Bhakti Sutra #20

If the Beloved’s presence is dear, then His absence, too, will be dear. One who has truly loved Him will find that in His absence the yearning grows, it does not diminish. That is the touchstone of love. But you have not known love; you have known desire. Desire has this peculiarity: if you obtain what you asked for, the asking breaks and ends. Wealth attained becomes meaningless. The lover attained becomes trivial. Even when desire attains, it remains empty; prayer, even when it does not attain, is full.

Virahasakti means: the devotee not only loves God, he comes to love even His absence. His absence is His absence. His not being seen is His not being seen. He is perfection; even the void is His. All presence is His, and absence too is His. Then whatever He gives, in that the devotee is content.

The devotee’s feeling is: Whatever You make me do—make me weep, keep me afar; make me laugh, keep me near; sate me or light the fire of unsatedness; come as rain or rise as thirst—my being is at Your will! So the devotee does not say, “Grant my will and manifest.” He says, “Your unmanifestness is dear too; we shall love even that. We will dance and hum even in Your absence!”

And unless you can love His absence, He cannot become present. That is the devotee’s test. Hence virahasakti…

One can become attached even to separation; one can fall in love even with tears. If you have seen a devotee weeping, he is not weeping in misery. His tears are tears of joy. They are like flowers, like moon and stars. Look again into his tears. There is no complaint in his eyes—there is gratitude: “You made me weep—what a boon! Many eyes live and never weep. Many eyes never receive the grace of tears. You kept me far, You made me ache; from this very ache devotion was born. From this arose the great longing to come to You. Then even in keeping me far there must be Your wisdom. Thy will be done!”

There are two ways of looking at life. The religious person’s way: he finds flowers even among thorns. And the irreligious person’s way: he finds thorns even among flowers. Everything depends on how one looks.

For a heart at rest, even the slightest hope is enough;
the first ray of dawn is the thinnest.

If there is repose in the heart, peace in the heart, patience—then a small hope is much. By nature the first ray of morning is very fine. Yet that slender ray is a herald of the sun. Hardly visible, only sensed—but it brings news of the sun.

For the devotee, even God’s absence is God’s news.

For a heart at rest, even the slightest hope is enough;
the first ray of dawn is the thinnest.
When sorrow grows beyond its limit, joy stands near;
stars shine brightest when the night is darkest.

And when the night grows dense and dark, the stars shine forth in all their brilliance. When the feeling-tone of God’s absence fully seizes you, then His presence is felt with a depth never known before. There is union even in separation. In the dark night His stars do shine. When all seems lost, still He is felt as found.

But our outlook on life—our way of seeing—is exceedingly worldly. And the lesson we have learned there is perilous. The religious journey is just the reverse.

In the world, until something is obtained you burn for it—to have it somehow, to end the lack! If you have no wealth, you burn for wealth, for poverty must be erased. You are not content with poverty; you resent it. Poverty is a disease to be cured; hence you want wealth. You fight poverty to produce wealth. But you have seen: when wealth comes to your hand, you find it is ash, no diamonds—dust. When there was no wealth you fought poverty; when wealth comes, wealth turns worthless.

This is your ordinary experience. The religious person’s experience is the exact opposite. He does not fight God’s absence; he says, This absence too is His—whom to fight, and why? This too is His gift, His grace.

In absence there is no opposition—there is a seeking of Him; He must be hiding somewhere; the ray must be very thin; but if there is a ray, He is. There cannot be a place where He is not. My eyes must be weak. My seeing must lack strength. There must be veils upon my eyes. My understanding must be dim. The lamp of awareness within must be unsteady; the inner state tremulous, wisdom not yet settled. But God, even in His absence, must be present, for there is no place empty of Him. He is nearer than the nearest and farther than the farthest; He is attained, yet appears lost.

So the devotee does not fight absence; he turns even His absence into a dance. Virahasakti—attachment to separation! He becomes attached even to longing. He dances even in his tears. His tears hum a tune. Do not see sorrow in his tears, else you will miss them. His tears proclaim: Hide Yourself as You will, You cannot really hide; pile on veils as You wish, You cannot deceive. If we can find You even in Your absence, what need to speak of Your presence!

God’s absence is not the opposite of God, as wealth is the opposite of poverty. That is why when the devotee realizes God, the condition that follows is not like what follows when wealth is attained. Wealth becomes futile the moment it is obtained. Wealth is glorious only while it is not in hand; the moment it is, it becomes rubbish.

Even in not-finding God there is blessedness; of finding Him, no account can be kept. The devotee says, “However You keep me, I am content in that.” He says, “You will not be able to steal away my humming.”

All the luminous milestones will be crossed in just this way:
yes, keep smiling like this; yes, keep humming like this!

All the halts will be passed, all the goals attained.

All the luminous milestones will be crossed in just this way:
yes, keep smiling like this; yes, keep humming like this!

The devotee’s joy is continuous. It is unbroken. Whether darkness or light; morning or evening; spring or fall—it makes no difference to the devotee, because in every face he recognizes Him—whether life arrives or death. A devotee is one whom God can no longer deceive.

This is the difference between a seeker and a devotee. The seeker lives by resolve; the devotee, by surrender. The seeker says, “I will attain.” In the seeker’s language the world is hidden. As he went about attaining wealth, so he will go about attaining religion. As he sought fame, position, prestige, so he will seek God. But the formula of his seeking is old: “I will attain! Without my doing, what will happen? Only if I do, will anything happen.”

The devotee changes the whole arithmetic. He says, Surrender! “By my doing nothing happened. I have seen—doing and doing, nothing came to my hand; as though I kept pressing oil from sand—time wasted, energy spent, nowhere reached. Now I leave it to You. Now I will dance! Now I have dropped even the worry of attaining! If I do not attain You, still nothing is lacking—You have already attained me!”

The seeker’s verse:
Rely on yourself; work with the passion of the heart.
The cup-bearer won’t come like this—rise, step forth, seize the goblet!

The seeker says: Trust yourself, work with courage, awaken your resolve; nothing will happen sitting idle.
The cup-bearer won’t come like this—rise and grasp the goblet!
There must be snatching and struggle. The wine will not come to you by itself. Get up! Resolve! Seize it! Fight!

This language makes the devotee feel he is still in the marketplace: Must God too be snatched from? Is the cup-bearer of such a kind that one must snatch from him? The devotee says, then all the relish is lost. If God has to be seized by force, attained or not is the same. What is gained by grabbing loses its beauty. Let it be prasad—grace! Let there not even be asking. Asking still carries, on some level, an undercurrent of grabbing. Let there be no asking, not even a hint. Let Him give, from Himself; let Him even refuse!

The devotee’s verse:
One day the beloved’s round will come before you as well—
you have not yet understood the cup-bearer’s way; be patient.

You have not yet understood His love, His law—have a little patience!

One day that wine-cup will come and stand before you;
you have not yet understood the cup-bearer’s trust—be patient.

Patience alone is the eligibility of devotion—endless patience! If you fill yourself even for a moment with His endless patience, in that very moment realization happens. God is not the obstacle to realization; your impatience is. Hence one becomes attached even to longing. The devotee sings songs of separation. He decorates even the vicinity of longing. He keeps his weeping with care. He turns his sobs and sighs into prayer. With the bricks of his sobbing and his tears he builds his temple. He is content with even that. He does not say, “See, how much I weep.” He says, “Make me weep more. See, how light I have become by weeping! How transformed! Do not hurry. There is no hurry. Come to me only when I am completely transformed!”

He leaves the matter of God’s coming to God; he opens his heart, and he waits.

Devotion is waiting, not effort. Devotion is surrender, not resolve. And nothing is a greater alchemy than devotion; for devotion’s very foundation is the self-destruction of the worldly mind. The worldly mind says, “By doing, something will happen.” Devotion says, “By doing, nothing has happened.” The worldly mind says—ego!—and gives it new names: the power of resolve, courage, individuality, selfhood. A thousand names, but within each you will find the ego hidden—the “I” present in greater or lesser degree. And that is the obstacle.

The devotee says, “Not I, You. When I am not, what separation and what union?” Union is accomplished. Wherever the “I” dissolves, there union is. And to one who has seen God in separation, what can be said of his union! Words fall away.

All of Meera’s songs are songs of longing—so sweet, so dignified. Chaitanya’s dance is the dance of longing. After union, no one has been able to dance; even dancing becomes difficult. In separation, dance a little. In separation, speak a little; in union, speech falls silent. Union renders one wordless; in union, all becomes empty. When the drop has fallen into the ocean—finished! Where will it dance now, where will it leap? Where will the veena play? Where the dance, where the song? When Meera was lost in the Ocean, she was lost. Her songs arose all from longing; naturally, one becomes attached even to longing. Even His not-coming was so dear.

One who has taken a few steps toward the Beloved finds joy even in His not being found.

Why do you want to make it permanent at all? The very language of “permanent” is worldly. If it remains for a moment, dance in awe for that much time, dance in gratitude for that much time. Why bring this new nuisance into that very moment—that it must be made permanent? We are not even worthy of what has already been given! Fortunate indeed that, though unworthy, for a moment there was a glimpse of it. Dance! Hum! Rejoice! The next moment will be born from this very moment—where else will it come from? Tomorrow will be born out of today. If today was full of song, then tomorrow will be born from these very songs. If today there was a spring in your step and the anklets were tied, their echo will fall upon tomorrow as well. Naturally, tomorrow the sound of your anklets will grow steadier, the flute will play deeper, the ecstasy will descend even more profoundly!

Where will tomorrow come from? So drop worrying about tomorrow. It is in the anxiety to make it permanent that you lose it. To worry about permanence means even when the chance was here you wasted it—thinking, “Today it is happening, but what about tomorrow? A little tune has come today, but what about tomorrow!” People come to me every day. All have the same trouble, because this is the arithmetic of the world: worry about what you don’t have; and when you do have it, worry that you might lose it! The poor are anxious to get wealth; the rich are anxious they might lose it—both are anxious. Anxiety is our habit. Whatever we do, we won’t escape anxiety; we circle back and manufacture it all over again.

Every day someone or other comes and says, “There is great joy in meditation—but will it last?”
Why are you spoiling the joy? When tomorrow comes, we’ll see tomorrow. And if today you can be blissful, then tomorrow you will still be you, won’t you? And if today you can be blissful, tomorrow’s bricks will be laid upon today; tomorrow’s house will stand upon today. Kindly forget tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the mind’s mischief. It will spoil your today. If this moment is peaceful, dive—take the plunge—become drenched in the nectar, forget time. From just this, the coming moment will arise—deeper, fresher, more intoxicating! Once you understand this, concern for the future drops.

The craving to make it permanent is anxiety about the future. A moment is enough. Who has ever been given more than one moment at a time? You are always given only one moment. If you learn the art of being blissful in one moment, your whole life will be blissful. One who knows how to color a single drop will color the entire ocean. Only a drop at a time falls into our hands; keep coloring each one. Even two drops do not come together so that you could be troubled, “I only know how to color one drop; if two arrive at once, what will I do?”

One moment comes at a time; when it slips from your hand, then the next descends. Time’s stream is very narrow; even two moments do not arrive together.

If you have learned to be silent in one moment—that is abiding silence! That is the eternal! Now no one can snatch it from you—except you. If, in this moment, you get filled with anxiety about the next, you spoil it here—and from this spoiled moment the next will be born, worse still.

So, first: don’t ask how to make it permanent. Ask only how to dive into this very moment! In the plunge itself lies the abiding.

And second: “In your presence there is some experience of depth…”
What happens in my presence does not happen because of me; it happens because of you. What cannot happen within you will not happen in anyone’s presence. Yes, in my presence you may find it easier—to loosen yourself a little, to slacken your own bondage. In my presence you perhaps set aside your old habits a bit—that’s all. But it is happening within you.

Therefore, don’t create a new nuisance out of what happens here by thinking it won’t happen at home. The mind invents tricks. It says, “It happened there because of him.” Then I will feel guilty; if you go to hell, I will be held responsible.

In the little glimpse you get here, I have no hand; only this much happens—that you listen to me a little. Do the same at home and it will happen there too. You give me a small doorway; you step a little aside, remove yourself a bit from the middle—something happens. Do the same at home. It is your doing.

A small child—someone holds his hand and he walks; yet it is the child who walks. Another’s hand gives a little support, courage grows, experience comes. But that hand is not to be held for life. Otherwise, better to have crawled on your own—at least that was yours. Add another dependence, another hand to clutch, and there is more bondage, more helplessness.

No—do not become dependent on anyone.

My whole arrangement here is that you may become utterly free; included in that is freedom from me as well. If you get bound to me, you will be even more crippled; you are already limping, already paralyzed—this would be a further paralysis.

Take the small glimpse here, honor it as a glimpse; then deepen it in your aloneness, so that you can also see that the glimpse arose from within you. Someone’s hand gave support—thank you! But let it not become dependence. It is like a swimmer putting a child into the water: the child flails hands and feet—this flailing is the beginning of swimming. Alone he might not have entered; he would be afraid. But a swimmer stands nearby—courage comes. What is happening is happening within. After a few times, the child’s limbs become skillful; then there is no more need. Then courage comes on its own. Then he can even cross the far ocean.

I have heard: in a village, a farmer had yoked his bullock and was ploughing. He would crack the whip and sometimes say, “Heera! Put your back into it,” sometimes, “Moti! Harder,” sometimes, “Chanda! Harder,” sometimes, “Suraj! Harder.” A man standing by said, “How many names does this bullock have?” The farmer said, “Its name is only one—Heera.” “Then why do you call so many names?” He said, “To boost its courage. Its eyes are blindfolded, so it imagines that many bullocks are yoked. It goes on bravely.”

That is exactly my work—“Heera! Harder; Moti! Harder”—so that you feel you are not alone. Once courage arises, I’ll remove the blindfold and say, “It was you walking all along.”

Third: don’t be in a hurry. Patience is the greatest discipline on the path of religion. Because what we have set out to find is so vast that if you demand it in haste, your very demand will prevent it. Seasonal flowers can be sown; in two, four, six weeks, blossoms come. But if you are to plant chinar or deodar, it takes years. To grow trees that touch the sky, their roots must reach the depths of the underworld.

The divine is the final destination; beyond that, nothing remains. You set out to attain such an immense goal—yet you are so miserly with patience, so impatient!

Have you seen the devotees—building temples in every home, ringing a bell quickly, offering a flower. Watch their hands and feet; they are in such a hurry that by their very gestures God will not come to them! Even in calling, there must be some etiquette. Call him, but think a little about whom you are calling! Learn a little courtesy! You are sending so great an invitation; compose it with care!

But there is great impatience! If you look into it, your entire ritual will seem childish. Someone reads the Gita daily, someone performs worship, someone offers a flower, someone bows his head in a temple—but what are you doing? And from this you begin to hope: we haven’t received yet; permanent bliss hasn’t yet come; there has been no vision of God yet! No—this is not the way of a devotee.

We too will cultivate the habit of acceptance—
Your aloofness may be your habit; so be it.

If delay is your way, no harm; we will cultivate the habit of patience—what else! If you tarry, fine. However long you can delay, we will learn to wait longer still.

We too will cultivate the habit of acceptance—
Your aloofness may be your habit; so be it.

Do not fall into haste. Haste breeds tension. It is haste that makes the mind restless. Walk with patience. Infinite time is available. There is no hurry anywhere. Time’s stream is endless—no near shore, no far shore; no beginning, no end. In this eternal, you are worrying needlessly. Why all this running about? Your running will not make anything come sooner. There is no need to hurry.

Look at the trees—how languid they are. Look at the moon and stars—how silently they move. Do you see any hurry in existence to reach somewhere? Existence is so calm, as if it has already arrived; there seems to be no haste to arrive.

So is the devotee; he has learned the language of existence. He is in no hurry. He does not pray so that by praying he will get God—prayer is his joy. He does not worship thinking, “All right, if worship secures him, let me do it.” Worship is not a means; it is the end. He is filled with awe, filled with joy; how to express his joy, in what language tell the divine that your infinite blessings rain upon me! Babbling—he says it in the language of worship, in the language of bhajan and kirtan: your boundless compassion pours upon me! He wants nothing from prayer.

And the wonder is: the one who wanted nothing from prayer received everything. And the one who mixed the poison of getting into prayer—his prayer died, and getting anything was out of the question.

Where demand enters prayer, poison enters. Where desire steps into prayer, prayer disappears.

So pray for the joy of prayer itself. Then, in this very moment, you will be deeply happy. The next moment will arise from this one—will keep arising—as it always has.

The question is not a devotee’s. A devotee does not even want liberation. The devotee says, “Don’t do such a thing that liberation happens! These bonds are so dear!”
The devotee says, “I am ready to renounce liberation; O God, I am not ready to renounce You. You keep Your liberation—give it to someone else; there are plenty of beggars! For us, You alone are enough. Bind us in thousands upon thousands of bonds! Arrange who knows how many processions of love! Take us on the journey of love!”
“Liberation” is not the devotee’s language at all. I understand your difficulty: many languages have become tangled together.
You ask: “Is God an obstacle to liberation?”
But the devotee does not ask for liberation—and the devotee becomes liberated; he does not ask. The devotee’s liberation is certain, but it happens without his asking.
Now understand this a little too.
All the paths other than devotion ask for liberation. They use God as a means, an instrument. In Yoga, Patanjali even counts God as a method: “Ishvara-pranidhana—surrender to God—is one method among other methods; in this way a person attains the supreme release.” Above God is release! And God is one method among methods! Not even an indispensable method, because Buddha, without accepting God, shows the path to liberation; Mahavira, without accepting God, shows the path to liberation.
So first: among other methods, it is one method. Second: even that method is not mandatory; it can be dropped.
All the paths other than devotion—of knowledge, of yoga, of hatha, of kriya—on all of them liberation is the ultimate. If anyone has granted a place to God, it is as a means. For the devotee, God is the ultimate.
What is liberation for the devotee? For seekers other than the devotee, liberation is the coming of such a moment when they are free even of God; when no Other remains, one’s own being becomes absolute, final; no other remains. That is why Mahavira called that supreme state “kaivalya”—only your consciousness remains! Or it is called the soul, the Supreme Self. Mahavira’s word “Paramatma” is not a synonym for “God”—Paramatma means the supreme state of the self, the last height; you have reached the height beyond which there is no higher.
What is liberation for the devotee?
The devotee says: let such a moment come that only You remain; I do not remain.
Those other than the devotee say: let such a moment come that only I remain; You do not remain.
The devotee says: I! I am the mischief-maker; let me be erased—let only You be!
The devotee says: let the binder—Your bondage—remain; let the one who gets bound, this “I,” not remain! Let Your bond tie me in thousands upon thousands of colors and forms, but let me be absorbed in You.
The devotee wants to dissolve himself into God. Those other than the devotee want to dissolve God into themselves. The devotee’s liberation also bears fruit, but it is very unique! In it the devotee is lost, God remains. Therefore, by losing God the devotee cannot even ask for liberation—that is impossible.

He does not wish to forget. If you start telling him ways to forget, he will run off, “What kind of path are you suggesting! Keep your doctrines to yourself! With great difficulty I have managed to catch hold of his support, and you advise me to forget!” The devotee will ask you, “Tell me something by which only He remains—and I am forgotten!”

In the final moments the devotee asks God Himself; he needs ask no one else. As attachment ripens, as the inner string begins to dance with His strings, as the music becomes rhythmic—he begins to ask Him alone. He says, “Now You tell me!”

To others the devotee will appear mad, because his language is the language of love.

“Let me ask one thing—how will You win me over?
As when someone is sulking and you must coax them.”

He asks God Himself, “Listen—
Let me ask one thing—how will You win me over?
As when someone is sulking and you must coax them.”

He begins to speak straight! Bhakti is dialogue! He asks no one else; he asks God alone. Once his strings are tied to His, there is no longer any need to ask another.

“Your sorrow—my secret; my silence—my word.
This is my soul, my beauty, my garment.”

He says: “The matter of meeting You is far— even the pain of not meeting You is so dear to me. This is my secret: the anguish of not attaining You—my secret, my silence. Who knows what will happen if You are attained; the awareness of Your absence has made me silent, made me still. My word! Even from not meeting You, the resonance of the unstruck sound has arisen within me—who knows what meeting will bring! This is my soul! And now the pain of Your non-presence is my very soul. My beauty! This is my loveliness! My garment! These are my clothes! This is my soul, my body, my speech, my silence—the sorrow of not meeting You...!”

Upon meeting the Divine, the devotee asks Him alone, “Now You tell me how to lose myself completely.” Slowly, slowly he goes on losing; step by step he goes on effacing.

This question arises in our minds because we have thought with the intellect. We have read the scriptures with the intellect. The scriptures say, as long as two remain, duality remains—then the world remains; nonduality is needed. Granted—nonduality is certainly needed. But nonduality can be of two kinds: either God is erased or the devotee is erased.

Ask yourself and your mind will say, “Let God be erased! Why should I be erased?” You want to erase God for your own sake—hence the question of liberation arises. But this is a state of great ego. If you understand rightly, then under the name of yoga, austerity, penance—this is the last atheism. You found a fine word—“advaita”—but you hid atheism beneath it. You spoke highly religious words, but in the end you saved yourself.

That which does not dissolve you is not religion. Religion is self-immersion—melting oneself, letting oneself flow. Let your stiffness melt; let the chest frozen like ice melt; flow in all directions; become one with Existence!

What are these talks of liberation? One must be free of oneself, not free of Existence! God means Existence. Do not get hung up on the names. Call it God, call it Truth, call it Nirvana, call it Moksha—whatever you wish. But Existence and you—you are so small: a tiny drop before the ocean, and you are cherishing the desire that somehow the ocean should disappear! That very desire is delusion.

Liberation means liberation from oneself. And for melting into God, there is no easier means than bhakti. Hence Narada said, “Bhakti is supreme among all disciplines.” Because from the very first step your journey of dissolving begins. It is easy, Narada said. On the other paths, obstacles come later: first you grow stronger; then a moment comes when that strengthened ego has to be dropped. Bhakti begins to scatter you from the very first step.

Therefore very few have been devotees; yogis have been many. Your understanding is perhaps the reverse. You may think there have been many devotees. Devotees have been almost none, because to be a devotee is audacity. In being a yogi there is no such dare. You remain your own master—stand on your head, do postures, hold the breath, do whatever you wish; but you remain the master. Resolve keeps getting stronger, the ego sharper, the edge keener. Therefore look at the edge of the yogi’s ego—it shines like a sword!

The devotee bows. The devotee scatters himself. The devotee becomes very graceful, soft, delicate. The yogi becomes stony, obstinate, stiff; the notion of “doing” takes hold. The yogi seeks siddhis, power; the devotee goes only to lose himself.

“Ultimately, for liberation is the dissolution of the deity’s image also necessary?”

You are the one who is lost. The worshiper is lost. Naturally, when the worshiper is gone, the Worshiped is also gone—for where will the Worshiped remain when the worshiper is no more? When the devotee is not, where will God be? But the beginning of the losing is from the devotee’s side: here the devotee vanishes, there God goes—one alone remains. Now call it whatever you like—call it the devotee, call it God; all are one.

But the question has been asked from the seeker’s standpoint, not the devotee’s—“to lose the Worshiped!” The image of the Worshiped dissolves! The seer is lost; naturally the seen is lost. Only one energy remains. There is neither the seen nor the seer; one energy alone remains. Call it the energy of seeing, of knowing... but in the language of devotion it is proper to call it the energy of love. Neither the lover remains nor the beloved—love itself begins to surge.

Beyond place, the star of Adam’s destiny is Love;
Guardian of the grandeur of Adam’s making is Love;
Adam’s dream is Love, Adam’s fulfillment is Love;
Love—yes, Love—is architect of the palace of the two worlds.

It is Love that makes the star of human destiny shine. Love is the guardian of the dignity of human creation. Man’s very form is Love. His dream is Love. The maker of both worlds—this and the beyond—is Love.

Only love remains.

Understand it like this: the Ganga flows between two banks. The two banks—one the devotee, one God. The current flowing between is love, bhakti; the real Ganga is that. But the seeker wants to lose God, the devotee wants to lose himself; though from both directions both are lost, in the end only the middle current remains—the Ganga of love alone remains.

To see, it is not at all necessary to lift the head—one can see with the head bowed. True seeing is with the head bowed. Don’t cry needlessly. And one who has seen with a bowed head—then there is no question of raising the head to see. That is why the head did not rise.

One does not really see with the eyes; otherwise seeing would be very easy. Everyone’s eyes are open—who is blind? If seeing happened only through the eyes, everything would be settled. Seeing is something deeper than the eyes—it belongs to the heart. And the heart can see only when it bows. Then who remains to even know about raising!

No, some mistake has occurred. You are not understanding your tears. You have created a needless intellectual tangle and problem. There is an error in your interpretation; otherwise you would be happy—otherwise your weeping would be the weeping of joy. Look again.

This will happen many times, so it is necessary to understand. Very often, when something happens to the heart, the intellect comes from behind and starts interpreting. The heart does not interpret; it is inexpressible. Something happens; it experiences it; but it does not cut and dissect and analyze. The heart has no analysis. The heart knows how to join, not how to break. The heart experiences, but it does not know how to stand behind the experience and perform an intellectual analysis. So as soon as the experience happens, the intellect leaps; just as when a corpse lies somewhere, kites and vultures swoop down. As soon as the heart has experienced—once the experience has happened, has slipped into the past, the experience is dead—the intellect pounces; the kite of the intellect swoops down, grabs the dead thing and starts cutting it up—post-mortem! It begins to calculate: What happened? And everything gets muddled. Because it was not the intellect that had the experience; the one to whom the experience happened did not interpret, and the one to whom it did not happen is the one who interprets.

There was no need. The need is to look within. The Beloved is not outside. Less the opening of the eyes, more the closing of the eyes is needed. The Beloved is not outside. The day you see me within yourself, that day you have truly seen me; before that it is only preparation, only the ABCs of seeing.

Then later you must have thought:
“And now I weep, I weep.” Now the intellect must have said, “What have you done?” The intellect comes from behind to harass. If you understand this with the heart, then the very moment you bowed something happened—
Where has self-forgetfulness carried us?
My own self has been waiting so long!
When you bowed, you were lost for a moment; for a moment you were not—dissolved in that bowing. That is why the idea of looking up did not arise. There was no one there to look. For one moment everything became silent; no wave arose. A unique moment came! A window opened! But a window opens only when you are not. Then you returned from behind. By then the window had closed. Now you regret. Now you weep. Do not make such a mistake again.

Do not grant the intellect permission to analyze the heart. The analyses of intellect obstruct and lead astray; they do not allow what is to be seen as it is. The notions of intellect come in and raise a great smoke.

Remember:
The path that is boundless for the people of reason
for the madness of love is but a few steps.
For the intellect the road has no end; it goes on and on...
For the madness of love it is but a few steps.
But for the one intoxicated with love, mad in love, a few steps are enough. If the intoxication of love is complete, its urgency total, then even a single step is enough. With one step the journey of thousands of miles is fulfilled. But that step must arise from the heart, not from intellect and thought.

Now, when you bow again, do not give the intellect a chance to intrude needlessly and create an uproar. When you bow, with all your heart try to experience that moment: “What happened!” From the heart itself! There is no need for thinking—only for awakening, awareness, alertness. Wake up a little and look in that moment—you will not find yourself. And where you do not find yourself, there the door is open; because you yourself are the door, you yourself are the wall. If you are, then wall; if you are not, then door.

Now the veil longs to lift from the face of awareness;
the many-masked naïveté of intellect is overfull.
It is enough now. And foolishness has worn many masks of cleverness and deceived for long.
The many-masked naïveté of intellect is overfull—
what you call cleverness is only foolishness. Foolishness has worn many disguises of intelligence and, in many ways, given you the delusion of being wise. Drop it now.

Now the veil longs to lift from the face of awareness.
The moment is drawing near: if you steady yourself a little; you bow and do not rise; you bow and do not think; you do not worry to look outside, because the Beloved is within; you bow and remain bowed, gone means gone, you do not return; you do not give the intellect a chance, you let the heart be fulfilled—then it is not far.

Now the veil longs to lift from the face of awareness.
Then the veil over your inner awareness will be lifted. And in the name of cleverness, foolishness has deceived you enough; now it is time to awaken!

Matters of the heart cannot be explained. And if you want to understand, you should ask your own heart. This is not a matter of understanding or explaining.

You have already understood; but as I just said, the intellect keeps returning again and again to seize the heart. The intellect does not let the heart live freely, does not let it flow naturally—it keeps coming back. Now if your mind is caught, if your heartstrings have gotten tied to my heartstrings somewhere, then the matter is plain and simple—what is there to understand or explain! It’s obvious you’ve fallen in love, you’ve gone mad! Otherwise, who comes to listen every single day?

In the school of love the world has a most unusual rule:
the one who remembered the lesson never got a holiday.

In the ordinary schools of the world, the one who has learned the lesson gets a holiday—matter finished! But the school of love works in a completely opposite way.

In the school of love the world has a most unusual rule:
the one who remembered the lesson never got a holiday.

You have remembered the lesson. Now your heart will not settle anywhere else. And this lesson is such that once you learn it, there is no way to forget it. That is why people are so reluctant to learn. They simply don’t learn. In one sense they are right: if you learn it, you cannot forget it. So, if you want to delay, do all your delaying before you learn. If you have placed your finger in my hand, the destination is not far.

The last two questions.

There is nothing mysterious—these are simple, straightforward matters. But we have become so upside down. The mystery is in us, not in Narad. It is as if the whole world is standing on its head, and one man is standing upright—he looks inverted.

His sutras are straightforward. He seems to relish stirring up quarrels. There is only one way to end a quarrel: let it come to completion; otherwise it never ends. Whatever completes itself, dissolves. That is the essence behind all of Narad’s “quarrels.” It is very aphoristic.

Whatever you repress is exactly what will entangle you. Let the quarrel come to completion. If there is a conflict within you—between head and heart—let it play out completely; let it reach its final limit; let it rise; let it come to a full hundred degrees. If you get impatient and stop it half-cooked, you will remain entangled, fragmented. If there is a conflict between your prayer and your desire, don’t suppress it—bring it up. If there is a conflict between anger and love, bring it up; don’t repress it. To bring it up means purging, catharsis—bringing it out in full.

The other tales are symbolic. Wherever there is conflict, Narad gets involved. To bring a quarrel fully to the surface, to give it its complete form—that is its death. Some things die only by becoming complete; without completion they never die. Dry leaves fall of their own accord; ripe fruits drop by themselves—unripe fruits have to be plucked.

Narad’s quarrels and his delight in them are a process of ripening. There is deep significance behind this. But because no one has interpreted Narad this way, difficulties have arisen—and a unique personality like Narad’s has become a butt of jokes.

“As for ‘even in old age his attachment to women and gold persists’”:
All it means is that even in old age his youth does not fade. Age cannot make him old—that’s all. Death will not be able to kill him. Whoever has been made old by old age, death will finish. These are symbols. The only message here is that Narad remains fresh, youthful—until the last breath.

But the very words “women and gold” cause a panic. We forget the language of symbols. Kabir said the same thing, but no one misunderstood him because he used a language you could grasp. Kabir said: “I returned the cloth just as I had received it. I wore the cloth with great care and returned it just as I had received it.” That is the same point; only the symbol differs.

Narad does not grow old; the “cloth” remains young, fresh, just as it was—without a single crease. But ascetics have spoiled the words “women and gold”—they have turned into abuses. Say of someone that he has a taste for “women and gold,” and the gates of hell are opened for him.

For a devotee, even in women and gold it is the Divine alone. The devotee’s language is not of repression but of upward ascent. The devotee says: wherever there is beauty, it is His. Sometimes it appears as a woman, sometimes in a flower, sometimes in the moon and stars. Whatever form He chooses, it is He who is embodied. Clay is His, gold is His. Clay has its own fragrance; gold its own beauty. The devotee is neither for clay nor against gold. The devotee does not divide. Having embraced the indivisible Divine, the devotee does not divide outwardly, nor inwardly; he accepts himself within—just as he has been made. In the devotee’s mind there is nothing to be rejected—not even enjoyment, because enjoyment too is His prasad.

It is very difficult to understand the devotee. We understand yogis and ascetics because they are our opposites; opposites are easy to understand. We run after wealth; they run away from wealth—both are running; both are tied to wealth: one runs toward, one runs away, but both are bound by it. There is no difficulty in the language. Our backs may be to each other, but we are bound by the same thing—money! We are crazy for woman; he is crazy to avoid woman—still both eyes are fixed on the woman. Both are entangled with woman.

The devotee is not running at all. Narad is playing his one-stringed lute; he is not busy running. He accepts everything. He has accepted both realms. That is the meaning of his stories—that he travels day and night between earth and Vaikuntha. His coming and going is unhindered; there is no one to stop him anywhere. Between this world and that world he needs to build no bridge; the two are connected, indivisible. It is difficult to even say where this world ends and that world begins. There is no customs checkpoint. Unobstructed, Narad moves from here to there on the same rhythm of music, playing the same ektara, joining Vaikuntha to earth. His ektara makes two worlds one. His journey is unique.

We need to understand Narad’s personality afresh, in its entirety. If Narad is rightly understood, a new religion could dawn in the world—one that does not see the world and God as enemies but as friends; one that is not anti-life or life-denying, but one that can accept life with awe and joy; a religion whose temple is not opposed to life but is rooted in life’s very depths!

“As for ‘he cannot stay in one place for more than two and a half ghadi’”:
What does stay? Two and a half ghadi is a long time! Nothing stays. Stagnant pools stay; rivers flow on. Narad is like a current! There is flow in him! A stream! Process! Movement! Dynamism!

Stagnant pools rot. They may remain in one place, but they produce nothing except muck and rubbish. Cleanliness requires flow.

But you are all afraid of flow. You are afraid of change, because death seems to be hiding behind change. If there is change, death will come. You all wish for a miracle by which, just as you are and where you are, you could freeze like a stagnant pool, like statues, like stone! If God would work a miracle and fix everyone in place just as they are, you would be very happy—though you would die, you would be delighted that at least death won’t come. And yet death comes anyway!

Just look at life all around—how much movement! Is anything at a standstill? Apart from your fears and the mind’s desires, is there any place to rest? Everything is changing, everything transforming. Waves rise and fall on the ocean. Creation and dissolution. Day and night. Everything is changing!

Two and a half ghadi! Perhaps the stories say “two and a half” so you won’t get too frightened. Not even for two and a half moments does anything stay still. Life is swiftly transforming. Life means transformation. What stops is death. What goes on growing is life.

Buddha told his monks: don’t stay. They did not understand. They thought Buddha was saying: don’t stay too long in one village. Buddha said: charaiveti, charaiveti—keep moving, keep moving! They thought, “Fine, the Master wants us to be wanderers”—so they wouldn’t stay in any village more than three days; they would move on to the next. Buddha meant something else entirely. He meant: stopping is against life; the desire to stop is suicide. Keep growing! There is no such thing here as a final destination where, having arrived, you should stop—if you stop, you become inert. Here the journey itself is the destination. Keep going!

That is the meaning of Narad.

And the final question:

“Please tell us the essence of this Purana story!”

Stories are not history. Stories are Purana. One should understand the difference between history and Purana. History is what once happened. Purana is what is always happening. History occurs in time; Purana is timeless. So don’t try to prove a Purana—whether it happened or not; that is to miss the point. Then you have not understood poetry, you have not recognized myth. Then you are on the wrong track. This has been going on across the country for thousands of years; it goes on even now.

A few days ago in Ludhiana, the Shankaracharya of Puri challenged that if anyone can prove the Ramayana false, he is ready for debate. Some want to prove the Ramayana false; some want to prove it true. Both are in the same boat.

The Ramayana is neither false nor true—it is Purana. It has nothing to do with time, nothing to do with history. The question “Did it happen?” does not arise. “It did not happen”—that question too does not arise. It happens. It is happening even today.

Purana means: the essence of life has been placed into a few stories. Don’t cling to the stories; catch hold of the essence.

“The child Dhruva was a devotee of Narada; Narada was a devotee of Narayana.” This means that reaching God directly will be difficult—one needs a true master. It means that to meet God directly is hard—one needs a mediator. Someone is needed who, as you are and as God is, can become a bridge. Someone whose one hand holds you, and whose other hand is held by the Divine; one hand like yours, the other like God’s—someone who stands between the human and the Divine, a threshold, a transition.

God is vast. Man is small. How to harmonize the two? Someone is needed who is as vast as God and as small as man.

The guru is the greatest paradox in this world. If you look from one side, from your side, he is like you. If you look from the other side, he is like God. That is why no one can argue or produce proof for his own guru—your arguments and proofs can do nothing for one who has no capacity to see from the other side. He will say, “Your guru is just like us; as we get hungry, he gets hungry; as we sweat in the sun, he sweats.”

To avoid such things people then begin to invent fantasies. The Jains say, Mahavira did not sweat. Madness—utter madness. The Jains say, if you wound Mahavira no blood comes out, milk flows.

Why were these stories fabricated? The devotees are saying, “Our Lord is not like ordinary men.” But if you have to prove that he does not sweat, it is clear that he must sweat—so why worry? Others prove that he does sweat; and blood is what comes out—has milk ever flowed?

Devotees have made great efforts to prove their gurus supernatural. If you understand their effort with sympathy, it appears meaningful. They are saying: “Do not take our guru to be an ordinary man.” They are right—but the language in which they say it is utterly wrong. Because of their language, neither does the divine form of Mahavira or their guru become evident to others, nor does even his historical form remain beyond doubt.

The guru is a tremendous contradiction: seen by the intellect, he is like a man; seen by the heart, he is like the Divine. Therefore, if the eyes of trust are there, the guru becomes the bridge to God.

“The Purana says: the child Dhruva was a devotee of Narada, and Narada of Narayana.” The bridge is built; the way opens. “Through Dhruva’s devotion, in only six months Narayana was pleased.” That it took six months—that is the surprising part! Surely a government office was involved—red tape! Six months! For a heart as simple as Dhruva’s to pray—and it should take six months? The Purana is making a joke: government procedures, red tape, files take time to move. You are amazed that it happened so soon—six months; I am amazed it took so long—six months! When a prayer rises from a child’s heart, it is fulfilled instantly. What lack could there be in a prayer rising from such innocence that it should take six months? Perhaps those who wrote the Purana learned of it six months later! But when the prayer is innocent, there is not even a moment’s distance—it is fulfilled at once. That is the miracle of prayer. Delay is not possible, because prayer is beyond time.

As for the Dhruva star—it is still there; the story of Dhruva formed, but the star was there even before. Yet the event of Dhruva is so significant, and his unwavering devotion so steady, his wisdom so still, that nowhere in all existence was a more fitting symbol of steadfastness found than the Pole Star. It alone stands fixed in its place, unmoving, unshaken. Therefore the name of Dhruva became linked with the Dhruva star.

“This made the other rishis and sages jealous of Dhruva and resentful toward Narayana.” Then they were not rishis! As long as there is jealousy, what kind of rishi, what kind of sage? But we are familiar with just such rishis and sages: full of envy, competition, ambition, resentment! And their complaint even appears rational: they had been practicing austerities for years; they had received nothing; the little child got it—without earning anything!

Keep this in mind: the worldly mind says God too must be earned—like some asset, some bank balance. God is already given; only remembrance is needed, not earning. A simple heart remembers, and recognition happens. The calculating heart, the mathematical mind, wants to earn—fasts, vows, renunciations, this and that—earn! Become a claimant! Naturally, when you are earning, inside you also rises, “It is taking so long; I’ve earned so much—still not yet, still not yet!” And among such earners, if someone suddenly receives—someone who has done nothing, a little child who has had no time to do anything—then naturally jealousy will arise: “This is injustice.” If it were up to them, these rishis would drag God into court: “This is unjust. We had heard the saying, ‘There may be delay but not darkness’; but now there is darkness too! Delay has already happened—we have practiced austerities all our lives, kept fasts and vows; our entire list is ready...” The rishis’ files are prepared—what all they have done, written up with many embellishments. And this two‑day‑old child who has done nothing, who can barely lisp—what prayer will he make? From where will he bring pure Sanskrit pronunciation? What Vedic mantras does he know?—and he receives! It is natural for the intellect to be perturbed, because intellect is arithmetic.

Understand this well: prayer needs neither language nor scriptures—it needs only love. Childlike love is enough; nothing more is required. If you can recover your childlike love again, all scriptures are worth two pennies. No fasts or vows are necessary. Let your prayer arise from so simple a heart—it will be fulfilled.

But the rishis and sages are filled on the one hand with jealousy, on the other with complaint. Injustice has been done!

Remember, on the path of religion, drop the language of earning; otherwise you are only dragging the world along with you. Drop these notions. God is not found through what you do; God is found through what you are. Let your being be pure; let your being be spotless; let your being be virgin, childlike.

Jesus has said: Those who are like little children, they alone shall enter the kingdom of my Father.

“The rishis and sages gathered to ponder. A fisherman seated them in his boat. They saw white marks here and there. When asked, the fisherman said, ‘These are the places where Dhruva performed austerities in his past lives.’” This must have satisfied the rishis and sages. Now the matter fit their arithmetic again. It would have been very difficult if the fisherman had said, “Dhruva simply asked—and God was given; there are no austerities behind it, no long journey.” The story becomes simpler; the rishis’ complaint subsides.

As I see it, the doctrine of karma is, ordinarily, an extension of your worldly arithmetic. You say, “So‑and‑so is enjoying happiness—he must have done virtue in past lives,” because you cannot tolerate that he should be enjoying in this very life. Another man is having a good time, finding success—you say, “Just wait! The time will come when you will pay! In the next birth you will rot in hell! These are but four days of moonlight; then a dark night!” In this way you console your own mind.

Ordinarily, the doctrine of karma is simply the spread of your mental arithmetic. With it you tidy things up; the case is closed; the bother is over. Then you have no inner obstruction. If I say, “Just so—without doing anything—God was attained,” you will say, “This sounds dubious; we are doing so much and have not attained!” If I say, “He labored for many lives,” then you say, “All right—compassion arises; he should receive.” Now the matter fits your arithmetic.

Hearing the fisherman, the rishis and sages must have calmed down. The fisherman was very clever. Catching fish, he had learned how to catch people. Their anger toward Dhruva must have dissolved; their complaint against God too—everything now sat well within the arithmetic.

And I tell you: love does not fit into arithmetic. And I tell you: prayer does not fit into arithmetic. And I tell you again and again: what you do has no relation to finding God—what you are, your very being, is the only way of attainment.

That is all for today.