Athato Bhakti Jigyasa #2

An answer to “What is life?” would be possible only if there were something other than life. Life alone is; there is nothing besides it. We could answer in reference to something else—but there is nothing else. Life is just life. So life can have neither a goal nor a cause. The cause is life, and the goal is life.

Consider it this way: someone asks you, “What are you standing on?” You say, “On the roof.” “And what is the roof resting on?” You say, “On the walls.” “And the walls?” “On the earth.” “And the earth?” “On gravity.” If he keeps asking, “And what is gravity resting on?” then, “On the moon and the sun.” “And the moon and sun?” “On the stars.” And finally he asks, “What is all this resting on?” The question sounds right; linguistically it fits—but how can the All rest on something? Whatever it would rest upon is already included in the All. Everything is already in the whole; nothing remains outside.

The wise have called this an excessive question. The total cannot rest upon something else. That is why the Divine is called self-born, self-existent. It rests in itself. To say it rests in itself means it rests on nothing.

“What is life?” you ask.
Life is life—because life is all there is. For me, life is a synonym for God.
But since the question has been asked, since curiosity has arisen, let us inquire a little. If one must give an answer, if without an answer a restlessness is felt, then life will have to be broken into two parts. Those who gave answers split life in two. One they called this life, and one they called that life. This life is maya; that life is truth. Then the meaning of this life can be searched for. The meaning of this life is: to seek that life. The purpose of this life is: to attain that life. This is the opportunity. But then life had to be divided. Divide it, and you will get an answer.
But the answer will serve only for a little while. Then if someone asks, “Why is that life the life—of truth, of moksha, of Brahman?” Again the matter will stall there. That life simply is.

Yet the division is useful. Artificial, and yet useful. Within yourself you can also separate these two streams a little and look at them. For a short distance, you will get support. One is that which appears to you, and one is that which sees. The seen and the seer. The knower and the known. The one who knows and that which is known. Seek life in the one who knows. Most people search in what is seen—in wealth, in position. Position and wealth are of the seen. They search outside. Whatever is outside is the seen. Search in that which is the seer, the witness, and you will catch the thrill of the supreme life.

In that very thrill is the answer—I will not be able to give you the answer. No one has ever given an answer. There is no answer; we are merely compelled. Many have wished to give, but no one has ever given any answer. And those who truly endeavored to give an answer only pointed the way so that you might find your own. They did not give answers, they gave indications—walk like this, and the answer will be found.

And the answer is not outside; the answer is within you. The answer is in this transformation: that my eyes do not look outward, but turn inward. That my eyes look not at the seen but at the seer. That I stand in my innermost, where no ripple arises. There is the answer, because there life reveals itself in its full splendor. There all the flowers of life bloom. There is the resonance of life—Omkar.

Understand this small poem.
“Further?”
Drowsing, someone asked, just like that.
“Further on too there was a bridge, the same bridge, the very same bridge—
where the blue night was blazing below, far below, on the ground,
so far below that if you bend and call out,
even the voice, falling to the earth, shatters to bits.
The blue night was blazing there below, far below, on the ground,
and noon’s mercury was there, pouring from the sky.
I walked for many centuries, went on and on along the bridge,
but no other end of the bridge ever appeared to me.
At last I sat down, tired—just to take a single breath.
Resting a moment, I rose—
just as I thought to rise,
I tried to lift my foot from the bridge but could not lift it.
When I freed my foot with my hand, my hand would not come free.
It was some enchanted bridge, it seemed, for my body began to stick to it,
and from the bridge—yes, from that very bridge—many teeth had now begun to sprout.”
“Uhhm,” one gave a long yawn and said, “Lies.
If there’s another, a good story, then tell it.”
I thought a bit, then began another story:
“And the prince passed through many glass doors.
From the first door were visible the fairy’s two feet,
immersed in a blue pool, like two white lotuses.
From the second door was visible one hand of the fairy—
on the marble lay a fragrant flower.
From the third door too only the fairy’s back was visible.
From the fourth door as well her face did not appear.
And the prince passed through many glass doors—
but no door opened toward the pool—”
“Good lord—then?” The dozers now awakened and asked.
“I saw only this much: that the golden fairy
for so many centuries has been sitting just like that by the same pool,
and for many centuries the prince, in that palace of mirrors,
has been searching for the door that leads to the pool.
There was one door that opened onto that very pool—”
“Found?”
Startled, someone asked in between.
“Yes, found—”
“And the prince reached the fairy?”
Now their voices held hope, even insistence.
“Yes, he reached her, but—”
“Yes, but—”
“All the limbs of that houri were there—only the face was not.”
“Bah!” one snapped, “All lies.”

Life, the truth is, would seem a lie if it were not a tale.
Life, the truth is, would seem a lie if it were not a tale! That which is the world of the seen is a story you composed and told to yourself. A drama in which you are the director, the storyteller, the actor, the stage, the curtains hung upon the stage, and the spectator. A dream that rose from your desires and surrounded you like smoke. One life is this—the shop and the marketplace, wife and sons, ambitions. What is called the world. And there is another life as well—the one who sits within and sees. He saw he was young, now he has grown old; saw there were longings, now the longings are no more; saw he ran a great deal and reached nowhere; saw—kept on seeing—everything came, everything went; the current of life kept flowing, kept flowing, but there is something within that does not flow, that is still, that is unmoving, that is steadfast—the witness. That is one life.

The outer life will lead you astray, delude you. It will give you the assurance of answers, and the answer will never come. The inner life itself is the answer.

You ask: “What is life?”
You will have to know. You will have to walk within yourself. If I give an answer, it will be my answer. If Shandilya gives an answer, it will be Shandilya’s. What he has known will be information for you. And information becomes an obstacle to knowing. From information, knowing never arises. Has life ever come out of borrowing?

Rather than searching outside for answers, gather yourself within. The scriptures say that as a turtle gathers itself within, so gather yourself within. Let your eyes open inward, and your ears hear within, and your nostrils smell within, and your tongue taste within, and your hands feel within, and let your five senses turn inward. When your five senses move inward, toward the center, then one day that blessed moment surely comes when you are illumined—when within you there is only light upon light. And such a light as never goes out again. A light that simply cannot be extinguished, because it depends on no oil—without wick, without oil. Causeless. That is the essence of life. That is the “what” of life.

You will not find the solution in answers. The solution is in samadhi.

It is natural to want to know something about one from whom such extraordinary sutras have been born.

Nothing is known about the sage Shandilya. About which rishi is anything really known? They left no line, no footprints. They did well. Otherwise your habit is to get entangled in the useless. What difference would it make where Shandilya was born? Whether in the East or the West, in the North or the South—what would it change? This village or that village—what would it change? Who was Shandilya’s father, what was his name—what difference would it make? A, B, C, D—whoever his father might have been. How many days did he live—sixty, seventy, eighty, a hundred, a hundred and fifty—what difference does it make? People are living; seventy years pass like writing on water, seven hundred would also pass like writing on water. It is a dream; what does it matter whether you saw a long dream or a short one? When you wake up you find the long and the short were the same—because a dream is a dream.

Nothing is known about Shandilya. Only these sutras—the Bhakti Sutras—this much fragrance is left behind. But this fragrance is enough. For if, in the light of these sutras, you open your eyes, the rishi asleep within you will awaken. That is the real point. What will you gain by knowing about Shandilya? Know Shandilya himself. And that knowing is a path within you.

That is why, about any sage of the East, almost nothing is recorded. People of the West are very puzzled by this. And they are right when they say that people of the East do not know how to write history. Their statement is true. But one must understand the wisdom of the East as well. The East has been so accustomed to writing—languages were born first in the East, the first books were born in the East, script arose first in the East, the oldest books are in the East—those who wrote the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita—could they not have written history if they had wished?

They did not write, deliberately. That too must be understood. They did not write, knowingly. Those who said the world is maya—illusion—how could they write its history? History of what? The history of thorns and acacias? The history of rainbows? The history of mirages? History of that which is not?

The West wrote history because it regarded the outer world as real. Behind the urge to write history is the view that the outer world is true. If it is true, it is important. You don’t get up in the morning and write your dreams down! You don’t remember them even for two minutes. You woke up; it was over. Is a dream something to be written? You don’t record your dreams in a diary.

Though in the West people even write their dreams in diaries. When the big dream is accepted as real, the small dream also has to be accepted. And those who have denied the big dream—why would they bother about the small? A dream within a dream!

The East did not write history, because its view is: what will come of recording all this uselessness? What is the essence? What is the point? You will only torment children in school, making them memorize dates that have no value. What difference does it make when Alexander was born? It would be just as well if he had never been born. Why remember this trash? What use is it?

No—the East wrote Purana, not history. Purana is a much larger matter. There is nothing quite like Purana in the West.

What is a Purana?
There was one Alexander, another Alexander, a third Alexander—Alexanders upon Alexanders. What is the point of writing the story of each one? We wrote a single story for the alexandrian tendency—the archetypal tale of that disposition. One man went mad after wealth; another went mad after wealth; a third went mad after wealth; millions have been mad after wealth. Why write the history of all? We distilled the madness for wealth into a single story. That we call Purana. Purana means: it perhaps never happened exactly so, but this is what is happening everywhere. The essence has been extracted, the condensation made, a sutra fashioned. That sutra we wrote. If someone goes searching for precise correspondences, perhaps it never happened exactly that way.

Take, for example, a statue of Buddha; it is Purana, not history. Why Purana? Because there is no concern whether the Buddha’s nose in the statue is exactly as it was. No concern whether the hair is exact, whether the chest is exact. It is not a photograph. It is not history. Then what is it? It is the image of all buddhas. However one who awakens sits—its very essence is here. However one who awakens walks—the essence is here. How the eyes of one who awakens are, how pure the gaze—how even in the way he sits there is absorption and peace, how in his presence grace showers—this is the statue of all buddhas.

When you go into a Jain temple and see the images of the twenty-four tirthankaras, you won’t be able to tell which is which. All are alike. To distinguish, a symbol had to be carved beneath each image—a lion for one, something else for another—just to tell them apart. Otherwise the images are all the same.

Do you think the twenty-four tirthankaras were identical? That they were all the same height? The same nose? The same hair? The same ears? Do not fall into that error. On this earth, when are two people ever the same? Never. Your fingerprint is uniquely yours; no one else in the world has the same. It has never existed before, and never will. Every person here is unique. Then where will you find twenty-four tirthankaras exactly alike? All with ears so long they touch the shoulders—where will you find twenty-four people with such ears at once?

And then there are the foolish who take these images as history. They say that unless the ears are this long, a person cannot be a tirthankara. Now the ear has become important; while the symbol is about something else altogether. The long ear is only a pointer, a sign. It signifies that these people were masters of listening: they heard what is, as it is. To say they had heard the sound of Om, long ears were made. This world resounding with Nada—the cosmic sound—became audible to them. Their large eyes simply announce that their vision was great, deep, transparent. Their unwavering, still posture—the void-like expression—symbolizes that all inner tremblings had departed; they had become steady, unmoving, unshakable.

In one Buddha-image are all Buddha-images. In the story of one Buddha are the stories of all buddhas. In the words of one Buddha are the words of all buddhas.

The West has no such way of seeing. They ask for history; we write Purana. We did not bother about Shandilya. What is the essence? Why get lost in the inessential?

When you write a letter to your beloved, you do not add at the bottom, “Written with a Parker fountain pen.” Do you? If you do, you are mad. Whether you wrote with a Parker or a Sheaffer—what difference does it make? The writer is neither Parker nor Sheaffer; the pen is only an instrument.

Shandilya is an instrument; the Divine spoke. If you write about the fountain pen, you will have history—and you will have delusion; you will go wrong. So we did well not to preserve anything about the rishis—so that you don’t get entangled in the petty. Your tendency to get lost in the petty is so deep that you immediately get caught there.

Among Jains there are Shvetambar and Digambar. They quarrel over trivialities. So trivial one can scarcely believe anyone could fight over them! Should Mahavira’s image have open eyes or closed eyes? It is true that a statue cannot do both. A living Mahavira certainly did both—opened and closed his eyes. After all, he was alive; sometimes he opened them, sometimes he closed them. It is not that once shut, they stayed shut, or once opened, stayed open—he was no madman. A statue is a problem; stone cannot blink. So in a statue either the eyes are open or closed. But arguments arise: should the image be carved with open eyes or closed? Some say, “We will worship only the open-eyed image.” Others say, “Only the closed-eyed image.” Heads are broken over this, court cases run, temples are broken. And it is not only one religion; this happens in all. We get tangled in the petty. We hunger for the petty—because we can grasp it quickly. The vast does not come into our grip. And the vast also frightens us.

Now, instead of understanding Shandilya’s sutras, your concern is to find out something about Shandilya the rishi. What use? What will you do with it? It will not aid your samadhi, your devotion, in the least. Why ask the useless? What clothes did he wear? Did he wear clothes or not? What house did he live in? What kind of food did he eat?

But why do we want to ask? Why does such a question arise in us? More important than the question itself—this is what Gita has asked—more important than the question is: why did this question arise in Gita’s mind? Are the sutras not enough? Are they not sufficient? Seek the rishi in the sutras themselves, not outside them. Grasp him in the sutras. His presence is in the sutras, because they are his very life-breath and his wisdom. They are his experience. They are his living realization. These are not the writings of a mere litterateur. They are the songs of one who has lived them! That is the difference between a rishi and a poet.

We call one a poet who has not lived, yet has sung. We call one a rishi who has lived and then sung—who sang what he lived; as he lived, so he sang; he knew, and then he spoke. That is a rishi. If someone spoke without knowing, he is a poet. Therefore, when you read a poet’s poetry, it seems very beautiful. But if by some slip you happen to meet the poet, great sadness may arise in the heart. You will not believe this gentleman could be the one! Such lofty poetry—how did it descend upon him? In the poem there is sky. And you might find him sitting at a crossroads smoking a beedi, flies buzzing around him, unbathed for days. You won’t believe that poetry descends upon him. Doesn’t poetry find anyone else to choose? Why has it chosen him? You might think he must have copied it from somewhere, stolen it from someone. His looks do not seem worthy of being chosen by poetry. Often it is so. There is no harmony between the poet and the poem. For a moment the poet is seized—like a flash of lightning.

A rishi is like the sun in the sky at noon—not a lightning-flash for a moment, but a steady radiance. It is his experience, his realization, his direct seeing.

Shandilya is a rishi, and if you want to catch him, dive into his sutras. If you understand what he says as he says it, you will find you have understood Shandilya. The rishi’s experience will begin to flow as love within you. Do not grasp the petty. Do not even worry about the petty. The moment concern for the petty arises, you begin to be deprived of the vast.

But such are our curiosities. We do not ask the fundamental; we ask the secondary. And sometimes we get entangled in disputes over the secondary. All over the world, so-called religious people are caught in the secondary. A Muslim thinks, “Only if I pray facing the Kaaba will my prayer reach.” Someone thinks, “Only if I bathe at Kashi will I arrive.” They are tangled in the secondary. Prayer is what matters; which direction your hands face—what difference does it make? The Divine is everywhere. Everywhere is the Kaaba. All stones are the stones of the Kaaba. And all waters are the Ganga. If the mind is pure, the Ganges flows even in a washbasin. The water that comes from the tap—that too is Ganga, if the mind is pure. If you go carrying a mind full of disease and bathe even in the Ganga, what will happen?

But we clutch the petty. The prayer is forgotten; only the formalities of prayer are remembered. We go to the temple, but the temple-like feeling is missing within. And if the feeling is there, why go to a temple at all? What need is there? Wherever you sit, there is a temple. Wherever praise for the Divine arises, there is a temple. Wherever you sit, close your eyes, and are suffused with the flavor of his presence, there is a temple.

This happens here every day. I speak on Jesus, and some Christian comes to me and says, “What you said today was marvelous.” I speak on Krishna, and a Hindu comes and says, “What you said today was extraordinary.” Neither of these simpletons realizes that whether it is Jesus or Krishna, I say what I have to say. I am the one who is speaking; Jesus and Krishna are pegs on which I hang what I want to hang. But hearing the name of Jesus, the Christian heart melts—just the name. I say what I have to say. The same I have said in Krishna’s name—exactly the same, word for word. I have said it in Kabir’s name too—exactly the same, letter for letter. The same I have said in Buddha’s name. But this Christian sat through it earlier without any special feeling. When Jesus’ name was taken, he was moved. His ego is hooked to Jesus. Someone else is hooked to Kabir, another to Mahavira. But all of you are caught in the secondary. Otherwise you would see: what Mahavira said, Buddha said; what Buddha said, Krishna said; what Krishna said, Mohammed said.

If you look to the essential, you will forget these trivialities. You will be no Hindu, no Muslim, no Christian. You will become simply a human being. And that alone has value. Human beings are hard to find. Hindus are found, Christians are found, Buddhists are found, Jains are found—but a human being is not found.

In Greece there was a great fakir, Diogenes. In the blazing noon he would walk around with a lit lantern on the streets of Athens. People asked him, “Have you gone mad? What are you searching for with a lantern?” He would hold the lantern up to people’s faces and say, “I am searching for a man.” At the end of his life, when Diogenes was dying, someone asked him—he had his lantern by his side—“All your life you searched for a man in broad daylight with a lit lantern—did you find one?” Diogenes opened his eyes and said, “I did not find a man. But is it not enough that no one stole my lantern?” Thanks at least for that—that the lantern was saved. Many eyes were on the lantern. A man was never found.

A human being is hard to find, because every person has become entangled in the secondary.

Do not worry whether Shandilya was or was not. These sutras have happened—that is much. Who wrote them—what difference does it make? With which pen they were written—what difference does it make? From whose voice they were spoken—what difference does it make? Whether the speaker was fair or dark, young or old—what difference does it make? These sutras tell you this much: whoever spoke them had arrived. Whoever spoke them spoke from knowing. He was a rishi. Dive into these sutras.

There is no distrust in doubt and questioning. Doubts and questions are the search for trust. Intelligence is not a barrier; it is your ally. It says, don’t rush into trust, otherwise it will be raw. First examine and test.

You go to the market to buy a clay pot—just a cheap pot—and you tap it all around, don’t you? You don’t say the intelligence that advises you to test the pot is the pot’s enemy. No, it’s not the enemy; it’s saying: if you’re going to buy a pot, buy one that is truly a pot—one that can hold water. If you’re going to trust, take such a trust as can hold the Divine. Don’t bring home a cracked pot. Don’t bring a raw, unbaked pot that will melt in the first rain. Don’t take a pot full of holes.

All your questions are the tapping and testing of the pot. Don’t become the enemy of intelligence. Don’t assume intelligence is necessarily opposed to trust. Not at all. Only the intelligent can be truly trusting. The unintelligent aren’t trusting; they are merely believers. And there is a great difference between belief and trust.

Belief simply indicates a person has no capacity to think. Belief is a symbol of ignorance: whatever is said is accepted. Not to accept, to raise questions—this requires intelligence, a sharp intelligence. Intelligence is simply telling you: raise questions, kindle inquiry, think. And when answers come to all your questions and all doubts drop, the trust that then arises is the real thing.

I am on your side. I do not tell you to believe. Belief is what has harmed you! Belief is what has drowned you! Belief is what has turned you into Hindu, Muslim, Christian. I want to make you religious. A religious person searches—relentlessly. He won’t spare himself, even if he must pass through pain and restlessness.

Certainly, when questions arise, restlessness arises; each question pricks like a thorn. When doubts arise, all ready-made certainties vanish; anguish appears, fear appears, your legs tremble, the ground slips from beneath your feet. Don’t worry—this is the path to right trust. Ask—ask with an open heart! Ask totally! Don’t be stingy. If you save even a single question and don’t ask it, that very question will drown you. It will remain a hole in your boat. And if you launch upon the ocean with a boat full of holes, you’ll regret it. Do all your testing on the shore. Find every hole, plug every hole. And when you see that, on every side, intelligence is at ease—that intelligence says, yes, now it’s right; it signals, now move—only when intelligence gives the nod, enter trust.

The trust that comes through the way of intelligence is mature. From it buddhas are born. The trust that comes in opposition to intelligence only makes you a fool; it will never make you a Buddha. So what’s the hurry? Why the panic? Search! The search is a fire that burns—and refines. Every question that arises is valid; seek its resolution. There are only two possibilities:
- Either you will find the answer and the question will fall silent.
- Or, in the very searching, you will discover it was never a real question at all—there is a basic error in it, and it cannot be answered.

For example, someone asks, “What is the fragrance of the color green?” It looks like a question, but it isn’t. What has color to do with fragrance? Anything green may have any fragrance—or none at all. Green and fragrance have no necessary connection. In language the question seems fine; in existence it is wrong.

And I will add: don’t accept on someone else’s say-so. Perhaps the person wants to deceive you—there are many deceivers. Or perhaps he doesn’t want to deceive you but is himself deceived—and there are many who deceive themselves. Search! The questions for which you find answers will drop; you will be lighter by that much. And those whose answers never come—by searching you will understand they were never questions at all. A real question will surely have an answer. What is not a real question will reveal itself as such: futile, unanswerable; you will see you are searching in vain. In both cases you become unburdened. A moment comes in consciousness when no question remains. In that questionless state, trust is born.

You ask: “Yesterday you spoke of the importance of trust, but the intellect becomes an obstacle to trusting.”

No, intelligence never becomes an obstacle. You want to trust too quickly; you want raw trust, hence your opposition to intelligence. You are wrong; intelligence is not. You want borrowed trust. You don’t want to pay the price of trust. You don’t want to endure the hardship required to attain it. But everything has a price—and trust is such a great treasure, how will you obtain it without paying? You want someone to say it and you accept. You don’t want to investigate, to walk long roads, to climb mountains, to cross oceans. You want to sit where you are and believe. Intelligence obstructs this. Intelligence is not obstructing trust; it is obstructing your dishonesty—your demand for cheap, free trust. And it is good that it obstructs. Intelligence will not let you rest. Such free, thrown-on trusts it will rip off and toss away. Intelligence is in the service of the Divine, not in the service of your laziness. Otherwise you would sit on any rubbish heap, close your eyes, and think, “This is a palace,” just to avoid walking. If you admit it isn’t a palace, you will have to walk. If you admit this isn’t truth, you will have to seek truth. You want to grab anything—like a drowning man clutching a straw. You even sit in a paper boat—because it has the name “boat,” you think it is enough! Intelligence says, be careful, be alert—this is a paper boat; you will drown. At least now you are on the shore. If you want to reach the other shore, find a sound, right boat. You won’t get there in paper boats.

Your father said, “Believe,” and you believed—that is a paper boat. Your father didn’t know; his father told him, and he too didn’t know. Such borrowing has been going on. Can you live life like this? Suppose your father says, “Son, I have eaten; now what need is there for you to eat? Just believe your stomach is full.” You wouldn’t accept that. You’d say, “Father, yours may be full; mine must be filled. I will eat; only then will I be satisfied. I want my own fulfillment. I, too, am.”

But when the father says, “There is God—I believe; you also believe,” you believe. In truth you want to avoid searching for God. You are playing tricks. You say, “Why get into the hassle?” You are an atheist. You say, “I have believed in God,” but you are an atheist, because you don’t want to get into the trouble of attaining God—that is atheism. Better than you is the atheist who says, “I will not believe in God like this until I see.” At least he takes on more trouble than you—restlessness and anxiety. Nights will be uneasy; many times he will wake, afraid and shaken. As old age approaches he will think, “Now I should believe; death is near—what if He exists? What if I die and have to stand before Him and He asks, ‘Well, sir, you did not believe—now what do you say? You never worshiped—off to hell!’”

As old age comes close even the atheist begins to think: “Let me believe—what’s the harm? What will be lost? At most some time will be wasted in worship—what else? If He exists, it will help; if not, what have I lost?” He is hedging; he is doing business. Better than him is the honest atheist! He says, “Whatever happens will happen, but until I experience, how can I believe?”

I am not against the atheist. In my vision, supreme theism comes by way of atheism. I do not see atheism as the opposite of theism but as a step towards it. A false theist never becomes a theist; a true atheist certainly becomes one.

Now you say intelligence is obstructing!
Intelligence obstructs because you want to grab too quickly. It is a great compassion upon you! Listen to its questions; consider its doubts. The whirlwinds it raises within you—pass through them. The storms it brings—you must pass through them. They are your tests, your touchstone. Only by passing through them will you be refined; only then will you someday attain right trust. Beliefs are false. Do not rely on belief.

Many people never give intelligence a chance. Intelligence is a divine element. The one within you who is asking questions—that, too, is God. Many people suppress intelligence; they don’t let it surface. That’s why most remain crippled—paralyzed, immature, childish. Maturity never enters their lives.

I am in favor of all questions. Either the questions are true and answers will be found, or the questions are false and their falsity will be exposed. In both cases there is gain. But walk with intelligence. Trust is the ultimate peak of intelligence—it is intelligence that brings it. Only the intelligent arrive at trust.

Once, a play was being performed. One of the characters was a donkey. Hundreds came to watch the donkey act. The play was utterly cheap and boring. At the end the director called the donkey onto the stage. The donkey came, gave the director a good kick, and left. A famous critic said to the friend sitting beside him, “My friend, the donkey was not only a good actor; he was also a sound critic.”

Understand the criticism of intelligence. Understand its review. Intelligence often kicks. It hurts, and it pains. But who has ripened without pain? Who has been refined without wounds? Without passing through fire, gold does not become pure. Nor will you. Not cheap trust, but trust attained by passing through difficulties—only that is refuge.

Preeti is a pure state of feeling. Preeti means the divine. That is what Jesus has said: love is God. Preeti is a pure state—like light burning, pure in itself, not yet falling on anything; such is preeti. Then, when preeti falls on someone, on some object, its forms begin to appear. Just as when we pour water into a vessel, it takes the shape of the vessel, so too when pure preeti falls into some recipient, it takes the recipient’s shape. If it is toward the wife, it is prem (love); toward the son, it is sneh (affection); toward the master, it is shraddha (reverence). But all these are forms of the same preeti, and within them the same energy is in movement. Yet, whichever object it falls upon, the shadow of that object begins to fall upon it as well.

In ordinary love there is a great deal of desire. The love between husband and wife holds desire in large measure. In affection (sneh) there is less, but still some. Even the love and attachment to one’s son or daughter carries a hidden ambition: tomorrow the son will grow up; whatever ambitions I could not fulfill, he will fulfill. Which father does not wish to fire the gun from his son’s shoulder? I could not make money though I wanted to; my son will. I shall die, but my son will keep my name alive.

That is why for centuries people have been mad for sons. A daughter is born and they are not so delighted, because through her the name does not continue. A son is born, the name continues. And the desire to perpetuate one’s name is desire—it is the journey of the ego: “My name must remain!” As if anything in the world would go wrong if your name did not remain. Whether you remain or not, nothing goes wrong with the world. What is the value of your name? Yet people say, “It has been going on, let it go on!” It is a kind of indirect longing for immortality—who knows whether we will be saved or not, but let something of us remain—if not we ourselves, then at least our son; after all, it is our blood. Then his sons will come; by this pretext we will go on living. Such is the will-to-live.

So desire is there. Not as gross and intense as in the lust between husband and wife, but still ambition persists. Less still remains in the relationship of reverence (shraddha) toward the master; even less. Yet it is there too, because there is a wish to gain something from the master—liberation, meditation, samadhi—something to get. But it is becoming purer, it is thinning out. In conjugal love, desire is maximal; in the love for sons and daughters, less; in reverence, very slight—say, one percent. In husband-wife love it was ninety-nine percent. And when even that one percent drops to zero, reverence too is transcended—then it is devotion (bhakti). In devotion there is not the slightest desire.

If desire remains in devotion, it is not devotion. If you have asked anything of the Divine, you have missed—even if you asked for anything at all, you have missed. You said, “My wife is ill, let her be cured”; “My son has no job, let him get one”—you have missed; this is no longer prayer, it is craving. Prayer is only when there is no asking, no expectation. Prayer is pure gratitude; there is no question of asking. What has been given is so much that we are overwhelmed with grace. What has been given is beyond our deserving—such gratefulness is devotion. Devotion is love one hundred percent. Not even a wisp of smoke remains.

You kindle a fire; you burn wood. You have seen that different woods give off different smoke. But have you seen the reason? The reason is: the wetter the wood, the more the smoke. If the wood is not wet at all—if there is no moisture in it—then no smoke will rise. Smoke does not rise from the wood; it rises from the water hidden in the wood. So burn wet wood and much smoke will rise.

Between husband and wife, wet wood burns. Between father and son the wood is a bit drier, yet smoke still rises. Between master and disciple the wood is almost dry; only those who have eyes to see will detect any smoke at all—if your eyes are a little weak and you wear glasses, you won’t see it—one percent remains; ninety-nine percent dryness. And when love burns between you and the Divine, no smoke arises at all—a smokeless flame.

This ultimate state has two forms. One is called meditation (dhyana), the other devotion (bhakti). If this supreme, smokeless condition of love is oriented toward the Divine, toward the Whole, it is called devotion. And if it is not oriented toward anyone—if it turns inward, falling back into itself; this cascade of love pours into itself, going nowhere, directionless—that is meditation. Through only these two paths has man attained. Buddha attained through meditation; Meera through devotion. Both are pure states. Buddha’s love wells up within himself—brim-full—becoming a lake; Meera’s devotion dances and flows toward the ocean—becoming a river. But in both, love has become pure.

Are you the East
who will
give me the sun?
Are you the Unprecedented
who will
take me into your refuge?
Are you the North
from whom
an answer will come?
Are you the South wind—
from you will I receive
the Malayan, sandal-scented song?

The devotee sees the Divine everywhere—east, west, north, south; above, below; in every direction, in every dimension. The devotee is surrounded by God. The devotee himself has vanished; only God remains. This is one mode of love.

For the meditator, God does not exist. The totality of love has become so deep that no “other” remains—how could “God” remain? No other remains; only the Self is. In that supreme state of the Self there is liberation as well. In both cases the same event happens. The devotee becomes zero—on his own side—and the Divine becomes the Whole; the meditator becomes the Whole within, and the Divine becomes zero. The union of Fullness (purna) and Emptiness (shunya) takes place—in two ways. And where Fullness and Emptiness meet, there is liberation, there is moksha. It all depends on you—where your love is entangled, to what it clings.

I have heard: a gentleman once organized a qawwali. The qawwal was a carefree Sufi fakir. For the ladies there was a separate arrangement behind a curtain. The organizer’s wife and other women were seated behind it, listening. The qawwal, a mad mystic, got carried away and began to chant one line over and over: “Who is behind the veil? Ah, who is behind the veil? Who is behind this blue veil?” He was speaking of the sky—the blue veil—asking, who is behind this veil? Remembering the Divine, he was seized by the tune: “Who is behind this veil, this blue veil?” By coincidence, the curtain behind which the women sat was also blue. After he had repeated the line ten or twelve times, the gentleman who had arranged the program lost his temper and roared, “You wretch, is your attention only on what’s behind the curtain? Your mother and sisters are behind the curtain—who else!”

Each has his own vision.

The Sufi fakir is speaking of that vast veil which is the sky, and of the One behind it. He is speaking of ecstasy, of devotion. But this man grows restless. He has no sense of God, no remembrance of the sky, no taste of the Sufi’s intoxication. And as the fakir grew more enraptured and repeated the line more, the man’s restlessness grew; he said, “This is too much! This seems ill-mannered! Is this any theme to raise—‘Who is behind the curtain?’ Your mother and sisters are!”

What is the object of your love? You will understand only that much. Wherever your stream of love flows, only that much will you grasp.

That is why the words of devotees have often been gravely misunderstood. Freud and his followers think the speech of devotees is but a deranged form of sexual desire—“Who is behind the veil? Ah! Who is behind the blue veil?” Freud imagines these are all matters of women. “Your mother and sisters—who else!”

You can understand only to the extent of your love—where your love abides. Free love from desire. If your love is of the husband–wife kind, awaken a little parental tenderness; stir some affection. If affection has awakened, then rouse some reverence. If reverence has awakened, then take the leap into devotion.

Look beyond the closed panes, across the casements—
on the green trees, on the dense boughs, on the flowers there
how silently the rain keeps falling.
So many sounds, these people, these conversations—yet
behind the mind, on some other plane somewhere,
your image keeps raining down in silence,
it is raining everywhere.
How silently your image keeps raining.

An eye is needed to see. Free love from desire! It is because of desire that the eye to see does not arise; desire blinds; desire is blind.

Enough for today.