Athato Bhakti Jigyasa #8

Because of the religions themselves. The quarrels among religions are so many, their mutual grabbing so much, their hatred for one another so great that religion is no longer religion. Only those can revere them whose intelligence is next to none. Now only dullards are found in temples and mosques. Whoever has even a little capacity to think has long since taken leave from there. For anyone who can reflect even a little will see that what goes on in the name of religion is not religion—it is politics; it is something else.

When Jesus walked the earth, religion walked; when the Pope walks, it is not religion that walks, something else does. When Buddha walked, religion walked; now there are pundits, priests, ritualists—they walk. In their gait there is no benediction. In their speech there is no fragrance of experience. In their personality no lotus has blossomed—the very symbol of religion. Their hearts are closed and filled with as much soot as anyone else’s, perhaps a little more.

In the name of religion there is enmity, jealousy, violence, bloodshed. Mosques and temples have caused so much fighting that even if someone wants to trust, how can he? And scriptures—if not today then tomorrow—become false. Truth resides in the master, not in the scriptures. Truth is in Buddha, not in the Dhammapada; in Mohammed, not in the Koran—even though the Koran was born from Mohammed. So long as the Koran was on Mohammed’s lips, it carried Mohammed’s breath; his life-energy was reflected in it. The moment the words left Mohammed’s lips, they became dead; cut off from the source, they turned into something else. Then it fell into your hands, and you gave it the meaning you could give. How will you give the meaning Mohammed wanted to give? Without being Mohammed that meaning cannot be given. That meaning is in Mohammed’s being. You gave your meanings. Your meanings are useless. There can be no benefit—harm is certain.

Anatole France has a famous saying: if a monkey looks into a mirror, he will find a monkey.

Mulla Nasruddin was passing along a road. He found a mirror lying there. He had never seen a mirror. He picked it up and saw a picture—his own. He had never seen his own picture. He thought, “This must be my father’s portrait.” He had seen his father, though his father had died long ago. He thought, “But this is too much—I never imagined he was such a colorful type that he would have his portrait made!” He wiped it carefully and took it home, hid it in a trunk. The wife watched quietly—as wives do—to see what he was up to! She became suspicious—something is fishy. When Nasruddin went out, she opened the trunk, took out the picture, looked—and her own face appeared. She said, “Ah, so it’s this crabby one he is crazy about!” She too had never seen her picture.

In a mirror you see only what you are. In scriptures too you see only what you are. The scripture belongs to whoever holds it. While it was in Mohammed’s hands, it was the Koran; once in your hands, it becomes something else. And then it keeps passing down through your hands. Thousands of years pass, from one hand to another—and it keeps getting dirtier. Books become dirty.

Remember: in this world everything is born and everything dies. Religion is eternal. But which religion? That which holds life—that is eternal. When Buddha spoke, he spoke of the eternal; but the moment it was bound in thought, the eternal descended into time. And within time nothing can be eternal. Within time, whatever is born will die. There will be a birthday, and death will also come. When a truth is shaped into words, the first response people give is opposition. Why? Because it goes against their old accepted books. Even if not directly against, it at least appears different. People oppose.

Truth is first welcomed with opposition—with stones and with insults. Truth first appears like rebellion, dangerous. Truth has to be crucified many times before it is accepted. But while it is being crucified, time passes, and the message truth brought has already faded. By the time you accept truth, it is no longer truth. You take so long to accept it; you waste so much time in fighting, quarreling, in controversy, that by then much dust has settled on truth. You accept only when dust has settled—because then truth begins to look like your scriptures. Your scriptures too are covered with much dust.

When Buddha spoke for the first time, those who believed in the Gita opposed, those who believed in the Vedas opposed; Buddha appeared like an enemy, a destroyer. Then slowly, dust collected on Buddha’s words too; the Dhammapada gathered dust. When a crust of dust has collected on the Dhammapada—dust is dust, it is all alike—what does it matter what lies buried beneath: the Veda, the Dhammapada or the Koran? When the layer of dust becomes thick, your mind is satisfied: “Now it’s alright; now it feels like our scripture.”

A man knocked on a door. He had come to sell some books. He said to the lady of the house, “This is the newest dictionary—please buy it; it will help the children, and it’s useful for adults too.” The lady wanted to get rid of him. She said, “What will we do with a dictionary? There’s a dictionary on the table; we already have one, thank you!” But he was a seasoned fellow. He said, “What’s on the table is not a dictionary—it’s a Bible.” The woman was astonished: the table was far off in a corner; from that distance it couldn’t be seen clearly that it might be a Bible. “How did you know?” she asked. He said, “From the dust. People still leaf through a dictionary; who opens the Bible?”

When the dust of time settles on scriptures, when scripture becomes tradition, when scripture stops giving birth to truth and becomes truth’s tomb, then you accept it—this is precisely why you accept it. Tombs are all alike. What difference is there between tombs? Living men are different. In tombs only the name differs, written on the stone. That is the only difference. When the Dhammapada becomes a tomb, there is no difference between it and the tomb of the Gita and the Koran and the Veda. Then you welcome it. You welcome the old.

Truth is truth when it is new. The newer it is, the truer it is—because it has just come fresh from God. As the Ganges is crystal pure at Gangotri, by the time it reaches Kashi it is no longer so—though it is to Kashi that you go to worship! By Kashi it has become very dirty; many streams have joined it, many meanings have mixed with it, who knows how many corpses have been floated down. By the time it reaches Kashi the Ganges has become impure, however pure it may have been at Gangotri. It is like rain: so long as a drop has not touched the earth, it is supremely pure; the moment it touches the earth, it turns to mud, becomes one with the mud.

When Buddha knows—or Shandilya knows—when in their samadhi the Divine flashes, then it is like a drop moving from the sky towards the earth—not yet arrived. When Shandilya speaks, the earth’s dust begins to mix. Words belong to earth; truth belongs to the sky. Then you hear; the mirror is in your hands; and in it what you see is your own face. Gradually, layer upon layer of dust accumulates. When there is enough dust—this very dust is what we call tradition. Does truth have any tradition? Truth has no tradition. Does truth have a sect? Truth has no sect. But when truth becomes a sect—meaning it has died, rotted, decayed, become a corpse—then you clasp it to your chest. Your love for corpses is so deep; you kill the living man and then you love him.

So first truth descends as rebellion. When truth begins to die, gradually some people accept it. When it is utterly dead, everyone accepts it. Then truth becomes belief.

Then there is a further fall. This is when, around Buddha, people hear, oppose, accept. Then two-and-a-half thousand years pass. One generation hands it to the next. Those who had heard from Buddha, or at least seen him—some hint of truth must have reached their ears; some touch of Buddha’s presence must have touched them; some color of Buddha must have fallen upon their souls—however slight, it fell. Then their sons and their sons’ sons believe because the fathers believed, the forefathers believed, people have always believed—and then belief becomes blind belief. What you call religions are superstitions. They should have been bid farewell long ago.

New editions of truth descend from the sky every day. A new Koran descends every day. God has not grown tired, has not exhausted Himself with Mohammed. Jesus is not God’s only son—as Christians say, the only begotten. Nor did God come to an end with twenty-four Tirthankaras. Thousands of Buddhas have been, thousands will continue to be. God has been coming every day, will continue to come every day. But only if you are freed from the God of the past will you be able to understand the new. You have piled up so many old idols—of Rama, Krishna, Buddha—that when a new edition of God comes you have difficulty: there is no space; where to place it? And only in the new can reverence arise, because only in the new is the spark. If that spark falls into you, it can ignite the sacrificial fire of your life. You are worshipping ashes; how can reverence arise for the spark? Worshipping ashes, you too become bored; nothing happens; then faith is lost.

You ask: “Why has human faith in religion waned?”

Because of the religions. Otherwise, I have not seen a human being who, in some way, knowingly or unknowingly, is not seeking religion. Such a human being does not exist. The search for religion is intrinsic to man. It is natural. As every person feels hunger and thirst, and the longing for love, so too every person feels the longing for the Divine—whatever names you give it.

A young man came to me a few days ago and said, “I have no interest in God; I’ve come here to find bliss.” I said, “You are a fool; you have simply given God the name ‘bliss.’ Bliss will do. It is only a difference of name. Call it bliss.” From the beginning the seers of the Upanishads have said: sat-chit-ananda—being, consciousness, bliss. Fine, you say “bliss.” Someone says “sat,” someone says “chit,” someone links all three together. Give it whatever name you wish.

Someone comes and says, “I am searching for peace.” Then call it peace. The search is for God. The search is for the ultimate. The search is for that which holds everything together. The search is for that from which we have come and into which we have to go. The search is for that which, if found, brings meaning into life—fragrance, dance, celebration. That very thing is what I call God. That principle is God whose coming breaks the darkness in life and brings light; whose coming cuts the melancholy, removes the fatigue, and you are rejuvenated. That is the name of that which, once it arrives, there is no more death; only the immortal happens. Did not Shandilya say that the one who becomes one with That attains to the immortal?

Have you seen anyone who does not want the nectar of immortality? Who does not want to live even beyond death—that death may come and I may not die? Have you seen anyone in whom there is not a powerful longing to be related with the Eternal? Such a person does not exist.

So faith cannot be lost in religion itself, but it is lost in the religions. And it is good that it is lost. Let me remind you: those whose faith has dropped in the religions are the very ones who can be truly religious. As I see it, only an atheist can become a theist. Those who remain entangled in false theism never become truly theistic. False theism is the real enemy of theism, not atheism. The atheist says, “I have not seen—how can I believe?” That is honesty. “I have not seen—how can I believe? If I see, I will believe.” The atheist says, “Show me, then I will believe. If I encounter God, of course I will accept.” What is wrong in this? There is a fearless tone, courage, a readiness for inquiry. In fact, those who want to avoid the search say, “Whether He is or not, what have we to do with it? Why bother! You say He is—then He must be, surely.” This is a device for avoiding, not for attaining.

In temples and mosques you will find pseudo-religious people. The truly religious have long since lost faith in temples and mosques. The truly religious seek a Buddha, a Shandilya, a Narada; they seek Krishna, Christ, Mohammed. The truly religious do not seek scholars and priests in temples and mosques. Those who themselves know nothing—how will they make others know? In whose lives there is not even a ray, whose lamps are themselves extinguished—if you go to them, how will your lamp receive flame? The truly religious seek a living master, not a doctrine. One must find someone who can connect you—someone who has known—through whom a bridge can be made.

But temples and mosques come to you through tradition; priests and pundits come to you through tradition. You are not even aware that you never chose them. They come to you unchosen. The child is not yet born and we run to take him: “Let’s get him baptized”; “Let’s have him circumcised”; “Let’s put the sacred thread on him”—off we go! The child knows nothing yet; we have not even asked him. And those to whom we are taking him—we too were taken to them in the same way; we have not known either. The father who is taking his child toward the church—if he himself has come to know in the church, fine—then it’s perfectly alright. He went to the church and came to know; he tasted the joy of life, the juice flowed; he wants his son to share in it. But he too has not known; his father took him; his father too had not known. No one can remember when anyone back there ever knew. The blind are leading the blind. “The blind push the blind, and both fall into the well,” says Nanak.

You became a Christian—this was not your choice. You became a Hindu—this was not your choice. How can there be faith in you? What stake have you put at risk for this faith? What price have you paid?

The person who went to Jesus and became his follower had paid a price; he had risked danger. Jesus was crucified; the lives of those who walked with him were equally in danger. Some price has to be paid. The one who walked with Buddha had to endure great humiliation.

That will happen. This much price will have to be paid. The Divine is not obtained for free. And is this even a price! One job goes, another will come. And if it doesn’t, so what? If, on the path to the divine, you must live without a job, it is better; if you must beg, it is better. Lose God, and even if you become an emperor, you are a beggar. Attain God, and even if you remain a beggar, there is no emperor like you. But we are frightened by little things.

This fear will not last long. Soon there will be many ochre-clad sannyasins, and this fear will end. But then the essence will be gone too. The essence is now. Now, those who are ready to walk with me will see transformation in their lives. A hundred years from now many will be ready to walk, but by then dust will have settled on the scriptures; by then the living word will have been lost; you will have made it in your own way. Wake up before that.

Therefore I say: those who are religious, or at least eager to become religious, their reverence gets withdrawn from religions. Only theirs does, because they are not satisfied. If someone is thirsty and you show him a picture of water—a beautiful lake covered by green trees, ducks floating—show him a lovely picture, he will flare up. He will say, I am thirsty; don’t show me pictures! One who is not thirsty will be very pleased; he will say, Beautiful picture—I will have it framed and hang it in my house; it is so lovely, so sweet. That is how it is with water. If it is pretty, you bring it home. Great kindness! If someone is hungry and you give him a cookbook, saying, Everything is here, all the methods for preparing food are written, he will hit you on the head with the book; he will say, I am hungry—what will I do with a cookbook? The one in whom the thirst for God has arisen is the one who gets frightened of your temples and mosques; he is the one who gets fed up with your priests’ babble; he is the one who tires of their futile polemics and pointless doctrinal hairsplitting; he turns his back; he is the so‑called atheist, the one you call irreverent. But as I see it, he has set out toward the source of reverence; his search has begun.

This one hidden fire of longing is all the wealth I own—
Friends, to whom shall I offer this secret ache?
No slayer shows his face upon the killing‑field;
To whom shall I offer my heart, to whom my life?
You too are my beloved, you too are my heart’s dear one—
Yet intimate with me you are not, you are not.
Your messiah‑like self‑doctoring is exhausted upon you;
You too are not the balm for the heart’s pain—you are not, you are not.
To hoist one’s own corpse is no easy task;
My hands and arms are growing useless.
Those prostrations that in every age lit up your threshold—
Today those very prostrations have turned vagabond.
The destination was far, but not all that far;
Yet along the very road a wild dread kept circling me.
Never did I suffer such a wound that spring would arrive—
Never did I suffer such a wound that spring would arrive.
The passion for martyrdom carried me as far as the gallows;
When my feet broke on the way, then I knew:
Apart from me there is no guide of mine—none.
One god after another kept coming along;
At last, weary, reason said: There is no God.

Where there is thirst in the heart there is a wound, a gash. That wound does not heal with the bandages and balms of pundits and priests; it does not heal with false consolations. The pus only collects, and time is wasted. The one who bears a wound within will not be satisfied without meeting the divine. He will sweep away all idols from in between. He alone is the idol‑breaker. He will remove all doctrines and scriptures and set out on the quest. He cannot settle for anything less than God.

“Never did I suffer such a wound that spring would arrive.”
The sadness is that thousands sit in temples and mosques and in their hearts there is no wound. Otherwise spring would have come long ago. If there is thirst, water is found. It will be found, because search begins. If there is no thirst, even if water flows right before your eyes you will not see it.

We see only that for which there is aspiration and longing. God stands all around—within these green trees, within these people, within the moon and stars of the sky—but we do not see. We have no longing. We see only what we want.

Have you noticed, when you go to the market, on the day you go to buy a particular thing, only those shops catch your eye. One day you go to buy sweets and you are astonished—so many sweet shops in this bazaar! You hadn’t seen them before! That day the silver and gold shops do not appear to you; you have nothing to do with them. Another day you go to buy silver or gold and you are astonished—so many shops! That day the sweet shops vanish, fade out. What you set out to buy is what you see.

Those who sit in temples and mosques are people who have not set out to “buy” God. They sit amidst false consolations. Otherwise a person sets out in search of a true master.

“Yet along the very road a wild dread kept circling me.
Never did I suffer such a wound that spring would arrive.
The passion for martyrdom carried me as far as the gallows;
When my feet broke on the way, then I knew:
Apart from me there is no guide of mine—none.”
None but you can save you. None but you can carry you to God. The awakened ones point the way; you must do the walking.

“Apart from me there is no guide of mine—none.”
Other than me, there is no guide of mine at all. This is known the day true thirst arises, when you set out in search and sweep away all the false things from the path.

“One god after another kept coming along;
At last, weary, reason said: There is no God.”
So many temples and mosques! So many idols! So many scriptures! So many doctrines! Such a tangle!
“At last, weary, reason said: There is no God.”

You ask: Why has reverence withdrawn from religion? Why has faith receded?
Because if there is religion, it can be only one. Science is one; therefore there is trust in science. Imagine you heard that there are many sciences—Hindu science, Muslim science, Christian science—and that each began to say different things; then faith in science too would vanish. Why is there so much trust in science? Because science is universal, one. Whether a Christian discovers it, or a Hindu, or a Muslim—it makes no difference. A scientific principle is neither Hindu, nor Muslim, nor Christian; it is simply scientific.

This is what I wish to say to you: a principle of religion is simply religious; whether Buddha says it, Shandilya says it, Krishna says it—who says it makes no difference. A principle of religion is religious just as a principle of science is scientific. Religion is even more universal. Science has a limit, for it ends with matter. Religion is boundless, for it leads into the soul, into the divine. Let religion be freed from narrow enclosures; trust will return.

As it stands, those whose “faith” has no value are the ones who have faith; and those whose faith could have some worth have no faith at all. The situation is strange. Corpses sit in temples; the living fled long ago. And only those living people could have made your temples alive. But the endless rows of your temples are intimidating; the intellect gets weary.

People think that faith has receded from religion because atheism has increased in the world. They think wrong. Because communism has grown. They think wrong. Because the influence of science has destroyed trust in people’s minds. They think wrong. Faith in religion has receded because of the deep hypocrisy being carried on in the name of religion, because of the superstitions being paraded in the name of religion. Religion has committed suicide; therefore trust has withdrawn.

But the search does not die. The search is not impeded by temples and mosques; the search goes on. The seekers keep seeking; no one ever manages to stop them. They remain absorbed in their quest. The names may change; it may be that one hesitates to call God “God,” because so many wrong associations have become attached to the word “God.” Say bliss, say meditation, say samadhi, say love—coin some new names; it makes no difference. But one thing is certain: man is in darkness and longs for light; man is encircled by death and wants the taste of the deathless; man is in great sorrow and wants the celebration of joy. That trust is unbroken. That trust is what I call religious trust. It has never been destroyed, nor will it ever be. What perishes, what can perish, is not that trust. Call yourself an unbeliever if you wish, yet within you the search for these three goes on—beyond darkness, beyond sorrow, beyond death there is something, there must be something. Beyond the veil something surely is. Otherwise whence comes so much life? How does it come? And how harmoniously life moves! There must be a thread that holds all together. It is not seen, true.

You wear a garland around your neck: the beads are visible, but the thread that holds them all is not seen. That very thread-bearer is God. Such an immense orchestration is going on—something must be holding all together; otherwise these beads would have scattered long ago, all this would have collapsed. There is no chaos; there is a deep coherence, a music. That music is the proof of God. Logical arguments are not proofs of God; this very arrangement of life is the proof.

The search for that has always been and will always be. The names of the search change, but the search continues. It appears in many forms. This century is a mature century. It is not like the old centuries where someone spoke and it was believed. It is not a childish century. Man has come of age; he will not believe just anything—he will accept only what he tests on the touchstone and finds true. This is a fortunate hour. Hypocrisy will not last long now in the world. This disbelief, this non‑faith, is good; it is a blessing, an auspicious sign, an auspicious moment. I call it auspicious because in the fire of this non‑faith all the webs of hypocrisy will burn away, religion will emerge new, and then the sun will rise—fresh. For a long time we amused ourselves with pictures of the sun; now they no longer amuse—now the real sun is needed; hence the disbelief.

So do not become despondent because of it. Make this non‑faith a step. Climbing this very step, true faith has always come and always comes. There is no other way. Only by passing through the night of non‑faith does the morning of faith arise. And remember: when the night is very, very dark, then the morning is very near.

The devotee’s vision is more generous than the vision of the knower and the yogi. Because the source of devotion is the heart. The heart is vast; it can include even what is opposed to it. The heart does not worry about coherence; the heart cares about music. Jnana and yoga are not the ways of the heart; they are the ways of the intellect. The intellect is very narrow. The intellect chooses. Then the intellect worries about coherence, not about music—there must be logical consistency.

So in Mahavira’s utterances there can be no room for devotion. His is the path of pure thought: samyak jnana, right knowledge. There only what exactly suits knowledge will be accepted. Knowledge selects, sifts; it is orderly; it has a blueprint. The devotee is not so narrow. He does not get flustered by a little inconsistency. The logician, the philosopher, is consistent—but the poet is inconsistent.

America’s great poet Whitman was asked, “There are great inconsistencies, contradictions in your poems.” Do you know what Whitman said? He said, “Yes, there are—because I am large, because I am vast, and I assimilate contradictions.”

No logician can say, “I assimilate contradictions; there is room in me for both day and night.” Only a poet can say that. And bhakti is the poet’s path, the path of the heart. Devotion is poetry.

In poetry you don’t seek logical consistency; you seek music. You must have noticed: when you call a poem beautiful you mean it has great grace, great rhythm, great rasa, great music; it is a poem you can hum, it is singable. In poetry you don’t worry about true or false; you care about music. But in mathematics you don’t care about music; you worry whether it is right or wrong, consistent or inconsistent.

The paths of thought are loyal to logic; their allegiance is to reason. The path of feeling is not loyal to logic; it is nonlogical, transrational. That is why Shandilya can so simply say that knowledge too is a helper and yoga too is a preparation. A jnani will not be able to say it so simply, nor will a yogi; their scope will be narrower. The head is small—much smaller than the heart.

That is why those who live in the head become small; the skull becomes their whole world. The heart is like the open sky; the skull is the courtyard of your house. Or understand it this way: the skull is like a little garden you have planted—clean, trimmed, a lawn, flowerbeds, everything in symmetry and balance: a bed here, a bed there; a gate here, a gate there. But devotion is like a forest, not a garden, not a garden made by man. In a forest everything is there. If you go seeking symmetry you won’t find it. Where a tree will sprout—no one can say. You cannot decree that these two trees should be opposite each other so they look good. It will all be forest! Man makes arrangement; in the forest there is freedom, not arrangement. In devotion there is a freedom; knowledge is not so free.

Blessed are those who put their feet into devotion, who descend into devotion. Those who cannot will have to choose some narrower path. Bhakti is a great highway; it includes all. Because devotion is love. Love is its basic element. In knowledge that element of love is not there. Love connects; it even connects opposites. In truth, love connects only opposites. That is why a man falls in love with a woman and a woman with a man—they are opposites. The greater the polarity, the denser the love.

In the West, love between men and women is diminishing. Why? Because men and women are becoming alike; their dissimilarity is disappearing, so the flavor is being lost. The man wears such clothes, the woman wears such clothes; the man smokes, the woman smokes; the man works in an office, the woman works in an office—the woman’s whole effort is to be exactly like the man. Therefore the Western woman is becoming a little less feminine; her feminine element is decreasing. And as it decreases, the man’s relish in her is decreasing. The Eastern woman has more of the feminine element, and so she is more attractive; there is more otherness from the man. In difference there is flavor.

The element of love unites the opposites—the more opposite they are, the more deeply it unites. The greater the polarity, the greater the challenge for love to unite. The element by which God has bound this world together is called love. Because there are great contradictions in existence, yet all is joined. Day and night are joined, darkness and light are joined, death and life are joined—an extraordinary union. Only love can effect such a union. It is love alone that can bind the opposites.

If you ask the devotees, they will say: this whole existence is held together, bound, by the element of love. Otherwise it would collapse; everything would be uprooted, everything would break. There is great attraction in the opposite.

So Shandilya, since he is a teacher of love, has included yoga as well and knowledge as well. He should! This proves that he must have known love. If he had not known love, such a statement would not be possible.

Ask a jnani—ask Krishnamurti. Krishnamurti is pure knowledge; there is not even a trace of the element of love there. Ask him what he thinks of the devotee. He will say, “All is a web of imagination—nothing more, a play of the mind! One has to be free of devotion; one cannot take the help of devotion. Devotion is an obstacle, a bondage; that is exactly where the entanglement is.” Ask Patanjali. For the element of love there remains no place, because the entire accounting is mathematical. Why bring love in? Bringing love only creates complications.

The scientist too does not bring love in. Listen to what a scientist says: if you want to observe truth, be impartial, be neutral; do not be moved by feeling, otherwise your emotion will shake your perception of truth. When a scientist observes in the laboratory he isolates himself completely; he stands detached. A poet does not stand like that. When a poet sees a blooming rose he is filled with joy, overwhelmed with feeling; he begins to dance, to hum; waves arise within. When a botanist looks at the same rose, he neither hums nor dances—if he were to dance and hum it would prove he is not a botanist, not a scientist. Scientist means: keep yourself completely at a distance; do not put yourself in between—otherwise what you put in between will itself prevent you from knowing the truth.

Do you see the difference?

The poet says: if you do not join yourself to the flower, how will you know it? If you remain far, remain neutral, keep yourself protected; the flower is not allowed entry into your heart, nor are you allowed entry into the flower—no connection is made, no embrace happens; you did not dance with the flower, did not become intoxicated in the flower’s wave—then how will you know the flower? The flower will not open its heart before you; it will not lift its veil. If you stand far off, the flower too will remain far—this the poet says. You move, and the flower will move. You come near, and the flower will come near. You take one step, and the flower will take one step. If you stand stiff, saying, “I am detached,” then the flower too will remain detached; the veil will remain drawn. The flower will not open its heart to you, will not reveal its secret. Then what you know will be futile, superficial, peripheral; there will be no essence in it, no soul in it—the flower’s being will remain unknown. Therefore the poet says: however much the scientist may know the world, his knowing is outer, outer.

As if someone were to come to a royal palace and, circling only the outer walls, inspecting them, go away—never entering within. And the palace is within. The outer walls are not the palace; they are where the palace ends. The palace is within; the beauty of the palace is within; the lord of the palace is within, the lady is within, the whole secret of the palace is within. Looking at the outer walls and going away, you may carry some information, some pictures—they will indeed be of the palace, but from outside. And there is a great difference between outside and inside.

Science wanders on the outside. Logic and mathematics remain on the outside. Love takes a leap. Love is not neutral; love immerses itself, it dives. Knowledge swims; love dives. So knowledge can swim very well; it can travel far and wide. But it cannot reach depth.

And remember: one who has known depth will accept the surface as well, because he knows the outside too is part of the inside. But one who has known only the outside will not accept the inside, because he has not known it—how can he accept it?

The path of knowledge is narrow; the path of devotion is vast. If you can be joined with the devotees, then worry about no one else. If, unfortunately, you cannot, then seek some other path. If prayer can happen, if love can happen, do not miss it; because it is the easiest, the most natural. Affection is already within you, a little love too is within you, a little trust too is within you—polish these a little, and they will become love. And the ultimate culmination of love is devotion.

On the path of devotion you already have some capital; you are not a total beggar. You have something—you will need to refine it, to cleanse it a little, certainly—but you have something. On the path of knowledge you have nothing; there you will have to begin from the ABC. The path of knowledge is man’s search, and the path of devotion is God’s grace. It has already been given to you.

Only the devotee quarrels! Who else would? Only the devotee can quarrel! Who else has such strength? A devotee knows no fear. Where is there fear in love?

That is why I say: Tulsidas’s statement is wrong when he said, “Without fear there is no love.” Tulsidas did not know love. Where there is fear, how can there be love? And whatever arises out of fear will be something else—it is not love. Someone stands over you with a stick and says, “Love me!” You will obey because you see the stick—otherwise he’ll crack your skull. A mother says to her son, “Love me, I am your mother! Otherwise I won’t give you milk; you will starve.” The son thinks, “I’ll have to love.” This “love” is born of fear. A father says, “Love me, I am your father!” In this world, the loves you have are born of fear. In that respect Tulsidas is right. But are these loves truly love? They are hypocrisy—hollow words, forcibly worn. There is no truth in them, no authenticity. Real love is not born of fear; where love is, fear is not. They do not coexist.

So a devotee does fight; when needed, he fights. He can fight. Lovers fight. Fighting does not destroy love; it intensifies it. If love is destroyed by a quarrel, know it was weak—no love at all. Good that it ended. The love that, after every quarrel, grows deeper—that is love. After each fight a new rung opens to love. A devotee fights a great deal. There are reasons to fight; his fighting is not without cause.

The night slips by on tiptoe,
the night is silent—neither weeping nor laughing.
A blue glass dome is there—and it blows away.
Some empty, empty barge drifts past.
In the moonbeams there isn’t even the usual silk;
a smooth lump of moon is melting away,
and a dust of silence is rising.
If only once, waking from your sleep,
you too would look upon the nights of separation—what would happen then?

A lover fights, a devotee fights—the essence of their quarrel is the same. The devotee says: I am sunk in such pain, such separation—if only separation would sting you too, you would understand!

If only once, waking from your sleep,
you too would look upon the nights of separation—what would happen then?

Do you know how much I am weeping? the devotee says. Do you know how many tears I have shed? Do you hear—or are you deaf? Do tidings reach you or not? Perhaps you have never known separation at all!

Again the same night, the same pain, the same ache of sorrow.
Again that very pain has lit a sandalwood fire in my chest.
Again the magical anklets of memories begin to ring.
Wearing milky moonlight, a grape-sweet body,
and a voice carrying melted silver—
someone comes by unknown paths.
Carved idols of marble awaken,
carved idols of marble begin to speak.
Tonight again—the same night of the pain of solitude.
Perhaps the pain of loneliness you do not know.
If only, just once, you too had to bear this trouble!

So the devotee has reasons to fight—reasons for displeasure. Yet in his quarrel there is great sweetness. His quarrel is a mode of prayer. Let me repeat: the devotee’s fight is a form of his devotion; it is his worship. His complaint, his lament—these are his prayer. Do not think he speaks out of enmity. These words rise from great love, from very deep love. They arise from the aching urgency for union. And many times the desert of the search grows so long, while a human being’s capacity is so small, that the devotee, exasperated, begins to cry out: After all—when? When will the union be? How long must I keep going? My feet are breaking! I can no longer carry this burden! The road seems endless, the path keeps stretching on, the night grows longer and longer; no message of morning comes, no ray seems to break—how long? how long?

But behind all this complaint there is thirst, there is haste, there is deep longing—and great sweetness.

Whenever Friedrich Nietzsche says something, it is worth considering. He was a man of great depth—he could have become a Buddha, a Shandilya; he had that caliber. But in the West he did not find the path. As I say, atheism is the first step; Nietzsche was a great atheist. The first step was complete. The second did not happen; otherwise a great theist would have been born.

So whenever Nietzsche speaks, he speaks deeply—always remember that. But his statement is incomplete, because he took only the first step, not the second. It is deep, yet unfinished. It is deep and right for a long stretch, but not right all the way.

This statement—that the sannyasin practices a subtle violence, that from his height he makes ordinary people feel low and mean, oppresses them with guilt, that this violence is the very motive of his renunciation—there is truth in it. Not the whole truth, but truth. It is half the story. There is this much truth in it because man’s ego is very subtle. A person stuffs his ego with wealth—and also with austerity and renunciation. If Nietzsche says it, he says it after observing. You can see, on the faces of your so‑called sannyasins, conceit—terrible conceit. Sometimes by mistake you take it to be the glow of austerity. It is not the radiance of tapas; it is ego: “See how much austerity I have done! I am extraordinary! See how much I have given up; I am special! I am no ordinary man.”

Your sannyasin imagines himself enthroned. In his eyes toward you there is deep hatred, your humiliation. Go to your so‑called sages and ascetics—you will find a deep disdain for you. You are sinners. The essence of all their sermons is only this: you are sinners. And by proving you sinners, they feel themselves very virtuous. In their eyes there is only one news item for you: you are going to hell. Be careful—accept what we say; otherwise you will go to hell! And they have described hell with great relish—how people will be boiled in cauldrons, tormented, how worms and insects will pierce people’s bodies; what terrible thirst there will be, a stream of water flowing before you and no permission to drink. They have devised many clever devices. Those who devised them must have been diseased people. Those who described hell in the scriptures cannot be healthy. They must have been the forefathers of Adolf Hitler.

Adolf Hitler demonstrated it—he created such hells in Germany and burned millions. You will be astonished to know: in the furnaces where thousands were burned together, he had glass put up. Through that glass people would come and watch—crowds came to watch. It was one‑way visible. Those inside—naked, about to be burned—could not see that anyone was watching. But those outside could see. Thousands came to watch; it is astonishing! And the electric button was pressed, there was a whoosh, and ten thousand together in one furnace became smoke; you saw the smoke rising from the chimney. People came to see it as if it were a circus! Adolf Hitler fulfilled all your saints’ and sages’ imaginations. He said, “Why wait for hell? Let’s make it here—whether hell exists or not!”

This is a relish in suffering—the suffering of others. Any scripture that describes hell—know that some sadist wrote it, someone who wanted to torment others. Finding no chance to torment here, he takes pleasure in imagining that you will be tormented in hell.

And for himself he has imagined heaven. All arrangements are made there for pleasure—beautiful women, apsaras; wish‑fulfilling trees under which whatever you desire is instantly granted; streams of wine—everything has been arranged for himself. This is for the renouncers, remember. Those who left women here—celestial nymphs await them in the sky there. What a fine joke! If leaving women is only to get women, why leave them at all? Here they teach: leave women, women are sin, women are the gates of hell—and in the end, in heaven they arrange them again! A great trick, a grand deception.

But behind this is a straightforward psychological truth: whatever you repress will pursue you. Your renouncers somehow left women—somehow left them—yet the mind is craving. They are counseling the mind: “Son, hush now! A little longer; then it will be nymphs upon nymphs—Urvashis—and wish‑fulfilling trees. Just a little more patience; it won’t be long!” And envy must also arise in the mind toward those who are enjoying. There is revenge to be taken for this envy. So they tell those people, “Enjoy a little now—you will pay later! You will regret later! You will remember then that we warned you so much! Then you will rot in hell for eternity!”

These are disorders of the psyche. Heaven and hell are nowhere else. You are in heaven whenever you are tranquil, blissful, meditative, loving—you are in heaven. Heaven is nowhere else. And hell too is nowhere else: when you are in anger, when you are filled with envy and when you are burning with jealousy—you are in hell’s furnace. Heaven and hell are not geography. Nor is it that someone lives in heaven and someone in hell. A moment ago you were in hell; a moment later you are in heaven—twenty‑five times a day you change: now heaven, now hell, now heaven, now hell. These are your states of mind. And the one who is free of both— that state is called moksha, where there is neither pleasure nor pain. That is the supreme state; that is the real thing. Beyond pleasure and pain is bliss; beyond pleasure and pain are peace, freedom, liberation.

Nietzsche is right that your sannyasins are egoistic. This is true of ninety‑nine percent of sannyasins. But it is wrong regarding the one percent, and therefore it is not the whole truth. A Buddha, a Mahavira, a Shandilya do not fit into Nietzsche’s template. And the true sannyasin is precisely the one who does not fit any template. And of those sannyasins about whom this is true—they are false sannyasins.

Do you understand my point? Nietzsche’s statement is true only regarding false sannyasins; it is not true regarding true sannyasins. Nietzsche missed there. He lumped everyone together. He did not allow exceptions. He too is a rationalist, an intellectual; he cannot tolerate inconsistency. If you allow exceptions, inconsistency enters; principles must be without exception—so he did not allow any disturbance to his consistency. He even took Jesus to task on this point. Now see how he takes him to task.

Jesus has said: if someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other as well.

This is the statement of a supreme sannyasin. And Jesus would never have thought that someone would find a fault in this—would even find a sin in it! Can you think of a fault in it? Not only a fault—Nietzsche found a sin in it. Nietzsche had already decided that religion means wrong; it cannot be right; therefore he had to find what was wrong in it. What device did he devise? He said: this is an insult to the other. A man slapped you on one cheek and you turned the other—you reduced him to a worm. You humiliated him terribly. You proved: look how great I am, and how petty you are. Nietzsche says such an insult is unbearable. Greater respect would have been that you too slapped him—at least then you would have accepted him as a man, as an equal. He slapped you; you slapped him—you are equals. He slapped you; you turned the other cheek—you flew to the sky, and you buried him in the earth.

Regarding Jesus this is wrong, but about ninety‑nine percent of sannyasins it is right. Ninety‑nine percent are such that when they turn the other cheek they will do it with a stiff neck: “Look—only I am such that while you slap me, I hold out my other cheek. See my humility, see my greatness—and see your meanness! Look, I am on my way to heaven and you are on your way to hell! I have set the ladder to heaven!”

I have heard: a Christian priest followed this principle. A man slapped him; he remembered his book—he read the Bible every day and preached it to others. He remembered: Jesus said, “If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn the other.” He offered his second cheek. The other man may have been a reader of Nietzsche—there are all kinds in the world—he did not miss the chance; he landed an even harder slap on the second cheek!

Ordinarily we expect that when we offer the other cheek, the other will apologize: “Sir, by mistake I hurt a great soul like you.” In our stories this is what we read; the Puranas write it like this: the saint forgave, and you immediately fell at his feet: “Forgive me; I made a great mistake; I struck a noble person like you.”

But that fellow was a fellow of fun—perhaps a follower of Nietzsche—he gave another resounding slap. When he did, the Christian priest was bewildered: what now? Then he remembered that the Bible says nothing beyond this. And a man has only two cheeks. He suddenly leapt onto the man’s neck. The other said, “What are you doing?”—because he was trusting that the priest would be a priest; one cheek, then the other—what was this?

The priest said, “What to do? Beyond this there is no word from Jesus! Now we will make you taste it. Only up to here has our Master spoken: if someone slaps one cheek, offer the other. There is no third cheek—beyond this we are free.”

Rules adopted by force can accompany you only so far.

In Jesus’ life there is a mention: one of his disciples asked him, “You say forgive people. How many times should we forgive?” In this itself is the inclination not to forgive—“how many times?” There is a limit to everything—how many times shall we forgive? So Jesus said, “At least seven times.” He said, “All right.” But the way he said “all right” made Jesus feel that on the eighth time he would take revenge for all seven together. “All right,” he said, “fine—we shall see! After seven my turn will come, won’t it—on the eighth?” Seeing the glint in his eye, Jesus must have felt: this was a mistake—this man has been told the wrong thing. Because if he takes compounded revenge after seven, it will become very costly. Better that he had taken it the first time—because the first time there is not much accumulation. Someone abused you once; you could have abused him once. If someone abuses you seven times and then you give the eighth abuse, you will have to search for a very weighty abuse to equal eight! So Jesus said, “No, not seven—seventy‑seven times.” The man looked a little dejected. He said, “All right.”

What will you do with such people? Say seven or seventy‑seven—they can wait it out. They can even provoke you: “Come on—make it seventy‑seven now.” A hundred blows of the goldsmith, one of the blacksmith—then we will see; we will settle it in one stroke. Man is dishonest. He exploits even the good. But this is not the good’s fault. He even feeds his ego on religion. But this is not religion’s fault. He even breeds disease out of sannyas. But sannyas is not at fault.

Nietzsche is both right and wrong: right regarding false sannyasins, wrong regarding true sannyasins. And it is good that you understand both, because both possibilities are within you. You too can be right, and you can be wrong. If there is awareness of the wrong, the possibility of being right remains alive. If there is understanding regarding the wrong, the fear of going wrong is lessened. Awareness toward the wrong is the way to remain aligned.

Surrender is bidding yourself farewell—goodbye. And then an unprecedented revolution takes place in life.

Just before
evening,
the hands’ work was done;
as if, just before the name,
a form
awoke in the mind.
Now I,
absorbed, am a beam of sun,
rapt as moonlight.
Instead of meter
I am the rhythm of a wave—
which is to say, from evening itself
I am a ray of dawn.

In the person in whom surrender awakens, the first ray has arrived—the ray of morning arrives already in the evening!

Instead of meter
I am the rhythm of a wave—
which is to say, from evening itself
I am a ray of dawn.

Surrender is the first step of the Divine within you. It is still dark, but a ray has come. The first bird of dawn has spoken. Surrender is the voice of the first bird before daybreak. The cock has crowed. Night still remains, yet it has begun to break. It is night, but for you the night is no longer the same—it has cracked. Here I break; there the night breaks. Needlessly we carry a load.

I have heard: A king was riding in his chariot—through the forest road, returning from the hunt. Along the way he saw a poor man, a beggar, an old man carrying a heavy bundle, struggling under the load. Compassion stirred. He had the chariot stopped and said to the beggar, “Come, sit! Tell me where you must get down; we will drop you there.” The beggar, fearful and shy, climbed in—chariot, king! He could hardly believe his eyes. Careful not to touch the king, anxious that he might put too much weight on the chariot, contracted, flustered, uneasy—in truth, frightened. How could he refuse? His mind wanted to say, “No, no—me, in a chariot? A dirty fellow like me, in rags—seated here? It won’t be proper.” But how to decline the king? Lest he take offense, lest it become an insult. So he sat, trembling within—and did not remove the bundle from his head.

The king said, “My brother, that bundle is heavy on your head—that’s why I had you sit in the chariot. Why don’t you set it down?” He replied, “What are you saying? That I myself am sitting here—isn’t that enough good fortune? And you would have my bundle’s weight also fall upon the chariot! You have seated me—already too much! No, no, I could not do that; to add the bundle’s weight as well to the chariot!”

But whether you sit with the bundle on your head or set it down, the weight still rests on the chariot.

This beggar’s condition is the egoist’s. He carries a burden needlessly. He keeps saying, “I will do this, I will do that; I will make this happen, I will make that happen.” The doer is someone else. If you do not do, still that happens which is to happen. If you do, still that happens which is to happen. You are pointlessly holding the bundle on your head. Everything is in His hands. His hands are stretched everywhere. That is why Hindus have pictured Him with a thousand arms. If He had only two, we might worry that perhaps they are tied up in someone else’s affairs. He has a thousand hands—endless hands. Just let go of yourself a little, and His hand is forever your support. It is He who sustains you. When you win, it is He who wins. When you lose, it is you who lose. His is no defeat. The defeat belongs to your illusion that “I will get it done.” One day that illusion breaks. If you strive against Him, things do not happen; when they do not happen, you are defeated; in defeat you weep, you are saddened, pained, distressed. Leave it to Him—then there is no defeat, no sorrow.

All is connected. We are all joined. This entire existence is bound in a single rhythm. There is no great need here for us to do separate, private things.

Road upon road
she walked,
a single bud,
to the river’s edge.
Some dream of hers
slept upon
the black, deep water.
Dodging so many, such varied
feet, she
reached the ghat.
The lover, bound for tryst, descended
from steps to the waves.
On the faces of the stars
a shimmer came.
Over the whole current
a hush spread.

A tiny bud walked along the riverbank and reached—then stepped down into the stream!

The lover, bound for tryst, descended
from steps to the waves.
On the faces of the stars
a shimmer came.

So much is joined. When even a tiny bud steps into a ripple, in the eyes of stars at immeasurable distances a sparkle appears.

Over the whole current
a hush spread.

All is interconnected. A leaf trembles, and moon and stars tremble. Even the smallest blade of grass is linked to the sun. We are together. The name of this togetherness is God. To take yourself as separate—that is ego. To know yourself as one with This—that is surrender.

Ego will die, because ego is false. The real wonder is how you are managing to hold it up at all! However many days you keep it going—that is the magic! Ego in truth is not—it must die; if not today, then tomorrow the spell breaks, and one wakes from the dream. How long will you go on dreaming? A dream is, after all, a dream. Morning comes, eyes open—and you find that what remains is God. And that alone was always true. In between, you got lost in an untruth, raised up a dream.

The poem will endure
because
it is not some body of mine.
It is not merely
my soul—
it is the spiritual.
It rises from my life
and offers itself outward;
offering itself outward,
it gathers the Whole within.
But it is not mine;
it is not a handmaid
to any of my private wishes—
therefore it will endure.
It will endure
because it is of time.
It is not fear;
within me it is
the World-Soul’s fearlessness!

Only that will endure within you which is linked to the Eternal. Only that will endure within you which belongs to the Whole. What you have set apart as your own, private—false. The private is untrue; the total is true.

To clutch the private tightly is ego. To let the private go, to let it flow, to be absorbed into the current; to become a limb in this vast dance of the Infinite; to become a wave of the ocean—that is surrender. Surrender is the essence of devotion.

That is all for today.