Athato Bhakti Jigyasa #20

Science has many meanings. The most fundamental meaning is the search for svabhava—the search for the natural, the spontaneous. The search for the hidden Rta, Tao, the great law concealed within life. Ultimately, not only the search for what is hidden in matter, but also the search for what is hidden in consciousness. With matter science begins; it does not end there. A science that ends with matter is incomplete. And incomplete truths are more dangerous than untruths, because they look like truth and are not.

An untruth can be recognized; if not today, then tomorrow you will see it as untrue, and the moment you understand, you are free of it. A half-truth is very dangerous; the illusion of truth persists and persists. And a half-truth is not truth at all, because truth cannot be cut into fragments. Truth is indivisible, whole. If it is, it will be entire; if it is not entire, it is not.

Science starts with matter, but it cannot, it should not, end with matter. When the basic laws of matter are known, that very knowing naturally turns the journey toward consciousness. Hence the newest step of science is psychology. The oldest step is physics; the newest step is psychology.

Understand the meaning. It began with the elements, with matter; now the journey has moved toward mind. Mind is the middle, not the end. The day science becomes absorbed in the search for the soul as well, that day science will have touched its peak, reached its destination. Ultimately there will not be two things on the earth called religion and science; there should not be. Religion, too, is incomplete. Religion has no body. Religion is like a ghost—soul, soul. Have you ever seen a soul somewhere? Is the soul ever separate? And if you were to meet a soul separate from the body, your breath would freeze—you would experience a ghost, a phantom. Since religion is half, it is ghostlike; it has no blood, no flesh, no bones. And science is also half; it is like a dead corpse, without soul. On one side a dead body, on the other a disembodied spirit. The day these two meet, life will flower.

Ultimately there will be only science in the world—or call it religion; then only a difference of name remains. The word science is not bad; it arises from knowledge. Special knowledge—that is, science. When knowledge gains depth, it becomes science. When knowledge gains its true depth, there will be a communion of soul and matter, of nature and the purusha, of body and soul. Therefore I define science as the search for svabhava, the search for the natural, the search for the fundamental Rta, the law.

In this sense I said: devotion is natural; therefore it is scientific.

What you call renunciation is not that natural. For renunciation carries an opposition to the world. Devotion carries non-opposition. Where there is opposition, there will be complexity. Where there is opposition, there will be aversion. Where there is aversion, there are obstacles, there is struggle; there can be no simplicity. There will be a constant war within; there can be no peace. The renunciate, the ascetic, tries to be peaceful, but he will not succeed. The very elements he fights, the elements he refuses to include, will take their revenge. They will not leave him alone; they will pursue him. Flee to the caves—you will find there precisely what you fled from. Whatever you run from will follow you. Whatever you try to avoid will appear before you again and again.

Run from anger, and your whole life-energy will become distorted by anger. Run from sex, and you will be full of nothing but sex. Your mind will be filled with the pus of sexuality. Do not run; awaken. Do not run; live. Live the world in its totality.

Devotion does not teach escapism. Devotion says: This is God’s world—why flee? He must be hiding here somewhere, playing hide-and-seek. Just lift the veils; you will find him concealed right here. He is hidden in trees, in mountains, in peaks, in people—behind every curtain it is he. You must learn how to lift the curtain. Love is the art of lifting the veil. No violence is needed. When you love someone, you can lift her veil—no force is needed. Without love, lifting the veil is violence. With love, it is reverence.

Those who try to unveil existence without loving it are seeking to violate it. That is why I have often said your so-called science is incomplete and violative. It wants to know nature by force. It wants to open nature’s secrets on the point of a bayonet.

The devotee also opens the secrets, but not with a sword in his hand—with a veena in his hands. For the devotee too, nature lifts her veil—but to his dance, to his song, to his love.

Science will remain incomplete if reason alone is its scripture. The day love also becomes a part of its scripture, that day science will be complete. That day there will be a great sunrise in the life of the world. That day East and West will meet. They cannot meet yet. For now, the East clings to a half-truth—religion; the West clings to a half-truth—science. The East and the West cannot meet yet. They will meet the day these half-truths fall from our hands and we have the capacity to embrace the whole truth.

To embrace the whole truth requires great daring. Why? A half-truth does not demand much courage. Why? Because the whole truth is paradoxical. There lies the difficulty. God is day and also night—that is the rub. And God is both the world and nirvana—that is the rub.

The cowardly say: God is only the world, there is no God beyond. This is what the atheist, the communist, says. What is he saying? He says, this life is all; there is no other life. And what does your so-called renunciate and knower say? He says, this world is maya, illusory; God alone is true. The atheist says, God is false, the world is true. The theist says, the world is false, God is true. Neither has a broad chest. Neither can gather the courage to say that both are true. The truth is that both are two aspects of one reality.

For this, a vast heart is needed, one that can contain the paradox. Small minds cannot. A small mind can say: either sex is true, or samadhi is true. Only a vast heart can say: sex and samadhi—both are true. Lust and compassion—both are true. Kama and Rama—both are true. They are two faces of the same ladder. The journey of kama ripens into Rama. Matter, purified and purified, becomes God. And God, becoming more and more impure, becomes matter. The world is God’s impure form, that’s all. God is the purified form of the world, that’s all.

But to accept that God is life seems easy. When you say, God is both life and death, great difficulty arises. Logic says: life and death both? How can both be? It cannot be both. The language of logic is: either this or that. Logic always divides. Logic says: God will be either male or female. Those who consider God male cannot accept him as female; those who consider God female cannot accept him as male. Because logic says: how can both be?

Have you seen the image of Ardhanarishvara? Devotees discovered it. Lovers discovered it. They declared: God is both—half woman, half man. Even if you have seen the image, you have not accepted it. Inside, the question persists: How can this be? Half male, half female! One limb female, one limb male! How can this be? It seems absurd, a riddle. Either male or female. Either-or is the language of logic. This or that. Choose. Choice is the language of logic.

The language of love is choicelessness. That choicelessness is what I call the supreme science.

For the most part, just words. One who has not known love will not know nonduality. Nonduality is love’s ultimate state. Without love, “nonduality” is a logical deduction—he has solved a math problem! His nonduality has no life in it. It is dry, lifeless. No flowers will bloom there; no music will arise. It is the nonduality of a cremation ground. Only one who has known love knows true nonduality.

What does true nonduality mean?
True nonduality means you do not discard one of the two; otherwise it is not nonduality at all. Your so‑called nondualist says: the world is maya, false, unreal. What kind of nonduality is that? You have chopped off one side. By that measure even a Marxist is a nondualist—he says: there is no God, no soul; only matter, no consciousness. That too is a kind of nonduality. The theist and the atheist are both “nondualists.” And I say both are operating from argument, not experience. The devotee has experience. The devotee says: there is nonduality—and such a nonduality that both are included in it, and both can live in it.

This realization happens only in love. Love is a strange experience. The lover and the beloved are two, and yet they experience they are one. Theirs is a very rich experience. If the lover kills himself and says, “Only the beloved is, I am not,” love will end. Or if he kills the beloved and says, “Only I am—where is the beloved?” love will end all the same. Love breathes only when the One lives between two; otherwise it cannot breathe.

And this is what lovers try to do all their lives. Your so‑called lovers are always at it. The husband tries to erase the wife: she should have no voice, no note of her own; she should follow me, be my shadow, go wherever I go like a shadow. He wants her to have no freedom; he the master, she the maid. That is where the murder of love begins. Love is possible only while both are fully alive—both in complete freedom, and yet both hearts feel, “We are one.” Unity is felt.

The wife too tries to erase the husband. Their methods differ because their psychologies differ. The husband’s ways are crude—if needed, he’ll beat. The wife’s ways are subtle—if needed, she’ll beat herself. But the urge is the same. The wife, indirectly, wants to take the husband into her possession. Often marriage gives you not a wife but a guru who sets about reforming you: “Now don’t smoke; don’t chew betel; don’t stay up after ten; rise at brahma‑muhurta; do this now, do that now.” Many wives waste their lives trying to “improve” the husband. But the desire behind improvement is possessiveness. Improvement is the pretext; it means only this: by the respectable route I establish my ownership.

And the irony is, neither does the husband reform, nor does the wife succeed. For when the wife tries to reform—that is her way of owning—the husband exerts himself to save his freedom, even by wrong means. Smoking is no great freedom; it is foolish. But if the wife rides him, “Don’t smoke,” then he will not be able to quit. He will have to smoke, keep smoking. Why? Because this is his one remaining way to declare, “I too have a soul; I am free; I am not a slave.”

Husband and wife set about erasing each other. Hence married life has become a tragic life. Both are nondualists: each wants only one to remain. Deny the other; turn them into a shadow, into maya; reduce their being to a near‑nothing; make their value zero.

This is what the “knower” does: “Brahman is true, the world is false.” And this is what your atheist does: “The world is true, Brahman is false.” Save one, destroy the other.

The devotee’s alchemy is wondrous. He says: there is no need to erase either. Let both join, embrace; let both hearts beat together. What place then for possession? Their heartbeats can be so in step that the One begins to be experienced between the two. Each one’s freedom remains untouched, and yet both unite in One—joined by a bridge. As two riverbanks are joined by a bridge, so true lovers remain two and yet are joined; remain separate and yet become one.

Therefore devotion has variety; devotion has richness. A unity that survives by killing one is no great unity, for it is a unity afraid of the other. It could not exist in the other’s presence. The devotee says: the world is true, and God is true; the Creator is true, and His creation is true—both are true. This is what Shandilya said: do not call the world false. How can untruth arise from the Ultimate Truth? Whatever is born of Truth will also be true. The wave born of the ocean is exactly as true as the ocean. It is the ocean’s wave—how could it be false?

The devotee’s heart is vast. He says: we will hold both; there is no need to erase either. Erase them and life becomes flat and monotonous.

That is why you do not see the glow of joy on the face of your so‑called nondualist and “knower.” On the devotee’s face you will find softness, grace, joy, a benediction. You will find the devotee dancing. The “knower” is shrunken; the devotee expansive. The devotee has no obstruction; he accepts all. He doesn’t get lost in talk of knowledge; he descends into experience.

Understand this difference well.
You can sit and think, argue, draw conclusions, construct a philosophy—that is one thing. Or you can enter life, take the plunge, dive in and know there. Kabir has said: “He who learns the two‑and‑a‑half letters of love becomes a pandit.” This is another kind of school altogether—the real school of life, of existence.

“I am drowned from head to toe in springtime—
O spring, do not disturb me in the reverie of the Beloved,
for even the fragrance of roses is unwelcome to me just now.”

When one is drowned, all around him becomes spring, nothing but spring; even in fall he sees spring.

“I am drowned from head to toe in springtime—
O spring, do not disturb me in the reverie of the Beloved.”

Now even spring itself is of no concern. Let spring come or not; even if it does not come outside, it is fine—spring has come within. Wherever the devotee abides, there is spring. You have heard that the devotee goes to heaven. You have heard wrong. Wherever the devotee goes, there is heaven. Throw the devotee into hell—you will not be able to send him to hell. You will dispatch him to hell; he will arrive in heaven. Even in hell he will establish heaven.

Send the “knower” even to heaven, and rarely will he reach heaven. Have you ever heard of any pandit, any “knower,” reaching heaven? Wherever he goes, he will carry his net of logic. Wherever he goes, he will arrive burdened with his words. Wherever he goes, he will carry his tomes. With him will remain that dead world of words. Even sinners arrive; pandits do not. Sinners are humble; pandits are arrogant. If you must choose between a pandit and a sinner, better be a sinner—do not, by mistake, become a pandit. A pandit is one who has not known and thinks, “I have known.” The knower is the lover; how will the pandit ever know?

Be a lover. Only then will you experience what nonduality is. You will be blessed—through experience. No one is blessed through thought. You know this in the ordinary course of life: think as much as you like of sweets and delicious food—your stomach will not fill. If you are thirsty and you know the whole scripture of water, the entire science of water—you know water is H2O, that oxygen and hydrogen combine, two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen—keep writing it in books…

I was once a guest in a house. The whole house was filled with volumes. I asked, “A big library—what all is in it?” The owner said, “It is not a library. These are copybooks in which I write ‘Ram Ram, Ram Ram.’ I’ve been writing it all my life. My father did the same—he was a very religious man—so the house has filled with books. This is our work—writing ‘Ram Ram.’” I said, “This is as futile as a man dying of thirst writing on a page: ‘H2O, H2O, H2O’—writing the formula of water again and again. It will not quench his thirst. Neither was your father religious, nor are you. What has religion to do with writing ‘Ram Ram’ in a notebook? There must be an echo in the heart. Its aura must shine in the very breath of your being. Tell me—have you experienced Ram?” He said, “Had I experienced, why would I write these volumes? I am writing in order to experience.” I said, “How will experience come from writing? So much time wasted—waste no more. Set these volumes on fire. You have written so much and it did not happen; write that much again and still it will not happen. What connection can writing have? In life, experiences come through experience.”

The devotee becomes blessed. The moment comes sooner in the devotee’s life when he hums, “Dhanyo’ham—I am blessed!” Spring surrounds him on every side.

The day before yesterday Radha came to see me. I asked her, “How are you, Radha?” She said, “It is spring everywhere!” Her words pleased me. When love awakens, it is spring all around.

There is not the slightest contradiction. What Krishna is saying belongs to the beginning of the journey; what Buddha is saying belongs to the end. Krishna speaks to Arjuna who has not yet boarded the boat, who is hesitating to step in. Krishna says: “Drop your worries. The boat has come right up to you. Sarva-dharmān parityajya—drop all talk, all argument, all fuss; come, sit, take refuge in me. I am your boatman, I am your charioteer; I will take you across. Leave everything and fearlessly get into this boat.”

When Buddha says, “If even I come in your way, cut off my head,” he is speaking of the other shore, when the boat has already moored on the far bank—and Arjuna starts saying, “Now I will not get off the boat! This boat has been so compassionate, it has brought me from the ocean of the world to the shore of the divine. I will not leave it now.” He clings to Krishna’s feet and says, “You yourself said, mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja—‘Take refuge in me alone.’ Where are you going now? I will not let you go; even if life remains or goes, I will hold to your feet.”

In that second moment even Krishna will have to say, as Buddha said, “Foolish one, now get down from the river; now leave the boat. Leave me too. The other shore has come; the Divine has been reached! The boat was to be used—for the passage from the world to the divine, from body to soul, from darkness to light, from death to life. But now you are standing at God’s door—now leave even this. Will you carry the boat on your back?”

Buddha would say again and again: once you reach the other shore, don’t put the boat on your head. That would be foolishness, not grace or gratitude. Thank the boat and move on.

Krishna’s word is the formula given to the student on the first day of admission to school. Buddha’s word is the final address given to the student when the convocation is over and he is returning from the university. There is no contradiction at all. Because both were uttered at different times to different people, you may feel concerned. Krishna spoke to Arjuna, an ordinary man. Buddha spoke to bodhisattvas who had reached the very last hour.

Buddha is dying; the final moment has come. His bodhisattvas, his supreme disciples, are gathered around. Ānanda begins to weep. Buddha opens his eyes and asks, “Why are you crying?” Ānanda says, “If you go, what will become of us?” Then Buddha says: Appo deepo bhava—be a light unto yourself! “With me you have come as far as you could.”

Buddha’s word and Krishna’s word are the two ends of the same journey—no contradiction at all. It is like climbing a staircase. I say to you, “Without climbing the steps you won’t reach the roof.” Then, when you get stuck on the top step and say, “Now I will not leave the staircase, because it is the staircase that brought me this high,” I say to you, “Now leave the staircase, otherwise you won’t reach the roof.” Are my statements contradictory? I urged you to climb so you could reach the roof; now I urge you to let go so you can step onto it.

Methods must be held—and one day they must be dropped. You must walk the paths—and one day you must bow to them and leave them. At the moment of entering the Divine, nothing should remain with you: no method, no mantra, no tantra. At the threshold of God all ladders must be gone, all boats bid farewell. Only then can you enter.

The words differ because Arjuna and Ānanda differ. Arjuna is not ready to begin; he is still shrinking back. Ānanda has walked to the very end; the last hour has come. And you know, within twenty-four hours of Buddha’s death Ānanda attained supreme enlightenment. He was right at the brink; only a tiny obstacle remained—his attachment to the Master. All other attachments had dropped—no taste for wealth, position, friends; all flavors were gone. One taste remained pervasive: the sweetness of the true Master, the deep clinging to the Master’s feet. That infatuation had grown strong. Buddha told Ānanda, “Leave me too. Now be your own lamp. You are ready; you can stand on your own feet. How long will you ride on my shoulders? And there is no need now.”

A mother holds a child’s hand to help him walk—one day she must hold it. But if the child holds it forever, the mother will pull her hand away; one day it must be let go. Otherwise how will the child become a youth, mature? If a mother keeps holding the hand of her twenty-year-old son, you will say both are mad. And if a mother refuses to support her eight-month-old baby’s steps, you will also call it madness. Where is the contradiction?

Arjuna is an infant, still at the breast. Ānanda has become a youth, but still does not want to leave the mother’s hem; he still wants to cling to her. Both statements are true—and both are true for you too: on the first day, Krishna’s word; on the last day, Buddha’s. Do not look for contradiction.

Often the great maxims of religion may seem contradictory, because religion is a vast, mysterious realm—beyond logic.

“The mad lovers walk in reverse;
they close their eyes to behold.”
When you want to see the Divine, you must close your eyes. You will say, “What an upside-down thing! Man sees with open eyes. What does it mean to see with closed eyes?” But that is how it is. To see the real, the eyes must close. If you want to keep seeing the trivial, open eyes will do. One can see with open eyes and with closed eyes; what is seen with open eyes is a dream, and what is seen with closed eyes is the truth.

Kabir has a famous saying:
“Good it is that Hari is forgotten; the misfortune has slipped from my head.
As I was, so I have become again; now nothing can be said.”
A wondrous utterance—exactly Buddha’s word.

“Good it is that Hari is forgotten...” The bother is over—this ‘Hari’ too has vanished, and the very trouble of remembering has ended.

You will be startled: “Hari—a misfortune?” Śāṇḍilya says, “Worship, chant the Lord’s name, drown in it.” And Kabir has gone mad, saying, “Good that Hari is forgotten; the calamity has moved off my head!” Calamity—the Lord’s name? But yes—one day it becomes a calamity. The method that one day helps becomes a hindrance another day. You are ill, you take medicine. Then the illness leaves; if you keep taking the medicine, it becomes a misfortune. The day the illness goes, throw away the bottle—or present it at the Lions Club, but get rid of it! Don’t keep carrying it around. Don’t say, “It benefited me so much—how can I leave it? How can I be so ungrateful? This very bottle gave me health; now I will keep drinking, I will never leave it. My faith in it has become so deep.”

Śāṇḍilya says, “Immerse yourself in devotion to Hari”—that is Krishna’s beginning. And Kabir, from Buddha’s plane, says:
“Good it is that Hari is forgotten; the misfortune has slipped from my head.
As I was, so I have become again; now nothing can be said.”
What is there now to say? What chanting of Ram now? Who will worship whom—and for what? Words have no relevance now. There is only silence, a great hush.

“He who crosses the limit is a wali;
he who crosses the limitless is a pir.
He who crosses both limit and limitless—
that one is the faqir.”
He who goes beyond the finite is called a wali; beyond the infinite, a pir; who leaves both finite and infinite, who drops the duality altogether and goes beyond all—he is the faqir. I call him a sannyasin.

Hold—so that you can let go. Use methods—drink all the juice they contain; when their juice is drunk, don’t keep lugging the husk around, or it will become a calamity.

With the guru’s help you will reach the other shore; then you must bid farewell to the guru as well. The guru frees you from the world; then the guru frees you from himself—only then is there union with the Divine.

Mukti has asked.
It is a matter of vision. Somewhere in Mukti’s mind there must be a heavy greed. From that very greed the whole disturbance is arising. We ordinarily do not call spiritual greed “greed,” yet it is greed all the same.
You listen to me—and you can listen in two ways. One is to savor the very joy of listening, as one listens to music. Listening to music does not bring a shower of money. You won’t return home suddenly rich. The wealth of music is in the listening itself. The delight is hidden in the very act of listening. But if someone goes to a concert thinking, “I will gain something from this,” restlessness will arise. When the music ends and the last resonance fades away, you will feel, “Another day wasted; it still didn’t happen; the wealth that was supposed to come did not come.” But the one who listens simply for the joy of music—he receives. There was nothing beyond that to attain anyway.

Here, too, there are two kinds of listeners. There are those who relish simply being here: they sit with me, there is a little conversation, a little exchange, a satsang; the music gathers; energies dance between us, waves move between us; for a little while our hearts beat together, my breath meets theirs and theirs meets mine. They drink me a little, drink my rasa, my flavor. For a while they give me room in their hearts, they let me dwell in their being. That is their joy. Their feeling will be, “Ah, it descended again today,” and they go away filled with blessedness.

The other kind sits here thinking, “When will samadhi happen? When will God be found? When will liberation arrive?” He is not listening; his gaze is fixed on moksha. He’s thinking, “Is samadhi coming or not?” He looks around: “It hasn’t come yet; my samadhi hasn’t come; tears are flowing from that other person’s eyes—perhaps it has come to him; mine has not.” He keeps feeling for it: “When will it come? When will it come? No footfall of it is heard!” And in worrying about samadhi he is missing me. In this greed he is missing the chance to be meditative with me. Then when I rise and go, naturally it will seem, “Another day gone to waste.”

It depends on you; it does not depend on me. If you wish, let this day be meaningful—or let it go to waste.

Drop greed. The eye of greed always brings trouble. The interpretations you make under the sway of greed become saturated with sorrow. And our interpretations are of great consequence.

Yesterday I was reading a poem by a communist poet. A friend had taken him to see the Taj Mahal—on a night of the autumn full moon. But the thoughts that arose in that communist poet upon seeing the Taj are worth hearing:

Friend, I have seen the Taj Mahal—let’s go back!
From marble blossoms rises a diamond,
minarets glowing with the heat of the moon,
forever winking at a poet’s mind—
a queen’s life-shrouded, glittering tomb.
Unbidden, questions turned in my eyes:
and those who lie along the roads like corpses,
their bloodless, juiceless nerves shriveled dry,
skulls in the sun clacking like dice—
Friend, I have seen the Taj—let’s go back!

This throbbing dome, as if Shah Jahan’s heart,
this queenly beauty smiling from lintel and ledge;
from every stratum the jest of division sparkles
as history draws love’s veil over itself.
Moonlight and this palace—by the world of wonder!—
as if a canal of milk had begun to boil.
How could such a scene hide from the traveler’s eyes
who remembers the fate of Farhad?
Friend, I have seen the Taj—let’s go back!

These gleaming thresholds, this vermilion-capped finial—
such splendors have made tomb-worship the fashion.
Even moon and stars seem compelled to bow:
ah, the resting place of the mistress with godlike airs!
This is not a spectacle of seeing, but of partition:
smoke over the face of existence,
a dance of lights upon a grave.
If the gathered hem of this mausoleum were to spread,
how many living funerals would find themselves a tomb!
Friend, I have seen the Taj—let’s go back!

You will see the Taj Mahal only as much as your interpretation allows.

Gurdjieff’s disciple, Ouspensky, came to see the Taj Mahal, and what he wrote in his diary that night is marvelous. He wrote: “The Taj Mahal is like the Upanishads carved in stone. Such beauty had never before been poured into form, nor will it be poured again; and even that it could be poured again is doubtful.” In the Taj he saw the beauty of Upanishadic sutras—as if something descended from the sky onto this earth, something that points toward the formless.

The Taj Mahal was built by Sufis. Commissioned by Shah Jahan, but built by Sufis. It is a Sufi creation. Just as Ajanta–Ellora are creations of Buddhist monks, and Khajuraho and Konark of the tantrics, the Taj is Sufi work. Ouspensky could see this because he was Gurdjieff’s disciple—Gurdjieff himself was Sufi at heart; it was from Sufi saints that he learned. So Ouspensky could perceive what was carved into the Taj: it reminds you of your supreme beauty—do not end with the body; if such beauty is hidden in stone, how much must be hidden in you! It is a matter of unveiling, of carving, of bringing forth.

To a communist poet, what appears is: “The Taj is fine, but people lie starving on the roads—what of them? This Taj mocks them. There is no food for people, and so much wealth is spent on a dead queen! No medicine for the sick, no milk for their children, no roof to live under—the living have no roof, and for the dead such a lovely grave! This is gross injustice.” That is the communist’s definition.

It all depends on you. If you are in a festive mood, in the Taj you will see great joy, a dance; you will meet the Taj in rapture. If you go sad—your beloved is lost, your mother has died, your friend has passed away—then the Taj will look very sad. Your eyes will see only what they carry.

Much depends on how you listen to me here. Some come as Hindus, some as Muslims, some as Christians—such will miss me. The one who comes not as Hindu, not as Muslim, not as Christian, but simply as a human being—that one can relate with me. Some come filled with a great greed—otherworldly greed, but greed is greed; is there any such thing as otherworldly greed? Greed is the very worldliness.

Now, Mukti is seized by a great greed. She wants nirvana quickly, samadhi quickly; “Another day wasted”—as if merely hearing me will give you samadhi. And I am not saying that samadhi cannot happen while listening. It can happen while listening—but not because of listening. It can happen in the midst of listening. If there is the ambition to attain, it will not happen—because then you won’t be able to listen.

Drop the idle talk of attainment. For as long as you are with me, be with me—absorbed, total. For this brief while at least, throw away greed. Because greed prevents relationship; it becomes the barrier. Greed and love are opposites. Where love is, greed is not; where greed is, love is not. And this satsang is for those in whose hearts there is love.

So the connection does not happen. Mukti, sitting here, must be thinking: “Half an hour gone, an hour gone, ninety minutes over—still it didn’t happen; another day gone.” Day after day passes like this; then slowly a deep despair will grow: “At this rate, so many days have already passed; more will pass.” Yet here there was possibility every day, every moment. If I am samadhi, then sitting near me, listening to me, samadhi can ripen. What does samadhi mean? Resolution, a settling, a harmony. Does it mean something will fall from the sky into you? No. When the music of your life-energy becomes harmonious, that is samadhi. Wherever you become absorbed, there is samadhi. But greed will not let you be absorbed. Greed keeps you wandering in the future: “It is going to happen, going to happen,” while here it is happening. If your mind is not in the present, you will miss. If your mind wanders into the future—then Mukti is right—this will keep happening day after day. It depends on you.

Understand this question carefully, for it is not only Mukti’s; it is many others’ as well. I gave her the name “Mukti” precisely because within her there is a fierce craving for liberation. That very craving is becoming the obstacle.

“For the last few days, each time I see you leaving after discourse, a sigh escapes from within.”

That sigh could be of joy—“Another day given to be together; another day of communion; another day of rain of bliss; another day of deepening peace”—a sigh of gratitude: “Blessed am I!” Or it could be of sorrow: “Ah, again it didn’t happen!”

Imagine someone tells you, “I go to the river to swim...”

I loved to swim. If I didn’t go to the river for two or four hours a day, I was not at ease. The river gave me such joy that I would tell others, “Come!” Seeing me so delighted, people would get tempted: “Perhaps something happens there!” Taken in by my words they would get up at four in the morning: “Let’s try once!” But they would find nothing there. On top of that, their sleep was ruined. The comfort of morning sleep—gone; and what’s in swimming anyway? The chilly morning, the river’s cold water—they would shiver and say, “No joy is felt at all! You said there is great joy!” Gradually I understood where the mistake was. I feel joy because I am not searching for joy. They have come only in the hope of joy. When they step into cold water they feel the cold, and think, “The joy hasn’t come yet!” They grow gloomy: “Still not here! When will it come? From where?” After two or four days they would say, “We are not coming! Sleepy all day, and no joy!” I was amazed: “An experience like swimming—and they feel no joy!”

To be with water for an hour or two is profoundly life-giving, because eighty percent of you is water. When the water within meets the water without, great waves arise. But there must be meeting, true union. Then swimming can become meditation—if you are wholly immersed in it. If someone lies in the sun on the shore and can be drenched in the rain of sunlight—there is meditation. If someone can be lost in dancing—there is meditation. Whatever you can be lost in, there is meditation. What I speak to you every day is not to explain doctrines. What is there in doctrines? Two pennies’ worth. Doctrines are excuses; the purpose is something else: that, for a little while, you drown with me. But if inside you sits the expectation that “something must be gained,” great difficulty will arise.

Perhaps you have heard: Euclid was a great mathematician, the father of geometry. A wealthy man sent his son to learn geometry from him. The rich man’s son knew only one language: profit. Euclid began to explain what a point is, what a line is, what a triangle is. After a while the boy asked, “What will I get from this? What benefit is there? What will be the profit in knowing what a point and a line are?” Euclid looked at him and said to his wife, “Do this: after each lesson, when this young man is leaving, give him five coins.” The youth was delighted: “Wonderful! I learn what a point and a line are, and I get five coins!” But he did not see the fierce joke Euclid was playing. When his father heard, he beat his head: “Fool! You get to learn from a mathematician like Euclid, and instead of learning mathematics from him, you take five coins from him and come home! You are a dolt.”

The language of profit is the language of stupidity. But it is not your fault. Your so‑called mahatmas, pundits, and priests have taught you the same: there is profit in the world—and there is profit in God too. Earn meditation-profit, merit-profit, liberation-profit. But the language of profit does not leave you.

Let me tell you again: as long as the language of profit remains, samadhi will not be experienced. Profit is tension. Where profit drops and greed drops, that very state of mind is called samadhi. When profit and greed have flown away, and no language of gain remains within you, and you are utterly absorbed in this very moment—that is samadhi. Samadhi means absorption, total immersion.

So Mukti says: “A sigh escapes, and it feels as if another day has been wasted. And then a deep feeling remains that one day this divine man will vanish from before my eyes just like this, and I will stand and only watch.”

If profit and greed remain, this is bound to happen. Today or tomorrow I will have to depart—and then you will think, “Life was wasted. The whole life went to waste,” even though samadhi could have descended in any moment. And the mind full of greed may even express anger toward me: “Perhaps he did not give me samadhi.” Because you are sitting here in the hope that I will give you samadhi.

Samadhi is taken; it is not given. Even if I want to give, I cannot. But if you want to take, you can. And if you want to take, not only from me—you can take it from trees, from mountains, from moon and stars. Samadhi means that in some moment we are completely submerged: no future, no past; this very moment surrounds from all sides; this very moment becomes all time; this very moment becomes the infinite.

I observe this here. People who come from the West often find meditation easier; for those of the East it is more difficult. It should be the opposite: Eastern people—at least Indians—should find meditation quick to happen, since for thousands of years it has been discussed here. But that very history has become the hindrance. The Westerner comes without any accounting about meditation; he doesn’t even know what it is. Hence there is no greed, no strong ambition to attain. If I ask him to dance, he gets lost in dancing—he doesn’t keep looking out of the corner of his eye, “Has meditation happened yet?” The Indian comes and says, “Two days dancing—still no meditation. Three days meditating—still nothing.” The Westerner enjoys the dance; he comes to me saying, “I’m having such fun dancing!” He doesn’t even know whether meditation is supposed to happen or not. And then, suddenly one day, meditation happens—unbidden.

The Indian mind has become deeply greed-stricken. That is all you learned from the Buddhas—you learned greed. You did not remain simple in heart; you became complicated. Religion became bookkeeping: do this much merit, receive that much reward; give this much here, receive that much there. You spread mathematics over everything and began to lose the states of feeling. It is surprising, but it is happening. It should not be so, but it is. Be alert and it may stop.

First, the Indian does not want to enter meditation, because he thinks he already knows what meditation is. Second, even if he agrees to try, in a day or two he is already standing there: “It hasn’t happened yet.” He grows anxious that it seems to be happening to Westerners—they look so cheerful and blissful! Their cheerfulness has a reason: they have no greed for meditation. They had greed for money; the West gained wealth, and that greed broke—they saw it had no essence. The greed for meditation has not yet arisen. It will arise soon: Indian sadhus and saints are floating all over America and the West; they will soon create that greed, because their language is the language of greed. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi tells people: “Meditation brings not only otherworldly profit; worldly profit as well. Wealth will increase, status will increase, and God will also be attained.”

A very astonishing phenomenon: Vivekananda opened the door of America for Indian saints. From him until now—except for Krishnamurti—everyone who went from India to America did not change America; America changed them. They began to speak America’s language, because they saw that to influence Americans, you must speak what they understand. America understands the language of money. America asks, “How will this bring wealth?” So your Indian mahatma also begins to speak the language of money: “Meditation will increase mental power—siddhis will be gained. What cannot be had through meditation? Whatever you want, you will be able to obtain; your thoughts will become powerful.” I have seen books that say: “If you meditate correctly and think, ‘I must have a Cadillac,’ it will come. If you focus properly and say, ‘That woman passing by must be mine,’ then it will happen; thought has power—and concentrated thought has great power.”

If your ancient seers were to rise from their graves, they would beat their heads: “What are our mahatmas teaching in America!” But to persuade America, you must speak its tongue—and in speaking that tongue, everything is lost. Therefore, I decided I would not go West; whoever wishes to come, let him come here. I will speak my own language; whoever can understand, let him understand and come here. I am not willing to compromise.

The Indian mind, hearing of meditation for centuries, has become greedy. The same greed for wealth has been superimposed upon the soul; the same lust for status has been diverted into a religious direction—no real difference. One seeks rank here; the other there. Then there will be obstruction. Then you will not understand me. And then, Mukti, you will be left standing and only watching. This is in your hands. This time can be missed—missed only in this sense: if you do not dive into this moment, you will miss. I am here every day, my doors are open; take the plunge, and the happening will occur before I go. It can happen today—there is no question of tomorrow; it can happen any time, because the divine is always present. The moment your greed and profit-mindedness drop, in that very moment the union happens.

Who has the wits to ask where the flagon is and where the cup is?
From the gaze of the Master of the tavern, wine is pouring down.
When wine is raining from all sides, you are searching for the decanter, the cup? Bathe in it! Why bottle it? Drink! Drown in the wine and become the wine.

Who has the wits to ask where the flagon is and where the cup is?
From the gaze of the Master of the tavern, wine is pouring down.

Dive! Meera said: “Meera drank without measuring. Meera, intoxicated—what can she say now?” Drink without weighing; drop profit and greed—that weighing is all greed. Mukti sits with scales in her hand, measuring: “How much did I get? How much not?” Hence the sadness. Sadly, in this ashram most Indians are downcast; the non‑Indians are cheerful, delighted.

By your rapturous eyes, O cupbearer—your drunkard swears—
he grows blissful without even drinking.
Such is this wine that even without drinking, the intoxication can rise—if only your doors are open. Open the windows and doors!

Shakeel, do not lose hope at the distance of the goal:
the destination is arriving now—arriving now.

There is no need to be sad, no need to despair. I am not telling you that the destination is impossible or very arduous. It is very easy, simple, natural. That is the entire essence of bhakti: only love is needed. Greed blocks love, and the goal recedes farther and farther.

Let greed go. In its place, let there be the jubilant mood of love. Then it has already happened. Then it is done. Then there is not even the delay of a moment.

It is humanity’s misfortune that the culture and civilization that have evolved on earth so far are anti-love. They side with war and oppose love. This is not much of a civilization; it is very primitive. It lives by war, not by love. It is hostile to love—deeply afraid of it.

You can see it—thousands of obstacles are raised against the expression of love. Thousands of walls are built so that love does not happen. For centuries child marriage continued only to prevent love: before love’s tide could rise, marry them off—then the tide won’t rise and there will be no trouble.

Men and women are kept apart, large distances are imposed between them. Boys and girls are not allowed to study together in school or college; and even if they are, their seating is kept separate. All kinds of barriers are erected. And every kind of fear is instilled: love is dangerous, love is sin. This sinks so deep into the very breath that even when love arises in your life, courage does not arise. You pull yourself back, you hesitate and stop. This is a civilization of bayonets, not of love. Its entire arrangement is about how to kill and get killed. It produces soldiers, not lovers.

So you see a strange phenomenon: if in a film someone plunges a knife into another’s chest, the government raises no objection. But a kiss is censored. It’s absurd. Yesterday I was reading: in Madras, even though the chief minister is a film actor, the film-actor chief minister declares that there should be no kissing in films, because it will cause the great decline of Indian culture.

A kiss will bring about the decline of Indian culture! Who made the sculptures of Khajuraho? Did people come from the West to carve them? In the West there isn’t a single temple comparable to Khajuraho. A kiss will cause the decline of Indian culture! But stabbing chests, picking pockets, murders in films, thefts, burning people, killing—everything goes; that does not cause cultural decline! That, they say, advances culture. But one kiss is terribly dangerous! Something as tender as a kiss will kill their culture!

There is enmity toward love. If two people embrace in love, it is called obscene; but if they plunge knives into each other’s chests, it is not obscene. People never associate the word obscene with violence; obscene should relate only to violence—what has love to do with obscenity?

So your question is not yours alone—it is the question of the whole human race. You have been filled with guilt about love. And until love matures, devotion cannot be born. One who has not dared in worldly love—how will he dare in otherworldly love? For the courage missing in worldly love cannot appear in supermundane love. Otherworldly love is audacity. Yesterday I read a song:

Why do you hide your love?
Alas, this Heer-like way of living—
sipping nectar with a twisted mouth,
a trembling soul, a thundering chest—
why call your nature a crime?
Why do you hide your love?

Yes, those who laugh are hardly human,
who have no understanding of love;
stone-hearted ones have little life in them—
why shield your eyes from such as these?
Why do you hide your love?

You have not committed any crime,
nor tormented the sons of Adam,
nor shed the blood of the poor—
so why bathe in sweat like this?
Why do you hide your love?

The dwellers of temples do not blush,
nor those seated beneath the arches;
their brows gleam with cunning—
why bow your head over truth?
Why do you hide your love?

The veil exists to hide a stain,
and shame to cover falsehood;
love is a song to be sung—
why press it under your lips?
Why do you hide your love?

But everyone is hiding love—men and women, lovers and beloveds, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters—everyone is hiding it. Do you remember when you last pressed your head to your father’s chest? Since when? Perhaps never. Do you remember when your mother last took you into her lap? Long forgotten! Even two friends do not walk hand in hand lest someone misunderstand.

So much concealment and secrecy about love—why? Because love carries a certain rebellion, a certain revolt. If people are given full freedom to love, the world will be different. In that world there will be no politics, no wars. If love is free, who will want to go to die on the battlefield? Which mother will send her son? Which wife her husband? Which sister her brother? If there is love, there will be no eagerness to fight. People will say, “What nonsense! What for? This earth belongs to all of us; let us all enjoy and live in joy—what is there to fight about?”

But the matter is this: because you were not given a chance to love, the energy of love within you has condensed and turned into hatred. Your love has rotted; it seeks revenge on the world. It wants to plunge a knife into someone’s chest. Your love has become a wound, a festering sore, a cancer. Therefore every ten years a great war is needed—then some heaviness on the chest is relieved, some pus drains away. And small wars must keep simmering—sometimes in Vietnam, sometimes in Israel, sometimes in Kashmir, sometimes in Bangladesh—little wars must keep going.

You must have noticed: whenever a war breaks out, faces light up, the dust seems to fall away. People look fresh, as if something is happening! In life nothing else seems to happen—life feels empty. News means bad news: “Any news today?” People ask first thing in the morning—meaning, “Any trouble? Any disturbance?” If nothing has happened, the paper is the same old stuff; dust settles again; they calm down, “All right, nothing happened—another day wasted.”

If there is war—people cutting and dying—you see another funny thing: when a big war happens, people forget small quarrels. If India and Pakistan are fighting, then Gujaratis and Marathis don’t fight—what’s the point when a big fight is on? Hindi and non-Hindi don’t fight. The big spectacle is on; why bother with small scuffles in each village when the capital’s arena is raging? When that ends, there is no peace: then Gujaratis and Marathis fight, then Hindus and Muslims, then Shia and Sunni, Brahmin and Harijan—some way to fight is found.

People thought that when India and Pakistan were partitioned the quarrels would end; they increased. Earlier Hindus and Muslims fought; now with fewer chances for that, Hindus fight among themselves—and over there, Muslims do the same.

You see it at home too: if there’s a fight with the neighbor, internal quarrels in the house quiet down—because a bigger fight has appeared. When it ends, father fights with son, wife with husband, brother with brother—the little fights begin again.

Can man not live without fighting? Is fighting inevitable? This must be asked—again and again.

It is not inevitable at all. But love has not been given a chance. The infinite energy of love—unless it finds a right outlet—turns destructive. Either creation or destruction. Given the right path, it becomes creative: songs are born, dance awakens, music arises. When you are filled with love, your hands long to touch the veena. Don’t they? When you are filled with love, you want to grow roses in your garden. Don’t you? When you are filled with love, songs have flavor, dance has meaning.

When you are emptied of love—given no chance—then hatred accumulates; you sharpen swords, you polish guns, you wait for an opportunity to leap and grapple: to kill or be killed. Life feels so futile that only death seems meaningful.

So this is not only your question—it is everyone’s. Such is the state. To come out of it, you must make an effort. Society will not support you. You will have to come out by your own strength, slowly. Make your life full of love. Give as much love as you can. Receive as much love as you can. Fill all directions with love—love your brother, your sister, your wife, your mother, your neighbors, your friends. Become a flood of love. Life is short—light the lamp of love in this brief span. You will taste an incomparable bliss. And you will find that the very flame that here is called love—when it rises higher, beyond bodies and matter—becomes devotion. Devotion is love’s ultimate leap. But if love itself is cramped and shrunken, how will devotion happen? Devotion is love’s final flight—and if the bird won’t even leave the nest, what final flight will it take?

That is why Shandilya’s sutras are important. Shandilya says: Love, priti, is the very essence of life, the substance existence is made of. That priti has four forms:
- Toward those younger than you, it is affection.
- Toward equals, it is love.
- Toward elders, it is reverence.
- Toward the all, the universal Self, it is devotion.
These are four forms—four steps—of the same priti. Only by climbing the first three can you rise to the fourth.

“I have never been able to express my love.”
Let go of what didn’t happen yesterday—do it today. Why weep for yesterday? It’s gone and won’t return—don’t waste today mourning it. Today is in your hands; do something today. Dance today, sing today. Meet from the heart today.

You say, “Not only ordinary worldly love—even the love I feel for you I keep hidden.”
There is no need to hide that at all. For here I teach only one thing, if I teach anything: give expression to love. In the expression of love lies the growth of your soul. Let your love be revealed without inhibition. In the expression of your love you will find your real life begins. Awakening comes from that; otherwise you live half-asleep.

“I don’t know what fear has crippled me.”
It is the fear of conditioning. You have always been warned: be careful about love; love is dangerous; don’t go into love; love is madness. Hence your hesitation.

I tell you: if love is madness, so be it—but it is better to be mad with love than to be clever without love. Because one who falls in love reaches, sooner or later, to the Divine. Love means you’ve loosened the boat, hoisted the sails.

People are right when they say love is madness; it is. Reason doesn’t support it; it doesn’t fit mathematics, accounts, profit: “What will you gain by loving? Only trouble; it will hinder your work. Elections are coming—fight elections; why fall in love?” One who must fight elections cannot love. Love will not leave energy for that. To fight elections you need the atmosphere of war. “Now we must make money—don’t fall in love; if you do, you won’t be able to accumulate wealth.”

You have seen: lovers rarely become rich; they cannot. To pile up wealth you need a great capacity for un-love. The unloving hoard money. If you want high office—to be prime minister or president—don’t love. Because once you love, who cares for becoming prime minister? For what? A fragrance enters your small life and you become an emperor within. Who cares to go to Delhi then? When love is absent, people strive to go to Delhi. When love is absent, they strive to attract attention—to compensate for the lack of love with others’ attention.

If even one person looks at you filled with love, the soul is satisfied. Lacking that, you want to stand on a stage before thousands, have them clap and throw garlands. It is the same love you didn’t receive from two eyes that you are trying to make up for. And even if millions throw flowers at you, it won’t satisfy—because they’re not throwing them out of love; not at you, but at your post and prestige; out of fear. These very people will throw shoes at you tomorrow—just step down a little.

I know of a woman who was writing a book praising Indira; then the winds changed, and she rewrote it against her. The book’s title: Two Faces of Indira Gandhi. I was amazed: are these two faces of Indira—or of the author? Those who garlanded yesterday hurl abuses today; they are taking revenge.

Remember: if you want to enter politics, don’t fall in love. If you want to make money, don’t fall in love. If you want your name in history, don’t love. Because lovers don’t care whether their names enter history or not, whether they get office or not, wealth or not. Love gives such fulfillment that all that is as if already attained—office, wealth, fame. If love is missed, then the race for these begins.

That is why society wants your love to miss. If you fall in love, everything goes “wrong.” Your father wants you to earn; you fall in love—he despairs: “Now what will he earn!” He wants his son to become prime minister; you fall in love—“How will he ever!” If you want to be prime minister, take a vow of celibacy—ask Morarjibhai! Then your energy is repressed within; a combative attitude is born—ready to clash with anyone, anywhere. Drive that energy into any direction and, with jostling and shoving, someday you may reach what you crave. Society teaches ambition, and ambition can only live in an unloving heart.

Hence your paralysis. Understand it—and break it. It is not difficult to break; understanding is enough. The moment you see it, it can be dropped. And if you can love people in this world, that very joy of love will teach you prayer. From that same joy, one day you will set out in search of the Divine. You will think: if loving ordinary people has given so much joy, how much joy will there be in seeking the supremely Beloved!

To the touch from above, faces feel like velvet;
within, they are deserts of repression.
In the mirror they cannot recognize themselves—
faces are jungles of self-unfamiliarity.
Forever tinkling at others’ feet,
faces are anklets tied to others’ steps.
Set your foot on them and they sink as you go—
faces are miles-long swamps of relationships.
Wandering in the deserts of dreams,
poor faces, crazed like a thirsty deer.

Now drop the faces, drop the masks. Erase the pretense, let hypocrisy fall, be free of the coverings! Seek now that which you are—what you truly are. What you were before birth, and what you will again be after death. Drop the ego; only then can the inquiry into devotion happen. For the one who loses himself—only he finds the divine.

Thoughts, breath, gaze, mind—open them and give.
Take the words off your lips, the sound from your tongue.
Strip the lines from your palms and give them too.
Yes—give even your happiness, for this “you” is not who you are.
Take from the soul this body’s lovely ornament.
If you rise in prayer, then with “amen” give the soul as well.

You ask: “Now what should we do?”
Now, give yourself. Until now you have saved yourself. This is the secret of love—giving. You saved, and in saving you rotted; give, and you will blossom.
Jesus has said: He who gives will receive; he who hoards will be lost.
This is the alchemy of love. Now surrender yourself. Take off these pretenses you have wrapped around yourself—the Hindu, the Muslim, the Christian; the theist, the atheist; doctrines, scriptures—take off all these faces. Remove all these shells. Now recognize your naked being: Who am I?

And you will be astonished: as you go within, you will hear a single voice—“I am love.” That is why the longing for love is so intense, the thirst so deep. Love is the fundamental tone of your being. You are made of love; you are an embodiment of love.

Fresh, fresh rays,
a new earth, a new sky—
shed the old skin! Shed the old skin!
From the pond’s mud, a throne—
until it is fashioned, O dear one!
Cry out loud: shed the old skin!
Draw not the lines of separateness;
bridge, morning and evening, the chasm time has carved;
sweep away the darkness—shed the old skin!
The earth’s song is in sweat;
a handful of dust holds the gems—
O stars of the soil, shed the old skin!

Shed all the skins. As a snake leaves its old skin behind, so slip out of your so-called personality.

You ask: “Now what should we do?”
Therefore now—let there be inquiry into devotion!
That is all for today.