Bahuri Na Aiso Daon #7

Deepak Bharti! In life there is only one entanglement, the one and only—and it is there in everyone’s life without exception—the hope of becoming something. You are what you are; you cannot be otherwise. The very effort to be otherwise is anxiety, gloom, anguish. In that effort a vicious circle is born. Then with your own hands you raise new whirlpools; you sink and you rise, you sink and you rise. Your life becomes a long series of dreams—and of every dream’s shattering.

If a rose wants to become a lotus, madness is certain. If champa wants to become jasmine, illness is certain. What is, as it is—its acceptance is sannyas. Sannyas means: tathata, thusness; to embrace oneself totally—not in defeat, not as a consolation, not as a sop, because that would be false; but with understanding, with awareness, by seeing this truth: a rose is a rose, and as a rose it is beautiful, incomparable; there is no need to become a lotus. If the whole earth were full only of lotuses, the earth would lose its beauty. I do not want the entire earth to be full of bow-bearing Ramas. It would all turn into a Ramleela stage, and even the joy of watching a Ramleela would be gone.

Life has variety. In diversity there is a unique beauty, a grace. That is why existence never creates two identical persons. Even twins are never exactly the same. No two stones are identical. No two leaves are identical. But for centuries the net of pundits and priests has been teaching you the reverse. The very foundations of human society are wrong, deluded, because at their core lies the poison of ambition. To every child we say: Become something! Do something! Become somebody! Don’t die just like that. You have four short days of life—win fame, make a name, status and prestige; leave your marks on the pages of history.

But whose footprints remain on the sands of time? And even if in some footnote of history your name were to remain, what profit, what essence is there in that? Alexander wasted his whole life becoming the conqueror of the earth. Granted, his name remained in history; but life slipped from his hands—no nectar rained upon it, no flowers of contentment bloomed, no dance of fulfillment arose. Life became a chase, a frenzy. Yes, his name remained on a page of history. So will you lick that page of history? And then you die—whether your name remains in history or not, what difference does it make?

Deepak Bharti, you say: “Entangled in the hope of becoming something, nothing happened.”

It cannot happen. The fault is not yours, not fate’s, not the karmas of past lives—only a single delusion: you wanted to become something. You already are something! If you accept what you are, you will also be able to discover it. In acceptance is discovery. What we reject, we turn our face away from. What we reject, we do not even wish to see. Who wants to look at an enemy? We avoid him; we neglect him. So the one who begins to deny himself—and the very meaning of the hope to become something is self-denial—starts escaping from himself, running from himself, becoming more and more distant from himself. He will get entangled in everything else and remain deprived of his own fullness—and there lies the very essence of life! There is the center of the energy of your prana. There is heaven; there is liberation. From there alone will arise your life’s growth, movement, revolution.

But acceptance is the first condition. And acceptance—in a spirit of wonder and gratitude. Acceptance—with joy, with thankfulness. This is my fundamental teaching.

Ambition has been taught to you. I teach you freedom from ambition. One who is free of ambition is free of the world. I am not saying, escape from the world. There is no need. Just let the madness of ambition drop. Be steeped in the flavor of what you are. Give thanks to existence for what you are—no complaint, no grievance—grace! Then prayer will arise by itself; you won’t even have to raise it. And then that prayer will be neither Christian nor Hindu nor Jain nor Buddhist—just prayer. There will be no words, only the worship of feeling, a silent offering of song. Quietly! The head will bow to this vast existence, for what it has given us—are we worthy of it? Are we deserving?

There is a well-known story of Jesus—very dear to me. A small, simple story, but with far-reaching meaning. A vineyard owner, seeing the grapes ripe, hired some laborers early in the morning to pick them. The grapes could not be left longer; they would rot, they would fall. But those workers were few. At noon he hired more. Still few. In the evening he hired even more. Those who came in the evening arrived when the lamps were about to be lit, darkness was descending. The day’s work was ending. Then he gathered all the workers and paid everyone the same wages. Naturally, those who had come in the morning were upset, angry. They were human! If you were there, you would be angry too. They said, “What kind of injustice is this? We’ve been sweating since morning, and we get the same wages; those who came at noon and worked half a day get the same! We could have tolerated even that, but those who just came now and did no work at all also get the same! There should be a limit to injustice!”

The owner laughed. He said, “Let me ask you one thing. Is what I gave you less than your wages?”

They said, “No, it’s more than our wages. More than what we asked in the morning; in fact, double.”

The owner said, “You don’t thank me for giving you double. And this is my property; if I choose to be generous to someone, what complaint can you have? Who are you to object? Those who came at noon, I gave the same; those who just arrived and did not work, I also gave the same—not because they were deserving, not because they labored, but because I have plenty. I have a lot to give. I look for whom to give to. Whoever I find, I give. I give out of my abundance.”

Jesus used to say: God has given you out of His abundance. He has more than enough. He has so many eyes that He gave you eyes—otherwise you had no deservingness. He has so much life that He gave you life—else you had no qualification. He has so much love that He gave you the capacity to love—otherwise you had not earned it. Yet there is no thanksgiving, only complaint.

Ambition teaches complaint. And ambition is never satisfied. Never! Lose, and you lose; win, and still you lose! Ambition knows no victory. Yet on this we have built the foundation of man’s life. Hence we have produced a sick and deranged humanity. Here everyone is ill. Only once in a while has someone become healthy—a Buddha, a Mahavira, a Krishna, a Christ. Once in millions has the flower of health bloomed in a human life. And all the rest rot on and rot by their own hand—digging pits and falling into them, breaking their own bones, squandering their own lives.

You say, Deepak Bharti: “Entangled in the hope of becoming something, nothing happened.”

Do you think that had something happened your hope would have been fulfilled? Even then it wouldn’t. The hope would recede. Hope is like the horizon—it looks as if it’s just there, just there; walk a little and you’ll reach; but has anyone ever reached the horizon? You move forward, the horizon moves forward. You want ten thousand rupees—on the day you get them, you’ll want a million. Get a million, you’ll want a hundred million. You will keep asking. Your mind will never be filled. It does not know fullness.

Buddha said: craving is insatiable. Why? Because craving is a mistake at the very foundation.

You say, “Only this awareness remained that I am. Neither wealth came...” Even if it had, it still would not have. Look at those who have it. What has come? Those who hold high positions—what has come to them? The rich come to me and weep the same: life has been wasted; we gathered potsherds, and now what to do? Life has slipped away from our hands; the nectar did not rain; now there is no time left. We kept picking pebbles, thinking they were diamonds.

Then it becomes a habit. Running becomes a habit; worry becomes a habit; craving becomes a habit. It even becomes visible that running has no sense—“I have millions! What is Birla running for now? Or Tata? What is lacking?” Yet the habit of running has formed. Now everything is there, but the habit of running keeps pushing: run more, earn more, more, more. That “more” grips one’s very life-breath and does not let go.

Had you built a house, what then? The desire to build a palace would arise. Had you learned music, what then? There are so many great musicians! They are as impoverished within as anyone else. And are there fewer scholars? In every neighborhood, every village! What have they gained?

“You say: even living did not suit me.” Naturally, when all these chases fail and defeat meets you at every turn, then a sadness descends. Life seems futile. What sense is there in living? If there is no success, where is the point? You were seeking the gratification of the ego; it did not come—it never comes to anyone. The final result then can only be: why not end this life?

Why does the mood of suicide arise in a person? There are psychological reasons. This world is quite amusing. We ourselves teach ambition; our universities teach ambition; and our courts arrange to punish those who attempt or even think of suicide. Our universities! And the judges sitting in our courts are taught in the same universities. Those same universities teach that suicide is wrong; and those same universities teach that ambition is good, beautiful, the goal. No one sees the deep connection between the two. The ambitious person will inevitably one day reach the brink of suicide. When he never wins, never wins, then one day he will think: What is the use? How long to keep deceiving? How long to laugh falsely when laughter does not come, when there is nothing to laugh at? How long to smile, to stretch these false lips? How long to show people I am fine when inside there is no joy? How long to keep this surface charade going?

The terms of living are brutally harsh
You must pawn something here!

Hiding from friends,
you will have to sell yourself someday!

All are merchants here,
and onlookers too!

Messiahs on the outside,
but butchers within!

Yet with everyone,
you’ll have to meet with a smile!

Among ever-new faces
you must mingle with people!

To the rhythm of opportunity—
you must laugh and pretend!

Picking and choosing
each word you say!

Self-respect is found
only in the books!

Honor here is dealt
by the ledgers of time!

With the blowing wind,
you must be blown along!

The terms of living are brutally harsh
You must pawn something here!

Hiding from friends,
you will have to sell yourself someday!

And what must be pawned? The soul is pawned! You gather shards, and life is looted. No one else is responsible; we alone are. We tried to grasp life in a wrong way.

It is good you did not become a scholar—you might have gone astray in the jungle of words. Many scholars are lost there. The jungle of words is vast; crossing it takes lifetimes. It is good wealth did not come, or the “more, more” would have created the ninety-nine trap.

You’ve surely heard the story—the emperor’s masseur used to come daily. The emperor was astonished. The masseur got only one rupee a day, yet his joy was boundless! The emperor had never seen such a delighted man. The emperor had friendships with great emperors, with great rich men, ministers, guild leaders, generals; but this barber-masseur was incomparable—ever blooming like a flower, ever fragrant. In his gait there was a swing, a blitheness—as if he had received some rare treasure, as if he were lord of an empire! The emperor felt envy. He asked his vizier, “What is the secret of this barber’s joy?”

The vizier said, “No special secret. Give me a few days; I will wipe out all this joy.”

That night he threw a pouch of ninety-nine rupees into the poor man’s house. He earned one rupee a day. It’s an old story; a rupee then was plenty, more than enough—he could eat himself, feed the neighbors, drink bhang, drink milk, do his push-ups and squats, wear good clothes. In the evening, put a jasmine garland around his neck and strut proudly through the bazaar! It was delight and more delight. And his work in the morning was just a little—go and massage the emperor, get a rupee, and then all day enjoy. No worry for tomorrow; tomorrow morning he would massage again and get his rupee. There was no future; no anxiety about the past; he never accumulated anything, so no worry about it. He received daily, he lived daily. He was living in the present. Unknown to him, a connection with the present had formed—hence his joy.

The vizier spoiled it all. He threw in the pouch of ninety-nine. In the morning the man woke, counted the ninety-nine. Shocked: “Where did this come from! When God gives, He tears open the roof!” Now one question arose: “I’ll get one rupee today; let me fast today. No bhang today, no jasmine today, no bazaar today, no sweets today, nothing today. Let me save this one rupee and make it a full hundred.”

Such is the mind of man! There is something fundamental: the urge to complete anything that is one short. If one of your teeth falls out, the tongue keeps going there. When the tooth was there, the tongue never went. Now that it’s missing, the tongue keeps going there, however you try to stop it. That empty space—it wants to be filled.

Likewise that one missing rupee... The next day he fasted. “It’s only for one day,” he thought, and put in the rupee. The very next day the emperor felt a bit puzzled—the masseur looked sluggish. He had eaten nothing the whole day. Even while massaging, there was no zest, no humming. But once the hundred were complete, the mind does not stop. It said, “If I keep saving like this, two hundred can be done too. From now on I must spend only eight annas and save eight. One should save something for the future, for old age.” Worries began crowding in that had never touched him before. He began to save eight annas. Then greed said, “At this rate when will it reach two hundred? Let me save twelve annas. One can manage on four.” And then he rationalized: life should be simple anyway.

See how we persuade ourselves—“Simple living, high thinking!” He bought a plaque and hung it inside his house: Simple Living, High Thinking. From four annas he came down to two; then to one. Times were cheap; one anna could suffice. But he began to dry up, leaves began to fall; autumn arrived. The spring in his life vanished. The honeyed month—who knows where it disappeared! Within a month his condition worsened. A long face, the look of a sadhu—disconsolate, detached—as if there is nothing in life, all is futile! He came and worked because he had to, but there was no relish in his work. The emperor asked, “What has happened to you?”

He said, “What can I hide from you? Some wretch threw a pouch of ninety-nine rupees into my house. Since that day my life is in peril. I am dying. It has taken my life.”

The emperor called the vizier. He understood who must have thrown it. He asked, “Did you throw the ninety-nine?” The vizier said, “Yes. I wanted to show you the secret. The whole secret is that he was living today. Make him be born into tomorrow—let the itch of becoming something take hold—and he is finished. See his state!”

If it had come to you, the ninety-nine trap would have arisen and killed you; if it doesn’t come, you feel life is useless, what’s the point of living? Life does not suit you.

Now you say: “Coming here, unknowingly I gave life a new direction.”

Understand this direction well, otherwise you will miss again. If you grasp it rightly, it is not a direction. Sannyas is not a direction; it is freedom from direction. In direction, the future creeps in again—and it has crept into your question as well.

You say: “The past has been spent in wandering.”

The past still burdens you. “And the present in sannyas, and the future—you decide.” The future has not left you yet. If you don’t decide, you will have me decide. Which means: till now you blamed yourself; now you will blame me. But the future is still there. As long as the past remains, the future remains. They are the two sides of one coin. They go together; they stay together. And as long as the past and future are, the present is not—only an illusion.

Here there is a tide, a intoxication. Here there is a breeze, an atmosphere. Among so many sannyasins, naturally you too must feel a great joy. The moment you return home it will be lost—because your past and future have not gone. The ninety-nine trap is still present. You still brood over the past, in which there is nothing.

A man does not let go of the past, because his ego is tied to it: “Could I have been so foolish as to waste so many days? Even if the direction was wrong, my doing was right. Now the direction is also right.” You will keep doing the same things, only now you say the direction is right. “I ran around without guidance; now I have guidance. Now I have a path-seer, a guru...” You have fallen into a mistake.

I am not that kind of guru who gives directions. I am the kind who takes away your directions; who takes away your ambitions; who takes away everything—leaving you utterly naked, just as you are.

And my basic revolution is this: I tell you that as you are, you are perfect. Nothing is to be done. Tattvamasi! You are the divine! What is there to do? What is there to add? Live! Live in blossoming! Let the divine express! Not “make it express”—let it. If it happens, good; if it does not, that too is His will. If some flower becomes a flower, fine; if some remains a bud, that too is fine. A bud has its own beauty, its own delight. Whatever happens is fine. Whatever does not, is fine. This state of mind is what I call sannyas.

You say: “Entangled in the hope of becoming something, nothing happened. Only this awareness remained that I am.”

Let even that awareness go. Let there be being. There is nowhere a “me.” The “I” is born out of ambition. Ambition is the alchemy that produces the ego. If even this much awareness remains—“I am”—then everything will come back; the seed remains. And the seed is enough. A tiny thing brings back the whole world.

Another story you must have heard. An emperor was passing on his elephant. In front of a temple a young man was sitting. He rose and grabbed the elephant’s tail. The emperor tried his best; the mahout threatened the elephant, beat him, but the youth was very strong. Once he held the tail, the elephant could not budge. A crowd gathered, it was a market. The emperor was greatly humiliated. He sat on the elephant, he was emperor, yet a poor youth poured water over his whole empire. He returned home distressed. He asked an elder, “Something must be done, for I often have to pass that way. If this disturbance starts happening daily, it will be disgraceful. I have been baffled.”

The elder said, “Don’t worry.” He called the youth and asked, “What do you do?”

“Nothing,” he said. “My mother grinds flour; that suffices. I do my push-ups and squats, I drink milk. This little shrine of Shiva is here; I drink bhang here and lie around. I have no work.”

The elder said, “What is the guarantee of your mother—today she is, tomorrow she may not be. Learn something! I’ll tell you an easy job. A small thing. The emperor loves this temple very much. Light one lamp on it every evening, that’s all. You will get a rupee a day.”

It appealed to the youth. Just lighting a lamp! The lamp will be provided, the oil, the wick—only light it. One rupee for lighting! His mother grinds herself to death and earns two annas a day. “It will be fun,” he thought. “On one rupee I’ll have a blast. I’ll drink milk to my fill, do even more squats and push-ups. No one in the area will match me.”

He couldn’t sleep all night. That one rupee kept circling in his mind. What plans he made, what all he would do! He hadn’t even received the rupee yet! The next day when the emperor’s elephant passed and he grabbed the tail, he was dragged along. The emperor was astonished. He asked the elder, “What did you do?”

“Nothing yet,” he said. “I only gave him a plan. When I do the real thing, you’ll see—if he holds even a dog’s tail, he’ll be dragged. Last night he simply couldn’t sleep; that’s why he was dragged. In the morning he couldn’t do his exercises properly either. His mind kept worrying: ‘From this evening my job starts. A rupee—a rupee! I’ll have a blast!’ The plans were so hot—who could sleep, who could exercise! Give it a few days.”

He began to get the rupee. The daily worry of lighting the lamp possessed him. Earlier, he hadn’t known worry; he had never met it. He did nothing. When the mood came, he slept; when it came, he woke; when it came, he bathed in the river; when it came, he met friends. Life was a lark. Now for the first time anxiety was born. He’d be sitting among friends and ask, “Brother, what time is it? I have to light the lamp.” Chatting, he’d get up mid-conversation. Doing his exercises, he’d look at the clock tower—“Has evening come? Or I’ll miss the rupee.” The elder had said, “If even on one day darkness falls and the lamp is not lit, the rupee is gone!”

A month later, when the emperor passed, pity arose in him seeing the youth. He had dried up. He was unrecognizable. Could this man stop an elephant now! The elder was right—now even a dog would drag him.

A human being can live in two ways. One way: in past and future—that is, in anxiety. The other: in the present—that is, in awareness. Sannyas means awareness.

I am not the decider of your future. There is no future. Does tomorrow ever come? Did yesterday remain? Yesterday is gone; tomorrow has not yet come. What is, is this moment—here and now!

Deepak Bharti, drink from this moment, be immersed. From this very moment music will arise. From this very moment Buddhahood will arise. From this very moment life will become a dance. From this very moment the rain of wealth will begin—the wealth that cannot be stolen nor snatched. And from this wealth the temple will be built that is eternal.

Pandit Motilal Joshi! I think you have not understood me. And I am not surprised. I do not even expect pandits to understand me. I have not seen a more unintelligent man than a pandit. And then you have an added difficulty: you are a resident of Varanasi! A pandit—and from Varanasi at that!
This Kashi is a city—unique in all the three worlds! The stupidity of Kashi has no match. Its stupidity is hidden in so many webs of erudition that even detecting it becomes difficult.
You kept hearing one thing; I kept saying something else. What are you dragging in—the Gita, the Ramcharitmanas, Goswami Tulsidas!

A cinema hall’s gatekeeper had a toothache. Mind you, he was the gatekeeper of a cinema. He ran to the doctor and said, “Doctor, I’m in terrible pain in a tooth.”
“Which tooth?” asked the doctor.
The gatekeeper said, “In the lower balcony, front row, second seat.”
He is a gatekeeper… so: lower balcony, front row, second seat!
One’s own language, one’s way of thinking, one’s net—doesn’t get out of the way.

What does what I am saying have to do with the Gita? The Gita is five thousand years gone. Those five thousand years did not pass in vain. In these five thousand years, so much has happened—Buddha, Mahavira, Gorakh, Kabir, Nanak, Jesus, Zarathustra, Moses, Muhammad, Bahauddin, Jalaluddin, Al-Hallaj Mansur. What astonishing beings have appeared! They all gave their donations. They all refined the image of man, gave it new colors. Many brushstrokes have now moved across this canvas.

Krishna painted a beautiful picture, but it has grown very old. Humanity has moved far ahead. Krishna’s way of thinking will now seem antiquated. Krishna trusted violence. Today, if someone trusts violence, we cannot call him a thoughtful man. In those days it may have been right; it might have fit. Today, to speak of violence is to organize the annihilation of the whole human race. So many atomic and hydrogen bombs are piled up that ten years ago we could kill each person seven times over. That is already an old figure; now we can kill each person seven hundred times over. The population of the earth is small—around four billion—and our capacity to kill is seven hundredfold greater than needed. This is not Arjuna sitting there with the Gandiva bow, to whom you deliver the Gita. Today man possesses the machinery for collective suicide. We can reduce seven hundred such earths to ashes! We will have to change our language. We will have to learn from Buddha and Mahavira. We will have to carry the conversation forward beyond Krishna.

Krishna’s thinking moved within Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra. Krishna thought in terms of varna, caste. Today that is bygone. Whoever believes in caste today is dull-witted. Because of such dull-wittedness, Harijans are being burned, their women raped, their children roasted in fire, their huts set ablaze. The whole of the Gita cannot be accepted today. Select a few things—if there are diamonds and jewels, pick them; the rest has become rubbish.

Even so, Krishna was a wondrous person. Up to that time, in the refinement human consciousness had attained, he was the most intense, the most luminous. That is why people of that time called him a complete incarnation. But now that is behind. To call Krishna a complete incarnation now is like calling the bullock cart the supreme vehicle. Now man is reaching the moon. Krishna belongs to the age of the bullock cart. Humanity is evolving.

I am not bound to the past. I am bound to nothing. Even small children can understand this much: if what Krishna said were followed today, nothing would come of it but violence, killing, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Today victory is impossible. No one can truly win or lose. We have such capacity for destruction that if a great war comes, those who fight will perish—and those who don’t fight will also perish. No one will remain to be the victor. Leave man aside—even animals and birds will not remain, plants will not remain, the green of the earth will vanish. Life itself will be destroyed.

Today the Gita’s outlook cannot be given much support. And these notions of Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra… svadharme nidhanam shreyah, paradharmo bhayavahah—Krishna says: it is better to die in one’s own dharma; another’s dharma is perilous. And what is his purpose? That a Kshatriya should die like a Kshatriya—that is his dharma. Someone is a Kshatriya! Someone a Brahmin! The one who knows Brahman is a Brahmin—Buddha is a Brahmin, Mahavira is a Brahmin, Muhammad is a Brahmin, Jesus is a Brahmin—in my view. But Krishna says: svadharme nidhanam shreyah. He is telling Arjuna: you were born a Kshatriya; you are a Kshatriya; it is better for you to die within the Kshatriya nature. Don’t talk like Brahmins. Don’t talk like renunciates and ascetics. What are you saying—sannyas, meditation, samadhi, yoga! What is this talk of going to the forest, of not wanting to fight! This is your dharma: fight!

Krishna coaxes Arjuna and gets him to fight. Perhaps that day it was needed. Perhaps that day it was right. Perhaps if that had not happened, the Kauravas would have committed great atrocities. Between two evils, Krishna may have chosen the lesser. But today there is no way to choose.

Pandit Motilal Joshi, you don’t know at all that the day the bomb fell on Hiroshima, humanity entered another world. History was split in two—before Hiroshima and after Hiroshima. The history before Hiroshima became useless. Now we will have to think in new ways, with a new style. We will have to adopt new perspectives on life.

And then you talk of the Ramcharitmanas and Goswami Tulsidas! Krishna at least is, at the minimum, a man of insight. Tulsidas is only a poet, nothing more—not a man of wisdom; not an enlightened one. There is no evidence of that in his compositions. In his writings there are very petty things, very small things. Truly, among those who have corrupted Hindu society, no one has had as large a hand as Goswami Tulsidas. Because he spread into every village. His language is rustic. His way of thinking is rustic. So he influenced every village. The most illiterate have his couplets by heart and live by them, take them as their foundation. If this country is to be freed from its rot, it will also have to be freed from Goswami Tulsidas.

You are talking like children. Nowadays even children are a bit more sensible.
The little son of Mr. Sharma was a bit too clever for his age. One day he came home with a library book: Child Rearing. His mother asked in surprise, “Why, Munna, what will you do with that book?”
Munna replied, “I want to read it to find out whether I am being raised properly or not.”
Even children are getting clever—and you speak such childish things!

And you say, “I have faith in the writings of Goswami Tulsidas.”
Only the blind have faith. Those with eyes do not believe; they know. My whole emphasis is on knowing, not on belief. When it can be known, why believe? When it can be experienced, why accept it blindly? God can become an experience. Belief is a cheap thing; it comes free. Nothing to do—no meditation, no samadhi, no prayer. You accept because others accept. Others believe in all kinds of asinine nonsense, so you too will believe! Because others believe—your forefathers believed. Now you can’t go against your forefathers. As the forefathers believed, so we will believe. Then how will there be growth?

Belief is not religion, disbelief is not religion. Then what is religion? Disbelief leads to atheism, belief leads to theism. Neither is religion. Religion is inquiry, longing, search, exploration. Do not be in a hurry either to believe or to disbelieve. Keep yourself free; seek. And accept only what comes into your own experience. Then there is no question of “accepting”—you will have to accept. A blind man believes in light; a man with eyes does not believe—he knows.

I want to make you one who sees. I am an enemy of belief.

And you say, “Inspired by Goswami Tulsidas, I want to dedicate my entire life to the welfare of humanity.”
What do you have to dedicate for the welfare of human life? Do you have samadhi? Bliss? God-experience? A taste of liberation? What do you have?

A man came to Buddha. He was extremely wealthy—unusually wealthy for that time. He said to Buddha: inspired by your words, I want to devote my whole life to the welfare of man.
Buddha looked at him carefully, and it is said that for the first time in his life, someone saw tears in Buddha’s eyes. Two tears dropped.
The rich man was astonished. “Tears in your eyes? Did I say something wrong?”
Buddha said, “No. I became anxious and sad because you have nothing with which to bring welfare to mankind. Your own welfare has not happened. An extinguished lamp going to light other lamps! A corpse going to give life! The danger is that the extinguished lamp may blow out other lamps.”

And that is what has happened. All around the world these religious propagandists roam—Christian missionaries, Arya Samajis, brands and trademarks of every sort, tilak-wearers and so on—busy with “welfare!” And whose welfare is happening? No one’s. Make a Hindu into a Christian, a Christian into a Hindu. Tug a man back and forth. Someone makes him a Christian; then someone incites him to become Arya Samaji. Someone makes someone a Jain; someone makes someone a Hindu. But welfare! Have those who were already Hindu attained welfare? Those already Christian attained welfare? Has the one who came to do welfare attained it?

I have met many Christian missionaries. I always ask them one question: you are engaged in great service, but tell me—have you found anything? Has any light come? Any experience happened? What will you distribute? You are poor, destitute, beggars—what will you give? Your own condition is nowhere near fit to bring welfare to anyone.

Now, Pandit Motilal Joshi, you want to dedicate your life. What is there in your life? Perhaps not even a begging bowl. What will you dedicate for human welfare? What harm has humanity done to you, brother? Do your own welfare. But bringing welfare to others is great fun. There is a pleasure in doing others’ welfare. The ego gets a deep satisfaction: look, I brought welfare to this one; now to that one; now I’m working on that one! To bring welfare means: I have digested this fellow’s head, filled him with my ideas, poured my trash into his brain, made him too a devotee of Baba Tulsidas: Son, you too read the Gita; read the Hanuman Chalisa; every morning remember Bajrang Bali! The stupidities you are committing, you will teach those very stupidities to others. And you call this welfare?

If there is something in your life, welfare does not need to be done; it begins to happen. The well does not go to the thirsty; the one who is thirsty comes to the well. But the well must have water. What will a dry well do? Even if a thirsty person arrives, what will a dry well give?

At a literary gathering some women objected that calling women “abala” (the frail sex) is an outright insult. The great scholar presiding upheld their objection and ruled: in the future do not call women “abala,” call them “bala” (a menace).
Such great pundits! They turned “abala” into “bala.”

What welfare will you do? First, put yourself in order. I do not teach altruism. Altruism is the fragrance of the life of one who has fulfilled true self-interest. But understand the word “self-interest”: the one who has known the Self, who has experienced the Self—he has accomplished self-interest. Now the fragrance of his life will become altruism, service. Otherwise, whatever you do will cause harm, damage. Even if you want to do good, it will turn out badly. The ignorant cannot do good. The wise cannot do harm. Even if the wise go to do harm, good happens; even if the ignorant go to do good, harm happens.

There is a very pleasing English proverb: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Your intention is good. Anyone will say, “Bravo, Panditji—what a thing to say! This is the real secret of human life: devote yourself to welfare!” I cannot say that. I will say: as yet you have nothing to dedicate. What welfare will you do—you have no awakening. If reading Baba Tulsidas’s couplets had brought you awakening, then would you be trying to force a five-thousand-year-old Gita? Your life’s own Gita would be born.

God sang through Krishna; why can he not sing through me, why can he not sing through you? Wherever samadhi flowers, there the Bhagavad Gita is born. Bhagavad Gita means the song of God, the song of divinity. Attain samadhi, and notes will begin to well up within you that will set who knows how many heart-strings trembling, will fill who knows how many feet with dance. But not before. Before that, whatever you do will be your old habits—and you will impose those on people.

In a courtroom, Seth Chandulal was on trial. The magistrate asked, “Sethji, one thing I don’t understand. You say when you went home you saw your wife in bed with another man. So why did you tell the two of them to stand one behind the other?”
Seth Chandulal said, “So I could finish both with a single bullet.” That’s called Marwari logic! Even at such a moment, he thought to save a bullet—“Why shoot them separately…?” The magistrate asked, “And I also want to know: instead of killing your wife, if you were angry, why didn’t you kill her lover? That would have ended the matter.”
Chandulal said, “You don’t understand. If the wife remains alive, who knows—tomorrow she’ll find another lover. How many men will I keep shooting? Best to end it at the root in one go, isn’t it! One can’t be shooting every day; after all, one must keep an account of expenses!”
A man does not go beyond his habits.

Seth Dhannalal, at death’s door, expressed the wish that the wealth he had amassed all his life be divided into three chests in equal parts and placed in his grave, because he said, “People say you can’t take wealth to the next world—and I want to prove that I will.” He told this secretly to only three men he trusted: the temple priest, Matkanath Brahmachari; his bosom friend, Mulla Nasruddin; and his own son-in-law, Seth Chandulal. These alone were the ones he trusted a bit. One man can deceive, so he called the three, handed each a chest with one lakh (one hundred thousand) rupees cash. Having done this great deed, he sighed with deep satisfaction and died.

A few days later the three good men met in a hotel. All three were sad and serious. After a few minutes of silence, Matkanath said, “Gentlemen, I cannot tell a lie. I feel it a great sin, so let me say frankly: I took ten thousand rupees from the chest—for repairs of the dilapidated temple. Used for a religious cause, it will bring peace to the late Sethji’s soul.”

There was silence for a few minutes. Now Mulla Nasruddin said, “Since you have told the truth, why should I hide it? The fact is—though you may not believe me—but what could I do? If any of you were in my place, you’d have done the same. At night Sethji appeared in my dream and said, ‘Nasruddin, take fifty thousand rupees from the chest and build a hospital for the welfare of the poor. If you don’t, all your sons will die within a year.’ So I took fifty thousand rupees from the chest.”

Ten minutes of silence passed. Finally, wiping his tears, Seth Chandulal said, “You two have deceived my late father-in-law; the fruit will not be good.”
With eyes lowered they asked, “Did you put the full one lakh rupees into the chest?”
Chandulal sobbed, “No, I took all the money out. And I also took out what you people had put in, because I thought: Sethji died with quite a burden on his chest already—why add more to it? So instead of cash I placed on him a cheque of the same amount.”
A man does not abandon his habits.

Now you say, Pandit Motilal Joshi, “I want to dedicate my entire life to the welfare of humanity. After all, isn’t that what you are doing?”
Who told you that? I have never done such a wrong thing in my life. I have never had the aspiration for human welfare, nor have I dedicated my life to anyone’s welfare. I am simply living my life in my own joy and celebration. Whoever wishes to learn from that—let him; that is his joy. I have no desire to impose myself on anyone. I am not issuing orders: do this, or else you’ll go to hell; do this, or I’ll go on a hunger strike. It is my joy that I say what I see; it is your joy that you listen.

But Pandit Motilal Joshi is hearing something else entirely. So Prajna’s question seems apt to me: do walls also have ears? They must, because Jesus keeps saying to his disciples, “If you have ears, then hear; if you have eyes, then see.” Either Jesus was always speaking among the blind and the deaf—which is hardly likely; where would he find so many blind and deaf?—but he is right. People do not listen.

Regarding men, there is a Chinese saying: they hear with one ear and let it out the other. Regarding women the saying is: they hear with both ears and let it out through the mouth. So if you want something to spread, just say it in a woman’s ear. By evening the whole village will know. And if you want it to spread faster, add this much: “Sister, don’t tell anyone.” Or, if you are absolutely compelled to tell, at least say to her, “Sister, don’t tell anyone.” By evening the whole village will know. There is no more elegant advertising method.

But whether you listen depends on your preconceptions—what prejudices you are filled with. This Gita, Ramcharitmanas, Tulsidas—these are your biases and your beliefs. You yourself are saying so. You have known nothing. You have experienced nothing. Had you been born in a Muslim home, you would believe in the Quran—just like this. In a Christian home, you would believe in the Bible—just like this. No difference at all. If you were born in Russia, you would believe in Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto, in Marx, Lenin and Stalin. You were going to believe anyway; the peg could be anything. You just needed a peg on which to hang your coat of belief—whether the peg was Communist or Catholic, what difference? Hindu or Muslim, what difference! Do you want to eat mangoes or count the pits? You just want the mango—belief. You want to suck belief. By chance you are a Hindu, therefore Ramcharitmanas. The Jain who lives next door to you hasn’t even read Ramcharitmanas. He doesn’t accept the Gita as scripture. He has consigned Krishna to hell, because this man incited great violence. If ahimsa paramo dharmah—if nonviolence is the supreme dharma—then where will you find anyone more violent than Krishna? Genghis Khan committed violence, Nadir Shah committed violence; even they felt some guilt. Krishna, on the contrary, does not consider it a sin—he makes it religious. He tells Arjuna: do it to your heart’s content! Who are you? The killer is God; you are only an instrument. You—kill!

Arjuna too seems to me a solid fool. He didn’t say: I too am not the one to take sannyas; if God wants sannyas, let him take it—there he goes! If I had been in his place, the matter would have been finished right there; no need to carry it further. You say God wants war; I say God wants sannyas. Now shall I accept you, or shall I accept myself? God is speaking to me directly. And if he is speaking to you, then you fight—your choice. Here is the Gandiva bow—take it! What nonsense is this Gita! You fight; I’m off.

And if a man should not hope for the fruits of action, and if a man should drop the very sense of doership, then why only for war? For sannyas, too, the sense of doership should be dropped. Arjuna remained a grand fool. Otherwise, there is not such strength in Krishna’s argument. The argument is only: do what God makes you do. Arjuna could have said, “Jai Ramji! I’m off. Whatever God makes me do, I will do. Don’t obstruct me. Whatever he makes you do, you do. If you want to follow me, come along. And if you want to fight, fight. Here is the bow, here is the chariot, and there stand all the enemies—fight to your heart’s content. You say the one who has to kill will kill; you are a mere instrument. Well then, if I’m only an instrument, let him make someone else the instrument—why me? If he has to kill, he will kill. Let him do it. He knows; it’s his work.”

A Jain cannot accept the Gita as scripture. And Ramcharitmanas is very childish—and crude too, unsophisticated. Regarding women there are statements that are highly unseemly. Regarding Shudras there are references that are inhuman—things that lower Ram’s stature. And the whole story is at a very ordinary level—no heights. But because it is lodged in your mind, you think I too am doing the same. Brother, forgive me! I am doing nothing. I have no faith in doing and such. I am living in my own ecstasy. If something comes of it—fine; if not—fine. If nothing comes of it, I will feel no sorrow. If nothing comes, I will have no anxiety; if something does, I will feel no elation. I lived my own joy; those who found joy in it joined in; those who didn’t, didn’t. I have neither friendship nor enmity with anyone. Others may have friendship or enmity toward me, but I have none. If you gather around me, that is your play.

I am not inspired by anyone; nor do I have any beliefs. I have my own living experience. In accord with that, I am delighted, blissful, moment to moment. That itself I call Srimad Bhagavad Gita. Whether I speak or remain silent—whatever happens, that is his will. Whoever likes it, join. This river is flowing toward the ocean; whoever wants to flow—flow; whoever doesn’t—that is his play. I cannot say that whoever is not with me will go to hell. He will have his own way of reaching heaven.

There is no bigotry with me. And I am not serving anyone. I do not harbor such delusions.

Therefore, Pandit Motilal Joshi, if you want to understand me, set aside all your biases. Set aside even your mind. Sink a little into meditation—so that you can understand me.

Bhai Dasbhai! I didn’t say that everyone living in Ahmedabad is a fool. But if you felt hurt, think a little—somewhere inside you there must be a fool. Fools are everywhere; in Ahmedabad there may just be a few more. The Ahmedabadi is quite a character!

Now look at Poona—horns have sprouted: it’s become “Pune.” People are bent on making Bombay “Mumbai”; they want to turn a man straight into a woman. They don’t even feel ashamed!

I’m not saying you should rename Ahmedabad as “Ahamakabad.” But there’s a big fad for changing names these days. It would make for a fine joke, a grand flourish—Ahamakabad!

But I had a reason for calling Poonamchand-bhai a fool. He told Yog Teerth that he left sannyas because the photo of the Mother of Sri Aurobindo’s ashram gave him such inspiration, a clear feeling: “Be free!”

First of all, such feelings don’t come from photos and the like. It was his own ideation projected onto the photo. But fine—whether it was his or the photo’s, no harm. The question is: “Be free”—that was the only command. Where did it say “Be free of sannyas”? Was there nothing else to be free of? There was anger, sex, greed, the whole world; and of all that, he got free of just one thing—sannyas! That’s why I said “fool.” Now do you understand what I mean by “fool”?

I call a fool the kind of dunce who even tries to prove his stupidity as scholarship. If the message of freedom had come, then become free—free of everything! He didn’t become free of his wife, or his children, or wealth and property, or business and profession. All the nets remained as they were. He became free of sannyas! And the delicious irony is that sannyas is a device for freedom—so you became free of freedom itself!

What is sannyas? A device for liberation. If that word had reached you—“Be free”—then you should have dived deeper into sannyas.

But no—he wanted to be free of sannyas, because he had taken sannyas for the wrong reasons. I don’t refuse anyone sannyas, though I know who is taking it for the wrong reasons. And whoever takes it for the wrong reasons, if not today then tomorrow he will slip. There was no search for truth behind his sannyas; there was some other affair. Poonamchand-bhai’s eyes are weak and growing weaker by the day, and the doctors have said they won’t be cured. So someone suggested, “Take sannyas; with his blessings everything will be set right.” So he took sannyas. This too is foolishness! I do cure eyes, but the inner ones; the outer eyes are not my business. So whenever he came to me, his only special request was: “Somehow make my eyes alright.” I told him: let the inner eyes be cured; if the outer ones get cured, fine, and if not—no harm—become a Surdas. Hearing this would shock him—when I’d say, “Become a Surdas.” Outwardly he would smile and say, “Yes, that’s right, the essential thing is that the inner eye should open.” But then when he’d come again, it would be the outer eyes all over again. I told him: how many times must I tell you that I have no method to cure the outer eyes! I perform no miracles, nor do I believe that anyone ever has. Miracles simply don’t happen. Miracles are sheer lies, or conjuring tricks, or fraud.

But what he wanted was exactly that: somehow I should work a miracle and his eyes would be healed. Now even if the outer eyes are healed, then what? Plenty of people have good eyesight—what is happening to them? When he saw I would not fix his outer eyes, the friction began. One snag was: then what is the point of keeping sannyas! The second snag was his wife. He is utterly his wife’s tail-wagging follower. His condition is the common plight of husbands. The wife was after him; and then she invented another thing. Her sister died, and the wife began to say: “My sister has become a ghost and she keeps coming and saying, ‘Make Poonamchand-bhai give up sannyas, otherwise I will harass you, I will torment the whole household.’”

These are all the talk of fools. Now the wife is clever. She was already after him; now she devised another trick—the ghost. He got scared of the ghost too. He came running to me: “What am I to do about this ghost! My wife is haunted by her dead sister; she is at it.”

I said: Do you see her? He said: I don’t see her.

I said: Then why get into this nonsense? Let it be with your wife. If your wife doesn’t want to take sannyas, let her be. Why are you getting upset? But he said: She chews my head twenty-four hours a day that until you drop sannyas her sister won’t leave her alone; she is troubling her.

I said: That’s quite a clever ploy!

Now he says: “Get me freed from this ghost somehow.”

I said: If I start getting into these hocus-pocuses, is there nothing else for me to do?

There is no ghost, no spirit; but he was losing his wits. Then he panicked further: what if, from mounting my wife, this ghost starts mounting me! So he thought it best to drop sannyas. And he’s a first-class coward too. Having dropped sannyas, he didn’t even come here. One should at least have the courage to come here and tell me, “Now I want to be free of sannyas.” I don’t stop anyone. Ahmedabad is not very far. From Ahmedabad itself he sent word: Now my mind is inclined to be free of sannyas, because I have received such an order from the Mother: “Be free.”

All such things I call stupidity—they rig the account according to their convenience.

Bhai Dasbhai, don’t be alarmed. Your getting alarmed is understandable too, because in Ahmedabad there really are many fools.

A man asked a foolish Ahmedabadi: “Isn’t there any signboard at this dangerous bend?”
The foolish Ahmedabadi said: “When for three years straight there was no accident, the municipal committee removed the signboard—what’s the use of keeping a signboard when accidents don’t happen at all?”

A person asked a foolish Ahmedabadi: “What did you get this silver medal for?”
The foolish Ahmedabadi said: “For singing.”
“And this gold medal?”
“For stopping singing.”

A judge asked a foolish Ahmedabadi: “Who incited you to beat your wife like this?”
The foolish Ahmedabadi said: “Sir, her back was toward me. The cane was lying right there on the table. I had already taken off my shoes. The door was open for running away. And such a splendid chance came for the first time in ten years.”

A foolish Ahmedabadi was giving a speech, and he declared loudly: “It is absolutely false that I built my new house from the bricks and stones thrown during my speeches.”

A foolish Ahmedabadi’s wife was saying to him: “Listen, the girl in the house has come of age; you don’t care in the least.”
The foolish Ahmedabadi said: “I’m more concerned than you, but we need a proper boy. Whoever I meet turns out to be a donkey.”
The wife said: “If my father had kept thinking like that, I’d still be sitting a spinster today.”

A foolish Ahmedabadi got five years in jail. When he finished his term and returned home, he saw a small child in his wife’s lap. He was furious: “Whose child is this?”
His wife replied: “Mine—and it could have been yours too, if you had tried to live the life of a respectable man.”

There’s no shortage of fools anywhere, but in Ahmedabad there are a few more. Someone said to a foolish Ahmedabadi: “Brother, you’re completely henpecked. Last evening you were sewing buttons on your coat yourself.”
The foolish Ahmedabadi said: “You’re absolutely wrong. That coat wasn’t mine—it was my wife’s.”

One morning a foolish Ahmedabadi was sitting with head bowed, looking sad. A friend asked: “Brother, what’s the matter—why so sad?”
He answered: “Earlier ghee was fifteen rupees a kilo; now it has become ten.”
Hearing this, the friend said: “Then you should be happy. You’ll save five rupees on every kilo.”
The gentleman said: “That’s exactly the grief. Earlier, by not eating ghee, I used to save fifteen rupees; now I’ll save only ten.”

A friend asked a foolish Ahmedabadi: “If a lion met you when you were alone, what would you do?”
The foolish Ahmedabadi thought a bit and replied: “What would I do! Whatever has to be done, the lion will do.”

At the time of departure, the brother-in-law said for the tenth time to a foolish Ahmedabadi: “Brother-in-law, take care of my sister—she’s been brought up very tenderly. She shouldn’t suffer.”
Hearing it again and again, the foolish Ahmedabadi, already irritated, said angrily: “Man, I’ve said I’ll take care. As your sister is, so is mine!”

A doctor asked a foolish Ahmedabadi: “Well, did you give your wife the medicine regularly or not?”
The foolish Ahmedabadi said: “No. I still haven’t figured out how one pill can be given three times!”

So there are a few more of them. Therefore, Bhai Dasbhai, don’t worry. And I keep joking with everyone—whoever happens to come into my net. Sometimes Sardars land in my net, sometimes Marwaris, sometimes someone else. By chance this time Ahmedabadi folks landed in my net. Don’t be hurt. This is my way of praising people.

That’s all for today.