Athato Bhakti Jigyasa #18

The seed is natural; the flower is natural. The seed’s journey to the flower is also natural. But if the seed stops at being a seed, that stopping is not natural. Wherever there is an obstruction, a stoppage, where the journey breaks, where the path no longer meets the goal—there something has become unnatural. Let the seed keep growing. There is nothing wrong with the seed. Hidden in the seed is the flower. Hidden in the seed is the fragrance. Hidden in the seed is beauty. But let it not remain hidden—let it be revealed, expressed, let it dance.

The things man ordinarily lives—eating and drinking, sex and anger, greed and attachment—are all natural, but like the seed. If you stop there, a hitch will arise. If you stop there, devotion is lost. Devotion is the journey toward God. Start from there; take it as a halt, not the destination. If you must stop for a while, stop—but don’t stop forever. Keep moving, keep going.

And you will be amazed to know that if you stop, a man begins to live for eating and drinking; and if you keep moving, a man eats and drinks for living. The difference is like earth and sky. If you stop, sex remains only sex. If you keep moving, from kama itself Rama is born. Kama is the seed of Rama. If you stop, anger remains anger, and it will rot you. A seed that stops will rot. A seed that stops cannot even remain a seed; sooner or later, only ashes will remain. Only if the seed grows can it be saved. Let it grow larger, spread, become vast; let flowers come, let fruit come; let a thousand seeds come from the one seed—then the seed is saved.

Anger is a seed. If it stops, you will rot; life becomes hell. If it moves on, from anger compassion is born. Anger is your energy. If it finds no path, it goes astray; it circles within you and, finding no door, breaks you. If it finds a door, a right path, that very anger becomes compassion.

Life as it is right now is certainly natural. I want to tell you with authority: eating and drinking are natural, sleeping, getting up, sitting are natural; sex and anger are natural; entertainment is natural—just don’t stop there. If you stop at entertainment, you go on playing with toys and the real thing never begins.

What flavor is there in entertainment? Only this—that for a little while the mind forgets. What do you call entertainment? You watched a film, saw a dance, heard a song, got entangled for a while, absorbed for a while; for a little while the mind was forgotten—this you call entertainment. If this is taken further, one day you will arrive at a place where the mind is forgotten forever, the mind is dismantled. That day is supreme bliss. The name of that state beyond mind is devotion; or meditation; or samadhi.

Do not stop at entertainment. Understand entertainment, recognize it, catch its essence. Squeeze it—what is the point of it? Why do I drown so in entertainment? What is this longing? Why do I again and again want something in which I can be absorbed? You have become bored with yourself, so you want to drown somewhere. But where you drown is only a palmful of water—how will you drown there? How long will a film drown you? How long will a dance make you forget? How long will wine keep you intoxicated? Very quickly the intoxication will break. Soon you come out of the cinema hall. Music won’t bewitch you for very long. Then you return to your place—worse off than before. Because for a little while, as the mind was forgotten, it gave a glimpse of happiness; now, by comparison, the misery appears even larger, even harsher.

Haven’t you seen it? You walk along a road at night, a dark night, and a fast car passes, pouring its bright lights into your eyes; after it passes, the road becomes even darker. Earlier you could see something; now you see nothing. For a few moments you are almost blind.

There is suffering in life; you drink wine, and for a little while the suffering is forgotten. But how long can you stay drowned? After a while you have to return. If wine became eternal, God would be found. The name of the eternal wine is God—such that once you drown, you drown and never return. You cannot drown in a palmful of water, not in pots—you need the ocean.

An intelligent person searches within the ordinariness of life, investigates, examines, catches the thread: what is the secret of entertainment? Once he understands the secret of entertainment, he thinks, Now how do I find that state where the mind is lost forever? Let there be a once-for-all freedom from it, with no return to reunion.

But as you live now, it is a blind habit. There is no awareness in it, no reflection, no discrimination, no understanding.

Even breathing—what a habit.
This going on living—what a routine.
No footfall anywhere in the body,
no shadow in the eyes.
The feet are numb; they just keep walking,
a journey that keeps flowing on.
For how many years, for how many centuries,
we go on living, go on living.
Habits are strange things.

To rise above habit is religion. To rise above mechanicalness is growth. Eat and drink, certainly—just don’t end in eating and drinking. Dance and sing too, certainly—but don’t forget the ultimate dance. Remember it. And if every dance keeps reminding you of that supreme dance, then there is no obstruction.

Listen to music—I have no opposition to music—but let it sit within you like an arrow, and let the search for the supreme music begin. Love—do love; form attachments to form and color; but let that attachment remind you of the formless; let it not end in the small; let it become a goad, leading you toward the Divine.

When a woman can have so much beauty, when a man can have so much beauty, when a flower can have so much beauty and a cloud drifting in the sky can have so much beauty—then how much beauty must there be in the Supreme, who is hidden within all, the secret of secrets! When his small gestures can so stir the heart, then when union with him himself happens... You have been meeting the servants; if from meeting the servants such joy arises, what will happen when you meet the Master!

The Sufi fakirs cry out—Yaa Malik! Their mantra is—Yaa Malik!! The search is one: how to find the Master? Do not get entangled in the livery of the doorkeepers. The doorkeepers wear grand attire—colorful clothes, gold buttons. Don’t get caught there; you have to seek the Master. The Master is somewhere within the palace. Do not, standing outside the palace, imagine you have reached the palace. If you can remember just this much, then everything is natural: eating and drinking, sex and anger, attachment and greed—all are natural. But keep moving on. Let the journey continue. Slowly, slowly, as you go forward, a little beyond anger you will glimpse compassion; go a little beyond form and the wave of the formless will arise; go deeper into music and the inner sound will be heard—the Nada, the Omkar.

I saw you
at dawn,
sprouts breaking through the wet soil,
a gentle, gentle
swaying crop,
the ears of grain
grown heavy—
ripe mangoes dripping in the orchards,
plundered;
the tiny
blue bird
flew from where it had perched,
the branch turned green,
the twig-tip,
tight bonds
snapped.
I saw the village in the monsoon,
the season’s color risen high;
on the trees
your touch;
the wind trembled,
on the water’s skin
the lapwings danced,
and the fear-masks on the walls,
broken, shattered.
I saw you
one evening,
the sun was setting,
impaled among the trees,
a redness spread
far, far out;
on the blossoming plumes
of wild grass,
from moistened eyes
the kohl slipped away.
I saw you
at dawn,
sprouts breaking through the wet soil.
I saw the village in the monsoon,
the season’s color risen high;
on the trees
your touch.

I am not against love. This is my teaching. This is my essential message. I am not world-denying; I am in utmost love with the world. I do not teach you renunciation; I teach you the art of deepening raga. I do not teach you negation—that you should run away, abandon, go to the forests. I call that escapism stupidity. I say: go a little deeper into this world, not just on the surface—Yaa Malik! In this very world the Master of the world is hidden—dig a little. You do not even enter the palace. For lifetimes you have been circling the outer wall. The palace waits for you; the Master waits for you. Everything is natural.

When does the unnatural happen? When something stops. A child becoming young is natural. A child remaining a child—that is unnatural. An old man remaining old, not dying—that is unnatural. Death is natural. The young growing old—that is natural. Let things flow; let the stream keep moving; let it not become a stagnant pool. Wherever the flow is obstructed, where the stream becomes a puddle, there something becomes unnatural. Just remember this much. Sannyas means flow—endless flow. From wherever you are, you have to move on. Keep going on until the Ultimate is found.

And what does the Ultimate mean?
It means: where the river is lost in the ocean. Then no path of journey remains. The river itself no longer remains. When the traveler himself is lost, then know the journey has come to its end.

This is a sacred thirst—the longing of love and devotion. Do not be afraid of it.
- Don’t imitate others. If your eyes want to remain open, let them; follow your own truth.
- Words are secondary; the essential transmission is silent, through presence and the meeting of eyes. Missing some words is not a loss.
- Allow the thirst to deepen; it purifies and burns the ego. When separation drops, the longing transforms.
- In one sense, desire is never “quenched” by objects; in another, it fulfills itself when you dissolve into the beloved—the seeker and the sought become one.
- Open or closed eyes are not the point; totality is. Let the experience take you beyond seeing the other to simply being.
Shanta has asked: There are two kinds of people in the world—those who live through the ear, and those who live through the eye. Everything in the world is divided in two. The One is divided into two, and without this division the world cannot be. Some people live through the eyes, some through the ears. Those who live through the ear will prefer to listen to me with closed eyes; their taste, their connection with me, will be through the ear. Those who live through the eye will not be able to close their eyes; if they do, they will feel something is missing. The ear will not be enough for them. They will drink through the eye; they will even listen through the eye; the eye is their doorway.
Do whatever is natural for you. If keeping your eyes open brings you the juice, then forget worrying about the discourse. Whether you hear half or not, don’t worry. Even if more than half is missed, you will receive more through the eyes. Understand your own nature. Don’t imitate others who are listening with closed eyes. Imitation often leads into delusion and causes harm. Never mistakenly imitate anyone. The one who listens with closed eyes has his own relish in that; his connection with me is of sound. The doorway of his heart is linked to the ear. The doorway of your heart is linked to your eye.

The ear is a passive element; the eye is an active element. For very active people, the eye is the center of life. An active person connects through the eye. Do you see the difference? When you listen through the ear, the ear does nothing. I speak and it reaches your ear; the ear is the receiver. The ear cannot come to my lips to listen; it waits where it is. It cannot travel—it is only a receiving instrument. The eye travels. When you look at me, your eye is not just sitting there waiting for me to come; your eye has come to me, it has touched me. The eye is active. Whoever is active will flow through the eye.

Always listen to your own nature and move according to it.

Shanta’s life will be in the eye. You have seen that blind people become very adept in music. Why? The energy that would have flowed through the eyes cannot flow through them, so it is absorbed into the ear. Their eye and ear become united in the ear; therefore their experience of sound becomes profound. The depth with which a blind man listens, one with sight never does—cannot—because his energy is divided: some in the eyes, some in the ears. Shanta’s way will be the same; therefore half the discourse is missed—half eye, half ear. Whose ear is deep becomes absorbed in music. Whose eye is deep becomes proficient in painting or sculpture. There is a difference: a painter lives through the eye, a musician lives through the ear.

Let me come in through the eye. From whichever door is possible, let me come in. And do not worry that those who listen with closed eyes are getting more. They are getting through the ear; you will get through the eye.

Live according to your own nature. Always live in your own way and there will never be harm. Do not imitate, not even by mistake. Imitation will lead you into a ditch.

For everything a certain price has to be paid. If something is happening for you through the eyes, then you will have to lose the experience of the ears. You can’t have it both ways. But that is a price worth paying. Naturally, some words will be missed; when the eyes go deep, words wobble a little—the ear will both hear and not hear; it will hear and yet not be able to grasp, and even if it grasps, it won’t reach the heart, because at that time the heart will be linked with the eyes.

Have you seen this? You are on the road and someone says, “Your house is on fire,” and you run. Along the way someone greets you, but you don’t see him. A radio is playing somewhere, a beautiful song is on, but you don’t hear it. Not that the ears don’t hear—if you have ears, they will hear; and if someone greets you, if you have eyes you will see. But no—the heart is no longer here. Your heart has gone to the house that is on fire. The connection between your senses and your heart is broken.

This is the difference between hearing and hearing. Everyone hears; but only those truly hear whose heart is joined to the ear, whose heart stands behind the ear. Everyone sees, but there is a difference between seeing and seeing. Only those truly see whose heart stands behind the eye. Everyone touches, but there is a difference between touching and touching. Only those truly touch whose heart stands behind the touch. Whichever sense the heart joins with, that sense brings experience.

So let what is happening naturally, happen. Go by the eyes.

“In this experience I hear only half the discourse.”
Even if it all goes, let it go. Words will not increase your wealth. Your wealth will grow through the experience of the eyes. Your wealth will grow through vision.

“What kind of thirst is this? Can it be fulfilled?”
Thirst exists only so that it may be fulfilled. Before thirst, the means of its fulfillment are already there.

Don’t you see, when a child comes into the mother’s womb, when the child is born the mother’s breasts fill with milk. The child is just born; the child has not even yet demanded, “I am hungry,” and the milk arrives before the child.

You see birds building nests. They haven’t laid their eggs yet; the eggs are yet to come. Birds can’t “know” much; they don’t calculate and plan. Scientists have been amazed to learn, by observing, that many species of birds never even meet their parents after birth, so there can be no teaching at all. No one has told them how to build a nest when the eggs begin to ripen inside. There is no one to tell, no school, no certificates. But when the female feels she is pregnant, she quickly starts building a nest. Arrangements must be made for the children. This is not happening through thought; it is happening naturally. It is not the bird that is doing it; it is the divine doing it.

To understand this principle is called trust. To be immersed in this principle is trust: when there is thirst, somewhere a spring must exist—that’s why there is thirst. Thirst is the proof that a water source is there. Otherwise, there would be no thirst at all. In this universe nothing is incongruent. Here there is a very deep harmony. Whether you see it or not, whether you understand it or not, that is another matter. But in this universe there is a profound harmony. Everything is connected.

If there is thirst, it will certainly be fulfilled. Walk in the direction of the spring. The truth is: when thirst becomes complete, in that very completeness is satisfaction. The very fulfillment of thirst is the arrival of the spring.

Burn in the fire, but do not become smoke that veils the flame.
Love is a blaze—press it to your very life.
Take your restlessness as a promise of tomorrow, your curse as a benediction;
this alone is the mark of a life eager for surrender.
The world never grasped the worth of smiling stones;
yet still, do not bare the erasure of your inner core.
What burning is that which would not leave the life-breath fulfilled?
What kind of thirst is it in which even songs run dry?
Love—but do not sing the ditty of romance.
Burn in the fire, but do not become smoke that veils the flame.

When thirst becomes complete, that is contentment, that is fulfillment.

What burning is that which would not leave the life-breath fulfilled?

Add more oblations to this thirst. Offer your very life into this thirst. Let this thirst seize every hair of your body. The day this thirst takes hold of every pore, pervades every particle, the day you become a single flame of thirst, in that very instant fulfillment will happen. If there is thirst, fulfillment is certain.

Mind means imagination. The mind has nothing to do with truth. Therefore, however high the mind may fly, it will arrive nowhere. You can close your eyes and take off, reach Calcutta, or Washington, or Moscow, or Peking—but you will remain in Poona. Whenever you open your eyes, you will find yourself in Poona. Then don’t be startled: “I took such a heartfelt flight to reach Calcutta, and I had even arrived; I was walking the streets of Calcutta, the people of Calcutta were all around, there was the smell of Calcutta—and what has happened? I open my eyes and I find myself exactly where I was!”

At night you dream—where do you not arrive! How many flights the mind-bird takes! You travel from the netherworld to the heavens! But in the morning you are on your cot. The flights of the mind cannot take you anywhere. Drop trusting the mind. It is reliance on the mind that has led you astray. And the fun is that if the mind’s flights drop, if the mind drops completely, if your faith in the mind breaks—seeing that it leads nowhere, that it only gives assurances but never fulfills them—what assurances has the mind ever fulfilled? Each time it has deceived you. Yet strangely your trust in this mind continues: it keeps cheating you again and again, and still you go on trusting! The mind is very skillful at persuading you. The mind says, “It couldn’t happen yesterday, but it will happen tomorrow. Till today it hasn’t been done—no matter; one more chance.” And you, full of hope, give it one more chance. And so you keep on giving chances. And the mind-bird keeps taking many flights. And in these very flights your life-energy is being wasted.

Remember, even when you dream your life-energy is being wasted. In dreams too, life-energy is destroyed. In the waves of thought also, life-energy is dissipated. If this very life-energy does not go anywhere—does not leak out through the holes of mind and thought—and you preserve it within yourself, that preserving is called restraint. As if a pitcher were full of holes and the water kept flowing out, seeping away, and became empty—such is your condition. This mind is holes upon holes—the very name of all holes. Your inner essence keeps seeping out through it; you remain empty.

Seal these holes of the mind, become without holes, and then you will find that what you set out to attain is within you. Do only this much: don’t lose God—you do not have to attain God; just don’t lose him. He is already found. And then you will be astonished that where I am, there is where I have to be; there is nowhere else to go. The very sky you were seeking—that is what you are. The mind has deluded and distracted you. The mind has taken you away from yourself; it has kept tearing you from your own being.

The very meaning of mind is this: it does not allow you to be where you are. Suppose you are sitting here listening to me, but the mind may have reached the marketplace, may be sitting at the shop, may have started the day’s business. You are sitting here and the mind is not here. Wherever you are, the mind runs away from there. This ceaseless roaming of the mind—if this roaming drops, and you are wholly where you are, in totality—then what is there to attain? You are enthroned in God. You have never moved away from there even for a single moment. Not even an inch of distance has ever come between you and God; only the mind has made you wander far and wide, run far and wide. And the joke is: it makes you run, but never brings you anywhere.

You say: “This mind-bird takes very high flights.”
Whether high or low, there is no substance in its flight; it is all a web of imagination.
“But it never arrives anywhere.”
You have understood rightly. So now don’t give this mind-bird any more support. Don’t fly these kites anymore, don’t set afloat these paper boats, don’t light these false lamps, don’t build these houses of cards. Now bid the mind farewell, say goodbye, fold your hands in salutation, offer it a final “Jai Ramji,” and remain as you are. There is no need to become otherwise; what you are is just right; where you are, there you are right.

The moment you consent to what you are—as you are, where you are—there will be a shower of contentment in your life. Clouds of bliss will pour down!

First, samadhi or sambodhi cannot be desired. What can be desired is the world. What cannot be desired—that alone is the divine, that is samadhi. Desire and samadhi have no relationship; they never meet. Desire means: what you are not. Samadhi means: what you are.

What you are—how will you desire it? How could you? A woman may want to be a man, but how can a woman want to be a woman? She already is. What you are—how will you want it? What is the point of wanting? Wanting is always for what you are not. And what you are not, you can never be.

Therefore desire leads into sorrow, into failure, into melancholy. Every desire breaks, gets shattered. After every desire you fall flat on your face, your mouth full of dust. Every desire brings failure; every desire brings frustration. Nothing is ever attained through desire; it cannot be. Because the fundamental meaning of desire is: trying to become what you are not. And what you are not, you cannot become. A mango will be a mango, and a neem a neem.

Desire means the neem wants to become a mango. Neem trees make no such mistake, therefore the neem is not troubled. Otherwise the neem too would lose sleep, go deranged and land in the madhouse, or, panic-stricken, drink poison and commit suicide. But no neem is concerned about such a thing. The neem is perfectly at ease, happy with its little bitter fruits. The mango is not worried about becoming something else. The rose does not want to become a lotus, nor the lotus a rose. Even the tiny flower in the grass doesn’t give two pennies for becoming a rose. The grass-flower simply wants to be grass. Except for man, in all of nature no one is anxious to be something else. Hence there is such peace in nature, such an extraordinary bliss is spread there.

When you go to the Himalayas, what is the peace you perceive? It is exactly the peace of no-desire. Mountains are mountains, trees are trees, waterfalls are waterfalls, rivers are rivers—there is no wanting there, non-wanting pervades. Because of that non-wanting, you too are filled with a great silence for a while. Go to Bombay and all around is the noise of desire; you get taut, stretched, disturbed; after a day in Bombay you return home and feel relief. It is the marketplace of desire.

Wherever the human world is, there is the clamor of desire. Wherever the divine world is, there is the music of non-desiring. Sit by trees, learn something from them. One thing will become clear by the trees: every tree is content to be what it is. There is never any competition there. This is the key.

Samadhi can bloom now, this very instant—but you yourself are the obstacle.

You say: I want sambodhi, samadhi—and quickly.

First, in desire itself you made the mistake; you poured poison into your very life-breath. And then you bring a second poison—“quickly.” There is no patience, no forbearance. This is bitter gourd climbing a neem—bitter upon bitter. It was already bitter, now you have let it climb the neem: a double dose. You have needlessly worsened the illness. Has anyone ever attained sambodhi or samadhi in haste? Only those reach there who are willing to wait infinitely—who say: if not today then tomorrow; if not tomorrow then the day after; if in this life then in this life; if in the next, then in the next—and if never, then never. Those who have such courage as to say, “If never, then never”—whose relaxation is such, who are tension-free, where a spring of patience is flowing—there samadhi is now and here; it will happen this very moment. If you don’t understand me, try it and see. But be careful: don’t fall into the mistake of thinking, “Ah, if by this method it happens quickly, we’ll do this.” Then you will miss; because this is not a method for making it happen fast. The very idea of speed is the obstacle.

So, first desire—and then “soon.” Naturally, haste becomes tension. It will, and it will drive you mad. If this madness is what you want, then run after wealth, not meditation. Wealth and madness have some connection. If you run with mad determination, you’ll get it. If you throw your head into it, you will get it. Others madmen are at it too; if your madness surpasses theirs, you will get it. Others are running, but if you go all out, wealth will be yours. Although nothing real is gained through wealth, at least there will be the consolation that you obtained what you wanted.

Alexander must have been quite mad, otherwise to conquer the world is no easy matter! Your capitals host gatherings of madmen. The mad all reach there. If I had my way, I would raise great walls around all the capitals and not let those inside come out—keep them in; the world would become peaceful. Once someone becomes an MP, once someone becomes a minister, I would never let him out of the capital. Even if he is “former” this or that, I wouldn’t let him leave. I would put a block on it. They carry this poison around the whole country, around the whole world; they generate poison in others too. These are mad people, a fraternity of madmen.

But if you want haste and the juice of desire, then run after money and position; there desire’s logic fits. You are running after meditation! Meditation comes to those who sit down; not to those who run. Meditation is not Delhi—“Let’s go to Delhi!” For meditation you don’t need to go anywhere: close your eyes right here, sit here lightly and at ease, consent to yourself here as you are, accept what is here, without even an inch of opposition, begin to live naturally—samadhi will happen by itself. You won’t even need to keep accounts of it. Day will arise on its own; night will pass on its own.

And what will you do anyway? The sun will rise only when it rises! By your noise-making, by doing push-ups and squats, by practicing pranayama, the sun is not going to rise. The sun will rise when it rises. Until then, sleep happily; as long as it hasn’t risen, rest. When it rises, then the days of work will come.

You say: I want samadhi.

Ask those who have attained samadhi! When samadhi comes, then you have to share it—wake others now that you are awake. A thousand entanglements arise. Take my advice: until it has not come, rest peacefully a little longer, and thank God.

Let the day break
let a little day break!
The half-formed paths
that seem to rise from the tanpura—
let the scale settle in the strings;
wait—let a little day break!

When the raga takes on form,
the dark ring will shatter;
let the blood, the ink, come to a boil;
wait—let a little day break!

Fingers themselves, touching the strings,
will bring the sky down to the earth;
let the valleys rub their drowsy eyes;
wait—let a little day break!

Don’t be in a hurry; the day is approaching of itself. Dawn happens by itself. Nothing happens by man’s doing. The Doer is doing. When it is night, sleep; and when it is day, get to work. When samadhi comes, you will have to distribute it—a great work will land on your head! Until samadhi comes, thank God, pull the blanket over yourself and sleep; take rest, ready yourself for samadhi, gather the strength for samadhi so that when it comes you can share it.

This is the strange thing: those who have not attained samadhi—run; they run to obtain. And those who have attained samadhi—run; they run to distribute. Mahavira attained samadhi, then for forty-two years he ran from one village to another. Buddha attained samadhi, then for forty years he explained from morning till evening. The world’s activity goes on. The ignorant is active too, and the knower is active too. The only difference is: the ignorant is active in order to get; the knower is active in order to give. The difference is immense.

But the happening of knowing occurs only when you were not even expecting it. When you were not thinking, “Now it will happen.” It happens suddenly. Uncaused, it happens. One day, all at once, you find that a fresh breeze has surrounded you; a sun has risen; a ray has descended; a song has begun; a string has been struck.

Fingers themselves, touching the strings,
will bring the sky down to the earth;
let the valleys rub their drowsy eyes;
wait—let a little day break!

Do not desire sambodhi, do not desire samadhi. Desire is the obstacle. And then, do not even think of haste. Samadhi is not a seasonal plant that you sow now and in two, four, eight days a sprout emerges and in two or three weeks flowers appear—only to wither in five or six weeks, leaving nothing behind. Samadhi is a vast tree. It will take time, it will ask for patience, it will want waiting; it will grow slowly. Only then can it have conversation with the moon and the stars; only then can it meet the winds; only then can it spread and stand in the sky. Samadhi is the meeting of earth and sky. It is a great event. There is no event greater than this. So great that it cannot fit into your little desire. Desire is like a teaspoon, and the event is like the ocean.

I have heard: One day Aristotle was walking by the sea and he saw a madman—he must have been mad, otherwise why do such a thing?—who had dug a hole in the sand and had a spoon in his hand; he would run to the sea, fill the spoon, come and pour it into the hole; then run again, fill the spoon, pour it into the hole. Aristotle kept walking, kept watching; his curiosity grew and finally he could not restrain himself. He was a gentleman; he did not want to intrude into anyone’s work, nor is it quite right to question a stranger—that too is a kind of trespass. But the matter went too far—so much to and fro!—that curiosity brimmed over: What is this? What are you doing? He asked, “Brother, what are you doing?” The man said, “What am I doing? I will empty the ocean! If I don’t fill it into this pit, my name isn’t my name!” Aristotle said, “I’m not one to interfere; who am I to say anything? But this is sheer madness! With a spoon you will empty this vast ocean? Births upon births will pass; still it won’t happen. Centuries will pass; still it won’t happen! And you will fill it into this little hole?” The man burst out laughing and said, “What do you think—you are doing something different? Something else? You want to fit God into your little skull? If you can fit God into this small head, then my pit is bigger than your skull, and the ocean is smaller than God. Who is the madman?”

Aristotle has mentioned this incident; he wrote that that day he realized that the madman was he himself. That madman showered great compassion on him.

No, your desire is small—a teaspoon. With such a desire you will not attain samadhi. Let desire go. And then you are raising the hue and cry of hurry! In haste the little water that did come into the spoon will also spill—if you run too much, hurry too much. You’ve noticed, haven’t you? In a rush it happens: the top button goes into the bottom hole, the bottom button into the top; what you meant to put into the suitcase remains outside, and the suitcase is closed. Then when you try to open it, the key won’t turn; it gets stuck. In your hurry you reach the station and the ticket is still at home. And such a great hurry!

The more you hurry, the more unquiet you become. The more unquiet you become, the less the possibility of samadhi. Be still. And the art of stillness is to be filled with non-desiring. Do not desire, do not ask; say, “Whatever is to happen, will happen. We will wait.” What is the hurry? Time is infinite.

Meditation is the essence of knowledge and devotion. Meditation is the distillation of both. What the devotee calls love, what the knower calls awareness—meditation is the distilled essence of awareness and love. Think of it this way: some flowers are of devotion and some of knowledge; pressing both, you make a perfume—that perfume is meditation. Meditation is the devotee’s devotion, the knower’s awakening. One wing of meditation is devotion, the other wing is knowledge.

Meditation is the quintessence. Come through devotion and you will arrive at meditation; come through knowledge and you will arrive at meditation. In the ultimate sense, the treasure that falls into your hands is called meditation.

Understand.

Devotion means: the devotee disappears, God remains. Knowledge means: God disappears, the knower remains, the self remains. That is why Mahavira and Buddha, the highest peaks of knowledge, did not accept a God; they declared there is no God. This is the proclamation of knowledge: the other does not remain; a sense of the self remains, the soul remains. Shandilya and Narada, on the other hand, make a different proclamation: God remains, the devotee does not; the devotee dissolves into God. This is the devotee’s way of saying it. The devotee effaces himself. But if you look closely, the essence of both is one: two do not remain—one remains. That one is meditation. Then whatever that one is, call it God, call it the self, call it nirvana—what difference does it make? These are all working names. According to your preference, your attachment, your taste—call it what you will.

The devotee’s inclination is to say, “God remains; where am I now? Only You are.” And the knower’s inclination is to say, “Where are You now? I alone am”—aham brahmasmi, ana’l-haqq. These are ways of saying it. Both are saying the same thing: the two are no more; one remains. Now how to name that one? In our language everything is in dual terms, so you have to choose one of the two. To speak, you must use one word and leave the other. Each has his own flavor: one drops the “I,” one drops the “Thou.”

That is why I teach meditation. Meditation means: I teach you the essence. The essence of all religions is meditation. All religions are different ways of speaking about meditation. All religions are different paths to attain meditation. The journey of devotion is different and the journey of knowledge is different, but the destination is one—the destination is meditation.

What, then, does meditation mean?
It means: neither the devotee remains nor God; neither I nor Thou; only awareness remains, only love remains, the quality remains, godliness remains—neither God nor devotee. That is why I teach meditation. And for those who cannot learn meditation directly, I teach either devotion or knowledge. In my temple, the doors of all religions are open. This temple is not the temple of any one religion; it is the temple of religion, not of a religion. However you wish to enter, you are welcome. By whatever path you want to attain it, you are welcome. Whichever language you want to use, you are welcome. And if you have the talent to grasp the distilled perfume of all the paths directly, then take hold of meditation. If meditation seems a far-off thing, beyond your grasp for now, then take devotion or knowledge.

Don’t want to “take” sannyas. The sannyas you take won’t go far. Let sannyas happen—don’t make it happen. If the fragrance of sannyas has seized you, then start walking; don’t think now. Don’t decide sannyas by thinking. If you take sannyas after weighing and measuring, it will be a product of your mind—and it won’t take you beyond the mind, and it is the beyond that is the point. Set out like a madman, like a lover. Don’t do bookkeeping. And now you too ask: Has the auspicious moment come? Will you go and consult an astrologer? Show your hand to a palmist?

It happens. Once at Mount Abu a gentleman came to me, thrust his palm out and said, “Just look and tell me if sannyas is there in my hand or not. If it is, I’ll take it.”

You trust your hand, you have no concern for your heart! What is there in the lines of the palm? On the battlefield thousands die in a single day—do you think all their lines announced death on that very day? An airplane falls and a hundred and fifty die together—look at their hands! All different.

Palm-lines! Are you in your senses? Yet human beings remain entangled in such nets. He won’t listen to love; he’ll ask an astrologer whether to marry this woman or not. Who is this astrologer? And has love ever happened on the basis of astrology? How absurd! But this is how we live. We don’t hear the inner voice; we seek certificates from outside.

You ask: “I want to take sannyas.”
Then why wait? Who is stopping you? Who is holding you back? Your mind is saying: First think it over; has the auspicious time come? Won’t you get into trouble later? Are you even worthy? Become worthy first.

Mind is a great trickster. It offers such arguments as seem perfectly right. Now this argument—mind will say: Become worthy first. Now here is the trouble: And what will “worthy” mean? Worthy would mean: first become a Buddha, become a Mahavira. Then you will take sannyas? Then what for? And until you are a Buddha, where is worthiness?

It’s like going to a physician and he says, “Out, get lost! First go and get well—then I’ll give you medicine. We don’t pour our pure medicine into an unworthy vessel. Who knows what all diseases you carry! Your blood pressure is high, your heart irregular, your pulse out of tune, stomach upset, blood toxic—into such a person we won’t put our pure drug. First fix all this, then come.” But then, what will you come for?

Sannyas is medicine. Sannyas is therapy. I am a physician. If you were healthy, there would be no need of any medicine. You are unworthy—therefore the need. The mind calculates cleverly and says things that even sound convincing. Mind says: Become worthy first! But the affair is so vast that if you set out to become worthy, births will pass and you still won’t be. Something will always be lacking. Human limits are what they are.

Two days ago a friend, while meditating, had an exquisite experience, was filled with bliss; and then he got scared. He wrote me a letter: “First tell me, how could such a great experience happen to me, an unworthy one? I smoke cigarettes, chew paan, go to the cinema; I’m attached to women and gold—how can it happen to an unworthy man like me?”

Even after it has happened he won’t accept it. The mind argues: How can it happen to the unworthy? As though God would be afraid of your cigarette: “This man smokes, better not go near him.” Are you going to frighten God with your little habits? That you go to the cinema?

God arrives causelessly; you can’t say when He will come and fill you. That’s why Shandilya says: Grace! It descends even into the most unworthy. Only one thing is needed: that the unworthy be willing to accept—just that much. Don’t bolt the doors! When the sun’s ray comes in the morning and enters by your door, it doesn’t say: “First sweep and cleanse the house, sprinkle water. I won’t come into this dusty house; wash your clothes, bathe, then I’ll come out for you. For now I shine only for those who have bathed at dawn; you unworthy one are still under your blanket.” Have you not sometimes lain under the blanket and the sun’s ray comes and begins to wake you in your room? Thus comes God.

Your unworthiness and your worthiness are both worth two cowries. Your unworthiness is worth two cowries; your worthiness is worth two cowries. What will you do with worthiness? A man crazy after money says, “I am unworthy.” He abandons wealth and goes to the forest and thinks, “Now I am worthy.” And what was there in wealth? Do you think God trusts your government notes? You don’t trust them yourself—how will God? What trust is there in your government’s paper? When might they be canceled, when reduced to scraps! Do you think God trusts the promissory notes signed by your Reserve Bank’s governor? That if you had a million rupees you were unworthy; now you’ve thrown away the notes and gone to the jungle, so you are worthy! What did you drop? What did you hold? They were paper notes. No one becomes unworthy or worthy by paper.

Then what is worthiness in my view? Only this: that one is willing to open one’s door. That one is humble. And note well—I want to repeat this to you—those whom you call “worthy” are not humble; and that is their deepest unworthiness. Someone fasted and becomes “worthy.” He sits puffed up. Someone abandoned his poor wife—now the wife starves and suffers. Someone left his children—now the children are orphans, begging. And he sits stiff-necked in a temple: “I have become a muni! I am a renunciate! I am a vow-keeper! See how much worthiness I have earned!”

He is a criminal, not “worthy” anything. He orphaned his children, pushed his wife to the marketplace, couldn’t fulfill even his small responsibilities—and you call him worthy? He has shaved his head and sits here; do you think God is specially pleased by a shaven head? Will shaving your head make God develop a special fondness for you?

What kind of worthiness is this! And once the feeling of worthiness arises, the ego is strengthened—he becomes even more unworthy. He was better when he said, “I am unworthy; sometimes I drink, sometimes I fall into the spell of a woman, sometimes anger flares in my mind—I am unworthy. How will I find God? I am unworthy.” On the day he felt this, in my eyes he was more worthy: at least there was egolessness, no pretension, no stiffness—he could bend.

In my view there is only one worthiness: the capacity to bow, the capacity to receive, the willingness to open the doors. If you are ready to open the doors of the heart, then the moment has come, the auspicious day has arrived. Don’t keep thinking now. Whom are you asking? The very mind you’re consulting—mind will only raise obstacles. Mind will say: “Why get into such complications! If you take sannyas, there will be trouble; people at the office will laugh, villagers will think you’re mad.”

A Jain lady came to me and said, “My husband has taken your sannyas. If he must be a renunciate, let him become a real renunciate.”
“Real?” I asked, “What do you mean?”
She said, “Let him become a Jain monk. We will starve if we must, but at least people won’t think he’s crazy. Right now people have begun to think him mad. When our children go to school, people ask, ‘What happened to your father?’ I’ve begun to fear meeting women,” the wife said, “because whoever sees me asks, ‘What’s happened to your husband? Why these ochre robes? Why this mala? What kind of sannyas is this?’
“If only he became a Jain monk—we’ll have many troubles because he’ll leave us—but we’ll manage, I’ll care for the children. At least let him take such a sannyas that no one laughs, no one thinks him mad.”

And any sannyas at which people won’t laugh, won’t call you mad—know that it is a part of your social machinery; that’s why they don’t laugh. People laughed at Mahavira; they don’t laugh at Jain monks. Mahavira was a sannyasin; a Jain monk is not. People laughed at Buddha. Wherever he went, someone would come to reason with him: “What is this you’ve done? So much wealth, such a house—has your mind gone bad? You fled your kingdom, and fearing that within your own kingdom your father’s men might harass you, you slipped away to a neighboring state. The neighboring king came to visit him in his cave. He said, ‘Don’t worry. If you don’t get along with your father, if there’s some entanglement, take me as your father. Your father is my childhood friend; we studied and grew up together. Come to my house; I’ll marry you to my daughter. I have only one daughter—this kingdom will be yours. But what is this masquerade?’”

People went to tell Buddha the same thing: “What is this masquerade? Is your mind sound? All right, if you can’t get along with your father, that happens—come to my house; this kingdom is yours—it is not smaller than yours; it’s bigger. Take charge of it; don’t worry at all, I’ll handle your father.”

When Buddha became Buddha—attained to knowledge—and returned home, even then his father said, “You deceived me! My one son, my only son, the staff of my old age—I did all this my whole life for you, and you ran away! You wounded me deeply. For twelve years I have waited. Still, I will forgive you—this is a father’s heart. You did not do right, you inflicted great hurt; for twelve years I’ve waited for you. Come, come home, forget it—forget the twelve years and the sorrow you gave. But come back inside the house, throw away that begging bowl. In our lineage there has never been a beggar. You are a prince’s son! Are you making a mockery of us? People come and say, ‘Your son begs.’ Do you know what I go through? For twelve years I have not slept. You have shortened my life; I have grown old before time.”

Buddha stood there and the father said this! But now no one says this to a Buddhist monk. A Buddhist monk has become part of tradition.

I tell you: this gate of sannyas that I have opened—so long as people call it madness, it is meaningful. Soon it too will be accepted. When it is accepted, it will become futile. Then don’t take sannyas; there will be no benefit. Then go search again for a living madman who can hurl you again into madness. Right now is the chance. Right now people will laugh; right now people will call you mad—that is the touchstone.

And because I don’t tell you to leave your home, there is an added difficulty. Mahavira did not give his people as much trouble as I am giving you. Buddha did not give as much trouble. I am putting you in a very paradoxical arrangement: making you a sannyasin and not separating you from the home. You will sit at your shop in ochre robes—it will be a great awkwardness. In ochre you can sit in the forest—there is no trouble then. At a shop you do not sit in ochre—there is no trouble then. I am creating a contradiction in your life. I am saying: live in water and be like a lotus. The rose has no such difficulty; it doesn’t live in water. The lotus has the difficulty—to be in water and untouched by water. To be in the marketplace and untouched by the market. To be in the home and untouched by the home. To walk on the earth and not let your feet touch it. I am placing such a great challenge before you. But the greater the challenge, the greater the fruit.

You say: “I want to take sannyas.”
Then don’t think, don’t deliberate. Who knows whether this moment of courage that has come to your door today will remain tomorrow or not? By tomorrow you may grow weak, by tomorrow you may turn coward. Who knows tomorrow? And muhurts are not asked of astrologers; muhurts are asked of the heart.

Carve an image in the stone of words
in which the world’s face is seen—
a face taut with tension,
conscious, like a blaze.
If you are awake for the auspicious,
then do not search the moment on paper.
A dawn that wrestles with the dark,
the ruins of “I,” the circle of “we,”
a style that unlocks the cellars’ secrets—
a style the age now needs.
Carve an image in the stone of words—
do not look for the moment on paper.

Paper muhurts won’t do. The things you ask astrologers won’t work. Consult your astrologer within—ask the inner consciousness, the very place from which this wave has arisen in you: “Now I will take sannyas.” Athato bhakti jijñasa—now, therefore, the inquiry into devotion! Now I will seek God. I have searched the world enough; now let me probe for That too. Death comes near; before it comes, gather some treasure.

If you are awake for the auspicious,
do not look for the moment on paper.

And whenever an auspicious impulse arises, don’t delay. In looking for a muhurta, you will delay—and by then the auspicious hour may have come and gone. When an inauspicious impulse comes, delay it as much as you can. Take this as a formula for life. If anger arises, say, “Tomorrow—I’ll think it over twenty-four hours.” What’s the hurry? It’s only anger; no priceless jewel will be missed—after twenty-four hours I’ll see. And when love arises, do it now—don’t leave it for tomorrow. If you would give in charity, give now; if you would steal, think twenty-four hours. And you’ll be amazed: the thing you think on for twenty-four hours will not happen; the thing you do now will happen. People do anger now—therefore anger thrives in the world; and they postpone love—therefore love does not thrive. They steal now and leave charity for tomorrow—therefore theft abounds and charity does not. What you do now happens; what you say you’ll do “sometime” never happens. Either now—or never.

If you are awake for the auspicious,
do not look for the moment on paper.

And life just drifts along like this—sannyas brings color into life. Life just drifts—sannyas brings meaning to life. Life is a veena you have not played; sannyas plucks the veena and gives birth to music. Life is a rough stone upon which you have not lifted a chisel—how will the statue be revealed? Sannyas is the struggle with that stone. Whatever in the stone is useless must be cut away; whatever is meaningful must be allowed to appear. The stone itself becomes the statue; the unhewn stone becomes a statue.

Michelangelo used to pass a stonecutter’s shop. On the far side of the road, outside the shop, he saw a big unhewn block of marble. He went in and said to the owner, “I want to buy that block.” The owner said, “There’s no question of selling it—just take it. For years it hasn’t sold. We dumped it across the road so that anyone who fancies it might take it. There’s no room in the shop. The block is so rough—what will you do with it?” Michelangelo said, “I’ll figure that out; we’ll take it.” The shopkeeper said, “Thank you, because that block is taking up space for no reason; we can put something else there.”

Years later Michelangelo invited that shopkeeper to his home for a meal and said, “A sculpture of mine is finished—come see.” He went to see it. He had never seen such a statue. There is no second on earth like it: Jesus, just taken down from the cross, in the lap of Mary; blood still dripping, still warm. He had carved that.

The shopkeeper stood dumbstruck. He had seen many sculptures being made—he’d worked in marble his whole life—but nothing like this! He said, “Where did you find this stone? This stone is priceless. I’ve never seen such a stone.” Michelangelo laughed: “It’s the same stone you threw across the road and which I carried away for free.”

The shopkeeper could not believe it was the same stone! Could such a statue emerge from that? “How did you even imagine, seeing that ugly, unhewn block, that a statue like this could come out of it?” Michelangelo said, “I didn’t imagine. I used to pass by, and Christ called to me from within the stone: ‘Listen, free me from this; take me out of this stone. I have been shut in it a long time.’ Hearing that call I brought the stone. Whatever was useless I cut away; whatever was meaningful revealed itself. I did not make the statue; I only removed the useless.”

Life is like that. The statue of God is already in you, calling; that same statue is calling you to take sannyas. But in this unhewn stone there are some corners, some rubbish to discard—that is all. Don’t wait to become worthy. Sannyas will make you worthy; it does not demand worthiness in advance.

Don’t sit idle—
strike stone upon stone…
a spark will rise,
one spark
that, for a moment, will become a vow,
will wake
a village drowned in sleep;
awakening: window, lattice, door…
Don’t sit idle—
strike stone upon stone…
a spark will rise.

Those whose doors are shut
are not alive.
Alas—those who are closed
are not companions to the human.
Humanity thirsts for a living current…

Don’t sit idle—
strike stone upon stone…
a spark will rise.

Sannyas is the invitation to that.

Strike stone upon stone…
a spark will rise.

Sannyas is a struggle: a resolve and a surrender. A resolve that the moment has come to be otherwise than I have been until now; and a surrender that now I place myself in God’s hands—let whatever He wills happen, and whatever He does not will, not happen; His will shall be my will. So sannyas is a resolve—and then a surrender. Sannyas is deeply paradoxical. In its paradox lies its truth; in its paradox lies its revolutionary process. It will kill you and it will make you live. It will give you the cross and the throne.

When the heart says so, the muhurta has arrived. There’s no need to look for muhurts in papers. Don’t wait longer; otherwise the moment may slip away.

Viraha means: the Divine is, and I am not able to meet it. So let me weep, let me call, let me fall at its unknown feet; let me light lamps for that Unknown, arrange the aarti, weave garlands of flowers. I am empty, and the Guest does not arrive. The Guest is certain—this begins to be felt by the devotee—that the Divine is certain; its shadow seems to drift everywhere; its form appears in the flowers; its flight is sensed in the birds; its babbling sound is heard in the waterfalls. There is a vague experience; at times, in certain moments, the sound of footfalls is heard; from some lattice he peeks; in some dream his shadow falls; an echo is heard from afar. It begins to be felt that He surely is—but when will chest meet chest, when the embrace?

Viraha means: a state of mind in which a sense has begun, but that sense has not yet become direct experience. The recognition of the Divine has begun to come into experience, but there has not yet been a face-to-face, no darshan-and-touch. A sound has been heard from somewhere, but where it comes from, the source is not found. Hearing only the sound, the devotee has become intoxicated. As if a street-performer blew his horn and the snake hidden in its hole began to writhe—that is viraha. One begins to slide toward the source of the sound, to delight, to become madly intoxicated.

Shandilya has said of this viraha—it is greatly useful. When two who long in separation meet, they weep and make each other weep, they extol the glory of the Lord, they speak of the Lord’s presence, they exchange their glimpses of the Lord—then satsang happens. In that satsang, slowly, experiences grow polished and clear. Gold, passing again and again through the fire of viraha, becomes pure, refined gold. And a time comes when even the tears become a joy—because these tears are for the Divine; they are not tears of sorrow, they are tears of great awe and benediction. Is it any small thing that we have begun to feel Him! Blessed are we that such a sense has begun in us. Unfortunate are the many who do not even know that there is such a thing as the Divine, who have never pondered this word for even two moments, to whom prayer has no meaning.

Come, then, let us recite a poem again—
Let us stroke some pain till our eyes are swollen,
Touch some aching vein with a lancet,
Or turn back once onto some forgotten path
And, taking a name, call out to some namesake.
Let us recite a poem again—
Come, let us recite a poem again.

When two lovers in separation meet—and the meeting of those in viraha is satsang—when two lovers meet, or four lovers sit together, what do they do? They weep and make each other weep. They are thrilled; they drink each other’s feeling-state, they are stirred by each other’s feeling-state, they become contagious to one another.

Come, let us recite a poem again—
Let us stroke some pain till our eyes are swollen,
Touch some aching vein with a lancet,
Or turn back once onto some forgotten path
And, taking a name, call out to some namesake.
Let us recite a poem again—
Come, let us recite a poem again.

In such moments the Divine comes a little closer. The deeper your tears, the closer the Divine comes. Eyes filled with tears are the only ones able to see Him. Eyes brimming with tears become vessels—brimful. Eyes filled with tears are eyes full of prayer; His glimpse begins to deepen there. And as the glimpse deepens, the yearning deepens too.

But, pitiless one, you did not stop, pitiless one, you did not stop!
The heart kept calling, the eyes kept calling,
Every ray of the bridal lamp kept calling,
Night and the quarters, seared by union-and-separation, kept crying out,
The bashful bed kept groaning, fold by fold,
Countless breaths, turned to breeze, kept sweeping the path—
But, pitiless one, you did not stop, pitiless one, you did not stop!

The Divine comes many times—and goes. He comes like a gust of wind—he is here, and he is gone! And behind him he leaves a deeply burnt ache. Viraha grows dense. Viraha comes to such a point that it becomes the devotee’s death—when the devotee utterly loses himself; when the one who longs and the longing are no longer two; when the lover-in-separation and the viraha become one; when every pore of the devotee weeps, every breath weeps, every heartbeat weeps—at that very moment, the revolution happens; that very moment, the night of viraha is complete, and the dawn of union arrives.

Take viraha as good fortune. If viraha knocks at your door, do not turn it away. If viraha calls, follow after it. Viraha will torment much, because without torment there is no refinement. Viraha will burn much, because without burning there is no purification. Take viraha as a friend, and one day viraha will make you worthy for union to happen.

Viraha is in your hands; union is not. Therefore, make viraha as deep as you can. Weep, be thrilled, dance, call out. This very calling, this very sobbing, this very dance, this groan rising from your heart will slowly pull you toward the Divine. This will give you the right direction—and from this very direction, one day, the Divine comes. The day your viraha truly becomes complete, that day you have become deserving of the Divine; that day you have become a worthy vessel.

For sannyas no eligibility is needed; for the Divine, eligibility will be needed. But note: that eligibility is not of your fasts, nor of your renunciations, for those only fatten the ego. That eligibility is the eligibility of your tears—for in tears you dissolve and melt; in tears, slowly, slowly, the ego melts away and is finished.

Where the ego ends, there is union with the Divine.
Enough for today.