Bhakti Sutra #12

Only the devotee knows bhog. Except for the devotee, no one has known it—because bhog can belong only to God. What you call enjoyment in the world is not even the shadow of bhog; not even a distant echo of it; to call it even an intimation would be wrong—it is a delusion of bhog.

Those who have known the Supreme have truly enjoyed. Bhog is the relationship between the devotee and God. The Ganga of bhog flows between the two banks of God and the devotee—God on one side, the devotee on the other, and between them the current of bhog.

“Bhog” is a most precious word—more precious than “yoga.” But understand my meaning rightly. Yoga is still a product of the human mind—addition, calculation, method, discipline. Bhog is not of the intellect; it is the heart’s union with the Divine—no accounting, no bookkeeping, no rules or rituals. It is total surrender; total offering.

The devotee lays himself at God’s feet; from that very moment, with every breath, God’s bhog begins.

The meaning of bhog can be known but not said, because bhog is a matter of taste. Only the one who has partaken knows; and even the knower cannot say, for it is a matter of taste—the dumb man’s sweetness. All tastes are of the senses: the eyes taste form, the ears taste sound, the hands taste touch. God is the taste of your totality. Eyes, ears, hands, feet—your whole being dissolves in one rhythm, one dance. The eyes not only see, they also hear. The ears not only hear, they also see. The hands not only touch, they also catch fragrance. Your whole totality vibrates with existence. That moment is called taste.

The tastes you have known in the world are only sensory illusions, deceptions. One who has known the taste of the Divine—worldly tastes fall away by themselves. If you still have to forcefully renounce them, one thing is certain: you have not known the taste of God.

Hence the devotee never speaks of renunciation. It is no bargain—“Give this up and you will get God.” You attain God and suddenly much starts dropping of its own accord—like dry leaves falling from a tree. What is useless will wither and fall. Naturally, when the supreme taste is found, the petty taste falls away. When the supreme banquet is set, who will agree to chew the dry and tasteless? When His temple opens, who will make a home in the trivial? For the devotee, “bhog” is an extraordinary word.

The devotee surrenders himself. He says, “You take charge!” If I take charge of myself, the ego is created. Ego alone creates the distance. The more “I” there is, the farther I go. So the devotee says: “You take charge! I will not stand in between. I will do neither japa nor tapas, neither renunciation nor austerity—because all that forges ego. All that gives the feeling: I am something!”

Doing, by its very nature, manufactures the “I.” Therefore devotion is no act. Devotion is pure surrender.

The devotee says: “I cannot manage myself; I place myself at Your feet. Wherever You take me, I will go; whatever You make me do, I will do. If You breathe, I will breathe; if You stop, I will stop.” Such total offering, surrendering everything—and the moment of bhog arrives. Here you let go; there the Divine begins to meet you.

God, devotion, and bhog—these three are deeply intertwined. Yoga says: we are broken; we must be joined. The very meaning of yoga is “joining.” Yoga says: we have been severed from the Divine; we must reconnect. Bhog says: we are already joined—start enjoying. Why delay? What are you waiting for? We are joined; there is nothing to join. Had we truly been broken, there would be no way to join again. We are not broken—therefore we can realize our union. Better still: do not even raise the talk of joining—we are joined.

How could you even be without being joined to the Divine? Not for a moment, not for a single instant. If He breathes in you, breath goes on. If He shines as the sun, your body is warmed. If He moves as the winds, you receive life. If He comes as rain, your thirst is quenched. If He appears as food, you gain strength. Only when He comes in a thousand forms do you live at all. Severed from Him for even a moment, life ends. The very name of being joined to Him is “life.”

Therefore the devotee says: there has been no breaking—talk of joining is mistaken. We are joined; now simply enjoy. The devotee says: you are joined and yet you do not enjoy—how insane! What are you waiting for? The celebration is already prepared. Everything is all-ready—how can you sit there sad? For whom are you waiting? The One you wait for has already arrived. He resounds within you. Whom are you calling? The caller is none other than He, your very call. Whom do you set out to seek? He is hidden within the very one who seeks.

The devotee says: enjoy! Not a single moment is to be lost. If preparation were needed, time would be required. Hence the devotee’s vision is unique. In yoga’s vision, time is included—do something today, tomorrow something will happen; sow the seed, the crop will grow, you will reap—thousands of contingencies—will the rains come or not? Will the conditions come together or not? But the devotee says: there is no talk of tomorrow. What you long to enjoy is in your very hands this instant.

Seeing this, remembering thus—this is surati, this is smriti, this is bodh, awakening—at once the devotee begins to dance. Hence the devotee dances. Yogis practiced—devotees danced. Yogis made great methods and disciplines—devotees enjoyed. Yogis did asana, pranayama, exercise—devotees picked up the veena.

The festival is already prepared. The celebration is already arranged. There is no delay here at all. To lose even a moment here is to lose because of yourself, not because of Him.

This is the vision of bhog, of the supreme bhog, the devotee’s vision: not even a moment of preparation is needed. Time is not essential. At this very moment the Divine is at your door. At this very moment He has surrounded you on all sides. It is His touch you feel in the winds. It is His breath that sets your heart in motion. He is your thinking and reflecting. He is your meditation. The recognition of this, the re-cognition—this alone is enough.

Therefore the devotee makes a leap. The yogi follows a sequence—climbing step after step. The devotee makes a single leap—the leap of insight. A moment before he was sad, defeated, tired. A moment before he was scorched. A moment before he was in hell; a moment later—in heaven.

The devotee is a miracle! A moment before there was only ash, no flower in sight. With the coming of remembrance, a moment later—flowers everywhere. You won’t even be able to imagine how it happened. The devotee too has no answer. The yogi has an answer. The yogi will say: I did this and that, practiced so much, used such methods and such means—this is the result.

The yogi has arithmetic. The devotee has no arithmetic—the devotee has love. Did anyone ever see Meera practicing yoga? Yet one day, suddenly, they saw her dancing. One day she simply overflowed, rose and danced. That is why no one could understand—the happening was so sudden. No one could believe it.

Mahavira can be understood—twelve long years of severe austerity. Even those who lack intellect can understand—so much effort; if bliss was attained, it adds up. Buddha can be understood—six years of hard effort and practice; if bliss was attained, fair enough.

Meera is beyond cleverness! Till yesterday she was hidden behind the veil; no one even knew. No one had ever seen her practicing anything. And suddenly—Pad ghunghroo baandh Meera naachi re! Even her family could not believe it—she’s gone mad! Lost her mind! Is God found like this? He is found only with great difficulty.

Our ego has created great difficulties. What can be gained simply, the ego refuses. The ego says: you must climb mountains. That which is given by simply stretching your hand, received sitting at home—the ego won’t agree, won’t trust it. “Mahavira may have attained, but how could Meera?”

Meera’s dance is sudden—but devotion is sudden! Understand this well. Devotion has no practice; devotion is accomplishment from the very first moment; it is only a matter of awakening.

Kabhi un madbhari aankhon se piya tha ik jaam—
aaj tak hosh nahin, hosh nahin, hosh nahin.
Once I drank one goblet from those intoxicating eyes—
since then no sense, no sense, no sense.

One glimpse is enough. Let the recognition of the Divine flash once like lightning—He is available; why am I holding back, whom am I waiting for?—and the dance that begins has no end.

Kabhi un madbhari aankhon se piya tha ik jaam—
aaj tak hosh nahin, hosh nahin, hosh nahin.

The sobriety of devotion is like intoxication. The devotee’s meditation is like complete absorption. The devotee’s being is like non-being. The devotee finds himself only by losing himself. He dissolves himself like a drop falling into the ocean. The devotee is a gambler.

When the drop falls into the ocean, what certainty is there that it will survive? What certainty that it won’t be lost forever? There can be no certainty. And if there were a guarantee, what kind, and who could give it? The drop consents to be annihilated; the instant it dissolves, it becomes the ocean.

But remember, this bhog—this living current that flows between God and His lover, between the Lord and the devotee—is not something to be grasped or explained. What I am telling you are only pointers; if a hint strikes, jump. I do not say this to increase your understanding, or to add a little knowledge about devotion. What has devotion to do with knowledge?

Ek aisa raaz bhi dil ke nihaankhaane mein hai—
lutf jiska kuchh samajhne mein na samjhaane mein hai.
There is a secret hidden in the innermost chamber of the heart,
whose delight lies in neither understanding nor explaining.

Very deep, on the ultimate layer of the heart, the mystery is hidden; it neither comes into understanding nor into explanation. Devotion is beyond cleverness. Devotion is a riddle, a mystery. Therefore those who are very “intelligent,” devotion is not for them. By their very intellect they go on losing. Those who consider themselves clever—devotion is not for them. It is for the innocents. But the flavor of innocence is different. Cleverness is very poor; innocence is rich. Cleverness is petty—it is “yours.” Innocence is vast. Cleverness is like a little lamp flickering; innocence is like the vast night of the new moon—dense darkness without edge or end.

It is through his innocence that the devotee reaches the Divine. Has anyone ever reached through cleverness? Never heard of it. Cleverness holds you back; it becomes chains on your feet. Cleverness cannot become dance. Only dancing does one arrive. Cleverness grows grave.

Such cleverness will become shackles on your feet. Such cleverness won’t take you anywhere; it will hold you back—hold you back badly. Understand Narad. Don’t set out to make Narad understand. If something can be received from Narad, take it. Don’t go to give to Narad. What do you have, as yet, that you could give? If you already knew, why would you come here? What then are you seeking?

But the intellect keeps accounts of all the things it knows nothing about. It formulates theories even about matters that have not appeared to it in dreams. You know neither God nor devotion. Yes, you may have read some books. From books you may have gathered some information. Now you have fallen into a web of argument. No one has ever arrived through this web of logic. This alone entangles.

Un-knowing is needed. Not erudition, but a state of utter helpless feeling. Not argument, but argument defeated—erased, broken. Only when your logic breaks and your intellect can no longer pave a way will the way be found. As long as you feel you can make your own path, so long will you wander. The very path you construct will be your wandering. The day you become helpless and realize, “Nothing happens by my doing. Nothing becomes clear through intellect. I have understood much and sit with it, yet I reach nowhere.” … The day you, tired and worn, defeated, helpless, begin to weep; when tears begin to flow—not arguments, tears are needed—thoughts will not arise in the mind, feeling will begin to arise. The day you stop sitting and cogitating and begin to dance—no racket of logic in the head, bells tied to the feet—on that day, that very day, for the first time rain will fall upon your hungry, thirsty earth; that day, for the first time, your touch with God will happen; you will come to know the savor of bhog.

Devotees have not really said anything; and what they have said does not make anything clear. They offer no arguments. Whatever they have said is a pointing, not an explanation; there is no proof in it, only direct utterances.

If you wish to understand devotees, it is useless to go into scriptures—go into the eyes of a devotee.

Kya husn ka afsana mahdood ho lafzon mein?
Aankhen hi kahen usko aankhon ne jo dekha hai.

Can the tale of beauty be confined within words?
Let the eyes tell what the eyes have seen.

In Mira’s eyes or in Chaitanya’s eyes…! There lies the scripture of devotion. So the way to understand a bhakta is different. And the dimensions for understanding the scripture of bhakti are different. If you are not yet tired of thinking, if there is still a little zest left to thrash about, then don’t get into the talk of devotion yet. There is plenty else—Vedanta, the Vedas, the Upanishads. There is Yoga, there is Sankhya. Many scriptures still lie in wait. Go bang your head there a little more.

When you are utterly broken and feel that nowhere is there a door; when you come to the verge of tears; when a sigh of helplessness arises from your heart—that becomes prayer. From there the experience of the devotee begins in your life. The bhakta is born in your defeat—not in your victory; where you lie on the ground completely bloodied; where your wings are torn and nothing of your doing works anymore—in that very moment, from that deep pain, prayer arises. And then a strange experience happens: you were rushing about for nothing; God was not far—he only seemed far because of your running. You were arranging things in vain. Your arrangements were such that they themselves created the obstacles. If only you had done nothing and simply looked with open eyes, God was standing at the door. Your contrivances themselves led you astray.

Bhog is a taste—if it comes, it comes. Whatever I say about bhog may create greed for it, but it will not bring understanding of it. If you can at least understand from what I am saying that there is as yet nothing like bhog in your life…! Your religious teachers, your sadhus and saints tell you, “Renounce enjoyments; they are sin.” I tell you: you have never known enjoyment at all. What do you have that is worth renouncing?

Your sadhus and saints explain that it is because of worldly enjoyments that you cannot reach the Divine. I tell you: until you reach the Divine you will not even come to know that what you call enjoyments are not enjoyments at all. You have taken thorns for flowers. Bloodied in every way, you still keep taking thorns for flowers. You harvest sorrow where you seek happiness, yet you go on believing it is joy.

You are not sensualists; at best you are deranged. You are not enjoyers at all; you are merely forgetful. What is happening through you are mistakes, not sins. One can feel compassion for you; there is no ground for condemnation. Therefore whoever calls you sinners, condemns you, and tells you that you are caught in such enjoyments that you cannot reach God—he will not be able to lead you toward liberation. Because by his prohibitions, by his opposition, your attraction toward the so‑called enjoyments—which are not enjoyments—increases even more. His denials make you more greedy.

Hajve maine tera ai shaikh! bharam khol diya
Tu to masjid mein hai, niyyat teri maikhane mein hai.

O Shaikh, my satire has exposed your illusion—
You may be in the mosque, but your intent is in the tavern.

The one who, in temple or mosque, rails against wine—his railing itself reveals the secret inside him. We criticize only that in which our own taste still lingers.

Hajve maine tera ai shaikh! bharam khol diya—
This very denunciation of wine has uncovered your inner secret.
Tu to masjid mein hai, niyyat teri maikhane mein hai—
You may be sitting in the mosque, but your mind is still in the tavern.

If your guru condemns women, know that his taste for women is still alive. If he abuses wealth, condemns wealth, know that his taste is still in wealth. If he opposes food, preaches fasting, know that his taste is still in food. And his opposition will not erase your taste; it will increase it. For the more something is called bad, forbidden, denied, the more the mind feels there must be something to it—why else would so many gurus, so many temples and mosques stand against it?

On a door where it is written, “Do not peep inside!” the urge to peep arises. So whatever people have labeled as sin, the desire to do exactly that has grown intense.

Look at a small child! A small child is proof of the mind, because everyone’s mind is like a small child. Tell him, “Don’t eat that,” he perhaps wasn’t even thinking of it; you have reminded him. Tell him, “Don’t go there,” the world is vast—perhaps he would never have gone there; but now you have denied the whole world and drawn his attention to a single spot. Now he will go there. By your saying so you have indicated there must be some secret—otherwise who forbids whom? Surely there must be something worthwhile, something mysterious!

There is a Christian tale: God made man and told him, “This is a tree—the tree of knowledge—do not eat its fruit.” There were infinite trees in the garden, but all the trees became worthless; Adam’s eyes hung only on that tree. Day and night, asleep or awake, he must have remembered that one. Natural. The mistake is not Adam’s; the mistake is God’s. With so many trees, had he not said it, I think perhaps he would still not have found it; there would have been no need to search. You hung up a placard.

Wherever there is prohibition, there an invitation is created. Where someone says, “Don’t do it,” a powerful urge to do it arises. The ego begins to wrestle with the no; resistance is born.

Those things that people have called sin have devoured you. I tell you: there is no sin; there can be mistakes. It is mistake! “Sin”—for your little mistakes the word is far too big! Using such a big word is not right.

If a man finds a little taste in food, is that “sin”…! At most a mistake—what sin is there? If someone finds pleasure in wearing clothes—at most a mistake, how is it sin? And the one who finds taste in clothing only conveys one thing: he has no inkling of his inner beauty; once he knows inner beauty, he will cease the outer ornamentation.

The man running after wealth tells only this much: he has no news of the treasure within. The one seeking outer positions has had no intimation of the supreme state; otherwise he would drop it. One who has found diamonds naturally drops pebbles. I do not tell you to drop the pebbles—I tell you to remember the diamonds.

The whole scripture of bhakti is for remembrance of God, not for renunciation of the world. That is the difference between bhakti and yoga. Yoga says: leave the world, and God will be attained. Bhakti says: find God, and the world will drop away. When the enjoyment of the Divine arises in your life, all other enjoyments lose their luster. When the sun rises, the stars disappear: when the sun of the supreme enjoyment rises, all the twinkling stars, however countless, vanish.

But remember, the taste you must take yourself. I can sing songs of that flavor. If you look a little into my eyes, perhaps you may hear a faint echo of it. But the taste you must take yourself—only then is it taste.

And the delight is that nothing needs to be done—you were born the master. You sit weeping on the steps of the palace. The key is in your hand—you have simply forgotten.

As you are, where you are—this is the fundamental sutra of bhakti: begin to enjoy right there. As you are, where you are, become available to remembrance of the Divine right there. Remember him. What will this mean? It will mean this: when you eat, don’t be preoccupied with the food; seek the Divine in the food. Hence the Upanishads say: annam brahma—Food is Brahman! That is the saying of great knowers, of those far advanced. God in food! When you savor food, remember: the taste is his. Raso vai sah—All flavors are his. When you see a beautiful woman pass by, remember: all beauty is his. Raso vai sah—All savor is his! When you see a flower bloom, bow to him, for all blossoming is his. When birds sing, listen closely. Though the throats be many, the song is his. Little by little, remember him in life all around in such a way that nothing remains visible but him.

Bhakti is easy, simple, natural. But if your taste is only for difficulty, that is another matter; then there are plenty of yoga scriptures; there are many facilities for doing all sorts of contortions.

The awareness is suspect. Perhaps there was no awareness at all. Otherwise, whenever awareness is there—be it lust or anger, greed or delusion—everything is dissolved. Then you must not have held awareness rightly; somewhere there has been a slip. Instead of wondering and asking why lust does not go even when there is awareness, question your awareness again. It simply does not happen otherwise.

The meaning of awareness is only this: in the moment of awareness no thing can surround you, that’s all. The name makes no difference—lust, anger, attachment, greed—that is not the point. In the moment of awareness you remain only the witness. You cannot be possessed by anything. Yes, if the moment of awareness is lost, you will again be possessed; or the moment may not have come at all—you deceived yourself and assumed that there was awareness.

But this is the very definition, the touchstone, of awareness: in that moment you become purely untainted. In the moment of awareness you become divine. In that moment nothing can seize you; if it does, then that moment is not of awareness—you have indulged in self-deception.

Unhen sa‘ādat-e-manzil rasī nasīb ho gayā
Wo pāñv rāh-e-talab mein jo dagmagā na sake.

Blessed with the joy of the destination
Are those feet that did not waver on the path of seeking.

If your feet do not falter, the final goal is attained in this very life. Which feet? The feet of awareness. If awareness does not wobble, then what Krishna in the Gita calls sthitaprajña—steadfast wisdom—arises: a consciousness that becomes still, without any tremor, unflickering. In that unmoving state nothing affects you, because the very fact of being affected means vibration. Impact means vibration, a wobble.

So I will say: cultivate awareness again. And do not hurry; sexual desire is a very deep urge. I understand where your mistake happens. You have not even learned to fly in the courtyard, and you set out to travel the vast sky—you will fall, you will get into trouble. For now, learn to swim a little along the riverbank; then enter the deep seas.

This is the difficulty with awareness: you think, “Let me try awareness on lust.” But lust is the deepest urge. Do not be in such a hurry. First train awareness on such things where you can practice on the shore. For example, you are walking on the road—walk consciously. Be aware only of walking. Do not forget. Let the remembrance remain that “I am walking—now the left foot lifts, now the right foot lifts.” This is a small act that imposes no bondage on you. You will be astonished that even here awareness does not get established—you will keep forgetting.

You are sitting quietly—bring awareness to the breath. Buddha considered awareness of breath the most important process because the breath runs twenty‑four hours a day; even if you do nothing, it goes on. So it will be easy to train awareness on this natural activity. And you can do it whenever you wish—just close your eyes a little, watch the breath, and settle awareness. As the breath goes in, take it in consciously—knowing, awake—that the breath is going in, it has reached within; it starts returning, goes out, has gone out, then starts coming in again—make a garland of the breath: in–out, in–out. Slide each bead of breath along. You will be surprised—this too keeps getting forgotten. For a moment awareness will be there, then the mind has gone to the shop—buying something, selling something, quarreling with someone; then you will be startled, you will find, “Oh! A whole minute has passed! Where did I go? Even the breath was forgotten!” Then catch it and bring it back. I call this practice along the shore.

There is no entanglement in the breath. If you try to practice on anger… Anger is not happening every moment; it happens sometimes. And when it happens, it happens with such intensity that you are already going deep into it; so much is at stake in those moments that you may think, “We will look into awareness later; first let’s settle this now.”

Lust is very deep, because existence has made it so deep; life depends on it. If lust were so easy that you decided and were freed, perhaps you would not even have been born—because many before you would have become free, and the possibility of your being would have been almost nil. But your parents, and their parents, did not become free; therefore you are. You too will not get free so easily, because your children are also to be—they are waiting: “Do not run away midway.” Much of life is hinged upon lust. Therefore its dropping is not so easy. Not impossible, but not easy either. And it will be your mistake if you begin your practice with so difficult a process. This is the mind’s strategy. The mind always suggests difficult things first so that you lose in the very first move—fall flat on your back! Then you think, “Forget it, nothing is going to happen by this.”

The mind brings you into such dilemmas where you are bound to lose and the mind wins. Your defeat is the mind’s victory. So the mind gives you such tricks that you put your foot in the river for the first time and go under—so that you become afraid forever: “There is danger to life here; better not go at all.”

Move a little with understanding. First practice awareness on things that have no force over you: walking on the path, watching the breath; any such thing—birds are singing, sit quietly and listen to their song. Only this much: a continuous awareness. Let the stream be unbroken. As when oil is poured from one vessel into another, the stream of oil remains unbroken—that is how the stream of your awareness should be. Let the birds keep singing their songs; you go on listening, listening, listening—do not go anywhere else even for a single moment.

Thus, slowly practice along the shore. As the practice thickens, a celebratory flowering will grow within you. As it deepens, reassurance and trust in yourself will grow. Then, gradually, begin to experiment. Do not hurry even then.

Even when experimenting on anger, remember there are a thousand kinds of anger. There is an anger that comes toward your own child—practicing there will be easier because love is also mixed in that anger. Then there is an anger that comes toward an enemy—in it no love is mixed at all; practicing there will be difficult. Observe even in anger where to begin the practice. Begin with those who are very close, upon whom you do not even want to be angry—and yet it happens. Then there are some who are far away—not only far, but opposite to you; even if you would like not to be angry, there is an inner wish that it should happen; you even look for a pretext, without cause, so that anger can happen—practice on them a little later. First with your own, then with neighbors, then with enemies. If you go straightaway to practice upon the enemy, it is as if you picked up the sword and went directly to the battlefield without any training. Get trained first. Training means: first wield the sword only with a friend. To wield it with an enemy will become dangerous. For now, play with the sword with a friend; playfully. When the hands are trained, confidence comes, safety is there, then go a little further.

This has come to me through experience—after conducting experiments in meditation with thousands of people—that people choose, too soon, such experiments in which they will break, so that the bother ends, so that they can return to their old world: “This is not going to happen; perhaps it happens to someone else—some fortunate one, some avatar, some saint. It is not going to happen to me!” But you are attempting from the outset in such a way that defeat is assured on the very first step. This is the mind’s net. Be alert to this mind.

If you have practiced awareness on anger, what will happen? What is the touchstone that awareness has been established on anger? What is the proof? The proof will be this: if awareness has actually been established on anger, you will find compassion arising in place of anger. If compassion does not arise, then awareness was a deception; it did not settle. Because the energy that anger generated—where will it go? You will practice awareness, but the energy that was born in anger, that power—where will it go? The moment awareness settles, that power is transformed.

Awareness is alchemy. Awareness is the process by which energies are transformed; the downward‑flowing forces become upward‑moving—you become urdhvaretas. The energies that move toward life’s lower pulls become wings that lift you upward.

If awareness settles on anger, compassion will certainly be born—that is the touchstone Buddha gave. If awareness settles on lust, then great brahmacharya arises; you are filled with a unique, cool energy; flowers upon flowers bloom within you; a deep contentment, satisfaction, fulfillment surrounds you; without any cause you experience a great bliss. Such bliss you have never known in sexual intercourse. At most, in sex you had heard a very distant echo of such bliss. Now you will recognize that what was known in sex was only a very far‑off shadow of this great bliss—as if you had seen a hidden light from behind thousands of veils; now all the veils are lifted and you have the direct vision of the light.

If, in lust, awareness awakens, brahmacharya manifests. When I say brahmacharya, I do not mean the celibacy of your monks and ascetics who sit repressing sex by force. Their celibacy is poorer and sicker than your lust. When I say brahmacharya I mean: a consciousness in which lust has passed through the process of awareness and now there is no suppression at all; where all the rubbish has burned and only gold remains; where all the mud has become a lotus. You will be filled with fragrance. Not only you—others, too, near you will begin to experience whiffs of that fragrance. Your feet will be on the earth and yet they will not touch the earth. You will be here and yet linked to another realm. You will know for certain, because it is such a great happening; it cannot occur without your knowing.

If your awareness awakens on greed, generosity will be born in your life—you will begin to share. And in sharing you will not feel that you have done a favor to the one who received; you will feel, rather, that the one who accepted has done you a favor.

Jo antar ki aag, adhar par
aakar wahi paraag ban gayi
Paankhon ka chapalya sahaja hi
Aankhon ka aakash ban gaya
Phuta kali ka bhagya, suman ka
sahsa poorn vikaas ban gaya
Avachetan mein chhupi ghrina hi
Chetan ka anuraag ban gayi.

That inner fire, upon reaching the lips,
became pollen.
The wings’ agility, just so,
became the sky of the eyes.
The bud’s fortune burst open—of the blossom
suddenly a full unfolding was made.
The hatred hidden in the unconscious
became the conscious love.

Whatever lies in darkness within you
is transformed the moment the lamp is lit.

The hatred hidden in the unconscious
became the conscious love.

Dvandva-leen mānas kā madhu-chal
Prānon kā viśvās ban gayā
Vridha timir kā sit kuntal-dal
Drig kā divya prakāś ban gayā
Sva-ki charam-āsakti svayam se
Chal kar param virāg ban gayī.
Jo abhed hai anāyās vah
Bhāṣit ho kar bhed ban gayā
Saptam svar tak pahunch Bhairavī
Komal rāg Vihāg ban gayī
Jo antar ki aag, adhar par
ā kar wahi paraag ban gayī.

The honey-trick of a mind lost in duality
became the breath’s own trust.
The ancient darkness, its starry tresses,
became the eyes’ divine light.
The self’s utmost attachment, deceiving itself,
turned into supreme dispassion.
That which is undivided, effortlessly,
once spoken becomes division.
Reaching to the seventh note, Bhairavi
became the gentle raga Vihag.
That inner fire, upon reaching the lips,
became pollen.

Fire turns into pollen. Thorns turn into flowers.
The process of awareness is alchemy.
A human being has brought everything within—everything. If it passes through awareness, what you call the world becomes truth. If it passes through awareness, what you took to be stone becomes the divine.
Therefore “awareness” is a precious word. Guard it like a treasure. There is no greater wealth than this. Awareness, remembrance, surati, right understanding—the names are many; the thing is one.

If it is a matter of democracy, then your Ganges is flowing straight. But truth has nothing to do with democracy. The crowd does not determine truth.

Then what is the touchstone?
There is only one touchstone: if the Ganges is flowing straight, there will be joy, ease, music; she will be reaching the ocean, nearing her home—she will be thrilled at every moment, dancing, celebratory. If the Ganges is flowing upstream, she will be wretched and forlorn, troubled, full of tension, unhappy, tormented. So decide for yourself. If you are cheerful, blissful—fortunate! Your Ganges is flowing straight. If you are miserable, afflicted, distressed, don’t sit there assuming the Ganges is flowing right; for then there would be no way to escape your misfortune. Test it within yourself. Each has one’s own Ganges. If it is flowing backward, it cannot be joyful. Has anyone ever been blissful while inverted? Try standing on your head in a headstand—how long can you keep it up?

Wherever processes in life get reversed, pain arises. That’s all pain means. Pain is an indication, a pointer that somewhere something has gone wrong, something has turned against nature, has ceased to be natural.

Happiness means: everything is natural, hence there is happiness. Unhappiness means: things have become unnatural. Unhappiness is not an enemy; it is a friend; it brings the news that something has gone wrong—set it right. Suffering is saying: the direction you are taking is not the destination; change it, change the path, turn back! The moment you begin to move in the right direction, the melody of joy will start to play.

What is happiness? When you are moving in accord with your nature.

Someone asked Mahavira: What is truth? Mahavira said: vatthu sahāvo dhammo—what is the nature of a thing, that is the truth, that is dharma.

Human beings are miserable: they are moving against their nature, against dharma.

Check within yourself. If you are unhappy, the Ganges is flowing upstream. Then don’t delay, because if you flow backward too long, it becomes a habit. Transform as soon as possible. Don’t sit with your suffering, or suffering too becomes a habit. Then you want to drop suffering and you also don’t want to drop it; with one hand you hold it, with the other you push it away. You want freedom from it, and you keep sowing its seeds, because it has become a habit.

Take this as the measure, the touchstone, the assay. This is not a matter of taking a vote; otherwise I will lose. From that standpoint Buddha and Mahavira have always “lost”—they are alone. If truth were decided by the crowd, then Buddha would be wrong and the crowd right. But what has truth to do with the crowd? Truth is an inner experience. It has nothing to do even with comparison to another. I am not asking you to compare yourself with me. I am asking you to examine and observe within yourself. If you are unhappy, your Ganges is flowing upstream. If you are happy—good fortune—your Ganges is flowing straight. Then don’t get entangled with anyone. Don’t accept anyone’s teaching. If you are in happiness, be alert: don’t follow anyone, otherwise someone will set your Ganges to flow backward. If you are in happiness, then live in happiness. What more is needed?

If you are in happiness, you will reach bliss. Happiness is the proof that you are walking in the right place; the destination will come. If you are unhappy, it is difficult even to reach happiness—how will you reach bliss?

Flowers have bloomed in garden after garden,
but each has only their own hem!

Flowers are blooming all around, yet some people have formed the habit of picking thorns. Your own hem! Those who pick only thorns, then suffer—and still continue to pick thorns!

It has been a long time, too long! For many lifetimes you have gathered thorns. Even now there doesn’t seem to be a blossom of joy in your eyes. Even now the instrument in your heart that we call happiness is not playing!

Awaken!
Change!
Be transformed!
It is not about someone else telling you—only about understanding yourself.

If what you call truths were truly truth, your hem would be filled with flowers; because no one has ever received suffering from truth. Your condition is such that the more you run about, the emptier your hands become; your hem turns into a beggar’s bowl—not filling up, but emptying. After running all his life, a man falls and dies like a beggar—hands empty! All of life’s striving has not made your soul anything more than a begging bowl. You do not arrive anywhere. Perhaps you were somewhere in childhood, and even that was missed. Coming near the destination? On the contrary, you have gone farther away.

Give this a little attention. Keep examining it.
Each step is costly if it is taken in the wrong direction—because you will have to return. Each step is costly—because you will have to make the journey again.

If what you call truth is truth, then why are you not fulfilled? No, I say to you: at night you slept; hunger arose in your sleep; you dreamt you were invited to the royal palace, you attended a banquet, you ate to your heart’s content—but in the morning will your belly be full? Or will you find that it was merely a trick in the night to deceive your hunger? That dream could not end hunger; it could only hide it. It did not satisfy hunger; it suppressed it. Your body will get no nourishment, no fulfillment from it.

However delightful the dishes you ate in the dream, they are useless—a dry crust of bread would perhaps be more nourishing if it were real, if it were true.

Your dreams cannot be the truth; otherwise you would be fulfilled; your belly would be full; your hunger would be quieted; the flute of peace would be playing within you—and it is not heard. Within you there is, day and night, a lamentation, a noise of sorrow and pain. Music does not seem to rise from your veena; only a futile clamor is heard.

Surely, what you call truths are dreams.

My truths will seem like dreams to you—naturally. But this much I can tell you: the clamor has vanished. Suffering has gone very far; even its footfall is not heard. This much I can tell you: bliss has rained. And if you are intelligent, if you have even a little understanding, you will choose my “dreams,” which appear to you like dreams, over your “truths”; because what have your truths given you? Granted that today my truths may appear dreamlike to you; even so, if you are wise you will choose my dreams rather than your truths.

You have tried choosing truths aplenty—where did you reach? Come, put my dreams to the test as well! Walk two steps with me and see—after all, you have walked long enough with yourself.

On the path of truth, sometimes, in the proximity of someone who has attained, a sudden glimpse breaks through. After such a glimpse, naturally a person begins to live on two planes. The glimpse pulls in one direction; his old personality pulls in another. A conflict is born.

And that glimpse fills one with such intoxication that it seems like madness. Not only does the person feel, “This is madness,” but the family, loved ones, friends, society all feel, “This is madness.” Then, when the person comes down from that glimpse, society, family, friends feel, “Now he’s fine.” The reality is exactly the opposite. That very state which looks like madness is the truly healthy state.

If, from childhood itself—when this event befell him—no one had tried to force “health” upon Narendra’s father, and his derangement had been understood as a devotee’s state of awe and adoration, he would have blossomed long ago. But the family, the home, even society concluded it was madness and must be treated. He was treated a great deal. Medicines were forced upon him.

And he too believed it was madness. It does feel like madness, because such an utterly new realm opens up that one can hardly trust it oneself. So he cooperated with the doctors, with the treatments. Yet the glimpse he had was so weighty that a thousand medicines could not pull him down from it; it seized him again and again.

Once I drank a goblet from those wine-drenched eyes—
to this day I have not come to my senses, not to my senses, not to my senses.

Again and again that glimpse would catch hold of him.

And how clear the matter is—if only there is understanding! Whenever he is “mad,” that is precisely when he is healthy; then no illness remains in him; he is deeply joyous, utterly ecstatic. I have seen his ecstasy. Then he is the way every human being ought to be. Then he sings. Then, from three in the morning, he can be seen bathing in the village river—humming, dancing! He is happy. All his ailments vanish. His face glows. A shine comes into his eyes. Then he sets off on pilgrimage. Then he keeps the company of saints. Then from three in the morning he sings devotional songs. But the whole village thinks him mad—just when he is radiant. His ecstasy knows no bounds. His cup brims over with intoxication. And then the entire village calls him mad. Then the “treatment” begins. When the village has finished treating him, he becomes sick; the sparkle leaves his eyes; the ecstasy departs from his face; fear takes hold; he grows afraid to step out of the house; he grows weak, ill, bedridden—and people say, “Now he’s fine! Not mad anymore.”

Now the matter is straight and simple: when he is “mad,” he is well. But society sees madness; the family too sees madness. For we cannot conceive that someone could be fully conscious and yet so intoxicated. We are all so sickly, so troubled, so wretched—and in our midst if suddenly someone displays such ecstasy, surely, we think, his brain has snapped! Misery has become our criterion for normal health; let someone become joyous and we begin to suspect something is wrong.

People come to me. They themselves feel doubt. They say, “We are meditating; great bliss is arising—but we won’t go mad, will we?” Bliss, it seems, is the symptom of madness! People say, “Great peace is appearing; but when we return home, won’t some people think something has gone wrong?”

Society is living by taking a near-pathological condition as health. Therefore, when someone within you turns ecstatic, it appears troublesome.

When Mahavira became ecstatic, people drove him out of the village. When he roamed naked in his ecstasy, people forbade him entry. When Meera became ecstatic, her loved ones sent poison to kill her, because her ecstasy became a burden upon the whole household; her ecstasy looked like madness. She abandoned social respect. She, who had never stepped beyond the threshold, beyond the veil, began to dance in the marketplaces.

She became a vagabond!

Meera went mad, they said; but her madness is supreme health.

This very entanglement befell Narendra’s father. Even now there is a way—if his “madness” is accepted as health and he is not treated; if, when he becomes “mad,” the whole house celebrates and joins his madness, and they assure him, “You are perfectly all right”—if the delusion in his mind, “I am wrong,” is shattered, the inner duality in him will dissolve.

The one he had gone to—Dhuniwale Baba—was a paramhansa. In his presence the event must have happened. He was a great soul. Under his shade something took hold, and it has never let go. Long years have passed—fifty years now—but when a blessed glimpse arrives, it encircles one again and again.

A moment of good fortune came; we altered it, transformed it, and made it misfortune.

The boundary of the Beloved’s lane begins right there
where the feet begin to falter and stagger.

The house of the Divine is near precisely from there; the lover’s home comes close—“the boundary of the Beloved’s lane begins right there”—the limits of the Beloved’s quarters draw near—“where the feet begin to falter”—where ecstasy begins to come on, where the wine’s intoxication descends—his house is near.

They came very near to that house and turned back. They do not forget—cannot forget. It is not his fault. But society is uncomprehending; society’s values are skewed. He could have become a paramhansa; he has been left a “madman.”

It is beyond him to forget it—and we did not support him in forgetting what we call health. That he cannot forget. Fifty years is a long time. He has tried everything. He himself has tried. But the matter is of this sort—

That bond of love—erasing it
is not within my power, nor within Your nature.

That relationship of love, that awe, that one moment—it is not within a man’s power to erase it, if it happens; nor is it in God’s nature to erase it.

Not in my power, not in Your nature.

We made a mistake in calling his “madness” madness. Even now, nothing is irredeemably lost. If only he could be accepted! Not merely accepted, but with reverence, with gratitude—if he could be told, “We were mistaken; we dragged you needlessly—that was our fault, our foolishness. We did not understand what had happened to you, what window you had opened. We were blind. And we tried to pull you to our side. In that tug-of-war, everything broke. You could not go there, nor could you belong here. Here you cannot belong—that is beyond your capacity.”

One whose eyes have fallen upon That cannot return; yes, in the tug-of-war, ruin happens. That ruin has befallen him. He needs acceptance—respectful acceptance—so that the feeling in him may also arise that everything is all right.

Remember, in today’s world there are many “madmen” locked away in asylums who, a thousand years ago, would have become paramhansas; and it has also happened that many “madmen” who were honored as paramhansas a thousand years ago, if born today, would be in asylums. Much depends on society’s measuring stick.

In a paramhansa there is much that looks like a madman. In a madman there is much that looks like a paramhansa. The distinction is very difficult, very subtle. But even if the distinction cannot be made, my view is this: even call the madman a paramhansa—there is no harm in it; but never call a paramhansa a madman. Do you understand me? Even if the boundary cannot be drawn, even if psychologists cannot decide where the line lies, you call the madman a paramhansa—what harm is there? Your calling him a paramhansa will not make him any more mad. But never call a paramhansa a madman, because calling him mad will thwart his journey just where he was going. And here he can no longer live either; he will be left split, divided.

A misfortune has happened which could have been a blessing. Even now, time has not gone too far. It is never too late. Whenever you awaken, that is the morning.

That’s all for today.