Bhakti Sutra #7

The essence of devotion is: grace.
The essence of knowledge, action, and yoga is: effort.

Knowledge, action, and yoga depend on human striving; devotion depends on God’s grace. By its very nature devotion is incomparable. Neither action, nor knowledge, nor yoga can reach its heights.

Even if human effort goes high, how high can it go? However much a human being does, it cannot be greater than the human being himself. Whatever we do will carry our imprint. Whatever we do will remain bound by our limits.

Devotion does not trust the human; devotion trusts the Divine.

There was a very unique devotee, Bayazid Bastami. After seeking God continuously for thirty years, he says one day it became clear to him: “How will He ever be found by my seeking, unless He is the one seeking me?” Then he dropped the search—and in dropping it, he found.

Not by thirty years, not even by thirty lifetimes of seeking can He be found—because it is we who seek: blind, sunk in darkness, sin-stained, bound by limitation. We are a heap of mistakes. We are the ones who would seek Him! Where is the light in us to search for Him? Where are the hands to touch Him? From where will we bring the heart that can recognize Him?

One day the seeker realizes: “No, I will not find You by my seeking, unless You Yourself seek me.”

And Bayazid said: “When I found Him I came to know that even this was my delusion—that I was seeking Him. He was seeking me.”

Until God Himself has begun to seek you, the very thought of seeking Him will not arise in your mind. It will sound paradoxical, but it is a profound truth.

Only those set out to seek God whom God has already begun to seek. Only the ones He has already chosen, choose Him. Only those in whose hearts He has in some way already arrived, become eager in prayer to Him.

It is He who seeks Himself through you. The whole play is His. Wherever you become the doer in this play, there an obstacle arises, there the doors close.

Remain empty; let Him seek from within you—and in this very instant, that great revolution can dawn.

To understand devotion, grasp this one thing as deeply as you can: devotion is not man’s search for God; devotion is God’s search for man.

Man, defeated, surrenders; tired, he surrenders; vanquished, he bows down. He says: “Now You lift me if I am to be lifted! Now You take over if I am to be held! I can no longer manage on my own. What I could do, I did; what I could be, I became—but by my doing, nothing happens. Whatever I do turns undone. The more I try to hold together, the more I fall apart. The more I struggle to come onto the right path, the more I get lost. Now You lead! Birth is Yours, life is Yours, death is Yours—how can prayer be mine?”

Today’s first sutra: “That devotion, that love-form devotion, is superior even to action, knowledge, and yoga.”

Its supremacy is that it is the Infinite seeking you.

When the Ganges flows toward the ocean—that is knowledge, yoga, action. When the ocean flows toward the Ganges—that is devotion.

Devotion is like a little child calling, crying—and the mother comes running.

Devotion is simply your sob! The sigh rising from your heart!

Devotion is the confession of the utter futility of all your seeking. Devotion is the expression of your tears. You do not go anywhere—you halt where you are. One truth dawns on you: not that you do wrong, but that “you” are the wrong.

Karma-yoga says: You act wrongly; act rightly and you will arrive.
Jnana-yoga says: You know wrongly; know rightly and you will arrive.
The science of yoga says: You don’t know the methods, the path. Learn the methods, learn the path; it’s a matter of technique—you will arrive.

Devotion says: You yourself are the error. Neither by knowledge, nor by action, nor by yoga will you arrive. If you slip out of yourself, arrival happens. If you are no more, arrival happens.

First you were in ignorance; then you will be in knowledge—and not much will change. Some difference will be there, but not much. It will be like this: the chains were iron; now you will gild them with gold. The prison was ugly, foul-smelling; you will spray fragrance, paint and decorate it. The prison will be adorned!

The ignorant person’s ego is filled with ignorance; the knower’s ego will be filled with knowledge—but the ego will not be erased! Many times it happens that the ignorant reach, and the learned lose their way. At least the ignorant can sometimes feel their helplessness. In the experience “I am ignorant,” the ego has a chance to fall. But in the experience “I have known,” the ego is given a foundation of stone.

The ignorant person’s ego is a building on sand—it can fall any time; life’s storms are many, any storm can uproot it. The learned one’s building stands on rock—it will collide with storms; storms will come, be defeated, and pass; the building will stand.

The one who has done wrong, the sinner—at times he weeps in the darkness of his sin, at times he groans. Sometimes a deep pain arises: What am I doing? Sometimes he repents what he has done. But the one who has done merit, virtuous deeds—built temples, raised mosques, endowed resting places, served people, opened hospitals—he never repents.

And unless you repent, how will God descend into you?

The meritorious one walks stiff with pride; he feels entitled to God. He says, “Why have You not come yet? What more do You want? I have done everything.”

In the meritorious mind there will be complaint, not contrition. He will say, “Injustice is happening. What more is needed? Why this insistence? I have done all that scriptures said, all that moralists prescribed. I committed no sin, no theft, no dishonesty; I observed all vows—what more do You want?”

The learned will be stiff. The righteous will be stiff. The stiffness that “I have done; now I must attain.” The knower thinks God is the fruit of knowledge. The righteous thinks God is the fruit of virtue, of good deeds. The yogi says, “How many postures I’ve done; I’ve spent my life—pranayama, asana, withdrawal of senses; I purified the body in every way. I sat like a stone statue in meditation for long stretches. What more is needed?”

Whoever has “done” will always be filled with grievance; where is the space for repentance? Repent what?

Jesus went from place to place telling his devotees, “Repent! The kingdom of God is at hand.”

Repent?

But how will one repent who has done no wrong? Why should one repent who has practiced yoga? Having done virtue, where is the place left for repentance? If it is all merit, what meaning has repentance? Repentance seems fit for the sinner, the ignorant, the non-yogi, the sensualist—not for the yogi!

Yet until you repent, God does not happen. So what does repentance mean? Only this: that up to now, I was the doer—that is the repentance. I repent that until now I believed I was the doer. You are the Doer. Here lies the fundamental mistake. Sometimes I thought I did sin; sometimes I thought I did virtue—but I remained the doer. My ego alone got decorated. I built temples for You, but established my own image there. I bowed before Your image, but it was an image my own hands had carved.

Go back and look closely in temples: are there idols there, or mirrors? Before those images you bow—are they mirrors where you bow to your own reflection?

That’s why a Hindu bows where a Hindu’s deity stands—until his own picture appears, he won’t bow. A Christian bows where a Christian image stands.

They tell a story: Tulsidas went into a Krishna temple and did not bow—being a devotee of Rama, how could he bow in Krishna’s shrine! He said, “I won’t bow until You stand with bow and arrow in hand.”

Do you bow before God, or before your own notions? Which means: first let God bow—take bow and arrow in hand, conform to your idea—then you will bow! So do you bow to your own belief?

Have you ever bowed before any God?

As long as “you” are, you cannot bow. Your very being will not let bowing happen.

Repent for what?

Repent for this: that until now I said “I am”; today I say, “No—I am not, only You are!” Until now I tried to attain You, and by my efforts I did not find You. By my efforts, I may have gained knowledge, earned merit, acquired character—but not You.

By effort, He cannot be attained. If by effort He could be, what kind of God would that be? Whatever is gained by your effort is smaller than your effort. He is gained by grace!

That’s why Narada says something unique, something deep: “That love-form devotion is greater even than action, knowledge, and yoga.”

Nothing compares with devotion. Devotion is not something to be done. The word deceives—“devotion” sounds like something to do, some act—as in yoga you do, in action you do, in knowledge you do, so in devotion also you must do. There the mistake begins.

Devotion is the realization that by my doing nothing ever happens. Devotion is the awareness of the futility of one’s acts, it is repentance. In that repentance you fall, you bow. Note, I do not say, “you bow”—you are bowed!

What will you do? How will you stand? When all you’ve done proves undone; when wherever your feet go, there the world appears; when whatever your eyes show turns out to be matter; when the prayers you make are finally shown to be desires, cravings—what then will you do? You stop. There is not even a place left to stand. No strength left to stand. You fall.

If you fall of your own effort, that too is yoga. If you find you are falling—as if falling is happening, bowing is happening—then devotion has happened.

The trouble with language: even devotion gets turned into a doing.

Devotion is not a deed. That is why its supremacy is absolute.

“Because devotion is fruit-form.”

Understand this. It is a scientific sutra.

If you want to turn water into steam, put it on the fire. Provide the cause, the effect will follow. When the temperature reaches a hundred degrees, the water will start to boil. Water cannot say, “Today I’m not in the mood to become steam; it’s a bit cold today so not now; or my mind is sad.” Water can do nothing of the sort.

When the cause is present, the effect will occur.

Sow a seed, a sprout will emerge.

The standpoint of knowledge, action, and yoga is that God is attained in the same way: provide the cause, the effect must follow.

The yogi says, “Follow these disciplines—this is ashtanga yoga, these are its eight limbs; fulfill them—and God will have to be attained. Just as at a hundred degrees water boils, so when ashtanga yoga is complete, God is attained.”

The karma-yogi says, “Do this much merit; keep the five great vows: nonviolence, nonstealing, noncovetousness, nonpossession, truthfulness—keep them! If the observance is complete, God will arrive, just as when you sow a seed, water it, give it sunlight, the sprout appears.” Thus God is the fruit and your doing—knowledge, action, yoga—is the seed. What you do is the cause and God is the effect.

Devotees do not see it so. They say: Whatever you do, God is supremely free; He is not bound by your acts. He will not arrive because you completed ashtanga yoga. And if you rely on ashtanga yoga, you will sit stiff with pride and no relationship with God will happen.

God does not belong to the world of cause and effect.

God means “the Whole.” Everything else has causes; the Whole can have no cause. Everything else has supports; the Whole has none—it is unsupported.

A seed becomes a tree. In the tree seeds appear. In the seeds trees arise again. The whole world is a chain—cause-effect, effect-cause—bound together. But the chain as a totality has no cause. The totality in all its forms is what we call God.

You stand on the earth; the earth is held by the sun’s gravity; the sun is held by some greater sun’s gravity—but where is the entire existence held? It cannot be held anywhere, because there is nothing outside it to hold it. Existence as such is unsupported.

You were born by the meeting of your mother’s and father’s seeds. They too were born by someone else’s seeds, and so on. But God has no father. Outside the Whole there is nothing; everything is within It.

So devotees say: These ways of “attaining God” are not right. You are applying the method for obtaining things in the world to God.

Thus devotion is not seed-form, it is fruit-form. Devotion is not a cause; it is the effect. Devotion is not the beginning; it is the end—the fruit. You have nothing to do—the fruit is bestowed to you. Not produced by your doing—it comes as grace. When you are ready, when your being is suffused with longing, when your breath looks toward the sky with patience, when your helplessness is complete, when you are utterly empty—into your emptiness devotion descends, God descends.

Note: the devotee says this does not descend because of any cause you provided. He descends out of His compassion; He descends as grace; He descends because He wants to. Therefore the devotee cannot complain. If He does not descend, the devotee cannot say, “I have arranged everything; why have You not come?”—he has no claim. No moment ever comes in a devotee’s life when he can say, “I have a grievance.” A grievance would mean: “I have heated the water to a hundred degrees—why is it not boiling? I have completed all from my side; now injustice is happening!”

Consider this well.

Those who emphasized action, knowledge, and yoga gradually dropped God altogether—because there is no need for Him. Mahavira relied on karma, so he denied God. Why bring God in? When water boils at a hundred degrees, what need is there to insert God in between? Where is the question of grace? You complete the process, the result arrives. You sow the seed, the fruit appears. Where is there a place to bring in God? There is no need.

Patanjali even made God a means, not the end.

The knowers, the yogis, the doers of merit—left God aside; they felt no need. That hypothesis is useless. It can be done without Him. It is done by us; He is not needed.

The scripture of devotion says: From us nothing happens; the “we” itself is the hindrance. Where “we” are lost, there happening begins.

“Devotion is fruit-form.”

It has no seed for you to plant. There is no cause for you to prepare, no enterprise for you to undertake. No, there is no means in your hands by which you can pull Him down. Your becoming without means, your becoming helpless, your repenting, your beating your chest and weeping, your dissolving into tears—when the realization dawns that I myself have been the cause of all the trouble, that my efforts have been the cause of the upheaval—then the fruit, only the fruit, becomes available.

Knowledge is the means; devotion is the end.
Knowledge is the path; devotion is the destination.
The knower must walk; the yogi must walk; the devotee simply arrives—he does not walk. The devotee is the greatest miracle.

Therefore, if you want to understand Mahavira, there is no difficulty. To understand Mahavira is to understand a scientific system. To understand Patanjali—nothing obscure or difficult—straight mathematics. But Meera is beyond grasp. You cannot catch hold of Chaitanya. The devotee’s story never becomes a clean narrative.

You can ask a yogi, “What did you do? How did you attain God?” He can tell his story: “I did this and that. I fasted this much. I practiced pranayama this much. I followed ashtanga yoga in this manner. I reached samadhi step by step.” It’s all clear. Mile-stones lie along his road. He can speak.

Ask Meera, “How did you attain?” Meera will stand, halted. She will say, “To say that I attained is not right—He came.”

The one to whom it happens has no story. The attainer is a zero. The whole story is God’s story—Bhagavat-katha. The devotee has no story.

The devotee is unfathomable.

If Meera and Mahavira stood together, you would be pleased with Mahavira—you would say, “He did so much, then attained. It makes sense.” What did Meera do? What practices did she perform? What means used? What yoga? Nothing at all.

…Then, like a sudden comet, she appears! Uncaused! Effortless! Fruit-form. One day there is no sign; the next day, suddenly, her dance begins, her anklets start to ring. A moment before, no one knew—not even her family, not even her husband.

Hence the devotee seems mad, because he does not fit into mathematics.

…Spontaneous, causeless! One day suddenly Meera breaks into dance! No one knows how this dance was born! Behind this dance there is no chain of cause-effect. It appears like a comet. You cannot predict it; you cannot explain it by looking back into the past—in the stream of time, someone descends from beyond time! Fruit-form!

You were resting under a tree and the fruit fell upon you; you had not sown the seed, you had not tended the tree, you did not even know the tree was there—you simply received the fruit!

One day Meera dances! Before and after this dance there is no accounting. That’s why to understand Meera is utterly difficult. Understanding needs an awareness of cause-effect chains.

Mahavira did twelve years of austerity. Buddha did six years of austerity and searched for lives upon lives. What did Meera do?

Narada’s sutra is extraordinary: “Devotion is fruit-form.”

Devotion is not a means, it is the end. Here there is no path at all—only the destination. It is a matter of eyes opening.

Life was brought, and death leads us away—
We did not come by our will, nor do we leave by our will.

He who understands this, understands: He brought me, and I came; He takes me, and I go. Breath was set flowing, and it flowed; He stopped it, and it stopped.

We did not come by our will, nor do we leave by our will.

Once you taste the essence of this, the beginning of devotion has happened; you are coming close to grace. And the day you truly feel: you are not—some other hand brought you, some other hand moves you, some Other is holding the whole story together—then what burden, what worry?

The paths turned easy, even the winds changed their course;
Your hand found mine, and lamps lit up along the way.

As long as you are, there is darkness; you vanish—and lamps blaze! The day you drop the illusion that “I am walking,” that very day you discover: His hand has always been guiding you; His hand is in your hand.

We have never lost God; had we lost Him, there would be no way to find Him. Whatever can be lost is not our nature. We never lost Him—we forgot, we fell drowsy for a moment, we slipped into a nap; remembrance faded. His hand is still in ours. There is nothing to do to get that hand—only to drop the illusion.

“Devotion is fruit-form.”

Knowledge says: Something must be done—dispel ignorance, bring in knowledge. Great enterprise! That is why the learned have a natural stiffness: they have done so much. They say, “What have you done? We gathered knowledge for years.”

The yogi practices for years, so his stiffness too is natural. The virtuous becomes a “great soul.” How much he does! How much service! How many good deeds! Stiffness is natural. The devotee cannot be stiff—his very foundation is that we did nothing; whatever happened, You made happen.

The devotee’s world is unique—another realm altogether. Not of mathematics, not of science, not of logic—but of love, of prayer, of God. There everything is reversed. There fruit precedes seed. There destination precedes path. There nothing happens by your doing—everything happens by your not doing.

Therefore, those who want to stiffen—devotion is not for them; those who want to melt—it is for them. If you want to stiffen, seek yoga, renunciation, vows and disciplines. If you want to stiffen and show the world “I am something,” then forget the path of devotion; it is not for you. It is too soon for you. But if you have begun to understand that by your doing nothing happened; you walked far and arrived nowhere; you ran fast and, when you opened your eyes, you found yourself standing where you began—if such a feeling arises, then you are ripe for devotion.

“Because God too has aversion to pride and love for lowliness.”

This sutra is difficult. If you think of it your way, you’ll get in trouble: “God has aversion to pride!” If you ask Mahavira, he will say there is no such God; what kind of God has aversion? God and aversion—impossible! In Mahavira’s definition, only when aversion is gone does one attain godliness.

“And love for lowliness.”

Then it would mean He too has partialities.

No—the sutra is not about God; it is about you.

Suppose someone says: when it rains, the rain favors pits and dislikes peaks—what will that mean? It simply means: when rain comes it fills the hollows; the mountains remain empty—because the peaks are already full; there is no space there. Space is needed. The pits fill, lakes appear. The rain falls on the mountains but flows down into the hollows, the lakes.

This is all the sutra means: if you are filled with pride, God cannot descend into you, however much He tries. He is trying forever, but you are already full; there is no room. A little empty space is needed. Because of your ego there is no space on your throne—you yourself are sitting on it. If you vacate it, God can sit.

“And love for lowliness.”

Its meaning is simply: become like a lake, a hollow, so that God may fill you; become empty, so that you may be filled.

Now You also bring Your compassion to its utmost—
I too had taken my errors to their utmost.

The devotee says: “I left nothing undone in sinning; I left nothing undone in erring—now You too be unstinting in Your compassion, as I was unstinting in sin.”

Now You also bring Your compassion to its utmost—
I too had taken my errors to their utmost.

He says: “I have sinned, and fully; I have not been miserly; I went to the limit; I completed it. Now please, complete Your grace! Let there be no lack in Your compassion—just as there was none in my sin, just as I strained to fill my ego!”

But the one who says this has become a hollow. For the declaration of sin makes you a hollow. Declaring merit fills you with ego.

The devotee says: I am a sinner! I am unworthy!

The knower says: I am worthy, I am ready—why this delay?

The yogi says: I am pure, completely prepared—now the delay is from Your side.

The devotee says: I am not ready at all. Therefore there can be no demand from my side. I can only say this much: I left nothing undone in sinning—because sin is all I could do; what else could I do? Now do not be sparing in compassion—compassion is what You can do; what else can You do?

The devotee declares himself unfit—that is his fitness; he declares himself a failure—that is his success; he declares himself defeated—that is his victory.

The devotee says, even that is not necessary.

Bayazid would not go to the mosque to pray. His life was unique, steeped in God’s love. Someone asked him why he did not go to the mosque to pray. He began to weep. He said: “Once I was passing through a city and saw a beggar standing at a king’s gate. The king came out, paused, and asked the beggar, ‘What do you want? Why don’t you speak?’

“The beggar replied, ‘If, on seeing me, compassion does not arise in you, what difference will my words make?’”

His clothes were torn to rags, barely hanging. His body was not covered by them; naked he would have been more covered. His belly had shrunk to his spine, bones protruding, eyes sunk.

Bayazid said, “From that day I stopped praying. What is there to say to Him?

“If seeing me He does not feel compassion, then that’s the end of it—what is there to say? Just look at me!”

“From that day I stopped prayer. He is already seeing—what need is there to tell Him? What need to cry?”

What need is there for lips to speak? Your very being is your plea.

It is not necessary that a devotee “prays.” Devotion is a state of feeling: “My very being is my petition.” In his very being, his lowliness is contained.

Narada says something unique: “God has aversion to pride and love for lowliness.”

No—what aversion or preference would God have! But so long as there is ego on the devotee’s side, God cannot enter. When lowliness arises—“my being itself is my plea”—when the devotee stands defeated on all sides, when the single tone of his whole life becomes: I am vanquished, lowly, fallen, sinful, unworthy; I have nothing on the ground of which to make demands; I have nothing on the ground of which to claim You; I have nothing on the ground of which to complain—at that very instant, in that lowliness, God descends.

Jesus said: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.”

Contemplate this: poor in spirit! It is easy to be poor in body. You can leave home, house, family; you can renounce clothes, stand naked. But the more you drop outwardly, the more the inner stiffness grows. Outwardly you become poor, inwardly your stiffness increases.

Look at the Jain monk! He cannot fold his hands and bow to anyone—that would be against the rule. He can only give blessings, he cannot bow. Why? Because he is a renunciate. Should a renunciate bow to the worldly? Impossible! This is not poverty of spirit. Outwardly he may wear the garb of poverty—keeping two sets of clothes, possessing nothing else, living on alms—but see his stiffness! He is no beggar. There is great ego in his beggarhood: “I have renounced so much...!”

If you bow to a Jain monk, he will bless you; he cannot fold hands to you.

Jesus said: poverty of spirit!

…This one dropped outer wealth and clutched inner wealth; dropped outer ego and seized inner ego. This is not gaining—it is losing in reverse; not arriving—moving farther from the goal.

Remember: first you try to be wealthy in the outer world. When you fail there, you try to be wealthy in the inner world. Your yoga, your knowledge, your action begin to make you inwardly rich. Thus you miss again.

If outer wealth is dangerous, inner wealth is more dangerous. If outer pride is bad, inner pride is worse.

God descends in your utter lowliness.

Do not misunderstand this sutra. God does not “love” your lowliness—but only in your lowliness can He descend. When you are full of yourself, there is no question of descent. When you are stiff and imagine you are holding everything together, doing everything—you have denied Him; you have closed the doors.

In the passion of longing, death becomes true life;
Win the wager of love by losing the wager of life.

There comes a stage, a turning, where death is life—and where losing is winning—where our old thought-frames utterly reverse.

To win love’s game—lose the game of your life.

If there is a heart, it is his; if there is nerve, it is his—
Who ruins himself upon love’s road.

Do not take sannyas by the arithmetic of gain. Do not renounce by the calculus of greed. Let your renunciation, your religion, not be your cleverness—if it is cleverness, you will miss. For then you begin to become “worthy.” And whoever thinks “I am worthy” has lost lowliness; he has lost poverty of spirit.

Become lowly!
Disappear!
Live as defeated!

You have nursed the delusion of winning long enough—drop this disease!

As you disappear, God moves toward you. As you fade, He approaches. The day you vanish completely, you find suddenly—He was always there; only because of your presence He could not be seen.

You yourself are the veil over your eyes.

The eyes are capable of seeing; because of you they cannot see.
Vision is dim—because of you; blind—because of you!

Step aside from the eye!
Let the eye be clear!
Let the eye be empty!
Let the eye be a void!

Then, nothing but God is seen.

“Some teachers say knowledge is the means to devotion.”

Wrong view. It may be the opinion of scholars—of those who have thought and reasoned—but not of those who have known.

“Knowledge is the means to devotion...”

No—has anyone ever become a devotee through knowing? The more you know, the more you become undevotional. The knower slowly denies God—denies in a thousand ways.

Knowledge is not a means to devotion; it is a hindrance.

“Other teachers say devotion and knowledge are mutually dependent.”

That too is false.

Devotion is a different matter altogether! It is not related to knowing—it is related to experiencing.

“According to Sanat-kumara and Narada, devotion is itself fruit-form.”

Narada says both those opinions are wrong. Neither is knowledge a means to devotion, nor are devotion and knowledge mutually dependent. Devotion is itself fruit-form; knowledge is not needed.

“It is the same with knowing a palace or food.”

“By knowing alone, neither the king’s pleasure is won, nor is hunger appeased.”

For example: if someone discusses food and knows much about it—still, the hunger will not be stilled. Study of cookbooks does not remove hunger. You can amass tomes of cuisine, immerse yourself in them. You can know of all dishes ever made or that could be made. Your stomach’s hunger will not be satisfied by that. Hunger is satisfied by eating.

Devotion is nourishment, not knowledge.
Devotion is taste—alive.
Devotion is not knowing about God—it is God as food. The example is perfect.

When Jesus was about to depart from his disciples, the hour of crucifixion near, he broke bread and gave it to them and said, “This bread is me; you are not eating bread—you are eating me.”

Devotion is God as food; God as savor.

Hunger is appeased by eating; thirst is quenched by drinking water—not by knowing about water.

Knowing about God is not knowing God. Only those know God who “taste” Him, who digest Him; in whose blood and bones God circulates; who are filled with His fragrance; whose being and God’s being are no longer distinct.

“By knowing alone neither joy arises, nor hunger is appeased.”

Therefore devotion has nothing to do with knowledge. Knowledge is about God; devotion is direct encounter with God.

“Hence those who truly wish to be free of bondage should take up devotion.”

Those who are truly “mumukshu”—let us understand this word.

Some people are merely curious. They ask about God like little children ask, “Who made the world?” You say, “God did,” or say anything at all—A, B, C—they don’t care; they forget and go back to play. They never really asked to know—just a scratch, a curiosity: “Who made it?” Had you not answered, they would not have been troubled. They were not concerned with the answer. Just curiosity.

Ninety out of a hundred who talk about God are curious. They do not wish to stake life—if some information comes free, fine; nothing should have to change; nothing to do; nothing to become—some information, what harm?

Curiosity makes no one religious.

Beyond curiosity is the seeker after knowledge—he really wants to know, but only to know.

The curious are not even very keen on knowing; they asked casually; it was surface; a thought came—without roots inside.

The inquirer has roots; the thought returns again and again; it becomes a resident. He asks; he has purpose; he wants to know—but only to know. He does not wish to go further.

Beyond him is the mumukshu. Mumukshu means: he does not want just to know—he wants to live it. What will knowing do? If God is, he wants to change himself. If there is beyond, he wants revolution in his life. He is ready to put himself at stake.

Narada says: “Therefore those who wish to be free of bondage should take up devotion”—because devotion is nourishment.

Whenever a Sanskrit sutra is translated, something is lost. The Hindi translation says: “Therefore those who wish to be free of the bonds of the world...” The Sanskrit says only: “Those who wish to be free of bondage...” No mention of “world”—it is about bondage.

Understand this.

Bondage is the world. Remember: bondage itself is samsara. Even the bondage of liberation would be the world. Even the bondage of virtue is the world. Any craving creates bondage. Even the craving to attain God will create a chain. Wherever craving is, freedom is diminished. When no craving remains, bondage ends. And such a moment truly arrives only when union with God happens—before that it does not come.

So for those who truly wish to go beyond bondage—who are tired of life’s chains, who have come to see that these great walls of “home” are the walls of a prison, that what we call life is nothing but bondage—there is only one way: devotion.

O bird of the heavens! Better the death that comes with such food
Than that sustenance which cripples your flight.

That life is worse than death—the life that hinders your wings, that makes the sky small; the “sustenance that cripples your soaring.”

Wherever there is hindrance, look closely: you will find one of your desires standing there. Wherever your wings catch and snag, look closely: there you will find some longing, some expectation, some desire, some demand binding your wings.

Your chains are chains of your desires—no one else forged them, no one else put them on you. The day you see this, your chains melt like snow in strong sun, like dew in the morning light—they vanish. Surrender yourself to God without asking for anything more, without wanting anything more. Do not say, “I want God.” Even that wanting will cripple your flight. Say only this: “I am ready to leave myself in God. I have no demand. I want to dissolve.”

For every demand is the ego’s demand; all wanting belongs to the ego. Do not even say, “I want God.” Even in that desire you place yourself above God, making God an object. Once you wanted wealth; now you want God—but the wanter remains big. Say only: “I have wanted enough—now I will let go; I will dissolve.” In this dissolving the devotee fills with an immeasurable joy—there remains no hindrance in his flight; the whole sky becomes available; his wings begin to fly in complete freedom. And in this dissolving a peculiar intoxication surrounds him—so deep a wakefulness that calling it “drunkenness” is not right; and a wakefulness so deep comes upon him that calling it “wakefulness” is also not right—for in his eyes there is a delicious swoon, as if he has drunk wine, as if he has just returned from the tavern.

And until the temple becomes a tavern for you, and prayer becomes such a profound self-forgetting that you drown in it, then whatever you are doing is something else—not devotion.

I passed by the tavern’s road and slipped through,
Otherwise the journey of life would have been unbearably long.

Life’s path is very hard! If you pass by the tavern’s way, it is different. If you pass through life’s tavern—it is different! That tavern is God. If you taste a little of that ecstasy, if you taste a little of God, your steps begin to sway in His joy, a dance descends—only then. Otherwise the path is full of thorns. Flowers bloom only when you begin to vanish; otherwise there is only stench. Fragrance comes only when, like camphor, you disappear into the void.

The unintelligent ascetic calls us to the mosque;
Had we a little sense, we would have gone to the tavern.

The renouncers call us to temples and mosques. If there were a little awareness, we would go to the tavern instead.

For the devotee neither temple nor mosque remains. Wherever he is, there is his tavern. Wherever he is, there is his God.

In your effacement, your absorption, your utter immersion—God appears.

Therefore in the devotee you will find both intoxication and awareness.

In the knower you will find awareness, not intoxication.
In the drunkard, the sinner—you will find intoxication, not awareness.
In the yogi you will find awareness, in the sensualist you will find intoxication—in the devotee you will find both. The sensualist envies him and the yogi too. The yogi sees: such limitless possibility of awareness is not in him. The sensualist sees: even after all his indulgence, such ecstasy never came to him.

All indulgence leaves a bitter aftertaste.

Narada says rightly: “Knowledge, action, yoga—do not reach the heights of devotion.”

In devotion, God is accepted in His totality; the world too is included in that acceptance. The devotee does not run from the world; he does not run from enjoyment either—he accepts even that as God’s grace.

Renunciation is not the devotee’s language; whatever “He” gives, he accepts—with wonder and gratitude.

So in the devotee’s life there is a unique harmony: in his intoxication there is awareness; in his awareness there is intoxication. In his meditation there is absorption; in his absorption there is meditation.

The devotee is the final synthesis, the ultimate harmony.

The unintelligent ascetic calls us to the mosque;
Had we a little sense, we would have gone to the tavern.

He keeps drowning in God’s flavor! He keeps losing his droplet-self in the ocean of His nectar! And when the droplet becomes the ocean, what can be said of his ecstasy! When the droplet touches the sky, what can be said of his joy!

In the devotee you will find rasa—juice; the yogi you will find dry.
In the sensualist there is juice, but foul-smelling.
In the devotee you will find juice—and fragrant.

The sensualist takes the world to be God and discards God. The yogi takes God to be the opposite of the world and discards the world. The devotee sees God and the world as one; the Creator and creation are one—so he neither discards nor runs away. In the supreme understanding that the Creator pervades every hair of His creation, in the devotee yoga and bhoga meet. That is the supreme music—none higher than that.

Enough for today.