Bin Ghan Parat Phuhar #4

Because we drink water from the same well. Words either come from inner experience, or from the brain’s storehouse. In the language of scholars there will be a sameness; in the language of saints too there will be a sameness. In the scholars’ speech the sameness will be of logic, of arrangement of words, of hair-splitting. In the saints’ speech the sameness will be of the depth from which the words arise. It will not be a similarity of scripture, but of emptiness—of taste. There will be sweetness. Logic is not the basis of their utterance; love is. They are not speaking because something needs to be said, but because there is compassion in the very act of saying. There is something to be given. More giving than speaking—beyond statement, a gift.

If a saint had his way, he would remain silent. If a pandit had his way, he would never be silent. So in the voices of two saints there will be the sameness of their silence, the sameness of their emptiness. If you listen attentively, you will hear in both the notes of the same silence rising. If you do not listen attentively, you will miss the sameness. If you listen with supreme attention—becoming empty—you will hear not what is said, but the heartbeat of the heart from which it is said.

A scholar’s language will be difficult. It cannot be simple, because in a difficult language he has to hide the poverty of his content, his inner indigence. He is speaking without knowing. If the language were simple you would immediately see that there is nothing inside. If the language were straight and plain, the surface would be understood—and within, there is no depth. So the surface must be made so complicated that you never manage to enter within. And the less you can enter, the more you imagine that there must be some great mystery inside.

A pandit’s language will inevitably be difficult—because language is all he has, nothing else. The pandit’s language is like an ugly woman decked in jewelry, wrapped in costly garments, painted and powdered to hide her ugliness.

A saint’s language is like a beautiful woman standing unadorned. As trees are naked, as the moon and stars are naked, so a saint’s language is naked—without any covering. Coverings would only make it ugly. No ornament can make a saint’s language beautiful; it is supremely beautiful already. It needs no further decoration. Beauty is enough in itself. Ugliness is restless; it covers, hides, suppresses. It parades what is not and conceals what is.

In the language of pandits there will also be sameness—of complexity. And if you are impressed by them, the only reason is that you do not have eyes that can see deep. If you have a deep eye, the ignorance within the pandit will become clear to you. With a deep eye, the ugliness hidden behind veils of beauty will be revealed. Hence a pandit never leaves an eternal impression.

Hegel wrote very astonishing books—astonishing in the sense that they are very complex. As long as Hegel lived, people were dazzled, because to pass through the jungle of his language and reach its inner core was difficult. As soon as Hegel died and people studied deeply, his influence began to wane. Not even a hundred years had passed before Hegel faded from people’s minds. Because as soon as they understood, they discovered there was nothing inside. The words were onion skins. Peeling layer after layer, nothing remained in the hand—only emptiness.

A pandit is quite effective in his own time, because it takes time to figure him out. A saint often is not effective in his own time, because he speaks so simply that only if you have awareness will you see. Thought will not see it. Only if you too are silent will your heart beat with the saint’s, your breath move with his; and then inevitably a certain sweetness will surround you. A taste will begin to drip at your throat; within, a touch of nectar will begin.

Whenever you drink from the same well, a similar sound will arise from your throat, the same notes will be born. You will find all saints saying the same thing, though they may have said many different things, used many different words. Within all you will find the tone is one. If that tone is not seen, you will build sects around saints; if it is seen, your movement will be into religion.

The pandit builds sects. The saint brings religion down to earth.

A very astonishing event occurred in India’s history. Religion descended in Mahavira. But those who compiled his words were all Brahmins. Mahavira was a Kshatriya; his eleven ganadharas were Brahmins—great pandits. As I see it, what Mahavira gave, these eleven pandits extinguished. What Mahavira brought down into this world had scarcely descended when these eleven scripturists covered it with scriptures and smothered it.

The same happened with Buddha.

In this regard Sahjo Bai, Kabir, Dadu are fortunate. They were so simple, and came from such poor homes, that great pandits could not become their disciples. Mahavira and Buddha attracted them, because they were of royal blood. Standing beside them greatly satisfied the pandits’ ego. This proved unfortunate. The pandits gathered a crowd, cast a circular fence all around. They showed more eagerness than ordinary people, because merely being near Buddha strengthened their ego.

Who would go and stand by Sahjo Bai! She is a simple village woman. A pandit will say, What does she know? We know more than this. Perhaps in their hearts they felt the same about Mahavira and Buddha—that they knew more than them—but they could not say it; these were princes, their glory shone far and wide. By standing beside them the pandits wanted to share a little of that glory. Who among pandits would care for Sahjo Bai?

Kabir lived right in Kashi, yet no pandit ever applauded him. Who would? You know no Sanskrit, no Prakrit, no Pali; you have no knowledge of the Gita, no acquaintance with the Samayasara, no connection with the Dhammapada—who will care for you? What you say is the language of a weaver, not of the learned. Kabir says: Jhini-jhini beeni re chadariya—finely, finely I have woven this cloak. Buddha cannot say it, Mahavira cannot say it—they have never woven a cloth. Only a weaver can say it—he has no other language.

But I tell you, even the language of Buddha and Mahavira pales; it is palace language—less alive. Like a carefully protected sapling. Not planted under the open sky, but a hot-house plant. It has not grown in the open forest, in sun and storm, gale and squall. It may be beautiful, but it is over-delicate. In its beauty there is no strength.

When Kabir speaks, it is altogether different! The words come from life’s direct reality. Therefore they appear simple. And because they appear simple you feel, What is there in them? You think you have understood—there is nothing to understand. This is precisely my effort with you: I am bringing Sahjo, Kabir, Dadu before you only so that you can see that where you feel you have understood everything, much remains to be understood.

Shankaracharya wrote commentaries on the Gita, on the Upanishads, on the Brahmasutras. In India commentaries have always been written on these three. No one ever wrote commentaries on Sahjo Bai, Kabir, Dadu. It seems there is nothing to comment on. The words are so simple—what more can be explained!

And I tell you: it is exactly where things are simple that there is something to understand. The secret is concealed in simplicity. In complexity you will find only empty words; tear them apart as much as you like—at the end you will find you came empty-handed and you go empty-handed.

Remember this.

Where things seem utterly simple, stop. Their very simplicity is the great mystery. Simplicity itself is proof that there is something to say. Complexity is proof there is nothing to say. Words are a net cast to hide the poverty of the content. When the content is rich—when what is to be said is itself a diamond—then it needs no other ornament. The Koh-i-Noor can be placed alone. It is enough. What can be added to it? If you add anything, its beauty will only diminish.

These words of Sahjo Bai are like the Koh-i-Noor. Their beauty is unparalleled; but it is the beauty of simplicity. Therefore, if you look with the intellect you will not understand, because the intellect delights in complexity, in solving riddles. If you look with the heart, you will find in this simplicity mysteries that never end. Enter, dive, be lost yourself; but there will never come a moment when you can say, I have known.

What relation has that which can be fully known with the divine? That which remains unknown even after knowing and knowing; which remains unfamiliar even as you recognize; which slips away the more you grasp; which grows more mysterious the more you pursue it—that Unknown is the divine.

It needs a little explaining—it's a delicate point.

Whenever you respect someone, you do so because you see in that person something you do not have. You respect because you glimpse in the other something you would also like to possess.

A beggar respects an emperor because he, too, longs to be an emperor. So on the one hand he respects, and inside he also envies. Because he is not yet an emperor but wants to be. You have attained what he wants to attain. He respects you as skillful, successful: “I stand far back in the line; you have gone ahead to where I should have been.” So you are powerful, clever, intelligent, strong—he respects you. But inside a fire of jealousy also burns—if he gets the chance, he would like to be in your place and push you aside. And if the beggar gets that chance, he will push the emperor off the throne and sit there himself.

So hidden within respect is jealousy. You may never have thought this; you think respect is something lofty. Respect is not lofty; respect is a facet of jealousy. Behind respect you have concealed your envy.

Therefore reverence and respect are very different things. Understand this.

Respect is a kind of reverence in which jealousy is mixed. Reverence is a kind of respect with the jealousy removed. Then what happens in reverence? We revere the person in whom we have heard an echo of our own nature. We respect the person in whom we have seen the fulfillment of our ambition.

Let me repeat.

We respect the one in whom we see the fulfillment of our craving; it did not happen to us, but it happened to him. And we revere the one in whom our own intrinsic nature flashed for us—not our ambition, our nature; the one who became a mirror and showed us what we already are, who introduced us to our own being.

Ambition is fulfilled in the future. We respect the one in whom we see our future fulfilled right now—ours has not happened, so there is pain—his has. Jealousy and respect are intertwined.

When you come to an enlightened one, let reverence arise in your mind. Reverence means: the enlightened one has shown you what you already are. There is no question of acquiring it now, so there is no room for envy. And respect is for things that can be snatched; reverence is for things that can be learned but not stolen.

If I have wealth, you may feel respect, if I have position, you may feel respect—because you can snatch position. What I have today can be yours tomorrow. Which also means that as long as it is with me it cannot be with you. Hence in respect there is deep hostility. You want the very thing I have obtained. If I have obtained it, it means I took it from you or prevented you from getting it. And if you obtain it, you will snatch it from me and prevent me from having it.

Politicians respect each other—a great show of respect—while the fire of jealousy burns within. The rich respect each other while envy burns within.

What does reverence mean?

It means: I have something that I have not taken from you—not from anyone—and no matter what you do, you cannot take it from me. Yes, you can learn it from me if you wish. If I have money, I have taken it from someone. The very fact of my having it means someone has become poor because I have it—even if I don’t know him and he doesn’t know me. If I have money, somewhere someone’s pocket has been emptied. And if my money is taken, someone’s pocket will be filled.

In money there is conflict. Money is limited—small—while ambition for it is vast. The more it is divided, the less there is. The less it is divided, the more there is. So those who have it are not ready to distribute it; and those who don’t have it clamour for distribution. Those who have it won’t share, and that is why socialism has no real impact in America—though, according to Marx, it should have the most. Marx said the most capitalist country will be the place of revolution. The reverse happens. In capitalist countries there is no revolution; in poor countries there is. Revolution has proved Marx completely wrong. Marx is wrong; he didn’t understand the mathematics of revolution. If revolution came to America, Marx could be right—but it cannot, because everyone there has something and is afraid it will be divided—his own will also be divided.

Mulla Nasruddin—I once heard he had become a communist. I was a little surprised: what has struck this old fellow? I went to him. I said, Do you know what communism means? If you have two cars, you will have to give one to the person who has none. He said, Absolutely right. If you have two houses, you must give one to the person who has none. He said, Absolutely right. I said, If you have two crore rupees, you will have to give crores to the one who has nothing—you will have to share. He said, Absolutely agreed—that’s what communism is... And I said, If you have two chickens, you must give one to the person who has none. He said, Absolutely not. That can never happen.

I said, You changed. He said, I haven’t changed—but the chickens are with me. I don’t have a car—so as far as cars, houses are concerned—distribute! Why fear what isn’t there? I have two chickens; I will never let them be divided.

When you have, you are not ready to share. When you don’t, you are eager for sharing. You say, Communism is written in the Vedas; it is the essence of religion. But when you have, you don’t talk of communism. Then you say, Individual freedom—that is the essence of the Vedas. Each person should have the freedom to earn and to lose. Private ownership is each person’s birthright. Then your religion and language change.

There is no revolution in America, because everyone has something. There was a revolution in China—no one had anything. There was a revolution in Russia. Some day it may happen in India, because a vast class of the destitute is gathering for whom “distribute” will make sense. Because they have nothing to be divided. Whatever goes will go to the other. If we get something, good; if not, no harm—we will remain as we were. There is a possibility of getting something. What won’t a dying man do?

Remember, the one you respect is the one you also envy. And jealousy means there are causes that can be divided. But if you respect me because of meditation, that will be reverence, because meditation cannot be divided. Even if I want to give you my meditation, I cannot; if you want to steal it, you cannot; if you want to loot it, you cannot. You can kill me, but you cannot even touch my meditation. You can throw me in prison, but you cannot put chains on my meditation. My meditation will remain just as free in prison and in chains as it is under the open sky. No difference at all.

If your respect for me is because of meditation, there can be no jealousy. There is no cause for it. There is no competition, so where is jealousy? Rather, a love and a reverence will arise in you for me, because near me a possibility has flashed within you—that what has happened to me is everyone’s nature. And if you understand me rightly, and your reverence is not hollow but deep and becomes practice, you will find that what is in me is in you. It only needs to be uncovered, not acquired. It has nothing to do with the future. It is your inner treasure—available here, now, this very moment.

Reverence is an intimation from being; respect is about possessions.

Respect is for what I have; reverence is for what I am.

But between these two words you remain greatly confused. People come to me and say, We have great respect for you—perhaps they mean reverence. Often people come and say, We have great reverence for you—perhaps they mean respect. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, whether you say reverence or respect, it is respect; one time in a hundred it is reverence.

If it is respect, you are creating the wrong relationship. You will never attain bliss through it. If it is reverence, you have taken the right step. The temple has come near—you are already seated in it. Reverence bears fruit this very moment; respect is a desire of the future. Beware of respect. Disrespect is, of course, the opposite of reverence—but so is respect. Respect is a net of the mind; reverence is an experience of the heart.

Understand three words: lust, love, compassion.
Lust is the beginning of the ladder of love—the first rung. Compassion is the last rung. Love is the name of the whole ladder.
Lust is love’s most degenerate form—the lowest.

Lust means: I have to get something from the other. Without the other I am incomplete, empty, my life-force feels vacant. I must fill myself from the other.
Lust is exploitation.
Lust means: using the other as a means. A husband uses his wife, the wife uses the husband—as a means. Hence so much anger. No human being wants to be a means. The soul of each person is an end in itself.
Immanuel Kant, the great German moral philosopher, defined morality exactly in these terms: to treat another human being as a means is immorality; to treat another as an end is morality.
This is a fundamental touchstone.

To use the other for oneself is lust. Outwardly you speak the language of love—“I love you”—but inwardly the effort is that you should love me. That is why thousands come to me and say, “The one I love did not love me.” No one has ever come and said, “The one I love, I did not love.” Curious, isn’t it? Everyone says, “We love—about that I have no doubt—but the other did not love.” And when the “other” comes, they say the same: “I gave love, but I did not receive; I was deceived, cheated.” Often both come—husband and wife, son and father, friends—and both say, “We loved.” The truth is: neither did.
Because I tell you, when love is given, the response is inevitable—it echoes, it returns. Whatever you give always comes back.
There is an old saying: “There may be delay, but there is no darkness.”
I tell you: neither delay, nor darkness.
Why delay? If there is delay, it becomes a kind of darkness. Imagine you love today and the answer comes after millions of lives—that too is a darkness.
So I say: neither delay nor darkness. When you love, in the very act of loving you receive. Receiving does not depend on the other; it is the resonance, the echo of your own love. What you give returns to you.

People say, “I loved, but I did not receive.” The truth is they did not love; love-talk was only a pretense, a trick. What they really wanted was to be loved—without giving, by talking sweetly of love, to get love. They talked, but what they wanted was the other’s heart, the other’s surrender, the other’s whole being—and that did not happen. The other was trying the same trick: keep the poetry of love going, give and take nothing, but seize the other’s whole being. Both wanted to get for free, to get without giving. Hence the quarrel.

That is why those you call lovers go on fighting. The root cause of their conflict is this: each is trying to turn the other into a means. But a soul is born to be an end, not a means. Every person is his or her own goal; if someone puts their foot on your head to make you a rung, it hurts, it feels like bondage.

So lust is the lowest form of love—where you are full of demands and give nothing.
Compassion is the highest form of love—where you give everything and ask nothing.
It is love’s ultimate peak: you pour yourself out and do not demand. You make the other the end, and yourself the means. You say, “Let me be offered up—this alone is my good fortune! Whether I remain for you or not, it is my blessedness! In every situation I will be joyful, I will not ask for anything; I will simply be grateful that you accepted my surrender. I gave, and you did not refuse—that alone is my thanksgiving!”

And the paradox is: in lust you ask, and you do not receive; in compassion you do not ask, and you receive. This is the mystery of life. This is its contradiction.
The lustful dies unfulfilled; the compassionate is always fulfilled, fulfilled every moment. Because life echoes back. What you give, you receive. Here receiving does not depend on anyone’s giving or taking; what you give, inevitably returns.
Yesterday I was reading the words of Buddha. Again and again, after many sayings, he concludes: Es dhammo sanantano! This is the eternal law: what you give is what you get. Hatred will not be cut by hatred; it is cut only by love—Es dhammo sanantano—this is the eternal dharma: as you sow, so shall you reap—otherwise, impossible. Es dhammo sanantano—this is the timeless law, the ancient rule. Nothing ever happens contrary to this.

Lust is love’s demand; compassion is love’s gift.
Between the two lies love, where giving and receiving are in balance. Lust never satisfies anyone; compassion always satisfies. Love hangs in the middle between fulfillment and unfulfillment—halfway. In love there are moments of joy and moments of sorrow, because in love there is half compassion and half desire; half compassion, half lust. Love is half-and-half. Hence some happy moments come, and some unhappy moments too.

The misfortune is that ninety-nine out of a hundred never even arrive at love—let alone compassion, which is a distant dream, a mirage. Ninety-nine die in lust. And where is their mistake? They have assumed they have given love—look again. Before you ask, “Did I receive love or not?” first look very carefully: did you give? Because I tell you: if you gave, love is bound to come—Es dhammo sanantano! If it did not come, you must not have given. Search there—“in your own collar,” as Farid says; search within. “Farida, je tu akal latif”—O Farid, if you have subtle understanding, look into your own collar; there you will find it.

What you have given you will receive; what you have not given you will not receive. If it has not come, know you did not give. If it has come, know you did.

Lust is the lowest rung, and most people remain stuck there. But remember, I am not condemning lust. It is still a rung of love’s ladder. It is the first, granted, but it belongs to the ladder of love. And unless you step on the first, how will you reach the last? So I am not saying get off the ladder; I am saying don’t stop on a rung—move on, there are many more steps. You have built your house right on the first rung! Move. The first is good only if it leads to the second; it is bad if the second never follows.

So I have no condemnation of lust. That is why I have always said: sex and samadhi are connected. Sex leads to samadhi. But if you get stuck at sex, samadhi will never come.

Keep another point in mind too, because many have made this mistake—it is an ancient mistake in India. Since I say do not stop on the rung of lust, you can do one of two things: either climb upward from sex toward love, or climb down off the ladder altogether—what you call celibacy. I do not call that brahmacharya.
That is why those you call celibates are often worse off than you. They have climbed down from the ladder. Compassion can never blossom in them, because where there is no lust, how will compassion arise? No bamboo, no flute.
I am not telling you to clutch a raw bamboo forever. I am saying: make a flute. But a flute is made from bamboo. Compassion is made from sex-energy. That ordinary bamboo, for which you saw no use—at most you could break someone’s head with it—that same bamboo becomes a flute and enters someone’s very soul. Sweet, otherworldly notes begin to rise from it; they bring tidings from another realm; flowers of another world begin to bloom on this earth—from bamboo.

Who would believe it?
If you had never known or seen this—if you suddenly saw only a flute, and someone told you it is made from bamboo, you would not believe it! Likewise, when I tell you the compassion of a Buddha or a Mahavira is made from lust, you don’t believe. You are troubled, because you have seen bamboo and you have seen a flute, but you do not know the steps in between. You cannot connect them. You say, “Where is Buddha’s compassion and where is our lust? No, no—where we are in hell and where they soar in the sky—there is no connection!”
But think a little: if there were no connection, you could never become a Buddha. How would the journey happen? From where would you go? There must be a bridge between you and Buddha. Between kama and Rama there must be a ladder. I call that ladder love. That is the very ladder Sahajo is speaking of.

Purify lust.
Kabir says: “A diamond has fallen into the mud.” That diamond has fallen into the mire. Do not run away from the mud, or the diamond will be left behind with the mud. Search in the mud; lotuses are hidden there. Clean the diamond—as the mud is removed, the diamond shines. In truth the diamond never became impure. Even fallen in mud, a diamond remains a diamond; it does not become mud. And the lotuses hidden in the mud—however hidden, even if you never see them—nevertheless are lotuses, not mud. Once they find the chance to rise, they bloom.

Do not run away from lust. Otherwise your so-called celibacy will be, at best, impotence; at most repression, force. Your life’s flower will not bloom; even the little bud that was beginning to open will fall back into the mud.

Among your so-called sadhus and sannyasins I have not seen the lotus of compassion blooming; I have seen the end of the possibility of its blooming.
They have fallen down from the ladder. They look fine to you because you stand on the rung of lust while they are not on it. You suppose that one who is not on the rung of lust must have reached the rung of compassion. Not necessary. Climbing down is easy; climbing up is difficult. What does it take to climb down? Leave the house, flee to the forest, put on a loincloth.
People will bow, touch your feet—“Blessed one, you have attained greatness”—all the while you may still be filled with lust.
I meet renunciates—old sannyasins, seventy years old—and still their minds are full of lust. In private they ask, “How to get rid of lust?” Now life is known and gone, and still it has not left them. When will it leave now, with death approaching? They are about to die, and lust still pursues them.

Do not, by mistake, climb down from the ladder. There is no God for deserters. Climb. Let life be a journey, not an escape. Rise rung by rung. Transform lust into love, and breezes from a little heaven will begin to blow. Hell will remain, but islands of heaven will emerge in your ocean of hell. From those will arise the hope that more is possible. What is a small island today can become a continent tomorrow.
Just rise a little further above the waters, go a little further ahead.
Slowly withdraw attention from asking and put it on giving. Share; do not beg. Be an emperor, not a beggar.
Lust is a beggar; compassion is an emperor.

The day you can give unstintingly, unconditionally, without bargaining for anything, without even waiting for thanks—you give and move on; you give and also give thanks that it was received, accepted; otherwise there was no need, refusal was possible—the day this is your inner state, that day you will have arrived at compassion.

These are love’s forms: lust, love, compassion.
And life has only these measures of love. That is why I say: love is greater than God, because only by rising in love do you reach God. The day your compassion becomes such that even the giver is not left—only giving remains; no one remains behind who is giving, no doer is left—on that very day you have become God.
The day the feeling “I am” dissolves, that day you are God. No boundary remains. Then you enter the boundless and the boundless enters you.

But do not get overly lost in talk of God. The ladder of life is this—From lust to love, from love to compassion; after compassion, the leap happens of its own accord, because beyond it there is no rung. Remember, the ladder is left in two ways: either you climb down from the very first rung, or you leap from the last. If you climb down from the first, you attain neither God nor the world; if you descend from the last, you attain everything. You attain God and you do not lose the world, because the world is a limb of God. Then the vision is complete—and it includes the world. Not as mere “worldliness,” but as God’s creation.

Do not make too much distinction between the outer and the inner. There really is none. What you call outer is something of the inner that has come out. What you call inner is something of the outer that has gone in.

Hunger arises within, yet you put in food from the outside—and you never wonder how food from the outside can quench a hunger on the inside. It does; it does every day. Still it never occurs to you that the outer food satisfies the inner hunger. Certainly there is no hard boundary between outside and inside.

At what point will you say that the outer food has become the agent that removes the inner hunger—when it is still in the mouth, when it goes down the throat, when it is digested in the stomach, when it is transformed into blood? When does it become inner? Then the pulse of that blood energizes the brain, thoughts arise, the purification of thoughts becomes silence, the complete emptiness of thoughts becomes meditation, the final flowering of meditation becomes the realization of the Divine—when? At which point?

Someone has said it well: “Bhukhe bhajan na hoye, Gopala”—on an empty stomach one cannot sing of Gopal. He has joined hunger and Gopal together. Think a little: somewhere food must be turning into God; it has to, otherwise food and God would never be related. There must be a point where food becomes God and God becomes food. The Upanishads say: “Annam Brahma—food is Brahman.”

He has linked the two extremes. So why are you so caught in the division of inner and outer? When you talk too much, the mind runs too much. If you stop talking, you break half the support of the mind. Consider: if for two years you do not walk, do not use your legs, just sit cross-legged in padmasana, your legs will become incapable of walking; even if you try to walk suddenly, you will fall. What has happened? Walking was outside, the power to walk was inside. You walked by the inner power, but you relied on an outer function—the two were your two wings.

If you do not speak outwardly, gradually the inner chatter will also begin to diminish. Why? Because the inner talk is only a rehearsal for the outer talk. Inside you are preparing to speak outside; it is training.

Suppose you are going for a job interview. Two days in advance you start preparing—what will they ask, what will I answer? Will this answer work or not? In what manner should I speak, in what manner not? The closer you come to the office, the more the inner turmoil increases. As you knock on the door, a thousand thoughts are churning within: with which thought should I begin? You have already rehearsed—you have given the interview a thousand times before giving it. If there were to be no interview, would you prepare? Who would be crazy enough to prepare then? What would be the point!

Whatever you think inside has a reason; you need it around the clock. Look closely and break your thinking into parts: most of it consists of things you expect to need in the future, hence the mind prepares; some of it consists of things left unfinished in the past.

Suppose you have returned from the interview. They asked about the sky and you told them about the earth. Now you regret it. Now you are giving the answer that should have been given, but you could not give. Everyone becomes wise afterward. You missed!

I have heard: in a medical college an exam was going on. The examiner asked a student: here is such-and-such a patient, such-and-such a medicine is to be given—how much will you give? He mentioned some dosage. The examiner said: Fine, you may go. As he reached the door it occurred to him, “That dose is a little too high.” He returned and said, “Forgive me, the dose is a bit too much.” The doctor said: “The patient has died—outside the door! You cannot go and tell the patient afterward, ‘Sorry, the dose was high.’ That was poison; it killed him. Come next year—after you have thought the dosage through!”

So many things you correct afterward, and still you cannot set them right. Rarely does anyone get everything right. Only those who speak from no-mind speak rightly; they do not look back. The matter is over—what is there to carry? But you do not speak from no-mind; first you prepare in thought, then you answer, and then mistakes happen, because your answers do not fit the questions exactly. The question you had prepared for—who says that will be the one asked?

It happened once in an asylum. Before they released patients, they would examine them to see whether they had recovered. Only those who passed were let out. It was the last day of the year and the examination was on. One madman went in—he was inmate number one. The others said to him, “Let us know what they ask, because you might not be able to answer correctly.” He went in. He was asked, “If both your ears were cut off, what would happen?” He said, “I wouldn’t be able to see.” The physician was a little surprised: “What do you mean?” He said, “It’s clear: the spectacles would fall off.” Even a madman has his own logic. It is valid in its way—where would the glasses rest? The doctor said, “All right, you may go—we will think about it. You are neither entirely wrong nor entirely right; we’ll have to reflect.”

He came out, and the inmates surrounded him: “What did they ask?” He said, “Don’t worry about the question—whatever they ask, just say, I won’t be able to see. I startled him!” Now, whatever was asked, the other madmen stood up and answered plainly, “I won’t be able to see.” When after two or four of them this kept happening—ask them anything, and they said, “I won’t be able to see”—the doctor said, “What is going on?” They replied, “The first madman gave us the answer.” The doctor said, “Then that first one happened to answer right by mistake, because anyone who teaches fixed answers is still mad.”

In life there are no fixed questions and no fixed answers. Sometimes your ready-made answer will work—by coincidence. But not always.

So you give answers you should not have given, and afterward you become wise; you start thinking. Either you are entangled in the turmoil of the past or in that of the future, and between the two your present moment passes by—this is your inner discussion, the inner talk, running twenty-four hours a day. The present is a tiny instant; the future is vast, the past is vast, and their tug-of-war takes place within this little moment.

But if you gradually reduce outer speech, the inner chatter will also gradually subside. Not today, immediately—years will be needed. If you stop outer speech altogether, or you speak only as needed—manage with two, four, ten words a day—what is there to prepare inside? Little by little the mind will say, “No need to prepare; there is no exam anymore.” Preparation will cease. If you do not sit for examinations, you do not prepare; then there will be no mistakes in the past either—so what will you brood over and repent? That too will stop.

If a person keeps absolute silence for three years, nothing else need be done; inner thought will collapse by itself. But those three years will be very difficult. Many times the chance of going almost mad will arise, because when thoughts run intensely inside—by speaking out you get a little vent, you feel lighter after talking to someone—if they churn only within, there will be moments of explosion when you will feel, “Now I will go mad. If I don’t speak now, madness will overtake me.”

If someone spends three years quietly in silence—even if it is only outer silence—it will do. But outer silence has many concomitants. Man does not speak only with words. Even as I speak to you, my hands make gestures—that too is speech. One speaks with the eyes as well. Walking on the road, you signal with your eyes—“How are you?”—you smile; you have spoken. Complete outer silence means: as if you are alone in the world, with no one around. If perfect silence is kept—of the eyes, of expression, of posture, of lips, of gestures, in walking, in sitting and standing—no statement given in any way—then three months are enough; three years are not needed. In three months the tongue of thought will fall silent by itself—because it has no function left. And if silence happens within, your eyes will become limpid, the layers of words will fall away, and you will be able to see. This I call “darshan”—seeing. You will become capable of seeing.

Thought has made you blind; thought itself is your blindness. Become thought-free and the eye opens. What is seen through thought is the world; what appears in thoughtlessness is the Divine.

Therefore I say: the issue is neither the world nor God; the issue is your eye. A clear, thought-free, formless eye connects with the Formless; an eye full of thought, cluttered with limits and confusion, can only see the crowd and clamor of the world.

If you become thoughtless within, the world outside departs. The outer world is a projection of your thought. When the film stops inside you, the screen in front becomes empty. In a cinema you sit and watch the screen, you laugh, you cry, you are happy, you are sad—but the screen is empty. It is a play of light and shadow, and the source of that play is behind—the projector. Hidden behind, beyond the wall. If someone switches off the projector there, the screen ahead becomes a void. You stand up and say, “The film is over.”

So the world you see outside is not as you see it; it is your projection.

A woman appears before you. What she is in herself you cannot know; after all, you do not even know what you are in yourself. The projector of your mind and thought throws an image, it spreads over that woman; she was a white screen. You had seen her many times before—no string had been plucked within, no bell rung. Today suddenly the woman drives you crazy. Today she came before you at a moment when some thought was moving within you, which flew out and scattered over her. Now the woman you see is not the real woman; she is the woman of your dream, maya.

You may marry her. Gradually, as the image is cast day after day, it becomes old. Using the same thought again and again, you become habituated to it. One day suddenly you will see, as if your eyes have opened: “This woman is so ordinary! For her I wrote so many poems, dreamed so many dreams! She is ordinary, just ordinary—nothing special.” The screen has become bare; the inner thread of thought has snapped.

As long as you are projecting “wealth” onto money, you see wealth there. The day you understand, there will remain only a heap of shards. In a diamond you see a diamond because you are projecting diamond-ness; otherwise it is a stone. The day the projection drops, you will find it is a stone.

Gradually, when thoughts cease within, the projector stops functioning, projection ends, and the world-screen becomes blank. The name of that blank screen is God.

Sahajo is saying exactly this. She says, “I could leave Hari, but I cannot leave the Master,” because, Hari—you beguiled me in the play, you created the great game of light and shadow upon the screen; the Master shook me awake. I could leave you, for you offered the enticements of the senses, you gave the world; the Master lifted me above the world. You gave sorrow; the Master gave a glimpse of bliss. You set me on the path away from myself; the Master brought me back home. So she says, I could leave Hari, but I cannot leave the Master, because without the Master there would be no way to know you at all—I would never have known you. She is saying: the Master gave me silence, gave me emptiness. From that emptiness, when you look, the whole world becomes green with Hari’s greenery.

That is all for today.