Bin Ghan Parat Phuhar #3

The pundit laughed. He said, “Give such an answer to the ignorant; I am a knower of the scriptures—give me a proper, exact answer. I am not some unlettered rustic—I know the Vedas, I know the Upanishads, I have read the Gita. Think it over and answer. Otherwise, say you don’t know the answer.”

The fakir sang a song. In that song he said he had heard of a similar event once—that flowers had bloomed in a garden and the gardener was dancing, intoxicated by the unprecedented beauty of those flowers. And the village goldsmith came and said, “Why are you getting so delirious? What great moment has arrived? What is the reason for this dance?”

The gardener said, “Look at these flowers.”

The goldsmith said, “Wait! I won’t agree without testing.”

He took a touchstone for gold out of his bag. There is indeed a touchstone on which gold is rubbed and tested—true or false is known. He rubbed the flowers on the goldsmith’s stone; nothing was revealed—the flowers died. The flowers must have laughed, the trees must have laughed. The clouds in the sky must have laughed. And the fakir laughed too; the gardener laughed. And the fakir said to the pundit, “You are asking me in just this way. You want to test love on the touchstone of logic.

“And just as flowers will die on a stone… The stone can test gold because there is kinship between stone and gold—gold too is a stone. Have you ever seen gold bloom? It is dead. The dead recognizes the dead. A flower is life. If you rub it on a stone, it will die; only the news of its death will remain, just the flower’s blood on the stone; but from the stone no news will come as to whether the flower was true or false.

“There are different touchstones for gold. If you cannot see the Divine in the world, understand that you are the goldsmith walking through a garden of flowers carrying the touchstone for gold—you will never meet flowers. The very stone in your hand has prevented your meeting the flowers. Your way of seeing itself has become the obstacle. The way you are, that very form bars you from God.

“When you come to me and ask, ‘God is not visible,’ I do not begin to prove God to you, nor do I say, ‘God exists.’ That would be futile, like playing a veena to the deaf, or lighting a lamp before the blind, or sprinkling fragrance near someone whose nostrils are blocked. No, I do not make that mistake.

“When you ask, ‘Where is God?’ I know you are really asking, ‘Where is love?’ For what other meaning can there be in asking about God? You are not making a statement about God, you are informing on yourself: that you do not have the eyes of love.

“If only you understood this, you would not set out to find God, for that search is mistaken; you would set out to find love.

“Whoever found love, found God. God has never been found anywhere except as love.

“So I tell you: love is greater even than God; because without the eyes of love, no relationship with God is possible. I tell you, your ears are greater than the grandest music, because without ears music is empty. And I tell you, your eyes are greater than the most beautiful of lamps. The sun is smaller, your eyes are greater. Do not think in arithmetic, otherwise your eye is very small and the sun very big. And yet, I repeat: your eye is great, the sun is small, because without your eyes where would the sun be? In your small eyes millions of suns can be contained. And in your small throbbing love, the infinity of God is encompassed.

“Your love is great. Take this into your heart as clearly as you can, for it is useful—the first step of the journey, if it goes wrong, the destination is forever lost. If the first step is right, half the journey is already done. If you set out in the right direction, you are half arrived—now there is no hindrance to arriving, it is only a matter of a little time. But if the first step goes wrong, you can keep walking for lifetimes. However much you walk, however much you run, however many efforts you make, nothing will happen—perhaps the opposite will happen—the more you labor, the farther you will go; the more you run, the more the distance will increase.

“No one arrives by running in the wrong direction. Even walking slowly in the right direction, people arrive. And those who have known have said that if the direction is absolutely right, not even a single step needs to be taken; where you sit, the destination arrives to you.

“This is what I say to you.

“There is no need even to move, because the destination is not far. The destination is in your very eyes, in your very way of seeing.

“Love is a way of seeing—it is a magic, an alchemy. The moment it sees, something else appears, which till yesterday had never appeared. Unlove also has a way of seeing. Unlove has a very blind vision. It shows what love can never show.

“The world and God will never appear together in your experience. That is why the wise—like Shankara—say the world is maya, illusion.

“Do not think that because the world is maya Shankara does not go begging alms—because from whom would he beg? Do not think that because the world is maya Shankara does not feel hunger—how can hunger come if all is false? Do not think that when Shankara feels hungry and he eats bread, his hunger does not subside. He does feel hunger, his hunger does subside, he does beg alms; and yet he says, the world is false.

“There is a story.

“A half-crazed emperor heard Shankara’s words. He did not like them. No one likes them—you do not either. ‘The world is unreal!’ How can that be accepted? Try walking through the wall—your head breaks, blood flows. If the wall was unreal, you would have passed through—who could stop you? Do dream-walls ever stop you? And you pass through the door. Then surely there is some fundamental, factual difference between the door and the wall—one you bang your head against, the other you do not.

“The emperor was crazy; he said, ‘Wait! I do not trust talk. I am a realist, not an idealist. So wait; this decision will not be by argument—you are skilled at argument—this decision will be by real experience. Wait.’ He told his mahout to bring the mad elephant. The emperor had a mad elephant with massive chains on its feet, because it would not be controlled. If it got loose it would kill several people, and many times it had broken its chains and run. The mad elephant was brought.

“The emperor stood on the palace roof, people hid in their houses, the royal road emptied. Shankara was left on the road, and the mad elephant was let loose. Shankara ran! He screamed, shouted, panicked! You might think, ‘Ah! The world is maya, and Shankara runs at the sight of a worldly elephant—should a knower do that?’ The emperor thought the same. Before any harm came—since there was no purpose in harm, only a test—the emperor had Shankara rescued. Drenched in sweat, shaken out of his wits, Shankara was brought to court. The emperor laughed. He said, ‘Now say, is the world maya?’

“Shankara said, ‘Certainly, Majesty, the world is maya.’ The emperor guffawed: ‘You are insane, more insane than the elephant. Why did you run then? Why did you scream and shout? Why are there beads of sweat on your face? Why is your chest still heaving? And all this at the sight of a false elephant?’

“Shankara said, ‘Majesty! This too is as false as the elephant is false. True tears come from a true elephant; false tears come from a false elephant. My running was false, my screaming and shouting were false. Your hearing it was false too.’ The emperor said, ‘Stop this nonsense—you are madder than the elephant. There is no point in talking further.’

“On the surface, Shankara’s answer looks strange, but it is right. When Shankara says ‘the world is maya,’ he does not mean the world is not. He means only this: what is, you have seen in a wrong way. Therefore what you think is, is not as you think. Your experience is false.

“The world is your experience, your interpretation of Truth. You have not seen Truth; you have only interpreted, and your interpretation is false.

“The world is an ignorant interpretation of Brahman.

“And when the eyes open, awareness dawns, the stream of love begins to flow, then you see this very world from another standpoint, against another background. Another context is born, and all meanings change. In that moment you say, ‘What I knew before was false; for before this great Truth it becomes utterly pale.’ In that moment you say, ‘What I had believed till now was not right—this new experience has invalidated it.’

“Your eye has ultimate value. That is why, in India, we called metaphysics ‘darshan’—seeing, the way of seeing. In the West, metaphysics is called philosophy. ‘Philosophy’ is not as precious a word as ‘darshan.’ Because philosophy means: thinking, reasoning; not seeing. Philosophy means: to think life, to reason about it, to draw conclusions. Darshan means: if you think, reason, conclude—it will not be Truth; because in your conclusions, in your thinking, you will be included—your interpretation will be only your extension.

“Drop words. See.

“When does the consummation of seeing happen? Why is love called the consummation of seeing—why? Because in the moment of love the seer and the seen become one.

“Love means: there is no distance from that which you are seeing; you are open, near, available to what you are seeing; you are seeing it as yourself, not as other. You are taking what you see as your own extension—not another; you have become one with it.

“Love means: you have become joined to what you see—it is not alien. Your heart and its heart beat together. Your breath and its breath move together. There is no wall between your being and its being. That is all love means. All walls have dissolved. The seer has become the seen.

“Krishnamurti keeps saying: ‘The observed is the observer, the observer is the observed.’ He is defining love—the one who sees has become the seen, the seen has become the seer. Both have merged like milk and water. Then it is difficult to separate them. There are many ways of mixing. You can mix water and oil too. Mix as much as you want, the distance remains—water and oil never truly mix. The vision of unlove is the mixing of water and oil. You look, but you do not merge. Without merging how will you see? Without merging how will you enter into the innermost of the Real? Without merging how will you reach the depth? Mix as milk and water.

“You go to see a flower: let the flower remain there, you remain here; slowly, slowly both vanish, only the experience of the flower remains—neither the experiencer remains nor the flower—only a floating experience remains in-between. Where seer and seen are lost, there darshan bears fruit.

“Love is consummation. There is no other way of knowing except love. Have you ever noticed, examined, recognized that the supreme moments of life and knowledge lean toward the shadow of love? You can know only the person you love. The one you have not loved—circle him as much as you like—like people circling a temple—it will remain a circumambulation around; you will go round and round outside, never going within. For going within is possible only when you are ready to drown and disappear. When you agree to disappear, the other also agrees to disappear—your readiness creates in the other an echo of readiness. Like two drops drawing nearer, nearer—ready to vanish—then they come close and become one drop. Such becoming one drop is love.

“Whoever has known by that love has known God. Then he faces a great puzzlement. You ask, ‘Where is God?’ He asks, ‘Where is the world?’ This is the meaning of maya. You ask, ‘God is not seen.’ He asks, ‘Nothing else is seen except That.’ All else has become false—Only That remains true.

“The world known through love is God. God known through unlove is the world.

“These are your ways of seeing.

“Understand a few more things, then Sahajo’s simple words will appear with great dignity. These lines are very simple, straightforward, not tangled. But if the background is not ready, you will repeat them without understanding a thing. The simplest things become the most difficult if the background of understanding is absent; the most difficult things become the simplest when the background is ready.

“First, have you ever seen small children read? Give them Tagore’s finest poem, and still the small child cannot read the big letters, he has to spell them out. If ‘Paramatma’ is written, he will read ‘pa’ separately, ‘ra’ separately, the halant ‘ta’ separately, ‘ma’ separately—he spells. Watch a small child read the finest poem: you will find the poetry has vanished, only the alphabet remains. Listening to the child you will not be reminded of Tagore’s poem at all. Perhaps you will be bored by his blather—what is he doing, ‘p small p, m big m’? Stop it!

“The song’s entire beauty is lost. Why? Because the song was in wholeness, the child has broken it into fragments. As if there were a beautiful statue and you smash it with a hammer—now it is fragments. The marble is the same; you neither added nor subtracted—hammers neither add nor subtract, they only break. If you weigh it on scales, it weighs the same as before. But something is destroyed which scales cannot weigh. The statue’s price might have been a hundred thousand rupees; now it is worth two pennies. The marble is the same—take it to the market and you will get the price of marble—the statue is lost.

“I have heard that in a village a poor farmer was returning to the village through a forest with his horse. A passerby stood under a tree. He said, ‘Stop. If you let me make a picture of your horse, I will give you five rupees.’ The man was astonished. ‘Even carrying loads all day my horse cannot earn five rupees, and this man wants only to make a picture!’ He said, ‘With pleasure, make it.’ The man was a painter. He painted the horse, gave the five rupees, and returned to the city. Months later the villager went to the city for some work on the same horse. He saw a big crowd at a market; five rupees were being charged, inside was some marvellous painting. He was rustic and poor, but he had those five rupees the painter had given. They had come unexpectedly; he hadn’t thought of spending them, had no pressing needs—they were in his pocket. He said, ‘Why not! Now that I am in the city, and there is such a crowd,’ so he stood in line, paid five rupees, and went in. He was astonished—it was a painting of his horse!

“He caught the painter and said, ‘This is the limit of robbery! You are making thousands! And my living horse is tied outside, and you have only painted—spread some colors on paper. No one will pay five rupees to see a living horse; otherwise I would have been a millionaire. People are paying five rupees to see your picture, and there is such a crowd, and such praise in the city. And these are the same five rupees you gave me—I have come to see it by paying them back. If this is the business, why don’t I tie my horse here too, and you also sell tickets for him!’

“The painter said, ‘That won’t be possible.’

“The villager asked, ‘But what is in this paper, these lines, this color? What is its price?’

“The painter said, ‘If you ask the price of paper and color, it is nothing—less than five rupees. But what has been revealed through the medium of paper and color is priceless—it cannot be bought. Your horse, however real, will die today or tomorrow. This painting is eternal, timeless. Many horses like yours will come and go—this horse will remain. This horse is not just a picture of your horse; it is the essence of all horses.’

“The villager’s mind must not have grasped it. God does not come within your intellect either, because the intellect is very rustic.

“A small child spells even a great poem and the entire quality of poetry is lost. The quality of poetry lies in totality.

“When you view life through thought, you are spelling out God—into bits and pieces. Thought means analysis—break it down. Science does this—break and know.

“If you say, ‘The flower is very beautiful,’ the scientist will say, ‘We will take it to our lab and disassemble it. We will separate all chemicals—minerals apart, how much earth, how much sky, how much water—everything separate. Come then; we will tell you by analysis what is inside.’ The scientist will analyze and keep bottles with labels—this much earth, this much sky, this much water, this much this, that. Do not ask him which bottle contains beauty. He will say, ‘Beauty was never found. We found earth, water, and everything else—and we have bottled the entire flower; you can weigh it. Beauty must have been your illusion, because beauty is not found by searching in any flower, and we have left nothing out—the weight equals.’

“Similarly, the uncomprehending think about man. Many experiments have been done. When a man is dying, first weigh him alive, then after he dies weigh the dead body—if the soul departs the weight should lessen. The weight does not lessen; many times it even increases. You will be surprised—rather than the soul leaving, the weight increases. Because as soon as breath leaves, the body’s discipline, its ability to hold itself, is lost—so much air enters the body that due to that air sometimes the weight increases. The body puffs up, the amount of air increases; it does not decrease, it may even go up.

“So those who wanted to know by weighing whether the soul departs at death are spelling. The soul is totality; it is the poetry of life. It is available not by analytical thought but by the experience of love.

“If you have loved someone, then you will know that he is not a body. This is the criterion of whether you have loved. If in your beloved, or your lover, or your son, or your wife, or your friend you see only the body, you have not loved. If you have loved, you will find the body is there, but your beloved is not merely the body. Within the body, greater than the body, infinitely greater is something. The body is transient; within is the eternal. Within is the very essence of all creation, the ultimate summit of consciousness. But to see it, you need the capacity to see the whole.

“Love sees the whole. It is a bird’s-eye view. As a bird flies in the sky and looks below, everything appears together. You walk along the road: you see one bush, then another, then a third, then a fourth—you are spelling. The bird flies, and all the bushes are seen at once.

“Love is height. It is to fly in the sky like a bird. From there to see life. The fullness you see from there—that fullness is God.

“Whoever knows the whole knows God; whoever knows only fragments remains within the world.

“Though the fragments are of that same Whole, the Whole is not a sum of fragments. Understand this well. All fragments are of the Whole, but the Whole is more than the sum of all fragments. The Whole has manifested in fragments; it does not end in fragments. It has descended into fragments. Fragments have limits; the Whole is limitless.

“As in your courtyard the sky has descended. Certainly the sky has come down, but your courtyard is not the whole sky. What is in your courtyard is also sky, but the sky is beyond your courtyard as well. What has descended in your body is not the whole God, not the whole sky. Though it too is God. That is the only difference between atman and Paramatman. Atman means: the sky bounded within a courtyard. Paramatman means: the walls have been broken, the courtyard has vanished. To make the courtyard vanish you need do nothing—just break the walls that create it. Because of the walls illusion arose; when the walls dissolve, the illusion dissolves.

“Division is unlove. Non-division is love. And the talk is of seeing the Whole. To see the Whole you will have to rise high! You cannot walk on the ground; you will have to fly in the sky! To know the Whole you will have to give up the process of fragmenting.

“The renunciation of thought is love, and the renunciation of thought is meditation. To be thoughtless is meditation; to be thoughtless is love. Let no thought remain within you. When you fall into deep love, thoughts lessen. Sit near your beloved sometime, and you will find silence surrounds you, you become quiet, there is nothing to say. Or, there is so much to say that how could it be said? Speaking seems a hindrance, because it feels that if we speak it will become false; if we speak, it will be a sin; by speaking, the dignity of what is within will be lost. What is surging within, thickening within—words cannot reveal it outside—words are very incapable, limited. They are useful in the marketplace, in shops, offices, for work—not in love.

“So whenever two people sit together in silence, know it is deep love. Or whenever two people are in love, you will know they are in deep silence. Lovers fall quiet. And if you learn the art of being quiet, you will become a lover. Then whomever you sit silently with, a relationship of love will arise. If you sit silently near a tree, you will come into communion with the tree; if you sit silently by a river, you will fall into attunement with the river; if in silence you look at the stars in the sky, suddenly you will find you have connected with the stars, some invisible doors have opened, some veils have lifted.

“Love is the vision of the Whole. To see the Whole you must be silent, because only in silence do you become whole; the walls of the courtyard within you fall—you become like the sky.

“Let me say it this way: if you want to know God, you will have to become like God.

“In love a person becomes God. In love only God remains—in and out, above and below, in all directions. The waves disappear, only the ocean remains.

“In the life of those who have no love, there is only the world. In their life there will be money, position, rank, prestige, fame, ambition—a thousand insanities—only love will not be there; and when love is not, all insanities begin to appear. Have you observed? The ambitious person cannot love. The greater the ambition, the more he says, ‘Tomorrow—for love, tomorrow; today money, today office.’ He says, ‘Elections are near—how can I love now?’ He says, ‘I have to go to Delhi—how can I remember the temple now?’ He says, ‘This is not the time to sing songs, it is the time to fill coffers.’ He says, ‘I am still young—shall I waste the energy of life on love now? Let me earn for now; tomorrow when the hands are weak for earning, then we will love and pray and find God. There are few days to enjoy; there is much to be gotten.’

“Understand this a little. This is the second point: those who have no love in life will have some other race going on. Because another race is needed as a substitute, to compensate; otherwise you will be utterly empty. If there is no love you are empty—and now this emptiness must be filled with any trash; otherwise you cannot live, life will become unbearable.

“I was reading the memoirs of a Jew. He was imprisoned in Hitler’s camp. He has written that in that prison people were like corpses. No meaning remained in life. All meaning was lost—whatever meaning they had was outside the prison; inside it was destroyed. He himself was a doctor; he used to study people. He was amazed that suddenly…he knew these same people outside in the world: how lively they were, how much movement, how much energy… but as soon as they came into the prison they lost all energy, all motion—sat like empty corpses. People began going mad, or they started committing suicide. Those who neither went mad nor killed themselves fell sick. And the sicknesses were such as if to prove their desire to die—as if they wanted to die.

“He was a doctor, so he was made the prison doctor. He would give medicine. He was astonished that the medicines which always worked did not work on these patients! Their longing to live had been lost—what medicine could work? If you want to live, the medicine gives a little support, a crutch; if you do not want to live, your life-force does not accept the medicine; it comes into the body and goes out, becomes excreta and urine, it cannot accelerate your life-energy. A crutch does not make a lame man walk; the lame man has to hold the crutch for it to help. If the lame man does not want to walk, give him a crutch—it will only make him fall sooner. Medicines did not work.

“But he was surprised—his own life did not change. Because the current of his life remained the same: outside he had been seeing patients, trying to heal them; inside too he was seeing patients, trying to heal them. In fact, more meaning came to his life. Outside he treated patients for money; here money was not in question. Outside he saw them as customers; here there were no customers, no shopkeepers.

“Even the physician, when he puts his hand on the pulse, puts one hand on the pulse and the other into the patient’s pocket. If the patient is very rich the physician, knowingly or unknowingly, does not want him to get well too soon—wants him to remain sick a while longer. Therefore being rich and falling ill is dangerous; illness suits the poor, they get well quickly—who will make the rich well? The physician will give medicine, but deep within he will think, ‘Let him stay a little longer.’ Perhaps he himself does not know; it is buried in the unconscious—but it will work, it will be effective—it will have consequences.

“In jail the doctor had nothing to take or give. Only love was there; thus he served. Meaning did not leave his life. His companions withered, died, rotted, went mad; he came out of the prison perfectly healthy.

“Later, he wrote in his memoirs: the only reason is that even there I could find the meaning of my life.

“When emptiness comes, life begins to fall.

“When there is no love, there will be emptiness. And this emptiness must be filled by a thousand tricks. What is the world, what is worldly craving? It is nothing but a way to fill this emptiness. Fill it from the shop, keep counting currency, keep jingling coins—that seems the only sweet music; in touching new crisp notes there seems to be the only flavor of touch. Keep climbing to high positions. Whoever has no love in his life will fill it somehow, or else he will die. Otherwise self-destruction will happen.

“The world is the attempt to get what was to be found through love but was not found.

“England’s great thinker Lord Acton has a famous sentence which I have often told you. Acton said: ‘Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’

“But I say to you, Lord Acton’s saying is not right. Power does not corrupt anyone—it attracts the corrupt. Money does not corrupt anyone—it invites the corrupt. Thrones do not corrupt anyone—but the corrupt go mad for thrones like moths rush to light. Perhaps you have heard the elders say—or perhaps not, because they themselves died on some other lamp—that one should beware of lamps, for a moth goes to them and dies. But moths do not listen; they rush.

“Will you say the lamp kills the moths? No. The moths eager to die are attracted to the lamp.

“So Lord Acton’s statement appears right on the surface because whomever we have seen go into power we have seen become corrupt; so it looks straightforward. Whomever we saw enter power, we saw him corrupted. This is so uniformly right that Acton seems right. But still I say: he is not right. Power does not corrupt; it invites the corrupt. Power cannot corrupt—it only reveals the corruption already within you.

“The poor cannot afford to be corrupt; to be corrupt you need some money—it is an expensive thing, a luxury. If the poor man becomes corrupt he will get caught, be in trouble. Before becoming corrupt, you need protection; before becoming corrupt, you need power so that you can handle the consequences of corruption, protect yourself. Before becoming corrupt you need armor—position, prestige, wealth, opulence, fame, name, family—these provide armor.

“So I say, if you do not find the poor corrupt do not think he is not corrupt. It is not necessary. The truth will be known only when he has money. Money is an examination; position is an examination. Only those will pass who were truly pure, clean, holy inside. In a million perhaps one will pass; the rest will be corrupted—for they were corrupt, and the moment an opportunity comes, it shows. Like you sit in a room, a dark room; you never lit a lamp—everything seems fine. Neither do you see the cobwebs in the corners, nor the snakes hidden in the nooks, nor any sign of the scorpions creeping around—nothing appears; you sit in the dark at ease—everything is fine. Then someone lights a lamp. Will you say that because of the lamp the snakes, scorpions, cobwebs, and dirt came into the room? They were there; the lamp brought light, and those things became visible which were concealed in darkness; what darkness hid, light revealed.

“Poverty hides many things, richness reveals them. Weakness veils many things, strength unveils them, makes a man naked.

“No, positions do not corrupt anyone; they invite the corrupt, and they unmask them. Until someone reaches a position, you cannot be certain whether he is corrupt or not. Outside of power everyone is against corruption. Outside of power everyone is a servant. Upon reaching power they become masters. And remember, how can chairs corrupt anyone? Chairs are very even-handed—seat emperors on them, they do not get excited; seat beggars on them, they do not get upset. What do chairs have to do with it?

“Man! Man’s lack of love!

“In the life of one who has no love, there will be violence of some kind. How will he fulfill his lack of love? He is empty. The music of the heart does not resound; then he will jingle rupees and coax his ears with that music, console himself. If he had loved someone, he would have known a kind of mastery in which there is no sense of ownership. If he had loved someone, he would have spread an empire over a heart—a kind of empire in which there is no imperialism at all. He would have attained such a belonging in which possession is not even a question. He would have found a heart near him, a heart that danced with him; there would have been a festivity in his life—someone loved him, someone accepted his love—his soul would have rejoiced, a gratitude would have arisen that ‘I am not futile.’

“If even one person has loved you, if even one person you could love, you will find meaning in your life, a fragrance, a sweet scent—you will feel a fulfillment. When such fulfillment is absent, a man tries to take possession of people—through politics, through money, through position—tries to take hold of thousands. And the fun is that if love could possess even one person, there would be contentment; but if hatred possesses millions, still there is no contentment.

“Therefore when a man reaches office, he finds: power has come, peace has not; capacity has arrived, contentment has not; wealth has come, poverty has not gone. He has filled himself with junk, but compared to that emptiness even the emptiness was sacred—this is only filth.

“Now we can come to Sahajo’s words.

“Take each word as a mantra.

“Prem divane je bhaye, palat gayo sab roop.
“Sahajo drishti na aavai, kahan rank, kahan bhoop.”

“When one goes mad in love, all forms are overturned.
“To Sahajo’s eye it is no longer seen: who is pauper, who is king.

“‘Prem divane je bhaye!’ Those who went mad in love. Why ‘mad’? Because the whole world will call them mad. One who is mad in love has come home within himself, all his madness is gone; but the world will call him mad. Because the whole world is mad after wealth, mad after position; and this person will be interested neither in position nor in money. Naturally you will call him mad. In a crowd of madmen this one has come to his senses; in a crowd of the lost this one has found home. He will stop you on the road to say, ‘I have found home, I have found peace, I have found contentment,’ but you will not believe it; you will say, ‘You must have gone mad. Has anyone ever found peace in this world? Has anyone ever found contentment here? You are hypnotized, you have fantasized, or you are in some intoxication—wake up!’ You will say to the awakened man, ‘Wake up!’

“A few years ago I received a letter from a friend. We had studied together at the university. For twenty years we had neither met nor been in touch. In university he had been close to me. My sannyasins must have gone to his city. Now he is in Jaipur, a professor at the university. Seeing my sannyasins, he must have inquired; then he wrote me a letter.

“In the letter he wrote, ‘Forgive me, don’t be angry; I want to ask only one question: have you really found peace? I cannot believe it.

“‘Do not be angry, I am not doubting you—I am not saying you have not found it. I cannot believe that anyone can find it—not Buddha, not Mahavira, not Krishna! Because I am so disturbed, I try every way and no peace! And those I know have no peace either!’

“If you become peaceful, people think something has gone wrong. If you become blissful, they think your mind has cracked. Sorrow seems normal; joy seems insanity. What can be more insane than a world where health appears to be sickness, and sickness becomes the way of health?

“‘Prem divane je bhaye…’
“That is why Sahajo uses your own word and says, ‘Those who became crazy in love…’

“‘…palat gayo sab roop.’
“You keep calling them mad, but for them all forms have been overturned.

“‘Sahajo drishti na aavai, kahan rank, kahan bhoop.’
“And to Sahajo’s sight nothing appears now by which she can tell who is rich and who poor—where is beggar and where is king! Because we weigh people by wealth since there is no love within us. So when a rich man arrives, you stand up; when a poor man arrives, you keep reading your newspaper, as if no one has come—as if a cat or dog has passed, not a human!

“There was a great Urdu poet, Ghalib. Bahadur Shah invited him. It was the anniversary of his ascension to the throne. Ghalib’s friends said, ‘Don’t go like this. In these clothes who will recognize you there? Who has the eyes to recognize your poetry? Who has the scales to measure your heart? Who will peek within—who has the leisure? Dress properly; this beggar’s attire will not be liked there. It is not impossible that you will be turned away at the door.’

“Ragged clothes of a poor poet! Holes in his shoes, a worn cap! Ghalib said, ‘I have no other clothes.’ Friends said, ‘We will borrow some.’ Ghalib said, ‘That won’t do. I have no taste for borrowing. What is not mine is not mine; what is mine is mine. No, I will be very uneasy and uncomfortable, I will feel bound in those clothes—I won’t be free. Why wear someone else’s clothes? I will go as I am; whatever happens, happens.’

“Ghalib went. At the gate, when he spoke, the doorkeeper bowed and welcomed others, but shoved Ghalib aside: ‘Wait there! When others had gone in he turned on him, ‘Know your capacity; this is the royal court. Why are you trying to get in here?’ Ghalib said, ‘I am not trying to get in, I have been invited.’ He pulled out the invitation. The doorkeeper looked and said, ‘You must have stolen someone’s. Get lost, don’t come here again. Crazy beggar! A beggar has got the notion he is an emperor!’

“Ghalib went home saddened. His friends said, ‘We told you—this would happen. We have brought clothes.’ This time Ghalib did not refuse. He put on borrowed shoes, borrowed turban, borrowed sherwani. Now when he reached the gate, the doorkeeper bowed. No one recognizes souls—only wrappings are recognized. Ghalib was amazed: the same doorkeeper who had scolded him and nearly beat him, now did not even ask to see the invitation. Still, Ghalib was a little afraid by the earlier experience, so he showed the invitation. The doorkeeper looked closely and said, ‘All right. A beggar had come with this invitation earlier—same name—somehow we got rid of him!’

“He went inside. Bahadur Shah seated him beside him. Bahadur Shah too was a poet, had some taste. But he was surprised—when the meal began Ghalib, seated by his side, began to do something peculiar. He took sweets, touched them to his turban, ‘Here, turban, eat.’ He took sweets, touched them to his coat, ‘Here, coat, eat.’

“Poets are a bit eccentric. Bahadur Shah thought, ‘Let it be; it is not polite to point it out; a cultured person does not poke at another’s quirk, does not touch a wound.’ He looked elsewhere. But this went on for a long time and Ghalib did not eat at all; he kept feeding the clothes, even his shoes, then Bahadur Shah could not restrain himself—the limits of etiquette were crossed. He said, ‘Forgive my intrusion; it is not proper to interfere with your personal habits. Perhaps it is some custom of yours, some ritual, some religion I don’t know. But out of curiosity I ask: what are you doing? You are feeding your clothes, coat, shoes?’

“Ghalib said, ‘Ghalib had come before; he was sent back. He did not come again. Now only the coat and clothes have come—these too are borrowed. They got the entry—so I am feeding them. I did not get entry, so it would not be proper for me to eat.’ Then Ghalib told Bahadur Shah the whole story.

“You measure others by the same standard you covet within yourself. If you want to be rich, you will respect the rich. You will envy the rich and also respect them. What you want to be can be known by whom you respect and whom you envy. Envy and respect go together. If you want to build a big house, you will envy big houses and bow to those who own them. Your very point of envy will be your point of respect. Whoever you honor reveals the craving hidden in you. Do you care for the rich, or do you care for the human? What you take care of shows what you long for within.

“‘Sahajo drishti na aavai, kahan rank, kahan bhoop.’
“Now Sahajo says: when the frenzy of love came, it became clear that it makes no difference who is rich or poor—this is irrelevant. This no longer serves as an identity.

“Love’s eyes look into your eyes and see you. Ambition’s eyes look at what you have, not at you. Love sees you—directly. Ambition, status, unlove see the collection around you.

“‘Prem divane je bhaye, jati varan gaye chhoot.’
“This conceit—‘What is my caste, my varna’—belongs only to those who do not know their soul. Who would be so foolish as to call himself a brahmin who has known Brahman? The claim to be a brahmin is only of the one who was deprived of knowing Brahman. Once Brahman is known, what is being a brahmin compared to that? What will you gain by being a brahmin when being Brahman itself is available!

“‘Prem divane je bhaye, jati varan gaye chhoot.’
“Now there is no claim of caste, for when the supreme source is known, what does it matter who your father was—Hindu or Muslim, brahmin or shudra, kshatriya or vaishya? When the root-source is known, it is beyond caste. God has no varna—he is not vaishya, not kshatriya; not Hindu, not Muslim; not shudra—Hari is not even ‘harijan’. Hari is just Hari—without varna, free of caste!

“‘Prem divane je bhaye, jati varan gaye chhoot.
“‘Sahajo jag boura kahe, log gaye sab phoot.’
“And Sahajo—then the whole world began to say, ‘You have gone mad.’ ‘Sahajo jag boura kahe!’ ‘Your intelligence is lost, your sense is gone, what nonsense is this? You are delirious—what are you saying?’ ‘Log gaye sab phoot!’ Those who were near moved away; those who were your own began to see you as alien. On the road they pass you and do not recognize you—who will befriend a madman! For to befriend a madman is to confess you too are mad—and if the marketplace hears, there could be great loss!

“If you are poor, few claim to be your relatives. If you become rich, you will suddenly find new relatives sprouting, relations of relations coming along. Everyone becomes a relative. No one has a relation with you—they have a relation with what you have… If you become mad, even your closest kin will take a side alley when they see you in the street—who meets a madman in the middle of the road! Because befriending a madman means you too are mad—if that becomes known, it could be costly!

“‘Prem divane je bhaye, jati varan gaye chhoot.
“‘Sahajo jag boura kahe, log gaye sab phoot.’
“Now you are alone; none stands with you. People stand with you only so long as their craving finds support from you. People are not companions to you—they are companions to their own cravings. As long as you serve as a peg on which they can hang their desires, they are companions.

“‘Prem divane je bhaye, Sahajo digmig deh.’
“Sahajo says those who go mad in love, those who become intoxicated, their very body trembles with bliss. The soul rejoices, of course—but the reflection of the soul’s bliss descends even into the body.

“The body of a buddha hints at his buddhahood. From every pore of a buddha’s body comes the fragrance of his soul. Naturally so. The body is so close to the soul. Your condition is the reverse. Even from your soul the odor of your body arises. Even when you speak of the soul, ninety-nine percent of the time you mean the body. From the body of the buddha too, the fragrance of the soul comes. When they speak of the body, ninety-nine percent they mean the soul.

“‘Prem divane je bhaye, Sahajo digmig deh.’
“The soul is already dancing; along with it matter begins to dance. As when a dancer dances and the bells on his feet jingle, his feet strike the earth and the specks of dust rise and dance with him: a whirlwind arises around him. Just so—‘Sahajo digmig deh!’

“‘Paon paré kit kai kiti…’
“Now this is no dance of the dance-hall, with careful footwork, measure, and rhythm. This is not the dance of a trained dancer; it is the dance of a love-mad one—‘Paon paré kit kai kiti’—the feet fall wherever they will. Who cares, a love-crazed one keeps no account of steps! The great music has been tuned; now who cares for these small technicalities?

“‘Paon paré kit kai kiti, Hari sambhal tab leh.’
“But a new thing happens: now let the feet fall any which way—we let them fall. Who remains within to control? The ego that worried that everything be metrical, rhythmic—that is gone. Now life is free verse—no count of syllables. But a new experience is there: ‘Hari sambhal tab leh!’ However our feet fall, Hari keeps the measure. Earlier we controlled and could not; now we have stopped controlling, and He controls.

“The day you surrender all to Him, that day wherever your feet fall, they fall in rhythm.

“Understand this a little.

“Right now, even with effort and arrangement you cannot set it right—something remains amiss—because the one setting it right is himself unconscious. Imagine you are drunk and you are trying to place your steps to the beat of the tabla. You are drunk; you try hard—and your feet still land in the wrong place. You think a drunkard does not try to walk carefully? He tries very carefully. In fact, a drunkard tries more carefully than you ever do, for he is afraid—he is tottering. He feels, ‘I may fall into the gutter’; he pulls himself away, and in pulling he goes to the other side; a drunkard walks from one gutter to the other—he cannot stay in the middle of the road. How will he walk in the middle? There is no awareness. In unawareness he leans to one side; avoiding that he leans to the other. Escaping one mistake he falls into another; dodging the well he meets the ditch—if there is no awareness within, however carefully you place your feet, you will not be able to.

“I have heard: one night Mulla Nasruddin came home. For a long time a policeman at the crossroads watched him trying to put the key into the lock, but the key would not go—his hands were trembling. His hands trembled so much he was shaking the lock with one hand and the key with the other; two trembling things could not match. Finally the policeman felt pity—policemen are human, after all.

“He came closer. He said, ‘Nasruddin, shall I help? Give me the key; I’ll open the door.’ Nasruddin said, ‘I will open the door myself; you just hold the building steady so it doesn’t tremble!’ Because it didn’t seem to him that the lock was trembling—the whole house was trembling. ‘You hold it steady; I will put the key in.’

“In drunkenness a man tries to move carefully; every care proves futile.

“‘Paon paré kit kai kiti, Hari sambhal tab leh.’
“But a moment comes when inner awareness dawns—love is awareness—when the inner lamp is lit. Suddenly, now however you place your feet, however you move, you can dance carefree; you need not control; the Supreme Power has taken you in hand. Whoever has dropped himself is supported by the Supreme—whoever has even dropped the effort to control himself—for that too is ego, that too is asmita. Whoever has said, ‘Keep me as you will, lead me as you will; if you make me fall, I will fall and thank you; if you raise me, I will rise’—no choice remains. ‘Paon paré kit kai kiti, Hari sambhal tab leh!’

“‘Man mein to anand rahai, tan boura sab ang.
“‘Na kahu ke sang hai, Sahajo na koi sang.’
“‘Within the mind only bliss remains; the body is crazed in every limb.
“‘There is no one with me, Sahajo—and I am with no one.’

“‘Man mein to anand rahai!’ Right now within you there is ‘mind’ in the mind, no bliss at all. When mind dissolves, bliss arises—bliss is the absence of mind. And in love mind dissolves—love is the death of mind. In love the mind dies. You are lost; you cannot find the news of who you were, what you are, what is to be—every line is erased.

“‘Man mein to anand rahai!’ Now there is no mind left in mind—only bliss upon bliss. Understand the difference. This is not the ‘pleasure’ you call pleasure. Pleasure and pain are of the mind. Bliss happens when neither pain nor pleasure remains—when both are gone. When there is no excitement within you—neither good nor bad.

“‘Man mein to anand rahai, tan boura sab ang.’
“And see: within, bliss encircles; and the body too is crazed—every limb is intoxicated. Within, awareness has come—into the wine of awareness the body’s every particle is dipped.

“There is a wine of unawareness and there is a wine of awareness. In unawareness a man staggers, but in that staggering there is no dance. In awareness a man also staggers, but in that staggering there is the ultimate dance. ‘Paon paré kit kai kiti, Hari sambhal tab leh!’

“‘Man mein to anand rahai, tan boura sab ang.
“‘Na kahu ke sang hai, Sahajo na koi sang.’
“Now the supreme solitude has come to fruit. Neither is anyone with me, nor am I with anyone. For ‘with’ is also the language of duality. The devotee does not think God is ‘with’ him. God alone is. The devotee does not think, ‘I am with God.’ I am not at all—God alone is.

“‘Na kahu ke sang hai, Sahajo na koi sang.’
“Now there is no one who is with me, nor am I with anyone. Now only One remains. The seer and the seen have dissolved—darshan remains. The lover and the beloved have dissolved—love remains. The banks have dissolved, the river has merged into the ocean.

“I will recite these verses once more in full—may their resonance remain in every pore of you, may they become the heartbeat of your heart—with this prayer:

“Prem divane je bhaye, palat gayo sab roop.
“Sahajo drishti na aavai, kahan rank, kahan bhoop.

“Prem divane je bhaye, jati varan gaye chhoot.
“Sahajo jag boura kahe, log gaye sab phoot.

“Prem divane je bhaye, Sahajo digmig deh.
“Paon paré kit kai kiti, Hari sambhal tab leh.

“Man mein to anand rahai, tan boura sab ang.
“Na kahu ke sang hai, Sahajo na koi sang.

“That is all for today.”