Bhakti Sutra #13

Anirvachaniyam prema-svarupam.
“The nature of love is ineffable.”

That which cannot be said; it can be lived, tasted, experienced—but not said.

The wave is in the ocean, and the ocean is in the wave. Yet the entire wave is in the ocean; the entire ocean is not in the wave.

Experience is like the ocean; expression is like a wave. It brings a little news, but the vast, the infinite, remains behind; it offers a glimpse, yet much is left unsaid.

Words cannot bind the void—they simply cannot. Words are like small courtyards. The sky of experience, of emptiness, of love, of the Divine, is boundless. True, in the courtyard too the same sky peers in; but do not mistake the courtyard for the sky, or you will end in a prison. Ill-fortune befalls the one who takes the courtyard to be the sky, for then one begins to live within that courtyard. The sky is far bigger than the courtyard. Take a taste from the courtyard, but do not be satisfied there.

The sky of experience is far greater than words. Let words awaken thirst; let words begin the journey—but do not let the journey end in words. Do not take words to be the all. Words point, they indicate; they are like the milestones and arrows on the roadside—signs pointing ahead. Do not mistake a milestone for the destination. All words—whether of the Vedas, the Koran, or the Bible—are limited, while the experience of love is vast.

Hence today’s first, and very rare, sutra:
Anirvachaniyam prema-svarupam.
“The nature of that love is ineffable!”

It cannot be explained, cannot be expressed. Not that those who have known have not tried to speak—they have spoken, again and again, a thousand times—but still they have experienced that what they wished to say could not be said. What was said is too small; what they longed to say is too vast.

Rabindranath was on his deathbed. A friend said, “How blessed you are—you have sung what you had to sing, said what you had to say. You composed six thousand songs. You are a great poet! Now you can depart in peace, fulfilled.”

Rabindranath opened his eyes and said, “Fulfilled? What fulfillment? What I wanted to say still remains unsaid; what I wanted to sing, I have not yet sung! This is my prayer to God: What are you doing? Why are you taking me so untimely? I had only just tuned the instruments, only just arranged the notes. The song I had to sing remains unsung. The flowers have not yet bloomed; only the soil had been prepared. Outsiders mistook the tuning, the drumbeats, the tightening of sitar strings—for music itself.”

If a poet says he has sung all he had to sing, know the poet is small; there could not have been much to sing, so he finished. If a painter says he has painted all he had to paint, know there wasn’t much to paint; he had to paint a courtyard, not the sky.

Only the small, the trivial, is easily expressed. The more vast the experience, the more it remains unexpressed; the more immense it is, the more ineffable it becomes. Ineffability is proportional to immensity.

Thus Buddha said, “You think I have spoken? I tried to speak—did I speak?” Buddha’s devotees—called Zen monks in Japan—say Buddha never spoke. Yet for forty years he spoke continuously!

I tell you the same: You hear me every day, and I have not spoken. What needs to be spoken cannot be spoken. It is ineffable. What I am speaking is only what can be spoken; it is not what I long to speak. Do not take my speaking to be my ultimate intent or longing. My speaking is within the limit of words—how else can it be? There is no other way.

If you wish to play the music of emptiness, how will you draw it from the strings of a veena? The string will create sound. Emptiness will be lost in sound. If you wish to evoke the music of the void, the veena must be broken. If the music of the void is to arise, the veena must become absent. Even the presence of the veena will be an obstacle. Only through silence can that be said which must be said. But you will not understand silence.

Love is ineffable. Yet those who wish to understand love have no other instrument than words; so one must speak even of love.

The void is not defined,
it abides only in the eye.
Aeons, years, and seasons—
how can they be bound in a fleeting moment?
All remain unnamed; none
is ever truly called.
Expression remains incomplete—
life’s infant lisps and stammers!

All speech is a kind of stammering. Even a Buddha’s words lisp like a child’s. A small child is full of feeling and wants to say something—but there are no words. Suppose he has learned a few words, just a little; still they are too few. He wants to say great things, but he knows only one word: “Ma!” “Ma!” With that one word he must say everything. Hungry—“Ma!” Thirsty—“Ma!” In the sun—“Ma!” In the cold—“Ma!” One word for everything.

Words are few; what must be said is vast. And love is vaster than vast. Love is the great void. Love means: where you dissolve, where no trace of “you” remains; you come to a place where even if you look for yourself, you cannot be found.

Love means: you dissolve. Love is the great death. Where you become empty, the Divine manifests—in endless forms. Where you are lost, his veena begins to sing; a limitless symphony surrounds you. But you do not remain—there is no one left to speak. First point: language is small, narrow—few words, childlike stammering. Second: the one who knows love melts in the knowing, flows away; no speaker remains. When there is something worth saying in life, the speaker is gone. As long as the speaker remains, there is nothing worth saying.

How much you speak! Have you noticed? From morning till night you go on talking. Have you ever asked yourself: what is there to talk about? Even in sleep you mumble on. Stop for a moment! Pause! Turn back and see—what is there to say? There is nothing to say. Yet by constant talk you create the impression there was a lot to say. By telling stories you create the illusion there were stories to tell. A false wealth is conjured up. You sing and imagine a song was born, the singer arrived. Without any real sense of pitch or rhythm, you keep hammering at the veena; of course there is noise. You mistake that noise for music. When music truly arises, the hands begin to fall still; you even hesitate to touch the strings.

The deeper the understanding, the deeper the silence grows. And even if you speak, you speak knowingly, under compulsion; the other cannot understand silence, so you become vocal. But not for a single moment do you forget that what has been attained cannot be said. For the one who could say it has vanished in the attaining; he has been given away in the very act of receiving. By giving him up, he was attained.

The void cannot be defined!
And love is the void, the great void.

There are two kinds of void. One is the zero of mathematics; it exists in books, on paper, on slates. If humanity vanished, that zero would vanish, for without humans there would be no mathematics. That zero is precious indeed—place it after a one and it becomes ten, after a ten and it becomes a hundred. From that zero all mathematics unfolds; mathematics is the expansion of zero. But that zero will disappear; it is man-made. It is not the real void; remove humans and it is gone. Yet there is another void—the real void—the void of love; whether humans are or not, it remains.

When two birds fall in love, they descend into that same void. When earth and sky drown in love, they descend into that same void. When two plants sway in the breeze of love, they descend into that same void.

Love’s void is the void of life. The mathematical zero carries a negative sense: where there is nothing, emptiness; though from that emptiness the whole play of mathematics proceeds. Remove zero from mathematics, numbers may remain, but mathematics is lost; its entire expansion is the expression of that “nothing.” But the void of love is a creative void. As all mathematics unfolds from mathematical zero, so all of life unfolds from the zero of love.

You are born—from a certain energy of love. The whole play of the world moves—from a certain energy of love. Even scientists have begun to suspect that what they call gravity may be the earth’s love; that what they call the attraction of positive and negative electricity may be an electrical love; that the relationships between the stars may be a magnetic love; that the bonds that hold atoms together might be love-knots, love’s alliance. And it should be so, for man is not separate. He comes from this vastness and returns to this vastness. From the same source come plants and stones. There must be something common. If the source is one, something must be shared. That is why sitting near a rock you do not feel a stranger; near a tree you feel a kinship. The ocean calls. You converse with the Himalayas. Looking at the sky, a bond is felt, a sense of family.

Existence is family. And if you understand family, the thread that weaves the family together is love.

Hence the rare saying of Jesus: God is love. Jesus also said: Even if you let go of God, do not let go of love. Forget God—no great harm; but do not forget love. If love is, God will be. Without love, God will remain like stone idols in temples—a dead corpse; life will be lost.

The entire secret of devotion is love. And from love all has arisen—not only matter, but the Divine as well. God is the ultimate destiny of love—the final blossoming! The last height! The ultimate leap of music! God is the condensed form of love. Understand love and you have understood God. Fail to understand love and you will miss God.

Thus the scripture of devotion is very unique. It is not against the world. It says: seek love in the world, for by those footsteps you will reach the Divine.

Yes, a transformation of vision is needed. Love your son—not as your son. There is the mistake. Love even your son as a form of the Divine. There the mistake dissolves, the tangle opens. Whoever you love, see the Divine in them. Love is the beginning. Without love, God is mere verbiage, word-webs, arguments and debates—without substance.

That is why you will find many scholars discussing God; but if you do not see a ray of love in their eyes, know that it is all deceit, hypocrisy. If there is love’s ray in the eyes, then whatever the discussion, it is about God. Even if someone says “There is no God,” as Buddha did, Buddha cannot deceive. Whom can he deceive? Buddha kept saying “There is no God,” but the eyes kept saying “There is!” The glimmer in his eyes said, “There is!”

H. G. Wells wrote something significant: that there has never been a more godless and more godlike person on earth than Buddha. Godless and godlike! Whom did Buddha think to deceive? Fools may be fooled; but how will one who knows be deceived? Buddha’s eyes affirm what his words deny. Perhaps he denies precisely because words are useless; if it is not visible in his eyes, what use is saying it? And if it is visible in his eyes, his mouth may say anything—you will still see.

Perhaps it was his touchstone—a test for those who came to him. Those who passed through that test, through that doorway, attained all. Naturally, Buddha kept saying “There is no God,” and those who knew Buddha said, “You are God!” Whom can you fool?

The void is not defined,
it abides only in the eye.
Aeons, years, and seasons—
how can they be bound in a fleeting moment?
All remain unnamed; none
is ever truly called.
Expression remains incomplete—
life’s infant lisps and stammers!

Our finest commentators still stammer. Our finest philosophers and sages still stammer. Their compassion is that they try to say what cannot be said. Your mistake would be to take what they say as the Truth itself. They speak out of compassion; your ignorance would be to cling to their words.

Those who sang the Vedic hymns—how great their compassion! Had they not sung, humanity would have been deprived; had they not sung, we would be poor; had they not sung, human consciousness would not be as enriched as it is today. But your mistake would be to cling to those hymns and think truth is in them—or that the hymns are truth.

Therefore Narada said: the devotee utterly renounces the Vedas. Veda means not merely the four Vedas. Veda means all the scriptures in which men of great compassion have made unsuccessful attempts to define their experience. Unsuccessful also because as you approach the Divine—how near you get—what you receive is infinite times more than you asked for; your begging bowl is too small.

I asked for one form,
you gave me this whole world!
On the small pupil of my eye,
whom should I reflect, whom leave out?
A crowd stands before me—
whom do I forsake, whom do I call?
I asked for one bud,
you gave me your garland!
I asked for one raga,
you handed me your sitar!
I asked for one color,
you gifted me the rainbow!

The bowl becomes too small. The seeker’s heart becomes too small. When the ocean descends into a drop, the drop’s condition becomes the devotee’s.

Anirvachaniyam prema-svarupam.
The nature of love lies beyond explanation and speech.
“The nature of love is ineffable.”

Ineffability is many-hued, many-sided, multi-dimensional. When the Divine proclaims itself, you hear—though the Divine does not speak. You are filled with music, yet his veena remains silent. The experience is mysterious.

Sometimes you will feel it in the shadow of a “great one”: the true master is silent, and suddenly you feel yourself filling up. He has given nothing—visibly; he has poured something— invisibly. He has placed nothing into your hands—clearly, in form and outline—and suddenly your hands are full.

The Divine does not give prasad; you receive it. If he gave, expression would be easy. Without giving, it is received. If it were heard in words, sharing it with another would be easy.

From the void it comes—a recognition, a sense, a wave! It surrounds you like intoxication! Not like words, not like scriptures—like wine it fills you. You are no longer yourself, everything changes. Yet no hands are seen giving, no voice is heard speaking. It is heard; it is revelation; it is proclamation. The source is not seen.

You are left astonished, speechless, steeped in mystery. In that moment even the heart stands still; the mind—what to say of it—thought falters. Thinking loses all power. For the first time you become like a newborn child—blank paper.

What a secret place is the corner of the heart—Allah, Allah!
I am hearing the melody that is still within the instrument.

How can one speak of ears so eager! The song that has not yet been sung, the flower not yet in bloom, the seed not yet broken open...

I am hearing the melody that is still within the instrument.
Not yet come out of the instrument, not yet taken form—formless, silent! I am seeing that which has not yet assumed shape. I am meeting that which is not yet born. How then will expression be possible?

Anirvachaniyam prema-svarupam.
“Like the taste to a mute.”

Mukasvadam iva.
Narada’s sutra has been sung by devotees in countless ways. Kabir says: Like the mute man’s sweetness of jaggery. “The mute man’s sugar”—it became a proverb, but it was born of this very sutra.

Mukasvadam iva.
“Like the taste to a mute.”

Understand the mute man’s taste.

The mute has no obstacle in tasting—do not ask him to describe the taste. In tasting he is as capable as anyone else, for the sense of taste is his as much as yours. The tongue is the organ both of taste and of speech—hence this sutra arose.

The tongue tastes; the tongue speaks. Then why the difficulty? The tongue itself has tasted—let it tell! Had some other organ tasted and we were asking the tongue, there might be difficulty. But when you yourself tasted—speak! Hence the sutra: granted, the tongue tastes; but the tongue has two distinct capacities. The mute cannot speak, yet he can taste. Do not equate the capacity to speak with the capacity to taste; they are different. You can both speak and taste; one tongue does both. But the two capacities do not meet. Otherwise the mute could not taste. If because he cannot speak his tongue were damaged, how could he taste? Yet he tastes most happily. Perhaps he tastes even better than you, for speech does not interfere; his tongue is wholly free.

“Like the taste to a mute.”

The devotee experiences, but cannot speak. Rationalists ask: If you yourself have experienced, why not simply say it?

A modern Western thinker, Arthur Koestler, repeats the old argument: If it can be experienced, why can it not be said? If you have known, then let it be known! What is the obstacle?

His meaning, and that of all rationalists, is that the saints have experienced nothing; it is all empty talk. Because nothing has happened, they cannot say. They claim something vast has happened, yet they cannot speak—so nothing has happened at all.

The rationalist says: If it has happened, why not say it? When you have a headache, you can say so. When a thorn pricks your foot, you can say you feel its pain. When you are happy, you can say, “I am joyful, delighted.” You say of all that you know—why do you fall mute about God? Are you deceiving us? When every other knowledge is expressible, why is this unexpressed? Perhaps this is not knowledge at all; either you are deceiving others or yourself.

This is the rationalist’s question.

Narada’s answer: Mukasvadam iva—“Like the taste to a mute.” Will you say that because a mute cannot speak, he does not know the sweetness of sugar when he eats it? Even Koestler would be stuck. He cannot say a mute who eats sweets does not know sweetness. He must admit the mute knows sweetness. You can see it on the mute’s face while he eats. Then feed him a chili! He will curse you without words; you’ll read it in his eyes. He will mutter without voice. But he will convey in every way: friendship over!

He cannot speak—indeed—but he understands. You cannot trick him with a chili. Offer sweets and sweetness happens; give chilies and bitterness, heat, pain! But the mute cannot speak. He will gesture. When thirsty, he will cup his hands for water. Thirst is experienced, but cannot be spoken. Hands are extended, a cup formed. And when you give water, you will see satisfaction written on his face—gratitude too.

If this can happen in the mute man’s life, then grant the saint at least the same courtesy you grant the mute—this is Narada’s plea. You forgive the mute—do forgive the devotee at least this much. Do not doubt that nothing has happened to them just because they cannot say it.

If it were only one or two devotees, you might suspect deception. But across endless ages, countless devotees—were they all deceiving? And for what? To receive your abuses? To be crucified, poisoned, stoned—for that? What did they gain from you? Deception is practiced where there is something to gain. What did Jesus gain? A cross. Would he deceive you to get crucified? What did Socrates get? Hemlock. Did he deceive you for poison? What did Mansoor receive? The gallows. To gain a noose would they deceive? They could have committed suicide if they wished—why trouble themselves to deceive you and invite your cruelty? What have you ever given saints for which they would deceive you? Deception belongs to the marketplace where something is to be gained.

The Divine—the supreme, secret experience! It brings the world’s derision: “You have gone mad, you have lost your wits, your sense, your decency.” What else do they receive? Abuse, neglect, laughter and mockery—what else? Why deceive? And if one or two deceived... but time without exception, innumerable people through innumerable ages? Think again. Better, show Koestler from his own experience.

When you fall in love, can you say exactly why? Can you explain what love is? Leave God aside—love happens to all. Every mother loves her child; who among them has been able to define love? Ask about love and she falls mute. So many lovers—Majnun, Farhad, Heer and Ranjha—ask them what love is, and they stop, bewildered, no answer comes. Perhaps lovers too are mad!

Seek in your own life experiences that happen and yet cannot be said. The full moon rises; with a bursting heart you exclaim, “Beautiful!” The neighbor says, “Where? What is beauty? Show me.” Suddenly you are defeated. Limits appear. You cannot persuade with logic. How will you prove the moon is beautiful? It is—if it is; and if it is not for someone, it is not. Suddenly you are helpless. Expression proves futile. You can try every means to persuade, but you know you cannot.

Beauty is a recognition—like the mute man’s sweet. If there is experience, fine; the other agrees, fine—no fuss. If he too tastes it, wonderful. If he nods, like the mute, “Yes!” But if he stands to argue “What beauty?” you cannot prove even the loveliest woman is beautiful. What will you prove? That the length of the nose correlates with beauty? That eyes are like fish—so what is proved? Even if they are, what has that to do with beauty? Who first said fish are beautiful? That hair are like dark monsoon clouds—but who told you dark clouds are beautiful? Those with bitter memories of storms will say: like a black serpent! What clouds? You are lost in poetry. Come down to earth! Talk experience! These are only verses.

You cannot prove it. There is no way.

Majnun was summoned by his king: “Stop this madness. This Laila for whom you are crazy—we heard of your frenzy and decided to see her. We saw her: a dark, ordinary girl. We pity you—running through the streets crying ‘Laila, Laila!’”

The king brought ten or twelve beautiful women from the palace and stood them before him. “Choose any one.”

Majnun looked at them and said, “But where is Laila? None of these is Laila.”

The king said, “I have seen Laila. You are mad!”

Majnun laughed, “Without Majnun’s eyes how can you see Laila? To see Laila, you need Majnun’s eyes.”

To see God, you need a devotee’s eyes. There is no way to prove it. Not only devotees fail—Majnun fails too. He says: If you see through my eyes... Beauty is such a thing that it needs a special eye—a certain vision!

You will certainly find such experiences in your own life. Many times you have recognized something and the other would not agree—and you were left helpless, withdrew the point; there was no meaning in argument. What was the obstacle? The mute man’s sweet! Your experience was there; the other’s was not. There was no common ground.

Koestler, too, must have had such experiences—so impoverished a person is hard to find who has never had even one experience where words prove useless. Koestler is an intelligent man—he must have had many experiences—of love, of beauty, of truth, of good, of the auspicious—where language falls apart. If you grant others that much leeway, grant it to Narada as well.

“It is like the taste to a mute.”

Councils are in session among priests and pundits, O Jigar;
the drunkards hear all of it sitting in the tavern.

What the pundits are discussing does not require the drunkards to come to temples to listen.

The drunkards hear it sitting in the tavern.
What counsel is being made about the Divine—the debates—the devotees need not visit temples and mosques to listen; immersed in their own ecstasy, they hear it right there. They hear the Divine himself; who cares for the pundits’ conferences?

Devotee means drunkard. Devotee means the one unconcerned with words, sitting in the tavern. Devotee means the one who has drained the cup of experience, who has drunk the wine of being.

What a longing has taken hold—
Mira lost in her rapture,
singing the Lord’s songs in every lane.
She who grew up in palaces
became a mendicant—off she went a wandering nun!
Today the queen is known as mad...

Mad in others’ eyes. She has drunk something! Some intoxication has descended. A rapture so great that social decorum no longer matters. An experience so immense that the whole world appears dreamlike.

Prakasate kvapi patre.
“In some rare vessel, such love does shine forth.”

It is ineffable. It cannot be said. Like the mute man’s taste. Yet, says Narada, in some rare vessel—in the lover-devotee—such love does appear. Not expressed—but manifested. In the very pores of that one, gooseflesh of delight. In their rising and sitting, there is prayer. In the flutter of their eyelids, in their way of being, in their speaking or not speaking, in their silence—you catch a scent of the Divine.

Prakasate kvapi patre.
Sometimes there is a great vessel, fortunate, in whom the Divine becomes radiant. Understand the distinction—expressed, no; manifested, yes. It shows itself. A Mira, a Chaitanya overflow; the Divine spills over their vessel.

We have seen it as dance. We have heard it as song. Yet even for that you need an open door in the heart; otherwise Mira will seem mad. Where the Divine is born, if your seeing is not true, it will look like insanity.

Ordinarily, what we call madness means only this: something is happening contrary to your rules of life; something beyond your norms; someone has stepped outside the framework you have built. You call someone mad when their presence makes your arrangements tremble—either they are right or you are. Naturally, the crowd is with you; so you gather support to declare yourself right. They are alone. Mira is alone. Chaitanya is alone. If you call them mad, they have no way to prove they are not. But beware: by calling them mad, you miss. Nothing happens to them—you miss. You lose an opportunity.

The Divine has shone forth! Remove the prejudice from your eyes! Lay aside your petty ideologies! Remove the haze that has given you nothing—why cling to it? Your nets of logic, words, thoughts—what have you caught with them? Not even a single fish. Your hands are empty. Your throat is parched. Let them go!

See with an eye free of bias, and in a Mira or a Chaitanya you will see the Divine shine.

Expression is not possible, but still there is evocation.

“In some rare vessel, in the lover-devotee, love does appear.”

“This love is without qualities, without desire, growing every moment, without separation, subtler than the subtlest, and of the nature of experience.”

Prepare for love; slowly, constantly make yourself ready, and one day union with the Divine will happen, because love is the staircase. But the way you live is contrary to love. You accumulate wealth, not love. And if the choice arises—wealth or love—you choose wealth; you sell love to buy wealth. You say, “We will see about love later; let’s take the money now.”

Whenever a choice comes, you sacrifice love. Then you ask, “Where is God?” You keep chopping up the staircase to the sky and selling it in the market; one day the stairs are gone, no link remains between you and the heavens—then you shout, “Where is God?” Fear arises. In that fear you say, “There is no God,” to console yourself: If there is no God, there is no need for a staircase, nowhere to go; I am fine as I am. To find such consolation, you deny God.

Friedrich Nietzsche declared God is dead. Someone asked, “Why this declaration?” Nietzsche said, “If he lives, how can one sit in peace?”

If God is, how will you rest? Until he is attained, where is peace? So there is one way: say he is not. The atheist’s way to avoid God. The so-called theist too has a way to avoid God—he says, “You are; what is there to seek? We go to the temple, we pray in the mosque—what more do you want? Be satisfied. We come to church every Sunday. Isn’t that enough? Leave us alone now!”

Thus the theist seeks cheap substitutes—toys in the name of religion, as if God were a child: not the real car, a toy car; “Look, a car, a train, an airplane.” As if God were a child, you want to distract him with your temples and mosques. “See, we built a temple for you; what more do you want? We made your idol in gold; don’t demand more. Let us live as we please. Don’t call us. Don’t challenge us. We are tired.”

In my view, there is not much difference between theist and atheist. Both are avoiding the Divine—two different tactics. The religious one is he who says: “We will not rest until we find you. If we must pour our whole life into building your staircase, we will. We will lose everything for love—but not love.”

“This love is without qualities, without desire, and grows every moment.”

This is the definition, the mark of love. Love is without qualities. It is neither rajasic, nor sattvic, nor tamasic. Love is beyond the gunas. Love is beyond the world. As the lotus stands above the lake—rising from its very mud, yet beyond the waters—so love stands beyond the three qualities.

“...without desire.”

Love has no other desire. Love does not say, “Give me something.” Love says, “Love itself is enough.” Beyond love there is no demand. If love asks for anything else, it is not love—it is craving, lust, greed, attachment. Love is satisfied by love. Love has no destination beyond itself.

“...growing every moment.”

If love begins to shrink, it was lust. Lust shrinks. The mark of lust: until you find your object, it seems to grow. You desire a woman; if she is not attained, lust grows, boils, fever reaches the boil, you turn to vapor, the whole life seems at stake. Attain her—and from that day it begins to diminish.

Lust grows until it finds; once it finds, it fades. Love, until it finds, you do not even know what growth is; when it finds, it grows. As soon as the beloved is met, love goes on growing. Love is always the moon of the second night; it never reaches full moon. It goes on increasing; there comes no moment of decline. Which is to say, love is ever-augmenting, ever-evolving, ever-moving—a flow, never stagnant.

“...growing every moment, without separation.”

There is never divorce, never break. When union happens—it is forever. When it happens—it is eternal. Until union, there is separation. Once union, there is no more separation.

“...subtler than the subtlest.”

Nothing is subtler than love.

Scientists say: the atom is the subtle ultimate. In this century something unique occurred—history will one day assess it rightly. A German thinker, Wilhelm Reich—scientist, original mind. When the search for atomic energy was on, he was exploring the energy of love. He named it: orgone—love-energy. He said: more vital than atomic energy is the search for love’s energy; for the atom is a fragment of matter, love is the ultimate portion of our soul. Naturally, he risked much. He was ousted from place to place, expelled from Germany, driven out of every land he went to. For seekers of love are not welcomed anywhere. Society lives on hatred, on violence. People thought him mad. Finally they declared him insane and confined him in an American asylum. He died there. Yet Albert Einstein met him, and when Reich showed Einstein a small invention, Einstein was astonished. It was a device, he said, by which love-energy could be accumulated. He warned: the world stands on the brink of destruction by atomic energy; unless we create an equivalent reservoir of love-energy, the earth will be destroyed.

He built such devices—simple boxes of certain metals. A person would sit inside, sealed from all sides in darkness. After fifteen or twenty minutes of stillness, suddenly a flow of energy would begin; the hairs would stand on end, a flush would spread; the sitter would feel waves moving through the body—what yogis call kundalini, what tantrics call the supreme orgasm—arriving.

Those boxes used metals that would allow energy to come in but not escape—energy-augmenting laminates drawing energy inward and raining it upon the sitter.

In truth, sitting thirty or forty minutes in darkness is itself a meditation. In meditation there is no need for a box; the life-energy of existence begins to shower upon you. This is the ancient discovery of devotees. There is no need of contraptions. Sit quietly anywhere. Keep the door open for love, be receptive—and suddenly, as your mind calms, waves of the beyond arise, you are thrilled, as if riding some wave you set out on a far journey. This is old, the experiment of meditation.

But Reich was declared mad. His boxes were branded fraud. Easy to brand—what proof is there of what happens within? What thermometer measures love’s energy? Those who sat inside testified, but what solid evidence proves they did not create a self-hypnosis by sitting thirty minutes in silence? What weight does a person’s word have? Scientific mind demands instrument-proof.

Many sat and experienced, many patients were healed—Reich said love-energy dissolves disease, brings health. None could hear him. He was making a unique experiment in devotion and love.

Devotees have always done this experiment. They say: love surrounds you on all sides. That is the Divine. Sit quietly. Sit absorbed. Sit free of worry. Sit with doors open, as a receiver. Sit with readiness to accept—and it will begin to shower. The ancient name for this receptivity is prayer. Prayer does not mean you make a great noise shouting at God. It means: the heart is open, the bowl is held out, you sit waiting—in patience and stillness—He will come. With this trust and devotion, he descends. He is already descending; it is only a matter of joining connection.

“...without separation, subtler than the subtlest, of the nature of experience.”

But the mold in which you cast life is contrary to love. And your so-called religious teachers have been schooling you away from love.

Listen:

Those eyes whose loving invitation
you had once refused—
in those moist, tender eyes
one eye was mine.

Someday the Divine will say to you—

Those eyes whose loving invitation
you had once refused—
in those moist, tender eyes
one eye was mine.
Lost in the illusion of samadhi
you failed to recognize me;
if this detachment is a warp,
its woof is intimacy.
Those flowers whose humble offering
did not please you—
among those heady, fragrant blooms
one flower was mine.
You called divine fragrance mere lust
and pushed it away,
you nailed the natural to a cross,
you perverted the path of the seasons.
Those dreams whose rainbow-life
you thought a deceiving shadow—
among those richly colored dreams
one dream was mine.
Pursuing the unbroken, you forgot
the great dignity of the fragile;
rote knowledge became
the rigid boundary of the living.
Those auspicious gems you flung away
calling them illusion—
among those radiant, conscious jewels
one gem was mine.

In this world, the Divine is all-pervasive. Even from a flower he has called—do not turn your back, or you will one day repent. Wherever attraction comes, his attraction is hidden there. You misinterpreted. Your pundits taught you otherwise and misled you. You called it illusion, shadow, deception, and turned away. But it is he. If there is illusion, it is his; if there is shadow, it is his; if there is enchantment, it is given by him—worthy of acceptance.

Devotee means: one who accepts him in his totality; who says, “We will not choose.” Who are we? How will we know who is he and who is not? Where shall we draw the line?

The line between inert and conscious is man-made. There is no matter without hidden consciousness, and no consciousness that has not built its home in matter. In the rock he sleeps; in consciousness he awakens.

If this is your life-view, you become ready for love—you become a vessel.

“Having attained this love, the lover sees only the lover, hears only love, speaks only love, thinks only love—love alone, all love, love-full.”

Then trees are not seen—he is seen in their greenery! Birds do not sing—he sings, borrowing the birds’ throats. He has many songs—he needs many throats! He has many colors—he needs rainbows. He has many forms, many shapes—and still he never runs out.

The Upanishads say: “From the whole, take away the whole, and the whole still remains.” So vast is existence: it pours forth, creation happens, dissolution happens—yet his capacity does not diminish.

“Having attained this love, the lover sees only the lover, hears only love, speaks only love, thinks only love.”

We forgot the whole world in the frenzy of love,
but your one memory would not be forgotten.

The lover goes mad, loses himself; everything is forgotten—but “that one remembrance of you would not be forgotten.” Even oneself is forgotten. Only one thing remains unforgettable—the beloved’s memory.

“Devotion, in terms of qualities, is of three kinds; among them, each preceding kind is more beneficial than the one following.”

In truth, devotion is one. Devotion means love—upward-turning love. Devotion is not the love between two persons, but love between the individual and the Whole. Devotion is falling in love with the All. Devotion is the effort to embrace the All—and the invitation to the All to embrace me.

Fundamentally devotion is one, but by differences in individuals it appears as three kinds; we shall discuss them in the sutras ahead.

Enough for today.