Bhaj Govindam #2

Knowledge is negating; devotion is affirmative. Knowledge is like preparing the soil—removing weeds, adding manure; devotion is like sowing the seed.

Knowledge by itself is incomplete. It clears the field, but it does not implant the seeds. It is necessary, not sufficient. For knowledge belongs to the intellect; devotion belongs to the heart. On the path to the divine, all the obstacles can be cut away by knowledge; but the steps are climbed by devotion.

So knowledge is negating; it is very effective in breaking the futile, not in giving birth to the meaningful.

Shankara speaks of knowledge so that the layers upon layers of ignorance within you are cut away. And once the ground of the mind is clear—no useless rubbish, no trash—then the seeds of devotion can be sown; then “bhaj Govindam” becomes possible. There is no opposition between the two; devotion is the culmination of knowledge, and knowledge is the beginning of devotion. Because within a human being there is both heart and intellect. Both must be touched. Both need transformation.

If you get entangled only in knowledge, you will become like a barren desert—spotless, but nothing will grow; clean, but seedless; vast, but with neither height nor depth. Knowledge is dry, alone. And if you become a devotee alone, then in your life trees will grow, flowers will bloom, there will be greenery, but you will have no means to protect that greenness. You will not be able to safeguard those plants. If someone comes to sow doubt, then in your fertile soil the seeds of doubt too will be sown and they too will sprout.

If a devotee has not passed through the process of knowledge, his house will always be shaky. Anyone can plant doubt. And a devotee knows how to trust—he trusts even those who are leading him; he also trusts those who are misleading him. He grasps the false just as he grasps the true. He lacks the capacity to think and understand; he lacks discrimination.

So the devotee is as if blind; knowledge is as if lame; and when the two meet, the supreme union happens.

You have heard the story: a forest caught fire, and a blind man and a lame man were in great trouble. The blind man could not see where to go. His legs were healthy—he could run, he could be saved—but he had no direction. The lame man could see—where the path was, which part of the forest was not yet engulfed by fire—but he was lame, he could not run; he had no means to get out.

The tale says they joined together: the blind man lifted the lame man onto his shoulders. Then their shortcomings were filled in. As if they became a single person—the blind man’s legs and the lame man’s eyes came together. They both came safely out of the forest. The fire could not destroy them.

Until intellect and heart meet, you will not escape the fire of life.

The intellect is blind. Alone, the heart is crippled, the intellect is crippled; joined, the two become whole. And you have both; you must use both.

Let knowledge support devotion, and devotion support knowledge; let both become your wings, and you will be able to fly in the sky. No bird has ever flown with one wing, no creature has ever walked with one leg, and no boat moves with a single oar; both oars are needed. There is no opposition. And those who told you there is opposition have spoken wrongly. The reason they spoke wrongly is that they too did not know this great harmony. Either they were people of the intellect, surrounded by mere ideas—dry ideas, logic—but with no dance of the heart; or they were people of the heart—simple and guileless—able to dance, but without understanding.

Count it the hour of supreme good fortune when you can dance with understanding. Count it supreme good fortune when you can love with discrimination. And do not reject anything that the divine has given you; otherwise by that much you will become crippled. You are whole; only a union is to be brought about. The veena is there, the strings are there; but the strings must be set on the veena, tightened, tuned. Everything is present within you; only the union is missing. The name of that union is sadhana—where the inner veena and its strings come into accord.

The Sufis say a man was dying of hunger. There was flour in the house, water too, a stove, fuel; but the man did not know how to knead the dough, how to light the fire, how to bake bread on it. Everything was there—hunger as well as food—but the conjunction could not be made. The man died hungry!

This is the story of all human beings. You have every means, and yet you are hungry! There is nothing that you do not have. The divine sends no one into the world empty-handed; you are sent with all the means. But you must set them in order. Their right proportion, right coordination, right music must happen; then the light of the divine will dawn within you. Do not get hemmed in by the intellect, nor by the heart; let your consciousness flow like a river between both banks; become the Ganges; then the ocean is not far. And do not insist that you will flow with the support of only one bank; otherwise the Ganges cannot flow at all; both banks are needed. And in the end both banks will be left behind. But remember, that end will come only with their support.

In the supreme state, the state of perfect attainment, neither devotion remains nor knowledge. When the river falls into the ocean, then no bank remains; the river has become the ocean.

Therefore there are three kinds of people in the world. 1) Those who have clutched the intellect—philosophers, metaphysicians. They go on splitting hairs. The dry sand of logic fills their lives; they think a lot, but arrive nowhere. 2) Those who are of the heart—they sing a lot, dance a lot. But all their singing and dancing is without discrimination; nearer to derangement than to liberation. A kind of madness, a kind of intoxication. For those who lack discrimination, who lack awareness, religion and the heart become a kind of wine. 3) Then there are those who have used both; and by using both, have gone beyond both.

Yearn for that great transcendence. Aspire to that great surpassing. Set your goal on reaching that third point.

The Ganges has to merge into the ocean; both banks have to be left. But do not be in a hurry; till the ocean, you must reach with the support of the banks; only upon arriving can the banks be renounced.

Certainly, it is so; transience itself is the cause of attraction. And religions do not create dispassion by merely declaring life transient. Religion says: wherever there is transience, suffering will follow like a shadow. Transience is not the cause of dispassion; the suffering that comes in its wake is. Transience attracts, it beckons. The faster life runs away, the more the mind says—Enjoy, quickly! Now it’s here, now it’s gone. Who knows when the curtain will fall? So enjoy as much as you can; live with the utmost urgency. Let not even a single moment go idle—suck it dry. Exhaust the full possibility of each moment.

Transience is attraction. Death is approaching; that is precisely why we cling to life. If death did not come, who would cling to life? If pleasures came and never left, who would worry? The cause of attraction is transience. The faster a thing dissolves, the more precious it appears. A stone lies there—of little value; nearby a flower blooms, and it seems priceless. It opened in the morning; by evening it will be gone. Look at it, savor it; fill your eyes, be satisfied. For what has blossomed has already set out on the road to withering. It won’t be long; the sun sits in mid-sky. Half the flower’s life has passed; it has begun to fade. That is why beauty attracts so much. If beauty were everlasting, who would be concerned?

A curious fact: ugliness is more lasting than beauty. An ugly person remains ugly for life; a beautiful person is not beautiful for life. There are a few moments—youth—when beauty flowers; then it withers. And have you noticed— the more beautiful a person is, the more quickly they fade! The more delicate the flower, the sooner it wilts.

Run, rush, hurry! Why sit in temples with hymns and kirtan? Indulge! The singing can wait. And not only is the other changing; your capacity to enjoy is thinning with every moment. Hurry, the mind keeps saying.

Certainly, transience is the cause of attraction. If things were eternal, who would care? Perhaps that is why you have not bothered about God—He is eternal; what’s the hurry? Not today, then tomorrow; not this life, then the next; not the next, then later still—God won’t be lost. What’s the rush? Whenever you go, you will find Him at home. But these fleeting flowers of life, this beauty of eyes, these flushed faces, this youth, this capacity in you to enjoy— all this is cracking, rushing away. Don’t delay, says the mind.

Certainly, transience is the cause of attraction. Whatever is eternal loses its charm. That which simply is—and forever is—why should it entice? Dreams look more beautiful; in a moment the eyes will open and they will shatter.

When religion tells you life is transient, it does not intend to make you dispassionate by that alone. The word “transient” points to this: after this fleeting moment, then what? You will dance for a moment—and then you will weep. If life is transient, you will enjoy for a moment—and then repent. You will be spent in a futile chase. Like children running after butterflies, you will race after little pleasures, tire, fall, and death will absorb you. And the time you wasted chasing the transient—what did you gain? Before you can grasp them, things wither; by the time the flower reaches your hand, it is dead; by the time you bring pleasure home, it has turned into pain.

Dispassion is awakened by suffering. Religion says: try to see that wherever you glimpse a moment of pleasure, behind it lies an infinity of pain. And you know this well. Whenever you have had pleasure, pain has followed; whenever you have rejoiced, your eyes later filled with tears; whenever you strutted, you fell; whenever you thought the moment of good fortune had arrived, just behind it the night of misfortune began.

Religion says: if you want a bliss that is never lost and never turns into suffering, seek the eternal, seek the imperishable; awaken from the transient. Time lost in dreams is lost time. Seek truth.

What is the definition of truth? Only this: that which always was, always is, and always will be. And untruth? That which was not yesterday, is today, and will not be tomorrow. Untruth means being for a brief while between two not-beings; a momentary illusion of being between two non-existences. Think: when on both ends it is not, how can it be in the middle?

Therefore Shankara calls the world maya. Maya means: it was not yesterday, it is today, it will not be tomorrow. That which is not at the two ends cannot truly be in the middle; it only appears to be. How can “is” arise out of “is not”? And what truly “is,” how can it vanish back into “is not”?

There was a time you were not. Where were you before birth? Where will you be after death? It is a brief dream. The eyes close and a dream appears; the moment they open, it vanishes.

Sahajo has said: The world is the morning star of dawn—the very last: now it sets, now it sets. It quivers on the verge. You keep watching, and as you watch, it disappears. The world is like the star of dawn—such is the whole of life.

Mahavira said: Life is like a drop of dew on a blade of grass. Have you ever watched a dewdrop closely? Now it hangs, now it slips. Before your very eyes it will fall; a slight gust of wind is enough. The sun’s rising—enough to turn it into vapor. The slightest nudge—and it is gone. When it is there, even pearls might grow jealous; when the dewdrop is, pearls themselves blush at its brilliance. But what is its being? As if it were not; whether it happened or not—it is the same.

If life is transient, it cannot be truth. Whatever you have known—if you know it and then it is lost—it cannot be truth. It must have been a mood of the mind, a fantasy of the mind, your own projection. It is not reality; you assumed it. It is your belief. Belief is maya. You project your inner desires onto the screen of life and keep seeing them there.

Have you noticed? A woman looks very beautiful, or a man very handsome; four days later, the same woman no longer looks beautiful, the same man no longer handsome. What happened? She is the same woman; he is the same man. Four days ago you had projected some desire; that projection has broken—the screen is bare; no picture remains on it.

So long as you look through the desires crowding your mind, you cannot see what is; you see what you want to see. The pure eye sees what is; the impure eye sees what it wants. If you are in search of beauty, you will see beauty. Everyone’s interpretation is their own. Because of interpretation, life is maya.

Mulla Nasruddin makes medicines and sells them. On one packet he had written: “Money back if no benefit.” I was sitting in his shop. A man came, very angry. He said, It’s been a month swallowing this medicine—no benefit at all. I want my money back! Nasruddin said, The packet does say: money back if no benefit. You may not have benefited—but we have.

Each has his own interpretation. You make life appear as you wish to see it. Words change meaning; truths change meaning. You erect around you a world of your own beliefs, and then you live in it. And a person keeps searching for his own supporting reasons, patching on arguments so that his beliefs don’t crack; he keeps contriving and fixing.

Mulla Nasruddin had a quarrel with someone in the market. The man was furious and said to Nasruddin, I’ll slap you so hard that all thirty-two of your teeth will hit the ground—your whole set will drop out. Nasruddin, even more heated, said, What do you think! If I slap you, all sixty-four teeth will fall out. A third man standing nearby said, Come now, elder, at least remember that a man doesn’t have sixty-four teeth. Nasruddin said, I knew you’d butt in— that’s why I said sixty-four. With one slap I’ll knock out both of yours!

Even if you make a mistake, you won’t admit it. You find reasons for your mistake, arguments for it.

To admit a mistake takes great courage. And the one who admits it—slowly, his mistakes begin to dissolve.

You are in love with a woman. You weave great dreams, build a heaven, poetry arises—and you think, now heaven is attained. In four days the heaven is in ruins! Then you don’t see that you made a mistake. You say—this woman deceived me. You don’t see—my mind’s projection broke. You don’t see—mind’s projection must break; it was the dew of dawn, the star of morning. You don’t see this. You say—this woman deceived me; the woman herself was wrong. We’ll look for another woman. Then you seek another woman—the same projection; the same mistake; the same intoxication. In four days that, too, breaks—yet you do not wake up.

In the Mahabharata there is an ancient, sweet tale. When the Pandavas were in the forest in concealment, they wandered through the day—no water. In the evening one brother went in search and found a lake. As he bent to draw water, a voice came—Wait! Until you answer my question, you cannot take water. A yaksha had claimed that lake. What is your question? he asked. The yaksha said, If you do not answer, or your answer is wrong, you will die instantly. If you answer, you will get water—and I will grant you an endless boon. The question was: What is the greatest truth of human life? Whatever answer he gave was not right. One brother fell, dead. Thus, four brothers went, one after another. At last Yudhishthira went to see what was happening, and found all four brothers dead. The yaksha’s voice came—Beware! First answer my question, or what happened to them will happen to you. You can draw water only on one condition—that I get the right answer. My liberation depends on that very answer. The day I receive the right answer, I too will be freed; my bondage as a yaksha will break. The question is: What is the greatest truth of human life? Yudhishthira said: This—that no matter how many experiences he gathers, man does not learn. The yaksha was liberated. The four brothers were revived. In the joy of his freedom he restored them to life.

However many experiences a person has, he does not learn. He breaks with one woman—then another; from the second—then the third. One trouble ends—another begins. One road to success is blocked—he starts another. One race does not end before he begins the next; he cannot free himself from racing. One passion has not fallen before he raises ten more. He cannot see through the delusion of desire. And he always finds his own reasons, his own causes. He never looks to see: the mistake must be mine. He always shifts the mistake onto someone else, and, reassured, proceeds to repeat it.

To lay the blame on another is to arrange to repeat the mistake. Whenever you say to someone, You are responsible, in that very moment you deny your own responsibility. And it was precisely this responsibility that could have awakened you; in that very moment you might have seen: I am making the mistake.

The mistake is not in some woman or some man; the mistake lies in the desire and imagination you project onto that person. That is transient; that desire will break.

Just think: how long can you keep a single thought steady? Even the morning star lingers a little longer. Even a dewdrop sometimes stays awhile. But how long can you keep one thought fixed in your mind? It is there for a moment and gone. Try to grasp it—it slips away; your fist remains empty. Run after it—there is no trace: where did it go? It comes like a gust of wind and is gone. On the basis of such a mind, the life you live in the world is transient.

Do not conclude that the world itself is transient; that is only a way of speaking. The world is not transient. The world was there when you were not; it will be there when you are gone. The world is eternal. But the world you construct on the basis of your mind—that is transient. In truth there is no “world”; there is God. On the screen of the Divine you paint the pictures of your desires—those pictures are “the world.” And in that world there is nothing but sorrow.

Every day you meet suffering, yet you go on living in the hope of tomorrow’s pleasure. However many times you fall, you rise again. However many times life tells you that what you seek will not be found, you invent some excuse—some other mistake happened, some other error occurred. This time everything will be fine; now such a mistake will not occur.

I have heard: a prisoner was released from jail. It was his thirteenth imprisonment. At the moment of release even the jailer felt pity. Half his life had been spent in prison. The jailer said, Now understand! Do something so you don’t come back. The man said, We try every time, yet we end up back. But this time—you are right—this time I won’t return. The jailer was pleased: We are happy to hear that. The prisoner said, Your happiness shows you haven’t understood. I am saying that the mistakes because of which I used to get caught, I will not commit now. I’m not saying I won’t steal. But the reasons I used to get caught—those I won’t repeat. And after thirteen rounds of experience, there is no reason left I haven’t learned. I will steal—but now there will be no slips.

It seems stealing is not the mistake; the mistake is in getting caught. Those whom you send to prison return as more expert criminals—meeting grandmasters there, old foxes. After much consultation and learning, taking instruction and mantra from the gurus, they return—and do the same again. It seems the theft is not the mistake; being caught is. As long as you think like this, you will live in misery.

The misery is not in being caught; it is in being a thief. The misery is in stealing, not in being caught. When it becomes visible that the error lies in your very way of being, you will find that misery arises out of that wrongness. This is the meaning of the whole doctrine of karma—nothing more. Simply this: if you receive suffering, it is by your own actions; if you receive happiness, that too is by your own actions.

And if you want bliss, then a state of nonaction is needed—where neither happiness remains nor suffering; where supreme peace happens; where you go beyond both; where the balance within you becomes perfect, like the two pans of a scale coming into one line. When within you the capacity to go beyond both pleasure and pain arises, then you attain the great bliss.

By calling things transient, religion does not try to instill dispassion toward the world; by saying “transient” it says only this: suffering follows behind. Do not be deluded by a moment of pleasure—suffering has arrived with it. No sooner does pleasure enter by one door than suffering slips in by the other; sooner or later you will meet it.

Transience has allure; suffering has none. If you begin to see the suffering behind every pleasure, a revolution will occur—you will want to be free not only from suffering but from pleasure as well. If suffering inevitably follows every pleasure, then it is not suffering you must escape, but pleasure!

This is the difference between the householder and the renunciate. The householder wants to escape suffering while clutching pleasure. The renunciate has understood that behind every pleasure is suffering. He now wants to be free not only of suffering but of pleasure too.

And the one who wants to be free of both can be free; the one who wants to be free of only one cannot. It is as if you had a coin in your hand and wished to discard one face while keeping the other. Whatever you keep, the whole coin will remain. Either the whole remains, or it must be dropped wholly. Either both pleasure and pain go, or both remain. When such clarity bears fruit in your life—that is dispassion; that is sannyas.

The killing is what you see; he did not see it. And you see it because you are deluded. He saw that it was God who came in that spear. He saw that that death was a direct encounter with the Divine. Existence protected him so totally that even death ceased to be death for him; death itself became a doorway to supreme bliss. To you it seems he was extinguished.

As when the Ganges merges into the ocean, it seems to you that she has vanished. Ask the Ganges. She will say: Vanished? I became the ocean! She will say: Before, there was the fear of vanishing; that fear is gone. Earlier I was bound between two banks, very narrow. There were limits; so death was possible. Now I have become boundless; now there is no death. The Ganges has become the ocean.

Ask that sannyasin. He saw God even in that soldier, even in that killer. In that spear it was God’s own arrow that came and struck his heart. Death appeared to you; it did not appear to the sannyasin. He attained the supreme life.

You ask: you said that when the self is dissolved, the whole existence begins to protect one...

It will not protect your “you.” And if you try to dissolve the self in order to be protected, that dissolution will not be genuine—it cannot happen. Dissolution means there remains nothing on your side to be protected. If you think, “Let God protect me, therefore I surrender,” you are not surrendering; you are merely appointing God to your service.

Surrender means: I am no more; You are. What question of my protection remains now! I am an open sky, an empty house. Now there is nothing left to be destroyed—how will it be destroyed? I have already disappeared. Surrender means: I efface myself—let it not be necessary for You to erase me; I will not give You that trouble, I will do it with my own hands.

In the real sense surrender is suicide—truly so. What you call suicide is not suicide; it is merely killing the body. The soul does not die; only the body falls, and a new body is obtained. But surrender is truly self-slaughter: you erase your very “I.” You say to it, “I am no more; only You are.” Now what question of your protection remains? Who are you, to be protected?

And when you are no more, only then does the whole existence protect you. Where is the fun in destroying you now! What point is there in annihilating you! When you have already dissolved, death becomes futile.

On the day that knife was plunged into that sannyasin’s chest, the soldier must have felt he had killed; the onlookers must have felt he had died. Ask the sannyasin. He proclaimed: Tat tvam asi, Shvetaketu! Thou too art That! He said: In whatever form You come, You will not deceive me; I will recognize You. Today You have come with a spear; today You have donned the mask of death; but I know You, I am seeing You. Whether You come as enemy or as friend, in every guise I shall recognize You. The sannyasin did not die; his Ganges became the ocean.

But I understand your difficulty. Even when you do the right thing, you do it for the wrong reasons; your reasons are not right. Even when you go to a temple you go for the wrong reason. One goes to ask for a job, another for money, another for a wife, another for a son. You never even notice that you are going nowhere beyond the marketplace! Is this any way to go to a temple? You are taking the entire marketplace along with you into the temple. If you are like this, the temple will not purify you; you will return having defiled the temple.

A temple is not a location; it is a state of feeling. As long as there is demand, what temple can there be! As long as you go to God to ask for petty things that are sold in the market, perhaps you think God is a supermarket: you didn’t get it from small shops, so maybe you’ll get it in the temple; you didn’t get it in the world, so maybe you’ll get it in liberation! But what are you asking for?

The one who reaches the temple is the one who has understood that asking is futile; who has understood that by asking nothing is obtained except sorrow; who has understood that however much you try, the beggar’s bowl remains empty, it never fills.

The one who reaches the temple goes to give thanks, not to ask. The day thanksgiving begins to arise within you day and night—flowers bloom and gratitude rises within you; clouds pour from the sky and gratitude arises within; a child laughs and gratitude arises within; you breathe, and your very being is so peaceful that gratitude arises—

Thanksgiving rising day and night is Bhaj Govindam.

There is hardly any need to “do” devotion. By “doing” devotion, has anyone ever found the Beloved? It is a matter of a continuous feeling. What God has given is far beyond your worthiness—when you see this, that day will you go to ask, or will you go to give thanks? In what you have received, what have you actually earned? It has all showered like prasad, as grace. He has distributed it out of His abundance—He gave because He has, not because you deserved.

People ask me, “Why did God create the world?”

They feel there must have been some desire behind creation. Because we do nothing without desire. An ordinary man builds even a small house for a reason. Why did God create the world? And it is not only small people who say such things. A very great German musician, Wagner—someone asked him, “You have created such unique music—why?” He said, “I was unhappy; to amuse myself, to distract myself, to keep myself occupied, I created all this music.” And Wagner said, “I tell you, God too must have been unhappy; therefore He created the world—to keep Himself busy.”

What Wagner says is true regarding man. Man writes poetry to cover his wounds; he sings songs to hide his tears; he smiles lest he begin to weep; he struts down the street in gaiety because the inner wretchedness bites. Inside there is nothing—lest others come to know it; lest others discover this emptiness, for then there will be great disgrace. So you are busy deceiving everyone; you smile. Someone asks you—“How are you?” You say, “In great bliss!” Have you ever thought what you are saying? Great bliss—and you?

But if you don’t say it, it seems improper. Saying it is etiquette. Truth is hardly ever spoken; only what should be said is spoken; what is proper is said, not what is true. Everyone wears masks, hiding deep sorrow and hell behind them. To forget that hell, a thousand activities are needed. Someone paints pictures.

Look at Picasso’s paintings—how sorrow spreads. Picasso has a very famous painting—Guernica. If you sit before it for half an hour, you will go mad. Madness seems to pervade it. What is within spills without.

Wagner is right about man: there is suffering, therefore man creates. But regarding God it is utterly wrong; God did not create for any reason. That is why in this land we call creation His leela.

Leela means: without cause. Leela means: just play. Leela means the energy is so overflowing—what else to do! Bliss is so abundant—if it is not shared, what will you do! It is an overflow. The lake is so full that water pours out—not for any reason, but because there is so much that it must be given away. A flower is full of fragrance, so it opens; the fragrance is squandered. Just so God has been lavished into the world. Just so He has flowed into existence. He has such excess that there is no other way.

Creation is joy, not sorrow. But you are miserly even in giving thanks. He has poured so much into you; He has given you gateways to such unique possibilities—He gave you eyes to behold form, ears to hear music, hands to touch the pulse of life, intelligence to understand, a heart to be enraptured, life so that your life might become a festival—and still you are miserly in thanksgiving! You cannot even go into the temple and say: You have given so much, and without cause! Had You not given, we would not even have had grounds to complain. Had You not created us, to what court could we have gone to protest why we were not created! What You have given is vast; our worthiness is nothing.

This is the meaning of prayer; this is the meaning of Bhaj Govindam—that you worship out of your joy. You say: You have given so much that if we do not even thank You, it will be great discourtesy.

But whenever you go to the temple, you go to lodge a complaint—“The boy is ill; why is he not yet cured?” “My son has not got a job; and we have been Your devotees for so long—was it all in vain? Are You deaf? Do You not hear?” Whenever you go to the temple, you go with a grievance. And whoever goes with a grievance never reaches the temple; whoever goes with a demand remains outside the temple. With demand there is no way to enter within. Only those entered who went to give thanks. Even if you surrender, you do it so that you may be protected. Who are you, that needs protection? You even want to make God your bodyguard—that He should stand around you with a gun and protect you.

Surrender means precisely this: What have I that is worth saving? Nothing at all! I lay my emptiness at Your feet.

And when you surrender, you do not feel within that you have done something tremendous. For you are only returning to Govind what He had given you. What is Yours we return to You. And what do you do? Perhaps you return it a little soiled. Only very blessed ones like Kabir could say, “I have returned the cloth just as You gave it”—that is very difficult. A few stains will have appeared on the sheet. So when you place yourself at God’s feet, you do not expect that He will be very pleased and thank you, saying your coming is a great favor. No—on the contrary, you feel great humility that the sheet is stained. And what You gave, that alone we are returning; we could add nothing to it; we could not stud that sheet with a few jewels. In this very moment the whole existence protects you.

Do not surrender in order to obtain protection; protection is the inevitable consequence of surrender.

“My emptiness has become so dense within that in my own eyes I seem more insignificant than dust.” If emptiness truly becomes dense, the sense of “I am” dissolves. Then you will not be able to say, “Emptiness has become dense within me”; you will only be able to say, “Emptiness has happened.” You will not be able to say “within me,” because as long as you are, emptiness cannot be. It is you who are filling yourself with yourself. And you say, “In my own eyes I seem more insignificant than dust.”

Who told you that dust is insignificant? Who taught you this condemnation? You are made of dust, and into dust you will fall—and dust is insignificant! Man’s ego is astonishing. He regards dust as insignificant because it is under his feet.

But that very dust is your heart and your brain too. That dust is in every particle of you, in every hair. You came from the earth; you will have to return to the earth. The earth is mother.

“More insignificant than dust!” The language of inferior and superior is the language of the ego. The day you are truly empty, that day you will see God in every speck of dust; not that dust is insignificant. Then you will not see anything as insignificant at all, because the same Vastness, the same Glory is present everywhere, in every way. Then you will even kiss the dust and find His feet there.

“Dust is insignificant?” Somewhere your ego is speaking. Emptiness and all that has not yet happened; you have only thought it. Man is very skillful at thinking. If one really becomes empty, nothing remains to be done.

And you ask: “And when there is no qualification left…” What qualification could there be? In realizing God, there is no question of qualification. If God were attained by qualification, it would be like a government job. Then Kabir would not have found Him—illiterate, not a single certificate to show. Then Muhammad would not have found Him—Muhammad too could not read or write. When Muhammad first heard God’s resonance he was frightened. He began to tremble; he developed a fever. Muhammad said, “Me—and upon me God’s shower! Impossible! There are so many worthy ones in the world. That I have been chosen—this cannot be! I must be deluded.” A voice resounded: “Read!” Muhammad said, “What madness! I am not literate!” He came home and lay down under a blanket. His wife asked, “What happened? You left fine in the morning!” He said, “I must be deluded to think God’s voice resounded. No, this cannot be; I have no qualification.”

That was precisely the qualification. As long as you think you have some qualification, you are unqualified; there is a barrier; the ego still stands. Qualification means ego. You are standing before the temple of God, not before an employment exchange. Certificates will not work there. In fact, the more certificates you take along, the harder it will be to enter within. There only the unqualified are admitted.

Understand me rightly. You are so prone to delusion that you can turn unqualification into a qualification. You will say, “But I am unqualified—yet God has not come to me.” You can make even unqualification into a qualification. No—the denial of qualification means: one cannot lay a claim upon God, “Why have You not come to me yet?” In laying claim there is ego. If He has not come, you will understand there is no reason He should come to me. If He comes, you will dance in grateful wonder that He came causelessly, as grace, as prasad.

Qualification means: you trust yourself, not God. Qualification means you are ready to purchase Him as well. Qualification means you say, “I have acquired the virtues; why the delay now? How many prayers I offered, how many worships I performed, how many lamps I lit, how many incense sticks I burned, how many flowers I placed at Your feet, how many fasts I kept, how many meditations I did, how much austerity—everything I have done; why have You not come yet?”

In that very “Why have You not come yet?” your ego is declaring, “I have earned it, and injustice is being done. You are coming even to those who have done nothing. Those who had no claim have received You, and we are not receiving You.”

This very claim is the obstacle. Those are the people who find God who have dropped all claims. Who say, “Whatever we do—what is there in our doing! Whatever we do will be small and petty; we are small and petty. Whatever we do will be ordinary; we are ordinary. Whatever we do, how could it possibly relate to attaining You! Our doing is like trying to bind the sky in a fist. A tiny fist, the vast sky—futile talk.”

God is found only when you accept your futility, your helpless state, in its totality. Then you remain a hollow vessel with no claim at all. You are not hounding God, saying, “Come, come!” You simply wait. For even to say, “Come,” is great ego.

You ask: “And when there is no qualification left, trust does not arise…” If no qualification truly remained, trust would arise instantly. A little qualification still lingers. In fact, what you are thinking of as “dense emptiness,” you have mistaken for a qualification. “Now I have become more insignificant than dust”—you have turned even this into a qualification. And now you are simply waiting: “Come now, otherwise injustice is being done! So much I have already done, and still You have not come—this is unfair.”

Remember, God descends only into your emptiness. That is the very sign and symbol. When you are perfectly empty, there is not even a moment’s delay. Empty here—and God descends. These two events occur simultaneously.

Therefore, what you have taken to be emptiness is only a notion of the mind. Be a little wary of the mind’s notions. The mind is very cunning, very skillful, very calculating. Whatever it does, it does with great arithmetic; it keeps a ledger—even of religion. Be a little cautious of this mind.

This same mind tells you, “It seems I am neither of the home nor of the ghat.” And what need is there to be of the home or of the ghat? What is wrong with being in between? But it feels like “neither of the home nor of the ghat” because you think: neither the world has been attained nor God. That is your meaning; I understand it. The desire to get the world is still buried inside; hence “neither of the home nor of the ghat.” Otherwise, only in the middle is there freedom. In the home you will be bound; on the ghat you will be bound. Then whether the donkey stays at home or at the ghat, what difference does it make? Only in the middle is there a little freedom; only there is the chance to escape—because the washerman sits at the ghat and at the home as well.

But the mind says, “See, I have meditated so much; in that time I could have run a shop and earned some money; I could have fought an election and become some kind of leader. The whole world is up to something, and I am meditating! God is not being found, and the world is being lost!”

This very thought arises because attachment to the world still remains. Better go back—return to the marketplace. Because your renunciation will remain false; your meditation cannot be true. As long as you have not had your fill of wealth, meditation cannot be true. The taste for wealth still remains. You have become interested in meditation, but you are not thirsty. Curiosity may have come, a certain fascination, but there is no mumuksha—no burning longing to be free.

Therefore I am of the view that rather than sitting idle and letting the idea take root in you that injustice is being done by God, it is better you return to the market. Perhaps the right time has not come yet. You are not ripe yet; you are still unripe. You will have to suffer more sorrow, so that you ripen. You have not yet suffered enough.

When a person has endured nothing but sorrow in life and finds nothing except sorrow, then he has no worries left. He says, “Whether God is found or not, in the world there is nothing to be found.” One thing becomes certain: in the world there is nothing to attain. The second matter remains—whether God is found or not. But now whether He is found or not makes no difference. There is no question of returning to the world. That chapter is finished; that door is closed; that bridge we have broken; that ladder we have kicked away; now there is no question of climbing down by it.

Precisely so—so that you can ripen. I don’t want to break you away from the world; I want to free you from it—not break you. Breaking and being free are very different things.

Breaking is like plucking an unripe fruit; freedom is like a ripe fruit falling of its own accord. From the outside both events look the same—the fruit separates from the tree. But there is a fundamental difference. When you pluck an unripe fruit, a sting remains in the fruit and a wound in the tree. A ripe fruit needs no plucking—it falls by itself, effortlessly. There is no sting, and there is no backward glance at the tree as if to say, “If only I could have stayed a little longer.” Ripeness completes the matter: the tree’s work is done. Nor does the tree feel any hurt. The ripe fruit forgets the tree completely and never looks back; and the tree becomes lighter when the ripe fruit falls—no wound is left.

I have no desire to break you from the world, because those who were forcibly broken remained deeply connected to it within.

Become free of the world; don’t be broken from it. Even if you break away—where will you go? There is a wife, children, family, a shop—leave them and go where?

And wherever you go, if the shopkeeper remains in your mind, you will open a new shop; nothing will change. If the relish for woman remains in the mind—you may run away from your wife, it will make no difference; another woman will entice you. If you still have a taste for wealth and you renounce wealth, what will change? You will start collecting coins of another kind—perhaps the coins of renunciation, of austerity. But a coin is a coin. You will begin hoarding another kind of wealth. Earlier you boasted, “I have so much money!” Now you will proclaim, “I have so much renunciation!” But the swagger remains the same. Even if the rope is burnt, its kinks do not straighten.

I want to free you from the world, not break you from it.

In this ashram I am engaged in freeing you while you live. Freedom that happens while living is true freedom. Walk in water and let your feet not get wet. Become like the lotus leaf: touch the water, but let the water not touch you.

Live in water and yet be free of water—this is the supreme vision of sannyas. Sannyas is not vairagya (dispassion) opposed to raga (attachment); sannyas is vitaragata—beyond both attachment and aversion.

The sannyas Shankar speaks of is vairagya. The sannyas I am speaking of is vitaragata. Shankar’s sannyas will not take you very far. Even after Shankar’s sannyas, the sannyas I speak of will still have to be found. Shankar’s sannyas can be the beginning of the journey, not the end. What I am telling you is the end.

I do not say, “Run away from woman”—I say, “Awaken through woman!” I do not say, “Give up wealth”—I say, “Understand wealth!” In that understanding lies freedom. When has money ever held you? You are the one holding it. It is your inner state, your taste. There is only one way to become free of that taste: life’s experience must show you that such relish is not possible, that it is futile.

If this does not become clear through experience, you will keep on thinking in the mind, “All is futile, what is there in the world?” But some corner of the mind will still whisper, “Who knows—there may be something in it. I ran away. Perhaps I made a mistake!”

Sannyasins come to me who have been renunciates all their lives—seventy, eighty years old—and they say, “Sometimes doubt arises: did we waste our lives? God we did not find, and we left the world too.” A doubt shakes the mind; it wavers.

This doubt arises because the taste for the world remained and they ran away. They came under someone’s influence—the world did not drop by understanding; it dropped under influence.

When people like Buddha or Shankar stand in the world, the power of their influence is immense. Their magnetism is vast; like a magnet they draw thousands. In their lives there is vitaragata. When they say there is no essence in woman or man, or in children, or in the world, they are right. They are ripe fruits on the tree. But the unripe fruits get excited. The unripe think, “There is no essence—leave!” and they break off and fall. Then doubt arises. The fragrance of a ripe fruit does not arise from them either. A ripe fruit has a sweet scent—now that too is far, and they are also broken from the tree. The bond with the earth is cut, and they are not yet connected with the sky—this is Trishanku’s state, hanging in between.

This is exactly the previous question: neither of the home nor of the beyond—stuck in the middle. This in-between state is very painful. That is why I say: drop this whole idea. There is no need to run anywhere—awaken where you are. Stop bothering about leaving the world—invite the Divine; let the Divine descend into your innermost core. As soon as its rays begin to enter you, you will find you have begun to ripen. The sun ripens the fruit; God will ripen you.

And do not run away from life, for if life has been given, there must be reasons behind it. It is not a mere accident; there is a whole design behind it. Without passing through the experiences of life, no one has ever become free.

The Upanishads have a great dictum: tena tyaktena bhunjithah. I have not found a more revolutionary statement in any scripture of the world. It is unique. It can bear two meanings.

Tena tyaktena bhunjithah: Those who renounced were the only ones who truly enjoyed. One meaning. Second: Tena tyaktena bhunjithah: Those who enjoyed are the very ones who renounced.

Both meanings are precious, and they are two sides of the same coin.

Those who enjoyed are the ones who renounced. Because unless you have truly enjoyed, how will you renounce? From where will the understanding of renunciation arise? The lotus of renunciation can grow only from the mud of enjoyment—there is no other way. So do not condemn enjoyment, for the lotus comes from it. Do not condemn the mud, do not run away from it; otherwise you will miss the lotus too. It is from the mud that the lotus awakens and rises. And how different the lotus is from the mud!

Out of you, God will arise; His lotus will bloom. How different God is from you!

Wife, children, shop, market—right in the midst of all this, one day His nectar descends. Make yourself empty for His nectar.

Drop the obsession with leaving; make the effort to receive. Don’t put your energy on giving up; put it on attaining. When diamonds and jewels begin to fall into your hands, you will throw away the pebbles by yourself. Throwing away pebbles does not guarantee that diamonds will descend. But once diamonds have descended, who but a madman will keep carrying pebbles? They fall away on their own. And the beauty of such falling away is unique; its music is different. Why? Because when you let go in such a way that you hardly notice it, no trace of renunciation remains within you—no claim of sacrifice arises.

Every morning you sweep the house and throw the trash out. Do you go to inform the newspapers that today you have performed such a great renunciation of garbage? Who renounces garbage? If you did, people would laugh: “Have you gone mad? If it was garbage, what question of renunciation?” And if it wasn’t garbage, then you are mad—why renounce it at all?

When you proclaim your renunciation, you are in fact saying: “It was wealth indeed, but under someone’s influence I renounced it.” You were not yet willing; you were unripe; you acted in haste. No one ever transforms through such haste.

I do not want to put you in any hurry. If there is still a taste for woman, then pass through the experience. Tena tyaktena bhunjithah. Enjoy—and from that very enjoyment renunciation will be born. When you enjoy and enjoy and see that nothing is gained; when you enjoy and see that only suffering comes into your hands; when you enjoy and see that life fills only with ash and no flowers bloom—then your enjoyment has handed you the key to renunciation.

Enjoyment is not the enemy; enjoyment is your friend. Enjoy, but with awareness—that is my only condition. Be conscious in your enjoyment—my only condition. Do not let it happen that experience passes and no learning arises. Let experience give you learning. Experience is to be had. Even passing through hell is useful if you pass through it awake; because in that very awakening the path to heaven is found.

Therefore I do not want to break you away from any layer of life. Wherever you are, remain there; sow within your heart the seed of new awareness right there. That is why my emphasis is not on renunciation but on meditation.

I say nothing against the world; I say much in favor of the Divine. Shankaracharya’s emphasis is more on opposition to the world. The ancient conception of sannyas was to detach people from the world so that they might attain God. My view is to bring people near to God so that the world drops away from them.

Understand! ‘My mind is a thoroughgoing skeptic.’ It may be skeptical, but not thoroughgoing. Because a thoroughgoing skeptic even doubts doubt. That doubt has not happened to you yet. Your doubt is lame, impotent. You have doubted, yes—but not to the limit. The culmination of doubt is faith. For when, doubting and doubting, you have come to doubt everything, the final doubt is about doubt itself—“Will this doubting give me anything? Will I gain anything by doubt? Has anyone ever attained anything by doubting?” When you doubt even doubt, then the skepticism is total. But that very day doubt cuts doubt, and a virgin faith is born.

So you are a skeptic, but a lame one; you have not completed the journey. Of course you are lame—otherwise why come to me at all? If you only wanted to doubt, the whole world is available; you need not come here. You did not complete the doubt and you got tired, and now you want faith—that is why you have come to me.

You came too soon; you should have waited a little more. Doubt a little more. And remember: only doubt cuts doubt, as one removes a thorn with another thorn.

‘My mind is a thoroughgoing skeptic, so even after effort the meditation doesn’t settle anywhere.’ It won’t. Has a skeptic ever attained renunciation? Or meditation? Or God? The skeptic can do nothing; with one hand he writes, with the other he erases.

I have heard: a great thinker was conscripted in the First World War. It was compulsory service; everyone had to go, so he went too. But there was trouble, because he was a skeptic—a thinker, a philosopher. When his commander shouted, “Left turn!” the whole line turned left, but he stood where he was. He was thinking, “Should I turn or not?” At last the commander said, “What takes so long? Are you deaf? The entire line turned and you are still standing!” He said, “Forgive me, I don’t do anything without thinking it through—and thinking takes time. First, why turn left at all? What is the necessity to turn? And what harm is there in turning right? And just because you say ‘left turn,’ should we turn—just like that? I see no purpose in it—left turn, right turn—futile drill! In the end we stand exactly where we started. We are already standing here; after all this turning we will again be standing here.”

It was obvious—he was a big thinker. The commander took pity: “Old habits die hard; he is useless for military drill.” So they put him in the army kitchen to do other work. On the first day they gave him peas and said, “Put the big ones to one side and the small ones to the other.” An hour later the commander came; the man sat exactly as before, deep in thought. The peas were untouched. “You couldn’t even do this?” He said, “A great confusion arose. Big to one side, small to the other—but there are some medium ones; where should I put them? And when things aren’t clarified in advance, I don’t even begin. I was waiting for you to tell me what to do with the medium ones.”

A person of this sort cannot do anything; action cannot happen through him. Doubt encircles action like poison. Meditation is far away, because meditation is the supreme act, the ultimate. When you are still wavering, when turning left raises doubts, then turning within will be far more difficult.

‘From birth till now I have known only matter.’ Even this you state wrongly. If you were truly a skeptic you could not even say that you know matter. A real skeptic says, “Who knows whether there is matter at all?”

What is certain? I sit here and you are listening. It may be that you are seeing a dream. Why must it be that I am really here and you are really there? In dreams you have seen many people; this may also be a dream. What is certain?

And have you ever seen matter? You are hidden inside the skull; matter is outside the skull. Have you ever brought matter inside your skull? You have never seen matter; only images of matter travel within. A tree stands in front of you. You have never seen the tree. Rays come from the tree, strike the eyes, carry an image inward. As in a camera a photograph is formed, so an image is formed in your brain. You have seen only that image. It is not certain that there is any tree outside corresponding to that image. There is no proof; there is no proof at all.

A skeptic cannot rely even on matter—God is a different matter altogether.

But I tell you: to know matter is difficult; to know God is easy. Because matter is outside and God is within; God is near, matter far; God is your very self, matter is the world. God is not an object to be known. He is not an object of knowledge; he is the knower. He is you yourself—your consciousness. The one who is doubting—that one is God.

Now understand a little. If the one who doubts is God, how will you doubt him? Because the doubter is at least there within. Even to doubt, he must be. If he were not, who would doubt? Understand.

Mulla Nasruddin once brought some friends home at dusk. Sitting in a hotel, he’d been carried away in enthusiasm. In the talk someone said, “You’re a great miser.” He said, “Who says so? No one more generous than me!” They egged him on. “If so, invite all of us to your house tonight.” He said, “Come, all who are here.” Some thirty or thirty-five set off. On the way home his senses returned: “What have I done!” In his excitement he had forgotten that his wife was at home. Now there would be trouble—thirty or thirty-five! Bringing even one man home can cause trouble. He said, “Look, you are all householders; you know a man’s reality. I’m an ordinary husband; my wife is at home. You wait outside while I persuade her; then I’ll call you in.”

He left them outside, shut the door, and went in. His wife went wild with anger: “This is the limit—you’ve brought the whole village! And there’s no food in the house, no vegetables. Where were you all day? The flour hasn’t been ground. You didn’t bring vegetables—how will they appear? Do they fall from the sky?”

Mulla said, “Now you tell me—what shall we do? It’s night, the market’s closed. How do we get rid of them?” She said, “You figure it out; do whatever you must! I didn’t invite this trouble—you did.” He said, “Do one thing: go tell them Mulla is not at home.”

The wife went out: “Whom are you waiting for? He is not at home.” They said, “How can that be? He came with us, and we haven’t seen him go out—he went inside.” They began to argue with the wife. Hearing the debate, Mulla too got worked up. Forgetting himself, he peeped from the window and shouted, “Listen, it could be I slipped out the back door—that’s possible too!”

You cannot refute yourself. Back door or front door, you cannot say, “I am not.” If someone knocks at your door, you cannot say, “I am not at home.” What would it mean? It would only mean that you are—because even to deny, you are needed.

God is not a thing, not matter; he is not outside you. He is your very being, your inwardness, your own nature.

No—do not believe because I say so. That would be false, dishonest. Not on my word. You must search. And you know…

Yesterday I was reading a poet’s lines; I found them endearing: Ages have passed—your remembrance did not even visit us, and yet it is not that we have forgotten you. Ages have passed—your remembrance did not even visit us, and yet it is not that we have forgotten you. God is just like that. However many ages may have passed, you may not even have remembered—but it is not that you have forgotten.

It is only a matter of sitting quietly within—that is all meditation is. Meditation simply means: become a little quiet inside and know that which knows everything. Become conscious of your consciousness.

God is not sitting somewhere in the sky; he pervades your inner sky. You are God—this is the proclamation. You have to discover this sutra within yourself, not by believing me. When you discover it within, then faith in me will arise. Your experience will give birth to faith. Faith in me cannot produce experience. When you catch a little fragrance within, a little hint—then faith in me will come, because then you will understand what I am saying.

Ages have passed—your remembrance did not even visit us, and yet it is not that we have forgotten you.

That is all for today.