Athato Bhakti Jigyasa #11

Human existence is divided into three planes—body, intellect, heart. Or say it another way: action, thought, feeling. From all three planes one can journey to the Self. The most gross journey is through actionism. That is why, in the world of religion, ritual is the most gross process. The second gate is knowledge—thought, reflection, contemplation. More subtle than the first. This second gate is called jnana-yoga. The third gate is subtler than the subtlest—feeling, love, prayer. That third gate is called bhakti-yoga.

People do arrive through action as well. But it is a very long journey. People also arrive through knowledge; but even that path is not short. Many steps must be climbed—fewer than the first, yet far too many in the eyes of the third. Bhakti is a leap. There are no steps, and no distance. Bhakti can happen in a single instant! Bhakti can happen immediately. Bhakti is purely a matter of feeling. Here, feeling—and there, transformation. In action you must do something; in thought you must think something; in bhakti you neither think nor do, you be. That is why bhakti has been called supreme.

This is the theme of today’s sutras. Shandilya says—

Brahmakandam tu bhaktau tasya anujnanaya samanyat.
“To set forth devotion, the commonality between the latter section on Brahman and the section on knowledge has been indicated.”

Shandilya says: In the Vedas the first section is ritual, actionism; the second stage speaks of Brahman-knowledge, the way of knowing; and the final stage speaks of God—of bhakti and feeling. As with a tree: first the trunk and branches, that is action; then the flowers, that is knowledge; and finally the fragrance, that is bhakti. Fragrance comes last.

One who goes on worshiping only the tree gets stuck. One who takes the flower to be the whole has not yet attained the Ultimate. Only the one who becomes one with the fragrance is free. The tree has a body, a gross body. The flower too has a body—less gross, woven of subtler vibrations, more colorful, more filled with sweetness—yet it is still a body. It is not as rough as the tree’s bark; it is smooth as silk, but a body is a body, form is form, shape is shape. And shape brings bondage. Whether you scratch a line in stone or trace a line with petals—once a line is drawn, division appears. The flower is still distant. Fragrance has become one; it has dropped the body. By fragrance I mean that grossness has been utterly dissolved. That is why you cannot see fragrance; you can only experience it. You cannot grasp it in your fist; you can only experience it. Fragrance becomes one with the sky. Such is bhakti. Bhakti is a total revolution.

Shandilya says: Therefore, in the Vedas, the discussion of bhakti comes at the end. It can only come at the end.

But for the last two or three centuries in this land some people have spread a foolish notion. They have spread the idea that in the Kali Yuga only bhakti works! As if bhakti were the lowest of all. They say the other paths are no longer possible; those were possible in the Satya Yuga, when people were great, pure and sattvic, when life held integrity and truth; when on earth man walked not like man but like a god—then knowledge was possible. Now it is Kali Yuga, dark days have come, the night of the new moon, sin is spreading, sin is everywhere and virtue nowhere. In such a dark age, such a black night, only the lowest is possible, and that is bhakti.

This turns things upside down. The more sattvic a person, the more bhakti is possible. The more tamasic a person, the more ritual is possible. Bhakti is fragrance. Bhakti is beyond. To say that in this degraded age only bhakti remains—meaning that man has fallen and a fallen man can do nothing else—is fundamentally wrong, a hundred percent wrong. Remember, man has not fallen; man is growing day by day. Therefore bhakti is possible. I too tell you that today bhakti is possible—but not because it is a night of darkness; because it is a night of the full moon. I too say that today nothing but bhakti will do—but because humanity has come of age, has risen beyond rites. Who today trusts ritual? If somewhere a fire sacrifice happens, who gathers except the foolish? Those who don’t belong to today gather there. Those who ought to be in their graves gather there. Those who carry skulls two or three thousand years old gather there. In today’s world who thinks more rain will fall by performing a yajna? Where is Indra? Where are your gods? All gone! The fairy tales you dreamed in childhood hold no value now. They were part of childhood, children’s stories.

If you must tell stories to children, you speak of ghosts and spirits, fairies and nymphs, heaven and gods. Then they get excited. Children are not excited by reality; they are excited by dreams. Children live in dreams. In a child’s life, the line between dream and reality has not yet arisen. You must have seen this often: a small child wakes in the morning and begins to cry. The mother is puzzled, “But why? Nothing has happened yet!” The moment he wakes he starts crying: “Where is my toy?” He saw a toy in his dream, and he is demanding it. There is as yet no difference between dream and truth. Consciousness is still fogged. Intellect has not awakened.

I want to tell you: today bhakti will work, because man has come of age; human consciousness has become more alert.

What appears as irreligion in the world is not because man has fallen, but because the old forms of religion no longer serve, and you keep forcing those forms. As if a boy has grown into youth and you keep putting him into his childhood pajamas. He throws them off and runs, “What are you doing?” He isn’t against pajamas; but look at him a little. He is no longer a small child. The little pajamas you force upon him will only make him a laughingstock. He needs clothes that fit him.

Today’s human being is not irreligious. In truth, today’s human being can be more religious than at any other time. But the old religion will not do. Childish things will not do. Now religion, too, must come of age. The fault lies with those who refuse to let religion grow up. Man is eager to be religious, but he needs a religion worthy of him. Suppose man has built a car, and you stand at his door with a bullock cart and say, “Sit in the cart!” Has he lost all interest in journeying? Will he not set out on pilgrimage? And if he doesn’t sit in your cart, you say, “No one wants to go on pilgrimage anymore.”

People still want to go on pilgrimage. Who doesn’t? The whole of life is pilgrimage. People still seek the Divine. There is not a single human being who does not. But now the routes, the methods have changed. No one wants to ride a bullock cart. And pilgrimage cannot mean going to the Kumbh Mela anymore. Now we must search for the deeper meaning of Kumbh.

Do you know where the word kumbh comes from? From the pot—the kumbha. A full pot is called kumbh. Now no one wants to go to the Kumbh fair; one wants to fill the empty pot within, to become a kumbh. One wants to be brimming within. No one has any taste left for entangling with the Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati outside; one longs for the within. And there are only these three inner rivers—karma, jnana, bhakti.

You have seen it at Prayag: you see two rivers—the Yamuna and the Ganga; Saraswati is invisible. Such is bhakti. Ritual is visible. A man sits making a fire offering, pouring oblations into the flame, raising a clamor—visible. A man is deeply engrossed in thought—at least the wrinkles on his brow are visible. You have seen Rodin’s famous sculpture, The Thinker: hand on the chin, eyes closed, head furrowed—Rodin’s thinker sits. Thought furrows the brow; it brings worry. There is not much difference between worry and wondering—both stem from the same root. Where there is thinking, there is worry. But how will you recognize a bhakta? The state of the bhakta is very deep. Bhakta is feeling. That is why bhakti is called Saraswati—unseen. The flower is visible; the fragrance becomes invisible. Such is bhakti.

Even today man wants to seek the Divine—more than before—and for the right reasons. The ancients sought for the wrong reasons; they could only have wrong reasons. They were sick, so they sought—there were no medicines. Today we have discovered many medicines; now we don’t seek God as a physician. No need—physicians we have. Man prayed, “Send rain, the sun is harsh, fields are drying.” In scientific nations rain has come into human hands; where we want it, when we want it, we will bring it. No need to trouble Indra. Man prayed, “Give me long life.” Today the span of life is in human hands. The things man used to ask from God have come into man’s hands.

But asking God for lifespan, wealth, prosperity, health—that is to go to God for the wrong reason. One goes to God only who asks for nothing but God. If you ask for anything other than God, it means you want to use God. You have no taste for God; but if through God you can get wealth, all right, you will worship and pray. That is nothing more than flattery.

It is no accident that this country has so many flatterers. It has flattered for centuries—flattered God, flattered kings and maharajas, and now flatters two-bit politicians. Flattery has become a habit. It is always ready to lay out the welcome tray for anyone! It is ready to fall at anyone’s feet, ready to rub its nose! Ready to give bribes—because it has always bribed. This has become the Indian character.

People ask: Why so much bribery in India?
This is nothing new. When you go to Hanumanji’s temple and say, “Let my boy pass his exam and I’ll offer a coconut!” what do you think you are giving? A coconut worth a few coins! Even that you will buy stale and cheap in the market. You are bribing Hanumanji.

All these wrong tendencies were propagated in the name of religion. That they have ended is good. We have slipped out of these sicknesses. Now if man searches, it will be only for God.

That is why I say: when a society becomes affluent, the true search for God begins. Because the affluent man has everything people once asked from God. He has everything—and yet That is not there. He has everything, and everything is empty. He holds great power in his hands, and within his life trembles—within there is great weakness.

This century wants to seek God for the right reasons. No one has become irreligious; it is the old religions that have become useless. Their forms have become trivial, outdated, unfit for today’s evolved human being.

I too say to you: bhakti suits today, but my reason is different. Others have said: bhakti befits you today because you are so fallen, and nothing else could befit you. I say to you: bhakti befits you because for the first time you have come of age. The human race has become young for the first time. The misty days of childhood are gone; a mature mind has arisen. Therefore bhakti is the way. I agree with Shandilya, because Shandilya says—bhakti is supreme.

Buddhi hetuh pravrittih avishuddheh avadhatavath.
“So long as husk clings to the grain, only then is the rice pounded in mortar and pestle. Likewise, activities of the intellect continue only so long as the mind is not purified.”

Shandilya says: no means are necessary for bhakti—only feeling. There are no steps in bhakti—only the courage to leap—call it audacity. The courage to drop oneself into God. As a river falls into the ocean. When the river falls into the ocean, she must hesitate—surely she hesitates; for what she has been until now, she will no longer be. The banks that held her, the mountain ranges where she was born, the plains she traversed, the people, the trees, the seasons, the beautiful mornings and evenings, and who knows how many songs, the songs of each village, the melodies of each village—everything must come to her memory; the whole past must hold her back—“Stop! Why do you go to be erased? You will no longer remain yourself. Your identity will be lost. Do not leave your banks, for in your banks lies your existence, your identity, your being, your definition—you are the Ganga, or the Sindhu, or the Narmada. Falling into the ocean you will neither remain Ganga nor Sindhu nor Narmada. The moment you fall into the ocean you will not be. Stay! Stop! Look back. You have a past, a uniqueness, a lineage, a glory. You were born in the Himalayas. Remember how many have worshiped you along the way! Remember how many lamps were set afloat on your waters, how many flowers showered upon you. Remember! Remember how joyous people were! Remember those faces of gratitude and thankfulness offered to you! And today you go to be lost in this salty sea? You will not even remain fit to drink. No one will offer flowers then. No ghats will be built along your banks, no pilgrimages will surge along your banks, no fairs will gather along your banks. For then you will have no bank, then you will not be.” Stop!

If the river could think, this would happen. Man thinks—so this happens. To leap into God is to lose oneself. Only a few bold souls can do it. And let me remind you: those whom you call religious are often cowards and weaklings. Because of them religion drowns and is defamed. Those whom you call religious—the ones sitting in temples, mosques, gurdwaras—are often trembling people; their hands and feet shake; in panic they have fallen to their knees.

Religion is born in the lives of those who are fearless; who are unafraid; who do not pray out of fear of God—but pray when they fall in love with God.

Understand the difference; it is great—the difference between poison and nectar, life and death.

A man can love out of fear too. But what kind of love will that be? You stand with a sword at his chest and say, “Love me!” He will—because he sees your sword, the demon in your eyes. He will bow, kiss your hands, kiss your feet, and say, “I love you, I love only you, I live for you, I will live for you.” And inside? Inside the exact opposite: “If ever this sword comes into my hand, and if ever I catch you asleep, I will teach you a lesson! I will show you what love means! I will force you to bow at my feet with the help of this very sword!”

Where there is fear, hatred is born; love is not. Because the religions of the world made people God-fearing, the ultimate result was that people became enemies of God. In all the languages of the world there are such phrases—“God-fearing.” There cannot be more ugly words than these.

Mahatma Gandhi said: “I fear no one—except God.”
I say to you: fear everyone else if you must, but do not fear God. If you fear God, there will never be any relationship. Will you fear God—and then connect? Does a relationship grow out of fear? Fear poisons. Not fear, but a wave of love is needed between you and God. Lovers are eager to drown in one another. A bhakta is not born out of fear. And if fear births it, know it is not bhakti. It is only fearfulness. Because of this fearfulness religion is little visible in the world; for centuries man was frightened. The accumulated result was that a thinker like Friedrich Nietzsche could declare: “God is dead.” And not only that—he added, “And understand clearly how he died: we killed him. We murdered him. We had to. The burden of him had grown too heavy on our chest. God is dead, and now man is free.” The bother is over. Now you are free! Now live freely! Now there is no need to go to temple or mosque to pray, to kneel.

Where did Nietzsche’s pronouncement come from? It came from those priests and pundits who for centuries taught you—fear God, tremble. And to make you tremble they invented hell, they spun obscene imaginations of hell—that you will be roasted. Naturally, in man’s heart, in place of love for God, a feeling of hatred kept growing. On the surface worship continued, beneath the wound deepened, pus accumulated. Everything has a limit. This grown-up century came and denied God.

Tulsidas said: “Without fear, love does not arise.” No man has ever said anything more wrong. They say without fear there is no love. Then Tulsidas never knew love. Because love never arises from fear. Have you ever loved someone out of fear? You want revenge.

A little child goes to school; he bows to the teacher, greets him—out of fear, because he sees the stick in the teacher’s hand. But notice—even the little child takes revenge. When the teacher writes on the board, his back turned, the child makes faces. Even a small child takes revenge. He will play some prank; at the first chance he splashes ink, or places thorns on the teacher’s chair. What is he doing? Only this: “After all, I am a human being too, small yes, but don’t flash that stick at me. If you took a bow from me out of panic, I will repay the bow.” That’s why you find children outside making fun of their teachers after school. Why? Otherwise they would feel deep humiliation that they don’t even have the power to take a little revenge. They want to insult the teacher, not respect him. Because the teacher is forcing respect.

In the old Bible, God says: “I am a jealous God; I am an angry God. If you disobey me I will destroy you.” The very priests who had him say this, prepared the ground for Nietzsche’s words. Look back into religious history and you will find: the first image of God was a frightening God, a terrifying God. Then as man grew up a little, we changed God’s face; the frightening God began to look ugly.

Moses’ God says, “I am dangerous, I am jealous; disobey me and I will burn you, destroy you, rot you in hells.” Jesus’ God says, “I am love.” Between Moses and Jesus a revolution happened. Religion grew up a little. Two to two-and-a-half thousand years passed.

Buddha dispensed with God altogether—gave him farewell. Buddha said: the very presence of God creates fear. He is so vast that man shrinks. From that shrinking no prayer is born. Let God go. Prayer is enough. Meditation is enough. There is no need for God. Where there is prayer, the experience of the Divine will arrive by itself.

Here religion took an even higher flight. This is religion’s growth. As we left fear, we succeeded in becoming religious.

But as long as there is intellect, as long as there is thought, there will be impurity. Shandilya says: feeling is the supreme purity. There nothing remains to be purified; feeling itself is purity. There one simply leaps. Therefore there are no means in bhakti—no hearing, no reflection, no deep contemplation; there are no means in bhakti—no yoga, no austerity, no renunciation. Bhakti is pure goal.

But man has a body, and the body has many impurities, so yoga is useful, exercise is needed. There are methods to purify the body—processes of body-purification—that is yoga. Then some people go mad and remain stuck right there. They go on cleaning their house and forget they were cleaning it to live in it. Like someone who keeps sweeping their home because otherwise how would one live there—and then forgets that living is also to happen, and goes on only cleaning.

I stayed a few days in a home. The lady was obsessed with cleanliness. So obsessed she would not let her husband sit on the sofa—“A crease will appear!” She wouldn’t let the children enter the rooms. The house was big, but because of the cleanliness everyone had to live in one corner, in a single room. The rest gleamed like mirrors. I was their guest for a few days. I told the lady, “I like your house, but it is a museum, not a place to live—because everyone is afraid here. Your husband is afraid, your children are afraid lest anything get scratched. No one walks or moves freely; you’ve frightened them all, lest anyone bring any dirt inside. Everyone is living as if in someone else’s home, living like thieves. What is this cleanliness for? We clean a place so we can live there. Living will create a little dirt, then we clean again. But if you only keep cleaning and forget to live—” Many yogis in this country are like this, day and night busy with postures, exercises, fasts—and they’ve forgotten this is only housekeeping. When will you live in it? How will you live?

A step higher are those who work at purifying the intellect. But that too is cleaning. Don’t waste your life only in cleaning. Many are destroyed becoming thinkers. Thought never yields results; nothing conclusive falls into your hands. Thought is a hollow journey—only words. A word like “bread” doesn’t fill the belly. Think about the word “bread” as much as you like, your stomach won’t fill. A dry crust is better than your beautiful ideas about bread. And you may think endlessly about God—it has no value. Thinking about God is not knowing God. Knowing and thinking are different. Knowing happens when thinking stops. So long as thinking continues, knowing does not happen. Because the thinker is caught in thinking; where is the time, the leisure, the space to know?

One who is thinking about a flower misses living the flower’s beauty. A bird sings. One who begins to analyze the bird’s song—the acoustics, how it arises, what kind of throat the bird has, what instrument in its throat, the possibilities of sound, the meaning of sound—such a person will not experience the joy of the bird’s song. He will miss knowing it.

Suppose someone gives you a beautiful poem, and you get entangled in its grammar: how are the words arranged? What is the style—new or old? Modern or ancient? Are the metrical rules kept or not? Are the measures in their places or not? If you get caught in all this, one thing is certain: you will know much about the poem—but you will miss knowing the poem. Or suppose you see a veena being played, and you sit down to open the instrument to see where the strings were made—Japan or Germany? From where did the wood come? How is this instrument built that produces such sweetness? You will learn many things about the veena, but nothing about music.

Those who think about love are deprived of love. It is unfortunate, but so it is. Those who think about God their whole lives miss knowing God.

Bhakti points to all this. Bhakti is a revolutionary vision. Bhakti says: bodily purification is fine, in its place—but don’t get entangled in it. Its value is small. And the processes of thought are also beautiful, but don’t wander in them, or they will become a vast jungle and you will be lost there. Riddles will multiply, and you will never come out. One has to go beyond the body, and beyond the mind. One has to root life-consciousness in the heart. One has to dive into feeling. The one who rises to feeling is the noblest in this world—because only he knows God, lives God, becomes God.

The intellect is sullied—so much restlessness, so much instability, wave upon wave of thought like ripples on a lake so that the reflection of the moon cannot form; and even if it forms, it looks like scattered silver; it is impossible to see the moon as the moon. So there are processes to purify the intellect—that is meditation, that is attention. The paths discovered through centuries are paths to purify the intellect: how to concentrate it, how to decondition it, how to quiet it, how to silence thoughts—that is the path of jnana-yoga.

But bhakti-yoga is an unprecedented step! Bhakti says: leave the intellect where it is—don’t get entangled in it! You can set the intellect aside and move ahead. The intellect is not worth that much time. And once you get entangled, coming out will be difficult. Let waves arise in the mind; don’t be so concerned with settling them. Don’t give the intellect too much attention—ignore it. Let the mind’s waves rise; you take a direct leap into the Divine.

Understand the difference. The knower says: until the intellect is purified, God will not come. The bhakta says: until God comes, how will the intellect be purified? The knower says: first I must purify the intellect; only then can God arrive, because He comes only into the pure. The bhakta says: it is in His presence that purity blossoms; without Him no purity is possible. Without Him who will purify? You will? But you are the impure one—how will you purify? Who is purifying whom? The intellect is purifying the intellect—the very intellect that is impure. With an impure intellect you devise means for purity—those means will all be impure. This will create a great delusion.

The bhakta says: accept that the intellect is impure; accept that I am impure. Even so, call Him: “I am impure—but I am Yours. I am bad—but I am Yours. As I am, accept me, own me, descend upon me. I cannot dust off my own dirt; if Your rain falls, my dust will wash away, I will be pure. Come! With Your coming light will arrive. In Your light everything will shine, everything will become clear. Come! If Your fire rains upon me, what is rubbish will burn by itself; only gold will remain. How will gold be refined if it is not cast in fire? How will a bhakta be refined if he does not pass through God?”

So understand the bhakta’s vision. His vision is this: in His presence everything happens by itself. Let us call Him—then all will be done. By our doing nothing can be done. Our doing will bear our fingerprints—our hands are dirty. Our doing will bear the stamp of our thinking—our thoughts are dirty. Whatever we do will carry dirt—we are dirty, our ego is dirty; this “I”-sense is the root dirt. The bhakta says: this is not in our power; we are powerless; we can only weep, call, be overwhelmed—You will have to come.

And God comes. God has no condition that only when you are pure will He come. That condition is set by your ego. That condition belongs to your ego.

It is like a child who has soiled himself and lies in the cradle, smeared with his own dirt, and thinks, “Until I am clean how can I call my mother? First I must be clean!” Is this when one calls the mother? Will the mother not come precisely then?

But how will this child get clean? If he tries a little, he will be even more smeared. The dirt which perhaps was not so spread will be spread terribly by his effort to clean it. No, a child does not worry about these things. He begins to cry, begins to call, and the mother runs.

This is the basic formula of bhakti: your call brings God. Call once! Do postures and exercises, do hearing-reflection-deep contemplation, purify yourself in every way—and then call? Even in this there is ego: “When I am pure, then I will call.” But “when I am pure”—you have set conditions upon yourself.

Will you become pure? However much you purify this body, daily it will become impure again. You will eat again, and it will be impure again. In it blood will flow. In it bacteria will live and die. However much you cleanse this body—do you think the yogi’s body becomes purer than a sensualist’s? Perhaps he gets fewer illnesses; but death still comes. Perhaps he lives a few days longer; but what difference does more or less days make? A yogi’s body will rot; it too will stink. All the chanting and austerity becomes wasted labor.

And do you think those who sit to concentrate the mind become truly quiet? The truth is the opposite—they become more restless. If one person in your home gets the mania to concentrate the mind, he himself will become disturbed and will disturb the whole house. No one can even move a little; people cannot talk; children cannot make noise. The wife must handle the pots in the kitchen gently—no sound should be made, because the lord is meditating! And if his meditation breaks—and he is sitting precisely ready for a pretext; it is breaking anyway, even without a pretext, but without one whom will he pounce upon? If a pot slips from the wife’s hand, he will immediately come out of the shrine—“You have corrupted my meditation! You have created unrest!” If a child cries, he gets his chance to come out. He sits ready, steaming inside; the pressure is building.

Haven’t you seen it? The more people become overtly “meditative,” the more restless and angry they become. If one person turns religious in a house, expect trouble. He becomes irritable. He goes on turning his rosary and keeps scanning all around: is the whole world moving according to him or not? “When I am turning my beads, why are the dogs barking? When I am turning my beads why are children making noise? When I am turning my beads why is someone singing?” As if the whole world has decided to turn the rosary along with him!

No, these people do not quiet the mind. Those quiet the mind who call That which is beyond the mind; who say, “I am as I am, bad or good—but I am Yours. You come; refine me, wash me, lead me. I am blind—take my hand.”

The bhakta says: “I shall not manage anything on my own; You do something.” This is surrender. In this surrender is peace, is purity.

Shandilya says: “Buddhi hetuh pravrittih avishuddheh avadhatavath.”
“So long as husk clings to the grain, rice is pounded in the mortar.”

When the husk comes off, no one pounds it anymore. What is the husk because of which you remain impure and cannot become pure?

Ego is the husk. Ego has encased your soul. So long as ego remains, you will be pounded much. The day ego is gone, there remains no need for pounding. Therefore the bhakta says: neither any yoga nor any meditation—only surrender. Drop the ego and, like rice without husk, there is no need to pound.

What are those you call ascetics doing? Pounding themselves with the pestle. You feel pity for them, and respect too—“Poor things, how much hardship they endure!” Seeing their hardship you go to touch their feet, to pay homage. But they endure in vain. And the husk does not come off by their hardship. The irony is, this is not ordinary rice that loses husk by pounding. This is man—man is a very tangled rice. The more you pound, the more the husk clings. That is why you will find more ego in your renouncers than in your enjoyers.

The man who goes daily to the liquor house is humble. He is humble because, really, what does he have to be proud of? His head remains bowed: “Yes, I am a sinner, petty, lowly, worthy of nothing. I am not even worthy to lift my eyes in your presence.” He is humble. But the man who goes daily to the temple—his chest puffs up, his spine becomes rigid. He struts. He looks around: “See, I went to the temple! See, I am returning from the temple! And what are you sinners doing?” One day of fasting and the next day he struts in the market as if he has amassed a treasure. With a little renunciation his ego grows.

You will find your yogis and mahatmas more filled with ego than ordinary people. Your ordinary folk are more religious. I am acquainted with both. Those you call ordinary seem closer to God. Your mahatma is burdened with terrible ego. This rice called man, if you pound it the husk clings even more; pound too much and the grain itself is destroyed—only husk remains. Empty ego.

Shandilya says: “Likewise, intellectual activities last only until the mind becomes pure.”

But how will the mind become pure? Who will purify it? Let me repeat: who will purify it? You? But you are the impure one! It is like a surgeon opening his own belly and operating. However great a surgeon, he will not open his own belly. However expert, even if he has removed thousands of appendixes, he will not remove his own. That process would be fatal. Someone else must be called. And if you must call, why call anyone short of God? Why settle for the lesser? Call the great physician, the supreme healer. His presence will make you whole; your wounds will heal. What is false he will take away; what is true he will give.

Therefore Shandilya says that a bhakta need not get into all these things.

Renouncers are puzzled seeing bhaktas, because they feel bhaktas are like enjoyers. The bhakta sings, dances, rejoices. This existence is filled with God—so he is exuberant, not sad. A bhakta is not gloomy; that is a sign of his health. There is a smile on his face. If you won’t smile in a world suffused with God, where will you smile? A bhakta is not sad because there is no reason for worry on his face—everything is left to Him; now let Him manage. He who runs the moon and stars—will He not run me, a small person? The bhakta says: He who is hidden behind this vast play will also take care of this little mortal. In His hands I am safe. A bhakta is delighted, blossoming, cheerful. As the depth of devotion increases, his enjoyment deepens. Here there is only to enjoy—what is there to renounce? For God is everywhere. Whatever you renounce, you renounce God. The more you renounce, the more of God you renounce. Here all is God. There is nothing to renounce. Find God in every enjoyment, find the Divine in every taste. The ascetic says: eat—but do not taste. The bhakta says: annam brahma—food is Brahman. Taste so deeply that food itself is forgotten and the taste of God arrives. These are very different visions—crucial points.

The renouncer flees from woman or man; he is afraid. The renouncer is always frightened. The bhakta dissolves in love. He says: all are forms of devotion. What happens between father and son is a form of devotion. What happens between husband and wife is also a form of devotion. What happens between master and disciple is also a form of devotion. These are not supreme devotions—much mixed with dust—but they are devotions nonetheless.

At times, in a moment, you surely glimpse the Divine in the one you have loved. Otherwise you would not have loved. We love only the Divine, though the glimpse comes somewhere. Only a glimpse—and it slips away, darkness returns—what of it? The bhakta says: love in such a way that where your love is, there prayer begins to be felt. A wife can be loved such that she becomes a presence of God. A husband can be loved such that union with him gives a taste of prayer. A mother can love her son such that every son becomes Krishna. The bhakta says: transform life—don’t renounce it. Open your eyes and see clearly—God is hidden everywhere; call Him forth.

Tat anganan cha.
This is a sutra of great revolution.
“Nor are His limbs—auxiliary practices—required.”

The bhakta does not need the limbs of austerity, yoga, etc.

Tat anganan cha.
No yogas, no rituals, no injunctions or prohibitions—the bhakta needs none of them. Bhakti is enough. There are no steps in bhakti.

Tat anganan cha.
Bhakti requires no auxiliary limbs. Yoga has eight limbs—angas. Buddha also spoke of the eightfold path—anga. Bhakti has no limbs. Bhakti is total, whole. If you wish, take it whole; if you wish, don’t. It is not cut into pieces. Not a little now and a little later. If you take it, take it entire. Bhakti is unbroken. It has no limbs, no parts. Its ultimate meaning is that the bhakta is free of all prescriptions and proscriptions. What Ashtavakra called swachchhanda—freedom—that is the bhakta’s supreme state. The bhakta is swachchhanda.

Do not be frightened by the word swachchhanda; you have heard a wrong meaning—licentious. You take swachchhanda to mean “doing whatever, right or wrong.” No. Swachchhanda means: one who lives by the inner rhythm, one’s own cadence. Upon whom no outer codes descend. Who does not walk by consulting scriptures. Who carries no map from outside, but walks by inner light. He has called the Lord, and now the Lord dances within him; he is intoxicated with that dance, he moves in that ecstasy. Now no prescriptions bind him. Now small social proprieties don’t apply.

That is why Meera says: “I have lost all concern for public opinion.”
Public opinion is a device for the blind. One who has got eyes does not worry about public opinion. Think of a blind man walking with a stick, tapping his way. Then his eyes are healed—he throws the stick away. Why a stick now? Now he is free. Before, he was bound by the stick, a kind of dependence; he could not move an inch without it. If he had to get up, first he asked, “Where is my stick?” Without it, moving was dangerous. The stick was his substitute eye; it did the work of sight. But now the real eye has returned; the film has been removed; the eye is open; now he neither waits for the stick nor feels for it nor carries it. It is unnecessary. One whose limbs are healed does not walk with crutches.

So many rules in the world—do this, don’t do that; go here, don’t go there; speak this way, don’t speak that way; this conduct is auspicious, that conduct inauspicious; this is moral, that immoral; this character, that depravity—these countless rules are sticks. Man is blind, with no inner light, with no eyes of his own; he must grope or he will fall into pits. He gropes and still falls; without groping he would fall even more. Even with the stick, how much do we avoid pits?

You think anger is bad and tell yourself not to be angry; scriptures say don’t be angry—yet when anger comes, it comes. When the pit arrives, you cannot avoid it—you fall. When lust seizes you, it seizes you—like a fever. Then it is beyond your hands. Your vows of celibacy and your learning turn to naught. In that torrent all your scriptures and all your masters are swept away. But when lust subsides you pick up your scriptures again and begin to walk once more. You take up your stick again, come out of the pit, and decide never to fall—“Now I will walk more carefully, tap more.” But these sticks don’t help much.

Swachchhanda means: one who has found the inner rhythm, the inner song; one who hears the inner raga; whose inner veena has begun to play. Now he doesn’t calculate from outside. Now whatever harmonizes with his inner veena is good; whatever doesn’t is bad. We can put it like this: everyone other than the bhakta thinks and thinks to decide what is right and what is wrong. The bhakta—whatever he does is right, whatever he doesn’t is wrong. The bhakta acts rightly. Because he has merged himself with God.

Better still: the bhakta now does nothing; whatever God makes him do, he does. The bhakta has placed himself in His hands. The bhakta says: “As You will. If You make me a Rama, make me Rama; if You make me a Ravana, make me Ravana. As You will! I have no will of my own; I have no refusal. I have no decision of my own; all decisions are in Your hands. If You keep me alive, I live; if You kill me, I die. I have no special relish in living and no fear of dying. I have only one relish: that Your hands hold mine, that I never walk apart from You; You move me, and I move as You move.”

In such absorption in God, swachchhanda arises on its own. The word the scriptures use for this is paramahansa. Therefore no rules apply to the bhakta. Your ordinary moralities and immoralities do not apply.

I am not saying you should abandon your ordinary codes. I am saying that when you become a bhakta they fall away by themselves; they cannot be sustained. The bhakta’s personality is deeply rebellious, because it is free of character.

You have seen: we call Rama’s story “Ram Charit Manas”—the Lake of Rama’s Character. We do not call Krishna’s story that. We call it “Krishna Lila.” It would not be quite right to call it “character” there. In Krishna there is nothing like character. In Rama there is only character, no lila. Rama is a righteous man, moral to the core, the utmost of propriety. He steps carefully, thinking through what must be done. He does only what should be done; what should not be done, he never does. A washerman raises a petty point, a trivial matter, yet Rama’s propriety is such that he abandons Sita. If even one man has raised a doubt, a stain appears on his character.

His father gives an order—and the father did not give it in much wisdom. Dasharatha does not appear a man of character. He married a young girl in old age. When an old man marries, troubles begin. He has to appease the young wife in everything. He can do nothing else; he has no youth with which to fill her with love. He cannot fill her with love, so indirectly he gratifies other demands—jewels, cars, big houses—substitutions for the youth he lacks.

So Dasharatha married in old age. The young wife took a promise: whatever I ask you will do. A trifling matter. But she asked—“Send Rama to the forest for fourteen years so my son may be crowned.” It was immoral, against dharma. Rama did not have to accept it. Rama could have said, “This is wrong; I will not bow to the wrong.” But Rama is the utmost in propriety; right or wrong isn’t the question—his father’s command is his father’s command. It is not that Rama didn’t see it was wrong—he did—but he walks by propriety, by rule, by the line drawn; as it is, as it should be, what law says, what tradition says—he will not deviate a hair. In his life there is character.

In Krishna’s life there is lila—play. Lila means: there is no rule. Therefore you cannot predict what Krishna will do. Krishna will remain unpredictable. He can even break given promises. Because what Krishna says is valid for this moment, not for tomorrow.

Emerson has a famous line: say today what flows from within you today; and whatever wants to be said from within tomorrow, let it be said tomorrow. Do not become an obstruction. Do not think tomorrow, “But yesterday I said this—how can I say that now?” Live each moment in its wholeness.

Lila means there will be inconsistency. Krishna said he would not lift a weapon in war—and then he lifted one. You cannot expect such a thing from Rama. Rama is a moral man. Krishna is a religious man. Krishna is a paramahansa. Krishna is where oneness with God has happened—free. He has dissolved himself. Now only God’s will. In that moment His will was to say, “I will not lift a weapon.” Now His will is to lift it. Who am I to interfere? How can I talk of violating propriety? That my given word will be broken? That my reputation will be scarred? No—Krishna is a bamboo flute. Yesterday he played one melody—that was yesterday’s. Today another. There is no necessity that the melodies of yesterday and today harmonize. Yesterday was yesterday; today is today.

Paramahansa means: one who lives moment to moment. There may or may not be consistency between moments. The paramahansa state is final; it is the bhakta’s state.

Tat anganan cha.
Bhakti has no limbs. And the bhakta needs no limbs. The bhakta becomes one with God. That is the essence of bhakti—absorption. What use now of methods and prohibitions? The knower says: neti-neti—not this, not this. The bhakta says: iti-iti—this too, this too. The bhakta accepts the whole. The bhakta does not merely “know.” The bhakta is a total yes to existence—acceptance, supreme acceptance. The bhakta does not know denial; there is no “no” in his language. He has only one word—yes.

I have heard: a young woman received a telegram from her lover far away: “Will you marry me?” She rushed to the post office to wire her answer. A village girl, she wrote only one word—“Yes.” The clerk said, “You write only one word? Whether you write one or ten, the charge is the same. You can write nine more.” She thought hard and wrote: “Yes, yes, yes,” nine times. The clerk counted and said, “You can write one more.” She said, “I could, but that would be a bit too much. Aren’t nine yeses enough?”

In truth, one yes contains all yeses. Whether you write nine, ten, a thousand or a million—no difference. One yes contains them all. One no contains all no’s; one yes contains all yes’s. The bhakta says yes once—and then lives yes. He never raises a no again. Iti-iti—this too, this too; all is God; here-here, now-now—this is the bhakta’s proclamation.

Tam aishwaryapadam Kashyapah paratvat.
“Because of its transcendence, Sage Kashyapa has described this state as the state of lordship (aishwaryapada).”

Kashyapa was a supreme bhakta—the first in the tradition of bhaktas. He called this state aishwaryapada. Why aishwarya—lordship? Because in this yes lies all lordship; because in this yes is God Himself. Notice: Ishwara (God) and aishwarya (lordship) are forms of the same root. Ishwara arises from aishwarya. That union which brings lordship—that is Ishwara. Without union with Him, poverty remains—even if you amass wealth, rank, even if your empire spans the earth. Until you join with God, poverty and beggary remain. Your Alexanders and Napoleons are all beggars. They live like beggars and die like beggars. Their begging bowls are larger than yours—that’s all. The beggar at the roadside has a small bowl. Alexander’s bowl is big and studded with jewels—but a begging bowl is a begging bowl. Both are asking, both are poor.

When Alexander died he said: “Let both my hands hang outside the bier.” His ministers asked, “Why? There is no such custom.” Alexander said, “Custom or not, let my hands hang outside.” They asked for the reason for such a strange desire. Alexander said, “I want people to see, when they carry my bier, that I too go empty-handed. Empty-handed I came, empty-handed I go. My hands are unfilled. I ran and struggled—and die a beggar.”

Late though it was, he understood. Very late—but a ray of understanding did come.

Only by joining with God is there lordship. So Kashyapa said—aishwaryapada. The bhakta’s paramahansa state, his free state—then there is no difference between him and God. The bhakta becomes God, because the bhakta is established in the state of aishwarya. All is his; therefore aishwaryapada. All enjoyment is his, all beauty his, all color, all rainbows, all flowers, all the stars of the heavens—this entire richness of the world is his. He has left nothing. The renouncer’s lordship cannot be so great—he has left much, he has shrunk. The bhakta expands, becomes vast.

The meaning of Brahman is: that which goes on expanding. Brahman means expansion. The bhakta knows the art of expanding. The renouncer knows only shrinking. The renouncer says, “How can I leave this too? How can I leave that too? How can this go? How can that go?” The worldly man you speak of says, “How can I get this too? How can I get that too?” The renouncer is his opposite—an enjoyer standing on his head—“How can I drop this? How can I drop that?” The bhakta says: there is nothing here to drop and nothing here to grasp. It is all ours; we are its; there is no separation between us and This. Where will you go by leaving? What is the need to amass what is already yours? It is already yours—so don’t gather; and where can you go by leaving? Wherever you go it remains yours—so don’t go by leaving. Neither indulgence nor renunciation. The bhakta says: see the truth and be filled with lordship. All this is yours; you are of it. You are not a stranger here; this is your home.

Tam aishwaryapadam Kashyapah paratvat.
“Therefore Kashyapa said that state is supreme lordship—aishwaryapada.”

In limitation there is poverty; in the limitless there is lordship. With God you become limitless; no bound can confine you—not of ethics, nor religion, nor society, nor culture, nor civilization. With God no boundary confines you—not of Hindu, Muslim, Christian. With God no boundary confines you—neither male nor female, neither white nor black, neither beautiful nor ugly, neither educated nor uneducated. With God all limits break. The river fell into the ocean—banks lost. The river fell into the ocean—name and form lost. The river fell into the ocean—became ocean.

Tam aishwaryapadam Kashyapah paratvat.
Atma eka param Badarayana.
“And Sage Badarayana has described this very state as the state of the Self—the supreme Self-realization.”

He mentions another seer. He mentions two, because they are symbolic.

Understand.
Kashyapa said: that state is God—“Thou.” Badarayana said: that state is “I”—Self-realization. These two words are to be understood: I–Thou. Two ways of expressing.

The great Jewish thinker Martin Buber wrote a book—“I and Thou.” It is important. In it is the essence of Jewish devotional tradition. Buber says: between God and the bhakta a dialogue runs, a dialogue of I and Thou—as between lovers. Alone, an “I” is bored; it needs a “Thou.” Without “Thou” there is restlessness, emptiness; with “Thou” there is fullness. A man who keeps chanting only “I, I” moves toward meditation. Buber says: in meditation one will grow a little sad, closed within, self-absorbed; connections with the outside will break. Buber says: prayer is more valuable, for in it the “Thou”—God—remains present. In prayer there is dialogue. Kashyapa chooses “Thou.” Kashyapa says: “I” is gone. He goes beyond Buber. Buber keeps both I and Thou—there remains duality. The Jewish devotional stream did not rise above duality.

Kashyapa says: “Thou, not I; God. The bhakta is erased—only God remains.” This is an announcement of nonduality. But as long as there is “Thou,” somewhere secretly “I” remains—for who would say “Thou” otherwise? So outwardly is an announcement of nonduality, but inwardly duality remains—underground, hidden, but there. Conversely, Badarayana says: not “Thou,” “I.” Aham brahmasmi! Or as Mansoor said: Anal Haq! I am the Truth. “Thou” is not; “I” alone am. This too is a way to declare nonduality. But the same flaw lurks here. As long as there is “I,” “Thou” remains hidden. Without “Thou,” “I” has no meaning.

These are different approaches to express that ultimate state. One approach: I–Thou—Jewish mystic, Hasid, Buber. “Thou”—Kashyapa; Sufi mystic Jalaluddin Rumi. “I”—Vedanta, Badarayana; Mansoor—Anal Haq, Aham Brahmasmi. And a fourth possibility: neither I nor Thou—Gautam Buddha, Zen. These are the four possibilities. And there is a fifth—Shandilya’s own. In later sutras we will discuss it.

Enough for today.