Bin Ghan Parat Phuhar #10

Truth is near—nearer than the nearest. And it is far—farther than the farthest. It is close, because it is your very nature. It is far, because it is the nature of the whole existence. A drop is the ocean—and also not. The drop is the ocean because what is in the drop, expanded, is in the ocean. The drop is also not the ocean because the drop has a boundary; what boundary does the ocean have?

Sadhana sooner or later brings you to a place where it seems everything has been found, and at the same time it seems nothing at all has been found. Looking from your side, it feels as if all has been attained. Looking toward truth, it feels as if the journey has not even begun. And this perception is auspicious. It indicates that you have reached a very precious point.

If one feels “I have attained all,” without also feeling “I have attained nothing,” that attainment is only a confirmation of the ego. If one feels “I have attained nothing,” without also feeling “I have attained all,” that perception is merely the failure of the ego. When the ego succeeds it says, “Everything is gained.” When it fails it says, “Everything is lost.” The ego’s language is either of gaining or of losing; it always chooses one of the two.

In moments of egolessness, when you are like a void, gaining and losing become synonymous. There the greatest riddle of life is experienced.

When such a perception arises, do not be frightened. Take it as a moment of good fortune. Dance, be filled with awe and gratitude. It will also seem the journey hasn’t even begun. It is beautiful to feel so. For how can the journey to the divine ever begin? Whatever has a beginning must come to an end. To speak of a beginning to the journey to the divine would mean you are eager to bring it to an end. A beginning would mean you have set a limit—one end is found, the other will be found sooner or later; only a matter of time. You would have measured the divine.

If it seems you have “got it,” then you have got something that cannot be the divine. That which fits into your fist is not the sky. That which can be clenched in your fist, confined within your words, within the limits of your mind, made into your private experience—that is not God. It will be some imagination, some concept of your mind—your mind’s imagined Krishna, Christ, Buddha, Mahavira; your doctrinal and metaphysical debates about soul, God, Brahman—but not the real divine.

The real divine is always already found. And never does it happen that it appears He has been fully attained. You get the taste, but the hunger never ends. And as the hunger is fed, it grows—like pouring ghee into a fire. On one side the thirst seems to be quenched; on the other, it deepens. That is why the lover of the divine looks so mad: on the one hand he says, “He is already found,” and on the other he labors so much to find him. To the worldly mind this seems illogical: if He is already found, stop all talk of attaining; and if He is not found, then he can never be found—because how will you attain what is not in your nature?

The religious person has always appeared crazy to the worldly. He goes to attain what he says is already attained. He seeks that which can never be wholly possessed. He sets out on a journey that seems to begin, yet never ends. When such a moment dawns and this whisper begins to hum around you, agree with both at once. Do not choose. Say, “You are already found—and I must still seek you.”

Alfred Whitehead, a great American thinker, has written some very significant statements. Let me share a few. First: religion is a quest that is never completed. It seems to begin, but it never seems to finish. Religion is a hope that hangs in the sky like the pole star—calling, yet we never reach it. Religion seems as though it can be understood; but those in whom it is understood are the very ones who feel it is impossible to understand—mysterious! That is what it means for religion to be a mystery. You will go to solve it, and you will be solved; you will not solve it. You will become lighter, utterly weightless. You will dance, absorbed in supreme bliss. But the mystery will remain a mystery.

And, if you are not disturbed, let me say: compared to the day you began the journey, there will be even more mystery on the day when you have dissolved and no seeker is left. On that day the mystery will appear in its fullness; it will shower from all sides. Science destroys mystery: once we know a thing, curiosity ends. Religion, when it lets us know something, opens new doors within it. One doorway is cleared, ten new doors stand up. The tree of religion keeps spreading its branches and sub-branches—unto the infinite. Man enters the riddle of religion and never returns.

This is auspicious. When such a perception arises, take it as the grace of the divine. And yes, sadhana moves just so.

The only use of thought is that you come to see the futility of thought. The only wisdom of understanding is to understand that understanding is not sufficient. Just as we remove a thorn with another thorn, if we can remove thought with thought, that is enough. No one reaches truth through thought; thought obstructs the way to truth. Therefore, if we remove the obstacle, we can say in one sense that thought, too, has helped—only in the sense that, once removed, the obstruction is gone; that much support it gives.

Ordinary thinkers remain entangled in thought. Great thinkers become free of thought. When thought penetrates deeply, one soon begins to realize that thought will not lead to arrival. Consider: you have no clue about the divine, no experience of truth, no perception of what life is. What will you accomplish by thinking? How will you think? How will you think about a truth of which you have no clue? You will borrow scriptures, repeat the words of others. Where is thinking in that? It is mere repetition. How will you add anything new to it?

Thought is never original. Thought is always stale and old. Thought is never new; it cannot be. If I say to you, “Think of something you do not know at all,” how will you think? To think, prior knowing is necessary. Only what is already known can be thought about. And when it is already known, what is the need to think? What is the point of thinking about what is already known? The unknown cannot be thought. So thoughts are like a buffalo chewing the cud—bringing back what has already been eaten and chewing it again and again. Thought is cud-chewing. You read it in some book, you heard it from someone, and now you chew it over. But nothing new is born of it. Thought is dead; the sprouts of life do not arise in it.

The divine is unknown; you will not know it through thought. Thoughtlessness is its path. Drop thought. Remove what you have learned; forget what you have heard. With what you have “understood,” wipe the slate of the mind clean. Encounter existence like a bare mirror, without the ripple of any thought. Only in that rippleless mirror do the images form—the reflections that are reflections of the divine. Thought can help only so much: to assist you in cutting away other thoughts.

I speak to you. What I am speaking will, for you, be only thought. I may have experience, I may have realization; but when I tell you, for you it is still thought; you only hear. If thought is an obstacle, then by speaking I am increasing your obstacle. But I speak in the hope that you will understand, and that the thorn of thought I give will pull out the other thorns of thought lodged in you.

Sometimes poison is killed by poison. You have a disease; you go to a physician; he gives you an injection of the very germ of that disease—and it has beneficial results. When such an injection is given, your whole body is stirred up, becomes ready to fight the disease, becomes combative; and in that very effort to fight, you go beyond the disease. You already know about the thorn: if one lodges in your foot, you remove it with another thorn. Most allopathic medicines are made from poisons. Disease is a poison; to eliminate it we give a greater poison.

Thought is an obstacle. To remove it, I give you some thoughts. Use these thorns. This does not mean: throw away your thoughts and carefully keep mine. That would be madness—you remove one thorn and keep the thorn you used stuck in the wound. Both thorns are to be discarded. The thoughts that are yours and the ones I give you—throw both away together, so that you become thoughtless.

This is the only use of thought; there is no greater use. It is a negative use. The intelligent person uses thought negatively; the foolish, the unintelligent, use thought constructively, positively. By making a constructive, positive use, they get entangled; by using it negatively, they go beyond.

First of all, my understanding of sannyas is not against the world. So by joining my sannyas you are not stepping out of life’s sun and shade. On the contrary: the world is only sun, sun—now you have included shade as well. By joining my sannyas you have not left the world; you have gained sannyas. Understand this well.

The world was nothing but blazing sun; now I have given you the shade of sannyas too. When you have the strength, walk in the sun; when you are tired, rest in the shade. I have given you meditation; I have not made you drop the world. I have given you something; I have not taken anything away. Therefore, the possibility of experience has increased for you. If you had remained only in the world, you would have only the world’s experience; now you will also have the experience of sannyas. And only when you are free of both will you become a real sannyasin. For now, however much I explain, your sannyas—in your mind—is only an opposition to your world. It is still hard for you to understand that sun and shade are the play of the same sun. Shade seems pleasant and sunlight unpleasant—or in winter sometimes shade is unpleasant and sunlight pleasant. You understand that sun and shade are two things; what you do not understand is that both are the play of the same sun. Sunlight arises from it, and shade also arises from it. Remember, the day sunlight departs from the world, shade will depart the same day. Shade cannot be without sun; night cannot be without day; evening cannot be without morning; death cannot be without birth. How could there be old age without youth? The two are linked; one and the same energy moves in both. So first understand: the world is nothing but blazing sun, worry upon worry, tension upon tension—so much that, gradually, it begins to feel like your very nature.

Mulla Nasruddin went to a studio to have his photograph taken. When he sat for the picture the photographer said, “Sir, for a moment please drop the tension, the worry, the restlessness, this corpse-like expression, the sadness, this half-deadness—just for a moment, please. Then you can return to your natural pose. Let the photo be taken; then you can resume your habitual posture.” What is unnatural has become natural. Worry should be an unnatural occurrence; peace should be natural. Restlessness may happen now and then—that is understandable—but it must not become your style of life. Yet the one who lives only in the world—amid worry, tension, thoughts, problems, entanglements, future, plans, failures, struggle, rivalry, competition, jealousy, envy, attachment, greed, anger—gradually forgets that there are moments of shade too.

So if I had taken away your sun and given you shade, that shade would be half-baked. The deep experience of shade comes only when you return exhausted from the sun. Sit only in the shade and even shade will cease to feel like shade. When you return home tired to the shelter of shade, even a hut feels like a palace. Therefore I tell you: do not run away from the world. Yes, create the shade of meditation. When you are tired, be able to sink into meditation. When you come back restless and troubled, be able to rest under meditation’s roof.

First point: I have not snatched the world from you. I have given you something. That is why I keep saying the wise have not taught you renunciation but great enjoyment. And stop bothering about anyone else—I definitely teach you great enjoyment. I say, even God is to be enjoyed. If you go on enjoying only the world, you have enjoyed nothing. You were entangled in rubbish; you went on picking pebbles while diamonds and jewels were available nearby. You kept drinking from a dirty river while clear springs flowing from the mountains ran close by. You only needed to open your eyes a little, extend your hand, get up and go a little—and you would have found sources of crystal-clear water. You kept sitting by filthy drains, drinking.

The world is a dirty drain, crowded—where many are bathing and the filth of many is flowing. Meditation is a stream flowing from the far Himalayan peaks. I have not snatched the dirty drain from you, because taking it away is pointless. If your habit of dirtying does not drop, you will foul even the pure Himalayan stream. Until you have made it dirty, you won’t even feel the water is fit to drink.

A man was walking along the road. He fell and fainted. It was the blazing midday sun. A crowd gathered. It happened to be the perfumers’ street, with costly fragrance shops. One perfumer, out of compassion, came running with his most precious attar. Ayurveda says that if a deep faint does not break by shaking or waking, a sharp scent drawn deep through the nostrils can revive one. He held a very strong, very precious perfume to the man—one drop worth thousands. The man began to toss in his sleep, but did not wake; on the contrary, he seemed disturbed. A bystander said, “Stop—don’t kill him! I know him. Wait! These precious scents will not help.” Near the fallen man lay his basket and a dirty rag he had been carrying. This other man had water brought, sprinkled it on the grimy basket, and held it to the fainted man’s face. He took a deep breath and came to. He was a fisherman, returning home after selling fish. The basket carried the smell of fish. That was the only fragrance he had known all his life; it was intimate and familiar. He sat up and said, “Brother, had you not been here today, these people would have killed me. How did I get caught among such rascals! They were making me smell such awful stinks that my very life was writhing. I wanted to shout but couldn’t, to scream but couldn’t; I wanted to move my hands but couldn’t—a deep stupor had seized me. And these scoundrels were putting who-knows-what on my nose! Good that you came and brought the fragrance of fish to me—and I woke up.”

If you run half-baked from the world, you will not find even the Himalayan stream drinkable until you have made it dirty. I have not snatched you from the world; I have not separated you. Quite the opposite. I want the Himalayan stream to come flowing to where you are in the world, so you can experience both face to face—this filthy drain and this stream—and your choice is not out of greed, but out of understanding, out of awareness. Gradually, you acquire the taste of pure water; let fragrance take hold of you; let stench become recognizable.

Therefore do not say, “People like me joined sannyas without going through life’s sun and shade—what will become of us?” What is right to ask is: “What would have become of us had we not joined sannyas?”

I am in favor of experience—so much so that if a strong desire for even the “bad” arises, live it too. You will have to reap the fruit; I cannot save you from that. If anger happens, be angry. If lust happens, let lust happen. If greed happens, let greed happen. You will have to reap the fruit. I am not saying you will be spared the consequences; you will have to suffer the pain. But if there is a craving to indulge, then indulge—because if it is not lived through, that seed will remain within you and keep pulling you back. Unlived desires are worse than desires that have been lived. What has not been lived grips you more than what has been. What you live through, come to know, recognize—you are freed from it.

So know the world thoroughly. There is no hurry. Know the marketplace well. The day you turn your back on it and walk away, you will not even remember it. You will not even feel like turning once to take a last look—let it end like that. Such an ending does not come from decision or resolve. It comes from deep experience, from awareness. Only by living will such understanding arise. One day you will find: What is there in these clay shards? Not because I say so, not because Kabir or Sahajo says so, not because the Vedas and Upanishads say so. You will find it. This Upanishad will awaken within you; this Veda will be your own. You will find it is futile. You have seen, tasted it from every side; apart from pain you have found nothing. It is poison. It will drop from your hand that day.

On that day your sannyas will arise not from renouncing the world but from experiencing it—from knowing it. Then your sannyas will not be opposed to the world. Right now, however much I say otherwise, your sannyas is still a little in opposition to it—you feel you are doing something different. That day you will know: sannyas is gone and the world is gone. The day the duality, the conflict, disappears, true sannyas happens. That day you are beyond both. That day you know sun and shade are of the same sun. That day you know the world and sannyas are games of the same mind, the same ego. That day you are free of both.

One who is free of the world becomes free of sannyas as well. This may seem difficult to you because it does not fit logic or arithmetic. You think the one who leaves the world is a sannyasin; if you ask me, I say: the one whose world has dropped—his sannyas has also dropped. It is like this: the day the disease is gone, the medicine is also gone. If the disease has gone and you roam the market carrying medicine bottles, anyone will call you mad. You say, “The illness is cured; I no longer have TB,” yet you keep wandering around with the bottles. You have gathered all the prescriptions, made a scripture of them, had it bound in velvet with golden thread, and now you tuck it under your arm. You keep the bottles; you have preserved all the X-rays. The disease is gone; the world has dropped—and you go around carrying sannyas. Think—are you not mad? And if you met such a madman on the road, could you say his illness has gone? He has fallen into an even greater malady. TB was better; at least it could be treated. Who will cure this disease now? These X-rays, these prescriptions, this scripture you clutch, and these bottles you safeguard—empty, half-full, full, old—who will free you from them? No medical science has a cure for this.

No—but fortunately this does not happen. When the disease goes, you throw the medicine away. The very day the disease goes, you throw the medicine out the window. Sannyas is the medicine for the world. When the world itself goes, who but a madman would go on preserving sannyas! It too goes with it; it was the other side of the same coin. The day both are gone, if you ask me, I will say: sannyas has happened. Sannyas is beyond even sannyas; it transcends that too.

And you ask, “Kindly tell us, what will happen to us?” If you keep sinking into sannyas, you will drown, you will be erased, you will be lost. God will remain; you will not. If you run away before time, you will be saved—but the divine will not be found. So the whole accounting here is of drowning. If you befriend me, it means you will drown, you will be erased. I will not let you be saved. I will do everything so the boat sinks midstream—because your survival is the obstacle. If you reach the shore, you will build the world again; you know nothing else. Only if you drown midstream will you reach such a shore where you cannot build a world again.

So with me, only those ready to drown can be in fellowship. Those who set out to save themselves will find me very dangerous. There are other places, other people for them—who arrange for their safety. I arrange for your dissolution. I teach you death. For I have known that only when you die, when you are erased, will the great Life descend into you. Only then will the ocean descend into your drop. So what will happen? You will be erased; you will not be able to save yourself. If things go my way, you will be erased. If you run away halfway, that will be your misfortune.

Man is such a malady: hold him on one side and he slips on the other; hold him on that side and he falls apart on this. When Sahajo said, “janai na sansar,” the disease was treated on one side and flared up on the other. Understand both sides.

Man does not want to practice, he wants to display. It is the ego’s way. If one can get the credit without doing the work, it’s cheap. Meditation is hard; twirling a mala is easy. What has mala-turning to do with meditation? A mala can be turned effortlessly. Meditation demands the transformation of your whole life—and it happens within, so no one will even know. Then the ego is deprived of its pleasure: “people should think I’m a great meditator.” Meditation is hard to attain, and even the small joy that the world should recognize you as a meditator won’t be available.

The mala offers both conveniences. There is no hassle of meditating—just raise your hand and keep turning the beads—and the neighborhood, village, and region get the news: “the man is a great meditator.” People even make a cloth pouch, keep their hand inside, and keep moving the beads. The pouch is even more convenient. Even if you don’t move them, nobody can tell. People will assume you are. And who knows whether on those beads you’re counting rupees or the name of Ram? Nothing is certain. With the pouch, the mala is hidden, the hand is hidden; the performance continues. Even if you’re only shaking your hand, people will imagine you’re a great meditator.

Hundreds of thousands became keen on showing spiritual practice without any zeal for the real thing. Then saints like Sahajo said, “janai na sansar”—do it so that no one knows. Because you’re only making sure people know, while nothing is happening within. You should know, and your Creator should know—that’s enough. It is between you and your God. There is no need to stand in the marketplace beating drums. If you want to chant the name of Ram, chant it—but don’t set up a loudspeaker and cause an unbroken nuisance for twenty-four hours, making the whole neighborhood’s life miserable. Yet whoever undertakes a twenty-four-hour chant does it with a mike. In the name of Ram you also get to torment the neighbors; and who can object? Speaking against religion is difficult. No one can even say, “Our children have exams, please don’t create this racket.” Exams are worldly matters; this is Ram’s name—it will benefit the children; they’ll pass! Noise gives the ego great satisfaction.

So Sahajo said, no. This is between you and your God—and God is not deaf; there’s no need for a microphone. Not even the lips need move. Why move the lips? Let it happen heart to heart.

But then the other disease takes hold. Those who do nothing—lazy, slothful, indolent—if you tell them this, they say, “We don’t even move our lips. We do it heart to heart. Why tell anyone—janai na sansar. It must be hidden.” They at least let you know this much: “we’re hiding it.” Nothing more. So they say, “We don’t wear ochre; why tell anyone? We don’t carry a mala; why tell anyone? We don’t go to temple; why tell anyone? We stay at our shop, make money—but inwardly, heart-to-heart, the dialogue goes on.” This is the second trick.

Either you’ll announce without doing anything—or, without doing anything, you’ll claim you’re doing it inwardly and that’s why no one can tell. The first type condemns others: “You don’t go to temple, don’t worship; you are irreligious; you’ll rot in hell.” The second type condemns them: “Oh, you wear ochre robes? A mala? Mere show! You’ll land in hell.”

Both are diseased states.

Now before me is the question: what to do? If I tell you, “Do it quietly,” you’ll readily agree—because then there is no hassle at all; there is nothing to do. You do it so quietly that you don’t do it at all! There is no issue—who will know? That gives ample scope for dishonesty. If I say, “A bit louder—let the lips move so at least it’s clear what you’re chanting inside. Is it ‘rupee, rupee, rupee’ or ‘Ram, Ram, Ram’? Let at least that much be known!” you say, “Then people will know. But saints have said, keep it hidden.” So I thought of a middle way—half outside, half inside. Wear ochre robes outside, hang the mala on your neck; let meditation and sannyas happen within. You need protection on both sides.

You are so dishonest, such tricksters, that you find a loophole for your dishonesty everywhere. So I said, a little show—fine, no harm. When the need arises, we’ll drop it. How long does that take? How long to take off ochre robes? Not even a moment. The day you feel like it, drop them. How long to throw the mala into the sea or down a well? No big obstacle. You’re not bound by it. But a little outer form—so sloth doesn’t sneak in, so laziness doesn’t take hold.

A friend came, took sannyas. He said, “I’m an alcoholic; think carefully before giving me sannyas.” I said, “If I think like that, I’ll never be able to give it to anyone. I’ll end up like one of my philosophy professors.”

I had a philosophy professor who never checked exam papers. He said, “If I check, no one will pass.” And it was true. If you actually check, and it’s philosophy, passing is very hard! So he’d give marks without checking—eyes closed—ten, fifteen, twenty…adding them up somehow. I was his student; he’d hand me M.A. Part II papers to grade while I was still in Part I. He’d say, “You keep them; same thing. Because if I check, no one will pass. If you want them to pass, the only way is to give marks without checking.”

So I told the man, “If I scrutinize too much, I won’t be able to give sannyas to anyone.” Then I thought, forget the worry. Whoever comes—give it. You drink? Don’t worry—drink. The concern should be yours; why should I worry? What harm if a drunkard takes sannyas? The sick come to the hospital. The sick seek medicine. The bad aspire to become good. If I make it a condition—‘first give up your bad habits, then I’ll give sannyas’—it would mean you’ll get the medicine only after you’re healthy. That’s a bit much. You drink—that’s your concern. I give you sannyas. Now you must decide whether, as a sannyasin, you’ll drink or not. Whether to give sannyas to one who drinks is not my concern. I give—because I’ve seen, everyone’s drunk. Some on ordinary liquor, some on power, some on wealth, some on other intoxications. Everyone’s staggering. So I give it—now you worry.

He came back eight days later and said, “You’ve put me in a fix. Now I’m afraid to go to the liquor shop. People stare—‘ochre robes! Swamiji! You here?’ Yesterday I even had to lie. I said, ‘I just came to see which men in our neighborhood drink. I’m not buying.’ And I came back empty-handed.” Try standing in a cinema queue, buying a ticket, in ochre robes and with a mala. Someone will greet you, “Jai Ramji!” Someone will touch your feet. You’ll flee: “Let’s get out of here—this is trouble!”

The outer garb will pull you a little out of laziness. It will help you keep a bit of remembrance. A constant reminder: “I am a sannyasin.” You keep slipping, keep forgetting. Others will remind you. Someone will bow, someone will lower his head. And India is unique—without a second thought, if you wear ochre, it touches your feet. This is very effective. India understood that a sannyasin, too, needs to be reminded: you are worthy of reverence. There’s a deep alchemy in it. The secret is: we are honoring you—you are worthy of honor. Now strive to be worthy. It awakens you. Wherever you go, someone will be there to wake you up. Even standing before a mirror, your ochre robe and mala will remind you. You are in deep stupor; even small devices of remembrance will work. And what difficulty is there in dropping them? Any day I’ll say, “Enough—let it go.” First drop the world; then drop sannyas too. Step out of both entanglements.

A little outside and a little inside. Meditation inside, robes outside. Robes are for the outside; meditation is for the inside. Love within, mala without. The Name outside, the Nameless within. And as I know it, if “outside” and “inside” were two, we could divide them—but they are not two. They are together. Where does the inside begin? Where does the outside end? All is connected, joined. The outside is your inside turned outward; the inside is your outside turned inward. So dye both in one color. Let the color of meditation be within, and without. Let the fire of meditation burn inside, and wear the hue of fire outside. That will be good.

So I agree with Sahajo: “janai na sansar”—there’s no need to speak to anyone about your meditation. Guard it. But robes are not meditation. Robes belong to the world. You will wear something anyway. If you must choose clothes, choose the sannyasin’s. If you’re ready to be naked, then fine—drop even the sannyasin’s garb. You will wear something, choose some color, adopt some way of living. You will live somewhere—temple or house—you’ll live somewhere. Since you must live, I say live in a temple. Why live in an ordinary house? Or turn your house into a temple—that’s auspicious. Hence I built a bridge.

There is no need to separate outside and inside. What belongs to the inside should be hidden. What belongs to the outside has no need to be paraded. Don’t take a bell in your hand with ochre robes and ring it: “Look, brothers, here I come!” No such need. But if someone sees you, there is no need to hide behind a wall lest you be seen. Be natural. That is enough.

Worthiness is not sufficient. Without worthiness you will not receive prasad either. But prasad does not come because of worthiness. That is the subtlety. This needs a little understanding.

Worthiness means: you are qualified. But the moment the idea of being qualified arises, the ego is created: “I am worthy, I am deserving.” As soon as you feel “I am worthy,” a demand stands up: “Now I should be given.” If it is not given, there is complaint. And if it is given, gratitude does not arise—because “I was worthy anyway.”

Kabir said at the time of his death, “I will not die in Kashi now. Take me to Maghar.” The saying was: if even a donkey dies in Kashi (Banaras), he attains liberation—reaches heaven; and in Maghar, if even a wise man dies, in the next birth he becomes a donkey. So Kabir said, “I will die in Maghar.”

Why?

Kabir said, “If liberation is gained by dying in Kashi, then where is the Lord’s compassion in that? That would be Kashi’s worthiness—that liberation was obtained. It should be obtained. I will die in Maghar. If I become a donkey in the next birth, let it be because of me. And if liberation comes, let it be because of His compassion.” This is a very lovely point. He went and died in Maghar. He spent his whole life in Kashi. So he sent a message—one hint. The hint was: even if liberation is gained through one’s worthiness, it is still ego. Let it be received through His compassion.

Whoever has worthiness will begin to develop a subtle ego: “I am qualified. I should receive.” If it is received, gratitude will not be born. If it is not received, complaint will be born. And where there is no feeling of thankfulness, God does not shower. Where there is no ahobhava—no “ah!” of grateful wonder—where there is ego, there a veil lies upon the eyes. There the eyes are still blind. There the heart has not yet awakened; it is asleep. Therefore worthiness is necessary, but it is not enough.

I am not saying: try to be unworthy. There is no need to take an exam of God either. Accept worthiness as a simple, natural readiness on your side: “I am available.” But let there be no complaint in it. If God is not being received, surely some mistake is mine; there must be some deficiency in my worthiness. If God is received—God is such a vast happening, and my vessel is so small, my worthiness so little—that there is no way to believe it came because of my worthiness. If it came, it came out of His compassion. It rained as prasad. So all who have found Him have said: there is no accounting of worthiness here.

I tell Jesus’ story again and again.

A rich man hired laborers in the morning to work in his vineyard. A few came. But the work was much; it wouldn’t be finished. At noon he called more laborers. Some came when the sun was halfway across the sky. Still it seemed the work wouldn’t be completed; it had to be finished by evening. He sent again. Some laborers came when the sun was almost setting. Evening fell. Then he paid everyone their wages. He gave those who had come in the morning the same amount as those who had come at noon. And he gave just as much to those who had come only a short while before sunset—who had hardly touched the work.

The morning laborers were angry. They said, “This is injustice. We worked all day and got the same reward, and these who have just arrived get the same. This is injustice.” Naturally—they had worked all day; they felt they had earned worthiness. The rich man said, “What I have given you—is it not adequate for the work you did? I have given you what I promised.” They said, “That is fine. We have received what we worked for. But these people have done nothing.” He said, “Leave them to me. The money is mine. Even if I scatter it for free, you should have no cause for concern. I do not give them because of their work; I give because I have more than enough. I have that right.”

Jesus says, when devotees and knowers stand before God, the knowers will always feel, “We have been laboring since morning. We worked with all our might all day—and we got the same. And these devotees hardly worked—sang songs, hummed tunes, swayed in ecstasy, danced—and they too received as much.” And God will say, “What you did—you have received accordingly, have you not? Leave them to me. I give to them out of my abundance. I have it. What else should I do with it?”

Among those who have found God there are two kinds of people: the knowers (jnanis) and the devotees (bhaktas). The jnani says, “We attained through our worthiness.” The bhakta says, “We received it as His prasad.” It is the devotee’s heart that conceives of prasad. It is the knower’s mind that speaks of effort. The jnani keeps accounts; the bhakta keeps no accounts. The bhakta says, “I have no worthiness at all, and yet you keep showering—bin ghan parat phuhar, bin dāmini ujiyār ati—showers fall without clouds; there is brilliant light without lightning!”

If you examine the jnani closely, he first denies prasad and then denies God as well. Mahavira does not accept God, because he says what one gets is the fruit of one’s own deeds. There is no need to bring God in between. He who does good receives merit; he who does evil receives sin. He who does rightly, receives rightly; he who does wrongly, receives wrongly. What you sow, you reap. Where is the use of bringing God in between? And there is a truth in Mahavira’s statement. The truth is: if you bring God in between, something will go awry. The trouble will be that sometimes He may give even to those who had no worthiness. Imagine in Jesus’ story that in place of the owner there was a computer calculating the accounts—or even just a bookkeeper, not the owner. He would see: he who worked six hours gets six; he who worked four hours gets four; he who worked one hour gets one. Correct—this is how a bookkeeper thinks.

If God were to give by tallying people’s deeds—how much each one did—then Mahavira says, there is no need to bring this Person in between at all. The law is enough. Put your hand in fire, it burns. There is no God sitting there saying, “You put your hand in the fire, therefore burn him.” Pull your hand back, you are saved. There is no God saying, “You pulled your hand back, therefore we save you.” Put it in—burns; pull it back—saved.

So the principle of karma, Mahavira says, is sufficient. There is no need to bring God in between. And bringing Him in creates complications. The complication is that a thinking, feeling power comes in between. Then sometimes He will have pity on someone, compassion for someone. God is not a machine; He is not a bookkeeper. He is an owner. And an owner can give out of his abundance—then what will you do? Then there can be dangers. The first danger is that those who did nothing might receive. And the second great danger is that those who did may not receive. In Jesus’ story, those who worked did receive, and those who did not also received. But the story could go a little further: those who did not might receive more, and those who did might receive less—because it may be that today the owner is displeased; his mood is not happy. To bring Someone in between is risky. Mahavira said, “Remove God. With God present, order in the world cannot remain. If God is there, there will be anarchy.”

You will be astonished: Hindus say, “Without God there will be anarchy. If God is not there, who will maintain order?” Mahavira says, “If God is there, then maintaining order becomes impossible. Without God, order runs by law. There is no ‘heart’ in between to keep accounts, to take pity on someone, to get angry at someone, to be displeased with someone, to fall in love with someone, to rescue a devotee and drown a sinner. No such One is in between. Things run directly by rule—clean, tidy mathematics.”

Therefore in Mahavira’s scriptures there is no place for poetry. Pure mathematics. Reading Mahavira’s books feels as if one were reading engineering or medicine, mathematics, logic—pure mathematics, scientific. It is a matter of accounts. Sometimes I feel it may be because of Mahavira’s mathematics that all Jains turned into account-keepers and shopkeepers. The accounting runs so deep that the followers all became merchants. Everything else was lost; only the capacity for keeping accounts remained.

The jnani says, “By our worthiness we arrive.” Therefore, in the end the jnani will say, “I alone am; there is no God.” Mahavira says, “The soul is the Supreme Soul,” meaning: I alone am; there is no other God. That will be the purest expression of knowledge. The bhakta reaches by grace. He says, “What is my worth?” His is the path of great poetry. He says, “If we have to cross by ourselves, we will not cross; we may drown. If we are saved, it is You who saved us. If we drown, we drowned.” He claims the fault as his own; he attributes the virtue to Him. Therefore a moment comes—advancing through grace, grace, grace—God remains, the self dissolves. The bhakta says, “Thou alone art; I am not.” The jnani says, “I alone am; Thou art not.” Both arrive at the One. Nonduality remains. But their expressions are different.

In this connection there is one more question. It will be appropriate to understand that along with this.

I have explained two approaches to you: the jnani and the bhakta. The jnani attains through his own worthiness; the bhakta through his prayer. The jnani “acquires” the divine by austerity; it is his achievement. He is a claimant. “If I have found, I have found it by my own labor.” Hence the religion and culture that Mahavira founded is called the Shramana culture. Shramana means: not by grace, but by effort. That is why Mahavira is known as the Shramana Bhagwan—one who attained the ultimate through effort.

The jnani says, “Through austerity, renunciation, and merit I attained God—not for free, not by anyone’s grace. I earned it.” That is the jnani’s claim.
The bhakta says, “Through prayer, worship, dancing, cajoling—by pleasing you. I had no worthiness of my own. I danced and delighted you. I sang your songs, praised your glory, won you over. In some deep moment of love you gave all. I was unworthy; it came as grace.”

These are two straightforward paths. Hidden between them is a third path that contains the essence of both. It is rarely spoken of, because it is hard to speak of. But since you have asked in relation to me, I must tell you. Between them lies the path of meditation. It is extremely subtle, supersubtle. To understand the import of meditation is difficult—still, try...

The jnani says, “We attained by our worthiness.” The bhakta says, “We attained by grace.” But both agree on one point: attained. The meditator says, “We never lost it.” He says, “Where is the question of attaining? It is already attained. It is our nature. The loss is only a delusion.” A notion that it is lost—like a fish forgetting it is in the ocean. It is still in the ocean. You live, breathe, wake, sleep, rise, sit, are born, and die in the divine. You cannot part from it even for a moment, because “God” means total existence, this vast energy, the all-that-is.

The meditator says, “We never lost the divine.” So both ideas—attained by effort or received as grace—are pointless. It was never lost. On awakening one discovers it is here. In sleep it seemed lost; on waking one sees, “It is; it was never lost.” Even when it seemed lost in sleep, it wasn’t. We had only fallen asleep. A lamp was lit, and you dozed. The lamp continued to burn. Your sleep did not extinguish it. Dreams gathered in your eyes; they did not cast darkness on the lamp. You drifted away; you forgot the lamp. Then your eyes opened, and you “found” it. Will you say you found the lamp again? If it was never lost, then “finding” is not the right word. The lamp was always there. The eternal—that is God. The meditator says, “We merely nodded off. We did not lose it.” For if once truly lost, it would be impossible to find; what can be lost cannot be your very nature. It would be like a thing in your hand—you lose it; even if you find it, you could lose it again. But can the heartbeat of your heart be lost? Even if the heartbeat stops, can the quality of your consciousness be lost? Can your sense of being be lost? When you fall asleep, you still are, although you do not know you are. When you awaken, you know you are. What is hidden in sleep emerges in waking. What is forgotten in sleep is remembered upon waking. The meditator says: the divine has not been lost—only forgotten. Remembrance is enough. Meditation is enough.

From the meditator’s perspective, therefore, it is neither attained by worthiness—because it is already yours. However “unworthy” you may think you are, the same heartbeat is within you. So worthiness has no place here. Nor is it given as grace, because there is no Other to bestow it. You yourself are both giver and receiver. You who go and you who arrive are the same. The path and the goal are one—yourself. The meditator is saying the most profound thing, but it is hard to say it. And when the bhakta arrives, he too understands the meditator’s point: “Indeed, it was always already here.” The jnani also understands: “This was unveiled, discovered—not manufactured.” Like a stone lying there and a sculptor comes, takes up a chisel, and brings a statue into view. The statue was already within it.

Someone asked Michelangelo... A rough, discarded stone lay unused; artisans had thrown it away as worthless. From it Michelangelo carved a statue of Jesus. When it was finished someone said, “You are an unparalleled artist! The stone was despised, thrown aside, judged useless, crooked—yet you made a priceless statue!” Michelangelo replied, “I did not make it. The statue was sleeping in the stone. I only removed the useless stone that clung around it. I unveiled it; I did not make it. It was hidden, veiled; I unveiled it. Covered; I uncovered it. That’s all. I am no doer. I merely drew back the curtain.”

The meditator says, “You cannot ever be other than what you are. What you are you have always been and always will be. Your very being is the divine.” Therefore there is no question of grace or effort. Then you will be puzzled: “What now should we do?”

If you can understand me rightly, I say: only the meditator speaks the purest truth. The bhakta says the same thing in the language of love—then it becomes “grace.” The jnani says the same thing in the language of discipline—then words like worthiness, qualification, karma, merit, effort arise. The essence is what the meditator is saying. But only a meditator can understand the meditator’s statement, because it is very hard for you to grasp that it has never been lost. People come to me and say, “If it has never been lost, why seek?” I ask them, “How can such a question even arise if it is truly your experience that it has never been lost?” If it is your living experience, the matter is finished—nothing to seek. But you merely adopt the idea and stop seeking; then even the way to discover it closes.

Meditation is the purest expression of religion. Knowledge is that same truth expressed through the mind; devotion is that truth expressed through the heart. Meditation is neither of the heart nor of the mind; it transcends both. Knowledge is of the mind; love is of the heart; meditation is a crossing beyond.

So do not ask me how I attained. Neither by grace nor by effort. By awakening I found it had never been lost. Therefore I have no guru—for a guru is needed only when, in seeking, one requires support. And I have no “practice.” Practice is needed only when one must labor to search. I neither labored nor prayed. I worshiped in no temple; I did not fold my hands to any God in the sky; I clung to no guru. What did I do? Only this: I attempted to understand myself. I tried to know, “Who am I?” With my own hands I groped within: “Where am I?” Groping and searching, the darkness grew thin; a sense of my own being dawned. The feeling “I am” intensified. At first a faint flame, a small lamp. Then the flame grew; it became the great light of the sun. But not by grace and not by effort. By going within I found that it was already found—that it had never been lost. I was sitting at the goal itself; I had only dozed off.

I often tell a story. A drunkard returned home—he had had too much to drink. By habit he reached his house, as always. For that, no particular alertness is needed—not for you either. You think a thousand thoughts and still walk toward your house. Your feet turn left or right; the bicycle turns; the car turns; you arrive in your garage. No need to think about it—mechanical. The drunk, swaying, arrived. But standing before his house he peered closely: “Is this my house or not?” Night’s darkness, eyes soaked in alcohol, everything trembling and wavering—he panicked. “This doesn’t look like my house. I’ve never seen it like this.” Change the eyes and the scene changes. In intoxication, the scene changes.
He knocked fearfully. His mother opened the door. But he did not recognize his own mother. In drunkenness, how to recognize? He grabbed her feet and said, “Mother, do me this favor—get me to my home.” His mother said, “Son, you’ve gone mad! A thousand times I’ve told you to stop drinking. Now this is the limit—you don’t recognize me, your own mother! You don’t recognize your own home!” A crowd gathered; neighbors came to explain. But is there any way to explain to a drunk? If he could understand, he would already have understood. You explain one thing, the drunk hears another; you say one thing, he takes it as something else.
He grew very frightened: “You will kill me. My mother is waiting for me at my home. Why are you telling me such nonsense! Don’t I know my own mother? Don’t I know my own house? However much I drank, I am not really drunk!” All drunkards say the same. To make a drunk admit he is drunk is very difficult. If he admits it, the intoxication has already broken. Otherwise he cannot admit it. How will one admit in the very intoxication? If a madman admits, “I am mad,” he is already on the mend; send him home—no need for the asylum. A madman never admits he is mad; he will call the whole world mad, but not himself.
He said to everyone, “It seems you all have been drinking. I don’t know my own home? Take me to my home, brothers!” He began to cry and beat his chest. A neighbor, returning from the tavern, yoked his ox-cart and came. “Sit,” he said. “I will take you to your home.” His mother shouted, “Don’t sit in his cart! He’s drunk too. Otherwise where will he take you? Your home is nowhere else!” But this man’s words appealed to him: “This looks like a guru—someone who will deliver me. The rest are wicked; they will entangle me here.” He was ready to sit in the ox-cart.

Such is your condition.
You stand right before your home. What is before your eyes is the divine. And you ask, “Where should we go? How should we seek? What means should we adopt? Whom should we pray to?” Someone will surely arrive with an ox-cart, ready. He will say, “Come, we are going there anyway. In fact, that’s our business—we are in transport. We deliver the lost!” Some guru you will find, easily. But your true guru is within. And if ever you accept an outer guru, accept only one who speaks of awakening the guru within you—not of taking you somewhere.

It would have been good if that drunk had accepted his mother, who was saying, “This is your house; I am your mother.” In the morning, in his senses, he would have found it to be true. But when someone tells you, “You are already where you need to be,” it does not appeal to you. You say, “This doesn’t sound right. A great change is needed. A revolution is needed. A transformation is needed. And this man says I am already there! Let’s go somewhere else. Find another guru.”
People come to me. If I say to them, “Just accept yourself. As you are, you are auspicious, beautiful, true. As you are, you are enough. As you are, feel grateful. Nothing is to be done. Be content with your being,” they start looking around restlessly. “Then there is nothing to do!” This does not appeal. They will go to some other guru who will give them something to do—“Stand on your head.” That will appeal—as if standing on your head had anything to do with meeting God. If you look fine on your feet, will you look better on your head? You will only look foolish. If you want to hide foolishness, call it shirshasana—perform some upside-down calisthenics, twist arms and legs. If you want to join the circus, fine. But what has that to do with the divine?

As you are, you are auspicious, beautiful. Right now you are where you are longing to go. If the very idea of going drops and you are fulfilled in this very moment, you have arrived. If you cling to the idea of going, you will go on running for eternity. That is the tale of your endless life—your affliction. Run on, believing there is some goal in the future to be attained. As long as it is not attained, you will be restless. It will never be attained—because wherever you arrive, from there the goal will appear far away, like the horizon—a mirage.

Neither did I receive it as someone’s grace, nor did I gain it by effort. By awakening I saw it had never been lost. This I call Sahajyog—the effortless union. This is what Sahajo called sahajgati—the natural flow. Charandas even gave her the name Sahajo. Sahaj means the simple, the effortless—nothing to get, nothing to seek. But Sahajo’s language is that of the devotee, so she spoke of grace. Mahavira’s language is that of the jnani, so he spoke of austerity, effort, practice. If you wish to understand me, know that all my discourse is on meditation. And meditation is beyond both devotion and knowledge—or meditation is the very soul of both. Devotion has a body; knowledge has another body; but within both, the soul is meditation. The devotee, praying and praying, becomes absorbed in meditation; the jnani, practicing and practicing, also becomes absorbed in meditation.

Ask any who have truly arrived—their statement is one: meditation. The expressions differ. Sahajo sings the song of love; Mahavira utters the language of knowledge.

I want to give you pure gold, not ornaments. Mahavira too used the gold, but to fashion ornaments of knowledge. Sahajo used the same gold to fashion ornaments of love and devotion. I do not want to give you ornaments. I want to hand you the very ingot of pure gold. Its name is meditation.

There is not the slightest contradiction. It may seem so. It is not. “Na kahu ke sang hai, Sahajo na koi sang!” Sahajo says: no one is with anyone, and I am with no one. Certainly Sahajo also speaks of satsang, praises it—seek the saint, seek satsang. Then you stumble and ask: if there is no companionship at all, whom to seek? The confusion arises because you have not understood the meaning of satsang.

Satsang means: the company of one in whose presence you come to know—na kahu ke sang hai, Sahajo na koi sang! The whole meaning of satsang is only this: to find the nearness of someone in whose presence you become aware of your aloneness. A crowd is not satsang. Sitting in a clubhouse playing cards is not satsang. There you are forgetting yourself. That is intoxication, a narcotic. Sitting in a cinema is not satsang. There is a crowd, yes—but it is for drowning and forgetting yourself. You are troubled by yourself; your aloneness bites. Whenever you are alone, it becomes difficult; you feel bored. So you run, you drown in someone else, you forget.

Satsang is when you sit near one in whose presence you cannot forget yourself, in whose presence self-remembrance arises. Not a drug, but awakening. Satsang means: where you become aware of your solitude, your pure aloneness. Even if a thousand people are sitting in satsang, there is no crowd there. Each person sits separately. Each person sits in his own aloneness.

It happened that Buddha stopped outside a city. Ajatashatru was the ruler of that kingdom. As emperors are—always fearful, suspicious. His ministers said: Please come; the Blessed One has arrived and is resting outside the village. These moments are precious. It befits your dignity to go. Ajatashatru asked: How many people are there? Who all have come? For what purpose? As politicians do, he asked a thousand questions and calculated everything. They said: Ten thousand monks are with him. Having collected all the information, Ajatashatru set out.

When he reached the mango grove where, under the shade of the trees, Buddha was staying with his ten thousand monks, he halted at the edge. In a flash he drew his sword from its sheath. He said to his ministers: I smell a conspiracy. You told me ten thousand people are camped here. I do not hear the voice of even a single person. This clump of mango trees feels utterly silent. It seems there is no one here. And certainly not ten thousand. Where ten thousand people are, there would be a whole settlement and a marketplace.

The ministers laughed. They said: Put your sword back in its sheath. You do not know Buddha and his monks. They are ten thousand, but each is alone. There is no crowd here. Go in. Do not be afraid. Nervous and frightened, Ajatashatru went inside. And when he saw the ten thousand—sitting under the trees, in clusters and clusters, yet each alone! He went to Buddha and said: I have never seen anything like this. What are these people doing here? Why are these ten thousand men silent? Why do they not speak? Buddha said: They have come to me to learn silence, not to learn speaking. They have come to me to be alone.

Satsang means: where you become alone; seek the company of the one who awakens you and makes you alone.

“Na kahu ke sang hai, Sahajo na koi sang!” Wherever this is revealed, that is satsang.

Enough for today.