Bhakti Sutra #11

Do not take what is not to be weak. Even what is not has great power. Otherwise, mirages would not lure human beings, dreams would not win our trust, the horizon would not beckon, and dreams would not feel true.

What is not is tremendously powerful—and for the mind it is more powerful than ‘what is’. The mind cannot even see ‘what is’. It always broods over what is not, over what is lacking. The mind thinks about what is not in hand; what is in hand, it forgets.

It is essential to understand this single law of the mind; only then will the aphorisms of devotion be understood. Whoever goes against the mind attains devotion; whoever goes along with the mind never reaches God.

God means ‘what is’. Devotion is the art of seeing ‘what is’.

But why does ‘what is’ not appear to us? ‘What is’ should be the easiest thing to see. Why search for ‘what is’? Why would we forget ‘what is’? How could we forget it? How could we lose ‘what is’? How could ‘what is’ ever be lost?

So the first thing to grasp is the rule of the mind. The mind knows only what is not. If you have ten thousand rupees, the mind forgets them. The mind thinks about the million that should be, but are not. The mind broods over absence. The wife you have, the mind forgets; the woman you do not have, the mind fantasizes about, makes plans for. Whatever you have, the mind does not look at; it keeps its gaze fixed on what you have not. The reality in your hand does not please the mind; the shimmer of dreams does. The mind feeds on dreams. The mind lives only by the nourishment of dreams.

Whenever you close your eyes you will find a web of dreams inside—constantly moving, never stopping. Even with eyes open, engaged in work, their procession continues within; layer upon layer the dreams thicken. Whether you notice or not, the mind goes on weaving them. The loom of dreams never pauses for a moment. That very web of dreams is called maya. Caught in that very web, you are troubled and tormented.

What is not has stalled you. What is not has deluded you. What is not has closed your eyes—and seeing what is has become difficult.

At night you dream—you’ve seen how many dreams! Every morning you awake and find they were false. Yet when you dream again tonight, in the very act of dreaming you will take it for true. What a deep habit you have of taking the false as true! How many times have you awoken to find the dream proved false—and still, when you dream tonight, it will feel true, and not even a doubt will arise.

People come to me saying, “We have no faith. We are very skeptical. How will we be redeemed?” I tell them, I have yet to see a truly skeptical person. You have faith even in dreams—leave truth aside! You trust dreams; you have not yet doubted even them. What, then, will you doubt? If you cannot doubt what is not, how will you doubt what is?

I have not yet seen a truly skeptical person, because the skeptical one would first shatter dreams. Whoever has shattered dreams—within him faith is born. Whoever shatters dreams clears the path to know truth. Yet tonight again, when you dream, you will again be lost in it. How many times has this happened—across how many lifetimes! Leave the night aside—you may say, “At night we are unconscious.” Consider only the day. How many times have you been angry, and how many times have you resolved with regret—“No more, no more; enough!” But when anger seizes you, when its smoke surrounds you, you forget again; all remorse, all repentance, all decisions, all vows collapse. A mere wisp of anger’s smoke, and your feet are uprooted, your roots break, and you are again unconscious, insensate. How many times have you seen that lust deludes in vain—leads astray, delivers nowhere; from afar it shows an oasis, and up close you find only desert. You have known this how many times! And still you wander, still you get lost. Lust seizes you again and you begin to decorate dreams—and the mind says, “Perhaps! Though it has been proved false so many times, this time might be different. There can be exceptions. What hasn’t happened yet might happen now.”

The mind lives on “perhaps.” The mind lives on hope.

Omar Khayyam has famous lines: I asked the wise, “How is it that man has not yet grown weary—on what support does he live? How is it he has not succumbed to despair—on what support does he live?” The wise could not answer. I asked the fakirs. They too seemed puzzled.

Seeing no other way, Omar Khayyam says, I asked the sky one night: “You have watched everyone walking for ages upon ages, for centuries upon centuries. How many rose up filled with hopes and dreams, how many fell into dust—you have seen it all, seen every hope turn to ashes. By now, you must know—on what support does man walk? How has he not yet tired, not yet stopped?”

And the sky said: “On the support of hope.”

Your real sky is hope—what has not happened, maybe it will! What happened to no one, maybe it will happen to you! What has never happened to anyone—perhaps...!

Who has known the future? Alexander loses, yet you keep on going, going. By day you dream as well—not only at night. Walking on the road you dream. Sitting in your shop, moving about in the marketplace—you dream. Dreams are a continuous flow within you. And because of these dreams, ‘what is’ does not come into view. The dust of dreams smothers your eyes.

To know truth nothing needs to be done—only be free of the false. To know truth nothing needs to be done—only see that what is not, is not. The door is open. The curtain is lifted. In fact, there never was a curtain.

Yesterday I read a song:

“The swan forgot Mansarovar,
its beak smeared with mud;
the white wings turned dingy.
He who once pecked pearls
now picks at pebbles.
What such seduction is there in the perishable
that you forgot the imperishable?

“Parted from the lotus-name,
you tied bundles of dry reeds;
deceived by veiled buds,
you gathered blunted thorns.
What attraction is there in the wing
that you forgot the Supreme?

“In the divine eye that separates milk from water,
blind desire awoke.
The symbol of motion
became enamored of inertia.
Given over to the instant,
you forgot the eon of sadhana.

“The swan forgot Mansarovar,
its beak smeared with mud;
the white wings turned dingy.
He who once pecked pearls
now picks at pebbles.
What such seduction is there in the perishable
that you forgot the imperishable?”

What charm can the moment have that the eternal be forgotten? What power can the insubstantial have that the essential be erased? What call can the other have that one forget one’s own nature?... Yet it is so.

So first I tell you: do not forget the power of the futile, the insubstantial, of what is not; acknowledge its force. Even what is not has potency, because it is the very nature of mind that it can live only on the support of ‘what is not’. If you could simply look at what you have, what would be the need for mind? If you could live solely in what is present, where would the mind find room to spread, the leisure to roam?

You sit here now. If you are only here—there is me, there is you, and this moment—then the mind is gone; it cannot arise here. But let you start thinking you must go to the shop, be in the office by ten—the mind has entered. The mind needs a future. Think just one moment ahead and the mind comes alive. Think one moment back and the mind comes alive. If you are in the now, here, the mind is not.

The present is the death of the mind. Past and future are the life of the mind. The past is not—it has gone. The future is not—it has not yet come. The mind lives in the ‘not’. Its very nature is negation—nonexistence, absence. Mind is atheistic. Therefore through the mind no one ever becomes a theist. You will see many ‘theists of the mind’—sitting in temples and mosques, performing worship—but they are not worshipping; their mind has already run elsewhere. One seeks heaven, another the fruits of merit, another pleasures in the next world, another pleasures in this one; the mind has gone elsewhere.

When the mind is not, there is worship. There will be silent worship. When the mind is not, there is worship, there is prayer, there is meditation. Where the mind is not, there the temple begins—upon the death of the mind.

Understand this carefully.

If you become here, in this very moment, there is nothing to obtain—everything is already obtained. God is already found. You never lost him. Even the idea of losing is a delusion. You are engrossed in a dream. A dream has carried you away from yourself. You are entangled in the turmoil of thoughts. What lies beneath your feet—that very goal—has ceased to be seen. What within your heart is humming even now—that song has ceased to be heard. You have gone far from yourself.

You will grasp the Bhakti Sutras if you understand this state of mind rightly and begin to be outside it. Wake from the dream. There is no need to obtain God—you never lost him. The moment you wake from the dream you will laugh. As if you sleep here tonight and in a dream see yourself in Calcutta or London or Delhi—and in the morning you open your eyes to find yourself in Poona; there was no Calcutta, no London, no Delhi—everything was dream. But within the dream, when you were in Delhi, you could not even think you were actually in Poona. Exactly this has happened. You are in God, but your dream tells you you are elsewhere.

First sutra:
“Bad company must be utterly renounced.”
Dussanga: sarvathaiva tyajyah.

What is bad company?

First and foremost, the company of the mind is bad company.

If you have read commentaries on the Bhakti Sutras, they call bad company those who are wicked. What have you to do with them? What can a bad man do to you? He is ruining only himself. Those who write in their commentaries “leave the company of bad people” have not understood.

Bad company means: leave the company of the mind. This is the only bad company. You may leave bad people, yet keep the company of the mind—no bad company will have truly been left. Wherever you are, however you live, the mind will set up bad company there. The mind is highly productive, highly creative. After God, if there is any creator, it is the mind. How much it creates—out of nothing! It fashions forms in emptiness, paints colors upon the void. In the void it raises rainbows, makes flowers bloom. And then it becomes enamored of its own game. It runs after the shadows it has made with its own hands.

So my meaning is: drop the company of the mind.

“Bad company must be utterly renounced.”

I do not tell you, leave the company of thieves. I do not tell you, leave the company of the angry. I tell you: leave the company of the mind; because the mind itself is the thief, the mind itself is the angry one. The issue is not the other at all. Otherwise the religious become very clever—“Bad company must be renounced,” and at once they decide whom to avoid. The essential point is missed—this companionship with oneself, this “I-sense”—that remains, and is preserved with even greater care. This “I” begins to say, “I have become a holy man, because now I don’t sit with thieves, I don’t move with bad people.”

But a saint is one to whom nothing appears bad in others. A saint is one who everywhere sees only saintliness. A saint is one whose eyes, wherever they fall, bring forth sanctity. Then this cannot be the definition of saintliness—“leave the company of thieves.” Somewhere a mistake has been made. Yes, it is true that if you leave the inner thief—the mind—your company with thieves will fall away of its own accord.

After all, what is your bond with a thief? Because you too are a thief! What bond do you have with the wicked? Because wickedness exists within you—hence the bridge. Why has your companionship formed with a bad man? You have done it. You invited it. The bad has not come unbidden; you have called it. You may have forgotten when you sent the invitation, but it came at your own beckoning.

Nothing in this world is accidental. What is here is ordered. This world is a perfect order. If you keep company with a thief, somewhere you have invited him. Seeds must have been sown for you to reap the harvest. To keep company with a thief means there is a thief within you. Like seeks like. You became friends with a drunkard because a drunkard lives within you. A bond formed with a murderer because a desire to kill hides within you. If violence is inside, friendship with the violent will grow; if nonviolence is inside, friendship with the violent cannot happen—the rhythm won’t fit. You won’t have to leave it; it simply won’t form.

So understand my meaning precisely: if the company of the mind drops, all that the commentators ask you to leave happens by itself—no need to bother. Once within, the mind goes—anger goes, greed goes, delusion goes, lust goes. They are all the extensions of mind, its armies. The emperor-mind lives by the support of these armies—let the mind die and the armies scatter. Let the emperor go and the empire goes. Then you will suddenly find: no relationship forms with the bad. Even if you try, it does not. In fact, if you go after the bad, the bad will avoid you, will fear you. For auspiciousness is such a power, light such a power, that darkness hides. Where light comes, darkness flees; it seeks some crevice to hide.

If a saint befriend the unholy, the unholy will either flee or be transformed. This is how it should be. But the world is upside down. Here saints fear the sinners. Then the saints are false and the sinners strong. The saint fears the sinner. It is as if medicines were afraid of diseases; as if light ran from darkness, afraid it might be extinguished. Then “truth alone triumphs” could never be; truth would never win. Truth would be afraid of untruth.

No—the error is in the interpretation. If the ‘saint’ you esteem fears the sinner, that itself proves he is no saint; the sinner hides within and fears that in the sinner’s company his inner sinner will show itself. That is his fear. The sinner has no fear of the saint’s company. But when a true saint appears, the sinner will fear—either he will be saved, or he will run.

I have heard: in Mahavira’s time there was a notorious bandit. He was terrified of Mahavira. He had grown old. He instructed his son: “Do everything, but do not go near this one man. He is dangerous—an enemy to our craft. Go near him and you are undone. If by mistake you pass by where he speaks, put your fingers in your ears. That’s how I barely saved myself.”

Surely a saint hid in that bandit; otherwise who would fear Mahavira? He knew Mahavira was right. But a slip occurred. The son, after all, was a son; the father was an old, skilled bandit—he always saved himself. One day the boy was passing. Because his father had forbidden it, attraction grew in the mind: “What harm is there in hearing a word or two? How could just a couple of words change everything?”

Mahavira was speaking. The boy stood far at the doorway and heard one sentence; then he remembered his father, plugged his ears, and fled. But one line had entered the ears. Someone had asked Mahavira about spirits and gods: do ghosts exist? If so, how? Do gods exist? How?

Years passed. The bandit was caught. He had robbed the emperor’s palace. The emperor had been harassed by the father; the father died, and now this son harassed him. They had never been caught red-handed. The emperor consulted his psychologists: “We must get everything out of him. Now that we have him, we cannot let him go. How to extract it all?”

The psychologists devised a plan. They plied him with liquor. Drunk to the brim, they had the most beautiful women of the palace dance around him. He had never seen such a palace. The women seemed heavenly nymphs. Intoxicated, he began to suspect: “Am I in this world or the next?” He asked someone. This was the very trick. They said, “You are dead—you have reached heaven. Now recite all the sins you committed in life so God can forgive them. His grace is infinite—do not fear. Whatever sins you hide will remain; those you confess will be absolved.”

The bandit startled: “Confess all sins?” He remembered Mahavira’s one sentence—that in heaven the gods cast no shadows. He looked carefully: the women’s shadows were there. He regained himself. “This is a trick. I am drunk.” He confessed nothing. He spoke only of virtues—ones he had never done. “I have never sinned. What should I confess? God may forgive, but I have done nothing wrong—only virtues.”

The emperor had to release him. The net failed. As soon as he was free, he went straight to Mahavira, fell at his feet: “Your one sentence saved my life. Now I want to hear you fully. I had heard so little then—no great thing—yet it served me. Satsang bore fruit. Eavesdropping at your door, I heard just that one line: ‘In the heaven of the gods, there are no shadows.’ I never thought it would be useful, yet it saved me. You saved me. They drowned me in intoxication, set everything up—I was trapped, ready to confess so as to gain pardon. Now save me completely. From this emperor you saved me—now save me from death itself, from all deaths. I take refuge in you.”

Even a single word heard from a saint, and transformation begins in the sinner’s life—the seed has been sown. Would a saint fear a sinner? If fear arises, it should be in the sinner.

I do not say: leave the company of bad people. I say: if you see them as bad, you will remain bad. If you believe they are bad, your own badness will never dissolve. You drop only one companionship—the inner mind—and at once you will find: no one in the world is bad. In the thief too you will glimpse the divine hidden. In the murderer too you will see his light flickering. And the unholy will begin to fear you, because you will prove the death of unholiness. Wherever your shadow falls, darkness will recede. Naturally, your companionship with the bad will fall away. I do not tell you to leave it—it will leave itself. You won’t have to depart—the unholy will flee, or be transformed.

This is a revolutionary sutra:
“Bad company must be utterly renounced.” …But bad company means—the company of the mind!

“Because it (bad company) is the cause of lust, anger, delusion, loss of memory, destruction of intelligence, and total ruin.”

The sutra is so clear, yet it is hard to find people more blind than the commentators.

“Because it causes lust, anger, delusion, loss of memory, the ruin of intelligence, and total ruin.”

Who can destroy you? No one—other than you. You have no greater enemy than yourself, and no greater friend. Keep company with the mind and you will go on committing spiritual suicide. Drop the mind and a fresh life will begin to flow in you—a rebirth.

Understand these words: lust, anger, delusion, loss of memory, destruction of intelligence, total ruin.

Lust means: always looking at the world with the hope of gaining pleasure from it. Lust means: seeing things, people, events through the lens of desire—looking through craving. When you look with desire, you cannot see the true nature of the thing; your desire throws a veil. Whatever you look at through craving, you see only what you want to see.

I was sitting with a friend on the bank of the Ganges. He grew a little restless and said, “Forgive me—I won’t lie to you, but give me leave for a few minutes. I want to go down to the ghat.” He went. I saw why. A beautiful ‘woman’ seemed to be bathing. He rushed there eagerly and returned dejected. I asked, “What happened?” He said, “I was deluded. It wasn’t a woman; it was some sadhu. Long hair...! I had seen him from the back. When I went close, I saw he was a sadhu, not a woman.”

I said, “Look closely. Do not think only that the sadhu’s hair deceived you. You wanted to see a woman. You projected. You could have asked me; no need to go so far.”

We see what we desire to see. Around you, you create a world out of your own craving.

Two monks were walking down the road. One spoke to the other. The second said, “I can’t hear you here—this marketplace is too noisy. Don’t speak of truth here; we will talk in solitude.”

The first monk stopped on the spot. He took a coin from his pocket and dropped it softly on the road. The clink of the coin, and a crowd gathered. The second asked, “I don’t understand. What did you do?” He picked up the coin, pocketed it, and walked on. He said, “The market is noisy indeed; but the faint clink of a coin—and so many gathered. They are lovers of money. Even in hell there may be great uproar, but if a coin falls, they will hear it.”

We hear what we want to hear. The first monk said, “If you are a lover of God, even here—in the market—if I speak of God, you will hear.”

No one else is obstructing you. We hear only what we want to hear, we see only what we want to see, we meet only what we want to meet. Whoever understands this arrangement of life correctly stops blaming others.

Remember, desire will never let you see truth. To see truth you need a desireless mind.

In this garden, a painter will see one thing; a woodcutter another; a florist who sells flowers yet another. All three come to the same place, but their seeing differs.

They say: when music reaches its peak, even if the vina lies silent, the musician hears the notes that could be born of it—the ones still hidden, unborn. The ear’s longing hears what is yet unexpressed; the unmanifest becomes manifest. If the eye is to see, it sees the flower already in the seed.

They say: a cobbler, seeing people on the road, reads everything just by their shoes. The state of your shoes tells a lot—your economic condition; is life going well or merely passing; are you succeeding or failing; did you leave home in anger, quarreling, or with peaceful farewell—all written in the creases. Your autobiography is on your shoes. A cobbler looks at the shoes and knows it all. He hardly looks at your face. He has mastered looking at shoes. That is his understanding.

Thousands will walk the road, but not all walk the same road—in form it is one, but each gaze is fixed on something different. The hungry man looks for restaurants and hotels. One who has fasted knows—nothing is visible in the world but food. They say to the fasting man the moon looks like a floating loaf of bread.

The world is your selection. Your desire chooses. What you are not interested in remains invisible. Many sannyasins have told me that before taking sannyas, clothing shops were visible; now they are not. No point seeing them—only one cloth remains, ochre. Have the shops vanished? For the sannyasin they might as well have. The matter is finished.

When our connection with a thing breaks, it bids farewell. What we stay connected with is all we keep seeing. Note: your decision does not only change you; it changes your entire world—your world, because your world is your decision.

Lust will not let you know truth. Anger will not let you know truth. In anger you reach a state like a drunkard’s—your feet fall here, though you meant to step there; you say something other than what you wanted to say. Later you repent—earlier you had repented too. Anger makes you do what you would never have done in your senses.

Anger means: unconsciousness.

Delusion: when you call someone “mine,” your way of seeing changes. The same act, if done by your own, you judge one way; if another does it, your judgment changes. Your justice dies under delusion; your capacity to see truth grows dim. If another does it, it is sin; if your own does it, at most a mistake. If you do it, it is compulsion; if another does, it is a crime!

Have you noticed? If you take a bribe, it’s compulsion—what to do, the salary doesn’t suffice. You don’t want to take, but circumstances force you—family, home, must be maintained. You know it’s wrong, but you also ‘know’ it’s not really a crime—you were compelled by society. But when another takes a bribe, then it is crime. You make a big fuss. In truth, the louder your noise, the more bribes you too have taken. To make your own fault seem small, you magnify another’s. You keep condemning the world for what you yourself do; otherwise you would not.

Another’s son fails: you think, he is dull-witted. Your son fails: the teacher’s mischief!

Parents come to me saying, “Our son was failed—surely a conspiracy!” Whoever fails says conspiracy; but others who fail are simply unintelligent—what can one do!

Mark this well: delusion steals justice from your eyes.

“Lust, anger, delusion, loss of memory...”

Loss of memory is an important term. What Buddha called right remembrance (samyaq-smriti)—its opposite is loss of memory. What Krishnamurti calls awareness—its opposite is loss of memory. What Gurdjieff called self-remembering—its opposite is loss of memory. What Nanak and Kabir called surati—its opposite is loss of memory.

Surati is a form of smriti. Surati-yoga means: the yoga of remembrance—living so that awareness remains; each act is full of awareness; you rise, knowing; you sit, knowing.

Try a small experiment. When you have an hour free, sit in your room, close the door, and for a single moment shake your whole body to rouse awareness—just one moment—so you are filled with perfect wakefulness. Sitting, sounds around, people walking on the road, the heart beating, breath coming and going—be nothing but awareness for a moment. Let your whole situation be lit by awareness; then forget it and return to your work. After an hour, return to your room, close the door, and again rouse your awareness for a moment—then one thing will amaze you: the hour in between you spent in unconsciousness. Then you will realize how unconscious you are. First, awaken awareness for a moment—jolt yourself, as a storm shakes a tree; jolt and stir yourself. For a single moment, raise your whole energy—what am I, who am I, where am I! I do not ask for more, because beyond a moment you cannot sustain it. One moment is enough. Then go out, get busy—shop, market, home—forget. Live for an hour as you ordinarily do. Then after an hour, return and rouse awareness again. Then, by comparison you will see: if these two moments were awareness, what was the hour between? You will then distinguish salty from sweet. That hour between is loss of memory. You lived it in a stupor—as if you were not there, as if you moved like a machine—as if you were drunk. Then your whole life will appear unconscious.

Mind is unconsciousness; loss of remembrance. Naturally, adding these together spells total ruin.

“Bad company must be utterly renounced, because that bad company is lust, anger, delusion, loss of memory, the ruin of intelligence, and total ruin.”

“These—lust, anger, and the rest—first come like ripples (in a small form), then assume the form of a vast ocean.”

Everything arrives small at first, like a ripple. If you do not recognize and catch the ripple, you miss. Wake at the first step. When the first wave of anger arises, it is so subtle it slips in unnoticed, like a light puff of air that does not even stir a leaf. Only if you keep awareness then—otherwise the seed will be planted.

Understand the stages of anger. First: anger is coming, not yet come; a wave has risen, but has not entered. Then the wave enters; the seed is planted. Sooner or later it will become an ocean. Then this ocean mounts a storm—waves rise and crash upon the shores. Then the ocean subsides. The wave passes; the shore grows calm again. Three states—before anger, anger, and after anger.

Only the one who sees the wave before it comes, who wakes then, can be saved. People usually see only when anger has passed; by then, what can be done? The guest has gone; what was to happen has happened. “When the bird has eaten the crop, regret is useless.”

Yet we only regret when the bird has eaten. You have all regretted. It is hard to find someone who has not regretted after angering. But your repentance is futile. It comes after the ocean has receded. What will you do then? You can only regret and decide for the future—“I will not be angry.” But these decisions won’t help. You have not learned even this small thing, despite a lifetime of anger: that when anger comes, your awareness vanishes. Then how will your decision help? When anger comes, awareness is lost—so awareness of your decision is lost. When anger goes, you become wise. Who is not wise after anger has gone? Who is not wise after the fever of lust subsides? In old age everyone becomes wise. But such wisdom has no value.

When the wave of anger comes—this sutra is very important: “These—lust, anger, and the rest—first come as ripples (small), then grow into an ocean.”

Settle it at the seed. Once sown, you must reap the crop. Then repentance is a trick, and a clever one. Often people anger and repent and think themselves very good—“At least I repent.” But in my observation, after watching thousands of people’s decisions, let me say: to repent after anger is to prepare to be angry again. You carry an image of yourself—that you are noble and saintly. After you anger, your image is shattered, thrown from its throne. Through repentance you try to reinstall it—“Well, I got angry; it was a mistake. Man errs; no great sin happened. Who is without anger?” Then you explain: “Anger was necessary—had I not, harm would have come. If you never get angry, everyone will trample you—people must be made to fear. Don’t strike, at least hiss. I didn’t kill anyone—only hissed!”

You find such arguments. Or you say, “It was the child—if I hadn’t scolded him, he would go astray. For his future good...” You hunt countless excuses to prove anger was necessary. Though you know no anger is ever necessary. If you did not know this, why would you try to justify it? You search these arguments because inside there is a sting—you know you erred. Now you whitewash the error; you decorate it, reinstall the image. You return to the same place you were before anger. Which means: you are as ready to anger again as before.

Repentance is anger’s device. Repentance has nothing to do with religion. The religious do not repent, nor do they take useless vows and oaths. When a religious person understands something, his very understanding is his vow; his understanding is his repentance; his understanding is his revolution. He does not say, “I will not be angry.” He says only this: “Now when anger comes, I will be aware.”

Understand this difference.

“I will not be angry”—this is the decision of an unconscious person. You have made it many times—and broken it many times. The intelligent say: “I have understood this much—that when anger comes, I become unconscious. So now I will try to remain aware. Whether I will or won’t get angry is not in my hands—if it were, I would have stopped long ago. I am helpless. So I cannot say I will not get angry—only this much, that when it comes I will be aware.”

Take this difference deeply to heart: “I may get angry—but with awareness.” And anger done with awareness does not happen. To be angry with awareness is like knowingly eating a stone thinking it is bread; like knowingly trying to walk through a wall, smashing your head; like knowingly putting your hand in fire. So: “I will act knowingly, with awareness...”

“With awareness” means: I will wake when the ripple comes. After the storm has passed, regret is pointless. “I will catch it in the beginning, in the seed.” Whoever catches it at first becomes free. Then the seed has no chance to become an ocean. All things come first as tiny ripples—thus they deceive.

When anger comes, you think, “Who will know? It’s so small—even I can hardly tell.”

Watch—anger is delicate; a very light wave arises. You were walking along; someone laughed. He said nothing. Perhaps he didn’t laugh at you at all—you are not alone, the world is big. Why would he laugh at you? But a wave slides within; you stiffen. Something snagged. Your flow is no longer what it was a moment before. His laughter slipped inside like a stone. You are different. Watch your face—the muscles clench, lines gather on the brow, lips press, teeth set, hands tense.

Watch this tiny wave closely; observe minutely. You will be amazed: as you observe, subtler ripples will become evident. He didn’t even laugh—just the way he looked at you, and the wave arose. Or he did not look at you at all—and the wave still arose—he passed without seeing you and anger came. That he should pass without seeing you! He knowingly ignored you, slighted you—insult!

Ego is like a wound. The smallest thing jars it. These things must be examined and seen. It is not so much a matter of doing as of seeing with awareness. Nothing will come of your doing—you are not even there yet. You are not. Only with awareness will you be. Is there anyone in unconsciousness?

Who crosses? Who crosses the ocean of maya? “He who renounces all company, who serves the great-hearted, and who is free of possessiveness.”

Who crosses? Who crosses maya? Who goes beyond the spell, the magic of falsehood, the expansion of mind? Call it maya.

Who crosses? “He who renounces all company.”

You join too quickly with anything. Anger arises—you join, you link hands, become companions. Lust arises—you join. Your tendency to join is so eager that as this feeling arises, you slip the noose around your neck. You become accomplice to everything. This very habit of company drowns you. Keep a little distance. Be cautious in giving cooperation. Do not be so hasty to join. Let anger arise—let it; do not join. Stand a little apart, detached, separate. See anger as if it is someone else. See anger as ‘other’—for it is. The ‘self’ is the seer, the witness; all else is ‘other’.

This sutra means: “He who renounces all company.”

It means: “He who becomes the witness.”

Here too the commentators err badly. They say: swear you will not be angry; vow celibacy; renounce wealth; leave house and home—this they call renouncing company. I do not. I have seen those who left wealth and wealth did not leave them. Those who left home and nothing left them—because the home is inside, not outside.

Being a householder is a viewpoint. Being a renunciate is also a viewpoint. You can be a renunciate living at home. You can be a householder in robes. This is subtle. It is not as gross as people suppose. Those you call renunciates are materialists too—their renunciation is of things, not of vision. One clings to house—you call him a sensualist. Another leaves house—you call him a renunciate. Both fix their gaze on the house. Both are materialists. Neither has known the spiritual.

Spirituality means: you neither grasp nor reject matter—you transform your vision. You change your seeing.

So I say: “He who renounces all company” means—when anger arises, do not link arms and march. Say to anger: “Fine—you have arisen. I too will consider, will decide. If you seem worthy of support, I will support you. If not, I will not. Support is not compulsory. Do not fall into the mistake that because you have arisen I must follow. My following will be a conscious decision.” Then you will witness a revolution within.

In the fire of awareness, the false burns away. Gold remains; dross burns.

“He who renounces all company, who serves the great-hearted, and who is free of possessiveness.”

‘Great-hearted’ is a lovely word. It means: one in whom the supreme feeling has descended; the true master; one in whom God has manifested. Great-hearted—one in whom ultimate feeling has arisen; who abides in that feeling-state we can call godliness. Be near such a person. If you find a Buddha, a Mahavira, a Kabir, a Nanak, a Jesus, a Mohammed—serve the great-hearted.

Service means only this: satsang—being in the company of truth. Sit in the shade of such a one. As a tired traveler sits beneath a tree to escape the sun and finds cool rest—so sit in the shade of the great-hearted. Tired, defeated, disturbed by the world, the personality finds a medicine in the presence of the great-hearted. He who has become one—near him you too begin to become one. Sit by him and his truth turns infectious.

Know this: not only disease is contagious; health is contagious too. Not only evil flows from one to another—truth is communicable as well. Nothing is more infectious than truth. If you stay near the true, you will be dyed in his color. If you pass through a garden, your clothes will carry at least a little fragrance of the flowers.

“...who serves the great-hearted and is free of possessiveness.”

Two kinds of bonds exist. One is the bond of possessiveness: my son, my mother, my wife. Here the relationship is of ‘mine’. Do not form a possessive bond with the master. If you make even there a bond of ‘mine’, you will miss. Become the master’s. It is fine to say, “I am the master’s,” but do not say, “My master.”

Do not make a possessive bond with religion. Do not say, “My religion.” Belong to religion. If you say, “My religion,” you drag religion down to this earth; you pull the lotus through the mud.

Wherever you base yourself on ‘mine’, there your delusion and mind return. With the master do not form a ‘mine’ bond. With the master form a bond of the soul, not the mind; of love, not possessiveness. And these are very different.

Love knows no “I” and “you.” Possessiveness moves between “I” and “you.” Possessiveness is narrow. Love is vast—expansive. If you are free of possessiveness and, by fortune, you find the shade of a great-hearted one, your life will utterly change.

There are many tears in the eyes, my brave one,
but only the one pierced becomes the pearl;
the rest remain mere drops.

Then you will be pierced. Love will pierce you. You will become a pearl.

There are many tears in the eyes, my brave one,
but only the one pierced becomes the pearl;
the rest remain mere drops.

Only those in this world become pearls who are pierced by a great love.

“Who dwells in solitude, breaks worldly bonds, goes beyond the three gunas, and renounces both acquiring and preserving.”

“Who dwells in solitude...”

The commentators say: who lives in the forest. I do not. Solitude is the name of an ultimate state within—where no one is, only your pure consciousness remains—just consciousness. It is not a matter of geography—going to the Himalayas or the jungle. If you go to the jungle, the crowd of your mind will go with you. What will you do sitting there? You will spin webs of imagination, dream. Even sitting in the jungle you will be in the marketplace. You have often gone to the temple—what do you do there? You sit before an image—yet you are not there. You sit in the temple, but you are somewhere else.

In the realm of religion, conditions have been taken as places—and a great mistake has been made. Solitude is a state, not a place—a condition within where you are alone, virginal; where you are bound to none; where if you close your eyes, the world ends—only you remain; even the sense of “I” does not remain—for that too would be duality. Only ‘being’ remains—formless, stainless.

“Who dwells in the state of solitude...”

Naturally, his worldly bonds break; unworldly relationships arise. He is freed from worldly bondage; bonds of liberation are formed. And note: worldly bonds bind; the bonds of liberation free. Lust binds; love frees. If your love has bound you, know it was lust, not love. Love is that which sets you free. Prayer is that which frees you.

If you become a Hindu, you are bound. That is not the way to be religious—indeed, it is not religion at all; you have missed. If you become a Muslim, you are bound. Become simply religious—that is enough. The religious person is neither Hindu nor Muslim. He is bound by that supreme love which cuts all bonds.

I had thought the ruination of love was in vain,
but found cities where I thought there were wastelands.

I had thought love ruins you. That to be ruined is to be wasted.

I had thought the ruination of love was in vain,
but found cities where I thought there were wastelands.

But it turned out otherwise. Where I thought there would be desert, nothing left—there I found I had gained everything.

In your aloneness the ‘all’ is encountered. In the ultimate hour of love, you find you have gained all—though at first it seems you are giving up everything.

I tell you: renunciation is the path to supreme enjoyment. The Upanishads say: tena tyaktena bhuñjitha—only those enjoy who renounce. Or: only those renounce who have enjoyed. Both readings are true. For enjoyment as you think it is not for you—you only think of enjoyment; you do not live it. Only those who live in the present truly enjoy. Those who have dropped the mind and desire, who have returned within, who have related to their own being—music of supreme enjoyment arises in their lives.

I found cities where I thought there were wastelands.

“Who renounces the fruits of action, renounces actions too, and then, having renounced all, becomes free of all dualities.”

...He goes beyond the three gunas; leaves acquiring and preserving; renounces the fruits of action and action itself; and, having left all, becomes without duality. This is the definition of the devotee. Let’s take each point.

He goes beyond the three gunas—tamas, rajas, sattva. The supreme devotee is neither tamasic—the tamas grows in proportion to how much you are weighed down by mind. Tamas is the darkness of mind, the crowd of thoughts, the turmoil of desires.

One who attains devotion is not rajasic either. In him there is no feverish urge to do. He is not in any haste, frenzy, race. He has nothing to prove, no peaks of ego to climb, no capitals to conquer, no wish to be Alexander. What is to be, is—so where to go, why run? For him there is no destination to reach. He is at his destination.

We understand the devotee is not tamasic, not rajasic. But Narada’s wondrous sutra says: the devotee is not even sattvic. For saintliness too is the opposite of sinfulness. To call God “saintly” is not right; he must be beyond both saintly and sinful. To say only saints can find God is wrong—what then of sinners? To say God is found only among the saintly is utterly wrong—for he is in the sinners too. God means: that which is beyond all—transcendent.

The devotee is God-bound, for he is moving toward God. The devotee is God, for he is transforming into God. Each prayer makes him more divine; each worship makes him Godlike. The distance between devotee and God shrinks moment by moment; soon the leap happens—soon God will be in the devotee, the devotee in God; duality will fall.

Hence the sutra says: “He goes beyond the three gunas and renounces acquiring and preserving.”

Now for him there is neither profit nor loss.

“Who renounces the fruits of action...”

He now experiences that fruits are in the future—and the future cannot exist without the mind. The fruit will come tomorrow—but ‘tomorrow’ cannot be without the mind. One who has left the company of the mind—why would he worry about fruits? Profit will be tomorrow; loss will be tomorrow. Right now there is neither profit nor loss. Right now there is only ‘what is’.

He who renounces the fruits of action naturally lets action fall away too. This does not mean he does nothing. No—he is no longer the doer—now God acts. He becomes like a flute. If God plays, song arises; if not, it remains a hollow reed. If he plays, it is a flute; if not, a bamboo tube.

The reed does not play itself; it is only a medium. The devotee knows: I am only a medium, an instrument—his tool.

“And then, having renounced all, he becomes free of dualities.”

Then no duality remains. When there is nothing to gain, there is nothing to lose. When there is nowhere to go, there is nothing to do. Having left all...this is the devotee’s surrender. He attains that supreme depth where no duality remains.

I read a song:

“Conch and shells lie on the shore,
but pearls are in the deep.
Here and there the crowd keeps up
its futile clamor.
Let someone, holding his breath,
reach the bottom—a true diver.
Here, turtles and crabs; but that golden
fish swims in boundless water.
Those who sit with lines dangling
lose both dusk and dawn;
he who takes a boat out to them
is a fisherman of another kind.
Here, scum and mud; midstream,
blue lotus blooms.”

Deeper and deeper. Do not sit on the margin dangling a line, wasting time.

Conch and shells lie on the shore,
but pearls are in the deep.

“Who even renounces the Vedas, thoroughly.”

You will be startled: “The Vedas!” Any Arya Samaji hearing this will be furious—“The Vedas!” But this is indeed the mark of the devotee.

“Who thoroughly”—not half-heartedly—“renounces the Vedas, and attains unbroken, boundless love of God.”

The Vedas too are toys for the intellect. Scriptures are consolations; they are not truth. And the devotee is not after knowledge. He is seeking love. From the Vedas you may get information—where will you get love? In which scripture is love found? You may understand all about water, yet your thirst will not be quenched—you need a lake.

The devotee is not satisfied with scriptural talk about water; he says, “I am thirsty. I need the lake.”

Better the awareness of one’s ignorance than the ignorance of one’s knowledge;
my heart gave me this lesson in true insight.

Better the awareness of one’s ignorance than the ignorance bred by knowledge.

I found this supreme wisdom within.

The Vedas, the Quran, the Bible—all scriptures—“Vedas” means all scriptures—are a web of words. Do not be satisfied by them. Whoever is satisfied by them is a fool. He may become very learned, but his stupidity does not end; it hides inside under the cloak of erudition.

“Who thoroughly renounces the Vedas and attains unbroken, boundless love of God.”

The emphasis is on love, not knowledge. What will knowing do? Knowing maintains distance. The devotee says: God is not to be known; God is to be. What will knowing do? God is to be drunk, imbibed. He is to descend into you. You are to descend into him. The distance must end. Scriptures become walls in between. The more you know, the thicker your ego grows. And ego is the obstacle in love—it must be dropped. Not only the pride of wealth, but the pride of knowledge must go. The knower must be obliterated. No “I” should remain within. Become a zero. On the lake of zero the lotus of love blooms—and only on that lake does it bloom. If you dissolve into mud, only then do lotuses bloom. From your very mud the lotus rises.

“Who thoroughly renounces the Vedas and attains unbroken, boundless love of God—he crosses. Not only does he cross, he carries others across.” He becomes a boat. He crosses himself, and more than that—he ferries others too; he becomes the ferry and the ferryman. So many find the crossing on his support.

In whose life the flower of love blooms, he attracts countless bees. In whose life the song of love rises, in countless throats a humming begins.

If he diminishes, man is but a fistful of dust;
if he expands, the vastness of both worlds cannot contain him.

Diminished, what is man? A handful of ash.

If he diminishes, man is but a fistful of dust.
If he expands, the vastness of both worlds cannot contain him.

Grown to his vastness, even both worlds are too small to contain him. Man can be the smallest of the small—mind makes him narrower and narrower. Man can be the vastest of the vast—if only the wall of mind breaks, if the prison of mind goes.

If he diminishes, man is but a fistful of dust;
if he expands, the vastness of both worlds cannot contain him.

Mind is prison; meditation is release. Lust is prison; love is release. Vedas and scriptures are prison; devotion is freedom.

That is all for today.