Bin Bati Bin Tel #18

You are sitting before me. You have ears, you have eyes—but what you see is not what is there, and what you hear is not what is said. Your desire mixes into your seeing; your thoughts are blended into your hearing. You contaminate everything.

There was a very famous Jewish fakir—Balsen. His disciples used to write down whatever he spoke. Often Balsen would tell them, “Write down what I never said. And write this too: you are writing exactly what I never said.” Balsen cannot be understood, because understanding does not come from words; it comes from your own experience. You will hear only what you are able to hear.

One day it so happened that Balsen went on speaking and the listeners grew tired. Soon they lost all thread of his sutras. They couldn’t grasp what he was saying, where he was speaking from, or why. Gradually the time for people’s work arrived; the temple began to empty. Shopkeepers had to open their shops; office-goers ran off. In the end Balsen was left alone. As the last man was leaving, he called out, “Stop! Will you take my life?” The man said, “Why would I take your life? I am just going. Everyone else has already gone.”

Balsen said, “You have left me as a man climbing a ladder. As long as you could see me, you held the ladder. But this ladder reaches from the known to the unknown. The moment I moved beyond your eyes, you let go and started to leave. Will you kill me? I have climbed into the unknown and all of you are running away—there is not even one left to hold the ladder. As long as you were here I thought, at least one is present to steady it. So I kept silent. At least let me come down safely!”

Buddha speaks from the rung of the ladder that rests in the unknown. You stand on the rung that rests on the earth of the known. A dialogue between you is impossible. What the Buddha says, you will not understand; and what you understand, the Buddha never said.

Hence whenever anyone came to Mahavira or Buddha, they would say, “Before I speak, learn the art of listening.” There is no use in my speaking—whatever I say will be misunderstood. And misunderstood knowledge is more dangerous than ignorance. The ignorant are humble, afraid, hesitant; they feel, “I don’t know.” But the half-knowing are filled with ego; they feel, “I know.” And once the notion “I know” arises without real knowing, the wandering is guaranteed.

Understand this well. What is “samyak shravan”—right listening? It means: when someone is speaking, you only listen. Don’t think. The moment you think, a smoke arises. The moment you think, your thoughts begin to mix in. The moment you think, your mind becomes a khichdi. How will you listen then?

The mind can do only one thing at a time. It does not have the capacity to do two things simultaneously. Even when you seem to do two things, understand: in one moment the mind does one, in the next moment it does the other. But in a single instant the mind does only one thing. You can alternate: listen to me for a moment, then think for a moment—listen again, then think again. You can do that, but however long you think, that long you will miss me. This does not mean sound won’t strike your ears—it will; the ears will vibrate; the words will be heard—but they will not be understood.

If your house were on fire and someone on the road were singing a song, could you hear it? The song would be audible, but you would not really hear it—you would not be present. Your house is burning; you are full of anxiety; flames are leaping in your mind. Future and past stand before you: “What will happen now?” You are terrified, trembling like a leaf in a storm. Can you hear the song? The sound will strike the ear, but if someone asks later, “What song was sung?” you will say, “What song? Who sang?”

If your house is on fire and you are running, people may greet you on the way. Will you hear their greeting? It may even happen that you reply, yet you did not hear. Your hand may rise mechanically to return the greeting out of habit, but you neither heard nor replied—you were asleep, you were not there.

Right listening means: when words are being spoken, you are silent; the inner conversation stops. No waves are moving within. Then your listening is pure. Only then will Buddha, will the Zen master, say you have heard; only then have you used your ears. When you look, you do not simply look—you project onto what you see.

A beautiful woman passes on the road; you look and say, “How beautiful!” But the beauty is in your desire. Bodies are neither beautiful nor ugly. When desire fills the mind, it flows through the eyes and falls upon the body; then the body appears beautiful. The ugliest woman can appear beautiful in certain moments if the mind is saturated with desire.

I have heard: a general was conducting an experiment with his soldiers at the battlefield. He gave them naked pictures of extremely ugly women to look at. The soldiers would pick them up and throw them aside. The pictures were not only ugly, they were repulsive. One’s mind was filled with disgust at the sight. A friend asked, “What are you doing?”

He said, “After a few days, when a soldier returning from battle sees these, he throws them aside without looking. But within a month or two even these begin to look beautiful. When I see that he has begun to enjoy looking at these pictures, I understand that his deprivation of women has become so intense that even the ugly and repulsive now appear beautiful. It is time to grant him leave and send him home.”

The picture is the same. Now the eye is throwing desire upon it. If you think a woman’s beauty makes you fall in love, you are mistaken—you know nothing of life. Because of love, the woman appears beautiful; love does not become because she is beautiful. When love fades, the same beautiful woman becomes ordinary.

I have heard of a man who returned home and found his closest friend kissing his wife. The friend was flustered. The man said, “Don’t panic. I want to ask only one question. I have to kiss her because she is my wife. But why are you kissing her? What duty has fallen upon you?”

The moment a man’s lust is spent, beauty disappears.

Two drunks were sitting in a bar talking. It was past midnight. One asked the other, “Staying out so late—doesn’t your wife get angry?” The other said, “Wife? I’m not married.” The first said, “You amaze me even more. If you’re not married, what need is there to stay out so late?” People sit in bars till midnight just to avoid their wives! The drunk said, “You astonish me. If you’re not even married, why stay so late?”

Whatever we become familiar with loses its charm. Whatever desire gets, it renders worthless. What is far appears beautiful; what is near becomes ugly. What is in hand feels insubstantial; what is beyond the hand, out of reach—its beauty seems everlasting.

If eyes only see, and add nothing to what is seen, then the eyes have truly seen. But how will you see? Your eyes are busy adding. They are throwing threads of desire. Whatever you look at, you throw your desire upon it. The eye is not a one-way path; it is a two-way traffic. Something is going from your eye, and something is coming into it; the two mix. What is seen through such mixed eyes cannot be true.

Hence the wise have said: when your eyes are empty and add nothing, truth is revealed. Go with empty eyes, eyes like a mirror—only then will you know what is.

The Zen fakir is right. He tells his disciples: “You have ears, you have eyes—but I ask you, have you ever seen? Have you ever heard? You have a nose—have you ever truly smelled?”

You have senses, but as long as desire hides behind them, they are distorted.

A Buddha’s senses become pure. This will surprise you, because you have heard that an enlightened one has no senses. I tell you: only the enlightened truly have senses; yours are distorted. The Buddha’s senses are pure. His eyes see—only see. They add nothing; they do not inject anything of their own.

You are playing a strange game. With your own eyes you pour beauty into someone’s body, and then you chase it—how can you not obtain something so beautiful? Your own greed descends upon wealth; you glorify wealth, and then you go mad after it. You yourself project, and then you go mad. You weave a drama around yourself and then become its fanatic.

The enlightened see, hear, taste—and what to say of their smell! They relish fragrance fully. But because there is no desire within, the consciousness is desireless; the mind is freed of thirst; therefore their eyes and ears are pure doors. The enlightened do not go out through them; the world comes in through them. Light enters through their eyes, but no desire drives their soul outwards.

The enlightened remain centered in themselves. Their senses function in utmost purity. Their sensitivity becomes perfect. If a bird sings, the song they hear you cannot hear—you don’t have ears. When during the rains the trees turn green, the greenness the Buddha sees you cannot see—you don’t have eyes. In the smallest, the vast is visible to the Buddha. If you had eyes, you would see it too.

You ask, “Where is God?” Better you ask, “Where are my eyes?” You ask, “How can I hear the immortal sound, the resonance of Om?” Ask, “I have no ears—how can I get ears?” Because Om resounds everywhere. One whose ears are pure hears nothing else but Om. One whose eyes are pure—the world of matter fades, and the divine appears. That is the vision of pure eyes. One who can truly smell, smells nothing but the fragrance of the divine.

We can now say: with impure eyes we see matter; the divine is the realization of pure eyes. With impure ears we hear words; with pure ears we hear truth.

Your senses are not your enemies. They must be purified. You are holding a telescope that is warped; whatever you see through it becomes distorted.

The purification of the senses is yoga. And the purer your senses, the clearer your direct seeing becomes.

It is told that a Jewish fakir named Magidh got lost in a forest. The devil misled him, for the devil was troubled by him—Magidh would not heed him; all his tricks failed. Magidh and a disciple were wandering; they lost the way. Magidh was alarmed: his memory was vanishing; what he knew he was forgetting. He said to his disciple, “This seems difficult. The devil’s hand is in it. Whatever I knew, I am forgetting. The scriptures are lost; the procedures are gone; my power is being stripped. Do something! You have heard me so much—surely you remember something. Recite some prayer I used to say daily.”

The disciple said, “If I had ears, I would have heard your prayer too. I have heard prayers, but I heard them in my own way—that can’t be right. If your correct prayers have gone astray, how will my incorrect ones help? I too am forgetting; I am frightened.”

Magidh said, “You must remember something of what you have heard.” He said, “If you insist—only the alphabet: A, B, C, D; Alef, Bet—that’s all I recall. A, B, C, D—nothing else.”

Magidh said, “No harm. Don’t delay. Before you forget that too, loudly recite Alef, Bet—the alphabet.”

The disciple obeyed, began to chant A, B, C, D. Magidh repeated after him and became so absorbed that he slipped into samadhi. The devil fled—for such one-pointedness cannot be near the devil. Flowers of the divine began to rain. All knowledge returned. The disciple asked, “What a miracle—from just the alphabet!”

Magidh said, “All that is in the scriptures is no more than the alphabet; everything is contained in it. And when I had recited it fully, I said to God, ‘Now You put it in order. You know my prayer. Here is the alphabet; You arrange it.’ And He arranged it—the prayer was complete.”

If the heart is present, the alphabet becomes the Vedas. Without heart, even the Vedas are no more than the alphabet. If the mind is without thought, there is no need of mantras. In a thoughtless mind, even A, B, C becomes mantra. In a mind full of thought, no mantra is of use. Chant Om as much as you like—on the surface you repeat Om, but inside your desires are racing. Your desires warp your Om. Their smoke is so dense that the lamp of Om cannot burn there.

This master rightly tells his disciples: though ears are visible, you do not have ears; though eyes appear, you have no eyes. And then he asks a very strange question: if you have no ears, no eyes, no nose, then I ask you—this fragrance, this form, this color—where are they arising from?

The story ends there—but he has asked a profound question. This world you see—if you have no instruments of seeing—where is it arising from? You too see the tree’s greenness. You too see that the flower has fragrance and color. If your eyes and ears and senses are closed, distorted, how is this vast world arising?

The wise say: this world is arising from your desire. Shankara therefore calls it maya—dreamlike. You have created it. You do not see what is; you see what you want to see. It is the spread of your wanting. The day your wanting ends, you will see what is—and what is, is very different.

Here there are not trees—here God Himself is blooming as flowers. There are not clouds roaming the sky—God Himself is wandering as clouds. There are not pebbles and stones—there are images of the divine. But only on the day you stop the spread of wanting, stop your projection.

You have seen a projector in a cinema. The projector is behind; you do not look at it—you keep your eyes on the screen. On the screen there is nothing but a play of light and shadow. The real thing is the projector; from behind it throws images. The screen is empty but becomes covered by images.

Your mind is nothing more than the screen. Your desire is projecting. Your desire shows you what it wants you to see. If you are filled to the brim with longing for Krishna, even Krishna will appear—but do not think you have found Krishna. That Krishna too is part of maya. You have longed so much that he appears. Your desire has created him.

A devotee of Jesus sees Jesus; he never sees Krishna. A devotee of Krishna sees Krishna; he never sees Rama. A devotee of Buddha sees Buddha; Krishna or Jesus are nowhere. What is happening?

This “experience” is not experience; it is projection. A Krishna-devotee concentrates all his wanting upon Krishna. If you ask day and night—hungry, thirsty, sleepless, restless—and fill your whole mind with one resonance, “Krishna, Krishna, Krishna,” today or tomorrow—how long will it take? You have created such a vast world—you will create a small Krishna as well. You will talk with him, play with him, and not only will you speak—your Krishna will answer you. But you are doing both sides—it is a monologue. There is no Krishna speaking there; you are answering yourself.

Mind has an astonishing capacity—it manufactures maya. Understand this carefully.

As long as you have wanting, you cannot know truth. Whatever you know will be maya. Therefore God cannot be an object of desire. Whoever desires God goes astray. God is known only when no desire remains. Hence Buddhas denied—said there is no God, no Krishna, no Rama—beware of these. Do only one thing: cut desire. Then what is, reveals itself. Do not name it; otherwise imagination will seize the name and you will get busy with the game again.

At night when you dream, the dream appears true. Does it ever occur to you in a dream that it is a dream? If you lock a Krishna devotee and a Rama devotee in the same room at night, the Krishna devotee will hear a flute playing; the Rama devotee will hear nothing. The Rama devotee will see Rama, the archer, standing guard all night; the Krishna devotee won’t notice him, and if he does, he will throw him out: “What are you doing in my room?”

The mind’s deepest capacity is projection—the spread of maya. What you want, you begin to see. You are very powerful.

So the Zen master asks: whence are shape and color arising? Where are these forms being made when you neither see nor hear?

They are spreading from your desire. Is there a possibility of a moment when you can see and hear desirelessly? That day you will taste the supreme fragrance.

The devotees and the wise have often mentioned that when the eye of wisdom opens, when the doors of the heart open, when desire falls and consciousness becomes pure and untainted, a certain sound is heard—the unstruck sound.

One sound is struck—when two things collide, a clap is heard. The voice I am speaking now is also struck—an instrument is moving, the organ of speech making sound.

The wise say: when all desire is lost, the unstruck sound is heard—a sound arising without collision. That is Omkar. It resounds everywhere—but you do not hear it. You even insert your own accounting into Om.

Sometimes when you travel by train, the wheels go chak-chak, jhak-jhak. Whatever song you wish, you can hear in it. A Rama devotee sitting there may hear “Ram-Ram-Ram-Ram” in the chak-chak; a Muslim beside him may hear “Allah Hu-Allah Hu.” Try it—try to hear both; the moment you try, Allah Hu will sit into that sound, or Ram will. You will hear what you want to hear. Psychologists call this gestalt.

In the sky you look and may see Ganesha in the clouds—if you are a devotee of Ganesha. You will select that form. Another who is not a devotee will wonder, “Where is Ganesha?” He will see something else. If someone is ridden by lust, he will see erotic pictures in the sky.

But the sky is formless—you draw forms in it. Forms are made of your desire. Until your desire becomes zero, the formless will not be revealed. Then you will see neither Rama nor Krishna—you will see what is. That we have called Brahman. Therefore Brahman has no form. Rama has a form, Krishna has a form; Brahman has none—it is formless. No image of it can be made. It reveals itself only when all images fall. When you drop all images, the imageless appears.

There are two ways to live in this world. One is to spread desires—that is the worldly way. The other is to reduce, to evaporate desires—that is the sannyasin’s way. The sannyasin is trying to see what is; he does not want to add anything of his own. The worldly man is bent on seeing what he wants; he does not want to see what is.

A child is born in your home. The worldly man sees, “The supreme life has arrived.” A sannyasin looks and sees, “Death is born,” because whatever is born will die. You will laugh and dance; the sannyasin will weep—another death has happened, another corpse has been made. A form has arisen; now it will disperse.

You receive fame—if you are worldly, you cannot imagine that fame will be lost. If you are a sannyasin, you will see it is the rise of a wave; soon the fall will come. Whatever rises in this world also falls. Whoever sought a throne will one day be thrown to the ground. Whoever asked for fame will receive insult. Whoever sought praise is looking for abuse.

What you are asking for will soon bring its opposite—because desires are dual; they bring their opposite along. You wish never to part from this friend—on that day the seeds of separation are sown. You say, “May this beloved always remain with me”—on that day divorce begins.

Mulla Nasruddin was asked, “You are a man of great experience. Divorces are increasing daily—can you name a root cause?” Nasruddin said, “I will think.” A month later the man asked again. Nasruddin said, “I have found the root cause.” “Tell me—for the world will benefit.” Nasruddin said, “The root cause is marriage. No marriage, no divorce.”

If there is marriage, there will be divorce. Some live together even after divorce—that’s another matter. Some are more honest and separate after divorce—that’s another matter. But where there is marriage, there will be divorce. Where there is love, there will be hate. Desire is bound to its opposite. Whatever you have gained, you will lose. In gaining, losing has already occurred—it will just take a little time.

The sannyasin sees what is. The worldly man sees what he wants to be.

Seeing through desire, the worldly man manufactures an imaginary world. Who is wife? Who is husband? Who is father? Who is mother? Who is one’s own and who is other? What can you call “mine”? What did you bring with birth? What will you take after death?

But in between you build a vast empire—calling it “mine.” You sorrow for it, rejoice for it, torment and trouble yourself for it—raising a huge uproar without ever asking, “When I brought nothing, and will take nothing, why spread this net of ‘mine’ in the inn where I rest for a little while?”

You sit in a railway waiting room and make a racket, “This furniture is mine! Why are you sitting on this chair? It is mine!” You don’t do that because you know that in a while your train will come; you will board and go. It is a waiting room, not your home.

Whether you rest seven minutes, seven hours, or seventy years—what difference does it make? Will the length of time turn untruth into truth? Will the length of time make the waiting room a home? Only because the span is longer you cannot connect both ends—that you came and you go. Hence the uproar of mine and thine.

The Zen master is saying: you have eyes, but you have not seen. Because to see, your eyes must be free of smoke—no desire drifting across them. As long as the cloud of desire floats in your eyes, whatever you see will be wrong. Eyes must be clear, clean, empty, so they can reflect like a mirror—so that what is, is seen. Ears must be pure so that only what is, is heard. If only you could see what is—you would be free.

If you can hear exactly what I am saying, you can be free. Otherwise, you will be bound even by what I am saying. Scriptures do not liberate, they bind. The master does not become your freedom; he becomes a new dependency. You catch hold of his feet and forge chains. You heard wrongly—otherwise how else could you melt Buddhas into chains?

All temples have become prisons. All churches are slaveries. All religions become burdens on you. The wonder is that those who gave birth to them brought messages of your freedom. They were messengers eager to set you free. They wanted you to fly in the open sky, your wings spread, your cages broken.

But you are very clever. You fashion cages even from them. You forged bars from them. You built prisons out of them. Your ingenuity has no end. You brought their images into your cells instead of going with them into the open sky. You decorated the walls of your prison with their pictures—now the prison no longer seems easy to leave; it looks dearer still. Such is the arithmetic of your desire that you take your chains for ornaments; you set diamonds and pearls into them, and then leaving them becomes harder. So whoever comes to free you, you bind yourself to him. “Hindu,” “Muslim,” “Christian”—these are names of bondage. Can freedom have a name? Prisons can have names; can the open sky? Prisons have limits; can the open sky have a boundary? You turn religion into slavery because what you hear is not what is said.

In Buddha’s life it is recorded: one night he spoke. His disciple Maudgalyayana asked, “Bhagwan, do we hear what you speak? Sometimes I doubt. When I talk with others, I find they have heard something else and I, something else. There is great controversy—even while you are alive. People are embroiled over what Buddha meant—and you are still here.”

Buddha said, “It is natural. The speaker is one; the hearers are many. One thing is uttered, but as many meanings are heard as there are hearers—because you listen with mind, not with soul. And mind’s habit is to interpret; it interprets instantly.”

Buddha said, “Let me tell you last night’s incident. After the final discourse I said, ‘Bhikshus, friends—rise now; perform the last task of the night.’” It was a signal. After speaking, he would say, “Enter the final process of the night.” The monks would meditate and then go to sleep. Meditation was the last process.

Buddha said, “Last night a thief was present; a prostitute was also present. When I said, ‘Friends, engage in the night’s last work,’ meditation came to your minds. The thief thought, ‘It’s quite late, the moon is high—time to go; work-time has come.’ The prostitute thought, ‘It’s very late—will there be any customers now?’ I said one thing; the prostitute took her meaning, the thief his, the monks theirs. And among the monks too, meanings must have differed.”

As long as your mind is there, you will take a different meaning. Mind separates. Whatever is said, you will interpret. Who will interpret? You will.

What is interpretation? It means your past, your memory, your knowledge, your experience will do the interpreting. You will understand what I say through your past. Instantly it becomes something else—you did not understand what I said; you understood what your past could. You poured what I said into the mold of your mind—its shape changed, its form changed, its fragrance changed. And then you believe I said exactly that.

There are a thousand commentaries on the Gita. Krishna’s words can have only one meaning—or Krishna must have been mad, for only then could there be a thousand meanings. If a statement has a thousand meanings, it has no meaning. Krishna’s words must have had a single meaning. When he spoke to Arjuna, there was one meaning. But the moment Arjuna listened, there were two—Krishna’s and Arjuna’s. Then came the narration. Sanjaya told the whole event to the blind Dhritarashtra—a third meaning. Then Dhritarashtra heard—a fourth. And after him, countless commentators—each with his own meaning. Then you read—and you make your own meaning. If Krishna came today, he would be amazed: “When did I say this? This is not my meaning; it cannot be.” Yet it cannot be otherwise. You can understand Krishna only when you are in Krishna’s state of consciousness. Before that, there is no way—because meanings are grasped by the ladder of experience.

You stand at the bottom of the ladder while I speak from the top. Who will bridge the gap? Either you climb and come to me—then what I say you will hear. Or I climb down and come to you—so that you can understand what you are capable of. Climbing is hard, and I cannot be persuaded to come down; but you can bring the meaning down—that is easy. I will keep speaking from above; you will keep understanding from below. You will interpret where you stand. That interpretation will be false. All interpretations are false.

When I say this, you are surprised—you think at least one interpretation must be right. No. None can be. The very need for interpretation shows you have changed it. What is, is. It needs no interpretation. You speak—and it is gone!

You sit with me at night; the full moon rises. If I say, “Look—how beautiful the moon is,” the mischief is done—interpretation has begun. I have come in between—even that much! Now you will not be able to see the moon, because my words stand in the way. I say, “It is beautiful.” Hearing this, a web of words rises within. You may say, “How is it beautiful?” or “Yes, it’s beautiful.” You may agree or disagree. You may say, “Not so beautiful as to be remarked.” But now you will react—and the reaction will be to my statement. The moon has gone far; now you will not see it.

All interpretations are wrong. The wise have not interpreted; they have indicated.

Zen masters say, “We raise a finger and point. We do not say, ‘There is the moon,’ we do not say, ‘It is beautiful’—we only point.”

But are you less clever than Zen masters? You don’t look at the moon—you grab the finger. “What a lovely finger! How beautiful!” Grasping scripture arises from grasping the finger—catching words and interpreting, weaving your own web.

No—you cannot hear, because to hear you need empty ears, and you have never seen such a thing. You know only ears filled—already noisy.

Two fakirs were passing through a market at dusk when the time for the adhan came; the call to prayer sounded from a distant mosque. The market was loud—buying and selling, auctioning—perhaps the stock exchange! A great din. The adhan could not be heard there. But one fakir heard it. He said, “Let’s run—the time for namaz has come.”

The other said, “Impossible—how did you hear it in this clamor? No one here heard. People are busy selling, buying, bargaining. Who would hear the adhan in a market? And the mosque is far.”

The first said, “Whatever you want to hear, you hear. At night a mother sleeps; storms may blow, thunder rumble, lightning flash, rain pour—she does not hear. But if the baby stirs, cries, turns, she hears.

“That’s true,” said the other, “but any direct proof?” The first fakir took a coin from his pocket and dropped it on the road. Clink! People rushed from all sides. The market’s din did not prevent that coin’s sound from being heard. The fakir said, “See? They have all come in search of the coin. The market’s noise is not enough to drown that sound.”

What we want to hear, we hear. What we desire, we catch. Selection is going on all the time. You will hear from me only what you came seeking. You will not hear what I said. The adhan from the mosque may not reach you, but the clink of a coin will.

Desire is your doorway—and you are full of desire. Not one, but infinite desires. Through such a crowd within, how will you see? How will you smell? It is difficult—impossible.

What is the way?

If you can understand rightly: meditation is the method, the experiment of emptying the senses. Let the eyes be empty; do not want to see anything—just see. Just look. You are not in search of anything—you are simply seeing. As on the first day a child is born and sees—there is no desire in it, no search, because the child knows nothing. Whatever appears is seen. A child’s seeing is pure perception. Psychologists say: the saint’s eyes become like that again; they must—otherwise they are not saintly eyes.

A child looks: if a red bulb hangs in the room, the child sees it. But no interpretation arises in his mind. He cannot think “red,” because even “red” is yet to be learned. He cannot think “light,” because he knows neither darkness nor light. He cannot say “beautiful” or “ugly,” because no concepts are formed yet. The mind is concept-free. He simply sees—pure perception. Nothing speaks within; only seeing happens. The eyes only drink; they add nothing of their own.

Sound strikes the ear—it is heard. Whether Ravi Shankar plays sitar or dogs bark outside, the child hears both. But the barking is not felt ugly, nor the sitar beautiful. The ears are still pure; there is no interpretation yet, no division. Two has not arisen; there is non-duality. The child listens to the barking with equal attentiveness and does not say, “Stop that nonsense! Why are the dogs barking? They disturb my peace.” The child knows nothing of peace or disturbance. The dog barks; the child’s ears perk up. The sitar plays; the ears perk up. The child does not choose; he is choiceless.

And one who is choiceless is nirvikalpa—without alternatives.

Soon choices arise. In a few days the child will learn right and wrong. We will teach him. We will leave a little opening in his eyes and close the rest. We will make him blind. We will leave tiny holes in his ears and block the rest. Not everything should enter within. We will enforce controls on all the senses. Slowly he will see only what we want him to see, hear only what we want him to hear. Society will grip his neck and administer control of every kind. His perceptions will become impure. Then his desires awaken, the body grows strong, sexuality rises, the senses start working, inner demands grow—everything turns ugly. The world is manufactured.

Someone asked Jesus, “Who will enter your kingdom of heaven?” Jesus lifted a small child onto his shoulder and said, “Those who are like this one.”

What does that mean? If small children die, will they enter heaven? No—because small children are not yet distorted, but the potential for distortion is in them. They have not yet stolen, but they can; they will. Non-duality has not yet split, but the seed is there—it will sprout.

So “like small children,” Jesus said—not “small children.” That means: one who again becomes like a small child. One who has passed through the world—seen desires, markets, choices; suffered sorrow and pain, anxiety and anguish; lost and lost; forgot his soul in the things of the bazaar; bought things and sold himself—after all this, he returns. Again he becomes like a child. The eyes become pure. Now they do not say what is beautiful or ugly; they simply see—they do not interpret. The ears now simply hear; they do not say what is worthy or unworthy of hearing.

Try a little experiment. When dogs are barking, don’t rush to judge, “Why all this noise? Why this disturbance?” Just listen—don’t interpret. You will be amazed: there is music in barking too. There must be—for there too it is the divine barking. It is another mode of His being; it too must have a necessity. So music is not only in the strings of a veena; it is in thunderclouds and in the barking of dogs.

When you listen in stillness, you will find Om resounding everywhere. Soon the dogs will vanish and Brahman will appear. Only do not add anything.

Become passive, inactive—that is the key to this whole tale. If your senses are active, you will create the world. Your senses are creative; you are fabricating. The meditator’s senses become inactive—only passageways. Nothing is constructed through them; only news is delivered. The messenger adds nothing.

Your senses then become like a postman; he does not open the letter, add or delete anything. He brings it as it is. His job is to deliver the message, not make it. Your senses will be like postmen—whatever is given, they deliver within.

And the day the senses only deliver—pure passivity—on that day you are a meditator. On that day you suddenly discover: the whole world is filled with Brahman.

Your senses have not misled you; your desire is going out through the senses and that misleads you. Do not be hostile to the senses. They are lovely. What fault is in the eyes? Do not pluck them out. No error is happening because of the eyes. Do not sit with eyes closed. When a beautiful woman passes, do not shut your eyes. The eyes are not at fault. And if you close your eyes, you may get into deeper trouble. If freedom from beauty were so easy, all the blind would have been free long ago. Then the blind would have no difficulty attaining Buddhahood. But even with closed eyes, desire arises; even with closed eyes, a beautiful woman appears—because she need not be outside; you create her within. You start dreaming.

And remember, the inner woman is more beautiful than the outer, because the outer puts a few obstacles in the way of your construction of beauty; within, there is no obstacle. There is no objective check inside—only dream. Make it as you like.

No one becomes free by gouging out the eyes. No one conquers the senses by cutting them off. But if the senses are purified, mastery arises.

This Zen master is right: you have created a world from your desire. Remove this desire and the whole world will vanish—as if a curtain were lifted. This world will disappear, and another world will dawn.

Then you will see something else—and that is truth. When no desire remains within, whatever is seen is vision; whatever is heard is true hearing; whatever is smelled is true fragrance. Then it is pure; it has the form of truth.

Anything more?

Let it happen. There is no harm in it. Because what you call life will end anyway. There is no way to save it. Whoever tries to save it only gets into trouble. It cannot be saved; it is already passing.

And if the mind’s interference drops and your life dissolves into the One, that is the very search. If you are utterly immersed in fragrance, then fragrance is your God. Then through fragrance itself you will have known the divine. Then within the sense of smell all your other senses will be absorbed. You will become a doorway of fragrance. Then you will smell with every pore of your being. Then, on every side, the divine will become fragrance for you.

For this reason, in different religions different senses became important.

Islam gives great value to fragrance. Surely Muhammad knew the divine as fragrance. The mind’s interference fell away and Muhammad became a nose—neither eyes nor ears. As if Muhammad’s whole body, his whole form, became a nose. And the God he realized was fragrance-form.

Hence perfume became highly prized in Islam, and music came to be strongly opposed. You cannot play music before a mosque; music cannot be played inside a mosque. Music was opposed because the nose and the ear are deeply connected. And if you keep listening to music, gradually your sense of smell becomes feeble. One who has a very deep hold on music finds that, little by little, the nose stops taking in scent.

Musicians often become—there is no word for it—smell-blind. We say of one without eyes, “blind”; of one without ears, “deaf.” But for one without smell we have no word, because no one ever cared to notice that there are the blind of smell as well. The person who uses the ear a great deal finds the energy of the nose flowing toward the ear.

The senses are interconnected. That is why the blind often become musicians. When the eye closes, the ear begins receiving the eye’s energy. Hence it is hard to find a listener like a blind person; the blind hear with great depth. The ear is their eye. When you come and walk, a blind person recognizes even the sound of your footsteps—this is his way of knowing. When you speak, he recognizes your voice—this is his way of knowing. The blind person’s memory is built by the ear, not by the eye. Our memory is ninety percent eye-made; the blind person’s is ninety percent ear-made.

So that the ear might not drink up the source of the nose, Islam shut music off. This is meaningful—yet dangerous. Because many have known the divine through music. And as many as have known through music, that many have never known through fragrance, because the human capacity for smell is weak—far weaker than animals’. A dog smells more than you do. A horse smells more. A lion can smell for miles. What will you smell!

Human smelling is limited; hearing is far deeper. So the structure built upon Muhammad’s experience was right in itself; but if it hardens into sectarian dogma, it is dangerous. Hence a stream of Sufis arose within Islam that brought music back. For this reason Islam looks upon Sufis with a harsh eye; the ordinary Muslim looks upon them with a harsh eye. And you will be surprised: the music Sufis developed—few have developed anything comparable. Through music too people have reached God. Mantra, the sound of Om, the chanting of Ram—these are arts for creating inner music.

Through the eye many have reached truth. That is why, in India, we call the search for truth darshan. We have no word like “philosophy.” Our word is darshan—its meaning is “vision,” not philosophy. So many have reached through seeing; yet what happens in the life of the first knower becomes blindness for others.

Muhammad’s sense of fragrance must have been very strong, and he knew the divine as fragrance. And you too can know the divine as fragrance. Any one sense can be its door. And often it will happen that when that door opens, a single sense will drink up all the others. The happening is so vast that all banks will break. The five rivers will not flow separately; they will become one. And one river will assimilate them all—a confluence will happen.

But what is there to fear in that?

The mind is always afraid. The mind is afraid of everything. Whatever you do, the mind’s first act is to raise fear. Why is the mind so deeply afraid? Because wherever any living experience happens, there the mind dies. The mind fears death. If your fragrance becomes God, the mind is gone! Then you will not be able to return to the mind. So the mind is frightened. It says, “Come back this way. Don’t go there—there is danger. There I may die.”

Ramakrishna would become unconscious for hours. No one inquired carefully into why this was so. Buddha never became unconscious like Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna would faint. Ramakrishna’s experience of the divine was not through the eye, for the eye requires alertness. Nor was it like Muhammad’s, not through smell. Nor was it like the Sufis’, through music, nor like Meera’s; not like Krishna’s flute either.

For the first time I tell you this: Ramakrishna would faint because his experience of the divine was taste. This has never been said; you will not find proof anywhere. Ramakrishna tasted God. And taste takes one into swoon, because taste is such an inner sense! Compared to taste, all the other senses are outer—the ear is outer, the nose is outer, the eye is outer; taste is very deep within.

And there is a reason. Ramakrishna was a great lover of food—that is why. In the midst of discussions on Brahman-knowledge he would get up and go to the kitchen to ask Sharada, “What’s being cooked?” Even Sharada felt embarrassed: “What will people say? You leave a discussion on Brahman and come into the kitchen?” When Sharada brought the plate, Ramakrishna would not remain seated—he would stand at once and peer into the plate to see what there was.

He knew Brahman through taste. Food was Brahman for him. Where the Upanishads say, “Food is Brahman,” someone must have said it from knowing through taste; otherwise who would call food Brahman? When we hear it, it feels a bit improper: food is Brahman! But someone must have known through taste.

And a delightful fact: Ramakrishna was so mad for food, and when he fell ill he got cancer of the throat. Then came the final test of taste. It had to be—only Ramakrishna could have it. His throat became obstructed. In his last days he could not eat. Cancer had come.

One day Vivekananda said to Ramakrishna, “Paramhansa-Dev, please say just a word to the divine with whom you are so intimately connected: remove this obstruction in the throat. You loved food so dearly! You took such delight in taste! We are pained that you cannot eat. Even taking water is difficult.”

Ramakrishna said, “One day I said it to him. He said: ‘This throat has eaten enough; now eat through other throats. Now I am tasting through your throats.’ It is his great grace that he blocked this throat. Now all throats are mine. Wherever anyone tastes, it is I who taste. Now I will eat through you.”

Surely Ramakrishna knew the divine as taste, and then all the senses were drowned in that. Sometimes six hours, sometimes eight, sometimes six days Ramakrishna would lie unconscious—absorbed in taste! Buddha must have known the divine through the eye. The eye requires wakefulness; taste requires absorption.

But Ramakrishna never told this to anyone. There are dangers in saying it. If someone tells you that taste is Brahman, you are already ready to accept it. You are living for taste. If you come to know that taste is Brahman, you may go astray. Because a human being’s deepest grip is on food—deeper than on sex. Hence it is easy to be celibate, hard to fast. If you fast for three weeks, sex-desire drops by itself—but hunger does not. No one dies of celibacy; but if the healthiest person does not eat for three months, he will die. Food is a deeper necessity.

Sex is perhaps the overflow of food. When food is plenty and you are well-nourished and energy is flowing, sex arises. Sex is a play, a sport. But food is a need, a necessity. It is indispensable; it is the lower foundation.

Without food, you will perish—what sex then? Without sex, you will not perish. If no children are born of you, society will perish. So those who are supremely self-interested will keep on eating; they can practice celibacy. Because celibacy does not destroy them. If your father had practiced celibacy, what loss would it be to you? You would not be. If you practice celibacy, no one will be—of which you know nothing. What difference does it make? But if you practice fasting, you will perish. Therefore fasting is a deeper discipline than celibacy. And for one who practices fasting, celibacy becomes easy.

Hunger’s hold is deep because it is your body’s very life. So Ramakrishna kept silent. He never spoke to anyone about taste. Otherwise, all around, a sect of devotees—gluttons—would have arisen. Just as the Muslim applies perfume, so Ramakrishna’s devotees would eat with abandon.

There are dangers in speaking truth as well. Not only are there dangers in speaking untruth—there are even greater dangers in speaking truth, because in truth the keys of power are hidden.

So some have known through taste as well.

Some have known through sexual union. Hence the whole science of Tantra came into being. Any sense can become perfect. All the senses can flow into it. If, at the moment of your lovemaking, all your senses are absorbed, then from right there you will know the divine.

There is a very unique story. It is mentioned in the shastras, in the Puranas, but ordinarily Hindus do not mention it—because it seems very strange, indecorous, even obscene. The story is in the Puranas: some confusion arose, and Brahma and Vishnu went to consult Shiva. The confusion was an emergency, a very urgent crisis. So they could not arrange a prior appointment and arrived suddenly. The gatekeeper tried to stop them, but they said, “Don’t stop us.” The gatekeeper said, “Shiva is making love to Parvati. Please wait a little. It is not proper to interrupt in such a moment. They are absorbed in union.”

So Brahma and Vishnu waited a while. Half an hour, an hour, two hours… Then they said, “This is the limit! What kind of play is going on? We cannot wait any longer.” Their curiosity also grew: “What is happening?” Slipping past the gatekeeper, they went inside. Shiva and Parvati did not even notice they were standing there. When lovemaking becomes samadhi, how will one notice who is standing there! Their lovemaking continued.

The story says they waited a day, but the union did not end, so they returned in annoyance and gave a curse: “This has gone beyond bounds. You will be known in the world as symbols of sex”—hence the Shivalinga. The linga is not alone; below it is Parvati’s yoni. The Shivalinga is the symbol of union: both yoni and linga are in it.

Hindus do not repeat this story. There is fear: how can such a story be told! And there is danger, because sex has a strong hold on the human mind. But Shiva’s entire essence is the knowing of truth through sex. Its name is Tantra.

One can know through lovemaking, one can know through taste, one can know through fragrance, one can know through hearing, one can know through seeing. Any sense can be its door. And in every case the mind is afraid. The mind wants the five to remain. The mind lives among the five, fragmented and divided. Wherever there is division, there the mind is protected. Wherever any unity arises, the mind panics. Because where the energy of all the senses gathers together, there you become inwardly integrated, whole. Your wholeness will open the door to truth.

Do not be afraid. Take courage.

And wherever your current flows, flow there totally—meditative, in samadhi. Doors that have always been closed will open. The mystery is not concealed—you are fragmented. Come together, and the mystery is open.

That is all for today.