Athato Bhakti Jigyasa #14

Humanity has come of age. And the most important mark of maturity is the acceptance of contradiction. Logic is a sign of immaturity. Logic is not the final height of human consciousness; it is only the first rung of the ladder. Logic is one-sided. Logic has a narrow chest; its heart is not generous, it is constricted. If God is light, logic says: then darkness can never be God. Logic says: A is A, B is B; A cannot be B. The territory of logic is small; its courtyard is tiny. The realm beyond logic is vast, sky-like, immense. God can be light and also darkness. God is life and also death.

If God is life, then who is death? The fruit of death ripens on the tree of life itself. Death is life’s ultimate flowering, its culmination, its completion. The flower of death is not outside life, it is within life. Life’s very sap flows in it. If God is life, then God must also be death. But logic raises an obstacle. Logic asks, how can what is life be death? Logic insists that life must be opposed to death. If God is auspicious, then for the inauspicious you must invent a devil—that is demanded by logic, for how could God be inauspicious? Life was given by God; death was handed out by Satan.

The invention of the devil is due to the weakness of your logic. The weaker the logic, the more duality there will be in the world; for accepting one alone will not suffice. In the one you will not be able to contain both, so you will posit a second unit. God dispenses joys and the devil brings sorrow. God makes heaven and the devil makes hell.

But where does the devil come from? If you push logic a little further, the understanding of the beyond-logic dawns. Where does the devil come from? He too must come from God—because everything comes from That. Flowers from That, and thorns from That; heaven from That and hell from That. But a broad chest is needed to accept that sorrow also comes from God. That requires great maturity.

Logic is childish. It draws boundaries, a Lakshman-rekha. It says: what is inside this is right, what is outside is wrong. But inside and outside are connected. The breath that went in is the same that comes out; the breath that went out is the same that comes back in. Logic says: do one thing only—if you breathe in, then keep breathing in; if you breathe out, then keep breathing out. But logic will kill you. Hence whoever gets entangled in logic ends up with a noose around the neck. Logic says: if you have loved, then only love. Life is far more vast. The very one you love is the one you also hate. The friend you befriend is the one you quarrel with. Compassion and anger are not separate; they are waves of one energy. And whoever wants to create must also destroy. No creator exists without destruction.

Understand. You are painting a picture. The canvas is empty. When you paint, you destroy the emptiness of the canvas. Without destroying the blankness, no painting can be made. You raise a new house, the old must be razed. You give life to a child; somewhere an old man dies. Wherever there is creation, somewhere behind it there is destruction. Without destruction, there is no creation.

Hindus are more mature than Christians and Muslims. So they had no need to posit a devil. They gave God three faces—the Trimurti. Brahma the creator, Vishnu the sustainer, and Shiva the destroyer—yet all three are faces of the one God. They gathered the three into the One. Logic will ask: why would the one who builds also demolish? The beyond-logic says: the one who builds must also demolish; otherwise how can he build? You want birth to be given by God, and death to come from elsewhere—from an enemy. From whom birth comes, from that same One death also comes. The One who sends you also bids you farewell one day. All is His. But when all is His, difficulties arise—because then things do not remain neat and tidy.

In the world of logic, things are neat. It is like the garden in your courtyard—well-manicured. The world beyond logic is like a forest—nothing neat there, everything tangled. You will be surprised to know: whatever appears absolutely neat and tidy—understand, it is human-made. Whatever appears absolutely neat and tidy cannot be truth. Neatness and truth do not travel together. If you want neatness, you have to crucify truth. Neatness is bought at the cost of truth. And if you want truth, then know that truth is a mystery; it is not tidy. Truth is complex, intertwined, a knot that does not unravel—and will not unravel. Its very being is mysterious. We will never know it completely, never seat it precisely within our little boxes. We will not be able to categorize truth fully.

The ways God has been described in the past are ladders of logic. If you adopt one logic, then you will have to express God in one way. If you adopt another, you will have to express God in a different way. I am non-logical. I have not clung to any line of logic. As He is—infinitely mysterious—I speak of Him through infinite approaches. And today this is possible. Yesterday it was not. The human race has matured; consciousness has evolved. But a notion has been planted in your minds that the Golden Age was before, and now it is the Dark Age. I ask you to reverse it. I say, perhaps the dark age was before; now is the Golden Age. This sounds unsettling because the entrenched belief is that the golden age has passed.

There are three kinds of people in the world. First, those whose golden age has already passed—so-called religious people: Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Jains, Buddhists. For them the world is on the decline, degeneration is happening. That is why Darwin’s evolution did not appeal to Christianity—because Darwin says evolution is happening, whereas Christianity says degeneration is happening. Adam fell, and since then the fall continues. No religion of the world has embraced Darwin’s evolution, because all hold their past as beautiful. In the past they see shining golden urns—but that past is a web of imagination; it never existed as they fancy. Read the oldest documents and you will see—every old scripture says the golden age was before. Not one book says the golden age is now. The Vedas say it was before; Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching says the ancients were blessed. The oldest inscription found in Babylon, six thousand years old, also says: blessed were the people of old.

So when were these “old people”? There is not a single instance where someone says, they are present now, this is the golden age now. No. There is a psychological illusion behind this—like when you speak to your father, he will say, Ah, the days we saw—what will you ever see! Ask his father, and he too will say, What has my son seen? We saw the golden days! Keep asking back, and every father will proclaim that the golden days were in the past. The real fun days are gone; now are the days of sorrow.

Psychology explains this. Everyone feels childhood was beautiful, and childhood has passed. There are poems and stories in praise of childhood—“those sweet days!” Why? One reason: there were no responsibilities, worries, anxieties; no work, no duties—life was all play, all rest. Then obstacles began. School. From school to the marketplace, to household. The web grew; the burden grew heavier; the head became heavy. In comparison, those childhood days—chasing butterflies, collecting shells on the seashore—start to seem golden.

And the child’s mind is imaginative. He does not distinguish much between dream and reality; for him they are mixed. The childhood you remember need not have been as you recall it—much of it is your added dream, your construct. And the more sorrow and anxiety grow in your present, the more you paint extra beauty onto the past to balance it. One needs some refuge. Today there is suffering; to escape it, a shelter is needed—so all the world’s religions placed the golden age in the past.

Then there is a second kind of people—communists, fascists—political religions. Their golden age is in the future. They say utopia is coming. It will come! It has not come yet. Now we must toil, struggle, fight; it is hard, but this dark night will pass; the dawn is near. For some the dawn has gone; for others, it is coming. These two crowds dominate the world. And because of both, the morning never arrives. One says, it will come tomorrow. Does tomorrow ever come? The other says, it went yesterday. What has gone is gone. What has not come will not come. Tomorrow is forever tomorrow. One says: sing the glories of the past, worship the ancestors, the Vedas, the Bible. The other says: Das Kapital—listen to Marx, Lenin, Engels, Mao—through them the golden age will arrive. And for that golden age, sacrifice whatever is needed. One says: die for the forefathers. The other says: die for the children to come. But no one tells you: live for yourself.

I want to tell you exactly that: live for yourself. I am the third kind, who says: the golden age is now! And only if it is now can it ever be. If not now, then never—because time has only one mode: now. The past is not “what has happened,” and the future is not “what will happen”—what we truly have is the wealth of the present. And the wealth of the present is the only eternal wealth. What your ancestors had in their hands was also the present. What your children will have is also the present. Time unfolds only as the present. The past is memory; the future is imagination.

Books say time has three forms—past, present, future. That is wrong. Time has only one mode: present. The past is in memory and the future in fantasy; they are not parts of time itself. Ask these trees—do they have a past? None. A future? None. Flowers bloom now, and always bloom now. Trees are green now, and always become green now. If humans vanished from the earth, would there be a past? A history? Or a utopia? Both would vanish. They are games of the human mind. Existence knows only one clock—the clock of the present.

I want you to understand: do not place your golden age behind you, nor ahead of you. In both cases you will remain miserable and die miserable. The golden age is now. And if you learn the art of living, bliss will shower now.

Humanity is mature—more mature than ever. Man is not degenerating. Darwin is right; man is evolving. The Ganges is nearing the ocean. At Gangotri the stream is thin, and day by day it grows as new streams, new rivulets, new sources join. Five thousand years ago, those who had the Vedas had only the Vedas—not the Bible. And those who had the Bible had only the Bible—not the Vedas. Today you are blessed: you have the Vedas, the Quran, the Bible, the Dhammapada. Many streams have merged into the Ganges of consciousness. Today, if someone says, I am only a Muslim—put him in a museum. If someone says, I am only a Hindu—he is not alive. One who is not Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jain, Buddhist all together today is hardly human. The entire inheritance of humanity is ours now. Today the Quran is as much mine as the Dhammapada. The Gita is as much mine as the Tao Te Ching.

The earth has become one. Humanity has gathered together. The differently evolved currents of consciousness have merged into one river. Therefore, today it is possible to use all expressions without conflict. That is why I speak on Jesus—no problem; on Mahavira—no problem; on Buddha—no problem. There is no reason for difficulty. The logician will be troubled. He will say, Jesus said this and Mahavira said that. His truth is too small. If Jesus’ truth is the truth, Mahavira becomes false.

My truth is vast. What Jesus said is one facet; what Mahavira said is another. They may be opposite, yet they are facets of the same truth. Your back and your face belong to the same person, though opposed—your back one way, your face the other. Your left hand and right hand are opposites—and if you want, you can even make them fight. Can’t you? You can pit left against right, they are so contrary. Or you can make them cooperate in one work. It depends on you. Whether the Bible and the Quran will fight or stand together, whether your left and right hands will battle or collaborate—it depends on you.

The more mature a person, the more he claims the entire wealth of humanity as his own. All of this is yours. There is nothing here to be rejected. And if somewhere you feel a difficulty, drop the logic that creates the sense of difficulty. But do not divide this vastness. All speak rightly—right for their time. They said what could be said in their context. I am saying what can be said in mine.

People come to me and say: It’s amazing—here are Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains, Buddhists—all kinds of people. You have made a great synthesis! I tell them: talk of synthesis is itself unintelligent. Synthesis implies we have already accepted opposition. It means: there was conflict; we have somehow patched it up. I say there is no conflict; talk of synthesis is nonsense.

Mahatma Gandhi used to repeat in his ashram: Allah and Ishwar are thy names—give good sense to all, O God. He must have had some doubt. Otherwise, if both names are already His, why repeat it daily? If they are, what is there to assert? You don’t go around saying every day that this wall is a wall, or that I am a man, I am a woman. No need. And when Gandhi was shot, it became clear—Ram escaped his lips! “Allah–Ishwar” vanished; the deep inner Hindu surfaced.

Gandhi praised a few verses of the Quran, but there was dishonesty in it: he praised those that agreed with the Gita. Indirectly it was praise of the Gita. The verses that go against the Gita he never touched. Is that any way? Whatever is in the Gita is right; if it is also in the Quran, it must be right—because the Gita says so, and the Gita is the standard of truth. Is that synthesis? That is whitewash. That is politics, and it has no value.

Hence Gandhi could not deceive Jinnah. Gandhi was a Hindu; Jinnah was a Muslim. And the more I have reflected, the more I see: had Gandhi not been, perhaps India–Pakistan would not have split. Gandhi’s hollow talk of synthesis never resonated with Jinnah. It was superficial; deep inside there was a Hindu outlook. In everything, a Hindu slant. Yes, he had the skill to say those aspects of others were right which matched the Hindu view—but then there is no point in calling them “right.” Affirming the other has meaning only where he differs from you. But then no talk of synthesis arises. Then truth is one with many facets. Each facet is right in its own way, yet no facet can claim to present the whole truth—neither Gita nor Quran nor Bible; neither I nor you—no one can ever claim the whole. Truth is so vast that new facets unfold day by day. After me there will be people who will discover still other facets. Man will keep evolving, new lands of truth will keep being broken. New realms will be found—and there is no end to this. The journey is infinite. Truth ends nowhere. What we have known is truth; beyond it too is truth, which others will know, which will someday be known.

It is not about synthesis; it is about keeping a vision of the vast, of the infinite.

That is why I use all these expressions—even those utterly opposed—and yet I do not see opposition, because I see in both the same hidden God.

Consider two seemingly contrary statements. Mahavira said: the soul alone is knowledge; one who has known the soul has known all. Buddha said: the belief in soul is the supreme ignorance; whoever clings to the idea of soul is most ignorant. Can you find any two statements more opposed? Yet I tell you: both are facets of the same truth. When Mahavira says atman, he reveals one aspect—because only in the ultimate experience of truth does one come to know “I am.” Until then your “I am” is built on sand. What meaning does your being have till truth is realized?

If someone asks, Who are you? What will you answer? You will tell your name—but all names are false, given. When you were born, Ram would have worked, Rahim would have worked—any name would have worked. Names can be changed as often as you like. They have no intrinsic worth. Asked who you are, at most you will point to your photograph: “This is me.” That is what a passport carries—name and photograph. But is your photograph you? Your photograph has changed many times. As a child you had one face; in youth another; now in old age a third; every day the images change. Which picture is you?

Understand more deeply. On the first day when your mother’s and father’s gametes met in the womb—had that been photographed, that too would be “you.” One would need a microscope to see it; it would show nothing in particular—no nose, no ears, no face, no color, no form. That speck was you; that was your picture. Would you accept that as “me”? In the womb you grew. Scientists say you passed through all the stages that humanity has traversed in its long evolution—you first resembled a fish, and toward the end you became like a monkey. All those were your pictures. The day you were born—if shown that picture today, would you recognize it as yours? Yet it was. And the picture you now call yours—tomorrow it will no longer be.

Who are you? Your name? Your form? Who are you? Your wealth, bank balance, safe, shop, profession? None of these reveals your who.

Mahavira says: when truth is known, when one descends to one’s innermost core, for the first time one knows “Who am I?” That answer is the soul.

Buddha says: when one reaches that place where what-is becomes clear, one thing is known: there is being—but no sense of “I am this” arises; there is only a pure awareness of existence. There is no notion of ego there. Because there is no notion of ego, Buddha says, there is no soul there.

Both speak rightly.

Mahavira says: there, for the first time, the soul is; before that everything was false. Buddha says: before that, everything was indeed false—including the word soul, which was caught before reaching there; there, it is not. There it is formless, quality-less, void. Both speak truly. If you state both at once, the combined statement will be contradictory.

Jesus has said the same: Whoever loses himself, finds. Whoever effaces himself, becomes. Whoever tries to save himself, loses. If you want to find yourself, efface yourself.

In Jesus’ utterance, both Buddha and Mahavira are included. The seed effaces itself and becomes a tree. The drop effaces itself and becomes the ocean. To disappear and to be are two sides of one coin. Mahavira emphasized one side, Buddha the other—each for his own reasons, for his own purpose. You cannot call either wrong. Both statements are true, and true together.

When all scriptures become true together, know that in your life the little boundaries have fallen, the small courtyards have vanished; you have become the sky. The day you can testify for the Bible and the Quran and the Vedas together, know that you have matured; that day childhood is gone.

Today humanity is mature. Therefore what I am saying can be said. You will find many contradictions in my words—they are inevitable. If truth is to be spoken, it will be paradoxical. If untruth is spoken, it need not be contradictory; untruth is tidy. Truth is mysterious.

But that is the joy of truth—that it is a mystery. I would like you to rise into this mystery. Leave the tidiness of logic, leave the man-made garden of logic, and enter the forest of truth. There is joy there, for there is the imprint of God’s hand. In your garden everything is artificial.

People come into my garden and say, It looks like a jungle! Knowingly it is like a jungle. I too am like a jungle.

Have you seen Western gardens? They are trimmed and clipped—and in that sense, ugly. Symmetrical. Plant a tree on one side, plant the same on the other; cut both the same. In a forest do you find two trees alike—cut alike, standing alike? The beauty of the forest is that there is no symmetry. The Zen garden in Japan has no symmetry; it is close to the forest. There you find greater beauty, for beauty shrinks when bounded; beauty lives only in the boundless.

A bird locked in a cage—granted, it is a bird, but how much of a bird is it? A bird is as much a bird as open sky is available to it. Its beauty is when it flies on its wings, when the whole sky is open, and it has the freedom to go wherever it wishes, to be as it wishes—to fly or not to fly—but all depends on it, on its inner being.

You seat this bird in a golden cage. Meticulously crafted, kept spotless—so clean the bird could never have kept its nest so—but even then, would the bird choose to live there? It longs to fly into the sky.

Logic is like a cage—clean, golden, studded with jewels. The beyond-logic is like the open sky. With logic there seems to be safety, because logic is in your fist. With truth there seems to be insecurity, because you are in truth’s fist. That is why people cling to logic. Logic is the stick of a blind man, the crutch of a lame man. Throw away the crutches! Risk danger! Without risk, no one reaches truth.

I am speaking to you from all facets, to remind you that clinging to one facet is narrowness. Let all facets come together. Let all waves come, let God come from all directions, in all forms. My effort is that you become able to recognize Him in every form. The day you can recognize Him in every form, you will find Him everywhere—for all forms are His. In the trees He is, in the mountains He is, in the moon and stars He is, in people He is. In your wife, your husband, your friend and your enemy—He is. Let your eyes begin to recognize.

Your mind simply doesn’t dare. You are eager to draw boundaries around the Divine. The very idea that the Divine is boundless frightens you—“If I befriend the boundless, I might be lost.” You want everything about God neat and tidy. Just as we coop pigeons into little lofts, we want to put God into a little loft too—a category, a compartment: “Here is God, here are His identifying marks, keep your passport safe—this is your name, this your face, don’t forget and don’t lose it anywhere”—then we can relax.

Notice what you do when you meet a stranger on the road or in a train. To put yourself at ease, you ask, “Your name? Where are you coming from? Caste? What line of work?” What are you doing? You’re trying to make sure about this person sitting next to you: “Is he a bandit, a thief, or—even more dangerous—a politician, a businessman? Who is he?” You want to be reassured. He’s right by your side; your pocket is right there; who knows when his hand may slip in! Your neck is nearby too; you’ll have to sleep at night while he sits there.

Once I boarded a train. Friends had come to see me off in Bombay. There was another gentleman in the compartment watching—garlands, people touching my feet. He was waiting for the train to start and for me to come in. As soon as I came in and the train moved, he immediately prostrated fully and said, “Mahatmaji, by God’s grace I’ve found your company.” I said, “You are mistaken. I am not a Hindu mahatma; I’m a Muslim fakir.” His face was worth seeing. He had touched a Muslim’s feet! He said, “No, no, how can that be?” As if there were some obstacle in my being Muslim—“How can that be? No, you’re joking.” He began persuading himself, “You’re joking.” I said, “Why would I joke? I told you the truth. But as you wish—if you want to take me as a Hindu, take me as a Hindu.” Now he grew very uneasy. “I touched his feet!” I said, “If it eases you, I’ll touch your feet and we’ll call it even.” “No, no,” he said, “nothing like that.” “But you look Hindu,” he insisted. I said, “What a difficulty! I say I’m Muslim, you say I look Hindu. You only want to save face—because you touched the feet.”

He went back to his newspaper, but kept stealing glances, trying to decide—Hindu or Muslim? I said, “Don’t worry unnecessarily; I am Hindu, I was only teasing.” He prostrated again. “I knew it,” he said. “You look completely Hindu. Those people who saw you off were Hindus too. You had me!” When he touched my feet again, I said, “Now this is another mess. I was teasing—but now the joke’s gone too far.” Then he grew a little afraid, “Perhaps this man is crazy!” When the ticket collector came, he went out and said, “I need to move to another compartment.” “What’s the problem?” asked the collector. “Don’t ask,” he said, “I won’t be able to sleep in there.”

You want to be sure. If he’s Hindu, then you ask, “Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya?” You’re trying to fit the person neatly into your ledger. You’ve made ledgers. If you’re Hindu, you think, “Muslims are dangerous.” If you’re Muslim, you think, “Hindus are crooked, deceitful.” If you’re Hindu and see a Christian, you think “mlechchha, impure.” If you’re Christian and see a Hindu, “corrupt, irreligious, lost, infidel.” You’ve made categories. Whenever you meet someone new, you slot them in. And by slotting them, you feel reassured: now you know how to deal with them and what to expect. The irony is, all categories are false. You’ve met this person for the first time, and a person like this you’ve never met; no two people in the world are alike—so all categories are useless. God does not make duplicates. Human beings don’t come off the assembly line of some Ford factory—identical cars in a row. Each person is unique, incomparable. Categories are futile.

You can’t slap a category on a person, yet you want to slap one on God. You superimpose your notions upon yourself, and you want to superimpose them upon the Divine. You say, “What I consider auspicious must be in God; but how can I accept in God what I consider inauspicious?”

What is the worth of your notions of auspicious and inauspicious? What is auspicious? What is inauspicious? On what basis do you call something auspicious? How did you know? How did you fix what is inauspicious? Someone dies, and you call it inauspicious. All that proves is that your clinging to life is intense—nothing else. You want to live forever, therefore you label death inauspicious. That doesn’t make death inauspicious; it only establishes the intensity of your lust to live. Though your life may be empty, you want to drag it on—live somehow, at any price. Live you must, even if you rot in gutters, starve, or are crushed by cancer—live you must. Life is auspicious, death inauspicious.

Then the question arises: how can God be the giver of death? “No, no, death must be coming from somewhere else; there must be some devil as the source of death.”

You say flowers are beautiful, thorns are not. But that’s your notion. Your notions don’t compel God. Better that you become as notionless as God is. Flowers are beautiful—and thorns are beautiful too.

Have you not seen the beauty of thorns? You got stuck at a tiny fact: sometimes a thorn pricks your hand and blood comes out. But the color of your blood and the color of the flower are one. As blood has emerged from your hand, so from this thorny bush the rose has emerged. These thorns protect the rose. They are not its enemies; they are its sentries, its bodyguards. These thorns are beautiful too.

And notice, notions of beauty keep changing. There was a time when the rose was beautiful; now the cactus has become beautiful. Among the educated and cultured today, the rose has departed from the home—the rose is bourgeois, middle class, orthodox, traditional. Modern poets don’t sing of the rose. Who sings of the rose! The cactus! They sing of its beautiful slanting, jagged thorns. Cacti are placed in drawing rooms. Earlier, people planted them along field fences to stop wild animals and thieves from entering; now the cactus has entered the drawing room. The rose is gone, a symbol of aristocracy; the cactus—the proletariat, the poor, the god of the destitute. Languages change. If God was once a rose, now he is a cactus.

No notion sticks to God. You make the notions, then you tire of one and change it; you get bored and change it again. Then you make a new one. You will tire of that too.

The person who is bored with all notions is religious. One who says, “I will not impose any notion. Who am I? What control do I have over existence? Why should I force the world into my frame? Why should I say this is ugly, that beautiful? And why should God be only beautiful, not ugly?” God is neither beautiful nor ugly. Beautiful and ugly are inventions of the human mind.

Think a bit. Suppose a third world war occurs and all humans are wiped out. Will anything be beautiful or ugly on earth? There will still be roses and cacti—you will not be. But there will be no one left to distinguish between the two. Both will be there—neither beautiful nor ugly. Night will come and no one will be afraid; day will come and no one will praise the sun. Life will continue—plants, birds—and death will come too. But there will be no one to welcome life and no one to reject death. When man goes, notions go; when man goes, duality goes.

Don’t wait for a third world war. Drop duality within yourself now. Instantly you will find that as duality drops, nothing is auspicious, nothing inauspicious; nothing moral, nothing immoral. I’m not telling you to start behaving any which way with people—because people are not God; they won’t tolerate it. Don’t say, “If there’s no right or wrong, why should I keep left? I’ll walk right—or down the middle—as I please.” That policeman standing there is no paramahansa; he will take you to the station—do remember that. Keep to the left. But know this much: left or right, it is all practical, not ultimate. It has practical value.

In America, people drive on the right—it hasn’t caused harm. In India, people drive on the left—because the British left that habit behind. Left or right—but one thing is certain: where there’s crowding, you need rules. Rules are only practical. Without crowds, rules are unnecessary. In small villages, left or right—who cares? Walk where you like. No one stops you, no one worries. As cities grow, arrangements begin; the bigger the metropolis, the more rules. The more the crowd, the more rules you must bring. A solitary person can live without rules. As soon as you connect with others, rules become necessary. But remember: though necessary, they are still practical, not ultimate. They have no final ontological status; they are not truth.

God is neither beautiful nor ugly. You have made beautiful idols of God, but that’s your notion of beauty imposed upon the Divine. Hence different peoples make different-looking idols of God, because their notions of beauty differ. When a Chinese crafts an image, he makes a flat nose—true to God, but flat. When a Hindu sculpts, he carves a Kashmiri nose. When an African crafts, he makes fuller lips—because in African aesthetics, full lips are beautiful. To make the lips fuller, African women and men even employ devices—hanging stones and such. It is an adornment of beauty: the fuller the lips, the deeper the kiss, the firmer the clasp and the grip. What will thin lips kiss! You wouldn’t even notice. There is some sense in their notion too.

But to us, full lips look inelegant. Among the Aryan groups, lips are thin—so thin lips are beautiful. Their noses are long—so long noses are beautiful. Their natural complexion is fair—so fair is beautiful. You paint demons dark, not fair. Though there are great demons among the fair, and among the dark you may find divine souls. What have dark and fair to do with godliness or demonic nature? But it is your notion about color.

Herodotus said: if donkeys and horses were to make their God, they would not make him in the image of man. Naturally. You project your notions onto God. Bid your notions goodbye. Your notions are hurdles, obstructions.

What is defilement?
You ask: if God is all, then darkness, defilement and sin—are they all within him too?
What is sin? Arjuna said to Krishna, “I will not cut these people down. They are my own—kin and friends, schoolmates, relatives, cousins—we all grew up together. This is my family split in two—half here, half there—I will not strike them.”

He holds a notion of sin: one should not kill one’s own. If they were not his own, he would have cut them without hesitation. But because they are “his own,” there is the obstacle. Arjuna has never had a problem with killing; his whole life he has slaughtered in war; it is his vocation, his style of life. Why has the question arisen today? Killing one’s own—that is the snag. How to kill one’s own? There is sin in killing one’s own.

Throughout the Gita, Krishna tries to explain just one thing: Who are you to decide about sin and merit? Who is one’s own, who is another? Here neither “mine” nor “not mine” truly exists. And how will you kill? Unless God has decided to call someone back, you cannot kill. I see they are already dead; you will only be a pretext. If not you, then another. Drop the notion that you are the doer.

Arjuna’s stand is highly moral. He keeps repeating: “You call killing, violence, murder—auspicious? These are inauspicious.”

But in the world, inauspiciousness is happening on a vast scale. A bird swoops and eats a worm the earth has inched out; then a hawk swoops from above and eats the bird. A small fish is swallowed by a bigger fish. In this whole world, everything is food for something else. If violence is sin, existence is filled with sin. But “violence is sin” is our notion. Why is violence sin? Because we don’t want anyone to kill us. The fear within—that no one should kill us—turns outward as a doctrine: violence is sin.

Notice: the weaker and more timid people are, the quicker they adopt the dictum, “Ahimsa paramo dharmah—nonviolence is the supreme religion.” And that dictum also made people cowardly. This country would not have languished in a thousand years of slavery—ahimsa paramo dharmah! Curiously, if one declares nonviolence supreme, at least he should have the courage not to kill, fine—but should be ready to die. Yet Jains are not ready to die either.

In truth, something is being hidden. There is fear of death, but you can’t say straight out, “Don’t kill me.” So you dress it up: “Violence is sinful. If you kill, you’ll incur sin and rot in hell. See, we don’t kill either. We place our feet with a puff—carefully.”

But you don’t get free of violence; it only takes subtler forms. Jains gave up agriculture, feeling it involved violence—plants have life; you must uproot them, cut the harvest. So they stopped farming and all became shopkeepers. But they never pondered that the interest they charge and the profit they extract is also exploitation and violence. They stopped cutting trees, started cutting people. The cutting became subtle—less visible on the surface.

Proudhon said: all property is theft—because all money involves grabbing and snatching. Money is like blood; just as a man can’t live without blood, it becomes difficult to live without money. You stop drinking blood, and start drinking money. Consider: you enslave a man and make him press your feet through the night—this is violence. You earn a thousand rupees—now, if you wish, you can have a thousand people press your feet all night. With a thousand rupees you can get a thousand kinds of work done. In one slave there is only one slave; in a thousand rupees a thousand labors are hidden. A rupee in your pocket—have someone press your feet, drink a glass of milk, get your head massaged, make someone rub his nose on the ground—“Do it three times and I’ll give you a rupee”—or whatever you want: get a load carried, sit on someone’s neck, make someone pull a rickshaw. Your one rupee holds many things. The range of a rupee is wide. Enslave one man, you can extract only so much; there’s a limit. But the rupee’s capacity is vast.

Hence money has become more valuable than people—more valuable than anything—because countless options hide inside a single rupee. Just give the order, and things will appear—tea if you want tea, sherbet if you want sherbet, cold if cold, hot if hot, a man if a man, a woman if a woman—whatever you want! With that rupee in your pocket, you have the whole world in your pocket. Once this is understood, who will farm! Then began the farming of man. People started harvesting people. And the slogan continued—ahimsa paramo dharmah. Under the slogan, violence found new forms.

Krishna says to Arjuna: if violence is acceptable within God’s order, don’t try to rise above God. If in his arrangement violence is necessary, it must be right. Who are we to judge? What is sin? How do you decide that “this is sin”? In my view, there is only one sin: to live in ignorance. From it, all sins arise. The moment you begin to live in awareness, in meditation, in love, the Divine becomes visible—and as soon as the Divine is seen, all dualities dissolve. Then there is no sin and no merit; nothing auspicious, nothing inauspicious.

And this does not mean you will start committing sin. Let me repeat: it absolutely does not mean you will start sinning. Sin doesn’t remain—and “you” don’t remain either. When the Divine is realized, it becomes clear: “Let Him do what He does; I will remain his instrument, his medium, his vehicle. I am but a means.” If he makes you fight in war, you fight; if he makes you serve in a hospital, you serve. His will is your will.

Certainly, the world is made of dualities. Without duality, the world cannot be. If there were only nonviolence here, the world could not exist. The bricks must be of both violence and nonviolence. If there were only anger, the world wouldn’t stand; if there were only compassion, it wouldn’t stand either. One brick of anger, one brick of compassion—thus this palace rises. It is built with bricks of duality. One night, one day—those are the bricks required.

Imagine a man born with no anger at all. He could not live. He’d have no backbone, no strength. Someone would shove him and he’d collapse there. There would be no life-force in him. And without anger, compassion never arises—because compassion is the ultimate transformation of anger.

Isn’t it striking that this land’s greatest apostles of nonviolence came from warrior lineages? The twenty-four Tirthankaras of the Jains were Kshatriyas; the Buddha was a Kshatriya. In the Jataka tales of Buddha’s prior lives, he too appears as Kshatriya. Nonviolence’s proclamation came from warrior houses; draw some meaning from that. And since the Jains became merchants, not a single Tirthankara has arisen. Something went wrong—no anger remained, no strength, no energy; a kind of impotence descended. Mahavira could be nonviolent because first one must be capable of violence—only then can one truly be nonviolent. The first step is violence, the second nonviolence. First step anger, second compassion. First step atheism, second theism. First step the world, second nirvana. Reject the first step, and the second never comes.

You will find this everywhere.

Imagine a world with only men and women gone—how long would life continue? Duality would end. Or only women and no men—duality ended, death would set in. Scientists say even electricity flows because of negative and positive poles. Magnetism works because of negative and positive. In their latest probes into the atom, scientists find the same division—one particle positive, one negative; even there the male–female polarity exists. Without it, electricity is not generated; without it, matter itself does not arise.

This duality is to be understood. The dual of sin and merit is indispensable. The Divine encompasses both. Both are his arms, both his wings. And when both are in balance, they cancel each other and transcendence happens. Note that as well. In God there is sin and there is merit; there is day and there is night; there is life and there is death. But because they are present in equal measure, they cancel each other out—and God goes beyond both.

You have seen—in this country alone we created the image of Ardhanarishvara: the Divine half-male, half-female. It is significant—profoundly scientific. Nowhere else in the world is there such an image; others did not penetrate so deep as to see that the Divine must be both female and male. You will be amazed to know that in Sanskrit the word brahman is of neuter gender. Because when male and female are conjoined and cancel each other, what remains has transcended—neither male nor female, beyond both. Yet it is precisely because both are present that transcendence occurs.

“You said neti-neti is the proclamation of knowledge—‘not this, not that’—and iti-iti of devotion—‘this too, that too.’ In this proclamation of devotion, darkness, defilement and sin—all get included.”
Certainly. The devotee’s heart is vast. The devotee is beyond logic; the knower’s chest is narrow—he is logic. Everything must be in the Divine; nothing can be outside. If there is hell, it too is within Him; if there is heaven, it too is within Him. Therefore I say to you: even in hell, remember—you are in God. In sorrow, remember—you are in God. When a thorn pricks, remember—God is touching you just as much as when you press a flower to your cheek. In moments of anxiety you are as close to God as you are in moments of meditation. There is no way to be far from God. There is no place to go contrary to Him. There is no door to go outside Him. Where will you go? All is That. God is truly the name of the All, of the Total. God is not a person; it is a designation for the Whole. And that is why God is so hard to comprehend. How to understand? If it were only auspicious, we would understand; if only inauspicious, we would understand. Understanding comes to a halt. Where understanding halts, love begins to work.

You are the masterpiece of blossoming and delicacy—
not only the spring, but the very yield of spring.
What is imprisoned in a single flower—you are that whole garden;
what lies hidden in a single bud—you are that crimson meadow.
The wish of sweetness, the fulfillment of savor—
the pride of buds, the surrender of flowers—you are that.
What Nature has hummed in her wave—
that Bhairavi, that Deepak, that Malhar—you are that.
In your body lie slumbering a thousand ragas;
what the glance touches to music—you are that sitar.
The pearl no seeking could lift—you are that;
the garland no longing could string—you are that.
The riddle even love could not solve—you are that riddle;
what even love could not comprehend—you are that very love.

Understanding the Divine is not possible; love is possible. Love too will not “understand,” but it will experience. Love doesn’t worry about understanding; love tastes. What does it matter whether you understand sweetness or not? If the taste of sweetness floods your every fiber, if you are immersed in sweetness, who cares to “understand” it? You become sweetness. Love becomes the Divine. The devotee dissolves into divinity. The intellectual does not understand, the devotee does not understand—understanding is not possible. For understanding demands an essential condition: no contradiction, no paradox. And truth is paradoxical. Therefore understanding grows tired and falls; it is struck dumb; it says, “Beyond this, I can go no further.”

Those who go by understanding never become religious. The “understanding ones” do not become religious—and thus their cleverness turns out to be the greatest foolishness. To be religious requires un-knowing, a divine madness, the courage to set understanding aside: “All right—if you cannot go further, we will; you stay here.”

The name of that event is sannyas—leaving understanding to one side and stepping beyond, saying, “Understanding brought me as far as it could—thank you! From here we go alone.” Love takes you at the end—taste, experience, direct realization. Then who cares to understand!

A fact is time-bound truth, and truth is an eternal fact. Think of it this way: a fact is a wave rising in the ocean, and truth is the ocean. Waves come and go. Waves are fleeting; the ocean is eternal. A fact is a wave of truth. A fact means: it is now. Truth means: it is always. A fact means: it is now, and soon it will not be.

Consider this: your body is a fact. One day it was not—forty, fifty years ago your body did not exist. And forty or fifty years from now, it will not be again. It was a fact, a wave rising in water that lasted seventy, eighty, or a hundred years. Don’t ascribe too much value to a hundred years. On the vast scale of existence, a hundred years is nothing—hardly even a moment.

So the body is a fact. It certainly is, but it will pass. In its being, non-being is hidden. In its being, non-being is growing. You do not die suddenly one day; from the very day you are born, you begin to die. Then day by day, little by little, you keep dying, until one day death is complete. A newborn, one day old, has already died by one day—twenty-four hours of life are gone. What you call birthdays would be better called death-days; they have nothing to do with birth. A year passes, and you say your birthday has come! One more year of life is gone, death has come a year closer, and you say a birthday has arrived! Or is it that death has come nearer? Has death drawn close?

A fact means: that within which non-being is hidden and growing—like a bubble on water; as it swells, it comes nearer to bursting. Truth means: that within you which is the witness; which has lived in this body, in that body, has abided in countless bodies and will abide in countless bodies, yet itself is always. That witnessing, that meditativeness, that inner awareness, that consciousness—that is eternal.

Understand it like this too: a bubble rises on water. The bubble is transient; it will soon burst. But the air within the bubble remains; and the water that formed it remains as well. The bubble was a conjunction—formed and dissolved.

In this world, whatever arises through conjunctions, we call a fact. And that which does not arise from conjunction but from eternity, which is present in all conjunctions yet is not itself a conjunction, we call truth. Call it God, or any name you like. There is certainly something here that is always—something that neither comes nor goes, that is ever-present; that has no past and no future, that is eternally present. That is truth.

There has never been a person for whom bliss was not destined. Though there are millions who never experience it. But don’t blame destiny. Don’t throw your own fault onto destiny’s shoulders. Don’t play that trick. You are the culprit, not fate. You are the maker of your own destiny.

If you are dissatisfied, try to understand your dissatisfaction—why am I dissatisfied? You will find the causes. Don’t repeat those causes; the dissatisfaction will disappear. But you don’t want to search for the causes, because it may turn out that you yourself are the cause—your very being, this “I” that wants to be satisfied. You don’t want to take that risk. You want to put the blame on someone else.

Man has been shifting blame for centuries. He keeps changing pretexts, but he keeps shifting blame. Earlier he said—fate. You sound old-fashioned—fate, God! Then people changed, but not much. Marx said that if you are unhappy, society is responsible. But “society” is as hollow a word as “fate,” no real difference. I don’t see any great revolution in Marx. The real revolution is only one: don’t evade, don’t throw it on another, don’t fire the gun from someone else’s shoulder. Don’t search for excuses. Face it directly; analyze your life’s illness precisely; diagnose it—then there can be medicine and cure. But if you are ill and you say “fate,” there is no need to see a doctor, no need to take medicine—there is no medicine for fate. Or you say “society.” Society will change when it changes; by then you will be gone.

Then Freud came and said: not society, not fate, but your childhood—your mother, your father; they gave you wrong conditioning, they repressed you; therefore you are entangled. Now this would need your parents all over again—and better parents! The mistake is already made; there is no remedy now.

Freud said man can never be happy. How could he be? The very method you propose deals with what is already finished. You say the first mistake has already been made: you chose your parents—and you should have chosen the right ones. But how were you to choose? Where were you? When did you choose? It just happened. Now it has happened; there is no way back. Somehow persuade yourself, manage, get by.

Neither Freud made a revolution, nor Marx. Buddha made a revolution; Mahavira made a revolution; Krishna, Patanjali, Jesus made a revolution. What revolution? They said: your hand is in your dissatisfaction. Understand. Why are you dissatisfied? Why does everything make you dissatisfied?

First thing: your demands are impossible. For instance, a gentleman came to me and said, “No woman gives me any taste; I want a supremely beautiful woman, a perfect woman.” I told him a story I’ve heard—there was a man who also sought a perfect woman. He searched his whole life; he didn’t find her. His friends asked, “You searched your whole life and didn’t find her?” He said, “It’s not that I never found her; once I did.” “Then what happened?” He said, “My misfortune was that she was looking for a perfect man.”

Now you are off to find a perfect woman without first caring whether you are a perfect man. Become a perfect man—and perhaps the perfect woman lives next door. The complete recognizes the complete. The incomplete cannot even see the complete, and even if it sees, it cannot recognize.

If you go searching for a perfect woman, you will live in misery. Your demands are impossible; so dissatisfaction will be there. Bring your demands within human limits. You keep demanding without ever caring what you are asking for—can it be had or not? You ask for eternal life: this body should remain forever. Then death comes and there is dissatisfaction. You say, “Let me have a fame that lasts forever.” But the winds change. Your wave rises for a time, then someone else’s wave begins. Will you not allow someone else’s wave to rise? If only yours keeps rising, others will remain dissatisfied. And when yours was rising, someone else’s stopped—you forgot? He became dissatisfied. Fame will be transitory; it’s like a ripple on water—comes and goes. If you want it to be eternal—if you want the rose that blossomed in the morning never to wither—then buy plastic flowers; don’t desire real roses. But a plastic flower feels fake; it doesn’t satisfy the heart. You are making an impossible demand: you want the real flower to behave like an artificial one. That cannot be, so there will be dissatisfaction.

Search in your demands, not in destiny! There is no such destiny. Your demands must be of that kind—you have placed such demands upon yourself, set up such ideals, that cannot be fulfilled. When they are not fulfilled, there is pain. I will tell you the secret—the secret of contentment: don’t demand; live. Live what is. Don’t make impossible demands. Accept the ordinariness of life.

The day before yesterday a young woman came from the West. She began to cry, saying, “When I left there, I came with great hopes. Here I find myself very ordinary. I am sad.” Understand her state—yours will be the same. When she set out from home she must have imagined that on reaching the ashram there would be a band playing, she would be seated on an elephant and taken out in a procession, there would be a grand welcome. Everyone has such notions; people live in such fantasies. Then they aren’t fulfilled. No procession, no elephant or horse, no bands—suddenly you feel, “Ah, I’m ordinary!”

When she left, she was the only sannyasin in her village. On coming here she saw a thousand sannyasins. Naturally, if there is one sannyasin in a village, everyone’s eyes fall on her; where there are a thousand, who looks? Among a thousand sannyasins your face gets lost. All in ochre look alike. She began to feel ordinary. Now she is afflicted. But what is the cause? The craving to be extraordinary, to be special. That very craving has created this suffering. If you don’t understand this, the suffering will continue.

Accept your ordinariness. Have you not heard? Shandilya said the Divine is not special; He is ordinary, unspecial. So you too become ordinary. Someone asked the Zen master Lin-chi about his practice. He said, “When I’m hungry I eat; when I’m thirsty I drink; and when I’m sleepy I sleep.” The man said, “But that’s what all ordinary people do!” Lin-chi said, “Who says I am extraordinary? Among the ordinary I am even more ordinary.” The man asked, “Then what is the benefit?” Lin-chi said, “The benefit is great: I am content. What more benefit!”

If you begin to savor the small, small things of life, you will become contented.

Today again, after meeting you, I am disappointed
the same way of speaking, the same pall of sadness on your face
complaints of the world’s tyranny, of the crookedness of circumstances
lament over crowns and thrones, mourning fate’s indifference
an innocent attempt to be ashamed of empty pockets
fantasies of young, beautiful, fragrant days and nights
a longing to be the star, sometime, in joy-giving gatherings
the desire to touch bodies blooming like roses
for so long I have yearned that one night you might
come to my delicate salon like this as well
and, in handing me all the comforts of body and soul,
there would be no reserve

A beloved is saying this to her lover—
Today again, after meeting you, I am disappointed
the same way of speaking, the same pall of sadness on your face
the same old conversation, the same old habits, the same rut; on your face a deep sadness.

complaints of the world’s tyranny, of the crookedness of circumstances
And all the talk of the world’s atrocities, mishaps, crookedness: the world is very bad, there is great oppression, there is no peace anywhere, great wars are going on. Complaint upon complaint upon complaint.

lament over crowns and thrones, mourning fate’s indifference
Grumbling about life’s race and hustle, grumbling about fate—the same crying, the same old cry.

an innocent attempt to be ashamed of empty pockets
And constantly making yourself miserable, the attempt to pity yourself.

fantasies of young, beautiful, fragrant days and nights
And great fantasies that “it should be like this.” What is, is wrong; what should be, never happens. “It should be like this.”

fantasies of young, beautiful, fragrant days and nights
a longing to be the star, sometime, in joy-giving gatherings
And big dreams of pleasure.

the desire to touch bodies blooming like roses
And the desire to touch bodies blooming like roses. The beloved is saying—

for so long I have yearned that one night you might
come to my delicate salon like this as well
and, in handing me all the comforts of body and soul,
there would be no reserve
I have been waiting so long that someday you would come, accept me—an ordinary woman—stop hankering after rose-like bodies. That someday you would come and leave your complaints outside. That you would come filled with grace, not filled with grievances.

for so long I have yearned that one night you might
come to my delicate salon like this as well
and, in handing me all the comforts of body and soul,
there would be no reserve
But that moment never arrives. What I have, I cannot offer you—because you are lost in your sadness, in your complaints. You come carrying the world’s upheavals, the world’s anxieties.

Life is in small things. The secret of life is in small things. Life is made of very small things; small bricks build the temple of life. Your ambitions are big. You have gotten involved in futile matters. Your fantasies are big. You want, “It should be so.” What happens, happens; your wanting will not make it so. Your wanting will only keep you dissatisfied, keep you unhappy, keep you tormented. Drop this habit. Not fate—just habit. Drop the habit; begin to live in grace. What has been given is much. Don’t ask for more. First enjoy this much. If you become capable of enjoying this, more will be given.

Jesus has a very amazing saying: to those who have, more will be given; and from those who have not, even what they have will be taken away. This is a most wondrous utterance. Search through all the scriptures of the world—you won’t find another like it. It seems very unjust—that to those who have, more will be given. It appears to make the rich richer, the poor poorer, a very capitalistic idea. But don’t rush—Jesus is right. Whatever you have—if you enjoy it with delight, more will be given. You will become a vessel. If you eat the dry crust with relish, sweets will come. The life you have—live it as if it is heaven, and heaven will come. First give thanks for what you have, so the Giver’s courage grows, His heart opens, and He showers more upon you. But you are filled only with complaints.

You say, “I am dissatisfied—dissatisfied with everything. And sometimes I think perhaps bliss is not in my destiny at all.”

There has never been such a person. Bliss is everyone’s destiny. Bliss is in everyone’s lot. God sends each one with bliss written upon him. We are created out of bliss; bliss is our nature. If you are in suffering, you must have created it. Suffering is man’s expertise; suffering is man’s art. Bliss is God’s gift, His offering, His prasad.

Therefore Shandilya said: the devotee trusts in prasad, not in effort. From effort, only suffering is born; from effort, the world; from prasad, nirvana.

Once again, reconsider your life. Examine and recognize your ways and your attitudes. You are creating the dissatisfaction.

I was a guest in a home. On the way from the airport I saw my host was very sad. I asked his wife, “Your husband looks very down—what’s the matter? Whenever I come I find him cheerful.” His wife said, “It’s a little matter. He says he has suffered a big loss.” I asked the husband, “What’s the matter?” He said, “A loss of five lakhs.” The wife said, “But don’t trust what he says; I say there has been a profit of five lakhs; he says there has been a loss of five lakhs. I am happy and he is worried.” The husband said, “It’s a loss—because there should have been a profit of ten lakhs, and only five happened.”

If you won’t be dissatisfied after that, what will you be?

Change your way of seeing life. Change the habit. In that very change of habit lie contentment and peace. And where there is contentment and peace, if not today then tomorrow, truth certainly arrives.

That is all for today.