Athato Bhakti Jigyasa #27

There is no cloth there at all. It is neither a matter of color nor of cloth. But from your side this signal is necessary, essential—otherwise how will anyone be a disciple? This gesture is needed that says: “From now on—whatsoever!”

Ibrahim was an emperor; he went to his master. And the master made a demand he had never made of any other disciple. When Ibrahim bowed, the master asked, “Are you truly bowing?” Ibrahim said, “If I were not to bow, I wouldn’t have come at all. No one brought me; I have come on my own. I am bowing.” The master asked, “Can you give proof of it?” Ibrahim stood with arms outstretched and said, “Command me!”

And the master gave a very strange command. He said, “Throw away your clothes—be naked. Pick up that shoe lying there, go out into the marketplace, beat your head with the shoe, let a crowd gather, circle the whole town and then come back.” Ibrahim didn’t think for even a moment—he threw off his clothes and stood naked. He was an emperor! And the master was extraordinary too! The master said, “Pick up that shoe, go out into the bazaar, beat your head with it, let the crowd gather, circle the whole town and come back.” And Ibrahim went—through his own capital! Naked! Beating his head with a shoe!

The old disciples said, “This is a bit too much. You never asked this of us. And with an emperor you should have been a little kinder—the poor fellow had come to bow; wasn’t that enough?”

The master said, “Don’t ask me—ask Ibrahim.”

And when, after an hour of circling his own capital—beating himself with a shoe, with thousands gathered, people shouting madly, throwing stones, yelling, ‘What has happened to him?’ mocking—when children, old people, women, the whole town had gathered, a procession trailing behind him, and Ibrahim went on laughing, delighted, beating himself with a shoe, wandering naked—when Ibrahim returned, he was a different man altogether. The master said to his disciples, “Ask Ibrahim.” Ibrahim said, “What I have come to know in this one hour could not be known in lifetimes. And what I had come to attain—I have attained. My ego has fallen. That was the obstacle.” He fell at the master’s feet and said, “Your grace! You erased it in a single instant! In one brief hour you erased it! I had thought I would have to do years of austerity. I am an emperor—stiff, filled with ego; I have lived in ego. How would this ego be dropped? Thinking this, I came—how will it drop? And you made it drop in a single moment, with a tiny device.”

Now, do not think that beating yourself with a shoe makes the ego drop. Otherwise you will stand naked in solitude and start hitting yourself with a shoe: ‘Since the method works, I locked my room, took a shoe, stripped, and beat myself. Not just for an hour—two hours I kept at it!’ Still nothing will happen. Nor will anything happen just by being naked. Understand the point. Grasp the spirit. That was only a device. But Ibrahim gave a signal: “From now on—whatsoever you say!”

This is utter madness. Ibrahim could have said, “What kind of madness are you making me do? What will happen by being naked?” Exactly this my friend has asked: What will happen by being naked? What will happen by wearing the ochre robe?

Tomorrow you will say to me—what will meditation do? Can you not give me sannyas without meditation? What will prayer do? Can I not be a sannyasin without prayer?

It is only a gesture, a pointer. Say what you like—if it is “madness,” then let it be this kind of madness.

A devotee goes to give himself. Therefore the one who gives cannot set conditions. Devotion is surrender; surrender can only be unconditional.

Yesterday I saw in the magazine Dharmyug an article on one of my sannyasinis, Preeti. The reporter used a phrase I liked—rang Rajneeshi, “the Rajneesh hue.” That pleased me. It is not “ochre”—it is the Rajneesh hue! Only when there is readiness for that hue does sannyas become possible; only when the mind is willing to let go to that extent.

And much more will have to be dropped—this is only the beginning. It is as if a master said to an emperor, “First, take off your cap,” and the emperor replies, “What will removing the cap do? Can enlightenment not happen without taking off the cap?” Getting the cap off was only the start. Then the master says, “Drop the coat, let the shirt fall, now the trousers too, and now even the underwear—little by little!” I know you cannot become naked all at once; you don’t have that much courage. So I say, at least remove the cap. All right—let it be the cap. Take off something; lighten the load a little!

To be dyed in the master’s color is discipleship. And by being dyed in that color, you will learn the art of being dyed in the color of the divine.

Let prayer not be desire-ridden. Let worship not be desire-ridden. Let there be no lust for gaining. Let there be delight, not ambition. Let there be joy and grace, not expectation. That is the whole difference. You have the Satyanarayan kathas performed; you sometimes have havans and yajnas. It is astonishing—millions are burned up in yajnas, and yet yajna is not a religious rite. Yajna is yajana (a ritual act), not bhajana (devotional song). Pour ghee, pour wheat—whatever you pour, the fire will consume it. Until you put yourself in, no yajna is complete. The day you drop this madness of offering wheat and ghee and instead offer yourself to the fire—the day you say, “I am ready to burn”—that day revolution happens; that day a devotee is born.

The masters of love have chiseled idols lest the illusion of nature’s temple remain unshattered.
Would that someone kept quenching the thirst of the heart’s sorrow—
and I go on saying: “Give me yet more sorrow!”
Not that anything is lacking, O wheel of time, but what can we say—
that idol’s way of cruelty has a style all its own.
Neither unbeliever nor believer knows this secret:
in love’s world there is a different temple, a different sanctuary.
The more one effaces oneself upon love’s path, O Naheed,
the more gracious grows the Beloved’s coquettish glance.

The temples and mosques of love are altogether different. They have nothing to do with your temples and mosques.

Neither your pandit nor your mullah is acquainted with this mystery:
in love’s world there is a different temple and sanctuary,
different yajnas, different oblations, different rites.
A devotee does not go to God to ask—he goes to give, to squander himself. The more one dissolves, the more one becomes; dying here, one is born there.

On this path of love, devotion—the more one effaces oneself,
the more grace pours from the Beloved’s eyes.

And mercy showers, and grace showers. The day you vanish completely, that day the divine manifests within you. That day the devotee becomes God.

Therefore Shandilya, from the very beginning, denies ritualism in this aphorism. This does not mean he is saying “do not worship,” nor that if you love an image you should not sit before it and converse, nor that if you love song you should not sing to the divine. He is only saying: let all this be natural and desireless. Let the joy of prayer and worship be in the prayer and worship themselves—not in gaining some other goal.

You are in love and someone asks, “Why are you in love? For what? What do you want to obtain?” If you can answer, your love is false. If you can say, “Her father is very rich, she is his only daughter; that’s why,” then you are not in love. If you are in love, you will say, “Because of love.” Love for love’s sake. There is no other goal. Love is such a prize in itself—what else could one ask for?

So keep this in mind: Shandilya is not saying, “Don’t worship.” But do not bring the priest in between. He is not saying, “Don’t pray.” But let your prayer not be a parrot’s rote. He is not saying, “Don’t bow”—in a temple, in a mosque, or wherever you wish. For he has said: wherever your eyes fill, bow there; wherever your eyes feel fulfilled, bow there; wherever you glimpse joy, bow there; wherever the sky of peace opens, bow there. He is saying only this: let this bowing not become a practice. Let it be natural, spontaneous, uncontrived—let there be no effort behind it. If you practice bowing and then bow, your bow becomes false. Whatever is practiced becomes false.

You are going to meet a friend and all the way you keep rehearsing—what will I say, what will I say? You prepare yourself to say, “Such joy to see you after years, my eyes are cooled, I have yearned, I have wept”—you repeat and repeat, and then go and say it all.

Something is missing. The words are there; the feeling is not. If feeling were present, there would have been no need to organize the words. When there is feeling, worthy words arise of themselves. When love is there, love knows how to speak itself. There is no need to practice. Remember: when something within you has ripened to manifest, it will surely manifest. When a flower is ready to bloom, it blooms and diffuses fragrance; no practice is required.

The second aphorism: “pādodakaṃ tu pādyam avyāpteḥ.”
“One should regard the bathing water of the divine image as padodaka, the sacred foot-water.”

There is no need to go to the Ganga, to search for the Yamuna, to seek Gangotri for sacred water. No. If with love, with joy, with a sense of wonder you pour your prayer upon a stone image kept in your home, if with love and joy you bathe that image, then the water that runs from those feet becomes more sacred than Ganga. But remember—its becoming more sacred than Ganga is not because of the image. The image is stone. It is because of your feeling. You have discovered God in that image. For you the image is no longer an image; it has become a symbol of God.

Suppose your beloved gives you a handkerchief. Its market price is a few pennies. If you show it to people and ask the price, someone may not take it even for a few pennies, because a new one costs the same—who will buy an old one? But if someone offers you a thousand rupees for it, you won’t give it. There is something in it that others can’t see—something only you know. Your feeling has been invested in it. It holds a memory; it conceals a presence of love. The experience is yours alone. In truth it is not in the handkerchief; it is in your heart. The handkerchief functions as a screen—seeing it, what is in your heart is evoked.

Understand this carefully.

So when a Muslim breaks a Hindu’s idol, he is not breaking God’s idol—how could he break God? He is breaking an image, a stone. He labors in vain. And when a Hindu worships the idol, he is not worshiping stone—if it were stone, why would he worship? And if he is worshiping stone, then he is no different from the one who breaks it. Where feeling is invested, the image is no longer an image—it becomes alive. The image is a screen.

Think of going to a cinema. The film is not on the screen—the screen is empty; it must be empty. If something were already on it, the film would be hindered. That is why the screen is spotless white, without a line. If there is a stain, it interferes; if there is a line, it appears with every frame. The screen must be blank, empty. The film is hidden in the projector. The screen only receives and sends it back to your eyes. Without the screen, the projector would still run, but you would not see the film. The light-beams would go on into space, never to return to your eyes. The screen interrupts, turns them back—they fall upon your eyes and you see.

The image is a mirror. You stand before a mirror. When you stand before a wall you see nothing—not because your image is not cast upon it, it is—but the wall does not return it; it swallows it. The mirror’s art is that it is so smooth it cannot swallow; your image slides and returns, falls back upon your eyes—you can see yourself.

The image is a mirror. Your feelings, which you cannot yet grasp directly, return from the image made gross, perceptible. What is invisible within you becomes visible.

So the one who breaks the image is as foolish as the man who, angered by a scene in a film, takes a knife and slashes the screen. People will call him mad. Cutting the screen does not cut the film.

I was once a guest in a village. Someone broke the village temple’s image. Madness spread like wildfire. There were few Muslims in that village, mostly Hindus; suspicion fell on the Muslims—this is how suspicion becomes “natural.” The villagers came to me and said, “What should we do? We are boiling with rage. We will burn the Muslims!”

I said, “Only the image was broken, not your feeling—unless your feeling too has broken. Buy another image. And what proof is there that the Muslims did it? I don’t see how they could; they are few and would only invite trouble. The greater likelihood is that some Hindu did it to incite violence against the Muslims.”

That is what turned out to be true. Hindus had done it to inflame other Hindus. When I asked those simple villagers, “Has your feeling broken with the image?” they said, “No, our feeling is intact.”

I said, “It was only a stone you bought in the market. Buy another. I’ll give you the money. Put up another screen and project your feeling upon it.” And you have forgotten that in this country we created images with such ease: a stone lies at the edge of the village; someone’s heart is moved, vermilion is smeared, two flowers are offered—the image is born. This country is extraordinary! We know how to make anything a screen. An image need not be expensive.

You will be astonished: when the British first put up milestone markers, they faced great difficulty. A marker raised near a village—by next morning it would be smeared with vermilion and garlanded; people would be worshiping: “Hanumanji has appeared!” The British were exasperated, explaining, “This is a milestone!” But we know how to make stones into gods; we know how to invest our feeling anywhere.

There is a famous story of the Zen monk Ikkyu. One night he lodged in a temple. At midnight the priest saw a fire in the temple hall and ran in alarm. He was shocked—the wooden Buddha image was burning; Ikkyu was warming himself at it. The priest was distraught: “What are you doing? Are you in your senses?”

Ikkyu calmly asked, “What is the matter? Why so upset?”

“You have burned the Buddha!” cried the priest.

Ikkyu picked up a stick and poked through the ashes. Now the priest asked, “What are you doing?”

“I’m searching for the Buddha’s bone relics,” said Ikkyu.

“You are certainly mad,” said the priest. “There can’t be relics—this is wood.”

Ikkyu laughed. “If you know it is wood, why so distraught? Bring another image. The night is long and very cold. Warm yourself; I am already warming myself. Why this agitation?”

It was dangerous to keep such a man. The priest threw him out into the snowy night. In the morning he saw Ikkyu sitting at the temple gate by a milestone, garlanding it and praying. The priest asked, “What are you doing now?”

“Worship,” Ikkyu said. “Every morning I remember God; so I am remembering.”

“But that is a milestone!”

“If wood can be a god,” said Ikkyu, “why not a milestone? It is a matter of feeling. When wood is needed, we remove feeling; when God is needed, we invest feeling. Morning is the hour of worship—where shall I go looking now? I have evoked God here. It is a matter of bowing; I bowed here, spoke a few words of love—finished. The night was very cold, so I removed the feeling and told the wood, ‘You are only wood now, not God.’”

Those who have understanding, who have vision, live just so.

Shandilya says: “pādodakaṃ tu pādyam avyāpteḥ.”
“One should regard the bathing water of the divine image as padodaka, sacred foot-water.”

Where you have installed God and have bathed Him, the water that flows is Ganga-water—it is nectar. There is no need to go elsewhere. You can make your own place a pilgrimage. It is all in your hands.

It is the grace of my love alone
that made you what you are.
It is from us that temples and mosques found their light—
had we not bowed our heads, there would be no thresholds.
We have built the temples and the mosques.
Their creator is we.
If we did not bow our heads, where would the threshold be?

The whole secret lies in the bowing of your head. One who has learned to bow finds the whole world becoming God, the whole world a screen. One who has not learned to bow may perform countless rituals, yajnas, havans—his rites and worship will only nourish his stiffness and ego, not diminish it. Remember: that which dissolves you is religion; that which strengthens you is irreligion. This is my definition.

By feeling, God manifests. By spontaneity, God manifests. In surrender, in egolessness, in bowing—God manifests.

“svayam arpitam grāhyam aviśeṣāt.”
“It is right to accept what one has offered oneself, for there is no distinction in it.”

A doubt arises, and this aphorism answers it. Suppose you have offered something to the divine—say your very life. A devotee must do so; nothing less will do. Having offered your life to God, how are you to use this life? To remind you of this, certain customs have existed for centuries—only as reminders. You offer bhog to God, it returns as prasad; you accept it. A subtle law is hidden here. Offer everything to God—everything returns, increased. What you offer is called bhog; what returns is prasad. What you give returns to you—but there is a great difference now. Now you are the receiver.

And once you have offered, it is no longer yours—so do not worry, “How can I take back what I offered?” You offered it; it ceased to be yours. If God returns it, accept it as grace, accept it as prasad. Do not be anxious.

Understand it this way, as I said recently: do not run away from the world; hand the world over to God. Gather the whole world and lay it at His feet: “All this is Yours.” If He is to take it, it will not return; He will impel you to the forest. I do not say that no one should ever go to the forest. Let whomever God sends, go. Let no one go on his own.

It is a fine distinction. You have offered everything to God—now wait. If thoughts of your child and your wife arise within, the meaning is clear: God is saying, “Go home.” Do not say, “This is coming from my dirty mind.” Nothing is dirty—how can it be, if all is His? And you have offered everything—God will now speak only through your mind; how else? He will see only through your eyes, think only through your thoughts. God has no hands or feet of His own—your hands are His hands, your feet are His feet.

This happened in England during the last great war. A statue of Jesus stood at a town crossroad. German bombs shattered it into pieces. After the war people collected the fragments and reassembled the statue. Everything could be reconstructed except the hands—they were missing. The artist searched but could not find them. He did something marvelous. He placed a stone tablet beneath the statue—still there—which reads: “I have no hands but yours.”

You are God’s hands. That is why in this country we have called Him sahasrabahu—thousand-handed. All hands are His. All minds are His. All bodies are His. Once you have surrendered everything, then move by the hint He gives. If He says “forest,” then forest. If He says “marketplace,” then marketplace. You are no more. Now accept all as prasad. You are not going to your wife—God is sending you. You are not going to “your” son—this is God’s child, and He sends you to protect him.

If a person lives so silently and peacefully—living as God keeps him living—then this very world becomes liberation. That is what jivan-mukti means. Offer everything—and then whatever God returns, receive as prasad. Do not bring your will in between. Do not be the decider. Do not be the doer. Remain only an instrument.

“nimitta-guṇān-apekṣaṇāt aparādheṣu vyavasthā.”
“In faults there is an order—by accident (nimitta), by habit/quality (guna), and by heedless unconsciousness (anapeksha).”

Three mistakes can happen to a devotee; avoid these three. Shandilya names them thus.

First, nimitta.
This is the offense that happens unintentionally. You did not want it, did not think of it—and it happened. It occurs accidentally, without prior plan—a mishap. This is the smallest offense. Many such errors happen. You did not wish them; you did not support them; they just occurred.

Second, guna.
This arises from disposition, habit—happening again and again. The first kind happens once in a while and is easily forgiven. The second repeats; it becomes daily. You were angry yesterday, angry today, angry the day before—anger has become your habit. Now if you don’t find a cause to be angry, you feel the urge; if you find none, you invent one. You will find a pretext, for you must be angry. This is a greater offense.

The first offense is merely an accident—you were in a hurry, bumped into someone in a crowd, stepped on someone’s foot. An apology ends it. There is no burden of guilt. “I’m sorry” means: I did not do it knowingly, not deliberately.

I have heard of a rustic who came to the city for a public gathering. Someone stepped on his foot and said, “Sorry.” The villager was baffled—“What is he saying? First he steps on my foot and then says some strange word!” Again, someone jostled him: “Sorry.” He thought, “This is too much—these people have devised a trick: hit and then say this word!” Then he took off his shoe, whacked the man in front on the head, and said, “Sorry!” Apology means only: I did not do it knowingly. If you did it knowingly, apology has no meaning.

The second offense is done knowingly, driven by habit. It is not accidental. The first is forgivable; the second is not. Examine yourself. If a mistake happens once in a while, don’t worry too much—such is life. But if a mistake occurs daily, regularly, has become your habit, your nature—beware of it. It will drown you.

Third, anapeksha.
More perilous than the second. Anapeksha means: arising from stupor, unconsciousness (moorchha). One kind of error is accidental, one habitual, one from deep sleep.

What are you doing here in life? Someone is obsessed with wealth; ask him, “What will you do with it?” He has never thought. Press him and he will get angry: “Don’t bother me with your spiritual talk. Let me earn. Wealth is the essence—what else is there?” He has never awakened for a moment to see that wealth can be a utility but never life’s goal. Even if you gather wealth and lose yourself—what then? But he will keep running and one day fall, and death will take him; the wealth will remain. This is stupor—lack of awareness.

Someone runs for power; he does not ask, “What then?” Suppose he reaches—what then? Even if I become emperor of the world—so what? I will still be me. No throne can make you high; it gives an illusion of height. You remain what you are. Heights are inward, not on thrones. True wealth is inward, not in vaults. Hence a monk like Buddha or Mahavira, naked and empty-handed, can be so rich that the richest fade before him. Look at the wealthy—flies sit on their faces. What have they gained? It is a stupor. Everyone runs, so they run. You never stood aside to ask: where am I going? There is no time, because others will get ahead.

Meditation means only this: step out of the running crowd for a while; sit by the roadside; become quiet and look at your life—what are you doing? Why? What will come of it? Fail and you fail; succeed—and you still fail. What is the point? Here, in the end, only desolation is obtained. One who has sat in such stillness and inquired will not join the race again. The run for wealth and power will seem foolish, ignorant. The day this stupor breaks, one sets out on the inner journey.

So the third offense is of stupor. Of the three, the first is nominal; don’t worry about it. The second is big—habits hold you fast. Someone drinks—habit. Someone smokes—habit. Someone gambles—habit. Someone steals—habit.

I have heard of the saint Eknath. When he went on pilgrimage many from his village accompanied him—as was the custom, because alone you might not truly arrive; only with one who has arrived. Even a notorious village thief wanted to go. In small villages, all is known—who is thief, who gambler. Eknath said, “Your old habit—you won’t resist. Better you don’t come. In a group people will complain.” The thief said, “I swear—in your presence I will not steal from the start to the end of the yatra. After that I say nothing—but during the pilgrimage I will not steal. Accept my word.”

Times were good then. Today you cannot trust even a moneylender’s word; then one could trust a thief’s. Eknath agreed, and the thief kept his word. Months passed—he stole nothing. But a new trouble arose: people’s bedding would get mixed—one man’s things in another’s bundle. Eknath suspected. “Are you doing something?” The thief said, “I told you I would not steal; I am not. But I must continue my practice. I can’t sleep at night otherwise. I don’t steal; I only move things from one pocket to another. Then I feel relief; after doing some ‘work’ around two or three in the night, I sleep. Don’t stop me. People will find their things; nothing leaves the camp. But you know I must return to my ‘work’ after the yatra, so I must keep in practice. You pray every day—likewise this is my ‘work.’”

Such is habit. More dangerous still is the third—deeper than habit. To smoke or drink you must learn; but greed, anger, lust—no one needs to learn; we bring them with birth. They are the stupor of many births.

Shandilya’s division is exact. The third offense is the most dangerous—break it. When it breaks, the second is easy to break. One who changes his nature can change habits quickly—habits are on the surface. And when the second ends, the first also tends to end. The more aware a person becomes, the fewer the accidents; he walks carefully, steps on no one’s foot. He lives wakefully. Still, the first kind may happen occasionally—no great matter. Apology suffices. But watch the second and third most—especially the third.

“nimitta, guna, and anapeksha—so are the offenses ordered.”

“patrādeḥ dānam anyathā hi vaiśiṣṭyam.”
“In offerings of leaves, flowers, etc., the fruit is one.”

Live wakefully. Then whatever you offer to God, the fruit is the same. This is a wondrous aphorism. Go and offer the Kohinoor diamond or a bel leaf; pile up heaps of gold or offer a single petal—the fruit is one. Offered by the aware, all is equal. Before God, gold has no greater worth, nor a flower less. Whether you offer millions or a few pennies—what matters is that you offered.

The lawgivers have said: devatāḥ bhaktim icchanti.
“The gods desire devotion.”
The fruit will be according to your devotion—what you give is not the point, but how, with what feeling, from what heart.

Listen to this small song. The poet sets out on a journey; friends come to bid farewell.

All gave bouquets and garlands—only you hid your tears.
A star set out across the sky,
the hour of parting arrived.
I moved on, unknown roads ahead,
carrying my meager belongings alone.
And only then I recognized
your love as the most unique:
all gave bouquets and garlands—only you hid your tears.

The custom that always goes on—
what is difficult in fulfilling it?
But who has fathomed this riddle:
what the mouth says, what the heart?
Yet with a melting heart
your struggle continued—
lest at this auspicious hour an inauspicious tear slip from your lids:
all gave bouquets and garlands—only you hid your tears.

At the very first milestone
all flowers and buds had withered.
Who has ever shown such tenderness
to faded blossoms?
However much the pain to separate them,
they must be put aside.
But those drops that welled in your eyes
became part of my very remembrance:
all gave bouquets and garlands—only you hid your tears.

You gave nothing—only hid your tears, lest they fall at an auspicious moment. But the garlands given by all soon dried and withered.

Those drops that came into your eyes became part of remembrance:
all gave bouquets and garlands—only you hid your tears.

What was hidden, and not even given, is what truly reached. Feelings are tested; the final touchstone is feeling.

Who has ever fathomed this riddle:
what the mouth says, what the heart?
What you say with your mouth—that is not prayer. What your heart says—that is prayer.

“In offerings of leaves, flowers, etc., the fruit is one.”

So do not worry, “What do I, a poor one, have to offer?” In the realm of feeling, you are all emperors. God has made all equal in the heart’s poetry. You may have no wealth—do not worry. You may have no status—do not worry. You can offer yourself. You are the real wealth. You can offer your feelings. Then two leaves suffice.

Two lotus-eyes!
With a midnight veiled in your veil,
with the monsoon gathered in your hem,
some gains, some losses,
some awakenings, some lingerings of sleep,
the quick arrows of dawn,
and the proud reserve of heavy clouds,
with Sawan’s moist music—
some garlands of defeats, some of victories,
like the shifting of days gone by,
like the footfall of days to come—
In which lanes shall we light the lamps, my friend?
Round which blossoms do these bees circle, my friend?
Heavy with dreams upon dreams,
two lotus-eyes!

A little flustered, a little shy,
blushing, shyly tossing with pride—
Friend! Lest some knower find out the secret,
some tangled-untangled hopes,
some half-guessed languages,
some scattered-splintered melodies,
some sweet-sweet flame,
with love, with detachment—
like the shifting of days gone by,
like the footfall of days to come—
In which lanes shall we light the lamps, my friend?
Round which blossoms do these bees circle, my friend?
Hidden from eyes yet shining,
two lotus-eyes!

Even if you offer nothing, if your eyes grow moist—
two lotus-eyes!
That is enough. The prayer is complete. If the heart brims, it is enough—the prayer is complete. You bowed. Whether the body bowed is secondary: the life-breath bowed. The prayer is complete.

Call—with tears, with feeling, with your very life. Offer your intimacy; nothing else need be offered. Your money is not wealth before God. Before God, only your life is wealth.

In the grief of separation my heart stays tearful;
no peace by day, no rest by night.
Each moment I am in waiting.
Now end these hours of waiting—
my companion, my solace—come!
My friend, my heart’s comfort—come!

Call Him, the supreme Friend, the supremely Beloved. Let your call be your whole heart. Let your call contain your very life. Let your call arise from your totality. That alone is devotion. All else is empty arrangement. What the mind contrives is yajna; what the heart sings is bhajan. God is found by bhajan. By yajna you may gain the world. By effort you may gain wealth and position. But God is not attained by effort or striving. God is found when you bow—in utter defeat. When you say, “Nothing of mine will avail.” When you smash the illusion that “I will do it.” When your helplessness peaks. In that very instant—the Beloved arrives.

If the Beloved has not arrived, remember only this: you have not called. Or your call was false. Or your call was not heartfelt. Or you used the language of scripture, not the language of your life-breath.

Your prayer must be born within you—as a flower is born on its own plant. Each one’s prayer blooms in his own life. No one else’s prayer will become yours. My prayer is my prayer; your prayer is your prayer. If I break off my flower and try to pin it upon you, it will not take root in you. It will be borrowed. You may look adorned for a while and deceive the world, but your sap will not flow into it; it will soon wither and fall. It is false. Beware of the false.

The essence of today’s aphorisms is only this: avoid the borrowed; seek your own. To move even an inch in your own is much; to travel a thousand miles on another’s shoulders is to go round and round like an oil-press bullock—you will arrive nowhere. It is not that you did not pray, or did not go to temple, mosque, gurudwara—you did. But where did you arrive? Surely, like the oil-press bullock, you only circled.

Awaken! Seeing clearly your state, one thing will become evident: the borrowed will not do. God will accept only you. If you go wearing another’s face, you will miss. You will have to find your own face. It is available now—only the masks must be removed: the Hindu mask, the Muslim mask, the Christian mask, the Jain mask, the masks of words. Remove them all. Naked, call to Him—and union is certain.

Enough for today.