Bhaj Govindam #10

Because life is made of opposites; there is no other way for life to be. The breath goes out and then returns within. Ever asked—why so? If the breath has to go in, why take it out? But if the breath were to stay only inside and not go out, death would happen, not life. If the breath were to remain only outside and not come in, again death would happen, not life. Life is movement—movement between two opposites; it is the flow of a river between two banks. The breath goes out and comes in; it comes in and goes out—every moment pranayama is happening, and pratyahara is happening.

The breath going out is pranayama; the breath coming in is pratyahara. And if the same rhythm settles in your consciousness, if the same movement becomes steady there—so that you expand outward into the infinite and reach inward to the void—within, emptiness; without, the infinite—let these be your two banks, and flow ceaselessly between them, only then will you attain the Godlike nature. For this is the very nature of God—emptiness within, fullness without.

This whole existence is God’s pranayama. Creation is pranayama, dissolution is pratyahara. One breath goes out—creation happens; the breath returns within—dissolution happens.

If you understand this rightly, you will see it everywhere in life. Birth is pranayama, death is pratyahara; in birth you expand, in death you contract and return. And life is between the banks of birth and death. Birth is not life; death is not life either. That which flows between birth and death, that unknown dance moving in cadence, immersed in rhythm—that is life.

The mind longs to be logical, but life is woven of opposites; therefore life is illogical. And those who tried to know through logic went astray and never arrived.

Logic will insist: pranayama and pratyahara are opposites—make them one! Knowledge and devotion are opposites—choose one! Emptiness and fullness are opposites—say just one!

Remember, life is always paradoxical; because life is greater than opposites; life absorbs them both. Logic is very small; it is a device of a small mind; it can contain only one, so the opposite is left out.

Therefore, when Buddha spoke of emptiness, it did not mean that fullness is not included in it. But Buddha’s followers said, if there is emptiness, there cannot be fullness. And when Shankara said fullness, it did not mean that emptiness is not included in it. But Shankara’s followers said, if there is fullness, how can there be emptiness?

That is exactly where the followers go astray. The follower lives by logic and intellect. Those who know have known the opposites together. Yet even they feel difficulty in speaking the opposites together, because they have to explain it to you. If opposites are stated at once, it seems to you a great inconsistency. Your mind keeps striving for logical, linear mathematics. But life follows no mathematics; life breaks through all the boundaries of calculation. Life is a flood.

Do not worry about your dreams; accomplish it in the waking state. What is accomplished in waking begins to descend into dreams by itself, because your dreams are echoes of your waking. Whatever you did while awake, you keep hearing its resonance again and again in your sleep. Dream gives nothing new—what new could dreams give?

All day you gather money; at night you keep counting rupees. All day lust floats in the mind; at night sexual dreams arise. In whose life there is bhajan, devotion enters their sleep as well; and those whose day is silent and empty, their night too becomes silent and empty. Night trails after the day; it is the shadow of the day. Do not bother about changing the night.

If lust in your dreams troubles you, understand that somewhere in your waking you are cheating yourself. Take the hint. Dreams point out clearly what you miss noticing in the day. It may be that by day you sit like a great saint—but it is the saintliness of a heron. He stands on one leg! To look at him you would think he is a great ascetic. And how immaculate he looks! Where will you find more whiteness than in a heron? How he stands! Which yogi could stand so still! Do not be deceived by the outward. Within he is contemplating fish, watching for fish. Those postures, those perfect asanas, are practiced for the sake of fish.

The heron may deceive others, but how can it deceive itself? It knows why it stands there, for what it is holding its breath.

But man is more dishonest than a heron. He not only deceives others; in deceiving others he ends up deceiving himself. When others begin to believe his act, gradually he too believes it. Then you will find a conflict between your waking and your dreams. By day it will seem to you that no wave of lust arises—because you have suppressed it brutally; you sit on its chest; you do not let it rise. Not that it has ended; you simply don’t let it appear. It has not been erased; you only keep it from manifesting. You have pushed it into the corners of the chest. At night, when you relax, the suppressor falls asleep; then the wave you pressed down all day roams free; that becomes sexual desire in your dreams. Those who repress will find it in dreams.

Take dreams as a hint; the dream is your friend. It is saying: nothing will happen by suppression; at night we will appear. All day you may press us down; at night we will be present again. You may deceive others, even deceive yourself—but you will not be rid of us this way.

Now you ask what to do to be free of lust even in dreams. This makes it sound as if you have already become free while awake and only the dream remains to be handled. Here is the mistake. The dream is saying that you are not free in waking either. The day you become free in waking, that day nothing remains in the dream. Dream is your own subtle tale.

You are asking me for a trick: as you suppressed by day, tell us a way to suppress in the dream too. Then there would be no possibility of liberation—because what is suppressed remains and will surface sometime. It is a smoldering volcano. Even if flames don’t show outside, what of it? Inside you will burn and rot; the disease will grow like cancer and spread through every fiber of you.

No—understand the dream. The dream says only this: by day you have played some trick, you have cheated somewhere. Now try to understand your day: where did you cheat? Where did you suppress? Wherever you have suppressed, uncover it.

Grasp a deep law of the mind: just as a tree grows only if its roots remain buried in dark soil—leaves come, flowers and fruit appear; if you pull the roots out of the earth, out of the dark pit into the light, the tree dies. Exactly so with the mind: whatever diseases are in the mind, bring them out, into the light. Light is the death of disease.

You have been doing the reverse; and your so-called religious teachers have been teaching you the reverse. They say: press it more! Completely press it down; let even the root not be known!

But the deeper the root is driven in and buried, the greater the danger; the more poison will spread in your life.

Expose! Bring yourself before your own eyes! Do not hide, do not run—wake up! So by day, dig up your roots. Bring them into the light; look.

This is what I call meditation. Meditation is not a technique you do and are done with; meditation is a continuous process of awareness. Twenty-four hours—rising, sitting—remain aware.

You are walking on the road. A beautiful woman passes by, or a handsome man passes by. The one you call a “luchcha” (from lochan, the eye)—the one who fixes his eyes—stops and stares. From the same root comes aalochak (critic); both carry the same sense. He stands there and looks.

You are a sadhu; you are no “luchcha.” You look stealthily; you do not stop, you look by other pretexts; you start looking at the shop nearby. You look at the shop, but you want to look at the beautiful woman. Or it may be that you have repressed even more deeply. You have repressed so much that you drop your eyes; you do not look at the woman—neither at the shop nor by any device—you just walk with eyes lowered toward your market. Then at night you will see her in your dream, because you wanted to look.

It may also be that the habit of lowering the eyes has become so ingrained that you don’t even notice when you lower them. The hint of a woman passes and the eyes drop. You have established this as your decorum and conduct; you have built such a character. Then you walk with lowered eyes; you don’t even have to lower them—it happens by mechanical skill. You may not even know a woman passed. But the dropping of the eyes shows that, whether or not you noticed outwardly, within your vital energy some tremor passed, some gust of wind blew in, some ripple arose; that ripple lowered the eyes. Lowering the eyes is a trick to escape. You pass on.

The world will call you saint, gentleman, sadhu. Your ego will enjoy it—respectability; you get honor. You become still more religious. You might even put out your eyes. The ego is such that one can do anything.

But whom will you deceive? You will not deceive your innermost being. In the darkness of night, in deep drowsiness, in unconsciousness when you lie, then your gentleman is asleep, the saint is in deep slumber—then in the mind begin to rise all those melodies you suppressed; the songs you made yourselves deaf to begin to resound; from them the dream is woven.

When a dream is woven, do not think there is some fault in the dream. The dream is your friend; it says, you have given a very deep deception. Even now, be alert! There is no substance in this cheating; I am present within. Lust will not go that way. Wake and recognize your tendency; guard your awareness.

The real question is not whether to look at the woman who passed or not; the question is whether you saw or did not see the impulse within you to look. Whether you looked at the woman or not is no great matter. Did you see the wave within you, the desire that arose to look? If you did not see it, it will come in a dream; if you saw it, there is no need for it to come in a dream. If moment to moment you keep watching the desire rising within, you will find dreams have become empty.

Yesterday I was reading a song. A friend of mine, Khumar Barabankvi, is an Urdu poet. His line is:
Ho na ho ab aa gayi manzil qareeb
Raste sunsaan nazar aate hain
As the goal draws near, the inner pathways begin to look deserted, desolate. There even the meeting with dreams will cease. The marketplaces will vanish, and the afterimages of marketplaces will vanish too. Friends and foes will bid farewell, and their wavering shadows will also depart.

Ho na ho ab aa gayi manzil qareeb
Raste sunsaan nazar aate hain
When the roads within you begin to look deserted, then recognize that the goal is not far now; it is near. As long as you find your inner paths filled with dreams, do not be deluded; you are still in the marketplace. The world may call you a saint; you may have accepted yourself as a saint, but the worldly one has not died; he has only hidden. And the hidden worldly one is even more dangerous—like a hidden disease. If it is manifest, treatment is possible; if hidden, treatment is difficult. And if the patient denies that he is ill, what can the physician do? Let the patient at least accept: I am ill—then something is possible.

Nor is this only the story of small people; even in the lives of those you call great mahatmas the same turbulence exists. Mahatma Gandhi too, even in the last days of life, had sexual dreams; nocturnal emissions happened. But he was an honest man, though on the wrong path. Because if after a lifetime of effort desire still catches you in dreams, it means the effort has been on the wrong track. There was no lack of striving. You will not find a man as tireless in effort as he. He labored with great dedication. But dedication alone does not bring the goal near. If by dedication alone the goal came, anyone would arrive.

Neither by dedication alone does the goal come near, nor by the right path alone; when dedication and the right path meet, then the goal comes near.

However sincerely you try to squeeze oil from sand—your sincerity is not enough; there must be oil in the sand. You say: with what devotion and faith I am squeezing! My dedication is unbroken, unflagging! But what will come of it? The sand must also contain oil. Another person, with less dedication than you, might squeeze, but if he presses sesame seeds, he may get oil—because oil is there. It may also happen that someone has sesame seeds, but no trust—then how will he press?

Therefore when dedication and the right path unite, then revolution happens in life.

To the end of life Gandhi was troubled by dreams. Yet I say he was an honest man—not like your other saints, whose dreams plagued them but who never spoke of them. He spoke of them openly. His disciples were disturbed. They wanted him not to speak openly. Because the disciples’ image of the guru as a great soul was hurt, and their egos pained: what will people say! They told Gandhi: do not discuss this openly.

In his last days Gandhi began to sleep naked in the same bed with a young woman. Many disciples ran away. Some of them are now big Gandhians—those who had fled. Now they claim to be the custodians; now they say they alone are the executors of his will! They were the ones who turned against Gandhi: What is this mess! Where has such a thing been heard or seen? But no one understood Gandhi’s anguish.

This was Gandhi’s anguish. In the end, his contact was made with the tantra scriptures. All his life he had spent in the futile attempt at brahmacharya. In the end he came upon the tantras: if you want to be free of desire, awakening is necessary. And to awaken, the right situation is needed; nothing will happen by running away. To create the situation he slept for a year with a naked young woman at night—so that the situation would be complete, and if any desire arose in his mind he could see it and recognize it. All his life he had suppressed; now to uncover it required great, tireless effort. Sleeping with a naked young woman was an unremitting effort to awaken that which he had suppressed with his own hands.

Life is not solved by escape; life is solved by encounter. You will have to confront all of life’s problems. Do not ask what to do to be free of lust in dreams. Know only this: the desire that is coming in dreams has been repressed in your waking. Do not repress in waking; in waking, be awake and see! Expose!

You will feel pain, because your ego will feel very hurt: I am a celibate, a renunciate, an ascetic—and sexual desire is in me!

But you must drop such false infatuations; such fake pride has no worth. It is there whether you see it or not; that makes no difference. If you see it, perhaps liberation will happen. And understand this: by seeing alone, liberation happens.

Try one experiment for a few months—do not suppress anything at all; whatever arises within, let it come fully onto the screen of the eye. Do not condemn even a little, because even slight condemnation becomes the cause of repression.

Suppose a sexual thought arises, and you say—this is bad, a sin. Repression has begun. Even if you do not say bad or sin; you look as if you are forced to look, wishing you were not seeing it. You say to God, God, why are you showing me this! Repression has begun. You have judged—called it good or bad; you have complained, repented, felt guilt—any kind of evaluation, and repression has begun.

Look as if you have nothing to do with it. As you look at flowers on a tree, or clouds flying in the sky, or people walking on the road; no purpose, silently looking; as if you have no transaction in it—impartial, standing apart, in the witnessing stance—then tendencies emerge in their full form.

Do not panic, because for lifetimes you have suppressed. When they arise in full form you may feel—am I going mad? What is happening? Will my morality be destroyed? Will my character break into pieces? Will the reputation I built with such difficulty be reduced to dust?

Do not panic. This is courage. This courage I call tapascharya, austerity. There is no bravery in standing in the blazing sun, or naked on ice; those are bodily drills; a little practice brings them. The greatest courage is to see within exactly as you are. And from that, transformation happens; revolution occurs.

Just begin to watch. As you begin to watch, you will suddenly find the pathways of dreams becoming empty. Because whatever you have seen while awake, your soul has no reason to show it again in a dream. What you yourself have already seen—what is the need to show it again? Dreams will empty out.

And, if only your night becomes empty of dreams, samadhi will happen. Patanjali has said, there is only a very slight difference between sushupti (deep sleep) and samadhi—a very slight difference: sushupti is unconscious, and samadhi is awake. When all dreams are dissolved...

Notice this: in the morning you can remember a dream; you can even remember that the whole night was full of dreams. So there is some awareness within you—the one who sees dreams, recognizes them, remembers them. Now imagine that all dreams have disappeared; then the awareness which was caught up in dreams, which used to watch dreams, will now see samadhi. Because the dreams are gone, the travelers on the road are gone, the road lies deserted; now the deserted road will be seen. In the morning when you rise, you will say—I saw deep sleep; I did not see a dream.

To see sushupti is samadhi.

The road was empty; there was no crowd. There were no people to see, so the path was seen. The sky was not covered by clouds; there were no clouds; the sky was seen. Because of clouds the sky is veiled. Because of dreams, sushupti is veiled. And sushupti is samadhi.

Every night you reach the place where Buddha reaches; every night you reach where Shankara lives. But between you and samadhi there is a great crowd; between you and samadhi there is a big fair. And you yourself have gathered that fair. By relating to life in a wrong way you keep collecting junk.

Settle accounts moment to moment. Whatever comes before you, see it thoroughly, see it completely; do not say even a little “no.” Then there is no further need for dreams. Dreams come because you did not look properly by day; they have to return again and again.

Have you noticed—if you fully experience anything, the memory of it stops returning? If you look at someone intently, you are freed. If you live something intently, attachments do not remain. Half-lived experiences remain stuck, and the mind longs to complete them. Whatever you have lived incompletely has piled up around you; a crowd has gathered. Now, please, do not do this anymore. And do not ask me how to stop it in dreams; from the dream only recognize that you have stopped it in waking. In waking also, do not stop.

I am not saying: go and fulfill whatever desire arises within; I am not saying that. Because you have tried fulfillment too, and even that has not fulfilled. For lifetimes man has done the same. Has anger gone by expressing anger? Has lust gone by indulgence? Has greed gone by practicing greed?

This is the dilemma. Do, and it becomes stronger—because it becomes a habit. Today you were angry, yesterday you were angry, the day before too—you strengthen the chain of anger; you become a habitual angry person. Then a slight spark and anger rises by habit. Do it, and habit forms; suppress it, and wounds form within.

Between the two is the path—neither do, nor suppress—just watch. This is the formula of witnessing: be only the seer; do not be the doer.

In both conditions you are doing something. If anger comes, you either throw it at another or you press it within yourself. Both are wrong. If lust arises, you either dump it on another or you press it inside. Both are wrong. Do not dump it on anyone. What has the other done to you! By pouring your desire onto another you drag the other into the mud of desire. His problems were not any fewer, and you have joined in. He was tangled in his own knots, and you have tangled him more. No—do not pour onto anyone. Because whomever you pour onto will pour back onto you. Today you impose desire on someone; he too has desire and will impose it on you.

That is why desire feels like bondage. The one you bind, binds you; the one you enjoy, begins to enjoy you; the one you catch, catches you. Do not pour it on anyone—neither lust, nor anger, nor anything else. And do not suppress it inside either; if you are so kind to others, be kind to yourself too. What have you done to yourself that you should be suppressed? Do not suppress.

Between these two lies a very fine, very subtle journey. Watch! Watch fully! By watching, no one is harmed. And as you watch, you will find—just by watching, awakening comes. Just by watching, awareness arises. And awareness is everything.

Maile-dair-o-haram tune yeh socha bhi kabhi
Zindagi khud hi ibadat hai agar hosh rahe
Maile-dair-o-haram...
O you who bend toward temple and mosque!
...have you ever thought this?
Life itself is worship, if only awareness remains.

Then there is no other prayer, no other worship, no other meditation.
Life itself is worship, if awareness remains.

Desire as such leads to suffering; it makes no difference what the desire is. The object of desire does not change the nature of desire. Whether you want wealth or you want religion, the wanting is the same; the form of desire is the same. Desire means you are not content where you are, as you are—if you get wealth you will be satisfied; if you get religion you will be satisfied. Desire means: you are dissatisfied, unfulfilled. Desire is a sigh that arises from discontent. What the discontent is about makes no difference. There is discontent; there is no contentment. What you desire—what does that change? Some people are building a fine house on earth; some are building a fine house in heaven!

One day I was walking along the road; a woman came up to me and handed me a pamphlet. On it was a very beautiful building—garden, flowers, waterfalls—and above it was written: Are you looking for a nice bungalow? I wondered, what is this about! I turned it over; the bungalow wasn’t here at all—it was Christian missionary propaganda. In heaven—where streams flow, flowers bloom, trees stand—beautiful bungalows are ready! Inside it said that if you want such houses in heaven, there is no path except Jesus.

Even if you desire heaven, it will be you who desires it, won’t it? It will be an extension of your own mind, your own language, your own colors. Sit one day and think a little: what would you want in heaven? Make a little list. You will be amazed—the list is from here. A Rolls-Royce car? What will you do with it there? What will you want in heaven? Which film actress will you want? The Taj Mahal there? Make a little list of your heaven. Don’t be afraid, you can tear it up; you’re not going to show it to anyone, you’re making it for yourself. But from it it will be clear what you would want.

If God were pleased to give heaven and said, “Here, ask—what do you want?” what would you ask? Your requests will reveal that your heaven is only an extension of your world. A little cleaner than here, a little more refined; here everything is momentary, there it will be permanent. But these are only differences of degree; in essence there is no difference. Here the actress will grow old in a few days; there she never will. They say in heaven a woman’s age never goes beyond sixteen! It stops at sixteen! Urvashi was sixteen millions of years ago, and even now she is sixteen! Whenever you go, you will find her sixteen.

This tells us nothing about Urvashi; it tells us about human desire—that man wants the woman to stop at sixteen.

In heaven streams of wine are flowing! Put prohibition here—what will it achieve? In heaven it isn’t sold in bottles, the springs themselves are wine! Swim in wine like fish, drink as much as you like, because can there be prohibition in heaven? If even there there are prohibitions—rules, regulations, licenses to be taken—what kind of freedom is that? That is still bondage. No, there even a policeman is not found standing at the crossroads.

Heaven is a web woven out of your own dreams. You want God too—but for what? Because of sorrow? Because of pain? Because of restlessness? That is exactly why people want wealth; that is exactly why people want fame; that is exactly why people want position. Then God becomes, so to speak, your supreme position. Your saints even say: God is the supreme post.

Understand a little of the language of saints and renunciates, and you will be surprised. It needs subtle analysis. They say: What is there in this wealth—it will be snatched today or tomorrow. Oh, seek that wealth which will never be snatched. But still, seek wealth.

What a joke! Those who seek this wealth which will be snatched—these pleasure-seekers, these corrupt ones, these sinners—will fall into hell because they seek the transient. And those who seek the eternal wealth—these are the virtuous ones, the great souls. What is the difference between the two?

It seems only this: the one who seeks the transient is a little less clever; the one who seeks the eternal is more shrewd, more skilled; more dishonest. Like little children picking up pebbles—you say to them, “Leave it, you simpletons, why are you picking up pebbles? If you must collect, collect diamonds and jewels! What are you doing with pebbles?” You are only showing that you are a little more cunning, a little more worldly-wise; the child is still innocent.

Those whom you call worldly—I see them as more innocent than your so‑called saints and renunciates. That is the only difference. Your saints and renunciates are more dishonest, more cunning. The search for the eternal, the deathless, the infinite goes on. Desire? The desire is the same.

What I am saying is very different; what Shankara is saying is very different; what Buddha is saying is very different. They are not telling you to desire truth or to desire God. They are saying: when all desire drops, God is found.

This is something entirely different. When all desire drops, God is found. Therefore one cannot desire God, because then that very desire becomes the barrier. When all desire—unconditionally, all desire—drops; when no desire remains in the mind, when no craving remains; then what remains is Rama. Therefore no one can desire Rama. You can drop desire and realize Rama—but you cannot desire Rama. The moment you desire, the mistake has happened.

This is no bargain; it is worship of God.
O unknowing one, give up even the longing for reward.

It is not a deal, not a trade; it is worship of God. O unmindful one, give up even the desire for recompense. Drop the hope that something will be given in return. Because if you worship with the desire for a return, for an answer, for a reward, you will receive nothing. For then you have not understood God at all.

God is the consequence of desirelessness. By dropping desire you do not “get” him; he is there—he is found. Therefore, if, in order to obtain, you drop all desire in this calculating way—“All right, I will even give up the desire for God; if that is how he is found, I will drop this desire too, but I must get him”—then you will not find; you will miss. You have not understood. You cannot make this a basis for a claim; you cannot be a claimant. It is not a bargain; it is worship of God.

Understand this. The moment no desire remains within you, you say, “I am fulfilled as I am; I do not want even an inch otherwise, not a grain different; this very being is enough; blessed am I.” And you dance and sing, because as you are there is supreme joy. No desire remains; you have become an emperor, you are no longer a beggar. Only such an emperor can meet that Supreme Emperor. To meet the emperor you must become an emperor. Only the like meets the like.

If you have even desired God, that too will lead to suffering. That is why you will find many sitting in temples and mosques, fakirs by another name, who are unhappy. You are unhappy for one set of reasons—that you did not get wealth, fame, position; they are unhappy for another—that they have not yet found God. But unhappiness continues. Where there is desire, there will be sorrow; because no desire is ever fulfilled; the very nature of desire is unfillable.

Buddha has said: thirst is insatiable. It is not that you lack the capacity to fill it; not filling is its nature. However much you do, it does not fill. It cannot fill. It does not know how to fill. That is not its destiny. The day a person understands this insatiable nature of desire, that day he does not desire even to desire God; he drops all desire, lets it fall away. In the very moment of that dropping he suddenly finds: Ah! What I was seeking was at home! What I was searching for was present within! Because of the blindness of desire I could not see it.

Therefore Shankara says: that Lord dwells within you. The day you drop all running about, all bustle, all desire, and return to your home—sit in your own house—at ease, at rest, in gratitude—with nothing to get, nowhere to go—on that very day you will suddenly find: a new music has begun to play within. In truth it had been playing always, but because of the noise and clamor of desire it could not be heard. It is a very soft sound, a very subtle sound; its tone is night‑and‑day continuous. But who was there to listen? You were not at home, and God was in your home.

You never come home! Where do you have the leisure to return home? There is such a spread of desires—now after one, now after another; where is the time to come home and see the one who has always been sitting there?

To seek God you do not have to go anywhere; you have to return home. That is pratyahara.

Does the Ganges returning to Gangotri or the tree folding back into the seed seem impossible to you? It is happening every day! The seed becomes a tree again and again. Look at the seed pods hanging on that gulmohar beside you—the whole tree has become seed. And the Ganges returns to Gangotri every day—rising into clouds, into rain-laden skies—then pouring on the Himalayas, returning to Gangotri. This is happening every single day.

Then you will ask, “If it’s already happening, what is there to do?”
The doing is only this: to see, awake, what is already taking place. It is happening while you sleep. Many times you come back home, but you are not conscious. You have become so accustomed to stopping in inns that even when you return home you take it to be an inn.

A friend of mine has a business that keeps him traveling day and night; in a month he returns home only four or five days. When he gets home he can’t sleep, because he has become used to sleeping in the rattle of trains; unless he is on a train, sleep won’t come. He said to me, “It’s a big problem.” He has been at it for some twenty years. Unless there is noise and bustle, and every hour or half hour a station comes—with voices and the shove-and-push—he can’t sleep! I said to him, “Do one thing: why don’t you rent a house near the railway line?” He said, “That makes sense; I’ve been to the biggest doctors!”
Now he has taken a house near the railway line. He is very happy now. He sleeps at home too, because a train passes every ten or fifteen minutes. He is delighted.

You may find it hard to imagine his situation, because the first time you ride a train you probably won’t sleep. Habit! All habits become binding.

You have stayed outside your own home so long that even when you come home, you don’t really come; you don’t recognize it; there is no recognition. It seems like another inn—stay the night, leave in the morning.

The Ganges returns to Gangotri every day, and you ask if it is difficult! You are made of your original source, and you ask if it is difficult! How will you go far from your original source? Where could you go? You can wander in thoughts; in reality you cannot go anywhere. It is like this: at night you sleep in Poona and dream of Calcutta. Must you, on waking, catch a train to return to Poona? If you were in Calcutta in the dream, will you rush in the morning saying, “Now I must catch a train and go home”? No. In the morning you wake and find you were sleeping in Poona all along. Going away from oneself is only a fancy, only a thought.

If you ask me—and if you don’t mind—I would say: the Ganges never left Gangotri; the seed never truly became a tree. A dream was seen—that it became a tree; a dream was seen—that the Ganges issued from Gangotri and moved toward the sea. For how could one go outside one’s own nature? You ask me whether returning to your nature is very difficult! I tell you that going outside your nature is not just difficult, it is impossible; no one has ever done it. You are a Buddha this very moment, a Jina this very moment, God this very moment. But your thoughts! Your thoughts say something else. You say, “That doesn’t fit; I run a paan shop—how can I be a Buddha?”

Is there any hindrance in running a paan shop? Does one become a Buddha only by sitting under a Bodhi tree? Sitting at a paan shop you are a Buddha, I tell you. Because whatever you do—run a paan shop or a slaughterhouse—whatever you do, you cannot step outside Buddhahood.

A fish might perhaps come out of the ocean; how will you go outside the Divine? The ocean has a shore, a boundary; the Divine has no shore and no boundary. So it is only your thought that you are running a paan shop—do it happily, but don’t conclude from it that you are not a Buddha. Let just this much awareness dawn, and the Ganges has returned to Gangotri. The coming of awareness...

Thousands of obstacles will arise on the way. The world will stop you first—the shop will stop you, wealth will stop you, position will stop you. If somehow you slip free of these, then temples and mosques will stop you; the Vedas and the Puranas will stop you; the Gita and the Quran will stop you. Only if you escape all of them will you arrive.

Dayr and haram too came upon the road to the Beloved’s abode—
in the search for that Beloved, even temple and mosque stood in the way.
But thanks be that we moved on, keeping our hem unstained—
we saved our garment and went on.

Much will come upon the path; just keep your hem clear a little—that is what I call awareness. Shankara called it vigilance—supreme vigilance. Awake! Then nothing will be able to stop you. The poor shop is very weak; even temples and mosques will not be able to stop you. Books, ledgers are nothing; even the Vedas and the Quran will not be able to stop you.

Dayr and haram too came upon the road to the Beloved’s abode—
on the path to the Beloved many obstacles appeared; even temple and mosque stood up as obstacles.
But thanks be that we moved on, keeping our hem unstained.

Life can be of two kinds: one life is built only on what is necessary; and one life is built on excess, on overflow.

Watch the peacock dancing. Are those feathers, spread with the colors of the rainbow, necessary? If you cut off the feathers, would the peacock face any difficulty or hindrance in life? He would still live. Feathers are connected neither with the stream of life, nor with food, nor will they obstruct procreation. The feathers are surplus; they are a sign of more-than-needed, not of need.

These birds are singing—stitch their beaks shut; will anything be lost? What difference would it make? The birds would still live. The songs would cease, because songs were never necessary—they were a flood, an exuberance.

You dance—don’t dance; run your shop, come home. You sing—don’t sing. Will there be any obstacle? You love—don’t love; doing business is enough. If you don’t love, what difficulty will arise? Will you die? No—those who don’t love also live; those who don’t sing also live. In fact, perhaps they live a little “better,” because that disturbance is avoided; the energy saved is put into earning money. But the majesty of your life will be lost.

To live by the necessary is the way of the miser. I am not teaching you here to live by the necessary; I am teaching you to go beyond the necessary. Live out of excess. I know too: with knowledge alone one can meet the divine—no devotion is needed. With devotion alone one can meet the divine—no knowledge is needed. But then even finding the divine becomes for you like a business deal. You proceed strictly by what is required. Where two coins will do, you hesitate to spend a third. Such stinginess—on the path to the divine too you remain a miser.

I am teaching you to be a little prodigal of heart. The work would get done anyway; I know people have reached by knowledge alone—devotion wasn’t needed. There was no “need” for someone like Meera to dance with a tambura in her hands. And yet I say: if you can dance, a totally different form of the divine will appear before you. He is not mathematics; he is poetry. Yes, you will meet the divine through knowledge too—through dryness, through calculation. But you went to the divine and you went only as far as was necessary! Even in that relationship there was no leaping, no overflowing, no melting! Even there the supreme moment of ecstasy did not come! That too remained a business.

People have reached through devotion as well; no knowledge is necessary. But they reached—then what of the awareness of where they have arrived? That is not necessary for reaching; it can be left aside. Still I say to you: when the superabundant is available, why strive for the merely necessary? When overflow can be had and life can become supreme luxury, ultimate celebration, why walk like a miser? Why place each step after testing it? Where there is dance, you do not tiptoe. And the one who tiptoes cannot be skilled at dancing.

When will you break your miserliness? When will you flow unimpeded? In my vision, life’s highest good fortune lies in overflow. Look at the peacock—the divine has filled those feathers with so many colors! So much artistry! If some scientist were to manufacture a peacock, one thing is certain: there would be no feathers. Completely useless—what need is there for them! There would be a food pipe, a stomach to digest, reproductive organs—because there must be offspring—but no feathers. There would be no poetry, no song, no dance. Because of such “practical” people all color has drained from life; they go on advising everywhere: do only what is necessary; don’t go an inch beyond the necessary.

And look at nature: the divine is not content with the bare minimum; he does not stop at the necessary—he spills into the unnecessary. Birds sing—there is no necessity. Trees burst into bloom—not at all necessary. Fragrance flows from flowers—no necessity. Rivers run, murmuring toward the ocean; the ocean keeps up its thunder, crashing against the shores—not necessary in the least. What is necessary? Think a little: if the divine were some kind of economist and made the world by the calculus of need, this world would not be fit to live in—only fit for suicide. What would you do here? It would be nothing but need upon need.

You can reach through knowledge, and you can reach through devotion. But the way you arrive through both—that arrival is different; its flavor is different. Then it is your choice. If you have acquired a taste for small courtyards and the open sky frightens you, all right—live in your cramped little houses. But I tell you, the open sky is available for the same price; the vast is available for the same effort. Why talk of the small and the merely necessary?

Let your knowledge expand so much that it becomes devotion. Let your devotion deepen so much that it becomes knowledge. Touch both poles, so that nothing remains untouched. Whatever can be had in this existence, attain the whole of it—that alone is blessedness.

There is no play of light and shadow anywhere; it is only a delusion of your mind. We are never content, whatever we receive. The mind demands more. And the mind can always demand more. Can you think of any moment in your life beyond which you could not imagine something more?

It comes every day, because enlightenment is exactly what I am sharing. It showers on you daily. Your eyes speak truly, for they shed tears. They recognize more; they are wiser than your intellect. And your heart gives the right news, because it begins to sway. But your skull is strong, solid. That head goes on thinking, yes, something is happening, but it isn’t yet complete; enlightenment has not yet happened.

What is enlightenment? When will it happen—when you decide to believe it has? What will be different when you decide it has? Do you have any touchstone?

No—the mind is deceiving you. Listen to the tears; heed the heart. Thought will always deceive you. Thought will say, yes, it happened—but not yet fully. What is “complete”? When will it be complete? Even if you were to arrive before God himself, you would say—yes, I have found, but not completely. Because you could still think of a few improvements even in God—that the nose could be a little longer; that otherwise all is fine, but the ears could touch the shoulders like those of Buddha and Mahavira; the ears are a bit small; that he is not ajanubahu (arms reaching to the knees). Do you think that if you were to meet God you would immediately be satisfied that you had attained completely?

The mind never says, “Completed.” It is not its habit, not its arithmetic. The mind says, yes, I have received—but there could be more. This mind will make you wander everywhere. Drop it; trust the tears. Have faith in the tears—they are simpler, more natural, more inward, more heartfelt, more primary. Trust the heartbeat, because the dance descends there first. And the intellect? The intellect belongs to man, to civilization, to society; it comes from the scriptures, it is borrowed. The tears are yours; the intellect is not. The intellect has been given to you by someone; the tears by no one—you were born with them. The heart is yours; the tremblings that arise in the heart are yours, the sensitivities that arise in the heart are yours. No one has given them to you—though others have snatched them away, have raised all kinds of barriers.

And if you can listen to the heart and the eyes, if you can listen to your very life-breath, who cares for tomorrow? And who worries about enlightenment? This moment of bliss will make you blessed. You will be filled with gratitude—a deep worship, a deep prayer will descend within you. You will thank the divine: you have given me more than I deserved. You gave today, when there was not even any expectation. Then the play of light and shadow will not be felt. Today’s account is settled today. When it gives again tomorrow, we will thank again.

And do not weigh today against tomorrow, because all comparison belongs to the mind, to the intellect. Every moment in life is unique. Tomorrow there will be morning again; tomorrow it will rain upon you again; then thank again. And never compare two days, never compare two moments; because two moments are never given together—only one moment is. All weighing is mental. In existence, no comparison is possible. And if you go on growing in this way—blessed, fortunate, fulfilled, filled with deep gratitude—then enlightenment is not some thing that will suddenly be handed to you in one stroke. It grows like this; it deepens like this. Enlightenment is not an object; it is a process. It is not some thing lying somewhere that you can pounce upon and seize. Enlightenment is your transformation, your growth.

And there is no end to enlightenment; that is why we call the soul infinite—it goes on growing; it goes on growing forever. There never comes a moment when you can say—enough, it is finished. It is infinite. The more glimpses of the divine you have, the more you will find—it is becoming vaster and vaster; new doors keep opening; new flowers keep blooming; there are thousands upon thousands of lotuses in its consciousness; in each lotus there are thousands upon thousands of petals; on each petal, thousands upon thousands of colors—you will keep seeing, you will keep going deeper; every day it will go on increasing.

Do not keep accounts of the past; for if your intellect gets filled with those accounts, you will miss what is being given right now. Nor worry about the future; for the one who has given today will give tomorrow as well—why would the one who gave today not give tomorrow? Do not worry about tomorrow either. Let yesterday go; do not think of tomorrow; today is enough. And if this feeling settles deeply within you—today is enough, this moment is sufficient—then this very moment becomes devotion.

Bhaj Govindam, bhaj Govindam, bhaj Govindam, mudhamate.

That’s all for today.