God.

Remember again and again: God is not a person. If in your mind God is a person, then what you will do is shraddha. Then there will be no difference between shraddha and bhakti. God becomes a person like the guru—higher, very high perhaps, but still reverence. There is a distinction between shraddha and bhakti.

Paramatma means the All. The day your love flows in all directions causelessly, without motive—to trees, to mountains, to stones, to moon and stars, to the seen and the unseen—when your love meets the totality; when there are no boundaries left to your love—that day is bhakti.

Om. Athato bhakti-jijñasa!
“Now, therefore, let us inquire into devotion.”

Sāparānuraktih īshvare.
“Bhakti is supreme, total love for Ishvara (the Divine).”

This is how it is translated here and there in Hindi. The original is clearer. The translation says: “Bhakti is complete love for God.” The original says: sā-parā-nuraktih. Parā. Those three loves were called apara—lower—shraddha, prem, sneha. They are worldly.

Remember, even shraddha is worldly. An atheist also can have shraddha. After all, the communist has reverence for Karl Marx and for Das Kapital. The atheist too reveres, he too has gurus. One who follows Charvaka reveres Charvaka. One who follows Epicurus reveres Epicurus. He too has gurus, scriptures, doctrines, and pilgrimages. If Mecca is a pilgrimage for Muslims, Moscow is one for communists—still a pilgrimage. If someone’s Kaaba is the Kremlin, it remains a pilgrimage. With equal devotion, worship, and reverence people go to Moscow as others go to Kashi, to Kaaba, to Girnar.

Shraddha is worldly. We revere one from whom we have learned something. If you learned theft from someone, he becomes your guru and you will revere him. A sinner too reveres; a wicked man too reveres—whoever has taught him becomes his guru.

Bhakti is different from shraddha.

The sutra says: “sā-parā-nuraktih!”

Those were apara—of this world—prem, sneha, shraddha. Beyond them there is a pure form of love. Shandilya calls that parā-anurakti—supreme love. Whatever the object of that parā love is—that is what Ishvara is.

Now do not think there is some God apart on whom you must pour your love, toward whom you must concentrate your love. No—if you imagine a God and then center your love upon him, that is shraddha. The day your love is freed from all objects—when there is no sneha, no prem, no shraddha; the day your love becomes pure love; only love; the natural state of your heart—that day, wherever you flow, that is God. Everywhere is God.

Sāparānuraktih īshvare.

Parā-anurakti is total. You love your child, but not so much that if the time came to choose—only one can live, you or your son—you would choose to die. Most likely you will save yourself. You will say: more sons can be born. There was love, but not enough to lose yourself.

You say you love your wife; you say you will die without her. But if today a killer arrived and said, “One of you must die,” you would tell your wife, “What are you waiting for? Get ready! I am your lord! Husband is god!” You would not be ready to die. These are words!

So what does total love mean?

Total love means: now you are ready to let yourself go. In apara love, you remain. So long as you remain, everything is fine; but when it comes time to wager your very self, you back off. In parā love, you place yourself on the line. You say: I am a drop that wants to lose itself in the ocean. I am a seed that wants to lose itself in the earth. Between God and myself, I choose God, I choose the Whole; I want to leap beyond all my limits.

So long as this house of glass remains
There remains the fear of the stone
In every courtyard a burning jungle
Doorways guarded by snakes
In the trickle of light still
It seems some darkness lingers

So long as this house of sand remains
There remains the fear of the waves
From every peg hangs
The scarred face of the season
The noise is stalled on the road
The alleys are deep in silence

So long as this house of kohl remains
There remains the fear of the mirror
Each moment the earth is cracking
Each particle melting away
Some python is slowly
Swallowing sun and moon

So long as this house of gunpowder remains
There remains the fear of the spark

So long as we take ourselves to be one with the body, there is fear—of illness, of old age, of death. When the eyes begin to seek the hidden God everywhere, when the inquiry into bhakti arises, when one wants to know: What is life’s supreme essence? What is the ultimate ground of life? When one wants to know: I don’t want the waves now, I want the ocean. I don’t want expressions now, I want the invisible hidden within all expressions. When one has seen within: there is the body which is seen, and there is the I which is unseen…

Have you ever considered that no one has ever seen you? Neither your wife nor your children nor your friends have seen you. Nor have you seen your wife. What is seen is the body—you remain unseen. Sit quietly someday and think. No one has seen you yet. Even if someone looks into your eyes, they still cannot see you. Yet you are—other than eyes, other than ears, other than hands and feet—other than this body, you are. You know well—this is your natural experience—that you are distinct from it. Your hand may be cut off, yet you are not cut. Close your eyes and still within you see—without eyes you see. You are within. You are consciousness. You are invisible. As this small invisible is hidden within you, so too the invisible is hidden in the whole cosmos. The visible is evident; we fail to recognize the invisible.

To fall in love with that invisible is called bhakti.

Then what fear? Let the visible be snatched away. If, at the price of the visible, the Vast Invisible is gained—if this puny body must go, let it go. It is a cheap bargain. If by the going of this body the meeting with the Vast happens, union with the Beloved—who would be mad enough to cling to the body? But this realization must deepen within; otherwise the moment for bhakti-jijñasa has not arrived.

What
withering by noon
was that dawn at all?
Is life’s face, after all,
turned toward death?

So it is. We are all moving toward death. The day it becomes clear that sooner or later, today or tomorrow, this body will be gone; that we are all lined up to die; someone dies today, someone tomorrow; sooner or later I too will die; death is bound to happen here—before that, let there be some recognition of the immortal! Athato bhakti-jijñasa! Before the body is taken, let us know the One who lives in the body! Before the cage breaks, let us meet the bird within. Then it matters not whether the cage remains or breaks. One who has known the inner begins to glimpse God everywhere. But the first recognition is within. One who has not known himself will never know that God.

People come to me saying they want to know God.
I ask them: Do you know yourself? Without knowing yourself, how will you know God? Begin with the particle, then the Vast.

Tat-samsthasy amritatvopadeshat.
“It has been said that by abiding in That, one attains immortality.”

Upadeshat means: those who have known, have said so. Upadesha does not mean merely “has been said.” Not everyone’s words are upadesha. Whose words are called upadesha? One who has known. And why “upadesha”? Literally it means: by sitting near him you too come to know—upa-desha—by being near, by sitting by, it happens in you too; in whose presence waves rise within you; by whose touch you are quickened; by whose nearness your lamp is lit—his word is upadesha.

Tat-samsthasya amritatvopadeshat.
Those who have known say: in abiding in That, one becomes immortal. The translation added extra words. Sanskrit sutras are scientific about words; not a single extra word is used. The translator inserted “jiva” in between. The translation should simply be: Those who have known say: those who find That become immortal. Death ends for them. For them, death is finished. Their connection with death is broken. Why? Because Ishvara means: life. Trees come and go, but the life hidden within trees is eternal. Vessels change; the play goes on. We were not, and all this was; we will not be, and all this will be. Our being or not being changes nothing. What is, is. We are waves. We both are and are not. And yet in this Existence, neither is anything added by our being nor subtracted by our not-being. Existence remains as it is—just so, unchanged.

A wave rose in the sea, then subsided. Do you think the sea gained something new when the wave rose? When the wave disappeared, did the sea lose something? Nothing was added; nothing lost. All remains as it is.

Truth neither increases nor decreases. If it were to increase—from where? If to decrease—how? Truth is as it is. The day one sees oneself as a wave and the Divine as the ocean—oneself as a ripple, nothing more; a form, a name, nothing more; a gesture, a facial expression, nothing more—a dream arisen within, nothing more—then the connection with the immortal happens. Tat-samsthasya! One who abides in That; who does not see himself as separate—that one gains relation with the deathless, for the Divine is deathless.

To say “God is immortal” is perhaps not quite right. Rather: whatever in this world is immortal—that is what we call God. In this world whatever does not die—that is God. What dies is the world; what does not die is God.

You sowed a seed. The seed died. But a sprout appeared. What was immortal in the seed is now in the sprout. The seed died; it left the seed-body; it took a new body, a new form. Do not weep over the death of the seed. There was nothing else in the seed—what was, is now in the sprout. One day the tree grew and one day the tree died. Do not weep over the death of the tree. What died as a tree has now hidden itself again in seeds. The tree has hidden in the seeds. Again, in some season, some moment, the seeds will sprout. Again a plant, again a tree.

Life is eternal. Forms change, styles change, but life is timeless. See that—this unbroken stream of life.

One day in your mother’s womb you were merely a lump of flesh. Today that lump is nowhere. Put a picture of that lump before you—you would not even recognize that once you were this. Or do you think you would? Then one day you were a small child—that too is gone. Then you were young—that too has gone. Now you are old—this too is passing. Death will come; this body will go. Someday, somewhere, in some other season, you will surge again, be born again. Remember the one who passes through forms in this way. Remember That. Its name is tat—That. That is immortal. And one who is joined to That becomes immortal.

Do not make the mistake possible in a Hindi rendering: “It has been said that by fixing the mind on Him the jiva attains immortality.”

This can mislead you into: Let’s attach ourselves to God to escape death! Become immortal! So that I survive! I will remain in heaven, in paradise, in moksha—but I will survive—the jiva will survive! Now this “jiva” has been inserted needlessly; there was no need. It is as absurd as the seed thinking, I will survive; never mind, I will survive as a plant.

Where will the seed survive? The seed goes. You will go. You will not survive as you are. As you have known yourself—you will not be saved. But within you something else lies hidden, something you have not known yourself to be—that will remain. It has nothing to do with your “you.” That is That—tat. Within you too That is seated—seated as a witness. When you eat, That does not eat; It sees that you are eating. When you bathe, That does not bathe; It sees that you are bathing. When you fall ill, That does not become ill; It sees that you have become ill. When you recover, That does not become healthy; It sees that you have recovered.

Understand the difference. The one who ate, who was hungry; who fell sick, who was healthy—this you have so far taken to be “I.” This will go. And within you is a hidden That, a witness, a consciousness—with which you have not yet established relationship, which you do not yet recognize! You do not know yourself at all!

Your situation is like someone who has identified himself with his clothes and thinks: this is me—this shirt, this coat, this cap, this cloak—this is me. These will go; these are not you. You, as you are, will not survive. Yet something will remain. And that something is utterly free of your “I.” There the sense of “I” does not arise. There no wave of “I” forms.

Hence Buddha said: anatta—no self. For “self” means “I.” In that witness there is no “I”! Where “I” arises, the world begins. Where “I” dissolves, the world ends. Abide in That, and immortality—so have the knowers said.

Jñanam iti cen na dviṣato’pi jñānasya tad-asamsthiteh.
“Bhakti is not some special knowledge about God. The hater too may know, but there is no love in it.”

This sutra is of great value. Understand carefully.

“Bhakti is not some special knowledge about God.”

Knowing about God is not knowing God. Knowing about is cheap; it costs nothing—read scriptures and you “know.” Memorize the sages’ words—parrot-like! Knowledge is cheap. To be a pundit is cheap. To be a knower is difficult. No one becomes a knower by knowledge; one becomes a knower by love.

This may seem odd. But to know, collecting information is not enough. To know, love must awaken—toward the vast, the infinite, the immortal.

“Bhakti is not some special knowledge about God.”

Do not fall into the illusion: I have read the Upanishads, the Vedas, the Gita; I have learned a lot, memorized the scriptures. You start thinking there is God because the scriptures’ logic convinced you. You start believing there is God. But this believing, this knowing, is hollow; superficial. It has not sprouted in your heart. This knowing is not yours. Until it is yours, it is false.

“Bhakti is not some special knowledge about God.”

So what is real bhakti?

Real bhakti is a personal relatedness with the Divine. Real bhakti is the marriage of the person with the Absolute. Reading scriptures will not do. You must enter into Truth. Entering is a costly bargain. It is risky. The great risk is the loss of yourself. Only one willing to dissolve will go there.

Kabir said: Whoever burns his house down, come walk with me. This “mine,” this “I,” this house—you must set it on fire. You must blow it up with your own hands.

The pundit burns nothing; on the contrary, his “I” grows stronger. He makes his house of I larger with knowledge. Knowledge is ornament for the ego. Therefore the scholar does not know God; the lover knows. A lover is one ready to sacrifice himself. A lover is one ready to bow, to surrender.

I stood still
like a bamboo bough
bending before the wind
and kept listening to a voice:
that the bowing is fine
but it is not for you to be without movement
we asked you to be uplifted
we never counseled renunciation
we asked you to remain immersed
in life
I kept on listening
but I concluded
that it was only advice
and that I have my own way
to stop and to bow
and somewhere
to be completely spent!

Only one who chooses this path will know the Divine—
I have my own way
to stop and to bow
and somewhere
to be completely spent!

One who pours himself out completely. Adding something more will not work. Whom are you deceiving? Offering flowers will not work until you offer the flowers of your life-breath. Lighting incense and lamps will not work until you light the incense and lamps of your very life. Your worship-trays are false. That is why no relationship with the Divine has ever happened. Those trays are the obstacle. The ringing bells and the rising incense smoke in your temples—this is false. Let this smoke rise from you! Let this resonance be within you! Let this be your Om! Burn! Melt! Bow! Pour yourself out, and something will happen!

“Bhakti is not some special knowledge about God. The hater too can know, but in him there is no love.”

Knowledge is easy. Anyone can have it. Even the filled-with-hate can have it. Even one ablaze with rage can have it.

You have read stories of rishis like Durvasa. Rishi he was, but what a rishi! He knew the scriptures, but love did not blossom, the spring of love never came, the flowers of love did not bloom, the river of love did not flow—only anger burned.

And sometimes it has happened to those who had no scholarship at all—like Kabir, like Meera. They were not pundits in the least. They had no bookish understanding. Kabir said: I never touched ink or paper. Yet he said: He who reads the two-and-a-half letters of love becomes the true pundit. Those two-and-a-half letters he surely read. Read only those and all is read. In those two-and-a-half letters, all letters are included. The “imperishable-letter”—akshar—is included.

Love is the door to the Divine, not knowledge.

So keep three things in mind. First: karma—action. Second: jnana—knowledge. Third: bhakti—love.

Karma is the gross ego—I will do something, achieve something: wealth, position, prestige, a busy race—the doer’s ego. When a person is defeated in action, falls, gets tired along the way, realizes that by my doing nothing will happen, it is not in my power; I am a tiny drop and existence is vast, beyond my strength—then the person turns to knowledge. Tired of action, he turns to knowledge.

Jnana means: If I cannot conquer, I will at least know. Victory could not be, but perhaps knowing can be! This is the subtle ego.

Then one day a person tires of this too—knowing also is not possible; I am so small and this is so vast—how will I know it? I am not separate from it. If I were separate, I could know it; I am a part of it. How can a leaf of a tree know the tree? It is part of the tree. The tree precedes it. The tree can know the leaf; the leaf cannot know the tree.

One day karma tires; jnana is born. Karma—the gross ego. Jnana—the subtle ego. One day even knowledge tires; then the moment comes: Om. Athato bhakti-jijñasa! Then man says: I could neither win nor know, but I can love! This is possible. A leaf cannot defeat the tree, nor know it; but the leaf can be dissolved in love with the tree. Here there is no obstacle. Karma: gross ego. Knowledge: subtle ego. Bhakti: egolessness.

Tayopkṣhayāc ca.
“Because with the full rise of bhakti, knowledge is destroyed.”

This sutra is wondrous. It can have two meanings. Tayopkṣhayāc ca: by knowing that, there is diminishment. Two meanings are possible. One: by knowledge, bhakti diminishes. Two: by bhakti, knowledge diminishes. Both meanings are precious. And I want both at once. Till now, perhaps no one has taken both together.

First: knowledge diminishes love.
The more a man is knowledgeable, the less love he will have. Knowing murders love. Knowing is poison for love. Because love needs mystery, wonder, awe. Knowledge steals away mystery. Knowledge says: I know what this is.

Small children can love, because they are astonished—awestruck—speechless! A child falls in love with little things—on the seashore he gathers colored stones, shells. You, the “knower,” say, throw these away! Why carry this trash! The child cannot understand—such a lovely stone, shining like a diamond in the sun! Such a lovely shell! He hides it in his pocket when father isn’t looking. Love arises in him. Love arises for everything. He stops by everything. A flower blooms in the grass and he stops and stares. He cannot believe—such a lovely flower! Such an incredible color! A butterfly flits by; he cannot believe it; he runs after it—such a miracle, as if a flower had grown wings! Everything amazes him because he knows nothing, he is ignorant, full of wonder. Wonder is still alive in him.

Then slowly you stuff him with knowledge; you explain everything. And the day he returns from university, “educated”—having lost everything and carrying blank sheets—certificates—then nothing will fill him with wonder. He has answers for everything. Ask why trees are green—he says chlorophyll. The matter ends. Why is a woman beautiful? Hormones. The matter ends. What is love? Chemistry. He can explain everything. He has understood everything. Nothing unknown is left; how will love arise? Wonder is dead. Love blossoms in the air of wonder.

So do not be surprised that as knowledge has increased, love has decreased in the world. It is a natural result. It is hidden in Shandilya’s sutra: tayopkṣhayāc ca.

Do you not see this daily? As education spreads, love shrinks. The educated man and the lover—a difficult combination! The more educated, the less loving. To love one must be a little uneducated. The villager has love; in the city it has departed. The uncivilized has love; the civilized does not. The more sophisticated a person becomes, the more he has formality; but there is no life in the formality. When he asks you, “How are you?” he is not asking; he is saying, “Move along.” One must ask. Who cares? Do you care? What does anyone have to do with anyone?

Years pass and you don’t know your neighbor. The sophisticated man has no neighbor. Neighborhood is born of love. Jesus said: Who is the neighbor? He insisted much on loving the neighbor, for only then can you love God. Spread your love a bit—around you. Who is the neighbor?

One day his disciple asked: Whom do you call neighbor?

Jesus said: A man was traveling a lonely road. Robbers attacked, looted him, stabbed him with knives, and threw him into a roadside ditch. Then a priest from his own village passed by—the rabbi. He saw this man, from his own village, who visited his temple—he himself was going to the temple to pray—he saw him, bleeding and groaning. The wounded man said, Save me; I am dying; lift me up.

But the priest thought: If I lift him I’ll get into trouble; the police will hound me—what happened? how? who stabbed you? what were you doing there? perhaps I am involved? And I have to go to the temple to pray; this untimely trouble—why take it on! Instead of the temple I’ll land at the police station! Then take him to the hospital; he might die; who knows what mess…

He turned his back and walked on. Then a man from another village came by, who had never seen this wounded man. He came near, seated him on his donkey, washed his wounds, took him to a dharmashala, fed him, laid him down, called a physician—and he did not even know him!

Jesus asked his disciples: Whom do you call neighbor? The priest who lived next door, or the stranger who had never seen him?

The disciples said naturally, This stranger is the neighbor.

Jesus said: Where there is love, there is neighborhood. The greater the love, the larger the neighborhood. If love is great, the whole earth is neighborhood. If love is vast, the whole cosmos is neighborhood. The boundary of love is the boundary of neighborhood. Love means neighborhood.

As education and knowledge increase, love contracts. Tayopkṣhayāc ca. Therefore knowledge is not a helper to bhakti; it is an obstacle.

The second meaning is also precious: by bhakti, knowledge diminishes. When bhakti is born a person becomes ignorant again; he burns all the knowledge to ash. For when he begins to be joined to the Divine, he sees that what he had known was rubbish. It was false. It was vain. Now real diamonds are found. So he throws away the pebbles he had gathered. Why carry the leftovers of scriptures when his own scripture is being born? Now the Upanishad is descending within him. Why carry any Upanishad around? Why recite any Quranic verse? His own verse has entered the womb, ripening. His own fruits are ripening, his own flowers blooming. Thus, as bhakti is born, knowledge wanes. Bhakti and knowledge are like light and darkness. Where there is light, there is no darkness. Where there is darkness, there is no light. They do not coexist.

The knower is not a bhakta—the knower meaning the pundit, keep this in mind—and the bhakta is not a knower. The bhakta becomes guileless, free of all knowledge. The bhakta becomes ignorant again. Because the Divine is unknowable; before It we can stand only as ignorants, not as knowers. The claim of knowing is the claim of ego.

Hold this sutra in your heart. It is a key.

Tayopkṣhayāc ca.
“Because with the full rise of bhakti, knowledge is destroyed.”

Arrow by arrow
I carry a tired body
I stop at dusk
the Name sustains me
it cuts the night
and at daybreak
I step into the waters again
mixing trust with speech
that I am nearing a haven
that perhaps some evening
I may rest my forehead
homeless-at-home at your feet
The journey from Name to Form
from Form to Name goes on
It does not feel
it will end some day
It feels each day
more and more it will become pure cadence!

A great life remains. What you have known is nothing. A great life remains. What you have known is death. The immortal is still unfamiliar! The journey is great. It is not a journey that ends.

It does not feel
it will end some day
It feels each day
more and more it will become pure cadence!

Each day new meters, new songs will surge. Each day Om will reveal itself in new forms. Proceed! Not by knowledge, not by action—by love!

Om. Athato bhakti-jijñasa!
Enough for today.