Bhaj Govindam #4

Shankara is a hidden Buddhist, a hidden Jain, a hidden Muslim as well; just as Buddha is a hidden Hindu, a hidden Jain, a hidden Christian; and just as Christ is a hidden Hindu, a hidden Muslim, a hidden Buddhist too. Those who have known have known only the One; there are not two to be known. Hindu, Muslim, Christian—all are outer names, superficial identities; the inner truth is one. The languages will differ; what is said is not different; the manner of saying will differ, the process of explaining will differ; but the taste that has been found cannot possibly be different.

It is essential to understand this rightly; not understanding it becomes the cause of untold troubles. Hindus fight with Muslims, Jains fight with Buddhists. And wherever any kind of conflict appears, understand that truth is lost there; in your fighting, truth is murdered; in your conflict the false is manufactured. For wherever there is conflict, there is violence—whether the violence shows itself in bodily clash or in the clash of intellect; it makes no difference. The urge to annihilate the other—whether physical or mental—is violence. The desire and habit of seeing the other as wrong is the spread of violence. Until you can see yourself even in your opposite, know that you have not risen beyond mind; you have not entered the temple of consciousness.

That temple has many doors, and through each door entry is possible. And one who has entered the temple forgets the door. Who remembers the door after entry? Before entering, the door seems very important, because one must enter through it; but after entry, the door becomes useless. After entering, your back is to the door; before entering, your eyes were on the door.

All sects are doors. And so long as sects—Hindu, Muslim, Jain—seem very important to you, know that you have not yet entered the temple; your eyes are still stuck at the doorway. When you enter the temple, your back will be to the door—neither Hindu nor Muslim will remain meaningful.

That great meaning which will be revealed in the inner sanctum of the temple will sweep away not only your sect, not only your scriptures, but you as well; everything will be carried off in that flood. And what remains after that flood is your own nature. In that flood, whatever was alien will be washed away; in that flood, all the outer coverings will fall apart; in that flood, all that was of a different order will lose its connection with you. Only you will remain—in your purest virginity, in your innocence.

And its nature you cannot understand, however many devices you try, without experience; you will have to taste it; you will have to be drowned in that ecstasy; you will have to drink that intoxication. Until, drunk with it, having lost yourself utterly, having squandered everything, you drown in it—so long as you remain, the world remains; only when you disappear does God begin. As long as there is selfhood (khudi), there is no God (Khuda). And where selfhood ends, there God begins.

Shankara is a hidden Buddhist, for he says exactly what Buddha said. And Buddha too was a hidden Vedantin, for he was saying precisely what the Upanishads had said. The garments are different. And sometimes the garments even seem opposed.

Let us understand this a little. Buddha opposed the Upanishads and the Vedas, and yet he validated the very Upanishads and Vedas. Opposition becomes necessary. When the Upanishads were born, when the Ganges of the Upanishads arose, the river was very clear, pure—it was Gangotri, the source. Then the Ganges flowed on; thousands bathed in it; it passed through thousands of villages—it became dirty, there was filth, drains fell into it. The purity that the Ganges has at Gangotri cannot remain when it reaches Kashi. It cannot. As time passes, the original source loses its clarity.

When the Upanishads were born, about two and a half thousand years before Buddha, their majesty was unparalleled; in every word there was light, in every line the divine. By the time of Buddha, that majesty had been lost; dust had gathered. The mirror remained, but it became covered in much dust. No reflection formed in it any longer. The mirror had become blind.

But around the mirror a great sect had arisen. Even if Buddha tried to clean the mirror, they would not allow it. For what Buddha calls dust, the sectarian mind calls its religion. The sectarian mind does not even know the mirror; it knows only the accumulated dust. It takes the dust to be adornment; the dust is the ornament. How can the sectarian mind consent to your wiping the dust away! To it, that would mean our religion will be destroyed.

Because of this dust, Buddha had to even deny this mirror; for unless this mirror was denied, people could not be persuaded to accept another mirror. But the other mirror is exactly the same kind of mirror as the first. The only difference is that the first had grown old, decrepit; dust had settled on it. Once truth is organized, it simply dies. Now this second truth is new again—newborn, fresh like the dew of the morning. In a little while, the new truth too will become old again.

By the time Shankara was born, Buddha’s truth had also become just as old. Time spares no one. Time piles dust on everything. What is new today will be old tomorrow; the infant newborn today will be old tomorrow; for the one in whose welcome bands and drums played today, tomorrow you will have to carry him to the cremation ground.

Just as individuals are born and die, so too religions are born and die. Whatever enters the stream of time will become worn, aged, useless—will become junk. But when someone in the house dies—say the mother dies—how much you loved her, yet once she is dead, cry as much as you will, still you must carry her to the cremation ground. If some fool were to keep the mother’s corpse in the house, the living would find it impossible to live. Granted that there was great love; granted that it is intensely painful to carry her to the pyre. Yet there is no alternative—you must take her to the pyre; you will go weeping, beating your chest, but to the pyre you must go. There is no way to keep the corpse in the house.

But the wisdom we apply to the body, we cannot apply to sects. Dharma is a living religion; when it becomes a sect, it is a corpse. Yet we preserve the corpse. Because of the stench of sectarianism, living becomes impossible. Sects fight and make others fight. Religion unites. Sects break, and make others break. There is great enmity between temple and mosque. There can be no enmity between the God of the temple and the God of the mosque. There is great hostility among the adherents of temple and mosque. But the One who is worshiped in the temple and who is worshiped in the mosque—one calls him Ram, another Allah—these addresses will differ, but the one who is called is the same.

By the time of Shankara, the stream of Buddha too had become polluted; it was no longer Gangotri, it had reached Kashi. Shankara had to demolish again. For now those who followed Buddha were Buddhists, a great sect, and they would not allow the dust to be wiped away. A new mirror had to be crafted. Today the situation has again become the same—dust has once again settled on Shankara’s mirror. This will go on forever.

Do not worship the dust; seek the mirror. Then you will find the same mirror within all. And when you begin to see the same mirror within everyone, know then that right intelligence has been born in you. This is the difference between intellect and right intelligence. Intellect refutes, criticizes, opposes, debates; right intelligence enters into dialogue. Intellect points out where the differences lie; right intelligence shows where the non-difference is. Intellect analyzes; right intelligence synthesizes. Intellect draws boundaries; right intelligence erases boundaries. And only when all boundaries are erased is the Infinite attained.

Do not think that bound within limits you will come to know the limitless. Who will know? If you yourself are bound in limits, how will you know the Infinite? Whatever you know will be limited. If you would know the Infinite, there is only one way: break your own limits. If you look at the sky from within a window, you will see only as much sky as the frame of the window allows; you will not be able to see more; the window will even limit the sky. If you want to see the whole sky, come outside beneath the open sky. There you will no longer remain a Hindu, nor a Muslim; for these names belong to the windows. Under the open sky you will remain only as such. And that mere remaining—pure being—is the way to know the Infinite. To know the Infinite you must be infinite. That is the only condition. For only the like can know the like. If, bound in limits, you set out to know the limitless—how will you know? You will carry your limits along with you; you will peer through them. You will see only what your limits can show.

It is not only that Shankara is a hidden Buddhist; Buddha too is a hidden Vedantin.

That which has become corrupt has to be destroyed; that which has become distorted has to be annihilated; that which has become decrepit has to be placed on the pyre—so that space may be cleared for the new.

The mind says, save the old. The mind says, preserve the old. But if you go on preserving the old too much, the new will find no place. The departure of the old is necessary so that children may come. The worn-out tree must fall so that new shoots can sprout.

I have heard: there was a very old church. It had become decrepit; when the wind blew it seemed it would fall any moment. Even those who came to worship grew afraid; it could collapse at any time. At last the trustees met: now something must be done. Even the priest was afraid to enter, the worshipers were afraid, even passersby were frightened of the church: who knows when it might fall! whose life it might take! The road had become deserted; no one would pass that way.

So they adopted three proposals. First, that the old church must be demolished. With great sorrow yet unanimously they accepted it. And second, that a new church must be built.

This too they accepted with great pain, because attachments form with the old. With the new there is as yet no acquaintance; it has not yet been born—how can there be attachment to it? Attachment is to the old. That is why if a small child dies there is not so much grief; as his age advances, the grief would be greater, because the acquaintance would be more, the relationship would deepen, affections would be woven.

The old must be demolished—with sorrow; the new must be built—out of compulsion; and they passed a third proposal: that we will build the new church on the very site of the old one. And until the new is built, we will continue to use the old! And in the new church we will use the very stones of the old church. And until the new is completed, we will continue to use the old. And this too they accepted unanimously!

That church is still standing! It cannot fall. The attachments of the mind are very deep.

And I call only that person religious who can leave the old and go on awakening into the ever-fresh, the ever-new. One who is able to preserve his virginity forever is religious. One who, every moment, comes out of the past just as a snake slips out of its old skin—and does not even look back.

If you can master the freshly-new, if you can live each moment in the new, if you do not carry the old junk on your head, then in that newness itself you will find the eternal. In being new each moment, God is hidden.

Because you are! To say anything else would be a lie. And when Shankara says, “Bhaj Govindam, bhaj Govindam, bhaj Govindam, mudhamate,” he says it with great love; he says it out of compassion. He is not abusing you. How could Shankara abuse? Abuse cannot come from Shankara; it is impossible. He is alerting you, waking you up, giving you a push. He is saying—Get up! It has been morning for so long, and you are still asleep!

He calls you “fool” because unless he uses a few sharp words, your sleep will not break. And he calls you “fool” because that is the truth, the reality.

The meaning of moorhkata is: moorchha—stupor. It means living as if asleep. It means lack of discrimination. It means a shortage of wakefulness, the absence of awareness.

When you are angry, you become even more foolish, because then awareness is further lost. Sometimes you are a little aware, then you are less foolish. And you know this yourself: sometimes you are less foolish, sometimes more. When the mind is filled with attachment, foolishness increases; when it is filled with lust, foolishness increases.

There is a story from the life of Tulsidas. His wife had gone to her parents’ home. On a rainy night he climbed up by catching hold of a snake, mistaking it for a rope. He was entering from the back like a thief. Such deep foolishness must have been there that the snake did not appear as a snake at all—it seemed a rope. Lust must have been intense; desire must have made him completely blind; his eyes must have been filled with darkness. Otherwise, how would a snake not be seen!

Usually the state is the opposite: often a rope appears like a snake—because of fear. Death frightens a person. If a rope lies on the path, it looks like a snake. Here the opposite happened—there was a snake, and Tulsidas took it to be a rope and climbed! Even when he grasped it, touch did not reveal it. He must have been utterly stupefied! Lust must have driven him mad!

Seeing his condition, the wife said, “If you had as much love for God as you have for me, by now you would have become worthy of the highest state.” He looked back and saw the snake—realized that lust makes one blind—and a revolution happened in his life. The wife became the guru. Lust awakened him toward dispassion. He took sannyas. He began to seek God. The energy that had been invested in lust began to search for Rama. The energy that was becoming kama (desire) began to become Rama.

Foolishness is that same energy. What is asleep today will awaken tomorrow; what is hidden today will be revealed tomorrow. Foolishness itself will become prajna, wisdom. That which is your sleep will become your awakening. Therefore do not be angry with it; do not fill the mind with condemnation; and do not try to hide your foolishness.

Many people are doing exactly that! They are the great fools who try to hide their foolishness. So you collect small bits of information and cover your foolishness with information. The wounds remain within; you put flowers on top. Knowledge borrowed from the scriptures are such flowers; information borrowed from others are such flowers with which you cover your foolishness—and forget.

Do not forget your foolishness; remember it. Only if you remember it can it be erased; if you forget, erasing it is impossible. Therefore Shankara repeats at every step: Bhaj Govindam, bhaj Govindam, bhaj Govindam, mudhamate. Seeing your unconsciousness, he repeats out of compassion—so that you remember that you are a fool, that you do not forget it. And your entire effort is to forget it. You do everything possible to somehow forget that “I am a fool!” You go on assuming that “I am wise.”

Only the wise admit that they are not wise; the ignorant all assume that they are wise. The ignorant assert their knowledge with great arrogance. They are not ready to admit, “I do not know.” Only the supremely wise are ready to admit, “What do we really know!”

Edison said, people say I know a great deal. My condition is like that of a small child on the seashore who has gathered a few shells and conches. That is the extent of my knowledge—just a few shells in my fists—while the vast ocean lies there, unknown to me.

Your little knowledge seems very big to you! You have lit a small lamp; its flickering light falls a little around you, a small area gets illuminated—and you call this knowledge! And the infinite lies there filled with darkness; you have no awareness of it! When you understand your foolishness, you will say, “Is this knowledge—the flicker of a tiny lamp!” The infinite lies ahead to journey through, to explore, to search—and I, clutching these shells in my hands, am posing as a wise man! Then you will drop even this “knowledge.” And the day you know that you are a fool—when you become filled with this awareness—on that very day foolishness begins to melt. Because this awareness will take you outside of foolishness. Foolishness is unconsciousness; with awareness, it begins to break.

Psychologists say that if a madman comes to understand “I am mad,” he will get well. The madman does not understand that he is mad; he believes the world is mad.

Kahlil Gibran writes: a friend went mad, so he went to visit him in the asylum. The friend was sitting on a bench in the garden of the asylum. Gibran sat beside him and, with great pity, said, “Friend, it pains me to see you here.”

He looked carefully at Gibran and said, “Pain? Pain for what?”

Gibran said, “Seeing that you had to come to the asylum.”

The madman began to laugh. He said, “You are mistaken. Since we came here, we have had the company of the non-mad; outside, all are mad—and to be freed from them is our good fortune. You think this is the madhouse! The madhouse is outside—beyond these walls; here a few selected wise people live.”

How will a madman understand that he is mad? If he had even that much understanding, how would he be mad? And if the madman understands just this much—“I am mad”—the madness begins to break.

Consider this: if, at night, in sleep, it occurs to you that you are dreaming, the dream begins to break. To continue dreaming it is necessary that you do not remember that you are dreaming. In the morning you will remember, when the dream has already broken. While the dream is on, you take it as real. If, right in the middle of the dream, you remember “This is a dream,” at that very moment it breaks.

Gurdjieff used to tell his disciples: before breaking the big dream, learn to break the small dreams. This great world is maya; you will not be able to break it until you can break the little dreams. If the night’s dream does not break, how will the day’s dream break! So Gurdjieff told his disciples: every night, as you go to sleep, go to sleep with a single meditation—that when a dream comes, may the remembrance also arise that “This is a dream.”

It takes about three years to break the night’s dream. Three years of continuously, night after night, going to sleep with the same thought, the same contemplation, the same remembrance, the same meditation—and then one day a moment comes—a supremely fortunate moment—when suddenly, in the night, along with the dream, the remembrance also arises: “This is a dream.” As soon as that remembrance arises, the dream breaks, and awareness enters even into sleep. From that day onward, dreams disappear; they no longer come. And only then can you awaken in the big dream.

This open-eyed dream is the big dream.

The night dream is private, personal, solitary. A husband cannot invite his wife into his dream; it is utterly private. A friend cannot call his friend into his dream. No one can make anyone else a partner in his dream—it is utterly individual; alone.

This dream is collective, public. It is very difficult to break, because it is not yours alone—it is everyone’s, collective, shared. But if the first dream breaks, then that same remembrance becomes useful in this dream too. Then this remembrance alone is enough—that in this waking state also, let the remembrance be maintained that “This is a dream.”

Try it sometime: someone abuses you, and you just remember “This is a dream”—anger becomes impossible. Some precious thing of yours falls and breaks—just remember “All is a dream”—sorrow will dissolve. Your wife dies, or your husband dies, or your son passes away—it will be difficult to remember that “All is a dream,” but if, perchance, you can do it, sorrow will be dispelled. One who has known that “It is a dream”—neither death can shake him, nor life can unsteady him; neither does pleasure feel like pleasure, nor pain like pain. This is what is called Buddhahood; this is what is called Jina-hood. This is supreme wisdom: that neither sorrow touches, nor pleasure touches.

Shankara is reminding you again and again that you are a fool. Do not be angry; because by becoming angry nothing of Shankara’s will be harmed; by becoming angry you will only prove that Shankara is absolutely right—that you are a fool! Perhaps you are a great fool; he is only saying “fool,” out of modesty. Do not start insisting, “I am not a fool,” otherwise that very insistence will become the protection of your foolishness. Accept it. Your acceptance itself will break foolishness. Not only accept it, but keep reminding yourself, while getting up and sitting down, that “I am a fool, I am stupefied, I am uncomprehending, I am mad.” Your actions will change; your quality will change; your consciousness will begin to move in a new direction. If only you can remember that you are unwise, the thread of wisdom has begun.

Recognition of ignorance is the first step of knowledge. And to understand darkness rightly is the first beginning of lighting the lamp. One who does not even recognize darkness as darkness, who does not recognize blindness as blindness—why would he search for eyes?

You go to a physician; the physician does not first worry about which medicine to give you; he first worries to diagnose. Diagnosis is the first thing; treatment the second. Finding the medicine is easy if the diagnosis is exactly right. If the disease is precisely caught, the medicine is not a big matter. That is why great physicians charge for the diagnosis, not for prescribing the medicine. The medicine anyone can then prescribe. If the disease has been clearly found, the medicine is not far; it is there, bottled. Once it is clearly understood, “This is the disease,” the medicine will be found on its own; it is not a great difficulty.

Shankara is telling you again and again: O fool, sing the name of Govinda!

He is diagnosing your disease. Foolishness is your disease; the singing of Govinda is the medicine. But if you are not a fool, why would you sing of Govinda? If you insist, “I am not ill,” why would you take treatment? If you protect your disease and claim that your disease is your health, then you are incurable; then there can be no remedy for you.

They are within, but a little deeper within. When you dig a well, at first you only bring up pebbles, stones, and soil—water does not come at once. And each land is different: somewhere water is found at thirty feet, somewhere at sixty. Water is certainly there. There is no land under which there is no water; only the depth differs. If a simple-hearted person digs, water may be found quickly—at two, four, ten feet. If a complex mind digs, it may be fifty or sixty feet. If an innocent mind seeks, it will find soon; if a violent, angry, tamasic mind seeks, it will take longer. But one thing is certain: the difference is in the layers of soil; water is in everyone. The soul is in everyone; the divine is in everyone—the difference lies in the crust of karmas.

And when you first start digging, you won’t lay hands on the divine straightaway; first you will hit the layers of karma—because that is what surrounds you. In digging a well, first you encounter stones and pebbles. Don’t be scared of them. It’s a good beginning. They are giving you the news that the journey has begun. First stones and pebbles, then rubbish comes out, then good earth, then wet earth. Each day you are coming a step closer. When wet earth appears, understand that water is not far.

Water is within all; without water how would you live? Life is within all; without life how would you be? However far you have hidden it, however many coverings you have drawn around yourself, you cannot destroy it. The soul can be pressed down by your actions, but not destroyed. Now it depends on you: as much as you have pressed it down, that much catharsis will be needed. And since we have been repressing for lives upon lives, don’t be disheartened.

‘When I do catharsis, only negative emotions like anger, jealousy, sorrow come up.’
Good; it’s an auspicious sign. Pour them out.

When you empty these completely, you will find other streams hidden just beneath them. The day anger is uprooted, you will find compassion arising—because compassion is the other face of anger. The day violence is uprooted within, nonviolence begins right there.

As long as you find negative feelings surfacing, don’t panic; keep digging. Beneath them the constructive feelings are also hidden. But digging will be required—laziness won’t do. Continuous effort is needed. And continuous awareness is needed; otherwise you may dig with one hand and with the other throw the stones and soil back in. In the morning you meditate and throw anger out, and all day in the marketplace you gather anger again. Then the digging will never be completed. It is like a man who digs a well all day and hires laborers all night to fill it back in; next morning he starts digging again.

There is a story of Jesus: A man sowed a field of wheat. Suddenly he discovered that someone had thrown weed seeds into it—to ruin his crop. The servants were worried, the head servant most of all. They met and asked, “What shall we do? The whole crop will be spoiled!” They asked the master. The master said, “Do not hurry. If you pull out the weeds now, the tender wheat plants will die. When we harvest, we’ll separate both then.”

The servants were not convinced. They thought, “This isn’t right; evil should be uprooted now.” But even if the master is wrong, he is to be obeyed. Still they said, “Let us investigate who played this mischief. Our master is such a good man, so gentle. Who could be his enemy?”

They searched, but found nothing. One evening a servant came to the head servant and said, “Forgive me; I can no longer keep this secret. I know who threw the weed seeds. I was awake and saw him enter the field before my very eyes. But I think he wasn’t conscious; I was standing right there, he neither recognized nor saw me; he was like a sleepwalker. I’ve kept this hidden, but now I can’t.”

The head servant got very angry. “Why did you hide it so long?”
The servant said, “Even now I lack the courage to say it, but it has become unbearable; first hear my whole story.”
The head said, “First tell me his name. Who is he? He will be punished.”
The servant who had come to reveal the secret lowered his head and sat silently. The head asked, “Why don’t you speak? Say his name. What are you afraid of?”
The servant said, “You won’t be able to believe it. It was our master who threw the seeds. Those weeds—our master himself sowed them.”

Then both decided to keep this to themselves, to tell no one.

Jesus’ story says: What you build in the day, you erase in the night; in sleep, in unconsciousness, you undo what you created in wakefulness.

There are people who somnambulate—walk in sleep. Such cases have gone to court. A woman gets up at night and sets fire to her own clothes, then goes back to sleep. She deceives no one; they’re her own clothes, dear to her and precious. In the morning she weeps and wails, “Who burned my clothes?”
No one entered the room. The husband slept, the wife slept; no one else came. The husband couldn’t have burned them, the wife surely wouldn’t. It must be some ghost! But investigation revealed that the woman herself burned them in her sleep; she suffered from sleepwalking.

Some get up in sleep, go to the kitchen, eat and drink, and return to bed. In the morning, ask them and they’ll say, “We know nothing; we never got up!” At most they might remember a dream that they went to the kitchen—if they remember anything at all. They’ll say it was a dream. Even that rarely stays in memory.

Every person suffers from this illness—in a deeper sense. With one hand you build, with the other you destroy. The one you love, you also hate. The one you respect, you also disrespect in your mind. You are contradictory, fragmented; broken into pieces within. You destroy your love with your hate, and your compassion with your anger. You go to the temple to remember God and, even sitting in the temple, you remember the marketplace. There was no need to go; you could have sat in the market itself. But your trouble is that when you sit in your shop, you remember the temple too; it’s not that you don’t. Yet when you are in the temple, you remember the shop.

I have heard: A monk died. The same day a prostitute, who lived opposite him, also died. Angels came to take them away; they started leading the monk toward hell and the prostitute toward heaven. The monk said, “Wait—there must be some mistake! What is this upside down? Me, a monk, to hell—and a prostitute to heaven! There must have been an error in transmission. The world’s work is so vast; mistakes can happen. Small governments blunder; in the administration of the whole universe, an error isn’t surprising. Go and check again.”
Even the angels were doubtful. “Mistakes have never happened,” they said, “but it does look odd—she’s a prostitute and you’re a monk.” They went. The message returned: “No mistake; what had to happen has happened. Bring the prostitute to heaven, cast the monk into hell. If he insists, explain the reason.”

The monk insisted, so the angels had to explain. The reason was that although the monk lived in the temple, his thoughts were always with the prostitute. He performed worship and waved lamps before God, but held the image of the prostitute in his mind. And when at the prostitute’s house there were songs at night, music, dance, bursts of laughter, people drunk and delirious, he would feel he had wasted his life. “Joy is there; what am I doing here—sitting in this desolate place before a stone idol? Who knows if God even exists?” Doubt arose. He would toss and turn through the night, dreaming of enjoying the prostitute.

And the prostitute’s condition was such that, though she was a prostitute—enticing people, dancing—her mind was set on the temple. When the temple bells rang, she would think, “When will my fate dawn so that I too may enter the temple? Unfortunate me, I have spent my life in filth. In the next life, O God, make me a temple priestess! Even make me the dust of the temple steps—it will do—to lie beneath the feet of those who come to worship; even that is much.” When the fragrance of incense rose from the temple, she was filled with joy. “Is it not great fortune,” she would say, “that I live near the temple? Many are far from it.” Granted she was a sinner; but whenever the priest performed worship, she would sit with closed eyes.

The priest thought of the prostitute, the prostitute thought of worship. The priest went to hell, the prostitute went to heaven.

Man is in great dilemma. In the market you think of the temple. Household people think of renunciation. And your ascetics worry, “Perhaps we made a mistake; perhaps we missed; perhaps this very life is all, and we sit here in a dream that there will be a next life, heaven, liberation—who has seen it?”

Sometimes old sannyasins come to me—honest people; for the dishonest won’t say this, they keep it hidden. Honest ascetics sometimes tell me: “We are seventy; we took sannyas forty years ago, but we have received nothing. Now doubt arises whether there is anything at all—or did we waste our life? We didn’t enjoy what could be enjoyed, and spent our life hoping for what isn’t!” These are sincere people. What they say is authentic; they are not hiding.

If you knew the inner story of your renunciates, you’d be amazed; it would be hard to bow your head at their feet. You think they have found bliss, peace, God. Most of them have found nothing; many are worse off than you. Their world is certainly lost; God has not been found.

Now, this is a little intricate. God isn’t found just because the world is lost. The truth is the reverse: when God is found, the world drops. Darkness is not removed to produce light; when light arrives, darkness disappears. Sannyas is not a negation; it is affirmative. First comes attainment; renunciation follows. And this is fitting. Until you have seen the essential, how will you drop the trivial? The vision of the essential gives the courage to let go of the futile. When you see the essential, the nonessential starts dropping by itself; you won’t even have to drop it, there will be no pain of renunciation. Your steps will move toward the essential in joy; you won’t even look back. True sannyas is that which does not look back; if you look back, your renunciation is half-baked.

In the beginning, negative emotions lie within; they must be removed. In the beginning, the disease must be vomited out. Health is suppressed by illness. When illness is expelled, when catharsis happens, health manifests. Don’t be frightened by this; consider it good fortune that you have the opportunity to expel the disease. If disease is thrown out, the water of health is not far. There is just some rubbish on top of you; clear it away. And once the rubbish is gone, within you is the same pure water that was in Mahavira, Buddha, Shankara. In your nature you are exactly the same. In nature, not a grain of difference. It cannot be otherwise. Nature means that in it there is no difference. But to reach that nature, much digging is necessary. The sooner you begin, the better. And keep this in mind: whatever you empty out, don’t keep filling it up again and again. What you expel in meditation, watch through the day that you are not refilling the pit. Otherwise you will labor all your life and achieve nothing. Many people begin to dig again and again.

There was a great Sufi mystic, Jalaluddin Rumi. One day he took his disciples to a nearby field. The whole field was spoiled. He showed them: the owner had started digging a well here. He dug fifteen or twenty feet, then, not finding water, he began at another spot. He must have been mad. He dug there too; not finding water, he started a third place. He dug eight pits; the whole field was ruined. Now he was digging the ninth.
Rumi said, “Look at this man! If he had put all this effort in one place, however deep the water, he would have found it. But he digs ten or twenty feet and thinks, ‘If it hasn’t come till now, how will it come further? Dig somewhere else; there is no water here.’ Then he digs another ten or twenty feet. In this way he has dug eight pits. Altogether he has dug one hundred and sixty feet and has not found water. Had he dug one hundred and sixty feet in one place, water was certain.”

You will begin digging many times in life. Sometimes you start meditating—enthusiasm arises—fifteen days, a month…and then you cool down. Two or four years later you remember again; a little digging, then you stop. You will dig many pits but not reach water; your field will be spoiled. And if this becomes your habit—doing ten or five days and leaving—then better not to dig at all; that labor is wasted. Until water is reached, all labor is in vain. Continuity is needed.

And remember, a continuous stream of water breaks even rocks—soft, gentle water, through steady falling, breaks stone. The steady stream of meditation, however large the rocks around you, will break them. Today it may seem that anger is too strong, too solid—how will meditation break it? But it breaks; it always has. The rock is hard and meditation very gentle—but this is the secret of life: if the gentle remains continuous, even the hardest breaks.

Doing bhajan in order to get lost is intoxication; getting lost while doing bhajan is not intoxication.
Let me repeat. It is a little intricate, subtle—but you will understand. To do bhajan so that you can get lost—only to get lost—is intoxication.

There is anxiety in life, sorrow, pain, tension, restlessness, anguish. One wants to escape it, to forget it, to keep oneself busy anywhere so it is forgotten. Someone goes to the cinema and forgets for two hours; someone sits in a bar and forgets for two hours; someone goes to the temple and begins kirtan and forgets there. These are different methods of forgetting, but all three have the same aim—to forget anxiety.

But when you return home, anxiety is waiting. You are the same as before; those two hours have gone to waste; nothing of substance has happened. Those two hours will not dissolve anxiety.

Seeking to forget is intoxication, it is alcohol. And if you want, you can turn religion too into alcohol. But getting lost while singing bhajans is a totally different matter. You did not go there to get lost; you had no longing to forget yourself; you did not go to escape anxiety—you went to rise beyond it, to awaken. Anxiety is to be dissolved, not forgotten. You went to dissolve anxiety; you went to understand the essence of life; to create such a space in life where anxiety cannot arise, where restlessness does not arise, where unease is not born. You went to search your own nature; to seek the deep springs. You did not go to forget—you went to awaken.

And meditating, you got lost. That getting lost is not intoxication. Or if it is an intoxication, it is the intoxication of awareness. In it you will be lost and yet you will remain awake. You will find that you are utterly gone—and at the same time you will find that, for the first time, you are. On one side you will find that everything is lost, and on the other you will find that everything is new—you both are and are not.

This you will understand only through experience. There is such a moment in meditation when you are not; in that moment the “I” is not—only existence is; pure being is. The “I” is gone; only existence remains—no thought, no ego—the mirror of consciousness is utterly clean, no dust upon it. In that clear mirror, the divine shimmers. It is an incomparable moment of peace; the unparalleled event of samadhi.

But you did not go to lose yourself; you went to be transformed. You did not go to lose—you went to be dissolved. You did not go for a moment’s rest; you went for a revolution of a lifetime.

So meditation can be done in two ways:
1) You only want to forget yourself.
2) You want to transform yourself.
And whatever cause you carry within, that is the fruit that will grow; as you sow, so shall you reap. If in meditation you sow the seed of dissolving yourself, then in the harvest you will find that you are dissolved, and the divine remains. If in meditation you sow the seed of losing yourself—merely forgetting—you will find that meditation too has become a narcotic; for an hour you forgot, and then you became the same again—perhaps worse than before, because even that hour of life went to waste.

So I say with certainty: getting lost in bhajan is intoxication—if you went there in order to get lost. If you went to be dissolved, it is not intoxication—it is awakening, it is awareness, it is lucidity, it is heedfulness.

And remember, when you go in search of joy, you will not find joy—because that very search becomes the obstacle. When you chase joy, you will miss—because joy comes only when you are not demanding. Joy comes to emperors, not to beggars. When you go with a begging bowl, joy does not come; when you stand like a sovereign, it comes. As long as you ask, you will not receive; when you drop all asking, you will find: from every side it is rushing toward you. The deepest insight, the deepest law of life is this—esa dhammo sanantano—this is the eternal law: as long as you run to seek, you will not find.

Try to understand a little. You have forgotten someone’s name. You say, “It’s on the tip of my tongue.” If it’s on the tip of your tongue, why don’t you speak it? You try everything to remember the name. The more you try, the less it comes. And you know that you know it! You say, “It’s on the tip of my tongue! It’s coming… it’s coming…” and it doesn’t come. You strain so much you break into a sweat, and still it doesn’t come. What happens?

When you search too hard inside, you fill with tension. Because of tension the mind narrows; there is no space; it contracts. Then you say, “It isn’t coming; let it be.” You start reading the newspaper, or you walk into the garden, or you sip tea. And suddenly—as soon as you forget that you had to remember—it comes! What happens? When you strive, you become very agitated because of the striving—“I must bring it, and it won’t come.” When you drop the striving, you become quiet. In that quiet moment, it comes on its own.

Joy is your nature. When you strive, you contract. It is within you; it does not have to be brought from anywhere. But you contract so much there is no space left for it to come.

You must have noticed: the more you hurry, the more you are delayed. On a day you have to catch a train, if you hurry, the buttons go in the wrong holes—top to bottom! The more you hurry, the suitcase won’t close! You rush about—you forget the key at home, or you fail to bring the ticket; and even if you reach the station, it is useless.

And you know that if you do the very same things without anxiety, in the same amount of time it all happens more smoothly. Every day you button your coat—never do you get it wrong. But on the day you hurry, it goes wrong. Is your coat your enemy? Is it lying in wait to say, “The day you’re in a hurry, we’ll show you!” What has the coat to do with it?

Your hurry makes you tremble; it makes you anxious; your hands go this way and that; everything goes awry. The more you do things with a relaxed heart, the faster they happen; the more you do them with anxiety, the slower they become. The more you run, the later you arrive; the more gently you walk, the sooner you reach. It seems upside-down—but it is not—because patience is great strength, and not asking is a deep self-trust.

Joy comes when you are not seeking joy. Then from all sides—from outside and inside—the celebration of joy begins.

Drop the search; drop the demand. Do not take meditation as a means—take it as the end. Do not think, “Joy will come, that’s why I am doing it”; take joy in the doing. Not “I am doing it for joy”; doing itself is joy. And when doing becomes joy, the means becomes the end; the destination appears right on the path. Then where you sit, there your God is revealed; you need not go anywhere.

And where would you go anyway? There is no address for it; you hold no clue to its abode. Where will you search? Where will you search for joy? Where will you search for truth? Where will you search for liberation? Sit quietly.

Have you seen the image of Buddha? The image of Mahavira? The image of Shankara? They do not appear to be walking, nor running, nor going anywhere. They are seated; they are still; not even a trace on their faces that they are seeking something! Look closely at the image of Mahavira—do you see any haste on the face? Any expression that suggests he is searching? Nothing at all. Just seated—no search, no longing, no result to be had, no future—only here and now.

If you have seen the images of Mahavira, Buddha, and Shankara, you will find their entire message is simply this: sitting still, here and now; nowhere to go, nothing to become, nothing to attain; no running, no craving. In that very moment, everything happens; the sky pours down.

Prayer is the seed; bhajan is the tree. Prayer is the unmanifest, bhajan the manifest. Bhajan is prayer dancing, prayer singing. Bhajan is prayer’s expression.

If you want to see prayer, you will find it in Mahavira and Buddha; if you want to see bhajan, in Meera and Chaitanya. What is gathered within in Buddha and Mahavira flows outward in Meera and Chaitanya. What is still in Buddha and Mahavira rises into dance in Meera and Chaitanya. Bhajan is the articulation of prayer.

Understand it this way: you are in love with someone. You can keep it inside; there is no need to say it. Even if you never say, “I love you,” it is fine; you can hold it within, guard it. Often women do not say they are in love; they keep it safe. It is—why say it? Being is enough. But sometimes love also expresses—sometimes in a song, sometimes in the touch of a hand, sometimes in the speaking of the eyes, sometimes even in silence. But whenever it expresses, flowers blossom; the seed does not remain a seed. Both are beautiful.

There are two kinds of people in the world. Some for whom prayer is enough; there is no need to say anything; they will realize the divine in their emptiness and silence. And then there are others for whom that will not be enough—not until enough becomes more than enough, not until streams overflow, not until their cup is so brimming that it begins to be shared, to spill outward. Until then, it will not be enough.

Meera breaks into dance; what does not overflow from Buddha’s cup overflows from Meera. Both are blessed.

Recognize your own nature. If you want to keep it within, there is no harm; if you want to share it, there is no harm either. And I make no comparison between the two. The seed is beautiful, because the flower comes from it; and the flower is beautiful, because from it seeds are born again. The two are joined.

Expression and non-expression are joined; the manifest and the unmanifest are joined. Find your own nature; choose what appeals to you. But remember: bhajan is expression; prayer is silence.

No. Prayer is thanksgiving; bhajan is ahobhava—an exclamation of awe, an overflowing “Ah!”

Prayer says: What has been given is much; what has been given brings contentment; what has been given brings deep fulfillment. But bhajan says: What has been given is more than needed; it must be shared; it overflows, it cannot be contained; it must be poured out, squandered. Bhajan dances; it does not just say. Bhajan speaks; it is not unsaid. Bhajan has its own beauty.

Prayer is a song not yet sung; a painting hidden in the painter’s mind, not yet on the canvas; a statue buried in the stone, not yet touched by the chisel, not yet revealed.

Bhajan is the revealed statue—the stone has been cut, the chisel has done its work. Bhajan is the song sung.

Rabindranath died. Two days before his death a friend came to see him and said, “There is no need to be anxious—your life has been a success.” They were old companions, friends since childhood; both were now old. The friend said, “You can die in peace. We may die in sorrow—we achieved nothing and simply wasted life. But you—how many songs you have sung! Rabindranath has sung six thousand songs. They say no poet in the world has sung so many. In the West the great poet Shelley is renowned, but even he has only three thousand. Rabindranath has six thousand. And those six thousand have been set to music. You received the Nobel Prize; you have been honored in every way. You can leave in peace; you can thank God.”

Rabindranath listened and then said, “Listen: the song I wanted to sing—I have not yet been able to sing it; it still lies within me like a seed. Those six thousand I have sung—they are my failed attempts to sing that one song. That song which lies within me like a seed—I have tried to sing it and failed each time. You may have found something in those songs; to me they are the chronicles of my failures. And my song is still unsung; as yet I lie unsung. And I am complaining to the Divine: you have come to take me away! I had only just managed to tune the instrument—hammered and adjusted, set the strings; the sitar was ready. People thought we were singing—we were only tuning. Now, when the moment to sing was drawing near, when experience had ripened, the life-breath had consented, everything was in tune—now the time to depart has come! What kind of arrangement is this! I am complaining.”

Rabindranath could not sit under a tree like Buddha; he longed for bhajan. He criticized Buddha much—not from opposition, but from great love and great awe. Yet Buddha never quite “fit” him. There was complete reverence in his heart, but this sitting silently—becoming a stone statue beneath the bodhi tree—did not appeal to him.

Rabindranath was struck by the Baul fakirs—dancing with the ektara. People differ from person to person. It is not that Rabindranath opposed Buddha—there was great respect—but the personalities are different. Bhajan has a different personality; prayer a different one. Prayer is silent; bhajan is outspoken. Prayer is quiet.

Those who pray have said—the Sufis have said—if your left hand prays, let not your right hand know. In the deep of night, rise silently. If the husband prays, let the wife not know—lest it become a show. For with show comes display, and with display comes ego. The one who prays is afraid—lest anyone come to know!

The one who sings bhajan dances in the middle of the street. He says, whether people know or not—what difference does it make? In his very dance the ego falls. In his dance the ego is lost. These are two different approaches.

Prayer is merely thanksgiving; bhajan is the expression of ahobhava.

Understand your own within. Prayer leads to the Divine, and bhajan also leads; both take you there. There is no difference in the destination; the paths are very different.

And always choose what truly resonates with you; what puts you in a swing of joy, what suits your nature—choose only that. Always keep attention on yourself. It can happen that something looks good on another and yet does not fit you; then do not fall into that delusion, not even by mistake. What is auspicious for another is not necessarily auspicious for you. Another’s medicine may be poison for you; your medicine may be poison for another. No medicine is medicine in itself, no poison poison in itself. What harmonizes, even if poison, becomes medicine; what does not harmonize, even if medicine, becomes poison.

Always keep weighing within; keep tuning your own music, setting your own rhythm; keep testing against yourself. Then choose whatever fits.

If for you it is to sit silently like Buddha, to drown in silence so that not even a limb moves…

We made the statues of Buddha and Mahavira in marble—not without reason. They sat like marble. Even when alive they were unmoving. But if you make Meera’s statue in marble, it won’t suit. People have made them; they do not look right. To make Meera’s image, it would have to be made of water—it cannot be made—dancing, fluid, never still.

Meera is a movement; a gesture; a dance.

Mahavira is stillness—a lake where not even a ripple rises.

Meera is a stream falling from the mountain—a waterfall where every drop is dancing.

Great differences—but differences of the path. In the end, the lake too rises on the sun’s rays and is lost in the sky, and the river too, after merging into the ocean, rises on the sun’s rays and is lost in the sky.

The destination is one; the paths are different. The temple is one; the doors are many. Choose your own door; do not imitate another.

Imitation creates sect; moving in accord with your nature is religion.

Enough for today.