Athato Bhakti Jigyasa #40

Prayer is an unfathomable happening. Meditation can be understood and explained; prayer can neither be explained nor understood. The hands of understanding cannot reach prayer. The wings of thought cannot take flight into the sky of prayer. Prayer is not a thing that can be spoken or said. Prayer is love. And love has always been unfathomable. Prayer is the heart’s outpouring—and the heart has no arguments. In truth the heart has no language at all; silence is its language. The moment you speak, prayer becomes false. What you have taken to be prayer till now is not prayer; it is only desire in disguise. You said something, you asked for something—that is desire. Prayer knows no language other than silence. Prayer is to bow down in silence. Prayer is surrender. Prayer is the declaration: “I am not; Thou art. I am not; the Divine is.”

Prayer is not asking God for something, because in asking, the “I” is present. If the “I” is not, then whose asking—and what asking? It is the “I” that begs, that is the mendicant. Its demands are endless. The more it gets, the more it asks. It lives asking and dies asking. Where the “I” is not, where there is no demand of the “I,” there you become a sovereign.

Prayer is the voice rising from the sovereign heart—the voice of silence, the voice of music. Prayer is a rhythm that happens within you. In that very rhythm you bow, and become one with the vast rhythm of the cosmos. Your veena begins to accompany the veena of the Vast. A duet happens. No distance remains between you and that Vast veena—no separation, no interval. Your steps begin to fall with God’s. You dance with Him, you are intoxicated with Him, you drown in His nectar.

Therefore, the prayers being performed in temples, in mosques, in churches—I do not call them prayer. They are only deceptions of prayer, frauds in the name of prayer, counterfeit coins passed off as prayer. The real coin is silent. Sometimes such moments come to you when you are struck dumb with awe—those are moments of prayer. In those speechless instants you are not a Hindu, not a Muslim, not a Christian—you are simply awestruck. Can awestruckness be Hindu, Muslim, Christian? Have you not fallen silent seeing the morning sun rise, or a white line of egrets winging across the sky, or breathing the fragrance of flowers floating in the air, or beholding the night sky studded with stars? That is prayer. Have you not become utterly still for a moment? That is prayer. At high noon the cuckoo begins to sing kuhu-kuhu—did the chain of your thoughts not break for a moment? Did your heartbeat not pause for a split second? Did that kuhu-kuhu not fill you for an instant—completely, to the brim? Did it not drown you, as if a flood had surged from some unknown realm? That is prayer. Or looking into a human being’s eyes for a moment, body was forgotten—yours and theirs. Sitting with a friend, your hand in theirs, speech lost, no words to say, tears flowing from the eyes—that is prayer.

Perhaps you think I will tell you that “Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram”—this is prayer; that “Allah and Ishwar are thy names”—this is prayer. These are politics. Games hide behind them—and dirty games. The azaan rising from the mosque and the bells ringing from the temple—these are games, rituals. The priest ringing the bell in the temple—nothing is ringing within him. And the one who gives the call to prayer in the mosque—within him there is no remembrance of God. He is merely repeating an act, repeated for centuries. It is conditioning to repeat, so he repeats. He sees the idol and bows because he has bowed since childhood. A kind of conditioned servility has been created. This is not prayer. Moments of silence, moments of stillness, moments of aesthetic sensitivity, the taste of love, the feeling of friendship, absorption, enchantment—by these words I wish to indicate what prayer is. Even in all these words, it is not complete; they are mere pointers.

You will be surprised to know: in the Hebrew language there is no word for prayer. Cry, laugh, sing, dance, call out—but there is no single word for prayer, because prayer is beyond words. Hebrew behaved wisely: it gave prayer no word. It pointed to what prayer can be. Cry, sing, dance, laugh, call out in ecstasy, bow, fall, become helpless, become awestruck, become enchanted, become absorbed—but no word for prayer. In none of these does prayer get exhausted; they only give hints. Prayer is greater than all of them.

Prayer is as vast as the sky. Prayer is as great as God. Prayer is not smaller than God, because in the moment of prayer you become one with God. The moment of prayer is a bridge; it connects. You are lost. The devotee does not remain. When devotion is complete, the devotee is no more. And as long as the devotee remains, devotion is not complete.

Shandilya called this the two forms of devotion: gauni-bhakti and para-bhakti. So long as the devotee remains, it is gauni-bhakti—secondary devotion, devotion in name only. Not in truth; called devotion only because it looks like devotion, but it is not yet devotion. While the devotee is still present, where is devotion? When the devotee is lost, then para-bhakti—supreme devotion. Then the real devotion—only God remains!

Thus prayer is as great as God. And if you want to understand prayer, you will have to pray—you will have to become prayer. My explaining it will not do. Whenever you find your mind rippling—and such moments come to everyone, but we keep missing them—do not fix a time for prayer. Do not decide that every morning after a bath you will pray. It is not necessary that after bathing a wave of prayer will arise in you. Do not schedule prayer. No one knows when the clouds will suddenly break and the sky will open—morning, evening, high noon, or midnight! Whenever it happens that the mind is absorbed, whenever thoughts cease, whenever there is no conflict in the mind, no whirlwinds, no storms, no waves, no ripples—and such moments come to all, I repeat—when such moments come, then bow down. There is no need to be told what to say then. If something wants to be said, say it; if words arise, let them arise; if a line of a song begins to resound within, let it resound—but do not try to make it happen. Do not decide, “Now I will repeat Ram, Ram.” In that very repetition, prayer will die. Prayer is very delicate, slender. Throw this stone of “Ram, Ram” at it and it will die. Do not try. Yes, if from within Ram, Ram begins to rise on its own, effortlessly—then let it be. That is right. What happens by itself is right; what is done is wrong. This is the rule in the realm of prayer—what happens by itself.

Sometimes meaningless syllables may arise. Like little children who catch hold of any sound and keep repeating it—sometimes that can happen. In prayer one becomes like an innocent child. Or like when you have heard classical musicians take an alaap—such an alaap can arise in which there are no words, only pure tone. Or there may be complete silence. Prayer is vast; it contains everything; it is not confined to any one event. Sometimes such stillness will descend that even your hands and feet will not move. And sometimes such energy will pour in that you cannot help but dance. Then let it be as it is! If it happens to sit like Buddha, sit. If it happens to dance like Meera, dance. Do not try to dance, do not try to sit. As long as there is doing, there is no prayer—because in doing there is a doer, and in the doer, ego. Simply open. As the morning breeze comes and makes the flower dance, as the morning sun rises and the petals open—just so. Be available. If the Divine wishes to do something through you, let it happen; if He wishes to do nothing, remain quietly as you are.

Soon you will begin to taste prayer. Prayer is a taste—not a word, not a thought, not a concept, not a doctrine. Prayer is a taste. A sweetness will fill you within, as if some honey-vessel has broken open inside and intoxication spreads through every pore. Your eyes will turn rosy, as they do in intoxication. Your steps will fall all over the place, as a drunkard’s do. Wait for such moments. They come. They are small moments. And if you catch hold of a moment, it will become big. Just as in spring all the trees blossom, so in these moments of prayer the flowers of the heart bloom.

The difficulty is that we have made rules, we have made procedures. Every day we get up, bathe, and will “finish with” the prayer—like any other act: bathing, eating, breakfast—so prayer too becomes an act.

Prayer is not such a small thing. You cannot close it in your fist. It may arise at midnight. You were lying in bed and it arose—then sit up; or keep lying down. There is no need to start thinking, “What should I do now?” Whatever happens, let it happen—spontaneously. And you will soon come to know para-bhakti.

Do not think that God has abandoned you. God still knocks at your door. God has not lost hope. He still comes searching for you, feeling for you—but He never finds you at home. You are always away. You are not there. The moments when God comes are the moments of prayer. And God comes naturally. But those moments are very small. If you catch them, they become long; they spread over your life; gradually they begin to grow. And a time comes when all twenty-four hours are steeped in prayer. In that very moment, the devotee becomes God. But my emphasis is on spontaneity. Do not engage in any religion’s set, ready-made prayer.
One day Jesus’ disciples asked him to explain what prayer is—just as you have asked today. Do you know what Jesus did? Right there, Jesus knelt and bowed to the ground. The disciples stood there wondering, What is happening? And Jesus began to pray. He forgot the disciples, forgot the town, forgot the crowd in the street. The crowd stood still, and Jesus, enraptured, looking toward the sky, began to speak—who knows to whom.
Prayer is a conversation with that which cannot be seen. Prayer is a conversation with that from which no answer ever seems to come. Prayer is a conversation with that of which we do not even know whether it is or is not.

Jesus must have seemed mad. Yet tears were flowing from his eyes! His ecstasy was a sight to behold! A little of that nectar spilled over onto those standing around him too. They too felt as if some door were opening. A hush descended. Into the marketplace a great emptiness came down. That is why I say: do not run away from the marketplace; bring the Himalayas into the marketplace. Silence spread. And when Jesus rose, he was transformed. There was a radiance on his face that is not of this earth. And he asked his disciples—Understood?

The disciples said, Not a bit! We asked what prayer is, and you started praying! What are we to understand from that? Please explain.

Jesus said, There is no other way. I have shown it by being prayer.

You too, become prayer in the same way. Only by knowing will you know; no one else can make you know.

In this family, in this ochre family, we are attempting just this. Here, prayer is happening. Singing and dancing are happening. Join in. Drop the questioning about what prayer is. Prayer is happening—flow with that current, go with that stream. Soon you will take the plunge. When you dive, you will know. When you are drenched in the nectar, you will know.

Prayer happens only when you are not; how then can it be for yourself? Buddha has said: the meditation, the prayer that is for oneself becomes false, goes wrong, gets distorted, turns poisonous. Prayer is always for the whole. That is exactly where the mistake happens. When you go to the temple, you ask for something for yourself—that is the very slip.

There was a famous Zen fakir, Nan-in. A man used to come to him; Nan-in taught him prayer. In Buddhist prayer an essential part is this: first let your feeling be overwhelmed, and then say, “Whatever joy has come to me in this prayer, may it spread across the entire earth, may it reach all who suffer. Let it not remain with me; let it flow to all.” This is an indispensable part of Buddhist prayer. Because Buddha said: if meditation does not flower into total compassion, it has not happened at all.

This man who came to Nan-in said, “Everything else is fine; I can share the wealth of my meditation with the whole earth. But I ask a small permission: my neighbor! I cannot pray that he receive my bliss. I cannot tolerate my neighbor. That I should pray and my joy go to him? I can say: let it go to the whole earth—except this neighbor.”

Nan-in laughed and said, “Madman, this is not a question about the earth; it is a question of dropping I-and-you. Even in prayer you will be so stingy, that you exclude your neighbor and give it to all others! Then you have not understood what prayer is.”

In prayer, the “I” does not remain; therefore prayer cannot be only for oneself.

Listen to these words—
Was there a single night that did not pass with tears?
Was there a single day not spent in the grief of tomorrow?
When was my smile not adorned by tears?
Even the clouds of mercy could not wash off the blackness of fate.
The sky went on adorning itself with moon and stars—
yet the dusty gloom of the dark expanses could not be cleansed.
No beautiful, golden-embroidered image could be formed;
light kept scattering over every particle of the world.
And even if you snatch your sorrow back from me,
alas, there are other sorrows besides yours;
there are still scenes of pain awaiting the gaze;
my world of sorrows is not so limited.

Even if your sorrow is taken away—and surely it will be; in prayer no one remains sorrowful. Where is sorrow in prayer? Just as in light there is no darkness. In prayer your sorrow will certainly be taken away. Do not miss that moment; understand it as the moment to share. Now take one more leap and scatter all this bliss. Scatter all this fragrance. When a flower blooms, it does not keep its scent bound; the fragrance spreads. That is the flower’s blooming, its good fortune. And when the monsoon clouds gather, they pour—that is their good fortune. Only in emptying themselves are they fulfilled. When knowing is born, it is shared. When bliss is born, it is shared. We are not separate; we are joined, all interconnected. All distinctions of I and you are imagined, false.

There are still many scenes of pain awaiting the gaze;
my world of sorrows is not so limited.

In the moment of prayer this feeling will surely arise: my sorrow dissolved, because I dissolved. O Lord, may everyone’s sorrow dissolve! May all be dissolved. May all egos melt. May all be liquefied. When that note begins to descend into you, do not be miserly. If you are miserly, heaven will choke. Heaven grows by sharing; it diminishes by hoarding. Bliss grows by sharing; it dies when withheld. Let bliss fly, let it spread like fragrance. Let it go to the far horizons. And your prayer will grow denser day by day, and deeper day by day. And soon you will find that between you and the divine not even the slightest interval remains, not the slightest distance remains. You have become a part of his heart, and he has become a part of your heart.

Pratap! The ego has no elixir. The ego can neither live nor die. Do not apply the language of life and death to the ego. Does darkness ever live? Does darkness ever die? Darkness is not; how could it live, how could it die? Darkness is absence. So too, the ego is an absence. You have not known the Divine; that non-knowing has become the cause for the birth of the ego.

The ego is the felt appearance of God’s absence. “God is not, therefore I am.” This “I” will keep rising if you try to bring it down—because the very effort to bring it down contains the error. You have not yet seen that the ego simply is not. When someone asks, “How do I destroy the ego?” he asks the wrong question. The real question is, “How do I know what this ego is?” To pull down, to annihilate—you have already started fighting. And if you fight what is not, you will be defeated. If one starts fighting one’s own shadow, will he ever win?

I have heard: a man was terrified of his own shadow. Walking at night, in the darkness, he saw his shadow under a lamp-post by the roadside. Solitude, darkness—he panicked, “Who’s following me?” He ran. He must have been a bit mad—just as people are mad! As he ran, the sound of his own footsteps seemed to come from behind. If you ever run alone through a cremation ground, your own footfalls sound as if someone is coming after you. And when you feel someone behind you, it becomes difficult to turn and look—who knows who it might be? A ghost? A spirit? A thief? A murderer? He ran harder, ran for his life. The faster he ran, the louder the noise behind—someone seemed to be in pursuit.

This is exactly your predicament. Just turn around and see—there is no one behind you. You have been frightened by your own shadow. And that which you are eager to destroy—first find out whether it even exists. If, brandishing swords, you start fighting shadows, the danger is that sooner or later you’ll cut your own hands and feet. The shadow is not going to be cut! And it may even happen that after cutting your hands and feet you feel pleased: “Look, I’ve cut off the shadow’s hand! See, I’ve chopped the shadow’s leg—made the shadow lame!” But the shadow hasn’t gone lame—you have.

Your renunciates, your votaries and monks have become lame in this way. They have cut themselves while going to cut the ego! They have turned themselves into corpses. They have become inert. Do you see any wave of life in your monks, your ascetics? A pall of death seems to lie over them. What has happened to them? Where is the intoxication of being alive? And what is that knowledge which does not dance? It’s understandable that the ignorant are unhappy; but why are the “wise” unhappy? The ignorant suffer, are troubled, live in hell—it is understandable. But your so-called wise ones appear even more tormented and miserable. The ignorant man sometimes laughs; these do not even laugh. The ignorant man can sometimes walk with a carefree gait, even if fleetingly; these cannot walk with a carefree step even for a moment. They are carrying mountains. They have become crippled. Paralysis has seized them. They have cut off their own hands and feet. Yet they revel in the idea that by cutting off their limbs they have cut the ego, cut the shadow. Do not fall into this delusion. There is no need to cut the shadow. It is enough to understand that the shadow is a shadow. In that very understanding, the shadow ends. In that understanding its grip on you loosens.

You ask: “Does the ego have an elixir of life?” The ego has no elixir. But you have never looked the ego in the eye—that is its strength. Your stupor is the ego’s strength; your awakening will be its death. Wake up and look: what is it that you are calling ego? Open your eyes and search within: where is the ego? You will not find it. No one has ever found it. I searched and did not find it; whoever has searched has not found it. Go within, investigate a little—you will be amazed: whom were you fearing? With whom were you fighting? No enemy is to be seen anywhere!

But you have not searched for the ego; you have merely heard the saints. You have done your satsangs. You have read the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Gita, the Koran. And everywhere it is said: until the ego ends, there will be no experience of the Divine. Hearing this, greed grips you: let me get rid of the ego. Remember, the scriptures are not wrong; they are absolutely right in saying that without the ending of ego there is no experience of God. But what you have understood is not what they said. They did not say: cut the ego, kill it, annihilate it—then you will find God. They said only this: know, and the ego ends. In knowing, it ends. Light a small lamp of meditation, or of prayer; let a little dance happen. In that light, the ego is simply not—it vanishes. It does not get cut by cutting; it is cut by seeing. And where the ego is cut, there the Divine enthrones itself.

The scriptures speak truly, but you will still interpret them in your own way! You will thrust your commentary upon them. Your scripture becomes an echo of what already lies within you. The scripture cannot convey what it intends; you take from it only what you can take.

In a school a teacher explained a great deal about the elephant—that it is the largest animal. She told several stories. She told an old Panchatantra tale: Once the lion had this whim to go and ask everyone, “Who is the king of the jungle?” Perhaps there were elections going on among humans! News must have reached the forest from the villages. The lion got the notion: who knows whether people still consider me king? Times have changed; kings are no more. Let me go get the animals’ vote. He asked the fox, “Am I the king or not? Who is the king?” The fox said, “How can you even doubt? You are the king—always have been, always will be. Don’t bother with the craziness of humans; we don’t get into that democracy nonsense. You are the King of Kings, the great Maharaja!” He asked this one and that one, and then came to the elephant: “Gajrāj, what do you think? Who is the emperor of this jungle?” The elephant caught the lion in his trunk, tossed him thirty feet away. The lion’s head struck a rock; he got up, dusted himself, and said to the elephant, “Well, that’s fine! If you didn’t know the right answer, you could have said so. No need to get so angry!”

After telling such stories, the teacher asked the children—she wanted to fix in their minds that the elephant is very powerful—she asked a little boy, “You tell us, Lalu, whom does the lion fear?” The child stood up and said, “The lioness.”

Children have their own understanding. He sees that every man fears woman. Father fears mother; brother fears sister-in-law; everyone fears woman! He has drawn his own conclusion: whom else would the lion fear? All the elephant stories were wasted. He stands by his own understanding. He has made his decision.

When you read the scriptures, you, too, do not budge from your own understanding. You impose your understanding upon the scripture.

And reading scriptures will not give you knowing. Has anyone ever attained knowing by reading scriptures? But greed arises. From greed comes trouble. You heard in a scripture, or from a true master, that if the ego drops, the Divine is found. The greed to find God seizes you: anyhow, let me attain. In the greed to attain, you begin to scheme—“The ego must be dropped! How do I drop it? How do I erase it? How do I fight, how do I wrestle it down? Shall I fast and kill the ego? Leave home? Renounce and kill the ego? What should I do?” And the mischief begins. Understanding has not arisen; greed has raised new stupidity.

The ego dissolves, not by destroying, but by seeing, by direct witnessing, by awareness, by understanding. Understand the ego. And to understand, it is necessary that you not run away from it. The one who runs cannot understand. A frightened person never understands. What you are afraid of you cannot look at with open eyes. You avert your gaze from what you fear. You begin to run, to hide, to avoid.

So I say to you: do not flee the ego; live it. If it is there, live it! Only by living can it be seen. Do not hide it; experience it. Wherever the ego raises its head, live that movement. Do not deny it. Do not bow outwardly. Do not say, “I am a humble person.” Inside the ego is raising its head, and you stand with your back turned to it, so it won’t be seen; if it is not seen, it will not be known; by such forgetting you hope it will one day vanish. This ostrich logic will not work.

They say, when an ostrich’s enemy attacks, the ostrich buries its head in the sand. Its reasoning is: if I can’t see the enemy, he isn’t there. What is seen is what is. What is not seen—how can it be?

This is what the atheists say: God is not seen, so how can He be? Show Him, then we will believe. Their logic is also the ostrich’s logic. The ostrich has buried its head in the sand; now it says, “The enemy is not visible, so he cannot be.”

But visibility is no proof of existence. You have closed your eyes—therefore it is not visible. Those whom you call humble, ego-less, saintly are often people who, like the ostrich, have buried their heads in the sand.

I will not tell you to do that. Don’t be an ostrich! There are already enough in society. In this country, far too many! They have set up shop everywhere—always standing with folded hands, always bent over—while within blazes a terrible fire of ego. Beware of them—and beware of becoming like them.

I tell you: live the ego. The ego will bring pain—good; only pain awakens. The ego will burn you—good; it will sear you—good. The ego will make wounds within you—good. For through these wounds, these pains, these hells, one day the understanding dawns of what ego is. In that very understanding the ego evaporates.

A pall of darkness has spread across the sky—O white swan of the snows, where are you going?
When the blue-sapphire sky extends its invitation,
who can refuse?
If one has eyes,
how can one not love the rays of sun and moon?
All right, I keep my heart close,
I understand everything, and yet today—
a pall of darkness has spread across the sky,
O white swan of the snows, where are you going?

The first condition for freedom from ego is to live the ego. Let the ego spread its wings, open its pinions, fly into the sky. Let the ego make its journeys—of wealth, of status, of every kind. Do not be in a hurry. Let the ego do what it wants to do. Only through that doing will you recognize it. Only through that doing will a relationship of understanding be forged between you and the ego.

Celestial dreams entice the one
whose birth-cradle is the earth.
The one born to water
always longs to play with fire.
And if wings are granted, come back with them tired,
break them if you must, even burn them—
who ever receives a boon here without paying the price?
A pall of darkness has spread across the sky—
O white swan of the snows, where are you going?

There are challenges! We are born on the earth; the sky invites and challenges us. We want to attain precisely that which we are not. That is the whole world—we want what we are not. And yet we can attain only what we are. This is the mischief, the whole arithmetic. We desire what is not ours—and we can never obtain it. What is ours is already given; it needs no obtaining.

But for what is not ours, and which you still crave, you will have to run after it, and run and fall, and get up and run again. Run and fall, again and again. Each time hope, each time be filled with despair. After many blows, one day insight arises—blow upon blow—one day a realization is born within you: that which is not mine can never be mine. It cannot be. It is not the law of nature. Now let me turn toward what is mine. That very day the inner journey begins. That very day—sannyas.

A pall of darkness has spread across the sky—O white swan of the snows, where are you going?
When the blue-sapphire sky extends its invitation,
who can refuse?
If one has eyes,
how can one not love the rays of sun and moon?
All right, I keep my heart close,
I understand everything, and yet today—
a pall of darkness has spread across the sky,
O white swan of the snows, where are you going?

The darker the sky, the greater the challenge! The higher the peak, the greater the challenge! The harder the attainment, the greater the challenge!

Understand this logic: the ego is excited by the impossible, not by the possible. The possible holds no charm for the ego. There is a little hill in Poona; climb it, and the ego gets no juice. Plant a flag on it and no newspaper will carry your story. It might even happen that some early morning walker informs the police that your mind has gone awry. But climb Everest and plant a flag—then you become world-famous. Your name is recorded in history. And the irony is, there is nothing else to gain there. There is barely a place to plant a flag. There is nothing to stay for, nothing to obtain. Then what is the point? Someone asked Hillary when he returned from conquering Everest, “What was there to get, why did you take such trouble?”

He said, “Trouble? The mere existence of Everest was a source of restlessness. Man had to conquer that too—we had to defeat Everest. Gain? There was nothing to gain. It was enough that Everest stood there unconquered. It had to be conquered!”

The ego relishes the impossible—what cannot be done. And what is it that cannot be done? The most impossible thing in this world is fulfillment through position, through wealth; it has never happened, and can never happen. The lives of all the Buddhas proclaim—never; and the lives of all the Alexanders also proclaim—never. The saint and the non-saint agree on one point: no one has found fulfillment through wealth and status. No one has found peace or bliss through the outer journey. The outer journey has no end. Go on and on—and fall and fall—and then die. All outer roads end at the grave; no outer road leads to the nectar. The nectar is present within you; but in what is already present, the ego finds no taste. The ego’s thrill lies in “what I do not have, I must have.”

Haven’t you seen? You buy a car. Until you had none, you dreamed of it. When one flashed past on the road, a bolt would run through you; you would yearn. Then it stands in your porch. For a day or two you dust it lovingly, parade around it, drive to the market with great flair. Within a few days the matter is finished. The juice was never in the car. The juice was in “what you did not have.” Now that it is yours, how can there be any juice?

Haven’t you seen that the harder it is to obtain the woman you fall in love with, the more your love seems to grow? Had Majnu got his Laila, you would never even have heard his name. The whole crux of the Majnu-Laila story is that he never got her. Quite possibly, had he got her, they would have ended in divorce. Stories proceed in strange ways. Because he did not get her, he kept weeping, aching, wandering deserts and mountains, calling “Laila, Laila!” Have you ever seen any husband doing that? Ask a husband and perhaps he hasn’t even properly looked at his wife’s face in twenty years.

You too are a husband or a wife—try this: close your eyes and try to recall your spouse’s face. You will find it difficult. The faces of film actresses will come, but your wife’s face will not come clearly. And if you look at her a bit more carefully now, even the hazy image you did have will vanish.

What is obtained loses its savor. Our savor lies in what we do not have. Which means: the ego will never allow you to be blissful, anywhere, ever. Its very taste is in what is not with you—and that is your misery. The ego’s taste is your suffering.

Celestial dreams entice the one
whose birth-cradle is the earth.
Who looks at the ground? On it we were born, we walk, we live—and we forget. We look to the sky! The sky bewitches our heart.

The one born to water
always longs to play with fire.
This is the ego. The urge to be what you are not—that is ego. And because it cannot be, the ego leads into sorrow. The day, through repeated sorrow, you become alert and you see the root of this longing as futile, nothing will need to be done to drop the ego; the matter ends. In that seeing is transformation.

And if wings are granted, come back with them tired,
break them if you must, even burn them—
who ever receives a boon here without paying the price?
A pall of darkness has spread across the sky—
O white swan of the snows, where are you going?

Remember—
who ever receives a boon here without paying the price?
And this is where the hitch comes. You read the Upanishads: “Drop the ego!” You read the Bible: “Drop the ego!” You hear me: “Drop the ego!” And you think, “Then let’s drop it.” But it does not drop. Why?

Who ever receives a boon here without paying the price?
You have not yet paid the price. You have not yet suffered the ego. You have not yet drunk its poison. The ego has not tormented you enough that you can let it go.

That is why, Pratap, you keep pushing it under the rug—shoved aside a bit, hidden a bit—and then it pops out again. The ego has no elixir; only your experience of it is still raw, immature.

You can stay aloft only so long
as the strength in your wings remains.
Every flicker of lightning is a sign
of falling back toward the earth.
The worth of a scorched wing, a seared voice—
only the earth knows.
However much the sky may attract,
when does it ever adopt anyone?

You see, however big the wings and however strong the pinions, how long can you remain in the sky?

Only as long as the strength in your wings remains—
soon you will tire. You will tire and fall. The strength of the arm is limited. You see—people stay in positions for a little while—as long as their grip holds; then they relax a little, slacken—and someone pulls their leg. Others are waiting, eager every moment to sit on the throne. Notice: in politics, enemies are indeed enemies—but friends are also enemies. In religion, friends are friends—and even enemies turn out to be friends. In politics it is the reverse. The one who attains political office has no friends left; all become his enemies. Because due to him, his friends cannot move ahead; they are stuck. As long as he sits on the throne, they remain blocked. They all pray, “O Lord, now remove him! It’s been too long! Take him to the Rajghat now! We will hold a royal send-off, a military farewell—everything—just hurry; it’s getting very late!”

There can be no friends in politics. It is a throat-cutting contest. And this whole world is politics. As I see it, the expansion of ego is politics; and the freedom that flowers from the understanding of ego—that is religion. There are only two games in the world: the game of ego, and the game of awareness. The game of ego leads to suffering—for you and for others. The game of religion leads to bliss—for you and for others.

Only as long as the strength in your wings remains—
and soon every flash of lightning will say,
“Now he will fall, now—any moment!”

You will have to return to your own ground. You will have to fall back into yourself.

However much the sky may entice,
when does it ever take anyone in?
A pall of darkness has spread across the sky—
O white swan of the snows, where are you going?

But you will have to go through it! This knowledge cannot be borrowed from others. They say, “Once burned by milk, one blows on buttermilk before drinking.” But you must first be burned by milk! You have not yet been burned. That is your difficulty. Do not hide your ego; do not suppress it—live it! Do not be afraid. Nothing comes free in this world. For everything, a price must be paid. And for freedom from ego there is but one price: you must live the hell of the ego.

Then you will suddenly find that the ego has neither elixir nor life-energy. The ego is not. In mature awareness, in your own lived experience, the ego falls away by itself.

A few stones came flying—two or four—into my courtyard,
and all the fruit on that tree slid down against the wall.
If I must fall, let me fall at my own feet,
as a wall collapses upon the shadow it casts.
The “letters of light” left darkness in the heart—
the stars fell upon my house, and fell to no use.
I tremble when I look at my own doors and walls,
whenever a wall collapses in my neighbor’s house.
God knows when the thread of time will snap,
at what hour this hanging sword will drop upon my head.
What can I say, O tearful eyes—this is my very face:
where the sheet of rain falls, even stone is cut.
Nothing came to hand but the swamp of night;
alas, at which bend the worshipers of dreams fell.

Walk the path of ego—you will have to! Though nothing will come to your hand—and that nothing is the very something that must come. When, having walked in ego, you find “nothing came into my hands,” at least one thing has arrived: the lived realization that the journey of ego is futile.

Nothing came to hand but the swamp of night;
alas, at which bend the worshipers of dreams fell.
The ego knows only how to dream. And sooner or later, all dreams collapse. The day your dreams collapse—not because I said so, but from your own living experience—that very day there is freedom from ego.

The very meaning of love is: you will have to drop your ego. That is the fear. Love means you will have to die. That is the fear. Love is death, and rebirth too—but death comes first, rebirth after. The cross is first, the throne comes later. Behind the cross the throne is hidden.

So whoever is filled with love for me will also be afraid; they will be afraid to come. Because if they come, there will be no going back. If they come, then there can be no returning; they will have to take a plunge with me. And then who knows what hue life will take on, what style it will have?

Everyone has arranged a certain kind of life for themselves—a kind of order, a kind of security. If a relationship with me happens, everything will be upset; there will be anarchy. This brings fear. The fear is natural. That fear itself is the proof that true love has arisen for me. One who comes to me without fear is able to do so either because he is so courageous that he comes in spite of fear—or because there is no love, hence no cause for fear. He comes casually. As he goes elsewhere, so he comes here too.

You ask: why does Dr. Durga Prasad Bhandari fear to come? And he has so much love that when someone returns to Kathmandu after taking sannyas he dances with joy; and if anyone speaks against me he even comes to blows. But when the opportunity to come here arises he gets nervous and avoids coming.

Go and tell him that now there is no way to escape. He did not come here, but I have reached there. You can delay a little. He is taking time choosing me, and I have already chosen him. A little delay will make no difference. But it is best—now delay is useless. This madness of sannyas is bound to happen. Tell him: the mind is already dyed—now dye the body too.

And fear is natural. But once he comes, the fear will disappear. Behind the cross is the throne—tell him that.

In sannyas, first death happens; the disciple declares his own effacement. What else is sannyas? It is the disciple’s declaration: from now on, I am no more. From now on, the master’s command will be the command. From now on, the master’s footprints will be the markers of the path. If my mind says something and it goes against the master, I shall not listen. Now only one is to be listened to—the master. To make someone more valuable than oneself—that is the meaning of seeking a master. One may deny oneself, but one cannot deny the master. Therefore only the bold, the courageous, and the gamblers can become disciples.

Tell him, come just once! I am waiting. In any case, you will have to come! The longer you delay, the more time is wasted. The more you will repent later. For those who come here and take the plunge, they then say to me, “Now we cannot believe why we didn’t come for so long; why we didn’t drown for so long; how we kept ourselves held back for so long.” Tell him just this much.

And tell him that he can already glimpse the throne hidden behind—gather a little courage. Just come here; the rest will happen by itself.

And to those friends who think they are disciples of Shivpuri Baba and are also becoming mad with love for me, but fear that taking sannyas here would be disobedience to their former master—what I am doing is the very work that Shivpuri Baba was doing. If they have become mad in love with me, it is only because what they found in Shivpuri Baba they have seen again in me. The work of any true master is never opposed to the work of another true master—it is opposed to the false, not to the true. I have an affinity with Shivpuri Baba. In this century he was among those few who attained. Tell them they will find Shivpuri Baba himself in me. Do not worry at all. There will be no disobedience. If they do not come, that will be disobedience. Recognize a little, inquire a little. Their master will be pleased, wherever he is. The likelihood is that it is Shivpuri Baba himself who has given the inner signal.

Many people are here who have come through such a signal. Many disciples of Gurdjieff have come here; they are coming on Gurdjieff’s signal. Many who belong to the Zen tradition are coming—through similar intimations. Whoever, in this life or some other, has ever been with a true master, will come.

Their holding back seems reasonable, but there is not much depth of understanding in it. Let them ask Shivpuri Baba in their prayer! And I tell them that Shivpuri Baba will consent. Not only consent—he will rejoice. The work I am doing here is the same work—and on a vast scale—which Shivpuri Baba wished to do but could not; the time was not ripe. Now the time has ripened.

Tell them that the love arising for me is the sign.

When the foot finds its place upon the darkened road,
O eyes, this glow is from the trace of a footprint.

Those who are being dyed in my words, becoming enraptured, it is only because earlier they had known and seen some luminous one. Nepal was blessed that Shivpuri Baba lived there. There are still people alive in Nepal who sat at his feet. If they are tasting sweetness in me, there is no other reason; what they had found in Shivpuri Baba, its hint has reached their ears again. The same veena has been struck again.

Tell them, I am waiting. Tell them—

Now winter’s end has drawn near—do not turn back, O sky-wanderer.
Dawn opens her door and peeps out;
outside lies a lattice of rays,
on the sky’s threshold the blush of evening lingers.
To give you way, the clouds of the sky
are being cut, are thinning, are parting—
now winter’s end has drawn near—do not turn back, O sky-wanderer.

On those bare, dry branches
where you had spent a single day,
I knew that for them
a new attire was coming to meet them.
With tender new buds
garlands of trees stand laden;
from somewhere, suddenly, the cuckoo’s trill
is about to burst forth—
now winter’s end has drawn near—do not turn back, O sky-wanderer.

Tearing the sheet of snow, there rises
again the straw-sprouting earth.
The bough of the grove goes to its tryst
with flowers and their colors.
Lotuses, emerging from the water’s bed,
are watching for someone’s steps,
and spring whispers into the ears
a message of secret meaning—
now winter’s end has drawn near—do not turn back, O sky-wanderer.

The nest is ready. Whoever wishes to dwell in this nest, let them come, and do not delay. Whoever is a seeker, let them come, and do not wait. Waiting can prove costly!

Asked by Sadhu Anand Chitt.
I had been waiting every day for when you would come! Do not worry about the pace of meditation; the moment sannyas happens, an extraordinary acceleration will come. What was obstructing sannyas was the very thing obstructing meditation—there is no difference. The same worry: will the children be able to manage the business or not? Will they manage the house or not? That same worry was the obstacle to sannyas, and that same worry is the obstacle to meditation. Meditation and sannyas are not really different. Sannyas is meditation turned outward; meditation is sannyas turned inward. They are two faces of the same coin. The day you dive into sannyas, that very day the movement in meditation will begin.
The preparation for sannyas is a sign that there is no longer any desire to go on being entangled in the anxieties of this world. The time has come—the time has in fact been overdue—you were the one delaying. Don’t worry! As for these blends of colors that seem to arise in the mind, the clouds of thought that come and go—just be a witness to them. Simply see them and know: I am separate from them, other than them. One who comes to know himself as other than thoughts will one day know himself as one-with the divine. Knowing yourself as other than thought is the way to know yourself as one-with the divine.

Do not get lost in these colors. Sometimes they can be very pleasing, very sweet, very enchanting. And there are such foolish notions in circulation that perhaps these colors and lights are great spiritual experiences! There is nothing spiritual in them. They are playthings of the mental realm, only dreams, of no value. Do not get entangled. If you do, their colors will only grow brighter; sweeter and sweeter sensations will start happening; more and more beautiful scenes will open up. Do not get lost in them. Remember the seer! No scene is of any use. Outer scenes are useless; inner scenes are useless. Outer experiences are useless; inner experiences are useless. I want to tell you—there is no such thing as a “spiritual experience.” All experience is of the world. Spirituality means: you have gone beyond experience. Spirituality means there is no longer any taste in experience; now the taste is only in the one to whom experience happens—the witness. The day all scenes are lost, all experiences disappear, and only the seer remains alone—that state is called kaivalya. That is the state of samadhi. Through sannyas we are journeying toward that very state.

Do this much, that the thirteenth of April come quickly! But there is no need to wait even for that thirteenth of April. We keep finding excuses to postpone. Today is just as auspicious as the thirteenth of April will be. Why push it fifteen more days? And who knows what may happen in fifteen days! When the urge to do something auspicious arises, do not postpone it for even a moment. And when the urge to do something inauspicious arises, postpone it as long as you can. But we do not do this; we do just the opposite. When anger arises, we act immediately; when love arises we say, “Tomorrow.” If we want to abuse someone, we do it right now; if we need to ask forgiveness, we say, “I’ll think about it.”

If you want to do something bad, wait—because whatever you delay in doing may never happen at all. As time passes, its charge will diminish. If you want to do something auspicious, do it instantly—who knows, with delay its force may fade?

Right now Anand Chitt is here, immersed in a certain mood; now he will return home…and now he says, “By your grace, everything is going well.” My grace has no hand in it, because I don’t run anyone’s business! In fifteen days the business might not go well; some obstacle may arise; a bank might fail; someone may take a loan and not return it—a thousand hassles are possible. Now you are leaving it to me! I want to get you out of these entanglements, and you want to drag me into them!

A lot can happen in fifteen days—anything can happen. In fifteen days the whole world can turn upside down. Don’t trust even fifteen seconds. And now what do we have to do with your old birthday? Sannyas will be your new birthday—the real birthday. Sixty-one years ago your body was born; I am ready to give birth to your soul—and you say, “Wait fifteen days”!

Whenever the impulse to do the auspicious arises, do it at once. The human mind is very weak.

Mark Twain wrote in his memoirs: I went to church one day, and the preacher’s sermon was marvelous. Ten minutes in, I felt, “I’ve never heard anything like this.” I felt my pocket—there was a hundred-dollar bill. The feeling arose: I’ll donate the full hundred today. I had never donated to the church before, but that day the feeling was strong—the speech was so moving!

But after half an hour he felt, “Not that much—not a hundred. A hundred is a lot. Money doesn’t come for free.” A thousand thoughts arose. In fact, because of the hundred-dollar idea he stopped listening to the sermon at all. His mind wandered: “A hundred dollars? Is this a joke? What does this fellow think?” And thus his connection to the sermon broke. Midway he thought, “No, a hundred is too much. Ten dollars will do.” He felt a bit relieved.

But after ten more minutes he thought, “Ten dollars! You work a week to earn ten dollars. And what is this man really doing? Just rhetoric! Words, words, words—what else?” He looked closely: “Is there anything to this man?” He didn’t see anything—because if he saw anything, he’d have to part with ten dollars. So he thought, “One dollar is plenty. Who gives even that? Look at all these people—no one will put in a full dollar. Some will throw in a few cents.” When the collection plate goes around, who puts in a full coin? “One will be enough.” Now he felt a little more at ease.

But the mind that brought him from a hundred to ten, and from ten to one, is not so easily satisfied! By the end of the sermon he thought, “I haven’t promised anyone I’ll give even one! It was just my inner notion, a passing wave. Is there any compulsion to give?” And then he said, “I won’t give anything. No need to give at all. These freeloaders! This church and all this—it’s all exploitation!” Big thoughts started arising: “It’s all exploitation.” Marx said religion is the opium of the masses. And he repeated every atheistic maxim he knew—all because of that one dollar; otherwise that one dollar would have slipped from his hand! And then he wrote in his memoirs: I left before the sermon ended, because I was afraid that by the time the plate came around I might take something out of it—“If the river is flowing, why not wash your hands in it!”

Such is the human mind. Such is all our minds. This is the mind’s nature: it keeps you from moving toward anything that threatens the mind itself. Sannyas is a danger; meditation is a danger—because these are the mind’s suicides, the ways to go beyond the mind.

So I say, Anand Chitt, do not wait. What is this thirteenth of April! After April 1 people start getting made into fools. On April 1 the situation is bad enough; by the thirteenth it is thirteenfold. Settle it before April!

There is no veil on that door; the veil is on your eyes. The notion that there is a veil on that door is your mind’s delusion—and the mind’s trick. For then the matter slips out of your hands: “There is a veil on His door. When He lifts it, it will be lifted. Nothing can be done by me.” In this way you have protected yourself.

I want to tell you: I do not want to leave you any place to escape, any device by which you can avoid. I tell you, the veil is on your eyes. The sun has risen, and you stand there with your eyes closed. Then you say, “O Lord, when will the veil be removed from the sun?”

If there is no veil, how will it be lifted? And since there is no veil, it will not be lifted—you will sit waiting for the veil to rise so you can see the sun. But it is only a matter of slightly raising your eyelids: there is no veil anywhere. The eyelid itself is the veil. These lids upon your eyes—that is the veil.

So first remember: the Divine is not hidden; the Divine is manifest. You are hidden! You sit with a veil drawn over your face. Remove the veil. Open the curtain of the veil!

Yesterday I was reading a poet’s lines—
“There, the veil does not tremble in the least;
here, at my side, only the heart is quivering.”
Let it quiver! There is no veil there—how could it flutter?

The veil is upon our eyes. God is present. He has surrounded you on all sides at this very moment. Do you hear the birds singing? It is He who calls in that. Do you hear the hush of the trees? There He stands, silent. Do you see the rays of the sun? Do you see these people sitting beside you so quiet, so blissful? There He sits. Everywhere, only He is. The veil is on the eyes—and it is nothing big, only two eyelids. Just open your eyes.

You ask: “Will this thirst ever end...”

Not until you are gone. Until the devotee is gone, the thirst does not end. When the devotee vanishes, the thirst ends. The devotee gone—contentment. The devotee gone—God: supreme devotion. If you want to remain and yet know the Divine, the end will never come. No human being has ever known God while saving himself. One knows by losing oneself; that is the price to be paid.

Our cleverness would like it otherwise: “If only there were some trick to know and yet keep oneself safe—sweets in both hands.” It cannot be. It is against the law. You must disappear for God to be. You certainly want to end the thirst, but you do not want to end the thirsty one. You say, “If the thirsty one himself is gone, then what is the point? How will we know whether the thirst has ended? If we ourselves are gone, where is the joy in finding God?” You say, “Let me remain and let You remain—arrange something like that.” It cannot happen. The lane of love is extremely narrow; two do not fit there.

“Will this thirst ever end...”
The day you end, that very day it will end.

“...that has driven me mad? that has pierced my life like a thorn? that burns every moment in my chest like a flame? Will this thirst ever end?”
Only with your ending! It is a disease of such a kind that only when the patient dies will it be cured. Understand this well. Ordinarily, when we are ill, we try to save the patient and cure the disease. This is no ordinary illness: here the patient must die for the malady to go. In truth, the very being of the patient is the disease. It is not that the disease is separate from the patient; the patient is the disease. You go—take your leave, set like the sun. The moment you set, the Divine will be revealed. There will be sunrise. As long as you are, there will be pain. That thorn will keep pricking—badly.

And it is certain that the thirst within you is deepening. The fire will flare higher; the flames will leap; you will burn. And my whole device here is just this: to inflame your thirst—to inflame it so much that in the thirst the thirsty one drowns and is finished. To fan your fire, the fire of longing, until the lover himself burns in that fire and becomes ash. Upon your ashes the temple of God is raised.

This thirst can be quenched. This flame can be stilled. This longing has an end. Union happens. And for that union we are all searching—some in the right way, some in the wrong.

And let me remind you of the final mistake. The final mistake is that the seeker wants to save himself. Kabir has said:
“Searching and searching, O friend, Kabir was lost;
the drop merged into the ocean—where could it be sought again?”

The day you find God, you will never find yourself again.
“The drop merged into the ocean—where could it be sought again?”

Not only that—Kabir later made a slight correction in this saying, which is incomparable. He said:
“Searching and searching, O friend, Kabir was lost;
the ocean merged into the drop—where could it be sought again?”

At first it seems only this: the drop fell into the ocean—how can it be found again? But later an even greater event is known: the ocean falls into the drop. Now it becomes even more impossible to search. The vast has entered the tiny; the ocean has entered the drop. There remains no place left to seek. The truth is, neither does the drop fall into the ocean nor the ocean into the drop—each falls into the other. Neither the ocean remains then, nor the drop remains. Something remains that is unmanifest, invisible, inexpressible, incommunicable.

It was into that ineffable that our inquiry set out. One search has been completed—the intellectual search. Now begin the second search—the existential. There, you must vanish, you must move, you must come to an end. Religion belongs only to those who consent to die; God is found only by those who consent to disappear.

Athato bhakti-jijñāsā!
Enough for today.