Bin Ghan Parat Phuhar #8

What a needle can do, there is no need to do with a sword. And what can be done by a needle may not even be possible with a sword; in fact, the sword will only spoil the needle’s work. Don’t cling to the words of the stories I tell; understand their essence.

Certainly, the disease has caught hold of you. But it is not gross; it is very subtle. The snake you have swallowed is that of attachment and jealousy, but beating the body won’t separate it from you. You will have to pass through a process just as subtle. Had the snake been ordinary, what the king did in the story might have worked: he whipped the man, forced him to eat rotten fruit; the stench rose to his throat, the vomiting began; he kept beating him, and in that panic and nausea the fruit came out—and so did the snake.

If you take that story literally—and it wouldn’t surprise me if you did, because many of your saints have done exactly that—you’ll start beating the body while the disease is within. The illness is in the innermost; you are changing your behavior. The ego hides deep within; you stand in the sun scorching the body. You lash the body. You lie on thorns. And the ego is so subtle that no thorn can ever touch it. In fact, lying on thorns it grows stronger. If whipping the body could expel the snake, it would be easy. But the snake is not in the body; it’s in the mind, in the subtle unconscious layers. And if you can understand, I would even say: had the snake been real, it might still be a little easier. But the snake is imaginary. It isn’t there; you only believe it is. Therefore the remedy must be exceedingly subtle.

Let me tell you another story; perhaps that will make it clear.

A man went to sleep at night and dreamt he had swallowed a snake. He woke up in a panic. The dream was so real, so solid, and the fear had seized him so strongly, that he began to scream. His wife woke up, the household gathered; they tried to reassure him, “You must have seen a dream.” He said, “No, it wasn’t a dream. I can still feel it inside; I can feel it moving in my belly.”

They induced vomiting. Nothing happened; no snake came out. Had there been a snake, it would have. But when even after vomiting no snake appeared, naturally his mind argued, “The snake is very deep; this is only superficial vomiting. The snake has gone into the intestines.” Every remedy was tried. Doctors gave up. X-rays were taken—no snake. But the man wouldn’t agree. “Should I trust myself, or your machines? Can machines not err? Should I listen to your analyses, or to my own felt certainty? The snake is moving. I can’t sit, can’t stand, can’t eat or drink.” He was nearly insane.

Then they took him to a psychologist, because the snake was not in the body—it was in the mind. What did the psychologist do? He heard him out and said, “There is definitely a snake. The X-ray must be wrong; the physicians didn’t understand. But I can see it.” He ran his hand over the man’s belly and said, “Yes, there is a snake; you are right.” The man immediately trusted this doctor. “At last, someone sensible in this town.” The doctor was lying—because to cut a lie, only a lie will do.

Have you ever noticed? A lie cannot be cut by truth, because lie and truth never meet—how will they clash? If the illness is false, don’t ever take an allopathic drug; you’ll be harmed, because that medicine is real. For false illness, homeopathy is right; those medicines are a kind of “lie”—a medicine for a belief-born illness. That is why homeopathy never harms anyone; it may help, but it doesn’t harm—because to harm, the drug would have to be real. They are sugar pills. It’s not that homeopathy doesn’t work; it works—because man is the problem. Ninety out of a hundred human illnesses are false. For a false illness, the true drug is dangerous, because a true drug will do something. If the illness isn’t there, it will cut you instead of the illness—potentially with fatal consequences. It’s poison; had the disease been real, the poison would have killed it, but since it isn’t, the poison spreads in you. So allopathy is not for false patients; homeopathy is. And false patients outnumber real ones. Hence homeopathy deserves as much space in the world as allopathy—knowing well that the medicine is “false,” but what can you do? The patients are false. They were never ill—and yet want to be cured.

The psychologist said, “The snake is certain.” Trust arose. “You are a sensible man.” The doctor said, “We’ll get it out. Take this medicine; rest tonight. In the morning, when you move your bowels, the snake will come out.” The man slept peacefully. When you find the right doctor, half the illness is cured at once. The doctor had a snake procured. At dawn, when the man went to defecate, the snake was placed in the latrine beforehand. When he came out, the doctor said, “Let’s go look; the snake must have come out.” They found a snake in the excrement. The man was overjoyed: “All inner restlessness is gone. The snake has come out. But these fools kept saying there was no snake!”

Your illness is of the second kind. You are not ill; you think you are. You have a notion of ego. Ego, in fact, cannot be. It is only a false conception, a thought-wave. Therefore it will disappear through meditation, not through austerities. That is why I am not in favor of tapas—of contorting yourself into postures, headstands, standing in the sun, torturing the body, fasting, lashing yourself. It won’t go that way. You have taken the first story too literally; understand the second. The matter is subtle; the remedy must be subtle. And even “subtle” is not quite right—it isn’t there at all. So a kind of homeopathic remedy is needed. Meditation is homeopathy: a way to remove what is not. You only have to be awakened. In sleep you saw a dream and took it to be true; the moment you awaken, you find it never was true. It didn’t have to be destroyed—only seen.

So I have no harsh method. You may want me to be harsh—you might even feel good then, because you’ll feel something is happening. When I say, “Meditate,” your connection with me seems to break. You say, “Meditate? Tell us something we can do. We can fast—what difficulty is there in going hungry? But to not think—that’s the trouble.” I say, “Drop the ego.” You reply, “That is very difficult. Give us something—charity, ritual, scripture-reading, renunciation, austerity—we will do it.” But all that only inflates your ego. Yes, your ego will don a religious robe; it will become “pure.” But a pure ego is even more dangerous. The impure still has bits mixed in; the pure is sheer poison. That is why your treatments fail—because you use real cures on an illness you have never examined to see that it is false.

I was once sitting in Mulla Nasruddin’s shop. A man came asking for bedbug poison. Nasruddin sold it. The man asked, “Miyan, the bugs will die, but who bears the sin—you or me? I pour the poison, but you made it. Or do we split the sin?” Nasruddin said, “No one bears any sin; don’t worry.” The man asked, “Meaning?” Nasruddin said, “Only if bugs die would there be sin. This is pure Indian stuff—village industry. Nothing has ever died from it. It’s just an excuse.”

Your austerities go to waste because you haven’t looked carefully at what you are trying to kill. Will it die of these methods? These have no connection to it. Your austerities can harm—but they cannot cure.

My whole emphasis is on meditation. What does meditation mean? Only this: to make the mind so empty and still that nothing of your mind gets mixed into whatever you see. If you look at a rose, you see only the rose—not your mind saying, “How beautiful! How lovely!” or “It’s nothing; I’ve seen better.” The mind says nothing—passes no statements. When the mind does not pronounce, that is meditation. Then the mind becomes a clear mirror. Then you see what is. Right now you see what is not—what you add. Your beliefs are what you see. Your beliefs are your maya. You see everywhere only what you are prepared to see.

Seen with meditation, things become different.

Understand. You are walking on the road; someone abuses you. Even now you see something when he abuses you. It’s not that you don’t see; you see “This man is wicked, bad; he deserves punishment.” But one day if you look meditatively, perhaps you’ll see: “This man is right. What he says is an accurate description; it is not an abuse.” He says, “Thief!”—and I am a thief. You might bow to him and touch his feet: “Blessed that you met me! You announced a fact. You woke me up. Thank you—and keep showing such grace. Whenever you see anything in me, tell me.”

A friend is one who exposes your faults. An enemy is one who covers them up.

So far your definitions are reversed. You call one a friend who hides your faults; an enemy who highlights them. In the state of meditation, the whole thing changes. Kabir says, “Keep the critic close; give him a hut in your courtyard.” Whenever you find a critic—someone who speaks ill of you—invite him home: “Don’t go anywhere; stay here. We’ll put up a hut in the courtyard for you. If you stay far away and meet rarely, who knows how many mistakes will be missed? Stay near; keep watch on me; and whenever you see a fault, say it with your whole heart. Don’t hide it. Don’t worry about manners or culture. Be utterly frank and hard—because without you I will go astray.”

“Keep the critic close”—this is something seen through meditation.

Hear an abuse without meditation and you’ll be ready to kill the man. Hear it with meditation and you’ll thank him. All the forms of life change. There are two ways of seeing life: through thought and through meditation. Seen through thought, life is the world; seen through meditation, this very world is the divine. God and the world are not two things; they are two styles of your seeing.

I know your illness is false. That is why I keep telling you that if you wish, you can attain God this very moment—there is no need to postpone even a moment. If the disease were real, this couldn’t be. Time would be needed. A man truly ill will take years to be cured. But another man is only hypnotized—believing he is ill when he is not. People have fed him the notion that he is ill when he isn’t.

I had a professor I was very close to. One day I told him exactly this, but he didn’t accept it. “How can this be? Show me a false illness.” I said nothing—didn’t even say I would, because even that becomes an obstacle. I let it pass.

Two or three months later I went to his wife and asked a favor. “In the morning, as soon as he wakes, just ask: ‘Didn’t you sleep well? Your eyes look red. Let me feel your hand—no fever?’ Then put your hand on his forehead and say, ‘Oh! Not less than two or three degrees of fever. Why didn’t you wake me at night?’” She asked, “What do you mean?” I said, “I’m conducting an experiment. Don’t tell him anything.” I gave her a slip with the exact words and asked her to write down his replies on the back—adding not a single word of her own.

I told his servant and the gardener the same and gave them slips: the servant to say while sweeping, “Sir, you don’t seem well,” and to write down his answer; the gardener to say as he headed out to the university gate, “You’re walking a bit unsteady—are you okay?” I arranged the same all the way to his department: the office peon, the clerk, even the postmaster on the route. It wasn’t far—half a mile from his house. By the time he reached the university, his eyes were red and his body was trembling. I met him at the door. He said, “Listen, get a car. Mine isn’t in good condition, and I can’t walk now. The fever is up. I was ill all night.” He collapsed on the chair outside the department and closed his eyes.

I brought a car, took him home. By evening he was in bed; we took his temperature—103. I arrived with all the slips. When his wife had asked in the morning, “Are you unwell?” he had said, “Who says I’m unwell? I slept perfectly. You pick up fancies.” To the servant a little later he said, “I didn’t sleep very well, but I’m fine.” Already less adamant than with his wife. To the gardener he said, “Yes, a little heat—nothing special, it will pass.” To the postmaster, “Headache. And the night was rather bad.” To the peon at the department, “Yes, last night was very bad, and I won’t be able to take class—let them know.” When he met me, he collapsed on the chair. By night he had a 103-degree fever.

I read all the slips back to him—“These are your statements; which one shall we call true?” You gradually leaned toward illness. In the morning you were not ill at all—your wife is here; she says it is a miracle how you became ill, because she merely repeated my words. Your gardener, your peon—they all echoed me. You became ill. The fever is real—but the illness is false. The temperature is real, but its basis is a belief. As he read each slip, the fever dropped. When he had read them all and understood the situation, he sat up. “Bring the thermometer.” The fever was back to normal. That five-degree swing was belief. Had it been a real fever, slips wouldn’t have cured it. It was a fake fever.

Therefore I say: you can realize God right now—this very instant. Your notion that you have lost him is only a notion. Can God be lost? Can that which can be lost still be called God? God means your intrinsic nature; how will you lose that? You can cover it, bury it—but you cannot destroy it. Postponement is a trick of your mind. You say, “After lifetimes of austerity we will attain—how can it happen so soon?” This is evasion. You don’t want to attain. Otherwise, nothing prevents you now.

Let me tell you a French story.

An old tale: A man had a large garden and a pond. He loved white lilies and planted them in his pond. But the lilies grew very fast—doubling their spread every twenty-four hours. He became worried, because he had also stocked the pond with delicious fish. If the lilies covered the pond, the fish would die; they need open sky, sunlight, air. If lilies cover the pond, other life in it is destroyed. But he loved those white lilies.

He went to a specialist for advice. The expert said, “Since the lilies double every twenty-four hours, looking at your pond’s size I can say: in thirty days the pond will be completely covered. Do what you will.” The man was torn—he adored the lilies, but the fish were exquisite, collected from far-off lands. If lilies cover the pond, the fish will die. He decided, “There’s no hurry—thirty days. I’ll act when the pond is half covered. Till then both fish and flowers can remain.”

Here is the riddle: when will the pond be half covered? On the twenty-ninth day. Don’t think the fifteenth. Since lilies double daily, the pond is half covered on the twenty-ninth day—and then only one day remains for clearing. Perhaps you won’t manage in time. And that’s what happened. He thought, “When it’s half covered, I’ll see.” At first the lilies didn’t seem to spread much—hugging a corner. On the morning of the twenty-ninth day, he saw half the pond was covered. Then he panicked; the arithmetic dawned. “We are done for—only one day left!” The story doesn’t say whether he cleared it in time. But life is just like this. You think, “What’s the hurry? When half my life is gone, I’ll see.” Hence people say religion is for the old, not the young. But then so little strength and time remain, and life is so smothered under useless loads and thoughts, that in the last moments on the deathbed you may not be able to do anything at all. Perhaps not even utter the name of Ram—because the mouth can utter only what is in the throat; the throat can bring only what is in the heart. What is not in the heart or throat—how will it reach the lips? At death, only what you have earned through life will come.

A man was dying. He opened his eyes and asked, “Where is my eldest son?” The wife said, “Right here at your feet.” “And the second?” “Also here.” His eyes were dimming; dusk had set, death was near. He tried to prop himself up and asked, “And the third?” The wife said, “Don’t try to rise. He’s on your left. We’re all here. No one is anywhere else.”

He became very agitated, sat bolt upright and said, “Then who is at the shop?” He is dying—and not asking whether the sons are here; he is really asking whether the shop is running. Even at the last moment, “shop” will be on the lips, if it was there all your life. Death brings out what you have amassed. Don’t postpone. The tricks for postponing are many. The grand one is: “God cannot be attained today; tomorrow he will be. Not this life; the next.” So keep doing what you do—now and then a fast, a mantra, a temple visit—and “slowly, slowly” it will happen. You know you don’t want to attain—because if you did, there is a way now. Don’t think God is unavailable; you are unavailable. His sky is open; your doors and windows are shut. You are afraid of God. So you accept doctrines that help you postpone. The essence? You are dreaming that you have lost God.

You have to be awakened from this dream, brought to awareness. Suddenly you will find he cannot be lost. As a fish of the ocean cannot lose the ocean: it is born in it, lives in it, dissolves in it. Even then, an ocean fish can be thrown out—by a wave or a fisherman. But you cannot be thrown outside God—there is no shore beyond him, no fisherman other than him.

There is no sand where you could be flung—his is the ocean, his the sand. There is no space, no time, no possibility of being outside the divine. Being within the divine is the only way to be. Then how have you forgotten? How have you missed? Surely it is only your notion. A thought that you have lost God. A trance.

So there is no need for cruel measures. It is very simple. With a tiny needle the bubble of your thought will burst. No need to swing swords at a bubble; only the attacker will be proved mad. Your state is nothing more than a bubble. Your ego is a bubble on water. A pinprick will do. One puff of air—and it bursts. The wonder is: how do you manage to preserve it? The wonder is not “Why does it not end?”—it can end right now. You are holding it together. You are preserving this film of water your whole life—that is the miracle.

Those who “attain” God have not attained anything new. What was given is known. Those who have “lost” God are the real magicians—they have achieved the astonishing feat of losing what cannot be lost.

When Buddha was enlightened, someone asked, “What did you gain?” Buddha said, “Nothing at all. On the contrary, something was lost. What was always already given—calling that a ‘gain’ is not right. And what was never given but only imagined—that has been lost. What was not, is gone; what is, has become apparent.”

Man goes astray because he can arrive. Animals do not go astray because they cannot arrive. The moment the possibility of reaching opens, the possibility of missing also opens. Only the one who climbs can fall; the one who never climbs will never fall. A little child who crawls on the ground does not fall; when he begins to stand, he falls and skins his knees. Whoever stands takes the risk of falling—and the joy of standing is worth the risk.

There is no show in the animal, because the animal does not even have enough awareness to show another what he is. He doesn’t know. He lives in darkness. No thought-wave ever arises in him about what others think of him. Man has risen; and the very moment he rises, he begins to see others. Others appear before oneself. Whenever you wake up in the morning, notice: you don’t first discover yourself—you see the room, the things—where you are. The clock on the wall catches your eye. You hear the milkman outside, the clatter of your wife putting away the dishes, the child being readied for school, his satchel being packed. You don’t yet know yourself; you instantly know the other things.

Man has awakened beyond the animals. With that awakening he has come to know the whole world. One more awakening is needed—when he will come to know himself. That awakening happened to Sahajo, Kabir, Nanak, Dadu. One awakening is out of the animal; then there is another awakening—out of man. Then awakening is complete. Waking from the animal is half-waking. Waking from the animal means: we know others, but we do not yet know ourselves. Half sleep has broken. Light falls on others, not yet returned to oneself. If you keep awakening, that light will turn back upon you as well. You will not only hear the voices outside; you will sense your own being too. That very sensing makes man religious.

Animals have no show. They don’t adorn themselves with jewelry, don’t wear clothes, don’t dress up to go to festivals. They don’t know that there is an “other’s eye,” that the other’s eye judges how you appear. They have no such experience; they are asleep in deep stupor.

Animals and saints share a similarity. The similarity is this: in the animal there is no alien note—only stupor, and in the saint there is no alien note—only awakening. The animal is not eager to show because he does not know the other. The saint is not eager to show because he knows himself. Between the two hangs man—Trishanku—suspended in the middle. Half animal—drowned in darkness; half awake—light has dawned. In that half-awakening others become visible; the verdict of the other’s eye becomes visible. Someone sees you and is pleased—you feel you have been accepted. Someone sees you and turns his face—you feel you have been rejected. “What shall I do so that I am not rejected? What shall I do so I don’t suffer these wounds, so people respect me? What shall I do so people love me?” He is looking at the other.

Animals are happy in their own way, but that happiness is unconscious—they don’t even know they are happy. The saint is in supreme bliss; he knows that there is only bliss, nothing else. Animals are peaceful; saints are peaceful. In between is man—restless. Half animal, half divine—such unease! Man is the avatara of Narasimha—half beast, half man—a symbol more valuable than any other in the Hindu vision. Great turmoil within: one half pulls like a stone toward stupor; the other half longs to go, to fly toward the sky. The stone does not allow flight. Because of the urge to fly, the stone’s contentment is not attained. A stone lies there, content. A bird flies, content. Imagine a bird that is half stone and half bird. It will writhe. You will see it in torment, without rest. If it were all stone, it would lie under the shade of a tree, resting, dreaming. If it were a full bird, it would soar into the sky, aspiring to meet the sun. But this half bird, half stone—half buried in the earth, half brimming with longing for the sky—can neither fly nor rest. It only flutters in a restless spasm. Such is man.

There are two ways:
- Either turn back and become an animal again—become stone through and through.
- Or awaken what is still stone—give it wings too, make it a bird as well.

Most people lean toward becoming stone. Yet that possibility is not really possible—it’s only self-deception. That road leads nowhere. What is the drunkard doing? He is saying, “Let me forget these wings, this sky, this sun. Let me forget this longing to fly. Let me remain as I am, a stone.” And you see the drunk lying in the gutter. Forget flying—even the urge to walk is gone. He has no concern for anyone. A dog may lick his face, flies may swarm over him—he doesn’t care. People pass by condemning him—he doesn’t hear. He has benumbed the winged half with alcohol. But how long will you remain benumbed? Morning will come, awareness will return, and a great condemnation will fill your mind. You will regret more than you ever did; a deeper anguish will seize you: “What am I doing with my life?” Because of that pain and restlessness you will drink more the next day—to drown that very anguish. A vicious circle begins. You drink to forget; when you come to, the pain is more acute, the torment heavier. Then, to forget that anxiety, you drink yet more. There is no end to it.

Alcohol and meditation—just as I said there is a kind of similarity between animals and saints—there is a similar contrast here. Alcohol is going back; meditation is going ahead. Alcohol is making peace with the stone; meditation is turning even the stone into a bird. That is why all meditators have opposed alcohol. No other reason—no enmity with alcohol itself. What have we to do with alcohol? The opposition is only because you are trying to go backward—which cannot be done. In this world what has been known cannot be unknow. Knowledge once gained cannot be erased. What has entered experience cannot be thrown out of experience. There is no returning. A child who has become a youth—how will you make him a child again? You have come out of the womb—how will you be put back in? Life moves forward; there is no staircase leading back. Hence the meditator’s opposition is not to alcohol but to your effort to fall backward. And you cannot fall; you will have to rise. Each attempt to rise, and you will totter more; walking will become hard. You cannot go back, and going forward will seem impossible. Then your dilemma will become terrible. A heavy anguish and tension will arise within. You will be torn into pieces—what Sahajo called chitta-bhang: your consciousness will be shattered, your mirror will be broken; and in that broken mirror you will not even catch a shadow of truth. You will not be able to reflect God.

Meditation too is an intoxication—the wine of awareness. There is a drunkenness of unconsciousness, but how can it be compared with the ecstasy of wakefulness! There is a bliss of being utterly aware.

Sahajo says: “Let the feet fall where they may; then God holds you.” There is a rapture of awareness in which your feet land anywhere, anyhow—God supports you. There is no one left to support “yourself.” The meditator sways and dances in ecstasy; the drunkard also sways and dances. But in the meditator’s dance you will sense the fragrance of the unknown, the scent of truth; in the drunkard’s dance you will smell the stench of stupor, trance, unconsciousness. The difference is vast. The drunkard is like a rotting flower; the meditator is like a bud opened in full bloom.

Yes, it is true that only man is eager for display—because man has awakened a little, and animals sleep. Don’t take it as misfortune; it is good fortune—the first step toward saintliness. But don’t take it to be the whole. Don’t stop there, otherwise it will turn into misfortune. A ladder helps you climb provided you keep letting go of each rung. Put your foot on a rung and let it go—then the ladder is good fortune. But if you cling to a rung and sit on it, the ladder becomes misfortune. Then it leaves you nowhere—neither below nor above, neither home nor ghat.

The urge to show is the first step toward the urge to be beautiful. Right now you are eager that others take you to be beautiful. When you wake a little more, you will be eager to be beautiful—whether others know it or not. Because being beautiful is so blissful. “Let there be a peace within me—whether others know it or not, what has that to do with it?” If I am disturbed within and you go on believing I am peaceful—what do I gain? What’s the essence of that? It doesn’t cut my disturbance; it doesn’t lessen it. In fact, a new turmoil begins: inner unrest goes on, while outwardly I try to paste on peace. I don’t even have the peace to be frankly restless—to display even my restlessness. Anger arises, and I smile so that no one notices my anger, that no one discovers I am angry. The turmoil of anger goes on inside, and now I must maintain this pasted smile. This false smile makes me even more disturbed.

There is no real substance in showing others. It’s only a rung of the ladder. The very fact that you want to show means a little awareness has arisen that one should be beautiful, peaceful, joyful, healthy; a little awareness that the veena of God should sing within. This is good—carry it forward. Gradually you will find this awareness brings you to the point where you awaken the inner beauty and let go of concern for the outer. You will create peace within and leave aside anxiety about the outside. You will transform the inner being and forget about behavior. And behavior follows on its own, like a shadow. Buddha said: as a cart moves forward, the ruts of the wheels appear behind; so too, when the inner revolution happens, conduct follows behind your life, like the tracks of the wheels. Esa dhammo sanantano—such is the eternal law. When the inside changes, how can the outside remain unchanged? When beauty arises at the core, its rays begin to manifest everywhere in your life. Otherwise it is impossible. When the lamp is lit in the house, its light falls out through the windows, the cracks, the door. Even from far off people can tell that a lamp has been lit within; even in the dark its light reaches their path.

When the inner consciousness awakens, conduct changes by itself—light going outward. But you are doing the reverse. The lamp within is dark; you stick lights on the windows, on the walls, outside—so that people will think the house is not dark. By sticking lights outside, the darkness within does not lessen; it seems even darker. You sink deeper into anxiety; your life becomes hell. The aspiration itself is auspicious—you want to be beautiful. Only the wrong aspect has been seized: you want to be beautiful in the other’s eyes. That is the irreligious man’s approach. The religious man also wants to be beautiful, but he has no business with the other. He closes his eyes and beholds the image of the supreme beauty within; he dives into it, becomes nectar-drenched in it.

Good that you are no longer an animal. But if you remain as you are, you will begin to envy the animal. The old home is lost; the new has not been found. The happiness of animality is gone; the bliss of God has not yet come. You remain hanging in between. It is good the old house is gone—now build the new. And don’t imagine returning to the old; no one has ever succeeded in that.

The irreligious man is a failed man. He can never succeed. His process is not in accord with the law; he tries to go against it. He is old and tries to be young; he is young and tries to be a child. He is going backward. He will reach nowhere; he perishes in the very effort of going.

Be fortunate that a sense of beauty has arisen in you. Grow that sense. Then you will try to become beautiful from the innermost—not by ornaments. You will not change your clothes; you will change the consciousness within. You will forget what anyone says. The joy of what you are is so deep—who bothers about people’s opinions! If you hold a diamond, Kabir says, “Heera payo, ganth gathiyayo”—I found the diamond, tied it tight in my knot and ran. Who cares to show it in the marketplace!

I have heard that Mulla Nasruddin lived in a small village. There was an old custom: if someone found another’s lost thing, he had to go to the bazaar and announce loudly three times, “I have found a diamond,” or “a rupee,” or “a hundred-rupee note.” If it belonged to someone, they could claim it. If no one came, it became his. If someone claimed, he must return it.

Mulla Nasruddin found a diamond. According to the rule he went to the market. He announced three times, “I have found a diamond. Whoever’s it is, come take it.” No one came. He kept the diamond and went home. His wife asked, “Where were you at midnight?” He said, “I went to the bazaar.” “At midnight!” At that hour there was no one in the market. When everyone had fallen asleep, he went there. He followed the rule—and said it three times so softly that even he could hardly hear what he was saying: “I found a diamond.” He was afraid: what if, even at night, some beggar, someone sleeping nearby, a shopkeeper still awake, heard and said, “It’s mine”? He whispered so low that even he barely heard himself. Then he came home and said, “Now we are the owners.” When the diamond is found, such is one’s state. Who goes around worrying? Who goes to tell? Telling is a danger.

That is why Sahajo says: chant the Name in the heart. Let not even the lips know; let not even you yourself know. Sahajo ke Kartar—two meanings are possible: either “known to Sahajo” and “to the Doer (the Creator),” just the two; or, better still, let even Sahajo not know—let only the Doer know. Let no one know. What is there to say? Only those make proclamations who do not have. Those who have—their being is announcement enough; nothing more is needed. When you shout to convince others that you are virtuous, you too know that you are not—otherwise there would be no need to shout.

Often—Bertrand Russell writes in an essay, and I find it apt—if there is a crowd and someone’s pocket is picked, the pickpocket, if he wants to save himself, must make the most noise: “My pocket’s been picked! Catch the thief!” Then no one will suspect him—he seems a saintly man, running to catch the thief. Often those in society who loudly denounce others’ character, who make the biggest uproar over someone’s character, are the very people trying to hide their own character in that noise. If a prostitute is caught, those who rush first to stone her are often her customers—because they think, “If I don’t go to throw stones, the townspeople will suspect I too was a customer.” So you will find the biggest customer throwing the first stone.

There is such a mention in the life of Jesus. A woman was brought—an adulteress. The people said, “We will kill her, because it is written in the Jewish book that a woman who commits adultery should be stoned.” Jesus said, “It is rightly written—stone her. All of you, pick up stones.” They were standing by a river; the stones were large. They lifted them. Jesus said, “Hear one more thing: let the one who has never felt lust for this woman cast the first stone.” Slowly, the chiefs who stood in front dropped their stones and slipped back into the crowd—because they were the real customers. It is said they quietly disappeared. Jesus was left alone with the woman. She began to weep, fell at his feet: “Forgive me; I have sinned much.” Jesus said, “Who am I to forgive? Who am I to call you a sinner? This is between you and your God. Settle it with him. Only those condemn who have a stake in it. Who am I to judge? Let me see myself—that is enough. Who am I to interfere in your life? You have become what you could become. Perhaps God wanted it so. It is between you and your God. If you feel it was wrong, don’t do it again. If you feel it is right, continue. Who am I to give a verdict? I am not a judge.” You will often find your judges among the top customers.

I was just reading about an incident in an American city. In San Francisco, a judge was tried a few years ago—for supplying liquor at a small club, for bringing in prostitutes, for acting as a pimp. The astonishing thing was that he was San Francisco’s strictest judge—the harshest. No one knows how many pimps he had sentenced most severely; people feared his court. He himself was caught in the same trade. Then there was another surprise—when he was tried, one of his friend-judges tried to let him off with a light sentence. Later it came out that he too was involved.

Life is very complex. Those you call judges you will often find the most distinguished criminals. Those you call politicians are often the ones who should be in prison. But they are clever; they know a trick: whatever you intend to do, denounce it loudly so that no one suspects you could be doing it. All this show and proclamation before others is a method of hiding. You want to hide something; that is why you announce to others, “I am virtuous, I am renunciate, I am wise.” You want to hide something.

He who proclaims knowledge wants to hide ignorance. He who proclaims renunciation wants to hide indulgence. Proclamation means you are busy hiding its opposite. But from God nothing will be hidden. And what is the use of hiding from people? You will turn to dust tomorrow; so will they. Their eyes have no ultimate value. Their opinions mean nothing. Whether they call you good or bad makes no difference. What you are before yourself—that is the real thing. So Farid says: “Farida, if you are truly subtle of intelligence, don’t go around announcing your cleverness. Look within your own collar. Don’t write black letters against others. Don’t get into their blame and criticism. Look in—and you will find the deepest evils there. Strength is small, time is short. Erase them. Awake.”

Man has awakened from the animal—this is auspicious. Now awaken also from man. Man becomes fully man only when manhood is transcended. “Blessed are those,” Jesus said, “who rise beyond man.” Nietzsche said: “Ill-starred will be the day when the arrow of man no longer longs to go beyond man; ill-starred the day when the bowstring of human aspiration no longer draws the arrow of transcendence.” The day man becomes content with being man—that day will be unfortunate. Do not be content with anything less than God. To settle for less is to squander, with your own hands, all that was ready to be given to you—requiring nothing to be done, only that you open your eyes. You had only to lift your hand and it would fall into your palm; to breathe and you would be filled with his fragrance; to raise your eyelids and the sun was there. You will miss it. Do not be satisfied with little. Do not be satisfied with being human.

There are three kinds of people in the world:
- Those eager to be animals.
- Those eager, at most, to be human.
- Those who are not content with anything less than God.

Become the third kind. Only then does life bloom at its pinnacle; only then does the lotus of life, in its full fragrance, offer itself to the sky.

The search for religion is also causal. But the attainment of religion happens when you become causeless.
Try to understand this.
The search is indeed motivated. Otherwise how would the search even begin? You get weary of the world. Or the futility of the world starts becoming evident; then you set out in search of meaning. When the falseness of the world becomes clear, you grow curious about truth; when the body’s cravings prove futile, you begin to seek the soul. You think: perhaps joy wasn’t found here—maybe there it will be. Peace wasn’t found here—maybe there. Here everything proved momentary; perhaps there I can relate to the eternal. You set out on the quest for reasons. The very meaning of a search is that it is for something.
To search means you go out to find something. If you go to find something, it means you are driven by a certain desire, a thirst to attain. So the beginning of the search is perfectly right—motivated. But the end of the search is causeless. Searching and searching, one day you arrive at a moment when you realize that now the search itself has become the obstacle. Searching and searching, you come to a place where you see that this very search for bliss is the cause of suffering. You sought bliss in the world and didn’t find it. Now you are seeking it in God, and still it does not come. It is only through deep experience that you discover that the search for bliss, the thirst for bliss, the craving for bliss itself is the cause of misery. The day this understanding dawns, even the search takes its leave. That day you no longer go out to search. The search drops. First the world dropped; now even God drops. And the very moment there is no search at all, suddenly you find a note of bliss rising within. A shower falls without clouds! Now there are no clouds—and yet it rains. He who will not seek will never arrive. He who goes on seeking will also never arrive. Understand this paradox. The seeker can arrive—yes. But he does not arrive because of seeking; he arrives when even the search is lost.
“Searching and searching, O friend, Kabir himself got lost.” He had set out to search. That which he had set out to find did not appear; on the contrary, Kabir himself disappeared—“Searching and searching, O friend, Kabir himself got lost.” Then union happened.
Lao Tzu says: Seek—and you will go astray. But this is a statement from further along the path. It is not for those who haven’t even begun to seek. It is for those who have sought a great deal and are now tired even of the search. To them Lao Tzu says, Seek and you will wander. If you want to attain, drop even the search. But be careful: you can drop the search only after you have searched. Don’t try to be too clever and say, “If I must drop seeking in the end, why seek at all? We’ll just sit in our shops and mind our business. Why get entangled in this whole assembly? And this assembly looks like quite a trap.” First seek, then drop the very seeking.
Buddha sought for six years—an austere, rigorous search. Then one day he found that nothing is attained by searching. He was exhausted. No experience of truth anywhere, no glimpse of God anywhere, no remembrance of the soul anywhere—nothing at all. He was so utterly, totally tired that even the search fell. That evening he lay to rest beneath a tree. That night not even a dream came—because dreams come only when you are seeking something. If you seek wealth, you dream of wealth. If you seek Krishna, you see him standing with the flute—he appears in your dreams. If you seek Christ, you see him hanging on the cross. Whatever you seek begins to flicker in your dreams. Dreams reveal your craving; they are a thermometer. They tell what you are truly seeking.
This is why psychology first takes interest in your dreams. It doesn’t begin by asking, “What is your complaint?” It says, “Tell me your dreams.” Because you might deceive even yourself. You go for treatment and deceive the physician as well. You don’t tell the real problem; you present a respectable one.
People come to me—their trouble is one thing, they report another. Perhaps they themselves don’t know what they are doing, whom they are trying to fool. If I am not to be told the real trouble, why waste time? But they tell a different trouble, one that “sounds right,” that enhances their prestige. It may be that sexual desire is plaguing them, but they won’t admit that trouble. They feel embarrassed mentioning it. “What will people say if they hear sexual craving torments me? I am seventy—still troubled by lust?” It offends the ego. So they don’t mention that; they say something else. They ask, “How to realize God? My mind is not peaceful—how can I find peace?” I ask them first to describe their restlessness—what exactly is this unrest? We’ll speak of peace later. What is the unrest about? They say, “All kinds of unrest—just tell us the method to be peaceful.” They don’t want the unrest to be touched. Because if their real unrest becomes known to others, their reputation might break. People even fear stating their illness; they fear knowing it themselves. Then how can there be a cure?
Psychologists don’t trust what you say. What greater sign of human distortion? They say, “Tell us your dreams.” From your dreams they sift and compute where the trouble lies. You say in the day that you chant Rama’s name—but at night you dream of a beautiful woman. The dream is more truthful. It tells more accurately that while you may be fingering the rosary, between the beads there are holes of desire. The beads may be devotional, but the string running through them is lust. It is hidden. You keep chanting “Rama, Rama,” but it has nothing to do with Rama. Perhaps even that chanting is a way to suppress the inner drive—keep repeating “Rama, Rama” so that nothing within becomes evident. Keep up a noise inside so the inner truth is not heard. But within, lust is trembling in its full pathology. At night it will manifest in dreams. At that time you won’t be able to suppress it. The mantra will have fallen away, and desire will show itself.
You would be astonished: those whom you call sadhus—if you could see their dreams, only then would you know whether they are sadhus or not. The dreams of sadhus are often most unsaintly. The dreams of the unsaintly may sometimes be saintly—but the saint’s dreams are almost never so. A criminal in jail may sometimes dream, “I should renounce everything; I’ve indulged and suffered enough. Let me take a begging bowl and go forth. Shall I walk the path of Buddha or of Mahavira?” But go to those you see ostensibly walking the path of Buddha and Mahavira—the monks and renunciates—and ask them to tell you their dreams. At night they dream of the world. They fast in the day, and at night they are invited to the emperor’s palace to dine. They dream of food. Fast, and you’ll know—at night you will dream of food. When your belly is full, you might occasionally dream of fasting—occasionally. But on an empty stomach, the dream will be of food. Dreams report your reality.
That night Buddha had no dreams. There was no striving left. The world had already become futile; that evening even liberation became futile. The world had been abandoned; now even nirvana was dropped. There was nothing left to attain. He was so tired that it became clear nothing here is to be gained—nothing at all. All running is futile. All. Remember this: not only the running after the world—every running is futile; even spiritual running. That night supreme peace descended… the very search stopped, the running stopped. “Searching and searching, O friend, Kabir himself got lost.” In the morning his eyes opened; the last star of dawn was setting. It is said that watching that star, he attained supreme enlightenment. His gaze must have been utterly pure. All dreams had fallen away; all thoughts, expectations, futures, cravings, any idea of gaining—nothing remained. The mind was untainted. Nowhere to go, nothing to become, nothing to gain. Time stopped. The current stood still. In that very instant, all was attained.
So the search must be begun—and it must also be dropped. Understand it like this: you have to climb the ladder, and you also have to leave the ladder behind. Only then do you enter another dimension. The search for religion is motivated, but the attainment of religion is causeless.

This has been asked by Anand Maitreya-ji. This itself is the shrug of the shoulders. You don’t know whether you came with a reason; you don’t know whether you came without a reason. What else does a shrug mean? “I don’t know.” This is a beautiful state. Because whatever you do know will be wrong. Your knowledge will be filled with ignorance. Your conclusions will stand upon your doubts. Your search—your very urge to search—will arise from you. And if you yourself are mistaken, how can your search be true? It is right that there is no answer. It is auspicious. Then there is empty space within you, and an answer can descend.

Those who are very clear about why they have come—their very clarity will become an obstacle to meeting me. Because you cannot be clear. If you were clear, there would have been no need to come to me. Your clarity is delusion. And if you cling to it, that very clarity becomes the barrier. Become a little fluid—not so solid, not so definite. Say, “We don’t know anything. Somehow we came, groping. It wasn’t clear where we were going. It wasn’t clear why we came. We don’t even know why we have stayed here, why we haven’t moved on. We know nothing, because we are unconscious.”

This is a very auspicious state. In this state something can happen. Because here your ego is not whispering lies to you. For once the ego is stating the fact: “All we know is that we find ourselves here—we have come.” Surely we must have come for a wrong reason, because if we had the right reason, there would have been no need to go anywhere. And now even that reason is uncertain—wobbly. If you are with me in such a state—which I call anarchic, chaotic—it is very auspicious, because creation happens only out of chaos. If you are with me in a totally chaotic state, you yourself don’t know—like a cloud with no form or outline—then you will take on exactly the form that is your own nature. But if you arrive already carrying some form and shape, you will remain stubborn. Your fixed shape will not allow you to be fluid, will not let you flow.

People come to me and say, “We want the darshan of Rama.” Now this very demand for the vision of Rama is the obstacle. I tell them, “Have compassion on Rama! Why do you trouble him?” No, they say, “We must have the vision of Rama—the archer Rama.” Because of your madness Rama is forced to stand there with a bow! How long will you keep him standing? He must be tired. Spare him! And there he stands between you and me. That makes things difficult. You will not be able to hear me. You will hear things I have not said. You will understand things I never intended. Remove Rama. Do not stand before me with a target. No—your target itself will be the disturbance. Say, “We don’t know anything. We don’t even know whether to seek Rama, or Buddha, or Krishna.” Say, “We don’t know.” Whoever can say, “I don’t know,” has taken the first step toward the place where everything is known. The acceptance of ignorance is the first ray of knowledge. Childlike—like a small child who knows nothing. Some curiosity brought you, some wonder, some inquisitiveness. That did the bringing, but it is not the end. It brought you here—that’s all. A wave carried you to this shore. Now leave it to me. Now do not sit here nursing any wish that “it should be like this.” Then what should be, will be. This is what I call shrugging the shoulders.

The last question:

You may find it a bit difficult to understand.

Religion has two forms. One is the old, puranic, sectarian, time-worn form—the kind that has become a ruin. The other is the ever-arising, ever-fresh form. I call the first “ancient,” and the second “sanatan.” By sanatan I don’t mean “old”; I mean “ever-new”—fresh like dew every moment, not a ruin; new like the morning sun. Old religion becomes status-quoist; it turns into a sect. New religion is rebellious, revolutionary. It is not status-quoist; it is anarchic. Old religion becomes a kind of slavery; new religion is a declaration of freedom. And the irony is: every new religion slowly becomes old. And every old religion was once new. Hence the complexity.

Tulsidas is the symbol of the old, ancient religion—the one that must once have been new, perhaps new with Rama himself. That time has long passed. Tulsidas is knowledgeable, but not wise; a scholar, not awakened. A great poet—add a thousand Sahjobais and you still won’t produce a poet like Tulsidas. Unmatched in literature, in words, in creation. But not a wakeful man. Add millions of Tulsidases and still you won’t find the freshness of a single utterance of Sahjo.

Sahjo is different. She speaks knowing from her own seeing. Her words rise from the source itself. Tulsidas is borrowed. That is why I have never discussed Tulsidas—deliberately. Friends often ask me: you speak of Kabir, Nanak, Dadu—even of names hardly heard, like Sahjobai and Dayabai. Why do you leave out Goswami Tulsidas, who dwells in the very heart of India? I leave him out knowingly. I know he dwells in India’s heart—but for the wrong reasons. He is cherished by India’s worn-out, decaying mind.

Tulsidas nourishes a dead religion. He is a pundit, not a revolutionary. There is no ember within like Kabir’s, Sahjo’s, Farid’s; there is only ash. There may once have been a live coal—perhaps in Rama’s time. Tulsidas merely keeps beating the old line. He found a place in India’s heart because dead religion finds easy lodging in most minds. People are dead; the dead resonate with the dead. Kabir found no such place; Sahjo’s line was never even drawn. To draw their line, you too must be alive. To house them in your heart, you must transform your heart. Their price is costly. To repeat Tulsidas’s verses, nothing is demanded of you. He merely repeats your own mind, presents what you already believe in more beautiful clothing. He pleases you because he has said what you already hold.

That is why Tulsidas’s Ramayana entered every home—because it represents the household, the crowd, the blind mass. He articulated the beliefs and assumptions carried “since forever,” and did so beautifully. He enchanted your mind. He says nothing new; he only repeats you.

Understand well: when Tulsidas suits you, you are trying to avoid revolution. That religion is a corpse from which the bird of life has long flown. Hence Hindu society embraced Tulsidas with great approval. But Kabir is a disturbance; Sahjo is a disturbance. They bring fresh news from the house of the Divine. Their presence rises fresh each morning. Only a very few will recognize them—those ready and capable of being new, those willing to walk through fire with them. A few chosen ones will hear their note; their flute will not charm the millions. A handful will walk their path. Yes, it can happen that even their line grows old one day, pundits gather, and begin beating their line too—then the millions will join them as well.

When religion is dead, people gather around it—because dead religion demands nothing of you. It protects you; it does not transform you. It keeps you safe. That’s what happened with Nanak. Nanak’s voice was revolutionary; but the voice of Sikhism today is no longer revolutionary. It is a beaten track. Nanak ignited a fire; now Sikhs are like Hindus, Muslims, Christians—the matter ended. When Nanak awakened revolution, very few—so few they could be counted on fingers—were stirred. The word “Sikh” itself was born of “disciple.” A few disciples gathered who were ready to learn, ready to go wherever Nanak led, into deep darkness or light, night or day, whatever the consequence. From those few disciples the Sikh path began. But time passes: things get organized, a sect is formed, pundits assemble, commentary begins, temples–gurudwaras–churches are built, things become fixed, rigid. The embers of revolution die; a layer of scholastic ash settles. Meditation is forgotten; scripture becomes important. While Nanak lived, Nanak was primary; now the Guru Granth Sahib is primary. The original, thought-free, pure presence is lost; now the emphasis is on words. People sit—the granthis sit—reading, skillful in reciting, in expounding, in singing. But where is Nanak’s voice? Now there is a book; a book depends on you—you can read into it whatever you wish. Nanak does not depend on you—you could not bend him to your meanings. Nanak is alive.

So the guru is lost; the scripture remains in hand. This happens to all religions. Those who walked with Mahavira needed courage—fearless courage—to walk naked, to endure the stones of the crowd. Now a Jain sits in his temple, does his ritual, listens to Mahavira’s words—nothing changes in his life. He has killed Mahavira—not died with Mahavira to be reborn new, but killed Mahavira to keep himself old.

Tulsidas is a supporter of status-quo religion—the dead-and-done kind. He is a great pundit; his scholastic brilliance is immense. But there is no personal realization. That is why I have left Tulsidas out—consciously. The very reasons that make people curious about Tulsidas are my reasons for leaving him out: that he is the crown of millions of hearts, that the unlettered villager recites his verses. His name is famous; Ramcharitmanas is translated into languages all over the world—even in Russia, where religion is of no concern. But translating Kabir would cause some fear—even for Russia’s revolutionaries, Kabir is too revolutionary; whereas Ramcharitmanas poses no threat even to so-called revolutionaries. It is status-quo talk: what is, as it is, is fine—accept it; no transformation.

Tulsidas is a Hindu. Sahjobai is not a Hindu. Kabir and Nanak are neither Hindu, nor Muslim, nor Christian. The truly knowing are never Hindu, Muslim, or Christian. The crowd is always Hindu, Muslim, Christian.

The crowd walks the highway’s line; saints walk footpaths through dense forests. They walk alone and make the path by walking. They don’t walk beaten tracks. Saints do not have crowds; lions do not move in herds. The saint is alone—fulfilled in his aloneness. A delicate flower of aloneness has bloomed within him. Only a few, willing to lift their eyes that high, will see that flower. The crowd will deny the saint; to the crowd the saint always seems a nuisance: “Everything was going fine; he disrupts it. We had arranged our comforts, and this one stands up and asks: What is there in scriptures? In temples? In prayer-rituals? He raises a new note. We barely manage to settle things, and the saint arrives to upset them.”

Remember: not all who are called saints are saints. Government saints are not saints. A government saint—like Vinoba Bhave—I call such a one a government saint, not a saint at all, a pure politician. He moves by calculation, trims his sails to the prevailing wind, says what people will accept. Such a “saint” gets recognition; the state recognizes him; if he falls ill, the prime minister will hurry to him—because he is part of the political order. He helps keep the foundations of society firm, unshaken. But Kabir, Dadu, Farid, Sahjobai—they make the earth tremble. They erase the very foundations. What you held to be right, they show to be false; what you never valued, they awaken a longing for. They want to take you beyond yourself. Their way is that of a surgeon: they will cut off diseased parts. They cannot do ointment-and-bandage. Government saints do first aid—you fall, they bandage you. Real saints are surgeons; whatever they find false in you, they will remove. For that, you need preparation.

Sahjo reaches nonduality because she has no doctrine to prove. She has set out to discover truth. If truth is nondual, that is what will be revealed. If truth is one, that is what will be revealed. But Tulsidas has not set out to discover truth.

There is an episode in Tulsidas’s life—who knows how true it is; it sounds true. It is said that when he went to Mathura, he was taken to Krishna’s temple. He refused to bow. He said, “I will not bow until you take bow and arrow in your hands,” for Krishna stands there with a flute, and he is a devotee of Rama. How can he bow before Krishna? Such poverty, such narrowness, even in devotion! He cannot bow before Krishna because he is a devotee of Rama! And the story is even more amusing—whoever coined it, or embellished it, must have been mad. The story says Krishna, to please him, took up bow and arrow: the image changed; the flute disappeared; bow and arrow appeared; Krishna became Rama. Then he bowed.

This is a strange affair: this is not the devotee bowing before God; it is God bowing to the devotee. It says: “Fulfill my condition; appear in my color and form, according to my doctrine; then I will bow.” Is that bowing? Can surrender be conditional? And if God assumed that form, then in this tale not only does Tulsidas appear narrow, God too appears a shopkeeper—cheap. What was the great hurry? If Tulsidas did not bow, what was the harm? God seems greedy—a craving to make someone bow: “Whatever the condition, no matter, even if I must bend to the extent of taking bow and arrow—your bowing gives me great relish.”

Here neither the Divine appears divine, nor the devotee a devotee. This is a story of human ego. The devotee is egoistic; God is egoistic.

Tulsidas proceeds by affirming duality. He is a doctrinaire. A pundit always moves according to doctrine. He has already accepted his doctrine; now he must prove it. He has fixed Rama’s form beforehand—there must be bow and arrow. He has decided in advance; now he searches only to confirm. He has not set out on a pure search for truth. He already “knows” truth within his doctrine; now he must impose that belief upon truth.

A psychologist at Rajasthan University researches rebirth. Someone brought him to see me. He said, “I am trying to prove, by psychological research, that rebirth exists.” I asked, casually—he didn’t quite grasp it—“When it is proved, it will be proved. But do you already believe that rebirth exists?” He said, “Definitely! I believe in rebirth; now I am trying to prove it.” I said, “Now I’m in difficulty. Without proof, how have you already believed? You’ve believed first, and now you’re proving! Then your proof will be false. You will select only what confirms you, and discard whatever does not. This is not a scientific mind; it is biased. It’s like a judge who first decides you are a thief and then sets out to prove it: he will record all evidence that you are a thief, and ignore all that you are not. Is this a way to prove? This is not scientific.” He grew a little uneasy—he claims to be a scientist—but was in trouble.

People go in search of truth in two ways. One: those who have already decided what truth is—without knowing. Now only proof is needed. Two: those who say, “We have no idea what truth is. We have set out to know. If we knew, why search? We will open ourselves, strip ourselves, cleanse ourselves. We will make our eyes clear, brighten the lamp of our awareness, and see what is. Then we will accept whatever is seen.”

This second type is a pure seeker. Sahjo is a pure seeker. Tulsidas is not. Tulsidas is a Hindu; Sahjo is religious. Tulsidas is wrapped in beliefs; Sahjo is free of beliefs. Hence Tulsidas remains in duality, and Sahjo arrives at nonduality.

When I discuss Tulsidas, Sahjo, or others like them, remember: my purpose is not about these persons; my purpose is you. In explaining Tulsidas and Sahjo I mean only this: please, do not become a Goswami Tulsidas. If you must become someone, become a Sahjo.

I have no taste for criticizing anyone for its own sake. What do I have to gain? If I say something, I say it for you—because both possibilities are within you. Perhaps you have set out to seek truth with beliefs already in hand. Then your search is poisoned from the start. Drop all beliefs. Only those can move toward truth who go utterly naked—free of every garment of belief—and say to the Divine, “Reveal yourself as you are. We have no expectations. We want to know you in your own nature. As you are, we want to know you. We impose nothing, we insist on nothing. We do not want to hand you an image and say: appear like this.”

This path will be stern, difficult—because there will be no ground for your ego. But one who moves toward truth must drop the ego. “Searching and searching, O friend, Kabir himself was lost.” When you are lost, how will your beliefs survive? Where will your religion, sect, scripture be? Where will Hindu, Muslim, Christian remain? Only when you are gone will you know what God is. As long as you are, God is not; when God is, you cannot be. Your absence is his presence.

Enough for today.