Bhaj Govindam #1

Truth is found in emptiness and is lost in words.
Truth is found in silence and slips away in speech.
Truth has no language. All language is untrue. Language is a human construction. Truth is not made by man; it is discovered. Truth already is—you need not create it, nor prove it, only uncover it. And the unveiling happens only when the inner commotion of language falls utterly still. Words are the veils; thought is the obstacle.

This is a very basic, primary key to understanding.

A child is born with no language. He brings neither scripture nor religion; neither caste nor nation. He descends like a zero. The sanctity of zero is unique. Zero is the only virginity; everything else is already tainted. He arrives like a fresh blossom. Consciousness bears not a single scratch. He knows nothing—yet his capacity to know is pure. He is a mirror; no reflection yet, but the mirror’s capacity is intact, pristine. Later, reflections will be many—knowledge will increase, but the capacity to know will diminish; for the emptiness that was will be filled with words; the vacancy will end. And if reflections accumulate on a mirror and never fall away, its capacity to reflect fades.

A child is born knowing nothing; yet his capacity to know is immaculate. That is why children learn quickly, while the old hardly learn—because the old have lost the capacity to learn; the mind is overfull. The slate is scribbled over; the paper no longer blank. First the paper must be wiped clean; only then can something new be written.

If you can again become as the child is born, only then will you find truth.

So one birth is the child’s—and one birth is the birth of sainthood. Blessed is the one in whom this second birth has happened, the twice-born; only he is a true Brahmin.

The scriptures say: all are born as Shudras; a rare one becomes a Brahmin. The rest are born Shudras and die Shudras.

Who is a Brahmin? Not one who knows the Vedas, for anyone can learn the Vedas. Not one who can recite the scriptures, for anyone can commit them to memory. Scriptural knowledge is memory, not knowing. A Brahmin is one who has known Brahman.

You have come here, perhaps without realizing it—this is a quest to become a Brahmin: a quest to know Brahman.

Shankara composed the first verse of this sweet song as he was passing through a village. He saw an old man by the roadside chanting rules of grammar by rote. Great compassion arose: “At the moment of dying, this man is memorizing grammar! He wasted his whole life, and now he wastes his last moments too. He never remembered God, and even now he is entangled in grammar. What will come of repeating grammar rules?”

Swami Ram returned from America. His impact there was deep. He was a rare man—Vedanta made flesh. God was cash-in-hand for him, not on credit. A radiant flame. He left a strong imprint on America’s simple heart. America is simple because it has little past—no heavy tradition, no long history; a three-hundred-year-old nation with a childlike mind, not layered with learning, scripture, and inherited knowledge. People revered him; they heard his words as if he had brought nectar. They sang and danced with him.

Coming back to India, Ram thought: “In a country with no religious tradition, where people are materialistic—if my words could work such a wonder there, what might happen in India! Let me return home, where tradition is thousands of years old; where history disappears into darkness it is so long; where the Vedas were written, the Upanishads composed, the Gita crafted; where Buddha, Mahavira, and Shankara were born. There my words will be received as if I were distributing diamonds. If materialists, disconnected from God, were moved in America, what will not happen in India!”

But what happened in India, Ram had never imagined. He thought: “It would be apt to enter India through Kashi, for that city holds the story of India’s glory in every particle. Buddha gave his first sermon there; Shankara announced his conquest of the world there; Tirthankaras of the Jains graced it. There is no city on earth older than Kashi. Jerusalem is young. Mecca and Medina are much newer. Kashi is the most ancient pilgrimage—the first civilized city on earth.” So Ram came to Kashi and delivered his first talk there.

In the middle of his discourse a pundit stood up: “Stop! Do you know Sanskrit?”

Ram was puzzled. He was a carefree soul. He did not know Sanskrit; he knew Urdu-Persian. He had never thought Sanskrit had any special connection with the Vedas, with Brahman, with knowing.

A man may know no language at all and still know God. Kabir knew without reading or writing; Mohammed knew without reading; the son of a carpenter, Jesus—those flowers bloomed in his life as well. Scholarship is not the condition.

Ram said, “No, I don’t know Sanskrit.”

The pundit laughed. Others rose and joined him: “If you don’t know Sanskrit, how will you know Vedanta? First learn Sanskrit, then come to teach.”

After that, Ram went to the Himalayas. And a sad thing: he shed the robes of sannyas. When he died he did not wear ochre. He said, “If religion is stuck in words, if sannyas has become mere scholarship, if knowing Sanskrit counts as knowing Vedanta—why belong to that fraternity!” When he died, he wore no ochre. He renounced even sannyas.

Tradition has corrupted even sannyas.

America could understand; India could not. America is naive—so it could understand. India is too clever—clever to a fault. Without knowing, India believes it knows. The mind has become a pundit, not wise. Filled with words, it has left no room for the wordless. Religion has nothing to do with words.

So pay more attention to what I do not say than to what I say. When I speak, do not fixate on the words; attend to the empty space between two words. If the said is missed, it doesn’t matter; but do not miss the unsaid.

Brahman is read between the lines. Brahman is found between words. It happens in the interval. When I fall silent for a moment, then awaken; look closely at me; give me the chance to come near, to stroke your heart.

Religion is not in grammar rules; it is in the praise of God. And not in the praise you perform. When even praise is lost, when only you remain, with no word around you—an emptiness envelops you. You don’t even speak, for what is there to say to God? He knows without your saying. Your saying adds nothing to His knowing. What will you say? Whatever you say will be a sob. And if say you must, then say it by crying, for what your tears can say your words cannot. If you wish to express awe and gratitude, how will you speak it? Words fall short. Awe is vast; it won’t fit into words. It is better to express it by dancing. If there is nothing to say, then be silent—so that He may speak and you may listen.

Bhajan—kirtan, song, and dance—are means to give form to feeling.

Become bhajan without saying; become song without singing—Shankara points this way. These verses are simple, the sutras are direct—composed by a mind as brilliant as Shankara’s. In all of Shankara’s utterance, nothing is more precious than “Bhaj Govindam.” For Shankara is a philosopher; what he wrote is intricate—words, scripture, logic, debate, thought. But he knows that God is not found by argument or thought; He is found by dancing and singing; by feeling, not thinking; the path goes through the heart, not the head. So Shankara wrote commentaries on the Brahma-sutras, on the Upanishads, on the Gita—but his inmost heart you will find in these small verses. Here he opens his heart. Here he appears not as a scholar or thinker, but as a devotee.

“O fool, sing Govinda, sing Govinda, sing Govinda; for when death comes, the rote of grammar will not save you.”

“O fool, sing Govinda.”

What is foolishness? Shankara is not insulting you by calling you a fool. It is an exceedingly loving address.

Bhaj Govindam, Bhaj Govindam, Bhaj Govindam, mudha-mate.
“O fool, praise the Lord, praise Govinda.”

What does foolishness mean? Not ignorance. Foolishness means: being ignorant while believing you know. Foolishness belongs to the pundit, not to the ignorant. What is there to call the ignorant a fool for? He is simply ignorant—that is straightforward. Many times it has happened that the one who does not know comes to know, and the knower lags behind; for the ignorant has no ego; he is humble; he has no claim because he knows he does not know.

But the pundit, without knowing, knows that he knows. He has learned words; scriptures weigh upon his head. He can recite grammar’s rules. And he sinks into them.

A Sufi story:

A Sufi fakir earned his bread by ferrying people across a river. One day the village pundit wanted to cross. The Sufi said, “How can I take money from you!” He took only a coin or two from others. “I’ll take you for free.” The pundit sat in the boat, the two set out. The pundit asked, “Are you educated? Can you read and write?”

What else can a pundit ask? He shares what he has. We can only give what we possess.

The fakir’s radiance went unseen. A pundit is blind with his knowledge. He took the Sufi to be a simple boatman; but the Extraordinary was sitting before him. The God about whom the pundit had thought and heard was present in that fakir. The One he had discussed was peeking through the fakir’s eyes. Had he eyes, he would have found in the fakir what he had dreamed of and read. Encounter was there.

But the pundit asked, “Can you read and write?”

If God showed up, the pundit would ask, “Certificate? How educated are you?” He lives in his own world—his words, his scripture.

The fakir said, “No, I can’t read or write at all. I’m utterly uneducated, simple.”

Had the pundit a pinch of awareness, the fakir’s words would have revealed profound humility. To accept one’s ignorance is the first step towards knowing. And if one wholly accepts one’s ignorance, it may be the last step as well. For when you know, with your whole being, “I know nothing,” where will ego stand? The ground disappears beneath its feet; the edifice collapses; you descend into egolessness. That is the door—there one meets God.

“I know nothing at all,” said the fakir.

“Then half your life is wasted,” said the pundit.

The boat moved on. “At least you know arithmetic for keeping accounts?” asked the pundit.

“I have nothing to keep accounts of,” said the fakir. “My hands are empty. What comes in the day is spent by evening—for what more than bread do I need? Night finds me a beggar again; morning I earn once more. God has given so far—why keep accounts? If someone gives, good. If not, also good. I have lived so far; I will live further. The giver does not give something that lasts forever; the non-giver does not take something forever. It’s all a play.”

“Then three quarters of your life is wasted,” said the pundit.

Suddenly a storm arose. The boat tossed. It was about to sink. The fakir laughed, for the pundit panicked. Who would not panic when death stares at you! He talked of immortality—“the soul is deathless”—but when death stands before you, neither scholarly soul nor scholarly immortality serves. He trembled; hands and feet shook.

“Do you know how to swim?” asked the fakir.

“Not at all!”

“Then your whole life is wasted. I jump now—this boat will sink.”

“O fool, sing Govinda, sing Govinda; for when the end comes…”

Perhaps Shankara knew the story I told you.

“…for when the end comes, the rote of grammar will not save you.”

When drowning confronts you, when death encircles you, only if you know how to swim will it help—swimming in death! If you cannot swim in death, death will drown you. It has done so many times, and still you have not awakened. You have yet to learn how to swim.

When death arrives, how many languages you know, how much grammar you have mastered—nothing will help.

What helps in death is wisdom; what does not is pedantry. Death is the touchstone. Test whatever you “know” on this stone—lest you be deceived. Keep this touchstone always with you, as a goldsmith rubs gold on the stone. Accept as knowledge only that which serves in death; what deceives you there, take it as mere scholarship.

And what is of no use in death—what use will it be in life! If it cannot serve at life’s climax, how will it serve within life? Death is life’s completion, its peak, its consummation. What serves in death serves in life too. In life, deception is easy; in death, impossible. Death lays everything bare.

Whom does Shankara call a fool? The one who does not know, but has memorized grammar; a knower of words; one whose identity is from scripture; who can recite, repeat, interpret scripture.

He is calling the pundit a fool. If it were not so, why this sudden jab at grammar: “O fool, sing Govinda, sing Govinda, for when death comes the rote of grammar will not save you”? It is the pundit who memorizes grammar, not the “fools” we call ignorant. And in India this burden has become very heavy—so heavy that nearly everyone imagines he knows God because he knows the word “God.”

Remember: the word “water” is not water, nor the word “God” is God. And if you are thirsty, the word won’t help; water is needed. If death stands before you, doctrines of immortality will not help; you need the taste of the immortal.

Once, on a journey, in the heat, in a region where rains had failed, the train halted. A man was selling a glass of cold water for ten paise, calling and gathering coins. A fellow passenger near me said, “Will you give it for eight?” The water-seller did not even pause: “Then you are not thirsty.”

When you are thirsty, do you haggle over two paise! That is talk for the unthirsty. He was right. If thirst burns, you will give anything. Accounting lasts only while thirst has not.

You say you are Hindu, Muslim, Christian—these are the words of the unthirsty. When thirst comes, who is Hindu, who Muslim, who Christian? When thirst comes, you ask for God—temple, mosque, gurudwara lose relevance. Has anyone’s thirst been quenched there? And when thirst comes, you do not calculate.

That is the meaning of renunciation and sannyas: your thirst has come, and you are ready to stake everything.

People say, “Yes, we will know God too—but first there are other things to do, other entanglements to settle.” You keep postponing God to the end. He stands at the very end of your queue of needs. That queue never ends; He remains at the end. You will be finished before you ever reach Him. One need is not fulfilled before ten more arise; one desire not satisfied before a thousand are born. He stays in the rear; does not move an inch.

Everything hinges on this: is God last or first on your life’s list? If He is last, you are a fool. If He is first, you begin to be wise. You have understood one thing: whatever I gather in life, death will take. What will be taken anyway—wasting time gathering it is futile.

“O fool, sing Govinda.”

Understand bhajan rightly. You will find people “doing” bhajan, but their bhajan is superficial. Entertainment perhaps, but not a staking of life. A little fun—any other song would amuse as much.

Bhajan means a cry arising from your whole being; a voice rising from your entire life-force; your totality is staked—as if it were a matter of life and death.

If you would sing Govinda, you must lose yourself. Try to save yourself and sing Govinda—you will deceive yourself.

Bhajan’s demand is absolute, ultimate.

If someone merely uttered the name “Rama” in Ramakrishna’s hearing—just the name—his disciples had to be careful that no stranger greeted him with “Jai Ramji!” If someone did, Ramakrishna would stand transfixed, possessed with feeling; ecstasy would seize him; he would dance in the street. The disciples were embarrassed; the policeman would come to shoo him away. At a wedding once, invited for a blessing, the groom and bride vanished behind him; in the press and noise, someone shouted, “Where is Govinda?” Ramakrishna began to dance; Govinda’s praise started. The procession stopped being a procession; the ceremony ceased to be a ceremony; a different ambience descended.

Bhajan means an unbroken inner stream of remembrance running twenty-four hours a day. Because that stream ran within him, if anyone outside uttered Rama or Krishna or Govinda—the remembrance already present within would overflow without; someone dropped a bucket into the full well. No, bhajan is not something you do now and then. Once it begins, it never ends; it is a continuous inner remembering.

“O fool, sing Govinda, for when death comes, the rote of grammar will not save you.”

How much scripture you know—death will not ask. How much truth you have known—death will reveal. What you have known will remain; what others had known and you borrowed will be lost. If scripture is borrowed, it is useless; if it has blossomed in you, if you have reached the same source as the seers of the Upanishads and slaked your thirst at the same spring, then the Upanishads are not scripture for you; they are the expression of your own awakening.

People ask me why I speak on Shankara or Buddha or Christ. Why not speak directly?

I am speaking directly. Shankara in this song says exactly what I would say, and so beautifully it cannot be improved. The final word is spoken. There is no need to repeat it. I do not speak on Shankara because I believe in him. It is not a matter of belief. I have drunk from the same spring from which this song arose in him.

“O fool, abandon the thirst for hoarding wealth; awaken right-intelligence and make the mind free of craving. Be content and cheerful with that which comes through your own labor. O fool, always sing Govinda.”

“Abandon the thirst for hoarding wealth.”

Wealth does not only mean money. Wealth includes anything you hoard. Whatever you crave to accumulate is wealth—even knowledge. When you hoard knowledge, you hoard wealth. One man counts rupees in his locker; another counts information and how many books he has read. Both are gathering. A third accumulates renunciations—how many fasts he has done. A fourth hoards fame—how many honor him, how many follow him. Wherever you hoard, whatever can be hoarded, that is wealth. And wealth deceives, because inwardly you remain poor while outwardly you pile up things. What is gathered outside cannot be taken within. And whatever you cannot carry within, death will snatch—for only you can pass beyond death, nothing else. Only your being will cross; flames cannot burn it; weapons cannot pierce it—nainam chindanti shastrani, nainam dahati pavakah. Only the pure you will pass through the gate of death—only you, nothing else.

If you have gathered only outer wealth, you will pass through death’s gate poor. And when death declares you poor, then even in life your wealth was a delusion. What kind of wealth is that which you cannot take with you? Property is only what can go with you; otherwise everything else is calamity. What you gather seems like wealth; it is not—it is misfortune. And you know it. After accumulating, you find your trouble has grown. Wealth should bring contentment and peace; fearlessness should arise; a tone should begin to resonate—“I have arrived; I am home”—a fragrance of rest should arise. But that does not happen. As wealth grows, foul odors rise—anxieties multiply. Wealth does not bring peace, it opens doors to unrest.

“O fool, abandon the thirst for hoarding.”

Why this madness to hoard?

I stayed at a house whose owner was the very incarnation of hoarding. Even useless things he stored. The house was a junkyard. How they lived was the mystery. One day, we stood in the garden talking. His young son threw out a broken broom—just the stump. At once I saw the father grow restless; he kept talking, but his eyes were on the broom. I thought my presence was a hindrance. I said, “I’ll be right back.” I went inside. When I returned, both broom and father had vanished. He had taken it in. I followed him. “Now this is going too far,” I said, catching him red-handed with the broom. “Why did you bring this in?”

“Who knows—might be useful someday,” he said.

“How? For what?”

“You never know. What’s the harm in keeping it?”

A kind of madness to hoard. Why? Because inside there is a great emptiness that begs to be filled—by anything—else one feels terribly empty. Consider: if you had nothing, you would feel a huge hollow within.

Here, with meditation… friends come; after a month or so of meditation, the inner emptiness starts to show. It is always there, but without meditation you don’t notice it. Meditation brings some awareness; then emptiness is seen. A strange thing happens: whoever sees inner emptiness begins to overeat. Every day cases come: “What shall we do? What has happened? We never ate so much! Meditation has landed us in trouble—food is all we think of.” I tell them, “There is a reason. Meditation has shown you your inner emptiness. Now you want to fill it. Emptiness bites. You want to stuff it.” You stuff yourself with money, position, prestige; you surround yourself with things and sit among them feeling secure: “I have something.”

Those who have nothing feel the urge to gather; those who have are not concerned with gathering—they are enough in themselves. Their own being is such fullness that no question of hoarding arises. That is why we venerated Buddha, Mahavira, Shankara—because we saw their treasure is within. Something inside them dissolves the emptiness—some inner light turns the void into plenitude; the inner zero becomes truth.

Meditation brings emptiness. If you hurry, you will develop the thirst to fill it. If you do not hurry and agree to live with the void, if you accept it, you will find the void slowly fills by itself. Nature does not tolerate a vacuum. Create the emptiness; nature fills it. Nor does God tolerate a vacuum. Create the emptiness; He fills it. Make the hollow, the Full descends. When there is a pit and rains come, waters rush from all sides to fill it. When you become empty, God rushes from all sides towards you. You make the pit; He fills it. Half you do; half He does. And your half is small—the real doing is His. Yours is simply to agree to be empty. Therefore all the awakened insist: beware the thirst to fill; beware the urge to hoard. For if you fill yourself, you give God no chance to fill you.

A story: Krishna sat to eat; Rukmini had served his plate. He took perhaps a single morsel and suddenly rushed to the door. Rukmini could not understand. He reached the door, then returned to the plate. “What happened?” she asked. “You ran like there was a fire, and returned as if nothing happened.”

“There was a fire,” Krishna said. “My devotee was walking down a capital’s avenue. People were stoning him. Blood streamed from his forehead, and he kept chanting ‘Govinda, Govinda.’ He did not answer back or defend himself. He left himself in my hands. I had to run.”

When one becomes so helpless, God must run to him. If one becomes so empty that even under a rain of stones he neither runs nor replies, the whole of existence comes to his defense. The pit is ready; streams pour in to make it a lake.

“Then why did you return?” asked Rukmini.

“By the time I reached the door, he had changed his mind—picked up a stone. He is now answering himself; there is no need for me.”

God is needed only where you are helpless. And if from your helplessness the name “Govinda” arises, bhajan has happened. No need to shout “Govinda, Govinda.” Let your eyes, filled with feeling, lift to the sky; let your heart open to the heavens—and you refrain from doing anything. In that instant God runs toward you. Be the pit; He is ever ready to fill.

Mohammed used to say: Take one step toward Him, and He takes a thousand toward you.

But you won’t take even one. That one is essential. Unless there is a sign from your side, an invitation, how will He come? Even if He wants to come, how? If you have not invited Him, even if He arrives at your door, He will find it shut. He may knock; you will think it is a gust of wind. He may cry out and call; but in your inner noise you will not hear.

“O fool, abandon the thirst for hoarding and awaken right-intelligence.”

Buddhi is your worldly cleverness; sadbuddhi is your wisdom. The more “educated” the world becomes, the more cunning it becomes. People thought education would make one simple and innocent. But as schooling increases, cunning increases; dishonesty grows; hypocrisy thrives; one becomes adept at sucking others dry.

Buddhi means skill in the world; sadbuddhi means skill in God.

And note: a man of sadbuddhi may appear a fool to the worldly. He will. “What are you doing?” the world will ask.

When Buddha left his home, it was the descent of sadbuddhi—he left palace and kingdom. The charioteer who took him beyond the border, a mere servant, could not contain himself: “This is impertinence for a small man to say, but I cannot hold back. What you are doing is foolishness—madness! The whole world longs for palaces and empires. By great fortune you have them—and you are leaving! Where will you find such a beautiful wife? These riches, comforts, this palace, this family, this respect—where will you find them? Return!”

The old charioteer—wiser than Buddha! Advising him!

Buddha said, “I understand you. But where you see a palace, I see only tongues of fire; where you see beauty, I see death hiding; where you see wealth, I see only deception. I go to seek the real treasure. I go to seek the true home. This one will be taken away. I seek the home that cannot be taken. Until that is found, the search will not stop. For it I am ready to lose all. This will be lost anyway—why not stake it? It is a matter of time; today it is, tomorrow it will be gone. If by staking what will be taken anyway I can gain what can never be taken, the bargain is not costly.”

Sadbuddhi has arisen in Buddha; the charioteer is merely “intelligent.”

Buddha returned home twelve years later—the lamp of sadbuddhi fully ablaze, radiant—but his father was angry. “Stop this nonsense,” said the father. “Come back home. You deceived me, your wife, your newborn son—but I will forgive you, because I am your father. Come back! It does not befit you to beg in the streets. Whose son are you? You need not beg. If you enjoy this sort of thing, you can distribute alms to thousands daily—why beg?”

Even now Buddha seems foolish to his father.

To worldly intelligence, religious wisdom looks like madness. People think it is lunacy. But to one in whom sadbuddhi has dawned, worldly cleverness looks foolishness. You must decide. Without this decision, no one enters religion. Until worldly intelligence feels like folly to you, the ray of sadbuddhi will not touch you. When worldly cunning appears to you as self-deception, when worldly glory seems like failure, the sprout of sadbuddhi will break ground within.

“Awaken right-intelligence, make the mind free of craving, and be content and cheerful with what comes through your labor.”

This is true of all wealth. In the outer world, if you are content with what you earn by your own effort, morality will flower in your life. In the inner world, if the inner treasure comes by your own effort, religion will flower within. When you memorize scripture, you steal. The knowledge hidden in scripture you have not earned; you are pilfering it. It is borrowed, stale. You have grabbed someone else’s utterance. Do not build your house on it. It is a house on sand. A small gust will topple it.

Recently I spoke of a Zen story. One evening, a traveling monk knocked at a Zen monastery’s gate. In Japan, the rule is: if a wandering monk seeks shelter, he must answer at least one question. Until he answers properly, he cannot stay the night. The abbot opened the gate and posed an ancient Zen koan: “What is your original face—the face you had before your mother and father were born?”

This is a question about the Self. What comes from mother and father is the body—the face too. What is your original countenance, your nature? Zen masters say, it cannot be answered with words; the answer must be a living expression.

As soon as the question was asked, the guest monk pulled off his sandal and struck the abbot’s face with it. The abbot stepped back, bowed deeply, “Welcome. Come in.”

They ate, then sat by the brazier. “Your answer was wonderful,” said the host.

“Do you yourself have the experience of this answer?” asked the guest.

“No,” said the abbot. “I don’t. But I have read many scriptures. And from them I know the true answer is given without hesitation. You answered without hesitation. Your answer carried the point: the fool asks in words, seeking a wordless reply; the fool asks about the original face, and the original face is with you already! So I answered your face with a sandal—this face is not the original; it is fit for a shoe.”

“I recognized your answer on the authority of scripture.”

The guest remained silent, sipping tea. The host felt uneasy, saw something unsatisfactory in the guest’s face. He asked again, “Friend, tell me truly—has the answer happened to you?”

“I too have read many scriptures,” said the guest. “From the same lines that let you recognize me, I learned this answer. The answer has not happened to me either.”

Scripture can be a terrible deception, because it contains answers. But to repeat scriptural answers is like flipping to the answer key at the back of a math book. You can give the right answer, but the method—the path from question to answer—you do not have. However right the answer, you are wrong, for only the passage through the method refines you.

Another’s answer will not work. Your own is needed. God will not examine you on scripture—His is an existential test. He will not ask, “Did you hear, did you read?” He will ask, “Did you live?” If the answer has arisen in your life, it has come through your own labor.

So whether the wealth is outer—if you earn it by your own effort, morality will arise—or inner—if you earn it by your own effort, religion will arise. Swami Ram called it “cash religion,” not borrowed religion.

Borrowed religion is like this: all the answers are correct, but impotent—blank cartridges. Load them in your gun and try to fire—you will be a laughingstock. They are already fired shells.

But most people do exactly this—parroting others’ answers mechanically. They haven’t even found their own question yet, let alone their answer. They don’t even know precisely what they seek to know.

“O fool, let go the thirst for hoarding; awaken right-intelligence; be content with what comes by your effort. O fool, always sing Govinda.”

“Do not be bewitched by the beauty of a woman’s form—by her breasts and navel. Know them to be modifications of flesh; bring this reflection to mind again and again. And, O fool, always sing Govinda.”

A man is drawn to woman, a woman to man—the attraction of opposites. In that attraction, a hypnotic state arises.

Understand this a little.

When a child is born, his first contact with the world is the mother’s breast. The first “other” is the mother’s breast. Through it he begins his journey. Hence the male’s fascination with the breast. It is the first imprint—no other imprint is deeper. That is why images, statues, films, stories all circle around the breast. In a woman’s body, it is the breast that most bewitches a man’s mind. Women busy themselves in covering them; men, in uncovering. Both know where the juice lies.

The more “civilized” a society becomes, the more acute this difficulty. In primitive tribes there is little fascination with breasts; women are bare, and children may nurse as long as they wish. Even at ten, if he drinks, no one objects.

In civilized societies the wish is to wean as early as possible. The earlier the weaning, the more fascination remains. Then poetry, painting, sculpture—endless contrivances—yet the mind hovers around the breast. The child remained unfulfilled; the lack breeds dreams. An inner hypnosis arises from this unfulfillment. There is no way to fulfill it now, unless right-intelligence awakens.

Shankara says: keep this in remembrance, again and again. Only then can the first imprint break.

Scientists discovered something significant. A researcher was experimenting with chickens. As soon as a chick hatched, he did not let it see the mother hen; instead he placed a duck nearby. When the chick opened its eyes, it saw the duck. The first imprint.

Then a strange thing happened: it chased ducks; it felt no affinity with hens. The ducks pecked it—“Why is a chick following us?”—but it clung to them. The hens coaxed it; it hesitated, afraid. At night it tried to sleep in the duck-pen; the ducks pecked it out. The hens welcomed it to their roost; it refused to enter.

The first imprint is precious. It follows for life. Whatever first happens in a human life shadows him forever. The mind weaves dreams around it.

What is there in a woman’s or a man’s body that attracts so much?

Something surely is, for your body is born of the meeting of male and female. Half came from woman, half from man. Every person is half man, half woman—your very cells. The part of you that is feminine longs for the male; the part that is masculine longs for the female.

New psychology says: hidden in every man’s unconscious is a woman; in every woman’s, a man. Until the woman within you meets the man within you, you will keep searching outside. Until your conscious and unconscious unite, the attraction to the opposite—man for woman, woman for man—will remain.

You have seen the image of Ardhanarishvara—Shankara as half woman, half man. Until within you, too, the inner man and inner woman unite, until you are whole within, your search outside will continue. You hope to become whole by union with another—something feels missing. The missing woman is your own unconscious.

Therefore all yoga and tantra are essentially processes to unite your inner energies. When you join within, outer cravings end. But only when outer cravings end can you join within. These two are interdependent.

Hence Shankara says: “Do not be bewitched by a woman’s form, breasts, navel.”

He is speaking to men—religion was then largely a male domain. But the same must be said to women: there is nothing in a man’s body to be bewitched by either.

Shankara’s words—and words like them—have often created a great misunderstanding. It comes to sound as if there is nothing in woman’s body, while in man’s body there is something special. No. There is nothing in the body—any body. Otherwise men start thinking women have ensnared them. Who ensnared the women then? Men think woman is the hindrance to liberation. If woman is the obstacle for men, then who is the obstacle for women? They will attain without hindrance! Think a little. The issue is not man versus woman. It is the baseless attraction to the opposite.

“Know them to be modifications of flesh; bring this reflection to mind again and again.”

Because the imprint is deep, repeated reflection is needed. As a dripping stream wears away rock—on first sight, who would think water could cut stone?—but a time comes when the stream remains and the stone becomes sand.

Conditioning is hard, deep; but if the stream of reflection keeps dripping—one day, suddenly, you will find the rock has been washed away. When your conditionings dissolve, you are free.

“And, O fool, always sing Govinda.”

And Shankara says, keep up Govinda’s praise without break. Do whatever you do, but keep returning to bhajan. Bhajan means: what is visible is not enough; the invisible too is. Remember that. Do not let the visible make you forget the invisible; remember the invisible.

You see me, I see you. As far as you see me, that is the visible. But if you remember the invisible within me… Walk down the road: people, animals, trees—the visible is the world; but within each visible is the invisible hidden—that is Govinda. To sing Govinda means: let the visible not trick you; keep the invisible in mind.

A mute, naked sannyasi was passing an English cantonment in the revolt of 1857. Soldiers seized him: “Who are you?” He kept his vow of silence; suspicion grew. A soldier thrust his spear into the sannyasi’s chest; blood spurted. That sannyasi had taken a vow to utter only once in life—at the moment of death. As the spear pierced his chest, he spoke a single Upanishadic sentence: “Tat tvam asi, Shvetaketu—Thou art That, O Shvetaketu!”

A crowd gathered. “What do you mean?”

“I mean only this,” he said, “that God cannot deceive me by any form. Today He has come with a spear; it has entered my chest; but I see—within, Thou art That. Tat tvam asi, Shvetaketu! You will not fool me.”

With blood flowing, the sannyasi began to dance—for he saw God even in his killer.

“Bhaj Govindam, Bhaj Govindam, mudha-mate.” It means: whatever happens, see God everywhere. In the enemy too. And when death knocks, see Him even there. In the friend He should be seen, of course; but in the foe too.

As of now, you do not see Him even in the friend. Not in the beloved. Not even in your own child. The enemy is far away. If you do not see Him in yourself, how will you see Him in another?

“Bhaj Govindam, Bhaj Govindam, mudha-mate” means: come what may, see the One everywhere. In a rock—He is there, perhaps deeply asleep, but there. In a tree—dumb perhaps, but there. In a madman—deranged perhaps, but there. Whatever form He takes, do not miss Him.

There is an incident in Sai Baba’s life. A Hindu sannyasi lived three miles from the mosque where Sai Baba stayed. He came daily for darshan, and would not eat until he had bowed and touched Sai’s feet. Sometimes the crowd was so dense he could not enter, and he would fast the whole day. Sai said, “Fool, you need not come. I will come to you. But recognize me! When your food is ready, I will come; have darshan there and eat. These three miles, this fasting—it pains me.”

“This is great good fortune,” said the sannyasi. “I will await you.”

Next day he cooked early, waited happily. No one came—only a dog arrived, following the smell. He raised his stick: “Get out! I am waiting for Sai, and you come?” He struck the dog twice. No one else came. By afternoon he ran to the mosque. “What is this? You promised to come, but you’re sitting here in the crowd!”

“I came,” Sai said. “I even took two blows. You did not recognize me.”

The sannyasi trembled. “Two blows? A dog came, Maharaj!”

“I told you—recognize me. I will certainly come. In what form I come depends on what form is available then. At that hour, in that noon heat, only the dog was there, so I rode him.”

The sannyasi wept. “One mistake—give me another chance. Tomorrow, whatever happens, I will recognize.”

Had the dog come again, he might have recognized—but dogs are not reliable. A leper beggar came. He drove him away: “Your stench will ruin the food. I feel like vomiting. Go—do not enter.” A doubt did arise—“Am I making a mistake?”—but “Sai and a leper? No match. At least the dog was healthy.”

That evening he said, “You did not come. I waited for you, and for the dog too.”

“I came,” said Sai. “But the smell did not suit you. You drove me off.”

Weeping, “One more chance!”

“Even if I come a thousand times,” said Sai, “you will not recognize me.”

Recognition is possible only when you are awake.

Singing Govinda means: whatever appears becomes a reminder of Him. From wherever a message comes, it is His message. If the wind blows—remember Him; the gurgle of water—remember Him; birds sing—remember Him; silence—His; noise—His; marketplace—His; Himalayan emptiness—His. Let His remembrance shower from everywhere—leaf, flower, stone. Let it surround you. And whenever you look into eyes, look into His.

This is no imagination or poetry; it is a fact—because it is He who peers through every eye. If you have not seen, it is your mistake. If you have not recognized, it is your folly. Look into your wife’s eyes when you return home; sit your little child beside you and look deeply into his eyes—soon the child will vanish and the formless be present. Wherever you look deeply, you will find Him; wherever your glance is shallow, you will miss.

“As water on a lotus leaf is tremulous and unstable, so is life exceedingly fickle and fleeting. Understand well that the world is diseased with ego and stricken with sorrow. Therefore, O fool, always sing Govinda.”

Here everything is flowing away, fleeing moment by moment. Nothing abides. Do not build your house upon this. Even sand is steadier. This world is a stream—build no house on it, or you will repent.

Seek the still. Keep your eye on that which remains unmoving amidst all motion. The wheel spins, the potter’s wheel whirls—but the axle-pin is still. Keep your eye on the pin. There you will find Him. The wheel is the world; that is why we call it the wheel of samsara. It spins on and on. But that on which it turns, the pin, is still. The unstable too needs the support of the stable; falsehood too needs truth to live; even a dream requires a real witness, or it could not happen.

“As water on a lotus leaf is tremulous and unstable, so is life exceedingly fickle and fleeting.”

Do not cling too much to it, or you will suffer. Nothing can be held. Youth—will pass; you will try to grasp, and fail—and waste your time grasping. This body—tomorrow it won’t be. Countless bodies have been and are no more. The world is restlessness, change. Make not your home here. At best, it is an inn—stay for a night, leave in the morning. If you make a home here, sorrow is certain. Hence your suffering.

People ask, “Why are we unhappy?”

Because you build where nothing can be built. And where something can be—or already is—you do not look. Your eyes face the wrong way, hence sorrow. Sorrow is the result of keeping company with the false. Joy is satsang—company with the true.

“As long as one has the power to earn, the family remains affectionate. When old age comes and the body decays, no one listens at home. Therefore, O fool, always sing Govinda.”

If you must “marry,” then marry Him. If you must bond, bond with Him. All marriages in this world are divorces in disguise. All relations here are merely names—inside, nothing.

Mulla Nasruddin was in love with a millionaire’s daughter. “Whether life remains or goes,” he said, “I will not leave you. If need be I will die for you; I can become a martyr, but I will not leave you.” Big words.

One day the girl was sad. “My father has gone bankrupt,” she said.

“I knew,” said Nasruddin, “that your father would do something to prevent our marriage.”

The very reason for marriage had vanished.

Your relations are one thing in your words, another in truth. You even believe your own stories. Man is skilled—he deceives himself as he deceives others.

“As long as breath remains in the body, the family asks of your welfare. When breath departs and the body falls, even the wife fears that body. Therefore, O fool, always sing Govinda.”

Keep the company only of the One who remains forever. What weigh the companionships that are like the meeting of river and boat? Fellow travelers meet on the road for a while, then part. Such is this companionship. Give it not too much value. Do not mistake it for truth. As in a dream one meets someone—on waking, parted.

“A child clings to play; a youth to the love of a maiden; the old cling to worries. Never does man cling to God. Therefore, O fool, always sing Govinda.”

Childhood passes in play; youth in the game called love; old age in anxieties—balancing accounts. Life goes by like this. God is postponed—tomorrow, and tomorrow! But only death arrives tomorrow. You don’t even remember God; death comes.

“O fool, always sing Govinda.”

Before death arrives—whenever awareness arises—wake yourself. Look: what are you doing? Where are you entangled? What will be the outcome of your actions? Your deeds, wealth, prestige—all will be left behind. Do not waste time on what will be left. The earlier you awaken, the better.

If attachment to life does not break, attachment to God cannot form. If you are deeply enamored of the visible, how will you recognize the formless? If you cling to matter, how will you hold the immaterial? If everything is invested on earth, your eyes will not lift to the sky. Where your attachment is rooted, until those roots are cut, until you awaken and see that there is nothing but suffering there—until the essence of life appears to you as sorrow… However alluring the promise of pleasure, sorrow is what comes. However great the assurances, sorrow is what arrives. You make plans for happiness—but they are like trying to squeeze oil from sand. Your hands remain empty.

If you choose to leave this world empty-handed, there is no need to concern yourself with God—only you will leave weeping.

If you wish to depart with hands and heart full, then remember God as soon as possible. Immerse in Him. Spend as much time and energy in His remembrance as you can—that alone is auspicious.

Only one thing can fill you—God. You do not care for that. And you worry about what can never fill you.

Mulla Nasruddin’s wife lay dying. “Tell me truly,” she said, “if I die, will you go mad?”

“One hundred percent,” said Nasruddin. “If you die, I will certainly go mad.”

She laughed. “You lie. As far as I know, I will die and you will remarry.”

“I will go mad,” said Nasruddin, “but not so mad as to remarry.”

If you look deeply at life, you will not want to be born again; you will not want to marry again. What have you found here but sorrow? This is the search of the East: how to be free of birth and death. Those who have seen life have only one desire left: how to be free of life.

When Bodhidharma went to China with Buddha’s message, Emperor Wu asked him: “Tell me in brief; I have little time—you see the empire is large; I cannot sit long in discourse. Tell me in short: what is the most precious thing in life? What is the greatest good fortune?”

“You will not understand,” said Bodhidharma. “The greatest good fortune is never to be born.”

Wu was startled—calling non-birth a fortune! But Bodhidharma was right. Buddhas long not to be born.

“But,” said Bodhidharma, “that cannot be—finished; you are born. So the second best: die as soon as possible.”

They say Wu never came again. “What sort of sage is this!” But I tell you also: the first good fortune is not to be born. But since that is beyond your control now, the second is: die while living; let your color drain from life. To die while living means: live as if you are not. Sit in the marketplace—you must sit somewhere—but as if you are not. Raise children—you must—but as if you are not. Become absent. Soon you will find your absence is not empty—God slowly descends into it.

Bhaj Govindam, Bhaj Govindam, Bhaj Govindam, mudha-mate.

Enough for today.