Athato Bhakti Jigyasa #19

Yuktau cha samparayāt.

Prakriti and Purusha are not two. The soul and the Supreme Soul are not two. The seen and the seer are not two. The foundation of devotion is this: there is a way to become one. And a way to become one can only exist if in truth we are already one. Otherwise it cannot be. A devotee can meet God only because he is already met—met from the beginning, never truly separated, never truly apart.

This is a subtle point; hold it carefully in mind.

You plant a mango seed and a mango tree appears. It appears because the mango was hidden there, already latent. If it weren’t so, then planting a pebble would also produce a mango. What is hidden becomes manifest. In this world you only find what is already yours. The only difference is: it was concealed, now it is revealed. You are God—but like a seed for now. When you become like a tree, you will know it, you will recognize it.

Shandilya says: from the very first, both are one.

Yuktau cha samparayāt.

They never really became separate. Separation is a delusion. Separation is a trick of the mind. And we have created this delusion because upon it the ego can be reared and fed. If you are the Supreme, then you are no more; only the Supreme remains. The drop fears becoming the ocean—because if the drop becomes the ocean, the drop is no longer there, only the ocean remains. There is fear in joining the Vast. To merge with the sky seems a kind of audacity.

So the devotee must be audacious. The drop sets out to lose itself. Such a tiny drop, and that measureless sea! Then there will be no trace, no edge to cling to; perhaps there will be no meeting again with oneself. Only one who dares to lose like this can be a devotee. And only one who can be a devotee can be God. To be a devotee means: the seed has decided to break itself. You sow a seed in the earth; until the seed splits, there is no tree; until the seed dissolves, there is no sprouting; the seed’s death is the tree’s birth. Your death is God’s emergence. Wherever the devotee dies, there godliness becomes available.

That is why people have invented false patterns of devotion—to avoid having to die. They go to temples, they pray, they worship, they perform yajnas and fire-offerings—and preserve themselves. They pour ghee into the fire, but not themselves. They offer wheat, not themselves. They pluck flowers from trees and lay them at God’s feet, but they do not offer themselves. And one who has not offered himself has not understood worship at all; the seed has not broken; he has had no meeting with sprouting.

In this world nothing can become without dissolution. Die on the small plane and you appear on the great plane. The more you die, the more you manifest. When you die wholly, godliness becomes available, because godliness is totality; beyond it there is nothing.

But this can happen only because it has already happened. Make room in your heart for this proclamation. You can become God because you are God. God has not left you even for a moment; you have merely turned your back. You have closed your eyes. The sun has risen and the whole world is bright. You stand in darkness—that is your decision. Darkness is not; it is manufactured, artificial. This artificially created darkness is called maya—the darkness one fashions oneself.

Have you noticed something astonishing—that people cling to suffering with great difficulty, as if it were precious? Said abruptly, it sounds absurd. Ask the psychologists; ask Sigmund Freud. Freud himself wrestled with this riddle for thirty years. After analyzing hundreds of minds, one fact kept surfacing: people are not willing to let go of their misery. They say—and perhaps believe—that they want to drop their suffering, but they do not consent to drop it. Freud was bewildered. We have always heard that man seeks pleasure. It has been propagated so much that we have accepted it: man is a hedonist; all desire happiness. But look a little closely at man. He clings to sorrow, he does not let it go. Man is a pain-seeker.

After thirty years of psychoanalysis Freud unveiled a new truth, which no one before him had stated so clearly: he grasped the notion of self-sadism—masochism. Man tortures himself. What you call austerity is often masochism. It is scorching hot, the sun blazes like fire, and someone sits with a sacred fire burning beside him. You call him a great renunciate. Ask those who know: he is not a great renunciate, he is a great sufferer. It is freezing; water is turning to ice, and someone stands naked beneath the sky. You call him an ascetic. He is not an ascetic, he is sick of mind. He is clutching pain, carving wounds into his own chest. He does not want to live in joy. He has devised ways to be miserable.

Look within and you will be startled: you know very well there are certain sure routes to suffering. Anger brings nothing but misery—yet why don’t you drop it? Ego brings nothing but misery—yet why don’t you let it go? Doubt arises about your age-old chatter that man is pleasure-seeking. You know that the more one follows lust, the more one is filled with melancholy. You too have walked the road of desire and found nothing but thorns. When did flowers ever bloom? You have been defeated every time. The craving for victory has only defeated you more deeply. Yet you do not drop the longing to win. You clutch it. There must be some vested interest in it.

What vested interest?

Only one interest is visible: when you are in pain, you are. When you are in joy, you are not. And this is the fear. People are terrified of happiness. No one truly wants to be happy, because happiness requires a price: the shattering of the “I.” In suffering, the “I” remains intact—more than intact; it grows robust and strong. Sorrow nourishes the “I,” the ego, the sense of “me.” That is why you exaggerate your suffering. Watch yourself: when you speak of your pains, how much you embellish them.

I observe daily: I never see someone who doubts his own suffering, someone who comes and says, “I am very miserable, very troubled—could it be that this misery is only a fabrication of my mind?” No, not one person says it. But when people here begin to slip into meditation and a few glimmers of joy come, a few gusts of bliss, a few inner prison-bars break, a few windows open, a little light falls within, somewhere a flower blooms and fragrance fills the breath—then they rush to me and say, “Such happiness is happening—could it be just imagination?” The same person who for lifetimes has been miserable never doubted suffering, but now doubts joy.

If you are miserable, no one will tell you something is wrong. If you are joyful, they will say you are self-hypnotized, auto-hypnotized. If you laugh and dance in the streets, people will say you have gone mad. If you walk like a corpse, dragging yourself along, people will say, “Completely normal, healthy person.”

Smiling is not acceptable. That is why people look so sad, so weary, carrying such loads. Mountains sit on their chests; centuries of burden press on their heads. They can hardly walk and yet they crawl on. They won’t put the load down, because if they set it down, they themselves start to doubt: “Do I remain?” Because your burden is you. And if you lay it down, others also begin to doubt: “What happened to you? You’re laughing a lot today—have you started taking bhang or ganja? You look very cheerful—haven’t you fallen into some delusion?” And not only do others doubt; you doubt within: “What’s this freshness today? Something’s wrong—things aren’t as they should be.” If one morning you were suddenly to find yourself in samadhi, would you believe it?

Here it happens sometimes. Suddenly a flood of samadhi overtakes someone. Every hair trembles with fear—because if anything is swept away in that flood of bliss, it is you. You cannot stand in that hurricane of happiness. In that storm you will not survive; it will uproot you from the very roots. So man has decided: better to remain miserable, at least I will remain. I don’t want to disappear; if the price of survival is suffering, so be it—but I will not perish. That is why you keep on doing the very things that bring misery. If you begin to see this, a revolution may begin. Trust joy; doubt sorrow. What a strange wisdom—that you doubt joy and trust suffering!

Here’s another curiosity. Go to your so-called saints. They are not so different from you. They are reflections of your own desires, your own stupidities, your own beliefs. Go to them and they will tell you: the world is full of suffering. If you say there is joy in the world, they’ll say, “Joy is all illusion.” And sorrow? Sorrow is absolutely real.

It is astonishing that saints keep saying joy is a deception but suffering is real. They point and say: “There is sorrow, there is sorrow, there is sorrow.” Read your scriptures! They say, “What is there in a woman? What happiness? What beauty?”

Understand their logic.

They say there is no beauty in a woman; uncover her, look inside: she is full of excreta and urine. Excreta is real; beauty is unreal!

If beauty is unreal, then ugliness is unreal too, because ugliness cannot be true when beauty is not. If there is no beauty in the world, how can there be ugliness? Yet ugliness is taken as real; they delight in excavating it, describing things so that you feel nauseated. The nausea is true; that heave in your gut is true, but that glimmer of beauty you caught in someone’s eyes is false. In this world death is real; life is false. Health is false; disease is real. Your saint delights in cataloguing woes—skilled at it! Like you make a laundry list in the morning, he makes a daily list of sorrows, lengthening it endlessly. What is the matter? Why such eagerness about pain?

Your saint lives on sorrow; you live on sorrow. He has gone a little farther along than you; that is why you call him a saint. He is more pain-centric than you, more of a masochist. Freud never got to study a saint; I have. Freud, by studying ordinary people, said man is pain-seeking. I tell you, having seen hundreds of saints: ordinary men are nothing—if you want to see real pain-seekers, see the saints! And you worship them because your arithmetic matches theirs. You run a small shop; they do wholesale. You produce small pains; they produce great pains. The difference is of quantity, not of quality.

If you set out to find only suffering in this world, you will surely find it. One who goes out to find thorns will find only thorns. I am not saying there are no thorns—there are. But there are flowers too. The choice is yours. One who plucks only thorns will gradually stop seeing flowers. It will happen. His eyes will attune to thorns. What you keep looking for, you end up seeing. One who befriends flowers, who communes with them, slowly begins to see flowers even among thorns.

Devotion is not pain-seeking. Devotion is supreme delight. Keep in mind the difference between a devotee and your renunciate. The devotee relishes life; he is immersed in life. Though he does not stop at the pleasures of eating and drinking, for life holds greater nectars. But one who has not even tasted food and drink—how will he taste the higher nectars? The devotee proceeds. Slowly, as he drinks in the world and experiences it, he begins to taste the flavor of the Divine.

Therefore Shandilya says: “Yuktau cha samparayāt.”

This world is not separate from the Divine—it is yoked, it is one; the union has never broken, the embrace has never ended. As two lovers stand in embrace, so do Nature and Purusha. If you seek joy, you will find joy’s supreme source—the Divine. If you seek joy, you will find heaven.

But the joke is that even in the name of joy you seek sorrow, while claiming you seek happiness. A man says, “I seek happiness; that’s why I’m gathering wealth.” What relation can wealth have with happiness? I am not saying a wealthy man must be miserable—though in fact the wealthy man is inevitably miserable. You will find the rich more afflicted than the poor. What is America’s trouble today? Wealth. What you are seeking, America has obtained—and misery pervades; America has become a hell. Now they don’t know what to do.

I want to say: those who were seeking wealth in America thought they were seeking happiness; but what they got was suffering. You thought you were planting mango—but you planted neem. The fruit will reveal what was sown. Look into the eyes of the rich: do you find the delight of life there? Do songs of love arise in their hearts? Do their feet dance? Is there grace? Is there gratitude toward the Divine?

No—there is gloom, complaint. They stand utterly defeated and weary. They don’t know what to do now. Till now they believed that wealth would bring joy. Wealth has arrived, but there is no sign of happiness—and life has slipped away. Now the piles of money are there, but life is gone—the life that will not return, the time that cannot be brought back. A heap of potsherds has been amassed. At what price?

Alexander met a fakir and asked him for a blessing: “I set out to conquer the world.”

The fakir said, “I’ll bless you—but first answer a question. Suppose you do conquer the world. Imagine you are in a vast desert, alone, dying of thirst. You would give anything for a glass of water. And I arrive with a glass of water. I will not give it for free. How much are you willing to pay?”

Alexander said, “Whatever you ask.”

The fakir said, “Half your kingdom.”

Alexander hesitated—though this was only a thought experiment—but half a kingdom for a glass of water! Yet when he pictured it—the blazing noon, the boundless dunes, no village in sight; death approaching from thirst—he said, “All right. If death stares me in the face, I’ll give half my kingdom.”

The fakir said, “I am not so quick to sell—your whole kingdom.”

Alexander said, “Now you’re absurd. Everything has a limit! A glass of water!”

The fakir said, “Consider the situation: that one glass is your life. Only if you give the entire kingdom will I give it.”

Alexander pondered and said, “If it were so, I would surrender the whole kingdom—life is the greater thing.”

The fakir laughed: “Remember this. Why ask for a blessing? Life is the greater thing. You will lose life and gain a kingdom—and a kingdom is so cheap that in need it sells for a glass of water. What is its value?”

Examine the rich, those who have arrived at high positions. They all thought they were seeking happiness—and reached hell. Agreement does not make heaven. What is your direction? Those you call worldly also seek sorrow. To deceive themselves they have pasted labels of joy on boxes of misery. Those you call religious also seek sorrow—they have pasted labels of merit on their boxes of pain. That is the only difference—labels. Both seek sorrow. If in this world you ever meet a man who seeks happiness, he is a devotee.

Then what will happiness mean? It can only mean this: sorrow fortifies my “I”; the search for happiness can only mean dropping that “I” which lives on sorrow, for which sorrow is essential; dropping sorrow itself. Renouncing sorrow is the greatest renunciation.

That is what I tell my sannyasins—renounce sorrow. Your renunciates say: in the name of renunciation, choose suffering. I tell you: there is only one renunciation—the renunciation of sorrow. This may sound odd to you, naturally, because you say everyone wants to give up sorrow. I repeat: no one wants to. People grip their misery. They rush in the very direction from which suffering comes.

Have you seen a bird fly into a room and then bang its head against a closed windowpane? You must have thought, “How stupid these birds are! The door through which it entered is still open—why bang against a closed window?” The bird doesn’t have the awareness to return through the open door. It keeps smashing itself against glass, sometimes drawing blood, breaking its wings. But it doesn’t turn to the open door; it runs toward the closed one.

The door of happiness is open. The Divine has not closed it; the temple’s door is open. Perhaps that is why you don’t go that way—what excitement is there in an open door? The mind is curious about closed doors. Understand this psychology.

If you want to make something attractive, conceal it. That is why a woman in a burqa appears more beautiful than any other woman. The burqa! Every passerby wants to peek: what is inside?

Bertrand Russell wrote that when he was a child—in Queen Victoria’s time—even the glimpse of a woman’s big toe aroused men. Skirts brushed the ground so even a toe wouldn’t show. In a hundred years the world has changed—at least in the West. Women lie naked on beaches; no one is aroused.

Concealment creates allure. Prohibition invites. Hang a sign on a door: “Peeking prohibited.” Now, no one will pass without peeking. In my village a lawyer has painted on his wall: “Urination prohibited here!” The whole village urinates there. He asked me why. I said, “Remove the words.” Anyone reading them feels the urge—someone walking by, who hadn’t thought of it, suddenly sees huge letters—“Urination prohibited!”—and he thinks, “All right then!” He also thinks, “This wall must be suitable; otherwise, why would they write it? People don’t write such things everywhere.”

As soon as you prohibit, attraction is born. Where there is prohibition, there is relish for the ego—because the ego feels challenged. The ego wants to do big things. What is simple, it doesn’t want. It wants the difficult—because only the difficult proves “I am something.” The simple proves nothing. You say, “I breathe.” Who cares? Everyone breathes—animals and trees, too. Where is the merit? “I sleep at night.” People will say, “What’s special? Dogs and cats sleep, too. Become a president! Do something hard!”

You’ve heard the Zen master Rinzai’s saying. Someone asked, “What is your practice?” He said, “When hungry, I eat; when sleepy, I sleep.” The man said, “What is special in that?” Rinzai said, “That is the special thing—we live simply.”

The door is open, but the bird won’t go through it; it bangs on the closed pane. Breaking the closed pane is a challenge; it gives a chance to prove “I am.” Wherever there is difficulty, there you find relish. But where there is difficulty, there is sorrow. Your wings will break; you will bleed. And even if you succeed in breaking the glass, the price will be higher—then the glass will also be torn.

The door is open at every moment. It was open; otherwise, how did the bird enter? The door through which you came into this world is still open; you can exit through the same door. But you don’t want to exit that way. You want to prove something; you want to leave a name. You are obsessed with fame, with prestige, with identity. These bring sorrow.

The Divine is the simplest; that is why people miss. I repeat: because the Divine surrounds you from every side and because it is given so freely, no one is eager for it.

Sometimes people ask me, “Why does God not come?” I tell them: “Because He is already here, you do not seek.”

Examine your life and you will understand. Whatever is available, loses its charm. A husband loses interest in his wife; a wife loses interest in her husband. Interest remains in someone else’s wife, someone else’s husband. You have no delight in your own car, but in the neighbor’s; none in your house, but in the neighbor’s. They say the neighbor’s lawn is greener. Distant drums sound sweeter.

Why no taste in what is yours? Because what is already yours gives the ego no way to prove itself. The story ends. The most beautiful woman becomes ordinary once she is yours. And an ugly woman seems extraordinary if she is unattainable. The more you must pay to get something, the more extraordinary it appears. The harder the ascent, the more feverish you become; the stronger desire surges.

The easy, the simple, does not tempt. And God is easiest of all.

Yuktau cha samparayāt.

You have never been separate. Nature and Purusha are one. Duality is a delusion—born of mind and ego. Nonduality is truth. When mind recedes, nonduality shines clear. Mind means the sense of “I,” ego, self-assertion. This nondual experience is bhakti: no devotee remains there, no God remains there; only godliness remains, an energy whose name is devotion, a fragrance whose name is love. And its taste arises in the devotee in many ways. Earlier sutras, Shandilya spoke of those many signs. Now the sutras that follow.

Tat vakya sheshāt prādurbhāveṣu api sā.

Shandilya says: “What I have said has also been said by other knowers and livers of truth.”

Tat vakya sheshāt prādurbhāveṣu api sā.

“This utterance, this statement, this sutra has been proclaimed again and again by avatars and the rest since beginningless time.”

Understand. What happens in a devotee’s inner world only the devotee knows; it is a feeling that cannot be known from the outside. Yet some rays do fall outward. When a lamp is lit inside a house, passersby glimpse its glow through the window, through cracks, through holes in the tiles. When incense burns in a home, the breeze carries a hint of its fragrance to the neighbor’s nostrils. When godliness descends in someone’s life, fragrance spreads around him, light radiates; the air nearby is cool, there is a whisper of joy, a climate of peace around him. People come to satsang to breathe that very climate. To fill their chests with that air, people come to satsang.

In Western languages there is no word for satsang, because the art of satsang never developed there. The East gave the world some unique treasures; one is satsang. Satsang is a unique process: sit near the one who has found. If he speaks, listen; if not, still sit near. Breathe his air. If nothing happens, touch his feet, bow your head, spread your begging bowl, ask for blessing, sit with him in silence. A spring is flowing within him; perhaps a few drops will be yours. A divine flower has bloomed within him; perhaps even your deaf ears will catch a faint hum; perhaps a beam will slip into your blind eyes. One ray is enough—the search for the sun begins. Perhaps you won’t attain God just by sitting near him; but if thirst for God arises, is that little?

Those who have known and lived have spoken of certain signs that manifest in a devotee. In the Mahabharata it is said:

Na krodho na cha mātsaryaṁ na lobho na śubhā matiḥ,
Bhavanti kṛta-puṇyānāṁ bhaktānāṁ puruṣottame.

There, there will be no anger; in the place of anger there will be compassion. There will be no greed; in place of greed there will be generosity.

Understand the distinction. One who has found the Divine—you cannot give him anything. There is no space in him to receive; God fills all space. You can only receive from him. You can only spread your bowl before him.

A wealthy man came to a Zen master and slammed down a pouch filled with a thousand gold coins—slammed it so the gathered disciples would hear the sound of gold. Who doesn’t recognize that sound? Even those who have none recognize it. Everyone started and opened their eyes—even those dozing off; people often do that in religious gatherings. The master slid the pouch aside and said, “Do you have anything to say?”

The donor fell from the seventh heaven. He had brought a thousand gold coins—an immense sum in those days, a lifetime’s earnings—and this man just slid it aside, and asked if he had anything to say; not even a thank you. The wealthy man said, “A thousand gold coins are not nothing—they are my life’s savings.”

The master said, “Do you want me to thank you?”

The donor felt awkward. “No, not necessarily—but at least don’t show such indifference.”

The master said, “You came to give—there lies your mistake. I have received the supreme treasure. Beyond it, no treasure remains. Here, those who come to give come wrongly. Come to receive. Come with your bowl. You should thank me that I moved your junk aside—‘All right, you brought it; never mind—I forgive you.’ You should thank me! You want me to thank you?”

In the devotee’s life, says the Mahabharata: in place of anger, compassion; in place of greed, giving. His virtues ripen, their fragrance spreads; some gross signs can be discerned. Krishna gives a whole list of such signs:

Abhayaṁ sattva-saṁśuddhir jñāna-yoga-vyavasthitiḥ
Dānaṁ damaś ca yajñaś ca svādhyāyas tapa ārjavam
Ahimsā satyam akrodhas tyāgaḥ śāntir apaiśunam
Dayā bhūteṣv aloluptvaṁ mārdavaṁ hrīr acāpalam
Tejaḥ kṣamā dhṛtiḥ śaucam adroho nāti-mānitā
Bhavanti sampadaṁ daivīm abhijātasya Bhārata.

“O Bhārata!”—Krishna says to Arjuna—“fearlessness, purity of heart, dedication to knowledge and yoga, generosity, self-restraint, sacrifice, self-study, austerity, simplicity, nonviolence, truth, freedom from anger, renunciation, peace, absence of covetousness, egolessness, a natural scruple about wrong actions, steadiness, radiance, forgiveness, fortitude—equanimity in pleasure and pain—nonmalice, and absence of conceit—these are the marks of the divine nature.” These bloom in the devotee.

Shandilya says: the inner event is known within; yet the inner is connected with the outer. Nothing here is unconnected. You inhale—air goes in; the same breath goes out—inside and outside are in constant exchange. They are not separate. They are two ends of one energy, two faces of one coin. So the happening occurs within, but its music is heard without. Certain things manifest naturally.

Note the difference! The one you call saint, renunciate, also praises these very qualities: nonviolence, compassion, renunciation, egolessness. But what is the difference between the devotee and his praise? A great difference. Shandilya says: when God is found, these qualities manifest on their own. Your so-called ascetic says: if these qualities appear first, then God is found.

Keep this difference in mind. Shandilya says: these are signs of the devotee, not practices. They are waves that arise spontaneously when one is dissolving in God. They are not causes by which God arrives; because of God’s arrival, these elements occur. This is a revolutionary reversal.

Understand it like this. Your house is dark and I tell you, “Light a lamp; darkness will vanish.” You are a logical man, philosophical; you set up the equation: “Yes, where there is light there is no darkness; therefore, where there is no darkness there must be light.” As logic, it sounds right. But if you try it in life, you will be in trouble. Logically it is true that where darkness is, light is not; where darkness is absent, light is. If you start removing darkness—bundling it up, throwing it into pits, pushing it out with sticks, hacking it with swords—you will be in trouble. Darkness doesn’t depart that way. It leaves when light comes. You don’t drive out darkness to bring in light; light comes and darkness goes.

This is the devotee’s proclamation. He says: there are many evils in life; but they depart only when the Divine arrives. You want to drive out evil first, then invite God—then you are busy removing darkness. God is light. The devotee says: as I am—good or bad—I can cry out to Him. I can call to Him. I know I am unworthy; but without His coming, how will I become worthy? Only His touch turns iron to gold. Only when the Philosopher’s Stone arrives and touches will this darkness turn to light. So the devotee says: I will call to God. My unworthiness will not obstruct my prayer. I pray precisely because I am unworthy.

Notice: one who becomes “worthy” does not pray. He stakes a claim. He says, “I have fasted so much, performed so many austerities, left home and wealth, sat on mountains for years—now why pray? Now I must receive! It is my right!” If there were a court, he would sue God: “Why haven’t You come yet?” Prayer is the devotee’s way. He says, “I have no qualifications. I have no claim that You must appear. If You don’t, it is perfectly understandable; I am not worthy. There is no complaint. If You do appear, that will be a wonder—hard to believe that such an unworthy one as I have been graced!”

Whenever God has descended into someone’s life, that is exactly the feeling—“To me, the unworthy! Out of what compassion?” It is received as grace, not as the fruit of effort. God is a gift. When you give a gift, you don’t weigh worthiness; gifts spring from love.

These same virtues are praised by the so-called renunciate, but his grasp is inverted. He thinks: nonviolence first; simplicity first; non-covetousness first; fearlessness first. The devotee reverses the whole process. Shandilya says: these are not first—they are signs. When the Divine enters you, when your inner lamp is lit, many signs will begin to appear to others. One can sort them like this: one in whom God sits has nothing left to acquire—hence non-covetousness. He has so much to give that he can give and never be empty—hence generosity. God came without effort—hence simplicity. The Divine arrived like a flood and carried away all debris—hence peace. These are natural outcomes. The path of devotion is the easy path—and in this sense, scientific.

Tat vakya sheshāt prādurbhāveṣu api sā.

Janma karma vidaś cha a-janma śabdāt.

“One who knows the mystery of God’s birth and actions—he is not born again.”

This is the devotee’s ultimate state: one who has recognized the Divine—what was hidden is revealed, the veil of mystery lifted—such a one is not born again. There is no cause for birth—nothing left to seek. The final hour comes.

The world is a university. One who attains God has graduated. One who has not will have to return again and again. He must come and go until he passes. No one crosses without graduation.

What will be the sign of passing?

“One who knows the mystery of God’s birth and action.”

What is that mystery?

Two mysteries. First: God is unborn. And you are unborn. God is aj—unbegotten—and so are you. There was never a beginning. At the beginning there was no beginning. There is no end. Existence is beginningless and endless. All has always been, all will always be. Forms change, patterns change—but the energy is one. You have come in countless bodies and will come in countless more. But that which came and went is one and the same. Your bird has been caged in innumerable cages, has flown in numberless skies, donned numberless forms—but the innermost is the same. The differences here are only of name and form.

One who understands the mystery of God’s birth understands the whole’s mystery. The Whole was never born. You are a part of the Whole; you too were never born. Then you will understand another thing: if there is no birth, there can be no death.

Buddha was dying; the last moment had arrived; the disciples were crying. He opened his eyes and asked Ananda, “Why are you crying?”

Ananda said, “Because you are leaving.”

Buddha said, “All my life I have taught only this: I never came, I never go; I have no birth and no death; and that which has birth and death—that is not me; that is only form, only a dream. Dreams gather and scatter; the truth remains as it is, ever the same.”

Krishna says:

Janma karma cha me divyam eva yo vetti tattvataḥ
Tyaktvā dehaṁ punarjanma naiti mām eti so ’rjuna.

“O Arjuna, I am sat-chit-ananda; though I am unborn and eternal, I assume body for the welfare of the world.”

God is unborn and deathless. Only the unborn can be deathless. What is born must die. What was not born cannot die. Understand “God” to mean the Total—not a person. God is the name of the sum total—trees and mountains, women and men, rivers and moon and stars—all together. That Whole has no birth. In that Whole, I am, you are. We too have no birth. Therefore the devotee is freed from fear of death. If there is no birth, how can there be death? You have accepted that you were born; therefore you are troubled by death. You have set a day as your birthday; then it is fixed that one day you must die. Then anxiety comes; you tremble, you fear. From that fear you hoard wealth, build houses, wife, children—to save yourself somehow! “Let me not vanish!” Wherever a hint of vanishing appears, you arrange for security.

But you do not die. You have always been; you will always be.

By knowing the mystery of God’s birth, one knows the mystery of one’s own life. That is liberation. Then there is no return. And the mystery of God’s action? There is no doer; yet all is happening. God is not sitting and calculating detail by detail—“This bush needs water, that man needs bread, this leaf has turned yellow, it should fall, spring has come, seeds should sprout; make sure the moon doesn’t veer off course, drive the ox-cart of the cosmos carefully.” There is no such God managing it all. The order is utterly spontaneous; there is no doer. No one sits in the middle running the show. People imagine God as a ruler issuing decrees: “Let this happen! Let that happen! Night now, day now! It’s getting late—make it morning, bring out the sun.” No one like that exists. All is happening of itself.

Likewise in you: all is happening; there is no doer. On a small scale you are a small sign of the vast. Look within! When hunger arises, is there someone who “makes” hunger? When breath goes in, is someone “taking” it in? When sleep comes, is someone “bringing” it? When did you pass from child to youth, youth to old age—is someone doing it? It is happening.

Keep this sutra in your heart: all is happening. As soon as this is understood, all anxiety ends. Anxiety is: “I might miss something, fail to do something; what if it doesn’t turn out?” Anxiety is the shadow of doership.

People come to me and ask, “How can we be free of anxiety?” I tell them, “You are asking the wrong question. Ask: how can we be free of the doer?” As long as the doer remains, anxiety remains. And now you have taken on a new anxiety: “How to be free of anxiety?” You have to do that too! A new doer is born to attain freedom from anxiety.

Understand: there is no doer at all. All that is happening is natural, spontaneous, self-born. When this is understood, a rest descends. No more worry; whatever happens is right; whatever will be, will be right; whatever has been, was right. The devotee does not repent the past nor worry about the future nor keep making plans. No inner conflict arises—“It would have been better if I had done this; why did I say that; why did I act so?” The devotee has surrendered to the Vast: now, wherever it takes me, whatever it has me do—as it wills.

And note: this is just a manner of speaking when I say “as it wills.” There is no One there whose will it is. If there were, He would die of worry—He would have long since committed suicide! Think: you handle one small household and are dying of it; thoughts of suicide arise. Your house is tiny—one wife, two children—and they torment you enough! By sixty-five you pray, “Oh Lord, take me now!” In Europe and America, where life has been lengthened by new medicines, people live to eighty, ninety, a hundred, beyond; a new movement has arisen: the right to suicide. Have you heard—“the right to suicide”? In this country it won’t arise—here we don’t even have the right to live! But in America there is deep debate. Within a decade or two suicide will be recognized as a fundamental right. It must be. A man of one hundred and twenty wants to die—what should he do? He doesn’t want to live; enough is enough. Everything has a limit. Extend anything beyond its limit and trouble starts. He has no relish left; all dreams have been dreamed, all games played, nothing gained; now what is the point of rotting on a cot? And doctors can keep him hanging on—oxygen cylinder attached, limbs strapped, glucose dripping—he lies there; they can keep him like that. Is that life? He asks, “What does it mean to call this life? I want to depart.” But the doctor has no right to turn off the oxygen. Medical codes were made in an earlier age when living itself was difficult; now that over-living is possible, the rules must change.

Every person, at some limit, feels—“Let me die.” Now think of God! He would either be mad or gone sannyasin long ago, fleeing the world and renouncing all: “No more coming back!”

No—there is no one there. There is silence. And the day you grasp that such a vast universe runs without a doer, that day you stop creating a doer for this little life too. Let it move; let it happen.

By understanding these two things—that this world has no beginning or end; and that no one runs it, no one plans it; that the vast flows by its own energy, self-arising—the devotee is freed.

Janma karma vidaś cha a-janma śabdāt.

Understand the meanings of these two words, birth and action, and all is understood.

Tat cha divyaṁ sva-śakti-mātra-udbhavāt.

“Their birth and actions are divine and extraordinary; by their own power they appear in manifold forms.”

But perhaps we know nothing of that God—He seems too far; perhaps we lack the eyes to catch Him, the hands to hold Him, the intelligence to comprehend Him. So Shandilya says: try to understand the avatars. God cannot be grasped, but Ram can, Krishna can, Buddha can, Mohammed can. Grasp them; understand them. What is the nature of the Buddha’s being? Who drives the Buddha? Does some intention arise—“Now I shall do this”—or does what happens, simply happen? Does he ever obstruct the flow, or does he let it move unobstructed?

God is far; His avatars are near. Study the lives of those who have known God. You will find surrender—supreme surrender. As leaves sprout and flowers bloom on a tree, so the poet sings his song—just so do Krishna walk, sit, rise; just so does Buddha speak and explain; just so does he live and depart. Nowhere is there an ego sitting and arranging.

“Their birth and actions are divine and extraordinary.”

Look at the avatars—you will find a great extraordinariness. What? The doer is absent and the vast occurs. There is no doer. This is what Krishna keeps telling Arjuna in the Gita: Don’t be a doer; let it happen. Be a tool, a mere instrument. You have no responsibility. Don’t bring yourself in. Don’t decide what is good or bad. Who are you? Remove yourself; then whatever happens, whatever circumstances have you do—that is good. Don’t desire the fruit either, for fruit-desire breeds the doer. The doer lives by desire for results: “If I do this, I will get that. If I do this, I will receive that.” Drop desire for fruits. As soon as you drop it, the doer vanishes. Then what is the point? If there is no desire for fruit, whatever is, is fine. If it happens, fine; if it doesn’t, fine.

I explain to you daily. If you understand, fine; if you don’t, fine. Do you think I keep accounts of who understood or not? What use would that be? As flowers appear on a tree, words appear in me. If you begin to live like this, a divine extraordinariness will enter your life. Taste this a little. Get up, sit down—but let there be no one who gets up or sits. Do your work, go to shop and market, office too—but let there be no doer, no goer. Tend to the household; fulfill whatever responsibilities you have—but let there be no doer.

There are two ways to be free of burden. One: drop responsibilities. The runaway sannyasin does this—abandons them. “No bamboo, no flute.” He leaves wife and children and runs to the forest. He gives up duties. That is not true sannyas. True sannyas: let duties remain, drop the doer. Then the burden goes—that is real revolution. If you run away, it won’t be long before wife and children find you in the cave; you’ll get attached to a mountain woman; where will you go to escape yourself? Disciples will gather; you’ll relate to them as you did to your children, cling to them; if a disciple dies, you will weep as for a son. What is the difference? Leave a house and sit in a cave—if an earthquake collapses the cave, you will grieve as if your house had burned. What is the difference? You changed circumstances; the mind remained the same. You left everything and took one begging bowl; if someone steals it at night, you will feel as if your safe has been emptied. Nothing really changes.

True sannyas is the renunciation of the doer, not of responsibility. That is the Gita’s unparalleled message. The false sannyas is old; the Gita gave a new definition: live here, stay here, and yet inside be empty. Krishna tells Arjuna: fight—and fight with inner emptiness. Surrender yourself to God—to the Whole—then let it make you do whatever it wants. Victory or defeat is not to be considered. You are not the doer; then fruit cannot be a consideration.

If God’s birth and action seem too far, abstract, then recognize the occasional glimpse of the Divine on this earth—in those, try to see. You will find the same thing: inner emptiness. A vast web of action, with no doer.

Mukhyam tasya hi kāruṇyam.

“Compassion is the principal cause of their birth and activity.”

Why did Buddha speak? Not to become famous, not to gather crowds of disciples, not for any gain, but so that perhaps someone might benefit. So that what has happened to him might be shared; perhaps a seed lying dormant in someone may stir when struck by his words; perhaps a string within someone, never before plucked, may begin to hum—compassion.

There are two sutras of life: desire and compassion. The ignorant live by desire; the wise live by compassion. The difference is sky and earth. Desire says: I do this to get that. Compassion says: I do this to give this. Compassion is giving. Desire makes you a beggar; compassion makes you a king.

Mukhyam tasya hi kāruṇyam.

Compassion is the ground of their life and action.

Prāṇitvāt na vibhūtiṣu.

“Devotion directed to vibhūtis (glorious persons) is not supreme devotion, for they are living beings.”

Shandilya says: keep one thing in mind—however much reverence or devotion you offer to an extraordinary person, it will reach to reverence only; it will not be para-bhakti, supreme devotion.

At the beginning I told you: the element of love takes four forms—sneha: toward one smaller than oneself, the child, the disciple. Prema: toward an equal—husband, wife, friend, neighbor. Shraddha: toward one higher—mother, father, guru. And bhakti: toward God, the Whole.

Your feeling toward the vibhūtis is reverence. Shandilya says this to caution you—often it happens that you become so overwhelmed by avatars and gurus that you forget there is one more step. You stop at the guru, forgetting that one step remains. Do not stop at the guru; he is the beginning. He is the bridge between the world and God. But you do not build a house on a bridge; you cross it. That is its purpose. The true guru will not let you stop; he will push you onward. Buddha said: If I appear on your path, take up your sword and cut me in two. If even I become an obstacle between you and God, remove me.

Totapuri, Ramakrishna’s guru, said to him: one thing stands as a barrier to your experience—your Kali. Ramakrishna wept, sobbed; to drop Kali was inconceivable—Kali was God! Totapuri said, “Kali is fine as a bridge; but one more step remains.” Ramakrishna’s love for Kali was greater than Majnun’s for Laila, than Shirin’s for Farhad—unparalleled. Perhaps no son has ever loved his mother as Ramakrishna loved Kali. All his reverence was surrendered to her. He had taken it for bhakti. Shandilya alerts us with this sutra.

Totapuri said, “You must leave this. Close your eyes….” Like Buddha’s warning—“If I stand in your way, cut me in two”—Totapuri said: “Close your eyes and sever Kali in two with a sword.”

Ramakrishna said, “Where will I get a sword?”

Totapuri laughed: “Where did you get Kali?”

I have heard of a man who wanted to join the navy. During his test, the admiral asked, “You are at sea and a storm arises—what will you do?” He said, “Throw an anchor.” “If a second storm arises?” “Throw another anchor.” And a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh? He kept saying, “Throw another anchor.” The admiral asked, “Where will you get so many anchors?” The man said, “Where are you getting so many storms? From wherever you bring storms, I’ll bring anchors.” So many giant storms!

Ramakrishna said, “Where will I get a sword?”

Totapuri said, “Where did you get Kali? By the same imagination and feeling with which you have superimposed Kali within….”

As soon as he closed his eyes, Kali stood before him—that sweet form, that loveliness, that energy, that radiance. He would be overwhelmed, tears streaming. For days Totapuri made him sit, but as soon as Ramakrishna went in, he would forget; after half an hour he’d return, and Totapuri would ask, “Did you do it?” He’d say, “I forgot. Mother is so beautiful—how can I cut her? What are you saying! Even if I agree, my heart does not.”

Totapuri said, “Then I am going.” He was an extraordinary man, among the rarest paramahansas. “If so, I will go. Stay stuck.” Ramakrishna understood; he knew this: this is my imagination. I have not yet known what truly is; I have known what I believe. The formless has not been experienced; there is still form. If Totapuri goes, the last chance is gone. He grabbed his feet and pleaded: “Don’t go—give me one last chance.”

Totapuri said, “This is the last—and I will employ the last device.” He went out and brought a shard of glass. “When you close your eyes, when I see tears flow and Kali arrives, I will cut at your forehead where the third eye is with this shard. Blood will stream; you will feel a pain within. At that instant remember: this is the final device. As soon as you feel me cutting your forehead, don’t miss—pick up the sword and cut Kali in two. As I cut your forehead, you cut Kali.”

Kali’s image indeed appears at the third eye. Whatever you imagine arises there. Yoga calls it the ajna-chakra because whatever command you give there becomes reality. Dreams are seen there; that is why in dreams you believe them true; you never remember that a dream is false. Ajna-chakra makes what you see true—your order works there. Imaginative people see forms there; painters see their paintings, poets their poems, musicians new modes, scientists their inventions—all there. Ramakrishna placed his image there.

Totapuri chose rightly. He cut at the third eye; in that pain Ramakrishna gathered courage, lifted the sword, and split Kali in two. As Kali fell away, the vast opened. The ajna-chakra itself split; Kali did not—ajna split—and he leapt beyond it into the seventh center, sahasrara. The thousand-petaled lotus bloomed. For six days Ramakrishna remained unconscious. It was hard to bring him down—the joy is such, who wants to return? When he came back, his first words were gratitude to Totapuri. Falling at his feet, he said, “You took away my last obstacle.”

The guru is the last obstacle if you stop; otherwise, the last means if you move. It depends on you. If you move, the guru is the last means, the last step; beyond him is God. That is why the guru is called Brahma—gurur brahma—he stands right next, one step away. But do not stop at the guru, lest the guru hide Brahman from you.

The false guru is one who stands between you and your God and creates obstruction. The true guru takes you up to the ajna-chakra and then steps aside. Kali could not step aside herself, for she was only Ramakrishna’s imagination; but the true guru can. Even so, he cannot step aside without the disciple’s cooperation. If the disciple insists on clinging, even the true guru is helpless. Therefore from the very beginning the true guru prepares the disciple in two ways—one hand draws near with love, the other keeps pushing away. He keeps you ready for the final moment so that when the last push comes you are not unready—“All this time you called me lovingly; now you suddenly refuse?” You would not understand.

So the true guru invites with one hand and strikes with the other. Kabir said: like the potter shaping a pot—supporting from within, tapping from without. One hand supports so you don’t run, the other strikes. The nearer you come, the deeper the blows—because the day of the final blow draws near when he must step aside entirely. In his stepping aside the gate opens.

Therefore—

Prāṇitvāt na vibhūtiṣu.

Do not become so attached to the vibhūtis, the glories of God, that you think this is supreme devotion. It is reverence. One more step, beyond reverence, is to be taken. And you can take it because you are already beyond. Only a reminder is needed.

Main shola tha—magar yūn rākh ke tūde ne sar kuchlā
Ki ik sīle-se pech-o-kham mein ḍhal jānā paṛā mujhko
Main bijlī tha—magar vo barf-āgīn badaliyān chhāīṅ
Ki dab kar un chaṭṭānon mein pighal jānā paṛā mujhko
Main tūfān tha—magar kyā kahiye us tishnā samandar ko
Ki sar takrā ke sāhil hī se ruk jānā paṛā mujhko
Main āndhī tha—magar vo khvāb-ālūda fazā pāī
Ki khud apnī hī ṭhokar khākar jhuk jānā paṛā mujhko
Magar ab is kā ronā kyā hai, kyā thā dekhiye kyā hūn
Main ik ṭhahrā huā shola hūn, ik sikiṛī huī bijlī
Asar nashvo-numā par ḍāl hī detā hai gahvārā
Main ek simṭā huā tūfān hūn, ik sahmī huī āndhī
Magar mābūd-e-bedārī! kahīṅ fitrat badaltī hai?
Dhuen ko garm hone de, bhaṛaknā ab bhī ātā hai
Merī jānib se itminān rakh, ātiśnavā rahbar
Zarā bādal to takrāeṅ, kaṛaknā ab bhī ātā hai
Thapedē, hāṅ, yūṅ hī paiham thapedē, mauj-e-āzādī
Bahā dūṅgā matā-e-kisht-e-mahkūmī, bahā dūṅgā
Jhakoḷe, hāṅ, yahī barham jhakoḷe, sarsare-hastī
Hilā dūṅgā tajāhe-jīst kī chūleṅ, hilā dūṅgā

I was a flame—but see, a mound of ash crushed my head
Till, dampened and twisted, I had to fold into a knot.
I was lightning—but cold, fiery clouds engulfed me
Till, pressed by those mountains, I had to melt away.
I was a storm—but what can one say of that thirsty ocean?
Bashing my head on the shore, I had to halt right there.
I was a gale—but such a sleep-soaked sky I found
That tripping on my own step, I had to bow and bend.

But what’s the point of lament now? See what I was, what I am:
A flame held still, a shriveled lightning.
The cradle does leave its mark on growth:
I am a storm drawn in, a timid wind.

But, O Lord of Awakening! does nature ever change?
Let the smoke be warmed—blazing still I know how.
Have faith in me, O fire-knowing guide:
Let the clouds but clash—cracking still I know how.

Buffet me, yes, keep buffeting me—the waves of freedom!
I will sweep away the cargo of the slave-ship, I will sweep it away.
Shake me, yes, with these disruptive jolts—the hot gusts of being!
I will shake the very pillars of this counterfeit life, I will shake them.

I was a flame—but a heap of ash sat so heavy upon me
I forgot who I was. This is your condition.

I was a flame—but a heap of ash crushed my head
Till, damp and twisted, I had to fold into a knot.
I was lightning—but those ice-fire clouds crowded in—
I was lightning, yet—
…those ice-fire clouds crowded in
Till, pressed beneath those crags, I had to melt away.
I was a storm—but what to say of that thirsty sea!
I was a storm—but what to say of that thirsty sea,
That, smashing my head on the shore itself, I had to stop.
I was a gale—but such a dream-drenched sky I found—
Such deep sleep settled in, such a lure of slumber…
I was a gale—but such a dream-drenched sky I found
That stumbling on my own step I had to bend low.

But what use grieving now? See what I was, what I am:
A flame held still, a shriveled lightning.
The cradle does leave its mark on growth:
A storm compressed, a wind grown shy.

This is you; this is everyone.

A storm compressed, a wind grown shy—
But, O Lord of Awakening!
Does nature ever change?
A storm remains a storm, however contracted;
an ember remains an ember, however buried in ash;
a gale remains a gale, however lost in sleep.

But, O Lord of Awakening! does nature ever change?
Let the smoke be warmed—still I can blaze.
Have faith in me, fire-knowing guide:
let the clouds but collide—still I can crack.

Only the occasion is required—the right time, right place, right soil, right satsang—and the ash will fall and the ember show again. With the right company, the right touch, what is utterly forgotten can be remembered again; the lamp can be lit.

Have faith in me, fire-knowing guide:
let the clouds but collide—still I can crack.
But, O Lord of Awakening! does nature ever change?
Let the smoke be warmed—still I can blaze.
Buffet me, yes, keep buffeting me—the waves of freedom!
Let the gusts keep coming! Let the waves of freedom come!
Buffet me, yes, keep buffeting me—the waves of freedom!
I will sweep away the cargo of servitude, I will sweep it away.
Shake me, yes, with these disruptive jolts—the hot gusts of life!
I will shake the very foundations of this pretended living, I will shake them.

Nothing has truly changed; you are merely lost in a dream, not deprived of truth. Sleep has come; eyes can open. Intoxication has descended; it can break. Ash has settled; it can blow away. What is needed is satsang—the company of a living ember whose ash has blown off.

Therefore Shandilya has sung great praise of satsang. Wherever four lovers gather to speak of God, leave everything and sit there. Wherever four sing songs in praise of the Divine, speak of their experience, weep, are thrilled—do not stand at a distance, do not sit as a spectator; plunge in. Dance, sing, let your skin tingle with them. What is hidden within you can also be revealed.

That’s all for today.