Athato Bhakti Jigyasa #3

Man is a duality—of light and darkness, of love and hate. This duality appears on many planes. It is hidden in every particle of a human being. Rama and Ravana are locked in combat every moment. Each person stands upon Kurukshetra. The Mahabharata did not happen once and end; it continues. With every new child, it is born again. That is why the Gita calls Kurukshetra the field of dharma—because there, the decision is to be made between dharma and adharma. Within each person a decision is to be made between dharma and adharma. A decisive event is about to happen within each. Hence so much anxiety. Hence man’s restlessness. Hence nowhere any real relief. Whatever he does, there is no ease—because within, something is boiling. Inside, the armies stand divided. What will be the outcome, what will be the conclusion? This is the source of concern.

And there are grave reasons for concern, because great battalions stand on the side of hatred. Mighty forces are aligned with hate. Even in the Mahabharata, all of Krishna’s armies stood with the Kauravas. Only Krishna—unarmed Krishna—stood with the Pandavas. That is highly indicative. Such is the situation. All the powers of the world—the armies of God—stand with the darkness. God alone is on your side, unarmed. It is hard to believe that victory can be ours. Faith does not settle that victory is possible with an unarmed God.

It is not only that Krishna was Arjuna’s charioteer—the One who sits as the charioteer upon your chariot is Krishna as well. Within each, the Divine holds the reins. But opposite you, vast armies appear; a grand, colossal array. Arjuna trembled. His hands and feet shook. Gandiva slipped. He was drenched in sweat. If you too, in the battle of life, break into a sweat, it is no surprise. Defeat seems a certainty; victory a near-impossible hope.

In this duality it is crucial to recognize precisely—who is your friend and who is your foe. This is exactly what Arjuna said to Krishna in the first hour of Mahabharata: Take my chariot into the midst of the battle, that I may see—who has come to fight alongside me, and who stands against me? With whom must I fight? Let me see clearly who is companion and who is enemy.

As easy as it was to know this on the field of war, in the field of life it is not so easy. There, enemy and friend stand commingled. Where there is love, hatred lies buried. Where there is compassion, anger stands beside it. All is mixed. In that war of Kurukshetra, things were clear: the armies were divided, there was a line between them—on one side were one’s own, on the other the opponents. It was clear whom to kill, whom to protect. But in life’s war, things are not so clear; they are more entangled. The one you love, you also hate. The one you cherish and imagine you’d give your life for, someday you feel like taking theirs. Upon whom you shower compassion, you sometimes erupt in anger. Everything is tangled. The threads are knotted into one another. Knots of many births. Understand this well, then today’s sutras can be understood.

Within you, you must sift darkness apart, and light apart. That prayer of the Upanishadic seer to the Divine: O Lord, lead me from darkness to light! Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya! From this begins sadhana: that I may know exactly—who is mine, and who is not. Which roots should be watered, and which should be uprooted and cast away.

Very often we err. You keep nourishing the enemy. You give poison to the friend. Sometimes the friend appears as the enemy because the friend speaks the hard truth; and sometimes the enemy, with cunning flattery, appears as a friend.

If a clear division happens, the journey becomes much easier. Make the division this way: Love is God—that is the essence of bhakti. So if you would seek God, befriend whatever in you is loveful. And toward whatever in you is full of hate, practice non-friendship.

Take care: I am saying non-friendship. Knowingly, consciously. Do not take non-friendship to mean enmity. That is precisely why I say non-friendship—otherwise I would have said enmity. Because if you form enmity, that too becomes a kind of friendship—a relationship forms. Enmity is a relationship. A tie is established. Threads are joined between you and it. Therefore I am deliberately using the word non-friendship. Non-friendship means only this—neglect it. Do not pay attention to it. Let it lie in a corner if it must; do not taste it.

Taste love. Pour your entire life-energy into the sapling of love. Let the little plant of love be your sacred basil. Offer your lamp there. Dedicate your life there. Strengthen its roots. Give not even so much as a thought to hatred, to enmity, to anger—do not even look at them, because even looking channels energy.

Understand: attention is energy. Whatever you attend to, begins to receive energy. That is why little children yearn so much for your attention. You tell them, Guests are coming—no noise, sit quietly, play in a corner. Before the guests arrived they were indeed playing in a corner. But once you say, The guests have come, now the children cannot play in a corner! They keep popping up to say, Mama, look at this! Papa, look! Why? They start making a racket. They want attention. Your attention is going to the guest. Naturally, the children feel jealous. Attention is food.

Even psychologists now accept this truth: if a mother gives milk but not attention—just gives milk indifferently; puts the child to sleep, wakes him, gets the job done as a nurse would—the child’s soul remains crippled, shriveled. Attention is needed. That is why when someone attends to you, you blossom; you feel joy. Hence you think so much about other people’s opinions—what do people think of me? Why? What does it matter what they think? Let them think! But there is fear they may stop giving attention. What if I pass on the road and no one even says hello? I’ll die. I’ll go hungry. Something will be missing somewhere. At least when I pass, people should greet me; recognize who I am. How much it hurts you when no one recognizes who you are! Then how much you want to beat the drums and announce, Recognize me—see who I am! I am here too!

Neglect causes great pain. You will be surprised—though you should not be—if you observe life, you can forgive the one who hated you, but you cannot forgive the one who ignored you. An enemy can be forgiven—he may have hated you, but he gave attention, he thought of you, waves of thought moved regarding you. But neglect! You passed by, and someone looked as if no one had passed by—you will never be able to forgive that.

Attention is food. Attention nourishes. Therefore I say: not enmity, non-friendship. Just break the friendship—that is enough. Do not break it and make enmity; otherwise it is friendship again in a new guise—friendship doing a headstand—but friendship nonetheless.

And it often happens that you think more about your enemy. Who thinks about a friend? A friend is a friend—what is there to think? You think about the enemy.

Friendship with love, non-friendship with hate. Pour all your energy onto the sapling of love. Let it grow, let it blossom, let it flower. That sapling is the beginning of devotion. If you pour your total life-energy there, one day devotion will be. And where devotion is, there God is.

Those who set out in search of truth are often seized by hate. You must have seen it—look in temples, caves, ashrams: the foundation of their life is not love for the Divine, but hatred for the world. There is not such urgency to attain God as there is urgency to leave the world.

A mistake has happened. From the outset a wrong step, in the wrong direction. When the Divine is found, the world drops away. You need not drop the world; standing in the marketplace it drops. One becomes like the lotus. In the water, yet untouched by it. That is another matter.

But if a person remains obsessed—how to be rid of wealth, how to escape status, how to get away from wife and children, how to remove attachment—then unwittingly he is nourishing hatred. It is worldly hatred. Though he will say, I am a seeker of God, the foundation of his movement is hatred. He is a world-hater. He calls this hatred of the world love for God; that is wrong; it is not true.

Consider: you are sitting in a room. You hate the room; you want to be free of it; you are bored, harassed; you have suffered much melancholy there, many sad hours, hellish experiences; the room has given you nothing but nightmares. Every single object in it is laden with memories of accidents past. Whichever way you look, pain touches you. Whatever you touch, some old knot is tied with it. Everything there has become toxic. You are filled with hatred for the room. You say, I want to go outside. But you have no love for the sunlight outside; no savor for the seven-colored flowers; and the birds singing on the trees mean nothing to you. In your life there is no meaning to the poetry of sunlight, nor to flowers, nor to birds. You merely want freedom from the house.

Will you call this love of sunlight? Love of open sky? Attachment to green trees? Any sense of beauty? If by some moment, somehow—which is very unlikely—this person manages to get out of the room…

I call it unlikely because one who is tied to the room by so much hatred will not get free. Hatred is a chain; it binds badly; he will not escape. One who is so afraid of the room—how will he get out? The fearful never get free. And suppose, by coincidence, he does escape, runs out—still the room will pursue him. Wherever he sits, if he closes his eyes, the room will be remembered. Because such intense involvement was bound up with that room. He can get out of the room; the room will not get out of him. Wherever he sits—in some other room—its wall will remind him of that room’s wall. He will not see the sunlight, nor clouds drifting in it. He has not come for them. His motive for coming is wrong.

Then there is another man, who has neither attachment to the room nor aversion to it; indifference. If there is attachment, he cannot leave it. If there is hatred, he cannot leave it either—because hatred too is attachment, attachment gone sour, curdled, like milk that has turned. It’s still milk, but sour; no longer drinkable. Attachment curdles—we call it hatred. The one who has neither attachment nor aversion—non-attachment, non-friendship. If he remains in the room, no harm; if he sleeps in it, no harm; the room does not arise in his mind. If he leaves, nothing special…just leaving the room will not grant liberation.

This man is filled with love for sunlight. The fragrance of flowers is calling him. The open sky invites him. His love is for the open, the free, the vast—where walls impose no bonds, where there is the boundless. He is eager for the infinite.

These two men will both come out of the room—and if you see them leaving, you may not notice any difference. But the difference is great—immense. The first is coming out of the room, but the room will remain within him. The second was never really in the room—there was non-friendship. Neither enmity nor friendship. Freedom from both. Dispassion, vairagya. This man is coming out. Both will stand in the sunlight. The first, who came out because of hatred for the room, will still be full of the room’s memory; a film will hang over his eyes; he will not see the sunlight. His eyes will still be darkened. The room surrounds him. The room is a psychological condition. The other, who has no attachment or aversion to the room, whose eyes are open, without a veil—he will be enchanted by the sun, he will dance in the light. He will be ecstatically joyful. A stream of rasa will flow in his life.

So the first thing to understand clearly is that whatever in you is the element of love—that is the first ray of God. Whatever in you is the element of hatred—that is the obstacle. Practice non-friendship with hate; practice friendship with love.

Hatred means: hate, anger—negative tendencies—opposition, negation, denial, demolition, destruction. Hate wants to erase. And to become too agitated in any erasing tendency is dangerous. Because as you erase, you are erased. You cannot kill without self-killing. One who murders also commits self-murder. One who causes suffering to others is sowing the seeds of his own suffering. One who pushes others into hell is himself descending its stairs—whether he knows it or not is another matter. No one reaches creativity by destruction. The eraser erases himself. One who digs pits for others one day suddenly finds he has fallen into them.

Creation is creative in a double sense. When you compose a song, the song is created—and the singer is created. In the act of composing, the composer is born. When a child is born from a woman, you think—a child is born. But do you not think—the mother is born? Then you have missed half the truth. The child’s birth is one side; the other is this: yesterday this woman was not a mother; today she is—that is the other side. And remember, there is a great difference between a woman and a mother. A woman is a woman—only a possibility, a seed. Will you not distinguish between seed and tree? So too between woman and mother.

A mother—flowers and fruits have come in the woman. The woman has become fruitful. As long as the woman is not a mother, something remains empty, unfilled; the vessel is not yet brimming. Her womb is empty, thus the vessel is empty. When a woman becomes pregnant, a unique beauty and grace begins to glow. Have you seen a pregnant woman walking? The dignity on her face? The aura that shines? The same aura a tree manifests when it bears fruit.

So too, when one writes a song, on one side the song is made; on the other, the singer is made. When one sculpts an image, here the statue is formed; there the sculptor is formed. When one births music on a veena, here music is born; there a veena-player is born. Creation is double—as destruction is double.

Love is creative energy. Hate is destructive energy. The icons of hate—an Adolf Hitler. The icons of love—Krishna, Buddha—whose lives are nothing but compassion and love; they attained the supreme fruit; they won the supreme wealth. Hitler’s life is empty. Hitler is a ruin. The destroyer can be nothing else—a ruin, nothing else.

So remember: hate is the formula of your negativity within. Hate is the gate of hell. Then what you hate matters little. If you hate the world, it is still hate. And one who hates the world will never find God, because God is the name of supreme affirmation. How will you reach the affirmative through negation? How will you arrive at Yes through No? It is impossible. Stacking bricks of No, you will not build the temple of Yes. Stack bricks of No and you will construct only hell.

Therefore, do not be agitated by hate. Be moved by love. And let me tell you—one who falls in love with the world is still better than one who falls into hatred of the world. Granted, worldly love is love for the petty, the fleeting; it will bring much sorrow—but at least it is love. Fleeting, yes—but it is affirmative. And one who falls into hatred of the world—he falls into greater trouble. Hate will engulf him. Slowly the darkness of hate will seize him. However much he prays and worships, all his prayers are futile, all his worship vain—because prayer does not sprout in hate. In hate the seed of prayer does not germinate.

The devotee says: no hatred for the world, but attachment to God. This is the foundation of bhakti. The so-called knower and ascetic says: hatred for the world. The difference is in language. The knower and ascetic says: dispassion from the world. The devotee says: attachment to the Lord. The devotee is affirmative.

Bhakti has grasped the psychology of man very deeply. Many haters you will find—because hate is cheap. Many escapists you will find, many who despise the world—because people know only how to hate. But from hatred of the world, the fragrance of love for God has never arisen, and never will. Whatever love you have for the world—turn it toward God, yes—but do not forge a tie of hatred with the world. Otherwise you have missed: you set out and you did not set out. You lifted one foot and chained the other.

Understand another word—raga—and the sutra will open more easily. Raga means: fondness. Pure fondness. Love. Raga is a unique word—longing, yearning. Raga means: without which life has no meaning; with which, even if one dies, it is meaningful. And without which, even if one lives, life is useless. That without which you find your life futile, meaningless—that is what you have raga with. Someone’s raga is for wealth. He thinks, without wealth, everything is pointless. Though his raga is for a wrong object—for the day he amasses wealth, he will find he gained nothing, and lost life. Money came to hand, but poverty did not end. Piles of money rose, and within, the pits of poverty grew deeper.

Another has raga for position. He thinks, until I become the Prime Minister, the President, life is empty; only after becoming Prime Minister should I die. And becoming Prime Minister he will find life was wasted. Sitting on a big chair does not make you big. Truth is, the bigger the chair, the more it reveals your smallness. The chair becomes the background, the larger line. Before it, you become the smaller line.

So upon reaching power, people are proven small as in no other way. Where power is, it shows. Power invariably draws out whatever corruption lies hidden inside, because the opportunity has come. The desires were always there, but there was no convenience to fulfill them. Inconvenience hurts the ego; so we pretend there are no desires. When convenience arrives, reality reveals itself—hidden desires begin to sprout. As when the rains come and seeds in the soil germinate; grass shoots up everywhere. Likewise, when the rain of power comes, all your desires begin to sprout—the germination of repressed cravings. Then man appears petty. And upon reaching the highest office it becomes indisputably clear—only then it becomes clear—that nothing of worth has been gained! And the whole life has been squandered! Life slipped away, and this trash has been gathered! It has no value.

But raga means: the relationship by which meaning comes into life. There are wrong ragas and right ragas. Hate is always wrong; raga may be right or wrong. If your raga is with wealth, it is wrong. If it links with meditation, it is right. If your raga is with position, wrong; if it links with the Lord, right.

I will repeat it—hatreds are always wrong, because hatred itself is wrong; raga is not always right, nor always wrong. Thus I said raga has many forms. Sneha—love for one younger; for one equal, love; for one greater, reverence; and when all limits vanish, not toward any particular but toward the whole existence—that is bhakti.

Raga is a dear word with many meanings. One meaning is color. Where there is raga, there is color. Hence the phrase raga-rang, song and color. Color means celebration. Where there is raga, flowers will bloom. Where there is raga, rainbows will rise. Where there is raga, there will be song, music, dance. Where there is raga, there will be no deserts but oases. Where there is raga, there will be greenery.

Hence in the devotee’s life there is greenery; in the knower’s life there is dryness. The knower’s life is like a desert. No greenery, no flowers, no streams, no lakes. If you wander there, you thirst for a drop of water. All is dry. In the knower’s life there is no poetry. No colors arise. Knowledge is lackluster, colorless. In devotion great colors rise, great waves surge. Therefore the flavor in Meera’s words cannot be in Kundakunda’s. Kundakunda also arrived—but he arrived through a desert. He never knew flowers—flowers did not appear on his path.

In the devotee’s voice there is sometimes so much rasa that people make the mistake of misunderstanding. This happened with Umar Khayyam. Umar Khayyam is a devotee—a Sufi bhakta, a realized fakir. But a great mistake was made about him; the whole world was mistaken. Because he sings of women, and the tavern, and the cup-bearer. People assumed he was praising wine. He was speaking of samadhi—he named it wine. Because there is wine in samadhi! And such wine that once you drink, the intoxication never wears off; once it rises, it does not know how to descend. And when he speaks of the beloved’s eyes, do not be mistaken. The Sufi sees God as the beloved. He is speaking of the Divine. Those eyes are not a woman’s; they are the Supreme’s. The Sufis’ conception of God is feminine. As the Hindus’ conception of God is masculine. So Hindus say: God is the Purusha, and we are his gopis.

Meera went to Vrindavan. She wished to enter Krishna’s temple, but there was an arrangement to stop women—no woman was allowed there. This is the limit! The world abounds in stupidities! Krishna’s temple, and no women allowed! In Mahavira’s temple, perhaps there would be some logic—but in Krishna’s?

The reason was that the priest had taken a vow of celibacy; he did not look at women. The ban was not because of Krishna, but because of the priest. Because of priests even Krishna gets into trouble! He had not seen a woman for years. Word came that Meera was coming and would surely come to Krishna’s temple. He must have been afraid. Gatekeepers were posted.

But when Meera came, dancing in ecstasy, her ecstasy was such the gatekeepers forgot. She danced in and entered within. Who could dare stop such a frenzy? The guards stood stupefied, at a loss. Meera came like the wind and went inside. When she had gone, they came to their senses—things had gone wrong. But it was too late; Meera had reached the sanctum. The priest’s tray fell from his hands while he was worshipping Krishna. Truth is, Meera should not have appeared to him at all—when one is absorbed in worship, who sees whom? But all his worship was of one who hates the world. No love for the sunlight; anger for being indoors. The tray fell from his hand; he was enraged. The gatekeepers, who had been overpowered by her ecstasy, the priest remained untouched by it. He must have been utterly dry.

There is a limit. If a tree’s roots are alive, its leaves fallen, its branches dry—and the rain comes—sprouts will arise again. But if the roots themselves have dried, then even when the rain comes, nothing happens; the stump remains a stump. That priest remained a stump. He was furious. He said, How did you enter? I do not look at women.

Meera laughed and said something extraordinary: I had thought that after so many years of Krishna-bhakti, by now you would have understood at least this much—that only one is male, Krishna, and all the rest are women. You are a woman and I am a woman—if you have understood Krishna. I see no other male. Do you?

Think of the Divine as male or as female—it makes no difference. In both cases, the bridge must be love.

Umar Khayyam thinks in the feminine mode. Hence there is still more grace in his utterance; more wine; more intoxication. Even more than Meera. Meera has rasa—but her God is male. A male is bound to be somewhat harsh. Even if it is Krishna, wearing a peacock-feather, he will still be Krishna! Who knows when he will pick up a bow! He had given his word he would not wield weapons in the war, yet he took them up—he forgot. A man is, after all, a man. Attack lies hidden in him.

So the grace that is in Umar Khayyam—because his God is woman—the delicacy he carries, Meera does not. There is great rasa in her. Just imagine: if the Divine is woman, then as beautiful as you wish, without limit.

Umar Khayyam was greatly misunderstood because he did not speak the language of knowledge; he spoke the language of raga. He did not speak the language of hate; he spoke the language of love. Love is scarcely understood in this world. People are so full of unlove that they understand unlove. It even makes sense to you when someone says: this world is futile, renounce it. It is easy to induce hatred for the world in you—because you are simmering with hatred. But to awaken even a single ray of love within you is very difficult—because you have never been introduced to love.

One meaning of raga is color. Color—rainbow. Color—flowers. Color—butterflies. Color—form. Color—beauty. The path of the devotee is the path of beauty, of form, of rasa.

Another meaning of raga: song, music, rhythm, rhythmicity. That too is a dear meaning. Because where there is bhakti, where there is love, there is singing, there is song; the veena will sound, some feet will be adorned with bells and dance—Pad ghoonghru baandh Meera naachi re! Some string will be plucked. There will not be dead silence; there will be music. There will not be mute quiet; even in the quiet there will be raga—the unstruck sound, the Om. Therefore Shandilya begins his sutras—Om! Athato bhakti-jijnasa! He begins with sound.

Raga means sound. Where there is raga, there is celebration. Where there is raga, there is acceptance. Where there is raga, there is gratitude, gracefulness. Where there is raga, there is rasa. Raso vai sah—That is the Divine, of the nature of rasa. Rasa means: as sap flows as green life in trees—blooming in flowers; as prana flows in your breath—animating you, awakening you. Rasa is that without which there is no life, no blossoming; that which nourishes life.

God is the rasa of this life.

One who has become insipid toward the world does not necessarily attain the rasa of God. But one who is drowned in the rasa of God—the world no longer remains for him. He no longer sees the world; he sees God—the various moods of his rasa, its diverse forms and styles—there in woman and man, in tree, animal, bird, in the moon and the stars.

First sutra:
द्वेषप्रतिपक्षभावाद्रसशब्दाच्च रागः।
“Because it is opposed to hatred and denoted by the word ‘rasa,’ devotion is called anuraga.”

Opposed to hatred! There is not the slightest room for hatred in bhakti. No kind of hatred has a place.

Dvesha-pratipaksha-bhavat.

Shandilya’s sutras are wondrous—small, but they say everything that is worth saying, or can be said, or needs to be said. Opposed to hatred. There—bhakti is defined! And that which aligns with rasa. Opposed to hate, aligned with rasa—that is devotion.

Be full of rasa. Be a rasika. Become sap-filled. Dive into rasa and drown others in it. It is this very rasa Umar Khayyam called wine. And the devotee is a drunkard. He pours for himself and for others. There, there is no dryness. There, no arithmetic or logic. Life is not grasped through the mold of intellect; the heart is opened. There is the heart’s divine madness.

That which is opposed to hate and expresses the word rasa—that alone is called bhakti; hence devotion is called anuraga.

नक्रियाकृत्यनपेक्षणाज्ज्ञानवत्‌।
“It is not dependent upon the performer, as knowledge is.”

This sutra is among the foundational ones. Understand it deeply.

“It is not dependent upon the performer, as knowledge is.”

Knowledge is in your hands—you can acquire as much as you like. Go to a university, live in Kashi, sit with pundits, study the scriptures, memorize them—become a parrot—much knowledge will accumulate. Gathering knowledge is in your hands. Therefore knowledge can never be greater than you. Knowledge will always be smaller than you. And there is a need for something greater than you. Your signature sits atop knowledge. Then knowledge will be junk. What you gather, what you manage to collect, cannot carry the fragrance of the Vast.

Hence Shandilya says: na-kriya-kṛtya-napekṣaṇāj jñānavat—devotion lies outside your hands. Bhakti is the grace of God, not the effort of man.

In two words lies the whole difference—effort and grace. You cannot collect bhakti—where would you collect it? You cannot learn devotion—where would you learn it? Learned devotion will be false. If you see someone swaying and you start swaying, you will not become Meera. If you see someone dancing and you dance, you will not become Chaitanya. If you see someone staggering as he walks and you stagger, you will not become Umar Khayyam. Inside, you will know you are putting it on. Rasa will not flow. Even as you sway, you will remain in control. Let a car appear and you will forget it all—jump to the side. All rapture will vanish. Or a bag of coins lies near—at once your dance will stop. Your dance will be borrowed, stale, an imitation—a carbon copy.

Knowledge can be collected, because knowledge is second-hand. But devotion cannot be collected; it cannot be stockpiled. Devotion comes. You can call it, you can invite it, you can send a message, you can throw your doors open, you can hold out your begging bowl—but it will come when it comes; it is not in your power. As the sun rises—keep your door open; when it rises, its light will fill your house. All you can do is not keep the door closed. You cannot bind the sun in bundles and bring it in. The sun lies beyond your hands. You cannot command the sun—Now rise! I need light! Let it be morning! The sun will rise when it rises. Yes, when it has risen, you can keep your door shut and shut it out.

Understand this difference. One can, if one wishes, block devotion; but one cannot bring it. In the negative sense you are powerful. The sun may be out; you keep your eyes closed—what can the sun do? You will remain in darkness. But if the sun has not risen, however wide you open your eyes, nothing will happen.

Devotion comes—from God it comes. You need only become a vessel. Become receptive. Become feminine. The doer’s stance will not work in bhakti; it will become an obstacle. Devotion is not resolution; it is surrender. Bow down, wait; call, weep, and wait. When it happens, it happens. It does happen. Whenever your crying becomes complete, your tears become heartfelt, your call becomes real—when every fiber of your being trembles, when in every corner of your life there remains nothing but waiting—when you open all doors, all windows, all shutters, and you say, Come! You call, you pray, and you wait—endless patience is needed for the devotee, because who knows when God will come to the door! If he comes at midnight, the devotee must be awake. Whenever he knocks, the devotee must be waiting.

As you would await a lover—the one you love is coming; your beloved is coming; your friend is coming—you cannot sleep. A leaf rustles on the path, you sit up in bed, switch on the light, open the door—perhaps the one I await has come. When you are absorbed in waiting, a stranger passes and you run out—Perhaps…!

Jesus told his disciples again and again: keep watch twenty-four hours! For we do not know when the Lord will come, which hour he will choose. At what moment he will stand at your door, in what guise—we do not know.

He does come, he keeps coming. Even when you are not waiting he comes. When you sleep and snore, he knocks. When you are smothered in dreams, he stands near. When your eyes are closed, his light falls upon your shut lids. When there is in your eyes no tear and no prayer, he is still near. Without him, how would you live? Not for a moment could you live. Whether you remember him or not, he remembers you. Should his remembrance of you break even for a moment, your breathing would break. Your breath is the news that he has not yet forgotten you.

It is not you who breathe; he breathes within you. Breathing is not in your hands. The day breath stops, will you be able to breathe? The day he does not breathe, you cannot. It is he who is blowing breath within you; he is the beat in your heart. He is the blood coursing in your veins. He is your awareness, your consciousness. He has already come—but you are unconscious.

Shandilya says: “It is not like knowledge, to be obtained by acts or rites—to be learned, to be practiced. It lies beyond human hands.” This is the unique beauty of bhakti. Devotion carries no smudge of human hands. It bears no signature of man. Bhakti is not an act of man. Devotion descends from the far shore. It comes from the unlit into the lit, from the timeless into time. As a ray comes from the distant sun, so devotion comes. Bhakti is a ray of God. God’s blessing—it is not your act, not the fruit of your act. Only your receptivity is needed. Be ready to receive it.

Therefore the devotee must become feminine—non-aggressive; not in search, in prayer. The Jewish bhaktas spoke rightly: no man ever finds God. When man is ready, God finds man. This is a lovable saying, full of meaning. God seeks man. But you must earn worthiness; refine yourself until he seeks you; purify the vessel for his nectar; free it of poison.

“It is not dependent upon the performer, as knowledge is.”

In this small saying lies the whole alchemy of bhakti.

अत एव फलानन्त्यम्‌।
“For this reason, the fruit of bhakti is endless.”

Whatever is born of your doing will have limits; it will come to an end. You throw a stone into the sky—it will go a little distance—one hundred feet, two hundred, three hundred—then it will fall. It travels as far as the energy you gave it. Then it falls; energy spent. It cannot travel to infinity. You light a lamp, fill it with oil; it will burn as long as there is oil; when the oil is gone, the lamp goes out. Whatever man does has a limit. Therefore whatever you produce by yourself will someday die. Whatever you make will perish. What is made by you cannot be eternal.

Hence Shandilya says: “For this reason, the fruit of bhakti is endless.”

The fruit of devotion endures forever. Why? Because your stamp is not upon it. In it is God’s oil, not yours. Behind it is the hand of the Infinite, so it goes to the Infinite. Had your finite hand been behind it, its limit would be near.

We are limited. Whatever we say, whatever we do, is limited. However strong our fortresses, they too collapse into dust. They may last thousands of years—but what value has a thousand years in the Infinite? Not even a moment. But whatever bears God behind it—has no end.

Shandilya is saying: knowledge has a limit; devotion has none. Bhakti is boundless. If you must seek, seek the boundless. What is the point of amassing the limited? What trust can you place in a lamp that will go out? Seek something that is not your manufacture.

तद्वतःप्रपत्तिशब्दाच्च नज्ञानमितरप्रपत्तिवत्‌।
“Even the knowers are found surrendered, and the unlearned too can attain bhakti.”

Shandilya says: do not worry that only the learned attain bhakti. Devotion has nothing to do with knowledge. The ignorant can attain it; the learned can attain it—what is needed is a call. The ignorant can call. He can cry from the heart. In truth, only the unlearned can cry. The learned has a certain stiffness—he cannot cry. He has the thought, I know—and the more that thought, the more tears stop. The learned cannot pray. Knowledge becomes an obstacle. The knower cannot bend. I know—this rigidity strengthens ego. Do not worry: If I am ignorant, how will God come to me? God has not set the condition that he will come only to scholars, those with university degrees. There is no condition. God comes unconditionally. Only be willing to receive.

In truth, the unlearned is more simple, more guileless. The village rustic is simpler, more innocent, less cunning. The city-educated man is more crafty. Even when he sometimes displays innocence, that too is his strategy. There is calculation even in his guilelessness. And if the rustic sometimes does not seem innocent, that too is due to his innocence. He may appear harsh—that is also part of his childlikeness. He is like a child.

Shandilya says: do not be anxious—both the learned become surrendered, and the unlearned can attain devotion. Bhakti has nothing to do with learned or unlearned.

And remember: in the end the learned too must surrender. If surrender there must be, why carry this burden of knowledge so long? Why this bundle on your head? The learned too, ultimately, must let go; the resolute too, ultimately, must surrender. However far tapas may carry you, however far knowledge may carry you, there comes a final hour when you must drop even tapas, because a subtle ego of tapas becomes an obstacle. A moment comes—you must bow guilelessly and say: I know nothing. If I am not, how shall I know? Who am I who could know? Your mystery is measureless! He alone is a true knower who one day lets go even of knowledge. For without dropping knowledge, there can be no relation with the mystery of this world.

How to know? The mystery is so boundless; the wonder so deep! Our knowledge is like someone with a spoon trying to empty the oceans. Our knowledge is like having a handful of sand from the shore and imagining the whole shore is in hand. A few shells gathered on the beach—those are our scriptures. Shells! The Infinite remains. The more you know, the more you see how little you know. The day one truly knows, that day one becomes utterly ignorant.

Socrates said: when I was young, I thought I knew everything. When I matured, I understood: I do not know everything; I know a little; much remains. When I grew old, I knew: what do I know! I am supremely ignorant. Who is more ignorant than I! I know only this—that none is more ignorant than I! And the day Socrates said this, the god of Delphi announced that Socrates had become a great knower.

Those who heard it told Socrates: the god of Delphi has proclaimed in the temple that Socrates is supremely wise.

Socrates said, This is too much. All my life I wanted the god of Delphi to announce that Socrates is supremely wise—then he did not. And now that I have seen I know nothing—now this proclamation! Then it dawned on Socrates: perhaps this is why—because now I know that I know nothing. This is the mark of the knower.

“Even the learned are found surrendered, and the unlearned too can attain bhakti.”

सा मुख्येतरापेक्षितत्वात्‌।
“Bhakti alone is the main thing, because the other means must take its help.”

There is a saying in the scriptures: Narada asked Vishnu—Lord, you are all-pervading, yet there must be some special place where you dwell. Where do you dwell especially? Vishnu said, Naham tishthami Vaikunṭhe yoginam hṛdaye’pi ca, mad-bhaktā yatra gāyanti tatra tiṣṭhāmi Nārada! I do not dwell—at least not as I dwell in the devotee’s heart—in the yogi’s heart, nor even in Vaikuntha. My true Vaikuntha is the devotee’s heart. Wherever my devotees sing in joy, wherever they dance and are absorbed—that is where I dwell, Narada. That is where I especially dwell. I do not dwell like that in the yogi’s heart.

Why? Because in the yogi’s heart, a little of the yogi also dwells. In the devotee’s heart—no one; emptiness, silence. There is plenty of room. In the yogi’s heart, there is little room for God—the yogi must also be there! The yogi’s pride: I have done so many practices, rites, techniques; so much yoga, so many asanas, pranayamas, exercises, who knows what else—this will also be there! This whole rigmarole will go on! The pride of knowledge, the pride of sadhana—this ego will block space. Perhaps in some corner the yogi gives God a place—but most of the space he occupies. Where is there a throne for God?

But in the devotee’s heart? There is no practice in bhakti, no method, no knowledge—so there is no way for pride to arise. The devotee has dissolved. The devotee is not there. The devotee’s heart is open sky. Let God dwell there—entirely. In fact that very openness is divinity. God is nothing other than that openness. The empty space is God. The filled space is you. The filled space is the world; the empty space is God. When your heart is completely empty—so empty that there is no one left even to say “I am”—in that very moment: mad-bhaktā yatra gāyanti tatra tiṣṭhāmi Nārada!

“Bhakti is primary,” says Shandilya, “because the other means must take its help.”

Even the knower must one day take the aid of bhakti. What can be gained by your effort is all that can be gained. What lies beyond effort cannot be gained by effort—try as you will. One day, exhausted by your efforts, broken, fallen, it will dawn: O Lord, now you take over. All that I could do, I have done. All that could be done by me, is done. Now you take over. Now it is beyond me; I cannot go further. Now hold my hand.

The day the knower, the yogi, the ascetic arrives at this moment—and this moment must come, for what is the measure of man? So little. He can walk a few steps—then? On the journey to the Infinite, man will peter out. Where man exhausts himself, there is surrender.

So Shandilya says: if surrender must be, why not at the first step? If you must fall at the last step, the devotee says: we fall at the first! Why all this fuss? Why strive at all? If it happens through grace—if it comes by holding out the bowl—why bother with rites and arrangements? We will hold out the bowl.

You will say: if it is so simple, why does everyone not hold out the bowl?

Because spreading the bowl is very difficult. Ego says—A begging bowl? You? Let others spread it—I will achieve it! I will attain it by my own power! This is the ego’s stance. It cannot spread the bowl. It cannot surrender. Shall I beg? Even from God—shall I beg? We set out to conquer even God. Ego thinks everywhere in the language of conquest.

Knowledge one day tires of knowledge; weary, it lets it go, and becomes unknowing. Resolution one day tires of resolution and becomes surrender. Action one day tires of action; bored, it sits—and there, the real revolution happens.

For six years Buddha practiced harsh austerities—harsh, as only a man can! He was a kshatriya—stubborn, headstrong, a prince, proud—he wagered everything. But as far as a man can go through effort—he could not go beyond. The limit came. One day the limit came. And because he had put in full strength, it came in six years; had he gone half-heartedly, it might not have come in six lifetimes. And had he poured in even more, perhaps in six months. If one expends oneself totally, the limit can arrive in a single moment. The faster you run, the sooner the boundary appears. Go slowly, it takes longer.

The boundary came in six years. Buddha fell, exhausted. The very night he dropped, sleeping under the Bodhi tree—he had left his empire earlier; that day he left sadhana too. He gave up practice and slept—It cannot be done; it is beyond me; it’s over. That very night it happened. In the morning his eyes opened, and the one who had set out to search was no longer there within; now there was the one who had found. The last star of dawn was sinking; seeing it sink, the last trace of ego sank in Buddha. In that instant the revolution happened; in that instant, transformation.

This is what Shandilya is saying. The day you fall, tired; the day you cry, weary; the day you call like a small child—that day he comes.

Gathering four twigs from the forest,
a single ear of grain in hand,
a few stale drops of tears,
a few fasts on parched lips,
a fistful of earth from his own grave,
a fistful of the mortar of longings,
cherishing the wish to build one shelter,
your poor, wandering nomad
goes door to door through the city—
if only I find your shoulder to lay my head.
Each one is wandering just like this—
if only I find your shoulder to lay my head.

And the shoulder is near. But your head is stiff. Whenever you wish to rest it, you can. God stands ready, every moment, to be your pillow. But first, be tired of yourself and be defeated. Grace comes to the defeated!

Enough for today.