Bhakti Sutra #3

The search for the Divine does not begin until the futility of life becomes a deep, lived experience. The very awareness of life’s futility is the first step toward Him. As long as the illusion persists that something can be found here, achieved here, as long as you still believe you’ll get something in this world of dreams—till then the Divine is also just a dream; you will not set out to seek; you will not stake yourself.

The Divine is not had for free. Whoever you are, until your whole being is placed on the table, there can be no meeting with the Divine. For love is not found for anything less. And prayer does not even begin for anything less. This work is for gamblers, not shopkeepers. Here you need the courage to lose it all. You need a touch of madness, an abandon!

But this only becomes possible when what you have begins to look worthless; when it turns to trash, then you no longer cling to it.

Millions utter the word “God,” they pray, they worship; yet no glimpse appears. Is worship futile? No—the worshippers have not really worshipped. Does prayer vanish into empty sky, and no response come? There was no prayer; otherwise the response is instant. Before your call is fully uttered, the answer has already arrived! But you never called. You think you prayed, you imagine you prayed; but never once did you put your heart at stake.

Half-hearted, it will not do. Only the whole will do.

So long as you feel that something is still to be had in the world, as long as taste remains, as long as you have not awakened and are slightly entangled in the dream, as long as you trust the dream to be true—till then the flow of your hopes and longings does not turn toward the Divine; till then your prayer is not your heart’s thirst, not your inner climate. Then even your prayer is just your cleverness, your calculation, your smart accounting. You think: well, who knows—maybe there is a God; let me pray too, let me perform worship; what’s the harm? What’s the loss? If there’s some gain, so be it; if not, there’s no loss anyway.

I have heard that in a theater, mid-performance, the lead actor had a heart attack and died. The manager came before the curtain and apologized: Forgive us, it’s tragic; due to a heart attack the lead has died and the play cannot continue. We are sorry, but it’s beyond us.

People were deeply engrossed in the drama. Their curiosity had just been roused, and now—suddenly it broke in the middle, like waking from sleep!

A woman stood up and said: Rub his chest, the actor’s chest!

The manager said: Madam, he is dead. What good will rubbing do now?

She said: Even if it does no good, what harm will it do?

Your prayer is just like that: even if it doesn’t help, there’s no harm, “what will be lost!”

At the time of death even atheists become believers, out of the fear that—what if there is a God! As they grow old, atheists turn theistic, for as death approaches, the legs falter, darkness thickens, the stars of the sky seem to vanish, the lamps of hope begin to go out, and it appears that aside from the grave there is nowhere left to go—then even the atheist starts to remember God: Who knows—maybe He is!

But prayer does not arise from “maybe.” “Maybe” is enough for cleverness, not for love.

No one ever became wise through mere cleverness. It is precisely your cleverness that has kept you foolish. Your cleverness is costing you dear.

So if you approach the Divine with smart calculations, spreading your ledger there too, thinking, fine—let’s manage the world and manage God as well, a foot in both boats—you will be in trouble. You are in trouble, for I see you standing half-and-half in two boats.

You can board only one boat… only one, otherwise you end up in a split. Walk in two directions and you’ll break, you’ll be torn to pieces, scattered. And once you are fragmented within, when inner unity is gone, who will pray, who will worship? A crowd does not worship. Worship rises from inner unity; from inner wholeness arises the fragrance of prayer.

Keep this in mind first; only then will the aphorisms of devotion be understood.

If this life still tastes sweet to you, live a little more. Today or tomorrow, the taste will break.

The more aware a person is, the sooner the taste breaks. The more unconscious, the longer the taste lingers. Unconsciousness is the prop of worldly taste. The more intelligence there is in you—note, I do not mean cleverness or cunning—the sooner you will be done with the taste of life. And when the taste of life is exhausted, the very current that was invested in life is freed; now there is nowhere in the world left to go; that road is no longer a road; now there is no more rushing toward things; no more raising of hoards, building bigger houses, amassing wealth, chasing position and prestige—all that becomes futile; now you turn toward your true home.

We never built a home in the wilderness, yet
what we took for home turned out to be a wasteland.

No one made a home in a desert, yet what we called home turned out to be the desert itself, the desolate.

The day your so-called home feels like a wasteland… it is a wasteland; only your dreams have adorned it. Look with a start: what you call home is not a home; at most it is an inn—today you halt, tomorrow you must depart. What is bound to be snatched away—how can you call it yours? From where you must be uprooted, where you have only a brief stop—there may be a campsite, but not a destination; and where there is no destination, where is the home? Home can only be where, upon arriving, there is nowhere further to go.

Except for the Divine, there can be no home.

People ask me: what is the definition of sannyas? I say: there are two kinds of home-makers, two kinds of householders. Those who build houses in the world—we call them householders. Those who build their home in the Divine—they too are householders; we call them sannyasins, merely to distinguish. They build in different places. Some write their life on water: before they can write, it is erased. Others write upon the eternal substance of life. Some build on sand, foundations already trembling; others accept the eternity of life as their ground.

The first aphorism: “That devotion is without desire, because its very nature is nirodha—cessation.”

The world means desire.

Understand the exact meaning of “world,” for you have been taught it wrongly.

Someone leaves his house and says he has left the world. Someone leaves his wife and claims to have renounced the world. If only the world were that gross! If only leaving your wife meant leaving the world! If only it were so cheap! Then sannyas would not be so precious.

The world is neither in wife nor house, neither in money nor in market nor in shop—the world is in your wanting. As long as you want—“I must have this, I need that, my satisfaction, my happiness lies in getting something”—you are in the world.

As long as there is asking, there is the world.

The world means: your heart is a begging bowl that you carry from door to door. How often you are refused! Yet you gather yourself and beg again. For only one notion inhabits your mind: a little more, a little more, a little more—then perhaps there will be happiness!

The race of “more” is the world.

So even if you sit in a temple and you are asking there too, you are still in the world. You can go to the Himalayas, and with closed eyes, if you are still asking—“Give me more, give me heaven, give me liberation”—it makes no difference what you ask. The world has nothing to do with what you ask; it has everything to do with the fact that you ask. Understand this rightly; otherwise the pretense of leaving the world happens, but the world is not left.

The world is inside you, not outside. The world is in your attitude that “as I am is not enough; I need something to complete me; I am incomplete, unsatisfied, unfulfilled; if only I could get something to fill me, to quench me, to satisfy me.”

In the very belief that you are incomplete, and in the hope that something will complete you—there lies the world.

When asking drops, the world drops! Then there is no need to leave house or wife or husband or children—they are not at fault! Living at home, you are free of the world. Sitting by your wife, you are free of the world. Raising your children, you are free of the world. For to be free of the world means only this: now you are content, as you are, with what you are; your being no longer holds a demand; no longing remains in your being; your being is not lusting; you are no longer a spread of desires—you simply are: content—this very moment, and as you are, enough, more than enough.

Then your prayer becomes thanksgiving, not asking. Then you do not go to the temple to ask; you go to say thank you: You have given so much, more than expected, what I never even asked for. There is no end to Your giving! Only my vessel keeps falling short, and You go on filling!

…Then too you weep in the temple, but the beauty of those tears!

When you cry from want, your tears are soiled, base, impoverished. When you cry from awe and gratitude, no pearls can match the worth of your tears. The tear is the same, but flowing from a heart brimming with wonder, it is transformed.

Observe the difference. You have cried in sorrow, in pain, in complaint; try sometime crying in awe, crying in joy—and you will find that as you change, the very quality of tears changes. Then tears come like blossoms. Then there is a fragrance in the tears that is not of this world.

Meera weeps too, but Meera’s tears are not a beggar’s tears. Chaitanya weeps too, but his tears are not poor and cringing; they do not flow from want; they are born of a deep, profound state of being! Even Ganga’s waters are not so pure.

“That devotion is without desire, because its nature is nirodha—cessation.”

“Nirodha!”

Ordinary commentators have taken nirodha to mean renunciation—leaving everything. No, that is not my meaning. I make a small shift, but the difference is vast—once you understand, there could be no greater difference.

Nirodha does not mean “he who has left”; it means “that from which it has fallen away.” That is the difference between renunciation and cessation. Renunciation means: I left it. Nirodha means: it left me; it became pointless. What becomes pointless does not require leaving; it falls away on its own.

Every morning you collect the household trash and throw it out; you don’t go report to the newspaper office: today again I renounced a heap of garbage! If you did, they would call you mad. If it is trash, why speak of leaving it?

So the one who says “I renounced” has not yet known nirodha. For renouncing implies that some value still remained.

If someone says, “I left gold, I left palaces”—look closely: gold was still gold to him, palaces still palaces. “I left!”—it took effort. Effort means the taste still remained; the fruit was unripe and had to be plucked.

A ripe fruit falls; an unripe must be torn off.

All renouncers are unripe. One who attains nirodha is a ripe one. That is the difference. Narada could have said “its nature is renunciation,” but he did not. “Its nature is cessation!” What is pointless drops; it is brought to an end.

When you wake in the morning, you don’t “renounce” the night’s dreams by declaring, “Now I leave all those dreams.” You wake—and cessation happens. As soon as you wake, you see the dreams have broken, they have become pointless; it is understood they were dreams—finished; what is there to discuss?

Those who keep accounts of their renunciations—know this—are still hedonists, only standing on their heads.

I know a sannyasin who never forgets… He “left the world” forty years ago—left it, cessation did not happen. Forty years have passed and it still has not left. He keeps saying, “I kicked away lakhs of rupees.” I told him one day, “Your kick never landed; you must have swung—but missed.” He asked, “What do you mean?”

If forty years have passed—then it’s gone, it’s gone. Why drag it up every day? Why remember it daily? The taste persists. Those lakhs still have value for you. You still cannot resist telling others how you kicked away wealth! You have kept a bank balance—in your mind. The counting goes on. That is renunciation, not cessation.

Renunciation is counterfeit coin; cessation is a rare event.

A man once brought a thousand gold coins to Ramakrishna as an offering. Ramakrishna said, “I have no need. Do one thing—go throw them into the Ganga.” The man went, but an hour passed and he did not return. Ramakrishna sent someone to check he hadn’t drowned in sorrow. They found him striking each coin and tossing it, and a crowd had gathered, astonished. They came back and reported. Ramakrishna went and said, “Fool! Counting makes sense when you are collecting. If you are throwing them, why count? Nine hundred ninety-nine or a thousand—what difference does it make? Is there an account to be kept of how many you threw, how many you donated? If you want to keep accounts, then don’t throw—take them home. If the accounting hasn’t been dropped, nothing will come of throwing coins. The real thing to drop is the accounting, not the coins.”

Jesus said: “Let not your left hand know what your right hand gives.”

The Sufis say: “Do good and cast it into a well.” Keep no account. Do it—and forget—throw it into the well. The matter is finished, as if it never happened.

But go to your renouncers, your “great souls”—you will find full ledgers. The accounts won’t even be accurate—they’ll be inflated. A thousand will have become a hundred thousand. Who is to check? And what is the test, the touchstone for renunciation? If you have a hundred thousand rupees you can show them; but if someone has renounced a hundred thousand, what proof is there whether it was one lakh or ten? Not only do the “great” do this; their disciples keep doubling the figures.

Mahavira left palace and wealth. The Jain scriptures write with such exaggeration—it’s outright untrue. His kingdom was small, not large. In Mahavira’s time there were two thousand kingdoms in India, most no bigger than a district. The number of elephants and horses the Jains claim—had they existed, there would have been no room left for people. But the tale keeps swelling…

The battle of Kurukshetra—if you listen to the Hindu account, it seems the whole earth would be too small to contain it. In that small field, eighteen akshauhinis could not even assemble; let alone fight, they could not even stand in peace. Battle needs some space! But it grows and grows…

What Buddha’s devotees wrote is not factual either; his domain was small. But the stories keep inflating.

Why? Because we can only understand renunciation in terms of money—its quantity. How else to measure it?

Suppose Mahavira had been born in a poor home with nothing—how would you know he renounced? He could leave home, but not be called a renouncer. How would you call him “great” in renunciation? There was nothing to leave!

The inner mystery is invisible to you; you only see the outer. Then it would mean only the rich can be renouncers. That first one must get rich to qualify. Then even in the kingdom of God, wealth remains the ultimate yardstick.

A fakir leaves everything; he had two coins. Mahavira leaves everything; he had millions. In the Divine’s register, Mahavira wins and the poor man loses—two coins versus millions!

No. In the Divine’s realm the question is not what you left; the only question is: did it leave you? Or more precisely: did it fall away, or did you forcibly leave it?

Nirodha means: it falls away.

Those who have seen the truth of the world—cessation happens in their lives. Narada calls that cessation the very nature of devotion.

“That devotion is without desire, and of the nature of cessation.”

Its essence is cessation.

As soon as desire for the world drops, that same energy turns toward the Divine as prayer. No new energy is needed. The same hands that were a begging bowl now fold in prayer. The same heart that went asking after wealth now bows in supreme gratitude. The same life-energy that ran downward seeking gullies and pits now rises skyward.

Don’t ask who showed you the way—
the restless heart itself became the guide.

The day your taste breaks with the world, a longing for the Divine is born—and that longing itself becomes the guide. By its support people arrive.

The one who asks the world for a thousand things may add God to his long list—but it will be just one more name, and in my view, the last. If your list holds a thousand items, God will be number one-thousand-and-one.

People come to me saying they want to pray, but where is the time! These same people I see in the cinema. The same I see playing cards at the club. The same poring over the newspaper first thing in the morning. The same engrossed in empty gossip. The same get caught in a thousand agitations and quarrels; Hindus and Muslims set upon each other—the same people! But when it comes to prayer, they say, “Where is the time?”

What are they saying? They are saying there are more important things than God; let’s give time to those first—if any is left, then to God. Not that they have no time—they are saying: time they have, like everyone else—but other things are more urgent. God stands last in the queue. First collect wealth, build the house, secure status and respect—then… Such a God remains forever waiting; the “then” never arrives—because the race of the world never ends.

Nothing here is ever completed. The more you drink, the more the thirst grows. The more you eat, the greater the hunger grows. The fuller the safe, the meaner the heart becomes. This world is strange! The poor man may have a rich man’s heart; the rich man has the heart of a pauper.

If amidst a thousand distractions you think to make the Divine just one more desire, it will not work. Only when the Divine becomes your very longing, then are you qualified. Longing means: all desires flow into that one desire; all streams and rivulets fall into that ocean. Nothing else comes to mind; no other voice sounds in the heart; no other tune breathes in your breath—only His one-stringed lute begins to play!

Have you seen the fakir’s one-stringed lute? Perhaps you never thought—it is a symbol: for the Divine, one string is enough. The sitar has many strings, the veena many, the sarangi many—these are symbols of the world. The one-stringed lute is the symbol of the Divine.

Just one string! Let the tone of a single longing sound; let no other note remain; only then—

In every vein the intoxication of love flows, O healer of mine!
This pain is not of the kind that might be here today, gone tomorrow.

When the ache for the Divine saturates every fiber; when every hair calls out His name; waking and sleeping, day and night, only His remembrance abides; whatever you do—His memory; wherever you go—His memory; sitting or rising or lying down—His memory. When this pervades your every vein, only then have you become worthy.

And remember: today or tomorrow, you will have to enter this great revolution. Struggle as you may to turn this world into a home, you will not succeed. No one ever has. Take a dream as true for as long as you like—it must break. Breaking is a dream’s nature. You can doze a while by calling the dream real, but you cannot sleep forever. A dream begins and ends—it is its nature. However much we try—and all of us try—our entire effort is to prove Buddha, Narada, Meera wrong.

What are we trying to do? To prove that there is happiness in the world; to prove that the Divine is not necessary; to prove life is enough without God; to prove that there is substance in wealth, that it is not a dream, not maya, but reality.

Drop this foolishness. No one has ever done it. Yet in the attempt, people waste their lives.

A thousand fancies changed sides in my mind,
but the cage stayed a cage—it never became a home.

No, this will not become a home. This place is a prison; it cannot be a home. Here you are a stranger. However many maneuvers you try, however many imaginations turn and turn—you can deck it out with dreams, but the web remains one of fancy.

Your fancy is yours; truth belongs to the Divine. As long as you go on thinking, you will dwell in dreams. When you drop thought and awaken, you will know what truth is.

Truth is liberating. And only that which frees is home. Where there is freedom, there is home.

What is the difference between a prison and a home? The walls are of the same bricks, the doors of the same wood.

What differs? In a home, you are free; in a prison, you are not—that’s all.

Home is freedom; prison is bondage.

A thousand fancies changed sides in my mind,
but the cage stayed a cage—it never became a home.

In a prison you can go on changing your fantasies, spinning your webs, decorating the cell from within—no, it will not become a home.

The sooner you awaken to this, the more fortunate you are; the longer it takes, the more time is wasted; the longer it takes, the stronger the wrong habits grow; the longer it takes, the tighter the bonds become and the weaker you grow to break them. So do not wait for old age. If understanding dawns—then when it dawns, do not postpone it even for a moment.

“Renunciation (nirodha) means the cessation of all worldly and scriptural doings.”

Sanskrit is marvelous! Those who translate into Hindi do not clearly distinguish “renunciation” (tyaga) from “cessation” (nirodha).

The Sanskrit original says:

“When worldly and otherworldly transactions are brought to cessation, laid down—this is devotion.”

Let us understand.

“When the commerce of this world and the next ceases…”

This-worldly commerce: chasing wealth, chasing position. Otherworldly commerce too is commerce: happiness, bliss, liberation—journeys still, races still. As soon as you tire of this world, before you can truly be done, you begin to dream of the next. Dreamers like this erected heavens, and filled them with a thousand fantasies—whatever remained unfulfilled here, they placed there. And sometimes those fantasies are so foolish that it is astonishing.

Muslims say that in heaven there are flowing fountains of wine. Here they forbid drinking; here it is sin—there the fountains flow! Who conceived such fountains? Clearly, those who had a taste for drink here but gave it up. Simple psychology. They wanted to drink here but could not, out of fear; wanted to drink, but the religious teaching forbade; wanted to drink, but lacked courage—so now in heaven they run rivers. Here you get a handful; there you will dive.

The zealot’s castle of piety rests on this alone:
the mosque was near, the tavern far.

Those you call renouncers—most often their reason is just this: the mosque was near, the tavern far—no more. It means the preachers of religion were close by; the advertisement for wine was far. Parents, society, family, temple, mosque, school—they were all against wine, all for the mosque and temple. So they sat in the mosque, sat in the temple—but the tune of the mind, the desire of the mind, is not erased by instruction; only by experience. They think of wine still; since it wasn’t available here, they expand in fantasy—there, in heaven, it will be!

Hindus’ heaven…

And here’s the fun: if you study any people’s heaven, you will know instantly what that people has forbidden. No need to read their scriptures—understand their heaven and you will see which things they have forcibly renounced.

In the Hindu heaven there is the wish-fulfilling tree—sit beneath it and every desire is fulfilled. Not even a time lag: you wish here and it is fulfilled there. You think, “Let food arrive”—platters appear! Before you can finish saying it—platters arrive.

Why the wish-fulfilling tree? Because Hindus insist on the renunciation of all desires. Naturally, the one who, by cajoling himself, becomes a renouncer, lives in the hope that someday he will die—this body will not last long—and a few years will pass, then there will be the wish-fulfilling tree! Then we will sit beneath it!

Fast during the day and you dream of food all night! Take a vow of celibacy and women fill your dreams.

These are dreams: wish-fulfilling trees! Rivers of wine! They reveal what you have forcibly given up—not by ripening, but by conditioning, teaching, pressure.

The zealot’s castle of piety rests on this alone:
the mosque was near, the tavern far.

You did not dare go that far. To go would have risked your reputation. So you found a trick: live here in the mosque; in heaven we will live in the tavern. Thus you consoled yourself, struck a bargain.

Your heavens are your webs of imagination. And your hells? You built heavens for yourself, and hells for others—they too are revealing.

In the Hindu hell, a terrible fire burns eternally. People are roasted in it. India is a heat-tormented land; the sun blazes. So coolness in heaven—gentle breezes! Morning forever; no noon. The freshness of dawn remains. Flowers bloom, never wither. And cool winds blow. In hell, roaring flames—that is the imagination of a hot country.

Tibetans do not say hell has flames. Their heaven is warm and sunny—people there die of cold. Their hell is sheeted in ice; people are frozen there!

In truth, there is no heaven anywhere, no hell anywhere. You build your own heaven—what you wanted and could not do here, you do there in fantasy. The Hindu heaven is fully air-conditioned. No heat there. No sweat in heaven—sweat does not come.

For yourself you imagine what you gave up; but what of those who did not give it up? Suppose you wanted to drink and did not; you arranged things for yourself in heaven—what will you do for those who drink? They must be punished, because you renounced and they did not; they will be burned in hell. And there—not just wine—there is no water to drink. Flames everywhere, the throat parched with fire, and not a drop of water!

This reveals your mind—your own trouble, your violence, your lust. It reveals no real heaven or hell.

Devotion happens to one who has no desire for this world nor for the next. Whose commerce of wanting has been stilled; who has said: now there is nothing to ask for—neither here nor there; asking itself is dropped—and to such a one, all is given “here.”

“Single-pointedness in the Beloved and indifference toward what is contrary to Him is also called cessation (nirodha).”

Exactly so.

“Single-pointedness in the Beloved God…”

As if you have become one with Him, unalloyed! Not a shade of difference remains! Not even a hair’s breadth between “I” and “Thou.”

“Single-pointedness in the Beloved automatically becomes indifference toward what is contrary to Him.”

Understand “indifference.” Indifference is the path of cessation.

The one you call a renouncer is not indifferent; he is in opposition. The man who has “renounced” wine is not indifferent to wine; he is in vehement opposition.

Indifference means: it is of no use to me. Opposition means: wine is poison.

One who is indifferent to sex is not against sex. If someone else indulges, he does not feel condemnation—“it is his choice, his understanding; perhaps his time has not come—one day it will.” Compassion may arise, not anger.

One who is indifferent to wealth does not condemn wealth. He does not call wealth sin. He simply says: money has its utility, but it is temporary. He says: wealth is not everything—he does not say: wealth is nothing. He says: it is useful in the world—but the world is not everything. He is not against wealth.

There are renouncers who shut their eyes if you bring money before them. That is not indifference. There are renouncers who do not touch money with their hands. That is not indifference.

A sannyasin visited me two years ago. I invited him to a meditation camp. He said this is difficult. Another man was with him. I asked: difficult—why?

He said: I do not touch money. Traveling by train requires buying a ticket.

I asked: then how did you come here?

He said: this man is with me. He keeps the money; I do not touch it. So if he agrees to come, only then can I attend the camp.

This is slavery worse than money. Now you are not just a slave to money—you are also dependent on this man. It would have been better to be enslaved by money alone—this man is an added trouble! And the money is his, but really it is yours—he holds it! A double bondage!

Indifference means: if it is there, fine; if it is not, fine. Indifference is without bias. It is a remarkable thing—the supreme sign of detachment.

Therefore if you find, in someone who appears detached, opposition instead of indifference—understand, something has gone wrong. If he is frightened, the taste persists—the very thing he fears still has taste. If he fears touching money, greed is alive within. If he fears seeing a woman, lust is alive within. We fear only that in which we know we might fall.

Indifference means: it makes no difference.

It happened: Buddha was meditating under a tree on a full-moon night. From the nearby town, some rich youths brought a courtesan into the forest to make merry. They got drunk; the courtesan saw her chance and fled. Toward dawn they sobered up in the cold, saw she had escaped, and set out to find her. On the path where Buddha sat, they came upon him and asked whether a woman had passed that way.

Buddha said: Someone did pass—but whether it was a woman or a man, that is hard to say—because I no longer have any interest in such things. Someone did pass, yes—but whether male or female, I have no taste in it.

That is indifference.

Buddha said: As long as I had taste, I looked closely at who is who. Now I have no taste.

When taste is gone, indifference remains, and a peace surrounds you—without bias.

“Single-pointedness in the Beloved and indifference to what is contrary to Him is also called cessation.”

To drink or not to drink—it’s all one, O zealot! Forgive the fault.
When intention is not yet trustworthy, vows make no difference.

Until you can trust your inner state—until your intention is clear—swearing oaths makes no difference; adopting vows makes no difference. The real matter is intention. Whether you drink or not—no difference; whether you live at home or outside—no difference; whether you perform worship or not—no difference. The real question is the state of your intention within. If the intention is pure, wherever you are—you will find a temple. If the intention is not pure, even in a temple—you will be in a brothel. A person lives in his intention, in his inner climate.

“Single-pointedness in the Beloved…”

What craving, what craving for what, for whom?
If I am, He is not; if He is, I am not.

Only one can remain in love—never two. Either the Divine remains and you vanish; or you remain and the Divine vanishes.

What craving, what craving for what, for whom?
If I am, He is not; if He is, I am not.

Single-pointedness means: only one remains.

“Love’s lane is too narrow; two cannot pass.” In it, two cannot be.

Thus the devotee becomes God little by little, and God becomes the devotee.

Ramakrishna, while offering food to the deity, would taste it first. The temple trustees summoned him: This is not proper worship. In which scripture is this written? First offer to God, then eat what remains; but you do the reverse—you taste first. You are offering leftovers!

Ramakrishna said: Then keep your job—I’m going. When my mother cooked, she always tasted first, then gave me. If a mother’s love had such care, this love is greater still. I cannot offer without tasting; how will I know if it is fit to offer?

Such single-pointedness, such intimacy, such nearness that boundaries blur. Sometimes Ramakrishna would dance all day; sometimes a fortnight would pass and he would not go to the temple. Again he would be called: What is this? The temple stands empty; worship is not performed. Ramakrishna would say: When it happens, it happens. When he calls and the feeling of oneness arises—only then. When there is distance, what is the point? When I am, whom to worship? When only He remains, then it happens. It is no longer in my hands that He remains. When it happens, it happens—spontaneously!

A priest like Ramakrishna no temple will find again. Blessed is Dakshineshwar to have had such a priest.

Single-pointedness means: “I” and “Thou” do not remain two; only one remains. In truth, from both sides—lover and Beloved, devotee and God—both disappear, and between them a new truth dawns: a new luminous consciousness in which, from one end, the devotee is gone; from the other, God too has vanished.

“Devotee” and “God” belong to the language of duality; devotion is non-dual.

“Single-pointedness in the Beloved and indifference to what is contrary to Him is cessation.”

And whoever establishes such unity with Him becomes indifferent to the world; there is no need to leave it, no need to renounce; everything falls away, becomes pointless. There is nothing left worth “leaving.”

“Single-pointedness means abandoning all other supports except the Beloved.”

May the Divine fill you so totally that not a speck of space remains within you that is not filled with Him. May you be brim-full, overflowing with Him, leaving no other shelter, no other leaning, no other attachment; all attachments flow into that One.

“Single-pointedness means abandoning all other supports except the Beloved.”

With these eyes I looked for You everywhere—
and all the while You were hidden in those very eyes; I did not know.

I searched for You everywhere with my sight, not knowing You were seated in my very seeing! You are hidden in the seeker himself. You are hidden in the seeing, in the capacity to see. You are hidden in your awareness. You are hidden in your very being.

With these eyes I looked for You everywhere—
and all the while You were hidden in those very eyes; I did not know.

You are the temple.

To find the Divine you need not go to some other temple. By diving within, all who have found have found.

If you drop all props, all supports, you will sink into yourself. Whatever you clutch as a support keeps you hanging outside yourself. Money as support, position as support, friend as support, family as support, husband-wife as support—these very supports, which you imagine keep you safe, keep you stuck outside.

Drop all supports!

Be without support!

Be helpless!

And suddenly you will find: you have found within yourself that ground you searched through births; within yourself the hand you have found is eternal. No other support is needed.

“In worldly and scriptural actions, to act only in ways harmonious with God is indifference to what is contrary to Him.”

Once single-pointedness is established—once the wire connects, the attunement sets, the hand is in His hand—such a person acts only in accord with Him. “He” does the doing. The doer-sense is gone. He says: “Whatever He makes me do! His will! Whatever dance He makes me dance, that is my life.” Decisions from one’s own side, thinking from one’s own side, are no longer possible.

“Even after the firm resolve to obtain the supramundane love that transcends all prescriptions and prohibitions, one must protect the scriptures; otherwise there is danger of a fall.”

This aphorism matters, for this does happen.

When you feel you are moving in harmony with the Divine, when you feel you have become one—you may think you have gone beyond all rules; society’s norms no longer apply.

True—no rule applies to love, to the devotee. He has reached beyond, found the supreme law of love; no other law applies to him. Yet this does not mean you should start breaking rules. Though no rule applies to you, society still lives by rules. In the society you live, do not be an obstacle—be a support. Do not be a cause of disorder—be a path.

Thus Narada says: “Even when beyond prescriptions and prohibitions…”

No rule binds the lover, the devotee. But still—when walking on the road, he should keep left, for the traffic flows left. If he starts to walk on the right, proclaiming, “I have attained devotion”—there is danger, the danger of a fall. In truth, such insistence is made only by one who has not really attained; it is the ego’s new proclamation. A new game begins for the ego: “No rules apply to me. I live by His will. Whatever He makes me do, I do.”

Do not let your ego hide behind this mask. Do not let it become your new deceit.

So the aphorism says: remain alert. Even if you have gone beyond rules, preserve the scriptures. In that preservation lies your own protection, and others’ too. Why? Because then your ego cannot find a new way to ornament itself.

And remember: one who has truly gone beyond rules is not busy breaking them. Why would he be concerned with breaking? He is beyond them like the lotus is beyond water. One who has crossed accepts life quietly as it is: people live as they live—fine.

Little children are playing with toys. You know they are toys; you know the rules of the game are made up. But when a father plays with his child, he abides by the rules. He cannot say, “I am not a child; I am beyond the rules.” With children, a grown man behaves childlike—that is the sign of maturity.

Thus one who truly attains the supreme in devotion does not disrupt life’s order. He does not bring anarchy.

Jesus said: I have come not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it.

He re-reveals the essence of scripture. He revives what has been lost. He wipes away the dust that has settled upon scripture. He polishes the mirror so you may again see your face in it and recognize yourself. Over centuries, dust and layers of interpretation accumulate; he removes them—but he preserves the scripture. For scripture consists of the words of those who have known. Whatever interpretations have gone wrong, the source is from the awakened—the source cannot be wrong.

People ask why I interpret scriptures. So that the dust may be removed and I can show you their pure gold. If I ever seem opposed to scripture, understand the mistake is in your understanding; the meaning you had assumed was not the scripture’s meaning, hence I seem opposed. Otherwise I too say: I have not come to refute scripture, but to bring forth its purest form.

“Worldly actions should also be performed, in due form, so long as external awareness remains; and food and such bodily functions will continue as long as the body lasts.”

Outer actions should generally be done according to the ordinary ways and social understanding—so long as external awareness remains. For in devotion there come such moments when outer awareness is lost—then this aphorism does not apply. There are moments when ecstasy reaches such peaks that external awareness does not remain. Ramakrishna would remain unconscious for days. Then one cannot expect anything of him; he would be so absorbed, so far away, that others had to care for his body.

“But eating and the like will continue as long as the body remains.”

From this, understand: lust must go; needs need not. Food is necessary. Clothing is necessary. Shelter is necessary. What is necessary is not denied; only the unnecessary—born of mind’s craving—is to be dropped, that which you could have easily lived without, perhaps more happily.

Aldous Huxley was a great thinker. He had a house in California and had collected priceless things all his life—rare scriptures, unique books, paintings, sculptures. A very sensitive man. One day a fire broke out and everything burned to ash.

He said: I had thought I would die of grief—but unexpectedly, something happened: I felt as if a weight had been lifted. A burden! He himself was surprised. He stood before the flames of his great collection and felt light—as if cleansed. “I felt clean.” A freshness.

You do not realize how many unnecessary things have not given you life, only burden. Without them, you could be healthier, happier. They gave you only tension and worry.

There is no question of abandoning needs. Devotion does not teach forced renunciation. This is its beauty—its naturalness. Life’s simple needs must be met.

Devotion does not force you to stand naked, to fast, to torture the body needlessly—such cruelty, such violence devotion does not teach.

Devotion says: this house of yours is the temple of the Divine; it must be cared for. It is His house. Keep it clean, fresh, and beautiful—worthy of Him. But understand the difference between need and indulgence.

I have heard: Mulla Nasruddin was in love with a woman and wanted to marry her. She said, “Nasruddin, one thing I want to ask: you aren’t one of those men who, after marriage, send their wives to work in offices, are you?”

Nasruddin said, “Never think such a thing! My wife will never go to work. Only one thing—if you demand luxuries like clothes, food, and a house, then I don’t know…” Luxuries—clothes, food, shelter! Otherwise my wife will never work. Just don’t ask for luxuries like food, clothing, and house.

Learn the difference between luxury and need.

Devotion is a healthy, natural path. It accepts you as you are, accepts your needs. Inflicting needless pain, creating artificial tensions—none of this leads to love of the Divine; it leads to a denser ego.

Devotion is not renunciation; it is cessation. What is false falls away. What is essential remains.

Thus the final aphorism: Worldly actions should also be performed, in due form, so long as external awareness remains; and food and such bodily functions continue as long as the body lasts.

The very naturalness of devotion is the reason for its power.

Devotion is exquisitely sensitive. It is not eager to make life ugly; it welcomes life’s beauty. For life is, after all, the Divine’s; ultimately He is hidden in it! Keep Him in mind as you walk.

Let the trash fall away; let what is essential be cared for. Let the rubbish drop on its own; let the precious remain.

If you understand devotion rightly, you will find no other approach in religion so simple and natural.

Enough for today.