Bhaj Govindam #8

The incident itself has no intrinsic value. It may or may not have happened. But the meaning is worth understanding. And remember this always: in the lives of awakened ones, what are reported as “events” are less events and more symbols; something secret is hidden in them. Whether they are historically true or not—they are spiritually true. In the stream of time it may or may not have occurred so, but in the stream of consciousness it does occur so.

Do not try to understand the awakened through history; understand them through poetry and experience. Otherwise, great rigidity arises. This is a small parable of awakening.

“Shankar was a child; his mother did not permit him to take sannyas (renunciation).”
Much is hidden in this. Mother means mamata—tender possessiveness; mother means moha—attachment. For attachment to give permission to renounce is supremely difficult, because sannyas means the death of attachment. Sannyas means the person is becoming free of the family—the mother will no longer be “mother,” the father no longer “father,” the brother no longer “brother.” That is why Jesus said again and again: whoever wishes to walk with me must deny father and mother; whoever wishes to walk with me must abandon family. If you cannot leave your family, you cannot belong to the family of Jesus.

Sannyas means that this life hemmed in between birth and death is futile. And if life itself is futile, then the mother who gave birth becomes “futile” too: she did not give birth to life, only extended a dream. Sannyas is, at root, freedom from life. And freedom from life means freedom from mother, father, family, society. All that is rendered void. How then can the mother consent? Permission for sannyas—from the mother? Impossible; exceedingly difficult. Attachment cannot grant sannyas; possessiveness cannot grant it. From the very source from which life came, you seek permission to be free of life—impossible.

“Shankar was small; his mother did not permit sannyas.”
And remember, no matter how old you grow, for the mother you remain a child. You cannot become “older” than the one who bore you. Seventy years old—no difference. “Shankar was small” means only this: whenever a seeker filled with longing for sannyas has asked the mother for leave, the mother has felt, “A small child—and he wants to set off on such a forbidding path!” The mother wants to stop him.

“Shankar was small; his mother did not permit sannyas. But one day, while bathing, a crocodile caught him.”
In the river of life, if not today, then tomorrow, suffering will catch you. In that river, one also meets death. You don’t go to the river to meet death. You went to bathe; you went to enjoy swimming; to steal the freshness of morning. No one enters the world to die. No one wades into life to meet crocodiles. One goes in search of happiness, treasure, success, fame, prestige, glory—and is seized by crocodiles. If not today, then tomorrow, death seizes you. The more aware one is, the sooner the memory arises that this river is pure and sparkling only on the surface; within, death is hiding. The crocodile is inner death hiding below. From above the water looks so holy; inside, death waits. How enticing the river seems, how innocent! And within, death stands with dice in hand! The more alert, intelligent, conscious you are, the sooner this becomes visible.

It became visible to Shankar very early. If it does not become visible to you for long, know that intelligence is dim, awareness is thin; layers of dust have settled on your mirror and your intellect is filled with smoke. Otherwise, it would be seen quickly. Shankar saw that in this life nothing is to be found but death. That is the only point of the story. Until death becomes utterly clear, there is no freedom from mamata, no freedom from the mother.

Understand it a little. On one side is the mother—birth; on the other is death—silence, the end. Only when the end is seen is there freedom from the mother; only when the end is seen is birth seen as vain.

So sannyas means the vision of death, the recognition of mortality.

In the world we keep deferring death. We go on saying, always the other dies; I never die. Every day you see it—someone’s bier is lifted, someone’s funeral procession; some go to the cemetery, some to the cremation ground. You see everyone off—but you never go. Others will carry you. You will never even know you are going, because as long as you could go on your own, you would not go; when you cannot go, others will take you. Hence everyone feels death always happens to the other—we live, others die. On such false assurances a man goes on living!

Sannyas means the awakening of this recognition: death is mine. Whenever anyone dies, each time the news is of my death; in every death there is a notice, a hint, a pointer to my death. And in each death, a little of me dies—if you have understanding. If you lack it, your vanity and stiffness grow: always others die; I never die; I am immortal.

Shankar saw death. The moment death is seen, freedom from the mother happens—because mother means life, the one who set you down; death is the one who will take you away.

That is why the Hindus created a most unique image. No race on earth is more imaginative and poetic. Their symbols are very deep. Have you seen the image of Kali? She is Mother—and Death. Kal is a name for death/time; hence Kali; and she is Mother, hence a woman. She is beautiful—beautiful as mother. None can be as beautiful as the mother. Even if one’s mother is plain, she appears beautiful. Concerning the mother there is no question of beauty—she is beautiful. To call one’s mother ugly would be to call oneself ugly, for you are her extension. So Kali is beautiful, supremely beautiful. And yet there is a garland of skulls around her neck! She is beautiful, but dark—kal, death!

Western thinkers, when they ponder this symbol, are astonished: why has the feminine been depicted so fearsomely? And you call her Mother! So terrifying!

Terrifying because from the same one who gave birth began death. Terrifying because with birth, death also arrived. So the mother not only gave birth, she also gave death. On one side she is beautiful—like a source; on the other, dark as time, as the end. Around her neck a garland of skulls, in her hand a severed head, blood dripping; beneath her feet her own husband, whom she tramples as she stands.

These two forms of the feminine—that she is life and she is death—are a profound symbol. From where life comes, from there death comes; two faces of the same coin. No one on earth has recognized this as the Hindus did.

When Shankar became aware of death… whether or not a crocodile caught him in a river—ask the naïve historians; I have little interest. What does it matter—if a crocodile caught him or not? But that death became visible to him—that is certain. And when death is seen, sannyas happens. When death is seen, sannyas cannot be avoided. You are left standing, startled, wherever you are. Life can no longer be what it was a moment ago. That old race, ambition, the intoxication of fame and prestige—all break; death will topple them. If one must die, what difference whether today or tomorrow or the day after? That is only a calculation of time. If death is inevitable, then it is as good as already here. And that arrow of death pierces in such a way that you can no longer be who you were. This becoming new—that is what is called sannyas.

If you ask me for a definition of sannyas, I will say: it is a state of life in which outwardly death has not happened, but inwardly it has. You live, but you live knowing death. That is sannyas. You live, but not for even a moment do you forget death. That is sannyas. You know the dew lasts but a moment—now here, now gone. The world’s little boat is of the dawn—now sinking, now sinking. You live, but you do not drown in the intoxication of living. The intoxication of life can no longer engulf you. You remain awake, aware.

Death awakens. The one who has awakened is a sannyasi. The one lost in life, taking dreams as real, is a householder—whose home is in dreams, or who is decorating dreams in a home. The one who has risen outside of dreams, stupor broken, unconsciousness gone; who wakes and sees that here, aside from death, there is nothing—what we call a town is but a cremation ground, a queue of those waiting their turn. Someone’s time has come; someone stands a little farther back. The queue is inching toward the cremation ground. To whom this becomes visible, attachment falls away. That falling away of attachment is sannyas.

Sannyas is not an effort at dispassion; not a discipline of dispassion. Sannyas is the breaking of attachment. Where attachment is gone—that’s all. The practice of non-attachment is not sannyas—remember this. If attachment has not broken, only then does one need to practice non-attachment. If attachment has broken, there is no need to practice. The empty space that remains where attachment stood—that is non-attachment; it is an absence. Then you are sannyasins.

That is why I say, for sannyas you need not go anywhere. Where you are, let a little awareness dawn; let a small lamp be lit within; let things be seen as they are—not through the eyes of intoxication, but with open eyes.

One night Mulla Nasruddin was returning from the tavern—drunk, humming a tune. A man bumped into him on the road. Dark night, he’s drunk, singing, unaware—he flares up: “You son of an owl, apologize within five seconds, or else…”

A crackling voice from the dark replies, “Or else? What will you do if I don’t apologize in five seconds?”

That crackling voice sobers him a little. He looks closely: not just any man—it looks like Muhammad Ali! A prizefighter! He panics; his wits return, his feet touch the ground. “Sir,” he says, “if five seconds are not enough, how much time would you like?”

This is how you move through life—inebriated, humming the song of dreams; things do not appear as they are. A jolt is needed, a crackling voice, a blow that scatters everything, so that for a split second the clouds disperse and you glimpse the open sky. Then you will find yourself surrounded by nothing but death. What you called life is death’s face. What you called pleasure is misery’s mask. What you called wealth is a game of lies with cowries. In the delusion of wealth you stayed poor; in the delusion of life, you never met real life. And time keeps slipping through the fingers; each moment life is being spent, strength ebbing away.

This is only a symbol: that when death seized Shankar, he asked his mother for permission to take sannyas before dying. Permission was granted.

Permission can be granted only when death stands at the door. Before that, it cannot be given. Only when the mother feels: either the boy will survive as a renunciate, or as he is he will die anyway. When the choice is between a dead son and a sannyasi son—only then will the mother choose the sannyasi son. That is all it means. For the sannyasi son is a dead son.

Sannyas means: a man has died while still alive.

Jesus said: until you are willing to carry your cross on your shoulders, you cannot walk with me; until you are willing to deny yourself, you cannot walk with me; until you are willing to die, there is no possibility of resurrection.

If such a story truly occurred, then remember the symbol: a little child, newly born to the path, caught in the jaws of death; a crocodile has seized his leg; the mother stands on the riverbank; and Shankar says, “I am dying; there is no way to be saved; give me your permission—now, at least give me permission to become a sannyasin, to die as a renunciate! There is no way to live on as a sannyasin, the crocodile has me—this is the end—so give me permission now!”

Even then, think: the mother must have hesitated. Hope must have spread its wings. She must have felt, “Who knows, he might yet be saved!” But death was in front of her. Shankar was being pulled away. A crowd must have gathered. People would have said, “Give permission now. Why bind a dying one? If he is going anyway, let him go free! Hear his plea—he wishes to die a sannyasin, so that he is not born again, so that attachment to life does not remain. He wants to leave life and die. The life that is slipping away—give permission to let it go!”

Still, I feel, the mother must have hesitated; her eyes must have filled with tears. She must have prayed to God to save her son. But when no way was found, then she would have said—reluctantly, helplessly—“So be it. If you are dying, then die as a sannyasin.”

But this incident did not happen—because crocodiles do not concern themselves with such matters. Human beings don’t concern themselves—why would crocodiles! They say Shankar was saved; the crocodile saw he had become a sannyasin and thought, “Now why kill him?” No—crocodiles are not that intelligent. They’re not Hitler or Mussolini; so what to say of crocodiles!

No—but the symbol is precious: one is saved only when one becomes a sannyasin; then even death can do nothing to him. Only he dies who clutches at life; the one who lets life drop from his own hands—how will death kill him? From whom can you snatch what he is already willing to give? Only from the one who wants to save can anything be snatched.

Hence Jesus says: whoever would save will lose; whoever is willing to lose has saved.

Understand the essence—“Shankar was saved.” Did the crocodile let go?

No—the only news is this: death cannot kill a sannyasin. There is no way to kill him. For the sannyasin says, “The ‘me’ you could have killed—I have already dropped it. That ego, that web of craving and ambition, that spread of dreams—I have left it. I have died by my own hand.” Then what remains within—the nectar that was surrounded by death—remains, purified.

As long as you cling to life, you have no hint of your inner nectar. That is why you cling so hard to life—lest it slip away; you fear you might die. Yet the fear remains. The more you clutch, the more your legs tremble. For you do know—how will you deny it?—that death is coming. Explain to yourself as you will—how will you explain it away? Death is coming. Avert your eyes as you will—where will you hide? Where will you go? Death approaches from all sides. If it came from one direction, you could escape to another—but it comes from every direction, from horizon to horizon. And if it came from outside, you could still escape; it comes from within. Go anywhere—death will come. Hide anywhere—death will find you; for death is hidden within you.

Amrit—nectar—is hidden within you; death is hidden within you. As long as you cling outwardly to life, you will see only the inner death. The day you accept the inner death, in that very instant you will begin to see the inner life.

Remember: as we write with white chalk on a black slate and the letters are clear—if we write on a white wall, they are not. If you accept the inner blackness of death, upon that very darkness the little lamp of nectar within you will shine a thousandfold.

But you do not accept death; you do not accept the black slate—therefore the white letters are not seen. You fear to look at the black slate—therefore the white letters are not seen. Keep this paradoxical statement safe in your heart: whoever has looked death full in the face has seen nectar.

“Shankar was saved.”
Because death cannot efface you. It can efface what you call your life. It can efface what you call your body. It can efface what you call name and form. But it has no means to efface you—you are a child of nectar! You have never perished, nor can you be made to perish. You have never truly been born, nor will you truly die. What is born will die. Your body was born—it will pass. Your name, your personality were born—they will die. But you—beyond name and form—were always, and will always be. You are eternal, you are everlasting.

Sannyas means only this: that what will perish, we let go ourselves; and we set off in search of that which will not perish. We drop the momentary, and lift our eyes toward the eternal. If even the “self” must be lost in that, we accept it—because what is momentary, even if you try to preserve it, who has ever preserved it? Let it go. And if, after it goes, something remains—after this trash is gone, if something remains—something that cannot be renounced even by renouncing, cannot be left even by leaving; nainam chindanti shastrani—the sword cannot cut it; fire cannot burn it—if something such remains after all is burned, after all is pierced, then that alone was worth saving. Sannyas is the search for that.

Do not take this incident as an incident. It is a precious symbol of awakening; a parable of understanding.

If you have recognized me, then you will recognize me in any guise. And if you have not recognized me, is there any sure reason you would recognize me in this particular guise? If you have recognized me—me—and not merely the guise, then you should not insist on a guise. If it is the guise you recognized and not me, I can bring that guise to your house too, and still you will only recognize the guise. Think again about the invitation, because I have gone to many houses in just such a disguise and they did not recognize me. Recognizing a disguise is no recognition at all.

If Narayan Swami could not recognize Sai Baba in the forms of the dog and the leper, it was precisely because he had never really recognized Sai Baba. Is the recognition of a guise any recognition? Is bowing before a guise any bowing? Is the worship of a guise any worship? If Sai Baba had gone in the very attire in which Narayan Swami had the illusion he would recognize him, then certainly he would have bowed, offered food, paid respect. But would that respect have gone to Sai Baba, or only to the attire? Only to the attire.

It is astonishing that even a dog is more alive than a guise; even a leper is more alive than a guise. The guise is just an outer covering. Drop your grip on coverings.

But I know why you cling to coverings. You cling to them because you recognize even yourself only by your own guise.

I have heard that when Mulla Nasruddin went on the pilgrimage to Haj, two other men were with him—one was a barber and one was a rustic with a bald head. They halted at night in the desert. There was danger; it was an unfamiliar place, so they decided each would stay awake in turn and stand guard. The first lot fell to the barber, so the barber kept watch for a third of the night. But he began to feel sleepy, tired and weary. He thought, what should I do? He didn’t know anything else; he only knew a barber’s trade, so he shaved Mulla Nasruddin’s head. Sitting there, what else could he do? In the desert there seemed to be no other work. He thought, If I take up this, I won’t get sleepy; I’ll have some work and keep awake. He shaved his head. The second watch was Mulla Nasruddin’s. When his time came, the barber woke him: “Get up, Mulla!” Out of habit he ran his hand over his head. He said, “Brother, it seems you have mistakenly woken that bald fool in my place.”

Finding a shaved head—well, that belonged to the bald fool. On his own head he had always found hair.

Our own self-recognition too is only of the guise. Have you ever thought: if your face were changed while you slept at night, would you be able to recognize in the morning that it is you? You would not. How would you recognize? Because even your self-recognition is only by what you see in the mirror—there is no other recognition, none deeper than that. If in the morning you found that when you went to sleep you were a fair-skinned man, and on waking you discovered you had become a Black man—if some scientist were to perform plastic surgery during the night’s sleep, change the shape of your nose, change the color of your eyes, change your hair—when in the morning you stand before the mirror, you will be in the same state as Mulla Nasruddin described. He was not at all wrong. He never says wrong things; he speaks with great insight. He said, “Brother, by mistake you have awakened that bald fool in my place.” You too will find the same—you will cry out, What has happened? This “I am” seems to be someone else!

Our recognition of ourselves is of the guise; therefore the recognition we make of others is also of the guise. Until you recognize your consciousness, you will not be able to recognize mine. Your recognition of me will be only as deep as your recognition of yourself. I may come to your house, but it will be of no real use. Until you yourself come to your own house, nothing can come of my coming to yours.

Mahamati, you didn’t understand even the wasp story!

In the wasp story I said exactly this—that there was no knot, no obstruction; she had just read a book. In the wasp’s life there was no obstacle to be removed by sadhana; her only trouble was that she had become skilled at reading, and in a book she had read that the wasp’s wings are small and the body is heavy, therefore the wasp cannot fly.

Now, whoever those simpletons were who wrote that may have squared their mathematics, but they still didn’t notice that the wasp does fly. What does “cannot fly” even mean? Does any wasp fly by logic?

The wasp too got frightened after reading the book. Her condition became like that old tale of a centipede, the creature with a hundred legs, walking along the road. A rabbit was amazed, filled with curiosity: A hundred legs! Which one does he lift first? Then which one after that? And to keep track of a hundred—and still walk! It’s living mathematics! He said, “Wait, friend, answer one question. A hundred legs— which one do you lift first? And you don’t wobble! You don’t stumble! Nor do you accidentally lift four or ten together and get tangled and fall. With a hundred legs— which one first, which one last? What is your order? What’s the mathematics of it?”

Until then the centipede had never thought about it. He had been walking since birth, since he became aware—walking; the question had never arisen. He said, “That’s quite a question you’ve raised.” He looked down and he too panicked—one hundred legs! He couldn’t even count that far. He said, “I’ve never thought about it till now. But since you’ve raised it, I’ll think, I’ll test, I’ll observe—and I’ll let you know soon.”

After that he couldn’t walk. He took one step, got flustered, and fell. Now it had become a matter of managing a hundred legs! A small mind and a hundred legs! He couldn’t do such a big calculation—he toppled right there. He said, “Foolish rabbit, you’ve created my misery. Now I will never be able to walk; this question will haunt me. Till now, I used to walk.”

Have you ever noticed: whatever you turn into a matter of cogitation, those very things become difficult; small things become difficult. Try this: for seven days do one experiment—whenever you eat, keep thinking, “How do I digest food?” Until now you’ve digested without any trouble, but for seven days pay attention to this: How do you digest? This is no small event. Scientists say it is the greatest miracle. You take in bread; it becomes blood and bone, flesh and marrow; it becomes the subtle fibers of the brain; it becomes thought, it becomes desire! Bread! And in this small factory of the stomach all this transformation happens. How does it happen? Think about it for seven days. You’ll get indigestion; and then you may never be well again. So go ahead and think—your stomach will go out of order. Just as the hundred legs wobbled, you too will wobble. How is this happening?

Life is greater than your intellect. And whenever you bring in the intellect, there the obstruction arises. Life is far bigger than you; the intellect is very small. Even the wasp story you did not understand!

What did the wasp do? It did nothing. There is no question of doing anything, because the delusion was only in the mind; it was not real. The wasp had been flying all along—until it read a book. Scripture became its death. It read the Vedas; its very life seemed to go into them. From that day it could no longer fly—so it sat down! And once it sat, it kept growing fatter, and flying became harder. And the harder flying became, the more correct the scripture appeared—absolutely correct. Other wasps kept flying, but it thought, “These are all fools, flying in ignorance.”

Now think a little! “They are flying in ignorance; they don’t know what is written in the scripture. If they had even a little intelligence they would have stopped flying long ago—because when scientists say something, they say it after much thought. Small wings and a big body—and these ignoramuses still fly on!” Instead of understanding, “I too can fly,” it concluded, “I am wise; they are ignorant.”

Man hides even his diseases in knowledge; he hides his stupidities in knowledge. His skill at hiding is limitless.

That wasp thought, “I alone am sensible; these fools keep flying—against principle, against scripture. They don’t even know what they are doing! They are doing what cannot be done!” But it never occurred to her: if something “cannot be,” how can it be—even in ignorance? Then, fortunately, one morning a bird attacked. In the panic of that attack she forgot all knowledge, the Veda slipped from memory; for a single instant she became ignorant—and in that ignorance, she flew.

But when she came back and sat in the shade, she began to think: “I too flew; I too could fly; so certainly…” These are the mind’s tricks. She did not think, “It was my delusion that I couldn’t fly; whoever wrote that scripture wrote wrongly.” Even an ordinary person won’t easily admit that the written word is wrong—how could a poor wasp? The written word has its own magic. If someone tells you something, you may not believe it; but if he shows you the same thing printed in a book, you believe at once!

I have a friend who writes poetry. The poems are rubbish—at best simple rhymes. They give you a headache—just the reverse of aspirin. No one listens to his poems. He would sometimes come and recite them to me. He asked, “No one listens to me. Whoever I approach says, ‘Brother, stop—we have other things to do.’ I go to friends; they slip away. I go to the café; people avoid my table. What should I do?”

I said, “Do one thing: get the poems printed.”

He said, “If they won’t listen, how will they read?”

I said, “You don’t know the magic of print. Either get them printed.”

He said, “That’s expensive. And what if you are wrong and they still don’t read?”

I said, “Then do this: here’s a tape recorder—take it. Record your own poems. Take it to the café tomorrow and tell your friends, ‘Look, I’ve brought a few poems on tape. Please listen.’”

He came back and said, “It’s a miracle! They won’t listen to me, the fools—but they listened to the tape so attentively!”

The magic of the machine! You can refuse a person—how will you refuse a machine?

In New York a thief was caught. He had broken into a house, bolted the doors from inside, cracked the safe. He had a gun. When the police got word, he stood at the window with the gun. Whoever entered risked his life. A man nearby made a phone call; the telephone rang inside. The thief put down his gun and went to answer the phone. He said on the phone, “Forgive me, I’m busy right now!” And in the meantime they caught him. When asked, “Why did you need to go to the phone?” he said, “What can you do! When the telephone rings, you have to answer.” He left the gun and went. The magic of the machine!

If a man knocks at the door, you may not care; but if the telephone rings—even if it has nothing to do with you—you become helpless. You must answer.

My friend returned from the café: “Astounding! I’ll get them printed. They will surely read them. They bought a tape and listened so carefully—so absorbed that not a word was missed! If I recite for free, they don’t listen.”

Printed letters have great impact. If someone tells you something and you don’t believe it, and he says, “All right, I’ll show you the book where it’s written,” you believe at once—“It’s written in a book!” As if writing it in a book makes something true. If truth were so easy, what a world it would be! How many lies are written in books! In fact, ninety-nine percent is false. But because it is written, it gets believed. The book has a powerful spell.

The wasp fell under the spell of books. Remember, the wasp had no disease needing treatment; no actual knot had formed that yogasanas needed to untie. Nothing had happened—only one idea, a wrong idea, had been grasped. What must be done to drop a wrong idea? Only drop it—nothing else. A bird swooped; she panicked.

That’s what a guru is: such a bird who swoops on you. If you are shaken, in that very moment of panic, vision happens.

This is why one fears the guru—because the guru is not “doing” anything. He feels both compassion for you and laughter. He laughs because you are not ill; he feels compassion because you have made such an illness for yourself. Your suffering is real—no doubt—but it is without cause. Your suffering is in your thought. Break the thought. In your nature you are always healthy. God has not left you for a single moment; he is present in every pore. Only a thought has been picked up somewhere that something is wrong—just that. How to correct the mistake? The mistake never happened. Only one mistake has happened: the thought, “A mistake has happened.”

Even when the wasp flew away, she did not think… Man’s ego never admits he was wrong—not even about the past. She thought, “Some mental blockage had arisen that kept me from flying. Now in a moment of crisis strength was awakened; the blockage broke—now I can fly.” She never thought there was no blockage at all. She was simply sitting idle, uselessly. And she had read about this “blockage” in psychology books.

Books have become your death. Come a little into life. Bow to the Vedas, the Quran, the Bible. You have bowed many times; now bow in my sense: “Enough! Forgive me! Now let me live life as it is, in its naturalness.”

To become natural is to become religious. You have become unnatural. There is no disease—only the delusion of disease. The world, in truth, is not; only delusion is. Only God is. Therefore Shankara calls it maya. Now the joke is: when a wrong disease is caught, treatment is sought—then the healers arrive! First the disease was wrong; then treating a wrong disease multiplies troubles. Because medicines are given! If the medicines are completely wrong, fine; but if there is something right in them, harm will result—danger will be. Once you admit one trouble into the mind, thousands of doors open. If you recognize the root correctly, no doors open—the root trouble dissolves.

The wasp was a little more intelligent than necessary; that was her foolishness.

Now you say: “You mentioned, in the story of the wasp, about a blockage in the mind.” I did not. You heard something else. That is the whole lament: say one thing, you will hear something else, do something else; and then you will hold me responsible: “But you said so.”

People come to me and say with such confidence, “You yourself said,” that I fall silent. What to say now? If they did not understand before, will they understand now? I keep quiet: “All right, I must have said it—otherwise how did you hear it? Certainly I must have said it.”

Do not think it necessary that because you heard, I said it. You have heard that in the wasp story I spoke of a mental blockage. Not at all. The wasp had read about “mental blockage” in a psychology book; there was no blockage anywhere. The wasp was perfectly healthy—she could fly, dance, share in the spring of flowers; she could hum songs joyfully in the sunlight. There was no obstacle anywhere; only a deluded idea had been seized—there was no blockage.

Now you ask: “Through sadhana, what should we do to dissolve the knot?”

You too are that wasp—sitting down after reading the scriptures, because the scripture says you cannot fly.

Give scripture a little less authority; give yourself a little more. You are the judge, not scripture. Listen to your nature; ponder your nature; it is your nature that will liberate you. And only the one who has listened to and pondered their own nature succeeds in understanding scripture as well. Then the scripture seems to say something entirely different. What you first understood—it is not that. You understand only what you want to understand. You seek support in scripture for your disease; then the disease settles in even more firmly.

What had happened to that wasp? Why did she accept so quickly? The wasp had one disease: she was already busy condemning other wasps. She had been saying, “These tramps roam here and there. No thought, no reflection, no study of scripture—no sense of a higher life; they just roam, dance among flowers, and waste their lives.” The wasp was already full of conceit: “I am special; they are inferior.” This delusion created the mess with scripture. When she read in a scripture that a wasp cannot fly, she said, “Exactly! I alone have attained knowledge, and these fools are wandering in ignorance.” The arrogance of this knowledge made her sit down. And because of this arrogance, she began to enjoy herself.

There is great relish in condemning the whole world. Go and look at your sadhus and sannyasis. They sit like wasps; they do not fly; they do not enter life. Their only relish is that if you go to them, they are watching to see you fall into hell—“You are trapped in attachment and illusion, entangled in the world.” A deep condemnation lives in them. And if you ask them, they will say the same: “Poor fellows—out of ignorance they are caught in maya.” Such a vast world is trapped in maya because of ignorance; only a few, a handful, who sit in temples like corpses—only they, because of knowledge!

It is God’s will that you pass through this maya. There is a secret in this passing. Only through it do maturity and ripeness come. These escapees who have hidden in temples—at the end they will be proven guilty. Their entire enjoyment is ego. You take delight in food; they take delight in fasting. Then their stiffness hardens: “See, you are still absorbed in food like animals. Look at us—we fast!” You take delight in comfort; they stand in the sun, lie on a bed of thorns. What madness!

But they have only one enjoyment: that they can condemn you. From a bed of thorns they can condemn you as nowhere else—because you cannot lie on a bed of thorns; you haven’t read that many scriptures; they have.

Your sadhus and sannyasis practice renunciation and austerity only under the sway of ego. No heaven of God has become available to them—only a deepening certainty of ego. And to savor that, they must be the opposite of you. Whatever you do, they do the opposite and display it. And then you too fear them; you too are intimidated; you too think they have accomplished some great miracle.

You are fools; they are great fools. At least you stand on your feet; they stand on their heads. They call it a headstand. Man was made to walk on his feet; otherwise God would have arranged walking on the head. There is no need for headstands. But the one doing the headstand can look at you with condemnation: “See, you still stand on your feet; you walk the way of the ignorant. Look at us—we walk the way of the wise!” And some of you, the naive, are impressed by that too—also because of ego. Those whose minds have ego—you do too—are impressed, and slowly begin to practice postures.

Now you ask me: “What should we do, through sadhana, for the dissolution of complexes?”

I do not see any complex in you that needs to be dissolved. You are exactly as you should be; just drop the delusion of complex. The day you drop that delusion, you will discover: “Ah! So much time wasted for nothing! We were always like this.”

Buddha became enlightened. What happened in enlightenment? His first words were: “O builder of the house of craving, now you will build no more houses for me, for I have grasped the source of craving.” The source of craving is imagination. “I have seen that all this was only the net of my imagination. Now you will build no more houses for me. That journey has ceased—because I have caught the root: imagination.”

Your complex is in your imagination. Your craving is in your imagination. Your world is in your imagination. Truth is exactly as it always was. It is so even now. It will be so tomorrow. The day you drop the web of imagination and return, you will find how much bliss you were wasting—needlessly.

But there are people—you know such people—whom they call hypochondriacs: they keep manufacturing some illness or other. You will always see them going to doctors: sometimes to a hakim, sometimes to an allopath, sometimes to a homeopath, sometimes to a naturopath. You will never find them at rest; they are always on the move. And wherever they go, people tell them, “These illnesses are not there—what can we do?” They get angry at such people: “No illness? We are suffering so much and you say there is no illness!” They want to hear: “It’s a big illness, a grave illness; such an illness has never happened to anyone before; you are historic, unique.” Then they feel satisfied.

I have heard about one old woman—no one believed her all her life. She wasn’t sick; how could they believe? What could physicians do? You treat one complaint, she conjures ten. Sometimes pain in the hand, sometimes in the foot, sometimes in the head; sometimes this, sometimes that—when you decide to imagine, is there any limit? Imagine one disease and you have gathered the capacity to imagine all diseases; now no one can stop you. Settle the head, it moves to the leg. In the end she died. Before dying she told the stonecutter, “Write on my tombstone: Now at least there is proof that I was sick! Now at least there is proof! Now I have died—so admit it.”

They brought a madman to me. Nothing special was wrong. Young, healthy. Only one obsession had settled in him: two flies had entered his body. He had been sleeping at night; two flies went in through the nose. Now they buzz inside. Now he is restless—can neither sleep nor eat—everything has fallen apart. He had tried all treatments. If there were flies, something could be done. The physicians say, “There are no flies; they don’t even show on X-ray.” He says, “Should I believe your X-ray or my experience? I hear the buzzing; I hear them bumping; they move through my bones, crawl. If they don’t appear on your X-ray, your X-ray is at fault. And their not appearing on your X-ray does not stop my trouble.” That too is true: “My trouble continues.”

I said, “Wait, we’ll try something.” I told him, “Close your eyes and lie down, and don’t open them until we say; we’ll try to remove your flies.” He felt relieved when I said, “We will try to take out the flies,” because at least one person had accepted that there were flies. He immediately touched my feet and said, “You alone are a sensible man. Who knows how many people I went to—first they say, ‘Such flies—’ and they start laughing. We are dying and you joke! If doctors laugh, it hurts. You have done right; you will surely do it.”

I said, “There is no difficulty. The flies are visible. It’s surprising how they don’t appear on X-ray.” He relaxed. I blindfolded him and laid him down. Then I ran and, with great difficulty, caught two flies in the house—because one must show him the flies. I managed to trap two in a bottle—very difficult, since I’d never caught flies before; no experience.

He opened his eyes and looked closely at the flies—the flies were in the bottle! I said, “Look, I’ve taken them out and placed them here.” He said, “These are not those flies; those were big flies. These are small, ordinary houseflies. Those were big, big flies. They are still moving around.” I said, “Now it is very difficult; we did what we could; we managed to get these two.” He said, “These too may have been there—I don’t deny it—but those two real ones are still moving.”

What will you do with such a man? The one who can imagine two can imagine four. Catch two, and he says, “Those are big; these are different flies!” Then I understood: bring any flies you like, he will not accept; he will say, “These are not those.”

What can you do with such a man? One feels compassion: he is suffering needlessly. And even more compassion arises because the suffering is utterly needless. If it were real, fine; if real, there could be treatment. The suffering is so false there is no way to treat it. And laughter also comes, for if he wishes, he could drop it right now. He had an opportunity—he could have agreed, “These are the flies.” But he devised a trick: “These are not those flies. Granted, you have worked hard, and you are the only man who has accepted—but these are other flies; these too may have been there.”

Your disease is like this; your complexes are like this. Nothing has become distorted anywhere. It cannot. If God alone is everything, how can distortion arise? It is only a web of imagination. If you can awaken—you can awaken this very moment—there is nothing to do.

This non-doing is what Bhaj Govindam means. Bhaj Govindam says: nothing is to be done; even by remembering Govind, it will fall away.

If it were a real disease, it could not be removed by Bhaj Govindam. How will a real disease be removed by Bhaj Govindam? You chant “Govind, Govind”—will that remove cancer? How?

But the wise have said that if you even remember the name of God, all diseases will be removed—because the diseases are not there. In the moment of remembrance, in the moment of surrender to the Divine, suddenly you will find: there were never any diseases; you are pure-awake; you are nameless, formless, stainless; not a single black line has fallen upon you; all is a net of imagination.

Try to understand the wasp’s story once again; it is your own story.

Certainly. A lake is all quiet. Then waves arise, gusts of wind come—the lake trembles. When the gusts pass, the lake again becomes still, becomes a mirror again. The lake is pure. Leaves fall, it becomes dirty. The leaves will settle to the bottom; the lake will again be fresh and clear.

When the child is born, the lake is still clear—there are no ripples, no leaves of thoughts, no waves of desire.

Then everything becomes wave-tossed—storms arise, the mind trembles, the mirror is lost. Youth comes; everything turns stormy; nothing remains settled; the wild, tempestuous surges of great desires arrive.

Then old age comes; all the rubbish, the stones, the ruins lie about.

But what was there at the source is still there. A little understanding—to let the leaves settle; a little understanding—to let the winds of desire stop. The lake will become the same again; the nature of the lake has not changed.

When the mind becomes again as innocent as a child's, only then do we call one a saint; he becomes childlike again.

Therefore Shankara said: the supreme yogi sometimes appears like a child and sometimes like a madman. At times he seems as simple as a small child—nothing inside, emptiness. And at other times it seems as if the fierce winds of the Unknown have arisen—he is ecstatic, mad.

Even in mad people there is a childlike innocence; and in children there is also a kind of craziness like the mad.

Little children go mad over little things. They want a toy—they will start dancing, jumping, breaking things—it must be now. Angry this moment, a moment later they will be laughing, smiling—they will have forgotten that there was anger. There is much in common between the mad and the children. So if you look into the eyes of the mad you will find a childlike innocence; and if you look into the eyes of children you will also find a state of madness.

The supremely wise becomes both at once. Many times he seems like a child; and many times he seems like a madman. Because no rules remain, no codes remain, he appears mad; no sin, no virtue—so he appears mad. And for the same reason he also appears childlike. The child has neither sin nor virtue; the child has no codes. The child is before morality; the saint is beyond morality; in between is the world—where there are codes, ethics, rules; sin and virtue; auspicious and inauspicious; what is to be done and what is not to be done—these are the two ends.

Certainly, that which was once in your life can happen again. You were once a child—the child is not lost; amid the crowd of thoughts in your mind it is still present within. When the crowd becomes quiet, suddenly there is a rediscovery—the child is there again. That is sainthood.

The Ganges outside and the Ganges inside. Travel to the outer Ganges as much as you like; nothing will happen, because the journey to the outer Ganges is still an outer journey—it will not take you within. But drink a single drop of the inner Ganges, and you have arrived; for to drink even one drop of the inner Ganges you will have to come wholly inside—only then can you drink even a drop.

Pilgrimage is not outside; outside there is only the world. Pilgrimage is within. The deeper you go inside, the more you delight in yourself, the nearer you come to the holy place—there is Girnar, there Shikharji, there the Kaaba, there Kailash, there Kashi. Beware of the delusion of the outer.

But we know only how to look outside. So when we search for God, we search outside. And when we look for a temple, we look outside.

The Divine is within you; it is hidden in the very one who is seeking; the seeker is that very One. Begin to recognize your own consciousness; a single drop of it is enough.

They say—there is a tale—that when the Ganges descended to the earth, only half descended; half remained in heaven. Understand it like this: when the Ganges came outward, only half came; half remained within. Heaven means within—drowning into oneself; and hell means wandering in the other.

There is a great Western thinker, Jean-Paul Sartre. His saying is very significant: “The Other is hell.”

Heaven is in oneself. As long as you depend on another, you will remain in hell. Until you attain such freedom, such privacy, such autonomy, such self-ness that no dependence remains, that you are no longer a beggar before anyone, that you have become your own master—then there is heaven. To hold out your hand before another is great wretchedness—there only hell can be found; there, at most, you will gather sorrow into your begging bowl. The music of happiness has never been there, nor will it ever be.

Come within. The inner Ganges is heaven’s half Ganges, and a single drop is enough. It is nectar.

Bathe in the outer Ganges as much as you like—what will happen? Fish live in the Ganges all the time; they would all have reached heaven. Crocodiles live there too; they would have reached heaven. Animals and birds bathe in the Ganges; they would all have reached heaven.

They have not reached. You will not be able to bathe more than they do; you will take a dip and come home. Whom are you deceiving? You are blind—blind though you have eyes. Do not give yourself this deception.

The Ganges is within. Whatever is valuable is within; whatever is valueless is outside. If you want trash, look outside; if you want treasure, look within.

Truth is attained by the Master’s grace, but the Master’s grace will not come without effort. Where will you find the Master’s grace? The Divine is received as grace; but the Master has to be sought, and you must gather the fitness to be near the Master. Effort must be made—and yet remember, what is ultimate is received without effort. This may sound contradictory, but these are the two wings, the two oars—effort and grace. Only with both is the journey completed.

There are two kinds of delusions in the world. Some people think, “By effort alone it will be attained.” Such people never meet the Divine, because their ego never falls; effort only strengthens it. The doors close even tighter instead of opening. And some believe, “It does not come by effort; only grace gives it.” They just sit; they never rise, they never walk. They waste it in laziness. Some lose themselves in ego, some in sloth.

God is attained by tireless effort and yet without effort.

From your side you must bring everything to completion; let nothing remain undone. Stake yourself wholly—only then are you worthy of grace. Then you can say, “Now I have nothing left to add—let your compassion descend.”

You gain the right to ask for his grace only when you have done all you could, when nothing is left in you. You will not receive grace for free. Grace is the most precious jewel; it is not given gratis. When you have staked everything and nothing remains, then a prayer can arise from your heart; then you can say, “By my doing nothing happens—now you do.”

In this world, so hard to cross—by your boundless grace, protect me, O Murari.

Only in that moment—when you see, “Now nothing can be done by me; I have done everything; I have held nothing back to put at stake; I have poured myself out completely, and still nothing happens—now your grace is needed”—only then does grace surely come.

The Divine is always received as grace, because your effort is very small and the Divine is vast. By effort you cannot seize him. But by your effort you come close to the place where the drop becomes willing to receive the ocean.

The dream will not remain; whatever you have known up to now will not remain at all. And that is why it is difficult to say what happens when you awaken; because your language belongs to sleep. For now, whatever can be said to you and whatever you can understand will be in the language of the dream. If I say, “You will have happiness,” you will take it to mean the very happiness you have known in the dream. If I say, “There will be no suffering,” you will think of the suffering you have known in the dream—you will think, that will not be there.

Therefore the enlightened ones fell silent. Whenever someone asked, “What will happen upon awakening?” they fell silent; they said—wake up and see. Because it lies beyond anything that can be understood in your language. There, neither your sorrow is, nor your joy; neither your peace nor your unrest; neither your contentment nor your discontent; nothing that you have known so far is there. The scriptures you have known are not there either. The images of God you have fashioned are not there. The concepts of liberation and heaven you have constructed are not there. You yourself are not there; your concepts will not be there.

There is something inexpressible, indescribable—call it Brahman, call it Vishnupada, call it Jinapada, call it Buddhahood—but even those words reveal nothing. Only by waking can it be known.

Like jaggery to a mute!

What happens when you wake? You taste it—the very taste you have longed for through lifetimes and never found. You have wandered, filled your mouth with ashes; the taste has not come. There is no way to say it. If you are bored with what you have been living, then wake up. If a little flavor is still left in it for you, turn over and sleep a little more.

But one day or another you will have to wake; sleep cannot be eternal; and sleep cannot be the supreme rest; and darkness cannot be the experience of the ultimate truth. Sooner or later—it is up to you. But when you awaken, you will regret very much that you could have awakened earlier—it was right at hand; you just had to stretch out your hand.

Jesus says again and again: Repent! The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent! The kingdom of God is very near.

That’s all for today.